What old angler does not remember the eagerness and expectancy with which he watched the "cork" in days gone by? How well he knew and understood every motion of it, responsive to the nibbling "sunny": first a gentle spinning, then a preliminary bobble, then a premonitory start away an inch or two, and then--O joy!--its swift and sudden disappearance beneath the surface. The lapse of time cannot wither nor modern custom stale the pleasures of youthful fishing. To be sure, it was not all piscatorial cakes and ale; there were a few thorns with the roses; there were the bruised fingers and toes, the wet and torn clothes, and the impending and dreaded "dressing down" when home was reached; but these disagreeable concomitants were soon forgotten, and are now scarcely remembered, while the pleasures are laid up in the lavender of sweet recollection. The old-time zest of fishing with a float can still be gratified; we can renew our youth by fishing for "sunnies" in the old-fashioned way. In the wooded streams of the Southern states the float is a _sine qua non_ for bream-fishing, owing to the many tangled roots of trees on the banks, and the mosses, grasses, and other aquatic plants that grow so luxuriantly in the sluggish waters. Then here's to the float and the sunny and the bream! THE CALICO-BASS (_Pomoxis sparoides_) The calico-bass was first described by Lacépéde from specimens sent to France from South Carolina. He named it _sparoides_ from a fancied resemblance, either in its scales or compressed body, to those features in fishes belonging to the family _Sparidæ_. Owing to its wide distribution it has received many names, more or less descriptive. In the Northern states it is variously called crappie, croppie, strawberry-bass, grass-bass, bank lick bass, silver-bass, big-fin bass, Lake Erie bass, razor back, bitter-head, lamplighter, etc., while in the Southern states it is known as speckled perch, goggle-eyed perch, chincapin perch, bridge perch, etc. As the calico-bass and the next fish to be described, the crappie, belong to the same genus of the sunfish family, and resemble each other very much, the vernacular nomenclature is much confused, and in some instances is interchangeable. Some years ago I proposed to call them northern and southern crappie; but as the name calico-bass has obtained considerable currency, it is best to adopt that name for the northern species, leaving the name crappie for the southern form.