17039	----	Watch, Rockland, Maine, with technical assistance from Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. THE SALMON FISHERY OF PENOBSCOT BAY AND RIVER IN 1895-96 by HUGH M. SMITH _Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_, 1898 Pages 113-124 Contents Introduction Extent and condition of the fishery in 1895 and 1896 Detailed statistics for 1895 and 1896 Comparative data relative to the salmon fishery Apparatus and methods of the fishery Salmon at Matinicus and Ragged islands Salmon at the Cranberry Isles Salmon caught with hook off Maine coast Destruction of salmon by seals Evidences of results of propagation Extension of salmon-hatching operations on the Penobscot Planting of quinnat salmon and steelhead trout in Maine streams During the months of August and September, 1896, the writer visited the shores of Penobscot River and Bay in the interests of the United States Fish Commission, for the purpose of securing data regarding the condition and extent of the salmon, shad, and alewife fisheries. Special attention was given to the salmon fishery, as the Penobscot is now the only important salmon stream on the Atlantic coast of the United States and has been the field for very extensive fish-cultural operations on the part of the Fish Commission. A large majority of the owners of the salmon weirs and nets along both sides of the bay and river were interviewed and accurate accounts of their fishing obtained, together with their observations as to the effect of artificial propagation on the supply. The history and methods of the salmon fishery of this basin have been well presented in papers by Mr. Charles G. Atkins, superintendent of the Government hatchery at Craig Brook, Maine. [1,2] The present paper is primarily intended to show the extent and condition of the salmon fishery of Penobscot Bay and River in 1895 and 1896 and the influence of artificial propagation on the supply. The methods and apparatus of the fishery are briefly considered. A chart of the Penobscot region, giving the location of salmon weirs and traps in use in 1896, is appended, and illustrations of some of the types of salmon apparatus are shown. [Footnote 1: On the Salmon of Eastern North America, and its artificial culture. In Report of Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries 1872-3, pp. 226-337, 9 plates of apparatus and methods, and map showing location of salmon weirs in Penobscot region.] [Footnote 2: The River Fisheries of Maine. In The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States, section V, vol. I, pp. 673-728.] Extent and condition of the fishery in 1895 and 1896. While the number of nets operated in these two years was practically the same, the catch in 1896 was much greater than in 1895, and was one of the largest in the recent history of the fishery. A comparatively large number of fishermen reported that they took more salmon than in any previous year. The salmon, however, were smaller than usual, and their market value was but little more in 1896 than in 1895. The traps set especially for salmon, or in which salmon were taken, numbered 193 in 1895 and 184 in 1896. These, with the accessories, had a value of $12,474 and $13,146, respectively. The boats and scows required in the construction and operation of the nets numbered 188 in 1895, the same in 1896, and were valued at $3,576 and $3,599, respectively. The number of men engaged in the fishery was 127 in 1895 and 126 in 1896. In the comparatively unimportant branch of the fishery carried on with gill nets in the vicinity of Bangor, 10 nets, valued at $189, were used in 1895, and 11 nets, worth $199, in 1896; these were set by 6 men in the first year and 7 in the next. The boats numbered 4 in 1895 and 5 in 1896, and were valued at $29 and $37, respectively. The total number of salmon caught in 1895 was 4,395; these weighed 65,011 pounds and yielded the fishermen $11,356; in gill nets 117 salmon were caught, weighing 1,985 pounds and valued at $323. In 1896 the result of the fishery was 6,403 salmon, weighing 80,175 pounds, with a market value of $12,716; the gill-net catch this year was 246 salmon, with a weight of 3,444 pounds and a value of $492. The outcome of the fishery in 1896 exceeded that of 1895 by 2,008 salmon; increase in weight was 15,164 pounds, and in value $1,360. The percentage of increase in these items was as follows: Fish taken, 46 per cent; weight of catch, 23 per cent; value of catch, 12 per cent. As an illustration of the uniform increase in the number of salmon taken in 1896, the following facts may be cited: The nets that were set in both years numbered 162; of these, 146 nets, or 90 per cent, took more salmon in 1896 than in 1895; and only 16, or 10 per cent, took the same number or less. The comparative figures for the nets that secured more fish in 1896 were 3,449 salmon in 1895 and 5,681 in 1896. The nets whose catch was the same or less in 1896 caught 295 fish in 1895 and 289 in 1896. The largest number of salmon taken by one fisherman in 1895 was 408; these were caught in 3 nets on the lower side of Sears Island, in the township of Searsport. Other catches by single fishermen in 1895 were 104 salmon in 4 nets in Stockton, 102 in 5 nets in Northport, 150 in 3 nets in Islesboro, and 150 in 3 nets in Verona. In 1896 the 3 Searsport nets first mentioned took 426 salmon, and a large number of fishermen secured between 100 and 200 fish in 2 to 5 nets. Thus, in Stockton 100 fish were caught in 2 nets, 105 in 3 nets, and 110 in 1 net; in Penobscot 192 salmon were taken in 2 nets, 105 in 2 nets, and 127 in 2 nets; in Northport 5 nets obtained 204 fish and 4 nets 125 fish; in Islesboro 3 nets took 130 fish, 3 nets 150 fish, 4 nets 190 fish, and 2 nets 100 fish; in Verona 3 nets caught 174 fish, 2 nets 106 fish, 3 nets 150 fish, 1 net 100 fish, and 2 nets 170 fish. About 80 per cent of the fishing is done in that part of the river between the northern end of Whitmore Island and Islesboro. While single weirs in that part of the river between Bucksport and Bangor may take as many as 50 or 60 salmon some seasons, the average was only 14 in 1895 and 26 in 1896, and the aggregate is comparatively small. In the townships of Lincolnville and Camden, which are the lowest points in the Penobscot region at which salmon fishing is done, the average catch to a net in 1895 was only 16 salmon and in 1896 only 19 salmon. Detailed statistics for 1895 and 1896. The following tables show, by townships, the extent of the salmon fishery of Penobscot Bay and River in 1895 and 1896: TABLE. Persons Employed Towns | 1895 1896 | --------------------------| ---- ---- | Brooksville (Cape Rosier) | 4 2 | Bucksport | 10 9 | Camden | 2 2 | Castine | 3 2 | Hampden | 1 1 | Islesboro | 7 6 | Lincolnville | 7 7 | Matinicus & Ragged Islands| 4 8 | Northport | 7 6 | Orland | 17 22 | Orrington | 5 5 | Penobscot | 16 15 | Searsport | 3 2 | South Brewer | 2 2 | Stockton and Prospect | 17 15 | Verona | 21 21 | Winterport | 7 8 | | --- --- | Total | 133 133 | TABLE. Apparatus, boats, etc. | Weirs and traps.* | Gill nets. | | | | | 1895 1896 | 1895 1896 | | --------- --------- | --------- --------- | | No. Value No. Value | No. Value No. Value | | --- ----- --- ----- | --- ----- --- ----- | Brooksville (Cape Rosier)| 7 $420 4 $240 | 0 | Bucksport | 13 511 11 455 | | Camden | 5 200 5 200 | | Castine | 4 252 3 201 | | Hampden | | 2 $26 2 $26 | Islesboro | 17 925 16 875 | | Lincolnville | 12 650 14 700 | | Matinicus and | | | Ragged Islands | 1 1,000 2 2,500 | | Northport | 15 1,155 12 1,005 | | Orland | 19 664 26 888 | | Orrington | 2 99 2 99 | 5 58 5 58 | Penobscot | 24 1,587 22 1,421 | | Searsport | 4 213 3 152 | | South Brewer | | 3 105 3 105 | Stockton and Prospect | 26 1,530 20 1,183 | | Verona | 37 2,801 37 2,760 | | Winterport | 7 467 7 467 | 1 10 | | --- ------ --- ------ | -- --- -- --- | Total | 193 12,474 184 13,146 | 10 189 11 199 | *Includes accessories | Boats and scows. | Total | | | investment. | | 1895 1896 | | | --------- --------- | 1895 1896 | | No. Value No. Value | | | --- ----- --- ----- | ---- ---- | Brooksville (Cape Rosier)| 3 $30 2 $20 | $450 $260 | Bucksport | 16 270 14 238 | 781 693 | Camden | 2 45 2 45 | 245 245 | Castine | 5 25 4 20 | 277 221 | Hampden | 1 12 1 12 | 38 38 | Islesboro | 7 94 6 79 | 1,019 954 | Lincolnville | 7 132 7 117 | 782 817 | Matinicus and | | | Ragged Islands | 2 75 5 195 | 1,075 2,695 | Northport | 8 163 7 138 | 1,318 1,143 | Orland | 25 467 32 535 | 1,131 1,423 | Orrington | 2 11 2 11 | 168 168 | Penobscot | 30 436 28 413 | 2,023 1,834 | Searsport | 6 145 4 125 | 358 277 | South Brewer | 1 6 1 6 | 111 111 | Stockton and Prospect | 33 413 31 383 | 1,943 1,566 | Verona | 35 1,100 36 1,110 | 3,901 3,870 | Winterport | 10 181 11 189 | 648 666 | | --- ------ --- ------ | -- --- -- --- | Total | 192 3,605 193 3,636 | 16,268 16,981 | TABLE. Catch | 1895 | 1896 | |-----------------------|-----------------------| | No. of Weight | No. of Weight | Towns | salmon (pounds) Value | salmon (pounds) Value | --------------------------|-----------------------|-----------------------| Brooksville (Cape Rosier) | 163 2,092 $283 | 146 1,626 $190 | Bucksport | 205 2,885 448 | 245 2,729 471 | Camden | 64 964 136 | 71 990 139 | Castine | 77 1,150 207 | 93 1,166 156 | Hampden | 30 510 102 | 32 448 90 | Islesboro | 474 6,551 1,042 | 643 8,265 1,313 | Lincolnville | 205 3,240 583 | 297 3,503 525 | Matinicus & Ragged Islands| 65 780 109 | 182 1,627 175 | Northport | 286 4,066 697 | 418 5,401 810 | Orland | 78 1,077 202 | 152 1,802 306 | Orrington | 65 1,101 165 | 82 1,150 161 | Penobscot | 485 7,270 1,313 | 959 12,483 1,992 | Searsport | 458 7,278 1,456 | 426 5,112 818 | South Brewer | 63 1,071 161 | 170 2,380 309 | Stockton and Prospect | 629 10,067 1,713 | 829 10,471 1,590 | Verona | 908 12,555 2,337 | 1,421 17,761 3,172 | Winterport | 140 2,354 402 | 237 3,311 499 | | ----- ------ ----- | ----- ------ ------ | Total | 4,395 65,011 11,356 6,403 80.175 12,716 | Comparative data relative to the salmon fishery. In 1880 the catch of salmon in Penobscot Bay and River and their tributaries was 10,016, having an estimated weight of 110,176 pounds. The weirs and traps used numbered 230; the gill nets, 36. The fishery yielded 169,894 pounds, valued at $32,800, in 1887; 192,177 pounds, worth $38,049, in 1888; 140,469 pounds, valued at $31,156, in 1889, and 92,282 pounds, worth $19,124, in 1892. As previously shown, in 1895 193 traps and 10 gill nets took 4,395 salmon, weighing 65,011 pounds, valued at $11,356, and in 1896, 184 traps and 11 gill nets caught 6,403 salmon, weighing 80,175 pounds, valued at $12,716. Comparing 1896 with 1880, it appears that there was a reduction of 27 per cent in the number of nets used and a decrease of 36 per cent in the number of salmon caught. A relatively large catch was made in 1887 to 1889, inclusive, and the decrease in 1896, as compared with those years, was marked. From 1892 to 1895 the output declined nearly 30 per cent, and the general tendency for the past eight years has been toward a decrease, 1896 presenting a very pleasing contrast, of which the fishermen all make mention. Following is a continuous record from 1874 to 1896 of two of the most successful salmon weirs. These are located on the east side of the river, in the town of Penobscot, a short distance from the southern end of Whitmore Island. The number of salmon taken in 1896 was 20 per cent greater than in any previous year and over 93 per cent greater than the average for the preceding 22 years. Similar comparative statements for other nets are at hand, showing the increase in 1896 over previous seasons. TABLE. Record of two Penobscot River salmon weirs, from 1874 to 1896, inclusive. | Date | Date of | Date of | Total | Aggre- | Avg | | when ice | catching| catching | number | gate | weight | | ice left | first | largest no. | of |weight of| of | Year | river | salmon | of salmon | salmon | salmon | salmon | --------------------------------------------------------------------| 1874 | Apr. 20 | Apr. 30 | June 10 | 86 | 1,253 | 14.57 | 1875 | Apr. 18 | May 13 | June 15 | 70 | 908 | 12.97 | 1876 | Apr. 14 | Apr. 25 | June 17 | 68 | 1,027 | 15.10 | 1877 | Mar. 30 | Apr. 24 | June 9 | 72 | 1,002 | 13.92 | 1878 | Apr. 4 | Apr. 21 | June 26 | 151 | 2,052 | 13.52 | 1879 | Apr. 25 | May 12 | June 20 | 147 | 1,756 | 11.95 | 1880 | Apr. 9 | May 7 | May 31 | 86 | 1,111 | 12.92 | 1881 | Mar. 21 | Apr. 17 | June 9 | 85 | 1,480 | 17.41 | 1882 | Apr. 10 | May 1 | May 29 | 154 | 1,711 | 11.11 | 1883 | Apr. 13 | do | June 12 | 98 | 1,643 | 16.77 | 1884 | Apr. 9 | Apr. 29 | June 28 | 95 | 911 | 9.59 | 1885 | Apr. 19 | May 8 | June 4 | 91 | 1,104 | 12.13 | 1886 | Apr. 16 | Apr. 21 | June 2 | 100 | 1,631 | 16.31 | 1887 | Apr. 23 | May 8 | June 25 | 150 | 2.020 | 13.47 | 1888 | Apr. 15 | Apr. 29 | June 9 | 159 | 2,196 | 13.81 | 1889 | Apr. 2 | Apr. 21 | June 6 | 85 | 1,246 | 14.66 | 1890 | Apr. 7 | Apr. 20 | May 30 | 41 | 641 | 15.63 | 1891 | Apr. 2 | Apr. 28 | June 9 & 16| 117 | 1,199 | 10.25 | 1892 | do | Apr. 9 | June 5 | 65 | 989 | 15.22 | 1893 | Apr. 15 | Apr. 23 | June 10 | 102 | 1,384 | 13.57 | 1894 | Apr. 12 | Apr. 19 | June 1 & 3 | 88 | 1,160 | 13.19 | 1895 | Apr. 6 | Apr. 21 | June 3 | 75 | 1,191 | 15.88 | 1896 | Apr. 12 | Apr. 16 | June 6 | 192 | 2,524 | 13.15 | Note.--The weirs are set one or two days after the ice moves out. Occasionally they are put in place before the ice leaves. Apparatus and methods of the fishery. There is probably no other river in the United States in which a fishery of such magnitude has undergone so few changes with respect to methods, number of traps operated, and sites where nets are set, as the Penobscot. This is chiefly owing (1) to the character of the bottom, (2) to the fact that the fishing is a riparian privilege enjoyed only by those who own land fronting on the water, (3) to the circumstance that the fishing is almost entirely of a semi-professional character, and has been taken up by generation after generation as a part of the regular duties connected with the small farms, and (4) to the small number of food-fishes occurring in the river, and the preponderating importance of two of them--the salmon and the alewife--for which the nets are exclusively set. Salmon Net Types Salmon weir, Penobscot. Leader of stakes interwoven with brush, 175 yards long. "Great pond" brush, 42 feet long. "Middle pond" and "back pond," netting with board floor, each 10 feet long. Outer entrance, 16 feet wide; middle, 2 feet; inner, 1 foot. Value, $75. x x x x x x x x / \ x x/ \x | | | | | | | / \ | |/ \| x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x | x x x | x x x | x | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----+---- Salmon weir, Bucksport. Leader, brush, 4 to 8 rods long. Middle pond, 40 feet long, 8-foot entrance; inner side, brush; outer side, twine. Pockets, twine, 10 feet long, 10-inch entrances, wooden floor. Value, $25. Some weirs have only one (upstream) pocket. x x x x x x x x x x x x x xx xx x x x x x x | x x x x x x | x x x x x | x x | x |xx | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----+---- "Hook weir," Orland. A brush hook, about 50 feet long and extending down stream, is built on some of the weirs. It serves the purpose of leading the fish into the net. Value, $35. +-------+ | | | | | | | x x | __ |x x| ( \ x x \ \ x x \ x x \ x x \ x x \ x x \ x x \ x x \ x x \x x x | x x x | x x x | x | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----+---- The salmon fishery of the Penobscot basin is carried on with practically a single type of apparatus, namely, the brush weir. In most parts of the region this trap is used in the same form that it had in the primitive days of the fishery, but in some sections the weir has undergone evolution into a combination brush and twine trap, and in places into a trap made wholly of netting. Some of the types of salmon nets used in this region are illustrated and described by the accompanying figures. In addition to these, which are wholly or partly of brush, a common apparatus is the floating trap, constructed entirely of twine, such as is now generally employed in the New England States. This is the only salmon net in use at Islesboro and in some other sections. The local and individual variations in the form of the nets depend on the topography of the bottom and shore and the habits of the salmon, and are the result of long experience. The fishing begins as soon as the ice moves out in spring and continues until some time in July. Fish are rarely taken before the last two weeks in April. May and June are the best months. In that part of the river adjacent to Bangor there is a small fishery prosecuted with set gill nets. The nets are from 100 to 200 feet long and have a 6-inch mesh. Salmon weir, Castine. Hedge 200 feet long, made of stakes driven in mud interwoven with brush to low-water mark, covered with netting beyond. Great pound, 30 feet long, 30 feet wide at base, made of netting; entrance 8 feet wide. Inner pounds, 10 feet wide, with board floors; outer entrance 2 feet wide, inner 1 foot. Value, $70. +-------+ | | | / \ | |/ \| | | | | | / \ | |/ \| / \ / \ / / \ \ / / \ \ / / | \ \ // | \\ / | \ | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----+---- Salmon weir, Stockton. Leader or hedge, 400 yards long, all brush except 20 yards next to head, which piece is netting above low-water mark and brush below. Main compartment or great pound 80 feet long and 25 feet wide, with 10-foot entrance on each aide of leader. Smaller compartments, directed downstream, 21 feet long; with 2-foot entrance to first and 8-inch entrance to second. Value, $100. xxxxx xx xxx x x x x x x x xx x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x | x x x x x x | x x x x xx | xx x x x x | xx xxx | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----+---- Salmon weir, Stockton. Leader 200 feet long; brush from shore to low-water mark; remainder brush at bottom, netting at top. Head 60 feet long; outer pound 40 feet, middle pound 12 feet, inner pound 8 feet; brush below low-water line, netting above; plank floors in two smaller compartments. Value, $40. +-------+ | | | | | | | / \ | |/ \| | | | / \ | |/ \| / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / / | \ \ \ / | \ / \/ | \/ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----+---- Salmon weir, Winterport. Leader, brush, 6 rods long. Heart, brush or netting, 40 feet long, 20 feet wide, with 8-foot entrance on each side of leader. Pockets, netting, 10 feet in diameter, 9-inch entrance, wooden floor. Value, $50. xxx x x xx x x xx x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x | x x x x xx x x | x x xx x | x | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----+---- "Upanddown" Salmon weirs, Orland. Constructed of brush except final compartments, which are of netting with wooden floors. Value of set, $65 xxxxx x x x x-------\----------+ x \ \ | x \ \ | x \ \ | x | x | x / / | x x | x / / | x x | x / / | xx | x/-------/----------+ | | | | | | | | | xxxxx x x x x-------\----------+ x \ \ | x \ \ | x \ \ | x | x | x / / | x x | x / / | x x | x / / | xx | x/-------/----------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----+---- Salmon weir, built at Verona in 1889. The most elaborate net used in the Penobscot region. xx xx x x x x x x x x x | | | | | xx | xx x x | x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x | x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x x | x x x x x x x x | x x x x x x x x | x x x x x | x x -------+------- x x | x x x x x | x x x x x x x x | x x x x x x x x | x x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x | x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x | x x xx | xx | | | | xx | xx x x | x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x | x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x x | x x x x x x x x | x x x x x x x x | x x x x x | x x -------+------- x x | x x x x x | x x x x x x x x | x x x x x x x x | x x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x | x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x | x x xx | xx | | | | | | | | | | ----+---- Salmon at Matinicus and Ragged islands. Matinicus is a small island located south of Penobscot Bay and about 15 miles southeast of the nearest mainland (Thomaston). It is in the route of salmon coming in from the sea to ascend the river, and nets set in favorable positions would naturally be expected to intercept the fish. On the western side of the island Messrs. R. Crie & Sons have operated a trap for mackerel and herring for four years, and during that time have incidentally taken a number of salmon. Between May 20 and July 10 marketable fish are caught, while in August and September salmon too small to utilize are taken in considerable quantities; in the opinion of the Messrs. Crie these small fish were on their way to sea from the Penobscot River. It has been observed that when an easterly wind is blowing very few salmon are taken, but during a westerly wind salmon are always obtained in the months named, and the quantity of salmon secured in any given year bears a close relation to the direction of the prevailing winds. In 1895 the number of marketable salmon caught was 65; in 1896 the catch was 167. The largest fish taken in the two years weighed 30 pounds, the smallest 1/2 pound. The largest daily catch was 31 salmon, in 1896; the next largest, 27, in 1894. Mr. W. B. Young, of Matinicus Island, has a herring weir on the southwestern part of Ragged Island, which lies a short distance south of Matinicus Island. In 1896 this weir during June and July caught 15 salmon with an aggregate weight of 200 pounds. The largest weighed 24 1/2 pounds. No small, unmarketable ones were obtained. Salmon at the Cranberry Isles. The Cranberry Isles lie a few miles south of Mount Desert Island and about 25 miles east of Penobscot Bay. They are in the track of migrating salmon, as a few herring weirs set around the islands have for several years taken one or more salmon almost annually. [3] Mr. W. I. Mayo, a correspondent at the islands, reports that in June, 1895, Colonel Hadlock took a 17-pound salmon in a weir, and on May 5 of the same year Mr. Mayo caught one weighing 19 pounds. None had been taken, however, in 1896 up to September 1. [Footnote 3: See paper entitled "Notes on the capture of Atlantic salmon at sea and in the coast waters of the Eastern States," Bull. U.S.F.C. 1894.] Salmon caught with hook off Maine coast. Instances are multiplying of the taking of salmon at sea on trawl lines on the New England coast. The salmon are usually taken during the time when the fish are running in the rivers, but occasionally one has been caught in midwinter. The following data relate to fish that probably belonged to the Penobscot school. On June 19, 1896 a Gloucester fishing vessel brought into Rockland a 10-pound salmon that had been caught on a cod trawl 20 miles southeast of Matinicus. The fish was sent home to Gloucester by the captain of the vessel, through Mr. Charles E. Weeks, a Rockland fish-dealer. Several salmon have been taken on hooks off Frenchman Bay within a few years. One 25-pound fish was caught on a cod trawl 3 miles off Gouldsboro, in 20 fathoms of water, and another was taken southeast of Mount Desert Island in 35 fathoms. Some years ago, on May 22, one of the crew of the schooner _Telephone_, of Orland, Me., while fishing for cod on German Bank, caught a 10-pound salmon. German Bank lies about 50 miles southeast of Mount Desert Island and has 65 to 100 fathoms of water. Destruction of salmon by seals. Seals are known to kill a great many salmon in Penobscot Bay and the lower river. They enter and leave the weirs and traps without difficulty and cause great annoyance to the fishermen. When a seal enters a net, the fish are frightened and usually become meshed; the seal may then devour them at its leisure. The initial bite usually includes the salmon's head. Fishermen in some places report a noticeable increase in seals in the past few years, and a consequent increase in damage done to the salmon fishery. The State pays a bounty of $1 each for seal scalps, which serves to keep the seals somewhat in check, although the sagacity of the animals makes it difficult to approach them with a rifle and to secure them when shot. Within a few years some weir fishermen have been obliged at times to patrol the waters in the vicinity of their nets, in order to prevent depredations. In the Cape Rosier region, where some salmon trap fishing is done, seals were very troublesome in the early part of the season of 1896. Mr. George Ames, who set three traps in 1896 and took about 100 salmon, had knowledge of 13 other salmon that were destroyed by seals while in his nets. Similar instances of relatively large numbers of salmon killed by seals might be given. With salmon worth 20 to 50 cents a pound the loss of 10 or 12 salmon by seals, in a total catch of 75 or 100, is a matter of importance to the fisherman. Evidences of results of propagation. The opinion is now practically unanimous among the salmon fishermen of Penobscot River and Bay that the artificial hatching of salmon by the U.S. Fish Commission is producing beneficial results. About the same arguments in support of their opinions are presented by all, and these accord well in the main with the observations of other persons who have given this matter attention: (1) The opportunities for natural reproduction are exceedingly limited, owing to the obstructions to the passage of the fish to their spawning grounds in the headwaters of the Penobscot basin. (2) The salmon that are naturally hatched are, even under the most favorable conditions prevailing at the present time, not numerous enough to keep up the supply of market and brood fish, with the fatalities incident to the long residence at sea and to the passage of immature fish down from the spawning grounds to the sea. (3) The remarkable run in May and June, 1896, of fish of comparatively small size that had apparently just reached maturity and the relative scarcity of large fish that had evidently been in the river during one or two previous seasons seemed to show a tendency toward the depletion of the run of old fish and the substitution of a run of young, artificially hatched fish. (4) A feature of the salmon supply in recent years, on which the fishermen nearly all lay considerable stress, is that the runs in April and July, which in former years were often quite important and remunerative, have of late been very poor, although the fish constituting them are of large size, while the runs in May and June have kept up, but have consisted chiefly of comparatively small fish. In this the fishermen believe they see evidence of the work of the hatchery, for the young salmon artificially hatched have been from eggs of May and June fish, and the fishermen think that such young fish, when they return to the river to spawn, will come at about the same time that their parents did. Many salmon fishermen might be quoted on the question of results of propagation. A few sample statements and records of salmon taken will be given covering different parts of the bay and river. Mr. Francis French, an experienced salmon fisherman of Stockton, on the western side of Penobscot Bay, reports that of the 61 salmon taken in his weir in 1896, 56 were under 11 pounds in weight, and all evidently belonged to the same year's brood. In 1895 the 29 salmon obtained by Mr. French averaged 20 pounds each. According to his observations, a very large percentage of the salmon in the Penobscot region in 1896 were hatchery fish that then entered the river for the first time. Mr. A. H. Whitmore, a salmon fisherman of over thirty years' experience, who fishes three weirs off the southern end of Whitmore Island, states that in that part of the river the catch in 1896 was the largest in thirty years, with the exception of one season. He thinks there is no doubt whatever of the beneficial results of artificial propagation, as shown by the maintenance of the supply when obstructions to the passage of salmon to the upper waters must greatly curtail natural spawning. Mr. Joseph Hurd, of Winterport, has two weirs at Oak Point, which is the upper limit of weir fishing for salmon on the west side of the river; the nets are about 12 miles below Bangor; 25 salmon were taken in 1895, and 60 in the following year. The catch was better in 1896 than in a number of years. Eight years before, Mr. Hurd took 140 salmon, which was the best season in his experience; since then the fish have been decreasing until 1896. He thinks very few fish get to their spawning-grounds, owing to dams and other obstructions in the river above Bangor, and has no doubt the small fish which were so conspicuous in 1896 were from the Government hatchery. Mr. William F. Abbott, of Verona, who has two weirs on Whitmore Island, caught 41 salmon in 1895, and 80 in 1896. He makes the following statement: "In my opinion, there would not enough salmon come into the river to pay for building weirs if there had been no salmon artificially hatched; and I hope the Government will continue to keep the salmon fishing up, so it will pay to build our weirs. No person that knows anything about it can doubt that it is a good thing for the fishermen." Mr. Harvey Heath, of Verona, has two weirs on the eastern side of the southern end of Whitmore Island. He caught 62 salmon in 1895, and 100 in 1896. He thinks that the removal of obstructions to the passage of fish to their spawning-grounds would be all that is necessary to secure a good run of fish in the river, but believes that under present conditions the salmon-cultural work of the Government is very useful in sustaining the fishery. Three weirs of Mr. E. A. Bowden, located on the eastern side of Whitmore Island, above those of Mr. Heath, took, 31 salmon in 1895, and 85 in 1896. Mr. Bowden says: "I think that if it was not for the hatchery we would not have any salmon to speak of, for all the school we have is in June. April, May, and July salmon are very scarce." Mr. Charles G. Atkins, superintendent of the government salmon hatchery in Orland, Me., informs the writer that he has been inclined to believe that each year a great many salmon succeed in reaching their spawning grounds; but recent observations have caused him to change his mind, and he is now of the opinion that only relatively few salmon elude the traps, weirs, and gill nets, surmount the dams and fishways, escape the poachers, and succeed in depositing their eggs under conditions favorable to their development. The dam at Bangor, while certainly a formidable obstruction to the passage of fish, is probably passable at high water. It is provided with a fishway, and some fish are known to surmount the dam by this means. Above Bangor, in the main river, there are dams at Great Works and Montague, the dam at Montague being an especially serious obstruction, although it is provided with a good fishway. Below the dam at Bangor there is little poaching, but below the other dams--especially at Montague--comparatively large numbers of salmon are sacrificed by the illegal use of the spear and drift net. In 1896 all the salmon below Montague were at the mercy of poachers after July 15, when all wardens on the river were laid off. The supply of spawning fish was thus greatly reduced. The people above Bangor have no interest in preserving the salmon supply of the river, as they receive none of the benefits from fishing which are enjoyed by fishermen of the lower river. This year Mr. Atkins, having this matter under consideration, visited the east branch of the Penobscot River. A certain tributary of the east branch, which was said to be one of the best spawning-grounds for salmon in the Penobscot basin, was obstructed by a dam in the spawning region. The dam was impassable to fish in July, and had been so during the previous months. In a deep pool below the dam, which was reported to be a favorite resort for salmon each season, no salmon were found. In other words, if the salmon had reached this stream they could not have gotten above the dam, and would undoubtedly have congregated in the pool mentioned and been noticed, but no fish had ascended even that far. Extension of salmon-hatching operations on the Penobscot. The establishment of branch hatcheries has been suggested in order to utilize the spawning salmon in the region which lies above commercial fishing, and thus increase by artificial means the production of young fish. It is well known that even under the best conditions now prevailing in our streams the eggs of anadromous fishes like the salmon and shad are liable to numerous destructive agencies; that only a small percentage of the eggs laid under natural surroundings ever hatch, and that the young are subject to heavy mortality up to the time when they leave the river and enter the salt water. Probably 5 per cent would be much too large an estimate of the number of salmon eggs which in a state of nature produce fish that reach the ocean. Fish-culture, on the other hand, hatches 95 per cent of the eggs and raises 75 per cent of the fry to the age of yearlings. Of 206,350 Atlantic salmon eggs obtained in 1895 at the government station at Craig Brook, 206,109 were hatched and 151,761 yearling fish were liberated in the fall. The percentage of eggs hatched was thus 99.88 and the percentage of yearlings raised was 78.39. This is sufficient ground for interfering with the salmon even after they have reached their spawning-beds, and justifies the establishment of hatcheries in the headwaters of the Penobscot, provided the supply of fish in any section is large enough to insure a reasonable take of eggs. No examinations of the upper tributaries of the Penobscot thus far made have disclosed the existence of any stream on which the construction of a branch salmon hatchery is warranted, owing to the few salmon obtainable. The matter deserves further investigation, however, and will receive due consideration at an early date. It is thought that a satisfactory supply of fish may be secured by constructing a dam or rack which will intercept fish in the main stream and lead practically the entire run into one tributary, where they may be retained. The operation of a branch salmon hatchery in the river above Bangor would of course depend on the successful working of the fishways and the enforcement by the State of the anti-poaching laws. Planting of quinnat salmon and steelhead trout in Maine streams. The United States Fish Commission is making the experiment of planting large numbers of non-indigenous salmon in the Penobscot Basin and other Maine waters with a view to test whether the fishes are adapted to those streams. The species with which trials have thus far been made are the quinnat or chinook salmon (_Oncorhynchus tschawytscha_) and the steelhead trout (_Salmo gairdneri_). It is intended to plant sufficiently large numbers of yearling fish to fully test the feasibility of the project; and in the event of success two extremely valuable species will have been added to the fishery resources of the Maine streams. During the years 1896 and 1897 over 2,000,000 young quinnat salmon and steelheads were deposited by the Commission in the Penobscot River and adjacent waters, several hundred thousand of which were four to six months old. The planting of additional fry and yearlings is contemplated in order to thoroughly demonstrate whether their introduction is possible. The quinnat salmon ranges along practically the entire Pacific Coast of North America north of Mexico, entering all suitable streams. It is the most valuable member of the salmon family, and is taken in very large quantities for canning, salting, and fresh consumption. Its flesh is very rich and of a deep-red color. It is caught in the rivers with gill nets, seines, pound nets, traps, weirs, wheels, and other appliances. In Monterey Bay, California, large numbers are taken with trolling hooks baited with small fish, and, although the fish abstains from food after entering the fresh waters, it may often be lured with artificial or other baits. The chinook salmon begins to enter the California rivers in February, the Columbia in March, and the Alaskan rivers in May and June. The spawning season covers six months, extending from June to December, although the spawning period in any given basin is more limited, seldom exceeding one or two months. The highest accessible positions in the streams are sought by the spawning fish, which make rounded excavations in gravelly bottoms, in which the eggs are deposited. The vitality of the fish rapidly decreases after spawning, their bodies become mutilated and diseased, and in a short time they die. The steelhead (_Salmo gairdneri_) also known by the names of salmon trout, winter salmon, and Gairdner's trout, closely resembles the Atlantic salmon in size, form, and habits. It is found from southern California to Alaska, and enters the coast rivers in large numbers. Its flesh is light-colored, but is of excellent flavor, being not inferior to the eastern salmon. It is caught in large quantities with gill nets and traps, for canning and use in a fresh condition. As a game fish the steelhead enjoys a high reputation in the Pacific States. Its principal run in the rivers is during the fall and winter months, when it ascends the streams long distances, spawning in late winter or early spring. In order that anglers, fishermen, fish-dealers, and others may be able to distinguish from the Atlantic salmon and from each other any specimens of quinnat salmon and steelhead that come to their notice, the following key [4] has been prepared to cover the principal differential characters, and illustrations of the three species are shown: [Footnote 4: The parts referred to in the key may be defined as follows: Anal fin, the single fin on the median line of the body, between the vent and the tail; gillrakers, bony protuberances on the concave side of the bones supporting the gills; branchiostegals, small bones supporting the lower margin of the gill cover; pyloric coeca, worm-like appendages of the lower end of the stomach; vomer, a bone in the front part of the roof of the mouth.] I. Anal fin elongate, with 16 rays; gillrakers 9 + 14; branchiostegals 15 to 19; pyloric coeca 140 to 180; caudal fin considerably forked; average weight about 20 pounds, maximum 100 pounds. Quinnat salmon. [Illustration: Chinook or quinnat salmon (_Oncorhynchus tschawytscha_)] II. Anal fin short, with 9 to 12 rays; gillrakers 8 + 12: branchiostegals 11; pyloric coeca less than 70. 1. Teeth on vomer little developed, those on shaft few and deciduous; scales large, about 120 in lateral series; pyloric coeca 65; caudal fin emarginate; average weight 15 pounds, maximum 40 pounds. Atlantic salmon. [Illustration: Atlantic salmon (_Salmo salar_)] 2. Teeth on vomer well developed, those on shaft of bone numerous and persistent in a zigzag row or two alternating series; scales about 150 (130 to 180) in lateral series; pyloric coeca 42; caudal fin squarely emarginate; average weight 10 pounds, maximum 20 pounds. Steelhead trout. [Illustration: Steelhead trout (_Salmo gairdneri_)] [Illustration: Map showing the location of the salmon weirs and traps fished in Penobscot River and Bay in 1896] 
17475	----	Watch, Rockland, Maine, with technical assistance from Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations and tables. See 17475-h.htm or 17475-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/4/7/17475/17475-h/17475-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/4/7/17475/17475-h.zip) THE LOBSTER FISHERY OF MAINE. by JOHN N. COBB, Agent of the United States Fish Commission. _Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 [Illustration: The sailing smack _Bar Bel_ of Rockland] For some years past the condition of the lobster fishery of New England has excited the earnest attention of all interested in the preservation of one of the most valuable crustaceans of our country. In the State of Maine, particularly, where the industry is of the first importance, the steady decline from year to year has caused the gravest fears, and incessant efforts have been made by the United States Fish Commission, in conjunction with the State Fish Commission of Maine, to overcome this decline. This paper presents the results of an investigation by the writer in 1899. All statistics, when not otherwise stated, are for the calendar year 1898. I am indebted to so many dealers, fishermen, and others for information given and courtesies extended that it is impossible to mention them by name; and I now extend to all my most sincere thanks for their many kindnesses. [Illustration: The first steam smack to carry lobsters in a well] NATURAL HISTORY OF THE LOBSTER. Although the lobster has been of great value to the New England States and the British Provinces as a food commodity, but little was known of its life-history and habits until within the last few years. To this ignorance has been due quite largely peculiar (and in some instances useless) laws enacted by some States. The gradual enlightenment of the public on this subject has borne good fruit, however, and most of the present State laws are founded on substantial facts instead of theories. Prof. Francis H. Herrick has been one of the most prominent of the investigators, and his summary of the present knowledge on this subject is quoted below from the Fish Commission Bulletin for 1897: (1) The fishery is declining, and this decline is due to the persistence with which it has been conducted during the last twenty-five years. There is no evidence that the animal is being driven to the wall by any new or unusual disturbance of the forces of nature. (2) The lobster is migratory only to the extent of moving to and from the shore, and is, therefore, practically a sedentary animal. Its movements are governed chiefly by the abundance of food and the temperature of the water. (3) The female may be impregnated or provided with a supply of sperm for future use by the male at any time, and the sperm, which is deposited in an external pouch or sperm receptacle, has remarkable vitality. Copulation occurs commonly in spring, and the eggs are fertilized outside the body. (4) Female lobsters become sexually mature when from 8 to 12 inches long. The majority of all lobsters 10-1/2 inches long are mature. It is rare to find a female less than 8 inches long which has spawned or one over 12 inches in length which has never borne eggs. (5) The spawning interval is a biennial one, two years elapsing between each period of egg-laying. (6) The spawning period for the majority of lobsters is July and August. A few lay eggs at other seasons of the year--in the fall, winter, and probably in the spring. (7) The period of spawning lasts about six weeks, and fluctuates slightly from year to year. The individual variation in the time of extrusion of ova is explained by the long period during which the eggs attain the limits of growth. Anything which affects the vital condition of the female during this period of two years may affect the time of spawning. (8) The spawning period in the middle and eastern districts of Maine is two weeks later than in Vineyard Sound, Massachusetts. In 1893 71 per cent of eggs examined from the coast of Maine were extruded in the first half of August. (9) The number of eggs laid varies with the size of the animal. The law of production may be arithmetically expressed as follows: _The number of eggs produced at each reproductive period varies in a geometrical series, while the length of lobsters producing these eggs varies in an arithmetical series._ According to this law an 8-inch lobster produces 5,000 eggs, a lobster 10 inches long 10,000, a 12-inch lobster 20,000. This high rate of production is not maintained beyond the length of 14 to 16 inches. The largest number of eggs recorded for a female is 97,440. A lobster 10-1/2 inches long produces, on the average, nearly 13,000 eggs. (10) The period of incubation of summer eggs at Woods Hole is about ten months, July 15-August 15 to May 15-June 15. The hatching of a single brood lasts about a week, owing to the slightly unequal rate of development of individual eggs. (11) The hatching period varies also with the time of egg-laying, lobsters having rarely been known to hatch in November and February. (12) Taking all things into consideration, the sexes appear about equally divided, though the relative numbers caught in certain places at certain times of the year may be remarkably variable. (13) Molting commonly occurs from June to September, but there is no month of the year in which soft lobsters may not be caught. (14) The male probably molts oftener than the female. (15) In the adult female the molting like the spawning period is a biennial one, but the two periods are one year apart. As a rule, the female lays her eggs in July, carries them until the following summer, when they hatch; then she molts. Possibly a second molt may occur in the fall, winter, or spring, but it is not probable, and molting just before the production of new eggs is rare. (16) The egg-bearing female, with eggs removed, weighs less than the female of the same length without eggs. (17) The new shell becomes thoroughly hard in the course of from six to eight weeks, the length of time requisite for this varying with the food and other conditions of the animal. (18) The young, after hatching, cut loose from their mother, rise to the surface of the ocean, and, lead a free life as pelagic larvae. The first larva is about one-third of an inch long (7.84 mm). The swimming period lasts from six to eight weeks, or until the lobster has molted five or at most six times, and is three-fifths of an inch long, when it sinks to the bottom. It now travels toward the shore, and, if fortunate, establishes itself in the rock piles of inlets of harbors, where it remains until driven out by ice in the fall or early winter. The smallest, now from 1 to 3 inches long, go down among the loose stones which are often exposed at low tides. At a later period, when 3 to 4 inches long, they come out of their retreats and explore the bottom, occasionally hiding or burrowing under stones. Young lobsters have also been found in eelgrass and on sandy bottoms in shallow water. (19) The food of the larva consists of minute pelagic organisms. The food of the older and adult stages is largely of animal origin with but slight addition of vegetable material, consisting chiefly of fish and invertebrates of various kinds. The large and strong also prey upon the small and weak. (20) The increase in length at each molt is about 15.3 per cent. During the first year the lobster molts from 14 to 17 times. At 10-1/2 inches the lobster has molted 25 to 26 times and is about 5 years old. As the purpose of this article is to deal more particularly with the commercial side of the lobster question all interested more particularly in the natural history of the animal are referred to the following works: The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States, sec. I, pp. 780-812. The American Lobster, by Francis H. Herrick. Bull. U. S. Fish Com. for 1895, pp. 1-252. HISTORY OF THE FISHERY. Ever since the early Puritan settlers first learned from the Indians how to utilize the lobster, it has been one of the most prized articles of food in the New England States. The early town records of Massachusetts contain frequent references to this valuable crustacean, and efforts were made at an early day to conserve the supply. At first, as most settlers lived on or near the coast, each family could easily secure its own supply, but as the settlements gradually extended farther inland this became inconvenient, and it soon became customary for certain persons living on the coast to attend to supplying the wants of the inland settlers, and thus the commercial fishery was established. The coast of Maine is very favorably situated for this fishery. In its eastern and middle sections the shore is bold and rocky, while it is cut up by large deep inlets and coves which are studded with numerous islands, large and small, and by bold rocky promontories. Groups of islands are also numerous farther off shore, like the Fox and Matinicus Islands, Deer and Mount Desert islands. Large and small fresh-water rivers are numerous and the granite bottoms of these channels and inlets form admirable breeding grounds. In the western end the shores are not so rocky, being broken frequently with sandy reaches, while the rivers are small and comparatively shallow. West of Casco Bay the islands are infrequent. As a result of this conformation of coast the best fishing grounds in Maine are between Cape Elizabeth and Quoddy Head. As early as 1830 smacks from Boston and Connecticut visited Harpswell for fresh lobsters, and it is very probable that even before this time they had visited the points farther west in the State, as the history of the fishery, so far as known, shows that it gradually worked to the eastward. This was doubtless owing to the fact that the trend of settlement in the early part of the century was in that direction. It is also probable that, for some time before the people along the coast took up the fishery, the smackmen themselves did their own fishing. This is easily believed when the great abundance is considered. It is known that this was done in Massachusetts. During summer the lobsters were very common close in shore and could easily be gaffed by boys at low water; but this could hardly be called a regular fishery. The regular fishery began with the use of hoop-net pots, which were generally of very rude construction, and the facility with which the lobsters escaped from them led to their disuse soon after the lath pots began to be introduced. The lath pots were essentially the same in construction as those now used on the coast of Maine, and each pair of fishermen then handled between 25 and 50. Up to about 1865 it was the custom to set the traps singly, and two men were usually employed in the fishery, one to haul up, empty the pot, rebait it, and drop it overboard, while the other handled the boat. In the latter year it was discovered that by setting the pots on trawls more pots could be set and only one man would be required to work them. This invention, which was claimed by several different persons, proved quite successful for a while, but after a time, when the supply of lobsters began to drop off, better results were secured by scattering the pots over a greater area and shifting their position each time they were fished, which was very easily done. As a result of this the use of trawls decreased very rapidly. The following facts regarding the early lobster fishery of Maine are from the Fishery Industries of the United States, section v, vol. II, pp. 700, 701: In 1841 Capt. E. M. Oakes began to carry lobsters from Cundy's Harbor and Horse Island Harbor, Harpswell, to Mr. Eben Weeks, at East Boston. He was then running a well-smack, named the _Swampscott_, of 41 tons, old measurement. The season extended from the 1st of March until about the 4th of July, after which time the lobsters were supposed to be unfit for eating; the black lobsters, or shedders, were even considered poisonous. During this season of four months Captain Oakes made ten trips, carrying in all 35,000, by count. He continued in this trade about six years, taking the combined catch of about five or six fishermen. At this same period the smack _Hulda B. Hall_, 50 tons, of New London, Conn., Captain Chapell, was carrying lobsters from Cape Porpoise, Gloucester, Ipswich Bay, and occasionally Provincetown, to Boston, making 15 trips in the season of four months, and taking about 3,500 lobsters each trip. Captain Chapell was supplied with lobsters by four men at Cape Porpoise, and by the same number at both Gloucester and Ipswich Bay. For four months following the close of the lobster season on the Maine coast, or from July 4 until November, Captain Chapell ran his smack with lobsters to New York, obtaining most of his supplies at Provincetown. In 1847 Captain Oakes purchased the smack _Josephine_, with which he began running to Johnson & Young's establishment, at Boston, in 1848, buying a portion of his lobsters in the Penobscot Bay region, where this fishery had just been started. The quantity of lobsters carried by him that year was 40,000. The prices paid to the fishermen for smack lobsters was as follows: During March, 3 cents each; April, 2-1/2 cents; May and June, 2 cents. In 1850, he began to obtain supplies from the Muscle Ridges, leaving Harpswell entirely, on account of the small size of the lobsters then being caught there. At this time the average weight of the lobsters marketed was about 3 pounds, and all under 10-1/2 inches in length were rejected. The traps were made of the same size as at present, but were constructed of round oak sticks, and with four hoops or bows to support the upper framework. A string of bait, consisting mainly of flounders and sculpins, was tied into each trap. About 50 traps were used by each fisherman, and they were hauled once a day. The warps or buoy lines, by which the traps were lowered and hauled, were cut in 12-fathom lengths. Lobsters were so abundant at the Muscle Ridges, at this period, that four men could fully supply Captain Oakes with lobsters every trip. In the course of ten days each man would obtain between 1,200 and 1,500 marketable lobsters. In Captain Oakes' opinion, the Muscle Ridges have furnished the most extensive lobster fishery of the Maine coast. He ran to this locality until 1874. Capt. S. S. Davis, of South Saint George, states that about 1864, when he first began buying lobsters at the Muscle Ridges, three men, tending 40 to 50 pots each, caught all the count lobsters he could carry to market in his smack. He could load 5,000 lobsters at a time, and averaged a trip in 7 to 9 days. This traffic continued for six or seven years. In 1879, Captain Davis bought from 15 men In the same locality, and at times was obliged to buy also of others in order to make up a load. The fishery at North Haven began in 1848, but did not increase so rapidly at first as in sections farther west, as the smacks would only take the medium-sized lobsters, fearing that the largest would not be able to stand the trip. At Matinicus Island the fishing began in 1868. In 1852 the people on Deer Island began the fishery, and as the smackmen made frequent visits the business rapidly increased. The establishment of a cannery at Oceanville, about 1860, also caused a considerable development of the fishery. The fishery was started at Isle an Haute about 1855, and at Swan Island in the early fifties. The canning of lobsters was first carried on at Eastport in 1842, but the fishery was not taken up until about 1853, as it was supposed there were no lobsters in the neighborhood. The supplies for these canneries previous to the inception of the fishery were obtained by smacks running to the westward. For some years the fishery was only prosecuted in the late spring, summer, and early fall months. Just when winter fishing began in the State is doubtful; but according to Capt. Charles Black, of Orr Island, it began in that region in 1845 at Harpswell. Previously the fishermen had the impression that lobsters could not be successfully caught earlier than March 20. During the summer of 1845 the captains of the well-smacks of New London, Conn., who bought most of the lobsters in that vicinity, induced Charles E. Clay, Samuel Orr, and a few others to fish during the winter, and they set their traps about the same distance from the shore that the fishermen do at present, and in almost the same depth of water. The smackmen paid them $4 for 100 lobsters. The next winter the fishermen refused to sell by number and wanted $1.25 per 100 pounds. The smackmen had no objection to buy them by weight, but refused to pay more than $1.12 per 100 pounds. This was accepted, and for several years the prices were from $1.12 to $1.25 per 100 pounds. Comparatively few traps were necessary then, as when the weather would permit the fishermen to tend their traps they would catch from 20 to 30 lobsters daily, and frequently, when the traps were hauled, they would find several lobsters clinging to some part of the pots. The bait was very plentiful and caught with spears. The lobsters were placed in cars at that time, after having been "plugged" to keep them from injuring each other. The plugs were almost 1-1/2 inches long, flat on one side, round on the other, and with a sharp point. Plugging has since been discontinued, as the trifling injury the lobsters did each other was nothing compared to the value of cans of meat spoiled by one of these pine plugs being boiled with it. [Illustration: The steam smack _Mina and Lizzie_ landing her cargo at Portland] [Illustration: Fleet of lobster boats in harbor at York Island] THE FISHING-GROUNDS. It is difficult to estimate the comparative value of the grounds in the State, owing to the movements of the lobsters. In the early spring, in April or May, as the waters in the bays and rivers warm up, the lobsters come into the comparatively shallow waters. They remain here until late in the fall, going back to the ocean or deep waters of the bays in either October or November. They love to congregate on rocky bottom, and pots set on such bottom will frequently make large catches, while those on sandy or muddy ground will catch almost nothing. In the early years of the fishery they came in very close in great numbers, and could frequently be taken at low water in dip nets or by gaffs; but they are now found in summer in depths of from 3 to 15 fathoms in the numerous passages between the islands and the mainland, and the lower reaches of the bays and rivers. For a number of years winter fishing was not prosecuted, but now it is a very important business. In winter the pots are generally set in the ocean at depths of from 15 to 50 fathoms. As the greatest part of the coast line is cut up by numerous bays and rivers, and these are dotted with large and small islands, they form admirable breeding grounds for the lobster. Some of the best locations are in Little Machias, Machias, Englishman, Pleasant Point, Chandler, Narragaugus, Muscongus, Linekin, Sheepscot, and Casco bays, while the fishing is especially good around the numerous islands in the lower Penobscot and Blue Hill bays, and at Monhegan and the Matinicus islands in the ocean. The Sheepscot River is also a favorite resort for lobsters during the warm months, while in the winter they retire to the waters of the bay, where the fishing can be carried on very easily. At most of the other grounds the winter fishing is carried on in the ocean, as the lobsters do not usually remain in the bays. Most of the fishing in Casco Bay is carried on at the eastern end among the numerous islands. The earliest fishing of which we have any definite record was carried on from the township of Harpswell on this bay. This region has held its own remarkably well, as in 1898 more than twice as many lobsters were taken by fishermen from this township than from any other town in the State. The upper portions of Frenchman, Blue Hill, and Penobscot bays were formerly very important grounds, but are now almost exhausted. These regions were especially noted for large lobsters. In August, 1891, Mr. F. W. Collins, a Rockland dealer, had 50 lobsters in his establishment which weighed from 10 to 18-1/2 pounds apiece. About half of these came from Castine, in upper Penobscot Bay, and the remainder from Blue Hill Falls, in the upper Blue Hill Bay. The grounds in York County, at the western end of the State, were formerly quite prolific, but the excessive fishing of the last thirty years has very badly depleted them. THE FISHING SEASON. In the early days of the fishery it was customary to fish only during the spring and fall. When the canneries went into operation they usually worked during the spring, early summer, and fall, and as they furnished a ready market for all the lobsters that could be caught this came to be the principal season. At that time it was not thought possible to do any winter fishing, owing to the cold and stormy weather and the fact that the fishing had to be carried on generally in the open sea. In 1878 a law was passed limiting the canning season to the period between April 1 and August 1. This season was frequently changed by subsequent enactments, but rarely covered a longer period than that fixed in the first law. As at certain places on the coast the canneries were the only market for lobsters the fishery would cease as soon as the canneries stopped. At other places, which were visited by the smacks, some of the fishermen would continue fishing after the canneries closed, selling to the smackmen. At various times a closed season was in force, but at present there is no limitation as to season. The canning industry in the State practically ceased to exist in 1895, and since then the whole catch has had to be marketed in a live or boiled condition. The smack fleet had been gradually increasing as the live-lobster trade extended, and by the time the canneries closed permanently they had extended their visits to every point where lobsters could be had in any number. At present the majority of the fishermen usually haul out their traps during July and August and put them in good order for the fall fishing. During the excessively cold portion of the winter most of the pots are taken out, but some fishing is done during every month of the year. The fishermen on Monhegan Island, about 12 miles southeast of Pemaquid Point, agree among themselves to put no lobster pots in the water until about the 1st of January. There is then no restriction on fishing until about May 15, when all pots are hauled out and no more fishing is done until the season begins again. During this season the law in regard to short lobsters is rigidly enforced by the fishermen themselves. Should any outsider visit this island during the close time established by the fishermen, and attempt to fish, he is quietly informed of the agreement and requested to conform to it. Should he persist in working after this warning, his pots are apt to mysteriously disappear. As lobsters bring a much higher price in winter than in summer, the Monhegan fishermen reap a rich reward, as the lobsters are very numerous, owing to the 7-1/2 months close time. On the first day the fishermen hauled in 1900 one man secured 293, for which he received 19 cents apiece. The smallest number secured by anyone was 135. FISHING APPLIANCES. In most large fisheries for certain species numerous changes occur at intervals in the apparatus used, owing to changed conditions, etc., but in the lobster industry changes have been few, and at an early period the fishermen fixed upon a uniform apparatus, which has been in use ever since with but slight modifications, and these generally only temporary. The earliest form of apparatus used to any considerable extent was the hoop net. This consisted generally of a hoop or ring of about 1/2-inch round iron, or a wooden hogshead hoop, from 2-1/2 to 3 feet or more in diameter. To this hoop was attached a net bag with a depth of 18 to 24 inches as a bottom, while two wooden half hoops were bent above it, crossing at right angles in the center about 12 or 15 inches above the plane of the hoop. Sometimes these half hoops were replaced by short cords. The bait was suspended from the point of crossing of the two wooden hoops and the line for raising and lowering the pots was attached at the same place. As there was no way of closing the mouth of the pot after a lobster had entered, these nets had to be constantly watched, the lobster being in the habit of retiring after he had finished his repast. In using these the fisherman would generally go out in the evening and at short intervals he would haul in his nets and remove whatever lobsters they might contain. The constant attention necessary in attending to these hoop nets led the fishermen to devise an apparatus which would hold the lobsters after once entering and would require only occasional visits, and "lath pots" were found to fulfill all requirements. They acquire the name from the use of common laths in their construction. They are usually about 4 feet in length, with a width of about 2 feet, a height of 18 inches, and in Maine are usually of semicylindrical form. The following description of this apparatus is from the Fishery Industries of the United States, sec. v, vol. 11, p. 666: The framework of the bottom consists of three strips of wood, either hemlock, spruce, or pine (the first mentioned being the most durable), a little longer than the width of the pot, about 2-3/4 inches wide and 1 inch thick. In the ends of each of the outer strips a hole is bored to receive the ends of a small branch of pliable wood, which is bent into a regular semicircular curve. These hoops are made of branches of spruce or hemlock, or of hardwood saplings, such as maple, birch, or ash, generally retaining the bark. Three of these similar frames, straight below and curved above, constitute the framework of each pot, one to stand at each end and one in the center. The narrow strips of wood, generally ordinary house laths of spruce or pine, which form the covering, are nailed lengthwise to them, with interspaces between about equal to the width of the lathe. On the bottom the laths are sometimes nailed on the outside and sometimes on the inside of the cross pieces. The door is formed by three or four of the laths running the entire length near the top. The door is hinged on by means of small leather strips, and is fastened by a single wooden button in the center, or by two buttons, one at each end. The openings into the pot . . . are two in number, one at each end, are generally knit of coarse twine and have a mesh between three-fourths of an inch and 1 inch square. They are funnel-shaped, with one side shorter than the other, and at the larger end have the same diameter as the framework. The smaller and inner end measures about 6 inches in diameter and is held open by means of a wire ring or wooden hoop. The funnels are fastened by the larger ends to the end frames of the pot, with the shorter side uppermost, so that when they are in place they lead obliquely upward into the pot instead of horizontally. The inner ends are secured in position by one or two cords extending to the center frame. The funnels are about 11 or 12 inches deep, and therefore extend about halfway to the center of the pot. They taper rapidly and form a strongly inclined plane, up which the lobsters must climb in their search for the bait. A two-strand manila twine is most commonly used for the funnels. Cotton is also used, but is more expensive and less durable. [Illustration: Lobster pots] A change in the shape of the funnel was first made at Matinicus shortly before 1890. This has been called the "patent head." Large lobsters are said to always go to the top and small ones to the bottom of the pots. By going to the top in the "old-head" pot large lobsters made their escape through the hole, but in the pots with "patent heads" instead of finding their way through the hole the big lobsters slide over it. The "patent head" has not been used to any extent, however. The sketch shown on the following page gives a good idea of the difference in shape. [Illustration: Old style of head (in general use) and "patent" head] In the center of the ordinary pot is a sort of spearhead of wood or iron from 8 to 12 inches long. This has one large barb and is set upright in the middle of the center frame. The bait is placed on this spearhead. Several large stones or bricks are lashed to the bottom of the pot, on the inside, in order to furnish weight enough to hold the pot at the bottom. As it was noticed that a lobster generally crawled over a pot before entering by the end, some pots of a square form and with the opening at the top were constructed, but they were not successful. Another variation had a length of 7-1/2 feet and five supporting frames inside instead of three, as in the old pot. These were set at equal distances apart, and had two more funnels than the other, one funnel being attached to each of the frames except the center one, and all pointing inward. In order to reach the bait the lobster had to pass through two funnels, and its chances of escape were thereby lessened. This style is rarely seen now. Still another variety in vogue for a short time had a trapdoor, on which the lobster had to climb in order to reach the bait; the door then gave way and precipitated the lobster into a secure inclosure. A few pots are made with a funnel of laths in place of the net funnels. They are the same as the ordinary pot in every other particular. The ordinary pots cost about $1 to construct. During certain seasons the pots are badly eaten by "worms," the shipworm (Teredo) or one of the species of small boring crustaceans. Pots are also frequently lost during stormy weather, and the fishermen therefore have a reserve stock on hand in order to replace those lost or temporarily disabled. METHODS OF FISHING. In fishing the traps are either set on single warps or on trawls of 8 to 40 and 50 pots. At first all pots were set singly. The line by which they were lowered and hauled up, and which also served as a buoy line, was fastened to one of the end frames of the bottom or sill, as it is called, at the intersection of the hoop. The buoys generally consist of a tapering piece of cedar or spruce, wedge-shaped, or nearly spindle shaped, and about 18 inches long. They are usually painted in distinctive colors, so that each fisherman may easily recognize his own. Small kegs are also used as buoys. In the warm season the pots are frequently set on trawls or "ground lines," as lobsters are quite thick then on the rocky bottom near shore. If the bottom is sandy they are set farther from shore. Lobsters are most numerous on a rocky bottom. In the trawl method the pots are usually set about 30 feet apart, depending on the depth of water, so that when one pot is in the boat the next will be on the bottom. The ground lines have large anchors at each end and a floating buoy tied to a strong line, which is fastened to the ground line almost 25 fathoms from the anchors. When the last pot is hauled the anchor is far enough away to hold the boat in position. The pots are set at distances from the shore ranging from 100 yards to 5 or 6 miles. This method of setting pots was first used about the year 1865 in Sagadahoc County. The traps are set in from 3 to 10 fathoms in the warm season. In winter fishing the pots are generally set singly, as the lobsters are more scattered then and the best results are attained by shifting the position of the pots slightly each time they are fished. This is caused by the drift of the boat while the fisherman is hauling in the pot, emptying and rebaiting it, and then dropping it overboard again. The winter fishing is generally carried on in the open sea, although in a few places, like Sheepscot Bay, the lobsters in winter retire to the deep waters of the bays and can there be caught. The pots are generally set in from 20 to 50 fathoms of water at this season. Certain fishermen claim that when pots are set on a trawl placed across the tide the catch is greater than when the trawl is set in the direction of the current. In the former case, it is asserted, the scent or fine particles coming from the bait is more widely diffused and more apt to attract the lobsters. In entering, after first reconnoitering around and over the pot, the lobster always backs in, primarily that he may be prepared to meet any foe following him, also because his large claws would be apt to catch in the net funnel should he enter head first. After discovering that he is imprisoned, which he does very speedily, he seems to lose all desire for the bait, and spends his time roaming around the pot hunting for a means of escape. The pots are generally hauled once a day, but sometimes twice a day in good weather. As the tide along the Maine coast is quite strong, the fishermen usually haul their pots at or about slack water, low tide generally being preferred when they are worked once a day. The number used by a fisherman varies greatly on different sections of the coast. According to the investigations of this Commission, the average number of pots to the man in certain years was as follows: Fifty-six pots in 1880, 59 in 1887 and 1888, 58 in 1889 and 1892, and 50 in 1898. This average, however, is somewhat misleading, as quite a number of persons along the coast take up lobstering for only a few months in the year, and then return to their regular occupations. As these persons use but few pots, the average per man throughout the whole State is very considerably reduced. The regular lobster fishermen have been steadily increasing the number of their pots for several years past. They have found this an absolute necessity in order to catch as many lobsters now as they caught twenty or thirty years ago. It is not unusual now to find one of the regular fishermen handling as high as 100 pots, and sometimes even 125, when a few years ago 25 and 50 pots was a large number. This does not take into account his reserve stock of pots, which it is necessary to have on hand in order to replace those damaged or lost. [Illustration: Fishermen operating their pots] BAIT. Cod, hake, and halibut heads are quite generally used as bait. Halibut heads are said to be the best, as they are tougher than the cod or hake heads, and thus last much longer. Sculpins, flounders, in fact almost any kind of fish, can be used. In the vicinity of sardine canneries the heads of herring are used. Sometimes the bait is slightly salted, at other times it is used fresh. Small herring are lightly salted, and then allowed to remain until partly decayed, when they are inclosed in small bags, and these put into the pots. The oil from this bait forms a "slick" in the water, and when the smell from it is strong the fishermen consider it at its best. The bait is generally secured by small haul-seines and spears in sections where offal can not be bought. FISHING VESSELS AND BOATS. The fishing vessels are either sloop or schooner rigged, with an average net tonnage of slightly over 8 tons (new measurement) and an average value of about $475. There has been a great increase in the number of these vessels during recent years. Eight vessels were used in 1880, 29 in 1889, and 130 in 1898. Quite a number of these vessels are used in other fisheries during their seasons. Two men usually form a crew, although three, and sometimes four, are occasionally used. The other vessels comprise sailboats under 5 tons and rowboats. The sailboats are generally small square-sterned sloops, open in the afterpart, but with a cuddy forward. They are all built with centerboards, and some are lapstreak while others are "set work." Around the afterpart of the standing room is a seat, the ballast is floored over, and two little bunks and a stove generally help to furnish the cuddy. They vary in length from 16 to 26 feet and in width from 6 to 9 feet; they average about 2 tons. They are especially adapted to the winter fishery, as they are good sailers and ride out the storms easily. Dories are in quite general use in the lobster fishery, as are also the double-enders, or peapods. This latter is a small canoe-shaped boat of an average length of 15-1/2 feet, 4-1/2 feet breadth, and 1-1/2 feet depth. They are mainly built lapstreak, but a few are "set work." Both ends are exactly alike; the sides are rounded and the bottom is flat, being, however, only 4 or 5 inches wide in the center and tapering toward each end, at the same time bending slightly upward, so as to make the boat shallower at the ends than in the middle. This kind of bottom is called a "rocker bottom." They are usually rowed, but are sometimes furnished with a sprit sail and centerboard. TRANSPORTING VESSELS OR SMACKS. Even before the lobster fishery had been taken up to any extent, the coast of Maine was visited by well-smacks from Connecticut and New York, most of which had been engaged in the transportation of live fish before engaging in the carrying of lobsters. These vessels sometimes carried pots, and caught their own lobsters; but as this method was not very convenient, the people living along the coast took up the fishery, and sold the lobsters to the smackmen. About 1860 the canneries began to absorb a considerable part of the catch, and they employed vessels to ply along the coast and buy lobsters. As these vessels would only be out a few days at a time, wells were not necessary, and the lobsters were packed in the hold. In the summer great numbers of them were killed by the heat in the hold. After 1885 the canneries rapidly dropped out of the business, the last one closing in 1895. In 1853 there were but 6 smacks, 4 of them from New London, Conn. In 1880 there were 58, of which 21 were dry smacks, while in 1898 there were 76, of which 17 were steamers and launches and 59 sailing vessels. These were all well-smacks. A few sailing smacks also engaged in other fishery pursuits during the dull summer months. In 1879 a steamer which had no well was used to run lobsters to the cannery at Castine. The first steamer fitted with a well to engage in the business was the _Grace Morgan_, owned by Mr. F. W. Collins, a lobster dealer of Rockland, who describes the steamer as follows: The steam and well smack _Grace Morgan_ was built in 1890, by Robert Palmer & Son, of Noank, Conn. At that time she was a dry boat, but the following year, 1891, the Palmers built a small well in her as an experiment, but I am of the opinion that it did not prove very satisfactory or profitable; consequently they offered her for sale and wrote to me in relation to buying her. I went to Noank and looked her over and came to the conclusion that by enlarging the well and making other needed changes she could be made not only a good boat to carry lobsters alive, but also to do it profitably; consequently I bought her and brought her to Rockland, had the well enlarged on ideas of my own, and differently constructed, so as to give it better circulation of water, and also made other needed improvements throughout the boat to adapt her especially for carrying lobsters alive. The changes I made in her proved so successful in keeping lobsters alive, while it increased the capacity for carrying, that I have since adapted the same principles on all my boats. The well I had put into the _Grace Morgan_ is what is termed a "box well," that is, without any well deck. The well is built from the sides of the steamer directly to the hatch on the main deck, with bulkheads forward and aft and tops running directly to the deck. . . . You will see at once that this well has many advantages over the old style with flat well decks, like those of sailing vessels: (1) It affords a much larger carrying capacity in same space of vessel. (2) The priming-out pieces are much higher up on sides of vessel, giving more room for boring hull, which affords much better circulation of water in well, which is a great advantage in keeping lobsters alive while on long trips. (3) Every lobster can be easily bailed out of the well without grounding the vessel, which is necessary with all vessels having the old-style well. (4) In all steam and well smacks the after part of the ship is always steadiest, consequently the well being located aft, as in my smacks, the lobsters contained in them are not subjected to the hard pounding while running in seaway that they are in the old-style wells, where there is no chance to relieve themselves other than to be forced against the well decks by the upward force of the water when the vessel settles into the sea, and which results in killing many of them. Both of my steamers have box wells aft, and from my experience, compared with all other steam and well smacks afloat, I am convinced that this well, for all practical purposes, is the best that has yet been adapted to steam smacks. So far as the _Grace Morgan_ is concerned, she has been a perfect success in carrying her lobsters in all kinds of weather since I put her into commission October 27, 1892, during which time she has had a wonderful career, as well as carrying millions of lobsters. Probably no boat of her size has ever had such an experience, as she has run steadily the year around in all kinds of weather during the past eight years. . . . Previous to buying the _Grace Morgan_ I had run steamers in the lobster business, but they had no well, and being so hot in their holds, particularly in the summer months, the lobsters died so fast that the business in dry steamers could not be made profitable. This is what prompted me to construct a well in mine, as I have done. The _Grace Morgan_ has a length of 49 feet, a breadth of 13.9 feet, and a depth of 5.7 feet, a gross tonnage of 21 tons, and a net tonnage of 10 tons. The steam smacks now used average about 14 tons. They are usually built low in the water, and have a small pilot-house forward, with an open space between it and the engine-house, and living quarters aft. The boat has also one or two short masts. Some of them also have the pilot-house and engine-house joined together. In those with a space between the pilot-house and engine-house the well is usually placed in this open space. Where the pilot-house and engine-house are together the well is either located forward or aft. These wells are generally capable of bolding from 3,000 to 10,000 live lobsters. Small holes in the bottom of the well keep it filled with fresh sea water. Should the weather be clear the proportion of dead and injured lobsters will be small, but in bad weather many are apt to be killed by the pitching and rolling to which they are subjected. These smacks make regular trips up and down the coast, landing their cargoes either at Rockland, Portland, or at one of the lobster pounds scattered along the coast. They not only stop at the villages, but also drop anchor off the little camps of the lobstermen, and should the smacks of two rival dealers arrive at a place simultaneously, which frequently happens, the bidding between the captains for the fishermen's catch gladdens the latter's heart and greatly enriches his pocketbook. Most of the captains have regular places of call where they know the fishermen are holding their lobsters for them, and they follow a rude sort of schedule, which will not often vary more than a day or two. The lobsters are bought of the fishermen by count, and cash is paid for them. Should the smack belong to a dealer this practically ends the financial side of the transaction so far as the captain is concerned, as the crew are paid wages. Should the smack belong to a person other than the dealer, which is frequently the case, he either makes an agreement with some dealer to run for him exclusively at a certain price or commission, or else buys from the fishermen and then sells at either Rockland or Portland. This method of buying lobsters is somewhat hazardous, as the market price sometimes changes sharply when the smack is out of reach of telegraphic communication. LOBSTER CARS. Lobsters must be marketed in a live or boiled condition; and as fishermen can get better prices for them alive than boiled, each fisherman generally has a live-car in which to hold them until they can be sold. These cars are usually oblong, rectangular boxes, with open seams or numerous small holes to permit the free circulation of the water. They are of various sizes, according to the needs of the fisherman, a good average being about 6 feet long by 4 feet wide and about 2 feet deep. The door is placed on the top. They are usually moored close to the shore during the fishing season, the rest of the time being hauled up on the beach. [Illustration: Fishermen's lobster cars] The dealers cars are very similar to those used by the fishermen, only much larger. They generally average about 30 feet in length, 12 feet in width; and 3 feet in depth, with capacity for from 2,000 to 3,000 lobsters. The inner part of this car is usually divided off into five transverse compartments by means of a framework inside. Each compartment is provided with two large doors entering from the top, one door on each side of the middle line of the car. These cars cost the dealers about $70 each. The life of one of these cars is about five or six years, although at the end of about three years it is generally necessary to replace the sides of the car on account of the ravages of a dock worm which is quite abundant along the Maine coast. When new the top of the car is usually about a foot above the water, but as it gets water-soaked it sinks down until it is even with the water, and some of the older cars have to be buoyed up with kegs at each end, placed inside, to prevent them from sinking below the surface. These cars are moored alongside the docks of the dealers at Portland and Rockland and other points. [Illustration: Lobster cars used in the wholesale trade at Portland] Mr. J. R. Burns, of Friendship, has invented and patented a new style of car. The inside is divided into a series of compartments by horizontal and vertical partitions of slats, wire netting, or any material which will permit the free circulation of the water. Each compartment has a chute extending down into it from the top, by means of which the lobsters can be put in and their food given them. There are also conveniently arranged openings, with doors, through which the lobsters may be removed when desired. These cars usually average about 35 feet in length, 18 feet in width, and 6 feet in depth, and have a capacity for about 5,000 lobsters each. They are in use at Rockland, Friendship, Tremont, and Jonesport. They prevent the lobsters from huddling together and thus killing each other by their own weight. METHODS OF SHIPPING, WHOLESALE TRADE, ETC. As lobsters can not be shipped or preserved in a frozen state they must be shipped either alive or boiled. About nine-tenths of the lobsters caught in Maine waters are shipped in the live state. The principal shipping centers are Portland, Rockland, and Eastport, which have good railroad and steamship facilities with points outside of the State. Those shipped from the latter point are mainly from the British Provinces, the fishermen near Eastport bringing them in in their own boats. A number also come in from the Provinces on the regular steamship lines. The other places get their supply from the smacks and also from the fishermen in their vicinity, who run in their own catch. Portland is very favorably situated in this regard, as Casco Bay is a noted fishing center for lobsters. As soon as a smack arrives it is moored directly alongside one of the cars. The lobsters are then dipped out of the well by means of long-handled scoop nets and thrown on the deck of the vessel. The doors of the car are then opened, and men on the vessel pick over the lobsters lying on the deck and toss them two by two into the different compartments, those dead and badly mutilated being thrown to one side for the time being. All vigorous lobsters above a certain size are placed in compartments of the car by themselves, while the weak and small are put in separate compartments. The dead lobsters and those which have had their shells broken or have been so injured that they are very sure to die are either thrown overboard or on the dump. A lobster which has lost one or even both claws is not thrown away, as such an injury would have very little effect on its health. When an order is received for live lobsters, those which have been longest in the cars are usually shipped. Flour barrels holding about 140 pounds or sugar barrels holding about 185 pounds, with small holes bored in the bottoms for drainage, are used for the shipment. Formerly the lobsters were packed close together in the barrel, and a large piece of ice was put in at the top, but this was found to kill a number of them. The present method is to split off about one-third of a 100-pound cake of ice the long way, and place it upright about half way of the length of the barrel, the lobsters then being packed snugly on all sides of the ice. In handling them the packer seizes the lobster by the carapace with his right hand, bends the tail up under the body with his left hand, and quickly deposits it in the barrel. The packer usually has his right hand covered with a woolen mitt or wrapped in a long piece of linen, for protection from the claws of the lobster. When the barrel is nearly full the lobsters are covered with a little seaweed or large-leaved marine plants, and the rest of the space is filled with cracked ice. The top is then covered with a piece of sacking, which is secured under the upper hoop of the barrel. Packed in this way, lobsters have easily survived a trip as far west as St. Louis. Owing to the high prices realized in England for live lobsters, attempts have been made to ship live American lobsters to that market, generally from Canadian ports. In 1877 Messrs. John Marston & Sons, of Portland, made a trial shipment of 250. They were placed in a large tank 20 feet long by 8 feet wide and 3 feet deep, and constantly supplied with fresh seawater through six faucets by means of a donkey engine, a waste-pipe preventing any overflow. The trip was fairly successful, as only 50 died, and the balance brought from 60 to 75 cents per pound. The smacks and dealers buy lobsters by count, as the fishermen generally have no facilities for weighing them; but the dealers always sell by weight. The mortality among the lobsters from the time they are put aboard the smacks until they are barreled for shipment is estimated at about 5 per cent. BOILING. Live lobsters are much preferred by the trade throughout the country, and only those that can not be marketed in such condition are boiled. The number boiled fluctuates considerably, owing to the condition of the markets. When the fresh markets of Boston and New York are overstocked, the lobster dealers of Rockland and Portland, where most of the Maine lobsters are boiled, proceed to boil their surplus stock. The following description of the boiling is from The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States, section v, vol. II, p. 684: The boilers are rectangular wooden tanks or vats of about 60 gallons capacity, lined with zinc and furnished with a cover. Heat is applied by the introduction of steam through a series of perforated pipes arranged in the bottom of the tank. The steam is generated in an ordinary boiler standing close at hand. The lobsters are not thrown directly into the vat, as the operation of removing them after cooking would in such an event be an exceedingly tedious one; but an iron framework basket, of rather slender bars is made to fit the tank loosely, and is lowered and raised by means of a small derrick placed over the tank. This frame, which holds about 300 pounds, is filled with lobsters at the edge of the wharf from the floating cars, and is then carried to the tank and lowered into it after the water it contains has reached the desired temperature, that of boiling. The water is first supplied to the tank, which is filled to about one-third or two-thirds its capacity, about a peck of salt is added, and then the steam is turned on. The same water suffices for several successive boilings, about 2 quarts of salt being added each time. The lobsters are allowed to remain in about half an hour, or until the proper red color indicates they are sufficiently cooked. [Illustration: Boiling live lobsters preparatory to shipping on ice, showing boiler, steam tank, cage, etc.] After cooling, they are packed in barrels for shipment, just as live lobsters are. When well iced they will keep a week or longer. Only live lobsters are boiled, as the meat of those which die prior to boiling deteriorates rapidly. The fishermen and small dealers use various kinds of boilers, from an ordinary washboiler to a smaller form of the regular boiler used by the large dealers. The product prepared by these people is generally picked from the shell and sold locally in that condition. This opens a way for the fisherman to evade the 10-1/2 inch limit law. They frequently take lobsters under the minimum legal size and, after boiling them, pick the flesh. It is then impossible for anybody to tell what sized lobster the meat had come from. Quite a local trade in the picking of lobsters has been established in a number of small coast towns, the meat generally being sold in the immediate vicinity. The following table shows the extent of the wholesale lobster trade in Rockland and Portland during 1898, including everything connected with the business except the smacks and pounds, which are shown elsewhere. There are a few other dealers scattered along the coast, but most of the business is concentrated at these cities. An idea of the extent of the increase in the lobster trade of Portland can be gained when it is stated that in 1880 about 1,900,000 pounds of lobsters, valued at $70,000, were handled here, while 6,145,821 pounds, valued at $611,955, were handled in 1898. Extent of the wholesale lobster trade of Rockland and Portland in 1898. Rockland Portland -------- -------- Value of property, capital, and wages Property, etc $14,338 $44,770 Cars 850 6,800 Cash Capital 22,000 110,500 Wages 4,676 18,198 Number of persons engaged Firms 2 10* Proprietors 3 13 Clerks 2 2 Other Employees 7 31 Rockland Portland Lobsters bought -------------- --------------- and sold No. Value No. Value --------------- --- ----- --- ----- Bought, No. 692,188 4,097,214 Bought, lbs. 1,038,282 $89,984 6,145,821 $611,955 Sold, lbs. 795,934 91,532 5,308,027 690,045 Sold, lbs. 347,815 26,705 515,518 82,483 *Several of these firms also handle other fishery products. LOBSTER POUNDS For a number of years the catch of lobsters was sold by the fishermen to the dealers and by the latter to the trade as rapidly as possible. In doing this the markets would be flooded at certain times, when the price would drop to a very low figure, while at other times they would be very scarce, which would enhance the price materially. The dealers were the first to see the necessity for devising some method by which lobsters could be secured when they were plentiful and cheap and retained in captivity until they became scarce and high in price: Inclosures of various kinds had for some years been in use in the fisheries in various parts of the country for the purpose of keeping certain species alive until the time came to utilize them. In 1875 Johnson & Young, of Boston, established an inclosure or pound near Vinal Haven, on one of the Fox Islands. A cove covering about 500 acres, with an average depth of about 90 feet, was selected. A section of about 9 acres, separated from the main portion of the cove by a natural shoal and with a bottom of soft grayish mud, was selected for the pound. In order to make it proof against the efforts of the lobsters to escape and as a protection from enemies without, a wire fence was built over the shoal part. This section had a depth of from 15 to 60 feet, and a capacity of about 300,000, although there were rarely that many in the pound at one time. [Illustration: Inclosure for live lobsters at Vinal Haven, Maine] The lobsters are bought from smacks and from fishermen in the vicinity during the height of the fishing season, when the price is low, and are retained in the pound until the price becomes high, which is generally during the winter season. They are fed with fish offal, which can usually be bought at Vinal Haven for $1 per barrel. Oily fish are not fed to them, as it is said that the lobsters decrease in weight on such a diet. Experience has shown that the quantity of food required depends largely on the temperature of the water, as lobsters do not eat as freely when the water is cold as in water of a higher temperature. When wanted for shipment they are usually secured by means of pots, seines, or beam trawls. Even with such a successful example before them, other dealers were chary about going into the business, and in 1890 there were only three pounds in the whole State. They increased more rapidly after that, however, and in 1898 there were nine pounds in the State, with a total valuation of $18,700. These were located at Dyer Bay, Sunset, Vinal Haven, Long Island, South Bristol, Pemaquid Beach, Southport, and House Island, in Portland Harbor. It is very probable that there will be a greater increase in the near future. THE CANNING INDUSTRY. Maine is the only State in the Union in which lobsters have been canned. The following account of the inception and early history of the industry, taken from "The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States," is very complete: Lobster canning was first attempted in the United States at Eastport, Me., shortly after 1840, and was made successful in 1843, the methods finally employed having been borrowed from Scotland, which country is said to have learned the process from France. For the successful introduction of the process into the United States we are indebted to Mr. Charles Mitchell, now of Charlestown, Mass., a practical canner of Scotland, who had learned his trade of John Moir & Son, of Aberdeen, the first Scotch firm, it is claimed, to put up hermetically sealed preparations of meat, game, and salmon, their enterprise dating back to 1824. Mr. U. S. Treat, a native of Maine, appears, however, to have been most active and influential in starting the enterprise and in introducing canned goods into the markets of the United States. Mr. Treat was, at an early period, engaged in the preparation of smoked salmon on the Penobscot River, and in 1839 removed to Calais, Me., where he continued in the same business. About 1840 he associated with him a Mr. Noble, of Calais, and a Mr. Holliday, a native of Scotland, who had also been employed in the salmon fisheries of the Penobscot River, under the firm name of Treat, Noble & Holliday. This firm moved to Eastport in 1842, for the purpose of starting the manufacture of hermetically sealed goods, and began experiments with lobsters, salmon, and haddock. Their capital was limited, their appliances crude, and many discouraging difficulties were encountered. The quality of the cans furnished them was poor, causing them often to burst while in the bath, and the proper methods of bathing and of expelling the air from the cans were not understood. The experiments were continued for two years with varying success, and in secret, no outsiders being allowed to enter their bathing room. Though fairly successful in some of their results, they could not always depend upon their goods keeping well. In 1843 they secured the services of Mr. Charles Mitchell, who was then residing at Halifax, and who was not only well acquainted with the methods of bathing practiced in his own country, but was also a practical tinsmith. He had been employed in the canning of hermetically sealed goods in Scotland for ten years, and came over to Halifax in 1841, where he continued for two years in the same occupation, exporting his goods to England. After Mr. Mitchell's arrival at Eastport, no further difficulty was experienced in the bathing or other preparation of the lobsters, and a desirable grade of goods was put up, but they found no sale, as canned preparations were comparatively unknown in the markets of the United States. Mr. Treat visited each of the larger cities with samples of the goods, and endeavored to establish agencies for them, but he was generally obliged to send on consignment, as few firms were willing to take the responsibility of buying on their own account. A patent was also applied for, but the claim was not pressed and the patent was never received. The success at Eastport led to a rapid extension of the business in other parts of the State. The second cannery was located at Harpswell about the year 1849. A cannery was started at Carver Harbor, Fox Islands, in 1851, and another at Southwest Harbor in 1853. In 1857 a cannery was started at North Haven, and at Gouldsboro two were started in 1863 and 1870, respectively. From this time the number increased rapidly for several years. After 1880 the number operated fluctuated considerably, depending on the abundance of lobsters. Some canneries had to suspend operations at an early stage, owing to the exhaustion of the grounds in their vicinity. At most canneries lobsters formed only a part of the pack, sardines, clams, fish, and various vegetables and fruits being packed in their season. Most of the canneries were built and operated by Boston and Portland firms. At first the lobsters used for canning ranged in weight from 3 to 10 pounds. Gradually the average weight was reduced, until at last it reached as low as 3/4 pound, or even less. This was caused principally by the high prices paid for large lobsters for the fresh trade, with which the canneries could not compete. As the supply of lobsters on the Maine coast began to decrease shortly before 1870, while the demand for canned lobsters increased at an enormous rate, the dealers began to establish canneries on the coasts of the British provinces. As the decline in the supply was attributed to the canneries, a sentiment against them was gradually formed, and laws were enacted regulating the time in which they could operate and the size of the lobsters they could put up. Prior to 1879 they were permitted to pack lobsters at any season of the year, but they usually operated only between April 1 and August 1, and again between the 10th or middle of September and the 1st of December, the length of the season depending very largely upon the weather and the abundance of lobsters. In 1879 it was enacted that no canning of lobsters should be allowed from August 1 to April 1 following. In 1883 it was made illegal to can lobsters less than 9 inches in length. In 1885 the canning season was fixed from April 1 to July 15. In 1889 the season was fixed from May 1 to July 1, and the minimum length of lobsters to be canned placed at 9 inches. In 1891 this act was so amended as to make the season from April 20 to June 1. After 1880 the number of canneries gradually declined, until in 1895 the last one suspended the canning, of lobsters, owing to the passage of a law fixing the minimum size at 10-1/2 inches. This law went into effect July 1, 1895. As they could not afford to pay the high price demanded for this size they were compelled to give up the business. The following table shows the number of factories in operation, the quantity and value of fresh lobsters used, and the number and value of cans of lobsters put up, in the years 1880, 1889, and 1892: 1880 1889 1892 ------------- ------------- -------------- No. Value No. Value No. Value --- ----- --- ----- --- ----- Number of canneries 23 20 11 Lobsters used, fresh lbs. 9,494,284 $95,000 5,752,654 $72,092 9,494,284 $95,000 Canned One-lb cans 1,542,696 999,521 126,577 1,228,944 195,114 Two-lb cans 148,704 85,520 16,036 3,096 839 Other sizes 139,801 --------- ------- --------- ------- --------- ------- Total cans 1,831,201 238,280 1,085,041 142,613 1,232,040 195,953 Part of the lobsters used in the Eastport factories come from New Brunswick. It is impossible to separate them. ABUNDANCE, ETC. There are no accurate figures showing the catch of lobsters in Maine previous to 1880. It is therefore difficult to make comparisons, and one is compelled to depend largely upon the memory of the fishermen and the statements of the canners and dealers, which the lapse of time, etc., makes rather unreliable. The numerous petitions sent to the legislature asking for restrictive laws, while possibly exaggerated at times, indicate that there were fears of the exhaustion of the fishery for some years back. It is positively known, however, that certain grounds have been almost or totally exhausted through overfishing for a number of years, while on other grounds the supply of lobsters has seriously decreased. There was a time when no lobster under 2 pounds in weight was saved by the fishermen. In later years, before there was a restriction fixing the minimum size of lobsters that could be canned, the canneries frequently used half-pound lobsters. The fixing of the minimum length of the lobsters caught at 10-1/2 inches, and the consequent closing up of the canneries, has been of incalculable benefit to the fishermen, as the young lobsters now have an opportunity to reach maturity. The table given below shows for certain years the number of pots used, the quantity of lobsters taken, with their value, also the average catch and value per man, the average catch per pot, and the average price per pound: Average Average Average Average Catch catch stock catch price Fisher- ---------------- per per per per Year men Pots Pounds Value man man pot pound ---- --- ---- ------ ----- --- --- --- ----- pounds pounds cents 1880 1,843 104,456 14,234,182 $268,739 7,723 $146 136 1.9 1887 1,906 113,299 22,916,642 512,044 12,023 269 202 2.2 1888 1,967 112,632 21,694,731 515,880 11,029 267 193 2.4 1889 2,080 121,140 25,001,351 574,165 12,020 276 206 2.3 1892 2,628 153,043 17,642,677 663,043 6,713 252 117 3.8 1898 3,099 155,978 11,183,294 992,855 3,609 320 78 8.9 While the catch increased up to 1889 and then decreased until in 1898 it was lower than in 1880, the number of fisherman and pots and the value of the catch steadily increased. The average stock per man fluctuated somewhat from year to year, but in 1898 shows a considerable increase over every other year. The most interesting point however, is the average price per pound. In 1880 this was 1.9 cents, while in 1898 it was 8.9 cents per pound. With one exception, each year shows a progressive increase in value per pound. The great increase of 1898 over 1892, 5.1 cents per pound, was caused by the closing up of the canneries in 1895, and the consequent dropping out of the cheap product they had been buying from the fishermen. WEIGHT OF LOBSTERS. The figures given below show the average weight of lobsters at certain given lengths. These weights are made up from the results obtained by investigators of the United States Fish Commission, particularly those of Prof. Francis H. Herrick. Males in nearly every instance weigh slightly more than females of the same length. Weight Length in pounds. ------ --------- 9 inches 1.16 l0 inches 1.50 10-1/2 inches 1.75 11 inches 2 12 inches 2.50 13 inches 2.75 15 inches 4.25 CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF LOBSTERS. The nutritive value of a fishery product is of considerable interest to the consumer. Some years ago, Prof. W. O. Atwater, of Middletown, Connecticut, made a series of careful analyses of the composition of the flesh of three lobsters from the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts, and the figures given below represent the results: Per cent. --------- Proportions of edible portion and shell: Total edible portion 39.77 Shell 57.47 Loss in cleaning 2.76 Proportions of water and dry substance in edible portion: Water 82.73 Dry substance 17.27 Chemical analysis calculated on dry substance: Nitrogen 12.54 Albuminoids (nitrogen x 6.25) 78.37 Fat 11.43 Crude ash 10.06 Phosphorus (calculated as P2 O6) 2.24 Sulfur (calculated as SO3) 2.47 Chlorine 3.46 Chemical analysis calculated on fresh substance in flesh: Water 82.73 Nitrogen 2.17 Albuminoids (nitrogen x 6.25) 13.57 Fat 1.97 Crude ash 1.74 Phosphorus (calculated as P2 06) .39 Sulphur (calculated as SO3) .43 Chlorine .59 Nutritive value of flesh of lobsters compared with beef as a standard and reckoned at 100. 61.97 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF THE LOBSTER. The rapid increase in the catch of this crustacean during the past ten years has drawn upon it the most earnest attention of all interested in the preservation of this valuable fishery. If the "berried" or female lobster bearing eggs, and the young and immature, were let alone by the fishermen there would be no necessity for a resort to artificial lobster culture. Maine has a most stringent law forbidding the taking and selling of "berried" lobsters, and of any lobster under 10-1/2 inches in length, but this law is evaded by numerous fishermen whenever possible. An idea of the extent to which short lobsters are marketed in the State may be gathered from the statement of Mr. A. R. Nickerson, commissioner of sea and shore fisheries for the State, that in 1899 over 50,000 short lobsters were seized and liberated by the State wardens. As these wardens only discover a small proportion of the short lobsters handled by the fishermen and dealers it is easy to see what a terrible drain this is on the future hope of the fishery--the young and immature. Large numbers of "berried" lobsters are also captured, the eggs brushed off, and the lobsters sold as ordinary female lobsters. The Report of the U. S. Fish Commission for 1897, on pages 235 and 236, contains the following account of the artificial propagation of lobsters: Prior to 1885 experiments had been conducted at various points looking to the artificial propagation of the lobster. The only practical attempts of this nature previous to those made by the Fish Commission were by means of "parking," that is, holding in large naturally inclosed basins lobsters that had been injured, soft-shelled ones, and those below marketable size. Occasionally females with spawn were placed in the same inclosures. One of these parks was established in Massachusetts in 1872, but was afterwards abandoned; another was established on the coast of Maine about 1875. It was soon demonstrated, however, that the results from inclosures of this character, so far as the rearing of the lobsters from the young were concerned, would not be sufficient to materially affect the general supply. The completion of the new marine laboratory and hatchery at Woods Hole in 1885, with its complete system of salt-water circulation, permitted the commencement of experiments in artificial hatching on a large scale which had not been practicable theretofore, although small quantities of lobster eggs, as well as those of other crustaceans, had been successfully hatched. In 1886 the experiments had progressed so successfully that several million eggs were collected and hatched at Woods Hole, the fry being deposited in Vineyard Sound and adjacent waters. From 1887 to 1890, inclusive, the number of eggs collected was 17,821,000. During the above years the average production of fry was about 54 per cent. By the use of more improved apparatus the average was brought up to 90 per cent in 1897, when the collections amounted to 150,000,000 eggs, of which 135,000,000 were hatched. As the commissioner of sea and shore fisheries of Maine objected to the taking of female lobsters in that State and the planting of part, at least, of the resulting fry in other waters, an arrangement was made in 1898 by which all female lobsters and the fry hatched out from the eggs secured from these would be returned to the State waters. Under this arrangement 2,365 "berried" lobsters were bought from the Maine fishermen by the U. S. Fish Commission. From these 25,207,000 eggs were taken and 22,875,000 fry were hatched. Of these, 21,500,000 were deposited in Maine waters at various points. In 1899, 36,925,000 fry were planted in Maine waters by the Commission. In order that the female lobsters may be secured the authorities of Maine permit the fishermen to catch and sell "berried" lobsters to the Commission. The collection of eggs in Maine is usually made by the Commission during the months of April, May, June, and to about the middle of July, depending upon the supply to be had. During the season of 1899 a small steam smack was chartered for collecting the lobsters, starting from Gloucester, where the hatching of Maine lobster eggs is now carried on, and running to Eastport, returning over the same route. The Fish Commission schooner _Grampus_ was also used in this work. The lobsters are purchased from fishermen, who receive the market price for ordinary lobsters, and as they are not allowed to sell these lobsters legally for consumption the sale to the Commission materially increases their financial returns. In 1883 a radical advance along the line of artificial propagation was made, so far as the legislature was concerned, when the act incorporating the Samoset Island Association, of Boothbay, was passed. Section 4 of the charter reads as follows: In order to secure a sufficient and regular supply of lobsters for domestic consumption on any land or islands under the control of said corporation, it may increase the number of lobsters within said limits by artificial propagation, or other appropriate acts and methods, under the direction of the fishery commission, and shall not be interfered with by other parties, but be protected therein, as said fishery commission may determine, and shall have the right, by its agents and tenants, to take and catch lobsters within 300 yards of the low-water line of the islands and lands owned or leased by said corporation, during each and every month, for domestic use. In 1887 the legislature passed an act granting R. T. Carver the sole right to propagate lobsters in Carver's pond, Vinalhaven. Mr. Carver's experiment was a failure, as he says the mud in the pond was so filthy that nearly all the spawn was killed. LARGE AND PECULIAR LOBSTERS. Since the inception of the fishery, stories of the capture of lobsters weighing 30, 40, and even 50 pounds have been common, but have rarely been well authenticated. Especially is this the case in the early years of the fishery. It is probable that in the transmission of the stories from person to person the lobsters gained rather than lost in size. Among the most authentic cases in Maine are the following: On May 6, 1891, a male lobster weighing slightly over 23 pounds was taken in Penobscot Bay, southeast of Moose Point, in line with Brigadier Island, in about 3-1/2 fathoms of water, by Mr. John Condon. The lobster had tried to back into the trap, but after getting his tail through the funnel he was unable to get either in or out and was thus captured. According to Mr. F. W. Collins, a dealer of Rockland, in August, 1891, a lobster weighing 18-1/2 pounds was taken at Blue Hill Falls, in upper Blue Hill Bay, while in November, 1892, a female lobster weighing 18 pounds was taken at Green Island. In January, 1893, Mr. N. F. Trefethen, of Portland, received a lobster from Vinal Haven which weighed 18 pounds. According to R. F. Crie & Sons, of Criehaven, on September 7,1898, a male lobster weighing 25 pounds and measuring 25 inches from the end of the nose to the tip of tail, and 45 inches including the claws, was caught on a hake trawl by Peter Mitchell, a fisherman. The trawl was set about 2 miles southeast from Matinicus Rock Light Station in 60 fathoms of water. In August, 1899, the writer saw a live male lobster at Peak Island which measured 44 inches in length and weighed 25 pounds, according to the statement of the owner. It had been caught near Monhegan Island, and the owner was carrying it from town to town in a small car, which he had built for it, and charging a small fee to look at it. In April, 1874, a female lobster weighing about 2 pounds was caught off Hurricane Island. Her color was a rich indigo along the middle of the upper part of the body, shading off into a brighter and clearer tint on the sides and extremities. The upper surface of the large claws was blue and purple, faintly mottled with darker shades, while underneath was a delicate cream tint. The under parts of the body tended also to melt into a light cream color, and this was also true of the spines and tubercles of the shell and appendages. In 1893 a Peak Island fisherman caught a lobster about 11 inches in length whose back was of an indigo blue, and which toward the extremities and under parts was shaded off into a pure white. The under part of the claw was also of a pure white. Mr. Lewis McDonald, of Portland, has a pure white lobster preserved in alcohol. It was caught in 1887. A lobster was caught at Beal Island, near West Jonesport, which was about 6 or 7 inches in length and almost jet black. A few bright-red lobsters, looking as though they had been boiled, have also been taken along the coast at various times. A lobster was caught near Long Island, Casco Bay, about the year 1886, in which half of the body was light-yellow up to the middle line of the back, while the other half was bright-red. There were no spots on the shell. In September, 1898, Mr. R. T. Carver, of Vinal Haven, had in his possession a female lobster, about 11 inches long, of a bright-red color all over, except the forward half of the right side of the carapace and the feeler on this side, which were of the usual color. LAWS REGULATING THE FISHERY. In 1897 the legislature revised and consolidated the laws relating to the sea and shore fisheries of Maine, and below are given the sections relating to the lobster fishery adopted that year, together with the amendments to the act adopted in 1899, which are incorporated herewith: SEC. 39. It is unlawful to catch, buy or sell, or expose for sale, or possess for any purpose, any lobsters less than 10-1/2 inches in length, alive or dead, cooked or uncooked, measured in manner as follows: Taking the length of the back of the lobster, measured from the bone of the nose to the end of the bone of the middle of the flipper of the tail, the length to be taken in a gauge with a cleat upon each end of the same, measuring 10-1/2 inches between said cleats, with the lobster laid upon its back and extended upon its back upon the gauge, without stretching or pulling, to the end of the bone of the middle flipper of the tail, its natural length, and any lobster shorter than the prescribed length when caught, shall be liberated alive at the risk and cost of the parties taking them, under a penalty of $1 for each lobster so caught, bought, sold, exposed for sale, or in the possession not so liberated. The possession of mutilated, uncooked lobsters shall be prima facie evidence that they are not of the required length. SEC. 40. It is unlawful to destroy, buy, sell, expose for sale, or possess any female lobsters in spawn or with eggs attached at any season of the year, under a penalty of $10 for each lobster so destroyed, caught, bought, sold, exposed for sale, or possessed: _Provided, however_, If it appears that it was intended to liberate them in accordance with the provisions of this act, the persons having such lobsters in possession shall not be liable to any of the penalties herein provided for, though he may have failed, for any cause not within his control, to so liberate them. SEC. 41. It shall be unlawful to can, preserve, or pickle lobsters less than 10-1/2 inches in length, alive or dead, measured as aforesaid; and for every lobster canned, preserved, or pickled contrary to the provisions of this section every person, firm, association, or corporation so canning, preserving, or pickling shall be liable to a penalty of $1 for every lobster so canned, preserved, or pickled contrary to the provisions of this section, and a further penalty of $300 for every day on which such unlawful canning, preserving, or pickling is carried on. SEC. 42. All barrels, boxes, or other packages in transit containing lobsters shall be marked with the word lobsters in capital letters, at least 1 inch in length, together with the full name of the shipper. Said marking shall be placed in a plain and legible manner on the outside of such barrel, boxes, or other packages; and in case of seizure by any duly authorized officer of any barrels, boxes, or other packages in transit, containing lobsters, which are not so marked, or in case of seizure by such officer of barrels, boxes, or other packages in transit containing lobsters less than the prescribed length, such lobsters as are alive and less than the prescribed length shall be liberated and all such lobsters as are of the prescribed length found in such barrels, boxes, or packages, together with such barrels, boxes, and packages, shall be forfeited and disposed of under the provisions of section 47 of this act. SEC. 43. Every person, firm, association, or corporation who ships lobsters without having the barrels, boxes, or other packages in which the same are contained marked as prescribed in the previous section shall upon conviction be punished by a fine of $25, and upon subsequent conviction thereof by a fine of $50; and any person or corporation in the business of a common carrier of merchandise who shall carry or transport from place to place lobsters in barrels, boxes, or other packages not so marked shall be liable to a penalty of $50 upon such conviction thereof. SEC. 44. All cars in which lobsters are kept, and all lobster cars while in the water, shall have the name of the owner or owners thereof on the top of the car, where it may plainly be seen, in letters not less than three-fourths of an inch in length, plainly carved or branded thereon, and all traps, cars, or other devices for the catching of lobsters shall have, while in the water, the owner's name carved or branded in like manner on all the buoys attached to said traps or other devices, under a penalty of $10 for each car and $5 for each trap or device not so marked; and if sufficient proof to establish the ownership of such cars or traps can not be readily obtained, they may be declared forfeited, subject to the provisions of section 47 of this act. SEC. 45. All persons are hereby prohibited from setting any lobster traps within 300 feet of the mouth or outer end of the leaders of any fish weir, under a penalty of $10 for each offense. SEC. 46. Whoever takes up, or attempts to take up, or in any way knowingly and willfully interferes with any lobster trap while set for use, without the authority of the owner thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than $20, nor more than $50; _Provided, however_, That no action, complaint, or indictment shall be maintained under this section unless the name of the owner of all such traps shall be carved or branded in legible letters, not less than three-fourths of an inch in length, on all the buoys connected with such traps. SEC. 47. When any lobsters are seized by virtue of the provisions of this act, it shall be the duty of the officer making such seizure to cause such lobsters, so seized, as he is not required by law to liberate, together with the cars, traps, barrels, boxes, or other packages in which they are contained, to be appraised within 24 hours after the time of such seizures by three disinterested men residing in the county where such seizure is made, to be selected by him, and the lobsters, cars, traps, barrels, boxes, or other packages so seized and appraised shall thereupon be sold by the officer making the seizure thereof, at such time and in such manner as shall by him be deemed proper. The officer making such seizure and sale shall within ten days after the time of such seizure file a libel in behalf of the State before a trial justice, or a judge of a police or municipal court of the county in which such seizure was made, setting forth the fact of such seizure, appraisal, and sale, the time and place of the seizure, the number of lobsters, cars, traps, barrels, boxes, or other packages so seized and sold, and the amount of the proceeds of such sale; and such trial justice or judge shall appoint a time and place for the hearing of such libel, and shall issue a notice of the same to all persons interested to appear at the time and place appointed, and show cause why the lobsters, cars, traps, barrels, boxes, or other packages so seized and sold, and the proceeds of such sale, should not be declared forfeited, which notice shall be served upon the owner, if known, and by causing an attested copy of such libel and notice to be posted in two public and conspicuous places in the town in which the seizure was made, seven days at least before the time of hearing. If any person appears at the time and place of hearing, and claims that the lobsters, cars, traps, barrels, boxes, or other packages so seized and sold were not liable to forfeiture at the time of seizure, and that he was entitled thereto, the trial justice or judge shall hear and determine the cause, and if he shall decide that such lobsters, cars, traps, barrels, boxes, or other packages, at the time of seizure, were not liable to forfeiture, and that the claimant was entitled thereto, he shall order the proceeds of such sale to be paid to the claimant; if no claimant shall appear, or if such trial justice or judge shall decide that such lobsters, traps, cars, barrels, boxes, or other packages, at the time of the seizure, were liable to forfeiture, or that the claimant was not entitled thereto, he shall decree a forfeiture of such lobsters, cars, traps, barrels, boxes, or other packages, and of the proceeds of sale, and shall order the proceeds of sale, after deducting all lawful charges, to be paid to the county treasurer, and by him to the State treasurer, to be used as directed in section 48 of this act, and shall render judgment against the claimant for costs to be taxed as in civil suits, and issue execution therefor against him in favor of the State, which costs, when collected, shall be paid in to the treasurer of the county, and by him to the treasurer of the State, to be added and made a part of the appropriation for sea and shore fisheries. The claimant shall have the right of appeal to the next supreme judicial court or superior court in the county, upon recognizing and paying the fees for copies and entry as in cases of appeal in criminal cases. The fees and costs of seizure, appraisal, and sale, and in all other proceedings in the case, shall be as provided by law in criminal cases, and in case a forfeiture shall be declared, shall be paid out of the proceeds of the sale, otherwise shall be paid by the county, as in criminal cases. SEC. 48. All fines and penalties under this act may be recovered by complaint, indictment, or action of debt brought in the county where the offense is committed. The action of debt shall be brought in the name of the commissioner of sea and shore fisheries, and all offenses under or violations of the provisions of this statute may be settled by the commissioner of sea and shore fisheries, upon such terms and conditions as he deems advisable. All fines, penalties, and collections under this act shall be paid into the treasury of the county where the offense is committed, and by such treasurer to the State treasurer, to be added to and made a part of the appropriation for sea and shore fisheries. SEC. 49. The commissioner of sea and shore fisheries may take fish of any kind, when, where, and in such manner as he chooses, for the purposes of science, of cultivation, and of dissemination, and he may grant written permits to other persons to take fish for the same purposes, and may introduce or permit to be introduced any kind of fish into any waters. The following special act was passed at the 1899 session of the legislature: SEC. 1. No person shall take, catch, kill, or destroy any lobsters between the 1st day of July and the 1st day of September in each year, under a penalty of $1 for each lobster so taken, caught, killed, or destroyed, in the waters of Pigeon Hill Bay, so called, in the towns of Millbridge and Steuben, within the following points, namely: Commencing at Woods Pond Point, on the west side of Pigeon Hill Bay; thence easterly to the Nubble, on Little Bois Bubert Island; thence by the shore to the head of Bois Bubert Island; thence northerly to Joe Dyers Point, so called; thence by the shore around Long Cove and the creek; thence to the head of Pigeon Hill Bay aforesaid; thence by the shore to the first-mentioned bound. SEC. 2. All fines and penalties under this act may be recovered as provided in section 48 of chapter 285 of the Public Laws of 1897. IMPORTATIONS OF LIVE LOBSTERS. For some years there have been considerable importations of live lobsters into Maine from the British Provinces, particularly from New Brunswick; previous to the closing up of the canning industry they were more numerous than at present, as considerable numbers were brought in by boat fishermen for the canneries at or near Eastport. The importations are now made by the dealers, who frequently send their own smacks into the Provinces for a supply when lobsters are scarce in the State. The following table shows the importations into the State, by customs districts, for the fiscal year 1898: 1898 ------------------ Customs districts. Pounds Value ------ ------ Aroostook 150 $12 Bangor. 246,991 43,507 Machias 700 91 Passamaquoddy 327,481 35,373 Portland and Falmouth 214,075 13,037 Waldoboro 43,264 3,211 Wiscasset 28,000 1,120 STATISTICAL SUMMARY OF THE LOBSTER INDUSTRY IN MAINE IN 1898. The following tables show the statistical data relating to the fishery for 1898; except the wholesale trade of Rockland and Portland, which is shown elsewhere. While Hancock County leads in the number of vessel fishermen with 173, Knox County has the largest number of persons transporting, 78. In the boat fishermen, Washington County leads with 639, followed closely by Knox County with 606. In the total number of persons employed Knox County leads with 749, while Washington and Hancock counties have very nearly the same number, 695 and 683, respectively. The total number of persons employed was 3,304. Hancock County leads in the number of vessels fishing, 78, valued at $33,000, while Knox County leads in the number of transporting vessels, 33, valued at $51,900, and is also second in the number of fishing vessels. Cumberland County is second in the number of transporting vessels. This county has more steam transporting vessels than all the other counties combined, 8, valued at $31,200. In the matter of boats engaged in the shore fishery Knox County also has the preeminence, with 696 boats, valued at $37,175. Lincoln, Hancock, and Washington counties follow in the order named, and are all three very close to each other. Hancock County leads in the number of pots used in the vessel fishery, 7,146, while Knox County is second. Knox County leads in the number of pots used in shore fisheries with 39,040, valued at $39,030, and is followed by Lincoln County with 29,190 pots, valued at $29,190. In the matter of shore property Lincoln County leads with $16,917, although if the property used in the wholesale trade had been included in this table Cumberland County would lead. In the total investment Knox County leads with $169,056. Hancock County comes second, with $136,651, followed by Washington and Cumberland counties, respectively. The total investment for the whole State is $616,668. In vessel catch Hancock County leads with 444,704 pounds, valued at $47,101. Knox County is second with 286,688 pounds, valued at $29,395. In the boat catch Hancock County also leads with 2,198,518 pounds, valued at $204,390, while Knox County is a close second with 2,165,256 pounds, valued at $186,968. Lincoln County is third and Washington County fourth. The total catch for the State is 11,183,294 pounds, valued at $992,855. Table showing by counties the number of persons employed in the lobster fishery of Maine in 1898. Vessel Boat fisher- Trans- fisher- Shores- County men porters men men Total ------ --- ------- --- --- ----- Washington 30 19 639 7 695 Hancock 173 27 480 3 683 Penobscot 2 2 Waldo 19 19 Knox 55 78 606 10 749 Lincoln 12 11 447 4 474 Sagadahoc. 2 98 100 Cumberland 10 45 379 6 440 York 4 3 135 142 --- --- ----- -- ----- Total 280 185 2,803 30 3,304 Table showing by counties the vessels, boats, apparatus, and shore property employed in the lobster fishery of Maine in 1898. Washington Hancock Penobscot Waldo ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- Items. No. Value. No. Value. No. Value. No. Value. Vessels fishing 10 $5,850 78 $33,000 1 $350 Tonnage 76 593 5 Outfit. 1,169 4,995 15 Vessels trans- porting--steam 1 8,350 2 6,500 Tonnage 34 26 Outfit 1,835 1,950 Vessels trans- porting--sail 5 8,500 8 9,900 Tonnage 94 99 Outfit 790 885 Boats trans- porting (steamers and launches under 5 tons) 1 1,100 1 4,950 Sailboats fishing 259 56,170 225 34,290 Rowboats fishing 209 2,390 250 3,285 17 $255 Pots used in vessel fisheries 1,710 1,710 7,146 7,146 82 82 Pots used in shore fisheries 22,390 22,373 23,880 23,880 575 575 Shore property 4,015 5,870 102 ------- ------- --- --- Total 114.252 136,651 447 932 Knox Lincoln Sagadahoc Cumberland ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- Items. No. Value. No. Value. No. Value. No. Value. Vessels fishing 28 $13,250 6 $4,200 5 $1,950 Tonnage 184 42 30 Outfit. 3,923 619 335 Vessels trans- porting--steam 3 18,000 8 31,200 Tonnage 31 109 Outfit 5,175 5,484 Vessels trans- porting--sail 30 33,900 4 6,200 10 11,800 Tonnage 574 73 173 Outfit 4,881 877 1,814 Boats trans- porting (steamers and launches under 5 tons) 1 1,100 1 $1,100 Sailboats fishing 212 31,760 132 12,975 1 125 154 13,635 Rowboats fishing 484 5,415 351 3,571 90 1,185 186 3,571 Pots used in vessel fisheries 4,140 4,140 510 510 400 400 Pots used in shore fisheries 39,040 39,030 29,190 29,190 2,138 1,964 17,932 17,932 Shore property 9,582 16,917 730 9,416 ------- ------ ----- ------ Total 169,056 76,159 5,104 97,537 York Total ----------- ----------- Items. No. Value. No. Value Vessels fishing 2 $1,600 130 $60,200 Tonnage 16 946 Outfit. 225 11,281 Vessels trans- porting--steam 14 64,050 Tonnage 200 Outfit 14,444 Vessels trans- porting--sail 2 550 59 70,850 Tonnage 14 1,027 Outfit 65 9,312 Boats trans- porting (steamers and launches under 5 tons) 4 8,250 Sailboats fishing 47 2,085 1,030 151,040 Rowboats fishing 81 1,860 1,668 21,532 Pots used in vessel fisheries 250 250 14,238 14,238 Pots used in shore fisheries 6,595 6,595 141,740 141,530 Shore property 3,300 49,932 ------- ------- Total 16,530 616,668* *The property, cash capital, etc., in the wholesale trade of Rockland and Portland is shown elsewhere. Table showing by counties, vessels, and boats the yield in the lobster fishery of Maine in 1898. Vessel catch Boat catch Total -------------- ---------------- --------------- Counties Pounds Value Pounds Value Pounds Value --------- ------ ----- ------ ----- ------ ----- Washington 82,809 $7,312 1,545,895 $132,877 1,628,704 $140,189 Hancock 444,704 47,101 2,198,518 204,390 2,643,222 251,491 Penobscot 1,264 118 1,264 118 Waldo 17,766 1,713 17,766 1,713 Knox 286,688 29,395 2,165,256 186,968 2,451,944 216,363 Lincoln 48,872 4,157 2,106,645 181,617 2,155,517 185,774 Sagadahoc 384,900 30,392 384,900 30,392 Cumberland 22,253 2,000 1,401,338 118,616 1,423,591 120,616 York 21,241 1,841 455,145 44,358 476,386 46,199 ------- ------ ---------- ------- ---------- ------- Total 907,831 91,924 10,275,463 900,931 11,183,294 992,855 
15035	----	Watch, Rockland, Maine Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original tables and maps. See 15035-h.htm or 15035-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/0/3/15035/15035-h/15035-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/0/3/15035/15035-h.zip) FISHING GROUNDS OF THE GULF OF MAINE [1] by WALTER H. RICH Agent, United States Bureau of Fisheries CONTENTS Introduction Acknowledgements Gulf of Maine Geographical and Historical Name Description Bay of Fundy Inner Grounds Outer Grounds Georges Area Offshore Banks Tables of Catch, 1927 Maps Index to grounds PREFACE TO THE 1994 EDITION Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine by Walter H. Rich first appeared in the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Fisheries, Report of the United States Commissioner of Fisheries, for the fiscal year 1929. When Captain Robert McLellan of Boothbay Harbor died in 1981, the employees of the Maine Department of Marine Resources contributed money to be used to purchase books in his memory, for the Department's Fishermen's Library. Captain McLellan's family was asked what purchases they would recommend, and a top priority was to somehow reprint this work on the fishing grounds. This was a book that had been helpful to Captain McLellan in his career, and one which his son, Captain Richard McLellan, found still valid and useful. Contributions from the employees of the Department of Marine Resources paid to get this project started; film to reproduce the pages of the original text was donated by the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences; printing costs were paid by the Department. It is the hope of the Department and its employees that the fishermen of today will benefit from the detailed information in this publication, and that they will remember Captain Robert McLellan, a man who knew how to use books to enhance his career as a fisherman, who knew how to share his knowledge with the scientific community, and who was widely respected by fishermen and scientists alike. INTRODUCTION Paralleling the northeastern coast line of North America lies a long chain of fishing banks--a series of plateaus and ridges rising from the ocean bed to make comparatively shallow soundings. From very early times these grounds have been known to and visited by the adventurers of the nations of western Europe--Northman, Breton, Basque, Portuguese, Spaniard, Frenchman, and Englishman. For centuries these fishing areas have played a large part in feeding the nations bordering upon the Western Ocean, and the development of their resources has been a great factor in the exploration of the New World. According to statistics collected by the Bureau of Fisheries.[2] these banks annually produce over 400,000,000 pounds of fishery products, which are landed in the United States; and, according to O. E. Sette,[3] annually about 1,000,000,000 pounds of cod are taken on these banks and landed in the United States, Canada, Newfoundland, France, and Portugal. Apparently the earliest known and certainly the most extensive of these is the Great Bank of Newfoundland, so named from time immemorial. From the Flemish Cap, in 44° 06' west longitude and 47° north latitude, marking the easternmost point of this great area, extends the Grand Bank westward and southwestward over about 600 miles of length. Thence, other grounds continue the chain, passing along through the Green Bank, St. Peters Bank, Western Bank (made up of several more or less connected grounds, such as Misaine Bank, Banquereau, The Gully, and Sable Island Bank); thence southwest through Emerald Bank, Sambro, Roseway, La Have, Seal Island Ground, Browns Bank, and Georges Bank with its southwestern extension of Nantucket Shoals. To all these is added the long shelving area extending from the coast out to the edge of the continental plateau and stretching from the South Shoal off Nantucket to New York, making in all, from the eastern part of the Grand Bank to New York Bay, a distance of about 2,000 miles, an almost continuous extent of most productive fishing ground. Within the bowl that is the Gulf of Maine, the outer margin of which is made by the shoaling of the water over the Seal Island Grounds, Browns Bank, and Georges Bank, this chain is further extended by another series of smaller grounds, as Grand Manan Bank, the German Bank, Jeffreys Bank, Cashes Bank, Platts Bank, Jeffreys Ledge, Fippenies Bank, Stellwagen or Middle Bank; and again, lying inside these, this fishing area is increased by a very large number of smaller grounds and fishing spots located within a very short distance of the mainland. All these banks are breeding places of the most valued of our food fishes--the cod, haddock, cusk, hake, pollock, and halibut--and each in its proper season furnishes fishing ground where are taken many other important species of migratory and pelagic food fishes as well as those named here. It is probable that no other fishing area equaling this in size or in productivity exists anywhere else in the world, and the figures of the total catch taken from it must show an enormous poundage and a most imposing sum representing the value of its fishery. With the most distant of these grounds we shall not deal here, leaving them for later consideration when noting certain of the fishery operations most characteristic of them. Thus, we may treat of those well-defined areas that lie within or are adjacent to the Gulf of Maine, such as the Bay of Fundy, the Inner Grounds (those close to the mainland), the Outer Grounds (those within the gulf), the Georges area, Seal Island Grounds, and Browns Bank, these forming the outer margin of the gulf; and also make mention of certain others of those nearer offshore banks that are most closely connected with the market fishery of the three principal fishing ports within the Gulf of Maine. [Footnote 1: First published as Appendix III to the Report of the US Commissioner of Fisheries for 1929. Bureau of Fisheries Doc# 1059. Submitted for publication Jan 18,1929.] [Footnote 2: U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Statistical Bulletin No. 703] [Footnote 3: U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Document No. 1034] ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As to the charts, it has been the writer's endeavor, by consulting a large number of fishing captains of long experience upon these grounds, to reduce the margin of inaccuracy as much as possible. In case of conflict of their opinion, the greatest agreement as to the facts has been accepted. The grounds as drawn are not meant to include any definite depth curve but are meant to show certain fishing areas. It is known of course, that most species frequent the shallows and the deep water at the various seasons: also, that certain other species are found on the deeper soundings during virtually all the year. Thus, if a given area appears as a larger ground than is shown upon other charts made for navigating purposes, often this is because we have included in it a cusk ground or a hake bottom lying adjacent to the shoal as charted. A large number of these grounds have been described before by G. Browne Goode and others, and where possible their work has been used as a basis for the present paper, with any further information or the noting of any changed condition of the grounds or difference in fishing methods employed upon them that was obtainable. Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to the many captains who furnished information that, made the drawing of the charts possible and for the facts used in the descriptions of the fishing grounds. With the offshore banks, particularly with the Georges area and Browns Bank and to a certain extent, also, the western portion of the Inner Grounds, the writer has had a considerable personal acquaintance from which to draw. For the geographical and historical data the writer has quoted freely from various modern authors, who, in their turn, have drawn their facts from older records. Among those quoted are Holmes's American Annals; Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New World; Southgates History of Scarburo; Abbott and Elwell's History of Maine; Willis's History of Maine; Sabine's Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas; A History of the Discovery of the East Coast of North America, by Dr. John G. Kohl, of Bremen, Germany; various chapters of Hakluyt's Voyages; the Journal of John Jocelyn, Gent.; and New England Trials of the famous Captain John Smith. GULF OF MAINE--GEOGRAPHICAL & HISTORICAL NAME What is apparently the earliest mention of this body of water appears on some old Icelandic charts that show, roughly, Cape Cod Bay in their southern areas and the Bay of Fundy in the northern. On these maps the cape itself was shown on the "Promontory of Vinland" and was given the name Kialarnes, or the Ship's Nose, from its resemblance in form to the high upturned prow of the old Norse ships. To the entire area of the gulf was given the title Vinland's Haf. Oviedo (Historia General de las Indias) sometimes names this gulf the Arcipelago de La Tramontana, or the Arcipelago Septentrional--the northern archipelago. He gives us to understand that he, himself, or Chaves, had this information from the Report and Survey of Gomez, who, in his search for a northwest passage to Asia in 1525, "discovered all these coasts lying between 41° and 41° 30' north". As a matter of fact, his careful explorations certainly covered all the territory between 40 and 45 degrees. The Spanish navigators who followed Gomez, in describing these coasts, when indicating this gulf, usually named it in honor of Gomez, the first of their nation to make a careful survey of its shores. Thus it became known as the Arcipelago de Estevan Gomez, and the mainland behind it as La Tierra de Gomez. It was so named on the map of Ribero in 1529 who thus acknowledged the source of his information. The Biscayans followed Gomez but later gave way to the French fishermen, who followed down the chain of banks extending southward from the Grand Bank and entered these waters by way of Cape Sable. These gave to it the name Gulf of Norumbega or Sea of Norumbega. The name Norumbega was for a time applied to the coast lands and to the inland country stretching away indefinitely westward and northwestward from the waters of the gulf. Later, with the coming of the English and the establishment of their colony in Massachusetts, the title Massachusetts Bay came into general use, although this name was afterwards restricted to the smaller section of the gulf at present so termed. The charter of Gorges (in April, 1639) designated the territory deeded to him as the Province or County of Maine,[4] whence, perhaps, the modern custom of referring to these waters as the Gulf of Maine may have arisen. This latest name seems especially appropriate, in view of the fact that the present State of Maine lying directly opposite its entrance capes, stretches along the inner borders of the gulf and with its deeply indented shore line occupies by far the greatest section of its coasts. Thus the title has finally come into general use and acceptance in modern times. Apparently it was first officially proposed and used by the Edinburgh Encyclopedia in 1832 [5] and later was adopted by the United States Coast Survey. [Footnote 4: "All that parte, purport and porcion of the Mayne Land of New England, we doe name, ordeyne and appoynt shall forever hereafter bee called and named The Province and Countie of Mayne."] [Footnote 5: Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Philadelphia edition, by Thomas Parker, Vol. XVIII, p. 263.] DESCRIPTION A very striking and peculiar body of water is this Gulf of Maine, markedly different in character from any other of the bays on the coast line of the eastern United States. Especially does it differ in the depth of its coastal waters, where in all the others, except the much smaller New York Bay, the shoal water is found extending far out from the land. In the Gulf of Maine, however, with the single exception of the vicinity of Ammens Rock on the eastern part of Cashes Bank, the entire central area presents navigable deep water having a mean depth of 100 fathoms, out of which rise the various underwater plateaus, whose depths average about 50 fathoms and which constitute the larger of the fishing grounds. In addition to these, many smaller banks and "fishing spots" are found nearer the land where they lie a along the 50-fathom curve. In general this curve lies at a distance of about 16 miles from the coast line, but in many instances it approaches much neared to the mainland. From this 50-fathom depth the soundings decrease very gradually to the 20 and 10 fathom marks. These latter soundings are often held far in toward the coast line, even carrying the deep water well into the river mouths, so that in deeply indented hays, in long inlets running far into land, in the river mouths, the deep water behind the rocky headlands, or in the lee of the thousands of surf-washed islands that line the coast, are found innumerable safe anchorages within easy run of the fishing grounds, where the fleets may take shelter from a sudden blow or await the arrival of a "fish day," when conditions may permit "making a set" under the hardships of winter fishing. If the marine features of this region are radically different from those of other coastal bodies of the eastern United States, so, too, the shore land, battered as it has been by sea and storm or worn by glacial action or Arctic currents, is no less remarkable. No other section of the eastern United States has a similar coast, so serrated, indented, and rugged, as has this shore line of the Gulf of Maine. Here the battering by the forces of nature has resulted in making thousands of safe harbors and havens for the navigator. All along shore are strewn hundreds of islands, a characteristic feature of the region and one noted with wonder by every early explorer. [6] These islands, if near the land, are beautiful and smiling; if in the open sea, of rugged grandeur; and mainland and island alike are inhabited by a numerous and hardy race of fisher folk. The tides within the Gulf of Maine have a very great rise and fall as compared with other waters in this region. At the south of Cape Cod tides are seldom over 4 feet in their range, but beginning at once at the north of Cape Cod with a rise of from 7 to 10 feet these increase quite constantly as they go eastward reaching about 28 feet in the neighborhood of Passamaquoddy Bay, to touch their highest point in the Bay of Fundy, where in many places is a rise and fall of 50 feet, and in some few places tides of 70 feet are reported. These Fundy tides probably are the greatest in the world. This great ebb and flow of water serves to aid shipbuilding and the launching of vessels as well as to carry the deep water far up into the inlets of the coast and into the mouths of the rivers, making these navigable for crafts of considerable size well into the land or up to the lowest falls of the streams. The climate here is one of extremes, and, lying as it does between 42° and 45° north latitude, the region may be said to be cold. Apparently the waters of the Gulf of Maine are not affected by any stray current from the Gulf Stream, which passes at a considerable distance from its mouth, thus doing little to temper the cold of this area either on land or at sea. Whether these waters are cooled further by any flow from the Labrador Current may be questioned. The winters are long, usually bringing heavy snowfalls; and strong gales are frequent during much of the fall and winter season. Perhaps the most dangerous of these "blows" come out of the mountain to the north and northwest of the gulf. Thus, in addition to the uncertainty of an opportunity to set gear when once upon the fishing grounds, the winter fishing here is not without its element of serious danger. While the ice crop in northern New England never fails, yet, perhaps because of the strong tidal currents of these waters, the principal harbors rarely are closed by ice, or, if closed, for but a few days only. While the summers are fairly mild and in certain parts of them even extremely hot, fogs are heavy and virtually continuous during the "dog days" (July 20 to September 1). when southerly and south-westerly breezes bring the warm moist air from the Gulf Stream into the cooler currents from the land. The fogs of Fundy are especially noted, even in these waters. During the summer seasons winds from the east and north bring the only clear weather experienced in the outer chain of fishing grounds. The main body of the gulf lies approximately between 42° and 45° north latitude. It is in form like a deep bowl whose outer rim is made by Georges Bank and Browns Bank, with a narrow, deep-water spillway between: its area is half encircled in the arms of the mainland, two conspicuous headlands reaching bodily seaward to mark its wide entrance at the opposite sides--Cape Cod, Mass. [7] on the western side, and Cape Sable, [8] Nova Scotia, on the eastern flank, distant from each other about 230 miles. These two capes range with each other about ENE. and WSW, thus matching alike the general trend of the coast line, of the island chains and of the offshore ledges within this area. From a base line connecting these outposts of the gulf the distance to the Maine coast opposite averages about 120 miles. From Cape Sable, at its eastern end, the coast trends for some distance to the northwest, whence a continuation of this course strikes the coast of Maine near West Quoddy Head at a distance of rather more than 110 miles. From West Quoddy head to Cape Elizabeth (in a direct line about 160 miles) the coast, in general rough, rocky, and with many lofty headlands is extremely irregular and deeply indented and follows a general course of WSW. Thence, the coast, lower and becoming more and more sandy, begins to trend more decidedly south-west until it reaches Boston, when it turns to the southeast, and to the east toward Cape Cod. But this is not the entire story. There remain outside of these stated limits the Bay of Fundy in the north, with a possible area of 3,000 square miles; and at the south Cape Cod Bay, whose area, with that of the waters west of a perpendicular drawn from the western end of the base line that strikes the land in the vicinity of Portsmouth, N. H. makes an additional section containing close to 1,500 square miles. Within the limits thus inclosed there are, roughly, 30,000 square miles of most productive ground most intensively fished through all the year. The Bay of Fundy is divided at its head by Cape Chignecto, making two branches to north and to east--Chignecto Bay and Minas Basin. With these smaller areas, lying as they do entirely within the territorial limits of Canada, American fishermen have little to do, although both are valuable and productive fishing grounds. [Footnote 6: William Strachey (1609), speaking particularly of Casco Bay, but the words equally applicable to almost any stretch of the Maine coast, says "A very great bay in which there lyeth soe many islands and soe thick and neere together, that can hardly be discerned the number, yet may any ship pause betwixt, the greatest part of them having seldom lesse water than eight or ten fathoms about them"--History of Travalle into Virginia Britannica.] [Footnote 7: This, the most striking cape of the Atlantic coast line, made a very prominent landmark for all the early ocean voyagers approaching it, and all were greatly impressed by it, whether they came from the south and fought their way through its shoals to eastward, or, coming from the north, found themselves caught in the deep pocket which it makes with Cape Cod Bay. The Spaniard Gomez (1525) gave it the name "Cabo de do Aricifes" cape of the reefs, referring to the dangerous shoals to the eastward. The Frenchmen Champlain and Du Monts named it "Cape Blanc", and the Dutch pilots, also noting its sandy cliffs, called it Witte Hoeck. The English mariners at first accepted his last name of White Cape, but the English Captain Anthony Gosnold, the first to make a direct passage to the waters of the Gulf of Maine from Europe, although at first he called it "Shoal Hope", soon changed this, because of the success of his fishing, to "Cape Cod", which title, commonplace though it be, has been the name to endure despite Prince Charles's attempt to change it to Cape James in honor of his father.] [Footnote 8: Cape Sable, at the southern end of Nova Scotia, has held this title from very old times. It is so indicated on a Portuguese map of the middle of the sixteenth century.] BAY OF FUNDY At the different seasons of the year the entire Bay of Fundy [9] is a fishing ground for sardines and large herring; and while these are of somewhat less importance in recent years than formerly, the principal fisheries of this region still center around the herring industries--the supplying of the canning factories with the small herring used as sardines and the taking of large herring for food and bait. The sardine industry of the State of Maine is largely concentrated in the district about and including Eastport and Lubec, where about 30 of the 59 factories and 16 of the 43 operating firms are located; so that, while the herring catches of recent years have fallen much short of their former proportions, they still show imposing figures. In the past much of the catch was taken in St. Andrews (Passamaquoddy) Bay and along the north shore of the Bay of Fundy to Lepreau Bay and Point. Lepreau. Of late years virtually no herring have been taken in these waters, in which the herring schools that arrive in October were accustomed to remain until spring. Of past fishing in this locality Capt. Sumner Stuart, of Lubec, says: "The herring left St. Andrews Bay and the North Shore about 1885. There is no summer netting there now. Those waters and Lepreau Bay were formerly very productive fishing grounds, it being not unusual to take 5,000 (count) big herrings (food fish) in a single haul. These were mainly spring and winter fishing grounds for large herring. The fish seem to have disappeared from all these grounds at about the same time.[10] "In past years (25 to 30 years ago) small herring were driven ashore in such quantities by their enemies--squid, silver hake and dogfish--that it sometimes became necessary for the authorities at St. John to use a snowplow to cover them where they lay decaying on the beach." From the statistics of the sardine and smoked-herring industry for the year 1924 (a year, be it noted, in which the sardine industry almost reached low--level mark for the pack) the waters of the Bay of Fundy furnished to American purchasers alone a total of herring for smoking and canning purposes amounting to 76,756,250 pounds valued to the fishermen at $957,665. This showing, poor as it is when compared with the figures of other years, by no means represents the herring fishery as an unimportant industry. There still remains to be accounted for the catch of herring of Grand Manan and the neighboring Canadian Provinces. A new source of profit to the fishermen in this industry has been developed in the purchase of herring scales by firms engaged in the manufacture of artificial pearls. For this purpose there were collected at Eastport and Lubec 700,000 pounds of herring scales, valued at $39,000; and a further amount was taken at Grand Manan of 140,000 pounds, valued at $7,000. With other entrants already in the field, this branch of the industry bids fair to grow to still greater importance. An estimate of the number of weirs in St. Andrews Bay, by Capt. Guilford Mitchell of Eastport, Me., is as follows: Canadian: 1921: 126 weirs 1923: 40 weirs Calais to Eastport: 1921: 35 weirs; 1923: 7 weirs Total number in operation, 1923, Canadian, about 300; American less than 130. North Shore and coast of Nova Scotia. Along the North Shore and from Yarmouth to Cape Sable, over a hard bottom, cod abound. The western shore of Nova Scotia is virtually all fishing ground for cod, haddock, hake, and cusk, but trawling is somewhat handicapped here by strong tides and rocky bottom, these combining to destroy much gear. Halibut are somewhat unusual on this western shore except about the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, but in summer these fish are occasionally found close inshore along the southwest coast, going somewhat beyond Digby to the northward. Haddocking is quite an important industry off Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, during the winter, the sets being of rather short duration and made at the slack of the tide at high water. This practice is made necessary by the heavy tidal currents on these grounds. The whole western coast of Nova Scotia is herring ground at some season of the year. "Drifting" for herring was formerly a considerable industry from Digby to Briers Island, but in these last few years it has not been important, although the year 1927 had a very good run of large food fish. This western coast is also an important fishing area for lobster men. Swordfishing in the Bay of Fundy was formerly profitable in September, although these fish were never so numerous here as upon the outer shore of Nova Scotia. St. Marys Bay is a summer herring ground. Good haddocking may be had here, also, from April 15 to October 15, with the period from the opening of the fishing in April up to July 15 the best of it. The mackerel fishery of the Bay of Fundy seems of comparatively small importance in these latter years. The local fishermen say that the fish can not stem the tides of these waters! The abundance of small herring should be an inducement sufficient to bring them here. Apparently these fish pass straight inshore northwesterly and reach the coast of Maine. A considerable amount of this species is taken by traps and by netting in St. Marys Bay and in the general vicinity of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, as at Cranberry Head, Burns Point. Beaver River, Woods Harbor, and at various other points between Yarmouth and Cape Sable; but the inner waters of the Bay of Fundy show very slim catches when compared with the great amount taken on the outer shores of Nova Scotia in a normal mackerel season. It has been 32 years, it is said, since any number of mackerel have been "hooked" in St. Mary's Bay. Lurcher Shoal. This lies WSW, from Cape St, Mary 19 miles and WNW, from Cape Fourchu, distant 13 miles, it is an irregularly shaped piece of bottom, a rocky ground, about 5 miles long, north and south, by 3 miles wide, There are a number of "nubbles" arising to 5, 7, and 9 fathom depths--with a spot reported as having only 12 feet of water over it-- rising from the average depths over the rest of the shoal of from 13 to 15 fathoms. Over this generally rocky bottom are scattered patches of gravel and of shells, Depths about the shoal are from 30 to 50 fathoms over a bottom consisting mostly of stones, Tide rips are very heavy here, The seasons and species found here are as on Trinity: cod, haddock, pollock, and herring, it is a good lobster ground. Trinity Shoal. This shoal, 14 miles N. by W. from Cape Fourchu and 7½ miles SW. from Cape St Mary, with a rocky bottom upon it and over an indefinite area about it, is perhaps 3 miles long, NE and SW, by some 2 miles wide. Near the center is a rock, uncovered at low water, but over the greater part of the shoal there are depths of from 6 to 10 fathoms, with an average of from 12 to 16 fathoms over the sandy and stony ground about it. There is a strong tide rip here on the eastern and northeastern part known as Flood Tide Eddy, where is good fishing by hand line for pollock in September and October. Cod and haddock are taken here in small amounts by trawling. It is a herring ground also, and there is a lobster ground on the shoal and all about it. A cod ground extends offshore SW from Briers Island, beginning about 5 miles out from the island and extending to about 18 miles from the land. Its width is about 4 miles. Depths over this area are from 40 to 60 fathoms over a hard, shelly bottom. Cod are taken here in from 30 to 44 fathoms on the shoal ground running from 5 miles from Gull Rock and the South-West Ledges down to the Lurcher Shoal, a distance of about 22 miles. Between these points fishing is done mostly by hand-lining "at a drift." Cod are taken over the ledges in 5 fathoms of water and thence out to 60 fathoms about them from August to November. Pollock are taken by the same method. The best season is August. September, and October. This is a good lobster ground. Northwest Ledge. Lies about 3 3/4 miles northwesterly from Briers Island. This is a piece of rocky bottom about 2 miles long by something less than 1 mile wide with depths of from 2 to 10 fathoms over the ledge and soundings of 12 to 30 fathoms on the gravelly ground about it. Cod are found here in good number from September to November, inclusive, and are taken by hand-lining. Pollock also are taken here in summer, "drailing" by hand line. A narrow piece of rocky ground with somewhat greater depths connects this with Batsons Shoal, some 5 miles SW., the two thus making what is virtually one piece of ground. Depths on Batsons Shoal are rather less than on Northwest Ledge, but the methods of fishing, the species taken, and the seasons of their abundance are the same on both. The bottom all about these two grounds is rocky, with from 20 to 40 fathoms inside of them, but this deepens rapidly to 100 fathoms over rocks and coarse gravel outside of them to W. and NW. West-Northwest Rips and the Flat Ground. These lie WNW from Briers Island, extending offshore about 18 miles. On the eastern end of this area, two parallel shoals, about 1½ miles across and having 50-fathom depths between them, rise from the 100-fathom depths of water over the muddy ground around them to reach 15 fathoms on the landward end of the rips, deepening to 35 fathoms off the western part, where the two ridges come together at about 9 miles distance from Briers Island, to carry on to the westward over the Flat Ground, which extends to a distance of about 18 miles from the island. This Flat Ground, deepening gradually westward, averages to have 50 fathoms of water over a level, gravelly, and rocky bottom, to pitch down suddenly, as do all other slopes of this piece of ground, to the 100-fathom depth, which prevails on all sides of The Rips. Currents are very strong here, as elsewhere in these waters, so that trawls are set only on the slack of the tides, beginning about one hour before and remaining down until about one hour after these periods. Formerly this was a good ground for the taking of large herring. In these days The Rips furnish good cod and haddock fishing for the entire year, with hake abundant at all times on the mud about them. In fact; virtually all the ground from this point south to the Lurcher Shoal furnishes good fishing for these species. Boars Head Ground (also called Inner Ground). This parallels the coast about 4 miles N. by NW from the Head, at Petit Passage, into St. Marys Bay. This ground is about 4 miles long by 3 miles wide, having depths from 55 to 65 fathoms over a hard bottom of broken ground. Cod are most numerous here from April to July, inclusive; haddock from July to September, inclusive. Hake are found here in summer and early fall, principally on the muddy ground between this and the next fishing ground--the Outer Ground. Outer Ground. This is about 3 miles long by 2 miles wide, lies about 9 miles out from the main on the same bearing as the Inner Ground, and is visited by the same species, their periods of abundance upon this piece of bottom being the same as on the former ground. Virtually all taking of ground fish on these grounds is done by hand-lining, though the practice of trawl fishing has come more and more into use in recent years. Head and Horns. A shoal of 68 fathoms, about 2 miles long in a NNE and SSW direction by 1 mile wide, lies due north from the Boars Head of Long Island. Here is a hard bottom where good cod fishing is had during the spring and summer. Hand-lining from the bottom is carried on in summer for pollock. Haddock are few here, these appearing mostly in the summer. Depths about the ground average 80 fathoms over mud and stones. Sandy Cove Ground. Lies offshore NNE about 7 miles from West Sandy Cove. It has from 40 to 50 fathoms of water over a sandy bottom, lying parallel with the coast, about 4 miles long by 2 miles wide. Cod are abundant on this ground from May to July, hake coming somewhat later. As were most of the grounds of this vicinity, this ground was mainly a hand-line spot, but in recent years fishing here has been done mostly by the trawl method. Inner Sandy Cove Grounds. About 2 miles NNW. from West Sandy Cove. These are 3 miles long NNE. and SSW. by ½ mile wide. Both hand-lining and trawling methods of fishing are in use here, but the trawl is fast displacing the older gear. Depths are about 35 fathoms over a sandy bottom and 50 fathoms all about it. Species and their seasons of abundance are as on the Outer Sandy Cove Ground. Almost anywhere between Spencer Island and Cape Split there is good haddock fishing in June and July and cod fishing in May and June. Depths are from 16 to 40 fathoms: the bottom is generally stony, with considerable areas of gravel. The fishing is done principally by trawling, rather short "sets" being made. Off Cape Split are considerable whirlpools, which, with spring tides, are very dangerous. These sometimes run 9 knots an hour. Spencer Island. Almost anywhere between Spencer Island and Cape Split there is good haddock fishing in June and July and cod fishing in May and June. Depths are from 16 to 40 fathoms: the bottom is generally stony, with considerable areas of gravel. The fishing is done principally by trawling, rather short "sets" being made. Off Cape Split are considerable whirlpools, which, with spring tides, are very dangerous. These sometimes run 9 knots an hour. Isle au Haute. Lies far up within the bay 9 miles W. ½ S. from Cape Chignecto. All about this island are good summer haddock grounds with fair cod fishing. The latter are taken by trawling principally. Depths about the island are from 9 to 14 fathoms, deepening offshore to 35, the average depths being 22 to 27 fathoms. North of the island the bottom is generally sandy; elsewhere much of the ground is rocky or stony, with here and there a small patch of gravelly ground. To the S. of this ground, toward the Nova Scotia shore and to within 2 miles of the coast, the bottom is mainly muddy and of little account as a fishing ground. Tides are very heavy on all the inner grounds of the Bay of Fundy. Quaco Ledges. This ground lies about 10 miles SE, from Quaco Head and is out at low tide, the water about the ledges having depths from 14 to 30 fathoms over a bottom of stones and gravel, There is a heavy tide rip over these ledges when covered, These furnish good pollock fishing in the summer months, and cod fishing is carried on here by hand-lining from May to July. Salmon Netting Ground. A salmon-netting ground lies off about the Mouth Harbour and St, John Harbour, where these fish are netted, for the most part during June and July, when they are en route to the St, John River, where are their spawning grounds. Ingalls Shoal. This is the name given by some of the fishermen of the vicinity to a shoal lying about midway between Digby, Nova Scotia, and Point Lepreau, New Brunswick. This ground is about 9 miles long. NE. and SW., by about 5 miles wide. It lies about 22 miles NW. from Digby and 18 or 20 miles from Point Lepreau. The depths are from 35 fathoms on the shoalest area (where is a piece of ground some 4 miles long by 1 mile wide near the center of the bank, lying in a NE. and SW. direction), the bottom sloping away from this on all sides to 47 or even 55 fathoms in a few places. The bottom is mostly of sand and gravel or of small stones over much of the ground except for the shoal parts, where it is mainly rocky. This piece of fishing ground furnishes good cod fishing in June, July, and August, which formerly was carried on by hand-lining but now, as elsewhere in the bay, is more and more becoming a trawl fishery. Haddock and pollock also are taken here in fair amounts. Mussel Shoal Ground. This is a mussel-covered bottom lying 8 miles ESE. from the Eastern Wolf and 9 miles from Point Lepreau. It runs in an E. and W. direction and is about 2 miles long by 1 mile wide. Depths are from 40 to 50 fathoms. This is a mussel and scallop bed, where large cod are usually in abundance in winter. Pollock are plenty here in June, and hake are here and in the surrounding Hake Ground in all the summer months. The Wolves. These make a group of small islands lying N. ½ E. from Grand Manan, distant 8 or 10 miles. On the bottom of rocks and gravel, extending about a mile from the shores of these, in depths of from 18 to 34 fathoms, small boats and small vessels take a quantity of fish by trawl and hand line. These are mainly haddock and cod grounds in May and June and pollock grounds in June and July. It is also a winter lobster ground for Canadian fishermen. The Wolves Bank. This bank lies between The Wolves and Grand Manan, distant about 8 miles from East Quoddy Light, SE. ½ E. Marks: The Coxcomb showing to the eastward and just touching on the western edge of Green Island: bring the heads of Grand Manan to form The Armchair, and White Horse and Simpson Island into range. This is a small-boat ground of scarcely more than 6 acres, with depths of 18 to 30 fathoms on a bottom of rocks and mud. Species and seasons are as on The Wolves. Southeast from The Wolves from 2 to 20 miles lies a piece of muddy bottom where hake are usually abundant in summer. Campobello and vicinity. Fair quantities of haddock and cod are found between Grand Manan and the American shore in the North Channel (Grand Manan Channel) between West Quoddy Head and Grand Manan in depths of from 40 to 50 fathoms, over a bottom of rocks, mud, and sand in June, July, and August and up to September 15, while hake is the most abundant species present. No haddock or cod are on these grounds in winter. Halibut are taken in similar numbers in the North Channel in May, June, and July. Pollock are taken on the western side of Campobello Island, near the eastern side of Indian Island, and at the mouth of the channel between Campobello and Casco Bay Island. In all these places are strong tidal eddies. Some fish are taken by seining, but most are caught by hook and line in a small-boat fishery lasting from June 1 to September 1. All around Campobello and Deer Island and on the New Brunswick shore as far as St. John are located weirs, which furnish large quantities of herring to the factories at Eastport and Lubec. Passamaquoddy Bay. [11] Depths here are from 10 to 24 fathoms, even 30 fathoms where the St. Croix River passes out into the sea. In general the bottom is muddy, although there are rocky patches. In most years a school of cod "strikes" here in April, the early corners being mostly of small size, but the later arrivals may reach 30, 40, or even 60 pounds. Haddock sometimes make their appearance in the bay as early as May 1, remaining through August. Hake, also, are present from June to September, but this excellent fish is held of little account by local fishermen. A considerable flounder industry is developing in these waters, the fish being taken in specially devised traps as well as by the smaller otter trawls. Passamaquoddy Bay is also a spring netting ground for herring (food fish), and there are also many weirs in operation here each year whose catch goes to the factories of Eastport and Lubec for canning as sardines. Pollock are very abundant, and a great deal of fishing for them is carried on from June to October, both by seine and hand line. At times the pollock completely fill the many herring weirs, until, from their numbers, there is no market for them. Pollock are also abundant at the same season and are taken by the same methods in the St. Croix River, though perhaps they leave the river a month earlier in the fall. The Mud Hake Grounds. These grounds extend about N. and S. between Campobello and The Wolves and from about West Quoddy Head to Grand Manan. Their length is about 15 to 18 miles and their width 3½ miles. This is a summer ground much used by Canadian fishermen out of Campobello, Grand Manan, and Beaver Harbor. It is said to be the best hake grounds in this vicinity. Depths are from 45 to 60 fathoms, and fishing is done by trawls and hand lines. There is a stretch of muddy bottom from Point Lepreau and Beaver Harbor to Grand Manan, which furnishes good hake fishing. In general, the bottom on the western side of the Bay of Fundy is muddy. Off Beaver Harbor on a mud bottom with 30 fathoms of water cod are found the year around, although this fishery is mainly carried on in the winter in small craft from Beaver Harbor and Campobello, mostly by trawling, but some hand-lining is carried on. Beaver Harbor. There is a stretch of muddy bottom from Point Lepreau and Beaver Harbor to Grand Manan, which furnishes good hake fishing. In general, the bottom on the western side of the Bay of Fundy is muddy. Off Beaver Harbor on a mud bottom with 30 fathoms of water cod are found the year around, although this fishery is mainly carried on in the winter in small craft from Beaver Harbor and Campobello, mostly by trawling, but some hand-lining is carried on. Grand Manan Bank. This bank is at the entrance of the Bay of Fundy, SW. ½ S. from the southwest head of Grand Manan Island from which the northern part of the bank is 15 miles distant. From Mount Desert Rock, E. by S., it is 45 miles distant. The bank is 10 miles long and 5 miles wide, extending in a NE. and SW. direction. The bottom is mostly stones and gravel, the depths running from 24 to 45 fathoms. Soundings of 18 and 21 fathoms are found on the northeast part. Cod (especially abundant when the June school is on the ground) and pollock are the principal fish. Haddock are not usually abundant, although sometimes they are plentiful in the fall from late September to December; hake are fairly abundant on the mud between Grand Manan Bank and the Middle Ground (in The Gully). This is a good halibut bank, the fish being in 33 to 60 fathoms in June and July; the southwest soundings and the southeast soundings are most productive always. The best fishing season is from April to October, when the fish come to this bank to feed. In the spring the fish, other than halibut, are mostly on the southwest part, but later (July to October) the best fishing is had on the northern edge of the ground. The very best herring fishing for large herring (food fish) occurs on this bank in June and July. In general, this is a small-vessel ground fished by craft from Cutler, Eastport, Grand Manan, and, to a less extent, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, with an occasional visit by craft from Portland and Rockland, chiefly trawlers of moderate size. Tides run NE. in flood and SW. on the ebb and are quite strong, the flood being the heaviest. Because of these powerful currents, fishing is somewhat difficult, it being necessary to make sets at the slack of the tides, getting the gear over and traveling with the finish of the current, to take it up and come back with the tide's return. Clarks Ground. This lies SSE. from White head 4½ miles (just inside the Bulkhead) and has depths from 6 to 14 fathoms over a rocky bottom. Here are very heavy rips on the ebb tide. This is a good summer ground for pollock, cod, and halibut, and it is a good herring-netting ground in the season. Southern Head Reef. The chain of reefs extending S from White Head Island is all good ground in summer for cod and for pollock, also, when the herring schools are on this ground. Currents are very heavy here. The ledges that make up this reef are more or less connected. Among these are Brazil Shoal, Tinker, Inner Diamond, Outer Diamond, Crawleys, Rans, Proprietor (Foul Ground), and the Old Proprietor. While virtually all this reef is pollock ground, Crawleys and Rans perhaps furnish the best fishing. Gravelly. Lying about 5 or 6 miles SE. by S. from White Head, this piece of bottom has about 25-fathom depths over a rocky bottom. This is a cod and pollock ground in their season. While an occasional halibut is taken here in summer. Heavy tide rips occur here also. The Soundings. Mentioned elsewhere as a herring ground, these lie outside the Bulkhead Rips 8 or 9 miles SE. from White Head. There are 30 or 40 fathoms of water here over a rock bottom, where pollock and cod are found in good number in July, August, and September, and a certain amount of halibut in summer. Bulkhead Rips, also called The Ripplings. This is a long rocky barrier rising sharply from the deep water about it to depths of from 12 to 20 fathoms. Here are found cod, haddock, hake, and pollock in abundance from June 1 to October 31. Apparently all are feeding on the small herring, so numerous in this vicinity at this season. Virtually no haddock are found on the grounds in the near neighborhood of Grand Manan in winter. The Ripplings were formerly one of the principal fishing grounds of the herring netters but of late years have been less productive. Cards Reef. The depths here are from 28 to 30 fathoms, over rocks, and the ground lies 3 miles S. by E. from the Old Proprietor and 9 miles from White Head. This is a cod and haddock ground from June to November. Gannet Rock. This lies east of the Murre Ledges. All about it is good ground in from 40 to 70 fathoms over a hard bottom. Cod are found here in good number from March to May, and halibut are taken here from March to May, inclusive. Southeast Ground and Gravel Bottom. These lie S. of Seal Island, forming an extensive piece of fairly level ground extensive piece of fairly level ground. The western part bears a little E. of S. and the eastern part about ESE. from the island. It is about 5 or 10 miles in diameter. While this is really but one piece of ground, the eastern part is called the Southeast Ground and the western part, from the nature of its bottom, the Gravel Bottom. The eastern portion is muddy and has 40 to 60 fathoms. The western has 35 to 40 fathoms. It is a good cod ground in winter and spring. Haddock are present from November to March, inclusive; hake in summer. Fishing is done mainly by trawling by sloops and vessels. Machias Seal Island. Nineteen miles E. by S. from Moosabec Light. This furnishes good ground in the water all about it, where depths are from 15 to 54 fathoms over a generally rocky and uneven bottom. In summer cod, haddock, and pollock are abundant here, the cod and haddock remaining all winter. The fishery is carried on mostly by the smaller vessels from Maine ports, principally those from Cutler, with an occasional visit by larger craft, usually from the Portland fleet. This ground is not much visited in winter. Fishing is done by trawling and hand-lining. Gannet Rock. This lies east of the Murre Ledges. All about it is good ground in from 40 to 70 fathoms over a hard bottom. Cod are found here in good number from March to May, and halibut are taken here from March to May, inclusive. [Table I--Fishing Grounds of the Bay of Fundy Area of the Gulf of Maine, showing the principal species taken upon them.] [Footnote 9: It (Fundy) was not clearly indicated by Verrazano (1524) nor in the report of Gomez (1525), who probably saw something of its entrance but fog or other unfavorable circumstances may have prevented him from observing it more accurately, but we find in the first old Spanish maps, in the latitude where it ought to be, names like these: Rio hondo or 'fondo' (a deep river) or Bahia Hondo (a deep bay), or Golfo (a gulf) once, also 'La Bahia de la ensenada', the bay of the deep inlet. Doctor Kohl, here quoted further says "On the maps of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth century, especially, it is written Bay of Funda. I believe that this name grew out from and is a revival of, the old Spanish name 'Bahia fondo'".] [Footnote 10: It is gratifying to announce that the winter of 1925-26 saw a large run of herring on this ground, where for a number of years past there has been virtually no fishing for this species.] [Footnote 11: "According to Porter C. Bliss, a thorough student of the Indian dialects, Acadie is a pure Micmac word meaning place. In Nova Scotia and Maine it is used by the Indians in composition with other words, as in Pestum-Acadie; and in Etchemin, Pascatum-Acadie, now Passamaquoddy, meaning 'the place of the pollocks'" (Doctor Kohl, _Dis. of Maine_, p. 234) "This derivation is doubtful. The Micmac word Quoddy, Kady, or Cadie means simply a place or region and is properly used in conjunction with some other noun; as, for example, Pestum-oquoddy (Passamaquoddy), the place of pollocks." (Dawson and Hand, in _Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal_) "La Cadie, or Arcadie: The word is said to be derived from the Indian Aquoddiaukie, or Aquoddie, supposed to mean the fish called a pollock. The Bay of Passamaquoddy, 'great pollock water,' if we may accept the same authority, derives its name from the same origin." (Potter, in _Historical Magazine_, I, 84)] INNER GROUNDS Under this heading are listed those grounds of the innermost chain of shoals, ledges, and "fishing spots", patches of rocky and gravelly bottom, the deeper water between them being over the muddy ground, which line the coast of the Gulf of Maine, making of it an almost continuous piece of fishing ground. In the Reports of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, on which all the statistics of the catch and value of the various species quoted in this report are based, these figures are grouped under the heading "Shore". The larger and more important of these grounds are outcroppings along the edge of the 50-fathom curve and lie at distances varying from 12 to 20 miles offshore; but there are many inside this line, and where the deep water of the Gulf of Maine extends so far inshore some are close in to the land. Thus, nearly all are within comparatively easy reach even for the smaller craft (where these all now have power) and so furnish productive fishing for a large fleet of gill netters and sloops (small craft of from 5 to 10 tons net) and to the myriad of "under-ton" boats (of less than 5 tons net), all these being enabled to run offshore, "make a set," and return the same day. With the uncertainties of the weather and the hazards of the winter fishing, very often the large vessels also follow this practice on those not too frequent "fish days" (when conditions permit fishing "outside ") that intervene between the storms; and with the scarcity of fish in the markets usual to the season and the consequent better price for the catch, with ordinary fishing luck they are well paid for doing so. The fish of these shore grounds, due perhaps to the greater abundance of food here, are thought to be distinctly superior in quality to those of the same species taken on the offshore banks. The cod and the haddock, especially, of the Gulf of Maine are particularly well conditioned fish and are noted for their excellence. The figures presented in Table 2 show only a fraction of the catch from the Inner Grounds, since they deal entirely with the fares of fishing vessels of 5 net tons and over. There are literally thousands of the so-called "licensed" or "under-tonned" boats, mainly gill-netters, that take millions of pounds from these waters annually, principally cod and haddock. On the Maine coast and across the line in New Brunswick there are more than 300 weirs which furnished to American smokers and canners during the year 1923 (whose figures have been chosen as representing an average season) 77,000,000 pounds of herring. On the coast of Massachusetts there are 50 or more weirs and fish traps, and from the Isle of Shoals to Pemaquid Point in Maine there are more than 50 floating traps in the various bays, on the points of offshore islands, or even in the open sea, and all these take a rich harvest from these waters. Then, too, there is the lobster fishery, more important in the Gulf of Maine than anywhere else in the United States. Of these various branches of the fisheries industries few statistics are available, yet we may say that the figures of the 1919 census showed that the "under-ton" boats mentioned landed 5,324,426 pounds of fish at the port of Boston, mostly of cod and haddock, and that the same type of craft in 1923 landed at Portland, Me., more than 3,000,000 pounds, principally of ground fish. We also know that every island, hamlet, village, town, and city along this nearly 4,000 'miles of coast line takes its toll from the sea. Lukes Rock. This rock lies S. by E. 3 miles from Moosabec Light, circular in shape, and about 1 mile in diameter. Depths are from 25 to 35 fathoms; the bottom is rocks, gravel, and mud. This is mainly a small-boat fishing ground, but there is some vessel fishing. Hake are taken here from June to September, inclusive; cod are present about the rocks the year around. Pollock are here in spring and fall, and haddock from December to February, inclusive. Fishing is by trawl and hand line. Newfound Ground. A small rocky spot about 1/4 mile across with an automatic buoy in the center for guidance into the Bay of Fundy. This is a small-boat ground having depths averaging 18 fathoms. It lies about 3 miles S. by W. from Moosabec Light. Species and seasons are as on Lukes Rock. Fishing is by trawl and hand line. Henrys Rock. Five miles SW. by S. from Moosabec Light. 1/4 mile in diameter, and 30 fathoms over a level bottom. Fishing is done by hand line and trawl. Cod are present the year around, a few haddock in the fall, hake in the summer but not in the fall, and pollock in spring and fall. Handspike Ground. Eight miles SW. by S. from Moosabec Light, nearly circular in form, and ¼ mile across. It has a bottom of rocks and depths of from 35 to 40 fathoms. Species and seasons are the same as on Lukes Rock, but mainly cod and pollock are taken here by trawl and hand line. Western Egg Rock. This is SW. from Moosabec Light, 8 miles distant, lying in a NE. and SW. direction, 3 miles long by 1 mile wide. The bottom is irregular, sharp, and rocky and has 25 to 30 fathoms. Fishing here is mostly by hand line, the ground being said to be too rough for trawling. This is a small-boat ground, and fishing is done mainly in the summer season. Cod and pollock are taken in the spring, summer, and fall; haddock are present in spring and fall; and cusk in 35 to 40 fathoms in spring and fall. This is not a hake ground. Old Egg Rock. This rock is WSW. from Moosabec Light, 6 miles distant, and running in a NE. and SW. direction. It is 3 miles long by 1 mile wide; has a rocky bottom and depths of 25 to 30 fathoms. This is also a small-boat ground, where fishing is done mainly by hand lines, but trawls also are employed. This ground is fished by the larger vessels in the fall months when the weather is too rough for fishing on the outside grounds. Cod, haddock, and a few pollock are taken in spring and fall; hake in fair number in the fall months. Middle Ridge This is W. by S. from Moosabec Light 3 miles. It lies in a NE. and SW. direction and is about 1 mile long by ½ mile wide. The depths are from 18 to 25 fathoms and the bottom is rough and rocky. It is a small-boat ground mostly and of little importance as a fishing ground. Cod are present the year around haddock in late spring and summer with a smaller number in the fall. Cusk are here the year around. A few pollock are here in the spring and fall. Broken Ground. This lies S by E from Moosabec light, 15 miles, whence the ground extends WSW to within 4 miles of Mount Desert Rock with an average width of 1 mile. The depths run from 15 to 100 fathoms. The shallows are sharp and rocky; the deeps, clay and gravel. There are places ½ mile long and others 3 miles long having depths of 70 fathoms. Several of these spots have special names: Crawley's Rocks, Puzzling Rock, The Ridges. The grounds mentioned here and those previously mentioned are known to the fishermen as the Moosabec Ridges. All these seem to be fishing spots cropping out upon the 50 fathom curve. On the Broken Ground the fishing season is from June 1 through September. Herring usually are abundant here from May to September. Cod are taken outside of the grounds in spring and fall. Pollock and small cod are taken on the shoals in summer and fall, and hake on the mud bottom in summer and fall and hake on the mud bottom in summer and fall. Tibbetts' Ledge. This lies east from Petit Manan 4 or 5 miles. The marks are Schoodic Island over Green Island of Petit Manan and the Ladle over Nash's Island. This ledge consists of two rocky shoals with depths of 3 to 3½ fathoms, about one acre apiece in extent and 1/4 mile apart lying NW and SE from each other. To the westward of these is broken ground nearly to Petit Manan. These are favorite small-boat grounds. The eastern ledge drops suddenly into the mud. In May large cod are caught over the muddy bottom just E of the ledge in 27 to 30 fathoms. Hake and haddock are taken in late spring (May) and fall. Fishing is by hand line and trawl. Ben's Ground. Lies ESE from Petit Manan 4 or 5 miles. The marks are Petit Manan Light to northward of Middle Hill of Mount Desert and Humpback Mountain on the west side of Trafton's Island or Pond Island Light to the eastward of Jordan's Delight. The ground is circular in shape, about 3/4 mile across, having 14 to 30 fathoms of water. The bottom is of rocks and mud. This ground is of little importance except as a small-boat ground in summer for cod and haddock. Hake are taken on the muddy bottom near it, It is a winter haddock ground in calm weather, these fish leaving it in the storms, the water being somewhat too shallow for them to "ride out a blow" in comfort, Such at least is the reason the fishermen give for the sudden cessation of their taking on shoal grounds after a period of heavy weather. Southeast Rock. This is a ledge, nearly uncovered at low tide on its shoalest spot, SSE from Petit Manan and 4½ miles distant, The shoal portions slope toward the NE a distance of 4 miles over an irregular bottom, Depths vary from 17 to 30 fathoms, The shoals are rocky, and the deeps are muddy, Cod and haddock are taken here in May and June, hake from July to September, It is a good lobster ground, also, Fishing here is by handline and trawl operated from vessels and small boats from near-by Maine ports. Broken Ridges aka Joe Roy Ground. This lies SSE from Petit Manan 7 miles to the center. It is 2 miles long NE and SW and one mile wide and from 27 to 33 fathoms, and the bottom of rocks and mud is very uneven, The shoalest portion is near the center. It is said to be a good cod and haddock ground, and is mainly a small boat ground, although some vessel fishing is carried on here in the spring. Black Ledges Ground. This ground lies between Jordan's Delight and the Halibut Ledges, or Black Ledges. It is a good haddock ground for a brief season in the spring and early summer when the fish are following the herring schools. In general it is a small-boat ground on which chiefly hand lines and trawls are operated, A few cod and cusk are taken here in the fall, and it is a good lobster ground. Bakers Island Ridge. This is a narrow ledge making out from Bakers Island E, by N. The eastern part bears S. by E. from Schoodic Island 3/4 mile distant The ridge is much broken, its average width being ½ mile, and it has depths of from 20 to 25 fathoms over a rocky and gravelly bottom. It is not much fished on the shoaler spots, but in 30 to 35 fathoms, on a muddy bottom, hake are abundant from July to October, inclusive. Cod and cusk are found here in the spring and fall; haddock from October to January, inclusive. Fishing here is done by small boats and small vessels mainly from Bass Harbor and Southwest Harbor by trawl and hand line. It is a very good lobster ground. Martins Ground; Hillards Reef. The center bears WSW. from Schoodic Point, distant 3 miles. It is a rocky patch of 4 or 5 acres and has depths of from 15 to 25 fathoms. It is not important except for its hand-lining for cod and haddock in the spring and fall months and for hake in the fall. It is a good lobster ground. Egg Rock Broken Ground. This is a rocky ridge making out S. by W. from Egg Rock Ledges and is about 2 miles long by 14 miles wide. It has an irregular bottom, with depths from 9 to 15 fathoms. This ridge, with Martins and Seaveys Grounds, divides the western or Bakers Island mud channel from Schoodic mud channel. Both these were formerly considered very good hake grounds but, while still good, are not as profitable for hake fishing as in past years. Haddock are taken on the ridge in the spring and in October, November, and December. A few cod are taken in the spring and fall. Fishing is by trawl and hand line. It is a good lobster ground. Inner Schoodic Ridge. This ridge bears SE. by S. from Bakers Island, the center distant 12 miles. This ground is nearly circular in form, about 4 miles in diameter, and has depths running from 18 to 60 fathoms. The bottom is of rocks, gravel, and mud; the shoaler portions are sharp and rocky. Vessels from Maine ports use this ground, fishing by hand line and trawl. Cod and haddock are abundant here in spring and fall, and hake fishing is good through the summer. It is a good lobster ground. Outer Schoodic Ridge. The northwest part of this ground bears SE. from Bakers Island, from which it is distant 22 miles. It lies 7 miles outside Inner Schoodic, has long been considered one of the best shore fishing grounds of the Maine coast, and still seems to deserve the reputation. The ridge is about 8 miles long in a NE. and SW. direction, lying nearly parallel with the adjacent coast. Its greatest breadth is 6 miles. The bottom is broken and irregular and has depths from 22 to 80 fathoms over rocks and gravel on the shoaler parts and mud on the deeps. Principally Maine vessels fish this ground, using hand line and trawl. Cod, pollock, haddock, cusk, and hake are present here from June to November, and a few large halibut, up to 300 pounds in weight, are taken here in June and July. Mount Desert Outer Ridge. This ridge lies SE. by E. from the Big Hill of Mount Desert Island. From Schoodic Island to the center of this ground is about 25 miles. Its length E. by N. and W. by S, is 2 miles; its breadth 3/4 mile. Depths are from 45 to 60 fathoms; the shoals are rocky, but on the sides sand and clay predominate. This is a comparatively small ground, but it furnishes good cod fishing in the spring (April to July) and fall. Cusk are taken in the spring and fall. Virtually no haddock are taken here. Hake are found in the deep water on the W. and SW. in spring, summer, and fall; trawl lines principally are used here. It is a good lobster ground but is too distant for present fishing methods. Flat Ground. This ground lies between Mount Desert and Swan Island, SW. from Long Island. In 50 fathoms, on a hard mud bottom, there is good fishing for hake in the summer. Fishing is by hand line and trawl. Enoch's Shoal. This shoal lies ENE. 3 miles from Great Duck Island. This is a small hummock on the outer parts of a ridge extending out to it from Great Duck island. It has a sharp, rocky bottom with depths of about 18 fathoms. Hand lining and trawling are the methods employed to take a few cod in early spring; haddock are here in small numbers in the summer as well as a small quantity of hake. It is a good lobster ground. Banks Ground. The center bears SE. by S. from Great Duck Island, distant about 5 miles. It is about 1½ miles long in a NE. and SW. direction by 1/4 mile wide and has a mud bottom with depths from 35 to 50 fathoms. It is mainly a small-boat ground, fished mostly in the summer, when hake are fairly abundant and there are a few haddock and cod. It is a lobster ground, also. Shell Ground. This lies SE. from Long island Head, from which the center of the ground is distant 6 miles. It is 2 miles long, in a NE. and SW. direction and about ½ mile wide. In the middle portion is a shoal of 25 fathoms, its bottom sharp rocks. On all sides of this shoal the bottom is quite irregular, consisting of pebbles and mud. The greatest depth, near the edge of the bank, is 50 fathoms. Cod and haddock, together with a few cusk and pollock, are taken here in June, July, and August and even into the late fall, but it is mainly a hake fishing ground for small boats and an occasional larger craft, all using hand line and trawl. It is a good lobster ground. Abner Ground. This ground is SSE. from Gott's Island, distant 8 miles. It extends 1½ miles in a NE. and SW. direction and is about 1/4 mile wide. The bottom is broken, rocks and mud, with depths of from 25 to 50 fathoms. This is principally a haddock ground, the best season being in July and August, and is resorted to mostly by small craft. Grumpy. Extends from SE. 4½ miles from Eastern Ear of Isle au Haute to SE. 1/4 E. from the western head of Isle au Haute, distant 7 miles. This ground is 2½ miles long by 3/4 mile wide and has a small shoal of 14 fathoms on the northeast part. Over the rest of the ground the average depths run from 35 to 40 fathoms over a gravelly bottom. Though not of great importance of late years, this was formerly considered one of the best inshore grounds for cod for the entire year and for haddock in winter. Hake usually are abundant just off the southeast edge in summer. This bank is mostly fished by craft from ports of eastern Maine--small boats as a rule--and the principal method is by trawling, although there is considerable hand-lining for cod in 25 fathoms in June and July. Marks: Big Camden Mountain over the Eastern Ear of Isle au Haute; Fog Island in Jericho Bay, touching on the eastern part of Big Spoon Island; Brimstone between Isle au Haute and the Western Ear. Hatchell Ground. This ground lies SE. by E 3/4 E. 9½ miles from the western head of Isle au Haute. Marks are eastern Mount Desert Hill in the Middle Saddle of Long island, and Little Spoon Island in the great or center Saddle of Isle au Haute. Blue Hill Ground. This ground lies approximately E: by S. ¾ S from the western head of Isle au Haute, distant 7 miles. The bottom consists of gravel and pebbles. Marks: Brimstone Island out by the western head of Isle au Haute and Blue Hill on the west side of Marshall Island. These marks lead to a depth of 25 fathoms on the northeast part of the ground, deepening southwest to 40 fathoms in 1 mile from the shoaler part, which is about ½ mile wide, part of the ground, deepening southwest to 40 fathoms in 1 mile from the shoaler part, which is about ½ mile wide. This is a good ground for cod in the spring and fall but is best for haddock during the entire winter. Hand lines and trawl are used. Inner Horse Reef. This reef lies SE. ¾ E 1½ miles from the eastern ear of isle au Haute. There is a shoal here of 25 fathoms about 1/8 mile in diameter. From this the water gradually deepens to NE. for ½ mile, where it drops off into the mud. Depths on this northeast portion are about 35 fathoms. The bottom is of pebbles and gravel. In spring and fall this is a good cod ground. Hake are found close to the edge in summer. Fishing is by small craft, generally, using trawl and handline. It is a good lobster ground. Marks: Bring Blue Hill Mountain in the saddle of White Horse; Brimstone showing between Western Ear and Isle au Haute. Outer Horse Reef. This is a short distance SW. from the Inner Reef, with only a narrow gully between. The small shoal falls off rapidly on all sides. It has a depths of 30 fathoms. Over a space 1/4 mile in diameter the bottom is gravelly. Seasons and species are as on Inner Horse Reef. Hake Ground. North of Monhegan island lies a patch called the Hake Ground or Mud Channel, the first name because of the abundance of hake taken here during June, July, and August. It extends from just outside White Head to abreast of Monhegan Island on the northern side. The depths vary from 20 to 45 fathoms, and the ground is still considered one of the best hake grounds alongshore. It is fished by small boats and vessels when the dogfish are on the outer grounds. This is a good haddock ground in December and January, as well as a good lobster ground. Southwest Ground. This lies 2 miles SW. from the western head of Isle au Haute. It is circular in form, ½ mile in diameter and has a gravelly bottom with depths varying from 35 to 40 fathoms. It is a cod ground from April to June and from September to November, inclusive. A few pollock and haddock are taken with the cod. Hake are abundant in summer close to Isle au Haute. Handlines and trawls are used in the fishing. It is also a good lobster ground. Barley Hill Ground. This ground lies NNE. from Seal Island and SSW from the western head of Isle au Haute directly in line between the two, about 3½ miles distant from each point. It is circular in form, has 28 to 30 fathoms of water, and the bottom is mixed mud and rocks. This is a ground much resorted to by sloops and larger vessels, and the fishing is by hand line and trawls. It is a good cod ground in spring and fall and a hake ground on the mud and rocks in summer. Occasionally a few halibut are taken here during June and July. It is also a lobster ground. Gilkey Ground. This bears S. from the western head of Isle au Haute. 4 miles distant. It extends ENE. and WSW about 1½ miles long by 1/3 mile wide. The bottom is rocky on the shoals where depths are about 23 fathoms sloping to 35 fathoms on the southwest part., where the bottom is gravelly and comparatively smooth. This is a cod ground in spring and fall, a haddock ground in winter, and hake are taken on the edges in summer. Vessels fishing here are mostly from Maine ports. It is also a good lobster ground. Rock Cod Ledge. This ledge lies NE. of Seal Island 1 mile. It has a depth of 3½ fathoms on the shoalest part, deepening gradually on all sides for a considerable distance. The bottom is of sharp rocks and is broken in places. Rock cod area present in fair numbers in spring and fall, and this is a mackerel and herring ground in their seasons. Haddock are abundant in the fall close in to the rocks of Seal Island in 6 to 15 fathoms. This is not a hake ground, although there are a few cusk to be had here on the deeper parts and an occasional small halibut is taken in the kelp on the shoal in June and July. It is a good lobster ground. Gravel Bottom and Southeast Ground. These lie S. of Seal Island. forming an extensive piece of fairly level ground extensive piece of fairly level ground. The western that bears a little E. of S. and the eastern part about ESE. from the island. It is about 5 or 10 miles in diameter. While this is really but one piece of ground, the eastern part is called the Southeast Ground and the western part, from the nature of its bottom. The Gravel Bottom. The eastern portion is muddy and has 40 to 60 fathoms. The western has 35 to 40 fathoms. It is a good cod ground in winter and spring. Haddock are present from November to March, inclusive; hake in summer. Fishing is done mainly by trawling by sloops and vessels. Laisdells Ground. This is a small, rocky spot outside the Brandy Ledges. It is about 1/4 acre in extent and has a sharp rocky bottom with 20 fathoms of water over it. It is the best cod and haddock ground in Isle au Haute Bay. This is chiefly a small boat ground and is also a lobster ground. Saddleback Reef. This reef lies S. from Saddle-back Ledge, 3/4 mile distant. It is about 2/3 mile long N and S by 1/4 mile wide. Depths are from 15 to 35 fathoms over a broken and rocky bottom. Cod are taken here by hand line in May and June; haddock and cod by trawling in fall and winter (November to January 1). It is a good lobster ground and chiefly a small-boat ground. Otter Island Reef; Snipper Shin; Western Reef. These are names applied to different sections of an irregular, broken piece of rocky ground about halfway between Vinalhaven and Seal Island. Otter Island Reef is the eastern section, lying 4 miles W. by S. by 1/4 S. from the western head of Isle au Haute. Depths here are from 10 to 25 fathoms over a rocky bottom. The trawl, formerly not much used here, is now in general use. This is a cod and haddock ground at seasons when these fish are in shoal water, but it is best for cod in winter and spring and for haddock in the fall, from November 1 to January 1. Old Ripper. This lies S. from the Western Ground (Western Reef) and 10 miles WSW. from Criehaven or Ragged Island. Apparently this is a part of the Western Ground. On the deep-water mud bottom between these (Ripper and Western Reef) is good hake fishing in summer, and cusk are abundant from May to the time when the dogfish strike the ground, usually about July 5 to 10. Crie Ridges. These lie 4 miles NW. from Matinicus Rock, 4 miles WSW. from Criehaven or Ragged Island, and run SE. from Western Ground toward Matinicus, distant 4½ to 5 miles. Cod, pollock, and cusk are here in the spring, and haddock are abundant in the fall. Bald Ridges. These begin just outside Wooden Ball Island and run off in a nearly direct line for Matinicus Rock. They are each from 1/4 to ½ mile wide, are quite close together, the distances between them being not over ½ mile, and they are almost parallel with each other. Soundings show from 15 to 30 fathoms upon them, with a broken, rocky bottom. The shoalest water is about 1 mile from Wooden Ball Island, the depth increasing toward the southern end. This is a good cod ground at all times when the fish are on the coast, the spring school being the largest. The shoal is a favorite place for rock cod. Haddock are present from January 1 to February 15. Hake are abundant in their season on the mud bottom inside the Bald Ridges 1½ miles WSW, in 50 fathoms. It is a good lobster ground. Henry Marshalls Ground. This ground lies S. by W. from Matinicus Rock about 3 miles; its area is about 2 acres. The shoaler portion has a depth of 35 fathoms and a gravelly bottom; on the edge the depth is 45 fathoms and the bottom is of rocks and mud. Cod are taken here in the spring, haddock in January and February, and hake in the summer months. It is a good lobster ground. The Bounties (The Bowdies). This ground bears SE. by S ½ S distant 6 miles from Wooden Ball Island. It is nearly circular in form, about 4 miles across, and has depths from 40 to 60 fathoms. The bottom, of gravel and rocks, is somewhat broken. It is a good cod and cusk ground in spring and fall and a haddock ground in winter and is fished by vessels and sloops, mainly by trawling but with a certain amount of hand lining, in May and June. A summer hake ground extends from 3 miles ESE. of Seal Island to 4 miles SSE of the Wooden Ball, thus it is about 7½ miles long by some 2½ miles wide. The depths here are from 35 to 60 fathoms. Summer Hake Ground. A summer hake ground extends from 8 miles SE. of the eastern Ear of Isle au Haute to 3 miles SE. of Long Island in 35 to 60 fathoms on a bottom of hard mud. This piece of ground is about 15 miles long by 4 miles wide. Minerva Hub. This bears SSE. from Matinicus Rock, distant 6 miles. This is a small, gravelly spot about 1/4 mile in diameter and with a depth of 35 fathoms, abounding with cod in spring and fall. It is a summer ground for hake and cusk. Hand lines and trawls are used. Haddock Nubble. This lies SE. ½ S. from Matinicus Rock, distant 16 miles, and has an average depth of 50 fathoms over a small, circular patch some 2,000 feet across. The bottom is of gravel and rocks, and "lemons" and marine growths of like nature are abundant. This is a June cod ground, usually furnishing good haddocking, also, from November to January, inclusive. Skate Bank. This bank bears SSE. from Matinicus Rock, distant 12 miles. It is about 2 miles in diameter and nearly circular in form. Depths are from 35 to 60 fathoms. The bottom is gravelly but quite uneven. The best season on this ground for cod and cusk is from April to July. Hake abound in July and August. Hand lines and trawls are used here, fished by sloops and vessels. Matinicus Sou'Sou'West Grounds. These grounds bear SSW. from Matinicus Rock, from which the inner edge of the grounds is distant 6 miles. They extend about 9 miles N. and S. and have about the same width, being nearly triangular in shape, broadest at the northern end. On the northern part there is a shoal of about 30 fathoms 2 miles long E. and W. and 1 mile wide. Sharp rocks cover this, but the ground is not broken and drops off gradually to depths of 50 to 55 fathoms or even to 60 fathoms on the southern part. Outside of the shoal the bottom is pebbly and gravelly. This is one of the best cod and haddock grounds in the vicinity. Cod are sometimes abundant here all winter; haddock are found here from December 1 to February and are more abundant than the cod. Hake are plentiful on this ground and in 60 fathoms on the mud off the edge SE. of this ground during the summer season. Marks: The high pinnacle on the eastern end of Wooden Ball, showing just out by Matinicus Rock, SW. by S. from the rock, 5 miles. Inner Breaker. This lies 2 miles W. of the southwest point of Matinicus Island. It is a rocky shoal about 1 acre in extent and having 7 fathoms of water. From this shoal the bottom slopes gradually to depths of 25 to 30 fathoms, and this slope furnishes good fishing for cod in May and June, while haddock are here in December and January. A good school of hake is found on the edge of the ground in summer. The bottom is rocky and broken and, while sharp, is fished with trawls as well as hand lines. It is mostly a small-boat ground. Towhead Grounds. These grounds hear N. by E. ½ E. from Matinicus Island, from which they are distant 2½ miles. Depths are from 12 to 30 fathoms. It is somewhat irregular in shape and has a very rocky, broken bottom. The ground is from 2½ to 3 miles long and ½ to 1½ miles wide. It extends E. by S. and W. by N. and is considered one of the best inside shoal grounds for cod and haddock in the bay. Hand lines and trawls are used here now, although in former times this and the preceding grounds were considered too sharp for the use of trawls. Both these are good lobster grounds and chiefly small-boat grounds. Green Island Ridge (or Western Ridge) and the Pigeon Ground. The northern portion of this ridge lies 6½ miles NW. by W. from Matinicus Rock, from which the ground extends about 7 miles in a SSW. direction. The greatest width is not over 1 mile. Depths are from 15 to 30 fathoms. The bottom is broken and rocky. It is a good cod ground in the spring and fall. Haddock are found here in June, November, and December. In summer this is a good hake ground. Halibut are found on the shoals (10 fathoms) and about the northern part of Western Green Island, on the sandy bottom during June and July. Matinic Bank. This is an extension of the shore soundings that make out to the southward and eastward of Matinic a distance of 2 or 3 miles, with depths (outside of 1½ miles) of 23 to 30 fathoms. The bottom is level, consisting of rocks, pebbles, and gravel, and the ground abounds in cod in the season from March to June. Just off the edge, in depths of from 40 to 50 fathoms, the bottom is soft mud, on which hake abound in summer. Very few haddock are taken on this bank. Halibut are sometimes abundant here in 10 to 15 fathoms during May and June. Matinic Ooze. This is a flat bottom, composed of ooze and shells, that makes off to the eastward of the Haddock Ledge and Shoal and bears about S. from Matinic. The Haddock Shoal and the Ooze are really parts of one ground, though they have been given different names by the fishermen. The Haddock Shoal (3 miles S. by B. from the Seal Ledge: breaks in rough weather) is thought to be poor ground and is but little fished, although it is a fall haddock ground. The Ooze falls off gradually, reaching a depth of 50 fathoms on the outer part. It is considered fair fishing ground for cod and haddock in the spring and for cod and hake in the summer and fall. Freemans Ground. This ground lies 6½ miles E. from Monhegan Island between Ornes Ground and Matinicus Western Ground. It is 3 miles long and 1 mile wide and runs in a NE. and SW. direction. There is a shoal on the southwest part having 20 fathoms over a sharp rocky bottom. The rest of the ground has depths of 25 to 40 fathoms, the bottom of rocks, gravel, and shells, in some places uneven and in others smooth. This is a good spring ground for cod and for cod, hake, and pollock in the fall. Haddock are not numerous on this ground, though a few are usually to be found here in December. Herring are here May to August. Middle Shoal, Pollock Rip, Allens Shoal, and Deckers Shoal. These are small rocky patches lying to eastward of Monhegan Island and northerly from the Outer Shoal. They have depths from 6 to 30 fathoms over a sharp, rocky, and broken bottom. Middle Shoal is 2 miles from the island. Pollock Rip 1½ miles. Allens Shoal 1 1/4 miles, having 5½ fathoms and breaking in rough weather; and Deckers Shoal 1 mile. Depths vary here from 6 to 30 fathoms over a bottom generally sharp and rocky. The principal fishing here is hand-lining for cod in the spring during the herring season and in the fall in "squid time". A few pollock are taken here also. A number of small patches lie westerly from the Outer Shoal and close to Monhegan Island. These are the Cusk Ground with a depth of 20 to 35 fathoms; Gull Rock Ledge (breaks in rough weather) 3½ fathoms; Lobster Point Ground, 15 to 30 fathoms; Inner Spring Ground, 15 to 30 fathoms; Outer Spring Ground 25 to 30 fathoms. All these are fished for cod nearly all the year, for haddock in December and January, and for pollock in early spring and late fall. The Spring Grounds are near the harbor and so are fished before the others. All are lobster grounds. Small boats and vessels operate here. Black Island Ground. This ground is ENE. 2 miles from Monhegan. 1 mile in diameter, has a shoal of 10 fathoms, and sharp rocky bottom in the center. The ground slopes gradually from this to the edges, where are 40 fathoms. Beyond the depths of 28 to 30 fathoms the bottom is gravelly and smoother. This is a cod ground in spring, and cod and hake are taken here on the edges in summer and fall. Pollock are found about the shoal in summer. It is a good lobster ground. Franklin Ground. This ground is NE. by N. midway between Monhegan and Burnt Island, distant 4 miles. Cod and haddock are found here from April to June and pollock in summer. In summer and fall hake are taken by night fishing with hand line about the rocks in 20 to 30 fathoms on the broken ground. Fishing here is by hand-lining in summer and trawling in fall and winter. It is a lobster ground. White Head Ground. Depths on the shoal (the White Hub: Bring Budd cottage out by White Head, Black Head. and Allens Island touching) are 7 fathoms, thence to 20 fathoms on the edges about it. This ground extends NE. and SW., 2 miles long by 1/4 mile wide. The bottom is chiefly broken, of rocks, and with spots of coarse gravel and sand. Fish and their seasons are as on Franklin Ground. Marks: Bring Black Head, White Head, and Gull Head in range on the east side of Monhegan Island. Burnt Island, Inner Ridge aka Andrews Shoal. This is NE. by E. from Monhegan, distant 5 miles. It is a broken ground with depths from 15 to 20 fathoms, the bottom rocky and gravelly, with occasional mud holes. It extends NE. about 4 miles, nearly to Roaring Bull Ledge, and is ½ mile wide. There are strong tidal currents here, the flood being NE., the ebb SW. It is a cod ground from April to June, and cod and hake are taken from September to November; haddock in December. It is a good lobster ground. Burnt Island, Outer Ridge. This ground is parallel with the Inner Ridge and at a distance of 3/4 mile. Depths are from 5 to 25 fathoms, the bottom being rather less broken than on the Inner Ridge. Fishing seasons and species are as on Inner Ridge. Hand-lining is done mostly because of strong tides. It is a good lobster ground. Ornes Ground. This ground bears E., distant 4½ miles from Monhegan Light to the center. It is 1 mile long. E. and W. and 1 mile wide. Depths are from 30 to 45 fathoms. On the shoal parts the bottom is of sharp rocks and broken. On other parts it is generally pebbly and quite level. The shoal lies toward the eastern part of the ground and is a good spring cod ground; also a pollock ground in the spring and fall. It is a night fishing ground for hake, by hand lining close to the rocks during September and October. Herring are abundant here usually in May and June. It is a good lobster ground. Fishing is done by hand lines and trawls. Outer Shoal. This ground is ESE from Monhegan Light about 2½ miles. It is circular in form and about 1½ miles across. Depths are from 10 to 38 fathoms. There is a small rocky shoal in the center of the ground; the remainder of this piece has a gravelly bottom. This is a cod ground from spring to fall and a good pollock ground in September. A few haddock are taken here about the edges in December. Hake are abundant on the edges on the mud in 45 to 50 fathoms during the spring, summer and fall. Monhegan Inner Sou'Southeast Ground. This ground is SSE from Monhegan Light. It is circular in form and 1/14 miles across. The center is 5 miles fro the light. Depths are from 30 to 50 fathoms, the shoalest water being on the eastern part, the shoal has a broken and rocky bottom, but the rest of the ground is gravelly and muddy. The principal fishes taken are cod and cusk in the spring, summer and fall. Very few haddock are found here. Pollock are numerous in the fall, when they are taken by hand lining. Hake are abundant in September and October. June is the best fishing month, except when the squid strike the ground in the fall. This is mainly a small boat ground, fished by trawls, hand lines and an increasing number of gill nets. Monhegan Outer Sou'Southeast. Three miles outside the Inner Ground on the same bearing and similar in size and form. The bottom is rocky and muddy or of hard clay. The depths are from 35 to 55 fathoms. The same species are found here as on Inner Sou'Southeast and at the same seasons, and in addition, hand lining is done for cod in August and September. Blue Ground. This is SE 1½ E from Monhegan, distant 14 miles; E 1½ S from Portland Lightship 45 miles, and SW from Matinicus Rock 9 miles to southern Edge. Fishermen usually take the Monhegan bearing [12] for their starting point. This ground has a small shoal in the center, having 28 to 30 fathoms, from which the bottom slopes off to 45 and 60 fathoms on the edges. The shoal is broken and rocky, bu the deep water is over a level gravelly bottom. This ground is circular in form and about 2 miles across. It is both a small-boat and vessel ground, larger craft operating here mainly in the fall. Hake are found here in large numbers in summer and fall; cusk are taken in the deep water the year around but are most abundant in January. Cod are here the year around, the largest school occurring in February and March. Monhegan Southeast Ground. This ground lies SE from Monhegan Island, the center distant 12 miles. This is nearly circular, 3 miles in diameter. The bottom is so broken that depths may vary much within a short distance, but depths are from 35 to 75 fathoms over a bottom of rocks, gravel and mud. Fishing is by trawl and handline. It is good cod ground from April to July; haddock are taken in December and hake in summer on the edges in 50 to 60 fathoms. Hill Ground. This ground is SSW 9 miles from Matinic: between 3 and 4 miles long NE and SW and some 2 miles wide. The shoalest part has 35 fathoms and a rocky bottom. From this it slopes gradually to a depth of 50 fathoms over a bottom of mixed gravel, rocks and mud. Its best fishing is for hake, using both hand lines and trawls. Monhegan Inner Sou'Sou'west Ground. this ground takes its name from its bearing, lying SSW from Monhegan light, distant 5 miles. Its width is 1½ miles, its length NNE and SSW is 1 1/4 miles. It has a sharp, broken, rocky bottom, including a small shoal of 20 fathoms and some hummocks of rather greater depths. The deepest water is in the neighborhood of 50 fathoms. Fishing here is from May until July for codfish and pollock: hake and cusk are in the deep water in the spring months and halibut on the shoal in July and September. This ground is principally fished by trawls, but there is considerable hand lining in September and October. Gillnetting, too, has become more common of later years. Harris Ground. From 15 miles S ½ W from Monhegan island to 6 miles SSW. It has 40 to 50 fathoms over a bottom of sharp rocks and mud--a "blistery" bottom. Cod, cusk and hake are found here the year around. Halibut are here in June, July and August. Fishing is by trawling and hand lining, with very little gillnetting. The 45 Fathom Bunch. Sixteen miles S 1½ E from Monhegan. This is a great ground for June hand lining for cod. Thence 1 mile ENE to 70 fathom depth, which leads to a piece of ground leading to the Inner Fall, on which, on a hard bottom and mud where there is an abundance of "lemons" and similar forms, are found cod cusk and pollock in June. The ground is about 6 miles long, WSW and ENE by 1 mile wide. Another Forty Five Fathom Bunch lies 22 miles S ½ E from Monhegan. This ground is 4 miles long by 1 mile wide, running ENE and WSW, and has depths from 45 to 75 fathoms. This is likewise a great cod hand lining ground in June. Another of the same name lies 26 miles S 1½ E from Monhegan. It has a 49 fathom shoal and the species and seasons are much the same as on the other grounds of the name. This is probably the ground known to other vessel captains as Toothaker Ridge. Monhegan Outer Sou'Sou'West. This ground is SSW from Monhegan Light. the center distant 9 miles It is 4 miles long, NNE and SSW and about 2 miles wide, and has 45 fathoms on the shoalest part but the depths generally are from 60 to 80 fathoms. The bottom generally is gravelly and quite level. The ground is fished by both boats and vessels using hand lines and trawls. This is a cod ground in spring and fall. In summer hake are abundant here, and halibut are quite plentiful in July on the shoalest part. Old Jeffrey. An exceedingly good ground. It is said that better fishing may be had here than on any other ground of its size in the vicinity. This piece of bottom bears SE from Pumpkin Rock, from which the center is distant about 6 miles. It is about 3 miles long NE and SW, and about 1 mile wide. The bottom is broken, of gravel and mud, with depths from 25 to 50 fathoms. Fishing here is by trawling and land-lining. In spring cod are most abundant, in late summer and fall hake, cod, and pollock are taken. Halibut are found on the shoaler parts in July. Little Jeffrey. A small piece of broken, rocky bottom, roughly circular in form. Depths average 35 fathoms. Species and seasons are as on Old Jeffrey, from which it lies about 4 miles NE by E. Monhegan Western Ground. This is a somewhat extensive ground lying about 4½ miles WSW from Monhegan Island. The depths range from 22 to 45 fathoms. Its length is 4 or 5 miles, and its greatest breadth is 2 miles on the eastern portion, gradually narrowing westward to about 1 mile. The ground runs SE and NW. Pollock are found here in September and October. It is fished by hand lines, trawls and gill nets. Marks: Bring houses on New Harbor over the white cliff on Pemaquid 6 miles from New Harbor. Broken Ground. The center bears nearly S. from Pumpkin Island (at entrance to Boothbay Harbor), distant 7 miles. It extends 4 miles in an ENE. and WSW direction and has an average width of 1¾ miles. Depths are from 35 to 50 fathoms on a bottom of rocks and mud. Cod are taken here the year around; hake from June to September. Cusk also are found here all the year in 40 fathoms depths. It is fair herring ground on spring nights. Great Ledge. Ten miles S. from Cape Newagen. It is about 4 miles long, SSW. and NNE and from 1 to 2 miles wide. There is said to be a shoal of 14 fathoms on the northern edge and another of 22 fathoms near the center. These are both broken and rocky, but the main part of the ground, having depths of 30 to 45 fathoms, is mostly composed of sand. is quite level, and slopes gradually toward the edge. It is a good ground for cod and haddock in winter and for cod in the spring. A few pollock are taken here, also. Halibut are found on the shoals in July. On these, also, are good lobster grounds. It is chiefly a small-boat and vessel ground, fishing being done by hand lines and trawls, with some gill netting. Marks: Show the sawtooth of Morse's Mountain coming out by Seguin on the western side; hold this until Pumpkin Island comes onto White Island. Barnum Head Grounds. These lie SSE. from Damariscove Island and are about 1 mile long by 400 yards wide. Depths are from 40 to 70 fathoms over broken ground of sharp rocks on the shoals, with mud on the deeper parts. This ground is fished by hand lines, gill nets, and trawls mainly by boats and small craft. Cod, haddock, and pollock are found here in the spring and fall months: hake in the muddy parts in summer. It is a summer hand-line ground for cod and pollock also. Marks: Bring the peak of Heron Island on Damariscove and the "Whistler" on Seguin, 7 miles from Damariscove Island (this gives 21-fathom soundings) or Big White Island's inner part just touching on Barnum Head; Morse Mountain (in Kennebec) touching on eastern part of Seguin to make a sawtooth. Peterson's Ground. Lies distant SW. from Monhegan 20 miles and SSE. from Seguin 16 miles. This is about 3 miles long in an ENE. and WSW. direction by about 1½ miles wide. The northern and western edges rise sharply from the 85 or 90 fathoms of the muddy bottom about it to 60 fathoms over a bottom of rocks and stones. Easterly and southerly the ground slopes away gradually over hard gravel to 90 fathoms. Cod and hake furnish the best fishing here--at its peak during October and November. Cusk Ridge. It lies S. ½ E. 12 miles from Pumpkin Island, 3½ to 4 miles long, NE. and SW., and 1/4 mile wide. This ground is somewhat difficult to find. It has a bottom of black gravel and rocks with 30 to 60 fathoms of water over it. A "blistery" bottom that is a cod ground the year around, the best of the fishing occurring in the spring months. Hake are abundant in the fall, and cusk fishing is exceptionally good in the deep water in June. Potato Patch. Three miles WNW. from Monhegan. A round nubble about 14 mile in diameter, of sharp, rocky bottom having about 40 fathoms over it. Cusk and cod are taken on the shoal and hake from the muddy edges about it. The Apron. Four and one-half miles from Monhegan. Marks are the tripod on Eastern Egg Rock over Franklin Island Light; Monhegan Light over the middle of Manana. Its length is 5 miles and its width 3 miles. It is a broken piece of ground with 10 to 45 fathoms. Cod are present the year around and haddock all the year except for a few weeks in summer. Cusk are here most of the year, but the season for pollock is September. Henry Gallant Ridges. The inner one lies 16½ miles S. by E. of Monhegan Island, extending in a NNE. and SSW. direction, about 1 mile long by 1/4 mile wide. The outer ridge lies about 1¼ miles farther from the island on the same bearing as the first and paralleling it and apparently is about the same size. The bottom on both shoals is of gravel and black rocks with depths averaging 45 fathoms but rising from the 80 and 90 fathoms of the surrounding muddy ground. Both these are year-around cod grounds, the spring months, however, having The largest school. Cusk also are abundant on both shoals in the spring. Mosers Ledge, also known as Middle Ground. This piece of shoal ground lies about midway between Monhegan Island and Pemaquid and has a 3-fathom shoal on the eastern part where the sea breaks in heavy weather. This shoal, called Mosers Ledge, is broken and rocky but slopes gradually to the SW., reaching 48 fathoms, with a bottom of gravel and mud on the deepest part. The ground is about 2 miles long NE. and SW. and about 1 mile wide. It is good ground for cod and haddock in the spring and for herring in June and other top-schooling fish In their season. Mackerel occur in late August and September. It is a lobster ground the year around. Johns Head Ground. About 4 miles SSE. from Pemaquid Point. Depths are from 25 to 15 fathoms over a sandy bottom, making a good cod ground in April and May. The ground is of circular form about 1 mile in diameter. Hand lines and trawls, together with some gill nets, are used on the sand shoal. White Island Ground. This is ESE from White Island, from which its inner edge is distant ¼ mile and the outer edge about 4 miles. Of triangular outline, it is widest at the outer end. It is very broken and uneven and has depths from 6 to 30 fathoms. In some places the bottom is gravelly, but on the shoal it is sharp, broken rocks. The small, rocky spots are known by other names, such as Browns Head Ground (a herring ground in June), where the fishermen catch a few rock cod. The sandy bottom furnishes good fares of haddock in May and June. "Bobber trawling" is the usual method used here in June. This ground is fished mainly by small boats and sloops using hand lines and trawls. Steamboat Ground. Seven miles WSW. from Monhegan Island; it is 3 miles long, NE. and SW, and ½ mile wide. Its bottom is broken with patches of rocks. Depths are from 25 to 50 fathoms, the shoalest 20 fathoms. This is fished by hand lines and trawls mainly by craft from New Harbor. Cod are found here the year around but are most abundant in the fall. Haddock are present all the spring and fall; hake through the summer months; pollock in the fall. Cusk are most abundant in the spring. A certain amount of lobster fishing is done here. Inner and Outer Boutens (Bootlegs). The inner ground lies 3 miles SW. from Monhegan Island. It is about 1 mile long. NE. and SW., by 1/4 mile wide. It has a sharp, rocky bottom, shoalest in the center, where are 25 fathoms, sloping gradually southwest and falling off suddenly on the northeast side to the mud in 60 fathoms on the edges. Cod, haddock, and cusk are here the year around. Hake occur in summer on the muddy edges. It is a fairly good lobster ground on the shoal. The Outer Bouten lies ½ mile SW. of the Inner, separated from it by a deep, muddy channel. It has a small shoal of 30 fathoms rising suddenly from the surrounding mud. Fish and seasons of their presence are as on Inner Bouten. Fishing on these grounds is mainly by hand line and trawl. Marks: The Tripod on Western Duck Island on the eastern side of the big eastern mountain of Camden: Black Head just out by White Head; White Head through the "Hole in the Wall." Hill Ground. This ground is SSW 9 miles from Matinic: between 3 and 4 miles long NE and SW and some 2 miles wide. The shoalest part has 35 fathoms and a rocky bottom. From this it slopes gradually to a depth of 50 fathoms over a bottom of mixed gravel, rocks and mud. Its best fishing is for hake, using both hand lines and trawls. Seguin Sou'Sou'West Ground. This ground lies SSW. from the western part of Seguin Island, the center distant 4 miles. It is a rocky shoal, ½ mile long by 200 yards wide, with a ½-acre shoal in the center. Depths are 7 to 14 fathoms. This is evidently a SSW continuation of the Hill Ground. It is fished by small boats for rock cod by hand-lining. Trawling is done in March for cod, and this is also a cod ground in April. It is both a small-boat and a vessel ground and is a lobster ground the year around. Marks: Elwells Rock touching the western side of Seguin, and Fullers Rock touching the southern part of Bald Head. Seguin Ridge. This ridge is SSW. from Seguin Island, distant 5 miles. Four miles long. ESE. and WSW by ½ mile wide. There are a number of small rocky spots--hummocks of 9 to 14 fathoms in depth. In general the ground has from 10 to 40 fathoms over it, except as mentioned. Cod and cusk are taken in the spring, haddock in May and June. and hake in summer. It is a good cod ground in the fall and also a lobster ground. A few pollock are seined here in the spring. Fishing is by hand lines, gill netting, and trawling. Marks: Pond Island Light on the eastern spur of Seguin; Wooded Mark Island on Bald Head (Small Point). Seguin Ground. This ground is SW. by S. from Seguin Island, distant about 7 miles to the center. About 4 miles long. NE. and SW., and a little more than 2 miles wide in the widest part. There is a small hummock called Bumpers Island Ground on the northern end with depths of 13 fathoms. The northern part is mostly rocky, but toward the south the bottom is gravelly and sloping, so that on the middle and southern portions there are depths of 35 to 45 fathoms. Cod, hake, and pollock are the principal fishes taken here and furnish some of the best fishing in this vicinity. Haddock are not common here but are abundant on the sandy bottom to the westward in April and May. Trawl fishing and gill netting are done in the spring for cod and hand lining for cod and pollock in October. It is a small-boat and vessel ground and a winter lobster ground. McIntire Reef. This reef is SSW. from Bald Head (Cape Small Point). The distance to the center is 4½ miles. This is 2 miles long. NE. and SW., by ½ mile wide. Marks are Yarmouth Island Hill over Mark Island and Pond Island Light on the northern part of Fullers Rock. This reef is very broken and hummocky and has a rocky bottom and depths from 14 to 20 fathoms. A shoal of 7 fathoms is on the northwest part, where there is good hand-lining for cod. It is a good lobster ground. Just east of this ground is a piece of bottom composed of hard mud and shells where hake usually are abundant in summer. Seguin Hub. This lies SSE. 5½ miles from Seguin Light. There is a collection of half a dozen small hummocks rising from the 65 or 70 fathoms of the surrounding muddy bottom to 30 or 35 fathoms of rocky bottom. These are hand-line spots. Species and seasons are as on Seguin Ground, except that a great proportion of hake are taken here on mud from 60 fathoms down. It is a cod ground in spring and summer. Marks: Hunnewell Point Woods on Seguin; Damariscotta Hill over Damariscove Island. Cow Ground. Nearly SW. from Bald Head, the center distant 6½ miles. This is nearly 4 miles long in a NE. and SW. direction and 1½ miles wide. The northeast portion is rough and rocky and has depths from 16 to 18 fathoms. On the southwest part gravel and stones predominate, and the bottom slopes off to 20 or 30 fathom depths. Trawling and hand-lining are the principal methods employed here, but there is an increasing amount of gill netting. Cod and pollock are the principal fishes taken here, mainly in the spring. This is a lobster ground from November to April. Murre Hub. This lies WSW. from Small Point, the center distant 10 3/4 miles and 3 miles SW. from Seguin. This ground is 3 miles long. N. and S., with an average width of 1½ miles. Depths are from 34 to 45 fathoms. The inner parts are shoalest, and the bottom there is sharp rocks and broken ground. From this the ground slopes gradually to the south, where the bottom is sand and gravel. Cod are here from spring to October; hake from June to October; and haddock are present during the winter season. Fishing is almost entirely by trawling. Mistaken Ground. This ground bears N. from the center of New Ledge. from which it is distant about 10 miles; from Portland Lightship SE. ½ S 21 miles to the edge and 22 miles to the shoal water. It is 8 miles long in an E. and W. direction and 5 miles wide. Depths are from 45 to 100 fathoms, both the shoalest and the deepest soundings being on the western part, where the bottom is mostly rocks and boulders. There is said to be a small shoal "peak" of 35 fathoms here. Over the greater part of the ground the bottom is of rocks and gravel. In proportion to its size this ground is nearly as important as New Ledge, being resorted to by the same species of fish at the same seasons and being visited by the same type of craft, with a larger number of the small crafts operating here and the larger vessels fishing here principally during the worst of the winter weather. The fishing is by hand line, trawl, and gill netting, with a lessening use of the hand line and an increase in the use of this ground by the gill-net fleet. Cod and cusk are taken here from May to July and through October and November, the cod predominating on the ridgy bottom in the deep water, on the western and northwestern side. Hake are also found here in the winter. Haddock are fairly abundant from December to March. There are usually many pollock on the shoal in fall and winter. Tag Ground. Between Broken Ground and Seguin Island, ESE. from Seguin, distant 5 miles. A narrow rocky ridge 2 miles long, in a NNE. and SSW. direction, with an uneven bottom and depths from 14 to 30 fathoms. Principally a summer small-boat ground fished by hand lines, trawls, and gill nets. Cod are found here the year around. Haddock are abundant in the winter, hake in the summer months, and the pollock are here also in the summer season when "top schooling." Cusk are found in the deep water all the year. Outer Kettle, also known as Kettle Bottom. The center of this ground bears S. from Seguin Island, from which the northern edge of the ground is distant 10 miles. Its length is 12 miles in a N. and S. direction, and its width 10 miles, thus being roughly circular in forum. It is an uneven piece of bottom consisting of rocks, gravel, and mud. The depths range from 25 to 75 fathoms. This is one of the best fishing grounds on this part of the coast. Cod are the most abundant fish and are taken the year around. Haddock are plentiful in the winter months and cusk are present all the year in the 50-fathom depths. Fishing here is by trawl, hand line, and gill nets operated by small boats, sloops, and, in the rougher weather of the winter, larger vessels, which visit it also, generally to make one "set" at a season when a "fish day" (one on which it is possible to fish) is the exception. Murray Hole. A small circular piece of ground about 1½ miles across and capable of taking about 40 or 50 lines of trawl: it lies between the two kettles and heads S. by E. from Seguin. Depths here are from 42 to 60 fathoms over a bottom of pebbles and gravel. It is a good cod and hake ground in June and July. Inner Kettle. This is S. by E. from Seguin and distant 8 miles. The depths here average 40 fathoms over a bottom of gravel and rocks. Species and season of abundance are as on the Outer Kettle. Marks are as follows: The Eastern Hawkwings (west side of the Kennebec River) on western side of Seguin; Damariscove Mountain just touching the east side of Damariscove Island. Bantam. This ground lies off Seguin 6 miles E. by N. It has a bottom of rocky broken ground. There is a buoy in the center over a reef that is said to break at low water. Elsewhere depths range from 14 to 20 fathoms. The shoal is about 2 miles long in a NE. and SW. direction and is about 1 mile wide. This is a cod and haddock ground in the spring, and bake are plentiful in summer on the edges of the ground. White Head Ground. Depths on the shoal (the White Hub: Bring Budd cottage out by White Head, Black Head. and Allens Island touching) are 7 fathoms, thence to 20 fathoms on the edges about it. This ground extends NE. and SW., 2 miles long by 1/4 mile wide. The bottom is chiefly broken, of rocks, and with spots of coarse gravel and sand. Fish and their seasons are as on Franklin Ground. Marks: Bring Black Head, White Head, and Gull Head in range on the east side of Monhegan Island. Green Ground. This is a hand-line spot for cod all the year, but the fishing is best in the spring and continues good until the last of the fishing for cod about the river mouths in June. There are two shoals, one of 14 and the other of 16 feet, both of which break in rough weather, but depths elsewhere on the ground about are from 13 to 20 fathoms. The bottom, both on the shoals and about them, is rocky and has many starfish upon it, except on the north-western part, where the bottom is of sand. Marks: The eastern end of Elmwood Rock on the little high woods of Small Point: the Outer Sister on Lower Five Island. Lambo. This lies B. by N. from Halfway Rock 5 miles. It has a buoy upon it, marking a 5 fathom shoal that breaks in heavy weather. Good fishing is to be had in all directions about it, with haddock in June on the sand outside it, hake inside in August, and cod on the hard bottom about it; but for these it is mostly a summer hand-line spot. Bull Ground. This is an irregularly shaped piece of bottom of indefinite area, being perhaps 3 miles long by 2 miles wide. It lies between Lambo Ledge and the White Bull and at about 2 miles distance from Ragged Island. The bottom here is of rocks and mud with depths from 20 to 30 fathoms. This ground furnishes hake fishing in June, July, and August. Cod are taken here in good numbers in the fall by gill nets, with a lesser amount also in the spring by the same method. In the winter the cod are taken here by "bobber trawl." Haddock are taken about the edges in August. mainly by hand line. This ground is visited principally by small boats, the greater part of the catch being taken by gill nets, although trawls and hand lines also are used here. The Garden. This is a broken piece of ground lying outside The Elbow and Eagle Island. It runs NNE. and SSW., is about 2 miles long by 1 mile wide, and has depths running from 35 to 60 fathoms. This is a fall ground for hand-line fishing for cod, while haddock, cod, and cusk are found here in the spring. Hake are taken in May and June on the mud about the edges. Marks: Halfway Rock Light on the big field of Chebeague Island; Eagle Island Woods on the woods in the Eastern Bay. Sand Shoal. It is ENE. from White Head Grounds 4 miles. This has depths of 18 to 20 fathoms and in species and seasons of their abundance agrees with White Head Ground. The Elbow. This lies NE. from the Sand Shoal 6 miles from the lightship; S. by E. 4 miles from Halfway Rock. Depths on the shoal parts are 26 fathoms, deepening to 40 fathoms on the edges. The bottom is of rocks and mud. The species and seasons are as on White Head Grounds. Old Orchard Ground, Wood Island Ground, Cape Porpoise Peaks. Extending over a piece of bottom made up of blue clay with numerous rocky patches, this ground has depths of from 20 to 50 fathoms. Bearing about NE. from Cape Porpoise and distant from 4 to 5 miles, it lies in a N. and S. direction and is about 5 miles long by 1½ miles wide. It is a good spring and summer cod ground, a summer hake ground, and haddock are here in April and May and in the fall and winter and cusk on the deeper parts the year around. This ground is much resorted to by small boats and in winter by some of the larger vessels of the vicinity. Fishing is by hand lines, trawls, and a certain amount by gill netting over the smoother parts. Marks: The eastern end of Wood Island on the bank at Old Orchard; to the center 6 miles SSE. from Wood Island Light. Drunken Ledge (Drunkers). Eight miles from Cape Elizabeth; 3 miles N. of Tanta 4 miles S. by E. from the whistling buoy off Cape Elizabeth. Depths are 18 to 40 fathoms on a bottom of sharp rocks. It is about 5 miles long N. and S. by 2 miles wide, extending SSW. and NNE. Cod and cusk are taken the year around; hake in the summer on the mud at edges; haddock from March to June. Fishing is by trawl, hand line, and gill net. Marks: Western Light of Cape Elizabeth on eastern part of woods on Cape until the lightship bears NE. Eagle Island Ground. This lies S. from Halfway Rock 2 miles. It has a rocky bottom with 20 to 25 fathoms. It is a good cod ground the year around, fished mainly by hand line; there is little trawling here and only a small amount of gill netting. Flat Ledge; Temple Ledge. Two miles SW. of Bald Head, Cape Small Point, rises a piece of rocky ground from the 20-fathom depths surrounding it. Over the shoal in the center are 5 fathoms, and from this the water deepens on all sides, there being 16 fathoms on the deepest part of the ledge and an average of 20 fathoms about it. The rocky bottom is about 1½ miles long, NE. and SW., by about 3/4 mile wide. The ledge and the hard bottom about it make good gill-netting grounds for cod in the spring months. On the ledge a considerable amount of hand-lining fur cod and pollock is carried on in late May and through June. In the normal seasons of the mackerel fishery this is a good ground on which to seine these fish in June. July, and August. It is also a good lobster ground and is a haddock ground in July and August. Marks: Wallace House in Bald Head Cove on the western edge of Bald Head; Flag Island and the eastern Brown Cow Into line. The Gully: Mark Island Gully. Bring Seguin over Fullers Rock, 6 miles from Mark Island. This gully lies inside The Elbow. The bottom is sandy on the shoal parts, where there are 50 fathoms; broken and rocky in the deep water in 70 fathoms; and muddy on the edges. It is a good lobster grounds. Haddock are taken here in the spring months by trawling; cod are taken on trawl and in gill nets during February and March and from Augusta to November. Hake are taken during June, July and August by the sane methods as are used in catching the other species. New Meadows Channel. West from The Gully; E. from Seguin. This is a spring gill-net ground. Mostly a cod ground. Pollock Hub. This ground lies SE. from the lightship 6 to 8 miles and 13½ miles S. from Cushings Island bell buoy. It is a rocky piece of bottom, having about 29 fathoms over it. It is about ½ mile across and is fished by hand line, trawl, and gill net, but is mostly a summer hand-line spot. It is a good cod ground in the spring and good for pollock in their season. Between this and Trinidad (SE. by S. from Pollock Hub 3 miles) is a fishing ground for haddock in January and February, on a broken bottom, in depths of from 40 to 60 fathoms. This is both a small-boat and a vessel ground fished by hand line, trawl, and gill nets. Trinidad. Six miles SE. by S. ½ S. from the lightship off Portland. It is about 2 miles long by 3/4 mile wide, lying in a NNE. and SSW. direction. In general, the bottom is muddy and depths are from 40 to 50 fathoms, except for a shoal about 14 mile across on the northeastern end of the ground, where there is a depth of 32 fathoms over a sharp, rocky bottom. Haddock are present here in good numbers in February and March. Cod are taken here in gill nets during the summer months, and hake are fairly abundant in the spring over the deeper parts; a few cusk are taken at the same season and in the same depths as the hake are found. Fire Ground. This ground is E. by S. from the lightship 10 miles. It is a ridge of rocky and gravelly bottom having depths of 35 to 50 fathoms. Its length is 2 miles and its width 1 mile. Cod and cusk are here the year around, the cod being most abundant in the spring. Haddock are here in February and March: hake are in the deep water on the edges in summer. Fishing here is by hand line, trawl, and gill nets operated by small boats and vessels, the larger craft visiting this ground mostly in the winter, when offshore grounds may not permit of the fishing because of weather conditions. Marks: Bradbury Mountain on Jaquish: Long Reach Mountain (in Quahog Bay) just to westward of Wooded Mark Island, "the length of an oar." Cod Ledges. These are a succession of rocky patches extending 4½ miles in an ENE. and WSW. direction, with a width of about ½ mile. The southwestern end bears SE. 3/4 S. from Portland Head Light. distant 4 3/4 miles. The northwestern extremity lies 6 or 7 miles ESE. from Portland Head light. The shoalest parts have from 14 to 18 feet of water (Bulwark Shoal: the eastern is Round Shoal). On other parts the depths vary from 5 to 22 fathoms. The bottom is irregular, of rocks and gravel. A favorite small-boat ground for fishermen from Portland and neighboring islands. This is a cod ground the year around and a winter haddock ground. In June and July a few halibut are taken in 14 to 18 fathoms on the sandy patches between the ledges. We are told "Very many large halibut are sometimes taken in some seasons in this small area. Sid Doughty. a local small-boat fisherman, had $300 worth from half his gear for one day's fishing here, being obliged to leave the rest of his gear until the next day from his weariness in handling the heavy fish alone." Hue and Cry Bottom. This ground lies W. ½ mile from the Portland Lightship. It is about 2½ miles long by 1½ miles wide and extends in a generally N. and S. direction. The bottom is mainly rocks, though there is a sandy area lying inside it. Depths are from 4 fathoms, where is a buoy and where it breaks in heavy weather, to some 35 fathoms over much of the rest of the ground. Cod and haddock are found here In the spring, and cod, haddock, and cusk in the fall months. The Pasture. It lies ESE. from the lightship 10 miles: south from The Cow (Small Point) 12 miles. This ground is 4 or 5 miles long by 2½ miles wide. It has depths of from 45 to 80 fathoms over a bottom of broken ground, rocks, and mud. It is a cod ground the year around but is best in spring. Cusk also are here the year around. Haddock usually are plentiful during January, February, and March. Inside the Pasture (about 10 miles S. from The Cow) lies the Fire Ground, mentioned elsewhere. The Klondike. This ground lies 15 miles S. by E. from Bald Head and is 3 miles long by 2 miles wide. The bottom consists of ridges of rocks--a "blistery" bottom (abundance of "sea pears", "sea squirts", and other marine growths of a similar nature). It is a cod and cusk ground all the year. Haddock are present from January to April and hake from September to December. Depths are from 75 to 80 fathoms over mud and rocks. Fishing on this ground is by hand line and trawl by small boats and sloops, with an occasional trip by larger vessels in winter. Sagadahoc. This ground is SE. by E. from Halfway Rock 22 miles and S. ½ W. from Seguin 17 miles. It has a broken bottom of rocks "blisters," and mud, and is 3½ miles long by 2½ miles wide, with depths from 50 to 80 fathoms. It is a cusk ground the year around as well as a year-around cod ground, also, but this fishing is at its best in the spring. It is a hake ground on the deeper soundings from September to December. Fishing here is carried on by trawling, hand-lining, and gill netting. Big Ridge, or Doggetts. These names are given to a piece of fishing ground about 8 miles long by 2 miles wide lying 18 miles SE. by S. ½ S. from the lightship at Portland or 14 miles SE. by E. from the same point, according to which part it is desired to fish upon. It has from 45 on the shoal in the center to 80 fathoms of water on the deeper parts over a bottom of rocks and gravel on the shallower portions and of mud about the edges and in the deeper soundings. Cod are abundant here in spring and fall on the shoaler parts of the bank and are present the year around on the muddy edges and in the deep water about it; the spring school, however, is the largest. Hake are found in spring and summer on the edges in deep water. A few haddock may be taken in the winter and spring, January to April, inclusive. Cusk can be taken the year around, the best fishing being in spring and winter. The February cusk school is the largest, and the best catches are made in the deep water about the edges of the ground. Fishing here is principally by trawling, but hand-lining and gill netting also are employed, the latter method in continually increasing volume. Lying off Cape Porpoise, between the bearings of SE. and SSE., and at distances varying from 6 to 8 miles, are a number of small, rocky, or pebbly bottoms having depths ranging from 18 to 25 fathoms. During certain seasons these abound in cod and haddock and are visited by the fishermen of the vicinity. Tanta. This ground is S. from Cape Elizabeth, the center being distant 12 miles. It is 2 to 3 miles in diameter and has depths of about 40 fathoms over a bottom of broken ground of rocks and gravel. This is a spring and summer fishing ground for cod. Haddock are present here in winter, the best fishing being in January, With a few in the spring. Trawls, hand lines, and gill nets are operated here. Outside of Tanta (S. 3 miles), in 80 and 90 fathoms on muddy and broken bottom (a "punkin" bottom), hake and cusk are abundant in February and March, the hake remaining into the summer. Herring and mackerel usually are present here in those years when their schools arc abundant in this locality. Winker Ground. The ground lies in a NE. and SW. direction, about 2 miles long by 1/4 mile wide. The bottom is broken, of mud, rocks, and sand, with depths from 35 to 40 fathoms. Outside of the 40-fathom depth the ground is mostly of mud. This is a cod ground in the early spring. haddock and hake being here from July 1 to September 1. Haddock are found here also from March 10 to April 20. This is a small-boat ground, fishing being done mainly by trawling and a certain amount of gill netting. Marks: Run 5 miles SW. from the whistling buoy off Cape Elizabeth. or until Ram Island Winker Light shows out by Cape Elizabeth. Long Hill Ground. This lies SSE. from Cape Elizabeth, 9 miles to the center. Marks: Bring the western light of Cape Elizabeth on the middle of Johnsons Woods on the high land of the cape, which with the course given before, will bring to the center. This lies in a SSE. and NNW. direction and is a rocky bottom, having 60 to 70 fathoms. Haddock are taken here from October to January 1 and from February 15 to April 1. Cod also occur at about the same season. Outer and Inner Bumbo. These are two small rocky ridges bearing SE. from The Nubble and extending toward Boon Island. They begin near the main shore and extend nearly to the island. Depths are from 8 to 20 fathoms over a broken piece of bottom, except for a mud gully about 3 miles from the main running NE. and SW. about 3 miles long. In general, this is a small-boat ground, where good catches of cod and haddock are made in spring and fall, especially in the latter season, with good hand-lining for cod in July and August in 8 and 10 fathom depths. These grounds are fished by trawl, hand line and gill nets. All the grounds between Cape Porpoise and Boon Island are good lobster grounds. Wells Bay. Beside a number of small, rocky patches of fishing ground of less importance, resorted to chiefly by small-boat fishermen and by gill netters from Portsmouth, Wood Island, and Cape Porpoise; this ground has a good cod shoal for spring and winter fishing, which also furnishes good haddocking from April to October. The depths on this are from 25 to 30 fathoms. These are fished by trawl, hand lines, and gill nets (perhaps mainly by the latter) operated by the smaller fishing vessels, chiefly from Portsmouth, Wood island, Cape Porpoise, and Portland. Lightons. This ground is SE. by E. 8 miles from Cape Porpoise, 3 miles long by 2 miles wide, with depths of 25 to 30 fathoms over a generally gravelly bottom. This is somewhat more productive as a haddock ground from January 1 to March, but cod and hake are numerous in the same season also. A small amount of cod may be taken here in the summer. This is a good lobster ground. Tracadie; The Acre. This bears NE. by E. from Boon island, distant 5 miles. It is 1 mile in diameter and has a depth of 50 fathoms over a bottom of rocks and gravel. It is a good haddock ground all the year; a cod ground in August, when these fish are "jigged"; a hake ground from April to October; and a cusk ground the year around. Old Southeast. Extends from the shore soundings at White Island (one of the isles of Shoals) 7 or 8 miles SE. nearly to Jeffreys in a long, rather narrow point. It is a piece of broken ground with a hard bottom, having depths running from 20 fathoms on the inner parts to 50 fathoms farther out and deepening suddenly on all sides to the mud about it. Fish and their seasons are as on Blue Clay, haddock being most abundant on the eastern edge from January through March. This is growing steadily in importance as a gill-netting ground. The Prairie. This name has been given to a flat ground of generally level bottom, lying E. by N. from Boon Island 7 miles. It has depths of from 41 to 50 fathoms over mud and gravel, rising out of 60 fathoms over the muddy ground about it. It extends in a generally ENE. by WSW. direction, 2 miles long by 1 mile wide. It is a "blistery" ground, the presence of these growths on a rocky or gravelly bottom usually meaning good fishing. This is principally a haddock ground, with the best season from mid March to the 1st of May. This is a small-boat and gill-netting ground. It is also visited to a considerable extent by the larger vessels of the Portland fleet in the severer weather of the winter and early spring because of its accessibility. Blue Clay Ground. also called Southeast Ground. This bears S. by E. from Boon Island. from which it is distant 8 miles. The form of the ground is roughly square and is from 4 to S miles across. Depths here range from 30 on the shoalest parts to 60 fathoms, the bottom being of tough blue clay. The water deepens suddenly on the muddy ground all about it. It is one of the best winter haddock grounds in this vicinity, particularly the eastern edge, which is much resorted to by haddock trawlers from January through March, when this species is most abundant here. It is a good winter cod ground, also. A long, narrow strip of hard bottom, separated from the Blue Clay by a narrow mud gully of somewhat greater depth, is called the Prong. Depths here run from 30 fathoms on the inner parts to 70 fathoms offshore. This piece furnishes a very suitable bottom for operating gill nets and is much visited by this type of craft. The Prong lies S. by E. from Cape Porpoise 17 miles. Marks: Bring Acre Hill in line, Notch of Agamenticus at the distance from Cape Porpoise just given. From the Isle of Shoals the Prong is distant 10 miles SE. by E. Duck Island Ridges. These are two narrow rocky ridges running from Duck Island (one of the Isles of Shoals) toward Boon Island. reaching within I mile of the latter. Depths are from 25 to 30 fathoms. These are good cusk and haddock grounds in the winter and spring, the cusk remaining on the ground also from April to October. This is a cod ground in winter and spring, the fish being taken on the "bobber trawl." which is a trawl of the ordinary type buoyed to "set" 1 fathom or so from the bottom. It is a hand-line ground in summer for cod and pollock. Both small boats and vessels, line trawlers, and gillnetters operate here. It is also a lobster ground. Boon Island Rock Ground. This ground begins ½ mile eastward of Boon Island Ledge and runs in an ESE. direction 2 or 3 miles from the ledge. It has a bottom of sharp rocks and clay and depths from 40 to 60 fathoms. It is an excellent fishing ground for cod, haddock, and cusk and is one of the best winter fishing grounds for haddock in this vicinity. It is fished mainly by line trawlers but is not much used as yet by gill-netters, being a somewhat difficult piece of bottom for them. Tower Ground. This is a winter haddock ground having depths averaging 50 fathoms over a ridgy and broken bottom. This is about 3 miles long by 2 miles wide and bears about SE. from Boon Island. Marks: Bring Boon Island Light on the Peak of Mount Agamenticus, running off until the top of the tower and the top of the mountain are level, perhaps 6 miles from Boon Island. Ten Acre or Nipper Ground. Extends S. ½ E. from Boon Island 6 miles and E. from Isles of Shoals 7 miles. This shoal is about 1/4 mile wide and has 18 to 20 fathoms over clay and mud, the ground sloping gradually to 50 or 60 fathoms near the edge. This is a good fishing ground for cod, haddock, cusk, and pollock in the spring, while on the muddy edges hake are abundant in September. Marks: White Hills over Boon Island on center (these cross bearings meet near the center of the ground); also, the Black Hill W. of Portsmouth over the Star Island of the Isles of Shoals leads to the small rocky shoal that is in the middle of the ground. Ipswich Bay. This extends from the north side of Cape Ann about to Portsmouth and is resorted to in winter by large schools of cod coming here to spawn. Shore soundings deepen here gradually from the land, reaching 35 to 40 fathoms at 6 or 7 miles out. Within this limit the bottom is mainly sandy, though rocky patches are numerous between Newburyport and Cape Ann. Beyond 40 fathoms the bottom is mainly mud. The principal cod-fishing grounds of Ipswich Bay lie off the northern shore, from Newburyport to the entrance of Portsmouth Harbor, 1½ to 5 miles off the land In 12 to 25 fathoms. Cod are taken abundantly off Boars Head, also. During 1923 and 1924 the cod fishing in these waters, especially off Boars Head, was the best for some years. Fishing is done by trawls and hand-lining, and of late years a large and increasing gill-netting fleet has operated in these waters, especially from March to June. The muddy ground outside these waters Is a hake ground much frequented by small boats and vessels from the Isles of Shoals and Cape Ann during the summer and fall. "Flounder dragging" Is a considerable industry in these waters, the craft employed being a small type of the otter trawler, mainly operating out of Newburyport on a piece of shallow mud bottom extending from NE. by E. to SE. of the Isles of Shoals and on another ESE. from Thacher Island. Depths are from 4 to 14 fathoms. Massachusetts Bay. The larger part of this ground, especially inside Stellwagens Bank, has a mud bottom, on which large quantities of fish are rarely taken. On the shore soundings between Boston Harbor and Plymouth to Sandwich are many rocky ledges, which are favorite feeding grounds for cod In winter and fall. Off Plymouth, in late March, there is generally a large school of codfish, from which the gill-netters take good fares. All over this ground in depths of from 10 to 40 fathoms. netters from Gloucester and Boston operate in a codfishery In the months of December, January, and February. There is a considerable hand-line fishery for pollock in the fall. The gill-netters also take large fares of this species on these shore grounds as well as about Gloucester, their fares for a single month often amounting to nearly 4,000,000 pounds. November and December usually show the largest catches. These vessels operate mostly between Boston and Gloucester, and their catch goes principally to "the splitters." since the abundance of the fish naturally operates to reduce its price. This pollock netting comes to an abrupt end with the closing days of January, when the fish move offshore. Herring appear about Cape Ann in September in large numbers in most years, the fishing lasting about two weeks, when the school moves slowly inward toward the head, and the last catches usually are taken off Minot Light, Boston. The mackerel, after leaving the coast of Maine in their autumnal migrations, pass by Cape Ann and enter Massachusetts Bay during October and November, where they are taken in great number by purse seiners, netters, and pound nets, of which latter there are many in Cape Cod Bay, and which take many mackerel and herring in their seasons. Near the center of Cape Cod Bay, on a line between Race Point and Cape Cod Canal, lies a rocky elevation on which cod are taken, known as Eagle Ledge or Bay Ledge, and by Provincetown fishermen as Red Bank. It has a depth of 13 fathoms. Cape Cod Bay has a considerable Industry in flounder dragging, the fish being taken by a small type of otter trawl. South and southeast of Thacher Island from 5 to 8 miles lies a stretch of muddy bottom with patches of sand scattered over it, where a considerable amount of this method of fishing is carried on during most of the year. Old Man's Pasture. This ground is due S. from Thacher Island, SE. from Eastern Point Light. Cape Ann, and distant 5 miles. It is about 3/4 mile long, NNE. and SSW. by 1/ mile wide. The bottom is rough and rocky, with about 24 fathoms average depths. It is a cod ground for the entire year, which fish are taken by gill-netters principally in November. Pollock are taken here, also by gill-netters, from October 1 to December. Apparently there are few haddock here in the fall, but there is good fishing for these from February to April 1. It is also a lobster ground. Harts Ground. This lies S. 1/4 E. from Eastern Point Light. distant 5½ miles. It is 3/4 mile long in an ENE. and WSW. direction by 1/4 mile wide, and is a small, rocky patch with a depth of 30 fathoms. It is a summer haddock ground, visited mainly by small boats. There is little or no gill netting here. Eagle Ridge, sometimes called Little Middle Bank. This ridge is 7 2/3 miles S. by W. from Eastern Point Light, Cape Ann. and 1 mile long, NE. and SW., by ½ mile wide. The average depths are 25 fathoms on a rocky and uneven bottom. Formerly, with Old Man's Pasture and Browns Ledge. this was considered the principal winter grounds of the cod, but not so many have been taken here at that season in recent years. Inside this area, at an average distance of 2½ miles from Eastern Point Light and between bearings S. ½ E. and SW.. are a number of small, rocky patches having depths of from 10 to 25 fathoms--Browns Ledge, Spot of Rocks, Saturday Night Ledge, and Burnhams Rocks; SW ½ W. from Saturday Night Ledge, 6 miles, lies Old Tillie. Farther in are two shoal spots bearing nearly west from Eastern Point. one at 3/4 mile and the other at 2 miles distance, each having 11 fathoms. The first is called Eleven Fathom Ground. the second, Kettle Island Ledge. This latter lies ½ mile SE. of Kettle Island. These are cod grounds in winter and haddock grounds in summer. Gill-netters operate from Kettle Island to Halfway Rock and Italian boats trawl at all seasons off The Graves. Western Point Ridge. This bears S. by E. ½ E. from Eastern Point Light, distant 9 1/4 miles. Its length NE. and SW. is 1½ miles and its width is ¾ mile. The depths average 29 fathoms over a broken and rocky bottom. Small vessels and boats fish here for cod and haddock in the summer. Netters take many pollock on all these shore grounds in the fall runs, October to January furnishing the largest fares. Apparently these are spawning fish that leave abruptly during January, working offshore again. The Dump. This lies inside the lightship at Boston, extending from this to and well into Nahant Bay. On these inner grounds soundings are from 12 to 15 fathoms over sand and gravel. This portion is a cod ground from March to May. The outer parts of the ground have from 15 to 20 fathoms of water over a gravelly and muddy bottom, which usually furnishes haddocking during the early spring. These are mainly gill-net grounds. Inner Bank. This lies SE. from Thacher Island 12 miles to the northern end, whence it extends in a generally southerly direction for about 10 miles, having an average width of 2½ miles. Depths here average about 40 fathoms on a hard, gravelly bottom, where haddock usually are taken in the spring, pollock in the fall, and cod in the winter months. This piece of ground is much fished by the gill-netting fleet out of Gloucester. A large area of muddy ground lying E. of this and between it and Middle Bank is much visited by the flounder draggers out of Boston and Gloucester. Depths here are from 40 to 55 fathoms over a comparatively smooth bottom. A ridge that lies just S. of the Limiter Bank, and which may be a continuation of it, extends from a point E. by N. from Scituate buoy to a point SE. by S. from the same about 10 or 11 miles and furnishes cod fishing in February, beginning at Brewers Spot, on the southern end of the ground, and working northward with the schools to Si's Spot, at the northern end of the ridge. The bottom over much of the ridge is of mussel beds, with from 25 to 30 fathoms of water, but at the northern end it is rocky and pebbly, with from 30 to 35 fathoms and on the southern end the bottom is composed of stones, gravel, and pebbles with 20 to 25 fathoms of water over it. This ridge is flanked E. and W. by a muddy bottom, which furnishes the flounder-dragging fleet with good fishing during most of the year. [Table 2--Inner Fishing Grounds, showing the principal species taken upon them.] [Footnote 12: Again, Captain Smith (1614): "At the Ile of Manahigan, in 43 1/2 of Northerly latitude . . . The remarkablest isle, and mountains for landmarks, a round high isle, with little Monas by its side, betwixt which is a small harbor, where our ships can lie at anchor." (Transcriber's note: "Ile" is as spelled in the footnote, despite the other spellings of it in the footnote as "isle.")] OUTER GROUNDS Grand Manan Bank. This bank is at the entrance of the Bay of Fundy, SW. ½ S. from the southwest head of Grand Manan Island from which the northern part of the bank is 15 miles distant. From Mount Desert Rock, E. by S., it is 45 miles distant. The bank is 10 miles long and 5 miles wide, extending in a NE. and SW. direction. The bottom is mostly stones and gravel, the depths running from 24 to 45 fathoms. Soundings of 18 and 21 fathoms are found on the northeast part. Cod (especially abundant when the June school is on the ground) and pollock are the principal fish. Haddock are not usually abundant, although sometimes they are plentiful in the fall from late September to December; hake are fairly abundant on the mud between Grand Manan Bank and the Middle Ground (In The Gully). This is a good halibut bank, the fish being in 33 to 60 fathoms in June and July; the southwest soundings and the southeast soundings are most productive always. The best fishing season is from April to October, when the fish come to this hank to feed. In the spring the fish, other than halibut, are mostly on the southwest part, but later (July to October) the best fishing is had on the northern edge of the ground. The very best herring fishing for large herring (food fish) occurs on this bank in June and July. In general, this is a small-vessel ground fished by craft from Cutler, Eastport, Grand Manan, and, to a less extent, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, with an occasional visit by craft from Portland and Rockland, chiefly trawlers of moderate size. Tides run NE. in flood and SW. on the ebb and are quite strong, the flood being the heaviest. Because of these powerful currents, fishing is somewhat difficult, it being necessary to make sets at the slack of the tides, getting the gear over and traveling with the finish of the current, to take it up and come back with the tide's return. Middle Ground. This ground is between Grand Manan Bank and Marblehead Bank; its length from NW. to SE. is 1½ miles, and it is about ½ mile wide. Depths averaging 37 fathoms are found on the southern edge on a hard, rocky bottom, increasing to over 60 fathoms over much of the ground. The remainder of the bank has a bottom of sand and gravel. There is a shoal of 28 fathoms near the center with a bottom of rocks and stones. The species and seasons of their abundance are much as on Grand Manan Bank and German Bank, but the Middle Ground is rather better as a cod ground than as a ground for other species, June, perhaps, being the best month for the fishing. Marblehead Bank. Situated between Grand Manan and German Banks, the shoal water bearing SSE. from Moosabec Light, distant 32 miles. It is from 12 to 15 miles long and 7 or 8 miles wide, lying between 44° 00' and 44° 10' north latitude and 66° 58' and 67° 13' west longitude. There are from 35 to 70 fathoms of water over it; the bottom is mostly clay and gravel. The principal fishing is for cod, pollock, and haddock, but there are more or less hake and cusk to be had from this ground. The best fishing season is from early spring through the early part of the summer, and this ground is of little account after July. The same type of vessels operate here as on the neighboring banks, with an occasional larger vessel. The craft are mostly hand-liners from Cutler, Jonesport, and Rockland, with a few vessels from the trawl fleets of Portland and others from the Canadian Provinces. Haddock are found in the shoal water from May to October. Cusk are on the eastern portion in from 60 to 70 fathoms virtually the year around. Many large hake are present on the western edge in 80 to 90 fathoms in the summer. The June and July cod school is the best, but this species is present in smaller numbers all the year. Halibut are found all over the bank, being especially abundant in the eastern shoal water in spring and summer (April to October). It seems necessary to leave the halibut trawls down for a longer set here than on other grounds in order to make a good catch. German Bank. This is one of the most important banks in the Bay of Fundy. (We are here referring to the German Bank in the bay and not to the part of Seal Island ground, so marked on some charts.) It bears SE. from Bakers Island Light, Mount Desert, from which the northeast part is about 52 miles distant. Its length is about 15 miles, the width 9 or 10 miles. It lies between 43° 38' and 43° 53' north latitude and 64° 58' and 67° 15' west longitude. Depths are from 65 to 100 fathoms with soundings of 47 fathoms on the northern part. The bottom is mostly tough red clay with spots of mud, sand, gravel, and pebbles on some parts. The tides set in and out over this bank to and from the Bay of Fundy, the ebb SW. and the flood NE., but the currents are not so strong as might be expected. Cod, hake, and cusk are the principal species taken, with pollock and haddock in lesser amounts. It is a fairly good halibut ground also, wherever a bottom of black and white gravel is found, though formerly little regarded as such. The fish (except hake) are most abundant in the spring. This ground is not much fished of late years, but was formerly considered a good place for hake fishermen in summer. Probably it is equally as good now, but the demand for hake has diminished materially in recent years, and this fishery has suffered in consequence. Mostly Maine vessels fish this bank, from Cutler, Moosabec, and Rockland, with a few from Portland and perhaps an occasional visitor from the Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, fleet. Newfound. This ground is 45 miles SE. by S. from Mount Desert Rock and has depths of 90 to 100 fathoms over a gravelly bottom. It is about 12 to 15 miles long. ENE. and WSW., by 7 miles wide, lying in the track of the Yarmouth (Nova Scotia) to Boston steamers. Apparently, this title is given to some rediscovered old ground and with a new generation of fishermen displaces the old name. This is not a haddock ground, but cod, cusk, and hake (large fish) are abundant here in the spring. Perhaps this is an all-the-year fishing ground, but thus far no further information about it has been obtainable. It is about 12 to 15 miles long, ENE aned WSW, by 7 miles wide, lying in the track of the Yarmouth (Nova Scotia) to Boston steamers. Jones Ground. This is an important cod ground though of small size. The western part bears SE, from Bakers Island Light, distant 32 miles. The ground is 10 to 12 miles long, NE. and SW. and 5 miles wide. Depths range from 50 to 100 fathoms. The bottom, which is quite broken, consists of rocks, gravel, and mud. On the northeast parts, where depths vary from 50 to 70 fathoms, the bottom is rocky and rough. This part bears SE. by E. ½ E. from Bakers Island Light, distant 35 miles. (Green Mountain, of Mount Desert, bears NW.) It is a hake ground in 110 fathoms. The center of the ground furnishes good trawl fishing from May 1 to September. The principal catch is large cod, but a smaller amount of hake, cusk, and pollock are taken also. Bank Comfort. This is a comparatively little known fishing ground lying SE. by S. from Mount Desert Rock. distant 12 or 13 miles. It is said to be 5 miles long, SW. and NE., by 3 miles wide. Here are depths of from 75 to 80 fathoms over a hard gravelly bottom, the shoalest water being some 65 fathoms. This is an excellent ground but little fished because its small size makes it somewhat difficult to find. It is a very good cod ground in spring and summer, hand-liners catching large cod here from May to August. Hake and cusk are present here in summer also. It is scarcely fished at any other than the seasons mentioned. Clay Bank. This bank lies SW. by W. from Mount Desert Rock, the center distant 7 miles. It is 4 miles long, WSW. and ENE., by 2 miles wide. Depths are from 50 to 80 fathoms over a bottom of hard clay. Cod are the principal catch in spring, hake in summer. There is virtually no winter fishing. Newfound. This ground lies off of the northeast edge of Jeffreys Bank and is often considered a part of it, but there seems to lie deep water between. This is one of three grounds of the name in these waters. The present piece of bottom lies 20 miles SE. by S. from Matinicus block and S. ½ E. from Seal Island (in Penobscot Bay) and has a broken and irregular bottom with depths from 60 to 100 fathoms over blue mud and shells and considerable areas of gravelly ground. It is about 7 miles long, E. by N. and W. by S., and about 4 miles wide. Fishing here in the summer months is mostly by hand-lining because of the presence of schools of dogfish in these waters at that season. In the spring it is a good ground for cod, and in the fall months cod, hake, and cusk are taken, all by trawling. Perhaps March is the best month for cod fishing here, the cusk being most numerous at the same season, when they are especially abundant in depths of 80 fathoms or more and are then taken by trawling. In spring and early summer halibut are often found in depths of 35 to 60 fathoms on the gravelly parts of the ground. A small rocky eminence just off the northern edge of the ground rises sharply from the 94-fathom depths surrounding it to reach 48 fathoms. On this are taken market cod (2½ to 10 pounds weight) during the spring months and very large cod (fish reaching 50, 60, and 70 pounds or more) during June, July, and August. Its small area makes this spot somewhat difficult to find. Jeffreys Bank. This ground lies east of Cashes Bank and, despite its considerable size, is of comparatively little importance as a fishing ground. It is about 20 miles long. SW. and NE., and 10 miles wide. The northern and southern limits are 43° 30' and 43° 15' north latitude. The eastern edge is In 68° 25', the western in 68° 45'. west longitude. The bottom is somewhat broken--mud, sand, gravel, and pebbles, with a great number of small rocky ridges, upon which good fishing is generally to be had, although these spots are quite difficult to find and accommodate but little trawl gear. There is virtually no fishing upon much of the interior parts of the bank between these spots, where the bottom is mostly of mud. Depths over the bank vary from 35 to 70 fathoms. The Outer Fall and the Inner Fall. generally called Monhegan Fall, are the only parts of Jeffreys Bank thought to be of much importance as fishing grounds. Both these formerly furnished excellent fishing but are not now as much resorted to, although vessels from Portland and Rockland often fish here and bring in fair catches. Cod, haddock, and cusk are the most important species in the fares from this ground, with a lesser amount of pollock and a few halibut, these latter usually being taken on the small ridges above mentioned In the main, this bank is a winter ground; good also in the spring and early summer before the dogfish strike it. It is fished mostly by the smaller vessels--trawlers of from 15 to 70 tons. The Inner Fall lies SE. ½ S. from Monhegan Island, 21½ miles, west of Newfound 6 miles, and S. by W ½ W. from Matinicus Rock 17 miles. The Outer Fall lies S. ½ E. from Matinicus Rock 21 miles. These both have hard sharp bottoms, which are good cod and cusk grounds in the spring. The gravelly bottom, both on the Inner Fall and on the Outer Fall, often holds halibut in the spring and early summer (May 1 to July 15) in depths of from 35 to 60 fathoms. The fishing ground of the Inner Fall is somewhat difficult to find, the best portions lying in a narrow strip about 6 miles long by something less than 1 mile wide along the northwestern edge of the bank. Soundings ranging from 35 to 55 fathoms over the main body of the bank drop suddenly to 85 and even 94 on the edges. The average depth is about 45 fathoms over a rocky bottom, with good cod fishing in summer and cusk on the hard bottom of the deeper water. Haddock usually are abundant on this bank in winter. Along the northern edge of Jeffreys Bank, between the Inner Fall and the Outer Fall, in an average depth of 40 fathoms, cod and halibut are taken in spring and summer. The extreme southern part of the bank is also a fairly good cod ground, while halibut occur in fair numbers in summer. Depths here are from 38 to 45 fathoms over rocks and gravel. A small circular piece of ground rises about 2 miles W. of the bank, lying between it and Toothaker Ridge. This is about 2 miles across and has depths averaging 50 fathoms over a rocky bottom. This spot is a good summer cod ground. Toothaker Ridge. This bank is 26 miles S. ½ E. from Monhegan and lies in an ENE. and WSW. direction. There seem to be two ridges here, the larger being about 5 or 6 miles long by about 1½ miles wide. This inner ridge has a shoal of 35 fathoms on the western end, from which it deepens eastward to about 45 fathoms, which is the general depth elsewhere on this piece of ground. The outer ridge parallels the inner at about 1½ miles distance and there is a deep, narrow gully between. It apparently has about half the area of the other. This smaller ridge has a 45-fathom shoal of rocks on the western end, deepening the water, like the other, to the eastward to 75 and 80 fathoms over a broken rocky bottom and 90 fathoms on hard mud. This is an all-the-year cusk ground. A few cod are present all the year. but this species is most abundant here and on the other ridge in the spring and through June. Hake occur on the muddy ground in summer and fall. On both shoals are abundant growths of "lemons" and like species of fish food, and they are good "hand-line spots" over their rocky bottoms. Fishing on both is said to be at its best in the spring and in June, the species taken being cod, cusk, pollock, and hake. As before stated, these are year-around cod and cusk ground, pollock and hake being present in summer and fall, the latter species over the muddy ground. These grounds have been thought to lie too rough for trawling. But occasional good fares are taken on them by this method. Cashes Bank. Our older reports state that Cashes Bank was not then an important fishing ground except for a short time in the spring, although good fares were often taken there in the fall also. The writer has found it furnishing at least its quota in recent years and in apparently increasing volume. It bears E. 1/4 S. from Cape Ann (Thacher Island Light, from which point most skippers lay their course), from which its shoaler parts are distant 78 miles, and bears SE. 1/4 S. from Portland Lightship 69 miles to the buoy upon it, where is a depth of 17 fathoms; and 74 miles SE. ½ S. from Cape Elizabeth eastern light to the buoy. The bank is about 22 miles long, from 42° 49' to 43° 11' north latitude, and about 17 miles wide, from 68° 40' to 69° 03' west longitude. There are three small shoals upon its western part, of which the southern has a depth of 7 fathoms, the middle one has 4 fathoms, and the northern one has 11 fathoms. The middle shoal lies in 42° 56' north latitude and 68° 52' west longitude. From this the south shoal bears S. by E. and the north shoal NNE., each being 3 1/4 miles distant from it. The water breaks on these in rough weather and, though of small extent, they are dangerous to passing vessels bound from Cape Sable to Massachusetts ports, across whose course they lie directly. Except for these shoals, the water ranges from 15 to 60 fathoms. The ground is more or less broken, and the bottom is of sand, pebbles, and rocks. The principal fishing on these grounds is for cod, haddock, hake, and cusk; the cod and cusk are present the year around, the cod being most abundant in February, March. and April in an average depth of 60 fathoms. The hake are found on the muddy edges in summer, with a lesser number present all the year. Haddock are present in considerable numbers from November to February, and sometimes a good school occurs in 20-fathom depths in April. The arrival of the dogfish usually puts a temporary ending to the fishing here in the last days of June or early In July, to be resumed again when these pests have moved inshore. Formerly halibut were reported as seen rarely, but of late years they have been found among the kelp in 15 to 18 fathoms on the shoal nearly the year around, the fish ranging in size from 5 to 40 pounds, rarely larger. Halibut of larger size are taken occasionally in fairly good numbers in 30 to 50 fathoms in May and June. Perhaps this species is more abundant on this and neighboring grounds than is generally realized. At all events, certain Portland vessels have recently taken good fares of halibut when fishing for them here in the season named. Cusk are present in the deep water the year around. As is the case with most of the detached ridges in this gulf, the cusk is the most abundant of the fish present about the middle of March. continuing in good numbers through May. In herring years these fish usually occur in good numbers on this ground In late May, and a considerable number of these (food fish or large herring) are taken here by seiners at this season. Mackerel are generally abundant on these grounds In those years when these fish occur In normal quantities on this coast. Vessels operating on Cashes Bank range in size from 15 to 50 tons, principally from Maine ports, with a fair number of them from Gloucester and Boston, especially in winter. Of late years a few gill-netters have fished here, and these craft are using these grounds in steadily increasing numbers. A comparatively little known and apparently as yet unnamed ridge lies E. by S. 15 miles from the buoy on Cashes Ledge, which is reported to be good fishing ground, especially for cod and cusk. With both species present here the year around, the cod is said to be most abundant in April and May: and the cusk, as is the rule on these outlying ridges, appears in largest numbers in March and April. Haddock seem to be somewhat rare here. This ridge lies in a SE. and NW. direction, extending somewhat indefinitely but for at least 10 miles by about 3 miles in width. On the ridge the bottom is broken--a hard bottom of black gravel, which usually means a good fishing spot--the depths here being from 85 to 90 fathoms. There are numerous muddy spots between these harder pieces of ground where soundings run to 100 fathoms or slightly more. The surrounding bottom is mostly of mud, and the depths average from 100 to 125 fathoms. There are a number of pieces of gravelly hard ground in the vicinity, each of which probably would furnish equally good fishing for cod and cusk at the same seasons as on the ridge. Due E. from the buoy on Ammens Rock about 12 miles lies a ridge that rises from the 100 to 120 fathom depths about it to a depth of about 80 fathoms over a bottom of broken ground, mud, and shells. This shoaler piece is some 3 miles long. N. by E. and S. by NW., by 1 mile wide. It furnishes good fishing for cod, hake, and cusk in the spring, April being the best season. A ridge lying NW. of Cashes Bank and nearly parallel with the main bank, only separated by a narrow deep channel, is about 7 miles long by 1½ miles wide. The species and the seasons are the same here as on Cashes Bank. Big Ridge (near Cashes Bank). This is a broken and rocky piece of bottom running from the tip of the southeastern part of the ground, at about 10 miles S. from the buoy on Ammens Rock and about 82 miles SE. ½ S. from the lightship at Portland, to a point about 20 miles S. by E. from the buoy named. Its length is not to be stated definitely, and it is probably greater than here shown. The width averages about 1½ to 2 miles. Depths are from 65 to 80 fathoms and more, increasing gradually as it goes away from the main bank. The species and their seasons of abundance here are as on Cashes Bank. Perhaps this is more of a cod and cusk ground than is the main part of Cashes Bank, the cusk being particularly abundant during March and April. Halibut also are found here in May and June in from 50 to 60 fathoms of water. A considerable amount of the fish shown in the table of the catch from the area included in Cashes Bank may very well have come from this piece of ground. Another big ridge, paralleling the 100-fathom curve of Georges Bank at about 20 miles N. of it, lies SE by S from the buoy on Cashes Ledge, forty miles to its center; SE by S 110 miles from Portland Lightship; ESE 92 miles from Cape Ann to its western end, and E. by S. ½ S. from the ship at Boston 100 miles. This ridge also is of somewhat indefinite area, being perhaps 20 miles long in an ESE by WNW direction by 1½ to three miles wide. Apparently depths are fairly uniform from 85 to 95 fathoms, the bottom of the ridge being of coarse black sand and having blue mud in the deeper area around it. This is said to be a good cod and cusk ground the year round. John Dyers Ridge. This lies 14 miles S. by E. from Toothakers Ridge, 40 miles S. by E. from Monhegan Island, and 7 miles NE. from Cashes Bank. It is about 5 miles long by 2 miles wide, lying in an ENE. and WSW. direction. The water is shoalest on the western edge, where are from 45 to 50 fathoms over a sharp, pebbly bottom; thence the ground slopes to the NE. into 75 and 80 fathoms over a hard, gravelly, and muddy bottom, in all other directions falling off sharply to 90 and 100 fathom soundings over a muddy bottom. This is essentially a cod ground for the entire year, the species being most abundant from May 1 to November. It is a cusk ground all the year on the hard bottom of the deeper parts, March and April showing the largest schools. Hake also are abundant in 70 fathoms and deeper on the mud in summer and fall. Fifty-five Fathom Bunch. West of Cashes Bank is a rocky ridge extending ENE. and WSW. about 4 miles and having a width of about 1 mile. This is mainly a cod ground, the seasons for the species being as on Cashes Bank. Fippenies Bank. This consists of two shoals averaging 80 fathoms in depth with a channel of 90 fathoms between them. These run NE. and SW., the eastern shoal about 8 miles long by 1 mile wide, the western about half as large. Fippenies bears E. 1/4 S. from Thacher Island, distant 61 miles; from Portland Lightship, SE. by S. ½ S, 57 miles to the western point of the northern shoal in 35 fathoms. The bank is nearly 10 miles long NE. and SW. and averages 4½ miles wide. The bottom is of gravel, pebbles, and clay, having depths over much of the shoal of about 30 fathoms but also from 36 to 60 fathoms. It is fished by the shore fleet in the spring and early summer. The fish and seasons are as on Cashes Bank. Formerly twice as many haddock were taken here as on Cashes or on Platts Bank, but this has changed in recent years. Halibut are taken here in fair numbers in 45 to 55 fathom depths in June, July, and August on the "black gravel" of the southern and western edge. The "white gravel" on the north shoal is of little account as a fishing ground, since it is composed mostly of the shells of dead scallops. The Ridge (on the southern part of Fippenies). This is SSE. from the light-ship at Portland 75 miles and has a bottom of yellow mud and pebbles and depths of 75 to 95 fathoms. Cod are present here in December and January; cusk the year around, but most numerous in February and March; haddock in December and January; hake in September and October. The length of this bank is from 4 to 5 miles and the width somewhat less than 2 miles. It lies in an ENE. and WSW. direction. Maurice Lubee's Ground. This lies outside of New Ledge (Platts Bank) 47 miles SSE. from the lightship at Portland. Extending in an ENE. and WSW. direction, its boundaries are somewhat indefinite. It is perhaps 8 miles long by 3 miles wide and has depths from 95 to 110 fathoms over a bottom consisting mostly of mud. Cusk are plentiful here in the spring, with a few in the fall. Cod are taken all the year around, the Spring school being the largest. Hake are most numerous In the spring and fall months, and haddock are not common but are most numerous in winter. Apparently the abundance of cod on this ground is due to the great quantity of shrimps and soft-shelled crabs found on the muddy bottom and on the rocks that compose this ground. There seem to be many of these deep-water grounds between and about the shoaler grounds, as near Cashes, Fippenies, and Jeffreys, which apparently serve as fairways over which the schools of hake, cod, and cusk, move from Georges Bank into the Gulf of Maine in the spring of the year. Harvey Blacks Ridge. This is SE. ½ S. from the lightship off Portland, distant 42 miles, and SE. from New Ledge, distant 8 miles. From Glovers Rock, off Small Point, Me. this ridge lies SE. by S. ½ S. 41 miles. It extends in an ENE. and WSW. direction about 4 miles long by I mile wide. Depths average 70 to 100 fathoms over a bottom of yellow clay and gravel. Cod are taken here all the year. Haddock are found in the deep water in the spring: cusk all the year in deep water, together with hake in summer, also on the muddy bottom in deep water. Pollock and other surface-schooling fish are found here in their proper season. The Cod Ridge (formerly Outer Harris Ground). This lies NE. from the Northeast Peak of New Ledge, distant 7 miles. It extends in an ENE. and WSW. direction, the ground narrowing and the water deepening to the eastward, the shoal ground having 45 fathoms on a bottom of small pebbles and fine black gravel and sand, depths increasing in all other directions to 100 fathoms on the mud and sloping off somewhat steeply, especially on the southeast side, where the drop is very sharp. The length of the ground is about 5 miles, the width 1 mile. This is an all-the-year cod ground, the season of greatest abundance being from May 1 to November. The haddock are usually In their greatest numbers here from January 1 to April. Apparently no large number of cusk or hake are taken here on the ridge, perhaps because the water is not deep enough for the former, except for the small fish, which are of little value to the fishermen; and the ground is not muddy enough for the latter species. Both species, however, are found about the edges in the deep water, the cusk on the sharpest, hardest part of the bottom (perhaps most common in February and March), the hake, as usual, on the muddy parts about it. Three-Dory Ridge. Outside of New Ledge and about midway between it and Harvey Blacks Ridge is a small ridge about 3 miles long, running NE. and SW., and about ½ mile wide. This lies SE. by S. from the Portland Lightship. 38 miles to the shoal of 55 fathoms, which is near its center. From this the ground slopes away on all sides to 63 and 65 fathom depths over which area the bottom is made up of sand, gravel, mud, and rocks. At these lower depths are found "pipes" (clay cylinders), where the fishing ends abruptly. All about the ridge are depths of 80 to 100 fathoms on a bottom of mud. This is almost entirely a cod ground, good from May to August. Platt's Bank or New Ledge. This bears E. by N. ½ N. from Thacher Island, from which the shoal portion of the ledge is distant 53 miles. From Portland Lightship it is 30 miles SSE. to the center of the ground. The bank is about 12 miles long, NE. and SW.. and about 8 miles wide. The western shoal, which is of small extent and rocky and which has a considerable amount of dead shells upon it, is situated near the center, its depth being 29 fathoms. From this shoal to the Southwest Peak is about 11 miles SW. by S. Another shoal lies E. 3 miles, having about 30 fathoms over sand and gravel, which is a good fall ground for haddock. East-northeast from the western shoal 3 miles brings us to a rocky ridge, with spots of hard mud and pebbles between, in 65-fathom depth, which is a fine winter cusk ground, these fish remaining here until April. Over much of the bank the depths range from 30 to 35 fathoms with a bottom of rocks and gravel. From the edge of the shoaler area the bottom slopes gradually to 50 or 60 fathoms, beyond which it drops suddenly to 80 or 90 fathoms over a muddy bottom. This was considered one of the very best fishing grounds for cod and haddock in the Gulf of Maine, but the haddock catch here has fallen off recently. Hake also are very abundant during the summer months and often during October on the muddy bottom near the edge. Inside 100 fathoms, on a "punkin" bottom of rocks and gravel, near the mud, haddock are found from December to March. Cod, pollock, and cusk occur from May to October, the former on the rocky and gravelly portions, the latter on the deep soundings, with the Northeast Peak the best summer ground. This is also an especially good fall and winter ground for haddock. Halibut are often found in 35 fathoms (small fish) from September through November; also In spring and early summer. This ground is fished by vessels from Cape Cod, Mass., to Cutler, Me., mainly by trawling, some hand-lining, but no gill netting of importance as yet. Jeffreys Ledge. Jeffreys Ledge may be considered one of the best fishing grounds in the Gulf of Maine, although of comparatively small size. It appears to be an extension of the shoal ground that makes off in an easterly direction from Cape Ann, it is about 20 miles long in a NE. and SW. direction and about 4 miles wide. Its southern limits is 42° 54' and its northern limit 43° north latitude; its eastern and western boundaries may be placed at 69° 58' and 70° 18' west longitude. The bottom is rocky on the shoaler parts, with gravel and pebbles on the edges. Depths on the bank are from 27 to 35 fathoms, falling off to 40 or 50 on the edges. The shoalest water lies from 4 to 5 miles N. by E. from the buoy, where there is 22 fathoms. Ordinarily there is little or no tide, with an occasional current SW. There are, however, strong westerly currents with the heavy easterly winds, and often after a period of mild weather with no strong tides there will suddenly develop a heavy SW. flow, indicating the approach of a strong northwester. This seems a general rule in the Gulf of Maine and is, perhaps, prevalent over much of our North Atlantic coast. Jeffreys Ledge bears S. ½ W. from the lightship off Portland, 19 miles to the northern edge and 22 miles S. from the buoy on the Hue and Cry to the edge of the shoal. A small cove makes for a short distance into the western side of Jeffreys Ledge at about 20 miles from Boon Island in a SE. by S. ½ S. direction. The bottom in the cove is broken and muddy, with depths of about 60 fathoms. Thence, the ground slopes away to the mouth, where the edges about the entrance are rocky and have 70 and 75 fathom depths. These rocky areas are cusk grounds in January, February, and March, during which months the cove itself usually furnishes good haddock fishing. Outside these depths the water deepens westward over a muddy bottom, where are from 80 to 90 and even 100 fathoms of water. Fishing here is mainly by trawl and gill nets. Lying about SE. by S. ½ 5. from the Isle of Shoals 20 miles, 13 miles S. by W. from the whistling buoy on Jeffreys, and 43 miles S. by W. from Cape Elizabeth is a broken piece of bottom having from 75 to 85 fathoms of water over it, which is a haddock ground from January to April and a cusk and hake ground all the year. A small shoal in the western part of the Cove of Jeffreys, having 50 fathoms over a bottom of blue clay and rocks and rising from the 60 and 70 fathom soundings about it, is about 1½ miles long by about 3/4 mile wide. This shoal is SSE. from Boon Island 15 miles. It is a winter ground for cod and haddock. Clay Ridge. At various points about the edges of Jeffreys Ledge are small detached ridges, which in their season are good fishing grounds. The present piece of ground lies 26 miles S. by W. from the lightship at Portland, which course and distance bring us to the northern edge. There is a 50-fathom shoal of small size upon it, but elsewhere soundings average from 65 to 70 fathoms over a bottom of hard clay. The length of the ground is about 4 miles NNE. and SSW., and the breadth about 1 mile. This furnishes good haddocking in January, February. and March. the latter month showing the best fishing. Jerry Yorks Ridge. This lies just inside and paralleling Jeffreys Ledge WNW. from its shoal water and about 5 miles distant from the ledge and about 18 miles SE. by S. ½ S. from Cape Porpoise. This ground has from 45 to 48 fathoms of water on a rocky broken bottom. It is about 5 miles long, NNE. and SSW., and averages 1½ miles wide. This is a good cod and haddock ground In the fall and up to January, these fish returning here in the spring months. Howard Nunans Ridge. Of similar nature to the last, this rises 4 miles inside of and parallel to it, lying 14 miles from Cape Porpoise on the same bearings (SE. by S. ½ S.). This appears to be made up of two shoals, the northern rising to 50 fathoms of water over a rocky, broken bottom about 3 miles long by 1 mile wide, deepening southwesterly to a narrow, muddy gully, where are 80 fathoms, and rising again to 60 fathoms over rocks and broken ground. The whole ground is about 8 miles long with average widths of from 1 to 1½ miles. This ground furnishes good cod fishing and haddocking in the fall and early winter and again in the spring months. Southeast Jeffreys. Off the southeast edge of Jeffreys, about 24 miles SE. from Boon Island, lies a piece of fishing ground having a hard bottom of sand, gravel, and rocks, where depths slope away gradually from the 50-fathom soundings near the main body of the bank to the 90-fathom mark farther out. This area is a good ground for cod and haddock in the winter and spring and a hake ground in March. This fishing spot is about 3 or 4 miles square and is bounded on all but the western side by muddy bottom, which is of little value as a fishing ground. Usually there is good haddocking in March on the outside of Jeffreys, on its southeastern edge and in the cove between it and Tillies in 60 and 70 fathom depths on a broken and muddy bottom. This spot lies SE ½ from the Isle of Shoals, 27 miles to the center. Eastern Shoal Water of Cape Ann. This is generally considered a part of Jeffreys and is often spoken of as West Jeffreys by the fishermen. It extends In an ENE. direction from Cape Ann for a distance of from 15 to 18 miles. It is, in fact, a southwest continuation of Jeffreys Ledge, the two forming a nearly continuous ridge running NE. from Cape Ann a distance of about 42 miles. Depths on the so-called Eastern Shoal Water vary from 20 to 45 fathoms, the bottom being of rocks, pebbles, and coarse gravel over most of its extent. Sand and mud occur on the edges. The eastern part of the ground is resorted to by the haddock fleet during the fall and early winter, and other parts are visited more or less during the entire year for cod, haddock, and pollock by vessels and boats from Cape Ann and by craft of various types from Boston and Portland-line trawlers, gill-netters, and a few of the new type of small otter trawlers, this latter fleet of craft constantly growing in number. On the ledge cod, haddock, and cusk are taken in the full winter and spring, winter, perhaps, furnishing the best fishing. There are also more or less pollock, and hake constitute an important part of the catch. In those seasons when herring make their appearance in these waters the seiners make good catches here, mostly of food fish, as the large herring are termed by the trade. The mackerel, also, appear on these grounds and on the smaller grounds nearer to shore to northward and westward in good-sized schools, usually from July 1 through September. For many years the haddock catch from this bank has been of considerable importance, and this statement remains true for recent years as well. Formerly this fishery was almost entirely carried on by trawlers and hand-liners, but the gill-net fishery on these grounds is of great and steadily growing importance. Of late the larger part of the haddock catch has been taken by the "otter-trawl" method, this gear being operated by steamers of considerable size and upon the more distant grounds, such as Georges Bank, the South Channel, and the Western Bank. The same change to fishing grounds farther offshore has to a great extent taken place in the fleet of larger sailing vessels, thus leaving Jeffreys and other inshore banks to the smaller craft; except that, with the high prices of haddock and cod in the winter months, it is often profitable for these larger vessels to run off to near-by banks for one set and return to port the same day. On the inner parts of this ground, particularly, the gill-net fleet operates extensively, mainly in the full and spring, on northwest Jeffreys 8 to 12 miles E. and SE. from Thacher Island, where the bottom is sand and rocks. Other gill-netting grounds are 8 to 15 miles NE. by E. from Thacher Island in 22 fathoms on a hard bottom of mud and mixed material of sand and gravel. The Cove of Jeffreys, NE. by E. 12 to 15 miles from Thacher Island, is a favorite haddock ground in the spring (April 20 to May 15) in 45 to 70 or even 80 fathoms, although gill nets are not often fished in more than 50 fathoms because of the, weight of the nets in the deeper water. In the spring (in April and May), the haddock come in on Scantum, 10 miles NNE. from Thacher Island between Jeffreys Ledge and the Isle of Shoals, on a broken bottom of rocks and blue clay in 55 to 70 fathoms. Off Newburyport and N. and SW. of the Isle of Shoals are gill-netting grounds that are much used. Trawling and netting are carried on, beginning in 40 fathoms in February and March and working off to 70 fathoms off Salisbury Bench in May. Cod are on this ground about two weeks in October and in February and March are found in abundance off Boars Head. Hake are present here all the fall and are found all along the southeast side of these grounds in depths of 45 to 60 fathoms. A certain amount of halibut may be taken in most years at various points on a bottom of hard gravel in spring and early summer in 35 to 65 fathoms. In most years a large amount of mackerel is taken on Jeffreys, notably so in 1925. Herring, also, are usually abundant here in "herring years". The Shoal Ground, stretching easterly from Thacher Island, has depths from 20 to 30 fathoms over a bottom of sand and gravel. This area is about 15 miles long by 5 miles wide and is an important pollock ground in their spawning time as well as a good fall cod-fishing ground. It is about 12 miles E. by N. from Thacher Island to its center and 21 miles SE. by S. from the Isle of Shoals. Flounder draggers also operate here on the shoal ground and all around Thacher Island but mostly to eastward & southeastward. Tillies Bank. [13] This bears E & S from Eastern Point Light just dropping Thacher Island Light, then 3 miles farther for best fishing: and E. by S. ½ S. from Thacher Island, Cape Ann, from which the shoal on the center of the ground is distant 18 miles. This is a small rocky spot with depths of from 25 to 28 fathoms, outside of which the water deepens to 40 fathoms over a considerable area. The length of the entire ground is about 10 miles in an E. and W. direction and the width about 5 miles. At the edge it falls off rapidly to depths of 50 to 60 fathoms before reaching the mud at still greater depths but an area of shoal water connects this ground with West Jeffreys. The bottom is rocky and rough over the greater part of the bank. Tillies was formerly regarded as one of the best fishing grounds off Cape Ann and is still resorted to for cod and haddock in the spring and fall; for hake in the spring, summer, and fall, and for pollock in the spring and fall. The fishing is mainly by trawling, with the gillnetters operating on the shoal grounds in less than 50 fathoms. Stellwagen Bank also called Middle Bank. This separates Massachusetts Bay from the open water of the Gulf of Maine and extends from near Cape Ann nearly to Cape Cod. The center of this ground bears S by E ½ E from Thacher Island and N by W ½ W from Highland Light, Cape Cod. The Southern Part of the Bank is distant 5½ miles from Race Point Cape Cod, and its northwest prong reaches to within 12 or 15 miles of Eastern Point Cape Cod. The shoaler portion, with depths from 9½ to 19 fathoms, is 17½ miles long in a N by W and S by E direction and has a width of 4 miles. This part is sandy but the eastern slope, in depths of from 25 to 55 fathoms, consists of coarse sand gravel and pebbles. On this gravelly slope cod and haddock have been taken plentifully over a long term of years, the cod in the fall and spring and the haddock in the winter months. On the southern end of the bank and between this and Race Point cod abound in fall and winter. The whole bank is also a mackerel ground when the fish are in these waters, the best in the season averaging to be from July 15 through September. This bank is now mainly an Italian boat ground and is used by small craft from Boston and Gloucester. Gill-netting here is especially extensive in November and December, mostly for pollock. Netters operate about 22 miles SSE. from Eastern Point in 22 to 25 fathoms on a hard bottom. Good pollock catches are made in 25 to 40 fathoms on the eastern and southeastern slopes in the latter part of November and early December. Haddock are here from November 1 to March 1 and from April 20 to May 15. Cod are present all the year, the largest school occurring during August, September and October. It is a cusk ground from November to March in the deeper water. What seems a somewhat unusual occurrence in these later years was the appearance of a considerable school of halibut on the northern slope of Stellwagen during the last half of April 1926, several small craft getting from 2,000 to 3,000 pounds in their fares. Wild Cat Ridge. Very heavy tides sweep over this ground, making it difficult to haul gear in fishing upon it, whence, it is said, comes the name. It lies NNE from Highland Light, Cape Cod, 18 miles to its southern edge; SE ½ S from Thacher Island 31 miles; and is about 7½ miles long in a north and south direction by about 3½ miles wide. The bottom is hard, of broken shells and sand, and depths are from 45 to 60 fathoms. There are 100 fathom depths inside of the ground and from 100 to 110 fathoms outside of it. Apparently, this is an all the year ground for cod, cusk, and haddock, although but little fished at any time other than the winter seasons. [Table 3--Outer Fishing Grounds, showing the principle species taken upon them.] [Footnote 13: There has been some speculation as to the origin of the somewhat unusual name of this bank. The writer would note that there was an Edward Tillie in the Company of Captain John Smith when he explored this region in 1614 and a Tilly (perhaps the same person) who operated a fishing station at Cape Ann during the years 1624 and 1625.] GEORGES AREA East side of Cape Cod. The sea bottom off the east side of Cape Cod is mainly sandy and slopes off gradually from the beach, reaching depths of 30 to 40 fathoms at 5 to 7 miles from land. Below Chatham the slope is even more gradual. Within these limits good catches of cod are taken occasionally, and to a less extent the same is true of haddock. Farther from the shore, in from 40 to 80 fathoms and from a point 8 or 10 miles off the Highlands of Cape Cod to another point lying 20 miles or more SSE. from Chatham Lights, is a continuous stretch of excellent haddock grounds for winter fishing. The deep water off Chatham furnishes excellent hake fishing in summer and fall. This shore furnishes excellent mackerel fishing during most of the season when these fish are in northern waters. Virtually no gill-netters operate here, the distance to market being great and the chance of rough weather and the lack of safe harbor making it dangerous for small craft. From this stretch of shore (mostly from off Chatham) there were landed at Boston in the year 1923, 66 fares with a total of 1,797,826 pounds valued at $76,875. Tobins. A name given to a piece of ground about 20 miles square lying S. by E. from the Highland Light. It runs from about 40 miles to about 60 miles offshore, the depths gradually increasing as the bottom slopes away evenly from the shore from 75 to 95 fathoms over a bottom of clay, sand, and pebbles. Cod are taken here in the spring, summer, and fall, and haddock in February, March, and April. A few hake are taken here in summer, but, as compared with the grounds off Chatham, this is not to be considered a hake ground. Morris Ledge. This lies eastward of Chatham and is a favorite ground for certain cod fishermen during spring and early summer. Schooners and small craft operate here. Outer Crab Ledge. The center lies about 14 miles ESE from Chatham Lights. It extends about 5 or 6 miles in a N. and S. direction and is about 1 mile wide. Depths run from 19 to 23 fathoms; the bottom is rocky. The fishing is principally for cod in the fall, winter and spring. Vessel fishing here is principally in the spring. Nantucket Shoals. This stretch of bars and deeper waters between, roughly triangular in form with its apex at the north, lies along the western edge of the South Channel, extending S. and SE. from the southern end of Cape Cod and Nantucket Island. From Monomoy Point to Rogers Fishing Ground, on the eastern edge of Phelps Bank, it is SSE. 80 miles. Its width from Southeast Rips to the western edge of New South Shoal is 40 miles. The area includes a number of "fishing spots" and shoals, among which the following are the most important: Pollock Rip Ground, Rose and Crown Shoal, Great Rip, Davis Bank, Fishing Rip, Old and New South Shoal, and Phelps Bank. On and about all these shoals the sail fleet makes good catches, mainly consisting of cod but with a fair proportion of pollock, also, and in the deeper water close to them, in spring and summer, a considerable amount of haddock. An occasional large halibut is taken, and even good catches have been reported. There were noted in the daily report of the Boston Fish Bureau between May 15 and August 15, 1920, 10 trips made by the smaller vessels of the halibut fleet that landed fares of from 2,000 to 10,000 pounds of this species from this area. Perhaps more would be taken if the halibut fishery were to be followed here as in other areas. "Rip fishing," as conducted here, is done "at a drift," moving over the shoals and, as they move off from them, sailing back to repeat the process. The fish are taken by hand-lining with "cockle" bait or by "jigging" the fish with a shiny piece of metal representing a herring or similar fish, below which are set twin hooks, the fish being struck when it is felt investigating the lure. This fishery generally is carried on during May, June, July, and August. In the mackerel and herring seasons these grounds usually furnish good fishing for these species, the fish usually striking here from May 15 to July 15. Pollock Rip Grounds. These lie between Pollock Rip Lightship and Shovelful Lightship and extend northward to Pollock Rip Shoal. These grounds are 3 miles long, E. and W., by 2 miles N. and S. The depths range from 4 to 12 fathoms. These are fished from Monomoy and in stormy weather from Chatham instead of going to the Crab Ledge. Late in the spring and early in the fall the cod move inshore. In winter the cod leave Pollock Rip for the deeper water. Rose and Crown Shoal. This is a small piece of ground 7 miles ESE. from Sankaty Head. The fishing area lies between the Round Shoal and Rose and Crown buoys, making a stretch perhaps 6 miles long by 1½ miles wide. Sometimes good fishing may be had from 6 to 12 mile, from Great Round Shoal buoy. As elsewhere on and about these shoals, the cod is the principal species caught, pollock being next in importance, and a few haddock. Nantucket Shoals, Madisons Spot. SSE. 13 miles front Round Shoal buoy, has 9 fathoms over a smooth hard bottom of sand. It is about 3 miles long, from SE. to NW. by 1½ miles wide. This is a flounder ground for the greater part of the year and a good cod ground in October and November. As is the rule elsewhere in this neighborhood, tides are heavy over this ground. Nantucket Shoal--Great Rip. Lies 13 miles E. by S. ½ S. from Sankaty Head Light. Nantucket. It is 5 miles long from N, to S. and 3 miles broad. Over this area the depths are from 9 to 18 feet, but the fishing is done mainly around the edges in 6 to 12 fathoms where the bottom is gravel and shells covered with sponges and kelp. Here, as on all these shoals, the greater part of the fishing is done by that method known as "rip fishing." Cod are taken chiefly by hand-lining in May. June, July, and August. Nantucket Shoals; Davis Bank; Crab Bank. This is an irregular piece of bottom lying in a generally ENE. and WSW direction at about 20 miles distance ESE from Sankaty Head. It is perhaps 14 miles long by 5 miles wide at its broadest. Depths upon it are from 4 to 9 fathoms, with soundings of 12 to 18 about it, over a bottom of sand and broken shells. Nantucket Shoals Fishing Rip is an elongate bank lying 29 miles SE. from Sankaty Head Light. It is 10 miles long in a NE and SW direction and Southeast Rip (Nantucket Shoals) lies SE. from Sankaty Head 35 miles. It has depths from 8 to 10 fathoms over an area about 10 miles long by 2 miles wide, with from 22 to 30 fathoms over the sandy bottom around it. Phelps Bank. This bank lies 38 miles SE, ½ S. from Sankaty Head Light and agrees more or less in size, shape, trend, and character of the bottom with Fishing Rip. Depths are from 10 to 17 fathoms. On the southeast edge of this lies Rogers Fishing Ground, with 24 to 40 fathoms over fine gray sand. It is perhaps mainly a haddock ground. Nantucket Shoals (South Shoal). This name is applied to the fishing ground about Nantucket Lightship, which marks the Old South Shoal and the New South Shoal, the two making a continuous reef of irregular form some 10 to 12 miles in length and from 1 to 3 miles wide. The northern end of this lies about 12 miles S. by E. from Sankaty Head (the Old South Shoal), and the southern extremity of the New South Shoal reaches to about 20 miles S. ½ E. from the same point. The fishing ground lies mostly to the S. of these shoals and about the lightship, where otter trawling is carried on in all directions from the ship except from N. to NE., where lie the vessels sunk by the German submarine in the late war. This fishery is also carried on WNW. from the ship for a distance of 40 miles, even into 7 fathom depths near Muskeget Inlet. Elsewhere depths average from 13 to 18 fathoms on the inner parts of the grounds, whence they slope away gradually from the shore soundings into 50, 80, or even more on the outer edge, where the ground falls away rapidly into the deeps. For the most part this area has a bottom of sand, but there are small stretches of coarse gravel, broken shells, pebbles, and a few muddy spots. Within comparatively recent years this ground has been much used by the otter trawlers, which type of craft has developed a productive fishery here, which is being operated in steadily increasing volume and takes a catch that is predominantly of haddock. The proportion of cod taken here by these vessels is very small, even smaller than that from other grounds fished by the otter-trawl method. Pollock and hake, too, make a small item in the fares from the neighborhood of the South Shoal. In the average otter-trawl fare haddock makes up the greater part of the catch because, as a rule, this type of gear is operated mostly on the smooth, sandy bottom which this species prefers. The otter-trawl fishery here is at its best from early May through June, July, and the first halt of August. Few trips are reported from this ground at other seasons. Perhaps the haddock leaves the shoal grounds here earlier than when it moves out of the same depths in The Channel. The early fishing for the swordfish generally takes place in this vicinity, and in normal seasons mackerel are found here in abundance from May 15 to August, and, as is the custom with this uncertain fish, it may appear here again in the late fall. The Channel. [14] The Channel marks the western edge of Georges Bank. Its boundaries are somewhat indefinite, but the old Eldridge chart states that for the fishermen the 30 fathom curve running southerly from Race Point. Cape Cod, limits its western edge. This ground is much visited by the Boston fleet, both sail and steam, line trawlers and otter trawlers, the fleet of Gloucester, and the otter-trawl fleet that has developed in New York in recent years. This area is all good fishing ground in the proper season, but perhaps the most important is that part lying 25 miles E. ½ S. from Sankaty Head, Nantucket. Here is a level, sandy bottom, where, during May, June, July, and August, the otter trawlers operate successfully in 18 to 30 fathoms of water, making a catch that consists principally of haddock, with a considerable proportion of cod, especially in June and July, and with a fair amount also of pollock, cusk, and hake. Small halibut are fairly abundant here, also, these fish being of from 5 to R pounds, rarely larger. Flounders are abundant, with a good number of "lemon soles" and "gray soles," which are very popular with the trade. The sail fleet operates here also, but, as a rule, more of these vessels are found on the ground lying some 10 miles farther eastward, on the edge of Georges in somewhat deeper water (30 to 50 fathoms) on a rougher and rockier bottom, where there is a greater proportion of cod in the catch than on the western area. The Sankaty Head ground is about 20 miles long by about 8 miles wide, stretching from 55 miles SE. from Highland Light to 78 miles SE. by S ½ S. from the same point (the bottom of the Channel), and is bounded on all sides by pieces of bottom less favorable to the operation of the otter trawl because of the presence of rocks, sponges, or other obstacles, which interfere with the free passage of the net over the bottom but offer less trouble to the line-trawl fishermen. A good spring haddock ground lies ESE. 65 miles from the Highlands in 70 fathoms. best in March and April. As the cold weather advances the fish move away in great part from these grounds, going into the deeper water, the catches of the fall and winter months being taken mainly In depths of from 60 to 100 fathoms. At this season and in these depths the vicinity of the Corner of the Channel, Clarks Side. and the area N and W of the Cultivator usually have a good winter school of haddock. This has been particularly large during the past three year. (1923 to 1925). Thus, it may be seen that the Channel is an important ground during most of the year. The figures of the catch from Clarks Bank have been shown together with those of Georges Bank. of which, in fact, this area is a part. The larger part of the sail fleet is found fishing on the grounds of the eastern side of the Channel and of the western edge of Georges Bank, in part to escape the damage that the otter trawlers cause to them in dragging away their gear. It is often impossible for these steamers to avoid some damage of this kind: especially is this the case in the thick weather so prevalent oil Georges. In the summer months of the "mackerel years" a large catch of this species is taken from the waters of the Channel. St. Georges Bank, more generally known as Georges Bank. [15] This is by far the largest and most important fishing ground near the coast of the United States and is second to none in the western Atlantic except the Grand Bank of Newfoundland. It lies eastward of Cape Cod and Nantucket Shoals and is apparently an extension of the latter, since the water is no deeper between the southern part of the shoals and the western part of the bank than in many places upon it. Its southern limit, as shown on the chart, is 40° 40' north latitude, though the 50-fathom line extends 7 miles farther south. The southern limit, therefore, may be considered to be about 40° 30' and the northern as 42° 08' north latitude. The eastern part is in about 66° and the western in about 69° west longitude. The greatest length from the northeastern to the southwestern extremity is about 150 miles; the greatest width, N. and S., about 98 miles, according to the charts of the Coast Survey. Depths range from 2 to 50 fathoms. On the western part, between the parallels of 41° 10' and 41° 53' north latitude and the meridians of 87° 20' and 68° 37' west longitude are a number of shoals, known as the East Shoal, North Shoal, Southwest Shoal. Cultivator, etc. The Southwest Shoal is the largest, being 15 miles long SSW and NNE., with an average width of 2½ miles. The position of the center of this shoal is 41° 39' north latitude and 67° 48' west longitude. There are from 2 to 15 fathoms of water on the shoals and between them are depths of from 12 to 30 fathoms. The tide sweeps over these with great force, causing strong rips, and during rough weather the sea breaks heavily on them, rendering approach to their vicinity extremely hazardous. Over most of the bank the bottom is sand, although patches of rough ground (gravel, pebbles, and rocks) of greater or less extent are found in some localities. Its position between the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf Stream cause the tide to run swifter than on other banks and to swirl around instead of passing directly over, back and forth. The writer has seen two men have difficulty in holding an empty dory against the current. The Report on the Fishery Industry of the United States, in 1887, says that the first attempt at fishing here (of which there is any record) was made in 1821 by three Gloucester vessels. The cod and halibut industry, according to the same authority, began in 1830, although not fully established as a permanent industry until 1835. The area of the whole bank is approximately 8,050 square miles, all of which, except for the shoals, is available in summer for the taking of cod, haddock, cusk, halibut, and hake, with a considerable amount of mackereling and swordfishing, as well as the taking of other species. During February, March, and April large schools of cod make their appearance on the bank. At this season these are found most abundantly on the "Winter Fishing Ground"; a part of Georges lying eastward and southeastward of the North Shoal between the parallels of 41° 30' and 42° 00' north latitude and 66° 38' and 67° 30' west longitude. The area of this Winter Fishing Ground is about 1,100 square miles. This part of the bank seems entirely given over to the codfish, since it is too broken, sharp, and rocky to please the haddock. Depths here are from 30 to 40 fathoms, deepening away from the North Shoal. This area is essentially a spawning ground for the cod, which appear to come on the hank from the SE., as they almost invariably, after reaching the ground, move slowly to the N. and W. as spring approaches. This is in the direction of the shoals. As soon as the spawning season is over the schools of cod break up, but more or less fish are caught on different parts of the ground at all times of the year, though rarely are they found so plentiful as when the winter school is on the ground. Cod are found along the Northern Edge virtually the year around, though many of the winter school move on to the inner waters of the gulf and others go over to Browns Bank, where the early comers seem to appear in the first days of April. In its production Georges Bank itself is rather evenly divided between haddock and cod, the cod showing a slightly larger proportion. The South Channel, on the western edge of Georges, shows predominantly as a haddock ground, and the haddock from The Channel is considered a better fish than that from Georges. Georges Bank itself is also an important haddock ground in the spring and early summer, when this species abounds about the Cultivator Shoal (SE. by S. 88 miles from Highland Light. Cape Cod) in depths from 18 to 30 fathoms; and at the same season along the Northern Edge (140 to 200 miles E. by S. ½ S. from Boston Lightship in about 41° to 42° N. lat. and 66° to 88° W. long.) in 45 to 80 fathoms in summer, the fish moving off into the deeper water (90 to 100 fathoms) in the neighborhood of the Corner of the Channel as the winter comes on. Many are found in March, when they return from the deep water, when fishing is carried on 65 miles SE. from Highland in 70 fathoms; then they come into the 40-fathom depths from the North Shoal westward to the Corner of The Channel along the Northern Edge. In April the Cultivator Cove is good ground even into 20-fathom depths. The Southwest Part. (120 miles SSE. from Highland Light, Cape Cod, with 45 to 80 fathom depths) is a good ground for haddock from the beginning of the fall up to about Christmas, after which the best winter fishing for this species is found on the Southeast Part (reached by steaming 145 miles ESE. from Boston Lightship in order to clear the shoals, then SSE. 40 to 50 miles, depending upon what part of the ground it is desired to fish). January is perhaps the best fishing month upon this portion of Georges. While not considered a halibut ground, as compared with some of the other offshore banks, Georges can show a very considerable catch of this species. Because of its nearness to the markets it is more intensely fished than any other ground of equal area and by a far greater variety of crafts, most of which take a greater or less amount of halibut. The otter-trawl fleet, both here and in The Channel, takes a large amount of this species when its total catch is considered; and these fish are mainly small, of from 4 to 10 pounds in weight, with only rarely a larger one. The salt fishers, also, and the rest of the market fleet combine to make an imposing total of the poundage of halibut from Georges and its vicinity. The Georges halibut is esteemed by the trade above the halibut from other grounds. Perhaps its flesh may be superior, though for what reason it is difficult to say, unless because, since the trips to this ground average fewer days in length, the fish are received in the markets in a fresher condition than are those from more distant banks. The principal halibut grounds on Georges for the spring and summer months (April to July) lie between the Cultivator Shoal and the North Shoal in depths from 10 to 18 fathoms, and E., S., and SW. from the North Shoal in the same soundings. This area is sometimes called Little Georges. There are also a number of mussel grounds on the southwest part of Georges, having depths averaging 20 fathoms, all of which furnish good feeding grounds and a substantial catch of halibut in the seasons when these fish are in the shoal water. During July and August the halibut are found along the Northern Edge, over a stretch of ground about 65 miles long in 60 to 100 fathoms; and from this time until the hard weather of the winter begins the fishing goes on about the Northeast Peak (about 42° 00' N. and 66° 00' W.) over the narrow area on the edge of the suddenly deepening water, beginning in from 60 to 70 fathoms, then out to 200 and even 300 fathoms. The winter fishing on Georges is very difficult and somewhat hazardous, so that the halibut fishery in these waters is rarely carried on or, at best, by very few vessels after November or before March. Mackerel are usually quite abundant on Georges in their season, generally being large or medium fish. Herring also are found there in good number but are somewhat distant from market as fresh fish. [Table 4--Fishing grounds of the Georges Area, showing the principal species taken upon them.] By far the largest percentage of the swordfish catch landed in the ports of Boston, Gloucester, and Portland comes from Georges Bank. A considerable portion of the fish listed from this ground under the heading "Miscellaneous" is made up of this species. The swordfish arrive on Georges on the Southwest Part and on the Southern Edge about June 5, and the traveling schools pass over the bank, northward bound, up to August 10. In fact, all through the season when they are present in northern waters, even up to November, they may be found on Georges. Probably the best area of the bank for this species is on the parallel of 41° N., where the shoal rises steeply out of "blue water." [Footnote 14: Capt. John Smith wrote of this region: "Toward the South and Southwest of this Cape (Cape Cod) is found a long and dangerous shoal of sands and rocks. But so far as I incircled it, I found thirtie fadom water aboard the shore, and a strong current; which makes mee thinke there is a Channell about the shoales; where is the best and greatest fish to be had, Winter and Summer in all that Countree. But the Savages say there is no Channell; but that the shoales begin from the main at Pawmet, to the Ile of Nausit; and so extends beyond their knowledge into the sea." That the captain's reputation for far-visioned wisdom may not be held too lightly, let these figures speak, taken as they are from the bureau's records of the landings at the three ports of Boston, Gloucester. and Portland for the year 1927, when the fares from his "Channell" numbered 2,036, with a poundage of 121,688,693 and a value of $3,607,358.] [Footnote 15. "The earliest record of this name (Saint Georges Shoal) that the writer has found appears upon a map discovered in the library of Simancas, in Spain, where a chart said to have been made by a surveyor sent out to Virginia by James I of England, in 1610, was found in 1885 or 1888, after having long before disappeared from England. This chart is thought to embody, besides the work of Champlain and other foreigners, the information contained in the English charts of White, Gosnold, Pring, and probably of Waymouth's Perfect Geographical Map. It is thought to have been drawn by Robert Tyndall or Captain Powell." _Genesis of the United States_. Alexander Brown.] OFFSHORE BANKS Browns Bank. This bank lies in a northeastern direction from Georges and is separated from it by a gully 15 miles wide, in which the depths range from 100 to 450 fathoms. Its area is about 2,275 square miles. The greatest length, from SE to NW, is 63 miles and the greatest width is 43 miles. It is situated between 64° 52" and 68° 29" west longitude, and 41° 50" and 43° 02" north latitude. There is a small rocky shoal on the northern part, on which, it is said, there is not 9 to 15 fathoms. The bank slopes away from the shoal, S. and E. to depths of 55 to 75 fathoms, but at a distance of 12 or 15 miles off, it again rises to 30 to 50 fathoms. This area of shoal water, within the 50 fathom limit, is 50 miles long and has an average width of 15 miles. North of the shoal the water deepens suddenly to 70 and 80 fathoms. The bottom is largely coarse sand, gravel, pebbles, and rocks and is rich in animal life. The area of the bank is approximately 1,370 square geographical miles. Tides here are quite as strong as on the eastern side of Georges Bank, the ebb having an average strength of 1 1/3 miles an hour and the flood is somewhat stronger. The greatest strength of the flood tide sets W. the ebb in nearly an opposite direction. Haddock, cod, cusk, halibut, pollock and hake are the principal food fishes procured from this bank, ranking in volume in the order named. In value, however, halibut takes third place in the list. Cod are plentiful here in winter, though fewer vessels fish here than on Georges Bank, at that season. At other seasons the codfishery on Browns Bank compares favorably with that of other banks in the vicinity. Cod are present the year around, in May and June feeding in depths of about 40 fathoms, going into 80 fathoms in August, and into depths of about 100 fathoms in cold weather. Haddock, also, are present all the year, the period of greatest abundance being usually January and February. In March and April they are most abundant in 27 to 30 fathoms; at other seasons they are in 50 fathoms and deeper, especially in winter, when generally they can be found in 80 to 100 fathoms. Cusk are present in the deep water all the year. Older reports say (1880-81): "Halibut were formerly found here in abundance, but at present the fishery is limited to an occasional trip off the southern and western edge." It will be noted that a fair amount of halibut was taken here during 1923, when this bank ranked third in volume of halibut taken, which seems a good showing when the comparatively small size of the ground is considered. Fairly good catches have been made SW from the Northwest Peak of Browns, about 66° 50' west longitude and 42° 40' north latitude, along the 100-fathom curve and following eastward to the southward of La Have and beyond, perhaps to 63° west longitude. The Southeast Peak is perhaps the most productive of the halibut grounds here, "setting" off from the shoaler parts into the narrow deep-water channel between this and Georges perhaps 20 miles distant. A considerable part of the fish listed under the heading "Miscellaneous" are swordfish, which come upon this bank during their summer wanderings. It will be noted that the number of otter-trawl fares from this ground is small. It is only in recent years that this method of fishing has been employed here, the bottom having been thought to be too rough for the successful operation of gear of this type upon it. Seal Island Ground. This is called also on the charts in its northwest part, the German Bank and lies off the western part of Nova Scotia. Very few charts show it, as it is somewhat difficult to define its exact limits. It is a direct continuation of the shore soundings, which slope gradually from the land to the S. and W. and continue in a northerly direction beyond what might be considered the bounds of the grounds. To the S. it extends nearly to Browns Bank, from which it is separated by a narrow gully 70 to 80 fathoms deep. To the N. it reaches 38 miles beyond Seal Island and to the NW. about 35 miles from the same island. The southern limit of the ground is in 43° and the northern 43° 45' north latitude, while the western boundary may be placed at 66° 40' west longitude. The entire ground outside the 3 mile limit covers an area of 1,250 miles. There is a small shoal called Pollock Rip, with a depth of 7 fathoms, bearing SW from Seal Island, distant 9½ miles; but otherwise the ground slopes quite gradually, the depths being from 15 to 70 fathoms. The bottom is mainly coarse gravel and pebbles with occasional rocky spots of greater or less extent. The tides sweep over this ground with considerable force out from and in toward the Bay of Fundy. the flood running strongest. In general, the species of fish found here and the seasons of their greatest abundance are much as on Browns Bank. The principal fishes taken are haddock, cod, cusk, halibut, and hake, and a very small amount of pollock. Except for the haddocking, the best fishing season is from March to October. Halibut are said to have been very plenty here in the past but are said to have been comparatively rare in recent years, although occasional good fares are brought from these grounds, perhaps more commonly in the spring and early summer and a few at other seasons. In April they are found most commonly in 80 fathom depths; in May in 30 to 40 fathoms, in June the best halibuting is had in 25-fathom depths or even in shoaler water. (The halibut catch shown for the year chosen (1927) is unusually small, most years yielding a fair amount of this species from this ground. Apparently no member of the American halibut fleet visited this ground for the year.) Cod are present here the year around, perhaps the best fishing taking place in May and June, when the fish are found in about 40 fathoms They go into deeper water, about 60 fathoms, in August and into 100 fathoms as the cold weather advances. This Seal Island ground may be considered essentially as a feeding ground for the cod, which seem to appear here after the spawning season is over, to fatten upon the crabs and mollusks living on the bottom and on the herring and other small fish that swim back and forth In the tide rips. Haddock are also present all the year, the schools being most abundant and the number greatest in January and February, when the fish are in about 50 to 60 fathoms. Apparently they come into depths of from 27 to 30 fathoms in March and April for spawning. Cusk are present here during most of the year in 80 fathoms on the hard bottom. Pollock are few on this ground at any time of the year. This species, together with herring and mackerel, are abundant on the "shore soundings" of Seal Island Ground, whence, following the abundant food furnished by the smaller fish, they range a short distance in to the Bay of Fundy. Many mackerel are taken in the traps in the vicinity of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, which seems to mark the limit of their penetration in any considerable schools on the western shore of Nova Scotia. What is apparently a gradually deepening extension of Seal Island Ground is found about 65 miles SSE. from Mount Desert Rock and 60 miles W. from Seal Island. There seems to be no distinguishing name for this area. The depths here are from 70 to 100 fathoms over a broken bottom of mud, gravel, and in places fine sand. The ground falls off rapidly on all sides except toward Seal Island and the Nova Scotia coast, leaving an area at its end of somewhat indeterminate length, perhaps 18 or 20, miles, and having a distance across of about 8 miles at its widest part. Apparently there is no reason why this should not be an all-the-year fishing ground, but it seems not to be visited much in the winter. It furnishes, however, a very good summer handline fishery for cod at dogfish time, and in the spring months it abounds in cod, cusk, and hake, all fish of large size. Roseway Bank. This bank lies N. of the western part of La Have and SE. of Shelbourne Light, Nova Scotia: 31 miles SSE. from the whistling buoy off Lockport, Nova Scotia, to the southeastern edge. It is oblong in shape and of small extent--about 270 square geographical miles. Its greatest length is 21 miles and its greatest breadth 15 miles. It extends from 43° 12' to 43° 33' north latitude, and from 64° 25' to 64° 52' west longitude and at the northwest corner is connected with the shore limit of 60 fathoms by a narrow neck. Depths are from 33 to 48 fathoms. The bottom is of sand, gravel, and rocks; on the Northeast Peak the bottom is of yellow mud and gravel. Currents in this region are not nearly so strong as about Cape Sable and Browns Bank, their general direction being WSW. and ENE the westerly much the stronger, though the force and direction of both are much influenced by the winds. The principal fish taken here are cod, haddock, and cusk, but hake, pollock and halibut occur, the best fishing months being from May to October, when the bank is resorted to by craft from western Nova Scotia. A few New England craft also fish here. La Have Bank. Situated eastward of Browns Bank and S. and E. of Roseway Bank. It extends from 42° 34' to 43° 26' north latitude a distance of 52 miles, and from 63° 50' to 65° 07' west longitude a distance of about 54 miles. The bank is nearly divided into two portions, of which the eastern (La Have Bank proper) extends N and S. 39 miles and the western portion nearly E. and W. about 35 miles. The total area of the bank is about 1,200 miles. The bottom is largely coarse gravel, pebbles, and rock, with smaller areas of sand distributed here and there. Depths run from 40 to 50 fathoms. The general set of the currents is to the westward, but this is much influenced by the force and direction of the wind and is generally quite strong during easterly blows. The principal fishing upon this bank in the past has been for cod and haddock: and while former reports, (1881) speak of this as having once been a favorite fishing ground for halibut and state that it was not at time of much importance in that fishery, the figures for this ground for the year 1923 show the halibut catch to have been third in volume and first in value of the species taken there. In fact, the catch of halibut here makes quite an imposing figure when the comparatively small size of the ground is considered. Little La Have and the La Have Ridges are simply continuations of this back toward the Western Bank for a distance of about 45 miles. This places the eastern limit in about 62° 50' west longitude, the northern and southern boundaries being about as those of La Have Bank. The area of the ridges is about 1,575 miles. The bottom here is a succession of ridges of pebbles and gravel with occasional patches of rocks. Depths are from 53 to 80 fathoms. The current, occasionally strong, is weaker here than farther W. on the bank and, except during easterly winds, is but little noticed. The general set is westerly. "The Ridges" says the report before mentioned, "were for a number of years one of the favorite resorts for halibut catchers in winter, and many good catches of cod were taken here at that season. At present but few halibut are caught except in the deep water along the southern edge of the ground, where they sometimes have been found quite plentiful during nearly the entire year." Apparently there has not been much change in these conditions since the writer's time; fish seem to be present here In about the same quantities as in former years. One piece of bottom, having depths of 25 to 50 fathoms over red clay, lying approximately in 43° 08' to 43° 10' north latitude and about 81° to 83° west longitude, seems a good spring and early summer ground. Apparently red-clay bottom indicates a good halibut ground, as this species is usually present where such a bottom is found. Hake are found in good numbers in the deep water about the edges of the ground and even on the Ridges. These waters are quite heavily fished from Canadian ports, and a fair number of American vessels visit them each year, most of them hailing from Boston or Gloucester. Scandinavian Bank. Eighteen miles SSW. from Shelbourne Light. Nova Scotia. It is about 3 miles long in an E. and W. direction by about ½ mile wide. In general, the bottom is level, with depths from 50 to 70 fathoms; the shoal parts are sharp and rocky, the bottom over the deeper portions being composed mostly of small black and yellow pebbles. This is a summer halibut ground (July and August) in depths from 45 to 60 fathoms, and halibut occur in October in the deeper waters about it. It is also a fair summer cod ground, and cusk are present in the deep water about the edges during most of the year. In general, species and seasons are much as on Roseway. Western Bank. This is one of the most important fishing grounds of the western Atlantic, whether as regards size or the abundance of its product. It lies S. of Cape Breton Island and the eastern part of Nova Scotia between the parallels of 42° 55' and 44° 46' north latitude and the meridians of 59°04' and 62° 35' west longitude. It has a length of 156 miles and a width, including the Middle Ground, of 76 miles. It is about 420 miles E. ½ S. from Boston to the southwestern edge, which means about 48 hours' steaming for the otter-trawl fleet. The general contour of the bank within the 65-fathom line, as laid down on the Admiralty chart, approaches somewhat a very elongated ellipse, the longer axis running NE. by E. and SW. by W.; but over a broad area to eastward of the center of the bank, soundings of less than 50 fathoms connect it directly with the Middle Ground, which we have here included in the some bank. The total extent of the bank thus defined is about 7,000 square geographical miles. Off its eastern end lies Banquereau (the Quereau of the fishermen) with The Gully between, and a short distance of the western edge are the La Have Ridges. The depths off the southern edge of the bank increase rapidly from 80 to 700, 1,200, and even 1,400 fathoms. At the eastern end is Sable Island, [16] "graveyard of ships", a long, narrow, crescent-shaped elevation seemingly lessening in area each year, formed entirely of sand that has been blown Into innumerable hummocks and dunes. Off both ends of the island are long and dangerous sand bars. The length of the island is 20 miles; its greatest width is about 1½ miles. It is said that the Northwest Light has been moved three times due to the fact that the western end of the island has been literally blown away. It lies in an E. and W. direction, and the depth of water over the bars for a distance of 7 to 10 miles out does not exceed 2 fathoms, and even 10 miles farther out the depths do not exceed 10 to 11 fathoms. Within recent years fishermen have reported the appearance of a sand shoal about 5 or 6 miles SE. from the Northeast Light. This is said to appear at low water. In general, the bank slopes S. and W. from the island, depths ranging from 18 to 60 fathoms. The bottom is mostly sandy with patches of gravel and pebbles. Currents are sometimes very strong about Sable Island and are somewhat irregular; apparently they are much influenced by the winds. On the other parts of the bank usually there is but little current, whatever there is usually tending toward the west. Formerly the cod and halibut were the food fishes most taken here, but with the changed methods in the fishery (as the growth of the otter-trawl fleet) and a changed taste in our public the haddock catch has become the second most important in the receipts of fish from these waters. The halibut fishery stands third in the list. Other bottom feeders occur in less numbers, the pollock and the cusk perhaps being next in order of importance, with hake and a considerable amount of the various flatfishes in the otter trawls. These latter are marketed as sole. Noting the small amount of haddock in the fares taken from these waters in former years, the writer asked a number of old-time fishermen as to its abundance in the old days. The reply was usually "Oh, yes, there were always haddock there; sometimes they bothered us a lot." Then, noting my surprise at so putting it, "You know, the haddock isn't much as a salt fish." It will be noted that in 1923 the haddock catch here was a very good second to the cod catch in poundage, though not so valuable proportionately. In the otter-trawl catch from this ground it will be noted that the positions of the two species are reversed. As a rule, these steamers certainly take more than 2 pounds of haddock to 1 of cod on other offshore grounds--perhaps the result of operating in the shoaler waters and on the smoother bottom because of the difficulty of dragging over the rocky and kelp-covered ground, which the cod seems to prefer. But the bottom on the Western Bank is of such nature as to offer little obstruction to the passage of the net, so that virtually all parts of it may be fished by this method; and this, added to the known movements of the cod schools makes it possible at certain seasons of the year to catch a larger proportion of this species if it is so desired. Haddock are found about the bars at both ends of the island in March and from that time to about June 1 in from 15 to 22 fathoms. They are also abundant 18 miles W. from the Northwest Light at the same seasons and at the same depths. During April, May, and June they come in close to the island in from 10 to 17 fathoms--even to 1 fathom. Through the rest of the year (except for the colder months, when they have moved off into deeper water) they may be found all over the bank on sandy bottom in 28 to 30 fathoms, where most of the beam trawl fishing is carried on. There is a good cod school each year on the comparatively level bottom along the western and southwestern edges of the ground in 70 fathoms and more from February 1 to May 1, and in most years a certain amount of this species is taken on this area. In May this school seems to have moved on to a piece of bottom about 20 miles long lying SW. from the Northwest Light and having depths averaging 27 fathoms. With fair fishing for cod on the Western Bank during most of the year, they seem to be most abundant from the first of March to June. The winter school here appears to be smaller than that on Georges, but apparently this species visits this ground in considerable numbers during the spawning season. In winter the cod are mainly found upon the western part of the bank, moving into the shoaler waters toward Sable Island as the spring advances (during March and April), the "Bend" of the island and the neighborhood of the bars in 2 to 4 fathoms, where they can be seen taking the hook or can be "jigged." being favorite grounds. The ground lying W. from the Northwest Light, on and about the Northwest Bar (18 miles W, from the light), is a favorite cod ground in May and June. The shoal water over the rocky bottom WNW from the Northwest Light furnishes good cod fishing from June 10 to July 1. This piece begins just outside the 3-mile stretch of breakers running out from the land and extends offshore in a generally westerly direction to 24 fathoms. Much hand-lining is done here. In the shoal water, in April and May, the fish seem to be feeding on the "lant," (Ammodytes americanus). It is said that the fish taken on the bottom close to the island are smaller than those found farther west. The shoal water of the northern shore of the island is said to have good cod grounds and favorite spots for "dory hand-lining." The cod schools seem to arrive on the Northern Peak (SE. from the Northeast Light 40 miles to SE ½ S. from same point 28 miles) in late March and the first of April, moving N. and W. to the island. The cod of Sable Island are said to be fine, firm fish, perhaps due to the abundance of the "red clams" (bank clams) on these grounds. The cod and haddock fishery is carried on by American and Canadian sailing vessels and otter trawlers, an increasing number of English and French vessels of the latter class engaging in the fishery of this ground each year. Halibut are found on the Western Bank virtually all the year at depths varying with the seasons. As a halibut bank, this, with The Gully and Quereau--in fact, all one piece of ground--ranks second only to the Grand Bank Itself. The best fishing here for halibut is found from January to October. There are numerous places on and about the bank that the halibut seems to prefer, as the Peak of Pike, 85 miles W. by S. from the Northwest Light of Sable Island; S. and SW. of Sable Island from 12 to 38 miles; SW. 20 miles in 60 fathoms in May; thence out into 100 and 150 fathoms in June; in fact, following the 100--fathom curve along the edge of this bank, past the Northeast Peak (40 miles SE. from the Northeast Light), into the Gully and around the Southern Prong of Quereau to the Middle Prong. Apparently they leave this piece of bottom in July. Often the fish are close to the island in the spring, where the water is so shoal that they can be seen taking the bait or playing with the hook before taking. In April, May, and June a good halibut ground is in 18 fathoms 24 miles WNW. from Sable Island. The Western Bank seems to be a good feeding ground for both cod and halibut as it abounds in shellfish and crustaceans, and at certain periods there are many smaller species of fish upon it, such as the lant and herring, on which these species and the haddock, also, especially prey. A considerable amount of swordfish is taken here in August and September, mainly by American vessels. Banquereau. Separated from the Western Bank by The Gully, this has a very irregular form--the main bank roughly rectangular, with a narrow westerly extension of comparatively regular form. Its length, E. and W., is about 120 miles, its greatest width about 47 miles, and its total area about 2,800 miles. The main portion of the bank lies between 44° 04' and 45° 01' north latitude and 67° 10' and 59° 00' west longitude, and the western prolongation lies between 44° 24' and 44° 42' north latitude and 69° 00' and 80° 05' west longitude. North of Banquereau lies Artimon, distant 3 miles, and Misaine, distant from 2 to 15 miles according to the places from which measurements are taken. The currents here are of varying force, much influenced by the wind, so that several days of strong tides may be followed by intervals when there is little if any current. On the eastern part of Quereau is an area of shoal ground called the Rocky Bottom, having a depth of about 18 fathoms; elsewhere depths run from 18 to 50 fathoms. For the most part the bottom is rocky, but there are scattered patches of sand and gravel. Cod and halibut are the principal food fishes taken, hake, haddock, and cusk being taken in small numbers. The Rocky Bottom, a shoal ground of 20 to 25 fathom depths on the eastern part, was much resorted to by dory handliners in summer. The cod are most plentiful on the eastern part of the bank, though occasional good fares are taken toward the west. The best cod fishing on this bank is from May until September, when the schools gather to feed upon the lant, squid, crustaceans, and shellfish, then very abundant. Halibut are found here all the year off the edges in 100 to 400 fathoms. Apparently these are feeding and breeding grounds for this species, and it is not unusual for a school to remain for weeks and even months in one locality, though some of these may be fish in migration northward. The principal halibut grounds are along the southern and eastern borders of the bank--the Southwest Prong and the Southwest Cove (in about 44° N. lat. and between 58° 30' and 58° 55' W. long), the Middle Prong (44° 14' N. lat. and 58° W. long.), and the Eastern Slope (44° 28' to 45° 00' N. lat.)--in depths of 150 to 400 fathoms. These deep-water areas are rocky and support a very rich growth of gorgonians, corals, sea anemones, etc. The Eastern Slope has an abundance of bank clams in depths of 25 fathoms. These beds are good hand-line grounds for cod. The halibut, too, feeds to a considerable extent upon these red clams. The Stone Fence off the eastern slope of Quereau is a very rocky piece of ground full of "trees" (corals) in 250 fathoms. This is a good halibut ground although it is almost impossible to haul the gear by hand and the use of the "gurdy" (a roller turned by a crank and fastened to the dory's bow for winding up the trawl) becomes necessary. Occasional fares of halibut are taken on and about the Rocky Bottom in 20 to 25 fathoms from July 1 to August 1. The Gully. This is the deep waterway between Banquereau and Sable Island or Western Bank. It extends in an WNW. and an ESE. direction north of Sable Island, turning somewhat abruptly S. at its eastern end and continuing down between the eastern end of Western Bank and the Southwest Prong of Banquereau. The entire length is about 80 miles, the greatest width about 20 miles. Depths range from 68 to 145 fathoms over a bottom of rocks, gravel, sand, and mud. The rocky and gravelly portions form several ridges separated by areas of finer materials, except in the eastern section, where the intervals between are mostly covered by pebbles and sharp rocks. Ocean currents are generally westerly, of varying strength, much affected by the easterly winds. The Gully is a very important halibut ground. The halibut are not found in great numbers all over the ground, perhaps the best of the fishing being on the rocky and gravelly ridges and slopes included between the meridians of 69° and 80° west longitude. This rocky bottom is rich in food, and the lant and herring are usually plentiful here in their season. In the spring the halibut seem to be especially numerous in the northern and northwestern parts of the bank, later, in June and July, moving farther out. Some, are found here in winter. While the cod is sometimes found in The Gully in 60 to 90 fathoms, it does not seem to be of regular occurrence; and apparently there are almost no haddock here, probably because of the depth of the water and the nature of the bottom. Artimon Bank. Has an area of some 120 square miles with a bottom of gravel and rocks and depths of 38 to 50 fathoms. It is but little known because of the tendency of the fishermen to use the larger grounds close at hand. Cod are known to be present here, however. The bank lies N. of the eastern part of Quereau, separated from it by a narrow, deep-water channel. Misaine Bank. Lies N. of the western two-thirds of Quereau, at one place very near, but in general the banks are separated by some 20 miles of deep water. Its greatest length is 80 miles and its greatest width 40 miles. Depths are from 40 to 60 fathoms over a bottom broken and rocky. It is not of much importance as a fishing ground, although a few halibut trips are landed from it in most years. Canso Bank. A long, narrow extension of Misaine Bank, lying in an E, and W. direction; its length is 45 miles and its greatest width 13 miles, its area being about 425 square miles. Depths range from 30 to 65 fathoms over a bottom of sand, with spots of gravel and pebbles. It is not of much importance as a fishing ground, especially as judged by the use of it by the American fleet, though more fished by vessels from Nova Scotia; perhaps it is overshadowed by the presence of its larger neighbors, Western and Quereau Banks, with which grounds it forms virtually one piece of bottom, only narrow, deep-water channels separating them. These larger grounds are heavily fished both by American vessels and by those from Nova Scotia ports as well as by French and English otter trawlers. The statistics given here and elsewhere in this report are taken from the published bulletins of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, and include only the landings of vessels of 5 tons net, or over, at the ports of Boston and Glouscester, Mass., and Portland, Me. [Table 5--Fishing grounds of the offshore North Atlantic, showing the principal species taken upon them] [Footnote 16: "Pedro Reinel, a Portuguese pilot of much fame" (Herrera) made a map in 1505 showing Sable Island, feared and dreaded by all fishermen even in those days, where he called it "Santa Cruz." Jacamo Gastaldi, an Italian cartographer, in 1548 shows it "Isolla de Arena." Sir Humphrey Gilbert or his historian, says that the Portuguese had made an interesting settlement here for shipwrecked mariners. This, "Upon intelligence we had of a Portugal who was himself present when the Portugals, above thirty years past (thus before 1551) did put upon the island neat and swine to breed, which were since exceedingly multiplied."] TABLES OF CATCH [Table 6--Distance from Boston or Gloucester, Mass., to the center of certain of the more important offshore banks] [Table 7--Distance from Portland, Me., to the center of certain of the more important offshore banks] [Table 8--Landings by fishing vessels at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., and Portland, Me., from inner or shore grounds, 1927] [Table 9--Landings by fishing vessels at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., and Portland, Me., from the outer grounds of the Gulf of Maine, 1927] [Table 10--Landings by fishing vessels at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., and Portland, Me., from the fishing grounds of the Georges Bank area, 1927] [Table 11--Landings by the otter-trawl fleet at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., and Portland, Me., from the fishing grounds of the Georges Bank area, 1927] [Table 12--Landings by fishing vessels at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., and Portland, Me., from the offshore grounds adjacent to the Gulf of Maine, 1927] [Table 13--Landings by fishing vessels at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., and Portland, Me., from all grounds, 1927] [Table 14--Landings by fishing vessels from the various fishing grounds at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., and Portland, Me., 1927] [Table 15--Landings by fishing vessels from all grounds at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., and Portland, Me., 1916 to 1927] MAPS [Map--Coastal Banks and Inshore Grounds of the Gulf of Maine: Bay of Fundy] [Map--Coastal Banks and Inshore Grounds of the Gulf of Maine: Monhegan to Petit Manan] [Map--Coastal Banks and Inshore Grounds of the Gulf of Maine: Monhegan to Cape Cod] [Map--Coastal Banks and Inshore Grounds of the Gulf of Maine: Petit Manan to Seal Island] [Map--Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine: The Georges Area] INDEX TO GROUNDS Abner Ground Acre, The Allens Shoal Andrews Shoal Apron The Artimon Bank Baker's Island Ridge Bald Ridges Bank Comfort Banks Ground Banquereau Bantam Barley Hill Ground Barnum Head Ground Bay of Fundy Beaver Harbor Ben's Ground Big Ridge Doggetts Big Ridge (Cashes) Black Island Ground Black Ledges Ground Blue Clay Blue Ground Blue Hill Ground Boar Head Ground Boon Island Rock Ground Bounties, The Boutens, Inner and Outer Brewers Spot Broken Ground Broken Ground Broken Ridges Browns Bank Bulkhead Rips Bumbo, Outer and Inner Burnt Island Inner Ridge Burnt Island Outer Ridge Bull Ground Campobello Canso Cape Porpoise Peaks Cards Reef Cashes Bank Cashes Ridge, East Cashes NW Ridge Cashes Big Ridge Channel Clarks Ground Clay Bank Clay Ridge Coast Nova Scotia Cod Ledges Cod Ridge Cove (S.E. Jeffreys) Cove (W. Jeffreys) Cow Ground Crab Bank Crie Ridges Cusk Ridge Davis Bank Deckers Shoal Doggetts Ridge Drunken Ledge (Drunkers) Duck Island Ridges Dump, The Eagle Island Ground Eagle Ridge Eastern Shoal Water, Cape Ann East Side Cape Cod Egg Rock Broken Ground Elbow, The Enochs Shoal Fifty-five Fathom Fippenies Fire Ground Fishing Rip Flat Ground Flat Ledge Forty-five Fathom Franklin Ground Freemans Ground Gannet Rock Garden, The Georges Bank German Bank Gilkey Ground Grand Manan Grand Manan Bank Gravel Bottom Gravelley Great Ledge Great Rip Green Ground Green Island Ridge Grumpy Gully, The Haddock Nubble Hake Ground Handspike Ground Harris Ground Harts Ground Harvey Blacks Ridge Hatchell Ground Head and Horns Henry Gallants Ridge Henry Marshalls Henrys Rock Hill Ground Howard Nunans Ridge Hue and Cry Ingalls Shoal Inner Bank Inner and Outer Boutens Inner Breaker Inner and Outer Bumbo Inner Fall Inner Grounds Inner Horse Reef Inner Kettle Inner Sandy Cove Inner Schoodic Ridge Ipswich Bay Isle au Haute (Ca) Jeffreys Bank Jeffreys Ledge Jerry Yorks Ridge Joe Ray Ground John Dyers Ridge Johns Head Ground Jones Ground Kettle Bottom, Outer Kettle Bottom, Inner Klondike Laisdells Ground Lambo La Have La Have Ridges Lightons Little Hill Ground Little Georges Little Jeffrey Little La Have Long Hill Ground Lukes Rock Lurcher Shoal Machias Seal Island Madisons Spot Marblehead Bank Martins Ground Massachusetts Bay Matinic Bank Matinic Ooze Matinicus SSW Maurice Lubees Ridge McIntire Reef Middle Bank Middle Ground Middle Ridge Middle Shoal Minerva Hub Misaine Bank Mistaken Ground Monhegan Inner SSE Monhegan Outer SSE Monhegan Southeast Monhegan Inner SSW Monhegan Outer SSW Monhegan Western Ground Morris Ledge Mosers Ledge Mount Desert Inner Ridge Mount Desert Outer Ridge Mud Hake Grounds Murray Hole Murre Hub Mussel Shoal Nantucket Shoals Newfound Ground (Fundy) Newfound Ground (MDI) New Ledge New Meadows Channel Nipper Ground North Shore of Nova Scotia Northwest Ledge Old Egg Rock Old Jeffrey Old Mans Pasture Old Orchard Ground Old Ripper Old Southeast Ornes Ground Otter Island Reef Outer Bumbo Outer Boutens Outer Crab Ledge Outer Ground Outer Horse Reef Outer Kettle Outer Schoodic Ridge Outer Shoal Passamaquoddy Bay Pasture Peters Bank Petersons Ground Phelps Bank Pigeon Ground Platts Bank Pollock Hub Pollock Rip Potato Patch Prairie Quaco Ledges Quereau Ridge, The Big Ridge, East Cashes Ridge, North Georges Ridge, Northwest Cashes Ridge, South Fippenies Ridge, Three-dory Ripplings Rock Cod Ledge Rose and Crown Roseway Saddleback Reef Sagadahoc Salmon Netting Ground Sand Shoal Sandy Cove Scandinavian Bank Scantum Seal Island Ground Seguin Ground Seguin Hub Seguin Ridge Seguin SSW Shoal Ground Shell Ground Si's Spot Skate Bank Snipper Shin Soundings Southeast Southeast Ground Southeast Jeffreys Southeast Ledge Southeast Rip Southeast Rock Southern Head Reef South Shoal Southwest Ground Southwest Rock Southwest Ledges Spencer Island Steamboat Ground Stellwagen Bank Stone Fence Summer Hake Ground Tag Ground Tanta Temple Ledge Ten Acre Three-dory Ridge Tibbett's Ledge Tillies Bank Tobins Bank Toothaker Ridge Tower Ground Towhead Ground Tracadie Trinidad Trinity Shoal Wells Bay Western Bank Western Egg Rock Western Point Ridge Western Reef Western Ridge White Head Grounds White Island Ground Wildcat Ridge WNW Rips Wolves Wolves Bank Wood Island Ground Winker Ground GEOGRAPHIC LIST OF GULF OF MAINE FISHING GROUNDS BAY OF FUNDY AREA Description of Fundy Area North Shore and Nova Scotia coast Lurcher Shoal Trinity Shoal Northwest Ledges West-Northwest Rips & the Flat Ground Boars Head Ground Outer Ground Head and Horns Sandy Cove Grounds Inner Sandy Cove Grounds Spencer Island Grounds Isle au Haute Ground Quaco Ledges Salmon Netting Ground Ingalls Shoal Mussel Shoal Ground The Wolves The Wolves Bank Campobello Passamaquoddy Bay Mud Hake Ground Beaver Harbor Grand Manan Clarks Bank Southern Head Reef Gravelly Soundings Bulkhead, Ripplings Cards Reef Gannet Rock Southeast Ground Machias Seal Island INNER GULF OF MAINE AREA Lukes Rock Newfound Ground Henrys Rock Handspike Ground Western Egg Rock Old Egg Rock Middle Ridge Broken Ground Tibbetts Ledge Bens Ground Southeast Rock Broken Ridges. Black Ledges Ground Bakers Island Ridge Martins Ground; Hillards Reef Egg Rock Broken Ground Inner Schoodic Ridge Outer Schoodic Ridge Mount Desert Inner Ridge Mount Desert Outer Ridge Flat Ground Enochs Shoal Banks Ground Shell Ground Abner Ground Grumpy Hatchell Ground Blue Hill Ground Hake Ground (Inner and Outer) Horse Reef Southwest Ground Barley Hill Ground Gilkey Ground Rock Cod Ledge Southeast Gravel Bottom Laisdells Ground Saddleback Reef Otter Island Reef Old Ripper Crie Ridges Bald Ridges Henry Marshalls Ground The Bounties Summer Hake Ground Minerva Hub Haddock Nubble Skate Bank Matinicus Sou'Sou'West Inner Breaker Towhead Grounds Western or Green Island Ridge & Pigeon Ground Matinic Bank Matinic Ooze Freemans Ground Middle Shoal, Allens Shoal, Black Island Ground Franklin Ground White Head Grounds Burnt Island, Inner Ground Burnt Island, Outer Ground Ornes Ground Outer Shoal Monhegan Inner Sou'Southeast Monhegan Outer Sou'Southeast Blue Ground Monhegan Southeast Ground Hill Ground Monhegan Inner Sou'Sou'West Old Jeffrey Little Jeffrey Monhegan Western Ground Broken Ground Great Ledge Barnum Head Ground Peterson's Ground Cusk Ridge Potato Patch The Apron Henry Gallants Ridge Middle Ground; Mosers Johns Head Ground White Island Ground Steamboat Ground Inner and Outer Boutens Hill Ground Seguin Sou' Sou' West Seguin Ridge Seguin Ground McIntire Reef Seguin Hub Cow Ground Murre Hub Mistaken Ground Tag Ground Kettle Bottom, Outer Murray Hole Inner Kettle Bantam White Head Ground Green Ground Lambo The Bull Ground The Garden Sand Shoal The Elbow Old Orchard; Wood Island Ground Drunken Ledge OUTER GULF OF MAINE AREA Grand Manan Bank Middle Ground Marblehead Bank Newfound Jones Ground Bank Comfort Clay Bank Newfound Jeffreys Bank Inner Fall Toothaker Ridge Cashes Bank Ridge east of Cashes Ridge northwest of Cashes Big Ridge Ridge north of Georges John Dyers Ridge Fifty-five Fathom Bunch Fippenies Bank Ridge south of Fippenie Maurice Luhees Ground Harvey Blacks Ridge Cod Ridge Three-Dory Ridge Platts Bank Jeffreys Ledge Cove of Jeffreys Clay Ridge Jerry Yorks Ridge Howard Howard Nunans Ridge Southeast Jeffreys Southeast Cove Eastern Shoal Water of Cape Ann Tillies Bank Stellwagen or Middle Bank Wild Cat Ridge GEORGES BANK AREA East Side of Cape Cod Tobins Bank Morris Ledge Outer Crab Ledge Nantucket Shoals South Shoal Pollock Rip Grounds Rose & Crown Nantucket Shoals--Madisons Spot Nantucket Shoals--Great Rip Nantucket Shoals--Davis Bank; Crab Bank Nantucket Shoals--Fishing Rip Nantucket Shoals--Southeast Rip Phelps Bank The Channel Sankaty Head Georges Bank OFFSHORE BANKS Browns Bank Seal Island Ground Roseway Bank La Have Bank Little La Have & the La Have Ridges Scandinavian Bank Western Bank Banquereau Stone Fence The Gully Artimon Bank Misaine Bank Canso Bank 
17171	----	Watch, Rockland, Maine, with technical assistance from Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. NEW ENGLAND SALMON HATCHERIES AND SALMON FISHERIES IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY CONTENTS ARTICLE I. Some Results of the Artificial Propagation of Maine and California Salmon in New England and Canada, Recorded in the Years 1879 and 1880 II. Sketch of the Penobscot Salmon-Breeding Establishment (1883) III. Penning of Salmon in Order to Secure Their Eggs (1884) IV. Memoranda Relative to Inclosures for the Confinement of Salmon Drawn from Experience at Bucksport, Penobscot River, Maine (1884) V. Report on the Schoodic Salmon Work of 1884-85 VI. Methods Employed at Craig Brook Station in Rearing Young Salmonid Fishes (1893) VII. Notes on the Capture of Atlantic Salmon at Sea and in the Coast Waters of the Eastern States (1894) ARTICLE I SOME RESULTS OF THE ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF MAINE AND CALIFORNIA SALMON IN NEW ENGLAND AND CANADA, RECORDED IN THE YEARS 1879 AND 1880 Compiled By The United States Fish Commissioner _Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_, Vol. 1, Page 270, 1881. New Bedford, Mass May 20, 1879. Prof. S. F. BAIRD: Sir: I have just been in the fish market and a crew were bringing in their fish from one of the "traps." A noticeable and peculiar feature of the fishery this year is the great numbers of young salmon caught, especially at the Vineyard, although some few are caught daily at Sconticut Neck (mouth of our river). There are apparently two different ages of them. Mostly about 2 pounds in weight (about as long as a large mackerel) and about one-half as many weighing from 6 to 8 pounds; occasionally one larger. One last week weighed 33 pounds and one 18 pounds. The fishermen think they are the young of those with which some of our rivers have been stocked, as nothing of the kind has occurred in past years at all like this. JOHN H. THOMSON. * * * * * * _Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_, Vol. 1, Page 271, 1881 New Bedford, Mass. June 1, 1879. Prof SPENCER F. BAIRD: SIR: I received yours. I have examined carefully since your letter, but no salmon have been taken. The run was about the two first weeks in May and a few the last of April. Mr. Bassett had about 30 to 35 from the trap at Menimpsha, and 10 or 12 from Sconticut Neck, the mouth of our river. Mr. Bartlett, at his fish market, had about one dozen; 12 from the traps near the mouth of Slocum's River, six miles west of here, and I have heard of two taken at mouth of Westport River. As to the particular species, I do not get any reliable information, as so few of our fishermen know anything about salmon, and in fact the men from the traps on Sconticut Neck did not know what the fish were. JOHN H. THOMSON. * * * * * * FISHING ITEMS. "A ten-pound salmon and seventeen tautog, weighing over one hundred pounds, were taken from the weirs of Magnolia, Thursday night. This is the first salmon caught off Cape Ann for over thirty years. On Saturday morning three more large salmon were taken and 150 large mackerel. The fishermen are highly elated at the prospect of salmon catching." (Cape Ann Advertiser, June 6, 1879.) * * * * * * [Postscript to a letter from Monroe A. Green, New York State Fishery Commission, to Fred Mather, June 9, 1879.] "P. S.--Kennebec salmon caught to-day in the Hudson River at Bath near Albany weighing twelve and a half pounds, sold for 40 cents per pound. The first that have been caught for years." * * * * * * STATE OF MAINE, DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES, Bangor, August 25, 1879. [Extracts.] DEAR PROFESSOR: We have had a great run of salmon this year, and consisting largely of fish planted by us in the Penobscot four or five years ago, so far as we could judge; there were a very large number, running from 9 to 12 pounds. The east and west branches of the Penobscot report a great many fish in the river. On the Mattawamkeag where we put in 250,000 and upwards, in 1875 and 1876, a great many salmon are reported trying to get over the lower dam at Gordon's Falls, 13 feet high. These fish were put in at Bancroft, Eaton and Kingman, on the European and North American Railroad. The dam at Kingham is 13 feet; at Slewgundy, 14 feet; at Gordon's Falls, 13 feet and yet a salmon has been hooked on a trout fly at Bancroft and salmon are seen in the river at Kingman, and between the dams at Slewgundy and Gordon's Falls. The dealers in our city have retailed this season 50 tons Penobscot salmon, and about 3 tons Saint John salmon; it all sells as Penobscot salmon. Saint John salmon costs here, duty and all included, about 14 cents per pound. Our first salmon sells at $1 per pound, and so on down to 12 1/2 cents the last of the season.' Salmon at Bucksport has sold to dealers here at 8 cents. Two tons taken at Bucksport and Orland in 24 hours. Average price at retail here for whole season, 25 cents. Truly, yours, E. M. Stillwell. * * * * * * STATE OF MAINE, DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES, Bangor, October 4, 1879. DEAR PROFESSOR: My delay in replying to your kind letter has been from no want of courtesy, but a desire to send you the required "data" you asked. Neither myself nor Mr. Atkins have been able to procure them. The weir fishermen keep no records at all, and it is difficult to obtain from them anything reliable; while the fishermen above tidewater are a bad set of confirmed poachers, whose only occupation is hunting and fishing both in and out of season. They are always jealous and loth to let us know how good a thing they make of it, for fear of us and fear of competition from their own class. Four or five years since I put in some 300,000 salmon fry into the Mattawamkeag at Bancroft, Eaton, Kingsmore, and at Mattawamkeag village. There are three dams between Mattawamkeag and Bancroft--none less than 12 feet high. About six weeks since Mr. Nathaniel Sweat, a railroad conductor on the European and North American Railroad, while fishing for trout from a pier above the railroad bridge at Bancroft, hooked a large salmon and lost his line and flies. Salmon in great numbers have been continually jumping below the first dam, which is called "Gordon's Falls." My colleague, Everett Smith, of Portland, a civil engineer, while making a survey for a fishway, counted 15 salmon jumping in 30 minutes. A Mr. Bailey, who is foreman of the repair shop at Mattawamkeag walked up to the falls some three weeks since entirely out of curiosity excited by the rumors of the sight, and counted 60 salmon jumping in about an hour, within half or three-quarters of a mile of the falls. This is on the Mattawamkeag, which is a great tributary of the Penobscot. On the east branch of the Penobscot there has been a great run of salmon. An explorer on the Wassattaquoik reported the pools literally black with salmon. A party of poachers, hearing the rumor, went in from the town of Hodgon and killed 25. I inclose you a letter to me from Mr. Prentiss, one of our most wealthy and prominent merchants, which speaks for itself: I will be obliged to you if you will return this, as I shall have occasion to use it in my report. On the West branch of the Penobscot I hear reports of large numbers of salmon, but the breaking of the two great dams at Chesancook and the North Twin Dam, which holds back the great magazine of water of the great tributary lakes which feed the Penobscot, which is used to drive the logs cut in the winter, through the summer's drought, has let up all the fish which hitherto were held back until the opening of the gates to let the logs through. These fish would not, of course, be seen, as they would silently make their way up. I regret that I have nothing of more value to give you. Hoping that this small contribution may at least cheer you as it has me, I remain, truly, yours, E. M. STILWELL, Commissioner of Fisheries for State of Maine. * * * * * * Prof. SPENCER F. BAIRD, United States Commissioner Fish and Fisheries. BANGOR, October 3, 1879. M. STILWELL, Esq., DEAR SIR: Prof. C. E. Hamlin of Harvard, and I made a trip to Mount Katahdin last month for scientific examination and survey of the mountain. I had been salmon fishing in July on the Grand Bonaventure, on Bay of Chaleur, and I could not see why we could not catch salmon on the east branch of the Penobscot at the Hunt place where we crossed it on our way in to Katahdin. I thought the pool from mouth of Wassatiquoik to the Hunt place, about a half-mile, must be an excellent salmon pool, and my guide and the people there confirmed this opinion. They said over a hundred salmon had been taken in that one pool this season. The nearest settlement, and only one on the whole east branch, is about six miles out from there, and the young men go on Sundays and fish with drift-nets. No regular fishing for market--only a backwoods local supply can be used. These fish were about of one size--say 8 to 11 pounds. There were never enough fish here before to make it worth while for them to drift for them. A few years ago no salmon were caught there at all. Twenty-two years ago, before our fish laws were enacted, the farmer at the Hunt place used to have a net that went entirely across the river clear to the bottom, which he kept all the time stretched across, and he only used to get two or three salmon a week. I was there August, 1857, with Mr. Joseph Carr, an old salmon fisher, and we fished for ten days and could not get a rise. The net had been taken up, because the farmer did not get fish enough to pay for looking after it. But the stocking the river makes it good fishing and I intend to try the east branch next season with the fly. Very truly, HENRY M. PRENTISS. * * * * * * October 13, 1879 East Windsor Hill, Conn. Professor BAIRD: DEAR SIR: It may be of interest to you to know that your salmon are not all lost. Last Friday, 10th, I was with a party of three fishing in Snipsic Lake, and one of our party caught a salmon that weighed 1 3/4 pounds. This is the second one taken since the pond was stocked as I was told. The other was caught this summer and weighed 12 ounces. Cannot something be done to save our fish in Connecticut River? There is an establishment at Holyoke, Mass., and another at Windsor Locks, Conn., that are manufacturing logs into paper, and I am told that the chemicals used for that purpose are let off into the river twice a day, and that the fish for half a mile come up as though they had been cockled. Both of these factories are at the foot of falls where the fish collect and stop in great numbers and are all killed. Our shores and sand-bars are literally lined with dead fish. Three salmon have been found among them within two miles of my office. They were judged to weigh 12, 20 and 25 pounds. The dead fish are so numerous that eagles are here after them. I have received nine that have been shot here in the past two seasons. I have written you in order that the fish commissioners might stop this nuisance and save the fish that they have taken so much pains to propagate. Truly yours, Wm Hood, East Windsor Hill, Conn., October 13, 1879 * * * * * * SAINT STEPHEN, March 1, 1880. Prof. SPENCER F. BAIRD U. S. Commissioner Fish and Fisheries: Dear Sir: I send you remarks in relation to the Restigouche and Saint Croix Rivers, which, though crude, I am sure are quite correct, as they are either taken from the official statistics, or are facts of which I am myself cognizant. You may, if of use, publish any part of them. I very much wish we could procure some young shad for the Saint Croix; this fish was once very abundant, and perhaps would be again if introduced. I know you have been very successful in restocking the Connecticut. Our old people deplore the loss of the shad--say it was a much better food-fish than the salmon. I do a great deal of shooting, and am much interested in ornithology, and specimens of our birds that you might want I should be happy to lookout for; do a good deal of coast shooting winters; have been hopefully looking for a Labrador duck for a number of seasons--fear they have totally disappeared. I have nice spring-water conducted to my house and think of doing a little fish-hatching in a small way. The amount of water I can spare is a stream of about half inch diameter; the force will be considerable, as the water rises to top of my house, some 50 feet above where I should set trays. I write to you to ask what hatching apparatus would be best to get, where to buy, and probable cost. I am trying to get some sea-trout ova to hatch in it. I presume all your California ova have been disposed of ere this. FRANK TODD. * * * * * * SAINT STEPHEN, March 1, 1880. Prof SPENCER F. BAIRD, U. S. Commissioner Fish and Fisheries: SIR: In regard to the Saint Croix, would say, that it was once one of the most prolific salmon rivers in New Brunswick, but owing to the erection of impassable dams, fifteen or twenty years ago, this valuable fish had almost entirely disappeared. At about this time fishways were placed in all the dams, and gradually salmon began to increase, but the first great stimulus was given some ten years ago by the distribution of some hundreds of thousands of young salmon in the headwaters, by the fishery commissioners of Maine. The Dobsis Club also placed in the Saint Croix some 200,000 or more from their hatchery, a portion being the California salmon. With these exceptions our river has had no artificial aid, but for the last five years the number of salmon has largely increased, due mainly, no doubt, to the deposits before mentioned. The fish ways are generally in good condition (although some improvements will be made), and fish have easy access to headwaters, That large numbers go up and spawn is evidenced by the large numbers of smolt seen at the head of tidal water in the spring, many being taken by boys with the rod. I have reason to expect that our government will hereafter distribute annually in the Saint Croix a goodly number of young salmon which, together with the contributions of the Maine commissioners will soon make this fish again abundant. Alewives are very abundant and apparently increasing every year. Shad that were once plenty have entirely disappeared. I very much wish that the river could be stocked with this valuable fish; possibly you could kindly assist us in this. Landlocked salmon (here so called) are, I think, nearly or quite as plenty at Grand Lake Stream as they were ten years ago; this, I think, is almost entirely due to the hatchery under the charge of Mr. Atkins; the tannery at the head of the stream having entirely destroyed their natural spawning beds, the deposit of hair and other refuse being in some places inches deep. The twenty-five per cent. of all fish hatched, which are honestly returned to our river, is, I think, each year more than we would get by the natural process, under present circumstances, in ten years. FRANK TODD. * * * * * * SAINT STEPHEN, N. B., DOMINION OF CANADA. Prof. SPENCER F. BAIRD, U. S. Commissioner Fish and Fisheries: SIR: I think it has been clearly demonstrated in this Dominion that by artificial propagation and a fair amount of protection, all natural salmon rivers may be kept thoroughly stocked with this fish, and rivers that have been depleted, through any cause, brought back to their former excellence. I would instance the river Restigouche in support of the above statement. This river, which empties into the Bay of Chaleur, is now, and always has been, the foremost salmon river in New Brunswick, both as to size and number of fish. It has not a dam or obstruction to the free passage of fish from its mouth to its source, yet up to 1868 and 1869 the numbers of salmon had constantly decreased. This, no doubt, was occasioned by excessive netting at the mouth, and spearing the fish during the summer in the pools; natural production was not able to keep up with this waste. In the year 1868 the number of salmon was so small that the total catch by anglers was only 20 salmon, and the commercial yield only 37,000 pounds. At about this date, the first salmon hatchery of the Dominion was built upon this river and a better system of protection inaugurated; every year since some hundreds of thousands of young salmon have been hatched and placed in these waters, and the result has been, that in 1878 one angler alone (out of hundreds that were fishing the river) in sixteen days killed by his own rod eighty salmon, seventy-five of which averaged over twenty-six pounds each; while at the same time the numbers that were being taken by the net fishermen below, for commercial purposes, were beyond precedent, amounting in that one division alone (not counting local and home consumption) to the enormous weight of 500,000 pounds, and the cash receipts for salmon in Restigouche County that year amounted to more than $40,000, besides which some $5,000 was expended by anglers; this result was almost entirely brought about by artificial propagation. A new hatchery of size sufficient to produce five million young fish annually will no doubt soon be erected by the Dominion Government upon this river. A somewhat similar record might be given of the river Saguenay. Some years ago anglers and net fishers of this river said it was useless to lease from the department, as the scarcity of salmon was such as not to warrant the outlay. A hatchery was built, and this state of things is now wonderfully changed; so much so, indeed, that in 1878 salmon, from the great numbers which were taken at the tidal fisheries, became a drug in the market, selling often as low as three cents per pound, and angling in the tributaries was most excellent. Some one hundred million young salmon have been artificially hatched and distributed in the waters of the Dominion during the last few years, and new government hatcheries are constantly being erected. Yours, &c., FRANK TODD, Fishery Overseer, Saint Croix District. ARTICLE II SKETCH OF THE PENOBSCOT SALMON-BREEDING ESTABLISHMENT by Charles G. Atkins Written by request of Prof. S. F. Baird, for the London Exhibition, 1883 _Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_, Vol. 3, Page 373, 1883 The rivers of the United States tributary to the Atlantic, north of the Hudson, were, in their natural state, the resorts of the migratory salmon, _Salmo salar_, and most of them continued to support important fisheries for this species down to recent times. The occupation of the country by Europeans introduced a new set of antagonistic forces which began even in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to operate against the natural increase and maintenance of the salmon and other migratory fishes. In many localities the closing of smaller streams by dams, and the pursuit of the fish with nets and other implements, had already begun to tell on their number; but it was not until the present century that the industrial activities of the country began to seize upon the water power of the larger rivers and to interrupt in them by lofty dams the ascent of salmon to their principal spawning grounds. These forces were rapid in their operations, aided as they were by a greatly augmented demand for food from a rapidly increasing population. In 1865 the salmon fisheries were extinct in all but five or six of the thirty rivers known to have been originally inhabited by them. In many of these rivers the last salmon had been taken, and in others the occurrence of individual specimens was extremely rare. Among the exhausted rivers may be mentioned the Connecticut, 380 miles long; the Merrimack,180 miles long; the Saco,120 miles long; the Androscoggin, 220 miles long; and some twenty smaller rivers. There still survived salmon fisheries in the following rivers, namely, the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Denny's, the East Machias, the Saint Croix, and the Aroostook, a tributary of the Saint John. The most productive of these was the Penobscot, yielding 5,000 to 10,000 salmon yearly. The Kennebec occasionally yielded 1,200 in a year, but generally much less. The other rivers were still less productive. The movement for the re-establishment of these fisheries originated in action of the legislature of New Hampshire, seconded by that of the neighboring state of Massachusetts, having in view primarily the fisheries of the Merrimack and Connecticut Rivers. The course of the Merrimack lies wholly within the states of New Hampshire and Massachusetts; that of the Connecticut lies partly in the state of Connecticut, and many of its tributaries are in the state of Vermont. These two states were therefore early interested in the project, and their action soon led to similar exertions on the part of Rhode Island and Maine. Within the borders of the six states mentioned, collectively known as "New England," are all of the rivers of the United States known to have been frequented by the sea-going _Salmo salar_, with the possible exception of certain rivers, tributary to the Saint Lawrence, in the northern part of New York. The governments of these states having appointed boards of commissioners to whom was confided the task of restocking the exhausted rivers, other states, one after another, adopted like measures, and in 1872 the United States Government established a commission to inquire into the condition and needs of the fisheries in general, with authority to take steps for the propagation of food fishes. The New England commissioners turned their attention at once to the two most important of their migratory fishes, the salmon and the shad. The utter extermination of salmon from most of their rivers compelled them to consider the best mode of introducing them from abroad. Agents were sent to the rivers of Canada, where for several years they were permitted to take salmon from their spawning beds, and some hundreds of thousands of salmon eggs were thus obtained and hatched with a measure of success. After a few seasons permits for such operations were discontinued, and the only foreign source of supply thereafter remaining open to the states was found in the breeding establishments under control of the Canadian Government, and even these were practically closed by the high price at which the eggs were valued. In 1870 it had become clear that to a continuation of efforts it was essential that a new supply of salmon ova should be discovered. Attention was now directed to the Penobscot River in the state of Maine, which, though very unproductive compared with Canadian rivers, might yet, perhaps, be made to yield the requisite quantity of spawn. A preliminary examination of the river brought out the following facts: The Penobscot is about 225 miles in length. The upper half of its course and nearly all of its principal tributaries lie in an uninhabited wilderness, and in this district are the breeding grounds of the salmon. The fisheries, however, are all on the lower part of the river and in the estuary into which it empties, Penobscot Bay. There was no means of knowing how great a proportion of the salmon entering this river succeeded in passing safely the traps and nets set to intercept them, but supposing half of them to escape capture there would still be but about 6,000 fish of both sexes scattered through the hundreds of miles of rivers and streams forming the headwaters of the Penobscot. It was very doubtful whether they would be congregated about any one spot in sufficient numbers to supply a breeding station, and it would be impracticable to occupy any widely extended part of the river, on account of the difficulties of communication. At the mouth of the river, on the other hand, the supply of adult salmon could be found with certainty, but they must be obtained from the ordinary salmon fisheries in June and held in durance until October or November, and the possibility of confining them without interfering seriously with the normal action of their reproductive functions was not yet established. The latter plan was finally adopted, and in 1871 the first attempt at this method of breeding salmon was instituted by the commissioners' of Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The site fixed upon for an inclosure was at Craig's Pond Brook in the town of Orland, and arrangements for a supply of fish were made with two fishermen of Verona at the very mouth of the river. The salmon first brought were confined in a newly constructed artificial pond in the brook, which was of such remarkable purity that a small coin could be distinctly seen at the depth of 7 feet. All of these died except a few which after a short stay were removed to other quarters. The most prominent symptom was the appearance of a white fungoid growth in patches upon the exterior of the fish. In a lake (locally designated as Craig's Pond) of equal purity, but greater depth, several of these diseased fish recovered. Of the salmon later obtained some were placed in an inclosure of nets in the edge of a natural pond with but 7 feet of water, of average purity, some in a shallow inclosure in a brook, and some turned loose in a natural lake of some 60 acres area, with muddy bottom and peat-colored water. In each case the salmon passed the summer with few losses, arrived at the breeding season in perfect health, and yielded at the proper time their normal amount of healthy spawn and milt, though the great sacrifice of breeding fish by the early experiments of the season reduced the crop of eggs to the small number of 72,000. The conditions of success were thus sufficiently indicated, and in 1872 the same parties, joined with the United States Commission of Fisheries, renewed operations on a larger scale, locating their headquarters at the village of Bucksport, confining the breeding salmon in Spofford's Pond (Salmon Pond on the general map of Penobscot station), and establishing their hatchery on the brook formed by its overflow. This is the lake of 60 acres in which, as mentioned above, a few salmon had been successfully confined the year before. Though not at all such water as would be chosen by a salmon at large, it nevertheless proved well adapted to the purpose of an inclosure for the breeding fish. It was shallow, its greatest depth, at the season of highest water, being but 10 feet; at its upper end it abuts against an extensive swamp, and almost its entire bottom, except close to the shore, is composed of a deposit of soft, brown, peaty mud of unknown depth. The water is strongly colored with peaty solutions, has a muddy flavor, and under the rays of a summer sun becomes warmed to 70° (Fahrenheit) at the very bottom.* Yet in such a forbidding place as this, salmon passed the summer in perfect health. There were some losses, but every reason to believe them all to have been caused by injuries received prior to their inclosure. * During the month of August, 1872, the bottom temperature at 1 p.m. was never below 70°, and on six days was found to be 71°. During and after the hottest term of each summer (the month of August) very few died. The supply of salmon was obtained mainly, as in 1871, from the weirs in the southern part of Verona. They were placed in cars, specially fitted for the purpose; and towed to Bucksport on the flood tide. From the river to the inclosure they were hauled on drays in wooden tanks 3 feet long, 2 feet wide and 2 feet deep, half a dozen at once. From the weirs to the boats and from the boats to the tanks they were dipped in great canvas bags. From all this handling but few losses ensued. In the establishment at Bucksport village the work was carried on for four years, from 1872 to 1876, with a fair degree of success. Then ensued a suspension till 1879, when the reappearance of salmon in the Merrimack, Connecticut, and some other rivers renewed the hopes of final success, and encouraged the commissioners to reopen the station. It had, however, been found that the old location had serious defects. The inclosure was costly to maintain, and the recapture of the fish involved a great deal of labor and trouble. The water supplied to the hatchery was liable in seasons of little rain to be totally unfit, causing a premature weakening of the shell and very serious losses in transportation. After a careful search through the neighboring country it was found that the most promising site for an inclosure was in Dead Brook, near the village of Orland (though within the limits of the town of Bucksport), and for a hatchery no location was equal to Craigs Pond Brook, the spot where the original experiments were tried in 1871. The only serious drawback was the separation of the two by a distance of some 2 miles, which could not offset the positive advantage of the hatchery site. Accordingly the necessary leases were negotiated, an inclosure made in Dead Brook, and a stock of breeding salmon placed therein in June, 1879. Since then the work has been continued without interruption. It is still found most convenient to obtain the stock of breeding salmon, as in the early years of the enterprise, from about a dozen weirs in the Penobscot River along the shores of the island of Verona. The fishermen are provided with dip-nets or bags with which to capture the fish in their weirs, with tanks or cars in which to transport them to the collecting headquarters, whither they are brought immediately after capturing, about low water. The collection is in the hands of a fisherman of experience, who receives the salmon as they are brought in, counts and examines them, adjudges their weight, and dispatches them in cars to the inclosure at Dead Brook. The cars are made out of the common fishing boats of the district, called dories, by providing them with grated openings, to allow of a free circulation of water in transit, and covering them with netting above to prevent the fish from escaping over the sides. The car is ballasted so that it will be mostly submerged. Ten to fifteen salmon are placed in a single car, and from one to four cars are taken in tow by a boat with two to four oarsmen. From the collecting headquarters to Orland village, a distance of about 5 miles, the route is in brackish water, and the tow is favored by the flood tide. At Orland is a dam which is surmounted by means of a lock, and thence, two miles further to Dead Brook, the route is through the tide less fresh water of Narramissic River. The sudden change from salt to fresh water does not appear to trouble the fish except when the weather is very hot and the fresh water is much the warmest. The cars are towed directly into the inclosure, where the fish are at once liberated. The inclosure is formed by placing two substantial barriers of woodwork across the stream 2,200 feet apart. The lower barrier is provided with gates which swing open to admit boats. Within the inclosure the water is from 3 to 8 feet deep, the current very gentle, the bottom partly muddy, partly gravelly, supporting a dense growth of aquatic vegetation. The brook has two clean lakes at its source, and its water is purer than that of ordinary brooks. The collection of salmon usually continues from the first ten days of June until the beginning of July. During the early weeks of their imprisonment the salmon are extremely active, swimming about and leaping often into the air. After that they become very quiet, lying in the deepest holes and rarely showing themselves. Early in October they begin to renew their activity, evidently excited by the reproductive functions. Preparations are now made for catching them by constructing traps at the upper barrier. If the brook is in ordinary volume, these means suffice to take nearly all, but a few linger in the deeper pools and must be swept out with seines. About October 25 the taking of spawn begins. After that date the fish are almost always ripe when they first come to hand, and in three weeks the work of spawning is substantially finished. Although the salmon are taken from the fisherman without any attempt to distinguish between males and females, it is always found at the spawning season that the females are in excess, the average of four seasons being about 34 males to 66 females. This is a favorable circumstance, since the milt of a single male is fully equal to the impregnation of the ova of many females. The experiment has several times been tried of marking the salmon after spawning and watching for their return in after years. After some experiments, the mode finally fixed upon as best was to attach a light platinum tag to the rear margin of the dorsal fin by means of a fine platinum wire. The tags were rolled very thin, cut about half an inch long and stamped with a steel die. The fish marked were dis missed in the month of November. Every time it was tried a considerable number of them was caught the ensuing spring, but with no essential change in their condition, indicating that they had not meanwhile visited their spawning grounds. In no case was a specimen caught in improved condition during the first season succeeding the marking. But the following year, in May and June, a few of them were taken in prime condition--none otherwise--and it several times occurred that female salmon were a second time committed to the inclosure and yielded a second litter of eggs. The growth of the salmon during their absence had been very considerable, there being always an increase in length and a gain of twenty-five to forty per cent. in weight. The conclusion seems unavoidable that the adult salmon do not enter the Penobscot for spawning oftener than once in two years. The method of impregnation employed has always been an imitation of the Russian method introduced into America in 1871. The eggs are first expressed into tin pans, milt is pressed upon them, and after they are thoroughly mixed together, water is added. The result has been excellent, the percentage of impregnated eggs rarely falling so low as 95. After impregnation the eggs are transferred to the hatchery at Craig's Pond Brook, where they are developed, resting upon wire-cloth trays in wooden troughs, placed in tiers ten trays deep, to economize space, and at the same time secure a free horizontal circulation of water. The hatchery is fitted up in the basement of an old mill, of which entire control has been obtained. The brook is one of exceptional purity, and a steep descent within a few feet of the hatchery enables us to secure at pleasure a fall of 50 feet or less. The brook formerly received the overflow of some copious springs within a few hundred feet of the hatchery, which so affected the temperature of the water that the eggs were brought to the shipping point early in December, an inconvenient date. This has been remedied by building a cement aqueduct 1,600 feet long, to a point on the brook above all the springs, which brings in a supply of very cold water. The shipment of eggs is made in January, February, and March, when they are sent by express, packed in bog-moss, all over the northern States, with entire safety, even in the coldest weather. In the following statement is embraced a general summary of the results of each season's work: [IMAGE orlandeggs.png in html file--table in text file] Salmon Females Eggs Eggs Year bought spawned obtained distrib'd ---- ------ ------- -------- --------- 1871-72 111 11 72,071 70,500 1872-73 692 225 1,560,000 1,241,800 1873-74 650 279 2,452,638 2,291,175 1874-75 601 343 3,106,479 2,842,977 1875-76 460 237 2,020,000 1,825,000 1879-80 264 19 211,692 200,500 1880-81 522 227 1,930,561 1,841,500 1881-82 513 232 2,690,500 2,611,500 1882-83 560 256 2,075,000 2,000,000 ----- ----- ---------- ---------- Total 4,373 1,829 16,148,941 14,924,952 ARTICLE III PENNING OF SALMON IN ORDER TO SECURE THEIR EGGS. By C. J. Bottemanne M.D. [From a letter to Prof. S. F. Baird.] _Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_, Vol. 4, Page 169, 1884. In the Dutch "Economist" of 1874 I gave a description of the fish breeding establishment of the State of New York, and therein I mentioned the United States salmon-breeding establishment on the Penobscot, principally for the penning of the salmon from June till breeding time. As you are likely aware, the Dutch Government pays yearly $4,800 to salmon breeders for young salmon delivered in spring, at the rate of 10 cents for yearlings, and not quite (4/5) one dollar per hundred for those that are about rid of the umbilical sac, and ready to shift for themselves. For the latter they receive payment only if there is money left after delivering the yearlings. The breeders get their eggs from Germany from Schuster in Freiburg, and from Gloser in Basel; but complain always that the eggs are from too young individuals, that there is always too much loss in transportation, that the eggs are so weak that after the fish have come out there is great mortality in the fry, &c. In this month's "Economist" I published the results on the Penobscot, and figured out that if breeders here set to work in the same style they would get at least four eggs to one, at the same price, and be independent. We have an association here for promoting the fresh-water fisheries, of which the principal salmon fishermen are members, and also several gentlemen not in the business, including myself. In the December meeting I told them all I knew about the Penobscot; and one breeder got a credit for $200 for getting ripe salmon and keeping them in a scow till he had what he wanted, and he has succeeded pretty well. Still this is only on a limited scale. I want to put up larger pens and in the style of the Penobscot. In order to do this I must know exactly what is done on the Penobscot, and how. What is the size of the pen, how large area, how deep? Is it above tidal water? (This I take for granted.) What is the situation of the pond compared with the river? What kind of failures were there, and the probable reasons therefor? In short, I would like a complete description of the place, with the history of it. I hope you will excuse my drawing on you for such an amount, but as the United States is the authority in practical fish-breeding, we are obliged to come to you. I am sorry to say that I cannot report the catch of any _S. quinnat_, yet three fish have been sent in for the premium we held out for the first fifteen caught, but they proved not to be quinnat. Lately I heard that there were so many salmon caught in the Ourthe, near Liege, Belgium (the Ourthe is one of the feeders of the Maas), which was an astonishing fact, as salmon are seldom taken there. Bergen op Zoom, Netherlands, January 12, 1884 ARTICLE IV MEMORANDA RELATIVE TO INCLOSURES FOR THE CONFINEMENT OF SALMON DRAWN FROM EXPERIENCE AT BUCKSPORT, PENOBSCOT RIVER, MAINE. By Charles G. Atkins [In response to request of Dr. C. J. Bottemanne.] April 7, 1884. _Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_, Vol. 4, Pages 170-174, 1884. The Penobscot salmon-breeding establishment was founded in 1872, at Bucksport; in the State of Maine, near the mouth of the Penobscot River. The location was primarily determined by the necessity of being near a supply of living adult salmon, to be used for breeders. After an exploration of the headwaters of the Penobscot, which lie mostly in an uninhabited wilderness, the conclusion was reached that the chances of securing a sufficient stock of breeders were much greater at the mouth of the river, where the principal salmon fisheries are located; but to avail ourselves of the supply here afforded we must take the salmon at the ordinary fishing season, May, June, and July, and keep them in confinement until the spawning season, which is here the last of October and first of November. As the salmon naturally pass this period of their lives in the upper parts of the rivers, it was thought essential to confine our captives in fresh water. Later experiments in Canada indicate that they will do as well in salt water, but the construction and maintenance of inclosures is much easier when they are located above the reach of the tide, to say nothing of the proximity of suitable fresh water for the treatment of the eggs. In the precise location of the inclosures several changes have been made, but they have always been in fresh water, and within convenient distance (5 to 10 miles) of the place where the salmon were captured. In our experiments and routine work we have made use of four inclosures, which I will now describe. No. 1. In Craig's Pond Brook, a very pure and transparent stream, an artificial pond 40 square rods in area and 7 feet in extreme depth, was formed by the erection of a dam. The bottom of this pond was mainly a grassy sod newly flooded. About half the water came from springs in the immediate vicinity, and the rest from a very pure lake half a mile distant. The water derived from the lake was thoroughly aerated by its passage over a steep rocky bed. The transparency of the water in the pond was so great that a pin could be seen at the depth of six feet. This inclosure was a complete failure. The salmon placed therein were after a day or two attacked by a parasitic fungoid growth on the skin, and in a few days died. Out of 59 impounded not one escaped the disease and only those speedily removed to other waters recovered. Several, removed in a very sickly condition to the lake supplying the brook, recovered completely, from which it is safe to infer that the cause of the trouble did not lie in the lake water. Of the spring water I have some suspicions, and should not dare to inclose salmon in it again. No. 2. After the failure of the above experiment an inclosure was made in the edge of an ordinary lake by stretching a stout net on stakes. This water was brown in color, and objects 4 feet beneath the surface were invisible. The bottom was gravelly and devoid of vegetation. The depth was 7 and one half feet in early summer, and about 4 feet after the drought of August and September. The area inclosed was about 25 square rods in June, and perhaps half as much at the end of summer. This inclosure was entirely successful, very few salmon dying in it except those that had been attacked by disease before their introduction, and all the survivors were found to be in first-rate condition in November. This site was not afterwards occupied, because it was inconveniently located, and was exposed to the full force of violent winds sweeping across the lake, and therefore unsafe. No. 3. The inclosure in use for the confinement of the stock of breeding fish for the four years from 1872 to 1875, inclusive, was made by running a barrier across a narrow arm of a small lake (mentioned in official reports as "Spofford's Pond") near Bucksport village. This body of water, about 60 acres in area in the summer, receives the drainage of not more than 5 square miles of territory through several small brooks, that are reduced to dry beds by an ordinary drought. About a quarter of the shores are marshy and the rest stony. The water is highly colored by peaty matters in solution, and all objects are invisible at a depth of 2 feet: The bottom is composed mostly of a fine brown peaty mud of unknown depth. Aquatic vegetation of the genera, _Nuphar_, _Nymphaea_, _Bragenia_, _Potamogeton_, &c., is abundant. The water is nowhere more than 16 feet deep in the spring, and 11 feet in midsummer. The portion inclosed is 2 feet shoaler. The inclosure occupied sometimes 8 or 10 acres, and sometimes less. The barrier was from 400 to 600 feet long, and was formed the first year of brush; the second and third years of stake-nets, weighted down at the bottom with chains; and the fourth year of wooden racks, 4 feet wide and long enough to reach the bottom, which were pushed down side by side. The brush was unsatisfactory. There were holes in it by which the fish escaped. A single net would not retain its strength through a whole season, the bottom rotting away and letting the fish out, unless before the autumn was far advanced its position were reversed, the stronger part that had been above water being placed now at the bottom. This method was therefore rather expensive and not perfectly secure. The wooden racks were costly and heavy to handle, but quite secure. The salmon placed in this inclosure had to be carted in tanks of water overland about a mile in addition to transportation in floating cars from 3 to 5 miles; they were transferred suddenly from the salt water of the river (about two-thirds as salt as common sea-water) into the entirely fresh water of the lake. To all the supposed unfavorable circumstances must be added the high summer temperature of the water. During August the mean was generally above 70 degrees Fahrenheit at the bottom and several degrees warmer at the surface. Occasionally there was observed a midday temperature of 74 degrees F. and once 75 degrees at the bottom. Yet this proved an excellent place for our purpose, a satisfactory percentage of the salmon remaining in perfect health from June to November. No. 4. The inclosure in use since 1870 at Dead Brook, Bucksport. It is located in a gently running stream bordered by marshy ground, with a bottom in part of gravel but mostly of mud, crowded with aquatic vegetation. The water, supplied by two small lakes among the hills, is cleaner than the average of Maine rivers, but does not in that respect approach the water of inclosure No. 1. The greatest depth is about 8 feet, but in the greater part of the inclosure it is from 3 to 5 feet. The width of the stream is from 2 to 4 rods, and the portion inclosed is 2,200 feet long. The barriers to retain the fish are in the form of wooden gratings, with facilities for speedily clearing them of debris brought down by the stream. Better results were expected from this inclosure than from No. 3, but have not been realized. The percentage of salmon dying in confinement has been greater, amounting commonly to about 25 percent of those introduced, and this notwithstanding the salmon are conveyed to the inclosure by water carriage the entire distance (7 miles) instead of being carted in tanks. The cause of the trouble has not yet been discovered, but there is good reason for thinking that it lies in some of the circumstances attending the transfer of the fish from the place of capture, and that the inclosure itself is perfectly suited to its purpose. This view is supported by the fact that nearly all the losses occur within a few weeks after the introduction of the salmon and almost wholly cease by the end of July. If the cause of disease was located in the inclosure, we should expect it to be more fatal after a long than a short duration of the exposure of the fish to its action, and that with the smaller volume and higher temperature of August it would be more active than in June and July. The above description will, I think, give Dr. Bottemanne a sufficiently correct idea of the character of the inclosures we have tried. There are, however, several other points to be touched upon to put him in possession of the practical results of our experience. The facilities for the recapture of the salmon when the spawning season approaches must be considered. In the lake at Bucksport village (No. 3) we hoped at first that their desire to reach a suitable spawning ground would induce them all to enter the small brook that forms the outlet, which was within the limits of the inclosure. In this matter our expectations were but partially realized. Many of the fish refused to leave the lake through the narrow opening that was afforded them, and were only obtained by pound-nets, seines, and gill-nets, all of which involved a considerable expenditure of labor and material. The drawing of a seine in a large body of fresh water is likely to be a serious undertaking unless the bottom has been previously cleared of snags. In this respect the long and narrow inclosure at Dead Brook possesses great advantages, since it can be swept with a comparatively short seine. However, the influx and efflux of a considerable volume of water is of great advantage in enticing the gravid fish into traps that can readily be contrived for them by any ingenious fisherman. The existence of a gravelly bottom in the inclosure must be considered a positive disadvantage, inasmuch as it affords the fish a ground on which they may lay their eggs before they can be caught; but the danger of such an occurrence is less as the bounds of the inclosure are more contracted and the facilities for capturing the fish are better. As to the number of fish to a given area, I think we have never approached the maximum. I should have no hesitation in putting 1000 salmon in the inclosure at Dead Brook, which covers an area of less than 3 acres. Of course the renewal of the water supply, or its aeration by winds, is of importance here. The capture and transport of the fish in June involves methods requiring some explanation. The salmon fisheries about the mouth of the Penobscot River are pursued by means of a sort of trap termed a "weir." It is constructed of fine-meshed nets hung upon stakes, arranged so as to entrap and detain the fish without insnaring them in the meshes. They swim about in the narrow "pound" of the weir until the retreating tide leaves them upon a broad floor. Just before the floor is laid bare, the salmon destined for the breeding works are dipped out carefully with a cloth bag or a very fine bag-net and placed in transporting cars or boats, rigged specially for the purpose, sunk deep in the water, which fills them, passing in at two grated openings above, and passing out at two others astern, and covered with a net to prevent escape. In a boat 13 or 14 feet long (on the bottom) we put 10 or 15 salmon, to be towed a distance of 7 miles. If the water is cool, twice as many can go safely, but there must be no delay. It is very important that this car be smooth inside, with no projections for the salmon to chafe on, and the gratings must be so close that they cannot get their heads in between the bars. If conveyance overland is necessary, a wooden tank 3 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2 feet deep, with a sliding cover, will take six salmon at a time for a mile and perhaps farther, and they may be jolted along over a rough road in comparative safety. It has been our uniform experience that all the salmon that survive till autumn were in normal condition as to their reproductive function, and yielded healthy spawn and milt. On two occasions we suffered serious losses of eggs. In neither instance could the loss be attributed to any defect in the inclosure, but on one occasion the conclusion was reached that the water which was well suited to the maintenance of the fish was injurious to the eggs, rendering the shell so soft that they could not be transported safely. With the exception of the disasters enumerated above, there has been but one that I can recall, and that was caused by the bursting of our barriers at Dead Brook under the pressure of a flood. BUCKSPORT, ME, April 7, 1884. ARTICLE V REPORT ON THE SCHOODIC SALMON WORK OF 1884-85 By Charles G. Atkins. _Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_, Vol. 5, Pages 324-325, 1885. The measurement of the stock of Schoodic salmon eggs at Grand Lake Stream at time of packing and shipment, and the record of previous losses, enable me to complete the statistics, as follows: Original number taken ...................................1,820,810 The total losses up to that time, including the unfertilized, which were removed before packing............254,410 Net stock of sound eggs..................................1,566,400 Reserved for Grand Lake....................................397,400 Available for shipment to subscribers ...................1,169,000 These were divided among the parties supplying the funds for the work in proportion to their contributions, as follows: Allotted to the United States Commission...................608,000 Allotted to the Maine Commission...........................234,000 Allotted to the Massachusetts Commission...................187,000 Allotted to the New Hampshire Commission...................140,000 Total....................................................1,169,000 The share of the United States Commission was assigned and shipped, under orders, as follows: A. W. Aldrich, commissioner, Anamosa, Iowa..................50,000 E. A. Brackett, commissioner, Winchester, Mass..............25,000 H. H. Buck, Orland, Me, to be hatched for Eagle Lake, Mount Desert....................................20,000 Paris, Mich., for Michigan commission.......................50,000 Madison, Wis., for Wisconsin commission.....................50,000 R. O. Sweeny, commissioner, Saint Paul, Minn ...............50,000 South Bend, Nebr., for Nebraska Commission..................20,000 E. B. Hodge, commissioner, Plymouth, N.H....................40,000 Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., for New York Commission..........60,000 Plymouth, N. H., for Vermont Commission ....................25,000 Plymouth, N. H., for Lake Memphremagog .....................25,000 Central Station, Washington, D.C. ..........................10,000 R. E. Earll, World's Exposition, New Orleans ................5,000 G. W. Delawder, commissioner, Baltimore .....................5,000 Myron Battles, North Creek, N................................5,000 A. R. Fuller, Meacham Lake, N. .............................20,000 F. Mather for transmission to Europe as follows: For Herr von Behr, Germany..................................40,000 For Tay Fishery Board, Scotland.............................20,000 For National Fish Culture Association, England..............30,000 Total to Europe.............................................90,000 Enfield, Maine for Maine Commission.........................58,000 Total......................................................608,000 A few of the shipments have been heard from, and these all reached their destinations safely. BUCKSPORT, ME. March 31, 1885 ARTICLE VI METHODS EMPLOYED AT CRAIG BROOK STATION IN REARING YOUNG SALMONID FISHES By Charles G. Atkins, Superintendent U. S. Fish Commission Station at Craig Brook, Maine. _Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_, Vol. 13, Pages 221-228, 1893. The station of the U. S. Fish Commission at Craig Brook was founded in 1889, on the same site where, in 1871, the first attempt at the artificial spawning of salmon in the United States was made. This site had been selected by the commissioners of fisheries of the States of Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut for that experiment because of its proximity to the salmon fisheries of the Penobscot River and the facilities presented for the maturing of the spawn that might be obtained. The collection of spawn has been carried on in the vicinity annually from 1871 to the present time, with the exception of the three years 1876,1877, and 1878, and since 1879 the development of the spawn has been conducted constantly at Craig Brook. No attempt was, however, made to rear the fry of any species until 1886. Two years later it was definitely determined to found a permanent station at Craig Brook, and in 1889 the purchase of the grounds was effected and permanent improvements begun. The station is located in the town of Orland, Me., 7 miles east of Bucksport, a seaport on the Penobscot River. Its territory embraces a tract of land extending between Allamoosook Lake and Craig Pond and embracing within its limits the entire length of Craig Brook, which connects those two bodies of water. Its latitude is about 44 degrees 42' N. The mean annual temperature and precipitation are believed to approximate those of Orono, 25 miles distant, namely, 42.48° F. [5.8° C.] and 45.44 inches [116 cm.]. The range of air temperature observed at the station is from 18° F. below zero to 92.5°F. above [-27.7° C. to 33.6° C.]. Frosts not infrequently occur as late as the 1st of June and as early in autumn as the first week in September. The lakes in the vicinity are commonly covered with ice before the end of November, and they are not often released until near the end of April. The water supply is derived from Craig Brook and from three large and several lesser springs. The source of the brook is Craig Pond, which affords a constant supply of exceedingly transparent water, warm in summer and cold in winter, moderated, however; in both extremes by the water from the springs, which mingles with the brook in its lower course, forming about a third of its volume. It is this mixed water which is mainly used in the rearing of fish. Its temperature ranges from 34° F. [1.1° C.] to 70°F. [21.1°C.]. The lowest monthly mean in 1893 was 35.8° F. [2.1° C.] in February. The highest was 64.6°F. [18.1°C.] in August. The total volume is variable, ranging from 875 to 3,000 gallons and averaging about 1,200 gallons per minute. The difference of level between the source and mouth of the brook is about 190 feet. The sharpest descent is just above the hatchery and rearing troughs, which therefore receive well-aerated water. The conformation of the ground offers good facilities for the distribution and utilization of the water. The leading motive in the foundation of this station was the desire to apply to the Atlantic salmon the system of rearing fish to the age of at least several months before liberating them. This motive has determined not only the principal subjects of the work, but also to a considerable extent the fixtures and methods. The scheme of work was determined in outline several years before the acquisition of full title to the premises, and, circumstances rendering it desirable to enter at once on its development, it became necessary to have recourse to movable apparatus, pending authority for permanent improvements. Hence the erection of a series of small troughs in the open air, which gave such excellent satisfaction that enlargement took the same direction; and it has thus come about that the rearing operations of the station down to the present time have been almost exclusively conducted in open-air troughs. A series of ponds has been constructed, but with the exception of a few small ones none of them have been as yet brought into use. The troughs are for the most part such as are used in the hatchery for the maturing of spawn, and their form and size have been adapted to the hatching apparatus which has been in use at the Maine station for many years. The eggs are developed on wire-cloth trays measuring 12 and one half inches in width and length, and the troughs are therefore 12 and three quarter inches wide. Their depth is 9 inches and their length is 10 feet 6 inches. Such short troughs were adopted for two reasons: (1) It was thought that a greater length might involve the exposure of the eggs near the lower end to the danger of a partial exhaustion of the air from the water by the eggs above them; (2) these short troughs are very convenient to cleanse and to move about for repairs or other purposes. They are made of pine boards seven-eighths inch thick. On the inside they are planed and varnished with asphaltum. When used for rearing fish each trough is fitted with a pair of thin wooden covers reaching its entire length hinged to the sides and meeting each other, when closed, at a right angle, forming; as it were, a roof over the trough. When closed they protect from predatory birds and other vermin; when open they are fixed in an upright position, in effect adding to the height of the sides and preventing the fish jumping out. The time spent in opening and closing the troughs is by this arrangement reduced to a minimum. Water is fed through wooden tubes, and the volume admitted is regulated by slides The exit of the water is through another tube or hollow plug standing upright near the lower end of the trough, and by its height governing the depth of the water. The outlet tube is movable and is taken out in cleaning. A wire-cloth screen just above the outlet tube prevents the fish escaping. In a trough of standard size 2,000 fry are generally placed, and to accommodate the large numbers of fish reared we bring into use sometimes nearly 200 troughs which are of necessity placed in the open air. They are arranged in pairs with their heads against the feed troughs, supported by wooden horses at a convenient height from the ground. They are given an inclination of about 2 inches to facilitate cleaning. The volume of water fed to each trough has varied from time to time, but is ordinarily about 5 gallons per minute, which renews the water every four minutes. The ordinary arrangement is to use the water but once in the troughs, letting it waste into some small ponds in which yearling and older fish are kept; but there is one system of 52 troughs arranged in four series, which use in succession the same water. From these we have learned that young salmon thrive quite as well in the fourth series as in the first. Indeed, by an actual test, with fish of like origin and character in each series, the fish reared in the fourth series were found to grow faster, to an important degree, than those in the first. This phenomenon probably resulted from a somewhat higher temperature which the water acquired in passing through the several series. A like observation has been made on a few salmon maintained for a few weeks, in the warmer water of a neighboring brook. As already stated, the activity of the station has been mainly occupied with Atlantic salmon, but there have been reared each year a few landlocked salmon and brook trout, and occasional lots of other salmonoids, such as Loch Leven, Von Behr, Swiss-lake, rainbow, and Scotch sea trout. All these have received the same treatment. With the exception of the rainbow trout, they are all autumn-spawning fishes, and their eggs hatch early in the spring. The embryos of salmon begin to burst the shell in the month of March, and the 1st of April may be stated as the mean date of hatching. If the open-air troughs are in order--and we aim to have them so--the eggs are counted out into lots of 2,000 or 4,000 each and placed before hatching in their summer quarters. The water is at that time very cold, the development of the alevins is slow, and it is not until the latter part of May that the yolk sack is fully absorbed. June 1 is, therefore, the date when feeding is ordinarily begun. The growth of the fish is at first slow, the water being still cool, but is accelerated as the summer passes away. In October and November, beginning commonly about the middle of October, most of the fish are counted out and liberated, but a small number, rarely more than 15,000, being carried through the winter at the station. The reserved fish are sometimes left until midwinter in their summer quarters, and with a careful covering of the conduits and banking of the troughs themselves each with coarse hay and evergreen boughs it is possible to keep them there the year round; but for ordinary winter storage there is provided a system of sunken tanks covered by a rough shed with a constant water supply. These tanks are molasses hogsheads, securely hooped with iron, sunk nearly their entire depth into the ground, each with an independent water supply and waste, the perforation for the latter being near the surface. They have a capacity of from 100 gallons of water upward, and will carry safely each 500 to 700 fish in their first winter, that is, just approaching the age of one year. This arrangement has answered its purpose fairly well, and in a very rigorous climate or where the water is very cold it is to be recommended; but since its construction it has been discovered that at Craig Brook it is not at all difficult to protect the ordinary troughs in such a way as to insure their safety from freezing, and their attendance through the winter is less troublesome than that of the sunken tanks. A list of the articles employed for food at the station since its foundation, if designed to include those used on an experimental as well as a practical scale, would be a long one, and I will content myself with naming the following: On a practical scale we have used butcher's offal, flesh of horses and other domestic animals by the carcass, fresh fish, maggots; and on an experimental scale, pickled fish, fresh-water mussels, mosquito larvae, miscellaneous aquatic animals of minute size. In the production of maggots we have also made use of large quantities of stale meat from the markets and some barrels of fish pomace, in addition to the articles mentioned above. The butcher's offal comprises the livers, hearts and lights of such animals as are slaughtered in Orland and Bucksport--mainly lambs and veals. These are collected from the slaughter-houses twice or thrice weekly, and preserved in refrigerators until used. The quantity of such material to be had in the vicinity has been inadequate to our needs and we have been compelled to look in other directions for food. The flesh of horses has been used only during the season of 1893. Old and worn out horses and those hopelessly crippled or dying suddenly have been bought when offered, and used in the same way as the butcher's offal; the parts that could be chopped readily have been fed direct to the fish so far as needed; and other parts have been used in the rearing of maggots. The season's experience has been so satisfactory that greater use will be made of horse flesh hereafter. Next to the chopped meat, maggots have constituted the most important article of food, and their systematic production has received much attention. A rough wooden building has been erected for the accommodation of this branch of the work and one man is constantly employed about it during the summer and early autumn months. The maggots thus far employed are exclusively flesh-eaters, mainly those of two undetermined species of flies--the first and most important being a small smooth, shining green or bluish-green fly occurring at the beginning of summer and remaining in somewhat diminished numbers until October, and the other a large rough, steel-blue fly that makes its appearance later and in autumn becomes the predominating species, having such hardiness as to continue the reproduction of its kind long after the occurrence of frosts sufficiently severe to freeze the ground. In outline the procedure is to expose the flesh of animals in a sheltered location during the day, and when well stocked with the spawn of the flies to place it in boxes which are set away in the "fly house" to develop; when fully grown the maggots are taken out and fed at once to the fish. The materials used for the enticing of the flies and the nourishment of the maggots have been various. Stale meat from the markets has been perhaps the leading article, but we have also used such parts of the butcher's offal and of the horse carcasses as were not well adapted to chopping; fish, fresh dried or pickled; fish pomace from herring-oil works, and any animal refuse that came to hand. Fresh or slightly tainted meat has been used to greater extent than any other material, and has proved itself equally good with any. Fresh fish is very attractive to the flies, and when in just the proper condition may be equally good with fresh meat, but some kinds of fish are too oily, for instance, alewives and herring, and all sorts thus far tried are apt to be too watery. A very limited trial of fish dried without salt or smoke indicates that it is, when free from oil, a very superior article; it has, of course, to be moistened before using. Its preparation presents some difficulties, but in winter it is easily effected by impaling the whole fish on sticks and hanging them up, (after the manner of alewives or herring in a smokehouse) under a roof where they will be protected from rain without hindering the circulation of air; in this way we have dried many flounders and other refuse fish from the smelt fisheries, which are conducted with bag nets in the vicinity of Bucksport. Doubtless a centrifugal drying machine might be successfully used for this purpose in summer. Pickled alewives, freshened out in water, have been found to answer fairly well, when other materials are lacking, at least to give growth to maggots otherwise started. Fish pomace has not thus far given satisfaction, but seems worthy of further trial. It is commonly necessary to expose meat but a single day to obtain sufficient fly spawn; the larvae are hatched and active the next day, except in cool weather, and they attain their full growth in two or three days. To separate them from the remnants of food and other debris was at first a troublesome task. It is now effected as follows: the meat bearing the fly spawn is placed on a layer of loose hay or straw in a box which has a wire-cloth bottom, and which stands inside a slightly larger box with a tight wooden bottom. When full grown the maggots work their way down through the hay into the lower box, where they are found nearly free from dirt. When young salmon or trout first begin to feed they are quite unable to swallow full-grown maggots. Small ones are obtained for them by putting a large quantity of fly spawn with a small quantity of meat, the result being that the maggots soon begin to crowd each other and the surplus is worked off into the lower box before attaining great size. No attempt is, however, made to induce the young fish to swallow even the smallest maggots until they have been fed a while an chopped liver. In the above methods maggots are produced and used in considerable numbers, sometimes as many as a bushel in a day. Through September, 1893, although the weather and some other circumstances were not very favorable, the average daily production was a little over half a bushel. They are eagerly eaten by the fish, which appear to thrive on them better than on dead meat. Having great tenacity of life, if not snapped up immediately by the fish they remain alive for a day or two, and, as they wriggle about on the bottom, are almost certain to be finally eaten; whereas the particles of dead flesh that fall to the bottom are largely neglected by the fish and begin to putrefy in a few hours. In the fish troughs there are, therefore, certain gains in both cleanliness and economy from the use of maggots which may be set down as compensating the waste and filthiness of the fly-house. As the growth of maggots can be controlled by regulation of the temperature, it is possible to keep them all winter in a pit or cellar, and advantage is taken of this to use them during winter as food for fish confined in deep tanks not easily cleaned. The offensive odors of decaying flesh may be largely overcome by covering it, on putting it away in the boxes, after the visits of the flies, with pulverized earth, and it is not improbable that by this or some other method the business may be made almost wholly inoffensive, but in its present stage of development it is too malodorous to admit of practice in any place where there are human habitations or resorts within half a mile of the spot where the maggots are grown. As remarked above, only flesh-eating maggots have yet been tried. It would be well worth while to experiment with the larvae of other species, such as the house fly, the stable fly, etc. There is also a white maggot known to grow in heaps of seaweed. Should the rate of growth of either of these species be found to be satisfactory they might be substituted for the flesh maggots with advantage. Occasional use has been made of fresh fish for direct feeding. When thrown into the water after chopping it breaks up into fibers to such an extent that it is not very satisfactory, and I do not suppose we shall use it in the future, unless in a coarsely chopped form for the food of large fish. A few barrels of salted alewives have been used, and if well soaked out and chopped they are readily eaten by the larger fish and can be fed to fry, but are less satisfactory with the latter, and like fresh fish they break up to such an extent that they are only to be regarded as one of the last resorts. Fresh-water mussels have been occasionally gathered in the lake close to the station when there has been a scarcity of food. Those employed belong almost wholly to a species of Unio which abounds over a considerable area of soft bottom, under a depth of 2 to 10 feet of water. Many were taken with a boat dredge; more were scooped up with long-handled dip nets of special construction. Finally a wide, flat dredge was made, to be drawn by a windlass on the shore and manipulated by means of poles from a large boat. When needed for food the mussels were opened with knives--a great task--and chopped. The meat is readily eaten by all fishes, and appears to form an excellent diet. Being more buoyant than any other article tried, it sinks slower in the water and gives the fish more time to seize it before it reaches the bottom, a consideration of considerable practical importance. The labor involved in dredging and shelling is a serious drawback, but were the colonies of unios sufficiently extensive or their reproduction rapid enough to warrant expenditure of time in experimentation; improved methods might be devised, which would put this food-source on a practicable basis. During the seasons of 1886 and 1888 some use was made of mosquito larvae. Near the station is an extensive swamp where these insects breed in great numbers. From the pools of water the larvae were daily collected by means of a set of strainers specially devised for this use. Barrels filled with water were also disposed in convenient places near the rearing troughs, and were soon swarming with larvae from the eggs deposited by the mosquitoes on the surface of the water. When near the completion of their growth, which was only some ten days after the deposit of the eggs, the larvae (or pupae) were strained out and fed to the fish. No kind of food has been used this station that has been more eagerly devoured, and so far as our observation has gone no other food has contributed more to the growth of the fish; indeed, I am inclined to put them at the head in both respects. It was found, however, that the time expended in collecting them was out of all proportion to the quantity of food secured, and pending opportunity for further experiment their use was discontinued. I think it quite possible that an arrangement might be devised whereby the greater part of the labor might be saved. Perhaps a series of breeding tanks arranged in proximity to the fish troughs, into which the water containing the larvae might be drawn when desirable by the simple opening of faucet, would solve the problem. Various methods of serving the food have been tried, but at present everything is given with a spoon. The attendant carries the food with the left hand--in a 2-quart dipper if chopped meat, in a larger vessel if maggots--and, dipping it out with a large spoon, strews it the whole length of the trough, being careful to put the greater portion at the head, where the fish nearly always congregate. Finely chopped food, for very young fish, is slightly thinned with water before feeding. At one time the finest food was fed through perforations in the bottom of a tin dish; the food was placed in the dish, which was dipped into the water a little and shaken till enough of the food had dropped out of the perforations; this practice was laid aside because it was thought that the food was too much diluted. In feeding maggots it was, at first, the practice to place them on small "feeding boards" of special construction suspended over the water in the troughs and let them crawl off into the water; but whatever advantage this method may have had in furnishing the meal to the fish slowly was more than counterbalanced by the extra labor of caring for the boards and by the offensive odor, and it was abandoned. For use in feeding fish in a pond a box containing a series of shelves, down which the maggots slowly crawl, was found sufficiently useful to be retained. It is the common practice to feed all meat raw except the lights, which chop better if boiled first, except also occasional lots of meat that are on the point of becoming tainted and are boiled to save them. All meats fed direct to the fish are first passed through a chopping machine. The machine known as the "Enterprise" is the one now in use. It forces the meat through perforated steel plates. The plate used for the smaller fish has perforations 2 inch in diameter, and for coarser work there are two plates 3/16th inch and 3/8th inch, respectively. It is operated by a crank turned by hand. Food is given to those fish just beginning to eat four times a day (in some cases even six times). As the season progresses the number of rations is gradually reduced to two daily. In winter such fish as are carried through are fed but once a day. The cleaning of the troughs has been a troublesome matter, and the subject of much study and experiment, but nothing more satisfactory has been found than the following practice: The troughs are all to be cleaned daily--not all at one time, but as time is found for it in the intervals of other work. To facilitate cleaning, the troughs are inclined about 2 inches. The outlet is commanded, as already explained, by a hollow plug. When this is drawn the water rushes out rapidly and carries most of the debris against the screen. The fishes are excited, and, scurrying about, they loosen nearly all dirt from the bottom; what will not otherwise yield must be started with a brush, but after the first few weeks the brush has rarely to be used except to rub the debris through the outlet screen. Owing to the inclination of the trough the water recedes from the upper end until the fishes lying there are almost wholly out of water, but, although they are left in that position sometimes for 10 or 15 minutes, no harm has ever been known to result. It has been the common rule at the station to count all the embryos devoted to the process of rearing, either before or after hatching; to keep an accurate record of losses during the season, and to check the record by a recount in the fall. When eggs are counted they are lifted in a teaspoon. The counting of small fish is effected in this way: The fish are first gathered in a fine, soft bag-net, commonly one made of cheese-cloth, and from this, hanging meanwhile in the water, yet so that the fish cannot escape, they are dipped out a few at a time, in a small dipper or cup, counted, and placed in a pail of water or some other receptacle. This counting is generally preliminary to weighing, and in this case the fish, after counting, are placed in another bag-net, in which they are lowered, several hundred at a time, into a pail of water which has been previously weighed, and the increase noted. With care to avoid transferring to the weighing pail any surplus water, this is a correct method and very easy and safe for the fish. In conclusion, I submit some estimates of cost. In September, 1893, we fed fry that were estimated at the close of the month to number 238,300. There were also a few hundred larger fish. From the known total outlay for food, attendance, and superintendence a suitable allowance is made for the maintenance of the older fish, and the balance is charged to the fry. By this method we arrive at the following results: Cost...................Total........Per fish. Food $155.00 $0.00065 Attendance 99.79 .00042 Superintendence 205.96 .00086 Total 460.75 0.00193 Applied to the rearing operations of 1891, a similar calculation gives us this result: The fry that were carried through the season from June to October, inclusive, cost, for food, attendance, and superintendence, $0.0081 each; that is, about four-fifths of a cent each for the term of five months. ARTICLE VII NOTES ON THE CAPTURE OF ATLANTIC SALMON AT SEA AND IN THE COAST WATERS OF THE EASTERN STATES By Hugh M. Smith, M. D., Assistant in charge of Division of Statistics and Methods of the Fisheries. _Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_, Vol. 14, Page 95, 1894. In carrying out its most important function--the maintenance and increase of the supply of food fishes--the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, in addition to direct efforts to increase the abundance of fishes naturally inhabiting our various rivers, lakes, and coast waters, has given considerable attention to the experimental introduction of fishes into regions or streams to which they were not native. The wonderful success which has followed the planting of shad and striped bass fry in the waters of the Pacific coast is well known. The results attending the recent attempts of the Commission to establish a run of salmon (_Salmo salar_) in some of the large rivers of the Atlantic coast have been so noteworthy in the case of the Hudson as to afford reasonable ground for expecting the early inauguration of a regular fishery, should the present rate of increase in the abundance of the fish be maintained. Similar striking results may also be anticipated in all the more northern streams of the east coast, including the Housatonic, Connecticut, and Merrimac, in which salmon were at one time found in abundance and are now taken in small numbers, if the ascent of the adult fish to the headwaters for the purpose of spawning is permitted and if sufficiently extensive fish-cultural operations are continued. The primary purpose of this paper is to record some of the apparent results of salmon propagation in our rivers as shown by the occurrence of the fish at points on the coast or at sea more or less remote from the places where fry have been deposited. While an interesting and instructive compilation might be made of the instances of the capture of salmon in the Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac, and other rivers in which the fish has been acclimated, such a work is not necessary in view of the notice which has already been accorded the matter in the public press and in the reports of several of the State fish commissions, notably the New York commission. So much yet remains to be learned regarding the lines of migration of the salmon to and from the rivers, its winter habitat, the existence of an "instinct of nativity" which is supposed to impel the return of the fish to the place where hatched, the extent of the coastwise distribution of salmon originally belonging in a given river, and numerous other practical and scientific questions, that the presentation of any data bearing on the occurrence of the fish outside of the rivers may be regarded as acceptable and timely. In an interesting article on "Salmon at Sea," communicated to the issue of _Forest and Stream_ for February 18, 1892, Mr. A. N. Cheney, the well-known angling expert and writer on fish-cultural matters, discusses the question of the whereabouts of salmon after they leave the rivers, and quotes the following from a previous contribution by himself on the subject: "There is a certain mystery about the habits and movements of the sea salmon, after it has left the fresh-water rivers in which it spawns and gone down to the sea, that never has been satisfactorily explained. One theory is that all the salmon of the rivers along a coast may journey down to the sea, and then move ultimately in one great body southward along the coast until they find water of suitable temperature, with an abundance of food, in which to spend their time in growing fat until the spawning instinct warns them to return, when they proceed northward, each river school entering its own particular river as the main school arrives opposite the river month. "Another theory is that the salmon of each river, as they arrive at its mouth after descending from its headwaters, go out to sea sufficiently far to find the conditions of temperature and food which suit them, and there they remain, separate from the salmon of other rivers, until it is time for them to return to fresh water. Considering the certainty with which the salmon of any particular river return again to the stream of their birth, the latter theory seems the more tenable of the two." Another object of this paper is to solicit correspondence from fishermen, especially those engaged in the coast and offshore fisheries, concerning the circumstances of the capture of salmon in their nets, and to bring to their attention the opportunity they will thus have of increasing the knowledge of the movements of the salmon, of aiding in the determination of the results of fishcultural operations, and of ultimately if not immediately benefiting themselves by supplying information that will conduce to the most effective application of artificial methods. To this end it is the intention to send the paper to fishermen engaged in the mackerel, menhaden, and other sea fisheries, and to operators of pound nets, traps, and other shore appliances, with the hope that instances of the capture of salmon may be communicated to this Commission and notes on the size, condition, movements, etc., of the fish be furnished. To aid in the identification of the salmon when caught by fishermen who have not previously met with the fish, a figure is presented. In this connection mention may be made of the chinook or quinnat salmon of the Pacific coast (_Oncorhynchus chouicha_), fry of which have been extensively planted in eastern waters by the U. S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Up to and including the year 1880, about 12,000,000 fry were deposited in rivers and other waters tributary to the Atlantic. While a few relatively large examples have been taken, this office has no information to show that the attempts to acclimate this species on the Atlantic coast have as yet been successful. In 1891 a few thousand yearling salmon were placed in New York waters tributary to the sea. The possibility of the survival and growth of some of these and of the large early colonies prompts this reference to the matter and suggests the publication of the accompanying figure of the species, to afford a basis for distinguishing the two kinds of salmon, which closely resemble each other. To further aid in the identification of the two species the following key has been prepared: Rays in anal fin, 9; scales between gill opening and base of tail, 120; branchiostegals (false gill openings), 11 ..........ATLANTIC SALMON. Rays in anal fin, 16; scales between gill opening and base of tail, 150; branchiostegals, (false gill openings) 15 to 19..........PACIFIC SALMON. Numerous instances might be cited of the taking of salmon in the waters of the Atlantic coast in recent years. Their occurrence in the traps and pound nets is in fact so common that it would hardly be entitled to notice at this time were it not for the circumstance that in regions in which salmon were already known there has been a decided increase in the number observed outside the rivers, and that the fish is now being taken in localities in which it was not previously found. Instances of the capture of salmon in the coast waters of Maine are naturally numerous, and without significance so far as the purposes of the present paper are concerned. The existence of two important salmon rivers, the Kennebec and the Penobscot, affords an easy explanation of the presence of salmon on the shores of either side of the mouths of those streams. In the report of the U. S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries for 1873-73 Mr. Charles G. Atkins, now superintendent of the salmon-rearing establishment at East Orland, Me., and an authoritative writer on the Atlantic salmon, contributes some notes on its occurrence in the sea adjacent to Penobscot Bay and at Richmond Island, near Portland. These cases, however, have little bearing on the subject in hand, as Mr. Atkins suggests in a recent letter. A special inquiry, personally conducted on Matinicus, Monhegan, and other islands lying far off the Maine coast, and special researches there made with appropriate apparatus, would doubtless disclose many interesting facts regarding the salmon of a practical and scientific nature. A few apparently unrecorded notes concerning the fish among islands off the island of Mount Desert may be given, which are probably indicative of what may be expected in other sections. Mr. W. I. Mayo, who has fished herring brush-weirs at the Cranberry Isles for many years, and is a life-long fisherman in that section, communicates the intelligence that salmon were first observed about those islands in 1888. On June 17 a salmon, weighing 20 pounds, was taken in a herring weir, and on June 19 another, weighing 19 pounds, was caught. On July 14 of the same year 6 salmon, weighing 4 to 6 pounds apiece, were secured, but were liberated on account of their size. During the four years intervening between 1888 and 1893 none was taken around these islands, but in June of the latter year they reappeared. On June 11 a salmon weighing 15 pounds was taken in a weir, and on various occasions during that month a number weighing 12 to 15 pounds each were caught by boat fishermen on trawl lines fished for cod. The trawls were baited with herring and set on the bottom in rather deep water. Mr. Mayo states that these were the first salmon ever taken on trawl lines in that region. The Cranberry Isles lie off the southeastern part of Mount Desert Island, and are about 25 miles east from Penobscot Bay and about 35 miles in a straight line from the mouth of the Penobscot River. On the Massachusetts coast salmon are now regularly taken each year at most of the important pound-net and trap fisheries. The largest numbers are caught in Cape Cod Bay. A State law prohibits the taking of salmon in nets and requires the return to the water alive of all fish so caught. This makes the fishermen diffident about giving information and renders difficult the determination of the abundance of the fish. On June 6, 1879 the _Cape Ann Advertiser_, of Gloucester, contained the following note: "A 10-pound salmon was taken from a weir off Magnolia Thursday night. This is the first salmon caught off Cape Ann for over thirty years. On Saturday morning three more large salmon were taken. The fishermen are highly elated at the prospect of salmon-catching." During the past five or six years a few salmon have been taken almost every season in the vicinity of Gloucester, the average annual catch being 4 to 6 fish. In 1888 the State fish commissioners reported the capture of 18 salmon in traps at Manchester and Gloucester. In 1893, 13 traps in the neighborhood of Gloucester took 5 salmon. In December, 1891, a salmon weighing 28 pounds was caught on a cod trawl line set near Halfway Rock, off Salem Harbor, Mass.; Mr. William Dennett, of Gloucester, who secured the fish, reports that he sold it for $46. Mr. Samuel Wiley, of Gloucester, in September 1893, caught a salmon at sea off Gloucester on a trawl line fished for hake. These are the only instances that have been reported of the capture of salmon on a hook in the vicinity of Gloucester. As the trawl lines in question were set on the bottom at a depth of 20 or 25 fathoms, the fact that these two fish at least were swimming on the bottom may be considered established. Relatively large numbers of salmon have recently been taken in the pound nets of Cape Cod Bay. Capt. Atkins Hughes, of North Truro, one of the best-informed and most reliable fishermen in the region, informs us that at North Truro, the principal pound-net center in the bay, about 70 large salmon have been annually caught for two or three years. The fish are taken throughout the entire pound-net season, but are most common in the early part of the fishing year (May and June). Some fish weighing 25 to 28 pounds have recently been caught. For two or three years he has noticed in the pound nets in October large numbers of young salmon, about 6 inches long; each net probably takes one or two barrels of these annually; he had never observed these small fish before in his long fishing career in that region. In 1893, however, rather less than the usual number of large salmon were observed, and very few of the small fish mentioned were taken. Mr. Vinal N. Edwards, of the Fish Commission station at Woods Holl, Mass., states that in September, 1892, when he visited the Cape Cod region, a great many salmon were being taken in the pound nets. They weighed 4 or 5 pounds apiece. At one pound-net fishery in Provincetown he saw enough salmon to fill two sugar barrels. Concerning the occurrence of salmon in the Cape Cod region, Mr. Cheney, in the article previously mentioned, quotes Hon. Eugene G. Blackford, of New York, as follows: "We get every winter a few fish from the Atlantic coast that are evidently part of the schools of fish that run up into the Kennebec, Penobscot, and other eastern rivers. During November and December we had about 15 to 20 fish, weighing from 12 to 24 pounds each, that were caught in the mackerel nets in the vicinity of Provincetown and North Truro, Mass. These nets are set out from the Cape in very deep water. "During the past two or three weeks we have received several specimens of very handsome salmon from Maine, where they have been caught by the smelt fishermen in their nets when they have been fishing for smelt. I think these catches of salmon go very far to prove that the schools of fish are not very far off from our shores during the time that they are not found in the rivers, and that both shad and salmon, when they leave our rivers, do not go either east or south, but are within 100 miles or so of the rivers where they were spawned. The fish are remarkable in being in splendid condition and perfect in form and appearance." Mr. Cheney thinks the salmon taken off Cape Cod belong in either the Merrimac River or the Penobscot River; and, as in the year in question fish were being caught at the mouth of the Penobscot at the same time they were being taken at Cape Cod, he thinks it probable that the fish in the latter region were from the Merrimac. In the pound-net fishery of the northern coast of New Jersey the recent capture of salmon has been a subject of much interest to the local fishermen and of considerable importance to fish-culturists and naturalists. For a number of years a few salmon have, from time to time, been taken in Sandy Hook Bay, but within the past two or three years there has been an increase in the number caught. At Belford, the principal fishing center in the bay, Mr. M. C. Lohsen states that some have been taken weighing from 12 to 40 pounds, and that in the spring of 1893 more than the usual number were caught in the pound nets. Mr. Harry White, of the same place, never took salmon in pound nets prior to 1891; he secured 1 that year and 2 in 1892, but failed to get any in 1893. Other fishermen, however, obtained one or two fish. The average weight of the salmon taken here is 12 to 15 pounds; the largest caught by Mr. White weighed 17 and one half pounds. Small ones, weighing half a pound each, are sometimes observed. It is only during the month of May that salmon are noticed on this shore. One weighing 16 pounds, taken in a pound net at this place in 1891, sold for $11; the following year two, with a combined weight of 23 pounds, sold for $15.95. In the vicinity of Long Branch, we are informed of the recent capture of a number of salmon in the pound nets set directly in the ocean. Mr. Ed. Hennessey, of North Long Branch, reports that in 1892 two salmon and in 1893 one salmon were taken in his pound; they weighed from 10 to 15 pounds each. In April, 1891, Messrs. Gaskins and Hennessey, of the same place, secured a salmon in their pound; this was the only one they ever took. Messrs. W. T. Van Dyke & Co., pound-net fishermen of Long Branch, communicate the following instances of the taking of salmon by them in 1893: May 10, 1 salmon weighing 9 1/2 pounds; May 11, 1 salmon weighing 13 1/2 pounds; May 17, 1 salmon, and May 18, 1 salmon, weight not given. Messrs. West and Jeffrey, pound-net fishermen at Long Branch, report that in 1892 they caught 2 small salmon. In 1893, 3 fish were taken, as follows: May 10, a salmon weighing 19 pounds; May 18, 1 weighing 12 pounds; May 20, 1 weighing 10 pounds. Mr. Henry F. Harvey, who fishes a pound net at Mantoloking, N. J., about 35 miles south of Sandy Hook, communicates the information that in May, 1893, 2 salmon weighing 10 or 12 pounds each were taken at that place. None had ever before been caught there. One of the most interesting facts at hand concerning the oceanic occurrence of the salmon has been noted in a previous paper in this Bulletin, (*) but may be again referred to in order to make the present article more complete. Instances of the capture or observation of salmon far out at sea or even at relatively short distances from land are very rare and are entitled to publication whenever noted. About April 10, 1893 the mackerel schooner _Ethel B. Jacobs_, of Gloucester, Mass., was cruising for mackerel off the coast of Delaware. When in latitude 38 degrees, at a point about 50 miles ESE. of Fenwick Island light-ship, the vessel fell in at night with a large body of mackerel, and the seine was thrown round a part of the school. Among the mackerel taken was an Atlantic salmon weighing 16 pounds, which Capt. Solomon Jacobs, who was in command of the schooner, sent home to Gloucester. Capt. Jacobs informs us that the fish was fat and in fine condition. Some of the crew told the captain that there was another salmon in the seine, but it escaped over the cork line as the seine was being "dried in." The light-ship mentioned is about 10 miles off the coast, so the place where these salmon were taken was about 60 miles from the nearest land. The foregoing is the only instance known to this Commission of the capture of salmon so far at sea on the coast of the United States or of the taking of salmon in a purse seine with mackerel under any circumstances. Capt. S. J. Martin, the veteran fisherman of Gloucester, Mass., has never known of another such occurrence, and a special inquiry conducted by him among the mackerel fishermen of that port failed to disclose the knowledge among them of a similar case. Footnote: * Extension of the Recorded Range of Certain Marine and Freshwater Fishes of the Atlantic Coast of the United States. 
