154 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



fish lift the mussel from its bed in the sand. Both were 

 prisoners, each being the other's jailer, so long as they 

 chose to remain so. It was a most curious and instruc- 

 tive sight. 



I find that locally this fish is, or has been, called snipe- 

 pike, from the fancied resemblance of its attenuated 

 jaws to the bill of a snipe. Now the name is corrupted 

 to "snippick," and the remark occasionally heard among 

 the fishermen, " sly as a snippick," shows that this fish 

 is credited with considerable intelligence by these prac- 

 tical observers. Asking an experienced shad and lier- 

 ring fisherman recently about bill-fish, he told me that 

 they had, to all appearances, a great deal of curiosity, a 

 mental condition not common to fishes. That when a 

 number of them were caught in a herring -net they 

 seldom made any effort to escape, which they could 

 easily do, by leaping over the cork-line, but followed 

 the corks and played about them to the very last, and 

 only when crowded by the lierring, or approached by 

 man, would they give a leap far over the cork-line and 

 be off. It seemed, said he, " as tliough they wanted to 

 see what sort of a muss the herring were in, but felt en- 

 tirely sure of their own safety," and he added, "it isn't 

 very often we catch them, unless we take extra pains 

 to do it." 



The few young pike that remained, for many escaped 

 while I was engaged with the bill-fish, were still alive, 

 but weakened by exposure to the atmosphere. I no- 

 ticed particularly how changeable were their colors. A 

 moment silvery, then dark blue ; the bars and dots visi- 

 ble at times, and then fading out. Some had escaped. 



