It
loves a swift current and a sandy bottom, and bites
inadvertently, yet not without appetite for the bait. The
minnows are used as bait for pickerel in the winter. The red
chivin, according to some, is still the same fish, only older, or
with its tints deepened as they think by the darker water it
inhabits, as the red clouds swim in the twilight atmosphere. He
who has not hooked the red chivin is not yet a complete angler.
Other fishes, methinks, are slightly amphibious, but this is a
denizen of the water wholly. The cork goes dancing down the
swift-rushing stream, amid the weeds and sands, when suddenly, by
a coincidence never to be remembered, emerges this fabulous
inhabitant of another element, a thing heard of but not seen, as
if it were the instant creation of an eddy, a true product of the
running stream. And this bright cupreous dolphin was spawned and
has passed its life beneath the level of your feet in your native
fields. Fishes too, as well as birds and clouds, derive their
armor from the mine. I have heard of mackerel visiting the copper
banks at a particular season; this fish, perchance, has its
habitat in the Coppermine River.
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