18320	----	Watch, Rockland, Maine, and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 18320-h.htm or 18320-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/3/2/18320/18320-h/18320-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/3/2/18320/18320-h.zip) Contributions from the Biological Laboratory of the U. S. Fish Commission, Woods Hole, Massachusetts. MARINE PROTOZOA FROM WOODS HOLE. by GARY N. GALKINS, Department of Zoology, Columbia University. _Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_ 21:415-468, 1901 Comparatively little has been done in this country upon marine Protozoa. A few observations have been made by Kellicott, Stokes, and Peck, but these have not been at all complete. With the exception of Miss Stevens's excellent description of species of _Lichnophora_ I am aware of no single papers on individual forms. Peck ('93 and '95) clearly stated the economic position of marine Protozoa as sources of food, and I need not add to his arguments. It is of interest to know the actual species of various groups in any locality and to compare them with European forms. The present contribution is only the beginning of a series upon the marine Protozoa at Woods Hole, and the species here enumerated are those which were found with the algæ along the edge of the floating wharf in front of the Fish Commission building and within a space of about 20 feet. Many of them were observed in the water and algæ taken fresh from the sea; others were found only after the water had been allowed to stand for a few days in the laboratory. The tow-net was not used, the free surface Protozoa were not studied, nor was the dredge called into play. Both of these means of collecting promise excellent results, and at some future time I hope to take advantage of them. My observations cover a period of two months, from the 1st of July to the 1st of September. During that time I was able to study and describe 72 species representing 55 genera, all from the limited space mentioned above. In addition to these there are a few genera and species upon which I have insufficient notes, and these I shall reserve until opportunity comes to study them further. I take this opportunity to express my thanks to Dr. Hugh M. Smith for many favors shown me while at Woods Hole. In dealing with these marine forms from the systematic standpoint, two courses are open to the investigator. He may make numerous new species based upon minor differences in structure, or he may extend previous descriptions until they are elastic enough to cover the variations. The great majority of marine protozoa have been described from European waters, and the descriptions are usually not elastic enough to embrace the forms found at Woods Hole. I have chosen, however, to hold to the conservative plan of systematic work, and to make as few new species as possible, extending the older descriptions to include the new forms. The different classes of Protozoa, and orders within the classes, are distributed more or less in zones. Thus the Infusoria, including the Ciliata and the Suctoria, are usually littoral in their habitat, living upon the shore-dwelling, or attached, water plants and upon the animals frequenting them. It is to be expected, therefore, that in forms here considered there should be a preponderance of Infusoria. Flagellated forms are also found in similar localities, but on the Surface of the sea as well; hence the number described in these pages is probably only a small proportion of the total number of Mastigophora in this region. The Sarcodina, including the Foraminifera and the Radiolaria, are typically deep-sea forms and would not be represented by many types in the restricted locality examined at Woods Hole. Two species, _Gromia lagenoides_ and _Truncatulina lobatula_, alone represent the great order of Foraminifera, while the still larger group of Radiolaria is not represented at all. The Protozoa described are distributed among the different orders as follows:* Class SARCODINA. Subclass RHIZOPODA. Order AMOEBIDA. 1. _Amoeba guttula_ Duj 2. _Amoeba_ sp. 3. _Trichosphærium sieboldi_ Schn. Order RETICULARIIDA. Suborder IMPERFORINA. 4. _Gromia lagenoides_ Gruber. Suborder PERFORINA. 5. _Truncatulina lobatula_ Walker & Jacob. Subclass HELIOZOA. Order APHROTHORACIDA. 6. _Actinophrys sol_ Ehr. Order CHLAMYDOPHORIDA. 7. _Heterophrys myriapoda_ Archer. Class MASTIGOPHORA. Subclass FLAGELLIDIA. Order MONADIDA. 8. _Mastigamoeba simplex_, n. sp. 9. _Codonoeca gracilis_, n. sp. 10. _Monas_ sp. Order CHOANOFLAGELLIDA. 11. _Monosiga ovata_ S. Kent. 12. _Monosiga fusiformis_ S. Kent. 13. _Codonosiga botrytis_ (Ehr.) J. Cl. Order HETEROMASTIGIDA. 14. _Bodo globosus_ Stein. 15. _Bodo caudatus_ (Duj.) Stein. 16. _Oxyrrhis marina_ Duj. Order EUGLENIDA. 17. _Astasia contorta_ Duj. 18. _Anisonema vitrea_ Duj. Order SILICOFLAGELLIDA. 19. _Distephanus speculum_ Stöhr. Subclass DINOFLAGELLIDIA. Order ADINIDA. 20. _Exuviælla lima_ Clenk. 21. _Exuviælla marina_ Clenk. Order DINIFERIDA. 22. _Gymnodinium gracile_ Bergh. 23. _Glenodinium cinctum_ Ehr. 24. _Glenodinium compressa_, n. sp. 25. _Peridinium digitale_ Pouchet. 26. _Peridinium divergens_ Ehr. 27. _Ceratium tripos_ Nitsch. 28. _Ceratium fusus_ Ehr. 29. _Amphidinium operculatum_ Clap. & Lach. Class INFUSORIA. Subclass CILIATA. Order HOLOTRICHIDA. Family ENCHELINIDÆ. 30. _Lacrymaria lagenula_ Cl. & Lach. 31. _Lacrymaria coronata_ Cl. & Lach. 32. _Trachelocerca phoenicopterus_ Cohn. 33. _Tiarina fusus_ Cl. & Lach. 34. _Mesodinium cinctum_, n. sp. Family TRACHYLINIDÆ. 35. _Lionotus fasciola_ Ehr. 36. _Loxophyllum setigerum_ Quenn. Family CHLAMYDODONTIDÆ. 37. _Nassula microstoma_ Cohn. 38. _Chilodon cucullulus_ Müll. 39. _Dysteria lanceolata_ Cl. & Lach. Family CHILIFERIDÆ. 40. _Frontonia leucas_ Ehr. 41. _Colpidium colpoda_ Ehr. 42. _Uronema marina_ Duj. Family PLEURONEMIDÆ. 43. _Pleuronema chrysalis_ Ehr. 44. _Pleuronema setigera_, n. sp. 45. _Lembus infusionum_, n. sp. 46. _Lembus pusillus_ Quenn. Family OPALINIDÆ. 47. _Anoplophrya branchiarum_ Stein. Order HETEROTRICHIDA. Family BURSARIDÆ. 48. _Condylostoma patens_ Müll. Family HALTERIDÆ. 49. _Strombidium caudatum_ From. Family TINTINNIDÆ. 50. _Tintinnopsis beroidea_ Stein. 51. _Tintinnopsis davidoffi_ Daday. Order HYPOTRICHIDA. Family PERITROMIDÆ. 52. _Peritromus emmæ_ Stein. Family OXYTRICHIDÆ. 53. _Epiclintes radiosa_ Quenn. 54. _Amphisia kessleri_ Wrzes. Family EUPLOTIDÆ. 55. _Euplotes charon_ Ehr. 56. _Euplotes harpa_ Stein. 57. _Diophrys appendiculatus_ Stein. 58. _Uronychia setigera_, n. sp. 59. _Aspidisca hexeris_ Quenn. 60. _Aspidisca polystyla_ Stein. Order PERITRICHIDA. Family LICHNOPHORIDÆ. 61. _Lichnophora macfarlandi_ Stevens. Family VORTICELLIDÆ. 62. _Vorticella marina_ Greeff. 63. _Vorticella patellina_ Müller. 64. _Zoothamnium elegans_ D'Udek. 65. _Cothurnia crystallina_ Ehr. 66. _Cothurnia nodosa_ Cl. & Lach. 67. _Cothurnia imberbis_ Ehr. Subclass SUCTORIA. Family PODOPHRYIDÆ. 68. _Podophrya gracilis_, n. sp. 69. _Ephelota coronata_ Wright. Family ACINETIDÆ. 70. _Acineta divisa_ Fraip. 71. _Acineta tuberosa_ Ehr. Family DENDROSOMIDÆ. 72. _Trichophrya salparum_ Entz. * This classification includes only the orders and families represented at Woods Hole Genus AMOEBA Auct. The pseudopodia are lobose, sometimes absent, the body then progressing by a flowing movement; the body consists of ectoplasm and endoplasm, the latter being granular and internal, the former hyaline and external. There is always one nucleus and one vacuole, but both may be more numerous. Reproduction takes place by division or by spore-formation. Fresh-water and marine. Amoeba guttala Duj. Fig. 1. A minute form without pseudopodial processes, extremely hyaline in appearance, and characterized by rapid flowing in one direction. The body is club-shape and moves with the swollen end in advance. A comparatively small number of large granules are found in the swollen portion, while the smaller posterior end is quite hyaline. Contractile vacuole absent, and a nucleus was not seen. Frequent in decomposing vegetable matter. Length 37µ. Traverses a distance of 160µ in one minute. The fresh-water form of _A. guttula_ has a vacuole, otherwise Dujardin's description agrees perfectly with the Woods Hole forms. [Illustration: Fig. 1.--_Amoeba guttala_.] Amoeba? Fig. 2. A more sluggish form than the preceding, distinguished by its larger size, its dense granulation, and by short, rounded pseudopodia, which, as in _Amoeba proteus_, may come from any part of the body. A delicate layer of ectoplasm surrounds the granular endoplasm, and pseudopodia formation is eruptive, beginning with the accumulation of ectoplasm. Movement rapid, usually in one direction, but may be backwards or sideways, etc. Contractile vacuole absent; the nucleus is spherical and contains many large chromatin granules. Length 80µ; diameter 56µ. [Illustration: Fig. 2.--_Amoeba_ sp.] Genus TRICHOSPHÆRIUM Schneider '78 Synonym: _Pachymyxa hystrix_ Gruber. Marine rhizopods, globular or irregular in form, and slow to change shape. Dimorphic. Both forms multinucleate during vegetative life. Pseudopodia are long, thin, and thread-form, with rounded ends. Their function is neither food-getting nor locomotion, but probably tasting. The plasm of both forms is inclosed in a soft gelatinous membrane. In one form the jelly is impregnated with needles of magnesium carbonate (Schaudinn), but these are absent in the other form. The membrane is perforated by clearly defined and permanent holes for the exit of the pseudopodia. Reproduction occurs by division, by budding or by fragmentation, but the parts are invariably multinucleate. At the end of vegetative life the needle-bearing form fragments into numerous mononucleate parts; these develop into adults similar to the parent, but without the spines. At the end of its vegetative life this new individual fragments into biflagellated swarm-spores which may conjugate, reproducing the form with needles. Size up to 2 mm. Trichosphærium sieboldi Schneider. Fig. 3. With the characters of the genus. A form which I have taken to be a young stage of this interesting rhizopod is described as follows: A minute, almost quiescent, form which changes its contour very slowly. The membrane is cap-like and extends over the dome-shaped body, fitting the latter closely. The endoplasm is granular and contains foreign food-bodies. Nucleus single, spherical, and centrally located. Pseudopodia short and finger-form, emerging from the edge of the mantle-opening and swaying slowly from side to side or quiescent. The most characteristic feature is the presence of a broad, creeping sole, membranous in nature and hyaline in appearance. This membrane is the only evidence of ectoplasm, and it frequently shows folds and wrinkles, while its contour slowly changes with movements of body. The pseudopodia emerge from the body between this membrane and the shell margin. Contractile vacuole absent. Length 42µ, width 35µ. In decomposing seaweeds, etc. Only one specimen of this interesting form was seen, and I hesitate somewhat in placing it on such a meager basis. It is so peculiar, however, that attention should be called to it in the hope of getting further light upon its structure and mode of life. Its membranous disk recalls the genus _Plakopus_; its mononucleate condition, its membranous disk, and the short, sometimes branched, pseudopodia make it difficult to identify with any phase in the life-history of _Trichosphærium_. I shall leave it here provisionally, with the hope that it may be found more abundantly another time. [Illustration: Fig. 3.--_Trichosphærium sieboldi_] Genus GROMIA Dujardin '35. (Dujardin 1835; M. Schultze '62; F. E. Schultze '74; Leidy '77; Bütschli '83; Gruber '84.) The form is ovoid or globular, and the body is covered by a tightly fitting, plastic, chitin shell, which, in turn, is covered by a fine layer of protoplasm. The flexibility of the shell makes the form variable as in the amoeboid types. The thickness of the shell is quite variable. The pseudopodial opening is single and terminal. The pseudopodia are very fine, reticulate, granular, and sharply pointed, and form a loose network outside of the shell opening. Nucleus single or multiple. Contractile vacuole is usually absent. Fresh and salt water. Gromia lagenoides Gruber '84. Fig. 4. This species is not uncommon about Woods Hole, where it is found upon the branches of various types of algæ. The body is pyriform, with the shell opening at the larger end. The chitinous shell is hyaline and plastic to a slight extent, so that the body is capable of some change in shape. The shell is thin and turned inwards at the mouth-opening, forming a tube (seen in optical section in fig. 4) through which the protoplasm passes to the outside. The walls of this tube are thicker than the rest of the shell, and in optical section the effect is that of two hyaline bars extending into the body protoplasm. A thin layer of protoplasm surrounds the shell and fine, branching, pseudopodia are given off in every direction. The protoplasm becomes massed outside of the mouth-opening and from here a dense network of pseudopodia forms a trap for diatoms and smaller Protozoa. The nucleus is spherical and contains one or two large karyosomes. The protoplasm is densely and evenly granular, without regional differentiation. I have never observed an external layer of foreign particles, such as Gruber described in the original species. Length of shell 245µ; largest diameter 125µ. [Illustration: Fig. 4.--_Gromia lagenoides_.] Genus TRUNCATULINA D'Orbigny. A group of extremely variable foraminifera in which the shell is rotaline; i. e., involute on the lower side and revolute on the upper (Brady). The shell is calcareous and coarsely porous in older forms. The characters are very inconstant, and Brady gives up the attempt to distinguish the group by precise and constant characters. Truncatulina lobatula Walker & Jacob. Synonyms: See Brady '84 for a long list. "It is impossible to define by any precise characters the morphological range of the present species. Its variations are infinite." (Brady, p. 660.) This very common form, which occurs in all latitudes, was found frequently among the algæ at Woods Hole. Its characters are so difficult to define that for the present I shall limit my record to this brief notice. Size of shell 230µ by 270µ. Genus ACTINOPHRYS Ehr. The body is spherical and differentiated into granular endoplasm and vacuolated ectoplasm, but the zones are not definitely separated. There is one central nucleus and usually one contractile vacuole. The pseudopodia have axial filaments that can be traced to the periphery of the nucleus. Fresh and salt water. Actinophrys sol Ehr., variety. Fig. 5. Synonyms: See Schaudinn '95. The diameter is about 50µ; the vacuolated ectoplasm passes gradually into the granular endoplasm. This is the characterization given _A. sol_ by Schaudinn, and it applies perfectly to the freshwater forms. If I am correct, however, in placing an _Actinophrys_-like form found at Woods Hole in this species, the description will have to be somewhat modified. In this form (fig. 5) there is no distinction between ectoplasm and endoplasm, and there is an entire absence of vacuoles. The nucleus is central, and axial filaments were not seen. The single specimen that I found looked much like a Suctorian of the genus _Sphærophrya_, but the absence of a firm cuticle and the presence of food-taking pseudopodia with granule-streaming makes it a very questionable Suctorian, and 1 place it here until further study throws more light upon it. Diameter of body 40µ; length of pseudopodia 120 to 140µ. [Illustration: Fig. 5.--_Actinophrys sol_.] Genus HETEROPHRYS Archer. The body is globular with but slight differentiation into ectoplasm and endoplasm; one nucleus in the latter; contractile vacuoles one or many; pseudopodia on all sides, thin, and with peripheral granule-streaming; surrounded by a globular, rather thick coat of jelly, which is hyaline inside and granular on the periphery. Fresh and salt water. Heterophrys myriapoda Archer. Fig. 6. Synonym: _H. marina_ Hert. & Less. '74. Diameter 25 to 80µ; pseudopodia twice as long as the body diameter; the plasm often contains chlorophyll bodies (Zoochlorella). The granular part of the gelatinous layer is thick (up to 10µ). The spine-like processes are very thin and short. (Schaudinn '95.) The marine form found at Woods Hole probably belongs to this species, as described by Schaudinn. The short pseudopodia which give to the periphery a fringed appearance are quite regularly placed in connection with the pseudopodia. The latter are not so long as twice the body diameter, the longest being not more than equal to the diameter of the sphere. The body inside of the gelatinous covering is thickly coated with bright yellow cells similar to those on Radiolaria. The animal moves slowly along with a rolling motion similar to that described by Pènard '90, in the case of _Acanthocystis_. Diameter of entire globe 35µ; of the body without the jelly 18µ. The extremely fine granular pseudopodia are 8 to 35µ long. Common among algæ. This form was probably meant by Peck '95, when be figured "a heliozoön." [Illustration: Fig. 6.--_Heterophrys myriapoda_.] KEY TO ORDERS OF FLAGELLIDIA. Small, body usually amoeboid; 1 or more Order MONADIDA. flagella; no mouth Small; plasmic collar around the Order CHOANOFLAGELLIDA. flagellum With 2 or more flagella; one trails Order HETEROMASTIGIDA. behind With 3 or more flagella, none of which Order POLYMASTIGIDA. trails Large; firm body wall; 1 or 2 flagella; Order EUGLENIDA. mouth or pharynx, or both Medium size; with chlorophyll, Order PHYTOFLAGELLIDA. no mouth, usually colonial Small; silicious skeleton; parasitic Order SILICOFLAGELLIDA. on Radiolaria or free (One genus, _Distephanus_ Stöhr) KEY TO THE FAMILIES OF MONADIDA. No mouth; 1 or 2 flagella: amoeboid Family _Rhizomastigidæ_ with lobose or ray-like pseudopodia Mouth at base of single flagellum; Family _Cercomonadidæ_ plastic; no pseudopodia One flagellum; inclosed in gelatinous Family _Codonoecidæ_ or membranous cups One flagellum; tentacle like process Family _Bikoecidæ_ at base of flagellum; inclosed in cup One main flagellum and 1 or 2 Family _Heteromonadidæ_ accessory flagella KEY TO MARINE GENERA OF MONADIDA.* Family _Rhizomastigidæ_: 1. Flagellum repeatedly thrown off Genus *_Mastigamoeba_ and reassumed in part 2. Flagellum never thrown off 3 3. a. Pseudopodia lobose Genus _Mastigamoeba_ b. Pseudopodia ray-like Genus _Mastigophrys_ Family _Codonoecidæ_: 1. Goblet-shaped cups adherent Genus *_Codonoeca_ by stalk Family _Heteromonadidæ_: 1. The long flagellum vibratory Genus *_Monas_ 2. The long flagellum rigid; Genus _Sterromonas_ shorter one vibrates * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. KEY TO MARINE QENERA OF CHOANOFLAGELLIDA. 1. Without gelatinous 3 or membranous test 2. With gelatinous 4 or membranous test 3. a. Attached forms: 1. Without a stalk, or with Genus *_Monosiga_ a very short one 2. With a long, simple, stalk Genus *_Codonosiga_ 3. With a long, branched, stalk Genus _Codonocladium_ b. Free-swimming Genus _Desmarella_ 4. Colonial, and with a gelatinous Genus _Proterospongia_ covering * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. KEY TO FAMILIES AND MARINE GENERA OF HETEROMASTIGIDA. 1. Two flagella nearly equal in size Family _Bodonidæ_ One main and 2 accessory flagella Family _Trimastigidæ_ Family _Bodonidæ_: 1. Body very plastic, Genus *_Bodo_ almost amoeboid Body not plastic; with large Genus *_Oxyrrhis_ anterior cavity, holding flagella Family _Trimastigidæ_: 1. With an undulatory membrane Genus _Trimastix_ between accessory flagella Without such membrane; flagella Genus _Costia_ contained in a ventral groove while at rest * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. KEY TO MARINE GENERA OF POLYMASTIGIDA. 1. Body flattened; ends rounded; Genus _Trepomonas_ sides hollowed; often with wing-like processes; cross section S-shaped 2. Body pyriform; one large Genus _Tetramitus_ asymmetrical groove; 4 flagella 3. Body spherical; many flagella Genus _Multicilia_ equally distributed KEY TO FAMILIES AND MARINE GENERA OF EUGLENIDA. 1. With deeply-insunk pharynx; 2 no mouth With pharynx and distinct mouth Family _Peranemidæ_ 2. Body plastic; usually with Family _Euglenidæ_ chromatophores and eye-spot Body plastic; no chromatophores; Family _Astastidæ_ no eye-spot Family _Euglenidæ_: Body _Euglena_-like, inclosed Genus _Trachelomonas_ in shell with round opening for exit of flagellum Family _Astastidæ_: Body with one flagellum Genus *_Astasia_ Family _Peranemidæ_: 1. Body striped; plastic; Genus _Heteronema_ two diverse flagella 2. Body striped; not plastic; Genus *_Anisonema_ posterior flagellum longer than the other 3. Body striped; not plastic; Genus _Entosiphon_ with rod-like organ in pharynx * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus MASTIGAMOEBA F. E. Schultze '75. (Kent '81; Bütschli '86; Klebs '92; Senn 1900.) In general the form is oval and either regular in outline or irregular through the presence of many pseudopodia. One flagellum usually quite large and distinct. Differentiation of ectoplasm and endoplasm distinct or wanting. One to several contractile vacuoles. The pseudopodia are occasionally withdrawn, and the flagellum is the sole means of locomotion. In some cases the flagellum turns into a pseudopodium, and, conversely, the pseudopodium at one end may become a flagellum (see below). In some rare cases the ectoplasm secretes a gelatinous mantle. Reproduction not observed. Fresh and salt water. Mastigamoeba simplex, n. sp. Fig. 7. A very small form, first seen in the flagellated stage, aroused my interest by reason of the fact that its flagellum lost its regular outline and became amoeboid, turning to a pseudopodium, while at the same time other pseudopodia were protruded from different parts of the periphery. In this condition ectoplasm and endoplasm could be made out with the clearest definition. After the pseudopodia were well formed, the body became flat and closely attached to the glass slide. In a short time one of the pseudopodia became longer than the rest; the body became more swollen; the pseudopodia were gradually drawn in, with the exception of the more elongate one; this became active in movement and finer in diameter, until ultimately it formed a single flagellum at the anterior of a small monadiform flagellate. The process was repeated two or three times under my observation, so that I am convinced that it was not a developmental form of some rhizopod. Several of them were seen at different times during the summer, and they were always of the same size and form in the flagellated or amoeboid condition. I did not make out their reproduction, and I shall not be satisfied that this is a good species until their life history is known. In decaying algæ. Length 10µ. [Illustration: Fig. 7.--_Mastigamoeba simplex_.] Genus CODONOECA James Clark '66. (Kent '81.) Small forms inclosed in cup or "house" of ovoid or goblet shape, colorless and probably gelatinous (chitin?) in texture, and borne upon a stalk. The monad does not completely fill the test. Contractile vacuole single, posterior. Codonoeca gracilis, n. sp. Fig. 8. The cup is urn-shaped with a well-defined neck or collar borne upon a shoulder-like end of the body. It is hyaline, colorless, and carried upon a stalk equal in length to the cup or shorter than this. The animal does not fill the cup, nor is it attached by a filament to the latter. There is a single flagellum. The nucleus is minute and lateral in position; the contractile vacuole is in the posterior end of the body. Total length of cup and stalk 21µ; of cup alone 12µ. This minute form looked so much like a choanoflagellate that I supposed it to be one until I discovered an empty case (Fig. 8). [Illustration: Fig. 8.--_Codonoecea gracilis_.] Genus MONAS (Ehr.) Stein '78 (Kent '81; Bütschli '86; Klebs '97; Senn 1900.) The body is small, globular or oval and either free-swimming or fastened by one of the two flagella. The body is sometimes a little amoeboid, with short pseudopodial processes. In addition to the main flagellum, there are usually one or two small flagella at the basis of the larger one. The nucleus is usually anterior, and one or two contractile vacuoles are present. Monas sp. Fig. 9. An extremely small form (3µ) attached by a thread of protoplasm--perhaps a flagellum, to algæ. The body is ovoid and the main flagellum is about four times the length of the body. The contractile vacuole is posterior. Only one specimen was seen and upon this I shall not attempt to name the species. [Illustration: Fig. 9.--_Monas_ sp.] Genus MONOSIGA Kent '81. (Bütschli '86; Francé '97; Senn 1900.) Small colorless forms of Choanoflagellida, always naked and solitary. The posterior end is attached directly to the substratum, or there is a short stalk not exceeding the body in length. Kent '81 distinguished nine species, but Bütschli questioned the accuracy of many of these, and in this he was followed by Francé '97, who recognized three species--_Monosiga ovata_, _M. fusiformis_, and _M. augustata_. Fresh and salt water. Monosiga ovata S. Kent '81. Fig. 10. Synonyms: _M. brevipes_ S. K.; _M. consociata_ S. K.; _M. limnobia_ Stokes. The individuals are unstalked or provided with a very short stalk less than the body in length. The form is spherical or ovate, broadest at the base and tapering to the extremity. The collar is somewhat variable in size. In the Woods Hole forms it was about the length of the body. Oil particles present. Contractile vacuole posterior, nucleus anterior. Fresh and salt water. Length of body without the collar 5µ. [Illustration: Fig.10.--_Monosiga ovata_.] Monosiga fusiformis S. K. Fig. 11. Synonyms: _M. steinii_ S. K.; _M. longicollis_ S. K. The individuals are unstalked, minute, and of a general flask-shape. The body is swollen centrally and tapers slightly at each end. There is no stalk, the body being fixed by the attenuate posterior end. There are two contractile vacuoles and one nucleus, which is situated a little above the body center. Fresh and salt water. Length without collar 9µ; length of collar 3µ. [Illustration: Fig. 11.--_M. fusiformis_.] Genus CODONOSIGA (Jas. Clark '67). (Bütschli '78; Kent '81; Francé '97; Senn 1900.) This genus, as modified by Francé, is distinguished from the preceding by the possession of an unbranched stalk much longer than the body length. The body is naked and of various shapes, and the individuals are solitary or colonial upon a single stalk. Kent '81 enumerates no less than 10 species, which were cut down by Bütschli to 1. Francé admits 4--_C. botrytis_ Jas. Clark; _C. grossularia_; _C. pyriformis_, and _C. furcata_, all S. Kent--but regards the second and third as merely form varieties of the first. Codonosiga botrytis (Ehr. sp.) Jas. Clark '67. Fig. 12. Francé gives the following synonyms: _Epistylia botrytis_ Ehr.; _E. digitalis_ Stein, _Zoothamnium parasitica_ Stein; _Anthophysa solitaria_ Fresenius; _Codonosiga pulcherrima_ Jas. Clark; _Monosiga gracilis_ S. Kent; _M. globulosa_ S. Kent; _Codonosiga pyriformis_ Kent; _C. grossularia_ Kent; (Francé). The individuals are small and provided with a long unbranched, or terminal, simply split stalk. The individuals are single or colonial. The Woods Hole form measured 22µ over all; the body was 5µ, the collar 3µ, and the stalk 14µ. No colonies were seen, and only a few individuals upon red algæ. [Illustration: Fig. 12.--_Codonosiga botrytis_.] Genus BODO (Ehr.) Stein. (Stein '59, Bütschli '83; Klebs '92; Senn 1900.) The body is naked, usually amoeboid in its changes, and provided with two flagella, one of which is usually trailed along under and behind the animal. The anterior end is usually pointed, with the flagella arising from a minute depression; the posterior end is rounded. Specific characters very difficult to analyze. Fresh and salt water. Bodo globosus Stein. Fig. 13. The body during movement is globular or ovoid, without any anterior process. The trailing flagellum is invariably much longer than the vibratory one. The contractile vacuole lies in the anterior half of the body. Solid food particles are taken in near base of flagella. Length of body 9 to 12µ; diameter 8 to 11µ. Common. [Illustration: Fig. 13.--_Bodo globosus_.] Bodo caudatus (Duj.) Stein. Fig. 14. Synonyms: _Amphimonas caudatus_ Duj.; _Diptomastix caudata_ Kent. The body is variable in shape, but usually flattened and pointed posteriorly. An anterior process is almost always present, and below this the flagella are inserted in a minute depression. The contractile vacuole is close to the base of the flagella. The flagella are about the same size, the anterior one usually somewhat longer. Common. Length 12 to 18µ. This species was seen by Peck '95 and described as a small flagellate. [Illustration: Fig. 14.--_Bodo caudatus_.] Genus OXYRRHIS Duj. (Kent '81; Bütschli '86; Klebs '92; Senn 1900.) Medium-sized forms, somewhat oval in shape, with a rounded posterior end. The anterior end is continued dorsally in a somewhat attenuate pointed process. At the base of this process is a large cavity or funnel, on the dorsal wall of which, or on a projection from this wall, are two equal-size flagella. When at rest, the flagella are directed backwards. The nucleus is central. In moving, the posterior end is invariably in advance. This genus is exceptional among Mastigophora in that division is transverse instead of longitudinal. Oxyrrhis marina Duj. Fig. 15. With the characters of the genus. Contractile vacuole not seen. Length 28 to 40µ. [Illustration: Fig. 15.--_Oxyrrhis marina_.] Genus ASTASIA Ehr. Flagellates with one flagellum, a spindle-form body and a high degree of plasticity, the contour constantly changing. A distinct, usually striped cuticle is invariably present. "Eye-spots" are absent. Fresh and salt water. Astasia contorta Duj. Fig. 16. _Astasia inflata_ Duj. '41. The body is colorless, transparent, and flexible. It is largest in the center, thence tapering at the two extremities. The surface of the cuticle is obliquely striated, giving to the animal a distinctly twisted appearance. The contractile vacuole is in the anterior neck-like portion of the body. The flagellum is inserted in a distinct oesophageal tube, into which the contractile vacuole empties. This tube is continued into a deeper pharyngeal apparatus of unknown function. Common in decaying algæ. Length 60µ; greatest diameter 30µ. [Illustration: Fig. 16.--Two aspects of _Astasia contorta_.] Genus ANISONEMA Bütschli Flagellates with two flagella, of which one is directed forwards and is concerned with the locomotion of the animal, while the other is directed backwards and drags after the animal when in motion. Body slightly compressed dorso-ventrally (fig. 17, section). An oral furrow is present on the ventral side and the two flagella originate in it (fig. 17, at left). The vacuole is on the left side. Food vacuoles are present in the posterior part. The nucleus is central. Movement creeping. Fresh and salt water. Anisonema vitrea (Duj.) Fig. 17. Synonyms: _Tropidoscyphus octocostatus_ Stein '83; _Sphenomonas_ Kent '81; _Ploeotia vitrea_ Senn 1900. With the characteristics of the genus. It differs from freshwater forms in having eight furrowed surfaces running somewhat spirally from the posterior to the oral end. Length 50µ; width 23µ. This attractive flagellate was quite common in decaying algæ at Woods Hole; its shaking movement, its peculiar furrowed surfaces, and, above all, its perfectly transparent, vitreous appearance, were well described by Dujardin. Stein's _Tropidoscyphus octocostatus_ is a fresh-water form which may possibly be a distinct species, especially as it is described with both flagella directed forwards. [Illustration: Fig. 17.--_Anisonema vitrea_.] Genus DISTEPHANUS Stöhr. An aberrant flagellate bearing a single flagellum and a silicious skeleton resembling those of the Radiolaria. The skeleton consists of two rings of different diameter parallel with one another and connected by silicious bars. From the wider ring half a dozen bars radiate outwards and a similar number of short thorn-like bars point inwards obliquely. The color is yellow, and except for the flagellum the form might easily be mistaken for a Radiolarian, as has been the case repeatedly. Distephanus speculum Stöhr. _Dictyocha speculum_ Stöhr; _Dictyocha_ Auc. With the characters of the genus. A single specimen only of this very interesting form was seen at Woods Hole. It occurred in a collection of tow made near the end of the wharf during the evening. KEY TO FAMILIES OF DINOFLAGELLIDIA. 1. No crossfurrow; two free flagella Family _Prorocentridæ_ 2. One or more cross-furrows 3 3. Cross-furrow nearly central Family _Peridinidæ_ (cf. _Oxytoxum_) Cross-furrow close to Family _Dinophysidæ_ anterior end Several cross-furrows Family _Polydinidæ_ and flagella (One genus, _Polykrikos_.) KEY TO MARINE GENERA OF PROROCENTRIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: The transverse furrow is absent and the two flagella arise from the anterior end of the body. The shell may be bivalved. 1. No tooth-like process dorsal Genus *_Exuviælla_ to the flagellum 2. With tooth-like process dorsal Genus _Prorocentrum_ to the flagellum * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. KEY TO MARINE GENERA OF PERIDINIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: The cross-furrow is nearly central (see, however, _Oxytoxum_); the body may or may not have a shell; the shell may or may not be composed of distinct plates; the plates are distinguished as _equatorial_ (_i.e._, bordering the cross-furrow), _apical_, and _antapical_, while still another, the "rhombic plate", may be present, extending from the cross-furrow to the apex. 1. Without distinct shell Genus *_Gymnodinium_ With a distinct shell 2 2. Shell not composed of definite 3 plates Shell composed of definite plates 4 3. Cross-furrow replaced by Genus _Ptychodiscus_ thin-skinned band Cross-furrow well defined; Genus _Protoceratium_ reticulate markings raised on shell-surface Cross-furrow well defined; Genus *_Glenodinium_ no markings 4. Two parts of shell equal or 5 nearly equal Two parts of shell very unequal 11 5. With transverse flagellum in 6 a distinct furrow Transverse flagellum not in a 10 furrow 6. With horns, or with wing-like 7 processes Without processes of any kind 9 7. Processes small, wing-like, Genus _Diplopsalis_ around flagellum-fissure Processes horn-like 8 8. Anterior part with 7 equatorial Genus *_Peridinium_ and 1 rhombic plates Anterior part with 5 equatorial Genus _Gonyaulax_ and no rhombic plates Anterior part with 3 equatorial Genus *_Ceratium_ and no rhombic plates 9. Anterior part with 14 equatorial Genus _Pyrophacus_ and 1 rhombic plates Anterior part with 7 equatorial Genus _Goniodoma_ plates Anterior part with 4 equatorial Genus _Amphidoma_ plates 10. Apical extremity drawn out Genus _Podolampas_ into a tube Apical extremity not drawn out Genus _Blepharocysta_ into a tube 11. Cross-furrow deep, with great Genus _Ceratocorys_ ledge-like walls Cross-furrow wide, no ledge-like Genus _Oxytoxum_ walls * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. KEY TO MARINE GENERA OF DINOPHYSIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: The cross-furrow is above the center of the body, and its edges, as well as the left edge of the longitudinal furrow, are usually produced into characteristic ledges; those of the cross-furrow usually form great funnel-like anterior processes, while those of the longitudinal furrow usually form great, lateral, wing-like processes ornamented by ribs and other markings. 1. Without shell; longitudinal Genus *_Amphidinium_ furrow may open & close 2. With shell; longitudinal furrow 3 unchangeable 3. With distinct apical funnel 4 No apical funnel Genus _Phalacroma_ 4. With great wing-like ledge 5 Ledges very small; body long, Genus _Amphisolenia_ needle-like 5. Ledge of longitudinal furrow 6 extends to posterior end Ledge of longitudinal furrow Genus _Dinophysis_ does not extend to posterior end (Recorded by Peck ('93-'95) as very abundant at Woods Hole and in Buzzards Bay.) 6. Ledge is continued dorsally to Genus _Ornithocercus_ the cross-furrow Ledge is not continued dorsally 7 7. With deep dorsal cavity; Genus _Citharistes_ secondary funnel not notched No dorsal cavity; secondary Genus _Histioneis_ funnel deeply notched * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus EXUVIÆLLA Cienkowsky '82. (Klebs '81; Pouchet '83, '86.) The form varies from globular to ovoid, with occasionally a sharp posterior end. Shells are usually somewhat compressed, and consist of two valves, which frequently slide one over the other in such a manner as to show the structure with great clearness. The right shell may have a distinct indentation in the anterior edge. There are two lateral, discoid, brown chromatophores, each of which possesses a central amylum granule. The nucleus is posterior. Salt water. Exuviælla lima Ehr. Fig. 18. Synonyms _Pyxidicula_ Ehr.; _Cryptomonas_ Ehr.; _Prorocentrum lima_ Kent; _Amphidinium_ Pouchet. The shell is ovate, rounded and swollen posteriorly. The anterior border of both shells is slightly indented. The shell is quite thick. The animal moves through the water very slowly. Dark brown in color. Length 48µ; width 44µ. [Illustration: Fig. 18.--_Exuviælla lima_.] Exuviaella marina Cienkowsky. Fig. 19. A smaller form than the preceding, more elliptical in outline, with a thinner shell and with large granules throughout the endoplasm. The nucleus is spherical and subcentral in position and possesses a distinct central granule. This may be a small variety of _E. lima_. [Illustration: Fig. 19.--_Exuviælla marina_.] Genus GYMNODINIUM Stein '78. (Bergh '81; Kent '81; Pouchet '83, '85; Entz '84; Schütt '95.) The general structure of these forms is similar to that of _Glenodinium_; the most striking and positive difference is the absence of a shell. The animals are, as a rule, spherical, yet they may be pointed at the two ends or at one of them. They are also frequently flattened dorso-ventrally. The transverse furrow may be either circular and straight around the body or may describe a spiral course, passing even twice around the body. The flagella arise near cross-furrow or, in some cases, in longitudinal furrow. Chromatophores may or may not be present and food-taking is holozoic, in many cases at least. In some cases ectoplasm and endoplasm can be distinguished. Fresh and salt water. Gymnodinium gracile Bergh '82, var. sphærica, n. Fig. 20. The body is divided by the transverse furrow into a shorter anterior and a longer posterior part. The longitudinal furrow is broader at the posterior extremity than at the cross-furrow. The structural feature upon which this new variety is made is the unvarying plumpness of the body, making it almost spherical, except for a slight flattening dorso-ventrally. The nucleus is large and ellipsoidal, with characteristic longitudinal markings of chromatin. The endoplasm is evenly granular, with a number of large ingested food bodies. The color is brown, not rose-red as in Bergh's species, nor is the Woods Hole form as large as the latter. Length of body 68µ; width 55µ. Common. [Illustration: Fig. 20.--_Gymnodinium gracile_, var. _sphærica_.] Genus GLENODINIUM (Ehr.), Stein '83. (Bergh '82; Bütschli '86; Pouchet '85; Daday '86.) Small globular forms with two distinct furrows, one transverse around the body, the other longitudinal upon the face only. The shell is soft and structureless with a distinct aperture near the meeting point of the two furrows. The endoplasm usually, but not always, contains a bright red eye-spot. Fresh and salt water. Glenodinium compressa, n. sp. Fig. 21, a, b, c. This species resembles _G. acuminata_ of Ehrenberg except that it is strongly compressed laterally. The longitudinal furrow extends nearly to the extremity of the animal. It begins as a narrow slit and widens as it progresses upon the left side; it also becomes much deeper on this side and at the bottom of the depression the longitudinal flagellum is inserted. The transverse furrow runs evenly around the body near the upper pole, giving to the shell almost the aspect of an _Amphidinium_. Brown chromatophores may or may not be arranged radially about a central amylum granule. One striking characteristic is the depth of the two furrows. The nucleus is elongate and somewhat curved; it lies against the posterior wall of the rather thick shell. Not uncommon. Length 40µ; breadth 32µ; width 18µ. The posterior end of the animal is often somewhat pointed and this point frequently becomes attached, so that the animal whirls around upon it as upon a pivot. [Illustration: Fig. 21 a, b, c.--_Glenodinium compressa_, n. sp.] Glenodinium cinctum Ehr. Fig. 22. The body is globular, smooth, and homogeneous. Brown chromatophores arranged radially, each in the form of a cone, the base of which rests against the shell while the points turn inward. A bright-red eye-spot may or may not be present; when present it is placed near the junction of the two furrows. The longitudinal furrow is small. Fresh water and salt. Length and diameter the same, 21µ. This species was observed by Peck '93. [Illustration: Fig. 22.--_Glenodinium cinctum_.] Genus PERIDINIUM Ehr. '32, Stein '83. (Claparède & Lachmann '58; Bergh '81; Pouchet '83; '85; Gourret '88; Bütschli '86.) The form is globular, ovoid or elongate, the apex frequently drawn out into a long tube. The transverse and longitudinal furrows are quite distinct, the former having often a spiral course about the body. The two halves of the body are similar, the posterior being somewhat shorter; the anterior half has seven equatorial plates, an oral plate, two lateral apical plates, and one or two dorsal plates. The two antapical plates frequently have a tooth-like process. The bodies are colorless, green or brown. Fresh and salt water. Peridinium digitale Pouchet. Fig. 23. Synonyms: _Protoperidinium digitale_ Pouchet; _Protoperidinium_ Bergh p. p.; _P. divergens_ Peck. The shell is covered with pits of large size. The posterior part is hemispherical and surmounted by a single horn or spine. The transverse furrow is very oblique, and its two extremities are united by a sigmoid longitudinal furrow. The anterior half bears two spines or horns of different size, and variable. The nucleus is spherical or ellipsoidal and placed in the posterior half of the shell. Length 68µ; diameter 54µ. Common. Although the description of Pouchet's _P. digitale_ differs in some respects from a careful description of the Woods Hole form, I think the species are the same. The chief difference is in the single horn of the posterior half; in Pouchet's form this is furrowed by a narrow groove which runs to the S-shaped longitudinal furrow. In the Woods Hole form I was unable to make out such a furrow. The flagella, also, were not seen. This same form was pictured by Peck '95 as _P. divergens_. [Illustration: Fig. 23.--_Peridinium digitale_.] Peridinium divergens Ehr. Fig. 24. Synonym: _Ceratium divergens_ Kent. The shell is spheroidal, widest centrally, attenuate and pointed posteriorly; the anterior portion is armed with two short, pointed horns, each of them having a toothed process at the basal portion of the inner margin. They are frequently colorless and beautifully transparent, the body being free from large opaque granules; again they are colored brown or yellow. The nucleus is large and elongate and finely granular. 75µ long and 68µ in diameter. Common. [Illustration: Fig. 24.--Ventral and dorsal aspects of _Peridinium divergens_.] Genus CERATIUM (Schrank). (Stein '78; Perty '52; Clap & Lach. '58; Bergh '82; Pouchet '83; Gourret & Roeser '88; Bütschli '85; Kent '81; Senn 1900; Schütt '98.) The general shape is a flattened sphere with three long processes or horns. The cross-furrow is either spiral or circular; the longitudinal furrow is usually wide and occupies the greater part of the anterior half of the shell. The shell is thick, reticulate or striped, and sometimes provided with short spines; often distinctly porous. The anterior half is composed of 3 equatorial and 3 apical plates, the latter being continued into the horn-like process. The posterior half is composed of 3 equatorial and one apical plate continued into the posterior horn. The right posterior plate is continued into a similar horn which may remain rudimentary or be continued into a considerable process. Similarly the left posterior horn is usually developed, but remains small. There may be from 2 to 3, 4, and 5 horns. Chromatophores usually present, green to yellow brown. Fresh and salt water. Ceratium tripos Ehr. Fig. 25. The body is somewhat triangular and bears three horns, two of which are shorter than the other one and slightly curved upward. Length, including the horns, 290µ. [Illustration: Fig. 25.--_Ceratium tripos_.] Ceratium fusus Ehr. Fig. 26. Synonym: _Peridinium fusus_ Ehr. The animal is very elongate, due to the presence of two long horns at the extremities of the body. Color, yellow with chromatophores. Length 285µ; width 23µ. Both of these species are common in the tow and in the algæ at the edge of the wharf. Both of them are mentioned by Peck in '93 and '95. [Illustration: Fig. 26.--_Ceratium fusus_.] Genus AMPHIDINIUM Clap. & Lach. The body is ovoid to globular and usually much flattened dorso-ventrally. The anterior portion is very much reduced and is somewhat head-like or cap-like. The longitudinal furrow extends through the entire posterior body length and is apparently capable of widening and narrowing. It is probably naked (see here Klebs, Pouchet, Bütschli), although Stein maintained that there is a delicate cuticle-like shell. Chromatophores of brown or green colors present and usually grouped radially about a central amylum granule. The nucleus is posterior. Fresh and salt water. Amphidinium operculatum Clap. & Lach. Fig. 27. The body is oval and flattened. The transverse furrow is at the extremity (posterior) of the body and the small portion, which is thus apparently cut off, is the cap-like or operculum-like structure which gives the name to the species. Klebs maintains that the two furrows are not connected, but in this he is certainly mistaken, provided we have the same species under consideration. Very common about Woods Hole. Length from 40 to 50µ; width 30µ; thickness 15µ. [Illustration: Fig. 27.--_Amphidinium operculatum_.] KEY TO INFUSORIA. 1. With cilia Subclass _Ciliata_. 3 2. Without cilia (in adult state) Subclass _Suctoria_ tentacles 3. a. Without a specialized fringe of Order _Holotrichida_ large cilia (ad. zone) b. With general covering of cilia Order _Heterotrichida_ + adoral zone c. With cilia on ventral side Order _Hypotrichida_ + adoral zone d. With cilia in region of adoral Order _Peritrichida_ zone, and about mouth only KEY TO FAMILIES OF THE HOLOTRICHIDA. A. Mouth closed except during food 1 ingestion; no undulating membrane Mouth always open; with undulating 2 membrane 1. _Gymnostomina_. a. Mouth terminal or subterminal. Family _Enchelinidæ_ Food is swallowed and not introduced by currents b. Mouth terminal or subterminal; Family _Trachelinidæ_ body frequently drawn out into long process; mouth may have specialized framework. c. Mouth central or posterior; Family _Chlamydodontidæ_ pharynx with supporting framework 2. _Trichostomina_. a. Mouth anterior or central; Family _Chiliferidæ_ pharynx short or absent; peristomial depression faint or absent b. Mouth central; pharynx long, Family _Urocentridæ_ tubular; cilia in two broad zones c. Mouth posterior; form Family _Microthoracidæ_ asymmetrical; cilia dispersed or limited to oral region d. Mouth anterior or central. _Paramoecidæ_ Peristomial depression (One genus, _Paramoecium_) clearly marked. e. Mouth at end of long peristome Family _Pleuronemidæ_ running along ventral side; body dorso-ventrally or laterally compressed; left edge of peristome with great, sail- like undulating membrane f. Mouth and pharynx distinct, Family _Isotrichidæ_ posterior; cilia uniform. Parasites in ruminants. g. Mouth absent; body vermiform, Family _Opalinidæ_ cilia uniform. Usually parasites. KEY TO MARINE GENERA OF ENCHELINIDÆ Diagnostic characters: Form ellipsoid or ovoid; the mouth is invariably terminal and is usually round--more rarely slit-formed; it is closed except when food is taken. An oesophagus when present is a short, invariably non-ciliated tube which is usually surrounded by a more or less clearly defined buccal armature. The anus is usually terminal. Large food particles are swallowed, never introduced by currents. 1. Body naked 3 2. Body inclosed in a shell or coat 7 3. a. Cilia uniform about the entire 4 body; body symmetrical b. Cilia in the mouth region 5 longer than the others; body symmetrical c. Bristles, or tentacles, in 6 addition to cilia 4. Mouth terminal; body ellipsoidal Genus _Holophrya_ to ovoid 5. a. Mouth terminal; body elongate, Genus _Chænia_ flexible, and elastic b. Mouth terminal; "neck" highly Genus *_Lacrymaria_ elastic; entire body flexible; conical "head" c. Mouth terminal; "neck" highly Genus *_Trachelocerca_ elastic; entire body flexible; "head" square d. Mouth terminal; "neck" highly Genus _Lagynus_ elastic; no separate mouth-bearing portion 6. a. Body asymmetrical; bristles Genus _Stephanopogon_ in addition to cilia b. Body symmetrical; 4 small Genus *_Mesodinium_ tentacles from mouth; cilia and cirri in girdles 7. Shell composed of small Genus *_Tiarina_ sculptured pieces; cilia long, uniform * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus LACRYMARIA Ehr. '30. (Ehrenberg, C. G., 1838; Perty '52; Claparède & Lachmann '58; Stein 59-83; Quennerstedt '66, '67; Fromentel '74; Kent '81; Gruber '84; Gourret & Roeser '86; Bütschli '88; Schewiakoff '89.) Body short to very long flask-shape; for the most part contractile, especially in the neck region. The posterior end is rounded or pointed. The main character is the mouth-bearing apex, which "sets like a cork in the neck of the flask." One or more circles of long cilia at the base of the mouth portion or upon it. The body is spirally striped. Contractile vacuole terminal, with sometimes one or two further forward. Macronucleus central, globular to elongate, sometimes double. Food mainly bacteria. Fresh and salt water. Lacrymaria lagenula Clap. & Lach. Fig. 28, a, b. Synonym: _L. tenuicula_ Fromentel '74. Body more or less flask-shape, two or three times as long as broad, with conical apex, which is slightly elastic and protrusible; surface obliquely striate, with well-defined lines, 14 to 16 in number; cilia uniform on the body, with a crown of longer ones at the base of the conical proboscis. The body cilia are not thickly placed except around the proboscis. The endoplasm is thickly packed with large granules (food particles) in the anterior half and with finely granular particles in the posterior half. The elongate macronucleus lies a little above the center among the larger granules; the contractile vacuole is double, one on each side of the median line and at the posterior end of the body among the finer granules. The anus is posterior. Length 90µ to 160µ; greatest width assumed 65µ. When fully expanded the posterior end assumes a curious polyhedral form. (Fig. 28 b.) This form differs slightly from others of the same species as described by different observers, the most striking difference being the presence of two contractile vacuoles in place of the usual one. These are very slow to fill and grow to a large size before diastole. The membrane is very tough and retains its form easily under pressure of the cover glass. Another characteristic feature is the flattening of the surfaces between the striæ. Decaying algæ. [Illustration: Fig. 28.--_Lacrymaria lagenula_.] Lacrymaria coronata Cl. & Lach. '58. Fig. 29. Synonyms: _L. lagenula_ Cohn '66; Möbius '88; _L. cohnii_ ? Kent '81; _L. versatilis_ Quen. '67. Form flask-like and similar to _L. lagenula_, contractile but tough. The contractile vacuole is terminal, the proboscis is short, slightly raised and separated from the body by a deep cleft; the buccal cilia are inserted part way up on the proboscis. Form changeable, from short, sac-like to elongate and vermiform. Length 85µ. This species is not very different from _L. lagenula_, but I noted that in addition to the elongate nucleus, the body striæ are much more apparent here and seem to sink into the cuticle, giving the periphery, especially at the collar region, a curious crenulated effect. The endoplasm is very densely granular and colored a blue-green, probably from food particles. The number of striæ is much larger than in the preceding species. The membrane is very tough and retains the shape of the body, even with the full pressure of the cover glass. Micronucleus and trichocysts were not observed. [Illustration: Fig. 29.--_Lacrymaria coronata_.] Genus TRACHELOCERCA (Ehr. '83) Cohn '66. (Quennerstedt '67; Gruber '87; Entz '84; Kent '81; Gourret & Roeser '88; Bütschli '88; Schewiakoff '89; Shevyakov '96.) The only well-known representative is very elongate, large (up to 3 mm. Van Beneden), and very contractile. The main feature of importance in distinguishing it is the 4-part structure of the mouth region, which, however, may not be obvious. Pharynx faint and smooth. Contractile vacuole terminal. Macronucleus in one central body or in numerous pieces scattered throughout the cell. Salt water. Trachelocerca phoenicopterus Cohn '66. Fig. 30. Synonyms: _T. sagitta_ Ehr. '40, Stein '59; _T. tenuicollis_ Quennerstedt '67, Kent '81; _T. minor_ Gruber '87, Shevyakov '96. The body is extremely elongate and ribbon-like, and this, combined with its wonderful power of extension and retraction, makes it one of the most curious and interesting of microscopic forms. The anterior end is square or cylindrical; the type species has a four-sided mouth, but many specimens may be found which have a plain cylindrical mouth region. One reason for this may be the fact that the extremity gets broken off. In one instance I noticed a very large form with the anterior end under some debris, which evidently held it tight, for the body of the ciliate was thrashing back and forth and twisting itself into knots, etc., like a nematode worm. Finally, the anterior end broke off with about one-tenth of the body; the remainder, in an hour, had regenerated a new anterior end with long cilia, but with no indication of four sides. The small anterior piece was also very lively, moving about and eating like the normal animal; its history, however; was not followed. This species appears to be variable in other ways as well; thus, in some cases the posterior end is rounded (cf. Entz '84); in others it is pointed (cf. Kent '81, Cohn '66, et al.). Again, the macronucleus may be a single round body (Entz '84, Bütschli '88) or in two parts (Kent '81), or in many parts scattered about the body (Gruber). In the Woods Hole forms the tail is distinctly pointed and turned back sharply, forming an angle at the extremity. The cilia on this angular part are distinctly longer than the rest. The function of this posterior part is apparently to anchor the animal while it darts here and there upon the tail as a pivot, contracting and expanding the while. The body is finely striated with longitudinal markings; when contracted there are no transverse markings nor annulations. The nucleus is in the form of many fragments scattered throughout. Length of large specimen 1.7 mm. [Illustration: Fig. 30.--_Trachelocerca phoenicopterus_.] Genus MESODINIUM Stein '62. (Maupas '82, '84; Entz '84; Shevyakov '96.) The main part of the body is globular or conical, with a short, platform-like oral region, and a deep annular groove about the middle of the body. The oesophagus is rather long, and smooth or longitudinally striped. One or more rings of cirri rise in the groove. If more than one ring of cirri are present, the anterior set usually point forward and lie close to the anterior part of the body. The posterior set, on the other hand, cling close to the posterior region of the body and give to it a peculiar encapsuled appearance. The most characteristic feature is the presence of four short tentacle-like processes which can be protracted and retracted from the oral region. (Mereschowsky says that the entire anterior half is more or less contractile.) The macronucleus is horseshoe-shaped or ovoid and is situated in the posterior half of the body. The contractile vacuole is also posterior. Movement consists in rapid swimming, with rotation on its axis, or in creeping by means of its anterior cirri, or in sudden jumping, by which it apparently clears a distance of 20 times its diameter in one bound. Mouth parts may also be used for attachment to foreign bodies. The moving periods alternate with quiescent periods, during which the organisms with their outstretched and radiating cirri resemble the heliozoön _Actinophrys_. Mesodinium cinctum, n. sp. Fig. 31. Body spherical to pyriform, constricted near the middle, the constriction dividing the body into dissimilar parts. The anterior part is broadly pyriform, somewhat plastic and hyaline, with an oral extremity which is sometimes hollow, sometimes evaginated and convex. Upon this flexible anterior part there are four short but distensible tentacles. The posterior part is granular and usually filled with food particles; it is well rounded and holds the nucleus and contractile vacuole. The entire body is surrounded by a fine cuticle. The nucleus is elongate and extends through the greater part of the posterior half. The contractile vacuole lies on one side, near the girdle. The mouth is on the anterior pole in the tentacle region. The motile organs are cirri and cilia, all inserted in the constriction. There are two sets of cirri and one of cilia; the latter stand out radially from the girdle and are usually in motion. The cirri of one set, the anterior, extend forward about twice the length of the anterior half; those of the posterior set closely engirdle the lower half, reaching not quite to the posterior extremity. These are somewhat hyaline and are closely approximated, giving the impression of a tight-fitting crenulate casing about the lower half. The cirri are sharply pointed, much broader at the base, and the two sets are so placed that, looked at from above, they have the appearance of a twisted cord. (Fig. 31 b.) Movement erratic; sometimes the animal swims steadily forward with mouth in front; again it shoots across the field of the microscope, either backward or forward or sideways, through the action of its powerful cirri. It is often quiet, usually mouth downward, and is held in place by adhesion of the tentacles. In this position it looks strikingly like a heliozoön. Length 35µ; greatest width 30µ. Not uncommon. The chief features by which this species is distinguished from the frequently described _M. pulex_ of Europe are the number of anterior cirri and the ring of true cilia in place of the central girdle of cirri. The European form is described with four anterior bristles; the present form has from 28 to 32. The radial cilia differ decidedly from the more powerful cirri and they are not in one plane, so that counting is difficult; they are not closely set. The presence of tentacles makes these forms of especial theoretical interest, especially in the light of the origin of _Suctoria_. [Illustration: Fig. 31.--Side and top views of _Mesodinium cinctum_.] Genus TIARINA R. S. Bergh '79. (Claparède & Lachmann '58.) Body subcylindrical, pointed posteriorly, two and one-half times as long as broad; encased in covering composed of separate pieces arranged in five girdles. The pieces bear processes which rest against neighboring pieces of the girdle. Mouth large, anus terminal near contractile vacuole. The macronucleus is simple and round. Salt water. Tiarina fusus (Cl. & Lach.) emend R. S. Bergh. Synonyms: _Coleps fusus_ Cl. & Lach. '58; Daday '86; Möbius '88, Lauterborn '94; Shevyakov '86. This form, which resembles _Coleps_ rather closely, was placed as a separate genus by R. S. Bergh. The skeletal parts consist of five zones of needles composed of an organized substance and embedded in the cortical plasm, the last zone coming to a point at the posterior end. The needles have lateral processes, which give a latticed appearance to the casing. The cilia are long, with a specialized crown of still longer ones at the oral end; they arise outside of the skeletal elements and do not pass between them, as in _Coleps_. KEY TO MARINE GENERA OF TRACHELINIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: Body bilateral, or asymmetrical by local prolongations; usually compressed or flattened laterally, the left side more convex than the right. The essential feature is the position and character of the mouth. This is either a long slit extending from the anterior end well down the ventral surface, or the posterior part only of a ventral furrow remains open as a round or elongate mouth some distance from the anterior end. The entire mouth region of the body is usually drawn out into an elongate tapering proboscis which is generally curved dorsally at the extremity. An oesophagus is short or absent altogether; when present it is supported by a stiff buccal armature. Cilia are uniform about entire body or limited to the flat right side. Food is swallowed. 1. a. Proboscis easily distinguished 2 from the main body b. Proboscis not marked off from Genus *_Loxophyllum_ main body; body flat; both surfaces striated 2. a. Mouth runs the entire length Genus _Amphileptus_ of proboscis; entire body uniformly ciliated b. Mouth runs the entire length Genus *_Lionotus_ of proboscis; body flat; right side only is ciliated c. Proboscis much drawn out, Genus _Dileptus_ flexible; mouth at its base * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus LOXOPHYLLUM Dujardin '41. (Duj. '41; Wrzesniowski '69; Quennerstedt '65; '67; Cohn '66; Entz '84; Gourret & Roeser '88; Bütschli '88; Shevyakov '96.) The body is flat and somewhat leaf-shape, flexible, and elastic. The anterior end is somewhat proboscis-like and flexible, but is not sharply demarcated as in _Lionotus_. The central portion of the body is developed into a more or less arched dorsal mass, which usually contains the nuclei and contractile vacuoles. As a result of this local thickening, the body is surrounded by a thin hyaline margin. This, however, may be absent on the right side in some species. The mouth reaches from the anterior extremity to a short distance from the end, and usually approaches the left edge. An anus is present near the posterior end of the dorsal swelling. Trichocysts are numerous on the ventral surface, and often on the dorsal surface, where they are inclosed in minute papilla-like swellings. Cilia-distribution controverted. Maupas and Bütschli hold that ventral surface alone is ciliated; others (Kent and Dujardin) that cilia are uniformly distributed. The entire body, dorsal and ventral surfaces alike, are uniformly striated. The contractile vacuole lies posteriorly, on the right side and in the dorsal swelling. In the fresh-water form _L. meleagris_, it is connected with a long canal whose swellings are frequently taken for additional contractile vesicles (Bütschli); in the marine form described below the canal is not developed and a series of vacuoles takes its place; these are all contractile. The macronucleus may be single, double, quadruple, band-formed, or rosette-formed. Movement is steadily progressive and peculiarly gliding. Fresh and salt water. Loxophyllum setigerum Quenn. '67. Synonyms: _Litosolenus armatus_ Stokes '93; _Litosolenus verrucosa_ Stokes '93. The body is flattened, irregular in outline, obtusely pointed anteriorly, the point being turned to the right; rounded posteriorly. The left edge is nearly straight, the right considerably arched with a few setæ on the posterior half. Contractile vacuoles are numerous, dorsal in position and on the right side. The macronueleus is beaded, the several spheres connected. Variety armatum (Cl. & Lach.) Fig. 32. Under the name _Litosolenus armatus_, Stokes described a form from brackish water near New York, which should unquestionably be referred to the genus _Loxophyllum_, and I believe to Quennerstedt's species _setigerum_. While the latter possesses only a few setæ, the former has a number of them, and Stokes described his species as having a variable number. For this reason I include the Woods Hole form under the tentative name _armatum_, as a variety of Quennerstedt's _L. setigerum_. The flat margins are distinctly striated longitudinally, and faintly marked radially, on the dorsal surface. Longitudinal elevated striæ also run the length of the dorsal hump and upon the entire ventral surface. The ventral surface is alone ciliated. Upon the edges of the flat border are sharp-pointed, colorless, spine-like processes, situated at equal distances around the entire periphery except at the anterior end. Each spine is thick at the base and tapers to a full point which is curved upward--_i. e._, dorsally (fig. 32, a, b). The entire body is plastic and contractile, turning its leaf-like edge readily over objects upon which it creeps. The cilia are fine and uniform, with a tendency to lengthen in the oral region. Length 100µ; greatest width assumed on contraction 85µ; when normal about 50µ. [Illustration: Fig. 32.--_Loxophyllum setigerum_, var. _armatum_. a, b, c, ventral, dorsal, and lateral aspects.] Genus LIONOTUS Wrzesniowski '70. (Incorrectly called _Litonotus_ by many. Entz '84; Gruber '84; Bütschli '88; Kent '81; Schewiakoff '89; Shevyakov '96.) The body is elongate and somewhat lance-shaped, widest at the central part and tapering to a point at the anterior end. The posterior end may be similarly tapered or rounded. The anterior end frequently proboscis-like, flat, and flexible, while the entire body is more or less elastic and contractile. The right side is flattened and alone provided with cilia, while the left side of the body proper is arched; on the left side of the proboscis is a row of coarse cilia resembling an adoral zone, and a row of trichocysts. A long peristome stretches down the thin, ventral side of the proboscis, and the mouth proper is situated at the junction of the proboscis and body; the mouth, as a rule, is invisible. The ciliated right side alone is striated in the majority of species. The contractile vacuole may be single or multiple, usually in the posterior region of the body and dorsal in position. The macronucleus is usually double, rarely single or quadruple, but may occasionally break into numerous smaller pieces. Movement, free-swimming or gliding, with especial tendency to get under clumps of foreign matter. Fresh and salt water. Lionotus fasciola Ehr. Fig. 33. Synonyms. _Amphileptus fasciola_ Ehr. '38; Dujardin '41; Lachmann '56; Cohn '66, Diesing '65. _Loxophyllum fasciola_ Claparède & Lachmann '58; Balbiani '61. _Loxophyllum duplostriatum_ Maupas '83. Shevyakov '96. Body frequently brown or brilliant yellow in color, somewhat sigmoid in form with tapering anterior end, the extremity of which is turned dorsally. The proboscis is about half the entire length and is not sharply marked from the rest of the body but tapers gradually, its base being equal to the diameter of the body at its middle point. The body is slightly contractile and the posterior end is carried to a rounded point, but not into a distinct tail. Unlike the fresh-water variety, this one has no hyaline margin nor hyaline caudal region, and the contractile vacuole is double or multiple on the dorsal side near the posterior end. Cilia are present only on the under (right) side, with, however, a row of large cilia marking the course of the elongate mouth, upon its left side. The right side is striated, the left arched and without markings. The endoplasm is finely granular with, however, larger food particles in the process of digestion, while specimens are occasionally seen with the natural form completely lost through distortion caused by over-large captures (Cf. also Wrzesniowski '70, p. XXIII, fig. 32). Movement continuous, slow, and gliding; very little tendency to jerking movements. Macronucleus double, both parts spherical, and placed in about the center of the larger part of the body; closely approximated but not, as Schewiakoff described, connected. In conjugation, a large form unites with a smaller one, the mouth parts being connected. Details of conjugation and macronuclei not made out. Length 200µ to 600µ. [Illustration: Fig. 33.--_Lionotus fasciola_.] KEY TO MARINE GENERA OF CHLAMYDODONTIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: Form usually ellipsoid, never very elongate. Transverse section of body circular or elliptical. The mouth is usually some distance from the anterior end and may be in the posterior part. Sometimes it is in the center of the ventral surface, again on the right side. The oesophagus invariably has a well-developed buccal armature, or a smooth peculiarly built oesophageal tube. Food particles of large size. 1. Body cylindrical. Cilia about Genus *_Nassula_ entire body Body flat 2 2. a. Without a caudal process 3 b. With a caudal process 5 3. a. Anterior end angular 4 on left side b. Anterior end rounded Genus _Chlamydodon_ 4. a. Dorsal striæ and cilia present, Genus _Orthodon_ ventral cilia longer b. Dorsal striæ and cilia absent; Genus *_Chilodon_ posterior end not pointed c. Dorsal striæ and cilia absent; Genus _Scaphidiodon_ posterior end pointed 5. a. Caudal spine with posterior 6 bristle-like cilia b. Caudal spine without posterior Genus _Trochilia_ bristle-like cilia; ventral cilia reduced 6. a. With pigment spot on anterior Genus _Ægyria_ angle b. Without such pigment spot Genus _Onychodactylus_ c. Cilia on right edge only of Genus *_Dysteria_ greatly reduced ventral surface * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus NASSULA Ehr. '33 (Dujardin '41; Stein '67; Cienkowsky '55; Cohn '66; Clap. et Lach. '58; Kent '81; Maupas '83; Entz '84; Fabre-Domergue '88; Bütschli '88; Shevyakov '96.) The body is ovoid or cylindrical, with well-rounded ends, and in some cases slightly flattened. The mouth is ventral and placed some distance from anterior end (1/4 to 1/3 total length). A slight depression on the ventral surface marks the mouth region, which is further indicated by larger and more powerful cilia. The rest of the body is uniformly ciliated. The entire body is marked by clearly defined spiral stripes. The mouth is circular and the oesophagus is supported by a considerable armature, which usually extends dorsally and to the left, rarely to the right. In some cases the structure of this armature is indistinct; again it can be clearly seen to consist of definite rods (Stäbchen). The anus is probably always terminal. Contractile vacuoles are variable in different species. In some cases there is but one, which is placed at the posterior end or centrally on the ventral side; in others there may be four--two dorsal and two ventral. In many cases trichocysts are uniformly distributed. Sometimes the body is colorless; again, and more often, it is brightly colored with red, blue, brown, or black pigment. The macronucleus is globular and central, occasionally band-form and with numerous attached micronuclei. Food substance varied, usually vegetable matter, see, however, below. Cysts are globular. Movement is a steady progression, combined with rolling. Nassula microstoma Cohn '66. Fig. 34. Synonyms: _Paramoecium microstomum_ Cl. et Lach. '58, Gourret et Roeser '88; _Isotricha microstomum_ Kent '81. Body subcylindrical, rounded at each extremity, not quite twice as long as broad. A slight depression on one surface marks the position of the mouth, this depression being indicated by a row of longer cilia. The mouth is extremely small and is surrounded by a curious buccal armature. This is not made up of bars or rods, as in most species of _Nassula_, but appears perfectly smooth and uniform except for the considerable swelling at the inner end. The cuticle is firm and unyielding and marked by longitudinal and somewhat spiral rows of cilia and trichocysts. Under the microscope this is one of the most pleasing forms found at Woods Hole. Its color is yellowish brown from the presence of brilliant particles of coloring matter held in the cortical plasm, and, as it slowly rolls along, these particles and the black trichocysts give to the organism a peculiar sparkling effect. The macronucleus is almost central; the contractile vacuole posterior. The endoplasm appears well filled with food bodies, some of which could be distinguished as _Amphidinium_ and _Glenodinium_. Length 55µ; greatest diameter 30µ. [Illustration: Fig. 34.--_Nassula microstoma_.] Genus CHILODON Ehr. (Dujardin '41; Engelmann '78; Stein '54, '58; Kent '81; Bütschli '88; Gruber '83; Cienkowsky '55; Möbius '88; Clap. et Lach '58; Wrzesniowksi '65; Shevyakov '96.) Small forms, greatly flattened dorso-ventrally and almost egg-form in outline. The anterior end is bent distinctly to the left and forms a characteristic process, which, together with the entire margin of the body, is soft and flexible. The posterior end is, as a rule, broadly rounded. The ventral surface is finely striate, and this surface alone is ciliated. The lines of cilia converge at the mouth, and at this region the cilia are somewhat larger and more distinct, thus forming a functional adoral zone. The mouth is median and is situated in the anterior half of the body. It is surrounded by a well-defined armature, composed usually of from 10 to 16 rods. The contractile vacuoles are quite varied and from one to many in number, the number increasing with the size of the individual. The macronucleus is usually single, elliptical in form, and centrally placed; one micronucleus. Reddish granular pigment and trichocysts are occasionally present. Chilodon cucullulus Müll., sp. Fig. 35. Synonyms; _Colpoda cucullus_ O. F. Müller; _Loxodes cucullulus_; _Chilodon uncinatus_ Ehr. '58, Perty '52, Dujardin '41; _L. dentatus_ Duj., etc. This extremely variable form has received so many different names that it hardly pays to enumerate them. It is one of the commonest and most widely spread ciliates known, although at Woods Hole I was surprised to see it so rarely. It is the type species of the genus and needs no further description. The specimens observed at Woods Hole had numerous contractile vacuoles and were 42 to 45µ long and from 28 to 32µ wide. [Illustration: Fig. 35.--Ventral and dorsal aspects of _Chilodon cucullulus_.] Genus DYSTERIA Huxley '57. (Cl. et Lach. '58; Entz '84; Möbius '88; Shevyakov '96.) Small forms, firm in outline, and colorless or slightly colored. The body is somewhat clam-shaped, flattened, slightly curved or straight on the right side, the other more convex. The true ventral side is only a narrow strip along the right and anterior edge of the body, the apparent ventral side being a fold of the very large dorsal surface which comes around ventrally, forming a valved structure somewhat analogous to a clam shell. Cilia are limited to the outer edge of the small ventral surface, which also bears a peculiar spine at the posterior end. Behind this spine are larger cilia. The mouth opening lies in the anterior widened portion of the ventral surface and is connected with a smooth tubular pharynx. The right half of the dorsal side, _i.e._, the apparent dorsal side, is arched and bears longitudinal ridges. Two to four contractile vacuoles are placed on the ventral side. The macronucleus is usually dorsal, elliptical, and cleft, with one micronucleus attached. Fresh and salt water. Dysteria lanceolata Cl. et Lach. Fig. 36. Synonym: _Cypridium lanceolatum_ Kent '81. Outline of the flattened body ovoid; body consists of two valve-like portions; the edge of the right valve is nearly straight, that of the left valve more or less sinuous; anteriorly it is cut away, obliquely and posteriorly it has a deep indentation in which the seizing spine rests. The cilia are confined to the ventral surface, here reaching, however, from the anterior dorsal extremity to below the posterior indentation. Posteriorly the cilia become larger, corresponding to the larger cirri of _D. armata_, which are posterior to the spine. The mouth lies between the two valves and is surrounded by a long and smooth buccal armature which passes downward and backward to the left a distance equal to about half the entire body length. The macronucleus is situated in the dorsal region in the central part of the body. There are two contractile vacuoles, one behind the center of the buccal armature, the other near the inner end of this organ. Movement is in circles, the animal moving around quite rapidly when not attached by its posterior process. It is colorless and measures 45µ in length by 27µ in width. Claparède & Lachmann and Shevyakov describe it as 70µ long. [Illustration: Fig. 36.--_Dysteria lanceolata_.] KEY TO MARINE GENERA OF CHILIFERIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: Mouth never lies behind the middle of the body; the oesophagus is but slightly developed. The undulating membranes are placed either on the edge of the mouth or in the oesophagus. A peristomial depression leading to the mouth is absent or very slightly indicated. 1. Mouth in the anterior half, Genus *_Frontonia_ undulating membrane on left edge only; right edge continued in a long ventral furrow 2. Two undulating membranes; mouth Genus *_Colpidium_ central; no caudal bristles 3. Two undulating membranes; caudal Genus *_Uronema_ bristle Genus FRONTONIA Ehr. (Cl. & Lach. '58?). (Ehrenberg, subgenus of _Bursaria_ '38; Claparède & Lachmann '58; Bütschli '88; Shevyakov '96.) Form elongate and cylindrical, or often flattened dorso-ventrally, with round or pointed ends. It is usually plastic and contractile. Cilia are evenly distributed about the body and are similar in length. The large, open mouth lies on the anterior half of the ventral surface, and is elongate and oval in outline. On its left edge is a well-defined membrane which stretches across to the right side of the mouth. On the right edge is a small, longitudinally striped tract which is free from trichocysts and smooth in appearance. This tract is continued posteriorly in a long furrow, which in some cases reaches the posterior end of the animal. A few rows of cilia in this furrow vibrate differently from the others and give the effect of a membrane (Bütschli). The oesophagus is extremely short and hard to make out. The body is usually covered uniformly with trichocysts, often of considerable size. There are 1 or 2 vacuoles with long canals radiating throughout the endoplasm. The macronucleus is oval and centrally placed. Micronuclei vary from one to many. An anal opening is placed at the end of the long ventral furrow. The plasm is colorless or green by the presence of Zoochlorella, or colored brown or black by pigments. In these cases there is a considerable pigment mass on the anterior end. Movement is regular, forward, and combined with rotation. Food consists of foreign objects, diatoms, other protozoa and the like. Fresh and salt water. Frontonia leucas Ehr. Fig. 37. Synonyms: _Frontonia vernalis_ Ehr. '38; _Bursaria leucas_ Allman '55, Carter '56; _Panophrys leucas_ Duj. '41, Stein '67; _Panophrys vernalis_ Dujardin '41, Stein '67; _P. chrysalis_ Duj. '41, Fromentel '74; _Cyrtostomum leucas_ Stein '67, Kent '81. Form ovoid, elongate, occasionally a little flattened dorso-ventrally. Mouth in the anterior third of the body. The left edge of the mouth carries a distinct undulating membrane; the right edge is plain, longitudinally striated and bears cilia. It is slightly depressed and the depression is carried posteriorly in the form of a shallow furrow which reaches to the posterior end. The contractile vacuole is on the left side, the spheroidal nucleus on the right side of the furrow. The body is uniformly covered with fine cilia, and the periphery is uniformly studded with large trichocysts, except along the furrow. Food consists of dinoflagellates and other small forms. Color dark brown to black. Length 330µ; width 200µ. This form differs considerably from the fresh-water _Frontonia leucas_ as described by Schewiakoff '89, especially in the extreme length of the peristomial furrow, in the position of the nucleus and contractile vacuole, and in the nature of the water canals. These in the Woods Hole form are very irregular in size and very much branched, not uniform as in Lieberkühn's (see Bütschli) figure of _Frontonia leucas_, nor radiating as in Schewiakoff's description. This may be the same species as _Frontonia marina_, of Fabre-Domergue '91, whose description and figure I have not seen. [Illustration: Fig. 37.--_Frontonia Leucas_.] Genus COLPIDIUM Stein '60 (Bütschli '88; Maupas '83.) The general form is oval, slightly compressed laterally with the dorsal side strongly arched. The ventral side is slightly incurved. The anterior end is somewhat smaller than the posterior end, which is broadly rounded. The mouth is placed some distance from the anterior end in an oral depression and opens into a tubular oesophagus. There are usually two undulating membranes which do not extend beyond the mouth borders. The right undulating membrane extends down into the oesophagus and appears to be attached to the walls of the latter. The body stripes in front of the mouth are twisted to the left. The anus is terminal and the contractile vacuole may be terminal or situated forwards in the dorsal region. The macronucleus is spherical and has one micronucleus attached. Food consists mainly of bacteria. Movement rapid, but interrupted. Fresh and salt water, common in infusions. Colpidium colpoda Ehr., sp. Fig. 38. Synonyms: _Colpidium cucullus_ Kent '81; _C. striatus_ Stokes '85; _Kolpoda cucullus_ Duj. '41; _Paramoecium colpoda_ Ehr. '38, Quennerstedt '67; _Plagyiopyla nasula_ Kent '81, G. & R. '86; _Glaucoma pyriformis_ G. & R. '86; _Tillina campyla_ Stokes '85, '88. The body is oval, somewhat larger posteriorly, and a little compressed dorso-ventrally. The anterior end is twisted a little from the right to the left (more evident in fresh-water forms), and leans somewhat toward the ventral side. Under this portion, on the ventral side, lies the mouth in a large depression just above the middle of the body. The entire body is covered with uniform and delicate cilia, which are placed in longitudinal rows. These rows are almost straight on the dorsal side, but bend on the ventral surface, following the contour of the twisted anterior portion. The endoplasm is finely granular; the oesophagus leading into it is very distinct. Schewiakoff ('89) describes two membranes, an inner and an outer; Maupas ('83) describes them as right and left. In the present species I was able to make out only one. The macronucleus is central, spherical in form, and bears a single minute micronucleus. The contractile vacuole is posterior and dorsal to the long axis of the body. The anus is ventral to this axis and also posterior. Length 45µ, width 20µ. Common. This marine variety is much smaller than the fresh-water form and the form differs in a number of respects, viz, in the anterior torsion and in the structure of the mouth. These may be, however, only individual variations of a widely spread species, and I believe it is perfectly safe to describe this as _Colpidium colpoda_. [Illustration: Fig. 38.--_Colpidium colpoda_.] Genus URONEMA Duj. '41. (Quennerstedt '69; Cohn '66; Kent '81; Bütschli '81; Schewiakoff '89; Shevyakov '96.) Minute forms; colorless and constant in body form. The form is oval, slightly compressed on the ventral side, while the dorsal side is distinctly arched. The membrane is distinctly marked by rather widely separated striæ. These occasionally have a spiral course about the body; in all cases they can be easily counted. The mouth is large and placed near the center of the ventral surface. It is sometimes approached by a very shallow depression or peristome from the anterior end, and marked by two rows of cilia. An undulating membrane extends down the mouth. Oesophagus absent. A long, stiff bristle extends outwards from the posterior end. The contractile vacuole is terminal or subterminal and near the anal opening. The macronucleus is spherical, centrally placed, and with one micronucleus closely applied. Movement is rapid and usual forwards in a straight line, often found resting, however, with outstretched cilia in contact with some foreign body. Food mainly bacteria. Fresh and saltwater, usually in decomposing vegetable substances. Uronema marina Duj. Fig. 39. Synonyms: _Enchelys triquetra_ Dujardin; _E. corrugata_ Duj.; _Cryptochilum griseolum_ Maupas '83; _Philaster digitiformis_ Fabre-Domergue '85. Small animals with ellipsoidal form and about twice as long as broad. The mouth lies in the upper half of the body and bears a well-developed undulating membrane upon its left edge. The membrane is longitudinally striped and covered with long and vibratile cilia. The right edge of the mouth bears cilia which are about the same in size as the body cilia, but are more closely inserted (Schewiakoff). The most characteristic feature is the long caudal bristle, which is extremely delicate and about two-thirds the length of the body. Schewiakoff thinks this bristle has a sensory function. I could not make this out, for although other protozoa ran against this bristle, often bending it well over to one side, the animal showed no sign of irritability but lay quiescent. A spherical macronucleus with attached micronucleus lies in the center of the body. The contractile vacuole is posterior in front of the bristle. The macronucleus was found to be double, as though just divided, in a large percentage of cases. This may be a precocious division of the nucleus long before signs of the body division are evident. Such a phenomenon, however, is rare, the macronucleus usually dividing at a late stage of cell division. Length 30 to 50µ; width 15 to 20µ. Common in decomposing algæ. [Illustration: FIG. 39.--_Uronema marina_.] KEY TO MARINE GENERA OF PLEURONEMIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: The mouth is at the end of a long peristome running along the ventral side; the body is dorso-ventrally or laterally compressed. The entire left edge of the peristome is provided with an undulating membrane which occasionally runs around the posterior end of the peristome to form a "pocket" leading to the mouth. The right edge of the peristome is provided with a less-developed membrane. There may or may not be a well-developed pharynx. Body small; not produced into Genus *_Pleuronema_ neck-like elongation Body medium-sized; anterior end Genus *_Lembus_ produced into neck-like elongation * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus PLEURONEMA Dujardin '41. (Perty '52; Clap. & Lach. '58; Stein '59, vol. I; Quennerstedt '67; Kent '81; Bütschli '88; Schewiakoff '89; Shevyakov '96.) Small to medium-sized ciliates, with an unchanging form. They are somewhat lens-shape and laterally compressed, the two surfaces about equally arched. The ventral surface is nearly straight or but slightly arched; the dorsal is quite convex. The anterior and posterior extremities are equally rounded. The peristome begins as a small depression, but becomes larger until it takes in nearly all of the ventral surface. The depression becomes much deeper at about the center of the body, and is especially marked on the left side of the peristome. In this deeper portion is the mouth, with an almost imperceptible oesophagus. Upon the left edge of the peristome is a high, undulating membrane, sail-like in appearance when extended. This may stretch around the posterior edge of the peristome and upon the right aide, thus forming a pocket by means of which the food particles are directed into the mouth. The rest of the right edge of the peristome is occupied by closely approximated powerful cilia (Bütschli) or a second undulating membrane (Stein). The body cilia are relatively long. Trichocysts and caudal bristles may be present. The contractile vacuole is subterminal and dorsal; it is questionable whether there are canals leading to it. A round macronucleus with one micronucleus is in the anterior half of the body. The anus is terminal. Food is chiefly bacteria. Movement combines springing with swimming and rotation. Fresh and salt water. Pleuronema chrysalis Ehr., sp. Fig. 40. Synonyms: _Pleuronema crassa_ Dujardin '41; _P. marina_ Duj. '41; Fabre-Domergue '85; _P. coronata_ Kent '81; _Paramoecium chrysalis_ Ehr. '38; _Lembadion orale_ G. & R. '88; _Histiobalantium agile_ Stokes '85, '88. The body is ovoid, slightly flattened, rounded at both ends, the anterior end sharper than the posterior. The ventral surface is almost entirely taken up by a peristome which extends from the anterior end posteriorly three-quarters of the body length. The posterior end of the peristome is straight, the left curved, following the depressed portion. The body is covered with fine cilia in longitudinal lines, except on the peristome. The mouth is small and situated in the hollow of the peristome near the left border. On the left peristome edge is a large undulating membrane. It begins near the anterior end of the body and increases in height posteriorly following the peristome edge around on the right side. This posterior bend of the membrane causes the appearance of a full sail, so often seen. It can be entirely withdrawn and folded together in the peristome. On the right edge of the peristome are large, powerful cilia. The contractile vacuole is central and dorsal; the macronucleus is in the anterior half of the body, with one attached micronucleus. Food consists of bacteria. Not very common. Fresh and salt water. It often remains quiet, with membrane and cilia outstretched, as though dead, but suddenly gives a spring and is gone. [Illustration: Fig. 40.--_Pleuronema chrysalis_.] Pleuronema setigera, n. sp. Fig. 41. Body colorless, elongate, and with the general form of a cucumber, the posterior end being somewhat pointed. The mouth and relatively small peristome are situated in the lower third of the body. The peristome begins as a shallow furrow at the center of the ventral surface and dips sharply into the buccal depression, which is deep and turned toward the posterior end. The left edge of the peristome bears a high undulating membrane, which extends anteriorly only as far as the center of the body; posteriorly it passes around to the right edge of the peristome, thus forming the characteristic membranous pocket. Inside the oral depression is a second undulating membrane, running down to the mouth. This is small and without an oesophagus. The body is clothed with long setose cilia which are frequently fully outstretched when the animal is resting, a slight tremor of the large membrane alone indicating vitality. Posteriorly these appendages are drawn out into long filiform setæ, the number varying in different individuals from three to nine or ten. These are extremely fine and difficult to see without a high power (_e.g._ 1/12 oil) and careful focussing of the substage condensor. Like _P. chrysalis_, the resting periods are terminated by sudden springs, otherwise the movements are steady and forward. The macronucleus is central, and the contractile vacuole posterior and terminal. Length 45µ to 50µ; greatest diameter 17µ. In decaying algæ. It was this form, I believe, that Peck '95 described as a "ciliate." [Illustration: Fig. 41.--_Pleuronema setigera_.] Genus LEMBUS Cohn '66. (Cohn '66; Quennerstedt '69; Kent '81; Fabre-Domergue '85; Gourret & Roeser '88; Bütschli '88; Shevyakov '96.) Free-swimming animals of elongate form, more or less elastic, and flexible, bending readily to avoid obstacles, etc. The anterior half is usually drawn out into a slightly curved neck-like portion. The peristome is a small groove leading from the anterior end to the mouth about midway down the ventral side of the body. Bütschli, following Quennerstedt, describes an undulating membrane on each side of the peristome groove. Other observers, however, usually describe but one, the left, which is clearly defined and stretches out some distance from the body, while the right border is described as having smaller but very active cilia. The general body surface is clothed with fine, uniform cilia, and body striæ are usually absent. One or more caudal bristles may be present. The contractile vacuole is posterior and terminal, and may be multiple. The macronucleus is spherical and perhaps double (Kent). Food is chiefly bacteria, and the animals are frequently found with the anterior end embedded in zoogloea masses. Salt water, usually in infusions. Lembus infusionum, n. sp. Fig. 42. The body is elongate, lancet-shaped, with a tapering anterior extremity. The dorsal outline is concave through the bending of the anterior end, while the ventral outline presents an even, convex curve. The mouth lies slightly above the center of the body and marks the posterior limit of the ventral peristomial groove, which curves slightly from the anterior extremity. Each side of this groove bears an undulating membrane, the left being much larger and conspicuously striated. The general form of this left membrane is triangular, the widest part is anterior, the narrowest at the mouth. The right membrane is similar in form, but smaller and more active. The endoplasm is colorless and finely granular, not regionally differentiated. The ectoplasm consists of a relatively thick cortical plasm specially noticeable in the posterior half of the body and a delicate cuticle which bears almost imperceptible longitudinal markings--the insertion points of the fine cilia. The body is covered with uniform cilia except at the anterior extremity. Here they are much larger and bristle-like. I was unable to find any cilia in the peristome. One long caudal bristle, one-quarter of the length of the body, trails out behind. The macronucleus is spheroidal and placed near the center of the body; a conspicuous micronucleus lies near it. A row of contractile vacuoles extends from the posterior end. I have seen as many as six of nearly equal size and one or two smaller ones. The intervals of contraction are quite long. Length 70 to 75µ; greatest diameter 10 to 12µ. _L. infusionum_ resembles _L. elongatus_ in its general form and in its mode of life, for it excavates a retreat in zoogloea masses and lies there for considerable periods perfectly quiet. It differs from _L. elongatus_ and from _L. velifer_ (probably the same as _L. elongatus_ of Claparède & Lachmann) in the presence of the caudal bristle, in the absence of annular markings, number of contractile vacuoles, and in the slightly smaller size. It resembles _Lembus verminus_ (Müller) as described by Kent (_Proboscella vermina_), and _L. intermedius_ as described by Gourret & Roeser (_Lembus verminus_ syn.)in the absence of annular markings and in the presence of a caudal bristle. It differs from the former, however, in the absence of a tentacle-like process, and from both in the absence of a double nucleus and in the presence of many vacuoles. These features are so characteristic of all the specimens examined that I have concluded, somewhat reluctantly, to give it a specific name. It is common in old infusions of algæ, especially after decomposition is well advanced. Its food consists of bacteria. [Illustration: Fig. 42.--_Lembus infusionum_.] Lembus pusillus Quennerstedt 1869. Fig. 43. Synonym: _L. subulatus_ Kent 81. This species is much smaller than the preceding, and might easily be mistaken for _Uronema marina_. It is subcylindrical in form, the anterior end bluntly pointed, the posterior end rounded. The oral apparatus is quite different from _Uronema_. The mouth, as in the preceding species, is at the end of a long peristomial groove extending from the anterior end to the middle of the body. The edges of the peristome bear undulating membranes as in _L. infusionum_. Like the latter, there is one caudal bristle, but unlike it there is only one posterior contractile vacuole, while the endoplasm is filled with large granules or food balls. The cuticle is distinctly striated with longitudinal markings, and the cilia are uniform in length. Habitat similar to that of _L. infusionum_, in zoogloea masses. Length 26 to 30µ; diameter 7 to 8µ. Although Quennerstedt's description of _L. pusillus_ makes no mention of a caudal bristle, the size and other characters are so closely similar that I hesitate to make a new species. The bristle is extremely delicate, scarcely thicker than a cilium, and easily overlooked, yet with proper focussing of the condenser I found it on every specimen examined. [Illustration: Fig. 43.--_Lembus pusillus_.] KEY TO MARINE GENERA OF OPALINIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: The form is oval, and the body may be short or drawn out to resemble a worm. They are characterized mainly by the absence of mouth and pharynx. Anterior end not pointed; body Genus *_Anoplophrya_ cylindrical; tapering Anterior end pointed; body elongate; Genus _Opalinopsis_ cylindrical; tapering * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus ANOPLOPHRYA Stein '60. (Stein '60; Claparède '60; Leidy '77; Vejdovsky '79; Kent '81; Balbiani '85; Bütschli '88; Shevyakov '96.) The general form is elongate, cylindrical or slightly flattened, with rounded ends, the posterior end tapering. The body is striated with clearly defined, often depressed lines, which run longitudinally and sometimes spirally. The contractile vacuoles are usually placed in rows upon the edges. The macronucleus is almost always long and band-formed, rarely oval, and generally extending through the entire length of the body. Micronuclei have been made out in one case. Reproduction is effected by simple cross division or by budding at the posterior end, and is frequently combined with chain formation. The main characteristic is the entire absence of mouth and oesophagus, the animals being parasitic in the digestive tract of various annelids. Parasites, salt-water forms. Anoplophrya branchiarum. Stein '52. Fig. 44. _A. circulans_ Balbiani. The body is cylindrical to pyriform, in the latter case broadened anteriorly. Cuticle distinctly marked by longitudinal striations which take the form of depressions and give to the body a characteristic melon shape. The endoplasm contains a number of large refringent granules--probably body products. The nucleus is elongate, somewhat curved, and coarsely granular. A micronucleus lies in the concavity. The cilia are long, inserted rather widely apart along the longitudinal markings. The contractile vacuole is single and is located at the pointed end, which is directed backwards during locomotion. One specimen found free swimming among some algæ. Length 104µ; greatest diameter 36µ. I was much surprised to find this form swimming about freely in the water; its mouthless condition showed it to belong to the family of parasites, the _Opalinidæ_. As the name indicates, however, this species is an ectoparasite upon the gills, and Stein gave the name _branchiarum_ to a fresh-water form parasitic upon _Gammarus pulex_. The Woods Hole form is so strikingly similar to the figure of _G. branchiarum_ that, although the name was given to a fresh-water form, it obviously applies to this marine variety. One important difference is the presence of only one contractile vacuole in the marine form. [Illustration: Fig. 44.--_Anoplophrya branchiarum_.] KEY TO FAMILIES OF HETEROTRICHIDA. Cilia cover the body 1 Cilia reduced to certain 2 localized areas 1. _Polytrichina_. a. The mouth terminates a long Family _Plagiotomidæ_ peristomial furrow having an adoral zone along the entire left edge b. Peristomial area a broad Family _Bursaridæ_ triangular area ending in mouth c. Peristomial depression short; Family _Stentoridæ_ limited to the anterior end; its plane at right angles to the long axis of body; surface of peristome striated and ciliated; no undulating membranes 2. _Oligotrichina_. a. Peristome without cilia; cilia Family _Halteriidæ_ limited to one or more girdles about body One marine genus *_Strombidium_ b. Thecate forms; the body is Family _Tintinnidæ_ attached by a stalk to the cup; within the adoral zone is a ring of cilia. c. The peristomial depression is Family _Ophryoscolecidæ_ deep and funnel-like; cuticle thick, with posterior spine-like processes. * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. KEY TO THE MARINE GENERA OF PLAGIOTOMIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: The peristome is a narrow furrow which begins, as a rule, close to the anterior end and runs backward along the ventral side, to the mouth, which is usually placed between the middle of the body and the posterior end. A well-developed adoral zone stretches along the left side of the peristome, and is usually straight. 1. Body cylindrical; size medium; Genus _Metopus_ peristome long and turns sharply to the left at the extremity 2. No torsion in the peristome; Genus _Blepharisma_ undulating membrane is confined to the posterior part of peristome 3. No peristomial torsion; Genus _Spirostomum_ body highly contractile; no undulating membrane KEY TO THE MARINE GENERA OF BURSARIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: The body is usually short and pocket-like, but may be elongate. The chief characteristic is the peristome, which is not a furrow, but a broad triangular area deeply insunk and ending in a point at the mouth. The adoral zone is usually confined to the left peristome edge, or it may cross over to the right anterior edge. 1. The anterior half of the body Genus _Balantidium_ tapers to nearly a point in front; the peristome is narrowest at the apex; the mouth is the entire peristome base. 2. The anterior end does not taper; Genus *_Condylostoma_ the peristome is widest at the end of the body; the mouth is clearly defined. * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus CONDYLOSTOMA (KONDYLOSTOMA Bory de St. Vincent 1824) Dujardin '41 (Dujardin '41; Claparède & Lachmann '58; Stein '59, '67; Cohn '66; Quennerstedt '67; Wrzesniowski '70; Bütschli '76, '88; Kent '81; Maupas '83; Shevyakov '96.) Colorless and more or less flexible animals of medium size. The general form is elongate and cylindrical or somewhat smaller anteriorly. The posterior end is broadly rounded, the anterior end somewhat truncate and oblique. The peristome is broad and triangular, the base of the triangle being the entire anterior end of the body. The entire length of the peristome is one-fourth or less of the body length. The mouth is large and placed at the apex of the peristomial triangle and opens into a comparatively small oesophagus. The right edge of the peristome is lamellate and bears a clearly defined undulating membrane. The adoral zone is well developed upon the left edge of the peristome, from which it passes around anteriorly to the right edge. The surface of the peristome is free from cilia, but the rest of the body is uniformly coated with small active cilia. Contractile vacuoles are not safely determined. Bütschli thinks there is probably one terminal vacuole, but some observers deny this (_e.g._ Maupas). Others describe them on the dorsal side of the posterior end (Quennerstedt). The macronucleus is long and beaded and placed upon the right side. Micronuclei are numerous and scattered along the macronucleus. The anus is terminal and dorsal. Food consists of large and small particles. Movement rapid, free swimming, alternating with resting periods; in some cases an undulating or wriggling movement is seen, showing clearly the flexibility of the body. Fresh and salt water. Condylostoma patens Müller. Fig. 45. The body is elongate, somewhat sac-like, five or six times as long as broad, plastic, and frequently contains brightly colored food granules. The triangular peristome takes up the greater part of the anterior end, and the mouth is situated at the sharper angle of the triangle, about one-fourth of the total length from the anterior end. The cuticle is longitudinally striated, the lines having a slightly spiral course. They are not closely set, and fine cilia are thickly inserted along their edges. The endoplasm is granular and viscous. The motile organs consist of an adoral zone of membranelles, which stretch along the left edge of the peristome and the front edge of the body. The right edge of the peristome supports an undulating membrane. The nucleus is moniliform and extends the full length of the left side; a number of micronuclei are distributed along its course (Maupas). Length 400µ; diameter at widest part 105µ. Maupas gives the length from 305µ to 495µ; and Stein 376µ to 564µ. Very common. For a more extended account of the structures, see the excellent description by Maupas '83. [Illustration: Fig. 45.--_Condylostoma patens_.] KEY TO THE MARINE GENERA OF STENTORIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: The peristome is relatively short and limited to the front end of the animal, so that its plane is nearly at right angles to that of the longitudinal axis of the body. The adoral zone of cilia either passes entirely around the peristome edge or ends at the right-hand edge. The surface of the peristome is spirally striated and provided with cilia. Undulating membranes are absent. 1. Peristome circular in outline; Genus _Stentor_ limited to the anterior end 2. The peristome is drawn out into two Genus _Folliculina_ wing-like processes; tube-dwelling Genus STROMBIDIUM Cl. & Lach. '58. (Stein '67; Bütschli '73; Fromentel '74; Kent '81; Gruber '84; Entz '84; Maupas '83. Bütschli '88.) Small, colorless (except for ingested food) animals with characteristic springing movements. The form is usually constant, but in some cases may be plastic like _Astasia_; it is usually globular or conical, the posterior end being more or less pointed, the anterior end broadest. The latter is surrounded by a complete circle of the adoral zone, the oral end of which passes into a peristomial depression which extends deep into the middle of the body. The mouth, with a very small oesophagus, lies at the bottom of the inturned peristome. The region surrounded by the adoral zone is frequently drawn out into an anterior process, occasionally bearing a pigment mass. The ventral surface in some cases bears cilia, which may be distributed or restricted to a row of large cilia. Trichocysts are usually present and may be widely spread, limited to the posterior region, or arranged in a girdle about the middle. The contractile vacuole is simple, and posterior in position. The macronucleus is spherical and usually central in position. Movement is rapid swimming, combined with resting and floating periods, the latter usually terminated by a sudden leap. Fresh and salt water; more common in the latter. Strombidium caudatum Fromentel '74. Fig. 46, a, b, c. Fromentel described a fresh-water form of this genus with a caudal appendage. The body is pyriform, broadly truncate on the anterior end, in the middle of which rises a papilliform process (Schnabel). On this process is a heap of pigment granules, which, however, are not constant. A ring of long cirri surround the anterior end and pass into the peristome, and from the left edge of this line of cirri a large adoral zone continues down to the mouth. The peristome is elongate and sac-form, and the mouth lies at the posterior extremity. With the exception of a caudal filament there are no other motile organs; this is about half as long as the body, structureless, hyaline, and sharply pointed. It splits up into a bundle of fine fibers upon treatment with caustic potash (c). The cirri emerge from minute hollows in the edge of the anterior border. The cortical plasm contains peculiar rod-like bodies, which look more like lines or markings than like rods or trichocysts. The nucleus is large, spherical, and placed in the center of the body. The contractile vacuole is posterior. Length without appendage is about 35µ; greatest diameter 15 to 18µ. In decaying vegetable matter. Common. [Illustration: Fig. 46.--_Strombidium caudatum_.] Although Fromentel's species is incompletely described, it is very evident that the organism corresponds fairly well with the Woods Hole variety. His was a fresh-water type; this is marine, but the caudal filament and the contractile vacuole are similar. Certainly in this case the organism can not be regarded as a Vorticella broken off its stalk, as Kent '81 suspected. The anterior process with its pigment spot; the cirri, the spherical nucleus, the position of the vacuole, etc., are all opposed to such an interpretation which Kent applied to the original species. Neither can it be a Tintinnoid. I place it provisionally as _S. caudatum_. KEY TO THE MARINE GENERA OF TINTINNIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: Body attached by a stalk to a cup. Inside the zone of membranelles is a ring of cilia (par-oral). 1. The test is gelatinous and more or Genus _Tintinnidium_ less covered by foreign particles 2. The test is chitinous and clear. Genus _Tintinnus_ No foreign particles. 3. The test is chitinous; covered by Genus *_Tintinnopsis_ foreign particles, growth rings frequent 4. The test is chitinous, often Genus _Codonella_ covered by foreign particles. The test is marked by discoid, circular, or hexagonal spots. 5. The test is perforated by pores Genus _Dictyocysta_ of circular or hexagonal form. * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus TINTINNOPSIS Stein '67. (Stein '67; Kent '81; Daday '87; Bütschli '88.) Medium-sized ciliates, inclosed in a chitinous lorica with embedded sand crystals. The form of the house, or lorica, varies greatly. In some cases the mouth opening is wide, giving the lorica a bell form; it may be long and tubular, short and spherical, or variously indented. The animal is attached, as in the closely allied genus _Tintinnus_, by a peduncle to the bottom of the lorica. The anterior end of the animal is inclosed by two complete circles of cilia; one, the outer, forming the adoral zone, is composed of thick tentacle-like membranelles, the other consists of shorter cilia within the adoral zone. The mouth leads into a curved oesophagus containing rows of downward-directed cilia (Daday). The entire body is covered with cilia, but as the lorica is always opaque these can be made out only when the animal is induced to leave the house. The only difference between this genus and _Tintinnus_ is the covering of foreign bodies--usually sand crystals. Movement is rapid and restless, and peculiarly vibratory, owing to the apparent awkwardness in moving the house. Salt water. Tintinnopsis beroidea Stein, var. plagiostoma Daday. Fig. 47. Synonym: _Codonella beroidea_ Entz '84. The shell is colorless, thimble-shaped, with a broadly rounded posterior end. The body is cylindrical. The internal organs were not observed. Membranelles 24 in number. Length 50µ; greatest diameter 40µ. [Illustration: Fig. 47.--_Tintinnopsis beroidea_.] Var. compressa Daday '87. The posterior end of the shell is pointed, the lower third of the shell is swollen, the upper third is uniform in diameter and without oral inflation or depression. Nucleus not seen. Length 70µ; greatest diameter 48µ. Tintinnopsis davidoffi Daday. Fig. 48. The shell is large, elongated, and provided with a considerable spine. The chitin of the shell is covered with silicious particles of diverse size. The internal structures were not observed. Length of shell and spine 230µ; diameter of the oral aperture 54µ. [Illustration: Fig. 48.--_Tintinnopsis davidoffi_.] The variations of these species are considerable, and as the internal structures, such as the nucleus, are essential in fixing their systematic position, I place them as above, provisionally, and until further observations can be made. KEY TO FAMILIES OF HYPOTRICHIDA. a. Peristome indistinct; cilia on Family _Peritromidæ_ ventral surface uniform and not One genus, *_Peritromus_ differentiated into cirri b. Peristome more or less indistinct; Family _Oxytrichidæ_ cilia reduced to a few rows on the ventral surface; anal and frontal cirri present c. Cilia entirely reduced; frontal Family _Euplotidæ_ and anal cirri present or reduced; macronucleus band-formed or spherical d. Peristome reduced to left edge and Family _Aspidiscidæ_ does not reach over the anterior One genus, *_Aspidisca_ margin * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus PERITROMUS Stein '62. (Stein '62, '67; Maupas '83.) The body is flat, colorless or tinged with yellow, and contractile. It is elliptical in outline, with broadly rounded ends; in some cases the left edge is slightly incurved, the right edge convex. The ventral surface is flat, the dorsal surface is arched in the middle region of the body. The edges being flat are somewhat more transparent than the remainder of the body. The ventral surface is striated by longitudinal straight or slightly curved lines, the dorsal surface is smooth and without cilia. (Maupas describes bristles on the back, but this is not corroborated.) The adoral zone is fairly well developed, but not distinctly marked off from the remaining ventral surface. It begins on the right side and extends entirely around the frontal margin and down the left side below the middle of the body, where it turns suddenly to the right, entering the slightly insunk peristome. The mouth leads into a short, indistinct oesophagus. One contractile vacuole is situated in the dorsal swelling at the posterior end of the animal. Macronucleus double, one in each side of the dorsal swelling. Movement is slow and creeping, with a peculiar method of contracting the more hyaline edge, which may turn upward or around a foreign object. Fresh (?) and salt water. Peritromus emmæ Stein. Fig. 49. With the characters of the genus. [Illustration: Fig. 49.--_Peritromus emmæ_, ventral and lateral aspects.] KEY TO THE MARINE GENERA OF OXYTRICHIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: The peristome is not always marked off from the frontal area. In the most primitive forms the cilia on the ventral surface are similar to those of the preceding family (_Peritromidæ_). Usually some of the anterior and some of the posterior cilia are fused into cirri, distinguished as the frontal and anal cirri, respectively. In the majority of forms all of the cilia are thus differentiated; strong marginal cirri are formed in perfect rows, and ventral cirri in imperfect rows. In addition to the adoral zone there is an undulating membrane on the right side of the peristome, and in some cases a row of cilia between the membrane and the adoral zone. These are the par-oral cilia and they form the par-oral zone. 1. The posterior end is pointed or 2 tail-like The posterior end is rounded; 5 not tail-like 2. The front end is pointed 3 The front end is rounded 4 3. Frontal and anal cirri absent; Genus _Stichotricha_ often tube-forming Eight frontal and 3 caudal cirri; Genus _Gonostomum_ not tubiculous 4. Anal cirri present; with or Genus *_Epiclintes_ without short lateral bristles Anal cirri absent; no bristles Genus _Uroleptus_ 5. With frontal cirri 6 No frontal cirri; 2 to 3 rows of Genus _Holosticha_ ventral cirri; anal cirri small 6. Right margin of peristome straight Genus _Oxytricha_ as far as the anterior end; 5 rows ventral cirri; 5 anal cirri Right margin of peristome curved 7 7. Five rows or less of ventral cirri 8 More than 5 rows of ventral cirri Genus _Urostyla_ 8. Membranelles normal; 5-10 anal Genus *_Amphisia_ cirri; no caudal cirri Membranelles normal; 5 to 10 anal Genus _Stylonychia_ cirri; 3 caudal cirri Membranelles very large and Genus _Actinotricha_ powerful; adoral zone not continued to mouth; 5 anal cirri * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus EPICLINTES Stein '62. (Stein '62, '64, '67; Mereschowsky '79; Gruber '87; Bütschli '88.) Very active, contractile, colorless forms of rather small size. In the fully expanded condition the body is oval and long, with its greatest width in the center or at the front half of the body. The posterior end is always drawn out into a relatively long tail, which is extremely elastic. The peristome is short and stretches around the front end of the animal. In the frontal region are from one to three rows of cirri. The ventral surface is covered with longitudinal rows of cilia, the number of rows being in dispute (6 to 7 according to Stein; 9 according to Mereschowsky and Rees) Some of these cilia project from the lateral edges and from the posterior end, where they are slightly elongated. The anus is dorsal and placed at the beginning of the posterior process. Macronucleus probably double. Movement is rapid and restless, the tail process contracting to jerk the body backward. Salt water. Epiclintes radiosa Quenn. Fig. 50. Synonym: _Metra radiosa_ Quenn. The body is elongate, slightly narrowed anteriorly, and drawn out posteriorly into a long, retractile, tail-like portion. Five large cirri extend outward from the anterior extremity. The caudal portion may be extended to a distance equal to twice the length of the body or contracted to half the length. The peculiar nervousness of this form made it extremely difficult to study, and the oral region was imperfectly made out. The anterior cirri appear to line the upper left border of the peristome, which is marked by a row of large cilia. The peristome begins upon the right side of the anterior end and passes backward and to the left, narrowing at this point. The mouth is very small and difficult to see. It is apt to stay in one locality under zoogloea, switching back and forth with great vivacity, or hanging on by the posterior cilia while the anterior end stretches out in the surrounding medium. Nucleus and contractile vacuole were not observed. Length 45µ. [Illustration: Fig. 50.--_Epiclintes radiosa_.] Genus AMPHISIA Sterki '78. (Sterki '78; Kent '81; Bütschli '88.) The body is plastic and soft, colorless or slightly tinged with yellow or red. In form it is oval or elongate, the posterior end is rounded and slightly reduced in diameter, but does not form a distinct tail. The anterior end is also rounded and similarly reduced in width. There are two rows of marginal cirri (_Randcirren_), which may be placed some distance from the edge, and two or three rows of ventral cirri between them. There are from 3 to 5 frontal cirri of larger size than those of the ventral rows, and from 5 to 10 anal cirri. (The genus _Holosticha_ is similar in all respects save the presence of frontal cirri.) The macronucleus is double; the contractile vacuole is central and on the left side. The peristome is long and rather narrow and carries an undulating membrane on its right margin. Fresh and salt water. Amphisia kessleri Wrzes. '77. Fig. 51. Synonyms: _Trichoda gibba_ Müller; _Oxytricha gibba_ Stein '59; _O. velox?_ Quen. '69; _O. kessleri_ Wrzes. '77. Body elongate, slightly sigmoid and swollen in the center, about 3-1/2 times as long as broad; the rounded anterior end is turned to the left, the similarly rounded posterior end to the right; both ends taper slightly. The peristome is long and narrow, with a distinct adoral zone which appears broken in its course. To the right of this adoral zone is a single line of preoral cilia. On the right border of the peristome is an undulating membrane. The three frontal cirri form a triangle and the five smaller anal cirri form a continuous line with the broken row of ventral cirri. There are two and one-half rows of ventral cirri and the marginal cirri are drawn in until they are ventral in position. Length 135µ; greatest width 40µ. [Illustration: Fig. 51.--_Amphisia kessleri_.] This variety differs from _O. kessleri_ as described by Wrzesniowski in having three frontal cirri instead of four. Another difference is in the structure of the nuclei and in their position. These differences are too minute to warrant a specific name. _O. velox_ of Quennerstedt is probably the same as _0. kessleri_, but differs in having three complete rows of ventral cirri. _O. velox_ has three frontal cirri in a line, thus differing from the Woods Hole form. KEY TO THE MARINE GENERA OF EUPLOTIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: Cilia, as well as the frontal, marginal, and ventral cirri, very much reduced; the anal cirri, on the other hand, are always present. The macronucleus is band-form. 1. Frontal cirri more than 8 2 Frontal cirri less than 8 3 2. Eleven marginal cirri on the left Genus _Certesia_ side; 11 frontal cirri Four marginal cirri, 2 on each Genus *_Euplotes_ side; 9 to 10 frontal cirri 3. Seven frontal, 5 anal, 3 right Genus *_Diophrys_ marginal, and 2 left marginal cirri No frontal, 5 anal, 3 right, Genus *_Uronychia_ and 2 left marginal cirri * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus EUPLOTES (Ehr. 1831) Stein '59. (Ehrenberg '31, '38; Stein '59; Cl. & Lach. '58; Quennerstedt '65, '67, '69; Bütschli '88; Kent '81; Gourret & Roeser '88; Möbius '88.) Small to medium-sized forms. Rigid in form, colorless, or green by chlorophyl. They are quite flat on the ventral surface but decidedly arched dorsally, and the contour is usually oval. The anterior end is broadly rounded to truncate; the posterior end is similarly rounded, or may be somewhat pointed. The mouth is placed centrally or near the left margin, and from it the right edge of the peristome forms a curved line to the left, which bends forward, thus making the greater part of the left edge the peristomial area. In front the peristome bends sharply to the right and extends as far as the right end of the adoral zone. Upon the frontal and median ventral surface are 9 to 10 great cirri (_Bauchwimpern_ of Stein). Posteriorly five great anal cirri stretch out beyond the posterior body margin. In addition to these there are two smaller marginal cirri upon the left body edge, and two similar ones on the hinder part of the body. The dorsal surface is rarely smooth, but usually is marked by longitudinal ridges, and rows of dorsal bristles have been described. The single contractile vacuole lies on the right side in the region of the anal cirri, sometimes just above them, sometimes below. The anus is posterior and on the right side. The characteristic macronucleus is long and band-form, its main portion being usually on the left side with an anterior and a posterior arm toward the right. Movement is rapid swimming, which, however, is frequently broken by creeping periods, during which the animals appear to be examining the foreign body on which they creep. Fresh and salt water. Euplotes charon Ehr. Fig. 52. Synonyms: _Trichoda charon_ Müller; _Ploesconia charon_; _P. affinis_, _subrotunda_, _radiosa_, _longiremis_, Dujardin '41. The body is oval, small, and somewhat variable in length. The carapace is strongly marked upon the dorsal side by deep longitudinal grooves, 6 to 8 in number; the grooves may be absent, however. The adoral zone extends to the posterior third of the body, the mouth and oesophagus are directed anteriorly. There are 10 ventral cirri, 7 of which are on or near the frontal border and 3 near the right edge. There are 5 posterior cirri and 4 anal cirri, of much smaller size. The cirri may or may not be fimbriated, the latter condition indicating the approaching disintegration of the body and is abnormal. The macronucleus is long and band-formed or horseshoe shape. The contractile vacuole lies on the right side dorsal to the posterior cirri. Fresh and salt water. Length 45µ; diameter 25µ. [Illustration: Fig. 52.--_Euplotes charon_, dorsal and ventral aspects.] Euplotes harpa Stein. Fig. 53. The body is elongate, oval, somewhat widened anteriorly, and has rounded ends. The frontal margin is three-toothed. Ten ventral cirri. Dorsal surface provided with 8 longitudinal markings. The peristome is long and broad, with considerable variation. The adoral zone consists of powerful membranelles arranged in a continuous curve from the mouth to the extreme right frontal margin. Seven of the 10 ventral cirri are situated at the anterior extremity; the remainder are arranged in a triangle on the right edge. The anal cirri, 5 in number, are long and stiff; the marginal cirri smaller and finer. The nucleus and contractile vacuole are similar to those of the preceding species. Length 95µ; width 54µ. [Illustration: Fig. 53.--_Euplotes harpa_.] Genus DIOPHRYS Dujardin '41. (Bütschli '88.) Medium size, colorless to yellow, rigid in form. The body contour is oval, the anterior end being rounded or slightly reduced, the posterior end usually cut in on the right side. The peristome is broad but less extensive than in _Euplotes_, and may extend beyond the middle of the body. Its right edge is convex toward the right side, extends forward and does not turn again to the right. The anterior ventral surface has 7 to 8 scattered cirri and just behind the mouth is a transverse row of large anal cirri. In the sharp in-cut of the posterior end are three great angular cirri. Two lateral cirri are placed on the left of the median line between the mouth and the anal cirri, and usually in a slight hollow. The contractile vacuole is on the right side in the vicinity of the anal cirri. The macronucleus is in two parts, each band-form, one anterior, the other posterior in position. Movement is rapid and steady. Salt water. Diophrys (Styloplotes) appendiculatus Stein '59. Fig. 54. Synonyms: _Styloplotes appendiculatus_ Stein '59; Kent '81; Quennerstedt '67, etc. The general form resembles _Euplotes_. Its outline is oval and regular except at the posterior end on the right side, where there is a considerable indentation. The frontal margin is characterized by a row of powerful membranelles, which become smaller at the peristome and at the mouth they are of characteristically small size. The ventral cirri are 7 in number. Five of them are in one row from the anterior end down the right side nearly to the anal cirri; 1 is on the frontal border between the first two; 1 lies just anterior to the second anal cirrus from the right side. The 5 anal cirri are large and powerful and extend some distance beyond the posterior end of the body. In all specimens observed these cirri curve to the left. Dorsal to the anal cirri and placed deep into the dorsal pit are 3 large, sharply curved cirri, which in most cases are fimbriated, but when the specimens are normal these are pointed and curve abruptly to the right. Two smaller cirri lie to the left of the group of anal cirri. The peristome is well-marked by the adoral zone, and upon its right border there is a row of cilia, and a similar row of cilia runs along the base of the oral membranelle. The macronucleus is double and consists of two elongate cylindrical masses lying parallel with one another. One of these is in the anterior region; the other is posterior. The contractile vacuole lies dorsal to the anal cirri and anterior to the three dorsal cirri. The movement and general activities resemble those of _Euplotes_. Length 50µ; diameter 25µ. [Illustration: Fig. 54.--_Diophrys appendiculatus_.] Genus URONYCHIA Stein '52. (Stein '59, '67; Quennerstedt '67; Kent '81; Bütschli '88.) Medium-sized colorless ciliates of usually constant body form. The body is somewhat short and oval in outline. The anterior end is broadly truncate, the posterior end rounded or slightly pointed. The ventral and dorsal surfaces are considerably arched and the latter usually has a number of rows of longitudinal stripes. The open peristome is broad and reaches back to the middle of the ventral surface and beyond. According to Stein, the two edges can approach each other, thus opening and closing the peristomial area. Its right edge forms a greater angle with the front edge than in the genus _Euplotes_, and the left edge forms a greater angle with the front edge than in that genus. The left edge also appears to cover over the adoral zone slightly. There are no ventral cirri in front, but on the posterior ventral surface are 7 great springing cirri. Five of these are inserted on the right aide in a deep in-sinking, and the other 2 in a similar depression on the left ventral surface. Above the 5 right-side cirri, _i.e._, dorsal to them, but in the same depression, are 3 angular cirri. A few edge cirri are found to the left of them and another to the right of the 5 cirri. The contractile vacuole is on the left side between the main groups of cirri. The macronucleus is band-form or spherical, and is situated in the middle region of the body. Movement consists in forward swimming with sudden springs. Salt water. Uronychia setigera, n. sp. Fig. 55. This species is very common in the Woods Hole waters. It is small, colorless, and very active. The most characteristic feature is the posterior end with its relatively enormous cirri, which are apparently large enough for an animal four times its size. The form is ovoid, widened posteriorly. The ventral surface is flat and has two excavations in the posterior end. The right hollow is larger and contains 5 great cirri of unequal size, the extreme right one being the largest. The left hollow contains 2 cirri, also of dissimilar size. Dorsal to the 5 right cirri are 3 sickle-formed cirri, which are usually fimbriated. These are pointed and curve regularly to the left. The peristome is wide and open, and a small pocket-like hollow on its left border indicates the region of the mouth. The adoral zone runs into this pocket and the mouth is located in its lower right-hand corner. In _U. transfuga_ the right border is generally described as having a membrane of extreme delicacy. I was unable to see such a membrane in this form, but in its place there are 2 flagella-like cirri extending from the margin of the mouth-opening into the peristome, and these vibrate slowly. I do not believe these could be the moving edge of an undulating membrane, for they are quite distinct. The macronucleus is spherical instead of band-form, and a single micronucleus is closely attached. This is unlike the European species _U. transfuga_, in which the nucleus is elongate. The contractile vacuole lies between the two sets of posterior cirri. There are no marginal folds like those of the European species. Length 40µ; width 25µ. Common. [Illustration: Fig. 55.--_Uronychia setigera_.] Genus ASPIDISCA Ehr. 1830. (Perty '52; Cl & Lach. '58; Stein '59; Quennerstedt '65, '67, '69; Mereschowsky '79; Kent '81; Bütschli '88.) Small, colorless, and rigid forms, with nearly circular to oval contour. The left side is usually straight, or at least but slightly convex. The right side is much more convex, and the right margin is considerably thickened. The ventral side is flat, the dorsal surface convex, with from one to several longitudinal ridges which run more or less parallel with the right edge. The peristome is limited to the left edge, where it forms a small depression which may or may not reach the anterior border, but which in no case runs around the anterior margin. The left peristome margin in some cases grows over the peristome depression toward the right, thus making a sort of cover for the peristome. In the posterior region is a deep depression, from which 5 to 12 cirri take their origin. Seven or 8 cirri are placed in the anterior half of the ventral surface and are arranged more or less in rows. The anus is on the right side in the region of the anal cirri (Stein). The contractile vacuole is generally on the right side and similarly located. The macronucleus is a horseshoe-shaped body. Movement rapid, somewhat in circles, and rather uniform. Fresh and salt water. Aspidisca hexeris Quennerstedt '67. Fig. 56. The carapace is elliptical, about 1-1/2 times as long as broad, rounded at the extremities. The left border of the carapace bears a spur-like projection. The ventral cirri are short and thick, and are very characteristic of the species. When moving slowly they look much like nicely-pointed paint brushes, but when the animal is compressed they quickly become fibrillated, and then look like extremely old and worn brushes. These cirri are placed in depressions in the ventral surface and each one appears to come from a specific shoulder. At the posterior end an oblique hollow bears 6 unequal cirri placed side by side. The extreme right cirrus is the largest, and they become progressively smaller to the opposite end. Dorsal to these lies the contractile vacuole. The peristome is in the posterior half of the body and an undulating membrane extends from it into the oesophagus. The dorsal surface is longitudinally striated by 5 or 6 lines, which are usually curved. The nucleus is horseshoe-shaped and lies in the posterior half of the body. Length 68µ; diameter 48µ. [Illustration: Fig. 56.--_Aspidisca hexeris_.] This form was incorrectly mentioned as _Mesodinium_ sp. by Peck '95: In the figure given by Quennerstedt there are only 7 ventral cirri. In the Woods Hole form there are 8, 7 of which are anterior, 6 of them about one central one. The eighth cirrus is by itself, near the base of the largest posterior cirrus. These cirri, in spite of their size, are easily overlooked and more easily confused, but by using methylene blue they can be seen and counted. Aspidisca polystyla Stein. Fig. 57. This species is similar to _A. hexeris_, but is smaller, very transparent, and without the spur-like process on the left edge of the carapace. The chief difference, however, lies in the number of anal cirri. These are 10 in number and they are arranged obliquely as in the preceding species, with the largest one on the right and the smallest on the left. The ventral cirri are 8 in number, and are arranged in two rows, one of which, the right, has 4 cirri closely arranged, the other having 3 cirri close together and one at some distance, near the largest anal cirrus. The peristome, contractile vacuole, and nucleus are similar to the preceding. Length 36µ; width 22µ. [Illustration: Fig. 57.--_Aspidisca polystyla_.] Stein assigns only 7 ventral cirri to this species, but he also describes 2 very fine bristle like cilia (p. 125) and pictures them in figs. 18, 19, 20, and 21 of his Taf. III in the same relative position as my eighth cirrus. I am positive that cilia do not occur on the ventral face of this form, and that the characteristic cirri are the sole locomotor organs. KEY TO FAMILIES OF PERITRICHIDA. a. Peristome drawn out into Family _Spirochonidæ_ funnel-like process; parasitic b. Adoral zone and circlet of cilia Family _Lichnophoridæ_ at opposite end. Adoral zone (one genus, *_Lichnophora_) left-wound. Parasitic. c. Adoral zone a left-wound spiral. Family _Vorticellidæ_ Attached or unattached forms. * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus LICHNOPHORA Claparède '67. (Gruber '84; Fabre-Domergue '88; Bütschli '88; Wallengren '94; Stevens 1901.) Small or medium-sized colorless animals, extremely elastic and flexible. The anterior part, bearing the adoral zone, is round or oval in ventral view, and has a flat ventral and a highly arched dorsal surface. The posterior end of the animal is reduced to a stalk-like structure which is broadened at the extremity to form a sucking disk. The surface of this disk and the surface of the peristome may be brought into the same plane by the characteristic bending of the stalk portion. A ciliated girdle is placed at the edge of the sucking disk. A well-developed adoral zone incloses the peristome; it begins at the mouth on the left side and includes nearly all of the peristome in its left-wound spiral, the extremity approaching closely the end near the mouth. The macronucleus is a long-beaded structure, or it may be in several parts connected by strands (Gruber). The contractile vacuole is on the left side in the region of the mouth. Salt water. Lichnophora macfarlandi Stevens. Fig. 58. The body is elongate; oral disk variable in form, attachment disk clearly defined and constant. The stalk is very contractile and elastic, constantly changing in shape. When detached from the host the animal moves with a very irregular and indefinite motion. When attached it moves freely over the surface on its pedal disk. The latter is bordered by four membranes composed of cilia. A distinct axial fiber extends from the pedal disc to the peristome and gives off a number of branches. This fiber is analogous to the myonemes in _Vorticella_. An indistinct longitudinal furrow can be made out occasionally. The nucleus is in 5 or 6 separate pieces, of which 1 is found in the pedal disk and 1 or 2 in the neck. On the egg capsules of _Crepidula plana_; also reported upon annelids at Woods Hole. Length 60µ from disk to extremity of the peristomial disk. [Illustration: Fig. 58.--_Lichnophora macfarlandi_.] This form does not agree in all respects with Stevens's species, but the agreement is so close in other respects that I believe it can be safely identified as _L. macfarlandi_. The mode of life is different, and the macronucleus is different, there being from 25 to 30 fragments in Stevens's form and only 5 or 6 in the present one. There is, however, the same evidence of chain formation in both of them. The length of the oral cilia in Stevens's form is 18µ in fixed and 30µ in living forms. In the Woods Hole form the cilia are not more than half that length. KEY TO THE MARINE GENERA OF VORTICELLIDÆ. Diagnostic characters: Attached or unattached forma of peritrichous ciliates in which the adoral zone seen from above forms a right-wound spiral. A secondary circlet of cilia around the posterior end may be present either permanently or periodically. 1. Posterior ciliated girdle 3 permanent around an attaching disk 2. Posterior ciliated girdle, 4 temporary during motile stage 3. Body cylindrical: (a) With ring of stiff bristles Genus _Cyclochæta_ above the ciliated girdle (b) Without accessory ring of Genus _Trichodina_ bristles; with velum Body conical; general Genus _Trichodinopsis_ surface ciliated 4. No test and no stalk Genus _Scyphidia_ 5. No test; with stalk containing 8 contractile thread 6. No test; with stalk but without Genus _Epistylis_ contractile thread 7. With a test; with or without Genus *_Cothurnia_ a stalk 8. Individuals solitary Genus *_Vorticella_ Individuals colonial; Genus *_Zoothamnium_ entire colony contractile Individuals colonial; parts Genus _Carchesium_ only of the colony contractile * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus VORTICELLA (Linnæus 1767) Ehr. '38 (Bell Animalcule Leeuwenhoek 1675; Ehrenberg '38; Dujardin '41; Stein '51; Cl. & Lach. '58; Greeff '70; Bütschli '88; Kent '81; Stokes '88; etc.) Medium-sized ciliates of general bell-like form. They may be colorless, or yellow and green through the presence of Zoochlorella. When not contracted, the peristome end is widespread, rarely narrowed. The adoral zone and peristome agree with the details given in the family characteristics. The chief character is the attachment of the posterior end by means of a single, longer or shorter, stalk, which contains a highly contractile thread easily distinguished in the living animal. Another character is the absence of colony formation. Contractile vacuole, single or double, usually connected with a sac-like reservoir. The macronucleus is invariably long and band-formed, with attached micronucleus. Fresh and salt water. So many species of _Vorticella_ have been described that the task of collecting data and of arranging the synonyms is extremely irksome and difficult. Stokes enumerates 66 species, inhabiting fresh and salt water, and several other new species have been added since his work. I am impressed with the fact that new species have been created without proper regard for the manifold variations which nearly all of the _Ciliata_ show, and I believe the 66 species might be safely reduced to 12 or 15. Vorticella patellina Müller. Fig. 59. Body campanulate, widest at anterior border, from which it tapers directly to the pedicle. The diameter of the peristome is a little larger than the length of the body. The ciliary disk is but little elevated. The cuticle is not striated and the body plasm is quite transparent. Length 52µ. [Illustration: Fig. 59.--_Vorticella patellina_.] Vorticella marina Greeff. Fig. 60. The body is conical but variable, and may he short or elongate, so that relative length and breadth offer no chance of identification. In general the body is campanulate. The distinguishing feature is the transverse annulation of the bell. Small, but common, and grows in small social groups. Length 35µ. [Illustration: Fig. 60.--_Vorticella marina_.] Genus ZOOTHAMNIUM (Bory de St. Vincent 1824) Stein '38, '54. Colorless and highly contractile forms growing in small or large colonies. The form and structure of the individuals is not different from _Vorticella_. The colonies are usually richly branched upon the dichotomous plan and the entire colony is contractile. The main character is that with each division of the individual the stalk also divides, each daughter cell getting one-half of the parent stem. The stems therefore remain in communication, so that a simultaneous contraction results, and the colony as a whole is withdrawn. In some species so-called macrogonidia, or larger sexual individuals, are developed alongside the usual ones. Fresh and salt water. Zoothamnium elegans D'Udekem '64? Fig. 61. The bodies are variable--peristomial border widely dilated, tapering and attenuate posteriorly. The pedicle is slender, smooth, and transparent, and branches sparsely at its distal extremity. There are but few zooids (3 to 4). The ciliary disk projects conspicuously beyond the peristomial border. The pharyngeal cleft is very distinct and extends beyond center of body. Length of body 80µ. [Illustration: Fig. 61.--_Zoothamnium elegans_.] Genus COTHURNIA (Ehr. '31) Clap. & Lach. '58. Colorless forms of medium size-in some cases they may be green by Zoochlorella. The general structure is similar to that of _Vorticella_, but the individuals are elongate and occupy houses. The macronucleus is invariably long and band-form. The distinguishing character is the colorless or brownish lorica of quite variable form but always attached. These houses may be finger-formed, with widened center, or widened mouth, or constricted mouth, and the like. Ring-formed swellings are frequently developed. Sometimes the mouth becomes twisted and the lorica is therefore bilateral. The houses are attached either directly to some foreign object or by means of a short stalk. The animals are similarly fastened to the lorica, sometimes directly, sometimes by means of a short stalk. When they contract they draw back to the bottom of the lorica; when expanded they usually stretch out of the mouth opening. In some forms there is an operculum, by means of which the opening of the shell can be closed when the animal is retracted. Fresh and salt water. The number of species of _Cothurnia_ has become so great that the difficulty in placing forms is almost sufficient to discourage the systematist; as Bütschli well remarks, the variations in the theca have been made the basis of new species so many times that the genus is almost as confused as _Difflugia_ among the rhizopods or _Campanularia_ among the hydroids. The length of cup, of stalk, the presence of annulations on stalk or cup, etc., have given rise to many specific names, the majority of which I believe can be discarded. According to such differentials the same branch of an alga holding a hundred specimens of _Cothurnia crystallina_ yield 10 or 12 species, whereas they are merely growth stages of one and the same form. Cothurnia crystallina Ehr. Fig. 62. Synonyms: _Vaginicolla crystallina_ Ehr., Perty, Eichwald; _V. grandis_ Perty; _V. pedunculata_ Eichwald; _Cothurnia crystallina_ Claparède & Lachmann, D'Udek.; _C. gigantea_ D'Udek; _C. maritima_, _C. crystallina_ Cohn; _C. grandis_ Meresch. The form of the cup shows the greatest differences; sometimes it is cylindrical, sometimes elongate thimble-shape, sometimes pouch-shape, corrugated or smooth on the sides, and wavy or smooth on border. Frequently the basal part becomes stalk-like, but this is very short. When present, the stalk may or may not have a knob-like swelling. The animal within the cup may or may not be borne on a stalk, and this stalk may or may not be knobbed. The cups are colorless or brown. The animal is very contractile and may stretch half its length out of the cup or retract well into it. There is no operculum. The length of the cup varies from 70µ to 200µ (_C. gigantea_; _Vag. grandis_, etc.). From Entz. There is nothing to add to Entz's characterization of this species, which is found both in fresh and salt water. The variability of the cup and stalk is quite noticeable in the Woods Hole forms. [Illustration: Fig. 62.--_Cothurnia crystallina_.] Cothurnia imberbis Ehrenberg, var. curvula Entz. Fig. 63. Synonyms: _C. imberbis_ Kent et al.; _C. curvula_ Entz; _C. socialis_ Gruber? The lorica is swollen posteriorly, narrowest at the oral margin, bent on its axis and is supported on a short stalk. It is perfectly smooth and without annulations. The animal itself has no definite stalk. When fully expanded the animal emerges but slightly from the margin of the cup. Fresh and salt water. On red algæ. Dimensions of Woods Hole form: Cup 50 to 55µ long; greatest diameter 22µ; length of stalk 4 to 5µ. [Illustration: Fig. 63.--_Cothurnia imberbis_.] Cothurnia nodosa Claparède & Lachmann. Fig.64. A. Smooth cup.--_Cothurnia maritima_ Ehr., Eichwald, Stein, Kent. B. Cross-ringed cup.--_C. pupa_ Eichwald, Stein, Cohn; _C. nodosa_ Cl & L.; _V. crystallina_ Entz '78; _C. pontica_ Meresch., Kent; _C. cohnii_ and _pupa_ Kent; _C. longipes_ Kellicott '94. The cup is elongated, swollen centrally, tapering at oral end and conical at base or rounded. Oral opening either circular or elliptical. Cross rings may or may not be present, and the cup is either smooth or annulate. Length of cup 70µ to 80µ. The stalk which supports the cup is extremely variable in length. The animal is borne upon a stalk of variable length within the cup. Entz states that the many variations which this species exhibits run into each other so gradually that he does not believe it wise to separate them. The Woods Hole forms which I found on algæ of various kinds were nearly of a size, and did not vary much from the one figured. Kellicott '94 described a _Cothurnia_ from Woods Hole under the name of _C. longipes_, which I believe is only a long-stemmed variety of _C. nodosa_. My form has the following dimensions: Cup 75µ; cup stalk 38µ; animal stalk 14µ. [Illustration: Fig. 64.--_Cothurnia nodosa_.] KEY TO FAMILIES OF SUCTORIA. a. Unattached forms; ventral cilia _Hypocomidæ_ present; one suctorial tentacle b. Attached forms; thecate and _Urnulidæ_ athecate tentacles simple, one or two in number c. Thecate; posterior end of cup _Metacinetidæ_ drawn out into stalk; walls perforated for exit of tentacles d. Stalked or unstalked; globular; _Podophryidæ_ tentacles of different kinds, some (2 genera *_Ephelota_, knobbed, others pointed *_Podophrya_) e. Naked or thecate; stalked or not; _Acinetidæ_ tentacles numerous, usually knobbed and all alike f. Naked; athecate; tentacles _Dendrosomidæ_ numerous, all alike, knobbed and grouped in tufts. They may be simple or branched. g. Sessile forms resting on basal _Dendrocometidæ_ surface or on a portion raised like a stalk; tentacles many; short and knobbed; distributed on apical surface or localized on branched arms h. Stalked or sessile; tentacles _Ophryodendridæ_ long, rarely knobbed, supported on proboscis-like processes * Presence at Woods Hole indicated by asterisk. Genus PODOPHRYA Ehr. '33. (Bütschli '88; Stein '59; Perty '52; Cienkowsky '55; Quenn. '69; Hertwig '77; Maupas '81.) The body is globular, with tentacles radiating in all directions. The tentacles may be very short or very long. The stalk also is either short or long, and some species form stalks but rarely (_P. libera_). The macronucleus is centrally placed and globular to ovoid in form. The contractile vacuole is usually single. Reproduction takes place by division; the distal half developing cilia and becoming a swarm-spore. Fresh and salt water. Podophrya gracilis, n. sp. Fig. 65. Of all the _Podophrya_ that have been described not one approaches this minute form in the relative length of the stalk. The body is spherical and is covered with short capitate tentacles. The stalk is extremely slender, bent, and without obvious structure. There are one or two contractile vacuoles in the distal half of the body. The nucleus is small and is situated near the insertion-point of the stalk. Reproduction not observed. Diameter of body 8µ; length of stalk 40µ. Only one specimen seen. [Illustration: Fig. 65.--_Podophrya gracilis_.] Genus EPHELOTA Str. Wright '78. (Bütschli '88; Ishikawa '96; Sand '98.) Small to medium-sized and large forms; colorless to brown. The body is globular or oval or wedge-shape, sometimes quadrangular. The stalk is variable, sometimes 1 mm. in length. The diameter of the stalk increases from the point of attachment to the body of the animal; it is usually striated either longitudinally or transversely, or both. The tentacles are of two kinds and are usually confined to the anterior half of the body. Some are long and sharp-pointed and adapted for piercing; others are short, cylindrical, usually retracted and capitate, adapted for sucking. Contractile vacuoles vary from one to many. The macronucleus is nearly central in position and usually of horseshoe shape, but is frequently branched and irregular. Reproduction is accomplished by external multiple budding, usually from the anterior half of the body. Salt water. Ephelota coronata Str. Wright. Fig. 66. Synonyms: _Hemiophrya gemmipara_ S. K.; _Podophrya gemmipara_ Hertwig. The body is spheroidal, ovate, or pyriform, with numerous sharp-pointed tentacles and a few straight, uniform tentacles. The stalk is about three times the length of the body and tapers from its widest part at the insertion in the body to the narrowest part at the point of attachment. It may or may not be longitudinally striated. This is one of the commonest of the _Suctoria_ found at Woods Hole. It is usually present on Campanularian hydroids, but may be found on algæ and Bryozoa. Length of body 90µ to 200µ. [Illustration: Fig. 66.--_Ephelota coronata_.] Genus ACINETA Ehr. '33, Bütschli '88. (Stein '54, '59; Claparède & Lachman '58; Quennerstedt '67; Hertwig '76; Mereschowsky '79; Entz '84; Kent '81; Maupas '83; Gruber '84; Gourret & Roeser '86, and others.) Small to medium-sized forms. The distinguishing feature is that the stalk is swollen at the distal extremity to form a cup or basin in which the animal rests. The cup may be developed until the body is nearly inclosed. The macronucleus is spherical or band form. The contractile vacuole is usually single. Budding, so far as known, is endogenous. Fresh and salt water. Acineta divisa Fraipont '79. Fig. 67. This extremely graceful form is common on Bryozoa at Woods Hole. The cup is shaped like a wine glass and is specifically characterized by a cup-formed membrane upon which the animal rests. The animal thus has the appearance of being suspended on the edge of the cup. The stalk is slender and about 4 times the length of the body. The tentacles are all capitate and distributed, and about 2-1/2 times the body length. They sway back and forth very slowly. The nucleus is spherical and central in position. The contractile vacuole lies near the periphery. Length of body 27µ; of stalk 100µ; of extended tentacle 65µ. [Illustration: Fig. 67.--_Acineta divisa_.] Acineta tuberosa Ehr. Fig. 68. Large forms of _Suctoria_ with tentacles arranged in fascicles. The stalk is variable in length and the cup is frequently so delicate that it can barely be made out. A specific characteristic is the break in continuity of the cup at different points, and through these places the tentacles emerge in bundles. The tentacles are capitate and in the Woods Hole form, 15 in number in each of the two bundles. The endoplasm is granular and yellowish in color. The coloring matter is frequently arranged in patterns. The nucleus is spheroidal. The contractile vacuole is in the anterior third of the body about midway between the bundles of tentacles. Reproduction not observed. Length of body 330µ. [Illustration: Fig. 68.--_Acineta tuberosa_.] Genus TRICHOPHRYA Clap. & Lach. '58. (See Kent '81; Entz '84; Bütschli '88; Sand 1901.) Small forms to medium size; no cups or stalks. The body is spherical to elongate, usually, however, more or less irregularly lobed and changeable. The tentacles are in fascicles which are usually borne upon lobed or swollen places. The body is always more or less spread out. Contractile vacuoles variable. The macronucleus is spherical, elongate, band-formed or horseshoe-shaped. Reproduction takes place by endogenous budding, and the swarm spores are flat or lenticular with a distinct ciliary girdle. They are frequently parasitic. Fresh and salt water. Trichophrya salparum Entz '84. Fig. 69. Bütschli '88; Schewiakoff '93; _Trichophrya ascidiarum_ Lachmann '59; René Sand 1901. The body is somewhat cup-form, with a large, flat base. The anterior border is rounded, each of the ends being somewhat truncate and carrying a bundle of tentacles all capitate and similar. These may be continued internally as far as the nucleus (Sand). The cytoplasm is uncolored, but may contain some brilliant granules. The nucleus is granular, and spherical, band or horseshoe formed. [Illustration: Fig. 69.--_Trichophrya salparum_.] This species was found by Dr. G. Hunter on the branchial bars of the Ascidian _Molgula manhattensis_, where great numbers of them are often parasitic. LIST OF REFERENCES. AUERBACH, L. '54. Ueber Encystierung von Oxytricha pellionella. Zeit. wiss. Zool., V, 1854. ---- '55. Ueber die Einzelligkeit der Amoeben. Zeit. wiss. Zool., VII, 1855. BALBIANI E. G. '61. Recherches sur les phénomènes sexuelles des Infusoires. Jour. de la physiol:, IV, 1861. ---- '85. Sur un Infusoire parasite du sang de l'Aselle aquatique. Rec. zool. Suisse, II, 1885. BERGH, R. S. '79. _Tiarina fusus_ Cl. & Lach. Vid. Med. f. d. Nat. Foren. Kjobenhavn. ---- '82. Der Organismus der Cilioflagellaten. Morph. Jahr., VII, p. 177. BRADY, H. B. '79. Report on the Foraminifera dredged by H. M. S. _Challenger_ during the years 1873-1876. Challenger Reports, Zoology, IX. BRANDT, K. '96. Die Tintinnodeen. Bibliot. Zoolog., XX, 1896. BÜTSCHLI, O. '76. Studien über die ersten Entwickelungsvorg. der Eizelle, die Zelltheilung, und die Conjugation der Infusorien. Abhand. der Senck. naturf. Ges. Freiburg, X, 1876. ---- '83-'88. Die Protozoen. Bronn's Klassen u. Ord. des Tierreichs. CARPENTER, W. B. '56. Researches on the Foraminifera. Phil. Trans. (2), p. 547. CARTER, H. J. '56. Notes on the fresh-water Infusoria of the island of Bombay. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (2), XVIII. ---- '63. On the coloring matter of the Red Sea. Id. (3), XI. ---- '63a. On _Amoeba princeps_ and its reproductive cells. Id. (3), XII. ---- '64. On fresh-water Rhizopods of England and India. Id. (3), XIII, p. 13. ---- '65. On the fresh- and salt-water Rhizopods of England and India. Id. (3), XV, p. 277. CIENKOWSKY, L. '55. Bemerkungen über Stein's Acinetenlehre. Bull. Phys. Math. Acad., St. Petersburg, XIII, p. 297 (also in Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (3), XIII). ---- '55. Ueber Cystenbildung bei Infusorien. Zeit. wiss. Zool., VI, p. 301. ---- '61. Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Monaden. Arch. f. mik. Anat., I, 1865, p. 203. CLAPARÈDE, E. '54. On _Actinophrys sol_. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (2), XV, 1854. ---- '60. Recherches sur les annélides, etc., observés dans les Hébrides. Mém. Soc. phys. d'hist. nat., Genève, XVI, 1860. ---- '67. Miscellanées zoologiques. Ann. d. sc. nat. zool. (5), VIII, 1867. CLAPARÈDE ET LACHMANN '58-'60. Etudes sur les Infusoires et les Rhizopodes. Mém. Inst. genèvoise, V, VI, VII. COHN, F. '54. Beiträge z. Entwicklungsges. der Infusorien. Zeit. wiss. Zool. III, 1851; IV, 1853. ---- '57. Ueber Fortpflanzung von _Nassula elegans_ Ehr. Zeit. wiss. Zool., IX, 1857, p. 143. COSTE, M. '64. Développement des Infusoires ciliés dans une macération de foin. Ann. d. ac. nat. zool.(5), II. DADAY, E. v. '86. Ein kleiner Beitrag der Infusorien-Fauna des Golfes v. Neapel. Mitt. Zool. St. Neap., VI, p. 481. ---- '88. Monographie der Familie der Tintinnodeen. Mitt. Zool. St. Neap., VIII, p. 473. DAVIS, J. '79. On a new species of Cothurnia. Jour. Roy. Mic. Soc., II, 1879. DUJARDIN, F. '35. Recherches sur les organismes inférieures. Ann. d. sc. nat. zool. (2), IV, p. 343. ---- '41. Histoire naturelle des Zoophytes infusoires. Paris, 1841. EHRENBERG, C. G. '31. Ueber die Entwickelung und Lebensdauer d. Infusionsthiere. Abhand. d. Berlin Ak., 1831, p. 1. ---- '38. Die Infusionsthierchen als vollkommne Organismen. Leipzig, 1838. ENGELMANN, Th. W. '78. Zur Physiologie der Contractilen Vacuolen der Infusionsthiere. Zool. Anz., I, p. 121. ENTZ, G. '84. Ueber Infusorien d. Golfes v. Neapel. Mitt. Zool. St. Neap., V, p. 289. ---- '85. Zur naheren Kenntniss der Tintinnodeen. Mitt. Zool. St. Neap., VI, p. 185. FABRE-DOMERGUE, P. '85. Note sur les Infusoires ciliés de la baie de Concarneau. Jour. d. l'anat. et de la phys., XXI, p. 554. ---- '91. Matériaux pour servir a l'histoire des Infusoires ciliés. Ann. d. mic., III, 1890-91, p. 49. FOL, H. '83. Further contribution to the knowledge of the Tintinnodea. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (5), XII, p.73. FRANCÉ, R. H. '97. Der organismus der Craspedomonaden. Budapest. FROMENTEL. E. DE. '74. Etudes sur les microzoaires, etc. Paris, 1874. GOURRET ET ROESER. '88. Contributions à l'étude des Protozoaires de la Corse. Arch. d. biol., VIII p. 139. GREEFF, R. '66. Ueber einige in der Erde lebende Amoeben und andere Rhizopoden. Arch. f. mik. Anat., II, p. 299. ---- '70. Untersuchungen ueber den Bau u. d. Naturgeschichte d. Vorticellen. Arch. f. Naturges., XXXVI, XXXVII. ---- '71. Ueber die Actinophryens oder Sonnenthierchen des Süssenwassers als echte Radiolarien. Sitz. Ber. d. Niederrh. Ges. i. Bonn, XXVIII, p. 4. ---- '75. Ueber Radiolarien u. Radiolarienartige Rhizopoden des Süssenwassers 2. Arch. f. mik. Anat., XI. ---- '88. Studien über Protozoen. Sitz. Ber. Ges. z. Bef. d. ges. Nat., Marburg, 1888, p. 91. GRENACHER, H. '68. Ueber _Actinophrys sol_ Ehr. Verh. phys.-med. Ges. Freiburg (n. F.), I. GRUBER, A. '83. Beobachtungen an _Chilodon curvidentis_ n. sp. Festschr. 56. Vers. Deutsch. Naturf. gewid. v. d. Naturf. Ges. Freiburg, II, p. 1. ---- '84. Die Protozoen des Hafens v. Genua. Nova Act. d. K. Leop.-Car. Deutsch. Akad. d. Naturf., XLVI, p. 475. ---- '87. Ueber der Bedeutung der Conjugation bei den Infusorien. Ber. d. Naturf. Ges. Freiburg, II, p. 31. HÆCKEL, E. '73. Zur Morphologie der Infusorien. Jena Zeit., VII, p. 516. HERTWIG, R. '76. Ueber _Podophrya gemmipara_, nebst Bemerkungen zum Bau u. d. systemat. Stellung d. Acineten. Morph. Jahr., IV, p. 20. HERTWIG U. LESSER. Ueber Rhizopoden u. denselben nahe stehende Organismen. Arch. F. mik. Anat., X, Suppl., p. 35. HUXLEY, T. H. '57. On Dysteria, a new genus of Infusoria. Jour. Mic. Sci., V, p. 78. ISHIKAWA, C. Ueber eine in Misaki vorkommende Art v. Ephelota, etc. Journ. Coll. Sci. Imp. Univ. Tokyo, Japan, X, pt. 2. JAMES-CLARK, H. '66. On the Spongiæ ciliatæ as Infusoria flagellata, etc. Mem. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. (3), I, p. 1. KENT, W. SAVILLE. '81. Manual of the Infusoria. London, 1881. KLEBS, G. '84. Ein kleiner Beitrag z. Kenntniss d. Peridineen. Bot. Zeit., XLII, p. 721. ---- '92. Flagellaten Studien 1. Zeit. wiss. Zool., LV. LABBÉ, A. '95. Sur les Protozoaires marins de Roscoff. Arch. d. zool. expér. (3), N. et R., p. XIV. LAUTERBORN, R. '94. Beiträge z. Süsswasserfauna der Insel Helgoland. Wiss. Meeresunt. Komm. wiss. Unt. d. Meere Kiel (2), I, p. 215. LEIDY, J. '77. Remarks upon Rhizopods and notice of a new form. Proc. Ac. Sci. Phila., 1877, p. 293. ---- '79. Fresh water Rhizopods of North America. Washington, 1879. LIEBERKÜHN, N. '56. Ueber Protozoen. Notes from a letter to C. Th. v. Siebold. Zeit. wiss. Zool., VIII, p. 307. MAUPAS, E. '81. Contributions à l'étude des Acinétiens. Arch. d. zool. expér. (1), IX, p. 299. ---- '83. Contributions à l'étude morphologique et anatomique des Infusoires ciliés. Id. (2), I. ---- '83a. Les sucto-ciliés de M. Mereschowsky. Comp. Ren., XCV, p. 1381. ---- '88. Recherches expérimentales sur la multiplication des Infusoires ciliés. Arch. d. zool. exper. (2), VI, p. 165. MERESKOWSKY, C. '78. Studien über Protozoen des nordlichen Russland. Arch. f. mik. Anat., XVI, p. 163. ---- '81. On some new or little-known Infusoria. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (5), VII, 1881. MOEBIUS, K. '88. Bruchstücke einer Infusorienfauna der Kieler Bucht. Arch. f. Naturg., 1888. PECK, J. I. '93. On the food of the menhaden. Bull. U. S. Fish Com., 1893, p. 113. ---- '95. The sources of marine food. Bull. U. S. Fish Com., 1895, p. 351. PERTY, M. '49. Mikrosk. Organ. der Alpen u. d. Italien. Schweiz. Mitt. d. Naturf. Ges. in Bern, 164-165. ---- '52. Zur Kenntniss kleinster Lebensformen, etc., Bern. POUCHET, G. '83; '85. Contributions à l'histoire des Péridiniens marins. Jour. de l'anat. et de la phys., XIX, XXI. QUENNERSTEDT, A. '65; '67; '69. Bidrag till Sveriges Infusorie-fauna. Lunds Univ. Ärsskrift, II, IV, VI. SAND, R. 1901. Etude monographique sur le groupe des Infusoires tentaculifères. Ann. d. la Soc. belge de microscopie, XXIV, XXV, XXVI. SCHAUDINN, F. '95. Die Heliozoen. Das Tierreich, 1895. SCHEWIAKOFF, W. '89. Beiträge z. Kenntniss der Holotrichen Ciliaten. Bib. Zool., V, p. 1. ---- '93. Ueber einige ecto- u. ento-parasitische Protozoen der Cyclopiden. Bull. Soc. nat. Moscou, 1893. I. SCHUETT, F. '95. Die Peridineen d. Plankton-Expedition, 1. Kiel u. Leipzig. SCHULTZE, F. E. '74; 75. Rhizopodenstudien. Arch. f. mik. Anat., X, XI, XIII. SCHULTZE, M. '62. Ueber d. Organismus d. Polythalamien. Leipzig, 1862. SHEVYAKOV ?. '96. Monograph on _Holotrichous ciliates_. (In Russian.) Mem. of the St. Petersburg Acad., VII. STEIN, F. '59; '78; '83. Der Organismus der Infusionsthiere. I. Infusoria, '59; II. Infusoria, '78; III. Flagellata, '83. ---- '49. Untersuchung über die Entwicklungs d. Infusorien. Arch. f. Natur., I, p. 92. ---- '54. Die Infusionsthiere auf ihre Entwicklungsgeschichte untersucht. Leipzig, 1854. ---- '60. Ueber _Leucophrys patula_ u. über 2 neue Infusoriengattungen Gyrocoris u. Lophomonas. Sitz. Ber. d. K.-böhm. Ges. d. Wiss. d. Prag, 1860, p. 4. ---- '64. Ueber die neue Gattung Epiclintes. Id., 1864, I. STERKI, V. '78. Beiträge z. Morphologie der Oxytrichinen. Zeit. wiss. Zool., XXXI, p. 29. ---- '98. On the classification of ciliate Infusoria. Amer. Natur., XXXII, p. 425. STEVENS, N. M. 1901. Studies on ciliate Infusoria. Proc. Calif. Acad. Sciences, III, 1. STOKES, A. C. '84. Notices of some new parasitic Infusoria. Amer. Nat., XVIII, p. 1081. ---- '85. Some apparently undescribed Infusoria from fresh water. Id., XIX, p. 18. ---- '87. Some new hypotrichous Infusoria from American fresh waters. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (5), 20. TATEM, T. G. '67. New species of microscopic animals. Q. J. M. S. (n.s.), VII, p. 251. VEJDOWSKY, F. '79. Monographie der Enchytraeiden. Prag, 1869. WALLENGREN, H. '94. Studier ofver ciliata Infusorier, 1. Slagtet Lichnophora. Lund, 1894. WALLICH, G. C. '63. Observations on an undescribed indigenous Amoeba. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (3), XI, XII. WESTON, J. '56. On the _Actinophrys sol_. Q. J. M. S., IV, p. 116. WRZESNIOWSKI A. '61. Observations sur quelques Infusoires. Ann. d. sc. nat. zool. (6), XVI. ---- '69. Ein Beitrag zur Anatomie der Infusorien. Arch. f. mik. Anat., V, p. 25. ---- '70. Beobachtungen über Infusorien a. d. Umgebung v. Warschau. Zeit. wiss. Zool., XX, p. 467. 
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2422	----	COMPLEAT ANGLER*** Transcribed from the 1896 J. M. Dent edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk ANDREW LANG'S INTRODUCTION TO THE COMPLEAT ANGLER To write on Walton is, indeed, to hold a candle to the sun. The editor has been content to give a summary of the chief or rather the only known, events in Walton's long life, adding a notice of his character as displayed in his Biographies and in _The Compleat Angler_, with comments on the ancient and modern practice of fishing, illustrated by passages from Walton's foregoers and contemporaries. Like all editors of Walton, he owes much to his predecessors, Sir John Hawkins, Oldys, Major, and, above all, to the learned Sir Harris Nicolas. HIS LIFE The few events in the long life of Izaak Walton have been carefully investigated by Sir Harris Nicolas. All that can be extricated from documents by the alchemy of research has been selected, and I am unaware of any important acquisitions since Sir Harris Nicolas's second edition of 1860. Izaak was of an old family of Staffordshire yeomen, probably descendants of George Walton of Yoxhall, who died in 1571. Izaak's father was Jarvis Walton, who died in February 1595-6; of Izaak's mother nothing is known. Izaak himself was born at Stafford, on August 9, 1593, and was baptized on September 21. He died on December 15, 1683, having lived in the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., under the Commonwealth, and under Charles II. The anxious and changeful age through which he passed is in contrast with his very pacific character and tranquil pursuits. Of Walton's education nothing is known, except on the evidence of his writings. He may have read Latin, but most of the books he cites had English translations. Did he learn his religion from 'his mother or his nurse'? It will be seen that the free speculation of his age left him untouched: perhaps his piety was awakened, from childhood, under the instruction of a pious mother. Had he been orphaned of both parents (as has been suggested) he might have been less amenable to authority, and a less notable example of the virtues which Anglicanism so vainly opposed to Puritanismism. His literary beginnings are obscure. There exists a copy of a work, _The Loves of Amos and Laura_, written by S. P., published in 1613, and again in 1619. The edition of 1619 is dedicated to 'Iz. Wa.':-- 'Thou being cause _it is as now it is_'; the Dedication does not occur in the one imperfect known copy of 1613. Conceivably the words, 'as now it is' refer to the edition of 1619, which might have been emended by Walton's advice. But there are no emendations, hence it is more probable that Walton revised the poem in 1613, when he was a man of twenty, or that he merely advised the author to publish:-- 'For, hadst thou held thy tongue, by silence might These have been buried in oblivion's night.' S. P. also remarks:-- 'No ill thing can be clothed in thy verse'; hence Izaak was already a rhymer, and a harmless one, under the Royal Prentice, gentle King Jamie. By this time Walton was probably settled in London. A deed in the possession of his biographer, Dr. Johnson's friend, Sir John Hawkins, shows that, in 1614, Walton held half of a shop on the north side of Fleet Street, two doors west of Chancery Lane: the other occupant was a hosier. Mr. Nicholl has discovered that Walton was made free of the Ironmongers' Company on Nov. 12, 1618. He is styled an Ironmonger in his marriage licence. The facts are given in Mr. Marston's Life of Walton, prefixed to his edition of _The Compleat Angler_ (1888). It is odd that a prentice ironmonger should have been a poet and a critic of poetry. Dr. Donne, before 1614, was Vicar of St. Dunstan's in the West, and in Walton had a parishioner, a disciple, and a friend. Izaak greatly loved the society of the clergy: he connected himself with Episcopal families, and had a natural taste for a Bishop. Through Donne, perhaps, or it may be in converse across the counter, he made acquaintance with Hales of Eton, Dr. King, and Sir Henry Wotton, himself an angler, and one who, like Donne and Izaak, loved a ghost story, and had several in his family. Drayton, the river-poet, author of the _Polyolbion_, is also spoken of by Walton as 'my old deceased friend.' On Dec. 27, 1626, Walton married, at Canterbury, Rachel Floud, a niece, on the maternal side, by several descents, of Cranmer, the famous Archbishop of Canterbury. The Cranmers were intimate with the family of the judicious Hooker, and Walton was again connected with kinsfolk of that celebrated divine. Donne died in 1631, leaving to Walton, and to other friends, a bloodstone engraved with Christ crucified on an anchor: the seal is impressed on Walton's will. When Donne's poems were published in 1633, Walton added commendatory verses:-- 'As all lament (Or should) this general cause of discontent.' The parenthetic 'or should' is much in Walton's manner. 'Witness my mild pen, not used to upbraid the world,' is also a pleasant and accurate piece of self-criticism. 'I am his convert,' Walton exclaims. In a citation from a manuscript which cannot be found, and perhaps never existed, Walton is spoken of as 'a very sweet poet in his youth, and more than all in matters of love.' {1} Donne had been in the same case: he, or Time, may have converted Walton from amorous ditties. Walton, in an edition of Donne's poems of 1635, writes of 'This book (dry emblem) which begins With love; but ends with tears and sighs for sins.' The preacher and his convert had probably a similar history of the heart: as we shall see, Walton, like the Cyclops, had known love. Early in 1639, Wotton wrote to Walton about a proposed Life of Donne, to be written by himself, and hoped 'to enjoy your own ever welcome company in the approaching time of the _Fly_ and the _Cork_.' Wotton was a fly-fisher; the cork, or float, or 'trembling quill,' marks Izaak for the bottom-fisher he was. Wotton died in December 1639; Walton prefixed his own Life of Donne to that divine's sermons in 1640. He says, in the Dedication of the reprint of 1658, that 'it had the approbation of our late learned and eloquent King,' the martyred Charles I. Living in, or at the corner of Chancery Lane, Walton is known to have held parochial office: he was even elected 'scavenger.' He had the misfortune to lose seven children--of whom the last died in 1641--his wife, and his mother- in-law. In 1644 he left Chancery Lane, and probably retired from trade. He was, of course, a Royalist. Speaking of the entry of the Scots, who came, as one of them said, 'for the goods,--and chattels of the English,' he remarks, 'I saw and suffered by it.' {2} He also mentions that he 'saw' shops shut by their owners till Laud should be put to death, in January 1645. In his Life of Sanderson, Walton vouches for an anecdote of 'the knowing and conscientious King,' Charles, who, he says, meant to do public penance for Strafford's death, and for the abolishing of Episcopacy in Scotland. But the condition, 'peaceable possession of the Crown,' was not granted to Charles, nor could have been granted to a prince who wished to reintroduce Bishops in Scotland. Walton had his information from Dr. Morley. On Nov. 25, 1645, Walton probably wrote, though John Marriott signed, an Address to the Reader, printed, in 1646, with Quarles's _Shepherd's Eclogues_. The piece is a little idyll in prose, and 'angle, lines, and flies' are not omitted in the description of 'the fruitful month of May,' while Pan is implored to restore Arcadian peace to Britannia, 'and grant that each honest shepherd may again sit under his own vine and fig-tree, and feed his own flock,' when the King comes, no doubt. 'About' 1646 Walton married Anne, half-sister of Bishop Ken, a lady 'of much Christian meeknesse.' Sir Harris Nicolas thinks that he only visited Stafford occasionally, in these troubled years. He mentions fishing in 'Shawford brook'; he was likely to fish wherever there was water, and the brook flowed through land which, as Mr. Marston shows, he acquired about 1656. In 1650 a child was born to Walton in Clerkenwell; it died, but another, Isaac, was born in September 1651. In 1651 he published the _Reliquiae Wottonianae_, with a Memoir of Sir Henry Wotton. The knight had valued Walton's company as a cure for 'those splenetic vapours that are called hypochondriacal.' Worcester fight was on September 3, 1651; the king was defeated, and fled, escaping, thanks to a stand made by Wogan, and to the loyalty of Mistress Jane Lane, and of many other faithful adherents. A jewel of Charles's, the lesser George, was preserved by Colonel Blague, who intrusted it to Mr. Barlow of Blore Pipe House, in Staffordshire. Mr. Barlow gave it to Mr. Milward, a Royalist prisoner in Stafford, and he, in turn, intrusted it to Walton, who managed to convey it to Colonel Blague in the Tower. The colonel escaped, and the George was given back to the king. Ashmole, who tells the story, mentions Walton as 'well beloved of all good men.' This incident is, perhaps, the only known adventure in the long life of old Izaak. The peaceful angler, with a royal jewel in his pocket, must have encountered many dangers on the highway. He was a man of sixty when he published his _Compleat Angler_ in 1653, and so secured immortality. The quiet beauties of his manner in his various biographies would only have made him known to a few students, who could never have recognised Byron's 'quaint, old, cruel coxcomb' in their author. 'The whole discourse is a kind of picture of my own disposition, at least of my disposition in such days and times as I allow myself when honest Nat. and R. R. and I go a-fishing together.' Izaak speaks of the possibility that his book may reach a second edition. There are now editions more than a hundred! Waltonians should read Mr. Thomas Westwood's Preface to his _Chronicle of the Compleat Angler_: it is reprinted in Mr. Marston's edition. Mr. Westwood learned to admire Walton at the feet of Charles Lamb:-- 'No fisher, But a well-wisher To the game,' as Scott describes himself. {3} Lamb recommended Walton to Coleridge; 'it breathes the very spirit of innocence, purity, and simplicity of heart; . . . it would sweeten a man's temper at any time to read it; it would Christianise every angry, discordant passion; pray make yourself acquainted with it.' (Oct. 28, 1796.) According to Mr. Westwood, Lamb had 'an early copy,' found in a repository of marine stores, but not, even then, to be bought a bargain. Mr. Westwood fears that Lamb's copy was only Hawkins's edition of 1760. The original is extremely scarce. Mr. Locker had a fine copy; there is another in the library of Dorchester House: both are in their primitive livery of brown sheep, or calf. The book is one which only the wealthy collector can hope, with luck, to call his own. A small octavo, sold at eighteen-pence, _The Compleat Angler_ was certain to be thumbed into nothingness, after enduring much from May showers, July suns, and fishy companionship. It is almost a wonder that any examples of Walton's and Bunyan's first editions have survived into our day. The little volume was meant to find a place in the bulging pockets of anglers, and was well adapted to that end. The work should be reprinted in a similar format: quarto editions are out of place. The fortunes of the book, the _fata libelli_, have been traced by Mr. Westwood. There are several misprints (later corrected) in the earliest copies, as (p. 88) 'Fordig' for 'Fordidg,' (p. 152) 'Pudoch' for 'Pudock.' The appearance of the work was advertised in _The Perfect Diurnal_ (May 9-16), and in No. 154 of _The Mercurius Politicus_ (May 19- 26), also in an almanack for 1654. Izaak, or his publisher Marriott, cunningly brought out the book at a season when men expect the Mayfly. Just a month before, Oliver Cromwell had walked into the House of Commons, in a plain suit of black clothes, with grey stockings. His language, when he spoke, was reckoned unparliamentary (as it undeniably was), and he dissolved the Long Parliament. While Marriott was advertising Walton's work, Cromwell was making a Parliament of Saints, 'faithful, fearing God, and hating covetousness.' This is a good description of Izaak, but he was not selected. In the midst of revolutions came _The Compleat Angler_ to the light, a possession for ever. Its original purchasers are not likely to have taken a hand in Royalist plots or saintly conventicles. They were peaceful men. A certain Cromwellian trooper, Richard Franck, was a better angler than Walton, and he has left to us the only contemporary and contemptuous criticism of his book: to this we shall return, but anglers, as a rule, unlike Franck, must have been for the king, and on Izaak's side in controversy. Walton brought out a second edition in 1655. He rewrote the book, adding more than a third, suppressing _Viator_, and introducing _Venator_. New plates were added, and, after the manner of the time, commendatory verses. A third edition appeared in 1661, a fourth (published by Simon Gape, not by Marriott) came out in 1664, a fifth in 1668 (counting Gape's of 1664 as a new edition), and in 1676, the work, with treatises by Venables and Charles Cotton, was given to the world as _The Universal Angler_. Five editions in twelve years is not bad evidence of Walton's popularity. But times now altered. Walton is really an Elizabethan: he has the quaint freshness, the apparently artless music of language of the great age. He is a friend of 'country contents': no lover of the town, no keen student of urban ways and mundane men. A new taste, modelled on that of the wits of Louis XIV., had come in: we are in the period of Dryden, and approaching that of Pope. There was no new edition of Walton till Moses Browne (by Johnson's desire) published him, with 'improvements,' in 1750. Then came Hawkins's edition in 1760. Johnson said of Hawkins, 'Why, ma'am, I believe him to be an honest man at the bottom; but, to be sure, he is penurious, and he is mean, and it must be owned he has a degree of brutality, and a tendency to savageness, that cannot easily be defended.' This was hardly the editor for Izaak! However, Hawkins, probably by aid of Oldys the antiquary (as Mr. Marston shows), laid a good foundation for a biography of Walton. Errors he made, but Sir Harris Nicolas has corrected them. Johnson himself reckoned Walton's _Lives_ as 'one of his most favourite books.' He preferred the life of Donne, and justly complained that Walton's story of Donne's vision of his absent wife had been left out of a modern edition. He explained Walton's friendship with persons of higher rank by his being 'a great panegyrist.' The eighteenth century, we see, came back to Walton, as the nineteenth has done. He was precisely the author to suit Charles Lamb. He was reprinted again and again, and illustrated by Stoddart and others. Among his best editors are Major (1839), 'Ephemera' (1853), Nicolas (1836, 1860), and Mr. Marston (1888). The only contemporary criticism known to me is that of Richard Franck, who had served with Cromwell in Scotland, and, not liking the aspect of changing times, returned to the north, and fished from the Esk to Strathnaver. In 1658 he wrote his _Northern Memoirs_, an itinerary of sport, heavily cumbered by dull reflections and pedantic style. Franck, however, was a practical angler, especially for salmon, a fish of which Walton knew nothing: he also appreciated the character of the great Montrose. He went to America, wrote a wild cosmogonic work, and _The Admirable and Indefatigable Adventures of the Nine Pious Pilgrims_ (one pilgrim catches a trout!) (London, 1708). The _Northern Memoirs_ of 1658 were not published till 1694. Sir Walter Scott edited a new issue, in 1821, and defended Izaak from the strictures of the salmon-fisher. Izaak, says Franck, 'lays the stress of his arguments upon other men's observations, wherewith he stuffs his indigested octavo; so brings himself under the angler's censure and the common calamity of a plagiary, to be pitied (poor man) for his loss of time, in scribbling and transcribing other men's notions. . . . I remember in Stafford, I urged his own argument upon him, that pickerel weed of itself breeds pickerel (pike).' Franck proposed a rational theory, 'which my Compleat Angler no sooner deliberated, but dropped his argument, and leaves Gesner to defend it, so huffed away. . . . ' 'So note, the true character of an industrious angler more deservedly falls upon Merrill and Faulkner, or rather Izaak Ouldham, a man that fished salmon with but three hairs at hook, whose collections and experiments were lost with himself,'--a matter much to be regretted. It will be observed, of course, that hair was then used, and gut is first mentioned for angling purposes by Mr. Pepys. Indeed, the flies which Scott was hunting for when he found the lost Ms. of the first part of _Waverley_ are tied on horse-hairs. They are in the possession of the descendants of Scott's friend, Mr. William Laidlaw. The curious angler, consulting Franck, will find that his salmon flies are much like our own, but less variegated. Scott justly remarks that, while Walton was habit and repute a bait-fisher, even Cotton knows nothing of salmon. Scott wished that Walton had made the northern tour, but Izaak would have been sadly to seek, running after a fish down a gorge of the Shin or the Brora, and the discomforts of the north would have finished his career. In Scotland he would not have found fresh sheets smelling of lavender. Walton was in London 'in the dangerous year 1655.' He speaks of his meeting Bishop Sanderson there, 'in sad-coloured clothes, and, God knows, far from being costly.' The friends were driven by wind and rain into 'a cleanly house, where we had bread, cheese, ale, and a fire, for our ready money. The rain and wind were so obliging to me, as to force our stay there for at least an hour, to my great content and advantage; for in that time he made to me many useful observations of the present times with much clearness and conscientious freedom.' It was a year of Republican and Royalist conspiracies: the clergy were persecuted and banished from London. No more is known of Walton till the happy year 1660, when the king came to his own again, and Walton's Episcopal friends to their palaces. Izaak produced an 'Eglog,' on May 29:-- 'The king! The king's returned! And now Let's banish all sad thoughts, and sing: We have our laws, and have our king.' If Izaak was so eccentric as to go to bed sober on that glorious twenty- ninth of May, I greatly misjudge him. But he grew elderly. In 1661 he chronicles the deaths of 'honest Nat. and R. Roe,--they are gone, and with them most of my pleasant hours, even as a shadow that passeth away, and returns not.' On April 17, 1662, Walton lost his second wife: she died at Worcester, probably on a visit to Bishop Morley. In the same year, the bishop was translated to Winchester, where the palace became Izaak's home. The Itchen (where, no doubt, he angled with worm) must have been his constant haunt. He was busy with his Life of Richard Hooker (1665). The peroration, as it were, was altered and expanded in 1670, and this is but one example of Walton's care of his periods. One beautiful passage he is known to have rewritten several times, till his ear was satisfied with its cadences. In 1670 he published his Life of George Herbert. 'I wish, if God shall be so pleased, that I may be so happy as to die like him.' In 1673, in a Dedication of the third edition of _Reliquiae Wottonianae_, Walton alludes to his friendship with a much younger and gayer man than himself, Charles Cotton (born 1630), the friend of Colonel Richard Lovelace, and of Sir John Suckling: the translator of Scarron's travesty of Virgil, and of Montaigne's _Essays_. Cotton was a roisterer, a man at one time deep in debt, but he was a Royalist, a scholar, and an angler. The friendship between him and Walton is creditable to the freshness of the old man and to the kindness of the younger, who, to be sure, laughed at Izaak's heavily dubbed London flies. 'In him,' says Cotton, 'I have the happiness to know the worthiest man, and to enjoy the best and the truest friend any man ever had.' We are reminded of Johnson with Langton and Topham Beauclerk. Meanwhile Izaak the younger had grown up, was educated under Dr. Fell at Christ Church, and made the Grand Tour in 1675, visiting Rome and Venice. In March 1676 he proceeded M.A. and took Holy Orders. In this year Cotton wrote his treatise on fly-fishing, to be published with Walton's new edition; and the famous fishing house on the Dove, with the blended initials of the two friends, was built. In 1678, Walton wrote his Life of Sanderson. . . . ''Tis now too late to wish that my life may be like his, for I am in the eighty-fifth year of my age, but I humbly beseech Almighty God that my death may be; and do as earnestly beg of every reader to say Amen!' He wrote, in 1678, a preface to _Thealma and Clearchus_ (1683). The poem is attributed to John Chalkhill, a Fellow of Winchester College, who died, a man of eighty, in 1679. Two of his songs are in _The Compleat Angler_. Probably the attribution is right: Chalkhill's tomb commemorates a man after Walton's own heart, but some have assigned the volume to Walton himself. Chalkhill is described, on the title-page, as 'an acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spencer,' which is impossible. {4} On August 9, 1683, Walton wrote his will, 'in the neintyeth year of my age, and in perfect memory, for which praised be God.' He professes the Anglican faith, despite 'a very long and very trew friendship for some of the Roman Church.' His worldly estate he has acquired 'neither by falsehood or flattery or the extreme crewelty of the law of this nation.' His property was in two houses in London, the lease of Norington farm, a farm near Stafford, besides books, linen, and a hanging cabinet inscribed with his name, now, it seems, in the possession of Mr. Elkin Mathews. A bequest is made of money for coals to the poor of Stafford, 'every last weike in Janewary, or in every first weike in Febrewary; I say then, because I take that time to be the hardest and most pinching times with pore people.' To the Bishop of Winchester he bequeathed a ring with the posy, 'A Mite for a Million.' There are other bequests, including ten pounds to 'my old friend, Mr. Richard Marriott,' Walton's bookseller. This good man died in peace with his publisher, leaving him also a ring. A ring was left to a lady of the Portsmouth family, 'Mrs. Doro. Wallop.' Walton died, at the house of his son-in-law, Dr. Hawkins, in Winchester, on Dec. 15, 1683: he is buried in the south aisle of the Cathedral. The Cathedral library possesses many of Walton's books, with his name written in them. {5} His _Eusebius_ (1636) contains, on the fly-leaf, repetitions, in various forms, of one of his studied passages. Simple as he seems, he is a careful artist in language. Such are the scanty records, and scantier relics, of a very long life. Circumstances and inclination combined to make Walpole choose the _fallentis semita vitae_. Without ambition, save to be in the society of good men, he passed through turmoil, ever companioned by content. For him existence had its trials: he saw all that he held most sacred overthrown; laws broken up; his king publicly murdered; his friends outcasts; his worship proscribed; he himself suffered in property from the raid of the Kirk into England. He underwent many bereavements: child after child he lost, but content he did not lose, nor sweetness of heart, nor belief. His was one of those happy characters which are never found disassociated from unquestioning faith. Of old he might have been the ancient religious Athenian in the opening of Plato's _Republic_, or Virgil's aged gardener. The happiness of such natures would be incomplete without religion, but only by such tranquil and blessed souls can religion be accepted with no doubt or scruple, no dread, and no misgiving. In his Preface to _Thealma and Clearchus_ Walton writes, and we may use his own words about his own works: 'The Reader will here find such various events and rewards of innocent Truth and undissembled Honesty, as is like to leave in him (if he be a good-natured reader) more sympathising and virtuous impressions, than ten times so much time spent in impertinent, critical, and needless disputes about religion.' Walton relied on authority; on 'a plain, unperplexed catechism.' In an age of the strangest and most dissident theological speculations, an age of Quakers, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Fifth Monarchy Men, Covenanters, Independents, Gibbites, Presbyterians, and what not, Walton was true to the authority of the Church of England, with no prejudice against the ancient Catholic faith. As Gesner was his authority for pickerel weed begetting pike, so the Anglican bishops were security for Walton's creed. To him, if we may say so, it was easy to be saved, while Bunyan, a greater humorist, could be saved only in following a path that skirted madness, and 'as by fire.' To Bunyan, Walton would have seemed a figure like his own Ignorance; a pilgrim who never stuck in the Slough of Despond, nor met Apollyon in the Valley of the Shadow, nor was captive in Doubting Castle, nor stoned in Vanity Fair. And of Bunyan, Walton would have said that he was among those Nonconformists who 'might be sincere, well-meaning men, whose indiscreet zeal might be so like charity, as thereby to cover a multitude of errors.' To Walton there seemed spiritual solace in remembering 'that we have comforted and been helpful to a dejected or distressed family.' Bunyan would have regarded this belief as a heresy, and (theoretically) charitable deeds 'as filthy rags.' Differently constituted, these excellent men accepted religion in different ways. Christian bows beneath a burden of sin; Piscator beneath a basket of trout. Let us be grateful for the diversities of human nature, and the dissimilar paths which lead Piscator and Christian alike to the City not built with hands. Both were seekers for a City which to have sought through life, in patience, honesty, loyalty, and love, is to have found it. Of Walton's book we may say:-- 'Laudis amore tumes? Sunt certa piacula quae te Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello.' WALTON AS A BIOGRAPHER It was probably by his _Lives_, rather than, in the first instance, by his _Angler_, that Walton won the liking of Dr. Johnson, whence came his literary resurrection. It is true that Moses Browne and Hawkins, both friends of Johnson's, edited _The Compleat Angler_ before 1775-1776, when we find Dr. Home of Magdalene, Oxford, contemplating a 'benoted' edition of the _Lives_, by Johnson's advice. But the Walton of the _Lives_ is, rather than the Walton of the _Angler_, the man after Johnson's own heart. The _Angler_ is 'a picture of my own disposition' on holidays. The _Lives_ display the same disposition in serious moods, and in face of the eternal problems of man's life in society. Johnson, we know, was very fond of biography, had thought much on the subject, and, as Boswell notes, 'varied from himself in talk,' when he discussed the measure of truth permitted to biographers. 'If a man is to write a _Panegyrick_, he may keep vices out of sight; but if he professes to write a _Life_, he must represent it as it really was.' Peculiarities were not to be concealed, he said, and his own were not veiled by Boswell. 'Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.' 'They only who live with a man can write his life with any genuine exactness and discrimination; and few people who have lived with a man know what to remark about him.' Walton had lived much in the society of his subjects, Donne and Wotton; with Sanderson he had a slighter acquaintance; George Herbert he had only met; Hooker, of course, he had never seen in the flesh. It is obvious to every reader that his biographies of Donne and Wotton are his best. In Donne's Life he feels that he is writing of an English St. Austin,--'for I think none was so like him before his conversion; none so like St. Ambrose after it: and if his youth had the infirmities of the one, his age had the excellencies of the other; the learning and holiness of both.' St. Augustine made free confession of his own infirmities of youth. With great delicacy Walton lets Donne also confess himself, printing a letter in which he declines to take Holy Orders, because his course of life when very young had been too notorious. Delicacy and tact are as notable in Walton's account of Donne's poverty, melancholy, and conversion through the blessed means of gentle King Jamie. Walton had an awful loyalty, a sincere reverence for the office of a king. But wherever he introduces King James, either in his Donne or his Wotton, you see a subdued version of the King James of _The Fortunes of Nigel_. The pedantry, the good nature, the touchiness, the humour, the nervousness, are all here. It only needs a touch of the king's broad accent to set before us, as vividly as in Scott, the interviews with Donne, and that singular scene when Wotton, disguised as Octavio Baldi, deposits his long rapier at the door of his majesty's chamber. Wotton, in Florence, was warned of a plot to murder James VI. The duke gave him 'such Italian antidotes against poison as the Scots till then had been strangers to': indeed, there is no antidote for a dirk, and the Scots were not poisoners. Introduced by Lindsay as 'Octavio Baldi,' Wotton found his nervous majesty accompanied by four Scottish nobles. He spoke in Italian; then, drawing near, hastily whispered that he was an Englishman, and prayed for a private interview. This, by some art, he obtained, delivered his antidotes, and, when James succeeded Elizabeth, rose to high favour. Izaak's suppressed humour makes it plain that Wotton had acted the scene for him, from the moment of leaving the long rapier at the door. Again, telling how Wotton, in his peaceful hours as Provost of Eton, intended to write a Life of Luther, he says that King Charles diverted him from his purpose to attempting a History of England 'by a persuasive loving violence (to which may be added a promise of 500 pounds a year).' He likes these parenthetic touches, as in his description of Donne, 'always preaching to himself, like an angel from a cloud,--_but in none_.' Again, of a commendation of one of his heroes he says, 'it is a known truth,--though it be in verse.' A memory of the days when Izaak was an amorist, and shone in love ditties, appears thus. He is speaking of Donne:-- 'Love is a flattering mischief . . . a passion that carries us to commit errors with as much ease as whirlwinds remove feathers.' 'The tears of lovers, or beauty dressed in sadness, are observed to have in them a charming sadness, and to become very often too strong to be resisted.' These are examples of Walton's sympathy: his power of portrait-drawing is especially attested by his study of Donne, as the young gallant and poet, the unhappy lover, the man of state out of place and neglected; the heavily burdened father, the conscientious scholar, the charming yet ascetic preacher and divine, the saint who, dying, makes himself in his own shroud, an emblem of mortality. As an example of Walton's style, take the famous vision of Dr. Donne in Paris. He had left his wife expecting her confinement:-- 'Two days after their arrival there, Mr. Donne was left alone in that room in which Sir Robert and he, and some other friends, had dined together. To this place Sir Robert returned within half an hour, and as he left, so he found Mr. Donne alone, but in such an ecstacy, and so altered as to his looks, as amazed Sir Robert to behold him; insomuch that he earnestly desired Mr. Donne to declare what had befallen him in the short time of his absence. To which Mr. Donne was not able to make a present answer: but, after a long and perplexed pause, did at last say, "I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you: I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms; this I have seen since I saw you." To which Sir Robert replied, "Sure, sir, you have slept since I saw you; and this is the result of some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake." To which Mr. Donne's reply was, "I cannot be surer that I now live than that I have not slept since I saw you: and I am as sure that at her second appearing she stopped, and looked me in the face, and vanished . . . " And upon examination, the abortion proved to be the same day, and about the very hour, that Mr. Donne affirmed he saw her pass by him in his chamber. ' . . . And though it is most certain that two lutes, being both strung and tuned to an equal pitch, and then one played upon, the other, that is not touched, being laid upon a table at a fit distance, will (like an echo to a trumpet) warble a faint audible harmony in answer to the same tune; yet many will not believe there is any such thing as a sympathy of souls, and I am well pleased that every reader do enjoy his own opinion . . . ' He then appeals to authority, as of Brutus, St. Monica, Saul, St. Peter:-- 'More observations of this nature, and inferences from them, might be made to gain the relation a firmer belief; but I forbear: lest I, that intended to be but a relator, may be thought to be an engaged person for the proving what was related to me, . . . by one who had it from Dr. Donne.' Walpole was no Boswell; worthy Boswell would have cross-examined Dr. Donne himself. Of dreams he writes:-- 'Common dreams are but a senseless paraphrase on our waking thoughts, or of the business of the day past, or are the result of our over engaged affections when we betake ourselves to rest.' . . . Yet 'Almighty God (though the causes of dreams be often unknown) hath even in these latter times also, by a certain illumination of the soul in sleep, discovered many things that human wisdom could not foresee.' Walton is often charged with superstition, and the enlightened editor of the eighteenth century excised all the scene of Mrs. Donne's wraith as too absurd. But Walton is a very fair witness. Donne, a man of imagination, was, he tells us, in a perturbed anxiety about Mrs. Donne. The event was after dinner. The story is, by Walton's admission, at second hand. Thus, in the language of the learned in such matters, the tale is 'not evidential.' Walton explains it, if true, as a result of 'sympathy of souls'--what is now called telepathy. But he is content that every man should have his own opinion. In the same way he writes of the seers in the Wotton family: 'God did seem to speak to many of this family' (the Wottons) 'in dreams,' and Thomas Wotton's dreams 'did usually prove true, both in foretelling things to come, and discovering things past.' Thus he dreamed that five townsmen and poor scholars were robbing the University chest at Oxford. He mentioned this in a letter to his son at Oxford, and the letter, arriving just after the robbery, led to the discovery of the culprits. Yet Walton states the causes and nature of dreams in general with perfect sobriety and clearness. His tales of this sort were much to Johnson's mind, as to Southey's. But Walton cannot fairly be called 'superstitious,' granting the age in which he lived. Visions like Dr. Donne's still excite curious comment. To that cruel superstition of his age, witchcraft, I think there is no allusion in Walton. Almost as uncanny, however, is his account of Donne's preparation for death 'Several charcoal fires being first made in his large study, he brought with him into that place his winding-sheet in his hand, and having put off all his clothes, had this sheet put on him, and so tied with knots at his head and feet, and his hands so placed as dead bodies are usually fitted, to be shrouded and put into their coffin or grave. Upon this urn he thus stood, with his eyes shut, and with so much of the sheet turned aside as might show his lean, pale, and death- like face, which was purposely turned towards the east, from which he expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus. In this posture he was drawn at his just height, and, when the picture was fully finished, he caused it to be set by his bedside, where it continued, and became his hourly object till death.' Thus Donne made ready to meet the common fate:-- 'That body, which once was a temple of the Holy Ghost, is now become a small quantity of Christian ashes. But I shall see it reanimated.' This is the very voice of Faith. Walton was, indeed, an assured believer, and to his mind, the world offered no insoluble problem. But we may say of him, in the words of a poet whom he quotes:-- 'Many a one Owes to his country his religion; And in another would as strongly grow Had but his nurse or mother taught him so.' In his account of Donne's early theological studies of the differences between Rome and Anglicanism, it is manifest that Izaak thinks these differences matters of no great moment. They are not for simple men to solve: Donne has taken that trouble for him; besides, he is an Englishman, and 'Owes to his country his religion.' He will be no Covenanter, and writes with disgust of an intruded Scots minister, whose first action was to cut down the ancient yews in the churchyard. Izaak's religion, and all his life, were rooted in the past, like the yew-tree. He is what he calls 'the passive peaceable Protestant.' 'The common people in this nation,' he writes, 'think they are not wise unless they be busy about what they understand not, and especially about religion'; as Bunyan was busy at that very moment. In Walton's opinion, the plain facts of religion, and of consequent morality, are visible as the sun at noonday. The vexed questions are for the learned, and are solved variously by them. A man must follow authority, as he finds it established in his own country, unless he has the learning and genius of a Donne. To these, or equivalents for these in a special privy inspiration, 'the common people' of his day, and ever since Elizabeth's day, were pretending. This was the inevitable result of the translation of the Bible into English. Walton quotes with approval a remark of a witty Italian on a populace which was universally occupied with Free-will and Predestination. The fruits Walton saw, in preaching Corporals, Antinomian Trusty Tompkinses, Quakers who ran about naked, barking, Presbyterians who cut down old yew-trees, and a Parliament of Saints. Walton took no kind of joy in the general emancipation of the human spirit. The clergy, he confessed, were not what he wished them to be, but they were better than Quakers, naked and ululant. To love God and his neighbour, and to honour the king, was Walton's unperplexed religion. Happily he was saved from the view of the errors and the fall of James II., a king whom it was not easy to honour. His social philosophy was one of established rank, tempered by equity and Christian charity. If anything moves his tranquil spirit, it is the remorseless greed of him who takes his fellow-servant by the throat and exacts the uttermost penny. How Sanderson saved a poor farmer from the greed of an extortionate landlord, Walton tells in his Life of the prelate, adding this reflection:-- 'It may be noted that in this age there are a sort of people so unlike the God of mercy, so void of the bowels of pity, that they love only themselves and their children; love them so as not to be concerned whether the rest of mankind waste their days in sorrow or shame; people that are cursed with riches, and a mistake that nothing but riches can make them and theirs happy.' Thus Walton appears, this is 'the picture of his own disposition,' in the _Lives_. He is a kind of antithesis to John Knox. Men like Walton are not to be approached for new 'ideas.' They will never make a new world at a blow: they will never enable us to understand, but they can teach us to endure, and even to enjoy, the world. Their example is alluring:-- 'Even the ashes of the just Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.' THE COMPLEAT ANGLER Franck, as we saw, called Walton 'a plagiary.' He was a plagiary in the same sense as Virgil and Lord Tennyson and Robert Burns, and, indeed, Homer, and all poets. _The Compleat Angler_, the father of so many books, is the child of a few. Walton not only adopts the opinions and advice of the authors whom he cites, but also follows the manner, to a certain extent, of authors whom he does not quote. His very exordium, his key-note, echoes (as Sir Harris Nicolas observes) the opening of _A Treatise of the Nature of God_ (London, 1599). The _Treatise_ starts with a conversation between a gentleman and a scholar: it commences:-- _Gent_. Well overtaken, sir! _Scholar_. You are welcome, gentleman. A more important source is _The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle_, commonly attributed to Dame Juliana Barnes (printed at Westminster, 1496). A manuscript, probably of 1430-1450, has been published by Mr. Satchell (London, 1883). This book may be a translation of an unknown French original. It opens:-- 'Soloman in hys paraboles seith that a glad spirit maket a flowryng age. That ys to sey, a feyre age and a longe' (like Walton's own), 'and sith hyt ys so I aske this question, wyche bynne the menys and cause to reduce a man to a mery spryte.' The angler 'schall have hys holsom walke and mery at hys owne ease, and also many a sweyt eayr of divers erbis and flowres that schall make hym ryght hongre and well disposed in hys body. He schall heyr the melodies melodious of the ermony of byrde: he schall se also the yong swannes and signetes folowing ther eyrours, duckes, cootes, herons, and many other fowlys with ther brodys, wyche me semyt better then all the noyse of houndes, and blastes of hornes and other gamys that fawkners or hunters can make, and yf the angler take the fyssche, hardly then ys ther no man meryer then he in his sprites.' This is the very 'sprite' of Walton; this has that vernal and matutinal air of opening European literature, full of birds' music, and redolent of dawn. This is the note to which the age following Walton would not listen. In matter of fact, again, Izaak follows the ancient _Treatise_. We know his jury of twelve flies: the _Treatise_ says:-- 'These ben the xij flyes wyth whyche ye shall angle to the trought and graylling, and dubbe like as ye shall now here me tell. '_Marche_. The donne fly, the body of the donne woll, and the wyngis of the pertryche. Another donne flye, the body of blacke woll, the wyngis of the blackyst drake; and the lay under the wynge and under the tayle.' Walton has:-- 'The first is the dun fly in March: the body is made of dun wool, the wings of the partridge's feathers. The second is another dun fly: the body of black wool; and the wings made of the black drake's feathers, and of the feathers under his tail.' Again, the _Treatise_ has:-- _Auguste_. The drake fly. The body of black wull and lappyd abowte wyth blacke sylke: winges of the mayle of the blacke drake wyth a blacke heed.' Walton has:-- 'The twelfth is the dark drake-fly, good in August: the body made with black wool, lapt about with black silk, his wings are made with the mail of the black drake, with a black head.' This is word for word a transcript of the fifteenth century _Treatise_. But Izaak cites, not the ancient _Treatise_, but Mr. Thomas Barker. {6} Barker, in fact, gives many more, and more variegated flies than Izaak offers in the jury of twelve which he rendered, from the old _Treatise_, into modern English. Sir Harris Nicolas says that the jury is from Leonard Mascall's _Booke of Fishing with Hooke and Line_ (London, 1609), but Mascall merely stole from the fifteenth-century book. In Cotton's practice, and that of _The Angler's Vade Mecum_ (1681), flies were as numerous as among ourselves, and had, in many cases, the same names. Walton absurdly bids us 'let no part of the line touch the water, but the fly only.' Barker says, 'Let the fly light first into the water.' Both men insist on fishing down stream, which is, of course, the opposite of the true art, for fish lie with their heads up stream, and trout are best approached from behind. Cotton admits of fishing both up and down, as the wind and stream may serve: and, of course, in heavy water, in Scotland, this is all very well. But none of the old anglers, to my knowledge, was a dry-fly fisher, and Izaak was no fly-fisher at all. He took what he said from Mascall, who took it from the old _Treatise_, in which, it is probable, Walton read, and followed the pleasant and to him congenial spirit of the mediaeval angler. All these writers tooled with huge rods, fifteen or eighteen feet in length, and Izaak had apparently never used a reel. For salmon, he says, 'some use a wheel about the middle of their rods or near their hand, which is to be observed better by seeing one of them, than by a large demonstration of words.' Mr. Westwood has made a catalogue of books cited by Walton in his _Compleat Angler_. There is AElian (who makes the first known reference to fly-fishing); Aldrovandus, _De Piscibus_ (1638); Dubravius, _De Piscibus_ (1559); and the English translation (1599) Gerard's _Herball_ (1633); Gesner, _De Piscibus_ (_s.a_.) and _Historia Naturalis_ (1558); Phil. Holland's _Pliny_ (1601); Rondelet, _De Piscibus Marines_ (1554); Silvianus _Aquatilium Historiae_ (1554): these nearly exhaust Walton's supply of authorities in natural history. He was devoted, as we saw, to authority, and had a childlike faith in the fantastic theories which date from Pliny. 'Pliny hath an opinion that many flies have their birth, or being, from a dew that in the spring falls upon the leaves of trees.' It is a pious opinion! Izaak is hardly so superstitious as the author of _The Angler's Vade Mecum_. I cannot imagine him taking 'Man's fat and cat's fat, of each half an ounce, mummy finely powdered, three drains,' and a number of other abominations, to 'make an Oyntment according to Art, and when you Angle, anoint 8 inches of the line next the Hook therewith.' Or, 'Take the Bones and Scull of a Dead-man, at the opening of a Grave, and beat the same into Pouder, and put of this Pouder in the Moss wherein you keep your Worms,--_but others like Grave Earth as well_.' No doubt grave earth is quite as efficacious. These remarks show how Izaak was equipped in books and in practical information: it follows that his book is to be read, not for instruction, but for human pleasure. So much for what Walton owed to others. For all the rest, for what has made him the favourite of schoolboys and sages, of poets and philosophers, he is indebted to none but his Maker and his genius. That he was a lover of Montaigne we know; and, had Montaigne been a fisher, he might have written somewhat like Izaak, but without the piety, the perfume, and the charm. There are authors whose living voices, if we know them in the flesh, we seem to hear in our ears as we peruse their works. Of such was Mr. Jowett, sometime Master of Balliol College, a good man, now with God. It has ever seemed to me that friends of Walton must thus have heard his voice as they read him, and that it reaches us too, though faintly. Indeed, we have here 'a kind of picture of his own disposition,' as he tells us Piscator is the Walton whom honest Nat. and R. Roe and Sir Henry Wotton knew on fishing-days. The book is a set of confessions, without their commonly morbid turn. 'I write not for money, but for pleasure,' he says; methinks he drove no hard bargain with good Richard Marriott, nor was careful and troubled about royalties on his eighteenpenny book. He regards scoffers as 'an abomination to mankind,' for indeed even Dr. Johnson, who, a century later, set Moses Browne on reprinting _The Compleat Angler_, broke his jest on our suffering tribe. 'Many grave, serious men pity anglers,' says Auceps, and Venator styles them 'patient men,' as surely they have great need to be. For our toil, like that of the husbandman, hangs on the weather that Heaven sends, and on the flies that have their birth or being from a kind of dew, and on the inscrutable caprice of fish; also, in England, on the miller, who giveth or withholdeth at his pleasure the very water that is our element. The inquiring rustic who shambles up erect when we are lying low among the reeds, even he disposes of our fortunes, with whom, as with all men, we must be patient, dwelling ever-- 'With close-lipped Patience for our only friend, Sad Patience, too near neighbour of Despair.' O the tangles, more than Gordian, of gut on a windy day! O bitter east wind that bloweth down stream! O the young ducks that, swimming between us and the trout, contend with him for the blue duns in their season! O the hay grass behind us that entangles the hook! O the rocky wall that breaks it, the boughs that catch it; the drought that leaves the salmon- stream dry, the floods that fill it with turbid, impossible waters! Alas for the knot that breaks, and for the iron that bends; for the lost landing-net, and the gillie with the gaff that scrapes the fish! Izaak believed that fish could hear; if they can, their vocabulary must be full of strange oaths, for all anglers are not patient men. A malison on the trout that 'bulge' and 'tail,' on the salmon that 'jiggers,' or sulks, or lightly gambols over and under the line. These things, and many more, we anglers endure meekly, being patient men, and a light world fleers at us for our very virtue. Izaak, of course, justifies us by the example of the primitive Christians, and, in the manner of the age, drowns opposition in a flood of erudition, out of place, but never pedantic; futile, yet diverting; erroneous, but not dull. 'God is said to have spoken to a fish, but never to a beast.' There is a modern Greek phrase, 'By the first word of God, and the second of the fish.' As for angling, 'it is somewhat like poetry: men are to be born so'; and many are born to be both rhymers and anglers. But, unlike many poets, the angler resembles 'the Adonis, or Darling of the Sea, so called because it is a loving and innocent fish,' and a peaceful; 'and truly, I think most anglers are so disposed to most of mankind.' Our Saviour's peculiar affection for fishermen is, of course, a powerful argument. And it is certain that Peter, James, and John made converts among the twelve, for 'the greater number of them were found together, fishing, by Jesus after His Resurrection.' That Amos was 'a good-natured, plain fisherman,' only Walton had faith enough to believe. He fixes gladly on mentions of hooks in the Bible, omitting Homer, and that excellent Theocritean dialogue of the two old anglers and the fish of gold, which would have delighted Izaak, had he known it; but he was no great scholar. 'And let me tell you that in the Scripture, angling is always taken in the best sense,' though Izaak does not dwell on Tobias's enormous capture. So he ends with commendations of angling by Wotton, and Davors (Dennys, more probably) author of _The Secrets of Angling_ (1613). To these we may add Wordsworth, Thomson, Scott, Hogg, Stoddart, and many minor poets who loved the music of the reel. Izaak next illustrates his idea of becoming mirth, which excludes 'Scripture jests and lascivious jests,' both of them highly distasteful to anglers. Then he comes to practice, beginning with chub, for which I have never angled, but have taken them by misadventure, with a salmon fly. Thence we proceed to trout, and to the charming scene of the milkmaid and her songs by Raleigh and Marlowe, 'I think much better than the strong lines that are now in fashion in this critical age,' for Walton, we have said, was the last of the Elizabethans and the new times were all for Waller and Dryden. 'Chevy Chace' and 'Johnny Armstrong' were dear to Walton as to Scott, but through a century these old favourites were to be neglected, save by Mr. Pepys and Addison. Indeed, there is no more curious proof of the great unhappy change then coming to make poetry a mechanic art, than the circumstance that Walton is much nearer to us, in his likings, than to the men between 1670 and 1770. Gay was to sing of angling, but in 'the strong lines that are now in fashion.' All this while Piscator has been angling with worm and minnow to no purpose, though he picks up 'a trout will fill six reasonable bellies' in the evening. So we leave them, after their ale, in fresh sheets that smell of lavender.' Izaak's practical advice is not of much worth; we read him rather for sentences like this: 'I'll tell you, scholar: when I sat last on this primrose bank, and looked down these meadows, I thought of them as Charles the Emperor did of the city of Florence, "that they were too pleasant to be looked upon, but only on holy-days."' He did not say, like Fox, when Burke spoke of 'a seat under a tree, with a friend, a bottle, and a book,' 'Why a book?' Izaak took his book with him--a practice in which, at least, I am fain to imitate this excellent old man. As to salmon, Walton scarcely speaks a true word about their habits, except by accident. Concerning pike, he quotes the theory that they are bred by pickerel weed, only as what 'some think.' In describing the use of frogs as bait, he makes the famous, or infamous, remark, 'Use him as though you loved him . . . that he may live the longer.' A bait-fisher _may_ be a good man, as Izaak was, but it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. As coarse fish are usually caught only with bait, I shall not follow Izaak on to this unholy and unfamiliar ground, wherein, none the less, grow flowers of Walton's fancy, and the songs of the old poets are heard. _The Practical Angler_, indeed, is a book to be marked with flowers, marsh marigolds and fritillaries, and petals of the yellow iris, for the whole provokes us to content, and whispers that word of the apostle, 'Study to be quiet.' FISHING THEN AND NOW Since Maui, the Maori hero, invented barbs for hooks, angling has been essentially one and the same thing. South Sea islanders spin for fish with a mother-of-pearl lure which is also a hook, and answers to our spoon. We have hooks of stone, and hooks of bone; and a bronze hook, found in Ireland, has the familiar Limerick bend. What Homer meant by making anglers throw 'the horn of an ox of the stall' into the sea, we can only guess; perhaps a horn minnow is meant, or a little sheath of horn to protect the line. Dead bait, live bait, and imitations of bait have all been employed, and AElian mentions artificial Mayflies used, with a very short line, by the Illyrians. But, while the same in essence, angling has been improved by human ingenuity. The Waltonian angler, and still more his English predecessors, dealt much in the home-made. The _Treatise_ of the fifteenth century bids you make your 'Rodde' of a fair staff even of a six foot long or more, as ye list, of hazel, willow, or 'aspe' (ash?), and 'beke hym in an ovyn when ye bake, and let him cool and dry a four weeks or more.' The pith is taken out of him with a hot iron, and a yard of white hazel is similarly treated, also a fair shoot of blackthorn or crabtree for a top. The butt is bound with hoops of iron, the top is accommodated with a noose, a hair line is looped in the noose, and the angler is equipped. Splicing is not used, but the joints have holes to receive each other, and with this instrument 'ye may walk, and there is no man shall wit whereabout ye go.' Recipes are given for colouring and plaiting hair lines, and directions for forging hooks. 'The smallest quarell needles' are used for the tiniest hooks. Barker (1651) makes the rod 'of a hasel of one piece, or of two pieces set together in the most convenient manner, light and gentle.' He recommends the use of a single hair next the fly,--'you shall have more rises,' which is true, 'and kill more fish,' which is not so likely. The most delicate striking is required with fine gut, and with a single hair there must be many breakages. For salmon, Barker uses a rod ten feet in the butt, 'that will carry a top of six foot pretty stiffe and strong.' The 'winder,' or reel, Barker illustrates with a totally unintelligible design. His salmon fly 'carries six wings'; perhaps he only means wings composed of six kinds of feathers, but here Franck is a better authority, his flies being sensible and sober in colour. Not many old salmon flies are in existence, nor have I seen more ancient specimens than a few, chiefly of peacocks' feathers, in the fly-leaf of a book at Abbotsford; they were used in Ireland by Sir Walter Scott's eldest son. The controversy as to whether fish can distinguish colours was unknown to our ancestors. I am inclined to believe that, for salmon, size, and perhaps shade, light or dark, with more or less of tinsel, are the only important points. Izaak stumbled on the idea of Mr. Stewart (author of _The Practical Angler_) saying, 'for the generality, three or four flies, neat, and rightly made, and not too big, serve for a trout in most rivers, all the summer.' Our ancestors, though they did not fish with the dry fly, were intent on imitating the insect on the water. As far as my own experience goes, if trout are feeding on duns, one dun will take them as well as another, if it be properly presented. But my friend Mr. Charles Longman tells me that, after failing with two trout, he examined the fly on the water, an olive dun, and found in his book a fly which exactly matched the natural insect in colour. With this he captured his brace. Such incidents look as if trout were particular to a shade, but we can never be certain that the angler did not make an especially artful and delicate cast when he succeeded. Sir Herbert Maxwell intends to make the experiment of using duns of impossible and unnatural colours; if he succeeds with these, on several occasions, as well as with orthodox flies, perhaps we may decide that trout do not distinguish hues. On a Sutherland loch, an angler found that trout would take flies of any colour, except that of a light-green leaf of a tree. This rejection decidedly looked as if even Sutherland loch trout exercised some discrimination. Often, on a loch, out of three flies they will favour one, and that, perhaps, not the trail fly. The best rule is: when you find a favourite fly on a salmon river, use it: its special favouritism may be a superstition, but, at all events, salmon do take it. We cannot afford to be always making experiments, but Mr. Herbert Spencer, busking his flies the reverse way, used certainly to be at least as successful with sea trout as his less speculative neighbours in Argyllshire. In making rods, Walton is most concerned with painting them; 'I think a good top is worth preserving, or I had not taken care to keep a top above twenty years.' Cotton prefers rods 'made in Yorkshire,' having advanced from the home-made stage. His were spliced, and kept up all through the season, as he had his water at his own door, while Walton trudged to the Lee and other streams near London, when he was not fishing the Itchen, or Shawford Brook. _The Angler's Vade Mecum_ recommends eighteen-feet rods: preferring a fir butt, fashioned by the arrow-maker, a hazel top, and a tip of whalebone. This authority, even more than Walton, deals in mysterious 'Oyntments' of gum ivy, horse-leek, asafoetida, man's fat, cat's fat, powdered skulls, and grave earth. A ghoulish body is the angler of the _Vade Mecum_. He recommends up-stream fishing, with worm, in a clear water, and so is a predecessor of Mr. Stewart. 'When you have hooked a good fish, have an especial care to keep the rod bent, lest he run to the end of the line' (he means, as does Walton, lest he pull the rod horizontal) 'and break either hook or hold.' An old owner of my copy adds, in manuscript, 'And hale him not to near ye top of the water, lest in flaskering he break ye line.' This is a favourite device of sea trout, which are very apt to 'flasker' on the top of the water. The _Vade Mecum_, in advance of Walton on this point, recommends a swivel in minnow-fishing: but has no idea of an artificial minnow of silk. I have known an ingenious lady who, when the bodies of her phantom minnows gave out, in Norway, supplied their place successfully with bed-quilting artfully sewn. In fact, anything bright and spinning will allure fish, though in the upper Ettrick, where large trout exist, they will take the natural, but perhaps never the phantom or angel minnow. I once tried a spinning Alexandra fly over some large pond trout. They followed it eagerly, but never took hold, on the first day; afterwards they would not look at it at all. The _Vade Mecum_ man, like Dr. Hamilton, recommends a light fly for a light day, a dark fly for a dark day and dark weather; others hold the converse opinion. Every one agrees that the smallness of the flies should be in proportion to the lowness of the water and the advance of summer. {7} Our ancestors, apparently, used only one fly at a time; in rapid rivers, with wet fly, two, three, or, in lochs like Loch Leven, even four are employed. To my mind more than two only cause entanglements of the tackle. The old English anglers knew, of course, little or nothing of loch fishing, using bait in lakes. The great length of their rods made reels less necessary, and they do not seem to have waded much. A modern angler, casting upwards, from the middle of the stream, with a nine-foot rod, would have astonished Walton. They dealt with trout less educated than ours, and tooled with much coarser and heavier implements. They had no fine scruples about bait of every kind, any more than the Scots have, and Barker loved a lob-worm, fished on the surface, in a dark night. He was a pot-fisher, and had been a cook. He could catch a huge basket of trout, and dress them in many different ways,--broyled, calvored hot with antchovaes sauce, boyled, soused, stewed, fried, battered with eggs, roasted, baked, calvored cold, and marilled, or potted, also marrionated. Barker instructs my Lord Montague to fish with salmon roe, a thing prohibited and very popular in Scotland. 'If I had known it but twenty years agoe, I would have gained a hundred pounds onely with that bait. I am bound in duty to divulge it to your Honour, and not to carry it to my grave with me. I do desire that men of quality should have it that delight in that pleasure: the greedy angler will murmur at me, but for that I care not.' Barker calls salmon roe 'an experience I have found of late: the best bait for a trout that I have seen in all my time,' and it is the most deadly, in the eddy of a turbid water. Perhaps trout would take caviare, which is not forbidden by the law of the land. Any unscrupulous person may make the experiment, and argue the matter out with the water-bailie. But, in my country, it is more usual to duck that official, and go on netting, sniggling, salmon-roeing, and destroying sport in the sacred name of Liberty. Scots wha fish wi' salmon roe, Scots wha sniggle as ye go, Wull ye stand the Bailie? No! Let the limmer die! Now's the day and now's the time, Poison a' the burns wi' lime, Fishing fair's a dastard crime, We're for fishing _free_! 'Ydle persones sholde have but lyttyl mesure in the sayd disporte of fysshyng,' says our old _Treatise_, but in southern Scotland they have left few fish to dysporte with, and the trout is like to become an extinct animal. Izaak would especially have disliked Fishing Competitions, which, by dint of the multitude of anglers, turn the contemplative man's recreation into a crowded skirmish; and we would repeat his remark, 'the rabble herd themselves together' (a dozen in one pool, often), 'and endeavour to govern and act in spite of authority.' For my part, had I a river, I would gladly let all honest anglers that use the fly cast line in it, but, where there is no protection, then nets, poison, dynamite, slaughter of fingerlings, and unholy baits devastate the fish, so that 'Free Fishing' spells no fishing at all. This presses most hardly on the artisan who fishes fair, a member of a large class with whose pastime only a churl would wish to interfere. We are now compelled, if we would catch fish, to seek Tarpon in Florida, Mahseer in India: it does not suffice to 'stretch our legs up Tottenham Hill.' FOOTNOTES {1} The MS. was noticed in _The Freebooter_, Oct. 18, 1823, but Sir Harris Nicolas could not find it, where it was said to be, among the Lansdowne MSS. {2} The quip about 'goods and chattels' was revived later, in the case of a royal mistress. {3} Sir Walter was fond of trout-fishing, and in his _Quarterly_ review of Davy's _Salmonia_, describes his pleasure in wading Tweed, in 'Tom Fool's light' at the end of a hot summer day. In salmon-fishing he was no expert, and said to Lockhart that he must have Tom Purdie to aid him in his review of _Salmonia_. The picturesqueness of salmon-spearing by torchlight seduced Scott from the legitimate sport. {4} There is an edition by Singer, with a frontispiece by Wainewright, the poisoner. London, 1820. {5} Nicolas, I. clv. {6} _Barker's Delight; or, The Art of Angling_. 1651, 1657, 1659, London. {7} I have examined all the Angling works of the period known to me. Gilbert's _Angler's Delight_ (1676) is a mere pamphlet; William Gilbert, gent., pilfers from Walton, without naming him, and has literally nothing original or meritorious. The book is very scarce. My own copy is 'uncut,' but incomplete, lacking the directions for fishing 'in Hackney River.' Gervase Markham, prior to Walton, is a compiler rather than an original authority on angling. 
