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opinion. When one has but one kind of food to eat, when, for
example, it is necessary to be satisfied with Carp,—boiled, perhaps
in the water it was born in,—without sauce or salt, or addition of
any kind—one quickly tires of the fish, and when this is frequently
repeated the simple name of the animal suffices to excite repulsion.
The head of the carp is, beyond comparison, preferable to the
body ;—but many heads would be required to satisfy an appetite
excited by work and fatigue, and one soon tires of sucking these
small bones. All the species abound in this country, and parti-
cularly the Red and Grey Suckers. This fish spawns in the month
of June, and, several weeks previously, they are seen and killed in
great numbers. When spawning is over, particularly in shallows
on stony river beds, they assemble in such numbers that their
crowded dorsal fins, shewing above the water, make it appear as if
all the fish were artificially attached to one another : and they can
then be killed with a stick. It is easy to understand that, in such
circumstances as these, Indians cannot absolutely starve, but they
invariably look upon the necessity for feeding on Carp as starvation.
The Montagnais are very fond of raw fish eyes, and as soon as they
capture a fish they tear its eyes out and eat them. The vitality of
the Carp is so great, that many true tales about it would be regard-
ed as fabulous. A Carp may be frozen, thawed and then decapi-
tated, and yet not die immediately : and they are seen to strike with
their tails, and jump about for a long time after they have suffered
such mutilation as would be apparently most likely to quiet them,
and to cause them immediate death.
II. The second family of the order I am now dealing with is
that of the Esocidce.   Of these we have :
The Common Pike—Esox Lucius.
The Maskinongê—Esox Estor.
The two kinds of pike are a good deal like one another. The
latter is generally the larger, its color is paler, its scales less oval,
and its flavour being milder is more palatable. The pike is the
tyrant of fresh water ; it swallows other fish, as they do insects.
The voracity of the pike benefits the hungry, for it takes a bait set
under the ice more readily than any other fish. In times of want,
the unfortunate sufferer often finds wherewith to satisfy his hunger
in a pike that, urged, probably by similar necessity, has taken the
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