sh, (_Coregonus Albus,_) which is the most valuable of all,
somewhat resembles the shad in appearance and taste. It is taken in
seines and other nets,--never with the hook. The white-fish of Lake
Superior are larger, fatter, and of finer flavor than any others. In
this lake they have sometimes been taken weighing fifteen pounds. At the
Sault they are taken in the rapids with dip-nets, by the Chippewas who
live in that vicinity, and are of very fine flavor; those of Detroit
River and the Straits of Mackinac are also very good; but when you go
south, into Lake Erie or Michigan, the quality of the fish deteriorates.
Few travellers ever taste a white-fish in perfection. As eaten upon
hotel-tables at Buffalo or Chicago, it is a poor and tasteless fish.
But, as found at the old French boarding-houses at Mackinac or the
Sault, or, better still, cooked fresh from the icy waters on the
rocky shores of Superior, it is, to our thinking, the best fish that
swims,--better than the true salmon or brook-trout. The famous fish once
so plenty in Otsego Lake, but now nearly extinct, was a _Coregonus_, and
first cousin to this one of the Great Lakes.

So Sebago Lake, near Portland, some fifty years ago, boasted of a
delicious red-fleshed trout, of large size, which has in these latter
times, from netting or some other improper fishing, nearly or quite
disappeared from those waters, leaving upon the palates of old anglers
the remembrance of a flavor higher and richer than anything now
remaining.

The Lake Trout, or Mackinac Salmon, is the largest of the family of
_Salmonidoe_, growing, it is said, sometimes to the weight of one
hundred pounds. From twenty to thirty pounds is not uncommon, which is
much larger than the average of _Salmo Salar_, the true salmon. Truth
compels us to add, however, that our salmon of the Lakes is inferior to
his kinsman of the salt water; though, as in the case of the
white-fish, he has been slandered by ignorant people, such as newspaper
letter-writers, and the like. When taken from the clear, cold waters of
Lake Huron or the Straits, and boiled as nearly alive as humanity will
permit, _Salmo Namaycush_ is nearly equal to the true salmon; but after
two or three days in ice, "how stale, flat, and unprofitable!"

The Muskelunge (_Esox Estor_) is peculiar to this basin, and is the
largest of the pickerels, weighing from ten to eighty pounds. It is a
very handsome and game fish, and is the king, or tyrant, of th