joke he had played on the innocents from the city. 



The small-mouthed black bass, it has been well 

 established, is so ravenous at times that any moving 

 object in the water will tempt him to an attack. Many 

 instances are known where the fish has jumped into 

 open boats, where he has pursued a bait for long dis- 

 tances to make a lunge for it close under the oars. On 

 one occasion, while fishing in the Potomac just below 

 the mouth of the Monocacy, at a spot where the 

 branches of the trees overhanged the quiet waters, 

 I surprised my boatman, George Walter, by landing a 

 pound-and-a-half fish from the mouth of which pro- 

 truded a tail which at first sight looked like that of a 

 rat. We were both of us puzzled and proceeded to 

 make a close examination, and forced the fish to 

 disgorge a field squirrel. It was partially digested, 

 the acids of the fish's stomach having eaten away most 

 of the hairy covering of the animal. There was 

 enough of it intact, however, to enable us to identify 

 the creature, which had evidently fallen into the river 

 from an overspreading tree and been devoured by the 

 bass. At another time during a visit to Shenandoah 

 City, situated on the river of the same name, I captured 

 a bass with a half swallowed water moccasin protrud- 

 from its jaws. 



To more fully illustrate the savage propensities of 

 the fish, and to show that he will partake of its own 

 kind, a specimen may be seen in the National Museum, 

 which was placed there through the courtesy of Col. 

 Richard J. Bright, where a small-mouthed bass is 

 hanging to the hook while a few inches above on 

 the snood is a more diminutive specimen of the same 

 species, and preceeding that a minnow bait. The 

 Colonel reasoned that the smaller bass had jumped 