2022	----	Transcribed from the 1895 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk ANGLING SKETCHES Contents: Preface Note to New Edition The Confessions of a Duffer A Border Boyhood Loch Awe Loch-Fishing Loch Leven The Bloody Doctor The Lady or the Salmon? A Tweedside Sketch The Double Alibi The Complete Bungler DEDICATION TO MRS HERBERT HILLS 'NO FISHER BUT A WELL-WISHER TO THE GAME.' IN MEMORY OF PLESANT DAYS AT CORBY PREFACE Several of the sketches in this volume have appeared in periodicals. "The Bloody Doctor" was in _Macmillan's Magazine_, "The Confessions of a Duffer," "Loch Awe," and "The Lady or the Salmon?" were in the _Fishing Gazette_, but have been to some extent re-written. "The Double Alibi" was in _Longman's Magazine_. The author has to thank the Editors and Publishers for permission to reprint these papers. The gem engraved on the cover is enlarged from a small intaglio in the collection of Mr. M. H. N. STORY-MASKELYNE, M.P. Such gems were recommended by Clemens of Alexandria to the early Christians. "The figure of a man fishing will put them in mind of the Apostle." Perhaps the Greek is using the red hackle described by AElian in the only known Greek reference to fly-fishing. NOTE TO NEW EDITION The historical version of the Black Officer's career, very unlike the legend in "Loch Awe," may be read in Mr. Macpherson's _Social Life in the Highlands_. THE CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER These papers do not boast of great sport. They are truthful, not like the tales some fishers tell. They should appeal to many sympathies. There is no false modesty in the confidence with which I esteem myself a duffer, at fishing. Some men are born duffers; others, unlike persons of genius, become so by an infinite capacity for not taking pains. Others, again, among whom I would rank myself, combine both these elements of incompetence. Nature, that made me enthusiastically fond of fishing, gave me thumbs for fingers, short-sighted eyes, indolence, carelessness, and a temper which (usually sweet and angelic) is goaded to madness by the laws of matter and of gravitation. For example: when another man is caught up in a branch he disengages his fly; I jerk at it till something breaks. As for carelessness, in boyhood I fished, by preference, with doubtful gut and knots ill-tied; it made the risk greater, and increased the excitement if one did hook a trout. I can't keep a fly-book. I stuff the flies into my pockets at random, or stick them into the leaves of a novel, or bestow them in the lining of my hat or the case of my rods. Never, till 1890, in all my days did I possess a landing-net. If I can drag a fish up a bank, or over the gravel, well; if not, he goes on his way rejoicing. On the Test I thought it seemly to carry a landing- net. It had a hinge, and doubled up. I put the handle through a button- hole of my coat: I saw a big fish rising, I put a dry fly over him; the idiot took it. Up stream he ran, then down stream, then he yielded to the rod and came near me. I tried to unship my landing-net from my button-hole. Vain labour! I twisted and turned the handle, it would not budge. Finally, I stooped, and attempted to ladle the trout out with the short net; but he broke the gut, and went off. A landing-net is a tedious thing to carry, so is a creel, and a creel is, to me, a superfluity. There is never anything to put in it. If I do catch a trout, I lay him under a big stone, cover him with leaves, and never find him again. I often break my top joint; so, as I never carry string, I splice it with a bit of the line, which I bite off, for I really cannot be troubled with scissors and I always lose my knife. When a phantom minnow sticks in my clothes, I snap the gut off, and put on another, so that when I reach home I look as if a shoal of fierce minnows had attacked me and hung on like leeches. When a boy, I was--once or twice--a bait-fisher, but I never carried worms in box or bag. I found them under big stones, or in the fields, wherever I had the luck. I never tie nor otherwise fasten the joints of my rod; they often slip out of the sockets and splash into the water. Mr. Hardy, however, has invented a joint-fastening which never slips. On the other hand, by letting the joint rust, you may find it difficult to take down your rod. When I see a trout rising, I always cast so as to get hung up, and I frighten him as I disengage my hook. I invariably fall in and get half-drowned when I wade, there being an insufficiency of nails in the soles of my brogues. My waders let in water, too, and when I go out to fish I usually leave either my reel, or my flies, or my rod, at home. Perhaps no other man's average of lost flies in proportion to taken trout was ever so great as mine. I lose plenty, by striking furiously, after a series of short rises, and breaking the gut, with which the fish swims away. As to dressing a fly, one would sooner think of dressing a dinner. The result of the fly-dressing would resemble a small blacking-brush, perhaps, but nothing entomological. Then why, a persevering reader may ask, do I fish? Well, it is stronger than myself, the love of fishing; perhaps it is an inherited instinct, without the inherited power. I may have had a fishing ancestor who bequeathed to me the passion without the art. My vocation is fixed, and I have fished to little purpose all my days. Not for salmon, an almost fabulous and yet a stupid fish, which must be moved with a rod like a weaver's beam. The trout is more delicate and dainty--not the sea-trout, which any man, woman, or child can capture, but the yellow trout in clear water. A few rises are almost all I ask for: to catch more than half a dozen fish does not fall to my lot twice a year. Of course, in a Sutherland loch one man is as good as another, the expert no better than the duffer. The fish will take, or they won't. If they won't, nobody can catch them; if they will, nobody can miss them. It is as simple as trolling a minnow from a boat in Loch Leven, probably the lowest possible form of angling. My ambition is as great as my skill is feeble; to capture big trout with the dry fly in the Test, that would content me, and nothing under that. But I can't see the natural fly on the water; I cannot see my own fly, Let it sink or let it swim. I often don't see the trout rise to me, if he is such a fool as to rise; and I can't strike in time when I do see him. Besides, I am unteachable to tie any of the orthodox knots in the gut; it takes me half an hour to get the gut through one of these newfangled iron eyes, and, when it is through, I knot it any way. The "jam" knot is a name to me, and no more. That, perhaps, is why the hooks crack off so merrily. Then, if I do spot a rising trout, and if he does not spot me as I crawl like the serpent towards him, my fly always fixes in a nettle, a haycock, a rose-bush, or whatnot, behind me. I undo it, or break it, and put up another, make a cast, and, "plop," all the line falls in with a splash that would frighten a crocodile. The fish's big black fin goes cutting the stream above, and there is a _sauve qui peut_ of trout in all directions. I once did manage to make a cast correctly: the fly went over the fish's nose; he rose; I hooked him, and he was a great silly brute of a grayling. The grayling is the deadest-hearted and the foolishest-headed fish that swims. I would as lief catch a perch or an eel as a grayling. This is the worst of it--this ambition of the duffer's, this desire for perfection, as if the golfing imbecile should match himself against Mr. Horace Hutchinson, or as the sow of the Greek proverb challenged Athene to sing. I know it all, I deplore it, I regret the evils of ambition; but _c'est plus fort que moi_. If there is a trout rising well under the pendant boughs that trail in the water, if there is a brake of briars behind me, a strong wind down stream, for that trout, in that impregnable situation, I am impelled to fish. If I raise him I strike, miss him, catch up in his tree, swish the cast off into the briars, break my top, break my heart, but--that is the humour of it. The passion, or instinct, being in all senses blind, must no doubt be hereditary. It is full of sorrow and bitterness and hope deferred, and entails the mockery of friends, especially of the fair. But I would as soon lay down a love of books as a love of fishing. Success with pen or rod may be beyond one, but there is the pleasure of the pursuit, the rapture of endeavour, the delight of an impossible chase, the joys of nature--sky, trees, brooks, and birds. Happiness in these things is the legacy to us of the barbarian. Man in the future will enjoy bricks, asphalte, fog, machinery, "society," even picture galleries, as many men and most women do already. We are fortunate who inherit the older, not "the new spirit"--we who, skilled or unskilled, follow in the steps of our father, Izaak, by streams less clear, indeed, and in meadows less fragrant, than his. Still, they are meadows and streams, not wholly dispeopled yet of birds and trout; nor can any defect of art, nor certainty of laborious disappointment, keep us from the waterside when April comes. Next to being an expert, it is well to be a contented duffer: a man who would fish if he could, and who will pleasure himself by flicking off his flies, and dreaming of impossible trout, and smoking among the sedges Hope's enchanted cigarettes. Next time we shall be more skilled, more fortunate. Next time! "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow." Grey hairs come, and stiff limbs, and shortened sight; but the spring is green and hope is fresh for all the changes in the world and in ourselves. We can tell a hawk from a hand-saw, a March Brown from a Blue Dun; and if our success be as poor as ever, our fancy can dream as well as ever of better things and more fortunate chances. For fishing is like life; and in the art of living, too, there are duffers, though they seldom give us their confessions. Yet even they are kept alive, like the incompetent angler, by this undying hope: they will be more careful, more skilful, more lucky next time. The gleaming untravelled future, the bright untried waters, allure us from day to day, from pool to pool, till, like the veteran on Coquet side, we "try a farewell throw," or, like Stoddart, look our last on Tweed. A BORDER BOYHOOD A fisher, says our father Izaak, is like a poet: he "must be born so." The majority of dwellers on the Border are born to be fishers, thanks to the endless number of rivers and burns in the region between the Tweed and the Coquet--a realm where almost all trout-fishing is open, and where, since population and love of the sport have increased, there is now but little water that merits the trouble of putting up a rod. Like the rest of us in that country, I was born an angler, though under an evil star, for, indeed, my labours have not been blessed, and are devoted to fishing rather than to the catching of fish. Remembrance can scarcely recover, "nor time bring back to time," the days when I was not busy at the waterside; yet the feat is not quite beyond the power of Mnemosyne. My first recollection of the sport must date from about the age of four. I recall, in a dim brightness, driving along a road that ran between banks of bracken and mica-veined rocks, and the sunlight on a shining bend of a highland stream, and my father, standing in the shallow water, showing me a huge yellow fish, that gave its last fling or two on the grassy bank. The fish seemed as terrible and dangerous to me as to Tobit, in the Apocrypha, did that ferocious half-pounder which he carries on a string in the early Italian pictures. How oddly Botticelli and his brethren misconceived the man-devouring fish, which must have been a crocodile strayed from the Nile into the waters of the Euphrates! A half- pounder! To have been terrified by a trout seems a bad beginning; and, thereafter, the mist gather's over the past, only to lift again when I see myself, with a crowd of other little children, sent to fish, with crooked pins, for minnows, or "baggies" as we called them, in the Ettrick. If our parents hoped that we would bring home minnows for bait, they were disappointed. The party was under the command of a nursery governess, and probably she was no descendant of the mother of us all, Dame Juliana Berners. We did not catch any minnows, and I remember sitting to watch a bigger boy, who was angling in a shoal of them when a parr came into the shoal, and we had bright visions of alluring that monarch of the deep. But the parr disdained our baits, and for months I dreamed of what it would have been to capture him, and often thought of him in church. In a moment of profane confidence my younger brother once asked me: "What do _you_ do in sermon time? I," said he in a whisper--"mind you don't tell--_I_ tell stories to myself about catching trout." To which I added similar confession, for even so I drove the sermon by, and I have not "told"--till now. By this time we must have been introduced to trout. Who forgets his first trout? Mine, thanks to that unlucky star, was a double deception, or rather there were two kinds of deception. A village carpenter very kindly made rods for us. They were of unpainted wood, these first rods; they were in two pieces, with a real brass joint, and there was a ring at the end of the top joint, to which the line was knotted. We were still in the age of Walton, who clearly knew nothing, except by hearsay, of a reel; he abandons the attempt to describe that machine as used by the salmon-fishers. He thinks it must be seen to be understood. With these innocent weapons, and with the gardener to bait our hooks, we were taken to the Yarrow, far up the stream, near Ladhope. How well one remembers deserting the gardener, and already appreciating the joys of having no gillie nor attendant, of being "alone with ourselves and the goddess of fishing"! I cast away as well as I could, and presently jerked a trout, a tiny one, high up in the air out of the water. But he fell off the hook again, he dropped in with a little splash, and I rushed up to consult my tutor on his unsportsmanlike behaviour, and the disappointing, nay, heart-breaking, occurrence. Was the trout not morally caught, was there no way of getting him to see this and behave accordingly? The gardener feared there was none. Meanwhile he sat on the bank and angled in a pool. "Try my rod," he said, and, as soon as I had taken hold of it, "pull up," he cried, "pull up." I did "pull up," and hauled my first troutling on shore. But in my inmost heart I feared that he was not my trout at all, that the gardener had hooked him before he handed the rod to me. Then we met my younger brother coming to us with quite a great fish, half a pound perhaps, which he had caught in a burn. Then, for the first time, my soul knew the fierce passion of jealousy, the envy of the angler. Almost for the last time, too; for, I know not why it is, and it proves me no true fisherman, I am not discontented by the successes of others. If one cannot catch fish oneself, surely the next best thing is to see other people catch them. My own progress was now checked for long by a constitutional and insuperable aversion to angling with worm. If the gardener, or a pretty girl-cousin of the mature age of fourteen, would put the worm on, I did not "much mind" fishing with it. Dost thou remember, fair lady of the ringlets? Still, I never liked bait-fishing, and these mine allies were not always at hand. We used, indeed, to have great days with perch at Faldonside, on the land which Sir Walter Scott was always so anxious to buy from Mr. Nichol Milne. Almost the last entry in his diary, at Naples, breathes this unutterable hope. He had deluded himself into believing that his debts were paid, and that he could soon "speak a word to young Nichol Milne." The word, of course, was never spoken, and the unsupplanted laird used to let us fish for his perch to our hearts' desire. Never was there such slaughter. The corks which we used as floats were perpetually tipping, bobbing, and disappearing, and then the red-finned perch would fly out on to dry land. Here I once saw two corks go down, two anglers haul up, and one perch, attached to both hooks, descend on the grassy bank. My brother and I filled two baskets once, and strung dozens of other perch on a stick. But this was not legitimate business. Not till we came to fly-fishing were we really entered at the sport, and this initiation took place, as it chanced, beside the very stream where I was first shown a trout. It is a charming piece of water, amber-coloured and clear, flowing from the Morvern hills under the limes of an ancient avenue--trees that have long survived the house to which, of old, the road must have led. Our gillie put on for us big bright sea-trout flies--nobody fishes there for yellow trout; but, in our inexperience, small "brownies" were all we caught. Probably we were only taken to streams and shallows where we could not interfere with mature sportsmen. At all events, it was demonstrated to us that we could actually catch fish with fly, and since then I have scarcely touched a worm, except as a boy, in burns. In these early days we had no notion of playing a trout. If there was a bite, we put our strength into an answering tug, and, if nothing gave way, the trout flew over our heads, perhaps up into a tree, perhaps over into a branch of the stream behind us. Quite a large trout will yield to this artless method, if the rod be sturdy--none of your glued-up cane-affairs. I remember hooking a trout which, not answering to the first haul, ran right across the stream and made for a hole in the opposite bank. But the second lift proved successful and he landed on my side of the water. He had a great minnow in his throat, and must have been a particularly greedy animal. Of course, on this system there were many breakages, and the method was abandoned as we lived into our teens, and began to wade and to understand something about fly-fishing. It was worth while to be a boy then in the south of Scotland, and to fish the waters haunted by old legends, musical with old songs, and renowned in the sporting essays of Christopher North and Stoddart. Even then, thirty long years ago, the old stagers used to tell us that "the waiter was owr sair fished," and they grumbled about the system of draining the land, which makes a river a roaring torrent in floods, and a bed of grey stones with a few clear pools and shallows, during the rest of the year. In times before the hills were drained, before the manufacturing towns were so populous, before pollution, netting, dynamiting, poisoning, sniggling, and the enormous increase of fair and unfair fishing, the border must have been the angler's paradise. Still, it was not bad when we were boys. We had Ettrick within a mile of us, and a finer natural trout-stream there is not in Scotland, though now the water only holds a sadly persecuted remnant. There was one long pool behind Lindean, flowing beneath a high wooded bank, where the trout literally seemed never to cease rising at the flies that dropped from the pendant boughs. Unluckily the water flowed out of the pool in a thin broad stream, directly it right angles to the pool itself. Thus the angler had, so to speak, the whole of lower Ettrick at his back when he waded: it was a long way up stream to the bank, and, as we never used landing-nets then, we naturally lost a great many trout in trying to unhook them in mid water. They only averaged as a rule from three to two to the pound, but they were strong and lively. In this pool there was a large tawny, table- shaped stone, over which the current broke. Out of the eddy behind this stone, one of my brothers one day caught three trout weighing over seven pounds, a feat which nowadays sounds quite incredible. As soon as the desirable eddy was empty, another trout, a trifle smaller than the former, seems to have occupied it. The next mile and a half, from Lindean to the junction with Tweed, was remarkable for excellent sport. In the last pool of Ettrick, the water flowed by a steep bank, and, if you cast almost on to the further side, you were perfectly safe to get fish, even when the river was very low. The flies used, three on a cast, were small and dusky, hare's ear and woodcock wing, black palmers, or, as Stoddart sings, Wee dour looking huiks are the thing, Mouse body and laverock wing. Next to Ettrick came Tweed: the former river joins the latter at the bend of a long stretch of water, half stream, half pool, in which angling was always good. In late September there were sea-trout, which, for some reason, rose to the fly much more freely than sea-trout do now in the upper Tweed. I particularly remember hooking one just under the railway bridge. He was a two-pounder, and practised the usual sea-trout tactics of springing into the air like a rocket. There was a knot on my line, of course, and I was obliged to hold him hard. When he had been dragged up on the shingle, the line parted, broken in twain at the knot; but it had lasted just long enough, during three exciting minutes. This accident of a knot on the line has only once befallen me since, with the strongest loch-trout I ever encountered. It was on Branxholme Loch, where the trout run to a great size, but usually refuse the fly. I was alone in a boat on a windy day; the trout soon ran out the line to the knot, and then there was nothing for it but to lower the top almost to the water's edge, and hold on in hope. Presently the boat drifted ashore, and I landed him--better luck than I deserved. People who only know the trout of the Test and other chalk streams, cannot imagine how much stronger are the fish of the swift Scottish streams and dark Scottish lochs. They're worse fed, but they are infinitely more powerful and active; it is all the difference between an alderman and a clansman. Tweed, at this time, was full of trout, but even then they were not easy to catch. One difficulty lay in the nature of the wading. There is a pool near Ashiesteil and Gleddis Weil which illustrated this. Here Scott and Hogg were once upset from a boat while "burning the water"--spearing salmon by torchlight. Herein, too, as Scott mentions in his Diary, he once caught two trout at one cast. The pool is long, is paved with small gravel, and allures you to wade on and on. But the water gradually deepens as you go forward, and the pool ends in a deep pot under each bank. Then to recover your ground becomes by no means easy, especially if the water is heavy. You get half-drowned, or drowned altogether, before you discover your danger. Many of the pools have this peculiarity, and in many, one step made rashly lets you into a very uncomfortable and perilous place. Therefore expeditions to Tweedside were apt to end in a ducking. It was often hard to reach the water where trout were rising, and the rise was always capricious. There might not be a stir on the water for hours, and suddenly it would be all boiling with heads and tails for twenty minutes, after which nothing was to be done. To miss "the take" was to waste the day, at least in fly-fishing. From a high wooded bank I have seen the trout feeding, and they have almost ceased to feed before I reached the waterside. Still worse was it to be allured into water over the tops of your waders, early in the day, and then to find that the rise was over, and there was nothing for it but a weary walk home, the basket laden only with damp boots. Still, the trout were undeniably _there_, and that was a great encouragement. They are there still, but infinitely more cunning than of old. Then, if they were feeding, they took the artificial fly freely; now it must be exactly of the right size and shade or they will have none of it. They come provokingly short, too; just plucking at the hook, and running out a foot of line or so, then taking their departure. For some reason the Tweed is more difficult to fish with the dry fly than--the Test, for example. The water is swifter and very dark, it drowns the fly soon, and on the surface the fly is less easily distinguished than at Whitchurch, in the pellucid streams. The Leader a tributary, may be fished with dry fly; on the Tweed one can hardly manage it. There is a plan by which rising trout may be taken--namely, by baiting with a small red worm and casting as in fly-fishing. But that is so hard on the worm! Probably he who can catch trout with fly on the Tweed between Melrose and Holy Lee can catch them anywhere. On a good day in April great baskets are still made in preserved parts of the Tweed, but, if they are made in open water, it must be, I fancy, with worm, or with the "screw," the lava of the May- fly. The screw is a hideous and venomous-looking animal, which is fixed on a particular kind of tackle, and cast up stream with a short line. The heaviest trout are fond of it, but it can only be used at a season when either school or Oxford keeps one far from what old Franck, Walton's contemporary, a Cromwellian trooper, calls "the glittering and resolute streams of Tweed." Difficult as it is, that river is so beautiful and alluring that it scarcely needs the attractions of sport. The step banks, beautifully wooded, and in spring one mass of primroses, are crowned here and there with ruined Border towers--like Elibank, the houses of Muckle Mou'ed Meg; or with fair baronial houses like Fernilea. Meg made a bad exchange when she left Elibank with the salmon pool at its foot for bleak Harden, frowning over the narrow "den" where Harden kept the plundered cattle. There is no fishing in the tiny Harden burn, that joins the brawling Borthwick Water. The burns of the Lowlands are now almost barren of trout. The spawning fish, flabby and useless, are killed in winter. All through the rest of the year, in the remotest places, tourists are hard at them with worm. In a small burn a skilled wormer may almost depopulate the pools, and, on the Border, all is fish that comes to the hook; men keep the very fingerlings, on the pretext that they are "so sweet" in the frying-pan. The crowd of anglers in glens which seem not easily accessible is provoking enough. Into the Meggat, a stream which feeds St. Mary's Loch, there flows the Glengaber, or Glencaber burn: the burn of the pine-tree stump. The water runs in deep pools and streams over a blue slatey rock, which contains gold under the sand, in the worn holes and crevices. My friend, Mr. McAllister, the schoolmaster at St. Mary's, tells me that one day, when fish were not rising, he scooped out the gravel of one of these holes with his knife, and found a tiny nugget, after which the gold-hunting fever came on him for a while. But little is got nowadays, though in some earlier period the burn has been diverted from its bed, and the people used solemnly to wash the sand, as in California or Australia. Well, whether in consequence of the gold, as the alchemical philosophers would have held, or not, the trout of the Glengaber burn were good. They were far shorter, thicker and stronger than those of the many neighbouring brooks. I have fished up the burn with fly, when it was very low, hiding carefully behind the boulders, and have been surprised at the size and gameness of the fish. As soon as the fly had touched the brown water, it was sucked down, and there was quite a fierce little fight before the fish came to hand. "This, all this, was in the olden time, long ago." The Glengaber burn is about twenty miles from any railway station, but, on the last occasion when I visited it, three louts were worming their way up it, within twenty yards of each other, each lout, with his huge rod, showing himself wholly to any trout that might be left in the water. Thirty years ago the burns that feed St. Mary's Loch were almost unfished, and rare sport we had in them, as boys, staying at Tibbie Sheil's famous cottage, and sleeping in her box-beds, where so often the Ettrick Shepherd and Christopher North have lain, after copious toddy. "'Tis gone, 'tis gone:" not in our time will any man, like the Ettrick Shepherd, need a cart to carry the trout he has slain in Meggat Water. That stream, flowing through a valley furnished with a grass-grown track for a road, flows, as I said, into St. Mary's Loch. There are two or three large pools at the foot of the loch, in which, as a small boy hardly promoted to fly, I have seen many monsters rising greedily. Men got into the way of fishing these pools after a flood with minnow, and thereby made huge baskets, the big fish running up to feed, out of the loch. But, when last I rowed past Meggat foot, the delta of that historic stream was simply crowded with anglers, stepping in in front of each other. I asked if this mob was a political "demonstration," but they stuck to business, as if they had been on the Regent's Canal. And this, remember, was twenty miles from any town! Yet there is a burn on the Border still undiscovered, still full of greedy trout. I shall give the angler such a hint of its whereabouts as Tiresias, in Hades, gave to Odysseus concerning the end of his second wanderings. When, O stranger, thou hast reached a burn where the shepherd asks thee for the newspaper wrapped round thy sandwiches, that he may read the news, then erect an altar to Priapus, god of fishermen, and begin to angle boldly. Probably the troops who fish our Border-burns still manage to toss out some dozens of tiny fishes, some six or eight to the pound. Are not these triumphs chronicled in the "Scotsman?" But they cannot imagine what angling was in the dead years, nor what great trout dwelt below the linns of the Crosscleugh burn, beneath the red clusters of the rowan trees, or in the waters of the "Little Yarrow" above the Loch of the Lowes. As to the lochs themselves, now that anyone may put a boat on them, now that there is perpetual trolling, as well as fly-fishing, so that every fish knows the lures, the fun is mainly over. In April, no doubt, something may still be done, and in the silver twilights of June, when as you drift on the still surface you hear the constant sweet plash of the rising trout, a few, and these good, may be taken. But the water wants re-stocking, and the burns in winter need watching, in the interests of spawning fish. It is nobody's interest, that I know of, to take trouble and incur expense; and free fishing, by the constitution of the universe, must end in bad fishing or in none at all. The best we can say for it is that vast numbers of persons may, by the still waters of these meres, enjoy the pleasures of hope. Even solitude is no longer to be found in the scene which Scott, in "Marmion," chooses as of all places the most solitary. Here, have I thought, 'twere sweet to dwell, And rear again the chaplain's cell. But no longer does "Your horse's hoof tread sound too rude, So stilly is the solitude." Stilly! with the horns and songs from omnibusses that carry tourists, and with yells from nymphs and swains disporting themselves in the boats. Yarrow is only the old Yarrow in winter. Ages and revolutions must pass before the ancient peace returns; and only if the golden age is born again, and if we revive in it, shall we find St. Mary's what St. Mary's was lang syne-- Ah, Buddha, if thy tale be true, Of still returning life, A monk may I be born anew, In valleys free from strife,-- A monk where Meggat winds and laves The lone St. Mary's of the Waves. Yarrow, which flows out of St. Mary's Loch was never a great favourite of mine, as far as fishing goes. It had, and probably deserved, a great reputation, and some good trout are still taken in the upper waters, and there must be monsters in the deep black pools, the "dowie dens" above Bowhill. But I never had any luck there. The choicest stream of all was then, probably, the Aill, described by Sir Walter in "William of Deloraine's Midnight Ride"-- Where Aill, from mountains freed, Down from the lakes did raving come; Each wave was crested with tawny foam, Like the mane of a chestnut steed. As not uncommonly happens, Scott uses rather large language here. The steepy, grassy hillsides, the great green tablelands in a recess of which the Aill is born, can hardly be called "mountains." The "lakes," too, through which it passes, are much more like tarns, or rather, considering the flatness of their banks, like well-meaning ponds. But the Aill, near Sinton and Ashkirk, was a delightful trout-stream, between its willow- fringed banks, a brook about the size of the Lambourne. Nowhere on the Border were trout more numerous, better fed, and more easily beguiled. A week on Test would I gladly give for one day of boyhood beside the Aill, where the casting was not scientific, but where the fish rose gamely at almost any fly. Nobody seemed to go there then, and, I fancy, nobody need go there now. The nets and other dismal devices of the poachers from the towns have ruined that pleasant brook, where one has passed so many a happy hour, walking the long way home wet and weary, but well content. Into Aill flows a burn, the Headshaw burn, where there used to be good fish, because it runs out of Headshaw Loch, a weed-fringed lonely tarn on the bleak level of the tableland. Bleak as it may seem, Headshaw Loch has the great charm of absolute solitude: there are no tourists nor anglers here, and the life of the birds is especially free and charming. The trout, too, are large, pink of flesh, and game of character; but the world of mankind need not rush thither. They are not to be captured by the wiles of men, or so rarely that the most enthusiastic anglers have given them up. They are as safe in their tarn as those enchanted fish of the "Arabian Nights." Perhaps a silver sedge in a warm twilight may somewhat avail, but the adventure is rarely achieved. These are the waters with which our boyhood was mainly engaged; it is a pleasure to name and number them. Memory, that has lost so much and would gladly lose so much more, brings vividly back the golden summer evenings by Tweedside, when the trout began to plash in the stillness--brings back the long, lounging, solitary days beneath the woods of Ashiesteil--days so lonely that they sometimes, in the end, begat a superstitious eeriness. One seemed forsaken in an enchanted world; one might see the two white fairy deer flit by, bringing to us, as to Thomas Rhymer, the tidings that we must back to Fairyland. Other waters we knew well, and loved: the little salmon-stream in the west that doubles through the loch, and runs a mile or twain beneath its alders, past its old Celtic battle-field, beneath the ruined shell of its feudal tower, to the sea. Many a happy day we had there, on loch or stream, with the big sea-trout which have somehow changed their tastes, and to- day take quite different flies from the green body and the red body that led them to the landing-net long ago. Dear are the twin Alines, but dearer is Tweed, and Ettrick, where our ancestor was drowned in a flood, and his white horse was found, next day, feeding near his dead body, on a little grassy island. There is a great pleasure in trying new methods, in labouring after the delicate art of the dry fly-fisher in the clear Hampshire streams, where the glassy tide flows over the waving tresses of crow's-foot below the poplar shade. But nothing can be so good as what is old, and, as far as angling goes, is practically ruined, the alternate pool and stream of the Border waters, where The triple pride Of Eildon looks over Strathclyde, and the salmon cast murmurs hard by the Wizard's grave. They are all gone now, the old allies and tutors in the angler's art--the kind gardener who baited our hooks; the good Scotch judge who gave us our first collection of flies; the friend who took us with him on his salmon- fishing expedition, and made men of us with real rods, and "pirns" of ancient make. The companions of those times are scattered, and live under strange stars and in converse seasons, by troutless waters. It is no longer the height of pleasure to be half-drowned in Tweed, or lost on the hills with no luncheon in the basket. But, except for scarcity of fish, the scene is very little altered, and one is a boy again, in heart, beneath the elms of Yair, or by the Gullets at Ashiesteil. However bad the sport, it keeps you young, or makes you young again, and you need not follow Ponce de Leon to the western wilderness, when, in any river you knew of yore, you can find the Fountain of Youth. LOCH AWE THE BOATMAN'S YARNS Good trout-fishing in Scotland, south of the Pentland Firth, is almost impossible to procure. There are better fish, and more of them, in the Wandle, within twenty minutes of Victoria Station, than in any equal stretch of any Scotch river with which I am acquainted. But the pleasure of angling, luckily, does not consist merely of the catching of fish. The Wandle is rather too suburban for some tastes, which prefer smaller trout, better air, and wilder scenery. To such spirits, Loch Awe may, with certain distinct cautions, be recommended. There is more chance for anglers, now, in Scotch lochs than in most Scotch rivers. The lochs cannot so easily be netted, lined, polluted, and otherwise made empty and ugly, like the Border streams. They are farther off from towns and tourists, though distance is scarcely a complete protection. The best lochs for yellow trout are decidedly those of Sutherland. There are no railways, and there are two hundred lochs and more in the Parish of Assynt. There, in June, the angler who is a good pedestrian may actually enjoy solitude, sometimes. There is a loch near Strathnaver, and far from human habitations, where a friend of my own recently caught sixty- five trout weighing about thirty-eight pounds. They are numerous and plucky, but not large, though a casual big loch-trout may be taken by trolling. But it is truly a far way to this anonymous lake and all round the regular fishing inns, like Inchnadampf and Forsinard there is usually quite a little crowd of anglers. The sport is advertised in the newspapers; more and more of our eager fellow-creatures are attracted, more and more the shooting tenants are preserving waters that used to be open. The distance to Sutherland makes that county almost beyond the range of a brief holiday. Loch Leven is nearer, and at Loch Leven the scenery is better than its reputation, while the trout are excellent, though shy. But Loch Leven is too much cockneyfied by angling competitions; moreover, its pleasures are expensive. Loch Awe remains, a loch at once large, lovely, not too distant, and not destitute of sport. The reader of Mr. Colquhoun's delightful old book, "The Moor and the Loch," must not expect Loch Awe to be what it once was. The railway, which has made the north side of the lake so ugly, has brought the district within easy reach of Glasgow and of Edinburgh. Villas are built on many a beautiful height; here couples come for their honeymoon, here whole argosies of boats are anchored off the coasts, here do steam launches ply. The hotels are extremely comfortable, the boatmen are excellent boatmen, good fishers, and capital company. All this is pleasant, but all this attracts multitudes of anglers, and it is not in nature that sport should be what it once was. Of the famous _salmo ferox_ I cannot speak from experience. The huge courageous fish is still at home in Loch Awe, but now he sees a hundred baits, natural and artificial, where he saw one in Mr. Colquhoun's time. The truly contemplative man may still sit in the stern of the boat, with two rods out, and possess his soul in patience, as if he were fishing for tarpon in Florida. I wish him luck, but the diversion is little to my mind. Except in playing the fish, if he comes, all the skill is in the boatmen, who know where to row, at what pace, and in what depth of water. As to the chances of salmon again, they are perhaps less rare, but they are not very frequent. The fish does not seem to take freely in the loch, and on his way from the Awe to the Orchy. As to the trout-fishing, it is very bad in the months when most men take their holidays, August and September. From the middle of April to the middle of June is apparently the best time. The loch is well provided with bays, of different merit, according to the feeding which they provide; some come earlier, some later into season. Doubtless the most beautiful part of the lake is around the islands, between the Loch Awe and the Port Sonachan hotels. The Green Island, with its strange Celtic burying-ground, where the daffodils bloom among the sepulchres with their rude carvings of battles and of armed men, has many trout around its shores. The favourite fishing-places, however, are between Port Sonachan and Ford. In the morning early, the steam-launch tows a fleet of boats down the loch, and they drift back again, fishing all the bays, and arriving at home in time for dinner. Too frequently the angler is vexed by finding a boat busy in his favourite bay. I am not sure that, when the trout are really taking, the water near Port Sonachan is not as good as any other. Much depends on the weather. In the hard north-east winds of April we can scarcely expect trout to feed very freely anywhere. These of Loch Awe are very peculiar fish. I take it that there are two species--one short, thick, golden, and beautiful; but these, at least in April, are decidedly scarce. The common sort is long, lanky, of a dark green hue, and the reverse of lovely. Most of them, however, are excellent at breakfast, pink in the flesh, and better flavoured, I think, than the famous trout of Loch Leven. They are also extremely game for their size; a half-pound trout fights like a pounder. From thirty to forty fish in a day's incessant angling is reckoned no bad basket. In genial May weather, probably the trout average two to the pound, and a pounder or two may be in the dish. But three to the pound is decidedly nearer the average, at least in April. The flies commonly used are larger than what are employed in Loch Leven. A teal wing and red body, a grouse hackle, and the prismatic Heckham Peckham are among the favourites; but it is said that flies no bigger than Tweed flies are occasionally successful. In my own brief experience I have found the trout "dour," occasionally they would rise freely for an hour at noon, or in the evening; but often one passed hours with scarcely a rising fish. This may have been due to the bitterness of the weather, or to my own lack of skill. Not that lochs generally require much artifice in the angler. To sink the flies deep, and move them with short jerks, appears, now and then, to be efficacious. There has been some controversy about Loch Awe trouting; this is as favourable a view of the sport as I can honestly give. It is not excellent, but, thanks to the great beauty of the scenery, the many points of view on so large and indented a lake, the charm of the wood and wild flowers, Loch Awe is well worth a visit from persons who do not pitch their hopes too high. Loch Awe would have contented me less had I been less fortunate in my boatman. It is often said that tradition has died out in the Highlands; it is living yet. After three days of north wind and failure, it occurred to me that my boatman might know the local folklore--the fairy tales and traditions. As a rule, tradition is a purely professional part of a guide's stock-in- trade, but the angler who had my barque in his charge proved to be a fresh fountain of legend. His own county is not Argyleshire, but Inverness, and we did not deal much in local myth. True, he told me why Loch Awe ceased--like the site of Sodom and Gomorrah--to be a cultivated valley and became a lake, where the trout are small and, externally, green. "Loch Awe was once a fertile valley, and it belonged to an old dame. She was called Dame Cruachan, the same as the hill, and she lived high up on the hillside. Now there was a well on the hillside, and she was always to cover up the well with a big stone before the sun set. But one day she had been working in the valley and she was weary, and she sat down by the path on her way home and fell asleep. And the sun had gone down before she reached the well, and in the night the water broke out and filled all the plain, and what was land is now water." This, then, was the origin of Loch Awe. It is a little like the Australian account of the Deluge. That calamity was produced by a man's showing a woman the mystic turndun, a native sacred toy. Instantly water broke out of the earth and drowned everybody. This is merely a local legend, such as boatmen are expected to know. As the green trout utterly declined to rise, I tried the boatman with the Irish story of why the Gruagach Gaire left off laughing, and all about the hare that came and defiled his table, as recited by Mr. Curtin in his "Irish Legends" (Sampson, Low, & Co.). The boatman did not know this fable, but he did know of a red deer that came and spoke to a gentleman. This was a story from the Macpherson country. I give it first in the boatman's words, and then we shall discuss the history of the legend as known to Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. THE YARN OF THE BLACK OFFICER "It was about 'the last Christmas of the hundred'--the end of last century. They wanted men for the Black Watch (42nd Highlanders), and the Black Officer, as they called him, was sent to his own country to enlist them. Some he got willingly, and others by force. He promised he would only take them to London, where the King wanted to review them, and then let them go home. So they came, though they little liked it, and he was marching them south. Now at night they reached a place where nobody would have halted them except the Black Officer, for it was a great place for ghosts. And they would have run away if they had dared, but they were afraid of him. So some tried to sleep in threes and fours, and some were afraid to sleep, and they sat up round the fire. But the Black Officer, he went some way from the rest, and lay down beneath a tree. "Now as the night wore on, and whiles it would be dark and whiles the moon shone, a man came--they did not know from where--a big red man, and drew up to the fire, and was talking with them. And he asked where the Black Officer was, and they showed him. Now there was one man, Shamus Mackenzie they called him, and he was very curious, and he must be seeing what they did. So he followed the man, and saw him stoop and speak to the officer, but he did not waken; then this individual took the Black Officer by the breast and shook him violently. Then Shamus knew who the stranger was, for no man alive durst have done as much to the Black Officer. And there was the Black Officer kneeling to him! "Well, what they said, Shamus could not hear, and presently they walked away, and the Black Officer came back alone. "He took them to England, but never to London, and they never saw the King. He took them to Portsmouth, and they were embarked for India, where we were fighting the French. There was a town we couldn't get into" (Seringapatam?), "and the Black Officer volunteered to make a tunnel under the walls. Now they worked three days, and whether it was the French heard them and let them dig on, or not, any way, on the third day the French broke in on them. They kept sending men into the tunnel, and more men, and still they wondered who was fighting within, and how we could have so large a party in the tunnel; so at last they brought torches, and there was no man alive on our side but the Black Officer, and he had a wall of corpses built up in front of him, and was fighting across it. He had more light to see by than the French had, for it was dark behind him, and there would be some light on their side. So at last they brought some combustibles and blew it all up. Three days after that we took the town. Some of our soldiers were sent to dig out the tunnel, and with them was Shamus Mackenzie." "And they never found the Black Officer," I said, thinking of young Campbell in Sekukoeni's fighting koppie. "Oh, yes," said the boatman, "Shamus found the body of the Black Officer, all black with smoke, and he laid him down on a green knoll, and was standing over the dead man, and was thinking of how many places they had been in together, and of his own country, and how he wished he was there again. Then the dead man's face moved. "Shamus turned and ran for his life, and he was running till he met some officers, and he told them that the Black Officer's body had stirred. They thought he was lying, but they went off to the place, and one of them had the thought to take a flask of brandy in his pocket. When they came to the lifeless body it stirred again, and with one thing and another they brought him round. "The Black Officer was not himself again for long, and they took him home to his own country, and he lay in bed in his house. And every day a red deer would come to the house, and go into his room and sit on a chair beside the bed, speaking to him like a man. "Well, the Black Officer got better again, and went about among his friends; and once he was driving home from a dinner-party, and Shamus was with him. It was just the last night of the hundred. And on the road they met a man, and Shamus knew him--for it was him they had seen by the fire on the march, as I told you at the beginning. The Black Officer got down from his carriage and joined the man, and they walked a bit apart; but Shamus--he was so curious--whatever happened he must see them. And he came within hearing just as they were parting, and he heard the stranger say, 'This is the night.' "'No,' said the Black Officer, 'this night next year.' "So he came back, and they drove home. A year went by, and the Black Officer was seeking through the country for the twelve best men he could find to accompany him to some deer-hunt or the like. And he asked Shamus, but he pretended he was ill--Oh, he was very unwell!--and he could not go, but stayed in bed at home. So the Black Officer chose another man, and he and the twelve set out--the thirteen of them. But they were never seen again." "Never seen again? Were they lost in the snow?" "It did come on a heavy fall, sir." "But their bodies were found?" "No, sir--though they searched high and low; they are not found, indeed, till this day. It was thought the Black Officer had sold himself and twelve other men, sir." "To the Devil?" "It would be that." For the narrator never mentions our ghostly foe, which produces a solemn effect. This story was absolutely new to me, and much I wished that Mr. Louis Stevenson could have heard it. The blending of the far East with the Highlands reminds one of his "Master of Ballantrae," and what might he not make of that fairy red deer! My boatman, too, told me what Mr. Stevenson says the Highlanders will not tell--the name of the man who committed the murder of which Alan Breck was accused. But this secret I do not intend to divulge. The story of the Black Officer then seemed absolutely unpublished. But when Sir Walter Scott's diary was given to the world in October, 1890, it turned out that he was not wholly ignorant of the legend. In 1828 he complains that he has been annoyed by a lady, because he had printed "in the 'Review'" a rawhead and bloody-bones story of her father, Major Macpherson, who was lost in a snowstorm. This Major Macpherson was clearly the Black Officer. Mr. Douglas, the publisher of Scott's diary, discovered that the "Review" mentioned vaguely by Scott was the "Foreign Quarterly," No. I, July, 1827. In an essay on Hoffmann's novels, Sir Walter introduced the tale as told to him in a letter from a nobleman some time deceased, not more distinguished for his love of science than his attachment to literature in all its branches. The tale is too long to be given completely. Briefly, a Captain M., on St. Valentine's day, 1799, had been deer-shooting (at an odd time of the year) in the hills west of D-. He did not return, a terrible snowstorm set in, and finally he and his friends were found dead in a bothy, which the tempest had literally destroyed. Large stones from the walls were found lying at distances of a hundred yards; the wooden uprights were twisted like broken sticks. The Captain was lying dead, without his clothes, on the bed; one man was discovered at a distance, another near the Captain. Then it was remembered that, at the same bothy a month before, a shepherd lad had inquired for the Captain, had walked with him for some time, and that, on the officer's return, "a mysterious anxiety hung about him." A fire had also been seen blazing on an opposite height, and when some of the gillies went to the spot, "there was no fire to be seen." On the day when the expedition had started, the Captain was warned of the ill weather, but he said "he _must_ go." He was an unpopular man, and was accused of getting money by procuring recruits from the Highlands, often by cruel means. "Our informer told us nothing more; he neither told us his own opinion, nor that of the country, but left it to our own notions of the manner in which good and evil is rewarded in this life to suggest the author of the miserable event. He seemed impressed with superstitious awe on the subject, and said, 'There was na the like seen in a' Scotland.' The man is far advanced in years and is a schoolmaster in the neighbourhood of Rannoch." Sir Walter says that "the feeling of superstitious awe annexed to the catastrophe could not have been improved by any circumstances of additional horror which a poet could have invented." But is there not something more moving still in the boatman's version: "they were never seen again . . . they were not found indeed till this day"? The folklorist, of course, is eager to know whether the boatman's much more complete and connected narrative is a popular mythical development in the years between 1820 and 1890, or whether the schoolmaster of Rannoch did not tell all he knew. It is unlikely, I think, that the siege of Seringapatam would have been remembered so long in connection with the Black Officer if it had not formed part of his original legend. Meanwhile the earliest printed notice of the event with which I am acquainted, a notice only ten years later than the date of the Major's death in 1799, is given by Hogg in "The Spy," 1810-11, pp. 101-3. I offer an abridgment of the narrative. "About the end of last century Major Macpherson and a party of friends went out to hunt on the Grampians between Athole and Badenoch. They were highly successful, and in the afternoon they went into a little bothy, and, having meat and drink, they abandoned themselves to jollity. "During their merry-making a young man entered whose appearance particularly struck and somewhat shocked Macpherson; the stranger beckoned to the Major, and he followed him instantly out of the bothy. "When they parted, after apparently having had some earnest conversation, the stranger was out of sight long before the Major was half-way back, though only twenty yards away. "The Major showed on his return such evident marks of trepidation that the mirth was marred and no one cared to ask him questions. "This was early in the week, and on Friday the Major persuaded his friends to make a second expedition to the mountains, from which they never returned. "On a search being made their dead bodies were found in the bothy, some considerably mangled, but some were not marked by any wound. "It was visible that this had not been effected by human agency: the bothy was torn from its foundations and scarcely a vestige left of it, and one huge stone, which twelve men could not have raised, was tossed to a considerable distance. "On this event Scott's beautiful ballad of 'Glenfinlas' is said to have been founded." As will be seen presently, Hogg was wrong about 'Glenfinlas'; the boatman was acquainted with a traditional version of that wild legend. I found another at Rannoch. The Highland fairies are very vampirish. The Loch Awe boatman lives at a spot haunted by a shadowy maiden. Her last appearance was about thirty years ago. Two young men were thrashing corn one morning, when the joint of the flail broke. The owner went to Larichban and entered an outhouse to look for a piece of sheepskin wherewith to mend the flail. He was long absent, and his companion went after him. He found him struggling in the arms of a ghostly maid, who had nearly murdered him, but departed on the arrival of his friend. It is not easy to make out what these ghoulish women are--not fairies exactly, nor witches, nor vampires. For example, three shepherds at a lonely sheiling were discoursing of their loves, and it was, "Oh, how happy I should be if Katie were here, or Maggie, or Bessie!" as the case might be. So they would say and so they would wish, and lo! one evening, the three girls came to the door of the hut. So they made them welcome; but one of the shepherds was playing the Jew's-harp, and he did not like the turn matters were taking. The two others stole off into corners of the darkling hut with their lovers, but this prudent lad never took his lips off the Jew's-harp. "Harping is good if no ill follows it," said the semblance of his sweetheart; but he never answered. He played and thrummed, and out of one dark corner trickled red blood into the fire-light, and out of another corner came a current of blood to meet it. Then he slowly rose, still harping, and backed his way to the door, and fled into the hills from these cruel airy shapes of false desire. "And do the people actually believe all that?" "Ay, do they!" That is the boatman's version of Scott's theme in "Glenfinlas." Witches played a great part in his narratives. In the boatman's country there is a plain, and on the plain is a knoll, about twice the height of a one-storeyed cottage, and pointed "like a sugar-loaf." The old people remember, or have heard, that this mound was not there when they were young. It swelled up suddenly out of the grave of a witch who was buried there. The witch was a great enemy of a shepherd. Every morning she would put on the shape of a hare, and run before his dogs, and lead them away from the sheep. He knew it was right to shoot at her with a crooked sixpence, and he hit her on the hind leg, and the dogs were after her, and chased the hare into the old woman's cottage. The shepherd ran after them, and there he found them, tearing at the old woman; but the hare was twisted round their necks, and she was crying, "Tighten, hare, tighten!" and it was choking them. So he tore the hare off the dogs; and then the old woman begged him to save her from them, and she promised never to plague him again. "But if the old dog's teeth had been as sharp as the young one's, she would have been a dead woman." When this witch died she knew she could never lie in safety in her grave; but there was a very safe churchyard in Aberdeenshire, a hundred and fifty miles away, and if she could get into that she would be at rest. And she rose out of her grave, and off she went, and the Devil after her, on a black horse; but, praise to the swiftness of her feet, she won the churchyard before him. Her first grave swelled up, oh, as high as that green hillock! Witches are still in active practice. There was an old woman very miserly. She would alway be taking one of her neighbours' sheep from the hills, and they stood it for long; they did not like to meddle with her. At last it grew so bad that they brought her before the sheriff, and she got eighteen months in prison. When she came out she was very angry, and set about making an image of the woman whose sheep she had taken. When the image was made she burned it and put the ashes in a burn. And it is a very curious thing, but the woman she made it on fell into a decline, and took to her bed. The witch and her family went to America. They kept a little inn, in a country place, and people who slept in it did not come out again. They were discovered, and the eldest son was hanged; he confessed that he had committed nineteen murders before he left Scotland. "They were not a nice family." "The father was a very respectable old man." The boatman gave me the name of this wicked household, but it is perhaps better forgotten. The extraordinary thing is that this appears to be the Highland introduction to, or part first of, a gloomy and sanguinary story of a murder hole--an inn of assassins in a lonely district of the United States, which Mr. Louis Stevenson heard in his travels there, and told to me some years ago. The details have escaped my memory, but, as Mr. Stevenson narrated them, they rivalled De Quincey's awful story of Williams's murders in the Ratcliffe Highway. Life must still be haunted in Badenoch, as it was on Ida's hill, by forms of unearthly beauty, the goddess or the ghost yet wooing the shepherd; indeed, the boatman told me many stories of living superstition and terrors of the night; but why should I exhaust his wallet? To be sure, it seemed very full of tales; these offered here may be but the legends which came first to his hand. The boatman is not himself a believer in the fairy world, or not more than all sensible men ought to be. The supernatural is too pleasant a thing for us to discard in an earnest, scientific manner like Mr. Kipling's Aurelian McGubben. Perhaps I am more superstitious than the boatman, and the yarns I swopped with him about ghosts I have met would seem even more mendacious to possessors of pocket microscopes and of the modern spirit. But I would rather have one banshee story than fifteen pages of proof that "life, which began as a cell, with a c, is to end as a sell, with an s." It should be added that the boatman has given his consent to the printing of his yarns. On being offered a moiety of the profits, he observed that he had no objection to these, but that he entirely declined to be responsible for any share of the expenses. Would that all authors were as sagacious, for then the amateur novelist and the minor poet would vex us no more. Perhaps I should note that I have not made the boatman say "whateffer," because he doesn't. The occasional use of the imperfect is almost his only Gaelic idiom. It is a great comfort and pleasure, when the trout do not rise, to meet a skilled and unaffected narrator of the old beliefs, old legends, as ancient as the hills that girdle and guard the loch, or as antique, at least, as man's dwelling among the mountains--the Yellow Hill, the Calf Hill, the Hill of the Stack. The beauty of the scene, the pleasant talk, the daffodils on the green isle among the Celtic graves, compensate for a certain "dourness" among the fishes of Loch Awe. On the occasions when they are not dour they rise very pleasant and free, but, in these brief moments, it is not of legends and folklore that you are thinking, but of the landing-net. The boatman, by the way, was either not well acquainted with _Marchen_--Celtic nursery-tales such as Campbell of Islay collected, or was not much interested in them, or, perhaps, had the shyness about narrating this particular sort of old wives' fables which is so common. People who do know them seldom tell them in Sassenach. LOCH-FISHING LITTLE LOCH BEG There is something mysterious in loch-fishing, in the tastes and habits of the fish which inhabit the innumerable lakes and tarns of Scotland. It is not always easy to account either for their presence or their absence, for their numbers or scarcity, their eagerness to take or their "dourness." For example, there is Loch Borlan, close to the well-known little inn of Alt-na-geal-gach in Sutherland. Unless that piece of water is greatly changed, it is simply full of fish of about a quarter of a pound, which will rise at almost any time to almost any fly. There is not much pleasure in catching such tiny and eager trout, but in the season complacent anglers capture and boast of their many dozens. On the other hand, a year or two ago, a beginner took a four-pound trout there with the fly. If such trout exist in Borlan, it is hard to explain the presence of the innumerable fry. One would expect the giants of the deep to keep down their population. Not far off is another small lake, Loch Awe, which has invisible advantages over Loch Borlan, yet there the trout are, or were, "fat and fair of flesh," like Tamlane in the ballad. Wherefore are the trout in Loch Tummell so big and strong, from one to five pounds, and so scarce, while those in Loch Awe are numerous and small? One occasionally sees examples of how quickly trout will increase in weight, and what curious habits they will adopt. In a county of south- western Scotland there is a large village, populated by a keenly devoted set of anglers, who miss no opportunity. Within a quarter of a mile of the village is a small tarn, very picturesquely situated among low hills, and provided with the very tiniest feeder and outflow. There is a sluice at the outflow, and, for some reason, the farmer used to let most of the water out, in the summer of every year. In winter the tarn is used by the curling club. It is not deep, has rather a marshy bottom, and many ducks, snipe, and wild-fowl generally dwell among the reeds and marish plants of its sides. Nobody ever dreamed of fishing here, but one day a rustic, "glowering" idly over the wall of the adjacent road, saw fish rising. He mentioned his discovery to an angler, who is said to have caught some large trout, but tradition varies about everything, except that the fish are very "dour." One evening in August, a warm, still evening, I happened to visit the tarn. As soon as the sun fell below the hills, it was literally alive with large trout rising. As far as one could estimate from the brief view of heads and shoulders, they were sometimes two or three pounds in weight. I got my rod, of course, as did a rural friend. Mine was a small cane rod, his a salmon-rod. I fished with one Test-fly; he with three large loch-flies. The fish were rising actually at our feet, but they seemed to move about very much, never, or seldom, rising twice exactly at the same place. The hypothesis was started that there were but few of them, and that they ran round and round, like a stage army, to give an appearance of multitude. But this appears improbable. What is certain was our utter inability ever to get a rise from the provoking creatures. The dry fly is difficult to use on a loch, as there is no stream to move it, and however gently you draw it it makes a "wake"--a trail behind it. Wet or dry, or "twixt wet and dry," like the convivial person in the song, we could none of us raise them. I did catch a small but beautifully proportioned and pink-fleshed trout with the alder, but everything else, silver sedge and all, everything from midge to May-fly, in the late twilight, was offered to them in vain. In windy or cloudy weather it was just as useless; indeed, I never saw them rise, except in a warm summer stillness, at and after sunset. Probably they would have taken a small red worm, pitched into the ripple of a rise; but we did not try that. After a few evenings, they seemed to give up rising altogether. I don't feel certain that they had not been netted: yet no trout seemed to be on sale in the village. Their presence in the water may perhaps be accounted for thus: they may have come into the loch from the river, by way of the tiny feeder; but the river-trout are both scarce and small. A new farmer had given up letting the water off, and probably there must have been very rich feeding, water-shrimps or snails, which might partly account for the refusal to rise at the artificial fly. Or they may have been ottered by the villagers, though that would rather have made them rise short than not rise at all. There is another loch on an extremely remote hillside, eight miles from the smallest town, in a pastoral country. There are trout enough in the loch, and of excellent size and flavour, but you scarcely ever get them. They rise freely, but they _always_ rise short. It is, I think, the most provoking loch I ever fished. You raise them; they come up freely, showing broad sides of a ruddy gold, like the handsomest Test trout, but they almost invariably miss the hook. You do not land one out of twenty. The reason is, apparently, that people from the nearest town use the otter in the summer evenings, when these trout rise best. In a Sutherland loch, Mr. Edward Moss tells us (in "A Season in Sutherland"), that he once found an elegant otter, a well-made engine of some unscrupulous tourist, lying in the bottom of the water on a sunny day. At Loch Skene, on the top of a hill, twenty miles from any town, otters are occasionally found by the keeper or the shepherds, concealed near the shore. The practice of ottering can give little pleasure to any but a depraved mind, and nothing educates trout so rapidly into "rising short"; why they are not to be had when they are rising most vehemently, "to themselves," is another mystery. A few rises are encouraging, but when the water is all splashing with rises, as a rule the angler is only tantalised. A windy day, a day with a large ripple, but without white waves breaking, is, as a rule, best for a loch. In some lochs the sea- trout prefer such a hurricane that a boat can hardly be kept on the water. I have known a strong north wind in autumn put down the sea-trout, whereas the salmon rose, with unusual eagerness, just in the shallows where the waves broke in foam on the shore. The best day I ever had with sea-trout was muggy and grey, and the fish were most eager when the water was still, except for a tremendously heavy shower of rain, "a singing shower," as George Chapman has it. On that day two rods caught thirty-nine sea-trout, weighing forty pounds. But it is difficult to say beforehand what day will do well, except that sunshine is bad, a north wind worse, and no wind at all usually means an empty basket. Even to this rule there are exceptions, and one of these is in the case of a tarn which I shall call, pleonastically, Little Loch Beg. This is not the real name of the loch--quite enough people know its real name already. Nor does it seem necessary to mention the district where the loch lies hidden; suffice it to say that a land of more streams and scarcer trout you will hardly find. We had tried all the rivers and burns to no purpose, and the lochs are capricious and overfished. One loch we had not tried, Loch Beg. You walk, or drive, a few miles from any village, then you climb a few hundred yards of hill, and from the ridge you see, on one hand a great amphitheatre of green and purple mountain-sides, in the west; on the east, within a hundred yards under a slope, is Loch Beg. It is not a mile in circumference, and all but some eighty yards of shore is defended against the angler by wide beds of water-lilies, with their pretty white floating lamps, or by tall sedges and reeds. Nor is the wading easy. Four steps you make with safety, at the fifth your foremost leg sinks in mud apparently bottomless. Most people fish only the eastern side, whereof a few score yards are open, with a rocky and gravelly bottom. Now, all lochs have their humours. In some trout like a big fly, in some a small one, but almost all do best with a rough wind or rain. I knew enough of Loch Beg to approach it at noon on a blazing day of sunshine, when the surface was like glass. It was like that when first I saw it, and a shepherd warned us that we "would dae naething"; we did little, indeed, but I rose nearly every rising fish I cast over, losing them all, too, and in some cases being broken, as I was using very fine gut, and the fish were heavy. Another trial seemed desirable, and the number of rising trout was most tempting. All over it trout were rising to the natural fly, with big circles like those you see in the Test at twilight; while in the centre, where no artificial fly can be cast for want of a boat, a big fish would throw himself out of the water in his eagerness. One such I saw which could not have weighed under three pounds, a short, thick, dark-yellow fish. I was using a light two-handed rod, and fancied that a single Test-fly on very fine tackle would be the best lure. It certainly rose the trout, if one threw into the circle they made; but they never were hooked. One fish of about a pound and a half threw himself out of the water at it, hit it, and broke the fine tackle. So I went on raising them, but never getting them. As long as the sun blazed and no breeze ruffled the water, they rose bravely, but a cloud or even a ripple seemed to send them down. At last I tried a big alder, and with that I actually touched a few, and even landed several on the shelving bank. Their average weight, as we proved on several occasions, was exactly three-quarters of a pound; but we never succeeded in landing any of the really big ones. A local angler told me he had caught one of two pounds, and lost another "like a young grilse," after he had drawn it on to the bank. I can easily believe it, for in no loch, but one, have I ever seen so many really big and handsome fish feeding. Loch Beg is within a mile of a larger and famous loch, but it is infinitely better, though the other looks much more favourable in all ways for sport. The only place where fishing is easy, as I have said, is a mere strip of coast under the hill, where there is some gravel, and the mouth of a very tiny feeder, usually dry. Off this place the trout rose freely, but not near so freely as in a certain corner, quite out of reach without a boat, where the leviathans lived and sported. After the little expanse of open shore had been fished over a few times, the trout there seemed to grow more shy, and there was a certain monotony in walking this tiny quarter-deck of space. So I went round to the west side, where the water-lilies are. Fish were rising about three yards beyond the weedy beds, and I foolishly thought I would try for them. Now, you cannot overestimate the difficulty of casting a fly across yards of water-lilies. You catch in the weeds as you lift your line for a fresh cast, and then you have to extricate it laboriously, shortening line, and then to let it out again, and probably come to grief once more. I saw a trout rise, with a huge sullen circle dimpling round him, cast over him, raised him, and missed him. The water was perfectly still, and the "plop" made by these fish was very exciting and tantalising. The next that rose took the alder, and, of course, ran right into the broad band of lilies. I tried all the dodges I could think of, and all that Mr. Halford suggests. I dragged at him hard. I gave him line. I sat down and endeavoured to disengage my thoughts, but I never got a glimpse of him, and finally had to wade as far in as I dared, and save as much of the casting line as I could; it was very little. There was one thing to be said for the trout on this side: they meant business. They did not rise shyly, like the others, but went for the fly if it came at all near them, and then, down they rushed, and bolted into the lily-roots. A new plan occurred to me. I put on about eighteen inches of the stoutest gut I had, to the end I knotted the biggest sea-trout fly I possessed, and, hooking the next fish that rose, I turned my back on the loch and ran uphill with the rod. Looking back I saw a trout well over a pound flying across the lilies; but alas! the hold was not strong enough, and he fell back. Again and again I tried this method, invariably hooking the trout, though the heavy short casting-line and the big fly fell very awkwardly in the dead stillness of the water. I had some exciting runs with them, for they came eagerly to the big fly, and did not miss it, as they had missed the Red Quill, or Whitchurch Dun, with which at first I tried to beguile them. One, of only the average weight, I did drag out over the lilies; the others fell off in mid-journey, but they never broke the uncompromising stout tackle. With the first chill of evening they ceased rising, and I left them, not ungrateful for their very peculiar manners and customs. The chances are that the trout beyond the band of weeds never see an artificial fly, and they are, therefore, the more guileless--at least, late in the season. In spring, I believe, the lilies are less in the way, and I fear some one has put a Berthon boat on the loch in April. But it is not so much what one catches in Loch Beg, as the monsters which one might catch that make the tarn so desirable. The loch seems to prove that any hill-tarn might be made a good place for sport, if trout were introduced where they do not exist already. But the size of these in Loch Beg puzzles me, nor can one see how they breed, as breed they do: for twice or thrice I caught a fingerling, and threw him in again. No burn runs out of the loch, and, even in a flood, the feeder is so small, and its course so extremely steep, that one cannot imagine where the fish manage to spawn. The only loch known to me where the common trout are of equal size, is on the Border. It is extremely deep, with very clear water, and with scarce any spawning ground. On a summer evening the trout are occasionally caught; three weighing seven pounds were taken one night, a year or two ago. I have not tried the evening fishing, but at all other times of day have found them the "dourest" of trout, and they grow dourer. But one is always lured on by the spectacle of the monsters which throw themselves out of water, with a splash that echoes through all the circuit of the low green hills. They probably reach at least four or five pounds, but it is unlikely that the biggest take the fly, and one may doubt whether they propagate their species, as small trout are never seen there. There are two ways of enlarging the size of trout which should be carefully avoided. Pike are supposed to keep down the population and leave more food for the survivors, minnows are supposed to be nourishing food. Both of these novelties are dangerous. Pike have been introduced in that long lovely sheet of water, Loch Ken, and I have never once seen the rise of a trout break that surface, so "hideously serene." Trout, in lochs which have become accustomed to feeding on minnows, are apt to disdain fly altogether. Of course there are lochs in which good trout coexist with minnows and with pike, but these inmates are too dangerous to be introduced. The introduction, too, of Loch Leven trout is often disappointing. Sometimes they escape down the burn into the river in floods; sometimes, perhaps for lack of proper food and sufficient, they dwindle terribly in size, and become no better than "brownies." In St. Mary's Loch, in Selkirkshire, some Canadian trout were introduced. Little or nothing has been seen of them, unless some small creatures of a quarter of a pound, extraordinarily silvery, and more often in the air than in the water when hooked, are these children of the remote West. If they grew up, and retained their beauty and sprightliness, they would be excellent substitutes for sea-trout. Almost all experiments in stocking lochs have their perils, except the simple experiment of putting trout where there were no trout before. This can do no harm, and they may increase in weight, let us hope not in wisdom, like the curiously heavy and shy fish mentioned in the beginning of this paper. LOCH LEVEN I had a friend once, an angler, who in winter was fond of another sport. He liked to cast his _louis_ into the green baize pond at Monte Carlo, and, on the whole, he was generally "broken." He seldom landed the golden fish of the old man's dream in Theocritus. When the croupier had gaffed all his money he would repent and say, "Now, that would have kept me at Loch Leven for a fortnight." One used to wonder whether a fortnight of Loch Leven was worth an afternoon of the pleasure of losing at Monte Carlo. The loch has a name for being cockneyfied, beset by whole fleets of competitive anglers from various angling clubs in Scotland. That men should competitively angle shows, indeed, a great want of true angling sentiment. To fish in a crowd is odious, to work hard for prizes of flasks and creels and fly-books is to mistake the true meaning of the pastime. However, in this crowded age men are so constituted that they like to turn a contemplative exercise into a kind of Bank Holiday. There is no use in arguing with such persons; the worst of their pleasure is that it tends to change a Scotch loch into something like the pond of the Welsh Harp, at Hendon. It is always good news to read in the papers how the Dundee Walton Society had a bad day, and how the first prize was won by Mr. Macneesh, with five trout weighing three pounds and three quarters. Loch Leven, then, is crowded and cockneyfied by competitions; it has also no great name for beauty of landscape. Every one to his own taste in natural beauty, but in this respect I think Loch Leven is better than its reputation. It is certainly more pictorial, so to speak, than some remote moor lochs up near Cape Wrath; Forsinard in particular, where the scenery looks like one gigantic series of brown "baps," flat Scotch scones, all of low elevation, all precisely similar to each other. Loch Leven is not such a cockney place as the majority of men who have not visited it imagine. It really is larger than the Welsh Harp at Hendon, and the scenery, though not like that of Ben Cruachan or Ben Mohr, excels the landscape of Middlesex. At the northern end is a small town, grey, with some red roofs and one or two characteristic Fifeshire church-towers, squat and strong. There are also a few factory chimneys, which are not fair to outward view, nor appropriate by a loch-side. On the west are ranges of distant hills, low but not uncomely. On the east rises a beautiful moorland steep with broken and graceful outlines. When the sun shines on the red tilled land, in spring; when the smoke of burning gorse coils up all day long into the sky, as if the Great Spirit were taking his pipe of peace on the mountains; when the islands are mirrored on the glassy water, then the artist rejoices, though the angler knows that he will waste his day. As far as fishing goes, he is bound to be "clean," as the boatmen say--to catch nothing; but the solemn peace, and the walls and ruined towers of Queen Mary's prison, may partially console the fisher. The accommodation is agreeable, there is a pleasant inn--an old town-house, perhaps, of some great family, when the great families did not rush up to London, but spent their winters in such country towns as Dumfries and St. Andrews. The inn has a great green garden at its doors, and if the talk is mainly of fishing, and if every one tells of his monster trout that escaped the net, there is much worse conversation than that. When you reach Kinross, and, after excellent ham and eggs, begin to make a start, the cockney element is most visible at the first. Everybody's name is registered in a book; each pays a considerable, but not exorbitant, fee for the society--often well worth the money--and the assistance of boatmen. These gentlemen are also well provided with luncheon and beer, and, on the whole, there is more pleasure in the life of a Loch Leven boatman than in most arts, crafts, or professions. He takes the rod when his patron is lazy; it is said that he often catches the trout; {1} he sees a good deal of good company, and, if his basket be heavy, who so content as he? The first thing is to row out to a good bay, and which will prove a good bay depends on the strength and direction of the wind. Perhaps the best fishing is farthest off, at the end of a long row, but the best scenery is not so distant. A good deal hangs on an early start when there are many boats out. Loch Leven is a rather shallow loch, seldom much over fifteen feet deep, save where a long narrow rent or geological flaw runs through the bottom. The water is of a queer glaucous green, olive-coloured, or rather like the tint made when you wash out a box of water-colour paints. This is not so pretty as the black wave of Loch Awe or Loch Shin, but has a redeeming quality in the richness of the feeding for trout. These are fabled to average about a pound, but are probably a trifle under that weight, on the whole. They are famous, and, according to Sir Walter Scott, were famous as long ago as in Queen Mary's time, for the bright silver of their sides, for their pink flesh, and gameness when hooked. Theorists have explained all this by saying that they are the descendants of land-locked salmon. The flies used on the loch are smaller than those favoured in the Highlands; they are sold attached to casts, and four flies are actually employed at once. Probably two are quite enough at a time. If a veteran trout is attracted by seeing four flies, all of different species, and these like nothing in nature, all conspiring to descend on him at once, he must be less cautious than we generally find him. The Hampshire angler, of course, will sneer at the whole proceeding, the "chucking and chancing it," in the queer-coloured wave, and the use of so many fanciful entomological specimens. But the Hampshire angler is very welcome to try his arts, in a calm, and his natural-looking cocked-up flies. He will probably be defeated by a grocer from Greenock, sinking his four flies very deep, as is, by some experts, recommended. The trout are capricious, perhaps as capricious as any known to the angler, but they are believed to prefer a strong east wind and a dark day. The east wind is nowhere, perhaps, so bad as people fancy; it is certainly not so bad as the north wind, and on Loch Leven it is the favourite. The man who is lucky enough to hit on the right day, and to land a couple of dozen Loch Leven trout, has very good reason to congratulate himself, and need envy nobody. But such days and such takes are rare, and the summer of 1890 was much more unfortunate than that of 1889. One great mistake is made by the company which farms the Loch, stocks it, supplies the boats, and regulates the fishing. They permit trolling with angels, or phantoms, or the natural minnow. Now, trolling may be comparatively legitimate, when the boat is being pulled against the wind to its drift, but there is no more skill in it than in sitting in an omnibus. But for trolling, many a boat would come home "clean" in the evening, on days of calm, or when, for other reasons of their own, the trout refuse to take the artificial fly. Yet there are men at Loch Leven who troll all day, and poor sport it must be, as a trout of a pound or so has no chance on a trolling-rod. This method is inimical to fly-fishing, but is such a consolation to the inefficient angler that one can hardly expect to see it abolished. The unsuccessful clamour for trolling, instead of consoling themselves, as sportsmen should do, with the conversation of the gillies, their anecdotes of great trout, and their reminiscences of great anglers, especially of the late Mr. Russell, the famed editor of the "Scotsman." This humourist is gradually "winning his way to the mythical." All fishing stories are attached to him; his eloquence is said (in the language of the historian of the Buccaneers) to have been "florid"; he is reported to have thrown his fly-book into Loch Leven on an unlucky day, saying, "You brutes, take your choice," and a rock, which he once hooked and held on to, is named after him, on the Tweed. In addition to the humane and varied conversation of the boatmen, there is always the pure pleasure of simply gazing at the hillsides and at the islands. They are as much associated with the memory of Mary Stuart as Hermitage or even Holyrood. On that island was her prison; here the rude Morton tried to bully her into signing away her rights; hence she may often have watched the shore at night for the lighting of a beacon, a sign that a rescue was at hand. The hills, at least, are much as she may have seen them, and the square towers and crumbling walls on the island met her eyes when they were all too strong. The "quay" is no longer "rude," as when "The Abbot" was written, and is crowded with the green boats of the Loch Leven Company. But you still land on her island under "the huge old tree" which Scott saw, which the unhappy Mary may herself have seen. The small garden and the statues are gone, the garden whence Roland Graeme led Mary to the boat and to brief liberty and hope unfulfilled. Only a kind of ground- plan remains of the halls where Lindesay and Ruthven browbeat her forlorn Majesty. But you may climb the staircase where Roland Graeme stood sentinel, and feel a touch, of what Pepys felt when he kissed a dead Queen--Katherine of Valois. Like Roland Graeme, the Queen may have been "wearied to death of this Castle of Loch Leven," where, in spring, all seems so beautiful, the trees budding freshly above the yellow celandine and among the grey prison walls. It was a kindlier prison house than Fotheringay, and minds peaceful and contented would gladly have taken "this for a hermitage." The Roman Emperors used to banish too powerful subjects to the lovely isles that lie like lilies on the AEgean. Plutarch tried to console these exiles, by showing them how fortunate they were, far from the bustle of the Forum, the vices, the tortures, the noise and smoke of Rome, happy, if they chose, in their gardens, with the blue waters breaking on the rocks, and, as he is careful to add, _with plenty of fishing_. Mr. Mahaffy calls this "rhetorical consolation," and the exiles may have been of his mind. But the exiles would have been wise to listen to Plutarch, and, had I enjoyed the luck of Mary Stuart, when Loch Leven was not overfished, when the trout were uneducated, never would I have plunged into politics again. She might have been very happy, with Ronsard's latest poems, with Italian romances, with a boat on the loch, and some Rizzio to sing to her on the still summer days. From her Castle she would hear how the politicians were squabbling, lying, raising a man to divinity and stoning him next day, cutting each other's heads off, swearing and forswearing themselves, conspiring and caballing. _Suave mari_, and the peace of Loch Leven and the island hermitage would have been the sweeter for the din outside. A woman, a Queen, a Stuart, could not attain, and perhaps ought not to have attained, this epicureanism. Mary Stuart had her chance, and missed it; perhaps, after all, her shrewish female gaoler made the passionless life impossible. These, at Loch Leven, are natural reflections. The place has a charm of its own, especially if you make up your mind not to be disappointed, not to troll, and not to envy the more fortunate anglers who shout to you the number of their victories across the wave. Even at Loch Leven we may be contemplative, may be quiet, and go a-fishing. {2} THE BLOODY DOCTOR. (A BAD DAY ON CLEARBURN) Thou askest me, my brother, how first and where I met the Bloody Doctor? The tale is weird, so weird that to a soul less proved than thine I scarce dare speak of the adventure. * * * * * This, perhaps, would be the right way of beginning a story (not that it is a story exactly), with the title forced on me by the name and nature of the hero. But I do not think I could keep up the style without a lady- collaborator; besides, I have used the term "weird" twice already, and thus played away the trumps of modern picturesque diction. To return to our Doctor: many a bad day have I had on Clearburn Loch, and never a good one. But one thing draws me always to the loch when I have the luck to be within twenty miles of it. There are trout in Clearburn! The Border angler knows that the trout in his native waters is nearly as extinct as the dodo. Many causes have combined to extirpate the shy and spirited fish. First, there are too many anglers: Twixt Holy Lee and Clovenfords, A tentier bit ye canna hae, sang that good old angler, now with God, Mr. Thomas Tod Stoddart. But between Holy Lee and Clovenfords you may see half a dozen rods on every pool and stream. There goes that leviathan, the angler from London, who has been beguiled hither by the artless "Guide" of Mr. Watson Lyall. There fishes the farmer's lad, and the schoolmaster, and the wandering weaver out of work or disinclined to work. In his rags, with his thin face and red "goatee" beard, with his hazel wand and his home-made reel, there is withal something kindly about this poor fellow, this true sportsman. He loves better to hear the lark sing than the mouse cheep; he wanders from depopulated stream to depopulated burn, and all is fish that comes to his fly. Fingerlings he keeps, and does not return to the water "as pitying their youth." Let us not grudge him his sport as long as he fishes fair, and he is always good company. But he, with all the other countless fishermen, make fish so rare and so wary that, except after a flood in Meggat or the Douglas burn, trout are scarce to be taken by ordinary skill. As for Thae reiving cheils Frae Galashiels, who use nets, and salmon roe, and poisons, and dynamite, they are miscreants indeed; they spoil the sport, not of the rich, but of their own class, and of every man who would be quiet, and go angling in the sacred streams of Christopher North and the Shepherd. The mills, with their dyes and dirt, are also responsible for the dearth of trout. Untainted yet thy stream, fair Teviot, runs, Leyden sang; but now the stream is very much tainted indeed below Hawick, like Tweed in too many places. Thus, for a dozen reasons, trout are nigh as rare as red deer. Clearburn alone remains full of unsophisticated fishes, and I have the less hesitation in revealing this, because I do not expect the wanderer who may read this page to be at all more successful than myself. No doubt they are sometimes to be had, by the basketful, but not often, nor by him who thinks twice before risking his life by smothering in a peaty bottom. To reach Clearburn Loch, if you start from the Teviot, you must pass through much of Scott's country and most of Leyden's. I am credibly informed that persons of culture have forgotten John Leyden. He was a linguist and a poet, and the friend of Walter Scott, and knew The mind whose fearless frankness naught could move, The friendship, like an elder brother's love. We remember what distant and what deadly shore has Leyden's cold remains, and people who do not know may not care to be reminded. Leaving Teviot, with Leyden for a guide, you walk, or drive, Where Bortha hoarse, that loads the meads with sand, Rolls her red tide. Not that it was red when we passed, but _electro purior_. Through slaty hills whose sides are shagged with thorn, Where springs, in scattered tufts, the dark green corn, Towers wood-girt Harden far above the vale. And very dark green, almost blue, was the corn in September, 1888. Upwards, always upwards, goes the road till you reach the crest, and watch far below the wide champaign, like a sea, broken by the shapes of hills, Windburg and Eildon, and Priesthaughswire, and "the rough skirts of stormy Ruberslaw," and Penchrise, and the twin Maidens, shaped like the breasts of Helen. It is an old land, of war, of Otterburn, and Ancrum, and the Raid of the Fair Dodhead; but the plough has passed over all but the upper pastoral solitudes. Turning again to the downward slope you see the loch of Alemoor, small and sullen, with Alewater feeding it. Nobody knows much about the trout in it. "It is reckoned the residence of the water-cow," a monster like the Australian bunyip. There was a water-cow in Scott's loch of Cauldshiels, above Abbotsford. The water-cow has not lately emerged from Alemoor to attack the casual angler. You climb again by gentle slopes till you reach a most desolate tableland. Far beyond it is the round top of Whitecombe, which again looks down on St. Mary's Loch, and up the Moffat, and across the Meggat Water; but none of these are within the view. Round are _pastorum loca vasta_, lands of Buccleugh and Bellenden, Deloraine, Sinton, Headshaw, and Glack. Deloraine, by the way, is pronounced "Delorran," and perhaps is named from Orran, the Celtic saint. On the right lies, not far from the road, a grey sheet of water, and this is Clearburn, where first I met the Doctor. The loch, to be plain, is almost unfishable. It is nearly round, and everywhere, except in a small segment on the eastern side, is begirt with reeds of great height. These reeds, again, grow in a peculiarly uncomfortable, quaggy bottom, which rises and falls, or rather which jumps and sinks when you step on it, like the seat of a very luxurious arm-chair. Moreover, the bottom is pierced with many springs, wherein if you set foot you shall have thrown your last cast. By watching the loch when it is frozen, a man might come to learn something of the springs; but, even so, it is hard to keep clear of them in summer. Now the wind almost always blows from the west, dead against the little piece of gravelly shore at the eastern side, so that casting against it is hard work and unprofitable. On this day, by a rare chance, the wind blew from the east, though the sky at first was a brilliant blue, and the sun hot and fierce. I walked round to the east side, waded in, and caught two or three small fellows. It was slow work, when suddenly there began the greatest rise of trout I ever saw in my life. From the edge of the loch as far as one could clearly see across it there was that endless plashing murmur, of all sounds in this world the sweetest to the ear. Within the view of the eye, on each cast, there were a dozen trout rising all about, never leaping, but seriously and solemnly feeding. Now is my chance at last, I fancied; but it was not so--far from it. I might throw over the very noses of the beasts, but they seldom even glanced at the (artificial) fly. I tried them with Greenwell's Glory, with a March brown, with "the woodcock wing and hare- lug," but it was almost to no purpose. If one did raise a fish, he meant not business--all but "a casual brute," which broke the already weakened part of a small "glued-up" cane rod. I had to twist a piece of paper round the broken end, wet it, and push it into the joint, where it hung on somehow, but was not pleasant to cast with. From twelve to half-past one the gorging went merrily forward, and I saw what the fish were rising at. The whole surface of the loch, at least on the east side, was absolutely peppered with large, hideous insects. They had big grey-white wings, bodies black as night, and brilliant crimson legs, or feelers, or whatever naturalists call them. The trout seemed as if they could not have too much of these abominable wretches, and the flies were blown across the loch, not singly, but in populous groups. I had never seen anything like them in any hook-book, nor could I deceive the trout by the primitive dodge of tying a red thread round the shank of a dark fly. So I waded out, and fell to munching a frugal sandwich and watching Nature, not without a cigarette. Now Nature is all very well. I have nothing to say against her of a Sunday, or when trout are not rising. But she was no comfort to me now. Smiling she gazed on my discomfiture. The lovely lines of the hills, curving about the loch, and with their deepest dip just opposite where I sat, were all of a golden autumn brown, except in the violet distance. The grass of Parnassus grew thick and white around me, with its moonlight tint of green in the veins. On a hillside by a brook the countryfolk were winning their hay, and their voices reached me softly from far off. On the loch the marsh-fowl flashed and dipped, the wild ducks played and dived and rose; first circling high and higher, then, marshalled in the shape of a V, they made for Alemoor. A solitary heron came quite near me, and tried his chance with the fish, but I think he had no luck. All this is pleasant to remember, and I made rude sketches in the fly-leaves of a copy of Hogg's poems, where I kept my flies. But what joy was there in this while the "take" grew fainter and ceased at least near the shore? Out in the middle, where few flies managed to float, the trout were at it till dark. But near shore there was just one trout who never stopped gorging all day. He lived exactly opposite the nick in the distant hills, and exactly a yard farther out than I could throw a fly. He was a big one, and I am inclined to think that he was the Devil. For, if I had stepped in deeper, and the water had come over my wading boots, the odds are that my frail days on earth would have been ended by a chill, and I knew this, and yet that fish went on tempting me to my ruin. I suppose I tried to reach him a dozen times, and cast a hundred, but it was to no avail. At length, as the afternoon grew grey and chill, I pitched a rock at him, by way of showing that I saw through his fiendish guile, and I walked away. There was no rise now, and the lake was leaden and gloomy. When I reached the edge of the deep reeds I tried, once or twice, to wade through them within casting distance of the water, but was always driven off by the traitorous quagginess of the soil. At last, taking my courage in both hands, I actually got so near that I could throw a fly over the top of the tall reeds, and then came a heavy splash, and the wretched little broken rod nearly doubled up. "Hooray, here I am among the big ones!" I said, and held on. It was now that I learned the nature of Nero's diversion when he was an angler in the Lake of Darkness. The loch really did deserve the term "grim"; the water here was black, the sky was ashen, the long green reeds closed cold about me, and beyond them there was trout that I could not deal with. For when he tired of running, which was soon, he was as far away as ever. Draw him through the forest of reeds I could not. At last I did the fatal thing. I took hold of the line, and then, "plop," as the poet said. He was off. A young sportsman on the bank who had joined me expressed his artless disappointment. I cast over the confounded reeds once more. "Splash!"--the old story! I stuck to the fish, and got him into the watery wood, and then he went where the lost trout go. No more came on, so I floundered a yard or two farther, and climbed into a wild-fowl's nest, a kind of platform of matted reeds, all yellow and faded. The nest immediately sank down deep into the water, but it stopped somewhere, and I made a cast. The black water boiled, and the trout went straight down and sulked. I merely held on, till at last it seemed "time for us to go," and by cautious tugging I got him through the reedy jungle, and "gruppit him," as the Shepherd would have said. He was simply but decently wrapped round, from snout to tail, in very fine water-weeds, as in a garment. Moreover, he was as black as your hat, quite unlike the comely yellow trout who live on the gravel in Clearburn. It hardly seemed sensible to get drowned in this gruesome kind of angling, so, leaving the Lake of Darkness, we made for Buccleugh, passing the cleugh where the buck was ta'en. Surely it is the deepest, the steepest, and the greenest cleugh that is shone on by the sun! Thereby we met an angler, an ancient man in hodden grey, strolling home from the Rankle burn. And we told him of our bad day, and asked him concerning that hideous fly, which had covered the loch and lured the trout from our decent Greenwells and March browns. And the ancient man listened to our description of the monster, and He said: "Hoot, ay; ye've jest forgathered wi' the Bloody Doctor." This, it appears, is the Border angler's name for the horrible insect, so much appreciated by trout. So we drove home, when all the great tableland was touched with yellow light from a rift in the west, and all the broken hills looked blue against the silvery grey. God bless them! for man cannot spoil them, nor any revolution shape them other than they are. We see them as the folk from Flodden saw them, as Leyden knew them, as they looked to William of Deloraine, as they showed in the eyes of Wat of Harden and of Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead. They have always girdled a land of warriors and of people fond of song, from the oldest ballad-maker to that Scotch Probationer who wrote, Lay me here, where I may see Teviot round his meadows flowing, And about and over me Winds and clouds for ever going. It was dark before we splashed through the ford of Borthwick Water, and dined, and wrote to Mr. Anderson of Princes Street, Edinburgh, for a supply of Bloody Doctors. But we never had a chance to try them. I have since fished Clearburn from a boat, but it was not a day of rising fish, and no big ones came to the landing-net. There are plenty in the loch, but you need not make the weary journey; they are not for you nor me. THE LADY OR THE SALMON? The circumstances which attended and caused the death of the Hon. Houghton Grannom have not long been known to me, and it is only now that, by the decease of his father, Lord Whitchurch, and the extinction of his noble family, I am permitted to divulge the facts. That the true tale of my unhappy friend will touch different chords in different breasts, I am well aware. The sportsman, I think, will hesitate to approve him; the fair, I hope, will absolve. Who are we, to scrutinise human motives, and to award our blame to actions which, perhaps, might have been our own, had opportunity beset and temptation beguiled us? There is a certain point at which the keenest sense of honour, the most chivalrous affection and devotion, cannot bear the strain, but break like a salmon line under a masterful stress. That my friend succumbed, I admit; that he was his own judge, the severest, and passed and executed sentence on himself, I have now to show. I shall never forget the shock with which I read in the "Scotsman," under "Angling," the following paragraph: "Tweed.--Strange Death of an Angler.--An unfortunate event has cast a gloom over fishers in this district. As Mr. K---, the keeper on the B--- water, was busy angling yesterday, his attention was caught by some object floating on the stream. He cast his flies over it, and landed a soft felt hat, the ribbon stuck full of salmon-flies. Mr. K--- at once hurried up-stream, filled with the most lively apprehensions. These were soon justified. In a shallow, below the narrow, deep and dangerous rapids called 'The Trows,' Mr. K--- saw a salmon leaping in a very curious manner. On a closer examination, he found that the fish was attached to a line. About seventy yards higher he found, in shallow water, the body of a man, the hand still grasping in death the butt of the rod, to which the salmon was fast, all the line being run out. Mr. K--- at once rushed into the stream, and dragged out the body, in which he recognised with horror the Hon. Houghton Grannom, to whom the water was lately let. Life had been for some minutes extinct, and though Mr. K--- instantly hurried for Dr. ---, that gentleman could only attest the melancholy fact. The wading in 'The Trows' is extremely dangerous and difficult, and Mr. Grannom, who was fond of fishing without an attendant, must have lost his balance, slipped, and been dragged down by the weight of his waders. The recent breaking off of the hon. gentleman's contemplated marriage on the very wedding-day will be fresh in the memory of our readers." This was the story which I read in the newspaper during breakfast one morning in November. I was deeply grieved, rather than astonished, for I have often remonstrated with poor Grannom on the recklessness of his wading. It was with some surprise that I received, in the course of the day, a letter from him, in which he spoke only of indifferent matters, of the fishing which he had taken, and so forth. The letter was accompanied, however, by a parcel. Tearing off the outer cover, I found a sealed document addressed to me, with the superscription, "Not to be opened until after my father's decease." This injunction, of course, I have scrupulously obeyed. The death of Lord Whitchurch, the last of the Grannoms, now gives me liberty to publish my friend's _Apologia pro morte et vita sua_. "Dear Smith" (the document begins), "Before you read this--long before, I hope--I shall have solved the great mystery--if, indeed, we solve it. If the water runs down to-morrow, and there is every prospect that it will do so, I must have the opportunity of making such an end as even malignity cannot suspect of being voluntary. There are plenty of fish in the water; if I hook one in 'The Trows,' I shall let myself go whither the current takes me. Life has for weeks been odious to me; for what is life without honour, without love, and coupled with shame and remorse? Repentance I cannot call the emotion which gnaws me at the heart, for in similar circumstances (unlikely as these are to occur) I feel that I would do the same thing again. "Are we but automata, worked by springs, moved by the stronger impulse, and unable to choose for ourselves which impulse that shall be? Even now, in decreeing my own destruction, do I exercise free-will, or am I the sport of hereditary tendencies, of mistaken views of honour, of a seeming self-sacrifice, which, perhaps, is but selfishness in disguise? I blight my unfortunate father's old age; I destroy the last of an ancient house; but I remove from the path of Olive Dunne the shadow that must rest upon the sunshine of what will eventually, I trust, be a happy life, unvexed by memories of one who loved her passionately. Dear Olive! how pure, how ardent was my devotion to her none knows better than you. But Olive had, I will not say a fault, though I suffer from it, but a quality, or rather two qualities, which have completed my misery. Lightly as she floats on the stream of society, the most casual observer, and even the enamoured beholder, can see that Olive Dunne has great pride, and no sense of humour. Her dignity is her idol. What makes her, even for a moment, the possible theme of ridicule is in her eyes an unpardonable sin. This sin, I must with penitence confess, I did indeed commit. Another woman might have forgiven me. I know not how that may be; I throw myself on the mercy of the court. But, if another could pity and pardon, to Olive this was impossible. I have never seen her since that fatal moment when, paler than her orange blossoms, she swept through the porch of the church, while I, dishevelled, mud-stained, half-drowned--ah! that memory will torture me if memory at all remains. And yet, fool, maniac, that I was, I could not resist the wild, mad impulse to laugh which shook the rustic spectators, and which in my case was due, I trust, to hysterical but _not_ unmanly emotion. If any woman, any bride, could forgive such an apparent but most unintentional insult, Olive Dunne, I knew, was not that woman. My abject letters of explanation, my appeals for mercy, were returned unopened. Her parents pitied me, perhaps had reasons for being on my side, but Olive was of marble. It is not only myself that she cannot pardon, she will never, I know, forgive herself while my existence reminds her of what she had to endure. When she receives the intelligence of my demise, no suspicion will occur to her; she will not say 'He is fitly punished;' but her peace of mind will gradually return. "It is for this, mainly, that I sacrifice myself, but also because I cannot endure the dishonour of a laggard in love and a recreant bridegroom. "So much for my motives: now to my tale. "The day before our wedding-day had been the happiest in my life. Never had I felt so certain of Olive's affections, never so fortunate in my own. We parted in the soft moonlight; she, no doubt, to finish her nuptial preparations; I, to seek my couch in the little rural inn above the roaring waters of the Budon. {3} "Move eastward, happy earth, and leave Yon orange sunset fading slow; From fringes of the faded eve Oh, happy planet, eastward go, I murmured, though the atmospheric conditions were not really those described by the poet. "Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne, Dip forward under starry light, And move me to my marriage morn, And round again to-- "'River in grand order, sir,' said the voice of Robins, the keeper, who recognised me in the moonlight. 'There's a regular monster in the Ashweil,' he added, naming a favourite cast; 'never saw nor heard of such a fish in the water before.' "'Mr. Dick must catch him, Robins,' I answered; 'no fishing for me to- morrow.' "'No, sir,' said Robins, affably. 'Wish you joy, sir, and Miss Olive, too. It's a pity, though! Master Dick, he throws a fine fly, but he gets flurried with a big fish, being young. And this one is a topper.' "With that he gave me good-night, and I went to bed, but not to sleep. I was fevered with happiness; the past and future reeled before my wakeful vision. I heard every clock strike; the sounds of morning were astir, and still I could not sleep. The ceremony, for reasons connected with our long journey to my father's place in Hampshire, was to be early--half- past ten was the hour. I looked at my watch; it was seven of the clock, and then I looked out of the window: it was a fine, soft grey morning, with a south wind tossing the yellowing boughs. I got up, dressed in a hasty way, and thought I would just take a look at the river. It was, indeed, in glorious order, lapping over the top of the sharp stone which we regarded as a measure of the due size of water. "The morning was young, sleep was out of the question; I could not settle my mind to read. Why should I not take a farewell cast, alone, of course? I always disliked the attendance of a gillie. I took my salmon rod out of its case, rigged it up, and started for the stream, which flowed within a couple of hundred yards of my quarters. There it raced under the ash tree, a pale delicate brown, perhaps a little thing too coloured. I therefore put on a large Silver Doctor, and began steadily fishing down the ash-tree cast. What if I should wipe Dick's eye, I thought, when, just where the rough and smooth water meet, there boiled up a head and shoulders such as I had never seen on any fish. My heart leaped and stood still, but there came no sensation from the rod, and I finished the cast, my knees actually trembling beneath me. Then I gently lifted the line, and very elaborately tested every link of the powerful casting-line. Then I gave him ten minutes by my watch; next, with unspeakable emotion, I stepped into the stream and repeated the cast. Just at the same spot he came up again; the huge rod bent like a switch, and the salmon rushed straight down the pool, as if he meant to make for the sea. I staggered on to dry land to follow him the easier, and dragged at my watch to time the fish; a quarter to eight. But the slim chain had broken, and the watch, as I hastily thrust it back, missed my pocket and fell into the water. There was no time to stoop for it; the fish started afresh, tore up the pool as fast as he had gone down it, and, rushing behind the torrent, into the eddy at the top, leaped clean out of the water. He was 70 lbs. if he was an ounce. Here he slackened a little, dropping back, and I got in some line. Now he sulked so intensely that I thought he had got the line round a rock. It might be broken, might be holding fast to a sunken stone, for aught that I could tell; and the time was passing, I knew not how rapidly. I tried all known methods, tugging at him, tapping the butt, and slackening line on him. At last the top of the rod was slightly agitated, and then, back flew the long line in my face. Gone! I reeled up with a sigh, but the line tightened again. He had made a sudden rush under my bank, but there he lay again like a stone. How long? Ah! I cannot tell how long! I heard the church clock strike, but missed the number of the strokes. Soon he started again down-stream into the shallows, leaping at the end of his rush--the monster. Then he came slowly up, and 'jiggered' savagely at the line. It seemed impossible that any tackle could stand these short violent jerks. Soon he showed signs of weakening. Once his huge silver side appeared for a moment near the surface, but he retreated to his old fastness. I was in a tremor of delight and despair. I should have thrown down my rod, and flown on the wings of love to Olive and the altar. But I hoped that there was time still--that it was not so very late! At length he was failing. I heard ten o'clock strike. He came up and lumbered on the surface of the pool. Gradually I drew him, plunging ponderously, to the gravelled beach, where I meant to 'tail' him. He yielded to the strain, he was in the shallows, the line was shortened. I stooped to seize him. The frayed and overworn gut broke at a knot, and with a loose roll he dropped back towards the deep. I sprang at him, stumbled, fell on him, struggled with him, but he slipped from my arms. In that moment I knew more than the anguish of Orpheus. Orpheus! Had I, too, lost my Eurydice? I rushed from the stream, up the steep bank, along to my rooms. I passed the church door. Olive, pale as her orange- blossoms, was issuing from the porch. The clock pointed to 10.45. I was ruined, I knew it, and I laughed. I laughed like a lost spirit. She swept past me, and, amidst the amazement of the gentle and simple, I sped wildly away. Ask me no more. The rest is silence." * * * * * Thus ends my hapless friend's narrative. I leave it to the judgment of women and of men. Ladies, would you have acted as Olive Dunne acted? Would pride, or pardon, or mirth have ridden sparkling in your eyes? Men, my brethren, would ye have deserted the salmon for the lady, or the lady for the salmon? I know what I would have done had I been fair Olive Dunne. What I would have done had I been Houghton Grannom I may not venture to divulge. For this narrative, then, as for another, "Let every man read it as he will, and every woman as the gods have given her wit." {4} A TWEEDSIDE SKETCH The story of the following adventure--this deplorable confession, one may say--will not have been written in vain if it impresses on young minds the supreme necessity of carefulness about details. Let the "casual" and regardless who read it--the gatless, as they say in Suffolk--ponder the lesson which it teaches: a lesson which no amount of bitter experience has ever impressed on the unprincipled narrator. Never do anything carelessly whether in fishing or in golf, and carry this important maxim even into the most serious affairs of life. Many a battle has been lost, no doubt, by lack of ammunition, or by plenty of ammunition which did not happen to suit the guns; and many a salmon has been lost, ay, and many a trout, for want of carefulness, and through a culpable inattention to the soundness of your gut, and tackle generally. What fiend is it that prompts a man just to try a hopeless cast, in a low water, without testing his tackle? As sure as you do that, up comes the fish, and with his first dash breaks your casting line, and leaves you lamenting. This doctrine I preach, being my own "awful example." "Bad and careless little boy," my worthy master used to say at school; and he would have provoked a smile in other circumstances. But Mr. Trotter, of the Edinburgh Academy, had something about him (he usually carried it in the tail-pocket of his coat) which inspired respect and discouraged ribaldry. Would that I had listened to Mr. Trotter; would that I had corrected, in early life, the happy-go-lucky disposition to scatter my Greek accents, as it were, with a pepper-caster, to fish with worn tackle, and, generally, to make free with the responsibilities of life and literature. It is too late to amend, but others may learn wisdom from this spectacle of deserved misfortune and absolute discomfiture. I am not myself a salmon-fisher, though willing to try that art again, and though this is a tale of salmon. To myself the difference between angling for trout and angling for salmon is like the difference between a drawing of Lionardo's, in silver point, and a loaded landscape by MacGilp, R.A. Trout-fishing is all an idyll, all delicacy--that is, trout-fishing on the Test or on the Itchen. You wander by clear water, beneath gracious poplar-trees, unencumbered with anything but a slim rod of Messrs. Hardy's make, and a light toy-box of delicate flies. You need seldom wade, and the water is shallow, the bottom is of silver gravel. You need not search all day at random, but you select a rising trout, and endeavour to lay the floating fly delicately over him. If you part with him, there is always another feeding merrily: Invenies alium si te hic fastidit. It is like an excursion into Corot's country, it is rich in memories of Walton and Cotton: it is a dream of peace, and they bring you your tea by the riverside. In salmon-fishing, on the Tweed at least, all is different. The rod, at all events the rod which some one kindly lent me, is like a weaver's beam. The high heavy wading trousers and boots are even as the armour of the giant of Gath. You have to plunge waist deep, or deeper, into roaring torrents, and if the water be at all "drumly" you have not an idea where your next step may fall. It may be on a hidden rock, or on a round slippery boulder, or it may be into a deep "pot" or hole. The inexperienced angler staggers like a drunken man, is occasionally drowned, and more frequently is ducked. You have to cast painfully, with steep precipitous banks behind you, all overgrown with trees, with bracken, with bramble. It is a boy's work to disentangle the fly from the branches of ash and elm and pine. There is no delicacy, and there is a great deal of exertion in all this. You do not cast subtilely over a fish which you know is there, but you swish, swish, all across the current, with a strong reluctance to lift the line after each venture and try another. The small of the back aches, and it is literally in the sweat of your brow that you take your diversion. After all, there are many blank days, when the salmon will look at no fly, or when you encounter the Salmo irritans, who rises with every appearance of earnest good-will, but never touches the hook, or, if he does touch it, runs out a couple of yards of line, and vanishes for ever. What says the poet? There's an accommodating fish, In pool or stream, by rock or pot, Who rises frequent as you wish, At "Popham," "Parson," or "Jock Scott," Or almost any fly you've got In all the furred and feathered clans. You strike, but ah, you strike him not He is the _Salmo irritans_! It may be different in Norway or on the lower casts of the Tweed, as at Floors, or Makerstoun; but higher up the country, in Scott's own country, at Yair or Ashiesteil, there is often a terrible amount of fruitless work to be done. And I doubt if, except in throwing a very long line, and knowing the waters by old experience, there is very much skill in salmon- fishing. It is all an affair of muscle and patience. The choice of flies is almost a pure accident. Every one believes in the fly with which he has been successful. These strange combinations of blues, reds, golds, of tinsel and worsted, of feathers and fur, are purely fantastic articles. They are like nothing in nature, and are multiplied for the fanciful amusement of anglers. Nobody knows why salmon rise at them; nobody knows why they will bite on one day and not on another, or rather, on many others. It is not even settled whether we should use a bright fly on a bright day, and a dark fly on a dark day, as Dr. Hamilton advises, or reverse the choice as others use. Muscles and patience, these, I repeat, are the only ingredients of ultimate success. However, one does do at Rome as the Romans do, and fishes for salmon in Tweed when the nets are off in October, when the yellowing leaves begin to fall, and when that beautiful reach of wooded valley from Elibank to the meeting of Tweed and Ettrick is in the height of its autumnal charm. Why has Yarrow been so much more besung than Tweed, in spite of the greater stream's far greater and more varied loveliness? The fatal duel in the Dowie Dens of Yarrow and the lamented drowning of Willie there have given the stream its 'pastoral melancholy,' and engaged Wordsworth in the renown of the water. For the poetry of Tweed we have chiefly, after Scott, to thank Mr. Stoddart, its loyal minstrel. "Dearer than all these to me," he says about our other valleys, "is sylvan Tweed." Let ither anglers choose their ain, And ither waters tak' the lead O' Hieland streams we covet nane, But gie to us the bonny Tweed; And gie to us the cheerfu' burn, That steals into its valley fair, The streamlets that, at ilka turn, Sae saftly meet and mingle there. He kept his promise, given in the following verse: And I, when to breathe is a labour, and joy Forgets me, and life is no longer the boy, On the labouring staff, and the tremorous knee, Will wander, bright river, to thee! Life is always "the boy" when one is beside the Tweed. Times change, and we change, for the worse. But the river changes little. Still he courses through the keen and narrow rocks beneath the bridge of Yair. From Yair, which hills so closely bind, Scarce can the Tweed his passage find, Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil, Till all his eddying currents boil. Still the water loiters by the long boat-pool of Yair, as though loath to leave the drooping boughs of the elms. Still it courses with a deep eddy through the Elm Wheel, and ripples under Fernilea, where the author of the "Flowers of the Forest" lived in that now mouldering and roofless hall, with the peaked turrets. Still Neidpath is fair, Neidpath of the unhappy maid, and still we mark the tiny burn at Ashiesteil, how in November, Murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen, Through bush and briar, no longer green, An angry brook, it sweeps the glade, Brawls over rock and wild cascade, And foaming brown, with doubled speed, Hurries its waters to the Tweed. Still the old tower of Elibank is black and strong in ruin; Elibank, the home of that Muckle Mou'd Meg, who made Harden after all a better bride than he would have found in the hanging ash-tree of her father. These are unaltered, mainly, since Scott saw them last, and little altered is the homely house of Ashiesteil, where he had been so happy. And we, too, feel but little change among those scenes of long ago, those best-beloved haunts of boyhood, where we have had so many good days and bad, days of rising trout and success; days of failure, and even of half-drowning. One cannot reproduce the charm of the strong river in pool and stream, of the steep rich bank that it rushes or lingers by, of the green and heathery hills beyond, or the bare slopes where the blue slate breaks through among the dark old thorn-trees, remnants of the forest. It is all homely and all haunted, and, if a Tweedside fisher might have his desire, he would sleep the long sleep in the little churchyard that lies lonely above the pool of Caddon-foot, and hard by Christopher North's favourite quarters at Clovenfords. However, while we are still on earth, Caddon-foot is more attractive for her long sweep of salmon-pool--the home of sea-trout too--than precisely for her kirk-yard. There will be time enough for that, and time it is to recur to the sad story of the big fish and the careless angler. It was about the first day of October, and we had enjoyed a "spate." Salmon-fishing is a mere child of the weather; with rain almost anybody may raise fish, without it all art is apt to be vain. We had been blessed with a spate. On Wednesday the Tweed had been roaring red from bank to bank. Salmon-fishing was wholly out of the question, and it is to be feared that the innumerable trout-fishers, busy on every eddy, were baiting with salmon roe, an illegal lure. On Thursday the red tinge had died out of the water, but only a very strong wader would have ventured in; others had a good chance, if they tried it, of being picked up at Berwick. Friday was the luckless day of my own failure and broken heart. The water was still very heavy and turbid, a frantic wind was lashing the woods, heaps of dead leaves floated down, and several sheaves of corn were drifted on the current. The long boat-pool at Yair, however, is sheltered by wooded banks, and it was possible enough to cast, in spite of the wind's fury. We had driven from a place about five miles distant, and we had not driven three hundred yards before I remembered that we had forgotten the landing-net. But, as I expected nothing, it did not seem worth while to go back for this indispensable implement. We reached the waterside, and found that the trout were feeding below the pendent branches of the trees and in the quiet, deep eddies of the long boat-pool. One cannot see rising trout without casting over them, in preference to labouring after salmon, so I put up a small rod and diverted myself from the bank. It was to little purpose. Tweed trout are now grown very shy and capricious; even a dry fly failed to do any execution worth mentioning. Conscience compelled me, as I had been sent out by kind hosts to fish for salmon, not to neglect my orders. The armour--the ponderous gear of the fisher--was put on with the enormous boots, and the gigantic rod was equipped. Then came the beginning of sorrows. We had left the books of salmon flies comfortably reposing at home. We had also forgotten the whiskey flask. Everything, in fact, except cigarettes, had been left behind. Unluckily, not quite everything: I had a trout fly-book, and therein lay just one large salmon fly, not a Tweed fly, but a lure that is used on the beautiful and hopeless waters of the distant Ken, in Galloway. It had brown wings, a dark body, and a piece of jungle-cock feather, and it was fastened to a sea-trout casting-line. Now, if I had possessed no salmon flies at all, I must either have sent back for some, or gone on innocently dallying with trout. But this one wretched fly lured me to my ruin. I saw that the casting-line had a link which seemed rather twisted. I tried it; but, in the spirit of Don Quixote with his helmet, I did not try it hard. I waded into the easiest-looking part of the pool, just above a huge tree that dropped its boughs to the water, and began casting, merely from a sense of duty. I had not cast a dozen times before there was a heavy, slow plunge in the stream, and a glimpse of purple and azure. "That's him," cried a man who was trouting on the opposite bank. Doubtless it was "him," but he had not touched the hook. I believe the correct thing would have been to wait for half an hour, and then try the fish with a smaller fly. But I had no smaller fly, no other fly at all. I stepped back a few paces, and fished down again. In Major Traherne's work I have read that the heart leaps, or stands still, or otherwise betrays an uncomfortable interest, when one casts for the second time over a salmon which has risen. I cannot honestly say that I suffered from this tumultuous emotion. "He will not come again," I said, when there was a long heavy drag at the line, followed by a shrieking of the reel, as in Mr. William Black's novels. Let it be confessed that the first hooking of a salmon is an excitement unparalleled in trout-fishing. There have been anglers who, when the salmon was once on, handed him over to the gillie to play and land. One would like to act as gillie to those lordly amateurs. My own fish rushed down stream, where the big tree stands. I had no hope of landing him if he took that course, because one could neither pass the rod under the boughs, nor wade out beyond them. But he soon came back, while one took in line, and discussed his probable size with the trout-fisher opposite. His size, indeed! Nobody knows what it was, for when he had come up to the point whence he had started, he began a policy of violent short tugs--not "jiggering," as it is called, but plunging with all his weight on the line. I had clean forgotten the slimness of the tackle, and, as he was clearly well hooked, held him perhaps too hard. Only a very raw beginner likes to take hours over landing a fish. Perhaps I held him too tight: at all events, after a furious plunge, back came the line; the casting line had snapped at the top link. There was no more to be said or done, except to hunt for another fly in the trout fly-book. Here there was no such thing, but a local spectator offered me a huge fly, more like a gaff, and equipped with a large iron eye for attaching the gut to. Withal I suspect this weapon was meant, not for fair fishing, but for "sniggling." Now "sniggling" is a form of cold-blooded poaching. In the open water, on the Ettrick, you may see half a dozen snigglers busy. They all wear high wading trousers; they are all armed with stiff salmon-rods and huge flies. They push the line and the top joints of the rod deep into the water, drag it along, and then bring the hook out with a jerk. Often it sticks in the side of a salmon, and in this most unfair and unsportsmanlike way the free sport of honest people is ruined, and fish are diminished in number. Now, the big fly _may_ have been an honest character, but he was sadly like a rake- hook in disguise. He did not look as if an fish could fancy him. I, therefore, sent a messenger across the river to beg, buy, or borrow a fly at "The Nest." But this pretty cottage is no longer the home of the famous angling club, which has gone a mile or two up the water and builded for itself a new dwelling. My messenger came back with one small fatigued-looking fly, a Popham, I think, which had been lent by some one at a farmhouse. The water was so heavy that the small fly seemed useless; however, we fastened it on as a dropper, using the sniggler as the trail fly; so exhausted were our resources, that I had to cut a piece of gut off a minnow tackle and attach the small fly to that. The tiny gut loop of the fly was dreadfully frayed, and with a heavy heart I began fishing again. My friend on the opposite side called out that big fish were rising in the bend of the stream, so thither I went, stumbling over rocks, and casting with much difficulty, as the high overgrown banks permit no backward sweep of the line. You are obliged to cast by a kind of forward thrust of the arms, a knack not to be acquired in a moment. I splashed away awkwardly, but at last managed to make a straight, clean cast. There was a slight pull, such as a trout gives in mid-stream under water. I raised the point, and again the reel sang aloud and gleefully as the salmon rushed down the stream farther and faster than the first. It is a very pleasant thing to hook a salmon when you are all alone, as I was then--alone with yourself and the Goddess of Fishing. This salmon, just like the other, now came back, and instantly began the old tactics of heavy plunging tugs. But I knew the gut was sound this time, and as I fancied he had risen to the sniggler, I had no anxiety about the tackle holding. One more plunge, and back came the line as before. He was off. One could have sat down and gnawed the reel. What had gone wrong? Why, the brute had taken the old fly from the farmhouse and had snapped the loop that attaches the gut. The little loop was still on the fragment of minnow tackle which fastened it to the cast. There was no more chance, for there were now no more flies, except a small "cobbery," a sea-trout fly from the Sound of Mull. It was time for us to go, with a heavy heart and a basket empty, except for two or three miserable trout. The loss of those two salmon, whether big or little fish, was not the whole misfortune. All the chances of the day were gone, and seldom have salmon risen so freely. I had not been casting long enough to smoke half a cigarette, when I hooked each of those fish. They rose at flies which were the exact opposites of each other in size, character, and colour. They were ready to rise at anything but the sniggler. And I had nothing to offer them, absolutely nothing bigger than a small red-spinner from the Test. On that day a fisher, not far off, hooked nine salmon and landed four of them, in one pool, I never had such a chance before; the heavy flood and high wind had made the salmon as "silly" as perch. One might have caught half a dozen of the great sturdy fellows, who make all trout, even sea-trout, seem despicable minnows. Next day I fished again in the same water, with a friend. I rose a fish, but did not hook it, and he landed a small one, five minutes after we started, and we only had one other rise all the rest of the day. Probably it was not dark and windy enough, but who can explain the caprices of salmon? The only certain thing is, that carelessness always brings misfortune; that if your tackle is weak fish will hook themselves on days, and in parts of the water, where you expected nothing, and then will go away with your fly and your casting-lines. Fortune never forgives. He who is lazy, and takes no trouble because he expects no fish, will always be meeting heart-breaking adventures. One should never make a hopeless or careless cast; bad luck lies in wait for that kind of performance. These are the experiences that embitter a man, as they embittered Dean Swift, who, old and ill, neglected and in Irish exile, still felt the pang of losing a great trout when he was a boy. What pleasure is there in landscape and tradition when such accidents befall you? The sun upon the Weirdlaw hill, In Ettrick's vale is sinking sweet. There is a fire of autumn colour in the tufted woods that embosom Fernilea. "Bother the setting sun," we say, and the Maid of Neidpath, and the "Flowers of the Forest," and the memories of Scott at Ashiesteil, and of Muckle Mou'd Meg, at Elibank. These are filmy, shadowy pleasures of the fancy, these cannot minister to the mind of him who has been "broken" twice, who cannot resume the contest for want of ammunition, and who has not even brought the creature-comfort of a flask. Since that woful day I have lain on the bank and watched excellent anglers skilfully flogging the best of water, and that water full of fish, without hooking one. Salmon-fishing, then, is a matter of chance, or of plodding patience. They will rise on one day at almost any fly (but the sniggler), however ill-presented to them. On a dozen other days no fly and no skill will avail to tempt them. The salmon is a brainless brute and the grapes are sour! If only the gut had held, this sketch would have ended with sentiment, and a sunset, and the music of Ettrick, the melody of Tweed. In the gloaming we'd be roaming homeward, telling, perhaps, the story of the ghost seen by Sir Walter Scott near Ashiesteil, or discussing the Roman treasure still buried near Oakwood Tower, under an inscribed stone which men saw fifty years ago. Or was it a treasure of Michael Scott's, who lived at Oakwood, says tradition? Let Harden dig for Harden's gear, it is not for me to give hints as to its whereabouts. After all that ill- luck, to be brief, one is not in the vein for legendary lore, nor memories of boyhood, nor poetry, nor sunsets. I do not believe that one ever thinks of the landscape or of anything else, while there is a chance for a fish, and no abundance of local romance can atone for an empty creel. Poetical fishers try to make people believe these fallacies; perhaps they impose on themselves; but if one would really enjoy landscape, one should leave, not only the fly-book and the landing-net, but the rod and reel at home. And so farewell to the dearest and fairest of all rivers that go on earth, fairer than Eurotas or Sicilian Anapus with its sea-trout; farewell--for who knows how long?--to the red-fringed Gleddis-wheel, the rock of the Righ-wheel, the rushing foam of the Gullets, the woodland banks of Caddon-foot. The valleys of England are wide, Her rivers rejoice every one, In grace and in beauty they glide, And water-flowers float at their side, As they gleam in the rays of the sun. But where are the speed and the spray-- The dark lakes that welter them forth, Tree and heath nodding over their way-- The rock and the precipice grey, That bind the wild streams of the North? Well, both, are good, the streams of north and south, but he who has given his heart to the Tweed, as did Tyro, in Homer, to the Enipeus will never change his love. P.S.--That Galloway fly--"The Butcher and Lang"--has been avenged. A copy of him, on the line of a friend, has proved deadly on the Tweed, killing, among other victims, a sea-trout of thirteen pounds. THE DOUBLE ALIBI Glen Aline is probably the loneliest place in the lone moorlands of Western Galloway. The country is entirely pastoral, and I fancy that the very pasture is bad enough. Stretches of deer-grass and ling, rolling endlessly to the feet of Cairnsmure and the circle of the eastern hills, cannot be good feeding for the least Epicurean of sheep, and sheep do not care for the lank and sour herbage by the sides of the "lanes," as the half-stagnant, black, deep, and weedy burns are called in this part of the country. The scenery is not unattractive, but tourists never wander to these wastes where no inns are, and even the angler seldom visits them. Indeed, the fishing is not to be called good, and the "lanes," which "seep," as the Scotch say, through marshes and beneath low hillsides, are not such excellent company as the garrulous and brawling brooks of the Border or of the Highlands. As the lanes flow, however, from far-away lochs, it happens that large trout make their way into them--trout which, if hooked, offer a gallant resistance before they can be hauled over the weeds that usually line the watercourses. Partly for the sake of trying this kind of angling, partly from a temporary distaste for the presence of men and women, partly for the purpose of finishing a work styled "A History of the Unexplained," I once spent a month in the solitudes of Glen Aline. I stayed at the house of a shepherd who, though not an unintelligent man was by no means possessed of the modern spirit. He and his brother swains had sturdily and successfully resisted an attempt made by the schoolmaster at a village some seven miles off to get a postal service in the glen more frequently than once a week. A post once a week was often enough for lucky people who did not get letters twice a year. It was not my shepherd, but another, who once came with his wife to the village, after a twelve miles' walk across the hills, to ask "what the day of the week was?" They had lost count, and the man had attended to his work on a day which the dame averred to be the Sabbath. He denied that it _was_ the Sabbath, and I believe that it turned out to be a Tuesday. This little incident gives some idea of the delightful absence of population in Glen Aline. But no words can paint the utter loneliness, which could actually be felt--the empty moors, the empty sky. The heaps of stones by a burnside, here and there, showed that a cottage had once existed where now was no habitation. One such spot was rather to be shunned by the superstitious, for here, about 1698, a cottar family had been evicted by endless unaccountable disturbances in the house. Stones were thrown by invisible hands--though occasionally, by the way, a white hand, with no apparent body attached to it, _was_ viewed by the curious who came to the spot. Heavy objects of all sorts floated in the air; rappings and voices were heard; the end wall was pulled down by an unknown agency. The story is extant in a pious old pamphlet called "Sadducees Defeated," and a great deal more to the same effect--a masterpiece by the parish minister, signed and attested by the other ministers of the Glen Kens. The Edinburgh edition of the pamphlet is rare; the London edition may be procured without much difficulty. The site of this ruined cottage, however, had no terrors for the neighbours, or rather for the neighbour, my shepherd. In fact, he seemed to have forgotten the legend till I reminded him of it, for I had come across the tale in my researches into the Unexplained. The shepherd and his family, indeed, were quite devoid of superstition, and in this respect very unlike the northern Highlanders. However, the fallen cottage had nothing to do with my own little adventure in Glen Aline, and I mention it merely as the most notable of the tiny ruins which attest the presence, in the past, of a larger population. One cannot marvel that the people "flitted" from the moors and morasses of Glen Aline into less melancholy neighbourhoods. The very sheep seemed scarcer here than elsewhere; grouse-disease had devastated the moors, sportsmen consequently did not visit them; and only a few barren pairs, with crow- picked skeletons of dead birds in the heather now and then, showed that the shootings had once perhaps been marketable. My shepherd's cottage was four miles from the little-travelled road to Dalmellington; long bad miles they were, across bog and heather. Consequently I seldom saw any face of man, except in or about the cottage. My work went on rapidly enough in such an undisturbed life. Empires might fall, parties might break like bursting shells, and banks might break also: I plodded on with my labour, and went a-fishing when the day promised well. There was a hill loch (Loch Nan) about five miles away, which I favoured a good deal. The trout were large and fair of flesh, and in proper weather they rose pretty freely, and could be taken by an angler wading from the shore. There was no boat. The wading, however, was difficult and dangerous, owing to the boggy nature of the bottom, which quaked like a quicksand in some places. The black water, never stirred by duck or moorhen, the dry rustling reeds, the noisome smell of decaying vegetable-matter when you stirred it up in wading, the occasional presence of a dead sheep by the sullen margin of the tarn, were all opposed to cheerfulness. Still, the fish were there, and the "lane," which sulkily glided from the loch towards the distant river, contained some monsters, which took worm after a flood. One misty morning, as I had just topped the low ridge from which the loch became visible, I saw a man fishing from my favourite bench. Never had I noticed a human being there before, and I was not well pleased to think that some emissary of Mr. Watson Lyall was making experiments in Loch Nan, and would describe it in "The Sportsman's Guide." The mist blew white and thick for a minute or two over the loch- side, as it often does at Loch Skene; so white and thick and sudden that the bewildered angler there is apt to lose his way, and fall over the precipice of the Grey Mare's Tail. When the curtain of cloud rose again, the loch was lonely: the angler had disappeared. I went on rejoicing, and made a pretty good basket, as the weather improved and grew warmer--a change which gives an appetite to trout in some hill lochs. Among the sands between the stones on the farther bank I found traces of the angler's footsteps; he was not a phantom, at all events, for phantoms do not wear heavily nailed boots, as he evidently did. The traces, which were soon lost, of course, inclined me to think that he had retreated up a narrow green burnside, with rather high banks, through which, in rainy weather, a small feeder fell into the loch. I guessed that he had been frightened away by the descent of the mist, which usually "puts down" the trout and prevents them from feeding. In that case his alarm was premature. I marched homewards, happy with the unaccustomed weight of my basket, the contents of which were a welcome change from the usual porridge and potatoes, tea (without milk), jam, and scones of the shepherd's table. But, as I reached the height above the loch on my westward path, and looked back to see if rising fish were dimpling the still waters, all flushed as they were with sunset, behold, there was the Other Man at work again! I should have thought no more about him had I not twice afterwards seen him at a distance, fishing up a "lane" ahead of me, in the loneliest regions, and thereby, of course, spoiling my sport. I knew him by his peculiar stoop, which seemed not unfamiliar to me, and by his hat, which was of the clerical pattern once known, perhaps still known, as "a Bible- reader's"--a low, soft, slouched black felt. The second time that I found him thus anticipating me, I left off fishing and walked rather briskly towards him, to satisfy my curiosity, and ask the usual questions, "What sport?" and "What flies?" But as soon as he observed me coming he strode off across the heather. Uncourteous as it seems, I felt so inquisitive that I followed him. But he walked so rapidly, and was so manifestly anxious to shake me off, that I gave up the pursuit. Even if he were a poacher whose conscience smote him for using salmon-roe, I was not "my brother's keeper," nor anybody's keeper. He might "otter" the loch, but how could I prevent him? It was no affair of mine, and yet--where had I seen him before? His gait, his stoop, the carriage of his head, all seemed familiar--but a short-sighted man is accustomed to this kind of puzzle: he is always recognising the wrong person, when he does not fail to recognise the right one. I am rather short-sighted, but science has its resources. Two or three days after my encounter with this very shy sportsman, I went again to Loch Nan. But this time I took with me a strong field-glass. As I neared the crest of the low heathery slope immediately above the loch, whence the water first comes into view, I lay down on the ground and crawled like a deer-stalker to the skyline. Then I got out the glass and reconnoitred. There was my friend, sure enough; moreover, he was playing a very respectable trout. But he was fishing on the near side of the loch, and though I had quite a distinct view of his back, and indeed of all his attenuated form, I was as far as ever from recognising him, or guessing where, if anywhere, I had seen him before. I now determined to stalk him; but this was not too easy, as there is literally no cover on the hillside except a long march dyke of the usual loose stones, which ran down to the loch-side, and indeed three or four feet into the loch, reaching it at a short distance to the right of the angler. Behind this I skulked, in an eagerly undignified manner, and was just about to climb the wall unobserved, when two grouse got up, with their wild "cluck cluck" of alarm, and flew down past the angler and over the loch. He did not even look round, but jerked his line out of the water, reeled it up, and set off walking along the loch-side. He was making, no doubt, for the little glen up which I fancied that he must have retreated on the first occasion when saw him. I set off walking round the tarn on my own side--the left side--expecting to anticipate him, and that he must pass me on his way up the little burnside. But I had miscalculated the distance, or the pace. He was first at the burnside; and now I cast courtesy and everything but curiosity to the winds, and deliberately followed him. He was a few score of yards ahead of me, walking rapidly, when he suddenly climbed the burnside to the left, and was lost to my eyes for a few moments. I reached the place, ascended the steep green declivity and found myself on the open undulating moor, with no human being in sight! The grass and heather were short. I saw no bush, no hollow, where he could by any possibility have hidden himself. Had he met a Boojum he could not have more "softly and suddenly vanished away." I make no pretence of being more courageous than my neighbours, and, in this juncture, perhaps I was less so. The long days of loneliness in waste Glen Aline, and too many solitary cigarettes, had probably injured my nerve. So, when I suddenly heard a sigh and the half-smothered sound of a convulsive cough-hollow, if ever a cough was hollow--hard by me, at my side as it were, and yet could behold no man, nor any place where a man might conceal himself--nothing but moor and sky and tufts of rushes--then I turned away, and walked down the glen: not slowly. I shall not deny that I often looked over my shoulder as I went, and that, when I reached the loch, I did not angle without many a backward glance. Such an appearance and disappearance as this, I remembered, were in the experience of Sir Walter Scott. Lockhart does not tell the anecdote, which is in a little anonymous volume, "Recollections of Sir Walter Scott," published before Lockhart's book. Sir Walter reports that he was once riding across the moor to Ashiesteil, in the clear brown summer twilight, after sunset. He saw a man a little way ahead of him, but, just before he reached the spot, the man disappeared. Scott rode about and about, searching the low heather as I had done, but to no purpose. He rode on, and, glancing back, saw the same man at the same place. He turned his horse, galloped to the spot, and again--nothing! "Then," says Sir Walter, "neither the mare nor I cared to wait any longer." Neither had I cared to wait, and if there is any shame in the confession, on my head be it! There came a week of blazing summer weather; tramping over moors to lochs like sheets of burnished steel was out of the question, and I worked at my book, which now was all but finished. At length I wrote THE END, and "o le bon ouff! que je poussais," as Flaubert says about one of his own laborious conclusions. The weather broke, we had a deluge, and then came a soft cloudy day, with a warm southern wind suggesting a final march on Loch Nan. I packed some scones and marmalade into my creel, filled my flask with whiskey, my cigarette-case with cigarettes, and started on the familiar track with the happiest anticipations. The Lone Fisher was quite out of my mind; the day was exhilarating--one of those true fishing- days when you feel the presence of the sun without seeing him. Still, I looked rather cautiously over the edge of the slope above the loch, and, by Jove! there he was, fishing the near side, and wading deep among the reeds! I did not stalk him this time, but set off running down the hillside behind him, as quickly as my basket, with its load of waders and boots, would permit. I was within forty yards of him, when he gave a wild stagger, tried to recover himself, failed, and, this time, disappeared in a perfectly legitimate and accountable manner. The treacherous peaty bottom had given way, and his floating hat, with a splash on the surface, and a few black bubbles, were all that testified to his existence. There was a broken old paling hard by; I tore off a long plank, waded in as near as I dared, and, by help of the plank, after a good deal of slipping, which involved an exemplary drenching, I succeeded in getting him on to dry land. He was a distressing spectacle--his body and face all blackened with the slimy peat-mud; and he fell half-fainting on the grass, convulsed by a terrible cough. My first care was to give him whiskey, by perhaps a mistaken impulse of humanity; my next, as he lay, exhausted, was to bring water in my hat, and remove the black mud from his face. Then I saw Percy Allen--Allen of St. Jude's! His face was wasted, his thin long beard (he had not worn a beard of old), clogged as it was with peat-stains, showed flecks of grey. "Allen--Percy!" I said; "what wind blew _you_ here?" But he did not answer; and, as he coughed, it was too plain that the shock of his accident had broken some vessel in the lungs. I tended him as well as I knew how to do it. I sat beside him, giving him what comfort I might, and all the time my memory flew back to college days, and to our strange and most unhappy last meeting, and his subsequent inevitable disgrace. Far away from here--Loch Nan and the vacant moors--my memory wandered. It was at Blocksby's auction-room, in a street near the Strand, on the eve of a great book-sale three years before, that we had met, for almost the last time, as I believed, though it is true that we had not spoken on that occasion. It is necessary that I should explain what occurred, or what I and three other credible witnesses believed to have occurred; for, upon my word, the more I see and hear of human evidence of any event, the less do I regard it as establishing anything better than an excessively probable hypothesis. To make a long story as short as may be, I should say that Allen and I had been acquainted when we were undergraduates; that, when fellows of our respective colleges, our acquaintance had become intimate; that we had once shared a little bit of fishing on the Test; and that we were both book-collectors. I was a comparatively sane bibliomaniac, but to Allen the time came when he grudged every penny that he did not spend on rare books, and when he actually gave up his share of the water we used to take together, that his contribution to the rent might go for rare editions and bindings. After this deplorable change of character we naturally saw each other less, but we were still friendly. I went up to town to scribble; Allen stayed on at Oxford. One day I chanced to go into Blocksby's rooms; it was a Friday, I remember--there was to be a great sale on the Monday. There I met Allen in ecstasies over one of the books displayed in the little side room on the right hand of the sale- room. He had taken out of a glass case and was gloating over a book which, it seems, had long been the Blue Rose of his fancy as a collector. He was crazed about Longepierre, the old French amateur, whose volumes, you may remember, were always bound in blue morocco, and tooled, on the centre and at the corners, with his badge, the Golden Fleece. Now the tome which so fascinated Allen was a Theocritus, published at Rome by Caliergus--a Theocritus on blue paper, if you please, bound in Longepierre's morocco livery, _double_ with red morocco, and, oh ecstasy! with a copy of Longepierre's version of one Idyll on the flyleaf, signed with the translator's initials, and headed "_a Mon Roy_." It is known to the curious that Louis XIV. particularly admired and praised this little poem, calling it "a model of honourable gallantry." Clearly the grateful author had presented his own copy to the king; and here it was, when king and crown had gone down into dust. Allen showed me the book; he could hardly let it leave his hands. "Here is a pearl," he had said, "a gem beyond price!" "I'm afraid you'll find it so," I said; "that is for a Paillet or Rothschild, not for you, my boy." "I fear so," he had answered; "if I were to sell my whole library to-morrow, I could hardly raise the money;" for he was poor, and it was rumoured that his mania had already made him acquainted with the Jews. We parted. I went home to chambers; Allen stayed adoring the unexampled Longepierre. That night I dined out, and happened to sit next a young lady who possessed a great deal of taste, though that was the least of her charms. The fashion for book-collecting was among her innocent pleasures; she had seen Allen's books at Oxford, and I told her of his longings for the Theocritus. Miss Breton at once was eager to see the book, and the other books, and I obtained leave to go with her and Mrs. Breton to the auction-rooms next day. The little side-room where the treasures were displayed was empty, except for an attendant, when we went in; we looked at the things and made learned remarks, but I admit that I was more concerned to look at Miss Breton than at any work in leather by Derome or Bauzonnet. We were thus a good deal occupied, perhaps, with each other; people came and went, while our heads were bent over a case of volumes under the window. When we _did_ leave, on the appeal of Mrs. Breton, we both--both I and Kate--Miss Breton, I mean--saw Allen--at least I saw him, and believed _she_ did--absorbed in gazing at the Longepierre Theocritus. He held it rather near his face; the gas, which had been lit, fell on the shining Golden Fleeces of the cover, on his long thin hands and eager studious features. It would have been a pity to disturb him in his ecstasy. I looked at Miss Breton; we both smiled, and, of course, I presumed we smiled for the same reason. I happen to know, and unluckily did it happen, the very minute of the hour when we left Blocksby's. It was a quarter to four o'clock--a church- tower was chiming the three-quarters in the Strand, and I looked half mechanically at my own watch, which was five minutes fast. On Sunday I went down to Oxford, and happened to walk into Allen's rooms. He was lying on a sofa reading the "Spectator." After chatting a little, I said, "You took no notice of me, nor of the Bretons yesterday, Allen, at Blocksby's." "I didn't see you," he said; and as he was speaking there came a knock at the door. "Come in!" cried Allen, and a man entered who was a stranger to me. You would not have called him a gentleman perhaps. However, I admit that I am possibly no great judge of a gentleman. Allen looked up. "Hullo, Mr. Thomas," he said, "have you come up to see Mr. Mortby?" mentioning a well-known Oxford bibliophile. "Wharton," he went on, addressing me, "this is Mr. Thomas from Blocksby's." I bowed. Mr. Thomas seemed embarrassed. "Can I have a word alone with you, sir?" he murmured to Allen. "Certainly," answered Allen, looking rather surprised. "You'll excuse me a moment, Wharton," he said to me. "Stop and lunch, won't you? There's the old 'Spectator' for you;" and he led Mr. Thomas into a small den where he used to hear his pupils read their essays, and so forth. In a few minutes he came out, looking rather pale, and took an embarrassed farewell of Mr. Thomas. "Look here, Wharton," he said to me, "here is a curious business. That fellow from Blocksby's tells me that the Longepierre Theocritus disappeared yesterday afternoon; that I was the last person in whose hand it was seen, and that not only the man who always attends in the room but Lord Tarras and Mr. Wentworth, saw it in _my_ hands just before it was missed." "What a nuisance!" I answered. "You were looking at it when Miss Breton and I saw you, and you didn't notice us; Does Thomas know _when_--I mean about what o'clock--the book was first missed?" "That's the lucky part of the whole worry," said Allen. "I left the rooms at three exactly, and it was missed about ten minutes to four; dozens of people must have handled it in that interval of time. So interesting a book!" "But," I said, and paused--"are you sure your watch was right?" "Quite certain; besides, I looked at a church clock. Why on earth do you ask?" "Because--I am awfully sorry--there is some unlucky muddle; but it was exactly a quarter, or perhaps seventeen minutes, to four when both Miss Breton and I saw you absorbed in the Longepierre." "Oh, it's quite _impossible_," Allen answered; "I was far enough away from Blocksby's at a quarter to four." "That's all right," I said. "Of course you can prove that; if it is necessary; though I dare say the book has fallen behind a row of others, and has been found by this time. Where were you at a quarter to four?" "I really don't feel obliged to stand a cross-examination before my time," answered Allen, flushing a little. Then I remembered that I was engaged to lunch at All Souls', which was true enough; convenient too, for I do not quite see how the conversation could have been carried on pleasantly much further. For I _had_ seen him--not a doubt about it. But there was one curious thing. Next time I met Miss Breton I told her the story, and said, "You remember how we saw Allen, at Blocksby's, just as we were going away?" "No," she said, "I did not see him; where was he?" "Then why did you smile--don't you remember? I looked at him and at you, and I thought you smiled!" "Because--well, I suppose because _you_ smiled," she said. And the subject of the conversation was changed. It was an excessively awkward affair. It did not come "before the public," except, of course, in the agreeably mythical gossip of an evening paper. There was no more public scandal than that. Allen was merely ruined. The matter was introduced to the notice of the Wardens and the other Fellows of St. Jude's. What Lord Tarras saw, what Mr. Wentworth saw, what I saw, clearly proved that Allen was in the auction- rooms, and had the confounded book in his hand, at an hour when, as _he_ asserted, he had left the place for some time. It was admitted by one of the people employed at the sale-rooms that Allen had been noticed (he was well known there) leaving the house at three. But he must have come back again, of course, as at least four people could have sworn to his presence in the show-room at a quarter to four o'clock. When he was asked in a private interview, by the Head of his College, to say where he went after leaving Blocksby's Allen refused to answer. He merely said that he could not prove the facts; that his own word would not be taken against that of so many unprejudiced and even friendly witnesses. He simply threw up the game. He resigned his fellowship; he took his name off the books; he disappeared. There was a good deal of talk; people spoke about the unscrupulousness of collectors, and repeated old anecdotes on that subject. Then the business was forgotten. Next, in a year's time or so, the book--the confounded Longepierre's Theocritus--was found in a pawnbroker's shop. The history of its adventures was traced beyond a shadow of doubt. It had been very adroitly stolen, and disposed of, by a notorious book-thief, a gentleman by birth--now dead, but well remembered. Ask Mr. Quaritch! Allen's absolute innocence was thus demonstrated beyond cavil, though nobody paid any particular attention to the demonstration. As for Allen, he had vanished; he was heard of no more. He was _here_; dying here, beside the black wave of lone Loch Nan. All this, so long in the telling, I had time enough to think over, as I sat and watched him, and wiped his lips with water from the burn, clearer and sweeter than the water of the loch. At last his fit of coughing ceased, and a kind of peace came into his face. "Allen, my dear old boy," I said--I don't often use the language of affection--"did you never hear that all that stupid story was cleared up; that everyone knows you are innocent?" He only shook his head; he did not dare to speak, but he looked happier, and he put his hand in mine. I sat holding his hand, stroking it. I don't know how long I sat there; I had put my coat and waterproof under him. He was "wet through," of course; there was little use in what I did. What could I do with him? how bring him to a warm and dry place? The idea seemed to strike him, for he half rose and pointed to the little burnside, across the loch. A plan occurred to me; I tore a leaf from my sketch-book, put the paper with pencil in his hand, and said, "Where do you live? Don't speak. Write." He wrote in a faint scrawl, "Help me to that burnside. Then I can guide you." I hardly know how I got him there, for, light as he was, I am no Hercules. However, with many a rest, we reached the little dell; and then I carried him up its green side, and laid him on the heather of the moor. He wrote again: "Go to that clump of rushes--the third from the little hillock. Then look, but be careful. Then lift the big grass tussock." The spot which Allen indicated was on the side of a rather steep grassy slope. I approached it, dragged at the tussock of grass, which came away easily enough, and revealed the entrance to no more romantic hiding-place than an old secret whiskey "still." Private stills, not uncommon in Sutherland and some other northern shires, are extinct in Galloway. Allen had probably found this one by accident in his wanderings, and in his half-insane bitterness against mankind had made it, for some time at least, his home. The smoke-blackened walls, the recesses where the worm- tub and the still now stood, all plainly enough betrayed the original user of the hiding-place. There was a low bedstead, a shelf or two, whereon lay a few books--a Shakespeare, a Homer, a Walton, Plutarch's "Lives"; very little else out of a library once so rich. There was a tub of oatmeal, a heap of dry peat, two or three eggs in a plate, some bottles, a keg of whiskey, some sardine-tins, a box with clothes--that was nearly all the "plenishing" of this hermitage. It was never likely to be discovered, except by the smoke, when the inmate lit a fire. The local shepherd knew it, of course, but Allen had bought his silence, not that there were many neighbours for the shepherd to tattle with. Allen had recovered strength enough by this time to reach his den with little assistance. He made me beat up the white of one of the eggs with a little turpentine, which was probably, under the circumstances, the best styptic for his malady within his reach. I lit his fire of peats, undressed him, put him to bed, and made him as comfortable as might be in the den which he had chosen. Then I went back to the shepherd's, sent a messenger to the nearest doctor, and procured a kind of sledge, generally used for dragging peat home, wherein, with abundance of blankets for covering, I hoped to bring Allen back to the shepherd's cottage. Not to delay over details, this was managed at last, and the unhappy fellow was under a substantial roof. But he was very ill; he became delirious and raved of many things--talked of old college adventures, bid recklessly for imaginary books, and practised other eccentricities of fever. When his fever left him he was able to converse in a way--I talking, and he scrawling faintly with a pencil on paper. I told him how his character had been cleared, how he had been hunted for, advertised for, vainly enough. To the shepherds' cottages where he had lived till the beginning of that summer, newspapers rarely came; to his den in the old secret still, of course they never came at all. His own story of what he had been doing at the fatal hour when so many people saw him at the auction-rooms was brief. He had left the rooms, as he said, at three o'clock, pondering how he might raise money for the book on which his heart was set. His feet had taken him, half unconsciously, to a dismal court, Place of Israelite resort, where dwelt and dealt one Isaacs, from whom he had, at various times, borrowed money on usury. The name of Isaacs was over a bell, one of many at the door, and, when the bell was rung, the street door "opened of his own accord," like that of the little tobacco-and-talk club which used to exist in an alley off Pall Mall. Allen rang the bell, the outer door opened, and, as he was standing at the door of Isaacs' chambers, before he had knocked, _that_ portal also opened, and the office-boy, a young Jew, slunk cautiously out. On seeing Allen, he had seemed at once surprised and alarmed. Allen asked if his master was in; the lad answered "No" in a hesitating way; but on second thoughts, averred that Isaacs "would be back immediately," and requested Allen to go in and wait. He did so, but Isaacs never came, and Allen fell asleep. He had a very distinct and singular dream, he said, of being in Messrs. Blocksy's rooms, of handling the Longepierre, and of seeing Wentworth there, and Lord Tarras. When he wakened he was very cold, and, of course, it was pitch dark. He did not remember where he was; he lit a match and a candle on the chimney-piece. Then slowly his memory came back to him, and not only his memory, but his consciousness of what he had wholly forgotten--namely, that this was Saturday, the Sabbath of the Jews, and that there was not the faintest chance of Isaacs' arrival at his place of business. In the same moment the embarrassment and confusion of the young Israelite flashed vividly across his mind, and he saw that he was in a very awkward position. If that fair Hebrew boy had been robbing, or trying to rob, the till, then Allen's position was serious indeed, as here he was, alone, at an untimely hour, in the office. So he blew the candle out, and went down the dingy stairs as quietly as possible, took the first cab he met, drove to Paddington, and went up to Oxford. It is probable that the young child of Israel, if he had been attempting any mischief, did not succeed in it. Had there been any trouble, it is likely enough that he would have involved Allen in the grief. Then Allen would have been in a, perhaps, unprecedented position. He could have established an alibi, as far as the Jew's affairs went, by proving that he had been at Blocksby's at the hour when the boy would truthfully have sworn that he had let him into Isaacs' chambers. And, as far as the charge against him at Blocksby's went, the evidence of the young Jew would have gone to prove that he was at Isaacs', where he had no business to be, when we saw him at Blocksby's. But, unhappily, each alibi would have been almost equally compromising. The difficulty never arose, but the reason why Allen refused to give any account of what he had been doing, and where he had been, at four o'clock on that Saturday afternoon--a refusal that told so heavily against him--is now sufficiently clear. His statement would, we may believe, never have been corroborated by the youthful Hebrew, who certainly had his own excellent reasons for silence, and who probably had carefully established an _alibi_ of his own elsewhere. The true account of Allen's appearance, or apparition, at Blocksby's, when I and Tarras, Wentworth and the attendant recognised him, and Miss Breton did _not_, is thus part of the History of the Unexplained. Allen might have appealed to precedents in the annals of the Psychical Society, where they exist in scores, and are technically styled "collective hallucinations." But neither a jury, nor a judge, perhaps, would accept the testimony of experts in Psychical Research if offered in a criminal trial, nor acquit a wraith. Possibly this scepticism has never yet injured the cause of an innocent man. Yet I know, in my own personal experience, and have heard from others, from men of age, sagacity, and acquaintance with the greatest affairs, instances in which people have been distinctly seen by sane, healthy, and honourable witnesses, in places and circumstances where it was (as we say) "physically impossible" that they should have been, and where they certainly were not themselves aware of having been. That is why human testimony seems to me to establish no more, in certain circumstances, than a highly probable working hypothesis--a hypothesis on which, of course, we are bound to act. There is little more to tell. By dint of careful nursing, poor Allen was enabled to travel; he reached Mentone, and there the mistral ended him. He was a lonely man, with no kinsfolk; his character was cleared among the people who knew him best; the others have forgotten him. Nobody can be injured by this explanation of his silence when called on to prove his innocence, and of his unusually successful vanishing from a society which had never tried very hard to discover him in his retreat. He has lived and suffered and died, and left behind him little but an incident in the History of the Unexplained. THE COMPLETE BUNGLER SCENE I.--HAMPSHIRE PISCATOR ANGLUS. PISCATOR SCOTUS Scotus.--Well, now let's go to your sport of angling. Where, Master, is your river? Anglus.--Marry, 'tis here; mark you, this is the famous Test. Scotus.--What, Master, this dry ditch? There be scarce three inches of water in it. Anglus.--Patience, Scholar, the water is in the meadows, or Master Oakley, the miller, is holding it up. Nay, let us wait here some hour or so till the water is turned on. Or perchance, Scholar, for the matter of five shillings, Master Oakley will even raise his hatches, an you have a crown about you. Scotus.--I like not to part with my substance, but, as needs must, here, Master, is the coin. [Exit ANGLUS to the Mill. He returns. Anglus.--Now, Scholar, said I not so? The water is turned on again, and, lo you, at the tail of yonder stream, a fair trout is rising. You shall see a touch of our craft. [ANGLUS crawls on his belly into a tuft of nettles, where he kneels and flicks his fly for about ten minutes. Anglus.--Alas, he has ceased rising, and I am grievously entangled in these nettles. Come, Scholar, but warily, lest ye fright my fish, and now, disentangle my hook. Scotus.--Here is your hook, but, marry, my fingers tingle shrewdly with the nettles; also I marked the fish hasting up stream. Anglus.--Nay, come, we shall even look for another. Scotus.--Oh, Master, what is this? That which but now was dry ditch is presently salad bowl! Mark you how the green vegetables cover the waters! We shall have no sport. Anglus.--Patience, Scholar; 'tis but Master Hedgely's men, cutting the weeds above. We may rest us some hour or two, till they go by. Or, perchance, for a matter of five shillings-- Scotus.--Nay, Master, this English angling is over costly. The rent of your ditch is high, the expenses of travel are burdensome. In crawling through your nettles and thistles I have scratched my face, and torn my raiment, and I will not pay the labourer to cease labouring in his industry. Anglus.--Why then, _pazienza_, Scholar, or listen while I sing that sweet ditty of country contentment and an angler's life, writ by worthy Master Hackle long ago. SONG The Angler hath a jolly life Who by the rail runs down, And leaves his business and his wife, And all the din of town. The wind down stream is blowing straight, And nowhere cast can he; Then lo, he doth but sit and wait In kindly company. Or else men turn the water off, Or folk be cutting weed, While he doth at misfortune scoff, From every trouble freed. Or else he waiteth for a rise, And ne'er a rise may see; For why, there are not any flies To bear him company. Or, if he mark a rising trout, He straightway is caught up, And then he takes his flasket out, And drinks a rousing cup. Or if a trout he chance to hook, Weeded and broke is he, And then be finds a goodly book Instructive company. What think you of my song, Scholar? 'Tis choicely musical. What, he is gone! A pest on those Northerners; they have no manners. Now, methinks I do remember a trout called George, a heavy fellow that lies ever under the arch of yonder bridge, where there is shelter from the wind. Ho for George! [Exit singing. SCENE II.--A BRIDGE Enter ANGLUS Anglus.--Now to creep like your Indian of Virginia on the prey, and angle for George. I'faith, he is a lusty trout; many a good Wickham have I lost in George. [He ensconces himself in the middle of a thorn bush. Anglus.--There he is, I mark his big back fin. Now speed me, St. Peter, patron of all honest anglers! But first to dry my fly! [He flicks his fly for ten minutes. Enter BOY on Bridge. ANGLUS makes his cast, too short. BOY heaves a great stone from the Bridge. Exit GEORGE. Exit BOY. Anglus.--Oh, Mass! verily the angler had need of patience! Yonder boy hath spoiled my sport, and were it not that swearing frights the fish, I could find it in my heart to say an oath or twain. But, ha, here come the swallows, hawking low on the stream. Now, were but my Scholar here, I could impart to him much honest lore concerning the swallow, and other birds. But where she hawks, there fly must be, and fish will rise, and, look you, I do mark the trout feeding in yonder ford below the plank bridge. [ANGLUS steals off, and gingerly takes up his position. Anglus.--Marry, that is a good trout under the burdock! [He is caught up in the burdock, and breaks his tackle. Anglus.--Now to knot a fresh cast. Marry, but they are feeding gaily! How kindly is the angler's life; he harmeth no fish that swims, yet the Spectator deemeth ours a cruel sport. Ah, good Master Townsend and learned Master Hutton, little ye wot of our country contents. So, I am ready again, and this Whitchurch dun will beguile yonder fish, I doubt not. Marry, how thick the flies come, and how the fish do revel in this merciful provender that Heaven sendeth! Verily I know not at which of these great fellows to make my essay. [Enter twenty-four callow young ducks, swimming up stream. The ducks chevy the flies, taking them out of the very mouths of the trout. Anglus.--Oh, mercy. I have hooked a young duck! Where is my landing- net? Nay, I have left it under yonder elm! [He struggles with the young duck. By the conclusion of the fray the Rise is over. Anglus.--I have saved my fly, but lo, the trout have ceased to feed, and will rise no more till after sunset. Well, "a merry heart goes all the way!" And lo, here comes my Scholar. Ho, runaway, how have you sped? Scotus.--Not ill. Here be my spoils, great ones; but how faint-hearted are your southern trout! Anglus.--That fat fellow is a good three pounds by the scales. But, Scholar, with what fly caught ye these, and where? Scotus.--Marry, Master, in a Mill-tail, where the water lagged not, but ran free as it doth in bonny Scotland; nor with no fly did I grip him, but with an artificial penk, or minnow. It was made by a handsome woman that had a fine hand, and wrought for Master Brown, of Aberdeen. The mould, or body of the minnow, is of parchment, methinks, and he hath fins of copper, all so curiously dissembled that it will beguile any sharp- sighted trout in a swift stream. Men call it a Phantom, Master; wilt thou not try my Phantom? Anglus.--Begone, sirrah. I took thee for an angler, and thou art but a poaching knave! Scotus.--Knave thyself! I will break thy head! Anglus.--Softly, Scholar. Here comes good Master Hedgely, who will see fair play. Now lie there, my coat, and have at you! [They fight, SCOTUS is knocked down. Anglus.--Half-minute time! Time is up! Master Hedgely, in my dry fly box thou wilt find a little sponge for moistening of my casting lines. Wilt thou, of thy courtesy, throw it up for my Scholar? And now, Scholar, trust me, thy guard is too low. I hope thou bearest no malice. Scotus.--None, Master. But, lo! I am an hungered; wilt thou taste my cates? Here I have bread slices and marmalade of Dundee. This fishing is marvellous hungry work. Anglus.--Gladly will I fall to, but first say me a grace--Benedictus benedicat! Where is thine usquebaugh? Marry, 'tis the right Talisker! Scotus.--And now, Master, wherefore wert thou wroth with me? Came we not forth to catch fish? Anglus.--Nay, marry, Scholar, by no means to catch fish, but to fish with the dry fly. Now this, humanly speaking, is impossible; natheless it is rare sport. But for your fish, as they were ill come by, let us even give them to good Master Hedgely here, and so be merry till the sedges come on in the late twilight. And, trust me, this is the rarest fishing, and the peacefulest; only see that thou fish not with the wet fly, for that is Anathema. So shall we have light consciences. Scotus.--And light baskets! Anglus.--Ay, it may be so. FOOTNOTES {1} Too true, alas! {2} It should be added that large trout, up to six pounds, are sometimes taken. One boatman assured me that he had caught two three-pounders at one cast. {3} From motives of delicacy I suppress the true name of the river. {4} After this paper was in print, an angler was actually drowned while engaged in playing a salmon. This unfortunate circumstance followed, and did not suggest the composition of the story. 
26072	----	SCOTCH LOCH-FISHING BY "BLACK PALMER" WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXXXII _All Rights reserved_ DEDICATED TO THE MEMBERS OF THE WESTERN ANGLING CLUB GLASGOW IN REMEMBRANCE OF MANY HAPPY DAYS SPENT IN THEIR COMPANY PREFACE. The Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch-Fishing desires chiefly that it may be of use to all who read it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this book has afforded him much pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This edition is interleaved with blank sheets for the reader's notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the care of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. GLASGOW, _March 1882_. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. INTRODUCTORY, 1 II. EQUIPMENT, 5 III. TACKLE AND ACCESSORIES, 7 IV. FLIES AND CASTING-LINES, 13 V. TROLLING-TACKLE AND LURES, 21 VI. DUTIES OF BOATMAN, 27 VII. ETIQUETTE OF LOCH-FISHING, 33 VIII. CASTING AND STRIKING, 37 IX. TROLLING, 42 X. CAPTURE OF FISH, 48 XI. AFTER A DAY'S FISHING, 60 XII. REMINISCENCES, 65 XIII. CONCLUSION, 80 SCOTCH LOCH-FISHING. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written--and well said and written too--on the art of fishing; but loch-fishing _per se_ has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form; but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when we say that, on the whole, a day's loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is dependent on nothing but enough wind to "curl" the water,--and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day,--and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand; whereas the stream-fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water: and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a day's river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a "good" day, and the water in order; but experience has taught most of us that the "good" days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams,--such as many of our northern streams are,--the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing,--the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes; give him a cast of any flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a "crack" may be using; and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher; but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we don't deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman; but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing. There are "pools and pools," and the experienced loch-fisher can "spot" a bay or promontory, where trout are likely to be lying, with as much certainty as his brother angler can calculate on the lie of fish in a stream. Then there are objections to loch-fishing on the score of expense. These we are not prepared to refute; for there is no doubt whatever that loch-fishing means money. But what has made it so? The same reason that makes all other things of more or less value--the common law of supply and demand. Time was, and that not so long ago, when a boatman who used to get 3s., or at most 4s. a-day, now gets his 5s. or 6s., and even at the latter figure does not think himself too well paid. In the extreme north, however, it is still possible to get a good man for 3s. a-day; and we know of nothing more enjoyable than a fortnight's loch-fishing amidst magnificent scenery in some of our northern counties. The expense of getting there will always be a serious matter; but once there, the fishing in itself is not dear. The boat is usually got for nothing; the right of fishing, so far at least as trout are concerned, is free; and the man's wage and lunch are decidedly cheap. But for a single day on some of our nearer lochs,--such as Loch Leven, Loch Ard, or Loch Lomond,--the expenses _are_ heavy, and the angler must always be the best judge as to the likelihood of the "game being worth the candle." CHAPTER II. EQUIPMENT. This will be a short chapter, as tastes differ so very much, that many things we might say would most probably be disregarded. But as to some matters, there can only be one opinion. Do not fish in _light-coloured_ clothes; and, should the weather be wet, do not wear a white macintosh coat. We believe that the eyesight of a fish is the keenest sense which it possesses; and, more especially should the day be clear and fine, there is no doubt that an unusual white object within range of its vision will make a fish, which might otherwise have taken the fly, turn tail and flee. A good deal of what we hear spoken of as fish "rising short," proceeds from this cause. No doubt they rise short sometimes on seeing the angler himself, but he is much less likely to attract notice if clad in dark-hued clothing. We know of nothing better for a fishing rig-out than a suit made from dark Harris tweed--it will almost last a lifetime, and is a warm and comfortable wear. Thus you will need a dark macintosh and leggings; and a common sou'wester is, when needed, a very useful head-gear. A pair of cloth-lined india-rubber gloves will be found desirable in early spring, when it is quite possible that the temperature may be low enough for snow. A pair of stout lacing boots, made with uppers reaching well up the leg, will be found best, as they protect the feet from getting damp when going into or leaving a boat, even though one should need to step into the water; and if your waterproof coat is long, as it should be, the necessity of wearing leggings on a wet day is obviated. Lastly, _by all means keep the body warm_, and remember that the more careful you are of yourself, even at the risk of being thought "old wifish," you will, humanly speaking, be enabled to enjoy the sport to a greater age than you might otherwise do. CHAPTER III. TACKLE AND ACCESSORIES. As this is likely to be one of the most important chapters in the book, the reader must forgive us if we are particular--even to a fault--in describing some of the necessaries towards the full enjoyment of the pleasures of loch-fishing. So much depends on our being comfortable in our enjoyments, that we have, perhaps, erred on the side of luxuriance; but to those anglers who think so, there is nothing easier than their leaving out what they think superfluous. _Creel, or Fishing-Bag._--The creel for loch-fishing should be of the largest size made, so as to serve for all kinds of fish; and as the angler is always in a boat, the difference of room occupied is of very little moment. Besides, it accommodates his tackle and lunch, and even waterproofs, though the latter are better to be strapped on outside. These creels are neatest when made in French basket-work; and even the lightest of them, with ordinary care, will last many years, more especially if the edges and bottom are leather-bound. Almost any tackle-shop will supply them plain, or bound with leather, as desired. Brass hinges and hasp will also be found great improvements. The fishing-bag is of somewhat recent development, and is very convenient; but the objection to it is that, unless the waterproof cloth with which it is lined be carefully washed after each day's fishing, a nasty smell is apt to be contracted and retained. Though we use the bag often ourselves, we incline for many reasons to the old-fashioned creel. Many loch-fishers carry along with them a square basket about 16 in. × 8 broad × 10 deep, which they use for carrying their tackle and lunch, thus leaving the creel or fishing-bag free for fish alone. This is a capital plan, the only objection being that it makes another article to carry. As to its usefulness there can be no doubt, as nothing is more undesirable than having tackle and fish in one basket or bag, even though you should have something between. Some anglers go the length of a luncheon-basket, but this savours so much of the picnic that we don't approve of it. _Landing-Net and Gaff._--These may be got at any tackle shop, the only care to be exercised being in the selection of a good long handle, and in seeing that the net be made of twine which resists the catching of hooks, and that it be of a size capable of landing a large fish, as the gaff leaves an ugly mark, and should only be used when actually necessary. The screw of the net-hoop and of the gaff will suit the same handle. _Fishing-Rods._--For loch-fishing, it is desirable to use a rod not less than 14 feet in length, if fishing for ordinary yellow trout; but if for sea trout, and the chance of "a fish" _par excellence_, then the rod should be a couple of feet longer. The angler will find that it is better to have both rods with him--the spare one being handy in case of calamity--as the extra trouble of carrying is very slight: rods and landing-net handle can be easily tied up together with small leather straps. Do not have a rod that bends too freely--rather err on the other side; because in loch-fishing you have generally wind enough to carry your flies out, and if you do get a 3 or 4 pounder, the advantage of a fairly stiff rod is apparent. We prefer rods in three pieces--no hollow-butts--and made of greenheart throughout. The first cost is more than for rods whose various parts are made of different woods, but the greenheart is the cheapest rod in the end. With the minimum of care, a greenheart never gets out of order; and a good rod of this description will be as straight at the end of a season as at the beginning. Avoid all fancy rods, and do not be beguiled into buying them. _Reels and Lines._--Always carry a couple of reels with you, the smaller with 60 yards of fine line, and the larger with not less than 100 yards of grilse line. Silk-and-hair lines are not very expensive, and with a little care will last a long time. They will be found the most satisfactory for all kinds of fly-work. The reels which we consider best are made of bronzed metal and vulcanite: they are light, and stand a lot of wear. When buying your rods, get the reels fitted to them, and see that the fit is sufficiently tight, as nothing is more annoying than to find the ferrules loosening their hold of the reel, and that, perhaps, at a most critical moment. Should the reels referred to not be heavy enough to balance the rods properly--and this is a matter of great importance--it may be as well to take reels made entirely of bronzed metal. _Fly-Book._--We are not much in favour of fly-books. They are a great temptation to keeping a large stock of flies; and in the following chapter we will show that the fewer flies one possesses the better. A serious objection to a fly-book is, that the flies get crushed in it, and we consider a box a better receptacle; but if the angler will have a fly-book, one of moderate size--rather to the big size if anything--made of pig-skin leather, and well provided with pouches for holding casting-lines, as well as the usual receptacles for flies, will be found best. These books are to be had in great variety at any wholesale tackle warehouse; and taste goes a long way in non-essentials. Beyond the articles mentioned, the angler should always have at hand the following:-- Spring balance, weighing up to 20 lb. Small screw-driver. Small gimlet. Small bottle clockmaker's oil. Bottle varnish. Carriage-lamp, and candles to fit, for travelling. Two packs playing-cards. Good-sized flask. Flat glass or horn drinking-cup. Pocket-scissors. The kind that shut up will be found very useful. Corkscrew. Hank of medium gut for emergencies. Fine silk thread and resin. Some common thin twine for tying joints of rod together. Also articles named in Chapter V., p. 21, under "Trolling-Tackle and Lures." Many of these things may be considered quite _de trop_; but the longer one fishes, the more one finds out that the little luxuries give a vast amount of enjoyment for the small amount of foresight required to have them at hand when wanted. CHAPTER IV. FLIES AND CASTING-LINES. Flies.--Here we shall no doubt come into conflict with many opinions, and most probably meet with the most criticism. However, as all we have written, and mean to write, is the result of actual experience, we may be pardoned for being somewhat dogmatic on the subject in hand. In the first place, don't keep a large stock of flies. If going for a day's fishing, buy as many as you think you'll need, and _no more_. Buy them of different sizes; and if you get a few each time you go for an outing, you will be astonished how soon a spare stock accumulates. Ascertain carefully beforehand the _size_ suitable to the loch--the _kinds_ are not of so much importance--and once you have made up a cast, in which operation there is no harm in taking your boatman's suggestions, _do not change_, unless it be to put on a smaller or larger size according to the wind, or unless it is conclusively proved that other flies are raising trout when yours cannot. Of course, if you are going for a fortnight's fishing, you will require to lay in a fair stock; but even then get as few as you think you can possibly do with. Do not run any risk of running short, and do not place yourself in the position of needing to use old casts: that is poor economy in the long-run. The following is, we think, a fair list for a fortnight's sport in an out-of-the-way place:-- Half-dozen harelugs. " red and teal. " orange and mallard. " green and woodcock. " black spiders with red tips, commonly called "Zulus." " red spiders, hackle taken well down the hook. " March Browns, which, though supposed to come out in March, are really capital flies at any time. " yellow body with cinnamon wings and golden-pheasant tip. " dark harelug body, mallard wing and red tip. This is a splendid spring fly. These we would get dressed on Loch Leven size--any fly-dresser knows what that means; but perhaps the better way would be to get a quarter dozen of each dressed on that size, and a quarter dozen of each on a hook two sizes larger. The patterns in a tackle-maker's book are endless, but for the most part are modifications or combinations of the flies we have named; and the angler will soon discover for himself that flies and old half-used casts, and often casts made up in the humour of the moment, and never used at all, accumulate upon him so rapidly that he is glad to find some enthusiastic boatman to bestow them upon. It is needless to add, that a gift of this kind is usually very much appreciated by the recipient. Tinsel is a very useful adjunct to a fly, and should always be employed in those used in loch-fishing. If variety is wanted in colouring, the least tip of Berlin or pig's wool of the desired shade will be found very effective. Get your flies dressed on Limerick-bend hooks, as the iron, should it chance not to be the best tempered in the world, is not so liable to snap as the round bend. The wings of the fly should be dressed so as to be distinctly apart both in the water and out of it, thus-- [Illustration] It gives the fly a much more life-like appearance, and makes it swim better in the water. When you give orders for flies, see that they are dressed up to your instructions, as it is quite certain you will fish with much more confidence when you have faith in what you are using. Do not have them dressed on too fine gut, as they are apt to get twisted round the casting-line (usually called "riding the line"), and put you to the trouble of straightening them out every few minutes. These remarks may seem trifling; but trifles are very irritating in most pursuits, and the gentle art is no exception. Flies suitable for salmon and sea-trout fishing on almost any loch will be supplied at any shop in the trade on asking for Loch Lomond patterns. These patterns are well-known, and are without exception as fine flies as one could wish for. They are usually made very full in the body, and dressed with heron's hackle. The varieties are red and teal, green and teal, orange and mallard, or turkey, and a few variations of these,--sometimes a yellow tip to the red and green bodies, or a red tip to the yellow; but a cast composed of red or green and teal with orange and mallard is unsurpassable. For this class of fishing, the flies should be dressed with loops, and the bob should be fixed to the casting-line by means of a small strand of gut. Two flies on a cast are quite sufficient when big fish are expected. We can hardly advise the angler to try fly-dressing on his own account. It is hardly worth his while, as flies are to be had very reasonably from any respectable tackle-maker; and they are much better dressed in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred than any amateur performance. * * * * * _Casting-Lines._--Provide yourself with half a dozen each, of different thickness--that is, fine, medium, and stout, the latter for salmon and sea-trout fishing. That quantity should suffice for a fortnight's outing, even making allowance for breakage, and leave you some over for another time: but in this matter it is better to run no risk of being short. The gut should be stained a light tea colour, or the faintest blue: it can be bought so. There is no occasion for them being more than three yards long, as we cannot advocate fishing with more than three flies at a time. If three flies are properly placed on a line, and the line be properly handled in the casting, they will cover as much water as any number of flies. Besides, there is far less chance of a "fankle," to use a most expressive Scotch word, than when four or more flies are used. In this, however, _chacun à son goût_,--we are only giving an opinion after trying both ways. In making up a cast of flies, _have no loops_ of any kind, excepting the one by which the cast is attached to your silk-and-hair line. The water-knot is so simple and neat, that it is the best for the purpose of fixing on the tail-fly, which, by the way, should be the heaviest of those you are about to use, if there is any difference between them. In case our readers don't know the water-knot, we give an illustration which explains itself-- [Illustration] The loops are pulled tight, and then the fly and the line are drawn in opposite directions, the result being that the knots formed by the loops meet and make a firm, and at the same time an almost imperceptible, joining. You then clip off any ends that may remain. So much for the tail fly. The putting on of the other two is simplicity itself. You take the strand of gut on which the next fly you purpose affixing is dressed, and laying it along the main line, _taking care to have the hook lying in the reverse direction from the tail fly_, you tie it into the line a yard from the fly already attached. In tying it in, leave the hook hanging about two and a half inches from the line. The third, or "bob" fly, is attached in like manner, and thus your cast of flies is completed. The only objection to this method of making up a cast is, that once the middle and bob flies are tied in, they cannot be used again. This is quite true; but the keen angler will submit to the little extra expense on this score for the gratification which the sight of a really neat cast will afford him. The system of suspending hooks by loops, especially when using fine tackle, is almost entirely exploded. We should have said that previous to use, all gut should be soaked, and the longer the better. It is a good plan to let it soak over night, and make up your cast in the morning. When gut is thus thoroughly wet, it is wonderful how easy it is of manipulation. On the other hand, dry gut is very brittle, and will break on the slightest provocation. Fix the cast and silk-and-hair line together, having previously made a single knot on the end of the latter, as illustrated below-- [Illustration] It is prudent to have a second cast ready in case of breakage, as nothing is more annoying than losing time making up one in the boat, and that most probably when the trout are rising. Experience is a great teacher; and it is wonderful how soon the angler learns the value of every moment, and seeks beforehand, so far as human foresight can go, to provide for all contingencies. CHAPTER V. TROLLING-TACKLE AND LURES. Do not troll at all if you can get fishing with the fly; and under no circumstances troll for trout in the very early part of the season, when they are more or less in a "kelty" state, and take an artificial or other minnow very keenly. True, you may catch fish, but it is a most unsportsmanlike proceeding to take fish not in fair condition; and if you, sir, who read this book, are not a sportsman, you had better stop here, for it was compiled by a sportsman for sportsmen. There are some miserable "pot-hunters" who want to kill anything that swims--be it clean or unclean; but with them we have nothing whatever to do. But fair trolling is quite legitimate, and in many cases it is absolutely imperative to troll if a basket is to be made at all. Some days the fly is of no use--either owing to a calm, or to a bright sky; and a well-managed trolling-line or two is then the only resort, unless one stops fishing altogether. And if big trout and _ferox_ are wanted, nothing succeeds--indeed nothing _will_ succeed, except very occasionally--but trolling, either with artificial or natural bait. So to be complete you must have the requisite tackle, and we will tell you what is necessary, both for small and large fish, in as few words as we possibly can. A ROD specially adapted for trolling is almost a necessity, as it is a great strain upon an ordinary fly-rod to have the weight of 30 or 40 yards of line upon it: even a good rod is apt to get an ugly bend from such treatment. The rod for trolling need not be long--12 to 14 feet is quite sufficient--but it must be stiff; and we consider that the rings through which the line is led ought to be large and fixed--that is, standing out permanently from the wood, called by the trade upright rings. A spare top will be supplied along with it. The REEL should be of the largest description, and may be got as strong as possible, lightness being no recommendation to one used exclusively for trolling. The LINE ought to be at least 100 yards long--120 for choice--and this suffices for any kind of fish. The material best adapted for trolling is oiled silk-and-hair. There is a kind of line, made in America, we believe, which is admirably adapted for the purpose. It is strong as wire-rope, and does not "kink" under any circumstances--which latter is a consideration, as sometimes a paltry trout may come on, and you have only to haul him in hand-over-hand without running the risk of your line getting into a mess. This saves the trouble and waste of time in reeling up many yards of line every time a "smout" comes on. The line to which we refer is somewhat expensive, but will be found to be cheap in the long-run. An ordinary silk-and-hair line does well enough, but is apt to twist sadly if the minnow is not spinning properly, besides the trouble it entails after a day's fishing of laying out two or three score yards for drying. The troller will require to provide himself with MINNOW TRACES. These do not require to be more than two yards in length, but in ordering them take care that the swivels are sufficiently large to insure the minnow--natural or artificial--spinning nicely. The angler can easily procure swivels and make traces for himself; but he will find in this, as in most things connected with fishing, that he cannot compete with the tackle-maker, so we advise him to get them made up at a good warehouse. Retail tackle-makers charge long prices, but in most large towns there are warehouses which are specially suited for a customer trade, thus saving the user a long intermediate profit. This is as it should be. The thickness of the gut used for trolling should of course be regulated, as in fly-fishing, by the size of fish you expect to catch, and a few traces made of gimp for pike and _ferox_ should always be in the troller's stock. By the way, and in case we forget to mention it afterwards, always be provided with some split swan shot, to be used in case of a very clear day, when it is desirable to sink line and minnow below the surface. Also be provided with tackle--some mounted on gut and some on gimp--for spinning natural minnow; and we know of none better or more deadly for this purpose than that of which an illustration is given on next page. It is very simple, and seldom misses anything. [Illustration] The large hook is put in at the mouth of the minnow, and the point brought out at a little above the tail--thus giving the minnow the proper curve for spinning. One of the smaller hooks is put through _both_ lips of the lure, to close the mouth and to keep the bait in proper position, while the other is left to spin. Some advocate the use of par-tail as a spinning bait; but as it is not right to kill par at all, we omit any directions for its use. We have drifted into the subject of LURES almost unconsciously. If you wish to use natural minnows, see that they are neither too large nor too small--about two inches long is a good size--and that the belly is silvery. It is better to instruct your boatman to have a supply ready against your arrival at the loch, as sometimes it is as difficult to catch minnows as to catch any other fish. However, we believe that the want of them is so well supplied by the phantom minnow, that little or no harm is done though they are not to be had. And when the handling and bother of using live bait is taken into consideration, we think that most folks will prefer the artificial lure. The phantom we consider the very best of all the imitations; and the troller should have them in different colours and sizes, from Nos. 1 to 7. The hooks attached to the larger sizes should be mounted on gimp, as in trolling for large fish--and especially for _salmo ferox_--no risk should be run of the mountings giving way. Tin boxes, divided into compartments, for holding the minnows, are very convenient, and are to be had at most tackle shops. A spoon-bait is also a splendid deception, and should not be awanting. A tackle-maker's catalogue will tell the reader of many other "spinners;" but if he cannot catch fish of all kinds with either a natural or phantom minnow or a spoon, it is not the fault of the lure; and he may try anything else he fancies, and come no better speed. CHAPTER VI. DUTIES OF BOATMAN. Very little requires to be said in this chapter regarding boatmen, as when the angler gets into the habit of frequenting certain lochs, he soon finds out for himself the steady reliable men in the neighbourhood, and can generally engage one of them beforehand by writing to the hotel at which he means to put up. But in going to a new fishing-ground, he is better to leave himself in the hands of the landlord of the hotel, and if not satisfied with his first day's experience of the man who accompanied him, let him change. A good boatman is a treasure; and though we are decidedly against the system of "tipping" indiscriminately, we say, when you get a good man, pay him liberally. We know of some men with whom it is a pleasure to be out all day, and whose company, in its own way, is most enjoyable. Keen sportsmen these are, and the capture or loss of a fish is a source of true pleasure or pain. Other men one comes across seem but to row the boat, and nothing more; and an unproductive day in such company is something to be looked back upon with horror. The leading qualification of a boatman of the right sort is a strong sympathy with the angler, which enables him almost instinctively to help the angler to cover every inch of likely water with his flies, and makes him experience the sensation of expecting a rise every cast; in other words, he almost puts the fly into the fish's mouth. With such a man, instructions regarding the management of the boat are superfluous; but as it often happens that you do not get a first-rate hand, you have to take matters into your own hands to some extent; and we shall give you a few hints as to what is best to be done under such circumstances. It is hardly to be supposed that your man is in ignorance of the best ground, either from experience or hearsay, and it is only after you get there that our instructions can possibly come into operation. If you are obliged to take a perfect greenhorn, we know of no other course than to order him to keep in the wake of some other boat, but that at such a distance as not to be offensive. (See next chapter on the "Etiquette of Loch-fishing.") But let us assume that you get on to ground where fish are: the first point is to see that everything is in order, all unnecessary articles put out of the way, and the landing-net and gaff conveniently at hand. We ought to have said that a large stone in the bow is useful, not only to balance the boat and make her drift better, but also as a weight to which a rope may be attached, and thus let over the side to the depth of a few feet, to prevent her drifting too rapidly should there happen to be a heavy breeze on. The next thing is to get the boat properly broadside to the wind, so that you may have next to no trouble in casting. Should a fish be hooked, see that the man keeps working the boat in such a manner that the fish cannot possibly get underneath: a single stroke of the oar in the proper direction is generally all that is necessary. You must also judge from the size of the fish, and the length and strength of your tackle, whether it is expedient that the man should follow the fish if he makes a very long run. If your line happens to be short--which it will not be, if you have followed the instructions given in Chapter III.--you need not be surprised if you find nothing left but your rod and reel, your line, and mayhap a "half-croon flee" flying about the loch in charge of a fish. The management of the landing-net or gaff is another serious matter. If the fish be small, tell the man to have the net ready, and "run it in;" but if it is a good-sized fish, you must tell him not to put the net near till he gets the word from you. Many a time we have suppressed an exclamation--the reverse of a blessing--when we have seen the hoop of the landing-net strike the fish, and were in suspense for a second or two as to whether he was on or off. If the gaff is necessary, it is almost as well to let your man hold the rod after you have tired the fish thoroughly, and gaff him yourself. But if you think it unadvisable to part with the rod, send the man to the other end of the boat from yourself, and then lead the fish near him, so that he may have a fair chance. He must put the gaff _over_ the fish till the point is in a line with its broadside, and then with a sudden _jerk_ sink the steel into, or even through, the animal, and lift him over the gunwale with all possible speed. A sharp blow or two on the snout will deprive the fish of life. Always kill your fish,--big or small,--as nothing ought to be more repulsive to a true sportsman than to see or hear any animal he has captured dying by inches. It is perhaps needless to say that in the matter of lunch and drink, due consideration should always be paid to your boatman's wants; indeed if he has had a hard time of it rowing against a stiff breeze, nothing is lost by landing at mid-day and letting him enjoy half an hour's rest and a smoke after he has refreshed his inner man. Sometimes--such as in a club competition--such luxuries must be denied; but even then he can put you on to a square drift, and enjoy his lunch and smoke while you are fishing; and you, on the other hand, can take yours when he is changing ground. These remarks may seem trifling; but we only give you our experience, when we say that on some lochs where good boatmen are not plentiful, the angler who has shown most kindness and consideration on past occasions is never much put about for want of a man, even in a busy season. And we have known, when every regular boatman was engaged, that there was generally a boatman's "friend" in the neighbourhood who was pressed into our service, and that often at a few minutes' notice. CHAPTER VII. ETIQUETTE OF LOCH-FISHING. Politeness is politeness all the world over, and in loch-fishing it is particularly to be practised. The gentle art is peculiarly adapted for gentlemen,--using the word in its truest sense,--and the true angler will never be mistaken for anything else. In the Club to which we have the honour to belong, there are certain rules which would commend themselves naturally to any one of us; but in order that these may be clear and well defined, they are circulated annually, and are in themselves so admirable that we cannot do better than quote them:-- "1. No boat shall be entitled to take position in front of any other boat which shall have already begun drifting, at a less distance than three hundred yards. "2. Any competitor intending to drift a bay already in possession of another competitor shall be obliged to take position behind, or on the outside of and in a line with the latter, but at such a distance as not to interfere with the boat first in possession of the drift. "3. In cases where boats are changing water, it shall not be admissible for any boat so doing to go between the shore and any other boat drifting close thereon." These rules, as may be inferred, refer to club competitions in particular, but they are made the standard upon all occasions where there is any chance of their becoming applicable. So much indeed have we got into the way of regarding these rules,--strict as they are,--that we observe them even when meeting with strangers on any loch in any part of the kingdom. And pay special attention, if you happen to be trolling in the neighbourhood, never to interfere with the drift on which a fly-fisher is engaged. Nothing is more unbecoming, as it disturbs the water which is his by right, if he has begun to drift; and it is an unwritten rule that the fly-fisher should generally be allowed the first of the ground, as his style of fishing does not make the same commotion as a trolling boat and tackle do. Very few of us but have experienced the annoyance of a minnow-boat crossing our drift when we were fly-fishing; and though we had no redress, and could make no remarks without lowering ourselves to the level of our offenders, we have, like the nigger's parrot, "thought a mighty lot." Do not hesitate to put yourself out of your way to help a neighbour in distress. He may have hooked a large fish and be unprovided with a gaff: if you have one let him have it instantly, taking his directions from which side you are to approach him; and never let the loss of a few minutes, more or less, deter you from following the golden rule of doing to him as you would expect him to do to you were you similarly placed. And, as it sometimes happens where boats are scarce and anglers many, when you are in the same boat with a stranger, see that you confine yourself strictly to your own share of the water, not making casts which endanger "fankling" for the mere sake of covering a little more water with your flies. Should you have a fly that is taking better than any other of your own or his, offer him one; and in general try to make the day's fishing one as much for the cultivation of goodwill and the promotion of good-fellowship as for the mere sake of making a basket. A churlish angler is an unnatural phenomenon, and, thank Providence! they seldom turn up. A man who can look upon the beautiful scenery amid which he takes his pleasure,--and there is none finer in the world than our Scottish lochs and their surroundings,--and not feel grateful to the Giver of all good, and at peace with all mankind, ought to burn his rod, singe his flies, and only associate with men like himself. If the introduction of this chapter into our book will have the effect of creating a better understanding on the etiquette of loch-fishing between brothers of the angle, the object for which it was written will have been accomplished--and, let us hope, a large amount of goodwill thereby promoted. CHAPTER VIII. CASTING AND STRIKING. We shall treat this subject under two aspects: first, if you have the whole boat to yourself; and second, if it is being shared by some one else. If you have a boat to yourself, stand as near the centre of it as you possibly can without interfering with the boatman in rowing, and cover every inch of the water in front of you and as far to the sides as the wind will permit. Always be careful how you cast--that is, every time you throw your flies see that they land lightly on the water, as no one can expect to raise fish if any splash is made by either line or flies. Fine casting is not quite so essential, of course, when a fair breeze is blowing; but if the wind be light, then the difference between a well-thrown fly and the reverse is very apparent. After you have made a satisfactory cast, draw the line slowly to you by raising the point of the rod, taking care to keep the line as taut as possible. Also see that your bob-fly is tripping on the surface, as we consider that a well-managed "bob" is the most life-like of the whole lot. Do not fish with too long a line, unless, indeed, on an exceptional occasion, when you wish to reach the lie of a feeding fish. It is difficult to define a long line, but a good general rule is that it should never be longer than when you have the consciousness that, if a fish should rise, you have him at a fair and instantaneous striking distance. Remember that the time the flies first touch the water after each cast is the most deadly; therefore, cast often. If you have only the share of a boat, the rule is that one man takes the stern up till lunch, and the other after it. For ourselves, we have a preference for the bow, and we generally find that most anglers prefer the luxury of the stern; so when both parties are pleased, there is no occasion for changing at all. The most important thing to bear in mind when you have a companion is, as we said in last chapter, to confine yourself to your own water. If the left-hand cast is the one proper to your end of the boat, cast as much to your right hand as you can without infringing on your neighbour's share of the water: all the water to your left hand is of course yours. The same remarks apply _vice versa_. _Never stop casting_ so long as you are on fishable ground, for you know not the moment a good fish may rise. Certain it is that unless you keep your flies constantly going, you cannot expect to have the same basket as the angler who does. Keep your eyes on your flies in a general way, and do not let your attention be distracted so long as they are in the water. Every angler has experienced the annoyance of missing fish when looking elsewhere for a single moment--either at another boat, or at a fish "rising to itself," or at the sky, or at something else. When the eyes were turned to the point from which they should not have been diverted, they were just in time to see the water swirl, and the hand gave a futile strike at what had disappeared a second before. Perhaps we should have said at the beginning of this chapter to place implicit faith in the flies with which you are fishing. Nothing is more ridiculous than whipping the water with a cast, of the suitableness of which you have any doubt; and to guard against any such chance, study carefully the state of the weather and the wind. If very clear, use sombre flies; but if a dark day, use brighter flies. You will of course regulate the size according to the breeze, but as a rule, err on the side of small flies. When you raise a fish, _strike at once_. It is quite possible that by this method you may once in a while strike the least bit too soon, but it is a safe plan to go by. There is always a particle of a moment spent in the tightening of the line; and by the time the angler sees a fish at his flies, he may safely conclude that it has already seized or missed them, and the sooner he ascertains the true state of matters by striking instantaneously, the better. If the fish has not been touched by line or hook, cast gently over him again: the chances are that there will be another rise, and, if the fish has been feeding, every likelihood that the second or even a third time may be lucky. In striking small fish, the least tightening of the line is sufficient; but with large fish, when your tackle and hooks are strong, strike _firmly home_ to send the steel well in, right over the barb. Tackle that will not stand this had better be given away or destroyed,--the latter for choice. CHAPTER IX. TROLLING. Our readers will have guessed, from what has preceded this chapter, that we don't believe in trolling if it can be avoided; but still there are times and occasions on which it must be practised, and we plead guilty to having gone in for it oftener than once, when we saw that fly-fishing was useless. On the other hand, however, we have set out with a firm determination to do a fair day's trolling,--and nothing but trolling,--but somehow or another it has generally ended in fly-fishing when we could, and trolling as a _dernier ressort_ when we could not. This, we doubt not, has been the experience of many of our angling friends to whom the mere killing of fish is a secondary consideration compared with the enjoyment of real sport. But when trolling is the order of the day, either from choice or necessity, then this is the way to go about it. We assume, of course, that the angler is equipped with tackle and lines specified in Chapter V., and that he has a supply also of live minnows with him. The elaborate tin-cans for holding minnows are quite unnecessary so far as loch-fishing is concerned; any ordinary vessel will do well enough for a day, provided the water is changed now and again. In trolling, two rods will be found ample. They should be placed at right angles to the boat,--the "thowl-pin," or, if there is not one near enough the stern, anything (a cheap gimlet answers admirably) fixed into the gunwale, being sufficient to keep the rod in position,--so that the spinners, of whatever kind they may be, will be as far apart from each other as possible. Take care that the butts of the rods are well at the bottom of the boat, as we have seen a rod not sufficiently fixed go overboard before now. A main point in trolling is to have plenty of line out. There should never be less than thirty yards out from one rod, and not less that forty from the other. By this means, should a fish not see the first lure, he may see the second. If trolling with natural minnow, which is much more apt to get out of order than artificial ones, see that the bait is intact and spinning properly. This involves the trouble of hauling it in for examination now and then; but it is better to be at that trouble than be fishing with, mayhap, a mangled lure, or one that has got out of spinning order, and more likely to act as a repellent than an attraction to any fish in the neighbourhood. In trolling any likely ground, the proper way is to tell your man to zigzag it, not pulling the boat in a straight line, but going over the ground diagonally, and thus covering as much of it as it is possible to do with a couple score yards of line behind. The turning of the boat necessitates a considerable circle being taken to keep the lures spinning, and so that the lines do not get mixed up; and your man, after making the turn, should row in a slightly slanting direction towards the point from which he originally started, thus-- [Illustration] and so on, till the chances of raising a fish on that beat are exhausted. Should a small fish come on, haul it in hand-over-hand; and the man must not stop rowing, as the other minnow is out, and must be kept spinning. If, however, a fish that needs playing comes to you, you must seize the rod to which he has come, and the boatman must take the other, and wind in as fast as possible. You should not commence winding in till the other line is wound up so far as to preclude the chance of the fish mixing up both lines together. Barring the risk one runs of a serious mess, it is not a bad plan to troll from a reel a cast of larger-sized flies than would be used in ordinary fly-fishing. This line follows, of course, in a _straight_ track behind the boat, and the minnows being considerably to right and left of it, there is no danger of their getting mixed so long as the boat is moving; but the risk is apparent should a fish come to either of the three lines, and great activity is then necessary on the part of yourself and boatman to keep things right. You must keep the fish at as considerable a distance from the other lines as you can, and trust a good deal to the chances of war for the ultimate safety of all. Some days, even when casting was unproductive, we have been fortunate in securing fish by trolling our flies in the manner described. Indeed, unless the day or the season is decidedly in favour of trolling minnows, we prefer, if only trolling two lines, to troll from one of them with the minnow, and from the other with the fly. This must always be decided, however, by the judgment of the angler, and by his surroundings for the time being. One thing in favour of trolling with the minnow is, that the best size of fish are caught by that means. This is not invariably the case, but it is the rule. And in concluding this chapter, we must not omit to acknowledge that we are glad to know that when we are not so young as we once were, and when the wielding of a rod all day long shall have come to be a serious matter, we shall still have the pleasure of roaming about our lovely lochs--Highland or Lowland--and have the excitement of landing fish, coupled with our enjoyment of fresh air and grand scenery. For this reason, if for no other, cultivate as often as you can, without entrenching on the nobler pastime of fly-fishing, the art of trolling--for we must confess that there is an art in this as in everything else; and should my reader be sceptical on the point, he has only to try conclusions, when he gets the chance, with some old troller, and he will be convinced before supper-time. CHAPTER X. CAPTURE OF FISH. Scotch loch-fishing, as usually practised, only embraces the capture of the _salmo_ species--that is, the _salmo fario_, or common yellow trout; the _salmo trutta_, or sea-trout; and _salmo salar_, the "fish," as most boatmen call it, and the noblest game of the finny creation. Besides these there is, of course, the _salmo ferox_; but it is comparatively scarce, and only worth trolling for in some particular lochs, where they are known to be more easily come across than in others. And sometimes when worthier game is not to be had, we have a spin for pike, but Mr Jack is as difficult to catch at times as his more aristocratic comrades. In most Scotch lochs where any supervision is exercised at the instance of our local clubs, the extermination of pike is most vigorously carried on by means of fixed and splash nets. This, as regards our large lochs, where there is room for all, we have no hesitation in saying is a mistake, as it shuts up one means of enjoying a day's fishing when nothing else in the way of fish is to be had; and it must be borne in mind that there are some older anglers, to whom a whole day's fly-fishing is a labour, who never object, when trolling, to come across a pike: and no wonder, for a pike of 10 lb. and upwards gives some fair play, though by no means to compare with what a fish of the _salmo_ tribe of that weight would give. Then we have perch in abundance, and splendid eels; but as these need a float and bait to catch them, we dismiss them as quite _infra dig_. True a perch will come at a minnow, and we have sometimes seen them take a fly; but they are generally voted a nuisance, and expelled the boat. As regards the capture of fish, we shall proceed to deal with each in order; and at the outset we remark, that when you have hooked a fish, it is a safe general rule to waste no unnecessary time in bringing him to the landing-net or gaff, and thence into the boat. When playing a fish, never allow the line to get slack, unless, indeed, when he leaps into the air,--then you must give him rope; but so soon as he gets into his native element, feel his mouth instantly. Always play your fish to _windward_ of the boat if there is some one sharing it with you, as this allows him to go on casting to leeward. Of course, if you have the whole boat to yourself, play your fish in any way that it will be most expeditiously brought to basket. The angler ought to be well assured of the strength of his tackle, and when he has confidence in that, he will soon learn to judge of the proper strain to which it may be subjected. In the case of COMMON YELLOW TROUT, averaging, as most loch trout do, about three to the pound, there is no occasion to put off time with any one of them; but in some lochs, such as Loch Leven, where the average is fairly one pound, and where two and three pounders are by no means uncommon, some care and a little play are absolutely necessary. But do not, even in such a case, give him too much of his own way. We can assure our readers that a three-pound Loch Leven trout, in good condition, on fine gut and small irons, gives as nice a piece of play, and exercise to the eye, hand, and judgment, as could well be desired. The SEA-TROUT is, for his size, the gamest of all fish. He is bold as a lion, and fights harder for his life than a salmon twice his size. A fish of three pounds will run out a considerable piece of line, and make a splendid leap, or series of leaps,--and then is the trying time. As often as not, your flies and the fish part company in the air, and you have to sit down muttering "curses not loud but deep," till an application to the flask soothes your wounded spirit, and invigorates you for fresh effort. A beautiful sight it is to see a sea-trout rise. No half-hearted attempt is his, but a determined rush for the fly, and down again like thought, leaving you the tiniest part of a moment to strike, and hardly time to admire his beautiful silvery coat. If you have been fortunate enough to get the steel into him, you will have time to admire him when you get him into the boat. Fishing for sea-trout with the fly is, we consider, the most exciting of all kinds of fishing--that is, if the fish run to a fair average weight. But we are sorry to say that lochs where it is to be enjoyed are, with the solitary exception of Loch Lomond, usually far out of ordinary reach,--and in the case of Loch Lomond, it is only _habitués_ who usually come much speed on it; but once the angler gets a fair day there, he finds his way back often. True, there are some excellent sea-trout lochs in the north, and on the west coast and islands, but they are a far cry from civilisation. Nevertheless, if our readers can spare the time, let them find their way into some unfrequented spot where sea-trout are plentiful, and they will agree with us in thinking that that class of fishing is a most excellent sport. Some parts of Ireland are famous for their fine sea-trout fishing--white trout they call them there; and though we have never been there ourselves, we mean to go some day, when the Land Bill has pacified the natives, and made them law-abiding subjects. Meantime one runs the risk of being mistaken for a non-resident landlord, and that would be a pity for one's wife and family. But without any joking, this Irish sea-trout fishing is a pleasure to which we look forward; and in this work-a-day world, something to look forward to is half the enjoyment of life. The capture of the SALMON is the ambition of all anglers, but we doubt very much if the sport is to compare with ordinary loch or sea-trout fishing, provided always that the latter are of good average weight. The tackle used in salmon-fishing is proportionately heavy, and after the first few rushes, if the fish be well hooked, there is little in it except a matter of time. Indeed it is said that some anglers, after hooking a salmon, hand the rod to a gillie to work and land the fish. This seems going too much in the other direction, but it is quite understandable. True, the size to which salmon run is a great inducement to go after them; but even in Loch Tay, where the biggest average is to be found, the sport, if such it can be called at all, is very questionable. The rod, line, gut, and minnows used are on such a strong scale, that a well-sized vessel might be moored with them without their breaking; and with several scores of yards of line ready for a rush, what earthly chance has the fish of escape, unless through the grossest carelessness? The fish may be loosely hooked, and get off, but this is quite a matter of chance, and the odds are that a hungry spring fish will not miss the lure. Thus the charm of salmon-fishing is in the raising and striking; and of all kinds of striking, the striking of the salmon is the most difficult: the fish being so large and silvery, the angler is certain to see him coming _at_ the fly, and is very apt to strike too soon. But if it is borne in mind to strike _after_ the broken water is visible, and not before it, this will soon be overcome. When you do strike, don't let it be a mere tightening of the line, as in trout-fishing, but a decided stroke. Some say that the salmon will hook himself by his own weight. This may be so, though we doubt it,--but don't trust to it. Certain it is, that the first rush of a fish does not usually fix him certain; and should the hook happen to be in a piece of hard gristle or on a bone, you will soon find this out for yourself, but generally at the cost of the fish. Salmon-fishing is an expensive luxury; but if you can get it good, never mind the expense, but give it a trial. If you get good sport, you may not care to go in for smaller game again; but in all our experience we never knew a salmon fisher who did not enjoy trout-fishing as much in its own way as ever he did that of the nobler animal. There is something in the gossamer gut and small flies irresistibly attractive to all sportsmen, and from which no amount of salmon-fishing can ever wean them. The _salmo ferox_ is a fish on which many opinions have been expressed; and we have heard more than one old boatman say that he did not believe it to be anything but a big loch-trout, as, they ask, Who ever saw a young one? We see the young of all other fish, but why do we never come across a young _ferox_? It seems pertinent enough questioning, and we do not pretend to settle their doubts in either one way or another. Certain it is, he is a big strong fish with some features distinct from the ordinary loch trout, and that when caught he shows an amount of fight not to be equalled by any of his neighbours, either white or brown. He is usually caught by trolling either natural or artificial minnow; and the tackle should be mounted on gimp and fixed to a strong line, and plenty of it. We have read of a _ferox_ rising to the fly, but never saw one so captured. There seems no reason why a gaudy fly should not attract him. After he is hooked the fun begins. A _ferox_ of 10 to 12 lb. will give you amusement and excitement for an indefinite time; and you are never sure of him till he is in the boat. A friend of ours (a capital angler to boot) fishing with us on Loch Assynt in Sutherlandshire in 1877, hooked a fine specimen; and after battling with him for an hour, had the mortification of seeing fish, angel-minnow, and trace, disappear! A good boatman is a wonderful help in such a case; indeed without his help your chances are small. To be sure it is slow work trolling for _feroces_, and a whole day--yea, days--may be spent without getting a run. The angler must always be the best judge as to whether the chance is worth his while. Loch Awe, Loch Ericht, Loch Rannoch, and Loch Assynt, are good lochs for trying one's luck in this kind of fishing. Then to come from the nobler to an inferior species, we get to PIKE fishing. Angling for this fish seems to be in great repute among our southern brethren, if we may judge by the literature on the subject; but somehow or other it is looked upon among our northern anglers with somewhat the same aversion that a Jew has to bacon, and fishing for pike is only resorted to when all chance of catching anything worthier is gone. We don't profess to say whence this antipathy arises; but we have heard stories from boatmen about the foul feeding of pike that makes the idea of eating him repulsive. Not but that we have eaten him, but we never did so with relish, however cunningly the _artiste_ may have served him up. As a stock for soup he is good; but in Scotland it is better not to say what the origin of the stock is till your friends are at their _café noir_. But here we are only interested so far as the sport he gives is concerned; and unless the pike be all the larger--say not under 8 lb.--the sport is poor enough. Even a pike of 8 lb. and over, when hooked (which is done by trolling or casting a minnow and working it after the manner of a fly), makes one or two long pulls, not rushes like a fish of the _salmo_ tribe; and after that he subsides into a sulk from which you must trust to the strength of your tackle to arouse him. The tackle should be mounted on gimp, for his teeth are very sharp; and when removing the lure from his mouth, you will find it much safer to have previously put the foot-spar between his jaws to prevent him getting at your fingers. There is a fly, if such it can be called, used in pike-fishing. This fly resembles a natural insect as much as a tea-pot resembles an elephant, but it does attract pike--in the same way, we suppose, that a piece of red flannel will attract a mackerel. If our readers wish to try it, they can buy it at almost any tackle shop. Pike are to be found in almost all lochs, though in the more frequented of our Scotch waters they are being slowly but surely exterminated. In others, again, they reign almost alone. But pike-fishing by itself is a poor affair, and we advise our readers only to take to it when they can do nought better. If any of them wish to go below the level of pike-fishing, we must refer them to the copious instructions of many books, from Isaak Walton downwards. For ourselves, when it comes to bait-fishing--except in running water, when worm-fishing is an art--we prefer catching whitings and haddocks in some of our beautiful salt-water lochs, to all the perch, roach, chub, and such-like, that ever swam. But in this please note that we are only expressing our own opinion, and with all respect to the opinions of many worthy anglers. We may say this, however, with all safety, that in angling, as in most other things, if one aims at the highest point of the art he is not at all likely to condescend to the lowest. CHAPTER XI. AFTER A DAY'S FISHING. What a pleasant fatigue succeeds a day's fishing! There is not, or should not be, a feeling of weariness, but just the satisfaction one feels after enjoying a health-giving recreation. Health-giving it certainly is to the body, and we have no hesitation in saying to the mind also. It makes one forget for the time being all the evils to which flesh is heir, and braces up the whole system to meet them when the necessity arises. But we must not go in for more sentiment than is actually needful. The practical duties after a day's fishing are these. If the weather has been damp, change all wet garments _at once_, and if at all practicable have a hot bath before sitting down to dinner. We say dinner advisedly, for the angler should always have a good sound dinner after a day's fishing, as however pleasant the work may have been, still it is exhausting to the body, and a rough tea, though good in itself, cannot pretend to have the reviving elements in it that a substantial dinner has. A glass of whisky, or even two, in cold water, will be found a very safe accompaniment. A good plan is to order your whisky by the bottle, and put your card in a nick made in the cork: the ordering of whisky in glasses is expensive and unsatisfactory. Your dinner over, turn your attention to your tackle. Unwind your lines, so far as they have been wet, from the reels, and lay them out on your bedroom floor; if any chance of being interfered with, wind them round the backs of chairs instead. They will be dry by the morning. Dry your reels thoroughly, and put in a little oil wherever you think they would be the better of it; and this should be done to any other article--spring-balance, gaff, &c.--that is liable to rust. Your creel or fishing-bag should be washed out and hung up to dry by the servants of the house immediately after the fish have been removed, which latter should be done without delay. Your landing-net should also be suspended in the open air, that it may get dry as speedily as possible. A landing-net will last double the time if attention is given to it in this way. Take out all used casting-lines from your book, and lay them on the mantelpiece till morning: this will insure the feathers being freed from moisture. And in the case of expensive flies, this is a matter of consideration, both on the point of expense as well as your possible inability to replace them where you may happen to be sojourning for the time. If you mean to make up a new cast or casts for the morrow, place the casting-lines in a little water in your basin. They will be in excellent order next morning for manipulation. Also soak in like manner the _gut_ on which the flies which you mean to use are dressed. True, you may not be sure what flies you will put on till you see what sort of a day it may prove to be, but there is no harm done if you soak the gut (but only the gut) of as many flies as will give you a good choice. We should have said nearer the beginning of this chapter to look well after your waterproofs, that they are not hung up in a hot place. A dry room or outhouse where there is a good draught is best. If your fishing should happen to be over for the time being, put your tackle past (after being thoroughly dried) in the most orderly fashion possible. For our own part, we have the drawer in our bookcase spaced out into compartments suitable for holding all our tackle, barring reels and such like; and this arrangement we find extremely useful, and wonderfully convenient when we wish to find anything. If, on the other hand, you are out on a lengthy holiday, and have time at your disposal, after putting things right for the day, and for next day too, we know of nothing better than a _good_ rubber at whist for filling up the evening. It must be a _good_ rubber, however, for the parlour game is neither relaxation nor pleasure. Hence we would advise all our angling friends to acquire a thorough knowledge of the game, as only to be learned with the aid of a good book on the subject. Remember that when staying at some out-of-the-way fishing hotel, you may be asked to form a table with good players, and not to be able to hold your own on such occasions is a great loss of pleasure to yourself, and usually a source of annoyance to the others. These remarks are somewhat apart from the subject of this book, but by way of an aside, they may be found not quite out of place. Do not be beguiled into keeping late hours, for no one can fish well next day if he has not had a sufficient amount of sleep. But this is also an aside; for some men need more sleep than others, and each angler knows his own necessities best. We only promulgate the broad rule, that without proper rest no one can be in good trim with hand and eye for a pastime that needs both in a pre-eminent degree. We speak from experience in this too; and have sometimes imagined that our right hand had lost its cunning till we remembered that we had not been properly rested the night before. CHAPTER XII. REMINISCENCES. Having exhausted, so far as we can imagine, the practical part of our little treatise, we proceed--in accordance with an idea which we had in our minds at starting--to give a few personal recollections, and to name one or two lochs where we have enjoyed good sport, and where it is still to be had for the trouble of going. Reminiscences are, as a rule, not specially interesting to the general reader, hence we shall not make them too lengthy; for we wish, above all things, that our readers shall close this volume without experiencing a shadow of weariness. One thing, however, we would like to say to our younger angling friends--Have as many personal adventures to look back to as you possibly can. The adventures themselves can be best sought after when the blood flows fast; for the time will come when the rod and the tackle will perforce have to be laid aside, and memory will then, unaided, afford you many a pleasant retrospect, and you will--even companionless--fight your battles over again. You remember the story of the illustrious Prince Talleyrand: when a young man acknowledged to him that he could not play whist, Talleyrand said to him--"Young man, what a sad old age you are preparing for yourself!" We don't mean to go this length as regards fishing; but we safely say that a man who lives to old age without having been a keen angler, has not only deprived himself of great enjoyments during his active life, but has neglected to lay up a provision for the time when the memory of them would have made life's closing seasons sweeter. Our first acquaintance with LOCH ARD was very pleasant--not, perhaps, so much from any great expectation of sport, because at that time (many years ago now) we were young at the pastime, but more from the feeling of treading the ground made classical by the great Magician of the North, as the scene of the most stirring incidents in 'Rob Roy.' Attached to a big tree in front of the hotel at Aberfoyle there hangs a coulter, which tradition assigns as the veritable article which Bailie Nicol Jarvie made red-hot and used as a weapon of offence and defence when he was in a dilemma in what was, at that time, a very inaccessible part of the Highlands. Since then many a Glasgow magistrate has visited the spot--the inspection of the line of the noble waterworks undertaking which supplies the city being a sufficient excuse for the annual advent of the civic rulers. A railway station (Bucklyvie) is within eight miles of Aberfoyle, and Aberfoyle is within three miles of Loch Ard, and by the time this book is in the hand of the reader there will most likely be a railway station at Aberfoyle itself. Shade of Bailie Nicol Jarvie! what would you say if you were now to be allowed to haunt the old spot? to hear a locomotive screech where formerly you thought yourself so far "frae the Sautmarket o' Glesca"? We don't like the idea ourselves, and doubt very much if it will pay. However, it is the fishing alone which concerns us meantime, and we can at once assure our angling friends that the sport is good--not but what one has to fish hard for a basket; but the same remark applies to all our near-at-hand lochs. On an ordinary good day a dozen to eighteen trout may be captured, and sometimes the baskets are heavier; but eighteen fish, weighing 9 lb. to 12 lb., is a very fair day's work. The trout average fairly a half pound, and pounders are by no means scarce: a two-pounder is come across occasionally, but he is the exception. The fish are very pretty, and for their size give excellent sport. Fine tackle is here absolutely essential to success, and as a matter of sport should always be used in fishing for common yellow trout. The loch, for its size, is much fished; and we fear that when the railway facilities are completed, there will require to be a considerable amount of restocking to keep it up to the old mark. The scenery is unsurpassed--wood, water, and mountain, making a picture of wondrous beauty. To the north of the loch, Ben Lomond rears its mighty summit; and in the spring-time (for Loch Ard is an early loch), before the summer sun has melted the winter's snow, the effect is grand in the extreme. April, May, and June, are supposed to be the best months for angling; but we see no reason why, if the weather be favourable, these months should be singled out. The hotel accommodation at Aberfoyle is excellent. In the early months you must engage a boat beforehand: boatmen first-rate. Many a happy day we have spent on Loch Ard--sometimes successful and sometimes much the reverse; but in any case there is a witchery about the place that makes one enjoy himself in spite of all cares. Mind and body recruit their jaded energies, and get braced up to meet the stern realities of life. In strong contradistinction, in this respect, to Loch Ard, is LOCH LEVEN. In the latter, if the angler is not catching fish, there is little of the beautiful to commend itself to the senses. The island on which the castle stands is pretty, and as a historic ruin is well worthy of a visit, but otherwise the scenery is very tame, and the surroundings not entrancing. But since we have drifted into speaking of Loch Leven, we may as well tell of the sport which is to be had there,--and this, as is well known, is exceptionally good. The quality of the fish is wonderful; and after reading the statistics of a year's fishing--last season something like 18,000 fish, weighing as many pounds, were killed--one is puzzled to know how it is kept up. The loch itself is a great natural feeding-pond, miles and miles of it being of an almost uniform depth, and a boat may drift almost anywhere, the angler feeling at the same time certain that fish are in his immediate vicinity. Trout of two and three pounds are quite common; and it is a rare occasion that a day's average does not come up to the pound for each fish. They are very fine eating, and cut red as a grilse. The company which rents the loch pay £800 to £1000 for the fishing, and they in turn keep a fleet of large boats--twenty we think--and let them out to anglers at the rate of 2s. 6d. an hour. Any number may fish from one boat. There are two boatmen in each boat,--one of whom is paid by the company, the other by the angler; and we are sorry to say that these men, with a few exceptions, are very much spoiled. There is a class of anglers(?) who frequent Loch Leven, whose whole aim seems to be, not sport so far as their own personal efforts are concerned, but the killing of as many fish as possible. If such a one has engaged a boat, he arms each boatman with a rod, and, of course, fishes himself, thus having three rods going at once. As we said before, the loch can be drifted without any attention from the men, after they have pulled up to the wind, and this enables them to get casting all the time that their employer is doing likewise. Not content with this, a couple of minnows are generally trolled astern when changing ground. We don't say that a man has not a right to do as he likes if he pays for his boat; but we _do_ ask, Is this sport? And why should boatmen be spoiled in this way to such an extent that we have known them sulk a whole day because a spare rod was not allowed to be put up for their special benefit? But, of course, the men are just as they have been made, and true anglers, who fish for a day's sport, and not for the mere sake of slaughter, have the remedy in their own hands. Don't let anything deter you from fishing Loch Leven. It may be expensive; but if you get a good, or even a fair day, you will not regret the expense. Get a friend to join you, and the expense is not so heavy after all; and if your friend and yourself fish perseveringly all day, you will usually be rewarded with a very fine show of fish. There is no harm in letting your men fish when you are taking your lunch, _but don't allow a third rod to be put up_. The boatmen are, as a rule, only fifth-rate fishers, though, of course, a few of them handle a rod well. Our recollections of Loch Leven are pleasant in some ways, in others they are not; but don't fail to give it a trial, if only for the pleasure of handling a big fish on fine gut. The manager of the Loch Leven fishings, Captain Hall, fills a very difficult post with much acceptance to all concerned. But to leave the Lowlands and go into the far North, we take you to LOCH ASSYNT, in Sutherlandshire, and to a little loch near it,--LOCH AWE by name. The journey to Assynt is long and weary: train to Lairg, and then between thirty and forty miles driving, is a good long scamper for fishing, but it is worth it. The inn at Inchnadamph is good, but when we were there in 1877 the boat accommodation was poor enough: perhaps they have improved upon that since. The first day after our arrival we had to go to Loch Awe, as the boats on the large loch (Assynt) were taken up. Such a morning of rain and wind! We were wet through our waterproofs during the four-mile drive, but luckily the weather moderated, and we had an excellent day's fishing. With two in the boat, we took 57 lb. weight of beautiful fish,--not large, but very game, and spotted intensely red. It must have been a good day, for many an angler tried his luck after our success, but never came near that mark, at least when we were there. Loch Assynt is more attractive, however, inasmuch as the chances of big fish are not remote. Trout of a pound weight, and over, are not uncommon, while the chance of a grilse adds excitement to the sport. Then _ferox_, as we have said in a previous chapter, are, comparatively speaking, not scarce, if one cares to go in for trolling for them. But, in any case, the angler is always sure of a basket of lovely yellow trout. On the hills behind the inn there is a small loch, called the MULACH-CORRIE, in which it is said that the gillaroo trout are to be found. Whether they are the real trout of that species or not, we cannot say, but certainly they are beautiful fish,--pink in the scales, and running to large sizes. We saw a basket taken by a friend, and it was a treat to look at. The fish were all taken with the fly, but we were told afterwards that worm is even deadlier than fly, and that one should never go there without a supply of "wrigglers." The hill between the inn and the Mulach-Corrie is a perfect paradise for fern-gatherers. It is said that about two dozen different kinds can be gathered; and we believe it, for even our untutored eyes discerned sixteen varieties! Our visit to Inchnadamph must be placed among the red-letter periods of our fishing life, and to be looked back to with much enjoyment. LOCH MORAR, in Inverness-shire, is another delightful spot, and somewhat out of the usual track. The fishing is most excellent, and yellow trout of all sizes are very abundant. Sea-trout and salmon find their way frequently into the angler's basket; and half-way up the loch, which is a long one, at a bay into which the Meoble river flows, numbers of sea-fish are to be found. The best way is to fly-fish up to that bay one day, and seek shelter at night in some shepherd's cottage, thus being at hand to prosecute salmon and sea-trout fishing the next day, or days, if you find the sport good. It is right to take a supply of provisions and liquor with you, for the accommodation is humble. We write this from hearsay, as when we were there in mid-July salmon and sea-trout were not in the loch in large numbers; but still we caught some of the latter, and hooked, though, unfortunately, did not kill, any of the former. We should think that the beginning of August would be the best time for this loch as regards sea-fish; but the trout-fishing in July is unsurpassable. During our sojourn in 1876 at Arisaig, the nearest village to the loch, which is six miles off, and necessitating a drive over what was then a road sadly in need of General Wade's good offices, we had the services of a boatman, Angus by name, and his two boys, who could not speak a word of English,--Angus managing one boat, and his boys the other. We had the satisfaction--for indeed it was good fun--to be out with the boys one day; and the management of the boat had to be done by signals. It was wonderful how readily the boys got into the way of it, and how well we got on together. The memory of the hospitality which we enjoyed at Arisaig Inn will not be forgotten by any of our party; and we hope that the then occupier, Mr Routledge, will be there when we go back again. An inn was in course of being built at the loch-side in 1876, but we do not know how it has succeeded. The easiest way to Arisaig is by steamer, which usually goes once a-week; but the angler should, if possible, go to Banavie or Fort-William,--the latter for choice, as Banavie Hotel is famous for long bills (and we can testify that its notoriety in this respect is deserved),--and then drive to Arisaig. It is about thirty-eight miles from Fort-William to Arisaig, but the drive is something to be remembered during a lifetime. After having traversed this road, you will say, "There's no place like home" for grand and beautiful scenery. We must see Loch Morar again if we possibly can, before we bequeath our tackle to the next generation. The time would fail us to tell of many other lochs, more or less famous for the good sport they afford; but the angler, if at all of an enterprising nature, need have little hesitation in taking up Mr Lyall's excellent 'Sportsman's Guide,' and making a selection on his own account. The information is very correct so far as we have tried it, sometimes--perhaps most anglers are inclined that way--erring a little to the _couleur de rose_ side of things, but quite trustworthy in being followed as a suggester for a fortnight's fishing. We have gained much pleasure in exploring some of our more remote lochs, of the existence of which we might never have been aware but for its information. We cannot, however, close this long, but we hope not wearisome, chapter without singing the praises of our Queen of Scottish Lakes, LOCH LOMOND. The scenery of this beautiful spot is well known in some ways, but no amount of travelling in a steamer will reveal its beauties. To the tourist we would say, take a small boat at Luss and engage a man to row you among the islands which lie between Luss and Balmaha. With this hint to the tourist, we leave him, and turn the angler's attention to the sport--very precarious at most times, but excellent at others--to be had on Loch Lomond. Luss is the angling centre, and there are capital boats and men to be had by writing beforehand to the hotel-keeper, Mr M'Nab, who deserves much credit for the attention he pays to the wants of anglers. The yellow-trout fishing is good, but, strange to say, this class of sport is not much sought after. In April and May as good trout-fishing is to be had as on some other lochs that enjoy a greater reputation. But if the weather has been at all favourable to the fish running, the month of June sees the sea-trout fishing fairly commenced. It is a hard loch to fish; and if you are lucky enough to get two or three sea-trout in a day, consider yourself fortunate. They are a good average--2 lb. to 3 lb. being quite common--but they spread themselves so much over a large portion of water that one may fish a whole day and not come across them. This, however, is the exception, as in an ordinary fair fishing day in June, July, August, and September, and even October if the weather is mild, they are almost certain to be seen, if not caught. Some days really good sport is to be had--indeed, one is surprised at the show of fish; but fish or no fish, the charm of Loch Lomond is everlasting. The angler finds his way back over and over again, till, as in our own experience, the islands of Lonaig, Moan, Cruin, Fad, and last and least, Darroch, the great landing-spot, are as familiar to him as his daily business haunts. Then the chances of a salmon are good--indeed, this year (1881) a great many have been killed; but somehow or another the sea-trout fishing has not been so good, and though a salmon is always a salmon, we would rather see a good show of sea-trout at any time. Like our neighbours, we have had good and bad days on Loch Lomond; but disappointment has never soured us--indeed, the fascination seems to get stronger. And it is so very convenient for a day's fishing--down in the morning and home at night, with a good long day between. The charge for boatman is 5s. to 6s. and lunch; and though this seems high, it must not be forgotten that the distances are great. A boat costs 2s. per day. The men are good all over, some of them really first-rate. Many and many a story we could tell of happy fishing days, and of days most enjoyably spent when fishing was no go; but mostly every angler can do the same, and we don't wish to become too tiresome. Perhaps if we get the chance we may extend this chapter on some future occasion, and add some experiences of as yet untried places. CHAPTER XIII. CONCLUSION. Brother of the gentle art, we bid you farewell! We have done our best to give you the benefit of our experience in the peaceful pursuit of loch-fishing; and if we have said too much or too little, pray excuse us, and in your goodness of heart reprove us for our verbosity, and tell us what is awanting. The spirit on our part has been very willing; but the memory may have been defective when it should have been most active, and quite possibly our love for the art may have somewhere or another led us into discursiveness where we should have been brief. We are all human, and he is a poor mortal who thinks he cannot err. Again we say farewell!--not for long, however, we hope. Who knows where we may meet? If we do, and you recognise us, don't forget to give us a little encouragement, and, if you can, new material for extending the usefulness of this publication. As we write, the hand of winter is upon us, and the rod and reel have been relegated to safe quarters; but spring will return, and the enforced cessation of our enjoyment will only add new zest to the music of the reel "When green leaves come again." PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. LATELY PUBLISHED, FIFTH EDITION, REVISED. THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. CONTAINING MINUTE INSTRUCTIONS IN ALL HIGHLAND SPORTS, WITH WANDERINGS OVER CRAG AND CORRIE, FLOOD AND FELL. BY JOHN COLQUHOUN. 2 vols. post 8vo, with Two Portraits and other Illustrations. 26s. SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. "In the present delightful volumes, however, he presents all lovers of Scotland with the completest details of every Highland sport, on all of which he is an unexceptionable authority; and with what many will value even more, a series of life-like sketches of the rarer and more interesting animals of the country. He has thus brought up to the present level of knowledge the history of all the scarce birds and beasts of Scotland.... Henceforth it must necessarily find a place in the knapsack of every Northern tourist who is fond of our wild creatures, and is simply indispensable in every Scotch shooting-lodge."--_Academy._ "We should recommend fishers to study carefully all the chapters on fishing for salmon, loch trout, sea trout, and yellow trout, whatever may be their experience or erudition. They will find general hints of immense use which they can apply to that local knowledge of their own river or 'water' which no books can teach, and which Mr Colquhoun himself would equally have to learn. But no chapter ought to be skipped, even by a reader who aspires to far less than the fourfold distinction of a Highland hunter, which consists in killing a red-deer, an eagle, a salmon, and a seal."--_Saturday Review._ "The book is one written by a gentleman for gentlemen, healthy in tone, earnest in purpose, and as fresh, breezy, and life-giving as the mountain air of the hills amongst which the sport it chronicles is carried on."--_The World._ "One of those rare and delightful books which, with all the fulness of knowledge, breathe the very freshness of the country, and either console you in your city confinement, or make you sigh to be away, according to the humour in which you happen to read it."--_Blackwood's Magazine._ * * * * * LATELY PUBLISHED. A HANDBOOK OF DEER-STALKING. BY ALEXANDER MACRAE, Late Forester to Lord Henry Bentinck. WITH INTRODUCTION BY HORATIO ROSS, ESQ. Fcap. 8vo, with Two Photos. from Life. 3s. 6d. "A work not only useful to sportsmen, but highly entertaining to the general reader."--_United Service Gazette._ "The writer of this valuable little book speaks with authority, and sums up in a few pages hints on deer-stalking which the experience of a lifetime has enabled him to put forth.... We can only recommend every one who pursues the fascinating sport of which the author writes, to glance through, and indeed to read carefully, this handbook."--_Sporting and Dramatic News._ "An interesting little book, alike because of the knowledge which its author displays of his subject, and of the simple style in which it is written. It is a handbook such as sportsmen must have long desired."--_Scotsman._ * * * * * RECREATIONS OF CHRISTOPHER NORTH. With Portrait of the Author in his Sporting Jacket. New Edition. Two Vols., crown 8vo, 8s. "Welcome, right welcome, Christopher North; we cordially greet thee in thy new dress, thou genial and hearty old man, whose 'Ambrosian Nights' have so often in imagination transported us from solitude to the social circle, and whose vivid pictures of flood and fell, of loch and glen, have carried us in thought from the smoke, din, and pent-up opulence of London, to the rushing stream or tranquil tarn of those mountain-ranges."--_Times._ * * * * * W. BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON. Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Variant and dialect spellings remain as printed. Hyphenation has been standardised. 
23343	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 23343-h.htm or 23343-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/3/3/4/23343/23343-h/23343-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/3/3/4/23343/23343-h.zip) LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler by WILLIAM SENIOR ("Red Spinner") [Frontispiece: "Red Spinner"] Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Ltd., 4 Stationers' Hall Court London, E.C. 4 Copyright First published 1920 INTRODUCTION The half a dozen or so of Angling books which stand to my name were headed by _Waterside Sketches_, and this is really and truly a continuation, if not the end, of the series. They were inspired by my old friend Richard Gowing, at the Whitefriars Club, of which he was for many years the well-remembered honorary secretary, and of which I still have the grateful pride of being entitled to the name of father. Gowing had become editor of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1874, and in his sturdy efforts to give it new life he looked round amongst the youngsters who seemed likely to serve him. The result was that he invited me to try my hand at something. He had read my _Notable Shipwrecks_, which the house of Cassells was at that time bringing out, and said that its author, known to the public as "Uncle Hardy" only, ought to be able to offer a suggestion. The Stoke Newington reservoirs had about that time given me some good sport with pike, large perch, chub, and tench, and I had long been an angling enthusiast. Out of the fullness of my heart I spoke. I told him that fishing was my best subject; that if he would accept a series of contributions the direct object of which was to make Angling articles as interesting to non-anglers as to anglers themselves, I would be his man. Verily I would not wonder if, in showing how botany, agriculture, out-of-door life generally might be woven into the warp and woof of the fabric, I became eloquent; for, as I have said, out of the heart the mouth spoke. So it was agreed, and for a while "Red Spinner's" articles graced the pages of the magazine, and they were by and by republished in _Waterside Sketches_. They afterwards gave me entrance to _Bell's Life_ and to the _Field_, and a name at any rate amongst the brethren of the Angle, as to which I must not gush, but which is very dear to the musings of an old man's eventide. How much I owe to "Red Spinner" I shall never know. The name has followed me, and my brothers of the Highbury Anglers have adopted it, but last year, in honour of their always loyal, but I feel sure no longer useful President. I was much amused to find how it had also followed me to Queensland. During one of the Parliamentary recesses I went up country, the guest of a squatter who was afterwards in the Ministry, and he introduced me to a fellow squatter member in my surname as an officer of Parliament. Neither the name nor office meant anything to him. But when we were smoking in the veranda, and my friend mentioned, as an aside, that I was "Red Spinner," the visitor leaped to his feet, came at me with a double grip, and shouted a Scotch salmon-fisher's welcome, turning to my host and furiously demanding, "Why the dickens didn't you tell me so at first?" On another Bush visit an officer in the Mounted Police showed me amongst his curiosities a copy of _Waterside Sketches_ half devoured by dingoes, and found with the scraps scattered around the skeleton of a poor wayfarer left at the foot of a gum-tree. To fly-fishers the name had an intelligible story of course, and it puzzled those non-anglers for whom I tried always to write. The scores of times I was asked "What does 'Red Spinner' mean?" by ladies as well as gentlemen, told me how well I had kept the promise to the good Richard Gowing when those articles were arranged. Journalism proper, now and henceforth for the rest of my life claimed me. It became my profession in fact; but it was always fishing that kept the longing eye turned towards the waterside. Somehow for a time the water was all round me, but I had not the means of learning the art at that time, nor of practising it. Somehow I was always being reminded that the fishing rod was to obtain the mastery by and by, but I had to wait a long while for the opportunity. At first I was in what may be called a good fishing country, but I seemed to have no say in it. I had no rod; no fisheries were open. Indeed, it was journalism that gripped me, and in those early days I followed the mastership of it very closely, for there was so much to learn, as I shall be able, I hope, to explain when any reminiscences that I am able to write call for it. That longing must meanwhile be kept open for some years to come. Now, however, came the time when, as I have always considered, my real life began. It was my fate to be appointed representative of the _Lymington Chronicle_ in 1858, when I was duly installed in its office in that town, engaged to look after the local news, the advertisements, the circulation; and especially it was my business to see that not a single paragraph was ever missing from the budget which I duly sent to the head office in Poole at the end of every week. But still there was no fishing, save in the river, where bass came occasionally to my hook in the tidal portions; and one of six pounds I remember as the best that came to me on the hand line. There was some talk once of a visit that I was to pay to a trout river at Brockenhurst; but practically nothing came of it, nor did a casual chance which Lord Palmerston gave me at Broadlands, which was too far from my beat and altogether above me in its salmon runs. As for perch, which I had fished for as a boy, there were none to be heard of in the district. In due time I was transferred from Lymington to Southampton, where I remember catching smelts, and nice little baskets of them, from the pier at the bottom of High Street. Next I went to Manchester, where there was less of such fishing as I required than before; and on a daily paper like the _Guardian_, journalism soon proved to be real business to engage my attention, and left me without the slight opportunities I found even with the _Lymington Chronicle_ or _Hants Independent_. In due time fortune, as I thought, beamed upon me when I got an appointment on the London _Daily News_, which was then in its prime. Here I began to find what fishing meant, for very early, thanks to the kindness of Moy Thomas and his friend Miles, the publisher, who was one of the directors, I got a ticket for the famous New River reservoirs. I was here introduced to many members of the fishing club--men of the place--and became a member of the Stanley Anglers, where I won some prizes, and of the somewhat famous and somewhat high-class True Waltonian Society, which met at Stoke Newington. The general result of this was that wherever there was fishing to be secured I got it, and was seldom without opportunity of turning that longing eye of which I aforetime spoke to the waterside. I made pretty rapid progress too, for I became a well-known pike fisher at Stoke Newington, got large chub and much perch, and generally took various degrees in the piscatorial art. Best of all, by means of my membership of the True Waltonians, I had the run of the Rickmansworth water. It was here that I learnt fly-fishing, even to the extent of catching my first trout, and here that I went through a course of practice at some large dace which then existed in the Colne; and they very freely, to the extent of half a pound or so weight, took the dry fly, which in later years they did not. As a very active travelling member of the special correspondence staff of the _Daily News_ I went here and there on various errands, and was soon known never to travel without my rod and creel. Then the introduction to my old friend Gowing of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, as I have already described, made me as eager to write as I was to fish; and, in a word, this was how "Red Spinner" was manufactured. Now I have explained how I became a practical angling writer, and the half-dozen or so of books which I inflicted upon my brethren of the Angle gradually came into existence. It is necessary to mention this to account for the fact that the majority of what I write has appeared before the public from year to year. Indeed, I did not allow the grass to grow under my feet. My voyage to Queensland gave me a book, and a series of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ chapters gave me another; and so it went on from time to time, as I had the opportunity, in magazines and papers, finding what I may call even a ready market for all I chose to publish. The reader will understand, therefore, that after these half-dozen books, if any of them are to be found registered against me, there was not a great deal left for gathering together; and that is the excuse for this volume which I have ventured to call the _Aftermath of Red Spinner_. Indeed, just before the war broke out I had agreed to supply a book to my old friend Mr. Shaylor, to be published by Simpkin, Marshall & Co. It was to contain just what had been left over by _Bell's Life_, the _Field_, and various magazines, and this I have described as the "Aftermath." I therefore publish it, and I do so, if I may be permitted, just as an old man's indulgence. Will the reader be so good as to let it stand at that, and will my old friends accept a humble plea for that indulgence? I make it very sincerely, and with a grateful heart for long years of brotherhood and kindly comradeship. There are obligations which must, however, be clearly and promptly acknowledged with thanks most cordial: to the proprietors of the _Field_, (now the Field Press, Limited), to _Baily's Magazine_, the _Windsor Magazine_, and many others who kindly gave permission to select what was required for my purpose. I hereby thank them one and all, with apologies to others not mentioned through inadvertence. AN OPEN LETTER TO WILLIAM SENIOR MY DEAR RED SPINNER, Only the other day I found in a bookseller's catalogue your _Waterside Sketches_ with the word "scarce" against it. I already possess three copies, one the gift of the author, but I very nearly wrote off for a fourth because one cannot have too much of so good a thing. What restrained me really was honest altruism. "Hold," I said to myself, "there must be some worthy man who has no copy at all. Let him have a chance." For it is a melancholy fact that Red Spinner's books have been out of print an unconscionable while, only to be obtained in the second-hand market, and even there with difficulty. I am not surprised at this (failing new editions at rather frequent intervals), but as a friend of man, and especially of man the angler, I am sorry. I believe I have read almost everything that has been written on the subject of fishing which comes within ordinary scope, and a certain amount which is outside that scope, and I have amassed fishing books to the number of several hundred. There is, however, comparatively little of all this considerable literature that I keep on a special shelf for reading and re-reading, a couple of dozen volumes maybe--and a quarter of those Red Spinner's. Realising what a pleasure and refreshment these books are to me and how often one or other of them companions the evening tobacco, I can the better appreciate the loss occasioned to other anglers by their gradual removal from the lists of the obtainable. But not very long ago I heard the good news that you had another volume on the stocks, and I felt that the situation was improving. And now I have had the privilege of actually reading that volume in the proof sheets and can report the glad tidings for the benefit of my brethren of the angle. At last they will be able to procure one of your books by the simple process of entering a bookseller's and asking for it. I do not propose here to say much about the new volume except that it will certainly stand beside _Waterside Sketches_ on that special shelf and that it will take its turn with the others in the regular sequence of re-reading. It is the real article, what I may call "genuine Red Spinner," hallmark and all. I must express my satisfaction that you have given in it some further record of the angling in other lands which you have enjoyed in your much-travelled experience. The Antipodes, Canada, the United States, Norway, Belgium before the tragedy--you make it all just as vivid to us as those cold spring days on the rolling Tay, the glowing time of lilac and Mayfly, or the serene evenings when the roach float dips sweetly at every swim. Whatever one's mood, salmon or gudgeon, spinning bait or black gnat, Middlesex or Mississippi, your pages have something to suit it. Ever since I first met you, on a September evening at Newbury now nearly twenty years ago, you have consistently given me ever-increasing cause for gratitude. Whether as accomplished journalist and Editor of the _Field_, as writer and author of books, as a man with a genius for friendship, if I may quote the phrase, or as an expert with rod and line--in whatever guise you appeared I had cause to thank you for allowing me "to call you Master." That I am able to do so now thus publicly means that one at least of my ambitions has been realised. And I will take leave to subscribe myself with all affection, "Your scholar," H. T. SHERINGHAM. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION AN OPEN LETTER CHAPTER I. ANGLING AS A REAL FIELD SPORT II. MANFORD AND SERTON'S COSY NEST III. MAYFLY DAYS AND DIALOGUES IV. MY FIRST TWEED SALMON V. MUSINGS OF A BUSH RIDE VI. WITH VERDANT ALDERS CROWN'D VII. A FIRST SPRINGER AND SOME OTHERS VIII. ANGLING COUSINS AT THE VICARAGE IX. A CONTRAST IN THAMES ANGLING X. TWO RED LETTER SALMON XI. A SERMON ON VEXATIONS AND CONSOLATIONS XII. THE SALMON AND THE KODAK XIII. HALFORD AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES XIV. CASUAL VISITS TO NORWAY XV. CASTING FROM ROCKS AND BOATS XVI. SOME CONTRARIES OF WEATHER AND SPORT XVII. LAST DAYS WITH NORWAY AND ITS SEA TROUT XVIII. GLIMPSES OF CANADA, ETC. XIX. HASTY VISITS TO AMERICA XX. A DEVASTATED ARCADIA LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES CHAPTER I ANGLING AS A REAL FIELD SPORT One of the commonest misconceptions about angling is that it is just the pastime for an idle man. "The lazy young vagabond cares for nothing but fishing!" exclaims the despairing mother to her sympathetic neighbour of the next cottage listening to the family troubles. Even those who ought to know better lightly esteem the sport, as if, forsooth, there were something in the nature of effeminacy in its pursuit. Not many summers ago a couple of trout-fishers were enjoined by the open-handed country gentleman who had invited them to try his stream to be sure and come in to lunch. They sought to be excused on the plea that they could not afford to leave the water upon any such trifling pretence, but they compounded by promising to work down the water-meads in time for afternoon tea under the dark cedar on the bright emerald lawn. As they sauntered up through the shrubberies, hot and weary, the ladies mocked their empty baskets, and that was all fair and square; but a town-bred member of the house-party shot at a venture a shaft which they considered cruel: "You ought to have joined us at luncheon, Captain Vandeleur," said she. "I can't imagine what amusement you can find in sitting all day watching a float." To men whose shoulders and arms were aching after five hours' greenheart drill at long distances, and who prided themselves upon being above every form of fishing lower than spinning, the truly knock-down nature of this blow can only be imagined by those who understand the subject. The captain, who is reckoned one of the worst men in the regiment to venture with in the way of repartee, was so amazed at the damsel's ignorance that he answered never a word, leaving some of her friends in muslin on the garden chairs around to explain the difference between fishing with and without a float--a duty which they appeared to perform with true womanly relish as a set-off against the previous scoring of the pert maid from Mayfair, who had borne rather heavily upon them from a London season elevation. Allow me to recommend angling as a manly exercise, as physically hard in some of its aspects as any other field sport. During the lifetime of those of us who will no more see middle age this recreation has become actually popular, and it is generally supposed that the multiplication a hundredfold of rod-and-line fishermen in a generation is explained by the cheaper and easier modes of locomotion, the increase of cheap literature pertaining to the sport, and the establishment of a periodical press devoted to it amongst other forms of national recreation. These reasons are undoubtedly admissible. Yet I venture to add another, namely, the great and beneficial movement which has opened the eyes of men and women to the importance of physical exercise. When the young men who had in their boyhood been taught to regard almost every form of recreation as a sin to be guarded against and repented of, were taught another doctrine, a new impulse was given to cricket, football, and all manner of athletics, and angling was quickly discovered by many to offer exercise in variety, and to carry with it charms of its own. To-day it is therefore so popular that anglers have to protect themselves against one another if they would prevent the depletion of lakes and rivers, and salmon and trout streams are quoted as highly remunerative investments. Let us see, however, where exercise worthy of the name is found--the inquiry will at the same time indicate the nature of the fascinations which to not a few good people are wholly incomprehensible, if, indeed, they are not a mild form of lunacy. We may take for granted the antiquity of the sport, though probably the first anglers had an eye to nothing nobler than the pot. Angling has never been worth following as an industry, for one of the first lessons learned by the rod fisherman is that there are superior devices for filling a basket if that alone is the object. "Because I like it," is the least troublesome reply to one who asks you why you will go a-fishing. Happy he who can go a little further and aver, "Because I find it the most entrancing of sports." And with equally sound sense may it be urged by old and young alike, "Because it is splendid exercise." Angling in truth is often made much severer than it need be. The American fishing-men, in their instinctive search for notions, discovered long ago that the rods which they had copied from us were too long and heavy, and the necessary tackle altogether too cumbersome. They seldom use a longer salmon-rod than 15 feet, and frequently kill the heavy trout of their lakes and rivers with delicate weapons of 8 and 9 feet. In Scotland and Ireland, where the best of our salmon fishing is, you may still meet with anglers who will have no rod under 18 or 20 feet. Only big strong men accustomed to it can wield an implement of this calibre through a hard day's casting without extreme fatigue. They have a sound justification for their choice on such streams as Tweed, Dee, and Spey, where the pools are of the major size and the getting out of a long line is a necessity. They are not on such sure ground when they urge that a heavy salmon can only be landed by a rod of maximum dimensions. I saw a friend last autumn produce a 15-foot greenheart rod on Tweedside. The gillies shook their heads incredulously at the innovation, but honestly unlearned what they had always believed to be infallible dogma when he killed his twenty-three pound fish as quickly and safely as if the cause had been the 18-foot rod which they had implored him to substitute for his most unorthodox concern. It is true that there are "catches" which can only be covered by long rods, with their undoubted advantages in sending out the fly, picking the line off the water, and settling a fish with the promptest dispatch. The young salmon-fisher should learn to handle a rod that is sufficient for his height and strength and no more. For ordinary purposes 17 feet of greenheart or split-cane are ample, and the modern salmon angler has come to look upon even this--which our forefathers would have pooh-poohed as a mere grilse-rod--as excessive. The secret of comfortable and successful angling, as an exercise no less than as a sport, is in the choice of a rod. Some men seem to be unable to make the right selection; they seem to lack the correct sense of touch and balance. Others suffer from love of change; disloyal to the old friend which fitted their hand to a nicety, they discard it for the passing attractions of some newly-advertised pattern. It is distressing to watch the efforts of the right man with the wrong rod, or vice versa. With man and rod in harmony the latter does the real work; unfitted to each other, the power of man and rod is alike at its worst. Unfortunately this matter is one upon which the angler must be his own teacher; but the angler's troubles, in the majority of instances, arise from the fatal predilection for a rod heavier than the owner can legitimately bear, or from the use of a line too fine or too coarse for the rod. Exercise is then over-exercise, injurious, and not good for body or temper. Salmon fishing from a boat is imagined by some to be objectionable because it demands no exertion by the angler. This is an erroneous conclusion, though doubtless the method brings certain muscles into play to an unequal degree. At the same time, fishing from the bank, as it is called for convenience, though the angler never stands upon one, is the most enjoyable of all methods. There is a rapture in the stream as in the pathless woods. In the foregoing remarks upon heavy rods I had possibly in my mind the angler whose life is not entirely devoted to the open air. The increase to which reference has been made has been chiefly from the class of professional men, merchants, and others who have duties which allow of only occasional relaxation devoted to the river. To such the donning of wading gear for the first time in the season, the entrance into the clear running water, the cautious advance upon the amber gravel or solid rock, the swirl of the rushing stream around the knees, the sensation of cold through the waterproofing, the arrival at length at the point where the head of the pool is within range--these are a keen delight. The pulses fly again when the hooked salmon is felt, and the tightening line curves the rod from point to hand. Exercise, indeed! Half an hour's battle with a fighting salmon, including a race in brogues of a hundred yards or more over shingle or boulders will, when the fish is gaffed and laid on the strand, find the best of men well breathed and not sorry to sit him down till his excitement has cooled and his nerves are once more steady. Next in order, as a form of healthy exercise, comes pike fishing, as practised by the spinner with small dead fish, the artificial imitations of them, or the endless variations of the spoon, invented, it is claimed, by an angler in the United States. Live baiting in a river with float requires sufficient energy to walk at the same speed as the current flows; by still water or in a boat the angler comes, of course, fairly into the comprehension of the lady who was introduced on another page. He watches and waits, and the more closely he imitates the heron in his motionless patience the better for his chances. The troller of olden times was at any rate always moving, and finer exercise for a winter day than trolling four or five miles of river could not be prescribed. But the gorge hook has gone out of fashion and is discountenanced. Spinning is for pike what the artificial fly is for salmon, the most scientific method, and followed perseveringly it is downright hard work, bringing, as the use of the salmon rod does, all the muscles of the body into play. The degree of exercise depends upon the style adopted. Casting direct from the Nottingham winch is less trying than the ordinary and more familiar custom of working the incoming line dropped upon the grass or floor of the boat, or gathered in the left hand in coils after the manner of Thames fishermen. Few anglers are masters of the Nottingham style, which has many distinct recommendations, such as freedom from the entanglements of undergrowth and rough ground. The recovery of the spinning bait by regular revolutions of the winch is not always a gain, since, with all his shark-like voracity, the pike has his little caprices, and sometimes suspects the lure which is moving evenly on a straight course through the water. The bait spun home by the left hand manipulating the line while the right gives the proper motion to the rod top is considered best for pike if not for salmon. One of the good points about spinning for pike is that it is a recreative exercise to be followed after the fly-rod is laid by after autumn. November, December, and January are indeed the months to be preferred before all the rest, and when pike fall out of season the salmon and trout rivers are open again. Trout fishing is the sport of the many amongst fly-fishermen, and the exercise required in the methods which are recognised as quite orthodox is probably the happy medium, yielding pleasure with the least penalty of toil. The members of the most recent school of trout fishers are believers in the floating fly, but it is wrong to assume that there is any burning question in the matter. The best angler is the man who is master of all the legitimate devices for beguiling fish into his landing net, and I am not now concerned with any controversial aspects of the dry-fly question. The spectacle of an angler upon a chalk stream, where this style is to all intents and purposes Hobson's choice, is not at all suggestive of bodily activity should he happen to be "waiting for a rise." The trout will only heed an artificial fly that is dropped in front of them with upstanding wings, and in form of body and appendages, as in the manner of its progress on the surface of the stream, this counterfeit presentment must strictly imitate the small ephemeridae which are hatching in the bed and floating down the surface of the stream. As the trout do not rise until the natural fly appears, and as the hatches of fly are capricious, there are often weary hours of waiting when the angler must be perforce inactive. His exercise comes in full measure when the hour of action does arrive, and he will find some motion even in the eventless intervals by walking up the river on the look-out for olive dun or black gnat. The whipper of the mountain streams, or the wet-fly practitioner who fishes a river where the trout are not particular in their tastes, is in the way of exercise the most fortunate of all. He is ever passing from pool to pool, lightly equipped, changing his scenery every hour, now whipping in the shadow of overhanging branches, now crouching behind a mossy crag, and now brushing the sedges of an open section of the stream. The broad tranquil flow is exchanged for merry ripples and sparkling shallows, and these are succeeded by strong and concentrated streams foaming and eddying down a rocky gorge. Trout here and there are dropped into the pannier from time to time, and it is a wholesomely tired angler, with a grand appetite and capacities for sound sleep, who at night will welcome his slippers at the inn. Sea-trout angling is to me the choicest sport offered by rod and line. One degree more exacting to arms and legs than the more universal employment of the pretty 10-foot trout rod with the purely fresh-water species of the salmonidae, it still falls short of the heavier demands of the salmon or pike rod. The double-handed rod, the moderately strong line and collar, and the flies that are a compromise between the March brown or alder and the Jock Scott or Wilkinson, offer you salmon fishing in miniature. The sea trout are regular visitors to the rivers which are honoured by their periodical visits, but they never linger as long as salmon in the pools, and must be taken on their passage without shilly-shallying. A good sea trout on a 14-foot rod, and in a bold run of water fretted by opposition from hidden rocks and obstinate outstanding boulders, is game for a king. The exquisitely shaped silver model is a dashing and gallant foe, worthy of the finest steel tempered at Kendal or Redditch. No other fish leaps so desperately out of the water in its efforts to escape, or puts so many artful dodges into execution, forcing the angler with his arched rod and sensitive winch to meet wile with wile, and determination with a firmness of which gentleness is the warp and woof. While it lasts, and when the fish are in a sporting humour, there is nothing more exciting than sea-trout angling. Perhaps for briskness of sport one ought to bracket with it the Mayfly carnival of the non-tidal trout streams in the generally hot days of early June, when the English meadows are in all their glory, and the fish for a few days cast shyness to the green and grey drakes and run a fatal riot in their annual gormandising. The greatest happiness for the greatest number in angling, I suppose, must be credited to the patient disciples of Izaak Walton who take their sport at their ease by the margins, or afloat on the bosom, of the slow-running rivers which come under the regulations of what is known as the Mundella Act. They are mostly the home of the coarse fish of the British waters--pike, perch, roach, dace, chub, barbel, and the rest. Some of them also hold trout and one or two salmon in their season. They yield little of the kind of sport that gives the exercise which I have made my theme as an excuse for, and recommendation of, angling. But the humbler practices of angling with modest tackle and homely baits take thousands of working people into the country, and if sitting on a box or basket, or in the Windsor chair of a punt on Thames or Lea does not involve physical exertion of a positive kind, it means fresh air, rural sights and sounds, and the tranquil rest which after all is the best holiday for the day-by-day toiler. CHAPTER II MANFORD AND SERTON'S COSY NEST It would be interesting to know who invented the phrase "Cockney Sportsman"; we may fairly conclude, at any rate, that _The Pickwick Papers_, backed persistently by _Punch_, gave it a firm riveting. It applied perhaps more to the man with the gun than the rod, though the most telling illustration was the immortal Briggs and his barking pike. The term of contempt has long lost its sting, though it still holds lightly. The angler of that ilk fifty years ago, as I can well remember, for all his cockneyism, worked hard for his sport, and enjoyed a fair amount of it. When, for example, I used to fish at Rickmansworth in the middle 'sixties, you would see anglers walking away with their rods and creels from Watford station to various waters four or five miles distant. There are more railways now, but less available fishing, and the anglers have multiplied a thousandfold, making a wonderful change of conditions. There were plenty of little-known, out-of-the-way places where common fishing could be had for the asking, and excellent bags made by the competent. Manford and Serton were two young men who, I suppose, would have been in the category of Cockney Sportsmen, being workers in City warehouses, members of neither club nor society, free and independent lovers of all manner of out-of-door pursuits and country life. They were both devoted to all-round angling, and Manford, in a modest degree, fancied himself with the gun. These young men are here introduced to the reader because a passing sketch of one of their sporting excursions to the country will indicate a type, and show that they might be cockney, but were also not undeserving the name of sportsmen. The young fellows made their plans in the billiard-room of the Bottle's Head, just out of Eastcheap, chatting leisurely on the cushions while waiting for a couple of bank mashers to finish their apparently never-ending game. Thirty or forty years ago young fellows in the City did not think so much about holidays as they now do. We have reached a stage of civilisation when it seems absolutely necessary for our bodily and spiritual welfare, however comfortably we may be situated in life, to rush away for a change as regularly as the months of August and September come round. Manford declared that exhausted nature would hold out no longer unless he could take a holiday. Serton suggested that he should try and rub along somehow until nearer October, when he might go down with him to a quiet little place, where he gushingly assured him there was splendid fishing, where they might live for next to nothing, meet with nice people, and be in the midst of one of the most beautiful parts of the country. The one condition was that probably they would have to rough it a little. All these were genuine attractions to S., who agreed to go, M. adding, as they rose to secure the cues, that besides fishing there would be chances with the rabbits. A spring-cart and a horsey-looking person were awaiting the travellers outside the small roadside railway station at the end of their journey, and they were already joyous and alert. They and their belongings were bundled into the "trap" (how many misfits are covered by the word!) and driven through a tree-arched lane. M. could extract something even from the autumnal seediness of the hedgerows, affirming that they were for all the world like a theatre when the holland coverings are on. S. exclaimed with surprise as a squirrel ran across the track, telling M. that this proved how really they were in the country, squirrels being seldom seen, as weasels are, crossing a road. The driver, who was in fact the keeper, found his opportunity in the uprising from a field of two magpies chattering a welcome. "I think you'll have luck, genl'men," he said. "'Tis allus a good sign to see two mags at once. See one 'tis bad luck; see two it be fun or good luck; see three 'tis a wedding; see four and cuss me if it bain't death." A rustic cottage, approached between solid hedges of yew, was the bespoken lodging, and M. and S. were quickly out of the cart, and roaming the garden among fruit trees, autumn flowers, and beehives. Thence they were summoned to the little front room, the oaken window-sill bright with fuchsias and geraniums, the walls adorned with an old eight-day clock, a copper warming-pan and antique trays, while over the mantel-piece was a small fowling piece, years ago reduced from flint to percussion. Upon the rafters there were half a side of bacon, bunches of dried sweet herbs, and the traditional strings of onions. The pictures consisted of four highly coloured prints of celebrated race-horses, long ago buried and forgotten. It was in this cottage that the young men remained, and very comfortable they were, for the bedrooms were fitted up with the queerest of four-posters, made in the last century, while the walls were covered with prints from sundry illustrated papers, and illuminated texts. Serton had sojourned in this humble dwelling-place before, and expatiated upon its manifold merits to his friend, who prided himself upon being practical, and said 'twould do, but a five-pound note, he supposed, would buy the lot. "No doubt," replied S., "but to me 'tis a cosy nest for anglers." The fishing, however, was the first consideration, and with a sense of satisfaction induced by good quarters out went the anglers, across meadows, by the banks of a river. It was fine fun to help the lock-keeper with his cast-net and store the bait-can with gudgeons and minnows, and to crack jokes before the tumbling and rumbling weir, with its deep, wide pool, high banks around, and overhanging bushes. Serton, electing for a little Waltonian luxury, sat him down in comfort, plumbed a hard bottom in six feet of water, caught a dace at the first swim, and, with his cockney-bred maggots, took five others in succession--three roach, and a bleak which he reported in town, at the Bottle's Head, as the largest ever seen. Meanwhile M., who was paternostering with worm and minnow, came down to inform S. that he had already landed four perch, and that the shoal was still unfrightened. With a recommendation to his friend to do likewise, he returned to his station, and his basketed perch might soon have recited, "Master, we are seven." Thereabouts a shout from S. made the welkin ring; he cried aloud for help, and M. sprinted along in time to save the fine tackle by netting a big chub. From the merry style of the beginning, the captor had felt assured of more roach, and now confessed that they and dace had ceased biting, though he had used paste and maggot alternately. Then he took to small red worm and angled forth a dish of fat gudgeon, that would have put a Seine fisher in raptures. Next he lost a fish by breakage, and while repairing damages was arrested by a distant summons from his companion, whom he discovered wrestling with something--no perch, however--that had gained the further side of the pool, and was now heading remorselessly for the apron of the weir, under which it fouled and freed. The witnesses of the defeat were probably right in their conclusion that this was the aged black trout that had become a legend, and was believed to be the only trout left in those parts. During the afternoon M. and S., in peaceful brotherhood, sat over the pool, plied paternoster and roach pole, and fished till the float could be no more identified in the dusk. They carried to the cottage each ten or twelve pounds' weight extra in fish caught, but in his memories of the homeward walk S. must have been mistaken in his eloquent reference to the crake of the landrail, though he might have been correct as to the weak, piping cry of the circling bats, and the ghostly passage of flitting owl mousing low over the meadow. These alone, he said, broke the silence; in this M. took him to task, having himself heard the tinkling of sheep bells and the barking of the shepherd's dog. Next morning the anglers were somewhat put out at first at the necessity of fulfilling an engagement with the keeper, being reminded of the promise by the appearance of a shock-headed youth in the cottage garden, staggering under two sacks. M. was better versed in these things than the other, and able to inform him that this meant rabbiting; here were the nets and the ferrets, and he had undertaken to stand by with the single-barrel and see fair play. Ferreting is a business generally transacted without hustle, and the keeper was a noted slowcoach. With this knowledge, and the presence under his eye of a basket containing ground-bait kneaded in the woodhouse while the breakfast rashers were frying, S. opined that he might snatch an hour or so of honest reaching in the backwater while the rabbit people were getting ready. The roach master eventually came to the rendezvous, indeed, with a dozen and five of those beautifully graded roach which are between three-quarters and half pound, and which, when they are "on the feed," run marvellously even in size and quality. M. did not now concern himself about the roach. He was no longer a Waltonian; his mind had taken the tone of the keeper's. Yesterday his soul was of the fish, fishy; to-day it was full of muzzle-loaders, nets, and ferrets. But he, too, had his reward, and S. noticed that as they plodded athwart a fallow he looked out keenly and knowingly for feathered or four-footed game as if he were Colonel Hawker in person, and not the patient paternosterer with downcast eye. After S. had witnessed his bright eye and upstanding boldness when he brought the single-barrel to shoulder and dropped a gloriously burnished woodpigeon at long shot, he conceived an enhanced respect for him evermore, and was endued with a spirit of toleration to watch the coming operations, in which he took no part. Nets were pegged down; there was much talk of bolt holes between the keeper and the rustic shockhead working on different sides of the bank, and M. and the dog Spider had vision and thought for nothing but the open holes they guarded. It transpired that the keeper wanted rabbits for commerce. The couples that speedily met fate in the nets were insufficient. He required fifteen couple. M. rolled over a white scut with obvious neatness and dispatch, and in shifting over to another hedgerow he shot a jay and gloried in its splendour. The keeper, however, moderated any secret intentions there might have been as to the plumage by one sentence: "That's another for the vermin book. I gets a bob for that." The keeper's cottage gave lunch and rest to the party, and the talk was either of ferrets, hares, and rabbits, or of the two rudely carpentered cases which contained well-set-up specimens of teal, cuckoo, wryneck, abnormally marked swallow, pied rat, landrail, and polecat, each being a chapter in the life history of the keeper. The tale of rabbits being incomplete, M. returned to his former occupation, but S. fished again, continually finding sport of the miscellaneous kind, such as a chub with cheese paste, perch with dew worm out of the milk-prepared moss, roach rod with running tackle, and leger tackle on a spinning rod. With this and a great worm on strong hook he had the surprise of a fight that gave him not a little concern. The fish at first appeared to be going to ground, even boring bodily into it. Then it gave way to panic, and shot about the pool as if pursued by a water fiend. Winched in slowly, it plunged into the bank, thought better of it, and ran up stream. At this crisis M. arrived, commandeered the net, and stood around offering advice. It was a monster eel, he said. Give him more butt; be careful; be more energetic; certainly, all right. The last remark was simply a receipt in form of a little speech from S., who had briefly bidden him to mind his own business. The unseen fish abruptly had given in. Was it collapse? Slowly, slowly it followed the revolution of the reel, both men peering intent for first sight and grounds for identification of species. The first sight, however, must have been on the part of the fish, which went off in a fright deep down with renewed strength, and then it did surrender, a barbel of 6 lb., a somewhat rare fish for the river, and only taken when, as in this case, it had wandered up into the weir pool. Having told M. to mind his own business with a minimum of ceremony, it was not surprising that S. was left alone, not exactly to his sport, since, as it happened, the barbel closed his account, unless one or two losses may be included in that definition, and, to give him his due, he was so thorough a fisherman that he did regard losses, shortcomings, and mishaps as legitimate assets in the general game. He had forgotten in his barbeline absorption to inquire, according to usage, how his comrade had been faring, and did not meet him again till they were in the throat of the lane cottage-wards bound. "Well, old 'un; what luck with the paternoster?" he asked, cheerily. M., with a sly twinkle in the eye, said, yes, he had done somewhat; three pike. It may be premised that the young men had both been trying at intervals for a certain marauding pike reported to them as a ferocious duck destroyer by a gentleman farmer who came down to gossip. He indicated the field and a gravel pit as a guide to the place where his cowman had seen a duckling seized by a pike, and the man embellished his account by swearing that the fish had ploughed his way down the river half out of water, with the ball of feathers bewhiskering his jaws. Manford, it seems, had revenged the raided ducks. A large pike lay at the bottom of his rush basket underneath three jack and a covering of rushes, and it was produced as a crowning show, a golden fish of 17 lb. lured to execution by a live bait. There was talk of nothing else that night but this prize at keeper's cottage, village tap-room, at the lockheads, and by five-barred gates; and the exultant keeper, who took credit for all, was heard to say that it was the best bloomin' jack he had seen "for seven year come last plum blight," whenever and whatever that might be. CHAPTER III MAYFLY DAYS AND DIALOGUES [SCENE: straw-roofed fishing-hut, door and windows wide open. Table covered with remnants of luncheon, floor ditto with mineral water and other bottles, very empty. In the shade outside, fishermen lying on the grass gazing at the river, upon which the sun strikes fiercely. Keeper and keeper's boys standing sentinel up and down the meadow, under orders to report the first appearance of mayfly. Heat intense. Swallows hawking over the water. Fields a sheet of yellow buttercups, with faint lilac lines formed by cuckoo-flowers on the margins of carriers and ditches. Much yawning and silence amongst the lazy sportsmen sprawling in a variety of attitudes; caps thrown off their sun-scorched faces, waders peeled down to the ankles.] R. O. (the Riparian Owner, and host of the party): Well, it's about time, I fancy, something stirred. The fly was up an hour before this yesterday, and it would be naturally a little later to-day. SUFFIELD (a barrister of repute, tall and thin, sarcastic, and a first-rate angler): I don't believe we shall see a fly till three o'clock, and then we shall have the old game over again--short rises and bad language all along the line. Terlan's rod is enough to drive flies and fish out of the county. TERLAN (a merry little squire, who takes business and pleasure alike with imperturbable placidity of temper, and who always uses a double-handed rod for mayfly fishing): The same to you, old blue-bag. I'll back my 14-footer against your miserable little split cane. The GENERAL (a retired Indian officer, given to ancient recollections and gloomy views of life): Yes, and very little to brag about either. A brace and half of trout on this river in the mayfly week is a very pitiable sight. When I was a boy nobody had a basket of less than eight brace. Even the trout seem under the curse of this so-called new age. SUFFIELD: Ay, you not only could, but did, get them easily in the good old times. Why, I have seen the old fogies up at Lord Tummer's water fish from chairs and camp-stools. (Laughter.) Fact, 'pon my word. Each man took his place with his footman behind him, and every man jack of 'em fished in kid gloves. The GENERAL: But they got their trout, and plenty of 'em, and if they did take it easy, they filled their baskets. The PARSON (the least parson-like member of the party, and beloved, as the right sort of parson always is, by everybody): This is stale matter. We went over all that ground yesterday, and agreed to take the modern trout as he is, and make the best of him. Call it education or what you like, trout-fishing is not what it was. The GENERAL (grunting): And never will be. I say it all comes from your overstocking and returning hooked fish to the water. You are all too particular by half, and are eaten up with new-fangled notions. R. O.: If we fail, it is not, at any rate, for want of preparations, precautions, and theories. Here, Georgy, get up, and arm yourself in regular order. GEORGY (a stout, elderly stockbroker, supposed to be like the lamented George IV, rising with a laugh, and leisurely filling his pipe): Begad! what am I the worse for my paraphernalia? The General there and all of you, i' faith, are very glad to make use of my little odds and ends. The GENERAL (contemptuously): When I was a young man we never bothered ourselves very often with so much as a landing-net. Now you are laden with stuff like a pack mule. Look at Georgy's priest dangling from one button, his oil-bottle from another, his weighing machine from another. R. O.: Ay, and there's the damping box for the gut points, and the pin to clear the eyeholes of the hooks, and the linen cloth to wrap the trout in, and the clearing-ring, and the knee-pads, and whole magazines of flies. The PARSON: Good! I know Georgy has at least twenty patterns, and by the time he has found out which is the killer the rise is over. SUFFIELD: Hello! See that? ALL: What? Where? SUFFIELD: I beg your pardon: it was only a swallow, or a rat. R. O.: No; Harvey is signalling up at the bridge. Let us be moving. The fly is coming. Tight lines to you all. [Piscatorum Personae collect their rods, pull up their waders, and stroll away in various directions.] GEORGY (an hour later, seated amongst the sedges by a broad part of the river, mopping his forehead, rod laid aside on the grass behind: to him approaches the Parson from the shallow above): That was a warm bout while it lasted, parson. How did you get on? PARSON: Get on? Not at all. For a time the fish rose in all directions, but they did not seem to take the natural even. Flopped at 'em and let 'em pass on. GEORGY: I didn't like to say it before the R. O., but I'm sure we begin this mayfly fishing too soon. There ought not to be a rod out till the fly has been on at least a couple of days, and not a line should be cast till the fish are taking them freely. PARSON: What have you done? GEORGY (motioning to his creel, and creeping softly up the bank, with rod lowered): Only a couple, and handsome fellows, too. Why one of them is full to the muzzle with drakes; there's one crawling from between its jaws at this moment. PARSON: Heigho! he's into another. GEORGY (having stalked his fish and hooked him, retires from the bank and brings a two-pounder down to the net, which the parson handles): Well, I've got my brace and half, anyhow. PARSON (laughing): To tell you the truth, I came down to beg a touch of the paraffin this time. GEORGY: I thought so. Here you are. (Parson returns to his wooden bridge.) They laugh at my fads, but somehow take toll of 'em. (General approaches from below.) Any luck, General? GENERAL (disgusted): Yes, infernal bad luck! Two fish broke away one after another. They won't fasten a bit. Never saw anything like it. But I want you to give me one of those gut points out of your damping box. I must get one of those boxes for myself. GEORGY (supplying the requisitioned goods): You'll find it a very useful thing. Your gut will always be ready to use. Ha! my friend (to trout rising madly twenty yards out), I rather think you'll make number four. (Done accordingly. Spring balance produced; trout weighed at 2 lb. 1 oz. in sight of General.) GENERAL (moving off to the next meadow, and commanding a deep bend, the haunt of heavy trout); I suppose I have lost the trick; but catch them I can't. I have risen six fish, and lost the only ones that took me. Here's the keeper. What are they doing at the ford, Harvey? HARVEY: The master's got four, General, and he wants you to come down. The shallow's all alive, and they are taking well. There's a trout, sir, at the tail of that weed. GENERAL (casting a loose line): Missed it again, by Jove! Why was that, Harvey? HARVEY (coughing slightly): Well, General, if you ask me, I fancy you had too much slack on the water. You'll have a better chance on the sharp stream below. Let me carry your rod, sir. (Hitches fly in small ring.) No wonder, General, the fish got off: the barb's gone from the hook. GENERAL (pacing downwards): That's it, is it? Nobody knows better than I that after a fish balks at the hook, one should examine the point. Yet I preach without practice. Ah, me! I'm not in it. R. O. (genially greeting, and wading out of the shallow): Come along, General; they are rising well, fly and fish both; and this is a bit of water where they generally mean business. Good luck to you! There's a grand trout a little higher up, look. He takes every fly that sails over to him. Pitch your Champion just four inches before his nose, and he's a gone coon. GENERAL (encouraged and inspired, casting with confidence; and, believing that he is going to be successful, succeeding): _You_ are all right, my spotted enemy (playing the fish down stream firmly). Come along, Harvey, no quarter; get below those flags, and I'll run him in before he knows where he is. That's it: two pounds and a half for a ducat! R. O.: Capital! We can't send for Georgy's scales, but I bet you he is two and three-quarters (as the General bangs the head of fish on the edge of his brogue sole). Georgy's priest would come in convenient here, too. SUFFIELD (at upper end of water, kneeling patiently at the edge of an older coppice, smoking the pipe of perfect peace, and soliloquising): They don't rise yet. But a time will come. Hang it! but this is sweet. Yea, it is good to be here. Now, if that little _Waterside Sketches_ chap was here, let me see, how would he tick it off? Forget-me-nots--and deuced pretty they are; sedge warblers, three; kingfishers, one; rooks melodious; picturesque cottages on the downs nestling--they always put it that way--nestling under the beech wood; balmy air--_'tis_ a trifle nice; cuckoo mentioning his name to all the hills--Tennyson, I know, said so; drowsy bees and gaudy dragon flies--yes, they are actually in the bond; and all the rest of it, here it is. And I've chaffed my friend at the club time out of mind for his gush, and swore by the gods that all the angler cares about is gross weight of fish killed. Yet, somehow, I must have taken all this in many a time, without, I suppose, knowing it. Softly now. (Casts deftly with a short line, lightly and straightly delivered, to a corner up-stream where the current swerves round a chestnut tree leaning into the river. Leaps to feet with a split-cane rod arched like a bow. Retires down stream, smiling.) No you don't! I know you. If you get back to that first floor front of yours, I'm done. Out of your familiar ground _you're_ done. Steady, steady! Keep your head up, and on you come. What? More line? Well, well; one more run for the last. Thanks; here you are. (Turns a short, thick two-pounder out of the net into a bed of wild hyacinths in the copse.) TERLAN (in possession of a side stream which he had won at the friendly toss after breakfast): Fortune has smiled upon me to-day. They laugh at my big rod, but I make it work for me. A fish has no chance with it. I saw the Parson weeded four times yesterday with his little ten-foot greenheart. My fish don't weed me; they can't. Ha, ha! Now look at that trout close under the farther bank, sucking in the fat Mayflies with a gusto worthy of an alderman. Here I am yards away in the meadow; I am out of sight. The rod seems to know that I rely upon it. I don't cast, so to speak; simply give the rod its head, as it were, and there you are. (Fly alights on opposite bank, drops gently, with upstanding wings; is seized with a flourish; trout is brought firmly and rapidly over a bed of weeds, never permitted to twist or turn, and attendant boy nets him out with a grin on his chubby face.) Dip the net a little more, Tommy; you don't want to assault a fish, only to lift him out. How many is that? Eight do you say? Then I want no more. [SCENE: Straw-roofed fishing hut, as before. Fishing men returning in straggling order. Bottles opened without loss of time. Black drakes dancing in the air. Surface of river marked by never a sign of fish. Flotsam and jetsam of shucks drifting down, and forming in mass at the eddies. Swifts and swallows exceedingly busy everywhere. Sun hastening to western hill-tops. Beautiful evening effects on field and wood, especially on hawthorn grove, in the light of the hour, snow-white, touched with golden gleam.] R. O. (handing rod to keeper, and taking creel from boy): It's all over now. Short rise to-day. We shall be having a morning and evening rise to-morrow very likely. Now for the spoil. Where's Georgy? We want his steelyard. GEORGY: Here I am. Here's my basket, and here's my game-book on my shirt cuff--1 1/2, 1 3/4, 2, 2 1/4, 1 1/4, 1 1/4, a d----d big dace, and a black grayling. R. O.: Oh, a grayling on the 3rd June! GEORGY: Couldn't help it; fly right down his gullet. Besides, you said you wanted them all out of the water. The PARSON (weighing his fish): Mine is a back seat. I had twenty misses to one hit. Still, I'm content--3 lb., 2 1/4 lb., and a pound roach. The GENERAL (smoking a cheroot on a chair brought out of the hut): My muster roll is soon read--three fish, total 4 lb. R. O.: Harvey has reckoned me up. There are five fish, weighing 10 lb. SUFFIELD (sauntering up and humming "Now the labourer's task is o'er," and surveying the groups of trout, disposed on the grass in their tribes and households apart): What a sight for the tired angler. Ah! after you with the shandy-gaff. How many? I really haven't counted; but I've had a lovely time at the wood. (Harvey turns out basket, and weighs fish.) Only seven--well, I must do better next time. 13 lb., too; that's not high average; but I report myself satisfied. Here comes Terlan with the mainmast of his brother's yacht. TERLAN (smiling): Yes, the spar is all right. Sport? Pretty fair, but I haven't been working like galley slaves as some of you have. Lay the lot out decently, Tommy, and don't smother them in grass next time. R. O.: This is the bag of bags, gentlemen. Four brace of trout, and at the head of the row a fish of 3 3/4 lb. Have him set up, Terlan; it's the most shapely fellow I ever saw taken out of the river. But I see the wagonette coming down to the mill. Where's the doctor? SUFFIELD: Oh! we shall find him presently. He has been away at the mill-heads and carriers; what the General would call outpost duty. [SCENE: Road in front of mill. Music of droning and dripping wheel. Bats wheeling overhead. Mother in cottage singing child to sleep. Dogs barking in distance. Sack-laden wagon rumbling over bridge. Doctor seated on a cask smoking, and pulling the ears of a setter. Gleam of fading light on quiet, mirror-like water. Corncrake heard near. Nightingales in concert in adjacent park. Scent of May-bloom heavy in the air.] R. O. (on box of wagonette with tired fishermen behind): Well, Doctor, what have you done? DOCTOR (youthful and of goodly countenance): Six brace. PARSON: You mean fish--not brace. DOCTOR (shrugging his shoulders): What time did the Mayfly come up? Three or thereabouts, did it? That is just about the time I came in to have a nap, and I have not fished since. I told you not to idle about waiting for Mayfly. Here are my trout, and I got every one of them with the small fly--Welshman's button--before one o'clock. The GENERAL: They run small. DOCTOR: H'm, perhaps they do. Two of them seem to have rather bad teeth, too. Still, I don't grumble. Ah, well; good-night. (Wagonette rumbles off down the dusty road.) R. O.: Good chap, that. He always sleeps at the mill; says the wheel grinds him to sleep. (Later, at the porch of the Black Bull.) We shall have the great rise very likely to-morrow; but I really do think there's something in that small-fly business. TERLAN: Not forgetting my mainmast. GEORGY: And, while you are about it, my fads and fanglements. CHAPTER IV MY FIRST TWEED SALMON It may, I trust, be forgiven me if, when thinking of all the salmon I have taken in half a century of attempts and hopes for that 70-pounder which is ever lying expectant in the angler's imagination, I catch my first Tweed salmon over again. A good deal of water must have run through Kelso Bridge since, for I had better confess it was in the month of October, 1889. In that year the autumn fishing in all Scotland on the rivers that remained open during the month was decidedly capricious. This was one of those expeditions when it is wise to make the most of the tiniest opportunities of amusement, and I began very fairly with a fellow-passenger in the train, one of the class which, seeing your fishing things amongst the baggage, arrogates to itself the right to open a volley of questions and remarks upon you about fishing. This example at once showed the extent of his knowledge upon the subject by the declaration: "I never have the patience to fish; it's so long waiting for a bite." He also hinted agreement with the saying attributed to Johnson. There is not so much ignorance in these days on the subject, and the majority of people I fancy now know the difference between sitting down before a painted float and the downright hard work and incessant activity of a day with salmon or trout rod. Next morning, in clean, quiet Kelso, I mused over the intruded opinions of the gentleman in the train (whom I had ticked off as a good-natured bagman), and having been warned beforehand by a laconic postscript, "Prospects not rosy," remembered that in angling there is something needed besides endurance and energy, and that when you are waiting day by day for the water to fall into condition there is a substantial demand upon patience. However, the thought must not spoil breakfast, nor did it. Then I read my letters, glanced down the columns of the _Scotsman_, lighted the first tobacco (the best of the day verily!), and issued forth from the yard of the Cross Keys, hallowed by the periodical residence of eminent salmon fishers, such as Alfred Denison, who, with so many of the familiar sportsmen of his day, has gone hence, leaving pleasant memories behind. The stony square of the town is in front of you; Forrest's shop is next door as you stand in the gateway of the old inn, and after a glance at the sky and at the weathercock on the top of the market house you look in there. A local fisherman was coming out, and in reply to the inevitable question as to the state of the river, he said, "Weel, she's awa' again." Pithy and characteristic, and full of information was this. It was a verdict--You may fish, but shall fish in vain this day. The Tweed is away again. Gloomily now you walk ahead, leaving your call at the tackle shop for a more convenient season; at present, at any rate, time is of no account. Past the interesting ruins of Kelso Abbey you proceed, and soon, leaning over the parapet of Rennie's Bridge, on the right-hand side, your eye straightaway seeks the Tweedometer fixed against the wall of Mr. Drummond's Ednam House garden. The bold black figures on the whitened post mark 2 1/2 ft. above orthodox level. Two days ago the 3 ft. point had been reached; then Tweed sank to 2 ft.; now "she" is up again 6 in. One does not care how high a river may rise, provided it gets over the business once for all, and recedes steadily, to have done with change for a reasonable time. The worst phase of all is that which is represented by intermittent ups and downs on a small scale; for the fish follow the example of the river most religiously in one respect--when it is unsettled they are unsettled too. Such experience as this, morning after morning, for many days, may be handsome exercise in the finishing-off touches of your lessons in patience, and are probably entertaining enough to your friends who are not anglers. There is no amusement for you; only resignation. Make up your mind to that, my brother. There must have been a quantity of downpour away to the west up amongst the hills; the skies are leaden with rain clouds even now; the air is saturated with moisture. Up beyond the picturesque little island at the junction of the two rivers the water thunders over the rocky ledge which forms the dub at the bottom of Floors Castle lower water, and if you observe closely you will soon conclude that Teviot is bringing down an undue amount of Scottish soil. Cross the bridge and look over to the heavy pool under the wooded slope, and note, where the light strikes the eddy, the yellow hue; 18 in. above ordinary level is the outside limit which the initiated on Tweed give you as a bare chance for a fish, and it is evident that, even if those dark clouds do not fulfil their threats, this chance will scarcely come to-morrow, or perchance next day. Wherefore, once more, let patience have her perfect work. The bait fishers are busy, to be sure. Your extremity is their opportunity. With the worm they make fair baskets of trout in this dirty water. The public on Tweedside are indeed a privileged race. Nearly the whole of the river is free to trout anglers, and there is an abundance of trout in it. The inhabitants of Kelso ought to be full of gratitude to the Duke of Roxburghe, for he gave them, as a generous supplement to their free trouting, miles of the Teviot for salmon fishing. They had only to enrol themselves members of a local association and pay a nominal fee to obtain salmon fishing on the Teviot for a certain number of days in every week. Mr. James Tait, the clerk to the Tweed Commissioners (whom hundreds of anglers had to thank for much kindness to strangers), informed me that when the water was right plenty of salmon were taken in Teviot, especially at the back end. I think, though some people of course are never satisfied, that this great boon was duly appreciated by the inhabitants. You talk to people by the riverside about the Duke, whose fine mansion crowns the high ground ending the pretty landscape above bridge, and they curiously harp upon one string. They say nothing about his Grace's rank, or wealth, or good looks, or the historical associations of his ancient house. They simply remark, "Eh! but the Duke's a kind mon." The Duke walked down to the opposite side once and hailed me in my boat, said he was glad to give "Red Spinner" a day on his beat, and chatted for a quarter of an hour, the embodiment of man and sportsman. The late Duke of Abercorn was just such another nature's nobleman, and while upon the subject of dukes I may include the Duke of Teck as one with whom I had many a friendly chat about fishing. That, with the terrible worming the Tweed gets in these autumnal floods, the trout fishing should be so good is marvellous. The plentiful supply of suitable food is one reason why the Tweed has not long been ruined for this summer sport. The hatch of March Browns in the early portion of the season is a sight not to be imagined unless seen. All the summer through insect life abounds, and I have seen in the middle of October hatches of olive duns that would satisfy even a Hampshire chalk streamer, while the trout were rising at them beautifully on every hand. On one of the flood days I strolled up and down Tweedside, and of the dozen or so of anglers I encountered pottering about with the worm, the majority had something like a dozen trout in their baskets. On a day when Teviot was cleared down to porter colour I met a young gentleman who had been fishing down with flies (the blue dun and Greenwell were on the cast), and had filled his basket. There were some fish of three-quarters and half a pound, but the bulk were smaller. These trout were not in good condition, for they spawn early in these parts, but they were not so bad as one might have supposed. But let us return to our salmon. While you are trying to play your game of patience like a philosopher, you will naturally make a superficial acquaintance with such portions of the river as are accessible to a wayfarer, and if you have not seen it before you will speedily understand why "she" (on Tweedside you always hear the river referred to in the feminine gender) has so many admirers, who pledge her in a life-long devotion. It is indeed a winsome river, and the scenery, never tame, is in many parts lovely. Where can there be a more beautiful place than Sir Richard Waldie-Griffith's park at Hendersyde, as it shows from the other bank of the river? The autumnal tints are in advance of those farther south, and the beeches glow ruddy from afar. This borderland is admirably wooded, and the Tweed valley is pre-eminent in that respect. The historical associations are so numerous and so interesting that the mind, if you allow it to run riot, will become overburdened with them. For myself, to assist in the development of the ripe fruit of patience, I kept mostly to musings that had Abbotsford for its centre, and re-read Lockhart on the spot with which that ponderous volume is so closely concerned. Thanks to Mr. David Tait, I secured one of the early editions, where are to be found all the references to fishing and other sports which are not included in other editions. The Wizard of the North lived awhile at Rosebank, a short distance below Kelso, and the old tree, I believe, was still flourishing in which he used to sit and take pot shots at herons as they flew over the Tweed, which rolled beneath his leafy perch. Driving down to Carham, "Tweedside," who was my companion, showed me Rosebank across the broad stream, and, while I was reminding him of Walter Scott's gunnery, we saw in an adjacent ploughed field three herons standing close together, apparently in doleful contemplation. On this drive also we crossed a burn which divides English from Scottish soil, and it was tumbling down in angry mood. Scores of other rivulets on either side were pouring their off-scourings into the vexed river, each precisely as gracefully described in the lines: Now murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen, Through bush and briar no longer green, An angry brook, it sweeps the glade, Brawls over rock and wild cascade. And, foaming brown with double speed, Hurries its waters to the Tweed. The morning, however, comes at last when John, who has been to the station with the early train, meets you as you descend to the coffee-room with "She'll fush the day." But you will not forget that Tweed has been out of order for twelve days, rising and falling, never settled. Still, though the chance is very much an off one, it has to be taken. A day on any water, from Galashiels down to the last pool below Coldstream, is exceeding precious at this time of the year. Every boat is apportioned for the riparian owners and their friends to the very end of the season. If, therefore, you have had kindly leave to fish any of these celebrated waters, and have been unable through bad weather to live up to the opportunities, I could almost weep with or for you; or, if you think strong language more manly, I would make an effort for once to meet you on that ground. I speak, alas, from the book. The wounds inflicted by jade Fortune in these regards are yet unhealed. Take, then, your very off-chance and be thankful. The truth is that you never quite know what will happen in salmon fishing. On that drenching Saturday, when you were working like a galley slave without raising or seeing a fish on the Lower Floors water (where Lord Randolph Churchill subsequently slew his four fish), did not Mr. Gilbey take five at Carham and Mr. Arkwright four at Birgham? On the Monday, when the water was a little better, did you not find that the salmon had moved right away from the beat for which you were that day booked? It was surely so; and the only sport obtained was by a young gentleman who had handled a rod for the first time on the previous Friday, and who now happened upon a 25-lb. fish, the only one killed that day, with the exception of a pound yellow trout, which took your own fly--a Silver Doctor 1 1/2 in. long. This, and a couple of false rises from salmon, constituted your only luck. Yet there were salmon and grilse in all the streams, splashing in the slow oily sweep that crept under the wood yonder. It was consolation that night to discover that not much had been done anywhere. A gossip in Mr. Forrest's shop had heard that the Duke of Roxburghe had killed a couple, and the Duchess, who fishes fair with a good salmon rod and casts the fly in a masterly style, also a brace. Mr. Drummond, up at the meeting point of Teviot and Tweed, had done something also. That night, too, the gallant General arrived from Tayside, to make your mouth water as he, being cross-examined as to sport, elaborated the record which had appeared in Saturday's _Field_. If there is any wrinkle in salmon fishing that the General does not know, you would like to hear of it, would you not? Mark his artful little plan of using the common safety-pin of commerce for stringing his flies upon, threading them upon the pin by the loop before the affair is closed up. If you are wise, upon a river like the Tweed, where all the fishermen are men of experience and skill, you will not only ask their advice, but take it in the main--say, when it suits you. You were pretty hopeful at the beginning of this final day, though Jamie and his colleague were cautious in expressing an opinion. No doubt Scotchmen are nothing if not cautious, and the trifle of doubt they adventured when they surveyed the sky and studied the water might be merely national caution asserting itself in the very nature of things. Time passed, and when at noon or thereabouts you sat down upon that very comfortable platform near the stern of the boat, and wondered whether your back were as broken as it felt to be, a cold shiver went through you as the horrible thought flashed into your mind. "Good heavens! surely this is not going to be another blank?" The sun, at any rate, after shining brightly for a couple of hours, retired behind the clouds now rolling up from south-west; wind, in meagre catspaws, skirmished across the dub below, reserved for the afternoon, and you prayed that it would strengthen to half a gale. That grand water above--all streams of a model character--was fished fairly, perseveringly; Wilkinson, Jock Scott, Silver Grey, Greenwell, and Stephenson were tried in succession, large and medium. The afternoon wore on apace without a sign. Down under the high rocks, wooded to the water's edge, you repeated the work of the forenoon, trying, in addition to the flies already named, a harlequin-looking pattern which you had seen amongst Forrest's tempting collection, a novelty named Tommy Adkins. It did no effective service, however. With a levity pardonable at that time you hummed, "Tommy, make room for your uncle," and put up a large Wilkinson, one of the Kelso-tied double hooks, than which you cannot get better. Down to the weir and back again to the same old tune--nothing. An angler from below came up for a chat and told you that he had taken a grilse, and you envied him the possession of that measly little kipper. By and by there was a pluck beneath the water, and you struck. Whatever else it was, it was no fish; but you carefully winched up and brought in a black kitten not long drowned. Fortune was not content with smiting you, it derided. As you blushingly remarked to the laughing but unappreciative Jamie, this was nothing short of _cat_astrophe. Jamie beguiled the next drift by reminiscences of Sir George Griffith (the angling father of an angling son), Alfred Denison, Liddell, John Bright, George Rooper, and other anglers whom he had piloted to victory--a charming method of rubbing the salt into your smarts. The dogcart was to be at the head of the dub at five, and the rumble of its wheels had been heard while we were yet about fifty yards from the landing place on the upward course, fishing deep, and letting the long line work slowly round to its farthest limit in the wake. There were no more puns now; I freely admit that I was silent--ay, depressed. Jamie, too, was disappointed; a couple of spectators on the bank were also practising the silence of sympathy. The game was up, and nothing need be said. Ah! what a magnificent swirl. Deep down went the fish, as up went the rod, and, backache and despondency vanishing, I held him hard. The first dash of the fish told me an unexpected and alarming bit of news. The confounded winch would not run out with the salmon, and I had to ease out line with the left hand and keep the big rod raised with the right. Luckily the winch worked after a fashion when reeled in, and if the single gut at the end of the twisted cast would hold all might be well. And behold it did hold. The fish was heavy, as everyone saw from the first, and it behaved fairly well. One ugly rush, which was the critical point of the battle, passed without accident, and the salmon was revealed--a silvery beauty that was more than ever your heart's desire. Easy and firm was the motto now. The fish was at last safe in Jamie's net, and if it was beaten so was I, thanks to the treacherous reel. The prize was a baggit of 22 lb., as bright as a spring fish, and perfectly shaped. CHAPTER V MUSINGS OF A BUSH RIDE Here I am riding along the sandy track all alone in the Australian bush, flicking off a wattle blossom singled out from the yellow mass with my hunting crop, fancying it is a fly rod, and rehearsing the old trick of sending a fly into a particular leaf. Ah! little mare Brownie, what are you doing? Did you never before see a charred stump that you should shy so? Do you fancy that you are a thoroughbred that you should bolt at such a gentle touch of the spur? So you espy the half-way house, do you, and fancy that fifteen miles, up and down, in a trifle under two hours, has earned you a spell, a bit of a feed, and something of a washing? And you are right. Take charge, Mr. Blackfellow-ostler, and while you do your duty let me amuse myself with my notebook. After all, memory is even-handed. It keeps us in remembrance of many things we would fain never think of more; but it performs similar service for others that are pleasant to ponder over. Out of the saddle bag I have taken a copy of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, newly arrived by this morning's mail, and while the mare took her own time up the hills I have been glancing through a "Red Spinner" article on "Angling in Queensland," with an author's pardonable desire to see how it comes out in print. That was why I took to making casts at the leaves with the riding whip. That is why, halting here for an hour on the crest of a hill, overlooking scrub of glossy green, bright patches of young maize, and a river shimmering in the valley, I am noting a few of the best-day memories which the easy paces of Brownie have allowed me in the saddle. What a day was that amongst the trout on the Chess! I wrote for permission to spend one afternoon only upon certain private waters, and the noble owner by return of post sent me an order for two days. It was June. The meadows, hedgerows--ay! and even the prosaic railway embankments--were decked with floral colouring, and at Rickmansworth I had to linger on the platform to take another look at the foliage heavily shading the old churchyard, and at the distant woods to the left. When I came back to quarters, after dark, having fished the river for a few hours, I began to think I might as well have stopped in London. The fish would not rise that afternoon, and there was but a beggarly brace in the basket. Some wretch above had been mowing his lawn and casting the contents of the machine into the stream at regular intervals. He got rid of his grass, certainly; but this was no gain to me, whose hooks perseveringly caught the fragments floating by. At last the grass pest ceased. The mowing man had left his task at six o'clock, no doubt, and the soft twilight would soon come on--time dear to anglers. But the cattle had an innings then. During the most precious hour they waded into the river--higher up, of course--and a pretty state of discolour they made of it. In this way the first essay left me abundance of room to hope for the morrow. Fresh, sweet, and dewy it was at four o'clock on the next morning. The keeper had told me of a certain upper reach of quiet water where, during the Mayfly carnival a fortnight before, Mr. Francis Francis had astonished the natives. As a rule the fishing is not good until the trout have got well over their Mayfly debauch, but I determined to work hard, nevertheless, if haply I might experience that traditional exception by which the rule is proven. The fish in this part, which was in truth practically a millhead, seemed to be feeding close to the bank. The first cast secured something--but what was very uncertain. A trout would not wobble and tug in that sullen, carthorse manner. Lo! it was a pickerel. A second time, lo! it was a pickerel. The next fish, however, was a trout--a big and somewhat lazy fellow, who allowed me to bring him to the top of the water, and to wait (with him well in hand, however) to see what his next movement would be. As he appeared to be reticent about troubling me with an orthodox tussle, I gave him no further grace, but winched him in and netted him out. His colours faded at once, and the dirty grey mottlings which broke out upon his sides proclaimed him a degenerate. One other big fellow--they were each 2 1/2 lb.--went to keep him company, and then, the sun being now high in heaven, I returned to breakfast. About three o'clock in the afternoon it was cloudy, and a gentle, melancholy, sighing west wind wafted to my assistance in the lower meadows, where the stream is small and typical of perpetual motion. The keeper and his boy strolled along towards five o'clock, and the game was by this time so merry that they never left me so long as I could see to throw a fly. Smooth water or broken, deep or shallow, alike gave up its increase. The fish were not particular as to the fly, with the one exception of the black gnat, which they would not as much as look at. Replace it with a governor or coachman, and they came with a heartfelt eagerness most charming to behold. As day declined they rose short, and when the vapours began to distil from the meadows they retired from business. The keeper volunteered a statement. He said he would not care to carry the basket half a dozen miles; whereupon I offered a suggestion. Acting upon this, he turned the spoil out upon the buttercups. There were thirty trout, averaging 3/4 lb. each, and not reckoning the invalid, which came out on the top of the heap, so mottled and dull that it bore no resemblance to its beautiful associates. The keeper that night received double largess. I had to exercise much self-control to keep myself from smiting him familiarly on the back and executing a Red Indian war dance around the victims. He said he hoped I would come again to those regions, turned over the coin I gave him, and intimated that if the trout (which he was now packing neatly into the creel) were not satisfied with the gentlemanly manner in which they were treated they would be pleased at nothing. And it was not for me to dissent or rebuke. My best-day memory of grayling fishing up to my colonial interlude is of a wet, muggy November day in Herefordshire. It was late in the month, and as the previous week had been marked by early frost, the sere leaves, having lost their grip, were rattling down on the water with every gust, and, indeed, from the mere weight of the rain. It was pretty practice, dropping the flies so as to avoid these little impediments; but it wasted time and strained the temper, for, according to custom in grayling land at that period, one had attached three or four flies to the cast, and thereby increased the chances of fouling. Yet I finished the day with eighteen grayling, to be placed to the contra account against a most complete soaking. The better fish were invariably found in the eye or tail of a moderate stream, the rest on gravelly or sandy shelves where the water was about 2 ft. deep. The former hooked themselves, taking the fly fairly under water; the latter came direct to the surface, and demanded careful striking and playing. Picking my way through a copse where the banks were high, I sat down on an overhanging rock to rest. When the eye became accustomed to the water and its buff bed it detected a couple of grayling that had before escaped notice, so closely were they assimilated in colour to the ground in which they foraged. Of course, I had always accepted the teaching of my betters that this fish rises perpendicularly from the bottom in deep water after the fly, but I had never verified the statement for myself. I did so now. By proceeding quietly I could "dib" the fly over the fish. It darted straight upwards, missed, and descended again. As it seemed uneasy after the exercise I repeated the experiment, with precisely similar results. The fish, agitating its fins at the bottom, was evidently excited, perhaps angry, and it behoved me to restore tranquillity, if possible, to its perturbed spirit. Instead, therefore, of dibbing, I now allowed the fly to float, a little submerged, from a couple of yards above the fish, which, I fear, had never in its youthful days been taught the mystical proverb, "First, second, but beware of the third." It came up with a gallant charge, and went down soundly hooked. There was no possibility of getting the landing net to the water, and no opportunity of travelling the grayling up or down stream to a convenient place. I had to make the best of the position, and the best was the employment of brute force. Hauling up a 1/2-lb. fish bodily a distance of several feet, when the said fish is held only by a tiny golden palmer on the finest gut, is not a likely manoeuvre. The grayling behaved well for a couple of yards or so, and then bethought himself of plunging, the consequence being that I lost my hook, and he dropped into a tuft of bracken in a niche below, to die uselessly. Down in Wessex lies the scene of a memorable day with pike. There were occasions when I caught more fish at live baiting, but that is a process of which one ought not to be as proud as of the more workmanlike method of spinning. This was a spinning day pure and simple. The sport was good; the adjuncts were enjoyable. It was a fine lake in an ancient park, and on Guy Fawkes Day I found the autumn tints such as I have never seen them for magnificence at any other time. Then I had a comfortable boat, an intelligent keeper to pull it, and plenty of fresh, medium-sized dace for bait. The lake, if left to itself, would have been choked with anacharis; but the proprietor, by means of a machine driven by steam--a sort of submarine plough--kept certain portions clear. The pike I knew would not at this time of the year be absolutely amongst the weeds if they could avoid it, for they prefer cover without a taint of decay; but I reckoned rightly that I should meet with them in the water lanes through which the machine had been driven. One large triangle in the vent of the bait was sufficient tackle. I am not certain that more elaborate flights are better anywhere; for weedy water I should have no reservation. From ten o'clock till five, with half an hour for luncheon, I toiled on, acquired a grand shoulder-ache that lasted me three days, and covered the bottom of the boat with close upon three-quarters of a hundred-weight of pike in prime condition. The largest fish ought to have weighed 20 lb., but it only turned the scale at 16 lb. According to the recognised rules of the game this fellow should have been taken in the deepest water; but it was a fish that could probably afford to set rules at defiance. I struck it, anyhow, in less than 16 in., and when I least expected it. We had worked our way to a shallow end of the lake, where the submarine plough had not ventured, and, observing one clear space in a waste of anacharis, I threw into and spun across it, moving a fish that went into the weeds beyond. It went so leisurely, and made so distinct a track, that I, more out of curiosity than anything else, gave it a second chance. The bait was for a moment entangled in the weeds, but was released easily. There was then a sudden splash that could be heard afar, and a furious running out of line. A salmon would not have fought more gamely than did this pike during a splendid quarter of an hour. Another five minutes and it would have been scot-free, for it was held by one hook only of the triangle. Even this had been much strained in the tussle, and it came away the moment the gaff was driven in. If Nawabs have memories, and the Nawab Nazim of Bengal should to-day be thinking in his Indian palace, as I am in the Queensland bush, of the same subject, he will remember that summer day in hay-time when we sat side by side roach fishing in the Colne, and how we both agreed, after it was over, that it was the best day's bottom fishing we had ever enjoyed. He made this admission to me with the gravity natural to an Oriental potentate; I, not having so many jewels and claims against the Government on my mind, with, I hope, not unbecoming jubilancy. But we were both in earnest. The worthy Hindoo and his son were adepts in this modest branch of the gentle art, and the Nawab, spite of his big spectacles, could detect a bite as if he had been a roach fisher all his days. Any other description of angling would, I presume, have been alien to the tastes of an Oriental, but this offered a minimum of exertion. I seated myself a respectable distance above their highnesses, and if now and then my pricked fish disturbed their "swim," they must admit they received the full benefit of my ground bait, which, as the balls gradually dissolved, crept down to sharpen the appetites of the fish within their sphere. The Nawab used one of those immense bamboo rods, the sections of which have to be unshipped at the taking of every fish and whenever rebaiting is necessary. This I am aware is the regulation mode amongst Thames and Lea roach anglers; but its clumsiness always forbade my cultivating it. A light rod and fine running line were more to my fancy, even though I had occasionally to pay for its indulgence by losses. On this particular day the roach were, in angler's parlance, "on the feed"; and the water was of the precise degree of cloudiness suitable for the operation. The Nawab and his son had selected a reach of water where the current was sluggish, and they undoubtedly took the finest roach. I had chosen a favourite swim at the tail of a rapid, and commanding an eddy, where you could generally make sure of picking up an odd chub or wandering dace; and it was my fate to have a good deal of amusement with the latter. A logger-headed chub of 3 lb. or thereabouts ran down to pay homage to the Nawab, but I contrived to check its career before it intruded itself into the presence, and the capture of this fish was watched and criticised with much eagerness by my neighbours. About three-and-twenty pounds' weight of fish fell to my share that day, and the distinguished strangers had ten pounds or so more. Roach fishing is not an exciting phase of sport, but it is by no means the tame or simple pursuit many persons affect to think it, and it is not unworthy of the name of high art. Moreover, it is a most pleasure-yielding occupation, and, amongst London anglers at least, furnishes, it cannot be denied, the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Best-day memories of this fish should assuredly take us back to the far-off schoolboy times when we used to "snatch a fearful joy" by surreptitious visits to the mill stream, and when, with a little hazel rod, length of whipcord, and rude hooks whipped to twisted horsehair, we would hurry home to breakfast with a dozen roach strung through the gills upon a twig of osier. They were all best days then. I should be the most ungrateful of anglers if I did not acknowledge my indebtedness to the dace. It so happened that, whatever else fortune denied me, it gave me opportunities, of which I could without hardship avail myself, for dace fishing; and, whatever sins of omission I may in my old age have to bring forward in self-accusation, I shall never be able to plead guilty to neglecting any opportunities soever in the matter of angling. For the dace, therefore, as a fish whose merits I have appreciated from youth upwards, I entertain great respect. There is no dulness about it. Go down to the fords where the dace are gathered, and you shall see the water boiling with their gambols, and shooting silver as they wheel and frisk about. Take them under any circumstances, so long as they are in season, and they always impress you with their liveliness of character. The roach in biting sometimes scarcely moves the quill float; the dace startles you by its sudden, sharp onslaught. A roach firmly hooked ought never to be lost; it requires a dexterous hand to pilot a dace safely out of a rapid current--that is to say, a dace of two or three to the pound. And the dace is deserving of respect because it will honestly take the fly. True, the roach does so too, occasionally; but the dace, any time between June and September, rises regularly. We used to get them in the Colne considerably over 1/2 lb. in weight, and an afternoon's perseverance and a little wading would, in favourable weather, put from twenty to thirty fish into your basket. But it is questionable whether this can be done now. Many a pleasant evening have I spent by Thames-side, beginning at Ham Lane and working upwards, or crossing the river below Richmond bridge; fishing always with fine tackle and a black gnat somewhere on the footline. The finest bit of sport I had with dace was in a mill stream a couple of miles out of Norwich. It was specially welcome because quite unexpected. We were on a pike-fishing excursion, and the fly rod was put into the dog-cart to provide bait for the party. The great mill wheel was revolving, and the pool swirling and foaming, when we arrived, and a few small fish could be detected in the shallow water. The general outlook was not inviting, but the apparatus was put together on the chance of things proving better than they looked. Chance favoured us. The first cast produced a dace on each hook, and in a quarter of an hour I had whipped out a good supply of bait for the trollers and spinners. So long as the dace were rising all the pike in the river could not tempt me to accompany them. I stuck to the whipping, and only left off when I was too tired to wield the rod any more. But enough. It would not be difficult to call up best-day memories of gudgeon, of bleak, and even minnows; of tench, and carp, and bream. The moment for my departure, however, has come. The little mare is ready, the notebook must be closed. There are fifteen miles to be disposed of before dark, and darkness will be upon us in a couple of hours. I can continue my soliloquising as I canter through the bush; there will be no one to disturb me or ridicule me, unless, indeed, the bird named the laughing jackass should make the woods echo with his idiotic chuckle, or the parrots should scream their harsh derision. CHAPTER VI WITH VERDANT ALDERS CROWN'D If you will step across to your bookshelf and take down that volume of Pope's miscellaneous works, you will find the fable of Lodona, and the words which I borrow for a heading. The little man so wrote of the River Loddon, which he quite correctly described also as slow. The Loddon is scarcely a river of itself to inspire a poem, being without cataracts going down to Lodore, not being mountain born, nor overlooked by crag and summit; but it is in an especial degree the kind of stream which pastoral poets have from time immemorial loved to bring in as an indispensable adjunct. Almost any portion of the country watered by this river might have yielded the scenes of the immortal Elegy in a country churchyard, though you may remember that Gray does not in the poem make mention of a river, and only introduces the rill, and "the brook that babbles by" as the habitual resort of the youth whom melancholy marked for her own. But I have heard the curfew toll the knell of parting day while watching the float, have marked the beetle wheel his droning flight (half inclined to chase him to tempt the wayward chub), and have looked upon the lowing herds winding slowly o'er the lea as the signal for bringing the day's delights to a close by winding up my fishing line. "Sweet native stream," Warton calls the Loddon, and that is just the association one familiar with its meads and wooded banks would bear with him in a cherished corner of memory. For the ordinary angler perhaps the river is a trifle too much with "alders crown'd." On the contrary, to the person who can command the use of a boat, and drop down upon the lazy current with a long line ahead of him, those dense defences of the bank become conservators of sport. They are better than a keeper, for they are always there, and cannot by any bribe be seduced from their duty. And more than any other tree the alder is the familiar companion of the angler. Upon some rivers the willow would contest the position, perhaps, but Fate demands that it should run to pollard, and so get too high up in the world to be a close companion to man. We always make friends with the somewhat prosaic and even sombre alder, and, in return, it always has something to show us. All through the autumn and winter it makes as goodly a display as it can with its long barren catkins; in the spring it is thick with the queer black little husks; and in the summer and autumn its defects of shape in the matter of branches are hidden by close, dark, glossy leaves, which sturdily hold on when others have been snatched and scattered. And does not an old poet ascribe to our alder the quality of protector to other growths? The alder, whose fat shadow nourisheth-- Each plant set neere to him long flourisheth. But it is interesting to remember that a still older poet had his eye on the alder, and it is a pretty conceit in which Virgil fixes upon its wood as the origin of shipbuilding. The timber is so easily worked and so handy that it might well have been actually used by primitive man when the gods prodded him on to activity and invention by piling up obstacles and difficulties in his path. Virgil, therefore, had fair warrant for Then first on seas the hollowed alder swam. Spinning tackle and fly casts have I left upon alder bushes of a score of streams, but instead of bearing it any ill-will I hereby offer it humble and sincere homage, especially as in my early days of fly fishing I, in honest faith and unbroken conviction, used one of its juicy leaves for straightening the gut collar. The Loddon, if not important as a navigable stream, or as busy as other rivers in the service of the miller, does a fair share of steady work. Rising in the North Hampshire downs near Basingstoke, the river runs through historical country. Cromwell's troopers, for instance, during the siege of Basing would no doubt water their horses in the fords of the Loddon, and Clarendon, who wrote the history of that rebellion, lived at Swallowfield. Near this village, almost within our own times, lived Mary Russell Mitford, whose delightful book, _Our Village_, neglected for years and almost forgotten, has set sail again before the favouring breeze of the cheap edition. She wrote her sketches at Three Mile Cross, some two miles from Swallowfield, and I refer to them because in the little volume you have faithful scenic pictures of the Loddon country. I have also a personal story to tell, to wit: On returning from one of my visits to Loddon-side I secured through an old friend of Miss Mitford a note in her handwriting, and was not a little impressed and amused on discovering that the envelope in which it was inclosed had been previously used and turned no doubt by the lady herself. It was only by accident--so neatly had the operation been performed--that I saw inside the original address, "Miss Mitford, Three Mile Cross, Reading, Berks." Soon after leaving Swallowfield, the Loddon, passing Arborfield Hurst and Twyford, yields up its life to the Thames by way of a modest delta. Are there anywhere in England larger chub than those of the Loddon? It is not to be supposed that the alders extend their fattening influence to the fish as well as to the plants; but its existence in bush form, and in the serried ranks to which I have above referred, undoubtedly favours the long life of this shy fish. He lies under its overhanging boughs out of the way of even the most daring long corker, and from the leaves during the hot summer days drop unceasing relays of luscious insect food. The Loddon chub are nevertheless extremely voracious at odd times. Pike fishermen often get them with both live and dead bait, and I myself in the unregenerate days of trolling took a big one with gorge bait. An honest-minded chub may anywhere be expected to be led astray by a prettily-vestured minnow, and there is no disgrace attaching to its character if it allows itself to be seduced by a well-spun gudgeon; but to tackle a 4-oz. dead roach, and be ignominiously finished off by a coarse gorge hook, is not exactly what one looks for. Yet this frequently occurred on the Loddon. I rather suspect I had an experience in this direction. A kind friend had invited me to spend a day on the Loddon, not very far from that same Swallowfield of which I have been sentimentalising. We drove in the fresh autumn morning along the charming country road, inhaling the balm of the pines and watching the graceful squirrels at their after-breakfast antics in the oaks. And we congratulated ourselves upon the prospect. There was a little rime on the grass, for I had left town by gaslight, but all other conditions were as favourable as if they had been made to order. There were plenty of bait and a boat at our disposal. My kind friend pointed with a warm smile to a snug hamper in the carriage. The world under these circumstances looked fair. We noticed the yellow mottlings of autumnal decay on the chestnut trees and elms, the ruddier shade of the beeches; we discussed the failure of the blackberry crop, and pretended to knowledge about turnips. Thus, interchanging thoughts, we arrived at the Loddon, to find a deep, dirty brown colour. The world then was not so fair. It was a miserable disappointment, in short, and we had to make the best of it. We found a few jack by trolling in the eddies close to the bank, but the day was to all intents and purposes a blank. In the afternoon my friend pulled me upstream that I might find quiet corners and the very off-chance of a jack. At one part there was a break in my friends, the alders, and a scoop in the bank where the water was deep. Discreetly and naturally I dropped the dead bait, and on the instant it was grabbed and worried. My first impression was that it was a perch. I have known a big perch seize a large bait and shake it in that dog-like fashion, and that impression was confirmed when, instead of the strong run of a straightforward jack, the seizure was followed by jerky movements and very little running out of line. It was no more than I expected that the bait should be by and by impudently deserted. Its head I found to have been savagely bitten half through. From the size of the semi-circular gash the chub or perch, whatever it might happen to be, was no youngster. Upon reflection, and upon re-examination of the wound, my friend, who was an experienced Loddon angler, agreed with me that the fish was a chub. The leather mouth proper of the cheven, chavender, skelly, or chub, scientifically known as _Leuciscus cephalus_, is, as the angler knows, or should know, without teeth, but if you will have the goodness to push your finger down the throat of a freshly-caught three- or four-pounder, you will be more than likely to discover that nature has furnished this innocent-looking member of the carp family with two rows of very decent lacerators. The best result nevertheless of that day's fishing was the receipt in a letter two days later of a specimen of the showy yellow leopard's bane from my friend. We had pointed out to each other solitary wildflowers left alone to tell of a summer that was past, and he had found this somewhat sparingly-located bloom two months overdue for its grave. So many years have passed since I fished Loddon and St. Patrick's stream that I will not be tempted to lead anyone astray by pretending to prescribe, advise, or dogmatise. It was not first-rate in the days of my personal knowledge, but it yielded then as now tolerable coarse fishing, pike and perch being the standing dish; and there are deep, slow-going lengths, natural haunts of heavy roach. A brother angler who knows the river thoroughly had a curious theory about the Loddon perch. With minnow or worm, he truly said, for I can corroborate him, "any quantity" of perch of 1/2 lb. or 3/4 lb. might be caught; but there was also another set of fish of 1 1/2 lb. and upwards--not, of course, of a distinct breed, but still distinct from the smaller grade just mentioned. These rarely took a minnow, but a gudgeon on the paternoster, and on the upper hook thereof, frequently proved fatal to a two-pounder. One July, within my own remembrance, a splendid fellow of 3 lb. 2 oz. was taken with a lob-worm from one of the Loddon milltails. Much of the Loddon is private fishing, as it has always been, but there are still portions accessible to the public. The Loddon is closely associated with the good work done in the whole of that district for preservation in the interests of the angler, and at one time the Reading and Henley Associations jointly rented the length from the Great Western Railway to the Thames (including the St. Patrick stream) with the object of preservation as a breeding ground for Thames fish. A change in riparian ownership put an end to this arrangement, but anglers generally should never forget the time, labour, and enthusiasm devoted to Thames, Loddon, and Kennet preservation by a band of workers, amongst whom I must include as one of the invaluables the friend once or twice referred to in the foregoing notes--Mr. A. C. Butler, of the _Reading Mercury_. In his own district his is a household name, and in many a metropolitan club "Old Butler of Reading" has been familiar for many years as one of those quiet helpers of the cause who work for the sheer love of it. Once upon a time when there was no talk of changes, and no great demand for them, the fishing of the Thames district was the bulk of "Angling" in the columns of the _Field_ and _Bell's Life_, which then almost alone made a serious subject of fishing, and amongst the men who wrote were Greville F., Brougham, and Butler, who was for years and years the _Field_ correspondent long after the others had passed away. As a man barely in his sixties one ought not to dub him a veteran, but for all that he is one of the old guard of angling correspondents and provincial journalists. In a letter from him a week or two since he regrets that rheumatism and journalistic duties have interfered with his outings, but still cheerily mentions "a measly half gross of gudgeon" at Mapledurham, and the year before last he adds "with water dead stale, we had about the same number of gudgeon, and quite sixty roach from 1/2 lb. to 1 1/4 lb." And yet they tell us that the Thames is played out! Three days since I saw a colleague who was going to the City to see a 1/4-lb. roach which had been taken out of the Thames in a bucket at London Bridge the day before. It should be stated that Mr. Butler was with "John Bickerdyke," now in South Africa, and A. E. Hobbs, the hon. secretary, founders of the Henley Association, and co-workers in other directions with his friends, James Henry Clark, Bowdler Sharpe, Thurlow of Wycombe, and many another. He founded the Reading and District Angling Association in 1877, and practically ran it during its successful career; it ended three years ago, but its work remains in the head of fish in the district and a thorough loyalty amongst the working men's clubs which he helped to start and establish. Mr. Butler, too, was the prime mover in stocking the Thames in the Reading district with two- and three-year old trout, buying and bringing the fish from High Wycombe. I know and appreciate his voluntary work for anglers and am glad of an opportunity of recording it. Might one trespass so far on the reader's patience as to return to the inspiration of the beginning of this sketch for a conclusion? The remark of which I would deliver myself is that the artificiality of which the poet Pope is accused in his natural scenery generally applies to his references to sport. He is more sympathetic with his anglers than with his fowlers, but neither appears to kindle the fire as in the lines in which he traces the name of the Loddon to Lodona, the fabled nymph of Diana. Pan's chase of the hapless nymph through Windsor Forest calling in vain for aid upon Father Thames is full of spirit, and he aptly justifies the name of Loddon-- She said, and melting as in tears she lay, In a soft silver stream dissolv'd away, The silver stream her virgin coldness keeps, For ever murmurs, and for ever weeps; Still bears the name the hapless virgin bore And bathes the forest where she rang'd before. It is in "Windsor Forest" that many lines are found by which Pope is perhaps alone remembered by many sportsmen. The references to the well-breathed beagles and the circling hare are happy, and very characteristic of the poet's telling style in the couplet in brackets. Beasts, urged by us, their fellow beasts pursue, And learn of man each other to undo. Equally characteristic of his defects are the shooting touches in which the "unwearyd fowler" is introduced, with the "leaden death" of the "clam'rous lapwings," and the "mounting larks." The glimpse of lonely woodcocks haunting the watery glade is sufficiently apt, but let the shooting man stand at attention when grandiloquently informed. He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye; Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky. Ten lines further in the poem stands the picture which endears Pope to anglers for all time, and which need only be indicated, as in the hymn books, with the first line: The patient fisher takes his silent stand. CHAPTER VII A FIRST SPRINGER AND SOME OTHERS There is no specific virtue that I ever heard of in a first anything, yet you very often hear of it as a remembrance that may be pleasant, and is often otherwise. The sportsman is as prone as anyone to such references, and I defy the fishing or shooting editors of the _Field_ to count off-hand the number of MSS. that they receive headed first salmon, first tiger, first pheasant, or first something. At this moment I seem to have a better understanding of the reason. The heading is used to get rid of the difficulty as to what exactly would be better, and in much the same way as A. is made a member of the Cabinet lest there should be awkwardness over the claims of B. and C. My choice of a title of this sketch is not precisely so to be explained. I simply plead sequence. In a previous chapter I wrote of my first Tweed salmon, and in this chapter there is no reason why I should not fall back upon the dear old formula for a reminiscence of the Tay. The emphasis should be on "springer," for I went northwards with a desire to catch one that had taken the form of a longing, a yearning for many successive seasons. Besides, it was February, when the springer is prized more positively than at a more advanced period of the spring. You will probably get a dozen kelts to one springer, and the fish, therefore, is in the category of the important. By the river report of last Saturday I see that Lord Northcliffe (who will always be Alfred Harmsworth to the republic of the pen, and who always has been a keen and travelled angler) has been rewarded with four salmon, and congratulate while I envy him. In truth, it was this statement in the report that forced me to forget this miserable weather by catching my first springer over again as fondly remembered. The seeker for the springer has not a little call upon endurance, not the least being in the uncertainty of the conditions. How well I know what it means on those beats above Perth when in sleet and gale the river is 15 ft. above the normal, flooding the Inch levels at the beginning of the season, as happened in the early days of this season. In my case the uncertainty was so felt and protracted before starting on my journey. You can understand probably that the feeling of the man who is ready for the summons, yet who is put off by telegrams and letters day after day, gets at last beyond longing; it works up into a sort of innocent fury. An old angler, hampered for many a season, and finding freedom at last, consoles himself with the reflection that passion, too much intenseness about such a matter, will trouble his philosophy never more. Yet one morning he is swept off his feet. A kindly friend has days of salmon fishing for him; fish have run up and are plentiful; he need but wait the signal, and go. What, in all reasonable conscience, could be nicer? But how true it is that there is nothing in life so certain as its uncertainty! Day succeeds day in the customary fashion, and the expected summons cometh not. Those days on fine beats that were set apart for you pass in flood; you tick them off as materials for the book you mean to write on "Chances that I have Missed." "She rose 2 ft. yesterday, but better wait," had wired my friend, and in due time I find that on that very day the man who took my place killed three fish. When I hastened down to the bridge on my arrival to see how she was, the river, which had risen strongly as soon as that three-hour, three-salmon man had got off the beat, had fallen to a point between impossibilities and chances. And the wind had slewed round from south-west to west, with a flirting to north. Here was another day, if not lost, certainly without fishing. Having looked at the river and read my fate in the heavy stream--a mighty race of water, 400 yards from bank to bank--I sought the sight of some salmon, and went to the fish house. The quick returns had not come in that morning, but there were about a hundred salmon laid out on the floor ready for prompt dispatch to market. They averaged 20 lb., but, silvery as they all were, I could pick out the few that had come in that morning. There was one lovely she-fish of about 23 lb., with a ventral fin literally as purple as the dorsal of a grayling, and for suggestions of pearls and opals, maiden blushes, and the like, nothing could have been more perfect than the sheen of this Tay salmon. In another hour the glory would have faded away. And all those fish had been taken by the net. The angler who was lusting for one of them under his rod spake not, and went away sorrowful. But, after all, what would the morrow bring forth? The great river was running down, the night was fair, and there was hope--for the glass was rising, and the wind really had been good enough to get out of the south. As a matter of history, the morrow promised fair things, though I went forth in fear and trembling. The miry ways of the past month had given way to a frost, and we walked across to the station on frozen puddles. Exhilaration was in the air. The glass showed half an inch to the good since last night. Our gillie, who met us at Stanley station, admitted this; yes, but 2 ft. less of water would warrant better confidence. And that was sensible Scottish caution. We got down to the river, and, though the colour was not bad, she was too big and strong. The prospect of even a happening fish was of the poorest. To be brief, the odd fish did not come my way, and there's an end on't. Only two pools were fishable. No boat could be worked in any other part. If I say I fished every inch of the water, first with fly, and then with a small dace spun from the Malloch reel, I simply state facts. Over the pool did I patiently fish with Nicholson and Dusty Miller of large size, and a second time with the spinning bait. Two fish showed during the day, a shockingly black beggar of not less than 30 lb. which jumped out of the water, and another kelt which plunged out of range. It was an absolute blank, and a fall of snow before I caught my train was ominous. There had been a flood of 15 ft. (a favourite figure apparently on that Tay gauge) and it takes any river a long time to settle down, and the fish to resume their ordinary habits, after such riotous excess. Still, I had enjoyed a downright hard day's work, and had deserved the success which was denied. The position, therefore, was--Friday, Saturday, and Monday lost through the unfishable condition of the river, and just a chance on Wednesday if there was no further rise of water. Wednesday was sunny, and the water had fallen about a foot during the night, so that Tay ought soon to be in ply, for another frost occurred in the night, and the snow did not appear to be serious. The order of the head boatman was for harling. You have two boatmen on this river, and they had to exert themselves to the utmost to handle her with so heavy a current. It was my first experience of systematic harling. The rods are out at the stern of the boat, and the angler sits on a cross seat facing them, and so placed that he can lay hands upon either in an instant. Three greenheart rods of about 16 ft. are displayed fanwise; that is to say, there is a rod in the middle extended straight forwards, the rods right and left slant outwards, and they are kept in position by a contrivance in the bottom of the boat into which the button of each rod handle fits, and by grooves on the gunwale on either side in which the rod rests and is kept at the proper angle. The butts of these rods are close together in these appointed niches under the seat in the bottom of the boat, and the points are naturally right, left and centre, widely separated. The fourth rod in this boat was a single piece of greenheart, 6 ft. in length, but admirably made, and in thickness was something like the second joint of an ordinary salmon rod. The workmanship was so good that it was a perfect miniature. This is the rod that is used for a spinning bait, and is placed at the angler's left hand. It was equipped with a sand eel and the gay little metal cap with flanges, which was invented by Mr. Malloch to facilitate the spinning. The 3 in. flies we used were Jock Scott, Nicholson (a favourite Tay fly), and Black Dog. The two men settled to their oars, and I sat before my rods ready to play upon them as occasion arose. We had not been under way five minutes, and I had not finished wondering how the Tom Thumb rod would behave at a crisis, when a sudden test was applied. The winch sang out, and I had the rod up and under mastery in the twinkling of an eye, with the fish running smartly and pulling hard. Meanwhile, the head boatman winched up the other lines and gave me a fair field of action. The fish was evidently not enamoured of that delicate sand eel, for there was a good deal of head shaking for a few minutes. Presently the boat touched shore, and I had by then discovered that the little rod was as good as an 18-footer, and more powerful in holding a salmon than many of full length which I have used. The fight was a good one, though I stuck to my policy of a pound per minute, and it was good to know that it was a clean fish. This was my first springer, and the poor chap had been badly mutilated by a seal in the sea not many days ago, yet they told me that it is no uncommon thing to have salmon so wounded taking freely. Once more on board our lugger, we zigzagged on our course, the men pulling with regular stroke, and though they row sturdily the boat is merely held, and drops down rather than advances. If salmon are not in the humour harling presents the elements of monotony, and the wise plan seems to me not to think of the rods, nor look at them, nor wonder which will be first in action. Such were my thoughts, and I laid out a line of thought as a corrective. Thud, thud, go the oars, steadily nodding by the movement of the waves go the rod tops. Aye, hours of this would suggest a certain sameness, probably. And then came the startling moment that is so delicious, the jump of the flat pebble off the line pulled out upon the bottom boards, the rattle of the check, the strong curve of the rod. It all takes place in a swift moment. You are on your feet and playing your fish as if by instinct. The Jock Scott had attracted this fish, and the familiar process was followed--the stepping ashore, the retreat up the bank backwards, the rod well curved all the while, and the fish held hard, since there was doubly rapid water below, and it must be kept sternly in hand. The gillie did not take up the gaff now, and my hopes were dashed, for it meant that he had recognised a kelt, which must be tailed. And it was tailed, and being freed from the hook was not slow in shooting into the depths. The fish was well mended, and would be taken by most people for a clean salmon. The expert can, on the contrary, deliver judgment at a glance. There remained another hour before luncheon, and the time was not wholly uneventful; at any rate, there were little thrills. A decided pull happened to the Black Dog rod, but the fish was away before I could take it up. A similar bit of frivolity was practised by another fish ten minutes later at my middle rod, which, I forgot to say, had brought the well-mended kelt to bank. Going to land for the midday rest, as it was not quite one o'clock, I put up a rod which I wished to try, and proposed to warm myself with a little casting. The second cast rose a fish close to the bank, and, after allowing the usual time for restoration to confidence, out went the Nicholson, and very bravely did that noble fly work round, swimming, I could swear, on an even keel, and shaking its finery all around in the water. The fly did not reach the fish which had risen, because another was before him, and I knew that the hook had gone home. We thought this was a good fish, and fresh run, albeit he lay low and confined his movements to a small area. Alas! it was kelt number two, and not more than 10 lb. at that. All the same, I had landed three fish of sorts by one o'clock, and enjoyed minor sensations. There was no more fun. We had heard that 3 in. of snow had fallen in the hills a few miles up, and the sun of the forenoon had no doubt melted it. We harled for two hours, and with neither pull nor sign of fish. To-morrow ought to bring the river into fair order; though, even so, a foot less would be more to my mind. The next day opened with a heavy storm of wet snow, and this continued, with intervals of sleet, till the afternoon. It was not expected that this would put the river up, and she was in fact falling very slowly. At this point, however, every inch of drop is to the good. I landed six fish that day, only one a springer. The boats had done better in the reaches where the clean fish lie in such high water, and two gentlemen at night brought into Malloch's five grand springers, caught on the beat which was to have been mine on Friday. The Tay still remained a foot too heavy: Strong without rage, Without o'erflowing full. The novel experience (to me) of salmon fishing in a heavy snowstorm is worth a few words of amplification, for all new experiences add to the interest of the game. It was snowing at breakfast time, and Mr. Malloch was so kind as to snatch a day from the demands of his own affairs to share my boat, and from the way he and the boatmen took the storm as a simple matter of course--indeed, as not calling of a casual comment--I take it that up here, at the foot of the Grampians, they are used to this sort of pleasure. But sea and fresh water anglers all over the world need not be reminded that a wet boat is an abomination; what, then, must it be when it is caused by hours of snowfall, large flakes softly wet? Everything gets drenched and sopping, and it really appeared as if these white hazelnut flakes were possessed by an elfish desire to baffle your most careful efforts to keep them out. My waterproof bag was to the human eye impervious; but there was one unnoticed opening not an inch long by half an inch wide, and the flakes discovered it at once. There was a japanned metal fly box upon which they might have had their will, but that was not sufficient; they fixed upon the soft leather wallet with the precious gut casts, and made a much too successful attack upon the paper packet of sandwiches. At the waterside I had looked at my companions, expecting them to cry off; as I said before, however, this almost blinding snow was merely ordinary business, and I huddled down in my place, thankful that there was no cold wind, no wind at all, to drive the trial home. We were soon turning to shore with our first fish, and I was grateful for the stout arm and shoulders of the friendly skipper, who helped me out of the slippery boat, up and up to a standing point on the more slippery bank. On this beat the banks were awkward, high, and backed by copse, so that you stood amongst undergrowth, and this was a very different thing from the gentle slopes of clear sward. It came all right, nevertheless; in life generally the wind undoubtedly very often, if we had but the common gratitude to think so, is tempered to the shorn lamb. Wherefore the old bell wether got through these trifles without a tumble. The incidents that had to be deplored were what the salmon fisherman calls the kelt nuisance. We had it in liberal allowance this day. It would be wearisome to enter into details of the successive happenings so great is their family resemblance. The first landing was to get rid of a kelt; and in all, if I may anticipate, we had five of them--a small fish of, say, 6 lb., and the rest between 12 lb. and 15 lb. Now and again with the kelts you have a positive fight, but as a rule they hang on and move tardily, yet without risk of smashing something you cannot hasten the finale. At the worst they are a little better than pike. The one bonny spring fish was an absolute contrast, though of course even clean salmon in February are not so defiant and reckless in their defiance as they are months later. Let us still be thankful; a kelt is better than nothing, a spring fish is welcome, and we must be content with such chances as we can obtain. Consider the time consumed on a short winter day by six landings. There is the getting in the other lines by winching them up, making bait and fly fast to the winch bar, rowing to shore, sometimes from the middle of a 200 yards' river, and securing adequate foothold ashore. The fish is to be firmly controlled with a bent rod all the while, and when he comes in there is no decisive finish with the cleek, since your kelt must have his freedom unharmed if possible. The dexterity with which the boatmen carry out these operations is marvellous, the result of being masters of their calling combined with long practice; also because they have the soul of the sportsman almost to a man. The cost of six landings, in fact, works out at nearly half an hour a time, and the reward on this particular day was one good fish of 18 lb., which had taken a Black Dog. The flies were most attractive, and there were some pulls at tails of bait or feathers, two or three rises, and a respectable fish which remained for five minutes on one of the baits. By a pull, let me explain, I mean the rattle of the reel for a fraction of a minute, a sharp dip of the rod top, and the bait or fly resuming its progress "as you were." To end this narrative I must not forget the novel effect of the snow clinging to the tree tops. The firs high up the steeps on either side for a couple of hours looked as if they had burst into rich white blossom in full bearing. The small sleet, which followed in the afternoon as a natural fizzling out of the storm, and a warm wind quickly did their duty, and we had the pleasure of seeing the pines shed their blossoms before our eyes; they fell with melancholy drip down to the carpets of rotting leaves, leaving the trees to their funereal winter black. One other musing of the day. There is a legend in Nithsdale that Burns used to go a-fishing when he lived at Dumfries. If so, it is quite possible that his famous poetic idea came to him one day while fishing, perhaps with a brother exciseman: And like a snowflake on the river, One moment here, then gone for ever. Friday brought a contrast indeed. A sharp frost hardened up the country during the night--and the sun rose boldly into a cloudless sky without any shilly-shally before nine o'clock. It was along iron-bound roads, with the meltings of yesterday converted to ice, that I drove to my allotted beat. There was a wonderful change from yesterday; the golden plover on the flats were not briskly moving on the moistening turf as before, though flocks of woodpigeons were astir. The pure snow, which remained on the low land, was crisp and sparkling, diamonding a fair white world. The river had fallen, of course, since the snow of yesterday had made no difference. The evidence was plain enough. You read it in the green margin glistening against the snow line sinuously left along the banks. Tay looked beautifully black, moreover, and the boatmen said "They ought to come." But I never knew salmon take properly till a frosty day has well advanced. On this bright day I resolved to try to write up my notes, in the fervent hope that every good sentence would be spoiled by a summons from one of the four rods of which I was in command. For one hour my pencil wrought without a pause, and delightful it was under the sunshine to indite to the steady strokes of two pair of oars, the rhythmic swish of the water, now tranquilly flowing, and easy for all of us. Fortunately our most unlikely water came first, and all the while the frost would be getting out of the water. It was a very heavy reach, and Tay was still too big for such; fish would be lying lower down, and those that we were rowing over would not take well. Those five lovely springers that I mentioned before must have come out of a particularly favourable stretch. That is part of the glorious uncertainty of it all. The boat of to-day, for example, accounted yesterday for one solitary kelt, though it had shared our experience of futile pulls and visible rises in the afternoon. Now if---- Ah! The shrill tongue of Tom Thumb's reel gave a welcome view holloa (half-past eleven) and the sentence I was pencilling remains unfinished. I have forgotten what it would have been. By this time the motions of a kelt had become familiar, and I liked not the docility with which this fellow allowed himself to be towed to land, nor his inertness when I had him in grip afterwards. My verdict I gave in a look at the headman, and his confirmation of my unspoken thought was, "Yes; he's too quiet." Yet it was a long while before I could get him up sufficiently for recognition beyond doubt; that accomplished, it was short shrift. He was lifted into the boat by the tail, the triangles came out easily under the knife, and off went a well-mended fish of about 13 lb. That is to say, I call him a fish; the boatmen decline to render even this nominal honour, and I appear in the returns of yesterday as having killed one fish, whereas I had landed half a dozen. And now followed an unproductive hour, at the end of which there were two ineffectual pulls, one at the Nicholson fly, the other a second or two later at the bait. The former was not enough to rattle off the stone from the loop of line; the latter ran out a yard and merely ticked the winch. The sunshine was not treating us as handsomely as the snowstorm, for by this time yesterday we had brought off three engagements. However, the day was not over, and we landed for lunch, believing that better fortune would be vouchsafed--lunch, too, in open, warm sunshine. Harling and the notebook were resumed, and lest we should settle down too readily to monotony, a flutter down stream betrayed the whereabouts of the Black Dog, betrayed also a wretched little kelt (about 5 lb.), called in these parts a "kelt grilse." So far had I noted when the left rod, upon which the fly had been replaced by a sand eel, strained for a gallant run. Down on the thwart went book, pencil, and spectacles, and I had an exciting five minutes in midstream with an undoubted "fish." He fought like a Trojan--and then the line fell slack. The fish was off. How do they escape from these triangles? Caught lightly by one hook, I suppose, and, as a result, an easily broken hold. The sun was for a couple of hours too bright, and four o'clock came with nothing to record. Only one hour left. Then a succession of short runs from non-fastening fish, and one lightly hooked on the fly, which came away at the initiatory tightening. By now half an hour remained, and an exciting finish consumed it. I do not admit that it was wasted; I only mean that "fish" was not the cause. Kelts were. The centre rod with the Black Dog briskly rang me up, and I leaped to the call with "Got him!" "So have I," cried the head man. Tom Thumb had found a fish, and we were each busy for a while. The men had all they could do to get the boat to land and winch in the two loose lines. But it was done, as usual, promptly and cleverly. I was too intent upon my own fish, the heaviest I had battled with that day, to see how it was done; suffice that there was no hitch. We both stepped ashore. The head man worked his fish above me, and, it being a small 10-pounder, soon threw it in again, and his mate was free to come down to me. We all knew it was a kelt, and get him to spurt or be lively I could not. He lay low and solid till patience had done its perfect work, and in he came. There was an end of my back-ache when the rod and I could straighten ourselves and leave the men to tail out the fish. They hurled him in regardless of his feelings, and, indeed, like gentlemen whose honour had been sorely wounded. "Eighteen pounds, wasn't he?" I ventured to remark very humbly as they turned their contemptuous back on the fish floundering awhile in the shallow. "Weel, saxteen punds, maybe," was the reply. These kelts, anyhow, left us no time for further operations. The sun had been so effective that it had changed the outlook all around in a few hours by restoring the land to its original green and brown. Business done, as "Toby, M.P.," puts it--four landings, six pulls, two fish hooked and lost, one of them, of course, the fish of this or any other season. I shall always maintain it was a "fish." That night I had a chat with a brother angler, who had made a grand bag, and he introduced me to his friend who had enjoyed the success of the novice in killing a beautiful fish of 22 lb. There was not long to wait on Saturday morning. The first line to be put out was at the left hand, baited with sand eel, and I had barely touched the next to lift it from its groove when the winch at the left screamed as if hurt. The fish was on, but it was proclaimed at once an insignificant one. Still, the rites and ceremonies must be duly observed; the boat must go to shore, the angler must step over the thwarts and stand on _terra firma_. All this trouble for a kelt of about 6 lb. After the lapse of an hour Tom Thumb gave signal. The gudgeon, which had a wobbling spin, had been touched twice already by short comers; now it was fairly taken just as the boat was turned on its zigzag course. For anything I could feel it might be a trout. It ran out a few yards, and meekly came in to slow winching. The same lack of spirit was maintained even when I landed, but a surprise came as I retired further up the brae, for the fish sharply resented the liberty I was taking with him, as if he objected to my contempt. In truth, he inspired my respect during the next ten minutes--ran across and down, and generally bucked up, as a modern school miss would say. He gave up dawdling, and fought it out briskly. By and by we got a glimpse of a flash of silver, and it was an undoubted fish. The gaff, which I had not seen yesterday, now appeared, and the second boatman stood by with the priest to administer the quietus to a lovely spring salmon of 17 lb. Within a quarter of an hour I was rudely roused from a reading of _The Fair Maid of Perth_ by the sand eel rod to the left, and here was a fish powerful and alert from the start. He was held hard, but took out line persistently; if I winched up a few yards they were torn angrily off again. And so the contest was maintained, and intensified when I stood on the turfy slope. It was encouraging to see the men step forth with gaff and priest again. For twenty minutes the salmon kept down and never quiet, and then very slowly I winched up the fifty yards which had been taken out in instalments. The silver swirl satisfied us all, and presently the career of a stately 19-pounder was ended. After luncheon we put out again, and I was tolerably certain that if no other fish came to boat I should not break my heart nor die of grief. The taking of that handsome pair of spring salmon was an admirable tonic, and I resumed my Scott in a contented mood. After three chapters the mood was not quite the same; after a fourth I felt somewhat ill-used. Two hours, in short, passed, and the wind had veered round to the north. In other words, it was cold. Tom Thumb warmed me up eventually; its gudgeon had been taken, and I had something in secure custody. A big one, at any rate, of what quality we should determine later. I had grave doubts, however, of the issue, for he terminated each run by coming to the top and swirling there most uncannily. Patience and the butt in time revealed him the best fish of the day, and I heaved a sigh of relief and sat down on a rock for breath when the gaff lifted him out, the priest shrived him, and the balance stood at 20 1/2 lb. A truly handsome leash of salmon! CHAPTER VIII ANGLING COUSINS AT THE VICARAGE The girls seemed to have moderated their zeal for the bicycle, and in truth it was too hot to last. Then they were all for angling, and for this we had to thank certain books recently reviewed and the vicar of Netherbate. It fell to a useful cousin's lot to purchase the books. The girls were intensely interested in Mr. Dewar's _South Country Trout Streams_, because they knew most of the Hampshire country so pleasantly described, and they liked the photographs, one of the two readers being herself a kodakeer of no mean skill. It was the illustrations, too, of Mr. Halford's Marryat edition of _Dry Fly Fishing_ that pinned their attention to that work for at least two hours. They wondered not a little at the attitude of the dry-fly gentleman as he is photographed doing the overhand cast, downward cut, steeple cast, and dry-switch, and under the vicar's tuition fell in love with the Mayfly plate, not excluding the uncanny larvae likenesses. The reverend monitor, indeed, proposed that they should drive forthwith over to the Trilling, a chalk stream tributary at the further limit of the estate, and dredge in the mud, or whatever their home may be, for the beasts themselves. To keep to the story, it must be stated that after this interlude the girls came to Lord Grey's _Fly Fishing_, the attractive _avant coureur_ of the Haddon Hall Library. The vicar, who had dissuaded them from end-to-end reading of Halford's standard book because it was strong meat and they were babes (apologising in his cheery way for talking shop in such a connection), dealt out quite the contrary advice about Lord Grey's book, not because the author is an eminent statesman and titled, or because it was the best looking, but by reason of its glamorous word pictures of the country. He artfully picked out passages that, having no reference at all to fishing, very poetically touched off the six great blossoms of May, and the singing summer birds easily espied amongst the young leaves and sprouting brushwood; the long days and warm nights of June, when the wild rose is a beauty to be admired, and the distant masses of elder have a fine foamy appearance. These extracts settled Belinda offhand, and she and Lamia laid their heads together and read the book faithfully. They are good girls, spite of the names selected for them by a fanciful parent, and if they are not proud of those names, and prefer being called by their intimates Blind (with a short "i") and Lammy, there is, I hope, no great harm done. That is better no doubt than the Miss Blinders and Miss Lame-ears of the cottage folk. The practical issue of this study of fishing literature (for which also cousin had to pay) and this not-minding of his own parochial business by the vicar (dredging hideous larvae, forsooth, when he ought to be a-fishing of men) may be reckoned at very little change out of a bank note--for cousin. It is true that this is a minor matter, and in a measure a somewhat sordid consideration. Also, I am anticipating a little. Perhaps I ought to have at once made it clear that the really practical issue of the aforesaid was an insistence on the part of the girls that they should be taught fly fishing, and equipped with the correct "things" (their expression not mine), for a new diversion; it must be done immediately, expense not to be considered. The vicar was strong as to the hang-the-cost doctrine, and this he said knowing that cousin would see his ten-pound note no more for ever. Perhaps the reader will comprehend why cousin was passing sore; he paid the piper, and the vicar evidently meant to dance to the tune. In plain phrase, he undertook, if cousin would drill them sufficiently into the mysteries of fly fishing, to lead them into action in earnest during the approaching Mayfly time. Wherefore cousin fitted them out with rods, winches, lines, casts, and flies. But he drew the line at waders, as not being in the department of a mere he-cousin. With curious indiscretion he brought home a tackle-maker's catalogue, with the "things" which he considered generously requisite. Then the girls consulted the pamphlet, and, backed of course by the vicar, insisted that a silver spring balance in morocco case (to weigh up to or down from 4 lb.), an oil bottle for odourless paraffin, and other small trifles were needful. Cousin gave them all credit for gratitude evinced after his second trip to town, and any reader must give him credit for the honest pleasure that was his recompense. They were satisfied for the time being, as the reader will readily understand. "A very neat little rig-out indeed, my dear," said B. to L., the vicar corroborating like the sound of a small amen. For a while the donor resolutely declined to buy split-cane rods, deeming high-class greenhearts sufficient for beginners, though the vicar argued that it was always wise in tuition to begin as you intend to proceed. This casuistry cousin heeded not. "Very well, my dear fellow," he said airily, "you know best. We shall have the Mayfly up in about a month; the girls will know how to use a rod by then, and you'll simply have to buy split canes after all. _You_ use a split cane, _I_ use a split cane, and you must be deplorably ignorant of girl nature if you suppose they will be content with greenhearts two minutes after they have seen our rods put together." Such an argument the young man respected, and, relenting, he bought split-cane rods. Light gun-metal winches, 30 yards of tapered line, and the regulation etceteras were completed by a couple of waterproof bags of the finest material, as taking more kindly to the female form than a hard, bumping, stick-out creel. As was explained to Blind, there would be always someone to look after the fish caught, if any; the bag was for fly-book, scent bottle, spring balance, and trifles of that kind, never forgetting fine cutting pliers in case of accidents with fingers, lips, noses, or ears hooked foul. The preliminary lessons being rudimentary and in the nature of drudgery were of course entrusted to cousin. They were to be imparted, to begin with, on the smooth sward of the bowling green. The girls required to be persuaded a little to this humble curriculum, which, in truth, is a comfortable, serviceable, and labour-saving way of mastering the rudiments. Granted it is make-believe, yet not more than practising at a target. The pupils at last were convinced that it was a sensible means to an end, and began with a flower-pot saucer varying yards up the lawn. Blind took almost naturally to the trick of allowing the rod to have its natural way. It was wonderful how after a quarter of an hour she intuitively understood what to do. But that was her nature; as a child she was never flustered, and at the first trial her leisurely sweep, with the needful pause of the line in air behind her, was admirable. She did, in fact, at the outset what many an experienced angler has never thoroughly acquired. Lammy, on the contrary, was hard to coach; that is her nature, too; she always was so impetuous. From the bare line they advanced to a gut cast and hackled fly with filed-off barb, and Blind could deftly drop the palmer into the saucer at twelve yards days before her sister could get out the line with anything like an approach to straightness. The time arrived for applied science, and cousin director bade the girls don those waders which they had clamoured to use even on the lawn, and come away to the stream. It was fortunate that they had a shallow which, for practical essays in casting, was a nice compromise, as a position for throwing a fly, between the unnatural level of the lawn and the elevated banks of an ordinary trout river. There was a bridge spanning a smart run of knee-deep water, and above a beautiful broad shallow, aglow with white ranunculus blossoms, growing out of yellow sand held together with small gravel perpetually washed by crystal clear water. The damsels had to do their best with shortened walking dresses until certain smart clothes, about which there had been many whisperings, came down from the tailor; and in they went, skirts notwithstanding, like merry children as the stream rippled and gurgled four inches or so above the feet, which were encased in dainty rubber combination waders. Bless the maiden, how delighted Blind was in delivering her first real cast with a real artificial fly on real water! They had not yet attempted the mysteries of dry fly; a fat alder on a No. 1 hook was honour enough for a beginning. A red spinner, in compliment to one who was a spectator, first chosen, alighted and floated well, but swiftly came down to the fair practitioner. Some trouble followed in gaining the delicate touch of line and winch, and knack of recovery essential to workmanlike up-stream casting, but the amiable pupil, being a listener rather than a talker, was quick to learn, and the lesson was over when the vicar arrived. To him Lammy soon contrived to explain that she was left on the bank, or, rather, paddling below in the shallow, ignored and lamenting. They were therefore left to operate in company while the others crossed the bridge and sought fresh water a little higher up the shallow. Though there was no idea of catching fish that evening, fortune smiled upon the placid Blind. Obeying cousin's order to drop the fly between two well-defined patches of weed up-stream, she achieved a neat cast straight and clean to the desired spot. The fly, with the evening light showing it startlingly distinct, had not travelled three inches before something took it fiercely, and the winch was heard as sweet harmony. Neither of the operators had reckoned upon this. Cousin dared not speak at such a momentous crisis. Blind was startled into a little "oh," and, as he might have been sure without protestations, she kept cool, and remembered precisely the order of procedure which he had expounded in theory at odd times on the lawn--point of rod raised, winch left free but still at ready command, fish to be humoured, and no excitement. The battle was really over if she maintained her presence of mind, and in this she failed not. The rod top was nid-nodding sweetly, the hand gently turning the reel handle, the fish held and guided. All was well. "What shall I do, cousin, now?" she asked. "Take it easy," he answered from the bank; "walk gently out towards me, don't slacken the line, and don't hurry the fish." And successfully done as formulated. Blind was throughout mistress of the situation, and in the absence of a landing net, which had not entered for a moment into calculations, she backed in perfect order up the gentle slope, and the fish docilely followed her up and up till it was high and dry, gasping on blossoms of silver weed. It was only a grayling, to be sure, black, and out of condition; but there it was, admired and petted. Blind would have kissed the creature I do believe if spectators had not been present; anyhow she would not hear of return to the water. What was close time to her? It was the first captive of her bow and spear, and nothing would content her but embalming, and a glass case. Lammy was not so happy as her sister that night; the vicar had tried almost in vain to induct her into the art of fishing up-stream, and her casts across, on wet fly principles, while not so very bad for a beginner, were so obvious a contrast to those of Blind that she was not eager to dwell too much upon the wonderful luck that had befallen. Much conversation ensued for days as to the approaching Mayfly carnival. The girls demanded the water to themselves during its period, and as Lamia had landed a small trout that had hooked itself down stream on a submerged olive dun, she was soon as much bitten with the fishing mania as Blind herself. It was comforting to the vicar and cousin to be informed by the girls that they would henceforth accept no services from "hangers-on"--meaning that they would do their own landing and basketing. "We shall see," said cousin to the parson; "meanwhile (after I have bought the correct article in landing nets) we shall be having a lively time, I can perceive, when the old man slouches up some evening to say 'Mayfly be up now, missie.'" "Aye, they are still faithful to the gentle art." Seasons had flown with that year's Mayflies, and Netherbate and its kindly people had to me become just a pleasant remembrance. But spite of the archidiaconal hat and gaiters I knew the vicar when accidentally met on the platform of York Station, and his reply to one of my questions about the happy people at Netherbate was precisely as I have written it. Of course the calls of romance had been fully answered by the marriage of Lamia to the vicar, and Belinda to cousin, and sunshine had blessed them all in basket and in store. I was now to learn that while the parties were still free they had continued their angling studies and practice, duly progressing from wet to dry fly, from trout to salmon. "In fact," said the archdeacon, "I have had a letter from your old pal 'Blinders' this very day, telling me that she landed a Tweed fish yesterday above Kelso, and her boy was allowed to hold the rod while the boat rowed ashore. Lamia started by the train just now to join in her fishing, and I am left to the dubious excitements of the Congress. So glad to see you looking so well! Adieu." CHAPTER IX A CONTRAST IN THAMES ANGLING My personal knowledge of the Thames trout is not profound; but if it has left me somewhat short of the affection which many anglers proclaim, it has inspired a high respect; and if my interest in him is not precisely direct, I always have been able to sympathise keenly with his multitude of lovers and admirers. On this entrance upon another Thames trout season I have him in my thoughts, and am pleased to know that his status, character, and honour are on the whole nothing diminished as the years revolve. In the past I have, indeed, seen something of Thames trouting, and though I have, by lack of opportunity, not engaged largely in it, yet have formed ideas upon the subject that may be formulated as a seasonable topic. Also I have reason to remember this fish as figuring in one of the curious printer's errors of my early journalism. In a special big-type article in a daily paper I had glorified the breed and the business by the magniloquent demand "Who that has battled with a fine Thames trout in a thundering weir will ever forget, etc., etc.?" The step from the sublime to the ridiculous appeared next morning in the rendering "Who that has _bathed_ with, etc., etc." The ichthyologists who have made a study of the interesting salmon family have, perforce, unanimously agreed that the Thames trout is of the house of Brown: is in a word a true _Salmo fario_. But these learned gentlemen seem to have overlooked the equally undeniable fact that there are three distinct species of this excellent fish. First comes the Thames trout of the professional fisherman. Of this class there is an untold number. Their movements are keenly watched, and often chronicled with surprising minuteness. They are liberally scattered over every likely district from Teddington upwards, and there is a degree of familiarity with their habits, on the part of local observers, that at once whets our appetite and craves our admiration. You hear about them often by the riverside. At six o'clock yesterday morning a fish of 7 1/2 lb. appeared at the tail of the third stream from the right bank and disported for the space of an hour amongst the trembling bleak. He was rather short for his weight, and had remarkably white teeth. Later on, another of 5 lb., full weight, with a cast in his left eye, took a leisurely breakfast at the edge of yonder scour. Three trout, that can only be spoken of as "whoppers," are beyond question in possession of this pool; others are to be found between four and six of the afternoon at home in hovers, the whereabouts of which are known to a nicety. The gambols and predatory raids of this class of Thames trout afford great excitement and pleasure to the observant passers-by, and there is no doubt in the world that our friends are not always romancing with regard to them. Yet it may not be gainsaid that the Thames trout of the professional fisherman is but too often a Mysterious Unknown to the angler, and a creature never to be dissected by mortal fingers. A second species of Thames trout is that of the unsuccessful angler. Hieing him blithely in the sweet spring morning to the waterside, the angler beholds this fine specimen to great advantage--by the eye of faith. His step quickens as, in all its magnificent proportions, it flashes before his inner vision. Saw you ever such brilliant vesture, such resplendent fins? By the time the sanguine sportsman has clambered over the rails in the third meadow, the line of hope has run out from the winch of imagination, and he has mentally struck that trout, played it, brought it to the rim of the net, played it yet again, and finally, after a battle heroic in its every detail, beheld it gracefully curved in the friendly meshes, and transferred to a grassy couch, to be the envy of his club and the boast of his family, even to the third and fourth generation. This also is a numerous species, for there is not a member of the great army of Thames anglers who has not, in this manner, seen specimens during the first three or four hours of that day which witnesses the spiritless return of the bearer of an empty basket. The third species of Thames trout is of a more substantial kind, and although as to its quality we may allow ourselves to be as enthusiastic as the most hearty of Thames trout worshippers, we dare not blink at the cruel fact that, as to quantity, it ranks far below the two other species to which I have so charitably and gently referred. What it may be to-day I know not, but in my time there was not a more likely spot than Boveney Weir for one of these goodly Thames trout in the flesh. From the sill over which the river churns into a splendid mass of milky foam, past the island, and for a couple of hundred yards down the water looks as much like the correct thing as any reach can do. But even in fishing matters, perhaps in them more especially, things are not always what they seem, and, reduced to the practical test of results, Boveney Weir, in the estimation of many practical anglers, is not now what it was, and decidedly not what it ought to be. On the Saturday after a Good Friday, which fell in April, one of the experts, as he worked a delicious little bleak in a most artistic fashion down the middle of the weir, bemoaned himself in my hearing on this account. Yet he could not complain. He had caught a trout on the previous Monday. And it has come to this! A man who evidently understands how to do it takes one fish in the course of a week, and, being conscientious, admits that he will not sin by complaining. In the course of an hour, four gentlemen, nicely equipped with spinning rods, arrived at the scene of action, and paid out in the orthodox way at the head of the weir. I could see that they had been having brave sport with the above-mentioned species Number Two; but, so long as I remained, that was the sum total of their spoil. One could almost observe, by the gradual melancholy which settled upon their countenances as the time went on with no thrilling rap to make the top of the limber rod dance again, the hopeless fading out of these unsubstantial specimens from even the imagination. The east wind of course had been against everything ever since the trout season opened, and it was not surprising to learn that; though the weir had been well fished from All Fools' day onwards, only six fish had been taken, and they of the smallest size. A Thames trout of 2 1/2 lb. is regarded as a mere minnow by the man who has drunk the deep delight of landing a fish of the normal weight of 6 or 7 lb.; yet this seemed to have been the average. Put it down to the east wind by all means. An honest Thames trout, properly educated up to the modern standard, would be unworthy of the confidence of the great metropolitan angling clubs if he so violated piscatorial law as to allow himself to be caught under such conditions, and it is but charity to suppose that these legally sizable but morally undersized fish were giddy youths, upon whom the example of the veterans, poising themselves steelproof in the current, yet virtueproof against temptation, was sadly thrown away. Fish or no fish, it is, nevertheless, worth something to stand awhile at the head of the weir and indulge in those soothing reveries which a running stream provokes. You cross the lock, and by the permission of the lockkeeper (whose good temper is sorely tried these holiday times by the incessant passage of pleasure boats, bound for Surley, and maybe Monkey Island) pass over the pretty island, and enter upon the plankway which communicates with the further bank. The weir is broad, and its construction such that the heavy body of water from above stampedes through at your feet in magnificent force. Shout at your topmost pitch of voice if you would carry on a conversation with the roar of the swirl in the listener's ears. No fewer than seventeen distinct floods are pouring between the beams with never two escaping alike. As different are they as the current of our individual lives; now quietly gliding in, but not off, the racket on either side; now confidently asserting themselves by a semi-turbulent merriness; now all babble and bubble and surface; now dark, deep, and masterful through hidden force under a calm countenance; now tearing, and dashing, and running away with quickly scattered impulse. Yonder, the sleeping island o'ershadowed by trees on the left, and the high indented bank on the right, seem to gather these diverse streams within their arms and reduce them to something like uniformity of purpose. And then, looking up and around from the seething pool, you see the stately grey towers of Windsor rising above the land, and the level meadows stretching green towards the eminences made picturesque by the woods. The tradition amongst the fishermen is that Boveney Weir is full of "rum uns." This I take to be a confession of faith in the existence of large trout, and at the same time a delicate compliment to their wariness. All Thames trout are wary, and it is probably their outrageous artfulness which adds to the rapture of circumventing them. Old Nottingham George would tell many a tale of cunning trout which had been angled for so often and pricked so many times that they were supposed to have become as learned in the matter of fishermen and fishing tackle as humanity itself. The reader may not have read, or, reading, may have forgotten, that the principles of the Thames Angling Preservation Society were very early applied to Boveney Weir, for it is written that William, the son of Richard de Windsor, in the first year of the thirteenth century, gave a couple of marks to the king, in order that the pool and fishery might be maintained in no worse a condition than it used to be under the reign of Henry II. Spinning for Thames trout, which is undoubtedly the most legitimate way of treating them, seeing that they so little appreciate the beauties of an artificial fly, is an art that requires perhaps more patience than skill. Your bleak, dace, gudgeon, minnow, or phantom, in point of fact, humoured fairly into the stream, does its own work; but anyone who watches the old-timers at such weirs as Eton or Boveney must perceive that there are many degrees of such science as the catching of a Thames trout demands. No doubt it is delightful to sit on a weir-head, reading your favourite author, while the rod is conveniently placed to give early notice of a run. It is delightful, but it is not angling. The most dunder-headed trout of the pool, at sight of a silvery bait racing apparently for dear life half out of water, yet never advancing, must metaphorically place its forefinger along its snout, and with a leery wink sheer off into the deep. The majority of anglers seem too readily satisfied when their bait spins, whereas their chief aim should be to produce a movement as true to nature as possible, They spin too fast by half, not sufficiently calculating the varying force of the streams, and I am convinced that one of the most common faults of Thames spinners for trout and pike is working too near the surface. "Spin as deep as the character of the water will allow you" will be found in the long run a wholesome rule to follow, and, rather than keep on spinning in the same water, it will pay the angler to cease fishing for half an hour and begin anew with a bait as unlike its predecessor as he can make it. I can never fully understand the frequent admission, "He was a fine fish, but he got off." The breaking away of a lusty trout upon whom the fine line has been too heavily strained, or who has been hooked with rotten tackle, is explainable enough. It is a natural consequence. The "getting off" of such a fish is quite another matter, and argues something, in nine cases out of ten, radically wrong in the disposition of the hooks. You often see three or four triangles so fixed to the bait that only by accident can one of them get into the mouth of the fish, and not a half of one _deserves_ to get in. There is no sense in having the hooks too small, and, if I may venture to offer one more opinion, no spinning flight for trout is perfect which has not a hook or hooks clear of all impediment at the tail. About the tackle and methods of fishing for Thames trout there is nothing new to say. Of late years the use of the live bait with fine snap tackle, and on Nottingham principles, has prevailed to an increasing extent, but the familiar style of spinning from the weir beams still holds its own. It presents a minimum of toil, and the rushing water helps you so much that it appeals irresistibly to the happy-go-lucky instincts of the fair-weather sportsmen, who are probably, after all, a majority of Thames trout fishers. Our friends are persevering, but they persevere in the wrong way, contenting themselves by fishing the same water from morning to night, instead of working the bait far and near with constant change of tactics. The Thames trout is particularly cute, and is not such a fool as to be taken in by a little fish that is always twiddling at one place, in a strongly running current, yet never gets an inch forward. A good Thames man spins his bleak everywhere, steadily and naturally, into eddies, close to piles, under trees, near the banks. The glittering object is never at rest, but flutters hither and thither, covering new ground with every yard of advance. * * * * * * More through lack of opportunity than dislike, intention, or design, I have not, at least to the present time, enjoyed my full share of fishing from a punt, or in the river Thames. On the few occasions when I have sought it the experience has therefore been a little peculiar, like that of going to school to learn something. Together with the very proper keenness of the fisherman who wants to justify himself with the rod, there have been a spice of inquisitiveness, the wide open eye of inquiry, the sense of something not quite familiar, in such days as I have spent in a Thames punt. My acquaintance with barbel is also so limited that it counts for little. In a well-known barbel hole of the Kennet I fished in vain; once in April I caught a gravid specimen spinning for trout in a Thames weir; while spinning for pike I have hooked small barbel foul by the tail as they stood on their heads at the bottom of a mill pool when the wheel was stopped. This acquaintance, in fact, was intermittent and casual. But I bear in mind one day of close intimacy with the strong, sporting barbel; and on this March morning, when the windows are being bombarded with snow, hail, and sleet, making it, I trust, bad for the Zeppelins, I intend to lose myself in the impressions of that one instance of intimate terms with the fish. It must have been in late autumn, for I seem to hear a sad sobbing of wind from the elms, and a whispered dispersal of decayed leaves, loosened by recent white frosts. I remember, too, that the professional fisherman, Hawkins, was very hopeful. He said his comrade, Jorkins, on the previous day, with two patrons from town, had had fine sport amongst the barbel, although the fish did not run particularly large, and he added that he had often known before, in previous years, a sudden eruption of cold weather sharpen the appetites of the fish and bring them on, as he termed it, headlong, for a fortnight or three weeks. After all, there is something pleasant and soothing to the middle-aged and somewhat lazy man in sitting upon a Windsor chair in a punt, with pleasant objects to look at on either bank, with a tranquilly flowing stream between, and an occasional boat or barge moving up or down. The Castle, the familiar church, and the customary house-tops, were prominent features in the picture; and now and then the distant scream of a railway whistle and rumble of a train came in to save us from imagining that we were altogether in the country. Then, it is not disagreeable to the lazy man to have a fisherman (especially when it is a good handy man like Hawkins) fussing about, and handling the nasty baits, and making himself generally useful, as the deft-handed and willing professional so well knows how to do when afloat. All this, of course, was very well for a while. We looked round upon the prospect, and discussed it. We made inquiries of the fisherman as to whether the swallows had all departed for their winter quarters. We inquired who lived in yonder mansion, and heard a long tale about the owner having made money by inventing a wonderful kind of automatic blacking-brush. As the story fizzled out, the leger lines having been down for some little time, I thought, and not without reason, that I saw the point of my rod trembling. Surely enough it was a bite, but, as Hawkins suggested (doubtless borrowing the pun from some bygone customer), it might have been an audacious dace. At any rate, the only result we achieved at that particular time was the necessity of affixing another lob-worm to the hook, and the casting out of the bulleted line again. This story, together with the hearty way in which Hawkins expressed his contempt for the patentee of the blacking-brush and his family, was so interesting and amusing that I looked at him instead of at my fishing rod; and as he at the same time looked at me, the position was left unguarded, and we were both of us recalled from the realms of scandal by a vigorous plunge of the rod-top. It was a sharp "knock," in fact, followed by a series of tugs, so violent that the rod rattled on the edge of the punt. There was no merit on my part in getting that barbel, for the fish had hooked himself, and had gone down stream at racing speed, before I could get command of him. This, let me tell the young angler, is a dangerous position to be in. The handling of a rod under such circumstances, with a fine line like that with which you always ought to fish for barbel, requires great care. The tendency is to be over excited, and in the agitation of the moment one frequently commits the grave error of striking hard at a running fish. The result is obvious. With a fish going strongly away, and a man striking more strongly perhaps than he imagines in the contrary direction, it is almost a certainty that something or other will give way. However, an old stager at that kind of work gets out of the predicament without any loss, and after the usual resistance secures the fish. The battle was really fought about fifteen yards below the punt. Why the barbel should choose that particular ground to try conclusions I am not aware. The water I know was deepest there, and, as I afterwards satisfied myself by plumbing, formed a saucer-like hollow, and there were also some obstructions about, of what nature I could not exactly make out. But I shrewdly suspect that there were either stakes or an ugly piece of wood, or some other object that would be dangerous to the line, and that the enemy went straight away for this, having probably tried the dodge successfully before, with the object of boring and boring until he parted from the hook that held him. A barbel is artful and apt to play games of this description, and it is prudent when you find a barbel making for a particular place and again returning to it after he has been brought away, to use every exertion compatible with safety to keep him away. This was not a large fish--something about 6 lb. or 7 lb.