I was once fishing on St. Francis River, in Arkansas, where the warmouths were both large and gamy. One day I went through the woods and cane-brakes to the banks of Mud Lake, situated in the midst of a cypress swamp. The lake was much smaller than it had been formerly, as was apparent from the wide margins of the shores, which were of considerable extent between the timber and the water. On this margin was a group of four cypress trees that in size exceeded any that I had ever seen, and I think worthy of mention. They were from twenty to twenty-five feet in diameter, or sixty to sixty-five feet in circumference, three feet above the ground. They were buttressed like the wall of a mediæval stronghold. In comparing notes with many naturalists and travellers, they have declared the size of those cypress trees to be both unique and wonderful. THE BLUE SUNFISH (_Lepomis pallidus_) The blue sunfish was first described by Dr. Mitchill from the waters of New York in 1815. He named it _pallidus_, meaning "pale," as it was more sober in hue than the other brilliantly colored sunfishes. It is the largest of the sunfishes, so-called, as the black-bass, warmouth, and crappies are not popularly regarded as "sunfishes." The blue sunfish has a wider distribution than any other member of its family except the black-bass. Its range extends from the Great Lakes through the Mississippi Valley to Texas, and along the South Atlantic states to Florida. In the Middle West it is known as blue gill and in the South as blue bream and copper-nosed bream. It has a medium-sized head and very deep body, its depth varying from one-half its length to almost as deep as long, in which case, barring head and tail, it is almost round in outline. It is much compressed. The ear-flap is quite black, without the pale or red border usual in the other sunfishes. [Illustration THE SMALL-MOUTH BLACK-BASS _Micropterus dolomieu_] [Illustration THE LARGE-MOUTH BLACK-BASS _Micropterus salmoides_] [Illustration THE ROCK-BASS _Ambloplites rupestris_]