332 OLD PL^OUTH TRAILS 



the sail of a miniature Chinese junk. There he 

 seeks the lovely little coppery swamp tree-frogs 

 that are but an inch long and look like tailsmans 

 carved from metal. These are his tidbits, but 

 he will take most anything alive that is small 

 enough for him to swallow, and when in winter 

 he retires to the warmer layers of water next the 

 pond bottom, his omnivorous appetite in a large 

 measure goes with him. Hence the fishermen 

 use. many varieties of small fish for bait, all with 

 some success. 



In the spring nothing else is quite so good as 

 this tiny, swamp tree-frog. In the winter in the 

 majority of cases the little silvery minnow known 

 as "shiner" is best of all. Yet, the fishermen will 

 tell you, on some ponds the mummy-chogs which, 

 I take it, is the still surviving Indian name for 

 the killi-fish, are to be most esteemed as bait, and 

 I have found fishermen fishing with young perch 

 and dace and other hard-scaled fish, though I 

 believe with indifferent success, nor did the fish- 

 ermen themselves look to be the real thing. I 

 fancy that people had seen these folk that fished 

 with young perch come to the pond, perhaps even 

 knew them by name and where they lived, and 

 that the bait had been bought in a city market 