--and as he lay in the bottom of the punt for five or ten minutes after he had been turned out of the net, he certainly did present a striking picture of pale bronze colouring and comely shape. A couple of hours passed by without either myself or my friend being fortified by a knock, and by that time we had run through the history of the occupants of every one of the country houses within view of the river at the place where we were pitched. It was now two o'clock in the afternoon, and the cold had increased. We discussed the possibilities, and both of us resigned ourselves to fate, deliberately arriving at a conclusion, almost in resolution form, that we were to have no more sport that day. Hawkins, however, would not hear of such a thing. He said the fish were there, and the fish would come on to bite sooner or later. Then he consulted us as to the advisability of shifting the position a little, and we agreed that if he could do so quietly perhaps it would be well to drop down so that the punt would be a little below rather than above the pollard willow. This was done and with immediate effect, for our leger lines had scarcely reposed to their mission on the river's bed before both rods were wagging their heads. At one and the same time, and apparently keeping time, the tops of those rods told us that we might both expect a fish. We struck simultaneously; in unison we shouted "I've got him!" and we were each engaged with a fish that we knew to be not small. As a rule you prefer when in a punt to catch alternately with your friend; that is more like cricket, and indeed there is nothing more risky, unless both anglers are remarkably cool, than two lively fish being played in so small a space. Whether it is that they have a sympathy with each other, whether it is that the one suspects that he has got into trouble owing to some diabolical treachery on the part of the other and is out of temper; whether it is that they know all about it, and were taught in their childhood that fouled lines are generally broken lines, so much I know not; but be it in sea fishing or fresh water fishing, two fish hooked and struggling within sight by instinct often make towards each other. This happened in our case. My fish was the smaller, and would have been the sooner played out if the barbel that my friend had on his hook would have allowed it; but just as I was winching in, with the intention of getting it into the net with all possible speed, my friend's fish made a deliberate dart to starboard, and the result was a foul. To have attempted playing them with our rods would have been ruin, therefore we dropped them, and by getting the two lines in my own hand and using them as one, I managed to haul in the brace of fish by sheer strength, and the somewhat novel feat was accomplished of getting into the landing net a 3-lb. and a 5-lb. barbel upon lines that were entangled. As our lines were of the fine Nottingham description, and the gut fine also, this was to say the least a piece of good fortune. There will, I know, be some reader who has been in the predicament here described, and I feel that he smiles at the thought of the fearful work of disentangling those clinging, wet, white, undressed silk lines. I will tell him. We cut them. The shoal below took time to reflect upon the circumstance of which they had no doubt been witnesses, and we had no further touch of them for several minutes. Then they came on again with an inspiring regularity, distributing their favours alternately to myself and friend. For an hour a barbel came to net every five minutes; and there was no chance of loss, as the fish simply gulped at the worms and went off with them at once, and the hook had to be removed sometimes with a disgorger. In the very midst of the sport I thought I would make an experiment in the matter of baits. I had my own box of gentles. One, I suppose, never goes afloat or engages in any bottom fishing whatever without this reserve, if the maggots are in season. Hawkins also happened to have a small supply of stale greaves. "Don't do it, mister!" Hawkins pleaded pathetically, when he saw me stringing on a bunch of gentles. "Leave well alone, mister! You carn't better the business, and you may change the luck if you don't stick to the lobs." But I was obstinate, and was very glad that I tried the experiment. It was not the first time I had discovered that when the fish are really "on" they do not distinguish much between this and that bait. Even in fly fishing I have successfully tried the experiment, during a mad rise, of putting on a fly that was the most opposite I could find to what was on the water. The barbel took the gentles as freely as worms, and greaves as freely as gentles, but I noticed that the fish were smaller. It will be concluded that our prowess on this occasion came somewhat into the slaughter zone. So at any rate it occurred to one of us as we landed, and in the grey mist spreading over land and water, saw the dead fish laid out decently and in order upon the grass. There were two dozen and one barbel, the largest 7 lb. and the smallest 3 lb., the average being about 4 lb. With a few accidental dace and chub thrown in, there would therefore be over a solid hundredweight of fish. Was this a thing to be proud of? Though I ask the question I do not answer it myself. We had enjoyed the outing and even the sport; we looked down upon the spoil with satisfaction, and if there was a sort of sense of shame at the back of the mind that was for analysis afterwards. Even as we pondered, perhaps to the degree of gloating, Hawkins was enumerating instances of much greater numbers taken by his customers. Yarrell records 280 lb. of large barbel in one day, and our old friend, the Rev. J. Manley, who preferred "a good day's leger-fishing for barbel to any other day's fishing within reach of ordinary or even extraordinary mortals," states that he took "thirty-seven fish one day on the Thames at Penton Hook, and there were several over 4 lb. and one nearly scaled 10 lb." But these were the good, the great, the red letter days of a past time. The barbel is extremely capricious, abnormally so of late years in the Thames, and there are plenty of blanks to one fortunate day. There is, however, a fascination in barbel-fishing that is not a little surprising, and men have been known to boast aggressively that it is the only form of angling that appeals to them. It must be confessed that if the barbel is of poor esteem as food, he is the very gamest of the coarse fishes and a fighter to the last. His rushes are fierce and continuous; and as Providence has provided him with a decided snout, he bores downward with dogged persistence, relying apparently as much upon his classical barb appendages as upon his powerful tail for aid in time of trouble; and an infallible sign of his unconquerable spirit is the difficulty of bringing him into the net when he is close to it. There is not to my mind any fish that bolts so often when to all appearance played out. The uncertainty of barbel and barbel fishing was illustrated by the sequel to our day on the Thames. Our adventures were told to the members of a certain society on the evening of our return, and no doubt they were envious, miserable, or glad as it might happen. We can only speculate as to that, but what can be told is that by the first trains next morning six brethren from different quarters of London went down and made their way to Hawkins. They had not whispered their intentions to one another, and looked rather sheepish as they stood in a cluster to receive the announcement from the fisherman's wife that H. was not at home. They looked a little more sheepish when they took boat to the pollard tree swim and found two very young gentlemen with Hawkins seated in a punt. But they smiled again on learning that there had not been a touch at either of the three lines, which had been out since daylight. That swim was diligently tried after our visit, but I had reason for knowing that not another barbel was taken there during the entire winter. CHAPTER X TWO RED LETTER SALMON It is not often that the angling clubs which encourage prize-taking offer booby consolations for the smallest fish, but I have known exceptions, especially at the holiday competitions by the seaside. The biggest fish are another matter altogether. Sooner or later the world is bound to hear of them. And who dare say us nay? That man was not a fool who wanted to know, if you did not blow your own trumpet, who was to blow it? Blowing it need be neither boasting nor defiance. In this honest belief I shall try for a while to forget the butcher's bill in Flanders by recalling the capture of my biggest salmon, and that of a still bigger one by a friend during the same bygone back-end on Tweed, leaving the general memories of autumn days on the great Border river for future revival. It was during Mr. Arthur N. Gilbey's tenancy of the Carham water, and he was, besides being my host, also the hero of the very best of the two salmon which are my text. He rented a country house overlooking the river, with the fishing, and no fortunate angler who sojourned under his roof in those good days can ever forget the puzzle into which he fell while deciding whether it was the gentle hostess or the ever-considerate host who most contributed to his happiness. Among the bright Carham remembrances no one will omit the after-breakfast descent of the steep-wooded brae down to the boat animated with eager anticipation, and the climbing home in the gloaming in whatever mood the events of the day had warranted. The Carham fishing is really the lower and the southern section of Birgham, famous for its dub, the rival in piscatorial fame of Sprouston, a little higher up-stream. Its situation immediately above Coldstream and not far from Berwick makes it a characteristic water for the salmon fisher. The incoming fish sometimes linger there awhile early and late in the season, and men catch salmon at Carham while those in the higher beats are waiting their arrival or bewailing their disappearance. Here, too, you may hook your fish in Scotland and land it in England, for the Tweed begins to be the boundary between the two countries at Carham burn. The Tweed is picturesque rather than romantic, as are so many of the Highland rivers. They have their legions of admirers, but there is no Scottish stream that can count so many ardent lovers as the Tweed, and this for many reasons. It has much varied and positive picturesqueness of its own, it has associations of legend and history; Walter Scott lived on its banks, and its dividing course between the nations that used to harry or be harried invests it with an abiding interest. As a river it is distinguished by a characteristic dignity, and, save at its narrowed channel and rocky bed at Makerstoun, maintains a stately yet irresistible strength of flow from Kelso seawards. Nevertheless, there are times when it shows moods of sullen rage, and is certainly too full for the angler, to whom, in spite of faults, it is always Tweed, the well-beloved. "How is she the morn?" is, therefore, a common question amongst all sorts and conditions of men along Tweedside in the fishing seasons, and at the visit now under course of recall there was assuredly ample excuse for the formula. It soon transpired that the old-fashioned barometer in the hall had been having a hard time of it for many days. The master of the house never passed from drawing- to dining-room without an anxious tap. While the maids were doing their ante-breakfast work I myself stole down and consulted it, opened the front door, studied the sky, and noted the drift of the clouds. I make my forecast at once if the tokens are depressing. But I had ere this seen the river. One of my bedroom windows gave direct outlook upon a shrubbery, the most notable feature of which was a maple of most brilliant tints, varying from bright red to faint orange; the other framed a landscape picture of park, grassland, woods, and the broad Tweed sweeping round towards the lower portion of the water for which the angler cares. There was, however, another view from the front of the house--a nearer reach where there was a mass of rough water, and a certain tongue of shingle thrust out from the further bank. For days and weeks these river marks had warned the anxious inquirers that they might not expect sport. The diminution of the tongue of land on the one side, and a blur in the pure white of the foam on the other, told the one-word tale "waxing." At the outset I was saved any anxiety by finding the river dirty. Travelling through the night, I had turned out at Berwick at half-past four in the morning in the cold of a roaring gale that sent the clouds flying express over the moon, and shrieked into every corner of the deserted station. There had been heavy rain, and, in short, when day broke bleakly near upon six o'clock, and I caught my first sight of the river from the early train to Coldstream, my fate was evident. In good order on Sunday afternoon, the Tweed was in flood when I drove over the bridge on Monday morning before the village was awake. Not for the first time, therefore, the kindly welcome of host and hostess was pointed with mutual condolences. The October casts, so far, had been disappointing below Kelso. The Tweed anglers above that town had been more favoured, being beyond the malign influences of the Teviot, which has a wonderful facility for gathering up anything that comes from the clouds, and sending down dirt and volume to the beats eastward of the Kelso Tweedometer. The records of a week such as this was to be are not worth telling, for men neither like to write about their own disappointments unless they can treat them from the comic side, nor to read about the woes of others unless they have the unhappy gift of gloating over them. Let this indication, then, cover several days, and no more about it, except that the time arrived when I caught a fish badly scored by seals, which infested the tideway, and that I worked hard for odd hits and misses with small fish on other days. My best fish, in all senses of the word, was a godsend, and I rose her with a full-sized Wilkinson. She weighed 31 1/2 lb., and was the largest baggit which either Sligh or Guthrie could remember being caught in the Tweed. Up to the date of capture I believe it was the heaviest fish taken with a fly that season, but a week later a lady angler in Sprouston dub above took one of 35 lb. My fish gave me a rousing bit of sport, lasting a little over the accepted average time of a pound weight to the minute. But the circumstances warranted five minutes' grace. It was one of the very bad days, with blustering hailstorms, and evening was coming on. A grilse had risen short, and contributed another item to the losses account (nine in four days was the added total), and I was as gloomy as the weather, but fished on in calm desperation. At last a long-drawn "Ha" from myself duetted (if I may coin the word) with "Y'r ento 'm, sir," from Guthrie. The fish walloped an instant near the surface, and then behaved with orthodox correctness, went down steady, and swiftly ran out sixty yards of line or so. Of the others I had said, "I shan't like this fish, Guthrie, till he's in the net." Of this one I now observed, "I think he's right this time." Guthrie responded, beaming, "Aye, he's grippit it weel." It was a piece of good fortune that I hooked my friend so near shore that I was landed and free on the bank within five minutes. After running across the strong stream the fish moderated speed, and the winch could be worked. Some eighty yards below was a dangerous turmoil of broken water, foaming off to a shallow. The fish was manifestly a good one, and must be kept from those rocks at all hazards. Once in the hurly-burly of the foam the chances would be all on its side. Not a little disconcerting was it to find that it was making to this place with persevering steadiness. The tackle was tried and good; nothing was likely to give but the mouth of the fish. At one time my heart sank, and I feared I was to be outdone again. Pulling hard, the salmon forced me along the pebbly beach, with every ounce of strain I dared. There it was at last, within five yards of the rough water, and then it paused. Gradually it answered my leading, and with a slowness that became positively exciting, moved upwards, say, thirty yards. I heaved a sigh of relief, and Guthrie breathed like a bellows. And now the salmon appeared to be struck with a new idea; it turned aside and shot across the river at a high speed for fifty yards. What meant the sudden stoppage? It was not the halt of sulkiness. I knew that well. Not daring to speak my fear I looked at Guthrie, who at once put it into words--"Round a rock." Down-stream and up-stream I cautiously moved, the rod never altering its tension curve. The racing river was cut by the tight line, so that there was a hissing heard above wind and stream. Somehow, though the chances were a million to one against me, I felt that the fish was still held by the hook. Five minutes of this suspense brought a different verdict from Guthrie: "Ah! ye needn't bother; ye'll find the heuk, nae doot, but nae fish." "I am not so sure of that," I said. "Get the boat down, Guthrie, and we'll go out to him, anyhow." The boat was brought down accordingly, and out we went. The line was winched in cautiously (I might almost say prayerfully), and--well, something inside my waistcoat gave a mighty thump, and I could feel my face whiten. For, behold, the salmon--marvellous to relate--was still on, and as we approached to within a few yards of the rock the uplifted rod cleared the line, and the fish sped up-stream to the sharp music of the reel. Quickly as might be Guthrie brought me to shore, and the remainder of the battle was fought out from the shingle. There was one rush of nearly a hundred yards, then the fish calmed down and answered to the winch, moving down, nevertheless, much too persistently to Scylla and Charybdis. Confound it, the old peril was coming close again. The good sign was that, as I followed on the bank, I could keep on reeling in line. A sheer towards the rock of offence prompted the thought that the salmon had been under its protection before, and I put on extra strain and kept him this side of it. By this time the fish was getting exhausted, but the distance from the broken water was so lessening that I determined to either mend or end the business by a gift of the butt. "Go below, Guthrie, and I'll bring him in," was the word, and the old man soon got his opportunity, not to lift it out in the ordinary way, but to clap the net upon it as it struggled on the shallow, and pin it most cleverly to the shingle, hauling it out without accident. It was only done in the nick of time; two yards farther down would have been ruin. Everybody said it was a perfectly shaped specimen of the bright autumn Tweed salmon. The season, as a whole, that year on Tweed was what, in the mildest form of regret, is termed "disappointing," though our old friend, Henry Ffennell, in his annual statement of large salmon, was able to mention a goodly proportion of heavy fish in the autumn. But that particular back-end was bad during October and November on most of the beats below Kelso. A few days after I had returned to the glories of Windsor House, and had Bream's-buildings as the choicest of handy landscapes, I realised the vast pleasure of learning in "Tweedside's" weekly report from Kelso, which I was reading in a November fog that pervaded the entire office, that Mr. Gilbey had been fortunate in catching a 42-lb. salmon at Carham, his best fish to that date, and, I think, the best Tweed fish of that season. It was taken on a salmon fly bearing the troutsome name of Orange Dun, and it was a fancy pattern worked out as I understood, by Tarn Sligh, one of the veteran gillies of Tweedside. This fly was a very taking harmony in yellow, and Mr. Gilbey was fishing with one of the small sizes on a single gut collar. The salmon was hooked near the Bell Rock, a favourite autumn cast under the right bank down by the woods below the hut. For some time the angler did not realise what was at the end of the line. It kept quietly down, and moved in steam-roller measure up-stream, never taking out more than a yard of line at a time, which, under the good management of the boat, fifteen yards or so in rear of the fish, was always recovered with ease. So the salmon advanced, yard by yard, up to the more streamy cast of the Craig. Mr. Gilbey landed in due course here on the high bank, and then for the first time caught sight of the broad-sided fellow, which the taciturn attendant netted without a mistake. The fish was pronounced by all who saw it to be as beautifully modelled and bright a kipper as autumn ever produced. Such a fish deserved to be caught, recorded, photographed, and cast, and all this was duly done. The plaster cast was a triumphant success, and you seem to see the fish itself in form and colour upon the wall which it honours and adorns. CHAPTER XI A SERMON ON VEXATIONS AND CONSOLATIONS A happy heading for this chapter, as I thought, occurred to me--"Spoiled days." But I retain something of a sense of the ridiculous, and feared that the title might be capable of misconstruction, for the amusing story rose to mind of the village publican who had a spoiled day according to his own declaration. He rode in a dismal mourning coach to his wife's funeral, accompanied by a grown-up daughter, and she insisted upon having the window down. The parent showing signs of uneasiness, the daughter ventured to hope that he had no objection. "Oh! no," the bereaved husband replied, "keep it down if you like, my gal, but you're quite spoiling my day." My intention will, however, be clear, for every one of us must be acquainted with angling brothers for whom everything seems to go wrong. Nay, a pretty heavy percentage of even the very first rank have their bad days, and believe in them with a species of fatalism that of course helps on the result they dread. Endless are the angler's troubles if he will but devote himself to developing them. The worst victim is the man who does not take things patiently, who is ever turning the tap of impetuosity on at the main, who begins the day with a rush, goes through it in a flutter, and ends it in alternations of dejection and rage. What a charming man So-and-so is, but what a wet blanket he is to himself and everybody from the common failing. The train is actually moving, and, as usual, like a whirlwind, he is projected in by the guard, panting and irritable. You know perfectly well how it has happened; he got up too late, spluttered over the hot coffee, chivied the cabman all the way, charged through the porters on the platform, and here he is. Naturally he discovers that he left his waterproof in the hansom; he searches in vain for his pipe; he fumes and frets, and swears he is the most unfortunate wretch on earth. The song birds, the flowers, the fields, the clear atmosphere touch him never a whit, and the chances are that he continues through the livelong day as he began. In running his line through at the waterside he will miss one or two rings, and only find it out when the collar has been affixed. The mistake remedied he essays a cast or two, and away goes half of his rod; he neglected to tie the joints together, and attributes the mishap to the tackle makers, who did not always provide patent ready-made fasteners. These blunders, miscalled ill-luck, do not soothe the temper, and they certainly do not assist him to joyousness and success. As a matter of course our friend smacks hard at the first fish which rises, and hails the returning collar, minus point and fly, with a sarcastic grin, as if some evil genius outside himself had done the deed. Henceforth he will be in the mood to invite all mishaps that are possible and probable. In climbing a stile he will tickle the hawthorn hedge with his rod top, swing his suspended landing net into the thorns, and perhaps shake his fly-book out of his pocket in petulant descent from the top bar. If there is a bramble thicket anywhere in the parish, or a tall patch of meadow sweet in the rear, or a convenient gorse clump handy, be sure his flies will find them out. Another man would coolly proceed to extricate them; he pulls and hauls, and swears, carrying away his gear, and is lucky if his rod is left sound. In wading he goes in sooner or later over the tops of his stockings, cracks off his flies through haste in returning the line, and altogether fills his day full of small, unnecessary grievances. That this is possible I know full well. I have done it all myself. But the minor tribulations I had in my mind when I began to write this modest essay were not precisely of this kind, which are the heritage of those habitual unfortunates who are, in a measure, beyond hope of redemption. I had the pleasure of curing one of them, however, by pointing out to him the cause of his chronic irritation, producing haste, and a long train of inevitable ills. Anything in the shape of a burden about his body chafed him; and this being so, I need scarcely add that his equipment was always on the largest scale. The obvious suggestion was that he should hire a boy to carry his great creel, superfluous clothes, spare rod, and landing net. By proving to him that the expenses would be less than the amount of losses and breakages of both tackle and temper, he was induced to take my advice, and he was henceforth a converted character. My theme is, rather than palpably preventable disasters, the small accidents that will happen to the most careful anglers, especially if they put off their preparations to the last moment. Provoking is scarcely the word for the calamity of travelling a long distance by rail and road to realise that you have brought everything, including odds and ends that you will never use, but have left an important factor, say winch and line, behind you. To have brought the winch that does not fit your rod may be got over by binding on with a piece of your line; but the general variety of winch fitting is certainly a common trouble for anglers. Nor is it any good to boast of bringing your handle if you have overlooked the net; nor to take gigantic pains to buy live baits in London only to find that the water has leaked out long before you leave the train in Leicestershire. I have known a fly-fisher wretched for a whole day because he had not brought the bit of indiarubber with which he was in the habit of straightening out his cast; and a roach-fisher refuse to be comforted because his plummet was not. You cannot, however, control the wind and weather; yet some men seem to be under a climatic curse. Any landowners whose crops require rain have only to invite them down for a day's fishing; there will be rain enough and to spare. No hankerer after an east wind should be without them. It shall breathe southwest balm when they start for the fishing; they will be met at the waterside by a blustering Boreas with out-puffed cheeks. Yesterday the wind would take the fly where wanted; to-morrow it will do the same; to-day it is dead down-stream or in the angler's face. This is no doubt inveterate ill-luck, and the victim is to be commiserated. You can quite believe him when he says that if he takes a fishing for August there will be no water; if for September, perpetual flood; and when, the week after his return to town, he greets you with a sickly smile and volunteers the information that the day succeeding his departure the river at once got into ply, you deal gently with the young man, for this verily is tribulation major, and it may be your turn to meet it round a corner next year. I suppose there are men in all grades of sport, as in all grades of work, to whom the cards invariably fall awry, and the worst of the case is that there is only one piece of advice to tender--forswear the cards, or grin and bear. The angler ought to hold by the latter clause. The retrieving chances that may happen; the many useful objects turned up even when the philosopher's stone is never reached; the assets to the right if there are deficits to the left--these may be philosophically set off in the general account. How many acquaintances, are there not, who burden themselves by over much comfort, or, what comes to the same thing from my point of view, with too much fuss and fad as to their impedimenta? Some anglers whom I meet really never appear to be happy unless staggering along like Issachar "couching down between two burdens." Half of the gear is mere ballast, never produced for actual service from one year's end to the other, but always carried with patience most instructive to behold. Not a month since I remonstrated with a comrade upon the unnecessary exertion he was undergoing from the mere weight of his useless baggage. He said he preferred it; he considered that he was not properly equipped without that enormous sack--big as that which the "Pilgrim's Progress" man shuffled off when he scrambled out on the right side of the Slough of Despond. I think he regarded the trip to the river--though we drove comfortably to it, and drove home again the same evening--as a serious expedition into unknown wilds, and was buoyed up throughout with the fancy that he ranked with the eminent explorers who go forth with their lives in their hands. Once upon a time I habitually made a toil of pleasure in much the same way, scorning assistance, deeming it unworthy of a British sportsman to accept help from boy or man in any shape or form. But the golden days all too soon become the bronze, and maybe iron, and then we naturally pay more attention to trifling comforts and easements than in the happy period of unchastened exuberance. The stage is eventually reached when you will never sling creel or bag to shoulder if another can be found to carry them; never gaff or net a fish unless obliged in your own interests to do so, or in rendering friendly help to a comrade; never bow your shoulders to a load which another will bear; and when, as a matter of course, you will hand over your rod for the keeper to carry as you pass from pool to pool. But though you may avoid superfluities, and entertain an instinctive horror of effeminate luxuries, there are some things quite necessary. Food comes first. The view of angling taken by comic men in the papers, and satirists out of them, is that eating and drinking are the principal amusement of anglers. The citizen party in a Thames punt on a hot summer day makes it so, very often, no doubt; and hence the caricatures of anglers who get a very small amount of fishing to an intolerable amount of sack. This is of course a cockney view of what, without offence, I will term a cockney proceeding. In the real angling of the ordinary river districts, I find that as many men wholly neglect their food as think too much about it. This, as I know from culpable personal experience, is a fault. It is, however, a greater fault to waste time in a set meal in the middle of a fishing day. Fortunately a kindred spirit will sympathise with us when the hospitable invitation to come up to the house to lunch is declined with thanks; but there are times when the duty has to be done, and it often happens that the summons comes at the precise time when sport is hot and high. Get a good breakfast before starting; secure an honest dinner at the finish; but beware of heavy eating meanwhile. Keep going steadily with the rod through the livelong day, taking a slight repast as it were on the wing just to keep body and soul from premature separation. By this method you will remain in condition for your work, and have all the chances of sport that the time offers you. Sandwich boxes I have long forsworn, for, after the contents (which are seldom satisfactory) are gone, the awkward metal shell remains bulging out your pockets, or banging about in your basket. Once I tried to fish upon a small silver box filled with meat lozenges. It may have been as per prospectus of the manufacturers that I carried the essence of a flock of Southdowns in the waistcoat pocket, but the sheep after all did not seem to have a satisfactory effect, and a sucked lunch was not at all up to my sense of proportion. Then I tried cold chops, or sausages, carried in a fine white napkin; and very capital they are for the five minutes you allow yourselves on the bridge, or by the fallen log under the hedge, when tired nature suggests rest and refreshment. Afterwards I pinned my faith to a couple of home-made pasties, at the same time adhering to the fine napkin, which comes in very handy for sundry purposes when the fodder has disappeared. To anyone who likes the excitement of a domestic breeze, as a wind up to a fine day's sport, I can recommend nothing better than the steady use of the household serviette for drying the hands after the capture of every fish. As to drink, that is too delicate a subject. My friend Halford, until he had a fishing box of his own, and could establish "regular meals," carried a flask of cold coffee without milk or sugar, and to this I pretended to attribute his keen and valuable observations upon fish and flies. One day I told him that it was all very well to imagine that his second edition was due to his own genius, or the consummate art of the lithographer; it was simply cold coffee neat that did it! Smoking you may indulge in to any extent while fishing if your habit lies that way, since the wind helps you materially in lessening the weight of the tobacco pouch. To smoke cigars, however, is a sinful waste of good material and of time, and cigarettes are a nuisance. Hence the proverbial love of the angler for the pipe, and the d--n--ble iteration of references to smoking in sporting literature. Some of us, I fear, will never learn the lesson of care in the matter of clothes and boots. We make a boast of roughing it, of getting wet in the feet, of letting the rain work its will, until one morning we go grunting to our doctor to know what that twinge in the knee-joint or wandering sensation across the shoulders may mean. If you must get wet through, as will occasionally happen, do it manfully and even thoroughly while you are about it, taking due care to keep moving and to change everything at the earliest moment. The danger need, however, seldom be incurred. For uncertain weather have the waterproofs near; but a suit of really good cloth should be enough for passing showers. The angling authors of the last generation invariably elaborated sumptuary laws in this respect, enjoining upon you special suits of different colours to tally with particular days. I would not recommend staring white for a chalk stream, but otherwise the colour is a thing of small consequence. A distinctive suit for fishing is money well spent; and the fly-fisher especially requires something more than the commonplace cut of jacket. For years a small paragraph at the bottom of one of the _Field_ columns advertised a certain fly-fishing jacket, and I smiled at the notion that such an article could be anything different from the ordinary shooting coat or Norfolk jacket. It was said to have gusset sleeves, a fastening for the wrist, plenty of good pockets for fly books, and it would not work up round the neck in casting. Eventually I became the owner and wearer of one, and can say that in fly-fishing or spinning I never previously knew what real comfort in casting was. Wading stockings and brogues are always worth using, either for fly-fishing, even if you do not require to wade, or for winter angling amongst the coarse fish. They keep you dry, and you can kneel on the grass or potter about amongst wet osiers, nettles, and rushes with impunity. The best hat for me has been one with a moderately soft and wide brim that may be turned down like a roof, to shoot off the rain behind, or to shelter the eyes from the sun in front. The felt fly-band is a very serviceable affair, but, to avoid taking off the hat, the user of eyed hooks may have a band of felt stitched round the upper part of the left arm. Above all, let the angler wear the best woollen underclothing, and in winter plenty of it. Finally, brethren, and in conclusion, let me say that when fishing in light marching order one has to dispense with many odds and ends that are in themselves fisherman's comforts, though not precisely essentials. The "priest" wherewith to knock your fish on the head, the machine for weighing him on the spot, the spare boxes of tackle, the second rod, or joints, may be done without. If you bring yourself to study how little you require for a day's outing, it is astonishing how much you will by and by leave behind. We are prone, of course, to make arrangements for a great catch, both in numbers and weights; take a 23-lb. creel for bringing home a brace of pounders, enough tackle to last the season through, and each article on scale as to solidity. Once in a hundred times, and not more, will the result be equal to the preparation. Still, there is a sort of pleasure in being equal to any emergency, though at the cost of personal convenience. CHAPTER XII THE SALMON AND THE KODAK We had waited with exemplary patience for the dropping of the water. There had been a fairly heavy flood during the last week in February, but there would be no trouble with floating ice; that, at least, was a comfort when one remembered the cruel sufferings from exposure of the previous year. The Rowan Tree Pool is, in the early part of the spring season, a sure find for a fish if you can but catch it in the humour. The humour, however, does not last long, and you require to know that pool with the intimacy of personal experience to hit it at the right time; you have to study its countenance, and then, sooner or later, the afternoon will arrive when you say "Thank the stars; she will be in order to-morrow." This year the to-morrow when it did dawn admirably suited the purpose of two friends of mine who were in temporary possession of the Rowan Pool. Cold weather one takes as a matter of course, grumbling not if the wind be moderate and mackintoshes remain unstrapped. The two points of congratulation were (1) that the pool was in perfect height and colour; and (2) that the light was good. The first condition was satisfactory for Grey, the angler, the second for Brown, the kodakeer. And herein lurks a necessity for explanation. Grey had one evening, at the Fly Fishers' Club, been much impressed with a violent tirade from a member about the generally incorrect way in which the ordinary black and white artist illustrates the fisherman in action, and had listened attentively as a group round the fire argued themselves into the conclusion that there was much more to be done with the photographic snapshot in angling than had ever yet been attempted. He looked about for a man of leisure who was an enthusiast with the camera, and skilful enough to get his living with it, should fate ever drive him to earning his bread and cheese. Such an amateur he at length discovered in Brown, and these were the two who, by nine o'clock in the morning, were at the head of the Rowan Pool; their plans prearranged in every detail; both men in excellent form, head, body, and spirit; and Burdock, the keeper, resigned to the innovation of photography which he sniffingly flouted as a piece of downright tomfoolery. There was another character in the comedy of the day, a salmon fisher of some repute for skill, but disliked for his selfishness, cynicism, and overbearing assumption of mastership in the theory and practice of fishing. As he was ever laying down the highest standards of sport much was forgiven him. The men who used phantom, prawn, and worm, however much and often they were made to writhe under his sneers, felt that in maintaining the artificial fly as the only lure with which the noble salmon should be tempted, he was on a lofty plane, and, if not unassailable, had better be left there in his vain glory. They loved him none the more, of course, and spun, prawned, and wormed as before, honestly envying just a little the purist whose fly undoubtedly often justified his claims. His beat was a mile higher up the river than the Rowan Pool, and he is here introduced because on this morning Grey and Brown gave him a lift in their wagonette, and dropped him at the larch plantation so that he might, by the short cut of a woodland path, attain the hut in the middle of his beat. Before climbing over the stile he exhibited the big fly which he had selected as the likely killer for the day, and offered Grey one if he preferred it. Grey, however, had his own fancies, and declined with thanks; there was a mutual chanting of "So long; tight lines," and the purist went off to his hut and the rod which he kept there. Brown, with his compact paraphernalia, was put across from the lower end of the pool to the right bank. This was necessary for his share of the day's work, which was to take snapshots of his friend operating from the left shore. The fishing part of the Rowan Pool was directly under a rocky cliff opposite, and the position for the kodakeer was a clump of bushes on a small natural platform half-way down. From this elevation he could look into the deep water where the salmon was generally found, and could command the entire pool with his apparatus. Grey's side was an easily-sloping shingle with firm foothold out of the force of the stream, an assuring advantage to a man who had to wade within a foot of his armpits. "Are you there?" by and by shouted Grey, looking across to the bushy ledge of the cliff. "Yes, and all ready," replied Brown, so well concealed that the angler had to look twice to discover him. It was a full water, and every cast that would send the fly to its place must be close upon thirty yards. Whatever may be pretended to the contrary, this is mighty fine throwing when it is done time after time; and Grey, having fruitlessly fished his pool down twice with different flies, waded ashore. Had Brown seen sign of a fish? No, he had not. The fly had worked beautifully over the best part of the pool, and fished every inch of the run known to be the lie of the fish. Had Brown taken any good shots? Yes; he had been snapping Grey ever since he entered the water. "Then," said Grey, "I'll fish the pool below, and give you an hour's spell. If you move, do it as quietly as you can." "All right," said the kodakeer; "it is not very cold; I'll have a smoke and a read, and won't move at all unless I get cramped or frozen." Brown enjoyed his book, suffering no sort of discomfort; he lazily smoked his pipe and thought how much better it was to be listening to the twitter of the birds, watching the clouds of rooks wheeling over the distant wood, and resting in peace, than slaving with an 18-ft. rod and straining every muscle in the effort to dispatch the unheeded fly across the big water to the core of the pool (for fishing purposes) under the cliff. Then, down out of sight went his meerschaum, for beyond the stile appeared the face of the great purist, who looked cautiously around, stepped stealthily over, laid down his rod, walked a little down stream to a point whence he could see the half-visible figure of Grey very clear in the noonday light in the water of the next pool. Then he returned and waded in to fish the Rowan. "Here's a chance for the Kodak," muttered the witness, shrinking into cover, and scarcely breathing lest his hiding-place should be revealed. The purist was too intent upon his design of fishing another man's pool once down, without loss of time, to look about him carefully. The coast was so obviously clear. Brown therefore took snapshots, a round dozen, of what followed: (1) A fisherman armed with a 12-ft. spinning rod, wading into the water at the precise bit of shingle previously trodden by Grey; (2) a guilty-looking man, looking up and down stream before making the first cast of a full-sized blue phantom; (3) the act of casting, well done, and dropping the bait in the exact place required; (4) the steady winding in of the line with the rod-point kept low; (5) the phantom and its triangles dangling a yard from the rod-point in mid-air, in pause for a fresh cast; (6) the bend of the rod as a hooked fish set the winch a-scream; (7) the figure of a dripping salmon curved in a fine leap out of water; (8) the retreat of the purist to dry shingle, playing the fish the while with a cool, strong hand; (9) the tailing out of the fish (with a backward view of the fisherman); (10) the slaying of the salmon with a blow from a pebble on the back of the head; (11) attention to tackle and removal of phantom, fish lying in background; (12) disappearance of the purist over the stile, dead fish suspended by the right hand, hanging for a moment on near side as fisherman clambered down the off side of stile. The three men met later at the rendezvous for the wagonette. Grey and Brown were waiting in a state of suppressed hilarity as the other emerged from the plantation, placidly carrying his salmon by a piece of looped cord. "Any sport?" he asked. Grey explained that he had had none--not a rise all day. Yet he had fished the Rowan Pool carefully twice down, and the other pool also. "What did he take?" asked Brown, pointing to the bright little 10-pounder. The purist did not trouble to reply in words; he merely pointed to the fly left in the mouth of the fish. "My fingers were numbed," he said presently in a casual sort of way; "and, as the gut broke off at the head, I just left it there." There was a touch of suspicion, not to say alarm, in the look of amazement with which the purist received the shrieks of laughter which simultaneously burst from the other two. "Pardon me," at length spluttered Brown, "but it is so dashed funny." Then Grey exploded again, and the purist looked from one to the other. "Well, well, come along," Brown said at last. There was not a word spoken during the drive. The echoes were awakened once, on the brow of the last hill, by the kodakeer, who, without any apparent cause, exploded with laughter and held his sides. "Pardon me," he remarked, "but it really is--Oh, lord, hold me!" (Explosion renewed.) Before alighting at the porch of the hotel, Brown called a halt as the other two rose to step down from the wagonette. "Let me take a last shot, please! Do you mind holding the fish up for a moment?" asked he. Snap! and the thing was done. "Thanks awfully," said the operator. "That's my thirteenth shot. Oh, lord, but it _is_ so funny." And the welkin rang with what seemed to be the mirth of a lunatic. Then Brown wiped the moisture from his eyes and recovered his breath. "Shall we wet your salmon inside?" asked Grey, very quietly, and with a seriousness not obviously germane to a festive occasion. "Certainly, why not?" answered its captor, much puzzled. The three men, the door being shut by Grey, after the maid had left the room, drank to each other. "You'll take that fly out before you send the salmon away," said Grey suavely. "Why should I?" curtly answered the culprit, by this time white-faced enough. "Well," was the reply, "I'll say nothing about your sneaking down and fishing my pool when my back was turned, nor even about your poaching my fish with a big phantom; but we can't have you make it the text of a discourse on the virtues of fly fishing." "The fact is," added Brown, "I have thirteen snapshots of the whole business, and if they develop as I expect they will, they will make an admirable series under the general title of 'Spinning for Salmon in the Rowan Pool.' I began with you as you waded in, and finished with you holding up the poached fish with the fly in its mouth. As Grey says, we'll forgive you the rest, but can't stand the fly. That means hypocrisy as well as lying." The purist was wise enough to say never a word. He jerked out and retained the fly, left the salmon on the floor, walked softly out, and had vanished by next day. CHAPTER XIII HALFORD AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES The story of Halford's life has been well told by himself in the _Autobiography_, published in 1903, and it would be with a pained amazement that the wide circle of readers who knew him and of him received the shock of his announced death in the daily papers. They will, I am sure, be sadly interested in the brief story of the close of that life under circumstances that were unspeakably pathetic. Mr. Halford was in the habit of escaping our English winter by going to the sunshine of resorts like the Riviera, Egypt, or Algiers, and this year went to Tunis with his only son Ernest, his inseparable companion on all such voyages. They had a good holiday, and Halford was in excellent health, full of life and energy, keenly enjoying the Orientalism of the place, and very busy with his camera. "Tunis is a remarkably busy, bustling sort of place"--he says in a letter to me dated February 13 from the Majestic Hotel--"very Eastern, with the usual accompanying stinks, and most interesting to us. I have taken a good many photos, but am a bit doubtful about them, and do not know why. But--well, we shall see. They have made Ernest an hon. member of the Lawn Tennis Club (he is now Colonel Halford), so he gets plenty of exercise, and the other members are great sportsmen. Indeed, this is the most manifest development I notice amongst the French of today." The Halfords left Tunis for home on February 24 in bad weather, and a wretched boat, and F. M. H., always a good sailor, was the only gentleman aboard who could appear at meals. At Marseilles, reached on the 26th, Ernest and his father separated, the former to make a business call at Paris, the latter to finish the voyage to London on the P. and O. _Morea_, which sailed on the 28th, arriving at Gibraltar on March 2 (Monday). Halford had found an old friend, Dr. Nicholson, amongst the _Morea_ passengers, and was greatly enjoying his voyage; that day took part in a game of quoits, and cabled from Gibraltar, "Excellent voyage. All well. Best love." After leaving Gibraltar he felt out of sorts, and the ship's doctor and Dr. Nicholson, acting together, found him somewhat feverish. Symptoms of a chill developed, and on Tuesday he was no better, but after a temporary improvement became worse. Pneumonia succeeded, and so rapidly strengthened that on Wednesday morning the patient dictated a message, and in the afternoon the doctors, by wireless telegram, informed his family at home of his condition, and asked them to meet the boat. Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Halford, Dr. C. R. Box, and Mr. Bertie Brown accordingly caught the midnight train to Plymouth, rushed on board a tender that was on the point of starting, and boarded the _Morea_ at just before nine o'clock. Mr. Halford was able to recognise his son and daughter, conversed a little at intervals, but with difficulty, and became alarmingly worse after a slight rally about one o'clock. He was passing away peacefully during the afternoon as the ship came up the Thames, and died in his son's arms as she was entering Tilbury Docks. No man is perfect; many are perfect in parts; some are almost perfect. But the broad fact faces us that we must not say of any man that he is perfect. There is a word, however, that years ago I applied to my friend when I had learned to know and form a loving estimate of him. He was thorough--thorough in his likes and dislikes, in his work, in his play, in great things, in small things, in his common sense, in the things he knew, in the things he did, in his many merits, in the clear mind that planned no less than the deft hand that executed, in the privacy of the home, and in the brazen bustle of the world of business. That is how I long looked at F. M. Halford. He was just a specimen of a real man, the man you can respect, admire, and trust; and, should you know him well enough, you may add your love without being foolish. I grant you Halford was one of those men who require knowing, but that is another matter. It was my good fortune to be an intimate friend of over thirty years' standing. I was asked to supply the _Field_ with this "appreciation"; for me, therefore, it is to justify my high opinion, and to praise him. This I do with all my heart, keeping myself in hand nevertheless the while, and not permitting the dolour of Willesden Cemetery to act in favour of him there laid to his rest. But a man may be thorough, and at the same time we should not object if he kept his thoroughness all to himself. Halford was not of that kind. He was a delightful companion--generous, big-hearted, amusing, a sayer of good things in a human way, and finely opinionated, which, of course, was not a serious matter when he expected and liked you to be opinionated also. He was a dangerous man to tackle in argument if your knowledge of the subject was rickety. He was emphatically what is termed a well-informed man, for that thoroughness of his stamped his knowledge, and ruled his memory. You might not always agree with him, but could seldom floor him, the ground he stood upon being rock-solid. As both a giver and taker of chaff he was an adept. He had the courage of his opinions, and none wiser than he when it was best to keep opinions an unknown quantity. In travelling or by the waterside he was wonderfully helpful if help was good for you--perhaps, if anything, too helpful, though I cannot conceive a more pardonable fault than that. Aye, Halford was verily a fine fellow. An important note to register in thinking of Halford is that he was one upon whom fortune smiled. That makes a vast difference probably in the shape a man will assume as he gets over the dividing range and goes down the other side towards the cold river. In this respect, H. had every reason to be grateful for blessings bestowed, and freely said so. He had, of course, his ups and downs, and his part in life's battle; but while still in the prime of life he had, so far as one could see, achieved all that a reasonable man could desire. He could go from a happy home in the West End to his club; as, per wish or mood, could wander on Swiss mountains or by Italian lakes; and, above everything, could have and hold his choice bit of fishing. In his younger days he was a great opera-goer, and never lost his fondness for music; he was an officer in the City Artillery Volunteers, and was thorough in that, and there is a silver cup that notifies his prowess at the rifle butts. Need it be said that Halford's ante-chamber to paradise was his fisheries? He was not himself a hard fisher, being content with two or three hours in the forenoon (ten to one, as a rule) and the evening rise. It might be wondered how the time could be passed in that case. There need not be wonderment. He was not under the necessity, like so many of us, of crowding a maximum of fishing into a minimum of time. His fishing visits signified taking quarters and fishing the season through, a succession of friends sharing the pleasure. The host would be looking patiently after his water, collecting insects, carrying out experiments, making notes, concerning himself with banks and weeds--filling the days to the full with useful occupation, which, of course, gave a zest to his actual fishing when he took it. Within a fortnight of his death he was to take up his quarters at Dunbridge for the season; all arrangements were made, and Coxon, the faithful keeper, was ready to point out what had been done during the winter. And Coxon was one of the mourners at the Saturday's funeral in the Jewish Cemetery at Willesden. It will be of interest and useful here to announce that Mr. Ernest Halford, after long consideration of what his father's wish would be, decided to maintain the fishery in all respects as it had been maintained since the beginning of the tenancy. Mr. Halford was immensely popular in the Mottisfont district, and I may mention that they had given a great ovation to his son and grandson on occasions when they attended or presided at the annual dinners to the tenants and workpeople on the fishery. That grandson, Halford always believed, would by and by develop the family fishing traditions. The young gentleman was meanwhile at Clifton College, and had already killed his brace of rainbow trout, which his father had preserved for the collection in the gallery at Pembridge Place; and these, at my last visit to him at home, F. M. H. showed me, beaming with pride. His pride also took the form of setting the head of the firm of Hardy Brothers to the making of a special rod to fit the young Cliftonian's hand. To the advantage of ample means should be added in happy sequence that Halford had, on the whole, robust health to enjoy his fishing. His regular habits of living, and common sense in food and matters of hygiene kept him in excellent condition. Early rising and early bed-going were his rule at home and abroad. Truly, he was in these matters captain of both soul and body. Then his good fortune shone in his happy home life. After the death of Mrs. Halford a few years ago, it was feared the effect upon her husband would be abiding cause for anxiety. As time went on, however, a new era dawned; the son had married a lady who was, from the first, "puppetty's" best chum; bonnie grandchildren arrived to make much of "puppetty," a charming house was taken for the united home, and there was sunshine again. It was sweet to see the contented grandfather in the midst of it and witness the devotion of the young people to him. Amongst anglers in the English-speaking world Halford has been long known as the apostle--nay, the Gamaliel of what is called "The Dry Fly School." It is said that he reduced dry-fly fishing to a science. By some he is ranked as the arch-type of the dry-fly purist, by which word, I suppose, is meant the pushing of a theory to an extreme. Certainly of late years devotion to the fly-rod admitted of no allurements in other directions, and henceforth Halford will be generally known, as he has been known since he took rank as master, as a first authority on the one branch of our sport. Yet he reached that position through the love and practice of every kind of fishing--in short, through his enthusiasm as an "all-round angler," as it is the custom to formularise the general practitioner of our sport. Even as a boy-angler, however, he showed his inherent tendency to inquire, and understand, and improve; he worked out the mysteries of the Nottingham style on the Thames, and the betterment of sea fishing tackle with the same ingenuity, perseverance, and success as in after years attended his studies of chalk stream insects, their artificial imitations, and the perfecting of the tackle demanded by the highest class of fly-fishing. Let it not, however, be forgotten that he was never out of sympathy with any class of angler or angling. If he appeared indifferent to forms of angling loved by others, it was simply that he placed his own first. In angling, it was trout and grayling fishing that mattered most. He adopted it as his choice, and clung to it. People were just getting accustomed to the word "dry-fly" when Halford began his career as a scientific exponent of the art to which he devoted so many years of work and study. This was in the late sixties, and he took trout fever on the pellucid Wandle, at that time a beautiful stream with good store of singularly handsome trout, and a regular company of gentlemen fly-fishers. The dry-fly men were, however, few, for the eyed-hook was not in fashion, and the custom, not only on the Wandle, but on other chalk streams, was to use the finest gut attachments to flies that were dressed for floating. It was so like Halford to listen with all his ears to the advice of the few who urged the advantage of the dry fly. Anything in the shape of an improvement upon something that existed was like red rag to a bull to him, and he went for the new idea with all his heart. He also went for the line which was the standard of perfection to our forefathers, and I must confess that the love of the familiar silk and hair line, with which we of the old guard learned how to cast a fly, abides with me to this day, and with it I, for one, can associate the hair cast, and a certain ancient pony up in Yorkshire who was famous for his never-failing tail supply of the best white strands, which were considered indispensable by the fishers of all Wharfedale. Halford, however, objected to the line, which certainly was given to waterlogging and sagging at inconvenient times, and eagerly he took up the dressing of modern lines. He had a hand in all the developments of the process, and only declared himself satisfied when the Hawksley line was perfected, leaving others to this day who are aiming at still more betterment. How Halford accumulated his experience, building up a fabric so to speak, brick by brick, is told in the _Autobiography_ and the other books written by him; and I may, in passing, suggest that in reading Halford in these volumes you must always read very carefully between the lines. You never know when you will find a pearl. The apparently prosaic statement often contains a valuable lesson, and what seems to be a sentence merely recording the capture of a trout of given inches and ounces will be found to have been written with the object of sustaining an argument or enforcing a truth. The story in the _Autobiography_ of the fishing on the Wandle in those early years is an instance in point. It is quite a short narrative destitute of embroidery, and seemingly a casual introduction to what shall come after, but it is in reality a revelation of the practical methods that governed him from first to last, and which I venture to sum up in one word "thorough." There is a paragraph telling how he overcame a difficulty in circumventing a certain trout that lay about the mouth of a culvert, and habitually flouted the Wandle rods. Halford made it a problem and solved it at the opening of his second Wandle season. He studied the position, obtained the necessary permission to put white paint on a patch of branches, have them cut down during the winter, and next season went down with his plan of campaign in his head. Of course, it succeeded. On the face of it you here have just an ordinary incident with nothing much in it. But it emphasises the value of the horizontal cast and something of its secret, while the kernel of the nut is the fact that it illustrates the efficiency of using the wrist and not the length of the arm in casting. You will again and again find Halford's wisdom as if carelessly thrown down upon a bald place. Some of the critics in the daily press were fond of saying of his books, "Yes, yes: this is all very good no doubt, but it does look as if page after page is simply a monotonous recital of catching trout that are very much alike by processes that have a strong family likeness." A careless surveyor of the page perhaps would think in this way, and never for the life of him perceive the point sought to be made by the writer of the book. Halford was an angler from his youth upwards, and himself tells us that by his family he was considered "fishing mad," which, as so many of my readers may remember, is the orthodox manner in which the young enthusiast is classified by the unbelievers of his family. He fished often and in various places as a youth, but it was not till he became a member of the Houghton Club water on the Test that he plunged into his life-work for anglers. The date may be given as 1877, and the fire was kindled by being on the river one April day, and witnessing one of those marvellous rises of grannom that might once be relied upon every season on the Test. Many of us who still linger have seen this phenomenon, only equalled by the hatch of Mayfly in the Kennet Valley twenty years ago. Just as clouds of Mayfly would greet you on the railway platforms between Reading and Hungerford, flying into the open windows, clinging to the lamp-posts and seats, so at Houghton and Stockbridge the shucks of the grannom would drift into eddies and collect almost as solid as a weed-bed. Such things are not to be seen now, and have not been seen for years. From the swaddling clothes of the risen grannom, cast thus upon the surface of the water by the insect made perfect, Halford turned to the artificial imitations then in use. They were of importance in those days, for the grannom was an institution much regarded, and the grannom season was held in high esteem. Anglers packed their kit and hurried away when the grannom was signalled up. There were as many patterns of the artificial grannom as there are to-day of the March brown, and it was because Halford found them of varying forms and colourings, and not a really good imitation of the natural fly amongst them all, that he resolved to learn how to dress a fly for himself. His stores of patience were heavily taxed in the preliminary stages, and the victory came only after a long battle with difficulties. The standard volumes he produced on the subject of dressing, and the kindred subject of the entomological side of it, are conclusive evidence of what came of it all. "Halford as a fly-dresser," however, is a topic too big to handle in a chapter which merely aims at rambling recollections of him by the waterside, and indeed it can only be dealt with by a master in the art of fly-dressing. In his early days at Houghton, Halford went to John Hammond's shop in Winchester just before the opening of the 1879 fishing season to buy flies, and there met, and was introduced by the rubicund John to, a tall, not to say gaunt, gentleman, who was the most famous of the Hampshire trout fishers, none other than Marryat himself. This was the beginning of a close, life-long friendship between the two men. Halford was at all times most grateful to any helper, and never failed freely to acknowledge assistance received. Whether he took advice proffered or not was another matter; he sometimes did it all the same, but he was always grateful. Words would fail to describe his appreciation of such co-workers as Marryat at the beginning, and Williamson at the end of the labours which are embodied in the series of books which preceded the _Autobiography_. They were co-workers in everything; hard workers, too. I have heard men lightly joke about these worthies going about the meadows with a bug-net and lifting individual ephemerals from the surface of the stream. Let those laugh that win. It meant collecting hundreds of tiny insects, selecting the fittest, preparing, preserving, and mounting them. It meant the endless autopsy of fish and the patient searching of their entrails. To stand by while Halford and Marryat with their scissors, forceps, and whatnot laid out the contents of a trout's stomach, and bent low in separating and identifying the items, putting what were worthy of it under a microscope, and proceeding all the while as if the round world offered no other pursuit half so worthy of concentrated attention, was most fascinating. Many a time was I a spectator--I fear sometimes an irreverent one--of this ritual, but always privileged and welcome; always, of course, sympathetic, and always in a way envious of the qualities of mind and extraordinary knowledge which made the whole work a labour of love to them. It so fell out that two days after the meeting in John Hammond's shop the parties met at Houghton, and the first of many foregatherings took place that day in the well-remembered Sheep-bridge hut--Marryat, Francis, Carlisle ("South-West"), and Halford. Halford had rooms in the neighbourhood, and, in his own words, there this historical quartette would "hold triangular fishing colloquies," "South-West" having his home up the river at Stockport. Francis was the first of the trio to fall out, his last casts being on his beloved Sheep-bridge shallow. Halford's quarters were now at the mill at Houghton, and it was my privilege to take Francis Francis's vacant place there, as also in another place. What ambrosial nights we had in the homely millhouse after untiring days with our rods! It was there that I insisted upon my host becoming a contributor to the _Field_, and he required considerable persuasion. Indeed, the suggestion roused him into one of his dogmatic disputations, and he held on tenaciously, till, taking up my bedroom candle, I said, "Well, I'm off to bed. You've got my opinion and my advice, and, if you don't write that article you are a so-and-so. Good night, old chap, sleep on it." Next morning I was taking my ante-breakfast pipe on a cartwheel in the shed outside, and listening to the diapason of the mill, when Halford came out. "All right, sonny," he said, "I'll try it, but candidly I ha'e ma doots." This was how the first "Detached Badger" article came to appear in the _Field_. Walsh, the famous "Stonehenge," was editor of the paper then, and he stuck for a while at the pseudonym which Halford chose. But he was the best fellow in the world, and very soon good-humouredly gave in and left it to me. Walsh, nevertheless, would always make merry over that signature, and used with a twinkle of his eye to ask me whether my friend the Badger was quite well. And what a delightful fishing companion the Badger was! Perhaps for the first two years at Houghton the pleasure was just a little tempered with one insignificant drawback. I had not then been long a dry-fly practitioner, and was terribly ashamed for H. to watch me fishing. 'Tis thirty years back, yet I acutely remember my nervousness on that point. Having got his brace or so of fish, and finished his studies of water, rise of fly, weeds and weather, and neatly (and oh! so orderly and accurately!) made his entries in his little notebook, he loved to play gillie to his friend for hours together, criticise his style of fishing, and give advice; naturally, after a time, if you are nervous, you are certain of one thing only: that you are the king of asses, and had better imitate the immortal colonel who hurled his book of salmon flies into the pool shouting "Here, take the bally lot." The droll thing was that Halford never dreamed that his chum was put out by his good intentions, or that the victim's feeble smiles were but a mask for nerve-flutters. One hot day I was over-tired and nakedly accomplished everything that was wrong; the backward cast caught buttercups and daisies, the forward throw fouled the sedges, the underhand cut landed line and cast in a heap on the water, the fish was put down, the whole shallow scared. Halford stood behind amiably commenting upon the bungling operations, and then I uprose from a painful knee and delivered myself of remarks. Well; yes, I let myself go, and let _him_ "have it." The amazement of Halford; his contrition; the colour that spread over his countenance (you will remember how prettily he could blush with that complexion of his, delicate as a woman in his last days); these sufficiently told me that he had not the ghost of an idea of the perturbation that had been seething in me. It took him the rest of the week to cease regretting that he had been so unobservant, and never again during the remaining eight-and-twenty years that we fished together at different times and in divers places did he once depart from his resolve "never to do so no more." During our long and happy acquaintance that was the only cloud flitting over the sunshine of our friendship, and it was one of my making. After Houghton there was a farmhouse at Headbourne Worthy, and a season's fishing in the Itchen, and later Halford fished a good deal below Winchester, where Cooke, Daniels, and Williamson had private waters. But after Houghton the most notable preserve to be mentioned was the Ramsbury water on the Kennet. The inspiration of "Making a Fishery" came from that, for the four friends who leased the water--Basil Field, Orchardson, R.A., N. Lloyd, and Halford--earnestly addressed themselves to the reformation of a fishery that had become depreciated. They spent much money, and carried out operations with a lavish hand for four seasons. The story has been fully narrated by Halford, and the conclusion (p. 217, _Autobiography_) is in these words:--"We had perhaps been extravagant in our expenditure, and also over-sanguine as to the probable result. The river when we took possession swarmed with pike and dace, and had a few trout in the lower part, and in the upper was fairly stocked. When we gave it up the pike had been practically exterminated, and every yard of the river was fully stocked with trout of strains far superior to the indigenous slimy, yellow _Salmo fario_ of the Kennet." The plain fact was that at the end of four years four of the best of our dry-fly fishers gave up a water of which they had become very fond because the trout did not rise at the little floating fly that appeared, and the sport had decreased to a marked degree. A fishery that gave poor and diminishing results, even with the Mayfly, sedge, and Welshman's button, was not suitable for dry-fly experts, and the Ramsbury experiment was abandoned. The moral has yet to be drawn, and I have not yet seen anyone grapple at close quarters with the question of cause and effect with the Ramsbury experiment as a test. "Making a Fishery" sets down in detail what was done; the _Autobiography_ tells what came of it. Being one of those who has not faltered in the belief that the clearing out of coarse fish, the introduction of new strains of trout, and the artificial feeding of fish may be overdone, I used to discuss the matter with Halford, but he did not agree with me. Having known the Ramsbury water before the reformation was undertaken, I can testify that I seldom at any time saw a good rise of duns upon it, and that a basket of trout more or less was, notwithstanding, a reasonable certainty there under ordinarily favourable circumstances, spite of pike and dace. I have with the wet fly, on days when no floating fly was coming down, caught my two or three brace of trout with some such pattern as Red Spinner, Governor, Alder, or Coachman for the evening; indeed, if I remember correctly, it was on a six-brace day with the "Red Spinner" on this water that, enamoured of that artificial, I annexed its name for a series of articles contributed in 1874 to the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and have held by it ever since. Foli, the opera-singer, once caught three half-pounders at a cast, and the keeper netted them all, on this fishery. One evening we met at Ramsbury, after an afternoon without sign of fly or rising trout. Halford and Basil Field were there, and we stood and bewailed the absence of duns and lack of sport. We loitered there with our rods spiked, and smoked sadly. I then, and not for the first time, repeated the tale of my former experiences, and at last begged Halford not to be shocked, not to think me an unforgivable brute, but would he give me free permission to try the wet fly in the old way, and without prejudice. He at first laughingly protested, but saying he would ne'er consent, consented. I was to do my best or worst. The difficulty was to find a fly that could be fished wet, and in the end a Red Spinner on a No. 1 hook was forthcoming. I thereupon followed the old plan, except that there was one instead of two flies, and caught a brace of three-quarter pounders before we had moved fifty yards down the meadow. They were the only trout taken that day. CHAPTER XIV CASUAL VISITS TO NORWAY It must be confessed that there is something really casual in the use of such a word to head these sketches of my angling visits to Norway, and the excuse is that it is appropriate as a keynote. The punishment in a word fits the crime. Those visits, between 1889 and 1905 were only occasional, a makeshift. The proper way to fish Norway is to spend the fishing season there, living amongst the people and the rivers. The casual visitor would always envy him who lived in the Norwegian cottage fragrant with its deal boards into which he loved to stick his flies when they had to be dried, or retouched with varnish or whipping, and where somewhere outside he could keep his rods in security and order when they were put together say in June, and kept ready till they were packed up for the voyage home when the season was over. The fascination of Norway grew to be very strong amongst anglers and tourists by the sixties of the last century, and continued to grow until all the conditions were violently upset by the catastrophe of the reign of the devil engineered by Germany. The fascination will not be forgotten with the return of peace. It will lay hold of us again, and for the same reasons as before. The ordinary traveller will as before find in the scenery and ways of the people the old fascination of contrast. It might, however, be remarked that the fascination of Norway to the angler somewhat changed as time proceeded into the nineteenth century. Early in the century it was known to the few as the paradise of the salmon fisherman. It remained without any great change for something like a generation, and, like Scotland and Ireland in a lesser degree, was not overrun. In those days only the rich could afford the time and money which travel and sport without railways demanded. The railways came, and with them a wonderful transformation of the world's habit and custom. The growth of the Press in journalism and literature ranged abreast of improved facilities for going afar, and the choice preserves of the angler were, all in the order of things, invaded. Part of the fascination of Norway to the angler fifty years ago was the cheapness of it. The man who talked to his friends of "my river in Norway" paid but a few pounds a year for it; as the native farmer had not yet been exploited, he retained the simple notions of his class, and was mostly amused that the Englishman should take such trouble about the salmon, which were of such small account to him. It is common knowledge that this desirable state of things is past history, and there is no need to waste words, or pipe laments, or (to descend to homely metaphor) cry over spilt milk. The change came home to me on deck one night in the North Sea with striking insistence. We were returning from fishing in Norway, and no one, after a particularly bad season of "no water," seemed inclined to be enthusiastic about the fascination of Norway; one sorrowful gentleman, however, told me in hushed tones that his seven weeks on a hired river had cost him 300 pounds, and for that and all his skill and toil he had been rewarded with two salmon, three grilse, and one sea trout. That, of course, was the extreme of ill-fortune, and might occur to anyone anywhere. The truth is there are still fine chances for salmon in Norway, and excellent chances for trout if you have the gift of searching for rivers and lakes in remote districts. The fascinations of the characteristic scenery, the comparatively unspoiled people, and the rich legendary past remain. It is quite possible that the distance between Great Britain and Norway is somewhat in the direction of fascination. If you go there for a fishing holiday you are entitled to talk about seafaring matters. It is not a mere crossing; it is a voyage, and I have known men get a F.R.G.S. on the strength of it. On my first visit it did strike me on my return that five days to reach your river and five to return, was paying a fair price, apart from the fares (which were indeed reasonable enough), for ten days' clear fishing, and I would suggest to the reader to make his stay on the fishing ground as long as he possibly can, so that the journey may seem worth while. Justice cannot be done to Norway, its fish, or yourself under a month. There is not much to choose between the two routes, the one from Hull, the other from Newcastle, but care must be taken to time the arrival at the chief ports to suit the smaller steamers that traverse the fiords. The North Sea passage has its caprices of weather, but it is not very protracted. If you leave port on Saturday night, by breakfast time on Monday you are threading between the rocks that introduce you to Stavanger. That same night you are (wind and weather permitting) at Bergen, and thence next day you are going up the beautiful fiords to the river of your choice amidst surroundings that are nowadays the property of the picture postcard. In the short Norwegian summer great variations in weather must be expected, and in the valleys I have experienced downpours of rain and spells of heat equal to what I knew in the tropics. But as a rule the angler has little to complain of. The warmer the air and the brighter the sun the better in reason for the glacier-fed rivers, but let no one wish for such floods as are caused by heavy rain in association with warm winds. Out of my four visits one only was seriously marred by wet weather, and that was nothing like so provoking as another year when there was no rain, and yet no generous contributions to the rivers from glacier or mountain. Even in July the rain is occasionally emphasised by bitterly cold wind, and should your place that day be in a boat there is little pleasure. An ordinary mackintosh is useless, and hours of casting in solid oilskin and sou'-wester become irksome what time the clouds press heavily down upon you and the rugged mountains frown right and left. The one consolation rendered imperative under such circumstances by poetic justice is a continual carolling from the suddenly agitated winch. Fishermen forget this sentiment when they denounce the clamour of the check and lay all their money on the silent reel. After an hour of swish, swish, without touch from a fish, the scream of a winch is like hymns in the night. However, let that pass. The point is you must be prepared for heat and cold, wet and dry. I remember one morning when, going out of our snug farmhouse in the valley to reconnoitre, I found three or four poor cottagers cutting down their wretched oats and snipping off their 3-in. growth of hay in a cruel north wind, with the mountain tops white with new snow. A week previously we had been sweltering in moist heat, and it was the only time I ever saw a mosquito in Norway. The right-minded salmon fisher will always give first place to casting from the bank, with or without waders. On some rivers such casting is from rocks or boulders, and the work here is of the hardest, since it means severe scrambling and slipping to pass from pool to pool. It is, besides, a hazardous foothold that you get now and then. The remembrance of half an hour in such a position has given me the shivers many a time since. There tumbled over stupendous rocks upheaving masses of pure white foam, true type of the great foss of the Norwegian river in all its thunder and impetuous onrush. They poured into a rock-hollowed basin of churning foam and smoking spray. It was a turbulent oval pool, roaring and racing on either side, and narrowing somewhat at the tail, where it leaped a barrier of boulders and became a succession of rapids. The middle of this pool was, however, comparatively tranquil, very deep, and more like an eddy than a stream. This was the lie of the salmon, and there was said to be always one there. To fish this maelstrom you waded across a platform of shallow paved with slippery boulders bushel basket size, and stood in rough water about a foot deep on a narrow ledge of rock protruding a yard or so into the pool. It was deep enough beneath to drown an elephant; the din of that roaring foss and the swirl of the waters bordered on vertigo and deafness. But there it was to take or leave. Taken with good heart, after a thorough testing of tackle (the motto being "Hold on for dear life"), the big Butcher failed to attract, and I floundered ashore and sat on a rock before trying again with a Wilkinson. That trial succeeded, for the line was rushed out and across some twenty yards. The butt of the rod was then sternly presented, and thereafter no line of more length than five yards could be allowed. Every muscle strained, I literally leaned back solidly against the bent rod for a full quarter of an hour, the fish below meantime moving in circles or sulking. The gaffing was most cleverly done by the good man who had never left my side, and I staggered out, backed on to a mossy patch, and sank to ground exhausted and panting. That capture stands out as my most thrilling episode in Norway. The more frequent occurrence is a foreshore of shingle, much or little according to the volume of water, and here wading trousers are indispensable, and I dare venture to say they are to the majority of anglers wholly delightful. In waders somehow you feel very good. The opportunities for wading on many of the large rivers are, however, limited, the boat being a necessity for both salmon and sea trout. It is the only way of casting over the fish. The boats are often too skittish for comfort, though they are never so slight as the Canadian canoe. You step ashore to finish conclusions with your fish, and when your gaffsman is a village worthy who leaves his ordinary occupations to gillie the stranger, accidents are not uncommon. Does one ever forget the swiping at the cast instead of at the salmon by the honest fellow who so much tries to please you, or the losses caused by sheer inexperience or natural stupidity? The finest sea trout of my life ought to have been lost to me by this sort of blundering. I had, as I thought, drilled the worthy cobbler at least into the duty of keeping cool and combining vigour with deliberation. I was casting from a grassy bank overhung with alders, and the fish was well hooked on a Bulldog salmon fly. He ran hard and far down-stream, but was checked in time and reeled slowly up. After a quarter of an hour's play he was under the rod point, Johan all the while dancing with the excitement of the keen sportsman. I kept him off till the fish was spent and feebly gyrating at my feet. Then I gave the sign, and he swooped at him with a ferocious stroke, falling backward in the rebound. Just one word I uttered (spell it with three, not four, letters), and implored him to be calm. Then he hit the fish on the head with the back of the gaff. In the silence of despair I resigned myself as he smote again; he actually now gaffed the fish, but seemed too paralysed to lift him up the low bank. However, I dropped the rod and snatched the gaff out of his hands, to discover that the strangest thing in my experience had happened. The fish was gaffed clean through the upper lip. The point of the gaff lay side by side with my fly, the only difference being that the former was clean through and the latter nicely embedded in the mouth. It was a sea trout a fraction over 13 lb. An unkind fate declines to give me the month of August in its entirety for a holiday; and the best I can do is to catch the steamer on Saturday night, August 19. Salmon, so late as this, are not always to be reckoned upon, and the best part of the sea trout run might be over before I reach my destination. Certain data with the talisman "Brevkort Gra Norge" had come to hand during that tropical fortnight under which London experienced a wondrous spell of melting moments. They were cheery messages of good sport and rosy prospects upon the salmon and sea trout rivers of Norway, all sound material for hopeful musing in the pleasant run from Hull to the Norwegian coast. The visit on which I invite the reader to share my introduction to the country was very memorable. Five days to reach your fishing ground, as I said before, represent a fair price, in labour and time, for, at the outside, ten clear fishing days. We leave Hull at ten o'clock on Saturday night. After a sweltering day the sky is wonderfully brilliant with stars, the air undisturbed by even the faintest zephyr. The minutest of the myriad lights that glow where there are wharves and shipping are abnormally clear: and the dingy docks, in that atmosphere, under the lamps of the streets and houses, give somewhat Venetian effects. Outside is a summer sea, and the whole passage, in a ship which, if not large, is wholesome and comfortable, and officered by people who are never weary of ministering to your wishes, is pleasant. On Monday morning at breakfast time you are passing through the three hundred and odd rocks, each having its own name, bestudding the entrance to Stavanger. Two hours' discharge of cargo gives the opportunity of running ashore, laying in a stock of Norwegian coins, and seeing the cathedral and the few other sights of the place. In the afternoon, when the Domino is fairly on her northern course, and when the fiord landscapes should be a delight, we are in a gale, with incessant rain. At eleven o'clock on Monday night we quietly come alongside at the Bergen wharfage, but the rain keeps on. At eight on Tuesday morning we are on board one of the smaller type of fiord steamers, with three rod boxes amongst the luggage, some battens piled on deck, and a moderate complement of passengers. Here, then, is our introduction to famous Norway, which seems not to be in too kindly a mood. After the heat of London the gale blows very cold, and the rain seems too effectually iced. The weather is, it seems, phenomenally bad even for the time of year, and all this day, and all the next alas! the voyage, in and out of the fiords, with sundry stoppages in bays where the patient farmer makes patches of green on a stubborn soil, and the hardy, sober-sided fishermen toil for scant living, is done at disadvantage for those who would fain have the masses of rocky borderings clear against the sky. The mountains are shrouded in mist and capped with clouds, and during Tuesday night the gale howls, and the storms of rain volley against the windows of the cosy little smoke house on deck. Wednesday is an improvement in that the gale has blown itself out. But the rain it rains on, though now in a soft drizzle instead of driving sheets. The sides of precipitous mountain crags are silvered with cascades, and as we penetrate further into the fiord the scenery develops grandly, and the old snow patches on the dark and lofty summits and picturesque saddles look startlingly white. Voyaging up the coast and on the Norwegian fiords is delightful indeed in fair weather. As a rule there is neither pitching nor rolling, but it would be rash, nevertheless, to suppose that it is always like boating on a river. Our little steamer for the best part of one day and night, as a matter of fact, pitches and rolls enough to save some of the passengers the expenses of the table. As the ticket only means passage money, and the traveller is charged, as in an hotel, for what he eats and drinks, he, at any rate, is not tormented by the thought that he has paid for that which he has not received. Still, it is not often that the fiords are in a ferment of waves under a heavy gale, and the worst that happens is a temporary deviation from the general smoothness when the course lies where there is open sea on one side. The voyage northwards from Stavanger, where the Hull boats first touch, is mostly between islands, and in continuous shelter. Sometimes the narrows are not wider than the Thames at Oxford; then you steam out into what seems to be a land-locked expanse of water, with precipitous mountain rocks ahead. By and by you swerve to right or left, and a totally different picture is presented. And so it is, hour after hour, and day after day. For many a league north of Bergen the mountains and island rocks are bare of vegetation--gloomy masses of grey and brown that frown upon the waters in cloud, and cannot be glad even in sunshine. Some of them are like gigantic wildernesses of upheaved pudding stone. Then, as the voyage progresses, the hillsides put on greenery, sombre when it is pine, cheerful when the hangings are supplied by the silver birch, and bright ever when the emerald patches bear testimony to the industry of the farmer, winning his scanty harvests against heavy odds. The calling places are numerous, but often consist of some half a dozen houses of the usual weatherboard, red and white pattern. The hour is nevertheless welcome when you espy the sun-browned face of a brother angler, surmounted by a cap in which the flies cast upon the pools during the day are regaining a dry plumage, turned towards the vessel bearing you to the homely wharfage of the fiord station which for the time being is your destination. The rod box is no unfamiliar item of luggage in this country, and it is borne ashore by men who understand what it is, and who like to handle it. Norwegians have a deep respect for the English gentleman who fishes their salmon rivers, and when he has arrived at the same place many years in succession he is most heartily welcomed by natives of both sexes, who while he remains will devote themselves to his interests, in their own way--which has to be understood, no doubt, but which is on the whole of a character that makes the respect mutual. After five days' travel by land, sea, and fiord, the Norwegian hotel seems a veritable home, and you are quite ready to be predisposed in favour of bed and board. It is not true that first impressions are lasting, but they certainly go a long way; and that first _tête-à-tête_ dinner with your host must needs be a merry one. He probably is not so full of fishing as you are, however keen he may be, for his rods have been for weeks on the pegs under the little roof built for them on the side of the house. Any wayfarer might take them, but they are safe enough, with reels and lines attached, in this country, where the honesty of the people is proverbial. Conversation now, and at breakfast in the morning, reveals a temporary check in sport. About a week since there was a big storm, during which the thunder rolled amongst the mountains, and the lightning flashed upon the face of the fiords. Then followed three days of warm winds, and these did what heavy rains do at home. The river coming down in rolling flood through the melting of the glacier at the head of the valley, the migratory fish had seized the opportunity, to them no doubt a welcome chance, and pushed up to the higher reaches and even into the lake. But this particular river can wait, as an excursion is arranged for my first day to another river in a branch fiord, some eight miles distant. A little local steamer picks us up at nine in the morning, and my host, to whom I shall henceforth refer as G. P. F. (short for Guide, Philosopher, and Friend), does not appear in his war paint. He pretends that he wants an idle day, but he leaves his rod at home simply that I may take the cream of what sport is going; hence, by and by, when the owner of the river presses him to take his rod, he laughingly declines, urging that he never likes to break other men's tackle. The wonderfully pure atmosphere deceives you so much in Norway as to distances, that it is best to give up guessing. The fine summit of dark mountain, mottled with snow, lying in the rear of the nearer range, at the head of the charming little fiord up which we steer this morning in water smooth as a mirror, and glaring in a bright sun, seems to me for instance, entitled to, say, a rank of 2,000 ft.: but I learn on landing that it is over 6,000 ft., and a notable sentinel on the outskirts of a most notable glacier and snowfield. The shores of the fiord are cultivated to an unusual distance up the mountain side, and after the rain and mist of previous days, this grand landscape is my real introduction to the characteristic scenery of the better kind of Norwegian fiord. In truth it is all most beautiful. The English gentleman who owns the river lives in a house near its banks, and the ladies of his family are spending the season with him, delighted with the experience, and the daughters taking their share in the rod-work performed. The house is a type of the Norwegian fishing quarters where life cannot be described as discomfort, much less "roughing it." It is a pretty little villa, brightened by the refining influences of cultured womanhood, and a summer inside its wooden walls cannot surely be a hardship to anyone. One of the young ladies to whom I am introduced is made to blush by the paternal statement that three days previously she has slain a 28-lb. salmon, after two hours' battle, with a 15-ft. grilse rod. But a man in his waders, eager for action after months of piscatorial abstinence, pants for the river and its chances. At present there are none of the latter. The sun is bright upon the pools, and we take a stroll by the stream that I may comprehend its points as an example of a Norwegian river of the smaller size. It differs from other types, hereafter to be described, but, like all of them, its headwaters are a lake, and it is fed by a glacier. The salmon, however, are prevented from reaching the lake by a foss, or waterfall, about a mile and a half from the mouth: the fishing is therefore limited to a few pools. It is, however, a real "sporting" river by reason of the turbulence of many of the runs for which the fish generally make a direct dash, and have to be followed and contended with in roaring rapids, what time the angler makes the best running he may amid stones, brooks, and with many a bush between him and the river. It is the particular desire of the gentlemen who are looking on that I should hook a salmon that will at once corroborate this theory by a vigorous object lesson; equally sincere am I in my supplication that I am not thus forced to make play for the Philistines. The chances are as hopeless as they can be. But a slight cloud overcasts the sun by and by, and I verily find myself well fastened in a salmon, with that terrible threat of rushing foam at the tail of the pool; I make up my mind to do the best, and mentally mark the point, near a footbridge across a runnel, where I must probably come to grief. The salmon, however, is no more inclined to give amusement to the spectators than I am. He cruises about in a sullen humour, and acts as if he is rather anxious than otherwise to come to the gaff. There is no difficulty, in short, in applying the familiar time principle of a pound a minute, and without a serious attempt to try escape per rapids, he comes to land, a fish of 16 lb., that has been some time in the fresh water. As I nave not yet seen the fiord end of the river, we cross down from the other side, and our host of the day kindly points me to scenes of exciting adventure, in which the difficulties of killing a hooked fish virtually furnish sport which amounts to catching twice over. He presses me to try a somewhat shallow and level run where sea trout love to lie, and offers me his rod (mine being left behind) for the purpose. About the twelfth cast the reel sings a sweet anthem, and I have a delightful quarter of an hour with an unconquerable fish that leaps again and again in the air, but that has to give in at last, and lie beside the salmon eventually, as handsome a fresh-run sea trout of 9 lb. as mortal eye ever feasted upon. The Norwegian angler, as I soon discover, has to regard the sun not precisely as would a worshipper. It has so fatal an effect upon the pools that he gets into the habit of laying aside his rod, and waiting, book in hand, pipe in mouth, excursionising in the land of Nod, or practising any other pursuit that may occur to him for filling up the time. In the southern streams that are not affected by the melting of glaciers, and that have a habit of quickly running out to a no-sport level when the winter snows have disappeared (confining the fishing often to about one calendar month), the cloudless days, glorious though they are to the tourist, are a dire affliction to him. Such a river as this which gives me friendly welcome to the Norway fish is generally in fair volume, and I see it tinted with a recent rise of some feet. In a grey light, and from the water level, it seems to have a milky discolour that bodes ill; but get upon one of the knolls when the sun shines, and you have an exquisite blue, or rather variety of blues, according to the depth of the water, or reflection from the changing lights. There is a sweet silence in all this out-of-the-world valley, and you can always lift your eyes to the eternal hills that look so near, yet are so far, and smile at the thought of how very small you are. The head gillie here is a Norsker, who makes nothing of dashing into a whirlpool to gaff a salmon, and he once followed a fish to whom the rod had been cast under a bridge where the torrent madly swirled, came out safe on the other side, and triumphantly killed in the open. My friend had many a story to tell of his smartness and knowledge, born of a true love of sport. He once hooked a salmon at dusk, the man standing by with the gaff. With one impetuous rush the fish raced down the pool, through a long rapid and round a promontory, taking out line until little was left. The angler held on grimly in the dark, and the man, after grave cogitation, struck a match, leisurely made himself acquainted with the angle of the line, and without a word moved away. Possessed by an afterthought he, however, returned, struck another light, and examined the quantity of line left upon the winch. Then he walked off, and was heard climbing rocks and forcing his way through the alders. After a time the line slackened and my friend reeled up; but the fish was safe enough on the grass a long distance round the promontory. The man had made his observations (literally throwing a light upon the subject), concluded therefrom behind what particular rock the salmon was taking refuge, groped and waded his way to the spot, and gaffed the fish at the first shot. Such an attendant, who knows every stone, so to speak, in the river, is invaluable. CHAPTER XV CASTING FROM ROCKS AND BOATS The reader of these sketchy studies of fishing in Norway has been fairly warned already not to expect exciting records of slaughter amongst salmon. Of course, no angler would be at a loss to explain away his poor bags; his excuses are proverbial, they are an old joke, they have long been a proverb. When people hear of unfavourable weather, too much sun, rain, wind, or too little, they very sensibly smile. I smile too, whenever, as so often happens, the necessity of offering such pleas is emphasised by a discreet silence. The fisherman who knows will be able, for himself, to read that the fates were very much against us; and I would again remind him that my object is to provide him with some knowledge that will be useful when the good time of casual visits to Norway returns, and he sails across to make one for himself. To a student of geology anxious to acquire knowledge on the practical methods of Mr. Squeers, or to the athlete who loves to skip like a goat from crag to crag, I fearlessly recommend No. 8 beat of the Mandal river. He may take choice of rocks of every sort and size. The convulsion of nature that transformed this peaceful valley of Southern Norway did it with a will that left stupendous evidence of thoroughness through all the ages. There are rocks more or less along all the higher portions of the river, but in our section we had them in unquestioned abundance. Sometimes they acted as frowning walls for the stream, running deep and dark through narrow gorges; elsewhere they took the form of great round-headed boulders, varying in size from a coalscuttle to a dwelling-house. At other times they were strewn about miscellaneously, varying in size, angular, and abounding in traps for the unwary; at a distance they might look innocent as shingle, but the going when you once began to tread amongst them was most fatiguing, and even dangerous. Rocks are very well in their place, and as Norway is mostly rock they give a distinctive character to the country. Peeping out, weather stained, on the pine-clad mountain sides, they claim your admiration; as a foothold for casting your fly or battling with a fish they are apt to be a severe trial to the muscles, and in any shape or degree they are an ever-present source of danger to rod or tackle. Had the water during our stay in the country attained full proportions I must have put up my best salmon rod. But I had too much respect for my favourite steel centre split cane to leave any of its dainty varnish upon the South Norway granite. The smaller greenheart, therefore, for the third time gallantly survived its month on a Norway river; but those rocks have literally chipped the shine from every joint, leaving, I believe and hope, its constitution, nevertheless, quite sound. The higher reaches of our beat, as I have intimated, were a succession of gorges or rapids; but whether precipitate wall, which rendered it out of the question to fish the water, or comparatively open boulder-land, you must always look down into it from the excellently kept road which mostly followed the course of the stream. There were no footpaths or tracks down to the water, but an adventurous person might let himself down from crag to crag, and have his rod lowered to him from above. This part of the Mandal I tried twice, but "Sarcelle," who had been accustomed to some such exercise in the mountains of Italy, tried it later with much perseverance, when the white foaming water of the rapids had become moderate pools of dark water. We were often told that they always held salmon, and when the river is in ordinary volume probably they do so. Very exciting it is to hook a fish in one of these cauldrons, for the salmon must be held by main force, and prevented from rushing into the rapid below. With the strongest tackle, and a firm hold for the hook, it is amazing what a strain you can put upon rod and fish when the playing must be confined within a space of 100 yards by 50 yards. As a matter of fact, we did badly in these rapids; the beat above had the advantage of a number of long resting pools, and the fish apparently ran past us with scarcely a halt. They seemed to know that the river was dropping; instinct told them what the inhabitants were told by memory and eyesight, namely, that so low a river had been seen but once before in this generation; and they said, "Let us hasten until the rapids be passed; in beat No. 9, lo, we may rest from our labours, and, free from anxiety as to the future, perchance lie at ease in the tranquil flow of the pools, and push on to the lake at our leisure." Whereat the anglers of No. 9 rejoiced, for they had lovely wading ground, with probably a minimum of rock trouble, and so killed fish day by day. The rapids and passes to which I have been referring as constituting the upper length of our beat were, I may add, not continuous, but had to be approached by repeated climbs up to the road level and a descent at some point farther on. The rocks hereabouts, too, were wonderfully sharp-edged as compared with others which had been fashioned and polished by the action of water, and there was a general idea of Titanic splintering up that was not a little impressive. One pool of the highest repute for salmon in a fair height of water was walled by lofty rocks on the village side, but was fishable from shore on the other. This could only be attained by crossing the river either above or below in a boat, and walking or stumbling to the head of the pool over an acreage of scattered rocks. From the elevation of the road this seemed an easy task, for distance toned down the obstacles so that they appeared scarcely more formidable than pebbles. At close quarters they, however, proved the most fatiguing of all; they were too high for lightly stepping over, and too far apart for unbroken progress, so that for a quarter of an hour you were letting yourself down and hoisting yourself up these countless hindrances. The stones along the edge of the pool were a trifle smaller, but it was never safe to take a step without looking at your ground. You soon get into the way of such a condition of affairs; you learn that, however the torrent may swirl or roar, you must keep your eye on your foothold, since a small error may plunge you into the current. It is essential, of course, to take advantage of every boulder that affords even an extra foot of command over the pool. The pool in question could only be properly fished by keeping the rod at right angles over the stream, which could be beautifully worked at the edge or centre by the rod-top pointing a little upwards. But to do this you had often to stand on a boulder-perch in the water not larger than your brogue. Strangely enough I was always in dread of hooking a salmon in this pool, though in truth we never caught or saw one in it. I had arranged beforehand with Ole to lend me the support of his strong arm if I had some day to follow a fish down from boulder to boulder, and I am not ashamed to confess that on many occasions both Ole, the gaffer, and Knut, the boatman, rendered me assistance of this kind; they hauled me up, and lowered me down, and kept me from falling when I was engaged in a fight with a fish. So far as the pool under consideration went this emergency did not arise; it yielded me nothing but tired limbs, and a few precepts which may be useful to brother anglers who cast from rocks, as, for example: In moving about, keep your eye on the stones; if you support yourself with the gaff handle, make sure that the end of it is not jammed in a crevice; keep going when stepping from boulder to boulder, as the swing of regular advance is a greater help than occasional pauses; do not put down your rod save when actually necessary, if you would do a friend's duty to it and your winch; keep on examining the point of your hook; do not be afraid of sliding down a rock that cannot be otherwise travelled over, for in these days of science the reseating of breeks is not impossible, and any casual personal disfigurement that may ensue is not likely to be obtruded upon the notice of even personal friends. The nearest bit of fishing to our honest farmhouse gave us a charming landscape, and it was not reached without some little difficulty. Just above the village the rapids and fosses were finished by a broad pool pouring over a fall, and creating the particular pool about which something has been said. Then the river opened out to a lake-like area from three to four hundred yards either way; the stream then took a sudden turn at the lower end, charging direct upon a long line of smooth, lofty, round-headed rocks, sloping considerably more than the roof of an ordinary house. They would be of an average of 30 ft. above the water. The river, after babbling over its expanse of shallows, swerved sharply and coursed along at their feet in a kind of gut, which was said to give the best low water holding ground in that part of the river. In the early part of July the view from The Rocks, as we called them in special distinction, was most enchanting. The whole expanse was full like a lake, only a single spit cumbered with logs showing above water. One of our three boats was fastened ashore to a line of booms fixed to direct the course of the timber, which was already beginning to come down in force, and it was always possible to pull across to a convenient corner of The Rocks, and save ourselves a considerable journey by land. As time went on the brimming lake disappeared; little white heads of stones would appear one morning, and thereafter enlarge day by day until they emerged as innumerable upstanding boulders. The boat was now no longer available, for the water was so shallow that it was blocked effectually at the outset. The stream, of course, charged down upon The Rocks in gathering strength, and for the first fortnight we were always sure of a grilse or two. At first The Rocks had to be fished by standing on their open crowns, and although one was in constant fear of scaring the fish by showing on such an eminence, no great harm seemed to be done, probably because there was a background of pine trees in the forest behind. As time advanced little ledges on the rock slopes were left dry by the water, and it was possible to slide down to them on all fours and fish the run with the rocks behind us, necessitating left-handed casting, but giving perfect command of about 60 yards of stream, which was for a while sure holding ground, since it was deepest at the foot of the rocks. "Sarcelle" had his first experience of a fish on the Mandal river from this place, and it was rather unfortunate. If I remember rightly, it was Sunday evening, and in a shame-faced sort of way we had gone out at seven o'clock to fish. The grilse were then running, and, as they are here to-day and gone to-morrow, and I had already discovered that they did not linger long in our parts, it was almost a duty not to allow a day to pass without an attempt. "Sarcelle" had adventured upon a Mayfly cast with a fly of sea trout size as dropper, and in point of fact a sea trout fly at the end. I was sitting down filling a pipe when he made his first cast, more by way of wetting his line than anything else, and "I've got him" brought me to my feet, only in time to see a grilse bend the rod and then break away. At the next cast a salmon came, took one of the small flies, made a thrilling run, and then snapped the collar. Even after this mishap "Sarcelle" killed his grilse and lent me his rod to try for another. We had an example that evening of the way in which fish are made shy. "Sarcelle" had the first turn down the pool, and, besides losing two and catching one, he rose several others, three or four of them showing away on shallow water that was rippling merrily, but that was quite out of the orthodox limits of the run. I had the second turn down, rose two, hooked one, and killed one. "Sarcelle" had the third handling of the rod, and killed one fish without moving any of the others. The place that evening seemed to be alive with grilse, and there was an undoubted salmon that had escaped below. It was too late, however, to give the pool the necessary rest and fish it down again; but we were up early in the morning, to find that our grilse during the night had left the country. After a fortnight's miscellaneous sport from The Rocks, during which the grilse proved themselves to be as game as fish could be, frequently running down into the rough water a hundred yards before we could get on terms with them, we began to discover that even in this essentially good place the water was too thin. If the grilse were running at all, they no longer stopped in the old haunts; but the neck of the lower pool gave us fish occasionally. But during the last three days what had been here dark, deep water became a rough stream, which clearly revealed the yellow boulders at the bottom. On our very last morning "Sarcelle," who had been disappointed throughout in not getting a good salmon, determined to make a final attempt from The Rocks where he had made his first. I had packed up on the previous night, and was ready for breakfast at eight o'clock, with all my goods stowed away on the carriage, when he triumphantly appeared with an 8-lb. salmon and a 5-lb. grilse. He had caught them in this newly formed rapid, the salmon being close by the side. The Rocks, however, were troublesome when they were slippery, but there were little niches and crevices on their shoulders and sides, from which grew flowering ling and tiny seedling pines, by the aid of which we could manage to insert the edge of a boot sole somewhere and hold on. "Sarcelle" one evening had hooked a capital fish in pretty strong water, and had to follow it as best he could over The Rocks. Generally very sure-footed, on this occasion he tumbled on his back, keeping the rod all the time in his hands, but of course making a slack line. The fish was still on when he regained his feet and tightened up, but the relaxation had been fatal, and the grilse presently escaped. The Rocks, as I have said, were our favourite spot. When the water became too low for ferrying across in the boat we had to walk about half a mile down the dusty road, then diverge across a bit of marsh, into the moss of which the foot sank as in velvet-pile; then ascend a forest path, carpeted with pine needles that made the walking most slippery; then traverse a bit of high plantation, and then walk or slide down a steep, slippery, winding ascent to The Rocks themselves. In the hot weather we generally arrived at our starting point in a bath of perspiration, and began our fishing from a low platform, with a great rock concealing us from the fish. This, however, was not the favourite lie for the migrants, though it was the spot where "Sarcelle" lost his salmon and grilse. I have already stated that The Rocks formed a practically straight line right across the valley. Sitting on the highest point, which would be fifty yards above the stream, there was outspread to our eyes an exquisite panorama of typical South Norway scenery; that is to say, there were pleasing evidences of cultivation everywhere. Here, instead of having to get their bits of grass with small reaping hooks, and send their baskets of hay by wire down from the mountain tops, the farmers enjoyed fair breadths of pasture and grain crop, so much so that mowing machines could be used. The verdure of these bottoms and easy slopes at the foot of the hills was delicious, with mountains all round, dark with pine, relieved with occasional rock and patches of silver birch and other deciduous foliage. It was a glorious amphitheatre with environment of picturesque mountains, and within these towering ramparts reposed the little village of Lovdal, the prominent object in which was the church, with its pure white walls, gables, plain grey spire and red roof, standing on a little eminence in the middle distance. Then came a patch of greenery formed by the apple trees of our most comfortable farmhouse. Around it clustered the red-roofed wooden houses of the neighbours, and there were two or three flagstaffs always conspicuous in the clear air. On my arrival they had hoisted the Union Jack on our flagstaff, and there was generally either the Norwegian or English flag to be seen flying. The farthest point of mountain would be, perhaps, a couple of miles distant as we looked straight up from The Rocks. It was my fortune to behold this entrancing scene considerably transformed during my month's stay. At first the immediate landscape was beautified by wild flowers; the blue of the harebells was exquisitely set off by masses of golden St. John's wort, and on our walk to The Rocks we would trample down meadow-sweet, marsh mallow, bird's foot trefoil, and potentilla. There was one little detail of the picture that was quite remarkable; it was a bright composition of harebells, with the red-brown of ripening grass, and a patch of Prussian blue representing a crop of oats immediately behind. By and by the haymakers came, and down went the harebells, and in course of time the Prussian blue became yellow straw. One Sunday evening impresses itself upon my memory especially. The bells were tinkling as the cows came down from the mountains, and the voices of the women and children were heard afar in the clear air; down the valley came the music of a military band in the encampment, and the sun disappearing over the mountains brought out the colours of the pines and birches in an indescribably vivid manner, and everything seemed luminous beyond conception. But what impressed itself most upon me were the odours brought down to me on my rocky seat by the soft wind. For quite half an hour there were regular alternations of the fragrance of pine and new-mown hay. I had often read of scents borne by zephyrs, but never so thoroughly realised the sensation of air filled with them. The Rocks, I may add, were at places hoary with age, curiously stained by the weather, patched with mosses and ling, and rearwards was the wood with all manner of shrubs and diversity of forest trees, amongst which I noticed elm, oak, and cedar, and a complete undergrowth of bilberry and other berries, which we could pluck and eat at any hour of the day, and diversify such dessert with wild strawberries and raspberries by a little search. The whole scene from The Rocks was one of peace and tranquil prosperity, and one's heart was always warming towards the kindly people, whose friendship we had quickly gained. During our stay we cast and caught from many rocks, but none gave us so characteristic and beautiful a picture in sunshine and in shade as these to which we gave the distinctive name. * * * * * * The majority of anglers probably agree that fishing from a boat must, under the best of circumstances, be ranked amongst the necessary evils of an angler's life. The ideal salmon pool is one that can be waded, and the stream where the salmon lie commanded from head to tail with precision, without danger or unnecessary exertion to the wader. The foothold for the man should be shingle or stones presenting a fairly even bottom, sloping gradually from the edge, and enabling the fisherman to operate comfortably with the water at his hips. Should he have to venture deeper, the necessity of keeping the winch above water requires a special strain upon the muscles, and this in time becomes fatiguing. There is always, however, compensation in hooking a salmon in this position, in which you have to hold your rod well up what time you retire slowly to the _terra firma_ that is above water, carrying on the action as you go. A long pool of sufficient briskness to keep the fly in lively and regular motion, a pool with varying depths and a sharp shallow at the tail, a pool that will, let us say, take not less than half an hour to fish down carefully, is what we should all perhaps choose if we could do so; but even where the bottom is rough, and the angler, if he would escape peril, must move with wary steps, where the stream is so out of reach that it can only be properly worked in parts, and then with difficulty--even this is better than fishing from a boat. I know of nothing more delightful than wading such a pool at just the depth and force of water which allows you to sit on it. Those who have not indulged in this sensation may laugh at the idea of sitting on running water, but it is quite possible, and many a time have I enjoyed this utilisation of a current strong enough to support you as a seat. The principal fishing must after all be from a boat. It must not be supposed that the frail craft in Norway are to be compared with those models of boats for casting which you have on Tweed or Tay. The Norwegian boats have to be used upon water that is often both shallow and swift, and must be dragged from place to place. It is not comfortable to cast from such boats in a standing position. You cast sitting, very much cramped, on the first thwart, with your back to the oarsman. After a little practice you can get out quite as much line as you require, and for myself I retained my seat in playing a fish. There is no need to enumerate the drawbacks of casting from a boat; suffice to say that there are always enough to prevent you from becoming attached to the practice, save as an occasional change. I say nothing of harling, which is a different matter; you can lounge at your ease in the stern of the boat, with a book in your hand, and trail on until the winch gives you warning that a fish has hooked itself. Casting from a boat is much more trying than casting in other ways. When on foot you are tired of fishing, you can choose your resting place and sit down; but in a boat you are cramped and confined all the time, with only the muscles of arms and shoulders engaged. One forgets all this, of course, when there is sport, and I often smile on remembering the amused expression which used to steal over the faces of my men when they first beheld the little formulas which I always observe, be the fun fast or slow. I can best explain this by recalling one particular evening on the Mandal river. It was the one occasion when I deemed it necessary to take out a mackintosh. With the exception of a thunderstorm in the early part of July, the downpour as to which was during the night, the days had been of strong and unbroken sunshine; but in the middle of the month there came a close, cloudy day when the flies were exceedingly troublesome, and the only mosquitoes that were annoying during our stay came out in full trumpeting for an hour or two. There was a favourite pool, very long and lively, which we called Olaf's Garden, that served me very well, and one morning, in bright sunshine, in the course of a half-hour I caught three fish weighing 15 lb. On this day it began to dawn upon me that the water had become too low for a grilse to remain here any length of time. Higher up was a favourite reach of mine, named Pot Pool, and after fishing Olaf's Garden and another reach, finding only a couple of grilse, I moved elsewhere, and in the evening discovered that the fish appeared to be resting in Pot Pool. A gentleman who formerly leased the Mandal river had recommended me to try some of the delicate flies dressed by Haynes, of Cork, and with one of these (the Orange Grouse), at starting, between seven and eight, I killed a grilse of 5 lb. The pool was then fished down leisurely, with no other result. Returning to the head, a long rest was called, and, as I suspected there might be salmon, I changed the fly to a fair-sized Durham Ranger. My gaffer, Ole, had done me the honour in the forenoon of losing an 18-lb. or 20-lb. fish in another pool, and though his custom was to sit on a rock and sing a hymn while Knut was working at the oars, this evening, while I was fishing the pool, the memory of his afternoon mishap kept him dolefully silent. I had directed him to a little rocky cove for service in case I should have the fortune to bring in a fish, as fruit meet to his repentance. My custom is to fish a pool very patiently and thoroughly. It is true that not more than half a dozen times in my life have I ever hooked a salmon other than when the line was straight down the stream, but by keeping the boat in the right course, and handling the rod to suit it, there are several possibilities of presenting the fly on an even keel. The swish, swish of the casting becomes decidedly monotonous as the boat drops downward inch by inch. You lose yourself in dreamy reveries, casting at length quite mechanically. The fly goes out to its appointed place, sweeps round with the stream, and with a kind of involuntary sigh the line is recovered, and the cast repeated. It becomes machine action at last. On this evening I had impressed upon Knut the desirability of being very slow indeed, and he was working well. The stream was strong without rage, there was a dull curtain of slate-grey overhead, and a light breeze was blowing in your teeth, but not enough to make casting twenty-five yards of line a hardship. For a time your thoughts centre upon the working of the fly. You wonder whether a salmon has noticed it and is following it craftily round; if so, will he take it? Or is it possible that after all you are not in the exact lie of the salmon? The water, you see, has not yet become, as it will (and does) in a few days, clear enough for you to know that the entire bed of the river consists of huge boulders, with manifold guts and hollows, all lovely abiding places for any well-disposed fish. You speculate on what you shall do if you do hook a salmon at this or that particular point. You scan the shore, mark the likeliest spot for landing, and mentally go through the whole programme to its happy ending. You think what a splendid thing it would be if you could get four, five, six, a dozen salmon in as many casts, and how much better the bottom of the boat would look if, instead of two or three comely grilse, it showed the biggest salmon ever known in these parts. But no, nothing disturbs the monotony. Swish, swish, swish! Gradually you forget all about salmon and sport, and are thinking, maybe, of kith and kin across the North Sea, or of sins of omission and commission. All at once you are startled by that inspiring cry of the winch which some faddy people pretend to think a nuisance. It is to the angler what the trumpet is to the war horse. This was precisely what happened to me on the evening of which I write. The bent grilse rod described an arc that only a salmon could make. He went straight down, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty yards without a possibility of check, even if one were so foolish as to wish to stop a strongly running fish. At the first slackening of speed, however, it is always wise to put on a little pressure, and cautiously begin with the winch. After such a run a salmon will generally respond to the slow winding in of the line, and, although after he has advanced ten or fifteen yards he may make another spurt, you have him more under control than in the first burst. A taut line, a bending rod never for a moment allowed to unbend, and a firm yet sympathetic finger and thumb at the winch handle are enough. Just keep cool, you and your man. Knut, I may say, had to learn his management of a boat for fishing purposes from me, and, therefore, knew the importance of being ready on the instant to pull ashore, when and how he was ordered in a crisis. On this occasion we had fixed upon our landing place, and Knut had already received orders to pull steadily towards it if I hooked a fish. In his excitement he put on the pace a little too much, a source of danger met by letting the line ease the position. The salmon was incessant in short, sharp rushes, but, in course of time, we were out of the stream into easy water, although the fish had returned half a dozen times before he relinquished the advantage of the current. He became convinced, however, that resistance was vain, and stubbornly allowed himself to be towed on and on to land. Ole, eagerly waiting in the cove, gaff in hand, was now determined to mend his damaged reputation, and listened with humble attention to my injunction to take it easy, and not to hit till he was quite sure. He was standing on a small slab of rock that protruded into the water, and, unfortunately, there was nothing but lofty rocks behind us. What one likes is a nice beach or field upon which one can step backwards, conducting the salmon safely and easily into the net. There was no possibility of this now; indeed, we were forced to change our tactics in a hurry. The salmon at the finish came in more quickly than I wished, and was virtually under the point of the rod. With a couple of inexperienced men I feared a smash if I attempted to land at such a place. Salmon at close quarters often prove troublesome. This one was several times brought near enough for a skilled gaffer to strike him as he swam slowly along parallel with the boat, but this would have been too much to expect from a learner. I had, therefore, to keep to the boat, and not only to bring the fish in, but to guide it past me to the ledge below. The fish, however, as I knew, was firmly hooked; it was merely a question of time, and, as a fact, Ole very cleverly gaffed a clean-run salmon of 13 lb. That day, besides the salmon caught and another lost, I had grilse of 5 1/4 lb., 3 1/4 lb., 4 1/2 lb., and 3 lb. It was my good fortune to have Pot Pool again for the evening. Again it was dull, with an incipient drizzle as we started out at six o'clock. The fish were now rising, at any rate, in my pool. At the very entrance to it, which was, in fact, the connecting run from The Rocks, I killed, after a fussy tussle and plenty of leaping out of the water, a grilse of 4 lb.; and we had barely rowed out into the stream when a fish of 6 lb. or 7 lb. leaped head and tail out of the water at my fly without touching it. The overcast character of the evening suggested to me the use of a Bulldog, and we were now enabled to practise the formulas at which Ole and Knut at first appeared so much amused. On hooking a fish I keep my seat, and direct the course of the boat to a suitable landing place. The craft must be pulled partly ashore, if feasible, before I attempt to move. Then I rise and back gently to the bow of the boat, where Ole is in readiness to lend me a hand as I step out, sometimes no easy thing to do if I have to land on a high, slippery rock. Delightful it is to have the fish fighting all the time as only a grilse will. Your salmon often moves sullenly, and will cruise slowly about with a dull, heavy strain that is most comforting to an experienced man, who feels certain that the fish is well hooked; but this is not wildly exciting. Your grilse is here, there, and everywhere. There is no slackening for him. He is a dashing light dragoon ever at the charge, determined to do the thing with spirit if it is to be done at all. At first I have no doubt I lost more grilse by giving them too much law. The longer the fish is on, the looser becomes the hold, and I have always found it better with fish of 5 lb. or 6 lb. to play them to the top of the water, and then run them in without another check. Occasionally you may lose a fish this way, but in the long run you gain, and after a little practice you will get into the trick of bringing the grilse on his side submissively into the net. The butt, however, must be applied at the proper moment, and when the proper stage of exhaustion is reached can be told only by experience. To return, however, to the formulas. The fish, being in the net and landed, is handled by myself only; the eager, sportsmanlike instinct of your man will have to be repressed, his first idea being to seize it and knock it on the head with a stone. I have sufficient respect for either salmon or grilse to finish them with the orthodox priest, and that also is a function I like to perform myself. Then comes the extraction of the hook, always an interesting, because instructive, formula for the angler. Next follows the satisfaction of weighing the game with a spring balance, and then seeing that it is deposited in the boat with a covering of ling or alder leaves as a protection against flies or sun. Returning now to my evening, I may explain that Ole was absent on leave, and that Knut, who was a most intelligent young fellow and the schoolmaster of the village, was anxious to use the gaff or net as the case may be. Having caught a 3 1/2-lb. grilse on a small Butcher, I fished down Pot Pool very leisurely without a touch. After a fair interval I removed the small fly and elected to take my chance thereafter with a Jock Scott of larger size. It was now about eight o'clock, and we went down the pool again, having a brief run with probably a grilse, which held fast only a moment or two; then I was becoming conscious again of the monotony of fruitless casting when there was a splendid spin of the winch. This, I confess, was of such a nature that I rose at once and determined to take my reward or punishment, as it might happen, standing. It was an undoubted salmon, for fifty yards down out of the water he came, the winch, curiously enough, screaming all the time, and never ceasing when he fell in with a loud splash and resumed his run. I had about 115 yards of line on my winch, and I noticed, just as the fish moderated his express speed, that there could not have been ten yards left. He was fighting all the time. Knut, fortunately, understood my directions to follow him down instead of pulling up-stream and a little across, as he usually did, and I was able at least to winch in three-parts of the line before the next rush, which was equally formidable, but not so long. I think I never had a salmon fight as this one did. He, at any rate, was not one of the sulky kind, and it was quite on the cards that I had one of the twenty or thirty pounders for which the angler is always longing. By and by we landed on a rock--or rather two rocks--Knut on a flat bit of crag and I on the round head of a small boulder. The fish had so tired himself in his shoots and fights out in the stream that he gave little trouble in the slack water, but refused for a long time to be brought up anywhere near the surface. When he did yield he came in the most lamb-like way, and Knut had the pleasure of using the gaff for the first time. He hit the fish fair and well, and, marvel of marvels, it was to an ounce the weight of the fish killed in the same pool in the previous evening, viz. 13 lb. Having now a good salmon, for this water, in the boat, and a grilse or two, and it being nine o'clock, overcast, and with a dark bit of the forest to walk through to the road, I signified my intention of going home; but Knut's blue eyes opened wide in surprise and pleading, and he besought me to have one more trial. As the young fellow had been working hard for three hours, and this was uncommonly good of him, I consented, and, keeping on the same fly, we began half-way up the pool, my intention being only to fish the tail end. At the fifth cast, and on a portion of the stream which I had fished over without disturbance twice the same evening, up came another salmon, which fastened and went off at the same fierce pace as the other. He stripped off the line several times, gave me a splendid quarter of an hour's sport, and there we were, the dangers of the stream left behind, the fish quietly circling in easy courses in the slack water, Knut ready with his gaff on his little platform, and I, cocksure of the fish, standing on the round rock. To the left was water that in the dusk seemed to be deep and black, and as all along this side the water was deep close in, I concluded that all was safe. The fish was coming quietly in, and was not two yards from the gaff, when it made a sudden dart to the left into this dark water close to the rocks, and in a very short time I realised that he had hung himself up. Getting as quickly as possible into the boat again, we moved slowly out to the impediment, in the hope of its being nothing more than a rock which could be cleared; but on looking down I saw that the bottom had been a regular trap for sunken logs, and as I looked down into the water I saw the fish, a silvery, clean-run fellow of about 8 lb., fighting his hardest at the end of the line, which sawed and sawed until it parted. I recovered most of the cast, but the fish had got away with my bonny Jock Scott and the last strand. This was very sickening, for we might have had a nice bag to take home; but it was not to be, and in somewhat subdued spirits we fastened up the boat, got our baggage together, and walked homeward. Still, it was a typical experience of casting from a boat, and Knut and myself had the pleasure of carrying home in the net, I holding the handle and he the rim, a salmon of 13 lb., and grilse of 4 lb., 3 1/2 lb., and 3 lb. This, I may say, was the day when I hooked and played fifteen fish, of which only five were caught. I dreamed about that fraudulent dark water and its hidden logs, and in the searching sunlight of the next day went over to examine. It was most artful of the salmon to take the course he did, for I found that he had run under what was virtually a spar of about 10 ft. long, with each end resting on a rock; below it was a nice little interval of 18 in. of water, under which a salmon could run. CHAPTER XVI SOME CONTRARIES OF WEATHER AND SPORT At my first visit to Norway in 1899 I was greeted with days of roasting heat, with roaming thunder growling incessantly in the mountains. The angler fresh from England, out of training with his salmon rod, and with the precarious rocks and boulders for foothold, gradually discards his clothing; the coat is shed first, then probably the collar and scarf, then the waistcoat. Some underclothing goes next. In two days the heat sufficed to stick together in hopeless amalgamation all the postage stamps in my purse, and I have at last discovered that the haberdashery goods warranted fast colours, and paid for as such, leave confused rainbow hues upon every vestige of attire after a good Norwegian sweat. All this will signify to the initiated that fishing during the six middle hours of the day is out of the question. It is not the case that salmon will never take in glaring sunshine, but it is the exception rather than the rule, and the game is decidedly not worth the frizzle. It means, moreover, that the rivers are low, and it may be stated that they have been so all the season so far, and that there can be no really good sport until there is a change. To be sure, even a single thunderstorm does help a little, but in my case it has wrought harm; the rolling of thunder in the hills day after day, and the surcharged atmosphere have had an undoubted influence in sulkifying the fish, and there is a worse thing than that. This worse thing is the modest pine log of commerce. Driving, last Sunday, from Christiansand over the hills and down into the Mandal Valley, a distance of twenty-eight miles through most beautifully typical South Norway scenery, in which, with the towering mountains of rock timbered with dark sentinels to the very skyline, alternate verdant, peaceful, prosperous, valleys glowing with wild flowers, in which the bonny harebell is more assertive by the waysides, I was much interested in the cut timber strewing the half-dried river bed whose course we followed. The logs are of no great size, mere sticks of pine, averaging a foot diameter and in lengths varying between twelve and forty feet. It was obvious that these spars, like the anglers, were waiting for a spate. How nice it would be for the hardy, honest natives engaged in this all-important lumber industry if these prepared sticks, each well ear-marked for recognition leagues perchance down-stream, were swept offhand to market. My sentiments changed somewhat yesterday and the two previous days. I may explain that there was a violent thunderstorm on Monday night, and the Mandal river, a noble type of the rocky Norwegian salmon stream, rose, perhaps, a couple of feet in the wider portions, and considerably more where the bed contracted. Even such an addition to the volume of water gave these logs a friendly lift, and brought them tumbling and grinding along in hundreds without the aid of man; but on Thursday they appeared in endless battalions, for by this time the timbermen had been ordered out in force to give a friendly shove to the masses that had jammed in some eddy or rocky corner. It is astonishing what a mere touch will effect. With my pocket gaff last evening I lightly nudged a floating spar in the ribs, and he set off right heartily, very gently, yet firmly, cannoned without temper against a neighbour, and in less than five minutes a block of perhaps 150 logs had started off, scattering irregularly over the stream, and making a noise like distant thunder as they charged over the boulders of the rapids below. There are circumstances, I have been told, under which salmon will rise as well as at other times while logs are drifting, but our best pools here are even-flowing and stately, reminding one often of the Tweed between Kelso and Coldstream. The logs in such water are bad for fish. The testimony of the local men is that the pools, from the piscatorial point of view, are always unsettled while the logs are descending in quantities, and that it is a rare thing at such times to induce a salmon to take a fly. Moreover, with a thunderstorm spate of this nature, and the operations of gangs of lumbermen hastening to set the stranded stock on its way to port, the water is rendered very dirty; in a word, until the muck has passed, and the river settled, the angler's chances are poor indeed. The danger to the angler's gear, and any fish he hooks, when he finds himself amongst the logs, is well known. The tenant of the beat above ours lost two or three good salmon in one day by collisions of this nature. Down at Lovdal we fish mostly from one of the somewhat crank boats of the country, and my first salmon was hooked from the stern of one of them, at the moment when a score of logs that had been gyrating in an aimless sort of way in a great dark backwater must needs hustle one another in company into a corner where they were suddenly caught by a strong undercurrent, and almost hauled out into the current, unnoticed by my boatman. For myself I was engaged with a hooked fish, and fortunately for me he was not large. The man had all he could do to fend off the spars with his oars, and at that critical moment, when the fish is either turned or allowed a new lease of life, we had the honour of notice to quit from a spar on either side. Mr. Salmon, without a fin-flick of apology, taking a mean advantage, darted under the stick to the right, and at express speed made across stream. One does not, however, use Hercules gut for nothing; the log was travelling swiftly, and I ventured to clap my rod-top down to and under the surface, thus saving my tackle, and being presently able to land and gaff my 10-lb. fresh-run salmon without risk or hurry. This fish, I may add, rose in the fiercest of sunshine in the forenoon, and some logs were coming down, but only one here and there. The river in fact had only then begun to rise briskly, and on Wednesday, when the lumbermen were hard at work above, three salmon, one of them a certain twenty pounder, fluttered up at the fly. They did not mean business though. That pool I fished, with change of pattern and abundant intervals, until I was not merely fit but ready to drop, and rose two of the fish a second time. On Thursday the river was so out of order that I left the salmon rod in its rack in the barn and drove up to Manflo lake, arriving there in time to see the effects of an apparently innocent occurrence of thunder and lightning. There was no storm or overcasting of the heavens, only a single discharge from one wandering cloud, yet it fired the forests in two places, and we saw the columns of white smoke of the conflagration. With thunder all around the hills it did not seem promising for the trout; still we had driven eight miles to try them, and were there for the purpose, so we unmoored the boat and began. The trout were small and of two varieties--a dark, heavily-blotched, lanky fish, with coarse head, and a shapely golden fellow, thickly studded in every part with small black spots. I used merely one cast--Zulu, red and teal, March brown with silver ribbing--and in two hours I had caught forty-one trout weighing 13 lb. In salmon fishing here one catches brown trout every day; your salmon fly may be large, medium, or small, it is all the same to these voracious fario, which never appear to be more than half a pound. One has the consolation always in Norway of knowing that what one catches need never be wasted. There is something quite touching in the gratitude which the poor villager evinces in return for a present of two little trout. An instance may be mentioned of apparent service to the salmon angler by the trout which, as a rule, are execrated as an intolerable nuisance. After you have succeeded in working your fly some thirty yards below, and can feel it swimming on an even keel at the end of a straightly-extended line, the supreme moment of expectation has arrived; to have the situation thus achieved by labour ruined by the impudence of a trout 9 in. or 10 in. long is warranty, if ever, for speaking out. My example is of such a nuisance to which I owe a grilse. At any rate, that is my theory. Two salmon and five grilse were at that time my total for odd hours of fishing during part of the week, and I had fished with the Durham Ranger and Butcher (No. 4). One evening, putting off for another drift down the pool, I bethought me of a set of his favourite turkey wings specially dressed for this expedition by my friend Wright, of Annan, and resolved to fulfil my promise of giving them a trial without further delay. The name of the fly of my first choice is, I believe, the Border Fancy; the brown turkey wing showed well in the water, and the irregular mingling of lemon, red, and black of the pig's wool, relieved by a band of silver twist, made altogether a very attractive lure. The boat was crossing diagonally to our course, and I was leisurely getting out line, when a trout plucked at the fly. I saw him, as it were, knocked aside rudely, and shall always believe that it was intentionally done by the grilse, which immediately fastened to the fly, and was duly netted on shore. Within twenty minutes the same fly rose and landed me a salmon. I rechristened this fly the Wullie, and determined after that evening's work was done to preserve it for copying. King log, however, interfered with my well-meant intentions. A stick of pine by and by feloniously shot round a corner of rock unawares, and ere I could recover the cast the fly was embedded in the butt of it, and there was a quick smash. In what remote part of the earth will the Wullie be next found--or will it become the adornment of a permanent waterlog without leaving the river of its birthplace? The fish which I have caught to this date, fishing about twenty hours during the whole week (including Sunday night, when, after my sea journey and long carriage drive from Christiansand, I went out at eight o'clock, caught seven trout, and afterwards read a chapter of _Shandon Bells_ under an apple-tree at half-past ten at night in good daylight) have been curiously uniform in weights. The salmon were 10 1/2 lb., 10 1/4 lb., and 10 lb.; the grilse 3 1/2 lb., 3 1/4 lb., 3 lb., 3 1/2 lb., and 3 lb. As a contrast to these hot days, let us arrive at the doings of a wet week, of which most travellers in the country get more or less experience. When you read in your guide-book "The climate of the west coast is usually mild, being influenced by the Atlantic and the Gulf Stream, which impinges upon it," you will, having the ordinary experiences of this vale of tears, not omit the mackintoshes from your baggage. It may be, as is set forth a little farther down, that July and August are the best months for this part of Norway; but there is never any trusting that Atlantic and Gulf Stream. Yet here we are at the end of a solid week of rain, with every promise of more to follow. This morning the rushing sound which greeted my waking moments was, nevertheless, different from that of previous mornings. It was merely the steady but strong flow of the river, not fifty yards from my bedroom window, speeding from the wooden bridge to the mouth at the fiord, half a mile below. Previously there had been variations upon this unceasing monotone, and they were caused by the rain pattering upon the leaves of an old ash outside, upon the shrubs and trees of the little orchard, and at times upon the veranda and even window panes. There is no mistake about rain in Norway when it is in earnest, and a week of it is more than enough. It is true the nights have not this time been so wet as the days, but what consolation is that when the effect is to keep the river in perpetual flood? No; there is a vast difference between three and seven days, on a salmon river. The lesser infliction moves the fish and improves sport. In the days that are left you may find ample compensation in superior bags. Now there have been seven days' downpour, the river getting worse every day, and leaving a tolerable certainty of three days' additional patience for running down and clearing. But that is not the worst. I have said that there was a difference this morning when I got up and looked out. The sandy paths were dry, showing that there had been no fresh rain in the night. Moreover, the hillsides were open to view, the silver rills that veined the rugged steeps were dwindling, there was a blue sky, and great ranges of wooded or desolate mountains were in clearly cut outline--the first time since the wet period set in. Over the shoulder of the huge pyramid to the east there was actual sunshine, and the fleecy clouds were high. So at last there was to be an end to our mourning; verily so, since the wind had at last veered from south to north-west. Yet at this very moment, and it is still an hour short of noon, a heavy storm is making uproar without, the rain is descending in torrents, and there is the added discomfort of a shiver-breeding atmosphere. At any rate, we are under cover, and need not issue forth unless we choose. This is better than what must have been the fate of poor S., who went to the fjelds just before the break of fine weather to shoot ryper. He has been literally up in the clouds, and the birds will have been lying so low as to give points to "'Brer rabbit." Condemned to the solitude of a rude saeter, a hut in the most primitive sense of the term, he must have furnished a capital example of the English gentleman who forsakes the seductions of a London season and the luxuries of a Piccadilly club for the sake of sport. To be sure, in our case, this reverse is only part of fisherman's luck, and we may be--and no doubt are--thankful that there was a fair fortnight, to begin with, placed on the right side of the account. Sport was, for various reasons, not by any means up to par, but we can, on this miserable Sabbath day, in our comfortable hotel by the strong, highly coloured river, count up a total of a trifle over 500 lb. to our two rods in little more than a fortnight. These were mostly sea trout, but of a lower average weight than is usual at this period of the season, the run of heavy fish--anything from 6 lb. to 16 lb.--having apparently taken place in July instead of August. The rule on this river is first a run of big sea trout, then a run of smaller size, and, lastly, a small run of bull trout, with occasional salmon throughout. H. has had the best of the bag, but a few salmon and grilse on another river gives me 244 lb. as my share. My prettiest experience in the wet week was interesting. The river was big and dirty, the rain most hearty. The prospects were so poor that H. stuck to Anthony Trollope in the veranda. A thin piece of water on the lower beat to my mind offered a remote chance for a sea trout, and I was rowed down in a particular direct rainfall to it. The boatman shook his head at the small Bulldog I put on; he would have preferred a darker fly, salmon size. In a rough tumble of water over small boulders, which were not a foot beneath the foam-headed waves, a fish fastened, and the spin of the reel was shrill above the tumult of the waters. The grilse rod was tested severely, as in truth were my arms for a few minutes. The fish rushed forty yards down stream at express speed, then dodged and fought right and left. By and by the clever boatman got the boat through every variety of strong water to a landing place, and in good time the fish came to the gaff, a splendid bull trout of 10 lb. I wish some of my friends who are not satisfied upon the bull trout question could have seen this dark, broadly-spotted, burly fish, as it lay side by side with a silvery four-pound sea trout that I had previously taken with the same fly. It was as a Clydesdale to a thoroughbred. Seeing must then have been believing. For the present let us forget that wet week. We will return to the rain, perhaps, another day; suffice now to state that we had three weeks of it--three weeks and never a day without mackintoshes. Last night it must have snowed pretty hard up on the fjelds, for there are at this moment white mantles lower down on the mountains than have been seen for many a year at this period of the season. The only way by which I can temporarily forget the weather is to go back to the day when, in England, the sportsmen were "inaugurating" (there are worse words than that though it is not pure English) the grouse season. On August 12 we were on a visit to S., whose river is a few hours' steaming from the stream upon which I was established in headquarters. It was our fourth day there, and, as a relief from the salmon rod, which had found out the unused muscles of my arms and shoulders, I took a holiday so far as to go out for once with a trout rod. It was a whole-cane pattern of 10 ft. 6 in. As it was already put together in the rack at the back of the hotel, I borrowed it just to save the bother of fixing up my own greenheart. In the tidal portion of the river capital sport was sometimes to be found with the common trout. They are Salmo fario of the kind one often catches in Norway--silvery, marked with a galaxy of small black spots, with a red point here and there, and game to the death; and their favourite taking time in this river was when the tide was nearing low water. On that particular date this happened pretty early, and I was on the pebbly strand by eight o'clock. Our friends who fish the river use small March browns, blue duns, and teal and reds for such light amusement; but I had with me a couple of patterns--to wit, the Killer (a sea-trout fly which in a previous visit to Norway the small trout had fancied very freely) and an adaptation of the Alexandra used on the Costa for grayling. Both have silver bodies, but the former is a study in yellow, the latter a harmony in peacock-blue; and these special dressings were on eyed hooks, say about the size of a medium sedge, though of more scanty material. One of each was put up on an untapered cast of the finest undrawn gut; but, in ordering the collars to go with the flies, I had begged that every strand should be of picked stuff, round and even from end to end, and that they should be in every detail sound and sure. My temporary gillie D. was by nature taciturn but always willing. This morning he was willing enough, but mum as an oyster. Nay, he sat upon the great grey rock on the little island and watched me make ready with a wonderfully melancholy expression. It was only when a salmon on the other side splashed noisily that he smiled--the grim relaxation of features that means resignation tempered with pity, not encouragement, nor hope, nor approval. His entire demeanour said, "To think that I should have carried the gaff, and gillied good salmon fishermen for years, and be degraded into this mean tomfoolery." A little impressed with his attitude, and, I think I may add, half in sympathy, I advised him as well as I could to rest him tranquilly on the rock, and not worry till I demanded his assistance. Then, hitching up my wading stockings, I went in to less than knee-deep and angled for trout for a quarter of an hour to no purpose. The green, dark water of the regular current was an easy cast out, but the fish I sought were generally taken on its edge, or in about a foot depth of shallow, when the flies came down at the end of a line that had been allowed to sweep round with the stream. I got a couple of 9-in. fish, and knew that the half-pounders were not rising. Next I moved in to above the knees, and pulled out a little more line; was looking up at the snow patches on the mountain tops, and the fir trees on the slope, when I was startled by a rude pluck and a whirring of the little reel. I receded to shore as quickly as I could with a bent rod and running fish to hold, and then became aware that my line could not be more than thirty yards in length. Down and down went the fish. Sometimes he paused and shook himself; now and again he even responded to my winching in, or even played about without rushing. Once he ran ten yards upstream, but for the most part I ran with him, and was mainly absorbed by a desire to keep as much line in hand as possible. D. had seen my position at once, and was soon at my rear, pocket gaff in hand, and all the sadness gone from his harsh visage. I think the fight lasted about ten minutes, but it was splendid battle every moment of the time, and D. finally gaffed out a silvery grilse, the smallest I had ever taken. I weighed him on the spot; he was 3 lb. He had taken the small edition of the Killer, and a few moments more would have given him liberty. This was an encouraging beginning certainly, for I suppose no man complains if, going out to catch half-pound trout, he bags a grilse, small though it be. Now I regretted that I had no longer line, and that I had not stuck to the winch which I had replaced by one of my own--a small ebony and silver one, which five-and-twenty years ago formed part of a collection of goods composing the only prize I ever received. It happened that the biggest pike of the year at the Stanley Anglers, of which I was a member, had been caught by me without competing, or thinking of prizes; but I was proud to take the award when it was offered, and had the amount laid out in tackle. Here was the winch, after much service, accounting for a grilse in Norway! I now ran my fingers down the gut cast, tested the knots, and began again. D. did not go back to his rock, and while in the water, having delivered my cast, I was turning round to hand him my tobacco pouch, when a furious pluck nearly brought the rod-top to the water. But one manages these things by instinct, and the whole-cane was arched like a bow again, and, out of the water, now abreast, now below, now away in the stream, leaped a sea trout. He was the most restless of fishes; the grilse had gone through his campaign with severe dignity, but this fellow played endless pranks, and led me a merry dance down the pebbles, ending in the production of the spring balance, and a register of 2 1/2 lb. The sun was out strong now, and I feared that the fun was over. Never, however, leave off because of the sun with sea trout; no, nor with salmon either, though only half or quarter of a chance is left you. I have killed some salmon and plenty of sea trout, though after much apparently hopeless toil, against all the rules as to sun, wind, and cloud. I was recalling examples when the rod was made to quiver again, and this time it was a sea trout of over 1 1/2 lb. I would not degrade D. by allowing him to interfere, but walked back and hauled the fish up a sandy spit, extracted the hook, and weighed him myself, as I generally do. In the next quarter of an hour I got three sea trout of the smaller size, and weighed them _en bloc_, tied together, at 5 lb. the leash. Breakfast was now fairly earned, and in a fine state of perspiration and contentment I led the way home. In the afternoon I was bound to make a show with the big rod, but left the whole-cane trouter where I could pick it up for an evening trial on the scene of the morning's sport. We all got something that day, but the sun was too much for anything but casualties with salmon. With a small Bulldog I found, hooked, and strove with a fish that bored and jiggered most unconscionably. He worked like a fair salmon so long as he remained dogged; when once he moved up from the bottom, however, I estimated him for a sample that would at least not prove beyond the 10 lb. limit of my spring balance. And so it turned out. D. did me the honour of missing him twice in succession with the gaff, and he quite lost his nerve. He threw down the gaff, in his agitation, and, amidst roars of laughter from a couple of onlookers on the farther side, literally danced about amongst salmon, gaff, and line. Sternly I bade him get out of the way, and by a crowning mercy his gaff at the false strikes, and his feet during the _pas deux_ (he and the salmon were actually waltzing together on the stones) had not touched the line, However, the fish was exhausted, and followed me with commendable docility as I retired in good order up the bank, hauling him bodily. D. now seemed stricken with remorse; he clattered into the water behind the fish, and with the ferocity of a very Viking kicked it ignominiously up to the grassy plateau to which I had moved. How much avoirdupois the worthy man had kicked out of that salmon I know not; what remained weighed 7 lb., and it was a singularly bright and handsomely shaped fish. There was this advantage in the application of the boot instead of the gaff--the fish was not disfigured by a gashed side. The salmon was very welcome, but I was thinking all the while of the excitement of the morning and the brisk quivering of the trout rod. Somehow I found myself down there again in the early evening, D. accompanying me with another attack of depression. He was quite right from his point of view. His master had taught him--if, indeed, he had not inherited the doctrine--that salmon are the only things worth calling fish. Sea trout count for nothing; brown trout for less than that. Still, he pocketed his disapproval, and came along with lack lustre eye. S. came down, too, just as I was wading in, to see me start, and in a few minutes I announced that a good fish had risen short at the small Killer. This was a timely falsity, as I wanted just then the opportunity of filling my pipe--not an easy thing to do knee-deep in water. By putting your rod over your right arm, and fixing the butt into your pocket, it may, however, be done; the line takes care of itself, and the flies will be below you somewhere out of danger. There must have been down there a 10-in. sea trout at the very lap of the water on the stones--perhaps it had followed the fly in from the stream; anyhow, there it was on the Killer when I had lighted the pipe, and I gave it freedom, without including it in the bag of the day. After the brief interval I addressed myself to the false riser who had, without knowing it, accommodated me in the matter of the pipe. With the sense of obligation strong upon me, I gave him his opportunity with delicacy and deliberation; he came up like an Itchen patriarch at a Mayfly, and I had a full ten minutes' race down the bank, with heartfelt tussles at intervals that made the engagement gloriously alive. This fish was quite worthy of the gaff, being a beautiful sea trout of 5 lb. The five-pounder had been hooked on the shallow, and to the shallow I again devoted myself. There were rises, without touches at the fly, in two successive casts; at the third I was fast in another good fish; saw him roll over and over on the surface, and lost him. He was lightly hooked, and the little Killer and the cast came back entire. It was a sea trout quite as large as that last knocked on the head. But I could afford one loss that day, and my philosophy was presently rewarded by a sea trout of 2 1/2 lb. As the golden sun set in a world of rose-coloured clouds reflected in one of the loveliest of bays, I found myself engaged in a warm contest that seemed never to end. Twice there was not a yard of line left on the small winch; several times I had to go into the water again; between whiles I was kept on the trot and canter, and was puffing like an engine when the combat ended with a grilse of 3 1/2 lb., the gaffing of which caused the loss somehow of the ornamental handle of the instrument. I never found the gaff handle, but I retain a vivid remembrance of my gymnastics during that superb sunset. There was another sea trout to complete the day's sport--an inconsiderable pounder--which my henchman, however, strung up with the rest. Besides the eleven fish (one salmon, two grilse, and eight sea trout) there were some small brown trout, given to a young Norsker who had been hanging about the bank; and the bag was altogether an honest 34 lb. It must be remembered that the stream was always so strong that the endurance of the cast and strength of the rod was a really remarkable fact. At times the rod was bent until it seemed it must break somewhere, especially with the grilse and 5-lb. sea trout; but it came home as straight as ever. The same fine gut collar and the one small Killer accounted for every fish caught that day except the salmon, which was taken with the usual salmon equipment. Yes; balancing the accounts fairly, I really do think I may with a clear conscience set that one bright day against that one wet week in Norway. At the same time it must not be supposed that such a bag is anything to talk about for Norway. Did not H., only two days agone, venturing out for an afternoon, return early with 40 lb. of sea trout, and did he not three seasons back kill 60 lb. in part of a day? The moral of my modest narrative is that you may do more than you wot of sometimes with a trout rod and fine tackle even in the strong streams of Norway. CHAPTER XVII LAST DAYS WITH NORWAY AND ITS SEA TROUT To-day we say "farvell" to the willing, good-hearted fellows who have served us so loyally these bygone weeks, and to the kindly people with whom you cannot help making friends after a brief residence amongst the simple farmer and village folk of Norway. We have, therefore, to prepare for flight of seventy miles down the fiord in order to catch the English boat at Bergen; and, to do this, we have had to charter a small craft on our own account if we would intercept the next regular steamer plying from Trondjhem southwards. The greater part of the day has been, in consequence, spent perforce in the odious work of packing up; but I need here only say, as cognate to packing up, that the tackle one carries is considerable, and that many of us undoubtedly get into the habit of taking much more than is necessary. At any rate, the occupation of stowing away impedimenta has gobbled a considerable slice out of this day. Yet I have not only managed to get a bit of fishing but, strange to say, have made exactly the same bag of fish as to number and weight as I did on that bright day aforetime described. Perhaps it is unnecessary to begin by affirming that once more, as diem per diem for three weeks, we have had to work at our play amidst rain unceasing from morning till night. H. has been two hours and more gone up the river salmon fishing, and as dinner to-night will be somewhat late, I sit down with the storm racketing around the house, to write the history of this last day's sport with the sea trout. The consciousness of a fairly good day, all things considered, puts me at peace with myself and the world; and the transference from wet to dry clothes, not to speak of the storm-tossed appearance of an occasional boatman dropping down to the fiord, imparts a sense of comfort that is not at all a drawback when one takes up the pen. Before getting into his stolkjarre this morning, H., referring to the high tides, solaced me by the remark that, although the river was a couple of feet higher than it ought to be, there was an even chance of fair sport. To begin with the water was not badly coloured, and it was clearing. The two hours preceding low water were, as usual, mentioned as the period in which business with sea trout should be most pressing. After, therefore, three hours in my littered rooms with two big portmanteaux, I summoned my man (always ready for a summons), and we trudged off along road and bye-track to the island which was our customary starting point, and a favourite place at all times. If newly-run sea trout rested _en route_ anywhere, it would be somewhere off its green banks. Above the island the river was a long, broad, dull reach, where a good deal of harling was done by the natives. At H.'s boundary there were rocks, breaking the stream into typical runs, and there was one channel or gut, about ten yards out from the island bank, which rarely failed in giving temporary lodgings to running fish. Properly speaking, an angler should, in fishing this down from shore, keep behind the low-growing alders; but it always seemed more advantageous to me, as a student of fish movement, to watch the progress of the fly. Never in the world could there be a better place to note the movements of a sea trout, and so you began the day with faculties all awake. The small Bulldog (after the point had been duly touched up by the file) was first put up, and at the third cast I beheld a brown streak and a silver flash, followed by an abrupt disappearance of the object. A sea trout had showed himself without nearing the fly, and had retired immediately to quarters. Ten minutes as a rule was ample for this island casting, but as, on this occasion, there was no other sign than that I have mentioned, I could not but spare a few extra minutes to my friend who had falsely made overtures to the Bulldog; the least to be done was another trial with a fly of a different pattern. But he remained sulky or scared. Then we took to the boat, and began to fish the well-known water with careful assiduity. And my heart sank as time sped along, and resting-place after resting-place for fish was deliberately worked without result. Low clouds, in horizontal strata of white masses, shrouded the mountain sides, there was a miserable shiver of wind upon the water, and for any token to eye or hand there might not have been a fish in the river. By and by we came to the conclusion that, for the time being, the game was not worth the candle; and we went ashore to snatch a hasty luncheon under the dripping eaves of a boat-house. In the bows of the boat there were two fish, so insignificant that we would not weigh them, though we afterwards found that they were each about 2 lb. We shrugged our shoulders on the surmise that either there had been no run of sea trout during these propitious moonlight nights, or that they were by one consent in one of their non-taking humours. Sea trout, however, are notoriously capricious, and not being likely to get any moister than I already was from the rain, I determined, before saying a final good-bye, to toil on through the two hours after low water, notwithstanding that what remained was the lower part of the beat on which the slight incoming tide made itself felt earliest. When you are fishing on the forlorn-hope principle, you are not thinking much about the immediate chances of sport. At times of anything like encouragement, you are keenly particular as to the fall of the fly and its correct working on an even keel; nay, you are so sensitive and alert that the touch of a passing leaflet on the hook produces some sort of excitement. Every cast goes out with a cluster of hopes in pursuit, and dreams as to possibilities; you keep looking round to be satisfied that the gaff is ready to hand, and everything in the boat shipshape for action. As it was after luncheon to-day, you think of anything but a fish taking hold; you swish on monotonously and mechanically; you muse of friends at home and abroad, of the sport you enjoyed yesterday or the day before, of chances lost, perhaps even of your general career through either a well-ordered or misspent life as the case may happen to be; and then, hey presto! you are startled, brought up with a round turn by a sudden plunge of the rod and that delicious sound--an alarm of the reel. This was precisely my case, and from the evidences permitted it should have been a worthy fish which, so suddenly welcome, intruded upon reverie. One of the disadvantages of boat fishing in a big, strongly flowing Norway river, is the prolonged chances given to your fish by the necessity of going ashore to land him. We had now to tow this unknown quantity close upon a hundred yards across before we could gain the shore, and the hooked one was resisting all the time. It turned out to be a 3-lb. sea trout, hooked foul. For a little while there was seldom a cast without at least a rise. Twice the fish broke water heavily without touching the feathers, and that is comparatively an out of the way occurrence. Two or three times they just touched the hook, ran out a yard or so of line, fluttered on the top of the water, and were off. This is one of the common phases of sea-trout fishing; it just now showed that the fish were in a different temper from that of the pre-luncheon era, when there was no moving them, whether truly or falsely. There was, at any rate, a change, promising that sooner or later they would fall into a really gripping mood. Sea trout are indeed kittle cattle. There are days when the fish one and all seize the fly boldly and are fastened beyond recall, while for days in succession they touch the hook only to get off the moment a fair strain is realised. Three times during this fast-and-loose interval was the fly changed. Now it was a Jock Scott with double hook, now a Durham Ranger on single hook, now the Bulldog again. The latter, however, was out of favour, and I rummaged out from the box a Fiery Brown, which I had selected with some others from the stock of Little (of the Haymarket), who happened to be in Norway at the time inspecting certain salmon and trout rivers, with days of fishing in the intervals, and who was good enough to allow me to take what I wanted from his book on the morning of his departure for England. The Fiery Brown did very well. It brought me in succession fish of 4 1/2 lb., 3 lb., and 2 1/2 lb., and others, so that at four o'clock in the afternoon, instead of two small sea trout in the boat, I had ten, and was quite satisfied if they remained at that figure. On this last day I did not, however, care to lose sight for ever of that half-hearted sea trout which had baulked me at starting up at the island. A., although he was out of sorts, and had been pretty well worked day by day, was for towing the boat up-stream and fishing the whole river down again, but to this I objected. There was no use in working a willing horse to death; and perhaps I might also honestly say that by this time I was a trifle tired myself. We therefore left the boat at its usual moorings half-way, and plodded up through the sloppy marsh and over the slippery rocks to the desired spot. I wanted no more two- or three-pounders, and, in a sort of care-nothing spirit, decided upon a Butcher, of small salmon-fly size, this being perhaps one of the very best all-round patterns for Norwegian waters. A few casts tested the hold where my sea trout of the morning lay, but he was still obdurate, unless he had adopted the unlikely course of pushing upwards since our transient interview. I pulled out a few more yards of line, and fished farther out over water that was deeper and not of high repute as the halting-stage of sea trout. But I had my reward presently in a determined assault upon the fly, delivered well under water. It might here be mentioned that at the tapering point of the island, some fifty yards below, a swift branch stream, created by the island, poured in; and again fifty yards farther on there was a general conjunction of streams and eddies, making a leaping, roaring toss of broken water, with a tremendously heavy, sliding volume to the left. Below this lively meeting-place the concentrated currents swept round furiously under the cliff at right angles. It was tolerably certain disaster to one party if ever a fish got so far as that. To be forewarned was, however, to be forearmed, and, knowing the dangers of the position, we always examined our cast beforehand, so that, in case of the tug of war, defeat should not be caused by defective gut. It was evident from the very beginning that I was now at issue with a heavy fish of some kind. There was that short steady run deep in the water which we all like; no foolish pirouetting at the end of the line on the top of the water here. The rod was arched to its utmost; everything was splendidly taut. It was one of those combats when the fisherman feels that he may, when challenged, plant his feet wide apart and lean bodily against what he is holding. After the preliminary canter the fish made a gallant rush straight down, shot like an arrow past the end of the island, and, hesitating an instant, betrayed a desire to sheer into the heart of the rapid. Kept out of this by a firm hand, he sped across to the other side, then made another attempt to get down to the narrows. For just about a minute it was neck or nothing between us, but I had made up my mind that, whether he broke me or not, go a yard farther towards danger he should not. He might have known what was my fell purpose, for, after doggedly holding his own while I might count ten, he came up, literally inch by inch, in response to the cautious turn of the winch handle. It is the acme of sport to have a fine fish on your winch, as it were, trying his best to increase distance, fighting right and left incessantly, and yet compelled to advance against his will in the teeth of a powerful glacier-fed stream. There was a prolongation of this exquisite excitement. Sometimes the fish would be winched up to within thirty yards of line, and then in a twinkling there would be fifty or sixty yards quivering at the stretch, and the old tactics had to be repeated. The fear all the while was that the fish, however well hooked at first, might eventually break away the hold; but I had not now to learn that in such a dilemma it is always well to be as hard with the fish as the tackle will bear, and the time arrived when the line became short and the fish subdued, and A., seeing his opportunity with the gaff, waded in amongst the boulders at the very point of the island. Nothing, however, could induce the fish to come into the moderately slack water where gaffing would have been an easy matter. He floundered about on the very verge of the branch stream, and before long, rather than give more line, I was forced to walk back amongst the undergrowth. It was time the fish was out of these mutual difficulties, and if he would not take the steel where he ought to have been, we must strike him where and how we could. Back amongst the bushes I could just see A.'s head and bent body with the outstretched gaff. As the poor fellow had missed a fish once or twice that day (being as I have before said much indisposed with a severe cold and a splitting headache), I was, at this delay, fearful of the sequel, and observed with horror his wild, scythe-like sweep with the gaff. I could feel also, but too surely, that the fish had received a violent blow; but the sound of its continued splashing in the water and the steady strain upon the line allowed me to breathe again, and to realise that the weapon had not touched the gut. A. would get very nervous if you spoke to him under these circumstances, and the ejaculation that would have only been natural was therefore suppressed. Silently retiring a few steps farther into the bushes, with tightly set lips, I could only hope for the best. The best happened, and in a moment or two A. came up the grassy slope with a glorious sea trout of 12 lb. impaled upon the gaff. It was a mystery that the ending was of this kind, for on the shoulder of the fish there was a rip quite six inches long, where the gaff, on its errand of failure a few moments before, had shockingly scored the flesh. "A good one for the last," I said, "now we will go home"; and homewards we went, calling at the boat on our way down to string up the rest of the spoil, which I counted and weighed there and then, and, as I intimated earlier, found that it was exactly the record of my other best day in August--eleven fish (but all sea trout) weighing 34 lb. Having written so much of this last day with the sea trout, I find on inquiry that there is no sign of H. yet, and that dinner will not be ready for at least another hour. I therefore amuse myself by going through my daily record, to tot up the gross returns. We are very curiously fashioned, inside as well as out, and although, considering the adverse circumstances which I have not failed to describe, I ought to be contented, I find myself grieving. Will the reader guess for a moment why? I will save his time by stating that it is because upon adding up the daily jottings of my notebook, I find that I leave off just 5 lb. short of 400 lb.--ninety-eight fish totalling 395 lb., not including sundry bags of brown trout. This is hard, but it is too late now to make the gross weight even figures. It is much too dark to go out again, the tide would be all wrong if I did go out, yet had I known that I was so near 400 lb. I should have remained on that river until I had made it up. The salmon fishing, I may take the opportunity of adding, was a failure. But for the fact that we had hired the river for ten days, we probably should never have gone to the trouble of making the two or three attempts we did make. There had been some fine fish taken during the weeks when we were occupied in sea-trout fishing. There had been one of 57 lb. killed on a spoon, and on my first visit to our newly acquired fishing, a party of young gentlemen, who had taken the other side of the water, were in high spirits. On the lawn in front of the house there lay a fish of over 30 lb., another of 29 lb., and two smaller ones. The angler who had caught them naturally thought that with a record of four fish weighing 96 lbs. in a day, and that his first day, too, and the fish all caught with the fly, he was in for an uncommonly good thing. But the river, instead of improving, afterwards got worse, and to the time of our leaving the party had had indifferent sport after that auspicious beginning. The sight of the big fellows lying white and shapely on the grass in front of the chalet taught me that I might have driven up two or three hours earlier, but there was still reason to suppose that there might be a salmon left for me. I began by hooking and playing in the first pool a small red fish of, I should say, 7 lb., which did me the honour of making a graceful twirl when I had, as I supposed, tired him out; with a flutter of his tail, he sheered off with contemptuous slowness under my very nose into the deeps again. An hour later I got a similar fish, small and red (just under 7 lb.), which did not escape. By and by, with a full-sized Durham Ranger, I had an affair of the good old sort; it was a well-sustained contest after I had been landed on the farther shore, terminated by the landing of a bright, handsome salmon of 25 lb. A young gentleman on the same side, fishing from the boat with a prawn, hooked and brought to the top, while I was playing mine, a fish of equal size apparently, but it got off, leaving him still the consolation of an 18-lb. fish and another smaller, which lay in his boat. One of the most curious days in the way of weather was yesterday. It was my turn to fish the salmon water, and I did fish it, hard and honestly, but came ashore with a clean boat. H., on the same day, did splendidly with the sea trout in his own water, making a bag of close upon 40 lb. There was a gale blowing in the morning; rain of course was falling, but the curiosity of the day was an intermittent sirocco, which came up the valley like blasts from a fiery furnace. The wind was so overpowering on my salmon reaches that it was hardly possible either to hold the boat or to get out line. But here is a summons to dinner, and I have only time to add that on one day last week I had a very pretty half day with the sea trout, getting six fish, which weighed 29 lb., and they included one of 8 lb., one of 6 lb., and two of 4 lb. each, all caught with the small Bulldog. Three fish, weighing 17 lb., is the entry for another day, and that included an 11-lb. bull trout. On August 15, which was a day of continual losses from short rising, there were four sea trout, weighing 18 lb., one of them a fish of 9 1/2 lb. On the following day, fishing from eleven till three in a bright sun, the take was five fish and some small trout, making a total of 24 lb. One morning (it is August 30) the mountain tops were beautifully white. There has been heavy snow during the night, and the poor hard-working people I find reaping down their scanty oats, or chopping off their 3-in. grass for hay, in a bitter north wind. The G. P. F., as we trudge off to his water, draws my attention to that spot in the middle of the estuary which has been mentioned before as exposed at low water. There are now a man and three women upon it, mowing and gathering in whatever growth it bears, so that not even this is unworthy of the economy enforced by their hard conditions of life. We fall into converse, as we walk, about the manner in which the Norway salmon are netted, and truly the wonder is that so many run the gauntlet and reach the spawning grounds. In ascending the fiords the fish creep along within some twenty yards of the shore, and this makes it easy for the native to intercept them. Besides bag and stake nets, there is a look-out dodge, under which a primitive but fatal net is hung out at each promontory in the direct path of the travelling fish. The nets are off, however, and the traps open after the middle of August. Thus holding sweet counsel by the way like the pilgrims of old, we defy the north wind, and can afford to stop occasionally to admire the new panorama which has been arranged during the night. Where there were only occasional patches of snow yesterday, to-day there is a widespread whitening, and the folds of the ermine mantle are lying far down the shoulders, traces of the first heavy downfall of the season. We do not expect any sport to-day, but a moderately lucky star smiles, and for myself, on one of Bickerdyke's Salmo irritans (Jock Scott) patterns, I get a lively quarter of an hour with an 11-lb. sea trout, a grand fish, so thick that I am not certain about it until I lay it on the grass. There was a fish of 14 lb. or 15 lb. killed by my friend yesterday, which he pronounced a fair sample of the richly spotted and burly bull trout which runs up late in the season. He himself has killed one of 19 lb. My fish I at first fancied might be one of the breed, but it is not, as indeed I see for myself the moment he points out the difference. In the afternoon I flank this fine Salmo trutta with a brace more--3 1/2 lb. and 1 1/2 lb., some compensation for a wet, cold, blustering day. The next day is hard, clear, exhilarating. The snow has spread out rather than melted, and encroached still farther down the hillsides, but the sun waxes strong as we drive to the upper water, and the bolder mountains up at the lake are in dazzling splendour, and apparently close. There is a wire across the stream, an easy means of crossing for the ladies and gentlemen who inhabit the handsome fishing lodge built by an English gentleman on the very edge of a grand salmon pool. The stalwart Norsk gillie who attends him found it a trifle too easy yesterday, for it gave way and let him into the river. The house-party were making ready to leave, however, and the young ladies, who had been doing well with the salmon, had the concluding excitement of their favourite henchman floundering in the water to take on board the steamer as a final remembrance of their visit. The toss by which the lake water escapes is a magnificent commotion of white roaring water, tossing at first sheer over huge rocks, then tumbling headlong down a broken slope. Just below is a deep hole, always, however, in a state of froth, upheaval, thunder, and spray. Away races the water in a turbulent pool about fifty yards long, rough and uproarious on either side, but more reasonable in the middle. Below are the rapids again. The game is to kill a salmon in this pool. There is not much difficulty in finding him, for there are always fish there, and they take well when the humour is on them. By every right, human and otherwise, Hooper should take first toll of this ticklish maelstrom; it is called by his name, but, as usual, he insists upon his guest making or marring the chance, and leaves me for other pools bearing the names of brother anglers, members of that Anglo-Norwegian band of sportsmen whose names have been welcome household words in these parts for many a year. I confess I like not this pool. To command it you have to wade out in a very rough shallow, amongst bushel-sized boulders, each more slippery than its fellow. The din of the foss is deafening; the rush of the water as you stand with uncertain foothold over the deep dark swirl bewildering. Before leaving me my friend finishes his brief explanation of the conditions with the application of the whole. "Hold on"; that is the ABC, the Alpha and Omega of it. So mote it be. Still, saying it is one thing, doing it another. My steel-centred Hardy I know pretty well, and have no fear, though it is small by comparison with the full-sized greenhearts to which my attendant is accustomed, and I can see that he distrusts it. Of the line and twisted gut collar I am reasonably sure; the hook, of course, is what it may be. But I test the tackle all along, and fish down the pool with a large Butcher. It does not take long, with this express speed of water, and, I think rather to my relief, nothing happens. Then I flounder out, sit on a rock, fill a full pipe, and look through my flies. Here is a Wilkinson that brought me a big fish on bonny Tweed last autumn; for auld lang syne I meet the blue-eyed gaffsman's shake of the head with a confident smile, and put up the Kelso fly. I know the hang of the pool now, and get back again to my precarious ledge, feeling much more master of the position. What is that feeling you get in salmon fishing that tells you so surely that the fly is doing its work well? Certain it is that such an inward assurance helps you amazingly. Thus at the fourth cast there is a thrilling pull under water, a momentary, but shrill, complaint from the winch, and a quivering arched rod. "Hold on," of course, means shutting the mouth of that reel. The House of Commons gag was never better applied. Not five yards of line, in fact, go out after the first rush, stopped with a firmness that amazes myself. But I have to follow down, in stumbling cautiousness for another ten yards, which bring me perilously near the torrent of the pool's tail. Now it is the salmon or the angler. And the fish responds to the insidious sideway slanting of the rod, and is good enough to head, ever so gingerly, up into the heavier water. Never no more, Salmo Salar, unless something smashes--not an inch, be you of gold instead of silver. How the good man gaffs the fish in the rough edge stream I know not; only he does it masterly, and with back and knees trembling, and breath puffing hard and short, I drop upon the moss in an ecstasy of silence. Yet it is only a salmon of 15 lb.; but that quarter of an hour of "hold on" is the most intense thing, so far, of my experience with salmon, not forgetting that surprise, many a year back, when I killed my first salmon with a No. 1 trout fly by the dorsal in the Galway river. The split-cane rod comes out of the fray as straight and happy as when new, and I notice that, as I am recovering my equanimity, the gaffer examines it closely, handles it fondly, and pronounces it correct, in warm English words. The rod indeed seems to have entered into the fun, and to say, "Get up; don't waste time." We therefore move off to another pool, and in the course of a couple of hours, after trying two or three different patterns in a bright sun, I get a 12-lb. salmon on a Carlisle Bulldog, medium size; this, however, in a pool where we all have fair play. On either side of a foss below that above mentioned is one of the salmon traps peculiar to the country, built in the slopes which form a natural salmon pass. It is a grating of massive timber and stone blocks, roughly fashioned like an inverted V; and, on the principle of the Solway stake nets, when a salmon swims into it he cannot return. He is trapped in a narrow chamber at the end of the open entrance. The old timbers of these particular traps remained, an irregular line of upstanding palisadings, at the top of the foss nearest the roadside, protruding a yard or so, jagged and weather-stained, out of water. Hereby hangs a tale worth telling. My friend was fishing the short swift pool above, on his favourite "hold on" principle, but there was no checking the salmon. "Do they ever go over?" he asked his man, in the midst of the battle. "No, sir," was the reply. "Well, there's one over now," said my friend, as the fish shot over into the churning foam. At the foot of the foss the little road curved round with the stream, making a sharp bend at the tail of the rapid. Altogether it was an ugly situation at the best; as the line had become entangled in those weather-worn palisades it was hopeless. There was a hang-up. The angler looked at his winch, which was nearly empty: he could see the barrel between the few coils of line left--left of 120 yards. The gillie was (and is) one of the smartest, now that he has had a few years with the Englishman. At the suggestion of his master he departed to reconnoitre, got round the bend of the road, and was lost to view, the master remaining rod in hand above the foss, as well hung up as angler could desire. The man, it seems, saw the fish in the tail of the rapid, tied a stone to a piece of cord, threw it over the line, hauled in hand over hand, and gaffed the salmon, a beautiful fish of 25 lb. Then he went up and told the angler, who was still holding on to the tight line, for it was jammed and would not answer to a pull. A consultation followed, and the man went back round the corner, and discovered that the line would slip from below. The angler thereupon cut it at the winch and the line was recovered. This is the kind of adventure, demanding resource upon the spot, and experience in every move on the board, that so piquantly spices angling in Norwegian rivers of this kind, where the ordinary methods of fishing with the fly are practised. On the morning when the breechloaders are cracking amongst the coveys there is incipient frost, followed by a blazing sun, which finishes off the remnant of new snow which did not melt yesterday; and there is a violet hue upon the shallower water which ought to look brown. Beautiful to look at, but fatal, they tell me, is this reflected tint. The shade of the alders and the velvet pile of the mosses induce a fit of idleness; it is only the flycatchers, in great numbers, that are busy in the heat and glare, twittering as they hawk for insects, in notes that suggest robin redbreast on a winter day. By and by the clouds obscure the sun and we tackle our pools, with the result, for myself, of sea trout of 7 1/2 lb. and 3 1/2 lb., and a miscellaneous lot of a dozen and a half of brown trout whipped out on a small cast in the evening hour. Before this happens, however, I sit me down for a spell, and, in pursuance of a determination to make these notes as practical as can be consistently done, jot down the following sketches of pool types as they present themselves to my friendly vision. They will answer, I dare believe, for many a river in Scandinavia. i. This is a true boiler, a torrential pool never at rest. It charges down amongst huge masses of rock, and just where the descent is comparatively easy the inevitable salmon trap is fixed. Sometimes the salmon takes in the very boil, if you cast fly right into the milky tossings, and believe me you need not strike. Hooking is quite an automatic affair if the fish comes. Downward it goes at speed, and your man will have to steady you maybe as you follow amongst the stones, at least until the rapid has become something like a stream. ii. Here you have a very strong stream, making a ridge of wavy upheaval in the middle. The fishable water is on either side in an average height of river. Wading is the plan, and you can fish every inch of likely ground. I know the fish lie in this central disturbance, for I saw one dart out amongst the waves, and follow the fly for some fifteen yards, by which time the line was at the proper angle for sport if the salmon had inclined that way. Pity that it was not so, for I have always found turbulent water likely to send a turbulent customer. I love a pool of this kind, if only for the bright life and music of it. iii. Now we have a totally different type. The pool is at least 200 yards long, is, in fact, a broad straight section of the river, with two distinct streams, and an oily passage between, in which the salmon lie. A favourite method here is to be let down slowly in the boat. The Norwegians are extremely clever in this work, and it is a treat to see one of them tow the boat up with one line attached to the bow and another to the centre thwart. They steer it between boulders and round spits with the certainty of driving a horse with reins. By letting you down, the boat never disturbs the pool proper, and you command every portion. On hooking a fish you get out and play it from the bank, a practice, of course, followed also on the necessary occasions when the boat must be rowed. iv. A stately sweep of dark deep water, with a high-wooded bank of rock on the farther side, and ample wading ground on your own, with pleasantly shingled bottom perhaps, and a current where you may work breast-deep in safety. Yet it is strong and even enough to make very tolerable a notion quite new to me, though, no doubt, well known to many. I learned it in this very pool. When you are wading about to the fork, just sit down on the water, lean back upon it, and you find delightful support and help from the buoyant easy chair of running water. There will be the inevitable rapid by and by, and the salmon have a great fancy for taking you at about the last cast at the end of the glide. This is a capricious sort of pool, but when the fish do take they are worth the having, and are not given to fooling. A cock salmon of 40 lb. was killed here this summer. v. This is a swift and massive stream that is ever troubled and seething rather than rough, patched with smooth areas that look much more innocent than they are. Your line will get drowned somewhat until you know the tricks of the under-currents and eddies. From the boat you often have a chance of casting right and left as you drop ever so slowly down, and it must be a good man who knows how to keep on rowing without advancing faster than the stream. It is in such a pool that I make my last cast for salmon in this delectable valley, and it fully satisfies my chief ambition of this ten days' fishing; humble enough in all conscience, being nothing higher than to finish up knowing that I have not once returned at night with an empty bag. Even that is something, and it is something done. In the last two hours I get a 12-lb. salmon, a 2-lb. sea trout, and a leash of 1/2-lb. brown trout, all on the same No. 3 Jock Scott. On one of our days we see a procession of carioles proceeding up the valley, and all the natives are in a state of agitation, if such sober-minded people ever are agitated. _The Midnight Sun_ is in the fiord, and these ladies and gentlemen are ashore for the day bound for the glacier. We dine on board at night with the captain, who is a brother angler, and who makes light of a sea trout of 10 lb., which he has caught in the afternoon. Well; I have met many anglers in Norway who feel disgusted at such game; they want salmon, and think themselves hardly used if sea trout intrude. But I thank the gods (when I suppose I ought to sit in sackcloth for perverted taste) that up to this present Salmo trutta, great or small, evokes my fervent gratitude, and I can only say that, while I paid my five gaffed salmon the highest respect, I recall with no less satisfaction my seventeen sea trout; and, while serving this week on the grand jury at the Old Bailey, sketched the best of them one after another on the margin of the prisoners' calendar, and found a true bill for at least the fine fellows of 11 lb., 9 lb., 8 lb., and 7 1/2 lb., which headed the list. They are good enough prisoners for me, anyhow. However, I really believe our captain was after all secretly proud of his ten-pounder, as he sat at the head of the table in the palatial saloon of the magnificent steam yacht of oceanic size. The passengers seemed entranced with their luxurious life and the charms of the fiords they were visiting, and we heard a concert on board that was really first-rate. A fortnight of this sort of yachting for twelve or fifteen guineas is, verily, one of the privileges of this age of enterprise. On my way south I broke the journey to spend a couple of days upon another river, but only added a few sea trout to my achievements. The salmon were plentiful enough, but they were waiting, sullenly yet restlessly, for a rise of water, and I left the two anglers, owners of the river, who were living in a snug Norwegian home of their own, waiting, too, with patient resignation. There they were amongst the fishing tackle, guns, cartridge cases, dogs, and miscellaneous paraphernalia essential to noble sportsmen who, poor fellows, in these hard times, can only spend a few months every year with a lovely fiord under their noses, and a few hundredweights of salmon, and odds and ends of reindeer, blackcock, and ryper now and then to engage their attention. I wonder no more that English sportsmen go a little mad about their beloved Norway; and that hard-working judges, bishops, university dons, and professional men of all sorts and conditions, find their best balm of Gilead amongst its picturesque valleys and hills. Of course the sportsmen are not always happy. If in the smoking-room on our homeward passage A. was able to remark that he had finished up, two days previously, with a 30-lb. salmon, and B. stated the heavy totals on a few favoured rivers, there were C. and D. to bemoan deplorable blanks, and tell of anglers who had gone home disgusted before their term of tenure expired; indeed, one fellow passenger whispered me near the smoke stack that a gentleman of his acquaintance had paid close upon 400 pounds for a river that yielded him just thirty fish for the entire season. CHAPTER XVIII GLIMPSES OF CANADA, ETC. Perhaps I may be allowed to say that my visits to both Canada and the States were on journalistic work which gave little time for play of any sort, and I half fear that I only introduce these scraps of fishing matter to get an excuse for re-telling my own story of how I caught a big "'lunge" in Canada, in the early autumn of 1897. In the Natural History books of the Province of Ontario the designation is Maskinongé. The word is often made mascalonge, or muscalunge, and, it being less labour to pronounce one than four syllables, people in many districts where the fish is caught, for short call it "'lunge." As offering a minimum strain upon the pen, in this form I will refer to it in the course of my chronicle of how I caught my sample. The fish is, in a word, the great pike (Esox nobilior), and it is to all intents and purposes possessed of the general characteristics of the Esocidae family. Our old friend E. lucius occurs in Ontario waters, and the Indians call it kenosha. The French having, in old days, rendered this kinonge, we can easily understand why the name, as adopted by Ontario, was given. While, however, the pike proper is common to both sides of the Atlantic, the 'lunge is confined to the basin of the St. Lawrence. My angling friends in the club at Toronto could lay before me a bewildering choice of places where I should have a fair chance of that one 'lunge and one bass with which I professed I would be content. But to do them justice it would require a week of time, and much travel by night and day. After contriving and scheming I discovered that three days would be the utmost I could spare for fishing, and on the advice of friends, Lake Scugog, at Port Perry, was decided upon as a tolerable ground, not more than forty miles from the city. We were set down on the permanent way of the Grand Trunk line about nine o'clock, and were met by a couple of local gentlemen, anglers good and true, who had been advised of our approach, who had kindly come down to guide our footsteps aright, and who welcomed us in the true spirit of sportsmen. First came breakfast in the hotel opposite, or to be exact, first came inquiries of the boatman and all and sundry as to possibilities of sport. The lake was most fair to look upon from the veranda, the water curled by a nice breeze, the sun shining over it, and the abundant woods of an island about two miles from our landing-place. But the fish had not been biting well for a week. It was incomprehensible, but true, that the boats had never returned so empty of fish as latterly. One shrewd boatman, who fell to our lot for the day, said that the Indians, of whom the small remnant of a tame tribe lived as agriculturists on the island, had a tradition that in August and part of September the 'lunge shed their teeth, and that during this period they never take the bait, or feed in any shape or form. What fish did Scugog contain? Well, there were shiners, suckers, eels---- Oh! sporting fish! Ah, well, there were no trout, but there were 'lunge, perch, and any number of green, or large-mouthed, bass. This was Ben's information, elicited by cross-examination as we sat on the veranda before unpacking our effects. As to what he considered a reasonable bag, he had often, from a four or five hours' outing, returned with a dozen and a half of 'lunge or bass, the former averaging 9 lb. or 12 lb., the latter 2 lb. or 3 lb. The opening day was June 15, and at daylight the lake, so he said, was alive with boats, each containing its fisherman. He had known a ton of 'lunge and bass landed every day for the first week. I am not to be held responsible for these statements, but everything I subsequently heard from gentlemen who weigh their words and know what they are talking about, confirmed the assertions of the Port Perry professional. 'Lunge of 40 lb. had been taken moreover, but not often. These were the encouragements which dropped like the dew of Hermon; refreshing us into temporary forgetfulness of the undoubted fact that the visitors who had been angling on the lake had met, even on the previous day, with bitter disappointment. The boats had not been able to account for more than perhaps a brace each of four or five pound fish. Skipper Ben stared in amaze at the preposterous tackle with which I proposed to try and catch my first 'lunge. I had much better take the rig-out provided with the boat. If, however, he disapproved of my equipment, how shall I describe my feelings with regard to the vessel for which (man and tackle included) we were to pay two dollars per diem. It was a canoe of the smallest, built to hold one person besides the man at the small oars. It was impossible to stand up in such a cranky craft, and your seat was about 6 in. from the bottom boards. No wonder all the fishing was done by hand-lines. The local method was simplicity itself. To fifty yards of line of the thickness of sash-cord was attached a large Colorado spoon, armed with one big triangle, and mounted on an eighth of an inch brass wire. The canoe was slowly rowed about, up and down and across the lake, the spoon revolving behind at the end of from ten to fifteen yards of line. All that the angler had to do was to sit tight on his tiny seat in the stern of the cockle-shell, holding the line in his hand, and dodging the inevitable cramp as best he could by uneasily shifting his position from time to time. This, of course, is trailing in its most primitive form, and it is the method adopted by the majority of fishing folks on Canadian inland waters. Even the grand lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush really) are taken in this way in the spring and fall when they come in upon the shallows. The fish hook themselves, and are generally hauled neck and crop into the boat; but the careful boatman will have a gaff on board for the emergency of a ten-pounder or over. Many, however, do not affect this luxury, but treat great and small alike on the pulley-hauley principle. They say, nevertheless, that few fish are lost. The hooks are so big and strong that there is no reason why they should be lost when once they are securely hooked, as they will almost invariably be by this easy style. The boatman is always maintaining his steady two mile an hour pace, just sufficient in fact to keep the spoon on the spin, and the lightly hooked fish of course quickly find freedom by honest and abrupt tearage. The coarse triangle fairly within the bony jaws would be instantly struck into solid holding ground, and with tackle fit for sharks, there would be no more to be said. Something, however, there would be to be done, and the same simplicity which characterises the style of angling is carried on to the process of dealing with a hooked fish. "Yank him in," is the order for medium sizes, and I had the opportunity very early of seeing how it was done. We were nearing a canoe in which a gentleman was seated, holding his hand-line over the gunwale, and slightly jerking it to and fro; suddenly he struck with might and main. The effort should, as one would suppose, have wrenched the head off an ordinary fish, and I should say this event often happens with 2-lb. or 3-lb. victims. In this instance there was no harm done. Out of the water, like a trout, ten yards or so astern of the canoe, came a yellow-hued, long, narrow-bodied fish, and presently, hand over hand, it was dragged up to the side and lifted in by sheer might. It was a 'lunge of apparently 7 lb., and the only one taken by the fisher, though he had been out three or four hours. We had not been long afloat before I began to see that Ben was not far wrong in preferring his rude tackle to mine, though he was all abroad in his reasons for ruling me out of court. His belief, expressed in the vigorous language of the born colonial, was that it was darn'd nonsense to suppose that my line would hold a fish, or that my rod was other than a toy. The difficulty, of course, was with the boat. For the sort of spinning to which we are accustomed in England the thing was useless. The discomfort was vast and continuous, and as the hooks were everlastingly fouling in loose weeds, and the progress of the boat converted the hauling in of the line into not inconsiderable manual labour, the outlook became barren in the extreme. My companion A. in the stern was furnished with the orthodox hand-line, and I sat on the second thwart facing him. The rod rendered this necessary, and A. told me afterwards that Ben spent most of his time winking and contemptuously gesticulating over my shoulder. Probably this accounted for the number of times he pummelled the small of my back with the clumsily advanced handles of his oars. My rod, I might explain, was the trolling or sea fishing version of a capital greenheart portmanteau rod, to which I had treated myself in hopes of use in Canadian waters, and was a stiff little pole (in this form) of a trifle over 9 ft. The medium dressed silk trout-line on a grilse winch was about a hundred yards in length, and quite sound, and on a twisted gut trace I had attached a 3-in. blue phantom. Ben impartially, not to say profanely, objected to the lot. We had ample opportunity to admire the very pretty scenery of the lake shores, and the charmingly timbered island which for ten miles diversified the blue water. The depth was seldom over 6 ft. or 8 ft., there were subaqueous forests of weeds in all directions, but there was a kind of channel known to Ben where one had the chance of intervals of peace--spells of clear spinning for A.'s great spoon to starboard and my delicate phantom to port. In those times of tranquil leisure we learned much as to the splendid duck-shooting of the fall and the wonderful stores of fish in the lake. Scugog is not a show place, but it is beautiful in its quiet way; the surroundings are quite English, and Port Perry is a pleasant type of the small, prosperous Canadian town where nobody perhaps is very rich and nobody very poor. The aforesaid island in the centre makes the lake appear quite narrow, and, indeed, its length of fourteen miles is double its widest breadth with island included. And it is one of a chain of Ontarian waterways so vast that, had we been so minded and properly prepared, we might have passed through close upon 200 miles of lakes and connecting channels. Two hours of incessant hauling in of weed bunches, and no sign of a run of any other kind, were enough; you could not be always admiring the green slopes and woodlands of maple and pine; discussions of local topography cannot be indefinitely prolonged. Thank the gods my good shipmate and travelling companion A. was cheery to the backbone, as, in truth, a good-looking fellow of fourteen stone, and with nothing to do but travel about the world and enjoy himself, ought to be. Being no angler, it was all the same to him whether fish sulked or frolicked; his patience was as inexhaustible as his amiability, and when my questioning of Ben about fish and fishing ceased by force of self-exhaustion, A. would quietly cut in with reminiscences of his recent run out to Colorado, former campings in the Rockies, adventures in Japan and all parts of Europe, and personal acquaintance with the States and the Dominion. The trouble that dear A. saved me in looking after baggage and tickets, the reliance I felt in his fighting weight and well set-up body, the placid smile with which he took life whatever it might be, were invaluable to me; and, though he accepted the ill-luck of our forenoon as only what he expected, as being, indeed, the ordinary outcome of most fishing expeditions, my chief desire was that he should have the bliss of landing a good fish. For myself I was not hopeful, and we went fishless ashore in the hot sun at mid-day, glad to release ourselves from the cramped positions in which we had been enduring the discomforts of that wretched skiff. In the afternoon we went out again. What would I not have given for a boat really fit for the work--a steady, square-sterned craft, on the floor of which one might have stood firm, casting right and left, and able to take every advantage of those weeds which now made trailing a positive nuisance? Ben's theory was that twelve yards of line were enough for his style of business; that though a fish might be temporarily scared aside by the passage of the cockle-shell, it would be just about restored to quiet when the spoon came along, and more likely to dash at it than with a greater length of line. Of course, I stuck to our English ways, and kept my phantom engaged at a distance, when possible, of never less than thirty yards. In course of time Ben's objections and protests were once for all silenced; he gave me up as an opinionated ass, whom it was waste of time to trouble about any more. "Smack, smack," at last--a momentary sensation at the rod-top. How the fish could have struck at my phantom, doubled up the soleskin body, without, however, touching a single hook of the deadly trio of triangles, was as much a marvel as ever it has been from the beginning. In the course of half an hour I had three such abortive runs at the phantom, and one small fellow of 1 1/2 lb., lightly hooked, bounded into the air and fell back free. Under these circumstances there was little thought of discomfort. Who cared for cramp now? The fish were assuredly on the move, and that one 'lunge of my modest desire was not so remote a possibility as it had been in the forenoon. The chances of friend A. were of course held by Master Ben to be the best of the two, and, in truth, why not? For reasons hinted at above it would have delighted me if it was left for him to prove how unnecessary were all the finer precautions of scientific sport. Such things have happened in salt water, and, it may be, in fresh. Musingly, as the canoe was proceeding midway between island and mainland, I was thinking of examples of the caprices of piscatorial fortune and of the positive instances when art and skill had been practically put to shame by the rudest methods. From the reverie, and a crouching position on the low seat of the miserable canoe, I was roused as by an electric shock. The rod was jerked downwards almost to the water, the winch flew, and the line, run out at express speed, cut into my forefinger. A., facing me, saw from my expression that something had happened, and, with the instinct of a sportsman, began to pull in his sash-cord and coil it neatly out of the scene of action. "I have him," I said by way of assurance, and Ben realised that the whirring scream of the winch was not a mere private rehearsal. Growing excited he began to give me directions how to behave under the circumstances, taking it for granted that the rod and line would fulfil all his prophecies of disaster and failure. By the backing of small line, which was now for the first time being rushed off the reel, I knew that my game had in the preliminary dash not stopped under eighty yards, and it seemed therefore as if the great fish that plunged on the surface away in the wake, and leaped 5 ft. or 6 ft. into the air, could have no connection whatever with us. I had seen that kind of thing before, however, with salmon and sea trout, and tingled with joy at the evidence I presently had that the tumble back into the lake had not parted me from my game. Ben noticed as quickly as I did that the line presently slacked, and called Heaven to witness that the darned fish was off, and that he had been predicting such a result all along; the fact was the 'lunge was racing in towards us. I am one of those anglers who hate being pestered by advice when playing a fish, and never pretend to choose my words to the interrupter. Moreover, Ben had continued pulling, so that, besides the wind behind us and the weight of the fish, whatever it was, against me, I had the way of the boat to assist the enemy; furthermore, he announced his intention of pulling ashore, as he was in the habit of doing with the hand-line operation, and the nearest land was not a yard less than a mile off. Then I opened my mouth and spake with my tongue, and Ben, finding that I could shout bad language as well as he, proved himself after all a fine fellow amenable to orders, and a veritable sport when once he comprehended that here was a fish that must be humoured and not lugged in by brute force. He not only ceased rowing, but quickly tumbled to the trick in other respects. He backed water, and, shortly, was most intelligently taking care that the canoe should follow the fish. We all knew it was worth catching, and from its appearance during its flashing somersault in the air I had estimated it at about 15 lb. It was a new experience to play a lively fish of respectable dimensions, sitting low and cramped, and fearing to move, in a cockle-shell canoe. If one could have stood up square and fair to the fight the course would have been clear; it would have been something to have knelt, but there was no opportunity for even that modest sort of compromise. And the fish did fight most gamely; certainly, too, with the odds immensely in its favour. Wrist, arms, shoulders, back, and legs of the angler were strained and pained by the efforts necessary to keep the taut line free of the boat, but A. ducked his head deftly once when the fish shot to the left of me at right angles, and lay low until I had it back in line of communication again. Twice the fish tried the expediency of running in towards me, and alarming Ben with the slack line, delighting him in proportionate degree when the winching-in found all taut and safe. So far as we could make out afterwards the fight with my 'lunge lasted half an hour, and it was fighting, too, all the while in the gamest fashion. Little by little the line was shortened, and the battle, so far as the rod and line went, was virtually won. Aching by this time in every limb, I welcomed the yellow-brown back when it came to the surface a few yards from the canoe. But here was another difficulty. How was the fish to be got into the boat? I could see now that it was certainly twenty pounds, and A. confessed that he had never used the gaff. Ben was out of the question, having his oars to look after, and even if he had been free the position would not allow me to bring the fish up to him. The gaff was strong and big, and it was furnished with a rank barb, generally a detestable implement in my estimation. Yet it proved our salvation. The gaff handle, I should state, was tapered the wrong way--that is to say, it was smaller at the end where it should have afforded some sort of grip to the hand. A. slipped the barbed affair into the body with great adroitness, but he had no experience of the strength of such customers, and at the mighty plunge it made the gaff slipped out of his hands, and I had my fish (with the added weight of wood and steel) once more on my conscience. Fortunately the tension on the line had not been relaxed. A. remained cool; Ben ordered him to seize my line. "I'll knock him out of the boat if he does," was the shout of another of the party, with a dulcet aside, "Lay hold of the gaff, old chap; we'll have him yet." And we did have him; A. leaned over, grasped the stick, hoisted the fish, kicking furiously, out of the water, and deposited it amongst our feet, where, in the confined space, there was for awhile an amusing confusion. Ben had a "priest" under his thwart, and by and by I found a chance for a straight smite at the back of the neck. The 'lunge received his _coup de grâce_, and we cooled down to sum up. Truth to tell, the three of us had for the last five minutes been as excited as schoolboys; the odds had been so much against us that the tussle was not what is termed a "gilt-edged security" until the fish lay still in the bottom of the canoe. He had been well hooked far down the throat by one triangle; the phantom with the other two came out of its own accord at the application of the priest, and the double gut of the triangle that remained inside was cut through. Ben was profuse in his apologies for attempting to interfere and for making light of my rod and line, and frankly explained that he had never seen the like before in 'lunge fishing. The absent triangle lost me two fish in succession, and we went ashore to repair the damages and to weigh the fish. It was absolutely empty, was 4 ft. long, yet it only weighed 24 1/2 lb. For the length it was the narrowest fish I had ever seen. The head was 11 3/4 in. long from outer edge of gill cover to tip of lower snout. Ben showed it in triumph as we walked in procession from the landing-stage to the hotel, and when it became known that it had been caught on a small rod and trout line there was a popular sensation in the nice little town of Port Perry. Men left their horses and buggies, workpeople threw down their tools and hurried to the scene, mothers caught their children in their arms and held them up to see. Later in the afternoon I killed another 'lunge of about 6 lb., and that too had an empty stomach. A party of American visitors returned at night with four or five of similar size, and every fish presented the same emaciated appearance. There was not a vestige of food in their stomachs. Had my good one been feeding well for a few days previously he would have been many pounds heavier. As it was, I ought to have preserved the skin and brought it home as a specimen, so long and gaunt was it, so different from our deep-bodied English pike, to which it otherwise bore, of course, a close family resemblance. This conclusion I arrived at by the aid of a suggestion from A. when it was too late; and some day I must try and catch a still finer specimen. Captain Campbell, of the Lake Ontario (Beaver Line), informs me that he once brought over in a whisky cask the head of a maskinongé from the St. Lawrence that was said to weigh 140 lb., and it would really seem that these fish do occasionally run to weights far into the fifties and sixties. I never heard of anyone trying for 'lunge with live baits, or spinning with dead fish and the flights such as we use at home for pike. The use of the big spoon is universal. And I may add that a month later (say October) those fish would not have been quite so much like herrings in their insides. Green bass and speckled trout are Canadian names, signifying the large-mouthed variety of the black bass for the one part, and our old friend fontinalis for the other. It will be remembered that under the circumstances of brief opportunity and far-distant waters which I have duly explained, my expectations were modest, and hope would have been satisfied with a simple sample each of the black bass, immortalised by Dr. Henshall, and the maskinonge of the lakes. How I caught my first 'lunge has been already told, and the story was, like the fish itself, a pretty long one. I may confess at once, with deep regret, that I have no excuse for length as to black bass, since I did not get even one. I had been warned that only in the early part of the season--the month of June--is there any chance with the fly in lakes, and very little in the rivers. They were, however, to be obtained by bait fishing, and on the day when I killed the 'lunge Ben took me out in the evening equipped with the correct tackle for bass. It consisted of a single piece of bamboo, about 15 ft. long, a strong line a few inches longer, a bung as float, and a hook with 2-in. shank, and gape of about 3/4 in. You will remember this kind of rig-out, only with hook of moderate size, as often used by Midland yokels in bream fishing. It is delightfully primitive. Heavily leaded, you swing out the line to its full extent, and, hooking a fish, haul him in without the assistance of such a superfluous luxury as a winch. There was a kind of bait-can in the bow of the canoe, but I asked no questions, contenting myself with trailing with a 2-in. phantom. The fishing ground was along the water-grasses and reeds that extended hundreds of yards from the shore into the lake, and very shallow it was. The wind had completely died away, and the sun by six o'clock was well down in the west. Ben by and by told me to wind up, and urged the canoe into the heart of the weeds, in and in, until we were apparently in the midst of a verdant field of high coarse grass. Here he threw out the killick and unwound the line from his fishing pole. Then from the bait-can he took out a half-grown frog and impaled it upon the huge hook, which I now perceived was of the size and blue colour of the eel hooks of our boyhood. Looking around as he made his preparations I began to understand things. There was a uniform depth of 3 ft., and here and there were clearances--small pools, free of vegetation, and of varying dimensions. They might have an area of a couple or a couple of dozen yards. The frog was swished out into these open spaces, and if a bass was there, well and good. The fish was not allowed more than five minutes to make up his mind, and if nothing happened the bait was withdrawn and hurled elsewhere. If the bass mean feeding they let you know it pretty quickly, and in this simple way a fisherman often, in a couple of hours, gets a quarter of a hundredweight or so of them, ranging from 2 lb. to 5 lb. But after a quarter of an hour with the frog, Ben pronounced the absolute uselessness of remaining any longer. While he was operating I had fixed up my most useful portmanteau-rod with its fly-fishing tops, and with a sea-trout collar, and a small, silver-bodied salmon fly cast over the open spaces. This was no more successful than the frog, and we, as a matter of fact, caught nothing at all that evening. These green bass take the bait voraciously ("like so-and-so bull-dogs," Ben assured me) when they are sporting, and haunt these reedy coppices in incredible numbers. As with the 'lunge so with the bass. I should say that with proper appliances and some approach to a skilful method, the arm, on a favourable day, would ache with the slaughter. One of the canoes next morning at breakfast time brought in a couple of these fish of about a pound weight. They were dark green in colour, fitted up with a big mouth and a spiny dorsal fin, and had all the burly proportions of a perch, minus the hog-shaped shoulders. That same day two Port Perry gentlemen, keen and good anglers both, left their homes and businesses to drive me and friend A. in a pair horse buggy some nine miles across country to a fishing house belonging to a club of which they were members. Indeed, they were part proprietors, for more and more in Canada every bit of water that is worth the acquisition is taken up for preservation. The club consists principally of professional and business men from Toronto, and the doctors are a large proportion. For the sake of a couple of ponds, and the facilities for damming others out of a picturesque valley, these sportsmen had formed themselves into a company, and bought up some hundreds of acres of land. Their house was a wooden one-storied building in the middle of a fine orchard and garden, and outside the front veranda, where you sat in squatter chairs to smoke the pipe of peace away from the noise of civilisation, there stood a discarded punt converted into a bed of gloriously blooming petunias. It was an ideal spot for week-end outings. The pond nearest the clubhouse had once served the business of a mill long abandoned, and it was full of sunken logs and of fontinalis--always spoken of in Canada as speckled trout, and the same, of course, as the "brook trout" of the States. They were said never to rise to a fly, and they are fished for with live minnows or worms, with float tackle. There was a lower lake less encumbered with snags and submerged timber, made by the club by building a workmanlike dam at the lower end of the property, and the clear little stream which once worked the mill keeps it clear and sweet, after, on the way down the valley, between the two ponds, doing good service at the club hatchery hidden in a lovely thicket of sylvan wildness, and looked after for their brother members by the intelligent farmer, who with his mother and wife takes charge of the clubhouse and fishery. The fun we all had at eventide, sitting in the punts and catching or missing the trout that dragged our floats under, was certainly uproarious, and I am ashamed, now that I am writing in cold blood, to say that I enjoyed it as much as any of the party. But this was a bad example to friend A., who, as I have previously stated, was "no fisherman." He blandly smiled as I begged him to understand that it was nothing short of high treason to catch such lovely trout with anything other than artificial fly. Just then his float went off like a flash almost close to the punt, and as he fought his fish with bended rod he murmured that, meanwhile, minnow or worm was quite good enough for him. The way in which a fifth member of the party, a youth who had brought us a bucket of minnows (so-called), hurled out half-pounders high in the air, and sent them spinning behind him, was provocative of screams of laughter. In the morning I was anxious to try this lower lake with the fly rod, though warned by the farmer that it was of little use. For the good of A.'s piscatorial soul I, nevertheless, insisted, and the capture of two quarter-pounders with a red palmer, and several short rises, rewarded my efforts in his interests. If he has not received my counsel, and laid it to heart, it will not be because he did not have ocular demonstration of the virtues of fly-fishing. I was not surprised to hear that these club fish were not free risers at the fly, for both ponds were swarming with half-inch and one-inch fry, as tempting as our own minnows, and the trout simply lived in an atmosphere of them. Our Canadian brother anglers here, as elsewhere, are of the real good stamp, sportsmen to the core, pisciculturists, botanists, naturalists, racy conversationalists, and big-hearted to a man. Please fortune I shall shake hands with them another day. CHAPTER XIX HASTY VISITS TO AMERICA The untravelled English angler has, pardonably enough, vague notions as to the sport to be had with the rod of a mere visitor in the United States. He fancies generally that he has only to come, see, and conquer; and this is partly because he confuses Canada with the country south of the great chain of lakes. No doubt there is an abundant variety of angling in the States; but here, as at home, you must go far afield. Do not forget that even the best American streams are as easily fished out as our own. Pending the completion of the Exhibition at Chicago, I had been gathering, from reliable sources, some facts that may be of use to those readers who are always craving knowledge in the columns of the fishing papers; and I endeavoured to discover what the casual visitor, finding himself at the best-known cities, may expect without travelling too far from his base of operations. The result of my inquiries, however, is at best only an outline sketch, and it may be that time has brought changes. Let us suppose that you are in New York. At the termination of the voyage, when you were not engaged in admiring the pretty residences on the wooded slopes of Staten Island, you would look occasionally to the right upon Long Island, one of the lungs of New York, though the city has in itself so clear an atmosphere that people are able to build marble houses with impunity. Still, in the heat of summer the citizens--and small blame to them--make it a rule of flying nearer the ocean, and Long Island is one of their handiest and most appreciated resorts. There are upon it many trout preserves; "ponds" they are called, but we should give them the higher title of lakes with a clear conscience. They are generally maintained by clubs of wealthy members, and each has its comfortable house. The earliest trout fishing to be found in this country is here. April 1 is the opening day, and the season opened well, though a snap of rough weather during the last fortnight interfered with sport. There are numbers of lady anglers, members of the Long Island colony, and two of them to my knowledge made capital baskets during the Easter week. A New Yorker gets through his business in the city before luncheon, and then, in a couple of hours, he is at the Long Island clubhouse getting into his fishing suit. Fly-fishing only is practised, and the fish are principally fontinalis. Unless otherwise stated, this species is always intended in any reference to trout. Our brother anglers here are, as a rule, keen sportsmen and honest men, meaning that they are glad whenever they can assist another in securing the recreation which makes fishermen kin all the world over. My chief trouble was that I could make no manner of use of a tantalising list of kindly invitations to cast a fly in Long Island. Then there is another and smaller island at a greater distance, Martha's Vineyard, beloved of old whalers, where there are well stocked trout streams; but it goes quite without saying that all the water near New York City is preserved. Outside, in New York State, the trout fishing opens on April 15, and the favourite country is in the Adirondacks, where the wood-built veranda'd clubhouses are pitched here and there over a vast tract of woods, beside lakes and streams. To reach the Adirondacks you have a fifteen hours' journey by rail, and waggon tracks over hilly, and not macadamised roads, that will account for from two to fifteen hours more, according to the retreat chosen. You are here quite out of the world, and for the nearest fishing grounds you may leave New York by the evening train to-day, and be at work at even-tide to-morrow. From Boston, the quiet city of studious men and women, who regard their old town still as the "hub of the universe," there are endless possibilities, more or less inland. Connecticut, Vermont, and mountainous New Hampshire, abound in charming minor streams and picturesque scenery. The delights of this New England fishing and camping have been faithfully immortalised in that incomparable prose idyll "I Go a Fishing," by Prime. Maine, however, is the United States angler's paradise. This involves at least a twenty-four hours' journey by rail and steamer, if you would reach the famous lake region of that sporting state. The trout run large, and I have seen the skin of a handsome 9-lb. fontinalis killed there with the fly. There are declared to be even bigger fish than this; but 4-lb. and 5-lb. fish are considered really good specimens. The average is not lower than 2 lb., and 3-lb. fish may be taken as "good." The flies used are never smaller than our sea-trout size, and they are more often larger; but the best anglers catalogue you as a lubber if you wield anything heavier than a boy's rod. I have looked over some fly books in active service, and when some day I find myself in that log-house in the Maine woods which I have in my notebook, I will back my selected half-dozen of our English, Irish, and Scotch sea-trout and lake flies against the best of the Orvis favourites. Philadelphia, which, from my all too passing and superficial view of it, has the most English-looking suburbs of any city I have seen, does not count for much with the angler. There are some streams in Pennsylvania which yield plenty of small trout, and if you know the proper places, at the head waters and elsewhere, the Delaware and Susquehannah rivers, which, in crossing them, I was assured contained no game fish at all, have very fair black bass streams, while there are what we should rank as burn trout in most of the tributaries tumbling down through the woods and the mountains and hills. As for salmon, I may here remark that I could only hear of one pool in the United States where Salmo salar can be caught. There are heaps of salmon on the Pacific slope, but they are not salar, and not sportive in the rivers to the fly. This pool is the watery fretwork of a dam where the tidal portion of a fifty-mile length of river is ended, and the salmon are therefore caught in brackish water always with the fly. Seventy were taken there the previous year. Washington--the city still of magnificent distances, though it is gradually filling in the blanks, and is looked forward to as the coming city of the leisure and pleasure classes, who shall live unpolluted by the rank snobbery of New York fashion, the chicanery of Wall Street, and the genius of the almighty dollar, which rules in other cities--Washington, I regret to find, is no better for the angler than Philadelphia. But you get bass fishing in the historic Potomac, and small trout in the hill country of Maryland and Virginia. On the face of it, Chicago, with its surroundings of prairie and lake, would not tempt the angler. Yet it is in this respect most fortunately placed, and I made the acquaintance of many anglers of the right sort, and enthusiastic enough for anything. It is a marvellous city, of really magical growth and extent, and the energy of the people is appalling. But it is nonsense to call it magnificent in anything but its enterprise and the size of its buildings towering to the sky, and not beautiful. Moreover, it is smoky. Hence the anglers are numerous; they have many incentives to flee from it. The lake yields no angling for the skilled rod. The boys and loafers get, however, plenty of 1/2-lb. perch. The nearest respectable sport for the fly or minnow man is with black bass, in the smaller lakes and connecting rivers within two or three hours' railway journey; and there are six or eight other percoid forms such as striped, calico, and rock bass, and several of the sunfishes, all of which take a fly. The game is not of high repute all the same, and they are somewhat slightingly spoken of as "only pan fish." But they run from 1/2 lb. to 3 lb., and rise voraciously. The next best sport with black bass, which is the game fish most sworn by in this district, is in Northern Illinois and Indiana, fifty miles and more by train from Chicago. Farther afield still are the streams and lakes of Wisconsin, which may be brought into a day's work by starting early. In Northern Wisconsin there are trout in the streams, and muskalonge galore in the lakes. Altogether it is a very fly-fishing state, and heavy creels can be made from the streams falling into Lake Superior. The Michigan and Montana streams enjoy the distinction of holding the indigenous grayling, which take the fly freely, and have their enthusiastic admirers, who protect and cherish them. They are, however, decreasing in numbers and their establishment in other states was still problematical. A 2-lb. Michigan grayling is the maximum, so far as the experience of native observers can fix it. A pound is an honest sample for the creel. The black bass, as I have said, are prime favourites in the angling resorts of the interior. They spawn any time, according to locality, between April and July; but there is a brief spell of smart fishing before they get on the shallows. This happens during what is called the "spring run"; that is to say, when they are moving from the deep waters of their winter quarters (some think that they hibernate) to the sandy shallows (if they can get sand) of the streams and lakes. Before this, however, the pike-fishers have been having sport, if the waters allow it, in March. The winters here are often open, that of which I saw something, with a snow tempest of three days, being the exceptional season of ten years at least. Sometimes the enthusiasts are piking even in February, getting fish from 2 lb. to 20 lb., which Dr. Henshall, the well-known author and naturalist, pronounces true Esox lucius. This is the fish we often read of as the pickerel, and it is taken with a local minnow some 3 in. long, or one of the spoons, of which America is the cradle. The black bass, it may be premised, has been transplanted to many states where it did not previously occur, and has taken most kindly to the waters of middle and eastern states, where the croakers predicted it would and could never thrive. The fly-fishers prefer wading, and use a fly large as a small salmon pattern, gut of Mayfly strength, line of corresponding size, and the light ten-feet built-up cane rods, which were first brought into general action in this country. The custom is either to cast across, with a tendency downwards, and to work the fly slightly as it swings round, or to cast down and work back. Three or two flies are used. Minnow fishers are in a minority, and fly-fishing is reckoned the correct method by the angler. Dr. Henshall had had so many "records" that he could not remember offhand his best with fly; but his heaviest bag--and he did not confess it with any pride--was, spinning with the minnow, seventy black bass, averaging 2 lb., in a day. The biggest fish are in the lakes; but a 4-lb. specimen is large anywhere, save in the Gulf States, where all fish seem to reach abnormal dimensions. June and July are the best months for sport in these North-Western States; August, as in England, is a depressing month for the angler; but fishing becomes merry in September and October, and is pursued with zest in the cool evenings, at which time the gorgeous tints of the American fall are deepening. Altogether the autumn fishing is the most enjoyable; for, while the conditions just indicated are to be considered, the water has become thoroughly settled, and there are no fears of flood and disturbance. After spawning, the bass is quickly in condition; as a matter of fact, it is seldom out of it. There was some rare fun one day with a brace of alligators sent by express from Florida. They were the patriarchs of a considerable consignment, and arrived pretty miserable five days back in wooden boxes. They were put into a lagoon in the open grounds. Then we had bitter wintry gales with snow flurries, and a blizzard which, had the season been earlier and the ground frozen, would have given us a foot of snow. Anyhow, it made the temperature of the lagoon a very unsuitable figure for the alligators, and they had to be looked promptly after. They were driven at length into a bay with poles, and pretty furious they were, lashing round with their tails and snapping viciously. As these fellows were 10 ft. long, the men told off to the duty had to proceed warily, and after an hour's exciting sport succeeded in lassoing them one after the other round the neck, yanking them ashore, and bustling them into wooden cases made expressly for their accommodation. They were at once taken to the warm interior of the horticultural building, and I saw them spending their Sabbath in some degree of comfort in the tepid water of the basin, without even guessing that in the old country it was Shakespeare's day. Some of the queer fish swimming about in the big aquarium tanks naturally drew my attention. Carriers from Florida and elsewhere were arriving every day with new specimens, and I could see, in a quarter of an hour's stroll round the circular annexe, more live fish than I had ever seen in three of the largest aquariums known in England, had they been combined into one. There were some large fellows, something like pollack, cruising around, and these are called buffaloes. Insinuating their slow course through the crowd were fresh-water gar-fish with long spike noses. The catfish, with its greasy chubby body, portmanteau mouth, and prominent wattles, were precisely like those we used to catch (and eat sometimes) in Australia. Carp were present in numbers, including the mirror and leather varieties, but carp culture was not so fashionable as it was in the States. My eyes were gladdened with a grand lot of tench, in the primest colouring of bright bronze; they were raised from some of our British Stock. A whole tank was filled with two-year-old fontinalis; another with young lake trout, handsome 12-in. examples at two years old, and not easy at a glance to distinguish from fontinalis. Then came a tank of young sturgeon; and, in a general assembly next door, were a few wall-eyed pike; this is really a pike-perch, differing in the markings, however, from the zander of Central Europe. A most droll-looking customer is the paddle fish. With body suggesting a compromise between sturgeon and catfish, he has a long, perfectly straight duck bill, and so seems to be always shoving ahead of him a good broad paper knife nine or ten inches long. This weapon is used for digging up the bed of the river, but if it could be insinuated out of the water into a drowsy angler's leg it would probably make him sit up. As the paddle is as long as the fish the creature presents a really farcical appearance. The species runs to a hundredweight, I believe, in the Mississippi. There was a river form that seemed particularly anxious to come to the front that is called the sea trout, from its rough-and-ready resemblance to that species, but its real name is the weak-fish--a sad come-down for any creature. There was a puffed-out beast, with velvet jacket, zebra markings, and turquoise eye, which was a perfect monster of ugliness, but I did not catch its name. Its head was as much a caricature as a pantomime mask. On another page I mentioned the killing of a fontinalis trout of over 9 lb., and I begged the captor to tell me the story of his prize. "Why, certainly," said Mr. Osgood; "I caught that fish with the rod, and the place was a typical anglers' paradise. You'll experience that for yourself when you keep that promise you have made me. You see, when I made my first cast---- Oh! I beg your pardon. Begin at the beginning must I? I understand; you want to give your English brother anglers--and my brother anglers too, I suppose?--an idea of what a fishing expedition is like out here, do you? Then I begin first at New York. "You take the evening boat at 5.30 for Boston, fare four dollars. There is beautiful sleeping accommodation, the Sound is smooth water all the time, and you get to Boston at half-past seven next morning. Better get your breakfast on board before you land, and then take the 8.30 Boston and Maine line train, reaching Portland at noon. Then you switch on to the Grand Trunk system for Bryant's Pond, reached at 4.20. Here you take the stage coach with a team of six horses, runners and fliers all. The road is pretty hilly, however, and your twenty-mile drive brings you to Andover for early supper, having on the road crossed--coach team, and everything--a wide river (the Androsciggin) by a float, hauled over by a rope. You stay at Andover for the night, and next morning continue the journey in a birchboard waggon with a pair of horses. This is a delightful drive through winding woods along the side of a hill, crossing numbers of small streams. "Eventually you enter the Narrows, from which you emerge into Mollechuncamunk, a small Indian name that takes practice to pronounce. It is necessary to mention it nevertheless, because, in the river between it and Mooseluckmegunquic, you find the largest trout. Indian name too? Why cert'nly. It tells its own story pretty well also, but no Indian chief gets any moose, or calls for his gun there, any more. Now then we are on the spot. It is in this stream, between the two lakes, in a pool 500 ft. and 400 ft. below the dam, that the trick was done. "The pool is magnificent, alive and streaming all over, and varying from 2 ft. to 20 ft. You can see the trout in the clear water lying on the bottom in any number; lovely fish, ranging from 1/2 lb. to 7 lb. or 8 lb. About 200 ft. from the shore, and practically facing this pool, is our wood-built hotel, one and half stories, with wide veranda covered with woodbine, green lawn, and flower beds in front, blooming with geraniums and pansies. This is the anglers' camp, and the happiest hours of my life have been spent there. We have twenty-seven rooms, and they are all lined with native pine, and varnished and kept as clean as a tea saucer. The roar of that pool is so musical that if it ever stops you cannot sleep. The people of the house are excellent people, good sportsmen, and men and women alike just devote themselves to making the angling boys happy and comfortable. You pay your two dollars a day for board and lodging, and live like fighting cocks--plenty of fruit and vegetables, and any variety of butcher's meat and side dishes. You can fish from the shore if you like, but a boat is best. You can hire one for two dollars a week, and if you want a competent guide to manage it, that will cost you two and a half dollars a day, for labour is not cheap here, and these guides are most skilful and experienced. If you have them you have forty miles of lake to fish, as well as the dam pool. However, let us suppose you go out in your own boat. One peculiarity of the pool is, that wherever you anchor you will have a down-stream wind, and that is what you want here. Out with your 40-lb. weight, and there you are at anchor. "And now we come to September 18 last year. It was Sunday, a day upon which I seldom fish. At the bottom of the pool, however, a large trout had been seen rising, and lots of men had been trying for it. So I went out at the most favourable hour--five in the afternoon, with my 10-ft. Kosmie rod, weighing exactly 6 1/4 ounces. I like myself to fish with a single fly, and I anchored my boat about 30 ft. from the head of the outfall sluice. The fly was the B. Pond, so called because it is a favourite on a lake of that name, and, as you will see, it was a 2 per cent. Sproat hook. These big fish have a habit of showing on the top, and I had marked where it rolled. It had been in the same place for quite a week, and we all knew about it, and had even decided that it was a female fish, as, indeed, it turned out to be. So we got to speak of her as the Queen of the Pool; and it was because I had been challenged to catch her by the score of fellows who had been trying for her that I went out on this particular day. I took boat an hour before I intended to fish, and dropped quietly down, bit by bit, at intervals, to the spot I had marked in my eye. It was not far from the head of the sluice, and, therefore, a most critical position. I had worn the B. Pond stuck in my hat for days, so that it should be quite dry. I only allowed myself line 2 ft. longer than my rod. After a few flicks with my left hand I delivered a business cast with my right, and in an instant she came up with a roll, and I struck and hooked. "There was no need to shout. The Queen of the Pool leaped two feet out of water and then made straight for the sluice. This was the dilemma I had feared all along, and my plan of action had been well thought out beforehand. I raised and held firm my rod, and let the fish and it settle the whole business on a tight line. She often brought the top curving right down to the water, but I never departed from my plan. I kept the rod at an angle of about forty-five degrees throughout, and risked all the consequences. The men from the bank, of course, shouted 'Give her line,' but I knew what my rod could do, and knew that all the rigging was to be trusted. "This went on for an hour and five minutes. Sometimes the fish made for the boat, sometimes for the sluice, and the rod was never still, but she had to give in. At last another boat came and fastened to mine, and the guide in it after three unsuccessful shots dipped her out in the net. I need not tell of the excitement there was when we got ashore. The fish was there and then weighed and measured, and there and then entered on the records. Weight 9 lb. 2 oz., length 27 1/2 in., girth 17 in. She was a most handsome fontinalis, and we counted ninety-three vermilion spots on one of her sides." After this story from an experienced angler, whose word is never doubted, I was very anxious to see that small rod. The fish, as described, was before my eyes; I handled the fly (what at least was left of it), and can describe it. B. Pond was really a fair-sized salmon fly--turkey wing, orange body, and claret hackles, with the gold tip of the Professor. The collar was of picked medium gut stained black, many of the American anglers contending that this is the colour least obtrusive to fish. The line was strong, but not large. The rod was just as small as described, and certainly a masterpiece of work. * * * * * * On returning to New York, after my visit to Chicago, and delightful day at Niagara Falls, it was not until I arrived at Albany that I saw anything in the shape of scenery which could be compared to England; and very sorry was I not to be able to go across the river and ramble about the town, that seemed to be environed with pleasant meadows and abundant foliage--the type of scenery one loves in the old country. The run down the Hudson river, even in the railway train, was a continued delight; for the scenery, where it is not magnificent, is always picturesque. In the summer there is a service of steamers from New York to Albany, up and down; but just as I was too soon for the fishing, so was I too soon for the summer excursions. The knowledge that the boats would begin to run in three or four days' time was no consolation to me. Had it been otherwise I should have left the train at Albany and taken the Hudson steamer. Still, I had 150 miles of ever varying scenery, with the noble Hudson on my right hand nearly the entire distance. You soon get accustomed to the great white buildings, that at first remind one of a covered ship-building yard, but which you soon discover are the ice-houses in which is stored the cooling material for the cunning summer drinks which the American loves. By and by mountain masses appear in the distance, and the broad meadow land narrows, until you are confronted by bold headlands rising often uprightly from the water. Of course, the Catskill Mountains are the _pièce de résistance_ of this trip, and amongst the places where one would like to stop is Fishkill, a few miles below Poughkeepsie, the points of beauty being the city of Newburgh, over the water, and the widening of the river known as Newburgh Bay. Then come the fine Highlands of the Hudson, with massive granite precipices, and Storm King towering boldly 1,529 ft. above the level. West Point succeeds; and there is more beautiful scenery at Peekskill. After the State prison of Sing Sing we run past the Sleepy Hollow country, with associations of Knickerbocker, Rip Van Winkle, and the romantic Dutch citizens of old New Amsterdam. The Palisades (twenty miles of lofty, rugged natural wall) are a fine finish to the run. There seemed to be enough nets and fishing apparatus along the Hudson to depopulate the stream, but there is some very good angling of a common sort to be obtained there. Striped bass, white perch, pickerel, sun-fish, frost-fish, and catfish are amongst the game, and trout are to be found in many of the tributary brooks. The New Yorkers, I found, also fish the Mohawk, where there are plenty of pike, pickerel, and perch, pike being most abundant. The baits are crabs, crickets, and minnows. Expensive as many things were in America, boats, at any rate on waters of this kind, could be had much cheaper than in England, 50 to 75 cents per day being a usual charge. Mr. Osgood, the slayer of the big fontinalis, had been round the country, and I found him amongst his fishing tackle in New York, showing rods and flies to an admiring trio of anglers, who, with the near approach of June, were making ready their outfit. I spoke in terms of bitter disappointment at my fate in having to leave the country without even seeing a trout stream. I had three days to spare before the boat sailed, and when Mr. Osgood was free he began to think what could be done. The result was that he took me over and introduced me to Mr. Harris, the editor of the _American Angler_, an illustrated magazine of fish, fishing, and fish culture, issued monthly. When he learned my troubles he made a suggestion, which suggestion being jumped at by me, he sat him down, with the business-like promptitude by which our Trans-atlantic cousins save a good deal of time in the course of the day, wrote a letter, and the thing was done. The letter was an injunction to someone to take care of me and show me the best that was to be seen. Mr. Osgood kindly allowed his business to slide for a day or so, and in an hour we were crossing to New Jersey, and were soon on board a train bound for Rockland County. The scenery here also was quite English, of the pleasantest pastoral type; for we were passing through highly cultivated farms, in conditions of agriculture that had not yet brought the owner and cultivator of the soil under such a cloud of dismal distress as we had experienced at home. A buggy was waiting for us at the station, and we had a couple of miles' drive, finished by turning out of the high road and galloping down a sandy track, across a rustic bridge, and through a charming plantation. On a knoll, surrounded by thickets just showing leaf, stood a neat wooden structure with a veranda running around it. A couple of setters and a pointer in a kennel welcomed us by frantic barking, but for the time that was the only sign or sound of life. We were in a sylvan solitude, and somewhere near was heard the musical flow of water through the tangled copse. The good lady who had charge of the clubhouse eventually came forward and read the letter which made me free of the house. It was not, however, till dusk that her husband, the bailiff, appeared, and we therefore had no opportunity, as we had hoped to do, of any evening fishing, but we had a hearty dinner, beautifully cooked and prepared in one of the cosiest sportsman's retreats I have ever entered. The woodwork of the interior was beautifully finished and polished; the furnishing was just enough for comfort; and the bracing air and wafted murmurs that came to us, as we smoked our pipes on the veranda, were most grateful. Mr. Harris had kindly put into my hands a copy of his _American Angler_, describing the birth of the club, which may be taken to be a representative angling club for city gentlemen in America. It was called the Quaspeake Club, and the house was pitched close to the Demorest brook. This was the water the music of which we had heard, and from our elevated position on the veranda we could see it; a little to the west, and down below, it broke into a miniature cascade and was then lost among the low-lying alders which hid the course of the stream. This clubhouse was about ninety minutes by rail from New York; and in the season the members escaped from the city by the four o'clock train, got a couple of hours' trout fishing before night, and were back to business again by nine o'clock next morning. CHAPTER XX A DEVASTATED ARCADIA Thirteen years ago it was my happiness to spend two or three days at an angler's paradise, a veritable Arcadia then, in one of the districts the earliest to be ploughed red by the hoofs of a lawless and brutal invader in the recent war. In the course of a short month this fruitful land of peace and plenty, ready for the ingathering of a bounteous harvest, was devastated by the unspeakable savagery of a soldiery whose name will henceforth be a byword amongst all civilised peoples. It must surely be so, for the records of murders, robberies, and outrages unspeakable suffered without warning, without provocation by a prosperous and inoffensive people, will be a textbook of inhumanity and wrong for generations to come. The passing of wounded Belgian soldiers in English streets sadly reminded us of what had happened in their unhappy country; of cities, towns, and villages looted and left in ashes; and of the devil let loose in Arcady. Only to think of it! In the summer of 1914 you might, as it were to-night, dine in London, travel luxuriously by the Harwich express, cross the North Sea, survey promising scenes of industry and agriculture from the railway carriage, glance at Brussels and Namur on the way, see the Mayflies dancing over a lovely trout stream, have driven over miles of sweet woodland road, gone out in the boat and caught your first fish, and slept in the absolute repose of a charming rural retreat. Just in such a fashion did my old friend Sir W. Treloar and I in a bygone June gain the Chalet du Lac, on the skirts of the Belgian Ardennes, to enjoy the hospitality of our English host, Mr. F. Walton, of lincustrian fame. All this was suddenly cut off from the outer world and overrun by barbarian hordes, who feared not God, neither regarded the rights of man. The Arcady had become a stricken land of desolation. It is close on twenty years since we visited that beautiful spot, but the memory of it abides. Here are impressions set down at the time: "Soon after leaving Namur the train passes through beautiful forest scenery. You are nearing the Ardennes, and for miles you follow the course of a typical trout stream, ever rushing and gliding from cool woods to greet you. There were on that seventh day of June Mayflies in the air, but the glaring sun and clear water revealed no sign of a rising trout in any of the pools that came under observation. Something after five o'clock of the afternoon on this particular week-end outing the railway was done with, and right pleasant was the change to an open carriage and the shaded five miles woodland drive to the Chalet du Lac, built by my host on a lake of some fifty acres. The supports of the veranda were, in fact, piles driven into the bed of the lake, and the house was not only charmingly situated, but, having been designed by its owner, a practical man of great artistic taste, was charming in itself. The eye in every direction rested upon and roamed over splendid masses of forest trees; they flourished down to the water's edge and fell away and around in receding tiers, becoming grand dark masses of pine on the distant horizon of mountain range. So absolutely out of the world was this tranquil spot that I saw a deer come out of the thicket and drink of the lake while I was playing a fish." With my memory of that holiday quickened by the news from Belgium, I called upon Mr. Walton in Berkeley Square to learn what had happened to his delightful fishing quarters. He was in his eighty-first year then, but hale and hearty, and on the look-out for some trout water that should replace what he feared was now a ruined home. He had had no word from Les Epioux since the war, but we knew that the enemy had been all around. The chalet is but a quarter of a mile off the main route from Sedan to Libramont, which is the junction station for Brussels. It being an altogether undefended district, the enemy would be at ease there, and perhaps have taken toll of the deer and fish which might be secured by some of the sneak methods of warfare at which they were adepts. The pictures and books of the chalet would be portable loot to anyone who valued them more than clocks and cooking utensils, but the books would certainly reveal a hated Englishman as the owner, and on the whole we really could not expect to find the chalet above ground, unless some admiring enemy had earmarked it as his private property, on the chance of Belgium becoming a German province. All that Mr. Walton had gathered from the war news was that there had been a cavalry engagement at or near Florenville, five miles distant. There was just the chance that the invaders had to be hustled off on the quick march before discovering those lakes, for about that phase of the operations the tide of battle was setting hotly to the west, and, as we know, according to the enemy's time-table, there was to be in a week or so a grand victorious entry into Paris, previous to a glorious descent upon English shores. There was a chance, therefore, that the Chalet du Lac remained serenely whole by the lakeside. I tried to cheer Mr. Walton by these surmises, but he shook his head, remarking, "I am afraid I shall never see my dear little chalet again, or, if so, everything dreadfully mutilated." So we turned the conversation, and I beguiled him into telling me once more the history of his connection with the Epioux lakes. Being a good, all-round sportsman, having been raised on a Yorkshire country estate, where there was abundant work for both rod and gun, he made, of course, the _Field_ his weekly study, and found the advertisement columns as interesting to read as any other. There, when settled in the world of London, he saw the fishing advertised as an eligible resort, where you might get your angling for a few shillings per day. He went over, and found that the lakes were occupied by two English pisciculturists, and that the water was in a measure stocked. Mr. Walton was so pleased with his fishing, especially in the upper lake, that he at once took a fancy to the place, and arranged for due warning should the tenancy become vacant, as seemed to be likely before long. In about eighteen months the result was that the lease was secured. Materials were sent from England by Mr. Walton, and the chalet built as described above. There was one German name at any rate mentioned by him with affectionate regard, namely, the late Herr Jaffé, who was called in to assist in stocking. This was thoroughly done. Rainbow trout were in the fashion then, and 300 pounds worth of them were promptly introduced. They took most kindly to the water, and as they were 6,000 strong to begin with, the fishing soon became good indeed. That it was so when the alderman and I visited the chalet, quotation from the article already tapped for present use may testify: "The sport was so good that the details would become monotonous. I say nothing about the baskets made by the two friends who also fished, save that my host and myself were, at the end, close within touch of one another's totals. We went afloat after breakfast and fished till luncheon; went out again when the sun was declining, fishing from about seven till nine. As I have stated, my first evening (which was particularly interesting, because there I was at the other end of Belgium catching fish at the hour corresponding with that of the previous day when I was taking my seat in the Great Eastern express for Harwich at Liverpool Street) accounted for twelve trout; the next day's bag was forty-eight (twenty-six in the forenoon and twenty-two in the evening); the following day's was fifty (twenty-two in the forenoon, twenty-eight in the evening); and on the last day, which was rough as to wind till the afternoon, my record was fourteen in the forenoon and thirty-one in the evening quiet. "My host had a good deal of correspondence to attend to, and I was often out alone, but his gillie reported that he had placed in the great floating well moored off the veranda 273 fish, the produce of our two rods during the period specified. These figures must not be accepted as evidence of greedy fishing or anything of that kind, nor are they written down in boastfulness. They are given simply because they record the story of the stocking, and because the sport, which, on the face of it, looks not unlike slaughter, was part of the necessary work of keeping down the head of fish in the lake. 'Kill as many as you can; there are far too many,' was the sort of order one need never hesitate to obey. The majority of these rainbow trout were apparently in the condition best described as well-mended. The biggest fish I took was a golden-brown fario of 1 1/4 lb., probably an old inhabitant; and there were pounders amongst the few fontinalis taken. "The point to which I trust to have brought the reader is that here was a lake which in the matter of sport may be regarded as an angler's paradise, and I may add that the success I enjoyed is the common experience. The young ladies often caught their two dozen trout in a two or three hours' paddle on a lovely sheet of water set in glorious surroundings of forest in which the wild boar lurks and the deer hides. Nobody was sent empty away. Just as a change from the chalk streams or other rivers at home, a day or two of such boat fishing is a real restful treat. Every loch fisher knows what I mean, and we need not talk about skill. In my boat during this visit I had one day the company of the worthy city knight who had caught his first trout on the day of my arrival. His worship genially allowed me to lecture him as to the simple rules for casting a fly, and when he would swish a three-quarter pound fish aloft in the air as if it were an ounce perch, to use language for which he would have fined me at the Mansion House. After losing two rainbows in this wild work he got well into the practice of casting and playing, and so, quite in workmanlike style, he caught seven good fish, besides breakages." In later years there was a considerable change in the character of the fishing. The rainbows from Herr Jaffé had been installed something over two years when they and we foregathered in this pleasant manner, and the fish caught would average as near 3/4 lb. as one could guess. As time went on it was evident that they did not flourish in the style usual to Salmo irideus. Mr. Walton was puzzled, and, in truth, so was Herr Jaffé. Amongst the stock planted in the principal lake there must have been an odd fontinalis or two, and by and by these brilliant fish were taken, of 1-lb. and 1 1/2-lb. size, freely rising at a fly. In a word, the fontinalis seemed in a brief space to take possession and the rainbows to decrease correspondingly. The first specimen Mr. Walton caught he put back as a rarity, but in a year or so they were not by any means strangers to be coddled. On the contrary they bred well, as indeed did the rainbows. The latter, however, after five or six years gradually deteriorated, while the fontinalis flourished and held their own for a while. Latterly they, too, had gone the way of all fontinalis, had become scarcer and scarcer, and it was a rare thing to catch one where they formerly abounded. The story of Mr. Walton's tenancy of sixteen years is thus an interesting chapter in fish culture. That must be my excuse for apparently labouring this matter of stocking, more especially as there is still a curious development to unfold. It should be stated that the lake with which we are now concerned had, previous to the introduction of rainbows, been emptied and restocked, leaving probably a few of the original brown trout behind. Mr. Walton thought that there were some Loch Levens, and that these in recent years asserted themselves, and, as he put it, "came to their own." But he went on to add that a few years ago he had put some minnows into the lake by the chalet, and that they had multiplied like the Hebrews of old till they literally swarmed. As a natural consequence the trout had become bad risers, and the growing scarcity of natural flies suggested that the minnows, by preying upon larvae, have had a share in this decline. The trout meanwhile had grown big and fat, as they naturally would do, fellows of 3 lb. and upwards being not uncommon. Mr. Walton fished with nothing but the fly, and had specimens of 3 lb. to 5 lb. so taken traced on cardboard and adorning the chalet walls, if haply they escaped the marauders. At his last visit, which was in the June of the fateful 1914, he killed ten trout, which weighed exactly 10 lb., in two hours, but this was not a common experience. His best chance of creeling one of the three-pounder type was with a long line, longer patience, and a dry fly. The sport with small lake flies, which was the usual method, was amongst singularly beautiful brown trout of 1 lb. average. All, therefore, was not yet lost, and the fishing, even in the lake which had to the extent I have explained suffered a certain deterioration, would be what many of us might, without sin, covet. When the angling was in its prime 1,500 trout was the bag expected and generally realised in a season, and, caught on small lake flies, such a number assuredly signifies much satisfaction. The minnows, frogs, miscellaneous Crustacea, and other foodstuffs in the lake then began to institute a standing veto against such a degree of pleasure. But the fishing of the upper lake, where we found our most joyous sport and surroundings in 1901, seemed to be as good as ever, save that the trout had fallen to a half-pound average. One must conclude as one began by wondering what happened at Epioux. The château, in the distance, might, after all, have filled the eye of the enemy so effectually that the pretty little chalet was overlooked. They tell you in the district that Prince Napoleon fled there for safety after he had shot Victor Noir, and that some of the cannon for Waterloo were cast in its immediate neighbourhood. This chapter would have ended with the previous paragraph but for a scrap of characteristic news in the _Daily Chronicle_. Many of the reports of brutalities and wanton outrage in war time should be received with distrust, but Mr. Naylor, who telegraphed this story from Paris was an old journalistic comrade whom many a special-correspondent expedition enables me to know as thoroughly reliable. He wrote: "At Montdidier there is a great organisation which has for its object the breeding of the best kinds of fish with which to stock French rivers and lakes. As soon as the Germans came to Montdidier they proceeded to blow up the banks of the fish-breeding ponds with dynamite, and cover the streams with petroleum in order to kill all the fish in them. They succeeded in destroying millions of immature trout and other fish, and ruining completely a remunerative and useful industry. The same spirit which drives such barbarians to blow up a fish-breeding pond impels them to drop bombs on open towns, which do no harm whatever to those who are fighting against them, but only kill inoffensive women and children." There are many good German anglers; the world of angling and fish culture owes much to their scientists. But I think there must have been a "wrong 'un" at Montdidier. That pouring of petroleum of malice aforethought into the water must have been the "culture" of one who knew precisely what he was doing. And the moral is this: The cause that transforms a disciple of Izaak Walton into a fiend must assuredly be accursed. 
26116	----	_The Art of_ ANGLING. WHEREIN Are discovered many rare Secrets, very necessary to be knowne by all that delight in that Recreation. _LONDON,_ Printed in the Yeare 1653. ONLY ONE HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED. Reprinted by Inchbold and Gawtress, Leeds. 1817. * * * * * _The Art of Angling._ Reader: I will complement, and put a case to you. I met with a man, and upon our Discourse he fell out with me: this man having a good weapon, having neither wit, stomack, nor skill; I say this man may come home by _Totnam-high-Cross_, and cause the Clerk to tole his knell: It is the very like case with the Gentleman Angler that goeth to the River for his pleasure: this Angler hath neither judgment, knowledge, nor experience; he may come home light laden at his pleasure. A man that goeth to the River for his pleasure, must understand, when he cometh there, to set forth his Tackles. The first thing he must do, is to observe the Sun, the Wind, the Moon, the Starres, and the Wanes of the Air; to set forth his Tackles according to the times and seasons; to goe for his pleasure, and some profit. As for example, the Sun proves cloudy; then must he set forth either his ground Bait or Tackles, and of the brightest of his Flies. If the Sun prove bright, then must he put on some of the darkest of his flies. Thus must you goe to work with your Flies, light for darkness, and dark for lightness, with the wind in the South, then that blows the Flie in the Trouts mouth. Though I set down the wind being in the South, if the weather be warm, I am indifferent where the wind standeth, either with ground Bait or Menow, so that I can cast my Bait into the River. The very same observations is for night, as for day: For if the Moon prove cleer, or if the Stars glitter in the skie, there is as ill Angling that night, as if it were at high noon in the midst of Summer, when the Sun shineth at the brightest, wherein there is no hopes of pleasure. I will begin to Angle for the Trout, with the ground Baits with this quality. The first thing you must gaine, must be a neat taper Rod, light before, with a tender hazell top, which is very gentle. If you desire to attain my way of Angling, (for I have Angled these forty years) with a single haire of five lengths, one tied to another for the bottom of my Line, and a Line of three haired links for the uppermost part; and so you may kill the greatest Trout that swims, with Sea-room. He that Angles with a Line made of three haired links at the bottom, and more at the top, may kill Fish: but he that Angles with one hair shall kill five Trouts to the others one; for the Trout is very quick sighted; therefore the best way for night or day, is to keep out of the sight. You must Angle alwayes with the point of your Rod downe the stream; for a Fish hath not the quickness of sight so perfect up the stream, as opposite against him, observing seasonable times; as for example, we begin to Angle in _March_; If it prove cloudie, you may Angle with the ground Baits all day long: but if it prove bright and cleere, you must take the morning and evening, or else you are not like to do any good; so the times must be observed, and truely understood; for when an Angler commeth to the River for his pleasure that doth not understand to set forth his Tackles fit for the time, it is as good keep them in the bag, as set them forth. I am determined to Angle with the ground Baits and set my Tackles to my Rod, and go to my pleasure: I begin at the uppermost part of the streame, carrying my Line with an upright hand, feeling the Plummet running on the ground some ten inches from the hook, plumming my Line according to the swiftnesse of the stream you Angle in; for one plummet will not serve for all streams; for the true Angling is that the plummet runneth on the ground. For the Bait. The red knotted worme is very good where Brandlins are not to be had, but Brandlins are better: now that you may bring these Brandlings fit to Angle with, that they may live long on the hook, which causeth the best sport. When you have gathered your worms out of the dung-hill, you must gaine the greenest Moss you can find, then wash the earth very clean out of it, then provide an earthen pot, so put your Moss into the pot, then put the worms to the Moss into the pot; within two days you shall find your worms so poor, that if you bait some of them on your hook, you shall see that with throwing of them two or three times into the water, they will dye and grow white: now the skill is, when these worms be grown poor, you must feed them up to make them fat and lusty, that they may live long on the hook; that is the chiefest point. To make them lusty and fat, you must take the yolke of an Egge, some eight or ten spoonfull of the top of new milk, beaten well together in a Porringer, warm it a little, untill you see it curdle; then take it off the fire, and set it to coole; when it is cold, take a spoonfull and drop it upon your Moss into the pot, every drop about the bignesse of a green Pea, shifting your Moss twice in the week in the Summer, and once in the winter: thus doing, you shall feed your wormes fat, and make them lusty, that they will live a long time on the hook; so you may keep them all the year long. This is my true experience for the ground Baits, for the running Line for the Trout. The Angling with a Menow, called in some places Pencks for a Trout, is a pleasant sport, and killeth the greatest Fish; he commeth boldly to the Bait, as if it were a Mastive Dog at a Beare: you may Angle with greater Tackles, and stronger, and be no prejudice to you in your Angling: a Line made of three silks and three hairs twisted for the uppermost part of the Line, and two silkes and two haires twisted for the bottome next your hook, with a Swivel nigh the middle of your Line, with an indifferent large hook. To bait your hook with a Menow, you must put your hook through the lowermost part of his mouth, so draw your hook thorow, then put the hook in at the mouth againe, let the point of the hook come out at the hindmost Fin, then draw your Line, and the Menowes mouth will close, that no water will get into its belly; you must alwayes be Angling with the point of your Rod down the stream, with drawing the Menow up the stream by little and little, nigh the top of the water; the Trout seeing the bait, commeth at it most fiercely, so give a little time before you strike: This is the true way, without Lead; for many times I have had them come at the Lead and forsake the Menow, so he that tryeth shall prove it in time: let us go to Angling with a Flie, which is a delightfull sport. The Rod must be light and tender, if you can fit yourselfe with an Hazell, either of one piece or two set together in the most convenient manner, light and gentle: set your Line to the Rod; for the uppermost part, you may use your owne discretion; for the lower part, next your Flie, must be of three or foure haired links. If you can attain to Angle with one haire, you shall have the more rises, and kill more fish; be sure you doe not over-load yourself with the length of your Line: before you begin to Angle, make a triall, having the winde in your back to see at what length you can cast your Flie, that the Flie light first into the water, and no longer; for if any of the Line falleth into the water before the Flie, it is better unthrowne then throwne; be sure you be casting alwayes downe the stream, with the Wind behinde you, and the Sun before; it is a speciall point to have the Sunne and Moon before you; for the very motion of the Rod drives all the pleasure from you, either by day or night in all your Anglings, both for Wormes and Flies; so there must bee a great care of that. Let us begin to Angle in _March_ with the Flie: If the weather prove Windie, or Cloudie, there are severall kindes of Palmers that are good for that time. First, a black Palmer ribbed with silver: the second, a black Palmer with an Orange-tauny body: thirdly, a black Palmer, with the body made all of black: fourthly, a red Palmer ribbed with gold, and a red hackle mixed with Orenge cruel; these Flies serve all the year long morning and evening, windie and cloudie. Then if the Aire prove bright and cleare, you must imitate the Hauthorn Flie, which is all black and very small, and the smaller the better. In _May_ take the _May_-flie: imitate that, which is made severall wayes; some make them with a shammy body, ribbed with a black haire: another way made with Sandy-Hogges wooll, ribbed with black silke, and winged with a Mallards feather, according to the fancy of the Angler. There is another called the Oak-Flie, which is made of Orange colour Cruell and black, with a browne wing; imitate that: Another Flie, the body made with the strain of a Pea-Cocks feather, which is very good in a bright day: The Grasse-hopper which is green imitate that; the smaller the Flies be made, and of indifferent small hooks, they are the better; these sorts I have set downe, will serve all the year long, observing the times and seasons: Note, the lightest of your Flies for cloudy and darknesse, and the darkest of your Flies for lightnesse, and the rest for indifferent times; that a mans owne Judgement, with some experience and discretion must guide him: If he mean to kill Fish, he must alter his Flies according to these directions. Now, of late, I have found, that Hogs-wooll, of severall colours, makes good grounds; and the wooll of a red Heyfer makes a good body: And Bears wool makes a good ground; so I now work much of them, and it procureth very much sport. The naturall Flie is sure Angling, and will kill great store of Trouts with much pleasure: As for the May-Flie, you shall have them always playing at the River side, especially against Raine. The Oake-Flie is to bee had on the butt of an Oake, or an Ash, from the beginning of _May_ to the end of _August_: it is a brownish Flie, and stands alwayes with his head towards the root of the tree, very easie to be found: The small black Flie is to be had one evry Hawthorn Bush, after the buds be come forth: Your Grasse-hopper, which is green, is to be had in any Medow of Grasse in _June_ or _July_: with these Flies, you must Angle with such a Rod as you Angle with the ground Bait; the Line must not be so long as the Rod: with drawing your flie, as you finde convenient in your Angling. When you come to deep waters that stand somewhat still, make your Line some two yards long, or thereabout, and dop your Flie behinde a bush, which Angling I have had good sport at; we call it doping. A Lord lately sent to me at Sun going down, to provide him a good dish of Trouts against the next morning by six of the Clock: I went to the door to see how the wains of the Aire were like to prove, and returned answer, that I doubted not but to be provided (God willing) at my time appointed. I went presently to the River, and it proved very dark; I drew out a Line of three silkes and three hairs twisted for the uppermost part, and a Line of two silks and two hairs twisted for the lowermost part, with a good large hook: I baited my hook with two Lob-worms, the four ends hanging as meet as I could ghesse them in the dark: I fell to Angle; it proved very dark, that I had good sport, Angling with the Lob-worms, as I doe with the Flie, at the top of the water; you shall heare the Fish rise at the top of the water; then you must loose a slack Line down to the bottome, as nigh as you can ghesse, then hold a straight Line; feeling the Fish bite, give time, there is no doubt of losing the Fish; for there is not one among twenty, but doth gorge the Bait: the least stroak you can strike to fasten the hook, makes the fish sure, and then you may take the fish up with your hands: The night began to alter and grew somewhat lighter; I took off the Lob-worms, and set to my Rod a white Palmer Flie, made of a large hook, I had sport for the time, till it grew lighter; then I put on my red Palmer, I had sport for the time untill it grew very light; then I set on my black Palmer, had good sport, made up my dish of fish, put up my Tackles, and was at my time appointed for the service. For these three Flies, with the help of the Lob-worms, serve to Angle all the year long, observing the times, as I have shewed in this nights work: a light Flie for darknes, the red Flie _in medio_, and a dark Flie for lightnesse: This is my experiment for this kind of Angling, which is the surest Angling of all, and killeth the greatest Fish: your Lines may be strong, but must be no longer than the Rod. To take a Carp either in Pond or River, if you mean to have sport with some profit, you must take a peck of Ale-graines, and a good quantity of any bloud, and mix the bloud and graines together, and cast it in the places where you meane to Angle; this feed will gather the scale Fish together, as Carp, Tench, Roach, Dace, and Bream; the next morning be at your sport very early, plum your ground: you may Angle for the Carp with a strong Line; the Bait must be either a red knotted worm, or Paste: there is no doubt of sport. To take Pearch. The Pearch feeds well, if you light where they be, and bites very free: My opinion is, (with some experience) to bait with Lob-worms, chopt in pieces over night; so come in the morning betimes, plum your ground, gage your line, bait your hook with a red knotted worme; but I hold a Menow better: put the hook in at the back of the Menow, betwixt the fish and the skin, that the Menow may swim up and down alive, being boyed up with a Cork or Quill, that the Menow may have liberty to swimme a foot off the ground: there is no doubt of sport with profit. I will shew, a little, my opinion of floating for scale fish in the River or Pond: The feed brings the Fish together, as the sheep to the Pen: There is nothing better in all your Anglings, for feed, then Bloud and Grains; I hold it better then Paste: then plumming your ground, Angling with fine Tackles, as single haire for halfe the Line next the hook, round and small plumed, according to your float: For the Bait, there is a small red worm, with a yellow tip on his taile, is very good; Brandlins, Gentles, Paste, or Cadice, which we call Cod-bait, they lye in a gravelly husk under stones in the River: these be the speciall Baits for these kinde of Fish. One of my name was the best Trouler, for a Pike, in this Realme: he laid a wager, that he would take a Pike of four foot long, of Fish, within the space of one Moneth, with his Trouling-Rod; so he Trouled three weeks and odde days, and took many great Pikes, nigh the length, but did not reach the full length, till within the space of three dayes of the time; then he took one, and won the wager. The manner of his Trouling was, with a Hazell Rod of twelve foot long, with a Ring of Wyre in the top of his Rod, for his Line to runne thorow: within two foot of the bottome of the Rod there was a hole made, for to put in a winde, to turne with a barrell, to gather up his Line, and loose at his pleasure; this was his manner of Trouling: But I will pawn my credit, that I will shew a way, either in Maior, Pond, or River, that shall take more Pikes than any Trouler with his Rod: And thus it is. First, take forked stick, a Line of twelve yards long wound upon it, at the upper end, leave about a yard, either to tye a bunch of Sags, or a Bladder, to Boy up the Fish, and to carry it from the ground: the Bait must be a live Fish, either Dace, or Gudgin, or Roach, or a small Trout: the forked stick must have a slit in the one side of the fork to put in the Line, that you may set your live Fish to swimme at a gage, that when the Pike taketh the Bait, he may have the full liberty of the Line for his feed. You may turne these loose, either in Pond or River: in the Pond with the winde all day long, the more the better: at night set some small weight, as may stay the Boy, as a Ship lyeth at Anchor, till the Fish taketh. For the River, you must turn all loose with the streame; two or three be sufficient to shew pleasure, gaged at such a depth as they will go currant downe the River; there is no doubt of sport, if there be Pikes: for the hooks, they must be doubled hooks, the shanks should be somewhat shorter than ordinary: my reason is, the shorter the hook is of the shank, it will hurt the live Fish the lesse, and must be armed with small wyre well softned; but I hold a hook armed with twisted silk to be better, for it will hurt the live fish least. If you arm your hook with wyre, the neeld must be made with a small hook at the one end thereof. If you arme with silke, the neeld must be made with an eye: then must you take one of those Baits alive (which you can get) and with one of your neelds enter within a strawes breath of the Gill of the Fish, so put the neeld betwixt the skin and the Fish; then pull the neeld out at the hindmost finne, and draw the arming thorow the Fish, until the hook come to lye close to the Fishes bodie: But I hold for those that be armed with wyre to take off the hook, and put the neeld in the hindmost fin and so to come forth at the Gill; then put on the hook drawn close to the body, 'twill hurt the live Fish the less, so knit the arming with the live Fish to the Line; then put off either in Maior or Pond, with the winde, in the River with the stream: The more you put off in Maior or Pond, you are like to have the more pleasure: For the River I have shewed you before. There is a time when Pikes goe a Frogging Ditches, and in the River to Sun them, as in May, June and July, there is a speedy way to take them, and not to misse scarce one in twenty. You must take a Line of six or eight foot long, arm a large hook, of the largest size that is made; arm it to your Line, lead the shank of your hook very handsom, that it may be of such a weight as you may guide the hook at your pleasure: you may strike the Pike, you see, with the bare hook where you please: this Line and hook doth far exceed snaring. The principall sport to take a Pike, is to take a Goose or Gander, or Duck: take one of the Pike Lines I have shewed you before: tye the Line under the left wing, and over the right wing, about the body, as a man weareth his Belt: turne the Goose off into a Pond, where _Pikes_ are, there is no doubt of sport, with great pleasure, betwixt the Goose and the _Pike_: It is the greatest sport and pleasure that a noble Gentleman in _Shropshire_ doth give his friends entertainment with. The way to make the best paste is, Take, a reasonable quantity of fresh Butter, as much fresh sheeps Suet, a reasonable quantity of the strongest Cheese you can get, with the soft of an old stale white loafe; beat all this in a Morter till it come to perfect paste; put as much on your hook as a green pease. There are many wayes to take Eeles: I will shew you a good way to take a dish of Eeles. When you stay a night or two Angling, take four or five Lines, such as be laid for _Pikes_, of fourteen or fifteen yards long, and at every two yards make a noose, to hang a hook armed either to double thred, or silk twist; for it is better then wyre: Bait your Hooks with Millors-thumbs, Loaches, Menowes, or Gudgins: tye to every noose a Line baited: these Lines must be laid crosse the River in the deepest places, either with stones, or pegged, so the Line lie in the bottome of the river, there is no doubt of taking a dish of Eeles; you must have a small neeld with an eye, to bait your hooks. Now to shew how to make Flies: learn to make two Flies, and make all: that is, the Palmer ribbed with silver or gold, and the May-flie: these are the ground of all Flies. We will begin to make the Palmer Flie: You must arme your Line on the inside of the hook; take your Scisers, and cut so much of the brown of the Mallards feather, as in your owne reason shall make the wings, then lay the outmost part of the feather next the hook, and the point of the feather towards the shanke of the hook, then whip it three or four times about the hook with the same silk you armed the hook: then make your silk fast: then you must take the hackle of the neck of a Cock or Capon, or a Plovers top, which is the best, take off the one side of the feather, then you must take the hackle silk, or cruell, gold or silver thred; make all these fast at the bent of the hook, then you must begin with Cruell, and Silver, or Gold, and work it up to the wings, every bout shifting your fingers, and making a stop, then the gold will fall right, then make fast: then work up the hackle to the same place, then make the hackle fast: then you must take the hook betwixt your finger and thumb, in the left hand, with a neeld or pin, part the wings in two: then with the arming silk, as you have fastned all hitherto, whip about as it falleth crosse betwixt the wings, then with your thumb you must turne the point of the feather towards the bent of the hook, then work three or four times about the shank, so fasten, then view the proportion. For the other Flies: If you make the grounds of Hogs-wooll, sandy, black or white; or the wooll of a Bear, or of a two year old red Bullock: you must work all these grounds upon a waxed silk, then you must arm and set on the wings, as I have shewed before: For the May-flie, you work the body with some of these grounds, which is very good, ribbed with a black hair; you may work the body with Cruels, imitating the Colour, or with Silver, with suiting the wings. For the Oak-flie, you must make him with Orange-tauny and black, for the body, and the brown of the Mallards feather for the wings. If you do after my directions, they will kill fish, observing the times fitting, and follow my former Directions. If any worthy or honest Angler cannot hit of these my Directions, let him come to me, he shall read and I will work, he shall see all things done according to my foresaid Directions: So I conclude for the Flie, having shewed you my true Experiments, with the Rod, I will set all labouring sports aside: And now I am waiting on my Lord with a great Dish of Trouts, who meeting with company, commanded me to turne Scullion and dresse a Dinner of the Trouts wee had taken: whereupon I gave my Lord this Bill of fare, which I did furnish his Table with, according as it was furnished with flesh. Trouts in broth, which is restorative: Trouts broyled, cut and filled with sweet Herbes chopt: Trouts calvored hot with Antchovaes sauce: Trouts boyled; out of which Kettle I make three Dishes; the one for a Soused Dish, another for a Stew'd Dish, the third for a hot Dish: the Sauce is Butter, Vinegar, beaten Cinamon, with the juyce of a Lemmon, beaten very well together, that the Sauce is white and thick, or else it is no Sauce for a great man's Table: Trouts fryed, which must be done, and not put into the Pan, untill the Suet boyle very high, and kept with stirring all the time they are frying, being flowr'd first. Trouts stew'd: Trouts close, boyled with the calvored Trouts, all in one Kettle and the same liquor: Trouts butter'd with Egs: Trouts roasted: Trouts baked: these are for the first course, before the Salt. And these are for the latter course. Trouts calvored cold: Trouts flat cold: Baked Trouts: Trouts marilled, that will eat perfect and sweet three moneths in the heat of Summer: if I did say, for the whole year about, I would make it good. For the dressing of four or five of the Dishes, I will shew you how I did perform them. First, I will shew you for the boyling and calvoring, that serves for hot and cold, for first and latter course. First, you must draw out the Intrails of the fish, cutting the fish two or three times in the back; lay them in a Tray or Platter, put some Vinegar upon them; you shall see the fish turn sanguine, if they be new, presently: you must put so much water in the Kettle as you thinke will cover them, with a pint of Vinegar, a handfull of Salt, some Rosemary and Thyme and sweet Marjoram tyed in a bunch: then you must make this liquor boyle with a fierce fire made of wood: when the liquor hath boyled very well, put in your fish by one and one, keeping your liquor alwayes boyling, untill you have put all in: having provided a cover for your Kettle, so put on the cover: you must have a paire of Bellowes to blow up the fire with speed, that the liquor may boyle up to the top of the Kettle; so the fierce boiling will make the Fish to calvor: provided, the fish be new killed: you may let them boile nigh a quarter of an hour; when they are cold, you may put them in a Tray or earthen Pan, untill you have occasion to use them: be sure they lie covered. For your stewed Trouts, you must cut them on the side, as for broiling: there are divers wayes of stewing; the English hath one way, the French hath another way, the Italian hath another way: I may speak this; for I have been admitted into the Kitchins, to furnish men of most Nations, when they have been in England. We will begin with the English: He broyleth first upon a Charcoale fire; the first thing that you must have a care of is, when your Grid-iron is hot you must coole it with ruff Suet, then the skin of your Fish will not break, with care of turning them: when they are nigh broyled, take them off the Grid-iron; set on a Chafing-dish of coals in a Stew-pan, or Dish; put in a good quantity of fresh Butter, so much Vinegar as will give the relish, a penny-worth of beaten Cinamon; then put in your broyled fish, and let them stew, about halfe an houre will be sufficient, being turned: adorn your Dish with Sippets, take the fish out of the stew-pan, lay them for the service, be sure to squease a Lemmon on them: I will warrant them good victuall. The Italian he stewes upon a Chafing-dish of coals, with white Wine, Cloves, and Mace, Nutmegs sliced, a little Ginger: you must understand when this fish is stewed, the same liquor that the fish is stewed in, must be beaten with some Butter and the juyce of a Lemmon, before it is dish'd for the service. The French doe add to this a slice or two of Bacon. I will shew you the way to marrionate a Trout or other fish that will keep a quarter of a yeare in Summer, which is the Italians rarest Dish for fresh fish, and will eat perfect and sweet. You must take out the Intrailes as you doe of other fish, and cut them a-crosse the sides, as you do to broyle, washed clean, dried with a cloth, lay them upon a Tray or board, sprinkle a little salt on them, and flowre them as to frie them, so take your Frying-pan with so much Suet, when it is melted, as the Fish may lye to the midside in the liquor, and so fry them; and every time you turn them, flower them againe, untill you finde the fish fryed sufficient: when you think the fish is fryed, take it out of the Pan, and lay it upon some thing, that the liquor may draine out of it; when the fish is cold, you may reare it an end. You must have a close Vessell to keep this fish and liquor in, that no winde comes in, according to the quantity you make triall of. For the Liquor. First, you must take halfe Claret-Wine, the other halfe Vinegar, two or three Bay-leaves, so much Saffron as a Nut tyed in a cloth, with some Cloves and large Mace, some Nutmeg sliced; boile all these together very well; when the liquor is cold, and the fish cold, put the fish and liquor into the close Vessell, with three or four Lemmons sliced among the fish; make all close that no winde can get into the Vessell; after eight or ten days you may begin to eat of this fish; the Sauce must be some of the same liquor, with some of a sliced Lemmon. _To dresse a Pike._ When the _Pike_ cometh into the Kitchin, kill it; then take a handfull of Salt, with water, and rub the fish very well to take the slime off, draw out the Intrailes; wash the _Pike_ cleane, put a handfull of _Salt_ in the Pikes Belly; then take so much water, with a pinte of Vinegar: if the _Pike_ be any thing large, you must put in at least three handfull of Salt, with a bunch of Rosemary, Thyme, and sweet Marjoram, and two or three green Onyons; boyle your liquor very well with a high fire made of wood; then put in your _Pike_, cover your Kettle, with your Bellows keep your Kettle boiling verie high for the space of halfe an houre or thereabouts: a _Pike_ asketh great boiling: for the sauce, it is sweet Butter well beaten with some of the top of the same liquor, with two or three Antchovaes, the skin taken off, and the bones taken out, a little Vinegar, so garnish your Dish: when your _Pike_ is Dished, take the juyce of a Lemmon, and put on the top of the fish: there is no doubt but it is good victuall. I could set downe as many ways to dress Eeles, as would furnish a Lords Table: but I will relate but one. Take off the skinne whole, till you come within two inches of the taile, beginning at the head: take out the Intrailes, wash the Eele cleane, drie it with a cloth, scotch it all along both the sides; take some Pepper and Salt, mixe them together, rub the Eele well with the Pepper, and Salt; draw the skinne on againe whole; tye the skinne about the head with a little thred lapped round, broyled on a Charcoale fire, let your Grid-iron be hot, rub your Grid-iron with some ruffe Suet; the skinne will not burne; this is good; but take the skin off, and stew the Eele betwixt two Dishes, on a Chafing-dish of Coals, with sweet Butter, Vinegar, and beaten Cinnamon, they will be better. The boyling of a Carp is the very same way as I have shewed for the Trout, the scales on: no better Sauce can be made than the Antchovaes Sauce. The high-boyling is the way for all fresh-water Fish: I have served seven times seven years, to see the experiment. If there be any Gentleman that liveth adjoyning to a River side, where Trouts are; I will shew the way to bring them to feed, that he may see them at his pleasure; and to bring store to the place. Gather great Garden-Wormes, the quantity of a pinte, or a quarte, chop them in pieces, and throw them where you intend to have your pleasure; with feeding often, there is no doubt of their comming; they will come as Sheep to the Pen: you must begin to feed with peeces of worms, by hand, by one and one, untill you see them eat; then you may feed with Liver or Lights, so your desire will be effected. And thus I conclude this short Treatise. FINIS. 
28719	----	Transcriber's Note The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected. FISHING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. FISHING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA WITH A CHAPTER ON TUNA FISHING AT SANTA CATALINA. BY T.W. LAMBERT, M.A., M.B., B.C. (Cantab.); M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. (London). _Late Surgeon to the Western Division, Canadian Pacific Railway Company._ LONDON: HORACE COX, "FIELD" OFFICE, WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS, E.C. 1907. LONDON: PRINTED BY HORACE COX, "FIELD" OFFICE, WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS, E.C. PREFACE. The Author hopes that this book may prove of some interest to anglers by giving a short account of the fishing which is to be obtained in a part of the world hitherto little exploited, and well worthy of better acquaintance. British Columbia only became fairly easy of access after the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1887, which placed it within two weeks' journey from London. Before that time it was cut off by the immense prairies of the north-west of Canada, and could only be reached by a long journey round Cape Horn or over the Isthmus of Panama. Since the date given, however, a new era has dawned for the country, and all the southern part of it has been opened up by railways. Thus its waters have been rendered easy of access to any fisherman willing to try them. The position of the country on the map resembles that of Norway and Sweden in Europe, and the general resemblance is borne out by the features of both countries. Each possesses a deeply indented coast line and a wealth of pine forests, lakes, and rivers. But the climate of British Columbia is much milder; the valleys are richer in soil, the mountains in precious metals, and the waters are inhabited by different species of fish. And whereas the Scandinavian peninsula has some ten millions of people, British Columbia supports as yet but one hundred thousand of population, including Indians. It is without doubt a country of great possibilities. The summer climate of the southern central plateau is very bracing and dry, resembling that of the southern Californian winter; while the winter climate of the coast is like Devonshire. Game, both large and small, is still plentiful in the south, while the northern part is one of the best big game districts of the world. British Columbia is the home of the rainbow trout, which flourishes in all its rivers and lakes to the furthest north, and spreads southwards into the neighbouring Pacific states, where it has, however, to compete with another species, the cut-throat trout. The eastern limit of the rainbow is the Rocky Mountain range. The chief purpose of this book is to give some idea of the habits and peculiarities of the rainbow, and the sport which it affords in its native haunts. The author spent some twelve years in the interior of the country, and has fished a great many of its numberless lakes and streams, so he may claim to write from practical experience. But he writes also with the hope that perhaps someone more competent may in the future publish a complete history of this most interesting fish, and solve some of the problems which are here but alluded to. For there is ample scope in these almost virgin waters for both the naturalist and the fisherman, to whom these notes may perhaps serve as the blazes on a mountain trail, and as some slight record of the sport that was to be obtained in the earlier days of British Columbia. Though the inland waters swarm with Pacific salmon at certain seasons, the fish are useless for purposes of sport. They take no bait of any kind when they have once started to migrate up the rivers. In the salt water, however, and while waiting at the mouths of rivers, they take a spoon-bait freely, and the smaller kinds will in the same conditions often rise readily to the fly. But it may be stated, as a general rule, no salmon are ever taken on bait or fly as they travel, and when they reach the upper waters. The Dominion Government has recently tried the experiment of hatching and turning out 250,000 of the small fry of the Atlantic salmon from one of their hatcheries; and, should success attend the effort, a great attraction would be added to the inland streams; but a period of some few years must naturally elapse before any opinion can be given as to the success or failure of this attempt. British Columbia is reached as soon as the traveller crosses the summit of the Rocky Mountains, just beyond Banff, on the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The summit, which is known as the Great Divide, separates the Pacific Slope from Eastern Canada. The crossing once made, a country is reached in which there is a great change in climate, fauna, and flora; and in the rivers, instead of the so-called speckled trout, the muskallunge, black bass, and Atlantic salmon, are found the rainbow, silver, and steel-head trout, with the five species of the Pacific salmon. This last fish is not a salmon at all, but only bears the title by courtesy, because no other Anglo-Saxon name has been given to it. The early settlers mistook it for a salmon, and called it a salmon because it so closely resembled one in appearance and habits, just as the ruffed grouse was, and is, called a partridge in Eastern Canada. But it has no true English name. Scientifically, the five species of Pacific "salmon" belong to the genus _Oncorhynchus_, and each is mostly called by the Indian name which distinguished it when the white man first arrived, such as _quinnat_ or _cohoe_. The physical relationship of the Pacific _Oncorhynchus_ to the Atlantic _Salmo salar_ is not unlike the physical relationship of the grayling or char to the trout. The rainbow is found before the Divide is reached, in some of the streams flowing eastward from the Rockies, but it does not follow them much below the foothills; and it abounds in the rivers and lakes among the mountains themselves. But it is not until the central plateau of British Columbia is reached, a country of rolling hills, valleys, and open range abounding in lakes and small streams, that the best fishing grounds are encountered, the true home and headquarters of the rainbow trout. The streams and lakes in the mountains are too turbulent, and fed by too much glacier and snow-water, to make the best fishing grounds. The guide-books of the railway speak highly of the fishing through the mountains, but there is better to be obtained lower down, and my advice to the traveller is to make no stop for fishing purposes until Sicamous is reached, at the head of Shuswap Lake where the Eagle River enters it. The Thompson River flows out of the lake at the other end, and the Shuswap Lake and Thompson River constitute the best fishing district of British Columbia, and will be the chief subject of the following pages. It should be premised, however, that there is plenty of what may be styled "virgin water" in British Columbia besides the streams and lakes described in these pages. In a few years the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway will render accessible a network of rivers and lakes some four hundred miles to the north of the present line, and the addition to the angler's opportunities by this will, of course, be very great. The cost of the fourteen-day journey from London to British Columbia will be at most £50 each way; it can be done for much less. There is no charge for the fishing, and ordinary living expenses are not high. One can stop at the hotels along the Thompson for 2 dollars a day, in Kamloops for 3 dollars a day, in the Canadian Pacific Railway hotels at 4 dollars to 6 dollars. There are no extra charges, except at the bar, which in British Columbia it is considered the duty of everyone to support liberally. A stranger will find that a few dollars spent judiciously and with tact in this way will usually be productive of quite astonishing results. In the West a drink puts everyone on equal terms, and at once establishes a feeling of _camaraderie_. It might be said to correspond somewhat to the old custom of offering the snuffbox. The natives understand it as a sign that the stranger wishes to be on good terms, that he does not consider himself superior in any sense, that there is no side about him, that he is willing to drink with them as an equal. He will certainly receive a like invitation, and he must on no account refuse; to do so is an unpardonable violation of Western etiquette, even if everyone present insists on taking the part of host in turn. There is, however, no cause for alarm on the score of temperance, for it is quite _de rigueur_ to ask for a cigar or to take a mere apology for a drink. If the stranger thus satisfies Western ideas of what is right and proper he will usually find that the individuals who had apparently hitherto regarded him somewhat in the manner that a strange dog seems to be looked at by his fellows in a new street will quite suddenly be most interested in his pursuit and most willing to help him in every possible way with advice as to someone who can tell him all about the river or lake and the best way to get there. Perhaps even the result may be an offer of a horse or hospitality for a night or two from some ranchman who may live near the place he wishes to get to. The people of British Columbia are, as a rule, most generous and open-hearted when they are approached in the right way. All men are equal in the West; there must be no question of standing on one's dignity. As regards outfit in general (fishing tackle is dealt with later), it is the greatest mistake to take a lot of useless luggage. Any rough fishing suit will do, and a strong pair of boots. Waders are not needed, except in the coast rivers. Everything can be got in the country itself. The Hudson Bay stores or the general store which is found in every little town will provide everything that is wanted. My advice is to procure the outfit in the country itself, because they know best what is needed for the local wants. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE The Rainbow Trout--Names--Distribution--Appearance--Size in British Columbia--Its Food--Fly-fishing for--Sporting Qualities--Possibility of New Species being Discovered 1 CHAPTER II. Season for Trout Fishing--Principal Districts--Tackle Necessary--"No Drawing-room Work"--Advantage of Plenty of Time--Poor Fishing in the Rockies--The Thompson River--The South Thompson--Its Course and Character--Clear, Swift Water--Difficulty of Landing Big Fish--A Lost Thirty-pounder--The Successful Cherokee Fisherman--Fine, Calm Days Best for Fishing--Mosquitoes not Troublesome 9 CHAPTER III. The Kamloops District--Kamloops as Headquarters--May Floods and Fishing in Shuswap Lake--Silver-bodied Flies--Streams Running into the Lake--The Eagle River--Advantages of a Steam Launch--A Big Catch--Possibilities of the Prawn--A July Spectacle--Fishing at Tranquille--Kamloops Lake--Savona's Ferry--Great Sport in June--Dolly Varden Trout--A Fifteen-Pounder--Falling-off of Sport when Salmon are Running--The "Salmon Fly"--Size of Catches on the Thompson--August a Bad Month 20 CHAPTER IV. What is the "Silver Trout"?--Evidence in Favour of a New Species--Difference in Appearance from the Rainbow--A Jumper--Native of Kamloops and Shuswap Lakes--A Bag of Twenty-four--The Dolly Varden--Origin of the Name--Not a Free Riser--Grayling--Chub and Squaw Fish--Great Lake Trout--The Silver Fish at Spence's Bridge--Salmon or Steel-head?--Cut-throat Trout--Possible Fishing Tour in British Columbia 34 CHAPTER V. Other Lakes--Long Lake--Its Silvery Trout--Fish Lake--Extraordinary Fishing--Fifteen Hundred Trout in Three Days--A Miniature Gaff--Uses of a Collapsible Boat--Catching Fish Through the Ice--Mammit Lake--Nicola Lake--Beautifully Marked Trout in Nicola River--"The Little Red Fish" 46 CHAPTER VI. The Kootenay District--Sawdust and Dynamite--Fine Sport in Vancouver--Harrison River and Lake--Big Fish in the Coquehalla--The Steel-head in the Fraser--Need for Better River Protection 65 CHAPTER VII. The Salmons of the Pacific--Legends Concerning Them--The Five Species--Systems of Migration--Powers of Endurance--Absence of Kelts--Do They Take a Fly?--Terrible Mortality--"A Vivid Red Ribbon"--Points of Difference Between the Quinnat and _Salmo salar_--Work of the Canneries--Artificial Propagation 72 CHAPTER VIII. The Diplomat and the Salmon--The Struggle for Existence--Salmon and Steel-head Liable to be Confused--Sport in Tidal Waters--The Campbell River--The Pioneers--A River of Fifty-Pounders--Smaller Salmon on the Fly--Method of Fishing--Tackle--Typical Good Bags--The Steel-head--Cost of Fishing--Dangers of Over-Fishing for Canneries--A Good Trolling Time 91 CHAPTER IX. Recapitulation of Salmon and Trout Problems--Importance of Preserving British Columbian Fisheries--Possibility of Introducing Atlantic Salmon--Question of Altering Present Close Season for Trout--Past and Present Neglect of Trout Fisheries--Need for Governmental Action--Difficulties in the Way of it--Conclusion 107 CHAPTER X. Tuna Fishing at Avalon, Santa Catalina Island 118 FISHING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. CHAPTER I. The Rainbow Trout--Names--Distribution--Appearance--Size in British Columbia--Its Food--Fly-fishing for--Sporting Qualities--Possibility of New Species being Discovered. The Rainbow trout (_Salmo irideus_) is a true trout of the same genus as, and closely allied to, the common trout (_S. fario_) of the British Isles, where it is also now acclimatised. It holds the same position in every stream, lake, and river of the northern part of the Pacific Coast of North America as the brown trout does in the United Kingdom. Unless the water, for some local reason, is unsuitable, it is met with everywhere, until further south it overlaps with the cut-throat trout, which ultimately seems to take its place. In the small mountain streams it is very plentiful, and is generally called the brook, mountain, or speckled trout, and when of larger size is known locally as the "red side"--a name which often very aptly describes it. The name "rainbow" is not much heard or used locally. In the different lakes and rivers the fish varies a good deal in size, numbers, colour, and appearance--so much so that when these waters are better known the naturalist may be inclined to name and describe several varieties of rainbows, perhaps even may discover new species. This fish is confined to the west side of the Rocky Mountains, save in the head waters of the streams which take their source from these mountains and then flow east. Often two streams flow from a lake, one east and one west, and the rainbow is found in both; a good instance of this is found in the Kicking Horse and the Bow rivers. The latter flows east from the divide, and the rainbow follows it for some distance into the prairie; but as this river ceases to be a mountain stream and becomes sluggish and discoloured traces of the fish cease. But in the clear streams of Eastern Canada, near the great lakes, its place is taken by the spotted trout (_Salvelinus fontinalis_), a beautiful and game fish, member of the char family, unknown west of the Rockies. In appearance the rainbow is well worthy of its name, and may justly claim to be the equal in beauty, if not the superior, of any of the Salmonidæ. It is clean-cut in shape, perhaps rather lither than the brown trout, and when large it is not so deep. The colour on the back is an olive green, with the usual characteristic black spots, and at the side a few red ones; laterally the green shades off into silver and sometimes gold, while along its side from gill to tail flashes the beautiful rainbow stripe, varying from pale sunset pink to the most vivid scarlet or crimson; often the effect is as if a paint-brush dipped in red paint had been drawn along the fish's side; the belly is silvery white; the anal, ventral, and pectoral fins being coloured in proportion to the colouring of the individual fish. The general appearance is very striking, and in a fine specimen is certainly one of great beauty. When fresh from the water and in brilliant sunshine the fish rivals the object after which it is called; the living rainbow on its side shows a play of delicate colour which it would be hard to surpass or to equal, even in the heavens. From the fly-fisherman's point of view the fish may be said to run up to 4lb. in weight; by which statement it is meant that the fly is readily taken in both stream and lake by fish up to this size. Mr. F.J. Fulton, of Kamloops, states that he has never landed a 5lb. fish on the fly, and he is an authority on the Thompson River. Personally, I have never seen a rainbow over 4lb. which I knew to have been caught with the fly; but I have seen a model of a fish of 12lb. caught with the fly in 1891 in Kamloops Lake by Captain Drummond. There is, of course, not the slightest doubt that the fish grows to a much larger size. Mr. Walter Langley caught a rainbow of 22-1/2lb. on a small spoon in Marble Canyon Lake about May, 1900, and the photograph of this fish was published in the _Field_. I have also seen very big specimens which had been speared by Indians in the Thompson and sold as "salmon"; two of them I weighed myself and found to be 15lb. and 12lb. respectively. While, therefore, there is some evidence to show that these large fish may be caught with spoon and minnow, it may be stated as a broad fact that the rainbow is not often caught with the fly over the weight of 4lb., and that up to this size he takes it freely. The fly is taken best during the months of June and July, when there is a rise of the stone fly in the rivers, and flies of all kinds are plentiful in the lakes. At this time, indeed, natural fly seems to be the main article of the fish's food. But the small fry of the salmon and of its own species are also devoured in great numbers, and in late summer there are grasshoppers as well; these are very plentiful, and are eagerly snapped up as they fall into the water. No doubt a further great source of food supply is the spawn of the salmon, which must be very plentiful on the spawning beds. It forms the usual lure of the Indian fishermen. The feeding-grounds of the rainbow are the eddies and the back-washes in the swift-running rivers, into which flies, grasshoppers, and other food are carried by the current. A very favourite haunt is at the mouth of creeks and streams running into a lake, or where a large river runs into or out of a large lake. Food is naturally plentiful at such places, and at certain times the fish gather there in great numbers, splashing about and chasing the small fry. They will then take a silver-bodied fly most greedily. In many of the smaller mountain lakes where fly seems to be at certain seasons the rainbow's sole food, no other lure will attract it, but with the fly great numbers may be caught. The fly-fisher also scores among fish gathered at the mouths of creeks swollen by summer floods. The minnow, also, both natural and artificial, is useful in these conditions, and it will account for much larger fish, up to 10lb. and even over; these monsters have probably forsaken a fly diet and taken to small fry. But there is no doubt that the rainbow is, quite as much as our own trout, a fly-feeder, and that it takes the artificial as readily and, owing to want of education, and, perhaps, also to natural boldness, with even greater freedom and less regard to the nature of the lure or the skill of the fisherman who throws it. So far as strength and gameness go the rainbow is fully the equal of the brown trout, and, in my opinion, its superior, though, as its play is often aided by the very strong water it frequents, its strength may sometimes appear greater than it would in our smaller streams. For this reason fishing for rainbows in British Columbia has always seemed to me to resemble sea-trout fishing more than the fishing for brown trout; perhaps less skill is necessary, but there is a stronger fight. The rivers and lakes of British Columbia are at present an angler's paradise, and will probably long continue to be so. And it promises the additional interest that the fisherman is not treading a beaten and well-known path. There is pioneer work for him to do. There are many problems for him to solve and discoveries for him to make. In the numberless lakes and rivers stretching far up through northern British Columbia to the Arctic, it is not unlikely that several new species of the Salmonidæ await description. The big-game hunter has shown what secrets may lie hid in so wide a land, for since these northern regions have been explored for big game and gold (from the date of the Klondike rush in 1898) no fewer than four new species of the sheep family have been discovered; a pure white mountain sheep, for instance, has been found to exist in great numbers. "Heads" of this sheep are now quite common, but it is a most curious proof of the general ignorance of the country ten years ago that such a remarkable animal was then entirely unknown. Had any explorer in those days reported seeing such an animal without bringing any tangible proof to support his story, he would have been universally regarded as a most unique liar, in a part of the world where such people are far from uncommon. The enormous moose heads recently brought down from Alaska and northern British Columbia were undreamt of not so many years back, and the Alaskan grizzly is, too, I believe, a new species. It is, therefore, far from unreasonable to believe or to hope that as the country is opened up the fisherman will also achieve new conquests. As yet they lie before him, for he only follows slowly in the footsteps of the pioneer and the big-game hunter; he requires a railway and an hotel, and he must be able to dispose in some manner of his catch, which he cannot do unless he is at least near some settlement. I have conversed with numbers of prospectors and hunters from all parts of the north-west, and they all have the same account of teeming rivers and lakes. Many a weird fish story have they told me, but none have really been fishermen; they have simply caught fish for food, and have not noted them much except with a view to their edible properties. It is, therefore, highly probable that, as these strange waters are gradually made accessible to the angler and become as well known as the more southern rivers of British Columbia, many interesting facts will become known too, and new varieties of trout and other fish will be discovered. Even those southern waters are, in truth, little known, and several interesting matters which could well bear investigation will be put forward in these pages. CHAPTER II. Season for Trout Fishing--Principal Districts--Tackle Necessary--"No Drawing-room Work"--Advantage of Plenty of Time--Poor Fishing in the Rockies--The Thompson River--The South Thompson--Its Course and Character--Clear, Swift Water--Difficulty of Landing Big Fish--A Lost Thirty-pounder--The Successful Cherokee Fisherman--Fine, Calm Days Best for Fishing--Mosquitoes not Troublesome. Fly-fishing for trout in British Columbia may be said to begin in April or May at the coast, but in the interior it is June or July before much success can be obtained. If time be no object, good sport might be obtained in the coast rivers and lakes during April and May, and a move might be made to the interior waters during June and July, while August is about the best season for the big salmon fishing on Vancouver Island. During September and October good sport may still be obtained, and the fish are then in the best condition; but usually the attractions of shooting prove too much for the local sportsman, and the rivers are more or less deserted. The southern waters may be divided into three principal districts--namely, the coast rivers, the Thompson River district, and the waters of the Kootenay country, which all seem to possess special peculiarities, though the rainbow is found in them all. But in the coast rivers the steel-head, or sea-trout, is alone met with. As regards rods and tackle for trout fishing, large rods are out of place in British Columbia, and quite unnecessary; an 11ft. split cane is the best, and long enough for any river; a 14ft. rod is very unhandy in a rough country or among trees, and all local fishermen use a small rod. Tackle should be of the same kind as one would use for sea-trout fishing, and should be strong. As regards flies, size is the most important consideration, as the usual patterns are the ordinary sea-trout and loch flies. The imitation stone fly is about the only fly that should resemble the natural insect. Rather large flies are used on the rivers, and smaller on the lakes, but this question may be left till individual streams are described. For a general supply large sea-trout flies (Jock Scott, Silver Grey, and Silver Doctor, etc.), with some March Browns and stone flies of the same sizes, and an assortment of smaller Scottish loch trout flies of various patterns--these are all that are needed. The artificial minnow of various kinds, the spoon, and the dead bait on a crocodile or Archer spinner are all used, and the prawn has lately been tried with deadly effect on large fish. Bottles of preserved minnows and small prawns would therefore be a useful addition to the equipment. It is also wise to take plenty of strong casts and traces, as local fishing tackle is not to be trusted. It must be noted well that fishing in these waters is no drawing-room work; great sport can be got, but the best is often only to be obtained by a certain amount of "roughing it." The rivers are not always in right condition, nor the weather always favourable--unfortunate facts peculiar to every river in the world--and it is only when all things are favourable that the best sport is obtained. To have plenty of time at his disposal is the great thing for the fisherman, for it is only natural that a man passing through the country and having only a couple of weeks at the outside to spare may easily find nothing but disappointments. No one must expect to get off the Canadian Pacific express and find the rainbow trout eagerly expecting his arrival. The district best known to me is that through which the Thompson River runs, from the Shuswap Lake to its junction with the Fraser at Lytton. The Canadian Pacific Railway follows the river in its whole length, and thus renders it very accessible. Many other smaller streams and lakes are part of the Thompson water system, and afford good fishing. The river runs through the "dry belt," which is so called owing to the smallness of the rainfall, which only averages about 8in. in the year. It is from this cause that the banks of the rivers are very open and free from brush, which makes them easy to fish and to travel along; while, for the same reason, the country is generally open rolling hills, covered with grass or scanty pines, affording a great contrast to the moist country at the coast, where the rivers run through thick woods and impenetrable bush, which render them very difficult to approach and fish unless they are shallow enough for wading. The fishing to be obtained along the Canadian Pacific Railway as it passes through the Rocky Mountains is not very good, the guide-books notwithstanding. At Banff there is a little fishing in the Bow River, but it is poor, and the fish do not seem to take the fly. In Devil's Lake lake trout, a species of char, can be got on the spoon by deep trolling up to a very large size; but it is not a very high form of sport, and cannot be compared to the rainbow trout fishing along the Thompson. The South Thompson River has its source at the western end of the great Shuswap Lake, near Shuswap station on the Canadian Pacific, and joins the Fraser at Lytton; at Kamloops it is joined by the North Thompson, and the combined stream flows into Kamloops Lake, about seven miles below the town, running out again some twenty miles below at Savona's Ferry. Its total course being about 140 miles, and almost all of it fishing water, it is a fine river. The water is usually clear, varying in breadth and in swiftness of current according to the nature of the country it flows through. In places it is broad and calm; in the canyons it is a rushing torrent. Its pace below Savona's is from eight to twelve miles an hour, above Kamloops probably not more than two to four. The South Thompson from Shuswap Lake to Kamloops is always clear, owing to the filtration of the lake, and fine fishing can be had in some of the upper rapids and pools. Near Kamloops the current is too sluggish, and sport is not very good. The river flows along the South Thompson valley, an open country with scattered farms and cattle ranches, bordered by bunch grass range and hills covered by yellow pine, very beautiful in spring and early summer. It is the central plateau of British Columbia, and has an exceedingly dry climate, with hardly any rain, very healthy and bracing, the altitude being about 1200ft. above sea level; it is very hot in summer, and sometimes cold in winter. Fishing begins here early in June, and, though it is little fished, there is no better part of the river. In Kamloops Lake the rainbow is very plentiful, and good fishing may be obtained as early as June at Tranquille, where the river flows into the lake, and causes a slow, wide-sweeping eddy. From Savona's Ferry, the outflow of the lake, down to Ashcroft is the best-known part of the river, and here the current is very swift and the banks are rocky and steep. Near Lytton the canyon is so deep and the banks so steep and dangerous that fishing is out of the question. On the whole there is probably no fishing river in British Columbia to beat this one for the size and quality of the fish, though it does not afford the large bags that can be obtained on the Kootenay. It is a very sporting river, owing to the strength of the current, for a big fish is hard to hold if it once gets out into the main current, away from the side eddies. Mainly owing to this is the fact that there seems to be no record of fish over about 4lb., for a larger fish can get into the main stream, where the force of a ten-mile current drags on it and the line to such an extent that there is no chance of holding it. Such large fish are rarely met with, but every fisherman on the Thompson has stories of them, and they are all the same and coincide with my own. It was only once my luck to hook a really large fish. He jumped out of the water twice close to me, and I had a splendid view of him, and judged him to be about 8lb. He headed for the opposite bank, and just as a break was inevitable the fly came back. Other men have told me the same story, but such large fish are hooked so seldom that it is not worth while using a stronger rod and tackle. Though very large fish are undoubtedly plentiful, they seldom take either fly or any other bait, and perhaps deep live baiting would be the only means of successfully fishing for them. The average fish is from 1/2lb. to 4lb., but much larger fish are in the deep pools. I once was shown at Spence's Bridge three supposed salmon in the winter which had been speared and sold by the Indians for two shillings apiece. I noticed their perfect condition and bright red side stripe, and, on examining them more carefully, pointed out to an experienced fisherman who was present, and to the proprietor of the hotel and others, that these fish were large rainbow trout. The largest weighed 15lb., the two others 12lb. apiece. This incident happened at Spence's Bridge, on the Lower Thompson. On another occasion of a visit there, the bar-tender of the hotel, who happened to be a young Englishman, told me that the angling editor of an American sporting paper had stayed off there and proposed to try with spoon and minnow for large rainbow trout, which he had heard could be got. The next day they went to where the Nicola River, a large stream, flows into the Thompson about half a mile from the hotel. The angling editor was provided with strong spinning gear and rod, and much to the bar-tender's surprise, very soon got into a fish of most surprising strength and dimensions, for they saw him several times, and estimated him at the unbelievable weight of over 30lb. The fish took them rapidly down to some impassable rocks, and went away with everything but the rod. I believed this story at the time, and see no reason to disbelieve now, though of course the size of the fish was probably over-estimated. No other fish was seen or hooked. The only point which I would wish to call attention to is the probable great size of the rainbows in this river, though none have as yet been taken with the rod. Mr. Langley's fish of 22lb. proves that in the lakes these large fish exist. At this place Mr. Inskip has also caught some large fish by spinning, and some very good bags of smaller fish have been got on the fly. The Thompson is not very much fished. Near Ashcroft the local sportsmen from that small town fish it, and Savona's Ferry is visited from Kamloops when the fish are taking; but Kamloops Lake must provide an inexhaustible reserve of fish to take the place of fish caught, so that the river could never be really fished out or much overfished under present conditions. The Indians also fish, and generally with the illegal salmon roe, but do not make great catches; the fly is more successful when the fish are taking it. Nets and dynamite would be useless in this river; therefore, even should a far greater population inhabit the surrounding country, which is not likely for a great number of years, this beautiful and striking river will still afford great sport for many generations. There are long stretches which are never touched except by a stray Indian or Chinaman with a grasshopper or bit of salmon roe on a string tied to a long willow pole. Some years ago a nondescript individual who said he was a Cherokee half-breed turned up at Savona's Ferry and earned a living by fishing. Every day he caught more fish than he could carry, though he never revealed his secret. Some believed that he used set lines. His success showed that trout were far more numerous than was generally believed, but the fly fishermen caught as many as usual. He was the most successful fisherman I ever saw. It is a fact very striking to the English fisherman that the best fishing days in British Columbia are the exact opposite of ours. Fine, bright hot days without wind are the best, both on river and lake; cold and rainy days are always bad, a fortunate thing, as such days are very uncommon. Strong wind is, oddly enough, the greatest enemy of the angler, especially on the lakes; it nearly always puts the fish down. The only thing that seems to account for these curious facts is the probability that the stone fly and other flies are not hatched out except on hot days, while the fish are regardless of the gleam of the gut in the water. My own experience has always been that the hottest days are the best. Except for rocks and stones, and clambering up and down very steep banks, the Thompson River is easy to fish, and trees are not troublesome. Mosquitoes are almost absent, except in the south branch, and the Canadian Pacific, as has been said, runs along its whole length, thus giving easy access to the river, while hotels exist at most of the stations. The railway company publishes a pamphlet on shooting and fishing, but the Thompson River is altogether omitted, which is certainly very strange, as the line runs along the banks for its whole distance, and there is no part of British Columbia in which such excellent fishing can be obtained, and no part of Canada which enjoys such a climate or offers such strangely attractive scenery. CHAPTER III. The Kamloops District--Kamloops as Headquarters--May Floods and Fishing in Shuswap Lake--Silver-bodied Flies--Streams Running into the Lake--The Eagle River--Advantages of a Steam Launch--A Big Catch--Possibilities of the Prawn--A July Spectacle--Fishing at Tranquille--Kamloops Lake--Savona's Ferry--Great Sport in June--Dolly Varden Trout--A Fifteen-Pounder--Falling-off of Sport when Salmon are Running--The "Salmon Fly"--Size of Catches on the Thompson--August a Bad Month. The Thompson district may be described for fishing purposes as beginning at Sicamous junction and ending a little below Spence's Bridge, including the Shuswap and Okanagan lakes, Kamloops, Nicola, and Mammit lakes, and the mountain lakes in the neighbourhood, all of which are more or less part of the Thompson watershed. Of this country the town of Kamloops is the centre, situated at the junction of the north and south branches of the river, and seven miles above Kamloops Lake, its name meaning, in the Thompson language, "the meeting of the waters." By virtue of its position it is an excellent headquarters for anyone wishing to fish in the district, for by rail, stage, or horseback every portion of it can be reached from there, and there are good stores to outfit from, and good hotels--for British Columbia. Fishing in this district cannot be said really to begin till May is well advanced. It is when the snow begins to melt in earnest and the rivers and creeks come down in flood that real sport commences, and this usually happens towards the end of May. No sport can be obtained in the Thompson River below Kamloops Lake at this time, as the water is discoloured by the North Thompson flowing in at Kamloops, which makes fishing useless, and it is only in the South Thompson and the Shuswap Lake that good sport can be obtained. As the rivers begin to come down in high flood the trout congregate at the places where the streams flow into the Shuswap Lake, doubtless for the food which is brought down, and after two or three hot days, when these small mountain streams rise rapidly, fishing is always good. The fish may be seen leaping and splashing in great numbers at the place where the turbid waters of the stream mingle with the clear water of the lake. Small fry are the object of their pursuit, and if a silver-bodied fly is thrown over a moving fish he takes it with a rush almost without fail. It is a most exciting form of fishing, for the fly must be thrown quickly from a boat or canoe over the fish as he breaks the water in his rush for the minnows, and if he fails to see it further casting is often useless, till another fish repeats the same manoeuvre. It would seem as if the trout were lying in wait till a small school of young salmon or trout became entangled in the strong eddies of the stream, darting out upon them when thus comparatively helpless. An occasional fish may be got by casting here and there over the water, but it is only when the trout are moving on the surface that really good sport can be obtained. All the Shuswap mountain creeks and rivers during late May and in June and July give opportunities for good fishing of this kind. The Eagle River, about a quarter of a mile from Sicamous, is a good example; and there are numerous other streams at various points in the Shuswap Lake (some probably almost unknown) which can be fished at this time of the year. I remember a bag of 80lb. of fish taken on the fly at the mouth of Eagle River some few years ago in three hours' fishing; but it has not been equalled lately, though there is no reason why it should not be, in favourable circumstances. The time to look for is when the first flood comes down the Eagle River after two or three hot days, and there must not be any wind to speak of on the lake. The fish may be seen leaping, from the hotel windows, and it is then that the fisherman must row his fastest to the mouth of the river, and if they are still moving when he gets there his success is assured. The best way to enjoy sport on the Shuswap Lake is to hire a steam launch and cruise round to the mouths of the various streams and try them in turn. Anasty Arm, Scotch, and Adam's Creek are the best known. A canoe or boat must be taken to fish from, and unless sleeping accommodation can be got on the boat, it is necessary to camp on the shore. If a steam launch is beyond the fisherman's means, the only other way is to hire a boat, with an Indian or other guide, and carry a tent and provisions. Wood and water are plentiful, and there is only one objection to the plan, that the mosquito is often very numerous and troublesome on the Shuswap, and Sicamous is by no means exempt. If, however, the sportsman can sleep on a steam launch, this nuisance is got rid of, as it is only on the shore that the mosquito is plentiful. No more pleasant or sporting trip could well be undertaken than one in the Shuswap Lake from Sicamous in June, with a suitable steamer or launch, for great fishing, both with fly and troll, would be certain at the mouths of all the creeks and rivers; and if a rifle were taken, bear, both black and grizzly, are by no means uncommon. There is also another place, hitherto little fished except by the Indians, which is well worthy of a trial. It is in the centre of the lake, where the four arms meet, a place well known to the men who log on the lake. It takes the form of a channel less than half a mile wide, connecting the four arms of the Shuswap Lake. Here in 1903, in early August, two men camped, going up on a logging steamer from Kamloops. They trolled across and across the channel, and caught in about ten days some thirty large silver fish, the biggest being about 15lb. Many were lost including one monster supposed to be about 25lb. The best day's sport was about eight large fish. I do not know whether this place has ever been fished since, but it certainly deserves a trial. At the mouths of the various creeks I have never heard definitely of anything over 7lb. being caught but the fish are always in splendid condition and give a great display of fight. The best flies are those with silver bodies, such as the Silver Doctor, Silver Grey, and Wilkinson. A dead bait on an archer spinner is very deadly, and the abylone spoon; a half-red spoon is to be avoided, or a half-gold. A large species of char may be caught by deep trolling with a weight and spoon; but it is a poor kind of sport, and the fish is not game. The prawn has never been tried on the Shuswap Lake; it might be worth a trial. Large trout have been taken on the prawn in the coast rivers; but it is possible that they were sea-trout and not rainbows. The upper part of the South Thompson, for a mile or more after it leaves the Shuswap, is good at the same time of the year in certain pools and eddies, or riffles as they are called locally. I once, in early July, saw a wonderful sight on this part of the river, at a place called Sullivan's Pool. I was passing in a logging steamer on a very hot morning, and in a back eddy which forms this pool, under a cut bank, the water was alive with large trout chasing the small fry on the surface. As each fish drove the little fish upwards a band of about thirty mergansers attacked them from above. A curious and very lively scene was the result, such as I have never seen before or since. On returning about seven in the evening, at my request the steamer was tied up to the bank, and I put out in a small boat with a boatman, though no fish were stirring and the mergansers were sitting gorged in a row on the bank. However, I hooked and landed at the first cast a beautiful 4-1/2lb. rainbow, which was promptly cooked for dinner. If it had been possible to fish the pool in the morning a great catch could have been made. At this time of the year good fishing can be got at Tranquille, where the river flows into Kamloops Lake and forms a slow-moving eddy. Fishing is the same here as in the Shuswap; it is only good on hot, calm days, and wind puts the fish down. It is best when the fish can be seen splashing on the surface in the early morning or evening, when good catches of fine fish may be made; but, as wind is by no means uncommon, it is not always that circumstances are favourable. Tranquille is seven miles from Kamloops, on the other side of the river, and comfortable accommodation can be got at Mr. Fortune's ranch. It is a beautiful place, but mosquitoes are not unknown. Here Capt. Drummond landed a 12-1/2lb. fish on the fly, and a model cut out in wood was preserved for a long time, but was burnt in a fire that took place there some few years ago. This is the largest rainbow caught on the fly that I have ever heard of. In May and June, before the fish will take the fly, there is often fair sport to be had with the minnow and spoon in Kamloops Lake; unless the north branch of the Thompson is in very high flood and discolours the water too much. The north branch, which joins the South Thompson at Kamloops, is no good for fishing; its waters are seldom clear enough, and seem to be fed too much by glaciers, with no large lake to clear and filter the water. There are several rivers of the same type in British Columbia, and fishing does not seem to be good in any of them. At the western end of Kamloops Lake the Thompson flows out again to join the Fraser at Lytton; the stream is swift and strong, running when in high flood at the rate of twelve miles an hour. In 1894 there was a very high water, and the stationmaster at Savona's wired to Ashcroft, a distance of twenty-four miles, to say that the bridge had just been carried away. A reply came giving the time of its arrival, which was just two hours afterwards. The _débris_ swept away the Ashcroft bridge and also the bridge at Lytton. At Savona's the fishing of the Lower Thompson begins, and at this point, about a mile from the mouth of the river, there is an excellent hotel, kept by Mr. Adam Fergusson, one of the "old timers" of British Columbia, who came into the country with many others in the early days of the gold diggings on the Fraser River. This is really the only fishing hotel on the upper mainland of British Columbia, and is an excellent headquarters from which several lakes can be reached, as also many places on each side of the Thompson River. This part of the Thompson River affords good fishing from Savona's to below Spence's bridge, wherever the water is accessible, and, though a little sport can be obtained in the latter part of May, chiefly with spoon and minnow, it is not usually till July that the river is in really good order, when the excess of snow water has been carried off and the river begins to fall and get clearer. The hot weather sets in at the beginning of June, and a quick rise of the river is an immediate result. On a rising water the trout will not take. Often there is a pronounced fall in the middle of June, owing to cooler weather setting in, though this does not always happen. When it does occur excellent fishing can be obtained. I remember its happening in the middle of June, 1901, and for a week there was tremendous sport; a trout rose to every cast of the fly; but as soon as the water began to rise again everything was at an end. At the end of May, before the water begins to rise, a fair number of fish can be taken by spinning from the bank with spoon and minnow at the mouth of the river. But these are another fish, called locally the Dolly Varden trout, a species of char, a handsome fish with pink spots and light pink flesh, and good eating. They take the fly later on occasionally, and run from 3/4lb to 4lb., but are not so lively as the rainbow, though they are a strong and game fish. I once took fifteen in a day's fishing with the minnow, and they can also be caught by trolling from a boat near the mouth of the river, the sport being varied by an occasional rainbow, often of a larger size than those usually caught with the fly. In May, 1903, a Dolly Varden of 15lb. was taken. It is a curious fact that during the fly season in July very few of these fish are ever taken, either on fly or spoon, or by trolling in the lake. The fly-fishing season at Savona's really begins about the first of July and lasts till the salmon first arrive in the beginning of August, when fishing invariably falls off, probably owing to the fact that the trout follow the salmon to their spawning beds to prey on the eggs; at least, such is the local reason given. Whether this is true or not it is impossible to say, but in any case the fact remains that about this time fly fishing falls off for a few weeks coincident with the appearance of the salmon, and generally is poor during the whole of August, at any rate at Savona's. (It is often as good as ever lower down the river.) If a grasshopper is used some fish may still be caught, especially if the bait be allowed to sink. Later on, at the beginning of September, the fish will again take the fly and continue to do so until the end of the season, about the middle of October, while I have been told by an ardent fisherman that he had excellent sport in November during a snowstorm, regardless of the law of British Columbia. The excellence of sport in July depends a good deal on the rise of the stone fly, or "salmon fly" as it is locally called, and it is not until this fly makes its appearance that fishing becomes really good. This insect in appearance is the same as the English stone fly, but is much more plentiful on the Thompson than I have ever seen it elsewhere; in some seasons every bush on the bank is literally covered with the flies, and later on the rocks are strewn with their dead bodies. A good stone fly season is always a good fishing season, for the fish are clearly very fond of them, and may often be seen sucking them into their mouths as fast as they fall into the water, or jumping at them as they dip down to the river's surface to lay their eggs. I have often seen the salmon fly become suddenly very numerous about mid-day or an hour or so before that, the hot sun hatching them out, and at once the trout are on the move, readily taking a fly tied to imitate the natural one, and continuing to do so as long as the living fly is on the water. At this time the best hours for fishing are the middle ones of the day, however hot and bright they may be, for in the earlier and later hours the fly is not on the water. I have never found, as a rule, that very late or very early hours are favourable on this river during this month, except just at the place where the river leaves the lake, which is usually good in the evening, especially after a very hot day. The best fly at this time is one tied to resemble as nearly as possible the living salmon fly; but if the natural fly is not on the water, others may be tried, such as the Jock Scott, the Silver Doctor, Wilkinson, March Brown and other well-known flies. Some local men swear by a claret body, others prefer a yellow or green; but, whatever fly is used, I believe that it should have plenty of hackle and body, and be of good size (Nos. 4 and 5); small flies are not advisable. Great bags must not, as a rule, be expected on the Thompson; fifteen to twenty good fish is an excellent bag on this river. Mr. F.J. Fulton, of Kamloops, who has fished this river more than anyone else, has never done better than twenty-four fish; but these twenty-four fish would be 48lb., and ought to include at least a couple of fish about 4lb. apiece. On the Thompson the angler must carry his own fish, besides climbing up and down some very steep banks under the glare of a northern sun, whose heat is increased tenfold by the water and the bare rocks. Such a day's fishing is no mean trial of endurance, while the fierceness of the stream will generally account for a good percentage of lost fish. With regard to the falling off of sport in August, it may be quite possible that the salmon may really have nothing to do with the poorness of fishing at this time, but that the real reason may be that the fish are fat and gorged with the abundance of fly and grasshopper, and lie lazily, deep in the pools. In other parts of British Columbia fishing is poor at this time, and in waters the salmon cannot reach. And this reasoning is rather borne out by the fact that towards the end of August or beginning of September the fish begin to take again, though the salmon are still running in vast numbers. One of the best catches I ever saw taken from the Thompson (thirty-six fish) was got in early October, and the trout rose up among the travelling masses of salmon and took the fly. Every part of the Thompson is fishable to below Spence's Bridge, over forty miles from Savona's, and the fishing is often irregular, by which is meant that when sport is good at Ashcroft it is not very good at Savona's, and _vice versâ_. I have known the fish to be entirely off at the mouth of the river near Savona's, while good bags have been got a few miles below. This will show that sport on this part of the Thompson is somewhat variable; but still one point may be emphasised, namely, that during the two months of July and August there is always good fishing to be obtained at one point or another along the river, and all can be easily reached from the Savona's Hotel. The southern bank is followed by the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and is therefore easy of access; the northern bank can only be reached on foot or on horseback, and is therefore not so much fished. To fish this bank far down it would be necessary to seek hospitality for a night or two from some rancher. CHAPTER IV. What is the "Silver Trout"?--Evidence in Favour of a New Species--Difference in Appearance from the Rainbow--A Jumper--Native of Kamloops and Shuswap Lakes--A Bag of Twenty-four--The Dolly Varden--Origin of the Name--Not a Free Riser--Grayling--Chub and Squaw Fish--Great Lake Trout--The Silver Fish at Spence's Bridge--Salmon or Steel-head?--Cut-throat Trout--Possible Fishing Tour in British Columbia. It still remains a question, which has never yet been decided, whether there are not two distinct species of trout in these waters. There is no question that locally such is universally thought to be the case. Every local fisherman speaks of having caught a red side or a silver trout, and firmly believes that they are distinct species. Should this be really the case, it is a matter of no little interest, as a new and very beautiful species would be added to those already known and described. A brief account of the evidence, for and against, may not be out of place, and might result in some final conclusion being arrived at. For several years two Americans came every season to Savona's Ferry to fish, and, becoming impressed with the beauty of the so-called silver trout, they sent a specimen to Professor Starr Jordan, of the Leland Stanford University of San Francisco. The first specimen did not arrive in good condition, and another specimen was sent, in the preparation of which I personally assisted. It was a fish of about 1-1/2lb. in weight, a very beautiful specimen and a most typical example of the silver trout. Professor Jordan described this fish as a new species, under the name of _Salmo kamloopsii_, and he so describes it in a monograph on the salmon and trout of the Pacific Coast, published by the State Board of Fisheries for the State of California. In this account he gives expert reasons, founded on the number of rays in the anal fin and tail, the position of the opercula, and the size of the body scales, suggesting, moreover, that the fish might turn out to be a connecting link between the true salmonidæ and the genus oncorhynchus or Pacific Coast salmon. He suggested that a further specimen should be sent, in order that the intestinal tract might be examined; but this suggestion was unfortunately not complied with. I am not prepared to say whether Professor Jordan still adheres to this opinion, or whether the silver trout has been fully recognised among ichthyologists as a distinct species. In a recent letter to me, however, he states that he considers the Kamloops trout to be "only a slight variation of the steel-head," which statement shows that its exact identity is not established, for the steel-head is absolutely unknown in these upper waters, and the silver trout never goes down to the sea. To the best of my belief it is a fact that no further specimens have been examined by any naturalist of note, and the question is therefore still _in statu quo_. It is a matter, I would humbly suggest, that is well worthy of solution. So far as I am aware, Professor Jordan is the only expert who has examined this fish. The only other evidence as to its existence as a distinct species is the widespread local opinion, which is also held by the half-breeds and Indians, who undoubtedly believe that there are two kinds of trout in the Thompson River. Such evidence or belief is not scientific proof, but is certainly of considerable weight, until it is proved to be mistaken. I have always been firmly convinced that the two fish are perfectly distinct, and this opinion is fully shared by all the local anglers. If two well-marked specimens are seen side by side the difference in appearance is most remarkable. The silver trout is less heavily built, the head is smaller and sharper, the scales are smaller in size, and the stripe on the side is violet instead of pink. There is only one alternative opinion, namely, that for an unknown reason some rainbows acquire this peculiar silvery appearance. Whatever may be the final decision, the fact still remains that a fish of a different type from the ordinary rainbow is common in these waters, and is well deserving of a description. The back is green, with the usual black spots, the sides and belly of a bright silver, like a fresh-run salmon, but instead of the pink or crimson stripe of the rainbow there is a similar band of a delicate violet or purple hue. If two well-marked specimens are laid side by side the difference is most marked, though difficult to describe exactly. The silver trout is a cleaner-cut fish, and looks exactly as if it had come straight from salt water; one would hardly feel surprised to see the sea lice sticking to its sides. From a fisherman's point of view it is gamer, and is always out of the water when hooked, appearing also to be more addicted to taking silver-bodied flies, being more of a small fry than a fly feeder. It is usually caught at the mouths of streams running into the large lakes, and at the outflow of the Thompson at Savona's, where it can be seen chasing the small fry on the surface. It must, however, be admitted that some local anglers consider it to be merely the rainbow when in the pink of condition, with the colour simply modified by the clear waters of the lakes, and there is, moreover, no doubt that the poorer the condition of the rainbow the deeper is the red of its stripe, though, on the other hand, I have seen splendid fish in which the stripe was very deep crimson. Spent fish, however, have always a deep red stripe. This silvery fish seems to be chiefly native to the Kamloops and Shuswap lakes, whence it spreads into the Thompson. It appears to be much less common in the river than in the lake waters, except just at the outflow near Savona's, which is a favourite resort, where in warm evenings in July and August it may be seen chasing the minnows in the first pool. A few years ago I made a bag of twenty-four fish, weighing 48lb., in two evenings between the hours of seven and eight; four of these fish weighed 4lb. apiece. The fishing here must be done from a boat, as the eddy where they move is beyond the reach of the bank. It is a most exciting kind of fishing, as it is almost useless to cast except over a moving fish; the pool is still for some minutes, and then, in a moment, a dozen or more fish will be at the surface rushing among the small fry, who leap out of the water to escape them. If a silver-bodied fly be thrown over one of these fish he is certain to take it, and if two flies are used the second fly is certain to be seized as well, while, owing to the strong water, a desperate fight is the result, and the strongest single-gut is often broken. But it is by no means on every evening that this sport can be enjoyed, and in some seasons the fish are much more plentiful in this pool than others. It must also be in hot, still weather, as a wind always puts them down. The fishing obviously depends on the presence of the shoals of small fish, probably young salmon. The silver trout lie in wait for them here, and when a shoal is entangled in the strong eddy they rush upon them. This is the same form of sport which can be enjoyed at the mouth of the streams which run into the Shuswap Lake, the Eagle River at Sicamous, and Scotch and Adams Creeks. In connection with this fish it is worthy of note that the rainbow is a species which shows little tendency to vary from the type. I have caught them in a great number of the streams and lakes of this district, and they never seem to vary in the least. A specimen from one lake could not be distinguished from any other; they are always typical rainbows with the red stripe, and no silvery fish are ever seen, unless the lake is directly connected with the Thompson River. Thus the silver form is found in Shuswap, Kamloops, and Nicola lakes, but in the large mountain lakes which have no open communication with the river only the ordinary rainbow is found. There is only one exception, the Long Lake near Vernon, which contains a beautiful silvery fish, to be alluded to later. This lake is, I believe, indirectly connected with the Shuswap. There are other interesting fish found in the Thompson and the Kamloops and Shuswap lakes, but they are not of much use to the fisherman, though occasionally caught. The Dolly Varden trout, a species of char, has been alluded to, and is the only one which affords much sport to the fisherman; it runs to a large size, as has been stated, but does not often take the fly. Its curious name is said to be derived indirectly from Dickens and the time of his tours in the United States, which produced a Dolly Varden craze in hats and some kinds of calico patterns, of which one with pink spots was supposed to be the correct Dolly Varden pattern. On seeing this fish for the first time, some young lady is supposed to have exclaimed that it was a "Dolly Varden trout," and the name appears to have been generally adopted. However this may be, there is no other name for the fish except its scientific one, and it is known all through the West as the Dolly Varden trout. It is strong and game, but not so lively as a trout. It takes the fly very seldom, and then generally only when about a pound or less in weight. On the other hand, in May it takes the minnow and spoon quite readily. Later on, in July and after, it is rarely that one is caught. I once caught two of 4lb. and 5lb. on a fly in July, the only ones so caught during that month, and have landed many on minnow and spoon. That it reaches a large size is proved by the capture of the fish alluded to above, which weighed 15lb. The man who caught it informed me that it was got on the fly, and I was never able to find out the true history of its capture, but strongly suspect it was lured to its doom by a piece of raw beef. The Dolly Varden is a greyish-coloured fish with light salmon-coloured spots of rather a large size. An occasional grayling is caught on the fly, but they are not plentiful. I have never seen one over 2lb. A small fish, like a grayling, but without any adipose fin, sometimes takes the fly; it has a bright orange tinge on its side, and has white flesh, which is firm and very good eating. The chub is very common, and will take the fly, but is regarded as vermin, being very poor eating; it runs up to 4lb. and over. The squaw fish, also, will take the fly sometimes, but more often the minnow or grasshopper; its flesh is white and tasteless. It is a large-mouthed fish greatly resembling the chub and attaining about the same size. Both chub and squaw fish are great devourers of fry. In the Shuswap Lake, by trolling in deep water with a lead attached, a large grey char with pink spots can be caught, running up to perhaps 20lb., and being usually known as the lake trout or great lake trout; it takes a spoon, but is very sluggish, and does not give any real sport. The Indians catch these fish. I have never heard of their being caught in Kamloops Lake. With reference to the run of Pacific salmon, it is interesting to note that large silvery fish have been caught by minnow and spoon in the Shuswap Lake, notably in the narrow strait mentioned above. Mr. Inskip has within the last year or two written some letters to the _Field_ describing the capture of a number of silver fish up to 10lb. weight near Spence's Bridge, at the mouth of the Nicola river, where it joins the Thompson. He believes these fish to be salmon, and it is possible that his view may be correct. But it is also possible that they may be silver trout or steel-head trout; the evidence is not yet complete. No salmon have ever been taken in this way with spoon or minnow above this point, in spite of the number of years that fishing has been carried on in these waters. The Indians never catch salmon by trolling with the spoon, though they troll persistently for trout, the line being fastened to the paddle of their canoe. Mr. Inskip states that these fish never take the fly, and he has only caught them in October. There is, of course, no doubt of the truth of his statement, and a possible explanation might be that the steel-heads run up as far as this point, and go up to the Nicola River. It has never been thought that the steel-head runs as far as Kamloops Lake, and I have never heard of anyone who claimed to have caught one; it is, however, quite within the bounds of possibility that some of these fish may come up with the salmon. The problem can be easily solved by counting the rays in the anal fin; in the true trout these rays only amount to about nine, in the salmon there are fourteen to sixteen well-developed rays. The cut-throat trout is unknown to me. I have never caught it in British Columbian waters, unless some fish mentioned later in the account of the Nicola River belonged to this species. It may occur in some of the southern British Columbian coast rivers, and is common further south in the neighbouring States of the Union. Prof. Jordan states that it is always found in the country of the Sioux Indians, and hazards a suggestion that they may have taken their tribal mark from it. This mark consists of a couple of lines of red paint under the jaw on each side of the neck, and is very similar to that which gives this fish its curious name. The rainbow and the so-called silver trout are the only kinds which are met with in the central plateau of British Columbia. The next subject for consideration will be the fishing in the mountain lakes; but before proceeding to it it may be as well to consider the fishing as a whole in the waters already described, for the question which most naturally suggests itself to an Englishman is whether the sport to be obtained is worth coming so far for. Anyone with the necessary money and time at his disposal might prefer Norway or Scotland. It would certainly not be worth anybody's while to come such a distance to enjoy the two or three weeks at Savona's, which represent, at the outside, the time of the best fishing on the Lower Thompson. It would be necessary for the fisherman to have plenty of time at his disposal, so as to visit the different places at the time when the fishing was respectively at its best. Thus June could be spent in trying the sport on the Shuswap Lake, with Sicamous as headquarters, while a visit could be paid from there to the Okanagan Lakes, which can be easily reached in three hours by rail. In July the Lower Thompson can be fished from Savona's as a headquarters, while from there several lakes can be tried during July and August, the trip being concluded by a visit to the salmon rivers of the coast during late August and early September. After that time big game or duck shooting might be tried. The time mentioned would also allow for a visit to the fishing on the Kootenay River near Nelson. There is hardly any need to say that all fishing in British Columbia is free to everyone, and, although there is a little more fishing done than a few years ago, no one need be afraid of over-fishing. There is plenty of room, and there will continue to be so for a very long time yet, except in a neighbourhood close to any very large town. The fishing in waters hitherto described may be compared, in my opinion, to very good sea-trout fishing, which it closely resembles. As stated before, sport depends, as in every country, on certain states of water and weather. A great bag cannot be an everyday occurrence, but if the right places are visited at the right time there is great sport to be obtained. CHAPTER V. Other Lakes--Long Lake--Its Silvery Trout--Fish Lake--Extraordinary Fishing--Fifteen Hundred Trout in Three Days--A Miniature Gaff--Uses of a Collapsible Boat--Catching Fish Through the Ice--Mammit Lake--Nicola Lake--Beautifully Marked Trout in Nicola River--"The Little Red Fish." The Thompson and its two great lakes, the Kamloops and Shuswap, having been dealt with, the fishing in the mountain lakes remains to be described. The sport to be obtained in some of these waters must be somewhat unique, for though I believe it is surpassed in size of fish by some of the New Zealand lakes, it is impossible that it can be surpassed anywhere in the weight and number of fish captured in one day's fishing. There are great numbers of lakes far back in the mountains in which no fishing has ever been done, and others there are in which no one but a stray prospector, hunter, or Indian has ever thrown a line; but these, of course, need not be considered. There are a good number which have had their capabilities tested, and are locally more or less well known. The chief fishing lakes in this district are the Nicola and Okanagan lakes, which are very large, and the smaller ones Fish and Mammit, together with numerous smaller lakes which are less known. In the Okanagan district, near the little town of Vernon, there is a beautiful piece of water called Long Lake, about sixteen miles long by less than a mile wide, about four miles from the town. The water is very clear and the lake very deep, the cliffs on each side running down sheer into the water. The trout in this lake are remarkable for their size and extreme beauty; the rainbow characteristic is entirely absent, for they are of a pure silver colour, with the merest trace of a pink tinge along the side; they resemble, in fact, a fresh-run grilse straight from the sea, and no fish which could be called a rainbow is ever caught. The fish run to a large size, 5lb. being by no means uncommon, and fish from this weight up to 12lb. have been often caught. These large fish are caught by trolling in the ordinary way with spoon and minnow, for the fly fishing is very uncertain. There appear to be certain places along the sides of the lake to which the fish come up from the deep water on the look out for fly food; but on the whole it is a trolling lake; and differs in this respect from almost all the other lakes to be mentioned. It may be that these fish are the same as the specimen described by Professor Jordan, and are really a distinct species, feeding mainly on small fry, and not much addicted to a fly diet. In appearance they certainly deserve the name of silver trout. I am not aware that any specimen has ever been examined by any scientific authority on fish. I fished once in July on this lake, and caught two fish about 1-1/2lb. apiece on the fly, while another of about 3lb. was taken on a minnow. Dr. Gerald Williams, of Vernon, fishes here a great deal, and gave me the above information. He prefers this lake to the neighbouring Okanagan Lake, but stated that the same fish were to be found in both. This lake seems well worth a visit, for if only a few fish were the result of a day's work their beauty and possible size would be worth the trouble, while the lake and its scenery are characteristic of the most beautiful part of the interior of British Columbia, surrounded as it is by rolling hills of bunch grass, range, and pine-covered bluffs. Vernon can be easily reached by train from Sicamous, on the Canadian Pacific Railway main line. About twenty-three miles from Kamloops there is a lake known as Fish Lake, in which the fishing is so extraordinary as to border on the regions of romance, though locally it is considered a matter of course. For lake fishing, in point of numbers, it is impossible that this piece of water could be beaten; it is like a battue in shooting, the number to be caught is only limited by the skill and endurance of the angler; indeed, little skill is needed, for anyone can catch fish there, though a good fisherman will catch the most. Also fish can be caught on any day, some days being better than others, but a blank day is an impossibility. The lake is twenty-three miles south of Kamloops, and is reached by a good road, and there is now a small wooden house, where one can stop and hire boats. Ten years ago there was only a trail, which was rough travelling on horseback, with a pack horse to carry tent and provisions. The lake has been a fishing ground for the Indians from time immemorial, and fish used to be brought down by them to Kamloops from a fish trap built in the creek running out of the lake. I have also seen them fishing with bait and spearing fish at night; but the true bait for Fish Lake is the fly, and, contrary to the usual case, the white man with a fly and modern tackle can make catches which far surpass any that the Indian ever made. The trap has now been abandoned, and the Indians do not fish on this lake any more. From time to time half-breeds and cowboys came into Kamloops with stories of big catches of trout made with a willow bough and a piece of string with a fly tied to it; sometimes 300 or 400 fish would be brought down which had been caught in this way. This stimulated the sporting instinct of the inhabitants, and a few visits were paid to the lake and good catches were made, but the fishermen who went were of a very amateur kind. In the summer of 1897 an American proposed to me that we should go up and try what good tackle could do; in fact, he proposed that we should go up and try to make a record. We went up in the first week of August, and the result far surpassed our wildest imagination. We fished three full days, and brought back 1500 trout, which weighed 700lb., cleaned and salted. The first day we caught 350, for some time was wasted in finding the best places. The second day a start was made at 5 a.m., and we fished till long after dark, about 9.30 p.m., catching 650; the third day we caught about 500. The weather was intensely hot and fine, sometimes dead calm, sometimes a strong breeze, and at night a brilliant moon; but whether dead calm or blowing strong it made no difference to the fish, for they were taking as freely in the moonlight as at mid-day. Flies were abundant, and the fish were ravenous for both real and artificial; they almost seemed to fight for our flies as soon as they touched the water. Even when almost every feather had been torn off they would take the bare hook. We fished with three flies, and often had three fish on at one time; on one occasion my companion handed me a cast and three flies with a few inches of running line which had been lost by me not twenty minutes before. The hottest and calmest hours of the day afforded the best sport, as is usual in my experience on all the waters of British Columbia, though wind did not make any difference, except to make it more difficult to manoeuvre the boat. Our fish were cleaned and salted each day by some Indians so that none were wasted, and no fish were returned to the water except the very smallest. We had estimated our catch on the best day to be over 700 fish; but, owing to exhaustion and the necessity of cooking our supper, after being seventeen hours on the water, we did not feel equal to removing our fish from the boat, and during the night a raid was made on them by mink, which are very plentiful round this lake. Though it was impossible to say how many had been carried off, 650 was the exact total of fish counted on the following morning. If allowance is made for a rest for lunch, and time taken off for altering and repairing flies and tackle, it will be easily seen that this number of fish caught by two rods in one day on the fly constitutes a record which would be very hard to beat on this lake or any other. The best I was ever able to do again, with another rod, was a little over 300. But the conditions of the weather and the fly on the water were never quite so favourable. At the time mentioned this lake was little fished, and the Indians with their fish trap would catch in one day far more than we accounted for; but since the lake has become better known, and the fish trap has been abolished, it cannot be too much impressed on fishermen in this water that only the large fish should be retained. In 1903 we only kept eighty-four fish out of a total of 300 landed, and these weighed about 60lb. This lake is a natural hatchery for trout, and its waters are alive with them; it is about four miles long, shaped like a boomerang; the margins are shallow, with a thick growth of rushes, among which the fish lie, feeding largely on a small brown fly, which may be seen on their stalks. In order to catch these, the fish may be seen jumping up and often shaking the fly into the water. The best sport may often be had among these reeds in the more open places; but the fish must be held with a tight line, and prevented by main force from taking refuge among the roots of the rushes and entangling the cast among them. When this occurs a long willow wand with a salmon fly hook attached is an excellent means of landing a good fish, which could not be touched with a landing net. The water of Fish Lake is very clear and always warm, suggesting the presence of some hot springs in the lake; though, if this is the case, it does not prevent its waters freezing in winter. The water in the centre of the lake is very deep, and fish may always be seen jumping there of a larger size than those usually caught. Few fish can be caught there by trolling a minnow or spoon, only an odd fish or so being the result; though a minnow or small spoon be trailed behind the boat for a couple of miles on the way home, nothing is caught. The fly is the only lure on Fish Lake. The average fish is from 1/2lb. to 1-1/4lb., though fish of 2lb. are common, while anything over 3lb. is unknown. I have seen several of 3lb., but nothing over it, and if larger fish lurk in the depths of the lake they have never been caught by Indian or white man. There is nothing but rainbow trout in the lake, and in general colour and appearance they vary very little, being handsome, bright-coloured specimens, very game and strong; the flesh is firm, and excellent eating when fresh caught. The altitude of this piece of water is between 4000ft. and 5000ft., which causes the nights to be cold and sometimes frosty even in August, while a cloudy day in these months is often chilly, causing a dearth of natural fly and some falling off in the sport. Should the wind be strong enough to prevent fishing on the big lake, there is a small lake at the western end which can be entered by a shallow channel, and often provides just as good fishing as the large one. Almost any ordinary Scotch loch flies are suitable for this water, a brown wing being perhaps the best, with a red body; the Zulu is a killing fly, as also a minute Jock Scott, size being the chief matter of importance. The fly must not be too large. On our arriving one evening at the lake in most beautiful weather, two fishermen, who had just left the water after fishing hard all day, informed us that it was fished out, for they had only caught thirty fish of about 1lb. each; but the next day we caught 300, and the fishing was the same as ever, for the flies they had been using were Thompson ones, and the tail fly on one of their casts would have been too large on some Norway salmon rivers in low water. It would be hard to conceive a more ideal place for fishing than this most beautiful lake, situated on a high plateau, surrounded by its reedy banks and flanked by woods of pine and birch, with waters of the deepest blue swarming with fish, while overhead is a cloudless sky. Ten years ago it was but seldom visited, now it is somewhat of a summer resort for the people of Kamloops; but it cannot be said to be overfished, as the season is very short--June, July, and August. Before and after that time the cold interferes with the rise of fly and the comfort of sportsmen. Formerly it was necessary to take a tent, and camp on the shores of the lake; but now an enterprising individual has put up a stopping house, which affords good enough accommodation for anyone visiting the lake, and also the use of boats. The last time I visited the lake, in 1903, the fishing seemed just as good as ever, and it will probably be some time before there is much falling off in this respect, unless the number of anglers who visit it is very much increased in the next few years. For though doubtless more fish are taken by the fly, yet the Indian fishing and the fish trap have been done away with. The latter would probably account for an immense number of fish, which are now saved to the lake; furthermore, there is no poaching of any kind, and the infamous otter is unknown in British Columbian waters. At the same time, the importance of returning small fish cannot be now too much impressed on all fishermen who try this water. Even in case Fish Lake should in time yield to the effects of over-fishing, there are five other lakes known within a radius of a mile or two, which are believed to be just as full of fish; though, owing to the sufficiency of Fish Lake, their capabilities have been little tried, and it is chiefly on the reports of Indians that their reputation stands, though a few fish have been caught from the bank in one or two of them. It would be quite easy to put boats on them should the need arise, and larger fish are reported to abound in some of them. Very probably the Indians are quietly fishing some of these lakes after deserting their old quarters. In fact, all through this part of the country there are many lakes, some occasionally fished, and others almost unknown, and all abounding in trout. A boat is necessary in all such lakes as have been alluded to; nothing can be done without one. Mr. Walter Langley uses a collapsible boat, which can be packed on a horse's back, and with this he has tried many lakes known to the Indians; his 22lb. trout was caught from this boat. In 1902 he visited some lakes on the opposite side of the Thompson, about thirty-six miles from Savona's, and reported the most wonderful fishing to me. With a companion, he fished about five days, and brought back 700lb. of salted trout; his catch included more than fifty fish of 4lb. in weight, and the average fish was about 2lb. There were no small fish in the lake they fished, and all were taken on the fly. Mr. Langley had accompanied me in 1900 to Fish Lake, where we had excellent fishing; but he reported the fishing on this lake to be far better, owing to the large size of the fish; in fact, he described it as the best fly fishing he had ever enjoyed. It may be noted that they had several Indians with them, and a large number of the fish caught were consumed on the spot, as a fish diet on such expeditions is a matter of necessity, in order to limit the number of pack horses required. It is fortunate that Indians are by no means averse to this article of food and seem very fond of fish of all kinds. Before the white man came to the country it must have been at many seasons of the year the staple article of food, and it is for this reason that the Indians know so well all the lakes and rivers where fish can be caught, making therefore good guides to a white man in search of new fishing grounds. But it must be remembered that the Indian does not use the fly, so that it is often necessary to make very careful inquiries from them as to the manner in which they catch fish in any fishing grounds that they may recommend; and such inquiries are very difficult to anyone not acquainted with their peculiarities and the Chinook jargon. Many weird fish stories might be told about Fish Lake, but they become wearisome, and enough has been said to give some idea of the fishing to be obtained. It is, indeed, somewhat unique in its reality, and requires no Western embroidery of detail to be added to the facts quoted. These facts show, by the way, the immense fertility of the rainbow, where conditions are favourable, its fly-taking propensities, its boldness and voracity; all of which qualities will commend themselves to English fishermen, and confirm the enterprise and judgment of those who have introduced the fish into this country, where it seems to bid fair to equal, if not even to surpass, itself in the same good qualities. It is in the nature of a digression, perhaps, but as it has a bearing on the primitive methods of obtaining fish, the following account of a peculiar kind of fishing may be of interest here. There is a large lake in the interior, up the Cariboo road, where the half-breeds indulge in a curious form of sport. A large portion of the lake is very shallow, and when it is frozen over the bottom can be very clearly seen. When this is the case some of the half-breeds go out on skates and mark trout through the ice, which they then pursue and attempt to drive into the shallowest parts near the shore. A fine fish is driven about until he appears to be quite exhausted, and finally is driven into shallow water, where he often hides under weeds at the bottom; a hole is then cautiously cut in the ice above him with a knife, through which he is speared. A fish about 15lb. was once sent to me which had been caught in this way; it was not a trout, but the large kind of char, commonly known as Great Lake trout. There is another lake called Mammit Lake, about twenty-five miles from Savona's and about fourteen from Fish Lake, which affords very good fishing. It is a large piece of water, about fifteen miles long, surrounded by open bunch grass hills, and can be reached from Savona's by a good road. Its name is derived from the large numbers of white fish called mammit which abound in its waters, and can only be taken by the net. This lake is little fished, but several fishermen who have tried it are loud in its praises, notably my partner in the big catch on Fish Lake, who informed me that he had better sport on its waters, owing to the larger size of its fish, which appear to run about 2lb. or so in weight, and few either smaller or larger. The evidence tends to show, however, that it is somewhat uncertain, possibly owing to its extreme liability to a good deal of wind, which may put down the fish or even prevent a boat from venturing on the lake. It would seem advisable for anyone who might wish to visit this water to arrange to camp there for a week or more, in order to be on the spot to sally forth whenever the fish are rising, for it would appear that this lake resembles Scotch lakes in the fact that the fish come on the rise at certain irregular times during the day, and in the intervals only a few can be caught by hading or trolling. I only once visited this water in August, but was entirely prevented from fishing owing to the high wind. The salmon had also entered the lake, and their presence is supposed to militate against good sport. July is the best time, and there is no doubt that very good fishing can be obtained there, while the lake is easily reached from Savona's, though there is no hotel accommodation, and it is necessary to take a tent and provisions for camping-out purposes. Nicola Lake is about fifty miles from Kamloops, and can be reached by a bi-weekly stage. There is good fishing in the lake and in the river which flows into the Thompson at Spence's Bridge. The lake is a fine piece of water, over twenty miles long, and about a mile in breadth, nearly equal in size to Kamloops Lake. It has been but little fished, except by a few local anglers, and is full of very beautiful trout. I spent the summer of 1891 at the small hotel at the foot of this lake, but fished chiefly in the Nicola River, which flows out of it. The sport in the river gave me full occupation, so that very little time was devoted to the lake, for every day I caught as many fish as one could carry back to the hotel, mostly small, from 1/2lb. to 3/4lb., with one or two better fish of 1-1/2lb. to 2lb. At the place where the river left the lake I used almost to fill a boat with large chub and a few good trout; in the lake I made a few fair catches of a dozen or more fish about 1-1/2lb. But all the information I gathered then and since about this lake points to the fact that the best fishing is at the other end of it. In the river I used to catch a few fish very beautifully coloured about 3/4lb., with red and black spots on a golden ground; in fact, I mistook them for brown trout, being ignorant of the fact that these fish were unknown in British Columbia. It is my belief that these were cut-throat trout. On a calm day fish can be seen moving all over the lake, which probably contains very large fish. Mr. B. Moore, now residing in Victoria, British Columbia, had a cattle ranch at its east end, and has often told me of the excellent sport he used to enjoy, both in the lake and the river which runs in there. Two hotels on the shores of the lake give good accommodation and keep a boat. In the autumn a little silver fish, about 1/2lb. weight, runs up the streams from the lake in large numbers for spawning purposes, and is sometimes netted; it is very good eating, but takes no bait of any kind. The flesh is deep red. Locally it was supposed that these fish were a species of char, but in a pamphlet published by the Government of British Columbia on the fisheries it is stated: "There is another smaller form of the sockeye salmon, found in many of the interior waters, that appears to be a permanently small form, which is known to writers as 'the little red fish,' 'Kennerly's salmon,' or 'the Evermann form of the sockeye,' and which in some lakes of the province can be shown not to be anadromous. This form is often mistaken for a trout. It has no commercial value, and does not 'take a fly' or any bait. The Indians of Seton and Anderson lakes smoke them. They give them the name of 'oneesh.'" This is undoubtedly the fish which runs up the creeks from Nicola Lake in the early autumn to spawn in large numbers, at first bright silver like a salmon, turning to a crimson colour. All are the same size; about 1/2lb. They are sometimes sold in Kamloops for food. They are never seen in the lake, nor do I know if they return after spawning. This fish is also present in the Shuswap, but not in Kamloops Lake. The fishing in the Nicola River is very good as soon as it begins to clear and subside from the early summer floods, and it can be continued until the water gets too low in late August. These lakes and rivers above described are at present the best known in this district, but there are numbers of other lakes which are full of trout, some of which are fished by the Indians, and in time will doubtless become better known to fishermen. But it is quite evident that anyone visiting this part of the country has plenty of choice, and, in fact, would hardly find time to visit and thoroughly try all the rivers and lakes described. This district of British Columbia has certain attractions of its own, not present in other parts; the climate is peculiarly fine and dry, with a most bracing and clear atmosphere. Except for an odd thunder shower, rain hardly ever falls, so that camp life is free from one of its chief drawbacks. Flies and mosquitoes are not so plentiful, though bad in certain places. The general aspect is much more open, with rolling hills of bunch grass and pine bluffs, which give the scenery a different appearance from other parts of the country. CHAPTER VI. The Kootenay district--Sawdust and Dynamite--Fine Sport in Vancouver--Harrison River and Lake--Big Fish in the Coquehalla--The Steel-head in the Fraser--Need for Better River Protection. There are other parts of British Columbia which afford good fishing. Excellent sport is still to be obtained in the Kootenay district, which can be reached from Revelstoke on the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Twelve years ago the fishing was unrivalled, especially on the Kootenay River. Very large bags could be got, though the fish were not quite as large as in the Thompson. But it is unfortunately true that since this district became a mining centre the fishing has been largely spoilt. Professional fishermen have fished for the market, sawmills have been allowed to empty their sawdust into the rivers, and probably alien miners and others have massacred wholesale with dynamite. In the coast district, of which Vancouver is the centre, there are plenty of rivers and lakes. This part of the country has a heavy rainfall, which causes a thick forest growth to cover the country and render the streams difficult or even impossible to fish, unless they can be waded. This is a drawback from which the upper country rivers are free. But, still, fine sport can be had in many rivers and lakes. The Harrison River affords excellent fishing as early as April. The fish run from 1lb. to 2lb., and take the fly freely. The river flows out of Harrison Lake to the Fraser at Harrison Station. It must be fished from a boat. Bags of thirty and forty fish are by no means uncommon. There is another river, whose name has escaped my memory, which is very good when low enough for wading, and flows into the Harrison Lake. The Hot Springs Hotel affords good accommodation. If the Fraser is crossed at Hope Station there is a little village on the other side where somewhat rough accommodation used to be obtainable. The crossing was formerly done in an Indian log canoe, a means of transport which one would hardly recommend to anyone of a nervous temperament, though perhaps now a boat may be used. A very beautiful river called the Coquehalla joins the Fraser at this place, which I used to fish in 1892. It consists of a series of fine pools and rapids for some distance, perhaps two or three miles, until an impassable canyon is reached, over which there is a natural bridge, and here, in the water below, immense trout may clearly be seen, though I know of no means of getting at them. At the time I fished this river, in July, the salmon were coming up, and I cannot say that my success was very great. I was, moreover, a stranger to the country, and could get no guide. Added to this, my tackle, experience, and skill were all of a very inferior order. But I found that the pools of this river contained very large fish, which were then to me quite unknown monsters, and I spent many long days on its banks in attempts to capture some. I used to try each pool first with the minnow and then with the fly, which was, of course, exactly the opposite of the right course. Several good fish of 5lb. or so were landed and many lost. On one occasion, as I was hauling in a small trout to remove it from my fly, I was startled by an immense fish which leapt out of the water at it, close to my feet. It must have been a fish of anything from 10lb. to 15lb. or more. It jumped high in the air, drenching me with spray as it fell back into the water. I supposed it to be a large salmon, but as a bright red stripe was clearly seen along its side I know now that it was a rainbow trout. Twice in this river small trout were seized as they were being drawn in, but each time the single gut was snapped off by the fish. The higher parts of the river were never tried by me, though once or twice I saw large strings of trout brought in by cowboys. No doubt at this time of the year the best fishing was in the upper waters. Probably the steel-head or sea-trout comes up the Fraser as far as the Coquehalla. Another stream called Silver Creek runs into the Fraser about three miles below Hope, and I had much the same experiences along its banks. It can only be fished when low enough for wading. I should much like to try these two streams again, as I am confident that some very large fish could be caught. It would be well worth trying the effect of a prawn, fished deep. A Silver Devon ought also to be effective. Personally this is the limit of my experience in British Columbia, but very good fishing is to be got in the Coquitlam and Capillano near Vancouver, and in the Stave and Pitt Rivers, which are a little further off. In all these rivers the steel-head can be got on the minnow, seldom, I believe, on the fly. It is hard to say how far the steel-head may run up the Fraser--probably at least as far as the Coquehalla at Hope, for up to this point there is nothing in the strength of the current to prevent it; but above, in the Fraser Canyon, the tremendous difficulties of the ascent may well stop its further progress. The steel-head has not developed the powerful tail and anal fin of the Pacific salmon, which must be a great aid to it in passing through such strong water for such immense distances. It may well be that the smaller tail of the steel-head renders it unfit for the effort. Otherwise, there would be no reason why it should not travel up the rivers as far as the salmon, just as the sea-trout does in European rivers. This is apparently not the case. The Fraser Canyon appears to be impassable to them, and they are only found in the lower tributaries of the Fraser and shorter coast rivers. The steel-head is the sea-going species of the rainbow; it is practically a silver rainbow, without the red stripe, which only appears faintly after it has been some time in fresh water. The steel-head is usually known as _Salmo gairdneri_, but in a recent letter Professor Jordan informs me that its correct name is _Salmo rivularis ayres_. He states that he has evidence to prove that the original _gairdneri_ was the "nerka," which is the sockeye or blue-back salmon. The smaller sizes take the fly readily under favourable circumstances, both in the salt water, at the mouths of rivers, and in the rivers themselves. The heavier fish of 7lb. and upwards are more often got on a minnow. Large ones up to 11lb. have been caught with the prawn in the basin under the falls of the Capillano. Though I am not prepared to say whether these fish were rainbow or steel-heads, the fact must be strongly insisted on that there is considerable difficulty in distinguishing between steel-head, rainbow, and the smaller salmon. In the case of the two former it is a matter of experience. The latter are easily known by the test of the anal fin and tail. Great confusion has been caused, and always will be, until proper care is taken. The Coquitlam, Capillano, and other rivers have been much overfished by legal and probably by illegal means. The sport used to be excellent, and would soon improve again under proper conditions. It would be an excellent thing if an anglers' club was formed in Vancouver, and part of the water preserved. If part of the water was thus properly treated, and a small hatchery put up, no doubt the fishing would soon be better than ever, while immense benefit would accrue to the remaining public water. This deplorable state of affairs is merely the natural result of the almost criminal neglect of the British Columbia Government to do anything to preserve the valuable sporting assets of the country. The Kootenay waters have suffered in the same way, as also some of the rivers near Victoria on Vancouver Island. The Dolly Varden trout is very plentiful in all these rivers. Some very fine bags of large fish have been made in the Squamish River in Butte inlet. On Vancouver Island there is good fishing, easily reached from Victoria. The Cowichan River and Lake are the best known. Steel-head and rainbow can both be got on fly and minnow. The flies used are even larger than those on the Thompson. Personally, I have never fished on Vancouver Island, but from all that I have heard I should say that sport is not so good there as on the upper mainland. CHAPTER VII. The Salmons of the Pacific--Legends Concerning Them--The Five Species--Systems of Migration--Powers of Endurance--Absence of Kelts--Do They Take a Fly?