170 
THE 
CANADIAN 
NATURALIST. 
degree, and the heart is brittle : this species is much more 
abundant, and is chiefly split into rails, which rank next to 
cedar for durability, but are far heavier and more difficult to 
handle. The white ash is very scarce as a tree of any size, 
and its value for the purposes named, and for sawing into 
plank, is too great to allow it to be used for rails ; it is con- 
fined to upland, or what is called hardwood land, while the 
brown is most abundant in marshy ground, with the resinous 
evergreens and the birch. 
C. — Yonder is a boy angling in the brook : do you know 
anything of the native fishes of our rivers ? 
F, — Very little indeed : and nothing of their natural 
history or specific characters. I have angled in the Coata- 
cook, and caught several small species, which bite very freely. 
Dace, trout, chub, lump-fish, and others, are names given to 
our most common river fish, whether correctly, I am not ich- 
thyologist enough to determine. The Salmon is taken in our 
rivers : the Shad ( Clupea Alosa ), a fish very highly es- 
teemed for its firmness and the delicacy of its flavour, 
abounds, I believe, in the St. Lawrence in spring ; and the 
Maskilonge, ( Esox Est07^ ? ) another fish of large size, of the 
pike family, is found in the lakes. On the bank of the Ma- 
suippi, about a mile above its junction with the Coatacook, 
is a spot where the land, after descending with a gradual 
slope, suddenly ends in rather a steep but grassy bank. At 
the very edge of this bank is a farm-house, and the owner 
has told me that he can sit at his door, and watch the stur- 
geon and other fish playing almost directly under him, over 
the pebbly bottom of the clear river. The Sturgeon ( Act- 
penser Sturio ) is very numerous just there ; and is, I sup- 
pose, the largest fish we have, being several feet in length. 
They are long, slender, and angled, and covered with tuber- 
cles ; the flesh is not much esteemed. They often leap from 
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