When the talismanic words, "The cisco is running," are pronounced, crowds of anglers from Chicago, Milwaukee, and all intermediate points, with a unanimity of purpose, rush as one man to the common centre of Lake Geneva, in eager anticipation of the brief but happy season of "ciscoing." Anglers of every degree--armed with implements of every description, from the artistic split-bamboo rod of four ounces to the plebeian cane pole or bucolic sapling of slender proportions, and with lines of enamelled silk, linen, or wrapping cord--vie with one another in good-natured rivalry in the capture of the silvery cisco. Very little skill is required to fill the creel, as the schools are on the surface of the water in myriads, and the most bungling cast may hook a fish. Though the etymology of the cisco is unknown, it is a veritable entity, whose name is legion during the month of June at Lake Geneva. The cisco is a localized variety of the so-called lake-herring of the Great Lakes, and holds the same relation to it that the landlocked salmon does to the Atlantic salmon. Being confined to small lakes, the cisco does not grow so large as the lake herring. Before the Chicago and Milwaukee railway was built, in Wisconsin, there was a plank road extending from Milwaukee to Watertown, and thirty miles west of Milwaukee this road crossed the outlet of Oconomowoc Lake. Within fifty yards or so of the bridge there stood a roadside tavern where the freight wagons stopped at noon on their way from Lake Michigan to Watertown. I have been informed by old residents of that section that in the fall of the year, about the spawning period of the cisco, boxes of fresh fish were frequently carried by these wagons, some of which were cleaned and dressed for dinner on the bank of the outlet of the lake, and the offal thrown into the stream. It is not unlikely, inasmuch as the fish were so recently caught, that the eggs and milt of the cisco thus became commingled, fertilizing the eggs, which were subsequently hatched. This opinion is supported by the fact that the cisco is found in that locality only in the chain of lakes composed of Oconomowoc, Okauchee, and La Belle lakes, all of which are connected by Oconomowoc River. It is possible that Lake Geneva was stocked in a similar manner from Racine or Kenosha. If it is objected that eggs from dead fish would not be fertilized, there is still a tenable theory: When the fish are taken from the nets alive, many of them are so ripe that the eggs and milt ooze from them. Under these circumstances some of the eggs would become fertilized without a doubt, and by adhering to the fish when placed in the boxes for transportation, they might be carried to the place mentioned, and there deposited in the stream in the manner related. CHAPTER VIII THE DRUM FAMILY (_Sciænidæ_)