--Terrible Mortality--"A Vivid Red Ribbon"--Points of Difference Between the Quinnat and _Salmo salar_--Work of the Canneries--Artificial Propagation. No account of the fishing in British Columbia would be complete unless some mention were made of the salmon, though it is only in tidal water that they can be caught with the rod, and though in the upper country they are useless from the fisherman's point of view. The annual migration of the Pacific coast salmon is a wonderful thing, about which little has been written, and much requires to be learnt. To those who have seen it, the phenomenon is most striking, and has vividly impressed the western imagination, which revels in weird stories concerning it. Thus it is current report that the waters of Harrison Lake have been known to rise several inches from some unknown cause, only to be accounted for by the immense rush of salmon into its waters; that paddle-steamers have been stopped in the Fraser and at sea by the salmon armies; that the backs of the fish have made stepping-stones by which the Fraser has been crossed. These and similar stories are the folk-lore of British Columbia, and yet they are almost possible, so immense are the battalions of the salmon which swarm to the Fraser and other large rivers. It is an astonishing migration, full of interest and well worthy of study, not only to the naturalist, but to the student of social economy, as this migration is the source of an important food supply, and one of the chief industries of the country. There are fifty canneries established at the mouth of the Fraser, besides others further north, and between them they export annually millions of tins of canned salmon. The Pacific coast salmon in British Columbia comprise five species, all belonging to the genus _Oncorhynchus_ of the salmonidæ family. They are the king salmon or quinnat, a large fish running up to over 80lb., known also as the spring salmon; the silver and blue-back salmon, which are known as the cohoe and sockeye, and are the fish used by the canners; and the humpback and dog salmon, which are of little value, and only eaten by the Indians. The first named is the most interesting for the purpose of this book, as it is the fish which affords the famous sport at Campbell River. The silver and the blue-back only run to about 10lb. The two last are pale fleshed, and are hardly considered fit to eat. The king or tyee, quinnat, spring or chinook salmon (_O. tschawytscha_) is the most important from the sportsman's point of view, but owing to its occasional white or very pale pink flesh not so useful to the canner. It runs from about 15lb. to over 80lb.; fish of 50lb. are common, and some of 100lb. have been reported. It has sixteen rays in the anal fin. The back is blackish, and underneath it is not so bright a silver as the Atlantic salmon. It turns black and not red in the upper waters. The sockeye or blue-back (_O. nerka_) is the chief source of the cannery supply. The anal fin is long, with fourteen rays. The back is blue and the sides of a bright silver changing to a dark green and dull crimson in the upper waters. Weight from 3lb. to 10lb. Flesh a deep red. The cohoe, silver or fall salmon (_O. kisutch_) is also canned, weight 3lb. to 8lb., light green and silver in colour. The dog salmon (_O. keta_), 10lb. to 12lb. in weight, fourteen rays in anal fin. It is so called from the misshapen appearance of the head and teeth of the males at spawning time. Colour of a dark silver, turning black and reddish in the upper waters. The humpback (_O. gorbuscha_), the smallest of the family, 3lb. to 6lb. A hump appears just behind the head of the males at spawning time, fifteen rays in the anal fin. The flesh of these last two species is not much used. Of these fish the spring salmon appears first in the Fraser in the early spring, and progresses steadily up the river as far as it is possible to go, apparently keeping more up the main current and avoiding the Shuswap Lake to which the Thompson leads (at least it is very little noticed in that river), whereas the sockeyes swarm up it in great numbers. It does not seem to travel in large schools in these waters. A few arrive in Kamloops Lake during July, but it is never much in evidence in the Thompson River district. It is doubtless a very powerful swimmer. Professor Jordan points out that this and the other species are remarkable for the great number of developed rays in the anal fin and tail, which must aid the fish immensely in its long journey against the strong water of the Fraser. The progress of all these fish is made by steady travelling in the slacker water at the sides of the river. I have often watched them slowly making their way upwards in the clear water of the Thompson, one noticeable fact being that they do not rise much to the surface or ever leap into the air, like our own fish. In the lakes, and occasionally in pools of the Thompson, I have seen them roll over in the water, but never leap into the air. It seems not unreasonable to suppose that one reason for the leaping of the Atlantic salmon is because he is practising for the time when he will have to jump a difficult waterfall in the river he ascends. But in the inland lakes and rivers the Pacific salmon never leap, and, in fact, are seen but little on the surface. On the other hand the trout appear to leap quite as much as the European species. On Fish Lake the rainbows are leaping continually. The Pacific salmon has no skill in jumping, he merely swims on continuously; indeed, he appears perfectly incapable of negotiating the smallest waterfall. I have seen thousands of Pacific salmon stopped hopelessly by a fall which would not hinder a small European sea-trout. It may be that the tremendous nature of the journey already completed has robbed him of the energy necessary for leaping, but experience would lead me to believe that the Pacific salmon trusts to immense powers of endurance, which enable him to travel thousands of miles against a frightful current rather than to a short journey and one or two big jumps. This fact is certainly worthy of further investigation and note, in view of the introduction into British Columbia of the Atlantic salmon. There must be numbers of rivers barred to the Pacific fish which would be quite easy of access to the Atlantic. I doubt much if the quinnat could tackle an ordinary artificial salmon ladder, though there are undoubtedly numbers of streams in British Columbia which could be rendered navigable to _Salmo salar_ by such means. A small hatchery established on such a river might at once establish the European fish in these waters. On the other hand it is very doubtful if the present attempt to acclimatise _Salmo salar_ by the introduction of small fry into the Fraser can avail much. Few could hope to survive and compete with the countless myriads of the sockeyes, while it is doubtful if the Atlantic fish could ever make its way for hundreds of miles against the Fraser current. It is not fitted for a slow journey of weeks and even months, but rather for one of some few hours with a strong leap at the end which lands it at once in the destined pool or lake. There are two other points which will strike the fishermen in British Columbia waters. One is the absence of kelts at any time of the year. The other is the fact that, though the waters are often alive with young salmon, none are ever caught on the fly. The first point is explained by the fact that these fish die after spawning. There is no doubt that this is well established, though there is something to be accounted for--namely, the large specimens of each species, which must undoubtedly either be survivors of a former run or else fish which have stayed in salt water to a more advanced age. To take the example of a spring salmon of 80lb.; this fish would, in Europe, be reckoned as at least ten years old and probably a great deal more. Are we to conclude that such a fish has never been into fresh water before, or is it not more probable that he has only been in the habit of frequenting some lake at a short distance from the sea, and returning thence in time to escape death from exhaustion? The large specimens of the other species might also be accounted for in this manner. The second point is merely a fact, and does not require any explanation, except that it may have some bearing on the matter of the adult fish not taking the fly. I would not go so far as to say that these young fish have never been known to take a fly, but I never remember catching one myself, and they certainly do not take it as the salmon parr do in our waters. It is of course possible that many may be taken and supposed to be trout. But if such were the case, it would surely be more commonly known and noticed. Very little appears to be known of the habits of the young fish or the time they spend in fresh water before they go down to the sea. It has been a much debated question as to whether the British Columbia salmon takes the fly, and it may be stated once for all that it does do so, but only in tidal waters. In the up-country lakes and rivers it takes nothing, and those who may have seen its migrations will easily understand the reason. The fish have no time to feed or rest; they may be seen ceaselessly though slowly pressing on in the shallow water at the sides of the Fraser or Thompson, as if pressed on by the weight of those behind, impelled by some all-powerful desire to get to their journey's end, to spawn and die. None return, and the lakes and pools of the rivers are filled with corpses, on which bears, eagles, and all creatures which can eat fish are filled to the full. There is no time to look at bait of any kind, for it is a terrible journey through the rapid waters of the Fraser, and many fish show the marks of bruises and cuts, while few are in an eatable condition by the time they reach Kamloops Lake. This journey would seem to take them three or four weeks from the time they appear at the Fraser mouth, about 200 miles in distance. Anyone who has ever seen Hell's Gate, in the terrible canyon of the Fraser, and these millions of struggling fish slowly pushing their way upwards without a moment's rest, impelled by the _vis a tergo_ of the swarms behind, and each one anxious only to move forward, can easily understand how impossible it would be in such a struggle for mere existence that a fish should pause to take bait. Even in our own rivers running salmon practically never take. It is only when they have reached some pool or resting-place that they will look at a lure. But when these masses of fish emerge into the large lakes, the first comers must still be remorselessly driven on by the mass of those behind until the farthest limits and some impassable barrier is reached. I have never seen the spawning-beds myself. Jordan says they spawn in 1ft. to 3ft. of water in rivers like _salar_, but one can readily imagine the desperate struggle for existence that must go on as the swarms reach the grounds and fight for positions; while no doubt on their outskirts are small armies of trout and other fish eager to devour the eggs as soon as they are laid. As the salmon seem to pass right up to the headquarters (_cf._ Jordan) they would get beyond the _big_ trout. Probably it is here that their numbers protect them, the trout being unable to penetrate their close ranks until the eggs are laid and concealed in the gravel and death begins to be busy among the salmon. Possibly here, too, may be some protection, for doubtless the other fish prey on the dead carcases, which would be a more obvious food supply than the hidden eggs. This description of spawning-beds is mere imagination, as I have never met anyone who had seen them; but it is probably much exceeded by the reality. A short description of what I _have_ seen will help to realise what must take place on the spawning-beds. It must be noted that the salmon runs are in cycles. Every fourth year is a big run of sockeye, and when there is a small run of these fish there may be a big run of humpbacks or dog salmon. One year in the early nineties the Thompson presented a strange sight to travellers in the Canadian Pacific trains, though as the trains pass this part in the very early morning probably few saw it. The line here closely follows the river, and in the canyon rises to several hundred feet above it, so that a splendid view of the river is obtained. At this time, as seen from above, the deep blue water of the stream was bordered on each side by a vivid red ribbon, which when seen closer proved to be the array of sockeyes struggling up the side eddies in countless myriads. How long this lasted I cannot say, but I saw it several times on my professional journeys on the railway. It was a very wonderful sight. Every fish was about the same size, about 7lb. or 8lb., and all were deep red in colour. The time of year was about September. In 1901 I had occasion to go from Spence's Bridge to Nicola Lake in early September; the stage-route is along the banks of the river, which at that time was very low. A run of humpbacks was going on; the pools were black with them, and the shallows between the pools presented a most remarkable appearance; the water was only a few inches deep, and between the stones the humpbacks were slowly wriggling upwards in countless thousands, only half covered by the water. When the coach was high above the river they looked like an army of tadpoles blackening the river bed, their colour being almost black with a reddish tinge at the sides. The male fish alone has the curious hump well developed in the breeding season; it is situated just behind the head and is about 3/4in. high, resembling the hump of a camel; the female has only a very small one. At an Indian village which we passed two or three Indians were standing in the water armed with long gaffs with which they hooked the fish out and threw them to the squaws on the bank, who were cleaning, splitting, and hanging them up on long fir poles to dry in the sun. A rancher living near here informed me that he took the trouble to count the number on one pole and thereby estimate their total catch. I forget his figures, but believe it was several hundred thousand--a mere flea-bite to the total number of fish in the river, which must have run into millions. The fish were unable to get into Nicola Lake owing to a dam, and on my return journey, two weeks later, there was not a living fish to be seen, the pools being filled with dead bodies, and the awful stench of the river rising to heaven. It seemed to me a terrible waste that all these fish should die, but such is the fact, and it must be fortunate that they do not feed on their way or they would clean out a river like an army of locusts. What becomes of the trout during these invasions presents a curious problem, for the condition of the stinking river would seem sufficient to kill them unless they can escape to some lake. Possibly the trout flee upwards ahead of the serried ranks of the invaders with the view also of feeding on their eggs when they reach the spawning grounds. I have seen the bottoms of good trout pools black with salmon in certain rivers and have been told it was useless to fish them, and this fact I also verified; while other pools higher up and not yet invaded gave good fishing. These two instances will give some idea of the extraordinary invasions by the salmon of the British Columbia rivers as it presents itself in the Thompson district. At the coast the migration begins with the large spring salmon, the quinnat, which seem to appear off the mouth of the Fraser in January, and run up the rivers during April, May, and June before the sockeyes make their appearance, but never in such large numbers as the latter. Their migration is more like that of the Atlantic fish, which they also resemble in point of size. They are not so much used by the canneries, whose season does not begin till July, and are only caught for the local market, and by trolling with rod and line; these are the fish which chiefly provide sport in the tidal waters of British Columbia. As has been said they run up to 80lb. and over, and resemble our own salmon in general appearance, though they are not of such a bright silver colour, and are rather more heavy looking. The most obvious point of distinction is the large size of the anal fin and tail, which contain a great many more rays than those of our own trout and salmon. This point of distinction is common to all the five species of the Pacific coast salmon, and distinguishes them from the rainbow and steel-head, which are true salmonidæ. The flesh, especially in spring, is excellent eating, but possibly not quite so delicate as the Atlantic fish, and not so highly esteemed. Perhaps this is partly owing to the fact that salmon is so common and cheap, for a large fish can often be bought for a shilling or half a crown. I have seen an occasional large fish move in the Thompson early in July, but have never noticed them in the Kamloops Lake in any large numbers, though doubtless a certain proportion does come there. It would appear as if the large size and strength of this fish enables it to run earlier in the year and to stem the rivers when swollen by the melting snow in May and June; while the smaller sockeye times its appearance to coincide with the fall of the big rivers in July. It can hardly be a fact that the quinnat never returns to the sea, for if that were invariably the case, how could the large fish of 80lb., which must be of considerable age, be accounted for? It would not be difficult for a fish to return from a large lake like the Harrison, which is only some 50 miles or so from the Fraser mouth. It may be that if these fish get far up the Fraser, perhaps 500 miles or more from salt water, they may not have strength to return. Jordan says the spring fish run over 2000 miles in some rivers. But from spawning-grounds only distant a few miles they can easily return, as could also the smaller species, unless, which seems very unlikely, the act of procreation is fatal in itself. Still, the fact remains that I have never seen a kelt in British Columbia nor heard of one, nor does there seem to be any return stream of migration in winter or early spring, a feature which could not escape notice if it occurred to any considerable extent. Therefore if any fish return it must be only a few scattered individuals, not one in a million of the swarms seen passing upwards. The Indians along the Fraser catch these fish by standing on certain rocks with a large dip-net, by which they catch a considerable number as the fish pass upwards. In the first week of July or thereabouts the silver and blue-back salmon appear, and the canneries at the Fraser mouth begin work. This is the sockeye run, which is always very large, but varies in different years, every fourth year being an extra large one. Drift-nets are employed by a large number of boats, which may catch in one night thirty to eighty or more fish, for which they get about 15 cents. apiece from the canneries. The season lasts till about the end of August, when the run falls off, and is succeeded by the run of the humpback and dog salmon, which are of no commercial value. Indians, white men, and Japanese are employed, and the mouth of the Fraser is a scene of great activity, while on the American side large fish traps are employed in which many thousands of salmon are caught at one haul. The following will give some idea of the work of the canneries.:-- ANNUAL PACK FOR SIX YEARS. 1897 1,027,204 cases (48lb). 1898 492,657 " " 1899 765,517 " " 1900 606,530 " " 1901 1,236,156 " " 1902 625,982 " " The first news of the approach of the sockeye is generally brought to Vancouver or some other coast city by some sailing ship or steamer which has encountered them in the straits of San Juan or the Gulf of Georgia. Often strange stories are told of moving through a vast salmon army, perhaps seven miles broad and of unknown length, all heading straight for the Fraser's mouth, from their unknown feeding-grounds in the North Pacific. Wild as some of these tales seem, yet they are more or less true. For these immense shoals come through the San Juan Straits and head northwards up the British Columbian coast towards Alaska, while only a mere detachment enters the Fraser, a detachment of a few millions. And also if it be true that none return, they can have no leaders to show the way, but must retrace the route they took as smolts on their way from the river to the ocean, impelled by the sexual instinct to propagate the species. They appear to hang about the mouth of the Fraser for a short time, then advance upwards as far as it is possible to go, hundreds of miles into the interior, and up every stream which will permit of their progress, where they eventually spawn and die. The silver salmon and blue-backs run in separate shoals, and their respective names show the difference between them. Very handsome fish are they in spring, of a bright silver hue resembling a fresh run grilse, and about seven or eight pounds in weight. But they quickly become red, and in the upper waters of the rivers often present a far from healthy appearance, showing visible traces of their struggles with the rocks and whirlpools encountered in their ascent. This well-known red appearance is not, however, altogether due to the effects of the fresh water, for straggling late bands are described as entering through the Straits of San Juan in the autumn which are almost as red as their earlier fellows at that time in the upper waters of the Fraser. On the heels of the sockeye come the humpback and the dog salmon, about the same in size, and fine silvery fish before the breeding season sets in. But it is late in the autumn when they arrive, and their flesh is white and does not meet the demands of the market. The so-called hump is only present in the breeding season. An attempt was made to can and sell them as white salmon, but without success; though recently a market has been found in Japan, whither they are sent in the dried form. Japan, by the way, possesses a sixth species of _Oncorhynchus_, the masu, a fish resembling the humpback, but this is not known to British Columbian waters. Although an immense toll is taken by the canneries, yet the supply of fish still continues, assisted by the hatcheries which have been supplied by the Government of Canada, by whose aid it is hoped that the effects of over-fishing will be counteracted. For this hope there is considerable ground, as the fishing on the Columbia River has been restored by this means to something of its former condition. CHAPTER VIII. The Diplomat and the Salmon--The Struggle for Existence--Salmon and Steel-head Liable to be Confused--Sport in Tidal Waters--The Campbell River--The Pioneers--A River of Fifty-Pounders--Smaller Salmon on the Fly--Method of Fishing--Tackle--Typical Good Bags--The Steel-head--Cost of Fishing--Dangers of Over-Fishing for Canneries--A Good Trolling Time. Though much more might be written about the canning industry and the migration of the salmon, it is not material to the purpose of this book, and has only been touched on to show how it bears on the question of salmon fishing by rod and line; for it is often stated that the salmon does not take the fly in British Columbia, as if it were a personal matter and some perverse characteristic of the fish. There is another story very popular in the west, relating what happened at the time when the great fur companies held the country and were disputing and even fighting for its possession. The Imperial Government sent out some illustrious diplomat to report on the situation, and he described the country as of no value and so hopeless that "even the salmon would not take the fly." It is a tradition in British Columbia that on this ground the now flourishing States of Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Oregon were handed over to the Americans. The description given of the conditions under which the salmon migrate is intended to show reasons why the fish are unable to oblige the angler in this matter of taking the fly. These conditions are obvious. The desperate struggle for existence in an immense shoal of fish pressing upwards against the tremendous current of a river abounding in strong rapids and whirlpools; the length of the journey, several hundred miles in extent; the absence of any chance of resting owing to the pressure of the multitudes behind; and, finally, the state of exhaustion brought on by all these forces combined--these things must, and indeed do, reduce the fish to such a condition that its final energies are devoted to and exhausted by the propagation of its species. Even if enough vitality were left to make it take a bait, no sport would be obtained by the angler, and his sorry capture would be generally unfit for food. I have once or twice experimented by foul-hooking salmon in the tail in the Nicola River, but after one feeble rush the fish was easily hauled ashore even by light trout tackle, and returned to the water as entirely useless to anyone except an Indian. There is only one final conclusion to be drawn, that in the upper waters of the rivers and the inland lakes the salmon do not take the fly or any other bait, nor is there any case in which it has been even alleged that a salmon has ever been caught on the fly. Occasionally large silvery fish have been caught on spoon and minnow, but, in the absence of proof to the contrary, it is most probable that these fish are either large silver trout, rainbow, or steel-heads. Absolute proof of the capture of a salmon is still wanting, though it is quite possible that such a thing has occasionally taken place. The question of salmon taking the fly in the tidal waters is another matter, for there is not the least doubt that all the five different species have been taken in this manner; though possibly not so often as is stated, because the steel-head is a source of error, from its resemblance to the salmon. A fish of 15lb. is taken on the fly and the capture of a salmon is announced, on the strength of its weight and size; whereas, on inquiry, it is found that the fisherman is certain that it was a salmon, but can produce no evidence to prove that it was not a steel-head. It is not everyone who can tell the difference between a salmon and a steel-head on its mere appearance without counting the rays on the anal fin or tail, and until this simple proof is put to the test there will always be a doubt as to the frequency with which the salmon is taken on the fly. The size of the anal fin is so obvious a distinction of the Pacific salmon that I have often observed it in numbers of small fry caught for bait; the fin in a small fish two or three inches long resembles the wavy fan-like fins seen in the Japanese gold fish, and distinguishes it at a glance from the corresponding short fin of the young rainbow. A curious error of this kind occurs in Mr. Rudyard Kipling's well-known book, "From Sea to Sea," where he describes most enthusiastically a day's salmon fishing in California on the Sacramento, and his capture of numerous salmon on the fly. There is no doubt that his fish were steel-heads. There is enough evidence from various sources to show that the salmon take the fly in tidal waters, but it cannot be said that there is much to show that they do so very freely, especially in the case of the large quinnat salmon. But, on the other hand, the spoon bait is taken most greedily by all the different species. It may be that the fly has not been tried as much as it might have been, owing to the success of the spoon. The result is that at present trolling in these waters with this bait is the chief means employed, and has afforded sport unrivalled of its kind by any other part of the world. Very fair sport can be got in the Narrows near Vancouver or in the sea off Esquimalt or Oak Bay near Victoria. But the place which has of late years been distinguished by the most extraordinary salmon fishing ever heard of is the mouth of the Campbell River on the east coast of Vancouver Island. In the places first named, as also at the mouths of several well-known rivers, salmon and steel-heads may be caught by trolling and spinning, and occasionally with the fly. Thus seven or eight fish are no unusual bag in the waters near Victoria, but they are not usually of any very great size. The mouth of Campbell River appears to be the only place yet known where the big salmon can be caught in any large number, though it is quite possible that other places exist. This river has long been a fishing ground for the Indians, who trolled for the fish with a strong hand-line and spoon. The pioneers of this fishing among white men were Mr. G.P. FitzGerald and Sir Richard Musgrave, who made an expedition to these waters in the early nineties and camped at the mouth of Campbell River, also trying Salmon River and other places along the coast. They met with great success in the tidal waters off Campbell River, but practically drew a blank wherever else they tried. It was on this occasion that Sir R. Musgrave landed a 70lb. salmon, which holds the record in these waters. Since then an increasing number of fishermen have visited Campbell River, until of late years there have always been a few rods on the ground; and a small hotel has been put up. There is, however, not much fear of over-fishing, though the time is past when a fisherman could have the whole of the water to himself. There are sinister rumours of a cannery and fish traps to be established in the near future, and should these things come to pass then the fishing which has been enjoyed will become a mere memory and perhaps these pages its only record. Mr. FitzGerald always enjoyed his best sport under the guidance of an Indian and by employing the Indians' spoon, which is a plain silver spoon with a loose hook. The main aim was always the large 50lb. fish, smaller fish of 25lb. or so being regarded as a nuisance, and if possible shaken off the hook. The biggest catch was eight fish six of which were about 50lb. apiece; anyone familiar with salmon fishing will know that this is no small feat after allowing for fish hooked and lost, while it must be remembered that a fish of 50lb. may take over an hour to land. Sir Richard Musgrave's large fish of 70lb. took an hour and a half to land; it was a magnificent fish, the record salmon of the rod and line. A cast of it was shown at Farlow's, in the Strand, and also at Rowland Ward's, in Piccadilly, during the spring of 1897. The spoon fishing of the Namsen and other Norwegian rivers fades into insignificance beside such sport; two or more fish of over 50lb. were the average catch, besides more that were hooked and lost, while the numerous smaller fish were not considered worthy of notice. Mr. A. Duncan reports excellent success with the prawn, which he was the first to use, and it may be that with this deadly bait even larger fish might be obtained. He also reports that with a silver-bodied fly in the evening, but at no other time, he caught large numbers of salmon about 7lb. in weight, and could have filled a boat with them. He gives no absolute proof as to whether these fish were salmon or steel-heads, but it is his opinion that they were salmon. The fishing is done by crossing and re-crossing the small bay into which Campbell River flows, trolling from a canoe or small boat, the breadth of the water being about half a mile; the method is exactly like trolling in a Norwegian fiord just off the mouth of a river. It is a curious fact that no sport can be obtained in the river itself, which fully supports the contention put forth above that the Pacific coast salmon ceases to take as soon as it begins to run, the taking fish being those which are hanging about the mouth of the river preparatory to running up. There seems to be no instance of the very large fish taking the fly. There is no need to say much as to tackle, except that it should be strong and that there should be plenty of line. The native spoon can be obtained on the spot. Some fishermen prefer a large rod as better able to hold off a fish which runs under the boat; I should personally prefer a short, stiff, steel-centred rod such as Hardy's 12ft. Murdoch--a type of rod preferred by the Americans for yellow tail and tuna fishing. This kind of rod is much handier in a boat, and almost unbreakable. The following is a list showing some of the bags at Campbell River. Mr. A. Duncan in 1904. Tyee salmon, eighteen; weight, 810lb. Average, 45lb. Cohoes and tyee under 30lb., thirty-two. Total, fifty fish in eighteen days. Best day August 9th, 1904: Seven salmon, 56lb., 53lb., 52lb., 16lb., 12lb., 7-1/2lb., and 4lb. The eight heaviest fish: 50-3/4lb., 56lb., 53lb., 52lb., 52lb., 50lb., 48-1/2lb., and 48lb. Mr. Duncan says: Fish under 30lb. are counted as grilse. The cohoe salmon will take a fly; white with silver tinsel, I found best. They take in the sea at sunrise and sunset when they are jumping--in fact, more could be got in this way while they are actually jumping than by trolling, only they must be jumping and also fairly plentiful. I have got an odd one casting, but nearly all by trailing the fly. They give splendid sport on a light trout rod. The largest I got last year (1903) was 12lb. But they were not "running" this year, and I only got two of 7lb. each on the fly. Salmon are caught in Cowichan Lake (after ascending 30 miles of river); frequently I got one myself and saw others caught, though they are black and ugly. But I am told on absolutely reliable authority that great sport is had with tyee salmon (from 30lb. downwards) on the fly in the Cowichan River in the spring, and then only when the water is discoloured. They only take the fly sunk, and generally a leaded one is used. It is noteworthy that this peculiarity of only taking the fly when jumping is also common to the trout in the Shuswap and other large lakes in the interior. Also their favourable time is at sunrise and sunset. It might also be noted that Mr. Duncan makes no mention of the steel-head or sea-trout. This fish runs in the Cowichan River and Lake in the spring. The test of the number of rays in the anal fin and tail should be applied to all these fish. The sockeye does not appear to frequent Campbell River. The tyee and cohoe frequent the coastal waters of British Columbia. But the feeding ground of the sockeyes is some unknown part of the Pacific Ocean from which they migrate and enter the waters between the mainland of British Columbia and Vancouver Island in great shoals, through the Straits of San Juan. Even then their stomachs are empty and contracted, showing that they have already travelled some distance. Mr. Babcock, the Fisheries Commissioner of British Columbia, states in his report for 1903: "The first fish are reported from Otter Point. From Sherringham Point east their movement is clearly defined as they pass close in shore. They come in rapidly with the flood tides, at times close to the surface and breakwater; frequently during the last weeks of July and the first two weeks in August, in years of large runs, they show themselves plainly, a racing, leaping, bluish silver mass in the clear and rapid moving waters." Then they appear to strike the discoloured water of the Fraser, and follow it to the mouth of the river. In 1903, 2,948,333 sockeyes were delivered to the canners during the last two weeks of July and the month of August. The steel-head trout (_Salmo gairdneri_) is the anadromous form of the rainbow, bearing the same relation to it as our sea-trout does to the brown trout. It more closely resembles in form, colour of flesh, and habit the Atlantic salmon than any other form found on the Pacific coast. It spawns in fresh waters, and survives after spawning and returns to the sea. It feeds in fresh and salt water. How far it penetrates into the interior and up the Fraser is a matter of doubt. My own opinion is that it only goes as far as Hope, being unable to face the strong water in the Fraser Canyon, owing probably to the fact that it is not equipped with the powerful anal fin and tail of the Pacific salmon. It enters all waters near the coast, and is caught on the rod in the Stave and Pitt Rivers. I have never heard of one being caught on the Thompson. Trout fishermen in the coast rivers catch them with both fly and minnow. The following details of catches are quoted from an article which appeared in _The Field_ in December, 1905, from the pen of Mr. L. Layard. In 1904 twenty-four tyee weighing 1,004lb., average 41-1/2lb.; forty-three cohoes weighing 297lb., average 7-1/2lb. Best fish 49lb., 49lb., 50lb., 51lb., 53lb., 53lb., 55lb., and 56lb. He also states that he saw two fish of 60lb., landed. In 1905, for July and August, fishing for thirty-eight days: six hundred and eighty-eight salmon weighing 5,254lb. Best fish, 50lb. Best catches, thirty-six fish (275lb.) in five hours, forty-four fish (330lb.) in six hours. A Mr. J. Pidcock, fishing for his cannery from 3 a.m. to 9 p.m., in a dug-out, using two hand lines, caught 706 salmon. Mr. Layard speaks very well of the new hotel, and of a Mr. J. Thompson as boatman. He quotes the hotel charges as £2 a week and 2s. a day for a fine sea boat, and 12s. a day as wages for a boatman. He gives some interesting particulars of Campbell River itself, to which a trail is to be cut from the hotel. There seems to be good rainbow trout fishing for two miles in the river. The salmon are stopped by a waterfall, where there is a large pool 30 feet deep, in which tyee salmon, with humpback, cohoes, and trout, could be clearly seen. Mr. Layard could not induce them to touch anything from the bank, but a tyee of 18lb. was hooked on a spoon and lost two days afterwards by another man from a canoe. The Indians stated that such a thing as hooking a salmon in the river had never been heard of in their traditions. No mention is made of the steel-head, and there is no proof given that the above was not one of these fish. Mr. Layard was not equipped for fly-fishing, but believes that the cohoes would have taken the fly. An examination of these catches shows beyond dispute that there has never been such salmon fishing as this in any other waters, and fortunate indeed were those who first enjoyed it. Even yet the sport is there, as Mr. Layard shows, and perhaps may still go on for many years yet. In spite of adverse prophecies, possibly the cannery and fish traps may never be built, for the quinnat is mostly useful to the angler. Unfortunately nothing can be done to save this splendid piece of fishing unless all the land and foreshore rights were bought up by some philanthropist in the interests of sport, which is hardly within the bounds of possibility; whereas if an offer for these rights is made to the Government, for the purposes of fish-trap and cannery, a refusal is impossible. Let us hope and even pray that no cannery is ever built, and even if it is that it may soon be abandoned, for though I am myself a fly-fisherman and think that trolling is only a poor imitation of the real thing, yet in this place the great size and number of the fish make up for other deficiencies, fulfilling the desires of the most ardent salmon fisherman, and surely satisfying his wildest dreams. The fishing at Campbell River can be enjoyed from June to September, and steamers call there about twice a month on their way from Victoria to the north; formerly it was necessary to take a tent and provisions and camp out, but now accommodation can be got at the hotel. July and August are the best months. The best rod for Campbell River, as I have said, would be an 11ft. or 12ft. rod of the pattern of Hardy's Murdoch, a steel-centred split cane; the reel should carry at least 80yds. of line and 100yds. of strong backing; it would be well to carry a spare line. Traces and casts should be taken, but spoons could be got better on the spot or in Victoria. Tackle for fly-fishing might well be taken also. The Americans use at Catalina for tuna fishing a line called cuttyhunk line; it is very thin, light, and of tremendous strength. It is called "twenty-four strand" line; the strongest man could not break it with his hands, and yet it is not as thick as a salmon casting line. It makes splendid backing for a casting line, and as a trolling line it is absolutely unequalled. The size which will make good backing for a trout line is nine strand, and is very hard to break with the hands. Twenty-four strand is unbreakable; it only succumbs to the mighty tuna when the whole line is run out. Another advantage is that it is absurdly cheap, a 1,000 yard tuna line only costing £1. Three or four hundred yards would go on an ordinary salmon reel and would form a splendid trolling line. If I remember rightly, they use twelve strand line for yellow tail fishing at Catalina, and consider it quite strong enough. The yellow tail is a mackerel running from 25lb. to 60lb., and is believed to be stronger and fiercer for its size than the tuna. The cuttyhunk line is, however, absolutely useless for anything except trolling; it is far too light for casting a fly or even for throwing a minnow or any other kind of bait. It must also be well waxed with a piece of ordinary yellow beeswax to prevent it rotting, because it has no kind of dressing or protection from the effects of water. It would need waxing at least twice a week. I have never seen this line except in California, though it can probably be obtained anywhere in the United States. In my opinion it is far superior in strength to any of our English lines for trolling, while the price of a sufficient length for ordinary purposes would be about half a crown. It is more than probable that other rivers will become known before long where the fishing may rival that of Campbell River. The sea coast of British Columbia stretches far to the north, and most of it is absolutely unknown to the fisherman, while even further north still there are canneries on the coast of Alaska. I have seen salmon in Dawson City which looked quite fresh run and had been netted in the Yukon; also grayling which had been caught on the fly in the Klondike River. If ever the present known rivers of British Columbia are fished out, there is surely an inexhaustible supply further north. There can be no question but that the Grand Trunk Pacific will in a few years open up a new country of lakes and rivers, in which the sport should be at least as good as those already known. The fishing at Campbell River is apparently not confined to the mouth of the river--at least in good seasons--as Mr. Layard speaks of fishing up and down both sides of the strait from Seymour Narrows to Cape Mudge lighthouse, a distance of 12 miles. A grant from the Government has been made for a pier to be built at Campbell River, enabling all steamers to call there, which will render it more easy of access. CHAPTER IX. Recapitulation of Salmon and Trout Problems--Importance of Preserving British Columbian Fisheries--Possibility of Introducing Atlantic Salmon--Question of Altering Present Close Season for Trout--Past and Present Neglect of Trout Fisheries--Need for Governmental Action--Difficulties in the Way of It--Conclusion. It will be very evident to those who have read the foregoing chapters that there is a great deal to be learnt about the fish that inhabit the British Columbian waters, and that several interesting problems require solving. These facts should render the greater interest to the fishing. The salmon perhaps present the most difficult questions, for their life-history is evidently almost unknown. Their eggs germinate in the hatcheries, and the fry are turned out into the lakes, but from that moment to the time they return from the sea their movements are unknown. It is not known at what age they seek the salt water, nor at what age they return; while in the case of the sockeye their feeding grounds in the Pacific are an unsolved mystery. The most interesting trout problem is the identity of the silver trout of the Kamloops and the Okanagan Lakes, whether it is a distinct and new species, or merely a variety of the rainbow. The identity and life-history of the small silvery fish which runs from the Nicola, Anderson, and other large lakes into the small streams ought to be a matter of some interest. This fish has been alluded to as a miniature sockeye. It certainly presents the curious phenomenon of a sockeye run in miniature from the deep waters of the lake into the small streams, where it also turns red and spawns. It does not seem to be known whether it also dies after spawning. It certainly takes no bait of any kind. In concluding this most imperfect attempt to give some slight idea of the fishing in these waters, it is certainly not out of place to allude to the immense importance and necessity of preserving the fishing for the future. It is but lately that the British Columbian Government seems to have awakened to the great importance of its fisheries, and even yet it seems but little to appreciate the actual value and even more perhaps the potential value of its inland waters from a sporting point of view. It is almost superfluous to point out, in illustration, the value of the sporting rights of the rivers of Norway and Scotland and their large annual rental. The value of the British Columbian rivers in this respect is at present only small, serving merely as an attraction to a few visiting anglers from England and the States, and a fishing ground for the residents of the country. But even so they form one of the chief attractions of the country, and will undoubtedly become more important, while their potential value if the Atlantic salmon could be introduced is hard to estimate. The evidence brought forward tends to show that the Pacific fish is fitted for long journeys entailing more endurance and greater swimming powers than the Atlantic fish possesses, but that the latter can leap small waterfalls which are impassable barriers to the former. One fish is a long distance runner, the other is a hurdle racer. This fact is fully worthy of further investigation and thought. It might lead to important results. By introducing small hatcheries which would only cost a few pounds on suitable streams, the Atlantic fish might be introduced in a few years. Salmon ladders might be placed round falls which this fish could easily surmount, though they would be impossible to the Pacific species, and by this means numerous useless streams could be turned into valuable salmon rivers. From the lease or sale of such rivers the Government would reap a handsome reward. The Atlantic fish would probably have no difficulty in holding its own in the sea; for the shoals of herring and oolachan would afford an ample food supply. Large silvery fish have been caught, as has been said in a former chapter, in a certain part of the Shuswap Lake by surface trolling, whose exact identity is not well established, though they are probably silver trout. Also many silvery fish have been caught lately on the minnow at the mouth of the Nicola River where it joins the Thompson at Spence's Bridge. These fish have been alleged to be salmon, though no proof has been given that they are such. They have always been caught late in the autumn, at which time all salmon would be red and out of condition. These fish might be steel-heads, but it is far more probable that they are silver trout, collecting at the mouth of the Nicola preparatory to running up it for spawning purposes. It is quite certain that very large rainbow and silver trout inhabit the deep pools of the Thompson, but as yet no one appears to have captured any of very large size on the rod. Possibly if the pools were tried later in the fall, when the river has become low, by deep fishing with live or dead bait, or the prawn, some very large fish might be landed. The best time to attempt this fishing would be after the present close season on October 16th or very early in the spring as soon as the ice has gone. It is thought by the local anglers that the present close season might well be extended for another month or so, to the middle of November. For in October the rainbow are in splendid condition and show no signs of spawning. Conversely, the spring season might be delayed, as many stale fish can be seen in May and even in July. It is quite certain that the rainbow spawns very late in the year, and further inquiry into this question is needed. It is unfortunate that trout have had little but nominal protection in British Columbia. Their best protection has hitherto been natural conditions and the social condition of the country--many fish and few fishermen. For in a new and sparsely settled country there is no wealthy leisured class who have much time to devote to fishing. Also many rivers and lakes have been difficult of access. But these conditions cannot last; they have changed much in the last ten years and are now changing still more, in some districts not without more or less disastrous results. Vancouver City has now grown to be a large place with some forty thousand people, and the fine fishing of the Coquitlam and Capilano is almost a thing of the past. The Kootenay mining district has been opened by railways, and the once phenomenal fishing at Slocan Falls and round Nelson has immensely fallen off; report says that here it has been ruined by market fishing or worse, and in other parts of the province saw mills have been allowed to dispose of their waste in the rivers, and dynamite has been used for other purposes than mining. And though the white man is liable to be occasionally pulled up by the law, the Indian is apparently allowed to use spear, net, and salmon roe without any interference. The same remarks apply generally in the same way to the protection of large or small game. The Nemesis which has fallen on many of the States of the Union will undoubtedly overtake British Columbia unless the Government fully rouses itself to the urgency of the matter before it is too late and before these invaluable assets of the province have passed away for ever. Many States of the Union have enacted too late the most stringent game laws, and have spent vast sums in vain attempts to restore what British Columbia still possesses and which could be so easily retained at but a trivial expense and by the exercise of a little foresight and trouble. For some years small societies for the protection of game and fish have existed in Vancouver, Victoria, and Kamloops, and, with most praise-worthy perseverance in a good cause, have attempted to rouse public opinion and stimulate the Government to take action. And it would appear that at last their pertinacity has met with some measure of reward, for the Government has appointed a head game-warden for the whole province and local wardens for different districts. This method of game preservation has been employed for many years in the older parts of Canada and is in vogue in California, Montana, and probably all the States. If properly carried out it should be of great benefit to British Columbia. In the past, unfortunately, whenever the question of game protection was brought up in the Provincial Parliament, the ridiculous cry of "class legislation" was always heard, generally raised by some labour member. It should be quite clear to anyone that an efficient game law and efficient provision for carrying it out will preserve sport for everyone equally. The poor man is just as fond of fishing as the rich, when he can get it; and the sacred fire burns as brightly in both peer and peasant. But the rich man can buy a river or a tract of land and preserve it for himself; and this he can do just as easily, and far more cheaply, in British Columbia than in Norway and Scotland. Therefore the best way is to preserve the game and the fish, so that there may be sport for all, rich and poor alike. As they say in California, "preserve it for the people and by the people." For unless this is done and proved effectual, the time will soon come when the wealthier people will form clubs for both shooting and fishing, and private game preservation will close gradually the free waters of the province. There have been other obstacles to proper protection. A most mischievous and, I am firmly convinced, most false argument on the part of the salmon canners has often been alleged as a strong reason why no protection should be given to trout and why the law of the province should be disregarded. The canners state that the trout are the salmon's worst enemies, destroying both eggs and young. There is, of course, no question as to the truth of this accusation. But the reasoning deduced from it is wrong. It is quite impossible to destroy all the trout in the British Columbia waters; and if it were not, no possible advantage would be gained by so doing, because, by the inexorable laws of the survival of the fittest and of supply and demand, the position of the trout would be occupied by other fish which prey on the eggs and young of the salmon. The decrease of trout would be supplied by an increase in the numbers of the squaw fish and various species of char which are just as bad enemies of the salmon. Both the Federal and Provincial Governments are afraid to prevent the Indians from taking fish or game in or out of season or to interfere in any way with their usual methods of procuring them for food. The Federal Government is the worst offender, because it erroneously believes that if the Indians were in any way curtailed in their food supply, the Government might have to supplement the want by rations, and thus be put to great trouble and expense. It is as well to note that the Indians are under control of the Federal Government. On the other hand the Indians are amenable to the laws of the Province, except under certain conditions on their own reserves, which in British Columbia are very small, generally merely a few acres. The Provincial Government is, however, naturally unwilling to act in opposition to the wishes of the Federal power. This attitude of the Federal Government is based on ignorance of the actual conditions in British Columbia. The Indians of the province are self-supporting and very good workers, having long ceased to depend on hunting and fishing for their livelihood. They differ most essentially from the Blackfeet and Crees of the plains. The British Columbian Indian is quite capable of understanding the fact that it is inadvisable to kill game or fish during the breeding season. Except, perhaps, in the most remote parts of the province, he should be promptly taught that he is just as much liable to penalties under the Game Act as the white man. It would take a very short time to enforce the lesson, and until it is done no Game Act will ever be really efficient, because the white man will never respect and keep a law which is not enforced on Indian and white alike. This small volume is merely intended to give some idea of the fishing in British Columbian waters, from facts gathered in twelve years' experience of the province. It probably contains errors of commission, perhaps, as well as of omission, and makes no claim to be authoritative in scientific detail. But at least it contains some of that strange fish lore which can be only gained on the river bank and by intercourse with others of the same craft. It fairly represents what is at present known among the fishermen of the province, with almost all of whom I am personally acquainted. It is my sincere hope that someone better qualified will, in the near future, deal more ably with the subject. The ordinary Englishman often appears to be under a strange delusion that British Columbia is situated in a part of the world which he vaguely alludes to as South America, and it is somewhat curious that the country is not better known, for it is a glorious land of great mountains, forests, streams, and rolling hill, in which game and fish are very plentiful, with a climate and conditions of life peculiarly suited to Englishmen, especially those who have the instinct of sport. An attempt has here been made to describe the fishing; but there is also fine big game shooting, for the interior fastnesses of Vancouver Island are the home of thousands of that finest of the deer tribe, the wapiti; in the northern forests and the mountains moose, sheep, goat, and bear are numerous; everywhere the large mule deer is common; ducks and geese abound in the waters. The soil of the valley is very fertile; gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, and coal are among the natural products; there is an inexhaustible supply of the finest timber in the world. Surely British Columbia is a splendid jewel--still rough-hewn and uncut, it may be, but one which will yet shine forth as one of the brightest stars in the Imperial diadem. CHAPTER X. TUNA FISHING AT AVALON, SANTA CATALINA ISLAND. I go To the island-valley of Avilion; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea. _The Passing of Arthur._ The lines placed at the head of this chapter are in many ways not inappropriate to Santa Catalina Island, with its little village of Avalon, though meadows and lawns are somewhat conspicuous by their absence. For there can be little doubt that the name is connected with the Arthurian legend, and must have been brought to this far-off land by the early Spanish monks 200 years ago. No doubt the peaceful silence of the island and the deep blue of the summer sea reminded one of them of some island in distant Spain, where the great king is still sleeping. To quote "Fiona McLeod":-- This tradition is found among every European people. Where is Joyeuse Gard? Some say it is in the isle of Avillion off the Breton shores; some say it is in Avalon, under the sacred hill of Glastonbury. Arthur himself has a sleeping place (for nowhere is he dead, but sleeps, awaiting a trumpet call) in "a lost land," in Provence, in Spain, under the waters of the Rhine. The Californians have fortunately retained many of their beautiful Spanish names, instead of changing them into Anglo-Saxon vulgarisms. It is surely far better for a town to be called Los Angeles, Pasadena, or San Francisco, than Southville or Jacksonville. Coronado beach and El Plaza del Rey, the playground of the king, are ideal names for a watering-place. The island of Catalina lies 24 miles off the coast of California opposite Los Angelos. About 30 miles long, and situated so as to act as a barrier against the Pacific swell and the prevailing winds, it forms, with the opposite coast, a kind of large bay or sheltered piece of water, which is always smooth. It is only very occasionally in the winter that a nor'-wester blows into it. It is for this reason, and this alone, that Catalina is the only place suitable for tuna fishing, though there are other islands which this fish frequents. The island was bought by an Englishman named Banning for a sheep ranche, and has been turned into a summer resort by his two sons; being owned by Banning Brothers and Co., who claim sovereign rights over the whole island, and have hitherto upheld them in spite of several legal battles with the United States. No boat can land without their permission, and the United States post-office is built below high-water mark. There is wireless communication with the mainland, and a boat arrives every day. There is a very good hotel, and the climate is most equable, neither cold in winter nor hot in summer, being quite free from the sudden changes so prevalent in other parts of California. Early in April I noted the thermometer to be 64° at mid-day and 63° at midnight. I found Catalina to be the pleasantest winter resort in California, much quieter than the others, while there is always some fishing, even though the tuna do not arrive till summer. Unfortunately, the tourists and the tuna arrive about the same time, the latter usually appearing in June and the former coming in July and August. Arrangements are made by which the little town of Avalon is turned into a "tent city," in which some ten thousand people are accommodated in tents. This naturally makes the island for two months a very different place from what it is for the rest of the year. Several steamers arrive and depart daily loaded with excursionists. The fisherman who intends to try for tuna will have to put up with inconveniences of this kind, but if he arrives early he can employ himself while he is waiting for the tuna to arrive, by trying for yellow-tail, albicore, bonito, and barracouta. The first three are all species of mackerel. The last named can often be caught in large quantities, but gives little sport. All are got by trolling a small herring. The yellow-tail is well spoken of by the tuna fishermen as being for its size even stronger than the tuna. It is fished for with a lighter rod and 12-ply line. I shall give a description of tuna tackle later; the tackle used for yellow-tail resembles it in general character, but is much lighter. The fish is a handsome mackerel of a dull silvery colour, tinged with yellow, which becomes more marked towards the tail. I saw several landed of about 25lb., but did not get one myself. The largest on record is 56lb.; from 40lb. to 50lb. is not an uncommon weight. The albicore is another mackerel, blue above, and silver below, with a curious long pectoral fin on each side, about a foot in length. The fish are found in shoals and can be got in large numbers when the angler can find one of the shoals. I believe it is usual to attract the shoal by throwing small herring astern, and when this is done a fish can be hooked at almost every throw. Those I saw landed were about 25lb. The bonito is like a large horse mackerel, and is fished for in the same manner as the albicore. There are many other fish that can be got by fishing deep with a bait, notably the black sea-bass, which is caught up to 400lb. There is little sport to be got out of it, except what is afforded by hauling in a fish of such immense weight. All these fish are good to eat. In my experience, better sport with all these fish can be obtained at Coronado beach than at Catalina Island, but tuna cannot be caught there, though they are known to frequent the Coronado Islands. These islands are too much exposed for the use of the small tuna launches. There are about 7,000 wild goats on the island, and leave can be got from the Bannings to shoot them, but it is not a very high form of big game shooting. They are the descendants of some tame goats which were turned out by the Spaniards for the benefit of shipwrecked sailors, though it is not known exactly how the sailors were going to catch them. However, some amusement might be got in this way till the tuna arrive. There is also a nine-hole golf course. The launches used for this fishing are very light, built for two or three men, and fitted with gasoline engines. The best are pointed at bow and stern, so as to go equally well in either direction. There are a few private ones, and some of the public ones are retained by fishermen so as to be ready when the tuna may appear. It might be well for any fisherman to see that a launch is available if the fish should suddenly arrive. Though the tarpon and tarpon fishing are fairly well known, very little seems to be known in England about the tuna, and though I cannot speak from personal experience, it would seem that the sport afforded by the tuna is certainly equal to, if it does not far surpass, that given by the tarpon, in the size, strength, and fighting qualities of the fish. All the information here given was collected during a visit to Catalina, during which period the tuna, unfortunately, did not put in an appearance. Tuna fishing is of only very recent date, for though the fish was caught by bait on strong hand-lines by local fishermen, it was only in 1896 that the first tuna was caught on a rod and line, and since that time the numbers caught have not been very many. But little seems to have appeared in the English sporting papers and magazines about the tuna. And it would appear to me that anyone who reads the accounts given here will be obliged to admit that this fish must afford the greatest and most exciting sport that can be enjoyed by the bait fisherman. It is a most formidable antagonist and one whose capture may be looked on with just pride. Even the number of those who have landed a tuna is very small; and very few Englishmen are members of the Tuna Club. The tuna fishing at Catalina is carried on under the auspices of the Tuna Club, an American institution which has an excellent object, namely, to protect the tuna and to see that as far as possible its capture is effected in a sportsmanlike way. For anyone can, of course, capture a tuna with a wire rope, and haul him in by main force; but to capture a tuna under the rules of the Tuna Club is a different matter. According to these rules, the rod must be not less than six feet nine inches long, and must not weigh more than sixteen ounces; the line must be not more than twenty-four strands cuttyhunk; and the fisherman must land his fish with unbroken rod and tackle, and without any aid, except that of his boatman as gaffer; and the said fish must weigh 100lb. or over. On achieving this feat in the prescribed manner the angler is eligible as a member of the Tuna Club, and his fish is entered in the books. Englishmen might naturally object to any arbitrary rules as to the way in which they conduct their sport, but the Tuna Club makes no arbitrary claim. Any one may fish how or where he pleases, and need not aspire to membership unless he wishes to. The aim and object of the club is simply to set up a standard, and, by a kind of moral influence, inculcate sportsmanlike methods in the capture of the fish, in circumstances, where, by the nature of the case, no forcible means of protecting the fish are available. With such an object no real sportsman should quarrel. The tuna is an immense mackerel, and its general build and shape show capacity for great speed and strength. The largest caught in the annals of the Tuna Club is 251lb., but far larger fish have been hooked and lost. Fish over 1000lb. have been captured by other means, while it is probable that the weight may in some cases run up to nearly 2000lb. The tuna is gregarious and visits Catalina from June to September in large shoals, when the flying fish, which seem to be its favourite food, also appear. In the winter it probably goes south along the coast of Mexico. A shoal is sometimes seen quite early in February or March, but as a rule they do not appear till the middle of May at the earliest, and, even when they do appear at this time, they do not stay long. The rod and tackle are very important. The American tuna rod is an excellent piece of workmanship. It is made in two pieces, the tip and the butt. The tip, according to the rules of the Tuna Club, must not be less than 6ft. long, and fits into the butt just above the reel. It is made of split cane, but with no steel centre, and is very strong and stiff, bending a little only to the very strongest pull. The butt is built very stoutly, and there is no regulation as to its length, but it is usually about a foot and a-half long, and in fishing is allowed to rest in a hole under the fisherman's seat, so that the rod is controlled with the left hand alone, leaving the right free. The advantage of such a stiff rod lies in the fact that a very strong strain can be put on the fish. It could easily be tested, and I should imagine that a strain of ten pounds could be maintained, increased to considerably more in the case of a tired fish. With a salmon rod a strain of about three pounds is the utmost that can be maintained. The cost of such a rod is some £3, or $15, and it can be bought in New York, or in Catalina Island, or Los Angeles. The reel is also very important, and also costs 15 dollars, for it must hold 1000 yards of line. The winder is of the winch form with two handles, for tuna fishermen maintain that they must have this form to enable them to reel in with sufficient force, thus getting some command over the line. The cylindrical knob of our salmon reel is universally condemned. To the reel is attached a strong piece of leather which can be pressed down by the thumb on the line so as to act as a brake, and is very simple and efficient. The line is a peculiarly American production, known as cuttyhunk line, made of flax, immensely strong, very light and cheap. I know of no line so suited to its purpose, or which, as I have said before, forms such excellent backing to a trout or salmon line. The regulations of the Club provide that the line must not be more than 24-ply, which is about equal in thickness to a not very strong salmon trolling line; 9-ply is about the size of a trout line. The 24-ply line practically cannot be broken by the strongest man, and stands a dead strain of considerable amount. It is also remarkably cheap. A tuna line of 1000 yards costs 5 dollars, and since they are often broken, this quality is a very excellent one. The lightness of the line and its thickness are both, too, very good qualities when several hundred yards are out, and cutting the water at great speed. The line is prepared and kept in good preservation by being rubbed with common yellow beeswax, and by being dried after use. The tuna rods, reels, and lines, which I saw at Catalina, seemed exceedingly well adapted for their purpose, and were most efficient without being expensive. It was earnestly impressed on me to be sure to obtain the best tackle, and to have a spare rod and reel and several lines in the boat. Great care should be taken of the tackle, and also to see that everything is in good order, as the fish is a most formidable antagonist, and the slightest hitch or weakness will end in an immediate disaster. To the end of the line is attached a large hook with a herring as bait. Formerly the flying fish was considered to be the only bait which the tuna would take, and they were not always easy to get, but it has lately been found that the herring is as good. At first the fishing was carried on from a launch trailing a row-boat behind, which the fisherman entered as soon as a tuna was hooked. In this way the fish was more easily followed, but the boat being often unable to move quickly enough, was at the mercy of the tuna, and was practically towed in all directions. Nowadays, a vast improvement has taken place by the introduction of small, smart-looking gasoline launches, the best being pointed fore and aft, moving quickly in either direction, so that the fish is followed rapidly, or run away from when it suddenly turns and rushes towards the boat. The boatmen are smart fellows, and are mostly registered on the books of the Tuna Club. £2 a day is the charge for a day's fishing, including launch and tackle. The tuna may arrive at the beginning of June in large shoals, pursuing the flying fish, though the date of their arrival is uncertain; but about this time, or even earlier, the tuna fishermen appear at Avalon and await the appearance of the fish. One of the attractions of this sport is the fact that it is done on sight, so to speak; there is no dreary trolling aimlessly about, half asleep under a hot sun. No one goes tuna fishing unless the fish are seen, because it is absolutely useless; failing a sight of them a small gathering of men collects in Avalon who lounge about the hotel and beach. The true tuna man does not as a rule care much for any lesser sport, but awaits the coming of the fish he is after. A watchman is kept on the cliffs by the Tuna Club, who signals their arrival. Owing probably to their habit of pursuing the flying fish, the tuna make themselves visible at a considerable distance by their constant leaps in the air. It is owing to this fact that they are locally known as the "leaping tuna." The shoals are often very large, probably numbering several thousand fish. The signal of their arrival often causes a scene of considerable excitement in Avalon; the cry of "tuna" is taken up by the boatmen from the watchman on the cliffs, and there is a wild rush in small boats for the launches at anchor in the bay. Sometimes before tackle is in readiness and launches got under way, the tuna shoal sweeps right into the little bay of Avalon, chasing the flying fish in every direction. It can easily be imagined that such a sight is calculated to fire the blood of the most phlegmatic of fishermen, and, the Western American being by no means a stolid individual, the effect must be somewhat startling. As soon as possible the launches put out and commence trolling across the shoal and wherever the tuna show themselves. It is by no means, however, certain that the fish are in a taking mood, though in such circumstances it is probable that some fish will strike, but it is by no means uncommon to troll thus across and across a shoal of the fish without a single strike being made. On the other hand, sometimes they will take most freely. It must not be supposed that hundreds, or even dozens, of launches thus put off after the tuna; it is more likely that half-a-dozen or ten would be about the number. If the shoals stay near Catalina, there will soon be a few more as the news becomes known on the mainland. The tuna takes much as a salmon takes a minnow, and goes off with a tremendous rush, which sometimes continues until there is little of the 1000 yards of line left on the reel. It is impossible to touch the reel except at the risk of cutting the fingers. The fisherman sits facing the stern of the launch, with the butt of his rod fixed in a hole under his seat. If little line is left, the fisherman may put on the leather brake hard down, and try to enable the fish to break his line; or else wait until the end comes, and chance a damaged reel or rod. Unless he has a spare rod or reel in the boat, the former course is the best. It is thought that this course of events, which is by no means rare, is caused by the hooking of a very large fish. If a fish of about 100lb. is hooked, his usual tactics are either a series of lightning rushes, which must be followed by the steersman, who must be as quick to go astern as to go forward, or else the fish goes off at tremendous speed a few feet below the surface. The tuna never jumps like the tarpon when hooked, he either rushes along below the surface or goes deep. There are 2000 fathoms of water round Avalon. His mouth is not hard like the tarpon, and the hook therefore goes well in; he apparently knows that he cannot shake it out by leaping in the air. Sometimes the hook tears out, but most fish are lost by breakage. It is perhaps more by the skill of the steersman and the quickness of the launch than by the merit of the fisherman that the capture is effected. When beaten, the fish is gaffed. Many tall stories are told in Avalon of adventures with tuna, though many of them probably happened when the fish was pursued in a rowing boat. In the launches now in use the fisherman has a better chance. The small boats were towed by the fish at their will. It is reported that on one occasion a boat was towed over to the mainland during the night, and was off Avalon again in the morning. Mr. F.V. Ryder, the Secretary of the Tuna Club, informed me that he went off with provisions to a launch that had been engaged for seven hours with a tuna, and found the boatman in charge of the rod, owing to the complete exhaustion of the fisherman. He returned again seven hours afterwards, and found the boatman still struggling with the fish, which was nearly beaten. At the boatman's request, he gaffed the fish, which went off with the gaff and was lost, owing to the hook tearing away. The fish was the largest he had ever seen hooked, appearing to be probably 400lb. or 500lb. Mr. Ryder informed me that he had landed six tuna in one day, and also in one day had lost no fewer than five lines, and had broken a rod and a reel. He stated that he believed only ten per cent. of the fish hooked were ever landed, and that he would not back himself to land more than 25 per cent. of fish hooked. At the same time he pointed out that many who come to Avalon are by no means skilled fishermen. The number of fish landed in a season from June to September is by no means large; the best year produced 125, one year 75, another only 50, and last season (1905) but 12 were landed and not one over 100lb. There are several other islands off the coast of California which are known to be visited by the tuna, but the waters round them are too much exposed to the Pacific swell for the use of the small launches which are necessary for tuna fishing, and therefore the waters round Catalina are the only place at present known where this sport can be followed. It is not known where the tuna go in the winter, but it is quite possible they might be found along the coast of Lower California, a province of Mexico which stretches south from the lower boundary of California, separated from the mainland by the Gulf of California. It is an almost uninhabited country and it struck me that the tuna might well be discovered among the numerous islands and sheltered waters which one finds along its coasts in the winter months, especially as the climate is much warmer. The tuna do not stay permanently round Avalon even during the summer; sometimes they may stay for weeks, at others only a few days. This is probably entirely dependant on the movements of the flying fish. An American who had caught both tarpon and tuna informed me that he considered the latter fish to afford far the best sport. Catalina Island can be reached from New York in about four days, a ticket should be taken to Los Angeles by the Southern Pacific Railway: from which place there is daily communication. I should strongly advise the fisherman to buy his tuna tackle in New York, certainly not in England; English tackle makers are as yet completely ignorant concerning tuna fishing. This advice does not apply to tarpon. I might mention that Mr. Ryder spoke strongly to this effect. It is quite worth mentioning that the season for tarpon in Florida is much earlier than the tuna season, so that any one wishing to try for tuna might first fish for tarpon in April, May, or June, and cross the continent at the end of the latter month to Catalina Island, which could be reached from New Orleans in four days. This chapter is not intended as a full or accurate description of tuna fishing, but merely to bring the sport before the notice of English fishermen to whom it may hitherto have been almost unknown. It is quite impossible to write a good account of fishing when one has only seen the fishing grounds and not actually engaged in the sport itself. But it may be that others may be encouraged from what I have said to try their luck, and that these short hints on the tackle and locality will be useful. There have been some reports that the tuna have ceased to come to Catalina, being driven away by the naphtha launches, owing to their noise and the oil spread over the water by them. The chief foundation for this seems to be the fact that only twelve tuna were landed in 1905 and no big ones in 1906. It is much more probable that the non-appearance of flying fish or herring was the real cause. A bad season or two may occur in any kind of fishing. The water round Catalina is practically part of the Pacific Ocean and could not be fouled by a few small launches. Nor could their presence affect the immense shoals of flying fish and herring. It is well-known locally that the latter fish do not appear until the temperature of the water has risen several degrees above that of winter, and it is much more likely that some climatic reason has affected the yearly migration. The tuna will no doubt appear again as usual at Catalina. THE YACHTING and BOATING MONTHLY. _A High-Class Illustrated Magazine Published by "The Field" on the 1st of each Month._ A MAGAZINE of WATER SPORTS, and the Largest Illustrated Periodical devoted to any One Sport in the World; containing Special Articles by the most Eminent Writers on the following Subjects:-- DEEP SEA CRUISING. YACHT BUILDING AND DESIGNING. RACING. MARINE MOTORING. NAVIGATION. CANOEING. ROWING. FISHING. Price 1/-, of all Newsagents, or 15/- per annum at Home and Abroad. 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26632	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 26632-h.htm or 26632-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/6/6/3/26632/26632-h/26632-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/6/6/3/26632/26632-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Research indicates that the copyright on this book was not renewed. THE BOUNTY OF THE CHESAPEAKE Fishing in Colonial Virginia by JAMES WHARTON * * * * * JAMESTOWN 350TH ANNIVERSARY HISTORICAL BOOKLETS _Editor_--E. G. SWEM, Librarian Emeritus, College of William and Mary COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATIONS: JOHN M. JENNINGS, Director of the Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia, _Chairman_. FRANCIS L. BERKELEY, JR., Archivist, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. LYMAN H. BUTTERFIELD, Editor-in-Chief of the Adams Papers, Boston, Mass. EDWARD M. RILEY, Director of Research, Colonial Williamsburg, Inc., Williamsburg, Virginia. E. G. SWEM, Librarian Emeritus, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. WILLIAM J. VAN SCHREEVEN, Chief, Division of Archives, Virginia State Library, Richmond, Virginia. 1. _A Selected Bibliography of Virginia, 1607-1699._ By E. G. Swem, John M. Jennings and James A. Servies. 2. _A Virginia Chronology, 1585-1783._ By William W. Abbot. 3. _John Smith's Map of Virginia, with a Brief Account of its History._ By Ben C. McCary. 4. _The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London, with Seven Related Documents; 1606-1621._ Introduction by Samuel M. Bemiss. 5. _The Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624._ By Wesley Frank Craven. 6. _The First Seventeen Years, Virginia, 1607-1624._ By Charles E. Hatch, Jr. 7. _Virginia under Charles I and Cromwell, 1625-1660._ By Wilcomb E. Washburn. 8. _Bacon's Rebellion, 1676._ By Thomas J. Wertenbaker. 9. _Struggle Against Tyranny and the Beginning of a New Era, Virginia, 1677-1699._ By Richard L. Morton. 10. _Religious Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century._ By George MacLaren Brydon. 11. _Virginia Architecture in the Seventeenth Century._ By Henry Chandlee Forman. 12. _Mother Earth--Land Grants in Virginia, 1607-1699._ By W. Stitt Robinson, Jr. 13. _The Bounty of the Chesapeake; Fishing in Colonial Virginia._ By James Wharton. 14. _Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699._ By Lyman Carrier. 15. _Reading, Writing and Arithmetic in Virginia, 1607-1699._ By Susie M. Ames. 16. _The Government of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century._ By Thomas J. Wertenbaker. 17. _Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century._ By Annie Lash Jester. 18. _Indians in Seventeenth-Century Virginia._ By Ben C. McCary. 19. _How Justice Grew. Virginia Counties._ By Martha W. Hiden. 20. _Tobacco in Colonial Virginia; "The Sovereign Remedy."_ By Melvin Herndon. 21. _Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699._ By Thomas P. Hughes. 22. _Some Notes on Shipping and Ship-building in Colonial Virginia._ By Cerinda W. Evans. 23. _A Pictorial Booklet on Early Jamestown Commodities and Industries._ By J. Paul Hudson. Price 50¢ Each Printed in the United States of America * * * * * THE BOUNTY OF THE CHESAPEAKE Fishing in Colonial Virginia by JAMES WHARTON The University Press of Virginia Charlottesville Copyright© 1957 by Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation, Williamsburg, Virginia Second printing 1973 Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 13 FOREWORD Just as a series of personal letters may constitute an autobiography, so the extracts from Colonial writings that follow tell the unique story of the fisheries of Virginia's great Tidewater. In them it is possible to trace the measured growth of a vital industry. The interspersed comments of the compiler are to be understood as mere annotations. This is the testimony, then, of those who from the beginning participated in one of the foremost natural resources of this country. I gratefully acknowledge guidance in research to Mr. John C. Pearson of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, who masterfully surveyed the field and first brought the early fishery reports to public notice. JAMES WHARTON Weems, Virginia THE BOUNTY OF THE CHESAPEAKE The Bounty of The Chesapeake The voyage to America in 1607 was like a journey to a star. Veteran rovers though the English were, none of them had any clear idea of what to expect in the new land of Virginia. Only one thing was certain: they would have nothing there but what they took with them or wrought from the raw materials of the country. What raw materials? They had reliable information that the climate was mild. Therefore, crops could be raised. They learned of inexhaustible timber: so ships and dwellings and industrial works could be built. They hoped for gold and dreamed of access to uncharted lands of adventure. But putting first things first, how would they eat in the meantime? When Sir Walter Raleigh established the first English colony in "Virginia"--on what is now Roanoke island, North Carolina--two good reporters, one a writer, the other an illustrator, were commissioned to describe what they saw. This was twenty-two years before Jamestown and naturally all the material consisted of Indian life and customs. Thomas Hariot wrote: For four months of the year, February, March, April and May, there are plenty of sturgeon; and also in the same months of herrings, some of the ordinary bigness as ours in England, but the most part far greater, of eighteen, twenty inches, and some two feet in length and better; both these kinds of fish in these months are most plentiful and in best season which we found to be most delicate and pleasant meat. There are also trouts, porpoises, rays, oldwives, mullets, plaice, and very many other sorts of excellent good fish, which we have taken and eaten, whose names I know not but in the country language we have of twelve sorts more the pictures as they were drawn in the country with their names. The inhabitants use to take them two manner of ways, the one is by a kind of weir made of reeds which in that country are very strong. The other way which is more strange, is with poles made sharp at one end, by shooting them into the fish after the manner as Irishmen cast darts; either as they are rowing in their boats or else as they are wading in the shallows for the purpose. There are also in many places plenty of these kinds which follow: Sea crabs, such as we have in England. Oysters, some very great, and some small; some round and some of a long shape. They are found both in salt water and brackish, and those that we had out of salt water are far better than the other as in our own country. Also mussels, scallops, periwinkles and crevises. _Seekanauk_, a kind of crusty shellfish which is good meat about a foot in breadth, having a crusty tail, many legs like a crab, and her eyes in her back. They are found in shallows of salty waters; and sometimes on the shore. There are many tortoises both of land and sea kind, their backs and bellies are shelled very thick; their head, feet and tail, which are in appearance, seem ugly as though they were members of a serpent or venomous; but notwithstanding they are very good meat, as also their eggs. Some have been found of a yard in breadth and better. In a charming drawing of a group of Indian maidens John White, the artist associate, commented: "They delight ... in seeing fish taken in the rivers." Over and over the first visitors to the Chesapeake bay painted rosy pictures of its marine life, stressing the abundance, variety and tastiness of the fish and shellfish. Exploration and communication were chiefly by water: it was natural that emphasis be laid on water resources. Though it is proverbial that fish stories partake of fiction, in the case of John Smith and his successors, it is doubtful whether they were greatly exaggerated. This was a world where nature, especially in the waters, was immeasurably prolific. On the other hand, the conclusions drawn by many of those reading the reports were probably unjustified. The infinite plenty was one thing. Making constant and profitable use of it was another. Thus, although Smith cited an impressive roster of edible fish in the vicinity of Jamestown, it was not to follow that the settlers were always able to turn them to advantage. There were several good reasons. Long before Jamestown the fisheries off the coast of Northern America and Canada were known to be richly productive, with promise of an organized and dependable industry. But farther south conditions were found to be quite different. The fishing in the Chesapeake bay had frustrating ways. Sometimes there were hordes of fish. Again they stayed away in large numbers. They were usually present during warm weather when spoilage was worst. The first colonists had no ice at all and very little salt. Frequent spells of damp weather made sun-drying impractical. If more fish were caught than could be eaten at once, the excess was very likely wasted. Fishing gear was consistently inadequate. But from the very first, fishing and its development had been kept in mind by the promoters of the colony. Fishing rights were defined in 1606 in letters patent to Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers and others, as recorded in the Charter granted in 1606: They shall have all ... fishings ... from the said first seat of their plantation and habitation by the space of fifty miles of English statute measure, all along the said coast of Virginia and America, towards the west and southwest, as the coast lies ... and also all ... fishings for the space of fifty English miles ... all along the said coast of Virginia and America, towards the east and northeast ... and also ... fishings ... from the same, fifty miles every way on the sea coast, directly into the mainland by the space of one hundred like English miles. In the new fishing territory around Jamestown the Indians were the professionals and their methods were of great interest to the English novices. A description is furnished by William Strachey, secretary of state of the colony and author of _The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia_: Their fishing is much in boats. These they call quintans, as the West Indians call their canoas. They make them with one tree, by burning and scraping away the coals with stones and shells till they have made them in the form of a trough. Some of them are an ell deep and forty or fifty foot in length and some will transport forty men, but the most ordinary are smaller and will ferry ten or twenty, with some luggage, over their broadest rivers. Instead of oars, they use paddles and sticks, with which they will row faster than we in our barges. They have nets for fishing, for the quantity as formerly braided and meshed as ours and these are made of bark of certain trees, deer sinews, or a kind of grass, which they call pemmenaw, of which their women between their hands and thighs, spin a thread very even and readily, and this thread serves for many uses, as about their housing, their mantles of feathers and their [?] and they also with it make lines for angles. Their angles are long small rods at the end whereof they have a cleft to which the line is fastened, and at the line they hang a hook, made either of a bone grated (as they nock their arrows) in the form of a crooked pin or fishhook, or of the splinter of a bone, and with a thread of the line they tie on the bait. They use also long arrows tied on a line, wherewith they shoot at fish in the rivers. Those of Accowmack use staves, like unto javelins, headed with bone; with these they dart fish, swimming in the water.... By their houses they have sometimes a scaena or high stage, raised like a scaffold, or small spelts, reeds, or dried osiers covered with mats which gives a shadow and is a shelter ... where on a loft of hurdles they lay forth their corn and fish to dry.... They are inconstant in everything but what fear constrain them to keep; crafty, timorous, quick of apprehension, ingenious enough in their own works, as may testify their weirs in which they take their fish, which are certain enclosures made of reeds and framed in the fashion of a labyrinth or maze set a fathom deep in the water with divers chambers or beds out of which the entangled fish cannot return or get out, being once in. Well may a great one by chance break the reeds and so escape, otherwise he remains a prey to the fishermen the next low water which they fish with a net at the end of a pole.... The earliest observers reveal how intimately food from the waters was linked with the colonists' experiences. George Percy wrote in 1607: We came to a place [Cape Henry] where they [natives] had made a great fire and had been newly roasting oysters. When they perceived our coming, they fled away to the mountains and left many of the oysters in the fire. We ate some of the oysters which were very large and delicate in taste. This was April 27 of that year. Oyster roasts have been a Virginia institution ever since. He continued: Upon this plot of ground [Lynnhaven Bay] we got good store of mussels and oysters, which lay on the ground as thick as stones. We opened some and found in many of them pearls. The pearls would probably not have been worth mentioning, except as a novelty, if they had come from oysters alone. The Virginia oyster pearl lacks luster. But the mussel, particularly the one found in the James river, yields an iridescent pearl of some little value. A month later more oysters, in a form unknown in Virginia today, were obtained from Indians by Captain Christopher Newport in return for ornaments, according to Gabriel Archer in 1607: He notwithstanding with two women and another fellow of his own consort followed us some six miles with baskets full of dried oysters and met us at a point, where calling to us, we went ashore and bartered with them for most of their victuals. A letter from the Council in Virginia to the Council in England in 1607 stated: We are set down eighty miles within a river, for breadth, sweetness of water, length navigable up into the country, deep and bold channel, so stored with sturgeon and other sweet fish as no man's fortune has ever possessed the like. And, as we think, if more may be wished in a river it will be found. After various vicissitudes John Smith confessed: Though there be fish in the sea, fowls in the air, and beasts in the woods, their bounds are so large, they so wild, and we so weak and ignorant, we cannot much trouble them. George Percy introduced a happier note: It pleased God, after a while, to send those people which were our mortal enemies [Indians] to relieve us with victuals, as bread, corn, fish, and flesh in great plenty, which was the setting up of our feeble men, otherwise we had all perished. John Smith tells about another crisis: Our victuals being within eighteen days spent and the Indians' trade decreasing, I was sent to the mouth of the river, to Kecoughtan [Hampton], an Indian town, to trade for corn and try the river for fish, but our fishing we could not effect by reason of the stormy weather.... Only of sturgeon we had great store, whereon our men would so greedily surfeit, as it cost many their lives. And still another: From May to September, those that escaped lived upon sturgeon and sea crabs. And this: So it happened that neither we nor they had anything to eat but what the country afforded naturally. Yet of eighty who lived upon oysters in June or July, with a pint of corn a week for a man lying under trees, and one hundred twenty for the most part living upon sturgeon, which are dried till we pounded it to powder for meal, yet in ten weeks but seven died. For once he paints a brighter picture: The next night, being lodged at Kecoughtan, six or seven days the extreme wind, rain, frost, and snow caused us to keep Christmas among the savages, where we were never more merry, nor fed on more plenty of good oysters, fish, flesh, wild fowl, and good bread. He describes further ups and downs: Now we so quietly followed our business that in three months, we ... provided nets and weirs for fishing. Sixty or eighty with Ensign Laxon were sent down the river to live upon oysters, and twenty with Lieutenant Percy to try fishing at Point Comfort. But in six weeks, they would not agree once to cast out their net. We had more sturgeon than could be devoured by dog or man, of which the industrious by drying and pounding, mingled with caviar, sorrel, and other wholesome herbs, would make bread and good meat. Despite the privations much food is available, Smith avers: In summer no place affords more plenty of sturgeon, nor in winter more abundance of fowl, especially in time of frost. There was once taken fifty-two sturgeon at a draught, at another draught sixty-eight. From the latter end of May till the end of June are taken few but young sturgeon of two foot or a yard long. From thence till the midst of September them of two or three yards long and a few others. And in four or five hours with one net were ordinarily taken seven or eight; often more, seldom less. In the small rivers all the year there is a good plenty of small fish, so that with hooks those that would take pains had sufficient.... Of fish we were best acquainted with sturgeon, grampus, porpoise, seals, stingrays whose tails are very dangerous, brits, mullets, white salmon, trouts, soles, plaice, herring, conyfish, rockfish, eels, lampreys, catfish, shad, perch of three sorts, crabs, shrimps, crevises, oysters, cockles, and mussels. But the most strange fish is a small one so like the picture of St. George's dragon as possibly can be, except his legs and wings; and the toadfish which will swell till it be like to burst when it comes into the air. When Smith spoke of sturgeon he was most probably referring to the James river, the best waters for sturgeon in Virginia to this day. The "small rivers" were the fresh-water tributaries of the large salty ones. The small fish to be found there which would take the hook in winter were probably the non-migratory species like perch, catfish and suckers. If some of the names Smith gives seem puzzling today, it should be remembered that often the same fish name has applied throughout history to different fish at different times or in different areas. Contrariwise, different names, in regional usage, may apply to the same fish. Thus it is virtually impossible to say whether all the fish named by Colonial reporters are to be found in Virginia waters today. For example, though no "white salmon" are known in Virginia, it is possible that Smith referred to a fish that merely resembled a salmon without belonging to that family. On the other hand, it is conceivable that Virginia boats caught "white salmon" in the Atlantic Ocean. "Conyfish" can mean several different fishes, so that it is not possible to be sure what Smith had in mind; so with "brit." "Crevise" is an older name for crawfish. Seals still make rare appearances in the bay. As for the stingrays, he spoke from experience; he was spiked by one. Almost all of his list are still being caught off Jamestown. The "St. George's dragon" or sea horse, is among them. There are many more varieties of fish caught by Virginia fishermen today than were ever mentioned in Colonial records. This is due to superior gear and the more intensive use of it. Captain Christopher Newport was among the earliest observers confirming Smith. He wrote in 1607: The main river [James] abounds with sturgeon, very large and excellent good, having also at the mouth of every brook and in every creek both store and exceedingly good fish of divers kinds. In the large sounds near the sea are multitudes of fish, banks of oysters, and many great crabs rather better, in fact, than ours and able to suffice four men. And within sight of land into the sea we expect at time of year to have a good fishing for cod, as both at our entering we might perceive by palpable conjectures, seeing the cod follow the ship ... as also out of my own experience not far off to the northward the fishing I found in my first voyage to Virginia.... The commodities of the country, what they are in else, is not much to be regarded, the inhabitants having no concern with any nation, no respect of profit.... Yet this for the present, by the consent of all our seamen, merely fishing for sturgeon cannot be worth less than £1,000 a year, leaving herring and cod as possibilities.... We have a good fishing for mussels which resemble mother-of-pearl, and if the pearl we have seen in the king's ears and about their necks come from these shells we know the banks. The crab "able to suffice four men" could scarcely have been other than the horseshoe. It has never been considered a delicacy. It is usually by contraries that the truth is determined. Even in the midst of the apparent plenty of fish, fishing crews sometimes came home empty-handed after continued effort. Often storms interfered. From personal experience John Smith was able to sound the warning about Chesapeake weather: Our mast and sail blew overboard and such mighty waves overraked us in that small barge that with great danger we kept her from sinking by freeing out the water. The winds are variable, but the like thunder and lightning to purify the air I have seldom either seen or heard in Europe. As if struck by the helplessness of the settlers, a compassionate chief extended aid to them in 1608. A letter from Francis Perkins tells the story: So excessive are the frosts that one night the river froze over almost from bank to bank in front of our harbour, although it was there as wide as that of London. There died from the frost some fish in the river, which when taken out after the frost was over, were very good and so fat that they could be fried in their own fat without adding any butter or such thing.... Their own great emperor or the wuarravance, which is the name of their kings, has sent some of his people that they may teach us how to sow the grain of this country and to make certain traps with which they are going to fish. A letter from the Council in Virginia to the Virginia Company in London in 1610 shows that such favors were returned: Whilst we were fishing divers Indians came down from the woods unto us and ... I gave unto them such fish as we took ... for indeed at this time of the year [July] they live poor, their corn being but newly put into the ground and their own store spent. Oysters and crabs and such fish as they take in their weirs is their best relief. Oysters occurred in vast banks and shoals within sight of the Jamestown fort. During the 1609-10 "starving time" a minimum force was retained at the settlement while everyone else was turned out to forage as best he could. Most sought the oyster grounds where they ate oysters nine weeks, a diet varied only by a pitifully negligible allowance of corn meal. In the words of one of the foragers, "this kind of feeding caused all our skin to peel off from head to foot as if we had been dead." The arrival of supplies ended the ordeal. But soon hunger descended again and the oyster beds would have been the natural recourse if it had not been winter and the water too cold to wade in. So the oysters were no help. That conscientious reporter, William Strachey, wrote in 1610: In this desolation and misery our Governor found the condition and state of the Colony. Nor was there at the fort, as they whom we found related unto us, any means to take fish; neither sufficient seine, nor other convenient net, and yet of their need, there was not one eye of sturgeon yet come into the river. The river which was wont before this time of the year to be plentiful of sturgeon had not now a fish to be seen in it, and albeit we laboured and hauled our net twenty times day and night, yet we took not so much as would content half the fishermen. Our Governor therefore, sent away his long boat to coast the river downward as far as Point Comfort, and from thence to Cape Henry and Cape Charles, and all within the bay, which after a seven nights trial and travail, returned without any fruits of their labours, scarce getting so much fish as served their own company. And, likewise, because at the Lord Governor and Captain General's first coming, there was found in our own river no store of fish after many trials, the Lord Governor and Captain General dispatched in the _Virginia_, with instructions, the seventeenth of June, 1610, Robert Tyndall, master of the _De la Warre_, to fish unto, all along, and between Cape Henry and Cape Charles within the bay.... Nor was the Lord Governor and Captain General in the meanwhile idle at the fort, but every day and night he caused the nets to be hauled, sometimes a dozen times one after another. But it pleased not God so to bless our labours that we did at any time take one quarter so much as would give unto our people one pound at a meal apiece, by which we might have better husbanded our peas and oatmeal, notwithstanding the great store we now saw daily in our river. But let the blame of this lie where it is, both upon our nets and the unskilfulness of our men to lay them. The matter of sturgeon was of prime importance not only for subsistence but for export, particularly of the roe. Caviar was in great demand in England. But with uncertainty as to when the sturgeon would appear in the river, plus hot weather, plus feeble facilities, the growth of the industry was impeded. When tobacco, first commercially grown by John Rolfe, appeared on the scene in 1612 and proved to be a sure money maker, the export of sturgeon products came to a standstill. It was having hard going anyway. Complaints from England regarding quality were familiar enough. According to Lord De La Warr in 1610, on the subject, "Virginia Commodities": Sturgeon which was last sent came ill-conditioned, not being well boiled. If it were cut in small pieces and powdered, put up in cask, the heads pickled by themselves, and sent here, it would do far better. Roes of the said sturgeon make caviar according to instructions formerly given. Sounds of the said sturgeon will make isinglass according to the same instructions. Isinglass is worth here 13s. 4d. per 100 pounds, and caviar well conditioned is worth £40 per 100. Other instances stressed the undependable fishing. Lord De La Warr wrote to the Earl of Salisbury in England in 1610: "I sent fishermen out to provide fish for our men, to save other provision, but they had ill success." Captain Samuel Argall was specially commissioned by the authorities in England to deep-sea fish for the benefit of the Colony. After ranging over a wide area between Bermuda and Canada, he reported in 1610: ... The weather continuing very foggy, thick, and rainy, about five of the clock it began to cease and then we began to fish and so continued until seven of the clock in between thirty and forty fathoms, and then we could fish no longer. So having gotten between twenty and thirty cods we left for that night, and at five of the clock, the 26th, in the morning we began to fish again and so continued until ten of the clock, and then it would fish no longer, in which time we had taken near one hundred cods and a couple of halibuts.... Then I tried whether there were any fish there or not [off Maine coast], and I found reasonable good store there. So I stayed there fishing till the 12th of August, [1610] and then finding that the fishing did fail, I thought good to return to the island [Jamestown].... Captain Argall also offered his opinion of the usefulness of the islands off Virginia's seacoast peninsula, later known as the Eastern Shore: Salt might easily be made there, if there were any ponds digged, for that I found salt kernel where the water had overflowed in certain places. Here also is great store of fish, both shellfish and others. The root of the trouble, so far as local fishing conditions were concerned, was the lack of adequate equipment together with ignorance of its proper use. Perhaps the ease with which fish were caught at certain times had spoiled the hardy settlers. A low opinion of their attitude in this vital pursuit came from Sir Thomas Gates in 1610: A colony is therefore denominated because they should be coloni, the tillers of the earth and stewards of fertility. Our mutinous loiterers would not sow with providence and therefore they reaped the fruits of far too dear bought repentance. An incredible example of their idleness is the report of Sir Thomas Gates who affirms that after his first coming thither he had seen some of them eat their fish raw rather than they would go a stone's cast to fetch wood and dress it. Joined unto these another evil: There is great store of fish in the river, especially of sturgeon, but our men provided no more of them than present necessity, not barreling up any store against the season [when] the sturgeon returned to the sea. And not to dissemble their folly, they suffered fourteen nets, which was all they had, to rot and spoil, which by orderly drying and mending might have been preserved but being lost, all help of fishing perished. Very few of them had come equipped for fishing. Their seines were as old-fashioned as those used by the Apostles in the New Testament, the simple kind you lowered from a boat and dragged ashore. The Indians had taught them how to spear large fish and erect weirs out of stakes and brushwood to entrap migrating schools. Such methods worked well enough during the season. But in cold weather, when provisions ran low, scarcely any fish were present in the bay proper. It was different in New England and Canada. There the fishing was good the year round. The sea bottom was dragged by efficient trawl-nets, and fished with gang-lines of baited hooks, as it still is today. The cool temperatures over many months of the year made the catches much less perishable. Conditions favored an organized fish-salting industry. Though the Jamestown people had easy access to some 3,000 square miles of inland tidal water and were only a little way from the open sea, they never developed their marine riches. One good reason was that their original aims were in other directions. When the first intentions to colonize New England came to the King's notice, he asked the leaders what drew them there. The one-word answer: "Fishing." If the Virginians had been similarly queried they would have given various replies, but certainly not that one. In describing the fisheries of New England, John Smith had enthused: Let not the meanness of the word fish distaste you, for it will afford us good gold as the mines of Guiana or Tumbata, with less hazard and charge, and more certainty and facility. The need for fishermen in Virginia was officially recognized to only a slight degree. A 1610 memorandum from the Virginia Council to the authorities in London asked that an effort be made to include among the next immigrants 20 fishermen and 6 net makers. Select them with care was the word sent out in England by means of a broadside issued by the Council of Virginia, December, 1610: Whereas the good ship called the _Hercules_ is now preparing and almost in a readiness with necessary provisions to make a supply to the Lord Governor and the Colony in Virginia, it is thought meet, for the avoiding of such vagrant and unnecessary persons as do commonly proffer themselves being altogether unserviceable, that none but honest sufficient artificers, as carpenters, smiths, coopers, fishermen, brickmen, and such like, shall be entertained into this voyage. Of whom so many as will in due time repair to the house of Sir Thomas Smith in Philpot Lane, with sufficient testimony to their skill and good behavior, they shall receive entertainment accordingly. It was only a question of time before the Virginia colonists would, though surrounded all the while by their own huge marine resources, subsist on salt fish from the North. Sir Thomas Dale, governor from 1611 to 1616, perceived the trend. One of his first moves was to ask the President of the Virginia Company to provide men trained enough to build a coastal trade in furs, corn and fish: Let me intreat that we may have both an admiral and hired mariners, to be all times resident here. The benefit will quickly make good the charge as well by a trade of furs to be obtained with the savages in the northern rivers to be returned home as also to furnish us here with corn and fish. The waste of such men all this time whom we might trust with our pinnaces leaves us destitute this season of so great a quantity of fish as not far from our own bay would sufficiently satisfy the whole Colony for a whole year. There were no boats available even for simple oystering. During the term of the stringent Governor Dale some disaffected colonists tried to escape in a shallop and a barge, which were "all the boats that were then in the Colony." Ironically punctuating the sagas of hardship were the marveling descriptions publicized in England. Corroborating the mouth-watering tales of Smith, William Strachey wrote in 1612: To the natural commodities which the country has of fruit, beasts, and fowl, we may also add the no mean commodity of fish, of which, in March and April, are great shoals of herrings, sturgeon, great store commonly in May if the year be forward. I have been at the taking of some before Algernoone fort and in Southampton river in the middle of March, and they remain with us June, July, and August and in that plenty as before expressed. Shad, great store, of a yard long and for sweetness and fatness a reasonable food fish; he is only full of small bones, like our barbels in England. There is the garfish, some of which are a yard long, small and round like an eel and as big as a mare's leg, having a long snout full of sharp teeth. Oysters there be in whole banks and beds, and those of the best. I have seen some thirteen inches long. The savages use to boil oysters and mussels together and with the broth they make a good spoon meat, thickened with the flour of their wheat and it is a great thrift and husbandry with them to hang the oysters upon strings ... and dried in the smoke, thereby to preserve them all the year. There be two sorts of sea crabs. One our people call a king crab and they are taken in shoal waters from off the shore a dozen at a time hanging one upon another's tail; they are of a foot in length and half a foot in breadth, having legs and a long tail. The Indians seldom eat of this kind. There is a shellfish of the proportion of a cockle but far greater [conch]. It has a smooth shell, not ragged as our cockles; 'tis good meat though somewhat tough. And, according to Alexander Whitaker in 1613: The rivers abound with fish both small and great. The sea-fish come into our rivers in March and continue the end of September. Great schools of herrings come in first; shads of a great bigness and the rockfish follow them. Trout, bass, flounders, and other dainty fish come in before the others be gone. Then come multitudes of great sturgeons, whereof we catch many and should do more, but that we want good nets answerable to the breadth and depth of our rivers. Besides our channels are so foul in the bottom with great logs and trees that we often break our nets upon them. I cannot reckon nor give proper names to the divers kinds of fresh fish in our rivers. I have caught with mine angle, carp, pike, eel, perches of six several kinds, crayfish and the torope or little turtle, besides many small kinds. When Whitaker penned the word "torope," he was giving the English-speaking world a new term, new because the animal it defined was unknown in Europe. Later spelled "terrapin," it meant the diamond-back, the esoteric little creature that spread the fame of the Chesapeake bay around the world and became an indispensable course on menus designed for the entertainment of royalty and the discriminating elect. The colonists probably ate it prepared Indian fashion, that is, roasted whole in live coals and opened at table where the savory meat was extracted by appreciative fingers. Over generations of terrapin-fanciers it evolved into one of the stars of the gastronomic firmament. It is a wholly American dish and it was born at Jamestown. Contemporary Historian Ralph Hamor added his testimony in 1614: For fish, the rivers are plentifully stored with sturgeon, porpoise, bass, rockfish, carp, shad, herring, eel, catfish, perch, flat-fish, trout, sheepshead, drummers, jewfish, crevises, crabs, oysters, and divers other kinds. Of all which myself has seen great quantity taken, especially the last summer at Smith's Island at one haul a frigate's lading of sturgeon, bass, and other great fish in Captain Argall's seine, and even at the very place which is not above fifteen miles from Point Comfort. If we had been furnished with salt to have saved it, we might have taken as much fish as would have served us that whole year. The mention of carp will interest those who believe carp to have been introduced into Virginia much later. The jewfish is common in more southern waters but there may well have been some strays in the Chesapeake. Although croakers, one of the bay's most abundant fish in modern times, are not mentioned, it would not be unreasonable to assume that they were included under "drummers." So with spot, a member of the drum family bearing a superficial resemblance to a bass or perch. The term "spot," as applied to a Virginia fish does not seem to have become current till the late 19th century. An event of special interest to statisticians occurred in 1612. The first attempt made in the New World to require certain fish catches to be reported was among the regulations propounded by Governor Thomas Dale. The penalty for violation would shock today's delinquent record keepers: All fishermen, dressers of sturgeon, or such like appointed to fish or to cure the said sturgeon for the use of the Colony, shall give a just and true account of all such fish as they shall take by day or night, of whatsoever kind, the same to bring unto the Governor. As also all such kegs of sturgeon or caviar as they shall prepare and cure upon peril for the first time offending herein of losing his ears, and for the second time to be condemned a year to the galleys, and for the third time offending to be condemned to the galleys for three years. The years of trial and error fishing had brought their return in increased knowledge, according to John Rolfe in 1616: About two years since, Sir Thomas Dale ... found out two seasons in the year to catch fish, namely, the spring and the fall. He himself took no small pains in the trial and at one haul with a seine caught five thousand three hundred of them, as big as cod. The least of the residue or kind of salmon trout, two foot long, yet he durst not adventure on the main school for breaking his net. Likewise, two men with axes and such like weapons have taken and killed near the shore and brought home forty [fish] as great as cod in two or three hours space.... There was a hint that the Virginia Company was interfering with free ocean fishing by claiming all the land to Newfoundland,--not that it was getting much out of it. One complaint as published in London sometime before February 22, 1615, in the anonymous tract, _The Trades Increase_, read: The Virginia Company pretend almost all that main twixt it and Newfoundland to be their fee-simple, whereby many honest and able minds, disposed to adventure, are hindered and stopped from repairing to those places that they either know or would discover, even for fishing. As a matter of fact, there was continuous wrangling in London over the fishing rights off the entire coast administered by the Virginia Company. The proposed settlers of the Northern Colony in New England had fishing uppermost in their minds and would have been glad to exclude fishermen coming from the Southern Colony. Minutes of meetings of the Company reveal how earnest was the struggle: December 1, 1619. The last great general court being read, Mr. Treasurer acquainted them that Mr. John Delbridge, purposing to settle a particular colony in Virginia, desired of the Company that for defraying some part of his charge he might be admitted to fish at Cape Cod. Which request was opposed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, alleging that he always favored Mr. Delbridge but in this he thought himself something touched that he should sue to this Company and not rather to him as the matter properly belonged to the Northern Colony to give liberty for fishing in that place, it lying within their latitude. This was answered by Mr. Treasurer that the Companies of the South and North Plantations are free of one another and that the patent is clear that each may fish within the territory of the other, the sea being free for both. If the Northern Company abridged them of this, they would take away their means and encouragement for sending out men. To which Sir Ferdinando Gorges replied that if he was not mistaken both the Companies were limited by the patents unto which he would submit. For the deciding whereof it is referred to the Council, who are of both Companies, to examine the patents tomorrow afternoon at the Lord Southampton's and accordingly to determine the dispute. Two weeks later the Council gave its decision: Either Colony could fish within the bounds of the other. But this was by no means an end to the matter. The Northern Colony requested a new patent to resolve the disputes. With suggestions and counter-suggestions, the debate dragged on through the spring, summer and fall. About the time the Northern Colony had arranged to exclude the Southern Colony from free fishing, the King stepped in, declaring that "if anything were passed in the New England patent that might be prejudicial to the Southern Colony it was done without his knowledge and that he has been abused thereby by those that pretended otherwise to him." Finally, after a year-and-a-half of cross-purposes, agreement was reached: June 18, 1621. There was a petition exhibited unto His Majesty in the name of the patentees and adventurers in the plantation of New England concerning some difference between the Southern and Northern Colonies, the said petition was by His Majesty referred to the consideration of the Lords. Their Lordships, upon the hearing and debating of the matter at large and by the consent of both Colonies, did establish and confirm two former orders, the one bearing date of the 16th of March 1620, agreed upon by the Duke of Lenox and the Earl of Arundell; the other of the 21st of July 1620 ordered by the Board whereby it was thought fit that the said colonies should fish at sea within the limits and bounds of each other reciprocally, with this limitation that it be only for the sustentation of the people of the Colonies there and for the transportation of people into either Colony. Further it was ordered at this time by their Lordships that they should have freedom of the shore for drying of their nets and taking and saving of their fish and to have wood for their necessary uses, by the assignment of the Governors at reasonable rates. Lastly the patent of the Northern Colony shall be renewed according to the premises, and those of the Southern plantation to have a sight thereof before it be engrossed and the former patent to be delivered into the hand of the patentees. In an effort to encourage Virginians to salt their own fish, an order from London recommended the reopening of the old sea-water-evaporators on Smith's island, off Cape Charles, where salt had been produced in the first days. The Virginia Company advised the Governor and Council in 1620: The last commodity, but not of least importance for health, is SALT: the works whereof having been lately suffered to decay; we now intending to restore in so great plenty, as not only to serve the Colony for the present, but as is hoped, in short time, the great fishings on those coasts, a matter of inestimable advancement to the Colony, do upon mature deliberation ordain as followeth: First, that you the Governor and Council, do chose out of the tenants for the Company, 20 fit persons to be employed in salt works, which are to be renewed in Smith's Island, where they were before; as also in taking of fish there, for the use of the Colony, as in former times was also done. These 20 shall be furnished out at the first, at the charges of the Company, with all implements and instruments necessary for those works. They shall have also assigned to each of them for their occupation or use, 50 acres of land within the island, to be land of the Company. The one moiety of salt, fish, and profits of the land shall be for the tenants, the other for us the Company, to be delivered into our store: and this contract shall be continued for five years. The reply of Secretary of the Colony, John Pory, was something less than complacent: The last commodity spoken of in your charter is salt; the works whereof, we do much marvel, you would have restored to their former use; whereas I will undertake in one day to make as much salt by the heat of the sun, after the manner used in France, Spain, and Italy, as can be made in a year by that toilsome and erroneous way of boiling sea water into salt in kettles as our people at Smith's Island hitherto accustomed. And therefore when you enter into this work, you must send men skillful in salt ponds, such as you may easily procure from Rochell, and if you can have none there, yet some will be found in Lymington, and in many other places in England. And this indeed in a short time might prove a real work of great sustenance to the Colony at home, as of gain abroad, here being such schools of excellent fish, as ought rather to be admired of such as have not seen the same, than credited. Whereas the Company do give their tenants fifty acres upon Smith's Island some there are that smile at it here, saying there is no ground in all the whole island worth the manuring. Following this exchange, attempts at salt making, especially on the Eastern Shore where the waters were saltiest, were renewed. John Rolfe reported in 1621: At Dale's Gift, being upon the sea near unto Cape Charles, about thirty miles from Kecoughtan, are seventeen inhabitants under command of Lieutenant Cradock. All these are fed and maintained by the Colony. Their labor is to make salt and catch fish.... Secretary Pory soon expressed his disagreement with the project in more than words and succeeded in effecting the removal of the salt works to a more convenient location. That this hardly fulfilled expectations is evidenced by a letter written in 1628 to the King by the Governor and Council: Great likeliness of the certainty of bay salt, the benefit that will thereby accrue to the Colony will be great, and they shall willingly assist Mr. Capps in making his experiment, which, brought to perfection, will draw a certain trade to them. And they hope that the fishing upon their coasts will be very near as good as Canada. Mr. Capps, a citizen of Accomack, had proposed that if the Colony would subsidize him he would undertake to supply it with salt from evaporated sea water. His offer was accepted and the enterprise set up. After waiting patiently and seeing little salt the Council took him to task. His plea was the familiar one of most operations that fail: lack of capital. He had worked hard, he said; he had all the firewood he needed, workmen were available, and the sun shone bright. The bottle-neck was too few evaporating pans. But apparently he had not won the Council's confidence. The Capps salt company was dissolved. Another one sprang up about 30 years later under the sponsorship of Colonel Edmund Scarborough of Northampton County. Such was the public interest aroused by this influential man, who, among other distinctions, had been a Burgess between 1642 and 1659, that the importation of salt into the county was prohibited to encourage him. Finally, in 1666, this project was abandoned for reasons that remain obscure. Most probably the quality of the product was inferior. The salt shortage continued despite other random attempts to alleviate it. For example, in 1660 one Daniel Dawen of Accomack was exempted from taxes and granted public funds for his "experiments of salt." The trouble that attended obtaining salt in needed quantity and of satisfactory quality accompanied the development of Virginia right up to George Washington's time. Despite all attempts to the contrary, reliance on salt fish from the North kept gaining. The General Assembly that had met in 1619 censured a Captain Warde for establishing a plantation in Virginia without asking anybody's permission. But when it was brought out that he had conveyed quantities of salt fish to the Colony from Canada on his ship he was forgiven. This captain was an important link between the Colony and the North. John Rolfe wrote to Sir Edwin Sandys in 1619: Captain Warde in his ship went to Monhegan [island, Maine] in the Northern Colony in May and returned the latter end of July with fish which he caught there. He brought but a small quantity by reason he had but little salt. There were some Plymouth ships where he harbored, who made great store of fish which is far larger than Newland [Newfoundland] fish. The Maine waters were far busier than those of Virginia. For more than a century vessels from half-a-dozen European nations had thronged there, even to Greenland, attracted by the fishing, and the furs available on the mainland. When some of the early experiments at colonization failed, fishing became all the more emphasized. There was usually excellent demand for the catches whether landed in Plymouth (England) or Plymouth (Massachusetts), Portugal, Holland, the West Indies or Virginia. These bold adventurers made use of the land in the New World only for drying, salting and barreling their fish. If conditions permitted, they transported them fresh, in a cargo commonly known as "corfish." Oil made from whale and cod was a profitable commodity. Fishermen were the pioneers and explorers of America's first days just as the miners, trappers and traders were those of a later period. The importance of fish was thus underlined. In addition, conceding the value to the untrained whites of Indians as fishermen, the 1619 Assembly agreed to a proposal that Indians to the limit of six be permitted to live in white settlements if they engaged in fishing for the benefit of the settlement. Indian methods were first described by Hariot of the Roanoke island colony: They have likewise a notable way to catch fish in their rivers, for whereas they lack both iron and steel, they fasten unto their reeds, or long rods, the hollow tail of a certain fish like to a sea crab instead of a point, wherewith by night or day they strike fishes, and take them up into their boats. They also know how to use the prickles, and pricks of other fishes. They also make weirs, with setting up reeds or twigs in the water, which they so plant one with another, that they grow still narrower, and narrower. There was never seen among us so cunning a way to take fish withal, whereof sundry sorts as they found in their rivers unlike ours, which are also of a very good taste. Doubtless it is a pleasant sight to see the people, sometimes wading, and going sometimes sailing in those rivers, which are shallow and not deep, free from all care of heaping up riches for their posterity, content with their state, and living friendly together of those things which God of His bounty hath given unto them, yet without giving Him any thanks according to His deserts. The most vivid and comprehensive description of Indian fishing was given by historian Robert Beverley. Though his work was not published until 1705, he dealt with an earlier period: Before the arrival of the English there, the Indians had fish in such vast plenty that the boys and girls would take a pointed stick and strike the lesser sort as they swam upon the flats. The larger fish that kept in deeper water, they were put to a little more difficulty to take. But for these they made weirs, that is, a hedge of small rived sticks or reeds of the thickness of a man's finger. These they wove together in a row with straps of green oak or other tough wood, so close that the small fish could not pass through. Upon high water mark they pitched one end of this hedge and the other they extended into the river to the depth of eight or ten foot, fastening it with stakes, making cods out from the hedge on one side, almost at the end, and leaving a gap for the fish to go into them. These were contrived so that the fish could easily find their passage into those cods when they were at the gap, but not see their way out again when they were in. Thus if they offered to pass through, they were taken. Sometimes they made such a hedge as this quite across a creek at high water and at low would go into the run, so contracted into a narrow stream, and take out what fish they pleased. At the falls of the rivers where the water is shallow and the current strong, the Indians use another kind of weir thus made. They make a dam of loose stone, whereof there is plenty at hand, quite across the river, leaving one, two, or more spaces or trunnels for the water to pass through. At the mouth they set a pot of reeds, wove in form of a cone, whose base is about three foot [wide] and ten [foot] perpendicular, into which the swiftness of the current carries the fish and wedges them so fast that they cannot possibly return. The Indian way of catching sturgeon, when they came into the narrow part of the rivers, was by a man's clapping a noose over their tails and by keeping fast his hold. Thus a fish, finding itself entangled, would flounce and often pull him under water. Then that man was counted a cockarouse, or brave fellow, that would not let go till with swimming, wading and diving, he had tired the sturgeon and brought it ashore. These sturgeon would also leap into their canoes in crossing the river, as many of them do still every year into the boats of the English. They have also another way of fishing like those on the Euxine Sea, by the help of a blazing fire by night. They make a hearth in the middle of their canoe, raising it within two inches of the edge. Upon this they lay their burning lightwood, split into small shivers, each splinter whereof will blaze and burn end for end like a candle. 'Tis one man's work to tend this fire and keep it flaming. At each end of the canoe stands an Indian with a gig or point spear, setting the canoe forward with the butt end of the spear as gently as he can, by that means stealing upon the fish without any noise or disturbing of the water. Then they with great dexterity dart these spears into the fish and so take them. Now there is a double convenience in the blaze of this fire, for it not only dazzles the eyes of the fish, which will lie still glaring upon it, but likewise discovers the bottom of the river clearly to the fisherman, which the daylight does not. Under Governor George Yeardley in 1616, there were 400 people at Jamestown and one old frigate, one old shallop and one boat belonging to the community. There were two boats privately owned. The boats best suited to local fishing, and the most easily available, were the Indian dugout canoes. Such was the size of the trees that it was possible to make them comparatively roomy, as Strachey noted. Every passing year brought home to the steadily growing Colony the need of improving its fishing practices. Most nets had to be bought in England. Here is a London item from a 1623 _List of Subscribers and Subscriptions for Relief of the Colony_: "Richard Tatem will adventure [speculate] in cheese and fishing nets the sum of £30 sterling." Jamestown had by 1624 begun to spawn little Jamestowns throughout the countryside. A census was ordered of all settlements. In January, 1625, there were 1209 white persons, and 23 negroes. This first American census listed, among general provisions, the stocks of salt fish. On hand at thirteen settlements was 58,380 pounds. James City had the largest supply, 24,880 pounds. Elizabeth City was next with 10,550 pounds. A community listed only as "Neck of Land" adjacent to Jamestown, consisting of perhaps ten dwellings and plantations, had 4,050 pounds. The smallest store, 450 pounds, was credited to another "Neck of Land" in Charles City. From the accumulated evidences of disorganized home fishing, coupled with the deficiency of salt, it is to be concluded that most of this supply had come from the Northern fishing grounds. There were 40 boats of various sizes and uses listed in this census. For example, at Jamestown a "barque of 40 tons, a shallop of 4 tons and one skiff" were among the ten there. A token of the stress resulting from inadequate fisheries even after 16 years of active colonization is this letter preserved in the records of the Virginia Company. A Virginia citizen named Arundle in 1623 wrote to his friend, Mr. Caning, in London: The most evident hope from altogether starving is oysters, and for the easier getting of them I have agreed for a canoe which will cost me 6 livres sterling. Emigrants had been advised not to leave for Virginia without some fishing equipment. In his _Travels_, John Smith had included the warning: "A particular of such necessaries as either private families or single persons shall have cause to provide to go to Virginia ... nets, hooks and lines must be added." Records of the Virginia Company in London throw light on the extensiveness of the fish trade. Robert Bennett wrote from Virginia to Edward Bennett in London in 1623: My last letter I wrote you was in the _Adam_ from Newfoundland, which I hope you shall receive before this. God send her back in safety and this from Canada. I hope the fish will come to a good reckoning for victuals is very scarce in the country. Your Newfoundland fish is worth 30s. per hundred, your dry Canada [fish] £3, 10s. and the wet £5, 10s. per hundred. I do not know nor hear of any that is coming hither with fish but only the _Tiger_ which went in company with the _Adam_ from this place and I know the country will carry away all this forthwith. And again from the records of the Company, this extract from _An Account of Sums Subscribed and Supplies Sent Since April_, dated July 23, 1623: ... We have received advice that from Canada there departed this last month a ship called Furtherance with above forty thousand of that fish which is little inferior to ling for the supply of the Colony in Virginia and that fish is worth not less than £600. [Illustration: _The broyling of their fish over the flame of fire._ Library of Congress Photo The first settlers did not have to learn from the Indians how to cook fish, but this method was perhaps as appetizing as any they knew.] [Illustration: _The manner of their fishing._ Library of Congress Photo The first colonists saw the Indians engaged in fishing practices that included spearing, luring with firelight, and entrapping in staked-off enclosures.] [Illustration: The sheepshead was one of the favorite seafoods of Tidewater Virginians from the beginning. It was fairly abundant, according to their records, and remained so until the twentieth century, when it became almost extinct in Chesapeake waters. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Photos] [Illustration: The ugly-looking but delicious-tasting sturgeon was the fish that principally engaged the attention of the first colonists. They were impressed by its abundance and were busy for a time in shipping its roe to England for [1]caviar. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Photos] [1] (we cannot be certain that much actual caviar was produced at Jamestown. The chances are that the roe was merely salted down and that the final processing took place in England) [Illustration: Haul-seining or dragging fish ashore by enclosing them in a long net, is a form of fishing that has thrived almost unchanged through the ages. Its practice at Jamestown was limited by the lack of nets.] [Illustration: The toothsome Chesapeake Bay hard crab was, and is still to a great extent today, taken by baits spaced along lines sunk to the bottom and then raised and the tenacious crabs removed.] [Illustration: Vast quantities of river herring were taken in haul-seines in the spring throughout Tidewater Virginia. A crew dragged the fish ashore to a force of women cutters waiting to prepare them for salting down.] [Illustration: Great living oyster mounds, built up by nature through the ages, impeded ships in the lower James river. At high tide they were hidden so that unwary pilots struck them; at low they could be picked over by hand. They remained a threat to navigation until they disappeared under three centuries of harvesting. Original drawing by Esther Derieux] [Illustration: Fishing implements excavated at Jamestown. The large fish-hook was for ocean cod fishing or possibly for snagging sturgeon in the river. The spear, attached to a wooden handle, was for stalking big fish in shallow water, or for capturing those that could be attracted to a light in a boat at night. The lead weights were suitable for (right) a handline, (left) a net. National Park Service] [Illustration: Early salt-evaporating houses were located close by the sea, from which the water was channeled in by slow stages to take advantage of natural evaporation before wood fires finished the job. When the crystals formed they were shoveled into conical baskets and drained.] [Illustration: Courtesy Mariners Museum An 18th century plan of a solar-evaporating works. Sea water is channeled into the primary reservoir (DD), from which it is conducted to (FFF) and (KKK) by progressive stages to the final basins where it crystallizes.] The kernel of the situation was reflected by the Dutch traveler, David De Vries, who made voyages to America from 1632 to 1644: In going down to Jamestown on board of a sloop, a sturgeon sprang out of the river, into the sloop. We killed it, and it was eight feet long. This river is full of sturgeon, as also are the two rivers of New Netherland. When the English first began to plant their Colony here, there came an English ship from England for the purpose of fishing for sturgeon; but they found that this fishery would not answer, because it is so hot in summer, which is the best time for fishing, that the salt or pickle would not keep them as in Muscovy whence the English obtain many sturgeon and where the climate is colder than in the Virginias. The effects of the Virginians' favoring tobacco-growing above fishing were also noted by De Vries on a visit to Canada: Besides my vessel [at Newfoundland] there was a small boat of fifty or sixty lasts [110 tons], with six guns, which had come out of the Virginias with tobacco, in order to exchange the tobacco for fish. A rather aggrieved reaction to the tales of abundant natural resources in Virginia is contained in this letter from one Tho. Niccolls to Sir Jo. Worstenholme in London in 1623: If the Company would allow to each man a pound of butter and a portion of cheese weekly, they would find more comfort therein then by all the deer, fish, and fowl [that] is so talked of in England, of which, I can assure you, your poor servants have not had so much as the scent since their coming into the country. To prevent profiteering in Canadian fish the Virginia authorities had set the selling prices: January 3, 1625-6: Proclamation by the Governor and Council of Virginia renewing a former proclamation of August 31, 1623, restraining the excessive rates of commodities--commanding that no person in Virginia, either adventurer or planter, shall vend, utter, barter, or sell any of the commodities following above the prices hereafter mentioned, viz: New Foundland fish, the hundred ... 10 pounds of tobacco; Canada dry fish, the hundred ... 24 pounds of tobacco; Canada wet fish, the hundred.... 30 pounds of tobacco. In one proposed deal of fish for tobacco the owner of the fish got scared off, as recorded in the Minutes of the Council and General Court, 1622-29: Luke Edan, sworn and examined, says that there were sixteen thousand fish offered him by one Corbin at Canada which afterward the said Corbin refused to sell him for it was told him his tobacco was not good, and as the examiner heard, it was Henry Hewat that told him so. A case of special concession for the sale of fish was shown in a ruling of the Virginia Council in 1626: It is ordered that whereas Mr. Weston came up to James City, he shall sell 3,000 of his fish there, which he has promised to sell at reasonable rates. Therefore, in regard the proclamations are not published for the choosing of merchants and factors, it is permitted that such as are desirous to buy any of the said fish he may have leave to deal with Mr. Weston, notwithstanding orders to the contrary. Another dissuading factor in the unsubstantial fishing in Virginia was the threat of Indian attack. The Assembly in 1626 ruled: It is ordered, according to the act of the late General Assembly, that no man go or send abroad either upon fowling, fishing, or otherwise whatsoever without a sufficient plenty of men, well armed and provided of munition, upon penalty of undergoing severe censure of punishment by the Governor and Council. It was characteristic of Virginia's fisheries that the pessimists occupied the stage for a while, then the optimists. An example of the whipping-up of enthusiasm is this discourse of Edward Williams writing on Virginia at mid-century. China was a fabulous country, therefore he compared Virginia with it. Ideas ran riot as he contemplated the resources crying to be developed: ... What multitudes of fish to satisfy the most voluptuous of wishes, can China glory in which Virginia may not in justice boast of?... Let her publish a precedent so worthy of admiration (and which will not admit belief in those bosoms where the eye cannot be witness of the action) of five thousand fish taken at one draught near Cape Charles, at the entry into Chesapeake bay, and which swells the wonder greater, not one fish under the measure of two feet in length. What fleets come yearly upon the coasts of Newfoundland and New England for fish, with an incredible return? Yet it is a most assured truth that if they would make experiment upon the south of Cape Cod, and from thence to the coast of this happy country, they would find fish of greater delicacy, and as full handed plenty, which though foreigners know not, yet if our own planters would make use of it, would yield them a revenue which cannot admit of any diminution while there are ebbs and floods, rivers feed and receive the ocean, or nature fails in (the elemental original of all things) waters. There wants nothing but industrious spirits and encouragement to make a rich staple of this commodity; and would the Virginians but make salt pits, in which they have a greater convenience of tides (that part of the universe by reason of a full influence of the moon upon the almost limitless Atlantic causing the most spacious fluxes and refluxes, that any shore of the other divisions in the world is sensible of) to leave their pits full of salt-water, and more friendly and warm sunbeams to concoct it into salt, than Rochel, or any parts of Europe. Yet notwithstanding these advantages which prefer Virginia before Rochel, the French king raises a large proportion of his revenues out of that staple yearly, with which he supplies a great part of Christendom. Nor would it be such a long interval (salt being first made) betwixt the undertaking of this fishing, and the bringing it to perfection, for if every servant were enjoined to practice rowing, to be taught to handle sails, and trim a vessel, a work easily practised, and suddenly learned, the pleasantness of weather in fishing season, the delicacy of the fish, of which they usually feed themselves with the best, the encouragement of some share in the profit, and their understanding what their own benefit may be when their freedom gives them an equality, will make them willing and able fishermen and seamen. To add further to this, if we consider the abundance, largeness, and peculiar excellency of the sturgeon in that country, it will not fall into the least of scruples, but that one species will be of an invaluable profit to the buyer, or if we repeat to our thoughts the singular plenty of herrings and mackerel, in goodness and greatness much exceeding whatever of that kind these our seas produce, a very ordinary understanding may at the first inspection perceive that it will be no great difficulty to out-labor and out-vie the Hollander in that his almost only staple. This flowery author goes on to make ingenious suggestions about raising fish in captivity, like domesticated animals, by inclosing a creek against their egress but keeping it sluiced to permit the action of tides. He even guesses that a nutritious and medicinal oil could be produced from fish livers. It is worth noting that both these suggestions have been proved practical but they had to wait until modern times to be carried out. In the anonymous _A Perfect Description of Virginia_, published in 1649, the population is given as 15,000 English and 300 negroes. The count of boats, remembering the shortage of 40 years before, is impressive: "They have in their Colony pinnaces, barks, great and small boats many hundreds, for most of their plantations stand upon the river sides or up little creeks, and but a small way into the land so that for transportation and fishing they use many boats." The enmity of the Indians had been a constant irritation, and worse, ever since the first days. As soon as it became possible to do so, effort was made to cut them off from the resources of the tidal waters. It was reasoned, and as it turned out, rightly, that with them unable to supplement their food supplies with fish and shellfish, especially oysters, they would be weakened in body and more easily subdued. The word early went out: Keep the Indians away from the water. This strategy worked so successfully that by 1662 it was deemed safe to ease the pressure. Thus another milestone was reached: the first oyster licensing law, as recorded in Hening's _Statutes_: Be it further enacted that for the better relief of the poor Indians whom the seating of the English had forced from their wonted convenience of oystering, fishing ... that the said Indians upon address made to two of the justices of that county they desire to oyster ... they, the said justices, shall grant a license to the said Indians to oyster ... provided the said justices limit the time the Indians are to stay, and the Indians bring not with them any guns, or ammunition or any other offensive weapon but only such tools or implements as serve for the end of their coming. If any Englishman shall presume to take from the Indians so coming in any of their goods, or shall kill, wound, maim any Indian, he shall suffer as he had done the same to an Englishman and be fined for his contempt. This was followed, according to Hening, in 1676 by another cavalier gesture to the oppressed: ... It is hereby intended that our neighbor Indian friends be not debarred from fishing and hunting within their own limits and bounds, using bows and arrows only. Provided also that such neighbor Indian friends who have occasion for corn to relieve their lives and it shall and may be lawful for any English to employ in fishing or deal with fish, canoes, bowls, mats, or baskets, and to pay the said Indians for the same in Indian corn, but no other commodities.... Thomas Glover, author of _An Account of Virginia_, addressed to the Royal Society in London, published in 1676, sides with the optimists. His catalogue has a familiar sound but it is valuable as substantiating many of the earlier reports. One impression to be gained from it is that after more than 60 years of occupancy of the new territory, the settlers had in no way depleted their fishery resources, had not, in fact, even scratched the surface: In the rivers are great plenty and variety of delicate fish. One kind whereof is by the English called a sheepshead from the resemblance the eye of it bears with the eye of a sheep. This fish is generally about fifteen or sixteen inches long and about half a foot broad. It is a wholesome and pleasant fish and of easy digestion. A planter does often times take a dozen or fourteen in an hour's time with hook and line. There is another sort which the English call a drum, many of which are two foot and a half or three foot long. This is likewise a very good fish, and there is plenty of them. In the head of this fish there is a jelly, which being taken and dried in the sun, then beaten to powder and given in broth, procures speedy delivery to women in labour. At the heads of the rivers there are sturgeon and in the creeks are great store of small fish, as perch, croakers, taylors, eels, and divers others whose name I know not. Here are such plenty of oysters as they may load ships with them. At the mouth of Elizabeth River, when it is low water, they appear in rocks a foot above water. There are also in some places great store of mussels and cockles. There is also a fish called a stingray, which resembles a skate, only on one side of his tail grows out a sharp bone like a bodkin about four or five inches long, with which he sticks and wounds other fish and then preys upon them. The same author went farther than any other reporter up to that time in telling a real fish story: And now it comes into my mind, I shall here insert an account of a very strange fish or rather a monster, which I happened to see in Rappahannock River about a year before I came out of the country; the manner of it was thus: As I was coming down the forementioned river in a sloop bound for the bay, it happened to prove calm, at which time we were three leagues short of the river's mouth; the tide of ebb being then done, the sloop-man dropped his grapline, and he and his boy took a little boat belonging to the sloop, in which they went ashore for water, leaving me aboard alone, in which time I took a small book out of my pocket and sat down at the stern of the vessel to read; but I had not read long before I heard a great rushing and flashing of the water, which caused me suddenly to look up, and about half a stone's cast from me appeared a prodigious creature, much resembling a man, only somewhat larger, standing right up in the water with his head, neck, shoulders, breast and waist, to the cubits of his arms, above water; his skin was tawny, much like that of an Indian; the figure of his head was pyramidal, and slick, without hair; his eyes large and black, and so were his eyebrows; his mouth very wide, with a broad streak on the upper lip, which turned upward at each end like mustachioes; his countenance was grim and terrible; his neck, shoulders, arms, breast and waist were like unto the neck, arms, shoulders, breast and waist of a man; his hands if he had any, were under water; he seemed to stand with his eyes fixed on me for some time, and afterward dived down, and a little after riseth at somewhat a farther distance, and turned his head towards me again, and then immediately falleth a little under water, and swimmeth away so near the top of the water, that I could discern him throw out his arms, and gather them in as a man doth when he swimmeth. At last he shoots with his head downwards, by which means he cast his tail above the water, which exactly resembled the tail of a fish with a broad fane at the end of it. Judging from the few piddling regulations and restrictions referred to in extracts already cited, the Virginia lawmakers could see no need for intensive or even active supervision of the Tidewater fisheries. A rather epoch-making law was enacted in 1678 by the county court of Middlesex County, which is about 50 miles from James City, at the juncture of the Rappahannock river and Chesapeake bay: Whereas, by the 15th act of Assembly made in the year 1662, liberty is given to each respective county to make by-laws for themselves; which laws, by virtue of the said act are to be binding upon them as any other general law; and whereas several of the inhabitants of this county have complained against the excessive and immoderate striking and destroying of fish, by some fire, of the inhabitants of this county by striking them by a light in the night time with fish gigs, wherby they not only affright the fish from coming into the rivers and creeks, but also wound four times that quantity that they take, so that if a timely remedy be not applied, by that means the fishing with hooks and lines will be thereby spoiled to the great hurt and grievance of most of the inhabitants of this county. It is therefore by this court ordered that from and after the 20th day of March next ensuing, it shall not be lawful for any of the inhabitants of this county to take, strike, or destroy any sort of fish in the night time with fish gigs, harping irons, or any other instrument of that nature, sort or kind, within any river, creek or bay which are accounted belonging to or within the bounds or precincts of this county. And it is further ordered that if any person or persons being a freeman, shall offend against this order, he or they so offending shall for the first offence be fined five hundred pounds of good tobacco to be paid to the informer, and for every other offence committed against this order after the first, by any person, the said fine to be doubled and if any servants be permitted or encouraged by their masters to keep or have in their possession any fish gig, harping iron or any other instrument of that kind or nature and shall therewith offend against this order, that in such case the master of such servant or servants shall be liable to pay the several fines above mentioned, and if any servant or servants shall, contrary to and against their master's will and knowledge, offend against this order, that for every offence they receive such corporal punishment as by this court shall be thought meet. As population became more dense it was inevitable that rights previously of little significance began to be asserted. This case of 1679 taken from Hening's _Statutes_, was a forerunner of countless others like it which continue to this day: Robert Liny, having complained to this Grand Assembly that whereas he had cleared a fishing place in the river against his own land to his great cost and charge supposing the right thereof in himself by virtue of his patents, yet nevertheless several persons have frequently obstructed him in his just privilege of fishing there, and despite of him came upon his land and hauled their seines on shore to his great prejudice, alleging that the water was the King Majesty's and not by him granted away in any patent and therefore equally free to all His Majesty's subjects to fish in and haul their seines on shore, and praying for relief therein by a declaratory order of this Grand Assembly; it is ordered and declared by this Grand Assembly that every man's right by virtue of his patent extends into the rivers or creeks so far as low water mark and it is a privilege granted to him in and by his patent, and that therefore no person ought to come and fish there above low water mark or haul seines on shore without leave first obtained, under the hazard of comitting a trespass for which he is sueable by law. In most cases this decision somewhat limited a landowner's claim. But on the seaside of Virginia's Eastern Shore conditions have always been so that at low tide thousands of acres of land are laid bare, with the result that "low water mark" is in many cases difficult of interpretation as a boundary between waterfront properties and the public domain. Toward the close of the century fishing methods had shaped up advantageously compared to the crudities and hit-or-miss practices of the first settlers. Robert Beverley described them in 1705: The Indian invention of weirs in fishing is mightily improved by the English, besides which, they make use of seines, trolls, casting nets, setting nets, hand fishing and angling and in each find abundance of diversion. I have sat in the shade at the heads of the rivers angling and spent as much time in taking the fish off the hook as in waiting for their taking it. Like those of the Euxine Sea, they also fish with spilyards which is a long line staked out in the river and hung with a great many hooks on short strings, fastened to the main line, about four foot asunder. The only difference is that our line is supported by stakes and theirs is buoyed up with gourds. The abundance of the fisheries never ceased impressing visitors. A French tourist added to the chorus in 1687: Fish too is wonderfully plentiful. There are so many shell oysters that almost every Saturday my host craved them. He had only to send one of his servants in one of the small boats and two hours after ebb tide he brought it back full. These boats, made of a single tree hollowed in the middle, can hold as many as fourteen people and twenty-five hundredweight of merchandise. As if to crown the final emergence of recognition of the home fisheries William Byrd I instructed his agent in Boston in 1689 to send him a variety of commodities in return for a bill of exchange but _no salt fish_: By the advice of my friend, Captain Peter Perry, I made bold to give you the trouble of a letter of the 1st instant with two small bills of exchange which I desired you to receive and return the effects to me in the upper part of James River, either in rum, sugar, Madeira wine, turnery, earthenware, or anything else you may judge convenient to this country (fish excepted).... Evidently at least some good salt was now at hand to preserve the roe herring that choked the rivers and creeks in the spring. The salt-herring breakfast was on its way to becoming a Virginia institution, and the salt-fish monopolies of New England and Canada were cracking after three-quarters of a century. The score of "firsts" in the Virginia fishery world have been noted as they occurred. Among them were the first fishery statistics, the first licensing law, the first price control, the first diamond-back terrapin, the first conservation measures. And now in 1698 there was the first agitation against polluted waters: We, the Council and Burgesses of the present General Assembly, being sensible to the great mischiefs and inconveniences that accrue to the inhabitants of this, his Majesty's Colony and Dominion of Virginia, by killing of whales within the capes thereof, in all humility take leave to represent the same unto Your Excellency and withal to acquaint you that by the means thereof great quantities of fish are poisoned and destroyed and the rivers also made noisome and offensive. For prevention of which evils in regard the restraint of the killing of whales is a branch of His Majesty's royal prerogative. We humbly pray that Your Excellency [the Governor, Francis Nicholson] will be pleased to issue out a proclamation forbidding all persons whatsoever to strike or kill any whales within the bay of Chesapeake in the limits of Virginia which we hope will prove an effectual means to prevent the many evils that arise therefrom. As Jamestown reached the end of its span, the fisheries came of age. Inequities were being ironed out, methods were being perfected, and planners were at work on ways of employing more and more of the fast-growing population in searching out and making available the bounty of the fair Chesapeake. At the start of the 18th century, however, there was little evidence of an organized industry in any phase. Everywhere were unlimited opportunities for exploitation. The abundance of oysters still impressed travelers. In the extract to follow, Francis Louis Michel of Switzerland speaks of the method of tonging oysters in 1701, but note that he says, "They usually pull from six to ten times." This could be taken to mean that each individual procured his own oysters from the lavish supply virtually at his doorstep, and stopped as soon as he had a "mess" to enjoy over the week-end: The water is no less prolific, because an indescribably large number of big and little fish are found in the many creeks, as well as in the large rivers. The abundance is so great and they are so easily caught that I was much surprised. Many fish are dried, especially those that are fat. Those who have a line can catch as many as they please. Most of them are caught with the hook or the spear, as I know from personal experience, for when I went out several times with the line, I was surprised that I could pull out one fish after another, and, through the clear water I could see a large number of all kinds, whose names are unknown to me. They cannot be compared with our fish, except the herring, which is caught and dried in large numbers. Thus the so-called catfish is not unlike the large turbot. A very good fish and one easily caught is the eel, also like those here [in Switzerland]. There is also a kind like a pike. They have a long and pointed mouth, with which they like to bite into the hook. They are not wild, but it happens rarely that one can keep them on the line, for they cut it in two with their sharp teeth. We always had our harpoons and guns with us when we went out fishing, and when the fish came near we shot at them or harpooned them. A good fish, which is common and found in large numbers is the porpoise. They are so large that by their unusual leaps, especially when the weather changes, they make a great noise and often cause anxiety for the small boats or canoes. Especially do they endanger those that bathe. Once I cooled and amused myself in the water with swimming, not knowing that there was any danger, but my host informed me that there was.... The waters and especially the tributaries are filled with turtles. They show themselves in large numbers when it is warm. Then they come to the land or climb up on pieces of wood or trees lying in the water. When one travels in a ship their heads can be seen everywhere coming out of the water. The abundance of oysters is incredible. There are whole banks of them so that the ships must avoid them. A sloop, which was to land us at Kingscreek, struck an oyster bed, where we had to wait about two hours for the tide. They surpass those in England by far in size, indeed, they are four times as large. I often cut them in two, before I could put them into my mouth. The inhabitants usually catch them on Saturday. It is not troublesome. A pair of wooden tongs is needed. Below they are wide, tipped with iron. At the time of the ebb they row to the beds and with the long tongs they reach down to the bottom. They pinch them together tightly and then pull or tear up that which has been seized. They usually pull from six to ten times. In summer they are not very good, but unhealthy and can cause fever. The most comprehensive list of fish thus far given by the early historians was offered by Robert Beverley in 1705. Again as with John Smith, there are names that do not fit in today. But these are very few: "greenfish," "maid," "wife," and "frogfish" perhaps, all of which, however, are well-known in England. The recurring mention of carp in the early authorities quoted is interesting, since it has long been believed that carp were introduced into the Chesapeake region in 1877 by the U.S. Fish Commission. No doubt that was carp of another species. The esteemed sheepshead is today very rare: As for fish, both of fresh and salt water, of shellfish, and others, no country can boast of more variety, greater plenty, or of better in their several kinds. In the spring of the year, herrings come up in such abundance into their brooks and fords to spawn that it is almost impossible to ride through without treading on them. Thus do those poor creatures expose their own lives to some hazard out of their care to find a more convenient reception for their young, which are not yet alive. Thence it is that at this time of the year, the freshes of the rivers, like that of the Broadruck, stink of fish. Besides these herrings, there come up likewise into the freshes from the sea multitudes of shad, rock, sturgeon, and some few lampreys, which fasten themselves to the shad, as the remora of Imperatus is said to do to the shark of Tiburon. They continue their stay there about three months. The shad at their first coming up are fat and fleshy, but they waste so extremely in milting and spawning that at their going down they are poor and seem fuller of bones, only because they have less flesh. As these are in the freshes, so the salts afford at certain times of the year many other kinds of fish in infinite shoals, such as the oldwife, a fish not much unlike a herring, and the sheepshead, a sort of fish which they esteem in the number of their best. There is likewise great plenty of other fish all the summer long and almost in every part of the rivers and brooks there are found of different kinds. Wherefore I shall not pretend to give a detail of them, but venture to mention the names only of such as I have eaten and seen myself and so leave the rest to those that are better skilled in natural history. However, I may add that besides all those that I have met with myself, I have heard of a great many very good sorts, both in the salts and freshes, and such people too, as have not always spent their time in that country, have commended them to me, beyond any they had ever eaten before. Those which I know myself, I remember by the names of herring, rock, sturgeon, shad, oldwife, sheepshead, black and red drums, trout, taylor, greenfish, sunfish, bass, chub, plaice, flounder, whiting, fatback, maid, wife, small turtle, crab, oyster, mussel, cockle, shrimp, needlefish, bream, carp, pike, jack, mullet, eel, conger eel, perch, and catfish. Those which I remember to have seen there of the kinds that are not eaten are the whale, porpoise, shark, dogfish, gar, stingray, thornback, sawfish, toadfish, frogfish, land crabs, fiddlers, and periwinkle. Francis Makemie, often called the father of American Presbyterianism, was concerned, in his _A Plain and Friendly Perswasive to the Inhabitants of Virginia and Maryland for Promoting Towns and Cohabitations_, about the dearth of markets for fishery products. It was a condition brought about largely by a general lack of money in circulation. It was easily possible for entire families to subsist the year around on the fruits of land and water plus unexacting manual labor. Wealth was concentrated in the hands of the more important planters whose estates were usually self-sufficient and concentrating on trade with England. The natural bounty of the Tidewater region thus actually deterred the development of Virginia along the lines of New England with its urban centers: Cohabitation would not only employ thousands of people ... others would be employed in hunting, fishing, and fowling, and the more diligently if assured of a public market.... So also our fishing would be advanced and improved highly by encouraging many poor men to follow that calling, and sundry sorts which are now slighted would be fit for a town market, as sturgeon, thornback, and catfish. Our vast plenty of oysters would make a beneficial trade, both with the town and foreign traders, believing we have the best oysters for pickling and transportation if carefully and skillfully managed. By 1705 the seat of government had been transferred to nearby Williamsburg. The need of establishing towns as foci for the developing countryside had been felt and now the legislators turned their attention to promoting the fish markets therein, followed by some essential protection of the rights of fishermen and others. Hening's _Statutes_ gives the details: October, 1705. For the encouragement and bettering of the markets in the said town, Be it enacted, That no dead provision, either of flesh or fish shall be sold within five miles of any of the ports or towns appointed by this act, on the same side the great river the town shall stand upon, but within the limits of the town, on pain of forfeiture and loss of all such provision by the purchases, and the purchase money of such provision sold by the vendor, cognizable by any justice of the county.... Be it further enacted and declared, That if any person or persons shall at any time hereafter shoot, hunt or range upon the lands and tenements, or fish or fowl in any creeks or waters included within the lands of any other person or persons without license for the same, first obtained of the owner and proprietor thereof, every such person so shooting, hunting, fishing, fowling, or ranging, shall forfeit and pay for every such offence, the sum of five hundred pounds of tobacco.... Be it further enacted, That if any person shall set, or cause to be set, a weir in any river or creek, such person shall cause the stayes thereof to be taken up again, as soon as the weir becomes useless; and if any person shall fail of performing his duty herein, he shall forfeit and pay fifteen shillings current money, to the informer: To be recovered, with costs, before a justice of the peace. The essentials of any stable industry are: control of supply and means of distribution. The fisheries of Virginia were blessed with neither of these advantages. Any progress had to be made in spite of uncertain harvests and lack of packing and handling facilities. Distribution of fresh seafoods was impossible without rapid transportation and adequate refrigeration. Neither was available for two centuries. Virginia's huge supply of oysters was a case in point. Consumption of oysters was limited to those who lived on the spot, and though they figured importantly in the Tidewater diet, as a palpable resource they were untouched until the 19th century. The principal means of preserving them before then was by pickling. In that form they were quite popular during the Colonial period. Fish were salted when there was a surplus and in certain seasons, especially the spawning time of the anadromous river-herring, they were available in phenomenal quantities. They remain today among Virginia's most plentiful fish but the salting industry has now become a mere token of its former magnitude. The Chesapeake bay blue crab which today constitutes a resource worth about $5,000,000 a year to Virginia crabbers and packers, had to wait even longer than fish and oysters did for development. Salting and pickling were unsuitable to this delicate food and expeditious handling methods did not exist. In an exhaustive catalogue of the marine life of Virginia William Byrd II, of Westover said: Herring are not as large as the European ones, but better and more delicious. After being salted they become red. If one prepares them with vinegar and olive oil, they then taste like anchovies or sardines, since they are far better in salt than the English or European herring. When they spawn, all streams and waters are completely filled with them, and one might believe, when he sees such terrible amounts of them, that there was as great a supply of herring as there is water. In a word, it is unbelievable, indeed, indescribable, as also incomprehensible, what quantity is found there. One must behold oneself. At the time he wrote Virginians were beginning to compete with Canadians and New Englanders in exporting salt fish, particularly to the West Indies, where a large proportion of them were exchanged for the rum so freely used on the plantations as slave rations. There were no dams barring access to the highest reaches of the rivers and no cities and factories to discharge pollution, so that the river-herring and shad made their way far inland even to the Blue Ridge mountains. There the pioneers awaited them eagerly each spring and salted down a supply to tide them over till the next run. Small wonder, then, that the love of salt herring--always with corn bread--became ingrained in so many Old Virginians! They had an illustrious exemplar. Once, in 1782, when George Washington was due to visit Robert Howe the honored host wrote to a friend: "General Washington dines with me tomorrow. He is exceedingly fond of salt fish." Despite obstacles a healthy experimentation in the various phases of fishing was now and then manifest. For example, in 1710 one adventurous fisherman wished to extend the home fisheries to whaling and applied to the Virginia Council for a license. Whales, though not common in Chesapeake bay or the ocean area near it, had been noted from time to time ever since the birth of the Colony. Most often they were washed ashore dead. John Custis, of Northampton County, succeeded in making 30 barrels of oil from one such in 1747. The year before that a live one was spotted in the James river by some Scottish sailors who were able to comer it in shallow water. After killing it, they found it to measure 54 feet! The _Virginia Gazette_, published in Williamsburg, carried this item in 1751: Some principal gentlemen of the Colony, having by voluntary subscription agreed to fit out vessels to be employed in the whale fishery on our coast, a small sloop called the _Experiment_ was some time ago sent on a cruise, and we have the pleasure to acquaint the public that she is now returned with a valuable whale. Though she is the first vessel sent from Virginia in this employ, yet her success, we hope, will give encouragement to the further prosecution of the design which, we doubt not, will tend very much to the advantage of the Colony as well as excite us to other profitable undertakings hitherto too much neglected. Commented John Blair in his _Diary_ on the incident: "Heard our first whale brought in and three more struck but lost." The _Experiment_ continued its whaling career successfully for three years. When it retired, no similar enterprise replaced it. Yet in a list of exports from Virginia for the year ending September 30, 1791, 1263 gallons of whale oil appears. Even today whales are occasionally represented in Virginia fishery products, as when one is washed up on a beach and removed by the Coast Guard to a processing plant to be turned into meal and oil. The overall value of Virginia's fisheries as an industrial resource was glacially slow in reaching public consciousness. Here and there, like dim lights along an uncertain voyage, bits of legislation or isolated conservation procedures appeared. In due course it became evident that natural fishways--to choose one example--were being obstructed to the disadvantage of both the fish and navigation. Hening records the law enacted to keep the rivers open: 1745. And whereas the making and raising of mill dams, and stone-stops, or hedges for catching of fish, is a great obstruction to the navigation of the said rivers [James and Appomattox]: Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all mill dams, stone-stops, and hedges, already made across either of the said rivers, where they are navigable, shall be thrown down and destroyed by the person or persons who made the same.... Like most hastily framed and passed laws this one proved unsatisfactory and a second one, with more detailed provisions was passed. Hening records it: 1762. Whereas the act of assembly made in the first year of his present Majesty's reign [1761], entitled, an act to oblige the owners of mills, hedges, or stone-stops, on sundry rivers therein mentioned, to make openings or slopes therein for the passage of fish, has been found defective, and not to answer the purposes for which it was intended, and it is therefore necessary that the same should be amended: Be it therefore enacted by the Lieutenant Governor, Council and Burgesses, of this present General Assembly, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That the owner or proprietor of all and every mill, hedge, or stone-stop, on either of the rivers Nottoway and Meherrin, shall in the space of nine months from and after the passing of this act, make an opening or slope in their respective mill-dams, hedges, or stops, in that part of the same where there shall happen to be the deepest water, which shall be in width at least ten feet in the clear, in length at least three times the height of the dam, and that the bottoms and sides thereof shall be planked, and that the sides shall be at least fourteen inches deep, so as to admit a current of water through the same twelve inches deep, which shall be kept open from the tenth day of February to the last day of May in every year.... And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any such owner or proprietor shall neglect or refuse so to do, within the time aforesaid, the person so offending shall forfeit and pay the sum of five pounds of tobacco for every day he or they shall so neglect or refuse.... Still the fundamental problem was not solved; fish were not by-passing the remaining obstructions in sufficient quantity to maintain the expected harvest. After various amendments and additions this explicit definition of a fishway or slope was enacted into law in 1771: That a gap be cut in the top of the dam contiguous to the deepest part of the water below the dam, in which shall be set a slope ten feet wide, and so deep that the water may run through it 18 inches before it will through the waste, or over the dam, that the direction of the said slope be so, as with a perpendicular to be dropped from the top of the dam, will form an angle of at least 75 degrees, and to continue in that direction to the bottom of the river, below the dam, to be planked up the sides 2 feet high; that there be pits or basins built in the bottom, at 8 feet distance, the width of the said slope, and to be 12 inches deep, and that the whole be tight and strong; which said slope shall be kept open from the 10th day of February to the last day of May, annually, and any owner not complying to forfeit 5 pounds of tobacco a day. The effort was of little avail. Before many dams could be so laboriously modified the Revolutionary War arrived to obscure placid matters like fish conservation. The diaries of the 18th Century Virginia planters abound with references to seafoods. Most of them lived either on or within easy distance of Tidewater. Most of them had nets and other fishing implements of their own and crews among the slaves to work them. Whenever their needs required, an expedition was made. Perhaps there was a season of bountiful entertaining in prospect. The seine would be taken to a likely spot and hauled ashore. Or a boat would go out and load up with oysters. The fish had to be eaten right away or salted down. But oysters stored in a dark cellar, especially in cool weather, would keep for weeks if moistened from time to time. One diarist, James Gordon, lived near the Rappahannock river in a section affording a variety of seafoods. Note these typical entries: Sept. 20, 1759. Fine weather. Went in the afternoon and drew the seine. Had very agreeable diversion and got great plenty of fine fish.... Sept. 26. Went with my wife in the evening to draw the seine. Got about sixty greenfish and a few other sorts. Sept. 28. Sent in the morning to have the seine drawn. They made several hauls and got good fish, viz: three drum, one of them large, trouts, greenfish, etc.... Oct. 6. Went with my wife to see the seine drawn. We dined very agreeably on a point on fish and oysters.... Jan. 22,--Bought about 70 gallons of rum. Got fine oysters there. Feb. 12. Went on board the New England man and bought some pots, axes and mackerel. Feb. 22. Drew the seine and got 125 fine rock and some shad. July 14. Drew the seine today and got some fine rock. Feb. 9, 1760. Went with my wife and Mr. Criswell to draw the seine. We met in Eyck's Creek a school of rock--brought up 260. Some very large; the finest haul I ever saw. Sent many of them to our neighbors. The term "greenfish" is unknown among Virginia Tidewater fishermen. Here again we have a British name brought into Virginia by a colonist not long removed from that country. There "greenfish" is applied to the bluefish, of which there were and are at times plenty in the Rappahannock river. Another diarist, who lived only a few miles away from Gordon, also on the Rappahannock river, was Landon Carter, son of the famed Robert, or "King," Carter of Corotoman in Lancaster County. There is no doubt about it: he was an oyster lover. He not only knew a way to hold oysters over an extended period--one wishes one knew what it was--but he had the courage and originality to eat them in July, contrary to a widely respected superstition: Jan. 14, 1770. My annual entertainment began on Monday, the 8th, and held till Wednesday night, when, except one individual or two that retired sooner, things pleased me much, and therefore, I will conclude they gave the same satisfaction to others. The oysters lasted till the third day of the feast, which to be sure, proves that the methods of keeping them is good, although much disputed by others. July, 1776. Last night my cart came up from John E. Beale for iron pots to make salt out of the bay water, which cart brought me eight bushels oysters. I ordered them for family and immediate use. As we are obliged to wash the salt we had of Col. Tayloe, I have ordered that washing be carried into the vault and every oyster dipped into it over all and then laid down on the floor again.... Out of the eight bushels oysters I had six pickled and two bushels for dressing. But I was asked why Beale sent oysters up in July. I answered it was my orders. Who would eat oysters in July said the mighty man; and the very day showed he not only could eat them but did it in every shape, raw, stewed, caked in fritters and pickled. George Washington, too, was an oyster fancier as this note to his New York friend George Taylor shows: Mt. Vernon, 1786. Sir: ... Mrs. Washington joins me in thanking you also for your kind present of pickled oysters which were very fine. This mark of your politeness is flattering and we beg you to accept every good wish of ours in return. When in 1770 a notice appeared in the _Virginia Gazette_ about the proposed academy in New Kent County an added attraction was featured: "Among other things the fine fishery at the place will admit of an agreeable and salutary exercise and amusement all the year." It was the Chickahominy river, a tributary of the James, that was referred to. Fishing is still "agreeable" there. Citizens of Richmond, recreation-bent, throng to it along with the residents of its banks, many of whom make their living out of it. This is one of the sections where the water, though tidal, is fresh. Anadromous herring, shad, rock and sturgeon are caught. Unlike the salty bay, fish can be caught here the year round. Among them are catfish, carp, perch and bass. One of the most accurate and vivid reporters of Colonial Virginia plantation life was Philip Vickers Fithian, tutor to the family of Councillor Robert Carter of Nominy Hall on the lower Potomac river. In his _Journals_ are appetizing references to seafood: 1774, March: With Mr. Randolph, I went a-fishing, but we had only the luck to catch one apiece. April. We had an elegant dinner; beef and greens, roast pig, fine boiled rockfish. July. We dined today on the fish called the sheepshead, with crabs. Twice every week we have fine fish. On the edges of these shoals in Nominy River or in holes between the rocks is plenty of fish. Well, Ben, you and Mr. Fithian are invited by Mr. Turberville, to a fish feast tomorrow, said Mr. Carter when we entered the Hall to dinner. As we were rowing up Nominy we saw fishermen in great numbers in canoes and almost constantly taking in fish,--bass and perch. This is a fine sheepshead, Mr. Stadly [the music master], shall I help you? Or would you prefer a bass or a perch? Or perhaps you will rather help yourself to some picked crab. It is all extremely fine, sir, I'll help myself. August. Each Wednesday and Saturday, we dine on fish all the summer, always plenty of rock, perch, and crabs, and often sheepshead and trout. September. We dined on fish and crabs, which were provided for our company, tomorrow being fish day. September. Dined on fish,--rock, perch, fine crabs, and a large fresh mackerel. I was invited this morning by Captain Tibbs to a barbecue. This differs but little from the fish feasts, instead of fish the dinner is roasted pig, with the proper appendages, but the diversion and exercise are the very same at both. An English traveler in 1759, Andrew Burnaby, registered his wonder at the way fish were taken in the reaches of the Chesapeake: Sturgeon and shad are in such prodigious numbers [in Chesapeake Bay] that one day within the space of two miles only, some gentlemen in canoes caught above six hundred of the former with hooks, which they let down to the bottom and drew up at a venture when they perceived them to rub against a fish; and of the latter above five thousand have been caught at one single haul of the seine. The "gentlemen" concerned were obviously not slaves serving the needs of a plantation, but, judging from the amount caught, expert commercial fishermen. The sturgeon, after the roe was removed, were stacked in carts and peddled in nearby towns. The shad, after as many as possible were sold fresh, were salted down. The snagging of big sturgeon as recounted by the French traveler François J. de Chastellux in 1781 remained in common practice into the 20th Century, when the big ones became much scarcer: As I was walking by the river side [James near Westover], I saw two negroes carrying an immense sturgeon, and on asking them how they had taken it, they told me that at this season they were so common as to be taken easily in a seine and that fifteen or twenty were found sometimes in the net; but that there was a much more simple method of taking them, which they had just been using. This species of monster, which are so active in the evening as to be perpetually leaping to a great height above the surface of the water, usually sleep profoundly at mid-day. Two or three negroes then proceed in a little boat, furnished with a long cord at the end of which is a sharp iron crook, which they hold suspended like a log line. As soon as they find this line stopped by some obstacle, they draw it forcibly towards them so as to strike the hook into the sturgeon, which they either drag out of the water, or which, after some struggling and losing all his blood, floats at length upon the surface and is easily taken. The frequently met-with term, "fishery," in Colonial writings took on a special meaning as the industry developed. It was used in the sense of what the present Virginia lawbook calls a "regularly hauled fishing landing." This is usually a shore privately owned where the fronting waters have been cleared of obstructions. The owner, or some one permitted by him, operates a long seine at that place by carrying it offshore in boats and hauling it to land. So long as he thus uses the spot "regularly" the law protects him, now as in the past, by making it illegal for any other person to fish with nets within a quarter-mile of "any part of the shore of the owner of any such fishery." The rights to such a property were, and are, in many cases extremely profitable. George Washington was among the Virginia planters zealously caring for their "fisheries." Often the privilege of using these was advertised in the newspapers or otherwise for rent for a long or short term. Some owners who did not themselves wish to fish counted on their shores to yield rental. One of these, George William Fairfax, must have expressed himself to Washington on the subject, for the latter wrote him in June, 1774: ... As to your fishery at the Raccoon Branch, I think you will be disappointed there likewise as there is no landing on this side of river that rents for more than one half of what you expect for that, and that on the other side opposite to you (equally good they say) to be had at £15 Maryland currency.... But growing along with this practice was sentiment favoring fishing places open to the general public. When an attempt was made about 1770 to take over certain lands near Cape Henry for private operation, a vigorous protest ensued: The petition of the subscribers, inhabitants of the county of Princess Anne in behalf of themselves and the other inhabitants of this colony, humbly shows: That the point of land called Cape Henry bounded eastward by the Atlantic Ocean, northwardly by Chesapeake Bay, westwardly and southwardly by part of Lynnhaven River and by a creek called Long Creek and the branches thereof, is chiefly desert banks of sand and unfit for tillage or cultivation and contains several thousand acres. And that for many years past a common fishery has been carried on by many of the inhabitants of said county and others on the shore of the ocean and bay aforesaid, as far as the western mouth of Lynnhaven River. And that during the fishing season the fishermen usually encamp amongst the said sand hills and get wood for fuel and stages from the desert, and that very considerable quantities of fish are annually taken by such fishery which greatly contributes to the support and maintenance of your petitioners and their families. Your petitioners further show that they have been informed that several gentlemen have petitioned your Honour to have the land aforesaid granted to them by patent and that one Keeling has lately surveyed a part thereof situated near the mouth of Long Creek aforesaid, and that if a patent should be granted for the same, it would greatly prejudice the said fishery. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that no patent may be granted to any person or persons for the same lands or any part thereof; and that the same may remain a common for the benefit of the inhabitants of this Colony in general for carrying on a fishery and for such public uses as the same premises shall be found convenient. Even when the new United States Government erected a lighthouse at Cape Henry a careful stipulation was made in the act ceding the property in 1790 that the public were not to be denied fishing privileges there: Deed of cession of two acres of land at Cape Henry, in Princess Anne County, Virginia, for the purpose of erecting a lighthouse thereon ... provided that nothing contained in this act shall affect the right of this State to any materials heretofore placed at or near Cape Henry for the purpose of erecting a lighthouse, nor shall the citizens be debarred, in consequence of this cession, from the privileges they now enjoy of hauling their seines and fishing on the shores of the said land so ceded to the United States. When George Washington had come, a newlywed, to be master of Mt. Vernon in 1759 he found the prospects for fishing very satisfying. One of his letters at this time boasted: A river [the Potomac] well-stocked with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year, and in the spring with shad, herrings, bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, etc., in great abundance. The borders of the estate are washed by more than ten miles of tidewater, the whole shore, in fact, is one entire fishery. Washington generously ordered his overseer to admit "the honest poor" to fishing privileges at one of his shores, a concession that may have been customary among many landowners. He was a man who believed in keeping records, and so complete a file of them has now been reassembled at Mt. Vernon that it is possible to follow his career in any phase: officer, business speculator, host, farmer, legislative adviser, and friend. He gave to fishing the painstaking personal attention he gave to all else. As a "fisherman" he directed the manufacture as well as the repair of his nets, and the curing, shipping and marketing of his fish. It seems obvious that suitable nets were not being manufactured in the desired quantity or variety in America, otherwise he would hardly have bought his in England. He dealt with Robert Cary and Co., London, in 1771. Here is a typical order: One seine, seventy-five fathoms long when rigged for hauling; to be ten feet deep in the middle and eight at the ends with meshes fit for the herring fishery. The corks to be two and a half feet asunder; the leads five feet apart; to be made of the best three-strand (small) twine and tanned. 400 fathom of white inch rope for hauling the above seine. 150 fathom of deep sea line. To get ready for spring fishing he had to prepare as far ahead as July. Even then he was not always sure delivery would be on time: ... The goods you will please to forward by the first vessel for Potomac (which possibly may be Captain Jordan the bearer of this) as there are some articles that will be a good deal wanted, especially the seine, which will be altogether useless to me if I do not get them early in the spring, or in other words I shall sustain a considerable disappointment and loss, if they do not get to hand in time. He wrote to Bradshaw and Davidson in London in 1772: That I may have my seine net exactly agreeable to directions this year I give you the trouble of receiving this letter from me to desire that three may be made. One of them eighty fathom long, another seventy, and the third sixty-five fathom, all of them to be twelve feet deep in the middle and to decrease to seven at the ends when rigged and fit for use; to be so close-meshed in the middle as not to suffer the herrings (for which kind of fishery they are intended) to hang in them because, when this is the case it gives us a good deal of trouble at the busy hurrying season to disengage the seine, and often is the means of tearing it. But the meshes may widen as they approach the ends: the corks to be no more than two feet and a half asunder and fixed on flatways that they may swim and bear the seine up better with a float right in the middle to show the approach of the seine with greater certainty in case the corks should sink; the leads to be five feet apart. The seine I had from you last year had two faults, one of which is that of having the meshes too open in the middle; the other of being too strait rigged; to avoid which I wish you to loose at least one-third of the length in hanging these seines; that is, to let your 80 fathom seine be 120 in the strait measure (before it is hung in the lead and cork lines) and the other two to bear the same proportion, I could wish to have these seines tanned but it is thought the one I had from you last year was injured in the vat, for which reason I leave it to you to have these tanned or not, as you shall judge most expedient ... I would not wish to have them made of thick heavy twine as they are more liable to heat and require great force to work them.... A detailed reply came from James Davidson, a partner in the net company: London, Sept. 29, 1772. Sir: I had the honour of receiving your letter with instructions concerning your seines. I shall always pay due attention to the contents. I persuade myself you'll say I have fulfilled your instructions given me in these three seines which I heartily hope will be in time for the intended fishery. Am not afraid but they will meet with your approbation and if you should see any alteration wanting if you'll be so obliging as to send a line in the same channel, it shall be attended to with great care. Your order is for the corks to be put on flat ways. I have only put them on the 65 fathom seine for these reasons. We have tried that method before with every other invention for the satisfaction of our fishermen here but they have assured us they really do not bear the net up so well. They are obliged to be tied on so tight that the twine cuts them and are much apter to break and after all in dragging the net they will swim sideways. Now, Sir, you'll readily see the above inconveniences. I have also put six floats in the middle, two together to show the center of the net. Likewise the length of the netting, 120 fathoms for the 80 fathoms, the other two in proportion. I now enter upon tanning. This, you may assure yourself, they are pretty well wore if you have them tanned for we are obliged to haul them in and out to take the tan and after that hauling them about to get them thoroughly dry before we can possibly pack them or else they would soon rot. Among the hundreds of seines I sent abroad last year or this, I only tanned one besides yours. Therefore have not tanned any of these. I think the three-quarters inch mesh that I have put in the middle of the nets this year will be a cure for the malady you mention of the herrings hanging in the mesh, for last year I only put in inch mesh which upon examination you'll soon perceive. Therefore, sir, I entreat the honour of a line whether or not the two above three-quarters mesh seines answer the purpose. I have tapered them away at the ends to [an] inch and a half. These nets were designed for hauling ashore by hand. It was not till much later that other nets, of the styles so familiar today, gill nets and pound nets in particular, came into general use. Much longer seines than Washington needed were used as fish became scarcer. There are tales of them four and five miles long, actually able to block off the entire river, being used in the neighborhood of Mt. Vernon before control laws were enacted and enforced. The catches were enormous. Barges were heaped high with all sorts of fish and towed into Washington City where they were sold before they spoiled, for what they would bring. Today the pollution for which Washington and Alexandria are responsible has destroyed most fish life within several miles of Mt. Vernon. Like his fishing predecessors ever since Jamestown, Washington had his troubles with salt. One of his business letters ordering a supply complained: "Liverpool salt is inadequate to the saving of fish.... Lisbon is the proper kind." He was only briefly touching on a subject that had vexed the Colonists since the beginning. Through the years the cry for more and better salt had gone up. The fishermen of Virginia needed salt for their fish as badly as the Hebrews in Egypt needed straw for their bricks. Although trading with foreign countries increased steadily, the question of a salt supply for Virginia remained unsolved. As the 18th century had progressed, matters grew even worse. In 1763 the Virginia Committee of Correspondence had written urgently to its agent in London to apply to Parliament for an act to allow to this Colony the same liberty to import salt from Lisbon or any other European ports, which they have long enjoyed in the Colonies and provinces of New England, New York and Pennsylvania. This is a point that hath been more than once unsuccessfully labored; but we think it is so reasonable, that when it is set in a proper light, we shall hope for success. The reason upon which the opposition hath been supported, is this general one that it is contrary to the interest of Great Britain to permit her plantations to be supplied with any commodity, especially any manufacture from a foreign country, which she herself can supply them with. This we allow to be of force; provided the Mother Country can and does supply her plantations with as much as they want; but the fact being otherwise, we have been allowed to supply ourselves with large quantities from Cercera, Isle of May, Sal Tortuga and so forth. The course of this trade being hazardous, in time of war, this useful and necessary article hath been brought to us at a high price of late. The reason or pretence of granting this indulgence to the Northern Colonies, in exclusion of the Southern, we presume to be to enable them to carry on their fishery to greater advantage, the salt from the Continent of Europe being fitter for that purpose than the salt from Great Britain or that from any of the islands we have mentioned. But surely this reason is but weakly founded with respect to Pennsylvania, whose rivers scarcely supply them with fish sufficient for their own use; whereas the Bay of Chesapeake abounds with great plenty and variety of fish fit for foreign markets, as well as for ourselves, if we could but get the proper kind of salt to cure it. Herrings and shads might be exported to the West Indies to great advantage; and we could supply the British markets with finer sturgeon than they have yet tasted from the Baltic. And it is an allowed principle that every extension of the trade of the Colonies, which does not interfere with that of the Mother Country is an advantage to the latter; since all our profits ultimately center with her. It was pointed out that the English merchants were not above sharp practices in filling orders for salt; they would reduce the amount shipped to individuals and provide the captain with all he could carry extra to be sold at high prices to needy buyers. The plaint was just another of the rumblings of discontent contributing to the grand explosion of thirteen years later. The intricacies were entered into in detail by the Committee: We have twelve different Colonies on the Continent of North America. Four of them, viz., Pennsylvania, New York, New England, and Newfoundland, have liberty to import salt from any part of Europe directly. The other eight, viz., Virginia, Maryland, East and West Jersey, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Nova Scotia, as well as all the West India Islands, are deprived of it. At present those Colonies on whose behalf the petition is given, are supplied with salt from the Isle of Mays in Africa, Sal Tortuga, and Turks Island in America, also a little from England; but are deprived of the only salt that answers best for the principal use, viz., to preserve fish and other provisions, twelve months, or a longer time. What they have from Great Britain is made from salt water by fire, which is preferred for all domestic uses. The African or American salt is made from salt water by the sun; which is used for curing and preserving provisions. The first, made by fire, is found, by long experience, in warm climates, to be too weak; the provisions cured with it turn rusty, and in six or eight months become unfit for use. The second kind, by the quantity of alum, or some other vicious quality in it, is so corrosive, that in less than twelve months, the meat cured with it is entirely deprived of all the fat, and the lean hardened, or so much consumed, as to be of little service. The same ill qualities are found in these salts with regard to fish: wherefore the arguments used, that they ought to have English salt only, are as much as to say, they should be allowed to catch fish, or salt any provisions, but let their cattle and hogs die without reaping the advantage nature has given them. In all countries where a benefit can arise by fish or provisions, salt must be cheap; and as its value where made is from ten to twenty shillings the ton, so the carriage of it to America is often more than the real value: It is in order to save part of the expense of carriage, this application is made; for although some gentlemen do not seem to know it, yet we have liberty, by the present laws in force, to carry any kind of European salt to America, the ship first coming to an English port, in order to make an entry. We have also liberty to bring it from any salt island in Africa or America; but by the Act of 15 Car. II. Chap. 7, salt is supposed to be included under the word commodity; whereby it is, with all European goods, prevented from being carried to America, unless first landed in England: the consequence whereof is, that English ships, which (I shall suppose) are hired to sail from London to Lisbon with corn, and thence proceed to America, have not the liberty to carry salt in place of ballast, and therefore under a necessity to pay above £10 sterling at Lisbon for ballast (that is to say, for sand), which they carry to America, or else return to England in order to get a clearance for the salt, which would be more expense than its value. Now, had they liberty to carry salt directly to America, they would not only save the money paid for the sand, but also gain by the freight of salt perhaps £60 or £80 more. Thus on an average every ship that goes now empty from these ports to America, might clear £70 and there are above a hundred sail to that voyage every year. This is an annual loss of £7,000 at least; and besides, as the ship loses no time in this case (salt being as soon taken in as sand), they could afford to sell the best salt as cheap in America as is now paid for the worst; for as a ship must make a long voyage on purpose to get, and make it in the salt islands, so the expense thereof is more than the value of the salt at Lisbon, St. Ibbes, and so forth. The proponents of the petition made out a strong case. They went into the grading of the kinds of salt obtained from the West Indies, Africa and Europe and asserted that, inferior though some of them were, they nevertheless had been found to be "preferable to England salt for curing and preserving their fish": To know the qualities of the different kinds of salt used in America may be an amusement to a speculative man; but seems entirely out of the question in this case; for whatever may be said on that head, long experience and the universal agreement of all from America, as well as former Acts of Parliament, show that the common white salt will not answer the uses it is chiefly wanted for there. As to what is called Loundes's brine salt, that, and his many other projects, seemed to be formed on the same plan with Subtle's in _The Alchemist_, his scheme looking as if he only wanted the money, and left it to others to make the salt. Salt can, without doubt, be made of any desired quality, but the price, the place of delivery, and the quantity to be had of so useful a commodity must also be regarded. We can get salt at Sal Tortuga for the raking and putting it into our ships; but the expense of a voyage on purpose for it is greater than to buy it at a place from whence the freight may be all saved, and to have the best salt on the cheapest terms, is, no doubt the intention of this application, as it certainly was of the other Colonies that have obtained this privilege. All the Virginians were asking, in effect, was the liberty to import from Europe what salt they wished! As the moment of Independence neared, the stress grew greater. George Washington's Mt. Vernon overseer during the crucial years, his distant relative Lund Washington, addressed a letter to him in 1775: The people are running mad about salt. You would hardly think it possible there could be such a scarcity. Five and six shillings per bushel. Conway's sloop came to Alexandria Monday last with a load. A couple of months later the crisis was reached: I have had 300 bushels more of salt put into fish barrels, which I intend to move into Muddy Hole barn, for if it should be destroyed by the enemy we shall not be able to get more. There is still fifty or sixty more bushels, perhaps a hundred in the house. I was unwilling to sell it, knowing we could not get more and our people must have fish. Therefore I told the people I had none. Two more years of adversity went by. Lund wrote in 1778: I was told a day or two past that Congress had ordered a quantity of shad to be cured on this river. I expect as everything sells high, shad will also. I should be fond of curing about 100 barrels of them, they finding salt. We have been unfortunate in our crops, therefore I could wish to make something by fish. He proposed that he cure fish "for the Continent" and make "upwards of 200 pounds": I have very little salt, of which we must make the most. I mean to make a brine and after cutting off the head and bellies, dipping them in the brine for but a short time, then hang them up and cure them by smoke, or dry them in the sun; for our people being so long accustomed to have fish whenever they wanted, would think it very bad to have none at all. All ended well for that season. Lund wrote: I have cured a sufficient quantity of fish for our people, together with about 160 or 170 barrels of shad for the Continent. One of the most interesting diarists of Revolutionary days was young Nicholas Cresswell, an Englishman of 24 when he arrived in America for a three-years visit. He was in Leesburg, Virginia, in December 1776 when he recorded this occurrence: A Dutch mob of about forty horsemen went through the town today on their way to Alexandria to search for salt. If they find any they will take it by force.... This article is exceedingly scarce; if none comes the people will revolt. They cannot possibly subsist without a considerable quantity of this article. The raiders were pacified by an allotment of three pints of salt per man. A vivid picture of what the lack of salt entailed was given by Cresswell in April 1777: Saw a seine drawn for herrings and caught upwards of 40,000 with about 300 shad fish. The shads they use but the herrings are left upon the shore useless for want of salt. Such immense quantities of this fish is left upon the shore to rot, I am surprised it does not bring some epidemic disorder to the inhabitants by the nauseous stench arising from such a mass of putrefaction. A fishery by-product of importance to early Virginians, lime, was of interest to Washington. It was extensively obtained by burning oyster shells. Early Virginia masonry shows that such lime was mixed in mortar and it was usually of poor quality, perhaps because of crude facilities for burning. Today's shell lime is much in demand in agriculture and its price is higher than mined lime. George Washington found that for the purpose of building it left much to be desired. He wrote to Henry Knox from Mt. Vernon in 1785: I use a great deal of lime every year, made of the oyster shells, which, before they are burnt, cost me twenty-five to thirty shillings per hundred bushels; but it is of mean quality, which makes me desirous of trying stone lime. He was paying about seven cents a bushel for shells, which seems high for those days of abundant oysters and cheap labor. Until recently the Virginia market price was very little more. Washington's probing, weighing mind slighted no phase of his fishery. About to fertilize crops with fish experimentally, he wrote to his overseer: "If you tried both fresh and salt fish as a manure the different aspects of them should be attended to." A few weeks later, after watching results, he wrote: "The corn that is manured with fish, though it does not appear to promise much at first, may nevertheless be fine.... It is not only possible but highly probable." This opinion was abundantly confirmed years later when vast quantities of menhaden were converted into guano for crops by Atlantic coast factories, a practice changed only when livestock-nutrition studies showed that menhaden scrap was too valuable a protein source to be spread on land. The fish referred to by Washington were in all probability river-herring, or alewives, used as fertilizer at such times as they were caught in greater abundance than the food market could absorb. The probable yield of his fish trade was always carefully calculated, even when the pressure of national affairs required his absence from home. From Philadelphia we find him writing to his manager about a fish merchant's offer: "Ten shillings per hundred for shad is very low. I am at this moment paying six shillings apiece for every shad I buy." He usually tried to get at least twelve shillings a hundred for his shad, which were salted prior to marketing, although there were instances when he let them go for as little as one pence apiece. The extraordinary price of six shillings for one shad cited by him in Philadelphia is hard to explain. It probably referred to a fresh one caught early in the season and prepared especially for his table. Though records of the average weight of shad in those days are lacking, seven pounds is a fair estimate, and it may have been greater. The weights now seldom exceed three or four pounds, because in the more recent years of intensive fishing, shad have been widely caught up as they returned from the ocean to spawn for the first time. Shad, along with other anadromous, or "up-running," fish are born near the head-waters of rivers, and seek the ocean for feeding and growth. Unlike salmon they do not perish after one spawning and the oftener they return, the larger they are. What conservationists call "escapement," or the freedom to get back to the ocean from the rivers, is considered vital to their survival in quantity. All through the two-score years of fishing at Mount Vernon, Washington suffered, judging by his unceasing preoccupation with minor details, from the lack of a fishing foreman to whom he could entrust the operation with any confidence. Letters toward the close of his life bearing on this subject are still replete with reminders concerning trifles which would have been routine for any competent boss. The fish runs start about March; therefore, in January he finds it necessary to write; "It would be well to have the seines overhauled immediately, that is, if new ones are wanting, or the old ones requiring much repair, they may be set about without loss of time." He must even look beyond his own help for the skill necessary to put his nets in order. "I would have you immediately upon the receipt of this letter send for the man who usually does this work for me.... Let him choose his twine (if it is to be had in Alexandria) and set about them immediately." Abundance of fish created a bottleneck: In the height of the fishery they are not prepared to cure or otherwise dispose of them as fast as they could be caught; of course the seines slacken in their work, or the fish lie and spoil when that is the only time I can make anything by the seine, for small hauls will hardly pay the wear and tear of the seine and the hire of the hands. However, then as now, fishing was a gamble: Unless the weather grows warmer your fishing this season will, I fear, prove unproductive; for it has always been observed that in cold and windy weather the fish keep in deep water and are never caught in numbers, especially at shallow landings. And in 1794, he states, with the rather weary voice of experience, I am of opinion that selling the fish all to one man is best ... if Mr. Smith will give five shillings per thousand for herrings and twelve shillings a hundred for shad, and will oblige himself to take all you have to spare, you had better strike and enter into a written agreement with him.... I never choose to sell to wagoners; their horses have always been found troublesome, and themselves indeed not less so, being much addicted to the pulling down and burning the fences. If you do not sell to Smith the next best thing is to sell to the watermen.... I again repeat that when the schools of fish run you must draw night and day; and whether Smith is prepared to take them or not, they must be caught and charged to him; for it is then and then only I have a return for my expenses; and then it is the want of several purchasers is felt; for unless one person is extremely well prepared he cannot dispose of the fish as fast as they can be drawn at those times and if the seine or seines do no more than keep pace with his convenience my harvest is lost and of course my profit; for the herrings will not wait to be caught as they are wanted to be cured. Thus did Washington become one of the first to encounter the besetting plague of American mass production: the problem of distribution. That fishing was a vital prop in plantation economy is evidenced by a letter of April 24, 1796, to his manager: As your prospect for gain is discouraging, it may, in a degree, be made up in a good fishing season for herrings; that for shad must, I presume, be almost, if not quite, over. Salt herrings were a staple in the feeding of the "black people," and were issued to those at Mount Vernon at the rate of twenty a month per head. But he warned about waiting for the annually expected herring "glut" to occur before the slaves were provided for. If it should fail to materialize--as had been known--what then? Save a "sufficiency of fish" from the first runs, he wisely ordered. In 1781 he suggested that salt fish be contracted for the troops, and possibly it was tried for a while, but the year following, army leaders voted to exclude fish from the rations. Accounting records for 1774, presumably an average fishing year, show receipts of £170 for the catch at the Posey's ferry fishery, with £26 debited to operating cost. At the Johnson's ferry fishery £114 was taken in and £28 paid out. The catch here represented consisted of 9,862 shad and 1,591,500 river herring, but other large hauls were also made on the estate. Profits would seem to be adequate, although costs of nets and boats were not figured in. Fishing boats were usually small maneuverable craft that never had to put out very far from shore, and cost about £5 to build. Occasionally Washington was approached by speculators offering to rent the season's privileges at one of his fisheries for a flat sum. About one such proposal in 1796 he expressed the opinion to his manager that "under all chances fishing yourself will be more profitable than hiring out the landing for £60." Nevertheless, the headaches had for years made the transference of fishing to someone for cash on the barrelhead a temptation. In February, 1770, he had entered into an agreement as to sales while retaining the responsibility of catching: Mr. Robert Adams is obliged to take all I catch at Posey's landing provided the quantity does not exceed 500 barrels and will take more than this quantity if he can get casks to put them in. He is to take them as fast as they are catched, without giving any interruption to my people, and is to have the use of the fish house for his salt, fish, etc., taking care to have the house clear at least before the next fishing season; is to pay £10 for the use of the house and 3 shillings 4 pence, Maryland currency, per hundred for white fish. But in 1787 he wrote: "A good rent would induce me to let the fishery that I have no trouble or perplexity about it." The _Diary_ shows a good deal more interest during the early years in how the fish ran than it does later. In April, 1760, he writes: Apprehending the herring were come, hauled the seine but catched only a few of them, though a good many of other sorts.... Hauled the seine again, catched two or three white fish, more herring than yesterday and a great number of cats. August, 1768: Hauling the seine upon the bar of Cedar Point for sheepshead but catched none. April, 1769: The white fish ran plentifully at my seine landing, having catched about 300 at one haul.... The term "white fish" is not now generally applied to any species caught in the Potomac, but a good guess is that, with Washington, it was an alternate for shad. The Revolution was fought, but even before the surrender the minds of America's statesmen were actively considering peace terms. Both Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson suggested that the valuable fisheries off Newfoundland be freely open to American ships. This time it was not a question of the Northern Colony keeping the Southern Colony out as it had been 150 years before. Thomas Jefferson, writing in 1778, wanted the United Colonies to exclude England: If they [Britain] really are coming to their senses at last, and it should be proposed to treat of peace, will not Newfoundland fisheries be worthy particular attention to exclude them and all others from them except our _très grand_ and _chers amis_ and allies? Their great value to whatever nation possesses them is as a nursery for seamen. In the present very prosperous situation of our affairs, I have thought it would be wise to endeavor to gain a regular and acknowledged access in every court in Europe but most the Southern. The countries bordering on the Mediterranean I think will merit our earliest attention. They will be the important markets for our great commodities of fish, wheat, tobacco, and rice. Lee saw how fishing in Northern waters had started America on its way to being a maritime power. In a series of letters to George Mason and others he expresses his opinions forcibly: Our news here is most excellent; both from Williamsburg and from Richmond it comes that our countrymen have given the enemy in the South a complete overthrow.... Heaven grant it may be so. I shall then with infinite pleasure congratulate my friend on the recovery of his property, and our common country on so great a step towards really putting a period to the war. I think that in this case we may insist on our full share of the fishery, and the free navigation of the Mississippi. These are things of very great and lasting importance to America, the yielding of which will not procure the Congress thanks either from the present age or posterity. I rejoice greatly at the news from South Carolina. God grant it may be true. If this should force the enemy to reason and to peace, would you give up the navigation of the Mississippi and our domestic fishery on the Banks of Newfoundland? The former almost infinitely depreciating our back country and the latter totally destroying us as a maritime power. That is taking the name of independence without the means of supporting it. I rejoice exceedingly at our successes both in the North and in the South. If we continue to do thus, it will not be in the power of the execrable junto to prevent us from having a safe and honorable peace next winter. In this idea I shall ever include the fisheries and the navigation of the Mississippi. These, Sir, are the strong legs on which North America can alone walk securely in independence. If you do not get a wise and very firm friend to negotiate the fishery, it is my clear opinion that it will be lost, and upon this principle that it is the interest of every European power to weaken us and strengthen themselves. I heartily wish you success in your negotiations and that when you secure one valuable point for us (the fishery) that you will not less exert yourself for another very important object,--the free navigation of the Mississippi, provided guilty Britain should remain in possession of the Floridas. Fishing as a matter of states' rights resulted in the pioneering Potomac River Compact of 1785, when representatives of Maryland and Virginia met under George Washington's sponsorship at Mt. Vernon to deal with fishing and tolls. Maryland owned the river to the Virginia shore line, and agreed to allow Virginians to fish in it in return for free entry of Maryland ships through the Virginia capes. The compact, in force to this day, was the first step taken in behalf of interstate commerce. With its example to follow, other states eased the barriers to their commercial interests, with immeasurable benefit to the Union. Commercial fishing in Virginia was, as the century closed, on the verge of the stability it had sorely lacked. Its reliance on Indians for knowledge and skill, as in the first of the 17th century, was as dead as its reliance on England for manufactures in the last of the 18th. Just around the corner were railroads and steamboats with their comparatively swift transportation. Teeming cities needed to be fed, and after nearly two centuries of education in the ways of the Chesapeake Bay and its marine life, Virginia fishermen knew how to keep the markets stocked. In 1794 a French visitor, Moreau de Saint Méry, wrote: Fish is the commodity that sells for a ridiculously low price in Norfolk. One can purchase weakfish weighing more than twenty pounds for 4 or 5 francs and sometimes one that weighs three times more for a gourde, 5 francs, 10 sous. Drum is also very cheap. Sturgeon, weighing up to 60 pounds, can be bought for 6 French sous a pound, about the same price paid for little codfish that are brought in alive and are delicious to eat. Shad is also plentiful there. In addition, one can get perch, porpoise, eels, leatherjackets, summer flounder, turbot, mullet, trout, blackfish, herring, sole, garfish, etc. In short, fish is so abundant in Norfolk that sometimes the police find it necessary to throw back into the water those that are not bought. Herring fishing began to be abandoned by the planters, many of whom were up to their necks in a variety of enterprises, in favor of business men intending to specialize. Letters from a Virginia speculator, John F. Mercer, to Richard Sprigg, sketch the situation: April 19, 1779. To cure fish properly requires two days in the brine before packing and they can only lie packed with safety in dry weather. These circumstances joined with the heading and drawing almost all the fish (a very tedious operation) will show that no time was lost--only 9 days elapsed from his arrival here to his completing his load of 15,000 herrings, a time beyond which many wagons have waited on these shores for 4,000 uncured fish and many have been obliged to return without one, after coming 40 and 50 miles and offering 2 and 5 dollars a thousand. Several indeed from my own shore and six who want 36,000 herring will, I believe, quit this night without a fish, after waiting all this storm on the shore five days. Mr. Clarke has had his fish completed two days.... He has been delayed by the almost continual storm that has prevailed since his arrival and which has ruined us fishermen. My fishery has been miserably conducted from the beginning as might be expected from my entire ignorance and the penury of my partner who was poorer than myself.... Still I have expectations that it may turn out an immense thing from the trial we have made. The shores being opposite to Maryland Point, the reach above and below with the mouths of the two creeks on this side form a sweep, both tides upon them, that must collect for fish; and they are kept in by a kind of pound on the Virginia shore's trend. There apparent advantages accord with the experiment for, with a desperate patched-up seine that always breaks with a good haul, we have contrived to land 20,000 a day, every day we can haul. We are nearer to the Fredericksburg and Falmouth Virginia markets than any shore that is or can be opened on the river by 10 miles notwithstanding every discouragement and particularly the activity and lies practiced against us by the Little Creek fisheries on each side, who must fail with our success. April 10, 1795. Herrings they tell me are 10 shillings per thousand at all the shores. If I had your lease I could make a fortune. I have a great mind to send Pollard and George up for your small boat and seine.... If Peyton comes down with his seine to haul at my shore, I will seine salted herrings enough for us both. That acidulous but always colorful roving reporter from the mid-west, Anne Royall, offers the best picture, for accuracy and detail, of hauling a seine ever presented by anyone not a technician. Though written almost 50 years after the Revolution, it describes the kind of fishing on which Virginians had principally depended since Christopher Newport began the Colonial era and George Washington ended it: The market of Alexandria is abundant and cheap; though much inferior to any in any part of the western country, except beef and fish, which are by far superior to that of the western markets.... Their exquisite fish, oysters, crabs, and foreign fruits upon the whole bring them upon a value with us. Their fish differ from ours, even some species. Their catfish is the only sort in which we excel; they have none that answer to our blue cat, either in size or flavor, and nothing like our mud-cat. Their catfish is from ten to fifteen inches in length, with a wide mouth, like the mud-cat of the Western waters; but their cat differ from both ours in substance and color; they are soft, pied black and white. They are principally used to make soup, which is much esteemed by the inhabitants. All their fish are small compared with ours. Besides the catfish which they take in the latter part of the winter, they have the rock, winter shad, mackerel, and perch, shad and herring. The winter shad is very fine indeed. They are like our perch, but infinitely smaller. These fish are sold very low; a large string, enough for a dozen persons, may be purchased for a few cents. No fish, however, that I have tasted, equal our trout. The Potomac at Alexandria, is rather over a mile in width; it is celebrated for its beauty. It is certainly a great blessing to this country in supplying its inhabitants with food in the article of fish. Fish is abundant (at Washington), and cheap at all seasons, shad is three dollars per hundred; herrings, one dollar per thousand. Great quantities of herring and shad are taken in these waters during the fishing season, which commences in March, and lasts about ten weeks. As many as 160,000 are said to be caught at one haul. When the season commences no time is to be lost, not even Sunday. Although I am not one of those that make no scruple of breaking the Sabbath, yet, Sunday, as it was, I was anxious to see a process which I had never witnessed--I mean that of taking fish with a seine--there being no such thing in the Western country. It is very natural for one to form an opinion of some sort respecting things they have never seen, but the idea I had formed of the method of fishing with a seine was far from a correct one. In the first place, about fifteen or twenty men, and very often an hundred, repair to the place where the fish are to be taken, with a seine and a skiff. This skiff, however, must be large enough to contain the net and three men--two to row, and one to let out the net. These nets, or seines, are of different sizes, say from two to three hundred fathom in length, and from three to four fathom wide. On one edge are fastened pieces of cork-wood as large as a man's fist, about two feet asunder, and on the opposite edge are fastened pieces of lead, about the same distance--the lead is intended to keep the lower end of the seine close to the bottom of the river. The width of the seine is adapted to the depth of the river, so that the corks just appear on its surface, otherwise the lead would draw the top of the seine under water, and the fish would escape over the top. All this being understood and the seine and rowers in the boat, they give one end of the seine to a party of men on the shore, who are to hold it fast. Those in the boat then row off from the shore, letting out the seine as they go; they advance in a straight line towards the opposite shore, until they gain the middle of the river, when they proceed down the stream, until the net is all out of the boat except just sufficient to reach the shore from whence they set out, to which they immediately proceed. Here an equal number of men take hold of the net with those at the other end, and both parties commence drawing it towards the shore. As they draw, they advance towards each other, until they finally meet, and now comes the most pleasing part of the business. It is amusing enough to see what a spattering the fish make when they find themselves completely foiled: they raise the water in a perfect shower, and wet every one that stands within their reach. I ought to have mentioned, that when the fish begin to draw near the shore, one or two men step into the water, on each side of the net, and hold it close to the bottom of the channel, otherwise the fish would escape underneath. All this being accomplished, the fishermen proceed to take out the fish in greater or less numbers, as they are more or less fortunate. These fishermen make a wretched appearance, they certainly bring up the rear of the human race. They were scarcely covered with clothes, were mostly drunk, and had the looks of the veriest sots on earth. A Virginian born in 1792, Col. T. J. Randolph of Edgehill near Charlottesville, was asked to search his earliest memories in order to record 18th century fishing conditions. He wrote a letter in 1875 to the newly-constituted Virginia fish commissioners describing an era well-nigh incredible to today's Tidewater fishermen: Shad were abundant in the Rivanna at my earliest recollection, say prior to 1800. They penetrated into the mountains to breed. I have heard the old people, when I was young, speak of their descending the rivers in continuous streams in the fall, as large as a man's hand. The old ones so weak, that if they were forced by the current against a rock they got off with difficulty. Six miles north of Charlottesville three hundred were caught in one night with a bush seine. A negro told me he had caught seventeen in a trap at one time. I recollect the negroes bringing them to my mother continually. An entry of land near Charlottesville about 1735 crossed the Rivanna for two or three acres as a fishing shore. The dams absolutely stopped them, but they had greatly declined before their erection. In 1810 every sluice in the falls at Richmond was plied day and night by float seines. I never heard of rockfish above the falls, and supposed they were confined to Tidewater.... Rockfish were hunted on the Eastern Shore on horseback with spears. The large fish coming to feed on the creek shores, overflowed by the tide, showed themselves in the shallow water by a ripple before them. They were ridden on behind and forced into water too shallow for them to swim well, and were speared. I inferred from this fact that they confined themselves to the Tidewater. When young, I have heard the old people speak of an abundance of other fish. The supposition was that the clearing of the country, and consequent muddying of the streams, had destroyed them. By sluicing the dams, and prohibiting fishing in sluices, or trapping, or anything that should bar their progress, I do not see why the shad should not return. The shad have never returned to the up-country. But they still visit the vast inland waters below the Fall line, sometimes so abundantly that the price declines, as it did so recently as 1956, to where the fishermen can scarcely make a profit. Other fish referred to by the first Virginians continue to return, and will do so as long as our outreaching civilization does not deprive them of the natural conditions they need for survival. The years closely following the Revolution brought profound readjustment in American commerce. Observations on whaling, a minor but vital home industry, filled many pages of a 1788 communication of Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, one of his confreres in the shaping of national policy. After sketching the uses of whale oil, its economic position and its history, he took up the particular problem facing the people of Nantucket, perhaps the foremost whalers in America. As long as they had been subjects of the British Empire they had been able to sell their oil duty-free in England. Now as aliens they must pay the same tariff charged other foreign traders. This meant the difference between a profitable and unprofitable enterprise. A few Nantucket seamen had even transferred to Nova Scotia in order to become British citizens again and thus receive exemption from whale-oil import duty. This trend alarmed the French in particular, who could visualize thousands of the United States' best sailors going over to their enemies the English. The remedy was suggested: make France the most attractive market for U.S. whale oil. At the same time, English whaling had been government subsidized and could undercut competition. The international chess game went briskly on, to the concern of Jefferson and the well-wishers of the infant Union. Before the Revolution England had fewer than 100 vessels whaling, while America had more than 300. But by 1788 England had 314 and America 80. Such was the result of the conflict, aided by the bounty paid by Britain to its own whalers. Jefferson hoped that the United States producers could develop a market in France, in part, by bartering oil for the essential work clothes which hitherto had been bought for cash in England. But he warned that without some kind of subsidy American whalers could neither compete with foreign countries nor make a living commensurate with other pursuits. The growing nation's sea-faring men would decrease to the point where the country's sea power would be in question. As Secretary of State in 1791, Jefferson reported to Congress on the two principal American fisheries of the day, both oceanic. "The cod and whale fisheries," he began, "carried on by different persons, from different ports, in different vessels, in different seas, and seeking different markets, agree in one circumstance, as being as unprofitable to the adventurer as important to the public." Once prosperous, he said, they were now in embarrassing decline. He traced the history of the cod fisheries back to 1517, in which year as many as 50 European ships were reported fishing off the Newfoundland banks at one time. In 1577 there were 150 French vessels, 100 Spanish and 50 Portuguese. The British limped far behind with 15. The French gradually took over as they claimed more and more territory in the region. Other nations dropped out, except England, whose cod fleet at the beginning of the seventeenth century had increased to about 150 vessels. These in due course were largely supplanted by the New England colonists. When France lost Newfoundland to England in 1713 the English and Colonial fisheries spurted ahead. By 1755 their fleets and catches equaled those of the French, and in 1768 passed them. Jefferson's statistics present an impressive picture of the fishing activity of that time and place, especially when compared with the unorganized Chesapeake fisheries just then coming of age. In 1791 he said there were 259 French vessels totaling 24,422 tons and employing 9,722 seamen. Their catch: 20 million pounds that year. There were 665 American vessels with 25,650 tonnage, 4,405 seamen and a catch of around 40 million pounds. England's ships, tonnage and men were not given. However, her estimated catch nearly equaled that of France and America combined. Thus the Northern fishing grounds in their palmy days accounted for well over 100 million pounds of cod a year. It is worth remarking that the size of today's New England cod fishery is not radically different from the pre-Revolutionary one described by Jefferson. Boats, men and catch remain about the same on the average. Turning to the whaling industry, Jefferson noted that Americans did not enter it until 1715, although he credited the Biscayans and Basques of Southern Europe with prosecuting it in the 15th century and leading the way to the fishing grounds off Newfoundland. Whales were sought in both the North and South Atlantic. The figures for the American Colonies in 1771 as given by Jefferson were 304 vessels engaged, totaling 27,800 tons, navigated by 4,059 men. They were in for a difficult time in 1791. The Revolution halted their activities and deprived them of their markets. Re-establishing this fishery was a prime concern of Jefferson. It is significant that in his painstaking consideration of the nation's fisheries he, a Virginian, apparently found no cause to deal with those of his own Chesapeake bay. They were one day nevertheless to outstrip many times over both the volume and value of American cod and whale fisheries together. The evidence is that Jefferson was more interested in fish at Monticello than anywhere else. But there the interest was personal, not national. In his so-called _Farm Book_, or plantation record, he often mentions fish. A note on slave labor reads: "A barrel of fish costing $7. goes as far with the laborers as 200 ponds of pork costing $14." This was in all probability Virginia salt-herring, which had finally reached the status of a staple during the latter half of the 18th century. An 1806 memorandum to his overseer runs: "Fish is always to be got in Richmond ... and to be dealt out to the hirelings, laborers, workmen, and house servants of all sorts as has been usual." In 1812 a bill for fish, which he terms "indeed very high and discouraging, but the necessity of it is still stronger," lists the species no doubt in chief demand: "Twelve barrels herrings, $75. and one barrel of shads, $6.50." These were salted and shipped in from Tidewater fisheries like George Washington's at Mt. Vernon. For fresh fish Jefferson and his neighbors could look to their adjacent rivers. In fact, so greatly did they rely on them that it was with feelings akin to consternation that he wrote his friend William D. Meriwether in 1809 that a neighbor, Mr. Ashlin, proposed to erect a dam which was sure to inconvenience the watermen of the vicinity. Furthermore, "to this then add the removal of our resort for fresh fish ... and the deprivation of all the intermediate inhabitants who now catch them at their door." He was not on too firm ground in objecting, however. He had a dam of his own across the Rivanna river which had been there since 1757. He decided to build a fish pond in his garden. As he described it in 1808 it was little larger than an aquarium, 40 cubic yards contents, probably for water lilies and goldfish. It was the first of several fish ponds, constructed, no doubt, with both beauty and utility in mind. A note in his _Weather Memorandum Book_ under date April 1812 tells us: "The two fish ponds on the Colle branch were 40 days work to grub, clean and make the dams." A series of letters in 1812 to friends who he thought might supply him with live fish, particularly carp, for stocking, all run very much on the order of this one to Captain Mathew Wills: I return you many thanks for the fish you have been so kind as to send me, and still more for your aid in procuring the carp, and you will further oblige me by presenting my thanks to Capt. Holman & Mr. Ashlin. I have found too late, on enquiry that the cask sent was an old and foul one, and I have no doubt that must have been the cause of the death of the fish. The carp, altho it cannot live the shortest time out of water, yet is understood to bear transportation in water the best of any fish whatever. The obtaining breeders for my pond being too interesting to be abandoned, I have had a proper smack made, such as is regularly used for transporting fish, to be towed after the boat, and have dispatched the bearer with it without delay, as the season is passing away. I have therefor again to solicit your patronage, as well as Captain Holman's in obtaining a supply of carp. I think a dozen would be enough and would therefore wish him to come away as soon as he can get that number. From that time on his ponds came in for periodic mention, as when one was broken up by flood waters in 1814. But despite setbacks he kept faith in them as good food-producing adjuncts of a farm, thus anticipating the U.S. Department of Agriculture's modern food-fish pond-development program by more than a century. As is likely to be the case with experimenters, Jefferson's efforts at fish propagation do not appear to have been overwhelmingly successful. At any rate, there is much more frequent reference in his records to putting fish in his ponds than taking them out. So far as he was concerned, it may be said that results were less important than example. Like all great leaders he was an originator and investigator, confining himself to the basic things that insure man's sustenance and contribute to his happiness, not the least of which is fishing. BIBLIOGRAPHY Archer, Gabriel. _A Relation of the Discovery of Our River From James Forte into the Maine, Made by Captain Christopher Newport._ Worcester, 1860. Beverley, Robert. _The History and Present State of Virginia._ London, 1705. Brown, Alexander. _The Genesis of the United States._ Boston, 1890. 2 vols. Burnaby, Andrew. _Travels Through the Middle Settlements in North America in the Years 1759-1760._ London, 1798. Byrd, William. _Natural History of Virginia._ Ed. and tr. by R. C. Beatty and W. J. Mulloy. Richmond, 1940. Chastellux, François J. _Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782._ London, 1787. Cresswell, Nicholas. _The Journal, 1774-77._ Ed. by Lincoln McVeagh. New York, 1924. De Vries, David P. _Voyages From Holland to America, 1632-1644._ New York, 1857. Durand, --. _A Huguenot exile in Virginia._ Ed. by Gilbert Chinard. New York, 1934. Fithian, Philip V. _Journal and Letters, 1773-1774._ Ed. by Hunter D. Farish. Williamsburg, 1943. Force, Peter. _Tracts and Other Papers._ Washington, 1836-46. 4 vols. Glover, Thomas. _An Account of Virginia._ London, 1676. Hamilton, Stanislaus M., ed. _Letters to Washington and Accompanying Papers._ Boston, 1898-1901. 5 vols. Hamor, Ralph. _Notes of Virginian affaires of the Government of Sir Thomas Gates and of Sir Thomas Dale till 1614._ Glasgow, 1906. ---- _A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia._ London, 1614. Hariot, Thomas. _Narrative of the First English Plantation of Virginia._ London, 1893. Hart, Albert B. _American History Told by Contemporaries._ New York, 1908. 4 vols. Hening, William W. _The Statutes at Large of Virginia._ 1809-1823. 13 vols. Jefferson, Thomas. _The Complete Jefferson._ Ed. by Saul K. Padover. New York, 1943. ---- _Thomas Jefferson's Farm Book._ Ed. by Edwin M. Betts. Princeton. 1953. ---- _Thomas Jefferson's Garden Book, 1766-1824._ Ed. by Edwin M. Betts. Philadelphia, 1944. Lee, Richard Henry. _Letters of Richard Henry Lee._ Ed. by James C. Ballagh. New York, 1914. 2 vols. Middleton, Arthur P. _Tobacco Coast._ Ed. by George C. Mason. Newport News, 1953. Neill, Edward. _Virginia Vetusta._ Albany, 1885. Newport, Christopher. _A Description of the Now-discovered River and Country of Virginia, 1607._ Worcester, 1860. Pearson, John C. _The Fish and Fisheries of Colonial Virginia._ In William and Mary College Quarterly, 1942-3. Williamsburg. Purchas, Samuel. _His Pilgrimes._ Glasgow, 1906. 20 vols. Royall, Anne. _Sketches of History, Life and Manners in the United States._ New Haven, 1826. Smith, John. _Travels and Works of Captain John Smith._ Ed. by Edward Arber. Edinburgh, 1910. 2 vols. Strachey, William. _The Historie of Travaile Into Virginia Britannia._ London, 1849. Swem, E. G. _Virginia Historical Index._ Roanoke, 1934-6. 2 vols. Virginia. _Calendar of Virginia State Papers._ Richmond, 1875-1893. 11 vols. Virginia Fish Commissioners. _Annual Report for the Year 1875._ Richmond, 1875. Virginia Company. _The Records._ Ed. by S. M. Kingsbury. Washington, 1906-1935. 4 vols. Washington, George. _The Writings of George Washington._ Ed. by J. C. Fitzpatrick. Washington. 39 vols. Whitelaw, Ralph T. _Virginia's Eastern Shore._ Ed. by George C. Mason. Richmond, 1951. 2 vols. Manuscripts _Mercer Papers_, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond. Washington, Lund. _Letters._ Unpublished, at Mt. Vernon. 
29098	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) BLACK BASS. WHERE TO CATCH THEM IN QUANTITY WITHIN AN HOUR'S RIDE OF NEW YORK. Best Methods and Baits fully treated upon, with salient Practical Hints upon choice of Rods and Tackle. Weather Prognostications and Atmospheric Influences Reviewed. [Illustration (handwriting): Charles Barker Bradford] NEW YORK: THE W. P. POND PUBLISHING CO., 37 W. 24TH STREET. Copyright, 1888, W. P. Pond & Co. Let me live harmlessly, and near the brink Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place: Where I may see my fly or cork down sink, With eager bite of pike, or bass, or dace, And on the world and my Creator think: While some men strive ill-gotten goods t'embrace: And others spend their time in base excess Of wine, or worse, in war or wantonness. Let them that will, these pastimes still pursue, And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill, So I the fields and meadows green may view, And daily by fresh rivers walk at will. --_Ancient Angler._ [Illustration: Black Bass Fishing] There is probably no more welcome news for one fond of black bass fishing than a description and general details of where good sport may be had; and when the individual is a unit in the population of a large city and suddenly learns that this is obtainable within an easy distance, the information is worth its weight in gold, in his estimation, if in no one else's. The main object of this paper on black bass fishing is to supply that knowledge to a large contingent, and also to give a few hints to those, who, fond of fishing, may still be open to a few practical hints. There are possibly many fishermen like myself, who, while not unfamiliar with salt-water sport with rod and line, still know and fully appreciate the pleasure of fishing for the fresh-water black bass. Salt-water fishing is grand sport, but there are many denizens of a city who have been reared in the districts of fresh-water streams, lakes and ponds, who have not had the opportunities of cultivating salt-water sport, and who even when surrounded with every facility for its pursuit, would still be elated at finding some well-stocked stream near at hand. Anglers, as a rule, are unable to go far a-field in search of fresh-water fishing, and for six years past it was a continual thorn in my flesh, mortifying me considerably, that no information could be obtained of any good fishing that did not necessitate an absence of several days. Last season, entirely by accident, I ran upon a magnificent place within nineteen miles of New York City. It is a beautiful spot, easily reached without much expense or trouble and within an hour's ride by rail. In all my search, this is the one spot I care to recommend to my readers. Take the cars from Jersey City to Rahway, N. J., and upon arriving there walk to a small village called Milton, half a mile west of Rahway; pass through this, continue half a mile further west, and you will reach Milton Lake. An hour and a half's time covers the distance. I generally take the one-thirty p. m. train, and return in the evening; but trains run almost every hour to and from Rahway. Milton Lake is a body of water about a mile square, with two outlets, one falling over a picturesque stone dam twenty feet high into a stream about ten feet wide; and the other outlet, a small stream flowing through a mill-gate to the Milton Mills. In each of these streams there are plenty of bass, but in the lake proper and in the little brook that flows into the upper end of the lake, they are in abundance. I pass the lake itself and follow the little stream for about half a mile until I come to White's Farm. This I have found to be the finest fishing ground. The stream is about eighteen feet wide at the narrowest part and from fifty to sixty at its widest. It rises miles upon miles back in the country somewhere, and runs rippling and chattering over the shallows, surging silently over the pools until it empties into the lake. I have never fished higher than White's Farm, being well satisfied with the sport obtained there, but the resident farmers tell me that there is even finer fishing up stream. Like the average fisherman, I am more or less superstitious, and having always had good luck at my favorite place (the edge of a fine piece of wood, which, by the way, contain a few woodcock), I do not care to seek further, and, perhaps, fare worse. Here, where the stream branches off from a wide pond-like section, and slowly flows past two dozen or so fine willows on either bank, I have made a rude seat in one of the trees, and using a coat for a cushion, have spent many pleasant hours; not always fishing, but on hot summer afternoons, shaded from the sun, just letting my line run out in the water, careless about either rise or catch, in quiet repose, looking at the beautiful natural landscape around me, fairly enchanted with its rural splendor. Then I feel that for a short space, at least, I have thrown off the burden of a busy life, and can quietly absorb all that Dame Nature thus generously affords. I see the silvery sky-reflecting stream winding its peaceful way through the rich pasturage, under the rustic bridge, past the line of undulating willows, that, moving with the faintest breath of air, seem ever bending down to kiss its ripples; past the green banks and orchards, on through clover patches, and sedge-lined promontories, flashing like burnished metal at the rifts, black as night in the pools, dappled and flecked by the mirrored clouds, kissed into "cat's paws" by the faint breeze; on it goes until its farther course is lost in the shadow of the olive-green woods that tower in massive darkness against the soft amber-colored clouds and pale blue sky. The watchful kingfisher, perched on the other side of the stream, eyes me askance but has no great fear at my presence, the splash of a disturbed turtle or the heavier fall of a diving frog calling for his more earnest attention. Bass are leaping in every direction; far up on the hillside sounds the bell of a cow; nearer still calls "Bob White;" robins are piping; the wrens are chirping; a hungry crow dismally cawks, and all these sounds mingle with the music of the millions of trilling nameless tiny insects concealed in the deep grasses below me and in the fluttering leaves over-head. What greater pleasure can a busy man wish for than to now and again "leave life and the world behind" for a few hours and amid surroundings like these smoke and chat with a congenial friend, in pleasant shade, until the sun sinks towards the West, and the work of fishing begins. One can fish equally well from bank or boat. The stream sides are grass-bound and flower-decked to the very water edge, affording dry and safe footing, with here and there a fence to lean against, or hang your impedimenta upon. A little to the left of the farmhouse is the orchard, succeeded by a wood of nut and oak trees, which slope to the banks of the lake, and under whose shade bass may be caught at any hour of the day, be the sun ever so hot. The water here is deep and cool, and I use it as a swimming ground. It is also a fine place to cool drinks in. A bottle of Piper Heidsieck or a bottle or two of beer slung into the depths of the pool with a stout cord, can be drawn up an hour later cool as a snow stream in the mountains. A little distance above a rustic bridge spans the stream, under and on either side of which, just in the shadow line, a dozen or more fine bass, weighing up to four pounds each, may be seen at any time. As one crosses the bridge they raise their weather-eye and look up, but do not move, whilst hundreds of young bass, an inch or two in length, shoot from the innumerable crevices like so many fresh-water shiners. The very foundation of the bridge seems to be alive with them. There are also a number of giant sun-fish here which seldom refuse a bait. At daybreak on fine mornings, when camping there for a day or two, I have caught in less than an hour half a dozen two-pound bass, not counting other fish and small bass which I tossed back. I used one of Chubb's ordinary silk trolling lines and one of Abbey's spoons, which, by the way, to my fancy spin more freely and better than any others I have used. This I worked sometimes from a small bark canoe and sometimes from a wooden one, which I keep at the farm, and use to paddle up and down the stream between the willows and the bridge, or upon the lake itself. Many men prefer a boat and oars, but I find a light canoe infinitely preferable. The double paddle makes less splash than the oars, and if one can use the Canadian single blade, it does not make any noise at all. Added to this it is easier managed, one sees where one is going, and it can be lifted with one hand from stream to lake, and lake to stream. The fish under the bridge are very tempting, but also very wary, and the residents say they are but seldom caught from the bridge itself. One day I cast a yellow-body fly, (a clumsy affair, but the best I had, having lost my fly book on the cars) and as it fell on the water I let it drift under the bridge, more in carelessness than by intent, and as it reached the rich bank of green weeds out of my sight, I felt the tug and magnetic vibration that every angler knows so well. Quick as a flash I dropped from the bridge to the bank, ran knee deep into the stream, and fighting the fish clear of the structure and reeds, landed a three-pound five-ounce beauty at my side on the bank. "That's the first fish I've seen caught from the bridge," said an admiring native, and it was the only one I ever caught, although my line has dropped there many times before and since. Now I know the trick. I made a stout cord fast to a stump above the bridge, and let my canoe float down under and through the bridge, then I cast my fly, and a boy sitting in the bows slowly pulled me through again up to the stump. The fish seeing no splash, only the passing shadow of the silent canoe, took my fly readily, and in the early morning I was sure of a fairly good catch. If fished for from the bridge, they will lie there, and never move a fin; the current is weak, and if scared away by a stone or twig, they will return in a second or two, almost to the same spot. I fancy the first one I caught was not a regular "bridge bass," but was one swimming up stream at the edge of the weeds in search of his breakfast. Now if any of my fishing friends think they can catch these bridge bass, I will guarantee to show them (or they can go and see for themselves) from six to a dozen of the beauties lying there at any time. When I do not succeed with them to my satisfaction, I get some one to systematically drop stones and drive them up stream, where, perhaps out of pure unadulterated cussedness, they seem to readily take a fly. A great advantage of this spot up stream is that the baby bass and sun fish give but little trouble. The principal nuisances are the large eels. If the line touches the bottom for an instant an eel seems certain to be waiting for it, and I would as readily handle a squid as an eel. My brother, who frequently accompanies me, is not a fisherman and prefers fishing for eels, and by a rule of contrariness the bass bother him quite as much as the fresh-water "snakes," as I call them, bother me. Among my troubles I must not forget the mud turtles and snappers. They, too, are a nuisance when baiting with worms, and anyone who desires a few of the "shell-backs" can be abundantly accommodated. For more than two miles of this lovely stream any man who knows how to handle a rod or throw a fly can land, or at least hook, some of the liveliest two to three pounders he could wish for, and although bass vary in their tastes at different periods of the day, I know nothing better than the common trolling spoon as a regular thing. There is one pool where I would almost be inclined to wager that I could get a strike with either spoon or fly every ten minutes during the first two hours of daylight, or from five to eight in the evening. That is saying a good deal, but it is a fact. The best fish I caught last season was when I was going up stream in the canoe near the mouth of the lake and close to the right side. By a sudden movement I shot under some willow branches. I was just letting my line run out after a weed strike and was holding the paddle in my left hand, with the line between my teeth, using my right hand to give a good push to clear the boughs, when "zip, zip!" a beauty seized my bait as I floated out. I got nervous, upset my canoe and rolled into the water, but waded on shore and landed my fish. He weighed four pounds, seven ounces, live weight, and I have his head and tail and a clear conscience to prove it. The last half day of the season I was fishing at Milton Lake, and I caught eighteen fine bass, and two eels, the latter as large round as a policeman's club and as dirty and slimy as usual. Eels always remind me of a skinny circus contortionist. When I am unfortunate enough to hook one, I generally make a clean cut of two yards of silk line, hook and all, and tie him up to the fence, or bow stay of my canoe. I would willingly let all of them go again only from a lingering remnant of a boyish superstition that they would go and tell all the bass how horribly indigestible my bait was. I remember catching a big snapping turtle, weighing about twelve pounds, in the lake one day. When I pulled it up, my companion grabbed it, and I really think I would have jumped overboard but for the fear that others might be around to make things more pleasant for me for jumping "from the frying pan into the fire." I suppose a salt-water fisherman would have yelled and danced for joy; I am not built that way. When I fish for bass, I want bass, and when I fish for turtles--No! I would not want them even then. The next one that takes my bait can have pole, line, hook and all. The bass in the lake are innumerable, but they are more difficult to catch than those in the stream, a fact which pleases the true fisherman, who fishes to match his skill and science against the instinct and cunning of the fish, rather than with the one sole intention of making his bag larger than that of any preceding angler. Remember the lake bass want _sport_ more than _food_, and the bait must be handled in a lively manner to bring success. Some fifteen years ago this water was stocked by some wealthy Jersey men, and, from what I can learn, not half a dozen expert anglers have visited its waters in the past ten years, and there is no record of anybody ever having fished the stream I here describe. Last season I only met three strangers at the lake, but they never seemed to catch anything beyond eels, turtles, sun-fish, and a few two inch bass, the name of which they did not even know, and I got into their bad graces by telling them they ought to return the bass into the lake. They thought I was a crank, in fact one of them told me so. These men were salt-water sports, and one man who came there from Newark, N. J., was actually baiting with shrimps for fresh-water bass and had no less than eight hooks upon his line, all baited with shrimps. This man also told me that there were no decent fish in the lake, and strange to say, this appears to be the general opinion of the few visitors. I met one good fly fisherman a year ago, who had several fine beauties on the bank. He had taken his stand behind my tree before I arrived, and he was an artist. We became good friends and promised to meet again, but have not done so as yet. He agreed with me that the lake was full of beautiful fish, and that they were a trifle hard to catch, which fact we both agreed was very good for the interests of the true lovers of the art of angling. Another fine place for bass within an easy distance of New York is Greenwood Lake, which lies half in New York and half in New Jersey. It is on the Erie railroad and has several good hotels and a club house open during the summer. Guides are to be had at a moderate figure, and the fishing during the last three seasons has been good. Lake Ronkonkoma, Long Island, is another good fishing ground. Take the Long Island railroad to the depot at Ronkonkoma; from there stages run to the lake during the season. Distance, about two miles. Tuxedo Park is confined to members of the Tuxedo Park Club, and has a fine supply of large and lively bass, which take a fly remarkably well. At Lake Hopatcong, N. Y., bass are plentiful, but without a guide little good is to be done. It lies on the Morris and Essex railroad, two hours ride from Hoboken. During the summer a very good house, the Hotel Breslin, is open. This hotel was first opened last year, is exceedingly moderate in its charges, is well fitted throughout, and is by far the best house of them all. There are several guides at the Lake, the best average of them being Morris Decker, who has an island in the lake on which he lets out tents to camping parties, supplying them with all necessaries at reasonable terms. He is well posted in the various feeding grounds, and with him good sport is a certainty, if the weather is right. There are some very large bass here. Mr. Eugene C. Blackford has caught several at four and a half pounds, and five and a quarter pounds. One was caught three years ago weighing eight pounds two ounces. There are plenty of good pickerel, and anglers are but little annoyed by sun-fish or eels. There is a fine fishing club-house on Bertrand Island, which is very exclusive. The best bait here has proved to be live bait, minnows, or frogs. Now as regards bait for still-fishing, I have tried almost everything at odd times. Bass are very peculiar fish as regards feeding. Sometimes they take one bait right along all day, and at other times will change morning, noon, and night, also from sunshine to cloud. I generally start in the early morning with grasshoppers, and if that does not suit them, I vary it to the helgramite--known to naturalists as the larvæ of the horned corydalis, locally called "dobsons," "dobsell," "hellion," "crawler," "kill-devil," etc.--a live minnow, small green frog, small bull-head, or a "lamper"--local name for small lamprey eel. The dobson is the most stable bait for still fishing, and a good plan is to pass a piece of silk under the shield in the back and then pass the hook through that; the same scheme is equally good with grasshoppers. Towards evening, I found worms a very good bait, except when rain threatened. In using a minnow, I pass the hook up through the lower lip and out the nostril; it then lives a long time. Some anglers hook through both lips, the lower one first. Hooked either way, a dead minnow moves like a live one. I always treat a minnow as Izaak Walton spoke of a frog, "as if I loved him." The angler cannot be too careful of his minnows. I change the water frequently, not waiting for them to come up to breathe; it is then too late, and they cannot be resuscitated. In hot weather I place a piece of ice in flannel on the top of the pail. A little salt added to the water is a great improvement, about as much as will lie on a silver quarter, to two gallons of water. Fifty minnows to a five gallon pail with a handful of weeds to keep the fish from bruising themselves, is about the right proportion of fish to space. Of all baits the old Florida "bob," I think, is still the most effective. It was mentioned by Bertram, in 1764, and is still used. It is made by tying three hooks back to back, invested with a piece of deer's tail somewhat in the manner of a large hackle, studded with scarlet feathers, forming a tassel or tuft similar to that used on the trolling spoon. If this be thrown with a sweeping surface draw under trees or bushes, it is almost irresistible. On the spoon I always run a lamper or a minnow, and for slow water, like the stream at Milton, or for lake fishing, I manufacture one as follows: A spoon not more than three quarters of an inch in length. If you cannot buy one so small, get one made by some working jeweller or metallist. Then slide a round black bead as large as a pea on your line just above your hook, letting the spoon be above it. This will be found to spin in the slowest water, and, as every bass fisher knows, the slower the rate of progression, the better, so long as the spoon is spinning. I seldom use any sinker at Milton Lake, there being little or no current, and the trees as a rule keep off any wind. In the stream I generally drift down, letting my line float in front of the boat, and getting well down stream troll back up stream, to drift down again. For the benefit of the tyros I may here remark, that success in trolling for bass, I think, depends largely upon a perfect knowledge of the depth of water, and that the bait should be kept about eighteen inches from the bottom all the way. I study the pools in my favorite streams, locating them by trees, etc., on the bank, and then judge the depth my bait lies at by the angle at which my line runs from my mouth or pole to the water. This will, with a little practice, tell me at what depth my bait is swimming. Dobsons and small bull-heads I obtain by striking the large rocks in the rifts and shallows with another large stone, and setting a net fixed upon a bowed stick behind it. The bull-heads and dobsons will float, stunned, into its meshes. I have also found them clinging to old spiles supporting a dam, or submerged stonework. They may be kept alive any length of time if placed in a can containing rotten wood. They are the best shallow water bait for still fishing. My experience is that it pays better to buy bait than hunt for it, which takes up time and tires one. An all important point is the best day for fishing from a weather point of view. We all know the varied ideas and superstitions of fishermen, and truly there is a great deal to be said in favor of many of the theories when backed by actual observation. Bass are found in different localities at different times; in the early part of the season they will be found on the rifts where, of course, the water is warmest; the best bait at this time is the helgramite and larvæ; as the season advances they will move to the deeper still water that lies under the bushes and trees, taking insects and flies; and later still, they will be found in the deep holes, lying under rocky ledges, or where gravel has fallen from the banks and been washed away by the spring freshets. At this period the best bait is small minnows, crayfish, molluscs, etc. Yet without rhyme and reason, I find they may at any time be found in deep water one day and in the shallows the next. As a rule I fish the shallows until the reeds, rushes, and other aquatic plants fringing the deeper waters are well grown; then I try among them, finding flies give the best sport. For bait fishing, it really does not appear to make much difference what weather is around, so that the wind is not a cold or chilly one. The fish in deep water are not so easily affected as those in the shallows, and very good sport may be had even in a stiff breeze, if moderately warm and fine. In fact _some wind_ is necessary for black bass fishing, and it is better to have too much than none at all. One reason for this is, that wind ruffles the surface of the water and renders it more difficult for the fish to see the angler. This is a point of greater importance than is commonly supposed. Fish both see and hear well, and the idea that they cannot see is based upon the great difference visible between an artificial fly and a real one. As a matter of fact few men could tell the difference between them _when in the water_, the surface being covered with froth and suds from an eddy or foam and bubbles from a rapid, the surface ruffled by a fresh breeze, and shadowed by drifting clouds. I have frequently seen bass dart like an arrow and seize the bait from a distance of thirty feet. A sombre suit of clothes, the hue of which mingles with the foliage or verdure, is a wise precaution, for fish undoubtedly see, and see remarkably well. How often have we seen a bright glistening substance like a sleeve button or a coin, dropped into water and swallowed immediately? I have known bass to be caught on a bare bright hook, and the funny stories one laughs at about wintergreen berries and fish scales proving attractive bait are not so much out of probability. In the Southern States a belief exists that bass are always on the feed when the moon is above the horizon, particularly at rise and set; many old experienced fishermen will only fish during the last quarter until the new moon. The same variety of ideas exist regarding rain; one angler believes that bass will not bite before a rain, another during a rain, and still another after a rain. As a matter of fact they feed irrespective of rain, but of course we have all found the best time is undoubtedly just _after_ a rain, because of the great number of insects and larvæ that are washed or shaken into the water from the overhanging branches of trees and bushes. One reason why they do not take the bait so well just _before_ the rain is because of the lull that takes place, causing the water to become flat and still, so rendering objects, especially the angler, more distinct. The bass is a very wary fish, and requires but little to make them uneasy and shy. Night and morning is the best time for bait fishing, unless the weather be cold; then from about 3 to 6 p. m. For fly fishing, two hours after sunrise and one hour or two before dark will be found the most tempting time. In lake fishing it is always best to run out to the deep water and fish in towards the shallows or feeding grounds, as the boat being in the deeper water is not so conspicuous to the fish in the shallows. When a bass is hooked, I always work toward deep water, so as to play the fish freely and avoid snags, rocks, weeds, etc. If fishing from a bank, I get as near the level of the water as possible, and when a fish is hooked, I head at once to the deepest water practicable. I find it a good plan to let the bass have the bait from two to ten seconds, according to the way he takes it; then strike at once, giving him line freely, but keeping the thumb on the reel as a drag. Click reels are an abomination. I never jerk the rod, but hook with a twist of the wrist, remembering the golden rule that from the moment a bass takes the bait until he is landed _the line must be kept tight_, as one second of slack line will lose him. The point of the rod I keep bent by the pull of the fish, which is made to fight for every inch of line. I reel in whenever practicable and kill the fish on the line. I never let a fish get among the weeds; I coax him off if possible, but if this is not practicable, I give him the butt, and either get him away or break the pole, which is preferable to losing the fish by weeds or snags. When thoroughly exhausted, I land him, of course, but am never in a hurry. If a pole net be used I sink it under him and gently lift it until the fish falls into it. In order to appreciate black bass fishing to the full, considerable attention most assuredly must be paid to suitable tackle. Any boy may catch sun-fish, suckers, or trout with a bean pole, a piece of cord for a line and a rude nondescript bait. Black bass are a fish of an entirely different type, and the day when a black bass rod was considered to mean one weighing two pounds and measuring sixteen feet, with a chalk line, and a reel like a small clock, is delegated to the far off past of ten years ago. Some few of the old anglers made their own rods, and scored heavily in their takes of fish, to the wonder and amazement of the other fishermen who still adhered to the old heavy pattern. My idea of the best rod for black bass fishing is the happy medium between the trout fly rod, and the trout bait rod. The one I generally use is eight feet three inches long, weighs nine ounces, is three-jointed, the balance perfect, and the bend true from tip to butt. It was made by H. H. Kiffe, 318 Fulton street, Brooklyn. I have killed many bass with this rod during the past two seasons, some weighing as high as four pounds, and have also caught pickerel weighing eight pounds with the same pole. The butt is white ash, and the second joint and tip finely selected lancewood. The butt has a wound grip, and the metal tip is of the four-ring pattern, the strongest and lightest made. I prefer standing guides. Some people prefer Greenheart or Wasahba for tips, but lancewood or red cedar is the best, I think. The great fault in many rods is want of "back," which results from a too slender butt. This produces a double action in the rod, and prevents a clear satisfactory cast. In England this quality was made a specialty for salmon rods some years ago, it being supposed that it increased the length of the cast. Recent experiences proved this to be a fallacious idea, and such a rod required quite an education to use with any degree of accuracy. If a man can throw a minnow thirty yards with any degree of accuracy, he should be well satisfied, as that is more than sufficient for average bass fishing. A peculiar, but, I think, mistaken idea is that a rod should be in proportion to a man's size. One can understand this idea in regard to a gun for which a man should be measured as for a coat, but with a rod it is different, and should be made to vary with the type of fishing practised. The difference in weight being only a few ounces exposes the foolishness of this theory. All that matters is the question of balance; if that is all right, the size or weight matters very little. A more important point is, that a cheap rod is always a dear rod, in price alone. As in anything else, work and quality of material go for everything, and if a good sound rod is required, a fair price must be paid to some good maker for it. The line is a most important item, and it is always best to give a good price for a hand made line turned out by a good firm. The braided line to me is the perfection of excellence. I do not like a tapered line at any price. Next to the silk line I prefer the silk grass lines of the Japanese. The finest hooks in the trade are made in England, where special attention has been paid to this industry for over two hundred years, the town of Redditch being supported almost exclusively by the hook factories. The best are the "Sproat," "Cork-shaped Limerick," "Round Bend Carlisle," and "Hollow Point Aberdeen." The hook is of the most vital importance to the fisherman, and the best shape is that where the point of the barb is turned round towards the shank. First class hooks are always japanned or black; the inferior ones are blued, and these, if subjected to a heavy strain will straighten right out. The black bass is extremely liable to cause this, as it always struggles hard both in and out the water from the moment of hooking to the final gasp. A hook with the proper bend will never pierce foul, but will strike right through the mouth, never springing out. Regarding flies, every man has his own opinions and fancies. My own favorites are the "Marston," "W. H. Hammett," "Keader," "Silver Ibis," "Vermont," "Imperial," "La Belle," "Royal Coachman," "Blue Jay" and "Claret," made by C. F. Orvis, of Manchester, Vt. As to spoons, most people use far too large a spoon for bass, I am sure; even the dealers do not recognize this fact, and are continually pressing pickerel spoons upon their customers who do not happen to know better. My idea of a bass spoon is one no larger than one-third of an ordinary teaspoon for the hand-line, and for rod use one even still smaller. Artificial insects may be used in surface fishing, but only the most skillful anglers should expect success, as the manipulation of them requires exceedingly delicate service. I believe that the black bass will eventually become the game fish of the country. Trout streams are drying up by reason of trees being cut down; mills and factories being erected, and dams holding the water half stagnant during half the year. This must eventually deal a death blow to the trout, and even now the votaries of black bass fishing outnumber those of the trout ten to one. One last piece of advice I offer you, is to always reel the line carefully after fishing, as a man would clean his gun after shooting. Guide it to its place with the thumb, and run it from side to side of the reel like cotton on a spool. This will let it dry evenly and prevent all bunching and snarling. It is just as easy to do this as not, and the habit once gained will become a mechanical act, and save you lots of trouble and time before and afford you good pleasure after you begin fishing. [Illustration (decoration)] 
30292	----	[Transcriber's Note: This transcription attempts to follow page numbering and capitalization as closely as possible. Occasionally, a paragraph spans more than one page with one or more full page sized illustrations between the pages, thus splitting the paragraph. This required adjustment to the numbering of some pages. The listing of the Barns Sports Library has been relocated to the end of the book in order to improve continuity. The table of "Standard Dressings Of 334 Flies" actually has only 319 dressings.] HOW TO TIE FLIES HOW TO TIE FLIES BY E. C. GREGG DRAWINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR A. S. BARNES AND COMPANY NEW YORK Copyright, 1940, A. S. Barnes & Company. Inc THIS BOOK IS FULLY PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT AND NOTHING THAT APPEARS IN IT MAY BE REPRINTED OR REPRODUCED IN ANY MANNER, EITHER WHOLLY OR IN PART, FOR ANY USE WHATEVER, WITHOUT SPECIAL WRITTEN PERMISSION BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS INTRODUCTION vii TOOLS, HOOKS AND MATERIALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Tools--Fly-Tier's Vise Hackle Pliers, scissors, Hooks Materials--Quill Bodies, Herl Bodies, Hackles, Tails, Cheeks or Shoulders, Ribbing, Wings, Tying Silk BUCKTAIL STREAMERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 WET FLIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 DRY FLIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 NYMPHS and Their Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Nymphs: Their Construction The Helgramite BASS FLIES AND FEATHER STREAMERS . . . . . . . . . . 42 FAMOUS BUCKTAIL AND FEATHER STREAMERS . . . . . . . . 47 FLOATING BUGS and Their Construction . . . . . . . . 49 Cork Bodied Bass Bugs ANGLER'S KNOTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 MY FAVORITE FLIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 STANDARD DRESSINGS OF 334 FLIES . . . . . . . . . . . 69 {vi} [Illustration: Diagram 1. Page sized drawing of parts of a fly.] {vii} INTRODUCTION The object of this book will be throughout its entirety to teach in a practical manner the art of Fly Tying in all its branches. The principles used herein, and the methods of construction employed, are those used by the professional fly-tier who practices fly-making for the sake of art, and tries to achieve with each finished fly, a masterpiece. None of the short-cuts employed by those whose business is quantity production will be attempted. Only the making of flies of the very highest quality and most durable construction will be attempted. In describing the principals of construction with the following illustrations, it will be impossible to describe in detail each standard pattern; however, it must be remembered that the fundamentals applying to each style of fly will be the principal bases of construction of all flies of that style, and that the use of different body materials, hackles, wings or size will simply change the pattern and not the fundamental points of construction. Dressings for hundreds of standard patterns will be found fully described elsewhere in this book. For clearness {viii} of understanding please note that where a fly is described in this book as having grey wings, or red body, etc., and no particular feather or material is specified, it means that any feather or body material may be used. When a particular feather, body, hackle, tail, etc., must be used it will be so stated. Each year a steadily increasing number of anglers are learning to tie their own flies. Not many years ago, there were few in America outside of professional tiers who understood the art. Now on each angling trip, at least one is sure to be met, who has discovered the great thrill of taking fish on flies of his own tying. To those who are anticipating the making of their own flies for the first time, there is the opportunity to exercise one's ingenuity in the creation of new patterns. To prolong your fishing seasons throughout the long winter evenings, in the confines of your own den, where, with a supply of fur, feathers and tinsel, can be enjoyed a profitable, artistic and pleasant hobby. And the thrill of seeing in each finished imitation of Ephemeridae, Muscidae and Formicidae, a masterpiece to bring the joy of living and dreams of spring to the angler's heart. Beginners are requested to reject any inclination to skip over the first part of this book, nor to attempt the tying of the more delicate and difficult dry flies before they have had sufficient preliminary training. {ix} This book is so written that the easier flies to make are the first encountered. Although you may not expect to use Bucktail Streamers, the fundamental principles employed in their construction, the knack of handling fur, feathers and tinsel, will be acquired, and a sense of proportion will be realized. I sincerely encourage you to begin at the beginning, and by careful and patient study the satisfactory result will be the ability to make flies that are second to none. The illustrations in this book are all drawn to correct proportions except the tying silk, which is purposely drawn large for clearness of illustration. Follow these illustrations, and begin by making a very careful study of Diagram 3, "Bucktails" (page 15). Here will be learned how to overcome some of the difficulties encountered by beginners. Many of the fundamentals learned in tying Bucktails are used in tying all of the flies to follow. For instance, in putting the wings or tail on a wet fly, the same method of holding the wing between the thumb and finger and making the loose loop, are explained as when putting the hair or tail on a Bucktail. Putting the wings on a fly correctly seems to be the greatest difficulty encountered by the beginner. Consequently, the necessity of carefully studying Figs. 4, 5, 10, and 11 of Diagram 3 cannot be too greatly emphasized. Before tying any other part of the fly, place a bare hook in the vise, and practice tying on the tail, {x} and then the wings, until you have mastered this knack, and have the wings and tail setting straight on top of the hook, as in Figs. 4, 5, 10 and 11 of Diagram 3. First using hair and then a section of feather. Other faults of the beginner where literal descriptions are followed entirely or where illustrations are not drawn to correct proportions or followed closely are as follows. The wings are usually too large, and much too long for the size of the hook, and the tail is most always too long, as are the hackles. The bodies seldom have a nicely tapered shape, and most always start too far back on the hook shank. The ribbing is seldom put on in even tight spirals. The hair on hair flies is always too long, and too much is used. The head is too large, because the tying silk is not wound tightly and smoothly. The eye of the hook on the finished fly is filled with hair, tying silk, hackles and cement. I do not mean to criticize these common mistakes of the beginner. Instead, I merely wish to call them to your mind, and assure you that they are not necessary, and will not happen if you will diligently follow instructions in this book. {xi} [Illustration: Diagram 2. Page sized drawings of wet flies and feathers.] {xii} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of tools.] {1} TOOLS, HOOKS AND MATERIALS Very few tools are required by the Fly-Tier. Those that are necessary are inexpensive, and most of them can be homemade. However, as with any other craft good tools are an asset. I advise the beginner to procure the following: TOOLS Fly-Tiers' vise. There are many styles of fly-tying vises on the market. The simplest is just a slot cut in a 3/8" piece of square steel with a hacksaw, and a thumb screw to tighten the slot. This type of vise will work all right, although rather clumsy and hard to tighten enough to hold the hook truly. Another simple vise is just a small pin chuck, soldered to one end of a 1/4" brass rod, bent at the desired angle, and the other end of the rod soldered to a small C clamp. However, I prefer a vise of the cam lever type. That is, a vise that has a cam lever for opening and closing the jaws. These vises, of which there are several makes, are {2} adjustable to various angles and hook sizes. They will hold all sizes of hooks very firmly, and are easily and quickly opened with a flip of the lever. Hackle Pliers. These can be purchased for about fifty cents and will prove a worthwhile investment, as they are rather difficult to make satisfactorily. Scissors. One pair with curved blades and sharp points for small flies and one pair with small straight blades. A needle pushed into a stick, for picking out hackles that are wound under, and for putting lacquer on the finished head, completes the list of necessary tools. HOOKS Hooks used for fly-tying differ somewhat from those used for bait fishing etc., inasmuch as they are usually hollow ground, and tapered shank especially those used for dry flies. The tapered shank next to the eye allows the head of the fly to be tied smaller, and also reduces the weight of the hook, an advantage for dry flies. Of course flies may be tied on any style or grade of hook, but considering the work involved in making the fly, and realizing that with an old razor blade the fly can be quickly removed from the hook should the first attempts prove unsatisfactory, you will see the advantage in using good hooks. {3} [Illustration: Page sized diagram showing drawings of hooks.] {4} MATERIALS Materials used by the Fly-Tier cover an extremely large field. Although only a few simple and easily obtained items are necessary for a start, it is interesting to know that furs, feathers and body materials come from all parts of the world. There's the jungle cock from India whose neck feathers are extensively used on salmon flies and a very large percentage of all fancy flies. The golden pheasant from China, the bustard from Africa, the Mandarin wood duck from China, the capercailzie from Ireland, the game cocks from Spain and the Orient, the teal, mallard, grouse, ibis, swan, turkey, and hundreds of others. The polar bear, Impala, North and South American deer, seal, black bear, skunk, rabbit, squirrel, are a few of the hairs that are used. The beginner need not worry about the great variety. Some hooks, silk floss and spun fur or wool yarn and chenille for bodies, a few sizes of tinsel for ribbing, bucktails of three or four colors, an assortment of duck and turkey wing quills some mallard breast, an assortment of neck and saddle hackles, a spool of tying silk, a piece of wax, a bottle of head lacquer, and many of the popular patterns can be made. Numerous other items can be added from time to time, and the novice Fly-Tier will soon find himself in possession of a collection of fuzzy furs and feathers that will delight the heart of any professional, and from which any conceivable lure can be made to attract the denizens of the shady pools. {5} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of body materials.] {6} BODY MATERIAL: Tinsel, Silk Floss, Fur, Chenille, Wool, Quill and Cork are used for bodies. The most commonly used for Bucktail Streamers is flat tinsel ribbed with oval tinsel or no ribbing at all. About the easiest body to make is one of chenille ribbed with tinsel. Silk floss is mostly used for wet and dry fly bodies. The domestic silk floss, which is called rope, can be successfully used for the larger flies, by untwisting and using a few of the smaller strands. An imported floss of one single strand, with a very slight twist, is especially made for fly-tying; this will work much better on the smaller hooks. Fur for fur bodies, which formerly had to be plucked from the hide, dyed the desired color, and spun on the waxed tying silk, can now be obtained in all standard fly colors. It is called Spun Fur, and is very convenient to use in this manner. QUILL BODIES: Quill makes an excellent and very lifelike body, especially on dry flies. The quill from the eyed peacock tail feather is mostly used. That taken from the eye of the feather when stripped of its fibers has a two tone effect, and when wound upon the hook without overlapping makes a very lifelike and delicate appearing body. {7} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of feathers.] {8} HERL BODIES: Both peacock and ostrich herl is used for bodies. These make a fuzzy body. Tie in one or two strands by the tip end and wind on edgewise. HACKLES: These are the most important part of the dry fly. Only those from the neck of a mature cock are satisfactory. Hackles for the dry fly must be stiff with very little or no web. With such hackles a dry fly can be sparsely dressed as it should be and still maintain its natural balance and floating qualities. On the other hand, a wet fly should sink readily, and should be made with very soft webby hackles. These absorb water quickly, and have better action in the water. Contrary to the customary way to tie hackles on the wet fly, as explained in the chapter "Wet Flies", I find it very convenient and economical to strip the fibers from any size hackle, clip off the butt ends to the desired length and tie them on the bottom of the hook, the same as buck tail is tied on. As wet flies should have hackles only on the bottom or underneath side, many hackles that are otherwise too large can be used in this way. TAILS: A few fibers from a golden or silver pheasant neck tippet, whisks from a hackle feather, a strip of wing or breast feather, a few hairs, etc., are used for tails. Many of the standard patterns are tied without tails; however, on all of my dry flies, I tie three or four stiff fibers or hairs. They balance the fly and help it to float much better. {9} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of feathers.] {10} CHEEKS OR SHOULDERS: As per Fig. 9, Diagram 1, these are used on a great many of the fancy flies. These are straps of one or several feathers of contrasting colors. Jungle cock feathers, golden pheasant tippets, silver pheasant body feathers, as on the Grey Ghost streamer fly, blue chatterer, and many other fancy feathers according to pattern and fancy are used for this purpose. A pair of jungle cock tippets often called eyes, added to a Bucktail Streamer will often take trout, when the same pattern without the jungle cock will not. RIBBING: Tinsel, Wool, Silk, Horse Hair, Quill, etc., are used for ribbing. The tinsel from your Xmas tree will do, but it is much better to use tinsel made for the purpose, as it will not tarnish so quickly and is much stronger. It is advisable before using tinsel to place a drop of good, clear head lacquer between the thumb and finger and draw the tinsel through it. This makes it tarnish-proof, and is particularly advisable with the oval and round tinsel that is wound over a silk core. Besides tarnish-proofing it, it will keep the tinsel from coming apart. Tinsel bodies should be lacquered after they are finished. {11} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of feathers.] WINGS: Several styles of wings are used, see Diagram 2, page xi, those on Fig. 1, and are cut from a pair of matched wing quill feathers, like Fig. 7. Those in Fig. 2 are buzz wings taken from a pair of breast feathers {12} (mallard, wood duck, etc.) shown in Fig. 8. Fig. 3 shows hackle tip wings, tips of two hackle feathers, see Fig. 9. Fan wings, Fig. 4, are a matched pair of small breast feathers, see Fig. 10 (white duck, mallard, teal, grouse, etc.). In fact there is hardly a bird that flies that does not supply some of its plumage to the Fly-Tier. Flies of the order Diptera (land flies), such as the Bee, Cowdung, Blue Bottle, etc., should be tied with flat wings as in Fig. 5. A Bi-visible is shown in Fig. 6. This is a fly without wings, hackle tied palmer (that is hackle wound the full length of the hook, usually tied without a body, and the dark patterns have a turn or two of white hackle in front). All of the flies on Diagram 2 are shown as dry flies; however, the same feathers are used for wet flies, streamers, etc., the difference being the style in which they are tied, which is explained elsewhere. WAX: Use a good grade of wax for fly-tying. The proper wax will work much better than shoemaker's wax or beeswax. Wax for fly-tying should be quite sticky so that when the waxed tying silk is let go of, it will not unwind while tying the fly. {13} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of feathers.] TYING SILK: Ordinary sewing silk is too coarse for ordinary fly-tying and it doesn't seem to have the strength. Size 00 is a good size for all flies including bucktails and streamers. For dry flies and small wet flies a gossamer silk size 000 and 0000 is the best to {14} use. Although the strength of this fine silk is much less than the size 00, it has the advantage that more turns can be used, and the heads can be made much smaller. {15} BUCKTAIL STREAMERS {16} [Illustration: Diagram 3. Page sized diagram showing drawings of bucktail construction.] Place a hook in the vise and start waxed tying silk (See Diagram 3, page 15) (A) 1/8" from eye of hook Fig. 1. Take five or six turns and cut off end (B) Fig. 2. Wind tying silk (A) closely and smoothly down hook shank as Fig 3. (A complete understanding of the next step will have a great deal to do with the success of the beginner's greatest difficulty, that is, putting on the wings; the procedure is the same for all flies, study Fig. 4.) Hold tail material (C) between thumb and finger of the left hand, slide the fingers down over the hook, so that the tail material rests on top of the hook, with the hook held firmly between thumb and finger as Fig. 4. Now loosen grip just enough to allow tying silk (A) to pass up between thumb and tail material, form a loose loop over material, and down, between finger and material on the other side. Now tighten grip with thumb and finger and pull loop down tight; repeat once more, see Fig. 5. (This knack of holding the material and hook firmly together, until the loose loop is drawn down tightly keeps the tail, or wings, on top of the {17} hook, and at the same time keeps them from splitting or turning sidewise.) Now that the tail is in place, with two turns of the tying silk (A) tie in ribbing (D) Fig. 6. Now take six or eight close tight turns with the tying silk towards the eye of the hook, with two more turns tie in the body material (E) Fig. 7. IF USING TINSEL FOR BODY MATERIAL, BE SURE AND CUT THE END TO A TAPER BEFORE TYING IN as (E) Fig. 7; this tends to make a smoother body and prevents a bunch where the body material is tied in. Next wind tying silk (A) back to the starting point, take a half hitch and let it hang. Now wind body material (E) clockwise (all windings are clockwise) tightly and smoothly back towards the barb, to the extreme rear end of the body, pull tight and wind forward to within 1/8" of the eye, wind back and forth to form smooth tapered body as Fig. 8 (tinsel bodies are not tapered). (If using silk floss, untwist the floss and use only one half or one third of the strands, do not let it twist, wind tight, and it will make a nice smooth body.) Take two turns and a half hatch with the tying silk, and cut off end of the material (F) Fig. 8. Take one tight turn with ribbing (D) over butt of tail close to rear end of the body, also one turn under the tail if tail is to be cocked. Wind ribbing spirally around the body and tie off with two turns and a half hitch of tying silk as Fig. 9. {18} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of bucktail streamers tied by the author.] {19} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of bucktails.] {20} Take about three dozen hairs of colored bucktail, cut off butt ends to the length wanted for the finished fly, not more than one half again as long as the hook, place these on top of the hook as Fig. 10 with butt ends about 1/16" back of the eye (this is held the same as when putting on the tail, Fig. 4). Pull down two or three loops, Fig. 11. Now take about 175 hairs of other colored bucktail, place this on top of the first colored bucktail the same as Fig. 10. Repeat the same operation as Fig. 11. Before finishing the head put a drop of head lacquer on the butt ends of the hairs to cement them in place, finish by making a smooth tapered head with the tying silk, take three or four half hitches, paint the head with two or three coats of lacquer and the job is complete, unless you wish to add jungle cock cheeks, or other combinations of feathers. This of course is done before the head is completed. {21} [Illustration: Diagram 4. Page sized diagram showing drawings of wet flys.] {22} WET FLIES Start the waxed tying silk (See Diagram 4, page 21) 1/8" from eye of hook, Fig. 1. Wind tying silk (A) down shank of hook, and with last two turns tie in tag material (B) Fig. 2. Tags (see diagram 1) usually represent the egg sac on the female of the species. Chenille, wool, gold, silver, silk, herl, or various other materials are used for tags. (Ribbing, if used, is tied in just before the tag material.) Tie in tail (C) Fig. 3 (see Fig. 4 Bucktail, Diagram 3, page 15, for directions, how to hold the tail. Take from one to four turns with the Tag Material (B) around the hook, take a couple of turns with tying silk (A) around the loose end of (B) and cut off (B) as Fig. 4. Take about three or four turns towards the eye of the hook with (A), with two more turns tie in the body material (D) Fig. 4. Wind (A) back to the starting point, take a half hitch and let hang. Wind body material (D) to where (A) was left hanging. Wind (D) back and forth several times to form a tapered body, fasten with two or three turns and a half hitch with (A) Fig. 5. Next take hackle (E), and strip off soft web fibers on dotted line, Fig. E. Hold hackle {23} (E) by the tip with thumb and finger of the left hand, with the shiny side of the hackle to the right, place the butt diagonally under the hook and take four or five tight turns and a half hitch with (A) Fig. 6. Be sure that the hackle is tied on edgewise with the shiny side to the front. Now grasp the tip of the hackle with the hackle pliers and wind four or five turns clockwise around the hook. If the hackle starts winding edgewise it will go on without any trouble, if not better take it off and try again until you get the knack of tying the butt in at just the right angle. Take three or four turns over the hackle tip with (A) and clip off the tip close as Fig. 7. With the thumb and finger of the left hand, reach from under the hook and pull all the fibers down to the bottom, take three or four turns over them with (A) towards the barb of the hook, to hold them in place, and to keep them pointing well back, as Fig. 8. Next take a pair of matched (one right and one left) turkey, goose, or other wing feathers, Fig. A, and cut a section from each about 1/4" wide, place the two sections with tips even and concave sides together as Fig. B. Cut off the butt ends to the right length, that is so that the tips come even, or a little beyond the bend of the hook. Place on top of hook as Fig. 9 and tie on the same as previously explained in tying hair on Bucktails (Diagram 3, page 15, Figs. 4 and 10). Finish off with a smooth tapered head, two or three half hitches {24} and a couple of coats of good head lacquer, Fig. 10. Many patterns are tied palmer, that is the hackle is wound the whole length of the body. Many of the dry flies are tied this way, especially the Bi-visibles. To tie a palmer hackle, prepare the hackle by holding the tip of the hackle between the thumb and finger of the left hand, and with the thumb and finger of the right hand, stroke the fibers back so that they point towards the butt, instead of towards the tip, Fig. C, Diagram 4. With the shiny side of the hackle up, strip off the fibers from the bottom side as Fig. D. Now tie the hackle in by the tip as Fig. 11. Make the body the same as before. Wind the hackle spirally around the body and tie off the butt, Fig. 12. To make the hackle more full near the head, one or more hackles are tied in at the same time as Figs. 6 and 7, the palmer hackle is wound to within 1/8" of the eye and the butt tied in and cut off the same as the tip was cut off Fig. 7. {25} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of wet flies tied by the author.] {26} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of feathers.] {27} DRY FLIES Start winding waxed tying silk (See Diagram 5, page 28) (A) about 1/8" from the eye of the hook, take three or four turns towards the bend of the hook and cut off end, Fig. 1, Diagram 5. Cut a section about 1/4" wide from a right and one from a left wing feather, as Fig. A Diagram 4, page 21 (duck wings are best for dry flies). Place convex sides together (just the reverse of Fig. B, Diagram 4). Do not cut off the butt ends, instead straddle the hook as Fig. 2, Diagram 5. Hold between the thumb and finger of the left hand as already explained in Figs. 4 and 10, Diagram 3, page 15. Tip the wings (B) forward so that they stand about perpendicular to the shank, and pull down loop, Fig. 3, as explained in Diagram 3, Fig. 4. Take one more turn with (A) around the wings (B) in front as Fig. 4 and before loosening the grip with the left hand take two turns around the hook close in back of the wings (B), Fig. 5. Next pull the butt ends back tightly as Fig. 6, take two tight turns around them with (A) and cut off on dotted line as Fig. 6. Cross (A) between wings (B) to spread them, and wind tying silk (A) down shank of the hook as Fig. 7. {28} [Illustration: Diagram 5. Page sized diagram showing drawings of dry fly construction.] {29} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of Fan Wings, Dry Flies, and Nymphs tied by the author.] {30} From now on the body is made as previously explained, so for the sake of variation we will tie a band in the centre, the same as a Royal Coachman. Tie in tail (C) Fig. 8. Tie in two or three strands of peacock herl (D) Fig. 9 with (A) and wind (A) four or five turns towards the eye of the hook. Take three or four turns with herl (D). Tie in two strands of silk floss (E) Fig. 10, take a few more turns with (A) over the loose ends of (D) towards the eye of the hook. Wind silk floss (E) over the herl about half way up the hook. Take a turn or two around silk floss (E) with (A) and cut off end of (E) as Fig. 11. Carry (A) up to the front of the wings. Finish body with herl (D) wound tight against the back of the wings. (This helps to push the wings forward and to hold them in place.) Tie off herl (D) with (A) Fig. 12. The next step of putting on the hackle (F) is done the same as Fig. 6, Diagram 4, page 21. But here the hackle is much more important than on the wet fly. The floating qualities of a dry fly depend entirely upon stiff neck hackle of the proper size. (Use Hackle Chart.) Sometimes two hackles are used, these are laid together, and both butts tied in at the same time. One hackle of the proper size and stiffness is usually enough, so we will use one tied in as Fig. 13 and explained in Fig. 6, Diagram 4, page 21. Clip the hackle pliers to the tip of hackle (F) and wind about two turns edgewise in front of the wings, wind two turns close {31} in back of the wings. Take two or three more turns in front of the wings, all the while keeping the hackle edgewise, with the shiny side towards the eye of the hook. Wind the hackle close so as not to fill up the eye of the hook and to leave room for the head. Tie in the tip with a couple of turns of (A) Fig. 14. The hackle should now be standing straight out from the hook, with the most of it in front of the wings. Shape a tapered head with (A). (Head should be about 1/16" long on a size 12 hook.) Finish with two or three half hitches and a drop of head lacquer, Fig. 15. Various feathers are used for wings of dry flies, such as breast feathers from mallard, teal; partridge, grouse, black duck, wood duck. Hackle tips, starling, duck, turkey, goose, pheasant, wing feathers, etc. Two whole feathers of the proper size, with the natural curve are used for fan wings. The tips of two feathers, or a section may be cut from two matched feathers. All of these wings are tied on in the same manner as previously explained. See Diagram 2 for flies tied with different style wings. [Illustration: Drawing of hackle size chart at bottom of page.] {32} NYMPHS AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION NYMPHS Nymphs are larvae of all aquatic insects. Together with minnows, crawfish, etc., they represent about ninety per cent of the trout's regular diet. Considering this fact, it is obvious that nymphs will take trout throughout the entire season. It will greatly surprise the novice to learn of the great amount of underwater insect life present in any stream. Next time you go fishing, hold your landing net close to the bottom, in a foot or so of fast water. Reach upstream and loosen the stones and gravel. Raise your landing net, and notice the numerous nymphs that have been washed from under the stones, and have attached themselves to your net. Better still, make a screen about two feet square, from regular 14 mesh window screening. Hold this in the water, and have your fishing partner go upstream, and with a regular garden rake, or some such tool, rake up the bottom, turning over the stones and gravel. This way you can capture many nymphs. Put them in glass bottles, take them home, and make copies of them. When next you {33} go fishing open the first trout you catch, examine the contents of its stomach, and determine which of the copies you have made is the proper nymph or fly for the occasion. To fish with an imitation of the fly or nymph upon which they are feeding, will result in a heavier creel. When nymph fishing it is important to use a long, finely tapered leader. A 4x is about right. Fish in the same waters, and very much the same way as with a dry fly except that the nymph is allowed to sink. Fish upstream, or up and across the current. In the ripples. Around boulders. At the edge of fast water. Let the nymph drift with the current. Follow it with your rod tip, and be prepared to set the hook at the least hesitation of the line. Trout will sometimes take a drifting nymph and eject it, without being felt on the most delicate rod, so be ever on the alert when nymph fishing. A nymph fished down stream, and retrieved with slow, short jerks, will often work very well. When fished in this manner, trout will strike quite hard, and usually hook themselves. There are times when trout are rolling on the surface and it seems impossible to take them on anything. It is then that they are usually feeding on nymphs, just under the surface. I remember one such time on the Housatonic River in Connecticut last summer. Just at dark, I was standing knee deep in very fast water. Trout {34} were breaking all around me. I knew, they were feeding on nymphs, and tried in every way to catch them. The water was so fast, it was impossible to keep the nymph just the right depth below the surface. I tried every trick that I knew, but could not get a strike. Finally reaching my hand in my pocket, I discovered several large buckshot. Removing the nymph from the tip of the leader, I attached five of these large shots, to the very tip of the leader, with a piece of 3x gut tippet about four inches long. I connected the nymph to the leader about sixteen inches from the tip. Within the next few minutes I took several nice trout, within rod's length of where I was standing. What actually happened, the lead was so heavy that it immediately sank straight to the bottom, and my taut line held the nymph suspended about two inches below the surface. The short gut between the nymph and the leader allowed the nymph to quiver much as the natural was doing. All the various common nymphs can be faithfully copied, by learning to tie the various styles of those herein illustrated. Simply alter the sizes, and color combinations, according to those found in the waters where you fish. Remember nearly all the nymphs have flat bodies, and dark backs. The bodies may be flattened by thoroughly lacquering them, and when nearly dried squeezing them flat with an ordinary pair of pliers; or by {35} cutting a piece of quill the shape of the body from a turkey or goose wing. Bind this on top of the hook for the foundation of the body, and build the body over this. When finished, lacquer the entire body. Most any body materials that are used for the making of other flies can be used; however, wool is mostly used for nymphs. Silk floss wound over a quill foundation and then lacquered, makes a very smooth, realistic body. {36} [Illustration: Diagram 6. Page sized diagram showing drawings of nymph construction.] THEIR CONSTRUCTION (SEE DIAGRAM 6) Start tying silk (A) an eighth of an inch from the eye of the hook and wind closely down shank, as previously done with bucktails, wet flies etc. Next cut a section (B) from a grey goose wing feather about one eighth inch wide, and tie on top of the hook as Fig. 1. This is to make the tail and also the back of the nymph. Bend (B) back and take a turn or two with (A) in front as Fig. 2. Tie in the ribbing (c) close to (B) Fig. 3. Next tie in body material (D) close to (C) Fig. 4. Wool yarn makes the best body material for this style nymph. Now finish the body as for a wet fly, Fig. 5, then pull (B) tightly over the top, finish off as Fig. 6. This makes a sort of hard shell over the back. Next turn the hook upside down in the vise, and lay {37} three horse hairs across, just in back of where the head is to be made, crisscross (A) between the hairs to spread them and make them look like legs, and your nymph should look like Fig. 7. Nymphs of this style as well as Figs. 8, 9, 10, 14 and 15 look more natural if the bodies are flattened. Fig. 8 is tied nearly the same as Fig. 7, the difference being that (C) and (D) are both wound over (B) about two-thirds of the length of the body, then (B) is turned back, the body finished as before, (B) brought forward loosely to form the humpbacked wing case, and (B) being cut off as was done with Fig. 6, and instead of the butt end of (B) being cut off as was done with Fig. 6 it is split by crisscrossing (A) through it to form small wings as Fig. 8. Fig. 9 is made in the same way except that several strands of peacock herl is used for the dark back, tail, and feelers. Fig. 10 is a very effective nymph, the body made entirely of natural raffia (soaked in water before using), with black hair used for the tail and feelers The body coated with lacquer as before mentioned and pressed flat when dry; paint the back with dark brown or black lacquer. Fig. 11 is made by close wound palmer hackle cut off on dotted lines. Fig. 12 is a fur body, made by spinning rabbit's fur or other fur on waxed tying silk and ribbing with gold; the tougher this nymph looks the more effective it seems to be. Fig. 13, the Caddis {38} worm can be more naturally reproduced with a common rubber band than any other way I know. Get a dirty, white, rubber band about 1/8" wide, taper one end for about 1/2". Lay two horse hairs lengthwise on top of the hook for the feelers, wind tying silk over them down the hook, tie in the rubber band by the very tip of the taper, wind the tying silk back to the starting point, and be sure that the tying silk is wound smoothly. If not, any roughness will show through the rubber band. Wind the rubber band tightly to about 1/4" back of the eye. Wind back down and take one turn under the horsehair at the tail end, wind up to the head and tie off with the tying silk. This now makes three thicknesses of the rubber band. Form a large head with the tying silk, fasten securely and you have a very realistic Caddis worm. Fig. 14 is tied about the same as Fig. 7, with a considerable amount of speckled mallard, and peacock herl used for both the front and back feelers as well as the legs. Fig. 15. The Damsel Nymph has a body of dark grey wool with a back of dark brown or black lacquer. Wings, small red-brown wood duck breast feathers, feelers dark brown hackle, and a large black head. {39} THE HELGRAMITE (SEE DIAGRAM 7) The Helgramite Nymph, larva of the Dobson Fly, is such an excellent bass and trout food, that the making of this nymph deserves special mention. As my personal way of making this particular nymph differs considerably from those previously explained, I consider it advisable to go into further details concerning the construction of this pattern. I personally like the winged style. That is, with small imitation wings and horns, or feelers. This represents the nymph in its final underwater stage, just before emerging from the water as the Dobson Fly. I find black skunk tail the most satisfactory material for the body of this nymph. Either light grey swan sides, or light grey pigeon breast feathers for the wing and legs. {40} [Illustration: Diagram 7. Page sized diagram showing drawings of helgramite construction.] First wind the waxed tying silk up the shank of the hook beginning opposite the barb. Clip the fibers closely from a couple of hackle feathers. These are to form the horns. Bind these hackle quills to the top of the hook, so that the tip ends project about 1 1/2" in front of the eye. Take a bunch of black skunk tail about the size of a match and bind it to the top of the hook, with tip ends towards the eye of the hook as in Diagram 7, Fig. 1. Next fold the hair forward and bind down tightly as in Fig. 2. Again fold the hair back and tie down as in {41} Fig. 3. Then again as in Fig. 4. Notice that each time the hair is folded back upon itself and tied down, that it forms a segment of the body, and that each segment increases in size, until your nymph looks like Fig. 5. At this stage turn the nymph over and tie a piece of light grey feather about 1/8" wide across the bottom, separate the fibers with the tying silk to form the legs. Now cut a small light grey pigeon feather with the centre quill, as dotted line in Fig. 6. Give this a coat of clear lacquer: when dry, tie flat, on the back of the nymph to form the first set of wings, as in Fig. 7. Cut another feather and treat the same way, tie these slightly forward of the first set of wings, and you have a Dobson Nymph that is very lifelike in appearance. {42} BASS FLIES AND FEATHER STREAMERS It will appear obvious from a study of Diagram 8, page (43) that the tying of bass flies and Feather Streamers differs so little from the tying of wet flies and bucktails that a detailed description will be unnecessary. Bass flies are little more than large trout lies, the principal difference being the feathers that are used for the wings although the same feathers can be used as for trout flies. It is customary with commercial tiers to use two whole feathers for the wings, or the tips of two wings feathers, etc. Place the concave sides together and tie in the butt ends the same as for a wet fly. Bass flies to be used as spinner flies, that is, flies to be used with a spinner in front, should be tied on ring eyed hooks instead of hooks with turned down or turned up eyes. {43} [Illustration: Diagram 8. Page sized diagram showing drawings of bass flies.] {44} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of flies tied by the author.] Certain patterns of these flies have for a long time been famous as salmon flies in northern New England and Canada and the past few years have seen them steadily growing in popularity with anglers of Connecticut, especially for Rainbow Trout. The feathers {45} that are used for wings are saddle hackles, and from four to eight feathers are used, hackles of the same size are selected, the tip ends placed even, and the concave sides of those used for the left side are placed next to the concave sides of those used for the right side, in other words, both the right and left side of the wing will be convex, or outside of the feather. Any of the standard pattern flies can be tied as streamers. Some of the patterns however, are very elaborate flies; the Supervisor, for instance, has wings of light blue with shorter feathers of green on each side, with peacock herl along each wing, polar bear hair, jungle cock shoulders, a silver body, and a red tag. This fly was developed a few years ago by Mr. Joseph Stickney, Supervisor of Wardens, State of Maine, to imitate the smelt, a natural salmon food. The original Supervisor did not have the jungle cock or the peacock heal. Mr. Stickney suggested the addition of these feathers to me last year, and I believe that this is now the approved dressing. {46} [Illustration: Page sized photograph of feather streamers tied by the author.] {47} FAMOUS BUCKTAIL AND FEATHER STREAMERS SUPERVISOR: WINGS, Blue saddle hackle with polar bear hair, and peacock herl down each side. CHEEKS, green hackle tip and jungle cock. BODY silver. TAG, red wool. TIGER: (light) WINGS, brownish yellow bucktail or red squirrel tail. BODY yellow chenille. TAG, gold. TAIL, barred wood duck. CHEEKS, jungle cock. THROAT, scarlet. TIGER: (dark) WINGS, yellow bucketful. BODY peacock herl. TAG, gold. TAIL, barred wood duck. CHEEKS, jungle cock. Short red fin. GREGG'S DEMON: WINGS, grizzly saddle hackle dyed brown. BODY, silver ribbed with gold. CHEEKS, jungle cock. TAIL, barred wood duck. TOPPING, golden pheasant crest. HACKLE, Orange. JUNGLE PRINCESS: WINGS grizzly saddle hackle dyed yellow with large jungle cock. CHEEKS, blue chatterer. BODY gold tinsel. HACKLE, white. GRIZZLY GREY: WINGS, grizzly saddle hackles. CHEEKS, jungle cock. TAIL, orange. BODY, silver tinsel. HACKLE, white bucktail. {48} HIGHLAND BELLE: WINGS orange saddle hackles inside, grizzly saddle hackles outside. CHEEKS, jungle cock. BODY, gold tinsel ribbed with silver tinsel. HACKLE, white bucktail. SPENCER BAY SPECIAL: WINGS blue saddle hackles inside with furnace saddle hackles outside. CHEEKS, jungle cock. TAIL, golden pheasant tippet. BODY, silver tinsel ribbed with oval silver tinsel. HACKLE, yellow and blue mixed. BLACK GHOST: WINGS, white saddle hackle. BODY, black silk floss ribbed with silver. CHEEKS, jungle cock. HACKLE, yellow. GREY GHOST: WINGS, grey saddle hackle with peacock herl and white bucktail. BODY, orange floss ribbed with gold. CHEEKS, silver pheasant feather and jungle cock. BROWN GHOST: WINGS, brown saddle hackle. BODY, brown floss ribbed with gold. CHEEKS, jungle cock. TOPPING, golden pheasant crest. TAIL, golden pheasant crest. HACKLE, yellow. WARDEN'S WORRY: WINGS one red and one grizzly saddle hackle. HACKLE, yellow, tied very full. WHITE MARIBOU: WINGS, white caribou. CHEEKS, large jungle cock and small red feather. TOPPING, golden pheasant crest. YELLOW MARIBOU: WINGS, yellow caribou. CHEEKS, large Jungle cock and small red feather. TOPPING peacock herl. Two complete caribou feathers can be used, or sections of the feathers, depending upon the size of the hook. Size 4 long shank hook is a good size to tie them for salmon. {49} FLOATING BUGS AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION A style of fishing becoming more popular each year is that of Fly Rod fishing with Floating Bugs. These Bugs represents the large moth, butterfly, etc., and are constructed of a large variety of materials. Some have cork bodies. Some have Balsa Wood bodies. Others all hair bodies. Bodies covered with chenille, and other materials. One of the easiest to make and I believe one of the most successful styles, is entirely constructed from the body hair of the deer, reindeer, or caribou. All of these hairs are rather coarse and hollow consequently are very buoyant, and when properly made into a copy of the living insect, they have a soft, lifelike body that appears very natural when taken by a fish. These soft bodied Bugs are not so apt to be ejected before the Angler has time to set the hook, as are those with hard bodies. {50} [Illustration: Page sized diagram showing bass bugs tied by the author.] Although the object of this book is to teach the Angler how to tie his own flies a few words in regards to the writer's personal experiences in using these Bugs might not be amiss at this time. Floating Bugs are mostly tied on large size hooks and generally used for {51} bass. However, I have had a great deal of luck and many pleasant experiences with them tied as small as a #14 Model Perfect hook, and used with a 4x Leader. The small sizes will take many large trout, and are readily accepted by all pan fish. When fishing in still waiters with the Floating Bugs, whether it be for bass, pickerel, trout or pan fish I use a light leader, treated so that it will sink. I cast to a likely looking spot, beside an old stump along lily pads, or to an opening in the lily pads themselves. I let the Bug hit the water with quite a splash, as a living moth of the same size would, and there I let it lie, absolutely motionless, as though stunned by the blow. By all means do not be impatient, let the Bug lie perfectly still for two or three minutes, and then simply move the tip of your rod just enough to cause the Bug to quiver on the surface. Again let it lie perfectly still for a minute or two; usually about the second time the Bug is made to quiver you can expect a strike, and when a big bass comes after one of these Bugs, he comes full of action. When fishing fast water, I fish them exactly as I would a dry fly, upstream or up and across the current. My personal choice for color is the natural brownish grey body hair from either the deer, reindeer, or caribou. Wings, tail and body all the same natural color. I tie this pattern from size 2/0 Model perfect hook down to size 14, and us {52} the larger sizes for bass and pickerel, and the smaller sizes for trout and pan fish. I remember one very pleasant experience that happened in northern Maine three years ago. There is a small, deep, spring fed lake of about ten acres in area, completely surrounded by wilderness; this lake had been stocked with, Rainbow Trout and closed to all fishing for five years. I was fortunate in being there about two months after it had been opened to fishing and was invited to try my luck, after first being advised that although some very nice catches were regularly being taken on a Streamer Fly fished deep, also on live bait and worms with a spinner, no one had even been able to take fish on the surface. I arrived at this lake about one hour before dark, and it was one of those evenings when the water was actually boiling with rising trout. In fact never before or since have I seen so many fish breaking water at the same time. I immediately made up my mind to take fish on the surface. I began fishing with a small spider, and changed fly after fly for the next half hour with the same results as had been experienced by other dry fly fishermen. In desperation and with darkness fast approaching I tied on a size 4 Grey Bug and cast about thirty feet from shore. The Bug hit the water with quite a splash and didn't even as much as put down one fish, and several continued to {53} rise from within a few inches to a few feet from where the Bug landed. I waited a couple of minutes and gave the Bug a little twitch, nothing happened, again I twitched and again nothing happened. I began to believe I was stumped when again the Bug was moved ever so slightly for the fifth time, and remember this was at least seven minutes after it first hit the water. A fish struck. In a few minutes I landed a 2 1/4 pound Rainbow. Before darkness had brought the day to a close I had landed three more beautiful Rainbows averaging 2 pounds each. I had never since had the opportunity to fish in this beautiful little lake. Some day I hope to return, and again try, and I believe succeed in taking these beautiful Rainbow Trout on the conventional dry fly. However, this one little experience proved conclusively to me the absolute necessity of patience in fishing Floating Bugs. FLOATING BUGS: THEIR CONSTRUCTION (SEE DIAGRAM 9) First let us begin by making the most simple; that is, one that has the Body, Wings, and Tail, all of the same material and color. Follow the illustrations carefully and even your first attempt will be a masterpiece. {54} Although I use well waxed 00 tying silk, you will find that regular sewing silk size A will work best on your first attempt. First wax your thread thoroughly and take a few turns around the shank of the hook and tie in a small bunch of hairs for the tail, as in Diagram 9, Fig. 1, page (55). We will assume that we are using regular deer hair cut from the hide. Next clip a small bunch of hairs, about the size of a match, close to the hide. You will notice there is some fuzz mixed with the hair at the base close to the skin, pick out the fuzz and place the butts of the hairs under the hook as in Fig. 2, Take a couple of loose turns with the tying silk, hold the tips of the hair with the thumb and finger of the left hand, and pull the tying silk down tight. You will notice that the hairs spin around the hook and the butt ends will stand out pretty much at right angles to the hook, as in Fig. 3. Cut off the tip end of the hairs on the dotted line, press the hairs back tightly, apply a drop of water-proof lacquer to the base of the hairs and the hook, and repeat the same process of tying on a small bunch of hair, each time pressing it back tightly. Remember this is important, because the hair must be as close together as possible to make a firm, smooth, buoyant body. {55} [Illustration: Diagram 9. Page sized diagram showing drawings of bass bug construction.] When you have built the body up until it looks something like Fig. 4, remove it from the vise and with a sharp pair of scissors trim and shape it until it looks {56} like Figs. 5 and 6. At this stage you should have 3/16" of the shank of the hook left just behind the eye, where you will tie on the wings. Cover this bare hook with the well waxed tying silk, and lay a bunch of hair on top of the hook for wings as Fig. 7. Crisscross the tying silk around the wings and the hook until they are securely tied together. Place several coats of lacquer over he junction of the wings and hook, to more securely bind them in place. Lacquer the entire wings if you wish and when they have partially dried, press them flat, spread them, trim them as Fig. 8, and your Bug is completed. Any combination of color may be used, different colored wings and tail, different colored rings in the body. White body with red tail and wings is a good pattern. Yellow body, black wings and tail another. Various feather combinations can be used for wings and tall. Create your own designs, and develop your patterns. CORK BODIED BASS BUGS (SEE DIAGRAM 10) These high floaters are easy to make and may be tied on most any size hook desired. Kinked shank hooks should be used to prevent the body from turning on the {57} hook. Colored lacquer or enamel can be used to decorate the bodies, and eyes can be either painted on, or regular small glass eyes inserted and held in place with water-proof glue or lacquer. Any of the fancy feathers that are used for regular bass flies can be used for wings. Hair or feathers can be used for tails, etc. Let us first make one of these cork bodied Bugs on a size 1/0 hook. Take a 1/2" cork cylinder and with a razor blade shape it roughly as Diagram 10, Figs. 1 and 2. Then with a piece of 00 sandpaper held in the right hand and the cylinder in the left it is a very simple matter to give the body a nice smooth, shapely finish. Next cut a small V out of the body as in Fig. 3. This is easier to fit to the hook and easier to cement securely than simply making a slit in the cork. Press the V slit over the hook as in Fig. 4. Apply cement or lacquer liberally to the inside of the V slot, and to the hook shank. Press the piece that was removed securely back into place, bind tightly with string, as in Fig. 5, and let set over night. Next day when the cement has thoroughly dried and the body is permanently fastened to the hook, remove the string and with the sandpaper touch up any rough places on the body, and give a coat of lacquer or enamel of the desired color. {58} [Illustration: Diagram 10. Page sized diagram showing drawings of cork bodied bass bug construction.] When the body enamel has dried, take a pair of feathers for wings (whole feathers that have the quill in the centre, same as are used for regular bass fly wings are best), and with the {59} tying silk bind these fast to the top side of the shoulders as in Fig. 6. Tie on a tail close to the body, paint on the eyes, paint any other color or designs you wish on the body, and the Bug is completed. {60} [Illustration: Diagram 11. Page sized diagram showing drawings of angler's knots.] {61} ANGLER'S KNOTS Figs. 1, 2 and 3 in Diagram 11, page (60) show a very convenient way to tie a dropper loop in the leader; roll the gut between thumb and finger at (A) Fig. 1, next invert loop (B) through (C) Figs. 2 and 3. Figs. 4, 5, and 6 make the best knot for or a loop in the end of a leader, gut snells etc. Pull loop (C) through loop (B) Figs. 5 and 6. Figs. 7, 8, and 9 are about the easiest and most secure knots for making leaders, the ends are in the centre of the finished knot and can be clipped close. Figs. 10, 11, and 12, the figure eight knot, is the best for tying flies to the leader, it won't slip, and the pull is in line with the hook shank. {62} MY FAVORITE FLIES Quite frequently I am asked which fly I like the best, or which particular patterns I would choose should I carry only a few flies with me on a trip. That is rather a difficult question to answer. The season, the type of fishing and location must be taken into consideration. There must be some reason for so many hundreds of patterns. I hardly believe that any half dozen patterns can be used with constant success throughout the season, even in one particular locality. There are times, when fish are feeding, that they will take anything; again one may change fly after fly without success, when finally a fly will be tried that will take fish on every cast. Suppose that particular fly wasn't included in the chosen few, the answer is obvious. However, I will endeavor to choose six patterns each of the various styles, and to give my reasons for their choice, but here I assure you there will always be many more patterns in my fly box for further trial, after I have exhausted my favorite six. Beginning with dry flies, my first choice would be {63} a Quill Gordon, on a size 16 hook. This fly closely represents the numerous duns that are on or about the water, to some extent, during the entire season. I have little faith in color in the dry fly, except light or dark shades. I do believe that the size and shape have a great deal more to do with the success of a dry fly than color. I have proven to my own satisfaction that a Quill Gordon sparsely dressed as it should be, but tied with a black hackle and yellow mallard wings, is just as successful as the customary dressing. My second choice would be the Red Ant. Although this fly belongs to the order Hymenoptera, it can be used when many of the Diptera order are on the water, such as Cowdung, Blue bottle, Bee, etc. This family all have flat wings and make an entirely different appearance than the aforementioned Quill Gordon. I tie the Red Ant on a size 14 hook. I build the body first of red silk floss, shape it like the body of an ant, give it a couple of coats of clear lacquer and let it dry hard and shiny. This body will reflect light, much as the natural insect. I then tie on two hackle tips for wings. Have them about as long as the hook, spread them so they are at about a 30 degree angle from the body and very flat. I then use a brown saddle hackle with fibers about 3/4" long for legs. I put on only two or three turns of the hackle, and then clip off all of the top and bottom hackles, leaving only about six fibers sticking {64} straight out on each side. This fly will float very close to the water, and because of its sparse dressing, slightly heavy body because of the lacquer, it is not a good floater. It also has the disadvantage of being hard to see. However, it is still my second choice, and properly dressed, and fished with a very fine leader, will take many nice fish. My third choice is the Fan Wing Royal Coachman. This fly was never supposed to represent any particular family but I believe it is taken by fish for the Lepidoptera, large-winged moths and butterflies. It seems to be very successful when these are about in the evening. My fourth choice is the Furnace Spider. This fly I tie on a size 16 short shank hook, by winding only about three turns of a furnace saddle hackle, with fibers about three fourths of an inch long. Tied in this manner, without any body or tail, the fly will alight on the water with the hook down, and looked at from beneath, against the light, only the little black spot will be noticeable. This I believe represents some of the order Coleoptera (beetles) and also the small black gnat (Empidae). I know if no other ways to tie the Black Gnat small enough to represent the natural insect, and even on the very smallest hook, the artificial is usually many times larger than the natural. The small black centre of the furnace saddle hackle tied in this manner seems to represent the size of the natural very {65} closely. This fly is a very good floater and an excellent fly when trout are feeding on those small insects. My fifth choice is the Grannon. This fly is of the order of Trihoptera, and has different shaped wings than any of those previously mentioned, the wings being quite full and roof shaped. It is on the water a good part of the season, and can be used when other flies with this shape wing are about, such as the alder fly, cinnamon fly, etc. My next and sixth choice of dry fly would be the Brown Palmer, made on a size 12 long shank hook with a full body of peacock herl, and palmer hackle, wound not too full. This I believe is taken by the trout for many of the caterpillars. My personal choice of these six patterns should now appear quite obvious, should it be necessary for me to limit myself to such a small selection. I have selected one each of the six most prominent orders, and should any one of the hundreds of families of these orders be in prominence on the water, I would at least have the correct size or color. My choice of the standard pattern wet flies, Feather Streamers, Bucktail Streamers, and nymphs would be a little more difficult. I am a firm believer that color plays a very important part in the dressing of wet flies, as well as size and style. I offer my personal choice of these styles because of the consistency with which they {66} have taken fish for me during many years of fishing all parts of the country. I do not hesitate to say that I have taken more trout, of all kinds, on a brown hackle with peacock herl body, than any of the other common wet fly patterns. This is probably because I have used it more. I do believe that in the north, and especially for brook trout, a fly with a little red in it is more productive. Therefore, for northern fishing I would select Royal Coachman, Parmachene Belle, and Montreal. Other favorite flies that are good most anywhere in North America are Grizzly King, Queen O'Waters; Cahill, and Grey Hackle. Feather Streamers and Hair Streamers are being more extensively used each year. Many authorities are of firm conviction that these flies unquestionably represent small minnows, upon which the fish are in the habit of feeding. This may be true, but I have seen many rubber, metal and composition minnows, that were exact replicas of the naturals, both as to color and size, and they would not take fish as would the Feather or Hair Streamers, fished in the same waters at the same time. Most of my experience with Feather Streamers and also Hair Streamers has been for Landlocked Salmon and Rainbow Trout, in big waters. So I will list these according to the way they have produced for me. The {67} Black Ghost on a #4 long shank hook has been my most successful Feather Streamer. Probably because its white streamers are easily seen by the fish. It will most always raise fish, even if not the proper fly to make them strike. The Grey Ghost is another, and one of the most popular streamers in the North for Landlocked Salmon. This fly, as well as the Supervisor, Spencer Bay Special and numerous other flies of this style, were originally designed by their creators to represent the smelt, a favorite food of the salmon. These flies vary so in their color combinations that I wonder what the fish do take them for. However, I do know that a Grey Ghost will work when a Supervisor will not, and vice versa. One is grey and the other is blue. When fishing in lakes with a Feather Streamer for trout I have consistently had most luck with a creation of my own, Gregg's Demon. This fly was never tied to represent anything, but I have taken many nice fish on it, and have seen little fellows hardly as long as the fly itself chase it, and try their best to bite it in two. There is just something about it that has "fish appeal." A Brown Bucktail with a silver body on a #6 3x long shank hook rates number one in Bucktail streamers. Another excellent fly that has been a favorite for years, is a Yellow and Red Bucktail, with a silver body, the red only a narrow streak through the centre. This fly has recently been named "Mickey Finn." A red and {68} white, with silver or gold body is a real good pattern where there are brook trout, and tied on a large hook is very good for bass. I use one with all white bucktail and silver body, the same as I do a Black Ghost, for locating fish. I find they will most always show their presence, one way or another when a white fly is cast near them. An all yellow with black streak in the centre same as the "Mickey Finn" is another very good combination. This is an excellent pickerel and bass fly. In fact, most any of these Feather Streamers and Bucktail Streamers tied on larger hooks, and used with or without a spinner, are excellent lures for both bass and pickerel. Nymphs: I have explained elsewhere my liking these lures, and can say little more except that I always carry the following color combinations in various sizes. All tied according to styles illustrated in the diagrams. Cream Belly with Dark Back; Yellow Belly with Black Ribs and Dark Back; Green Belly with Dark Back; Grey Belly and Gold Ribs with Dark Back; Brown Belly and Gold Ribs with Black Back; Orange Belly and Black Ribs with Dark Back. {69} STANDARD DRESSINGS OF 334 FLIES ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED [Transcriber's Note: Some of the names are not in strict alphabetical order.] [Transcriber's Note: The dressing of each fly is described in the following order: NAME TAG TAIL RIBS BODY HACKLE WINGS] Abbey None Orange & black Gold Red Floss Brown Grey Mottled (mallard) Adams Gold Golden tippet None Grey Wool Brown and grizzly Grey Mottled (mallard) Alexandra None Peacock herl None Silver Black Peacock sward and jungle cock Alder None None None Peacock herl Black Dark speckled Turkey or Grouse Apple Green None Brown None Green Silk Brown Dark Grey Ash Dun None Grey None Silver Grey Grey Lt. Starling August Dun None Redish Yellow Lt. Brown Floss Redish Brown Hen Pheasant Autumn Dun None Black Yellow Black Grey Teal Breast Babcock None Black and Yellow Gold Cardinal Red Black Black and Yellow Barrington None Grey Speckled None Peacock Herl Brown Grey Speckled Beauty None None Silver Black Badger Spotted Golden Beaverkill Gold Grey Speckled None White Floss Brown tied palmer Grey Bee Gold None None Black & Yellow chenille Brown Brown Belgrade Peacock herl Scarlet and white None Yellow Claret tied palmer Red, white and jungle cock Blue Rooster None Tan mottled wood duck None Condor Quill Blue Andalusian Tan mottled wood duck Blue Bi-visible None None None Blue floss Blue tied palmer None Black Bi-visible None None None Black floss Black, tied palmer None Blue Winged Olive None Brown None Green Golden Brown Blue dun hackle tips {70} Blue Professor Gold Scarlet Gold Blue floss Ginger Grey speckled Black Nymph None Brown mottled None Black herl Partridge None Brown Nymph None Brown mottled None Brown herl Partridge None Br. Bi-Visible None None Silver or None Brown Brown None Brown Spider None None None Brown Brown None Black Spider None None None Black Black None Brown Dun None Brown None Brown Brown Starling Black Midge None None None Black Black None Black Prince Silver Scarlet Silver Black floss Black Black Blue Dun None Pale blue hackle None Pale blue fur Pale blue dun Blue grey Blue Bottle White silk None Black or Gold Steel blue silk or dk. blue chenille None None Black Gnat Gold None None Black Chenille Black Grey Black Hackle Gold None None Black Chenille Black None Blue Upright None Pale blue hackle None Pale blue fur Pale blue dun Blue Grey Brown Hackle Gold Golden tippet None Peacock herl Brown None Brown Palmer Gold Golden tippet None Peacock herl Brown tied palmer None Brown Hen Red Silk None None Peacock herl Brown Brown mottled Blue Quill None Blue dun hackle None Quill Blue Dun Blue Grey Black and Silver None Golden tippet None Silver Black Black Black and Claret None Golden tippet Silver Claret Wool Black Black Black June None None Silver Peacock herl Black Dark Grey Black Moose None Green and Yellow None Green Black tied palmer Guinea Black Quill None Black None Quill Black Dark Grey Black Ant Black chenille None None Black Silk Black Slate {71} Blue and Black None Golden tippet None Black Black None Blue Jay Gold Scarlet Gold Red Red Blue Jay Blue Quill None Blue Dun None Quill Blue Dun Grey Bonnie View Gold Grey Gold Olive Brown Brown Grey Boots Black Gold Speckled Gold Red Wool Black Black Bandreth Gold Scarlet Gold Yellow Scarlet and yellow Grey speckled Brown Adder Red Black & Br. mottled None Brown silk Brown, tied palmer Black and brown mottled Brown Sedge Gold None Gold Brown Silk Brown Brown Bustard and Black Silver Golden tippet Silver Black Wool Black None Bustard and Orange Gold Golden tippet Gold Orange Wool Orange None Butcher None Scarlet None Silver Black Blue black Caddis Gold Grey Gold Brown Silk Brownish Red Grey Cahill, Dark Gold Tan Mottled None Grey Wool or Fur Brown Tan mottled wood duck Cahill, Light Gold Tan Mottled None Buff Wool Ginger Tan Mottled Cahill Quill None Tan Mottled None Quill Grey Tan Mottled Canada Gold Claret Gold Bright Red Brown Mottled Turkey Carpenter None None None Rusty red wool Red Hen Pheasant Cardinal Gold Red Gold Red Wool Light red Red Claret Gnat None None None Claret Wool Claret Dark Grey Cinnamin None Golden tippet Gold Lemon & Black Wool Brown Cinnamon Coachman Gold Golden tippet None Peacock Herl Brown White Coachman Leadwing Gold Golden tippet None Peacock Herl Brown Dark Grey Cock-y-bondhu Gold None Gold Peacock Herl Furnace None Col. Fuller None Black and yellow Yellow silk Scarlet Yellow Yellow and scarlet {72} Cow Dung None None None Dirty orange herl or yel. green wool Brown Grey Critchley Fancey Gold Yellow Gold Yellow Yellow and grey Grizzly and scarlet Cupsuptic None Golden tippet Silver Red Silk Floss Brown Yellow Dark Sedge None None Gold Wire Dk. Green Wool Blood Red None Dark Stone None None Yellow Silk Grey Wool Grey Dark Grey Dr. Breck None Grey Speckled None Silver Scarlet White and Scarlet Dorset None Furnace None Green Wool Furnace Teal Downlooker None None None Brown Floss Brown, tied palmer Brown and black mottled turkey Deer Fly None Black None Bright Green White White Dusty Miller None Grey speckled Gold Wire Grey wool mohair Grey Dirty Grey Turkey Dark Miller None Br. Hackle Brown Silk Scarlet None Yellow and black Emerald Gold None Gold Lt. Green t. Brown Brown Mottled Evening Dun None Lt. Blue None Buff Wool Lt. Blue Starling Epting None Gey speckled None Red, orange, & yel. chenille Black Grey Speckled Female Beaverkill Yellow chenille Grey speckled None Grey silk or wool Brown Dark Grey Female Grannon Green None None Brown Floss Partridge Brown mottled partridge Fem. March Br. None None Yellow Silk Dk. brown floss None Brown mottled turkey or grouse Ferguson Scarlet yel. and herl None None None None Mottled turkey tail, yellow and red Fern Fly None None None Orange Floss Lt. Red Dark Starling Feted Green None Green None Green Green Green {73} Fiery Brown gold Golden tippet Gold Redish brown mohair or wool R. I. Red Bronze Flights Fancy None Ginger Gold Pale Yel. Floss Ginger Lt. grey Francis Fly None None Red Silk Peacock Herl None Grizzly Dun Furnace Dun Gold Furnace None Br. & orange wool Furnace Dark Starling Furnace Hackle None None None Peacock Herl Furnace None Gen. Hooker None None Yellow Green Floss Brown Mottled grey and brown Great Dun Brown hairs Gold Gold Brown Floss Brown Dark Grey Grey Bi-Visible None None Silver or None None Grizzly None Green Nymph None Green Gold Green Wool Green None Grey Spider None None None Grey Grizzly None Gld. Midge None None Gold Pale Green Dun None Great Dun Gold Brown Hairs Gold Brown Silk Brown Dark Grey Ginger Palmer Silver None Silver Yellow or ginger floss Ginger, tied palmer None Ginger Quill None Ginger None Quill Ginger Lt. Grey Golden Dun Gold Grey Speckled Gold Gold or orange Red Lt. Grey Golden Dun Midge Gold Grey Hairs Gold Pale Green Wool Light Grey Lt. Grey Gold Spinner Gold Eyed None Grey Speckled None Gold Red Dark Grey Gold Eyed Gauze Wing None Blue Dun None Pale yel. and green silk Blue Dun Blue dun hackle tips Gold Monkey None None None Yellow Silk Floss Grey Speckled Dark Grey Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear Gold Dark Hairs Gold Rabbit's Fur None Grey {74} Gold Stork None Grey speckled None Gold Brown Grey speckled Golden Eyed Gauze Wing None None None Pale Grey Pale Grey Pale Green Good Evening Gold Orange Gold Scarlet Brown Dark blue with white tip Gordon Gold Brown speckled Gold Yellow Grey Brown speckled wood duck Govenor None None None Peacock Herl Brown Brown mottled turkey Gov. Alford None Scarlet None Green Herl Brown Black and Brown Grannon None None None Brown fur or wool Brown or grizzly Dark Partridge Gravelbed None None None Dark Grey Black Woodcock Grey Drake None Grey Speckled Black White Floss Grey Grey speckled Grey Hackle peacock None None None Peacock Herl Grizzly None Grey Hackle Gold Golden tippet None Red wool or silk Grizzly None Grey Hackle yellow Gold Golden tippet Yellow wool or silk Grizzly None None Grey Marlow Gold None Gold Red Wool Grey Grey Grey Miller None None None Grey Wool Grey Grey Great Dun None Brown and Grey None Maroon Purple and Red Floss Grey or Black Grey or Black Great Red spinner None Black and white Gold Red Floss Brown Slate Grey Grey Bodied Ashy None Golden tippet None Brown, black, or green herl or wool Grey None Green Drake None Brown pheasant Brown Floss Raffia or lemon silk Partridge & ginger Yellowish Olive Green Insect None None None Green Herl Green None {75} Greenwell's Glory None Yellow Gold Olive or Yellow Furnace Mottled woodcock Grizzly King Gold Scarlet Gold Dark Green Grizzly Grey Speckled Grouse & Black Gold Golden tippet Gold Black Fur Black Grouse Grouse & Claret Gold Golden tippet Gold Claret mohair or wool Claret Grouse Grouse & Green Gold Golden tippet Gold Green Wool Ginger Grouse Grouse & Orange Gold Golden tippet Gold Orange Wool Orange Grouse Grouse & Peacock Gold Golden tippet Gold Peacock Herl Dark Red Grouse Grouse & Purple Gold Golden tippet Gold Purple Wool Purple Grouse Grouse Spider None None None Orange Floss Grouse Grouse Half Stone None None None Yellow Honey Dun Woodcock Hazel-Fly None None None Green Herl Furnace None Hemsworth Gold & herl Golden tippet None None None None Hammond's Adopted Gold None Gold Lt. Brown Ginger Mottled woodcock Hare's Ear None None Yellow Silk Rabbit's fur Yel. or None Grey Harlequin None None None Orange and lt. blue wool Black Grey Hawthorn None Black hackle None Black ostrich herl Black Lt. Grey Hen. Guinea Gold Scarlet Gold Red wool Red Guinea Fowl Henshall None Peacock Herl None Peacock Herl Lt. Grey Grey Speckled Hod Gold None Gold Pea-Green Dark Ginger Hen Pheasant Hofland Fancy None Brown None Red (dark) Brown Brown and Yellow Hoskins None Golden tippet None Lemon Blue Dun Woodcock House Fly None None None Dun Condor Quill Black Dark Starling Howell Gold Scarlet Gold Peacock Herl Claret White tip turkey tail Ibis and White Gold Red & White Gold Red floss Rd/ & White Red and White {76} Imbrie Gold Golden tippet Gold White Lt. Red Dark Starling Indian Yellow None Ginger Yellow Lt. Brown Ginger Goose Iron Blue Dun None Yellow None None Blue Dun Bluish Black Iron Blue Quill None Blue Dun None Quill Blue Dun lt. Blue Dun Hkl. Tip Iron Blue Nymph None Honey Dun None None Honey Dun None July Dun None Dun None Yellow Dark Dun Starling Joe Killer None Barred woodduck None Silver Short red bucktail Yel. & white peacock swd. & jungle cock Jenni None Lavendar or blue Gold Yellow floss Scarlet Lavendar or lt. blue Jock Scott Black silk Yellow & Scarlet White floss Yellow floss Grouse & Guinea Yel. & grey speckled scarlet & jungle cock Jennie Spinner Orange and brown Cream hackle None White horse hair Silver Blue Silver blue hackle tips or None Jungle Cock None Scarlet Gold or white Blue grey fur Claret or blk. Dark brown and jungle cock Katy-did None Black Hairs Gold Wire Green floss Green Green King O'Waters Gold Grey Speckled Gold Red floss Brown Grey Speckled Kingdon Gold None Green floss White floss Dark Woodcock King Fisher None None None Silver Lt. Blue Kingfisher Kitson Gold Black Hairs Gold Yellow Claret Yellow with black cheeks La Branche Gold Grey Gold Blue Grey Fur Blue Dun Grey Lady Doctor Gold and red wool Two yellow hackle None Yellow Wool Yel. tied palm. Polar bear and Black hair and jungle cock Lady Beaverkill Yellow chenile Grey Speckled None Grey (dark) Brown Dark Grey {77} Lake Edward None Golden Crest Gold Claret Wool Claret Pea Green Lake George None White and scarlet Gold Scarlet floss White White & Scarlet Lake Green None None Green Silk Canary yellow Ginger Teal Breast Laramie None Scarlet Silver Scarlet floss Dark Blue Grey Mottled Lt. Stone None Grey Yellow Silk Grey Grey Grey Little Marryat None Brown None Lt. grey or herl Brown Dark grey Ld. Baltimore None None Black Silk Orange Silk Black Black and jungle Lowery None None None Peacock Herl Brown Lt. Brown Lt. Montreal Gold Grey Mottled Gold Scarlet Claret Grey Speckled Lt. March Br. None Partridge hackle None Olive & Br. fur Partridge Lt. mottled partridge Magpie None Black Hairs None Black Black Black with whit tip Mallard & Amber Gold Golden tippet Gold Amber floss Lt. Red Brown mallard breast Mallard & Claret Gold Golden tippet Gold Claret wool Lt. Red Brown mallard breast Mallard & Green Gold Golden tippet Gold Green Wool Lt. Red Brown mallard breast Mallard & Red Gold Golden tippet Gold Red wool Lt. Red Brown mallard breast March Brown None Grouse Yellow Silk Br. or Grey fur Grouse Dark Brown mottled turkey or grouse March Br. Ginger None Ginger None Brown fur Ginger Dark Brown mottled turkey or grouse March Br. Nymph None Partridge Gold Yellow wool Partridge None Markam None Scarlet and white None Yellow Scarlet Dark Brown with white tips Marlow Buzz None None Gold Peacock Herl Furnace None Marston's Fancy None None None Brown Fur Brown Dark Grey Massasaga Gold Ibis Gold Green floss Canary Yellow Canary Yellow Maxwell Blue None Lt. Blue Silver Grey Lt. Blue None McGinty None Grey speckled and scarlet None Black and Yel. chenille Brown Brown with white tip {78} Mealy Moth None None Silver Lt. Grey Wool White White Mershon Silver Black Hairs Silver Black Black Dark blue with whit tip Merson White None Black Hairs None White Black Dark blue Mole None Brown Hairs Gold Dk. brown floss Brown tied palmer Brown mottled mallard Montreal Gold Scarlet Gold Claret floss Claret Brown mottled turkey tail or grouse Montreal Claret Gold Claret Gold Claret floss Claret Brown mottled turkey tail or grouse Montreal Silver None Scarlet None Silver Claret Brown mottled turkey tail or grouse Montreal Yellow Gold Scarlet Gold Yellow floss Claret Brown mottled turkey tail or grouse Morison None Black Black Claret Black Black Mowry None Black Hairs None Black Black Black with white tip Needle Brown None None None Orange Dark Brown None Neversink None Black None Pale buff wool Yellow Teal breast New Page Gold Gold speckled Yellow floss Brown Mottled brown and red Olive Dun Gold Olive Dun Gold or None Olive Wool Olive Dun Lt. blue grey or olive dun hackle tips Olive Quill None Olive None Quill Olive Olive Orange & Bk. Gold Golden tippet Gold Orange Wool Black None Orange Dun None None None Orange Wool Dk. Brown Lt. Brown Olive Nymph None Olive None Mot. Br. wool Olive None Orange Miller None None Gold Orange floss White White Orange Sedge None None Gold Orange floss Brown tied palmer Red, Brown Oriole None Yellow Gold Black floss Black Yellow {79} Oak None Black None Orange floss Brown Dark grey and Lt. Brown mottled Pale Blue Dun None Pale Blue None Pale Blue Fur Pale Blue Pale blue hackle tips or None Pale Buff None Pale Buff None Pale Buff Wool Pale Buff Pale Buff Pale Eve. Dun None None Br. silk or None Lemon floss Lt. blue grey or grizzly Lt. Blue Grey Pale Sulphur None Pale Yel. Hairs None Pale Yellow Pale Yellow Pale Yellow Orange Tag None None None None None None Pale Watery None Yellow None Olive Wool Pale Yellow Grey Pale Watery Quill None Yellow None Quill Pale Yellow Grey Pale Yellow None None None Yellow Yellow Pale Yellow Parmachene Beau Peacock herl Scarlet and white Gold Yellow floss or mohair Scarlet and white Scarlet, White jungle cock Parmachene Belle Peacock herl Scarlet and white Gold Yellow floss or mohair Scarlet and White Scarlet & white Parson None Golden tippet Silver wire Silver Black Bronze Peter Ross None Golden tippet None Bright Yel. Ginger None Pheasant None None Gold Yellow floss Ginger Bronze Pheasant, Gold None Golden tippet Gold Wire Gold Pheasant Pheasant, Wing Pheasant, Silver None Golden tippet Silver Wire Silver Pheasant Pheasant, Wing Pheasant & Yel. None Golden tippet Gold Yellow floss Pheasant Pheasant, Wing Pink Lady Gold Pheasant Gold Pink floss Brown Grey Speckled Pink Wickhams None Brown None Pink floss Brown tied palmer Grey Speckled Polka Gold Scarlet Gold Scarlet floss Scarlet Guinea Poor Mans Fly None Ginger None Brown Wool Ginger Grey Speckled {80} Portland None Grey Speckled Gold Red floss Red Teal breast Preston's Fancy None Brown Hairs None Gold Brown Grey with white spot Priest None Red Ibis Silber Silver Badger None Prime Gnat None None None Brown Brown Dark Grey Professor Gold Scarlet Gold Yellow floss Brown Grey Speckled Quaker None None Silver Grey Wool Grey Grey Speckled Queen O'Waters None None Gold Orange floss Br. Palmer Grey Speckled Quill Gordon None Tan speckled Gold Wire or None Quill Blue Dun Tan speckled wood duck Raven None Golden tippet None Black chenille Black Black Crow Red Ant Herl None None Red floss Brown Dark Grey Red Fox None Speckled Teal None Redish Brown or wool None None Red Quill None Dark Red None Red Quill Dark Red Med. Starling Red Ibis None Scarlet Gold Scarlet floss Scarlet Scarlet Red Spinner Gold Brown Hairs Gold Red Brown Dark Grey Red Tag Red Silk Red None Peacock Herl Brown None Rd. Bod. Ashy None None None Red Wool Brown Palmer None Ross McKenney Gold Barred wood duck Gold Brown Wool None White and red bucktail and jungle cock Royal Coachman Gold Golden tippet None Peacock herl with scarlet red band Hackle Brown White Rube Wood Red Grey Speckled None White Chenille Lt. Brown Grey Speckled Ruben Wood None Tan speckled None White Chenille Lt. Brown Tan speckled Saltoun None Ginger Silver Black floss Black Lt. Starling Sand-Fly None Lt. Ginger None Copper Brown Lt. Ginger Yellowish Brown Sassy Cat None Scarlet None Peacock Herl Yellow Yellow, scarlet cheeks {81} Seth Green None None Yellow Green floss Claret Grey speckled Seth Green Turkey None None Yellow Green floss Brown Brown mottled Shad Fly None None Green Peacock Herl None Brown mottled Shoemaker None Tan speckled None Pink & Grey Brown Mottled Woodcock Silver Doctor None Yel. blue green and red None Silver Blue & Guinea Brown, red, blue, green and yellow Silver Horns None None None Copper floss Grouse None Silver Sedge None None None Silver Brown Palmer Brown Silver Stock None Grey Speckled None Silver Brown Teal breast Soldier Palmer None None Gold Red Wool Brown Palmer None Spent Gnat None Brown Peacock herl Wt. Floss or Quill None Blue Hkl. tips Sedge, light None None None Pale Buff wool Ginger Hen pheasant Sniper & Yel. None None None Pale Yel. floss Snipe None Stebbins None Grey Speckled None Peacock Herl Grouse Dark Starling Stone None Grey Yellow Grey Wool Grey Grey Sunset Green chenille None None Yellow chenille Yellow White Swiftwater None Grey Speckled None Peacock herl Brown White Teal & Black None Golden tippet None Black wool Black Teal breast Teal & Orange Gold Golden tippet Gold Orange wool Olive Teal breast Teal & Gold None Golden tippet None Gold Dk. Brown Teal breast Teal & Red Gold Golden tippet Gold Red wool Olive Teal breast Teal & Silver None Golden tippet None Silver Badger Teal breast Teal & Yellow Silver Golden tippet Silver Yellow wool Ginger Teal breast {82} Tippet & Black Silver Golden tippet Silver Black wool Black Golden tippet Tippet & Red Silver Golden tippet Silver Red wool Dk. Brown Golden tippet Tippet & Silver Silver Golden tippet Silver Silver Badger Golden tippet Tootle Bug Blue Scarlet None Orange & Yel. Br. palmer Brown Mottled Tups Indispensable None Honey Dun None Yellow Honey Dun None Turkey Brown None None Red Brown Brown Brown Turkey Professor Gold Red None Yellow floss Brown Brown mottled Van Patten None Scarlet Gold White Brown Grey speckled Varient, Gold None None None Gold Blue Dun Starling Water Cricket None None Black Orange Black None Watson's Fancy Gold Golden tippet Gold Red & Blk. wool Black Black hackle tips Welshman's Button None None None Peacock Herl Furnace Landrail Western Bee None None None Yellow & Black chenille Brown Dark Grey Whirling Blue Dun Gold Ginger None Blue Grey Fur Ginger Blue Grey White Hackle None None Silver White floss White None White Miller None None Silver White floss White White White Moth Silver None None White Chenille White White Wickham's Fancy None Brown hairs None Gold Br. palmer Grey Wickham Pink None Red None Red & Gold Lt. Reddish Landrail Widow None None White Purple Floss Black Black Willow None None Yellow Green Brown Dark Grey Wilkson None None None Orange Orange Teal breast Witch Gold Gold Red Ibis Gold Grey Wool Badger None Whitechurch Dun None Grey Speckled None Yellow floss Ginger Lt. Grey White Wickhams None Brown Hairs None White floss White, palmer Grey {83} Woodcock & Gold None Golden tippet Silver Gold Ginger Mottled Woodcock Woodcock & Grn. None Golden tippet Silver Green wool Green Mottled Woodcock Woodcock & Red None Golden tippet Silver Red wool Reddish brown Mottled Woodcock Woodcock & Yellow None Golden tippet Silver Yellow wool Woodcock Mottled Woodcock Worm Fly None None None Peacock Herl Ginger None Yel. Bi-visible None None None Yellow wool Yel. and white palmer None Yel. Coachman None None None Peacock Herl Brown Yellow Yel. Dun None None None Yel. wool Honey Dun Lt. Starling Yel. Hackle None None Gold Yellow floss Yellow None Yel. Professor Gold Scarlet Gold Yellow floss Brown Yellow Speckled Yel. May None Yel. Speckled Gold or black Yellow floss Yellow Yellow Speckled Yel. Miller None None Gold Yel. & Herl White White Yel. Spider None Yellow None Yellow Yel. (long) None Yel. Sally None Yellow Gold Yellow Yellow Yellow Zulu Gold Red None Peacock Herl Black None The Barnes Sports Library This library of practical sports books covers fundamentals, techniques, coaching and playing hints and equipment for each sport. Leading coaches and players have been selected to write these books, so each volume is authoritative and based upon actual experience. Photographs or drawings, or both, illustrate techniques, equipment and play. ARCHERY by Reichart & Keasey BAIT CASTING by Gilmer Robinson BASEBALL by Daniel E. Jessee BASKETBALL by Charles C. Murphy BASKETBALL FOR GIRLS by Meissner & Meyers BASKETBALL OFFICIATING by Dave Tobey BETTER BADMINTON by Jackson & Swan BICYCLING by Ruth and Raymond Benedict BOWLING FOR ALL by Falcaro & Goodman BOXING by Edwin L. Haislet FENCING by Joseph Vince FIELD HOCKEY FOR GIRLS by Josephine T. Lees FLY CASTING by Gilmer Robinson FOOTBALL by W. Glenn Killinger GOLF by Patty Berg HANDBALL by Bernath E. Phillips HOW TO TIE FLIES by E. C. Gregg ICE HOCKEY by Edward Jeremiah JIU-JITSU by Frederick P. Lowell LACROSSE by Tad Stanwick LAWN GAMES by John R. Tunis PHYSICAL CONDITIONING by Stafford & Duncan RIDING by J. J. Boniface RIFLE MARKSMANSHIP by Lt. Wm. L. Stephens ROPING by Bernard S. Mason SIX-MAN FOOTBALL by Ray O. Duncan SKATING by Putman & Parkinson SKIING by Walter Prager SOCCER AND SPEEDBALL FOR GIRLS by Florence L. Hupprich SOFTBALL by Arthur T. Noren SOFTBALL FOR GIRLS by Viola Mitchell SWIMMING by R. J. H. Kiphuth TABLE TENNIS by Jay Purves TENNIS by Helen Jacobs TOUCH FOOTBALL by John V. Grombach TRACK AND FIELD by Ray M. Conger VOLLEY BALL by Robert Laveaga WRESTLING by E. C. Gallagher Clair Bee's Basketball Library THE SCIENCE OF COACHING ZONE DEFENSE AND ATTACK MAN-TO-MAN DEFENSE AND ATTACK DRILLS AND FUNDAMENTALS 
33045	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE RANIDAE HOW TO BREED, FEED AND RAISE THE EDIBLE FROG PUBLISHED BY THE MEADOW BROOK FARM ALLENDALE, N. J. THE EDIBLE FROG. [Illustration: "RANA ESCULENTA."] HOW TO BREED, FEED AND RAISE THE EDIBLE FROG. A Book of Great Value to Beginners, Covering Every Detail Thoroughly. WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT. PRICE $1.00. PUBLISHED AND EDITED BY THE MEADOW BROOK FARM, ALLENDALE, NEW JERSEY. (Copyright 1905, F. E. Bierbrier) CONTENTS Information for Beginners, Page 3 Those Desirous of Light Work, " 7 For the Country Home, " 7 As a Business, " 8 When to Begin, " 8 How Much to Invest, " 9 The Ponds and How to Construct Them, " 10 Care of Ponds, " 12 Great Profit in Swamp Lands, " 13 The Edible Frog, (_Rana Esculenta_), " 15 Nests and Nest Building, " 20 Enemies of Spawn, Tadpoles and Small Frogs, " 21 Hatching and Progress of the Young Frog, " 22 Food for Tadpoles, " 23 Food for Frogs, " 25 Catching the Frogs, " 26 Some Things about Frogs Repeated, " 27 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Edible Frog, Page 1 Watching and Waiting, " 8 The Female Frog, " 15 The Male Frog, " 19 Hatching and Progress of The Young Frog, " 22 Action of Frog's Tongue in Catching a Fly, " 25 Skeleton of a Frog, " 27 "Patience Rewarded," " 29 PREFACE. Think of it! "One Dollar a Pound." The Editor of this book was brought face to face with the true possibilities in Frog raising by his love for this delicate meat and his inability to get it. As I had visited all the principal markets in New York City, a market where it is known the world over that if there is anything in the eatable line to be found it can be found there. This was not so of frog meat. After making several attempts and failing, finally one day I found about twenty pounds, which had been shipped from a distant point, and when I inquired the price? "_One dollar a pound_," it set me to thinking, as it will you, now that I have brought the subject to your notice. At prices like this and the demand far in excess of the supply, as I had inquired of the market man if he had many calls for frog meat, and his reply was, "More than we can get to supply." Now what more inducement does anyone want? This information should make you ambitious to go into the business of Frog Raising. You hear on all sides of you to-day that there is no opportunity to go in business and make money, as all the branches of industry are overproduced. Here surely is one line of business that is not overproduced. And a business that is not necessary to large capital to start, and one that bids fair to bring him who ventures good profitable results. FROG RAISING. Information for Beginners. We are constantly in receipt of inquiries from parties who want information regarding the raising of Frogs. So we have compiled the following pages to answer more fully such inquiries than we can by letter. If you do not find the information you want contained herein, let us hear from you, and we will take pleasure in advising you to the best of our knowledge. The author of this book conceived the idea that there was a large amount of money to be made in Raising Frogs. The object in publishing this book is to get persons who are so situated that they can make a business of raising Frogs interested so as to supply the growing demand that is year by year increasing, and with a price ranging from seventy-five cents to one dollar and fifty cents a pound. This should be an incentive to anyone to start in the business, when the work of Raising Frogs is so simple, and with such large returns to repay one for their efforts. The principal thing is to study the nature of the Frog in habit and breeding. What knowledge we have in the breeding and raising is given herein, and with the experience gained from observation in Raising Frogs it soon becomes an interesting and profitable business. Frog Raising will bring in more profit for the same amount of time and money invested than any other industry that we know of. Every farmer, or farmer's boy, should have a Frog pond and Raise Frogs. It is one of the lines of business that we have heard about, "That makes money for you while you sleep." Many farmers already have Frog ponds, and at a greater profit than any other investment they have on their farm of a like amount. Poultry keepers should have a small Frog pond, especially if they market their product in some city near their Plant and have individual customers, and sell their product direct. They would always have a steady market for more Frog meat than they could supply, and at large profitable prices, as it's a luxury that most people indulge in and would do so more often if they knew where to get Frog meat. Try yourself to buy Frog meat, and you will soon find that it's not to be had at any price in most places, and when it once becomes known that you are Raising Frogs you will soon find that your demand for Frog meat is much greater than you can supply. It works in very well with poultry raising if you can construct your ponds at not too great an expense, and is much more profitable considering the investment and work. Those Desirous of Light Work. Many who are unable to do heavy work will find Frog Raising a very desirable occupation. Being in the open air it tends to health, which is beneficial to those who are sickly and to whom it becomes necessary to take up one of the lighter occupations. The work is light and with care and study can be made a source of a substantial income, and carried on intelligently Frog Raising is as certain a business and as profitable if not more than many undertakings, and you will always find a ready market for all the Frogs you can raise. Any one of the large Hotels or Restaurants in New York City will use more Frog meat in a year than one Frog Raiser can supply, and you can get a standing order for shipments of a certain number of pounds each week. Make inquiries along this line and you will soon be convinced of the opportunity this business offers. For the Country Home. If you are living in the city the greater part of the year, and so fortunate as to have a country home, you by all means should put in a pond and Raise Frogs, as they will be a delicacy for yourself and also your friends when they come from the city to see you. And they will be one of the natural products of the country, which one comes from the city to the country to enjoy, and to many they will be an interesting and novel sight. And in winter, when you are away, they will be dormant and need no care. As a Business. If you are going into Frog Raising as a business, we recommend that you make a small beginning, for nothing is more discouraging, after having gone into a business exclusively, than to have reverses in the start and lose a large portion of your investment for want of a little practical experience. Many persons have met failure by starting on a large scale at first, and without practical experience, where had they started small might to-day be a grand success. This caution applies in all business ventures, and it's the mistake that is made and cause of most failures. When to Begin. We recommend the active work to begin in the early spring. Get your ponds ready as soon as possible. Get your stock and place it early, so it becomes familiar with its new quarters before the breeding season sets in. [Illustration: WATCHING AND WAITING] How Much to Invest. This, of course, depends largely on the circumstances. If you have abundant means and delight in some hobby and want to make a fancy proposition out of it, why you can make your ponds as expensive and picturesque as you wish. But for those who wish to make a business for the benefit of the income to be derived, should start with a small pond and about six pairs of Frogs. Then gradually increase your breeding pond as your stock and ability to handle it demands. Don't start with Frogs under four years of age. They will be the cheapest in the end. The Ponds and How to Construct Them. If you have a running stream of water on your place, the work of building the ponds is much easier than where you have to depend on filling them from pumped water. It is necessary to have several ponds, one large pond is not satisfactory. The reason for this is explained later. A plant for business should have at least four ponds. The depth of the ponds need not be very great, three feet is ample, and they could be less if you can have a good loam bottom that will hold water. But three feet is very satisfactory, and this graduating off to two feet, and one foot deep at the bank is plenty. A good shape and cheap way to build the ponds is like the cut shown. If the ground you have won't allow of this arrangement why make to best arrangement your ground will permit for convenience, carrying out the plan advisable for Raising Frogs. You must have a breeding pond, a hatching pond, a raising and a stock pond, four ponds in all. The stock pond should be the largest, permitting of plenty of room for growing and opportunity to get food. The size of your ponds depends largely on the amount of land available, its topography and the water supply. Ponds not less than one-half acre in area, with the inlet at one end and the outlet at the other, in a line of its longest axis, generally produce the best results, though smaller ponds can be successfully used. At least one-fourth of each of the ponds should not be over one foot in depth, and this portion should be planted with pond weed (_Potamogeton_) and water weed (_Elodea_, or _Anacharis_) to facilitate the production and growth of the minute animals which furnish so large a part of the food for the Frogs at all stages of growth. The rest of the pond should have a gradually sloping bottom, and consequent increase depth to the outlet (or drawoff), where the water should be at least five feet deep, so that in drawing off the ponds the stock can be assembled in a small area for sorting, etc. The bottom of the ponds, preferable, soft muck, in which the Frogs can bury themselves in cold weather and avoid against danger of freezing. In the middle of all the ponds, except the spawn hatching pond, water lilies should be planted, the large pods, such as (_Nymphea alba_). These plants furnish hiding places from fish hawks, also serve as a sun shade and stool for sunning during summer. It is not advisable to place large bowlders in the pond, as they are in the way of seining or netting, and furnish an acceptable resort for crawfish, which are enemies when large. Nursery ponds should be constructed to afford young protection from enemies and to produce the greatest quantity of insect life suited for their sustenance, and this is better accomplished with a number of small ponds than with one large one. A good working size for spawn breeding is from 40 to 50 feet long, by 12 to 15 feet wide, with a depth of from 18 to 36 inches deep to the outlet. Where the topography of the ground will permit it is better to have the nurseries immediately adjoining the spawning pond. With water supply from same source, so that there will be but slight difference between the temperature of the shallowest part of nursery pond and surface of water of spawning pond. If the location is infested with crawfish or snakes the nurseries should be protected by wire screens. The spawning nursery ponds may be combined by constructing one comparatively long pond, narrow near the middle, so that the general shape would be like an hour-glass. Across the narrow part is to be stretched a screen of one-quarter inch wire cloth, which will confine the spawners to the deeper end of the pond, while the fry or hatching spawn will be kept separate. This form of pond is advantageous where for any reason only a few ponds can be built. Between all ponds that are connected they should be screened where water runs from one pond to the other, that is, at the inlet and outlets. Each pond should be surrounded by one-half inch wire mesh two feet high. This makes a protection to the ponds from enemies, and also keeps the Frogs confined to the ponds they are intended. Care of Ponds. The accumulated decayed matter ought to be occasionally removed. The frequency of this depends on character of the water supply, the amount of silt it brings into the ponds, the character of the soil, and on the thoroughness of the yearly removal of the surplus vegetation. Care should be taken that the ponds do not become offensive with stagnant water and rotten vegetation. This condition is detrimental to large production; while abundant pond vegetation is favorable to a large production of fry it must not become decayed. It is sometimes so luxuriant that it settles down in a blanket-like mass and smothers and pens in many of the young Frogs. Under such conditions it should be removed frequently. This can be done by lowering the ponds, if they are built so they can be drawn off, which is a very desirable and convenient way if the topography of the land will permit. A strong flat-bottom boat should be made, in which can be taken the surplus matted vegetation and carried off. At each end of the boat a ring should be fastened, through which stakes can be driven to hold the boat at points in the pond to be worked. The vegetation is raked from the water in small lots. Care should be taken not to bring up any of the small Frogs and Tadpoles with the vegetation. It should be removed from the banks of the ponds at once, as it will rot very fast, and its presence is objectionable. If a boat is not used the vegetation can be drawn near the shore with long-handled rakes and taken out with long-handled pitchforks made especially. This method is simple and much more economical. Two men can accomplish more than five men by the other method. The advantage in favor of the boat is that you do not need to disturb the whole mass, but pick it out here and there as you think best, and have it more uniform and not destroy the roots so much. Great Profit in Swamp Lands. Swamp lands, on a farm, converted into Froggeries, _bring in large profits_. If you have a piece of ground which is swampy, which can be found on most any farm, and you do not convert this into "_Raising Frogs_," you are losing one of the most profitable products of your farm, as _more money_ can be made from an _acre of swamp land in a Froggery than ten acres in wheat_, if properly managed, and with little expense. You first want to excavate a portion of it where you can have water, 50 × 15 feet, and another part of it 15 × 20 feet, and fence it in, as explained above with a 2-foot one-half mesh wire. In the larger pond place the breeding Frogs, and in the smaller one hatch out the spawn, and when they are developed into Frogs turn them loose on the swamp to grow until they maintain marketable size. If there is a small stream or ditch running through the swamp, which very often is the case, then it is an easy task. And here is where the old saying can be applied, "Makes money for you while you sleep." And good, big money it makes, too. _Don't put off_ turning your swamp into a _money-maker_. DO IT NOW. The Edible Frog (Rana Esculenta.) [Illustration: THE FEMALE FROG.] Two species of Rana are common in America and Europe, viz., _Rana esculenta_ and _Rana temporaria_. The latter alone is indigenous to Great Britain, and varieties of it extend throughout temperate Europe and Asia to Japan, and one variety (_pretiosa_) exists in the United States. The edible Frog (_Rana esculenta_), however, has been introduced into England. An Indian species (_Rana breviceps_) and several South African species burrow in the ground. ECOLOGY AND HABITS. The skin of Frogs is usually smooth and free from warts or horny excrescences. It is invested with a colorless epidermis, which is shed from time to time as the creature grows; this splits along the back and thighs, is worked over the head like the taking off of a shirt, and usually eaten by the wearer. The deeper layers contain much pigment, in cells which are more or less under muscular control, enabling Frogs to change their hue to conform to the background. Frogs are carnivorous, and in the season of activity are likely to be very voracious. The terrestrial and arboreal forms feed mainly on insects, worms, etc. The aquatic kinds also catch insects, but subsist more on aquatic animals--worms, tadpoles, small fishes, and other Frogs. These are seized and slowly swallowed, often, where before the remainder, perhaps still alive, has been got within the mouth. Extremes of cold or drought in climate must be avoided by Frogs. Moisture of the skin is necessary to their health, and in very dry places or seasons they survive only by going deeply under ground. Thus some tropical species get through the "dry season." The frogs of northern climates endure the winter by clustering about spring-holes and other places where the water is comparatively warm and free of ice; or else by hibernating in the mud. Terrestrial species bury themselves for the winter in the loam, or burrow into the dry dust of rotting logs and stumps. Their vitality is strong, and their power of regeneration from partial congelation is very great. Though most species live always in or near water, many spend the greater part of their time away from it, and often in bushes or trees. These, however, go to the water to breed; and as this function is likely to demand attention early in the spring, it is then that these animals make themselves most conspicuous by the incessantly uttered croaking or rattling calls of the males, which are almost as varied as the songs of the birds, and more ventriloquistic. These are wholly the cries of the male Frogs, and cease when the mates have been found and have spawned; and to assist in producing them many species have gular air-sacs, which are connected with the vocal organs and furnish the power required for the loud and insistent utterances. The great ear-drums correlated with this vocal power are conspicuous in many species. The reproductive habits of Frogs are various. All of our common species lay their eggs in water, the eggs being fertilized as they are laid. As the eggs are laid they are inclosed in a gelatinous envelope secreted by the female. This swells and protects the eggs from injury, from being fed upon, from the direct rays of the sun, and in some species it serves to float the eggs at the surface of the water, where oxygen is most abundant; finally, the envelope serves as food for the young frogs. The mouth of the tadpole is small and provided with a horny beak, which takes the place of the teeth which are not yet developed. The tadpole feeds on algæ that cover stones, and on the flesh of dead animals. The long, spirally coiled intestine, which can be seen on the under side of the animal, is an adaptation to its prevailingly herbivorous diet, which requires a prolonged digestion. The tadpole usually lives in the water for two or three months before it takes to land. In the Bullfrog, however, the transformation (see TOAD) does not take place until the second summer. In many tropical Frogs the reproductive habits are much modified. One species (_Phyllobates trinitatis_) of Venezuela and Trinidad carries its tadpoles on its back, to which the young attach themselves by means of their suckers. A frog of the Seychelles Islands lives in the tree-ferns far from water, and carries its young about on its back, to which they are attached by their bellies. In the Kameruns lives a Frog that lays its eggs in a foamy mass on the leaves of a tree. When the larvæ are developed the mass becomes slimy and the tadpoles swim about it, and when a heavy rain falls they are washed into pools of water lying at the bases of the trees. The foam is probably produced as it is in culinary operations, by air being entangled in it by a beating that the Frog gives the jelly with its feet. The inclosed air may well serve in respiration. Compare TOAD. UTILITIES. Among both civilized and savage men Frogs are a culinary dainty. The edible European Frog is so much prized in France that it is bred for the market in large preserves. In the United States both the Bullfrog and spring Frog are sold in the markets. In France and the United States the hind legs alone are eaten; they are known as "saddles" to American marketmen, and are usually served at table fried. In Germany all the muscular parts are served stewed, often with sauce. Frogs have enabled man to contribute much to his knowledge of physiology. The tail of the tadpole, so frequently fed on by dragon-fly larvæ and other aquatic enemies, has great capacity of regeneration. The study of its re-formation has added to our knowledge of the regeneration of animal tissue. The circulation of the blood, so readily seen by the aid of the microscope in the web of the Frog's foot, is a classic and painless classroom demonstration. Observations on the response of Frog-muscle to stimuli led the great Italian physiologist Galvani to the discovery of dynamical or current electricity, known to us as galvanic or voltaic electricity. [Illustration: THE MALE FROG. (See Blower.)] Nests and Nest Building. Whenever the spawning period occurs, ample warning will be given, as the male Frogs will begin croaking for their mate, and will be seen near the shore. Early in the spring is the breeding season, and the Frogs will be seen in pairs, working in company, selecting nests, which are in place where there is a vegetation to attach the spawn, near the surface of the water, as the action of the sun has much to do with the hatching of the spawn. Impregnation takes place immediately after the spawn is deposited, as with the spawn of fish. The spawn of frogs looks like a gelatin mass in the shape of a bunch of grapes, and will be found attached to some vegetation in the pond. This should be immediately taken out with a large, long handle dipper and deposited in the hatching pond, as the spawn will be destroyed by the frogs jumping into the pond and coming in contact with it, for if the spawn is separated or broken up and sinks to the bottom of the pond, where it cannot get the proper action of the sun, many of the eggs will not hatch, but will be destroyed and eaten. The nursery, or hatching pond, should be constructed in this way: Make some skeleton frames that will set on the bottom of the pond, and come within a few inches of the top of the water. Fasten the frames down, either by weights or stakes driven in the ground. Take some fine netting such as used on windows to keep out flies; cotton or flax netting preferred to wire. Fasten this netting to the frame. Be sure that the netting is always covered with water when spawn is on it. On this netting, deposit the eggs or spawn taken from the breeding pond. In this way it will be undisturbed, and the sun can do its part toward the hatching of the eggs. This method will be found successful, and you can watch the progress, and the influence of the sun and water on the hatching of the eggs and note the change from day to day, as the Frogs have nothing more to do with their development. Another reason for separating the eggs or spawn from the breeding ponds is, when the spawn is hatched into tadpoles, the Frogs will eat the tadpoles as fast as they wiggle out of the egg. In fact, Frogs are cannibals, and will eat the young until they get large enough to protect themselves. This is why ponds should be constructed so that Frogs of different sizes can be separated, and all of about a size, kept in ponds by themselves, and raised together. By this arrangement you save many small Frogs. Enemies of Spawn, Tadpoles and Small Frogs. The enemies must be guarded against by proper fencing with wire netting and boards. A board should be sunken into the ground at least three inches, and 2 foot 2 inch mesh wire fastened on it. If a 12-inch board is used, this will make a fence about 34 inches high. It could be built higher if desired, but this height makes a good appearance. The enemies are rats, cats, turtles, water centipedes, water beetles, coons, leeches and snakes. Snakes are one of the worst enemies, as they will devour the spawn, of which they are very fond, and also the small Frogs. Hatching and Progress of the Young Frogs. Figure 1 represents the embryo as it appears several days after the egg is deposited. Figure 2 gives an outline of its form; the arrows at the side of the head shows the currents of water, which are seen to flow to the branchiæ by the breathing of the young animal. A short period brings it to the form represented in Nos. 3 and 4, the latter representing the head. Figure 5 shows the form of the tadpole when first hatched, which usually takes place about four weeks after the depositing of the egg. Figures 6, 7 and 8 shows various stages of its development; the latter representing the tadpole, called pollywog sometimes; this, for some time, now undergoes little change of form, but increases in size. At length the hinder legs bud, and are gradually developed, as seen in No. 9; the fore legs are ere long produced in a similar manner. HATCHINGS. The tail begins now to diminish, as seen in No. 10, and is finally absorbed into the body and disappears. The tadpole (which, for a time, is like a fish and breathing by branchiæ, or gills, and feeding on vegetable food of fishes) is now a frog; breathes the air by true lungs, and betakes itself to the land, where it pursues the avocations of its new and higher life, whereas it before swam by means of a tail it now leaps, and as before, it ate only roots and grass, it now becomes a hunter of insects and worms. This, or a very similar process of reproduction, is common to all species of the family. The Rana Frogs form the highest group of the Batrachian class. They are active creatures, feeding on insects and worms. Those which live upon the ground in the neighborhood of standing water, and pass a considerable portion of their lives in the water, have their toes pointed, and those of the hinder feet united, almost to the tips, by membrane. Food for Tadpoles. The spawn or egg takes from four to six weeks to hatch to the shape of a tadpole, and the tadpole takes about four or five months to hatch or change its shape from that of a tadpole to a small frog, which is done as stated in previous paragraph. Frogs are very prolific. One bunch of spawn, from large, well developed frogs, and of five years of age or over, will produce or hatch over one thousand tadpoles. But of course all of these will not be raised to become small Frogs. But a great proportion of them can be if properly cared for and you have the proper facilities. The beak of the tadpole is adapted to the eating of leaves and other vegetable foods, and on which they could entirely subsist. But it is well to give them access to small insect food, much of which they can get from surface of water. The food changes entirely when the tadpole develops into a Frog. When a frog, the food is entirely insect or live food. It is well, sometimes, when you cannot get facilities to supply naturally plenty of insect food, to take some of the smaller Frogs and tadpoles and place them in the ponds with the growing Frogs, and allow the Frogs to live on them. They must be fed live food. Chopped meats and food of this character will do for tadpoles, but must not be used too freely, as they do not eat it readily, and it only decays and a stifling stench follows. If your ponds are connected with a running stream, much of the insect life for the tadpoles and smaller Frogs is brought into the ponds by the stream, which is very desirable, and saves much extra work. Leave the tadpoles in the nursery pond until they have developed into Frogs. The tadpoles are fish in a sense and will eat most anything, either vegetable or animal matter. In fact, he is a scavenger, and will clean out the ponds. But as soon as he turns into a frog, he requires a different class of food, as he is an amphibious animal. Remember this, as herein, is one of the secrets that have caused so many failures. THE FOOD FOR FROGS IS ANIMAL FOOD. Food for Frogs. [Illustration: ACTION OF FROG'S TONGUE IN CATCHING A FLY.] _Caution_, from this time on, ANIMAL FOOD ONLY. No chopped meat, as Frogs will not eat it, and it will decay and cause a stench. Do not attempt to feed it to frogs. This is the time that care must be taken to see that your Frogs get plenty of the proper kind of animal food. If they are not kept supplied, they will turn to and eat each other, and in this way destroy many a pound of good Frog meat, that is worth "One Dollar a pound" or more. As the tadpoles hatch out prolifically, it's wise to keep a quantity of these and the Small Frogs on hand to feed the larger ones that are being gotten ready for market. By having a number of small ponds, this stock can be kept on hand for this purpose. A plant that will grow on top of the water furnishes many insects, as well as perching places to basque, in the sun, and catch a passing unsuspecting fly. It also affords a shady place to get under on a hot day, with head above water looking for food. _One of the best and easiest ways to furnish live food is to soak a number of potato or feed bags with molasses, and fasten them up around the ponds_, just above the ground. This draws the flies, and they will come within reach of the Frogs, and as you will see by the cut at top of this paragraph, the tongue of the Frog is developed to be of service in catching them. Small tadpoles from other species of frogs, that are not eatable, make good food for them. These can be found in large quantities along most any stream, or in any pool of water. Wood lice or sow-bugs are good. In planting vegetable matter in the ponds be sure and always plant from seed, as in transplanting you may bring Leeches into your ponds, which are very destructive to the Frogs, and act on the Frogs the same as chicken lice do on chicken, and in time will kill the Frog, and at all times retard its growth. If your Frogs do not thrive well look for Leeches. IMPORTANT. If it is necessary to feed your Frogs on small fry from fishes or on tadpoles and small Frogs, it might be well to have a supply pond, which can be small, and in feeding it is only necessary to _feed twice a week_, and can be done by putting quantities here and there in the ponds, and let the Frogs catch them as they swim about. Three gillies, tadpole or small Frogs is considered a fair meal for each Frog. Catching the Frogs. There are several ways by which to catch the Frogs when ready to market. If they are to be dressed they can be speared; this is done with a handle like is found on an ordinary house broom with a fish spear fastened in the end. One of the best times to spear them is at night with a light as they come on the bank at night to catch bugs. They can also be caught very readily with a hand net, same as used in landing trout. This net can be purchased at most any hardware store, or where they keep fishing tackle. If the Frogs are to be marketed alive they must be caught in this way. In shipping them alive always put wet weeds from the pond in bottom of box if they are to go any distance, and put instructions on the box for agent to keep the weeds wet while in transit. This will insure safe delivery of live frogs. Some Things About Frogs. [Illustration: SKELETON OF A FROG.] We here repeat many of the principal items we have previously mentioned, because they are the questions which are most frequently asked. Frogs are very prolific. One bunch of eggs will hatch more than a thousand tadpoles, and if you had the facilities, they could be hatched and reared to marketable size. A good running stream, which can be coursed through all your ponds, makes Frog Raising very simple and profitable. A living can be made from "Frog Raising" if you are favorably located, and the main qualities needed is patience and good common sense, to which observation should be added. It takes Frogs, to grow to marketable size, from two to three years. The eggs take six weeks to hatch out. The tadpole takes from five to six months to turn into a Frog. And the Frog, to grow to marketable size, about two years. Here lies the secret of the high price of Frog meat. The time it takes before the Frog can be developed to marketable size discourages many from entering into the business. But once equipped and the first three years gone over, from that time on the revenue is continuous and the profit large, and you have a yearly income equalled by no other line of business, as you have always got some Frogs that are coming into marketable size. And the income, from this product, depends entirely on how large a scale you want to enter it. Another source of revenue, which is very profitable, is selling breeding Frogs to beginners, as it is only the "Edible Frog" that is profitable to raise for market, and it takes from four to five years to get the best breeders. They bring good prices. The prices range according to the age. Frogs will breed from two years old, but the best results are obtained from the older mates, as the older and larger the Frog, the heavier and larger the spawn, and the more eggs will hatch and produce stronger and sturdier tadpoles, and from these mates the Frogs grow large more quickly. So in starting, it is always better to pay a little more for your breeding stock and not use so many pairs, and get good old settlers, as the saying is, when you hear them croak, "There is a good old settler." And be sure to start right, not with the common meadow green Frog, which is eatable, but has a strong taste and does not grow to any size. The average size of this Frog at most any age is about three inches, and you will be greatly disappointed after you have spent your time and find that you have not had the profitable breeder. Get the Frog known as the "Edible Frog of England." This is the (Rana Esculenta). The subject of Frog Raising is a limited one. We have, however, tried to give as briefly as possible all the essential details and secrets to success of Raising Frogs. [Illustration: "PATIENCE REWARDED."] SPECIAL NOTICE. Be sure and get the Edible Frog when you start, as they are the best for table and bring the highest prices, and grow to marketable size more rapidly, which is a big item. We always have breeding stock for sale at following prices: 3 year old Frogs, per pair $ 4.00 4 year old Frogs, per pair 8.00 5 year old Frogs, per pair 10.00 Place your orders early, so as to be sure and get your breeders in time to get the advantage of early breeding. Send money by registered letter or money order to MEADOW BROOK FARM, Allendale, New Jersey. 
