laugh completely against me; for it laid me at once upon my back, with my legs spanning the hole. I should certainly have gone with it, but that the stick, when the fish came to the end of his run, lay firmly across it, and kept me up. Having risen, I thought it my time, and began to pull at the line. From the power with which I had to contend, however, I found it necessary to have a better foundation than my skates afforded me; so getting upon my knees, I soon brought my captive to light, and deposited him upon the ice. He was a splendid fish, weighing upwards of twenty pounds, and floundered prodigiously for a few minutes. The frost, however, soon tranquilised him, and in about a quarter-of-an-hour he was as hard and brittle as an icicle. We continued our sport for some time with tolerable success, having, by three o’clock, caught eleven fish, the smallest of which weighed eight pounds. But our pleasures were brought to an untimely period by Blungle, whose ill luck had now passed into a proverb amongst us. Hitherto no fish had favoured his line with so much as the passing compliment of a nibble. He had given up the attempt, and for nearly two hours had been amusing himself by skating up and down the lake. Practice had improved him, and like all beginners, he was proud of his prowess, and was particularly anxious to redeem his lost character for skating by one extraordinary achievement. He had been warned to give what a nautical friend of our host called a “wide berth” to the mouth of the stream which ran into the lake. Bold in the strength of his newly acquired skill, he neglected this advice, and about three o’clock shot rapidly past us in the direction of the stream. In less than a minute there was a loud agonising cry for help.