the night here, we were anxious to get as far down stream as daylight would permit. We soon had our things packed in the boat and lost no time getting astream.

This portion of the river is very crooked, which occasions many sandbars. Besides, at this season of the year the stream is shallow and narrow. As the spring floods recede floating logs and brush collect in large drifts. Accordingly for the greater part of the distance we traveled this afternoon Fred and Dennis were forced to walk while I labored downstream with the boat.

At 7:00 o'clock we decided to make camp for the night; for the cloudy sky made the night fall early, and because of the many obstructions in the river we did not think it practicable to attempt. traveling after dark. We were tired, too, and were anxious to leave the stream for a good night's rest.

Fishing in this portion of the river is done mainly for catfish with trot-lines. There are only a few spots in this section that are favorable to rod-fishing all the year round; but earlier in the spring when the water is higher some bass are caught weighing as much as three or four pounds. But the catfish are plentiful, and if one cares to fish for them, he may on rare occasions catch one weighing as much as fifty pounds.

Just before making camp for the night we stopped to examine a natural fish-trap. Our attention was attracted to a board fence of pecular construction, reaching across a bayou, and connecting two ends of a wire fence that followed the bank of the river. There is no water in the bayou at this time of year. The board section of the fence across the bayou was as high as the banks (perhaps 20 or 25 feet high), and between the boards had been left spaces narrow enough to keep fish from passing through. In the center of the fence and at the bottom of the bayou was constructed a gate, evidently to be opened when the water is rising in the spring, and closed again before the water begins to recede. When fish are forcing their way upstream in the early spring they enter in large numbers the many bayous that are to be found along this portion of the river. No punishment by law could be meted. to the owner of this trap, for when the bayou or ravine is without water, as it is all year except a month or two early in the spring,

the peculiar fence with its gate in the center is nothing more than a-fence. Fishing by this method is of course abusive; for fish enter the bayous to spawn, and to destroy a fish before it has an opportunity to spawn is to preclude the birth of its thousands of young.

Tuesday, June 18.--A redbird took upon himself the burden of awakening me this morning. It is hard to say how long he labored at the task, for I slept deeply after my toils of yesterday. But when I awoke it seemed to me I had been dreaming his beautiful song while I slept. How cheering is the redbird's song! Does he sing, "That's all right, that's all right, that's all right"? It seems to me he does; and I think my redbird of this morning was exultant with the beauty of the purpling east. The sky clearly promised a bright day.

In order to take advantage of the favorable weather we had breakfast early, and succeeded in being astream by the time the sun mounted to the sky as if a huge golden balloon were ascending from the distant woods.

Still we traveled with difficulty. Often we were forced to proceed as we did yesterday. Dennis and Fred walked along the river-bank and left me to pilot the boat through drifts and over shallows. But they did not walk so far in advance of me as they had done yesterday. Instead, they were always close enough to hail me when I reached portions of the stream where the depth of the water permitted them to ride in the boat.

During the forenoon we passed what remained of three fish hedges which Fred had destroyed on his similar trip last year. Fish hedges are formed by driving fencerails and boards in the riverhed close enough together to withhold fish. A hedge is in two parts, forming the sides of an angle with its vertex pointing downstream. At the center is left an opening where is placed a fishtrap. The three hedges we passed this morning were not in operation, having not been rebuilt by their owners since they were wrecked last year. Thirty-one such hedges were destroyed by Fred last year when he was a member of a party making the trip from Seymour to Sparksville

Fishing by means of fish hedges is a method peculiar to the