34672	----	FISH STORIES By HENRY ABBOTT NEW YORK 1919 Copyright 1919 By HENRY ABBOTT Preface AN ALLEGED humorist once proposed the query, "Are all fishermen liars, or do only liars go fishing?" This does not seem to me to be funny. It is doubtless true that a cynical attitude of suspicion and doubt is often exhibited on the recital of a fishing exploit. I believe the joke editors of magazines and newspapers are responsible for the spread of the propaganda of ridicule, skepticism and distrust of all fish yarns, regardless of their source. The same fellows have a day of reckoning ahead, for the circulation of that ancient but still overworked mother-in-law joke. It is quite possible that some amateur fishermen, wishing to pose as experts, are guilty of expanding the size or number of their catch, upon reporting the same. But I cannot conceive of a motive sufficient to induce one skilled in handling the rod to lie about his fish. The truth always sounds better and in the case of a fish story, truth is often stranger than any fish fiction. In my own experience and observation I have found that the more improbable a fish story sounds the more likely it is to be true. The incredulous attitude of the average auditor, also, is discouraging, and often reacts against himself, as thus some of the very best fish stories are never told. To me, it seems a pity that through these Huns of history many charming and instructive tales of adventure should be lost to literature and to the unoffending part of the public. The fellows whose exploits are here set down, seldom mention their fishing experiences. They are not boastful, and never exaggerate. They do not speak our language. I have, therefore, undertaken to tell their fish stories for them. H. A. Fish Stories by Henry Abbott BIGE had the oars and was gently and without a splash dipping them into the water, while the boat slowly glided along parallel to the shore of the lake. We had been up around the big island and were crossing the bay at the mouth of Bald Mountain Brook, which is the outlet of the pond of that name, located in a bowl shaped pocket on the shoulder of Bald Mountain three miles away. I was in the stern seat of the boat with a rod and was casting toward the shore, hoping to lure the wily bass from his hiding place under rocky ledge or lily pad, when I discovered another and a rival fisherman. [Illustration: The Osprey] He was operating with an aeroplane directly over our heads and about two hundred feet above the lake. Slowly sailing in circles, with an occasional lazy flap of wings to maintain his altitude, and at intervals uttering his sharp, piercing, hunting cry, the osprey had a distinct advantage over us, as with his telescopic eye he could penetrate the lake to its bottom and could distinctly see everything animate and inanimate in the water within his hunting circle. He could thus, accurately, locate his prey, while we could not see deeply into the water and were always guessing. We might make a hundred casts in as many places, where no bass had been for hours. So I reeled in my line, laid the rod down in the boat and gave my entire attention to watching the operations of the fish hawk. For about ten minutes the aeroplane fisher continued to rotate overhead; then I observed that the circles were smaller in diameter, and were descending in corkscrew curves, until from a height of about fifty feet the body of the bird shot straight down and struck the water about twenty-five yards from our boat with the blow of a spile driver's hammer, throwing a fountain of spray high into the air. For a few seconds nothing was visible but troubled waters; then appeared flapping wings and the floundering shining body of a big fish, lashing the water into a foam, through which it was difficult to see whether bird or fish was on top. Suddenly, both disappeared under water. Bige excitedly yelled, "He's got his hooks into a whale of a fish! He'll never let go! He'll be drowned! Gosh!!" Then he rowed the boat nearer to the place of battle. A few heart beats later, and the fight was again on the surface. Wings flapped mightily, fish wriggled and twisted and again the water was churned into foam. We now plainly saw the two pairs of ice-tongs-talons of the bird, firmly clamped on the body of the pickerel, which exceeded in length (from head to tail) about six inches, the spread of wings from tip to tip. Wings continued to pound air and water but the big fish could not be lifted above the surface. One more desperate pull on the pickerel's fin-shaped oars and the bird went under water for the third time, but with his wicked claws as firmly clamped into the quivering body as ever. Coming to the surface more quickly the next time, the osprey swung his head far back, and with his ugly hook shaped beak struck the fish a mighty blow on the back of the head. The pickerel shivered, stiffened, and lay still. The fight was over, but the panting hawk still hung on to his victim. Recovering his breath in a few minutes, the bird spread his wings and with much flapping, laboriously towed the dead fish along on the water across the lake, where he dragged it up on a sand beach. Here he sat for a long time, resting. Then with his hooked beak he carved up that pickerel for his strenuously acquired meal. I have many times seen hawks catch fish, but on all other occasions they have been able to pick up the struggling fish and fly away with it. This fellow hooked onto a fish so big he could not lift it. FOUR miles up the river and about five miles eastward over Bear Mountain, brought Bige and me to "Hotel Palmer" on the shore of Sargent Pond. One room and bath were available and we took both, the latter in the pond. We had just enough time to finish supper before dark. The dishes had to be washed by lantern light. In the middle of the night we heard a "Porky" crawling over the roof, dragging his heavy spine covered tail over the boards. It sounded like the scraping of a stiff wire scratch brush. We heard him sniff and knew that he was seeking the food in our pack basket, which his sensitive nose told him was somewhere near. We hoped he would become discouraged and go away, but he continued his explorations over our heads a long time, interfering with our efforts to sleep; so a lantern was lighted and we went out and threw sticks of wood and stones at him. The porcupine came down that roof in the same manner that he comes down a tree trunk, tail first, but the roof boards were steep and slippery and his toe nails would not stick as they do in the rough bark of a tree, so he came down hurriedly, landing with a thud on a rotten log at the back of the cabin. In the morning we discovered that a lot of porcupine quills were sticking vertically in the log so that a section of it resembled an inverted scrubbing brush. [Illustration: Hotel Palmer] Hotel Palmer was built several years ago, by George, Dave and Leslie. When the law respecting camps on State lands became effective, it was torn down. But on the occasion of the porcupine incident, it was open for the reception of guests by permission. After breakfast, we found Dave's boat hidden in the bushes in the specified place. During the day we hunted and got several partridges which we proposed to roast later. That evening after supper, while Bige was cutting some firewood, I took the boat and my rod and went out on the pond to get some trout for breakfast. It was just as the sun was dropping below the western hills, and there was a gorgeous golden glow in the sky. The breeze had dropped to a gentle zephyr that hardly caused a ripple on the surface of the water, so I allowed the boat to slowly drift while I was casting. A tree had fallen into the pond, and sitting in its branches near the tree top, close to the water and about fifty feet from the shore, I discovered a coon. He, also, was fishing, and I was curious to learn just how he operated. I soon found that the coon was not without curiosity since he, just as eagerly, was watching my operations. As the boat slowly approached the treetop his sharp, beady eyes followed the movement of my flies as the rod whipped back and forth. It occurred to me that he might be seriously considering the advisability of adopting a fly rod for use in his fishing business. [Illustration: The Coon] Just as the boat passed the treetop and but a few feet from it, a good sized trout appeared at the surface and with a swirl and slap of his tail grabbed one of my flies and made off with it toward the bottom. Instantly the coon became very excited. His body appeared tense; his ring-banded tail swished from side to side; his feet nervously stepped up and down on the tree branch, like a crouching cat who sees a mouse approaching, and his snapping eyes followed the movement of my line as it sawed through the water while the fish rushed about, up and down, under the boat and back again. And when the trout made a jump above the surface and shook himself, the coon seemed to fairly dance with joy. Presently, the fish, now completely exhausted, appeared at the surface lying on his side, while I was reeling in the line; when the coon slipped into the water, grabbed the fish in his mouth and swam ashore. Climbing up the bank he turned, grinned at me and went into the bushes with my trout, now his trout, in his mouth and about three feet of leader trailing behind. BILL stood four feet three inches in his stockings, and if Bill had ever been on a scale, he would have tipped it at seven pounds and six ounces. Bill's body was about the size of a white leghorn hen. He was mostly legs and neck. Abe Lincoln once expressed the opinion that "a man's legs should be long enough to reach the ground." Bill was a wader by inclination and of necessity. Long legs were, therefore, required in his business, and having begun life with a pair of long legs, Bill's body was mounted, so to speak, on stilts, high in the air, and he found it necessary to grow a long neck so that when he presented his bill it might reach to the ground. This long neck was ordinarily carried gracefully looped back above his body in the form of a letter S. On the rare occasions when Bill straightened this crooked neck of his, it shot out with the speed of an electric spark, and he never was known to miss the object aimed at. At the upper end of Bill's long neck his small head was secured, and from it drooped an eight inch beak, which opened and closed like a pair of tailor's shears. Bill wore a coat of the same color as a French soldier's uniform and his family name was Heron--Blue Heron. Bill had cousins named Crane and he was distantly related to a fellow who, with queer family traditions, paraded under the name of Stork. [Illustration: Bill] Bill did not belong to the union; he worked eighteen hours a day. His operations, chiefly, were conducted in a shallow bay where a brook emptied into the lake, directly opposite our cottage. There, Bill might be seen during the season, in sunshine and in rain, from long before sunrise until late at night, standing in the shallow water near shore in an attitude which he copied from a Japanese fire screen; or with Edwin Booth's majestic, tragedian stage tread, slowly wading among the pond lily pads and pickerel grass; lifting high and projecting forward in long deliberate strides, one foot after another; each step being carefully placed before his weight was shifted. Though an awkward appearing person by himself, in a landscape Bill made a picture of symmetry and beauty and his march was the very poetry of motion. Bill had very definite opinions concerning boats. He knew that they were generally occupied by human animals, of whose intentions he was always suspicious. Either through experience or inherited instinct, he seemed to know exactly how far a shot-gun would carry. Bige and I never had used one on him and we seldom had a gun up our sleeve while in a boat, but Bill never allowed us to approach beyond the safety line. Day after day through many seasons Bill has stood and observed our boat cross the lake. Without moving an eyelash he would watch our approach until the boat reached a certain definite spot in the lake, when with slow flap of wide spread wings he lifted his long legs, trailing them far behind, while he flew up the lake behind the island. As soon as we had passed about our business, Bill always returned and resumed his job of fishing at the same old stand, where he "watchfully waited" for something to turn up. Bill was the most patient fisherman I ever knew. Neither Mr. Job nor Woodrow Wilson had anything on Bill. His motto seemed to be, "all things come to him who can afford to wait." Early in the season Mrs. Bill was busy with household duties. With coarse sticks, brush, mud and moss, in the dead branches of a tall pine, she built the family nest and laid the family eggs. She also sat upon those eggs, with her long, spindly legs hanging straight downward, one on either side of the nest, as one might sit upon a saddle suspended in mid-air. When the brood of young herons were hatched and could be left alone, the mother also went fishing with Bill, and toward the end of the season the young birds were on the job with mother and dad. One day early in the season, Bige and I were crossing the lake. It was about ten o'clock. Bill had been watchfully waiting at his old stand since 3:30 A. M. One eye was now turned on the approaching boat, but the other eye continued its search of the waters for the long delayed morning meal. About this time, a yellow perch who also was hunting a breakfast, discovered a minnow who had strayed into deep water far from his home. Perchy immediately gave chase, while the alarmed minnow swiftly darted toward safety in his birthplace under a clump of pickerel grass near the shore. As they passed our boat, the race was headed straight for a pair of yellow legs a few rods away. Ten seconds later, a snake like neck uncoiled and straightened while an opened pair of shears, with lightning speed descended into the water. When they lifted, the shears were closed across the body of a half pound yellow perch. Bill thus held his fish an instant, then tossed it in the air and it descended head first into his wide open mouth. A swelling slowly moving downward marked the passage through a long gullet into his crop, of a breakfast that six and a half hours Bill had been patiently fishing for. "Sufferin' Maria!" exclaimed Bige, "What a lot of pleasure Bill had swallowing that kicking, wriggling morsel of food down half a yard of throat." BIGE and I had been spending the day at Moose Pond. Going over early in the morning, we went up the river about five miles, then followed the tote-road around the western side of the mountain to an abandoned lumber camp near the pond. This road had not been used for lumber operations for ten years or more, but it still made a good foot path, though to reach our destination it led us a long way around. Returning late in the afternoon to Buck Mountain Camp, where we were then staying, we decided to go directly over Moose Mountain, by a shorter route, though the walking through the lumbered section of the woods would be more difficult. In the bottom of the valley between the two mountains, we crossed West Bay Brook. This brook we had fished three or four miles below, near where it emptied into Cedar Lake, but in this section where the stream was small, overgrown with alders and covered with "slash" from the lumber operations, we had not thought it worth the effort. [Illustration: Dinner at Buck Mountain Camp] There was an elbow in the brook at the place where we crossed it, and a large tree lying across the stream had collected driftwood and formed a dam above which was a deep pool about thirty feet in diameter. Looking down from the bridge which the west wind had made for us to cross upon, we saw that the pool was alive with trout. The bottom seemed black with a solid army formation of fish, lying close together, sides touching, heads up stream; while schools of smaller trout, disturbed by our presence, swiftly swam around the pool reflecting the bright sunshine in brilliant rainbow hues. The scene was one to arrest the attention of the most casual observer, and Bige and I lingered long upon the bridge watching the movements of the hundreds of inhabitants of this natural aquarium. On the way back to camp we discussed the possibilities of fishing this pool, deciding upon the best place of approach, where one could be partially concealed by bushes while casting. We spent all of the following day marking a trail down the mountain and across the valley, about three miles, from camp to the pool, cutting brush and clearing out a path; then one day when the weather conditions were favorable, Bige went out to headquarters to bring in some food supplies and I, with a fly rod, went down over our new trail to catch a few trout in a pool that had never been fished. Cautiously approaching, when near the brook, I heard sounds of splashing in the water. Creeping on hands and knees, then slowly on stomach, I reached a position where, through the bushes, the surface of the pool came into view, when, crawling up the opposite bank, I saw a long, slender, shiny, water soaked, fur coated body which was surmounted with a cat-like head; the legs were so short they were invisible and the body appeared to drag upon the ground, while a tapering tail about a foot long followed in the rear. The Otter, including tail, was about three feet long and he had a trout in his mouth which he deposited on the ground and immediately slid down the bank and disappeared under the water. In less than a minute he crawled up the bank again with another fish in his mouth, which was dropped by the first one and the operation was repeated. I do not know how long the otter had been fishing when I arrived, but I watched him work fully fifteen minutes, when he came to the surface without a fish. He then deliberately surveyed his catch, appearing to gloat over it, after which he started down stream, tumbling in and climbing out of the water as far as he could be seen and I heard him several minutes after he had gone out of view. Coming out of my cramped position of concealment, I crossed over on the fallen tree and saw scattered over the opposite bank literally scores of trout, large and small; some had their heads bitten off, others were cut in half, all were mutilated. Obviously, the otter had eaten his fill and then had continued to fish just for the joy of killing, like some other trout-hogs in human form, such as we all have met. [Illustration: The Otter] I went back to camp that night without fish. We visited the pool later, several times, but never got a rise and never saw another trout in that hole. The otter had made a perfect and complete job of it. There was not left even a pair of trout for seed. A TWENTY inch pickerel of my acquaintance, one day swallowed his grandson. This was an exhibition of bad judgment on the part of Grandad Pickerel. The mere fact of killing his near relative was not in itself reprehensible, since, if all pickerel were not cannibals they would soon exterminate from streams, ponds, and lakes, fishes of all other species. But this particular "pick" was a husky youngster, and while he might very properly have been bitten in half, or have been chewed up into small pieces, the older fish got himself into trouble when he swallowed the kid whole. A few hours after the occurrence mentioned above, the elder pickerel, at one end of a trolling line, climbed into our boat; Bige, who had the other end of the line, assisting him aboard. "Sufferin' Mackerel! Well by Gosh!! He's got a rudder on both ends; he can swim both ways without turning around, like a ferry boat," commented Bige, as we examined the floundering big fish, which had the tail end of a smaller fish protruding three inches beyond his snout, while the head of the younger was in the pit of the stomach of the elder pickerel. [Illustration: The Pickerel with two rudders] I have heard and read many tales, illustrating the voracious appetite of pickerel. Boardman in his book, "Lovers of the Woods," tells how his guide, George, while fishing in Long Lake, lost his Waterbury watch overboard. Several days later, he caught a big pickerel and in dressing it found his watch inside, still running. It seems that a leather thong attached to the watch was wrapped around the winding crown and the other end of the thong was looped over the fish's lower jaw and hooked onto his teeth, so that whenever the pickerel opened and closed his mouth the watch was wound half a turn, and thus was kept running. Not being an eye-witness, my testimony regarding this incident would not be accepted in a court of law. However, I have known pickerel to swallow frogs, crawfish, mice, sunfish and yellow perch with their prickly dorsal fins, young shell-drakes and gulls, and even bull-heads having three rigid horns with needle points projecting at right angles to the body, any one of which horns, it would seem, might pierce the anatomy of the pickerel. Somehow, they appear to get away with all these things, and more. The pickerel has a large mouth and a multitude of teeth on both upper and lower jaws, in the roof of his mouth, also on tongue and palate. These teeth are long and sharp and they slope inward; some of them also bend down to allow objects to pass into the throat, but they effectually prevent ejecting anything that has been swallowed. So, Grandad Pickerel, if he had regrets after swallowing a member of his own family, found it impossible to throw him up, as the Good Book says the whale cast up Jonah. Bige and I found we could not separate the two fishes without first performing a surgical operation. In doing so, we also released a shiner which had been swallowed with Bige's trolling hook and was wedged in the throat alongside the smaller pickerel. This was the most amazing part of the incident, and proves the gluttonous character of the pickerel and his complete inability to appreciate the limits of his own capacity. We found upon examination that the process of digestion was operating, and that the head of the smaller pickerel was nearly dissolved in the stomach of the larger fish. Another hour, and grandson would have slipped down an inch and the process of digestion would have been repeated upon another section. A white man cuts his fire wood the proper length to use in his fireplace. An Indian puts one end of a long branch or sapling into his fire, and when it has burned off, he moves the stick in and burns off another section, thus conserving labor. Our pickerel was digesting his food Indian fashion, or, so to speak, on the installment plan. BIGE and I were hunting. I was placed on a "runway" on the bank of a small stream which was the outlet of Minnow Pond. Bige had gone around to the opposite side of the mountain and planned to come up over the top and follow the deer path which ran down the mountain side, into and through an old log-road which had not been used for lumber operations for fifteen years, and which was now overgrown with bushes and young spruce and balsam trees. This log-road followed the windings of the brook down the valley to where it emptied into the lake, and where the logs were dumped into the water and floated down to the mill. Many years ago, when it was the practice to hunt with dogs, the deer acquired the habit of running to the nearest water, where, by wading or swimming they could throw the dogs off the scent. Thus all deer trails or runways lead, sooner or later, to a stream, a pond or lake, where the deer has a chance of evading pursuit of his natural enemy. Now, while the game laws forbid hunting deer with dogs, and while dogs are not allowed to enter forests inhabited by deer, yet the inherited instinct of self-preservation of the latter persists, and whenever alarmed by the appearance of man, who in the mind of a deer is still associated with his other enemy--the dog, he immediately starts down his trail to the nearest water. It was Bige's hope to "scare up" a deer on the other side of the mountain and drive him down the runway past my watch ground, while it was my job to shoot him as he passed by. The fallen tree on which I sat was on the bank of the brook and about ten feet above the water, while in the opposite direction, through an open space in the bushes, I had a clear view of the runway about twenty yards distant. Time passes slowly in the woods, when one is waiting for something to turn up. Also, it is essential that one sit quietly and make very few false motions when watching for a deer to approach. I had been sitting, with rifle across knees, what seemed a long time. The noises of the woods which suddenly cease when one walks through the forest, gradually returned. A wood-pecker started up his electric hammer and resumed the operation of drilling a deep hole into a pine stub a few rods away. A blue-jay made some sarcastic remarks about "Caleb" and then began swinging on his gate and creaking its rusty hinges. A red squirrel overhead, made unintelligible, but evidently derisive remarks about the intrusion of strangers, and then proceeded to cut off spruce cones and tried to drop them on my head. A kingfisher flew up the brook and shook a baby's tin rattle at me as he passed. An old hen partridge down the log-road was advising her children to "Quit! Quit! Quit!" but her chicks, who were now more than half grown, paid not the slightest attention to her warning but continued picking blue-berries just as if there were no enemies within a hundred miles. An owl on the limb of a tall birch demanded, in stentorian voice, to know "Who? Who? Who in ----" Another fellow, way down the valley responded that he "could!", that he had a chip on his shoulder and that if any blanked owl knocked it off he "Would Who? Who in ---- are you anyhow?" Thus the belligerents fought their battle at long range with language, like many other pugilists. A rabbit, who in another month would throw off his brown vest and put on his white winter overcoat, went loping past, stopping occasionally to nip off a wintergreen leaf. These, and other sounds indicating various activities of wood folk, continued to divert attention while two hours passed. The "Yap, Yap," of a red fox sounded down the brook. A few minutes later his voice was heard again, nearer; presently he came into view. He was wading in the shallow water of the brook, eyes intently fixed upon the water, following a school of minnows. Stepping high and cautiously, he, from time to time, suddenly jabbed his muzzle into the water and brought up a fish from two to three inches long, which he chewed and swallowed with seeming satisfaction. When he missed, which happened often, he repeated his impatient "Yap, Yap" and moved up stream where was another bunch of minnows. This was the first time I had ever seen a fox fishing and I was intensely interested in his operations. About this time, I heard a commotion in the bushes behind me, and turned in time to see the horns and white tail of a deer over the tops of the bushes as he bounded along down the runway. I heard him for a full minute, still going strong down toward the lake. Five minutes later Bige appeared, coming down the path gently demanding, "Why in time didn't you shoot that deer? I've been following him for an hour. Fresh tracks all the way. Heard him twice. He went right by here, kicked up the dirt at every jump. You won't get a better shot in ten years. What in tunket were you doing anyhow?" "Who, me? Why-I-I was fishing." "BUTTERMILK FALLS" is one of the show places in our neck of the woods. The guide books make mention of it, and the tourist and "one week boarder" see it first. Also, when one tires of fishing, of mountain climbing, of tramping, and is in need of some new form of diversion, there is always "somethin' doin' at the falls." In the presence of their majestic beauty, and in the roar of their falling, tumbling, foaming waters, deer seem to lose their natural timidity and often, in mid-day, show themselves in the open to drink of the waters at the foot of the falls and to drink in the beauty of the picture. In the course of my wanderings in the forests, I have often observed, in spots that are particularly wild or picturesque, or that have an extensive outlook, evidences that deer have stood there, perhaps stamping or pawing the ground for hours at a time, while they enjoyed the view. Such evidence points to the theory that wild deer not only have an eye for the beautiful in nature, but that they manifest good taste in their choice of a picture. One day two black bears were seen feeding on the bank of the river just above the falls. A family of beavers have built a house about a hundred yards below the falls and have made several unsuccessful attempts to dam the rapids, in which operations about an acre of alder bushes have been cut and dragged into position, only to be carried down stream by the swift waters. This is the only family of beavers I ever met who are not good engineers. There is also the typical tale of the "_big trout_--a perfect monster of a fish," that lives in the deep pool under the falls. Scores of people have "seen him;" every guide and every fisherman who has visited this region has tried to catch the "wise old moss-back." Several times he has been hooked, but the stories of lost leaders and broken tackle that have been told would fill a volume, and he still lives. Also, the falls are not without their romance. Tradition, dating back to the Indian occupation, perhaps a hundred and fifty years ago, tells of a beautiful Indian maiden who was wont to meet her lover at midnight when the moon was full, at a spot just above the falls. Coming down the river in her birch-bark canoe, the maiden would await the arrival of the young warrior, who was of another and a hostile tribe, living the other side of the mountain. When the moonlight shadow of the tall pine fell upon a particular spot on the big rock, the ardent lover arrived, guided through the dark and trackless forest by the roar of the falls, which could be heard beyond the mountain top. Of course the chief, the girl's father, objected to the attentions of this enemy lover, as also did other and rival admirers of her own tribe. On a mid-summer night the lovers parted, he to go on a mission to Montreal, which then involved a long, difficult and dangerous tramp through the wilderness. Both were pledged to meet again at the falls at midnight of the harvest-moon. As the shadow of the September moon fell upon the midnight mark on the big rock, the Indian maid arrived in her canoe, but the lover came not. Instead, appeared one of the rival warriors of her own tribe, who told of an ambush, of a poisoned arrow and of a dead lover. [Illustration: Buttermilk Falls] The heart-broken maid then drifted out into midstream and with her canoe passed over the falls and was killed on the rocks below. Tradition goes on to relate how, at midnight of every harvest moon since that tragic event, the ghost of the beautiful Indian maiden appears in her birch bark canoe and sails over Buttermilk Falls, disappearing in the foaming waters at their foot. For many years I have tried to persuade Bige to join me in keeping the date with this ghost, but up to the present writing it has never been convenient. Sitting, one day, at the foot of the falls, I was studying the high-water marks on the adjacent rocks, indicating the immense volume of waters that pass over the falls and down the rapids during the freshets caused by melting snows and spring rains, trying to imagine how it might look on such occasions, when a million logs, the cut of the lumbermen during the previous winter, were let loose and came crowding, climbing, jamming, tumbling over one another down through the ravine and over the brink with the mighty rushing waters. The ground about where I sat was strewn with rocks, boulders and smaller stones, all worn by the ceaseless action of the waters, many of them smooth, others seamed with strata of quartz, granite or sandstone, some curiously marked and grotesque in shape. As I sat thus, meditating, one of these curiously marked stones, about the size and shape of one of those steel trench hats worn by the "doughboys" in the late war, which had been lying close to the edge of the water and partly in it, suddenly jumped up and appeared to stand on four legs about six inches higher than it had been lying. The legs seemed to be stiff and the movement was like the rising of a disappearing cannon behind the walls of a fort. Instantly there appeared a fifth leg or brace at the back which pushed the rear edge of the trench hat upward and tilted it toward the water, when a telescopic gun shot out from under this curious fighting machine and plunged into the water. An instant later this telescopic gun lifted a small trout out of the water, bit it in half, and with two snaps swallowed it. The telescope then collapsed, the gun-carriage slowly settled back, the tail brace curled up under the rear, the head was drawn under the front of the shell, and the turtle's eyes closed to a narrow slit. Again he looked like the stones among which he lay, but his trap was set for another fish. [Illustration: The Turtle with his trench hat] In a few minutes another young trout strayed too close to the shore and the operation was repeated. The maneuver, though awkward, was swift and every time a fish was landed. The turtle is a good swimmer and he remains under water a long time. He doubtless also catches fish while swimming. This, however, was the first time I saw him fishing from the shore. SALMON RIVER is a swift flowing stream having an average width of fifty feet, narrowing as it passes through gorges and having a number of wide, deep pools in which the larger trout collect. I have made diligent inquiry as to the reason for this name, and have arrived at the conclusion that it was called Salmon River because there were never any salmon in it, but there should be. About three miles up stream, the beavers have built a dam across it, backing the water up through a swampy section about a quarter of a mile, flooding both banks of the river through the woods, thus creating a fair sized artificial pond. Bige and I decided that this would be a good place to fish, but that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach the deep water of the channel without a boat. So it was arranged that Bige should take the basket containing food and cooking utensils up over the tote-road, leave it at the beaver dam, then go on to Wolf Pond where we had left one of our boats, and carry the boat back through the woods to the dam where I should meet him about three hours later. In order to make use of the time on my hands, I put on my wading pants and hob-nailed shoes and proceeded to wade up stream, making a cast occasionally where a likely spot appeared. It was a wonderful morning. The weather conditions were exactly right for such an expedition. I passed many spots that would have delighted the soul of an artist. He, probably, would have taken a week to cover the distance I expected to travel in three hours. I had gone more than half way to the dam, had a few fish in my creel, and was approaching an elbow in the stream. A high point of land covered with bushes shut off my view of a deep pool just around the corner, in which I had many times caught trout. As I came near this bend in the river a most extraordinary thing occurred. I distinctly saw a fish flying through the air over the top of the clump of bushes on the point. A flying fish is not an unheard of thing, indeed I have seen them several times, but not in the mountains, not in these woods, where there are fresh waters only. Flying fish of the kind I know about are met in the Sound and in bays near the ocean. Also, the fish I just then had seen flying above the bushes, did not have the extended wing-like fins of the orthodox flyer. This fish was a trout. I had seen enough of them to feel sure of that. True, I had seen trout jump out of the water, for a fly or to get up over a waterfall; but I never before saw a trout climb fifteen or twenty feet into the air, over the tops of bushes and young trees and land on the bank. [Illustration: Wading Salmon River] This was surely a matter that required explanation. An investigation was necessary, and without hesitation I assumed the role of sleuth. Carefully stepping out of the water, I sat on a rock and took off my wading togs, then on stockinged feet and on hands and knees crept up the bank. Peering through the bushes, I saw that since my last visit a large birch tree had fallen across the pool and that the trunk of this tree was partly submerged. Sitting on this fallen tree over the center of the pool was a large black bear. Her back was toward me, and she was in a stooping posture, holding one fore paw down in the water. I was just in time to see a sudden movement of the submerged paw and to see another trout, about twelve inches long, go sailing through the air and fall behind some bushes just beyond where I was in hiding. Rustling and squealing sounds coming from the direction in which the fish had gone, indicated that a pair of cubs were behind the bushes, and that they were scrapping over possession of the fish their mother had tossed up to them. It was, perhaps, ten minutes later I saw a third trout fly over the bushes toward the cubs. About this time the bear turned her head, sniffed the air in my direction, and with a low growl and a "Whoof," started briskly for shore, climbed the bank, collected the two cubs and made off into the woods, smashing brush and fallen limbs of trees, occasionally pausing to send back, in her own language, a remark indicating her disapproval of the party who had interrupted her fishing operations. The mystery of the flying trout was now solved, but a new conundrum was presented to my enquiring mind; namely, how did the old lady catch them? With what did the bear bait her hooks? I have told the story to many guides and woodsmen of my acquaintance, and from them have sought an answer to the question. Bige expressed the opinion that the bear dug worms, wedged them in between her toe-nails, and when the fish nibbled the worms the bear grabbed him. Frank referred to the well known pungent odor of the bear, especially of his feet, the tracks made by which a dog can smell hours, or even days after the bear has passed. He said that fish are attracted by the odor. Also that many years ago, he had caught fish by putting oil of rhodium on the bait, and that "fish could smell it clear across the pond." Frank admitted that this method of fishing was not sportsman-like and that he had discontinued the practice. George said he had many times watched trout in a pool rub their sides against moss covered stones and often settle down upon the moss and rest there. He opined that they mistook the fur on the bear's paw for a particularly desirable variety of moss, and so were caught. At this point in my investigations, I was reminded that a few years ago there was conducted, in the columns of several fishing and hunting magazines, a very serious discussion of the question, "Can fish be caught by tickling?" Many contributors took part in this discussion. There were advocates of both positive and negative side of the question. My old friend Hubbard, an expert fisherman, of wide experience, assured me that he, many years ago, had discarded the landing net; that when he hooked a lake trout, a bass or a "musky," and had played his fish until it was so exhausted that it could be reeled in and led up alongside the boat, it was his practice to "gently insert his hand in the water under the fish and tickle it on the stomach, when the fish would settle down in his hand and go to sleep, then he would lift it into the boat." [Illustration: An Expert Trout Fisher] This testimony took me back in memory to a time, many years ago, at a little red school house on the hill, in a New England country school district, where my young ideas took their first lessons in shooting. "Us fellers" then looked upon boys of twelve and thirteen years as the "big boys" of the school. We still believed in Santa Claus, and we knew that a bird could not be caught without first "putting salt on its tail." A brook crossed the road at the foot of the hill and ran down through farmer Barnum's pasture. In this brook, during the noon recess and after school had closed for the day, with trousers rolled up and with bare feet, we waded and fished. We caught them with our hands, and we kept them alive. Each boy had his "spring hole," scooped out of the sand near the edge of the stream, in which he kept the fish caught. Of course, whenever it rained, and the water rose in the brook, these spring holes were washed away and the fish escaped. But when the waters subsided, they had to be caught again. Sometimes, we caught a chub as much as four inches long; and on rare occasions, when a "horned dace, a five incher" was secured, the boy who got him was a hero. It was the firm conviction of every boy in our gang, that, no matter how securely a fish was cornered between the two hands and behind and under a sod or stone, he could not safely be lifted out of the water without first "tickling him on the belly." Reverting to the suggestion made by Bige. There would be no doubt as to the bear's ability to dig worms. She is an expert digger, carries her garden tools with her. She has been known to dig a hole under a stump or rock, six or eight feet deep, in which she sleeps all winter. I have, myself, seen a bear dig wild turnips and have seen rotten stumps and logs torn to bits by their claws; which was done in a hunt for grubs. I therefore felt certain that if the bear dug any worms she would not use them for fish bait, but would herself eat them. With a judicial attitude of mind, considering all the evidence submitted, including my own early experience, I have arrived at the conclusion that the trout was first attracted by the odor of the bear's paw, then rubbed against the soft fur, when the bear wiggled her toes and tickled the fish on his belly, whereupon the trout settled down in the bear's paw, went to sleep and was tossed up on the shore to the waiting cubs. END OF FISH STORIES 
33846	----	scanned images of public domain material from the Internet Archive. The Tent Dwellers [Illustration: "He was swearing steadily and I think still blaming me for most of his troubles."--_Page_ 83.] THE TENT DWELLERS BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE _Author of "The Van Dwellers," "The Lucky Piece," etc_. _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HY. WATSON_ [Illustration] NEW YORK THE OUTING PUBLISHING CO. MCMVIII COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY Chapter One _Come, shape your plans where the fire is bright,_ _And the shimmering glasses are--_ _When the woods are white in the winter's night,_ _Under the northern star._ Chapter One It was during the holiday week that Eddie proposed the matter. That is Eddie's way. No date, for him, is too far ahead to begin to plan anything that has vari-colored flies in it, and tents, and the prospect of the campfire smell. The very mention of these things will make his hair bristle up (rather straight, still hair it is and silvered over with premature wisdom) and put a new glare into his spectacles (rather wide, round spectacles they are) until he looks even more like an anarchist than usual--more indeed than in the old Heidelberg days, when, as a matter of truth, he is a gentle soul; sometimes, when he has transgressed, or thinks he has, almost humble. As I was saying, it was during the holidays--about the end of the week, as I remember it--and I was writing some letters at the club in the little raised corner that looks out on the park, when I happened to glance down toward the fireplace, and saw Eddie sitting as nearly on his coat collar as possible, in one of the wide chairs, and as nearly in the open hickory fire as he could get, pawing over a book of Silver Doctors, Brown Hackles and the like, and dreaming a long, long dream. Now, I confess there is something about a book of trout flies, even at the year's end, when all the brooks are flint and gorged with white, when all the north country hides under seamless raiment that stretches even to the Pole itself--even at such a time, I say, there is something about those bits of gimp, and gut, and feathers, and steel, that prick up the red blood of any man--or of any woman, for that matter--who has ever flung one of those gaudy things into a swirl of dark water, and felt the swift, savage tug on the line and heard the music of the singing reel. I forgot that I was writing letters and went over there. "Tell me about it, Eddie," I said. "Where are you going, this time?" Then he unfolded to me a marvelous plan. It was a place in Nova Scotia--he had been there once before, only, this time he was going a different route, farther into the wilderness, the deep unknown, somewhere even the guides had never been. Perhaps stray logmen had been there, or the Indians; sportsmen never. There had been no complete surveys, even by the government. Certain rivers were known by their outlets, certain lakes by name. It was likely that they formed the usual network and that the circuit could be made by water, with occasional carries. Unquestionably the waters swarmed with trout. A certain imaginative Indian, supposed to have penetrated the unknown, had declared that at one place were trout the size of one's leg. Eddie became excited as he talked and his hair bristled. He set down a list of the waters so far as known, the names of certain guides, a number of articles of provision and an array of camp paraphernalia. Finally he made maps and other drawings and began to add figures. It was dusk when we got back. The lights were winking along the park over the way, and somewhere through the night, across a waste of cold, lay the land we had visited, still waiting to be explored. We wandered out into the dining room and settled the matter across a table. When we rose from it, I was pledged--pledged for June; and this was still December, the tail of the old year. Chapter Two _And let us buy for the days of spring,_ _While yet the north winds blow!_ _For half the joy of the trip, my boy,_ _Is getting your traps to go._ Chapter Two Immediately we, that is to say, Eddie, began to buy things. It is Eddie's way to read text-books and to consult catalogues with a view of making a variety of purchases. He has had a great deal of experience in the matter of camp life, but being a modest man he has a fund of respect for the experience of others. Any one who has had enough ability, or time, to write a book on the subject, and enough perseverance, or money, to get it published, can preach the gospel of the woods to Eddie in the matter of camp appointments; and even the manufacturers' catalogues are considered sound reading. As a result, he has accumulated an amazing collection of articles, adapted to every time and season, to every change of wind and temperature, to every spot where the tent gleams white in the campfire's blaze, from Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand. Far be it from me to deride or deprecate this tendency, even though it were a ruling passion. There are days, and nights, too, recalled now with only a heart full of gratitude because of Eddie's almost inexhaustible storehouse of comforts for soul and flesh--the direct result of those text-books and those catalogues, and of the wild, sweet joy he always found in making lists and laying in supplies. Not having a turn that way, myself, he had but small respect for my ideas of woodcraft and laid down the law of the forest to me with a firm hand. When I hinted that I should need a new lancewood rod, he promptly annulled the thought. When I suggested that I might aspire as far as a rather good split bamboo, of a light but serviceable kind, he dispelled the ambition forthwith. "You want a noibwood," he said. "I have just ordered one, and I will take you to the same place to get it." [Illustration: "It was a field day for Eddie and he bought more."] I had never heard of this particular variety of timber, and it seemed that Eddie had never heard of it, either, except in a catalogue and from the lips of a dealer who had imported a considerable amount of the material. Yet I went along, meekly enough, and ordered under his direction. I also selected an assortment of flies--the prettiest he would let me buy. A few others which I had set my heart on I had the dealer slip in when Eddie wasn't looking. I was about to buy a curious thing which a trout could not come near without fatal results, when the wide glare of his spectacles rested on me and my courage failed. Then he selected for me a long landing net, for use in the canoe, and another with an elastic loop to go about the neck, for wading; leaders and leader-boxes and the other elementary necessaries of angling in the northern woods. Of course such things were as A, B, C to Eddie. He had them in infinite variety, but it was a field day and he bought more. We were out of the place at last, and I was heaving a sigh of relief that this part of it was over and I need give the matter no further thought, when Eddie remarked: "Well, we've made a pretty good start. We can come down here a lot of times between now and June." "But what for?" I asked. "Oh, for things. You haven't a sleeping bag yet, and we'll be thinking of other stuff right along. We can stay over a day in Boston, too, and get some things there. I always do that. You want a good many things. You can't get them in the woods, you know." Eddie was right about having plenty of time, for this was January. He was wrong, however, about being unable to get things in the woods. I did, often. I got Eddie's. Chapter Three _Now the gorges break and the streamlets wake_ _And the sap begins to flow,_ _And each green bud that stirs my blood_ _Is a summons, and I must go._ Chapter Three Eddie could not wait until June. When the earliest April buds became tiny, pale-green beads--that green which is like the green of no other substance or season--along certain gray branches in the park across the way, when there was a hint and flavor of stirring life in the morning sun, then there came a new bristle into Eddie's hair, a new gleam into his glasses, and I felt that the wood gods were calling, and that he must obey. "It is proper that one of us should go on ahead," he argued, "and be arranging for guides, canoes and the like at the other end." I urged that it was too soon--that the North was still white and hard with cold--that preliminaries could be arranged by letter. I finally suggested that there were still many things he would want to buy. He wavered then, but it was no use. Eddie can put on a dinner dress with the best and he has dined with kings. But he is a cave-, a cliff- and a tree-dweller in his soul and the gods of his ancestors were not to be gainsaid. He must be on the ground, he declared, and as for the additional articles we might need, he would send me lists. Of course, I knew he would do that, just as I knew that the one and mighty reason for his going was to be where he could smell the first breath of the budding North and catch the first flash and gleam of the waking trout in the nearby waters. He was off, then, and the lists came as promised. I employed a sort of general purchasing agent at length to attend to them, though this I dared not confess, for to Eddie it would have been a sacrilege not easy to forgive. That I could delegate to another any of the precious pleasure of preparation, and reduce the sacred functions of securing certain brands of eating chocolate, camp candles, and boot grease (three kinds) to a commercial basis, would, I felt, be a thing almost impossible to explain. The final list, he notified me, would be mailed to a hotel in Boston, for the reason, he said, that it contained things nowhere else procurable; though I am convinced that a greater reason was a conviction on his part that no trip could be complete without buying a few articles in Boston at the last hour before sailing, and his desire for me to experience this concluding touch of the joy of preparation. Yet I was glad, on the whole, for I was able to buy secretly some things he never would have permitted--among them a phantom minnow which looked like a tin whistle, a little four-ounce bamboo rod, and a gorgeous Jock Scott fly with two hooks. The tin whistle and the Jock Scott looked deadly, and the rod seemed adapted to a certain repose of muscle after a period of activity with the noibwood. I decided to conceal these purchases about my person and use them when Eddie wasn't looking. But then it was sailing time, and as the short-nosed energetic steamer dropped away from the dock, a storm (there had been none for weeks before) set in, and we pitched and rolled, and through a dim disordered night I clung to my berth and groaned, and stared at my things in the corner and hated them according to my condition. Then morning brought quiet waters and the custom house at Yarmouth, where the tourist who is bringing in money, and maybe a few other things, is made duly welcome and not bothered with a lot of irrelevant questions. What Nova Scotia most needs is money, and the fisherman and the hunter, once through the custom house, become a greater source of revenue than any tax that could be laid on their modest, not to say paltry, baggage, even though the contents of one's trunk be the result of a list such as only Eddie can prepare. There is a wholesome restaurant at Yarmouth, too, just by the dock, where after a tossing night at sea one welcomes a breakfast of good salt ham, with eggs, and pie--two kinds of the latter, pumpkin and mince. I had always wondered where the pie-belt went, after it reached Boston. Now I know that it extends across to Yarmouth and so continues up through Nova Scotia to Halifax. Certain New Englanders more than a hundred years ago, "went down to Nova Scotia," for the reason that they fostered a deeper affection for George, the King, than for George of the Cherry Tree and Hatchet. The cherry limb became too vigorous in their old homes and the hatchet too sharp, so they crossed over and took the end of the pie-belt along. They maintained their general habits and speech, too, which in Nova Scotia to-day are almost identical with those of New England. But I digress--a grave and besetting sin. I had hoped Eddie would welcome me at the railway station after the long forenoon's ride--rather lonely, in spite of the new land and the fact that I made the acquaintance of a fisherman who taught me how to put wrappings on a rod. Eddie did not meet me. He sent the wagon, instead, and I enjoyed a fifteen-mile ride across June hills where apple blossoms were white, with glimpses of lake and stream here and there; through woods that were a promise of the wilderness to come; by fields so thickly studded with bowlders that one to plant them must use drill and dynamite, getting my first impression of the interior of Nova Scotia alone. Then at last came a church, a scattering string of houses, a vista of lakes, a neat white hotel and the edge of the wilderness had been reached. On the hotel steps a curious, hairy, wild-looking figure was capering about doing a sort of savage dance--perhaps as a preparation for war. At first I made it out to be a counterpart of pictures I had seen of Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. Then I discovered that it wore wide spectacles and these in the fading sunlight sent forth a familiar glare. So it was Eddie, after all, and no edged tool had touched hair or beard since April. I understood, now, why he had not met me at the station. Chapter Four _Now, the day is at hand, prepare, prepare--_ _Make ready the boots and creel,_ _And the rod so new and the fly-book, too,_ _The line and the singing reel._ Chapter Four [Illustration: "Eddie's room and contents ... was a marvel and a revelation."] Eddie's room and contents, with Eddie in the midst of them, was a marvel and a revelation. All the accouterments of former expeditions of whatever sort, all that he had bought for this one, all that I had shipped from week to week, were gathered there. There were wading boots and camp boots and moccasins and Dutch bed-slippers and shoepacks--the last-named a sort of Micmac Indian cross between a shoe and a moccasin, much affected by guides, who keep them saturated with oil and wear them in the water and out--there were nets of various sizes and sorts, from large minnow nets through a line of landing nets to some silk head nets, invented and made by Eddie himself, one for each of us, to pull on day or night when the insect pests were bad. There was a quantity of self-prepared ointment, too, for the same purpose, while of sovereign remedies, balms and anodynes for ills and misfortunes, Eddie's collection was as the sands of the sea. Soothing lotions there were for wounds new and old; easing draughts for pains internal and external; magic salves such as were used by the knights of old romance, Amadis de Gaul and others, for the instant cure of ghastly lacerations made by man or beast, and a large fresh bottle of a collodion preparation with which the victim could be painted locally or in general, and stand forth at last, good as new--restored, body, bones and skin. In addition there was a certain bottle of the fluid extract of gelsemium, or something like that, which was recommended for anything that the rest of the assortment could do, combined. It was said to be good for everything from a sore throat to a snake bite--the list of its benefits being recorded in a text-book by which Eddie set great store. "Take it, by all means, Eddie," I said, "then you won't need any of the others." That settled it. The gelsemium was left behind. I was interested in Eddie's rods, leaning here and there on various parcels about the room. I found that the new noibwood, such as I had ordered, was only a unit in a very respectable aggregate--rather an unimportant unit it appeared by this time, for Eddie calmly assured me that the tip had remained set after landing a rather small trout in a nearby stream and that he did not consider the wood altogether suitable for trout rods. Whereupon I was moved to confess the little bamboo stick I had bought in Boston, and produced it for inspection. I could see that Eddie bristled a bit as I uncased it and I think viewed it and wiggled it with rather small respect. Still, he did not condemn it utterly and I had an impulse to confess the other things, the impossible little scale-wing flies, the tin whistle and the Jock Scott with two hooks. However, it did not seem just the psychological moment, and I refrained. As for Eddie's flies, viewed together, they were a dazzling lot. There were books and books of them--American, English, Scotch and what not. There was one book of English dry-flies, procured during a recent sojourn abroad, to be tried in American waters. One does not dance and jiggle a dry-fly to give it the appearance of life--of some unusual creature with rainbow wings and the ability to wriggle upstream, even against a swift current. The dry-fly is built to resemble life itself, color, shape and all, and is cast on a slow-moving stream where a trout is seen to rise, and allowed to drift with the gently flowing current exactly over the magic spot. All this Eddie explained to me and let me hold the book a little time, though I could see he did not intend to let me use one of the precious things, and would prefer that I did not touch them. He was packing now and I wandered idly about this uncatalogued museum of sporting goods. There was a heap of canvas and blankets in one corner--a sleeping bag, it proved, with an infinite number of compartments, or layers; there were hats of many shapes, vests of many fabrics, coats of many colors. There were things I had seen before only in sporting goods windows; there were things I had never seen before, anywhere; there were things of which I could not even guess the use. In the center of everything were bags--canvas and oil-skin receptacles, vigorously named "tackle bag," "wardrobe," "war bag" and the like--and into these the contents of the room were gradually but firmly disappearing, taking their pre-destined place according to Eddie's method--for, after all, it was a method--and as I looked at Eddie, unshaven for weeks, grizzled and glaring, yet glowing with deep kindliness and the joy of anticipation, I could think of nothing but Santa Claus, packing for his annual journey that magic bag which holds more and ever more, and is so deep and so wide in its beneficence that after all the comforts and the sweets of life are crowded within, there still is room for more a-top. Remembering my own one small bag which I had planned to take, with side pockets for tackle, and a place between for certain changes of raiment, I felt my unimportance more and more, and the great need of having an outfit like Eddie's--of having it in the party, I mean, handy like, where it would be easy to get hold of in time of need. I foresaw that clothes would want mending; also, perhaps, rods; and it was pleasant to note that my tent-mate would have boxes of tools for all such repairs. I foresaw, too, that I should burn, and bruise, and cut myself and that Eddie's liniments and lotions and New Skin would come in handy. It seemed to me that in those bags would be almost everything that human heart could need or human ills require, and when we went below where Del and Charlie, our appointed guides, were crowding certain other bags full of the bulkier stores--packages, cans and bottles, and when I gazed about on still other things--tents, boots, and baskets of camp furniture--I had a sense of being cared for, though I could not but wonder how two small canoes were going to float all that provender and plunder and four strong men. Chapter Five _Then away to the heart of the deep unknown,_ _Where the trout and the wild moose are--_ _Where the fire burns bright, and tent gleams white_ _Under the northern star._ Chapter Five It was possible to put our canoes into one of the lakes near the hotel and enter the wilderness by water--the Liverpool chain--but it was decided to load boats and baggage into wagons and drive through the woods--a distance of some seventeen uneven miles--striking at once for the true wilderness where the larger trout were said to dwell and the "over Sunday" fisherman does not penetrate. Then for a day or two we would follow waters and portages familiar to our guides, after which we would be on the borders of the unknown, prepared to conquer the wilderness with an assortment of fishing rods, a supply of mosquito ointment and a pair of twenty-two caliber rifles, these being our only guns. It seems hardly necessary to say that we expected to do little shooting. In the first place it was out of season for most things, though this did not matter so much, for Eddie had in some manner armed himself with a commission from the British Museum to procure specimens dead or alive, and this amounted to a permit to kill, and skin, and hence to eat, promiscuously and at will. But I believe as a party, we were averse to promiscuous killing; besides it is well to be rather nice in the matter of special permits. Also, we had come, in the main, for trout and exploration. It was agreed between us that, even if it were possible to hit anything with our guns, we would not kill without skinning, and we wouldn't skin without eating, after which resolution the forest things probably breathed easier, for it was a fairly safe handicap. I shall not soon forget that morning drive to Jake's Landing, at the head of Lake Kedgeemakoogee, where we put in our canoes. My trip on the train along the coast, and the drive through farming country, more or less fertile, had given me little conception of this sinister land--rock-strewn and barren, seared by a hundred forest fires. Whatever of green timber still stands is likely to be little more than brush. Above it rise the bare, gaunt skeletons of dead forests, bleached with age, yet blackened by the tongues of flame that burned out the life and wealth of a land which is now little more than waste and desolation--the haunt of the moose, the loon and the porcupine, the natural home of the wild trout. It is true, that long ago, heavy timber was cut from these woods, but the wealth thus obtained was as nothing to that which has gone up in conflagrations, started by the careless lumbermen and prospectors and hunters of a later day. Such timber as is left barely pays for the cutting, and old sluices are blocked and old dams falling to decay. No tiller of the soil can exist in these woods, for the ground is heaped and drifted and windrowed with slabs and bowlders, suggesting the wreck of some mighty war of the gods--some titanic missile-flinging combat, with this as the battle ground. Bleak, unsightly, unproductive, mangled and distorted out of all shape and form of loveliness, yet with a fierce, wild fascination in it that amounts almost to beauty--that is the Nova Scotia woods. Only the water is not like that. Once on the stream or lake and all is changed. For the shores are green; the river or brook is clear and cold--and tarry black in the deep places; the water leaps and dashes in whirlpools and torrents, and the lakes are fairy lakes, full of green islands--mere ledges, many of them, with two or three curious sentinel pines--and everywhere the same clear, black water, and always the trout, the wonderful, wild, abounding Nova Scotia trout. To Jake's Landing was a hard, jolting drive over a bad road, with only a break here and there where there is a house or two, and maybe a sawmill and a post-office, the last sentinels of civilization. It was at Maitland, the most important of these way stations, that we met Loon. Maitland is almost a village, an old settlement, in fact, with a store or two, some pretty houses and a mill. Loon is a dog of the hound variety who makes his home there, and a dear and faithful friend of Eddie's, by the latter's account. Indeed, as we drew near Maitland, after announcing that he would wish to stop at the Maitland stores to procure some new things he had thought of, Eddie became really boastful of an earlier friendship with Loon. He had met Loon on a former visit, during his (Loon's) puppyhood days, and he had recorded the meeting in his diary, wherein Loon had been set down as "a most intelligent and affectionate young dog." He produced the diary now as evidence, and I could see that our guides were impressed by this method of systematic and absolute record which no one dare dispute. He proceeded to tell us all he knew about Loon, and how glad Loon would be to see him again, until we were all jealous that no intelligent and affectionate hound dog was waiting for us at Maitland to sound the joy of welcome and to speed us with his parting bark. Then all at once we were at Maitland and before Loon's home, and sure enough there in the front yard, wagging both body and tail, stood Loon. It took but one glance for Eddie to recognize him. Perhaps it took no more than that for Loon to recognize Eddie. I don't know; but what he did was this: He lifted up his voice as one mourning for a lost soul and uttered such a series of wails and lamentations as only a hound dog in the deepest sorrow can make manifest. "Wow-ow-oo-ow-wow-oo-oo-o." The loon bird sends a fairly unhappy note floating down the wet, chill loneliness of a far, rainy lake, but never can the most forlorn of loons hope to approach his canine namesake of Maitland. Once more he broke out into a burst of long-drawn misery, then suddenly took off under the house as if he had that moment remembered an appointment there, and feared he would be late. But presently he looked out, fearfully enough, and with his eyes fixed straight on Eddie, set up still another of those heart-breaking protests. As for Eddie, I could see that he was hurt. He climbed miserably down from the wagon and crept gently toward the sorrowing hound. "Nice Loon--nice, good Loon. Don't you remember me?" "Wow-ow-oo-ow-wow-oo-oo-o," followed by another disappearance under the house. "Come, Loon, come out and see your old friend--that's a good dog!" It was no use. Loon's sorrow would not be allayed, and far beyond Maitland we still heard him wailing it down the wind. Of course it was but natural that we should discuss the matter with Eddie. He had assured us that dogs never forget, and we pressed him now to confess what extreme cruelty or deceit he had practiced upon Loon in his puppyhood, that the grown hound dog had remembered, and reproached him for to-day. But for the most part Eddie remained silent and seemed depressed. Neither did he again produce his diary, though we urged him to do so, in order that he might once more read to us what he had recorded of Loon. Perhaps something had been overlooked, something that would make Loon's lamentations clear. I think we were all glad when at last there came a gleam through the trees and we were at Jake's Landing, where our boats would first touch the water, where we would break our bread in the wilderness for the first time. [Illustration: "Eddie produced his jug of fly mixture and we anointed ourselves for the first time, putting on a pungent fragrance."] It was not much of a place to camp. There was little shade, a good deal of mud, and the sun was burning hot. There was a remnant of black flies, too, and an advance guard of mosquitoes. Eddie produced his jug of fly mixture and we anointed ourselves for the first time, putting on a pungent fragrance which was to continue a part of us, body and bone, so long as the wilderness remained our shelter. It was greasy and sticky and I could not muster an instant liking for the combined fragrance of camphor, pennyroyal and tar. But Eddie assured me that I would learn to love it, and I was willing to try. I was more interested in the loading of the canoes. Del, stout of muscle and figure--not to say fat, at least not over fat--and Charlie, light of weight and heart--sometimes known as Charles the Strong--were packing and fitting our plunder into place, condensing it into a tight and solid compass in the center of our canoes in a way that commanded my respect and even awe. I could see, however, that when our craft was loaded the water line and the gunwale were not so far apart, and I realized that one would want to sit decently still in a craft like that, especially in rough water. Meantime, Eddie had coupled up a rod and standing on a projecting log was making a few casts. I assumed that he was merely giving us an exhibition of his skill in throwing a fly, with no expectation of really getting a rise in this open, disturbed place. It was fine, though, to see his deft handling of the rod and I confess I watched him with something of envy. I may confess, too, that my own experience with fly casting had been confined to tumbling brooks with small pools and overhanging boughs, where to throw a fly means merely to drop it on a riffle, or at most to swing it out over a swirling current below a fall. I wondered as I watched Eddie if I ever should be able to send a fly sailing backward and then shoot it out forward a matter of twenty yards or so with that almost imperceptible effort of the wrist; and even if I did learn the movement, if I could manage to make the fly look real enough in such smooth, open water as this to fool even the blindest and silliest of trout. But, suddenly, where Eddie's fly--it was a Silver Doctor, I think--fell lightly on the water, there was a quick swirl, a flash and then a widening circle of rings. "You got him comin'," commented Charlie, who, it seems, had been noticing. The fly went skimming out over the water again and softly as thistle seed settled exactly in the center of the circling rings. But before it touched, almost, there came the flash and break again, and this time there followed the quick stiffening of the rod, a sudden tightening of the line, and a sharp, keen singing of the reel. "That's the time," commented Charlie and reached for a landing net. To him it was as nothing--a thing to be done a hundred times a day. But to me the world heaved and reeled with excitement. It was the first trout of the expedition, the first trout I had ever seen taken in such water, probably the largest trout I had ever seen taken in any water. In the tension of the moment I held my breath, or uttered involuntary comments. It was beautiful to see Eddie handle that trout. The water was open and smooth and there is no gainsaying Eddie's skill. Had he been giving an exhibition performance it could not have been more perfect. There was no eagerness, no driving and dragging, no wild fear of the fish getting away. The curved rod, the taut swaying line, and the sensitive hand and wrist did the work. Now and again there was a rush, and the reel sang as it gave line, but there was never the least bit of slack in the recover. Nearer and nearer came the still unseen captive, and then presently our fisherman took the net from his guide, there was a little dipping movement in the water at his feet and the first trout of the expedition was a visible fact--his golden belly and scarlet markings the subject of admiration and comment. It was not a very big fish by Nova Scotia standards--about three-quarters of a pound, I believe; but it was the largest trout I had ever seen alive, at that time, and I was consumed with envy. I was also rash. A little more, and I had a rod up, was out on a log engaged in a faithful effort to swing that rod exactly like Eddie's and to land the fly precisely in the same place. But for some reason the gear wouldn't work. In front of me, the fly fell everywhere but in the desired spot, and back of me the guides dodged and got behind bushes. You see, a number three steel hook sailing about promiscuously in the air, even when partially concealed in a fancy bunch of feathers, is a thing to be avoided. I had a clear field in no time, but perhaps Eddie had caught the only fish in the pool, for even he could get no more rises. Still I persisted and got hot and fierce, and when I looked at Eddie I hated him because he didn't cut his hair, and reflected bitterly that it was no wonder a half-savage creature like that could fish. Finally I hooked a tree top behind me and in jerking the fly loose made a misstep and went up to my waist in water. The tension broke then--I helped to break it--and the fishing trip had properly begun. The wagons had left us now, and we were alone with our canoes and our guides. Del, the stout, who was to have my especial fortunes in hand, knelt in the stern of the larger canoe and I gingerly entered the bow. Then Eddie and his guide found their respective places in the lighter craft and we were ready to move. A moment more and we would drop down the stream to the lake, and so set out on our long journey. I recall now that I was hot and wet and still a little cross. I had never had any especial enthusiasm about the expedition and more than once had regretted my pledge made across the table at the end of the old year. Even the bustle of preparation and the journey into a strange land had only mildly stirred me, and I felt now that for me, at least, things were likely to drag. There were many duties at home that required attention. These woods were full of mosquitoes, probably malaria. It was possible that I should take cold, be very ill and catch no fish whatever. But then suddenly we dropped out into the lake Kedgeemakoogee, the lake of the fairies--a broad expanse of black water, dotted with green islands, and billowing white in the afternoon wind, and just as we rounded I felt a sudden tug at the end of my line which was trailing out behind the canoe. In an instant I was alive. Del cautioned me softly from the stern, for there is no guide who does not wish his charge to acquit himself well. "Easy now--easy," he said. "That's a good one--don't hurry him." But every nerve in me began to tingle--every drop of blood to move faster. I was eaten with a wild desire to drag my prize into the boat before he could escape. Then all at once it seemed to me that my line must be fast, the pull was so strong and fixed. But looking out behind, Del saw the water break just then--a sort of double flash. "Good, you've got a pair," he said. "Careful, now, and we'll save 'em both." To tell the truth I had no hope of saving either, and if I was careful I didn't feel so. When I let the line go out, as I was obliged to, now and then, to keep from breaking it altogether, I had a wild, hopeless feeling that I could never take it up again and that the prize was just that much farther away. Whenever there came a sudden slackening I was sickened with a fear that the fish were gone, and ground the reel handle feverishly. Fifty yards away the other canoe, with Eddie in the bow, had struck nothing as yet, and if I could land these two I should be one ahead on the score. It seems now a puny ambition, but it was vital then. I was no longer cold, or hot, or afraid of malaria, or mosquitoes, or anything of the sort. Duties more or less important at home were forgotten. I was concerned only with those two trout that had fastened to my flies, the Silver Doctor and the Parmcheenie Belle, out there in the black, tossing water, and with the proper method of keeping my line taut, but not too taut, easy, but not too easy, with working the prize little by little within reach of the net. Eddie, suddenly seeing my employment, called across congratulations and encouragement. Then, immediately, he was busy too, with a fish of his own, and the sport, the great, splendid sport of the far north woods, had really begun. I brought my catch near the boatside at last, but it is no trifling matter to get two trout into a net when they are strung out on a six-foot leader, with the big trout on the top fly. Reason dictates that the end trout should go in first and at least twice I had him in, when the big fellow at the top gave a kick that landed both outside. It's a mercy I did not lose both, but at last with a lucky hitch they were duly netted, in the canoe, and I was weak and hysterical, but triumphant. There was one of nearly a pound and a half, and the other a strong half-pound, not guess weight, but by Eddie's scales, which I confess I thought niggardly. Never had I taken such fish in the Adirondack or Berkshire streams I had known, and what was more, these were two at a time![1] Eddie had landed a fine trout also, and we drew alongside, now, for consultation. The wind had freshened, the waves were running higher, and with our heavy canoes the six-mile paddle across would be a risky undertaking. Why not pitch our first night's camp nearby, here on Jim Charles point--a beautiful spot where once long ago a half-civilized Indian had made his home? In this cove before dark we could do abundant fishing. For me there was no other plan. I was all enthusiasm, now. There were trout here and I could catch them. That was enough. Civilization--the world, flesh and the devil--mankind and all the duties of life were as nothing. Here were the woods and the waters. There was the point for the campfire and the tents. About us were the leaping trout. The spell of the forest and the chase gripped me body and soul. Only these things were worth while. Nothing else mattered--nothing else existed. We landed and in a little while the tents were white on the shore, Del and Charlie getting them up as if by conjury. Then once more we were out in the canoes and the curved rod and the taut line and the singing reel dominated every other force under the wide sky. It was not the truest sport, maybe, for the fish were chiefly taken with trolling flies. But to me, then, it did not matter. Suffice it that they were fine and plentiful, and that I was two ahead of Eddie when at last we drew in for supper. That was joy enough, and then such trout--for there are no trout on earth like those one catches himself--such a campfire, such a cozy tent (Eddie's it was, from one of the catalogues), with the guides' tent facing, and the fire between. For us there was no world beyond that circle of light that on one side glinted among boughs of spruce and cedar and maple and birch, and on the other, gleamed out on the black water. Lying back on our beds and smoking, and looking at the fire and the smoke curling up among the dark branches toward the stars, and remembering the afternoon's sport and all the other afternoons and mornings and nights still to come, I was moved with a deep sense of gratitude in my heart toward Eddie. "Eddie," I murmured, "I forgive you all those lists, and everything, even your hair. I begin to understand now something of how you feel about the woods and the water, and all. Next time----" Then (for it was the proper moment) I confessed fully--the purchasing agent, the tin whistle, even the Jock Scott with two hooks. FOOTNOTES: [1] The ordinary New York and New England "half pound trout" will weigh anywhere from four to six ounces. It takes a trout nearly a foot long to weigh half a pound. With each additional inch the weight increases rapidly. A trout thirteen inches in length will weigh about three quarters of a pound. A fourteen-inch trout will weigh a pound. A fifteen-inch trout, in good condition, will weigh one and a half pounds, plump. Chapter Six _Nearer the fire the shadows creep--_ _The brands burn dim and red--_ _While the pillow of sleep lies soft and deep_ _Under a weary head._ Chapter Six When one has been accustomed to the comforts of civilized life--the small ones, I mean, for they are the only ones that count--the beginning of a wild, free life near to nature's heart begets a series of impressions quite new, and strange--so strange. It is not that one misses a house of solid walls and roof, with stairways and steam radiators. These are the larger comforts and are more than made up for by the sheltering temple of the trees, the blazing campfire and the stairway leading to the stars. But there are things that one does miss--a little--just at first. When we had finished our first evening's smoke and the campfire was burning low--when there was nothing further to do but go to bed, I suddenly realized that the man who said he would be willing to do without all the rest of a house if he could keep the bathroom, spoke as one with an inspired knowledge of human needs. I would not suggest that I am a person given to luxurious habits and vain details in the matter of evening toilet. But there are so many things one is in the habit of doing just about bedtime, which in a bathroom, with its varied small conveniences, seem nothing at all, yet which assume undue proportions in the deep, dim heart of nature where only the large primitive comforts have been provided. I had never been in the habit, for instance, of stumbling through several rods of bushes and tangled vines to get to a wash-bowl that was four miles wide and six miles long and full of islands and trout, and maybe snapping turtles (I know there were snapping turtles, for Charlie had been afraid to leave his shoepacks on the beach for fear the turtles would carry them off), and I had not for many years known what it was to bathe my face on a ground level or to brush my teeth in the attitude of prayer. It was all new and strange, as I have said, and there was no hot water--not even a faucet--that didn't run, maybe, because the man upstairs was using it. There wasn't any upstairs except the treetops and the sky, though, after all, these made up for a good deal, for the treetops feathered up and faded into the dusky blue, and the blue was sown with stars that were caught up and multiplied by every tiny wrinkle on the surface of the great black bowl and sent in myriad twinklings to our feet. Still, I would have exchanged the stars for a few minutes, for a one-candle power electric light, or even for a single gas jet with such gas as one gets when the companies combine and establish a uniform rate. I had mislaid my tube of dentifrice and in the dim, pale starlight I pawed around and murmured to myself a good while before I finally called Eddie to help me. "Oh, let it go," he said. "It'll be there for you in the morning. I always leave mine, and my soap and towel, too." He threw his towel over a limb, laid his soap on a log and faced toward the camp. I hesitated. I was unused to leaving my things out overnight. My custom was to hang my towel neatly over a rack, to stand my toothbrush upright in a glass on a little shelf with the dentifrice beside it. Habit is strong. I did not immediately consent to this wide and gaudy freedom of the woods. "Suppose it rains," I said. "All the better--it will wash the towels." "But they will be wet in the morning." "Um--yes--in the woods things generally are wet in the morning. You'll get used to that." It is likewise my habit to comb my hair before retiring, and to look at myself in the glass, meantime. This may be due to vanity. It may be a sort of general inspection to see if I have added any new features, or lost any of those plucked from the family tree. Perhaps it is only to observe what the day's burdens have done for me in the way of wrinkles and gray hairs. Never mind the reason, it is a habit; but I didn't realize how precious it was to me until I got back to the tent and found that our only mirror was in Eddie's collection, set in the back of a combination comb-brush affair about the size of one's thumb. Of course it was not at all adequate for anything like a general inspection. It would just about hold one eye, or a part of a mouth, or a section of a nose, or a piece of an ear or a little patch of hair, and it kept you busy guessing where that patch was located. Furthermore, as the comb was a part of the combination, the little mirror was obliged to be twinkling around over one's head at the precise moment when it should have been reflecting some portion of one's features. It served no useful purpose, thus, and was not much better when I looked up another comb and tried to use it in the natural way. Held close and far off, twisted and turned, it was no better. I felt lost and disturbed, as one always does when suddenly deprived of the exercise of an old and dear habit, and I began to make mental notes of some things I should bring on the next trip. There was still a good deal to do--still a number of small but precious conveniences to be found wanting. Eddie noticed that I was getting into action and said he would stay outside while I was stowing myself away; which was good of him, for I needed the room. When I began to take on things I found I needed his bed, too, to put them on. I suppose I had expected there would be places to hang them. I am said to be rather absent-minded, and I believe I stood for several minutes with some sort of a garment in my hand, turning thoughtfully one way and another, probably expecting a hook to come drifting somewhere within reach. Yes, hooks are one of the small priceless conveniences, and under-the-bed is another. I never suspected that the space under the bed could be a luxury until I began to look for a place to put my shoes and handbag. Our tent was just long enough for our sleeping-bags, and just about wide enough for them--one along each side, with a narrow footway between. They were laid on canvas stretchers which had poles through wide hems down the sides--the ends of these poles (cut at each camp and selected for strength and springiness) spread apart and tacked to larger cross poles, which arrangement raised us just clear of the ground, leaving no space for anything of consequence underneath. You could hardly put a fishing rod there, or a pipe, without discomfort to the flesh and danger to the articles. Undressing and bestowing oneself in an upper berth is attended with problems, but the berth is not so narrow, and it is flat and solid, and there are hooks and little hammocks and things--valuable advantages, now fondly recalled. I finally piled everything on Eddie's bed, temporarily. I didn't know what I was going to do with it next, but anything was a boon for the moment. Just then Eddie looked in. "That's your pillow material, you know," he said, pointing to my medley of garments. "You want a pillow, don't you?" Sure enough, I had no pillow, and I did want one. I always want a pillow and a high one. It is another habit. "Let me show you," he said. So he took my shoes and placed them, one on each side of my couch, about where a pillow should be, with the soles out, making each serve as a sort of retaining wall. Then he began to double and fold and fill the hollow between, taking the bunchy, seamy things first and topping off with the softer, smoother garments in a deft, workmanlike way. I was even moved to add other things from my bag to make it higher and smoother. "Now, put your bag on the cross-pole behind your pillow and let it lean back against the tent. It will stay there and make a sort of head to your bed, besides being handy in case you want to get at it in the night." Why, it was as simple and easy as nothing. My admiration for Eddie grew. I said I would get into my couch at once in order that he might distribute himself likewise. But this was not so easy. I had never got into a sleeping-bag before, and it is a thing that requires a little practice to do it with skill and grace. It has to be done section at a time, and one's night garment must be worked down co-ordinately in order that it may not become merely a stuffy life-preserver thing under one's arms. To a beginner this is slow, warm work. By the time I was properly down among the coarse, new blankets and had permeated the remotest corners of the clinging envelope, I had had a lot of hard exercise and was hot and thirsty. So Del brought me a drink of water. I wasn't used to being waited on in that way, but it was pleasant. After all there were some conveniences of camp life that were worth while. And the bed was comfortable and the pillow felt good. I lay watching Eddie shape his things about, all his bags and trappings falling naturally into the places they were to occupy through the coming weeks. The flat-topped bag with the apothecary stores and other urgency articles went at the upper end of the little footway, and made a sort of table between our beds. Another bag went behind his pillow, which he made as he had made mine, though he topped it off with a little rubber affair which he inflated while I made another mental memorandum for next year. A third bag---- But I did not see the fate of the third bag. A haze drifted in between me and the busy little figure that was placing and pulling and folding and arranging--humming a soothing ditty meantime--and I was swept up bodily into a cloud of sleep. Chapter Seven _Now, Dawn her gray green mantle weaves_ _To the lilt of a low refrain--_ _The drip, drip, drip of the lush green leaves_ _After a night of rain._ Chapter Seven The night was fairly uneventful. Once I imagined I heard something smelling around the camp, and I remember having a sleepy curiosity as to the size and manner of the beast, and whether he meant to eat us and where he would be likely to begin. I may say, too, that I found some difficulty in turning over in my sleeping-bag, and that it did rain. I don't know what hour it was when I was awakened by the soft thudding drops just above my nose, but I remember that I was glad, for there had been fires in the woods, and the streams were said to be low. I satisfied myself that Eddie's patent, guaranteed perfectly waterproof tent was not leaking unduly, and wriggling into a new position, slept. It was dull daylight when I awoke. Through the slit in the tent I could see the rain drizzling on the dead campfire. Eddie--long a guest of the forest lost now in the multiple folds of his sleeping-bag--had not stirred. A glimpse of the guides' tent opposite revealed that the flap was still tightly drawn. There was no voice or stir of any living creature. Only the feet of the rain went padding among the leaves and over the tent. Now, I am not especially given to lying in bed, and on this particular morning any such inclination was rather less manifest than usual. I wanted to spread myself out, to be able to move my arms away from my body, to whirl around and twist and revolve a bit without so much careful preparation and deliberate movement. Yet there was very little to encourage one to get up. Our campfire--so late a glory and an inspiration--had become a remnant of black ends and soggy ash. I was not overhot as I lay, and I had a conviction that I should be less so outside the sleeping-bag, provided always that I could extricate myself from that somewhat clinging, confining envelope. Neither was there any immediate prospect of breakfast--nobody to talk to--no place to go. I had an impulse to arouse Eddie for the former purpose, but there was something about that heap of canvas and blankets across the way that looked dangerous. I had never seen him roused in his forest lair, and I suspected that he would be savage. I concluded to proceed cautiously--in some manner which might lead him to believe that the fall of a drifting leaf or the note of a bird had been his summons. I worked one arm free, and reaching out for one of my shoes--a delicate affair, with the soles filled with splices for clambering over the rocks--I tossed it as neatly as possible at the irregular bunch opposite, aiming a trifle high. It fell with a solid, sickening thud, and I shrank down into my bag, expecting an eruption. None came. Then I was seized with the fear that I had killed or maimed Eddie. It seemed necessary to investigate. I took better aim this time and let go with the other shoe. "Eddie!" I yelled, "are you dead?" There was a stir this time and a deep growl. It seemed to take the form of words, at length, and I caught, or fancied I did, the query as to what time it was; whereupon I laboriously fished up my watch and announced in clear tones that the hand was upon the stroke of six. Also that it was high time for children of the forest to bestir themselves. At this there was another and a deeper growl, ending with a single syllable of ominous sound. I could not be sure, but heard through the folds of a sleeping-bag, the word sounded a good deal like hell and I had a dim conviction that he was sending me there, perhaps realizing that I was cold. Then he became unconscious again, and I had no more shoes. Yet my efforts had not been without effect. There was a nondescript stir in the guides' tent, and presently the head of Charles, sometimes called the Strong, protruded a little and was withdrawn. Then that of Del, the Stout, appeared and a little later two extraordinary semi-amphibious figures issued--wordless and still rocking a little with sleep--and with that deliberate precision born of long experience went drabbling after fuel and water that the morning fire might kindle and the morning pot be made to boil. They were clad in oilskins, and the drapery of Charles deserves special attention. It is likely that its original color had been a flaunt of yellow, and that it had been bedizened with certain buttonholes and hems and selvages and things, such as adorn garments in a general way of whatever nature or sex. That must have been a long time ago. It is improbable that the oldest living inhabitant would be able to testify concerning these items. Observing him thoughtfully as he bent over the wet ashes and skillfully cut and split and presently brought to flame the little heap of wood he had garnered, there grew upon me a realization of the vast service that suit of oilskins must have rendered to its owners--of the countless storms that had beaten upon it; of the untold fires that had been kindled under its protection; of the dark, wild nights when it had served in fording torrents and in clambering over slippery rocks, indeed of all the ages of wear and tear that had eaten into its seams and selvages and hues since the day when Noah first brought it out of the Ark and started it down through the several generations which had ended with our faithful Charles, the Strong. I suppose this is just one of those profitless reflections which is likely to come along when one is still tangled up in a sleeping-bag, watching the tiny flame that grows a little brighter and bigger each moment and forces at last a glow of comfort into the tent until the day, after all, seems worth beginning, though the impulse to begin it is likely to have diminished. I have known men, awake for a long time, who have gone on to sleep during just such morning speculations, when the flames grew bright and brighter and crackled up through the little heap of dry branches and sent that glow of luxury into the tent. I remember seeing our guide adjust a stick at an angle above the fire, whereby to suspend a kettle, and men, suddenly, of being startled from somewhere--I was at the club, I think, in the midst of a game of pool--by a wild whoop and the spectacle of Eddie, standing upright in the little runway between our beds, howling that the proper moment for bathing had arrived, and kicking up what seemed to me a great and unnecessary stir. [Illustration: "Not to take the morning dip ... was to manifest a sad lack of the true camping spirit."] The idea of bathing on such a morning and in that primitive costume had not, I think, occurred to me before, but I saw presently there was nothing else for it. A little later I was following Eddie, cringing from the cold, pelting rain, limping gingerly over sharp sticks and pebbles to the water's edge. The lake was shallow near the shore which meant a fearful period of wading before taking the baptismal plunge that would restore one's general equilibrium. It required courage, too, for the water was icy--courage to wade out to the place, and once there, to make the plunge. I should never have done it if Eddie had not insisted that according to the standard text-books the day in every well-ordered camp always began with this ceremony. Not to take the morning dip, he said, was to manifest a sad lack of the true camping spirit. Thus prodded, I bade the world a hasty good-by and headed for the bottom. A moment later we were splashing and puffing like seals, shouting with the fierce, delightful torture of it--wide awake enough now, and marvelously invigorated when all was over. [Illustration: "Catching it in the skillet as it fell, compelled admiration"] We were off after breakfast--a breakfast of trout and flapjacks--the latter with maple sirup in the little eating tent. The flapjacks were Del's manufacture, and his manner of tossing the final large one into the air and catching it in the skillet as it fell, compelled admiration. The lake was fairly smooth and the rain no longer fell. A gray morning--the surface of the water gray--a gray mantle around the more distant of the islands, with here and there sharp rocks rising just above the depths. It was all familiar enough to the guides, but to me it was a new world. Seated in the bow I swung my paddle joyously, and even with our weighty load it seemed that we barely touched the water. One must look out for the rocks, though, for a sharp point plunged through the bottom of a canoe might mean shipwreck. A few yards away, Eddie and his guide--light-weight bodies, both of them--kept abreast, their appearance somehow suggesting two grasshoppers on a straw. It is six miles across Kedgeemakoogee and during the passage it rained. When we were about half-way over I felt a drop or two strike me and saw the water about the canoe spring up into little soldiers. A moment later we were struck on every side and the water soldiers were dancing in a multitude. Then they mingled and rushed together. The green islands were blotted out. The gates of the sky swung wide. [Illustration: "To put on a pair of waders like that in the front end of a canoe in a pouring rain is no light matter."] Of course it was necessary to readjust matters. Del drew on his oilskins and I reached for my own. I had a short coat, a sou'wester, and a pair of heavy brown waders, so tall that they came up under my arms when fully adjusted. There was no special difficulty in getting on the hat and coat, but to put on a pair of waders like that in the front end of a canoe in a pouring rain is no light matter. There seemed no good place to straighten my legs out in order to get a proper pull. To stand up was to court destruction, and when I made an attempt to put a leg over the side of the canoe Del admonished me fearfully that another such move would send us to the bottom forthwith. Once my thumbs pulled out of the straps and I tumbled back on the stores, the rain beating down in my face. I suppose the suddenness of the movement disturbed the balance of the boat somewhat, for Del let out a yell that awoke a far-away loon, who replied dismally. When at last I had the feet on, I could not get the tops in place, for of course there was no way to get them anywhere near where they really belonged without standing up. So I had to remain in that half-on and half-off condition, far from comfortable, but more or less immune to wet. I realized what a sight I must look, and I could hardly blame Eddie for howling in derision at me when he drew near enough to distinguish my outline through the downpour. I also realized what a poor rig I had on for swimming, in event of our really capsizing, and I sat straight and still and paddled hard for the other side. It was not what might be termed a "prolonged and continuous downpour." The gray veil lifted from the islands. The myriad of battling soldiers diminished. Presently only a corporal's guard was leaping and dancing about the canoe. Then these disappeared. The clouds broke away. The sun came. Ahead of us was a green shore--the other side of Kedgeemakoogee had been reached. Chapter Eight _Where the trail leads back from the water's edge--_ _Tangled and overgrown--_ _Shoulder your load and strike the road_ _Into the deep unknown._ Chapter Eight We were at the beginning of our first carry, now--a stretch of about two miles through the woods. The canoes were quickly unloaded, and as I looked more carefully at the various bags and baskets of supplies, I realized that they were constructed with a view of being connected with a man's back. I had heard and read a good deal about portages and I realized in a general way that the canoes had to be carried from one water system to another, but somehow I had never considered the baggage. Naturally I did not expect it to get over of its own accord, and when I came to consider the matter I realized that a man's back was about the only place where it could ride handily and with reasonable safety. I also realized that a guide's life is not altogether a holiday excursion. I felt sorry for the guides. I even suggested to Eddie that he carry a good many of the things. I pointed out that most of them were really his, anyway, and that it was too bad to make our faithful retainers lug a drug store and sporting goods establishment, besides the greater part of a provision warehouse. Eddie sympathized with the guides, too. He was really quite pathetic in his compassion for them, but he didn't carry any of the things. That is, any of those things. It is the etiquette of portage--of Nova Scotia portage, at least--that the fisherman shall carry his own sporting paraphernalia--which is to say, his rods, his gun, if he has one, his fishing basket and his landing net. Also, perhaps, any convenient bag of tackle or apparel when not too great an inconvenience. It is the business of the guides to transport the canoes, the general outfit, and the stores. As this was to be rather a long carry, and as more than one trip would be necessary, it was proposed to make a half-way station for luncheon, at a point where a brook cut the trail. But our procession did not move immediately. In the first place one of the canoes appeared to have sprung a leak, and after our six-mile paddle this seemed a proper opportunity to rest and repair damages. The bark craft was hauled out, a small fire scraped together and the pitch pot heated while the guides pawed and squinted about the boat's bottom to find the perforation. Meantime I tried a few casts in the lake, from a slanting rock, and finally slipped in, as was my custom. Then we found that we did not wish to wait until reaching the half-way brook before having at least a bite and sup. It was marshy and weedy where we were and no inviting place to serve food, but we were tolerably wet, and we had paddled a good way. We got out a can of corned beef and a loaf of bread, and stood around in the ooze, and cut off chunks and chewed and gulped and worked them down into place. Then we said we were ready, and began to load up. I experimented by hanging such things as landing nets and a rod-bag on my various projections while my hands were to be occupied with my gun and a tackle-bag. The things were not especially heavy, but they were shifty. I foresaw that the rod-bag would work around under my arm and get in the way of my feet, and that the landing nets would complicate matters. I tied them all in a solid bunch at last, with the gun inside. This simplified the problem a good deal, and was an arrangement for which I had reason to be thankful. It was interesting to see our guides load up. Charles, the Strong, had been well named. He swung a huge basket on his back, his arms through straps somewhat like those which support an evening gown, and a-top of this, other paraphernalia was piled. I have seen pack burros in Mexico that were lost sight of under their many burdens and I remembered them now, as our guides stood forth ready to move. I still felt sorry for them (the guides, of course) and suggested once more to Eddie that he should assume some of their burdens. In fact, I was almost willing to do so myself, and when at the last moment both Charlie and Del stooped and took bundles in each hand, I was really on the very point of offering to carry something, only there was nothing more to carry but the canoes, and of course they had to be left for the next trip. I was glad, though, of the generous impulse on my part. There is always comfort in such things. Eddie and I set out ahead. There is something fine and inspiring about a portage. In the first place, it is likely to be through a deep wood, over a trail not altogether easy to follow. Then there is the fascinating thought that you are cutting loose another link from everyday mankind--pushing a chapter deeper into the wilderness, where only the more adventurous ever come. Also, there is the romantic gipsy feeling of having one's possessions in such compass that not only the supplies themselves, but the very means of transportation may be bodily lifted and borne from one water link to another of that chain which leads back ever farther into the unknown. I have suggested that a portage trail is not always easy to follow. As a matter of fact the chances are that it will seldom be easy to follow. It will seldom be a path fit for human beings. It won't be even a decent moose path, and a moose can go anywhere that a bird can. A carry is meant to be the shortest distance between two given places and it doesn't strive for luxury. It will go under and over logs, through scratchy thickets and gardens of poison ivy. It will plow through swamps and quicksands; it will descend into pits; it will skin along the sharp edge of slippery rocks set up at impossible angles, so that only a mountain goat can follow it without risking his neck. I believe it would climb a tree if a big one stood directly in its path. We did not get through with entire safety. The guides, shod in their shoepacks, trained to the business, went along safely enough, though they lurched a good deal under their heavy cargoes and seemed always on the verge of disaster. Eddie and I did not escape. I saw Eddie slip, and I heard him come down with a grunt which I suspected meant damage. It proved a serious mishap, for it was to one of his reels, a bad business so early in the game. I fell, too, but I only lost some small areas of skin which I knew Eddie would replace with joy from a bottle in his apothecary bag. But there were things to be seen on that two-mile carry. A partridge flew up and whirred away into the bushes. A hermit thrush was calling from the greenery, and by slipping through very carefully we managed to get a sight of his dark, brown body. Then suddenly Eddie called to me to look, and I found him pointing up into a tree. "Porky, Porky!" he was saying, by which I guessed he had found a porcupine, for I had been apprised of the numbers in these woods. "Come, here's a shot for you," he added, as I drew nearer. "Porcupines damage a lot of trees and should be killed." I gazed up and distinguished a black bunch clinging to the body of a fairly large spruce, near the top. "He doesn't seem to be damaging that tree much," I said. "No, but he will. They kill ever so many. The State of Maine pays a bounty for their scalps." I looked up again. Porky seemed to be inoffensive enough, and my killing blood was not much aroused. "But the hunters and logmen destroy a good many more trees with their fires," I argued. "Why doesn't the State of Maine and the Province of Nova Scotia pay a bounty for the scalps of a few hunters and logmen?" But Eddie was insistent. It was in the line of duty, he urged, to destroy porcupines. They were of no value, except, perhaps, to eat. "Will you agree to eat this one if I shoot him?" I asked, unbundling my rifle somewhat reluctantly. "Of course--that's understood." I think even then I would have spared Porky's life, but at that moment he ran a little way up the tree. There was something about that slight movement that stirred the old savage in me. I threw my rifle to my shoulder, and with hasty aim fired into the center of the black bunch. I saw it make a quick, quivering jump, slip a little, and cling fast. There was no stopping now. A steady aim at the black ball this time, and a second shot, followed by another convulsive start, a long slide, then a heavy thudding fall at our feet--a writhing and a twisting--a moaning and grieving as of a stricken child. And it was not so easy to stop this. I sent shot after shot into the quivering black, pin-cushioned ball before it was finally still--its stained, beautifully pointed quills scattered all about. When it was over, I said: "Well, Eddie, they may eat up the whole of Nova Scotia, if they want to--woods, islands and all, but I'll never shoot another, unless I'm starving." We had none of us starved enough to eat that porcupine. In the first place he had to be skinned, and there seemed no good place to begin. The guides, when they came up, informed us that it was easy enough to do when you knew how, and that the Indians knew how and considered porcupine a great delicacy. But we were not Indians, at least not in the ethnological sense, and the delicacy in this instance applied only to our appetites. I could see that Eddie was anxious to break his vow, now that his victim was really dead by my hand. We gathered up a few of the quills--gingerly, for a porcupine quill once in the flesh, is said to work its way to the heart--and passed on, leaving the black pin cushion lying where it fell. Perhaps Porky's death saved one or two more trees for the next Nova Scotia fire. There were no trout for luncheon at our half-way halt. The brook there was a mere rivulet, and we had not kept the single small fish caught that morning. Still I did not mind. Not that I was tired of trout so soon, but I began to suspect that it would require nerve and resolution to tackle them three times a day for a period of weeks, and that it might be just as well to start rather gradually, working in other things from time to time. I protested, however, when Del produced a can of Columbia River salmon. That, I said, was a gross insult to every fish in the Nova Scotia waters. Canned salmon on a fishing trip! The very thought of it was an offense; I demanded that it be left behind with the porcupine. Never, I declared, would I bemean myself by eating that cheap article of commerce--that universally indigenous fish food--here in the home of the chief, the prince, the _ne plus ultra_ of all fishes--the Nova Scotia trout. So Del put the can away, smiling a little, and produced beans. That was different. One may eat beans anywhere under the wide sky. Chapter Nine _The black rock juts on the hidden pool_ _And the waters are dim and deep,_ _Oh, lightly tread--'tis a royal bed,_ _And a king lies there asleep._ Chapter Nine It was well into the afternoon before the canoes reached the end of the carry--poking out through the green--one on the shoulders of each guide, inverted like long shields, such as an ancient race might have used as a protection from arrows. Eddie and I, meantime, had been employed getting a mess of frogs, for it was swampy just there, and frogs, mosquitoes and midges possessed the locality. We anointed for the mosquitoes and "no-see-ums," as the midges are called by the Indians, and used our little rifles on the frogs. I wonder, by the way, what mosquitoes were made for. Other people have wondered that before, but you can't overdo the thing. Maybe if we keep on wondering we shall find out. Knowledge begins that way, and it will take a lot of speculation to solve the mosquito mystery. I can't think of anything that I could do without easier than the mosquito. He seems to me a creature wholly devoid of virtues. He is a glutton, a poisoner, a spreader of disease, a dispenser of disturbing music. That last is the hardest to forgive. If he would only be still I could overlook the other things. I wonder if he will take his voice with him into the next world. I should like to know, too, which place he is bound for. I should like to know, so I could take the other road.[2] Across Mountain Lake was not far, and then followed another short carry--another link of removal--to a larger lake, Pescawess. It was nearly five miles across Pescawess, but we made good time, for there was a fair wind. Also we had the knowledge that Pescawah Brook flows in on the other side, and the trout there were said to be large and not often disturbed. We camped a little below this brook, and while the tents were going up Eddie and I took one of the canoes and slipped away past an island or two, among the strewn bowlders at the stream's mouth, pausing to cast a little here and there, though at first with no other result than to get our lines in a mess together. "Now, say, old man," Eddie began, as my line made a turn around his neck and a half-dozen twists around his tackle, the whole dropping in a heap in the water, "you mustn't cast like that. You should use the treetop cast--straight up in the air, when there's a man behind you. Don't you know you might lacerate a fellow's ear, or put a hook through his lip, or his nose, or something?" I said that I was sorry, and that if he would give me a few points on the treetop cast, and then avoid sitting in the treetops as much as possible himself I thought there would be no further danger. He was not altogether pacified. The lines were in a bad tangle and he said it was wasting precious time to be fooling that way. Clearly two men could not fish from one canoe and preserve their friendship, and after our lines were duly parted and Eddie had scolded me sufficiently, we went ashore just below where the swift current tumbles in, and made our way to the wide, deep, rock-bound pools above. The going was pretty thick and scratchy, and one had to move deliberately. Eddie had more things to carry than I did, for he had brought his gun and his long-handled net, and these, with his rod, set up and properly geared with a long leader and two flies, worried him a good deal. The net had a way of getting hung on twigs. The line and leader displayed a genius for twisting around small but tough branches and vines, the hooks caught in unexpected places, and the gun was possessed to get between his legs. When I had time to consider him, he was swearing steadily and I think still blaming me for most of his troubles, though the saints know I was innocent enough and not without difficulties of my own. Chiefly, I was trying to avoid poison ivy, which is my bane and seemed plentiful in this particular neck of the woods. We were out at last, and the wide, dark pool, enclosed by great black bowlders and sloping slabs of stone, seemed as if it might repay our efforts. Not for years, maybe, had an artificial fly been cast in that water. Perhaps Eddie was still annoyed with me, for he pushed farther up to other pools, and was presently lost to view. I was not sorry of this, for it may be remembered that I had thus far never caught a trout by casting in open, smooth water, and I was willing to practice a little alone. I decided to work deliberately, without haste and excitement, and to get my flies caught in the treetops as infrequently as possible. I adjusted them now, took a good look behind and tossed my cast toward the other side of the dark pool. I thought I did it rather well, too, and I dragged the flies with a twitching motion, as I had seen Eddie do it, but nothing happened. If there were trout anywhere in the world, they would be in a pool like this, and if there was ever an evening for them it was now. It was in the nature of probability that Eddie would come back with a good string, and I could not let him find me a confessed failure. So once more I sent the flies out over the pool--a little farther this time, and twitched them a little more carefully, but I might have been fishing in a tub, so far as any tangible fish were concerned. A little more line and a reckless back cast landed my tail fly in a limb--a combination which required time and patience to disengage. By the time I had worked out the puzzle it began to seem like a warm evening. Then I snapped the flies into several different corners of the pool, got hung again on the same limb, jerked and broke the fly and repeated some of the words I had learned from Eddie as we came through the brush. I was cooler after that, and decided to put on a new and different fly. I thought a Jenny Lind would be about the thing, and pretty soon was slapping it about--at first hopefully, then rashly. Then in mere desperation I changed the top fly and put on a Montreal. Of course I wouldn't catch anything. I never would catch anything, except by trolling, as any other duffer, or even a baby might, but I would have fun with the flies, anyway. So the Montreal went capering out over the pool, landing somewhere amid the rocks on the other side. And then all at once I had my hands full of business, for there was a leap and a splash, and a z-z-z-t of the reel, and a second later my rod was curved like a buggy whip, the line as taut as wire and weaving and swaying from side to side with a live, heavy body, the body of a trout--a real trout--hooked by me with a fly, cast on a quiet pool. I wouldn't have lost that fish for money. But I was deadly afraid of doing so. A good thing for me, then, my practice in landing, of the evening before. "Easy, now--easy," I said to myself, just as Del had done. "If you lose this fish you're a duffer, sure enough; also a chump and several other undesirable things. Don't hurry him--don't give him unnecessary line in this close place where there may be snags--don't, above all things, let him get any slack on you. Just a little line, now--a few inches will do--and keep the tip of your rod up. If you point it at him and he gets a straight pull he will jump off, sure, or he will rush and you cannot gather the slack. Work him toward you, now, toward your feet, close in--your net has a short handle, and is suspended around your neck by a rubber cord. The cord will stretch, of course, but you can never reach him over there. Don't mind the reel--you have taken up enough line. You can't lift out a fish like that on a four-ounce rod--on any rod short of a hickory sapling. Work him toward you, you gump! Bring your rod up straighter--straighter--straight! Now for the net--carefully--oh, you clumsy duffer, to miss him! Don't you know that you can't thrash him into the net like that?--that you must dip the net _under_ him? I suppose you thought you were catching mice. You deserve to lose him altogether. Once more, now, he's right at your feet--a king!" Two long backward steps after that dip, for I must be certain that he was away from the water's edge. Then I bumped into something--something soft that laughed. It was Eddie, and he had two fish in his landing net. "Bully!" he said. "You did it first-rate, only you don't need to try to beat him to death with the landing net. Better than mine," he added, as I took my trout off the fly. "Suppose now we go below. I've taken a look and there's a great pool, right where the brook comes out. We can get to it in the canoe. I'll handle the canoe while you fish." That, also, is Eddie's way. He had scolded me and he would make amends. He had already taken down his rod, and we made our way back through the brush without much difficulty, though I was still hot with effort and excitement, and I fear a little careless about the poison ivy. A few minutes later, Eddie, who handles a canoe--as he does everything else pertaining to the woods--with grace and skill, had worked our craft among the rocks into the wide, swift water that came out from under a huge fallen log--the mouth of Pescawah Brook. "Cast there," he said, pointing to a spot just below the log. Within twenty minutes from that time I had learned more about fishing--real trout fishing--than I had known before in all my life. I had, in Eddie, a peerless instructor, and I had such water for a drill ground as is not found in every day's, or every week's, or every month's travel. Besides, there were fish. Singly and in pairs they came--great, beautiful, mottled fellows--sometimes leaping clear of the water like a porpoise, to catch the fly before it fell. There were none less than a pound, and many over that weight. When we had enough for supper and breakfast--a dozen, maybe--we put back the others that came, as soon as taken from the hook. The fishing soon ended then, for I believe the trout have some means of communication, and one or two trout returned to a pool will temporarily discourage the others. It did not matter. I had had enough, and once more, thanks to Eddie, returned to the camp, jubilant. FOOTNOTES: [2] When this chapter appeared in _The Outing Magazine_ Frederic Remington wrote as follows: "My dear Paine: Just read your _Outing_ article on the woods and your speculation on 'why mosquitoes were made,' etc. I know the answer. They were created to aid civilization--otherwise, no man not an idiot would live anywhere else than in the woods." I am naturally glad to have this word of wisdom from an authority like Remington, but I still think that Providence could have achieved the same result and somehow managed to leave the mosquito out of it. Chapter Ten _Where the path is thick and the branches twine_ _I pray you, friend, beware!_ _For the noxious breath of a lurking vine_ _May wither your gladness there._ Chapter Ten It was raining next morning, but that was not the worst. During the night I had awakened with a curious, but not entirely unfamiliar sensation about one of my eyes. There was a slight irritant, itching tendency, and the flesh felt puffy to the touch. I tried to believe it was imagination, and went to sleep again. But there was no doubt next morning. Imagination is a taunting jade, but I don't believe she could close one of my eyes and fatten up the other--not in so short a time. It was poison ivy--that was what it was--and I had it bad. [Illustration: "Our one looking-glass was not big enough to hold all of even one eye."] When Eddie woke, which he did, finally, he took one look at me and dove back into his sleeping bag out of pure fear. He said I was a sight, and he was correct. Our one looking-glass was not big enough to hold all of even one eye, but taking my features in sections I could see that he had not overstated my appearance. Perhaps the situation was amusing, too--at least Eddie, and even the guides, professed to be entertained--but for me, huddled against one side of a six by eight tent--a tent otherwise packed with bags and bundles and traps of various kinds--Eddie's things, mostly, and Eddie himself among them--with a chill rain coming down outside, and with a face swollen and aching in a desperate way with poison, the quality of the humor to me seemed strained when I tried to distinguish it with the part of an eye I had left. Eddie meantime had dived down into his bag of remedies, happy to have a chance to use any or all of them, and was laying them out on his sleeping bag in front of him--in his lap, as it were, for he had not yet arisen--reading the labels and wondering which he should try on me first. I waited a little, then I said: "Never mind those, Eddie, give me your alcohol and witch hazel." But then came an embarrassing moment. Running his eye over the bottles and cans Eddie was obliged to confess that not one of them contained either alcohol or witch hazel. "Eddie," I said reproachfully, "can it be, in a drug store like that, there is neither alcohol nor witch hazel?" He nodded dismally. "I meant to bring them," he said, "but the triple extract of gelsemium would do such a lot of things, and I thought I didn't need them, and then you made fun of that, and--and----" "Never mind, Eddie," I said, "I have an inspiration. If alcohol cures it, maybe whisky will, and thank Heaven we did bring the whisky!" We remained two days in that camp and I followed up the whisky treatment faithfully. It rained most of the time, so the delay did not matter. Indeed it was great luck that we were not held longer by that distressing disorder which comes of the malignant three-leaved plant known as mercury, or poison ivy. Often it has disqualified me for a week or more. But the whisky treatment was a success. Many times a day I bathed my face in the pure waters of the lake and then with the spirits--rye or Scotch, as happened to be handy. By the afternoon of the first day I could see to put sirup on my flapjacks, and once between showers I felt able to go out with Eddie in the canoe, during which excursion he took a wonderful string of trout in a stagnant-looking, scummy pool where no one would ever expect trout to lie, and where no one but Eddie could have taken them at all. By the next morning, after a night of sorrow--for my face always pained and itched worse when everybody was in bed and still, with nothing to soothe me but the eternal drip, drip from the boughs and from the eaves of the tent--the swelling was still further reduced, and I felt able to travel. And I wish to add here in all seriousness that whatever may be your scruples against the use of liquors, don't go into the woods without whisky--rye or Scotch, according to preference. Alcohol, of course, is good for poison ivy, but whisky is better. Maybe it is because of the drugs that wicked men are said to put into it. Besides, whisky has other uses. The guides told us of one perfectly rigid person who, when he had discovered that whisky was being included in his camp supplies, had become properly incensed, and commanded that it be left at home. The guides had pleaded that he need not drink any of it, that they would attend to that part of what seemed to them a necessary camp duty, but he was petrified in his morals, and the whisky remained behind. Well, they struck a chilly snap, and it rained. It was none of your little summer landscape rains, either. It was a deadly cold, driving, drenching saturation. Men who had built their houses on the sand, and had no whisky, were in a bad fix. The waves rose and the tents blew down, and the rigid, fossilized person had to be carried across an overflowed place on the back of a guide, lifting up his voice meanwhile in an effort to convince the Almighty that it was a mistake to let it rain at this particular time, and calling for whisky at every step. It is well to carry one's morals into the woods, but if I had to leave either behind, I should take the whisky. It was a short carry to Lake Pescawah. Beyond that water we carried again about a quarter of a mile to a lake called Pebbleloggitch--perhaps for the reason that the Indian who picked out the name couldn't find a harder one. From Pebbleloggitch we made our way by a long canal-like stillwater through a land wherein no man--not even an Indian, perhaps--has ever made his home, for it lies through a weird, lonely marsh--a sort of meadow which no reaper ever harvested, where none but the wild moose ever feeds. We were nearing the edge of the unknown now. One of the guides, Del, I think, had been through this stillwater once before, a long time ago. At the end of it, he knew, lay the upper Shelburne River, which was said to flow through a sheet of water called Irving Lake. But where the river entered the lake and where it left it was for us to learn. Already forty miles or more from our starting point, straight into the wilderness, we were isolated from all mankind, and the undiscovered lay directly before. At the end of the stillwater Del said: "Well, gentlemen, from this on you know as much of the country as I do. All I know is what I've heard, and that's not much. I guess most of it we'll have to learn for ourselves." Chapter Eleven _By lonely tarn, mid thicket deep,_ _The she-moose comes to bear_ _Her sturdy young, and she doth keep_ _It safely guarded there._ Chapter Eleven We got any amount of fly-casting in the Pebbleloggitch stillwater, but no trout. I kept Del dodging and twice I succeeded in hooking him, though not in a vital spot. I could have done it, however, if he had sat still and given me a fair chance. I could land Del even with the treetop cast, but the trout refused to be allured. As a rule, trout would not care to live in a place like that. There would not be enough excitement and activity. A trout prefers a place where the water is busy--where the very effort of keeping from being smashed and battered against the rocks insures a good circulation and a constitution like a steel spring. I have taken trout out of water that would have pulverized a golf ball in five minutes. The fiercer the current--the greater the tumult--the more cruel and savage the rocks, the better place it is for trout. Neither do I remember that we took anything in the Shelburne above Irving Lake, for it was a good deal like the stillwater, with only a gentle riffle here and there. Besides, the day had become chill, and a mist had fallen upon this lonely world--a wet white, drifting mist that was closely akin to rain. On such a day one does not expect trout to rise, and is seldom disappointed. Here and there, where the current was slow-moving and unruffled, Eddie, perhaps, would have tried his dry flies, but never a trout was seen to break water, and it is one of the tenets of dry-fly fishing that a cast may only be made where a trout has been seen to rise--even then, only after a good deal of careful maneuvering on shore to reach the proper spot on the bank without breaking the news to the trout. It wasn't a pleasant time to go wriggling through marsh grass and things along the shore, so it is just as well that there was no excuse for doing it. As it was, we paddled rather silently down the still river, considerably impressed with the thought that we were entering a land to us unknown--that for far and far in every direction, beyond the white mist that shut us in and half-obliterated the world, it was likely that there was no human soul that was not of our party and we were quieted by the silence and the loneliness on every hand. Where the river entered the lake there was no dashing, tumbling water. In fact, we did not realize that we had reached the lake level until the shores on either hand receded, slowly at first, and then broadly widening, melted away and were half lost in the mist. The feeling grew upon me, all at once, that we were very high here. There were no hills or ridges that we could see, and the outlines of such timber as grew along the shore seemed low. It was as if we had reached the top of the world, where there were no more hills--where the trees had been obliged to struggle up to our altitude, barely to fringe us round. As for course now, we had none. Our map was of the vaguest sort. Where the outlet was we could only surmise. In a general way it was supposed to be at the "other end" of the lake, where there was said to be an old dam, built when the region was lumbered, long ago. But as to the shape of the lake, and just where that "other end" might lie, when every side except the bit of shore nearest at hand was lost in the wet, chill mist, were matters for conjecture and experiment. We paddled a little distance and some islands came out of the gray veil ahead--green Nova Scotia islands, with their ledges of rock, some underbrush and a few sentinel pines. We ran in close to these, our guides looking for moose or signs of them. I may say here that no expedition in Nova Scotia is a success without having seen at least one moose. Of course, in the hunting season, the moose is the prime object, but such is the passion for this animal among Nova Scotia guides, that whatever the season or the purpose of the expedition, and however triumphant its result, it is accounted a disappointment and a failure by the natives when it ends without at least a glimpse of a moose. We were in wonderful moose country now; the uninvaded wild, where in trackless bog and swamp, or on the lonely and forgotten islands the she-moose secludes herself to bear and rear her young. That Charlie and Del were more absorbed in the possibility of getting a sight of these great, timid, vanishing visions of animal life--and perhaps a longer view of a little black, bleating calf--than in any exploration for the other end of the Shelburne River was evident. They clung and hovered about those islands, poking the canoes into every nook and corner, speaking in whispers, and sitting up straight at sight of any dark-looking stump or bunch of leaves. Eddie, too, seemed a good deal interested in the moose idea. I discovered presently that he was ambitious to send a specimen of a moose calf, dead or alive, to the British Museum, and would improve any opportunity to acquire that asset. I may say that I was opposed to any such purpose. I am overfond of Eddie, and I wanted him to have a good standing with the museum people, but I did not like the idea of slaughtering a little calf moose before its mother's very eyes, and I did not approve of its capture, either. Even if the mother moose could be convinced that our intentions were good, and was willing to have her offspring civilized and in the British Museum, or Zoo, or some other distinguished place, I still opposed the general scheme. It did not seem to me that a calf moose tied either outside or inside of our tent for a period of weeks, to bleat and tear around, and to kick over and muss up things generally, would be a proper feature to add to a well-ordered camp, especially if it kept on raining and we had to bring him inside. I knew that eventually he would own that tent, and probably demand a sleeping bag. I knew that I should have to give him mine, or at least share it with him. I stated and emphasized these views and insisted that we go over toward the half-obscured shore, where there appeared to be an opening which might be the river. We did go over there, at length, and there was, in fact, an opening, but it was made by a brook entering the lake instead of leaving it. Our memorandum of information declared that a stream called the Susketch emptied into the lake somewhere, and we decided to identify this as the place. We went up a little way to a good looking pool, but there were no trout--at least, they refused to rise, though probably the oldest and mossiest inhabitant of that place had never had such an opportunity before. Back to the lake again, we were pretty soon hovering about the enchanted islands, which seemed to rise on every hand. It was just the sort of a day to see moose, Del said, and there was no other matter that would stand in importance against a proposition like that. I became interested myself, presently, and dropped my voice to a whisper and sat up at every black spot among the leaves. We had just about given it up at length, when all at once Del gave the canoe a great shove inshore, at the same time calling softly to the other canoe, which had already sheared off into the lake. They were with us in an instant and we were clambering out. I hadn't seen a thing, but Del swore that he had caught a glimpse of something black that moved and disappeared. Of course we were clad in our wet-weather armor. I had on my oilskins, and what was more, those high, heavy wading boots that came up under my arms. It is no easy matter to get over even level ground rapidly with a rig like that, and when it comes to scaling an island, full of ledges and holes and underbrush and vines, the problem becomes complex. Del and Charlie, with their shoepacks, distanced me as easily as if I had been sitting still, while that grasshopper, Eddie, with only the lightest sort of waders, skipped and scampered away and left me plunging and floundering about in the brush, with scarcely the possibility of seeing anything, even if it were directly in front of my nose. As a matter of fact, I didn't care anything about seeing moose, and was only running and making a donkey of myself because the others were doing it, and I had caught a touch of their disease. Suddenly, I heard Charlie call, "There they are! There they go!" and with a wild redoubled effort I went headlong into a deep pit, half-filled with leaves and brush, and muck of various sorts. This, of course, would seem to assassinate any hope I might have of seeing the moose, but just then, by some occult process, Charles, the Strong, discovered my disaster, and with that prowess which has made him famous yanked me out of the mess, stood me on my feet and had me running again, wallowing through the bushes toward the other side of the little island whence the moose had fled. "There they go--they are swimming!" I heard Del call, and then Eddie: "I see em! I see em!" and then Charles's voice, a little ahead of me: [Illustration: "Hurry! Hurry! They've got over to the shore!"] "Hurry! Hurry! They've got over to the shore!" I reached the shore myself just then--our shore, I mean--on all fours and full of scratches and bruises, but not too late, for beyond a wide neck of water, on the mainland, two dark phantoms drifted a little way through the mist and vanished into the dark foliage behind. It was only a glimpse I had and I was battered up and still disordered, more or less, with the ivy poison. But somehow I was satisfied. For one thing, I had become infected with a tinge of the native enthusiasm about seeing the great game of the woods, and then down in my soul I rejoiced that Eddie had failed to capture the little calf. Furthermore, it was comforting to reflect that even from the guides' point of view, our expedition, whatever else might come, must be considered a success. We now got down to business. It was well along toward evening, and though these days were long days, this one, with its somber skies and heavy mist, would close in early. We felt that it was desirable to find the lake's outlet before pitching our tents, for the islands make rather poor camping places and lake fishing is apt to be slow work. We wanted to get settled in camp on the lower Shelburne before night and be ready for the next day's sport. We therefore separated, agreeing upon a signal of two shots from whichever of us had the skill or fortune to discover the outlet. The other canoe faded into the mist below the islands while we paddled slowly toward the gray green shores opposite. When presently we were all alone, I was filled, somehow, with the feeling that must have come over those old Canadian voyageurs who were first to make their way through the northlands, threading the network of unknown waters. I could not get rid of the idea that we were pioneers in this desolate spot, and so far as sportsmen were concerned, it may be that we were. Chapter Twelve _The lake is dull with the drifting mist,_ _And the shores are dim and blind;_ _And where is the way ahead, to-day,_ _And what of the path behind?_ Chapter Twelve Along the wet, blurred shore we cruised, the mist getting thicker and more like rain. Here and there we entered some little bay or nook that from a distance looked as if it might be an outlet. Eventually we lost all direction and simply investigated at random wherever any appearance seemed inviting. Once we went up a long slough and were almost ready to fire the signal shots when we discovered our mistake. It seemed a narrow escape from the humiliation of giving a false alarm. What had become of the others we did not know. Evidently the lake was a big one and they might be miles away. Eddie had the only compass, though this would seem to be of no special advantage. At last, just before us, the shore parted--a definite, wide parting it was, that when we pushed into it did not close and come to nothing, but kept on and on, opening out ahead. We went a good way in, to make sure. The water seemed very still, but then we remembered the flatness of the country. Undoubtedly this was the outlet, and we had discovered it. It was only natural that we should feel a certain elation in our having had the good fortune--the instinct, as it were--to proceed aright. I lifted my gun and it was with a sort of triumphant flourish that I fired the two signal shots. It may be that the reader will not fully understand the importance of finding a little thing like the outlet of a lake on a wet, disagreeable day when the other fellows are looking for it, too; and here, to-day, far away from that northern desolation, it does not seem even to me a very great affair whether our canoe or Eddie's made the discovery. But for some reason it counted a lot then, and I suppose Del and I were unduly elated over our success. It was just as well that we were, for our period of joy was brief. In the very instant while my finger was still touching the trigger, we heard come soggily through the mist, from far down the chill, gray water, one shot and then another. I looked at Del and he at me. "They've found something, too," I said. "Do you suppose there are two outlets? Anyhow, here goes," and I fired again our two shots of discovery, and a little later two more so that there might be no mistake in our manifest. I was not content, you see, with the possibility of being considered just an ordinary ass, I must establish proof beyond question of a supreme idiocy in the matter of woodcraft. That is my way in many things. I know, for I have done it often. I shall keep on doing it, I suppose, until the moment when I am permitted to say, "I die innocent." "They only think they have found something," I said to Del now. "It's probably the long slough we found a while ago. They'll be up here quick enough," and I fired yet two more shots, to rub it in. But now two more shots came also from Eddie, and again two more. By this time we had pushed several hundred yards farther into the opening, and there was no doubt but that it was a genuine river. I was growing every moment more elated with our triumph over the others and in thinking how we would ride them down when they finally had to abandon their lead and follow ours, when all at once Del, who had been looking over the side of the canoe grew grave and stopped paddling. "There seems to be a little current here," he pointing down to the grass which showed plainly now in the clear water, "yes--there--is--a current," he went on very slowly, his voice becoming more dismal at every word, "but it's going the wrong way!" I looked down intently. Sure enough, the grass on the bottom pointed back toward the lake. "Then it isn't the Shelburne, after all," I said, "but another river we've discovered." Del looked at me pathetically. "It's the Shelburne, all right," he nodded, and there was deep suffering in his tones, "oh, yes, it's the Shelburne--only it happens to be the upper end--the place where we came in. That rock is where you stopped to make a few casts." No canoe ever got out of the upper Shelburne River quicker than ours. Those first old voyageurs of that waste region never made better time down Irving Lake. Only, now and then, I fired some more to announce our coming, and to prepare for the lie we meant to establish that we only had been replying to their shots all along and not announcing anything new and important of our own. But it was no use. We had guilt written on our features, and we never had been taught to lie convincingly. In fact it was wasted effort from the start. The other canoe had been near enough when we entered the trap to see us go in, and even then had located the true opening, which was no great distance away. They jeered us to silence and they rode us down. They carefully drew our attention to the old log dam in proof that this was the real outlet; they pointed to the rapid outpouring current for it was a swift boiling stream here--and asked us if we could tell which way it was flowing. For a time our disgrace was both active and complete. Then came a diversion. Real rain--the usual night downpour--set in, and there was a scramble to get the tents up and our goods under cover. Yet the abuse had told on me. One of my eyes--the last to yield to the whisky treatment, began to throb a good deal--and I dragged off my wet clothes, got on a dry garment (the only thing I had left by this time that was dry) and worked my way laboriously, section by section, into my sleeping bag, after which Eddie was sorry for me--as I knew he would be--and brought me a cup of tea and some toast and put a nice piece of chocolate into my mouth and sang me a song. It had been a pretty strenuous day, and I had been bruised and cold and wet and scratched and humiliated. But the tea and toast put me in a forgiving spirit, and the chocolate was good, and Eddie can sing. I was dry, too, and reasonably warm. And the rain hissing into the campfire at the door had a soothing sound. Chapter Thirteen _Now take the advice that I do not need--_ _That I do not heed, alway:_ _For there's many a fool can make a rule_ _Which only the wise obey._ Chapter Thirteen As usual, the clouds had emptied themselves by morning. The sky was still dull and threatening, and from the tent door the water of the lake was gray. But the mist had gone, and the islands came out green and beautiful. The conditions made it possible to get some clothing decently smoked and scorched, which is the nearest approach to dryness one is ever likely to achieve in the woods in a rainy season. I may say here that the time will come--and all too soon, in a period of rain--when you will reach your last dry suit of underwear--and get it wet. Then have a care. Be content to stay in a safe, dry spot, if you can find one--you will have to go to bed, of course, to do it until something is dry--that is, pretty dry. To change from one wet suit to another only a little less so is conducive neither to comfort nor to a peaceful old age. Above all, do not put on your night garment, or garments, for underwear, for they will get wet, too; then your condition will be desperate. I submit the above as good advice. I know it is good advice for I did not follow it. I have never followed good advice--I have only given it. At the end of several nights of rain and moist days, I had nothing really dry but my nightshirt and one slipper and I think Eddie's condition was not so far removed. What we did was to pick out the least damp of our things and smoke and scorch them on a pole over the campfire until they had a sort of a half-done look, like bread toasted over a gas jet; then suddenly we would seize them and put them on hot and go around steaming, and smelling of leaf smoke and burnt dry goods--these odors blended with the fragrance of camphor, tar and pennyroyal, with which we were presently saturated in every pore. For though it was said to be too late for black flies and too early for mosquitoes, the rear guard of the one and the advance guard of the other combined to furnish us with a good deal of special occupation. The most devoted follower of the Prophet never anointed himself oftener than we did, and of course this continuous oily application made it impossible to wash very perfectly; besides, it seemed a waste to wash off the precious protection when to do so meant only another immediate and more thorough treatment. I will dwell for a moment on this matter of washing. Fishing and camping, though fairly clean recreations, will be found not altogether free from soiling and grimy tendencies, and when one does not or cannot thoroughly remove the evidences several times a day, they begin to tell on his general appearance. Gradually our hands lost everything original except their shape. Then I found that to shave took off a good deal of valuable ointment each time, and I approved of Eddie's ideas in this direction to the extent of following his example. I believe, though, that I washed myself longer than he did--that is, at stated intervals. Of course we never gave up the habit altogether. It would break out sporadically and at unexpected moments, but I do not recall that these lapses ever became dangerous or offensive. My recollection is that Eddie gave up washing as a mania, that morning at the foot of Irving Lake and that I held out until the next sunrise. Or it may have been only until that evening--it does not matter. Washing is a good deal a question of pride, anyway, and pride did not count any more. Even self-respect had lost its charm. [Illustration: "If one's things are well smoked and scorched and scalded and put on hot in the morning----"] [Illustration: "We never failed to hide the whisky."] In the matter of clothing, however, I wish to record that I never did put on my nightdress for an undergarment. I was tempted to do so, daily, but down within me a still small voice urged the rashness of such a deed and each night I was thankful for that caution. If one's things are well smoked and scorched and scalded and put on hot in the morning, he can forget presently that they are not also dry, and there is a chance that they may become so before night; but to face the prospect of getting into a wet garment to sleep, that would have a tendency to destroy the rare charm and flavor of camp life. In time I clung to my dry nightshirt as to a life-belt. I wrapped it up mornings as a jewel, buried it deep in the bottom of my bag, and I locked the bag. Not that Eddie did not have one of his own--it may be that he had a variety of such things--and as for the guides, I have a notion that they prefer wet clothes. But though this was a wild country, where it was unlikely that we should meet any living soul, there was always the possibility of a stray prospector or a hunter, and a dry garment in a wet time is a temptation which should not be put in any man's way. Neither that nor the liquor supply. When we left our camp--as we did, often--our guns, our tackle, even our purses and watches, were likely to be scattered about in plain view; but we never failed to hide the whisky. Whisky is fair loot, and the woodsman who would scorn to steal even a dry shirt would carry off whisky and revel in his shame. There were quantities of trout in the lower Shelburne, and in a pool just below the camp, next morning, Eddie and I took a dozen or more--enough for breakfast and to spare--in a very few minutes. They were lively fish--rather light in color, but beautifully marked and small enough to be sweet and tender, that is, not much over a half-pound weight. In fact, by this time we were beginning to have a weakness for the smaller fish. The pound-and-upward trout, the most plentiful size, thus far, were likely to be rather dry and none too tender. When we needed a food supply, the under-sized fish were more welcome, and when, as happened only too rarely, we took one of the old-fashioned New England speckled beauty dimensions--that is to say, a trout of from seven to nine inches long and of a few ounces weight--it was welcomed with real joy. Big fish are a satisfaction at the end of a line and in the landing net, but when one really enters upon a trout diet--when at last it becomes necessary to serve them in six or seven different ways to make them go down--the demand for the smallest fish obtainable is pretty certain to develop, while the big ones are promptly returned with good wishes and God-speed to their native element. For of course no true sportsman ever keeps any trout he cannot use. Only the "fish-hog" does that. A trout caught on a fly is seldom injured, and if returned immediately to the water will dart away, all the happier, it may be, for his recent tug-of-war. He suffers little or no pain in the tough cartilages about his mouth and gills (a fact I have demonstrated by hooking the same fish twice, both marks plainly showing on him when taken) and the new kind of exercise and experience he gets at the end of the line, and his momentary association with human beings, constitute for him a valuable asset, perhaps to be retailed in the form of reminiscence throughout old age. But to fling him into a canoe, to gasp and die and be thrown away, that is a different matter. That is a crime worse than stealing a man's lunch or his last dry undershirt, or even his whisky. In the first place, kill your trout the moment you take him out of the water--that is, if you mean to eat him. If he is too big, or if you already have enough, put him back with all expedition and let him swim away. Even if he does warn the other trout and spoil the fishing in that pool, there are more pools, and then it is likely you have fished enough in that one, anyway. Come back next year and have another battle with him. He will be bigger and know better what to do then. Perhaps it will be his turn to win. In the matter of killing a fish there are several ways to do it. Some might prefer to set him up on the bank and shoot at him. Another way would be to brain him with an ax. The guides have a way of breaking a trout's neck by a skillful movement which I never could duplicate. My own method is to sever the vertebræ just back of the ears--gills, I mean--with the point of a sharp knife. It is quick and effective. I don't know why I am running on with digression and advice this way. Perhaps because about this period I had had enough experience to feel capable of giving advice. A little experience breeds a lot of advice. I knew a man once----[3] FOOTNOTES: [3] The publisher wished me to go on with the story at this point. The man referred to above got his experience in Wall Street. He got enough in half a day to keep him in advice for forty-seven years. Chapter Fourteen _Oh, never a voice to answer here,_ _And never a face to see--_ _Mid chill and damp we build our camp_ _Under the hemlock tree._ Chapter Fourteen In spite of the rains the waters of the Shelburne were too low at this point to descend in the canoes. The pools were pretty small affairs and the rapids long, shallow and very ragged. It is good sport to run rapids in a canoe when there is plenty of swift water and a fair percentage of danger. But these were dangerous only to the canoes, which in many places would not even float, loaded as we were. It became evident that the guides would have to wade and drag, with here and there a carry, to get the boats down to deeper water--provided always there _was_ deeper water, which we did not doubt. Eddie and I set out ahead, and having had our morning's fishing, kept pretty well to the bank where the walking was fairly good. We felt pleasant and comfortable and paid not much attention to the stream, except where a tempting pool invited a cast or two, usually with prompt returns, though we kept only a few, smaller fish. We found the banks more attractive. Men had seldom disturbed the life there, and birds sang an arm's length away, or regarded us quietly, without distrust. Here and there a hermit thrush--the sweetest and shyest of birds--himself unseen, charmed us with his mellow syllables. Somehow, in the far, unfretted removal of it all, we felt at peace with every living thing, and when a partridge suddenly dropped down on a limb not three yards away, neither of us offered to shoot, though we had our rifles and Eddie his B. M. license to kill and skin and hence to eat, and though fish were at a discount and game not overplentiful. And then we were rewarded by a curious and beautiful exhibition. For the partridge was a mother bird, and just at our feet there was a peeping and a scampering of little brown balls that disappeared like magic among the leaves--her fussy, furry brood. I don't think she mistrusted our intent--at least, not much. But she wanted to make sure. She was not fully satisfied to have us remain just there, with her babies hiding not two yards away. She dropped on the ground herself, directly in front of us--so close that one might almost touch her--and letting one of her wings fall loosely, looked back at us over her shoulder as if to say, "You see, it is broken. If you wish, you can catch me, easily." So we let her fool us--at least, we let her believe we were deceived--and made as if to stoop for her, and followed each time when she ran a few steps farther ahead, until little by little she had led us away from her family. Then when she was sure that we really did not want her or her chickens, but cared only to be amused, she ran quickly a little way farther and disappeared, and we saw her no more. Within a minute or two from that time she was probably back with her little folks, and they were debating as to whether we were bird or beast, and why we carried that curious combination of smells. It was such incidents as this that led us on. The morning was gone, presently, and we had no means of knowing how far we had come. It seemed to us but a short way. We forgot the windings of the stream, some of which we had eluded by cut-offs, and how many hard places there would be for Del and Charlie to get over with the canoes. As a matter of fact we rather expected them to overtake us at any time, and as the pools became deeper and longer and the rapids somewhat more navigable we feared to leave the stream on the chance of being passed. It was about one o'clock when we reached a really beautiful stretch of water, wide and deep, and navigable for an indefinite distance. Here we stopped to get fish for luncheon, and to wait for the boats, which we anticipated at any moment. It was a wonderful place to fish. One could wade out and get long casts up and down, and the trout rose to almost any fly. Eddie caught a white perch at last and I two yellow ones, not very plentiful in these waters and most desirable from the food point of view. The place seemed really inexhaustible. I think there were few trout larger than fourteen inches in length, but of these there were a great many, and a good supply of the speckled beauty size. When we had enough of these for any possible luncheon demand, and were fairly weary of casting and reeling in, we suddenly realized that we were hungry; also that it was well into the afternoon and that there were no canoes in sight. Furthermore, in the enthusiasm of the sport we had both of us more than once stepped beyond the gunwales of our waders and had our boots full of water, besides being otherwise wet. Once, in fact, I had slipped off a log on all fours, in a rather deep place. It began to be necessary that we should have a camp and be fed. Still we waited hopefully, expecting every moment to see the canoes push around the bend. Eventually we were seized with misgivings. Could the guides have met with shipwreck in some desperate place and disabled one or both of the canoes, perhaps losing our stores? The thought was depressing. Was it possible that they had really passed us during some period when we had left the water, and were now far ahead? We could not believe it. Could it be that the river had divided at some unseen point and that we had followed one fork and they another? It did not seem probable. Perhaps, after all, we had come farther than we believed, and they had been delayed by the difficulties of navigation. But when another hour passed and they did not appear or answer to our calls, the reason for their delay did not matter. We were wet, cold and hungry. Food and fire were the necessary articles. We had not a scrap of food except our uncooked fish, and it would be no easy matter, without ax or hatchet, to get a fire started in those rain-soaked woods. Also, we had no salt, but that was secondary. Eddie said he would try to build a fire if I would clean some fish, but this proved pretty lonesome work for both of us. We decided to both build and then both clean the fish. We dug down under the leaves for dry twigs, but they were not plentiful. Then we split open some dead spruce branches and got a few resinous slivers from the heart of them, a good many in fact, and we patiently gathered bits of reasonably dry bark and branches from under the sheltered side of logs and rocks and leaning trees. We meant to construct our fire very carefully and we did. We scooped a little hollow in the ground for draught, and laid in some of the drier pieces of bark, upon which to pile our spruce slivers. Upon these in turn we laid very carefully what seemed to be our driest selections of twigs, increasing the size with each layer, until we laid on limbs of goodly bulk and had a very respectable looking heap of fuel, ready for lighting on the windward side. Our mistake was that we did not light it sooner. The weight of our larger fuel had pressed hard upon our little heap of spruce slivers and flattened it, when it should have remained loose and quickly inflammable, with the larger fuel lying handy, to be added at the proper moment. As it was, the tiny blaze had a habit of going out just about the time when it ought to have been starting some bigger material. When we did get a sickly flame going up through the little damp mess of stuff, there was a good deal more smoke than fire and we were able to keep the blaze alive only by energetic encouragement in the form of blowing. First Eddie would get down on his hands, with his chin against the ground and blow until he was apoplectic and blind with smoke, and then I would take my turn. I never saw two full-grown men so anxious over a little measly fire in my life. We almost forgot that we were perishing with cold and hunger ourselves in our anxiety to keep the spark of life in that fire. We saved the puny thing, finally, and it waxed strong. Then we put in a good deal of time feeding and nursing our charge and making it warm and comfortable before we considered ourselves. And how did the ungrateful thing repay us? By filling our eyes with smoke and chasing us from side to side, pursuing us even behind trees to blind and torture us with its acrid smarting vapors. In fact, the perversity of campfire smoke remains one of the unexplained mysteries. I have seen a fire properly built between two tents--with good draught and the whole wide sky to hold the smoke--suddenly send a column of suffocating vapor directly into the door of the tent, where there was no draught, no room, no demand at all for smoke. I have had it track me into the remotest corner of my sleeping-bag and have found it waiting for me when I came up for a breath of air. I have had it come clear around the tent to strangle me when I had taken refuge on the back side. I have had it follow me through the bushes, up a tree, over a cliff---- As I was saying, we got the fire going. After that the rest was easy. It was simply a matter of cleaning a few trout, sticking them on sticks and fighting the smoke fiend with one hand while we burnt and blackened the trout a little with the other, and ate them, _sans_ salt, _sans_ fork, _sans_ knife, _sans_ everything. Not that they were not good. I have never eaten any better raw, unsalted trout anywhere, not even at Delmonico's. [Illustration: "It's all in a day's camping, of course."] The matter of getting dry and warm was different. It is not the pleasantest thing in the world, even by a very respectable fire such as we had now achieved, to take off all of one's things without the protection of a tent, especially when the woods are damp and trickly and there is a still small breath of chill wind blowing, and to have to hop and skip, on one foot and then on the other, to keep the circulation going while your things are on a limb in the smoke, getting scalded and fumigated, and black edged here and there where the flame has singed up high. It's all in a day's camping, of course, and altogether worth while, but when the shades of night are closing in and one is still doing a spectral dance about a dying fire, in a wet wood, on a stomach full of raw trout, then the camping day seems pretty long and there is pressing need of other diversion. It was well toward night when we decided that our clothes were scorched enough for comfortable wear, and a late hour it was, for the June days in the north woods are long. We had at no time lost sight of the river, and we began to realize the positive necessity of locating our guides and canoes. We had given up trying to understand the delay. We decided to follow back up the river until we found them, or until we reached some other branch which they might have chosen. It was just as we were about to begin this discouraging undertaking that far up the bend we heard a call, then another. We answered, both together, and in the reply we recognized the tones of Charles the Strong. Presently they came in sight--each dragging a canoe over the last riffle just above the long hole. A moment later we had hurried back to meet two of the weariest, wettest, most bedraggled mortals that ever poled and dragged and carried canoe. All day they had been pulling and lifting; loading, unloading and carrying those canoes and bags and baskets over the Shelburne riffles, where not even the lightest craft could float. How long had been the distance they did not know, but the miles had been sore, tedious miles, and they had eaten nothing more than a biscuit, expecting at every bend to find us waiting. It was proper that we should make camp now at the first inviting place. We offered to stop right there, where our fire was already going, but it was decided that the ground was a poor selection, being rather low. We piled into the canoes and shot down the long hole, while the light of evening was fading from the sky. Several hundred yards below, the water widened and the bank sloped higher. It seemed an attractive spot and we already knew the fishing in these waters. But as a final test Eddie made a cast as we rounded, tossing his flies into an inviting swirl just below a huge bowlder. For some reason we had put on three flies, and when he finally got his mess of fish into the net, there were three trout--all good ones--one on each fly. We decided to camp there, for good luck, and to stay until we were fully repaired for travel. No camp was ever more warmly welcomed, or ever will be more fondly remembered by us all. Chapter Fifteen _To-night, to-night, the frost is white,_ _Under the silver moon;_ _And lo, I lie, as the hours go by,_ _Freezing to death in June._ Chapter Fifteen The reader will have gathered by this time that I had set out with only a hazy idea of what camping in Nova Scotia would be like. I think I had some notion that our beds would be down in the mud as often as not, and sticky and disagreeable--something to be endured for the sake of the day's sport. Things were not as I expected, of course. Things never are. Our beds were not in the mud--not often--and there were days--chill, wet, disheartening days--when I looked forward to them and to the campfire blaze at the tent door with that comfort which a child finds in the prospect of its mother's arm. On the whole, I am sure our camps were more commodious than I had expected them to be; and they were pretentious affairs, considering that we were likely to occupy them no more than one night. We had three tents--Eddie's, already described; a tent for the guides, of about the same proportions, and a top or roof tent, under which we dined when it rained. Then there was a little porch arrangement which we sometimes put out over the front, but we found it had the bad habit of inviting the smoke to investigate and permeate our quarters, so we dedicated the little porch fly to other uses. A waterproof ground cloth was spread between our stretcher beds, and upon the latter, as mentioned before, were our sleeping-bags; also our various bundles, cozily and conveniently bestowed. It was an inviting interior, on the whole something to anticipate, as I have said. Yet our beds were not perfect. Few things are. I am a rather large man, and about three o'clock in the morning I was likely to wake up somewhat cramped and pinched together from being so long in the little canvas trough, with no good way of putting out my arms; besides being a little cold, maybe, because about that hour the temperature seemed to make a specialty of dropping low enough to get underneath one's couch and creep up around the back and shoulders. It is true it was June, but June nights in Nova Scotia have a way of forgetting that it is drowsy, scented summertime; and I recall now times when I looked out through the tent flap and saw the white frost gleaming on the trees, and wondered if there was any sum of money too big to exchange for a dozen blankets or so, and if, on the whole, perishing as I was, I would not be justified in drugging Eddie in taking possession of his sleeping-bag. He had already given me one of the woolen pockets, for compared with mine his was a genuine Arctic affair, and, I really believe, kept him disgustingly warm, even when I was freezing. I was grateful, of course, for I should have perished early in the fight without it. I was also appreciative. I knew just how much warmer a few more of those soft, fleecy pockets would make me, especially on those nights when I woke about the cheerless hour of three, to find the world all hard and white, with the frost fingers creeping down my shoulder blades and along my spine. Then it was I would work around and around--slowly and with due deliberation of movement, for a sleeping-bag is not a thing of sudden and careless revolution--trying to find some position or angle wherein the cold would not so easily and surely find my vitals. At such a time, the desire for real comfort and warmth is acute, and having already one of Eddie's pockets and realizing its sterling worth--also that no more than two feet away from me he lay warm and snug, buried in the undue luxury of still other pockets--I may confess now I was goaded almost to the point of arising and taking peremptory possession of the few paltry pockets that would make my lot less hard. [Illustration: "Nightly he painted my scratches with new skin."] Sooner or later, I suppose, I should have murdered Eddie for his blankets if he had not been good to me in so many ways. Daily he gave me leaders, lines, new flies and such things; nightly he painted my scratches with new skin. On the slightest provocation he would have rubbed me generously with liniment, for he had a new, unopened bottle which he was dying to try. Then there was scarcely an evening after I was in bed--I was always first to go, for Eddie liked to prepare his bed unhurriedly--that he did not bring me a drink, and comfort me with something nice to eat, and maybe sing a little while he was "tickling" his own bed (there is no other name for it), and when he had finished with the countless little tappings, and pattings, and final touches which insured the reposeful comfort of his couch, he would place the candle lantern just between, where each could see equally well and so read a little in order that we might compose our minds for rest. Chapter Sixteen _Now snug, the camp--the candle-lamp,_ _Alighted stands between--_ _I follow "Alice" in her tramp_ _And you your "Folly Queen."_ Chapter Sixteen In the matter of Eddie's reading, however, I was not wholly satisfied. When we had been leaving the little hotel, he had asked me, suddenly, what I would take for reading in the woods. He added that he always read a little at night, upon retiring, and from his manner of saying it, I assumed that such reading might be of a religious nature. Now, I had not previously thought of taking anything, but just then I happened to notice lying upon the table a copy of "Alice in Wonderland," evidently belonging to the premises, and I said I would take that. I had not foregathered with Alice and the White Rabbit for a good while, and it seemed to me that in the depths of an enchanted wood I might properly and profitably renew their acquaintance. The story would hardly offend Eddie, even while he was finding solace in his prayer-book. I was only vaguely troubled when on the first night of our little reading exercise I noticed that Eddie's book was not of the sort which I had been led to expect, but was a rather thick, suspicious-looking affair, paper-bound. Still, I reflected, it might be an ecclesiastical treatise, or even what is known as a theological novel, and being absorbed just then in an endeavor to accompany Alice into the wonderful garden I did not investigate. What was my surprise--my shock, I may say--next morning, on picking up the volume, to discover that it was printed in a foreign language, and that language French--always a suspicious thing in print--and to learn further, when by dint of recalling old school exercises, I had spelled out the author's name and a sentence here and there, that not only was it in that suspicious language, but that it was a novel, and of a sort--well, of course there is only one thing worse than an English translation of a French novel, and that is a French novel which cannot be translated--by any one in this country, I mean, who hopes to keep out of jail. I became absorbed in an endeavor to unravel a passage here and there myself. But my French training had not fitted me for the task. My lessons had been all about the silk gloves of my uncle's children or of the fine leather shoes of my mother's aunt, and such innocent things. I could find no reference to them in Eddie's book. In fact I found on almost every page reference to things which had nothing to do with wardrobe of any sort, and there were words of which I had the deepest suspicion. I was tempted to fling the volume from me with a burning blush of shame. Certainly it was necessary to protest against the introduction of the baleful French novel into this sylvan retreat. I did so, later in the day, but it was no use. Eddie had already gulped down some twenty pages of the poison and would not listen to reason. There was a duchess in the book, and I knew immediately from the lame excuses he made for this person that she was not at all a proper associate for Eddie, especially in this remote place. I pleaded in vain. He had overtaken the duchess on the third page, and the gaud of her beauty was in his eyes. So it came to pass that while I was following gentle little Alice and the White Rabbit through a land of wonder and dreams, Eddie, by the light of the same candle, was chasing this butterfly of folly through a French court at the rate of some twenty finely printed pages every night, translating aloud here and there, until it sometimes became necessary for me to blow out the candle peremptorily, in order that both of us might compose our minds for needed slumber. Perhaps I am dwelling unnecessarily upon our camp detail, but, after all, the tent, with its daily and nightly round becomes a rather important thing when it is to be a habitation for a period of weeks of sun and storm; and any little gem of experience may not be wholly unwasted. Then there is the matter of getting along without friction, which seems important. A tent is a small place, and is likely to contain a good many things--especially in bad weather--besides yourselves. If you can manage to have your things so the other fellow will stumble over them as infrequently as possible, it is just as well for him, and safer for you. Also, for the things. Then, too, if you will make your beds at separate times, as we did, one remaining outside, or lying in a horizontal position among his own supplies while the other is in active operation, you are less likely to rub against each other, which sometimes means to rub in the wrong direction, with unhappy results. Of course forbearance is not a bad asset to have along, and a small measure of charity and consideration. It is well to take one's sense of humor, too, and any little remnant of imagination one may have lying about handy at the moment of starting. Many a well-constructed camp has gone to wreck during a spell of bad weather because one or more of its occupants did not bring along imagination and a sense of humor, or failed to produce these articles at the critical moment. Imagination beautifies many a desolate outlook--a laugh helps over many a hard place. Chapter Seventeen _Oh, the pulses leap where the fall is steep,_ _And the rocks rise grim and dark,_ _With the swirl and sweep of the rapids deep,_ _And the joy of the racing bark._ Chapter Seventeen We established a good camp on the Shelburne and remained in it for several days. For one thing, our canoes needed a general overhauling after that hard day on the rocks. Also, it rained nightly, and now and then took a turn at it during the day, to keep in practice. We minded the rain, of course, as it kept us forever cooking our clothes, and restrained a good deal of activity about the camp. Still, we argued that it was a good thing, for there was no telling what sort of water lay ahead and a series of rock-strewn rapids with low water might mean trouble. On the whole, we were willing to stay and put up with a good deal for the sport in that long pool. There may be better fishing on earth than in the Shelburne River between Irving and Sand lakes, but it will take something more than mere fisherman's gossip to convince either Eddie or me of that possibility. We left the guides and went out together one morning, and in less than three hours had taken full fifty fish of a pound each, average weight. We took off our top flies presently and fished with only one, which kept us busy enough, and always one of us had a taut line and a curved rod; often both at one time. We began to try experiments at last, and I took a good fish on one of the funny little scale-winged flies (I had happily lost the Jock Scott with two hooks early in the campaign) and finally got a big fellow by merely tying a bit of white absorbent cotton to a plain black hook. Yet curious are the ways of fish. For on the next morning--a perfect trout day, with a light southwest wind and running clouds, after a night of showers--never a rise could we get. We tried all the casts of the day before--the Parmcheenie, the Jenny Lind, the Silver Doctor and the Brown Hackle. It was no use. Perhaps the half a hundred big fellows we had returned to the pool had warned all the others; perhaps there was some other unwritten, occult law which prohibited trout from feasting on this particular day. Finally Eddie, by some chance, put on a sort of a Brown Hackle affair with a red piece of wool for a tail--he called it a Red Tag fly, I think--and straightway from out of the tarry black depths there rose such a trout as neither of us had seen the day before. After that, there was nothing the matter with Eddie's fishing. What there was about this brown, red-tailed joke that tickled the fancy of those great silly trout, who would have nothing to do with any other lure, is not for me to say. The creature certainly looked like nothing that ever lived, or that they could ever have imagined before. It seemed to me a particularly idiotic combination and I could feel my respect for the intelligence of trout waning. Eddie agreed with me as to that. He said he had merely bought the thing because it happened to be the only fly he didn't have in his collection and there had been a vacant place in his fly-book. He said it was funny the trout should go for it as they did, and he laughed a good deal about it. I suppose it was funny, but I did not find it very amusing. And how those crazy-headed trout did act. In vain I picked out flies with the red and brown colors and tossed them as carefully as I could in just the same spots where Eddie was getting those great whoppers at every cast. Some mysterious order from the high priest of all trout had gone forth that morning, prohibiting every sort and combination of trout food except this absurd creature of which the oldest and mossiest trout had never dreamed. That was why they went for it. It was the only thing not down on the list of proscribed items. There was nothing for me to do at last but to paddle Eddie around and watch him do some of the most beautiful fishing I have ever seen, and to net his trout for him, and take off the fish, and attend to any other little wants incident to a fisherman's busy day. I did it with as good grace as I could, of course, and said I enjoyed it, and tried not to be nasty and disagreeable in my attitude toward the trout, the water, Eddie, and the camp and country in general. But, after all, it is a severe test, on a day like that, to cast and cast and change flies until you have wet every one in your book, without even a rise, and to see the other chap taking great big black and mottled fellows--to see his rod curved like a whip and to watch the long, lithe body leaping and gleaming in the net. But the final test, the climax, was to come at evening. For when the fish would no longer rise, even to the Red Tag, we pulled up to the camp, where Eddie of course reported to the guides his triumph and my discomfiture. Then, just as he was opening his fly-book to put the precious red-tailed mockery away, he suddenly stopped and stared at me, hesitated, and held up another--that is, two of them, side by side. "So help me!" he swore, "I didn't know I had it! I must have forgotten I had one, and bought another, at another time. Now, I had forgotten that, too. So help me!" If I hadn't known Eddie so well--his proclivity for buying, and forgetting, and buying over again--also his sterling honor and general moral purity--the fishes would have got him then, Red Tag and all. As it was, I condescended to accept the second fly. I agreed that it was not such a bad production, after all, though I altered my opinion again, next morning, for whatever had been the embargo laid on other varieties of trout bait the day before, it was on now, and there was a general rising to anything we offered--Doctors, Parmcheenie, Absorbent Cotton--any old thing that skimmed the water and looked big and succulent. We broke camp that morning and dropped down toward the next lake--Sand Lake, it would be, by our crude map and hazy directions. There are no better rapids and there is no more lively fishing than we had on that run. There was enough water for us to remain in the canoes, and it was for the most part whirling, swirling, dashing, leaping water--shooting between great bowlders--plunging among cruel-looking black rocks--foaming into whirlpools below, that looked ready to swamp our light craft, with stores, crew, tackle, everything. It was my first exhibition of our guides' skill in handling their canoes. How they managed to just evade a sharp point of rock on one side and by a quick twist escape shipwreck from a bowlder or mass of bowlders on the other, I fail to comprehend. Then there were narrow boiling channels, so full of obstructions that I did not believe a chip could go through with entire safety. Yet somehow Del the Stout and Charles the Strong seemed to know, though they had never traveled this water before, just where the water would let the boats pass, just where the stones were wide enough to let us through--touching on both sides, sometimes, and ominously scraping on the bottom, but sliding and teetering into the cauldron below, where somehow we did not perish, perhaps because we shot so quickly through the foam. In the beginning I remembered a few brief and appropriate prayers, from a childhood where such things were a staff of comfort, and so made my peace with the world each time before we took the desperate plunge. But as nothing seemed to happen--nothing fatal, I mean--I presently gave myself up to the pure enjoyment of the tumult and exhilaration, without disturbing myself as to dangers here or hereafter. I do not believe the times that the guides got out of the canoes to ease them over hard places would exceed twice, and not oftener than that were we called on to assist them with the paddles. Even when we wished to do so, we were often requested to go on fishing, for the reason, I suppose, that in such a place one's unskilled efforts are likely to be misdirected with fatal results. Somewhat later we were to have an example of this kind--but I anticipate. We went on fishing. I never saw so many fish. We could take them as we shot a rapid, we could scoop them in as we leaped a fall. They seemed to be under every stone and lying in wait. There were great black fellows in every maelstrom; there were groups holding receptions for us in the stillwater pools below. It is likely that that bit of the Shelburne River had not been fished before within the memory of any trout then living, and when those red and blue and yellow flies came tumbling at them, they must have thought it was great day in the morning and that the white-faced prophets of big feeding had come. For years, the trout we returned to those pools will tell their friends and descendants of the marvels and enchantments of that day. I had given up my noibwood as being too strenuous in its demands for constant fishing, but I laid aside the light bamboo here in this high-pressure current and with this high-speed fishing, where trout sometimes leaped clear of the water for the fly cast on the foam far ahead, to be swinging a moment later at the end of the line almost as far behind. No very delicate rod would improve under a strain like that, and the tough old noibwood held true, and nobody cared--at least I didn't--whether the tip stayed set or not. It was bent double most of the time, anyway, and the rest of the time didn't matter. I don't know how many fish I took that day, but Eddie kept count of his, and recorded a total of seventy-four between camp and the great, splendid pool where the Shelburne foams out into Sand Lake, four miles or such a matter, below. I do know that we lost two landing nets in that swift water, one apiece, and this was a serious matter, for there were but two more, both Eddie's, and landing nets in the wilderness are not easy to replace. Of fish we kept possibly a dozen, the smallest ones. The others--larger and wiser now--are still frolicking in the waters of the Shelburne, unless some fish-hog has found his way to that fine water, which I think doubtful, for a fish-hog is usually too lazy and too stingy to spend the effort and time and money necessary to get there. Chapter Eighteen _There's nothing that's worse for sport, I guess,_ _Than killing to throw away;_ _And there's nothing that's better for recklessness_ _Than having a price to pay._ Chapter Eighteen We had other camp diversions besides reading. We had shooting matches, almost daily, one canoe against the other, usually at any stop we happened to make, whether for luncheon or to repair the canoes, or merely to prospect the country. On rainy days, and sometimes in the evening, we played a game of cards known under various names--I believe we called it pedro. At all events, you bid, and buy, and get set back, and have less when you get through than you had before you began. Anyhow, that is what my canoe did on sundry occasions. I am still convinced that Del and I played better cards than the other canoe, though the score would seem to show a different result. We were brilliant and speculative in our playing. They were plodders and not really in our class. Genius and dash are wasted on such persons. I am equally certain that our shooting was much worse than theirs, though the percentage of misses seemed to remain in their favor. In the matter of bull's-eyes--whenever such accidents came along--they happened to the other canoe, but perhaps this excited our opponents, for there followed periods of wildness when, if their shots struck anywhere, it was impossible to identify the places. At such periods Eddie was likely to claim that the cartridges were blanks, and perhaps they were. As for Del and me, our luck never varied like that. It remained about equally bad from day to day--just bad enough to beat the spectacular fortunes of Eddie and Charles the Strong. In the matter of wing-shooting, however--that is to say, shooting when we were on the wing and any legitimate quarry came in view--my recollection is that we ranked about alike. Neither of us by any chance ever hit anything at all, and I have an impression that our misses were about equally wide. Eddie may make a different claim. He may claim that he fired oftener and with less visible result than I. Possibly he did fire oftener, for he had a repeating rifle and I only a single shot, but so far as the result is concerned, if he states that his bullets flew wider of the mark, such a claim is the result of pure envy, perhaps malice. Why, I recall one instance of a muskrat whose skin Eddie was particularly desirous of sending to those museum folks in London--all properly mounted, with their names (Eddie's and the muskrat's) on a neat silver plate, so that it could stand there and do honor to us for a long time--until the moths had eaten up everything but the plate, perhaps, and Eddie struck the water within two or three feet of it (the muskrat, of course) as much as a dozen times, while such shots as I let go didn't hit anything but the woods or the sky and are, I suppose, still buried somewhere in the quiet bosom of nature. I am glad to unload that sentence. It was getting top-heavy, with a muskrat and moths and a silver plate in it. I could shoot some holes in it with a little practice, but inasmuch as we didn't get the muskrat, I will let it stand as a stuffed specimen. I am also glad about the muskrat. Had he perished, our pledge would have compelled us to eat him, and although one of Eddie's text-books told a good deal about their food value and seven different ways of cooking them, I was averse to experimenting even with one way. I have never really cared for muskrats since as a lad I caught twenty of them one night in a trammel net. Up to that hour the odor of musk had never been especially offensive to me, but twenty muskrats in a net can compound a good deal of perfumery. We had to bury the net, and even then I never cared much about it afterwards. The sight of it stirred my imagination, and I was glad when it was ripped away from us by a swift current one dark night, it being unlawful to set a trammel net in that river, and therefore sinful, by daylight. It was on Sand Lake that Eddie gave the first positive demonstration of his skill as a marksman. Here, he actually made a killing. True, it was not a wing shot, but it was a performance worthy of record. A chill wet wind blew in upon us as we left the river, and a mist such as we had experienced on Irving Lake, with occasional drifts of rain, shut us in. At first it was hard to be certain that we were really on a lake, for the sheet of water was long and narrow, and it might be only a widening of the river. But presently we came to an island, and this we accepted as identification. It was the customary island, larger than some, but with the bushes below, the sentinel pines, and here and there a gaunt old snag--bleached and dead and lifting its arms to the sky. On one of these dead ones we made out, through the mist, a strange dark bunch about the size of a barn door and of rather irregular formation. Gradually nearing, we discovered the bunch to be owls--great horned owls--a family of them, grouped on the old tree's limbs in solid formation, oblivious to the rain, to the world, to any thought of approaching danger. Now, the great horned owl is legitimate quarry. The case against him is that he is a bird of prey--a destroyer of smaller birds and an enemy of hen roosts. Of course if one wanted to go deeply into the ethics of the matter, one might say that the smaller birds and the chickens are destroyers, too, of bugs and grasshoppers and things, and that a life is a life, whether it be a bird or a bumble-bee, or even a fish-worm. But it's hard to get to the end of such speculations as that. Besides, the owl was present, and we wanted his skin. Eddie crept close in with his canoe, and drew a careful bead on the center of the barn door. There was an angry little spit of powder in the wet, a wavering movement of the dark, mist-draped bunch, a slow heaving of ghostly pinions and four silent, feathered phantoms drifted away into the white gloom. But there was one that did not follow. In vain the dark wings heaved and fell. Then there came a tottering movement, a leap forward, and half-fluttering, half-plunging, the heavy body came swishing to the ground. Yet unused to the battle as he was, for he was of the younger brood, he died game. When we reached him he was sitting upright, glaring out of his great yellow eyes, his talons poised for defense. Even with Eddie's bottle of new skin in reserve, it was not considered safe to approach too near. We photographed him as best we could, and then a shot at close range closed his brief career. I examined the owl with considerable interest. In the first place I had never seen one of this noble species before, and this was a beautiful specimen. Also, his flesh, being that of a young bird, did not appeal to warrant the expression tough as a boiled owl, which the others remembered almost in a chorus when I referred to our agreement concerning the food test of such game as we brought down. I don't think any of us wanted to eat that owl. I know I didn't, but I had weakened once--on the porcupine, it may be remembered--and the death of that porcupine rested heavily upon me, especially when I remembered how he had whined and grieved in the moment of dying. I think I had a notion that eating the owl would in some measure atone for the porcupine. I said, with such firmness as I could command, and all day I repeated at intervals, that we would eat the owl. We camped rather early that afternoon, for it was not pleasant traveling in the chill mist, and the prospect of the campfire and a snug tent was an ever-present temptation. I had suggested, also, that we ought to go ashore in time to cook the owl for supper. It might take time to cook him. We did not especially need the owl. We had saved a number of choice small trout and we were still able to swallow them when prepared in a really palatable form. Eddie, it is true, had condemned trout at breakfast, and declared he would have no more of them, but this may have been because there were flapjacks. He showed no disposition to condemn them now. When I mentioned the nice, tender owl meat which we were to have, he really looked longingly at the trout and spoke of them as juicy little fellows, such as he had always liked. I agreed that they would be good for the first course, and that a bird for supper would make out a sumptuous meal. I have never known Eddie to be so kind to me as he was about this time. He offered me some leaders and flies and even presented me with a silver-mounted briar-root pipe, brought all the way from London. I took the things, but I did not soften my heart. I was born in New England and have a conscience. I cannot be bribed like that. I told the guides that it would be better to begin supper right away, in order that we might not get too hungry before the owl was done. I thought them slow in their preparations for the meal. It was curious, too, for I had promised them they should have a piece of the bird. Del was generous. He said he would give his to Charles. That he never really cared much for birds, anyhow. Why, once, he said, he shot a partridge and gave it away, and he was hungry, too. He gave it to a boy that happened along just then, and when another partridge flew up he didn't even offer to shoot it. We didn't take much stock in that story until it dawned upon us that he had shot the bird out of season, and the boy had happened along just in time to be incriminated by accepting it as a present. It was better to have him as a partner than a witness. As for Charles, he affected to be really eager for owl meat. He said that all his life he had looked forward to this time. Still, he was slow, I thought. He seemed about as eager for supper as a boy is to carry in the evening wood. He said that one of the canoes leaked a little and ought to be pitched right away. I said it was altogether too damp for such work and that the canoe would wait till morning. Then he wanted to look up a spring, though there were two or three in plain sight, within twenty yards of the camp. I suspected at last that he was not really anxious to cook the owl and was trying to postpone the matter until it was too late for him (the owl) to get properly done before bedtime. Then I became firm. I said that a forest agreement was sacred. That we were pledged to the owl before we shot him, and that we would keep our promise to the dead, even to the picking of his bones. Wood was gathered then, and the fire blazed. The owl's breast--fat and fine it looked--was in the broiler, and on the fire. There it cooked--and cooked. Then it cooked some more and sent up an appetizing smell. Now and then, I said I thought the time for it had come, but there was a burden of opinion that more cooking would benefit the owl. Meantime, we had eaten a pan or two of trout and a few other things--the bird of course being later in the bill of fare. At most dinners I have attended, this course is contemplated with joy. It did not seem to be on this occasion. Eddie agreed with Del that he had never cared much for bird, anyway, and urged me to take his share. I refused to deprive him of it. Then he said he didn't feel well, and thought he really ought not to eat anything more. I said grimly that possibly this was true, but that he would eat the owl. It was served then, fairly divided and distributed, as food is when men are on short rations. I took the first taste--I was always venturesome--a little one. Then, immediately, I wished I had accepted Eddie's piece. But meantime he had tasted, too--a miserly taste--and then I couldn't have got the rest of it for money. For there was never anything so good as that breast of young owl. It was tender, it was juicy, it was as delicately flavored as a partridge, almost. Certainly it was a dainty morsel to us who had of late dealt so largely in fish diet. Had we known where the rest of that brood of owls had flown to we should have started after them, then and there. Extract from my diary that night: "Eddie has been taken with a slight cramp, and it has occurred to him that the owl meat, though appetizing, may be poisonous. He is searching his medicine bag for remedies. His disaster is merely punishment for the quantity of other food he ate beforehand, in his futile effort to escape the owl." Chapter Nineteen _Then scan your map, and search your plans,_ _And ponder the hunter's guess--_ _While the silver track of the brook leads back_ _Into the wilderness._ Chapter Nineteen We looked for moose again on Sand Lake, but found only signs. On the whole, I thought this more satisfactory. One does not have to go galloping up and down among the bushes and rocks to get a glimpse of signs, but may examine them leisurely and discuss the number, character and probable age of these records, preserving meanwhile a measure of repose, not to say dignity. Below Sand Lake a brook was said to enter. Descending from the upper interior country, it would lead us back into regions more remote than any heretofore traveled. So far as I could learn, neither of our guides had ever met any one who even claimed in know this region, always excepting the imaginative Indian previously mentioned. Somewhere in these uncharted wilds this Indian person had taken trout "the size of one's leg." Regardless of the dimensions of this story, it had a fascination for us. We wished to see those trout, even if they had been overrated. We had been hurrying, at least in spirit, to reach the little water gateway that opened to a deeper unknown where lay a chain of lakes, vaguely set down on our map as the Tobeatic[4] waters. At some time in the past the region had been lumbered, but most of the men who cut the timber were probably dead now, leaving only a little drift of hearsay testimony behind. It was not easy to find the entrance to the hidden land. The foliage was heavy and close along the swampy shore, and from such an ambush a still small current might flow unnoticed, especially in the mist that hung about us. More than once we were deceived by some fancied ripple or the configuration of the shore. Del at length announced that just ahead was a growth of a kind of maple likely to indicate a brook entrance. The shore really divided there and a sandy waterway led back somewhere into a mystery of vines and trees. We halted near the mouth of the little stream for lunch and consultation. It was not a desirable place to camp. The ground was low and oozy and full of large-leaved greenhousy-looking plants. The recent rains had not improved the character of the place. There was poison ivy there, too, and a delegation of mosquitoes. We might just as well have gone up the brook a hundred yards or so, to higher and healthier ground, but this would not have been in accord with Eddie's ideas of exploration. Explorers, he said, always stopped at the mouth of rivers to debate, and to consult maps and feed themselves in preparation for unknown hardships to come. So we stopped and sat around in the mud, and looked at some marks on a paper--made by the imaginative Indian, I think--and speculated as to whether it would be possible to push and drag the canoes up the brook, or whether everything would have to go overland. Personally, the prospect of either did not fill me with enthusiasm. The size of the brook did not promise much in the way of important waters above or fish even the size of one's arm. However, Tobeatic exploration was down on the cards. Our trip thus far had furnished only a hint of such mystery and sport as was supposed to lie concealed somewhere beyond the green, from which only this little brooklet crept out to whisper the secret. Besides, I had learned to keep still when Eddie had set his heart on a thing. I left the others poring over the hieroglyphic map, and waded out into the clean water of the brook. As I looked back at Del and Charlie, squatting there amid the rank weeds, under the dark, dripping boughs, with Eddie looking over their shoulders and pointing at the crumpled paper, spread before them, they formed a picturesque group--such a one as Livingstone or Stanley and their followers might have made in the African jungles. When I told Eddie of this he grew visibly prouder and gave me two new leaders and some special tobacco. We proceeded up the stream, Eddie and I ahead, the guides pushing the loaded canoes behind. It was the brook of our forefathers--such a stream as might flow through the valley meadows of New England, with trout of about the New England size, and plentiful. Lively fellows, from seven to nine inches in length, rose two and three at almost every cast. We put on small flies and light leaders and forgot there were such things as big trout in Nova Scotia. It was joyous, old-fashioned fishing--a real treat for a change. We had not much idea how far we were to climb this water stairway, and as the climb became steeper, and the water more swift, the guides pushed and puffed and we gave them a lift over the hard places--that is, Eddie did. I was too tired to do anything but fish. As a rule, the water was shallow, but there were deep holes. I found one of them presently, by mistake. It was my habit to find holes that way--places deeper than my waders, though the latter came to my shoulders. It seemed necessary that several times daily I should get my boots full of water. When I couldn't do it in any other way I would fall over something and let the river run into them for a while. I called to Eddie from where I was wallowing around, trying to get up, with my usual ballast. "Don't get in here!" I said. He was helping the boys over a hard place just then, tugging and sweating, but he paused long enough to be rude and discourteous. "I don't have to catch my trout in my boots," he jeered, and the guides were disrespectful enough to laugh. I decided that I would never try to do any of them a good turn again. Then suddenly everything was forgotten, for a gate of light opened out ahead, and presently we pushed through and had reached the shores of as lovely a sheet of water as lies in the great north woods. It was Tupper Lake, by our calculation, and it was on the opposite side that Tobeatic Brook was said to enter. There, if anywhere, we might expect to find the traditional trout. So far as we knew, no one had looked on these waters since the old lumbering days. Except for exploration there was no reason why any one should come. Of fish and game there were plenty in localities more accessible. To me, I believe the greatest joy there, as everywhere in the wilderness--and it was a joy that did not grow old--was the feeling that we were in a region so far removed from clanging bells and grinding wheels and all the useful, ugly attributes of mankind. We put out across the lake. The land rose rather sharply beyond, and from among the trees there tumbled out a white foaming torrent that made a wide swirling green pool where it entered. We swept in below this aquarium, Eddie taking one side and I the other. We had on our big flies now and our heavy leaders. They were necessary. Scarcely had a cast gone sailing out over the twisting water when a big black and gold shape leaped into the air and Eddie had his work cut out for him. A moment later my own reel was singing, and I knew by the power and savage rushes that I had something unusual at the other end. "Trout as big as your leg!" we called across to each other, and if they were not really as big as that, they were, at all events, bigger than anything so far taken--as big as one's arm perhaps--one's forearm, at least, from the hollow of the elbow to the fingertips. You see how impossible it is to tell the truth about a trout the first time. I never knew a fisherman who could do it. There is something about a fish that does not affiliate with fact. Even at the market I have known a fish to weigh more than he did when I got him home. We considered the imaginative Indian justified, and blessed him accordingly. FOOTNOTES: [4] Pronounced To-be-at-ic Chapter Twenty _You may slip away from a faithful friend_ _And thrive for an hour or two,_ _But you'd better be fair, and you'd better be square,_ _Or something will happen to you._ Chapter Twenty We took seventeen of those big fellows before we landed, enough in all conscience. A point just back of the water looked inviting as a place to pitch the tents, and we decided to land, for we were tired. Yet curious are the ways of fishermen: having had already too much, one becomes greedy for still more. There was an old dam just above, unused for a generation perhaps, and a long, rotting sluiceway through which poured a torrent of water. It seemed just the place for the king of trouts, and I made up my mind to try it now before Eddie had a chance. You shall see how I was punished. I crept away when his back was turned, taking his best and longest-handled landing net (it may be remembered I had lost mine), for it would be a deep dip down into the sluice. The logs around the premises were old and crumbly and I had to pick my way with care to reach a spot from which it would be safe to handle a big trout. I knew he was there. I never had a stronger conviction in my life. The projecting ends of some logs which I chose for a seat seemed fairly permanent and I made my preparations with care. I put on a new leader and two large new flies. Then I rested the net in a handy place, took a look behind me and sent the cast down the greased lightning current that was tearing through the sluice. I expected results, but nothing quite so sudden. Neither did I know that whales ever came so far up into fresh-water streams. I know it was a whale, for nothing smaller could have given a yank like that; besides, in the glimpse I had of him he looked exactly like pictures I have seen of the leviathan who went into commission for three days to furnish passage for Jonah and get his name in print. I found myself suddenly grabbing at things to hold on to, among them being Eddie's long-handled net, which was of no value as ballast, but which once in my hand I could not seem to put down again, being confused and toppling. As a matter of fact there was nothing satisfactory to get hold of in that spot. I had not considered the necessity of firm anchorage when I selected the place, but with a three-ton trout at the end of a long line, in a current going a thousand miles a minute, I realized that it would be well to be lashed to something permanent. As it was, with my legs swinging over that black mill-race, my left hand holding the rod, and my right clutching the landing net, I was in no position to withstand the onset of a battle such as properly belongs to the North Pacific Ocean where they have boats and harpoons and long coiled lines suitable to such work. [Illustration: "I remember seeing the sluice, black and swift, suddenly rise to meet me."] Still, I might have survived--I might have avoided complete disaster, I think--if the ends of those two logs I selected as a seat had been as sound as they looked. Of course they were not. They were never intended to stand any such motions as I was making. In the brief moment allowed me for thought I realized this, but it was no matter. My conclusions were not valuable. I remember seeing the sluice, black, and swift, suddenly rise to meet me, and of dropping Eddie's net as I went down. Then I have a vision of myself shooting down that race in a wild toboggan ride, and a dim, splashy picture of being pitched out on a heap of brush and stones and logs below. When I got some of the water out of my brains so I could think with them, I realized, first, that I was alive, still clutching my rod and that it was unbroken. Next, that the whale and Eddie's landing net were gone. I did not care so especially much about the whale. He had annoyed me. I was willing to part with him. Eddie's net was a different matter. I never could go back without that. After all his goodness to me I had deceived him, slipped away from him, taken his prized net--and lost it. I had read of such things; the Sunday-school books used to be full of similar incidents. And even if Eddie forgave me, as the good boy in the books always did, my punishment was none the less sure. My fishing was ended. There was just one net left. Whatever else I had done, or might do, I would never deprive Eddie of his last net. I debated whether I should go to him, throw myself on his mercy--ask his forgiveness and offer to become his special guide and servant for the remainder of the trip--or commit suicide. But presently I decided to make one try, at least, to find the net. It had not been thrown out on the drift with me, for it was not there. Being heavy, it had most likely been carried along the bottom and was at present lodged in some deep crevice. It was useless, of course; still, I would try. I was not much afraid of the sluice, now that I had been introduced to it. I put my rod in a place of safety and made my way to the upper end of the great trough. Then I let myself down carefully into the racing water, bracing myself against the sides and feeling along the bottom with my feet. It was uncertain going, for the heavy current tried hard to pull me down. But I had not gone three steps till I felt something. I could not believe it was the net. I carefully steadied myself and--down, down to my elbow. Then I could have whooped for joy, for it _was_ the net. It had caught on an old nail or splinter, or something, and held fast. Eddie was not at the camp, and the guides were busy getting wood. I was glad, for I was wet and bruised and generally disturbed. When I had changed my things and recovered a good deal, I sat in the shade and smoked and arranged my fly-book and other paraphernalia, and brooded on the frailty of human nature and the general perversity and cussedness of things at large. I had a confession all prepared for Eddie, long before he arrived. It was a good confession--sufficiently humble and truthful without being dangerous. I had tested it carefully and I did not believe it could result in any disagreeable penance or disgrace on my part. It takes skill to construct a confession like that. But it was wasted. When Eddie came in, at last, he wore a humble hang-dog look of his own, and I did not see the immediate need of _any_ confession. "I didn't really intend to run off from you," he began sheepishly. "I only wanted to see what was above the dam, and I tried one or two of the places up there, and they were all so bully I couldn't get away. Get your rod, I want to take you up there before it gets too late." So the rascal had taken advantage of my brief absence and slipped off from me. In his guilty haste he had grabbed the first landing net he had seen, never suspecting that I was using the other. Clearly I was the injured person. I regarded him with thoughtful reproach while he begged me to get my rod and come. He would take nothing, he said, but a net, and would guide for me. I did not care to fish any more that day; but I knew Eddie--I knew how his conscience galled him for his sin and would never give him peace until he had made restitution in full. I decided to be generous. We made our way above the dam, around an old half-drained pond, and through a killing thicket of vines and brush to a hidden pool, faced with slabs and bowlders. There, in that silent dim place I had the most beautiful hour's fishing I have ever known. The trout were big, gamy fellows and Eddie was alert, obedient and respectful. It was not until dusk that he had paid his debt to the last fish--had banished the final twinge of remorse. Our day, however, was not quite ended. We must return to camp. The thicket had been hard to conquer by daylight. Now it was an impenetrable wall of night and thorns. Across the brook looked more open and we decided to go over, but when we got there it proved a trackless, swampy place, dark and full of pitfalls and vines. Eddie, being small and woods-broken could work his way through pretty well, but after a few discouragements I decided to wade down the brook and through the shallow pond above the dam. At least it could not be so deadly dark there. It was heart-breaking business. I went slopping and plunging among stumps and stones and holes. I mistook logs for shadows and shadows for logs with pathetic results. The pond that had seemed small and shallow by daylight was big enough and deep enough now. A good deal of the way I went on my hands and knees, but not from choice. A nearby owl hooted at me. Bats darted back and forth close to my face. If I had not been a moral coward I should have called for help. Eddie had already reached camp when I arrived and had so far recovered his spiritual status that he jeered at my condition. I resolved then not to mention the sluice and the landing net at all--ever. I needed an immediate change of garments, of course--the third since morning.[5] It had been a hard, eventful day. Such days make camping remembered--and worth while. FOOTNOTES: [5] I believe the best authorities say that one change is enough to take on a camping trip, and maybe it is--for the best authorities. Chapter Twenty-one _Oh, it's well to live high as you can, my boy,_ _Wherever you happen to roam,_ _But it's better to have enough bacon and beans_ _To take the poor wanderers home._ Chapter Twenty-one By this time we had reached trout diet _per se_. I don't know what _per se_ means, but I have often seen it used and it seems to fit this case. Of course we were not entirely out of other things. We had flour for flapjacks, some cornmeal for mush and Johnnie-cake, and enough bacon to impart flavor to the fish. Also, we were not wholly without beans--long may they wave--the woods without them would be a wilderness indeed. But in the matter of meat diet it was trout _per se_, as I have said, unless that means we did not always have them; in which case I will discard those words. We did. We had fried trout, broiled trout, boiled trout, baked trout, trout on a stick and trout chowder. We may have had them other ways--I don't remember. I know I began to imagine that I was sprouting fins and gills, and daily I felt for the new bumps on my head which I was certain must result from this continuous absorption of brain food. There were several new bumps, but when I called Eddie's attention to them, he said they were merely the result of butting my head so frequently against logs and stumps and other portions of the scenery. Then he treated them with liniment and new skin. Speaking of food, I believe I have not mentioned the beefsteak which we brought with us into the woods. It was Eddie's idea, and he was its self-appointed guardian and protector. That was proper, only I think he protected it too long. It was a nice sirloin when we started--thick and juicy and of a deep rich tone. Eddie said a little age would improve it, and I suppose he was right--he most always is. He said we would appreciate it more, too, a little later, which seemed a sound doctrine. Yet, somehow, that steak was an irritation. It is no easy matter to adjust the proper age of a steak to the precise moment of keen and general appreciation. We discussed the matter a good deal, and each time the steak was produced as a sort of Exhibit A, and on each occasion Eddie decided that the time was not ripe--that another day would add to its food value. I may say that I had no special appetite for steak, not yet, but I did not want to see it carried off by wild beasts, or offered at last on a falling market. Besides, the thing was an annoyance as baggage. I don't know where we carried it at first, but I began to come upon it in unexpected places. If I picked up a yielding looking package, expecting to find a dry undergarment, or some other nice surprise, it turned out to be that steak. If I reached down into one of the pack baskets for a piece of Eddie's chocolate, or some of his tobacco--for anything, in fact--I would usually get hold of a curious feeling substance and bring up that steak. I began to recognize its texture at last, and to avoid it. Eventually I banished it from the baskets altogether. Then Eddie took to hanging it on a limb near the camp, and if a shower came up suddenly he couldn't rest--he must make a wild rush and take in that steak. I refused at last to let him bring it into the tent, or to let him hang it on a nearby limb. But this made trouble, for when he hung it farther away he sometimes forgot it, and twice we had to paddle back a mile or so to get that steak. Also, sometimes, it got wet, which was not good for its flavor, he said; certainly not for its appearance. In fact, age told on that steak. It no longer had the deep rich glow of youth. It had a weather-beaten, discouraged look, and I wondered how Eddie could contemplate it in that fond way. It seemed to me that if the time wasn't ripe the steak was, and that something ought to be done about a thing like that. My suggestions did not please Eddie. I do not remember now just when we did at last cook that steak. I prefer to forget it. Neither do I know what Eddie did with his piece. I buried mine. [Illustration: "When I awoke, a savory smell was coming in the tent."] Eddie redeemed himself later--that is to say, he produced something I could eat. He got up early for the purpose. When I awoke, a savory smell was coming in the tent. Eddie was squatted by the fire, stirring something in a long-handled frying pan. Neither he nor the guides were communicative as to its nature, but it was good, and I hoped we would have it often. Then they told me what it was. It was a preparation with cream (condensed) of the despised canned salmon which I had denounced earlier in the trip as an insult to live, speckled trout. You see how one's point of view may alter. I said I was sorry now we hadn't brought some dried herring. The others thought it a joke, but I was perfectly serious. In fact, provisioning for a camping trip is a serious matter. Where a canoe must carry a man and guide, with traps and paraphernalia, and provisions for a three-weeks' trip, the problem of condensation in the matter of space and weight, with amplitude in the matter of quantity, affords study for a careful mind. We started out with a lot of can and bottle goods, which means a good deal of water and glass and tin, all of which are heavy and take up room. I don't think ours was the best way. The things were good--too good to last--but dried fruits--apricots, prunes and the like--would have been nearly as good, and less burdensome. Indeed by the end of the second week I would have given five cents apiece for a few dried prunes, while even dried apples, which I had learned to hate in childhood, proved a gaudy luxury. Canned beans, too, I consider a mistake. You can't take enough of them in that form. No two canoes can safely carry enough canned beans to last two fishermen and two Nova Scotia guides for three weeks. As for jam and the like, why it would take one canoe to carry enough marmalade to supply Del the Stout alone. If there is any such thing as a marmalade cure, I hope Del will take it before I am ready to go into the woods again. Otherwise I shall tow an extra canoe or a marmalade factory. As I have said, dried things are better; fruits, beans, rice, beef, bacon--maple sugar (for sirup), cornmeal and prepared flour. If you want to start with a few extras in the way of canned stuff, do it, but be sure you have plenty of the staples mentioned. You will have enough water and tin and glass to carry with your condensed milk, your vinegar, a few pickles, and such other bottle refreshments as your tastes and morals will permit. Take all the variety you can in the way of dried staples--be sure they are staples--but cut close on your bulky tinned supplies. It is better to be sure of enough Johnnie-cake and bacon and beans during the last week out than to feast on plum-pudding and California pears the first. Chapter Twenty-two _Oh, it's up and down the island's reach,_ _Through thicket and gorge and fen,_ _With never a rest in their fevered quest,_ _Hurry the hunter men._ Chapter Twenty-two I would gladly have lingered at Tobeatic Dam. It was an ideal place, wholly remote from everything human--a haunt of wonderful trout, peaceable porcupines and tame birds. The birds used to come around the tent to look us over and ask questions, and to tell us a lot about what was going on in the back settlements--those mysterious dim places where bird and beast still dwell together as in the ancient days, their round of affairs and gossip undisturbed. I wanted to rest there, and to heal up a little before resuming the unknown way. But Eddie was ruthless--there were more worlds to conquer. The spirit of some old ancestor who probably set out to discover the Northwest Passage was upon him. Lower Tobeatic Lake was but a little way above. We pushed through to it without much delay. It was an extensive piece of water, full of islands, lonely rocks and calling gulls, who come to this inland isolation to rear their young. The morning was clear and breezy and we set on up the lake in the canoes, Eddie, as usual, a good way in advance. He called back to us now and then that this was great moose country, and to keep a sharp lookout as we passed the islands. I did not wish to see moose. The expedition had already acquitted itself in that direction, but Eddie's voice was eager, even authoritative, so we went in close and pointed at signs and whispered in the usual way. I realized that Eddie had not given up the calf moose idea and was still anxious to shine with those British Museum people. It seemed to me that such ambitions were not laudable. I considered them a distinct mar to a character which was otherwise almost perfect. It was at such times that my inclination to drown or poison Eddie was stronger than usual. He had been behind an island a good while when we thought we heard a shot. Presently we heard it again, and were sure. Del was instantly all ablaze. Two shots had been the signal for moose. We went around there. I suppose we hurried. I know it was billowy off the point and we shipped water and nearly swamped as we rounded. Behind the island, close in, lay the other canoe, Eddie waving to us excitedly as we came up. "Two calf meese!" he called (meese being Eddie's plural of moose--everybody knows that mooses is the word). "Little helpless fellows not more than a day or two old. They're too young to swim of course, so they can't get on the island. We've got em, sure!" "Did you hit either of them?" I asked anxiously. "No, of course not! I only fired for a signal. They are wholly at our mercy. They were right here just a moment ago. The mother ran, and they hardly knew which way to turn. We can take them alive." "But, Eddie," I began, "what will you do with them? They'll have to be fed if we keep them, and will probably want to occupy the tents, and we'll have to take them in the canoes when we move." He was ready for this objection. "I've been thinking," he said with decision. "Dell and Charlie can take one of the canoes, with the calves in it, and make straight for Milford by the shortest cut. While they're gone we'll be exploring the upper lake." This was a brief, definite plan, but it did not appeal to me. In the first place, I did not wish to capture those little mooses. Then, too, I foresaw that during the considerable period which must elapse before the guides returned, somebody would have to cook and wash dishes and perform other menial camp labor. I suspected Eddie might get tired of doing guide work as a daily occupation. Also, I was sorry for Charlie and Del. I had a mental picture of them paddling for dear life up the Liverpool River with two calf mooses galloping up and down the canoe, bleating wildly, pausing now and then to lap the faces of the friendly guides and perhaps to bite off an ear or some other handy feature. Even the wild animals would form along the river bank to view a spectacle like that, and I imagined the arrival at the hotel would be something particularly showy. I mentioned these things and I saw that for once the guides were with me. They did not warm to the idea of that trip up the Liverpool and the gaudy homecoming. Eddie was only for a moment checked. "Well, then," he said, "we'll kill and skin them. We can carry the skins." This was no better. I did not want those little mooses slaughtered, and said so. But Eddie was roused now, and withered me with judicial severity. "Look here," he said, and his spectacles glared fiercely. "I'm here as a representative of the British Museum, in the cause of science, not to discuss the protection of dumb creatures. That's another society." I submitted then, of course. I always do when Eddie asserts his official capacity like that. The authority of the British Museum is not to be lightly tampered with. So far as I knew he could have me jailed for contempt. We shoved our canoes in shore and disembarked. Eddie turned back. "We must take something to tie their hind legs," he said, and fished out a strap for that purpose. The hope came to me that perhaps, after all, he might not need the strap, but I was afraid to mention it. I confess I was unhappy. I imagined a pathetic picture of a little innocent creature turning its pleading eyes up to the captor who with keen sheath-knife would let slip the crimson tide. I had no wish to go racing through the brush after those timid victims. [Illustration: "I do not like to come upon snakes in that manner."] I did, however. The island was long and narrow. We scattered out across it in a thin line of battle, and starting at one end swept down the length of it with a conquering front. That sounds well, but it fails to express what we did. We did not sweep, and we did not have any front to speak of. The place was a perfect tangle and chaos of logs, bushes, vines, pits, ledges and fallen trees. To beat up that covert was a hot, scratchy, discouraging job, attended with frequent escapes from accident and damage. I was satisfied I had the worst place in the line, for I couldn't keep up with the others, and I tried harder to do that than I did to find the little mooses. I didn't get sight of the others after we started. Neither did I catch a glimpse of those little day-old calves, or of anything else except a snake, which I came upon rather suddenly when I was down on my hands and knees, creeping under a fallen tree. I do not like to come upon snakes in that manner. I do not care to view them even behind glass in a museum. An earthquake might strike that museum and break the glass and it might not be easy to get away. I wish Eddie had been collecting snake skins for _his_ museum. I would have been willing for him to skin that one alive. I staggered out to the other end of the island, at last, with only a flickering remnant of life left in me. I thought Eddie would be grateful for all my efforts when I was not in full sympathy with the undertaking; but he wasn't. He said that by not keeping up with the line I had let the little mooses slip by, and that we would have to make the drive again. I said he might have my route and I would take another. It was a mistake, though. I couldn't seem to pick a better one. When we had chased up and down that disordered island--that dumping ground of nature--for the third time; when I had fallen over every log and stone, and into every hole on it, and had scraped myself in every brush-heap, and not one of us had caught even an imaginary glimpse of those little, helpless, day-old meese, or mooses, or mice for they were harder to find than mice--we staggered out, limp and sore, silently got into our canoes and drifted away. Nobody spoke for quite a while. Nobody had anything to say. Then Charlie murmured reflectively, as if thinking aloud: "Little helpless fellows--not more than a day or two old----" And Del added--also talking to himself: "Too young to swim, of course--wholly at our mercy." Then, a moment later, "It's a good thing we took that strap to tie their hind legs." Eddie said nothing at all, and I was afraid to. Still, I was glad that my vision of the little creatures pleading for their lives hadn't been realized, or that other one of Del and Charlie paddling for dear life up the Liverpool, with those little mooses bleating and scampering up and down the canoe. What really became of those calves remains a mystery. Nature teaches her wild children many useful things. Their first indrawn breath is laden with knowledge. Perhaps those wise little animals laughed at us from some snug hiding. Perhaps they could swim, after all, and followed their mother across the island, and so away. Whatever they did, I am glad, even if the museum people have me arrested for it. Chapter Twenty-three _When the utmost bound of the trail is found--_ _The last and loneliest lair--_ _The hordes of the forest shall gather round_ _To bid you a welcome there._ Chapter Twenty-three I do not know what lies above the Tobeatic lakes, but the strip of country between is the true wilderness. It is a succession of swamps and spruce thickets--ideal country for a moose farm or a mosquito hatchery, or for general exploration, but no sort of a place for a Sunday-school picnic. Neither is it a good place to fish. The little brook between the lakes runs along like a chain pump and contains about as many trout. There are one or two pretty good pools, but the effort to reach them is too costly. We made camp in as dry a place as we could find, but we couldn't find a place as big as the tent that didn't have a spring or a water hole. In fact, the ground was a mass of roots, great and small, with water everywhere between. A spring actually bubbled up between our beds, and when one went outside at night it was a mercy if he did not go plunging into some sort of a cold, wet surprise, with disastrous and profane results. Being the worst camp and the worst country and the poorest fishing we had found, we remained there two days. But this was as it should be. We were not fishermen now, but explorers; and explorers, Eddie said, always court hardships, and pitch their camps in the midst of dangers. Immediately after our arrival, Eddie and I took one side of the brook and the guides the other, and we set out to discover things, chiefly the upper lake. Of course we would pick the hardest side. We could be depended on to do that. The brook made a long bend, and the guides, who were on the short side, found fairly easy going. Eddie and I, almost immediately, were floundering in a thick miry swamp, where it was hot and breezeless, and where the midges, mooseflies and mosquitoes gave us a grand welcome. I never saw anybody so glad to be discovered as those mooseflies. They were as excited as if we were long lost relatives who had suddenly turned up with a fortune. They swarmed about us and clung to us and tapped us in any convenient place. I did not blame them, of course. Moose diet, year in and year out, would make them welcome anything by way of a change. And what droves of moose there must be in that swamp to support such a muster of flies! Certainly this was the very heart of the moose domain. Perhaps the reader who has never seen a moosefly may not appreciate the amplitude and vigor of our welcome. The moosefly is a lusty fellow with mottled wings. I believe he is sometimes called the deerfly, though as the moose is bigger and more savage than the deer, it is my opinion that the moosefly is bigger and more savage than any fly that bites the deer. I don't think the deer could survive him. He is about the size of the green-headed horsefly, but of more athletic build. He describes rapid and eager circles about one's head, whizzing meanwhile in a manner which some may like, but which I could not learn to enjoy. His family is large and he has many friends. He brings them all along to greet you, and they all whiz and describe circles at once, and with every circle or two he makes a dip and swipes up about a gill of your lifeblood and guzzles it down, and goes right on whizzing and circling until he picks out a place for the next dip. Unlike the mosquito, the moosefly does not need to light cautiously and patiently sink a well until he strikes a paying vein. His practice on the moose has fitted him for speedier methods. The bill with which he is accustomed to bore through a tough moosehide in a second or two will penetrate a man in the briefest fraction of the time. We got out of that swamp with no unnecessary delay and made for a spruce thicket. Ordinarily one does not welcome a spruce thicket, for it resembles a tangle of barbed wires. But it was a boon now. We couldn't scratch all the places at once and the spruce thicket would help. We plunged into it and let it dig, and scrape, and protect us from those whizzing, circling blood-gluttons of the swamp. Yet it was cruel going. I have never seen such murderous brush. I was already decorated with certain areas of "New Skin," but I knew that after this I should need a whole one. Having our rods and guns made it harder. In places we were obliged to lie perfectly flat to worm and wriggle through. And the heat was intense and our thirst a torture. Yet in the end it was worth while and the payment was not long delayed. Just beyond the spruce thicket ran a little spring rivulet, cold as ice. Lying on its ferny margin we drank and drank, and the gods themselves cannot create a more exquisite joy than that. We followed the rivulet to where it fed the brook, a little way below. There we found a good-sized pool, and trout. Also a cool breeze and a huge bowlder--complete luxury. We rested on the big stone--I mean I did--and fished, while Eddie was trying to find the way out. I said I would wait there until a relief party arrived. It was no use. Eddie threatened to leave me at last if I didn't come on, and I had no intention of being left alone in that forgotten place. We struggled on. Finally near sunset of that long, hard June day, we passed out of the thicket tangle, ascended a slope and found ourselves in an open grove of whispering pines that through all the years had somehow escaped the conflagration and the ax. Tall colonnades they formed--a sort of Grove of Dodona which because of some oracle, perhaps, the gods had spared and the conquering vandals had not swept away. From the top of the knoll we caught a glimpse of water through the trees, and presently stood on the shore of Little Tobeatic Lake. So it was we reached the end of our quest--the farthest point in the unknown. I hardly know what I had expected: trout of a new species and of gigantic size, perhaps, or a strange race of men. Whatever it was, I believe I felt a bit disappointed. I believe I did not consider it much of a discovery. It was a good deal like other Nova Scotia lakes, except that it appeared to be in two sections and pretty big for its name. But Eddie was rejoiced over our feat. The mooseflies and spruce thickets and the miry swamps we had passed, for him only added relish to this moment of supreme triumph. Eddie would never be the man to go to the Arctics in an automobile or an airship. That would be too easy. He would insist on more embroideries. He would demand all the combined hardships of the previous expeditions. I am at present planning a trip to the South Pole, but I shall leave Eddie at home. And perhaps I shall also be disappointed when I get to the South Pole and find it only a rock in a snowdrift. We crossed the brook and returned to camp the short way. We differed a good deal as to the direction, and separated once or twice. We got lost at last, for the way was so short and easy that we were below the camp before we knew it. When at last we heard the guides calling (they had long since returned) we came in, blaming each other for several things and were scarcely on speaking terms for as much as five minutes. It was lucky that Charles found a bottle of Jamaica rum and a little pot of honey just then. A mixture of rum and honey will allay irritation due to moosefly and mosquito bites, and to a variety of other causes if faithfully applied. The matter of mosquitoes was really serious that night. We kept up several smudge fires and sat among them and smoked ourselves like herring. Even then we were not immune. When it came time for bed we brushed the inside of the tent and set our pipes going. Then Eddie wanted to read, as was his custom. I objected. I said that to light a candle would be to invite all those mosquitoes back. He pleaded, but for once I was firm. He offered me some of his best things, but I refused to sell my blood in that way. Finally he declared he had a spread of mosquito net and would put it over the door and every possible opening if I would let him read. I said he might put up the netting and if I approved the job I would then consider the matter. He got out the net--a nice new piece--and began to put it up. It was a tedious job, arranging that net and fastening it properly by the flickering firelight so that it covered every crack and crevice. When he pulled it down in one place it left an opening in another and had to be poked and pinned and stuffed in and patted down a great many times. From my place inside the tent I could see his nimble shadow on the canvas like some big insect, bobbing and flitting up and down and from side to side. It reminded me of a persistent moth, dipping and dodging about a screen. I drowsily wondered if he would ever get it fixed, and if he wasn't getting hot and tired, for it was a still, sticky night. Yet I suppose I did not realize how hot and tired one might get on such a night, especially after a hard day. When he ceased his lightsome movements at last and crept as carefully as a worm under the net, I expected him to light the candle lamp and read. He did not do so. He gave one long sighing groan of utter exhaustion, dropped down on his bed without removing his clothes and never stirred again until morning. The net was a great success. Only two mosquitoes got in and they bit Eddie. Chapter Twenty-four _Apollo has tuned his lute again,_ _And the pipes of Pan are near,_ _For the gods that fled from the groves of men_ _Gather unheeded here._ Chapter Twenty-four It was by no means an unpleasant camp, first and last. It was our "Farthest North" for one thing, our deepest point in the wilderness. It would require as much as three or four days travel, even by the quickest and most direct route to reach any human habitation, and in this thought there was charm. It was a curious place, too, among those roots and springs, and the brook there formed a rare pool for bathing. While the others were still asleep I slipped down there for my morning dip. It was early, but in that latitude and season the sun had already risen and filtered in through the still treetops. Lying back in that natural basin with the cool, fresh water slipping over and about one, and all the world afar off and unreal, was to know the joy of the dim, forgotten days when nymphs and dryads sported in hidden pools or tripped to the pipes of Pan. Hemlock and maple boughs lacing above, with blue sky between--a hermit thrush singing: such a pool Diana might have found, shut away in some remote depths of Arcady. I should not have been much surprised to have heard the bay of her hounds in that still early morning, and to have seen her and her train suddenly appear--pursuing a moose, maybe, or merely coming down for a morning swim. Of course I should have secluded myself had I heard them coming. I am naturally a modest person. Besides, I garner from the pictures that Diana is likely to be dangerous when she is in her moods. Eddie bathed, too, later, but the spell was gone then. Diana was far away, the stillness and sun-glint were no more in the treetops, the hermit thrush was no longer in the neighborhood. Eddie grumbled that the water was chilly and that the stones hurt his feet. An hour, sometimes--a moment, even--makes all the difference between romance and reality. Finally, even the guides bathed! We let off fireworks in celebration! We carried the canoes to the lake that morning and explored it, but there was not much to see. The lake had no inlet that we could find, and Eddie and I lost a dollar apiece with the guides betting on the shape of it, our idea being based upon the glimpse of the evening before. I don't care much for lakes that change their shape like that, and even Eddie seemed willing to abandon this unprofitable region. I suspected, however, that his willingness to take the back track was mainly due to the hope of getting another try at the little mooses, but I resolved to indulge myself no further in any such pastime. [Illustration: "We went down that long, lovely lake in a luxury of idle bliss."] It was hard to drag Eddie by those islands. He wanted to cruise around every one of them and to go ashore and prospect among the débris. He vowed at last that he would come back with Charles from our next camp and explore on his own account. Then, there being a fine breeze directly behind us, he opened out a big umbrella which he had brought along for just such a time, we hitched our canoe on behind, and with that bellying black sail on the forward bow, went down that long, lovely lake in a luxury of idle bliss. We camped at our old place by the falls and next morning Eddie did in fact return to have another go at the calves. Del was willing to stay at the camp, and I said I would have a quiet day's fishing nearby. It proved an unusual day's fishing for those waters. White perch are not plentiful there, but for some reason a school of them had collected just by our camp. I discovered them by accident and then gave up everything else to get as many of them as possible, for they were a desirable change from trout, and eagerly welcomed. I fished for them by spells all day. Del and I had them for luncheon and we saved a great pan full to be ready for supper, when the others should return. It was dusk when the other canoe came in. Our companions were very tired, also wet, for it had been a misty day, with showers. Eddie was a bit cross, too. They had seen some calves, he said, but could not get them. His guide agreed with this statement, but when questioned separately their statements varied somewhat as to the reasons of failure. It did not matter. Eddie was discouraged in the calf moose project, I could see that. Presently I began boasting of the big day's sport I had enjoyed, and then to show off I said, "This is how I did it." Eddie was washing his hands in my perch pool and I had no idea of getting anything--one is not likely to when he wishes to exhibit himself--but I made a cast with the light tackle with two flies on it and immediately had my hands full. For once, I did actually show off when I undertook to do it. I think the only two big perch in that pool seized those flies, and for the next five or ten minutes they were making my reel sing and giving me such sport as only two big white perch on a light tackle can. I brought them to the net at last and Eddie looked on with hungry, envious eyes. "You don't mean to say you've been taking those things all day," he said. "All day, more or less. I merely gave this little exhibition to wind up on." But of course I had to show him the size of the others, then, and he was appeased to the extent of forgetting most of his troubles in a square meal. That quiet day with the white perch, ending as it did with a grand finale, remains one of my fondest memories. Chapter Twenty-five _You may pick your place--you may choose your hour--_ _You may put on your choicest flies;_ _But never yet was it safe to bet_ _That a single trout would rise._ Chapter Twenty-five Back across Tupper Lake and down Sand Brook to the Shelburne. Eddie left the further wilderness with a sigh, for he felt that his chance of getting a moose calf for those museum people was getting slim. A distance--I have forgotten the number of miles--down the Shelburne would bring us to country known to the guides and not remote enough for moose at this season. As Eddie is no longer in this country, I may confess, now, that I was glad. It was beautiful going, down Sand Brook. There was plenty of water and the day was perfect. There is nothing lovelier in the world than that little limpid stream with its pebbly riffles and its sunlit pools. Sometimes when I think of it now I am afraid that it is no longer there in that far still Arcady, or that it may vanish through some enchantment before I can ever reach it again. Indeed as I am writing here to-day I am wondering if it is really there--hidden away in that quiet unvisited place, when no one is there to see it, and to hear it sing and whisper--if anything is anywhere, unless some one is there to see and hear. But these are deep waters. I am prone to stumble, as we have seen, and somehow my tallest waders never take me through. I have already said, and repeated, I think, that there is no better trout fishing than in the Shelburne. The fish now were not quite so heavy as they had been higher up, but they were very many. The last half of the miracle of the loaves and fishes would not have been necessary here had the multitudes been given some tackle and a few cans of bait. When we were a little above Kempton Dam, Del pointed out the first place familiar to him. The woods were precisely the same--the waters just as fair and fruitful--the locality just as wild; but somehow as we rounded that bend a certain breath of charm vanished. The spell of perfect isolation was gone. I had the feeling that we had emerged from the enchanted borders of No Man's Land--that we were entering a land of real places, with the haunts and habitations of men. Kempton Dam itself had been used to catch logs, not so long ago, and Eddie had visited it on a previous occasion. He still had a fond memory of a very large trout--opinions differed a trifle as to its exact size--which he had taken there in a certain pool of golden water, and it was evident from his talk that he expected to take that trout again, or some member of its family, or its ghost, maybe, immediately upon arrival. It certainly proved an attractive place, and there were any number of fish. They were not especially large, however. Even the golden water was fruitful only as to numbers. We waded among the rocks or stood on the logs, and cast and reeled and netted and returned fish to the water until we were fairly surfeited. By that time the guides had the camp ready, and as it was still early we gave them the rods and watched the sport. Now a fly-casting tournament at home is a tame entertainment when one has watched the fishing of Nova Scotia guides. To see a professional send a fly sailing out a hundred feet or so in Madison Square Garden is well enough, and it is a meritorious achievement, no doubt, but there is no return except the record and the applause. To see Del the Stout and Charles the Strong doing the same thing from that old log dam was a poem, a picture, an inspiration. Above and below, the rushing water; overhead, the blue sky; on either side, the green of June--the treetops full of the setting sun. Out over the foaming current, skimming just above the surface, the flies would go sailing, sailing--you thought they would never light. They did not go with a swish and a jump, but seemed noiselessly to drift away, as if the lightly swinging rod had little to do with the matter, as if they were alive, in fact, looking for a place to settle in some cozy nook of water where a trout would be sure to be. And the trout were there. It was not the empty tub-fishing of a sportsman's show. The gleam and splash in the pool that seemed remote--that was perhaps thirty yards away in fact--marked the casting limit, and the sharp curve of the rod, and the play to land were more inspiring than any measure of distance or clapping of hands. Charles himself became so inspired at length with his handsome fishing that he made a rash statement. He declared that he could take five trout in fifteen minutes. He offered to bet a dollar that he could do it. I rather thought he could myself, for the fish were there, and they were not running over large. Still, it was no easy matter to land them in that swift water, and it would be close work. The show would be worth a dollar, even if I lost. Wherefore, I scoffed at his boast and took the bet. No stipulations were made as to the size of the trout, nor the manner in which they should be taken, nor as to any special locality. It was evident from our guide's preparation that he had evolved certain ideas of his own in the matter. Previously he had been trying to hook a big fish, but it was pretty evident that he did not want any big fish now. There was a little brook--a run-around, as it were--that left the main water just below the dam and came in again at the big pool several hundred yards below. We had none of us touched this tumbling bit of water. It was his idea that it would be full of little trout. He wanted something he could lift out with no unnecessary delay, for time that is likely to be worth over six cents a minute is too expensive to waste in fancy sportsmanship. He selected a short rod and put on some tiny flies. Then he took his position; we got out our watches and called time. Now, of course, one of the most uncertain things in life to gamble on is fishing. You may pick your place, your day and your time of day. The combination may seem perfect. Yet the fact remains that you can never count with certainty on the result. One might suppose that our guide had everything in his favor. Up to the very moment of his wager he had been taking trout about as rapidly as he could handle them, and from water that had been fished more or less all the afternoon. He knew the particular fly that had been most attractive on this particular day and he had selected a place hitherto unfished--just the sort of a place where small trout seemed likely to abound. With his skill as an angler it would not have surprised me if he had taken his five trout and had more than half the time to spare. I think he expected to do that himself. I think he did, for he went at it with that smiling _sang froid_ with which one does a sleight of hand trick after long practice. He did not show any appearance of haste in making his first cast, but let the flies go gently out over a little eddying pool and lightly skim the surface of the water, as if he were merely amusing himself by tantalizing those eager little trout. Yet for some reason nothing happened. Perhaps the little trout were attending a party in the next pool. There came no lively snap at those twitching flies--there was not even a silver break on the surface of the water. I thought our guide's smile faded the least trifle, and that he let the flies go a bit quicker next time. Then when nothing, absolutely nothing, happened again, his look became one of injured surprise. He abandoned that pool and stepping a rock or two downstream, sent the flies with a sharp little flirt into the next--once--twice--it was strange--it was unaccountable, but nothing--not a single thing happened again. It was the same with the next pool, and the next. There were no special marks of self-confidence, or anything that even resembled deliberation, after this. It was business, strictly business, with the sole idea of taking five fish out of that run, or getting down to a place where five fish could be had. It was a pretty desperate situation, for it was a steep run and there was no going back. To attempt that would be to waste too much precious time. The thing to do was to fish it straight through, with no unnecessary delay. There was no doubt but that this was our guide's programme. The way he deported himself showed that. Perhaps he was not really in a hurry--I want to be just--but he acted as if he was. I have never seen a straddle-bug, but if I ever meet one I shall recognize him, for I am certain he will look exactly like Charles the Strong going down Tommy Kempton's Run. He was shod in his shoepacks, and he seemed to me to have one foot always in the air wildly reaching out for the next rock--the pair of flies, meanwhile, describing lightning circles over every pool and riffle, lingering just long enough to prove the futility of the cast, to be lying an instant later in a new spot, several yards below. If ever there is a tournament for swift and accurate fly-casting down a flight of rugged stone stairs I want to enter Charles for first honors against the world. But I would not bet on any fish--I want that stipulated. I would not gamble to that extent. I would not gamble even on one fish after being a witness to our guide's experience. That was a mad race. The rest of us kept a little to one side, out of his way, and not even Del and Eddie could keep up with him. And with all that wild effort not a fish would rise--nor even break water. It was strange--it was past believing--I suppose it was even funny. It must have been, for I seem to recall that we fairly whooped our joy at his acrobatic eagerness. Why, with such gymnastics, Charles did not break his neck I cannot imagine. With the utmost watchfulness I barely missed breaking mine as much as a dozen times. The time was more than half-expired when we reached the foot of the run, and still no fish, not even a rise. Yet the game was not over. It was supposable that this might be the place of places for fish. Five fish in five minutes were still possible, if small. The guide leaped and waded to a smooth, commanding stone and cast--once--twice, out over the twisting water. Then, suddenly, almost in front of him, it seemed, a great wave rolled up from the depths--there was a swish and a quick curving of the rod--a monstrous commotion, and a struggle in the water. It was a king of fish, we could all see that, and the rest of us gave a shout of approval. But if Charles was happy, he did not look it. In fact, I have never seen any one act so unappreciative of a big fish, nor handle it in so unsportsmanlike a manner. If I remember his remark it had damn and hell mixed up in it, and these words were used in close association with that beautiful trout. His actions were even worse. He made no effort to play his catch--to work him gradually to the net, according to the best form. Nothing of the kind. You'd have supposed our guide had never seen a big trout before by the way he got hold of that line and yanked him in, hand over hand, regardless of the danger to line and leader and to those delicate little flies, to say nothing of the possibility of losing a fish so handled. Of course the seconds were flying, and landing a fish of that size is not an especially quick process. A three-pound trout in swift water has a way of staying there, even when taken by the main strength and awkwardness system. When only about a yard of line remained between Charlie and the fish, the latter set up such a commotion, and cut up such a series of antics, that it was impossible for one man to hold him and net him, though the wild effort which our guide made to do so seemed amusing to those who were looking on. In fact, if I had not been weak with laughing I might have gone to his rescue sooner. One may be generous to a defeated opponent, and the time limit was on its last minute now. As it was, I waded over presently and took the net. A moment later we had him--the single return in the allotted time, but by all odds the largest trout thus far of the expedition. You see, as I have said, fish are uncertain things to gamble on. Trying for five small ones our fisherman captured one large fish, which at any other moment of the expedition would have been more welcome. Yet even he was an uncertain quantity, for big, strong and active as he was, he suddenly gave a great leap out of the net and was back in the water again. Still, I let him be counted. That was generous. You might have supposed after that demonstration, Eddie would have been somewhat reticent about backing his skill as a fisherman. But he wasn't. He had just as much faith in his angling, and in his ability to pick good water as if he hadn't seen his guide go down to ignominy and defeat. He knew a place just above the dam, he said, where he could make that bet good. Would I give him the same terms? I would--the offer was open to all comers. I said it was taking candy from children. [Illustration: "It was worth the dollar to watch the way he sought to wheedle and coax and fascinate those trout."] We went up to Eddie's place and got out the watches. Eddie had learned something from his guide's exhibition. He had learned not to prance about over a lot of water, and not to seem to be in a hurry. It was such things that invited mirth. He took his position carefully between two great bowlders and during the next fifteen minutes gave us the most charming exhibition of light and delicate fly-casting I have ever witnessed. It was worth the dollar to watch the way in which he sought to wheedle and coax and fascinate those trout, and to study the deft dispatch and grace with which he landed a fish, once hooked. Still he hadn't learned quite enough. He hadn't learned to take five trout in fifteen minutes in that particular place and on that particular evening. Perhaps it was a little late when he began. Perhaps fifteen minutes is a shorter period than it sometimes seems. Three trout completed his score at the end of the allotted time--all fairly large. Yet I must not fail to add here that a few days later, in other water, both Eddie and his guide made good their wager. Each took his five trout--small ones--in fifteen minutes, and had time to spare. As I have remarked once or twice already, one of the most uncertain things in life to gamble on is fishing. Chapter Twenty-six _Oh, the waves they pitch and the waves they toss,_ _And the waves they frighten me;_ _And if ever I get my boat across_ _I'll go no more to sea._ Chapter Twenty-six We were met by a surprise at our camp. Two men sat there, real men, the first we had seen since we entered the wilderness. Evidently they were natives by their look--trappers or prospectors of some sort. They turned out to be bear hunters, and they looked rather hungrily at the assortment of fish we had brought in--enough for supper and breakfast. Perhaps they had not been to fish so frequently as to bear. I believe they were without tackle, or maybe their luck had been poor--I do not remember. At all events it developed presently that they needed fish, also that they had a surplus of butter of a more recent period than the little dab we had left. They were willing to dicker--a circumstance that filled us with an enthusiasm which we restrained with difficulty. In fact, Del did not restrain his quite enough. He promptly offered them all the fish we had brought in for their extra pound of butter, when we could just as easily have got it for half the number of fish. Of course the fish did not seem especially valuable to us, and we were willing enough to make a meal without them. Still, one can never tell what will happen, and something like six dollars worth of trout--reckoned by New York prices--seems an unnecessary sum to pay for a pound of butter, even in the Nova Scotia woods, though possibly trout will never be worth quite that much there. All the same, the price had advanced a good deal by next morning, for the wind had shifted to the northeast and it was bleak and blustery. Everybody knows the old rhyme about the winds and the fish--how, when the winds are north or east, the fish bite least, and how, when the winds are south and west, the fish bite best. There isn't much poetry in the old rhyme, but it's charged with sterling truth. Just why a northerly or easterly wind will take away a fish's appetite, I think has never been explained, or why a southerly and westerly wind will start him out hunting for food. But it's all as true as scripture. I have seen trout stop rising with a shifting of the wind to the eastward as suddenly as if they had been summoned to judgment, and I have seen them begin after a cold spell almost before the wind had time to get settled in its new quarter. Of course it had been Del's idea that we could easily get trout enough for breakfast. That was another mistake--we couldn't. We couldn't take them from the river, and we couldn't take them from our bear hunters, for they had gone. We whipped our lines around in that chill wind, tangled our flies in treetops, endangered our immortal souls, and went back to the tents at last without a single thing but our appetites. Then we took turns abusing Del for his disastrous dicker by which he had paid no less than five dollars and seventy-five cents a pound too much for butter, New York market schedule. Our appetites were not especially for trout--only for hearty food of some kind, and as I have said before, we had reached a place where fish had become our real staple. The conditions were particularly hard on Del himself, for he is a hearty man, and next to jars of marmalade, baskets of trout are his favorite forage. In fact, we rather lost interest in our camp, and disagreeable as it was, we decided to drop down the river to Lake Rossignol and cross over to the mouth of the Liverpool. It was a long six-mile ferriage across Rossignol and we could devote our waste time to getting over. By the end of the trip the weather might change. The Shelburne is rough below Kempton Dam. It goes tearing and foaming in and out among the black rocks, and there are places where you have to get out of the canoes and climb over, and the rocks are slippery and sometimes there is not much to catch hold of. We shot out into the lake at last, and I was glad. It was a mistake, however, to be glad just then. It was too soon. The wind had kicked up a good deal of water, and though our canoes were lighter than when we started, I did not consider them suited to such a sea. They pitched about and leaped up into the air, one minute with the bow entirely out of water, and the next with it half-buried in the billow ahead. Every other second a big wave ran on a level with the gunwale, and crested its neck and looked over and hissed, and sometimes it spilled in upon us. It would not take much of that kind of freight to make a cargo, and anything like an accident in that wide, gray billowy place was not a nice thing to contemplate. A loaded canoe would go down like a bullet. No one clad as we were could swim more than a boat's length in that sea. As we got farther on shore the waves got worse. If somebody had just suggested it I should have been willing to turn around and make back for the Shelburne. Nobody suggested it, and we went on. It seemed to me those far, dim shores through the mist, five miles or more away, would never get any closer. I grew tired, too, and my arms ached, but I could not stop paddling. I was filled with the idea that if I ever stopped that eternal dabbing at the water, my end of the canoe would never ride the next billow. Del reflected aloud, now and then, that we had made a mistake to come out on such a day. When I looked over at the other canoe and saw it on the top of a big wave with both ends sticking out in the air, and then saw it go down in a trough of black, ugly water, I realized that Del was right. I knew our canoe was doing just such dangerous things as that, and I would have given any reasonable sum for an adequate life preserver, or even a handy pine plank--for anything, in fact, that was rather more certain to stay on top of the water than this billow-bobbing, birch-bark peanut shell of a canoe. I suppose I became unduly happy, therefore, when at last we entered the mouth of the Liverpool. I was so glad that I grew gay, and when we started up the rapids I gave Del a good lift here and there by pushing back against the rocks with my paddle, throwing my whole weight on it sometimes, to send the canoe up in style. It is always unwise for me to have a gay reaction like that, especially on Friday, which is my unlucky day. Something is so liable to happen. We were going up a particularly steep piece of water when I got my paddle against a stone on the bottom and gave an exceptionally strong push. I don't know just what happened next. Perhaps my paddle slipped. Del says it did. I know I heard him give a whoop, and I saw the river coming straight up at me. Then it came pouring in over the side, and in about a minute more most of our things were floating downstream, with Del grabbing at them, and me clinging to the upset canoe, trying to drag it ashore. We camped there. It was a good place, one of the best yet selected. Still, I do not recommend selecting a camp in that way. If it did not turn out well, it might be a poor place to get things dry. One needs to get a good many things dry after a selection like that, especially on a cold day. It was a cold night, too. I dried my under things and put them all on. "Did you ever sleep in your clothes in the woods?" I have been asked. I did. I put on every dry thing I had that night, and regretted I had left anything at home. Chapter Twenty-seven _It is better to let the wild beast run,_ _And to let the wild bird fly:_ _Each harbors best in his native nest,_ _Even as you and I._ Chapter Twenty-seven Perhaps it was the cold weather that brought us a visitor. There was a tree directly over our tent, and in the morning--a sharp sunny morning, with the wind where it should be, in the west--we noticed on going out that a peculiar sort of fruit had grown on this tree over night. On one of the limbs just above the tent was a prickly looking ball, like a chestnut burr, only black, and about a hundred times as big. It was a baby porcupine, who perhaps had set out to see the world on his own account--a sort of prodigal who had found himself without funds, and helpless, on a cold night. No doubt he climbed up there to look us over, with a view of picking out a good place for himself; possibly with the hope of being invited to breakfast. Eddie was delighted with our new guest. He declared that he would take him home alive, and feed him and care for him, and live happy ever after. He got a pole and shook our visitor down in a basket, and did a war-dance of joy over his new possession. He was a cute little fellow--the "piggypine" (another of Eddie's absurd names)--with bright little eyes and certain areas of fur, but I didn't fancy him as a pet. He seemed to me rather too much of a cross between a rat and a pin cushion to be a pleasant companion in the intimate relations of one's household. I suspected that if in a perfectly wild state he had been prompted to seek human companionship and the comforts of civilized life, in a domestic atmosphere he would want to sit at the table and sleep with somebody. I did not believe Eddie's affection would survive these familiarities. I knew how surprised and annoyed he might be some night to roll over suddenly on the piggypine and then have to sit up the rest of the night while a surgeon removed the quills. I said that I did not believe in taming wild creatures, and I think the guides were with me in this opinion. I think so because they recited two instances while we were at breakfast. Del's story was of some pet gulls he once owned. He told it in that serious way which convinced me of its truth. Certain phases of the narrative may have impressed me as being humorous, but it was clear they were not so regarded by Del. His manner was that of one who records history. He said: "One of the children caught two young gulls once, in the lake, and brought them to the house and said they were going to tame them. I didn't think they would live, but they did. You couldn't have killed them without an ax. They got tame right away, and they were all over the house, under foot and into everything, making all kinds of trouble. But that wasn't the worst--the worst was feeding them. It wasn't so bad when they were little, but they grew to beat anything. Then it began to keep us moving to get enough for them to eat. They lived on fish, mostly, and at first the children thought it fun to feed them. They used to bait a little dip net and catch minnows for the gulls, and the gulls got so they would follow anybody that started out with that dip net, calling and squealing like a pair of pigs. But they were worse than pigs. You can fill up a pig and he will go to sleep, but you never could fill up those gulls. By and by the children got tired of trying to do it and gave me the job. I made a big dip net and kept it set day and night, and every few minutes all day and the last thing before bedtime I'd go down and lift out about a pailful of fish for those gulls, and they'd eat until the fish tails stuck out of their mouths, and I wouldn't more than have my back turned before they'd be standing on the shore of the lake, looking down into that dip net and hollering for more. I got so I couldn't do anything but catch fish for those gulls. It was a busy season, too, and besides the minnows were getting scarce along the lake front, so I had to get up early to get enough to feed them and the rest of the family. I said at last that I was through feeding gulls. I told the children that either they'd have to do it, or that the gulls would have to go to work like the rest of the family and fish for themselves. But the children wouldn't do it, nor the gulls, either. Then I said I would take those birds down in the woods and leave them somewhere. I did that. I put them into a basket and shut them in tight and took them five miles down the river and let them loose in a good place where there were plenty of fish. They flew off and I went home. When I got to the house they'd been there three hours, looking at the dip net and squalling, and they ate a pail heaping full of fish, and you could have put both gulls into the pail when they got through. I was going on a long trip with a party next morning, and we took the gulls along. We fed them about a bushel of trout and left them seventeen miles down the river, just before night, and drove home in the dark. I didn't think the gulls would find their way back that time, but they did. They were there before daybreak, fresh and hungry as ever. Then I knew it was no use. The ax was the only thing that would get me out of that mess. The children haven't brought home any wild pets since." That you see is just unembellished history, and convincing. I regret that I cannot say as much for Charlie's narrative. It is a likely story enough, as such things go, but there are points about it here and there which seem to require confirmation. I am told that it is a story well known and often repeated in Nova Scotia, but even that cannot be accepted as evidence of its entire truth. Being a fish-story it would seem to require something more. This is the tale as Charlie told it. "Once there was a half-breed Indian," he said, "who had a pet trout named Tommy, which he kept in a barrel. But the trout got pretty big and had to have the water changed a good deal to keep him alive. The Indian was too lazy to do that, and he thought he would teach the trout to live out of water. So he did. He commenced by taking Tommy out of the barrel for a few minutes at a time, pretty often, and then he took him out oftener and kept him out longer, and by and by Tommy got so he could stay out a good while if he was in the wet grass. Then the Indian found he could leave him in the wet grass all night, and pretty soon that trout could live in the shade whether the grass was wet or not. By that time he had got pretty tame, too, and he used to follow the Indian around a good deal, and when the Indian would go out to dig worms for him, Tommy would go along and pick up the worms for himself. The Indian thought everything of that fish, and when Tommy got so he didn't need water at all, but could go anywhere--down the dusty road and stay all day out in the hot sun--you never saw the Indian without his trout. Show people wanted to buy Tommy, but the Indian said he wouldn't sell a fish like that for any money. You'd see him coming to town with Tommy following along in the road behind, just like a dog, only of course it traveled a good deal like a snake, and most as fast. "Well, it was pretty sad the way that Indian lost his trout, and it was curious, too. He started for town one day with Tommy coming along behind, as usual. There was a bridge in the road and when the Indian came to it he saw there was a plank off, but he went on over it without thinking. By and by he looked around for Tommy and Tommy wasn't there. He went back a ways and called, but he couldn't see anything of his pet. Then he came to the bridge and saw the hole, and he thought right away that maybe his trout had got in there. So he went to the hole and looked down, and sure enough, there was Tommy, floating on the water, bottom-side up. He'd tumbled through that hole into the brook and drowned." I think these stories impressed Eddie a good deal. I know they did me. Even if Charlie's story was not pure fact in certain minor details, its moral was none the less evident. I saw clearer than ever that it is not proper to take wild creatures from their native element and make pets of them. Something always happens to them sooner or later. We were through breakfast and Eddie went over to look at his porcupine. He had left it in a basket, well covered with a number of things. He came back right away--looking a little blank I thought. "He's gone!" he said. "The basket's just as I left it, all covered up, but he isn't in it." We went over to look. Sure enough, our visitor had set out on new adventures. How he had escaped was a mystery. It didn't matter--both he and Eddie were better off. But that was a day for animal friends. Where we camped for luncheon, Eddie and I took a walk along the river bank and suddenly found ourselves in a perfect menagerie. We were among a regular group of grown porcupines--we counted five of them--and at the same time there were two blue herons in the water, close by. A step away a pair of partridges ran through the brush and stood looking at us from a fallen log, while an old duck and her young came sailing across the river. We were nearing civilization now, but evidently these creatures were not much harassed. It was like the Garden of Eden before the Fall. It is true the old duck swam away, calling to her brood, when she saw us; the partridges presently hid in the brush, and the blue herons waded a bit further off. But the porcupines went on galumphing around us, and none of the collection seemed much disturbed. During the afternoon we came upon two fishermen, college boys, camping, who told us they had seen some young loons in a nest just above, and Eddie was promptly seized with a desire to possess them. In fact we left so hastily that Del forgot his extra paddle, and did not discover the loss until we were a half-mile or so upstream. Then he said he would leave me in the canoe to fish and would walk back along the shore. An arm of the river made around an island just there, and it looked like a good place. There seemed to be not much current in the water, and I thought I could manage the canoe in such a spot and fish, too, without much trouble. [Illustration: "I never realized before what a crazy thing a canoe can be when you want it to do something out of its regular line of work."] It was not as easy as it looked. Any one who has tried to handle a canoe from the front end with one hand and fish with the other will tell you so. I couldn't seem to keep out of the brush along the shore, and I couldn't get near some brush in the middle of the river where I believed there were trout. I was right about the trout being there, too. Eddie proved that when he came up with his canoe. He had plenty of business with big fellows right away. But the fact didn't do me any good. Just when I would get near the lucky place and ready to cast, a twitch in the current or a little puff of wind would get hold of the stern of my craft, which rode up out of the water high and light like a sail, and my flies would land in some bushes along the bank, or hang in a treetop, or do some other silly thing which was entertaining enough to Eddie and his guide, apparently, but which did not amuse me. I never realized before what a crazy thing a canoe can be when you want it to do something out of its regular line of work. A canoe is a good sort of a craft in its place, and I would not wish to go into the woods without one, but it is limited in its gifts, very limited. It can't keep its balance with any degree of certainty when you want to stand up and fish, and it has no sort of notion of staying in one place, unless it's hauled out on the bank. If that canoe had been given the versatility of an ordinary flat-bottomed john-boat I could have got along better than I did. I said as much, and disparaged canoes generally. Eddie declared that he had never heard me swear with such talent and unreserve. He encouraged me by holding up each fish as he caught it and by suggesting that I come over there. He knew very well that I couldn't get there in a thousand years. Whenever I tried to do it that fool of a canoe shot out at a tangent and brought up nowhere. Finally in an effort to reconstruct my rod I dropped a joint of the noibwood overboard, and it went down in about four hundred feet of water. Then I believe I did have a few things to say. I was surprised at my own proficiency. It takes a crucial moment like that to develop real genius. I polished off the situation and I trimmed up the corners. Possibly a touch of sun made me fluent, for it was hot out there, though it was not as hot as a place I told them about, and I dwelt upon its fitness as a permanent abiding place for fishermen in general and for themselves in particular. When I was through and empty I see-sawed over to the bank and waited for Del. I believe I had a feverish hope that they would conclude to take my advice, and that I should never see their canoe and its contents again. There are always compensations for those who suffer and are meek in spirit. That was the evening I caught the big fish, the fish that Eddie would have given a corner of his immortal soul (if he has a soul, and if it has corners) to have taken. It was just below a big fall--Loon Lake Falls I think they call it--and we were going to camp there. Eddie had taken one side of the pool and I the other and neither of us had caught anything. Eddie was just landing, when something that looked big and important, far down the swift racing current, rose to what I had intended as my last cast. I had the little four-ounce bamboo, but I let the flies go down there--the fly, I mean, for I was casting with one (a big Silver Doctor)--and the King was there, waiting. He took it with a great slop and carried out a long stretch of line. It was a test for the little rod. There had been unkind remarks about the tiny bamboo whip; this was to be justification; a big trout on a long line, in deep, swift water--the combination was perfect. Battle now, ye ruler of the rapids! Show your timber now, thou slender wisp of silk and cane! But we have had enough of fishing. I shall not dwell upon the details of that contest. I may say, however, that I have never seen Del more excited than during the minutes--few or many, I do not know how few or how many--that it lasted. Every guide wants his canoe to beat, and it was evident from the first that this was the trout of the expedition. I know that Del believed I would never bring that fish to the canoe, and when those heavy rushes came I was harrassed with doubts myself. Then little by little he yielded. When at last he was over in the slower water--out of the main channel--I began to have faith. So he came in, slowly, slowly, and as he was drawn nearer to the boat, Del seized the net to be ready for him. But I took the net. I had been browbeaten and humiliated and would make my triumph complete. I brought him to the very side of the boat, and I lifted him in. This time the big fish did not get away. We went to where the others had been watching, and I stepped out and tossed him carelessly on the ground, as if it were but an everyday occurrence. Eddie was crushed. I no longer felt bitterness toward him. I think I shall not give the weight of that fish. As already stated, no one can tell the truth concerning a big fish the first trial, while more than one attempt does not look well in print, and is apt to confuse the reader. Besides, I don't think Eddie's scales were right, anyway. Chapter Twenty-eight _Then breathe a sigh and a long good-by_ _To the wilderness to-day,_ _For back again to the trails of men_ _Follows the waterway._ Chapter Twenty-eight Through the Eel-wier--a long and fruitful rapid--we entered our old first lake, Kedgeemakoogee, this time from another point. We had made an irregular loop of one hundred and fifty miles or more--a loop that had extended far into the remoter wilderness, and had been marked by what, to me, were hard ventures and vicissitudes, but which, viewed in the concrete, was recorded in my soul as a link of pure happiness. We were not to go home immediately. Kedgeemakoogee is large and there are entering streams, at the mouth of which the sport at this season was good. Besides, the teams that were to come for us would not be due yet for several days, if we had kept proper account of time. It was above the Eel-weir, at George's Run, that Eddie had his first and only success with dry flies. It was just the place--a slow-moving current between two islands, with many vicious and hungry trout. They would rise to the ordinary fly, two at a cast, and when Eddie put on the dry fly--the artificial miller that sits upright on the water and is an exact imitation of the real article--and let it go floating down, they snapped it up eagerly. It is beautiful fishing--I should really have liked to try it a little. But Eddie had been good to me in so many ways: I hadn't the heart to ask him for one of his precious dry flies. During our trip across Kedgeemakoogee, Del--inspired perhaps by the fact that we were getting nearer to the walks and wiles of men--gave me some idea of Nova Scotia political economies. He explained the system of government there, the manner of voting and the like. The representation is by districts, of course, similar to our own, and the parties have similar methods of making the vote of these districts count on the right side. In Queens, for instance, where we had been most, if not all, of the time, the voters are very scattering. I had suspected this, for in our one hundred and fifty miles travel we had seen but two natives, and only one of these was believed to have political residence. Del said the district had been gerrymandered a good deal to make the votes count right, and it was plain enough that if this man was the only voter in that much country, and he chasing bears most of the time, they would have to gerrymander around a good deal to keep up with him. Del said that when election time came they would go gunning for that voter over the rocks and through the burnt timber, and would beat up the brush for him as if he were a moose, and valuable. Somehow politics did not seem to belong in this place, but either Del exaggerated, this time, or there is a good deal of it to the individual. I suppose it's well to have it condensed in that way. We camped that night at Jim Charles's Point, our old first camp, and it was like getting home after long absence. For the time seemed an age since we had left there. It was that. Any new and wonderful experience is long--as long as eternity--whether it be a day or a decade in duration. Next morning, across to the mouth of West River--a place of many fish and a rocky point for our camp, with deep beds of sweet-fern, but no trees. That rocky open was not the best selection for tents. Eddie and his guide had gone up the river a little way when a sudden shower came up, with heavy darkness and quick wind. Del and I were stowing a few things inside that were likely to get wet, when all at once the tents became balloons that were straining at their guy ropes, and then we were bracing hard and clinging fast to the poles to keep everything from sailing into the sky. It was a savage little squall. It laid the bushes down and turned the lake white in a jiffy. A good thing nobody was out there, under that black sky. Then the wind died and there came a swish of rain--hard rain for a few minutes. After that the sun once more, the fragrance of the fern and the long, sweet afternoon. Looking at those deep tides of sweet-fern, I had an inspiration. My stretcher had never been over comfortable. I longed to sleep flat. Why not a couch of this aromatic balm? It was dry presently, and spreading the canvas strip smoothly on the ground I covered it with armfuls of the fern, evenly laid. I gathered and heaped it higher until it rose deep and cushiony; then I sank down upon it to perfect bliss. This was Arcady indeed: a couch as soft and as fragrant as any the gods might have spread by the brooks of Hymettus in that far time when they stole out of Elysium to find joy in the daughters of men. Such a couch Leda might have had when the swan came floating down to bestow celestial motherhood. I buried my face in the odorous mass and vowed that never again would I cramp myself in a canvas trough between two sticks, and I never did. I could not get sweet-fern again, but balsam boughs were plentiful, and properly laid in a manner that all guides know, make a couch that is wide and yielding and full of rest. Up Little River, whose stones like the proverbial worm, turned when we stepped on them and gave Eddie a hard fall; across Frozen Ocean--a place which justified its name, for it was bitterly cold there and we did nothing but keep the fire going and play pedro (to which end I put on most of my clothes and got into my sleeping-bag)--through another stream and a string of ponds, loitering and exploring until the final day. It was on one reach of a smaller stream that we found the Beaver Dam--the only one I ever saw, or am likely to see, for the race that builds them is nearly done. I had been walking upstream and fishing some small rapids above the others when I saw what appeared to be a large pool of still water just above. I made my way up there. It was in reality a long stillwater, but a pond rather than a pool. It interested me very much. The dam was unlike any I had ever seen. For one thing, I could not understand why a dam should be in that place, for there was no sign of a sluice or other indication of a log industry; besides, this dam was not composed of logs or of stone, or anything of the sort. It was a woven dam--a dam composed of sticks and brush and rushes and vines, some small trees, and dirt--made without much design, it would seem, but so carefully put together and so firmly bound that no piece of it could work loose or be torn away. I was wondering what people could have put together such a curious and effective thing as that, when Del came up, pushing the canoe. He also was interested when he saw it, but he knew what it was. It was a beaver dam, and they were getting mighty scarce. There was a law against killing the little fellows, but their pelts were worth high prices, and the law did not cover traffic in them. So long as that was the case the beavers would be killed. I had heard of beaver dams all my life, but somehow I had not thought of their being like this. I had not thought of those little animals being able to construct a piece of engineering that, in a swift place like this, could stand freshet and rot, year after year, and never break away. Del said he had never known one of them to go out. The outlet was in the right place and of the proper size. He showed me some new pieces which the builders had recently put into the work, perhaps because it seemed to be weakening there. He had watched once and had seen some beavers working. They were as intelligent as human beings. They could cut a tree of considerable size, he said, and make it fall in any chosen direction. Then he showed me some pieces of wood from which they had gnawed the sweet bark, and he explained how they cut small trees and sank lengths of them in the water to keep the bark green and fresh for future use. I listened and marveled. I suppose I had read of these things, but they seemed more wonderful when I was face to face with the fact. The other canoe came up and it was decided to cut a small section out of the dam to let us through. I objected, but was assured that the beavers were not very busy, just now, and would not mind--in fact might rather enjoy--a repair job, which would take them but a brief time. "They can do it sometime while I'm making a long carry," Charlie said. But it was no easy matter to cut through. Charlie and Del worked with the ax, and dragged and pulled with their hands. Finally a narrow breach was made, but it would have been about as easy to unload the canoes and lift them over. Half-way up the long hole we came to the lodge--its top rising above the water. Its entrance, of course, was below the surface, but the guides said there is always a hole at the top, for air. It was a well-built house--better, on the whole, than many humans construct. "They'll be scrambling around, pretty soon," Charlie said, "when they find the water getting lower in their sitting room. Then they'll send out a repair gang. Poor little fellers! Somebody'll likely get 'em before we come again. I know one chap that got seven last year. It's too bad." Yes, it is too bad. Here is a wonderful race of creatures--ingenious, harmless--a race from which man doubtless derived his early lessons in constructive engineering. Yet Nova Scotia is encouraging their assassination by permitting the traffic in their skins, while she salves her conscience by enacting a law against their open slaughter. Nova Scotia is a worthy province and means well. She protects her moose and, to some extent, her trout. But she ought to do better by the beavers. They are among her most industrious and worthy citizens. Their homes and their industries should be protected. Also, their skins. It can't be done under the present law. You can't put a price on a man's head and keep him from being shot, even if it is against the law. Some fellow will lay for him sure. He will sneak up and shoot him from behind, just as he would sneak up and shoot a beaver, and he will collect his reward in either case, and the law will wink at him. Maybe it would be no special crime to shoot the man. Most likely he deserved it, but the beaver was doing nobody any harm. Long ago he taught men how to build their houses and their dams, and to save up food and water for a dry time. Even if we no longer need him, he deserves our protection and our tender regard.[6] FOOTNOTES: [6] I have just learned from Eddie that Nova Scotia has recently enacted a new law, adequately protecting the beaver. I shall leave the above, however, as applying to other and less humane districts, wherever located. Chapter Twenty-nine _Once more, to-night, the woods are white_ _That lee so dim and far,_ _Where the wild trout hide and the moose abide_ _Under the northern star._ Chapter Twenty-nine Perhaps the brightest spot of that sad period when we were making ready to leave the woods, with all their comfort, their peace and their religion, and go back to the harrying haunts of men, to mingle with the fever and fret of daily strife, is the memory of a trip to Jeremy's Bay. I don't know in the least where Jeremy's Bay is, but it is somewhere within an hour's paddle of Jim Charles's Point, and it is that hour and the return that sticks with me now. It was among the last days of June--the most wonderful season in the north woods. The sun seems never ready to set there, then, and all the world is made of blues and greens and the long, lingering tones of evening. We had early tea in preparation for the sunset fishing. It was best, Del said, in Jeremy's Bay about that time. So it was perhaps an hour earlier when we started, the canoes light. In any one life there are not many evenings such as that. It is just as well, for I should account it a permanent sadness if they became monotonous. Perhaps they never would. Our course lay between shores--an island on the one hand, the mainland on the other. When we rounded the point, we were met by a breeze blown straight from the sunset--a breath that was wild and fresh and sweet, and billowed the water till it caught every hue and shimmering iridescence that the sky and shores and setting sun could give. We were eager and rested, for we had done little that day, and the empty canoes slipped like magic into a magical sea of amethyst and emerald gold, the fresh breeze filling us with life and ecstasy until we seemed almost to fly. The eyes could not look easily into the glory ahead, though it was less easy to look away from the enchantment which lay under the sunset. The Kingdom of Ponemah was there, and it was as if we were following Hiawatha to that fair and eternal hunting-ground. Yet when one did turn, the transformation was almost worth while. The colors were all changed. They were more peaceful, more like reality, less like a harbor of dreams and visions too fair for the eyes of man to look upon. A single glance backward, and then away once more between walls of green, billowing into the sunset--away, away to Jeremy's Bay! The sun was just on the horizon when we reached there--the water already in shadow near the shore. So deep and vivid were its hues that we seemed to be fishing in dye-stuff. And the breeze went out with the sun, and the painted pool became still, ruffled only where the trout broke water or a bird dipped down to drink. I will not speak of the fishing there. I have already promised that I would not speak of fishing again. But Jeremy's Bay is a spot that few guides know and few fishermen find. It was our last real fishing, and it was worthy. Then home to camp, between walls of dusk--away, away from Jeremy's Bay--silently slipping under darkening shores--silently, and a little sadly, for our long Day of Joy was closing in--the hour of return drew near. And postpone it as you will, the final moment must come--the time when the rod must be taken down for good; the leaders stripped and coiled in their box, the fly-book tenderly gone over and the last flies you have used fitted into place and laid away. One does not go through that final ritual without a little sentiment--a little tugging about the heart. The flies were all new and trim and properly placed when you set out. They were a gay array and you were as proud of them as of a little garden. They are in disarray now. They have an unkempt look. The shells are shredded, the feathers are caked and bitten, the hackle is frazzled and frayed out. Yet you are even more proud of them than in the beginning. Then they were only a promise, fair and beautiful to look upon; now they conjure up pictures of supreme fulfillment--days and moments so firmly set upon the past that they shall not soon fade away. That big Silver Doctor--from which the shell has twice been broken, and the feathers wrapped and rewrapped--that must have been wound with a special blessing, for when all else failed it was a certain lure. The big trout below Loon Lake rose to that fly, and accordingly this battered thing will forever be preserved. This scarlet Breck, with almost every gay feather gone and the silver wrapping replaced with tinfoil--even when it displayed a mere shred of its former glory it proved far more fatal than many a newer fly. How vividly it recalls a certain wild pool of strange, dim lucence where, for me, the trout would take no other lure. And this Montreal--it has become a magic brush that paints a picture of black rocks and dark water, and my first trout taken on a cast. For a hundred years, if I live that long, this crumpled book and these broken, worn-out flies will bring back the clear, wild water and the green shores of a Nova Scotia June, the remoter silences of the deeper forest, the bright camps by twisting pools and tumbling falls, the flash of the leaping trout, the feel of the curved rod and the music of the singing reel. I shall always recall Eddie, then, and I shall bless him for many things--and forgive him for others. I shall remember Del, too, the Stout, and Charles the Strong, and that they made my camping worth while. I was a trial to them, and they were patient--almost unreasonably so. I am even sorry now for the time that my gun went off and scared Del, though it seemed amusing at the moment. When the wind beats up and down the park, and the trees are bending and cracking with ice; when I know that once more the still places of the North are white and the waters fettered--I shall shut my eyes and see again the ripple and the toss of June, and hear once more the under voices of the falls. And some day I shall return to those far shores, for it is a place to find one's soul. Yet perhaps I should not leave that statement unqualified, for it depends upon the sort of a soul that is to be found. The north wood does not offer welcome or respond readily to the lover of conventional luxury and the smaller comforts of living. Luxury is there, surely, but it is the luxury that rewards effort, and privation, and toil. It is the comfort of food and warmth and dry clothes after a day of endurance--a day of wet, and dragging weariness, and bitter chill. It is the bliss of reaching, after long, toilsome travel, a place where you can meet the trout--the splendid, full-grown wild trout, in his native home, knowing that you will not find a picnic party on every brook and a fisherman behind every tree. Finally, it is the preciousness of isolation, the remoteness from men who dig up and tear down and destroy, who set whistles to tooting and bells to jingling--who shriek themselves hoarse in the market place and make the world ugly and discordant, and life a short and fevered span in which the soul has a chance to become no more than a feeble and crumpled thing. And if that kind of a soul pleases you, don't go to the woods. It will be only a place of mosquitoes, and general wetness, and discomfort. You won't care for it. You will hate it. But if you are willing to get wet and stay wet--to get cold and stay cold--to be bruised, and scuffed, and bitten--to be hungry and thirsty and to have your muscles strained and sore from unusual taxation: if you will welcome all these things, not once, but many times, for the sake of moments of pure triumph and that larger luxury which comes with the comfort of the camp and the conquest of the wilderness, then go! The wilderness will welcome you, and teach you, and take you to its heart. And you will find your own soul there; and the discovery will be worth while! THE END Interesting Fiction _Bar-20_ _By CLARENCE E. MULFORD_ _Illustrated, cloth, decorative. Price, $1.50._ The doings of the famous outfit of Bar-20, an old-time ranch in Arizona, are here recorded. Fifth edition. _The Cleveland News_: "The author knows old Arizona as Harte knew Poverty Row and Poker Flat." _Cleveland Plain Dealer_: "After the style of Mr. Wister." _The Orphan_ _Illustrated, cloth, decorative. Price, $1.50._ This stirring tale deals with the same characters, time, and country as the former success, "Bar-20." It is a yarn decidedly worth while. Greater even than the author's first book. Third edition. _The Salt Lake City Tribune says_: "This is a live, virile story of the boundless West ... of very great attractiveness." _At the Foot of the Rainbow_ _By GENE STRATTON-PORTER_ _Illustrated, cloth, decorative. Price, $1.50._ The scene of this charming, idyllic love story is laid in Central Indiana. It is for the man who loves the earth under his foot, the splash of the black bass, the scent of the pine wood, and the hum of earth close to his ear. _The New York Times says_: "The novel is imbued throughout with a poet's love of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment place it in the category of heart romances." _The Way of a Man_ _By EMERSON HOUGH_ _Illustrated, cloth, decorative. Price, $1.50._ A great, strong, masterful romance of American life in the early sixties. Love, romance and adventure are paramount in this wonderful story. _The Chicago Record-Herald says_: "A story that grips the reader's attention, whets his appetite, and leaves him ever eager for more." _The Sportsman's Primer_ _By NORMAN H. CROWELL_ _Illustrated, decorative cover design, boards. Price, $1.25._ For the man who enjoys sport of all kinds--for every person who has even an "ounce" of humor--this book will prove a gold mine of fun. _The St Louis Republic says_: "Most enjoyable." _Albany Times-Union says_: "One of the jolliest of fun making books." _THE OUTING PUBLISHING CO._ _35-37 WEST 31ST STREET, NEW YORK_ 
29346	----	TALES _of_ FISHES by Zane Grey _President of the Long Key Fishing Club Honorary Vice-President of the Tuna Club, Avalon_ _Author of_ "The U. P. Trail" "The Desert of Wheat" Etc. _Illustrated from Photographs by the author_ HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS New York and London TALES OF FISHES Copyright 1919, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published June, 1919 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE VERSES 0 I. BYME-BY-TARPON 1 II. THE ISLAND OF THE DEAD 8 III. THE ROYAL PURPLE GAME OF THE SEA 26 IV. TWO FIGHTS WITH SWORDFISH 54 V. SAILFISH 72 VI. GULF STREAM FISHING 88 VII. BONEFISH 107 VIII. SOME RARE FISH 136 IX. SWORDFISH 153 X. THE GLADIATOR OF THE SEA 180 XI. SEVEN MARLIN SWORDFISH IN ONE DAY 197 XII. RANDOM NOTES 216 XIII. BIG TUNA 221 XIV. AVALON, THE BEAUTIFUL 250 ILLUSTRATIONS THE GREAT COLORED ROLLERS OF THE PACIFIC _Frontispiece_ TARPON THROWING HOOK _Facing p_. 2 LEAPING TARPON " 3 SAVALO, OR SILVER KING " 4 THESE WILD FOWL HAVE THE WONDERFUL BEAUTY AND SPEED OF FALCONS " 5 RABIHORCADO " 12 THE BOOBIES HAD NO FEAR OF MAN, BUT BOTH YOUNG AND OLD WOULD PICK WITH THEIR SHARP BILLS " 13 YOUNG BOOBIES " 14 SUGGESTIVE OF A WILD, WIND-SWEPT ISLAND OF THE SEA " 15 NESTS EVERYWHERE IN THE SAND AND MOSS " 16 THESE HUGE BLACK RABIHORCADOS WERE THE LARGEST SPECIES OF FRIGATE OR MAN-OF-WAR BIRD " 17 RABIHORCADO RISING FROM THEIR EGGS " 20 BOOBIES OF ISLA DE LA MUERTE IN THE CARIBBEAN SEA " 21 A SWORDFISH LEAPING OFF THE BOLD BLACK SHORE OF CLEMENTE " 28 ON THE RAMPAGE " 29 SWORDFISH ON THE SURFACE " 32 HOLDING HARD " 33 A CLEAN GREYHOUND LEAP " 36 316-POUND SWORDFISH " 37 THE WILD OATS SLOPE OF CLEMENTE " 44 WHERE THE DEEP-BLUE SWELL BOOMS AGAINST THE LAVA WALL OF CLEMENTE ISLAND " 45 FOUR MARLIN SWORDFISH IN ONE DAY " 68 A BIG SAILFISH BREAKING WATER " 69 FOUR SAILFISH IN ONE DAY ON LIGHT TACKLE " 76 SAILFISH THRESHING ON THE SURFACE " 77 MEMORABLE OF LONG KEY " 84 LEAPING SAILFISH " 85 SOLITUDE ON THE SEA " 92 SUNSET BY THE SEA " 93 TWIN TIGERS OF THE SEA--THE SAVAGE BARRACUDA " 98 HAPPY PASTIME OF BONEFISHING " 99 THE GAMEST FISH THAT SWIMS " 110 A WAAHOO " 111 AT LONG KEY, THE LONELY CORAL SHORE WHERE THE SUN SHINES WHITE ALL DAY AND THE STARS SHINE WHITE ALL NIGHT " 144 THE FAMOUS STUNT OF A MARLIN SWORDFISH, "WALKING ON HIS TAIL" " 145 SURGING IN A HALF-CIRCLE " 148 BROADBILL SWORDFISH ON THE SURFACE--THE MOST THRILLING SIGHT TO A SEA ANGLER " 149 SHINING IN THE SUNLIGHT " 156 THROWING WHITE WATER LIKE THE EXPLOSION OF A TORPEDO " 157 A LONG, SLIM SAILFISH WIGGLING IN THE AIR " 160 FIGHTING A BROADBILL SWORDFISH " 161 THE ONLY PHOTOGRAPH EVER TAKEN OF LEAPING BROADBILL SWORDFISH " 180 XIPHIAS GLADIUS, THE BROADSWORDED GLADIATOR OF THE SEA " 181 A STRAIGHTAWAY GREYHOUND LEAP, MARVELOUS FOR ITS SPEED AND WILDNESS " 188 LIKE A LEAPING SPECTER " 189 WALKING ON HIS TAIL " 192 A MAGNIFICENT FLASHING LEAP. THIS PERFECT PICTURE CONSIDERED BY AUTHOR TO BE WORTH HIS FIVE YEARS' LABOR AND PATIENCE " 193 TIRED OUT--THE LAST SLOW HEAVE " 196 HAULED ABOARD WITH BLOCK AND TACKLE " 197 R. C. ON THE JOB " 204 304 POUNDS " 205 R. C. GREY AND RECORD MARLIN " 205 328-POUND RECORD MARLIN BY R. C. GREY. SHAPELIEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL SPECIMEN EVER TAKEN " 208 SUNSET OVER CLEMENTE CHANNEL " 209 A BLUE-FINNED PLUGGER OF THE DEEP--138-POUND TUNA " 244 AVALON, THE BEAUTIFUL " 245 THE OLD AVALON BARGE WHERE THE GULLS FISH AND SCREAM " 252 THE END OF THE DAY OFF CATALINA ISLAND " 253 SEAL ROCKS " 264 [Illustration: THE GREAT COLORED ROLLERS OF THE PACIFIC] ZANE GREY By W. Livingston Larned Been to Avalon with Grey ... been most everywhere; Chummed with him and fished with him in every Sportsman's lair. Helped him with the white Sea-bass and Barracuda haul, Shared the Tuna's sprayful sport and heard his Hunter-call, Me an' Grey are fishin' friends.... Pals of rod and reel, Whether it's the sort that fights ... or th' humble eel, On and on, through Wonderland ... winds a-blowin' free, Catching all th' fins that grow ... Sportsman Grey an' Me. Been to Florida with Zane ... scouting down th' coast; Whipped the deep for Tarpon, too, that natives love th' most. Seen the smiling, Tropic isles that pass, in green review, Gathered cocoanut and moss where Southern skies were blue. Seen him laugh that boyish laugh, when things were goin' right; Helped him beach our little boat and kindle fires at night. Comrades of the Open Way, the Treasure-Trove of Sea, Port Ahoy and who cares where, with Mister Grey an' Me! Been to Western lands with Grey ... hunted fox and deer. Seen the Grizzly's ugly face with danger lurkin' near. Slept on needles, near th' sky, and marked th' round moon rise Over purpling peaks of snow that hurt a fellow's eyes. Gone, like Indians, under brush and to some mystic place-- Home of red men, long since gone, to join their dying race. Yes ... we've chummed it, onward--outward ... mountain, wood, and Key, At the quiet readin'-table ... Sportsman Grey an' Me. TALES OF FISHES I BYME-BY-TARPON To capture the fish is not all of the fishing. Yet there are circumstances which make this philosophy hard to accept. I have in mind an incident of angling tribulation which rivals the most poignant instant of my boyhood, when a great trout flopped for one sharp moment on a mossy stone and then was gone like a golden flash into the depths of the pool. Some years ago I followed Attalano, my guide, down the narrow Mexican street of Tampico to the bank of the broad Panuco. Under the rosy dawn the river quivered like a restless opal. The air, sweet with the song of blackbird and meadowlark, was full of cheer; the rising sun shone in splendor on the water and the long line of graceful palms lining the opposite bank, and the tropical forest beyond, with its luxuriant foliage festooned by gray moss. Here was a day to warm the heart of any fisherman; here was the beautiful river, celebrated in many a story; here was the famous guide, skilled with oar and gaff, rich in experience. What sport I would have; what treasure of keen sensation would I store; what flavor of life would I taste this day! Hope burns always in the heart of a fisherman. Attalano was in harmony with the day and the scene. He had a cheering figure, lithe and erect, with a springy stride, bespeaking the Montezuma blood said to flow in his Indian veins. Clad in a colored cotton shirt, blue jeans, and Spanish girdle, and treading the path with brown feet never deformed by shoes, he would have stopped an artist. Soon he bent his muscular shoulders to the oars, and the ripples circling from each stroke hardly disturbed the calm Panuco. Down the stream glided long Indian canoes, hewn from trees and laden with oranges and bananas. In the stern stood a dark native wielding an enormous paddle with ease. Wild-fowl dotted the glassy expanse; white cranes and pink flamingoes graced the reedy bars; red-breasted kingfishers flew over with friendly screech. The salt breeze kissed my cheek; the sun shone with the comfortable warmth Northerners welcome in spring; from over the white sand-dunes far below came the faint boom of the ever-restless Gulf. We trolled up the river and down, across from one rush-lined lily-padded shore to the other, for miles and miles with never a strike. But I was content, for over me had been cast the dreamy, care-dispelling languor of the South. When the first long, low swell of the changing tide rolled in, a stronger breeze raised little dimpling waves and chased along the water in dark, quick-moving frowns. All at once the tarpon began to show, to splash, to play, to roll. It was as though they had been awakened by the stir and murmur of the miniature breakers. Broad bars of silver flashed in the sunlight, green backs cleft the little billows, wide tails slapped lazily on the water. Every yard of river seemed to hold a rolling fish. This sport increased until the long stretch of water, which had been as calm as St. Regis Lake at twilight, resembled the quick current of a Canadian stream. It was a fascinating, wonderful sight. But it was also peculiarly exasperating, because when the fish roll in this sportive, lazy way they will not bite. For an hour I trolled through this whirlpool of flying spray and twisting tarpon, with many a salty drop on my face, hearing all around me the whipping crash of breaking water. [Illustration: TARPON THROWING HOOK] [Illustration: LEAPING TARPON] "Byme-by-tarpon," presently remarked Attalano, favoring me with the first specimen of his English. The rolling of the tarpon diminished, and finally ceased as noon advanced. No more did I cast longing eyes upon those huge bars of silver. They were buried treasure. The breeze quickened as the flowing tide gathered strength, and together they drove the waves higher. Attalano rowed across the river into the outlet of one of the lagoons. This narrow stream was unruffled by wind; its current was sluggish and its muddy waters were clarifying under the influence of the now fast-rising tide. By a sunken log near shore we rested for lunch. I found the shade of the trees on the bank rather pleasant, and became interested in a blue heron, a russet-colored duck, and a brown-and-black snipe, all sitting on the sunken log. Near by stood a tall crane watching us solemnly, and above in the tree-top a parrot vociferously proclaimed his knowledge of our presence. I was wondering if he objected to our invasion, at the same time taking a most welcome bite for lunch, when directly in front of me the water flew up as if propelled by some submarine power. Framed in a shower of spray I saw an immense tarpon, with mouth agape and fins stiff, close in pursuit of frantically leaping little fish. The fact that Attalano dropped his sandwich attested to the large size and close proximity of the tarpon. He uttered a grunt of satisfaction and pushed out the boat. A school of feeding tarpon closed the mouth of the lagoon. Thousands of mullet had been cut off from their river haunts and were now leaping, flying, darting in wild haste to elude the great white monsters. In the foamy swirls I saw streaks of blood. "Byme-by-tarpon!" called Attalano, warningly. Shrewd guide! I had forgotten that I held a rod. When the realization dawned on me that sooner or later I would feel the strike of one of these silver tigers a keen, tingling thrill of excitement quivered over me. The primitive man asserted himself; the instinctive lust to conquer and to kill seized me, and I leaned forward, tense and strained with suspended breath and swelling throat. Suddenly the strike came, so tremendous in its energy that it almost pulled me from my seat; so quick, fierce, bewildering that I could think of nothing but to hold on. Then the water split with a hissing sound to let out a great tarpon, long as a door, seemingly as wide, who shot up and up into the air. He wagged his head and shook it like a struggling wolf. When he fell back with a heavy splash, a rainbow, exquisitely beautiful and delicate, stood out of the spray, glowed, paled, and faded. [Illustration: SAVALO, OR SILVER KING] [Illustration: THESE WILD FOWL HAVE THE WONDERFUL BEAUTY AND SPEED OF FALCONS] Five times he sprang toward the blue sky, and as many he plunged down with a thunderous crash. The reel screamed. The line sang. The rod, which I had thought stiff as a tree, bent like a willow wand. The silver king came up far astern and sheered to the right in a long, wide curve, leaving behind a white wake. Then he sounded, while I watched the line with troubled eyes. But not long did he sulk. He began a series of magnificent tactics new in my experience. He stood on his tail, then on his head; he sailed like a bird; he shook himself so violently as to make a convulsive, shuffling sound; he dove, to come up covered with mud, marring his bright sides; he closed his huge gills with a slap and, most remarkable of all, he rose in the shape of a crescent, to straighten out with such marvelous power that he seemed to actually crack like a whip. After this performance, which left me in a condition of mental aberration, he sounded again, to begin a persistent, dragging pull which was the most disheartening of all his maneuvers; for he took yard after yard of line until he was far away from me, out in the Panuco. We followed him, and for an hour crossed to and fro, up and down, humoring him, responding to his every caprice, as if he verily were a king. At last, with a strange inconsistency more human than fishlike, he returned to the scene of his fatal error, and here in the mouth of the smaller stream he leaped once more. But it was only a ghost of his former efforts--a slow, weary rise, showing he was tired. I could see it in the weakening wag of his head. He no longer made the line whistle. I began to recover the long line. I pumped and reeled him closer. Reluctantly he came, not yet broken in spirit, though his strength had sped. He rolled at times with a shade of the old vigor, with a pathetic manifestation of the temper that became a hero. I could see the long, slender tip of his dorsal fin, then his broad tail and finally the gleam of his silver side. Closer he came and slowly circled around the boat, eying me with great, accusing eyes. I measured him with a fisherman's glance. What a great fish! Seven feet, I calculated, at the very least. At this triumphant moment I made a horrible discovery. About six feet from the leader the strands of the line had frayed, leaving only one thread intact. My blood ran cold and the clammy sweat broke out on my brow. My empire was not won; my first tarpon was as if he had never been. But true to my fishing instincts, I held on morosely; tenderly I handled him; with brooding care I riveted my eye on the frail place in my line, and gently, ever so gently, I began to lead the silver king shoreward. Every smallest move of his tail meant disaster to me, so when he moved it I let go of the reel. Then I would have to coax him to swim back again. The boat touched the bank. I stood up and carefully headed my fish toward the shore, and slid his head and shoulders out on the lily-pads. One moment he lay there, glowing like mother-of-pearl, a rare fish, fresh from the sea. Then, as Attalano warily reached for the leader, he gave a gasp, a flop that deluged us with muddy water, and a lunge that spelled freedom. I watched him swim slowly away with my bright leader dragging beside him. Is it not the loss of things which makes life bitter? What we have gained is ours; what is lost is gone, whether fish, or use, or love, or name, or fame. I tried to put on a cheerful aspect for my guide. But it was too soon. Attalano, wise old fellow, understood my case. A smile, warm and living, flashed across his dark face as he spoke: "Byme-by-tarpon." Which defined his optimism and revived the failing spark within my breast. It was, too, in the nature of a prophecy. II THE ISLAND OF THE DEAD Strange wild adventures fall to the lot of a fisherman as well as to that of a hunter. On board the _Monterey_, from Havana to Progreso, Yucatan, I happened to fall into conversation with an English globe-trotter who had just come from the Mont Pelée eruption. Like all those wandering Englishmen, this one was exceedingly interesting. We exchanged experiences, and I felt that I had indeed much to see and learn of the romantic Old World. In Merida, that wonderful tropic city of white towers and white streets and white-gowned women, I ran into this Englishman again. I wanted to see the magnificent ruins of Uxmal and Ake and Labna. So did he. I knew it would be a hard trip from Muna to the ruins, and so I explained. He smiled in a way to make me half ashamed of my doubts. We went together, and I found him to be a splendid fellow. We parted without knowing each other's names. I had no idea what he thought of me, but I thought he must have been somebody. While traveling around the coast of Yucatan I had heard of the wild and lonely Alacranes Reef where lighthouse-keepers went insane from solitude, and where wonderful fishes inhabited the lagoons. That was enough for me. Forthwith I meant to go to Alacranes. Further inquiry brought me meager but fascinating news of an island on that lonely coral reef, called _Isla de la Muerte_ (the Island of the Dead). Here was the haunt of a strange bird, called by Indians _rabihorcado_, and it was said to live off the booby, another strange sea-bird. The natives of the coast solemnly averred that when the _rabihorcado_ could not steal fish from the booby he killed himself by hanging in the brush. I did not believe such talk. The Spanish appeared to be _rabi_, meaning rabies, and _horcar_, to hang. I set about to charter a boat, and found the great difficulty in procuring one to be with the Yucatecan government. No traveler had ever before done such a thing. It excited suspicion. The officials thought the United States was looking for a coaling-station. Finally, through the help of the Ward line agent and the consul I prevailed upon them to give me such papers as appeared necessary. Then my Indian boatmen interested a crew of six, and I chartered a two-masted canoe-shaped bark called the _Xpit_. The crew of the _Hispaniola_, with the never-to-be-forgotten John Silver and the rest of the pirates of Treasure Island, could not have been a more villainous and piratical gang than this of the bark _Xpit_. I was advised not to take the trip alone. But it appeared impossible to find any one to accompany me. I grew worried, yet determined not to miss the opportunity. Strange to relate, as I was conversing on the dock with a ship captain and the agent of the Ward line, lamenting the necessity of sailing for Alacranes alone, some one near by spoke up, "Take me!" In surprise I wheeled to see my English acquaintance who had visited the interior of Yucatan with me. I greeted him, thanked him, but of course did not take him seriously, and I proceeded to expound the nature of my venture. To my further surprise, he not only wanted to go, but he was enthusiastic. "But it's a hard, wild trip," I protested. "Why, that crew of barefooted, red-shirted Canary-Islanders have got me scared! Besides, you don't know me!" "Well, you don't know me, either," he replied, with his winning smile. Then I awoke to my own obtuseness and to the fact that here was a real man, in spite of the significance of a crest upon his linen. "If you'll take a chance on me I'll certainly take one on you," I replied, and told him who I was, and that the Ward-line agent and American consul would vouch for me. He offered his hand with the simple reply, "My name is C----." If before I had imagined he was somebody, I now knew it. And that was how I met the kindest man, the finest philosopher, the most unselfish comrade, the greatest example and influence that it has ever been my good fortune to know upon my trips by land or sea. I learned this during our wonderful trip to the Island of the Dead. He never thought of himself. Hardship to him was nothing. He had no fear of the sea, nor of men, nor of death. It seemed he never rested, never slept, never let anybody do what he could do instead. That night we sailed for Alacranes. It was a white night of the tropics, with a million stars blinking in the blue dome overhead, and the Caribbean Sea like a shadowed opal, calm and rippling and shimmering. The _Xpit_ was not a bark of comfort. It had a bare deck and an empty hold. I could not stay below in that gloomy, ill-smelling pit, so I tried to sleep on deck. I lay on a hatch under the great boom, and what with its creaking, and the hollow roar of the sail, and the wash of the waves, and the dazzling starlight, I could not sleep. C. sat on a coil of rope, smoked, and watched in silence. I wondered about him then. Sunrise on the Caribbean was glorious to behold--a vast burst of silver and gold over a level and wrinkling blue sea. By day we sailed, tacking here and there, like lost mariners standing for some far-off unknown shore. That night a haze of clouds obscured the stars, and it developed that our red-shirted skipper steered by the stars. We indeed became lost mariners. They sounded with a greased lead and determined our latitude by the color and character of the coral or sand that came up on the lead. Sometimes they knew where we were and at others they did not have any more idea than had I. On the second morning out we reached Alacranes lighthouse; and when I saw the flat strip of sand, without a tree or bush to lend it grace and color, the bleak lighthouse, and the long, lonely reaches of barren reefs from which there came incessant moaning, I did not wonder that two former lighthouse-keepers had gone insane. The present keeper received me with the welcome always accorded a visitor to out-of-the-world places. He corroborated all that my Indian sailors had claimed for the _rabihorcado_, and added the interesting information that lighthouse-keepers desired the extinction of the birds because the guano, deposited by them on the roofs of the keepers' houses, poisoned the rain water--all they had to drink. I climbed the narrow, spiral stair to the lighthouse tower, and there, apparently lifted into the cloud-navigated sky, I awakened to the real wonder of coral reefs. Ridges of white and brown showed their teeth against the crawling, tireless, insatiate sea. Islets of dead coral gleamed like bleached bone, and beds of live coral, amber as wine, lay wreathed in restless surf. From near to far extended the rollers, the curving channels, and the shoals, all colorful, all quivering with the light of jewels. Golden sand sloped into the gray-green of shallow water, and this shaded again into darker green, which in turn merged into purple, reaching away to the far barrier reef, a white wall against the blue, heaving ocean. The crew had rowed us ashore with my boatmen Manuel and Augustine. And then the red-shirted captain stated he would like to go back to Progreso and return for us at our convenience. Hesitating over this, I finally gave permission, on the promise that he would bring back the _Xpit_ in one week. So they sailed away, and left us soon to find out that we were marooned on a desert island. When I saw how C. took it I was glad of our enforced stay. Solitude and loneliness pervaded Alacranes. Of all the places I had visited, this island was the most hauntingly lonely. [Illustration: RABIHORCADO] [Illustration: THE BOOBIES HAD NO FEAR OF MAN, BUT BOTH YOUNG AND OLD WOULD PICK WITH THEIR SHARP BILLS] It must have struck C. the same way, and even more powerfully than it had me. He was a much older man, and, though so unfailingly cheerful and helpful, he seemed to me to desire loneliness. He did not fish or shoot. His pleasure appeared to be walking the strand, around and around the little island, gathering bits of coral and shells and seaweeds and strange things cast up by the tides. For hours he would sit high on the lighthouse stairway and gaze out over the variegated mosaic of colored reefs. My bed was a hammock in the loft of the keeper's house and it hung close to an open door. At night I woke often, and I would look out upon the lonely beach and sea. When the light flashed its long wheeling gleam out into the pale obscurity of the night it always showed C.'s dark figure on the lonely beach. I got into the habit of watching for him, and never, at any time I happened to awake, did I fail to see him out there. How strange he looms to me now! But I thought it was natural then. The loneliness of that coral reef haunted me. The sound of the sea, eternally slow and sad and moaning, haunted me like a passion. Men are the better for solitude. Our bark, the _Xpit_, did not come back for us. Day by day we scanned the heaving sea, far out beyond the barrier reef, until I began to feel like Crusoe upon his lonely isle. We had no way to know then that our crew had sailed twice from Progreso, getting lost the first time, and getting drunk the second, eventually returning to the home port. Some misfortunes turn out to be blessings. What adventures I had at Alacranes! But, alas! I cannot relate a single story about really catching a fish. There were many and ferocious fish that would rush any bait I tried, only I could not hold them. My tackle was not equal to what it is now. Perhaps, however, if it had been it would have been smashed just the same. In front of the lighthouse there had been built a little plank dock, running out twenty yards or so. The water was about six feet deep, and a channel of varying width meandered between the coral reefs out to the deep blue sea. This must have been a lane for big fish to come inside the barrier. Almost always there were great shadows drifting around in the water. First I tried artificial baits. Some one, hoping to convert me, had given me a whole box of those ugly, murderous plug-baits made famous by Robert H. Davis. Whenever I made a cast with one of these a big fish would hit it and either strip the hooks off or break my tackle. Some of these fish leaped clear. They looked like barracuda to me, only they were almost as silvery as a tarpon. One looked ten feet long and as big around as a telegraph pole. When this one smashed the water white and leaped, Manuel yelled, "_Pecuda!_" I tried hard to catch a specimen, and had a good many hooked, but they always broke away. I did not know then, as I know now, that barracuda grow to twelve feet in the Caribbean. That fact is mentioned in records and natural histories. Out in the deeper lagoons I hooked huge fish that swam off ponderously, dragging the skiff until my line parted. Once I was fortunate enough to see one, which fact dispelled any possibility of its being a shark. Manuel called it "_Cherna!_" It looked like a giant sea-bass and would have weighed at least eight hundred pounds. The color was lighter than any sea-bass I ever studied. My Indian boatmen claimed this fish was a man-eater and that he and his crew had once fought one all day and then it broke away. The fish I saw was huge enough to swallow a man, that was certain. I think this species must have been the great June-fish of the Gulf. I hooked one once at the mouth of the Panuco River in Mexico and it nearly swamped the boat. [Illustration: YOUNG BOOBIES] [Illustration: SUGGESTIVE OF A WILD, WIND-SWEPT ISLAND OF THE SEA] Soon my tackle was all used up, and, for want of better, I had to use tiny hooks and thread lines--because I was going to fish, by hook or crook! This method, however, which I learned first of all, is not to be despised. Whenever I get my hand on a thin, light, stiff reed pole and a long, light line of thread with a little hook, then I revert to boyhood days and sunfish and chubs and shiners and bullheads. Could any fisherman desire more joy? Those days are the best. The child is father of the man And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. In the shallow water near the dock there always floated a dense school of little fish like sardines. They drifted, floated, hovered beside the dock, and when one of the big fish would rush near they would make a breaking roar on the surface. Of me they evinced no fear whatever. But no bait, natural or artificial, that I could discover, tempted them to bite. This roused my cantankerous spirit to catch some of those little fish or else fall inestimably in my own regard. I noted that whenever I cast over the school it disintegrated. A circle widened from the center, and where had been a black mass of fish was only sand. But as my hook settled to the bottom the dark circle narrowed and closed until the school was densely packed as before. Whereupon I tied several of the tiny hooks together with a bit of lead, and, casting that out, I waited till all was black around my line, then I jerked. I snagged one of the little fish and found him to be a beautiful, silvery, flat-sided shiner of unknown species to me. Every cast I made thereafter caught one of them. And they were as good to eat as a sardine and better than a mullet. My English comrade, C., sometimes went with me, and when he did go, the interest and kindly curiosity and pleasure upon his face were a constant source of delight to me. I knew that I was as new a species to him as the little fish were to me. But C. had become so nearly a perfectly educated man that nothing surprised him, nothing made him wonder. He sympathized, he understood, he could put himself in the place of another. What worried me, however, was the simple fact that he did not care to fish or shoot for the so-called sport of either. I think my education on a higher plane began at Alacranes, in the society of that lonely Englishman. Somehow I have gravitated toward the men who have been good for me. [Illustration: NESTS EVERYWHERE IN THE SAND AND MOSS] [Illustration: THESE HUGE BLACK RABIHORCADOS WERE THE LARGEST SPECIES OF FRIGATE OR MAN-OF-WAR BIRD] But C. enjoyed action as well as contemplation. Once out on the shoals when Manuel harpooned a huge hawk-bill turtle--the valuable species from which the amber shell is derived--we had a thrilling and dangerous ride. For the turtle hauled us at a terrific rate through the water. Then C. joined in with the yells of the Indians. He was glad, however, when the turtle left us stranded high upon a coral bed. On moonlight nights when the tide was low C. especially enjoyed wading on the shoals and hunting for the _langustas_, or giant lobsters. This was exciting sport. We used barrel-hoops with nets, and when we saw a lobster shining in the shallow water we waded noiselessly close to swoop down upon him with a great splash. I was always afraid of these huge crayfish, but C. was not. His courage might have been predatory, for he certainly liked to eat lobster. But he had a scare one night when a devilfish or tremendous ray got between him and the shore and made the water fly aloft in a geyser. It was certainly fun for me to see that dignified Englishman make tracks across the shoal. To conclude about C., when I went on to Mexico City with him I met friends of his there, a lord and a duke traveling incognito. C. himself was a peer of England and a major in the English army. But I never learned this till we got to Tampico, where they went with me for the tarpon-fishing. They were rare fine fellows. L., the little Englishman, could do anything under the sun, and it was from him I got my type for Castleton, the Englishman, in _The Light of Western Stars_. I have been told that never was there an Englishman on earth like the one I portrayed in my novel. But my critics never fished with Lord L.! These English friends went with me to the station to bid me good-by and good luck. We were to part there, they to take ship for London, and I to take train for the headwaters of the Panuco River, down which unknown streams I was to find my way through jungle to the Gulf. Here I was told that C. had lost his only son in the Boer War, and since then had never been able to rest or sleep or remain in one place. That stunned me, for I remembered that he had seemed to live only to forget himself, to think of others. It was a great lesson to me. And now, since I have not heard from him during the four years of the world war, I seem to divine that he has "gone west"; he has taken his last restless, helpful journey, along with the best and noblest of England's blood. * * * * * Because this fish-story has so little of fish in it does not prove that a man cannot fish for other game than fish. I remember when I was a boy that I went with my brother--the R. C. and the Reddy of the accompanying pages--to fish for bass at Dillon's Falls in Ohio. Alas for Bill Dilg and Bob Davis, who never saw this blue-blooded home of bronze-back black-bass! In the heat of the day my brother and I jabbed our poles into the bank, and set off to amuse ourselves some other way for a while. When we returned my pole was pulled down and wabbling so as to make a commotion in the water. Quickly I grasped it and pulled, while Reddy stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Surely a big bass had taken my bait and hooked himself. Never had I felt so heavy and strong a bass! The line swished back and forth; my pole bent more and more as I lifted. The water boiled and burst in a strange splash. Then! a big duck flew, as if by magic, right out from before us. So amazed was I that he nearly pulled the pole out of my hands. Reddy yelled wildly. The duck broke the line and sped away.... That moment will never be forgotten. It took us so long to realize that the duck had swallowed my minnow, hooked himself, and happened to be under the surface when we returned. So the point of my main story, like that of the above, is about how I set out to catch fish, and, failing, found for such loss abundant recompense. * * * * * Manuel and Augustine, my Indian sailors, embarked with me in a boat for the Island of the Dead. Millions of marine creatures swarmed in the labyrinthine waterways. Then, as we neared the land, "_Rabihorcado!_" exclaimed Manuel, pointing to a black cloud hovering over the island. As we approached the sandy strip I made it out to be about half a mile long, lying only a few feet above the level of the sea. Hundreds of great, black birds flew out to meet us and sailed over the boat, a sable-winged, hoarse-voiced crowd. When we beached I sprang ashore and ran up the sand to the edge of green. The whole end of the island was white with birds--large, beautiful, snowy birds with shiny black bars across their wings. "Boobies," said Manuel and motioned me to go forward. They greeted our approach with the most discordant din it had ever been my fortune to hear. A mingling of honk and cackle, it manifested not excitement so much as curiosity. I walked among the boobies, and they never moved except to pick at me with long, sharp bills. Many were sitting on nests, and all around in the sand were nests with eggs, and little boobies just hatched, and others in every stage of growth, up to big babies of birds like huge balls of pure white wool. I wondered where the thousands of mothers were. The young ones showed no concern when I picked them up, save to dig into me with curious bills. I saw an old booby, close by, raise his black-barred wings, and, flapping them, start to run across the sand. In this way he launched himself into the air and started out to sea. Presently I noticed several more flying away, one at a time, while others came sailing back again. How they could sail! They had the swift, graceful flight of a falcon. For a while I puzzled over the significance of this outgoing and incoming. Shortly a bird soared overhead, circled with powerful sweep, and alighted within ten feet of me. The bird watched me with gray, unintelligent eyes. They were stupid, uncanny eyes, yet somehow so fixed and staring as to seem accusing. One of the little white balls of wool waddled up and, rubbing its fuzzy head against the booby, proclaimed the filial relation. After a few rubs and wabbles the young bird opened wide its bill and let out shrill cries. The mother bobbed up and down in evident consternation, walked away, came back, and with an eye on me plainly sought to pacify her fledgling. Suddenly she put her bill far down into the wide-open bill, effectually stifling the cries. Then the two boobies stood locked in amazing convulsions. The throat of the mother swelled, and a lump passed into and down the throat of the young bird. The puzzle of the flying boobies was solved in the startling realization that the mother had returned from the sea with a fish in her stomach and had disgorged it into the gullet of her offspring. [Illustration: RABIHORCADO RISING FROM THEIR EGGS] [Illustration: BOOBIES OF ISLA DE LA MUERTE IN THE CARIBBEAN SEA] I watched this feat performed dozens of times, and at length scared a mother booby into withdrawing her bill and dropping a fish on the sand. It was a flying-fish fully ten inches long. I interrupted several little dinner-parties, and in each case found the disgorged fish to be of the flying species. The boobies flew ten, twenty miles out to the open sea for fish, while the innumerable shoals that lay around their island were alive with sardine and herring! I had raised a tremendous row; so, leaving the boobies to quiet down, I made my way toward the flocks of _rabihorcados_. Here and there in the thick growth of green weed were boobies squatting on isolated nests. No sooner had I gotten close to the _rabihorcados_ than I made sure they were the far-famed frigate pelicans, or man-of-war birds. They were as tame as the boobies; as I walked among them many did not fly at all. Others rose with soft, swishing sound of great wings and floated in a circle, uttering deep-throated cries, not unlike the dismal croak of ravens. Perfectly built for the air, they were like feathers blown by a breeze. Light, thin, long, sharp, with enormous spread of wings, beautiful with the beauty of dead, blue-black sheen, and yet hideous, too, with their grisly necks and cruel, crooked beaks and vulture eyes, they were surely magnificent specimens of winged creation. Nests of dried weeds littered the ground, and eggs and young were everywhere. The little ones were covered with white down, and the developing feathers on their wings were turning black. They squalled unremittingly, which squalling I decided was not so much on my account as because of a swarm of black flies that attacked them when the mothers flew away. I was hard put to it myself to keep these flies, large as pennies and as flat, from eating me alive. They slipped up my sleeves and trousers and their bite made a wasp-sting pleasure by comparison. By rushing into a flock of _rabihorcados_ I succeeded several times in catching one in my hands. And spreading it out, I made guesses as to width from tip to tip of wings. None were under seven feet; one measured all of eight. They made no strenuous resistance and regarded me with cold eyes. Every flock that I put to flight left several dozen little ones squalling in the nests; and at one place an old booby waddled to the nests and began to maltreat the young _rabihorcados_. Instincts of humanity bade me scare the old brute away until I happened to remember the relation existing between the two species. Then I watched. With my own eyes I saw that grizzled booby pick and bite and wring those poor little birds with a grim and deadly deliberation. When the mothers, soon returning, fluttered down, they did not attack the booby, but protected their little ones by covering them with body and wings. Conviction came upon me that it was instinctive for the booby to kill the parasitical _rabihorcado_; and likewise instinctive for the _rabihorcado_ to preserve the life of the booby. A shout from Manuel directed me toward the extreme eastern end of the island. On the way I discovered many little dead birds, and the farther I went the more I found. Among the low bushes were also many old _rabihorcados_, dead and dry. Some were twisted among the network of branches, and several were hanging in limp, grotesque, horribly suggestive attitudes of death. Manuel had all of the Indian's leaning toward the mystical, and he believed the _rabihorcados_ had destroyed themselves. Starved they may very well have been, but to me the gales of that wind-swept, ocean desert accounted for the hanging _rabihorcados_. Still, when face to face with the island, with its strife, and its illustration of the survival of the fittest, all that Manuel had claimed and more, I had to acknowledge the disquieting force of the thing and its stunning blow to an imagined knowledge of life and its secrets. Suddenly Manuel shouted and pointed westward. I saw long white streams of sea-birds coming toward the island. My glass showed them to be boobies. An instant later thousands of _rabihorcados_ took wing as if impelled by a common motive. Manuel ran ahead in his excitement, turning to shout to me, and then to point toward the wavering, swelling, white streams. I hurried after him, to that end of the island where we had landed, and I found the colony of boobies in a state of great perturbation. All were squawking, flapping wings, and waddling frantically about. Here was fear such as had not appeared on my advent. Thousands of boobies were returning from deep-sea fishing, and as they neared the island they were met and set upon by a swarming army of _rabihorcados_. Darting white and black streaks crossed the blue of sky like a changeful web. The air was full of plaintive cries and hoarse croaks and the windy rush of wings. So marvelous was this scene of incredibly swift action, of kaleidoscopic change, of streaking lines and curves, that the tragedy at first was lost upon me. Then the shrieking of a booby told me that the robber birds were after their prey. Manuel lay flat on the ground to avoid being struck by low-flying birds, but I remained standing in order to see the better. Faster and faster circled the pursued and pursuers and louder grew the cries and croaks. My gaze was bewildered by the endless, eddying stream of birds. Then I turned my back on sea and beach where this bee-swarm confused my vision, and looked to see single boobies whirling here and there with two or three black demons in pursuit. I picked out one group and turned my glass upon it. Many battles had I seen by field and stream and mountain, but this unequal battle by sea eclipsed all. The booby's mother instinct was to get to her young with the precious fish that meant life. And she would have been more than a match for any one thief. But she could not cope successfully with two fierce _rabihorcados_; for one soared above her, resting, watching, while the other darted and whirled to the attack. They changed, now one black demon swooping down, and then the other, in calculating, pitiless pursuit. How glorious she was in poise and swerve and sweep! For what seemed a long time neither _rabihorcado_ touched her. What distance she could have placed between them but for that faithful mother instinct! She kept circling, ever returning, drawn back toward the sand by the magnet of love; and the powerful wings seemed slowly to lose strength. Closer the _rabihorcados_ swooped and rose and swooped again, till one of them, shooting down like a black flash, struck her in the back. The white feathers flew away on the wind. She swept up, appeared to pause wearily and quiver, then disgorged her fish. It glinted in the sunlight. The _rabihorcado_ dropped in easy, downward curve and caught it as it fell. So the struggle for existence continued till I seemed to see all the world before me with its myriads of wild creatures preying upon one another; the spirit of nature, unquenchable as the fires of the sun, continuing ceaseless and imperturbable in its inscrutable design. As we rowed away I looked back. Sky of a dull purple, like smoke with fire behind it, framed the birds of power and prey in colors suitable to their spirit. My ears were filled with the haunting sound of the sea, the sad wash of the surf, the harmonious and mournful music of the Island of the Dead. III THE ROYAL PURPLE GAME OF THE SEA To the great majority of anglers it may seem unreasonable to place swordfishing in a class by itself--by far the most magnificent sport in the world with rod and reel. Yet I do not hesitate to make this statement and believe I can prove it. The sport is young at this writing--very little has been written by men who have caught swordfish. It was this that attracted me. Quite a number of fishermen have caught a swordfish. But every one of them will have something different to tell you and the information thus gleaned is apt to leave you at sea, both metaphorically and actually. Quite a number of fishermen, out after yellowtail, have sighted a swordfish, and with the assistance of heavy tackle and their boatmen have caught that swordfish. Some few men have caught a small swordfish so quickly and easily that they cannot appreciate what happened. On the other hand, one very large swordfish, a record, was caught in an hour, after a loggy rolling about, like a shark, without leaping. But these are not fighting swordfish. Of course, under any circumstances, it is an event to catch a swordfish. But the accidents, the flukes, the lucky stabs of the game, do not in any sense prove what swordfishing is or what it is not. In August, 1914, I arrived at Avalon with tuna experience behind me, with tarpon experience, and all the other kinds of fishing experience, even to the hooking of a swordfish in Mexico. I am inclined to confess that all this experience made me--well, somewhat too assured. Any one will excuse my enthusiasm. The day of my arrival I met Parker, the genial taxidermist of Avalon, and I started to tell him how I wanted my swordfish mounted. He interrupted me: "Say, young fellow, you want to catch a swordfish first!" One of the tuna boatmen gave me a harder jolt. He said: "Well, if you fish steadily for a couple of weeks, maybe you'll get a strike. And one swordfish caught out of ten strikes is good work!" But Danielson was optimistic and encouraging, as any good boatman ought to be. If I had not been fortunate enough to secure Captain Dan as my boatman, it is certain that one of the most wonderful fishing experiences on record would have fallen to some other fisherman, instead of to me. We went over to Clemente Island, which is thirty-six miles from Catalina Island. Clemente is a mountain rising out of the sea, uninhabited, lonely, wild, and beautiful. But I will tell about the island later. The weather was perfect, the conditions were apparently ideal. I shall never forget the sight of the first swordfish, with his great sickle-shaped tail and his purple fin. Nor am I likely to forget my disappointment when he totally ignored the flying-fish bait we trolled before him. That experience was but a forerunner to others just like it. Every day we sighted one or more swordfish. But we could not get one to take hold. Captain Dan said there was more chance of getting a strike from a swordfish that was not visible rolling on the surface. Now a flying-fish bait makes a rather heavy bait to troll; and as it is imperative to have the reel free running and held lightly with the thumb, after a few hours such trolling becomes hard work. Hard as it was, it did not wear on me like the strain of being always ready for a strike. I doubt if any fisherman could stand this strain. In twenty-one days I had seen nineteen swordfish, several of which had leaped playfully, or to shake off the remoras--parasite, blood-sucking little fish--and the sight of every one had only served to increase my fascination. By this time I had realized something of the difficult nature of the game, and I had begun to have an inkling of what sport it might be. During those twenty-one days we had trolled fifteen hundred miles, altogether, up and down that twenty-five-mile coast of rugged Clemente. And we had trolled round these fish in every conceivable way. I cannot begin to describe my sensations when we circled round a swordfish, and they grew more intense and acute as the strain and suspense dragged. Captain Dan, of course, was mostly dominated by my feeling. All the same, I think the strain affected him on his own account. Then one day Boschen came over to Clemente with Farnsworth--and let me explain, by the way, that Boschen is probably the greatest heavy tackle fisherman living. Boschen would not fish for anything except tuna or swordfish, and up to this visit to Clemente he had caught many tuna, but only one swordfish, a _Xiphias_. This is the broadbill, or true, swordfish; and he is even rarer, and certainly larger and fiercer, than the Marlin, or roundbill, swordfish. This time at Clemente, Boschen caught his first Marlin and it weighed over three hundred pounds, leaped clear into the air sixty-three times, and gave a spectacular and magnificent surface fight that simply beggared description. [Illustration: A SWORDFISH LEAPING OFF THE BOLD BLACK SHORE OF CLEMENTE] [Illustration: ON THE RAMPAGE] It made me wild to catch one, of like weight and ferocity. I spent several more endless days in vain. Then on the twenty-fifth day, way off the east end of Clemente, we sighted a swordfish with a tail almost pink. He had just come to those waters and had not yet gotten sunburnt. We did not have to circle round him! At long distance he saw my bait, and as he went under I saw he had headed for it. I remember that I shook all over. And when I felt him take that bait, thrill on thrill electrified me. Steadily the line ran off the reel. Then Captain Dan leaned over and whispered, hoarsely: "When you think he's had enough throw on your drag and strike. Then wind quick and strike again.... Wind and strike! Keep it up till he shows!" Despite my intense excitement, I was calm enough to follow directions. But when I struck I felt no weight at all--no strain on the line. Frantically I wound and jerked--again and again! I never felt him at all. Suddenly my line rose--and then, bewilderingly near the boat, when I was looking far off, the water split with a roar and out shot a huge, gleaming, white-and-purple fish. He blurred in my sight. Down he went with a crash. I wound the reel like a madman, but I never even half got up the slack line. The swordfish had run straight toward the boat. He leaped again, in a place I did not expect, and going down, instantly came up in another direction. His speed, his savageness, stunned me. I could not judge of his strength, for I never felt his weight. The next leap I saw him sling the hook. It was a great performance. Then that swordfish, finding himself free, leaped for the open sea, and every few yards he came out in a clean jump. I watched him, too fascinated to count the times he broke water, but he kept it up till he was out of sight on the horizon. At first Captain Dan took the loss harder than I took it. But gradually I realized what had happened, and, though I made a brave effort to be game and cheerful, I was sick. It did seem hard that, after all those twenty-five days of patience and hope and toil, I could not have hooked the swordfish. I see now that it was nothing, only an incident, but I shall never forget the pang. That day ended my 1914 experience. The strain had been too hard on me. It had taken all this time for me to appreciate what swordfishing might be. I assured Captain Dan I would come back in 1915, but at the time he did not believe me. He said: "If you hadn't stuck it out so long I wouldn't care. Most of the fishermen try only a few days and never come back. Don't quit now!" * * * * * But I did go back in 1915. Long ago on my lonely desert trips I learned the value of companions and I dreaded the strain of this swordfishing game. I needed some one to help lessen it. Besides that, I needed snapshot pictures of leaping swordfish, and it was obvious that Captain Dan and I would have our hands full when a fish got hooked. We had music, books, magazines--everything that could be thought of. Murphy, the famous old Avalon fisherman and tackle-maker, had made me a double split-bamboo rod, and I had brought the much-talked-of B-Ocean reel. This is Boschen's invention--one he was years in perfecting. It held fifteen hundred feet of No. 24 line. And I will say now that it is a grand reel, the best on the market. But I did not know that then, and had to go through the trip with it, till we were both tried out. Lastly, and most important, I had worked to get into condition to fight swordfish. For weeks I rowed a boat at home to get arms and back in shape, and especially my hands. Let no fisherman imagine he can land a fighting swordfish with soft hands! So, prepared for a long, hard strain, like that of 1914, I left Avalon hopeful, of course, but serious, determined, and alive to the possibilities of failure. I did not troll across the channel between the islands. There was a big swell running, and four hours of it gave me a disagreeable feeling. Now and then I got up to see how far off Clemente was. And upon the last of these occasions I saw the fins of a swordfish right across our bow. I yelled to Captain Dan. He turned the boat aside, almost on top of the swordfish. Hurriedly I put a bait on my hook and got it overboard, and let the line run. Then I looked about for the swordfish. He had gone down. It seemed then that, simultaneously with the recurrence of a peculiar and familiar disappointment, a heavy and powerful fish viciously took my bait and swept away. I yelled to Captain Dan: "He's got it!" ... Captain Dan stopped the engine and came to my side. "No!" he exclaimed. Then I replied, "Look at that line!" ... It seemed like a dream. Too good to be true! I let out a shout when I hooked him and a yell of joy when he broke water--a big swordfish, over two hundred pounds. What really transpired on Captain Dan's boat the following few moments I cannot adequately describe. Suffice to say that it was violent effort, excitement, and hilarity. I never counted the leaps of the swordfish. I never clearly saw him after that first leap. He seemed only a gleam in flying spray. Still, I did not make any mistakes. At the end of perhaps a quarter of an hour the swordfish quit his surface work and settled down to under-water fighting, and I began to find myself. Captain Dan played the phonograph, laughed, and joked while I fought the fish. My companions watched my rod and line and the water, wide-eyed and mute, as if they could not believe what seemed true. In about an hour and a half the swordfish came up and, tired out, he rolled on the top of the great swells. But he could not be drawn near the boat. One little wave of his tail made my rod bend dangerously. Still, I knew I had him beaten, and I calculated that in another hour, perhaps, I could lead him alongside. [Illustration: SWORDFISH ON THE SURFACE] [Illustration: HOLDING HARD] Then, like thunder out of a clear sky, something went wrong with the great B-Ocean reel. It worked hard. When a big swell carried the swordfish up, pulling out line, the reel rasped. "It's freezing on you!" shouted Captain Dan, with dark glance. A new reel sometimes clogs and stops from friction and heat. I had had von Hofe and other reels freeze. But in this instance, it seemed that for the reel to freeze would be simply heartbreaking. Well--it froze, tight as a shut vise! I sat there, clutching the vibrating rod, and I watched the swordfish as the swells lifted him. I expected the line to break, but, instead, the hook tore out. Next day we sighted four swordfish and tried in vain to coax one to bite. Next day we sighted ten swordfish, which is a record for one day. They were indifferent. The next three. The next one, with like result. The next day no fish were sighted, and that fact encouraged Captain Dan. The next day, late in the afternoon, I had a strike and hooked a swordfish. He leaped twice and threw the hook. The next day I got eleven jumps out of another before he gracefully flung the hook at the boat. The next day, a big swordfish, with a ragged purple fin, took my bait right astern of the boat and sounded deep. I hooked him. Time and time again I struck with all my might. The fish did not seem to mind that. He swam along with the boat. He appeared very heavy. I was elated and curious. "What's he going to do?" I kept asking Captain Dan. "Wait!" he exclaimed. After six minutes the swordfish came up, probably annoyed by the hook fast in him. When he showed his flippers, as Captain Dan called them, we all burst out with wonder and awe. As yet I had no reason to fear a swordfish. "He's a whale!" yelled Captain Dan. Probably this fish measured eight feet between his dorsal fin and the great curved fluke of his tail, and that would make his total length over twelve feet. No doubt the swordfish associated the thing fast in his jaw with the boat, for he suddenly awoke. He lifted himself, wagging his sword, showing his great silvery side. Then he began to thresh. I never felt a quarter of such power at the end of a line. He went swift as a flash. Then he leaped sheer ahead, like a porpoise, only infinitely more active. We all yelled. He was of great size, over three hundred, broad, heavy, long, and the most violent and savage fish I ever had a look at. Then he rose half--two-thirds out of the water, shaking his massive head, jaws open, sword sweeping, and seemed to move across the water in a growing, boiling maelstrom of foam. This was the famous "walking on his tail" I had heard so much about. It was an incredible feat. He must have covered fifty yards. Then he plunged down, and turned swiftly in a curve toward the boat. He looked threatening to me. I could not manage the slack line. One more leap and he threw the hook. I found the point of the hook bent. It had never been embedded in his jaw. And also I found that his violent exercise had lasted just one minute. I wondered how long I would have lasted had the hook been deep-set. Next day I had a swordfish take my bait, swim away on the surface, showing the flying-fish plainly between his narrow beak, and after fooling with it for a while he ejected it. Next day I got a great splashing strike from another, without even a sight of the fish. Next day I hooked one that made nineteen beautiful leaps straightaway before he got rid of the hook. And about that time I was come to a sad pass. In fact, I could not sleep, eat, or rest. I was crazy on swordfish. Day after day, from early morning till late afternoon, aboard on the sea, trolling, watching, waiting, eternally on the alert, I had kept at the game. My emotional temperament made this game a particularly trying one. And every possible unlucky, unforeseen, and sickening thing that could happen to a fisherman had happened. I grew morbid, hopeless. I could no longer see the beauty of that wild and lonely island, nor the wonder of that smooth, blue Pacific, nor the myriad of strange sea-creatures. It was a bad state of mind which I could not wholly conquer. Only by going at it so hard, and sticking so long, without any rests, could I gain the experience I wanted. A man to be a great fisherman should have what makes Stewart White a great hunter--no emotions. If a lion charged me I would imagine a million things. Once when a Mexican _tigre_, a jaguar, charged me I--But that is not this story. Boschen has the temperament for a great fisherman. He is phlegmatic. All day--and day after day--he sits there, on trigger, so to speak, waiting for the strike that will come. He is so constituted that it does not matter to him how soon or how late the strike comes. To me the wait, the suspense, grew to be maddening. Yet I stuck it out, and in this I claim a victory, of which I am prouder than I am of the record that gave me more swordfish to my credit than any other fisherman has taken. On the next day, August 11th, about three o'clock, I saw a long, moving shadow back of my bait. I jumped up. There was the purple, drifting shape of a swordfish. I felt a slight vibration when he hit the bait with his sword. Then he took the bait. I hooked this swordfish. He leaped eight times before he started out to sea. He took us three miles. In an hour and five minutes I brought him to gaff--a small fish. Captain Dan would take no chances of losing him. He risked much when he grasped the waving sword with his right hand, and with the gaff in his left he hauled the swordfish aboard and let him slide down into the cockpit. For Captain Dan it was no less an overcoming of obstinate difficulty than for me. He was as elated as I, but I forgot the past long, long siege, while he remembered it. That swordfish certainly looked a tiger of the sea. He had purple fins, long, graceful, sharp; purple stripes on a background of dark, mottled bronze green; mother-of-pearl tint fading into the green; and great opal eyes with dark spots in the center. The colors came out most vividly and exquisitely, the purple blazing, just as the swordfish trembled his last and died. He was nine feet two inches long and weighed one hundred and eighteen pounds. [Illustration: A CLEAN GREYHOUND LEAP] [Illustration: 316-POUND SWORDFISH] * * * * * I caught one the next day, one hundred and forty-four pounds. Fought another the next day and he threw the hook after a half-hour. Caught two the following day--one hundred and twenty, and one hundred and sixty-six pounds. And then, Captain Dan foreshadowing my remarkable finish, exclaimed: "I'm lookin' for busted records now!" * * * * * One day about noon the sea was calm except up toward the west end, where a wind was whipping the water white. Clemente Island towered with its steep slopes of wild oats and its blue cañons full of haze. Captain Dan said he had seen a big swordfish jump off to the west, and we put on full speed. He must have been a mile out and just where the breeze ruffled the water. As good luck would have it, we came upon the fish on the surface. I consider this a fine piece of judgment for Captain Dan, to locate him at that distance. He was a monster and fresh run from the outside sea. That is to say, his great fin and tail were violet, almost pink in color. They had not had time to get sunburnt, as those of fish earlier arrived at Clemente. We made a wide circle round him, to draw the flying-fish bait near him. But before we could get it near he went down. The same old story, I thought, with despair--these floating fish will not bite. We circled over the place where he had gone down, and I watched my bait rising and falling in the low swells. Suddenly Captain Dan yelled and I saw a great blaze of purple and silver green flashing after my bait. It was the swordfish, and he took the bait on the run. That was a moment for a fisherman! I found it almost impossible to let him have enough line. All that I remember about the hooking of him was a tremendous shock. His first dash was irresistibly powerful, and I had a sensation of the absurdity of trying to stop a fish like that. Then the line began to rise on the surface and to lengthen in my sight, and I tried to control my rapture and fear enough to be able to see him clearly when he leaped. The water split, and up he shot--a huge, glittering, savage, beautiful creature, all purple and opal in the sunlight. He did not get all the way out of the water, but when he dropped back he made the water roar. Then, tearing off line, he was out of the water in similar leaps--seven times more. Captain Dan had his work cut out for him as well as I had mine. It was utterly impossible to keep a tight line, and when I felt the slacking of weight I grew numb and sick--thinking he was gone. But he suddenly straightened the line with a jerk that lifted me, and he started inshore. He had about four hundred feet of line out, and more slipping out as if the drag was not there. Captain Dan headed the boat after him at full speed. Then followed a most thrilling race. It was over very quickly, but it seemed an age. When he stopped and went down he had pulled thirteen hundred feet off my reel while we were chasing him at full speed. While he sounded I got back half of this line. I wish I could give some impression of the extraordinary strength and speed of this royal purple fish of the sea. He came up again, in two more leaps, one of which showed me his breadth of back, and then again was performed for me the feature of which I had heard so much and which has made the swordfish the most famous of all fish--he rose two-thirds out of the water, I suppose by reason of the enormous power of his tail, though it seemed like magic, and then he began to walk across the sea in a great circle of white foam, wagging his massive head, sword flying, jaws wide, dorsal fin savagely erect, like a lion's mane. He was magnificent. I have never seen fury so expressed or such an unquenchable spirit. Then he dropped back with a sudden splash, and went down and down and down. All swordfish fight differently, and this one adopted tuna tactics. He sounded and began to plug away and bang the leader with his tail. He would take off three hundred feet of line, and then, as he slowed up, I, by the labor of Hercules, pulled and pumped and wound most of it back on the reel. This kept up for an hour--surely the hardest hour's work of my life. But a swordfish is changeable. That is the beauty of his gameness. He left off sounding and came up to fight on the surface. In the next hour he pulled us from the Fence to Long Point, a distance of four miles. Once off the Point, where the tide rip is strong, he began to circle in great, wide circles. Strangely, he did not put out to sea. And here, during the next hour, I had the finest of experiences I think that ever befell a fisherman. I was hooked to a monster fighting swordfish; I was wet with sweat, and salt water that had dripped from my reel, and I was aching in every muscle. The sun was setting in banks of gold and silver fog over the west end, and the sea was opalescent--vast, shimmering, heaving, beautiful. And at this sunset moment, or hour--for time seemed nothing--a school of giant tuna began leaping around us, smashing the water, making the flying-fish rise in clouds, like drifting bees. I saw a whole flock of flying-fish rise into the air with that sunset glow and color in the background, and the exquisite beauty of life and movement was indescribable. Next a bald eagle came soaring down, and, swooping along the surface, he lowered his talons to pick up a crippled flying-fish. And when the hoary-headed bird rose, a golden eagle, larger and more powerful, began to contest with him for the prey. Then the sky darkened and the moon whitened--and my fight went on. I had taken the precaution to work for two months at rowing to harden my hands for just such a fight as this. Yet my hands suffered greatly. A man who is not in the best of physical trim, with his hands hard, cannot hope to land a big swordfish. I was all afternoon at this final test, and all in, too, but at last I brought him near enough for Captain Dan to grasp the leader.... Then there was something doing around that boat for a spell! I was positive a German torpedo had hit us. But the explosion was only the swordfish's tail and Dan's voice yelling for another gaff. When Captain Dan got the second gaff in him there was another submarine attack, but the boat did not sink. Next came the job of lassoing the monster's tail. Here I shone, for I had lassoed mountain-lions with Buffalo Jones, and I was efficient and quick. Captain Dan and I were unable to haul the fish on board, and we had to get out the block and tackle and lift the tail on deck, secure that, and then pull up the head from the other side. After that I needed some kind of tackle to hold me up. We were miles from camp, and I was wet and cold and exhausted, and the pain in my blistered hands was excruciating. But not soon shall I forget that ride down the shore with the sea so rippling and moon-blanched, and the boom of the surf on the rocks, and the peaks of the island standing bold and dark against the white stars. This swordfish weighed three hundred and sixteen pounds on faulty scales at Clemente. He very likely weighed much more. He was the largest Captain Dan ever saw, up to that time. Al Shade guessed his weight at three hundred and sixty. The market fishermen, who put in at the little harbor the next day, judged him way over three hundred, and these men are accurate. The fish hung head down for a day and night, lost all the water and blood and feed in him, and another day later, when landed at Avalon, he had lost considerable. There were fishermen who discredited Captain Dan and me, who in our enthusiasm claimed a record. But--that sort of thing is one of the aspects of the sport. I was sorry, for Captain Dan's sake. The rivalries between boatmen are keen and important, and they are fostered by unsportsman-like fishermen. And fishermen live among past associations; they grow to believe their performances unbeatable and they hate to see a new king crowned. This may be human, since we are creatures who want always to excel, but it is irritating to the young fishermen. As for myself, what did I care how much the swordfish weighed? He was huge, magnificent, beautiful, and game to the end of that four-hour battle. Who or what could change that--or the memory of those schools of flying-fish in the sunset glow--or the giant tuna, smashing the water all about me--or the eagles fighting over my head--or the beauty of wild and lonely Clemente under its silver cloud-banks? * * * * * I went on catching one or two swordfish every day, and Captain Dan averred that the day would come when we would swamp the boat. These days were fruitful of the knowledge of swordfish that I had longed to earn. They are indeed "queer birds." I learned to recognize the sharp vibration of my line when a swordfish rapped the bait with his sword. No doubt he thought he thus killed his prey. Then the strike would come invariably soon after. No two swordfish acted or fought alike. I hooked one that refused to stand the strain of the line. He followed the boat, and was easily gaffed. I hooked another, a heavy fish, that did not show for two hours. We were sure we had a broadbill, and were correspondingly worried. The broadbill swordfish is a different proposition. He is larger, fiercer, and tireless. He will charge the boat, and nothing but the churning propeller will keep him from ramming the boat. There were eight broadbill swordfish hooked at Avalon during the summer, and not one brought to gaff. This is an old story. Only two have been caught to date. They are so powerful, so resistless, so desperate, and so cunning that it seems impossible to catch them. They will cut bait after bait off your hook as clean as if it had been done with a knife. For that matter, their broad bill is a straight, long, powerful two-edged sword. And the fish perfectly understands its use. This matter of swordfish charging the boat is apt to be discredited by fishermen. But it certainly is not doubted by the few who know. I have seen two swordfish threaten my boat, and one charge it. Walker, an Avalon boatman, tells of a prodigious battle his angler had with a broadbill giant calculated to weigh five hundred pounds. This fight lasted eight hours. Many times the swordfish charged the boat and lost his nerve. If that propeller had stopped he would have gone through the boat as if it had been paper. After this fish freed himself he was so mad that he charged the boat repeatedly. Boschen fought a big broadbill for eleven hours. And during this fight the swordfish sounded to the bottom forty-eight times, and had to be pumped up; he led the boat almost around Catalina Island--twenty-nine miles; and he had gotten out into the channel, headed for Clemente, when he broke away. This fish did everything. I consider this battle the greatest on record. Only a man of enormous strength and endurance could have lasted so long--not to speak of the skill and wits necessary on the part of both fisherman and boatman. All fishermen fish for the big fish, though it is sport to catch any game fish, irrespective of size. But let any fisherman who has nerve see and feel a big swordfish on his line, and from that moment he is obsessed. Why, a tarpon is child's play compared to holding a fast swordfish. It is my great ambition now to catch a broadbill. That would completely round out my fishing experience. And I shall try. But I doubt that I will be so fortunate. It takes a long time. Boschen was years catching his fish. Moreover, though it is hard to get a broadbill to bite--and harder to hook him--it is infinitely harder to do anything with him after you do get fast to him. * * * * * A word about Avalon boatmen. They are a fine body of men. I have heard them maligned. Certainly they have petty rivalries and jealousies, but this is not their fault. They fish all the seasons around and have been there for years. Boatmen at Long Key and other Florida resorts--at Tampico, Aransas Pass--are not in the same class with the Avalon men. They want to please and to excel, and to number you among their patrons for the future. And the boats--nowhere are there such splendid boats. Captain Danielson's boat had utterly spoiled me for fishing out of any other. He had it built, and the ideas of its construction were a product of fifteen years' study. It is thirty-eight feet long, and wide, with roomy, shaded cockpit and cabin, and comfortable revolving chairs to fish from. These chairs have moving sockets into which you can jam the butt of your rod; and the backs can be removed in a flash. Then you can haul at a fish! The boat lies deep, with heavy ballast in the stern. It has a keel all the way, and an enormous rudder. Both are constructed so your line can slip under the boat without fouling. It is equipped with sail and a powerful engine. Danielson can turn this boat, going at full speed, in its own length! Consider the merit of this when a tuna strikes, or a swordfish starts for the open sea. How many tarpon, barracuda, amberjack, and tuna I have lost on the Atlantic seaboard just because the boat could not be turned in time! [Illustration: THE WILD OATS SLOPE OF CLEMENTE] [Illustration: WHERE THE DEEP-BLUE SWELL BOOMS AGAINST THE LAVA WALL OF CLEMENTE ISLAND] * * * * * Clemente Island is a mountain of cliffs and caves. It must be of volcanic origin, and when the lava rose, hot and boiling, great blow-holes formed, and hardened to make the caves. It is an exceedingly beautiful island. The fishing side is on the north, or lee, shore, where the water is very deep right off the rocks. There are kelp-beds along the shore, and the combination of deep water, kelp, and small fish is what holds the swordfish there in August and September. I have seen acres of flying-fish in the air at once, and great swarms of yellowtail, basking on the surface. The color of the water is indigo blue, clear as crystal. Always a fascinating thing for me was to watch the water for new and different fish, strange marine creatures, life of some kind. And the watching was always rewarded. I have been close to schools of devilish blackfish, and I have watched great whales play all around me. What a spectacle to see a whale roll and dip his enormous body and bend and sound, lifting the huge, glistening flukes of his tail, wide as a house! I hate sharks and have caught many, both little and big. When you are watching for swordfish it is no fun to have a big shark break for your bait, throw the water, get your hook, and lift you from your seat. It happened often. But sometimes when I was sure it was a shark it was really a swordfish! I used to love to watch the sunfish leap, they are so round and glistening and awkward. I could tell one two miles away. The blue shark leaps often and he always turns clear over. You cannot mistake it. Nor can you mistake a swordfish when he breaks, even though you only see the splash. He makes two great sheets of water rise and fall. Probably all these fish leap to shake off the remoras. A remora is a parasite, a queer little fish, pale in color, because he probably lives inside the gills of the fish he preys upon, with the suckers on top of his head, arranged in a shield, ribbed like a washboard. This little fish is as mysterious as any creature of the sea. He is as swift as lightning. He can run over the body of a swordfish so quickly you can scarcely follow his movement, and at all times he is fast to the swordfish, holding with that flat sucker head. Mr. Holder wrote years ago that the remora sticks to a fish just to be carried along, as a means of travel, but I do not incline to this belief. We found many remoras inside the gills of swordfish, and their presence there was evidence of their blood-sucking tendencies. I used to search every swordfish for these remoras, and I would keep them in a bucket till we got to our anchorage. A school of tame rock-bass there, and tame yellowtail, and a few great sea-bass were always waiting for us--for our discarded bait or fish of some kind. But when I threw in a live remora, how these hungry fish did dart away! Life in the ocean is strange, complex, ferocious, and wonderful. Al Shade keeps the only camp at Clemente. It is a clean, comfortable, delightful place. I have found no place where sleep is so easy, so sweet, so deep. Shade lives a lonely life there ten months in the year. And it is no wonder that when a fisherman arrives Al almost kills himself in his good humor and kindness and usefulness. Men who live lonely lives are always glad to see their fellow-men. But he loves Clemente Island. Who would not? When I think of it many pictures come to mind--evening with the sea rolling high and waves curving shoreward in great dark ripples, that break and spread white and run up the strand. The sky is pale blue above, a green sheen low down, with white stars blinking. The promontories run down into the sea, sheer, black, rugged, bold, mighty. The surf is loud and deep, detonating, and the pebbles scream as the waves draw them down. Strange to realize that surf when on the morrow the sea will be like glass--not a wave nor a ripple under the gray fog! Wild and beautiful Clemente--the island of caves and cañons and cliffs--lilac and cactus and ice-plant and arbor-vitæ and ironwood, with the wild goats silhouetted dark against the bold sky-line! * * * * * There came that day of all days. I never believed Captain Dan, but now I shall never forget. The greatest day that ever befell me! I brought four swordfish to gaff and whipped another, the biggest one of the whole trip, and saw him tear away from the hook just at the last--in all, nine hours of strenuous hanging on to a rod. I caught the first one before six o'clock, as the sun was rising red-gold, dazzling, glorious. He leaped in the sun eleven times. He weighed one hundred and eighty-seven. After breakfast we sighted two swordfish on the smooth sea. Both charged the bait. I hooked one of these and he leaped twenty-three times. He weighed one hundred and sixty-eight. Then off the east end we saw a big swordfish leap five times. We went out toward the open sea. But we never got anywhere near him. I had three strikes, one after another, when we were speeding the boat. Then we shut down and took to slow trolling. I saw another swordfish sail for my bait, and yelled. He shot off with the bait and his dorsal fin stuck out of the water. I hooked him. He leaped thirty-eight times. How the camera did snap during this fight! He weighed two hundred and ten. I had a fierce strike on the way in. Too fast! We lost him. "The sea's alive with swordfish!" cried Captain Dan. "It's the day!" Then I awoke to my opportunity. Round the east end, close to the great black bluff, where the swells pile up so thunderously, I spied the biggest purple fin I had ever seen. This fellow came to meet us--took my bait. I hooked at him, but did not hurt or scare him. Finally I pulled the hook out of him. While I was reeling in my line suddenly a huge purple shadow hove in sight. It was the swordfish--and certainly one of immense size--the hugest yet. "He's following the boat!" yelled Captain Dan, in great excitement. So I saw, but I could not speak or yell. All was intense excitement on that boat. I jumped up on the stern, holding the bait Captain Dan had put on my hook. Then I paused to look. We all looked, spellbound. That was a sight of a lifetime. There he swam, the monster, a few feet under the surface, only a rod back of the boat. I had no calm judgment with which to measure his dimensions. I only saw that he was tremendous and beautiful. His great, yard-wide fins gleamed royal purple. And the purple strips crossed his silver sides. He glowed in the water, changed color like a chameleon, and drifted, floated after us. I thought of my brother Reddy--how he would have gloried in that sight! I thought of Dilg, of Bob Davis, of Professor Kellogg--other great fishermen, all in a flash. Indeed, though I gloated over my fortune, I was not selfish. Then I threw in the flying-fish bait. The swordfish loomed up, while my heart ceased to beat. There, in plain sight, he took the bait, as a trout might have taken a grasshopper. Slowly he sank. The line began to slip off the reel. He ceased to be a bright purple mass--grew dim--then vague--and disappeared. I sat down, jammed the rod in the socket, and got ready. For the life of me I could not steady my legs. "What'll he weigh?" I gasped. "O Lord! he looked twice as big as the big one you got," replied Dan. "Stand by with the cameras!" I said to my companions, and as they lined up, two on one side and one on the other, I began to strike at that fish with all my might and main. I must have had at least twelve powerful strikes before he began to wake up. Then! He came up, throwing the water in angry spouts. If he did not threaten the boat I was crazy. He began an exhibition that dwarfed any other I had seen, and it was so swift that I could scarcely follow him. Yet when I saw the line rise, and then the wonderful, long, shiny body, instinct with fury, shoot into the air, I yelled the number of the leap, and this was the signal for the camera-workers. They held the cameras close, without trying to focus, facing the fish, and they snapped when I yelled. It was all gloriously exciting. I could never describe that exhibition. I only know that he leaped clear forty-six times, and after a swift, hard hour for me he got away. Strangely, I was almost happy that he had shaken loose, for he had given such remarkable opportunities for pictures. Captain Dan threw the wheel hard over and the boat turned. The swordfish, tired out and unconscious of freedom, was floating near the surface, a drifting blaze of purple. The boat sheered close to him. Captain Dan reached over with a gaff--and all but gaffed that swordfish before he sank too deep. Captain Dan was white with disappointment. That more than anything showed me his earnestness, what it all meant to him. On the way in, for we had been led out a couple of miles, I saw a blue streak after my bait, and I was ready before the swordfish got to it. He struck viciously and I dared not let him have much line. When I hooked him he started out to sea at a clip that smoked the line off my reel. Captain Dan got the boat turned before the swordfish began to leap. Then it was almost a straightaway race. This fellow was a greyhound leaper. He did not churn the water, nor dash to and fro on the surface, but kept steadily leaping ahead. He cleared the water thirty-nine times before he gave up leaping. Then he sounded. The line went slack. I thought he was gone. Suddenly he showed again, in a white splash, and he was not half as far away as when he went down. Then I felt the pull on the line. It was heavy, for he had left a great bag in it. I endeavored to recover line, but it came in very slowly. The swordfish then threshed on the surface so that we could hear the water crack. But he did not leap again. He had gone mad with rage. He seemed to have no sense of direction. He went down again, only to rush up, still closer to us. Then it was plain he saw the nature of his foe. Splitting water like a swift motor-boat, he charged us. I had a cold sensation, but was too excited to be afraid. Almost I forgot to reel in. "He's after us!" I said, grimly. Captain Dan started the boat ahead fast. The swordfish got out of line with the boat. But he was close, and he made me think of the charging rhinoceros Dugmore photographed. And then I yelled for the cameras to be snapped. They all clicked--and then, when the swordfish shot close behind us, presenting the most magnificent picture, no one was ready! As he passed I thought I saw the line round his body. Then he sounded and began to plug. He towed us six miles out to sea. I could not stop him. I had begun to weaken. My hands were sights. My back hurt. But I stayed with him. He felt like a log and I could not recover line. Captain Dan said it was because I was almost all in, but I did not think that. Presently this swordfish turned inshore and towed us back the six miles. By this time it was late and I _was_ all in. But the swordfish did not seem nearer the boat. I got mad and found some reserve strength. I simply had to bring him to gaff. I pulled and pumped and wound until I was blind and could scarcely feel. My old blisters opened and bled. My left arm was dead. I seemed to have no more strength than a kitten. I could not lead the fish nor turn him. I had to drag and drag, inch by inch. It was agonizing. But finally I was encouraged by sight of him, a long, fine, game fellow. A hundred times I got the end of the double line near the leader in sight, only to lose it. Seven o'clock passed. I had fought this swordfish nearly three hours. I could not last much longer. I rested a little, holding hard, and then began a last and desperate effort to bring him to gaff. I was absolutely dripping with sweat, and red flashes passed before my eyes, and queer dots. The last supreme pull--all I had left--brought the end of the leader to Captain Dan's outstretched hand. The swordfish came in broadside. In the clear water we saw him plainly, beautifully striped tiger that he was! And we all saw that he had not been hooked. He had been lassoed. In some way the leader had looped around him with the hook catching under the wire. No wonder it had nearly killed me to bring him to the boat, and surely I never would have succeeded had it not been for the record Captain Dan coveted. That was the strangest feature in all my wonderful Clemente experience--to see that superb swordfish looped in a noose of my long leader. He was without a scratch. It may serve to give some faint idea of the bewildering possibilities in the pursuit of this royal purple game of the Pacific. IV TWO FIGHTS WITH SWORDFISH My first day at Avalon, 1916, was one likely to be memorable among my fishing experiences. The weather (August 2d) was delightful--smooth, rippling sea, no wind, clear sky and warm. The Sierra Nevada Mountains shone dark above the horizon. A little before noon we passed my friend Lone Angler, who hailed us and said there was a big broadbill swordfish off in the steamer-course. We steered off in that direction. There were sunfish and sharks showing all around. Once I saw a whale. The sea was glassy, with a long, heaving swell. Birds were plentiful in scattered groups. We ran across a shark of small size and tried to get him to take a bait. He refused. A little later Captain Dan espied a fin, and upon running up we discovered the huge, brown, leathery tail and dorsal of a broadbill swordfish. Captain Dan advised a long line out so that we could circle the fish from a distance and not scare him. I do not remember any unusual excitement. I was curious and interested. Remembering all I had heard about these fish, I did not anticipate getting a strike from him. We circled him and drew the flying-fish bait so that he would swim near it. As it was, I had to reel in some. Presently we had the bait some twenty yards ahead of him. Then Captain Dan slowed down. The broadbill wiggled his tail and slid out of sight. Dan said he was going for my bait. But I did not believe so. Several moments passed. I had given up any little hope I might have had when I received a quick, strong, vibrating strike--different from any I had ever experienced. I suppose the strangeness was due to the shock he gave my line when he struck the bait with his sword. The line paid out unsteadily and slowly. I looked at Dan and he looked at me. Neither of us was excited nor particularly elated. I guess I did not realize what was actually going on. I let him have about one hundred and fifty feet of line. When I sat down to jam the rod-butt in the socket I had awakened to possibilities. Throwing on the drag and winding in until my line was taut, I struck hard--four times. He made impossible any more attempts at this by starting off on a heavy, irresistible rush. But he was not fast, or so it seemed to me. He did not get more than four hundred feet of line before we ran up on him. Presently he came to the surface to thresh around. He did not appear scared or angry. Probably he was annoyed at the pricking of the hook. But he kept moving, sometimes on the surface and sometimes beneath. I did not fight him hard, preferring to let him pull out the line, and then when he rested I worked on him to recover it. My idea was to keep a perpetual strain upon him. I do not think I had even a hope of bringing this fish to the boat. It was twelve o'clock exactly when I hooked him, and a quarter of an hour sped by. My first big thrill came when he leaped. This was a surprise. He was fooling round, and then, all of a sudden, he broke water clear. It was an awkward, ponderous action, and looked as if he had come up backward, like a bucking bronco. His size and his long, sinister sword amazed me and frightened me. It gave me a cold sensation to realize I was hooked to a huge, dangerous fish. But that in itself was a new kind of thrill. No boatman fears a Marlin as he does the true broadbill swordfish. My second thrill came when the fish lunged on the surface in a red foam. If I had hooked him so he bled freely there was a chance to land him! This approach to encouragement, however, was short-lived. He went down, and if I had been hooked to a submarine I could scarcely have felt more helpless. He sounded about five hundred feet and then sulked. I had the pleasant task of pumping him up. This brought the sweat out upon me and loosened me up. I began to fight him harder. And it seemed that as I increased the strain he grew stronger and a little more active. Still there was not any difference in his tactics. I began to get a conception of the vitality and endurance of a broadbill in contrast with the speed and savageness of his brother fish, the Marlin, or roundbill. At two o'clock matters were about the same. I was not tired, but certainly the fish was not tired, either. He came to the surface just about as much as he sounded. I had no difficulty at all in getting back the line he took, at least all save a hundred feet or so. When I tried to lead him or lift him--then I got his point of view. He would not budge an inch. There seemed nothing to do but let him work on the drag, and when he had pulled out a few hundred feet of line we ran up on him and I reeled in the line. Now and then I put all the strain I could on the rod and worked him that way. At three o'clock I began to get tired. My hands hurt. And I concluded I had been rather unlucky to start on a broadbill at the very beginning. From that time he showed less frequently, and, if anything, he grew slower and heavier. I felt no more rushes. And along about this time I found I could lead him somewhat. This made me begin to work hard. Yet, notwithstanding, I had no hope of capturing the fish. It was only experience. Captain Dan kept saying: "Well, you wanted to hook up with a broadbill! Now how do you like it?" He had no idea I would ever land him. Several times I asked him to give an opinion as to the size of the swordfish, but he would not venture that until he had gotten a good close view of him. At four o'clock I made the alarming discovery that the great B-Ocean reel was freezing, just as my other one had frozen on my first swordfish the year previous. Captain Dan used language. He threw up his hands. He gave up. But I did not. "Dan, see here," I said. "We'll run up on him, throw off a lot of slack line, then cut it and tie it to another reel!" "We might do that. But it'll disqualify the fish," he replied. Captain Dan, like all the boatmen at Avalon, has fixed ideas about the Tuna Club and its records and requirements. It is all right, I suppose, for a club to have rules, and not count or credit an angler who breaks a rod or is driven to the expedient I had proposed. But I do not fish for clubs or records. I fish for the fun, the excitement, the thrill of the game, and I would rather let my fish go than not. So I said: "We'll certainly lose the fish if we don't change reels. I am using the regulation tackle, and to my mind the more tackle we use, provided we land the fish, the more credit is due us. It is not an easy matter to change reels or lines or rods with a big fish working all the time." Captain Dan acquiesced, but told me to try fighting him a while with the light drag and the thumb-brake. So far only the heavy drag had frozen. I tried Dan's idea, to my exceeding discomfort; and the result was that the swordfish drew far away from us. Presently the reel froze solid. The handle would not turn. But with the drag off the spool ran free. Then we ran away from the fish, circling and letting out slack line. When we came to the end of the line we turned back a little, and with a big slack we took the risk of cutting the line and tying it on the other reel. We had just got this done when the line straightened tight! I wound in about twelve hundred feet of line and was tired and wet when I had gotten in all I could pull. This brought us to within a couple of hundred feet of our quarry. Also it brought us to five o'clock. Five hours!... I began to have queer sensations--aches, pains, tremblings, saggings. Likewise misgivings! About this period I determined to see how close to the boat I could pull him. I worked. The word "worked" is not readily understood until a man has tried to pull a big broadbill close to the boat. I pulled until I saw stars and my bones cracked. Then there was another crack. The rod broke at the reel seat! And the reel seat was bent. Fortunately the line could still pay out. And I held the tip while Dan pried and hammered the reel off the broken butt on to another one. Then he put the tip in that butt, and once more I had to reel in what seemed miles and miles of line. Five thirty! It seemed around the end of the world for me. We had drifted into a tide-rip about five miles east of Avalon, and in this rough water I had a terrible time trying to hold my fish. When I discovered that I could hold him--and therefore that he was playing out--then there burst upon me the dazzling hope of actually bringing him to gaff. It is something to fight a fish for more than five hours without one single hope of his capture. I had done that. And now, suddenly, to be fired with hope gave me new strength and spirit to work. The pain in my hands was excruciating. I was burning all over; wet and slippery, and aching in every muscle. These next few minutes seemed longer than all the hours. I found that to put the old strain on the rod made me blind with pain. There was no fun, no excitement, no thrill now. As I labored I could not help marveling at the strange, imbecile pursuits of mankind. Here I was in an agony, absolutely useless. Why did I keep it up? I could not give up, and I concluded I was crazy. I conceived the most unreasonable hatred for that poor swordfish that had done nothing to me and that certainly would have been justified in ramming the boat. To my despair the fish sounded deep, going down and down. Captain Dan watched the line. Finally it ceased to pay out. "Pump him up!" said Dan. This was funny. It was about as funny as death. I rested awhile and meditated upon the weakness of the flesh. The thing most desirable and beautiful in all the universe was rest. It was so sweet to think of that I was hard put to it to keep from tossing the rod overboard. There was something so desperately trying and painful in this fight with a broadbill. At last I drew a deep, long breath, and, with a pang in my breast and little stings all over me, I began to lift on him. He was at the bottom of the ocean. He was just as unattainable as the bottom of the ocean. But there are ethics of a sportsman! Inch by inch and foot by foot I pumped up this live and dragging weight. I sweat, I panted, I whistled, I bled--and my arms were dead, and my hands raw and my heart seemed about to burst. Suddenly Captain Dan electrified me. "There's the end of the double line!" he yelled. Unbelievable as it was, there the knot in the end of the short six feet of double line showed at the surface. I pumped and I reeled inch by inch. A long dark object showed indistinctly, wavered as the swells rose, then showed again. As I strained at the rod so I strained my eyes. "I see the leader!" yelled Dan, in great excitement. I saw it, too, and I spent the last ounce of strength left in me. Up and up came the long, dark, vague object. "You've got him licked!" exclaimed Dan. "Not a wag left in him!" It did seem so. And that bewildering instant saw the birth of assurance in me. I was going to get him! That was a grand instant for a fisherman. I could have lifted anything then. The swordfish became clear to my gaze. He was a devilish-looking monster, two feet thick across the back, twelve feet long over all, and he would have weighed at the least over four hundred pounds. And I had beaten him! That was there to be seen. He had none of the beauty and color of the roundbill swordfish. He was dark, almost black, with huge dorsal and tail, and a wicked broad sword fully four feet long. What terrified me was his enormous size and the deadly look of him. I expected to see him rush at the boat. Watching him thus, I reveled in my wonderful luck. Up to this date there had been only three of these rare fish caught in twenty-five years of Avalon fishing. And this one was far larger than those that had been taken. "Lift him! Closer!" called Captain Dan. "In two minutes I'll have a gaff in him!" I made a last effort. Dan reached for the leader. Then the hook tore out. My swordfish, without a movement of tail or fin, slowly sank--to vanish in the blue water. * * * * * After resting my blistered hands for three days, which time was scarcely long enough to heal them, I could not resist the call of the sea. We went off Seal Rocks and trolled about five miles out. We met a sand-dabber who said he had seen a big broadbill back a ways. So we turned round. After a while I saw a big, vicious splash half a mile east, and we made for it. Then I soon espied the fish. We worked around him awhile, but he would not take a barracuda or a flying-fish. It was hard to keep track of him, on account of rough water. Soon he went down. Then a little later I saw what Dan called a Marlin. He had big flippers, wide apart. I took him for a broadbill. We circled him, and before he saw a bait he leaped twice, coming about half out, with belly toward us. He looked huge, but just how big it was impossible to say. After a while he came up, and we circled him. As the bait drifted round before him--twenty yards or more off--he gave that little wiggle of the tail sickle, and went under. I waited. I had given up hope when I felt him hit the bait. Then he ran off, pretty fast. I let him have a long line. Then I sat down and struck him. He surged off, and we all got ready to watch him leap. But he did not show. He swam off, sounded, came up, rolled around, went down again. But we did not get a look at him. He fought like any other heavy swordfish. In one and one-half hours I pulled him close to the boat, and we all saw him. But I did not get a good look at him as he wove to and fro behind the boat. Then he sounded. I began to work on him, and worked harder. He seemed to get stronger all the time. "He feels like a broadbill, I tell you," I said to Captain Dan. Dan shook his head, yet all the same he looked dubious. Then began a slow, persistent, hard battle between me and the fish, the severity of which I did not realize at the time. In hours like those time has wings. My hands grew hot. They itched, and I wanted to remove the wet gloves. But I did not, and sought to keep my mind off what had been half-healed blisters. Neither the fish nor I made any new moves, it all being plug on his part and give and take on mine. Slowly and doggedly he worked out toward the sea, and while the hours passed, just as persistently he circled back. Captain Dan came to stand beside me, earnestly watching the rod bend and the line stretch. He shook his head. "That's a big Marlin and you've got him foul-hooked," he asserted. This statement was made at the end of three hours and more. I did not agree. Dan and I often had arguments. He always tackled me when I was in some such situation as this--for then, of course, he had the best of it. My brother Rome was in the boat that day, an intensely interested observer. He had not as yet hooked a swordfish. "It's a German submarine!" he declared. My brother's wife and the other ladies with us on board were inclined to favor my side; at least they were sorry for the fish and said he must be very big. "Dan, I could tell a foul-hooked fish," I asserted, positively. "This fellow is too alive--too limber. He doesn't sag like a dead weight." "Well, if he's not foul-hooked, then you're all in," replied the captain. Cheerful acquiescence is a desirable trait in any one, especially an angler who aspires to things, but that was left out in the ordering of my complex disposition. However, to get angry makes a man fight harder, and so it was with me. At the end of five hours Dan suggested putting the harness on me. This contrivance, by the way, is a thing of straps and buckles, and its use is to fit over an angler's shoulders and to snap on the rod. It helps him lift the fish, puts his shoulders more into play, rests his arms. But I had never worn one. I was afraid of it. "Suppose he pulls me overboard, with that on!" I exclaimed. "He'll drown me!" "We'll hold on to you," replied Dan, cheerily, as he strapped it around me. Later it turned out that I had exactly the right view concerning this harness, for Dustin Farnum was nearly pulled overboard and--But I have not space for that story here. My brother Rome wants to write that story, anyhow, because it is so funny, he says. On the other hand, the fact soon manifested itself to me that I could lift a great deal more with said harness to help. The big fish began to come nearer and also he began to get mad. Here I forgot the pain in my hands. I grew enthusiastic. And foolishly I bragged. Then I lifted so hard that I cracked the great Conroy rod. Dan threw up his hands. He quit, same as he quit the first day out, when I hooked the broadbill and the reel froze. "Disqualified fish, even if you ketch him--which you won't," he said, dejectedly. "Crack goes thirty-five dollars!" exclaimed my brother. "Sure is funny, brother, how you can decimate good money into the general atmosphere!" If there really is anything fine in the fighting of a big fish, which theory I have begun to doubt, certainly Captain Dan and Brother R. C. did not know it. Remarks were forthcoming from me, I am ashamed to state, that should not have been. Then I got Dan to tie splints on the rod, after which I fought my quarry some more. The splints broke. Dan had to bind the cracked rod with heavy pieces of wood and they added considerable weight to what had before felt like a ton. The fish had been hooked at eleven o'clock and it was now five. We had drifted or been pulled into the main channel, where strong currents and a choppy sea made the matter a pretty serious and uncomfortable one. Here I expended all I had left in a short and furious struggle to bring the fish up, if not to gaff, at least so we could see what he looked like. How strange and unfathomable a feeling this mystery of him gave rise to! If I could only see him once, then he could get away and welcome. Captain Dan, in anticipation of a need of much elbow room in that cockpit, ordered my brother and the ladies to go into the cabin or up on top. And they all scrambled up and lay flat on the deck-roof, with their heads over, watching me. They had to hold on some, too. In fact, they were having the time of their lives. My supreme effort brought the fish within the hundredth foot length of line--then my hands and my back refused any more. "Dan, here's the great chance you've always hankered for!" I said. "Now let's see you pull him right in!" And I passed him the rod and got up. Dan took it with the pleased expression of a child suddenly and wonderfully come into possession of a long-unattainable toy. Captain Dan was going to pull that fish right up to the boat. He was! Now Dan is big--he weighs two hundred; he has arms and hands like the limbs of a Vulcan. Perhaps Dan had every reason to believe he would pull the fish right up to the boat. But somehow I knew that he would not. My fish, perhaps feeling a new and different and mightier hand at the rod, showed how he liked it by a magnificent rush--the greatest of the whole fight--and he took about five hundred feet of line. Dan's expression changed as if by magic. "Steer the boat! Port! Port!" he yelled. Probably I could not run a boat right with perfectly fresh and well hands, and with my lacerated and stinging ones I surely made a mess of it. This brought language from my boatman--well, to say the least, quite disrespectable. Fortunately, however, I got the boat around and we ran down on the fish. Dan, working with long, powerful sweeps of the rod, got the line back and the fish close. The game began to look great to me. All along I had guessed this fish to be a wonder; and now I knew it. Hauling him close that way angered him. He made another rush, long and savage. The line smoked off that reel. Dan's expression was one of utmost gratification to me. A boatman at last cornered--tied up to a whale of a fish! Somewhere out there a couple of hundred yards the big fish came up and roared on the surface. I saw only circling wake and waves like those behind a speedy motor-boat. But Dan let out a strange shout, and up above the girls screamed, and brother Rome yelled murder or something. I gathered that he had a camera. "Steady up there!" I called out. "If you fall overboard it's good night!... For we want this fish!" I had all I could do. Dan would order me to steer this way and that--to throw out the clutch--to throw it in. Still I was able to keep track of events. This fish made nineteen rushes in the succeeding half-hour. Never for an instant did Captain Dan let up. Assuredly during that time he spent more force on the fish than I had in six hours. The sea was bad, the boat was rolling, the cockpit was inches deep under water many a time. I was hard put to it to stay at my post; and what saved the watchers above could not be explained by me. "Mebbe I can hold him now--a little," called Dan once, as he got the hundred-foot mark over the reel. "Strap the harness on me!" I fastened the straps round Dan's broad shoulders. His shirt was as wet as if he had fallen overboard. Maybe some of that wet was spray. His face was purple, his big arms bulging, and he whistled as he breathed. "Good-by, Dan. This will be a fitting end for a boatman," I said, cheerfully, as I dove back to the wheel. At six o'clock our fish was going strong and Dan was tiring fast. He had, of course, worked too desperately hard. Meanwhile the sun sank and the sea went down. All the west was gold and red, with the towers of Church Rock spiring the horizon. A flock of gulls were circling low, perhaps over a school of tuna. The white cottages of Avalon looked mere specks on the dark island. Captain Dan had the swordfish within a hundred feet of the boat and was able to hold him. This seemed hopeful. It looked now just a matter of a little more time. But Dan needed a rest. I suggested that my brother come down and take a hand in the final round, which I frankly confessed was liable to be hell. [Illustration: FOUR MARLIN SWORDFISH IN ONE DAY] [Illustration: A BIG SAILFISH BREAKING WATER] "Not on your life!" was the prompt reply. "I want to begin on a _little_ swordfish!... Why, that--that fish hasn't waked up yet!" And I was bound to confess there seemed to me to be a good deal of sense in what he said. "Dan, I'll take the rod--rest you a bit--so you can finish him," I offered. The half-hour Dan recorded as my further work on this fish will always be a dark and poignant blank in my fishing experience. When it was over twilight had come and the fish was rolling and circling perhaps fifty yards from the boat. Here Dan took the rod again, and with the harness on and fresh gloves went at the fish in grim determination. Suddenly the moon sailed out from behind a fog-bank and the sea was transformed. It was as beautiful as it was lucky for us. By Herculean effort Dan brought the swordfish close. If any angler doubts the strength of a twenty-four thread line his experience is still young. That line was a rope, yet it sang like a banjo string. Leaning over the side, with two pairs of gloves on, I caught the double line, and as I pulled and Dan reeled the fish came up nearer. But I could not see him. Then I reached the leader and held on as for dear life. "I've got the leader!" I yelled. "Hurry, Dan!" Dan dropped the rod and reached for his gaff. But he had neglected to unhook the rod from the harness, and as the fish lunged and tore the leader away from me there came near to being disaster. However, Dan got straightened out and anchored in the chair and began to haul away again. It appeared we had the fish almost done, but he was so big that a mere movement of his tail irresistibly drew out the line. Then the tip of the rod broke off short just even with the splints and it slid down the line out of sight. Dan lowered the rod so most of the strain would come on the reel, and now he held like grim death. "Dan, if we don't make any more mistakes we'll get that fish!" I declared. The sea was almost calm now, and moon-blanched so that we could plainly see the line. Despite Dan's efforts, the swordfish slowly ran off a hundred feet more of line. Dan groaned. But I yelled with sheer exultation. For, standing up on the gunwale, I saw the swordfish. He had come up. He was phosphorescent--a long gleam of silver--and he rolled in the unmistakable manner of a fish nearly beaten. Suddenly he headed for the boat. It was a strange motion. I was surprised--then frightened. Dan reeled in rapidly. The streak of white gleamed closer and closer. It was like white fire--a long, savage, pointed shape. "Look! Look!" I yelled to those above. "Don't miss it!... Oh, great!" "He's charging the boat!" hoarsely shouted Dan. "He's all in!" yelled my brother. I jumped into the cockpit and leaned over the gunwale beside the rod. Then I grasped the line, letting it slip through my hands. Dan wound in with fierce energy. I felt the end of the double line go by me, and at this I let out another shout to warn Dan. Then I had the end of the leader--a good strong grip--and, looking down, I saw the clear silver outline of the hugest fish I had ever seen short of shark or whale. He made a beautiful, wild, frightful sight. He rolled on his back. Roundbill or broadbill, he had an enormous length of sword. "Come, Dan--we've got him!" I panted. Dan could not, dare not get up then. The situation was perilous. I saw how Dan clutched the reel, with his big thumbs biting into the line. I did my best. My sight failed me for an instant. But the fish pulled the leader through my hands. My brother leaped down to help--alas, too late! "Let go, Dan! Give him line!" But Dan was past that. Afterward he said his grip was locked. He held, and not another foot did the swordfish get. Again I leaned over the gunwale. I saw him--a monster--pale, wavering. His tail had an enormous spread. I could no longer see his sword. Almost he was ready to give up. Then the double line snapped. I fell back in the boat and Dan fell back in the chair. Nine hours! V SAILFISH--THE ATLANTIC BROTHER TO THE PACIFIC SWORDFISH In the winter of 1916 I persuaded Captain Sam Johnson, otherwise famous as Horse-mackerel Sam, of Seabright, New Jersey, to go to Long Key with me and see if the two of us as a team could not outwit those illusive and strange sailfish of the Gulf Stream. Sam and I have had many adventures going down to sea. At Seabright we used to launch a Seabright skiff in the gray gloom of early morning and shoot the surf, and return shoreward in the afternoon to ride a great swell clear till it broke on the sand. When I think of Sam I think of tuna--those torpedoes of the ocean. I have caught many tuna with Sam, and hooked big ones, but these giants are still roving the blue deeps. Once I hooked a tuna off Sandy Hook, out in the channel, and as I was playing him the _Lusitania_ bore down the channel. Like a mountain she loomed over us. I felt like an atom looking up and up. Passengers waved down to us as the tuna bent my rod. The great ship passed on in a seething roar--passed on to her tragic fate. We rode the heavy swells she lifted--and my tuna got away. Sam Johnson is from Norway. His ancestors lived by fishing. Sam knows and loves the sea. He has been a sailor before the mast, but he is more fisherman than sailor. He is a stalwart man, with an iron, stern, weather-beaten face and keen blue eyes, and he has an arm like the branch of an oak. For many years he has been a market fisherman at Seabright, where on off days he pursued the horse-mackerel for the fun of it, and which earned him his name. Better than any man I ever met Sam knows the sea; he knows fish, he knows boats and engines. And I have reached a time in my experience of fishing where I want that kind of a boatman. * * * * * Sam and I went after sailfish at Long Key and we got them. But I do not consider the experience conclusive. If it had not been for my hard-earned knowledge of the Pacific swordfish, and for Sam's keenness on the sea, we would not have been so fortunate. We established the record, but, what is more important, we showed what magnificent sport is possible. This advent added much to the attractiveness of Long Key for me. And Long Key was attractive enough before. Sailfish had been caught occasionally at Long Key, during every season. But I am inclined to believe that, in most instances, the capture of sailfish had been accident--mere fisherman's luck. Anglers have fished along the reef and inside, trolling with heavy tackle for anything that might strike, and once in a while a sailfish has somehow hooked himself. Mr. Schutt tells of hooking one on a Wilson spoon, and I know of another angler who had this happen. I know of one gentleman who told me he hooked a fish that he supposed was a barracuda, and while he was fighting this supposed barracuda he was interested in the leaping of a sailfish near his boat. His boatman importuned him to hurry in the barracuda so there would be a chance to go after the leaping sailfish. But it turned out that the sailfish was on his hook. Another angler went out with heavy rod, the great B-Ocean reel, and two big hooks (which is an outfit suitable only for large tuna or swordfish), and this fellow hooked a sailfish which had no chance and was dead in less than ten minutes. A party of anglers were out on the reef, fishing for anything, and they decided to take a turn outside where I had been spending days after sailfish. Scarcely had these men left the reef when five sailfish loomed up and all of them, with that perversity and capriciousness which makes fish so incomprehensible, tried to climb on board the boat. One, a heavy fish, did succeed in hooking himself and getting aboard. I could multiply events of this nature, but this is enough to illustrate my point--that there is a vast difference between several fishermen out of thousands bringing in several sailfish in one season and one fisherman deliberately going after sailfish with light tackle and eventually getting them. It is not easy. On the contrary, it is extremely hard. It takes infinite patience, and very much has to be learned that can be learned only by experience. But it is magnificent sport and worth any effort. It makes tarpon-fishing tame by comparison. Tarpon-fishing is easy. Anybody can catch a tarpon by going after him. But not every fisherman can catch a sailfish. One fisherman out of a hundred will get his sailfish, but only one out of a thousand will experience the wonder and thrill and beauty of the sport. Sailfishing is really swordfishing, and herein lies the secret of my success at Long Key. I am not satisfied that the sailfish I caught were all Marlin and brothers to the Pacific Marlin. The Atlantic fish are very much smaller than those of the Pacific, and are differently marked and built. Yet they are near enough alike to be brothers. There are three species that I know of in southern waters. The _Histiophorus_, the sailfish about which I am writing and of which descriptions follow. There is another species, _Tetrapturus albidus_, that is not uncommon in the Gulf Stream. It is my impression that this species is larger. The Indians, with whom I fished in the Caribbean, tell of a great swordfish--in Spanish the _Aguja de casta_, and this species must be related to _Xiphias_, the magnificent flatbilled swordfish of the Atlantic and Pacific. * * * * * The morning of my greatest day with sailfish I was out in the Gulf Stream, seven miles offshore, before the other fishermen had gotten out of bed. We saw the sun rise ruddy and bright out of the eastern sea, and we saw sailfish leap as if to welcome the rising of the lord of day. A dark, glancing ripple wavered over the water; there was just enough swell to make seeing fish easy. I was using a rod that weighed nine ounces over all, and twelve hundred feet of fifteen-thread line. I was not satisfied then that the regular light outfit of the Tuna Club, such as I used at Avalon, would do for sailfish. No. 9 breaks of its own weight. And I have had a sailfish run off three hundred yards of line and jump all the time he was doing it. Besides, nobody knows how large these sailfish grow. I had hold of one that would certainly have broken my line if he had not thrown the hook. On this memorable day I had scarcely trolled half a mile out into the Stream before I felt that inexplicable rap at my bait which swordfish and sailfish make with their bills. I jumped up and got ready. I saw a long bronze shape back of my bait. Then I saw and felt him take hold. He certainly did not encounter the slightest resistance in running out my line. He swam off slowly. I never had Sam throw out the clutch and stop the boat until after I had hooked the fish. I wanted the boat to keep moving, so if I did get a chance to strike at a fish it would be with a tight line. These sailfish are wary and this procedure is difficult. If the fish had run off swiftly I would have struck sooner. Everything depends on how he takes the bait. This fellow took fifty feet of line before I hooked him. He came up at once, and with two-thirds of his body out of the water he began to skitter toward us. He looked silver and bronze in the morning light. There was excitement on board. Sam threw out the clutch. My companions dove for the cameras, and we all yelled. The sailfish came skittering toward us. It was a spectacular and thrilling sight. He was not powerful enough to rise clear on his tail and do the famous trick of the Pacific swordfish--"walking on the water." But he gave a mighty good imitation. Then before the cameras got in a snap he went down. And he ran, to come up far astern and begin to leap. I threw off the drag and yelled, "Go!" [Illustration: FOUR SAILFISH IN ONE DAY ON LIGHT TACKLE] [Illustration: Photo by Wunstorf SAILFISH THRESHING ON THE SURFACE] This was pleasant for Sam, who kept repeating, "Look at him yump!" The sailfish evidently wanted to pose for pictures, for he gave a wonderful exhibition of high and lofty tumbling, with the result, of course, that he quickly exhausted himself. Then came a short period during which he sounded and I slowly worked him closer. Presently he swam toward the boat--the old swordfish trick. I never liked it, but with the sailfish I at least was not nervous about him attacking the boat. Let me add here that this freedom from dread--which is never absent during the fighting of a big swordfish--is one of the features so attractive in sailfishing. Besides, fish that have been hooked for any length of time, if they are going to shake or break loose, always do so near the boat. We moved away from this fellow, and presently he came up again, and leaped three more times clear, making nineteen leaps in all. That about finished his performance, so regretfully I led him alongside; and Sam, who had profited by our other days of landing sailfish, took him cautiously by the sword, and then by the gills, and slid him into the boat. Sailfish are never alike, except in general outline. This one was silver and bronze, with green bars, rather faint, and a dark-blue sail without any spots. He measured seven feet one inch. But we measured his quality by his leaps and nineteen gave him the record for us so far. We stowed him up in the bow and got under way again, and scarcely had I let my bait far enough astern when a sailfish hit it. In fact, he rushed it. Quick as I was, which was as quick as a flash, I was not quick enough for that fish. He felt the hook and he went away. But he had been there long enough to get my bait. Just then Sam pointed. I saw a sailfish break water a hundred yards away. "Look at him yump!" repeated Sam, every time the fish came out, which, to be exact, was five times. "We'll go over and pick him up," I said. Sam and I always argue a little about the exact spot where a fish has broken water. I never missed it far, but Sam seldom missed it at all. He could tell by a slight foam always left by the break. We had two baits out, as one or another of my companions always holds a rod. The more baits out the better! We had two vicious, smashing strikes at the same time. The fish on the other rod let go just as I hooked mine. He came up beautifully, throwing the spray, glinting in the sun, an angry fish with sail spread and his fins going. Then on the boat was the same old thrilling bustle and excitement and hilarity I knew so well and which always pleased me so much. This sailfish was a jumper. "Look at him yump!" exclaimed Sam, with as much glee as if he had not seen it before. The cameras got busy. Then I was attracted by something flashing in the water nearer the boat than my fish. Suddenly a sailfish leaped, straightaway, over my line. Then two leaped at once, both directly over my line. "Sam, they'll cut my line!" I cried. "What do you think of that?" Suddenly I saw sharp, dark, curved tails cutting the water. All was excitement on board that boat then. "A school of sailfish! Look! Look!" I yelled. I counted ten tails, but there were more than that, and if I had been quicker I could have counted more. Presently they went down. And I, returning to earth and the business of fishing, discovered that during the excitement my sailfish had taken advantage of a perfectly loose line to free himself. Nine leaps we recorded him! Assuredly we all felt that there would be no difficulty in soon hooking up with another sailfish. And precisely three minutes later I was standing up, leaning forward, all aquiver, watching my line fly off the reel. I hooked that fellow hard. He was heavy, and he did not come up or take off any length of line. Settling down slowly, he descended three or four hundred feet, or so it seemed, and began to plug, very much like an albacore, only much heavier. He fooled around down there for ten minutes, with me jerking at him all the time to irritate him, before he showed any sign of rising. At last I worried him into a fighting mood, and up he came, so fast that I did not even try to take up the slack, and he shot straight up. This jump, like that of a kingfish, was wonderful. But it was so quick that the cameras could not cover it, and we missed a great picture. He went down, only to leap again. I reeled in the slack line and began to jerk at him to torment him, and I got him to jumping and threshing right near the boat. The sun was in the faces of the cameras and that was bad. And as it turned out not one of these exposures was good. What a chance missed! But we did not know that then, and we kept on tormenting him and snapping pictures of his leaps. In this way, which was not careless, but deliberate, I played with him until he shook out the hook. Fifteen leaps was his record. Then it was interesting to see how soon I could raise another fish. I was on the _qui vive_ for a while, then settled back to the old expectant watchfulness. And presently I was rewarded by that vibrating rap at my bait. I stood up so the better to see. The swells were just right and the sun was over my shoulder. I spied the long, dark shape back of my bait, saw it slide up and strike, felt the sharp rap--and again. Then came the gentle tug. I let out line, but he let go. Still I could see him plainly when the swell was right. I began to jerk my bait, to give it a jumping motion, as I had so often done with flying-fish bait when after swordfish. He sheered off, then turned with a rush, broadside on, with his sail up. I saw him clearly, his whole length, and he appeared blue and green and silver. He took the bait and turned away from me, and when I struck the hook into his jaw I felt that it would stay. He was not a jumper--only breaking clear twice. I could not make him leap. He fought hard enough, however, and with that tackle took thirty minutes to land. It was eight o'clock. I had two sailfish in the boat and had fought two besides. And at that time I sighted the first fishing-boat coming out toward the reef. Before that boat got out near us I had struck and lost three more sailfish, with eleven leaps in all to my credit. This boatman had followed Sam and me the day before and he appeared to be bent upon repeating himself. I thought I would rather enjoy that, because he had two inexperienced anglers aboard, and they, in the midst of a school of striking sailfish, would be sure to afford some fun. Three other boats came out across the reef, ventured a little way in the Gulf Stream, and then went back to grouper and barracuda. But that one boatman, B., stuck to us. And right away things began to happen to his anglers. No one so lucky in strikes as a green hand! I saw them get nine strikes without hooking a fish. And there appeared to be a turmoil on board that boat. I saw B. tearing his hair and the fishermen frantically jerking, and then waving rods and arms. Much as I enjoyed it, Sam enjoyed it more. But I was not mean enough to begrudge them a fish and believed that sooner or later they would catch one. Presently, when B.'s boat was just right for his anglers to see everything my way, I felt a tug on my line. I leaped up, let the reel run. Then I threw on my drag and leaned over to strike. But he let go. Quickly I threw off the drag. The sailfish came back. Another tug! I let him run. Then threw on the drag and got ready. But, no, he let go. Again I threw off the drag and again he came back. He was hungry, but he was cunning, too, and too far back for me to see. I let him run fifty feet, threw on the drag, and struck hard. No go! I missed him. But again I threw off the drag, let out more line back to him, and he took the bait the fourth time, and harder than ever. I let him run perhaps a hundred feet. All the time, of course, my boat was running. I had out a long line--two hundred yards. Then I threw on the drag and almost cracked the rod. This time I actually felt the hook go in. How heavy and fast he was! The line slipped off and I was afraid of the drag. I threw it off--no easy matter with that weight on it--and then the line whistled. The sailfish was running straight toward B.'s boat and, I calculated, should be close to it. "Sam," I yelled, "watch him! If he jumps he'll jump into that boat!" Then he came out, the biggest sailfish I ever saw, and he leaped magnificently, not twenty yards back of that boat. He must have been beyond the lines of the trolling anglers. I expected him to cross them or cut himself loose. We yelled to B. to steer off, and while we yelled the big sailfish leaped and leaped, apparently keeping just as close to the boat. He certainly was right upon it and he was a savage leaper. He would shoot up, wag his head, his sail spread like the ears of a mad elephant, and he would turn clear over to alight with a smack and splash that we plainly heard. And he had out nine hundred feet of line. Because of his size I wanted him badly, but, badly as that was, I fought him without a drag, let him run and leap, and I hoped he would jump right into that boat. Afterward these anglers told me they expected him to do just that and were scared to death. Also they said a close sight of him leaping was beautiful and thrilling in the extreme. I did not keep track of all this sailfish's leaps, but Sam recorded twenty-three, and that is enough for any fisherman. I venture to state that it will not be beaten very soon. When he stopped leaping we drew him away from the other boat, and settled down to a hard fight with a heavy, stubborn, game fish. In perhaps half an hour I had him twenty yards away, and there he stayed while I stood up on the stern to watch him and keep clear of the propeller. He weaved from side to side, exactly like a tired swordfish, and every now and then he would stick out his bill and swish! he would cut at the leader. This fish was not only much larger than any I had seen, but also more brilliantly colored. There were suggestions of purple that reminded me of the swordfish--that royal purple game of the Pacific. Another striking feature was that in certain lights he was a vivid green, and again, when deeper, he assumed a strange, triangular shape, much like that of a kite. That, of course, was when he extended the wide, waving sail. I was not able to see that this sail afforded him any particular aid. It took me an hour to tire out this sailfish, and when we got him in the boat he measured seven feet and six inches, which was four inches longer than any record I could find then. At eleven o'clock I had another in the boat, making four sailfish in all. We got fourteen jumps out of this last one. That was the end of my remarkable luck, though it was luck to me to hook other sailfish during the afternoon, and running up the number of leaps. I am proud of that, anyway, and to those who criticized my catch as unsportsman-like I could only say that it was a chance of a lifetime and I was after photographs of leaping sailfish. Besides, I had a great opportunity to beat my record of four swordfish in one day at Clemente Island in the Pacific. But I was not equal to it. * * * * * I do not know how to catch sailfish yet, though I have caught a good many. The sport is young and it is as difficult as it is trying. This catch of mine made fishermen flock to the Stream all the rest of the season, and more fish were caught than formerly. But the proportion held about the same, although I consider that fishing for a sailfish and catching one is a great gain in point. Still, we do not know much about sailfish or how to take them. If I got twenty strikes and caught only four fish, very likely the smallest that bit, I most assuredly was not doing skilful fishing as compared with other kinds of fishing. And there is the rub. Sailfish are not any other kind of fish. They have a wary and cunning habit, with an exceptional occasion of blind hunger, and they have small, bony jaws into which it is hard to sink a hook. Not one of my sailfish was hooked deep down. Yet I let nearly all of them run out a long line. Moreover, as I said before, if a sailfish is hooked there are ten chances to one that he will free himself. [Illustration: MEMORABLE OF LONG KEY] [Illustration: LEAPING SAILFISH] This one thing, then, I believe I have proved to myself--that the sailfish is the gamest, the most beautiful and spectacular, and the hardest fish to catch on light tackle, just as his brother, the Pacific swordfish, is the grandest fish to take on the heaviest of tackle. Long Key, indeed, has its charm. Most all the anglers who visit there go back again. Only the queer ones--and there are many--who want three kinds of boats, and nine kinds of bait, and a deep-sea diver for a boatman, and tackle that cannot be broken, and smooth, calm seas always, and five hundred pounds of fish a day--only that kind complain of Long Key and kick--and yet go back again! Sailfish will draw more and finer anglers down to the white strip of color that shines white all day under a white sun and the same all night under white stars. But it is not alone the fish that draws real sportsmen to a place and makes them love it and profit by their return. It is the spirit of the place--the mystery, like that of the little hermit-crab, which crawls over the coral sand in his stolen shell, and keeps to his lonely course, and loves his life so well--sunshine, which is best of all for men; and the wind in the waving palms; and the lonely, wandering coast with the eternal moan out on the reefs, the sweet, fresh tang, the clear, antiseptic breath of salt, and always by the glowing, hot, colorful day or by the soft dark night with its shadows and whisperings on the beach, that significant presence--the sense of something vaster than the heaving sea. _Light Tackle in the Gulf Stream_ In view of the present controversy between light tackle and heavy tackle champions, I think it advisable for me to state more definitely my stand on the matter of light tackle before going on with a story about it. There is a sharp line to be drawn between light tackle that is right and light tackle that is wrong. So few anglers ever seem to think of the case of the poor fish! In Borneo there is a species of lightning-bug that tourists carry around at night on spits, delighted with the novelty. But is that not rather hard on the lightning-bugs? As a matter of fact, if we are to develop as anglers who believe in conservation and sportsmanship, we must consider the fish--his right to life, and, especially if he must be killed, to do it without brutality. Brutal it is to haul in a fish on tackle so heavy that he has no chance for his life; likewise it is brutal to hook a fish on tackle so light that, if he does not break it, he must be followed around and all over, chased by a motor-boat hour after hour, until he practically dies of exhaustion. I have had many tarpon and many tuna taken off my hooks by sharks because I was using tackle too light. It never appeared an impossible feat to catch Marlin swordfish on a nine-thread line, nor sailfish on a six-thread line. But those lines are too light. My business is to tell stories. If I can be so fortunate as to make them thrilling and pleasing, for the edification of thousands who have other business and therefore less leisure, then that is a splendid thing for me. It is a responsibility that I appreciate. But on the other hand I must tell the truth, I must show my own development, I must be of service to the many who have so much more time to read than fish. It is not enough to give pleasure merely; a writer should instruct. And if what I say above offends any fisherman, I am sorry, and I suggest that he read it twice. What weight tackle to use is not such a hard problem to decide. All it takes is some experience. To quote Mr. Bates, "The principle is that the angler should subdue the fish by his skill with rod and line, and put his strength into the battle to _end_ it, and not employ a worrying process to a frightened fish that does not know what it is fighting." VI GULF STREAM FISHING Some years have passed since I advocated light tackle fishing at Long Key. In the early days of this famous resort most fishermen used hand lines or very heavy outfits. The difficulties of introducing a sportsman-like ideal have been manifold. A good rule of angling philosophy is not to interfere with any fisherman's peculiar ways of being happy, unless you want to be hated. It is not easy to influence a majority of men in the interests of conservation. Half of them do not know the conditions and are only out for a few days' or weeks' fun; the rest do not care. But the facts are that all food fish and game fish must be conserved. The waste has been enormous. If fishermen will only study the use of light tackle they will soon appreciate a finer sport, more fun and gratification, and a saving of fish. Such expert and fine anglers as Crowninshield, Heilner, Cassiard, Lester, Conill, and others are all enthusiastic about light tackle and they preach the gospel of conservation. But the boatmen of Long Key, with the exception of Jordon, are all against light tackle. I must say that James Jordon is to be congratulated and recommended. The trouble at Long Key is that new boatmen are hired each season, and, as they do not own their boats, all their interest centers in as big a catch as possible for each angler they take out, in the hope and expectation, of course, of a generous tip. Heavy tackle means a big catch and light tackle the reverse. And so tons of good food and game fish are brought in only to be thrown to the sharks. I mention this here to give it a wide publicity. It is criminal in these days and ought to be stopped. The season of 1918 was a disappointment in regard to any great enthusiasm over the use of light tackle. We have tried to introduce principles of the Tuna Club of Avalon. President Coxe of the Pacific organization is doing much to revive the earlier ideals of Doctor Holder, founder of the famous club. This year at Long Key a number of prizes were offered by individual members. The contention was that the light tackle specified was too light. This is absolutely a mistake. I have proved that the regulation Tuna Club nine-thread line and six-ounce tip are strong enough, if great care and skill be employed, to take the tricky, hard-jawed, wild-leaping sailfish. And for bonefish, that rare fighter known to so few anglers, the three-six tackle--a three-ounce tip and six-thread line--is just the ideal rig to make the sport exceedingly difficult, fascinating, and thrilling. Old bonefishermen almost invariably use heavy tackle--stiff rods and twelve-or fifteen-thread lines. They have their arguments, and indeed these are hard nuts to crack. They claim three-six for the swift and powerful bonefish is simply absurd. No! I can prove otherwise. But that must be another story. Some one must pioneer these sorely needed reforms. It may be a thankless task, but it is one that some of us are standing by. We need the help of brother anglers. * * * * * One morning in February there was a light breeze from the north and the day promised to be ideal. We ran out to the buoy and found the Gulf Stream a very dark blue, with a low ripple and a few white-caps here and there. Above the spindle we began to see sailfish jumping everywhere. One leaped thirteen times, and another nineteen. Many of them came out sidewise, with a long, sliding plunge, which action at first I took to be that made by a feeding fish. After a while, however, and upon closer view, I changed my mind about this. My method, upon seeing a fish jump, was to speed up the boat until we were in the vicinity where the fish had come up. Then we would slow down and begin trolling, with two baits out, one some forty or fifty feet back and the other considerably farther. We covered several places where we had seen the sheetlike splashes; and at the third or fourth I felt the old electrifying tap at my bait. I leaped up and let my bait run back. The sailfish tapped again, then took hold so hard and ran off so swiftly that I jerked sooner than usual. I pulled the bait away from him. All this time the boat was running. Instead of winding in I let the bait run back. Suddenly the sailfish took it fiercely. I let him run a long way before I struck at him, and then I called to the boatman to throw out the clutch. When the boat is moving there is a better chance of a tight line while striking, and that is imperative if an angler expects to hook the majority of these illusive sailfish. I hooked this fellow, and he showed at once, a small fish, and began to leap toward the boat, making a big bag in the line. I completely lost the feel of his weight. When he went down, and with all that slack line, I thought he was gone. But presently the line tightened and he began to jump in another direction. He came out twice with his sail spread, a splendid, vivid picture; then he took to skittering, occasionally throwing himself clear, and he made some surface runs, splashing and threshing, and then made some clean greyhound-like leaps. In all he cleared the water eleven times before he settled down. After that it took me half an hour to land him. He was not hurt and we let him go. Soon after we got going again we raised a school of four or more sailfish. And when a number rush for the baits it is always exciting. The first fish hit my bait and the second took R. C.'s. I saw both fish in action, and there is considerable difference between the hitting and the taking of a bait. R. C. jerked his bait away from his fish and I yelled for him to let it run back. He did so. A bronze and silver blaze and a boil on the water told me how hungry R. C.'s sailfish was. "Let him run with it!" I yelled. Then I attended to my own troubles. There was a fish rapping at my bait. I let out line, yard after yard, but he would not take hold, and, as R. C.'s line was sweeping over mine, I thought best to reel in. "Hook him now!" I yelled. I surely did shiver at the way my brother came up with that light tackle. But he hooked the sailfish, and nothing broke. Then came a big white splash on the surface, but no sign of the fish. R. C.'s line sagged down. "Look out! Wind in! He's coming at us!" I called. "He's off!" replied my brother. That might well have been, but, as I expected, he was not. He broke water on a slack line and showed us all his dripping, colorful body nearer than a hundred feet. R. C. thereupon performed with incredible speed at the reel and quickly had a tight line. Mr. Sailfish did not like that. He slid out, wrathfully wagging his bill, and left a seamy, foamy track behind him, finally to end that play with a splendid long leap. He was headed away from us now, with two hundred yards of line out, going hard and fast, and we had to follow him. We had a fine straightaway run to recover the line. This was a thrilling chase, and one, I think, we never would have had if R. C. had been using heavy tackle. The sailfish led us out half a mile before he sounded. Then in fifteen minutes more R. C. had him up where we could see his purple and bronze colors and the strange, triangular form of him, which peculiar shape came mostly from the waving sail. I thought I saw other shapes and colors with him, and bent over the gunwale to see better. "He's got company. Two sharks!