HUNTING AND FISHING GROUNDS AND PLEASURE RESORTS. 55 
lousas, where hacks are always ready to 
convey passengers to the latter place. 
The best hotel in the State, outside of 
New Orleans, is in Opelousas. 
WHERE WOODCOCK CONGREGATE—DUCKS, 
GEESE, AND QUAIL. 
Vermillion Parish, is a good shooting 
ground. Immense flocks of geese and 
ducks feed on the marshes in tne Winter, 
and glorious woodeock and snipe shoot- 
ing can be had in season, together with 
plovers and sandpipers. Quail (called 
there partridge) are in full force, and 
afford excellent sport when the law al- 
lows them to be shot. From Christmas 
till the middle of February, the wood- 
cock are there in immense numbers, and 
are in fine order. Hunting these birds in 
Louisiana is very different from the same 
kind of sport in the North. The season, 
the place, and the action of the bird are 
all changed in Louisiana. Woodcock 
are not found there in warm weather— 
no sweltering heat, no spoiling of birds 
before you can get them home. On the 
contrary, the weather is cold and the air 
bracing ; the birds will keep a week or 
two, and greatly improve by keeping 
hung up a few days. Thousands of them 
are sent to the New Orleans market. In 
the Abbeville market they sell for fifty 
cents a dozen. The birds are to be found 
by day in the thick woods and _ briar 
patches, in warm, dry, sunny spots. In 
such places they spend the day, and there 
they are to be hunted. At night they 
fly out into the prairies to feed in marshy 
places. Dogs go into the thickets and 
flush the birds, while the shooter takes 
them as they rise. It is no sickly, lum- 
bering flight your-Louisiana woodecock 
makes. He comes up out of the cover 
like a flash, makes a dart, and drops out 
of sight in an instant behind the thick- 
_a sure eye to stop his flight. 
et. It tokesa pretty quick workman and 
The woods 
are full of them. Any one that can make 
a good wing shot cannot fail to get plen- 
ty, even if he misses three out of four 
birds, and twenty birds is a common day’s 
work for any country lout or a negro to 
make, The prairies, too, are full of snipe 
in season. 
BLACKFISH LAKE. 
Black Fish Lake is situated in Crit- 
tenden county, Arkansas, some twenty- 
five miles from Memphis, Tennessee, via 
the Mississippi & Little Rock Railroad. 
The lake is about ten miles in length, 
and frora a quarter to a half a mile in 
width, with a depth of from ten to thirty 
feet, and in its waters sport the black: 
and striped bass, black, yellow, and 
speckled perch, pike, brim, and the usual 
varieties of coarse fish natural to the cli- 
mate. Both banks are heavily timbered, 
and covered with dense cane-brakes, the 
cover of the black bear, deer, and tur- 
key, which in their season afford ample 
sport with the gun and dogs, the latter 
auxiliaries for driv- 
ing the bear and deer from their fortress 
in the cane. 
being indispensable 
LEWIS’ LAKE. 
This lake cannot be surpassed as a 
pleasant resort. It is situated on the 
highest range of the Allegheny Moun- 
tains, accessible by railroad to Muncy, 
Pennsylvania, then by stage coach twen- 
ty miles up the mountains — one of the 
most delightful rides imaginable. The 
lake covers about three hundred and fifty 
acres, and contains brook trout, lake 
trout, and a variety of other species. 
The brook trout fishing is to be found 
in the many small mountains which nead 
close by; but the rarest sport is the duck 
shooting, birds always being plenty. 
