70 IN WINTER. 



hourly taxed to escape danger, yet never have I 

 seen one in despair. To-day was a red-letter one 

 in this respect. Off in a shallow pool, not two 

 yards square, was a huge hump-backed minnow. 

 Its spine was as twisted as a corkscrew, and 

 its locomotion as erratic as lightning. How 

 could such a fish secure its prey ? was the ques- 

 tion that puzzled me ; and, failing to hit upon a 

 solution, I tried to capture trie fish for my aqua- 

 rium. When one has neither net, line, nor other 

 device, fishing is uncertain, except with the pro- 

 fessional liars. I tried scooping with my hands, 

 and have only to relate as a result that the hump- 

 backed minnow appeared to make a springboard 

 of its tail and leap over my hands with the grace 

 and ease of a professional acrobat. After several 

 attempts on my part to circumvent the minnow, 

 it suddenly disappeared. I looked in vain for it 

 all through the little pool. It had gone. At last I 

 stepped back to turn to new scenes, when the 

 humpbacked minnow leaped from a pebble on the 

 water's edge, with about the agility of a frog ! Of 

 course, this will go the way of all fish stories ; but 

 I do not mind telling it, for all that. 



It is the unexpected that happens a remark, 

 by the way, that dates B. c. when the rambler 

 has no particular quest in mind. I had almost 

 forgotten that birds were in existence, when a 

 large one ran along the pebbly beach, not more 