--You want to do some quick work now or good-by sailfish!" [Illustration: Nassau Photo SOLITUDE ON THE SEA] [Illustration: Nassau Photo SUNSET BY THE SEA] A small gray shark and a huge yellow shark were coming up with our quarry. R. C. said things, and pulled hard on the light tackle. I got hold of the leader and drew the sailfish close to the boat. He began to thresh, and the big shark came with a rush. Instinctively I let go of the leader, which action was a blunder. The sailfish saw the shark and, waking up, he fought a good deal harder than before the sharks appeared upon the scene. He took off line, and got so far away that I gave up any hope that the sharks might not get him. There was a heavy commotion out in the water. The shark had made a rush. So had the sailfish, and he came right back to the boat. R. C. reeled in swiftly. "Hold him hard now!" I admonished, and I leaped up on the stern. The sailfish sheered round on the surface, with tail and bill out, while the shark swam about five feet under him. He was a shovel-nosed, big-finned yellow shark, weighing about five hundred pounds. He saw me. I waved my hat at him, but he did not mind that. He swam up toward the surface and his prey. R. C. was now handling the light tackle pretty roughly. It is really remarkable what can be done with nine-thread. In another moment we would have lost the sailfish. The boatman brought my rifle and a shot scared the shark away. Then we got the sailfish into the boat. He was a beautiful specimen for mounting, weighing forty-five pounds, the first my brother had taken. After that we had several strikes, but not one of them was what I could call a hungry, smashing strike. These sailfish are finicky biters. I had one rap at my bait with his bill until he knocked the bait off. I think the feature of the day was the sight of two flying-fish that just missed boarding the boat. They came out to the left of us and sailed ahead together. Then they must have been turned by the wind, for they made a beautiful, graceful curve until they came around so that I was sure they would fly into the boat. Their motion was indescribably airy and feathery, buoyant and swift, with not the slightest quiver of fins or wings as they passed within five feet of me. I could see through the crystal wings. Their bodies were white and silvery, and they had staring black eyes. They were not so large as the California flying-fish, nor did they have any blue color. They resembled the California species, however, in that same strange, hunted look which always struck me. To see these flying-fish this way was provocative of thought. They had been pursued by some hungry devil of a fish, and with a birdlike swiftness with which nature had marvelously endowed them they had escaped the enemy. Here I had at once the wonder and beauty and terror of the sea. These fish were not leaping with joy. I have not often seen fish in the salt water perform antics for anything except flight or pursuit. Sometimes kingfish appear to be playing when they leap so wonderfully at sunset hour, but as a rule salt-water fish do not seem to be playful. * * * * * At Long Key the Gulf Stream is offshore five miles. The water shoals gradually anywhere from two feet near the beach to twenty feet five miles out on the reef. When there has been no wind for several days, which is a rare thing for Long Key, the water becomes crystal clear and the fish and marine creatures are an endless source of interest to the fisherman. Of course a large boat, in going out on the reef, must use the channel between the keys, but a small boat or canoe can go anywhere. It is remarkable how the great game fish come in from the Stream across the reef into shoal water. Barracuda come right up to the shore, and likewise the big sharks. The bottom is a clean, white, finely ribbed coral sand, with patches of brown seaweed here and there and golden spots, and in the shallower water different kinds of sponges. Out on the reef the water is a light green. The Gulf Stream runs along the outer edge of the reef, and here between Tennessee Buoy and Alligator Light, eighteen miles, is a feeding-ground for sailfish, kingfish, amberjack, barracuda, and other fishes. The ballyhoo is the main feed of these fishes, and it is indeed a queer little fish. He was made by nature, like the sardine and mullet and flying-fish, to serve as food for the larger fishes. The ballyhoo is about a foot long, slim and flat, shiny and white on the sides and dark green on the back, with a sharp-pointed, bright-yellow tail, the lower lobe of which is developed to twice the length of the upper. He has a very strange feature in the fact that his lower jaw resembles the bill of a snipe, being several inches long, sharp and pointed and hard; but he has no upper lip or beak at all. This half-bill must be used in relation to his food, but I do not have any idea how this is done. One day I found the Gulf Stream a mile off Tennessee Buoy, whereas on other days it would be close in. On this particular day the water was a dark, clear, indigo blue and appreciably warmer than the surrounding sea. This Stream has a current of several miles an hour, flowing up the coast. Everywhere we saw the Portuguese men-of-war shining on the waves. There was a slight, cool breeze blowing, rippling the water just enough to make fishing favorable. I saw a big loggerhead turtle, weighing about three hundred pounds, coming around on the surface among these Portuguese men-of-war, and as we ran up I saw that he was feeding on these queer balloon-like little creatures. Sometimes he would come up under one and it would stick on his back, and he would turn laboriously around from under it, and submerge his back so he had it floating again. Then he would open his cavernous mouth and take it in. Considering the stinging poison these Portuguese men-of-war secrete about them, the turtle must have had a very tabasco-sauce meal. Right away I began to see evidence of fish on the surface, which is always a good sign. We went past a school of bonita breaking the water up into little swirls. Then I saw a smashing break of a sailfish coming out sideways, sending the water in white sheets. We slowed down the boat and got our baits overboard at once. I was using a ballyhoo bait hooked by a small hook through the lips, with a second and larger hook buried in the body. R. C. was using a strip of mullet, which for obvious reasons seems to be the preferred bait from Palm Beach to Long Key. And the obvious reason is that nobody seems to take the trouble to get what might be proper bait for sailfish. Mullet is an easy bait to get and commands just as high a price as anything else, which, as a matter of fact, is highway robbery. With a bait like a ballyhoo or a shiner I could get ten bites to one with mullet. We trolled along at slow speed. The air was cool, the sun pleasant, the sea beautiful, and this was the time to sit back and enjoy a sense of freedom and great space of the ocean, and watch for leaping fish or whatever might attract the eye. Here and there we passed a strange jellyfish, the like of which I had never before seen. It was about as large as a good-sized cantaloup, and pale, clear yellow all over one end and down through the middle, and then commenced a dark red fringe which had a waving motion. Inside this fringe was a scalloped circular appendage that had a sucking motion, which must have propelled it through the water, and it made quite fair progress. Around every one of these strange jellyfish was a little school of tiny minnows, as clear-colored as crystals. These all swam on in the same direction as the drift of the Gulf Stream. When we are fishing for sailfish everything that strikes we take to be a sailfish until we find out it is something else. They are inconsistent and queer fish. Sometimes they will rush a bait, at other times they will tug at it and then chew at it, and then they will tap it with their bills. I think I have demonstrated that they are about the hardest fish to hook that swims, and also on light tackle they are one of the gamest and most thrilling. However, not one in a hundred fishermen who come to Long Key will go after them with light tackle. And likewise not one out of twenty-five sailfish brought in there is caught by a fisherman who deliberately went out after sailfish. Mostly they are caught by accident while drags are set for kingfish or barracuda. At Palm Beach I believe they fish for them quite persistently, with a great deal of success. But it is more a method of still fishing which has no charms for me. Presently my boatman yelled, "Sailfish!" We looked off to port and saw a big sailfish break water nine times. He was perhaps five hundred yards distant. My boatman put on speed, and, as my boat is fast, it did not take us long to get somewhere near where this big fish broke. We did our best to get to the exact spot where he came up, then slowed down and trolled over the place. In this instance I felt a light tap on my bait and I jumped up quickly, both to look and let him take line. But I did not see him or feel him any more. We went on. I saw a flash of bright silver back of my brother's bait. At the instant he hooked a kingfish. And then I felt one cut my bait off. Kingfish are savage strikers and they almost invariably hook themselves when the drag is set. But as I fish for sailfish with a free-running reel, of course I am exasperated when a kingfish takes hold. My brother pulled in this kingfish, which was small, and we rebaited our hooks and went on again. I saw more turtles, and one we almost ran over, he was so lazy in getting down. These big, cumbersome sea animals, once they get headed down and started, can disappear with remarkable rapidity. I rather enjoy watching them, but my boatman, who is a native of these parts and therefore a turtle-hunter by instinct, always wore a rather disappointed look when we saw one. This was because I would not allow him to harpoon it. [Illustration: TWIN TIGERS OF THE SEA--THE SAVAGE BARRACUDA] [Illustration: HAPPY PASTIME OF BONEFISHING] The absence of gulls along this stretch of reef is a feature that struck me. So that once in a while when I did see a lonely white gull I watched him with pleasure. And once I saw a cero mackerel jump way in along the reef, and even at a mile's distance I could see the wonderful curve he made. The wind freshened, and all at once it seemed leaping sailfish were all around us. Then as we turned the boat this way and that we had thrills of anticipation. Suddenly R. C. had a strike. The fish took the bait hungrily and sheered off like an arrow and took line rapidly. When R. C. hooked him he came up with a big splash and shook himself to free the hook. He jumped here and there and then went down deep. And then he took a good deal of line off the reel. I was surprised to see a sailfish stick his bill out of the water very much closer to the boat than where R. C.'s fish should have been. I had no idea then that this was a fish other than the one R. C. had hooked. But when he cut the line either with his bill or his tail, and R. C. wound it in, we very soon discovered that it was not the fish that he had hooked. This is one of the handicaps of light tackle. We went on fishing. Sailfish would jump around us for a while and then they would stop. We would not see one for several minutes. It is always very exciting to be among them this way. Presently I had one take hold to run off slowly and steadily, and I let him go for fifty feet, and when I struck I tore the hook away from him. Quickly I let slack line run back to him ten or fifteen feet at a time, until I felt him take it once more. He took it rather suspiciously, I felt, and I honestly believe that I could tell that he was mouthing or chewing the bait, which made me careful to let the line run off easily to him. Suddenly he rushed off, making the reel smoke. I let him run one hundred and fifty feet and then stood up, throwing on the drag, and when the line straightened tight I tried to jerk at him as hard as the tackle would stand. As a matter of fact, however, he was going so fast and hard that he hooked himself. It is indeed seldom that I miss one when he runs like this. This fellow came up two hundred yards from the boat and slid along the water with half of his body raised, much like one of those coasting-boards I have seen bathers use, towed behind a motor-launch. He went down and came up in a magnificent sheer leap, with his broad sail shining in the sun. Very angry he was, and he reminded me of a Marlin swordfish. Next he went down, and came up again bent in a curve, with the big sail stretched again. He skittered over the water, going down and coming up, until he had leaped seven times. This was a big, heavy fish, and on the light six-ounce tip and nine-thread line I had my work cut out for me. We had to run the boat toward him so I could get back my line. Here was the advantage of having a fast boat with a big rudder. Otherwise I would have lost my fish. After some steady deep plugging he came up again and set my heart aflutter by a long surface play in which he took off one hundred yards of line and then turned, leaping straight for the boat. Fortunately the line was slack and I could throw off the drag and let him run. Slack line never bothers me when I really get one of these fish well hooked. If he is not well hooked he is going to get away, anyhow. After that he went down into deep water and I had one long hour of hard work in bringing him to the boat. Six hours later he weighed fifty-eight and a half pounds, and as he had lost a good deal of blood and dried out considerably, he would have gone over sixty pounds, which, so far, is the largest sailfish I know of caught on light tackle. The sailfish were still leaping around us and we started off again. The captain called our attention to a tail and a sail a few yards apart not far from the boat. We circled around them to drive them down. I saw a big wave back of R. C.'s bait and I yelled, "Look out!" I felt something hit my bait and then hit it again. I knew it was a sailfish rapping at it. I let the line slip off the reel. Just then R. C. had a vicious strike and when he hooked the fish the line snapped. He claimed that he had jerked too hard. This is the difficulty with light tackle--to strike hard, yet not break anything. I was standing up and leaning forward, letting my line slip off the reel, trying to coax that sailfish to come back. Something took hold and almost jerked the rod out of my hands. That was a magnificent strike, and of course I thought it was one of the sailfish. But when I hooked him I had my doubts. The weight was heavy and ponderous and tugging. He went down and down and down. The boatman said amberjack. I was afraid so, but I still had my hopes. For a while I could not budge him, and at last, when I had given up hope that it was a sailfish, I worked a good deal harder than I would have otherwise. It took me twenty-five minutes to subdue a forty-pound amberjack. Here was proof of what could be done with light tackle. About ten-thirty of this most delightful and favorable day we ran into a school of barracuda. R. C. hooked a small one, which was instantly set upon by its voracious comrades and torn to pieces. Then I had a tremendous strike, hard, swift, long--everything to make a tingle of nerve and blood. The instant I struck, up out of a flying splash rose a long, sharp, silver-flashing tiger of the sea, and if he leaped an inch he leaped forty feet. On that light tackle he was a revelation. Five times more he leaped, straight up, very high, gills agape, jaws wide, body curved--a sight for any angler. He made long runs and short runs and all kinds of runs, and for half an hour he defied any strain I dared put on him. Eventually I captured him, and I considered him superior to a tarpon of equal or even more weight. Barracuda are a despised fish, apparently because of their voracious and murderous nature. But I incline to the belief that it is because the invariable use of heavy tackle has blinded the fishermen to the wonderful leaping and fighting qualities of this long-nosed, long-toothed sea-tiger. The few of us who have hooked barracuda on light tackle know him as a marvelous performer. Van Campen Heilner wrote about a barracuda he caught on a bass rod, and he is not likely to forget it, nor will the reader of his story forget it. R. C. had another strike, hooked his fish, and brought it in readily. It was a bonita of about five pounds, the first one my brother had ever caught. We were admiring his beautiful, subdued colors as he swam near the boat, when up out of the blue depths shot a long gray form as swift as lightning. It was a big barracuda. In his rush he cut that bonita in two. The captain grasped the line and yelled for us to get the gaffs. R. C. dropped the rod and got the small gaff, and as I went for the big one I heard them both yell. Then I bent over to see half a dozen big gray streaks rush for what was left of that poor little bonita. The big barracuda with incredible speed and unbelievable ferocity rushed right to the side of the boat at the bonita. He got hold of it and R. C. in striking at him to gaff him hit him over the head several times. Then the gaff hook caught him and R. C. began to lift. The barracuda looked to me to be fully seven feet long and half as big around as a telegraph pole. He made a tremendous splash in the water. R. C. was deluged. He and the boatman yelled in their excitement. But R. C. was unable to hold the big fish on this small gaff, and I got there too late. The barracuda broke loose. Then, equally incredibly, he turned with still greater ferocity and rushed the bonita again, but before he could get to it another and smaller barracuda had hold of it. At this instant I leaned over with a club. With one powerful sweep I hit one of the barracuda on the head. When I reached over again the largest one was contending with a smaller one for the remains of the bonita. I made a vicious pass at the big one, missing him. Quick as I was, before I could get back, the big fellow had taken the head of the bonita and rushed off with it, tearing the line out of the captain's hands. Then we looked at one another. It had all happened in a minute. We were all wringing wet and panting from excitement and exertion. This is a gruesome tale of the sea and I put it here only to illustrate the incomparable savageness of these tigers of the Gulf Stream. The captain put the fish away and cleaned up the boat and we resumed fishing. I ate lunch holding the rod in one hand, loath to waste any time on this wonderful day. Sailfish were still jumping here and there and far away. The next thing to happen was that R. C. hooked a small kingfish, and at the same instant a big one came clear out in an unsuccessful effort to get my bait. This happened to be near the reef, and as we were going out I hooked a big grouper that tried out my small tackle for all it was worth. But I managed to keep him from getting on the bottom, and at length brought him in. The little six-ounce tip now looked like a buggy-whip that was old and worn out. After that nothing happened for quite a little spell. We had opportunity to get rested. Presently R. C. had a sailfish tap his bait and tap it again and tug at it and then take hold and start away. R. C. hooked him and did it carefully, trying not to put too much strain on the line. Here is where great skill is required. But the line broke. After that he took one of my other tackles. Something went wrong with the engine and the captain had to shut down and we drifted. I had a long line out and it gradually sank. Something took hold and I hooked it and found myself fast to a deep-sea, hard-fighting fish of some kind. I got him up eventually, and was surprised to see a great, broad, red-colored fish, which turned out to be a mutton-fish, much prized for food. I had now gotten six varieties of fish in the Gulf Stream and we were wondering what next. I was hoping it would be a dolphin or a waahoo. It happened, however, to be a beautiful cero mackerel, one of the shapeliest and most attractive fish in these waters. He is built something like the brook-trout, except for a much sharper head and wider fins and tail. But he is speckled very much after the manner of the trout. We trolled on, and all of a sudden raised a school of sailfish. They came up with a splashing rush very thrilling to see. One hit R. C.'s bait hard, and then another, by way of contrast, began to tug and chew at mine. I let the line out slowly. And as I did so I saw another one follow R. C.'s mutilated bait which he was bringing toward the boat. He was a big purple-and-bronze fellow and he would have taken a whole bait if it could have been gotten to him. But he sheered away, frightened by the boat. I failed to hook my fish. It was getting along pretty well into the afternoon by this time and the later it got the better the small fish and kingfish seemed to bite. I caught one barracuda and six kingfish, while R. C. was performing a somewhat similar feat. Then he got a smashing strike from a sailfish that went off on a hard, fast rush, so that he hooked it perfectly. He jumped nine times, several of which leaps I photographed. He was a good-sized fish and active and strong. R. C. had him up to the boat in thirty minutes, which was fine work for the light tackle. I made sure that the fish was as good as caught and I did not look to see where he was hooked. My boatman is not skilled in the handling of the fish when they are brought in. Few boatmen are. He took hold of the leader, and as he began to lift I saw that the hook was fast in the bill of the sailfish fully six inches from his mouth. At that instant the sailfish began to thresh. I yelled to the boatman to let go, but either I was not quick enough or he did not obey, for the hook snapped free and the sailfish slowly swam away, his great purple-and-blue spotted sail waving in the water, and his bronze sides shining. And we were both glad that he had gotten away, because we had had the fun out of him and had taken pictures of him jumping, and he was now alive and might make another fisherman sport some day. VII BONEFISH In my experience as a fisherman the greatest pleasure has been the certainty of something new to learn, to feel, to anticipate, to thrill over. An old proverb tells us that if you wish to bring back the wealth of the Indias you must go out with its equivalent. Surely the longer a man fishes the wealthier he becomes in experience, in reminiscence, in love of nature, if he goes out with the harvest of a quiet eye, free from the plague of himself. As a boy, fishing was a passion with me, but no more for the conquest of golden sunfish and speckled chubs and horny catfish than for the haunting sound of the waterfall and the color and loneliness of the cliffs. As a man, and a writer who is forever learning, fishing is still a passion, stronger with all the years, but tempered by an understanding of the nature of primitive man, hidden in all of us, and by a keen reluctance to deal pain to any creature. The sea and the river and the mountain have almost taught me not to kill except for the urgent needs of life; and the time will come when I shall have grown up to that. When I read a naturalist or a biologist I am always ashamed of what I have called a sport. Yet one of the truths of evolution is that not to practise strife, not to use violence, not to fish or hunt--that is to say, not to fight--is to retrograde as a natural man. Spiritual and intellectual growth is attained at the expense of the physical. Always, then, when I am fishing I feel that the fish are incidental, and that the reward of effort and endurance, the incalculable and intangible knowledge emanate from the swelling and infinite sea or from the shaded and murmuring stream. Thus I assuage my conscience and justify the fun, the joy, the excitement, and the violence. Five years ago I had never heard of a bonefish. The first man who ever spoke to me about this species said to me, very quietly with serious intentness: "Have you had any experience with bonefish?" I said no, and asked him what kind that was. His reply was enigmatical. "Well, don't go after bonefish unless you can give up all other fishing." I remember I laughed. But I never forgot that remark, and now it comes back to me clear in its significance. That fisherman read me as well as I misunderstood him. Later that season I listened to talk of inexperienced bonefishermen telling what they had done and heard. To me it was absurd. So much fishing talk seems ridiculous, anyway. And the expert fishermen, wherever they were, received the expressive titles: "Bonefish Bugs and Bonefish Nuts!" Again I heard arguments about tackle rigged for these mysterious fish and these arguments fixed my vague impression. By and by some bonefishermen came to Long Key, and the first sight of a bonefish made me curious. I think it weighed five pounds--a fair-sized specimen. Even to my prejudiced eye that fish showed class. So I began to question the bonefishermen. At once I found this type of angler to be remarkably reticent as to experience and method. Moreover, the tackle used was amazing to me. Stiff rods and heavy lines for little fish! I gathered another impression, and it was that bonefish were related to dynamite and chain lightning. Everybody who would listen to my questions had different things to say. No two men agreed on tackle or bait or ground or anything. I enlisted the interest of my brother R. C., and we decided, just to satisfy curiosity, to go out and catch some bonefish. The complacent, smug conceit of fishermen! I can see now how funny ours was. Fortunately it is now past tense. If I am ever conceited again I hope no one will read my stories. My brother and I could not bring ourselves to try for bonefish with heavy tackle. It was preposterous. Three--four--five-pound fish! We had seen no larger. Bass tackle was certainly heavy enough for us. So in the innocence of our hearts and the assurance of our vanity we sallied forth to catch bonefish. That was four years ago. Did we have good luck? No! Luck has nothing to do with bonefishing. What happened? For one solid month each winter of those four years we had devoted ourselves to bonefishing with light tackle. We stuck to our colors. The space of this whole volume would not be half enough to tell our experience--the amaze, the difficulty, the perseverance, the defeat, the wonder, and at last the achievement. The season of 1918 we hooked about fifty bonefish on three-six tackles--that is, three-ounce tips and six-thread lines--and we landed fourteen of them. I caught nine and R. C. caught five. R. C.'s eight-pound fish justified our contention and crowned our efforts. To date, in all my experience, I consider this bonefish achievement the most thrilling, fascinating, difficult, and instructive. That is a broad statement and I hope I can prove it. I am prepared to state that I feel almost certain, if I spent another month bonefishing, I would become obsessed and perhaps lose my enthusiasm for other kinds of fish. Why? There is a multiplicity of reasons. My reasons range from the exceedingly graceful beauty of a bonefish to the fact that he is the best food fish I ever ate. That is a wide range. He is the wisest, shyest, wariest, strangest fish I ever studied; and I am not excepting the great _Xiphias gladius_--the broadbill swordfish. As for the speed of a bonefish, I claim no salmon, no barracuda, no other fish celebrated for swiftness of motion, is in his class. A bonefish is so incredibly fast that it was a long time before I could believe the evidence of my own eyes. You see him; he is there perfectly still in the clear, shallow water, a creature of fish shape, pale green and silver, but crystal-like, a phantom shape, staring at you with strange black eyes; then he is gone. Vanished! Absolutely without your seeing a movement, even a faint streak! By peering keenly you may discern a little swirl in the water. As for the strength of a bonefish, I actually hesitate to give my impressions. No one will ever believe how powerful a bonefish is until he has tried to stop the rush and heard the line snap. As for his cunning, it is utterly baffling. As for his biting, it is almost imperceptible. As for his tactics, they are beyond conjecture. [Illustration: THE GAMEST FISH THAT SWIMS] [Illustration: A WAAHOO] I want to append here a few passages from my note-books, in the hope that a bare, bald statement of fact will help my argument. * * * * * First experience on a bonefish shoal. This wide area of coral mud was dry at low tide. When we arrived the tide was rising. Water scarcely a foot deep, very clear. Bottom white, with patches of brown grass. We saw bonefish everywhere and expected great sport. But no matter where we stopped we could not get any bites. Schools of bonefish swam up to the boat, only to dart away. Everywhere we saw thin white tails sticking out, as they swam along, feeding with noses in the mud. When we drew in our baits we invariably found them half gone, and it was our assumption that the blue crabs did this. At sunset the wind quieted. It grew very still and beautiful. The water was rosy. Here and there we saw swirls and tails standing out, and we heard heavy thumps of plunging fish. But we could not get any bites. When we returned to camp we were told that the half of our soldier-crab baits had been sucked off by bonefish. Did not believe that. Tide bothered us again this morning. It seems exceedingly difficult to tell one night before what the tide is going to do the next morning. At ten o'clock we walked to the same place we were yesterday. It was a bright, warm day, with just enough breeze to ruffle the water and make fishing pleasant, and we certainly expected to have good luck. But we fished for about three hours without any sign of a fish. This was discouraging and we could not account for it. So we moved. About half a mile down the beach I thought I caught a glimpse of a bonefish. It was a likely-looking contrast to the white marl all around. Here I made a long cast and sat down to wait. My brother lagged behind. Presently I spied two bonefish nosing along not ten feet from the shore. They saw me, so I made no attempt to drag the bait near them, but I called to my brother and told him to try to get a bait ahead of them. This was a little after flood-tide. It struck me then that these singular fish feed up the beach with one tide and down with another. Just when my brother reached me I got a nibble. I called to him and then stood up, ready to strike. I caught a glimpse of the fish. He looked big and dark. He had his nose down, fooling with my bait. When I struck him he felt heavy. I put on the click of the reel, and when the bonefish started off he pulled the rod down hard, taking the line fast. He made one swirl on the surface and then started up-shore. He seemed exceedingly swift. I ran along the beach until presently the line slackened and I felt that the hook had torn out. This was disappointment. I could not figure that I had done anything wrong, but I decided in the future to use a smaller and sharper hook. We went on down the beach, seeing several bonefish on the way, and finally we ran into a big school of them. They were right alongshore, but when they saw us we could not induce them to bite. * * * * * Every day we learn something. It is necessary to keep out of sight of these fish. After they bite, everything depends upon the skilful hooking of the fish. Probably it will require a good deal of skill to land them after you have hooked them, but we have had little experience at that so far. When these fish are along the shore they certainly are feeding, and presumably they are feeding on crabs of some sort. Bonefish appear to be game worthy of any fisherman's best efforts. It was a still, hot day, without any clouds. We went up the beach to a point opposite an old construction camp. To-day when we expected the tide to be doing one thing it was doing another. Ebb and flow and flood-tide have become as difficult as Sanskrit synonyms for me. My brother took an easy and comfortable chair and sat up the beach, and I, like an ambitious fisherman, laboriously and adventurously waded out one hundred and fifty feet to an old platform that had been erected there. I climbed upon this, and found it a very precarious place to sit. Come to think about it, there is something very remarkable about the places a fisherman will pick out to sit down on. This place was a two-by-four plank full of nails, and I cheerfully availed myself of it and, casting my bait out as far as I could, I calmly sat down to wait for a bonefish. It has become a settled conviction in my mind that you have to wait for bonefish. But all at once I got a hard bite. It quite excited me. I jerked and pulled the bait away from the fish and he followed it and took it again. I saw this fish and several others in the white patch of ground where there were not any weeds. But in my excitement I did not have out a long enough line, and when I jerked the fish turned over and got away. This was all right, but the next two hours sitting in the sun on that seat with a nail sticking into me were not altogether pleasurable. When I thought I had endured it as long as I could I saw a flock of seven bonefish swimming past me, and one of them was a whopper. The sight revived me. I hardly breathed while that bunch of fish swam right for my bait, and for all I could see they did not know it was there. I waited another long time. The sun was hot--there was no breeze--the heat was reflected from the water. I could have stood all this well enough, but I could not stand the nails. So I climbed down off my perch, having forgotten that all this time the tide had been rising. And as I could not climb back I had to get wet, to the infinite amusement of my brother. After that I fished from the shore. Presently my brother shouted and I looked up to see him pulling on a fish. There was a big splash in the water and then I saw his line running out. The fish was heading straight for the framework on which I had been seated and I knew if he ever did get there he would break the line. All of a sudden I saw the fish he had hooked. And he reached the framework all right! I had one more strike this day, but did not hook the fish. It seems this bonefishing takes infinite patience. For all we can tell, these fish come swimming along with the rising tide close in to shore and they are exceedingly shy and wary. My brother now has caught two small bonefish and each of them gave a good strong bite, at once starting off with the bait. We had been under the impression that it was almost impossible to feel the bonefish bite. It will take work to learn this game. * * * * * Yesterday we went up on the north side of the island to the place near the mangroves where we had seen some bonefish. Arriving there, we found the tide almost flood, with the water perfectly smooth and very clear and about a foot deep up at the mangrove roots. Here and there at a little distance we could see splashes. We separated, and I took the outside, while R. C. took the inside close to the mangroves. We waded along. Before I had time to make a cast I saw a three-pound bonefish come sneaking along, and when he saw me he darted away like an arrow. I made a long cast and composed myself to wait. Presently a yell from R. C. electrified me with the hope that he had hooked a fish. But it turned out that he had only seen one. He moved forward very cautiously in the water and presently made a cast. He then said that a big bonefish was right near his hook, and during the next few minutes this fish circled his bait twice, crossing his line. Then he counted out loud: one, two, three, four, five bonefish right in front of him, one of which was a whopper. I stood up myself and saw one over to my right, of about five pounds, sneaking along with his nose to the bottom. When I made a cast over in his direction he disappeared as suddenly as if he had dissolved in the water. Looking out to my left, I saw half a dozen bonefish swimming toward me, and they came quite close. When I moved they vanished. Then I made a cast over in this direction. The bonefish came back and swam all around my bait, apparently not noticing it. They were on the feed, and the reason they did not take our bait must have been that they saw us. We fished there for an hour without having a sign of a bite, and then we gave it up. To-day about flood-tide I had a little strike. I jerked hard, but failed to see the fish, and then when I reeled in I found he still had hold of it. Then I struck him, and in one little jerk he broke the leader. * * * * * I just had a talk with a fellow who claims to know a good deal about bonefishing. He said he had caught a good many ranging up to eight pounds. His claim was that soldier crabs were the best bait. He said he had fished with professional boatmen who knew the game thoroughly. They would pole the skiff alongshore and keep a sharp lookout for what he called bonefish mud. And I assume that he meant muddy places in the water that had been stirred up by bonefish. Of course, any place where these little swirls could be seen was very likely to be a bonefish bank. He claimed that it was necessary to hold the line near the reel between the forefingers, and to feel for the very slightest vibration. Bonefish have a sucker-like mouth. They draw the bait in, and smash it. Sometimes, of course, they move away, drawing out the line, but that kind of a bite is exceptional. It is imperative to strike the fish when this vibration is felt. Not one in five bonefish is hooked. We have had two northers and the water grew so cold that it drove the fish out. The last two or three days have been warm and to-day it was hot. However, I did not expect the bonefish in yet, and when we went in bathing at flood-tide I was very glad to see two fish. I hurried out and got my rod and began to try. Presently I had a little strike. I waited and it was repeated; then I jerked and felt the fish. He made a wave and that was the last I knew of him. Reeling in, I looked at my bait, to find that it had been pretty badly chewed, but I fastened it on again and made another cast. I set down the rod. Then I went back after the bucket for the rest of the bait. Upon my return I saw the line jerking and I ran to the rod. I saw a little splash, and a big white tail of a bonefish stick out of the water. I put my thumb on the reel and jerked hard. Instantly I felt the fish, heavy and powerful. He made a surge and then ran straight out. The line burned my thumb so I could not hold it. I put on the click and the fish made a swifter, harder run for at least a hundred yards, and he tore the hook out. This makes a number of fish that have gotten away from me in this manner. It is exasperating and difficult to explain. I have to use a pretty heavy sinker in order to cast the bait out. I have arranged this sinker, which has a hole through it, so that the line will run freely. This seems to work all right on the bite, but I am afraid it does not work after the fish is hooked. That sinker drags on the bottom. This is the best rigging that I can plan at the present stage of the game. I have an idea now that a bonefish should be hooked hard and then very carefully handled. I fished off the beach awhile in front of the cabin. We used both kinds of crabs, soldier and hermit. I fished two hours and a half, from the late rising tide to the first of the ebb, without a sign or sight of a fish. R. C. finally got tired and set his rod and went in bathing. Then it happened. I heard his reel singing and saw his rod nodding; then I made a dash for it. The fish was running straight out, heavy and fast, and he broke the line. This may have been caused by the heavy sinker catching in the weeds. We must do more planning to get a suitable rig for these bonefish. * * * * * Day before yesterday R. C. and I went up to the Long Key point, and rowed in on the mangrove shoal where once before I saw so many bonefish. The tide was about one-quarter in, and there was a foot of water all over the flats. We anchored at the outer edge and began to fish. We had made elaborate preparations in the way of tackle, bait, canoe, etc., and it really would have been remarkable if we had had any luck. After a little while I distinctly felt something at my hook, and upon jerking I had one splendid surge out of a good, heavy bonefish. That was all that happened in that place. It was near flood-tide when we went back. I stood up and kept a keen watch for little muddy places in the water, also bonefish. At last I saw several fish, and there we anchored. I fished on one side of the boat, and R. C. on the other. On two different occasions, feeling a nibble on his line, he jerked, all to no avail. The third time he yelled as he struck, and I turned in time to see the white thresh of a bonefish. He made a quick dash off to the side and then came in close to the boat, swimming around with short runs two or three times, and then, apparently tired, he came close. I made ready to lift him into the boat, when, lo and behold! he made a wonderful run of fully three hundred feet before R. C. could stop him. Finally he was led to the boat, and turned out to be a fish of three and a half pounds. It simply made R. C. and me gasp to speak of what a really large bonefish might be able to do. There is something irresistible about the pursuit of these fish, and perhaps this is it. We changed places, and as a last try anchored in deeper water, fishing as before. This time I had a distinct tug at my line and I hooked a fish. He wiggled and jerked and threshed around so that I told R. C. that it was not a bonefish, but R. C. contended it was. Anyway, he came toward the boat rather easily until we saw him and he saw us, and then he made a dash similar to that of R. C.'s fish and he tore out the hook. This was the extent of our adventure that day, and we were very much pleased. Next morning we started out with a high northeast trade-wind blowing. Nothing could dampen our ardor. It was blowing so hard up at No. 2 viaduct that we decided to stay inside. There is a big flat there cut up by channels, and it is said to be a fine ground for bonefish. The tide was right and the water was clear, but even in the lee of the bank the wind blew pretty hard. We anchored in about three feet of water and began to fish. After a while we moved. The water was about a foot deep, and the bottom clean white marl, with little patches of vegetation. Crabs and crab-holes were numerous. I saw a small shark and a couple of rays. When we got to the middle of a big flat I saw the big, white, glistening tails of bonefish sticking out of the water. We dropped anchor and, much excited, were about to make casts, when R. C. lost his hat. He swore. We had to pull up anchor and go get the hat. Unfortunately this scared the fish. Also it presaged a rather hard-luck afternoon. In fishing, as in many other things, if the beginning is tragedy all will be tragedy, growing worse all the time. We moved around up above where I had seen these bonefish, and there we dropped anchor. No sooner had we gotten our baits overboard than we began to see bonefish tails off at quite some distance. The thing to do, of course, was to sit right there and be patient, but this was almost impossible for us. We moved again and again, but we did not get any nearer to the fish. Finally I determined that we would stick in one place. This we did, and the bonefish began to come around. When they would swim close to the boat and see us they would give a tremendous surge and disappear, as if by magic. But they always left a muddy place in the water. The speed of these fish is beyond belief. I could not cast where I wanted to; I tried again and again. When I did get my bait off at a reasonable distance, I could feel crabs nibbling at it. These pests robbed us of many a good bait. One of them cut my line right in two. They seemed to be very plentiful, and that must be why the bonefish were plentiful, too. R. C. kept losing bait after bait, which he claimed was the work of crabs, but I rather believed it to be the work of bonefish. It was too windy for us to tell anything about the pressure of the line. It had to be quite a strong tug to be felt at all. Presently I felt one, and instead of striking at once I waited to see what would happen. After a while I reeled in to find my bait gone. Then I was consoled by the proof that a bonefish had taken the bait off for me. Another time three bonefish came along for my bait and stuck their tails up out of the water, and were evidently nosing around it, but I felt absolutely nothing on the line. When I reeled in the bait was gone. We kept up this sort of thing for two hours. I knew that we were doing it wrong. R. C. said bad conditions, but I claimed that these were only partly responsible for our failure. I knew that we moved about too much, that we did not cast far enough and wait long enough, and that by all means we should not have cracked bait on the bottom of the boat, and particularly we did not know when we had a bite! But it is one thing to be sure of a fact and another to be able to practise it. At last we gave up in despair, and upon paddling back toward the launch we saw a school of bonefish with their tails in the air. We followed them around for a while, apparently very much to their amusement. At sunset we got back to the launch and started for camp. This was a long, hard afternoon's work for nothing. However, it is my idea that experience is never too dearly bought. I will never do some things again, and the harder these fish are to catch, the more time and effort it takes--the more intelligence and cunning--all the more will I appreciate success if it ever does come. It is in the attainment of difficult tasks that we earn our reward. There are several old bonefish experts here in camp, and they laughed when I related some of our experiences. Bonefishermen are loath to tell anything about their methods. This must be a growth of the difficult game. I had an expert bonefisherman tell me that when he was surprised while fishing on one of the shoals, he always dropped his rod and pretended to be digging for shells. And it is a fact that the bonefish guides at Metacumbe did not let any one get a line on their methods. They will avoid a bonefishing-ground while others are there, and if they are surprised there ahead of others, they will pull up anchor and go away. May I be preserved from any such personal selfishness and reticence as this! One of these bonefish experts at the camp told me that in all his years of experience he had never gotten a bonefish bite. If you feel a tug, it is when the bonefish is ejecting the hook. Then it is too late. The bonefish noses around the bait and sucks it in without any apparent movement of the line. And that can be detected first by a little sagging of the line or by a little strain upon it. That is the time to strike. He also said that he always broke his soldier crabs on a piece of lead to prevent the jar from frightening the fish. Doctor B. tells a couple of interesting experiences with bonefish. On one occasion he was fishing near another boat in which was a friend. The water was very clear and still, and he could see his friend's bait lying upon the sand. An enormous bonefish swam up and took the bait, and Doctor B. was so thrilled and excited that he could not yell. When the man hooked the fish it shot off in a straightaway rush, raising a ridge upon the water. It ran the length of the line and freed itself. Later Doctor B.'s friend showed the hook, that had been straightened out. They measured the line and found it to be five hundred and fifty-five feet. The bonefish had gone the length of this in one run, and they estimated that he would have weighed not less than fifteen pounds. On another occasion Dr. B. saw a heavy bonefish hooked. It ran straight off shore, and turning, ran in with such speed that it came shooting out upon dry land and was easily captured. These two instances are cases in point of the incredible speed and strength of this strange fish. R. C. had a splendid fight with a bonefish to-day. The wind was blowing hard and the canoe was not easy to fish out of. We had great difficulty in telling when we did have a bite. I had one that I know of. When R. C. hooked his fish it sheered off between the canoe and the beach and ran up-shore quite a long way. Then it headed out to sea and made a long run, and then circled. It made short, quick surges, each time jerking R. C.'s rod down and pulling the reel handle out of his fingers. He had to put on a glove. We were both excited and thrilled with the gameness of this fish. It circled the canoe three times, and tired out very slowly. When he got it close the very thing happened that I feared. It darted under the anchor rope and we lost it. This battle lasted about fifteen minutes, and afforded us an actual instance of the wonderful qualities of this fish. Yesterday R. C. hooked a bonefish that made a tremendous rush straight offshore, and never stopped until he had pulled out the hook. This must have been a very heavy and powerful fish. I had my taste of the same dose to-day. I felt a tiny little tug upon my line that electrified me and I jerked as hard as I dared. I realized that I had hooked some kind of fish, but, as it was wiggling and did not feel heavy, I concluded that I had hooked one of those pesky blowfish. But all of a sudden my line cut through the water and fairly whistled. I wound in the slack and then felt a heavy fish. He made a short plunge and then a longer one, straight out, making my reel scream. I was afraid to thumb the line, so I let him go. With these jerky plunges he ran about three hundred feet. Then I felt my line get fast, and, handing my rod to R. C., I slipped off my shoes and went overboard. I waded out, winding as I went, to find that the bonefish had fouled the line on a sponge on the bottom, and he had broken free just above the hook. * * * * * Yesterday the fag end of the northeast gale still held on, but we decided to try for bonefish. Low tide at two o'clock. I waded up-shore with the canoe, and R. C. walked. It was a hard job to face the wind and waves and pull the canoe. It made me tired and wet. When we got above the old camp the tide had started in. We saw bonefish tails standing up out of the water. Hurriedly baiting our hooks, we waded to get ahead of them. But we could not catch them wading, so went back to the canoe and paddled swiftly ahead, anchored, and got out to wade once more. R. C. was above me. We saw the big tail of one bonefish and both of us waded to get ahead of him. At last I made a cast, but did not see him any more. The wind was across my line, making a big curve in it, and I was afraid I could not tell a bite if I had one. Was about to reel in when I felt the faint tug. I swept my rod up and back, hard as I dared. The line came tight, I felt a heavy weight; a quiver, and then my rod was pulled down. I had hooked him. The thrill was remarkable. He took a short dash, then turned. I thought I had lost him. But he was running in. Frantically I wound the reel, but could not get in the slack. I saw my line coming, heard it hiss in the water, then made out the dark shape of a bonefish. He ran right at me--almost hit my feet. When he saw me he darted off with incredible speed, making my reel scream. I feared the strain on the line, and I plunged through the water as fast as I could after him. He ran four hundred feet in that dash, and I ran fifty. Not often have I of late years tingled and thrilled and panted with such excitement. It was great. It brought back the days of boyhood. When he stopped that run I was tired and thoroughly wet. He sheered off as I waded and wound in. I got him back near me. He shot off in a shoal place of white mud where I saw him plainly, and he scared a school of bonefish that split and ran every way. My fish took to making short circles; I could not keep a tight line. Lost! I wound in fast, felt him again, then absolutely lost feel of him or sight of him. Lost again! My sensations were remarkable, considering it was only a fish of arm's-length at the end of the line. But these bonefish rouse an angler as no other fish can. All at once I felt the line come tight. He was still on, now running inshore. The water was about a foot deep. I saw the bulge, or narrow wave, he made. He ran out a hundred feet, and had me dashing after him again. I could not trust that light line at the speed he swam, so I ran to release the strain. He led me inshore, then up-shore, and out toward sea again, all the time fighting with a couple of hundred feet of line out. Occasionally he would make a solid, thumping splash. He worked offshore some two hundred yards, where be led me in water half to my hips. I had to try to stop him here, and with fear and trepidation I thumbed the reel. The first pressure brought a savage rush, but it was short. He turned, and I wound him back and waded inshore. From that moment I had him beaten, although I was afraid of his short thumps as he headed away and tugged. Finally I had him within twenty feet circling around me, tired and loggy, yet still strong enough to require careful handling. He looked short and heavy, pale checked green and silver; and his staring black eye, set forward in his pointed white nose, could be plainly seen. This fish made a rare picture for an angler. So I led him to the canoe and, ascertaining that I had him well hooked, I lifted him in. Never have I seen so beautiful a fish. A golden trout, a white sea-bass, a dolphin, all are beautiful, but not so exquisite as this bonefish. He seemed all bars of dazzling silver. His tail had a blue margin and streaks of lilac. His lower (anal) fins were blazing with opal fire, and the pectoral fins were crystal white. His eye was a dead, piercing black, staring and deep. We estimated his weight. I held for six pounds, but R. C. shook his head. He did not believe that. But we agreed on the magnificent fight he had made. Then we waded up-shore farther and began to fish. In just five minutes I had the same kind of strike, slight, almost imperceptible, vibrating, and I hooked a fish exactly as I had the first one. He was light of weight, but swift as a flash. I played him from where I stood. This time I essayed with all skill to keep a taut line. It was impossible. Now I felt his weight and again only a slack line. This fish, too, ran right to my feet, then in a boiling splash sheered away. But he could not go far. I reeled him back and led him to the canoe. He was small, and the smallness of him was such a surprise in contrast to what his fight had led me to imagine he was. R. C. had one strike and broke his line on the jerk. We had to give up on account of sunset at hand. * * * * * There was another hard thunder-storm last night. The last few days have begun the vernal equinox. It rained torrents all night and stopped at dawn. The wind was northeast and cool. Cloudy overhead, with purple horizon all around--a forbidding day. But we decided to go fishing, anyhow. We had new, delicate three-six tackles to try. About seven the wind died away. There was a dead calm, and the sun tried to show. Then another breeze came out of the east. We went up on the inside after bait, and had the luck to find some. Crossing the island, we came out at the old construction camp where we had left the canoe. By this time a stiff breeze was blowing and the tide was rising fast. We had our troubles paddling and poling up to the grove of cocoanuts. Opposite this we anchored and began to fish. Conditions were not favorable. The water was choppy and roily, the canoe bobbed a good deal, the anchors dragged, and we did not see any fish. All the same, we persevered. At length I had a bite, but pulled too late. We tried again for a while, only to be disappointed. Then we moved. We had to put the stern anchor down first and let it drag till it held and the canoe drifted around away from the wind, then we dropped the bow anchor. After a time I had a faint feeling at the end of my line--an indescribable feeling. I jerked and hooked a bonefish. He did not feel heavy. He ran off, and the wind bagged my line and the waves also helped to pull out the hook. Following that we changed places several times, in one of which R. C. had a strike, but failed to hook the fish. Just opposite the old wreck on the shore I had another fish take hold, and, upon hooking him, had precisely the same thing happen as in the first instance. I think the bag of my line, which I could not avoid, allowed the lead to sag down and drag upon the bottom. Of course when it caught the bonefish pulled free. In some places we found the water clearer than in others. Flood-tide had long come when we anchored opposite the old camp. R. C. cast out upon a brown patch of weeds where we have caught some fine fish, and I cast below. Perhaps in five minutes or less R. C. swept up his rod. I saw it bend forward, down toward the water. He had hooked a heavy fish. The line hissed away to the right, and almost at once picked up a good-sized piece of seaweed. "It's a big fish!" I exclaimed, excitedly. "Look at him go!... That seaweed will make you lose him. Let me wade out and pull it off?" "No! Let's take a chance.... Too late, anyhow! Gee! He's going!... He's got two hundred yards out!" Two-thirds of the line was off the reel, and the piece of seaweed seemed to be a drag on the fish. He slowed up. The line was tight, the rod bent. Suddenly the tip sprang back. We had seen that often before. "Gone!" said R. C., dejectedly. But I was not so sure of that, although I was hopeless. R. C. wound in, finding the line came slowly, as if weighted. I watched closely. We thought that was on account of the seaweed. But suddenly the reel began to screech. "I've got him yet!" yelled R. C., with joy. I was overjoyed, too, but I contained myself, for I expected dire results from that run. Zee! Zee! Zee! went the reel, and the rod nodded in time. "We must get rid of that seaweed or lose him.... Pull up your anchor with one hand.... Careful now." He did so, and quickly I got mine up. What ticklish business! "Keep a tight line!" I cautioned, as I backed the canoe hard with all my power. It was not easy to go backward and keep head on to the wind. The waves broke over the end of the canoe, splashing me in the face so I could taste and smell the salt. I made half a dozen shoves with the paddle. Then, nearing the piece of seaweed, I dropped my anchor. In a flash I got that dangerous piece of seaweed off R. C.'s line. "Good work!... Say, but that helps.... We'd never have gotten him," said R. C., beaming. I saw him look then as he used to in our sunfish, bent-pin days. "We've not got him yet," I replied, grimly. "Handle him as easily as you can." Then began a fight. The bonefish changed his swift, long runs, and took to slow sweeps to and fro, and whenever he was drawn a few yards closer he would give a solid jerk and get that much line back. There was much danger from other pieces of floating weed. R. C. maneuvered his line to miss them. All the time the bonefish was pulling doggedly. I had little hope we might capture him. At the end of fifteen minutes he was still a hundred yards from the canoe and neither of us had seen him. Our excitement grew tenser every moment. The fish sheered to and fro, and would not come into shallower water. He would not budge. He took one long run straight up the shore, in line with us, and then circled out. This alarmed me, but he did not increase his lead. He came slowly around, yard by yard. R. C. reeled carefully, not hard enough to antagonize him, and after what seemed a long time got him within a hundred feet, and I had a glimpse of green and silver. Then off he ran again. How unbelievably swift! He had been close--then almost the same instant he was far off. "I saw him! On a wave!" yelled R. C. "That's no bonefish! What can he be, anyhow? I believe I've got a barracuda!" I looked and looked, but I could not see him. "No matter what you think you saw, that fish is a bonefish," I declared, positively. "The runs he made! I saw silver and green! Careful now. I _know_ he's a bonefish. And he must be big." "Maybe it's only the wind and waves that make him feel so strong," replied R. C. "No! You can't fool me! Play him for a big one. He's been on twenty-three minutes now. Stand up--I'll steady the canoe--and watch for that sudden rush when he sees the canoe. The finish is in sight." It was an indication of a tiring fish that he made his first circle of the canoe, but too far out for us to see him. This circling a boat is a remarkable feature, and I think it comes from the habit of a bonefish of pulling broadside. I cautioned R. C. to avoid the seaweed and to lead him a little more, but to be infinitely careful not to apply too much strain. He circled us again, a few yards closer. The third circle he did not gain a foot. Then he was on his fourth lap around the canoe, drawing closer. On his fifth lap clear round us he came near as fifty feet. I could not resist standing up to see. I got a glimpse of him and he looked long. But I did not say anything to R. C. We had both hooked too many big bonefish that got away immediately. This was another affair. He circled us the sixth time. Six times! Then he came rather close. On this occasion he saw the canoe. He surged and sped out so swiftly that I was simply paralyzed. R. C. yelled something that had a note of admiration of sheer glory in the spirit of that fish. "Here's where he leaves us!" I echoed. But, as luck would have it, he stopped that run short of two hundred yards; and turned broadside to circle slowly back, allowing R. C. to get in line. He swam slower this time, and did not make the heavy tugs. He came easily, weaving to and fro. R. C. got him to within twenty-five feet of the boat, yet still could not see him. It was my job to think quick and sit still with ready hands on the anchor rope. He began to plunge, taking a little line each time. Then suddenly I saw R. C.'s line coming toward us. I knew that would happen. "Now! Look out! Reel in fast!" I cried, tensely. As I leaned over to heave up the anchor, I saw the bonefish flashing nearer. At that instant of thrilling excitement and suspense I could not trust my eyesight. There he was, swimming heavily, and he looked three feet long, thick and dark and heavy. I got the anchor up just as he passed under the canoe. Maybe I did not revel in pride of my quickness of thought and action! "Oh! He's gone under the rope!" gasped R. C. "No!" I yelled, sharply. "Let your line run out! Put your tip down! We'll drift over your line." R. C. was dominated to do so, and presently the canoe drifted over where the line was stretched. That second ticklish moment passed. It had scared me. But I could not refrain from one sally. "I got the anchor up. What did you think I'd do?" R. C. passed by my remark. This was serious business for him. He looked quite earnest and pale. "Say! did you see him?" he ejaculated, looking at me. "Wish I hadn't," I replied. We were drifting inshore, which was well, provided we did not drift too hard to suit the bonefish. He swam along in plain sight, and he seemed so big that I would not have gazed any longer if I could have helped it. I kept the canoe headed in, and we were not long coming to shallow water. Here the bonefish made a final dash for freedom, but it was short and feeble, compared with his first runs. He got about twenty feet away, then sheered, showing his broad, silver side. R. C. wound him in close, and an instant later the bow of the canoe grated on shore. "Now what?" asked R. C. as I stepped out into the water. "Won't it be risky to lift him into the canoe?" "Lift nothing! I have this all figured out. Lead him along." R. C. stepped out upon the beach while I was in the water. The bonefish lay on his side, a blaze of silver. I took hold of the line very gently and led the fish a little closer in. The water was about six inches deep. There were waves beating in--a miniature surf. And I calculated on the receding of a wave. Then with one quick pull I slid our beautiful quarry up on the coral sand. The instant he was out of the water the leader snapped. I was ready for this, too. But at that it was an awful instant! As the wave came back, almost deep enough to float the bonefish, I scooped him up. "He's ours!" I said, consulting my watch. "Thirty-three minutes! I give you my word that fight was comparable to ones I've had with a Pacific swordfish." "Look at him!" R. C. burst out. "Look at him! When the leader broke I thought he was lost. I'm sick yet. Didn't you almost bungle that?" "Not a chance, R. C.," I replied. "Had that all figured. I never put any strain on your line until the wave went back. Then I slid him out, the leader broke, and I scooped him up." R. C. stood gazing down at the glistening, opal-spotted fish. What a contrast he presented to any other kind of a fish! How many beautiful species have we seen lying on sand or moss or ferns, just come out of the water! But I could remember no other so rare as this bonefish. The exceeding difficulty of the capture of this, our first really large bonefish, had a great deal to do with our admiration and pride. For the hard work of any achievement is what makes it worth while. But this had nothing to do with the exquisite, indescribable beauty of the bonefish. He was long, thick, heavy, and round, with speed and power in every line; a sharp white nose and huge black eyes. The body of him was live, quivering silver, molten silver in the sunlight, crossed and barred with blazing stripes. The opal hues came out upon the anal fin, and the broad tail curled up, showing lavender tints on a background of brilliant blue. He weighed eight pounds. Symbolic of the mysterious life and beauty in the ocean! Wonderful and prolific as nature is on land, she is infinitely more so in the sea. By the sun and the sea we live; and I shall never tire of seeking and studying the manifold life of the deep. VIII SOME RARE FISH It is very strange that the longer a man fishes the more there seems to be to learn. In my case this is one of the secrets of the fascination of the game. Always there will be greater fish in the ocean than I have ever caught. Five or six years ago I heard the name "waahoo" mentioned at Long Key. The boatmen were using it in a way to make one see that they did not believe there was such a fish as a waahoo. The old conch fishermen had never heard the name. For that matter, neither had I. Later I heard the particulars of a hard and spectacular fight Judge Shields had had with a strange fish which the Smithsonian declared to be a waahoo. The name waahoo appears to be more familiarly associated with a shrub called burning-bush, also a Pacific coast berry, and again a small tree of the South called winged elm. When this name is mentioned to a fisherman he is apt to think only fun is intended. To be sure, I thought so. In February, 1915, I met Judge Shields at Long Key, and, remembering his capture of this strange fish some years previous, I questioned him. He was singularly enthusiastic about the waahoo, and what he said excited my curiosity. Either the genial judge was obsessed or else this waahoo was a great fish. I was inclined to believe both, and then I forgot all about the matter. This year at Long Key I was trolling for sailfish out in the Gulf Stream, a mile or so southeast of Tennessee Buoy. It was a fine day for fishing, there being a slight breeze and a ripple on the water. My boatman, Captain Sam, and I kept a sharp watch on all sides for sailfish. I was using light tackle, and of course trolling, with the reel free running, except for my thumb. Suddenly I had a bewildering swift and hard strike. What a wonder that I kept the reel from over-running! I certainly can testify to the burn on my thumb. Sam yelled "Sailfish!" and stooped for the lever, awaiting my order to throw out the clutch. Then I yelled: "Stop the boat, Sam!... It's no sailfish!" That strike took six hundred feet of line quicker than any other I had ever experienced. I simply did not dare to throw on the drag. But the instant the speed slackened I did throw it on, and jerked to hook the fish. I felt no weight. The line went slack. "No good!" I called, and began to wind in. At that instant a fish savagely broke water abreast of the boat, about fifty yards out. He looked long, black, sharp-nosed. Sam saw him, too. Then I felt a heavy pull on my rod and the line began to slip out. I jerked and jerked, and felt that I had a fish hooked. The line appeared strained and slow, which I knew to be caused by a long and wide bag in it. "Sam," I yelled, "the fish that jumped is on my line!" "No," replied Sam. It did seem incredible. Sam figured that no fish could run astern for two hundred yards and then quick as a flash break water abreast of us. But I knew it was true. Then the line slackened just as it had before. I began to wind up swiftly. "He's gone," I said. Scarcely had I said that when a smashing break in the water on the other side of the boat alarmed and further excited me. I did not see the fish. But I jumped up and bent over the stern to shove my rod deep into the water back of the propeller. I did this despite the certainty that the fish had broken loose. It was a wise move, for the rod was nearly pulled out of my hands. I lifted it, bent double, and began to wind furiously. So intent was I on the job of getting up the slack line that I scarcely looked up from the reel. "Look at him yump!" yelled Sam. I looked, but not quickly enough. "Over here! Look at him yump!" went on Sam. That fish made me seem like an amateur. I could not do a thing with him. The drag was light, and when I reeled in some line the fish got most of it back again. Every second I expected him to get free for sure. It was a miracle he did not shake the hook, as he certainly had a loose rein most all the time. The fact was he had such speed that I was unable to keep a strain upon him. I had no idea what kind of a fish it was. And Sam likewise was nonplussed. I was not sure the fish tired quickly, for I was so excited I had no thought of time, but it did not seem very long before I had him within fifty yards, sweeping in wide half-circles back of the boat. Occasionally I saw a broad, bright-green flash. When I was sure he was slowing up I put on the other drag and drew him closer. Then in the clear water we saw a strange, wild, graceful fish, the like of which we had never beheld. He was long, slender, yet singularly round and muscular. His color appeared to be blue, green, silver crossed by bars. His tail was big like that of a tuna, and his head sharper, more wolfish than a barracuda. He had a long, low, straight dorsal fin. We watched him swimming slowly to and fro beside the boat, and we speculated upon his species. But all I could decide was that I had a rare specimen for my collection. Sam was just as averse to the use of the gaff as I was. I played the fish out completely before Sam grasped the leader, pulled him close, lifted him in, and laid him down--a glistening, quivering, wonderful fish nearly six feet long. He was black opal blue; iridescent silver underneath; pale blue dorsal; dark-blue fins and copper-bronze tail, with bright bars down his body. I took this thirty-six pound fish to be a sea-roe, a game fish lately noticed on the Atlantic seaboard. But I was wrong. One old conch fisherman who had been around the Keys for forty years had never seen such a fish. Then Mr. Schutt came and congratulated me upon landing a waahoo. The catching of this specimen interested me to inquire when I could, and find out for myself, more about this rare fish. Natives round Key West sometimes take it in nets and with the grains, and they call it "springer." It is well known in the West Indies, where it bears the name "queenfish." After studying this waahoo there were boatmen and fishermen at Long Key who believed they had seen schools of them. Mr. Schutt had observed schools of them on the reef, low down near the coral--fish that would run from forty to one hundred pounds. It made me thrill just to think of hooking a waahoo weighing anywhere near a hundred pounds. Mr. Shannon testified that he had once observed a school of waahoo leaping in the Gulf Stream--all very large fish. And once, on a clear, still day, I drifted over a bunch of big, sharp-nosed, game-looking fish that I am sure belonged to this species. The waahoo seldom, almost never, is hooked by a fisherman. This fact makes me curious. All fish have to eat, and at least two waahoo have been caught. Why not more? I do not believe that it is just a new fish. I see Palm Beach notices printed to the effect that sailfish were never heard of there before the Russo-Japanese War, and that the explosions of floating mines drove them from their old haunts. I do not take stock in such theory as that. As a matter of fact, Holder observed the sailfish (_Histiophorus_) in the Gulf Stream off the Keys many years ago. Likewise the waahoo must always have been there, absent perhaps in varying seasons. It is fascinating to ponder over tackle and bait and cunning calculated to take this rare denizen of the Gulf Stream. * * * * * During half a dozen sojourns at Long Key I had heard of two or three dolphin being caught by lucky anglers who were trolling for anything that would bite. But until 1916 I never saw a dolphin. Certainly I never hoped to take one of these rare and beautiful deep-sea fish. Never would have the luck. But in February I took two, and now I am forbidden the peculiar pleasure of disclaiming my fisherman's luck. Dolphin seems a singularly attractive name. It always made me think of the deep blue sea, of old tars, and tall-sparred, white-sailed brigs. It is the name of a fish beloved of all sailors. I do not know why, but I suspect that it is because the dolphin haunts ships and is an omen of good luck, and probably the most exquisitely colored fish in the ocean. One day, two miles out in the Gulf Stream, I got a peculiar strike, quite unlike any I had ever felt. A fisherman grows to be a specialist in strikes. This one was quick, energetic, jerky, yet strong. And it was a hungry strike. A fish that is hungry can almost always be hooked. I let this one run a little and then hooked him. He felt light, but savage. He took line in short, zigzag rushes. I fancied it was a bonita, but Sam shook his head. With about a hundred yards of line out, the fish leaped. He was golden. He had a huge, blunt, bow-shaped head and a narrow tail. The distance was pretty far, and I had no certainty to go by, yet I yelled: "Dolphin!" Sam was not so sure, but he looked mighty hopeful. The fish sounded and ran in on me, then darted here and there, then began to leap and thresh upon the surface. He was hard to lead--a very strong fish for his light weight. I never handled a fish more carefully. He came up on a low swell, heading toward us, and he cut the water for fifty feet, with only his dorsal, a gleam of gold, showing in the sunlight. Next he jumped five times, and I could hear the wrestling sound he made when he shook himself. I had no idea what he might do next, and if he had not been securely hooked would have gotten off. I tried hard to keep the line taut and was not always successful. Like the waahoo, he performed tricks new to me. One was an awkward diving leap that somehow jerked the line in a way to alarm me. When he quit his tumbling and rushing I led him close to the boat. This has always been to me one of the rewards of fishing. It quite outweighs that doubtful moment for me when the fish lies in the boat or helpless on the moss. Then I am always sorry, and more often than not let the fish go alive. My first sight of a dolphin near at hand was one to remember. The fish flashed gold--deep rich gold--with little flecks of blue and white. Then the very next flash there were greens and yellows--changing, colorful, brilliant bars. In that background of dark, clear, blue Gulf Stream water this dolphin was radiant, golden, exquisitely beautiful. It was a shame to lift him out of the water. But-- The appearance of the dolphin when just out of the water beggars description. Very few anglers in the world have ever had this experience. Not many anglers, perhaps, care for the beauty of a fish. But I do. And for the sake of those who feel the same way I wish I could paint him. But that seems impossible. For even while I gazed the fish changed color. He should have been called the chameleon of the ocean. He looked a quivering, shimmering, changeful creature, the color of golden-rod. He was the personification of beautiful color alive. The fact that he was dying made the changing hues. It gave me a pang--that I should be the cause of the death of so beautiful a thing. If I caught his appearance for one fleeting instant here it is: Vivid green-gold, spotted in brilliant blue, and each blue spot was a circle inclosing white. The long dorsal extending from nose to tail seemed black and purple near the head, shading toward the tail to rich olive green with splashes of blue. Just below the dorsal, on the background of gold, was a line of black dots. The fins were pearly silver beneath, and dark green above. All the upper body was gold shading to silver, and this silver held exquisite turquoise-blue spots surrounded with white rings, in strange contrast to those ringed dots above. There was even a suggestion of pink glints. And the eyes were a deep purple with gold iris. The beauty of the dolphin resembled the mystery of the Gulf Stream--too illusive for the eye of man. * * * * * More than once some benighted angler had mentioned bonefish to me. These individuals always appeared to be quiet, retiring fishermen who hesitated to enlarge upon what was manifestly close to their hearts. I had never paid any attention to them. Who ever heard of a bonefish, anyway? The name itself did not appeal to my euphonious ear. But on this 1916 trip some faint glimmering must have penetrated the density of my cranium. I had always prided myself upon my conviction that I did not know it all, but, just the same, I had looked down from my lofty height of tuna and swordfish rather to despise little salt-water fish that could not pull me out of the boat. The waahoo and the dolphin had opened my eyes. When some mild, quiet, soft-voiced gentleman said bonefish to me again I listened. Not only did I listen, I grew interested. Then I saw a couple of bonefish. They shone like silver, were singularly graceful in build, felt heavy as lead, and looked game all over. I made the mental observation that the man who had named them bonefish should have had half of that name applied to his head. After that I was more interested in bonefish. I never failed to ask questions. But bonefishermen were scarce and as reticent as scarce. To sum up all of my inquiries, I learned or heard a lot that left me completely bewildered, so that I had no idea whether a bonefish was a joke or the grandest fish that swims. I deducted from the amazing information that if a fisherman sat all day in the blazing sun and had the genius to discover when he had a bite he was learning. No one ever caught bonefish without days and days of learning. Then there were incidents calculated to disturb the peace of a contemplative angler like myself. [Illustration: AT LONG KEY, THE LONELY CORAL SHORE WHERE THE SUN SHINES WHITE ALL DAY AND THE STARS SHINE WHITE ALL NIGHT] [Illustration: THE FAMOUS STUNT OF A MARLIN SWORDFISH, "WALKING ON HIS TAIL"] One man with heavy tackle yanked some bonefish out of the tide right in front of my cabin, quite as I used to haul out suckers. Other men tried it for days without success, though it appeared bonefish were passing every tide. Then there was a loquacious boatman named Jimmy, who, when he had spare time, was always fishing for bonefish. He would tell the most remarkable tales about these fish. So finally I drifted to that fatal pass where I decided I wanted to catch bonefish. I imagined it would be easy for me. So did Captain Sam. Alas! the vanity of man! Forthwith Captain Sam and I started out to catch soldier-crabs for bait. The directions we got from conch fishermen and others led us to assume that it would be an easy matter to find crabs. It was not! We had to go poking round mangrove roots until we learned how to catch the soldiers. If this had not been fun for me it would have been hard work. But ever since I was a little tad I have loved to chase things in the water. And upon this occasion it was with great satisfaction that I caught more bait than Captain Sam. Sam is something of a naturalist and he was always spending time over a curious bug or shell or object he found. Eventually we collected a bucketful of soldier-crabs. Next day, about the last of the ebb-tide, we tied a skiff astern and went up the Key to a cove where there were wide flats. While working our way inshore over the shoals we hit bottom several times and finally went aground. This did not worry us, for we believed the rising tide would float us. Then we got in the skiff and rowed toward the flats. I was rather concerned to see that apparently the tide was just about as high along this shore as it ever got. Sam shook his head. The tides were strange around the Keys. It will be high on the Gulf side and low on the Atlantic side, and sometimes it will run one way through the channels for thirty-six hours. But we forgot this as soon as we reached the bonefish shoals. Sam took an oar and slowly poled inshore, while I stood up on a seat to watch for fish. The water was from six to eighteen inches deep and very clear and still. The bottom appeared to be a soft mud, gray, almost white in color, with patches of dark grass here and there. It was really marl, which is dead and decayed coral. Scarcely had we gotten over the edge of this shoal when we began to see things--big blue crabs, the kind that can pinch and that play havoc with the fishermen's nets, and impudent little gray crabs, and needle-fish, and small chocolate-colored sharks--nurse sharks, Sam called them--and barracuda from one foot to five feet in length, and whip-rays and sting-rays. It was exceedingly interesting and surprising to see all these in such shallow water. And they were all tame. Here and there we saw little boils of the water, and then a muddy patch where some fish had stirred the marl. Sam and I concluded these were made by bonefish. Still, we could not be sure. I can see a fish a long way in the water and I surely was alert. But some time elapsed and we had poled to within a few rods of the mangroves before I really caught sight of our coveted quarry. Then I saw five bonefish, two of them large, between the boat and the mangroves. They were motionless. Somehow the sight of them was thrilling. They looked wary, cunning, game, and reminded me of gray wolves I had seen on the desert. Suddenly they vanished. It was incredible the way they disappeared. When we got up to the place where they had been there were the little swirls in the roiled water. Then Sam sighted two more bonefish that flashed away too swiftly for me to see. We stuck an oar down in the mud and anchored the boat. It seemed absolutely silly to fish in water a foot deep. But I meant to try it. Putting a crab on my hook, I cast off ten or a dozen yards, and composed myself to rest and watch. Certainly I expected no results. But it was attractive there. The wide flat stretched away, bordered by the rich, dark mangroves. Cranes and pelicans were fishing off the shoals, and outside rippled the green channel, and beyond that the dark-blue sea. The sun shone hot. There was scarcely any perceptible breeze. All this would have been enjoyable and fruitful if there had not been a fish within a mile. Almost directly I felt a very faint vibration of my line. I waited, expectantly, thinking that I might be about to have a bite. But the line slackened and nothing happened. There were splashes all around us and waves and ripples here and there, and occasionally a sounding thump. We grew more alert and interested. Sam saw a bonefish right near the boat. He pointed, and the fish was gone. After that we sat very still, I, of course, expecting a bite every moment. Presently I saw a bonefish not six feet from the boat. Where he came from was a mystery, but he appeared like magic, and suddenly, just as magically, he vanished. "Funny fish," observed Sam, thoughtfully. Something had begun to dawn upon Sam, as it had upon me. No very long time elapsed before we had seen a dozen bonefish, any one of which I could have reached with my rod. But not a bite! I reeled in to find my bait gone. "That bait was eaten off by crabs," I said to Sam, as I put on another. Right away after my cast I felt, rather than saw, that slight vibration of my line. I waited as before, and just as before the line almost imperceptibly slackened and nothing happened. Presently I did see a blue crab deliberately cut my line. We had to move the boat, pick up the lost piece of line, and knot it to the other. Then I watched a blue crab tear off my bait. But I failed to feel or see that faint vibration of my line. We moved the boat again, and again my line was cut. These blue crabs were a nuisance. Sam moved the boat again. We worked up the flat nearer where the little mangroves, scarce a foot high, lifted a few leaves out of the water. Whenever I stood up I saw bonefish, and everywhere we could hear them. Once more we composed ourselves to watch and await developments. [Illustration: SURGING IN A HALF-CIRCLE] [Illustration: BROADBILL SWORDFISH ON THE SURFACE--THE MOST THRILLING SIGHT TO A SEA ANGLER] In the succeeding hour I had many of the peculiar vibrations of my line, and, strange to see, every time I reeled in, part of my bait or all of it was gone. Still I fished on patiently for a bonefish bite. Meanwhile the sun lost its heat, slowly slanted to the horizon of mangroves, and turned red. It was about the hour of sunset and it turned out to be a beautiful and memorable one. Not a breath of air stirred. There was no sound except the screech of a gull and the distant splashes of wading birds. I had not before experienced silence on or near salt water. The whole experience was new. We remarked that the tide had not seemed to rise any higher. Everywhere were little swells, little waves, little wakes, all made by bonefish. The sun sank red and gold, and all the wide flat seemed on fire, with little mangroves standing clear and dark against the ruddy glow. And about this time the strangest thing happened. It might have been going on before, but Sam and I had not seen it. All around us were bonefish tails lifted out of the water. They glistened like silver. When a bonefish feeds his head is down and his tail is up, and, the water being shallow, the upper fluke of his tail stands out. If I saw one I saw a thousand. It was particularly easy to see them in the glassy water toward the sunset. A school of feeding bonefish came toward us. I counted eleven tails out of the water. They were around my bait. Now or never, I thought, waiting frantically! But they went on feeding--passed over my line--and came so near the boat that I could plainly see the gray shadow shapes, the long, sharp noses, the dark, staring eyes. I reeled in to find my bait gone, as usual. It was exasperating. We had to give up then, as darkness was not far off. Sam was worried about the boat. He rowed while I stood up. Going back, I saw bonefish in twos and fours and droves. We passed school after school. They had just come in from the sea, for they were headed up the flat. I saw many ten-pound fish, but I did not know enough about bonefish then to appreciate what I saw. However, I did appreciate their keen sight and wariness and wonderful speed and incredible power. Some of the big surges made me speculate what a heavy bonefish might do to light tackle. Sam and I were disappointed at our luck, somewhat uncertain whether it was caused by destructive work of crabs or the wrong kind of bait or both. It scarcely occurred to us to inquire into our ignorance. We found the boat hard and fast in the mud. Sam rowed me ashore. I walked back to camp, and he stayed all night, and all the next day, waiting for the tide to float the boat. After that on several days we went up to the flat to fish for bonefish. But we could not hit the right tide or the fish were not there. At any rate, we did not see any or get any bites. Then I began to fish for bonefish in front of my cottage. Whenever I would stick my rod in the sand and go in out of the hot sun a bonefish would take my bait and start off to sea. Before I could get back he would break something. This happened several times before I became so aroused that I determined to catch one of these fish or die. I fished and fished. I went to sleep in a camp-chair and absolutely ruined my reputation as an ardent fisherman. One afternoon, just after I had made a cast, I felt the same old strange vibration of my line. I was not proof against it and I jerked. Lo! I hooked a fish that made a savage rush, pulled my bass-rod out of shape, and took all my line before I could stop him. Then he swept from side to side. I reeled him in, only to have him run out again and again and yet again. I knew I had a heavy fish. I expected him to break my line. I handled him gingerly. Imagine my amaze to beach a little fish that weighed scarcely more than two pounds! But it was a bonefish--a glistening mother-of-pearl bonefish. Somehow the obsession of these bonefishermen began to be less puzzling to me. Sam saw me catch this bonefish, and he was as amazed as I was at the gameness and speed and strength of so small a fish. Next day a bonefisherman of years' experience answered a few questions I put to him. No, he never fished for anything except bonefish. They were the hardest fish in the sea to make bite, the hardest to land after they were hooked. Yes, that very, very slight vibration of the line--that strange feeling rather than movement--was the instant of their quick bite. An instant before or an instant after would be fatal. It dawned upon me then that on my first day I must have had dozens of bonefish bites, but I did not know it! I was humiliated--I was taken down from my lofty perch--I was furious. I thanked the gentleman for his enlightenment and went away in search of Sam. I told Sam, and he laughed--laughed at me and at himself. After all, it was a joke. And I had to laugh too. It is good for a fisherman to have the conceit taken out of him--if anything can accomplish that. Then Sam and I got our heads together. What we planned and what we did must make another story. IX SWORDFISH _From records of the New York Bureau of Fisheries, by G. B. Goode_ The swordfish, _Xiphias gladius_, ranges along the Atlantic coast of America from Jamaica (latitude 18° N.), Cuba, and the Bermudas, to Cape Breton (latitude 47° N.). It has not been seen at Greenland, Iceland, or Spitzbergen, but occurs, according to Collett, at the North Cape (latitude 71°). It is abundant along the coasts of western Europe, entering the Baltic and the Mediterranean. I can find no record of the species on the west coast of Africa south of Cape Verde, though Lutken, who may have access to facts unknown to me, states that they occur clear down to the Cape of Good Hope, South Atlantic in mid-ocean, to the west coast of South America and to southern California (latitude 34°), New Zealand, and in the Indian Ocean off Mauritius. The names of the swordfish all have reference to that prominent feature, the prolonged snout. The "swordfish" of our own tongue, the "zwardfis" of the Hollander, the Italian "sofia" and "pesce-spada," the Spanish "espada" and "espadarte," varied by "pez do spada" in Cuba, and the French "espadon," "dard," and "epee de mer," are simply variations of one theme, repetitions of the "gladius" of ancient Italy and "xiphius," the name by which Aristotle, the father of zoology, called the same fish twenty-three hundred years ago. The French "empereur" and the "imperador" and the "ocean kingfish" of the Spanish and French West Indies, carry out the same idea, for the Roman Emperor was always represented holding a drawn sword in his hand. The Portuguese names are "aguhao," meaning "needle," or "needle-fish." This species has been particularly fortunate in escaping the numerous redescriptions to which almost all widely distributed forms have been subjected. By the writers of antiquity it was spoken of under its Aristotelian name, and in the tenth edition of his _Systema Naturæ_, at the very inception of binomial nomenclative, Linnaeus called it _Xiphias gladius_. By this name it has been known ever since, and only one additional name is included in its synonym, _Xiphias rondeletic_ of Leach. The swordfish has been so long and so well known that its right to its peculiar name has seldom been infringed upon. The various species of _Tetrapturus_ have sometimes shared its title, and this is not to be wondered at, since they closely resemble _Xiphias gladius_, and the appellative has frequently been applied to the family _Xiphiidæ_--the swordfish--which includes them all. The name "bill-fish," usually applied to our _Tetrapturus albidus_, a fish of the swordfish family, often taken on our coast, must be pronounced objectionable, since it is in many districts used for various species of Belonidæ, the garfishes or green-bones (_Belone truncata_ and others), which are members of the same faunas. Spear-fish is a much better name. The "sailfish," _Histiophorus americanus_, is called by sailors in the South the "boohoo" or "woohoo." This is evidently a corrupted form of "guebum," a name, apparently of Indian origin, given to the same fish in Brazil. It is possible that _Tetrapturus_ is also called "boohoo," since the two genera are not sufficiently unlike to impress sailors with their differences. Blecker states that in Sumatra the Malays call the related species, _H. gladius_, by the name "Joohoo" (Juhu), a curious coincidence. The names may have been carried from the Malay Archipelago to South America, or _vice versa_, by mariners. In Cuba the spear-fish are called "aguja" and "aguja de palada"; the sailfish, "aguja prieta" or "aguja valadora"; _Tetrapturus albidus_ especially known as the "aguja blanca," _T. albidus_ as the "aguja de castro." In the West Indies and Florida the scabbard-fish or silvery hairy-tail, _Trichiurus lepturus_, a form allied to the _Xiphias_, though not resembling it closely in external appearance, is often called "swordfish." The body of this fish is shaped like the blade of a saber, and its skin has a bright, metallic luster like that of polished steel, hence the name. Swordfish are most abundant on the shoals near the shore and on the banks during the months of July and August; that they make their appearance on the frequented cruising-grounds between Montauk Point and the eastern part of Georges Banks sometime between the 25th of May and the 20th of June, and that they remain until the approach of cold weather in October and November. The dates of the first fish on the cruising-grounds referred to are recorded for three years, and are reasonably reliable: in 1875, June 20th; in 1877, June 10th; in 1878, June 14th. South of the cruising-grounds the dates of arrival and departure are doubtless farther apart, the season being shorter north and east. There are no means of obtaining information, since the men engaged in this fishery are the only ones likely to remember the dates when the fish are seen. The swordfish comes into our waters in pursuit of its food. At least this is the most probable explanation of its movements, since the duties of reproduction appear to be performed elsewhere. Like the tuna, the bluefish, the bonito, and the squiteague, they pursue and prey upon the schools of menhaden and mackerel, which are so abundant in the summer months. "When you see swordfish, you may know that mackerel are about," said an old fisherman to me. "When you see the fin-back whale following food, there you may find swordfish," said another. The swordfish also feeds upon squid, which are at times abundant on our banks. To what extent this fish is amenable to the influences of temperature is an unsolved problem. We are met at the outset by the fact that they are frequently taken on trawl lines which are set at the depth of one hundred fathoms or more, on the offshore banks. We know that the temperature of the water in these localities and at that depth is sure to be less than 40° Fahr. How is this fact to be reconciled with the known habits of the fish, that it prefers the warmest weather of summer and swims at the surface in water of temperature ranging from 55° to 70°, sinking when cool winds blow below? The case seemed clear enough until the inconvenient discovery was made that swordfish are taken on bottom trawl lines. In other respects their habits agree closely with those of the mackerel tribe, all the members of which seem sensitive to slight changes in temperature, and which, as a rule, prefer temperature in the neighborhood of 50° or more. [Illustration: SHINING IN THE SUNLIGHT] [Illustration: THROWING WHITE WATER LIKE THE EXPLOSION OF A TORPEDO] The appearance of the fish at the surface depends largely upon the temperature. They are seen only upon quiet summer days, in the morning before ten or eleven o'clock, and in the afternoon about four o'clock. Old fishermen say that they rise when the mackerel rise, and when the mackerel go down they go down also. Regarding the winter abode of the swordfish, conjecture is useless. I have already discussed this question at length with reference to the menhaden and mackerel. With the swordfish the conditions are very different. The former are known to spawn in our waters, and the schools of young ones follow the old ones in toward the shores. The latter do not spawn in our waters. We cannot well believe that they hibernate, nor is the hypothesis of a sojourn in the middle strata of mid-ocean exactly tenable. Perhaps they migrate to some distant region, where they spawn. But then the spawning-time of this species in the Mediterranean, as is related in a subsequent paragraph, appears to occur in the summer months, at the very time when the swordfish are most abundant in our own waters, apparently feeling no responsibility for the perpetuation of their species. The swordfish, when swimming at the surface, usually allows its dorsal fin and the upper lobe of its caudal fin to be visible, projecting out of the water. It is this habit which enables the fisherman to detect the presence of the fish. It swims slowly along, and the fishing-schooner with a light breeze finds no difficulty in overtaking it. When excited its motions are very rapid and nervous. Swordfish are sometimes seen to leap entirely out of the water. Early writers attributed this habit to the tormenting presence of parasites, but this theory seems hardly necessary, knowing what we do of its violent exertions at other times. The pointed head, the fins of the back and abdomen snugly fitting into grooves, the absence of ventrals, the long, lithe, muscular body, sloping slowly to the tail, fits it for the most rapid and forceful movement through the water. Prof. Richard Owen, testifying in an England court in regard to its power, said: "It strikes with the accumulated force of fifteen double-handed hammers. Its velocity is equal to that of a swivel shot, and is as dangerous in its effect as a heavy artillery projectile." Many very curious instances are on record of the encounter of this fish with other fishes, or of their attacks upon ships. What can be the inducement for it to attack objects so much larger than itself is hard to surmise. We are all familiar with the couplet from Oppian: Nature her bounty to his mouth confined, Gave him a sword, but left unarmed his mind. It surely seems as if temporary insanity sometimes takes possession of the fish. It is not strange that when harpooned it should retaliate by attacking its assailant. An old swordfisherman told Mr. Blackman that his vessel had been struck twenty times. There are, however, many instances of entirely unprovoked assaults on vessels at sea. Many of these are recounted in a later portion of this memoir. Their movements when feeding are discussed below as well as their alleged peculiarities of movement during breeding season. It is the universal testimony of our fishermen that two are never seen swimming close together. Captain Ashby says that they are always distant from each other at least thirty or forty feet. The pugnacity of the swordfish has become a byword. Without any special effort on my part, numerous instances of their attacks upon vessels have in the last ten years found their way into the pigeonhole labeled "Swordfish." �lian says (b. XXXII, c. 6) that the swordfish has a sharp-pointed snout with which it is able to pierce the sides of a ship and send it to the bottom, instances of which have been known near a place in Mauritania known as Cotte, not far from the river Sixus, on the African side of the Mediterranean. He describes the sword as like the beak of the ship known as the trireme, which was rowed with three banks of oars. The _London Daily News_ of December 11, 1868, contained the following paragraph, which emanated, I suspect, from the pen of Prof. R. A. Proctor. Last Wednesday the court of common pleas--rather a strange place, by the by, for inquiring into the natural history of fishes--was engaged for several hours in trying to determine under what circumstances a swordfish might be able to escape scot-free after thrusting his snout into the side of a ship. The gallant ship _Dreadnought_, thoroughly repaired and classed A1 at Lloyd's, had been insured for £3,000 against all risks of the sea. She sailed on March 10, 1864, from Columbo for London. Three days later the crew, while fishing, hooked a swordfish. Xiphias, however, broke the line, and a few moments after leaped half out of the water, with the object, it should seem, of taking a look at his persecutor, the _Dreadnaught_. Probably he satisfied himself that the enemy was some abnormally large cetacean, which it was his natural duty to attack forthwith. Be this as it may, the attack was made, and the next morning the captain was awakened with the unwelcome intelligence that the ship had sprung a leak. She was taken back to Columbo, and thence to Cochin, where she hove down. Near the keel was found a round hole, an inch in diameter, running completely through the copper sheathing and planking. As attacks by swordfish are included among sea risks, the insurance company was willing to pay the damages claimed by the owners of the ship, if only it could be proved that the hole had been really made by aswordfish. No instances had ever been recorded in which a swordfish which had passed its beak through three inches of stout planking could withdraw without the loss of its sword. Mr. Buckland said that fish have no power of "backing," and expressed his belief that he could hold a swordfish by the beak; but then he admitted that the fish had considerable lateral power, and might so "wriggle its sword out of the hold." And so the insurance company will have to pay nearly £600 because an ill-tempered fish objected to be hooked and took its revenge by running full tilt against copper sheathing and oak planking. [Illustration: A LONG, SLIM SAILFISH WIGGLING IN THE AIR] [Illustration: FIGHTING A BROADBILL SWORDFISH] The food of the swordfish is of a very mixed nature. Doctor Fleming found the remains of sepias in its stomach, and also small fishes. Oppian stated that it eagerly devours the _Hippuris_ (probably _Coryphæna_). A specimen taken off Saconnet July 22, 1875, had in its stomach the remains of small fish, perhaps _Stromateus triacanthus_, and jaws of a squid, perhaps _Loligo pealin_. Their food in the western Atlantic consists for the most part of the common schooling species of fishes. They feed on menhaden, mackerel, bonitoes, bluefish, and other species which swim in close schools. Their habits of feeding have often been described to me by old fishermen. They are said to rise beneath the school of small fish, striking to the right and left with their swords until they have killed a number, which they then proceed to devour. Menhaden have been seen floating at the surface which have been cut nearly in twain by a blow of a sword. Mr. John H. Thompson remarks that he has seen them apparently throw the fish in the air, catching them on the fall. Capt. Benjamin Ashby says that they feed on mackerel, herring, whiting, and menhaden. He has found half a bucketful of small fish of these kind in the stomach of one swordfish. He has seen them in the act of feeding. They rise perpendicularly out of the water until the sword and two-thirds of the remainder of the body are exposed to view. He has seen a school of herring at the surface on Georges Banks as closely as they could be packed. A swordfish came up through the dense mass and fell flat on its side, striking many fish with the sides of its sword. He has at one time picked up as much as a bushel of herrings thus killed by a swordfish on Georges Banks. But little is known regarding their time and place of breeding. They are said to deposit their eggs in large quantities on the coasts of Sicily, and European writers give their spawning-time occurring the latter part of spring and the beginning of summer. In the Mediterranean they occur of all sizes from four hundred pounds down, and the young are so plentiful as to become a common article of food. M. Raymond, who brought to Cuvier a specimen of aistiophorn four inches long, taken in January, 1829, in the Atlantic, between the Cape of Good Hope and France, reported that there were good numbers of young sailfish in the place where this was taken. Meunier, quoting Spollongain, states that the swordfish does not approach the coast of Sicily except in the season of reproduction; the males are then seen pursuing the females. It is a good time to capture them, for when the female has been taken the male lingers near and is easily approached. The fish are abundant in the Straits of Messina from the middle of April to the middle of September; early in the season they hug the Calabrian shore, approaching from the north; after the end of June they are most abundant on the Sicilian shore, approaching from the south. From other circumstances, it seems certain that there are spawning-grounds in the seas near Sicily and Genoa, for from November to the 1st of March young ones are taken in the Straits of Messina, ranging in weight from half a pound to twelve pounds. In the Mediterranean, as has been already stated, the young fish are found from November to March, and here from July to the middle of September the male fish are seen pursuing the female over the shoals, and at this time the males are easily taken. Old swordfish fishermen, Captain Ashby and Captain Kirby, assure me that on our coast, out of thousands of specimens they have taken, they have never seen one containing eggs. I have myself dissected several males, none of which were near breeding-time. In the European waters they are said often to be seen swimming in pairs, male and female. Many sentimental stories were current, especially among the old writers, concerning the conjugal affection and unselfish devotion of the swordfish, but they seem to have originated in the imaginative brain of the naturalist rather than in his perceptive faculties. It is said that when the female fish is taken the male seems devoid of fear, approaches the boat, and allows himself easily to be taken, but if this be true, it appears to be the case only in the height of the breeding season, and is easily understood. I cannot learn that two swordfish have ever been seen associated together in our waters, though I have made frequent and diligent inquiry. There is no inherent improbability, however, in this story regarding the swordfish in Europe, for the same thing is stated by Professor Poey as the result upon the habits of _Tetrapturus_. The only individual of which we have the exact measurements was taken off Saconnet, Rhode Island, July 23, 1874. This was seven feet seven inches long, weighing one hundred and thirteen pounds. Another, taken off No Man's Land, July 20, 1875, and cast in plaster for the collection of the National Museum, weighed one hundred and twenty pounds and measured about seven feet. Another, taken off Portland, August 15, 1878, was 3,999 millimeters long and weighed about six hundred pounds. Many of these fish doubtless attain the weight of four and five hundred pounds, and some perhaps grow to six hundred; but after this limit is reached, I am inclined to believe larger fish are exceptional. Newspapers are fond of recording the occurrence of giant fish, weighing one thousand pounds and upward, and old sailors will in good faith describe the enormous fish which they saw at sea, but could not capture; but one well-authenticated instance of accurate weighing is much more valuable. The largest one ever taken by Capt. Benjamin Ashby, for twenty years a swordfish fisherman, was killed on the shoals back of Edgartown, Massachusetts. When salted it weighed six hundred and thirty-nine pounds. Its live weight must have been as much as seven hundred and fifty or eight hundred. Its sword measured nearly six feet. This was an extraordinary fish among the three hundred or more taken by Captain Ashby in his long experience. He considers the average size to be about two hundred and fifty pounds dressed, or five hundred and twenty-five alive. Captain Martin, of Gloucester, estimated the average size at three to four hundred pounds. The largest known to Captain Michaux weighed six hundred and twenty-eight. The average about Block Island he considers to be two hundred pounds. The size of the smallest swordfish taken on our eastern coast is a subject of much deeper interest, for it throws light on the time and place of breeding. There is some difference of testimony regarding the average size, but all fishermen with whom I have talked agree that very small ones do not find their way into our shore waters. Numerous very small specimens have, however, been already taken by the Fish Commission at sea, off our middle and southern coast. Capt. John Rowe has seen one which did not weigh more than seventy-five pounds when taken out of the water. Capt. R. H. Hurlbert killed near Block Island, in July, 1877, one which weighed fifty pounds and measured about two feet without its sword. Captain Ashby's smallest weighed about twenty-five pounds when dressed; this he killed off No Man's Land. He tells me that a Bridgeport smack had one weighing sixteen pounds (or probably twenty-four when alive), and measuring eighteen inches without its sword. In August, 1878, a small specimen of the mackerel-shark, _Lamna cornubica_, was captured at the mouth of Gloucester Harbor. In its nostril was sticking a sword, about three inches long, of a young swordfish. When this was pulled out the blood flowed freely, indicating that the wound was recent. The fish to which this sword belonged cannot have exceeded ten or twelve inches in length. Whether the small swordfish met with its misfortune in our waters, or whether the shark brought this trophy from beyond the sea, is an unsolved problem. Lutken speaks of a very young individual taken in the Atlantic, latitude 32° 50' N., 74° 19' W. This must be about one hundred and fifty miles southeast of Cape Hatteras. For many years from three to six hundred of these fish have been taken annually on the New England coast. It is not unusual for twenty-five or more to be seen in the course of a single day's cruising, and sometimes as many as this are visible from the masthead at one time. Captain Ashby saw twenty at one time, in August, 1889, between Georges Banks and the South Shoals. One Gloucester schooner, _Midnight_, Capt. Alfred Wixom, took fourteen in one day on Georges Banks in 1877. Capt. John Rowe obtained twenty barrels, or four thousand pounds, of salt fish on one trip to Georges Banks; this amount represents twenty fish or more. Captain Ashby has killed one hundred and eight swordfish in one year; Capt. M. C. Tripp killed about ninety in 1874. Such instances as these indicate in a general way the abundance of the swordfish. A vessel cruising within fifty miles of our coast, between Cape May and Cape Sable, during the months of June, July, August, and September, cannot fail, on a favorable day, to come in sight of several of them. Mr. Earll states that the fishermen of Portland never knew them more abundant than in 1879. This is probably due in part to the fact that the fishery there is of a very recent origin. There is no evidence of any change in their abundance, either increase or decrease. Fishermen agree that they are as plentiful as ever, nor can any change be anticipated. The present mode does not destroy them in any considerable numbers, each individual fish being the object of special pursuit. The solitary habits of the species will always protect them from wholesale capture, so destructive to schooling fish. Even if this were not the case, the evidence proves that spawning swordfish do not frequent our waters. When a female shad is killed, thousands of possible young die also. The swordfish taken by our fishermen carry no such precious burden. "The small swordfish is very good meat," remarked Josselyn, in writing of the fishes of England in the seventeenth century. Since Josselyn probably never saw a young swordfish, unless at some time he had visited the Mediterranean, it is fair to suppose that his information was derived from some Italian writer. It is, however, a fact that the flesh of the swordfish, though somewhat oily, is a very acceptable article of food. Its texture is coarse; the thick, fleshy, muscular layers cause it to resemble that of the halibut in constituency. Its flavor is by many considered fine, and is not unlike that of the bluefish. Its color is gray. The meat of the young fish is highly prized on the Mediterranean, and is said to be perfectly white, compact, and of delicate flavor. Swordfish are usually cut up into steaks--thick slices across the body--and may be broiled or boiled. The apparatus ordinarily employed for the capture of the swordfish is simple in the extreme. It is the harpoon with the detachable head. When the fish is struck, the head of the harpoon remains in the body of the fish, and carries with it a light rope which is either made fast or held by a man in a small boat, or is attached to some kind of a buoy, which is towed through the water by the struggling fish, and which marks its whereabouts after death. The harpoon consists of a pole fifteen or sixteen feet in length, usually of hickory or some other hard wood, upon which the bark has been left, so that the harpooner may have a firmer hand-grip. This pole is from an inch and a half to two inches in diameter, and at one end is provided with an iron rod, or "shank," about two feet long and five-eighths of an inch in diameter. This "shank" is fastened to the pole by means of a conical or elongated, cuplike expansion at one end, which fits over the sharpened end of the pole, to which it is secured by screws or spikes. A light line extends from one end of the pole to the point where it joins the "shank" and in this line is tied a loop by which is made fast another short line which secures the pole to the vessel or boat, so that when it is thrown at the fish it cannot be lost. Upon the end of the "shank" fits the head of the harpoon, known by the names swordfish-iron, lily-iron, and Indian dart. The form of this weapon has undergone much variation. The fundamental idea may very possibly have been derived from the Indian fish-dart, numerous specimens of which are in the National Museum, from various tribes of Indians of New England, British America, and the Pacific. However various the modifications may have been, the similarity of the different shapes is no less noteworthy from the fact that all are peculiarly American. In the enormous collection of fishery implements of all lands at the late exhibition at Berlin, nothing of the kind could be found. What is known to whalers as a toggle-harpoon is a modification of the lily-iron, but so greatly changed by the addition of a pivot by which the head of the harpoon is fastened to the shank that it can hardly be regarded as the same weapon. The lily-iron is, in principle, exactly what a whaleman would describe by the word "toggle." It consists of a two-pointed piece of metal, having in the center, at one side, a ring or socket the axis of which is parallel with the long diameter of the implement. In this is inserted the end of the pole-shank, and to it or near it is also attached the harpoon-line. When the iron has once been thrust point first through some solid substance, such as the side of a fish, and is released upon the other side by the withdrawal of the pole from the socket, it is free, and at once turns its long axis at right angle to the direction in which the harpoon-line is pulling, and this is absolutely prevented from withdrawal. The principle of the whale harpoon or toggle-iron is similar, except that the pole is not withdrawn, and the head, turning upon a pivot at its end, fastens the pole itself securely to the fish, the harpoon-line being attached to some part of the pole. The swordfish lily-iron head, as now ordinarily used, is about four inches in length, and consists of two lanceolate blades, each about an inch and a half long, connected by a central piece much thicker than they, in which, upon one side, and next to the flat side of the blade, is the socket for the insertion of the pole-shank. In this same central enlargement is forged an opening to which the harpoon-line is attached. The dart-head is usually made of steel; sometimes of iron, which is generally galvanized; sometimes of brass. The entire weight of the harpoon--pole, shank, and head--should not exceed eighteen pounds. The harpoon-line is from fifty to one hundred and fifty fathoms long, and is ordinarily what is known as "fifteen-thread line." At the end is sometimes fastened a buoy, and an ordinary mackerel-keg is generally used for this purpose. In addition to the harpoon every swordfish fisherman carries a lance. This implement is precisely similar to a whaleman's lance, except that it is smaller, consisting of a lanceolate blade perhaps one inch wide and two inches long, upon the end of a shank of five-eighths-inch iron, perhaps two or three feet in length, fastened in the ordinary way upon a pole fifteen to eighteen feet in length. The swordfish are always harpooned from the end of the bowsprit of a sailing-vessel. It is next to impossible to approach them in a small boat. All vessels regularly engaged in this fishery are supplied with a special apparatus called a "rest," or "pulpit," for the support of the harpooner as he stands on the bowsprit, and this is almost essential to success, although it is possible for an active man to harpoon a fish from this station without the aid of the ordinary framework. Not only the professional swordfish fisherman, but many mackerel-schooners and packets are supplied in this manner. The swordfish never comes to the surface except in moderate, smooth weather. A vessel cruising in search of them proceeds to the fishing-ground, and cruises hither and thither wherever the abundance of small fish indicates that they ought to be found. Vessels which are met are hailed and asked whether any swordfish have been seen, and if tidings are thus obtained the ship's course is at once laid for the locality where they were last noticed. A man is always stationed at the masthead, where, with the keen eye which practice has given him, he can easily descry the telltale dorsal fins at a distance of two or three miles. When a fish has once been sighted, the watch "sings out," and the vessel is steered directly toward it. The skipper takes his place in the "pulpit" holding the pole in both hands by the small end, and directing the man at the wheel by voice and gesture how to steer. There is no difficulty in approaching the fish with a large vessel, although, as has already been remarked, they will not suffer a small boat to come near them. The vessel plows and swashes through the water, plunging its bowsprit into the waves without exciting their fears. Noises frighten them and drive them down. Although there would be no difficulty in bringing the end of a bowsprit directly over the fish, a skilful harpooner never waits for this. When the fish is from six to ten feet in front of the vessel it is struck. The harpoon is never thrown, the pole being too long. The strong arm of the harpooner punches the dart into the back of the fish, right at the side of the high dorsal fin, and the pole is withdrawn and fastened again to its place. When the dart has been fastened to the fish the line is allowed to run out as far as the fish will carry it, and is then passed in a small boat, which is towing at the stern. Two men jump into this, and pull in upon the line until the fish is brought in alongside; it is then killed with a whale-lance or a whale-spade, which is stuck into the gills. The fish having been killed, it is lifted upon the deck by a purchase tackle of two double blocks rigged in the shrouds. The pursuit of the swordfish is much more exciting than ordinary fishing, for it resembles the hunting of large animals upon the land and partakes more of the nature of the chase. There is no slow and careful baiting and patient waiting, and no disappointment caused by the accidental capture of worthless "bait-stealers." The game is seen and followed, and outwitted by wary tactics, and killed by strength of arm and skill. The swordfish is a powerful antagonist sometimes, and sends his pursuers' vessel into harbor leaking, and almost sinking, from injuries he has inflicted. I have known a vessel to be struck by wounded swordfish as many as twenty times in a season. There is even the spice of personal danger to savor the chase, for the men are occasionally wounded by the infuriated fish. One of Captain Ashby's crew was severely wounded by a swordfish which thrust his beak through the oak floor of a boat on which he was standing, and penetrated about two inches in his naked heel. The strange fascination draws men to this pursuit when they have once learned its charms. An old swordfish fisherman, who had followed the pursuit for twenty years, told me that when he was on the cruising-ground, he fished all night in his dreams, and that many a time he has rubbed the skin off his knuckles by striking them against the ceiling of his bunk when he raised his arms to thrust the harpoon into visionary monster swordfishes. _The Spear-fish or Bill-fish_ The bill-fish or spear-fish, _Tetrapturus indicus_ (with various related forms, which may or may not be specifically identical), occurs in the western Atlantic from the West Indies (latitude 10° to 20° N.) to southern England (latitude 40° N.); in the eastern Atlantic, from Gibraltar (latitude 45° N.) to the Cape of Good Hope (latitude 30° S.) in the Indian Ocean, the Malay Archipelago, New Zealand (latitude 40° S.), and on the west coast of Chile and Peru. In a general way, the range is between latitude 40° N. and latitude 40° S. The species of _Tetrapturus_ which we have been accustomed to call _T. albidus_, abundant about Cuba, is not very usual on the coast of southern New England. Several are taken every year by the swordfish fishermen. I have not known of their capture along the southern Atlantic coast of the United States. All I have known about were taken between Sandy Hook and the eastern part of Georges Banks. The Mediterranean spear-fish, _Tetrapturus balone_, appears to be a landlocked form, never passing west of the Straits of Gibraltar. The spear-fish in our waters is said by our fishermen to resemble the swordfish in its movements and manner of feeding. Professor Poey narrates that both the Cuban species swim at a depth of one hundred fathoms, and they journey in pairs, shaping their course toward the Gulf of Mexico, the females being full of eggs. Only adults are taken. It is not known whence they come, or where they breed, or how the young return. It is not even known whether the adult fish return by the same route. When the fish has swallowed the hook it rises to the surface, making prodigious leaps and plunges. At last it is dragged to the boat, secured with a boat-hook, and beaten to death before it is hauled on board. Such fishing is not without danger, for the spear-fish sometimes rushes upon the boat, drowning the fisherman, or wounding him with its terrible weapon. The fish becomes furious at the appearance of sharks, which are its natural enemies. They engage in violent combats, and when the spear-fish is attached to the fisherman's line it often receives frightful wounds from the adversaries. The spear-fish strikes vessels in the same manner as the swordfish. I am indebted to Capt. William Spicer, of Noank, Connecticut, for this note: Mr. William Taylor, of Mystic, a man seventy-six years old, who was in the smack _Evergreen_, Capt. John Appleman, tells me that they started from Mystic, October 3, 1832, on a fishing voyage to Key West, in company with the smack _Morning Star_, Captain Rowland. On the 12th were off Cape Hatteras, the winds blowing heavily from the northeast, and the smack under double-reefed sails. At ten o'clock in the evening they struck a woho, which shocked the vessel all over. The smack was leaking badly, and they made a signal to the _Morning_ _Star_ to keep close to them. The next morning they found the leak, and both smacks kept off Charleston. On arrival they took out the ballast, hove her out, and found that the sword had gone through the planking, timber, and ceiling. The plank was two inches thick, the timber five inches, and the ceiling one-and-a-half-inch white oak. The sword projected two inches through the ceiling, on the inside of the "after run." It struck by a butt on the outside, which caused the leak. They took out and replaced a piece of the plank, and proceeded on their voyage. _The Sailfish_ The sailfish, _Histiophorus gladius_ (with _H. americanus_ and _H. orientalis_, questionable species, and _H. pulchellus_ and _H. immaculatus_, young), occurs in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Malay Archipelago, and south at least as far as the Cape of Good Hope (latitude 35° S.); in the Atlantic on the coast of Brazil (latitude 30° S.) to the equator, and north to southern New England (latitude 42° N.); in the Pacific to southwestern Japan (latitude 30° to 10° N.). In a general way the range may be said to be in tropical and temperate seas, between latitude 30° S. and 40° N., and in the western parts of those seas. The first allusion to this genus occurs in Piso's _Historia Naturalis Brasiliæ_ printed in Amsterdam in 1648. In this book may be found an identical, though rough, figure of the American species, accompanied by a few lines of description, which, though good, when the fact that they were written in the seventeenth century is brought to mind, are of no value for critical comparison. The name given to the Brazilian sailfish by Marcgrave, the talented young German who described the fish in the book referred to, and who afterward sacrificed his life in exploring the unknown fields of American zoology, is interesting, since it gives a clue to the derivation of the name "boohoo," by which this fish, and probably spear-fish, are known to English-speaking sailors in the tropical Atlantic. Sailfish were observed in the East Indies by Renard and Valentijn, explorers of that region from 1680 to 1720, and by other Eastern voyagers. No species of the genus was, however, systematically described until 1786, when a stuffed specimen from the Indian Ocean, eight feet long, was taken to London, where it still remains in the collections of the British Museum. From this specimen M. Broussonet prepared a description, giving it the name _Scomber gladius_, rightly regarding it as a species allied to the mackerel. From the time of Marcgrave until 1872 it does not appear that any zoologist had any opportunity to study a sailfish from America or even the Atlantic; yet in Gunther's Catalogue, the name _H. americanus_ is discarded and the species of America is assumed to be identical with that of the Indian Ocean. The materials in the National Museum consist of a skeleton and a painted plaster cast of the specimen taken near Newport, Rhode Island, in August, 1872, and given to Professor Baird by Mr. Samuel Powell, of Newport. No others were observed in our waters until March, 1878, when, according to Mr. Neyle Habersham, of Savannah, Georgia, two were taken by a vessel between Savannah and Indian River, Florida, and were brought to Savannah, where they attracted much attention in the market. In 1873, according to Mr. E. G. Blackford, a specimen in a very mutilated condition was brought from Key West to New York City. No observations have been made in this country, and recourse must be had to the statements of observers in the other hemisphere. In the Life of Sir Stamford Raffles is printed a letter from Singapore, under date of November 30, 1822, with the following statement: The only amusing discovery we have recently made is that of a sailing-fish, called by the natives "ikan layer," of about ten or twelve feet long, which hoists a mainsail, and often sails in the manner of a native boat, and with considerable swiftness. I have sent a set of the sails home, as they are beautifully cut and form a model for a fast-sailing boat. When a school of these are under sail together they are frequently mistaken for a school of native boats. The fish referred to is in all likelihood _Histiophorus gladius_, a species very closely related to, if not identical with, our own. _The Cutlass-fish_ The cutlass-fish, _Trichiurus lepturus_, unfortunately known in eastern Florida and at Pensacola as the swordfish; at New Orleans, in the St. John's River, and at Brunswick, Georgia, it is known as the "silver eel"; on the coast of Texas as "saber-fish," while in the Indian River region it is called the "skip-jack." No one of these names is particularly applicable, and, the latter being preoccupied, it would seem advantageous to use in this country the name "cutlass-fish," which is current for the same species in the British West Indies. Its appearance is very remarkable on account of its long, compressed form and its glistening, silvery color. The name "scabbard-fish," which has been given to an allied species in Europe, would be very proper also for this species, for in general shape and appearance it looks very like the metallic scabbard of the sword. It attains the length of four or five feet, though ordinarily not exceeding twenty-five or thirty inches. This species is found in the tropical Atlantic, on the coast of Brazil, in the Gulf of California, the West Indies, the Gulf of Mexico, and north to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where, during the past ten years, specimens have been occasionally taken. In 1845 one was found at Wellfleet, Massachusetts; and in the Essex Institute is a specimen which is said to have been found on the shores of the Norway Frith many years ago, and during the past decade it has become somewhat abundant in southern England. It does not, however, enter the Mediterranean. Some writers believed the allied species, _Trichiurus haumela_, found in the Indian Ocean and Archipelago and in various parts of the Pacific, to be specifically the same. The cutlass-fish is abundant in the St. John's River, Florida, in the Indian River region, and in the Gulf of Mexico. Several instances were related to me in which these fish had thrown themselves from the water into rowboats, a feat which might be very easily performed by a lithe, active species like the _Trichiurus_. A small one fell into a boat crossing the mouth of the Arlington River, where the water is nearly fresh. Many individuals of the same species are taken every year at the mouth of the St. John's River at Mayport. Stearn states that they are caught in the deep waters of the bays about Pensacola, swimming nearly at the surface, but chiefly with hooks and lines from the wharves. He has known them to strike at the oars of the boat and at the end of the ropes that trailed in the water. At Pensacola they reach a length of twenty to thirty inches, and are considered good food fish. Richard Hill states that in Jamaica this species is much esteemed, and is fished for assiduously in a "hole," as it is called--that is, a deep portion of the waters off Fort Augusta. This is the best fishing-place for the cutlass-fish, _Trichiurus_. The fishing takes place before day; all lines are pulled in as fast as they are thrown out, with the certainty that the cutlass has been hooked. As many as ninety boats have been counted on this fishing-ground at daybreak during the season. X THE GLADIATOR OF THE SEA Three summers in Catalina waters I had tried persistently to capture my first broadbill swordfish; and so great were the chances against me that I tried really without hope. It was fisherman's pride, I imagined, rather than hope that drove me. At least I had a remarkably keen appreciation of the defeats in store for any man who aspired to experience with that marvel of the sea--_Xiphius gladius_, the broadbill swordsman. On the first morning of my fourth summer, 1917, I was up at five. Fine, cool, fresh, soft dawn with a pale pink sunrise. Sea rippling with an easterly breeze. As the sun rose it grew bright and warm. We did not get started out on the water until eight o'clock. The east wind had whipped up a little chop that promised bad. But the wind gradually died down and the day became hot. Great thunderheads rose over the mainland, proclaiming heat on the desert. We saw scattered sheerwater ducks and a school of porpoises; also a number of splashes that I was sure were made by swordfish. The first broadbill I sighted had a skinned tail, and evidently had been in a battle of some kind. We circled him three times with flying-fish bait and once with barracuda, and as he paid no attention to them we left him. This fish leaped half out on two occasions, once showing his beautiful proportions, his glistening silver white, and his dangerous-looking rapier. [Illustration: THE ONLY PHOTOGRAPH EVER TAKEN OF LEAPING BROADBILL SWORDFISH] [Illustration: XIPHIAS GLADIUS, THE BROADSWORDED GLADIATOR OF THE SEA] The second one leaped twice before we neared him. And as we made a poor attempt at circling him, he saw the boat and would have none of our offers. The third one was skimming along just under the surface, difficult to see. After one try at him we lost him. They were not up on the surface that day, as they are when the best results are obtained. The east wind may have had something to do with that. These fish would average about three hundred pounds each. Captain Dan says the small ones are more wary, or not so hungry, for they do not strike readily. I got sunburnt and a dizzy headache and almost seasick. Yet the day was pleasant. The first few days are always hard, until I get broken in. Next morning the water and conditions were ideal. The first two swordfish we saw did not stay on the surface long enough to be worked. The third one stayed up, but turned away from the bait every time we got it near him. So we left him. About noon I sighted a big splash a mile off shoreward, and we headed that way. Soon I sighted fins. The first time round we got the bait right and I felt the old thrill. He went down. I waited; but in vain. He leaped half out, and some one snapped a picture. It looked like a fortunate opportunity grasped. We tried him again, with flying-fish and barracuda. But he would not take either. Yet he loafed around on the surface, showing his colors, quite near the boat. He leaped clear out once, but I saw only the splash. Then he came out sideways, a skittering sort of plunge, lazy and heavy. He was about a three-hundred pounder, white and blue and green, a rare specimen of fish. We tried him again and drew a bait right in front of him. No use! Then we charged him--ran him down. Even then he was not frightened, and came up astern. At last, discouraged at his indifference, we left him. This day was ideal up to noon. Then the sun got very hot. My wrists were burnt, and neck and face. My eyes got tired searching the sea for fins. It was a great game, this swordfishing, and beat any other I ever tried, for patience and endurance. The last fish showed his cunning. They were all different, and a study of each would be fascinating and instructive. Next morning was fine. There were several hours when the sea was smooth and we could have sighted a swordfish a long distance. We went eastward of the ship course almost over to Newport. At noon a westerly wind sprang up and the water grew rough. It took some hours to be out of it to the leeward of the island. I saw a whale bend his back and sound and lift his flukes high in the air--one of the wonder sights of the ocean. It was foggy all morning, and rather too cool. No fish of any kind showed on the surface. One of those inexplicably blank days that are inevitable in sea angling. When we got to the dock we made a discovery. There was a kink in my leader about one inch above the hook. Nothing but the sword of old _Xiphius gladius_ could have made that kink! Then I remembered a strange, quick, hard jerk that had taken my bait, and which I thought had been done by a shark. It was a swordfish striking the bait off! Next day we left the dock at six fifteen, Dan and I alone. The day was lowering and windy--looked bad. We got out ahead of every one. Trolled out five miles, then up to the west end. We got among the Japs fishing for albacore. About eleven I sighted a B. B. We dragged a bait near him and he went down with a flirt of his tail. My heart stood still. Dan and I both made sure it was a strike. But, no! He came up far astern, and then went down for good. The sea got rough. The wind was chilling to the bone. Sheerwater ducks were everywhere, in flocks and singly. Saw one yellow patch of small bait fish about an inch long. This patch was forty yards across. No fish appeared to be working on it. Dan sighted a big swordfish. We made for him. Dan put on an albacore. But it came off before I could let out the line. Then we tried a barracuda. I got a long line out and the hook pulled loose. This was unfortunate and aggravating. We had one barracuda left. Dan hooked it on hard. "That'll never come off!" he exclaimed. We circled old _Xiphius_, and when about fifty yards distant he lifted himself clear out--a most terrifying and magnificent fish. He would have weighed four hundred. His colors shone--blazed--purple blue, pale green, iridescent copper, and flaming silver. Then he made a long, low lunge away from us. I bade him good-by, but let the barracuda drift back. We waited a long time while the line slowly bagged, drifting toward us. Suddenly I felt a quick, strong pull. It electrified me. I yelled to Dan. He said, excitedly, "Feed it to him!" but the line ceased to play out. I waited, slowly losing hope, with my pulses going back to normal. After we drifted for five minutes I wound in the line. The barracuda was gone and the leader had been rolled up. This astounded us. That swordfish had taken my bait. I felt his first pull. Then he had come toward the boat, crushing the bait off the hook, without making even a twitch on the slack line. It was heartbreaking. But we could not have done any different. Dan decided the fish had come after the teasers. This experience taught us exceeding respect for the broadbill. Again we were off early in the morning. Wind outside and growing rough. Sun bright until off Isthmus, when we ran into fog. The Jap albacore-boats were farther west. Albacore not biting well. Sea grew rough. About eleven thirty the fog cleared and the sea became beautifully blue and white-crested. I was up on the deck when a yell from below made me jump. I ran back. Some one was holding my rod, and on the instant that a huge swordfish got the bait had not the presence of mind to throw off the drag and let out line. We hurried to put on another flying-fish and I let out the line. Soon Dan yelled, "There he is--behind your bait!" I saw him--huge, brown, wide, weaving after my bait. Then he hit it with his sword. I imagined I could feel him cut it. Winding in, I found the bait cut off neatly back of the head. While Dan hurried with another bait I watched for the swordfish, and saw him back in the wake, rather deep. He was following us. It was an intensely exciting moment. I let the bait drift back. Almost at once I felt that peculiar rap at my bait, then another. Somehow I knew he had cut off another flying-fish. I reeled in. He had severed this bait in the middle. Frantically we baited again. I let out a long line, and we drifted. Hope was almost gone when there came a swift tug on my line, and then the reel whirred. I thumbed the pad lightly. Dan yelled for me to let him have it. I was all tingling with wonderful thrills. What a magnificent strike! He took line so fast it amazed me. All at once, just as Dan yelled to hook him, the reel ceased to turn, the line slacked. I began to jerk hard and wind in, all breathless with excitement and frenzy of hope. Not for half a dozen pumps and windings did I feel him. Then heavy and strong came the weight. I jerked and reeled. But I did not get a powerful strike on that fish. Suddenly the line slacked and my heart contracted. He had shaken the hook. I reeled in. Bait gone! He had doubled on me and run as swiftly toward the boat as he had at first run from it. The hook had not caught well. Probably he had just held the bait between his jaws. The disappointment was exceedingly bitter and poignant. My respect for _Xiphius_ increased in proportion to my sense of lost opportunity. This great fish thinks! That was my conviction. We sighted another that refused to take a bait and soon went down. We had learned the last few days that broadbills will strike when not on the surface, just as Marlin swordfish do. On our next day out we had smooth sea all morning, with great, slow-running swells, long and high, with deep hollows between. Vast, heaving bosom of the deep! It was majestic. Along the horizon ran dark, low, lumpy waves, moving fast. A thick fog, like a pall, hung over the sea all morning. About eleven o'clock I sighted fins. We made a circle round him, and drew the bait almost right across his bill. He went down. Again that familiar waiting, poignant suspense!... He refused to strike. Next one was a big fellow with pale fins. We made a perfect circle, and he went down as if to take the bait!... But he came up. We tried again. Same result. Then we put on an albacore and drew that, tail first, in front of him. Slowly he swam toward it, went down, and suddenly turned and shot away, leaving a big wake. He was badly scared by that albacore. Next one we worked three times before he went down, and the last one gave us opportunity for only one circle before he sank. They are shy, keen, and wise. The morning following, as we headed out over a darkly rippling sea, some four miles off Long Point, where we had the thrilling strikes from the big swordfish, and which place we had fondly imagined was our happy hunting-ground--because it was near shore and off the usual fishing course out in the channel--we ran into Boschen fighting a fish. This is a spectacle not given to many fishermen, and I saw my opportunity. With my glass I watched Boschen fight the swordfish, and I concluded from the way he pulled that he was fast to the bottom of the ocean. We went on our way then, and that night when I got in I saw his wonderful swordfish, the world's record we all knew he would get some day. Four hundred and sixty-three pounds! And he had the luck to kill this great fish in short time. My friend Doctor Riggin, a scientist, dissected this fish, and found that Boschen's hook had torn into the heart. This strange feature explained the easy capture, and, though it might detract somewhat from Boschen's pride in the achievement, it certainly did not detract from the record. That night, after coming in from the day's hunt for swordfish, Dan and I decided to get good bait. At five thirty we started for seal rocks. The sun was setting, and the red fog over the west end of the island was weird and beautiful. Long, slow swells were running, and they boomed inshore on the rocks. Seals were barking--a hoarse, raucous croak. I saw a lonely heron silhouetted against the red glow of the western horizon. We fished--trolling slowly a few hundred yards offshore--and soon were fighting barracuda, which we needed so badly for swordfish bait. They strike easily, and put up a jerky kind of battle. They are a long, slim fish, yellow and white in the water, a glistening pale bronze and silver when landed. I hooked a harder-fighting fish, which, when brought in, proved to be a white sea-bass, a very beautiful species with faint purplish color and mottled opal tints above the deep silver. Next morning we left the bay at six thirty. It was the calmest day we had had in days. The sea was like a beveled mirror, oily, soft, and ethereal, with low swells barely moving. An hour and a half out we were alone on the sea, out of sight of land, with the sun faintly showing, and all around us, inclosing and mystical, a thin haze of fog. Alone, alone, all alone on a wide, wide sea! This was wonderful, far beyond any pursuit of swordfish. We sighted birds, gulls, and ducks floating like bits of colored cork, and pieces of kelp, and at length a broadbill. We circled him three times with barracuda, and again with a flying-fish. Apparently he had no interest in edibles. He scorned our lures. But we stayed with him until he sank for good. Then we rode the sea for hours, searching for fins. At ten forty we sighted another. Twice we drew a fresh fine barracuda in front of him, which he refused. It was so disappointing, in fact, really sickening. Dan was disgusted. He said, "We can't get them to bite!" And I said, "Let's try again!" So we circled him once more. The sea was beautifully smooth, with the slow swells gently heaving. The swordfish rode them lazily and indifferently. His dorsal stood up straight and stiff, and the big sickle-shaped tail-fin wove to and fro behind. I gazed at them longingly, in despair, as unattainable. I knew of nothing in the fishing game as tantalizing and despairing as this sight. [Illustration: A STRAIGHTAWAY GREYHOUND LEAP, MARVELOUS FOR ITS SPEED AND WILDNESS] [Illustration: LIKE A LEAPING SPECTER] We got rather near him this time, as he turned, facing us, and slowly swam in the direction of my bait. I could see the barracuda shining astern. Dan stopped the boat. I slowly let out line. The swordfish drifted back, and then sank. I waited, intensely, but really without hope. And I watched my bait until it sank out of sight. Then followed what seemed a long wait. Probably it was really only a few moments. I had a sort of hopeless feeling. But I respected the fish all the more. Then suddenly I felt a quiver of my line, as if an electric current had animated it. I was shocked keen and thrilling. My line whipped up and ran out. "He's got it!" I called, tensely. That was a strong, stirring instant as with fascinated eyes I watched the line pass swiftly and steadily off the reel. I let him run a long way. Then I sat down, jammed the rod in the socket, put on the drag, and began to strike. The second powerful sweep of the rod brought the line tight and I felt that heavy live weight. I struck at least a dozen times with all my might while the line was going off the reel. The swordfish was moving ponderously. Presently he came up with a great splash, showing his huge fins, and then the dark, slender, sweeping sword. He waved that sword, striking fiercely at the leader. Then he went down. It was only at this moment I realized I had again hooked a broadbill. Time, ten forty-five. The fight was on. For a while he circled the boat and it was impossible to move him a foot. He was about two hundred and fifty yards from us. Every once in a while he would come up. His sword would appear first, a most extraordinary sight as it pierced the water. We could hear the swish. Once he leaped half out. We missed this picture. I kept a steady, hard strain on him, pumping now and then, getting a little line in, which he always got back. The first hour passed swiftly with this surface fight alternating with his slow heavy work down. However, he did not sound. About eleven forty-five he leaped clear out, and we snapped two pictures of him. It was a fierce effort to free the hook, a leap not beautiful and graceful, like that of the Marlin, but magnificent and dogged. After this leap he changed his tactics. Repeatedly I was pulled forward and lifted from my seat by sudden violent jerks. They grew more frequent and harder. He came up and we saw how he did that. He was facing the boat and batting the leader with his sword. This was the most remarkable action I ever observed in a fighting fish. That sword was a weapon. I could hear it hit the leader. But he did most of this work under the surface. Every time he hit the leader it seemed likely to crack my neck. The rod bent, then the line slackened so I could feel no weight, the rod flew straight. I had an instant of palpitating dread, feeling he had freed himself--then harder came the irresistible, heavy drag again. This batting of the leader and consequent slacking of the line worried Dan, as it did me. Neither of us expected to hold the fish. As a performance it was wonderful. But to endure it was terrible. And he batted that leader at least three hundred times! In fact, every moment or two he banged the leader several times for over an hour. It almost wore me out. If he had not changed those tactics again those jerks would have put a kink in my neck and back. But fortunately he came up on the surface to thresh about some more. Again he leaped clear, affording us another chance for a picture. Following that he took his first long run. It was about one hundred yards and as fast as a Marlin. Then he sounded. He stayed down for half an hour. When he came up somewhat he seemed to be less resistant, and we dragged him at slow speed for several miles. At the end of three hours I asked Dan for the harness, which he strapped to my shoulders. This afforded me relief for my arms and aching hands, but the straps cut into my back, and that hurt. The harness enabled me to lift and pull by a movement of shoulders. I worked steadily on him for an hour, five different times getting the two-hundred-foot mark on the line over my reel. When I tired Dan would throw in the clutch and drag him some more. Once he followed us without strain for a while; again we dragged him two or three miles. And most remarkable of all, there was a period of a few moments when he towed us. A wonderful test for a twenty-four-strand line! We made certain of this by throwing papers overboard and making allowance for the drift. At that time there was no wind. I had three and one-half hours of perfectly smooth water. It was great to be out there on a lonely sea with that splendid fish. I was tiring, but did not fail to see the shimmering beauty of the sea, the playing of albacore near at hand, the flight of frightened flying-fish, the swooping down of gulls, the dim shapes of boats far off, and away above the cloud-bank of fog the mountains of California. About two o'clock our indefatigable quarry began to belabor the leader again. He appeared even more vicious and stronger. That jerk, with its ragged, rough loosening of the line, making me feel the hook was tearing out, was the most trying action any fish ever worked on me. The physical effort necessary to hold him was enough, without that onslaught on my leader. Again there came a roar of water, a splash, and his huge dark-blue and copper-colored body surged on the surface. He wagged his head and the long black sword made a half-circle. The line was taut from boat to fish in spite of all I could do in lowering my rod. I had to hold it up far enough to get the spring. There was absolutely no way to keep him from getting slack. The dangerous time in fighting heavy, powerful fish is when they head toward the angler. Then the hook will pull out more easily than at any other time. He gave me a second long siege of these tactics until I was afraid I would give out. When he got through and sounded I had to have the back-rest replaced in the seat to rest my aching back. Three o'clock came and passed. We dragged him awhile, and found him slower, steadier, easier to pull. That constant long strain must have been telling upon him. It was also telling upon me. As I tried to save some strength for the finish, I had not once tried my utmost at lifting him or pulling him near the boat. Along about four o'clock he swung round to the west in the sun glare and there he hung, broadside, about a hundred yards out, for an hour. We had to go along with him. [Illustration: WALKING ON HIS TAIL] [Illustration: A MAGNIFICENT FLASHING LEAP. THIS PERFECT PICTURE CONSIDERED BY AUTHOR TO BE WORTH HIS FIVE YEARS' LABOR AND PATIENCE] The sea began to ripple with a breeze, and at length white-caps appeared. In half an hour it was rough, not bad, but still making my work exceedingly hard. I had to lift the rod up to keep the seat from turning and to hold my footing on the slippery floor. The water dripping from the reel had wet me and all around me. At five o'clock I could not stand the harness any longer, so had Dan remove it. That was a relief. I began to pump my fish as in the earlier hours of the fight. Eventually I got him out of that broadside position away from us and to the boat. He took some line, which I got back. I now began to have confidence in being able to hold him. He had ceased batting the leader. For a while he stayed astern, but gradually worked closer. This worried Dan. He was getting under the boat. Dan started faster ahead and still the swordfish kept just under us, perhaps fifty feet down. It was not long until Dan was running at full speed. But we could not lose the old gladiator! Then I bade Dan slow down, which he was reluctant to do. He feared the swordfish would ram us, and I had some qualms myself. At five thirty he dropped astern again and we breathed freer. At this time I decided to see if I could pull him close. I began to pump and reel, and inch by inch, almost, I gained line. I could not tell just how far away he was, because the marks had worn off my line. It was amazing and thrilling, therefore, to suddenly see the end of the double line appear. Dan yelled. So did I. Like a Trojan I worked till I got that double line over my reel. Then we all saw the fish. He was on his side, swimming with us--a huge, bird-shaped creature with a frightful bill. Dan called me to get the leader out of water and then hold. This took about all I had left of strength. The fish wavered from side to side, and Dan feared he would go under the boat. He ordered me to hold tight, and he put on more speed. This grew to be more than I could stand. It was desperately hard to keep the line from slipping. And I knew a little more of that would lose my fish. So I called Dan to take the leader. With his huge gaff in right hand, Dan reached for the leader with his left, grasped it, surged the fish up and made a lunge. There came a roar and a beating against the boat. Dan yelled for another gaff. It was handed to him and he plunged that into the fish. Then I let down my rod and dove for the short rope to lasso the sweeping tail. Fortunately he kept quiet a moment in which I got the loop fast. It was then _Xiphius gladius_ really woke up. He began a tremendous beating with his tail. Both gaff ropes began to loosen, and the rope on his tail flew out of my hands. Dan got it in time. But it was slipping. He yelled for me to make a hitch somewhere. I was pulled flat in the cockpit, but scrambled up, out on the stern, and held on to that rope grimly while I tried to fasten it. Just almost impossible! The water was deluging us. The swordfish banged the boat with sodden, heavy blows. But I got the rope fast. Then I went to Dan's assistance. The two of us pulled that tremendous tail up out of the water and made fast the rope. Then we knew we had him. But he surged and strained and lashed for a long while. And side blows of his sword scarred the boat. At last he sagged down quiet, and we headed for Avalon. Once more in smooth water, we loaded him astern. I found the hook just in the corner of his mouth, which fact accounted for the long battle. Doctor Riggin, the University of Pennsylvania anatomist, and classmate of mine, dissected this fish for me. Two of the most remarkable features about _Xiphius gladius_ were his heart and eye. The heart was situated deep in just back of the gills. It was a big organ, exceedingly heavy, and the most muscular tissue I ever saw. In fact, so powerfully muscular was it that when cut the tissue contracted and could not be placed together again. The valves were likewise remarkably well developed and strong. This wonderful heart accounted for the wonderful vitality of the swordfish. The eyes of a swordfish likewise proved the wonder of nature. They were huge and prominent, a deep sea-blue set in pale crystal rims and black circles. A swordfish could revolve his eyes and turn them in their sockets so that they were absolutely protected in battle with his mates and rivals. The eye had a covering of bone, cup-shaped, and it was this bone that afforded protection. It was evident that when the eye was completely turned in the swordfish could not see at all. Probably this was for close battle. The muscles were very heavy and strong, one attached at the rim of the eye and the other farther back. The optic nerve was as large as the median nerve of a man's arm--that is to say, half the size of a lead-pencil. There were three coverings over the fluid that held the pupil. And these were as thick and tough as isinglass. Most remarkable of all was the ciliary muscle which held the capacity of contracting the lens for distant vision. A swordfish could see as far as the rays of light penetrated in whatever depth he swam. I have always suspected he had extraordinary eyesight, and this dissection of the eye proved it. No fear a swordfish will not see a bait! He can see the boat and the bait a long distance. Doctor Riggin found no sperm in any of the male fish he dissected, which was proof that swordfish spawn before coming to Catalina waters. They are a warm-water fish, and probably head off the Japan current into some warm, intersecting branch that leads to spawning-banks. This was happy knowledge for me, because it will be good to know that when old _Xiphius gladius_ is driven from Catalina waters he will be roaming some other place of the Seven Seas, his great sickle fins shining dark against the blue. [Illustration: TIRED OUT--THE LAST SLOW HEAVE] [Illustration: HAULED ABOARD WITH BLOCK AND TACKLE] XI SEVEN MARLIN SWORDFISH IN ONE DAY San Clemente lies forty miles south of Santa Catalina, out in the Pacific, open to wind and fog, scorched by sun, and beaten on every shore by contending tides. Seen from afar, the island seems a bleak, long, narrow strip of drab rock rising from a low west end to the dignity of a mountain near the east end. Seen close at hand, it is still barren, bleak, and drab; but it shows long golden slopes of wild oats; looming, gray, lichen-colored crags, where the eagles perch; and rugged deep cañons, cactus-covered on the south side and on the other indented by caves and caverns, and green with clumps of wild-lilac and wild-cherry and arbor-vitæ; and bare round domes where the wild goats stand silhouetted against the blue sky. This island is volcanic in origin and structure, and its great caves have been made by blow-holes in hot lava. Erosion has weathered slope and wall and crag. For the most part these slopes and walls are exceedingly hard to climb. The goat trails are narrow and steep, the rocks sharp and ragged, the cactus thick and treacherous. Many years ago Mexicans placed goats on the island for the need of shipwrecked sailors, and these goats have traversed the wild oat slopes until they are like a network of trails. Every little space of grass has its crisscross of goat trails. I rested high up on a slope, in the lee of a rugged rock, all rust-stained and gray-lichened, with a deep cactus-covered cañon to my left, the long, yellow, windy slope of wild oats to my right, and beneath me the Pacific, majestic and grand, where the great white rollers moved in graceful heaves along the blue. The shore-line, curved by rounded gravelly beach and jutted by rocky point, showed creeping white lines of foam, and then green water spotted by beds of golden kelp, reaching out into the deeps. Far across the lonely space rose creamy clouds, thunderheads looming over the desert on the mainland. A big black raven soared by with dismal croak. The wind rustled the oats. There was no other sound but the sound of the sea--deep, low-toned, booming like thunder, long crash and continuous roar. How wonderful to watch eagles in their native haunts! I saw a bald eagle sail by, and then two golden eagles winging heavy flight after him. There seemed to be contention or rivalry, for when the white-headed bird alighted the others swooped down upon him. They circled and flew in and out of the cañon, and one let out a shrill, piercing scream. They disappeared and I watched a lonely gull riding the swells. He at least was at home on the restless waters. Life is beautiful, particularly elemental life. Then far above I saw the white-tipped eagle and I thrilled to see the difference now in his flight. He was monarch of the air, king of the wind, lonely and grand in the blue. He soared, he floated, he sailed, and then, away across the skies he flew, swift as an arrow, to slow and circle again, and swoop up high and higher, wide-winged and free, ringed in the azure blue, and then like a thunderbolt he fell, to vanish beyond the crags. Again I saw right before me a small brown hawk, poised motionless, resting on the wind, with quivering wings, and he hung there, looking down for his prey--some luckless lizard or rat. He seemed suspended on wires. There, down like a brown flash he was gone, and surely that swoop meant a desert tragedy. I heard the bleat of a lamb or kid, and it pierced the melancholy roar of the sea. If there is a rapture on the lonely shore, there was indeed rapture here high above it, blown upon by the sweet, soft winds. I heard the bleat close at hand. Turning, I saw a she-goat with little kid scarce a foot high. She crossed a patch of cactus. The kid essayed to follow here, but found the way too thorny. He bleated--a tiny, pin-pointed bleat--and his mother turned to answer encouragingly. He leaped over a cactus, attempted another, and, failing, fell on the sharp prickers. He bleated in distress and scrambled out of that hard and painful place. The mother came around, and presently, reunited, they went on, to disappear. The island seemed consecrated to sun and sea. It lay out of the latitude of ships. Only a few Mexican sheep-herders lived there, up at the east end where less-rugged land allowed pasture for their flocks. A little rain falls during the winter months, and soon disappears from the porous cañon-beds. Water-holes were rare and springs rarer. The summit was flat, except for some rounded domes of mountains, and there the deadly cholla cactus grew--not in profusion, but enough to prove the dread of the Mexicans for this species of desert plant. It was a small bush, with cones like a pine cone in shape, growing in clusters, and over stems and cones were fine steel-pointed needles with invisible hooks at the ends. A barren, lonely prospect, that flat plateau above, an empire of the sun, where heat veils rose and mirages haunted the eye. But at sunset fog rolled up from the outer channel, and if the sun blasted the life on the island, the fog saved it. So there was war between sun and fog, the one that was the lord of day, and the other the dew-laden savior of night. South, on the windward side, opened a wide bay, Smugglers Cove by name, and it was infinitely more beautiful than its name. A great curve indented the league-long slope of island, at each end of which low, ragged lines of black rock jutted out into the sea. Around this immense bare amphitheater, which had no growth save scant cactus and patches of grass, could be seen long lines of shelves where the sea-levels had been in successive ages of the past. Near the middle of the curve, on a bleached bank, stood a lonely little hut, facing the sea. Old and weather-beaten, out of place there, it held and fascinated the gaze. Below it a white shore-line curved away where the waves rolled in, sadly grand, to break and spread on the beach. At the east end, where the jagged black rocks met the sea, I loved to watch a great swell rise out of the level blue, heave and come, slow-lifting as if from some infinite power, to grow and climb aloft till the blue turned green and sunlight showed through, and the long, smooth crest, where the seals rode, took on a sharp edge to send wisps of spray in the wind, and, rising sheer, the whole swell, solemn and ponderous and majestic, lifted its volume one beautiful instant, then curled its shining crest and rolled in and down with a thundering, booming roar, all the curves and contours gone in a green-white seething mass that climbed the reefs and dashed itself to ruin. * * * * * An extraordinary achievement and record fell to my brother R. C. It was too much good luck ever to come my way. Fame is a fickle goddess. R. C. had no ambition to make a great catch of swordfish. He angles for these big game of the sea more to furnish company for me than for any other reason. He likes best the golden, rocky streams where the bronze-back black-bass hide, or the swift, amber-colored brooks full of rainbow trout. I must add that in my opinion, and Captain Danielson's also, R. C. is a superior angler, and all unconscious of it. He has not my intimate knowledge of big fish, but he did not seem to need that. He is powerful in the shoulders and arms, his hands are strong and hard from baseball and rowing, and he is practically tireless. He never rested while fighting a fish. We never saw him lean the rod on the gunwale. All of which accounts for his quick conquering of a Marlin swordfish. We have yet to see him work upon a broadbill or a big tuna; and that is something Captain Dan and I are anticipating with much pleasure and considerable doubt. August 31st dawned fine and cool and pleasant, rather hazy, with warm sun and smooth sea. The night before we had sat in front of our tents above the beach and watched the flying-fish come out in twos and threes and schools, all the way down the rugged coast. I told the captain then that swordfish were chasing them. But he was skeptical. This morning I remembered, and I was watching. Just at the Glory Hole my brother yelled, "Strike!" I did not see the fish before he hit the bait. It is really remarkable how these swordfish can get to a bait on the surface without being seen. R. C. hooked the Marlin. The first leap showed the fish to be small. He did not appear to be much of a jumper or fighter. He leaped six times, and then tried to swim out to sea. Slow, steady work of R. C.'s brought him up to the boat in fifteen minutes. But we did not gaff him. We estimated his weight at one hundred and thirty pounds. Captain Dan cut the leader close to the hook. I watched the fish swim lazily away, apparently unhurt, and sure to recover. We got going again, and had scarce trolled a hundred yards when I saw something my companions missed. I stood up. "Well, this starts out like your day," I remarked to my brother. Then he saw a purple shape weaving back of his bait and that galvanized him into attention. It always thrilled me to see a swordfish back of the bait. This one took hold and ran off to the right. When hooked it took line with a rush, began to thresh half out, and presently sounded. We lost the direction. It came up far ahead of the boat and began to leap and run on the surface. We followed while R. C. recovered the line. Then he held the fish well in hand; and in the short time of twelve minutes brought the leader to Dan's hand. The Marlin made a great splash as he was cut loose. "Say, two swordfish in less than half an hour!" I expostulated. "Dan, this might be _the_ day." Captain Dan looked hopeful. We were always looking for that day which came once or twice each season. "I'm tired," said my brother. "Now you catch a couple." He talked about swordfish as carelessly as he used to talk about sunfish. But he was not in the least tired. I made him take up the rod again. I sensed events. The sea looked darkly rippling, inviting, as if to lure us on. We had worked and drifted a little offshore. But that did not appear to put us out of the latitude of swordfish. Suddenly Captain Dan yelled, "Look out!" Then we all saw a blaze of purple back of R. C.'s bait. Dan threw out the clutch. But this Marlin was shy. He flashed back and forth. How swift! His motion was only a purple flash. He loomed up after the teasers. We had three of these flying-fish out as teasers, all close to the boat. I always wondered why the swordfish appear more attracted to the teasers than to our hooked baits only a few yards back. I made the mistake to pull the teasers away from this swordfish. Then he left us. I was convinced, however, that this was to be R. C.'s day, and so, much to his amaze and annoyance, I put away my rod. No sooner had I quit fishing than a big black tail showed a few yards out from R. C.'s bait. Then a shining streak shot across under the water, went behind R. C.'s bait, passed it, came again. This time I saw him plainly. He was big and hungry, but shy. He rushed the bait. I saw him take it in his pointed jaws and swerve out of sight, leaving a boil on the surface. R. C. did not give him time to swallow the hook, but struck immediately. The fish ran off two hundred yards and then burst up on the surface. He was a jumper, and as he stayed in sight we all began to yell our admiration. He cleared the water forty-two times, all in a very few minutes. At the end of twenty-eight minutes R. C., with a red face and a bulging jaw, had the swordfish beaten and within reach of Captain Dan. "He's a big one--over two hundred and fifty," asserted that worthy. "Mebbe you won't strike a bigger one." "Cut him loose," I said, and my brother echoed my wish. It was a great sight to see that splendid swordfish drift away from the boat--to watch him slowly discover that he was free. "Ten o'clock! We'll hang up two records to-day!" boomed Captain Dan, as with big, swift hands he put on another bait for R. C. [Illustration: R. C. ON THE JOB] [Illustration: 304 POUNDS] [Illustration: R. C. GREY AND RECORD MARLIN] "Do you fellows take me for a drag-horse?" inquired R. C., mildly. "I've caught enough swordfish for this year." "Why, man, it's the day!" exclaimed Captain Dan, in amaze and fear. "Humph!" replied my brother. "But the chance for a record!" I added, weakly. "Only ten o'clock.... Three swordfish already.... Great chance for Dan, you know.... Beat the dickens out of these other fishermen." "Aw, that's a lot of 'con'!" replied my brother. Very eloquently then I elaborated on the fact that we were releasing the fish, inaugurating a sportsman-like example never before done there; that it really bid fair to be a wonderful day; that I was having a great chance to snap pictures of leaping fish; that it would be a favor to me for him to go the limit on this one occasion. But R. C. showed no sign of wavering. He was right, of course, and I acknowledged that afterward to myself. On the instant, however, I racked my brain for some persuasive argument. Suddenly I had an inspiration. "They think you're a dub fisherman," I declared, forcefully. "_They?_" My brother glared darkly at me. "Sure," I replied, hurriedly, with no intention of explaining that dubious _they_. "Now's your chance to fool them." "Ahuh! All right, fetch on a flock of swordfish, and then some broadbills," remarked R. C., blandly. "Hurry, Dan! There's a fin right over there. Lead me to him! See." Sure enough, R. C. pointed out a dark sickle fin on the surface. I marveled at the sight. It certainly is funny the luck some fishermen have! Captain Dan, beaming like a sunrise, swung the boat around toward the swordfish. That Marlin rushed the teasers. I pulled all three away from him, while R. C. was reeling in his bait to get it close. Then the swordfish fell all over himself after it. He got it. He would have climbed aboard after it. The way R. C. hooked this swordfish showed that somebody had got his dander up and was out to do things. This pleased me immensely. It scared me a little, too, for R. C. showed no disposition to give line or be gentle to the swordfish. In fact, it was real fight now. And this particular fish appeared to have no show on earth--or rather in the water--and after fourteen leaps he was hauled up to the boat in such short order that if we had gaffed him, as we used to gaff Marlin, we would have had a desperate fight to hold him. But how easy to cut him free! He darted down like a blue streak. I had no fair sight of him to judge weight, but Captain Dan said he was good and heavy. "Come on! Don't be so slow!" yelled R. C., with a roving eye over the deep. Captain Dan was in his element. He saw victory perched upon the mast of the _Leta D._ He moved with a celerity that amazed me, when I remembered how exasperatingly slow he could be, fooling with kites. This was Captain Dan's game. "The ocean's alive with swordfish!" he boomed. Only twice before had I heard him say that, and he was right each time. I gazed abroad over the beautiful sea, and, though I could not see any swordfish, somehow I believed him. It was difficult now, in this exciting zest of a record feat, to think of the nobler attributes of fishing. Strong, earnest, thrilling business it was indeed for Captain Dan. We all expected to see a swordfish again. That was exactly what happened. We had not gone a dozen boat-lengths when up out of the blue depths lunged a lazy swordfish and attached himself to R. C.'s hook. He sort of half lolled out in lazy splashes four or five times. He looked huge. All of a sudden he started off, making the reel hum. That run developed swiftly. Dan backed the boat full speed. In vain! It was too late to turn. That swordfish run became the swiftest and hardest I ever saw. A four-hundred-yard run, all at once, was something new even for me. I yelled for R. C. to throw off the drag. He tried, but failed. I doubted afterward if that would have done any good. That swordfish was going away from there. He broke the line. "Gee! What a run!" I burst out. "I'm sorry. I hate to break off hooks in fish." "Put your hand on my reel," said R. C. It was almost too hot to bear touching. R. C. began winding in the long slack line. "Did you see that one?" he asked, grimly. "Not plain. But what I did see looked big." "Say, he was a whale!" R. C.'s flashing eyes showed he had warmed to the battle. In just ten minutes another swordfish was chasing the teasers. It was my thrilling task to keep them away from him. Hard as I pulled, I failed to keep at least one of them from him. He took it with a "wop," his bill half out of the water, and as he turned with a splash R. C. had his bait right there. Smash! The swordfish sheered off, with the bait shining white in his bill. When hooked he broke water about fifty yards out and then gave an exhibition of high and lofty tumbling, water-smashing, and spray-flinging that delighted us. Then he took to long, greyhound leaps and we had to chase him. But he did not last long, with the inexorable R. C. bending back on that Murphy rod. After being cut free, this swordfish lay on the surface a few moments, acting as if he was out of breath. He weighed about one hundred and fifty, and was a particularly beautiful specimen. The hook showed in the corner of his mouth. He did not have a scratch on his graceful bronze and purple and silver body. I waved my hat at him and then he slowly sank. "What next?" I demanded. "This can't keep up. Something is going to happen." But my apprehension in no wise disturbed R. C. or Captain Dan. They proceeded to bait up again, to put out the teasers, to begin to troll; and then almost at once a greedy swordfish appeared, absolutely fearless and determined. R. C. hooked him. The first leap showed the Marlin to be the smallest of the day so far. But what he lacked in weight he made up in activity. He was a great performer, and his forte appeared to be turning upside down in the air. He leaped clear twenty-two times. Then he settled down and tried to plug out to sea. Alas! that human steam-winch at the rod drew him right up to the boat, where he looked to weigh about one hundred and twenty-five pounds. [Illustration: 328-POUND RECORD MARLIN BY R. C. GREY. SHAPELIEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL SPECIMEN EVER TAKEN] [Illustration: SUNSET OVER CLEMENTE CHANNEL] "Six!" I exclaimed, as we watched the freed fish swim away. "That's the record.... And all let go alive--unhurt.... Do you suppose any one will believe us?" "It doesn't make any difference," remarked my brother. "We know. That's the best of the game--letting the fish go alive." "Come on!" boomed Dan, with a big flying-fish in his hands. "You're not tired." "Yes, I am tired," replied R. C. "It's early yet," I put in. "We'll cinch the record for good. Grab the rod. I'll enjoy the work for you." R. C. resigned himself, not without some remarks anent the insatiable nature of his host and boatman. We were now off the east end of Clemente Island, that bleak and ragged corner where the sea, whether calm or stormy, contended eternally with the black rocks, and where the green and white movement of waves was never still. When almost two hundred yards off the yellow kelp-beds I saw a shadow darker than the blue water. It seemed to follow the boat, rather deep down and far back. But it moved. I was on my feet, thrilling. "That's a swordfish!" I called. "No," replied R. C. "Some wavin' kelp, mebbe," added Dan, doubtfully. "Slow up a little," I returned. "I see purple." Captain Dan complied and we all watched. We all saw an enormous colorful body loom up, take the shape of a fish, come back of R. C.'s bait, hit it and take it. "By George!" breathed R. C., tensely. His line slowly slipped out a little, then stopped. "He's let go," said my brother. "There's another one," cried Dan. With that I saw what appeared to be another swordfish, deeper down, moving slowly. This one also looked huge to me. He was right under the teasers. It dawned upon me that he must have an eye on them, so I began to pull them in. As they came in the purple shadow seemed to rise. It was a swordfish and he resembled a gunboat with purple outriggers. Slowly he came onward and upward, a wonderful sight. "Wind your bait in!" I yelled to R. C. Suddenly Dan became like a jumping-jack. "He's got your hook," he shouted to my brother. "He's had it all the time." The swordfish swam now right under the stern of the boat so that I could look down upon him. He was deep down, but not too deep to look huge. Then I saw R. C.'s leader in his mouth. He had swallowed the flying-fish bait and had followed us for the teasers. The fact was stunning. R. C., who had been winding in, soon found out that his line went straight down. He felt the fish. Then with all his might he jerked to hook that swordfish. Just then, for an instant my mind refused to work swiftly. It was locked round some sense of awful expectancy. I remembered my camera in my hands and pointed it where I expected something wonderful about to happen. The water on the right, close to the stern, bulged and burst with a roar. Upward even with us, above us, shot a tremendously large, shiny fish, shaking and wagging, with heavy slap of gills. Water deluged the boat, but missed me. I actually smelled that fish, he was so close. What must surely have been terror for me, had I actually seen and realized the peril, gave place to flashing thought of the one and great chance for a wonderful picture of a big swordfish close to the boat. That gripped me. While I changed the focus on my camera I missed seeing the next two jumps. But I heard the heavy sousing splashes and the yells of Dan and R. C., with the shrill screams of the ladies. When I did look up to try to photograph the next leap of the swordfish I saw him, close at hand, monstrous and animated, in a surging, up-sweeping splash. I heard the hiss of the boiling foam. He lunged away, churning the water like a sudden whirl of a ferryboat wheel, and then he turned squarely at us. Even then Captain Dan's yell did not warn us. I felt rather than saw that he had put on full speed ahead. The swordfish dove toward us, went under, came up in a two-sheeted white splash, and rose high and higher, to fall with a cracking sound. Like a flash of light he shot up again, and began wagging his huge purple-barred body, lifting himself still higher, until all but his tail stood ponderously above the surface; and then, incredibly powerful, he wagged and lashed upright in a sea of hissing foam, mouth open wide, blood streaming down his wet sides and flying in red spray from his slapping gills--a wonderful and hair-raising spectacle. He stayed up only what seemed a moment. During this action and when he began again to leap and smash toward us, I snapped my camera three times upon him. But I missed seeing some of his greatest leaps because I had to look at the camera while operating it. "Get back!" yelled Dan, hoarsely. I was so excited I did not see the danger of the swordfish coming aboard. But Captain Dan did. He swept the girls back into the cabin doorway, and pushed Mrs. R. C. into a back corner of the cockpit. Strange it seemed to me how pale Dan was! The swordfish made long, swift leaps right at the boat. On the last he hit us on the stern, but too low to come aboard. Six feet closer to us would have landed that huge, maddened swordfish right in the cockpit! But he thumped back, and the roar of his mighty tail on the water so close suddenly appalled me. I seemed to grasp how near he had come aboard at the same instant that I associated the power of his tail with a havoc he would have executed in the boat. It flashed over me that he would weigh far over three hundred. When he thumped back the water rose in a sounding splash, deluging us and leaving six inches in the cockpit. He sheered off astern, sliding over the water in two streaks of white running spray, and then up he rose again in a magnificent wild leap. He appeared maddened with pain and fright and instinct to preserve his life. Again the fish turned right at us. This instant was the most terrifying. Not a word from R. C.! But out of the tail of my eye I saw him crouch, ready to leap. He grimly held on to his rod, but there had not been a tight line on it since he struck the fish. Yelling warningly, Captain Dan threw the wheel hard over. But that seemed of no use. We could not lose the swordfish. He made two dives into the air, and the next one missed us by a yard, and showed his great, glistening, striped body, thick as a barrel, and curved with terrible speed and power, right alongside the cockpit. He passed us, and as the boat answered to the wheel and turned, almost at right angles, the swordfish sheered too, and he hit us a sounding thud somewhere foreward. Then he went under or around the bow and began to take line off the reel for the first time. I gave him up. The line caught all along the side of the boat. But it did not break, and kept whizzing off the reel. I heard the heavy splash of another jump. When we had turned clear round, what was our amaze and terror to see the swordfish, seemingly more tigerish than ever, thresh and tear and leap at us again. He was flinging bloody spray and wigwagging his huge body, so that there was a deep, rough splashing furrow in the sea behind him. I had never known any other fish so fast, so powerful, so wild with fury, so instinct with tremendous energy and life. Dan again threw all his weight on the wheel. The helm answered, the boat swung, and the swordfish missed hitting us square. But he glanced along the port side, like a toboggan down-hill, and he seemed to ricochet over the water. His tail made deep, solid thumps. Then about a hundred feet astern he turned in his own length, making a maelstrom of green splash and white spray, out of which he rose three-quarters of his huge body, purple-blazed, tiger-striped, spear-pointed, and, with the sea boiling white around him, he spun around, creating an indescribable picture of untamed ferocity and wild life and incomparable beauty. Then down he splashed with a sullen roar, leaving a red foam on the white. That appeared the end of his pyrotechnics. It had been only a few moments. He began to swim off slowly and heavily. We followed. After a few tense moments it became evident that his terrible surface work had weakened him, probably bursting his gills, from which his life-blood escaped. We all breathed freer then. Captain Dan left the wheel, mopping his pale, wet face. He gazed at me to see if I had realized our peril. With the excitement over, I began to realize. I felt a little shaky then. The ladies were all talking at once, still glowing with excitement. Easy to see they had not appreciated the danger! But Captain Dan and I knew that if the swordfish had come aboard--which he certainly would have done had he ever slipped his head over the gunwale--there would have been a tragedy on the _Leta D._ "I never knew just how easy it could happen," said Dan. "No one ever before hooked a big fish right under the boat." "With that weight, that tail, right after being hooked, he would have killed some of us and wrecked the boat!" I exclaimed, aghast. "Well, I had him figured to come into the boat and I was ready to jump overboard," added my brother. "We won't cut him loose," said Dan. "That's some fish. But he acts like he isn't goin' to last long." Still, it took two hours longer of persistent, final effort on the part of R. C. to bring this swordfish to gaff. We could not lift the fish up on the stern and we had to tow him over to Mr. Jump's boat and there haul him aboard by block and tackle. At Avalon he weighed three hundred and twenty-eight pounds. R. C. had caught the biggest Marlin in 1916--three hundred and four pounds, and this three-hundred-and-twenty-eight-pound fish was the largest for 1918. Besides, there was the remarkable achievement and record of seven swordfish in one day, with six of them freed to live and roam the sea again. But R. C. was not impressed. He looked at his hands and said: "You and Dan put a job up on me.... Never again!" XII RANDOM NOTES AVALON, _July 1, 1918_. Cool, foggy morning; calm sea up until one o'clock, then a west wind that roughened the water white. No strikes. Did not see a fish. Trolled with kite up to the Isthmus and back. When the sun came out its warmth was very pleasant. The slopes seemed good to look at--so steep and yellow-gray with green spots, and long slides running down to the shore. The tips of the hills were lost in the fog. It was lonely on the sea, and I began again to feel the splendor and comfort of the open spaces, the free winds, the canopy of gray and blue, the tidings from afar. _July 3d._ Foggy morning; pale line of silver on eastern horizon; swell, but no wind. Warm. After a couple of hours fog disintegrated. Saw a big Marlin swordfish. Worked him three times, then charged him. No use! Gradually rising wind. Ran up off Long Point and back. At 3:30 was tired. We saw a school of tuna on the surface. Flew the kite over them. One big fellow came clear out on his side and got the hook. He made one long run, then came in rather easily. Time, fifteen minutes. He was badly hooked. Seventy-eight pounds. We trolled then until late afternoon. I saw some splashes far out. Tuna! We ran up. Found patches of anchovies. I had a strike. Tuna hooked himself and got off. We tried again. I had another come clear out in a smashing charge. He ran off heavy and fast. It took fifty minutes of very hard work to get him in. He weaved back of the boat for half an hour and gave me a severe battle. He was hooked in the corner of the mouth and was a game, fine fish. Seventy-three and one-half pounds. _July 6th._ Started out early. Calm, cool, foggy morning; rather dark. Sea smooth, swelling, heaving. Mysterious, like a shadowed opal. Long mounds of water waved noiselessly, wonderfully, ethereally from the distance, and the air was hazy, veiled, and dim. A lonely, silent vastness. We saw several schools of tuna, but got no strikes. Worked a Marlin swordfish, but he would not notice the bait. It was a long, hard day on the sea. _July 10th._ We got off at 6:30 before the other boats. Smooth water. Little breeze. Saw a school of tuna above Long Point. Put up the kite. The school went down. But R. C. got a little strike. Did not hook fish. Then we sighted a big school working east. We followed it, running into a light wind. Kite blew O. K. and R. C. got one fish (seventy-one pounds), then another (forty-eight pounds). They put up fair fights. Then I tried light tackle. All the time the school traveled east, going down and coming up. The first fish that charged my bait came clear out after it. He got it and rushed away. I had the light drag on, and I did not thumb the pad hard, but the tuna broke the line. We tried again. Had another thrilling strike. The fish threw the hook. We had to pull in the kite, put up another one--get it out, and all the time keep the school in sight. The tuna traveled fast. The third try on light tackle resulted in another fine strike, and another tuna that broke the line. Then R. C. tried the heavy tackle again, and lost a fish. When my turn came I was soon fast to a hard-fighting fish, but he did not stay with me long. This discouraged me greatly. Then R. C. took his rod once more. It was thrilling to run down on the school and skip a flying-fish before the leaders as they rolled along, fins out, silver sides showing, raising little swells and leaving a dark, winkling, dimpling wake behind them. When the bait got just right a larger tuna charged furiously, throwing up a great splash. He hit the bait, and threw the hook before R. C. could strike hard. We had nine bites out of this school. Followed it fifteen miles. Twice we were worried by other boats, but for the rest of the time had the school alone. _July 11th._ Morning was cold, foggy, raw. East wind. Disagreeable. Trolled out about six miles and all around. Finally ran in off east end, where I caught a yellow-fin. The sun came up, but the east wind persisted. No fish. Came in early. _July 12th._ Went out early. Clear morning. Cool. Rippling sea. Fog rolled down like a pale-gray wall. Misty, veiled, vague, strange, opaque, silent, wet, cold, heavy! It enveloped us. Then we went out of the bank into a great circle, clear and bright, with heaving, smooth sea, surrounded by fog. After an hour or two the fog rose and drifted away. We trolled nine hours. Three little fish struck at the bait, but did not get the hook. _August 6th._ To-day I went out alone with Dan. Wonderful sea. Very long, wide, deep, heaving swells, beautiful and exhilarating to watch. No wind. Not very foggy. Sunshine now and then. I watched the sea--marveled at its grace, softness, dimpled dark beauty, its vast, imponderable racing, its restless heaving, its eternal motion. I learned from it. I found loneliness, peace. Saw a great school of porpoises coming. Ran toward them. About five hundred all crashing in and out of the great swells, making a spectacle of rare sea action and color and beauty. They surrounded the bow of the boat, and then pandemonium broke loose. They turned to play with us, racing, diving, leaping, shooting--all for our delight. I stood right up on the bow and could see deep. It was an unforgetable experience. _August 7th._ Long run to-day, over eighty miles. East to Point Vincent, west to end of Catalina, then all around. Fine sea and weather. Just right for kite. Saw many ducks and a great number of big sharks. The ducks were traveling west, the sharks east. We saw no tuna. Coming back the wind sprang up and we had a following sea. It was fine to watch the green-and-white rollers breaking behind us. The tuna appear to be working farther and farther off the east end. Marlin swordfish have showed up off the east end. Three caught yesterday and one to-day. I have not yet seen a broadbill, and fear none are coming this year. _August 8th._ Went off east end. Had a Marlin strike. The fish missed the hook. A shark took the bait. When it was pulled in to the gaff Captain Dan caught the leader, drew the shark up, and it savagely bit the boat. Then it gave a flop and snapped Captain Dan's hand. I was frightened. The captain yelled for me to hit the shark with a club. I did not lose a second. The shark let go. We killed it, and found Dan's hand badly lacerated. My swiftness of action saved Dan's hand. XII BIG TUNA It took me five seasons at Catalina to catch a big tuna, and the event was so thrilling that I had to write to my fisherman friends about it. The result of my effusions seem rather dubious. Robert H. Davis, editor of _Munsey's_, replies in this wise: "If you went out with a mosquito-net to catch a mess of minnows your story would read like Roman gladiators seining the Tigris for whales." Now, I am at a loss to know how to take that compliment. Davis goes on to say more, and he also quotes me: "You say 'the hard, diving fight of a tuna liberates the brute instinct in a man.' Well, Zane, it also liberates the qualities of a liar!" Davis does not love the sweet, soft scent that breathes from off the sea. Once on the Jersey coast I went tuna-fishing with him. He was not happy on the boat. But once he came up out of the cabin with a jaunty feather in his hat. I admired it. I said: "Bob, I'll have to get something like that for my hat." "Zane," he replied, piercingly, "what you need for your hat is a head!" My friend Joe Bray, who publishes books in Chicago, also reacts peculiarly to my fish stories. He writes me a satiric, doubting letter--then shuts up his office and rushes for some river or lake. Will Dilg, the famous fly-caster, upon receipt of my communication, wrote me a nine-page prose-poem epic about the only fish in the world--black-bass. Professor Kellogg always falls ill and takes a vacation, during which he writes me that I have not mental capacity to appreciate my luck. These fellows will illustrate how my friends receive angling news from me. I ought to have sense enough to keep my stories for publication. I strongly suspect that their strange reaction to my friendly feeling is because I have caught more and larger black-bass than they ever saw. Some day I will go back to the swift streams and deep lakes, where the bronze-backs live, and fish with my friends, and then they will realize that I never lie about the sport and beauty and wonder of the great outdoors. Every season for the five years that I have been visiting Avalon there has been a run of tuna. But the average weight was from sixty to ninety-five pounds. Until this season only a very few big tuna had been taken. The prestige of the Tuna Club, the bragging of the old members, the gossip of the boatmen--all tend to make a fisherman feel small until he has landed a big one. Come to think of it, considering the years of the Tuna Club fame, not so very many anglers have captured a blue-button tuna. I vowed I did not care in particular about it, but whenever we ran across a school of tuna I acted like a boy. A good many tuna fell to my rod during these seasons. During the present season, to be exact, I caught twenty-two. This is no large number for two months' fishing. Boschen caught about one hundred; Jump, eighty-four; Hooper, sixty. Among these tuna I fought were three that stand out strikingly. One seventy-three-pounder took fifty minutes of hard fighting to subdue; a ninety-one-pounder took one hour fifty; and the third, after two hours and fifty minutes, got away. It seems, and was proved later, that the number fifty figured every time I hooked one of the long, slim, hard-fighting male tuna. Beginning late in June, for six weeks tuna were caught almost every day, some days a large number being taken. But big ones were scarce. Then one of the Tuna Club anglers began to bring in tuna that weighed well over one hundred pounds. This fact inspired all the anglers. He would slip out early in the morning and return late at night. Nobody knew where his boatman was finding these fish. More than one boatman tried to follow him, but in vain. Quite by accident it was discovered that he ran up on the north side of the island, clear round the west end. When he was discovered on the west side he at once steered toward Clemente Island, evidently hoping to mislead his followers. This might have succeeded but for the fact that both Bandini and Adams hooked big tuna before they had gone a mile. Then the jig was up. That night Adams came in with a one-hundred-and-twenty-and a one-hundred-and-thirty-six-pound tuna, and Bandini brought the record for this season--one hundred and forty-nine pounds. Next day we were all out there on the west side, a few miles offshore. The ocean appeared to be full of blackfish. They are huge, black marine creatures, similar to a porpoise in movement, but many times larger, and they have round, blunt noses that look like battering-rams. Some seemed as big as gunboats, and when they heaved up on the swells we could see the white stripes below the black. I was inclined to the belief that this species was the orca, a whale-killing fish. Boatmen and deep-sea men report these blackfish to be dangerous and had better be left alone. They certainly looked ugly. We believed they were chasing tuna. The channel that day contained more whales than I ever saw before at one time. We counted six pairs in sight. I saw as many as four of the funnel-like whale spouts of water on the horizon at once. It was very interesting to watch these monsters of the deep. Once when we were all on top of the boat we ran almost right upon two whales. The first spouted about fifty feet away. The sea seemed to open up, a terrible roar issued forth, then came a cloud of spray and rush of water. Then we saw another whale just rising a few yards ahead. My hair stood up stiff. Captain Dan yelled, leaped down to reverse the engine. The whale saw us and swerved. Dan's action and the quickness of the whale prevented a collision. As it was, I looked down in the clear water and saw the huge, gleaming, gray body of the whale as he passed. That was another sight to record in the book of memory. The great flukes of his tail moved with surprising swiftness and the water bulged on the surface. Then we ran close to the neighborhood of a school of whales, evidently feeding. They would come up and blow, and then sound. To see a whale sound and then raise his great, broad, shining flukes in the air, high above the water, is in my opinion the most beautiful spectacle to be encountered upon the ocean. Up to this day, during five seasons, I had seen three whales sound with tails in the air. And upon this occasion I had the exceeding good fortune to see seven. I tried to photograph one. We followed a big bull. When he came up to blow we saw a yellow moving space on the water, then a round, gray, glistening surface, then a rugged snout. Puff! His blow was a roar. He rolled on, downward a little; the water surged white and green. When he came up to sound he humped his huge back. It was shiny, leathery, wonderfully supple. It bent higher and higher in an arch. Then this great curve seemed to slide swiftly out of sight and his wonderful tail, flat as a floor and wide as a house, emerged to swing aloft. The water ran off it in sheets. Then it waved higher, and with slow, graceful, ponderous motion sank into the sea. That sight more than anything impressed me with the immensity of the ocean, with its mystery of life, with the unattainable secrets of the deep. The tuna appeared to be scattered, and none were on the surface. I had one strike that plowed up the sea, showing the difference between the strike of a big tuna and that of a little one. He broke my line on the first rush. Then I hooked another and managed to stop him. I had a grueling battle with him, and at the end of two hours and fifty minutes he broke my hook. This was a disappointment far beyond reason, but I could not help it. Next day was windy. The one following we could not find the fish, and the third day we all concluded they had gone for 1918. I think the fame of tuna, the uncertainty of their appearance, the difficulty of capturing a big one, are what excite the ambition of anglers. Long effort to that end, and consequent thinking and planning and feeling, bring about a condition of mind that will be made clear as this story progresses. But Captain Danielson did not give up. The fifth day we ran off the west side with several other boats, and roamed the sea in search of fins. No anchovies on the surface, no sheerwater ducks, no sharks, nothing to indicate tuna. About one o'clock Captain Dan sheered southwest and we ran sixteen miles toward Clemente Island. It was a perfect day, warm, hazy, with light fog, smooth, heaving, opalescent sea. There was no wind. At two thirty not one of the other boats was in sight. At two forty Captain Dan sighted a large, dark, rippling patch on the water. We ran over closer. "School of tuna!" exclaimed the captain, with excitement. "Big fish! Oh, for some wind now to fly the kite!" "There's another school," said my brother, R. C., and he pointed to a second darkly gleaming spot on the smooth sea. "I've spotted one, too!" I shouted. "The ocean's alive with tuna--big tuna!" boomed Captain Dan. "Here we are alone, blue-button fish everywhere--and no wind." "We'll watch the fish and wait for wind," I said. This situation may not present anything remarkable to most fishermen. But we who knew the game realized at once that this was an experience of a lifetime. We counted ten schools of tuna near at hand, and there were so many farther on that they seemed to cover the sea. "Boys," said Captain Dan, "here's the tuna we heard were at Anacapa Island last week. The Japs netted hundreds of tons. They're working southeast, right in the middle of the channel, and haven't been inshore at all. It's ninety miles to Anacapa. Some traveling!... That school close to us is the biggest school I ever saw and I believe they're the biggest fish." "Run closer to them," I said to him. We ran over within fifty feet of the edge of the school, stopped the boat, and all climbed up on top of the deck. Then we beheld a spectacle calculated to thrill the most phlegmatic fisherman. It simply enraptured me, and I think I am still too close to it to describe it well. The dark-blue water, heaving in great, low, lazy swells, showed a roughened spot of perhaps two acres in extent. The sun, shining over our shoulders, caught silvery-green gleams of fish, flashing wide and changing to blue. Long, round, bronze backs deep under the surface, caught the sunlight. Blue fins and tails, sharp and curved, like sabers, cleared the water. Here a huge tuna would turn on his side, gleaming broad and bright, and there another would roll on the surface, breaking water like a tarpon with a slow, heavy souse. "Look at the leaders," said Captain Dan. "I'll bet they're three-hundred-pound fish." I saw then that the school, lazy as they seemed, were slowly following the leaders, rolling and riding the swells. These leaders threw up surges and ridges on the surface. They plowed the water. "What'd happen if we skipped a flying-fish across the water in front of those leaders?" I asked Captain Dan. He threw up his hands. "You'd see a German torpedo explode." "Say! tuna are no relation to Huns!" put in my brother. It took only a few moments for the school to drift by us. Then we ran over to another school, with the same experience. In this way we visited several of these near-by schools, all of which were composed of large tuna. Captain Dan, however, said he believed the first two schools, evidently leaders of this vast sea of tuna, contained the largest fish. For half an hour we fooled around, watching the schools and praying for wind to fly the kite. Captain Dan finally trolled our baits through one school, which sank without rewarding us with a strike. At this juncture I saw a tiny speck of a boat way out on the horizon. Captain Dan said it was Shorty's boat with Adams. I suggested that, as we had to wait for wind to fly the kite, we run in and attract Shorty's attention. I certainly wanted some one else to see those magnificent schools of tuna. Forthwith we ran in several miles until we attracted the attention of the boatman Captain Dan had taken to be Shorty. But it turned out to be somebody else, and my good intentions also turned out to my misfortune. Then we ran back toward the schools of tuna. On the way my brother hooked a Marlin swordfish that leaped thirty-five times and got away. After all those leaps he deserved to shake the hook. We found the tuna milling and lolling around, slowly drifting and heading toward the southeast. We also found a very light breeze had begun to come out of the west. Captain Dan wanted to try to get the kite up, but I objected on the score that if we could fly it at all it would only be to drag a bait behind the boat. That would necessitate running through the schools of tuna, and as I believed this would put them down, I wanted to wait for enough wind to drag a bait at right angles with the boat. This is the proper procedure, because it enables an angler to place his bait over a school of tuna at a hundred yards or more from the boat. It certainly is the most beautiful and thrilling way to get a strike. So we waited. The boatman whose attention we had attracted had now come up and was approaching the schools of tuna some distance below us. He put out a kite that just barely flew off the water and it followed directly in the wake of his boat. We watched this with disgust, but considerable interest, and we were amazed to see one of the anglers in that boat get a strike and hook a fish. That put us all in a blaze of excitement. Still we thought the strike they got might just have been lucky. In running down farther, so we could come back against the light breeze, we ran pretty close to the school out of which the strike had been gotten. Captain Dan stood up to take a good look. "They're hundred-pounders, all right," he said. "But they're not as big as the tuna in those two leading schools. I'm glad those ginks in that boat are tied up with a tuna for a spell." I took a look at the fisherman who was fighting the tuna. Certainly I did not begrudge him one, but somehow, so strange are the feelings of a fisherman that I was mightily pleased to see that he was a novice at the game, was having his troubles, and would no doubt be a long, long time landing his tuna. My blood ran cold at the thought of other anglers appearing on the scene, and anxiously I scanned the horizon. No boat in sight! If I had only known then what sad experience taught me that afternoon I would have been tickled to pieces to see all the great fishermen of Avalon tackle this school of big tuna. Captain Dan got a kite up a little better than I had hoped for. It was not good, but it was worth trying. My bait, even on a turn of the boat, skipped along just at the edge of the wake of the boat. And the wake of a boat will almost always put a school of tuna down. We headed for the second school. My thrilling expectancy was tinged and spoiled with doubt. I skipped my bait in imitation of a flying-fish leaping and splashing along. We reached the outer edge of the school. Slowly the little boils smoothed out. Slowly the big fins sank. So did my heart. We passed the school. They all sank. And then when Captain Dan swore and I gave up there came a great splash back of my bait. I yelled and my comrades echoed me. The tuna missed. I skipped the bait. A sousing splash--and another tuna had my bait. My line sagged. I jerked hard. But too late! The tuna threw the hook before it got a hold. "They're hungry!" exclaimed Dan. "Hurry--reel the kite in. We'll get another bait on quick.... Look! that school is coming up again! They're not shy of boats. Boys, there's something doing." Captain Dan's excitement augmented my own. I sensed an unusual experience that had never before befallen me. The school of largest fish was farther to the west. The breeze lulled. We could not fly the kite except with the motion and direction of the boat. It was exasperating. When we got close the kite flopped down into the water. Captain Dan used language. We ran back, picked up the kite. It was soaked, of course, and would not fly. While Dan got out a new kite, a large silk one which we had not tried yet, we ran down to the eastward of the second school. To our surprise and delight this untried kite flew well without almost any wind. We got in position and headed for the school. I was using a big hook half embedded near the tail of the flying-fish and the leader ran through the bait. It worked beautifully. A little jerk of my rod sent the bait skittering over the water, for all the world like a live flying-fish. I knew now that I would get another strike. Just as we reached a point almost opposite the school of tuna they headed across our bow, so that it seemed inevitable we must either run them down or run too close. My spirit sank to zero. Something presaged bad luck. I sensed disaster. I fought the feeling, but it persisted. Captain Dan swore. My brother shouted warnings from over us where he sat on top. But we ran right into the leaders. The school sank. I was sick and furious. "Jump your bait! It's not too late," called Dan. I did so. Smash! The water seemed to curl white and smoke. A tuna had my bait. I jerked. I felt him. He threw the hook. Half the bait remained upon it. Smash! A great boil and splash! Another tuna had that. I tried to jerk. But both kite and tuna pulling made my effort feeble. This one also threw out the hook. It came out with a small piece of mangled red flying-fish still hanging to it. Instinctively I jumped that remains of my bait over the surface. Smash! The third tuna cleaned the hook. Captain Dan waxed eloquent and profane. My brother said, "What do you know about that?" As for myself, I was stunned one second and dazzled the next. Three strikes on one bait! It seemed disaster still clogged my mind, but what had already happened was new and wonderful. Half a mile below us I saw the angler still fighting the tuna he had hooked. I wanted him to get it, but I hoped he would be all afternoon on the job. "Hurry, Cap!" was all I said. Ordinarily Dan is the swiftest of boatmen. To-day he was slower than molasses and all he did went wrong. What he said about the luck was more than melancholy. I had no way to gauge my own feelings because I had never had such an experience before. Nor had I ever heard or read of any one having it. We got a bait on and the kite out just in time to reach the first and larger school. I was so excited that I did not see we were heading right into it. My intent gaze was riveted upon my bait as it skimmed the surface. The swells were long, low, smooth mounds. My bait went out of sight behind one. It was then I saw water fly high and I felt a tug. I jerked so hard I nearly fell over. My bait shot over the top of the swell. Then that swell opened and burst--a bronze back appeared. He missed the hook. Another tuna, also missing, leaped into the air--a fish of one hundred and fifty pounds, glittering green and silver and blue, jaws open, fins stiff, tail quivering, clear and clean-cut above the surface. Again we all yelled. Actually before he fell there was another smash and another tuna had my bait. This one I hooked. His rush was irresistible. I released the drag on the reel. It whirled and whizzed. The line threw a fine spray into my face. Then the tip of my rod flew up with a jerk, the line slacked. We all knew what that meant. I reeled in. The line had broken above the few feet of double line which we always used next the leader. More than ever disaster loomed over me. The feeling was unshakable now. Nevertheless, I realized that wonderful good fortune attended us in the fact that the school of big tuna had scarcely any noticeable fear of the boat; they would not stay down, and they were ravenous. On our next run down upon them I had a smashing strike. The tuna threw the hook. Another got the bait and I hooked him. He sounded. The line broke. We tried again. No sooner had we reached the school when the water boiled and foamed at my bait. Before I could move that tuna cleaned the hook. Our next attempt gained another sousing strike. But he was so swift and I was so slow that I could not fasten to him. "He went away from here," my brother said, with what he meant for comedy. But it was not funny. Captain Dan then put on a double hook, embedding it so one hook stood clear of the bait. We tested my line with the scales and it broke at fifty-three pounds, which meant it was a good strong line. The breeze lulled and fanned at intervals. It seemed, however, we did not need any breeze. We had edged our school of big tuna away from the other schools, and it was milling on the surface, lazily and indifferently. But what latent speed and power lay hidden in that mass of lolling tuna. R. C. from his perch above yelled: "Look out! You're going to drag your bait in front of the leaders this time!" That had not happened yet. I glowed in spite of the fact that I was steeped in gloom. We were indeed heading most favorably for the leaders. Captain Dan groaned. "Never seen the like of this!" he added. These leaders were several yards apart, as could be told by the blunt-nosed ridges of water they shoved ahead of them. That was another moment added to the memorable moments of my fishing years. It was strained suspense. Hope would not die, but disaster loomed like a shadow. Before I was ready, before we expected anything, before we got near these leaders, a brilliant, hissing, white splash burst out of the sea, and a tuna of magnificent proportions shot broadside along and above the surface, sending the spray aloft, and he hit that bait with incredible swiftness, raising a twenty-foot-square, furious splash as he hooked himself. I sat spellbound. I heard my line whistling off the reel. But I saw only that swift-descending kite. So swiftly did the tuna sound that the kite shot down as if it had been dropping lead. My line broke and my rod almost leaped out of my hands. We were all silent a moment. The school of tuna showed again, puttering and fiddling around, with great blue-and-green flashes caught by the sun. "That one weighed about two hundred and fifty," was all Captain Dan said. R. C. remarked facetiously, evidently to cheer me, "Jakey, you picks de shots out of that plue jay an' we makes ready for anudder one!" "Say, do you imagine you can make me laugh!" I asked, in tragic scorn. "Well, if you could have seen yourself when that tuna struck you'd have laughed," replied he. While Dan steered the boat R. C. got out on the bow and gaffed the kite. I watched the tuna tails standing like half-simitars out of the smooth, colored water. The sun was setting in a golden haze spotted by pink clouds. The wind, if anything, was softer than ever; in fact, we could not feel it unless we headed the boat into it. The fellow below us was drifting off farther, still plugging at his tuna. Captain Dan put the wet kite on the deck to dry and got out another silk one. It soared aloft so easily that I imagined our luck was changing. Vain fisherman's delusion! Nothing could do that. There were thousands of tons--actually thousands of tons of tuna in that three-mile stretch of ruffled water, but I could not catch one. It was a settled conviction. I was reminded of what Enos, the Portuguese boatman, complained to an angler he had out, "You mos' unluck' fisherman I ever see!" We tried a shorter kite-line and a shorter length of my line, and we ran down upon that mess of tuna once more. It was strange--and foolish--how we stuck to that school of biggest fish. This time Dan headed right into the thick of them. Out of the corners of my eyes I seemed to see tuna settling down all around. Suddenly my brother yelled. Zam! That was a huge loud splash back of my bait. The tuna missed. R. C. yelled again. Captain Dan followed suit: "He's after it!... Oh, he's the biggest yet!" Then I saw a huge tuna wallowing in a surge round my bait. He heaved up, round and big as a barrel, flashing a wide bar of blue-green, and he got the hook. If he had been strangely slow he was now unbelievably swift. His size gave me panic. I never moved, and he hooked himself. Straight down he shot and the line broke. My brother's sympathy now was as sincere as Captain Dan's misery. I asked R. C. to take the rod and see if he could do better. "Not much!" he replied. "When you get one, then I'll try. Stay with 'em, now!" Not improbably I would have stayed out until the tuna quit if that had taken all night. Three more times we put up the kite--three more flying-fish we wired on the double hooks--three more runs we made through that tantalizing school of tuna that grew huger and swifter and more impossible--three more smashing wide breaks of water on the strike--and quicker than a flash three more broken lines! I imagined I was resigned. My words to my silent comrades were even cheerful. "Come on. Try again. Where there's life there's hope. It's an exceedingly rare experience--anyway. After all, nothing depends upon my catching one of these tuna. It doesn't matter." All of which attested to the singular state of my mind. Another kite, another leader and double hook, another bait had to be arranged. This took time. My impatience, my nervousness were hard to restrain. Captain Dan was pale and grim. I do not know how I looked. Only R. C. no longer looked at me. As we put out the bait we made the discovery that the other anglers, no doubt having ended their fight, were running down upon our particular school of tuna. This was in line with our luck. Other schools of tuna were in sight, but these fellows had to head for ours. It galled me when I thought how sportsman-like I had been to attract their attention. We aimed to head them off and reach the school first. As we were the closest all augured well for our success. But gloom invested whatever hopes I had. We beat the other boat. We had just gotten our boat opposite the school of tuna when Dan yelled: "Look out for that bunch of kelp! Jump your bait over it!" Then I spied the mass of floating seaweed. I knew absolutely that my hook was going to snag it. But I tried to be careful, quick, accurate. I jumped my bait. It fell short. The hook caught fast in the kelp. In the last piece! The kite fluttered like a bird with broken wings and dropped. Captain Dan reversed the boat. Then he burst out. Now Dan was a big man and he had a stentorian voice, deep like booming thunder. No man ever swore as Dan swore then. It was terrible. It was justified. But it was funny, and despite all this agony of disappointment, despite the other boat heading into the tuna and putting them down, I laughed till I cried. The fishermen in that other boat hooked a fish and broke it off. We saw from the excitement on board that they had realized the enormous size of these tuna. We hurried to get ready again. It was only needful to drag a bait anywhere near that school. And we alternated with the other boat. I saw those fishermen get four more strikes and lose the four fish immediately. I had even worse luck. In fact, disaster grew and grew. But there is no need for me to multiply these instances. The last three tunas I hooked broke the double line on the first run. This when I had on only a slight drag! The other boat puddled around in our school and finally put it down for good, and, as the other schools had disappeared, we started for home. This was the most remarkable and unfortunate day I ever had on the sea, where many strange fishing experiences have been mine. Captain Dan had never heard of the like in eighteen years as boatman. No such large-sized tuna, not to mention numbers, had visited Catalina for many years. I had thirteen strikes, not counting more than one strike to a bait. Seven fish broke the single line and three the double line, practically, I might say, before they had run far enough to cause any great strain. And the parting of the double line, where, if a break had occurred, it would have come on the single, convinced us that all these lines were cut. Cut by other tuna! In this huge school of hungry fish, whenever one ran for or with a bait, all the others dove pellmell after him. The line, of course, made a white streak in the water. Perhaps the tuna bit it off. Perhaps they crowded it off. However they did it, the fact was that they cut the line. Probably it would have been impossible to catch one of those large tuna on the Tuna Club tackle. I hated to think of breaking off hooks in fish, but, after it was too late, I remembered with many a thrill the size and beauty and tremendous striking energy of those tuna, the wide, white, foamy, furious boils on the surface, the lunges when hooked, and the runs swift as bullets. That experience would never come to me again. It was like watching for the rare transformations of nature that must be waited for and which come so seldom. * * * * * But, such is the persistence of mankind in general and the doggedness of fishermen in particular, Captain Dan and I kept on roaming the seas in search of tuna. Nothing more was seen or heard of the great drifting schools. They had gone down the channel toward Mexico, down with the mysterious currents of the sea, fulfilling their mission in life. However, different anglers reported good-sized tuna off Seal Rocks and Silver Cañon. Several fish were hooked. Mr. Reed brought in a one-hundred-and-forty-one-pound tuna that took five hours to land. It made a dogged, desperate resistance and was almost unbeatable. Mr. Reed is a heavy, powerful man, and he said this tuna gave him the hardest task he ever attempted. I wondered what I would have done with one of those two-or three-hundred-pounders. There is a difference between Pacific and Atlantic tuna. The latter are seacows compared to these blue pluggers of the West. I have hooked several very large tuna along the Seabright coast, and, though these fish got away, they did not give me the battle I have had with small tuna of the Pacific. Mr. Wortheim, fishing with my old boatman, Horse-mackerel Sam, landed a two-hundred-and-sixty-two-pound Atlantic tuna in less than two hours. Sam said the fish made a loggy, rolling, easy fight. Crowninshield, also fishing with Sam, caught one weighing three hundred pounds in rather short order. This sort of feat cannot be done out here in the Pacific. The deep water here may have something to do with it, but the tuna are different, if not in species, then in disposition. My lucky day came after no tuna had been reported for a week. Captain Dan and I ran out off Silver Cañon just on a last forlorn hope. The sea was rippling white and blue, with a good breeze. No whales showed. We left Avalon about one o'clock, ran out five miles, and began to fish. Our methods had undergone some change. We used a big kite out on three hundred yards of line; we tied this line on my leader, and we tightened the drag on the reel so that it took a nine-pound pull to start the line off. This seemed a fatal procedure, but I was willing to try anything. My hope of getting a strike was exceedingly slim. Instead of a flying-fish for bait we used a good-sized smelt, and we used hooks big and strong and sharp as needles. We had not been out half an hour when Dan left the wheel and jumped up on the gunwale to look at something. "What do you see?" I asked, eagerly. He was silent a moment. I dare say he did not want to make any mistakes. Then he jumped back to the wheel. "School of tuna!" he boomed. I stood up and looked in the direction indicated, but I could not see them. Dan said only the movement on the water could be seen. Good long swells were running, rather high, and presently I did see tuna showing darkly bronze in the blue water. They vanished. We had to turn the boat somewhat, and it began to appear that we would have difficulty in putting the bait into the school. So it turned out. We were in the wrong quarter to use the wind. I saw the school of tuna go by, perhaps two hundred feet from the boat. They were traveling fast, somewhat under the surface, and were separated from one another. They were big tuna, but nothing near the size of those that had wrecked my tackle and hopes. Captain Dan said they were hungry, hunting fish. To me they appeared game, swift, and illusive. We lost sight of them. With the boat turned fairly into the west wind the kite soared, pulling hard, and my bait skipped down the slopes of the swells and up over the crests just like a live, leaping little fish. It was my opinion that the tuna were running inshore. Dan said they were headed west. We saw nothing of them. Again the old familiar disappointment knocked at my heart, with added bitterness of past defeat. Dan scanned the sea like a shipwrecked mariner watching for a sail. "I see them!... There!" he called. "They're sure traveling fast." That stimulated me with a shock. I looked and looked, but I could not see the darkened water. Moments passed, during which I stood up, watching my bait as it slipped over the waves. I knew Dan would tell me when to begin to jump it. The suspense grew to be intense. "We'll catch up with them," said Dan, excitedly. "Everything's right now. Kite high, pulling hard--bait working fine. You're sure of a strike.... When you see one get the bait hook him quick and hard." The ambition of years, the long patience, the endless efforts, the numberless disappointments, and that never-to-be-forgotten day among the giant tuna--these flashed up at Captain Dan's words of certainty, and, together with the thrilling proximity of the tuna we were chasing, they roused in me emotion utterly beyond proportion or reason. This had happened to me before, notably in swordfishing, but never had I felt such thrills, such tingling nerves, such oppression on my chest, such a wild, eager rapture. It would have been impossible, notwithstanding my emotional temperament, if the leading up to this moment had not included so much long-sustained feeling. "Jump your bait!" called Dan, with a ring in his voice. "In two jumps you'll be in the tail-enders." I jerked my rod. The bait gracefully leaped over a swell--shot along the surface, and ended with a splash. Again I jerked. As the bait rose into the air a huge angry splash burst just under it, and a broad-backed tuna lunged and turned clear over, his tail smacking the water. "Jump it!" yelled Dan. Before I could move, a circling smash of white surrounded my bait. I heard it. With all my might I jerked. Strong and heavy came the weight of the tuna. I had hooked him. With one solid thumping splash he sounded. Here was test for line and test for me. I could not resist one turn of the thumb-wheel, to ease the drag. He went down with the same old incomparable speed. I saw the kite descending. Dan threw out the clutch--ran to my side. The reel screamed. Every tense second, as the line whizzed off, I expected it to break. There was no joy, no sport in that painful watching. He ran off two hundred feet, then, marvelous to see, he slowed up. The kite was still high, pulling hard. What with kite and drag and friction of line in the water, that tuna had great strain upon him. He ran off a little more, slower this time, then stopped. The kite began to flutter. I fell into the chair, jammed the rod-butt into the socket, and began to pump and wind. "Doc, you're hooked on and you've stopped him!" boomed Dan. His face beamed. "Look at your legs!" It became manifest then that my knees were wabbling, my feet puttering around, my whole lower limbs shaking as if I had the palsy. I had lost control of my lower muscles. It was funny; it was ridiculous. It showed just what was my state of excitement. The kite fluttered down to the water. The kite-line had not broken off, and this must add severely to the strain on the fish. Not only had I stopped the tuna, but soon I had him coming up, slowly yet rather easily. He was directly under the boat. When I had all save about one hundred feet of line wound in the tuna anchored himself and would not budge for fifteen minutes. Then again rather easily he was raised fifty more feet. He acted like any small, hard-fighting fish. "I've hooked a little one," I began. "That big fellow missed the bait, and a small one grabbed it." Dan would not say so, but he feared just that. What miserable black luck! Almost I threw the rod and reel overboard. Some sense, however, prevented me from such an absurdity. And as I worked the tuna closer and closer I grew absolutely sick with disappointment. The only thing to do was to haul this little fish in and go hunt up the school. So I pumped and pulled. That half-hour seemed endless and bad business altogether. Anger possessed me and I began to work harder. At this juncture Shorty's boat appeared close to us. Shorty and Adams waved me congratulations, and then made motions to Dan to get the direction of the school of tuna. That night both Shorty and Adams told me that I was working very hard on the fish, too hard to save any strength for a long battle. [Illustration: A BLUE-FINNED PLUGGER OF THE DEEP--138-POUND TUNA] [Illustration: AVALON, THE BEAUTIFUL] Captain Dan watched the slow, steady bends of my rod as the tuna plugged, and at last he said, "Doc, it's a big fish!" Strange to relate, this did not electrify me. I did not believe it. But at the end of that half-hour the tuna came clear to the surface, about one hundred feet from us, and there he rode the swells. Doubt folded his sable wings! Bronze and blue and green and silver flashes illumined the swells. I plainly saw that not only was the tuna big, but he was one of the long, slim, hard-fighting species. Presently he sounded, and I began to work. I was fresh, eager, strong, and I meant to whip him quickly. Working on a big tuna is no joke. It is a man's job. A tuna fights on his side, with head down, and he never stops. If the angler rests the tuna will not only rest, too, but he will take more and more line. The method is a long, slow lift or pump of rod--then lower the rod quickly and wind the reel. When the tuna is raised so high he will refuse to come any higher, and then there is a deadlock. There lives no fisherman but what there lives a tuna that can take the conceit and the fight out of him. For an hour I worked. I sweat and panted and burned in the hot sun; and I enjoyed it. The sea was beautiful. A strong, salty fragrance, wet and sweet, floated on the breeze. Catalina showed clear and bright, with its colored cliffs and yellow slides and dark ravines. Clemente Island rose a dark, long, barren, lonely land to the southeast. The clouds in the west were like trade-wind clouds, white, regular, with level base-line. At the end of the second hour I was tiring. There came a subtle change of spirit and mood. I had never let up for a minute. Captain Dan praised me, vowed I had never fought either broadbill or roundbill swordfish so consistently hard, but he cautioned me to save myself. "That's a big tuna," he said, as he watched my rod. Most of the time we drifted. Some of the time Dan ran the boat to keep even with the tuna, so he could not get too far under the stern and cut the line. At intervals the fish appeared to let up and at others he plugged harder. This I discovered was merely that he fought the hardest when I worked the hardest. Once we gained enough on him to cut the tangle of kite-line that had caught some fifty feet above my leader. This afforded cause for less anxiety. "I'm afraid of sharks," said Dan. Sharks are the bane of tuna fishermen. More tuna are cut off by sharks than are ever landed by anglers. This made me redouble my efforts, and in half an hour more I was dripping wet, burning hot, aching all over, and so spent I had to rest. Every time I dropped the rod on the gunwale the tuna took line--zee--zee--zee--foot by foot and yard by yard. My hands were cramped; my thumbs red and swollen, almost raw. I asked Dan for the harness, but he was loath to put it on because he was afraid I would break the fish off. So I worked on and on, with spurts of fury and periods of lagging. At the end of three hours I was in bad condition. I had saved a little strength for the finish, but I was in danger of using that up before the crucial moment arrived. Dan had to put the harness on me. I knew afterward that it saved the day. By the aid of the harness, putting my shoulders into the lift, I got the double line over the reel, only to lose it. Every time the tuna was pulled near the boat he sheered off, and it did not appear possible for me to prevent it. He got into a habit of coming to the surface about thirty feet out, and hanging there, in plain sight, as if he was cabled to the rocks of the ocean. Watching him only augmented my trouble. It had ceased long ago to be fun or sport or game. It was now a fight and it began to be torture. My hands were all blisters, my thumbs raw. The respect I had for that tuna was great. He plugged down mostly, but latterly he began to run off to each side, to come to the surface, showing his broad green-silver side, and then he weaved to and fro behind the boat, trying to get under it. Captain Dan would have to run ahead to keep away from him. To hold what gain I had on the tuna was at these periods almost unendurable. Where before I had sweat, burned, throbbed, and ached, I now began to see red, to grow dizzy, to suffer cramps and nausea and exceeding pain. Three hours and a half showed the tuna slower, heavier, higher, easier. He had taken us fifteen miles from where we had hooked him. He was weakening, but I thought I was worse off than he was. Dan changed the harness. It seemed to make more effort possible. The floor under my feet was wet and slippery from the salt water dripping off my reel. I could not get any footing. The bend of that rod downward, the ceaseless tug, tug, tug, the fear of sharks, the paradoxical loss of desire now to land the tuna, the change in my feeling of elation and thrill to wonder, disgust, and utter weariness of spirit and body--all these warned me that I was at the end of my tether, and if anything could be done it must be quickly. Relaxing, I took a short rest. Then nerving myself to be indifferent to the pain, and yielding altogether to the brutal instinct this tuna-fighting rouses in a fisherman, I lay back with might and main. Eight times I had gotten the double line over the reel. On the ninth I shut down, clamped with my thumbs, and froze there. The wire leader sung like a telephone wire in the cold. I could scarcely see. My arms cracked. I felt an immense strain that must break me in an instant. Captain Dan reached the leader. Slowly he heaved. The strain upon me was released. I let go the reel, threw off the drag, and stood up. There the tuna was, the bronze-and-blue-backed devil, gaping, wide-eyed, shining and silvery as he rolled, a big tuna if there ever was one, and he was conquered. When Dan lunged with the gaff the tuna made a tremendous splash that deluged us. Then Dan yelled for another gaff. I was quick to get it. Next it was for me to throw a lasso over that threshing tail. When I accomplished this the tuna was ours. We hauled him up on the stern, heaving, thumping, throwing water and blood; and even vanquished he was magnificent. Three hours and fifty minutes! The number fifty stayed with me. As I fell back in a chair, all in, I could not see for my life why any fisherman would want to catch more than one large tuna. XIV AVALON, THE BEAUTIFUL If you are a fisherman, and aspire to the study or conquest of the big game of the sea, go to Catalina Island once before it is too late. The summer of 1917 will never be forgotten by those fishermen who were fortunate enough to be at Avalon. Early in June, even in May, there were indications that the first record season in many years might be expected. Barracuda and white sea-bass showed up in great schools; the ocean appeared to be full of albacore; yellowtail began to strike all along the island shores and even in the bay of Avalon; almost every day in July sight of broadbill swordfish was reported, sometimes as many as ten in a day; in August the blue-fin tuna surged in, school after school, in vast numbers; and in September returned the Marlin, or roundbill swordfish that royal-purple swashbuckler of the Pacific. This extraordinary run of fish appeared like old times to the boatmen and natives who could look back over many Catalina years. The cause, of course, was a favorable season when the sardines and anchovies came to the island in incalculable numbers. Acres and acres of these little bait fish drifted helplessly to and fro, back and forth with the tides, from Seal Rocks to the west end. These schools were not broken up until the advent of the voracious tuna; and when they arrived the ocean soon seemed littered with small, amber-colored patches, each of which was a densely packed mass of sardines or anchovies, drifting with the current. It has not yet been established that swordfish feed on these schools, but the swordfish were there in abundance, at any rate; and it was reasonable to suppose that some of the fish they feed on were in pursuit of the anchovies. Albacore feeding on the surface raise a thin, low, white line of water or multitudes of slight, broken splashes. Tuna raise a white wall, tumbling and spouting along the horizon; and it is a sight not soon to be forgotten by a fisherman. Near at hand a big school of feeding tuna is a thrilling spectacle. They move swiftly, breaking water as they smash after the little fish, and the roar can be heard quite a distance. The wall of white water seems full of millions of tiny, glinting fish, leaping frantically from the savage tuna. And when the sunlight shines golden through this wall of white spray, and the great bronze and silver and blue tuna gleam for an instant, the effect is singularly exciting and beautiful. All through August and much of September these schools of tuna, thousands of them, ranted up and down the coast of Catalina, thinning out the amber patches of anchovies, and affording the most magnificent sport to anglers. These tuna may return next year and then again they may not return for ten years. Some time again they will swing round the circle or drift with the currents, in that mysterious and inscrutable nature of the ocean. And if a fisherman can only pick out the year or have the obsession to go back season after season he will some day see these wonderful schools again. But as for the other fish--swordfish, white sea-bass, yellowtail, and albacore--their doom has been spelled, and soon they will be no more. That is why I say to fishermen if they want to learn something about these incomparable fish they must go soon to Catalina before it is too late. The Japs, the Austrians, the round-haul nets, the canneries and the fertilizer-plants--that is to say, foreigners and markets, greed and war, have cast their dark shadow over beautiful Avalon. The intelligent, far-seeing boatmen all see it. My boatman, Captain Danielson, spoke gloomily of the not distant time when his occupation would be gone. And as for the anglers who fish at Catalina, some of them see it and many of them do not. The standard raised at Avalon has been to haul in as many of the biggest fish in the least possible time. One famous fisherman brought in thirteen tuna--nine hundred and eighty-six pounds of tuna--that he caught in one day! This is unbelievable, yet it is true. Another brought in eleven tuna in one day. These fishermen are representative of the coterie who fish for records. All of them are big, powerful men, and when they hook a fish they will not give him a foot of line if they can help it. They horse him in, and if they can horse him in before he wakes up to real combat they are the better pleased. All of which is to say that the true motive (or pleasure, if it can be such) is the instinct to kill. I have observed this in many fishermen. Any one who imagines that man has advanced much beyond the savage stage has only carefully to observe fishermen. [Illustration: THE OLD AVALON BARGE WHERE THE GULLS FISH AND SCREAM] [Illustration: THE END OF THE DAY OFF CATALINA ISLAND] I have demonstrated the practicability of letting Marlin swordfish go after they were beaten, but almost all of the boatmen will not do it. The greater number of swordfish weigh under two hundred pounds, and when exhausted and pulled up to the boat they can be freed by cutting the wire leader close to the hook. Probably all these fish would live. A fisherman will have his fun seeing and photographing the wonderful leaps, and conquering the fish, and when all this is over it would be sportsman-like to let him go. Marlin are not food fish, and they are thrown to the sharks. During 1918, however, many were sold as food fish. It seems a pity to treat this royal, fighting, wonderful, purple-colored fish in this way. But the boatmen will not free them. My boatman claimed that his reputation depended upon the swordfish he caught; and that in Avalon no one would believe fish were caught unless brought to the dock. It was his bread and butter. His reputation brought him new fishermen, and so he could not afford to lose it. Nevertheless, he was persuaded to do it in 1918. The fault, then, does not lie with the boatman. The Japs are the greatest market fishermen in the world. And some five hundred boats put out of San Pedro every day, to scour the ocean for "the chicken of the sea," as albacore are advertised to the millions of people who are always hungry. It must be said that the Japs mostly fish square. They use a hook, and a barbless hook at that. Usually four Japs constitute the crew of one of these fast eighty-horse-power motor-boats. They roam the sea with sharp eyes ever alert for that thin white line on the horizon, the feeding albacore. Their method of fishing is unique and picturesque. When they sight albacore they run up on the school and slow down. In the stern of the boat stands a huge tank, usually painted red. I have become used to seeing dots of red all over the ocean. This tank is kept full of fresh sea-water by a pump connected with the engine, and it is used to keep live bait--no other than the little anchovies. One Jap, using a little net, dips up live bait and throws them overboard to the albacore. Another Jap beats on the water with long bamboo poles, making splashes. The other two Japs have short, stiff poles with a wire attached and the barbless hook at the end. They put on a live bait and toss it over. Instantly they jerk hard, and two big white albacore, from fifteen to thirty pounds, come wiggling up on to the stern of the boat. Down goes the pole and whack! goes a club. It is all done with swift mechanical precision. It used to amaze me and fill me with sadness. If the Japs could hold the school of albacore they would very soon load the boat. But usually a school of albacore cannot be held long. You cannot fish in the channel any more without encountering these Jap boats. Once at one time in 1917 I saw one hundred and thirty-two boats. Most of them were fishing! They ran to and fro over the ocean, chasing every white splash, and they make an angler's pleasure taste bitter. Fortunately the Japs had let the tuna alone, for the simple and good reason that they had not found a way to catch the wise blue-fins. But they will find a way! Yet they drove the schools down, and that was almost as bad. As far as swordfish are concerned, it is easy to see what will happen, now that the albacore have become scarce. Broadbill swordfish are the finest food fish in the sea. They can be easily harpooned by these skilful Japs. And so eventually they will be killed and driven away. This misfortune may not come at once, but it will come. In this connection it is interesting to note that I tried to photograph one of the Austrian crews in action. But Captain Dan would not let me get near enough to take a picture. There is bad blood between Avalon boatmen and these foreign market fishermen. Shots had been exchanged more than once. Captain Dan kept a rifle on board. This news sort of stirred me. And I said: "Run close to that bunch, Cap. Maybe they'll take a peg at me!" But he refused to comply, and I lost a chance to serve my country! The Japs, however, are square fishermen, mostly, and I rather admire those albacore-chasers, who at least give the fish a chance. Some of them use nets, and against them and the Austrian round-haul netters I am exceedingly bitter. These round-haul nets, some of them, must be a mile long, and they sink two hundred feet in the water. What chance has a school of fish against that? They surround a school and there is no escape. Clemente Island, the sister island to Catalina, was once a paradise for fish, especially the beautiful, gamy yellowtail. But there are no more fish there, except Marlin swordfish in August and September. The great, boiling schools of yellowtail are gone. Clemente Island has no three-mile law protecting it, as has Catalina. But that Catalina law has become a farce. It is violated often in broad daylight, and probably all night long. One Austrian round-haul netter took seven tons of white sea-bass in one haul. Seven tons! Did you ever look at a white sea-bass? He is the most beautiful of bass--slender, graceful, thoroughbred, exquisitely colored like a paling opal, and a fighter if there ever was one. What becomes of these seven tons of white sea-bass and all the other tons and tons of yellowtail and albacore? That is a question. It needs to be answered. During the year 1917 one heard many things. The fish-canneries were working day and night, and every can of fish--the whole output had been bought by the government for the soldiers. Very good. We are a nation at war. Our soldiers must be properly fed and so must our allies. If it takes all the fish in the sea and all the meat on the land, we must and will win this war. But real patriotism is one thing and misstatement is another. If there were not so much deceit and greed in connection with this war it would be easier to stomach. As a matter of cold fact, that round-haul netter's seven tons of beautiful white sea-bass did not go into cans for our good soldiers or for our fighting allies. Those seven tons of splendid white sea-bass went into the fertilizer-plant, where many and many a ton had gone before! It is not hard to comprehend. When they work for the fertilizer-plants they do not need ice--they do not need to hurry to the port to save spoiling--they can stay out till the boat is packed full. So often a greater part of the magnificent schools of white sea-bass, albacore, and yellowtail--splendid food fish--go into the fertilizer-plants to make a few foreign-born hogs rich. Hundreds of aliens, many of them hostile to the United States, are making big money, which is sent abroad. I believe that the great kelp-beds round Catalina are the spawning-grounds of these fish in question. And not only a spawning-ground, but, what is more important, a feeding-ground. And now the kelp-beds are being exploited. The government needs potash. Formerly our supply of potash came from Germany. But, now that we are not on amiable terms with those nice gentle Germans, we cannot get any potash. Hence the great, huge kelp-cutters that you hear cut only the tops of the kelp-beds. Six feet they say, and it all grows up again quickly. But in my opinion the once vast, heaving, wonderful beds of kelp along the Clemente and Catalina shores have been cut too deeply. They will die. Some of my predictions made in 1917 were verified in 1918. A few scattered schools of albacore appeared in the channel in July. But these were soon caught or chased away by the market boats. Albacore-fishing was poor in other localities up and down the coast. Many of the Jap fishermen sold their boats and sought other industry. It was a fact, and a great pleasure, that an angler could go out for tuna without encountering a single market boat on the sea. Maybe the albacore did not come this year; maybe they were mostly all caught; maybe they were growing shyer of boats; at any event, they were scarce, and the reason seems easy to see. It was significant that the broadbill swordfish did not return to Avalon in 1918, as in former years. I saw only one in two months roaming the ocean. A few were seen. Not one was caught during my stay on the island. Many boatmen and anglers believe that the broadbills follow the albacore. It seems safe to predict that when the albacore cease to come to Catalina there will not be any fishing for the great flat-sworded _Xiphias_. The worst that came to pass in 1918, from an angler's viewpoint, was that the market fishermen found a way to net the blue-fin tuna, both large and small. All I could learn was that the nets were lengthened and deepened. The Japs got into the great schools of large tuna which appeared off Anacapa Island and netted tons and tons of hundred-pound tuna. These schools drifted on down the middle of the Clemente Channel, and I was the lucky fellow who happened to get among them for one memorable day. Take it all in all, my gloomy prophecies of other years were substantiated in 1918, especially in regard to the devastated kelp-beds; but there have been a few silver rifts in the black cloud, and it seems well to end this book with mention of brighter things. All fish brought into Avalon in 1918 were sold for food. We inaugurated the releasing of small Marlin swordfish. There was a great increase in the interest taken in the use of light tackle. We owe the latter stride toward conservation and sportsmanship to Mr. James Jump, and to Lone Angler, and to President Coxe of the Tuna Club. I had not been entirely in sympathy with their feats of taking Marlin swordfish and tuna on light tackle. My objections to the use of too light tackle have been cited before in this book. Many fish break away on the nine-thread. I know this because I tried it out. Fifteen of those small tuna, one after another, broke my line on the first rush. But I believe that was my lack of skill with handling of rod and boat. As for Marlin, I have always known that I could take some of these roundbill swordfish on light tackle. But likewise there have been some that could not have been taken so, and these are the swordfish I have fished for. Nevertheless, I certainly do not want to detract from Jump's achievements, as I will show. They have been remarkable. And they have attracted wide attention to the possibilities of light tackle. Thus Mr. Jump has done conservative angling an estimable good, as well as placed himself in a class alone. The use of light tackle by experts for big game fish of the sea has come to be an established practice in American angling. A few years ago, when sport with light tackle was exceptional, it required courage to flaunt its use in the faces of fishermen of experience and established reputation. Long Key, now the most noted fishing resort on the Atlantic coast, was not many years back a place for hand-lines and huge rods and tackle, and boat-loads of fish for one man. It has become a resort for gentlemen anglers, and its sportsmen's club claims such experts and fine exponents of angling as Heilner, Lester, Cassiard, Crowninshield, Conill, the Schutts, and others, who can safely be trusted to advance the standard. Fishermen are like sheep--they follow the boldest leaders. And no one wants to be despised by the elect. Long Key, with its isolation, yet easy accession, its beauty and charm, its loneliness and quiet, its big game fish, will become the Mecca of high-class light tackle anglers, who will in time answer for the ethics and sportsmanship of the Atlantic seaboard. On the Pacific side the light tackle advocates have had a different row to hoe. With nothing but keen, fair, honest, and splendid zealousness Mr. James Jump has pioneered this sport almost single-handed against the heavy tackle record-holder who until recently dominated the Tuna Club and the boatmen and the fishing at Avalon. To my shame and regret I confess that it took me three years to recognize Jump's bigness as an angler and his tenacity as a fighter. But I shall make amends. It seems when I fished I was steeped in dreams of the sea and the beauty of the lonely islands. I am not in Jump's class as a fisherman, nor in Lone Angler's, either. They stand by themselves. But I can write about them, and so inspire others. Jump set out in 1914 to catch swordfish on light tackle, and incidentally tuna under one hundred pounds. He was ridiculed, scorned, scoffed at, made a butt of by this particular heavy tackle angler, and cordially hated for his ambitions. Most anglers and boatmen repudiated his claims and looked askance at him. Personally I believed Jump might catch some swordfish or tuna on light tackle, but only one out of many, and that one not the fighting kind. I was wrong. It was Lone Angler who first drew my attention to Jump's achievements and possibilities. President Coxe was alive to them also, and he has rebuilt and rejuvenated the Tuna Club on the splendid standard set by its founder, Dr. Charles Frederick Holder, and with infinite patience and tact and labor, and love of fine angling and good fellowship, he has put down that small but mighty clique who threatened the ruin of sport at fair Avalon. This has not been public news, but it ought to be and shall be public news. The malignant attack recently made upon Mr. Jump's catches of Marlin swordfish on light tackle was uncalled for and utterly false. It was an obvious and jealous attempt to belittle, discredit, and dishonor one of the finest gentlemen sportsmen who ever worked for the good of the game. I know and I will swear that Jump's capture of the three-hundred-and-fourteen-pound Marlin on light tackle in twenty-eight minutes was absolutely as honest as it was skilful, as sportsman-like as it was wonderful. A number of well-known sportsmen _watched_ him take this Marlin. Yet his enemies slandered him, accused him of using ropes and Heaven knows what else! It was vile and it failed. Jump has performed the apparently impossible. Marlin swordfish hooked on light tackle can be handled by an exceedingly skilful angler. They make an indescribably spectacular, wonderful fight, on the surface all the time, and can be taken as quickly as on heavy tackle. Obviously, then, this becomes true of tarpon and sailfish and small tuna. What a world to conquer lies before the fine-spirited angler! A few fish on light outfits magnifying all the excitement and thrills of many fish on heavy outfits! There are no arguments against this, for men who have time and money. We pioneers of light tackle are out of the woods _now_. There was a pride in a fight against odds--a pride of silence, and a fight of example and expressed standards and splendid achievements. But now we have followers, disciples who have learned, who have profited, who have climbed to the heights, and we are no longer alone. Hence we can scatter the news to the four winds and ask for the comradeship of kindred spirits, of men who love the sea and the stream and the gameness of a fish. The Open Sesame to our clan is just that love, and an ambition to achieve higher things. Who fishes just to kill? At Long Key last winter I met two self-styled sportsmen. They were eager to convert me to what they claimed was the dry-fly class angling of the sea. And it was to jab harpoons and spears into porpoises and manatee and sawfish, and be dragged about in their boat. The height of their achievements that winter had been the harpooning of several sawfish, each of which gave birth to a little one while being fought on the harpoon! Ye gods! It would never do to record my utterances. But I record this fact only in the hope of opening the eyes of anglers. I have no ax to grind for myself. I have gone through the game, over to the fair side, and I want anglers to know. We are a nation of fishermen and riflemen. Who says the Americans cannot shoot or fight? What made that great bunch of Yankee boys turn back the Hun hordes? It was the quick eye, the steady nerve, the unquenchable spirit of the American boy--his heritage from his hunter forefathers. We are great fishermen's sons also, and we can save the fish that are being depleted in our waters. Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone. The mackerel are gone, the bluefish are going, the menhaden are gone, every year the amberjack and kingfish grow smaller and fewer. We must find ways and means to save our game fish of the sea; and one of the finest and most sportsman-like ways is to use light tackle. * * * * * Wiborn, the Lone Angler, is also in a class by himself. To my mind Wiborn is the ideal angler of the sea. I have aspired to his method, but realize it is impossible for me. He goes out alone. Hence the name Lone Angler. He operates his motor-launch, rigs his tackle and bait and teasers, flies his kite, finds the fish, fights the one he hooks, and gaffs and hauls it aboard or releases it, all by himself. Any one who has had the slightest experience in Pacific angling can appreciate this hazardous, complicated, and laborsome job of the Lone Angler. Any one who ever fought a big tuna or swordfish can imagine where he would have been without a boatman. After some of my fights with fish Captain Danielson has been as tired as I was. His job had been as hard as mine. But Wiborn goes out day by day alone, and he has brought in big tuna and swordfish. Not many! He is too fine a sportsman to bring in many fish. And herein is the point I want to drive home in my tribute to Lone Angler. No one can say how many fish he catches. He never tells. Always he has a fine, wonderful, beautiful day on the water. It matters not to him, the bringing home of fish to exhibit. This roused my admiration, and also my suspicion. I got to believing that Lone Angler caught many more fish than he ever brought home. So I spied upon him. Whenever chance afforded I watched him through my powerful binoculars. He was always busy. His swift boat roamed the seas. Always he appeared a white dot on the blue horizon, like the flash of a gull. I have watched his kite flutter down; I have seen his boat stop and stand still; I have seen sheeted splashes of water near him; and more than once I have seen him leaning back with bent rod, working and pumping hard. But when he came into Avalon on these specific occasions, he brought no tuna, no swordfish--nothing but a cheerful, enigmatic smile and a hopeful question as to the good luck of his friends. "But I saw you hauling away on a fish," I ventured to say, once. [Illustration: SEAL ROCKS] "Oh, that was an old shark," he replied, laughing. Well, it might have been, but I had my doubts. And at the close of 1918 I believed, though I could not prove, that Lone Angler let the most of his fish go free. Hail to Lone Angler! If a man must roam the salt sea in search of health and peace, and in a manly, red-blooded exercise--here is the ideal. I have not seen its equal. I envy him--his mechanical skill, his fearlessness of distance and fog and wind, his dexterity with kite and rod and wheel, but especially I envy him the lonesome rides upon a lonesome sea-- Alone, all alone on a wide, wide sea. The long, heaving swells, the windy lanes, the flight of the sheerwater and the uplifted flukes of the whale, the white wall of tuna on the horizon, the leap of the dolphin, the sweet, soft scent that breathes from off the sea, the beauty and mystery and color and movement of the deep--these are Lone Angler's alone, and he is as rich as if he had found the sands of the Pacific to be pearls, the waters nectar, and the rocks pure gold. Happily, neither war nor business nor fish-hogs can ruin the wonderful climate of Catalina Island. Nature does not cater to evil conditions. The sun and the fog, the great, calm Pacific, the warm Japanese current, the pleasant winds--these all have their tasks, and they perform them faithfully, to the happiness of those who linger at Catalina. Avalon, the beautiful! Somehow even the fire that destroyed half of Avalon did not greatly mar its beauty. At a distance the bay and the grove of eucalyptus-trees, the green-and-gold slopes, look as they always looked. Avalon has a singular charm outside of its sport of fishing. It is the most delightful and comfortable place I ever visited. The nights are cool. You sleep under blankets even when over in Los Angeles people are suffocating with the heat. At dawn the hills are obscured in fog and sometimes this fog is chilly. But early or late in the morning it breaks up and rolls away. The sun shines. It is the kind of sunshine that dazzles the eye, elevates the spirit, and warms the back. And out there rolls the vast blue Pacific--calm, slowly heaving, beautiful, and mysterious. During the summer months Avalon is gay, colorful, happy, and mirthful with its crowds of tourists and summer visitors. The one broad street runs along the beach and I venture to say no other street in America can compare with it for lazy, idle, comfortable, pleasant, and picturesque effects. It is difficult to determine just where the beach begins and the street ends, because of the strollers in bathing-suits. Many a time, after a long fishing-day on the water, as I was walking up the middle of the street, I have been stunned to a gasp by the startling apparition of Venus or Hebe or Little Egypt or Annette Kellermann parading nonchalantly to and fro. It seems reasonable and fair to give notice that broadbill swordfish are not the only dangers to encounter at Avalon. I wish they had a policeman there. But the spirit of Avalon, like the climate, is something to love. It is free, careless, mirthful, wholesome, restful, and serene. The resort is democratic and indifferent and aloof. Yet there is always mirth, music, and laughter. Many and many a night have I awakened, anywhere from ten to one, to listen to the low lap of the waves on the beach, the soft tones of an Hawaiian ukulele, the weird cry of a nocturnal sea-gull, the bark of a sea-lion, or the faint, haunting laugh of some happy girl, going by late, perhaps with her lover. Avalon is so clean and sweet. It is the only place I have been, except Long Key, where the omnipresent, hateful, and stinking automobile does not obtrude upon real content. Think of air not reeking with gasolene and a street safe to cross at any time! Safe, I mean, of course, from being run down by some joy-rider. You are liable to encounter one of the Loreleis or Aphrodites at any hour from five till sunset. You must risk chance of that. So, in conclusion, let me repeat that if you are a fisherman of any degree, and if you aspire to some wonderful experiences with the great and vanishing game fish of the Pacific, and if you would love to associate with these adventures some dazzling white hot days, and unforgetable cool nights where your eyelids get glued with sleep, and the fragrant salt breath of the sea, its music and motion and color and mystery and beauty--then go to Avalon before it is too late. THE END 
35351	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Fishing and Shooting Sketches BY GROVER CLEVELAND Illustrated by HENRY S. WATSON NEW YORK THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY 1906 COPYRIGHT, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO. COPYRIGHT, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, BY THE INDEPENDENT. COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY THE PRESS PUBLISHING CO. COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY THE COUNTRY CALENDAR. COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY. Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England. _All Rights Reserved._ THE OUTING PRESS DEPOSIT, N. Y. [Illustration: From Copyright Photo, by Pach. Yours truly Grover Cleveland] CONTENTS PAGE THE MISSION OF SPORT AND OUTDOOR LIFE 3 A DEFENSE OF FISHERMEN 19 THE SERENE DUCK HUNTER 49 THE MISSION OF FISHING AND FISHERMEN 79 SOME FISHING PRETENSES AND AFFECTATIONS 111 SUMMER SHOOTING 139 CONCERNING RABBIT SHOOTING 153 A WORD TO FISHERMEN 165 A DUCK HUNTING TRIP 179 QUAIL SHOOTING 197 The Mission of Sport and Outdoor Life I am sure that it is not necessary for me, at this late day, to dwell upon the fact that I am an enthusiast in my devotion to hunting and fishing, as well as every other kind of outdoor recreation. I am so proud of this devotion that, although my sporting proclivities have at times subjected me to criticism and petty forms of persecution, I make no claim that my steadfastness should be looked upon as manifesting the courage of martyrdom. On the contrary, I regard these criticisms and persecutions as nothing more serious than gnat stings suffered on the bank of a stream--vexations to be borne with patience and afterward easily submerged in the memory of abundant delightful accompaniments. Thus, when short fishing excursions, in which I have sought relief from the wearing labors and perplexities of official duty, have been denounced in a mendacious newspaper as dishonest devices to cover scandalous revelry, I have been able to enjoy a sort of pleasurable contempt for the author of this accusation, while congratulating myself on the mental and physical restoration I had derived from these excursions. So, also, when people, more mistaken than malicious, have wagged their heads in pitying fashion and deprecated my indulgence in hunting and fishing frivolity, which, in high public service, I have found it easy to lament the neglect of these amiable persons to accumulate for their delectation a fund of charming sporting reminiscence; while, at the same time, I sadly reflected how their dispositions might have been sweetened and their lives made happier if they had yielded something to the particular type of frivolity which they deplored. I hope it may not be amiss for me to supplement these personal observations by the direct confession that, so far as my attachment to outdoor sports may be considered a fault, I am, as related to this especial predicament of guilt, utterly incorrigible and shameless. Not many years ago, while residing in a non-sporting but delightfully cultured and refined community, I found that considerable indignation had been aroused among certain good neighbors and friends, because it had been said of me that I was willing to associate in the field with any loafer who was the owner of a dog and gun. I am sure that I did not in the least undervalue the extreme friendliness of those inclined to intervene in my defense; and yet, at the risk of doing an apparently ungracious thing, I felt inexorably constrained to check their kindly efforts by promptly conceding that the charge was too nearly true to be denied. There can be no doubt that certain men are endowed with a sort of inherent and spontaneous instinct which leads them to hunting and fishing indulgence as the most alluring and satisfying of all recreations. In this view, I believe it may be safely said that the true hunter or fisherman is born, not made. I believe, too, that those who thus by instinct and birthright belong to the sporting fraternity and are actuated by a genuine sporting spirit, are neither cruel, nor greedy and wasteful of the game and fish they pursue; and I am convinced that there can be no better conservators of the sensible and provident protection of game and fish than those who are enthusiastic in their pursuit, but who, at the same time, are regulated and restrained by the sort of chivalric fairness and generosity, felt and recognized by every true sportsman. While it is most agreeable thus to consider hunting and fishing as constituting, for those especially endowed for their enjoyment, the most tempting of outdoor sports, it is easily apparent that there is a practical value to these sports as well as all other outdoor recreations, which rests upon a broader foundation. Though the delightful and passionate love for outdoor sports and recreation is not bestowed upon every one as a natural gift, they are so palpably related to health and vigor, and so inseparably connected with the work of life and comfort of existence, that it is happily ordained that a desire or a willingness for their enjoyment may be cultivated to an extent sufficient to meet the requirements of health and self-care. In other words, all but the absolutely indifferent can be made to realize that outdoor air and activity, intimacy with nature and acquaintanceship with birds and animals and fish, are essential to physical and mental strength, under the exactions of an unescapable decree. Men may accumulate wealth in neglect of the law of recreation; but how infinitely much they will forfeit, in the deprivation of wholesome vigor, in the loss of the placid fitness for the quiet joys and comforts of advancing years, and in the displacement of contented age by the demon of querulous and premature decrepitude! "For the good God who loveth us He made and loveth all." A Law not to Be Disobeyed Men, in disobedience of this law, may achieve triumph in the world of science, education and art; but how unsatisfying are the rewards thus gained if they hasten the night when no man can work, and if the later hours of life are haunted by futile regrets for what is still left undone, that might have been done if there had been closer communion with nature's visible forms! In addition to the delight which outdoor recreations afford to those instinctively in harmony with their enjoyment, and after a recognition of the fact that a knowledge of their nerve- and muscle-saving ministrations may be sensibly cultivated, there still remains another large item that should be placed to their credit. Every individual, as a unit in the scheme of civilized social life, owes to every man, woman and child within such relationship an uninterrupted contribution to the fund of enlivening and pleasurable social intercourse. None of us can deny this obligation; and none of us can discharge it as we ought, if our contributions are made in the questionable coin of sordidness and nature's perversion. Our experience and observation supply abundant proof that those who contribute most generously to the exhilaration and charm of social intercourse will be found among the disciples of outdoor recreation, who are in touch with nature and have thus kept fresh and unperverted a simple love of humanity's best environment. A Chance in the Open for All It seems to me that thoughtful men should not be accused of exaggerated fears when they deprecate the wealth-mad rush and struggle of American life and the consequent neglect of outdoor recreation, with the impairment of that mental and physical vigor absolutely essential to our national welfare, and so abundantly promised to those who gratefully recognize, in nature's adjustment to the wants of man, the care of "the good God" who "made and loveth all." Manifestly, if outdoor recreations are important to the individual and to the nation, and if there is danger of their neglect, every instrumentality should be heartily encouraged which aims to create and stimulate their indulgence in every form. Fortunately, the field is broad and furnishes a choice for all except those wilfully at fault. The sky and sun above the head, the soil beneath the feet, and outdoor air on every side are the indispensable requisites. A Defense of Fishermen By way of introduction and explanation, it should be said that there is no intention at this time to deal with those who fish for a livelihood. Those sturdy and hard-working people need no vindication or defense. Our concern is with those who fish because they have an occult and mysterious instinct which leads them to love it, because they court the healthful, invigorating exertion it invites, and because its indulgence brings them in close contact and communion with Nature's best and most elevating manifestations. This sort of fishing is pleasure and not work--sport and not money-grabbing. Therefore it is contemptuously regarded in certain quarters as no better than a waste of time. Generous fishermen cannot fail to look with pity upon the benighted persons who have no better conception than this of the uses and beneficent objects of rational diversion. In these sad and ominous days of mad fortune-chasing, every patriotic, thoughtful citizen, whether he fishes or not, should lament that we have not among our countrymen more fishermen. There can be no doubt that the promise of industrial peace, of contented labor and of healthful moderation in the pursuit of wealth, in this democratic country of ours, would be infinitely improved if a large share of the time which has been devoted to the concoction of trust and business combinations, had been spent in fishing. The narrow and ill-conditioned people who snarlingly count all fishermen as belonging to the lazy and good-for-nothing class, and who take satisfaction in describing an angler's outfit as a contrivance with a hook at one end and a fool at the other, have been so thoroughly discredited that no one could wish for their more irredeemable submersion. Statesmen, judges, clergymen, lawyers and doctors, as well as thousands of other outspoken members of the fishing fraternity, have so effectively given the lie to these revilers of an honest and conscientious brotherhood that a large majority have been glad to find refuge in ignominious silence. Notwithstanding this, weak, piping voices are still occasionally heard accusing fishermen of certain shortcomings and faults. These are so unsubstantial and unimportant that, as against the high place in the world's esteem claimed by those who love to fish, they might well be regarded as non-essentials, or, in a phrase of the day, as mere matters of detail. But, although it may be true that these charges are on the merits unworthy of notice, it cannot be expected that fishermen, proud of the name, will be amiably willing to permit those making such accusations the satisfaction of remaining unchallenged. The Hangers-on of the Fraternity At the outset, the fact should be recognized that the community of fishermen constitute a separate class or a sub-race among the inhabitants of the earth. It has sometimes been said that fishermen cannot be manufactured. This is true to the extent that nothing can supply the lack of certain inherent, constitutional and inborn qualities or traits which are absolutely necessary to a fisherman's make-up. Of course there are many who call themselves fishermen and who insist upon their membership in the fraternity who have not in their veins a drop of legitimate fisherman blood. Their self-asserted relationship is nevertheless sometimes seized upon by malicious or ignorant critics as permitting the assumption that the weaknesses and sins of these pretenders are the weaknesses and sins of genuine fishermen; but in truth these pretenders are only interlopers who have learned a little fish language, who love to fish only "when they bite," who whine at bad luck, who betray incredulity when they hear a rousing fish story, and who do or leave undone many other things fatal to good and regular standing. They are like certain whites called squaw-men, who hang about Indian reservations, and gain certain advantages in the tribes by marrying full-blooded Indian women. Surely no just person would for a moment suppose that genuine Indians could be treated fairly by measuring them according to a squaw-man standard. Neither can genuine fishermen be fairly treated by judging them according to the standards presented by squaw-fishermen. In point of fact, full-blooded fishermen whose title is clear, and whose natural qualifications are undisputed, have ideas, habits of thought and mental tendencies so peculiarly and especially their own, and their beliefs and code of ethics are so exclusively fitted to their needs and surroundings, that an attempt on the part of strangers to speak or write concerning the character or conduct of its approved membership savors of impudent presumption. None but fishermen can properly deal with these delicate matters. What sense is there in the charge of laziness sometimes made against true fishermen? Laziness has no place in the constitution of a man who starts at sunrise and tramps all day with only a sandwich to eat, floundering through bushes and briers and stumbling over rocks or wading streams in pursuit of the elusive trout. Neither can a fisherman who, with rod in hand, sits in a boat or on a bank all day be called lazy--provided he attends to his fishing and is physically and mentally alert in his occupation. This charge may perhaps be truthfully made against squaw-fishermen who become easily discouraged, who "tire and faint" early, and lie down under the shade to sleep, or go in swimming, or who gaze about or read a book while their hooks rest baitless on the bottom; but how false and unfair it is to accuse regular, full-blooded fishermen of laziness, based on such performances as these! And yet this is absurdly done by those who cannot tell a reel from a compass, and who by way of familiarizing themselves with their topic leave their beds at eight o'clock in the morning, ride to an office at ten, sit at a desk until three or perhaps five, with an hour's interval for a hearty luncheon, and go home in the proud belief that they have done an active, hard day's work. Fishermen find no fault with what they do in their own affairs, nor with their conception of work; but they do insist that such people have no right to impute laziness to those who fish. Why Fish Stories Should Be Believed It is sometimes said that there is such close relationship between mendacity and fishing, that in matters connected with their craft all fishermen are untruthful. It must, of course, be admitted that large stories of fishing adventure are sometimes told by fishermen--and why should this not be so? Beyond all question there is no sphere of human activity so full of strange and wonderful incidents as theirs. Fish are constantly doing the most mysterious and startling things; and no one has yet been wise enough to explain their ways or account for their conduct. The best fishermen do not attempt it; they move and strive in the atmosphere of mystery and uncertainty, constantly aiming to reach results without a clue, and through the cultivation of faculties, non-existent or inoperative in the common mind. In these circumstances fishermen necessarily see and do wonderful things. If those not members of the brotherhood are unable to assimilate the recital of these wonders, it is because their believing apparatus has not been properly regulated and stimulated. Such disability falls very far short of justifying doubt as to the truth of the narration. The things narrated have been seen and experienced with a fisherman's eyes and perceptions. This is perfectly understood by listening fishermen; and they, to their enjoyment and edification, are permitted by a properly adjusted mental equipment to believe what they hear. This faculty is one of the safest signs of full-blooded right to membership. If incredulity is intimated by a professional member no injustice will be done if he is at once put under suspicion as a squaw-fisherman. As to non-members who accuse true fishermen of falsehood, it is perfectly clear that they are utterly unfitted to deal with the subject. The only theory fitting the condition leads to the statement that any story of personal experience told by a fisherman is to the fishing apprehension indubitably true; and that since disbelief in other quarters is owing to the lack of this apprehension, the folly of accusing fishermen of habitual untruthfulness is quite apparent. The Taking of the Leviathan The position thus taken by the brotherhood requires that they stand solidly together in all circumstances. Tarpon fishing has added greatly to our responsibilities. Even larger fish than these may, with the extension of American possessions, fall within the treatment of American fishermen. As in all past emergencies, we shall be found sufficient in such future exigencies. All will go well if, without a pretense of benevolent assimilation, we still fish as is our wont, and continue our belief in all that our brethren declare they have done or can do. A few thousand years ago the question was impressively asked, "Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?" We must not falter, if, upon its repetition in the future, a brother replies: "Yes, with a ten-ounce rod;" nor must we be staggered even if another declares he has already landed one of these monsters. If American institutions are found adequate to the new tasks which Destiny has put upon them in the extension of our lands, the American Chapter of the world's fishermen must not fail by their time-honored methods and practices, and by such truthfulness as belongs to the fraternity in the narration of fishing adventure, to subdue any new difficulties presented by the extension of our waters. Why the Biggest Fish Are Always Lost Before leaving this branch of our subject, especial reference should be made to one item more conspicuous, perhaps, than any other, among those comprised in the general charge of fishermen's mendacity. It is constantly said that they greatly exaggerate the size of the fish that are lost. This accusation, though most frequently and flippantly made, is in point of fact based upon the most absurd arrogance and a love of slanderous assertion that passes understanding. These are harsh words; but they are abundantly justified. In the first place, all the presumptions are with the fisherman's contention. It is perfectly plain that large fish are more apt to escape than small ones. Of course their weight and activity, combined with the increased trickiness and resourcefulness of age and experience, greatly increase their ability to tear out the hook, and enhance the danger that their antics will expose a fatal weakness in hook, leader, line or rod. Another presumption which must be regretfully mentioned, arises from the fact that in many cases the encounter with a large fish causes such excitement, and such distraction or perversion of judgment, on the part of the fisherman as leads him to do the wrong thing or fail to do the right thing at the critical instant--thus actually and effectively contributing to an escape which could not and would not have occurred except in favor of a large fish. Beyond these presumptions we have the deliberate and simple story of the fisherman himself, giving with the utmost sincerity all the details of his misfortune, and indicating the length of the fish he has lost, or giving in pounds his exact weight. Now, why should this statement be discredited? It is made by one who struggled with the escaped fish. Perhaps he saw it. This, however, is not important, for he certainly felt it on his rod, and he knows precisely how his rod behaves in the emergency of every conceivable strain. The Finny Hypnotist All true fishermen who listen to his plain, unvarnished tale accept with absolute faith the declared length and weight of the fish that was almost caught; but with every presumption, besides positive statement, against them, carping outsiders who cannot fish, and who love to accuse fishermen of lying, are exposed in an attempt to originate or perpetuate an envious and malicious libel. The case of our fraternity on this point of absolute and exact truthfulness is capable of such irrefragable demonstration that anything in the way of confession and avoidance ought to be considered inadmissible. And yet, simply for the sake of argument, or by way of curious speculation, it may be interesting to intimate how a variation of a few inches in the exact length or a few ounces in the exact weight of a lost fish, as given by the loser, may be accounted for, without meanly attributing to him intentional falsehood. The theory has been recently started, that a trained hunting dog points a bird in the field solely because the bird's scent creates a hypnotic influence on the dog, which impels him by a sort of suggestion to direct his nose toward the spot from which such scent emanates. If there is anything worth considering in this theory, why may not a struggling fish at the end of a line exert such a hypnotic influence on the intensely excited and receptive nature at the other extremity of the fishing outfit, as to suggest an arbitrary and independent statement of the dimensions of the hypnotizer? With the accusations already mentioned it would certainly seem that the enmity of those who take pleasure in reviling fishermen and their ways should be satisfied. They have not been content, however, in the demonstration of their evil-mindedness without adding to their indictment against the brotherhood the charge of profanity. Of course, they have not the hardihood to allege that our profanity is of that habitual and low sort which characterizes the coarse and ill-bred, who offend all decent people by constantly interlarding their speech with fearful and irrelevant oaths. They, nevertheless, find sufficient excuse for their accusation in the sudden ejaculations, outwardly resembling profanity, which are occasionally wrung from fishermen in trying crises and in moments of soul-straining unkindness of Fate. Now, this question of profanity is largely one of intention and deliberation. The man who, intending what he says, coolly indulges in imprecation, is guilty of an offense that admits of no excuse or extenuation; but a fisherman can hardly be called profane who, when overtaken without warning by disaster, and abruptly hurled from the exhilarating heights of delightful anticipation to the depths of dire disappointment, impulsively gives vent to his pent-up emotion by the use of a word which, though found in the list of oaths, is spoken without intentional imprecation, and because nothing else seems to suit the occasion. It is by no means to be admitted that fishing tends even to this semblance of profanity. On the contrary, it imposes a self-restraint and patient forbearance upon its advanced devotees which tend to prevent sudden outbursts of feeling. It must in frankness be admitted, however, by fishermen of every degree, that when the largest trout of the day, after a long struggle, winds the leader about a snag and escapes, or when a large salmon or bass, apparently fatigued to the point of non-resistance, suddenly, by an unexpected and vicious leap, frees himself from the hook, the fisherman's code of morals will not condemn beyond forgiveness the holder of the straightened rod if he impulsively, but with all the gentility at his command, exclaims: "Damn that fish!" It is probably better not to speak at all; but if strong words are to be used, perhaps these will serve as well as any that can do justice to the occasion. Uncle Toby, overcome with tender sympathy, swore with an unctious, rotund oath, that his sick friend should not die; and we are told that "the accusing spirit which flew up to Heaven's chancery with the oath blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel as he wrote it down dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever." The defense of the fishing fraternity which has been here attempted is by no means as completely stated as it should be. Nor should the world be allowed to overlook the admirable affirmative qualities which exist among genuine members of the brotherhood, and the useful traits which an indulgence in the gentle art cultivates and fosters. A recital of these, with a description of the personal peculiarities found in the ranks of fishermen, and the influence of these peculiarities on success or failure, are necessary to a thorough vindication of those who worthily illustrate the virtues of our clan. The Serene Duck Hunter In the estimation of many people, all those who for any purpose or in any manner hunt ducks are grouped together and indiscriminately called duck hunters. This is a very superficial way of dealing with an important subject. In point of fact, the objects of duck shooting and its methods of enjoyment are so various, and the disposition and personal characteristics of those who engage in it present such strong contrasts, that a recognition of their differences should suggest the subdivision of this group into distinct and well-defined sections. Such a subdivision would undoubtedly promote fairness and justice, and lead to a better understanding of the general topic. There are those whose only claim to a place among duck hunters is based upon the fact that they shoot ducks for the market. No duck is safe from their pursuit in any place, either by day or night. Not a particle of sportsmanlike spirit enters into this pursuit, and the idea never enters their minds that a duck has any rights that a hunter is bound to respect. The killing they do amounts to bald assassination--to murder for the sake of money. All fair-minded men must agree that duck hunters of this sort should be segregated from all others and placed in a section by themselves. They are the market shooters. There are others claiming a place in the duck-hunting group, who, though not so murderously inclined as the market shooters, have such peculiar traits and such distinctive habits of thought and action, as abundantly justify placing them also in a classification of their own. These are the hunters who rarely miss a duck, but whose deadly aim affords them gratification only in so far as it is a prelude to duck mortality, and who are happy or discontented as their heap of dead is large or small. They have smothered the keen delights of imagination which should be the cheering concomitants of the most reputable grade of duck hunting, and have surrendered its pleasures to actual results and the force of external circumstances. Their stories of inordinate killing are frequently heard, and often enliven the pages of sporting magazines. There can be but little doubt that this contingent give unintentional support to a popular belief, originating in the market shooters' operations, that duck shooting is a relentlessly bloody affair. These are the dead shots among duck hunters. The Vindication of the Gentle Huntsmen The danger that all those who essay to shoot ducks may, by the conduct of these two classes, acquire a general and unmitigated reputation for persistent slaughter, cannot be contemplated without sadness. It is therefore not particularly reassuring to recall the fact that our countrymen seem just now to be especially attracted by the recital of incidents that involve killing,--whether it be the killing of men or any other living thing. It is quite probable that the aggregation of all duck hunters in one general group cannot be at once remedied; and the expectation can hardly be entertained that any sub-classification now proposed will gain the acceptance and notoriety necessary for the immediate exoneration of those included within this group who are not in the least responsible for the sordid and sanguinary behavior of either the market shooter or the dead shot. These innocent ones comprise an undoubted majority of all duck hunters; and their common tastes and enjoyments, as well as their identical conceptions of duty and obligation, have drawn them together in delightful fraternity. By their moderate destruction of duck life they so modify the killing done by those belonging to the classes already described, that the aggregate, when distributed among the entire body of duck hunters, is relieved from the appearance of bloodthirsty carnage; and they in every way exert a wholesome influence in the direction of securing a place for duck hunting among recreations which are rational, exhilarating and only moderately fatal. The Honorable Order of Serene Duck Hunters It must be frankly confessed that the members of this fraternity cannot claim the ability to kill ducks as often as is required by the highest averages. This, however, does not in the least disturb their serenity. Their compensations are ample. They are saved from the sordid and hardening effects induced by habitual killing, and find pleasure in the cultivation of the more delicate and elevating susceptibilities which ducking environments should invite. Under the influence of these susceptibilities there is developed a pleasing and innocent self-deception, which induces the belief on the part of those with whom it has lodgment, that both abundant shooting skill and a thorough familiarity with all that pertains to the theory of duck hunting are entirely in their possession and control. They are also led to the stimulation of reciprocal credulity which seasons and makes digestible tales of ducking adventure. Nor does bloody activity distract their attention from their obligations to each other as members of their especial brotherhood, or cause them to overlook the rule which requires them to stand solidly together in the promotion and protection, at all hazards, of the shooting reputation of every one of their associates. These may well be called the Serene Duck Hunters. All that has been thus far written may properly be regarded as merely an introduction to a description, somewhat in detail, of the manner in which these representatives of the best and most attractive type of duck hunters enjoy their favorite recreation. A common and easy illustration of their indulgence of the sentimental enjoyments available to them is presented when members of the fraternity in the comfortable surroundings of camp undertake the discussion of the merits of guns and ammunition. The impressiveness with which guns are put to the shoulder with a view of discovering how they "come up," the comments on the length and "drop" of the different stocks, the solemn look through the barrel from the opened breech, and the suggestion of slight "pitting," are intensely interesting and gratifying to all concerned. When these things are supplemented by an exchange of opinions concerning ammunition, a large contribution is added to the entertainment of the party. Such words as Schultz, Blue Ribbon, Dupont, Ballistite and Hazard are rolled like sweet morsels under the tongue. Each of the company declares his choice of powder and warmly defends its superiority, each announces the number of drams that a ducking cartridge should contain, and each declares his clear conviction touching the size of shot, and the amount, in ounces and fractions of ounces, that should constitute an effective load. Undoubtedly the enjoyment supplied by such a discussion is keen and exhilarating. That it has the advantage of ease and convenience in its favor, is indicated by the fact that its effects are none the less real and penetrating in the entire absence of any knowledge of the topics discussed. To the serene duck hunter the pretense of knowledge or information is sufficient. The important factors in the affair are that each should have his turn, and should be attentively heard in his exploitation of that which he thinks he knows. There is nothing in all this that can furnish reasonable ground for reproach or criticism. If under the sanction of harmless self-deception and pretense this duck-hunting contingent, to whom duck killing is not inevitably available, are content to look for enjoyment among the things more or less intimately related to it, it is quite their own affair. At any rate it is sufficient to say that they have joined the serene brotherhood for their pastime, and that any outside dictation or criticism of the mode in which they shall innocently enjoy their privileges of membership savors of gross impertinence. There comes a time, however, when the calm and easy enjoyments of in-door comfort must give way to sterner activities, and when even the serene duck hunter must face the discomfort of severe weather and the responsibility of flying ducks. This exigency brings with it new duties and new objects of endeavor; but the principles which are characteristic of the fraternity are of universal application. Therefore our serene duck hunter should go forth resolved to accomplish the best results within his reach, but doubly resolved that in this new phase of his enjoyment he will betray no ignorance of any detail, and that he will fully avail himself of the rule unreservedly recognized in the brotherhood, which permits him to claim that every duck at which his gun is fired is hit--except in rare cases of conceded missing, when an excuse should be always ready, absolutely excluding any suggestion of bad shooting. And by way of showing his familiarity with the affair in hand it is not at all amiss for him to give some directions as he enters his blind as to the arrangement of the decoys. How to Take Good and Bad Luck It is quite likely that his first opportunity to shoot will be presented when a single duck hovers over the decoys, and as it poises itself offers as easy a target as if sitting on a fence. Our hunter's gun is coolly and gracefully raised, and simultaneously with its discharge the duck falls helplessly into the water. This is a situation that calls for no word to be spoken. Merely a self-satisfied and an almost indifferent expression of countenance should indicate that only the expected has happened, and that duck killing is to be the order of the day. Perhaps after a reasonable wait, another venturesome duck will enter the zone of danger and pass with steady flight over the decoys easily within shooting distance. Again the gun of our serene hunter gives voice, summoning the bird to instant death. To an impartial observer, however, such a course would not seem to be in accordance with the duck's arrangements. This is plainly indicated by such an acceleration of flight as would naturally follow the noise of the gun's discharge and the whistling of the shot in the rear of the expected victim. This is the moment when the man behind the gun should rise to the occasion, and under the rule governing the case should without the least delay or hesitation insist that the duck is hit. This may be done by the use of one of several appropriate exclamations--all having the sanction of precedent and long use. One which is quite clear and emphatic is to the effect that the fleeing duck is "lead ballasted," another easily understood is that it has "got a dose," and still another of no uncertain meaning, that it is "full of shot." Whatever particular formula is used, it should at once be followed by a decided command to the guide in attendance to watch the disappearing bird and mark where it falls. The fact should be here mentioned that the complete enjoyment of this proceeding depends largely upon the tact and intelligence of the guide. If with these he has a due appreciation of his responsibility as an adjunct to the sport, and is also in proper accord with his principal, he will give ready support to the claim that the duck is mortally wounded, at the same time shrewdly and with apparent depression suggesting the improbability of recovering the slain. If as the hours wear away this process becomes so monotonous as to be fatiguing, a restful variety may be introduced by guardedly acknowledging an occasional miss, and bringing into play the excuses and explanations appropriate to such altered conditions. A very useful way of accounting for a shot missed is by the suggestion that through a slightly erroneous calculation of distance the duck was out of range when the shot was fired. A very frequent and rather gratifying pretext for avoiding chagrin in case of a long shot missed is found in the claim that, though the sound of shot striking the bird is distinctly heard, their penetration is ineffective. Sometimes failure is attributed to the towering or turning of the duck at the instant of the gun's discharge. It is at times useful to impute failure to the probability that the particular cartridge used was stale and weak; and when all these are inadmissible, the small size of the shot and the faulty quality or quantity of powder they contain, may be made to do service; and, in extreme cases, their entire construction as well as their constructor may be roundly cursed as causes for a miscarriage of fatal results. How True Duck Hunters Stand Together When the ducks have ceased to fly for the day the serene duck hunter returns to camp in a tranquil, satisfied frame of mind befitting his fraternity membership. He has several ducks actually in hand, and he has fully enjoyed the self-deception and pretense which have led him to the belief that he has shot well. His few confessed misses are all satisfactorily accounted for; and he is too well broken to the vicissitudes of duck shooting, and too old a hunter, to be cast down by the bad fortune which has thickly scattered, over distant waters and marshes, his unrecovered dead. When at the close of such a day a party of serene duck hunters are gathered together, a common fund of adventure is made up. Each as he contributes his share is entitled to add such embellishments of the imagination as will make his recital most interesting to his associates and gratifying to himself; and a law tacitly adopted but universally recognized by the company binds them all to an unquestioning acceptance of the truth of every narration. The successes of the day as well as its incidents of hard luck, and every excuse and explanation in mitigation of small returns of game, as they are rehearsed, create lively interest and quiet enjoyment. The one thing that might be a discordant note would be a hint or confession of downright and inexcusably bad shooting. In this delightful assemblage of serene duck hunters there is no place for envious feeling toward either the slaughtering market shooter or the insatiable dead shot. They only seek, in their own mild and gentle way, the indulgence of the pleasures which the less bloody phases of duck hunting afford; and no censorious critic has the right to demand that their enjoyment should be marred or diminished by the exactions of veracity or self-abasement. Reference has already been made to the scrupulous care of this fraternity for the promotion and preservation, at all hazards, of the shooting reputation of all the associates. This is a most important duty. Indeed, it may be reasonably feared that any neglect or faltering in its discharge would undermine the entire fabric of the serene brotherhood's renown. The outside world should never gain from any of its members the least hint that a weak spot has been developed in the shooting ability of any of their number; and in giving an account of hunting results it is quite within bounds for them to include in the aggregate, not only the ducks actually killed and those reported killed, but those probably killed and neither recovered nor reported. The fact that such an aggregate has been reported by an associate should impart to every member absolute verity, and each should make the statement his own, to the displacement of all other knowledge. Such ready support of each other's allegations and such entire self-abnegation are absolutely necessary if the safety of the organization is to be insured, and if its success and usefulness are to endure. Thus the great body of serene duck hunters, who have associated together for the promotion of high aims and purposes, pursue the even tenor of their way. They do not clamor for noisy recognition or make cheap exhibition of their virtues. They will, however, steadily and unostentatiously persevere, both by precept and practice, in their mission to make all duck hunters better and happier, and to mitigate the harsh and bloody features of duck hunting. The Mission of Fishing and Fishermen It was quite a long time ago that a compelling sense of duty led me to undertake the exoneration of a noble fraternity, of which I am an humble member, from certain narrow-minded, if not malicious, accusations. The title given to what was then written, "A Defense of Fishermen," was precisely descriptive of its purpose. It was not easy, however, to keep entirely within defensive limits; for the temptation was very strong and constant to abandon negation and palliation for the more pleasing task of commending to the admiration and affection of mankind in affirmative terms both fishing and fishermen. A determination to attempt this at another time, and thus supplement the matter then in hand, made resistance to this temptation successful; but the contemplated supplementation was then foreshadowed in the following terms: "The defense of the fishing fraternity which has been here attempted is by no means so completely stated as it should be. Nor should the world be allowed to overlook the admirable affirmative qualities which exist among genuine members of the brotherhood and the useful traits which the indulgence in the gentle art cultivates and fosters. A recital of these, with a description of the personal influence of these peculiarities found in the ranks of fishermen, and the influence of these peculiarities on success or failure, are necessary to a thorough vindication of those who worthily illustrate the virtues of our clan." The execution of the design thus foreshadowed has until now been evaded on account of the importance and delicacy of the undertaking and a distrust of my ability to deal adequately with the subject. Though these misgivings have not been overcome, my perplexity, as I enter upon the work so long delayed, is somewhat relieved by the hope that true fishermen will be tolerant, whatever may be the measure of my success, and that all others concerned will be teachable and open-minded. Lessons the Fisherman Learns from Nature The plan I have laid out for the treatment of my topic leads me, first of all, to speak of the manner in which the fishing habit operates upon man's nature for its betterment; and afterward to deal with the qualities of heart and disposition necessary to the maintenance of good and regular standing in the fishing fraternity. There is no man in the world capable of profitable thought who does not know that the real worth and genuineness of the human heart are measured by its readiness to submit to the influences of Nature, and to appreciate the goodness of the Supreme Power who has made and beautified Nature's abiding-place. In this domain, removed from the haunts of men and far away from the noise and dust of their turmoil and strife, the fishing that can fully delight the heart of the true fisherman is found; and here in its enjoyment, those who fish are led, consciously or unconsciously, to a quiet but distinct recognition of a power greater than man's, and a goodness far above human standards. Amid such surroundings and within such influences no true fisherman, whether sensitively attuned to sublime suggestion, or of a coarser mold and apparently intent only upon a successful catch, can fail to receive impressions which so elevate the soul and soften the heart as to make him a better man. It is known of all men that one of the rudiments in the education of a true fisherman is the lesson of patience. If he has a natural tendency in this direction it must be cultivated. If such a tendency is lacking he must acquire patience by hard schooling. This quality is so indispensable in fishing circles that those who speak of a patient fisherman waste their words. In point of fact, and properly speaking, there can be no such thing as an impatient fisherman. It cannot, therefore, be denied that in so far as fishing is a teacher of the virtue of patience, it ought to be given a large item of credit in reckoning its relation to the everyday affairs of life; for certainly the potency of patience as a factor in all worldly achievements and progress cannot be overestimated. If faith can move mountains, patience and faith combined ought to move the universe. Moreover, if those who fish must be patient, no one should fail to see that patience is a most desirable national trait and that it is vastly important to our body politic that there should continue among our people a large contingent of well-equipped fishermen, constantly prepared and willing to contribute to their country's fund of blessings a liberal and pure supply of this saving virtue. To those who are satisfied with a superficial view of the subject it may seem impossible that the diligence and attention necessary to a fisherman's success can leave him any opportunity, while fishing, to thoughtfully contemplate any matter not related to his pursuit. Such a conception of the situation cannot be indorsed for a moment by those of us who are conversant with the mysterious and unaccountable mental phenomena which fishing develops. We know that the true fisherman finds no better time for profitable contemplation and mental exercise than when actually engaged with his angling outfit. It will probably never be possible for us to gather statistics showing the moving sermons, the enchanting poems, the learned arguments and eloquent orations that have been composed or constructed between the bites, strikes or rises of fish; but there can be no doubt that of the many intellectual triumphs won in every walk of life a larger proportion has been actually hooked and landed with a rod and reel by those of the fishing fraternity than have been secured in any one given condition of the non-fishing world. This may appear to be a bold statement. It is intended as an assertion that fishing and fishermen have had much to do with the enlightenment and elevation of humanity. In support of this proposition volumes might be written; but only a brief array of near-at-hand evidence will be here presented. Those who have been fortunate enough to hear the fervid eloquence of Henry Ward Beecher, and even those who have only read what he has written, cannot overlook his fishing propensity--so constantly manifest that the things he said and wrote were fairly redolent of fishing surroundings. His own specific confession of fealty was not needed to entitle him to the credentials of a true fisherman, nor to disclose one of the never-failing springs of his best inspiration. When these things are recalled, and when we contemplate the lofty mission so well performed by this noble angler, no member of our brotherhood can do better in its vindication than to point to his career as proof of what the fishing habit has done for humanity. What Mashpee Waters Did for Webster Daniel Webster, too, was a fisherman--always in good and regular standing. In marshaling the proof which his great life furnishes of the beneficence of the fishing propensity, I approach the task with a feeling of awe quite natural to one who has slept in the room occupied by the great Expounder during his fishing campaigns on Cape Cod and along the shores of Mashpee Pond and its adjacent streams. This distinguished member of our fraternity was an industrious and attentive fisherman. He was, besides, a wonderful orator--and largely so because he was a fisherman. He himself has confessed to the aid he received from a fishing environment in the preparation of his best oratorical efforts; and other irrefutable testimony to the same effect is at hand. It is not deemed necessary to cite in proof of such aid more than a single incident. Perhaps none of Mr. Webster's orations was more notable, or added more to his lasting fame, than that delivered at the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument. And it will probably be conceded that its most impressive and beautiful passage was addressed to the survivors of the War of Independence then present, beginning with the words, "Venerable men!" This thrilling oratorical flight was composed and elaborated by Mr. Webster while wading waist deep and casting his flies in Mashpee waters. He himself afterward often referred to this circumstance; and one who was his companion on this particular occasion has recorded the fact that, noticing indications of laxity in fishing action on Mr. Webster's part, he approached him, and that, in the exact words of this witness, "he seemed to be gazing at the overhanging trees, and presently advancing one foot and extending his right hand he commenced to speak, 'Venerable Men!'" Mr. Webster's Remarks to a Fish Though this should be enough to support conclusively the contention that incidents of Mr. Webster's great achievements prove the close relationship between fishing and the loftiest attainments of mankind, this branch of our subject ought not to be dismissed without reference to a conversation I once had with old John Attaquin, then a patriarch among the few survivors of the Mashpee Indians. He had often been Mr. Webster's guide and companion on his fishing trips and remembered clearly many of their happenings. It was with a glow of love and admiration amounting almost to worship that he related how this great fisherman, after landing a large trout on the bank of the stream, "talked mighty strong and fine to that fish and told him what a mistake he had made, and what a fool he was to take that fly, and that he would have been all right if he had let it alone." Who can doubt that patient search would disclose, somewhere in Mr. Webster's speeches and writings, the elaboration, with high intent, of that "mighty strong and fine" talk addressed to the fish at Mashpee? The impressive story of this simple, truthful old Indian was delightfully continued when, with the enthusiasm of an untutored mind remembering pleasant sensations, the narrator told how the great fisherman and orator having concluded his "strong, fine talk," would frequently suit the action to the word, when he turned to his guide and proposed a fitting libation in recognition of his catch. This part of the story is not here repeated on account of its superior value as an addition to the evidence we have already gathered, but I am thus given an opportunity to speak of the emotion which fascinated me as the story proceeded, and as I recalled how precisely a certain souvenir called "the Webster Flask," carefully hoarded among my valued possessions, was fitted to the situation described. Let it be distinctly understood that the claim is not here made that all who fish can become as great as Henry Ward Beecher or Daniel Webster. It is insisted, however, that fishing is a constructive force, capable of adding to and developing the best there is in any man who fishes in a proper spirit and among favorable surroundings. In other words, it is claimed that upon the evidence adduced it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the fishing habit, by promoting close association with Nature, by teaching patience, and by generating or stimulating useful contemplation, tends directly to the increase of the intellectual power of its votaries, and, through them, to the improvement of our national character. In pursuance of the plan adopted for the presentation of our subject, mention must now be made of the qualities of heart and disposition absolutely essential to the maintenance of honorable membership in the fishing fraternity. This mode of procedure is not only made necessary by the exigencies of our scheme, but the brotherhood of fishermen would not be satisfied if the exploitation of their service to humanity and their value to the country should terminate with a recital of the usefulness of their honorable pursuit. The record would be woefully incomplete if reference were omitted to the relation of fishing to the moral characteristics and qualities of heart, with which it is as vitally connected as with the intellectual traits already mentioned. No man can be a completely good fisherman unless within his piscatorial sphere he is generous, sympathetic and honest. If he expects to enjoy that hearty and unrestrained confidence of his brethren in the fraternity which alone can make his membership a comfort and a delight, he must be generous to the point of willingness to share his last leaders and flies, or any other items of his outfit, with any worthy fellow-fisherman who may be in need. The manifestation of littleness and crowding selfishness often condoned in other quarters, and the over-reaching conduct so generally permitted in business circles, are unpardonable crimes in the true fisherman's code. Of course, there is nothing to prevent those from fishing who wholly disregard all rules of generosity, fairness and decency. Nor can we of the brotherhood of true fishermen always shield ourselves from the reproach to which we are subjected by those who steal our livery and disgrace it by casting aside all manly liberality in their intercourse with other fishermen and all considerate self-restraint in their intercourse with fish. We constantly deprecate the existence of those called by our name, in whose low conception of the subject, fishing is but a greedy game, where selfishness and meanness are the winning cards, and where the stakes are the indiscriminate and ruthless slaughter of fish; and let it be here said, once for all, that with these we have nothing to do except to condemn them as we pass. Our concern is with true fishermen--a very different type of mankind--and with those who _prima facie_ have some claim to the title. How to Know a True Fisherman No burdensome qualifications or tedious probation obstruct the entrance to this fraternity; but skill and fishing ability count for nothing in eligibility. The oldest and most experienced and skillful fisherman will look with composure upon the vanishing chances of his catch through the floundering efforts of an awkward beginner, if the awkward flounderer has shown that he is sound at heart. He may not fish well, but if he does not deliberately rush ahead of all companions to pre-empt every promising place in the stream, nor everlastingly study to secure for his use the best of the bait, nor always fail to return borrowed tackle, nor prove to be blind, deaf and dumb when others are in tackle need, nor crowd into another's place, nor draw his flask in secrecy, nor light a cigar with no suggestion of another, nor do a score of other indefinable mean things that among true fishermen constitute him an unbearable nuisance, he will not only be tolerated but aided in every possible way. It is curious to observe how inevitably the brotherhood discovers unworthiness. Even without an overt act it is detected--apparently by a sort of instinct. In any event, and in spite of the most cunning precautions, the sin of the unfit is sure to find them out; and no excuse is allowed to avert unforgiving ostracism as its punishment. A true fisherman is conservative, provident, not given to envy, considerate of the rights of others, and careful of his good name. He fishes many a day and returns at night to his home, hungry, tired and disappointed; but he still has faith in his methods, and is not tempted to try new and more deadly lures. On the contrary, he is willing in all circumstances to give the fish the chance for life which a liberal sporting disposition has determined to be their due; and he will bide his time under old conditions. He will not indulge his fishing propensity to the extent of the wanton destruction and waste of fish; he will not envy the superior advantages of another in the indulgence of the pastime he loves so well; he will never be known to poach upon the preserves of a fortunate neighbor; and no one will be quicker or more spirited than he in the defense of his fishing honor and character. Truth as Defined by the Honorable Guild This detailed recital of the necessary qualifications of good fisherman-ship serves most importantly as the prelude of an invitation for skeptics to observe the complete identity of these qualifications with the factors necessary to good citizenship, and from thence to concede a more ready recognition of the honorable place which should be awarded to the fraternity among the agencies of our country's good. In conclusion, and to the end that there should be no appearance of timidity or lack of frankness, something should be said explanatory of the degree and kind of truthfulness which an honorable standing in the fishing fraternity exacts. Of course, the notion must not be for a moment tolerated that deliberate, downright lying as to an essential matter is permissible. It must be confessed, however, that unescapable traditions and certain inexorable conditions of our brotherhood tend to a modification of the standards of truthfulness which have been set up in other quarters. Beyond doubt, our members should be as reliable in statement as our traditions and full enjoyment of fraternity membership will permit. An attempt has been made to remedy the indefiniteness of this requirement by insisting that no statement should be regarded as sufficiently truthful for the fisherman's code that had not for its foundation at least a belief of its correctness on the part of the member making it. This was regarded as too much elasticity in the quality of the belief required. The matter seems to have been finally adjusted in a manner expressed in the motto: "In essentials--truthfulness; in non-essentials--reciprocal latitude." If it is objected that there may be great difficulty and perplexity in determining what are essentials and what non-essentials under this rule, it should be remembered that no human arrangements, especially those involving morals and ethics, can be made to fit all emergencies. In any event, great comfort is to be found in the absolute certainty that the law of truthfulness will be so administered by the brotherhood that no one will ever be permitted to suffer in mind, body or estate by reason of fishermen's tales. Some Fishing Pretenses and Affectations I would not permit without a resentful protest an expression of doubt as to my good and regular standing in the best and most respectable circle of fishermen. I am as jealous as a man can be of the fair fame of the fraternity; and I am unyielding in my insistence upon the exclusion of the unworthy from its membership. I also accept without demur all the traditions of the order, provided that they have been always in the keeping of the faithful, and carefully protected against all discrediting incidents. In addition to all this, my faculty of credence has been so cultivated and strengthened that I yield without question implicit and unquestioning belief to every fishing story--provided always that it is told by a fisherman of good repute, and on his own responsibility. This is especially a matter of loyalty and principle with me, for I am not only convinced that the usefulness and perhaps the perpetuity of the order of Free and Accepted Fishermen depends upon a bland and trustful credulity in the intercourse of its members with each other, but I have constantly in mind the golden rule of our craft, which commands us to believe as we would be believed. I have not made this profession of faith in a spirit of vainglorious conceit, but by way of indicating the standpoint from which I shall venture to comment on some weaknesses which afflict our brotherhood, and as a reminder that the place I have earned among my associates should in fairness and decency protect me from the least accusation of censoriousness or purposeless faultfinding. I do not propose to make charges of wickedness and wrong-doing, which call for such radical corrective treatment as might imperil the peace and brotherly love of our organization. It is rather my intention mildly to criticise some affectations and pretenses which I believe have grown out of overtraining among fishermen, or have resulted from too much elaboration of method and refinement of theory. These affectations and pretenses are, unfortunately, accompaniments of a high grade of fishing skill; and in certain influential quarters they are not only excused but openly and stoutly justified. I cannot, therefore, expect my characterization of them as faults and weaknesses to pass unchallenged; but I hope that in discharging the duty I have undertaken I shall not incur the unfriendship of any considerable number of my fishing brethren. It has often occurred to me that the very noticeable and increasing tendency toward effeminate attenuation and æsthetic standards among anglers of an advanced type, is calculated to bring about a substitution of scientific display with rod and reel for the plain, downright, common-sense enjoyment of fishing. This would be a distinct and lamentable loss, resulting in the elimination to a great extent of individual initiative, and the disregard of the inherent distinction between good and bad fishermen, as measured by natural aptitude and practical results. As in an organized commonwealth neither the highest nor the lowest elements of its people constitute its best strength and reliance, so in the fraternity of fishermen neither the lowest hangers-on and intruders, nor the highest theorists who would make fishing a scientific exercise instead of a manly, recreative pursuit, make up the supporting and defensive power of the organization. It is the middle class in the community of fishermen, those who fish sensibly and decently, though they may be oblivious to the advantages of carrying fishing refinements far beyond the exigencies of catching fish, upon whom we must depend for the promotion and protection of the practical interests of the brotherhood. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that the zeal and enthusiasm of this valuable section of our membership should not be imperiled by subjecting them to the humiliating consciousness that their sterling fishing qualities are held in only patronizing toleration by those in the fraternity who gratuitously assume fictitious and unjustifiable superiority. I shall attempt to locate the responsibility for the affectations and pretenses I have mentioned, not only in vindication of our sincere and well-intentioned rank and file, but for another reason, which concerns the peace of mind and comfort of every member of the organization in his relationship with the outside world. The fact that we are in a manner separated from the common mass of mankind naturally arouses the unfriendly jealousy of those beyond the pale of the brotherhood; and fishing--the fundamental object and purpose of our union--is in many quarters decried as an absurd exertion or a frivolous waste of time. In such circumstances we cannot be charged with a surrender of independence if we attempt by a frank statement to deprive these ill-natured critics of all excuse for attacking our entire body on account of faults and weaknesses for which only a small minority is responsible. Bluntly stated, the affectations and pretenses which I have in mind, and which in my opinion threaten to bring injury upon our noble pursuit, grow out of the undue prominence and exaggerated superiority claimed for fly-casting for trout. I hasten to say for myself and on behalf of all well-conditioned fishermen that we are not inclined to disparage in the least the delightful exhilaration of the sudden rise and strike, nor the pleasurable exercise of skill and deft manipulation afforded by this method of fishing. We have no desire to disturb by a discordant dissent the extravagant praise awarded to the trout when he is called the wariest of his tribe, "the speckled beauty," the aristocratic gentleman among fish, and the most toothsome of his species. At the same time, we of the unpretentious sort of fishermen are not obliged to forget that often the trout will refuse to rise or strike and will wait on the bottom for food like any plebeian fish, that he is frequently unwary and stupid enough to be lured to his death by casts of the fly that are no better than the most awkward flings, that notwithstanding his fine dress and aristocratic bearing it is not unusual to find him in very low company, that this gentleman among fish is a willing and shameless cannibal, and that his toothsomeness, not extraordinary at best, is probably more dependent than that of most fish upon his surroundings. While our knowledge of these things does not exact from us an independent protest against constantly repeated praise of the qualities of trout and of fly-casting as a means of taking them, it perhaps adds to the spirit and emphasis of our dissent when we are told that fly-casting for trout is the only style of fishing worthy of cultivation, and that no other method ought to be undertaken by a true fisherman. This is one of the deplorable fishing affectations and pretenses which the sensible rank and file of the fraternity ought openly to expose and repudiate. Our irritation is greatly increased when we recall the fact that every one of these super-refined fly-casting dictators, when he fails to allure trout by his most scientific casts, will chase grasshoppers to the point of profuse perspiration, and turn over logs and stones with feverish anxiety in quest of worms and grubs, if haply he can with these save himself from empty-handedness. Neither his fine theories nor his exclusive faith in fly-casting so develops his self-denying heroism that he will turn his back upon fat and lazy trout that will not rise. We hear a great deal about long casts and the wonderful skill they require. To cast a fly well certainly demands dexterity and careful practice. It is a matter of nice manipulation, and a slight variation in execution is often apt to settle the question of success or failure in results. It is, besides, the most showy of all fishing accomplishments, and taken all together it is worth the best efforts and ambition of any fisherman. Inasmuch, however, as the tremendously long casts we hear of are merely exhibition performances and of but little if any practical use in the actual taking of fish, their exploitation may be classed among the rather harmless fishing affectations. There is a very different degree of rankness in the claim sometimes made that an expert caster can effectively send his fly on its distant mission by a motion of his forearm alone, while all above the elbow is strapped to his side. We take no risk in saying that such a thing was never done on a fishing excursion, and that the proposition in all its aspects is the baldest kind of a pretense. As becomes a consistent member of the fraternity of fishermen, I have carefully avoided unfriendly accusation in dealing with a branch of fishing enthusiastically preferred by a considerable contingent of my associates. If, in lamenting the faddishness that has grown up about it, plain language has been used, I have nevertheless been as tolerant as the situation permits. No attempt has been made to gain the applause of pin-hook-and-sapling fishermen, nor to give the least comfort to those who are fishermen only in their own conceit, and whose coarse-handed awkwardness, even with the most approved tackle, leads them to be incurably envious of all those who fish well. It is not pleasant to criticise, even in a mild way, anything that genuine fishermen may do--especially when their faults result from over-zealous attachment to one of the most prominent and attractive features of our craft's pursuit. It is, therefore, a relief to pass from the field of criticism, and in the best of humor, to set against the claim of exclusive merit made in behalf of fly-casting for trout the delights and compensations of black-bass fishing. I am sure I shall be seconded in this by a very large body of fishermen in the best of standing. It is manifestly proper also to select for this competition with trout casting a kind of fishing which presents a contrast in being uninfluenced by any affectations or by a particle of manufactured and fictitious inflation. In speaking of black bass I am not dealing with the large-mouthed variety that are found in both Northern and Southern waters, and which grow in the latter to a very large size, but only with the small-mouthed family inhabiting the streams or lakes and ponds of the North, and which are large when they reach four pounds in weight. I consider these, when found in natural and favorable surroundings, more uncertain, whimsical and wary in biting, and more strong, resolute and resourceful when hooked, than any other fish ordinarily caught in fresh waters. They will in some localities and at certain seasons rise to a fly; but this cannot be relied upon. They can sometimes also be taken by trolling; but this is very often not successful, and is at best a second-class style of fishing. On the whole it is best and most satisfactory to attempt their capture by still fishing with bait. To those with experience this will not suggest angling of a tame and unruffled sort; and if those without experience have such an estimate of it they are most decidedly reckoning without their host. As teachers of patience in fishing, black bass are at the head of the list. They are so whimsical that the angler never knows whether on a certain day they will take small live fish, worms, frogs, crickets, grasshoppers, crawfish or some other outlandish bait; and he soon learns that in the most favorable conditions of wind and weather they will frequently refuse to touch bait of any kind. In their intercourse with fishermen, especially those in the early stages of proficiency, they are the most aggravating and profanity-provoking animal that swims in fresh water. Whether they will bite or not at any particular time we must freely concede is exclusively their own affair; but having decided this question against the fishermen, nothing but inherent and tantalizing meanness can account for the manner in which a black bass will even then rush for the bait, and after actually mouthing it will turn about and insultingly whack it with his tail. An angler who has seen this performance finds, in his desire to make things even with such unmannerly wretches, a motive in addition to all others for a relentless pursuit of the bass family. Another and more encouraging stage in bass fishing is reached when biting seems to be the order of the day. It must not be supposed, however, that thereupon the angler's troubles and perplexities are over, or that nothing stands in the way of an easy and satisfying catch. Experience in this kind of fishing never fails to teach that it is one thing to induce these cunning fellows to take the bait, and quite another to accomplish their capture. It is absolutely necessary in this stage of the proceedings that the deliberation and gingerly touch of the fish be matched by the deliberation and care on the part of the fisherman at the butt of the rod; and the strike on his part must not be too much hastened, lest he fail to lodge his hook in a good holding place. Even if he succeeds in well hooking his fish he cannot confidently expect a certain capture. In point of fact the tension and anxiety of the work in hand begins at that very instant. Ordinarily when a bass is struck with the hook, if he is in surroundings favorable to his activity, he at once enters upon a series of acrobatic performances which, during their continuance, keep the fisherman in a state of acute suspense. While he rushes away from and toward and around and under the boat, and while he is leaping from the water and turning somersaults with ugly shakes of his head, in efforts to dislodge the hook, there is at the other end of the outfit a fisherman, tortured by the fear of infirmity lurking somewhere in his tackle, and wrought to the point of distress by the thought of a light hook hold in the fish's jaw, and its liability to tear out in the struggle. If in the midst of it all a sudden release of pull and a straightening of his rod give the signal that the bass has won the battle, the vanquished angler has, after a short period of bad behavior and language, the questionable satisfaction of attempting to solve a forever unsolvable problem, by studying how his defeat might have been avoided if he had managed differently. No such perplexing question, however, is presented to the bass fisherman who lands his fish. He complacently regards his triumph as the natural and expected result of steadiness and skill, and excludes from his thoughts all shadow of doubt concerning the complete correctness of his procedure in every detail. My expressed design to place fishing for black bass with bait in competition with fly-casting for trout will, I hope, be considered a justification for the details I have given of bass fishing. It commends itself in every feature to the sporting instincts of all genuine anglers; and it is because I do not hope to altogether correct the "Affectations and Pretenses of Fishing" that I have felt constrained to rally those who should love angling for bass--to the end that at least a good-natured division may be established within our fraternity between an ornamental and pretense-breeding method and one which cultivates skill, stimulates the best fishing traits, and remains untouched by any form of affectation. Summer Shooting As a general rule our guns should be put away for a long rest before the summer vacation. There is, however, one game situation which justifies their use, and it is this situation which sometimes appropriately allows a small-gauge gun to be placed beside the rod and reel in making up a vacation outfit. In July or August the summer migration from their breeding places in the far North brings shore-birds and plover--both old and full-grown young--along our Eastern coast, in first-rate condition. My experience in shooting this game has all been within recent years, and almost entirely in the marshes and along the shores of Cape Cod. Like other members of the present generation and later comers in a limited field, I have been obliged to hear with tiresome iteration the old, old story of gray-haired men who tell of the "arms and the man" who in days gone by, on this identical ground, have slain these birds by thousands. The embellishment of these tales by all the incidents that mark the progress of our people in game extermination I have accepted as furnishing an explanation of the meager success of many of my excursions; but at the same time my condemnation of the methods of the inconsiderate slaughterers who preceded me has led to a consoling consciousness of my own superior sporting virtues. While I am willing to confess to considerable resentment against those who in their shooting days were thoughtless enough to forget that I was to come after them, it must by no means be understood that my gunning for shore-birds has been discouraging. I have made some fair bags, and any bag is large enough for me, providing I have lost no opportunities and have shot well. Besides, I have never indulged in any shooting so conducive to the stimulation and strengthening of the incomparable virtue of patience. I have sat in a blind for five hours, by the watch--and awake nearly all the time at that--without seeing or hearing a bird worth shooting. It is, however, neither the killing of birds nor the cultivation of patience that has exacted my absolute submission to the fascination of shore-bird shooting on Cape Cod. It is hard to explain this fascination, but my notion is that it grows out of a conceited attempt to calculate the direction of the wind and other weather conditions over-night, the elaborate preparations for a daylight start, the uncertainties of the pursuit under any conditions, the hope, amounting almost to expectation, that notwithstanding this the wisdom and calculation expended in determining upon the trip will be vindicated, the delightful early morning drive to the grounds, the anticipation of a flight of birds every moment while there, and the final sustaining expectation of their arrival in any event just before night. The singular thing in my case is that if all goes wrong at last, and even if under the influence of fatigue and disappointment I resolve during the drive home in chill and darkness that the trip will not be repeated for many a long day, it is quite certain that within forty-eight hours I shall be again observing the weather and guessing what the direction of the wind will be the next morning, in contemplation of another start. But some will say, how are the incidents of hope and expectation, or of preparation and calculation, which are common to all sporting excursions, made to account for this especial infatuation with shore-bird shooting? I shall answer this question as well as I can by suggesting that the difference is one of degree. In gunning for other game one knows, or thinks he knows, where it is or ought to be. The wind and weather, while not entirely ignored, usually have a subordinate place in preliminary calculation, and the pleasures of hope and expectation are kept within the limits of ability or luck in finding the game. On the other hand, the shore-bird hunter knows not the abiding place of his game. He knows that at times during certain summer months these birds pass southward in their long migration, but he cannot know whether they will keep far out at sea or will on some unknown day be driven by wind and weather to the shore for temporary rest and feeding, and thus give him his opportunity. Though the presence on marsh or shore of a few bird stragglers may put him on his guard, it must still remain a question whether the game in sufficient quantities to make good shooting is hundreds or thousands of miles away or in the neighborhood of the shooting grounds. I believe the unusual contingencies of shore-bird shooting and the wider scope they give for hope and expectation, together with the manifold conditions which give abundant opportunity for self-conceit in calculating probabilities, account for its quality of exceptional fascination. The sportsman who persists is apt occasionally to find a good number of birds about the grounds; and when that happens, if he is adequately equipped with good decoys, and the right spirit, and especially if he is able to call the birds, he will enjoy a variety of fine shooting. The initiated well understand the importance of the call, and they know that the best caller will get the most birds. The notes of shore-birds, though quite dissimilar, are in most cases easily imitated after a little practice, and a simply constructed contrivance which can be purchased at almost any sporting goods store will answer for all the game if properly used. The birds are usually heard before they are seen, and if their notes are answered naturally and not too vehemently or too often, they will soon be seen within shooting range, whether they are Black-Breasted Plover, Chicken Plover, Yellow Legs, Piping Plover, Curlew, Sanderlings or Grass Birds. Of course, no decent hunter allows them to alight before he shoots. I would not advise the summer vacationist who lacks the genuine sporting spirit to pursue the shore-bird. Those who do so should not disgrace themselves by killing the handsome little sand-pipers or peeps too small to eat. It is better to go home with nothing killed than to feel the weight of a mean, unsportsmanlike act. Concerning Rabbit Shooting Some hunters there are, of the super-refined and dudish sort, who deny to the rabbit any position among legitimate game animals; and there are others who, while grudgingly admitting rabbits to the list, seem to think it necessary to excuse their concession by calling them hares. I regard all this as pure affectation and nonsense. I deem it not beneath my dignity and standing as a reputable gunner to write of the rabbit as an entirely suitable member of the game community; and in doing so I am not dealing with hares or any other thing except plain, little everyday plebeian rabbits--sometimes appropriately called "cotton-tails." Though they may be "defamed by every charlatan" among hunters of self-constituted high degree, and despised by thousands who know nothing of their game qualities, I am not ashamed of their pursuit; and I count it by no means bad skill to force them by a successful shot to a topsy-turvy pause when at their best speed. These sly little fellows feed at night, and during the day they hide so closely in grass or among rocks and brush that it is seldom they can be seen when at rest. Of course, no decent man will shoot a rabbit while sitting, and I have known them to refuse to start for anything less than a kick or punch. When they do start, however, they demonstrate quite clearly that they have kept their feet in the best possible position for a spring and run. After such a start the rabbit must in fairness be given an abundant chance to gain full headway, and when he has traversed the necessary distance for this, and is at his fastest gait, the hunter that shoots him has good reason to be satisfied with his marksmanship. I once actually poked one up and he escaped unhurt, though four loads of shot were sent after him. In the main, however, dogs must be relied upon for the real enjoyment and success of rabbit hunting. The fastest dogs are not the best, because they are apt to chase the rabbit so swiftly and closely that he quickly betakes himself to a hole or other safe shelter, instead of relying upon his running ability. The baying of three or four good dogs steadily following a little cotton-tail should be as exhilarating and as pleasant to ears attuned to the music as if the chase were for bigger game. As the music is heard more distinctly, the hunter is allowed to flatter himself that his acute judgment can determine the route of the approaching game and the precise point from which an advantageous shot can be secured. The self-satisfied conceit aroused by a fortunate guess concerning this important detail, especially if supplemented by a fatal shot, should permit the lucky gunner to enjoy as fully the complacent pleasurable persuasion that the entire achievement is due to his sagacity, keenness and skill as though the animal circumvented were a larger beast. In either case the hunter experiences the delight born of a well-fed sense of superiority and self-pride; and this, notwithstanding all attempts to keep it in the background, is the most gratifying factor in every sporting indulgence. Some people speak slightingly of the rabbit's eating qualities. This must be an abject surrender to fad or fashion. At any rate it is exceedingly unjust to the cotton-tail; and one who can relish tender chicken and refuse to eat a nicely cooked rabbit is, I believe, a victim of unfounded prejudices. Why, then, should not rabbit hunting, when honorably pursued, be given a respectable place among gunning activities? It certainly has every element of rational outdoor recreation. It ministers to the most exhilarating and healthful exercise; it furnishes saving relief from care and overwork; it is free from wantonness and inexcusable destruction of animal life, and, if luck favors, it gives play to innocent but gratifying self-conceit. Let us remember, however, that if rabbit hunting is to be a manly outdoor recreation, entirely free from meanness, and a sport in which a true hunter can indulge without shame, the little cotton-tail must in all circumstances be given a fair chance for his life. A Word to Fishermen Those of us who fish in a fair, well-bred and reasonable way, for the purpose of recreation and as a means of increasing the table pleasures of ourselves or our friends, may well regret the apparently unalterable decree which gives to all those who fish, under the spur of any motive--good, bad or indifferent--the name of fishermen. We certainly have nothing in common with those who fish for a livelihood, unless it be a desire to catch fish. We have, in point of fact, no closer relationship than this with the murderously inclined, whose only motive in fishing is to make large catches, and whose sole pleasure in the pursuit is the gratification of a greedy propensity. Nevertheless we, and those with whom we have so little sympathy, are by a sort of unavoidable law of gravitation classed together in the same fraternity, and called fishermen. Occasionally weak attempts have been made to classify the best of this fraternity under the name of Anglers, or some title of that kind, but such efforts have always failed. Even Izaak Walton could not change the current of human thought by calling his immortal book "The Compleat Angler." So it seems however much those who fish may differ in social standing, in disposition and character, in motive and ambition, and even in mode of operation, all must abide, to the end of the chapter, in the contemplation of the outside world, within the brotherhood called "Fishermen." Happily, however, this grouping of incongruous elements under a common name does not prevent those of us who properly appreciate the importance of upholding the respectability of decent fishing from coming to an agreement concerning certain causes of congratulation and certain rules of conduct. We who claim to represent the highest fishing aspirations are sometimes inclined to complain on days when the fish refuse to bite. There can be no worse exhibition than this of an entire misconception of a wise arrangement for our benefit. We should always remember that we have about us on every side thousands of those who claim membership in the fishing fraternity, because, in a way, they love to fish when the fish bite--and only then. These are contented only when capture is constant, and their only conception of the pleasures of fishing rests upon uninterrupted slaughter. If we reflect for a moment upon the consequences of turning an army of fishermen like these loose upon fish that would bite every day and every hour, we shall see how nicely the vicissitudes of fishing have been adjusted, and how precisely and usefully the fatal attack of discouraging bad luck selects its victims. If on days when we catch few or no fish we feel symptoms of disappointment, these should immediately give way to satisfaction when we remember how many spurious and discouraged fishermen are spending their time in hammocks or under trees or on golf fields instead of with fishing outfits, solely on account of just such unfavorable days. We have no assurance that if fish could be easily taken at all times the fishing waters within our reach would not be depopulated--a horrible thing to contemplate. Let it not be said that such considerations as these savor of uncharitableness and selfishness on our part. We are only recognizing the doctrine of the survival of the fittest as applied to fishermen, and claiming that these "fittest" should have the best chance. What has been said naturally leads to the suggestion that consistency requires those of us who are right-minded fishermen to reasonably limit ourselves as to the number of fish we should take on favorable days. On no account should edible fish be caught in such quantities as to be wasted. By restraining ourselves in this matter we discourage in our own natures the growth of greed, we prevent wicked waste, we make it easier for us to bear the fall between decent good luck and bad luck, or no luck, and we make ourselves at all points better men and better fishermen. We ought not to forget these things as we enter upon the pleasures of our summer's fishing. But in any event let us take with us when we go out good tackle, good bait, and plenty of patience. If the wind is in the South or West so much the better, but let's go, wherever the wind may be. If we catch fish we shall add zest to our recreation. If we catch none, we shall still have the outing and the recreation--more healthful and more enjoyable than can be gained in any other way. A Duck-Hunting Trip It is not a pleasant thing for one who prides himself on his strict obedience to game laws to be accused of violating these laws whenever he hunts or fishes--and especially is it exasperating to be thus accused solely for the delectation or profit of some hungry and mendacious newspaper correspondent. It is not true that I was once arrested in Virginia for violation of the game laws, or for shooting without a license; nor was any complaint ever made against me; nor, so far as I know, was such a thing ever contemplated. Sport Versus Slaughter Equally false and mischievous, though not involving a violation of law, was the charge that a party of which I was a member killed five hundred ducks. Our shooting force on that expedition consisted of five gunners of various grades of hunting ability, including one who had not "fired a gun in twenty years," and another who could "do pretty well with a rifle, but didn't know much about a shotgun." We were shooting four days, but on only one of these days was our entire force engaged. There was not one in the party who would not have been ashamed of any complicity in the killing of five hundred ducks, within the time spent and in the circumstances surrounding us; nor is there one of the party who does not believe that, if the extermination of wild ducks is to be prevented, and if our grandchildren are to know anything about duck shooting, except as a matter of historical reading, stringent and intelligent laws for the preservation of this game must be supplemented and aided by an aggressive sentiment firmly held among decent ducking sportsmen, making it disgraceful to kill ducks for the purpose of boasting of a big bag, or for the mere sake of killing. Those who hunt ducks with no better motives than these, and who are restrained, in the absence of law, by nothing except the lack of opportunity to kill, are duck-slaughterers, who merit the contempt of the present generation and the curses of generations yet to come. Our party killed about one hundred and twenty-five ducks. We ate as many as we cared to eat during our stay among the hunting marshes, and we brought enough home to eat on our own tables and to distribute among our friends. It seems to me that gunners who kill as many ducks as will answer all these purposes ought to be satisfied. On the Cooking of Wild Ducks And just here I want to suggest something which ought to greatly curtail the distribution of wild ducks among our friends. In households where no idea prevails of the difference between properly cooking a wild duck and one brought up in a barnyard, a complimentary gift of wild fowl is certainly of questionable advisability; for if these are cooked after the fashion prescribed for the domestic duck they will be so thoroughly discredited in the eating that the recipient of the gift will come near suspecting a practical joke, and the donor will be nearly guilty of waste. In Virginia they have a very good law prohibiting duck shooting on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and of course on Sundays. These are called rest days. We arrived at the very comfortable club-house of the Back Bay Club, in Princess Anne County, about noon one Saturday, with weather very fair and quiet--too much so for good ducking. From the time of our arrival until very early Monday morning, besides eating and sleeping, we had nothing to do but to "get ready." It must not be supposed that those words only mean the settlement in our quarters and the preparation of guns, ammunition and other outfit. Many other things are necessary by way of stimulating interest and filling the minds of waiting gunners with lively anticipation and hope. Thus during the preparatory hours left to us our eyes were strained hundreds of times from every favorable point of observation in search of flying ducks; hundreds of times the question as to the most desirable shooting points was discussed, and thousands of times the wish was expressed that Monday, instead of being a "blue bird day," would present us with a good, stiff breeze from the right direction. The field of prediction was open to all of us, and none avoided it. A telling hit was made by the most self-satisfied weather-prophet of the party, who foretold an east wind at sundown, which promptly made its appearance on schedule time. When we were roused out of bed at 4.30 o'clock that Monday morning we found our east wind still with us in pretty good volume, and although we all knew it was not in the most favorable quarter, and that the weather was too warm for the best shooting, it was with high hopes that we got into our boats and started in midnight darkness for our blinds. Whatever anticipation of good shooting I had indulged met with a severe reverse when I learned that my shooting companion and I were expected to kill ducks with our decoys placed to the windward of us. I warmly protested against this, declaring that I had never done such a thing in my life, and in the strongest language I objected to the arrangement; but all to no purpose. As I expected, the ducks that were inclined to fly within our range, coming up the wind behind us, saw our blinds and us before they saw the decoys, and when we tried to turn and get a shot, a sudden flare or tower put them out of reach. As for fair decoying, they had no notion of such a thing. We killed a few ducks through much tribulation; but the irritation of knowing that many good opportunities had been lost by our improper location more than overbalanced all the satisfaction of our slight success. That my theory on the subject of windward decoys is correct was proved when on Thursday, with a west wind and decoys to the leeward, we killed at the same place more than twice as many ducks as we killed the first day. This was not because more came to us, but because they came in proper fashion. On Having One's "Eye Wiped" It was on this day that I once or twice had my "eye wiped," and I recall it even now with anything but satisfaction. It is a provoking thing to miss a fair shot, but to have your companion after you have had your chance knock down the bird by a long, hard shot makes one feel somewhat distressed. This we call "wiping the eye"; but I have always thought the sensation caused by this operation justified calling it "gouging the eye." We left for home after one more very cold day spent in the blinds, with some good shooting. Every one of the party was enthusiastic in speaking of the pleasure our outing had afforded us, and all were outspoken in the hope that our experience might be repeated in the future. Now, let it be observed that most prominent among the things that had occupied us and were thus delightfully remembered, and among the experiences desired again in the future, were the rigors and discomforts we had undergone in our shooting. So far as the good things and the comforts of the club-house itself entered into the enjoyment of our trip, it would be strange if they did not present great allurement; for nothing in the way of snug shelter and good eating and drinking was lacking. It is not so easy, however, to reason out the duck hunter's eagerness to leave a warm bed, morning after morning, long before light, and go shivering out into the cold and darkness for the sake of reaching his blind before daybreak--not to find there warmth and shelter, but to sit for hours chilled to the bone patiently waiting for the infrequent shot which reminds him that he is indulging in sport or healthful recreation. Suppose that such a regimen as this were prescribed in cold blood as necessary to health. How many would think health worth the cost of such hardships? "The Duck Hunter Is Born--Not Made" Suppose the discomforts willingly endured by duck hunters were required of employees in an industrial establishment. There would be one place where a condition of strike would be constant and chronic. If it be said that the gratification of bringing down ducks pays for all the suffering of their pursuit, the question obtrudes itself, how is this compensation forthcoming in the stress of bad luck or no luck, and how is it that the duck-hunting propensity survives all conditions and all fortunes? I am satisfied that there is but one way to account for the unyielding enthusiasm of those who hunt ducks and for their steady devotion to their favorite recreation: The duck hunter is born--not made. Quail Shooting We hear a great deal in these days about abundant physical exercise as a necessary factor in the maintenance of sound health and vigor. This is so universally and persistently enjoined upon us by those whose studies and efforts are devoted to our bodily welfare that frequently, if we withhold an iota of belief concerning any detail of the proposition, we subject ourselves to the accusation of recklessly discrediting the laws of health. While beyond all doubt a wholesale denial of the importance of physical exertion to a desirable condition of bodily strength would savor of foolish hardihood, we are by no means obliged to concede that mere activity of muscles without accompaniment constitutes the exercise best calculated to do us good. In point of fact we are only boldly honest and sincere when we insist that really beneficial exercise consists as much in the pursuit of some independent object we desire to reach or gain by physical exertion, coupled with a pleasant stimulation of mental interest and recreation, as in any given kind or degree of mere muscular activity. Bodily movement alone, undertaken from a sense of duty or upon medical advice, is among the dreary and unsatisfying things of life. It may cultivate or increase animal strength and endurance, but it is apt at the same time to weaken and distort the disposition and temper. The medicine is not only distasteful, but fails in efficacy unless it is mingled with the agreeable and healing ingredients of mental recreation and desirable objects of endeavor. I am convinced that nothing meets all the requirements of rational, healthful outdoor exercise more completely than quail shooting. It seems to be so compounded of wholesome things that it reaches, with vitalizing effect, every point of mental or physical enervation. Under the prohibitions of the law, or the restraints of sporting decency, or both, it is permitted only at a season of the year when nature freely dispenses, to those who submit to her treatment, the potent tonic of cool and bracing air and the invigorating influences of fields and trees and sky, no longer vexed by summer heat. It invites early rising; and as a general rule a successful search for these uncertain birds involves long miles of travel on foot. Obviously this sport furnishes an abundance of muscular action and physically strengthening surroundings. These, fortunately, are supplemented by the eager alertness essential to the discovery and capture of game well worth the effort, and by the recreative and self-satisfying complacency of more or less skillful shooting. In addition to all this, the quail shooter has on his excursions a companion, who not only promotes his success, but whose manner of contributing to it is a constant source of delight. I am not speaking of human companionship, which frequently mars pleasure by insistent competition or awkward interference, but of the companionship of a faithful, devoted helper, never discouraged or discontented with his allotted service, except when the man behind the gun shoots badly, and always dumbly willing to concede to the shooter the entire credit of a successful hunt. The work in the field of a well-trained dog is of itself an exhibition abundantly worth the fatigue of a quailing expedition. It behooves the hunter, however, to remember that the dog is in the field for business, and that no amount of sentimental admiration of his performances on the part of his master will compensate him, if, after he has found and indicated the location of the game, it escapes through inattention or bad shooting at the critical instant. The careless or bungling shooter who repeatedly misses all manner of fair shots, must not be surprised if, in utter disgust, his dog companion sulkily ceases effort, or even wholly abandons the field, leaving the chagrined and disappointed hunter to return home alone--leg weary, gameless and ashamed. He is thus forced to learn that hunting-dog intelligence is not limited to abject subservience; and he thus gains a new appreciation of the fact that the better his dog, the better the shooter must know "what to do with his gun." I do not assume to be competent to give instruction in quail shooting. I miss too often to undertake such a _rôle_. It may not, however, be entirely unprofitable to mention a fault which I suppose to be somewhat common among those who have not reached the point of satisfactory skill, and which my experience has taught me will stand in the way of success as long as it remains uncorrected. I refer to the instinctive and difficultly controlled impulse to shoot too quickly when the bird rises. The flight seems to be much more speedy than it really is; and the undrilled shooter, if he has any idea in his mind at all, is dominated by the fear that if the formality of aiming his gun is observed the game will be beyond range before he shoots. This leads to a nervous, flustered pointing of the gun in the direction of the bird's flight, and its discharge at such close range that the load of shot hardly separates in the intervening distance. Nine times out of ten the result is, of course, a complete miss; and if the bird should at any time under these conditions be accidentally hit, it would be difficult to find its scattered fragments. An old quail shooter once advised a younger one afflicted with this sort of quick triggeritis: "When the bird gets up, if you chew tobacco spit over your shoulder before you shoot." It is absolutely certain that he who aspires to do good quail shooting must keep cool; and it is just as certain that he must trust the carrying qualities of his gun as well as his own ability and the intelligence of his dog. If he observes these rules, experience and practice will do the rest. I hope I may be allowed to suggest that both those who appreciate the table qualities of the toothsome quail, and those who know the keen enjoyment and health-giving results of their pursuit, should recognize it as quite worth their while, and as a matter of duty, to co-operate in every movement having for its object the protection, preservation and propagation of this game. Our quail have many natural enemies; they are often decimated by the severity of winter, and there are human beings so degraded and so lost to shame as to seek their destruction in ways most foul. A covey of quail will sometimes huddle as close together as possible in a circle, with their heads turned outward. I have heard of men who, discovering them in this situation, have fired upon them, killing every one at a single shot. There ought to be a law which would consign one guilty of this crime to prison for a comfortable term of years. A story is told of a man so stupidly unsportsmanlike that when he was interfered with as he raised his gun, apparently to shoot a quail running on the ground, he exclaimed with irritation: "I did not intend to shoot until it had stopped running." This may be called innocent stupidity; but there is no place for such a man among sportsmen, and he is certainly out of place among quail. It is cause for congratulation that so much has been done for quail protection and preservation through the enactment of laws for that purpose. But neither these nor their perfunctory enforcement will be sufficiently effective. There must be, in addition, an active sentiment aroused in support of more advanced game legislation, and of willing, voluntary service in aid of its enforcement; and in the meantime all belonging to the sporting fraternity should teach that genuine sportsmanship is based upon honor, generosity, obedience to law and a scrupulous willingness to perpetuate, for those who come after them, the recreation they themselves enjoy. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent. 
36821	----	MAXIMS AND HINTS ON ANGLING, CHESS, SHOOTING, AND OTHER MATTERS; ALSO, MISERIES OF FISHING. With Wood-Cuts. BY RICHARD PENN, Esq., F.R.S. _A NEW EDITION, ENLARGED._ LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. MDCCCXLII. LONDON: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street. CONTENTS Maxims and Hints for an Angler 1 Miseries of Fishing 25 Maxims and Hints for a Chess Player 55 Maxims and Hints on Shooting and Other Matters 81 THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS FROM THE Common-Place-Book OF THE HOUGHTON FISHING CLUB ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO HIS BROTHER ANGLERS BY A MEMBER OF THE CLUB. LONDON, _March, 1833._ MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR AN ANGLER. "You see the ways the fisherman doth take "To catch the fish; what engines doth he make? "Behold! how he engageth all his wits, "Also his snares, lines, angles, hooks, and nets: "Yet fish there be, that neither hook nor line, "Nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine; "They must be groped for, and be tickled too, "Or they will not be catch'd, whate'er you do." JOHN BUNYAN MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR AN ANGLER: BY A BUNGLER. [Loosely thrown out, in order to provoke contradiction, and elicit truth from the expert.] I. ARE there any fish in the river to which you are going? II. Having settled the above question in the affirmative, get some person who knows the water to show you whereabout the fish usually lie; and when he shows them to you, do not show yourself to them. III. Comparatively coarse fishing will succeed better when you are not seen by the fish, than the finest when they see you. IV. Do not imagine that, because a fish does not instantly dart off on first seeing you, he is the less aware of your presence; he almost always on such occasions ceases to feed, and pays you the compliment of devoting his whole attention to you, whilst he is preparing for a start whenever the apprehended danger becomes sufficiently imminent. V. By wading when the sun does not shine, you may walk in the river within eighteen or twenty yards below a fish, which would be immediately driven away by your walking on the bank on either side, though at a greater distance from him. VI. When you are fishing with the natural May-fly, it is as well to wait for a passing cloud, as to drive away the fish by putting your fly to him in the glare of the sunshine, when he will not take it. VII. If you pass your fly neatly and well three times over a trout, and he refuses it, do not wait any longer for him: you may be sure that he has seen the line of invitation which you have sent over the water to him, and does not intend to come. VIII. If your line be nearly _taut_, as it ought to be, with little or no gut in the water, a good fish will always hook himself, on your gently raising the top of the rod when he has taken the fly. [Illustration: "Whence he is to be instantly whipt out by an expert assistant, furnished," &c. To face page 6.] IX. If you are above a fish in the stream when you hook him, get below him as soon as you can; and remember that if you pull him, but for an instant, against the stream, he will, if a heavy fish, break his hold; or if he should be firmly hooked, you will probably find that the united strength of the stream and fish is too much for your skill and tackle. X. I do not think that a fish has much power of stopping himself if, immediately on being hooked, he is moved slowly with the current, under the attractive influence of your rod and line. He will soon find that a forced march of this sort is very fatiguing, and he may then be brought, by a well-regulated exercise of gentle violence, to the bank, from whence he is to be instantly whipt out by an expert assistant, furnished with a landing-net, the ring of which ought not to be of a less diameter than eighteen inches, the handle of it being seven feet long. XI. If, after hooking a trout, you allow him to remain stationary but for a moment, he will have time to put his helm hard a-port or a-starboard, and to offer some resistance. Strong tackle now becomes useful. XII. Bear always in mind that no tackle is strong enough, unless well handled. A good fisherman will easily kill a trout of three pounds with a rod and a line which are not strong enough to lift a dead weight of one pound from the floor, and place it on the table. XIII. Remember that, in whipping with the artificial fly, it must have time, when you have drawn it out of the water, to make the whole circuit, and to be at one time straight behind you, before it can be driven out straight before you. If you give it the forward impulse too soon, you will hear a crack. Take this as a hint that your fly is gone to grass. XIV. Never throw with a long line when a short one will answer your purpose. The most difficult fish to hook is one which is rising at three-fourths of the utmost distance to which you can throw. Even when you are at the extent of your distance, you have a better chance; because in this case, when you do reach him, your line will be straight, and, when you do not, the intermediate failures will not alarm him. XV. It appears to me that, in whipping with an artificial fly, there are only two cases in which a fish taking the fly will infallibly hook himself without your assistance, viz. 1. When your fly first touches the water at the end of a straight line. 2. When you are drawing out your fly for a new throw. In all other cases it is necessary that, in order to hook him when he has taken the fly, you should do something with your wrist which it is not easy to describe. XVI. If your line should fall loose and wavy into the water, it will either frighten away the fish, or he will take the fly into his mouth without fastening himself; and when he finds that it does not answer his purpose, he will spit it out again, before it has answered yours. XVII. Although the question of fishing up or down the stream is usually settled by the direction of the wind, you may sometimes have the option; and it is, therefore, as well to say a word or two on both sides. 1. If, when you are fishing down-stream, you take a step or two with each successive throw, your fly is always travelling over new water, which cannot have been disturbed by the passing of your line. 2. When you are fishing up-stream, you may lose the advantage of raising so many fish; but, on the other hand, you will have a better chance of hooking those which rise at your fly, because the darting forward of a fish seizing it has a tendency to tighten your line, and produce the desired effect. 3. If you are in the habit of sometimes catching a fish, there is another great advantage in fishing up-stream, viz. whilst you are playing and leading (necessarily down-stream) the fish which you have hooked, you do not alarm the others which are above you, waiting till their turn comes. XVIII. The learned are much divided in opinion as to the propriety of whipping with two flies or with one. I am humbly of opinion that your chance of hooking fish is much increased by your using two flies; but I think that, by using only one, you increase your chance of landing the fish. XIX. When you are using two flies, you can easily find the bob-fly on the top of the water, and thus be sure that the end-fly is not far off. When you are using only one fly, you cannot so easily see where the fly is; but I think that you can make a better guess as to where the fish is likely to be after you have hooked him. XX. Also, when you are using two flies, you may sometimes catch a fish with one of them, and a weed growing in the river with the other. When such a _liaison_ is once formed, you will find it difficult, with all your attractions, to overcome the strong attachment of the fish to your worthless rival the weed. XXI. If the weed will not give way in the awkward juncture above alluded to, you must proceed to extremities. "Then comes the tug of war;" and your line is quite as likely to break between you and the fish, as between the fish and the weed. XXII. When, during the season of the May-fly, your friends, the gentlemen from London, say that they "have scarcely seen a fish rise all day," do not too hastily conclude that the fish have not been feeding on the fly. [Illustration: "You will find it difficult, with all your attractions, to overcome the strong attachment," &c. To face page 12.] XXIII. The only "rising" which is seen by the unlearned is the splash which is made by a fish when he darts from a considerable depth in the water to catch an occasional fly on the surface. There is, however, another sort of "rising," which is better worth the skilful angler's attention, viz. XXIV. When a fish is seriously feeding on the fly, he stations himself at no greater depth than his own length, and, making his tail the hinge of his motions, he gently raises his mouth to the top of the water, and quietly sucks in the fly attempting to pass over him. A rising of this sort is not easily seen, but it is worth looking for; because, although a fish feeding in this manner will rarely go many inches on either side for a fly, he will as rarely refuse to take one which comes (without any gut in the water) directly to him. XXV. If your fly (gut unfortunately included) should swim over a fish without his taking it, look out well for a darting line of undulation, which betokens his immediate departure; and remember, that it is of no use to continue fishing for him after he is gone. XXVI. The stations chosen by fish for feeding are those which are likely to afford them good sport in catching flies, viz. 1. The mouths of ditches running into the river. 2. The confluence of two branches of a stream, which has been divided by a patch of weeds. 3. That part of a stream which has been narrowed by two such patches. 4. Fish are also to be found under the bank opposite to the wind, where they are waiting for the flies which are blown against that bank, and fall into the river. XXVII. If, during your walks by the river-side, you have marked any good fish, it is fair to presume that other persons have marked them also. Suppose the case of two well-known fish, one of them (which I will call A.) lying above a certain bridge, the other (which I will call B.) lying below the bridge. Suppose further that you have just caught B., and that some curious and cunning friend should say to you in a careless way, "Where did you take that fine fish?" a finished fisherman would advise you to tell your inquiring friend that you had taken your fish just _above_ the bridge, describing, as the scene of action, the spot which, in truth, you know to be still occupied by the other fish, A. Your friend would then fish no more for A., supposing that to be the fish which you have caught; and whilst he innocently resumes his operations below the bridge, where he falsely imagines B. still to be, A. is left quietly for you, if you can catch him. XXVIII. When you see a large fish rising so greedily in the middle of a sharp stream, that you feel almost sure of his instantly taking your May-fly, I would advise you to make an accurate survey of all obstructions in the immediate neighbourhood of your feet--of any ditch which may be close behind you--or of any narrow plank, amidst high rushes, which you may shortly have to walk over in a hurry. If you should hook the fish, a knowledge of these interesting localities will be very useful to you. XXIX. When your water-proof boots are wet through, make a hole or two near the bottom of them, in order that the water, which runs in whilst you are walking in the river, may run freely out again whilst you are walking on the bank. You will thus avoid an accompaniment of pumping-music, which is not agreeable. XXX. Never mind what they of the old school say about "playing him till he is tired." Much valuable time and many a good fish may be lost by this antiquated proceeding. Put him into your basket _as soon as you can_. Everything depends on the manner in which you commence your acquaintance with him. If you can at first prevail upon him to go a little way down the stream with you, you will have no difficulty afterwards in persuading him to let you have the pleasure of seeing him at dinner. XXXI. Do not be afraid of filling your pockets too full when you go out; you are more likely to leave something behind you than to take too much. A man who seldom catches a fish at any other time, usually gets hold of one (and loses him of course) whilst his attendant is gone back for something which had been forgotten. XXXII. If your attendant is a handy fellow at landing a fish, let him do it in his own way: if he is not, try to find a better man, or go home. Although so much depends upon his skill, you will rarely derive much comfort from asking him for his opinion. If you have had bad sport, and say to him, "Which way shall we go now?" he will most probably say, "Where you please, sir." If you ask him what he thinks of the weather, he is very likely to say that last week (_when you were in London_) it was "famous weather for fishing;" or he will perhaps say, that he expects that next week (_when you are to be at home again_) it will be very good. I never knew one of these men who was satisfied with the present hour. XXXIII. Do not leave off fishing early in the evening because your friends are tired. After a bright day, the largest fish are to be caught by whipping between sunset and dark. Even, however, in these precious moments, you will not have good sport if you continue throwing after you have whipped your fly off. Pay attention to this; and if you have any doubt after dusk, you may easily ascertain the point, by drawing the end of the line quickly through your hand,--particularly if you do not wear gloves. XXXIV. No attempt is here made to give directions as to the best seasons for cutting the woods which are fittest for the making of rods, or as to the mode of preparing them; because the worst rod which is kept for sale at the present day is probably as good as the best of the first few dozen which any amateur is likely to make for himself. XXXV. Lastly--When you have got hold of a good fish, which is not very tractable, if you are married, gentle reader, think of your wife, who, like the fish, is united to you by very tender ties, which can only end with her death, or her going into weeds. If you are single, the loss of the fish, when you thought the prize your own, may remind you of some more serious disappointment. R. P. _Rod Cottage, River Side, 31st May, 1829._ [Illustration] POSTSCRIPT. I FORGOT to say, that, if a friend should invite you to his house, saying that he will give you "an excellent day's fishing," you ought not to doubt his kind intention, but you certainly ought not to feel very sure that you will have good sport. Provide yourself for such a visit with everything which you may want, as if you were going into an uninhabited country. Above all things, take a landing-net with you. Your friend's (if he has one) is probably torn and without a handle, being a sort of reticulated shovel for taking fish out of the well of a punt. Take warning from the following story:-- Mr. Jackson and Mr. Thompson went last week to the house of Mr. Jenkins, for a few days' fishing. They were received with the utmost kindness and hospitality by Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins, and on the following morning after breakfast, the gardener (who was on that day called the fisherman) was desired to attend them to the river. Thompson, who had a landing-net of his own, begged to have a boy to carry it. Jack was immediately sent for, and he appeared in _top_ boots, with a livery hat and waistcoat. Arrived at the water-side, Thompson gave his gnat-basket to the boy, and told him to go on the other side of the river, and look on the grass for a few May-flies. Jack said that he did not exactly know what May-flies were, and that the river could not be crossed without going over a bridge a mile off. Thompson is a patient man, so he began to fish with his landing-net for a few May-flies, and after he had necessarily frightened away many fish, he succeeded in catching six or seven May-flies. [Illustration: The boy exclaiming, "Damn 'un, I miss'd 'un," instantly threw a second brick-bat. To face page 23.] Working one of them with the blowing-line much to his own satisfaction, and thinking to extract a compliment from his attendant, he said, "They do not often fish here in this way--do they?" "No," said the boy, "they drags wi' a net; they did zo the day afore yesterday." Our angler, after much patient fishing, hooked a fine trout; and having brought him carefully to the bank, he said, "Now, my lad, don't be in a hurry, but get him out as soon as you can." Jack ran to the water's edge, threw down the net, and seizing the line with both hands, of course broke it immediately. Nothing daunted, Thompson now mended his tackle and went on fishing; and when he thought, "good easy man," that the very moment for hooking another trout was arrived, there was a great splash just above his fly;--and the boy exclaiming, "Damn un, I miss'd un," instantly threw a second brick-bat at a rat which was crossing the river. Mine host, in order to accommodate his friends, dined early; and when they went after dinner to enjoy the evening fishing, they found that the miller had turned off the water, and that the river was nearly dry,--so they went back to tea. R. P. [Illustration: _F. R. Lee, Esq., R.A._] MISERIES OF FISHING. "_Quæque ipse miserrima vidi._" MISERIES OF FISHING. I. MAKING a great improvement in a receipt which a friend had given you for staining gut--and finding that you have produced exactly the colour which you wanted, but that the dye has made all your bottoms quite rotten. II. Suddenly putting up your hand to save your hat in a high wind, and grasping a number of artificial flies, which you had pinned round it, without any intention of taking hold of more than one at a time. III. Leading a large fish down-stream and arriving at a ditch, the width of which is evident, although the depth of it may be a matter of some doubt. Having thus to decide very quickly whether you will lose the fish and half your tackle, or run the risk of going up to your neck in mud. Perhaps both. IV. Feeling rather unsteady whilst you are walking on a windy day over an old foot-bridge, and having occasion to regret the decayed state of the hand-rail, which once protected the passing fisherman. V. Fishing for the first time with flies of your own making--and finding that they are quite as good as any which you can buy, except that the hooks are not so firmly tied to the gut. VI. Taking out with you as your aide-de-camp an unsophisticated lad from the neighbouring village, who laughs at you when you miss hooking a fish rising at a fly, and says with a grin. "You can't vasten 'em as my vather does." [Illustration: "And having occasion to regret the decayed state of the hand-rail," &c. To face page 28.] VII. Making the very throw which you feel sure will at last enable you to reach a fish that is rising at some distance--and seeing the upper half of your rod go into the middle of the river. When you have towed it ashore, finding that it has broken off close to the ferule, which is immoveably fixed in the lower half of your rod. VIII. Feeling the first cold drop giving notice to your great toe that in less than two minutes your boot will be full of water. IX. Going out on a morning so fine that no man would think of taking his water-proof cloak with him--and then, before catching any fish, being thoroughly wet through by an unexpected shower. X. When you cannot catch any fish--being told by your attendant of the excellent sport which your predecessor had on the same spot, only a few days before. XI. Having brought with you from town a large assortment of expensive artificial flies--and being told on showing them to an experienced native, that "They are certainly very beautiful, but that none of them are of any use here." XII. After trying in vain to reach a trout which is rising on the opposite side of the river--at last walking on; and before you have gone 100 yards, looking back, and seeing a more skilful friend catch him at the first throw.--Weight 3 lbs. 2 oz. [Illustration: "Looking back, and seeing a more skilful friend catch him at the first throw." To face page 30.] XIII. Having stupidly trodden on the top of your rod--and then finding that the spare top, which you have brought out with you in the butt, belongs to the rod which you have left at home, and will not fit that which you are using. XIV. Having steered safely through some very dangerous weeds a fish which you consider to weigh at least 3 lbs., and having brought him safely to the very edge of the bank,--then seeing him, when he is all but in the landing-net, make a plunge, which in a moment renders all your previous skill of no avail, and puts it out of your power to verify the accuracy of your calculations as to his weight. XV. Fishing with the blowing-line when the wind is so light that your fly is seldom more than two yards from you, or when the wind is so strong that it always carries your fly up into the air, before it comes to the spot which you wish it to swim over. XVI. Wishing to show off before a young friend whom you have been learnedly instructing in the mysteries of the art, and finding that you cannot catch any fish yourself, whilst he (an inexperienced hand) hooks and lands (by mere accident of course) a very large one. XVII. Attempting to walk across the river in a new place without knowing exactly whereabouts certain holes, which you have heard of, are. Probing the bottom in front of you with the handle of your landing-net,--and finding it very soft. [Illustration: "Probing the bottom in front of you with the handle of your landing-net." To face page 32.] XVIII. Going some distance for three days' fishing, on the two first of which there is bright sunshine and no wind, and then finding that the third, which opens with "a southerly wind and a cloudy sky," is the day which a neighbouring farmer has fixed upon for washing two hundred sheep on the shallow where you expected to have the best sport. XIX. Being allowed to have one day's fishing in a stream, the windings of which are so many, that it would require half a dozen different winds to enable you to fish the greater part of it, from the only side to which your leave extends. XX. Finding, on taking your book out of your pocket, that the fly at the end of your line is not the only one by many dozen which you have had in the water, whilst you have been wading rather too deep. XXI. Wading half an inch deeper than the tops of your boots, and finding afterwards that you must carry about with you four or five quarts in each, or must sit down on the wet grass whilst your attendant pulls them off, in order that you may empty them, and try to pull them on again. XXII. Jumping out of bed very early every morning, during the season of the May-fly, to look at a weathercock opposite to your window, and always finding the wind either in the north or east. [Illustration: "You must sit down on the wet grass whilst your attendant pulls them off, in order," &c. To face page 34.] XXIII. Having just hooked a heavy fish, when you are using the blowing-line, and seeing the silk break about two feet above your hand; then watching the broken end as it travels quickly through each successive ring, till it finally leaves the top of your rod, and follows the fish to the bottom of the river. XXIV. Receiving a very elegant new rod from London, and being told by one of the most skilful of your brother anglers, that it is so stiff,--and by another, that it is so pliant, that it is not possible for any man to throw a fly properly with it. XXV. Being obliged to listen to a long story about the difficulties which one of your friends had to encounter in landing a very fine trout which has just been placed on the table for dinner, when you have no story of the same sort to tell in return. XXVI. Hooking a large trout, and then turning the handle of your reel the wrong way; thus producing an effect diametrically opposite to that of shortening your line, and making the fish more unmanageable than before. XXVII. Arriving just before sunset at a shallow, where the fish are rising beautifully, and finding that they are all about to be immediately driven away by five-and-twenty cows, which are preparing to walk very leisurely across the river in open files. XXVIII. Coming to an ugly ditch in your way across a water-meadow late in the day, when you are too tired to jump, and being obliged to walk half a mile in search of a place where you think you can step over it. [Illustration: "Finding that they are all about to be immediately driven away by five-and-twenty cows." To face page 36.] XXIX. Flattering yourself that you had brought home the largest fish of the day, and then finding that two of your party have each of them caught a trout more than half a pound heavier than yours. XXX. Finding yourself reduced to the necessity of talking about the beautiful form and colour of some trout, which you have caught, being well aware that in the important particular of _weight_, they are much inferior to several of those taken on the same day by one of your companions. XXXI. Telling a long story after dinner, tending to show (with full particulars of time and place) how that, under very difficult circumstances, and notwithstanding very great skill on your part, your tackle had been that morning broken and carried away by a very large fish; and then having the identical fly, lost by you on that occasion, returned to you by one of your party, who found it in the mouth of a trout, caught by him, about an hour after your disaster, on the very spot so accurately described by you--the said very large fish being, after all, a very small one. XXXII. Arriving at a friend's house in the country, one very cold evening in March, and being told by his keeper that there are a great many large pike in the water, and that you are sure of having good sport on the following day; and then looking out of your bed-room window the next morning, and seeing two unhappy swans dancing an awkward sort of minuet on the ice, the surface of the lake having been completely frozen during the night. R. P. LONDON, _March, 1833._ [Illustration] [Illustration: _F. R. Lee, Esq., R.A._] MORE MISERIES. (Continuation of Story from page 24.) ON a subsequent occasion our honest anglers repeated their visit to Mr. Jenkins, who, with the view of making himself more agreeable to his guests, had, in the meantime, agreed to pay an annual rent to the miller, for the exclusive right of fishing in some water belonging to the mill, which was said to contain the largest fish in the river. Now, this miller had a son, who, whilst he followed his father's daily occupation of preparing matter for the _loaves_, sometimes thought of the _fishes_ too; and he was better known in the neighbourhood for his great skill in fishing, than for any unusual acquaintance with the mysteries of grinding. He had frequently used much argument and entreaty to dissuade his father from letting the fishery; but the prudent old miller thought that £15 per annum, to be paid by Mr. Jenkins, would be more profitable to him, than any pleasure which his son might derive from catching many fine brace of trout during the season. [Illustration: "He now sallied forth, not 'equal to both,' but 'armed for either field.'" To face page 43.] Such was the state of affairs in this part of the world, when Mr. Jackson and Mr. Thompson arrived early one morning, by special invitation, to make a first trial of their skill in the new water. The usual conversation about the state of the weather was quickly despatched at breakfast. The wind was, for once, pronounced to be in the right quarter. It was unanimously agreed that there could not well be a more favourable day for fishing, and that, therefore, the gentlemen ought to lose no time in going down to the river. Our old friend, Thompson, who, as we have already seen, was not always very successful with a fly, had lately, in order that he might have two strings to his bow[A], been learning another branch of the gentle art, called "Spinning a minnow;" and he now sallied forth, not "equal to both," but "armed for either field," and walked with a confident step to a celebrated spot below the mill. This new acquirement had been kept a profound secret from Jackson, who went out, as usual, fly-fishing, and proceeded to a part of the stream above the mill. It was not to be expected that the young miller would work cheerfully at the mill that morning. He felt that, although he had been cruelly deprived of the fishery by his father, he surely had a right to _look_ at the gentlemen if he pleased; he therefore put on his dusty hat and walked, in a surly mood, to the river side,--taking with him, as the companion of his sorrows, a ragged little boy, who had often witnessed his exploits with envy and admiration, and occasionally imitated his great example in a very humble manner by fishing for gudgeons in the canal. The youth and the boy found Thompson so busily engaged in arranging his new spinning-tackle, that he did not perceive that they had established themselves within a few yards of him. There he stood upon the bank, deeply impressed with the value of some excellent instructions which he had lately received for his guidance, and fully sensible of the vast superiority over Jackson which he now possessed. Having at last settled every preliminary to his entire satisfaction, he was just about to cast in his minnow for the first time, when the miller attracted Thompson's notice by that peculiar sort of short cough which is a relief to suppressed insolence, and acts as a safety-valve to prevent explosion. Poor Thompson! He did not feel quite qualified for a performance of the kind before a critic so well able to judge, and so little disposed to admire; but he considered that it would be _infra dig._ to appear disconcerted by the young miller's presence,--so he assumed a look of defiance, and manfully commenced operations. After one or two bad throws, and sundry awkward attempts at improvement, a fine trout (_mirabile dictu!_) darted from under the bank and seized his minnow. "Who cares for the miller now?" thought Thompson; but, alas! the happy thought passed through his mind-- "Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say--It lightens." He unfortunately (vide Maxim IX.) held the fish a little too hard against the stream, and pulled him so very triumphantly, that the thrilling sensation of tugging pressure on the rod suddenly ceased, and the hookless end of the broken line flew into the air!! At this awful crisis the young miller's cough became very troublesome, and the boy coolly called out to him-- "_I say, Jack!--I'll lay a penny that wouldn't ha' happened if you had had hold on 'im!!!_" * * * * * Long before Thompson had recovered from the effects of this sad disaster, Jenkins came up to him to announce that luncheon was ready. Overwhelming our poor sufferer with a torrent of well-meant condolence, he said-- "Well, Thompson! "What! no sport? "That _is_ unlucky! "I am very anxious that _you_ should catch a good fish. _Jackson_ has just caught a brace of very fine ones! "This is exactly the spot where I expected that you would have the best sport! [Illustration: "I'll lay a penny that wouldn't ha' happened if _you_ had hold on 'im!!" To face page 46.] "The miller tells me that the largest fish lie there[B], near that broken post under the opposite bank. Pray cast your minnow close to that, and you will be sure to run a fish almost immediately." Jenkins little knew what he was asking. The aforesaid post was at a formidable distance,--it could only be reached by a most skilful hand. Thompson felt by no means disposed to attempt it, because, although Jenkins appeared to think that it would be an easy task for so finished an angler as Thompson, he himself had no doubt that the odious miller, who was still looking on, was of a very different opinion. He therefore thought that it would be wise to leave the question undetermined, and not to give a _casting_ vote on the occasion. And now Thompson, turning his back on the river, walked home arm-in-arm with his friend Mr. Jenkins, grieving much about the fish which he had lost, and perhaps a little about those which Jackson had caught. The brace of very fine trout, said to have been caught by Mr. Jackson, were exhibited by him in due form to Mr. Thompson and the ladies, just before luncheon. Whilst he was pointing out the beautiful condition of the fish, without at all underrating their weight, Miss Smith, who was staying on a visit with her sister, Mrs. Jenkins, pleasantly remarked that Mr. Jackson was very _lucky_ to have caught two such fine fish whilst Mr. Thompson had not caught any. This led to an interesting conversation about the caprice of the fickle goddess, so often alluded to in the lamentations of an unsuccessful angler. Thompson took no part in the discussion, and he did not refer them to the miller or the little boy for any other explanation[C] of the cause of his failure; but he begged that they would allow him to eat his luncheon, without waiting for the rest of the party, as he was anxious to return as soon as possible to the river, where he expected to have great sport in the evening. [Illustration: _Geo. Jones, Esq. R.A._ "He begged that they would allow him to eat his luncheon without waiting for the rest of the party." To face page 49.] After luncheon, our unfortunate hero did not catch any fish, and he found that he could not throw his minnow within several yards of the far-famed post, even when he was not annoyed by spectators. He contrived, however, to get fast hold of another, at a much less distance from him; in consequence of which, he was obliged to abandon a second set of his best minnow tackle (price 2_s._ 6_d._) to its fate in the middle of the river. [Illustration: "His ears were assailed by a loud repetition of the cruel cough." To face page 51.] At the end of _his day's sport_, Thompson omitted to use the wise precaution of taking his rod to pieces[D], before leaving the river side. On his way homewards, in the evening, he met the little boy, who slily asked him if he had had good sport _since_. This brought to his recollection the fact of his having to pass through the mill, in order to cross the river; and the prospect of his being asked a similar question by the miller was not agreeable. When he arrived at the mill, all was quiet; and he, therefore, flattered himself that the miller was comfortably enjoying his pipe at the ale-house.--Thompson was now so elated at the idea of passing through unobserved, that he quite forgot the exalted state of his rod, until he was reminded of it by a sudden jerk which broke off the top, leaving his third and last set of tackle, with a brilliant artificial minnow, sticking fast in a projecting rafter[E] above his reach. Hastily shoving the broken joint (Thompson never swears) into the butt of his rod, he hoped that he should be able to conceal all knowledge of this last misfortune. He, however, felt very unwilling that the shining little minnow should remain in its present position, as a glaring proof of his awkwardness; and it immediately occurred to him, that a small ladder, which was close at hand, was a thing exactly suited to the occasion; but at the very moment when he became convinced, by actual experiment, that it was too short for his purpose, his ears were assailed by a loud repetition of the cruel cough, and his eyes were met by a killing glance from those of the miller's son. On the following day, Thompson returned, much out of spirits, to London. On that day, too, the young miller resumed his duties at the mill, less out of humour than before. Very shortly after this the old miller died, and the son then took the fishery into his own hands; and, however closely he may now resemble his late grandfather (who formerly lived on the River Dee), in caring for nobody, he never, whilst Thompson lives, will be able to say "Nobody cares for me." * * * * * "So ends my Tale:" for I fear that the reader must think that, like Thompson, he has now had quite enough of "THE MISERIES OF FISHING." I feel, however, assured that he will forgive me for relating this story, because, although his attention may be fatigued by the perusal of it, his eye will be gratified by the beauty of several new illustrations, which I owe to the kindness of my friends, the distinguished artists, whose names are printed under their welcome contributions to my little book. R. P. _Whitehall, March, 1839._ [Illustration: _Sir Francis Chantrey, R.A._] FOOTNOTES: [A] It was a long one, when he talked about fishing. [B] There the fish did not _lie_, but the miller did. He well knew that, since the letting of the fishery, his son had taken good care that the best of them should be gradually removed to Billingsgate by a more summary process than that of rod and line. [C] Neither did Mr. Jackson think it necessary to explain to the ladies, or even to his friend Thompson, that the very fine fish, about which he had received so many compliments, had been taken by fixing his landing-net at the mouth of one of the narrow water-courses, up which they had worked their way in search of minnows;--a secret method of ensuring good sport, well known to some few very cunning anglers, whose motto is "Unde habeas quærit Nemo, sed oportet habere."--JUV. [D] I understand that Thompson has written a long letter, complaining of my not having given any maxim or hint on this important point. I beg leave here to apologise for the omission; and I have no hesitation in advising him, if he should ever put his rod together again, not to omit taking it to pieces as soon as he has done fishing. [E] Piscium et summâ genus hæsit ulmo.--HOR. MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR A CHESS PLAYER. "_Lorsque je veux, sans y faire semblant, me livrer aux méditations d'une douce philosophie, je vais à la pêche. Ma longue expérience me tient en garde contre les inconveniens d'une mauvaise pratique; et je jouis de mon succès, qu'aucun jaloux ne vient troubler. Ma pêche finie, eh bien! je rentre dans le mouvement de la vie, je fais ma partie d'échecs; je triomphe, mon sang circule; je suis battu, mais je me releve._"--TACTIQUE DES RECREATIONS. MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR A CHESS PLAYER. [Illustration] I. WIN as often as you can, but never make any display of insulting joy on the occasion. When you cannot win--lose (though you may not like it) with good temper. II. If your adversary, after you have won a game, wishes to prove that you have done so in consequence of some fault of his rather than by your own good play, you need not enter into much argument on the subject, whilst he is explaining to the by-standers the mode by which he might have won the game, _but did not_. III. Nor need you make yourself uneasy if your adversary should console himself by pointing out a mode by which you might have won the game in a shorter and more masterly manner. Listen patiently to his explanation--it cannot prove that your way was not good enough. _Tous les chemins sont bons qui ménent à la victoire._ IV. When you are playing with an opponent whom you feel sure that you can master, do not insult him by saying that you consider him a stronger player than yourself,--but that perhaps particular circumstances may prevent him from playing with his usual force to-day, &c. &c. Men usually play as well as they can: they are glad when they win, and sorry when they lose. V. Sometimes--when, alas! you have lost the game--an unmerciful conqueror will insist on "murdering Pizarro all over again," and glories in explaining how that your game was irretrievable after you had given a certain injudicious check with the queen,[F] (the consequence of which _he says_ that he immediately foresaw,) and that then, by a succession of very good moves on his part, he won easily. You must bear all this as well as you can, although it is certainly not fair to "preach'ee and flog'ee too." VI. A good player seldom complains that another is slow. He is glad to have the opportunity thus afforded to him of attentively considering the state of the game. Do not, therefore, be impatient when it is your adversary's turn to move. Take as much time as you require (_and no more_) when it is your own turn. VII. If, whilst you are playing, your adversary will talk about the state of the game, it is very provoking, but you cannot help it, and the pieces will give you ample revenge, if you can avail yourself of their power. VIII. If the by-standers talk, it is still more annoying: they always claim the merit of having foreseen every good move which is made, and they sometimes express great surprise at your not making a particular move; which, if you had made it, would probably have led to your speedily losing the game--before which time they would have walked away to another table. IX. Almost every moderate player thinks himself fully qualified to criticise the move by which a game has been lost.--Although, if he had himself been in the loser's place, he would, very probably, have been check-mated twenty moves sooner than the opportunity occurred for committing the particular mistake, which he thinks he should have avoided. X. Amongst good players, it is considered to be as much an indispensable condition of the game, that a piece once touched must be moved, as that the queen is not allowed to have the knight's, or a rook the bishop's move. XI. Some persons, when they are playing with a stranger who entreats to be allowed to take back a move, let him do so the first time: then, almost immediately afterwards, they put their own queen _en prise_; and when the mistake is politely pointed out to them, they say that _they_ never take back a move, but that they are ready to begin another game. XII. Do not be alarmed about the state of your adversary's health, when, after losing two or three games, he complains of having a bad head-ache, or of feeling very unwell. If he should win the next game, you will probably hear no more of this. XIII. Never (if you can avoid it) lose a game to a person who rarely wins when he plays with you. If you do so, you may afterwards find that this one game has been talked of to all his friends, although he may have forgotten to mention ninety-nine others which had a different result. Chess players have a very retentive memory with regard to the games which they win. XIV. If, therefore, any one should tell you that on a certain day last week he won a game from one of your friends, it may be as well to ask how many other games were played on the same day. XV. There is no better way of deciding on the comparative skill of two players than by the result of a number of games. Be satisfied with that result, and do not attempt to reason upon it. XVI. Remember the Italian proverb, "Never make a good move without first looking out for a better." Even if your adversary should leave his queen _en prise_, do not snap hastily at it. The queen is a good thing to win, but the game is a better. XVII. Between even, and tolerably good, players a mere trifle frequently decides the event of a game; but when you have gained a small advantage, you must be satisfied with it for the time. Do not, by attempting too much, lose that which you have gained. Your object should be to win the game, and the dullest way of winning is better for you than the most brilliant of losing. XVIII. If your knowledge of "the books" enables you to see that a person, with whom you are playing for the first time, opens his game badly, do not suppose, as a matter of course, that you are going to check-mate him in ten or twelve moves. Many moves called _very bad_ are only such if well opposed; and you can derive but little advantage from them unless you are well acquainted with the system of crowding your adversary,--one of the most difficult parts of the game. XIX. Some players have by study acquired mechanically the art of opening their game in a style much above their real force; but when they have exhausted their store of _book-knowledge_, they soon fall all to pieces, and become an easy prey to those who have genuine talent for the game. Others do not know how to open their game on scientific principles, and yet, if they can stagger through the beginning without decided loss, fight most nobly when there are but few pieces and pawns left on the board. All these varieties of play must be carefully studied by those who wish to win. It is only talent for the game, combined with much study and great practice, which can make a truly good player. XX. Although no degree of instruction derived from "books" will make a good player, without much practice with all sorts of opponents, yet, on the other hand, when you hear a person, who has had great practice, boast of never having looked into a chess-book, you may be sure either that he is a bad player, or that he is not nearly so good a player as he might become by attentively studying the laborious works which have been published on almost every conceivable opening, by such players as Ercole del Rio, Ponziani, Philidor, Sarratt, and Lewis. XXI. Between fine players, small odds (viz. pawn, with one, or with two moves) are of great consequence. Between inferior players they are of none. The value of these odds consists chiefly in position; and in every long game between weak players, such an advantage is gained and lost several times, without either party being aware of it. XXII. Almost all good players (_and some others_) have a much higher opinion of their own strength than it really deserves. One person feels sure that he is a better player than some particular opponent, although he cannot but confess that, for some unaccountable reason, or other, he does not always win a majority of games from him. Another attributes his failure solely to want of attention to details which he considers hardly to involve any real genius for the game; and he is obliged to content himself with boasting of having certainly, at one time, had much the best of a game, which he afterwards lost, _only by a mistake_. A third thinks that he must be a good player, because he has discovered almost all the many difficult check-mates which have been published as problems. He may be able to do this, and yet be unable to play a whole game well, it being much more easy to find out, at your leisure, the way to do that which you are told beforehand is practicable, than to decide, in actual play, whether, or not, it is prudent to make the attempt. XXIII. A theoretical amateur, with much real genius for the game, is often beaten by a fourth-rate player at a chess club, who has become from constant practice thoroughly acquainted with all the technicalities of it, and quietly builds up a wall for the other to run his head against. The loser in this case may _perhaps_ eventually become the better player of the two; but he is not so at present. XXIV. A person sometimes tells you that he played the other day, for the first time, with Mr. Such-a-one, (a very celebrated player,) who won the game, with great difficulty, after a very hard fight. Your friend probably deceives himself greatly in supposing this to be the case. A player who has a reputation to lose, always plays very cautiously against a person whose strength he does not yet know: he runs no risks, and does not attempt to do more than win the game, which is all that he undertook to do. XXV. When you receive the odds of a piece from a better player than yourself, remember he sees everything which you see, and probably much more. Be very careful how you attack him. You must act in the early part of the game entirely on the defensive, or probably you will not live long enough to enjoy the advantage which has been given you. Even though you may still have the advantage of a piece more, when the game is far advanced, you must not feel too sure of victory. Take all his pawns quietly, _if you can_, and see your way clearly before you attempt to check-mate him. You will thus perhaps be longer about it, but winning is very agreeable work. XXVI. Many persons advise you, when you receive the odds of a rook, _always_ to make exchanges as often as you can, in order to maintain the numerical superiority with which you began. This is very cunning; but you will probably find that "_Master is Yorkshire too_," and that he will not allow you to make exchanges early in the game, except under circumstances which lead you into a ruinous inferiority of position. XXVII. You will never improve by playing only with players of your own strength. In order to play well, you must toil through the humiliating task of being frequently beaten by those who can give you odds. These odds, when you have fairly mastered them, may be gradually diminished as your strength increases. Do not, however, deceive yourself by imagining, that if you cannot win from one of the _great players_ when he gives you the odds of a rook, you would stand a better chance with the odds of a knight. This is a very common error. It is true that, when a knight is given, the attack made upon you is not so sudden and so violent, as it usually is when you receive a rook--but your ultimate defeat is much more certain. If, in the one case, you are quickly killed, in the other you will die in lingering torments. XXVIII. When you hear of a man from the country, who has beaten every body whom he has ever played with, do not suppose, as a matter of course, that he is a truly good player. He may be only a "Triton of the Minnows." All his fame depends upon the skill of the parties with whom he has hitherto contended; and provincial Philidors seldom prove to be very good players, when their strength is fairly measured at the London Chess Club, particularly such of them as come there with the reputation of having never been beaten. XXIX. An elderly gentleman, lately returned from India, is apt to suppose that his skill has been much impaired by the change of climate, or some other cause, when he finds, to his great surprise, that his style of play does not produce such an alarming effect in the Chess Clubs of London or Paris, as it used to do at Rumbarabad. XXX. When you can decidedly win, at the odds of a rook given by a first-rate player, you will rank among the chosen few. It would be very difficult to name twenty-five persons in London to whom Mr. Lewis could not fairly give these odds, although there are many hundreds who would be much offended at its being supposed to be possible that any one could give them a knight. XXXI. A first-rate player, who is to give large odds to a stranger, derives great advantage from seeing him first play a game, or two, with other persons. His style of play is thus shown, and the class of risks which may be ventured on is nicely calculated. That which, before, might have been difficult, thus becomes comparatively easy. XXXII. There is as much difference between playing a game well, by correspondence, and playing one well over the board, as there is between writing a good essay, and making a good speech. XXXIII. No advantages of person and voice will enable a man to become a good orator if he does not understand the grammatical construction of the language in which he speaks: nor will the highest degree of ingenuity make any man a good chess player, unless his preparations for the exercise of that ingenuity are made upon the soundest principles of the game. XXXIV. Every game perfectly played throughout on both sides would be by its nature drawn. Since, then, in matches between the most celebrated players and clubs of the day some of the games have been won and lost, it seems to follow that there _might_ be better players than have been hitherto known to exist. XXXV. Most of the persons who occasionally "play at Chess" know little more than the moves and a few of the general rules of the game. Of those who have had more practice, some have acquired a partial insight into the endless variety of the combinations which may be formed, and their beautiful intricacy:--a few play moderately well; but, however small the number of good players may be, it would be difficult to find any one who, after having played a few hundred games, would not think it an imputation on his good sense to be considered a very bad player;--and this is the universal feeling, although it is well known that men of the highest attainments have studied Chess without great success; and that the most celebrated players have not always been men of distinguished talents. XXXVI. He who after much practice with fine players remains for a long time without taking his station amongst them, will find at last that there is a point which he cannot pass. He is obliged to confess his incurable inferiority to players of the higher order, and he must be content with easy victories over a large majority of those whom he meets with in society. [Illustration] CONCLUSION. Chess holds forth to the philosopher relaxation from his severer studies,--to the disappointed man, relief from unavailing regret,--and to the rich and idle, an inexhaustible source of amusement and occupation. It has, however, been frequently urged as an objection to the study of the game, that no man can pursue it, with a fair prospect of becoming a good player, without devoting to it much time and attention which might be more beneficially employed. Although it may perhaps be true in the abstract, that even a high degree of skill is not _per se_ worth the time and trouble which it must have cost, it should be remembered that on this "mimic stage" of life much besides chess may be seen and studied with advantage. The real character of a man's mind may, almost always, be known by his behaviour under the varying circumstances of this most interesting game. The triumph of the winner, and the vexation of the loser, are often coarsely displayed amongst inferior players; and, although good players very rarely give way to this degrading weakness, still, the good breeding of some of them, towards the end of a difficult match, is not always quite perfect. The temper of the student cannot fail to derive very material benefit from the severe discipline to which it will be subjected. When he begins to play well he will find that he has learnt to submit patiently to contradiction; and that he has become convinced of the necessity of abandoning his most favourite schemes, whenever he sees that from a change of circumstances they can be no longer pursued with safety.--He will have felt the full value of using caution and circumspection, when called upon to exercise his judgment in cases of complicated difficulty, and he will have acquired the faculty of fixing his undivided attention on the business in which he is engaged. If such qualities of the mind are called forth and strengthened in the pursuit of a harmless and delightful recreation, the time cannot have been wholly wasted, although the professed object of study may have been only the art of giving CHECK-MATE. R. P. _Whitehall, March, 1839._ [Illustration] FOOTNOTE: [F] _Infandum Regina jubes renovare dolorem._ MAXIMS AND HINTS ON SHOOTING AND OTHER MATTERS. [Illustration: Drawn by the late Sir FRANCIS CHANTREY, R.A.] MAXIMS AND HINTS ON SHOOTING, _&c. &c._ I. LET the person to whose care a young dog is intrusted for education be furnished with an instrument like a short trumpet, which produces a few harsh and discordant notes; and whenever it may be necessary to correct the dog, in order to enforce obedience, let such correction be accompanied by the noise of this instrument rather than by "the thundering voice and threatening mien" usually employed on such occasions. When the dog's education has been properly completed under this system, although you may be comparatively a stranger to him on first taking him into the field, you will find that by carrying with you a duplicate of the _un_musical instrument you will have his master's voice in your pocket, and you will be able at once to make a very commanding impression upon him, by sounding a few of the harsh and discordant tones which he has been taught to fear and obey. II. You must not insist upon its being admitted without dispute, that the man who made _your_ gun is the best maker in London. This town is a very large place, and it contains a great many gunmakers. You must also remember that it "stands within the prospect of belief" that there may be other persons who think themselves as competent to select a good gun, and to shoot well with it afterwards as you are. III. In like manner, although you may prefer using one kind of wadding to another, or may perhaps like to wear shoes and gaiters rather than trousers and laced boots, you must not suppose that every man who takes the liberty of forming a different opinion from yours on these subjects is a mere bungler. IV. However steady your pointer may be, remember that he is but a dog. If you encourage him to run after one hare because it has been wounded by yourself, you must not be angry with him for chasing another which may be shot at by your friend. Canine flesh and blood cannot bear this. V. Although you may be a very agreeable gentleman, generally speaking, you will choose an unlucky moment for making yourself particularly so, if you should on some fine morning after breakfast volunteer to accompany two of your friends who are preparing to leave the house for a day's partridge-shooting without any expectation of being joined by a third person. VI. When you are obliged to walk on the left-hand side of a man who carries the muzzle of his gun too low, do not be so very polite as to take no notice of this dangerous habit. He will, perhaps, appear quite offended when you venture to question your perfect safety. But be that as it may, your position was so awfully unpleasant whilst you were constantly stared at by the eyes of a double-barrelled gun that your friend's looking rather cross at you is a matter of much less consequence. VII. When a long search amongst high turnips has been made, at your particular request, for a bird which you erroneously suppose that you have brought down, and which (naturally enough under such circumstances) cannot be found, you must not say that your friend's retriever has a very bad nose, or fancy that "poor old Trigger, if he had been still alive, could have easily found the bird." VIII. Should a farmer's boy come running to you with a partridge which he has lately picked up after seeing it fall in the next field, your companion in arms will perhaps assure you that this bird can be no other than that which _he_ shot at, as you may remember, immediately after you had both of you passed through the last hedge, and which he afterwards saw flying very low, and very badly wounded, exactly in the direction which the boy has come from. An _enfant trouvé_ like this seldom waits long for a father to adopt it. IX. Sometimes towards the end of a fatiguing day, when you feel like an overloaded gun-brig, labouring against a heavy sea of turnips, you may perchance espy a large covey of partridges in the act of settling near a hedge a long way before you. Supposing in such case that your brother sportsman should be a much younger man than yourself, and yet should not have also seen these birds, it is not always quite prudent that you should announce the fact to him immediately. If you wish to have a shot at them, you would, perhaps, do well to say nothing about them till your weary limbs have borne you unhurried a little nearer to the hedge in question. The good old rule of _seniores priores_ is sometimes reversed in a large turnip-field. X. In the case of a double shot a gamekeeper never hesitates an instant in deciding whether the bird was killed by his master's gun or by another person's, fired at the same moment. XI. When you are making your way through a thick wood with too large a party, it is better that you should be scolded by some of your friends because you trouble them with very frequent notice of your individual locality, than that you should be shot by any of them because you do not. XII. On the day of a great battue, if one of the party (not you) should shoot much better than the others, and if this should by chance be talked of after dinner (as such matters sometimes are), do not say much about the very large number of hares and pheasants killed by you--on some other occasion. XIII. When you are shooting in a wood, if some hungry fox, in pursuit of his prey, should chance to cross your path, it depends entirely upon the "custom of the country" whether you ought to kill him or not. Bob Short says, in his Rules for Whist, "When in doubt, win the trick." XIV. Never ask beforehand whether or not you are to shoot hares in the cover into which you are going, but never shoot one after you have been told not to do so. XV. A singular species of optical delusion often takes place in the case of a man shooting at a woodcock in a thick cover. According to the impression said to be made upon the shooter's eye, the bird appears to fall dead more frequently than he can afterwards be found--so that the truth of this appearance must never be relied on when the evidence of the bird himself cannot be brought forward to support it. XVI. On a grand occasion you need not always trouble yourself to keep an account of the number of head killed by you, particularly if you do not dine with the party on that day; because, in your absence, the total number brought home may perhaps be accounted for after dinner, without any reference being made to the amount of your[G] performances. XVII. When you sit down (_horresco referens_) in a dentist's chair,[H] in order to have your teeth cleaned, and point out to him, with fear and trembling, one of them which you think must be drawn;--if he should tell you that the tooth can be easily stopped, and may still be of much service to you, do not immediately thereupon feel quite bold and very comfortable. After a moment's further inspection he may, perhaps, add very quietly, in a kind of whispering soliloquy, "Here are two others which must be removed." XVIII. If you should stop, with a tired horse, at the door of the "King's Head" anywhere, and should say to the bowing landlord thereof, that, unless you can find some other means of pursuing your journey, you shall be obliged to have a chaise immediately, you must not expect to be told by him that a very good coach, which is going your way, will change horses at the "Red Lion," nearly opposite, in less than ten minutes. Should this be the real state of the case, he will feel that he has no time to lose; and therefore, instantly seizing the handle of the hostler's bell, and ringing a louder peal than usual, he will at once show you into a back parlour, for fear that you should see the coach before a chaise can be got ready for you. XIX. Should it have been your fate to travel often, _more majorum_, on the box of a stage-coach, more than one coachman has probably told you a story, two miles long, about some mare so vicious and unmanageable that she had been rejected by every other coachman on the road, and that nobody but himself had ever been able to drive her, saying at the same time, "She is now, as you see, Sir, as quiet as a lamb." You must not believe all this, although it may perhaps be very true that the mare kicks sometimes, and that the man is not a bad coachman. XX. Although our friend the coachman is supposed to have been so very communicative to you on the last occasion, he may not perhaps be equally so on all others: for instance, if, when the roads are very bad, and the coach is heavily laden, he should, near the end of a difficult stage, pull up at some turnpike, and enter into a long talk apparently about a bad shilling or a lost parcel, he is very likely not to explain to you and the other passengers that his real reason for thus stopping is because his horses are so much distressed that they would otherwise be scarcely able to reach the end of their ground. The conference at the gate is held in order to facilitate the ratification of the treaty for fresh horses to be exchanged in the next town. XXI. On arriving at the place where "the coach dines," walk to the nearest baker's shop, and there satisfy your hunger in a wholesome manner. At the dinner which is prepared for the passengers it frequently happens that if there should have been any cock-fighting in the town lately,[I] the winner and the loser of the last battle appear at the top of the table as a couple of boiled fowls; and whenever there is a roast goose at the bottom, it is probably some old gander, who, after having lived for many years in the parish, is at last become so poor that he is obliged to be "taken into the house." XXII. If you have children, who are clever, do not question them too closely in company. Supposing, for example, that at the close of a social meal in the country, you should be sitting at table with your guests, on the eve of their departure from your hospitable roof: if, under these circumstances, some nice little fellow, who has lately rushed into the room, and is now busily employed with a bunch of grapes, should be called upon by you to join in the general expression of regret that your friends are to leave you to-morrow, he may perhaps say, "Yes, papa, we shall have no grapes after dinner to-morrow." XXIII. If you are thought to excel in any particular game or sport, do not too often lead to it as a subject of conversation: your superiority, if real, will be duly felt by all your acquaintance, and acknowledged by some of them; and you may be sure that "a word" in your favour from another person will add more to your reputation than "a whole history" from yourself. XXIV. On seeing a new invention for the first time, do not instantly suggest a material alteration of it, as if you felt quite sure that this sudden thought of yours must be a very clever one. It may be reasonably supposed that the inventor did not hastily build up his work in its present form; and it would, therefore, be very unkind that you should bring the whole broadside of your intellectual guns to bear upon it in a moment. Besides, after all, it is just possible that the thing may be better as it is--without your improvement. XXV. The great merit of an important discovery frequently consists in the first application of some well-known principle of action to a class of objects to which it had not before been applied. When such discovery has been brought before the public in one instance, the application of the same principle to other nearly similar objects requires a much lower degree of inventive talent. A sub-inventor of this sort often views the result of his labour with all the pride of a mother, when he is only entitled to the praise due to an accoucheur. XXVI. When your friends congratulate you on your recovery from the effects of a serious accident, it is very proper that you should thank them sincerely for their kindness in so doing: but it is by no means necessary that you should give a very detailed description of all your sufferings, and of every symptom attending the gradual progress of your recovery; nor need you explain exactly what was at first said by Mr. Drugger, the apothecary, and what was afterwards the opinion of Sir Astley Cooper. You had better not do this; although some persons think that what the nurse occasionally said ought not, in a case like theirs, to be omitted. XXVII. On the same principle, if you should have lately been robbed, and should feel disposed to communicate the particulars of this sad affair, you really must not begin your account of it by telling us every thing which you were dreaming about just before you first heard the noise of thieves in your house on the eventful night of the robbery, adding always in conclusion, by way of appendix to your copious narrative, a correct list of the articles stolen. If you do this too often, you must not be surprised if some of your hearers should at last be almost tempted to regret that when you were robbed you were not murdered also. XXVIII. If it should be mentioned in conversation that a celebrated mare, belonging to Mr. Swindle, of Newmarket, has lately trotted sixteen miles within the hour, in harness, do not think it necessary to recount the wonderful performances of a famous gig-horse which you once had. XXIX. After having lost several games at billiards, when you are playing at a gentleman's house, it is not polite that you should attribute your failure to the inaccuracies of the table. These sundry defects of level are less likely to be complained of by the winner than by you; and he, therefore, stands less in need of this caution than you do. XXX. When the lord of the manor is showing the beauties of his house and grounds to you, and points out a very fine row of trees for your particular admiration, make no allusion to the magnificence of the avenue at Wimpole; and if he should afterwards show to you one of his pictures, which he values highly as the work of some celebrated master, remember that, although you may have been told privately, by a good authority, that the picture is not really what your friend supposes it to be, you are not called upon to display your borrowed knowledge as your own, and to make yourself odious by endeavouring to convince him that he has been deceived in the purchase. XXXI. Do not bestow extravagant praise upon every article lately bought by you, as if you considered that it had acquired increased value from having fallen into the hands of so distinguished a purchaser. Other persons will estimate the worth of it rather by its own merits than by yours. XXXII. It is quite unnecessary that you should always, in order to show the extent of your reading, claim a previous acquaintance with every expression which may be referred to in conversation as having been used by some celebrated author in one of his works. It is much easier for another person to quote lines which never were written than it would be for you to find them.[J] XXXIII. Do not consider it to be at all times your bounden duty to correct every mistake which may be made in your presence as to a name or an unimportant date. Some persons are so extremely sensitive on these points that they never allow the offender to escape a summary conviction. However interesting the conversation may be, they always feel justified in interrupting it if they can show that the anecdote which they have cut short related to the late General A., and not to his brother the admiral. XXXIV. If one of your party should be prevailed upon to sing a comic song for the amusement of the company, he will of course do it as well as he can, and it would not be flattering to him that you should immediately afterwards talk about the great pleasure which you formerly derived from hearing the same song sung by Mathews, or Bannister. XXXV. Beware of the amiable weakness of repeatedly telling long stories about your late father or uncle. They may have been excellent persons, and their memory may be deservedly respected by you; but it does not therefore necessarily follow that a full account of everything which was said or done by either of these worthy men on some trivial occasion should be very interesting to other people, not even to such of your friends as may be lucky enough not to have heard it before. XXXVI. If you should have lately suffered any great reduction of income from causes over which you had no control, it is better that you should bear your misfortunes quietly than that you should be very extensively communicative to your acquaintance on the subject of your grievances. If, for instance, you tell them in confidence that you now have only 600_l._ a-year to live upon, such of them as have but 500_l._ will perhaps think that you still have at least 100_l._ more than you ought to have. XXXVII. Do not think yourself an accomplished traveller merely because you have visited places where you _might_ have acquired much information. Many a man has passed some time in a foreign town without learning more about the beauties of its cathedral or the manners and customs of its inhabitants than was previously known to others through the instructive medium of a book and pair of spectacles at home; and therefore although you may have really been at Rome, and may have actually seen with your own eyes both the Apollo Belvidere and Raphael's Transfiguration, you must not, on that account only, consider yourself qualified to take a leading part in every conversation on subjects connected with the fine arts. XXXVIII. Many persons who are possessed of much information have a tedious and unconnected way of imparting it. Such men are like dictionaries, very instructive if opened in the right place, but rather fatiguing to read throughout. XXXIX. The foundation of good breeding is the absence of selfishness. By acting always on this principle--by showing forbearance and moderation in argument when you feel sure that you are right, and a becoming diffidence when you are in doubt, you will avoid many of the errors which other men are apt to fall into. XL. Artists, medical men, and engineers are much to be feared by those persons who are apt to talk a little sometimes on matters which they do not very well understand. If, reader, you are, like me, subject to this infirmity, mind what you are about when any professional men are present. R. P. _Whitehall, February, 1842._ London: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street FOOTNOTES: [G] Acting on this principle, I was once supposed to have killed a brace less than nothing, viz., I went out partridge shooting with two other persons. At the end of the day one of these said that he had killed twelve brace, and the other claimed eleven brace. When the birds were afterwards counted, the number of them was forty-four. I therefore conclude that the brace which was wanting must have been considered as my share of the day's sport. [H] "Whose iron scourge and torturing hour The bad _extract, and clean_ the best." [I] "Thus fell two heroes, one the pride of Thrace, And one the leader of the Epeian race; Death's sable shade at once o'ercast their eyes: _In dish_, the vanquish'd and the victor lies." _Pope says_, "In dust." [J] _e. g._ Vide quotation, p. 56. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: The original text does not have a table of contents. One was created for this version. Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Page 6, illustration caption, "asssitant" changed to "assistant" (an expert assistant) Page 37, "your's" changed to "yours" (heavier than yours) 
37278	----	[Illustration: FLY FISHING in WONDERLAND Cover] _A HILL VAGABOND_ _Snakin' wood down the mount'ins, Fishin' the little streams; Smokin' my pipe in the twilight, An' dreamin' over old dreams;_ _Breathin' the breath o' the cool snows, Sniffin' the scent o' the pine; Watchin' the hurryin' river, An' hearin' the coyotes whine._ _This is life in the mount'ins, Summer an' winter an' fall, Up to the rainy springtime, When the birds begin to call._ _Then I fix my rod and tackle, I read, I smoke an' I sing. Glad like the birds to be livin'-- Livin' the life of a king!_ --_Louise Paley in The Saturday Evening Post._ COPYRIGHT, 1910, By O. P. BARNES [Illustration] TO JOHN GILL IN WHOSE COMPANIONSHIP I HAVE PASSED MANY DELIGHTFUL DAYS ALONG THE STREAMS AND IN THE WOODS; QUIET ENJOYABLE EVENINGS WATCHING THE ALPENGLOW ILLUMINATE THE SNOW-CAPPED MOUNTAINS; AND STORMY NIGHTS BESIDE THE SEA [Illustration] _TABLE OF CONTENTS_ _GOOD FISHING! A FOREWORD_ _6_ _IN THE DIM, RED DAWN_ _9_ _THE TROUT--NATIVE AND PLANTED_ _14_ _LET'S GO A-FISHING!_ _21_ _A CHAPTER ON TROUT FLIES_ _28_ _GRIZZLY LAKE AND LAKE ROSE_ _35_ _A MORNING ON IRON CREEK_ _40_ _AN AFTERNOON ON THE FIREHOLE_ _45_ _TRAILS FROM YANCEY'S AND OTHER TRAILS_ _51_ [Illustration] _GOOD FISHING!_ _This little writing has to do with the streams and the trout therein of that portion of our country extending southward from the southern boundary of Montana to the Teton mountains, and eastward from the eastern boundary of Idaho to the Absaroka range. Lying on both sides of the continental divide, its surface is veined by the courses of a multitude of streams flowing either to the Pacific Ocean or to the Gulf of Mexico, while from the southern rim of this realm of wonders the waters reach the Gulf of California through the mighty canyons carved by the Colorado._ _This region has abundant attractions for seekers of outdoor pleasures, and for none more than for the angler. Here, within a space about seventy miles square, nature has placed a bewildering diversity of rivers, mountains, lakes, canyons, geysers and waterfalls not found elsewhere in the world. Fortunately, Congress early reserved the greater part of this domain as a public pleasure ground. Under the wise administration of government officials the natural beauties are protected and made accessible by superb roads. The streams also, many of which were barren of fish, have, by successful plantings and intelligent protection, become all that the sportsman can wish. The angler who wanders through the woods in almost any direction will scarcely fail to find some picturesque lake or swift flowing stream where the best of sport may be had with the rod._ _Several years ago I made my first visit to this country, and it has been my privilege to return thither annually on fishing excursions of varying duration. These outings have been so enjoyable and have yielded so much pleasure at the time and afterwards, that I should like to sound the angler's pack-cry, "Good Fishing!" loudly enough to lead others to go also._ _The photographs from which the illustrations were made, except where due credit is given to others, were taken with a small hand camera which has hung at my belt in crossing mountains and wading streams, and are mainly of such scenes as one comes upon in out-of-the-way places while following that "most virtuous pastime" of fly-casting._ _THE AUTHOR._ [Illustration] [Illustration: _THE DIM, RED DAWN_] _IN THE DIM, RED DAWN_ [Illustration: _A Leaping Salmon_ _Photo by Hugh M. Smith_] BEFORE exercising the right of eminent domain over these waters, it may be profitable to say a word in explanation of the fact that hardly more than a score of years ago many of these beautiful lakes and streams were absolutely without fish life. This will aid us in understanding what the government has done and is still doing to create an ideal paradise for the angler among these mountains and plateaus. There was a time, and this too in comparatively recent geological eras, when the waters of that region now under consideration abounded with fish of many species. The clumsy catfish floundered along the shallows and reedy bayous in company with the solemn red-horse and a long line of other fishes of present and past generations. The lordly salmon found ideal spawning grounds in the gravelly beds of the streams draining to the westward, and doubtless came hither annually in great numbers. It may be that the habit of the Columbia river salmon to return yearly from the Pacific and ascend that stream was bred into the species during the days when its waters ran in an uninterrupted channel from source to sea. It is true that elsewhere salmon manifest this anadromous impulse in as marked a degree as in the Columbia and its tributaries, yet, the conclusion that these heroic pilgrimages are _habit_ resulting from similar movements, accidental at first, but extending over countless years, is natural, and probably correct. When one sees these noble fish congested by thousands at the foot of some waterfall up which not one in a hundred is able to leap, or observes them ascending the brooks in the distant mountains where there is not sufficient water to cover them, gasping, bleeding, dying, but pushing upward with their last breath, the figure of the crusaders in quest of an ancient patrimony arises in the mind, so strong is the simile and so active is your sympathy with the fish. [Illustration: _Mammoth Hot Springs_] In those distant days the altitude of this region was not great, nor was the ocean as remote from its borders as now. The forces which already had lifted considerable areas above the sea and fashioned them into an embryo continent were still at work. The earth-shell, yet soft and plastic, was not strong enough to resist the double strain caused by its cooling, shrinking outer crust and the expanding, molten interior. Volcanic eruptions, magnificent in extent, resulted and continued at intervals throughout the Pliocene period. These eruptions were accompanied by prodigious outpours of lava that altered the topography of the entire mountain section. Nowhere else in all creation has such an amount of matter been forced up from the interior of the earth to flow in red-hot rivers to the distant seas as in the western part of the United States. What a panorama of flame it was, and what a sublime impression it must have made on the minds of the primeval men who witnessed it from afar as they paddled their canoes over the troubled waters that reflected the red-litten heavens beneath them! Is it remarkable that the geyser region of the Park is a place of evil repute among the savages and a thing to be passed by on the other side, even to the present day? [Illustration: _Detail from Jupiter Terrace_] When the elemental forces subsided the waters were fishless, and all aquatic life had been destroyed in the creation of the glories of the Park and its surroundings. Streams that once had their origins in sluggish, lily-laden lagoons, now took their sources from the lofty continental plateaus. In reaching the lower levels these streams, in most instances, fell over cataracts so high as to be impassable to fish, thus precluding their being restocked by natural processes. From this cause the upper Gardiner, the Gibbon and the Firehole rivers and their tributaries--streams oftenest seen by the tourist--were found to contain no trout when man entered upon the scene. From a sportsman's viewpoint the troutless condition of the very choicest waters was fortunate, as it left them free for the planting of such varieties as are best adapted to the food and character of each stream. The blob or miller's thumb existed in the Gibbon river, and perhaps in other streams, above the falls. Its presence in such places is due to its ability to ascend very precipitous water courses by means of the filamentous algae which usually border such torrents. I once discovered specimens of this odd fish in the algous growth covering the rocky face of the falls of the Des Chutes river, at Tumwater, in the state of Washington, and there is little doubt that they do ascend nearly vertical walls where the conditions are favorable. [Illustration: _Tumwater Falls_] The presence of the red-throat trout of the Snake river in the head waters of the Missouri is easily explained by the imperfect character of the water-shed between the Snake and Yellowstone rivers. Atlantic Creek, tributary to the Yellowstone, and Pacific Creek, tributary to the Snake, both rise in the same marshy meadow on the continental divide. From this it is argued that, during the sudden melting of heavy snows in early times, it was possible for specimens to cross from one side to the other, and it is claimed that an interchange of individuals might occur by this route at the present day.[A] Certain it is that these courageous fish exhibit the same disregard for their lives that is spoken of previously as characteristic of their congeners, the salmon. Trout are frequently found lying dead on the grass of a pasture or meadow where they were stranded the night previous in an attempt to explore a rivulet caused by a passing shower. The mortality among fish of this species in irrigated districts is alarming. At each opening of the sluice gates they go out with the current and perish in the fields. Unless there is a more rigid enforcement of the law requiring that the opening into the ditches be screened, trout must soon disappear from the irrigated sections. The supposition that these fish have crossed the continental divide, as it were, overland, serves the double purpose of explaining the presence of the trout, and the absence of the chub, sucker and white-fish of the Snake River from Yellowstone Lake. The latter are feeble fish at best, and generally display a preference for the quiet waters of the deeper pools where they feed near the bottom and with little exertion. Neither the chub, sucker nor white-fish possesses enough hardihood to undertake so precarious a journey nor sufficient vitality to survive it. [Illustration: _Gibbon Falls_] FOOTNOTE: [Footnote A: NOTE--"As already stated, the trout of Yellowstone Lake certainly came into the Missouri basin by way of Two-Ocean Pass from the Upper Snake River basin. One of the present writers has caught them in the very act of going over Two-Ocean Pass from Pacific into Atlantic drainage. The trout of the two sides of the pass cannot be separated, and constitute a single species." Jordan & Evermann.] _THE TROUT--NATIVE AND PLANTED_ [Illustration: _A Place to be Remembered_] TO MANY people a trout is merely a _trout_, with no distinction as to variety or origin; and some there be who know him only as a _fish_, to be eaten without grace and with much gossip. Again, there are those who have written at great length of this and that species and sub-species, with many words and nice distinctions relative to vomerine teeth, branchiostegal rays and other anatomical differences. I would not lead you, even if your patience permitted, along the tedious path of the scientist, but will follow the middle path and note only such differences in the members of this interesting family as may be apparent to the unpracticed eye and by which the novice may distinguish between the varieties that come to his creel. In a letter to Doctor David Starr Jordan, in September, 1889, Hon. Marshall McDonald, then U. S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, wrote, "I have proposed to undertake to stock these waters with different species of Salmonidae, reserving a distinct river basin for each." Every one will commend the wisdom of the original intent as it existed in the mind of Mr. McDonald. It implied that a careful study would be made of the waters of each basin to determine the volume and character of the current, its temperature, the depth to which it froze during the sub-arctic winters, and the kinds and quantities of fish-food found in each. With this data well established, and knowing, as fish culturists have for centuries, what conditions are favorable to the most desirable kinds of trout, there was a field for experimentation and improvement probably not existing elsewhere. [Illustration: _Willow Park Camp_] [Illustration: _Klahowya_] The commission began its labors in 1889, and the record for that year shows among other plants, the placing of a quantity of Loch Leven trout in the Firehole above the Kepler Cascade. The year following nearly ten thousand German trout fry were planted in Nez Perce Creek, the principal tributary of the Firehole. Either the agents of the commission authorized to make these plants were ignorant of the purpose of the Commissioner at Washington, or they did not know with what immunity fish will pass over the highest falls. Whatever the reason for this error, the die is cast, and the only streams that have a single distinct variety are the upper Gardiner and its tributaries, where the eastern brook trout has the field, or rather the waters, to himself. The first attempt to stock any stream was a transfer of the native trout of another stream to Lava Creek above the falls. I mention this because the presence of the native trout in this locality has led some to believe that they were there from the first, and thus constituted an exception to the rule that no trout were found in streams above vertical waterfalls. [Illustration: _On the Trail to Grizzly Lake_] [Illustration: _The Little Firehole_] Many are confused by the variety of names applied to the native trout of the Yellowstone, _Salmo lewisi_. Red-throat trout, cut-throat trout, black-spotted trout, mountain trout, Rocky Mountain trout, salmon trout, and a host of other less generally known local names have been applied to him. This is in a measure due to the widely different localities and conditions under which he is found, and to the very close resemblance he bears to his first cousins, _Salmo clarkii_, of the streams flowing into the Pacific from northern California to southern Alaska; and to _Salmo mykiss_ of the Kamchatkan rivers. Perhaps the very abundance of this trout has cheapened the estimate in which he is held by some anglers. Nevertheless, he is a royal fish. In streams with rapid currents he is always a hard fighter, and his meat is high-colored and well-flavored. The name "black-spotted" trout describes this fish more accurately than any other of his cognomens. The spots are carbon-black and have none of the vermilion and purple colors that characterize the brook trout. The spots are not, however, always uniform in size and number. In some instances they are entirely wanting on the anterior part of the body, but their absence is not sufficiently important to constitute a varietal distinction. The red dash under the throat (inner edge of the mandible) from which the names "cut-throat" and "red-throat" are derived, is never absent in specimens taken here, and, as no other trout of this locality is so marked, it affords the tyro an unfailing means of determining the nature of his catch. [Illustration: _The Path Through the Pines_] If the eastern brook trout, _Salvelinus fontinalis_, could read and understand but a part of the praises that have been sung of him in prose and verse through all the years, what a pampered princeling and nuisance he would become! But to his credit, he has gone on being the same sensible, shrewd, wary and delightful fish, adapting himself to all sorts of mountain streams, lakes, ponds and rivers, and always giving the largest returns to the angler in the way of health and happiness. The literature concerning the methods employed in his capture alone would make a library in which we should find the names of soldiers, statesmen and sovereigns, and the great of the earth. Aelian, who lived in the second century A. D., describes, in his _De Animalium Natura_, how the Macedonians took a fish with speckled skin from a certain river by means of a hook tied about with red wool, to which were fitted two feathers from a cock's wattle. More than four hundred years prior to this Theocritus mentioned a method of fishing with a "fallacious bait suspended from a rod," but unfortunately failed to tell us how the fly was made. If by any chance you have never met the brook trout you may know him infallibly from his brethren by the dark olive, worm-like lines, technically called "vermiculations," along the back, as he alone displays these heraldic markings. [Illustration: _The Melan Bridge_] Throughout the northwest the brown trout, _Salmo fario_, is generally known as the "von Behr" trout, from the name of the German fish-culturist who sent the first shipment of their eggs to this country. This fish may be distinguished at sight by the coarse scales which give his body a dark grayish appearance, slightly resembling a mullet, and by the large dull red spots along the lateral line. There are also three beautiful red spots on the adipose fin. The Loch Leven trout, _Salmo levenensis_, comes from a lake of that name in southern Scotland. He is a canny, uncertain fellow, and nothing like as hardy as we might expect from his origin. In the Park waters he has not justified the fame for gameness which he brings from abroad, but there are occasions, particularly in the vicinity of the Lone Star geyser, when he comes on with a very pretty rush. In general appearance he somewhat resembles the von Behr trout, but is a more graceful and finely organized fish than the latter. He is the only trout of this locality that has no red on his body, and its absence is sufficient to distinguish him from all others. [Illustration: _Distant View of Mt. Holmes_] No one can possibly mistake the rainbow trout, _Salmo irideus_, for any other species. The large, brilliant spots with which his silvery-bluish body is covered, and that filmy iridescence so admired by every one, will identify him anywhere. There is, however, a marked difference in the brilliance of this iridescence between fish of different ages as well as between stream-raised and hatchery-bred specimens, and even among fish from the upper and lower courses of the same stream. [Illustration: _Learning to Cast_] The question as to which is the more beautiful, the rainbow or the brook trout, has often been debated with much feeling by their respective champions, and will doubtless remain undecided so long as both may be taken from clear-flowing brooks, where sky and landscape blend with the soul of man to make him as supremely happy as it is ever the lot of mortals to become. For it is the joy within and around you that supplies a mingled pleasure far deeper than that afforded by the mere beauty of the fish. You will remember that "Doctor Boteler" said of the strawberry, "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did." So, I have said at different times of _both_ brook and rainbow trout, "Doubtless God could have made a more beautiful fish than this, but doubtless God never did." [Illustration: _Scene on the Gibbon River_] [Illustration: _Above Kepler Cascade_] During a recent trip through the Rocky Mountains I remained over night in a town of considerable mining importance. In the evening I walked up the main street passing an almost unbroken line of saloons, gambling houses and dance halls, then crossed the street to return, and found the same conditions on that side, except that, if possible, the crowds were noisier. Just before reaching the hotel, I came upon a small restaurant in the window of which was an aquarium containing a number of rainbow trout. One beautiful fish rested quivering, pulsating, resplendent, poised apparently in mid air, while the rays from an electric light within were so refracted that they formed an aureola about the fish, seemingly transfiguring it. I paused long in meditation on the scene, till aroused from my revery by the blare of a graphophone from a resort across the street. It sang: "Last night as I lay sleeping, there came a dream so fair, I stood in old Jerusalem, beside the temple there; I heard the children singing and ever as they sang Methought the voice of angels from heaven in answer rang, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, lift up your gates and sing Hosanna in the highest, hosanna to your king." I made the sign of Calvary in the vapor on the glass and departed into the night pondering of many things. _LETS GO A-FISHING_ "No man is in perfect condition to enjoy scenery unless he has a fly-rod in his hand and a fly-hook in his pocket." _Wm. C. Prime_ [Illustration: _Lower Falls of the Yellowstone_] MANY who know these mountains and valleys best have gained their knowledge with a rod in hand, and you will hear these individuals often express surprise that a greater number of tourists do not avail themselves of the splendid opportunities offered for fishing. In no other way can so much pleasure be found on the trip, and by no other means can you put yourself so immediately and completely in sympathy with the spirit of the wilderness. Besides, it is this doing something more than being a mere passenger that gives the real interest and zest to existence and that yields the best returns in the memories of delightful days. The ladies may be taken along without the least inconvenience and to the greater enjoyment of the outing. What if the good dame has never seen an artificial fly! Take her anyway, if she will go, and we will make her acquainted with streams where she shall have moderate success if she but stand in the shadow of the willows and tickle the surface of the pool with a single fly. You will feel mutually grateful, each for the presence of the other; and, depend upon it, it will make the recollection doubly enjoyable. We shall never know and name all the hot springs and geysers of this wonderland, but we may become acquainted with the voice of a stream and know it as the speech of a friend. We may establish fairly intimate relations with the creatures of the wood and be admitted to some sort of brotherhood with them if we conduct ourselves becomingly. The timid grouse will acknowledge the caress of our bamboo with an arching of the neck, and the beaver will bring for our inspection his freight of willow or alder, and will at times swim confidently between our legs when we are wading in deep water. [Illustration: _The Black Giant Geyser_] The author of "Little Rivers" draws this pleasing picture of the delights of fishing: "You never get so close to the birds as when you are wading quietly down a little river, casting your fly deftly under the branches for the wary trout, but ever on the lookout for all the pleasant things that nature has to bestow upon you. Here you shall come upon the catbird at her morning bath, and hear her sing, in a clump of pussy-willows, that low, tender, confidential song which she keeps for the hours of domestic intimacy. The spotted sand-piper will run along the stones before you, crying, 'wet-feet, wet-feet!' and bowing and teetering in the friendliest manner, as if to show you the best pools." Surely, if this invitation move you not, no voice of mine will serve to stir your laggard legs. One should not, however, go to the wilderness and expect it to receive him at once with open arms. It was there before him and will remain long after he is forgotten. But approach it humbly and its asperities will soften and in time become akin to affection. As one looks for the first time through the black, basaltic archway at the entrance to the Park, the nearby mountains have an air of distance and unfriendliness, nor do they speedily assume a more sympathetic relation toward the visitor. A region in which the world's formative forces linger ten thousand years after they have disappeared elsewhere will make no hasty alliance with strangers. The heavy foot of time treads so slowly here that one must come often and with observant eye to note the advance from season to season and to feel that he has any part or interest in it. [Illustration: _Park Gateway_] When we can judge correctly from the height of the up-springing vegetation whether the forest fire that blackened this hillside raged one year ago or ten; when we have noted that the bowl of this terrace, increasing in height by the insensible deposit of carbonate of lime from the overflowing waters, appears to outstrip from year to year the growth of the neighboring cedars; when these and a multitude of kindred phenomena are comprehended, how interested we become! Nothing said here is intended to encourage undue familiarity with the wild game. "Shinny on your own side," is a good motto with any game, and more than one can testify of sudden and unexpected trouble brought on themselves by meddlesomeness. In following an elk trail through the woods one afternoon, I found a pine tree had fallen across the path making a barrier about hip-high. While looking about to see whether any elk had gone over the trail since the tree fell, and, if so, whether they had leaped the barrier or had passed around it by way of the root or top, a squirrel with a pine cone in his teeth, sprang on the butt of the tree and came jauntily along the log. Some twenty feet away he spied me, and suddenly his whole manner and bearing changed. He dropped the cone and came on with a bow-legged, swaggering air, the very embodiment of insolent proprietorship. The top of my rod extended over the log, and as he came under it I gave him a smart switch across the back. Now, there had been nothing in my previous acquaintance with squirrels to lead me to think them other than most timid animals. But the slight blow of the rod-tip transformed this one into a Fury. With a peculiar half-bark, half-scream, he leaped at my face and slashed at my neck and ears with his powerful jaws. So strong was he that I could not drag him loose when his teeth were buried in my coat collar. I finally choked him till he loosened his hold and flung him ten feet away. Back he came to the attack with the speed of a wild cat. It was either retreat for me or death to the squirrel, and I retreated. Never before had I witnessed such an exhibition of diabolical malevolence, and, though I have laughed over it since, I was too much upset for an hour afterward to see the funny side of the encounter. [Illustration: _Bear Cubs_ _Photo by F. J. Haynes_] The ways of the wilderness have ever been pleasant to my feet, and whether it was taking the ouananiche in Canada or the Beardslee trout in the shadow of the Olympics, it has all been good. Without detracting from the sport afforded by any other locality, I honestly believe that, taking into consideration climate, comfort, scenery, environment, and the opportunities for observing wild life, this region has no equal for trout fishing under the sun. I am aware that he who praises the fishing on any stream will ever have two classes of critics--the unthinking and the unsuccessful. To these I would say, "Whether your success shall be greater or less than mine will depend upon the conditions of weather and stream and on your own skill, and none of these do I control." In that splendid book, "Fly-Rods and Fly-Tackle," Mr. Henry P. Wells relates an instance in which he and his guide took an angler to a distant lake with the certain promise and expectation of fine fishing. After recording the keen disappointment he felt that not a single trout would show itself, he says, "Then I vowed a vow, which I commend to the careful consideration of all anglers, old and new alike--never again, under any circumstances, will I recommend any fishing locality in terms substantially stronger than these 'At that place I have done so and so; under like conditions it is believed that you can repeat it.' We are apt to speak of a place and the sport it affords as we found it, whereas reflection and experience should teach us that it is seldom exactly the same, even for two successive days." [Illustration: _Elk In Winter_ _Photo by F. J. Haynes_] There is a large number of fly-fishermen in the east who sincerely believe that the best sport cannot be had in the streams of the Rocky Mountains, and this belief has a grain of truth when the fishing is confined solely to native trout and to streams of indifferent interest. But when the waters flow through such picturesque surroundings as are found in the Yellowstone National Park, when from among these waters one may select the stream that shall furnish the trout he loves most to take, the objection is most fully answered. The writer can attest how difficult it was to outgrow the conviction that a certain brook of the Alleghanies had no equal, but he now gladly concedes that there are streams in the west just as prolific of fish and as pleasant to look upon as the one he followed in boyhood. It is proper enough to maintain that: "The fields are greenest where our childish feet have strayed," but when we permit a mere sentiment to prevent the fullest enjoyment of the later opportunities of life, your beautiful sentiment becomes a harmful prejudice. When the prophet required Naaman to go down and bathe in the river Jordan, Naaman was exceeding wroth, and exclaimed, "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than any in Israel?" The record hath it that Naaman went and bathed in the Jordan, and that his _body_ was healed of its _leprosy_ and his _mind_ of its _conceit_. So, when my angling friend from New Brunswick inquires whether I have fished the Waskahegan or have tried the lower pools of the Assametaquaghan for salmon, I am compelled to answer _no_. But there comes a longing to give him a day's outing on Hell-Roaring Creek or to see him a-foul of a five-pound von Behr trout amid the steam of the Riverside Geyser. The streams of Maine and Canada are delightful and possess a charm that lingers in the mind like the minor chords of almost forgotten music, but they cannot be compared with the full-throated torrents of the Absarokas. As well liken a fugue with flute and cymbals to an oratorio with bombardon and sky-rockets! [Illustration: _Having Eaten and Drunk_] [Illustration: _Who Hath Seen the Beaver Busied?_ _Photo by Biological Survey_] Who hath seen the beaver busied? Who hath watched the black-tail mating? Who hath lain alone to hear the wild-goose cry? Who hath worked the chosen water where the ouananiche is waiting, Or the sea-trout's jumping-crazy for the fly? He must go--go--go--away from here! On the other side the world he's overdue. 'Send your road is clear before you when the old Spring-fret comes o'er you And the Red Gods call for you! Do you know the blackened timber--do you know that racing stream With the raw right-angled log-jam at the end: And the bar of sun-warmed shingle where a man may bask and dream To the click of shod canoe poles round the bend? It is there that we are going with our rods and reels and traces, To a silent smoky Indian that we know-- To a couch of new-pulled hemlock with the starlight on our faces, For the Red Gods call us out and we must go! The Feet of the Young Men--_Kipling._ _A CHAPTER ON TROUT FLIES_ "Thyse ben xij. flyes wyth whytch ye shall angle to ye trought and graylling, and dubbe lyke as ye shall now hear me tell." _Dame Juliana Berners._ [Illustration: Water is the Master Mason] FIVE centuries have passed since the dignified and devout prioress of St. Albans indited the above sentence, and the tribute to the sterling good sense therein is that the growing years have but added to its authority. A dozen well selected varieties of flies, dubbe them how ye lyke, are well-nigh sufficient for any locality. There may be streams that require a wider range of choice, but these are so rare that they may safely be considered as exceptional. Not that any particular harm has resulted from the unreasonable increase in the number and varieties of artificial flies. They amuse and gratify the tyro and in no wise disturb the master of the art. But an over-plethoric fly book in the possession of a stranger will, with the knowing, place the angling ability of the owner under suspicion. Better a thousand-fold, are the single half-dozen flies the uses and seasons of which are fully understood than a multitude of meaningless creations. The angler should strive to attain an intelligent understanding of the principal features of the artificial fly and how a change in the form and color of these features affects the behavior of the fish for which he angles. In studying this matter men have gone down in diving suits that they might better see the fly as it appeared when presented to the fish, and there is nothing in their reports to encourage extremely fine niceties in fly-dressing. One may know a great deal of artists and their work and yet truly know but little of the value of _art_ itself; or have been a great reader of economics, and yet have little practical knowledge of that complex product of society called _civilization_. So, I had rather possess the knowledge a dear friend of mine has of Dickens, Shakespeare, and the Bible alone than to be able to discuss "literature" in general before clubs and societies. Several years of angling experience in the far west have convinced the writer that flies of full bodies and positive colors are the most killing, and that the palmers are slightly better than the hackles. Of the standard patterns of flies the most successful are the coachman, royal coachman, black hackle, Parmacheene Belle, with the silver doctor for lake fishing, in the order named. The trout here, with the exception of those in Lake Yellowstone, are fairly vigorous fighters, and it is important that your tackle should be strong and sure rather than elegant. With a view of determining whether it were possible to make a fly that would answer nearly all the needs of the mountain fisherman, I began, in 1897, a series of experiments in fly-tying that continued over a period of five years. The result is the production of what is widely known in the west as the Pitcher fly. As before indicated, this fly did not spring full panoplied into being, but was evolved from standard types by gradual modifications. The body is a furnace hackle, tied palmer; tail of barred wood-duck feather; wing snow-white, to which is added a blue cheek. The name, "Pitcher," was given to it as a compliment to Major John Pitcher, who, as acting superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park, has done much to improve the quality of the fishing in these streams. From a dozen states anglers have written testifying to the killing qualities of the Pitcher Fly, and the extracts following show that its success is not confined to any locality nor to any single species of trout: "The Pitcher flies you gave me have aided me in filling my twenty-pound basket three times in the last three weeks. Have had the best sport this season I have ever enjoyed on the Coeur d'Alene waters, and I can truthfully say I owe it all to the Pitcher fly and its designer." E. R. DENNY, Wallace, Idaho. [Illustration: _Following a Little River_] [Illustration: _At the Head of the Meadow_] [Illustration: _The Tongue River_ _Photo by N. H. Darton_] "One afternoon I had put up my rod and strolled down to the river where one of our party was whipping a pool of the Big Hole, trying to induce a fish to strike. He said: 'There's an old villain in there; he wants to strike but can't make up his mind to do it.' I said: 'I have a fly that will make him strike,' and as I had my book in my pocket I handed him a No. 8 Pitcher. He made two casts and hooked a beautiful trout, that weighed nineteen ounces, down. I regard the Pitcher as the best killer in my book." J. E. MONROE, Dillon, Montana. * * * * * "I determined to follow the stream up into the mountains, but as I neared the woods at the upper end of the meadow I stopped to cast into a long, straight reach of the river where the breeze from the ocean was rippling the surface of the stream. The grassy bank rose steep behind me and only a little fringe of wild roses partly concealed me from the water. I cast the Pitcher flies you gave me well out on the rough water, allowed them to sink a hand-breadth, and at the first movement of the line I saw that heart-expanding flash of a broad silver side gleaming from the clear depths. The trout fastened on savagely, and as he was coming my way, I assisted his momentum with all the spring of the rod, and he came flying out into the clean, fresh grass of the meadow behind me. It was a half-pound speckled brook trout. I did not stop to pouch him, but cast again. In a moment I was fast to another such, and again I sprung him bodily out, glistening like a silver ingot, to where his brother lay. In my first twelve casts I took ten such fish, all from ten to twelve inches long, mostly without any playing. I took twenty-two fine fish without missing one strike, and landed every one safely. I was not an hour in taking the lot. Then oddly enough, I whipped the water for fifty yards without another rise. Satisfied that the circus was over, I climbed up into the meadow and gathered the spoils into my basket. Nearly all were brook trout, but two or three silvery salmon trout among them had struck quite as gamely. I had such a weight of fish as I never took before on the Nekanicum in our most fortunate fishing." [Illustration: _Talking It Over_] * * * * * [Illustration: _Beaver Dam and Reservoir_] "Walking back along the trail, I came again to the long reach where I had my luck an hour before, and cast again to see if there might be another fish. Two silver glints shone up through the waves in the same instant. I struck one of the two fish, though I might have had both if I had left the flies unmoved the fraction of a second. Three times I refused such doublets, for I had not changed an inch of tackle, and scarcely even looked the casting line over. It was no time to allow two good fish to go raking that populous pool. However I did take chances with one doublet. So out of the same lucky spot on my return, I took ten more fish each about a foot long. I brought nearly every one flying out as I struck him, and I never put such a merciless strain on a rod before. [Illustration: "_That Populous Pool_" _Photo by John Gill_] "I had concluded again that the new tenantry had all been evicted, and was casting 'most extended' trying the powers of the rod and reaching, I should say, sixty feet out. As the flies came half-way in and I was just about snatching them out for a long back cast, the father of the family soared after them in a gleaming arc. He missed by not three inches and bored his way straight down into the depths of the clear green water. 'My heart went out to him,' as our friend Wells said, but coaxing was in vain. I tried them above and below, sinking the flies deeply, or dropping them airily upon the waves, but to no purpose. I had the comforting thought that we may pick him up when you are here this summer." JOHN GILL, Portland, Oregon. _THE BONNY RED HECKLE_ Away frae the smoke an' the smother, Away frae the crush o' the thrang! Away frae the labour an' pother That have fettered our freedom sae lang! For the May's i' full bloom i' the hedges And the laverock's aloft i' the blue, An' the south wind sings low i' the sedges, By haughs that are silvery wi' dew. Up, angler, off wi' each shackle! Up, gad and gaff, and awa'! Cry 'Hurrah for the canny red heckle, The heckle that tackled them a'!' * * * * * Then back to the smoke and the smother, The uproar and crush o' the thrang; An' back to the labour and pother, But happy and hearty and strang. Wi' a braw light o' mountain and muirland, Outflashing frae forehead and e'e, Wi' a blessing flung back to the norland, An' a thousand, dear Coquet, to thee! As again we resume the old shackle, Our gad an' our gaff stowed awa', An'--goodbye to the canny 'red heckle,' The heckle that tackled them a'!' --From "The Lay of the Lea." By _Thomas Westwood_. NOTE--I am indebted to Mrs. Mary Orvis Marbury, author of "Favorite Flies," for copies of "Hey for Coquet," and "Farewell to Coquet," from the former of which the foregoing are extracts. _GRIZZLY LAKE AND LAKE ROSE_ "And best of all, through twilight's calm The hermit-thrush repeats his psalm." _Henry Van Dyke_ [Illustration: _Grizzly Lake_] GRIZZLY LAKE lies secluded among the timbered hills, four miles south--south and west--from Willow Park. The long narrow bed of the lake was furrowed by a glacier that once debouched here from the mountains to the west, and through the gravel and detritus that surround it the melting snows and rain are filtered till the water is fit for the Olympian deities. No more profitable place can be found for the angler to visit. The lake swarms with brook trout weighing from one to five pounds, and in the ice-cold water which is supplied with an abundance of insect and crustacean food the fish are in prime condition after July first. The best fishing is at the southern end, near where Straight Creek enters the lake. A little investigation will discover close at hand, several large springs that flow into the lake at this point, and here the trout congregate after the spawning season. [Illustration: _Lake Rose_] In order to reach this location conveniently, I, early in 1902, constructed a light raft of dry pine logs, about six by ten feet, well spiked together with drift bolts; since which time other parties have added a substantial row boat. Both the boat and the raft may be found at the lower end of the lake, just where the trail brings you to it. The canvas boat that was set up on the lake earlier, was destroyed the first winter by bears, but the boat and raft now there will probably hold their own against the beasts of the field for some time. If you use either of them you will, of course, return it to the outlet of the lake, that he who cometh after may also enjoy. The route to Grizzly Lake follows very closely the Bannock Indian trail from the point where Straight Creek enters the meadows of Willow Park to the outlet of the lake. The trail itself is interesting. It was the great Indian thoroughfare between Idaho and the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming, and was doubtless an ancient one at the time the Romans dominated Britain. How plainly the record tells you that it was made by an aboriginal people. Up hill and down hill, across marsh or meadow, it is always a single trail, trodden into furrow-like distinctness by moccasined feet. Nowhere does it permit the going abreast of the beasts of draft or burden. At no place does it suggest the side-by-side travel of the white man for companionship's sake, nor the hand-in-hand converse of mother and child, lover and maid. Ease your pony a moment here and dream. Here comes the silent procession on its way to barter in the land of the stranger, and here again it will return in the autumn, as it has done for a thousand years. In the van are the blanketed braves, brimful of in-toeing, painful dignity. Behind these follow the ponies drawing the lodge-poles and camp outfit, and then come the squaws and the children. Just there is a bend in the trail and the lodge-poles have abraded the tree in the angle till it is worn half through. A little further on, in an open glade, they camped for the night. Decades have come and gone since the last Indian party passed this way, yet a cycle hence the trail will be distinct at intervals. [Illustration: _The Bighorn Range_ _Photo by N. H. Darton_] By turning to the west at Winter Creek and passing over the sharp hills that border that stream you will come, at the end of a nine-mile journey, to Lake Rose. The way is upward through groves of pane, thickets of aspen, and steep open glades surrounded by silver fir trees that would be the delight of a landscape gardener if he could cause them to grow in our city parks as they do here. Elk are everywhere. We ride through and around bands of them, male, female, and odd-shapen calves with wobbly legs and luminous, questioning eyes. As you pause now and then to contemplate some new view of the wilderness unfolding before you, the beauty, and freedom and serenity of it are irresistible, and you comprehend for the first time the spirit of the Argonauts of '49 and the nobility of the pæan they chanted to express their exalted brotherhood: "The days of old, The days of gold, The days of '49." [Illustration: _Gorge of the Firehole River_] [Illustration: _A Wooded Islet_] Suddenly the ground slopes away before us and Lake Rose lies at our feet, like an amethyst in a chalice of jade-green onyx. The surroundings are picturesque. The mountains descend abruptly to the water's edge and the snow never quite disappears from its banks in the longest summer. Here in June may be seen that incredible thing, the wild strawberry blossoming bravely above the slush-snow that still hides the plant below, and the bitter-root putting forth buds in the lee of a snow bank. A small stream enters the lake at the northwest, and here the trout are most abundant. They rise eagerly to the silver doctor fly, a half dozen often breaking at once, any one of which is a weight for a rod. Probably not more than a score of anglers have ever cast a fly from this point, and a word of caution may for this reason be pardoned. The low temperature of the water retards the spawning season till midsummer, consequently trout should not be taken here earlier than the third week of July. Again, nature has given to every true sportsman the good sense to stop when he has enough, and as this unwritten law is practically his only restraint, he should feel that its observance is in safe hands and that the sportsman's limit will be strictly observed. [Illustration: _Bear Up!_] _A MORNING ON IRON CREEK_ [Illustration: _The Boy and the von Behr_] WHEN the snows have disappeared from the valleys and lower hills, and the streams have fallen to the level of their banks and their waters have lost the brown stain filtered from decaying leaves, and have resumed the chatty, confidential tones of summer, then is the time to angle for the brown trout. If you would know the exact hour, listen for the brigadier bird as he sings morning and evening from a tall tree at the mouth of Iron Creek. When you hear his lonely wood-note, joint your rod and take the path through the lodge-pole pines that brings you to the creek about three hundred yards above its confluence with the river. The lush grass of the meadow is ankle-deep with back water from the main stream, and Iron Creek and the Little Firehole lie level-lipped and currentless. As you look quietly on from the shade of a tree, the water breaks into circles in a dozen places, and just at the edge of a bank where the sod overhangs the stream there is a mighty splash which is repeated several times. Move softly, for the ground is spongy and vibrates under a heavy tread sufficiently to warn the fish for many yards, then the stream becomes suddenly silent and you will wait long for the trout to resume their feeding. [Illustration: _Rapids of the Gibbon River_] [Illustration: _Along Iron Creek_] Stealthily drop the fly just over the edge of the bank, as though some witless insect had lost his hold above and fallen!--Right Honorable Dean of the Guild, I read the other day an article in which you stated that the brown trout never leaps on a slack line. Surely you are right, and this is not a trout after all, but a flying fish, for he went down stream in three mighty and unexpected leaps that wrecked your theory and the top joint of the rod before the line could be retrieved. Then the fly comes limply home and nothing remains of the sproat hook but the shank. [Illustration: _Divinity and Infinity_] These things happened to a friend in less time than is taken in the telling. When he had recovered from the shock he remarked, smilingly, "That wasn't half bad for a Dutchman, now, was it?" As he is a sensible fellow and has no "tendency toward effeminate attenuation" in tackle, he graciously accepted and used the proffered cast of Pitcher flies tied on number six O'Shaughnessy hooks. Having ventured this much concerning what the writer considers _proper_ tackle, he would like to go further and record here his disapproval of the individual who turns up his nose at any rod of over five ounces in weight, and who tells you with an air from which you are expected to infer much, that fly fishing is really the only _honorable_ and _gentlemanly_ manner of taking trout. In the language of one who was a master of concise and forceful phrase, "This is one of the deplorable fishing affectations and pretences which the rank and file of the fraternity ought openly to expose and repudiate. Our irritation is greatly increased when we recall the fact that every one of these super-refined fly-casting dictators, when he fails to allure trout by his most scientific casts, will chase grasshoppers to the point of profuse perspiration, and turn over logs and stones with feverish anxiety in quest of worms and grubs, if haply he can with these save himself from empty-handedness."[B] Fly fishing as a recreation justifies all good that has been written of it, but it is a tell-tale sport that infallibly informs your associates what manner of being you are. It is self-purifying like the limpid mountain stream its followers love, and no wrong-minded individual nor set of individuals can ever pollute it. It is too cosmopolitan a pleasure to belong to the exclusive, and too robust in sentiment to be confined to gossamer gut leaders and midge hooks. Much, in fact everything, of your success in taking fish in Iron Creek depends on the time of your visit. For three hundred, thirty days of the year it is profitless water. Then come the days when the German trout begin their annual _auswanderung_. No one need be told that these trout do not live in this creek throughout the year. For trout are brook-wise or river-wise according as they have been reared, and the habits, attitudes and behavior of the one are as different from the other as are those of the boys and girls reared in the country from the city-bred. If one of these river-bred fish breaks from the hook here he does not immediately bore up stream into deep water and disappear beneath a sheltering log, bank or submerged tree-top as one would having a claim on these waters, but heading down-stream, he stays not for brake and he stops not for stone till the river is reached. In his headlong haste to escape he reminds one of a country boy going for a doctor. [Illustration: _Virginia Cascade_] It is one of the unexplained phenomena of trout life and habit, why these fish leap as they do here at this season, when hooked. In no other stream and at no other time have I known them to exhibit this quality. It is one of those problems of trout activity for which apparently no reason can be given further than the one which is said to control the fair sex; "When she will she will, And you may depend on't; When she won't she won't, And that's an end on't." [Illustration] "I'm wrapped up in my plaid, and lyin' a' my length on a bit green platform, fit for the fairies' feet, wi' a craig hangin' ower me a thousand feet high, yet bright and balmy a' the way up wi' flowers and briars, and broom and birks, and mosses maist beautiful to behold wi' half shut e'e, and through aneath ane's arm guardin' the face frae the cloudless sunshine; and perhaps a bit bonny butterfly is resting wi' faulded wings on a gowan, no a yard frae your cheek; and noo waukening out o' a simmer dream floats awa' in its wavering beauty, but, as if unwilling to leave its place of mid-day sleep, comin' back and back, and roun' and roun' on this side and that side, and ettlin in its capricious happiness to fasten again on some brighter floweret, till the same breath o' wund that lifts up your hair so refreshingly catches the airy voyager and wafts her away into some other nook of her ephemeral paradise." CHRISTOPHER NORTH. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote B: Hon. Grover Cleveland in _The Saturday Evening Post_.] _AN AFTERNOON ON THE FIREHOLE_ [Illustration: _First View of the Firehole_] THE Firehole is a companionable river. Notwithstanding its forbidding name, it is pre-eminently a stream for the angler, and always does its best to put him at his ease. Like some hospitable manorial lord, it comes straight down the highway for a league to greet the stranger and to offer him the freedom of its estate. Every fisherman who goes much alone along streams will unconsciously associate certain human attributes with the qualities of the waters he fishes. It may be a quiet charm that lulls to rest, or a bold current that challenges his endurance and caution. Between these extremes there is all that infinite range of moods and fancies which find their counterpart in the emotions. The Firehole possesses many of these qualities in a high degree. It can be broad, sunny and genial, or whisper with a scarcely audible lisp over languid, trailing beds of conferva; and anon, lead you with tumultuous voice between rocky walls where a misstep would be disastrous. The unfortunate person who travels in its company for the time required to make the tour of the Park and remains indifferent to all phases of its many-sidedness, should turn back. Nature will have no communion with him, nor will he gain her little secrets and confidences: "They're just beyond the skyline, Howe'er so far you cruise." [Illustration: _Cascades of the Madison_] [Illustration: _Below the Cascades_] During the restful period following the noon-hour, when there is a truce between fisherman and fish, we lie in the shadow of the pines and read "Our Lady's Tumbler," till, in the drowsy mind fancy plays an interlude with fact. The ripple of the distant stream becomes the patter of priestly feet down dim corridors, and the whisper of the pines the rustle of sacerdotal robes. Through half-shut lids we see the clouds drift across the slopes of a distant mountain, double as it were, cloud and snow bank vying with each other in whiteness. [Illustration: _Undine Falls_] Neither the companionship of man nor that of a boisterous stream will accord with our present mood. So, with rod in hand, we ford the stream above the island and lie down amid the wild flowers in the shadow of the western hill. For wild flowers, like patriotism, seemingly reach their highest perfection amid conditions of soil and climate that are apparently most uncongenial. Here almost in reach of hand, are a variety and profusion of flowers rarely found in the most favored spots; columbines, gentians, forget-me-nots, asters and larkspurs, are all in bloom at the same moment, for the summer is short and nature has trained them to thrust forth their leaves beneath the very heel of winter and to bear bud, flower, and fruit within the compass of fifty days. I strongly urge every tourist, angling or otherwise, to carry with him both a camera and a herbarium. With these he may preserve invaluable records of his outing; one to remind him of the lavish panorama of beauty of mountain, lake and waterfall; the other to hold within its leaves the delicately colored flowers that delight the senses. A great deal is said about the cheap tourist nowadays, with the emphasis so placed on the word "cheap" as to create a wrong impression. With the manner of your travel, whether in Pullman cars, Concord coaches, buck-board wagons, or on foot, this adjective has nothing to do. It does, however, describe pretty accurately a quality of mind too often found among visitors to such places--a mind that looks only to the present and passing events, and that between intervals of geyser-chasing, is busied with inconsequential gabble, with no thought of selecting the abiding, permanent things as treasures for the storehouse of memory. What fisherman is there who has not in his fly-book a dozen or more flies that are perennial reminders of great piscatorial events? And what angler is there who does not love to go over them at times, one by one, and recall the incidents surrounding the history of each? We fondle the flies in our fancy, Selecting a cast that will kill, Then wait till a breeze from the canyon Has rimpled the water so still;-- Teal, and Fern, and Beaver, Coachman, and Caddis, and Herl,-- And dream that the king of the river Lies under the foam of that swirl. There's a feather from far Tioga, And one from the Nepigon, And one from the upper Klamath That tell of battles won-- Palmer, and Hackle, and Alder, Claret, and Polka, and Brown,-- Each one a treasured memento Of days that have come and gone. A joust of hardiest conflict With knight in times of eld Would bring a lesser pleasure Than each of these victories held. Rapids, and foam, and smother, Lunge, and thrust, and leap,-- And to know that the barbed feather Is fastened sure and deep. Abbey, and Chantry, and Quaker, Dorset and Canada, Premier, Hare's Ear, and Hawthorne, Brown Ant, and Yellow May, Jungle-Cock, Pheasant, and Triumph, Romeyn, and Montreal, Are names that will ever linger In the sunlight of Memory Hall. The whole field of angling literature contains nothing more exquisite than the following description of the last days of Christopher North, as written by his daughter: "It was an affecting sight to see him busy, nay, quite absorbed with the fishing tackle scattered about the bed, propped up with pillows--his noble head, yet glorious with its flowing locks, carefully combed by attentive hands, and falling on each side of his unfaded face. How neatly he picked out each elegantly dressed fly from its little bunch, drawing it out with trembling hand along the white coverlet, and then replacing it in his pocket-book, he would tell ever and anon of the streams he used to fish in of old." * * * * * [Illustration: _Picturesque Rocks in River_] By four o'clock the stream is hidden from the sun and the shadow of the wooded summit at your back has crossed the roadway and is climbing the heights beyond. As if moved by some signal unheard by the listener, the trout begin to feed all along the surface of the water. Leap follows or accompanies leap as far as the eye can discern up stream, and down stream to where the water breaks to the downpull of the gorge below. Select a clear space for your back-cast, wait till a cloud obscures the sun. * * * * The trout took the fly from below and with a momentum that carried him full-length into the air. But there was no turning of the body in the arc that artists love to picture. He dropped straight down as he arose and the waters closed over him with a "plop" which you learn afterward is characteristic of the rise and strike of the German trout. All this may not be observed at first, for if he is one of the big fellows, he will cut out some busy-work for you to prevent his going under the top of that submerged tree which you had not noticed before. As it was, you brought him clear by a scant hand's breadth, only to have him dive for another similar one with greater energy. [Illustration: "_That Delectable Island_"] Well, it's the same old story over again, but one that never becomes altogether tedious to the angler. And the profitable part of this tale is that it may be re-enacted here on any summer afternoon. Some day a canoe will float down the river and land on the gravelly beach at the upper end of that delectable island, just where the trees are mirrored in the water so picturesquely. Then a tent will be set up and two shall possess that island for a whole, happy week. If you are coming by that road then, give the "Hallo" of the fellow craft and you shall have a loaf and as many fish as you like, and be sent on your way as becomes a man and brother. _TRAILS FROM YANCEY'S AND OTHER TRAILS_ [Illustration: _Yancey's_] WHEN "Uncle" John Yancey, peace to his ashes, selected the site for his home and built his cabin under the shelter of the mountain at the north end of Pleasant Valley, he displayed that capacity to discover and appropriate the best things of the earth which is characteristic of American pioneers. Here game was abundant and everything that a remote, mountainous country could supply to the frontiersman was at hand. A stream of purest water ran by the door, and the open, grassy meadows were ample for the supply of hay and pasturage. The scenery is delightful, varied and picturesque. No other locality in the Park is comparable with it as a place of abode, and there is no pleasanter place in which to spend a week than at "Yancey's." The government has recently completed a road from the canyon of the Yellowstone, over Mt. Washburn, down the valley near Yancey's, and reaching Mammoth Hot Springs by way of Lava Creek. This has added another day to the itinerary of the Park as planned by the transportation companies, and one which for scenic interest surpasses any other day of the tour. A mere category of the places of interest that may be seen in this region would be lengthy. The lower canyon of the Yellowstone with its overhanging walls five hundred feet high, with pillars of columnar basalt reaching more than half-way from base to summit, the petrified trees, lofty cliffs, and romantic waterfalls, will delight and charm the visitor. [Illustration: "_Swirl and Sweep of the Water_"] The angler will find the waters of this region as abundantly supplied with trout as any area of like extent anywhere. No amount of fishing will ever exhaust the "Big Eddy" of the Yellowstone, and it is worth a day's journey to witness the swirl and sweep of the water after it emerges from the confining, vertical walls. The velocity of the current at this point is very great, and surely, during a flood, attains a speed of sixteen or more miles an hour. In the eddy itself the trout rise indifferently to the fly, but will come to the red-legged grasshopper as long as the supply lasts. Strange to say, they will not take the grasshopper on the surface of the water. Two bright faced boys who had climbed down into the canyon watched me whip the pool in every direction for a quarter of an hour without taking a single trout. Satisfied that something was wrong, I fastened a good sized Rangeley sinker to the leader about a foot above the hook and pitched the grasshopper into the buffeting currents. An hour later we carried back to camp twenty-five trout which, placed endwise, head to tail, measured twenty-five feet on a tape line. This use of a sinker under the circumstances was not a great discovery, but it spelled the difference between success and failure at the time. So I have been glad at most times to learn by experience and from others the little things that help make a better day's angling. [Illustration: _The Palisades_] Once when I knew more about trout fishing than I have ever convinced myself that I knew since, I visited a famous stream in a wilderness new and unknown to me, fully resolved to show the natives how to do things. Near the end of the third day of almost fruitless fishing, the modest guide volunteered to take me out that evening, if I cared to go. Of course I cared to go, and I shall never forget that moonlight night on Beaver Creek. We returned to camp about ten o'clock with twenty-eight trout, four of which weighed better than three pounds apiece. [Illustration: _A Young Corsair of the Plains_] It may be a severe shock to the sensibilities of the "super-refined fly-caster" to suggest so mean a bait as grasshoppers, yet he may obtain some comfort, as did one aforetime, by labeling the can in which the hoppers are carried: "_CALOPTENOUS FEMUR-RUBRUM_." * * * * * Then there are Slough Creek, Hell-Roaring Creek, East Fork, Trout Lake, and a host of other streams and lakes that have been favorite resorts with anglers for years, and in which may be taken the very leviathans of six, seven, eight, and even ten, pounds' weight. He must be difficult to please who finds not a day of days among them. Up to the present time only the red-throat trout inhabit these waters, but plants of other varieties have been made and will doubtless thrive quite as well as the native trout. [Illustration: _Tower Falls_] Owing probably to the fact that, until recently, the region around Tower Creek and Falls was not accessible by roads, this stream received no attention from the fish commission till the summer of 1903, when a meager plant of 15,000 brook trout fry was made there. The scenery in this neighborhood is unsurpassed, and when the stream becomes well stocked it will, doubtless, be a favorite resort with anglers who delight in mountain fastnesses or in the study of geological records of past ages. The drainage basin of Tower Creek coincides with the limits of the extinct crater of an ancient volcano. As you stand amid the dark forests with which the walls of the crater are clothed and see the evidences on all sides of the Titanic forces once at work here, fancy has but little effort in picturing something of the tremendous scenes once enacted on this spot. Now all is peace and quiet, the quiet of the wilderness, which save for the rush of the torrential stream, is absolutely noiseless. No song of bird gladdens the darkened forests, and in its gloom the wild animals are seldom or never seen. How strikingly the silence and wonder of the scene proclaim that nature has formed the world for the happiness of man. Within two hundred yards of the Yellowstone River, Tower Creek passes over a fall of singular and romantic beauty. Major Chittenden in his book "The Yellowstone" thus describes it: "This waterfall is the most beautiful in the Park, if one takes into consideration all its surroundings. The fall itself is very graceful in form. The deep cavernous basin into which it pours itself is lined with shapely evergreen trees, so that the fall is partially screened from view. Above it stand those peculiar forms of rock characteristic of that locality--detached pinnacles or towers which give rise to the name. The lapse of more than thirty years since Lieutenant Doane saw these falls, has given us nothing descriptive of them that can compare with the simple words of his report penned upon the first inspiration of a new discovery: 'Nothing can be more chastely beautiful than this lovely cascade, hidden away in the dim light of overshadowing rocks and woods, its very voice hushed to a low murmur unheard at the distance of a few hundred yards. Thousands might pass by within half a mile and not dream of its existence; but once seen, it passes to the list of most pleasant memories.'" [Illustration: _The Shadow of a Cliff_] If the angler wanders farther into the wilderness than any waters named herein would lead him, he will find other streams to bear him company amid scenes that will live long in his memory and where the trout are ever ready to pay him the compliment of a rise. To the eastward flows Shoshone river with its myriad tributaries, teeming with trout and draining a region far more rugged and lofty than the Park proper. To the south and west are those wonderfully beautiful lakes that form the source of the Snake river. Here, early in the season, the great lake or Macinac trout, _Salvelinus namaycush_, are occasionally taken with a trolling spoon. From north to south, from the Absaroka Mountains to the Tetons, on both sides of the continental divide, this peerless pleasuring-ground is netted with a lace-work of streams. Two score lakes and more than one hundred, sixty streams are named on the map of this domain which is forever secured and safeguarded "_FOR THE BENEFIT AND ENJOYMENT OF THE PEOPLE_" [Illustration: _Good Bye Till Next Year_] * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Page 26, "Whpskehegan" changed to "Waskahegan" (fished the Waskahegan) 
