THE STRIPED BASS. 125 
basin, but equally killing for this his congener. It has 
four large wings, two of the Scarlet Ibis, and two of the 
Silver Pheasant, with a scarlet chentl body. On the St. 
Lawrence it is sure death. 
Of squidding at night with hand-lines as thick as your 
little finger, and a live squid of a pound’s weight at the 
end of it, I speak not; for, although in the Harlem 
River, in little Hell-gate, and about Hog Island, the fifty 
and sixty pounders are taken in that fashion, it is much 
harder work than fine sport ; and, as is the case, I think, 
with most game fish, the largest neither give the most 
sport to the fisherman on the hook, nor to the epicure on 
- the board. The gamest fish for the one, and the most 
delicate for the other, is the fellow that runs from seven, 
or, by’r lady, five to ten pounds weight, and he will 
work you on the line, or please you on the platter. 
Of that size, boil him, and serve him with anchovy or 
shrimp sauce and the squeeze of a lemon; or roast him, 
stuffed with bread-crumbs, suet, sweet herbs, lemon peel, 
and oysters, and basted with anchovy-butter, and if you 
don’t say he’s good, you may take my best rod and line. 
If he’s a little fellow, score his sides, pepper and butter 
him, and boil him—or, if you’ve a lot of them, with a 
bunch or two of silver Passaic eels, pork, onions, pota- 
toes, oysters, &c., cut them in chunks, and make a 
chowder of them, with the oysters on top, and don’t 
forget to throw in a pint of dry champagne when it boils 
up, or to think of Frank Forester, after the first plateful. 
After the striped Bass has had his own fun with the 
