AND FISHING. 87 



any quantity of hooks and bait may be floated 

 easily across the water, the corks indicate to the 

 fisherman when a fish is on the dropper, which 

 he attends to in a small punt. 



Wild Sports of the West. 



Gander Fishing for Pike. Several years ago 

 a farmer, who resided in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of Lochmaben, Dumfrieshire, kept a 

 gander, who not only had the trick of wandering 

 himself, but also delighted in piloting forth his 

 cackling harem to weary themselves in circum- 

 navigating their native lake, or in straying amidst 

 the hidden fields on the opposite shore. Wishing 

 to check this flagrant habit, he one day seized the 

 gander just as he was about to spring into the pure 

 breast of his favourite element, and, tying a large 

 fish-hook to his leg, to which was attached part of a 

 dead frog, he suffered him to proceed on his voy- 

 age of discovery. As had been anticipated, this 

 bait soon caught the eye of a greedy pike, which, 

 swallowing the deadly hook, not only arrested 

 the progress of the astonished gander, but forced 

 him to perform half a dozen somersets on the 

 surface of the water ! For some time the struggle 

 was most amusing, the fish pulling, and the bird 

 struggling with all its might ; the one attempting 

 to fly, the other to swim from the invisible enemy, 

 the gander for one moment losing, the next 

 regaining his centre of gravity, and casting, be- 



