
The home of Mr. Bushytail 
to fairly hiss as he left it and plunged 
back again amid a cascade of pearly 
drops. And as he went springing and 
dashing along the surface in repeated 
leaps and bounds, Jeff, who was intently 
watching the battle, cried out excitedly: 
“Gory mitey, Doctah, he’ll shuah 
smash dat li’l pole; dar he dun gone, 
shuah! No ’e 
haint needah! 
Halleluyah! Doc- 
tah, yo’ dun got 
"im in de li’l net; 
Umph!” 
And so it went 
on, but before my 
wrist began to 
tire I had creeled 
half a dozen fine 
small-mouth bass, 
and a dozen white 
bass and yellow 
bass for the fry- 
ing-pan. It was 
then considerably 
past the meridian, 
and Jeff, with an 
abiding faith and 
in fond anticipa- 
tion of a substan- 
tial lunch, had 
prepared a fine 
bed of hardwood 
coals for culinary 
purposes. While 
Jeff was scaling 
and preparing the 
fish for the skillet 
he remarked: 
“Dis yah yallah 
bass an’ ’is clost 
kin de stri’ped 
bass is de bestes’ 
panfish in de rib- 
bah, an’ wen de 
scales is off yo’ 
kaint tell wun 
fum de uddah; 
dey mus’ be step- 
bruddahs or fus’ 
cuzzins.” 
“No, Jeff,” I re- 
plied, “they are 
only in-laws, and 
cousins in the sec- 
ond or third de- 
gree, and they can 
be easily told 
apart, scales or 
no scales.” 
I then explained 
to him the differ- 
ences between 
them, and it may 
be as well to men- 
tion here, for the 
information of 
others, the rela- 
tive characteris- 
tics of these two 
fine fishes and their relation to two 
other fine game-fishes, together with 
their technical names. The white bass 
(Roccus chrysops) is abundant in its 
natural habitat in the Great Lake 
region, and is not uncommon in the 
southern tributaries of the Mississippi 
river, where it is known as “stri’ped 
bass”; it belong to the same genus as 
the real striped bass (Roccus lineatus), 
of the tidal waters of the east coast, the 
two fishes being analogous. The yellow 
bass (Morone interrupta) is found only 
in the tributaries of the lower Missis- 
sippi, replacing the white bass of north- 
ern waters. The yellow bass is the 
fresh-water analogy of the white perch 
(Morone americana) of the brackish 
estuaries of the east coast; the two 
fishes belong to the same genus, but 
differ considerably in appearance, one 
being silvery-white and the other 
brassy-yellow. As to the white bass 
and the yellow bass in southern waters, 
the most pronounced difference lies in 
the character of the black lines, or 
stripes, along their sides. In the white 
bass they are straight and parallel from 
head to tail; while in the yellow bass 
they are broken, or “interrupted” at 
their posterior end, where each stripe 
drops down a little from a horizontal 
line, similar to a “fault” in a stratum 
of rock. They are both good game- 
fishes and rise readily to the artificial 
fly. 
After Jeff had fried the basses, white 
and yellow, to a delicious crispness in 
hot bacon fat, he took a wide floor 
board from the boat and placed it 
athwart the cockpit, and then taking a 
white cloth from the hamper, spread it 
over the makeshift table, on which he 
arranged the contents of the basket, 
and added some potatoes and yams 
which he raked out of the hot ashes. 
The bountiful repast concluded with 
steaming hot coffee and cheese and 
crackers. Then filling our pipes, Jeff 
with his corncob and I with my favorite 
briar, I rested my back against the bole 
of a giant oak, while Jeff stretched him- 
self supinely on the sward. While en- 
joying the pleasures of Lady Nicotine 
we realized the additional pleasure 
vouchsafed to the angler by our Mother 
Superior, Dame Juliana Berners, in 
these words: “He heareth the melody- 
ouss armony of foules,” which in our 
case was a continuous performance of 
such “foules” as mocking-birds, cardinal 
grosbeaks and brown thrushes, with oc- 
casional interludes of the sweet trills of 
the catbird, when not scolding at the 
rest of the feathered choristers. 
On seeing some squirrels frisking 
about on nearby trees, Jeff volunteered 
the information that there were ‘ood- 
lins” of them in those woods, gray, fox 
and black ones, and that later in the 
season there would be wild turkeys and 
deer. 
“Wunce,” he said, “I cum ’cross a big 
black bar, nosin’ ’roun’ an’ lickin’ a bee 
tree dat sum ’un cut down, an’ wen I 
blow my wissle ’e jis riz up on ’is hin’ 
laigs an’ snoahted; he luk ten feet tall, 
an’ ’minded me o’ de wun stannin’ in 
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