STRANGE FISHES. 163 



water is rising, they rush out over all the inundated 

 lands, wherever there is sufficient depth for them to 

 swim. For more than an hour one day I watched a 

 lad, spear in hand, who had taken his post over an 

 opening which passed under the Ohio and Mississippi 

 Railroad, made similar to a sluice for the purpose of 

 preventing the water in time of floods becoming 

 dammed. During my stay this youngster must have 

 killed a couple of hundred- weight. You must not im- 

 agine that these were all that were in the net. Sun- 

 fish, pike, pickerel, black bass, catfish, mullet, and tur- 

 tle to a wagon-load rewarded the fishermen's efforts. 

 In the end of the bag, I was about to place my hand 

 upon what I considered a rare prize, when I was stop- 

 ped by the rough intervention of one of the people, 

 and the exclamation of, " You don't want to die before 

 your time ? If he bite you, all the whisky in the coun- 

 ty won't save you." (Whisky is considered an infal- 

 lible cure for snake bites.) This nondescript to be 

 avoided was like Siebold's salamander, with four of 

 the smallest and most awkward-looking legs; the 

 brute was about fourteen inches long, and was there 

 known as a water-dog. It frequently takes the fisher- 

 man's bait, who prefers to cut his line and lose the hook 

 to becoming on any more intimate terms. 



