370 



PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



place being usurped by the sobriquet pickerel, the same 

 misnomers occurring among fish which are so abundantly 

 applied to the feathered and four-footed game. 



The best pike-fishing I have ever enjoyed in my life was 

 in the Holland River, about thirty miles north of Toronto, 

 near its junction with Lake Simcoe. Here the fish are very 

 large, and if caught in a taking humor the most greedy for 

 sport will have their appetite abundantly satisfied. The 

 eye of the connoisseur in piscatorial matters could not find 

 a stream better suited in every particular for becoming the 

 habitat of the pike than the river just mentioned, for it is 

 densely margined with weeds on both sides, with a deep 

 sluggish channel between them, and such are its character- 

 istic features for many a mile. If the sportsman visited 

 this haunt in spring or autumn, he should not fail to have 

 his gun with him, for innumerable wild fowl frequent it 

 in their migrations North and South ; in fact, at sunset and 

 break of day I have seen the entire surface of its placid 

 waters covered with them. Deer, also, were formerly very 

 abundant her,e, but I fear that such is not now the case. I 

 can remember as if it were but yesterday, although twenty 

 and more years have slipped past since then, I was upon the 

 upper deck of a steamboat, talking to its skipper, while the 

 obedient vessel carefully threaded the erratic course of the 

 Holland River, when my companion exclaimed, "Here 

 comes a buck !" and darted for the wheel-house ; in an in- 

 stant he rejoined me, rifle in hand ; for some minutes we 

 lost sight of the beautiful deer in the tall reeds, but soon 

 afterward had the satisfaction of seeing him breasting the 

 waves as he headed for the opposite bank. The game be- 

 ing behind us, pitching and tossing in the ground-swell 

 caused by the passage of our craft, the captain delayed 

 firing till the deer gained the margin ; in the halt that he 

 made to recover his strength, the better to be able to with- 



