THE WHITE-FISH. 



359 



These roll in a mild, epigastric mirage, 

 Preferring the dish a la mode de sauvage ; 

 l)y which it quells hunger and thirstiness both 

 First eating the fish, and then drinking the broth; 

 Wo leave this unsettled for palate? or pens, 

 Who glean out of hundreds their critical tens, 

 While drawn to the board, where full many a dish 

 ited, to taste this American fish." 



H R. SCHOOLCRAFT. 



^CHOOLCRAFT, who had an early acquaintance with 

 this beautiful and palatable fish, praised him in 

 rhyme ; and any one who has ever tasted or written 

 of this wonderful tenant of the lakes, including 

 the Chippewa Indian, who is known to have lived on his 

 flesh for six months at a time, and called him Ad-dik-keem- 

 maig, or deer of the lakes ; or the French-Canadian 



" Who sings, as he paddles his birchen canoe, 

 And thinks all the hardships that fall to his lot 

 Are richly made up at platter and pot ; 

 To him there's a claim, neither feeble nor vague, 

 In the mighty repast of the grand Ticameg ; " 



or the <rreat and learned De Witt Clinton, who, as early as the 

 year 1815, said, "The white-fish may be placed at the head 

 of the Western fishes, and is universally admitted to be the 

 most delicious ;'' all, down to the humblest fisherman who 

 hauls him by the thousand from his clear bed of the lake, 

 speak in his praise. A more intimate acquaintance of the 

 writer with this most excellent and esculent fish has net 

 changed his opinion, and no discount is made from the 

 former opinion given on page 220. He is really "at the 

 top,'* and the king of the inland seas. 

 The length of the white-fish is from twelve to forty-eight 



