370 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 
place being usurped by the sobriquet pickerel, the same 
misnomers occurring among fish which are so abundantly 
applied to the feathered and four-footed game. 
The best pike-fishing I have ever enjoyed in my life was 
in the Holland River, about thirty miles north of Toronto, 
near its junction with Lake Simcoe. Here the fish are very 
large, and if caught in a taking humor the most greedy for 
sport will have their appetite abundantly satisfied. The 
eye of the connoisseur in piscatorial matters could not find 
a stream better suited in every particular for becoming the 
habitat of the pike than the river just mentioned, for it is 
densely margined with weeds on both sides, with a deep 
sluggish channel between them, and such are its character- 
istic features for many a mile. If the sportsman visited 
this haunt in spring or autumn, he should not fail to have 
his gun with him, for innumerable wild fowl frequent it 
in their migrations North and South; in fact, at sunset and 
break of day I have seen the entire surface of its placid 
waters covered with them. Deer, also, were formerly very 
abundant here, but I fear that such is not now the case. I 
can remember as if it were but yesterday, although twenty 
and more years have slipped past since then, I was upon the 
upper deck of a steamboat, talking to its skipper, while the 
obedient vessel carefully threaded the erratic course of the 
Holland River, when my companion exclaimed, “ Here 
comes a buck!” and darted for the wheel-house; in an in- 
stant he rejoined me, rifle in hand; for some minutes we 
lost sight of the beautiful deer in the tall reeds, but soon 
afterward had the satisfaction of seeing him breasting the 
waves as he headed for the opposite bank. The game be- 
ing behind us, pitching and tossing in the ground-swell 
caused by the passage of our craft, the captain delayed 
firing till the deer gained the margin; in the halt that he 
made to recover his strength, the better to be able to with- 
