The crew of a boat that is going at a rate of speed that would put the cannonball flight of a wild duck to shame may escape with life and limb the shock of arrested motion, but that will be because the ways of Providence are past finding out. It is a matter of course (but no less a subject for congratulation) that the passion for skating has not yet died out. The army of those who every year glide and stumble, stagger and pirouette on the frozen face of the waters still must be reckoned by the thousands. Nor can we imagine it otherwise as long as the Hudson valley is largely inhabited by descendants of those who brought to the new countr}^ the tastes and habits that had been fostered for generations in the sturdy little land of dykes and canals. Another form of winter sport, that frequently assumes the careful gravity of business, is ice fishing. There are still a number of sportsmen as well as professional fishermen, though not as many as formerly, who engage in this occujoation. The solitary fisherman sets his lines through holes in the ice, fixing to each one

Sports and Industries 435

a tell-tale, sometimes in the form of a flag, that ])y a simple mechanical arrangement indicates when a fish has been hooked. With a sled to carry his paraphernalia and a cube of frozen salt pork for his luncheon, such a fisherman may skate ten or twelve miles to find a favourable ground, and the fewer his com]:)anions the more he is to be congratulated. But usually the professionals are gregarious in their habits, which is necessary from the methods they employ. A long fissure, cut at right angles with the current of the river, admits the insertion of a weighted net, the upper edge of which is secured to transverse sticks above the opening.