37856	----	=By Charles Bradford= =The Determined Angler= "Most sensible volume of its kind."--Grover Cleveland. 12º. illustrated. By mail, $1.10. $1.00 =The Angler's Secret= "A modern 'Compleat Angler.'"--N. Y. Times. 16mo illustrated. By mail, $1.10 $1.00 =The Angler's Guide= "A valuable volume of reference for the Angler."--Dr. Jas. A. Henshall. 200 pgs. By mail, 80 cts. .75 =The Wildfowlers= A volume of duck shooting. "A classic."--N. Y. World. 16mo illustrated. By mail, $1.10 $1.00 =Frank Forester= Life and Writings of the Father of American Fishing and Field Sports. By mail, $1.10 $1.00 [Illustration: A MORNING'S CATCH OF TROUT NEAR SPOKANE, WASHINGTON "Three times too many for one rod."--_William T. Hornaday_ An object lesson on the too-liberal fish laws. _See page 38_] The Determined Angler and the Brook Trout An Anthological Volume of Trout Fishing. Trout Histories, Trout Lore, Trout Resorts, and Trout Tackle By Charles Bradford Author of "The Wildfowlers," "The Angler's Secret." "The Angler's Guide," "Frank Forester," etc. [Illustration] _Second Edition, Greatly Enlarged_ _Illustrated_ G. P. Putnam's Sons New York London The Knickerbocker Press 1916 COPYRIGHT, 1916 BY CHARLES BRADFORD The Knickerbocker Press, New York To J. CHARLES DAVIS THESE LITTLE YARNS ARE DEDICATED IN REMEMBRANCE OF SOME DELIGHTFUL OUTINGS PASSED IN HIS SOCIETY. THE BROOK TROUT'S HOME "I am _Salmo fontinalis_. To the sparkling fountain born; And my home is where oxalis. Heather bell and rose adorn The crystal basin in the dell (Undine the wood-nymph knows it well): That is where I love to dwell. There was I baptized and christened, 'Neath the somber aisles of oak; Mute the cascade paused and listened. Never a word the brooklet spoke; Bobolink was witness then. Likewise grosbeak, linnet, wren-- And all the fairies joined "amen!" Thus as _Salmo fontinalis_ Recognized the wide world o'er. In my limpid crystal palace. Content withal, I ask no more. Leaping through the rainbow spray. Snatching flies the livelong day. Naught to do but eat and play." CHARLES HALLOCK. BROOK TROUT ANGLING "... it carries us into the most wild and beautiful scenery of nature; amongst the mountain lakes, and the clear and lovely streams that gush from the higher ranges of elevated hills, or that make their way through the cavities of calcareous strata. How delightful in the early spring, after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the frosts disappear and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent the odors of the bank perfumed by the violet, and enameled, as it were, with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the music of the bee; and on the surface of the waters to view the gaudy flies sparkling like animated gems in the sunbeams, whilst the bright and beautiful trout is watching them from below; to hear the twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; and as the season advances, to find all these objects changed for others of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and the trout contend as it were for the gaudy May fly, and till in pursuing your amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you are serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush ... performing the offices of paternal love, in thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine."--_Days of Fly Fishing, 1828._ "Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation, calm and quiet.... And so much for the prologue of what I mean to say-" Izaak Walton [Illustration] PREFACE "Don't give up if you don't catch fish; the unsuccessful trip should whet your appetite to try again."--GROVER CLEVELAND. A preface is either an excuse or an explanation, or both. The Brook Trout needs no excuse, and it is fully explained in the general text of this volume. Nor does the Angler, be he Determined or otherwise, need any excuse, because "our Saviour chose simple fishermen ... St. Peter, St. John, St. Andrew, and St. James, whom he inspired, and He never reproved these for their employment or calling" (Izaak Walton, _The Compleat Angler_, 1653). And the Angler--the man--needs no explanation, though it seems ever necessary to define the word. Webster, himself a profound Angler, must have been unconscious of his gentle bearing, for his definition of "angle" is simply: "to fish," and every Angler knows that merely to fish--to go forth indifferent of correct (humane) tackle, the legal season, and ethical methods in the pursuit--is not the way of the Angler. I like the explanation of the word by Genio C. Scott: "Angling, a special kind of fishing." The inspired landscape genius and the kalsominer who shellacs the artist's studio are both painters; so, the gentle Angler with perfect tackle and the mere hand-line fish taker are both fishermen. The Angler is the highest order of fisherman, and while all Anglers are fishermen there are many fishermen who are not Anglers. "Anglo-Saxon," writing in the New York _Press_. October 14, 1915, uses the term "gentleman Anglers." He should have said "gentleman fishermen" (Anglers), because all Anglers are gentlemen, regardless of their business calling, appearance, personality, companionship, etc. When a man, fisherman or no fisherman, develops into an Angler he must first become gentle in order to be of the gentle art. "Angling is the gentle art" (Walton). "The gentle art of angling" (Cotton). "If true Anglers," says Genio C. Scott, "you are sure to be gentle." Peter Flint (New York _Press_, Oct. 15, 1915): "Our most successful Anglers, amateurs as well as professionals." All Anglers are amateurs, brother Peter. There are no professional Anglers, though there are both amateur and professional fishermen, and those fishermen who are amateurs are Anglers. The word "amateur" seems to be adrift upon the same bewildering tideway as the words "angler" and "angling." "Amateur" hasn't the definition commonly attributed to it--it doesn't signify inefficiency, inexperience, unpracticality, etc., as do the words "beginner," "neophyte," "tyro," etc. An amateur in fishing, or farming, or any other pastime or pursuit, may be far more practical, more experienced, more proficient, and better equipped in tools and paraphernalia than a professional, and he usually is so; he is certainly always so in angling. Watch your word. "It is the belief of Acker that hand-line fishing is as good [as], if not better than, the rod and reel kind." (Wandering Angler, New York _Press_, Aug. 17, 1915.) Hand-line fishing, as fishing,--though the Tuna Angling Club, of Santa Catalina Island, California, is bound to the use of light rods and fine reels and tells us hand-lines are unsportsmanlike and detrimental to the public interest,--is good (Christ and His disciples sanctioned it), but to say it is as good as or better than rod and reel angling is not convincing. The indifferent fisher can't condemn angling in praising common fishing with any more reason than he might proclaim against cricket playing in favoring carpentry, or _vice versa_. One might as correctly say hand-line fishing is as good as riding, or driving, or golf, or baseball, or canoeing (of course it is), for fishing without rod and reel and fishing with proper tackle are pursuits as distinct in character as riding a plain horse bareback with a rough halter, and straddling a gallant charger with neat bridle and saddle; or as mere boating upon a refuse creek, and skimming the green billows in a trim yacht. That the fisher's hand-line and the fisherman's net will take _more_ fish than the Angler's tackle is not of moment, because a stick of dynamite or a cannon filled with leaden pellets or a boy with a market basket will take still more fish than the net and hand-line. Quantity makes fishing "good" with the fisherman; quality delights the Angler. There is no objection to the mere fish-getter filling his boat with fishes with or without tackle, but as the jockey is separated from the sportsman rider and the sailor from the yachtsman so should the quantity fisher and the quality Angler be considered in contrasting spheres. "What a man brings home in his heart after fishing is of more account than what he brings in his basket," says W. J. Long. "Anglers encourage the adoption of angling methods," says Dr. Van Dyke, "which make the wholesale slaughter of fishes impossible and increase the sport of taking a fair number in a fair way." As chivalric single-missile bow-and-arrow exercise dignifies archery above bunch-arrow work in war, so the gentle use of refined tackle dignifies angling above mere fish getting. Trap shooting is delightful, and more birds are killed than the gunner would bag in marsh and meadow, but is trap shooting therefore more "good" than game-shooting in the glorious fields and forests? No, sir; and though the hand-line fisherman may honestly take half the ocean's yield, still his pursuit and his catch cannot equal and cannot be legitimately compared to the code and the creel of the competent Angler. =C. B.= RICHMOND HILL, LONG ISLAND, N. Y., _March, 1916_. AUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The article "Fly Fishing for Trout," I contributed in its original form to _Sports Afield_, Mr. Claude King's Western journal. The article "Trout and Trouting," as I originally prepared it, was entitled "Near-by Trout Streams," and was written for and published in _Outing_, when I was field editor of that delightful magazine. "Trouting in Canadensis Valley" is rewritten from a little story of mine penned at the suggestion of the noted angler and ichthyologist, the late William C. Harris, and published by him in his _The American Angler_ when I became his managing editor. "Trout Flies, Artificial and Natural" and "The Brook Trout Incognito" are elaborations of studies I composed for _Forest and Stream_. And many of the items in "Little Casts," etc., are from a collection of paragraphs I have contributed to the New York _Herald_, the New York _Press_, and various sporting periodicals in past years. The extracts from the article by Willis Boyd Allen are reprinted by permission of _Scribner's Magazine_. For the little pen-and-ink sketches I am indebted to our jovial artist, Leppert. The picture, "Taking the Fly," is a reproduction from an etching in my possession, presented to me by Mr. William M. Carey, whose etchings and paintings in oil are well known to American sportsmen. "The Fly Rod's Victim" is reproduced from a photograph framed in birch bark and presented to me by the poet, Isaac McLellan. "The Brook Trout" illustration is from a photograph of a captive specimen in an aquarium, the engraving being loaned me by the late John P. Burkhard. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I.--THE HOLY ANGLERS 1 II.--HISTORIES OF THE TROUTS--HOW THE ANGLER TAKES THEM 7 III.--THE ANGLER AND THE FISHERMAN 15 IV.--FLY-FISHING 21 V.--WALTON'S WAY 33 VI.--THE WANTON WAY 38 VII.--FLY-FISHING FOR TROUT 41 VIII.--THE ANGLER'S PRAYER--SAVE THE WOODS AND WATERS 52 IX.--TROUT AND TROUTING 56 X.--TROUTING IN CANADENSIS VALLEY 64 XI.--THE TROUTER'S OUTFIT 68 XII.--TROUT FLIES, ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL 71 XIII.--THE BROOK TROUT'S RIVAL 84 XIV.--TROUT ON BARBLESS HOOKS 87 XV.--THE BROOK TROUT INCOGNITO 92 XVI.--HOOKING THE TROUT 102 XVII.--DOCTOR NATURE 104 XVIII.--THE BROOK TROUT 106 XIX.--THE ANGLER 112 XX.--ANGLING 119 XXI.--TROUT FLIES 133 XXII.--CASTING THE FLY 138 XXIII.--TACKLE TALKS 142 XXIV.--THE ANGLER'S KITCHEN 149 XXV.--CARE AND BREEDING OF TROUT 151 XXVI.--THE ANGLER'S CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR 153 XXVII.--LITTLE CASTS 155 XVIII.--BORROWED LINES 157 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE A MORNING'S CATCH OF TROUT NEAR SPOKANE. WASHINGTON _Frontispiece_ BROOK TROUT 8 MALMA (DOLLY VARDEN) TROUT 8 LAKE (MACKINAW) TROUT 8 OQUASSA (BLUE-BACK) TROUT 10 BROWN TROUT 10 YELLOWSTONE TROUT 10 SAIBLING TROUT (LONG-FIN CHARR) 10 RAINBOW TROUT 12 LAKE TAHOE TROUT 12 STEEL-HEAD TROUT 12 AN UNUSUAL WAY OF TAKING THE FLY 46 THE TROUT BROOK 66 The Determined Angler CHAPTER I THE HOLY ANGLERS "The greater number of them [Christ's disciples] were found together, fishing, by Jesus, after His Resurrection."--IZAAK WALTON. "... certain poor fishermen coming in very weary after a night of toil (and one of them very wet after swimming ashore) found their Master standing on the bank of the lake waiting for them. But it seems that He must have been busy in their behalf while he was waiting; for there was a bright fire of coals on the shore, and a goodly fish broiling thereon, and bread to eat with it. And when the Master had asked them about their fishing he said: 'Come, now, and get your breakfast.' So they sat down around the fire, and with His own hands he served them with the bread and the fish."--HENRY VAN DYKE. "The first men that our Saviour dear Did choose to wait upon Him here. Blest fishers were...." W. BASSE. "I would ... fish in the sky whose bottom is pebbly with stars."--THOREAU. The principal fishes of the Sea of Galilee to-day are the same as they were two thousand years ago--bream and chub. These were taken in olden times by both net and hook and line. The fishermen whom Christ chose as His disciples--Peter. Andrew, James, and John--were professional net fishermen, but hook and line fishing was a favorite pastime of the well-to-do Egyptians as well as the poor people who could not afford a net. Weirs not unlike the modern article were used in the Holy Land in Bible time, excepting on Lake Gennesaret, where the law of the land forbade them. The bream and the chub were eaten alike by rich and poor people. Wayfarers roasted them over chip fires in the groves and on the lake shores, housewives boiled and broiled them, and the wealthy man served them at his banquets. "Moses, the friend of God," writes Izaak Walton, in his immortal _Compleat Angler_, quoting from Lev. xi., 9, Deut., xiv., 9, "appointed fish to be the chief diet for the best commonwealth that ever yet was. The mightiest feasts have been of fish." Our Saviour "fed the people on fish when they were hungry." The species is not alluded to in the Biblical paragraph, but no doubt the fish feasts of the Lord were mostly of chub and bream. Jesus loved fishermen and was in their society most of His time. No other class of men were so well favored by Him. He inspired St. Peter, St. John, St. Andrew, and St. James, poor fishermen, who drew their nets for the people, and these four fishermen, declares Father Izaak, "He never reproved for their employment or calling, as he did scribes and money changers." The Lord's favorite places of labor and repose--the places He most frequented--were near the fishes and fisherman. "He began to teach by the seaside. His pulpit was a fishing boat or the shore of a lake. He was in the stern of the boat, asleep. He was always near the water to cheer and comfort those who followed it." And Walton tells us that "when God intended to reveal high notions to His prophets He carried them to the shore, that He might settle their mind in a quiet repose." Bream and chub are not monster fishes--they do not average the great weights of the tarpon and the tuna; they are of the small and medium-size species; so, if the apostles were pleased with "ye gods and little fishes," we mortals of to-day should be satisfied with our catch, be it ever so small. APPELLATIONS OF THE TROUTS Trout, Bear: _See_ Lake Trout Trout, Beardslee: _See_ Crescent Lake Blue-Back Trout, Black-spotted Salmon Trout, Blue-Back: _See_ Oquassa Trout Trout, Brook Trout, Brown Trout, Canada: _See_ Greenland Trout Trout, Canada Sea: _See_ Brook Trout and Greenland Trout Trout, Colorado River: _See_ Black-Spotted Trout, Columbia River: _See_ Black-Spotted Trout, Cousin: _See_ Roach Trout, Crescent Lake Blue-Back Trout, Crescent Lake Long-Headed Trout, Crescent Lake Speckled Trout, Dolly Varden: _See_ Malma Trout Trout, Dublin Pond Trout, European Brown Trout, Fresh-Water Cod: _See_ Lake Trout Trout, Golden: _See_ Rainbow Salmon Trout and Sunapee Trout, Great Lakes: _See_ Mackinaw Trout, Green: _See_ Black Bass Trout, Green-Back Trout, Greenland Trout, Hard-Head: _See_ Steel-Head Salmon Trout Trout, Jordan Trout, Kansas River: _See_ Kansas River Salmon Trout Trout, Kern River: _See_ Rainbow Trout, Lac de Marbre Trout, Lake Trout, Lake Salmon: _See_ Lake Trout Trout, Lake Southerland Salmon Trout, Lake Southerland Spotted: _See_ Jordan's Trout Trout, Lake Tahoe: _See_ Lake Tahoe Salmon Trout Trout, Lewis: _See_ Yellowstone Trout Trout, Loch Leven Trout, Lunge: _See_ Lake Trout Trout, Mackinaw: _See_ Mackinaw Lake Trout Trout, Mackinaw Lake Trout, Malma Trout, Marston: _See_ Lac de Marbre Trout Trout, Mountain: _See_ Brook Trout, Small-Mouth Black Bass, and Rainbow Salmon Trout Trout, Mt. Whitney: _See_ Rainbow Trout, Mucqua Lake: _See_ Lake Trout Trout, Namaycush: _See_ Lake Trout Trout, Namaycush Lake Trout, Nissuee: _See_ Rainbow Trout, Noshee: _See_ Rainbow Trout, Oquassa Trout, Pickerel: _See_ Long Island Pickerel Trout, Pickerel: _See_ Long Island Pickerel Trout, Pike: _See_ Long Island Pickerel Trout, Pike: _See_ Long Island Pickerel Trout, Rainbow: _See_ Rainbow Salmon Trout Trout, Rainbow Lake: _See_ Rainbow Salmon Trout Trout, Red: _See_ Lac de Marbre Trout Trout, Red-Spotted: _See_ Malma Trout Trout, Rio Grande: _See_ Rio Grande Salmon Trout Trout, Rio Grande Salmon Trout, Saibling Trout, Salmon Trout, Sea: _See_ Greenland Trout and Brook Trout Trout, Silver: _See_ Black-Spotted Salmon Trout and Lake Tahoe Salmon Trout Trout, Siskawitz: _See_ Lake Trout Trout, Siscowet: _See_ Lake Trout Trout, Stone's: _See_ Rainbow Trout, Sunapee Trout, Tahoe Trout, Togue: _See_ Lake Trout Trout, Truckee: _See_ Lake Tahoe Trout, Tuladi: _See_ Lake Trout Trout, Utah Trout, Waha Lake: _See_ Waha Lake Salmon Trout Trout, Waha Lake Salmon Trout, Western Oregon Brook: _See_ Rainbow Trout, White: _See_ Sunapee Trout, Winipiseogee: _See_ Lake Trout Trout, Yellow-Fin Trout, Yellowstone CHAPTER II HISTORIES OF THE TROUTS--HOW THE ANGLER TAKES THEM =Trout, Brook= (Speckled Trout, Mountain Trout. Fontinalis, Speckled Beauty, Spotted Trout, etc.): Caught in the spring and summer in clear streams, lakes, and ponds, on the artificial fly. Favors eddies, riffles, pools, and deep spots under the banks of the stream and near rocks and fallen trees. Feeds on small fish, flies, and worms. Breeds in the autumn. Weighs up to ten pounds in large waters. There is a record of one weighing eleven pounds. This specimen was taken in northwestern Maine. Averages three quarters of a pound to one pound and a half in the streams, and one pound to three pounds in the lakes and ponds. Occurs between latitude 32-1/2° and 55°, in the lakes and streams of the Atlantic watershed, near the sources of a few rivers flowing into the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, and some of the southern affluents of Hudson Bay, its range being limited by the western foothills of the Alleghanies, extending about three hundred miles from the coast, except about the Great Lakes, in the northern tributaries of which it abounds. It also inhabits the headwaters of the Chattahoochee, in the southern spurs of the Georgia Alleghanies and tributaries of the Catawba in North Carolina, and clear waters of the great islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence--Anticosti, Cape Breton. Prince Edward, and Newfoundland; and abounds in New York, Michigan, Connecticut, Pennsylvania. Maine, Long Island, Canada, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. For the larger specimens use a six-ounce fly rod; for the tiny mountain specimens, a four-ounce fly rod. Leaders: Single, fine, and long. Reel: Small click. Flies: 6 to 14 on the streams and 4 to 6 on the lakes and ponds. Patterns: Quaker, Oak, Coachman, Dark Stone, Red Hackle. Blue Bottle, Bradford, Wren, Cahil, Brown Drake. Brandreth, Canada, Page, Professor, Codun, Dark Coachman, and the Palmers--green, gray, red, and brown. Use dark colors on bright days and early in the season; lighter shades on dark days, in the evening, and as the season grows warmer. =Trout, Crescent Lake Blue-Back= (_Salmo beardsleei_): Beardslee Trout, etc. A deep-water fish weighing up to fourteen pounds, found only in Crescent Lake. Washington, and taken during April, May, June, and October, chiefly on the troll. Leaps from the water when hooked. Color: Upper, deep blue ultramarine; lower, white. =Trout, Crescent Lake Long-Headed= (_Salmo bathæcetor_): Closely related to the Steel-Head Trout. A deep-water fish of Lake Crescent, Washington, caught only on set lines within a foot of the bottom. Will not come to the surface; will not take the fly or trolling spoon. Somewhat resembles the speckled trout of Crescent Lake, though more slender and of lighter color. =Trout, Crescent Lake Speckled= (_Salmo crescentis_): Closely resembles the Steel-Head. Weighs up to ten pounds. Found in Crescent Lake, Washington. An excellent game fish. [Illustration: _Brook Trout._] [Illustration: _Malma (Dolly Varden) Trout._] [Illustration: _Lake (Mackinaw) Trout._] =Trout, Dublin Pond= (_Salvelinus agassizii_): Inhabitant of Center and Dublin Pond and Lake Monadnock, etc., New Hampshire. Differs from the Brook Trout in being pale gray in color and more slender. Reaches a length of eight inches. Brook Trout tackle. =Trout, Green-Back= (_Salmo stomias_): A small black-spotted species, inhabiting the head waters of the Arkansas and Platte rivers; abundant in brooks, streams, and shallow parts of lakes. Common in the waters near Leadville and in Twin Lakes, Colorado, in company with the Yellow-Fin Trout, which see. Weighs up to one pound. =Trout, Greenland= (_Canada Sea Trout_): Caught in midsummer on medium Brook Trout tackle in Labrador, the rivers of considerable size in Canada, and the lakes of Greenland. Rivals the Atlantic Salmon in size, and is a fine sporting species. Averages two pounds in weight. It frequents the sandy pits that are uncovered at half-tide. Higher up the rivers it is found in the pools. =Trout, Jordan's= (_Salmo jardani_): Lake Southerland Spotted Trout, etc. Inhabits Lake Southerland, west of Puget Sound. Caught on the artificial fly as late as October, and is a great leaper. Is black-spotted. Resembles the Utah Trout in color and the Steel-head Trout in shape. =Trout, Kamloops= (_Salmo kamloops_): Stit-tse, etc. A form of the Steel-Head. Abounds in Okanogan, Kamloops, Kootenai lakes, and other waters tributary to the Frazer and upper Columbia rivers. Taken chiefly on the troll. A large, gamy, graceful, slender fish. Color: Dark olive above, bright silvery below. =Trout, Lac de Marbre= (_Salvelinus marstoni_): Marston Trout, etc. Found in Lac de Marbre, near Ottawa, the lakes of the Lake St. John district, Lac à Cassette in Rimouski county, and Lake Soccacomi and the Red Lakes in Maskinonge County, Canada. Takes the fly readily. Color: Upper, dark brown; below, whitish pink unspotted. Reaches a length of one foot. =Trout, Lake= (Togue, Fresh-Water Cod, Tuladi. Lunge, etc.): Caught on medium tackle with the troll and minnow bait in deep water, and, early in the season, near the surface, the young rising to artificial trout flies in rapid water. Occurs in all the great lakes of New Brunswick and in many similar waters in Maine. Attains a weight of twenty-one pounds. Haunts deep water as a rule, though often steals to the shoals and shores in search of food, small fish, early in the morning and at twilight. =Trout, Lake= (Siscowet, Siskawitz): Caught on medium tackle and small-fish bait along the north shores of Lake Superior. Haunts deep water and feeds upon a species of sculpin. Attains a weight of thirty pounds; averages four pounds. Its habits closely resemble those of the Mackinaw Lake Trout. =Trout, Lake= (Mucqua, Bear Trout, etc.): Caught in deep water on medium tackle and small-fish bait on the south shore of Lake Superior. Closely resembles the Siscowet Lake Trout of the same lake, if it is not, as many think, merely a local variety of the same form. [Illustration: _Oquassa (Blue-back) Trout._] [Illustration: _Brown Trout._] [Illustration: _Yellowstone Trout._] [Illustration: _Saibling Trout (Long-fin Charr)._] =Trout, Lake= (Winipiseogee Trout): Caught on medium tackle and small-fish bait in Lake Winipiseogee and supposedly in Lake George. =Trout, Lake= (Mackinaw Trout, Namaycush, Lake Salmon, Salmon Trout, etc.): Caught with medium tackle on the troll and with minnow bait in deep water in the chain of Great Lakes from Superior to Ontario, also in Lake Champlain, New York, and other lakes of the United States and British America, occurring also to the northeastward, in Mackinaw River and in the Knowall River, Alaska. Is known as Mackinaw Trout in Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, and as Lake Salmon and Salmon Trout in the lakes of northern New York. Is said to attain a weight of ninety pounds and a length of six feet. =Trout, Malma= (Dolly Varden Trout, Bull Trout. Speckled Trout, Lake Trout, Red-Spotted Trout. Salmon Trout, Chewagh, etc.): Caught on Brook Trout tackle in fresh water and Black Bass tackle in the ocean. Occurs in northern California, west of the Cascade Range, throughout the Aleutian Islands, and northward to Colville River in Alaska, and is not unknown at Behring Island, and Plover Bay, Siberia. Taken in the sea it is called Salmon Trout; in the lakes it is called by all the names parenthesized above. In salt water it feeds upon shrimp, smelt, young trout, sand lance, anchovy, herring, etc.; in fresh water small fish, worms, etc. Weighs up to fourteen pounds in the ocean; averages smaller in the lakes. =Trout, Oquassa= (Blue-Back Trout): Caught on Brook Trout tackle in the lakes of western Maine. New York, and New Hampshire. Attains a length of ten inches. =Trout, Saibling:= Caught on Brook Trout tackle in Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. A native of northwestern Europe, introduced in American Brook Trout waters. =Trout, Sunapee= (_Salvelinus aureolus_): American Saibling, White Trout, Golden Trout, Charr, etc. A native of Sunapee Lake, N. H., and Flood Pond. Ellsworth, Maine, now being introduced in other lakes. Favors deep water; takes live bait. Weighs up to twelve pounds. =Trout, Utah= (_Salmo virginalis_): Abounds in the streams and lakes of Utah west of the Wasatch Mountains--in Utah Lake and the Sevier, Jordan, Bear, and Provo rivers. Weighs up to twelve pounds. =Trout, Yellow-Fin= (_Salmo macdonaldi_): Found in Twin Lakes, Colorado, in company with the Green-Back Trout, from which it is distinct in color, habits, and size. Weighs up to nine pounds. Is caught on the artificial fly and with the troll. Favors gravel bottom in deep water. =Trout, Yellowstone= (_Salmo lewisi_): Abundant in Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming, and throughout the Snake River Basin above Shoshone Falls, and the headwaters of the Missouri. [Illustration: _Rainbow Trout._] [Illustration: _Lake Tahoe Trout._] [Illustration: _Steel-head Trout._] =Salmon Trout, Black-Spotted= (Silver Trout, Black Trout, Black-Spotted Trout, Preestl, etc.): Caught on the artificial fly in the Rocky Mountain region, the lakes of New Mexico, Utah, Western Colorado, Wyoming. Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. The young are abundant in Puget Sound, and are occasionally taken along the California coast. Weighs up to thirty pounds. =Salmon Trout, Brown= (Brown Trout, etc.): Caught on the artificial fly practically the same as Brook Trout are taken. Same rods, tackle, and flies. Introduced in this country from Europe. Weighs up to twenty pounds. =Salmon Trout, Kansas River:= Caught on Brook Trout tackle from the Kansas River to the upper Missouri. Reaches twenty-four inches in length. =Salmon Trout, Lake Southerland= (_Salmo declivifrons_): Found only in Lake Southerland. Reaches a length of ten inches; is very gamy; takes the fly, and leaps. =Salmon Trout, Lake Tahoe= (Lake Tahoe Trout, Silver Trout, Black Trout, etc.): Caught in Lake Tahoe. Pyramid Lake, and the streams of the Sierra Nevada on Brook Trout tackle. Weighs up to twenty pounds. =Salmon Trout, Loch Leven= (Loch Leven Trout, etc.): Introduced to this country from Europe, in streams in Michigan, Maine, and other States. Is taken on the artificial fly the same as Brook Trout. =Salmon Trout, Rainbow= (Rainbow Trout, Golden Trout, Golden Salmon, Brook Trout, Speckled Trout. Mountain Trout, etc.): Caught with the artificial fly in fresh streams and salt rivers. Occurs from near the Mexican line to Oregon and has been successfully introduced in the Eastern and Northern States, where it is taken upon ordinary Brook Trout tackle--light fly rod, fine leader, click reel, etc. Flies, same as those flailed for Brook Trout. Season: Same as Brook Trout. Weighs up to six pounds. =Salmon Trout, Rio Grande:= Abundant in the headwaters of the Rio Grande, Rio Colorado, and their tributaries; occurs in Bear River and the streams of Utah. =Salmon Trout, Steel-Head= (Hard-Head, Steel-Head Trout, etc.): Caught mostly in nets. Reaches a weight of twenty-two pounds. Found along the Pacific coast from the Sacramento River northward to Alaska. Abundant in the Columbia and Frazer rivers in the spring. Inhabits river-mouths. =Salmon Trout, Waha Lake= (Waha Lake Trout, etc.): Caught on Brook Trout tackle. A local form of the Black-Spotted Salmon Trout, found in Waha Lake, a landlocked mountain tarn in Washington. CHAPTER III THE ANGLER AND THE FISHERMAN One profound proof of the soundness in the philosophy that teaches against wantonly wasteful slaughter in the chase is the disinclination on the part of certain so-called sportsmen--a vulgar gentry that resort to the woods and waters solely because it is fashionable to do so--and their guides to honorably dispose of their game after the killing. These greedy snobs are viciously adverse to losing a single bird or fish in the pursuit, but they think little of letting the game rot in the sun after the play. With this fact easily provable any day in the year, it may be said that outside of market fishing and camp fishing for the pot the one real object in fishing and angling is the pursuit itself and not the quarry. In baseball, it's the game, not the bases; in archery, it's the straightest shooting, not the target. True, we play cards for prizes, but surely as much for the game itself, not altogether for the prizes, because it is possible to buy the prizes or their equivalent outright or take the prizes by force. My bayman develops fits bordering closely upon incurable hysteria if I lose a single bluefish in the play, but he worries not when he goes ashore with a sloopful of hand-liners and half a hundred fish he cannot make good use of. "Pull it in! you'll lose it!" "We could catch a hundred if you wouldn't fool!" "The other boats'll beat us badly!" "There's a million right 'round the boat!" These are a few of his excitable expressions. But, when I say to him, "What's the difference, Captain, in losing one or two fish here and wasting half a hundred on shore?" he calms down for a minute or two. Only for a minute or two, however, for he's in the game solely for fish, not the fishing. It's all numbers and size with him, and he's encouraged in this greed by nine out of every ten men he takes aboard his boat. "We caught fifty," says Tom. "We caught a hundred and ten," says Dick. "We caught two hundred and sixty," says Harry. And so the bayman brags, too, because it's purely business with him. I have always found the greatest pleasure in fishing is the fishing and not the blood and bones associated with the pursuit. I would rather take five fair fish on fine tackle correctly manipulated than fill the hold with a hundred horrid monsters mastered by mere strength, as in hand-line trolling for bluefish in the ocean and for muskellonge, etc., in fresh water. "But," says Captain Getemanyway, "I can catch more fish with a hand-line than you can with your fine rod and reel." "Of course you can," I reply, "and you could catch more if you used a net, a stick of dynamite, or a shotgun." If it's the fish alone that is the object of the Angler's eye, why resort to any sort of tackle when there's a fish stall in every bailiwick? There is great need of enlightenment in the common ethics of angling. Many persons are under the impression that quantity rather than quality makes the Angler's day. According to their view of the pursuit, fishing is judged by figures, as in finance--glory to the man with the biggest balance. This is not so, because with this view accepted, Rockefeller would shine above Christ, Shakespeare, and Lincoln. The mere catch--the number of fish taken--is only one little detail; it is not all of angling. If it were, the superior fisherman would be the man who got his fish in any manner. Some of our greatest Anglers purposely never excel in the matter of numbers. The Angler's true qualities are based on the application of correct tackle, correct methods in fishing, and a correct appreciation of the pursuit, the game, the day, and the craft. 'Tis the day and the play, not the heads and hides that count. An ancient writer says of the royal hounds: "The hunter loves to see the hounds pursue the hare, and he is glad if the hare escapes." So it is in angling; we do not wish to catch all the fish we can take in any fashion. We want to take some of them in a proper manner with appropriate implements. "I can catch more trout with the angleworm and more bass with the trolling spoon than you can with the artificial fly," says Robert. "Of course you can, Robert," say I, "and you could catch still more if you spread a screen across the tiny stream or set a trap, or if you used a set line with a hundred hooks, just as the target shooter might more readily puncture the circle with a charge of shot than with the single bullet, or just as the greedyman with a blunderbuss might excel in number the wing shot by potting quail bunched on the ground instead of chivalrously bagging single birds on the wing with a pertinent arm." The neophyte always confounds the angler with the indiscriminate fisherman and so implicates the angler in the cruelty and wastefulness associated with mere chance fishing, when in fact the Angler is the real propagator and protector of the fishes, and is in no sense cruel or wasteful. The laws that prohibit greedy catches, and protect the mother fish in breeding time, are made by, enforced by, and supported financially by the Angler. The rearing of the fishes that are placed in depleted waters was originated by, is conducted by, and is paid for by the Angler. No other class has earnestly bothered its head, honestly lifted its hands, or liberally opened its purse in these matters, and the nearest association man in general has with the preservation of both wild fish and fowl is in uttering a cowardly, false accusation against the one who really deserves sole credit for the work, the sportsman, the genuine field sportsman, not the vicious sporting man of the race track, cockpit, and gambling den--two distinct species of animal, as vastly separated in character as the deerhound and the dragon. And why this charge against the innocent? Simply because the guilty wish to shield and profit themselves, as the thief cries fire that he may pick your pocket in the panic that ensues. But then there is a well meaning but wholly unenlightened element, that, influenced by the cry of the methodical spoiler, ignorantly condemns the honest man--the really humane men and women who are sincere in their condemnation but totally ignorant of their subject. One of this sort, an estimable woman in public life, loudly preaches against the chase and is all the time drawing dividends that provide her with the means to indulge in the vulgarest and cruelest of fashionable extravagances--among them the wool of the unborn lamb, furs from the backs of fast-disappearing quadrupeds, and feathers of the farmers' most valuable insect-destroying song birds--and these wicked dividends derived from several acid factories, a gas house, a power plant, and a dye works that have not only killed off the trillions of fishes in several rivers but destroyed forever the very habitat of the species! Another of this sort is well exemplified in the character of an old gentleman in Pennsylvania who loudly proclaims against trout fishing, but who utterly ruins nearly eight miles of trout water, once the home of thousands of lordly fish, by permitting his mill hands to run off sawdust in the streams. This poor, ignorant soul objects to you and me chivalrously taking half a dozen specimens on the fly--catching the cunning trout with an imitation of the living thing itself destroys by the thousands for food and play--while he mercilessly slaughters the entire immediate supply, and prevents further propagation of the whole species with the refuse of his forest-devastating, money-making machine. True, the Angler like all fishermen, and like the fishes themselves, kills his specimens, but this killing is ordained by nature herself--at least it has better grounds for excuse, if excuse it needs, than that ten-fold more destructive killing _by_ the fishes that not only slay for food, but actually mutilate millions upon millions of their kind for the mere play afforded them in this practice--and though the Angler may be in the wrong when he humanely dispatches a few of the batch he breeds, he is not as hopeless as the wanton fisher, or as brutal as the unenlightened "reformers," the so-called humane lady with the fashionable furs and feathers of fast-disappearing species she never turns a hair to replenish or protect, and the old gentleman hypocrite with his murderous sawmill. CHAPTER IV FLY-FISHING "Of all sports, commend me to angling; it is the wisest, virtuousest, best."--THOMAS HOOD. When I go fishing, it is for the purpose of catching fish; when I go angling--fly-fishing--it is the soul I seek to replenish, not the creel. "One of the charms of angling," says Pritt, "is that it presents an endless field for argument, speculation, and experiment." True, but Anglers have no argument in the first feature of their pastime--the object of it. Fishermen and men who do not go fishing or angling argue that the object sought by the Angler is the fish, but Anglers all agree that the game is but one of the trillion of pleasant things that attract them to the pursuit of it. They argue and speculate and experiment in the matter of rods and tackle, and they argue as to the virtues of the various species, the qualities of the waters, the conditions of the weather, but they have ever been and ever will be calmly agreed as to the object of it all--the love of studying rather than destroying the game, the love of the pursuit itself. They angle because of its healthfulness, and the consequent exhilaration of mind and body that attends the gentle practice, not merely for the fishes it may procure them, or for the sake of killing something, as the unenlightened person charges, for the death of an animal, to the Angler, is the saddest incident of his day. All things animate, man included, were made to kill and to be killed. The only crimes in killing are in killing our own kind, and in killing any kind inhumanly. And, of all creatures, the Angler is the least offender in these crimes. The very game he seeks, though beautiful and gentle to the eye, and, at times, noble in deed and purpose, is the most brutal killer of all the races--the lovely trout in its attacks upon gaudy flies, the valiant bass and pike in devouring their smaller brethren, and the multitudinous sea-fishes, not alone in their feeding upon one another, but in their wanton murder of the millions upon millions of victims of their pure love of slaughter. But, of fly-fishing for brook trout: "Fly-fishing," says Dr. Henshall, "is the poetry of angling"; and "the genuine Angler," says Frederick Pond, "is invariably a poet." Fly-fishing, the highest order of angling, is indulged in in several forms--in fresh water for salmon, trout, black bass, grayling, perch, pike-perch, pickerel (Long Island brook pickerel), sunfish, roach, dace, shad, herring (branch), etc.; in brackish water for shad, trout, white perch, etc.; and in salt water for bluefish (young), herring (common), mackerel, and--doubt not, kind sir, for I am prepared to prove it--squeteague (weakfish), plaice (fluke, summer flounder), and other species of both bottom and surface habitats--another "endless field for argument, speculation, and experiment." As there are many forms of fly-fishing, so are there many ways of fly-fishing for trout, and many kinds of trout, the various forms of brook trout, lake trout, and sea trout. Volumes would be required to discourse intelligently upon all these forms of trout and fly-fishing for them; so I purpose in this particular instance to confine myself to one species and one form of trout and one order of fly-fishing. The trout referred to is the true brook trout, scientifically alluded to as _Salvelinus fontinalis_ and commonly called, besides brook trout (its most popular name), speckled trout, mountain trout, speckled beauty, spotted trout, etc. The fly-fishing treated of is that popular form that is most indulged in by the Eastern trout fly-fisherman--small-stream fishing in the mountains and wooded level lands that "carries us," as Davy wrote as far away as 1828, "into the most wild and beautiful scenery of nature to the clear and lovely streams that gush from the high ranges of elevated hills." Above all other styles of fly-fishing, it calls for the most delicate tackle and the very daintiest hand. "How delightful," says the author of _Salmonia_, "in the early spring, after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the frosts disappear and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent the odors of the bank perfumed by the violet, and enameled, as it were, with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the music of the bee; and on the surface of the waters to view the gaudy flies sparkling like animated gems in the sunbeams, whilst the bright and beautiful trout is watching them from below; to hear the twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; and, as the season advances, to find all these objects changed for others of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and the trout contend as it were for the May fly, and till in pursuing your amusement in the calm and balmy evening you are serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush, performing the offices of paternal love in thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine." The other forms of fly-fishing for trout, the pursuit of larger specimens of the same species in larger waters, the lakes and ponds and rivers--all equally inviting by their gentle requirements and the "beautiful scenery of nature"--deserve special treatment, because, as in fly-fishing for salmon (_salmo salar_), the very top notch of all forms of angling, the play, the player, the scenes, and the accessories are sufficiently different to confound the reader I am mainly endeavoring to amuse with these particular lines. Small stream fly-fishing for brook trout belongs in a class just between fly-fishing for the brook trout of broader waters, the lakes and ponds, and fly-fishing for salmon in the lordly rivers of Maine and Canada. The brook trout is angled for in the spring and summer, principally with the artificial fly, and by the chivalric Angler only with the artificial fly, though many greedy fishermen of trifling experience and wholly deprived of the true spirit of angling--in that they fish for the fish alone and judge their day and play solely by the size of their catch--contrive to convince us that the live lure is equally honorable, notwithstanding that the cruel, clumsy, uncleanly, unfair, wasteful practice of live-bait trout fishing is condemned by every truly gentle disciple and practical authority. Most advocates of live-bait trout fishing, who would have us believe that their method is entitled to recognition in the same category with fly-fishing, proudly proclaim that this should be because they "can catch more fish with the worm or minnow than the Angler can catch with his fly." If this reasoning is to settle the debate, if killing and quantity compose the Angler's axiom, why not resort to still more productive means--dynamite, or net the stream instead of gently fishing it? No, the trout fly-fisherman abhors trout bait-fishing for the same reason the wing shot prefers his appropriate arm to a cannon; the yachtsman, his gentle craft to a man-o'-war; the horseman, his trained mount to a locomotive; the archer, his arrow instead of a harpoon; and so I might go on in similes that would burlesque every form of recreative amusement in the world. The brook trout breeds in the autumn, favors eddies, riffles, pools, and deep spots under the banks of the stream, and near rocks and fallen trees, and feeds on flies, small fish, worms, and other small life forms. Its shape, weight, size, and color are influenced by its food, its age, its activity, its habitat, and its habits. Its color corresponds to the color of the water bottom and will change as the water bottom changes. If removed to a new water, where the bottom color is different from the bottom color of its first abode--lighter or darker, as the case may be,--it will gradually grow to a corresponding shade, blending with its new habitat just as its colors suited the stones and grasses and earthy materials of its native domain. In weight, the brook trout ranges up to ten pounds in large waters. There is a record of one weighing eleven pounds. This specimen was taken in Northwestern Maine. The species averages threequarters of a pound to one pound and a half in the streams, and one pound to three pounds in the lakes and ponds. It occurs between latitude 32-1/2° and 55°, in the lakes and streams of the Atlantic watershed, near the sources of a few rivers flowing into the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, and some of the southern affluents of Hudson Bay, its range being limited by the western foothills of the Alleghanies, extending about three hundred miles from the coast, except about the Great Lakes, in the northern tributaries of which it abounds. It also inhabits the headwaters of the Chattahoochee, in the southern spurs of the Georgia Alleghanies, and tributaries of the Catawba in North Carolina and clear waters of the great islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence--Anticosti, Cape Breton, Prince Edward, and Newfoundland; and abounds in New York, Michigan, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maine. Long Island, Canada, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. My favorite rod for stream trout fishing is a cork-handled, all-lancewood rod of three or four ounces in weight and eight feet in length, or a rod of similar length weighing four or five ounces and made of split bamboo--the best split bamboo of the best workmanship. The cheap, so-called split bamboo of the dry-goods store bargain (?) counter, retailed for a price that would not pay for the mere wrapping of the correct article, is a flimsy, decorative thing, and would collapse, or, worse still, bend one way and stay that way, if used on the stream. The fly-rod material must be springy and resiliently so, and the rod must be constructed so as to permit of this condition. The reel I favor is a small, narrow, light, all-rubber or narrow aluminum common-click reel, holding twenty-five yards of the thinnest-calibered silk, waterproof-enameled line. My leader is a brown-stained one of silk gut, twelve feet in length. The leader should be fresh and firm, flexible and fine, not a dried-up, brittle, unyielding, snappy snarl of the salesman's discarded sample box that breaks at the mere touch, or releases the flies at the first cast or parts at the first strike--if by some miraculous mischance you get this far with it. The leaders, a half-dozen of them, should be carried, when not in actual use, in a flat, aluminum, pocket-fitting box between two dampened flannel mats (though not preserved this way in close season), so as to have them thoroughly limp from being water soaked, that you may more readily and more safely adjust them, for break they surely will if handled in a dry state. The willow creel, in which the spoil of the day is deposited, should be, I think, about the size of a small hand-satchel. To this is fastened a leather strap, with a broad, shoulder-protecting band of stout canvas. This I sling over the right shoulder, allowing the creel to hang above the back part of the left hip where it will least interfere with me during the fight with _fontinalis_. The landing net I use is a little one of egg shape, made of cane with no metal whatsoever, and it has a linen mesh about ten inches in width and eighteen inches in length. The handle is a trifle over one foot in length. To this I tie one end of a stout but light-weight flexible and small-calibered cord, or a stretch of small rubber tube, and the other end of this I tie to a button on my coat under my chin, throwing the net over my left shoulder to lie on my back until called into service. The clothing should be of dark-gray wool of light weight. I wear a lightly woven gray sweater under my coat when the weather is cool. I have plenty of pockets in my trouting coat, and I make it a practice to tie a string to nearly everything I carry in them--shears, hook-file, knife, match-box, tobacco-pouch, pipe, purse, field-glasses, fly-book, etc.--so that I will not mislay them ordinarily, or drop them in the rushing current during some exciting moment. The headgear I like is a gray, soft felt hat of medium brim to protect my eyes in the sun and to sit upon in the shade. The footwear may consist of waterproof ankle shoes attached to rubber or canvas trousers, or of a pair of light, close-fitting hip rubber boots. Some Anglers wear rubber waterproof combined trousers and stockings and any sort of well-soled shoes. In warm weather, I affect nothing beyond a pair of old shoes with holes cut in both sides to let the water run freely in and out, the holes not big enough to admit sand and pebbles. The artificial flies are of many hundreds of patterns. I have a thousand or two, but half a hundred, of sizes four to six for the lakes and ponds, and six to fourteen for the small streams, are enough to select from during a season; two dozen are sufficient for a single trip, half a dozen will do to carry to the stream for a day,--if you don't lose many by whipping them off or getting them caught in a tree,--and two are all I use for the cast, though a cast of three flies is the favorite of many fishermen. I amuse myself by presuming to have a special list for each month, week, day, and hour, but the extravagantly erratic notions of the trout forbid my recommending it to brother rodmen. Trout that show a preference for certain flies one day may the next day favor entirely different patterns. Sometimes they will take an imitation of the natural fly upon the water and at other times, being gorged with the natural insect, will only strike at some oddly colored concoction of no resemblance to any living thing in nature; this in play, or in anger, and at other times out of pure curiosity. An Angler doesn't need a great number of flies--if he knows just what fly the game is taking. You can't very well determine this half a hundred miles from the fishing; so you take a variety with you and experiment. The flies should be of the best make and freshest quality, tied by a practical hand--some honest maker who is himself an Angler--not the cheap, dried-up, wall-decorative, bastard butterflies of the ladies' dry-goods shop, that hybrid mess of gaudy waste ribbon-silk and barnyard feather, the swindling output of the catch-penny shopman whose sweat help do not know--upon my word--the name or the purpose of the thing they make. Any six of the following list will kill well enough for a single day's pleasant fishing in any water at any time during the legal season: Dark Coachman, Gray and Green Palmer, Ginger Palmer, Alder, Scarlet Ibis, Abbey, Imbrie, Professor, Conroy, Reuben Wood, March Brown, Orvis, White Miller, Coachman. Royal Coachman, Codun, Brown and Red Palmer, Brown Hen, Queen of the Water, King of the Water. Squires, Black Gnat, Grizzly King, Quaker. I use, as a rule, dark colors in clear water, and on bright days and early in the season; lighter shades in dull water and on dark days, in the evening, and as the season grows warmer; but many Anglers philosophize just the reverse--use light colors for early season fishing and somber hues for midsummer play--hence the endless arguments and experiments described as one of the charms of the craft. I prefer, as I have said, two flies on the leader, and my favorite of favorites for all times and all places is a cast made up of gnat-size pattern of dark-gray wing and pale-blue body, and another of a peculiar drab-cream shade. In throwing or casting the fly I never "whip" or "flail" the rod, and I never cast with a long line when a short one will answer the purpose. Distance alone may count in a fly-casting contest, but in the wild stream a careful short cast is more effective than a clumsy long one. I angle with my shadow behind me, and in casting the flies endeavor to allow only the flies to touch the water. The line frightens the game, and if a trout should take a fly on a loose, wavy line, he will not hook himself and he will blow the fly from his mouth before the Angler is able to hook him. In learning to cast the fly, the young Angler should start with the leader alone, as I believe all fly-fishing is begun by old and young, and as he lifts the flies from the water after the forward cast to make the backward motion he should simultaneously draw from the reel a half-yard of line and allow time for the flies to complete the whole circuit back of him. In fly-fishing the cast is not made from the reel as in bait-casting; the line is drawn from the reel a half-yard at a time with the left hand. The line must fully straighten itself behind the Angler ere it can be sent out straight before him. The flies and at most only a little part of the leader should fall lightly upon the surface--as we imagine two insects, entangled in a delicate cobweb, might fall from a tree branch--and be drawn smartly but gently in little jerks a second or two in imitation of two tiny live-winged bugs fluttering in the water; and then, as the Angler steps slowly, firmly, but silently and softly in the current downstream, he should repeat the lifting of the flies, the drawing off of more line from the reel, and the circling backward cast that takes up the slack and gives the line its forward force. Thus he should continue, deftly placing the lure in every likely spot ahead of him in the center of the brook and along its moss-lined, flower-decked, rock-bound or grass-fringed banks. The Angler is careful not to let the trout see him, see his shadow, or see the rod, and not to let this wisest, most watchful species of all the finny tribes hear him or feel the vibration of his body. In hooking the trout the Angler strikes the second the fish strikes--not by a violent arm movement, but by a mere instantaneous nervous backward twist of the wrist, as one would instinctively draw up his hand from the pierce of a needle point. Many trout are hooked the instant the leader is lifted for a new cast, and many hook themselves without the slightest effort on the part of the Angler. When the fish is hooked he should not be flaunted in the air, as the boy fisher yanks his pond perch. The prize should be handled as if he were but slightly secured, his head should be kept under water, the line kept gently taut, and the fish softly led out of noisy water and away from stones, long grass, submerged tree branches or logs. If the catch is heavy enough to draw the line from the reel it is allowed to do so, but the line should be kept taut and reeled in the second he hesitates. There need be no hurry. After a little while the game's rushes will cease; then it should be reeled in, care being taken not to arouse it again by the contact of a weed or stone. The tip of the rod is now raised over the head and back of the Angler until the butt points downward; then, if the fish has been reeled in near enough, it is secured in the landing net, tail first, and carefully slid into the creel through the little square opening for this purpose in the lid. If you, reader mine, should some day get as far as this glorious part of the play, and the fish should be a small one, be satisfied; the true Angler is ever of a contented heart; if the fish should be too small, set it free--the true Angler is always humane and generous; if it should prove fit to feed upon, do not subject it to unnecessary suffering--skillfully kill it outright at once; the true Angler is manly and merciful. And, and--good luck to you, brother. CHAPTER V WALTON'S WAY "More than half the intense enjoyment of fly-fishing is derived from the beautiful surroundings."--CHARLES F. ORVIS. A clause in a recent tariff bill prohibited the importation of some of the favorite artificial flies of the Angler and likewise prohibited the importation of the materials used in making these flies, particularly feathers and skins of the valuable song birds whose insect-eating prevents the destruction of the trees and other foliage absolutely necessary to the preservation of the planet upon which man lives. This clause was fathered by the wise and welcome bird-protecting institutions known as the Audubon Societies, and was intended to stop the infamous traffic in wild birds for millinery purposes, which, if not reformed, means the utter extermination of the world's feathered friends. The feathers and skins imported annually for artificial flies were to come under the same prohibition as millinery feathers. England has a law prohibiting the importation of certain plumage, but specific exception is made for the materials used in fly-making. There was a foolish opposition to this clause on the part of a few professional fly tiers, some of the fly dealers, and a lot of fishermen, and these men and women were loud in their declaration that the Angler is also opposed to the clause, which, if allowed, they think would injure the business of the professional fly maker, fly dealer, _et al._ Now the truth is: No Angler was opposed to the clause, and the claim that the protection of valuable tree-saving birds would hurt trade of any sort is absurd. The same sort of foolish objection was made to the introduction of the sewing-machine--it was said it would prevent a lot of hand-sewing workmen from making a living. In a few years man will laugh at this silly and selfish individual cry against bird-protection with the same ridiculous spirit with which he now laughs at the old idiotic objection to the sewing-machine. A writer in the New York _Sun_ says: "The first effect of prohibiting the importation of the feathers for flies will be to drive many back to bait-fishing. An Angler using bait should take ten trout for every one he could kill with a fly. The Government, the States, and clubs are spending large sums for the stocking of streams with trout. The expenditure would scarcely be justified if there is to be bait-fishing in these streams--they would soon be fished out. Thousands who formerly used bait have taken up fly-fishing because it is better sport." What does this writer mean by the word "many"--the "many" he thinks that will be driven back to bait fishing as the effect of the prohibition of the importation of the feathers for flies? Many what? Not Anglers, by any means, because the Angler would rather merely try to catch his trout with an artificial fly made from a feather duster than to be assured of catching the game with a worm or minnow or salmon egg. The "many" refers to fishermen, or professional fly tiers, not Anglers. The Angler and the ordinary fisherman are as far separated in character and nature as the hummingbird and the buzzard are separated in life and lesson. The real opposer to bird-protection in this objection to the clause prohibiting the importation of bird feathers and skins is the commercial fellow, and there is no commercial side to angling. The Angler is a student as well as a lover of nature, and he knows that without the insect-eating birds there can be no trees, that without trees there can be no waters, that without waters there can be no fishes, and that without fishes there can be no fishing. The stupid fisherman can't surmount this, and the commercial fly tier, whose business alone teaches him enough of the angling art to be able to figure this natural science, thinks too much of his money creel to admit it. This pretended ignorance is called good business instinct, and the Angler doesn't object to men minding their own business, but when business instinct runs wild and evokes the effrontery to imply that the Angler, a non-commercial being, is opposed to the prohibition of earth-valuable bird extermination, business instinct is going a little too far with its money-mad method. The Angler does not condemn the use of correct tackle; he's a believer in it, and just as he is sincere in his advocacy of proper tackle and in his immaculate use of proper tackle, so is he sincere in his profound belief in correct methods in fishing. The fisherman--the fellow who judges his day by the number of fishes he kills in any manner regardless of season and size--may resort to dynamite, and he may not be in sympathy with any of the chivalric means, manners, and methods of any of the worldly matters, but the Angler is not of this stamp. Izaak Walton, the father of fishing, never posed for his portrait with half a hundred dead fishes tied to his body. Ferns, feathered friends, flowers, fair skies, fine fishing tackle, _and_ fishes embellished his pictures. The fish, to the Angler, is only one feature--no doubt the main feature--of his favorite pastime, and the killing of the fish is not a pleasant part of his pursuit; the death of the game is, to the Angler, a sad incident, however happy the fisherman may be over the slaughter of his greedy mess, and the Angler, therefore, could not possibly derive the delights of his angling at the sacrifice of the lordly winged creatures he so repeatedly thanks his Master for. Who ever read an Angler's story without the song birds in it? The expression "gentle art" is applied to angling and the Angler. Who ever heard of the gentle art of fishing! And angling is a _gentle_ art; so, to practice it, one must be gentle. The Angler will not resort to fishing with live bait if the few European artificial flies are excluded from his lures, because he can catch all the fishes his _gentle_ art _entitles_ him to with the flies of home make. The artificial flies of England, Scotland, and Ireland are lovely creations of practical as well as beautiful design, and the Angler adores them, but, since his _gentle_ creel can be filled without them, he'll not insist on their importation if it tends in the slightest manner toward the extermination of the very things that make possible the gentle art of angling--the birds and the trees, without which the fishes themselves could not survive. The world is not composed entirely of fishermen--the earth itself should not be sacrificed for a few against the multitude--and the Angler, the fisherman of quality, is wise enough to appreciate this; his individual pastime is not as important as the general welfare of the masses, and it will be said that the fisherman, who estimates quantity over quality, is far less entitled to consideration. Angling is a pastime of a craft; the birds, the trees, and the waters are necessities of a planet and its people. Fishing for the market--a distinct method from that of the Angler and the common fisherman who fishes for the mere sake of killing and counting--is not concerned in this argument, and may be dismissed with a brief word of commendation. Legitimately practiced, discriminately carried on according to the law of man and nature, it is even more admirable than angling and far more honorable than the wasteful pursuit of the vulgar amateur fisherman. Our Saviour sanctioned net fishing; chose simple fishermen for his disciples--St. Andrew, St. Peter, St. James, and St. John. The expression, "fly fisherman," may refer to the fisherman or the Angler, for there are lots of fly fishermen as well as mere fishermen who are not Anglers, for the reason that fly-fishing, indulged in by a greedy hand, can permit of ungentle fish-catching the same as bait-fishing. Both methods are equally destructive if not followed with strict rules of angling, and all that need be said to properly define angling is that it is the poetry--the art and refinement--of fishing. The common fisherman is simply a fish-basket filler; the Angler fills his soul, not the creel. CHAPTER VI THE WANTON WAY "There's an Angler's law, and a court or legal law. The fisherman who adheres to the Angler's law can't break the court law."--SETH FIELDING. Gentility in the limit of the catch and giving the fish its sporting chance on light tackle constitute the ethical soul of angling. The fisherman who stops fishing when he has a few specimens is angling; he's an Angler. The fisherman who fishes with no limit in his catch is merely fishing; he's a fisherman, not an Angler. Any picture of a few fishes may illustrate the catch of the Angler, and the photograph on Frontispiece shows the catch of the worst type of fisherman--the wanton fish exterminator who, ignoring the Angler's gentle law, takes his greedy mess because it is according to the so-called legal law. Dr. William T. Hornaday, author of _Wild Life Conservation_, _The American Natural History_, _Our Vanishing Wild Life_, etc., and director of the New York Zoölogical Park, has sent me the photograph of the greedyman's catch--made near Spokane, Washington--with the following notes: "The great trouble [in the matter of wasteful fish-catching] is not so much with the people who catch fish as with the brutally destructive laws that permit fishermen to catch four or five times as many fish as they should. There are a great many sportsmen who sincerely believe that it is all right to take all the fish and game of all kinds that the law allows. Whenever any destruction is waged on that basis I always charge it to the abominably liberal laws that in many cases seemed framed to promote destruction. Ninety-nine per cent. of the streams of this country very soon will be so nearly destitute of fish that fishing will become a lost art. In the Rocky Mountains the overfishing abuse is particularly vicious and destructive because in those cold streams the fish mature slowly, their food is very scarce and dear, and the fish are so hungry that they are easily caught. It is an easy matter to completely fish out a mountain stream in the Rocky Mountain region or in the Pacific States. In the State of Wyoming some very aggravated cases of wanton fish destruction by indifferent rod and line fishermen have lately been brought to my attention." Dr. Hornaday is an Angler, and his views and practices are endorsed by all Anglers. His great book on wild life conservation is brimful of practical detail and should be in the library of all who are interested in the preservation of our fishes, birds, and quadruped game. Here is a sample of the Doctor's vigorous style in his admirable campaign against the exterminator: "A few years ago, certain interests in Pennsylvania raised a great public outcry against the alleged awful destruction of fish in the streams of Pennsylvania by herons.... A little later on, however, the game commissioners found that the herons remaining in Pennsylvania were far too few to constitute a pest to fish life, and furthermore, the millinery interests appeared to be behind the movement. Under the new law the milliners were enabled to reopen in Pennsylvania the sale of aigrettes, because those feathers came from members of the unprotected Heron Family! It required a tremendous State campaign to restore protection to the herons and bar out the aigrettes; but it was accomplished in 1912. Hereafter, let no man for one moment be deceived by the claim that the very few-and-far-between herons, bitterns, and kingfishers that now remain in the United States, anywhere, are such a menace to fish life that those birds are a pest and deserve to be shot. The inland streams of the United States and Canada lack fishes because they have been outrageously overfished,--wastefully, wickedly depleted, without sense or reason, by men who scorn the idea of conservation. In Orleans County, New York, a case was reported to me of a farmer who dynamited the waters of his own creek, in spawning time!" The Angler angles according to his own humanely conservative law. The greedy fisherman fishes according to court or so-called legal law, good or bad, and he always breaks the Angler's law and very often the court's law. In viewing Dr. Hornaday's Spokane photograph note the bait-casting reel on the fly-casting rod--the rig of a clumsy as well as greedy fisherman. The mess of trout shown is one that no Angler would ever make and one that any gentleman would be ashamed of--"three times too many fish for one rod," as Dr. Hornaday says, "another line of extermination according to law." Of course, the Doctor means the fisherman's law or the court's law, not the Angler's law. CHAPTER VII FLY-FISHING FOR TROUT "The variety of rivers require different ways of angling."--IZAAK WALTON, _The Compleat Angler_. The art of catching fish with artificial lures in imitation of natural insects is the most chivalric of all methods of angling. Fish, particularly trout, often hook themselves when they seize the fly of a fisherman using a pliant rod that will yield and spring freely. As the game strikes, the Angler strikes, hooking the fish swiftly but delicately by a simple turn of the wrist. The trout is not flaunted up in the air by force, as some coarse perch fishermen lift their catch. The trout fisher does not use his arm at all in hooking a trout beyond aiding the hand in holding the rod for the wrist to do the work. A practiced troutman can secure his fish by moving his hand five inches--a little backward nervous twist of the wrist. Trout often snap a fly and spit it out so quickly that the tyro does not have a chance to strike and hook the prize. At other times they take hold more slowly, and afford the beginner more opportunity to hook them, and, as I have said, they very often hook themselves. The beginner will have some trouble in overcoming the excitement or "trout fever" that always accompanies the trout's rise and strike, but experience will gradually make him more calm and active at this important moment. The tyro trout fisher is often more frightened at the rise of the trout than he would be at the flush of a noisy grouse or the springing of a surprised deer. When you have hooked the fish, always handle him as if he were but lightly secured. Do not attempt to lift him out or yank him up to you. Keep the line gently taut, and softly lead the prize out of rough water or away from stones, grasses, logs, or tree branches. Do not let him come to the surface until he is pretty well exhausted and you are about to put him in the landing-net. If he is a large fish, tow him ashore if the water edge will permit. Where there are overhanging banks this cannot be done. Do not be in a hurry to get him out of the water. Be calm and work carefully. If the fish is large enough to overcome the reel click and run off the line, let him do so, but check him and guide him according to any obstruction there may be. When he has rushed here and there for some little time with his mouth open and with a constant check--the line should always be taut--he will become tired, and when he is tired he will not rush. Then softly reel him in, being careful not to let him come in contact with a stone or weed, which is sure to arouse him again. Reel him up quickly, without making a splashing swoop, and he will soon grace your creel. Several persons have expressed an objection to a list of flies I once named, saying a good Angler might kill just as many trout on quarter the number. Any Angler can take even less than one quarter of the enumerated list and catch fully as many brook trout as one who might use all of the flies mentioned--if he can pick out the ones the trout are rising to without trying them all until he discovers the killing ones. A chef might please his master with one or two of the forty courses billed, if he knew what the man wanted. Sometimes an Angler can judge the appropriate fly to use by observing nature in seeing trout rise to the live fly; but, there are times when trout are not rising, times when they are tired of the fly upon the water, and times when the real fly is not on the wing. Then the Angler is expected to take matters in his own hands and whip about quietly until he discovers the proper patterns. It is better to try for the right flies with a list of twenty-nine than whip over a list of a thousand or more. I have learned from experience that trout, like human beings, are in love with a variety of foods at different times. Their tastes change with the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, and, under certain conditions which I will presently explain, the minutes. "... fish will not bite constantly, nor every day. They have peculiar, unexplainable moods that continuing favoring conditions of water, wind, and weather cannot control" (Eugene McCarthy, _Familiar Fish_). When I mention twenty-nine different patterns as being seasonable at a stated period, I do not mean to say that the trout will rise to them all and at any time and under all conditions. In the first place, the person using them might be a tyro unfamiliar with the gentle art, the streams might be dried up, there might be an earthquake, the flies might be too large, too coarse, and for that matter a thousand other conditions might interfere. I fish dozens of streams in different localities several times every month during the legal season, and I have been a fond Angler--if not a skillful one--since my tenth birthday. Experience on the streams, a true love for nature, and a careful attention to my notebook enable me to separate the artificial flies into monthly lists. No man can class them into weekly or daily lots. "When a fly is said to be in season it does not follow that it is abroad on every day of its existence" (Alfred Ronalds). The Eastern gentleman who said if he could have but one fly he would take a yellow one, is probably a good Angler, for a yellow fly is a fair choice. If I could have but one fly I should take a--ah! I cannot name its color; 'tis the quaker, a cream, buff, grayish, honey-yellow shade. Beaverkill, Seth Green, Ashey Montreal, Dun. Wickham's Fancy, August Brown are killing patterns in the Pennsylvania streams. Trout change in their tastes by the month, week, day, hour, and minute. There are flies among the list given for this or that month that they will not rise to to-day or perhaps to-morrow, but surely there are some among the list that will please them, and you have to discover those particular flies, and so, as I have said before, 'tis better to search among twenty-nine than twenty-nine hundred. In July of a certain season I waded a stream in Pennsylvania and had these flies with me: Quaker. Oak, Codun, Reuben Wood, White Miller, Yellow Sallie, Hare's Ear, Iron Dun, Brown Palmer, Cahill, and a few others. The first day I killed eighteen trout in fishing fifty yards in a small stream running partly through a large open field and partly through bushes, fishing from the left bank. Twelve were taken on a brown palmer, four on a dark-gray midge, and two on a tiny yellow-gold-brown fly. I fished three hours, in which time I received exactly two hundred and fifteen strikes; eighteen, as I have said, proved killing. I fished stealthily up and down the stream, hiding here and there and making the most difficult of casts at all times. I went up and down the little stream a half dozen times, never going into the wood, but merely fishing from where the stream came out of the wood to where it hid itself again beyond the field. Part of the water I fished, as I say, was in underbush, but I did not leave the field. Now I am going to show you how the tastes of trout varied by minutes, in two instances at least, and I desire you to know every little detail. To well convince you that the casts I made were difficult, I will say that my line became fastened in twigs, leaves, and bushes every other toss. I had to put the flies through little openings no larger than the creel head and take chances of getting the leader caught while on the way, and after it was there and on its return. I sometimes whipped twenty times at a little pool before I reached it. There were logs, branches, mosses, cresses, leaves, and grasses to avoid. The water in parts was swift and still, narrow, shallow, and deep, sometimes being four feet wide and three feet deep, and then ten feet wide and three inches deep; sometimes running smartly over bright grasses or pebbles and light in color, and in other places lying dark and still in pools made by logs and deep holes. A tyro would have fished the ground in ten minutes and caught nothing; some Anglers would have gone over it once in twenty-five minutes and taken a half-dozen fish. I had the day to myself; I had nowhere else to go; I was out for sport, recreation, and study,--not fish, for I am a lover of nature in general,--and so I took three hours at the play, and fished and observed inch by inch like a mink, the king of trouters. I say I had two hundred and fifteen strikes, out of which I killed eighteen trout, and you are surprised. You think you could have done better, much better, but I know you could not--you could not have done as well as I did and I wish that I could put you to a test. I have seen a _fontinalis_ rise to a small coachman twenty-six times, snapping apparently at the feather each time, but never allowing himself to be hooked nor hooking himself. He was playing. He was a young trout, but an educated one, and well knew there was no danger if he kept his wits about him. I have witnesses to this performance who will substantiate my story, and I can easily further prove the truthfulness of the statement by taking you to a stream where a similar performance may be enacted. And I have seen an uneducated trout rise and snap at a fly without taking it. The first one rose in play, this one in curiosity--and there are trout that will rise in anger. All of them may know the bait is not food. It is a mistake to think that all brook trout will spurt from a fly the very second they discover it is not real food, as it is an error to believe that all brook trout will take the fly when they know it is the living thing. All trout are not alike; they vary in their tastes and antics as they do in color and size. Mind you, I speak only of one species here--the true brook trout, _Salvelinus fontinalis_, and thus the material should be interesting. [Illustration: AN UNUSUAL WAY OF TAKING THE FLY] The day I took my creel of eighteen was a fair one; we had rain the day before; the water was clear and the stream was in ordinary condition. The brown hackle which killed twelve of the eighteen was on a No. 8 hook; the other two flies were tied on No. 16, as the hackle should have been, for the fish were small and the stream was in a small-fly condition and quite right for the daintiest leaders and the finest midges. But the hackle seemed to please the trout; all sizes appeared to jump at it. I hooked many that were not over three inches long! Several times when taking my flies from the water for a new cast, I lifted a poor little trout up in the air back of me, like the scurvy fisherman who makes a practice of landing all his fish by yanking them out. So you see it pays to be patient on the stream and try all sorts of gentle tricks with _fontinalis_. You must not hurry; you must not be coarse; you must not be careless and untidy with your fly-book. Take your time, fish slowly, surely, and delicately. Be not weary of the play: banish the thought of discouragement, keep at the sport for sport alone, and study as you angle. A little trout will rise to a fly he has missed one or more times; a large trout will seldom do so. When you miss a big trout do not give him back the fly for ten minutes, and then if you miss him again, change the pattern, wait a little while, and he is once more ready for the rise--if the new fly suits him. I never raised a trout on the scarlet ibis fly. I believe it is a poor color on the well-fished waters, just as I believe that all flies are killing on wild streams. New trout will take old flies; old trout love new ones and many old ones. Personally I like the sober colors in flies for all seasons on all water, though I well appreciate the old rule: "When the day is bright and where the water is clear, small flies and plain colors; in deep and dull waters and on dark days and in the evening the brighter and larger ones." Trout do not in all cases show their liking to flies in accordance with any condition of weather or water, though as a rule it is advisable to use lighter colors when the day and water are dull, which is not saying, however, that fish will not rise to loud flies on bright days or sober flies in dull weather, for the tastes of trout vary like the tastes of other living things, and nothing can equal them in erraticness when fly-feeding. You must give _fontinalis_ sport, for he very often strikes for play more than food, and, like every other living thing, loves a choice of variety. There is an old story that if the Angler's book has a pattern of fly in exact imitation of the real fly upon the trout water, he has but to join it as the stretcher to fill his creel. Ogden tells us in so many words: "Give not the trout an exact imitation of the real fly upon the water, for your artificial fly will then be one in a thousand. Something startling will please them better--loud gold body, strange-colored wings--and an odd fellow may take it for sport if nothing else." While this is a good bit of advice, it does not seem right to me to send it forth in such a sweeping manner. The question of whether we should imitate nature in general fly building has long been in vogue. Some say we should do so, and others that it does not matter. Both are correct--there are times when we should copy the living flies, and times when we should use those artificial things that have no resemblance to nature's insects. I have come upon a water where the trout were rising to the small dusky miller, and have, by putting on the artificial fly of this order, taken a dozen beauties in good play. It was because I arrived just in time; the trout were not tired of their course. Perhaps twenty minutes later they would not have done more than eyed my cast. In that case, even if the water were covered with a species of the real fly, it would have been better to have offered something different. Copy nature if the fish be devouring--not alone because the fly is on the water; they may be tired of it. Sometimes there are flies being taken that are not seen by the Angler, for trout can snap a fly upon the wing. Fly-fishing is not an easy pursuit; 'tis a real science. Rules are good, but we must not fail to suit the rules to conditions. No; you are not supposed to use the entire list, for to-day the trout may not favor over two or three of them; to-morrow he may take six of them--all different from those he may show a liking for to-day. It is all very well for an Angler to take but three dozen coachmen and brown and gray hackle for the Western trout, or any trout that is not educated up to the standard of the trout that is fished for incessantly, but I should not like to make a month's trouting trip and take along only three kinds of flies, even if I had dozens of each of the three and if my favorite quaker were one of the trio, no matter where the stream--East. West, North, or South. Some days after my catch of eighteen I visited the field again and fished from the point where the stream entered the wood down to a beautiful little waterfall. I took twenty-one of fair size--one on a yellow Sallie, one on an oak fly, four on an Esquimaux dun, five on a hare's ear, and nine on the quaker. This day I had ninety-three rises--not as many as on the day I took the eighteen and had two hundred and fifteen rises. The day was dark, the water very clear and shallow, and there had been no rain for ten days. This was the occasion of learning more about striking the Eastern brook trout than I had ever before enjoyed. The old rule is to strike on the second of the rise, and, while I do not think this electric quickness should be practiced in all cases and under all conditions. I found it was the rule this day, especially in the one deep pool I found. In other places--one in particular, where I saw six of my catch make every move in taking the flies--I found it necessary to depart from the old rule and strike not upon the second of the rise. I very often gave wrist too quickly. It all goes to prove that rules are not to be exercised at all times and under all conditions. We must make allowances. I came upon one quiet piece of water that was as clear and still as glass; I could see every detail of the pebbles at the bottom. Eight pretty trout were in this bed of silent water, resting without a perceptible movement--not even that delicate wave of the tail so common with the trout in his balancing in running water. They did not see me; a bush hid my form. When my slender rod tip moved over the water and the leader with the flies went down gently upon the surface, the trout thought (all animals think) the wind had stirred the frail branch of an adjacent tree and swept into the water upon a cobweb three insects for their feeding. Four rushed for the deceit and two were hooked quietly and quickly. I landed them and went away to return to the same spot a half-hour later. Seven trout were there this time. I flailed gently over them, but received no rushing rise; one little fellow came up deliberately, broke water two inches behind the little dun, and then returned to his old position. Then two others did precisely the same as their companion had done, excepting one that chose the oak fly for his inspection. Then they sank themselves, and a fourth gamester spurted up to the dun and took it in his mouth much as a sunfish would suck in a bit of worm. I struck him, and he made a splash that nearly drove a near-by-perched catbird into hysterics, and sent the other trout up, down, and across the stream like so many black streaks of lightning. Now, had I cast at these fish from above or below and not just over them, where I saw every move they made, I should have given them wrist on the second of their rise--as I did in the case of the first two that made the first rush--and lost any chance of success. No, I say, we must not always follow rules regardless of conditions. We must not judge all trout alike, even if they be of one species. Men, though of one race, are not all alike in their habits any more than they are in their sizes and colors. I found in some parts of the stream that as long as I changed the flies I had rises; in other parts no trout took the fly, no matter how I worked it. Perhaps there were no fish hereabout; perhaps they saw me; perhaps they were not hungry, and perhaps there were hundreds and thousands of other reasons why they were not to be taken in these certain places. No man can strictly follow rules in all cases and take trout upon every occasion of his trials. Conditions govern, and must be studied--conditions, conditions. CHAPTER VIII THE ANGLER'S PRAYER--SAVE THE WOODS AND WATERS "Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of other things. And it is not by any means certain that a man's business is the most important thing he has to do." ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. Commerce or civilization or whatever you like to call modern man's accumulation of money wealth at the sacrifice of nature is perpetrated with no greater force than in the wanton waste of our forests--the trees given by God to the people and stolen from the people by individuals. It seems all right for man to prudently use our forests in the making of homes and other practical things of actual necessity, but it is a downright shame that the people allow greedy men to destroy the trees for the mere sake of adding dollars to the destroyers' already well-filled purses. And these selfish men even deprive the people of their breathing-air, drinking-water, and fish food. Springs, ponds, and brooks are dried up by the loss of sheltering foliage. Lakes and rivers are ruined by the commercial gentry's waste acid, dye, oil, gas, etc., and the very air we breathe is poisoned by the fumes of the money-makers' chimneys. The railroads cut down the people's trees to make ties, and they burn the old ties instead of consuming them for steam power or giving them back to the people for fuel or fence posts, etc. The mill owner burns as rubbish the sawdust and slabs instead of burying the sawdust and allowing it to turn into loam that would enrich the soil and thereby propagate vegetable food matter and the very tree life the millman wastes. He is not only destroying the material on hand but he is doing his best to prevent the growth of future material. Slabs should not be burned as waste matter; they are good fuel and good material for the farmer, _et al._ Nothing should be burned as waste matter; nature tells us to bury, not burn. Fire destroys not alone the valuable ingredient it consumes to make itself, but burns up the earth's vital moisture--the life-giving oxygen we breathe, without which no animate thing could survive. Before fresh timber is cut for market-cornering purposes, the millmen should be compelled to use up the vast rafts of trees they have allowed to float upon river banks, there to rot while the choppers continue their attack on new trees, half of which will go to waste with the lumberman's already-decaying market-cornering mess in the flooded valley. Anyone may personally witness this wanton waste if so inclined: Take a ride on the railroad between Portland, Oregon, and Tacoma, Washington, and note the conditions _en route_; or glance out of the car window as you ride through the timberland district in the Southern states--Alabama, Georgia, etc. Oregon and Washington are bragging about what the native biped conceitedly calls enterprise, western spirit, progress, prosperity, etc. Poor fools! They imagine the so-called prosperity is due to the enterprise or spirit of themselves, while any nature student could tell them that the business success of any territory is directly due to that territory's material that is marketed, and that as soon as the marketable material is used up the so-called enterprise, energy, spirit, etc., of the ego-marketman go up with it. In Michigan (Bay City) thirty-five years ago the wasters used to boast that Bay City was going to outrival New York City in size, intellect, money wealth, social standing, etc., in a few years. All this on a little timber they were cutting and selling. It was remarked by a nature student that the success of their ambition depended upon the pine trees they were gradually consuming--ruthlessly cutting down to extermination--and a practical man suggested that they plant and propagate as well as cut and consume. Also it was hinted that the lumber they made out of the trees was the only thing they had to make possible the social downfall of New York. "Oh, by no means," they said; "we have enterprise and spirit; that's what counts." But, the count was a failure--the trees giving out. Northern Michigan was turned into a sugar-beet farm, and most of the unfortunates who counted on making Bay City outrival New York are now of the very dust that nurtures the present-day material that their offspring exists upon. The Michigan enterprise, spirit, etc., is now transferred to the few other timberland States, and the natives of to-day, the early day of plenty, are just like the old conceited Michiganders--they foolishly imagine the financial success of their territory is due to so-called personal energy, pride, enterprise, progress, etc., on the part of themselves, when any naturalist knows that their prosperity is directly due to God's bountifulness--the abundance of marketable material--not man's effort or egotism. When Oregon and Washington have lumbered all their timber the "enterprising" natives will not have rivaled New York socially or financially any more than the Michigander has accomplished this end; Oregon and Washington, without timber, like Michigan, will stay just where they are--if lucky enough not to go lower down in the social and financial standard--when their marketable material is exhausted. Climate is a mere matter of pure air. What's the good in climate if it's smoked and burned? Any clean climate, hot or cold, is better than any soiled climate, hot or cold. Marketable material, pure air, and pure water are the three big concerns of life; man isn't worthy of being included in the list of important things because he destroys these three mighty essentials. Material makes man more than man makes material. Man's energy and egotism couldn't get a footing without marketable material. What the world needs is less of vain man and more plain market stuff. Save the woods and waters. CHAPTER IX TROUT AND TROUTING "A day with not too bright a beam; A warm, but not a scorching, sun." --CHARLES COTTON. Where can I enjoy trout fishing amid good scenery and good cheer without its necessitating a lengthy absence from the city? That is a question which frequently rises in the mind of the toilers in the busy centers of the East, and it is one becoming daily more difficult to answer. Yet there are still nearby trout streams where a creel of from fifteen to fifty, or even more, in favorable weather, might be made. One such locality, which for years local sportsmen have proven, lies within a four hours' ride of either Philadelphia or New York. All that is necessary is to take the railroad, which conveys you to Cresco, in Monroe County, Pa., and a ride or drive of five miles through the Pocono Mountains will land you in the little village of Canadensis, in the valley of the Brodhead; and within the radius of a few miles on either side fully a dozen other unposted streams ripple along in their natural state, not boarded, bridged, dammed, or fenced by the hand of man, thanks to the naturally uncultivatable condition of the greater part of this paradise for trout fishers. The villagers of Canadensis do their trading and receive their mail at Cresco, and it is an easy matter to obtain excellent food and lodgings for a dollar a day at one of the many farmhouses dotting here and there the valleys, and a seat when needful in one of the several private conveyances running every day between the two villages. The open season for trout in Pennsylvania is from April 15th until July 15th, and there appears to be no particularly favored period during these three months, for the trout here afford sport equally well at all times, though they greatly vary in their tastes for the fly. If the angler goes there in the early part of the open season, when the weather is cold, he should engage a room and take his meals at the farmhouse selected; but if the trip is made in the early part of June or any time after that, during the open season, camp life may be enjoyed with great comfort. Two favorite waters within walking distance from any of the farmhouses in Canadensis are Stony Run and the Buckhill. The great Brodhead, a famous old water in the days of Thaddeus Norris, and noted then and now for its big trout, flows in the valley proper, within a stone's throw of the farmhouse at which I engaged quarters. Spruce Cabin Run, a mile distant, is a charming stream, but the trout here are not very large beyond the deep pools at the foot of Spruce Falls and in the water flowing through Turner's fields and woods above the falls. Any of these streams will afford plenty of sport, but if one wishes to visit a still more wild, romantic, and beautiful trout water, he has only to walk a little farther or take a buckboard wagon and ride to the mighty Bushkill, a stream that must not be confounded with the Buckhill, which lies in an opposite direction from Canadensis. The Bushkill is the wildest stream in the region, and is fished less than any of the others named, one reason being that there are plenty of trout in the waters of Canadensis which can be fished without the Angler going so far. For those who like to camp, the Bushkill is the proper locality. I spent a day there with friends one season, and we caught in less than two hours, in the liveliest possible manner, all the trout five of us could eat throughout the day, and four dozen extra large ones which we took home to send to friends in the city. "The trout in the Bushkill," remarked one of my companions, "are so wild that they're tame"--an expression based upon the greediness and utter disregard of the enemy with which _fontinalis_, in his unfamiliarity with man, took the fly. I remember having a number of rises within two feet of my legs as I was taking in my line for a front toss. I know men who have many times traveled a thousand miles from New York on an angling trip to different famous waters who have not found either the sport or the scenery to be enjoyed on the Bushkill. The lower Brodhead below the point at which this stream and Spruce Cabin Run come together is very beautiful. It is owned by a farmer who lives on its banks, and who has never been known to refuse Anglers permission to fish there when they asked for the privilege. There are four natural features in the scenery about Canadensis that are especially prized by the countrymen there--the Sand Spring, Buckhill Falls, Spruce Cabin Falls, and the Bushkill Falls. The Sand Spring is so called because grains of brilliant sand spring up with the water. This sand resembles a mixture of gold and silver dust; it forms in little clouds just under the water's bubble and then settles down to form and rise again and again. This effect, with the rich colors of wild pink roses, tiny yellow watercups, blue lilies, and three shades of green in the cresses and deer tongue that grow all about, produces a pretty picture. The spring is not over a foot in diameter, but the sand edges and the pool cover several feet. In drinking the water, strange to say, one does not take any sand with it. Being located at one side of the old road between Cresco and Canadensis every visitor has an opportunity of seeing it without going more than a few feet out of his direct way. Some of the stories told about the old Sand Spring are worth hearing, and no one can tell them better or with more special pleasure than the farmers living thereabout. One man affirms that "more 'an a hundred b'ar and as many deer have been killed while drinking the crystal water of the spring." Each of the falls is a picture of true wild scenery. Though some miles apart they may be here described in the same paragraph. Great trees have fallen over the water from the banks and lodged on huge projecting moss-covered rocks; they are additional obstacles to the rushing, roaring, down-pouring water, which flows through and over them like melted silver. This against the dark background of the mountain woods, the blue and snow-white of the heavens, the green of the rhododendron-lined banks, and the streams' bottoms of all-colored stones creates a series of charming and ever-varying views. A half dozen trout, weighing from one to two pounds and a half, may always be seen about the huge rock at the point where the lower Brodhead and the Spruce Cabin Run come together, and hundreds may be seen in the stream below the Buckhill Falls. I do not know that fish may be actually seen in any other parts of the waters of Canadensis, but at these points the water is calm and the bottom smooth, and the specimens are plainly in view. Do not waste time on the "flock" lying about the big rock at Brodhead Point. The trout there will deceive you. I played with them a half day, and before I began work on them I felt certain I would have them in my creel in a half-hour's time. They are a pack of pampered idlers who do not have to move a fin to feed. All the trout food comes rushing down both streams from behind these big rocks into the silent water and floats right up to the very noses of these gentlemen of leisure. If you have any practicing to do with the rod and fly do it here. These trout are very obliging; they will lie there all day and enjoy your casting all sorts of things at them. This is a good place to prove to yourself whether you are a patient fisherman or not. And now a few words about the proper tackle for mountain streams. Most anglers use rods that are too heavy and too long. During my first visit I used a rod of eight feet, four ounces, and I soon found that, while it was a nice weight, it was too long for real convenience, although there were rods used there nine and ten feet long. My rod was the lightest and one of the shortest ever seen in the valley. There are only a few open spots where long casts are necessary, and a long, ordinary-weight trout rod is of very little service compared with one of seven, seven and a half, or eight feet, four or three ounces, that can be handled well along the narrow, bush-lined, tree-branch-covered streams. The greater part of the fishing is done by sneaking along under cover of the rocks, logs, bushes, and the low-hanging branches, as casts are made in every little pool and eddy. I use a lancewood rod, but of course the higher-priced popular split bamboo is just as good. I shall not claim my rod's material is the better of the two, as some men do when speaking of their tackle, but I am quite sure I shall never say the split bamboo is more than its equal. I do not advise as to the material; I speak only of the weight and length. Let every man use his choice, but I seriously advise him to avoid the cheap-priced split bamboo rod. If split bamboo is the choice, let it be the work of a practical rod-maker. Any ordinary wood rod is better than the four-dollar split bamboo affair. The leader should be of single gut, but the length should be a trifle more than is commonly used. Twelve feet is my favorite amount. The reel should be the lightest common click reel; the creel, a willow one that sells for a dollar in the stores; and the flies--here's the rub--must be the smallest and finest in the market. Large, cheap, coarse flies will never do for Eastern waters, and you must not fail to secure your list of the proper kind, as well as all your outfit, before you start on your trip. The only decent thing on sale in the village stores is tobacco. When you buy your flies buy lots of them, for, be you a tyro or practical Angler, you will lose them easier on these streams than you imagine. Yes, you must be very careful about the selection of your flies. They must be small and finely made, high-priced goods. I wish I might tell you who to have make them, but I dare not, lest I be charged with advertising a particular house. Regarding the patterns to use, I will say that none are more killing than the general list, if they are the best made and used according to the old rule all are familiar with--dark colors on cold days and bright ones on warm days. The later the season the louder the fly--that is, when the season closes during hot weather, as it does in Canadensis. My favorite time here is from June 15th to July 15th, the closing day, but any time after the first two weeks of the open season is very charming. I avoid the first week or two because the weather is then cold and the trout are more fond of natural bait than the artificial fly. Men take hundreds of fish early in the season with worms and minnows. I never wear rubber boots to wade in. An old pair of heavy-soled shoes with spikes in their bottoms, and small slits cut in the sides to let the water in and out, and a pair of heavy woolen socks comprise my wading footwear. The slits must not be large enough to let in coarse sand and pebbles, but I find it absolutely necessary to have a slight opening, for if there be no means for the water to run freely in and out, the shoes fill from the tops and become heavy. Rubber boots are too hot for my feet and legs, while the water is never too cold. I have often had wet feet all day, and have never yet experienced any ill effects from it. I never use a staff in wading, but I should, for here in some places it is very hard to wade. I have often fallen down in water up to my waist, overbalanced by the heavy current, where the bottoms were rough, with sharp, slimy stones. If you carry a staff, follow the custom of the old Anglers and tie it to your body with a string to keep it out of the way and allow your hands to be as free as possible for a strike. Your landing-net should be a small one, minus any metal, with a foot and a half handle, and a string tied to a front button on your garment should allow it to be slung over your shoulder onto your back when not in use. Of course, these little points about the use of different things are all familiar to the Angler with but the slightest experience, and will appear to him neither instructive nor interesting, but we must, as gentle Anglers, give a thought or two to the earnest tyro, for we were young once ourselves. I always carry two fly-books with me; one big fellow with the general fly stock in, which is kept at the farmhouse, and a little one holding two dozen flies and a dozen leaders, which I carry on the stream. A string tied to this, too, will prevent the unpleasantness of having it fall in the water and glide away from you. I even tie a string to my pipe and knife. The outing hat is an important thing to me. Mine is always a soft brown or gray felt, and I use it to sit on in damp and hard places fifty times a day. CHAPTER X TROUTING IN CANADENSIS VALLEY The Canadensis Valley in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, is a _fontinalis_ paradise. With my friend George Blake I creeled the little heroes by the dozen every day for a week. We each could have easily caught fifty in an afternoon had we cared to do so, but there were other rural pleasures to attend to, and we were not dealing in fish, and saw more beauty in just enough to eat than in wasteful quantity. Fishermen are generally known as exaggerators, and I do not deny that they do sometimes resort to an innocent little fib when a yarn may amuse many and injure no one, but I must say that this region's beauties are too numerous to overpraise by all the exaggeration of all the fabricators in the world. No word of mouth or pen could do justice to nature in these mountains. And I need not elaborate on the fish; the truth is bold enough. Brook trout weighing a quarter of a pound to a pound and a half are taken every day by Anglers, who more than fill their creels. Two gentlemen took in one day sixty-five beauties on the stream known as Stony Run, and two Philadelphia Anglers took half a hundred the day before above the Buckhill Falls. Another great stream in this region is the Bushkill, and still another is Brodhead's Creek. The latter flows past our camp, and is famous for big trout. My favorite is Spruce Cabin Stream, above and below the beautiful Spruce Cabin Falls. There are big trout in this water, especially at the bottom of the falls, and I can--if I will--take fifty trout in an afternoon, and they'll weigh from a quarter of a pound to one pound and a half. I like something besides fish about a stream, and this is why I am fond of the Spruce Cabin water. There are not many Anglers in love with the place. Though beautiful, it is very hard to fish. I have to creep under great trees that have fallen over the water and then wade up to my waist to gain certain points in order to get along down the stream. The banks are lined with trees and shrubbery, and my line is ever getting tangled. One does not need to be a fly-casting tournament Angler to fish any of the Canadensis waters. Distance in the cast is not required as much as accuracy at more than one or two places on each stream. The rest of the fishing is done by short, low casts, and by creeping under branches and letting the line float with the ripples into the eddies. Every step or two there are little falls, and in the white, bubbling water at their bottom a trout may be taken. Under the big fall, and in the still waters above and below, the big trout hide. Artificial flies are the popular bait with the gentle Angler, though all sizes of trout will take worms, and the big, educated trout like minnows. Both small, medium, and large trout like flies if the flies are the right kind. We have had great trouble in getting good flies. I brought four dozen with me, and not over a half dozen of them are worth the snell tied to them; they are too clumsy in size, of coarse material, and bad in color. The six decent ones are the work of an artist. I could give his name, but it might look like an advertisement and spoil my story. Trout like choice food just as much as human beings favor savory dishes. You may stick an oyster shell on a reed, and decoy a summer yellowleg, but you can't hook a trout on any kind of a fly. They know a thing or two. Tyros who angle in a trout country without success go home and say there are no trout. They don't think about conditions of water and weather; about their line lighting in the water before their bait; about their coarse line and poor flies. Trout are philosophers, not only the educated ones, those which have been hooked and seen others hooked, but trout in general. They're born that way. A young man came up here the other day with an old cane pole, weighing fully three pounds, and a big salt water sinker, and he went away saying there were few trout in these waters. I think he had a float with him, too, but am not sure. A word or two about appropriate tackle for mountain streams, and I'll put up the pen and joint the rod again. In the city a few weeks ago I proudly displayed a four-ounce, nine-foot lancewood rod, and my friends laughed at me, saying it was too frail for any service. Now, I find this rod, shortened two feet, just the thing for this country where trout run small and where there's no long casting. I frequently run across good Anglers here with five-ounce rods, and have seen two four-ounce rods. There is no use for a rod above four ounces in weight and seven feet in length. When I come again I shall use a three-ounce rod. The reel should be the lightest and smallest common click, and the line the finest enameled silk,tapered if you like. The flies--here's the main thing--should be the best, and of the smallest brook trout pattern. Next year, when I make up my supply, I'll pack fully two hundred, and they'll be the dearest-priced flies, for they are none too good. [Illustration: THE TROUT BROOK] Oh, I must say a word about cooking and eating trout before I close. I've tried them in all styles, and the best way, I think, is when they're roasted over a camp fire on a little crotch stick, one prong in the head and the other in the tail. And the worst way, I think, is when they're fried in a pan with bad butter or poor lard. Blake and I are in our glory. Our only displeasure is in knowing that our perspiring city friends are not as comfortable. The days here are warm and bright--not hot and close--and the nights cool and clear, so that we live merrily all the time. I went a few hundred yards down the stream in front of the camp to two great bowlders, one morning, and there, during a little sun shower, took a _Salvelinus fontinalis_ that weighed just a little over two pounds and a quarter. He rose to a pinkish, cream-colored fly, with little brown spots on the wings. I forget its name, but it's one of the six really good ones I referred to. I decided to keep the large captive alive, so I took off one of the cords tied about my trousers at the bottoms (I never wear wading boots in warm weather), put it through his gill, and tied the other end to a submerged tree-root. Later, Mr. Trout was lodged in a small box, with bars tacked over the top, and placed under a spout running from an old mill race. He was a big specimen--large enough to saddle and ride to town, the cook said. And pretty--as pretty as a gathering of lilacs and giant ferns decked with wintergreen berries. CHAPTER XI THE TROUTER'S OUTFIT The rod for stream fishing should weigh from three to six ounces and measure in length from seven to nine feet. Split bamboo and lancewood are two of the best rod materials. If you cannot afford a good split bamboo do not buy a cheap one; choose a lancewood. The line should be a small-sized waterproofed silk one. The reel, a small common light rubber click, holding twenty-five or thirty-five yards. The landing net, used to take the fish from the water after being hooked, should be made of cane with linen netting, and have no metal about it. The handle should be about a foot long. Tie a string to the handle, tie the string to a button on your coat under your chin, and then toss the net over your back out of the way. The creel, or fish basket, should be a willow one about the size of a small hand satchel. This should have a leather strap, to be slung over the right shoulder, allowing the creel to rest on the left hip. The hat should be a soft brown or gray felt with two-inch brim. This may be used as a cushion to sit down upon on rocks or in damp places. The footwear may be either rubber boots, leather shoes, or rubber wading trousers. If the water is warm, wear leather shoes, and have nails put in the thick soles to keep your feet from slipping in swift water and on slimy stones. If you choose rubber boots see that they are of the light, thin, thigh-fitting sort and not the clumsy affairs with straps attached. The fly-book for use on the stream should have room for not more than a dozen flies, with pockets for leaders, silk cord, small shears, and other tools. A larger book for your general stock of flies and leaders may be left at your rural lodgings with your tackle box and other traps. The leader, to which are attached the flies in use, should be of the finest quality of single silk gut, and in length three feet. Two of these attached make a cast, though I prefer a longer cast of leader. The coat and general clothing should be of a dead-grass, gray, or light brown color. Have plenty of pockets, and tie a string to nearly everything you carry in them, so you cannot lose them if they fall from your hands. The flies--every known variety of trout fly, providing you order these of the finest make. Do not undertake to go trouting stintingly equipped, which is not saying that you are to dress and act like a circus clown. But you must be properly outfitted. Good carpenters make good houses, but their work is better and more pleasant if they have good tools. The tyro who is not fortunate enough to have the friendship of a practical fisherman to whom he may apply for advice should read the works on angling and ichthyology by Izaak Walton, Henry William Herbert ("Frank Forester"), Seth Green, Charles Hallock. Wm. C. Harris, Thaddeus Norris, Genio C. Scott. Frederick Mather, Robert Roosevelt, G. Brown Goode, Kit Clarke, Dr. Jas. A. Henshall, Charles Zibeon Southard, Dr. Edward Breck, Emlyn M. Gill. George M. L. LaBranche, Louis Rhead, Eugene McCarthy, Dr. Henry van Dyke, David Starr Jordan. Dr. Evermann, Prof. Baird, Tarlton H. Bean, Richard Marston, Frederick E. Pond ("Will Wildwood"). Mary Orvis Marbury, A. Nelson Cheney, Charles F. Orvis, Dr. Charles Frederick Holder, Perry D. Frazer. Emerson Hough, Rowland E. Robinson, Isaac McLellan. Francis Endicott, Dean Sage, Wm. C. Prime. Henry P. Wells, Judge Northrup, John Harrington Keene, _et al._, and make a study of the catalogues of the better class of sporting-goods houses. CHAPTER XII TROUT FLIES, ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL "The wide range of difference between the wet fly and the dry fly lies in the fact that the wet fly is an imitation of no special thing active and living, while the dry fly purports to be an imitation of the natural fly. It is generally a well-known fact that any of our well-known American wet flies can be converted into exceptionally good dry flies by giving them an ablution of oil."--Robert Page Lincoln, _Outdoor Life_. September, 1915. Then the wet fly resembles the dry fly, and therefore the wet fly is an imitation of the living fly. Of course it is. Is not the artificial black gnat imitative of the live black gnat? And is not the white miller artificial fly patterned after the living white miller fly? Certainly. Mary Orvis Marbury, author of _Favorite Flies_, and daughter of Charles F. Orvis, one of America's greatest fly-makers, says so. So says William C. Harris, Seth Green, Frank Forester, Louis Rhead, A. Nelson Cheney, Frederick Mather, Dr. Henshall, Charles Hallock, Dean Sage, William C. Prime, Charles Z. Southard, Dr. van Dyke, Edward Breck, _et al._ All angling writers in discoursing upon artificial flies use the expressions "in season," "seasonable flies," etc. Now, how could this or that artificial fly be in season if it were not copied from the living fly? Of course, there are some artificial flies that are not copied from nature, but the artificial fly in general is a duplicate of the living thing. "When a fly is said to be in season," says Alfred Ronalds, "it does not follow that it is abroad on every day of its existence." But, our opinions must not be harshly expressed--rather set forth "in pleasant discourse," as Walton says--for, as Pritt tells us, "one of the charms of angling is that it presents an endless field for argument, speculation, and experiment." After the foregoing excerpt and my comment upon it appeared in the New York _Press_ (Sept. 11, 1915). I wrote several of the authorities mentioned, asking their views on the subject, and following will be found their replies. Henry van Dyke, author of _Little Rivers_, _Days Off_, _Fisherman's Luck_, etc.: For flies as "wet," or flies as "dry." I do not care a whit--not I! The natural fly is dry, no doubt. While through the air he flits about; But, lighting on the stream, you bet He very often gets quite wet. This fact is known to all the fish; They take their flies just as they wish. Upon the surface or below. Precisely _why_ we do not know. The honest Angler should not be A man of rigid theory. But use the most alluring fly. And sometimes "wet," and sometimes "dry." Louis Rhead, author of _The Book of Fish and Fishing_: "After thirty-two years' active fishing for trout, beginning with a worm as a bait, I have developed through various stages to know fish with nothing but my own nature flies. I have made careful color pictures of all the most abundant insects and produced flies tied to exactly imitate them. Many insects do not and cannot float, yet an imitation can be made of them to fish wet. The English dry fly is not of necessity a copy of the natural insect. Halford has many fancy dry flies that are not copies of insects. Nearly all American commercial trout flies are fancy flies, and do not imitate insects. To be exact, in fishing with a floating fly it is only right to use copies of insects that will float, mostly drakes. The average Angler has been sadly fooled by this so-called dry-fly fishing, and books have been written (mostly culled from British sources), making Anglers more bewildered than ever." Charles Zibeon Southard, author of _Trout Fly-Fishing in America_: "In reply to your question about trout flies, 'Am I right?' I would say that unquestionably you are. From the earliest days of trout fly-fishing it has been the intention of Anglers to have their flies resemble as far as possible the natural ones found upon their trout waters. One has only to read dear old Izaak Walton and the many noted fly-fishing authorities that have followed to the present day to be convinced of your view. Of course the art of fly-tying has advanced with mighty strides during the past fifteen years and more especially during the past ten years, and to the makers of 'dry' flies for the wonderful development of the artificial fly too much credit, in my judgment, cannot be given. That wet flies are not such remarkable imitations of the natural flies as are the dry flies goes almost without saying. As a matter of fact it is not the question which fly is the better imitation, but that both the wet fly and the dry fly are patterned, in most cases, after the natural flies. From the time of Walton and before that, wet flies have been patterned after natural flies. In many instances nowadays wet flies are not designed to represent natural flies, but such flies are freaks, are short-lived, and are seldom used by real trout fly-fishermen. There is no doubt in my mind that taken as a whole wet flies have been intended to represent natural flies, but quite often in the past and in the present day have not been and are not good imitations. As the art of fly-tying has advanced, more nearly do the artificial represent the natural flies, and this advancement is due, in a great measure, to the makers of dry flies. Speaking from a practical standpoint, the so-called dry flies are the very best wet flies obtainable, and on most American trout waters more trout will be caught on them when fished wet than when fished dry, especially the _fontinalis_." Dr. James A. Henshall, author of _The Book of the Black Bass_: "Regarding the 'Trout Flies' clipping sent me for comment I think the mention of my name in it is sufficient without adding anything more." Dr. Edward Breck, author of _The Way of the Woods_, etc.: "I suppose that I may subscribe to your paragraph in answer to Mr. Lincoln. We old chaps all know that laying down any hard and fast rules for trout is a futile undertaking; there are so many exceptions, and _les extrêmes se touchent_ so very often. Many wet flies are certainly not imitations of natural flies nor are they meant to be; as, for example, the Parmachenee belle, which they say Wells fashioned to imitate the belly-fin of a trout, always known to be a killing lure. 'Non-university' trout grab anything that looks like food, whether it has the appearance of an insect or something else. The more educated fish of the more southern waters may make finer distinctions. It is a vast subject, and as many authorities may be found for almost any statement as for the several pronunciations of the word 'Byzantine.' You remember the scoffing English Angler who dyed his dry flies blue and red and took a lot of fish with them, to the scandal of the purists! The charm of the whole thing is precisely that there are no rules. It is like style in writing English. Every man makes his own. Whether it is more pleasing in the sight of Saint Izaak to wait for a fish to begin feeding before casting over him, or for a man to sally forth, and, by dint of knowledge and patience and skill, actually make the trout rise to his lure, what arrogant mortal shall judge?" Robert Page Lincoln: "Perhaps I should have said _some_ wet flies are an imitation of no special object connected with living things. In the list of wet flies there are experimentations galore that will serve as well as any of the standard regulation flies. I can sit down and construct offhand a fly to be used as wet or submerged that I feel sure I can use with as much success as with the miller, gnat, or any other fly that is no doubt much on the order of an imitation of the natural. Perhaps in writing the article I was thinking too deeply of the eccentric nondescripts that do not imitate nature. Yet these nondescripts (flies tied anyway to suit the fancy), yet having hackle wings, etc., will get the fish; they are drawn in the water gently back and forth, thus purporting to be some insect drowning; yet I doubt very much if the fish can tell what sort of a fly, living fly, it should be. I do not care; it is the motion, the apparent endeavor of the fly to get out of that watery prison that arouses the fish's blood. However, Halford says: 'The modern theory is that these patterns (the wet flies) are taken by the fish for the nymphæ or pupæ--these being the scientific names of the immature insects at the stage immediately preceding the winged form.... Candidly, however, the presence of the wings in the sunk fly pattern has puzzled me, because in my experience I have never seen the winged insects submerged by the action of the stream. Sedges do at times descend to oviposit and so do certain spinners, but the appearance under this condition, with an air bubble between their wings, resembles nothing so much as a globe of mercury--an appearance which bears no resemblance to the ordinary sunk fly patterns.' I have been strictly a devotee to the wet-fly form, and always hold that it is the better fly for our swift Western streams; in the wet form certainly it is the better fly two thirds of the time. Still, glassy pools, even smooth waters, come few and far between, but, where they are, there the dry fly is a valuable addition to the Angler's outfit. You might change my article (in the paragraph in question) to read thus: 'The wide range of difference between some wet flies and the dry fly lies in the fact that a good number of wet flies are an imitation of no special thing active and living, while the majority of the dry flies purport to be an imitation of natural flies.' This would exclude the wet flies that make good dry flies, namely the suggested millers, gnats, etc. It would be interesting to know the number of captures made with wet flies as they fall lightly to water and for a moment ride the brim. Captures have been made wherein two thirds of the time the wet fly has lain on the surface but a scant moment before it was seized. In my great number of articles printed in the universal outdoor press I have always suggested that the fly be cast easily to water, expecting, first, a rise as it lies on the surface; second, failing at this, then the fly submerges and is drawn in the water, to assure the opening and closing of hackles, thus purporting to imitate the drowning, struggling insect." Charles Hallock, author of _The Sportsman's Gazetteer_, _The Salmon Fisher_, etc.: "I have nothing more to say. I hung up my trout rod last summer at Chesterfield. Mass., in my eighty-second year. So, my fly-book is closed. Let younger Anglers do the talking and discuss _ad infinitum_. Flies are not on my line. Good-bye." "To frame the little animal Let nature guide thee." --GAY. TROUT TAKING THE FLY "You will observe when casting the wet fly ... that trout seldom rise to the fly when it first strikes the water ... after years of experience I am prepared to state as my opinion that such a thing does not happen once in thirty casts."--Charles Zibeon Southard, _Trout Fly-Fishing in America_. This has not been my experience with _fontinalis_ in the streams and ponds of Long Island, N. Y., and the mountain brooks of Pennsylvania, where many of my trout took the fly almost before it touched the water. I have seen trout catch large live flies in the air a few inches over the surface. I think large trout in clear, still ponds easily see the cast fly before it alights. The trout in rapid streams may not be so alert, but I have certainly caught many a specimen on the fly the instant the lure touched the water. Mr. William M. Carey, who is responsible for the frontispiece in this volume, is positive trout often jump out of the water in taking the fly. I, too, have seen trout do so. It is not a regular practice of the species, but I easily recall many instances of the trout leaping clear of the surface and taking the fly in the descent. Trout of all sizes will often strike both living and artificial flies with their tails, this either in play or to disable the insect. A writer in _Forest and Stream_ (January 9, 1901) says: "In fishing a trout stream in northern Michigan I was using a cast of a Parmachenee belle and a brown hackle. I was wading downstream, and I came to a place where a tree had fallen into the stream, and after several casts I noticed some small trout following my flies. I cast again, and while my flies were five or six inches from the water a trout four or five inches long jumped clear out of the water, grabbed my Parmachenee belle and immediately dove with it in its mouth. I believe the same trout did the same thing several times while I was fishing there. These were brook trout and they were not jumping except when they jumped at my flies." The foregoing comments were submitted to Mr. Southard, and he writes me: "What you say about catching trout in Long Island waters and the mountain brooks of Pennsylvania is entirely true. During the early spring season I have caught, at times, many small trout on such waters in precisely the same way, and in addition there have been days on many different waters where occasionally during the whole of the open season I have caught trout when they rose the moment the fly alighted upon the water. These experiences of ours alone, however, do not establish as a fact nor as a general proposition that trout rise to a fly more often when it first alights upon the water than after the fly has been fished or played by the Angler; nor that my statement as a general proposition is not a correct one. "The statement was perhaps poorly worded and thus misleading, and I should have said that on _an average_ trout do not rise to a fly once in thirty casts when it first alights upon the water. My opinion was based, _first_, upon trout fly-fishing on all kinds of fishable waters wherever found; _second_, upon all sizes of trout from the minimum of six inches to the maximum of thirty inches whether or not they were indigenous or planted fish; _third_, upon my own experience of over twenty-five years as well as the opinion of many Anglers and guides with an experience covering a longer period than my own; _fourth_, upon my knowledge of the habits and habitats of trout under the many varying conditions which govern their lives and actions. "Unfortunately most Anglers have given almost no thought to studying and analyzing 'the art of fly-fishing' to the end that they may become better and more successful fishermen and thus enjoy to a greater extent the pleasures of the clean, dignified, and delightful sport of angling. It is not surprising then that an Angler upon first thought, even an experienced one, might think that trout rise to flies when they first alight upon the water more often than once in thirty casts because he remembers only the rises and his successes, but pays very little attention to the lack of either. How many Anglers know approximately the number of casts they make in an hour? How many know the number of rises they have and when? How many know the number of trout that rise and strike and are hooked and landed? The answer is 'Few indeed'; and those who hazard a guess are usually far from the facts. "The average fly-fishing Angler casts his fly or flies, _on most waters_, from five to seven times a minute and the less experienced Angler from seven to ten times. With the more experienced Angler this means that he casts from 300 to 420 times in an hour and in five hours from 1500 to 2100 times. Let us take the lesser number as a basis of reasoning; in one hour, if once in thirty casts a trout rose, struck, and was hooked when the fly first alighted upon the water, the Angler's creel would be richer by ten fish and in five hours by fifty fish. Then to this number should be added the trout that rise, strike, and are hooked _after_ the fly has alighted upon the water and has been fished or played by the Angler. Would it not be a fair proposition to say that at least as many trout would be caught under the latter circumstances as the former? To my mind it would. The Angler then would have creeled one hundred fish in five hours. As some trout, even with the most expert of Anglers, are bound to be lost let us be liberal and place the loss at fifty per cent., thus making the Angler's net catch fifty instead of one hundred fish. Think this over and think over what your experience has been, day after day and season after season, and ask yourself if a catch of this size is not very unusual on the best of trout fishing waters. So far as my own experience goes it certainly is most unusual, and I fish on many fine waters each year and for at least one hundred days. "There are some places, especially in the State of Maine, and notably 'The Meadow Grounds' of 'The Seven Ponds,' Franklin County, where at times large numbers of small trout, running from five to seven or eight inches, can be caught in a fishing day of five hours and I have known of Anglers catching, though not killing, from three hundred to seven hundred trout and most of them rose to the flies when they first alighted upon the water. At 'Tim Pond,' Maine, the only place I know where more trout can be caught on the fly than by bait, one hundred to two hundred trout have been caught in one day on the fly, but in most instances these trout take the fly _not_ when it alights upon the water but _after_ it has been played. Such occurrences as these, however, take place where countless numbers of small trout are found in the shallow waters of remarkable and wonderful natural breeding and propagating sections. Instances of this kind prove nothing because they are the great exception and the art of fly-fishing is not brought into play, for one fly is as good as another and the small boy with his fifty-cent pole can catch just as many trout as the man of experience with his thirty-dollar rod of split bamboo. Yet in expressing my opinion about trout rising to a fly when it first alights upon the water I took into consideration just such instances as I have cited. "'For your own satisfaction and education,' to quote from my book, 'when the opportunity offers, keep an account of the number of rises you get when your fly first strikes the water and the number you get after you have begun to fish the fly, and so prove for yourself what the real facts are on this subject.' "It is unquestionably true that all trout both large and small, when in clear, still water that is shallow, easily see a cast fly before it alights upon the surface. "At times, under certain conditions both on streams and lakes, trout will leap into the air and take small as well as large flies in the air. But seldom will large or very large trout rise above the surface for any kind of fly either real or artificial. "In order that there may be no misunderstanding I would say that I classify the size of trout as follows: "Small trout, 8 inches and under. "Medium sized trout, 9 to 13 inches. "Large trout, 14 to 18 inches. "Very large trout, 19 inches and over. "Trout found in rapid streams are more alert than trout found elsewhere; they in most cases represent the perfection of trout life in all its different phases. Trout in rapid streams are snappy risers to both the real and artificial fly but owing to the current they frequently 'fall short' and fail to strike and take the fly. Such trout when they do take the fly are the easiest to hook because they often hook or help to hook themselves owing to the current. "Your experience can hardly be said to differ materially from my own in the instances you mention, but I cannot help thinking that you have failed to take into account the many times when you have returned with an empty or very nearly empty creel or to consider the number of times you have actually cast your fly on the days when the creel was full to overflowing. "If you have cited your usual experience then I heartily congratulate you upon your skill and upon your good fortune in knowing such remarkable fishing waters wherein there dwells 'the most beautiful fish that swims.'" I fully agree with Mr. Southard, and I, too, should have worded my comment differently, though I didn't declare, fortunately, that most of my trout were taken the instant the fly touched the water. I used the word "many" in both instances where I spoke of the trout taking the fly. I think I should have considered more deeply Mr. Southard's line "once in thirty casts"; then we'd have understood each other. However, no crime has been committed; far from it, for look you, reader, what you have gained--all this delightful extra practical reading; and remember ye, "one of the charms of angling," as Pritt says, "is that it presents an endless field for argument, speculation, and experiment." CHAPTER XIII THE BROOK TROUT'S RIVAL When the German brown trout was introduced in the brook trout streams of Pennsylvania some years ago fly-fishermen condemned the act because they believed the brook trout (_S. fontinalis_) was superior to the brown trout as a game fish. Deforestation, rendering the streams too warm for the brook trout, has changed the fly-fisherman's feeling in the matter. The brown trout can thrive in warm water, and with the brook trout's gradual extermination the brown trout is being welcomed as the next best thing. A correspondent at Reading, Pa., signing himself "Mourner"--he mourns the passing of the true brook trout--declares the brown trout strikes harder than the brook trout and after being hooked, unlike the brook trout, makes two or three leaps out of the water, but is not so gamey and cunning as the brook trout and tires out much quicker. The German species has been popular because it attains a larger size quickly and destroys almost every fish in the streams, including the brook trout. "The fly-fishermen who for years have matched their skill, cunning, artifice, and prowess against the genuine brook trout that since creation dawned have inhabited the mountain brooks that flow down every ravine," says Mourner, "have had forced on them, as never before, the sad truth that, like the deer, bear, quail, woodcock, and grouse, brook trout are slowly but surely passing. There never was a fish so gamy, elusive, and eccentric, so beautiful and so hard to deceive and capture by scientific methods as the native brook trout. No orator has yet risen to fully sound its praises; no poet to sing its merits as they deserve; no painter to produce its varied hues. The brook trout was planted in the crystal waters by the Creator 'when the morning stars sang together' and _fontinalis_ was undisturbed, save as some elk, deer, bear, panther, or wildcat forded the shallows of his abode, or some Indian or mink needed him for food. In this environment the brook trout grew and thrived. Much warfare made him shy and suspicious until he became crafty to a degree. The brook trout successfully combated man's inventive genius in the shape of agile rods, artificial flies and other bait calculated to fool the most wary, and automatic reels, landing nets, and other paraphernalia designed to rob a game fish of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' But it was not until the tanner and acid factory despoiler turned poisoned refuse into the streams and the dynamiter came upon the scene and the sheltering trees were cut away by the lumberman, letting in the sun and warming the water to a nauseous tepidity, that the brave trout faltered, hesitated, and then quit the uneven conquest. Carp and bass were planted in the streams to further endanger the brook trout's existence. Next the California trout and the German brown trout, who prey upon the true brook trout's progeny, followed, till finally, beaten, baffled, dismayed, poisoned, routed, and overwhelmed by the superior numbers and size of a cannibalistic race, he gradually began his retreat. It is good-bye to the brook trout now. With him it was either cool pools, solitude, and freedom, or extermination. The waters that pour down into larger streams are sad memories now of his school playgrounds. No more will the sportsman's honest hunger be appeased by the brook trout's fine-grained flesh from hardening waters of nearby mountain brooks. But memory of the brook trout cannot be wrested from those who knew him at his best, and braved personal danger from rattler, bear, and wildcat to win him from the crystal waters. The brook trout has been butchered to make a carp's holiday. Gone he may be now, but he will live forever in the dreams of all true fishermen as the real aristocrat of the mountain streams. The like of him will not soon be seen again." The Fish Commission has mastered the science of the artificial propagation of the brook trout--millions are now produced with little trouble and expense--and the stocking of waters is a common practice, but the Fish Commission can't propagate forests and woodland streams. Mourner must know that the brook trout itself is not hard to save; it is the preservation of its wild habitat that is the great puzzle. If the United States Forestry Department will protect the trout streams from the greedy lumberman, the factoryman, and acid maker, the Fish Commission will have no trouble in saving the brook trout. CHAPTER XIV TROUT ON BARBLESS HOOKS Most women who indulge in fishing are, like children, mere fish takers, not Anglers, but the craft is honored by the association of many fine female devotees who study and practice the gentle art in its fullest meaning--a devotion to the poetic, artistic, healthful, and humane elements in piscatorial pursuits. Dame Juliana Berners, who wrote the earliest volume on gentle fishing (1500), was the first celebrated example of the artful and merciful woman fisher, and Cleopatra the first female to make notorious the coarse and ungodly method in fishing for pastime. Sweet Dame Berners believed in angling--the desire of fair treatment to the quarry, correct tackle, a love of the pursuit superior to greed for number in the catch, and a heavenly admiration of the general beauties of nature in the day as well as in the play; and brutal Cleopatra believed in mere fishing, the killing of the greatest number, regardless of means, mercy, or method. Our modern Dame Bernerses and Cleopatras in the fishing fold are many. The wife who aids the net fisherman--the marine farmer whose calling emulates the professional duties of Jesus' disciples, Peter. Andrew, James, and John--does not count. Her part in fishing, while by no means angling, is as honest as the work of the upland farmer's helpmate, and God Himself will not condemn little children, male or female, who fish indiscriminately, "because they do not know." Fishing for the modern market is just as honorable as market fishing was in the ancient days when Jesus praised the net fishermen and made them His nearest and dearest friends, and angling--merciful ungreedy fishing with humane tackle and a clear conscience--is even more righteous than net fishing, because, while the main result of the Angler's pursuit is the same as the marketman's--fish taking--the Angler's method of capture is far less cruel, and his creel of fish is far less in number than the boatful of the marketman. The distinction in angling and fishing is made by the modes employed in the taking, the killing, and the disposing of the fishes. Any fisherman who uses tackle appropriate to the various species, who is not greedy in his catch, who plays his game with mercy, who dispatches it with the least suffering, who disposes of it without wanton waste, and who is thankful to the Maker for the ways and means for all these conditions, is an Angler. And cannot woman be as artful and gentle in pursuits and as appreciative in feeling as man? Surely. England and Scotland and Ireland are famous for their women Anglers, and Maine, the Adirondacks, California, and Canada boast of the finest female fly-casters in the world. There are more women Anglers in these last-named territories than there are men Anglers in all other parts of the United States. A woman, Mary Orris Marbury, wrote the best volume scientifically descriptive of trout, bass, and salmon flies of modern times, and Cornelia Crosby, a daughter of the Maine wilderness, is the fly-fishing enthusiast of America. Great minds, male and female, have gentle hearts. Izaak Walton handled a frog as if he loved him. Cowper would not unnecessarily hurt a worm. Lincoln upset his White House Cabinet to rescue a mother pig from a mire. Webster neglected the Supreme Court to replace a baby robin that had fallen from its nest. Moses, John the Divine, Washington, Thoreau. Audubon, Wilson, and even Napoleon and Cæsar the mighty mankillers were all of tender hearts, and all of these were--Anglers. Christ was only a fisher of men, but He loved and associated with the fishers of fishes. Walton, the father of fishers and fishing, angled for the habits of fishes more than for their hides. The capture of a fish was insignificantly incidental to the main notion of his hours abroad--his divine love of the waters, the fields, the meadows, the skies, the trees, and God's beautiful things that inhabit these. 'Tis the soul we seek to replenish, not the creel. So a Long Island dairyman's daughter views the theme, and she handles the mother and baby trout as if she loved them. _Salvelinus fontinalis_, little salmon of the streams, the Angler's dearly beloved brook trout--this is the dairymaid's special delight. She breeds these rainbow-hued beauties and broods over them, she feeds and fondles them, and they are to her what David's holy, fleecy flock were to him--his blessed charge by heavenly day and cardinal care at night. They feed from her hand, and play like kittens with her fingers. Cleopatra cleaved her fishes with a murderous hand and hook. Audrey cuddles her trout with a magnanimous mind and heart. The trout, with all its famous beauty of color, grace, and outline, all its army of admirers, all the glory of its aqua-fairyland habitat, all its seeming gentility of breeding and character, is none the less a little villain at the killing game, like the less admired feline and canine and serpentine species, for he will devour the daintiest and gaudiest butterfly that ever poet sang of. Fledgling robins and bluebirds, orioles and wrens are meat and drink to him. Young chipmunks and squirrels that lose their balance in the storm fall into his ready maw. The bat, the bee, the beetle and ladybug are rich morsels to his gastric eye, and the golden lizard, the umber ant, the silvery eel, the crawling angleworm, the chirping cricket, creeping spider, the grasshopper, the hopping frog, and e'en the heavenly hummingbird are but mealtime mites to him. Perhaps the knowledge of this life-destroying trait in all the fishes made Cleopatra indifferent to the gentler mode of fishing, just as it had a softer influence over Audrey, for she, though loving both the fishes and their victims, was induced to angle and thus punish, but never kill, her finny favorites. She had heard of the artificial dry fly Anglers of Europe using the barbless hook that held the trout without pain or injury, and this she made herself, tying up dozens of somber-hued and lustrous patterns on the bent bit of bronze that formed the snare. The ruly trout who gently waver in the deep pool, satisfied with the food supplied by their fair mistress, and who behave themselves when they swim abroad in the general ponds and streams, are not molested, but the rebellious urchins who, disdaining the bits of liver and worm fed to them in plenty, go forth to slay the happy ladybug and butterfly, are made the game of the barbless hook. Audrey has five or six thousand trout in the pond and the stream flowing into it. The surrounding country is wildly beautiful, the water being surrounded by great trees of elm, hickory, maple, beech, chestnut, walnut, and dogwood, under which is spread a rich green lawn, with here and there patches of wild shrubs, vines, and ground flowers. Rustic benches circle the water-edge oaks, and sleek deer, as tame as Belgian hares, browse on the rich grass and eat dainty morsels from the palms of their human friends. Cleopatra's marble perch basin was cold and deadly in its artificial atmosphere. Audrey's woodland trout preserve is warm and lifelike in its natural loveliness. CHAPTER XV THE BROOK TROUT INCOGNITO (_The "Sea Trout"_) "I am the wiser in respect to all knowledge and the better qualified for all fortunes for knowing that there is a minnow in that brook."--THOREAU. There is still considerable argument about the identification and classification of the sea trout. Some authorities still claim the sea trout is a distinct species; others declare it to be the brook trout, _Salvelinus fontinalis_, that goes to sea from the fresh water ponds and streams. The squeteague (_vulgo_ weakfish, wheatfish, sea bass, white sea bass, carvina, checutts, shecutts, yellowfin, drummer, bluefish, squit, suckermang, succoteague, squitee, chickwit, gray trout, sun trout, salmon, salmon trout, shad trout, sea trout, salt-water trout, spotted trout, etc.) is not a trout of any sort; so this species need not be considered in this sea trout discussion. My personal theory concerning the sea trout is that any trout that goes to sea is a sea trout, and that more than one species of trout go to sea--whenever they have the opportunity. The small-stream trout that visit the ocean do so mainly in search of a change in food; the sea-going trout of large rivers are impelled to leave their fresh water retreats for the ocean waters also to satisfy a desire for new varieties of food, but more so because of an instinct that warns them of the danger of remaining in the fresh-water rivers during certain periods of the year--the coldest seasons when the waters freeze to the river bottom, and in the melting time, when the ice thaws into huge sharp-edge chunks, and the mass of ice, swift-running water, and rocks turn the rivers into raging, roaring floods that would cut and bruise the trout unmercifully. Nature makes these large-river brook trout in the calm periods of spring, summer, and autumn, and sea trout in severe winter weather and during dangerous flood time. The broad streams of the west coast of Newfoundland--Fishels River, Crabs River, Big and Little Codroy Rivers, Big and Little Barachois Rivers, and Robinson's River--afford the best evidence of trout migrating to the sea to escape the fury of the flood, and any of the little trout streams in any part of the world where the streams flow into salt water will afford the student means of observing the trout's fondness for marine excursions in search of a change of diet. Just as the different species of trout are widely contrasting in colors, shapes, sizes, traits, etc., while in their natural habitat--fresh water--so are they confoundingly different in these matters while sojourning in salt water. The true brook trout (_Salvelinus fontinalis_) is of various shades, shapes and sizes, these depending upon the character of the water he inhabits. In shallow, swift streams of a light color pebble bottom the specimens in general are likely to be thin, narrow, and of a bright gray hue, though, of course, there are individual specimens in this condition of water that are exceptions to the rule--a few old specimens who have sheltered themselves for years in dark, deep, steady spots under the protruding bank of the stream, or along the side of a sunken tree stump, etc. This autocrat of the eddy is fat, stocky, and dark in color, just the opposite of his younger relatives of the swift-running part of the stream. The brook trout of deep, still dark-bottom ponds are fatter, darker, broader, of duller color and of slower motion than their brothers of the rapid waters. The trout's shape, weight, size, and color are influenced by its food, its age, its activity, its habitat, and its habits. Its color corresponds to the color of the water bottom, and will change as the water bottom changes. If removed to a new water, where the bottom color is different from the bottom color of its first abode--lighter or darker, as the case may be--it will gradually grow to a corresponding shade, blending with its new habitat just as its colors suited the stones and grasses and earthy materials of its native domain. The landlocked trout, if imprisoned in a deep, dark, muddy-bottom, shaded woodland pool, will be dull in color, stocky in shape, and of sluggish habits. The trout confined to a bubbling fountain pool, with a bottom of golden sand, at the foot of a waterfall, in the full glare of the sun, will be of albino character. Perhaps no other fish offers specimens of its own kind so deeply in contrast as _fontinalis_. This is scientifically and interestingly illustrated in many ways--color, size, shape, form, action, environment, etc. For example, consider the big, fat, long, strong, copper-color brook trout that, having access to salt water, gormandizes upon the multitudinous food of the sea--shrimp, killifish, spearing, spawn, crab, etc.--and the tiny, active, silvery albinolike brook trout that is locked in a small foamy basin under a dashing waterfall, feeding only upon minute crustacea and the insect life that is carried to its watery prison. These two specimens are not freakish individuals of their species--like the blunt-nose specimen and the various other deformities--but are quite common contrasting representatives of their tribe. If we were to display in a group side by side one of each of the shape-and-color-differing specimens--one large copper-shade, sea-going brook trout, one tiny silvery, fountain-locked brook trout, one ordinary-environed brook trout, one blunt-nose brook trout, etc.--the fact of their being of an identical species would be correctly appreciated by the scientific man only. I am not resorting to poetic license or theorizing or delving into ancient precedents to carry my point of natural history, for I once captured one of the big, sea-going specimens, and my friend, James Cornell, angling in an adjacent stream the same day, brought to creel a little silvery beauty of the foamy waterfall. Shape, form, tint, weight--every mood and trait--were of astounding contrast in these two specimens, yet both were of the same species, the true brook trout; my dark, strenuous three-pounder taken in the open, brackish creek as I cast from the salt meadowland sod banks, and Cornell's albinolike gamester succumbing to the fly in the foamy fountain of a deep woodland brook; both specimens widely separated in appearance, habits, and habitat, but still both legitimate brothers of the family _fontinalis_--little salmon of the streams. Trout in the sea feed on shrimp, the spawn of herring, and on the entrails of cod and other species of fishes thrown away by market fishermen. If the sea-going trout did not eat the spawn of the herring, herring would be too plentiful for Nature's even-distribution arrangement. The sea trout is gorged with herring spawn, which lies in heaps like so much sawdust on the shores and shallow places of the ocean. Cod spawn and milt float on the water's surface; the spawn of the herring sinks. The sea trout fresh from the streams is plump, has bright red spots, and is in ordinary color when it goes to sea; when it returns to the streams, though bigger (longer) and stronger, it is comparatively thin, and is of white or silver-sheened shade. Prof. George Brown Goode (_American Fishes_): "The identity of the Canadian sea trout and the brook trout is still denied by many, though the decision of competent authorities has settled the question beyond doubt." Eugene McCarthy (_Familiar Fish_): "Many Anglers are now turning their attention to catching sea trout, either on account of the novelty of the sport or because they believe that they are taking a new variety of fish. That there is novelty in such fishing cannot be denied, but that the fish is new in any way certainly can be.... There is no doubt that the sea trout and the brook trout are one and the same fish. It is broadly claimed that any of the trout can live as well in salt water as they can in fresh water, and everything seems to prove the claim to be correct. All trout grow to a larger size in salt water than in the brooks or rivers, and they lose their spots in the sea, becoming pale and silvery in color. Brook trout were originally found at a distance not greater than three hundred miles back from the ocean in waters tributary to it. Where conditions of temperature were favorable, they invariably sought salt water. When transplanted to, or found in, inland waters, they have adapted themselves to fresh-water conditions as well. All members of the trout family require cold water for their habitat, averaging about 68 degrees or less. Therefore, they must either seek the cold water of the ocean, or, if barred from that by long stretches of warm-river waters, they must seek the cold, small tributaries high up in the hills. While trout are found in the highland streams south of New York as far as South Carolina, they are not able to seek the sea on account of the warm, intervening waters. In Long Island (N. Y.) streams all trout are sea-going. From that point along the coast northward sea trout are rarely, if ever, found until the northern shores of Maine and New Brunswick are reached. All rivers flowing into the St. Lawrence as far west as Quebec, as well as those entering the Saguenay and those of the Labrador coast, are especially noted for most excellent sea trout fishing, and are the favorite resorts of Anglers.... In all ways the sea trout corresponds with the brook trout when taken in fresh water. If taken in salt water, there will only be the variation of coloring. ... ouananiche ... and sea trout ... with the exception of salmon ... afford the greatest sport that the Angler can find.... Exactly the same tackle is used (for sea trout) as for ouananiche, trout, or bass, and the same flies, both in kind and size.... When the fish begin to leave the sea and ascend the rivers, the bright colorings not only return, but actually appear to be more beautiful than those of the trout that always remain in fresh water.... But little attention, comparatively speaking, has been given to sea trout, principally because their nature was not understood, and, in fact, but little has been said or written in regard to them to arouse interest. The lessees of the sea trout streams on Long Island are very enthusiastic over the fishing they secure, as are those sportsmen who have sought it in Canada. The Canadian rivers are now more quickly and easily reached than formerly, and as the fish are rapidly acquiring fame they are bound to become much sought after by Anglers. However, sea trout fishing is but fishing for brook trout under different conditions, and amid varied surroundings. They offer, however, two extra inducements--they are more plentiful and usually average larger." Charles Hallock (_Sportsman's Gazetteer_) refers to the common theory that sea trout (Canada) are merely a clan or detachment of the brook trout which have temporarily left their fresh-water haunts for the sea; then Mr. Hallock asks: "But, if we must accept this as a postulate, we must be permitted to ask why the same peculiarities do not attach to the trout of Maine. Cape Cod, and Long Island? Why do we not discover here this periodical midsummer advent and 'run' of six weeks' duration; and why are only isolated individuals taken in the salt-water pound nets and fykes of Long Island, etc., instead of thousands, as in Canada? Moreover, the Canadian sea trout are never taken in the small streams, but only in rivers of considerable size, and the same trout uniformly return to the same river, just as salmon do--at least, we infer so from the fact that six-pounders are invariably found in the Nouvelle, and varying sizes elsewhere. Besides, we must be able to answer why a portion only of the trout in a given stream should periodically visit the sea at a specified time, while an equal or greater number elect to remain behind in fresh water; for we may suppose that, having equal opportunities, all have the same instincts and desires." But, trout of different localities do not have equal opportunities; therefore, they have not the same instincts and desires. Local conditions of Nature everywhere guide the instincts and govern the desires of every living thing. So, the trout of Maine, the trout of Cape Cod, the trout of Long Island--influenced by local conditions--are all vastly different in opportunities, instincts, desires, etc. The Eskimo biped, the African biped--the bipeds of all countries--are all species of the animal man, but who dare suggest that they all have equal (similar) opportunities and the same instincts and desires? Even individuals of the trout of one community are profoundly separated in character from their immediate brothers and sisters. Trout vary in their tastes and antics as they vary in color, shape, and size. There are hundreds of natural trout flies and hundreds of artificial trout flies, imitations of the living insects, used as lures in fishing. Why so many patterns? Because the trout, like man, is in love with a variety of foods at different times, and both man and trout change in their tastes by the month, the week, the day, the hour, and the minute. The Angler does not have to use the hundreds of fly patterns at one fishing, but he does experiment with a variety of the lures to find the particular patterns the fish is responsive to at the moment. One or two patterns would suffice--if the Angler could select the particular species the trout are rising to without trying all the patterns until he discovers the killing patterns. A chef might please his master with one or two of the forty courses billed if he knew what the man wanted. Sometimes the Angler can judge the appropriate fly to use by observing Nature in seeing trout rise to the live fly; but there are times when trout are not rising, times when they are tired of the fly upon the water, and times when the real fly is not on the wing. General rules are of no service without a deep regard for general conditions, local and otherwise. All trout must not be judged alike even if they be of one species and in one little pool. Individuals of man, though of one race and in one district, are not all alike in their habits any more than they are in their shades, shapes, and sizes. The conditions of the large rivers of Newfoundland are different from the conditions of the small streams of Maine, Long Island, and Cape Cod; hence the differing desires of the trout in these differing waters. There is no similarity in the quiet, tiny trout brooks of Long Island and the broad torrential rivers of Newfoundland, and it is only natural that the fishes of these deeply contrasting waters should be widely separated in character--instinct, desires, color, shape, size, etc. So I do not hesitate to express a belief that the sea trout, no matter where we find it, is just our own fond _fontinalis_ incognito. Between Halifax and Sydney, Nova Scotia, there are many wild sea trout rivers where the fish have never seen a human being. Angle from the middle of June to the end of August. In June large sea trout are caught in salt water at the mouth of rivers on the artificial fly and minnow bait. The best east shore sea trout streams are St. Mary's, Muscadoboit. Tangier, Cole Harbor, Petpeswick, Quoddy, Sheet Harbor, Moser's River, Half-way Brook, Smith Brook, Ecwon Secum, Isaac's Harbor, and about Guysboro. Southwest of Halifax great sea trout fishing may be had at Ingram River, Nine Mile River, Hubley's. Indian River, and about Liverpool, Chester, and the salmon country about Medway. In New Brunswick beautiful and prolific sea trout waters may be reached from the towns of New Castle (Miramichi River and branches--May and June). Chatham (Miramichi River, Tabusintac River, Bartibog River, Eskeldoc River), Bathhurst (Nipisguit River, Tetagouche River, Caroquet River, Pockmouche River), and Campbellton, in the Baie de Chaleur River, Restigouche River, and the Cascapedia. Metapedia, Upsalquitch, Nouvelle, Escuminac rivers. My choice of sea trout flies includes: Brown Hackle. Claret, Cinamon, Codun, Jenny Lind, Parmachenee Belle, Montreal, Grouse, Silver Doctor. Use sober-hued patterns in fresh water; bright patterns in salt water. Hooks: Nos. 7 to 12. CHAPTER XVI HOOKING THE TROUT "Give plenty of time for the fish to swallow the hook," says O. W. Smith, in _Outdoor Life_ (December, 1914), addressing the croppie (strawberry bass) Angler. It is not un-anglerlike to catch any fish hooked beyond the lips? Angling has its gentle qualities as well as its practical ends. It's different in mere fishing. I don't believe any Angler would purposely hook his game otherwise than in the lip--a nerveless center where there is no pain--though the plain fisherman may resort to any method in his pursuit. I remember some years ago when two fishermen caught the same fish (a large fluke), one hook being in the fish's mouth and the other hook on the inside of the fish's stomach, it was decided after a long discussion that the fish really belonged to the man whose hook held to the mouth; the swallowed hook was judged as illegitimate. Fishes hooked in the mouth do not suffer any pain. I've recaught many a once-lost specimen with my snell in its lip; these in both fresh water and salt water. Incidents of this character furnish one of the many proofs that mouth-hooking the fish is perfectly humane. Two friends witnessed my catch (July 11, 1915) of a Long Island two-and-one-quarter-pound brook trout that had a fly and leader (my first cast) dangling from its mouth, the gear he broke away with a few minutes before his actual capture. There is no need of subjecting fishes to any pain in angling. Hook them in the lips, and kill them the very second they are taken from the water. Letting them die slowly not only pains the captured fishes, but injures them as food. Be a sportsman in angling as well as in hunting. The chivalric gunner, unlike the market shooter, does not pot his quail huddled stationary on the ground; he gallantly takes it on the wing--gives it a fair chance. So the Angler, unlike the trade fisher, gives his game fair play. I catch quite my share of many species of fishes, but I only rarely suffer them to swallow the bait, and this by accident. Even pickerel and fluke (plaice) can be abundantly taken by being hooked in the lips. I never allow the pickerel or the black bass to swallow the bait; I hook them in the lip as I hook my trout--on the wing, as it were. CHAPTER XVII DOCTOR NATURE "The wise for cure on exercise depend; God never made His work for man to mend." "He that takes no holiday hastens a long rest." Game is not the only thing sought for by many men and women who go angling and shooting. Wise Lord Russell used to ride to the hounds until he bagged an appetite, then turn suddenly and ride as hard as possible to the nearest farmhouse and eat a hearty meal. Audubon and Wilson went afield to study ornithology; Gray and Thoreau for the study of general natural history, and thousands upon thousands of men and women less famous have gone afield with rod and gun for still another quarry--health. Lord Russell's appetite hunting reminds me of the case of a young invalid whom I once took on a trout fishing trip. The young man had been ill all his life. Nobody seemed to know what his complaint was, but everybody he came in contact with agreed that he was ill. He looked it, and often said he was born that way. I defined his case the first day I met him--the city complaint, a complication of general under-the-weather-ness that is brought about by foul air, improper exercise, steady indoor work, irregularity, cigarettes, and incorrect food incorrectly eaten. He's well now. He went out in the woods for two weeks every three months for six years, and at present he's as fat and solid as a Delaware shad. I shall never forget his expression when he hooked his first breath of fresh air and creeled a genuine outdoor appetite. A woods appetite is very different from the hunger that once in a while comes to the always-in-the-city man. It strikes suddenly, one's knees begin to shake, and a cold perspiration breaks out on the forehead. My poor young friend, having never previously experienced an appetite, of course didn't know what had taken hold of him. He began to cry and totter, and I stepped up to him just in time to save him from falling off a moss-covered rock into a roaring trout stream. "I'm ill," he said, "have been ill all my life. I thought this trip would do me good but I'm worse. Please let me lie down; I'm very faint." "Oh, come," said I, "you're only hungry; here, give me your rod, and lean on my arm; you'll be all right in a little while." I took him up to the farmhouse and started him slowly on some deviled trout and watercress. Poor fellow, he reminded me of a young setter dog born and brought up in the city and taken afield for the first time. Well, that young man did nothing but cry and eat for two weeks. He then went home to tell his folks he had come to life, and then hurried out to feed and weep for another month. I know a hundred young men and women in New York who are in a bad way with the city complaint. The streets are filled with ghost-like creatures. Lord Derby is right: "If you do not find time for exercise you will have to find time for illness." "To-morrow we will go a-fishing; do thou go now and fetch the bait." --Hymir to Thar. CHAPTER XVIII THE BROOK TROUT "Then, give me the trout of the mountain stream. With his crimson stars and his golden gleam; When he, like a hero, on the moss lies. The Angler has won his fairest prize!" AUTHOR UNKNOWN. =Trout Taking Flies.=--"Trout invariably strike the insect first with their tails, knocking it into the water and then devouring it with a swift dart which can hardly be distinguished from the original movement, so quickly does one succeed the other."--W. C. Prime. =Trout Colors.=--The color of a trout's back depends on the color of the bottom of the river. Rapidly growing trout differ greatly in spots and color from those which grow slowly and thrive badly. A middle-aged trout differs in color from an aged trout. Speaking generally, the young, healthy, fast-growing fish will have silvery sides, white belly, and plenty of well-defined spots. The poorly fed fish will have few or no spots, a drab belly, and muddy yellow sides. Old trout are particularly lank and large-headed. =Tame Trout.=--An English gentleman has two brook trout that take flies from his fingers, and that ring a little bell cord when they are hungry. They were taught this latter performance by having bits of food tied to the cord when it was first introduced. =Wild Trout and Tame.=--"Somehow the catching of, as it were, stall-fed trout has not the same charm as the fishing for the wild trout. The domestics lack that fierce rush and dash of the wild beauty."--John B. Robinson. =Sight, Hearing, etc., of Trout.=--"There is no question ... as to the high development of the senses of sight, taste, and hearing in trout."--Wm. C. Harris. =Trout at Play.=--"Many times have I leaned over the sides of my boat in Northern waters, where the trout lay beneath me, and seen the mottled beauties chase each other, and race and leap in rivalry of sport, until their bright sides irradiated the dark stream with glancing light, as if the rays of the sun had taken water and were at their bath."--W. H. H. Murry. =Trout in Hungary.=--The streams of Hungary afford excellent angling for trout and grayling. =Unidentified Trout.=--M. P. Dunham of Ovando. Montana, a sportsman's guide of many years' experience, writes me: "We have two trout here in Montana that I do not find pictured in _The Angler's Guide_ or any other book I have seen containing the technical portraits of the fishes. One of these trout weighs up to forty-nine pounds and its average weights are twelve pounds to fifteen pounds. The other is a small trout that averages less than one pound in weight, and it has no spots. The large trout has a few spots, these being particularly brilliant in the mating season--September and October. The best time to fish for this large species is in August and September. Both of these unidentified trout will rise to the artificial fly, but in fly-fishing I have never taken a specimen of the large species that weighed over six pounds, the fish ranging beyond this weight favoring small fish and red meat for bait. The waters are overstocked with the large variety; the small unspotted variety is only in one stream." Undoubtedly these two trout are odd forms of well-known species. Mr. Dunham should send specimens of each to the United States Fish Commission at Washington. The small trout will undoubtedly prove to be the common mountain trout, whose peculiar habitat--the one stream Mr. Dunham mentions--is responsible for its peculiar coloring. The large fish that ranges up to forty-nine pounds is no doubt a form of lake trout which has been known to attain a weight of eighty pounds and a length of six feet. =The Trout's Symmetry.=--"Few humanly designed lines are more graceful than those of the yacht. The trout is made up of such lines. It is a submarine designed by the Almighty. It makes the most of the simple elements of artistic beauty--symmetry of line, suggestive of agile power, and delicately blended harmonies of rich color."--New York _Evening Telegram_, editorial page, July 17, 1915. =The Beautiful Trout.=--"Of all the many species of trout, _Salvelinus_ or _Salmo_, the brook trout, _fontinalis_, is by far the most beautiful."--Charles Zibeon Southard. =A Loving Trout.=--At the Wintergreen estate, Highland Lake, Winsted, Conn., a brook trout was kept in captivity in a deep spring for seven years. When the fish was fifteen inches in length two other brook trout, a male and female, each ten inches long, were placed in the spring to keep the old fellow company. He promptly fell in love with the lady trout and killed and swallowed her escort. =Albino Trout.=--The fish hatchery in St. Paul, Minn., had at one time twenty thousand albino trout in stock. This species was discovered in 1893. There is something peculiar in Minnesota waters which aids propagation of this species. The fish are white mottled with red and yellow spots; the fins are white with red bands mottled with yellow. The eyes are red and the trout has apparently a transparent skin so that the bones are visible through it. =Rainbow Trout.=--Dr. A. E. Buzard, of Hayward. Calif., fishing in the Spokane River within ten minutes' walk of the city of Spokane, Wash., creeled eleven rainbow trout weighing, collectively, seventeen pounds. =Rocky Mountain Trout.=--H. E. Peck, of Kenman. North Dakota, and H. N. Stabeck, of Minneapolis. Minn., enjoyed good trout fishing last summer in the Crow West country of the Rocky Mountains. A catch of thirty-one trout weighed, collectively, fifty-one pounds. The largest specimen weighed three and one fourth pounds. =Flood-water Trout.=--When the trout stream is flooded, the trout find plenty of food and they gorge themselves with worms, etc. Then they refuse the Angler's bait for several days--"trout feed on a rising stream, not on a falling stream."--E. Curley. =A Tame Trout.=--"Sunbeam, the pet speckled trout in the fish hatchery at Estes Park, is very fond of being stroked and petted, and will swim around and rub itself against a person's hand whenever a chance is given it."--Estes (Calif.) Correspondent New York _World_. I'll warrant this fish only rubs its lips against the hand of man. No fish will willingly allow its body to come in contact with a man's hand, because fishes are covered with a slime that protects them when they encounter rocks, logs, etc., and they naturally would not voluntarily waste this valuable armor. =Traits of the Trout.=--The brook trout (_Salvelinus fontinalis_), using its tail with vigor and precision, will splash water into the midst of a mass of flying insects (midge, black gnat, mosquito, etc.), and thus disable these insects so that they will fall on the surface of the water, where they become easy prey to the voracious trout. _Fontinalis_ will also use his tail in striking to disable larger insects (butterflies, beetles, cricket, potato-bug, etc.), and the Angler's artificial flies when they are floating in or upon the water. =Rainbow Trout.=--"The rainbow takes the fly so readily that there is no reason for resorting to grasshoppers, salmon eggs, or other bait. It is a fish whose gameness will satisfy the most exacting of expert Anglers, and whose readiness to take any proper line will please the most impatient of inexperienced amateurs."--Prof. Evermann. =The Tactful Trout.=--"Trout are emblems of quiet, calm, and gentleness, such as love not to be in troubled waters or to be tossed to and fro by the blustering of wicked and malevolent spirits, but rather live quiet at home than enjoy abundance through labor and trouble."--Randal Holme. =Double-headed Trout.=--A two-headed brook trout is the product of the fish hatchery at Colebrook, N. H. =Trout in Side Currents.=--"As a general rule although many trout are taken near, very near the rough, white water of a stream, they do not as a rule lie in the very swiftest portions, but in adjacent and quieter side currents."--Samuel G. Camp. =The Angler's Joy.=--"The brook trout always will be the Angler's greatest joy, but the German brown trout [introduced in American waters] and the rainbow trout add variety to the social life of the streams."--Neal Brown. CHAPTER XIX THE ANGLER "I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture." BYRON. "He'd eat his lunch in a minute; He had no time to spare. At a mounted fish in a window He'd stop an hour to stare." _Judge._ =The Lone Angler.=--"The reason a man likes to go angling is that his family doesn't like to go with him."--New York _Press_. =The True Angler.=--"If true Anglers, you are sure to be gentle; and as the truly gentle are always virtuous, you must be happy. Let neither prosperity nor adversity deaden 'the fresh feeling after Nature' which the use of the rod and reel always heightens or confers. Whether overladen with good fortune or suffering under the shocks of adversity, forget not to take the magic wand and repair to the murmuring waters. 'The music of those gentle moralists will steal into your heart'; and, while invigorating physical energy, your souls will be charmed and your minds soothed and tempered by the melody of birds, the sights of nature, and the sounds of inferior animals above, around, and beneath the enlivening waters. With rosy dreams and bright streams, breezy morns and mellow skies, a light heart and a clear conscience, may 'God speed ye well.'"--Genio C. Scott, _Fishing in American Waters_. =Real vs. Rural Angler.=--The assertion that the bent-pin-fishing country boy can catch more trout than the properly equipped Angler is material of the comic papers. No impracticable boy, whether he be of the country or of the city, can excel the correctly rigged, careful Angler. The bent-pin youth of the farm may outfish the unskillful, showy tyro from the city, but to compete with the scientific Angler he would have about the same chance of outfishing the expert as a cow would have fishing alongside of a mink. =The Bicycle Angler.=--Mr. David Rivers writes me: "I ride my wheel to my favorite angling places regularly in the spring, summer, and autumn times. The four-ounce rod takes up no noticeable space on the wheel, and my leader-box and fly-book are easily carried in my pockets." =The Determined Angler.=--"There is peculiar pleasure in catching a trout in a place where nobody thinks of looking for them, and at an hour when everybody believes they cannot be caught."--Henry van Dyke. =Dry and Wet Fly Angler.=--"Startling as the statement may sound, it is probably true that the really good wet-fly fisherman is a greater rarity than the really good dry-fly man."--London _Field_. =The Expert Fly Angler.=--"A real expert with the wet-fly is a much rarer bird than one with the dry."--London _Fishing Gazette_. =The Finished Fly Angler.--= " ... to be a finished wet-fly Angler one must possess as much skill as the dry-fly fisherman."--Emlyn M. Gill. =The Angler Body and Soul.=--"To take fish is only the body of the gentle art. Some of its real enjoyments are what the Angler sees and feels--the echo of the running streams, the music of the birds, the beauty of the flowers peering at him from every side, the bracing atmosphere, the odor of pines, hemlocks, and spruce; the hush of the woods at night, the morning song of the robin, and the revived appetite."--A. L. H. =Ye Gude Angler.=--"Wha ever heard o' a gude angler being a bad or indifferent man?"--Noctes. =The Merry Angler.=--"And if the angler take fysshe: surely thenne is there noo man merier than he is in his spyryte."--Dame Juliana Berners (1496). =The Religious Angler.=--"The old man fished not for pastime, nor solely for a subsistence, but as a solemn sacrament and withdrawal from the world, just as the aged read their Bible."--Thoreau. =The Satisfied Angler.=--Trout in the creel or no trout in the creel, the Angler never complains of poor sport if there be trout in the water he fishes, if the weather be pleasant, and the scenery fair. Some fishermen judge their day by the actual catch of fish. The true rodster loves the pursuit and capture of the fish, the bright day, and the beautiful natural surroundings equally well. =The Tidy Angler.=--I don't care if the fish I catch weigh only a pound, no matter what the species may be. My tackle is light, fine, and properly rigged, and with it, in taking big fish or half-pound and pound fish, I have just as much sport as the man who uses heavy, coarse, ill-kept tackle on bigger game alone. The woodcock--the king of game birds--is bagged with No. 10 shot, but the sport of taking it is quite as great as the shooting of fowl ten times its size. =The Assiduous Angler.=--The constant-in-application man becomes the practical fisherman. =The Compleat Angler.=--"Walton's book is as fresh as a handful of wild violets and sweet lavender. It breathes the odors of green fields and woods."--Henry van Dyke. =The Literary Angler.=--Izaak Walton's famous work, _The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation_, a copy of the first edition, small 8vo, original sheep binding, London, 1653, brought the highest price of the day (April 9, 1915) at the sale of the library of the late General Brayton Ives at the American Art Galleries, New York, $2475. George D. Smith was the successful bidder. The record price for this edition is $6000, which was paid at the sale of the library of W. C. Van Antwerp of New York some years ago at Sotheby's in London by the late Bernard Quaritch, acting as agent for the late J. Pierpont Morgan, in whose collection the valuable volume now is. =A Centenarian Angler.=--Mrs. Jane T. Rinkle of Bristol, Tenn., is over one hundred years of age. Still vigorous for one of her years, Mrs. Rinkle believes that her long life and her bright prospect for living some years longer is due to her fondness for angling. "I have hardly passed a fishing season in fifty years," said the old lady at her last anniversary party, "that I have not gone to the river with hook and line." =The Woman Angler.=--The Duchess of Bedford has the distinction of a record catch of English salmon. Her creel for one day numbered thirteen, the greatest string of salmon ever taken in a single day by a woman. Three other prominent English women Anglers are Lady Sybil Grey, daughter of Earl Grey, Milicent. Duchess of Sutherland, and Lady Rosemary Portal, only child of the second Earl of Cairns. Each of these ladies are highly expert in fly-casting. =The Waltonian Angler.=--"It matters not at all what trout waters the Angler fishes if he has the true and kindly spirit of Izaak Walton, the Master Angler of years ago; for then every stream and lake has its own peculiar and delightful charms in which the Angler revels while angling, with either the wet or the dry fly, to fathom their piscatorial secrets. Of all sport. I know of none that seems to develop in the individual such a kindly spirit, such a full appreciation of all living things, and such an absorbing love for the many and varied charms of 'the open' as fly-fishing."--Charles Zibeon Southard. =The Merciful Angler.=--The names of three members of a recent jury in the County Court of Brooklyn. N. Y., were Fish, Fisher, and Fishline--a trio of honest men, no doubt. With Bates and Waters added, this jury would have little trouble in mercifully holding up the scales of justice. =The Peaceful Angler.=--"Don't think of your business or profession while fishing. Forget your desk, your pen, and also your debts and your enemies, if you have any."--"The Professor." =The Mathematical Angler.=--"His rule in fishing was to fish in the difficult places which others were likely to skip."--Daniel Webster. =The Ever-Youthful Angler.=--"Don't become old--go fishing once or twice a week."--"The Professor." =The Halcyonian Angler.=--"The whole arcana book of trout fishing consists in rather the mental construction of the Angler than in the manner and method of the process. The fish is a convenient peg, so to say, on which we hang the _dolce far niente_, and render the day's sport in its pursuit halcyon and superlative. The sport itself may be insufficient, but there is always some recompense in the effort made and in the close communion with 'dear nature's self.' Not always do large bags and great results crown the Angler's desire. Too often it is far otherwise, and yet the true Angler never feels like giving up fishing because of poor sport."--John Harrington Keene. =The Luxuriant Angler.=--James L. Breeze's string of salmon pools in Restigouche cost this enthusiastic Angler $35,000. =The Concentrated Angler.=--"A gentleman hesitates to bother anybody whose mind is concentrated on his fishing. The expert knows by experience one question leads to another, then on to begging, borrowing, or buying. The expert knows that tyros are never provided with tackle, bait, or reasonable consideration for others. They expect the whole boatload of Anglers to wait on them because they catch no fish."--Louis Rhead. =The Home Angler.=--"The sporting element among fishermen haven't any fine sensibilities ... the true fishermen fish for edible fish only for their own use and the use of their families."--"Piscator." =The Lost Angler.=--"Remember that water always is supposed to run south, save in a few instances where it runs direct north or west from the mountains, as the Red River in Minnesota, flowing north, for instance. This certainly would be a misleader. But as a rule water runs south. Follow it. Along streams man makes his abode."--Robert Page Lincoln. CHAPTER XX ANGLING "... which, as in no other game A man may fish and praise His name." W. BASSE. "I chose of foure good dysportes and honeste gamys, that is to wyte: of huntynge: hawkynge: fysshynge: and foulynge. The best to my symple dyscrecon why then is fysshynge: called Anglynge with a rodde: and a line and an hoke."--DAME JULIANA BERNERS, _The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle, 1496_. "If the bending rod and the ringing reel Give proof that you've fastened the tempered steel. Be sure that the battle is but begun And not till he's landed is victory won." AUTHOR UNKNOWN. =Fair and Foul Angling.=--Anybody can catch a trout with a worm. This is the bait of the boy and the boatman. The Angler gives the trout a fair battle with the artificial fly. Comparing live-bait fishing to artificial fly angling is like comparing blacksmithry to jewel working, bronco breaking to genteel horsemanship, or buccaneering to yachting. =Refinement of Angling.=--Angling is fishing governed by rules of chivalry--correct tackle, limit in the catch, and humane treatment of the game. =Landing the Fish.=--"The surest way to take the fish is give her leave to play and yield her line."--Quarles, _Shepheard's Eclogues_, 1644. Subdue a big fish before you try to land him. Don't be in a hurry. Give him line, but keep it taut (not tight), and don't become excited. Don't try to yank him out of his element or pull him through the line guides. Raise the rod tip over the back of your head, and don't grab the line--guide the game into the landing net or up to the gaff. Take your time. Be glad if the fish escapes. His life is as important as yours--to him, at least. Besides, you'd soon tire of fishing if you never lost a fish. "The play's the thing" in angling, anyway, because, as an Angler, you can buy fish cheaper than you can catch them, if you play fair--if you're not of the gentry that judge the day by quantity instead of quality. Some of the greatest Anglers are the poorest fish killers, but to them one fish correctly captured on chivalric tackle means more than a tubful of butchered victims means to the unenlightened bungler. Contrast and conditions count for something in everything. If there were no cloudy days we'd never correctly value the sunshine. Method in the pursuit, appropriateness of the equipment, and uncertainty in the catch, wholly distasteful to the selfish neophyte, are thoroughly appreciated by the Angler. =Ancient Angling.=--One of the most ancient literary works on fishing, perhaps the most ancient of all really known volumes on the subject, is _Hauleutics of Oppian_, the work of a Greek poet, A.D. 198, from which many articles on fishing and angling, thought to be modern, have been taken. Athenæus tells us that several writers wrote treatises or poems on fishing centuries before the Christian era. =Old Angling Books.=--1486--_The Booke of St. Albans_; by Dame Juliana Berners. 1590--_Booke of Fishing with Hook and Line_; by Leonard Mascall. 1596--_Hawking. Hunting, Fowling and Fishing_; by W. C. Faukener. 1606--_Booke of Angling or Fishing_; by Samuel Gardner, D.D. 1651--_Art of Angling_; by Thomas Barker (the second edition of this book, published in 1657, was issued under the title of _Barker's Delight_). 1652--_Young Sportsman's Delight and Instructor in Angling_, etc.; by Gervase Markham. 1653--_The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation_, etc.; by Izaak Walton (the second edition, almost rewritten by the author, appeared in 1655). 1662--_Experienced Angler, or Angling Improved_; by Robert Venables. 1676--_Angler's Delight_, etc.; by William Gilbert. 1681--_Angler's Vade Mecum_; by Chetham. 1682--_Complete Troller_; by Nobles. 1696--_The True Art of Angling_; by J. S. =Carrying the Rod.=--Joint your rod only when you reach the place of angling, and take it apart again when you are ready to leave the water for camp, unless the camp is on the edge of the lake or stream. When angling along thickly wooded banks, carry the rod in front of you, tip first, pointing the tip through the bushes you penetrate; never pull it after you. Fasten the hook on one of the reel bars, and then thrust the rod's tip through the branches or shrubbery ahead of you when you move along, casting here and there. This is not necessary when one only moves a step or two, for then, if there be open space, the rod and line may be held clear of the underbrush and branches. In all cases keep the rod ahead of you. When disjointed, the rod pieces may be held together by small rubber bands until the rod case is made use of, but don't lay the rod away with the rubber bands intact, as the rubber will bend the tip out of shape, dislodge the wood coating, disturb the whipping, and tarnish the ferrules. Dr. E. F. Conyngham of Bonner. Mont., doesn't like my notion of carrying the rod tip first. The Doctor says he favors carrying it butt first with the tip trailing behind. "I have fished with a fly for trout and salmon nearly forty years in Europe and this continent," says the Doctor, "and never yet saw an expert Angler carry a rod in the way described by Mr. Bradford. That is just the proper caper to break tips. The rod in going through brush should be carried butt forward; then the tip will trail as easily as the tail on a dog, and furthermore, you can walk at good speed without interference. In my many years of fly fishing I have had one broken tip; a woman knocked it down and stepped on it. Luckily it was lancewood, so I could repair it. What would have been my predicament had the rod been of split bamboo?" Very good, Doctor. I may be wrong but, I learned my way from my fathers of the angle--Seth Green. John Harrington Keene, Frederick Mather, William C. Harris, _et al._--when I was being taught first lessons in fly-fishing. Seth Green, John Keene, and Harris personally advised me to carry the fly rod tip in front of me, and each of the trio personally showed me the method on the trout streams. Harris and Keene always carried their fly rods tip first, and I have seen both these experts along the streams many times during many years of personal fishing with both of these Anglers. However, Dr. Conyngham must not be denied his view on the subject. Just as there are famous wing shots who shoot with one eye closed and other experts who give trigger with both eyes open, so in angling, there are many practiced hands who disagree on the various ways and means in fishing. I favor keeping my tip in front of me, and while I shall never change this method, I refrain from condemning Dr. Conyngham's contrastive way of carrying his tip. Charles Zibeon Southard agrees with both the Doctor and me. He advises carrying the tip ahead in the open and behind in the brush. =The Angling World.=--"Angling takes us from the confusion, the filth, and the social and moral degradation of the big cities and places us in close contact with one of the most important divisions of human labor--the cultivation of the soil, which is the real foundation of all national wealth and true social happiness. Everything connected with the land is calculated to foster the best and noblest feelings of the soul and to give the mind the most lofty and sublime ideas of universal nature. To men of contemplative habits the roaming along brooks, rivers, lakes, and fields gives rise to the most refined intellectual enjoyment. Such persons move in a world of their own and experience joys and sorrows with which the world cannot meddle."--A. L. H. =Colorado Trout Streams.=--Colorado has six thousand miles of trout streams. =Angling Saves Words.=--"Contemplation and quietness! Will these words soon be labeled in our dictionaries 'obsolete'? It would seem so; yet there will be some use for them, among old-fashioned folk, as long as the word 'angling' holds its place."--Willis Boyd Allen. =Large-Trout Angling.=--Frank Brigg, of London. England, fishing in New River, caught an eighteen-pound trout, the heaviest specimen of trout ever taken in a London water. =Speculation in Angling.=--"I often wonder if the basis of fishing is not founded upon the element of chance, and whether fishing does not fascinate because it is a species of gambling. To a degree it is a hazard. You take your best tackle, select your choicest bait, and you do more, for you pray to the goddess of success."--"Ancient Mariner." =Economy in Angling.=--"Don't take more fish than you can use; if you do, you take that which belongs to someone else."--"Tops'l." =An Angling Classic.=--"Angling is the only sport that boasts the honor of having given a classic [Izaak Walton's _The Compleat Angler_, 1653] to literature."--Henry van Dyke. =How to Approach a Trout.=--" ... sense of hearing in all species of fish is a matter of concussion on the surface of the water. Sit motionless in a boat, and you may sing, "I Won't Go Home 'Til Morning," or any other gala song, to the extreme high limit of your voices, and the trout or any other fish will remain undisturbed, but, scratch your toe upon the bottom of the boat, and presto! the pool is as dead and barren as a burned prairie. Approach a pool from over the bank with a careless tread, and when you reach it the trout are gone, none know where. Crawl to the pool noiselessly on all fours and you will find your trout reposing without fear of danger. The avoidance of concussion is the great factor on a trout pool or stream in getting a satisfactory creel. Slide, rather than step, in wading, and your success will be greater."--Wm. C. Harris. =Strike from the Reel or Hand?=--"The strike must be made with sufficient force and no more. If insufficient, the hook will not penetrate far enough to hold the fish in its subsequent struggles, and if the force is excessive the gut will break at its weakest point, and leave the fly and possibly one or more strands of gut in the trout's jaws. The Angler should acquire the habit of striking from the reel, _i.e._, without holding the line in the hand. Many old fishermen prefer holding the line when striking, but it is at best a risky proceeding, and too likely to result in a breakage of the gut."--F. M. Halford, _The Dry-Fly Man's Handbook_. "Personally I never 'strike from the reel' ... because less control is had over the line, likewise the fish."--Charles Zibeon Southard, _Trout Fly-Fishing in America_. I favor Mr. Halford's method--"strike from the reel"--in fly-fishing and in weakfish fishing with light tackle. In heavy bait fishing, Mr. Southard's strike with the "hand-held line" suits me. =The Silver Hook.=--"There is a good deal of fun in thinking you are going to have it."--New York _Press_. True; Walton says the Angler's anticipation of fishing is as great a joy as the realization of it. =Angling Ailment.=--"We never get over the fishing fever; it is a delightful disease, and, thank the Lord, there is no cure."--Ira W. Moore. =Angling and Nature.=--"Association with men of the world narrows the heart; communion with nature expands it."--Jean Paul Richter. =Angling and Mathematics.=--"Angling may be said to be so much like the Mathematics, that it can ne'er be fully learnt; at least not so fully, but that there will still be more new experiments left for the tryal of other men that succeed us."--Izaak Walton, _The Compleat Angler_, 1653. =Tendency of Angling.=--"I am now over 76 [years in age] and owe my life to fishing, and I find the tendency of fishing is to make one careful, artful, patient, and practical."--"Watcher." =Angling a Science.=--"Angling is a science, not merely a pastime. It will broaden you and start your boy in a manly sport that will draw him to the country instead of to the dance hall, to the fields and streams instead of to the pool room."--"Greenhorn." =Fly vs. Worm.=--"That fly-fishing is clean, and free from the muscular efforts of mountain-climbing; that it is usually rewarded with larger fish than those taken with a worm; that it has a freedom, a jollity, a certain broad, wide-spaced exhilaration, I willingly admit. But, the humbler, old-fashioned method has a charm of its own which I am not ready to forego."--Willis Boyd Allen. ="Ye Gods and Little Fishes."=--"When we have become familiar with the great cities with their bewildering sights and distracting sounds, the finest things remain to be discovered, and these discoveries must be made as we stand open-eyed in the presence of God's workmanship. Hills and streams, woods and flowers, bees and birds and butterflies, the flora and fauna of this earth where we have our home for a little time, should, somehow, be brought into the life of the child. The boy who grows up into manhood without being privileged to know the world of nature by personal contact has been robbed. He may be intelligent in many things and a useful member of society, but he has missed out of life some of its deepest satisfactions and purest joys. Indeed, such an one is not symmetrically educated, and is quite likely to be put to shame as the years pass by."--Lathan A. Crandall, _Days in the Open_. =Angling Is its Own Reward.=--"No other sportsman brings home more from his sport than he takes to it than the fisherman. His basket is heavy with present food in the morning, and loaded with future food in the afternoon, with an appetite and a sleepetite that requires three days to satisfy."--Hy. Julius. =Ideal Angling Time.=--The last two weeks in June--what lovelier period for brook trout fishing in the rich flower-lined mountain streams? When does the wild shrub smell sweeter than now, the wind blow more balmily, the songbirds trill sweeter, and the spotted trout bite better? =Landing the Trout.=--The proper time to spend in landing a fish all depends upon the condition of your fishing ground. Lead your prize away from obstructions, keep the line taut, and do not nervously hurry the play. Take your time. =Fishes' Feeding-Time.=--Fishes are said to bite better between the new moon and the first quarter; or between the last quarter and the change. =Calmness in Angling.=--Don't hurry a large fish. Subdue him as far from you as possible. =Shadowless Angling.=--Never let your shadow fall upon the angling water. Keep the sun in front of you. =Striking and Hooking.=--Nothing is more difficult to learn about fly-fishing than the art of striking or hooking the game. =The Fishless Fisherman.=--"You took a day off from your work and went fishing? Have any luck?" "Certainly. A day off is luck enough."--New York _American_. =Angling Spirit.=--"It is the way we do things and the spirit in which we prosecute our endeavors that counts. The man who takes the day to go fishing on the great ocean or in the forest and can commune with Nature can be as good a Christian as the best man that ever entered the portals of a church, cathedral, or synagogue."--"Nature Factor." =All Sports in Angling.=--"The sport that sums up dancing, song and picture, athletics and all games of chance is angling. The waves make you dance, all pictures roll before you, any chance can win the pool, and every fishing boat is a _sängerfest_."--B. M. Briggs. =Early Trout Angling.=--"Don't let anyone tell you of the folly of trout fishing in early April. It's great sport, and if you're skillful enough to get a few of the gamest and wisest fish that swims at this time of the year your success will be complete in May and June, when the ideal weather comes."--H. T. Walden. =Skill vs. Kill.=--"To qualify as a sportsman in the taking of any kind of game, a man must show much more enthusiasm in skill rather than in the kill, always remembering to give or inflict the least pain possible on the game taken by his skill."--Wes' Wood. =Rainbow Trout Angling.=--"I get harder play with a three-pound rainbow trout than with a maskinonge of twenty-five pounds. I have caught only a few rainbow trout. The first one I ever caught was three years ago in the Esopus Creek in the Catskills. I felt somewhat relieved when I had him in the net. He was the gamest fish for his size I ever hooked, and I have killed ten and twelve pound salmon on a trout rod. The rainbow trout is first cousin to the lordly salmon."--M. J. Doyle. =Secret of Angling.=--"Fishing is more than catching. Its pleasures are the whole outdoors. Appreciation is the secret of the lure."--Theodore Macklin. =Limit in Angling.=--"It is very foolish for Anglers, when they get more fishes than they want, to even give them away; far better it would be for them to stop fishing when they have caught enough for themselves, and give the fish a chance."--George Hartley. =Age of Angling.=--"The allurement of fishing is as old as the granite mountains of the Andes. Down through the ages of the past, even from the day of the anthropophagi, comes to us the fact that all the world rejoices in the gentle art of fishing. Fishing--the one word that opens up to our understanding the philosophy of nature--is the fundamental basis of our civilization."--David Jones. =Gentility in Angling.=--"Sportsmanship abhors greed and all vulgarity."--H. W. Wack. =Angling Clears the Brain.=--"When we are confused and harried by the turmoil of modern life, our heads and our hearts aching with its complex problems, its exigent demands, its rebuffs, and its bitter disappointments, let us turn once more to the forest and meadow, the peaceful stream, with the fleecy clouds or overhanging boughs kindly tempering the rays of the summer sun; let us drop our pens, abandon for the nonce our manuscript, our ledgers, or the stock reports of the day, and 'go a-fishing.'"--Willis Boyd Allen. =Up and Down Stream.=--"I fish up stream (and I think this best) and down stream and across stream--according to wind and time and weather, etc., and the sun. I have found I can get the larger fish in upstream fishing; but there are pools one can't get the flies to--the likely places--from below, nor yet from either side. When I come to such a pool I get above and cover it well by casting across stream from me--the sun being opposite--and let my flies float down, drawing them the while across current with a twitching motion, as an insect struggling to swim across. It is a deadly method if well done and gets the big ones too. I hold the line of course in my left hand, and as I gently raise the rod with my right, I take in line with my left, thus at all times having full control and ready for a strike."--Ernest L. Eubank. =Fly-Fishing First.=--"Fly-fishing comes first, then comes bait casting with the fly rod; third, still fishing; fourth, casting of live bait with the short rod from the reel, and last, if not entirely without the pale of true sportsmanship, the use of the plug."--Rayx. =Fly Rod and Bait Rod.=--"It takes some skill to keep sixty feet of line in the air when fly casting, and requires free space for the back cast. It is fascinating work and requires more delicacy in handling a fly rod than a bait rod. The fly rod, especially in Southern Missouri waters, lands more fish during the day than the bait rod, but the latter lands larger fish. The bait caster makes fewer casts on account of reeling in the line after each cast, but the water is more effectively covered. One has to be a judge of the water and determine which method should be used. In the northern lakes bait casting is far superior in results to fly casting."--M. J. Brennan. =Land and Water.=--"You're natural when fishing, and unnatural on shore. Fishing rubs the barnacles off your natural self, and makes your bodyship sail more easily."--B. M. Briggs. =First Record of Angling.=--"The first authentic record of angling appears in the Old Testament of the Bible, computed to be about 1500 years before Christ, where the Lord asked Job: 'Canst thou take out a fish with the hook?'"--John Ryan. =Roman Angling.=--The walls of Pompeii are adorned with angling scenes. CHAPTER XXI TROUT FLIES "To make several flies For the several skies. That shall kill in despite of all weathers." CHARLES COTTON. =Weight of Flies.=--"Flies do not soon get tired; ... they are light; the wind carries them. An ounce of flies was once weighed, and afterwards counted; and it was found to comprise no less than six thousand two hundred and sixty-eight."--Victor Hugo, _The Toilers of the Sea_. =The Dry-Fly.=--"Upon the curling _surface_ let it glide, with natural motion from thy hand supplied."--Unknown Author. The italics in the word surface are ours. The dry artificial fly must swim on the surface, must fly upstream, must have no companion fly, must keep dry by sailing in the air between actual casts, and must attract the fish by minutely mimicking the living fly both in the air and on (not in) the water. =Vegetable Flies.=--Bearded seed of the wild oat and a silvery willow leaf have been used successfully as artificial flies for brook trout and black bass. =To Carry Flies.=--Do not use your large fly-book when wading. Put a half dozen seasonable patterns in your hatband, and a dozen more in a little book that will not bulge your pocket. =Variety in Flies.=--You can never carry too many trout flies on your trip. Fill your fly-book and stick them all over the crown of your hat. Trout do not like the same fly at all times any more than you are fond of feeding on one sort of meat. =Clumsy Flies.=--Most trout flies are too large, and they frighten more trout than they attract. =A New Fly.=--" ... an altogether original fly, unheard of, startling, will often do great execution in an overfished pool."--Henry van Dyke. =The Floating Fly.=--"The floating fly seemed to have the effect of arousing the trout to action at once. During the week I estimate that there was an average of ten rises to the dry-fly to every one to the same fly wet."--Emlyn M. Gill. =Fishing the Dry-Fly.=--"The dry-fly is clearly out of place on the wet-fly water as the wet-fly is on the dry-fly stream. After all, it is only in the style of deceiving and hooking fish that dry-fly and wet-fly Anglers ... assuming both to be good sportsmen ... can much differ. In nearly all other fly-fishing matters they must naturally be at one. It has already been said that the dry-fly is quite out of place in many trout streams. The dry-fly streams, though they have increased of late years, are still and ever must be in a decided minority. The dry-fly Angler is not, as a rule, a very early riser. He can do nothing without natural flies, and in my experience there are very few duns or other water-flies out till nine or even ten o'clock in the morning."--A. B. Dewar, _The Book of the Dry-Fly_. =American Dry-Flies.=--"Whirling Dun, Wickham's Fancy, Pale Evening Dun, Jenny Spinner, (Hackle Fly), Willow Fly (Hackle Fly), Orange Fish Hawk (Hackle Fly), Olive Dun, Soldier Palmer (Hackle Fly). Silver Sedge, Red Spinner, White Miller, Coachman. Black Gnat."--Emlyn M. Gill, _Practical Dry-Fly Fishing_. =Brazilian Flies.=--Brazilian flies, costing seven dollars a ton, are used to feed fishes in England. =Fresh Flies.=--"When trout are taking the fly on the surface, and are not simply feeding on the larvæ as they swim upward, a brand new fly is more likely to catch a fish than one which has been a great deal used. I always use May-flies dressed on eyed hooks, have a goodly supply, and when one gets so wet as to necessitate a considerable amount of labor in the drying of it, off it comes, and is stuck in my cap to dry at its leisure. Of course it is rather wasting to the cast--this frequent changing flies--and no little trouble to those whose fingers are all thumbs, and whose eyesight is becoming dim, but it is far less trouble to change the fly than to dry it when thoroughly soaked."--_London Fishing Gazette._ =Rocky Mountain Trout Flies.=--First, Royal Coachman; second, Gray Hackle with yellow body. Then: Black Gnat, Ginger Quill, Cowdung, Blue Quill. Grizzly King, Shad Fly, and Stone Fly. Hooks, No. 6 to 14. =Early Season Flies.=--Dark Stone, Codun, Alder. Bowman, Black May, Beauty, Ben Bent, Blue Bottle. Hare's Ear. =All-Season Flies.=--Alder, Gray Palmer, Green Palmer, Ginger Palmer, March Brown, Reuben Wood. Professor, White Miller, Coachman, Royal Coachman. Dark Coachman, Codun, Scarlet Ibis, Brown Palmer. Red Palmer, Grizzly King, Queen of the Water, King of the Water, Brown Hen, Black Gnat. Early in the season use hooks No. 6 to 8; later, No. 8 to 12. Use the small patterns on streams, and the large patterns on lakes and rough waters; and, as I have repeatedly suggested, when the day is bright and where the water is clear, use the small flies of plain colors; on dark days and in the evening, use the large bright flies. =Dyed-Feather Flies.=--"Some Anglers say no dyed feathers should be used in tying flies, that they fade to a damaging extent. We have always found dyed feathers practicable."--_London Rod and Gun._ =The Brown Hackle.=--"Fasten red (crimson red) wool round a hook, and fit into the wool two feathers which grow under a cock's wattles."--Ælian, third century, A.D. "Out of the thousands of trout that I have caught, it is safe to say that over 70 per cent. were taken with the Brown Hackle."--C. T. Ramsey. Two hundred Anglers, representing all parts of the United States, contributed fly-fishing chapters to _Favorite Flies_. Mary Orvis Marbury's wonderful volume on artificial flies and fly-fishing, and 130 of them declared the Brown Hackle their favorite pattern. "I had supposed that the Red Hackle was an imitation of the small red caterpillar, but the veteran Nessmuk affirms that it resembles nothing below or above. It is his favorite bug, and that settles the question."--H. C. Wilcox, _Favorite Flies_. CHAPTER XXII CASTING THE FLY "Ah, tired man! Go find a spot Somewhere in solitude; Take hammock, books and tackle And wearing apparel crude. And live, if but the shortest time. A wild life in the wood A-fishing, reading, dreaming. And you'll declare it good." J. MILTON HARKINS. =Up and Down Stream.=--English Anglers wade upstream, and some Anglers in America do the same. There is good reason in this manner of wading on the part of the old country's Anglers, because where they practice it the water is quiet and not altogether shallow. In America, where our trout waters are rapid and foaming as they rush along, it is not practical as a general rule to wade upstream. The walking is difficult, you become wet, the trout see you notwithstanding they lie face up stream, your flies drift toward you, it is hard to keep the line from being slack all the time, the flies sink too often, and altogether you spoil the chances of creeling whatever is takable in the stream. On still, barely-flowing, deep waters a line may be cast up or down stream. =Down Stream.=--"There is much diversity of opinion about the manner of fishing, whether up or down the stream. The great majority of Anglers, both in Europe and this country, favor the latter method, and very few the former."--John J. Brown. =Motion of the Fly.=--In clear, smooth water let the fly sink a little; then move it along with a quick motion. =Manner in Fly-Fishing.=--"The manner in which the flies are fished distinguishes the fly-fisherman from the mere fly-caster, whether or no the fly-caster, as such, be expert or otherwise."--Samuel G. Camp, _The Fine Art of Fishing_. =Fly-Casting Practice.=--"When the learner becomes accustomed to handling his rod, he must try to perfect himself in two matters of great importance--accuracy and delicacy. Place a small piece of paper fifteen or twenty feet away, and aim at making the knot in the end of the line fall easily and quietly upon it. Your efforts will be aided if you will raise the point of the rod a trifle just as the forward impulse of the line is spent, and the line itself is straightened in the air for an instant in front. This is a novel kind of target shooting, but its usefulness will be realized when the Angler finds it necessary to drop his flies lightly just over the head of some wary trout."--Ripley Hitchcock. =The Magic Fly.=--"Reader, did you ever throw the fly to tempt the silvery denizen of the lake or river to his destruction? Have you watched him, as it skimmed like a living insect along the surface, dart from his hiding-place and rush upon the tempting but deceitful morsel? Have you noticed his astonishment when he found the hook was in his jaw? Have you watched him as he bent your slender rod 'like a reed shaken by the wind,' in his efforts to free himself, and then have you reeled him to your hand and deposited him in your basket as the spoil of your right arm? If you have not, leave the dull, monotonous, everyday things around you and try it."--S. S. Hammond. =Lifelike Fly.=--Don't simply drag the fly through the water. Move your wrist gently up and down; then the lure will look and act like a living insect, not a bunch of hair or feather. =Nature-like Fly.=--"In fly-fishing the lure must always be in motion." Excepting, say I, the instant when it first drops upon the pool. I have caught many of my largest trout--sometimes two at a single cast--the moment the fly touched the water. =Dry-Fly Success.=--"There are no insurmountable obstacles in the way of becoming a successful dry-fly Angler that do not confront the user of the sunken fly."--Emlyn M. Gill, _Practical Dry-Fly Fishing_. =Correct Fly-Fishing Line.=--"Nothing in reference to fly-fishing can be answered with such ease and confidence as the question what line should be used. Unquestionably the enameled waterproofed line, and no other."--Henry P. Wells. =Sunken Fly.=--"Every bass fly-fisherman knows that to let his flies sink for a depth of six or eight inches is alluring. Under certain conditions, when after trout, to let the flies descend for a depth of two feet before retrieving, is to tempt some sleepy old monster to attack. "--O. W. Smith. =The Strike.=--"The moment the trout seizes the artificial fly, it is as far in his mouth as it ever will be; therefore, you cannot strike too quickly after you have seen or felt the trout."--D. W. Cross. CHAPTER XXIII TACKLE TALKS "Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey." POPE. "See that all things be right For 'tis a very spite To want tools, when a man goes afishing." CHARLES COTTON. =To Extract Hooks.=--Cut the snell free and push the hook on through, depressing the upper end so as to bring the point out as near as possible to where it went in. Don't try to pull the hook back. =Knots in Rodwood.=--Don't switch a light rod sideways. The maker may have purposely put a knot to one side, and this would cause the rod to snap. =Function of the Rod.=--"The essential and most important office of a rod is that which is exhibited after the fish is hooked ... in other words, in the playing and landing of the fish. In practical angling the act of casting, either with fly or bait, is preliminary and subordinate to the real uses of the rod. The poorest fly-rod made will cast a fly thirty or forty feet, which is about as far as called for in ordinary angling. But it is the continuous spring and yielding resistance of the bent rod, constantly maintained, that not only tires out the fish, but protects the weak snell or leader from breakage, and prevents a weak hold of the hook from giving way; and this is the proper function of the rod."--James A. Henshall, _Favorite Fish and Fishing_. =Silkworm Gut.=--"The features to be sought are good color, a hard, wiry texture, roundness, even diameter from end to end, and length. From these are to be inferred the strength and wearing quality of the gut, which are what we wish to estimate. From the color we infer whether the gut is fresh or stale, its probable strength in relation to its thickness, and, in part, its wearing quality. In all these respects fresh gut is superior to old gut of original equal quality. The color can best be judged from the fuzzy end of the hank, and should be clear and glassy, and by no means dull or yellowish. The wearing quality of the gut may be judged partly by its color, partly by its springiness when bent and released, and also by its hardness. It should feel like wire."--Henry P. Wells, _Fly-Rods and Fly-Tackle_. =Ronalds' Rod.=--"The best materials are ash for the stock, lancewood for the middle, and bamboo for the tip."--Alfred Ronalds (1836). =South's Rod.=--Theophilus South, in his _Fly Fisher's Text Book_ (London, 1845), prefers ash to willow for butts, hickory for middle joints, and favors tips made from lancewood, cane, and whalebone, spliced together--four and even five pieces in a tip. =Lightest Rod.=--Benjamin S. Whitehead fly-fishes with a gold-and-ivory-mounted split bamboo rod weighing one and eleven sixteenths ounces. =Tapered Line.=--"The line for dry-fly fishing should be either single-tapered or double-tapered; the fine end of the taper will make more of an inconspicuous connection with the leader and with a tapered line casting ability is doubled."--Robert Page Lincoln. =Knife and Shears.=--A small pair of scissors attached to a string and fastened to the Angler's coat are useful companions along the stream. They are more easily operated than a knife; they save time, and while you may do with them nearly all that can be done with a knife, they will render a service that cannot be obtained from the single blade. A knife should always be carried, nevertheless, and the proper one for the trout Angler is that newly invented thing which requires no finger-nail work and which is made ready for service by a mere pressure of the thumb on the top of the handle. =Trouting Outfit.=--Here's a plain, practical, reasonable-price outfit with no unnecessary items: A four-ounce lancewood fly-rod, a common rubber click reel to hold twenty-five yards of fine waterproof silk line, a seventy-five cent cane landing-net, small and with no metal on it, a seventy-five cent creel, a dozen of the best made and highest-priced assorted trout-flies, a pair of waders, and a dollar's worth of the finest and best made silk gut leaders. =Rod Dressing.=--To whip rings or guides on the rod use silk twist, drawing the final end through a few coils of the whipping by means of a loose loop. To revarnish, wipe off all grease stains, and dress lightly down with the best copal. To reblacken brasses, mix a little lampblack with spirit varnish. Dress once or twice and let the dressing thoroughly dry before using the copal. =Buy your Tackle.=--The old Anglers tied their flies themselves, and, in fact, made all their rods and tackle, save, perhaps, lines. To-day few Anglers think of tying flies or preparing any tackle, owing to the expertness and moderate terms on the part of dealers. It is much cheaper to buy tackle outright, as it is to buy gun shells ready loaded. =To Remove a Ferrule.=--Hold it over the flame of a spirit lamp or any flame until the cement is softened. If it has been pinned on, take a large needle, break it off squarely, put it on the pin, and strike just hard enough to set the pin below the ferrule, then warm and remove. =The Joints.=--If your rod joints go together harshly or do not come apart with ease, oil them lightly. See that no sand or any dirt gets in the ferrules. To take the joints apart easily when they are tightly set, gently warm the metal. =Rubber Bands.=--Little rubber bands are practical items of a sportsman's outfit. One real service they render is in holding the fly-rod joints together when you travel through the woods after your day's fishing. =The Rod as a Measure.=--"The size of a fish can be found out very easily, simply by having the butt of the fishing rod marked off in inches up to two feet."--John Koltzan. =Position of the Reel.=--The reel of a bait-rod should be on the top side of the rod, in front of the handle; that of a fly-rod, on the under side below the handle. =Cork Handle.=--To avoid blisters on the hand, have the handle of your rod covered with cork instead of cane, twine, or rubber. It will prevent the hand from slipping, is pleasant to the touch, and very light in weight. =Smooth Ferrules.=--Before jointing your rod, oil the male ferrules with vaseline, or by rubbing them on the back of your neck. This will prevent the joints from becoming tight after the day's sport. =Be Particular.=--The finer the tackle the fairer the sport. =Care of the Rod.=--See that your rod-case is thoroughly dry before you put your rod in it, and always tie the case-strings loosely or you will have bent tips and joints. =Tackle Tells.=--"The quality of gameness in a fish is best determined by the character of the tackle used. A brook trout on a striped bass rod, or a black bass on a tarpon rod, could not, in either case, exhibit its characteristic gameness, or afford any sport to the Angler. Excellent sport with small fishes, however, is now rendered possible owing to the advent of the very light trout rod. It should not be considered beneath the dignity of an Angler to cast the fly for a rock bass, a blue-gill, or a croppie, with a three-ounce rod. Certainly it is just as sportsmanlike as to fish for six-inch brook trout in a meadow brook or a mountain rill."--James A. Henshall. =Rust Preventive.=--Use animal oil free of salt on any metal--steel, iron, brass, German silver, etc. Vaseline may be used on brass and German silver; mercurial ointment on steel and iron. Don't use ordinary vegetable oil. =Telescopic Reel.=--An English reel, the telescope winch, can be expanded to carry a double quantity of line or less at will. By its means a trout reel becomes a salmon reel or bass reel or vice versa as you please. =Fine Tackle.=--"His tackle for bricht, airless days is o' gossamere; and at a wee distance aff you think he's fishin' without ony line ava."--The Ettrick Shepherd. =Dressing for Silk Wrappings.=--Cobbler's wax dissolved in spirits of wine. Paint it on with a feather. =Line Dressing.=--Deer's fat solidifies at a higher temperature than most fats and will cling well. =Black Leader and Snell.=--"For trout, use a black leader and have your hooks snelled with black gut."--"Country Pumpkin." =Thin Line.=--"The thinner the line I use the more fish I catch."--A. Hamilton, Jr. =Cocoon Lines.=--The Japanese now make almost invisible fishing lines from cocoons. The silk threads are boiled in oil and glue and calendered under heavy pressure. The fish cannot see these lines, and they are effective against the gamest species. =Enameled Line.=--"In casting from the reel I use a soft silk line, but I prefer to strip cast. In strip casting it is absolutely necessary to use a good enameled line. The reason I prefer strip casting is that a long, slender rod can be used. No other line than an enameled one can be stripped into the bottom of the boat and permitted to run out rapidly without snarling."--"Greenhorn." =Making a Camp Rod.=--Surgeon's plaster, in tin spools, or electrician's adhesive tape, are serviceable in many ways in camp. You can even build a makeshift casting rod if you've forgotten or lost the real article. Fasten the reel to a stiff section of any fishing rod or a straight light-weight tree switch with the tape. Screw eyes or small staples will answer for the running guides, but finer guides and a cleaner-looking tip guide may be made with fine wire and the tape. =Tackle and Time.=--Correct fishing tackle is as necessary in the hands of the tyro as with the practical Angler, but the beginner mustn't expect tackle, however appropriate, to be all that is required to make toward perfection in angling; experience and practice are equally important. As an apprentice in carpentry who may have all the tools of his master still needs experience and actual practice, so the young Angler fully equipped with good tackle must serve an apprenticeship on the waters. CHAPTER XXIV THE ANGLER'S KITCHEN "The reputation that trout enjoy as a food-fish is partly due to the fact that they are usually cooked over an open fire.... The real reason why food cooked over an open fire tastes so good to us is because we are really hungry when we get it."--HENRY VAN DYKE. "Moses, the friend of God--Lev. xi., 9, Deut. xiv., 9,--appointed fish to be the chief diet for the best commonwealth that ever yet was. The mightiest feasts have been of fish."--WALTON. "... and fish the last Food was that He on earth did taste." W. BASSE. "If you eat your kind, we will eat you."--BENJ. FRANKLIN. =Catching vs. Cooking.=--"I care little whether I catch a fish on a No. 6 or a No. 5 hook, or whether I use a $3 reel or a $2.99 one. Whether I use bay leaves, or cloves, or mushrooms, or tomato sauce, or tartar sauce in preparing my fish is more important. Game is improved by hanging for a while, but fish should be eaten as soon as possible after being caught."--"Piscator." =Fish as Food.=--The great variety of flavors in fish food makes an ichthyological diet more palatable than quadruped meat, and therefore more healthful because only that which is eaten with a relish is digestible and nourishing. =Forest Fish Sauce.=--Use a wild rose berry to make a sauce for fish food in camp. =Carp.=--The carp, celebrated in ancient song and story as the meat of kings, is as savory as the trout or any other fish species if cooked and served correctly. =Preserving Fish.=--Don't pack fish in wet grass or anything damp. Use dry straw. =Frozen Fish.=--Don't freeze fish unless you keep it frozen until quite ready for the fire, as it spoils soon after thawing. =Scaling Fish.=--Use an ordinary horse currycomb. CHAPTER XXV CARE AND BREEDING OF TROUT "The water, more productive than the earth, Nature's store-house, in which she locks up her wonders, is the eldest daughter of the creation, the element upon which the spirit of God did first move."--IZAAK WALTON. =Transporting Trout.=--To bring your fish home, first clean them carefully, taking pains to remove that little dark blood streak along the backbone. Then, after wiping them dry, pack them in ferns, separately, and free from ice. Never send your fish home by express; take them with you. A box cannot be checked on the train. Use an old packing trunk. In this you can also transport your heavy outfit--wading boots, oilskins, landing-net, etc. =Trout in Captivity.=--Trout in artificial ponds should be fed three or four times a week in the winter time during the very warmest part of the day. There is no natural food in artificial ponds, and feeding is necessary in order to keep the big fish from eating their small companions. In natural trout ponds fed by springs so much care need not be exercised in winter. Air holes need not be cut in any ice that may form, as the springs afford a proper temperature, and but little food, if any, need be given the fish. =Killing the Trout.=--Kill your trout the instant they are landed; don't let them suffer slow death. The game deserves humane treatment, and the meat tastes better by quick killing. =Trout Destroyers.=--Eels are ruinous to trout. They eat trout spawn, and they should be removed from all trout waters. =Live Frozen Trout.=--Trout packed in ice for several days and carried forty miles by stagecoach and two hundred and fifty miles by railway (Feb., 1914) from the State of Washington to Montana, says the _Lewiston Democrat_ of Butte, Montana, came to life and swam spryly when placed in a tank of water at the end of their journey--Hennessy's meat store at Butte. =Water Plants.=--Aquatic plants, besides affording protection and shade to the fishes, supply oxygen to the water. =Growth of Trout.=--"Mr. Tomkin of Polgaron put some small river trout, 2-1/2 inches in length, into a newly made pond. He took some of them out the second year, above twelve inches in length; the third year, he took one out of sixteen inches in length; and the fourth year, one of twenty-five inches in length: this was in 1734."--Carew's _Survey of Cornwall_. =Ducks Eat Trout.=--Arthur A. Woodford and S. W. Eddy, of Avon, Conn., say that ducks eat trout and destroy the trout's breeding places by digging in the banks along the ponds and streams. CHAPTER XXVI THE ANGLER'S CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR And let your garments russet be or gray. Of colour darke, and hardest to descry. _Pleasures of Angling._ =Hobnail Footwear.=--Most any boot or shoe can be used for wading the trout streams, but a special selection is always best for every sort of purpose. Rubber, canvas, and leather are employed in the making of the fisherman's footwear. The hobnail heel-and-sole pattern is the correct article for use in swift-running water. The hobnail recommended above all others is the common, cheap soft-iron hobnail with corrugated head; carry a package in your tackle box. =Repairing Waders.=--Patch holes in rubber boots and rubber stockings, etc., by covering the holes with thin sheet rubber, cementing this with a mixture of black rubber dissolved in spirits of turpentine. =Drying Rubber Boots.=--Fill 'em full of hot bran. =Clothing.=--Sack coats, heavy trousers, a stout vest, all with plenty of large pockets. In color the garments should be gray, drab, or brown. =Hat.=--A soft felt of gray shade. =Boots and Shoes.=--Brown leather. =Waders.=--Leather shoes with holes in the sides or canvas shoes for summer. Rubber boots or wading trousers for cold weather. =Woolen and Rubber Clothing.=--Good quality woolen will shed rain for hours. Wear rubber outer garments in a wet brushy trail. CHAPTER XXVII LITTLE CASTS =The Fingerling Fisher.=--It is sad to see a man with his creel full of trout each not over the size of a lady's penknife. This character has a photograph made of himself with the fingerlings held in front of him so as to make them appear of legal size; this he sends to friends in the city with glowing accounts of his catch of "a hundred speckled beauties in one day." =Tent Waterproofing.=--Sugar of lead and alum. =Woodcraft.=--A good, simple way to find a road or dwelling, if you are lost in the woods, is to follow down a stream. =Destroying the Streams.=--Discourage the indiscriminate cutting down of trees. The destruction of forest land means the drying up of trout waters and the waste of drinking water. =The Bungler.=--Bragging of ungentle catches, untruths about the size of a specimen, and non-ichthyological nonsense about the mystery of a species--unnatural history such as cheap fiction writers indulge in--by bungling would-be fishermen annoy the practical man and puzzle the earnest tyro. The record of honest sport is entertaining and instructive. =Discrimination.=--Do not worry if the fish are small so long as they are of legal size; reduce your tackle. A vest-pocket watch keeps just as good time as a town-hall clock. =Sportsmanship.=--Chivalry to his companion and humane treatment to the game he pursues are the Angler's axioms. =Giving Fishes to Neighbors.=--Don't give your neighbors part of your catch. They won't appreciate it. They'll throw them away in most cases. If they cook and eat them they suffer the belief that they are doing you a favor. Most recipients of fishes think the specimens too small, or that they have too many bones, or that they are too thin, too tough, too hard to scale, etc. They'd rather have a bought-and-paid-for cold-storage cod of ten pounds than a freshly caught brook trout presented by an Angler friend. =Not All of Fishing to Fish.=--"The fisherman whose catching of many fish causes him to forget his surroundings, blinds his eyes to the beauties of Nature, and deadens his ears to the music of the wild, is no Angler."--O. W. Smith. CHAPTER XXVIII BORROWED LINES "Oh I could wish the lord to say That all the twelve months Should be May." GEORGE BORROW. "I borrow no man's tackle."--"FRANK FORESTER." =Nature.=--"Solitude has its charm and its reward and Nature offers to mankind the proper blessings, be they indulged in with care and consideration. The mind that has been oppressed by following civilization's rut will find ample comfort in the solitude given man by Nature."--R. P. L., _The Sportsmen's Review_. =Save the Fishes.=--"We who love wild life and long ago abandoned the many instruments of extermination and who have come to a more considerate mode of recreation should do all in our power to discourage its destruction and to encourage the propagation of the wild life which has been so generously and graciously given us by our Creator. Only extremists insist on terrible slaughter of fishes, birds, and quadrupeds."--E. M. Hermann. "=Improvement.="--"No building enterprise, no 'betterment' ever spares a tree. Insects and lack of care kill what 'improvement' leaves."--New York _Evening World_, Aug. 18, 1914. =Jesus the Fisherman.=--"Had not the Saviour of Gennesaret understood fishermen's signs, such as the riff on the water, the schooling of the fishes, the hovering gulls, there would have been no miraculous catch of fishes."--Charles Hallock. =Society where None Intrudes.=--"I had pined so much, in the dust and heat of the great town, for trees and fields, and running waters, and the sounds of country life, and the air of country winds, that never more could I grow weary of these soft enjoyments."--Blackmore, _Lorna Doone_. =The Call of the Wild.=--"Lying hidden away in the back of the brain is the primitive longing for adventure and the tingle of the nerves that awaits it. Under the veneer of what is called civilization lie the racial and elemental passions, just as Mother Earth lies beneath the asphalted streets of the city."--Adele M. Ballard. =Gold Fishing.=--"When all green places have been destroyed in the builder's lust of gain; when all the lands are but bricks and piles of wood and iron; when there is no moisture anywhere and no rain ever falls; when the sky is a vault of smoke and all the rivers reek with poison; when forest and stream, the moor and meadow and all the old green wayside beauty are things vanished and forgotten; when every gentle, timid thing of brake and bush, of air and water, has been killed because it robbed them of a berry or a fruit; when the earth is one vast city, whose young children behold neither the green of the field nor the blue of the sky, and hear no song but the hiss of the steam, and know no music but the roar of the furnace; when the old sweet silence of the countryside, and the old sweet sounds of waking birds, and the old sweet fall of summer showers, and the grace of a hedgerow bough, and the glow of the purple heather, and the note of the cuckoo and cushat, and the freedom of waste and of woodland and all things are dead and remembered of no man; then the world, like the Eastern king, will perish miserably of famine and of drought, with gold in its stiffened hands, and gold in its withered lips and gold everywhere; gold that the people can neither eat nor drink, gold that cares nothing for them, but mocks them horribly; gold for which their fathers sold peace, and health, and holiness, and beauty; gold that is one vast grave."--Ouida. =Heaven.=--"My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that ultimately the sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall become, as it were, interwoven into man's existence. He shall take from all their beauty and enjoy their glory."--Richard Jefferies, _The Life of the Fields_. =Modern Savagery.=--"Civilization is a nervous disease."--Clarence King. =Humanity.=--"Reading and writing are not educational, unless they make us feel kindly towards all creatures."--Ruskin. =Walton's Depth.=--"In Walton's angling works a child may wade and a giant swim."--John Ryan. "I shall stay ... [the reader] no longer than to wish him a rainy evening to read this ... Discourse; and that, if he be an honest Angler, the East wind may never blow when he goes a-Fishing."--IZAAK WALTON, _The Compleat Angler_, 1653. APPRECIATIONS: PRINCETON, MAY 30, 1900--"The Determined Angler ... the most pleasantly written, the most sensible and practical and instructive volume I have ever seen of its kind." [Illustration: Grover Cleveland] THE ART OF ANGLING.-- ... a book on the art of angling, with a hearty indorsement from the most famous of latter-day fishermen, former President Grover Cleveland. It fully deserves this indorsement.--_New York Herald_, September 22, 1900. THE TROUT AND THE WHALE.-- ... rare sympathy and genuine knowledge. Mr. Bradford undoubtedly knows, as did his sainted forerunner, that "there are fish, as namely the whale, three times as big as the mighty elephant, that is so fierce in battle," yet a single salve-liner fontinalis of "just a little over two pounds and a quarter" is the single luxury he allows himself. Mr. Bradford's dealings are with those sophisticated denizens of much-fished streams, that have to be approached with the finesse of a diplomat and handled with the swift skill of a fencing master. In all that pertains to this difficult and studious art one feels that Mr. Bradford is an adept, and that the graceful, commendatory letter from former President Cleveland is amply merited.--_New York Evening Telegram_, September 8, 1900. PRACTICAL.--Practical advice.--_New York Sun._ ANGLING CONVERTS.--There is always a real charm about what is written on the subject of fishing, by real disciples of old Izaak Walton, and the reason may be found in the fact that the spirit of the greatest of anglers has come upon them. _The Determined Angler_ is no exception to the rule. It is good reading, full of wisdom and instruction. And while it will prove very useful to the beginner and even the veteran, it is also calculated to make many converts to the rod and line. The book is full of wise counsel and information.--_New York Evening Sun_, September 8, 1900. FOR FAIR FISHERMEN.--Appeals to those who fish fair.... Charles Bradford, the modern American authority on angling.--_New York Press._ FOR GENTLE READERS.--Much good advice and very pleasant entertainment for any gentle reader.--_New York Observer._ SUMMER AND WINTER.--Pleasant reading whether by the winter fireside or the shaded banks of summer.--_New York Evening Post._ ANGLING EXPERIENCE.--Mr. Bradford is no novice in this line of literature.--_New York Athletic Club Journal._ ANGLING PHILOSOPHY.--Breathes the very essence of philosophy; the result of much experience.--_Brooklyn (N. Y.) Eagle._ WALTONIAN SPIRIT.--Pervaded by the spirit of Izaak Walton.--_The Outlook._ THE GENTLE TROUT.--The author is an enthusiastic devotee of the sport [angling], upon which he writes with a contagious enthusiasm ... an angler of very positive convictions; he has a fixed aversion to fishing with the scarlet ibis, and confesses to a personal preference to sober colors in flies for all seasons and on all waters. Above all, he insists upon the use of the most scientific methods, since "a trout is a gentleman, and should be treated as such and lured with only delicate and humane weapons." A facsimile of a letter of warm commendation from ex-President Cleveland serves as frontispiece to this agreeable volume which is attractively printed.--_New York Commercial Advertiser_. September 13, 1900. THE GENTLE ART.--A gentle exponent of a gentle art.--_Denver (Colo.) Republican._ WILD BROOK TROUT.--The announcement of a new book on fishing interests a class of the community, especially those confined to the cities, which is increasing year by year. This work depicts a trout fisherman's paradise. It is from the same graphic pen as _The Wildfowlers_, and divulges many a secret of the fisherman's craft. One may learn from its pages where a gentle creel of real wild brook trout may be made in a morning's pleasant angling, "in a free and comparatively virgin gameland--a wild and naturally beautiful country, embracing all the charms of scenic splendor for which the American brook trout regions are famous," and its pages contain an abundance of practical detail concerning tackle and methods of casting the fly, and playing and landing the game ... it makes a notable addition to the sportsman's library.--_New York Home Journal_. May 10, 1900. THE ANGLER'S ART.--Mr. Bradford gives eminently practical hints on the angler's art.--_Salt Lake City (Utah) Telegram._ A STUDY OF FISHING.--The advice comes from one who has learned many things about fishing.--_Utica (N. Y.) Press._ COMPREHENSIVE ANGLING.--One of the most comprehensive bits of angling literature we have had for many a long year, and thoroughly deserves the generous praise it has received ... the most delightful fishing book of this generation--_The Amateur Sportsman._ THE ANGLER'S LIBRARY.--deserves a place in the library of every fly-fisherman.--_The Sportsman's Magazine._ A FISHER OF MEN.--Mr. Bradford may well be proud of this tribute, for Mr. Cleveland is himself a determined angler and an experienced fisher of men.--_Spirit of the Times._ SECRETS OF THE FISH.--What he has to tell of the secrets known only to the fish, himself, and a few others is marvelous.--_Montreal (Canada) Gazette._ PHILOSOPHY AND FISHING.--With this kind of man philosophy and fishing mix well.--_Rochester (N. Y.) Herald._ QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY.--Mr. Bradford writes for those who see more in the trip than the frying-pan.--_Savannah (Ga.) News._ WALTON'S FOLLOWER.--A true disciple of Izaak Walton.--_London (Eng.) Post._ ANGLING ENTHUSIASM.--An accomplished and enthusiastic angler.--_Cincinnati (Ohio) Star._ CLEVELAND'S WORDS.--Charles Bradford writes practical and sensible books.--_Philadelphia (Pa.) Public Ledger._ ANGLING ANTICIPATIONS.--Mr. Bradford believes fishing is a means and not an end.--_Albany Argus._ JOYOUS MATERIAL.--He has gathered material to make the heart of the fisherman leap for joy.--_Boston Transcript._ WOULD PLEASE WALTON.--Izaak Walton, Christopher North, and the other mighty fishermen known to fame, would wag their wise heads approvingly over Mr. Bradford's book. The Pilgrims who told King James that they desired to go God and catch fishes would accord Mr. Bradford's volume a place beside the Bay Psalm Book.--_Pittsburg (Pa.) Gazette._ ENTERTAINING.--Mr. Bradford has written before on angling, and very entertainingly.--_Saturday Evening Post (Phila.)._ CONTEMPLATIVE MAN.--Charles Bradford is one to whom, as Washington Irving said, "There is something in angling that tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and a pure serenity of mind."--_Dundee (Scot.) Adv._ UNIVERSAL READING.--The descriptive matter is both interesting and instructive. Fishermen in all parts of the country will find the book well worth reading.--_Bay City (Mich.) Tribune_, July 19, 1900. Transcriber's Note: * Obvious punctuation and spelling errors repaired. * Changed "water-proof" to "waterproof" for consistency. Both forms appeared in the original text. 
39321	----	TRANSCRIBER NOTES: A letter preceded by a caret (^) indicate a superscript in the original text. Additional transcriber notes can be found at the end of this project. OLD FLIES IN NEW DRESSES [Illustration: PLATE I NATURAL FLIES 1. ALDER-FLY. _Sialis lutaria_, Linn. (Slightly enlarged.) 2. CAPERER. _Halesus radiatus_, McLach. 3. RED SEDGE. _Anabolia nervosa_, Steph. (Slightly enlarged.) 4. WELSHMAN'S BUTTON. _Sericostoma collare_, Pict. 5. CINNAMON-FLY. _Mystacides longicornis_, Linn. 6. GRANNOM. _Brachycentrus subnubilus_, Curt. 7. WILLOW-FLY. _Leuctra geniculata_, Steph. 8. BLUE-BOTTLE. _Calliphora erythrocephala_, Mg. 9. GREEN-BOTTLE. _Lucilia cæsar_, Linn. 10. HOUSE-FLY. _Musca corvina_, Fab. 11. OAK-FLY. _Leptis scolopacea_, Linn. 12. COW-DUNG-FLY. _Scatophaga stercoraria_, Linn. 13. HAWTHORN-FLY. _Bibio marci_, Linn. 14. _Corixa geoffroyi._ 15. FRESH-WATER SHRIMP. _Gammarus pulex._ Swan Electric Engraving C^o.] OLD FLIES IN NEW DRESSES HOW TO DRESS DRY FLIES WITH THE WINGS IN THE NATURAL POSITION AND SOME NEW WET FLIES BY CHARLES EDWARD WALKER _ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR AND EDWARD WILSON_ [Illustration] LONDON: LAWRENCE AND BULLEN, LTD. 16 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN MDCCCXCVIII RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY. PREFACE In the first part of this little work I do not wish my reader to suppose that I claim to be the first who has dealt with any particular imitation in the manner he will find that I have dealt with it. In the case of particular flies, others have frequently observed that the imitations generally used were inaccurate. The imitation of the Alder-fly has perhaps been most treated in this way, but it is not alone. One instance, however, of inaccuracies in imitations of natural flies having been observed, will I hope not be trespassing too much upon my reader's patience. Blaine, in his _Encyclopædia of Rural Sports_ published in 1840, says when speaking of the Cow-dung fly:--"By some extraordinary mistake Bowlker describes this fly as having upright wings; and as many of the London fly-makers dress their flies by his directions, we need not wonder that they are often bought with their wings unnaturally glaring outwards." What I have tried to do, is to work out and bring down to a definite rule the position in which the wings of the imitations of the various kinds of flies should be placed. My reader therefore must not hope in this first part to meet with many imitations of creatures that have not been imitated before; but if he finds that the manner in which the flies are dealt with as a whole is any step forward, be it ever so small, I shall be satisfied in having attained the object at which I aim. My reader may be surprised at the order in which I have arranged the various flies; but it was necessary, or at any rate very much more convenient, to arrange them in the way I have, as entomological accuracy of arrangement in a work on fishing must not be the first consideration of the author. That the wings of the Alder and the Caddis flies are in practically the same position in relation to their bodies, was my reason for placing the descriptions of these flies next each other, and this instance is sufficient to suggest to those of my readers who are entomologists, reasons for the other cases in which I have not placed the descriptions of the various flies in their correct sequence. A disclaimer must also be my preface to the second part of my work, for I know that I am far from being the first in thinking that the wet fly of the fisherman is not taken by the fish for the natural fly it is supposed to represent. Here my hope is that my reader will find a definite theory which is sufficiently plausible to interest him, at least for the moment. I have to acknowledge the kind assistance of Dr. G. A. Buckmaster, Lecturer on Physiology at St. George's Hospital, of Mr. Ernest E. Austen, of the British Museum (Natural History), and of several other gentlemen. I must also thank the Editor of _Land and Water_ for allowing me to republish an article in the first part of my book, and the Editor of _The Field_ for a similar permission with regard to certain articles which appear in the second part. Mrs. J. R. Richardson, of Kingston-on-Thames, has also given me some hints as to improvements in the dressing of some of the flies described. CHARLES WALKER. CONTENTS PART I _DRY FLIES_ CHAPTER I PAGE INTRODUCTORY 3 CHAPTER II COLOUR PERCEPTION IN FISH 14 CHAPTER III HOW TO DRESS FLIES WITH THE WINGS IN THE NATURAL POSITION 29 CHAPTER IV THE ALDER-FLY 41 CHAPTER V CADDIS-FLIES 45 CHAPTER VI PERLIDÆ 54 CHAPTER VII DIPTERA 58 CHAPTER VIII WINGED ANTS 72 CHAPTER IX CATERPILLARS 76 PART II _WET FLIES_ CHAPTER I A THEORY 87 CHAPTER II CORIXÆ 96 CHAPTER III FRESH-WATER SHRIMP 107 LARVÆ OF WATER-INSECTS 113 SOME HINTS ON DRY FLY-FISHING 115 OLD FLIES IN NEW DRESSES PART I _DRY FLIES_ CHAPTER I Introductory Though it would not be true to say that hitherto writers on fly-dressing have shown any lack of power of observation, still it is unfortunately true that their energy seems, strangely enough, to have stopped short at observing the natural fly, and has not been sufficient to carry them on to making even passable imitations, except of Ephemeridæ. With the exception of this family of flies, no one could possibly recognise the artificial through knowing the natural fly which it is supposed to represent. Yet the fisherman who knows the natural fly well by sight will go on using these imitations year after year unquestioningly; and though he himself would certainly not have known, unless he had been told, what natural fly the imitation he is using is meant to represent, he expects the trout to do so at once. There has been much discussion recently as to whether trout have the power of discriminating between different colours, but no one has ever cast a doubt on their power of discriminating between different shapes; yet in most of these imitations it is not the colour that is wrong, but the shape. The wings of a fly undoubtedly play a most important part in forming the outline, and consequently the general appearance of the fly. Therefore, if they are not put in the natural position, the whole contour of the imitation must be entirely different from that of the natural fly. It seems, however, judging by the standard works on the subject, that there is practically but one recognised position for the wings of the artificial fly, as the difference between the position of divided wings and wings dressed flat together is, after all, but slight. No one seems yet to have realised the fact that the wings of a May-fly do not lie in the same relative position to the body as do those of the Blue-bottle, whilst in the case of the Alder there is a further marked distinction from both. The wings, in the different families of flies upon which trout and grayling feed, lie when at rest in three distinct positions in relation to their bodies. In the Ephemeridæ they lie in planes approaching the vertical, slightly diverging from each other towards their extremities. Fig. 1 gives a sketch of one of the Ephemeridæ, and Fig. 2 a transverse section through the line [alpha] [beta] of Fig. 1. These drawings show the relation of the wings to the body. All flies have so far been treated by writers on fly-dressing as though their wings were in this position. In the Caddis-flies (_Trichoptera_) and the Alder-fly (_Sialis lutaria_) the wings lie on each side of the body, meeting at their upper edges in front, gradually diverging towards their lower edges and posterior extremities. Fig. 3 gives a sketch of an Alder, and Fig. 4 a transverse section through the fly, showing the position of the wings. In the Diptera (Blue-bottle, Cow-dung, &c.), and Perlidæ (Stone-fly, Yellow Sally, &c.), the wings lie in a horizontal plane. In some Diptera the wings diverge from each other towards their extremities, as in the Blue-bottle, shown in Figs. 5 and 6. In some other Diptera and in the Perlidæ, the wings lie over each other, as shown in Figs. 7 and 8. It will be seen that the wings in both these cases lie in a horizontal plane. In Figs. 2, 4, 6 and 8 [beta] represents the section of the body, [alpha] and [gamma] the section of the wings. I wish it to be thoroughly understood that these positions are the positions of the wings of the natural fly _when at rest_. Many flies when they fall on the water buzz round in circles periodically, apparently with the object of disengaging themselves from the surface. Between these efforts, however, their wings generally assume the normal position of rest. The only way to imitate the fly when it is buzzing is by dressing it without wings, and with extra hackle; and this is, after all, but a poor imitation. In most cases it is better to imitate the wings at rest; and if this is done accurately, it will present to the trout an accurate imitation of the natural fly as it appears to him when not trying to raise itself from the water. [Illustration: FIG. 1. FIG. 2. FIG. 3. FIG. 4. FIG. 5. FIG. 6. FIG. 7. FIG. 8. Sketches and diagrams showing the relative positions of the wings to the body in the various natural flies. Figs. 2, 4, 6 and 8 show sections through [alpha][beta] in Figs. 1, 3, 5 and 7. In Figs. 2, 4, 6 and 8 [alpha] = anterior wings; [beta] = body; [gamma] = posterior wings.] I have on many occasions watched the behaviour of an Alder when it has fallen on the water. At first it moves its wings rapidly, but soon stops, to begin again, however, when it has rested. This is repeated time after time, but after each succeeding struggle, the interval of rest becomes longer. In many cases, however, the fly hardly struggles at all. In observing many other flies which had fallen on the water, I have seen the same sequence of events occur, though some flies struggle to raise themselves from the surface much more than others, as in the case of the Blue-bottle. The first trial that I made of a fly dressed with the wings in the natural position was with an Alder. To make this trial complete, I purchased some Alders, dressed according to the most approved patterns, from three well-known firms of tackle makers. When I got to the water-side the trout were rising freely, and the banks were literally swarming with Alders. I saw a trout take one which had fallen on the water, so it was evident that the Alder was the fly to use. I began with the flies I had purchased, and cast over a trout which was rising under a tree. He would not look at it, and the same happened with the flies of the other two makers when I cast over two other trout. I then tried one of my own, and got a fish at once. He did not take it in a half-hearted manner, but was hooked right in the back of the tongue. I then tried the other flies again without success. When, however, I went back to my own fly I hooked the first fish I cast over. Imitations of other flies made with the wings in the natural position have served me as well as did my imitation of the Alder, though I was not inclined to try the ordinary patterns so freely on every occasion as I was at the first trial. I have, however, several times caught a rising fish on one of my imitations when he had refused the ordinary imitation not two minutes before. My reader will of course think that these experiments, being carried out by myself, are hardly a conclusive proof of my theory, as, however impartial I might wish and believe myself to be, I must be naturally biased in my own favour. I quite realise that this is a natural doubt, but fortunately others besides myself have tried my flies. Mr. Herbert Ash put them to an even more severe test than I did myself, and has kindly permitted me to give his experience. I give an extract from a letter written by him and published in _Land and Water_ on October 23rd, 1897, as I think it is a very pertinent testimonial to the practical success of my theory. "I put up a cast of three Alders, two being the shop-tied patterns which I usually used, and the third, which I put on as a first dropper, being Mr. Walker's. I landed eight trout in about an hour and a half, and each of those fish took Mr. Walker's fly." "Now, although I used three flies, I was fishing up stream and dry, my object being to test the new mode of tying the Alder, and I found that while the fish rose boldly at the first dropper, not one took any notice of the other flies." Colonel Walker also had much greater success with flies dressed with the wings in the natural position than with any others. In fact, for several consecutive days, on different occasions he caught no fish except with my flies, though he did not use them more than flies dressed in the ordinary way. Several other fishermen have told me that their experiments with my imitations have produced similar results. Mr. H. H. Brown, of the Piscatorial Society, after I had read a paper to that Society on my theory of the right way to dress trout flies, described a very interesting experience which he had one day when out fishing, and which bears directly on this theory. While out fishing some time ago, he rested on a bridge over the river in which he was fishing. There were a great number of Alders about, and on observing some fish in the water some little distance below the bridge, he caught some Alders, pinched their heads slightly in order to either kill them outright or at any rate stop them struggling, and threw them on the water. He was in such a position that he could observe each fly individually until it either floated past or was taken by the fish. What he observed was, that when in killing the fly he had disturbed the natural position of the wings, not one of the fish would look at it; while, if the wings remained in the normal position of rest, the fly was always taken. This occurred time after time, and not once was the fly with the wings in an unnatural position taken, but, on the other hand, not a single fly with its wings in the natural position of rest was allowed to pass. He also observed that once or twice the fish came up to look at a fly whose wings had been disarranged, but on getting close to it they always drew back. This is, I think, an extremely strong argument in favour of my theory. I do not propose in this work to deal with Ephemeridæ, as the wings in the imitations now sold are in the natural position. The families I do propose dealing with are the Sialidæ, Trichoptera, Diptera, and Perlidæ, as no one has yet, to my knowledge, described the position in which the wings of the imitations of these flies should be put. CHAPTER II COLOUR PERCEPTION IN FISH (_Rewritten from "Land and Water," November 6, 1897_) Many interesting problems constantly come before the fisherman, but certainly one of the most interesting which has recently attracted his attention is Sir Herbert Maxwell's theory on the power of fish to discriminate between various colours. His theory is, that though fish can undoubtedly discriminate between different shades of light and dark, they cannot distinguish one colour from another. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this theory is the conclusion at which Sir Herbert Maxwell has apparently arrived. This is, that if the same relations of light and shade be maintained in the artificial which exist in the natural fly, the colour of the imitation is quite immaterial. The facts upon which he based this theory were (1) that during the May-fly season he used several artificial May-flies, some of which were coloured scarlet, some bright blue, and some coloured to imitate the natural fly, all of them being similarly graduated with regard to the shade of their various component parts; (2) that he caught trout with all these flies, no particular one of them being decidedly more successful than the others. This experience of his no doubt would at first strike one as being very strongly in favour of his theory; but on going deeply into the matter, its bearing on the fish's powers of vision is not so great as it appears. To begin with, we must consider whether, judging from experience in the past, trout have been known to rise at things on the water which were not only unlike in colour to any flies on the water, but also unlike them in shape and gradations of shade. This we know they will sometimes do. I have on several occasions seen a trout which refused a fairly accurate imitation of the flies which were on the water rise at and take below the surface a swan's feather. There are also many other much more extraordinary but similar cases on record. Thus, the fact that these trout took an abnormally coloured fly is not a conclusive proof that they mistook it for the natural fly, particularly as this experiment was made during the May-fly season, when the trout sometimes appear to be quite mad, but are at any rate always much less shy than at any other time of the year. The experiment, too, was made upon a private water, and I think that there is great doubt that the same result would have occurred had it been made upon a well-fished water where the trout were more shy and better educated. We must then consider whether, in what we know of the natural history of fish, there are any facts which point towards the probability of their being able to discriminate between different colours. Here we find that there are cases in which in certain species the males are more brilliantly coloured than the females, either at the spawning season or always. This is probably a process in evolution which tends to make them more attractive to the female. We also know that fish sometimes assume a colour similar to their surroundings. This colour is, no doubt, evolved for their protection from enemies, and surely a very large proportion of these enemies are other and larger fish. Many of the larvæ of water insects and other creatures upon which fish feed are also coloured according to their surroundings, in order to facilitate their concealment. These facts would naturally lead us to come to a conclusion opposed to that of Sir Herbert Maxwell, as the probabilities all point towards the power of fish to discern various colours. Another very important point is the structure of the fish's eye in comparison with that of man, who we know has the power of discriminating between colours. This power is, in the human eye, probably situated in the layer of rods and cones of the retina. Had the fish's retina not contained this layer, as is stated by Sir Herbert Maxwell, there would certainly have been most excellent grounds for supposing that his theory was true; but this layer _is_ contained in the fish's eye, though it is not the same as in man. If the fish's eye did not contain it, fish would have been totally blind. How far this difference in the retina of the fish bears on its sense of colour is, at present, a moot point, though I believe researches are being made in this direction. At present, our knowledge is too limited with regard to it for any definite statement to be made. The probability is, that fish have the power of distinguishing colour from colour. A probability, however, is not a certainty, though one is more inclined towards it than towards an improbability. Even should Sir Herbert Maxwell's theory prove true, in spite of probabilities to the contrary, I do not see that we should have progressed very much further with regard to facilities in imitating the natural fly. We know that the relative values of light and shade in various colours contiguous to each other, is not actually the same as the impression conveyed to our eyes. We have an example of this always with us in the photograph, where red and blue, in relation to each other, certainly do not produce the same effects on the plate as they do on the eye; and as we have no accurate knowledge as to the effect of contiguous colours upon a normally monochromatic eye, we could hardly be certain of producing an accurate monochromatic imitation of a multi-coloured object, which would deceive that eye. The case of a colour-blind human being is certainly not a normal case, so the shade value of the various colours to this eye could hardly be taken as a safe standard. Even if we assumed that all these difficulties had been surmounted, and that the exact relative shade values to this monochromatic eye of every colour were estimated, I think that there can be no doubt that it would be easier to imitate the colours, with the various shades in these colours, than to calculate out the relative shade values of the different colours, in one particular colour, and that the result of the former and easier, would be much more likely to be accurate than the latter and more difficult attempt. Besides this, possibly, as the eyes of some families of fish are more highly developed than those of others, the relative shade values of colour might be different to the different families, so that if we eliminate colours from our lures, we must have different shading for different fish. Having considered all these things carefully, I have come to the conclusion that it will be much safer and easier to keep on using colours in our imitations, even if we do present these imitations to a monochromatic eye. * * * * * Since writing the above article, I have been able to collect some further information with regard to the probable power of the trout's eye to discriminate between colours. These researches, though I have not yet had time to carry them as far as I had hoped, have led me to believe more firmly than ever that I am right in recommending the use of colours in our imitation flies. I have prepared some sections of the retina of the trout, and examined them carefully in comparison with the retinæ of several other fish. A short account of what is known at present of colour-vision is, I think, advisable to make my meaning clear to those of my readers who may not be sufficiently well versed in this particular subject. The sensation of an individual colour is produced by rays of light of a particular wave-length falling upon the retina. A sensation of "white" is produced by rays containing all the wave-lengths which are able to affect it. When, on looking at an object, we find that neither a colour nor white sensation is produced, this sensation is called "black." The white sensation may be mixed with the sensation of any colour of the spectrum, as also may the sensation of black, and when these two are mixed they produce a sensation of "grey." Some colours of the spectrum are probably produced by a mixture of various wave-lengths of different primary colours, and many colours in nature do not exist in the spectrum. The word "tone" expresses variations of wave-lengths within a named colour, and "brightness" is used to indicate the intensity of the sensation produced upon the retina. The enormous difficulty of working out into a monochrome the shade-values of a collection of colours, with several tones and shades of brightness in each of the variously coloured parts of the object we wish to imitate, can be imagined on considering these facts only; but there are more facts which lead me to believe that to do this is not only difficult, but impossible. Two theories have been propounded to explain the sensation of colour produced upon the retina. The Young-Helmholtz theory teaches that there are three primary sensations--red, green, and violet. Other colours are a mixture of these sensations; white is produced when all three sensations are excited together, and black is an absence of sensation. Hering's theory is that there are six primary sensations arranged in three pairs--white and black, red and green, and yellow and blue. He assumes the existence of three visual substances which undergo metabolic changes when subjected to the action of light. These are the red-green, the yellow-blue, and the white-black substances. The white-black substance is influenced by all the rays of the spectrum, while the red-green and yellow-blue substances are differently influenced by rays of different wave-lengths. When all the rays together fall upon the retina, no metabolism takes place in the red-green and yellow-blue substances, but only the white-black substance is affected. Thus the white-black substance is the most active. Any discussion as to the relative value of these theories would in this work be out of place and unnecessary. The ordinary form of colour-blindness in human beings is the inability to discriminate between red and green. This shows that the visual power of these people is dichromatic and not trichromatic, as their power is limited to two colours, or pairs of colours, and does not extend to three. The individuals who belong to this class of the colour-blind may be divided into two sub-classes--those who are red-blind and those who are green-blind. Those who are red-blind do not see the red end of the spectrum, and the blue-green appears grey, though they have distinct colour vision of the parts of the spectrum on either side of the blue-green. In matching red with a green, they put a bright red with a dark green. On the other hand, those who are green-blind see the red end of the spectrum, while the green appears to them as grey. In matching a red with a green they put a dark red with a bright green. No absolutely undoubted cases of blue-yellow blindness have been recorded, and only one of absolute colour-blindness; but one case is not sufficient to go upon. According to the Young-Helmholtz theory, a case in which only shades of black and white were visible would be impossible, as it would not be shades of black and white which would be seen, but shades of either red, green or blue. According to Hering's theory, of course, absolute colour-blindness would be possible. In the normal human eye, only the central parts of the retina are sensitive to colour, the peripheral parts are practically colour-blind. Anæmia of the retina, which may be produced by pressure on the eye-ball, will render the retina, first colour-blind and then insensitive to light. To me it appears that colours in relation to each other assume a grey tone, and the sensation of black and white disappears last. The great difference which I have been able to observe between the human retina and the retina of the trout is, that while the human retina contains a layer of rods and cones, the retina of the trout only contains cones, or if it does contain rods, contains very few, as I have not found any as yet. There exists also at the back of the retina of the trout a "tapetum," which extends over almost the whole of its posterior surface. This does not exist in the human eye, but is found in the eyes of some of the vertebrates. It consists of a layer of "guanin" crystals, and, presenting as it does a metallic appearance, and having great power of reflecting light, probably plays an important part in the visual power of the trout, particularly, I should think, in a dim light. The fact that the rods are absent from the trout's retina does not bear the important significance that one would imagine on first realising it. The fovea centralis of the human retina is the seat of most acute vision, and in the fovea centralis there are no rods. The cones in the retina of the trout are very closely arranged, so that they are practically in contact with each other, and their outer limbs are rather longer and finer than in the case of man. This layer of cones extends to the periphery of the retina, and the cones are just as closely arranged as far as they extend. These facts should lead us to believe that the vision of the trout is probably extremely acute, in fact, as we find in the retina of the trout, no material difference from the _fovea centralis_ of the human retina, we have no reason to suppose that the visual powers of the _whole_ of the retina of the trout, should differ in any way from the visual powers possessed by the _fovea centralis_, the seat of most acute vision both as to colour and light in the human retina. The retinæ of other fishes which I have examined (none of them were _Salmonidæ_) contained only cones; but these cones were some distance from each other. The layer of pigment epithelium which is present in the human eye, is present also in that of the trout. It occupies the same position between the layer of rods and cones, or cones only, and the choroid. As in the human eye, it adheres sometimes to the choroid and sometimes to the retina, when the retina is removed, though perhaps it most often adheres to the retina. My space is too limited to enter into any of the theories as to the possibility of the pigment cells playing a part in colour vision. It is quite sufficient to state that they undoubtedly do play some part in our sense of sight, and that they are contained in the eye of the trout. The retina of a colour-blind person does not show any organic difference from the normal eye, so we cannot say to what cause colour-blindness is due; but so far as our knowledge goes, there is no reason to suppose that the trout is normally colour-blind. As Michael Foster so ably put it, "No man can tell what are the sensations of his fellow-man," still less I think can man say what are the sensations of a trout. All we can do with regard to this question of colour vision, is to find out all the facts we can relating to it, and working on comparisons, arrive, not at conclusions, but at probabilities. The only thing of which I am sure is that we shall find it safe and comparatively easy to imitate flies in colours, but to make a monochromatic imitation of one, which would accurately represent it to a normally monochromatic eye (about which we know nothing), in a medium of which we know very little, is practically impossible. CHAPTER III HOW TO DRESS FLIES WITH THE WINGS IN THE NATURAL POSITION The generally accepted method of dressing a trout fly is to put on the wings first. This is perhaps the best plan when making an imitation of one of the Ephemeridæ, but it is impossible to put the body on after the wings, if the wings are placed in the natural position in the case of any fly not belonging to this family. The hackle must also be put on before the wings, so it will be seen that putting on the wings is the last operation in dressing one of these imitations. I have never myself used a vice in fly-dressing, and think that it is a great advantage to be able to dress a fly without using one. Any one who can dress flies well without a vice will be able to dress them even better with a vice, and will be able to dress flies at all sorts of odd times and places where a vice could not be used; while he who has never dressed flies without using one, will find that the imitations he produces are anything but neat, when he first tries to make them without his vice. _Alder and Caddis Flies._ These flies, as I have already explained, have their wings in the position shown in Figs. 3 and 4. Give a few turns of the tying silk round the shank of the hook, beginning near the eye and leaving enough room to put on the hackle and wings. Carry it down the shank in the Alder, going just beyond the bend, and in the Caddis-flies generally stopping well short of it, so that the body may be perfectly straight. The material for the body and the tinsel, if used, should now be tied in. I find it best to tie the tinsel in first, not straight out from the hook, but diagonally, as, if put on in this way it lies much smoother in the first turn than if tied in quite straight. If the body is to be made of wool or hair, the tying silk should be waxed again at the part nearest the hook for about two or three inches, and the material spun on it. When I began fly-dressing I found this spinning on of the "dubbing" a great stumbling-block. In all the books I have read the directions on this point are simply, "Spin the 'dubbing' on the tying silk," and I had not the least idea how this should be done. As others who wish to make their own flies may also find this a difficulty, I will try to explain the method which I have found the easiest. If Berlin wool is used, a piece should be broken off and the strands separated from each other. The strands should then be laid together and pulled into short pieces until the whole is in one mass. This should then be teazed up with the nails of the thumbs and first fingers until it is of an even consistency. A small portion of this should then be taken to make the body of each fly. This should be teazed up again, and made to taper gradually to a point at one end, and applied to the tying silk with the taper end towards the hook, as shown in Fig. 9. All "dubbing" should be teazed up and applied in this way. [Illustration: FIG. 9.] [Illustration: FIG. 11. FIG. 10.] The wool must now be taken between the thumb and first finger of the right hand, and twisted round the tying silk by rubbing the thumb and finger together. The "dubbing" is now spun on, and should cover from about a quarter to three-quarters of an inch of the tying silk, according to the size of the hook. It should be wound round the shank to the head, leaving a small portion of the shank bare at the head for the hackle and wings. The tinsel or wire is then wound round in a spiral to the head, tied, and the surplus cut off. The hackle should now be applied. The longest fibres of the hackle must be of the same length as the hook. Clear off the flue with the nails of the thumb and first finger, and then holding the tip of the hackle in the left draw down its fibres by pressing the hackle between the thumb and first finger of the right hand and drawing them downwards. The hackle will now appear as shown in Fig. 10. Take the tip of the hackle thus prepared between the nails of the thumb and first finger of the left hand, and the butt of the hackle in the hackle pliers, so that the back or dull surface of the hackle faces towards you. Now, holding the hackle pliers in the palm of the right hand with the third and fourth fingers, put the first and second fingers behind the hackle, and by stroking them down with the thumb make the fibres of the hackle which point upwards point down in the same direction as the lower row. The hackle will now appear as shown in Fig. 11. [Illustration: FIG. 12.] Tie the point of the hackle in at the head as in Fig. 12, cut off projecting point, and wind it on with the pliers in close turns towards the head. Three or four turns will be found ample as a rule. Tie in the end with the tying silk and cut off the part which remains over. Now draw down the fibres of the hackle which project upwards, cutting off those which will not stay down. The fly should now appear as shown in Fig. 13. [Illustration: FIG. 13. FIG. 14.] [Illustration: FIG. 15.] The wings should be taken from corresponding quill feathers from opposite wings of the bird. These are split up the middle with scissors, and a piece from the side with the longest fibres taken. The piece of quill attached must now be cut at regular intervals, and each piece between these cuts will serve as a wing (see Fig. 15). Take two of these pieces, one from each feather, and place them together, with their concave surfaces toward each other. Place them, one on each side of the hook, with their lower margins a trifle lower than the body of the fly, tie them in at the head, cut off the projecting part with the quill, and finish off the head. The head should now be varnished, taking care to clear the eye of the hook, and the fly will appear as shown in the illustrations of imitation Alder and Caddis-flies. There is another way of preparing wings which is much better, as it makes the ends of the wings round, though it is more difficult. This was first shown me by Mrs. Richardson of Kingston-on-Thames. The feather is taken and the lower part of the fibres stripped off, till a part is come to suitable for making a wing. A portion of fibres sufficient for making a wing is then separated from the fibres above and bent carefully downwards. If the fibres are stroked very gently between the thumb and first finger, they will arrange themselves, so that their ends present a rounded edge instead of a point. This portion of fibres is then grasped firmly between the thumb and first finger near the quill, and detached therefrom by pulling it smartly downwards. The other wing is prepared in a similar manner from a feather of the opposite wing of the bird. _Diptera and Perlidæ._ In imitations of Diptera and Perlidæ the body and hackle are put on in the same way, except that the hackle should be allowed to project sideways as well as downwards; for as the wings are horizontal in these flies, the fibres which project sideways will not interfere with the position of the wings, as they would do in the Alder and Caddis flies. The body and hackle, when put on, should therefore appear as shown in Fig. 14. [Illustration: FIG. 16.] The wings of these flies are perhaps the most difficult of any to put on. To put on wings which diverge from each other as in the Blue-bottle, two portions of the quill feathers from opposite sides, prepared as described for the Alder and Caddis flies, should be laid upon each other, as shown in Fig. 16. The hook should then be taken in the left hand, and held by the bend between the first and second fingers, with the head pointing towards the right. The wings are then laid flat on the body with the right hand, and held there firmly with the left thumb. The wings are now tied in, the quill and part of the fibres attached cut off close, and the head finished off. The illustration of the imitation Blue-bottle, etc., shows its appearance when finished. Those Diptera whose wings lie, when at rest, one over the other (as in the case of the Cow-dung), my reader will see that I have represented in my imitations, with their wings spread to a certain extent. This is because I have seen that, in the natural fly, when it falls on the water, the wings are most often in this position. In Perlidæ, whose wings lie one over the other, the wings should be put in the position they occupy in the natural fly, instead of across each other, and the fly will appear when finished like the illustration of the imitation Yellow-Sally. The dressings which I have found most successful will be described with each fly. It will be noticed that I have put tinsel on many of the flies which have been dressed hitherto without. My reason for using it so freely is because this is the only way to produce a peculiar effect which is seen in certain flies when viewed from under the surface of the water; and as this is how they must appear to the trout, it is best to imitate this effect as nearly as possible. The bodies of many flies are covered with short hairs. When these flies fall on the water, an air bubble adheres to these hairs, and, seen from below the surface, produce a brilliant metallic effect, with the colour of the body showing through in places. Ribbing the body of the imitation with tinsel reproduces this effect accurately. The appearance of the natural fly on the water, when seen from below, may be observed by placing a small mirror at the bottom of a large bowl full of water. I have used one of those small round mirrors which were sent about some time ago as an advertisement for something, I forget what. If the fly be placed on the surface of the water over this mirror, its reflection will show what the fly looks like to the trout. Another, and perhaps a better, way to observe the appearance of the fly from below the surface is to put it on the water in a large glass aquarium. It can then be observed by looking up at it through one of the sides of the aquarium. It is better to use tinsel in dressing these flies than wire, as wire does not reproduce the metallic effect of the air bubble on the body of the natural fly. [Illustration: PLATE II ARTIFICIAL FLIES Drawn from flies tied by Mrs. J. R. Richardson, of Kingston-on-Thames (dressed from the Author's models). 1, 2. BLUE-BOTTLE. 3, 4. GREEN-BOTTLE. 5, 6. HOUSE-FLY (slightly enlarged). 7, 8. CURSE (BLACK). 9, 10. CURSE (DUN). 11. CURSE (BADGER). 12. BLACK GNAT. 13, 14. YELLOW SALLY. 15, 16, 17. WILLOW-FLY. 18. ALDER-FLY. 19. OAK-FLY. 20, 21. COW-DUNG-FLY. 22. HAWTHORN-FLY. Swan Electric Engraving C^o]. CHAPTER IV The Alder-fly (_Sialis lutaria_, Linn.). The Alder is a fly which hitherto has taken a position in the dry-fly fisherman's estimation very much inferior to that which is its due. Almost every writer on the subject says that it is but rarely found on the water. It is naturally not found there so often as the flies which are hatched out in the water, but I have notwithstanding frequently seen them on the water in fair numbers. The proportion of Alders which get on the water is probably very small if compared with those which do not; but as the fly is in some places extremely numerous, even this small proportion becomes in those places a large number. A practical proof that they do frequently fall on the water is the avidity with which the trout feed upon them, and I have almost always found them in the stomachs of trout when they have been numerous at the water-side. I have also often dropped a natural Alder on the water and seen it taken by a trout. Many will probably think that I have mistaken one of the Caddis-flies for the Alder, but I can assure them that this is not the case. I have always, with regard to the Alder especially, made a very careful examination of the flies at the water-side, and, as every one knows, even a cursory examination of the fly with a magnifying-glass puts an end to all doubt as to its being an Alder or Caddis-fly, even if the knowledge of entomology possessed by him who examines is but small. The peculiar hump-shape of the wings when at rest also makes an Alder easily recognisable. I believe that the great reason that the imitation Alder is not so successful as it should be, is because the wings are generally put in an absolutely impossible position. This is not the fault of the fly-dressers, as all writers on the subject have put the wings in this position, a position into which they could not get in the natural fly without the intervention of external violence. I have, in observing this fly when it has fallen on the water, seen its wings in the position of rest as often as not. In fact the only other condition in which I have seen it, is when it has been buzzing violently, apparently with the object of raising itself from the surface. Of course the easiest, and in fact the only possible position in which the wings can be accurately imitated, is the position of rest. Another mistake in the imitations usually sold, is in the materials used in the dressing. The body is made very fat, with peacock herle; while in the natural fly it is decidedly thin, and of a dark brown colour. The wings are made of brown speckled hen's quill feathers or bustard, which are of a very much richer brown than the wing of the natural fly, and lastly the hackle is much too profuse and goes all over the fly. The following dressing of the Alder I have found to be most successful, both in my hands and in those of other fishermen. _Body._ Very dark brown floss silk, carried well on to the bend of the hook, and there made a trifle thicker. I have at times found it very successful when ribbed with narrow gold tinsel (00 size). If the body be covered with thin india-rubber, it will be found to give the fly a most effective appearance. _Hackle._ Three or four turns of a black cock's hackle, put on as described in Chapter III. _Wings._ From quill feathers of woodcock's wings taken from opposite sides. The woodcock's feathers have a somewhat shiny appearance; and as they are also the nearest in colour to the general colour of the Alder's wings, I think they are the very best feathers to use. I have described the position in which to put the wings in Chapter III. _Hook._ No. 2--4, new size. (Plates I. and II. show the natural Alder and the imitation as it should appear when finished.) CHAPTER V CADDIS-FLIES (Trichoptera). Every fisherman knows the Caddis-worm, which is the larval form of the Caddis-fly. As the number of different species of Trichoptera is very large, there are many different sorts of Caddis-worms. Some of these make cases which they fix to rocks; most of them however have cases which they drag about with them, and retire into it when any danger approaches. These cases vary much in shape and the materials of which they are made. Some species are however, as a rule to be found in almost every water. They are extremely interesting to watch, though, if they are accidentally introduced into a hatching trough containing trout ova, they will destroy the eggs. Caddis worms are taken freely by trout, and I have frequently found them, contained in their cases, in the stomachs of trout. The Caddis or Sedge flies, as I have pointed out, are a very numerous family, and most of them are taken very readily by the trout. These flies, when on the water, generally have their wings in the position of rest. Notwithstanding this fact, the wings of the imitation Sedges are always put in an upright position, while the position of the wings at rest in the natural flies is practically the same as in the case of the Alder, though the lower edges of the wings do not, as a rule, come quite so low in relation to their bodies. THE GRANNOM (_Brachycentrus subnubilus_, Curt.). This fly is extremely numerous on many of the streams in the South, and is so well known to the fisherman that a description is almost needless. It appears about the middle of April, and lasts five or six weeks, though Ronalds says that he has found them in the stomachs of trout as late as August. The bunch of eggs which the female carries at the tail is best represented by winding on some bluish-green floss silk or wool at the end of the body, which should be carried well down on the bend of the hook, as shown in the illustration of the imitation fly. _Body._ Light coloured fur from hare's face, with green floss silk or wool at the tail. If ribbed with narrow gold tinsel is sometimes more successful. _Hackle._ Light ginger, or, better still, a hackle dark in the centre and light ginger at the ends. _Wings._ The lightest-coloured feathers from a partridge's wings. _Hook._ No. 1--3, new size. (Plates I. and III. give illustrations of the natural and artificial Grannom.) THE SAND FLY (_Limnephilus flavus_, Steph.). Mr. Halford points out in his _Dry-Fly Entomology_, that Ronalds was mistaken in calling this fly the Sand-fly, as the true sand-fly is one of the Diptera. I take it, however, that in either case this is but a popular name; and as almost all former writers on the subject seem to have described the Sand-fly as being a common Caddis-fly, I think that in adhering to the old name I shall avoid confusing the fisherman. This fly is one of the most useful of all the Caddis-flies, as it is hatched out in April, and lasts almost all the season. There are several other Caddis-flies which come out later in the year, that resemble it very closely both in colour, shape, and size. The wings are of a yellow ochre colour, barred with brown, the body is covered with short hairs of a light fawn colour, and the fly is about the same size as, or a little larger than, the Grannom. The dressing given below, if slightly modified, will serve for several of the other Caddis-flies which come out later in the season. _Body._ Light-coloured fur from hare's face, ribbed with orange silk. If ribbed with narrow gold tinsel is sometimes more successful. _Hackle._ Light ginger. _Wings._ The part of quill feather of a hen pheasant's wing that is yellow, barred with brown, or a similarly barred part of the quill feather of a woodcock. _Hook_. No. 1--3, new size. (Illustrations of the natural and artificial fly are given in Plates I. and III.) THE RED SEDGE (_Anabolia nervosa_, Steph.). There is a Caddis-fly which appears on the water about the beginning of June, and which I have seen in great numbers as late as the middle of October, that does not seem to have obtained a popular name among fishermen. Its wings are very much like those of the Alder in shape and veining, and the fly is nearly the same size, though perhaps it is, on an average, very slightly smaller. Here, however, the resemblance ends. Its anterior wings are of a light reddish-brown colour, and are more transparent than are those of the Alder. The body is also shorter in proportion to its wings, and is closely covered with light yellow hairs, which, on the darker background of the body, gives it a greyish-yellow appearance. This fly is taken freely by both trout and grayling, and I have seen dace feeding on it greedily. _Body._ Lightest yellow fur from the water-rat, spun on black silk. _Hackle._ Light red. _Wings._ The peculiar shape and colour of the wings are best represented by the tip of a feather covering the roots of the quill feathers in the wing of the landrail. These feathers are of a reddish brown colour, and are found near the upper edge on the outer surface of the wing. The most superficial and reddish feathers are the best. These feathers should be taken from opposite wings, and prepared by stripping off some of the fibres so that they may appear as shown in the illustration of the artificial fly on Plate III. Plate I. gives an illustration of the natural fly. _Hook._ No. 9--4, new size. THE WELSHMAN'S BUTTON (_Sericostoma collare_, Pict.). This fly is very numerous in some places, and is taken readily by trout. The body of the imitation is generally made of peacock herle, but this makes it much too thick. The fly generally appears early in June. It is said that this fly is often mistaken for the Alder, but it should be easy to discriminate between them. In the Alder the anterior wings are smooth, broad and strong, in the Welshman's Button they are covered with hairs and narrow. This fly is usually smaller than the Alder. _Body._ Reddish brown wool, ribbed with narrow gold tinsel. _Hackle._ Yellow centre with black ends. _Wings._ From reddish quill feather of landrail. _Hook._ 2--4, new size. THE CINNAMON FLY (_Mystacides longicornis_, Linn.). There are a large number of small Caddis-flies which are very much alike in appearance. The anterior wings are long and narrow, and are brown barred with dull yellow. They hover in great numbers by bushes and trees overhanging the water, and are taken readily enough by trout. I have chosen the _Mystacides longicornis_ as being one of the commonest and most typical. An illustration of the natural fly is given on Plate I. and of the artificial on Plate III. _Body._ Light fur from hare's face. _Hackle._ Ginger. _Wings._ Narrow piece from well barred quill feather of hen pheasant. _Hook._ No. 0--2, new size. THE CAPERER (_Halesus radiatus_, McLach.). This fly, which is well known to fishermen and appears as a rule in August, is one of the largest Sedge-flies. Its wings are mottled brown and covered with hairs. Several other Sedges somewhat resemble it. (Illustrations of the natural and artificial flies are given on Plates I. and III. respectively.) _Body._ Brown fur from hare's face. _Hackle._ A badger hackle, the light parts of which are of a pale dull yellow colour. _Wings._ From the dullest mottled quill feather of a hen pheasant. _Hook._ No. 3--5, new size. There are many other Caddis-flies, but the following dressings, perhaps slightly modified to imitate certain flies more closely, will be found to cover most of them. 1. _Body._ White wool, ribbed with narrow silver tinsel. _Hackle._ Pale ginger. _Wings._ Brown quill feather of landrail. _Hook._ No. 0--3. 2. _Body._ Hare's face, ribbed with narrow gold tinsel. _Hackle._ Brown ginger. _Wings and Hook_ as No. 1. 3. _Body._ Pale yellow wool, ribbed with narrow gold tinsel. _Hackle._ Coch-y-bondu. _Wings._ Speckled quill feathers of pheasant's wing. _Hook_ as No. 1. CHAPTER VI PERLIDÆ Imitation Perlidæ, or Stone-flies, are more used in the North in wet-fly fishing than by the dry-fly fisherman of the South. The best known species is the Stone-fly proper, but this fly does not seem to abound in the South, though I have found isolated specimens at Heathfield in Sussex on two occasions. This fly is therefore omitted, and the Willow-fly and the Yellow-Sally only are described. Perlidæ, unlike _Diptera_, have four wings. As, however, the anterior wings cover the posterior when at rest, it is as a rule only necessary to make the imitation with one pair of wings. This posterior pair of wings in the Perlidæ often materially changes the colour of the anterior pair when they are at rest. Thus in the Willow-fly, though the anterior pair of wings are of a brownish colour, they appear of a dark slaty hue when the fly is seen crawling about. An illustration of natural fly is given on Plate I. WILLOW-FLY (_Leuctra geniculata_, Steph.). This fly comes on late in the season. In September and October it is taken freely by the trout and grayling. It is similar in shape to the Stone-fly of the North. This fly has almost always been made buzz. Ronalds mentions in his _Fly Fisher's Entomology_ that it may be made with wings, but does not say anything about their position. I do not think that the hackle fly is a really good imitation of the natural insect, and it is quite possible to put the wings of the imitation in the same position as those of the natural fly. It will be seen that there are on Plate II. three illustrations of the imitation Willow-fly. One of these has its wings in the position of rest, the manner of dressing which I have described in a previous chapter. The other, which has its wings partially spread, I owe to a suggestion from Mr. G. E. M. Skues. The posterior pair of wings are put on first, and the anterior afterwards. As the mode of procedure is practically the same as in the Blue-bottle, with the addition of another pair of wings, I need not enter into further detail. The Willow-fly, when it falls on the water, has its wings sometimes in one and sometimes in the other of these positions. _Body._ Light brown fur from water-rat, ribbed with narrow gold tinsel. _Hackle._ Ginger. _Wings._ Darkest starling's quill feathers. The wings should be made narrow. _Hook._ Nos. 00--1, new size. (Illustrated, Plate II.) THE YELLOW SALLY (_Chloroperla grammatica_, Poda). This fly appears in May and June, and though it is said to be occasionally taken by trout, does not seem to be relished to any great extent by them. The wings should be placed one over the other as in the illustrations of the imitation fly given on Plate II. _Body._ Light brown water-rat's fur, ribbed with yellow silk. _Tail._ Two brown fibres from pheasant's wing. _Hackle._ Partridge hackle, dyed olive. _Wings._ Quill feather of white hen, dyed olive. _Hook._ Nos. 1--2, new size. CHAPTER VII DIPTERA The order Diptera, or two-winged flies, includes more species which at times serve as food for trout and grayling, than any other order which includes species of so-called flies. Though naturally many other species than those whose imitations I describe here will be found on the water, I have tried to include those which are most commonly found, without burdening my reader with too many. The several patterns of imitations of small Diptera (curses) will, I believe, be found to represent most of the commoner species found on the water, at least sufficiently accurately to deceive the trout sometimes, though when the fish are feeding upon these tiny flies, it is very probable that they will refuse all imitations, for many species which serve them as food are too small to imitate. BLUE-BOTTLE AND GREEN-BOTTLE The Blue-bottle and Green-bottle, though perhaps some of the commonest of flies, are but little used by the fly-fisherman. The success met with in using the natural fly is very small. The reason for this want of success is the position in which the wings of the imitation are put by the fly-dresser. In this case, like that of the Alder, the fault does not lie with the fly-dresser, as the writers on fly-dressing direct that the wings should be put on in the same position as those of every other fly--that is, in an upright position. Any one, as I have said before, on the most casual observation must realise that the wings of a Blue-bottle and the wings of a May-fly do not lie in quite the same position in relation to the body. There are many Diptera which come under the names of Blue- and Green-bottles, but as they are very similar in appearance it is only necessary to vary the size, as the trout are probably not sufficiently scientifically educated to discriminate between the different species. The commonest species of Diptera which are included under the popular names of Blue- and Green-bottles, are the _Calliphora erythrocephala_, Mg., and _Lucilia cæsar_, Linn., of which illustrations are given on the Plate of Natural Flies. August and September are the best months for these flies, though they come out much earlier. They seem, however, to fall upon the water much more frequently later in the season. They are also very good flies for grayling in October. As I have already said, of the many different species which I have ventured to include under the name Blue-bottle, the commonest at the water side is _Calliphora erythrocephala_. This fly is also found in towns. The Green-bottle, however, which I have chosen to represent all the others as being the commonest at the water side is a country fly, _Lucilia Cæsar_. Some species of _Lucilia_, the bodies of which are generally green, are found in towns. _Blue-bottle_-- _Body._ Fine dark blue chenille or dark blue Berlin wool, ribbed with silver tinsel. (I have found the fly very successful when ribbed with light blue silk as well as the tinsel.) _Hackle._ Black. _Wings._ Transparent wing feather of starling. _Hook._ Nos. 2--4, new size. (No. 3 best all round.) _Green-bottle_-- _Body._ Bright green peacock herle, ribbed with silver tinsel. _Hackle_, _Wings_ and _Hook._ Same as Blue-bottle. (Illustrated Plate II.) HOUSE-FLY There are many small Diptera which frequent the water side, which to the ordinary eye are apparently House-flies. They resemble them so closely, in fact, that many could not be discriminated from them except by an entomologist. I have, therefore, ventured to put them all under the heading of "House-fly." The only difference which will ever have to be made in the dressing given below is in the body, and very rarely in the hackle; but these modifications must be left to the fisherman, who must judge for himself according to the flies he finds by the water. I do not remember ever having met a fisherman who had used an artificial House-fly for trout. Trout however do feed on them; and in this case I can bring other evidence than my own. Ronalds describes an experiment he made in order to test the trout's power of taste; and in this experiment he used House-flies, to which he applied various condiments, including red pepper. Though his object was not to prove that trout fed readily on House-flies, I think he proved that they did so. Probably the commonest of these small Diptera which is to be found by the water is _Musca corvina_, Fab., which is the country cousin of our well-known House-fly, though, indeed, many of the flies which frequent our houses are not the true House-fly (_Musca domestica_). The male _Musca corvina_, whose portrait is given on Plate I., has a body which appears to consist of alternate stripes of yellow and brown. The female, however, has a uniformly dark body. Of the other flies, very similar in appearance to House-flies, the bodies vary in colour; but if made of a yellowish or dull brown, sometimes ribbed, it will generally prove like enough to nature, to deceive the trout. _Body._ Yellow ochre-coloured Berlin wool, spun on black silk. Ribbed with silver tinsel and dark brown according to circumstances. (The exact shade is easy to see on the under surface of the natural fly. The under surface of the fly is the surface seen by the trout.) _Hackle._ Coch-y-bondhu. _Wings._ Transparent quill feather of starling. _Hook._ Nos. 00--1, new size. (Illustrations of imitation, Plate II.) COW-DUNG FLY (_Scatophaga stercoraria_, Linn.). This fly appears as a rule in February, but I have seen it on warm days in January, in fairly large numbers. It lasts all the year till the frosts set in. Those cow-dungs which appear early in the year are not so large as those which appear later. The body is covered with short hairs which gives it a velvety appearance. The thorax is large and also has a number of hairs upon it. In order to imitate this large thorax, it is necessary to have more room on the hook above the hackle and wings than in other flies to leave room for a turn of the chenille, of which the body is made, just below the head of the fly. This will be seen in the illustrations of the artificial fly on Plate II. The body of the male is a bright yellow colour, that of the female is greenish. The male is rather larger than the female. These flies, which on windy days particularly, frequently fall on the water, are often taken very freely by the trout. Though when at rest the wings are flat upon each other, as shown in the illustration of the natural fly in Plate I., they often, when the fly falls on the water, are spread out slightly; so in the imitation it is best to put them in the position shown in the illustration of the artificial fly. _Body._ Yellow or greenish yellow chenille ribbed with gold tinsel. _Hackle._ Ginger. _Wings._ Light landrail, or brownish starling. _Hook._ 0--2, new size. BLACK GNAT (_Bibio johannis_, Linn.). The black Gnat is found on almost all waters. It is extremely numerous in some places, and is taken very readily by the trout. These flies are not really Gnats; but as they are commonly called Gnats by the fishermen, I have kept to the old name. _Bibio johannis_ comes out in June. The body is black in both the male and female, the wings in the male are almost colourless, while the wings of the female are dark. The head of the male is also larger than the head of the female. Both the male and female have a dark oval-shaped patch about the middle of the anterior margin of the front wing. Both these flies are taken greedily by the trout when they fall upon the water. I have found the following dressing the best:-- _Body._ Peacock quill dyed black, or black silk. _Hackle._ Cock starling's hackle, stripped on one side. _Wings._ (_Male_) From most transparent part of quill feather of starling. (_Female_) From brown tipped starling's tail feather. _Hook._ No. 000--0, new size. An illustration of the imitation fly is given on Plate II. HAWTHORN FLY (_Bibio marci_, Linn.). _Bibio marci_ is commonly called the Hawthorn-fly, and was described under this name by Ronalds. It is, speaking broadly, first cousin to the Black Gnat, though it is very much larger. It appears at the end of April or the beginning of May. The body is black, and the wings show the oval patch in the _B. johannis_; but as the fly is larger, in the _B. marci_ it is more noticeable. As only the male seems to rove about to any extent, it is just as well to imitate the male only. _Body._ Black Berlin wool, ribbed with silver tinsel. _Hackle._ Black. _Wings._ (_Male_) Transparent part of quill feather of starling. _Hook._ No. 1--3, new size. An illustration of the natural fly is given on Plate I., and one of the imitations on Plate II. _Curses_ There are several other small Diptera which at times appear on the water in swarms. These are known to the fishermen as Curses or Smuts. They are often so small that there is no hook made small enough upon which to tie imitations of them. However, as every fisherman knows, when the trout or grayling are feeding on these flies, it is generally impossible to get them to take the imitation of any other fly, it is worth while trying to imitate them on the smallest hook made. This is an 000, with a short shank. As it is extremely difficult to put wings on these flies, hackle patterns may be tried, but the winged patterns are the best. Once, when out fishing, I had a very aggravating experience with some tiny Curses. I had been fishing all the morning and had caught nothing. At about two o'clock I saw several good fish rising, but they would not look at my fly. I observed a fair number of light Olive Duns on the water, but both the imitation of this fly and several fancy patterns I tried proved equally useless. At last I seated myself on a fence close to a clump of willows, lighted a pipe, and began watching a fish which was rising a few yards higher up, not far from the bank on my side of the river. The water was perfectly clear, and when the fish rose I could see him distinctly. He was a grayling of between half and three-quarters of a pound, and rose four or five times in the minute. There were a lot of Smuts on the water, which from where I was, looked very dark if not black. These the fish rose at regularly, but he let several Olive Duns pass by unnoticed. The only Curses I had in my fly-box were black; and as those he was feeding upon appeared to be black, I put one on my cast and floated it over him several times. But though he once took a natural Smut floating within an inch of my fly, my fly he would not take. I then went further down the bank and caught some of the Smuts that were on the water. They were of a mottled dun colour, and the black effect was only produced by their shadow or reflection (which I could not determine) when they were on the water. Of the flies in my box that which came nearest in general effect to these Curses was a green insect (dun hackle and peacock herle body) tied on an 000 hook. This I put on my cast and floated over him. He rose to it, and as he rose I could see him distinctly. When within a few inches of my fly, however, he stopped short, turned aside, and took a natural Smut that was floating past. I tried him then with an olive quill, a Wickham, and a red tag; but he would have none of them. I had to give him up in despair, though I believe if I had had a dun-coloured Smut he would have taken it. The dressings of Curses given here will, I think, be sufficient to include the commoner Curses so numerous on most waters, especially during the hottest part of summer and autumn. The number of different small Diptera which are found on the water is so great that any attempt to classify them in a work which is meant only for fishermen would be out of place. I have therefore limited myself to giving these imitations-- _Curse No. 1_ (Black):-- _Body._ Black silk or black quill, with a turn of the narrowest silver tinsel at the tail. _Hackle._ Black. _Wings._ Most transparent part of starling's quill feather. _Hook._ 000 short shank. (Illustrated, Plate II.) _Curse No. 2_ (Dun):-- _Body._ Thinnest part of natural brown ostrich. _Hackle._ Dun (hen's) _Wings_ and _hook_ as No. 1. (Illustrated, Plate II.) _Curse No. 3_ (Badger):-- _Body_, _wings_ and _hook_ as No. 2. _Hackle._ Cock's badger hackle. (Illustrated, Plate II.) _Curse No. 4_ (Red):-- _Body._ Peacock quill dyed to a crimson lake colour. _Hackle._ Black. _Wings_ and _hook_ as No. 1. Nos. 2 and 3 should be made also without the fluff being stripped off the quill, which in this case should be used just as peacock herle is used. THE OAK-FLY (_Leptis scolopacea_, Linn.) This fly, notwithstanding its popular name, is found on many other trees, and I have seen it in places where there were no oak-trees near. It kills very well, and is in season from April to July. The body is long and tapered, and the segments of the abdomen are, in the male, of a brilliant orange colour, with black markings upon them, as shown in the illustration of the natural fly on Plate I. The wings are brown. _Body._ Reddish orange Berlin wool, ribbed with black silk, and narrow gold tinsel. _Hackle._ Coch-y-bondhu. _Wings._ From sixth or seventh quill feathers of landrail wings. _Hook._ New size, No. 2--3. (Imitation illustrated on Plate II., Figs. 3 and 4.) CHAPTER VIII WINGED ANTS The Winged Ants, which are the newly hatched insects, appear about the middle of July. The time at which they appear, however, varies very much. They appear in swarms, and when one of these swarms gets near or on the water, the fish feed greedily upon them. They have four wings, the anterior pair being somewhat longer than the body. These wings, when at rest, do not fold neatly over each other, and as the insect is clumsy in its flight, even a slight breeze is sufficient to drive many of them out to the water. The Ant I have seen most frequently on the water is a large Red Ant, but smaller Red Ants and winged Black Ants are also frequently seen. The position of the wings in relation to the body easiest to imitate is shown in the illustration of the imitation of the Willow-fly, which has four wings. The Red Ant is frequently used early in June, though the natural insect is not seen so early. The imitation, however, frequently meets with success, though it is improbable that the trout takes the imitation for the natural insect, especially as the wings are always put on in a vertical position. The bodies of all the Ants should be made fat towards the bend of the hook, and carried well on to the bend. As the body of the Ant is very shiny, parts of it, when the light falls upon it, have a very brilliant appearance; therefore I have recommended the use of tinsel. _Red Ant_-- _Body._ Red-brown (burnt sienna) silk, thin on the shank and fat towards and on the bend of the hook, ribbed with gold tinsel. _Hackle._ Red. _Wings._ Transparent part of a starling's quill feather. _Hook._ 0--2. _Black Ant_-- _Body._ Black silk, ribbed with silver tinsel. _Hackle._ Black. _Wings._ As Red Ant. _Hook._ 0--1. CHAPTER IX CATERPILLARS "Of the caterpillars, spiders, and other creatures which are supposed to fall from the trees into the water, and into the trout's mouth, and of the consequent advantage of trees projecting over a stream; of the sapient advice, both verbal and written, to cultivate vegetation overhanging the river, because it increases the supply of natural food; of the statement that fish under trees are invariably in the best condition, anglers have heard from time immemorial. My advice is, cultivate your trees, because they are of advantage as giving shelter to the fish. Not a single example of these tree windfalls has been found in the hundreds of autopsies which I have made, and all the caterpillars and spiders that fall from the trees in a mile of water would not suffice to feed a single pound trout for a single day. They may therefore be discarded from consideration."--HALFORD'S _Dry-fly Entomology_, page 138. I read this passage with extreme surprise, as it absolutely contradicts my personal experience. After thinking the matter over carefully, and trying to make out how it was that Mr. Halford, in the hundreds of autopsies he has made, has never come across a caterpillar, I realised how dangerous it is to make a dogmatic and sweeping statement with the evidence of personal experience only to fall back upon. As recently as June, 1897, when fishing with Dr. Charles R. Watson and Mr. A. D. Home, I made with them a series of six autopsies of trout caught consecutively in one morning. The smallest number of caterpillars found in one of these six autopsies was five, and the greatest, twelve. These trout were all caught under oak trees overhanging the water, which were at that time swarming with small caterpillars, most of these caterpillars being of a brilliant emerald green colour. In the afternoon of the day on which I am writing this, Colonel Walker showed me a peculiar sort of knife which he carries when out fishing, for the purpose of making autopsies on trout. I naturally took advantage of this occasion to increase my evidence, and asked him if he had ever found caterpillars in the trout he caught. He told me that in certain places, in the early part of the summer, he almost always found caterpillars in the stomachs of the trout he caught under trees overhanging the water. This experience of his exactly coincides with my own, though the six consecutive autopsies described above without my other similar experiences is a fairly strong piece of evidence. I am therefore inclined to believe that there is some good to be gained in following the sapient advice, verbal and written, to cultivate vegetation overhanging the river, beyond its advantage as giving shelter to the fish. I will narrate the circumstances which first led me to use the caterpillar as a dry fly, as they may, I think, interest my reader. I was lying on the bank by a large pool on a stream, and saw a little green caterpillar hanging from the branch of an oak tree, apparently trying in vain to pull himself up the thread by which he had so foolishly lowered himself, till he was uncomfortably near the surface of the water. I watched him, lazily thinking in a dreamy manner how very unkind it was of the trout to keep on rising, and yet not look at my fly. They were evidently feeding on something, but what it was I could not make out. The little green caterpillar was getting gradually nearer to the water, and I was beginning to think that the poor little chap would meet with a watery grave, when just as he touched the water a trout came up and grabbed him. Little green caterpillars were evidently what the trout were feeding upon, and that was the reason that I could not catch one with a fly. I watched the branches of the oak tree overhanging the water for some time, and saw several caterpillars fall in and meet with the same fate. The next thing I did was to catch a caterpillar, scrape the fly dressing off my hook, and put him on it instead. I caught several trout in this way, but found that it was almost impossible to cast any distance without shaking off the caterpillar. After much trouble caused by this difficulty, which was very trying to the temper, as the caterpillars always seemed to come off the hook at the most critical moment, and having got a fairly good basket, I found it was time to return. That night I managed to make some fairly good imitations of the little green caterpillar to use on the morrow, instead of the natural ones. These imitations met with success, and since that time I have been able to improve on the dressings then used. I have found many different kinds of caterpillars in the stomachs of trout, but small green ones of various sorts were decidedly the most numerous. The species I have most frequently found is, I believe, the larval form of the _Tortrix viridana_. I have never found a large caterpillar in a trout, though I have caught trout with imitations of them used as dry flies. I give the exact dressing of the green caterpillar; but the other dressings must be left to the discretion of the fisherman for alterations, as there are so many sorts of small caterpillars, some of them being extremely rare in one place and common in another. Should the fisherman wish to see the sort of caterpillar commonest where he is fishing, he must seek them himself. Those only are useful which are on the trees overhanging the water. If there are oak trees the caterpillars will probably be green, and many kinds of caterpillars will be found which have rolled themselves up in the leaves of the tree upon which they live. I have no doubt that this imitation caterpillar will be looked upon as a poaching implement, but it is or should be used as a dry fly, and to use it successfully requires as much skill and power of observation as does the use of any imitation of a fly used in a similar manner. _How to make an Artificial Caterpillar._--A small piece of cork 1/32 of an inch thick, or less, and nearly twice the length of the hook, must be cut into the shape shown in Fig. 17. Next take a piece of quill rather longer than, and about the thickness of a large pin, from a tail or wing feather of a starling. This quill makes the foundation of the body. Split the thick end of the quill far enough to embrace two-thirds of the shank of the hook, and then tie it on the hook as shown in Fig. 18. Now fold the piece of cork, with the broad end towards the eye of the hook, over the shank of the hook and the quill, tying it in as shown in Fig. 19. [Illustration: FIG. 18. FIG. 17. FIG. 19.] This foundation serves for any caterpillar. Tie it at the tail whatever is to be used for ribbing the body, and the body material if it is not to be spun on the tying silk. Then wind on the body material, tie it in, wind on the ribbing, finish off at the head, and cut off the projecting piece of quill. The caterpillar when finished should appear as shown in the illustrations on Plate III. _Green Caterpillar._--1. Emerald green wool spun on tying-silk, ribbed with light yellow silk. 2. Emerald green wool spun on tying-silk, ribbed with scarlet silk. 3. Yellowish green wool spun on tying-silk, ribbed with narrow gold tinsel. 4. Olive green wool spun on tying-silk, ribbed with narrow gold tinsel. (I have found Nos. 1 and 2 very successful when ribbed also with narrow gold tinsel, and Nos. 3 and 4 when ribbed with light yellow silk.) _Other Caterpillars_ made with a reddish-brown body, and ribbed with yellow or red, are also sometimes very successful, as are those also ribbed with red or Coch-y-bondhu hackles. [Illustration: PLATE III ARTIFICIAL FLIES Drawn from flies tied by Mrs. J. R. RICHARDSON, of Kingston-on-Thames (dressed from the Author's models). 1. SAND-FLY. 2. GRANNOM. 3. CINNAMON-FLY. 4. WELSHMAN'S BUTTON. 5. CAPERER. 6. RED SEDGE. 7, 8. GREEN CATERPILLAR. 9, 10. CORIXA. 11, 12. FRESH-WATER SHRIMP. Swan Electric Engraving C^o.] PART II _WET FLIES_ CHAPTER I A THEORY[1] [1] Rewritten from an article in _The Field_ under the heading of "An Unorthodox View of Wet Fly Fishing." That a trout or any other fish could possibly mistake a wet fly used in the regular wet fly way for the natural fly of which it is supposed to be an imitation, was always to my mind a very doubtful question; but now it is so no longer. I am sure the fish takes it for something else. If we consider what would happen to a natural fly which had by some mishap become submerged, we can come to no other conclusion than that it would be carried along by the current, without any power of its own of altering the direction in which it was being moved by the water. Does this ever happen to the sunk fly? I think not. In fishing across and down stream it certainly does not; and even in up stream fishing, in order to keep his line straight, the fisherman must keep a certain amount of tension on it, and very probably draws it through the water with much the same sort of movement he would give it if not fishing up stream. This movement through the water which is given to the artificial must be absolutely unlike any movement of the natural fly when under the surface; for in the natural fly, if it were not already drowned, the only possible movement would be that of its legs and wings, which, not being intended as a means of progression through the water, and being absolutely unsuitable for that object, would be most unlikely to enable it to do so. But here a very natural question arises as to what, if not the natural fly, the fish takes the imitation to be? In a communication to the _Field_ in June, 1897, I described, under the heading of "A New Trout Fly," the imitations of two Corixæ. This seems to be a key to the whole question. The number of insects living in fresh waters, and possessing the power of moving through it, is enormous. There are between 220 and 230 different species of Water Beetles in our waters. There are also very many different sorts of Heteroptera, including the numerous family Notonectidæ. When we add to these the larvæ of flies and water beetles, the Crustaceans, Hydræ and Water Spiders, we must begin to realise that there are other things than a drowned natural fly for which the fish might mistake its imitation, with the materials of which it is made soaked in and drawn through the water. The movement of many of these creatures through the water is fairly represented by the movement of the artificial fly in wet fly-fishing; and, when the shade and colour and size of the fly is the same as one of these aquatic creatures, I am sure that the fish takes it, not for a fly, but for one of them. Again, when the enormous number of these aquatic creatures is considered, it is most probable that one or other of the flies tried on any water by the fisherman will come very near in shade, colour, and movement through the water, at any rate, to one of them. If this conclusion at which I have arrived is correct, as I believe it to be, would it not be wiser to try to imitate, not the natural fly, but some of these numerous aquatic creatures? They are numerous enough, and a large number of them are easy to imitate; but as yet but little has been done, except with regard to the spiders, in this direction. I am also sure that the success of the so-called spider patterns used in wet fly-fishing has been due to quite a different cause to that which those who first used them and those who use them now believe, as these imitations are made from the insect as it appears when out of the water. The spider goes from its nest to the surface of the water and back again by a thread stretched between, and so would hardly move through the water, as its imitation is made to do by the fisherman. Those of the so-called spider-flies which are supposed to represent some of the Ephemeridæ, are, for the reasons I have given before in speaking of flies in general, most unlikely to be mistaken for the natural insect by the trout. A trout will undoubtedly sometimes take anything moving through the water which simulates life, if it be of a suitable size. This is shown by the manner in which they take the fancy flies; although here again, as one particular pattern of a fancy fly kills better than any other on one particular water, I think that very often this fancy fly is taken by the fish for some creature which is particularly numerous there. At any rate, if the fish only takes the artificial fly because it is apparently something alive and moving, I am sure that he would seize it with much more avidity if it represented one of his aquatic neighbours on which he has been feeding, and if its appearance reminded him of many previous pleasant meals. (Jan. 15, 1898.)[2] [2] Since this article appeared in _The Field_, some correspondence on the subject has taken place in _The Fishing Gazette_ and _St. James's Gazette_. Many of the arguments brought forward by some of the correspondents have led me to believe that I cannot have made myself sufficiently clear in the above article, so I have added some further explanations. My readers must not suppose that I intend to apply these remarks to any particular circumstances; I am only speaking of wet-flies in general. While it is probable that the natural fly does often sink under the surface, and may then be taken by the trout, the wet-fly of the fisherman does not as a rule behave as does the natural fly when under water. That the trout takes the wet-fly fished up stream, which is allowed to come down with the current without any drag and close to the surface, for the natural fly it represents, is also very probable; but these facts do not in any way tend to disprove my theory. This manner of wet-fly fishing is very much like dry-fly fishing, and is certainly not the way in which wet-fly fishing is practised in lakes, and is hardly the most general way in which it is practised on many rivers. In dealing with this subject fully and to carry my theory to its necessary conclusion, it is of course necessary to find a probable explanation of what every form of wet-fly, fancy or supposed imitation of a natural fly, is taken for by the fish. This naturally leads us to believe that such a theory, if it approaches the truth, should include an explanation of why the salmon takes the fly. We know but little of the world as it appears to the eye of the fish, but from the little that is known something may be deduced which carries this theory a little further. In the sea many and very various effects may be produced upon objects moving through the water when passing between the eye and the surface, by light, by the reflecting powers of the bottom of the water, and by the relative clearness of the water, all of which factors of the effect produced vary to an almost incalculable extent. Given a bright sun, a light sandy bottom and clear water, a small crustacean swimming between the eye of the observer and the surface often will not appear to be like the creature when it is seen out of the water. The outline will be indistinct, and the whole will frequently appear to be brilliantly coloured. Not only is the body thus brilliantly coloured, but equally gaudy rays will be seen round it, probably produced by the moving legs and by refraction. In this case the circumstances are all in favour of the production of an effect of brilliant colouration; but going to the other extreme, with a dull light, a dark bottom and cloudy water, we have the dullest-coloured fly accounted for, as the first conditions accounted for that which was most gaudy. This also explains the fact that the flies which go in various gradations of colour between these extremes are most suitable for various conditions of the weather, water, and locality. In the case of the Salmon-fly, probably the salmon remembers, when he has reached fresh water, many an appetising morsel in the shape of a crustacean or small fish, and takes the fly for one of these. In the case of the trout we know that crustaceans are very acceptable to them, and though probably fresh water will not produce the brilliant effect which is produced by salt water as I have described above, still, as fancy Trout-flies do not run to such gaudy colours as do Salmon-flies, still the effect should be sufficient to account for a fair amount of brilliant colour under similar conditions. No doubt some of the fancy Trout-flies are also taken for small fish. In many waters, however, the effect could hardly be made brilliant, as shallow water, shade produced by weeds, &c., and muddy or dark bottoms would all militate against its being so, and in these waters probably only lures that imitate the actual colours of the object they represent would be of any use. In fresh water and in the case of trout, as I have pointed out, there are many aquatic creatures which serve as food which have the power of swimming through the water. My theory, stated briefly and more explicitly, I hope, than was the case in my article in _The Field_, is that under circumstances in which the wet-fly behaves more as does some creature having the power of swimming through the water, it is better to imitate this creature than any natural fly on the water, which cannot in any case behave in such a manner; and what I wish to advocate is, that imitations of these aquatic creatures should be made and used. CHAPTER II CORIXÆ[3] [3] Rewritten from an article in _The Field_ under the heading of "A New Trout Fly." While fishing in a water where the trout are very numerous in the spring of 1897, I found that I could hardly catch a single trout in the day with the fly. The weather was cold and windy, and showed no signs of mending. At last, one day, I opened a trout, one of the few that I had caught during my visit, and found the stomach full of some insects belonging to the family of Corixæ. These insects are very commonly called Water Beetles, or Water Boatmen. They, however, are not beetles but bugs (Heteroptera), and are not the same as the true water-boatmen, the _Notonecta glauca_, though they somewhat resemble it in appearance. On finding these insects in the trout I took some of them home, and made imitations of them. With these the next day I caught a number of trout, though the weather was just as unfavourable. Since then I have improved somewhat upon the imitations I then used, and in waters which are inhabited by Corixæ. These imitations have met, both in my hands and in the hands of others, with greater success than any other form of wet fly. It is an extraordinary thing, considering the number of men who have written on trout fishing, that it has apparently never occurred to one of them to describe an imitation of one of this large family of insects. Mr. Halford, in his _Dry-fly Entomology_, indeed states that he has frequently found them in the stomachs of trout, but he does not even suggest that an imitation of them might be made. There are many species of Corixæ which inhabit our waters, but the commoner sorts are so similar in appearance that many of the species are very difficult to distinguish even by an expert, and but little work has been done with regard to them. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that a similar dressing on different sized hooks will be quite sufficient to deceive the unscientific eye of the trout. This conclusion is corroborated by the fact that I have several times had an imitation Corixa seized by a trout when it was sinking, and before I began to draw it through the water, which is, I take it, a fairly severe test as to the accuracy of the imitation. Colonel Walker and Mr. Herbert Ash have also had the same thing happen to them when fishing with my imitation Corixæ. Corixæ vary much in size, the largest and one of the commonest species being the _Corixa geoffroyi_, which is about half an inch long. In all Corixæ, the head is wide and is attached but slightly to the body. It is convex in front and concave behind, so as to fit the end of the thorax, and is as wide as the wings when folded and at rest. These insects possess four wings, which they frequently use, though they are somewhat clumsy in starting from the surface of the water. I have sometimes, however, seen them fly considerable distances. The anterior wings resemble the wing-cases of a beetle; they are hard and shiny, brown in colour, with dark mottled markings upon them. The posterior pair are transparent. The abdomen is light yellow and fringed with hairs, and there are transverse lines on the dorsal surface of the thorax. As, however, these markings on the thorax and wings are hardly visible to the naked eye, they give the Corixa a generally brownish and shiny appearance. Of the legs, six in number, the hind pair are most used in swimming. They are somewhat flattened at their extremities to a paddle shape, and are fringed with hairs. I have seen the hind legs of the Corixæ when the insects have been suspended motionless in mid-water, standing out at right angles on each side of the body; and as in the imitation I am about to describe, the legs take this position when the fly is at rest or sinking in the water; this explains the fact of the trout taking them in the way I have mentioned above. The _Corixa sahlbergi_, which is almost as common as the _Corixa geoffroyi_, is about half its size, but is otherwise very similar in appearance, as are nearly all the other smaller species. The Corixa frequently comes to the surface to breathe, and a number of small air bubbles attach themselves to its body. These, when the insect is swimming under water, give its body a brilliant silvery appearance, with the yellow showing through in places. This effect is accurately reproduced by ribbing the body with silver tinsel. The size of the hooks used must depend upon the size of the species of Corixæ inhabiting the water to be fished, and varies from No. 1 to 3, new size. The Corixæ in any particular water may easily be found in order to observe the size. They congregate in great numbers among the weeds, &c., on the bottom of the water. They are very numerous in most millponds, pools, back-waters, sluggish waters and ponds. The body is made with light yellow Berlin wool, teazed up with fur from the hare's face, and ribbed with silver tinsel. A good space of shank should be left above the body. The only legs which make any show in the water are the hind legs, and they are the only ones it is absolutely necessary to imitate; should, however, the fisherman wish to imitate the others, one turn of a ginger hackle may be used. When I described the Corixa in the _Field_ I directed that the hind legs should be made with a strand of peacock herle. I have however found a better imitation of these legs since then, in the end of a quill feather from a starling's wing. This keeps up its spring even when soaked for a long period in the water, while the peacock herle legs after a time adhered to the body of the fly, and did not stand out on each side when the fly was at rest. The tip of the feather should be completely cleared of fibres on one side, and nearly so on the other, leaving however a few short stumps at the end, as shown in illustrations of imitation in Plate III., to represent the paddle-shape of the legs. These legs are then tied in at right angles to the body. I have found the best way of accomplishing this is to tie the legs in straight to the side, with the buts pointing towards the tail of the fly. Then bend them down, and put enough turns of the tying silk round the shank of the hook to keep them in the position shown in the illustration of the imitation. The wings are made from the quill feathers of the woodcock, laid flat on the body one over the other, as described in the directions for tying Perlidæ, which have their wings lying one over the other. The head must be made large, and the whole fly when finished appear as shown in the illustration. When used, this fly should be allowed to sink. The depth to which it must sink varying according to circumstances, and then drawn through the water in little jerks. Each of these movements through the water causes the legs, which stand out on each side of the body, to bend back; but at the end of the jerk, when the fly is momentarily stationary, these legs resume their original position. Thus the movement of the legs of the natural insect when swimming is accurately imitated. (June 12, 1897.) * * * * * This imitation _Corixa_ has met with a very general condemnation as not being a lure which should be allowed on waters where the use of the fly only is permitted. As this child of my fancy has cost me many hours of careful thought and labour, I am inclined, with all due deference to these opinions, expressed by men of much greater experience than mine, to say a few words in its defence. _Corixæ_ are insects which live in the water and are eaten by trout. They possess wings which they use frequently, sometimes flying a considerable distance, and I have seen trout take them just as they were trying to leave the surface of the water. The efficacy of the imitation, therefore, depends upon the skill of the fisherman, who must make it simulate in its movements the movements of the natural insect. Mr. G. A. B. Dewar, in his _Book of the Dry Fly_, in speaking of "tailing" trout, which are probably feeding on "food of the shrimp and snail order," advises that they should be fished for "with a long line down stream, and the fly worked with a series of little jerks, somewhat as in salmon-fishing. The fly should be cast just above where the head of the trout is adjudged to be, and worked into the angler's bank, and it must never be kept still, otherwise the fish will at once perceive the deception and at once decline it." Mr. Dewar then mentions a dry-fly angler of great skill who is very successful in fishing in this manner with a big Alder. It is more than probable that in these cases the Alder is taken for a _Corixa_, or something very like it, as the colour, size, and movements are somewhat similar. The Marquis of Granby, in the preface to Mr. Dewar's book, also speaks highly of a sunk alder for "tailing" trout. "To kill 'tailers' in broad daylight and in low water is quite an art in itself," is another quotation from _The Book of the Dry Fly_ upon this mode of fishing, and though the author points out that this is not true dry-fly fishing, still if the fisherman's conscience allows him to use a sunk Alder down stream and worked in this manner, I think it should also allow him to use an imitation _Corixa_ under similar circumstances. I should not have dragged the writings of others into such a question as this, had not the criticisms upon my flies been an indirect attack upon myself, as what has been said about them practically means that they ought not to be used by any one who calls himself a sportsman. If this is true of the flies, what could not be said of their inventor? For this reason I take the best means I can find to defend myself, and what better defence could there be than the published practices of two men whose sportsmanlike qualities have never been doubted? What is legitimate trout-fly has, I believe, never been clearly defined; but I hope I shall not be presuming too much in saying, that if the lure in question is the imitation of an insect which can and does fly, made of the ordinary materials used in fly-making upon one hook, this lure has a perfect right to be called a _legitimate trout-fly_. It will be found that my _Corixa_ fulfils these conditions. There is one thing that I wish particularly to impress upon my reader, and this is that, in using the imitations of _Corixæ_ and Fresh-water Shrimps, he should find out whether these creatures inhabit the water he is fishing. If he does not do this and fishes with the imitations of either of them where they do not exist, he will probably meet with failure and disappointment. CHAPTER III FRESH-WATER SHRIMP (_Gammarus pulex_)[4] [4] Rewritten from an article in _The Field_, April 16, 1898, under the heading of "The Fresh-water Shrimp as a Wet Fly." Of all the forms of food partaken of by the trout the Crustacea are the best. When I say the best, I mean that trout fed upon Crustacea seem to thrive better than trout fed on anything else. In this case, at any rate, the most wholesome form of food seems also to be the most welcome; for though I have tried feeding trout with almost every form of food, I have never come across another form which they have taken with anything approaching the voracity with which they take Crustacea. Fortunately, I can bring forward a case to show how trout thrive when fed upon Crustacea. In April, 1897, Colonel Walker presented some trout to the Brighton Aquarium. I myself caught some of these trout, which were put in a rearing pond to await their being transferred by rail to the Aquarium. As I also assisted in the operation of taking them from the rearing pond and putting them into the tanks in which they were to travel, I can vouch for their size at that time. They were all in rather bad condition, and, even had the largest been in good condition, it could not have weighed more than three-quarters of a pound. These trout have been fed entirely on Crustacea since they were introduced into the tank they now occupy; and at the time I am writing (January, 1898), the largest of these trout must be quite two pounds or more in weight, and there are others which are nearly as large. The voracity with which these trout seize the Sandhoppers and Shrimps upon which they are fed is a perfect revelation. I have seen them leap out of the water to catch the Shrimps thrown to them before they reached the surface. I have also found that young trout in rearing ponds take Fresh-water Shrimps with the same greediness; and on considering these facts, I am surprised that there have not been more attempts to imitate the Fresh-water Shrimp. The _Gammarus pulex_ may be found in almost all streams, especially where there is much vegetation. An illustration of it is given on Plate I. I have however found them abundant in streams where there were no weeds. They hide under stones at the bottom of the water and among the weeds, especially among watercress and starwort. Though they will live in still water, I have found them most numerous in streams; and notwithstanding that they are generally supposed only to inhabit somewhat sluggish streams, I have found them in fairly rapid ones, with a stony bed. The Shrimp is very prolific, and if protected increase very rapidly; thus it is a most excellent plan for those who breed and rear trout to cultivate them, as they are one of the most valuable forms of food. These animals are very similar in shape to their well-known relation, the common Sandhopper. In colour they vary very much according to the water they inhabit. I have seen them a pale yellow colour in some streams, while in others they are almost black. The commonest colour is however a reddish-yellow. I find that the general idea is that these Shrimps travel through the water in quick leaps by bending up their bodies and straightening them out again. I have however never seen them do this, though I have kept them in an aquarium and watched them very carefully. What I have seen is, that they use their legs to swim with, moving them as though they were walking very rapidly. They cannot, however, walk when they are taken out of the water, but lie perfectly helpless upon their sides. In a stream where the Fresh-water Shrimp swims, it seems unable to progress up stream, or at any rate, if it does it moves very slowly; when they wish to go up stream they crawl along the bottom. They can, however, as a rule, maintain the same position against the current. I have found the following to be the best way to dress an imitation of the Fresh-water Shrimp:--Choose a light ginger tackle, cut the tip off, and tie the tip on a hook (No. 1 or 2, new size), so that the fibres will project for between 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch at the tail. Tie in a thin strip of india-rubber and a piece of narrow silver tinsel. The strip of india-rubber must be taken from a piece of the natural rubber, and cut so thin that when stretched it is transparent. When stretched it should be quite a sixteenth of an inch broad. A little piece of india-rubber tapered at each end and half as long as the shank of the hook, must now be fastened to the shank near the head of the fly, placing the piece of rubber on the shank and tying it in with the tying silk. Now bring back the tying silk to the tail of the fly, and spin the wool, of which the body is to be made, on to the tying silk and wind it on the shank. The wool may vary in colour, according to the colour of the Shrimps in the stream to be fished, from light yellow or reddish-yellow to a very dark brown. When the wool body is finished off, wind on the strip of india-rubber, so that the edge of one lap meets the edge of the other, thus covering the body entirely; tie in and cut off the remainder, and then rib the body with the tinsel. In putting on the hackle, which is light ginger, it is necessary that some of the fibres should be made to project forwards, so the tying silk should be finished off behind these. When the fly is complete it should appear as shown in illustrations of imitation on Plate III. In fishing this fly must be allowed to sink to mid-water, and then allowed to travel across and down stream in short stages; but should not be drawn towards the fisherman in any marked way, or it will not represent the movements of the natural Shrimp. Whether any particular stream is inhabited by these Crustacea may be easily discovered. If the stream has a stony bottom they will be found under almost every large stone which is turned over. If, however, there be _débris_ or mud at the bottom, they may easily be captured with a stout gauze net, mounted on a strong ring and handle. If this net be passed along the bottom, and some of the weeds and _débris_ brought up, the Shrimps will be found among the contents of the net. I should strongly advise any one possessing a trout stream which is not inhabited by the Fresh-water Shrimp to introduce them, for they are, as I have pointed out, one of the very best forms of trout food. I have been very successful with the imitation shrimp on waters which contain the fresh-water shrimp. * * * * * This imitation has also met with general condemnation of an even more decided character than that of the Corixa. In neither case, however, have any reasons been given for the condemnation. As undoubtedly some of the hackle flies used wet must be very like a shrimp, and if the imitation shrimp is condemned, so also should these hackle flies. LARVÆ OF WATER-INSECTS, which have the power of swimming in the water, are best imitated by making a very taper body, with a large head. They are many of them small, and these should not be tied on a hook larger than No. 1, new size. There are, however, many larvæ which are larger, but not many of these swim about much in the water. Some are brownish-yellow, and some nearly black. Some should have a tail made of two or three strands of hackle the same colour as the body. Some have appendages on the sides of the body, and in the imitations of these the hackle must be tied in at the tail, carried up over the body, and a couple of turns given at the shoulder. They may be made in various shades, from brownish-yellow to black. I have not yet had time to work out any proper scheme of imitations, but only write this as a suggestion. SOME HINTS ON DRY FLY-FISHING _On Casting_ The fly must not be thrown directly on to the water, but should be allowed to drop there by gravitation. Thus the line should extend itself in a perfectly straight line in the air, at least a foot above the surface of the water, and then the fly will drop naturally upon it. _On Keeping the Line Floating_ Unless the line be floating it is almost impossible to avoid a "drag," which is, as a rule, absolutely fatal. The best way to make the line float is to rub the last twenty-five yards with vaseline, then go over the line with a lump of beeswax, and finish up by rubbing very gently with a rag with vaseline upon it. A rag should be carried when out fishing, with a small piece of beeswax in it. A small tin of vaseline must also be taken and then, when the line shows any signs of sinking, it must be rubbed with the rag which has been previously dipped in the vaseline. The small piece of beeswax should touch the line as it is being rubbed with the rag, and the wax will become soft on the surface as it mixes with the vaseline. _On Making the Fly Float_ Many fishermen use odourless paraffin; but it takes some time for the paraffin to float off, and when a quick change of flies is necessary, this is a great disadvantage. If the finger be dipped very slightly in the tin of vaseline, so that there is just a suspicion of it on the skin, and the hackle of the fly be rubbed with it, the fly will float as well as it does with the odourless paraffin, and the vaseline will not float off. Personally I prefer not to use anything. This entails a small amount of extra labour in drying the fly; but the tints of the fly are not altered, as they often are if any form of grease is used to make the fly float. RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY. * * * * * TRANSCRIBER NOTES: Punctuation has been normalized without note. Footnotes have been moved closer to their reference point in the text. Page 10: "biassed" changed to "biased" (I must be naturally biased). Page 100: "teased" changed to "teazed" for consistency (teazed up with fur). 
43177	----	Transcriber's note: Italics is represented with underscore _, bold with the equal sign = and small caps with ALL CAPS. Everything (including inconsistent hyphenation and spelling) has been retained as printed, unless stated below: p. 7: "in the Misippi River" Misippi changed to Mississippi. Some words were broken up due to line endings. As they only occur once in the book it's not absolutely clear if they should be hyphenated or not. This concerns the words: short-sightedness, sand-shell, head-waters. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE BUREAU OF FISHERIES HUGH M. SMITH, Commissioner THE PROTECTION OF FRESH-WATER MUSSELS =By R. E.COKER, Ph. D.= _Director U. S. Biological Station Fairport, Iowa_ Bureau of Fisheries Document No. 793 WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1914 THE PROTECTION OF FRESH-WATER MUSSELS =By R. E. COKER, Ph. D.= _Director U. S. Biological Station, Fairport, Iowa_ Bureau of Fisheries Document No. 793 CONTENTS. Page Present conditions 3 The mussel industry 3 Depletion of the resources 4 The interests of the community 5 Artificial propagation of mussels by the Government 7 Establishment of propagation 7 Results dependent upon protection 8 Protection 9 Essential considerations for effective legislation 9 Examination of protective measures 10 Two measures for immediate application 10 Measures not suited to existing conditions 10 Size limit--necessity and application 12 Exhaustive nature of the fishery 12 Waste illustrated 13 Size limit in relation to economy 15 Reasons for the proposed 2-inch limit 16 Details essential to effective legislation 17 Closed regions--necessity and application 18 Injury to spawning mussels and to young 18 Considerations determining size of closed regions 19 Practicable division of river systems illustrated 20 Procedure for establishing closed regions 21 Enforcement of the law 22 Summary of recommended legislation 23 THE PROTECTION OF FRESH-WATER MUSSELS. By R. E. COKER, Ph. D., _Director United States Biological Station, Fairport, Iowa._ PRESENT CONDITIONS. THE MUSSEL INDUSTRY. The history of the fresh-water mussel industry gives illustration of the promptness with which an American industry may be developed once the pathway is found. Undertaken in a small way scarcely more than a score of years ago, the manufacture of pearl buttons began almost immediately to assume the proportions of an important national industry. As early as 1898, when the enterprise was only 6 years old, there were about 50 factories in more than a dozen towns along the Mississippi. With improved machinery and methods further expansion occurred, until within a few years the output approximated 30 million gross of buttons, with a value of many millions of dollars. The growth of the industry has continued to the present time, but exact figures will not be available until the Bureau has completed a statistical survey now in progress. Not less important has been a resultant economic change, or modification of custom, that has affected practically every person in the country. Where marine pearl was in rare use, fresh-water pearl, with its quality and price, came to fill a universal requirement. In one decade pearl buttons were high in price, used only upon the better clothing, and commonly saved when clothing was discarded, while in the most general use were buttons of metal or agate or wood, which rusted or broke or warped. In the next decade good pearl buttons, neat and durable, were available to everybody and used upon the widest variety of clothing. A former luxury had become a common necessity. Coincident with the rise of the manufacturing industry, there developed an important and widespread fishery, directly employing thousands of persons and indirectly affecting persons and communities of varied occupation. Commencing on the Mississippi River, the fishery gradually spread from stream to stream, passing from depleted territory to new and rich fields, until it embraced practically the entire Mississippi Basin and a portion of the Great Lakes drainage, from Minnesota to Louisiana, north and south, and from Ohio, West Virginia, and Tennessee on the east to Arkansas, Kansas, and South Dakota on the west. DEPLETION OF THE RESOURCES. Extension of territory could not be continued indefinitely. While up to the present time the industry has not failed to obtain shells in quantity sufficient for the market demands, it has become perfectly clear that the perpetuation of the industry as one producing a staple product that is both good and within reach of all people depends upon successful propagation and effective protection. The supply is now maintained by regularly invading new territory (and it is scarcely possible to go farther in this direction), by seeking out the smaller tributaries of the mussel streams, which could not formerly have been worked with profit, and in some measure by the devising of methods that are more effective in capture of mussels. Notwithstanding these developments, all of which indeed conduce to more exhaustive fishery, an increasing proportion of very small shells is being taken, the bottoms are being more thoroughly cleaned, and the price of shell has advanced to a relatively high figure. A high price for shell has, of course, its advantages. It is good for the fishermen, provided they can find the shells, and it stimulates the manufacturers to eliminate waste and to use the most economical methods. On the other hand, if unbalanced by protective restrictions, a continued rise in price is of disastrous consequence. It impoverishes the beds by driving the fishermen to the most exhaustive manner of fishing; even the very smallest shells that can be captured, which should never be removed from the beds, are taken and marketed, and this, unfortunately, is the actual case at the present time. (See pl. I.) Ultimately the higher price of shell becomes an element in the price of the finished product and is paid by the public at large without corresponding advantage to a single person connected with the industry. Let it be repeated that a high price to the fishermen is desirable, but in the present condition they reap no benefit. A higher price for a disproportionately smaller product brings no added profit. None are so directly interested in the conservation of mussels as the fishermen themselves. Of what advantage is it to the fishermen of the Wabash River, or to the State of Indiana, that shells are now more valuable, when a river that once supported a really important shelling industry is now practically depleted? Wherein is the benefit to Illinois, when only one fisherman can engage in shelling to-day where six worked with profit five years ago? What profit will Arkansas find, when its rivers are now the scene of the most exhaustive mussel fishery ever known and the future is being robbed by the removal of infant shells that are shipped to the markets to be subsequently thrown into the discard by the manufacturers as too small for any useful purpose? THE INTERESTS OF THE COMMUNITY. An earlier general interest in the subject would have been awakened had there been a better knowledge of the importance of shelling industries to the communities at large. As an illustration, the case of Madison, Ark., may be mentioned. The town itself has a population of about 300 and is supported by lumbering, farming, and fishing industries. During each of the past two years shells and pearls have been marketed at this place to the value of about $20,000. This was a crop that could be counted upon regardless of weather conditions during the season, and it constituted a substantial element in the income of the community at large. Can this income be counted upon in the future? A dozen years ago fishermen made their wages when shells brought $4 per ton, and they can do no better at this time, when they receive $23 per ton. In 1913 they took 200 to 300 pounds per day, where originally they made daily hauls of 1,000 to 1,800 pounds. The shells are now, it appears, about one-sixth as abundant as they were a dozen years ago. This is a rapid rate of depletion, and it is evident that the future can have little to offer unless something is done to insure the self-perpetuation of the mussel beds. The town of Black Rock, Ark., which has a population of about 1,000, offers an illustration where both fishing and manufacture are involved. It is estimated that approximately $50,000 is brought into the town and the territory about it each year, of which by far the greater amount is paid out in the town of Black Rock itself. What does the future hold for this place? Reliable information shows that while a few years ago a sheller could take 1,200 pounds or more per day from the Black River at Black Rock, the daily catches now run from 100 to 200 pounds. Although shells are bringing about $20 per ton, there is scarcely a daily wage to be made, and as a consequence the shell fishery immediately about Black Rock is almost negligible. The shelling is now prosecuted principally above Black Rock, in the upper waters and tributaries of the Black River, as about Pocahontas and elsewhere. The process of depletion is unchecked and the condition is clearly such as to awaken the enlightened sentiment of the community and the State at large to support measures that will insure permanent life and prosperity to the industry. Here is a business that yields a relatively fixed return in comparison with agricultural industries, which are so generally affected, favorably or unfavorably, by the vicissitudes of weather conditions. It is of much more immediate concern to the community at large than it is to the purchasers of shells or to the shellers themselves that the resources of a particular region should be conserved. It is a comparatively simple matter for the manufacturer to strip his plant and to remove his machinery to another locality with undepleted resources; it is an easy thing for the sheller, with his scant equipment in a house boat, to float down the river, looking to find another temporary home where his labors may be more profitable. It is the interest of the community that is threatened. The loss of a substantial industry affects the profits and the welfare of innumerable persons who may have known little of their indirect interest in a business in which they did not immediately participate. The communities most immediately affected are those of the river towns which, as a general rule, are too limited in their sources of fixed income. From the standpoint of community economy, an unfortunate feature of the mussel fishery, as it has been pursued up to this time, has been its nomadic character. The policy everywhere has been to clean up the beds of a locality, or of a stream as a whole, and then to move to new regions. Temporary cutting plants, or "factories," have frequently been established in the vicinity of active shelling, to move subsequently as the local fishery passed away. Only the larger and more firmly established branch plants of the principal factories have maintained a fixed location. It will be brought out later in this report that it does not appear possible to insure the best condition of the mussel beds, except by some plan of rotation; but it would be desirable and favorable to the interest of all for the mussel fishery to be a permanent and dependable feature of the industrial life of the broader communities, if not of particular restricted localities. The perpetuation of the mussel resources may well receive the best consideration of every State concerned and of the National Government as well. It affects the welfare of thousands of shellers, of hundreds of river towns over the broad Mississippi-Missouri Basin, of manufacturers and laborers, east and west, and, it might be said, of every user of pearl buttons, which comprises practically the entire population of the country. The Government and the States can accomplish the desired object by two principal means--artificial propagation and legislative protection. It is the province of the present paper to deal primarily with the subject of protective measures, but it will be advisable to give first an abbreviated account of the conditions and possibilities of artificial propagation, especially as the results of propagation will be greater or less according to the degree of protection extended to the young mussels. ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF MUSSELS BY THE GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHMENT OF PROPAGATION. The Bureau of Fisheries has always maintained an active interest in the development of the fresh-water mussel fishery of America, which, in its importance and breadth of territory, is entirely unique in the world. As early as 1897 and 1898, the shell fishery being then only 4 or 5 years old, the Fish Commission undertook investigations relating to the various phases of the industry, and several reports were published dealing with the natural history of mussels, the shell and pearl fisheries, and the button industry. In a general report on the subject Dr. Hugh M. Smith then recommended measures for the protection of mussels. No action followed, and in consequence the scene of the most important fisheries has greatly shifted since that time. Some years later there began a special investigation of the reproduction of mussels, which resulted in the methods of artificial propagation as developed by Prof. Lefevre and Prof. Curtis, of the University of Missouri, in association with the Bureau. The Government then established the Fairport Biological Station to engage in the propagation of mussels and the studies of mussel problems, besides exercising wider activities in fishery investigations. For a number of years field investigations relating to the distribution, habits, and conditions of life of the mussels have been prosecuted by the staff and associates of the Bureau throughout the Mississippi Basin. For the first two years at the Fairport station mussel propagation was carried on in an experimental way, but beginning with 1912 the practical operations have been conducted upon as large a scale and over as wide a territory as the available resources permitted. During the past two years mussels have been propagated chiefly in the Mississippi River from Lake Pepin, in Minnesota, to New Boston, Ill.; in the Wabash River in Indiana, and in the White and Black Rivers of Arkansas. During the year ended June 30, 1913, about 150,000,000 glochidia, or young mussels, were put out, and in the first half of the present fiscal year that number is fully equaled. Such figures appear large. It is not difficult by the methods of propagation to handle considerable numbers of glochidia; indeed, it is necessary to work on an ample scale, for in mussel propagation, as in most forms of fish culture, what we can now do is to aid the young over the most critical period in their life history, after which they must be left to continue the struggle for existence by their own efforts. We therefore plan to work in such a way that, even with the liberal discount that nature will surely apply to our returns, there may be left a real measure of benefit gained without undue cost. Many of the young will be lost from falling upon unsuitable bottoms and from many other unfavorable conditions, such as confront every young mussel in nature with more or less frequency. We would like to remove all of the unfortunate conditions productive of loss, both to the mussels that we put out and to those that are propagated entirely by natural means; but this, of course, is not possible. There are, however, artificial conditions which do injury to the younger mussels, and it is both desirable and practicable to prevent such damage as far as can be done reasonably. RESULTS DEPENDENT UPON PROTECTION. In the regular fishery for mussels the beds are continually dragged over with rakes, tongs, crowfoot hooks, or dredges. It is inevitable that the young mussels will suffer to some extent from this process. It is quite unnecessary, however, for the "infant" mussels, many of them too small for any use at all and many more too small for any economical or proper use in manufacture, to be entirely removed from the beds. Mussels are thus uselessly destroyed that might be left to grow to a size at which they would be both commercially valuable and properly usable; meantime, too, they might take their natural part in the reproduction of the species. Furthermore, it would be desirable to leave portions of the rivers entirely undisturbed by the operations of shelling during periods of some years. This would accomplish a double object--it would leave the best conditions for the natural reproduction of the remnant of the old stock and for the growth of the young mussels and at the same time it would create a series of reserves in which artificial propagation could be carried on with the best conditions for maximum results. In such closed regions the young mussels would have to contend against only the normal unfavorable conditions which all mussels have ever had to withstand, without an added toll of destruction being taken by the direct and indirect effect of the operations of men. The simple "closing" of a depleted region, if the exhaustion has not proceeded too far, may be expected to lead to sure betterment, and even in time, if the closure were for a very long period, to a restoration of the former condition when mussels were so richly abundant. It will be advisable, however, to supplement natural processes by the methods of artificial propagation in order that the replenishment may be hastened and a greater result gained in a shorter time. We have to contemplate that the beds that may be closed will have to be reopened after a definite period, for the fishermen can not afford to work indefinitely on restricted and depleted areas, and the supply of available shells must be maintained. A proper solution as fair as possible to all will be found in a plan of rotation which will give rest periods to the different portions of a river in succession. Let this measure be supplemented as far as may be by Government or State propagation of mussels in the resting regions. It is apparent that artificial propagation and protection are intimately related. Restrictive measures alone will yield benefits, but these will be greater if the protection is followed up by well-directed propagation. Artificial propagation pursued independently may be expected to bring results, but the advantages will be considerably diminished if no steps are taken to lessen the unnecessary destruction of the young mussels thus given a start upon life. PROTECTION. ESSENTIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR EFFECTIVE LEGISLATION. Although at least 20 States participate directly in the mussel fishery for the shell trade, only 2 or 3 of these have taken any action of any kind for the protection of the resources. In some others measures have been proposed at various times, but without receiving favorable consideration by the legislative bodies. Indeed, it is probably well that this is the case, in view of the fact that there has been no general presentation of the case from all sides to aid in a just consideration of the matter. The Bureau is prompted to make this report in the hope that suggestions based upon a long-continued investigation of the shelling industry in all its phases may be of material aid to the responsible bodies concerned in the determination of how best to perpetuate the mussel resources, giving due regard to the local conditions involved. Any legislation to be most effective must fulfill certain general conditions. It must be based upon just consideration of the welfare of all classes legitimately interested in the business, including shellers, buyers, manufacturers, and the public generally. This is important, not only because fairness demands it but because it is manifestly impracticable to enforce a law which is framed in disregard of economic requirements. A law that makes possible the creation of a monopoly, or one that drives the buyers and manufacturers from the territory, or that sacrifices the good of the industry to revenue production to the State, would be so manifestly unsound that further comment seems unnecessary. Nevertheless, the element of sacrifice can not be entirely eliminated. In this case, as in others, ultimate benefits can scarcely be obtained without some temporary sacrifice, although it should be aimed to make the immediate loss felt as little as possible. It is the unwillingness of individuals to make voluntary sacrifices, independently, for the good of the mussel beds that makes legislation of any kind necessary. There is a demand for legislative action only because, in the end, the welfare of all parties concerned is dependent upon the promotion of abundant growth of mussels. Finally an eminently desirable feature of any legislation is that it shall be so simple, plain, and undebatable as to minimize the difficulty of enforcement. Coupled with this there must be not only an effective penalty but machinery of enforcement that will work simply and certainly. The measures to be proposed will be considered in the light of these requirements, together with the basic conditions offered by the natural history and the conditions of life and reproduction of the mussels. EXAMINATION OF PROTECTIVE MEASURES. TWO MEASURES FOR IMMEDIATE APPLICATION. As appears from the remarks hitherto made, the restrictions which are immediately required for the preservation of the shell resources are-- (1) The imposition of size limits for the protection of young mussels. (2) The adoption of a plan of rotation of closed regions, whereby the mussel beds may be given the best opportunity for propagation and growth. We do not at this time advocate any other limitations, and it will be attempted to show that these are so simple to apply and so promising of effectual conservation that it is strongly advisable not to complicate the situation by a needless multiplicity of restrictions. These two measures will be fully discussed in subsequent sections of the paper. MEASURES NOT SUITED TO EXISTING CONDITIONS. Two other measures that have been more or less frequently proposed are the provision of a closed season during certain months and the restriction of the methods of taking mussels. While it is the purpose of the present paper to discuss more especially the positive suggestions that are offered, it is not out of place to give briefly some of the reasons for exclusion of measures which may have been suggested by friends of the industry with sincerity of purpose and which are not upon their face devoid of merit. Always let it have the first place in our minds that the one object in view is not to hamper but to develop the mussel fishery. _Closed season of months._--The aim in establishing a closed season for the mussel fishery during a portion of the year is either to protect the mussels from disturbance during a breeding season or else to diminish the extent of the fishery by limiting its duration. It might be very proper to protect the mussels during the active breeding season, if such a season could be defined; but, as a matter of fact, the various species of mussels in any particular stream have different seasons of breeding. The mussel industry is based upon a considerable number of species of economic mussels. There is a group which has a short breeding term during the summer months. Such are the species known commercially as "niggerhead," "pimple-back," "monkey-face," "maple-leaf," "blue-point," "three-ridge," etc. The "washboard" seems to have an intermediate breeding term during the early fall, though it may be that in some cases it carries its spawn into the winter. Many of the more important species of mussels have a long term of breeding; in the latter part of the summer and in the early fall the eggs are deposited into brood pouches within the shell of the female, and there, after they hatch and develop, they are carried over the winter, to be liberated in the spring and early summer.[A] Of this kind are the "mucket," "sand-shell," "pocketbook," "butterfly," and others. [A] Possibly these mussels liberate glochidia to a limited extent during the fall and winter; but the general statement is well founded. In view of the variety of commercial mussel species and the diversity of breeding seasons, it does not appear practicable to determine upon a closed season that will accomplish its particular purpose. The Illinois law prohibits the taking of mussels in any navigable water in that State between the 1st day of October and the 1st day of April; but, as illustrating how such a measure may apply in a particular case, practically all of the mussels in the principal river of that State--the Illinois River--are short term or summer breeders, spawning some in June, July, and August, others in October and about that time. Only a few carry the spawn, after its development, through the winter. The principal objection to an enforced interruption of the fishery during a period of months is that it deprives the mussel fishermen of the right to earn a living by their profession during a portion of each year. This objection has real weight, and should be overborne only by decided advantages to be gained from a closed season. _Restricting the methods of fishery._--The principal implements for taking mussels are the crowfoot bar, the rake, the fork, the tongs or scissors fork, the dip net, and the dredge. These several pieces of apparatus are variously adapted to conditions of depth, rate of current, and character of bottom, as well as to the aptitudes and customs of the fishermen. Before a method should be prohibited it should be known that it can be replaced by one of the more suitable methods, or else that it is so positively injurious as to require its elimination. The only implement of capture against which complaints are generally made is the crowfoot hook, but this is the only method in general use which is adapted for taking mussels in the deeper water, and it is probably in more common use than any other method. Perhaps in time improvements upon this hook will be adopted to lessen its injuriousness, or other methods capable of replacing it will be better known. In the light of present conditions it would work an unnecessary hardship upon a very large number of fishermen to prevent its use, especially when it appears that the protection of the mussels can be accomplished by methods more equitable to all concerned. Still other measures have sometimes been advanced looking to the limitation of the number of shellers to be permitted to work within a given territory or to the leasing of shelling rights. Since such proposals have not yet been offered in connection with any properly worked-out plan by which serious injustice would be avoided and the interest of the public safeguarded they may be dismissed with the remark that it is not simply the protection of mussels that is desired but the protection of the mussels for human use without interference with common human rights. The absence of inherent wrong in an idea does not commend it if it carries within itself the seeds of its own defeat by a method of application, or a want of method, that allows opportunity for manifestly unjust and intolerable conditions to arise. There remains to deal with the necessity for the two measures that are advocated and to discuss the methods of application. This can be more adequately done in distinct sections. SIZE LIMIT--NECESSITY AND APPLICATION. EXHAUSTIVE NATURE OF THE FISHERY. The necessity for imposing restrictions upon the size of mussels to be removed from the beds is brought out more clearly by the photographs than could be done by any lengthy discussion. All of the shells shown in plates I and II were actually taken for market, sold, and shipped to the factory. The smallest ones (in the three upper rows on plate I) were not wanted at any factory; they were bought only because the fishermen had thrown them into the piles along with the larger shells, "to add weight." Most of the very smallest shells, those under 1 inch in length, are subsequently lost in handling, by falling through the forks or otherwise wasting as they are thrown into the car or from the car to the bin. None of the shells in the three upper rows of plate I would ordinarily be used by any manufacturer. It is true that some of the shells shown have had one blank cut out, and these were actually cut at a commercial plant, but the instance was a very rare one and was certainly unprofitable. Even if the manufacturer desired it, the cutters will not handle shells from which only one blank can be cut, since the waste of time outweighs the saving of material. [Illustration: U. S. B. F.--Doc 793. Plate I. SMALL SHELLS ACTUALLY MARKETED. ALL EXCEPT THOSE OF THE THREE LOWER ROWS SHOULD BE LEFT IN THE RIVERS. [About one-half actual size, which is shown in inches at right of plate.]] [Illustration: U. S. B. F.--Doc 793. Plate II. LARGER SHELLS MARKETED AND ADVANTAGEOUSLY USED. [About one-half actual size, which is shown in inches at left of plate.]] Consequently all shells less than about 1½ inches in length, no matter what the quality, are thrown into the discard. _There can be no difference of opinion as to the pure wastefulness of taking shells of this size._ The shells shown in the illustration are not the smallest that could be found. Some shells observed in the fishermen's boats were only one-half inch in the greatest diameter. Out of the water these are entirely without use. The fisherman who saves them, thinking that they add weight to his heap, would doubtless be surprised to learn that he would have to handle several times and clean 200 of such shells to add 1 cent to his earnings, for it would take nearly half a million of them to make 1 ton. The shells in the fourth and fifth rows, counting from the top in plate II, are used at the factories when received, and are sometimes particularly favored where the quality is as good as in those from many Arkansas rivers, and the shells will yield two or three blanks of 16 to 20 lines. Such blanks are of a suitable thickness and work up economically besides having a good quality. Some of the shells in these two rows show how blanks of 18, 16, and 14 lines are worked out, a "line" in button measure representing the fortieth part of an inch. The use of shells taken between 1½ and 2 inches in greatest diameter does not, therefore, like the marketing of those under 1½ inches, represent absolute waste, but it does denote relative waste or real short-sightedness from the economic point of view. Shells of this size will average about 30,000 pairs to the ton, while mussels of such a practical size as 2½ inches will average only 15,000. The number of blanks obtained from a ton of shells of the latter size would be just the same as from a ton of the smaller shells, notwithstanding that only half as many shells are handled. _We are thus, when using the smaller shells, depleting the mussel beds at twice the necessary rate without any corresponding advantage._ WASTE ILLUSTRATED. There is given below a table that will repay careful examination as illustrating the wastefulness of using the small shells. While the figures must be understood to be only approximate, they are based upon careful weights and counts of a number of shells from several localities. The shells were all "niggerheads" and were all obtained after shipment to factories. The first two columns show the limits of size for each lot used, the greatest diameter being the basis of measurement. The third column shows the approximate number of pairs of shells composing a ton, the unit of purchase; multiplying this number by 2 would give the number of single shells per ton. In the fourth column there is given, in the case of the critical sizes, the number of 18-line blanks readily taken from a single shell (which is one-half the number yielded by a pair of shells, or an individual mussel). The fifth column indicates the number of gross of blanks, by computation, yielded by a ton of shells. This computation is based upon the cutting of 18-line blanks (not the larger 20-line blanks that have been taken from some of the larger shells in the illustration). Some of these shells are cut excessively close to the tips, on account of taking too many larger line blanks. It must be understood that different sized shells are adapted for different lines of buttons. The data herein is for comparative purposes only. TABLE OF SIZES, WEIGHTS, AND BUTTON PRODUCTION FOR NIGGERHEAD SHELLS (APPROXIMATE FIGURES). +-------------------+----------+-----------+-------------+---------------+ | Longest dimension.| Number of| 18-line | Quantity | | +-------------------+ mussels | blanks | of blanks | Refer to | |Greater Less | per ton. | per single| per ton. | illustration. | | than-- than-- | | shell. | | | +-------------------+----------+-----------+-------------+---------------+ | Inches. Inches. | | | Gross. | Plate I-- | | | | | | | | ¾ 1 | 174,000 | | | 1st row. | | 1 1¼ | 110,000 | | | 2nd row. | | 1¼ 1½ | 55,000 | | | 3rd row. | | 1½ 1¾ | 33,000 | 2 | 917 | 4th row. | | 1¾ 2 | 26,000 | 3 | 1,008 | 5th row. | | 2 2¼ | 20,000 | 4 | 1,111 | 6th row. | | 2¼ 2½ | 15,000 | 5 | 1,042 | 7th row. | | 2½ 2¾ | 10,500 | 6 | 875 | 8th row. | | | | | } | { | | 2¾ 3 | 8,500 | [B]7-8 | }Gradually | {Plate II-- | | 3 3½ | 6,200 | [B]10 | }diminishing| {1st row. | | 3½ 4 | 4,000 | [B]12 | }to less | {2nd row. | | 4 | 3,200 | [B]14 | }than | {3rd row. | | | | | }650 per | {4th row. | | | | | }ton. | { | +-------------------+----------+-----------+-------------+---------------+ [B] At the time of making this table only a few of the larger-sized shells were available, so the estimates of blanks are less accurate. It may be seen from the table that a marketable ton of niggerheads could be composed of the shells of 3,200 or of 33,000 mussels, according as the shells were 4 inches in length or only 1½ inches. As a matter of fact, no marketed ton is ever composed of mussels of an exactly uniform size; furthermore, the extremely large niggerhead shells are very rare and generally not very desirable on account of inferior quality and disproportionate waste. A ton of shells from a region of depletion will also include a number of the smallest and not strictly marketable shells. Now, let us take a concrete illustration: Several counts of mussels gathered by shellers in the white River near Clarendon, Ark., were made in October, 1913; from these an average was taken that fairly represents the catches being made at that time in that region. It was found that 60 per cent by number of the shells taken were of a size less than 2 inches in greatest dimension; also that a ton of shells comprised 20,500 pairs, of which 12,300 were less than 2 inches. Now, it is evident that if these smaller shells were returned to the bed we would be depleting the bed less than one-half as fast as at present. This would be the substantial advantage that such a size limit would have to the mussel beds; and any advantage to the mussel beds is an ultimate advantage to the fishermen, manufacturers, and all others in any way dependent upon the perpetuation of the mussels. Under the working of a 2-inch size limit, 60 shells out of every 100 then being taken on the niggerhead beds of that vicinity would have been thrown back. This seems to be asking a good deal, but not so much as at first appears, for the undersized shells constitute only 38 per cent of the weight or selling value of the shells taken. On the other hand, both sheller and manufacturer would be saved the trouble of handling over and over again an unnecessarily large number of shells. A ton of shells (from the same locality) comprising only those above 2 inches in greatest dimension would contain about 13,000 pairs, or 37 per cent less than the number now found in a ton (20,500), while these shells, the smallest ones being eliminated, would produce at least 10 per cent more buttons of corresponding sizes. SIZE LIMIT IN RELATION TO ECONOMY. The figures given above are, of course, based upon counts and computations of shells from a particular locality and must not be assumed to have any general application, but the facts and principles derived do have a universal bearing. If such a size limit as 2 inches is adopted, the saving to the mussel beds and to the future of all interested parties is out of all proportion to the immediate loss to any party; and even the immediate loss is to some extent compensated by the saving resulting from having to do with a lesser number of shells that yield a greater number of buttons per ton. Undeniably some temporary sacrifice is entailed, but unless it be admitted that temporary sacrifice will be accepted, it is useless to consider any manner of restriction for ultimate benefit. There is one point that is brought out in the table on page 14 that merits attention from the broad standpoint of economy. In all shells there is a proportion of unavoidable waste, since the entire weight of the shell can not be transformed into buttons. In very small shells we may expect an undue waste, on account of the fact that only one or two blanks can be cut out, leaving a larger bulk of shell in proportion to the number of blanks gained. On the other hand, in very large shells a high degree of waste is involved because of excessive thickness, which must be ground from the blanks, and because of the extra weight of the discarded portion. Somewhere between these extremes is the size of shell that yields the largest number of blanks as compared with the waste or the weight of shell that does not go into buttons. As shown by the data in the fifth column of the table, the shells a little above 2 inches in size are those (for this species) that make the best yield per ton for the small lines for which there is the greatest general demand. REASONS FOR THE PROPOSED 2-INCH LIMIT. Argument might be made in favor of a higher size limit as being still more favorable to the preservation of the mussels, but it is sufficient to say that the economic conditions would not justify a higher limit. At 2 inches a sufficiently severe restriction is placed upon the fishery, and to go further would be practically to prohibit the pursuit of shelling in so many localities that excessive hardship would be caused. As consideration thus far has been given almost exclusively to the niggerhead shell, the question may well be raised, Will the same limit apply to other species of shells? The minimum size of 2 inches suggested can be taken as an absolute minimum, since there is no species of any importance for which it would be too high. This minimum would not, however, give the same degree of protection to the larger forms, such as the washboard, the bluepoint, and the mucket. Should a minimum size be fixed with particular reference to any one of these varieties, it would necessarily be a good deal higher. In the present paper recommendation is made for this one-size limit alone, for the following reasons: 1. All conditions considered, it is the most appropriate limit that could be designated for the niggerhead mussel, which is at present the most important species of wide distribution, and which is, furthermore, the species most liable to rapid extermination. This and species closely like it, as the pigtoe, the pimple-back, and the maple-leaf, are chiefly those that are now being taken in the very small sizes. 2. The same size applies equally well to the related species just mentioned, as well as to the "hickory-nut," or "Missouri niggerhead," and the "butterfly." 3. The larger species, as the "washboard," "bluepoint," and "mucket," are generally so evidently valueless in the small sizes that shellers do not take them. At least it is not yet of observation that particular injury is being done to these species in this way. 4. To insure the least trouble of enforcement of the law, it is necessary that a minimum size be set, below which no shells of any species may be retained. There are many different species of commercial mussels, and some of them so intergrade as to make exact determination a nice matter in some cases. Distinct size limits for the different species would introduce peculiar difficulties into the practical workings of enforcement; it would be more troublesome to the sheller to observe the law voluntarily, and loopholes for evasion would more easily be found by the offender of wrong intent. Should conditions in certain States or streams subsequently require a higher limit for particular kinds of shells, a supplemental limit may be fixed for designated species; but this could be done without affecting the application of a 2-inch limit as an absolute or universal limit below which no shells of any species could be lawfully taken. It is desirable that few different limits should ever be used, and it seems expedient to have but one size limit until the first legislation shall have been tried out. DETAILS ESSENTIAL TO EFFECTIVE LEGISLATION. In concluding this section emphasis may be laid on the value of certain details of legislation. _Allowable margin of undersized shells._--While it may seem desirable that no undersized shell at any time should be taken away, nevertheless it is necessary to make allowance for a margin of unintentional error. Only if the shellers and buyers were to apply an instrument of measure to each individual shell would all possibility of error be eliminated. The sheller will naturally, after a few measurements, come to judge by the eye, and it is desirable that the law should be somewhat liberal, rather than too stringent in the allowance for mistakes. There should, accordingly, be a supplemental provision that if not more than 5 per cent of the shells by number (not by weight) of any bushel are found to be below the size limit, the law shall not be presumed to be violated. _Illegal possession._--To be practicable of enforcement, the law should be so worded as to make it illegal not only to bring ashore or to offer for sale, but also to have in possession, fresh-water mussels or clams of a size less than 2 inches in greatest dimension. This one provision will obviate much unnecessary expense, as well as undesirable complications in the detection of violations and the prosecution of offenders. Furthermore, since buyers of the shells would be equally liable to prosecution, the effect would be to destroy the market for undersized shells, and thus in the most effective way to restrain the shellers from taking them. _Method of measuring mussels._--It will be noted that the method of measure is stated as "in greatest dimension," with a view to eliminating every possibility of uncertainty or difference of opinion. Mussels are sometimes measured in length or width or height, but on account of the irregular form of mussel shells these dimensions are not always interpreted in the same way. In testing the blank-making capacity of a shell, commercial men sometimes measure the "width on the face"; that is, between the lateral hinge tooth and the lower margin of the shell. This measure can of course only be taken from an open shell, and therefore could not serve for our purpose. It is worth while to call attention to the fact that a 2-inch shell as measured in greatest dimension would be a good deal smaller than a 2-inch shell in commercial measurement. An inspector would need to be equipped with an ordinary rectangular caliper. If a shell should be found to measure more than 2 inches in any linear direction it would be considered as above the size limit. CLOSED REGIONS--NECESSITY AND APPLICATION. In addition to the provision of size limits it is strongly recommended that certain portions of the rivers be closed for rest periods covering several years. It might be thought that in regions of extreme depletion the operation of a size limit would, by making the fishery less profitable, have the effect of causing a practical rest period, but this can not be expected, for, stimulated by the high price of shells and the ever-present hope of making a pearl find, the local shellers will hardly ever desist entirely from the fishery. No better way of giving protection to mussels can be found than that of entirely stopping the shelling upon a series of beds, although the plan must be applied in such a way as not to reduce the supply of mussels unduly and suddenly and with as careful regard as possible to the established interest of communities. INJURY TO SPAWNING MUSSELS AND TO YOUNG. Some of the conditions that make a system of closed regions particularly advisable for the conservation of fresh-water mussels may be briefly mentioned: 1. It has been previously stated that some of the mussels are spawning, or with spawn, during any period of the year. Many of the most important species are spawning during the late spring, early and mid summer; other equally important species form their eggs in the late summer, when they become fertilized and develop into the glochidium stage, but the mother clam retains them in marsupial pouches within her shell during the entire winter and even into the summer. All species of mussels carry the eggs in the marsupial pouches during the process of development to the glochidium stage or longer, whether the period be for a few weeks or for a few months. In this condition the mussels are said to be gravid. It is readily observed that when gravid mussels are disturbed they frequently discharge the young, regardless of whether these are mature enough to be liberated from the parent or not; certain species, such as the niggerhead, are particularly likely to do this. In the commercial fishery, therefore, not only is much spawn destroyed when large gravid mussels are captured, but it is quite probable that other mussels, disturbed on the bottom, though not captured, are caused to abort the young in an immature stage when they are entirely unable to complete the development without the parent. 2. In the stage of existence immediately after liberation from the parent, the young mussels are parasitic upon fish. We are not here concerned with them during this period of the life history. When they are dropped from the fish many of the young mussels do not at once take up life in the sand or mud of the bottom, but we find them forming delicate threads by which they hang from plants or sticks or stones or from clam shells, and thus are kept from being washed away or smothered in the mud of the bottom. We may imagine the harm to these little mussels that is unavoidably wrought when the beds are continually dragged over. In like manner, the little shells that are just beginning to take hold in the bottom may be torn out by the rake or hooks, to be smothered or washed away to less favorable bottoms. It will be remembered that when mussels first begin life in the thread stage or in the bottom if the thread stage is omitted, they are too small to be found without a microscope. 3. One of the principal methods of capturing mussels is with the bar and hooks dragged over a large area of mussel bed in taking a relatively small number of shells. There is chance for these hooks to injure many little shells when each drag, requiring a period of only a few minutes, covers a space of bottom 16 feet wide and several hundred feet long. Nevertheless, it is not certain that there is any method to take its place, and any implement used will accomplish some injury to the very youngest mussels. CONSIDERATIONS DETERMINING SIZE OF CLOSED REGIONS. In planning for the closing of portions of rivers for periods of years consideration should be given to community needs as well as to general economic and biological conditions. On the one hand, the closure will be more effective in result, as well as easier of enforcement, if the regions of closure are made very large; while, on the other hand, making the closed regions smaller might cause less economic inconvenience. If, for example, the entire Illinois River should be closed to mussel fishery for a period of several years, there might be a substantial uncompensated loss to some communities, where there are factories employing labor to cut shells derived from that river. On the other hand, should we divide the river up into small sections of 2 or 3 miles in extent, some of which would be open while others would be closed under the law, it is apparent that such a plan would be almost impossible of enforcement. To prevent shelling from being carried on in all these little, closed areas would require a force of wardens and an expense entirely incommensurate with the object to be gained. It is held advisable to divide a river within a single State into some four or six sections for the purpose of establishing closed regions. One-half--that is, two or three--of these sections, taken in alternation, could be ordered closed for a period of five years, during which no mussel fishing at all should be allowed in the closed sections, although it would be regularly prosecuted in the alternate portions of the stream. It would be convenient to break a river at points where there was a substantial community interest in the shelling. PRACTICABLE DIVISION OF RIVER SYSTEMS ILLUSTRATED. For example, let us apply this method of dividing a stream to the White and Black Rivers in Arkansas. Starting from the head-waters of the Black River, we find the first center of economic interest at Black Rock, another on the White River at Newport, and a third at Clarendon. Now, the river might properly be broken at these points, forming four main sections. The fishery might then be entirely prohibited for several years from the mouth of the river to Clarendon, while permitted from Clarendon to Newport, and again prohibited from Newport northward to Black Rock on the Black River, and to Batesville or other suitable point on the upper White, while permitted from Black Rock and Batesville northward on all the tributaries. We would have the river system divided into four sections, which would be probably as nearly equivalent as could be expected. Furthermore, none of the three towns mentioned would be cut off from the local supply of shells, except in one direction. The shellers, generally speaking, would be little affected, since, with their house boats, they could move from one portion of the river to another. Those shellers who do not use house boats, but are local residents and go out only by day from their homes, would be most affected, and it is these generally who are most in favor of closing portions of a river. They recall how much more easily shells were taken in past times when the shells were abundant, and they would be willing to do something else meantime in order that the beds may be given a rest and the shells again become numerous. Shelling has no attraction over any other form of crude labor when the shells are so scarce that a wage can scarcely be made. Taking the St. Francis River in Arkansas as another illustration, the river might be broken at Madison, Parkin, and Marked Tree. It is true that there are not many mussels, according to report, above Marked Tree, but the region between Madison and Parkin has beds which may well balance the remainder of the river. The Wabash River, Ind., is one in which the need for protection is most evident; and this stream could be divided at Vincennes and two other points selected with reference to their economic interest in shelling and with regard to an equitable division of the river system. It might seem that an ideal method of rotation would be based upon the division of a system into six portions, only one of which should be worked in any one year; a new portion would be opened each year, while each territory would enjoy a rest period of five years between successive "open" years for that particular territory. It will be evident that such a scheme, however correct in theory, would be entirely impracticable. The plan of keeping certain regions closed for periods of years while other regions are worked continuously during a corresponding period of years may have some imperfections, but it is probably the best that can be worked out without practically suspending the industry. Undoubtedly the plan will work most efficiently if a proper discretion is used in its application. PROCEDURE FOR ESTABLISHING CLOSED REGIONS. The law should plainly stipulate and establish the principle of the closure of the rivers by regions or sections, but the determination of which specific sections are to be closed should be left for determination after investigation by properly qualified authorities. A comparatively simple plan may be suggested under which the most careful consideration could be given to the local conditions involved as well as to the rights of the State as a whole. The legislature could authorize and instruct the proper State authorities, as the State fish commission, to give due consideration and study to the needs of the mussel industry and determine what portions of the streams of the State should be closed to the mussel fishery for a period of years. It could be further provided that, after the preliminary determination of plans for closure, due advertisement should be made in all regions affected and opportunity given for public hearings in such regions, after which the commission should submit its final recommendations to the governor of the State, who should then issue a proclamation ordering the entire interruption of a mussel fishery in the regions selected for closure. The original legislative act should provide that the proclamation so made should have the full effect of law, and should specify the penalties that would be incurred by violations. It is desirable also that the governor, upon recommendation of the commission, should have power to reopen the closed regions when such action was judged necessary. ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW. _Powers of officers._--It is necessary not only that the duty of enforcement of the law be assigned to specified State officers, but also that they be expressly given the right to inspect and examine mussels or shells in the boats or on land and be empowered to seize mussels or shells held in violation of the law. It is practically impossible to bring about convictions when the opportunity is allowed for destruction of the evidence between the time of detection and the date of trial. _Permits for special cases._--In cases where for the purposes of investigations it may be necessary to take small mussels, the State officers charged with the enforcement of the law should have by law the right to issue special permits for the taking of undersized mussels for scientific uses and not for sale. _Expenses of mussel protection._--The plans which have been advanced in this report can be carried out with a minimum of expense. The simplicity of the measures would reduce the trouble and cost of inspection to the smallest practicable figure. The assignment of the duties of enforcement to existing State commissions or boards which already have field deputies or wardens obviates the creation of any special offices for execution of the mussel laws. The question of whether steps should be taken to raise special funds on account of the additional burdens that would be placed upon the present boards is one that would be determined by each State in the light of its own conditions and established customs. It would be very undesirable to create a burdensome tax; to do so would only react against the State, and in the end the tax would be paid by the shellers, who are now making only a meager living, for the local shellers would have to sell in competition with the shellers from States where more liberal conditions prevail. It is another matter, however, to require a nominal license fee for the privilege of working upon the public mussel beds. Such a fee need not be greater than $1 or $2 per season, an amount which could be paid by anyone who wished to shell seriously. Perhaps the idea of a fee of any kind would arouse some antagonism among a certain class of shellers who would enjoy the public stores without return of any kind. Some shellers favor such a license system, and the writer believes that they must all eventually come to see that it works to their own particular advantage in many ways. It tends to create a class of professional shellers, besides providing the necessary means for promoting the abundance of shells. SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDED LEGISLATION. The legislation recommended for protection of mussel beds, based upon the considerations discussed in the preceding pages, may be summarized as follows: I. (_a_) A single size limit should be fixed as applicable to all shells taken. The minimum size here proposed is 2 inches. (_b_) The method of measuring the shell should be defined as "in greatest dimension." (_c_) Possession of undersized shells, whether or not sold or offered for sale, should be illegal. (_d_) There should be an allowable margin of undersized shells for unintentional violation. II. (_a_) Alternate portions of rivers or river systems should be closed for a period of years, to permit recuperation of mussel beds. (_b_) The units of division of a river system should be large enough to make enforcement practicable with least expense. (_c_) The river would conveniently be broken at the few points where there is most community interest involved in the shelling. (_d_) Approximately five-year periods of closure are recommended, with some discretion allowed to executive officers as to duration of period. (_e_) Closed regions should be established by proclamation of the governor of the State, after expert examination of the mussel beds and after public hearings on the subject in the communities affected. III. (_a_) Officers charged with enforcement of the law should be empowered to examine mussels or shells in boats or on land and to seize the catch in case of violation, as well as to arrest or cause arrests to be made. (_b_) Provision should be made for the issue of permits for the taking of mussels of any size or in any region for scientific uses and not for sale. 
35752	----	ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL. LONDON: PRINTED BY GEO. NICHOLS, EARL'S COURT, LEICESTER SQUARE. [Illustration: FLY FISHING] PATRONISED BY H.R.H. PRINCE ALBERT. [Illustration] BLACKER'S, ART OF FLY MAKING, &c., COMPRISING ANGLING, & DYEING OF COLOURS, WITH ENGRAVINGS OF SALMON & TROUT FLIES SHEWING THE PROCESS OF THE GENTLE CRAFT AS TAUGHT IN THE PAGES. * * * * * WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF FLIES FOR THE SEASON OF THE YEAR AS THEY COME OUT ON THE WATER. REWRITTEN & REVISED BY THE AUTHOR BLACKER, HIMSELF, FISHING TACKLE MAKER OF 54, DEAN ST, SOHO, LONDON. 1855. CONTENTS. Page. Preface v The Art of Fly Making 1 An Easy Method to make the Trout Fly 3 An Easy Method of making a Plain Salmon Fly 8 To make the Trout Fly, in the best and most approved method 13 To make the Palmer, or Double-Hackle Fly 20 How to make the Salmon Fly, as shown in the Beautiful Plate of Engravings on Salmon Hooks 23 Process of making the Gaudy Salmon Fly 30 To make the Winged Larva 42 A Catechism of Fly-Making 46 The Trout Flies for the Season 55 Flies for March 57 Flies for April 60 Flies for May 64 Flies for June 69 Flies for July 72 Flies for August 76 Fishing Rods and Fly Fishing 80 Fly Fishing for Salmon 88 An Account of the Salmon, and its Varieties 96 The Salmon Fry 100 A Description of the Fifteen Salmon Flies Engraved in the Plates 104 Spring Flies 117 Salmon Rivers 120 The River Tweed 121 The River Shannon 123 The Lakes of Clare 124 The Lakes of Killarney 126 Lough Curran, Waterville 133 Connamara and Ballynahinch 138 Ballyna 142 Ballyshannon 145 The Rivers Bush and Bann 149 The River Bann 156 Lakes of Westmeath 163 The River Lee, at Cork 169 Salmon Rivers in Scotland 170 The River Tay 171 The Dee and Don 176 The River Spey 177 The Findhorn 179 Rivers and Lakes adjacent to Fort William, on the Caledonian Canal 180 Salmon Flies for Fort William, &c. 186 Salmon Flies for the Ness 187 The River Shin 189 The River Thurso 191 The River Esk 194 Loch Leven 195 The River Allan 196 Loch Awe and River 200 The Rivers Irvine, Girvan, and Stincher, in Ayrshire 203 Rivers of Wales.--The Conway 205 The River Dovey 205 The River Tivey 206 The Wye, Monmouth 207 The River Severn 208 The Trent 209 Rivers of York and Derby 210 The Hodder 211 Rivers of Derby 211 The Rivers Wandle and Coln 212 Bait Fishing.--The River Thames 216 Perch 218 Barbel 219 Pike 221 Roach 224 Dace 226 Carp 226 Chub 227 Gudgeons and Minnows 228 Baits 229 The Art of Dyeing Fishing Colours 232 To Dye Yellow 234 To Dye Brown 236 To Dye a Yellow-Brown 237 To Dye Blue 238 To Dye Red 239 To Dye Orange 240 To Dye Purple or Violet 241 To Dye Crimson 241 To Dye Scarlet. 242 Crimson Red in Grain 243 To Dye Green Drake Feathers and Fur 243 To Dye Claret 244 Another way to Dye Claret 245 To Dye Black 246 To Dye Greens of various Shades 246 To Dye Lavender or Slate Dun, &c. 247 Blues 248 A Silver Grey 248 A Coffee or Chesnut 249 To Dye Olives and a Mixture of Colours 249 A Concise way of Dyeing Colours 250 The Materials necessary for Artificial Fly Making 256 PREFACE. I know not how to apologise for submitting a Second Edition of this little Book to the notice of the Angling few, after the appearance of so many by clever writers, except the many calls I had for it, and a sincere desire of improving farther upon a craft that has not hitherto been clearly promulgated by a real practitioner; consequently my great object is to benefit and amuse my readers, by giving them something practical, which at the present time may be particularly wanted by those who love to make their own flies, whose wants, without doubt, will be found sufficiently supplied in this book; the tyro will appreciate it as valuable to him, and the senior angler who may, perchance, be in possession of it, and who may be singularly fond of making his flies, and amusing himself dyeing the hackles and colours, &c., will, I am persuaded, consider it a treasure. My endeavours have been unceasing for many years past, in striving to please the great Salmon Fishers and Trout Fishers of this Country, and I must confess that my labours have not been in vain; they have generously conferred upon me their very kind patronage and good will, benefits for which I hold them in very great estimation. Under these circumstances, I have taken much pains to write the book in a befitting manner to suit their tastes and purposes, although my inability in many instances has been an obstacle, nevertheless with all my faults I claim the title of Fisherman, an humble and unimportuned name which no reasonable dispensation can deprive me of. From my boyhood, I took great delight in ranging along the banks of the beautiful and romantic streams of my native land, Ireland; and having also been for many years a skilful Fly Fisher of no little commendation, in both Great Britain and Hibernia, it is my desire to impart to the world, plainly and easily, the knowledge I have acquired, that all those who wish to become masters of the art, may, by patience and practice, and a close adherence to the instructions I shall lay down, derive the fullest benefit from my experience. I have endeavoured in the following treatise on Fly-making, to divest the subject, as far as possible, of all technicalities and superfluities; at the same time, I have entered into such full details in the construction of the Fly, that by adopting the process I have pointed out, and following the instructions I have given, the aspirants to the art of Fly-making may speedily become proficients. In this little book there will be found nothing imaginary, but it is purely written from the practice of angling, so that I may without scruple, justly entitle it THE ART OF FLY-MAKING, ANGLING, AND DYEING OF COLOURS. It is also interspersed with many useful remarks that will no doubt agreeably entertain my readers. No man has taken such pains to improve upon the angler's craft as I; on every article in the whole range of fishing tackle I have made some improvement on rods, flies, lines, reels, and tackle of every sort; and in these pages have left a lasting memorial of my handicraft to the fly-fisher, from whom I have hidden nothing that might retard him in his progress, and who will appreciate it for the great deal of matter propounded in little compass to prevent incumbrance; that the lovers of fly fishing, which has superior claims, may have an opportunity of keeping it in their side pocket,--to be convenient and handy when on their piscatory excursions, the exercise and variety of which will be found advantageous to the health, and the calming of the mind--things not to be purchased; enjoying at the same time the harmonious notes of the warblers of the grove, and musing upon the diversity of the prospects around, while straying along the beautiful streams and vallies of this delightful country. The list of flies I have given, will be found very valuable, and the tyro will take great delight in imitating these flies necessary for use, and suiting the colours exactly to each, keeping to their symmetrical forms as they appear with his light materials. This beautiful branch of fly-making, peculiarly my own, cannot fail to perfect the angler who is scientific and ingenious, the result of which will be never-failing success. I have added to the art of fly-making full instructions, and the most approved receipts for dyeing mohair, pighair, feathers, and other materials most useful and appropriate for imitating the natural flies and stuffs the most killing for Trout and Salmon; and which will retain their brilliancy through all the vicissitudes to which they may be exposed. To bring the Engravings of the flies to the greatest perfection, I have stood at the elbow of the artist who executed this part of the work, that they might be turned out exact to my own models, which renders them and the descriptions more intelligible, as the shade in the fibre of each feather is shown in the plate, in the clearest and finest manner imaginable, that it may be properly seen how these artificial flies are constructed,--the resemblance of those beautiful ones, the productions of the Great Author of Nature, that Trout and Salmon do love to feed upon. I have also given the principal rivers of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, with the flies best adapted to each, which will enable the fisher to have all things in readiness on his arrival at their localities, and sally out on the finny tribe fearless of disappointment; and for the younger branch of anglers, I have shown the various sorts of fish, with the tackle and baits best adapted to catch them. The catechism of fly making which I have introduced will be found very curious and instructive to the young beginner, and will afford him every opportunity of retaining the whole process, that when rehearsed in the mind, and perfectly understood, he may apply, with more certain facility, the hand to both material and hook. PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, WILLIAM BLACKER, _At 54, Dean Street, Soho, 1855._ [Illustration] List of Plates. Plate Page 1. Blacker Fly-fishing Frontispiece. 2. Titlepage. 3. An easy method to make the Trout-fly _opposite_ 3 4. An easy method of making a Salmon-fly 8 5. The best method of making a Trout-fly 13 6. To make the Palmer's _to face_ 20 7. How to make the Salmon-fly 23 8. Process of making the Gaudy Salmon-fly _opposite_ 30 9. The plate of Feathers _to face_ 34 10. To make the Winged Larva 42 11. Plate of Six Flies Catechism 46 12. Plate of 15 Trout-flies _opposite flies for March_ 57 13. Plate of 16 Flies _opposite_ 65 14. Plate of Larvas and Green Drakes _opposite_ 78 15. Plate of Gaudy Flies, Nos. 1, 2, 3, _opposite_ 105 16. Plate of three Salmon-flies, Nos. 4, 5, 6, _opposite_ 108 17. Plate of four Flies, Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10 110 18. Large Spring Salmon-fly 116 19. Plate of 7 Flies and Salmon _to face_ 145 20. Plate of Minnow tackle, &c. _to face_ 216 21. Plate of Pike tackle, &c. 221 22. Paternoster and Barbel tackle 230 [Illustration] _An Extract of a Review of William Blacker's Art of Fly Making, &c. &c. &c., taken from "Bell's Life in London," April 8th, 1855._ "THE ART OF FLY MAKING, ANGLING & DYEING OF COLOURS. BY W. BLACKER,--Mr. Blacker has been a celebrated trout and salmon angler from early boyhood, and he is known to be the best maker of trout and salmon flies alive. We have never seen such flies as his, for naturalness of shape, appropriateness of colour and for beauty and solidity of finish. In making flies he has "caught a grace beyond the reach of art," and this he exhibits in the _Sanspareil_ work before us. It contains no fewer than seventeen engravings on steel and copper, of trout and salmon flies, in every stage of fabrication, from the whipping of hook and gut together to the finishing of the head. These engravings, every plate crowded with figures, are executed after his own models and under his own _Surveillance_, and carefully and beautifully coloured, he standing, as he says, "by the artist's elbow." They contain coloured representations of hackles, wing-feathers, fur, silk, tinsel, in their natural state, and prepared for forming the artificial insect. His profusely illustrated instructions for making salmon-flies are entirely original there being nothing at all like them in any work extant, and he must be a dull scholar indeed, who shall not, after brief study of them, become his own salmon fly dresser. Mr. Blacker withholds no secret and spares no pains in developing by the aid of pen and pencil his own method, and we consider it the best, of making artificial flies for every variety of trout and salmon. He gives numerous, well-tried recipes for dying feathers and all other materials, the colours necessary for the successful operations of the fly-maker. He points out how rods are best made, the best sort of winches, lines and hooks, and proves himself a safe guide to the purchaser. He teaches how the rod, and line and flies, are to be used--the art of casting with them, how a river is to be fished, and how a fish, whether trout or salmon, is to be struck, hooked and landed. He describes the best trout and salmon rivers in the empire, the right season for fishing them, and gives an illustrated list of the flies, stating the materials of what they are to be made, that kill best on them. On flies, favourites of his from experience, he dwells with pleased and pleasing minuteness, and for the first time discloses how the "winged larva," a deadly invention of his own, is to be constructed. Never, was a book more honestly and conscientiously written. It glows with deep-felt enthusiasm for his art, and with a generous desire of revealing everything that pertains to the perfect acquisition of it in all its branches. It is a work of great labour and long pains-taking, unique at all points, and no one could have written it but a practical angler of long, passionate, and devoted experience in the capture of salmon and salmonidæ, and of _ne plus ultra_ perfection in the art of making artificial flies, and concomitant fishing tackle. The work is published by himself, at 54, Dean Street, Soho, and we recommend it more earnestly than we have ever done any other work of the sort." * * * * * _An Extract from "Bell's Life," April 29th, 1855._ "I shall copy a few of Mr. Blacker's patterns as given in his recently-published and very valuable work, entitled _Art of Fly Making, &c._ He is by far the best flymaker I have ever known, and his opinions on flies and fly-fishing deserve the attention of us all. In the book just named he says of the Yellow Sally:--"This is the forerunner of the green drake or May-fly. The trout take this little fly freely if made after this description:-- "Body, buff-coloured fur and a small yellow hackle for legs round the head; wings of the buff-coloured feather inside the wing of the thrush. Hook, 13." "Several ways of imitating the May-fly. First, Blacker's, as given in his Art of Fly Making:--The body of this beautiful fly is made of yellow green mohair, the colour of a gosling newly hatched, and ribbed with yellow-brown silk, a shade of light brown mohair at the tail, and a tuft of the same at the shoulder, picked out between the hackle, the whisks of the tail three black hairs, three-quarters of an inch long; the hackle to be dyed a greenish buff (dye, according to my recipe, a silver dun hackle with bars across it, called a cuckoo,) or a light ginger hackle bordering on yellow. The wings, which should be made full, and to stand upright, are made of mallard's feathers dyed of a greenish buff, or yellowish shade; a brown head of peacock harl tied neatly above the wings on a No. 6 hook. The wings may be made of the tops of two large dyed mallard's feathers, with fibres stripped off at the butts of the stems, tied back to back. These feathers stand up well and appear very naturally in the water. Large-sized ones kill well in lakes, with bright yellow mohair bodies ribbed with gold twist. "Second way, from A Handbook of Angling.--Body, bright yellow mohair, or floss silk, ribbed sparingly with light bronze peacock harl; wings, mottled feather of the mallard dyed a pale yellow green. They are to stand nearly erect, and to be slightly divided. Legs, a couple of turns of a red-ginger hackle; tail, three hairs from the rabbit's whisker. Hook, 5, 6, and 7.--Another way: Body, yellow-brown mohair; wings, mallard's feather dyed yellow, and black head; legs, yellowish hackle; tail and hooks as before. During the season of the May-fly, should the weather be gloomy, with a strong warm wind, I would angle with three flies on the casting-line of different sizes, and of colours slightly differing, buff, yellow, and yellow-green, and one of them made buzz. The largest fly should be used as the stretcher; the smallest the upper bob." _An Extract from "Bell's Life," April 1st, 1855 "The Ondine" in the Book of the Salmon, by "Ephemera,"_ "Gold tip; tail, small, brilliant topping, light blue tag; body, blue peacock harl, closely ribbed with fine gold twist; two joints of green trogan feather, and one of red orange hackle under the wings, and over their butts blue jay; wings, a careful mixture of fibres of bustard, silver pheasant, yellow and blue macaw teal, guinea-hen and golden pheasant tail and neck-feathers, surmounted by a topping; feelers, blue and yellow macaw, and bright peacock harl, head. Hook, No. 7 and 8. This waterwitch, sculptured originally by Blacker, is properly called "Ondine." The first time I saw it I nearly lost my senses, and was upon the point of becoming its victim. "The May-fly and Phelim Rhu are best made by Blacker, of Dean Street, Soho; Phelim is one of his many good inventions. Dressed on the smallest sized grilse hook, it will on dark days and evenings, and in full water kill sea trout and large common trout in every locality. See a celebrated claret fly plate No. 4, page 108." * * * * * _Prince Albert's Letter to the Author, enclosing_ £10. Nearly eleven years have rolled by, since I sent a copy of the first edition of this work to His Royal Highness Prince Albert, who conferred upon me much honor by a favourable reply to it, at that time I took great pains to illustrate it with specimens of the most costly and beautifully executed salmon and trout flies imaginable, many of which were worth a guinea a piece. In this new edition for 1855 I have given numerous copperplates of these excellent killing flies superbly painted to suit the rivers of Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales; such choice specimens are they that I think salmon and trout will not refuse them in any river in Britain, they are models of gracefulness, and will prove very attractive to the finny tribe, they are all general favourite flies of mine, and of the great salmon and trout fly fishers of the present day. The angler should never fail to try them wherever he roamed in rivers known or unknown to him, and succesful experience has given me an opportunity of recommending them with the greatest confidence, they have killed fish when they have been half gnawed away, and as a fisherman I look upon them with admiration although they are the work of my own fingers, I think I will not say amiss if I predestinate that the real enthusiastic fly fishers, nine out of ten, will be in love with them. THE LETTER. "Buckingham Palace, May 7th, 1844. "Mr. Anson is commanded by His Royal Highness Prince Albert to enclose Mr. Blacker a cheque for ten pounds for the Work on Angling which accompanied his letter, the receipt of which he will have the goodness to acknowledge." THE ART OF FLY-MAKING, ETC., ETC., BY WILLIAM BLACKER. To give something that will convey a durable and correct idea of Fly-making, Angling, and Dyeing of Colours to my pupils, is what I aim at, and desire they should understand: for when they are inhaling the fresh breezes on the river's bank, observing with delight the varied tints and delicate forms of the winged insects skimming the surface, and the sportive trout, pitching over and over, taking them down, this is the time, no doubt, when far from the din of a busy town they will thank me for my trouble in directing their attention to the proper shades, which is the most essential of all things in the Art to be considered. The amusement and pleasing recollections of the Fly-fisher, (when studying the various colours and materials necessary for the formation of the artificial fly--those fanciful ones which salmon take so freely, and the imitating, if possible, by the aid of these materials, those beautiful ones in Nature), will be infinitely more pleasing than can be well comprehended by a careless observer of the craft. Many a pleasant hour may be spent, that otherwise would prove tedious, when confined to quarters of an unfavourable day, far from home, looking over your dubbing book and tying a fly. It gives relief to the uneasy mind by calming the disorders that disappointments may have caused, and by cheering the hearts of those who pursue it as a relaxation and enjoyment. The recommendations on Angling are without number, and there is nothing can delight the heart of the fly-fisher so much as to see the fish rise at the flies on the surface of the water, and their beautiful appearance when landed on the bank; this, with the varied scenery which the windings of the river presents to the imagination, as you roam along, are inducements that cannot fail to gratify the admirer of sportive fish and rushing streams. [Illustration: AN EASY METHOD TO MAKE THE TROUT-FLY.] I have seen, in days when the fish are not in the humour of taking, a fly tied neatly near the tint, somewhat gaudy, will unquestionably entice them to rise, and will decidedly be more advantageous than fishing without plan. In days when the natural flies are most numerous, the trout will not take the artificial fly so freely; on the contrary, when these insects are rarely to be seen, if the angler can find the colour that is then prevailing, and imitate it, his success will be considerably increased. In these pages will be found descriptions of Flies that will kill well in every river and lake in the United Kingdom. And those in the "Hand Book of Angling," and the "Book of the Salmon," by the celebrated "Ephemera," will also be found excellent throughout the Kingdom. AN EASY METHOD TO MAKE THE TROUT FLY. (_See Plate._) The tyro will provide himself with a dubbing book, containing numerous compartments, to hold feathers, furs, pig hair, mohair, hackles, wing feathers, silk, tinsel, scissars, pliers, knife, and every other article necessary for fly-making--all of which may be procured at my Shop, 54, DEAN STREET, SOHO, with RODS, REELS, LINES, GUT, HOOKS, ARTIFICIAL BAITS, and every denomination of FISHING TACKLE, of the most superior quality in LONDON. Having laid out your materials on the table, seat yourself by a good light, and proceed as follows:--Take a piece of fine silk, and pin one end of it on your knee, take the other end between your left fore-finger and thumb, and with the right, take a small piece of shoemaker's wax, well tempered, and rub it all over the silk, keeping it tight in your left till it is all covered with the wax, rub it well on the end you are about to tie on the hook with, to keep it firm, for it will be found a very great object to use the wax throughout the making of the fly, as with the working of the tying silk it rubs off with the hand. There is a very beautiful silk of all colours to be had on spools, which ribbons are made of, that works very finely on the hook; when you wax it, take two or three folds of it, and pin it evenly on your knee, as before (or hold it between your teeth and twist it), twist it gently between your fingers a little so that you can wax it well, provide a piece of leather about an inch wide and an inch and a half long, double it, and lay a piece of nicely tempered wax between the folds, flatten it, and when you wax the silk, take the leather between your fingers, open the edge of it, and rub the wax on the tying silk in the same way as before, and you will not break the silk so easily, or dirty your fingers with the wax. You now take the hook by the bend in the left fore-finger and thumb, give two or three turns of the silk round the shank, flatten the end of the gut a little, which keeps it from drawing off, and tie it on underneath about half way down the hook firmly, this done, lay on a little varnish with your pencil. Take a piece of finer silk to make the fly with, and fasten it near the end of the shank, do not bring the silk to the extreme end of the shank to leave room for the wings, as they are apt to slip over on the gut if tied on too near. You strip off two pieces from the woodcock or starling wing, and lay them together evenly at the points, that the wings may be double when tied on (see the Trout-fly wing cut out of the woodcock feather, in the Plate), see that you do not make the wings too long when tying them on, let them be a little longer than the bend; press them tightly with your nails on the hook where you tie them on, and do not clip the ends of the wings with your nails, which gives them an unnatural appearance, but whether you lay them on first, or tie them on the reverse way and turn them back, make a judgment of the proper length; you now tie the wings on the reverse way at the end of the shank, with two or three rolls of the silk, give a running knot over it, and clip off the refuse ends of the roots of the feather; now before you form the body or tie on the hackle, turn the wings up in their place with the thumb nail of the right, and divide them in equal parts with a needle, draw the silk in and out between them, take a turn or two over the roots to keep them firmly in their place, and fasten with a running knot behind them next your left; then tie on the hackle, to suit the size, by the root (the soft flue previously picked off), close to the wings on its back, and give a knot over it, take the hackle by the point in your pliers, and roll it over the shank close under the wings two or three times on its side, keeping the outside of it next the wings, then draw it (the hackle) right through them, let the pliers hang with the point of the hackle in them at the head, and take two turns of the tying silk over it, fasten on the end of the shank which was left a little bare, cut off the silk and hackle points, give another knot or so to secure it before so doing, and lay on a little varnish at the head; now tie on a piece of fine tying silk opposite the barb on the shank, take two fibres of a mallard feather and tie them on about three-eighths of an inch long for tail, to extend over the bend of the hook, and with one knot tie on a piece of fine floss silk about three inches long to rib the fly; mix a little of the hare fur with yellow mohair, and draw a small quantity of it out of the lump with the right hand, take the hook by the bend in your left, lay the silk and hair over the end of the third finger, the hook being held in, twist the silk and hair together and roll it finely to the shoulder, give a running knot or two with the silk close to the hackle, take care to have a little more of the fur next the shoulder to make the body nicely tapered; you may continue to make the body from where you rolled on the hackle first, and fasten at the tail, and roll the hackle over it if the fly is to be of a long description; tail your fly, and tip it with tinsel, and with two running knots finish opposite the barb, at this point before you finish, wax your silk well, and touch with your varnish pencil: if there are any fibres of the hackle or of the wing, or the hair standing in a wrong direction, clip it off with your scissars, and your fly is completed. You may tie on floss silk or peacock's harl for the body the same as the mohair; and you can perceive that you may finish at the tail or at the shoulder, according to fancy--do not lose sight of this plan. [Illustration: _An easy method of making a Salmon Fly._] AN EASY METHOD OF MAKING A PLAIN SALMON FLY. (_See Plate._) Tie on the salmon hook to a length of twisted gut or loop (see the gut and hook tied on in the Plate of Salmon Hook, No. 1) firmly with strong marking silk well waxed, and lay on a little varnish; then take two pieces of turkey tail feather of equal size, or mallard feather, according to the colour of the wings you intend to make (see the turkey tail and mallard wings prepared, in the plate of feathers), tie them on the reverse way, a little longer than the bend of the hook where they are turned up (see the wings tied on the reverse way, Plate VII., on Salmon Hooks); these are tied on as the trout fly wings just described, and when turned up appear like the wings of plate No. 1, in an easy method of making a salmon fly--in this plate may be seen every thing necessary in making a plain salmon fly--these flies will be found good killers a great way up rivers from the sea. You hold the hook by the bend, and tie in the hackle at the head of the fly by the root end, and the tinsel to rib it in like manner (see the hackle tied on and the tinsel, Plate II.); about the same place where the hackle is tied on, tie three or four harls of the peacock's tail, twist them round the tying silk, and roll it down to the tail, and fasten with a running knot (see the body of Plate II.) the tying silk is now left hanging at the tail, where may be seen a small portion of the harl left cut, to shew where it was fastened; you roll the tinsel over the body to the same place and tie, three turns of the tinsel is sufficient; you then take the hackle by the end in your right hand, and roll it sideways in rotation with the tinsel, twisting it in your finger and thumb as you turn it over, to keep it slanting from the head, tie it in at the same place with a running knot, and clip off the ends of the hackle; you may tie in a short tail at this place, wax your silk, and finish with two or three running knots, cut off the tying silk, and touch them with a little varnish, to keep them from slipping--press down the hackle between your fingers which slants it to the tail--as the hackle is run over the body from the head to the tail of this fly, it will appear in the formation of the body (Plate III., on Salmon Hooks); when the fly is made with the hackle only struck round the shoulder, take two or three turns of it under the wings, and tie it in there (see Plate III., in an easy method of making a Salmon Fly). The body may be seen in this fly with the tinsel rolled over it, and tied in at the tail; a piece of the harl, tinsel and silk left to shew how it is done. The tinsel and harl are cut off, and with the tying silk, which is seen hanging, tie on a tail of topping, or mohair, feather of macaw, mallard, or any other to suit the taste or colour of the fly; you may tie on an ostrich harl, or peacock's harl, head like Plate I., where the tying silk may be seen hanging: the three flies on this plate, which are correctly engraved, will be found most valuable to the young beginner; and it is an expert method for the salmon fisher, when in a hurry, to make a fly or two for immediate use. When you wish to mix plain wings without dividing, tie them on first at the end of the shank, and form the head like No. 1 in this plate, which I think is the neatest of any, and suits best in rivers not very full of water. If you notice this plate correctly, it will be seen to correspond with the shape of the natural dragon fly; and as this fly, of various hues, is reared at the bottom of the water, it must be an alluring bait for the salmon and large trout; for when it first leaves the element of its birth, and proceeds to the banks of the river in a very feeble state, directly it receives strength it commences skimming the surface, preying upon the insects flying in the air at this time, and, when it comes weakly out of the water, the fish, no doubt, take it freely. There is another sort of fly that proceeds from the water, about the size of the flies on this plate, the body of which is of the colour of the blue feathers on the peacock's neck exactly, its legs are a dark brown colour, almost black, hanging long, and few of them; the wings, which stand upright on its back, or I may say, its head and shoulders, for the head and wings at the roots, and legs spring all out of the one lump which is very thick here in comparison to its beautiful slender body of many joints; the wings, I say, are a bronze brown with a moon in all the four like the peacock's tail feather, which in the artificial fly would be just the colour mixed with a little drake feather; there are some of them all brown, and some with bright green bodies, and blue green as above; all these beautiful insects must afford food for the fish. This of course accounts for the artificial representation in use, and it cannot be denied that they take them for natural ones, which the fly-fisher, according to fancy, forms most fantastically, varying on most of the rivers. [Illustration: The best method of making a Trout-fly] TO MAKE THE TROUT FLY, IN THE BEST AND MOST APPROVED METHOD. _(See Plate with Picker)._ The reader will lay out his materials before him on the table, which consist of hook, gut, wings, hackle, feather for tail, body of fur, floss silk, or peacock harl, silk to rib it, wax, tying silk, &c., all things now ready, proceed as follows:--Wax a piece of fine China silk, about a foot in length; if it is spool or ribbon silk, twist two pieces together, and take one end between your teeth, twisting with your fingers and thumbs, not too much; take the other end in the left, and wax it up and down till it is covered with the wax all over; you may pin it on your knee as in the first plan, and wax it; take the hook by the bend in the left hand, say a No. 6 or 7 to begin with, placing your silk just waxed on the shank under your left thumb nail, and give two or three turns of the silk towards you, flatten the end of the gut a little, and tie it on to the hook about half way down the shank, at the same time hold the gut and hook tightly between your nails, and shift it as you go up or down, on the hook shank with the tying silk; the hook firmly tied on, take out one of the wing feathers of the hen pheasant, and cut out of the centre of it two equal pieces to compose the wings, (see the piece cut out for the trout fly wing in the plate of Feathers), you lay these two pieces together even at the points, take them between the nails of the right hand, place them on the end of the shank between the finger and thumb of the left, and give two or three turns of the silk over them tightly, winding the silk towards you, cut off the roots of the feather slantingly with your scissars, as this swells the fly at the shoulder when forming the body; the wings are now tied the reverse way, (see No. 7 Plate, at the sign of the "picker.") The three flies at top of this plate I will explain, when I show how the wings are turned back in their place. You now turn the hook in your fingers and hold it by the head, and of course you roll the tying silk from you; form the tail, body, and hackle, while holding your hook by the shank shift it in your hand till the nails are opposite the barb, where you tie on a tail (see Plate VII) You now draw a little mohair or fur out of the piece lying on the table, and lay it along the tying silk sparingly, twist it round the silk, and roll it up to the shoulder, or nearly so, and give a running knot; take a small hackle and cut it at the point (see hackle at the bottom of this plate), or, instead of cutting it, draw it back a little with the fingers, as you may see the grouse hackle prepared in the plate of feathers, or hackle cut at point in the plate of feathers; tie the hackle on at the centre of the body at the point where it is cut, and give a running knot, and to fill up the space between that and the shoulder, roll on a little more fur, and give a knot with the silk; wax your silk occasionally, as it wears off; you now turn the hook round in the fingers and hold it by the bend; this turning of the hook is the most curious and convenient part of it; the hackle appears standing on the fly, as in Plate II., or V. You take the hackle by the end in your right hand, and roll it up to the shoulder in a slanting direction, giving it an extra turn or two at the head, as you see Plate VII., tie it down, and cut off the stem of the hackle; take the fly between your finger and thumb, keeping the fibres of the hackle under them out of the way while you turn up the wings; you now divide them in two with a needle or "picker," turn up the off side one first and tie it down, then the one next you, and turn the silk in and out between them, to keep them asunder; you then draw all under your finger and thumb, and with the tying silk, give two turns over the ends, which forms a head, and finish on the small bit of hook left at the head, take a turn or two of the silk round the gut to guard it, and take two running knots; the fly now appears as Plate IV., press the fly between the fingers which slants the hackle towards the tail. As this is a valuable plate of flies to work upon, I will here commence with Numbers 1, 2, 3, and then 5 and 4, these two latter flies are bodies of gaudy sea-trout ones, or grilse flies. The wings are tied on last of the three first flies--you hold the hook by the bend in the left, and tie on the hook, gut, and tail, as you see in Plate I.; you then place on a little mohair to form the body, as in Plate II.; before you reach the shoulder you tie in the hackle, as No. 2, and leave a little of the end of the hook to receive the wings, and let the silk hang at the head; you now take the hackle by the end in your right, and roll it slantingly on its side or partly on its back, placing the third finger of the hand, the fly being held in against the hackle at each roll till you come to the shoulder, take a turn of the silk over it cut off the stem, and give a knot; let the silk hang at the place you are about to tie on the wings, the fly now appears as Plate III., and in this plate you may perceive the right length the hackle ought to be for the size of the hook; you then cut off two pieces from the starling or woodcock wings, and lay them together to make the wings of the fly full, and to appear double when finished, or a piece of mallard feather, like the wings of Plate IV.; you now hold the fly between the fore-finger and thumb nails of the left hand, close to where you see the silk hanging (Plate III.), tie on the off side wing first, holding tight by the nails to keep it on the top of the shank so that it will not turn round with the silk, wax your silk here, keep the middle finger of the left against it while you take up the other wing, and tie it on in like manner on the near side; this plan makes a division in the wings. You must endeavour to keep them tight on the end of the shank, or they will fall over on the gut, but by holding tight with the nails, and drawing tightly with the tying silk, you may soon prevent mistakes, and use every thing sparingly to prevent clumsiness or you will never get on. Now cut off the ends of the wings closely, and finish with a turn or two, and a running knot or two at the very head, and the fly will appear like the finished fly, Plate IV., lay on a little spirit-varnish at the head, which keeps it firm--(this varnish you may procure at the oil and colour warehouses, or at doctor's shops, that which is used for rods is best.) Now for the two Plates V. and VI.:-- When the hook and gut is neatly tied on, as Plate I., you take a hook, size of the above two, and a hackle to suit; you hold the hook by the bend in the left, and opposite the barb where you see the silk hanging at No. 1, you take a piece of tinsel, tie it on, and give two or three turns just immediately below where you tie in the tail (see the tip of tinsel below the tail, Plate V.), take an ostrich harl and roll it on for tag, which you will see just above the tip of tinsel, then tie on a topping above that, as you may see, then the piece of tinsel to rib the body, which you may see extending longer than the tail; you now take a piece of floss silk, fine, and form the body of it from the tail to the shoulder, as you see the taper body of Plate V., and during the interval tie in the hackle on the centre of the body, at the point where the silk is hanging to receive the wings; take the end of the hackle in your right (first roll the tinsel as the body of Plate VI.) finger and thumb, and roll it slantingly over the body in rotation with the tinsel, as you see in this latter plate, and tie it down at the end of the shank, leave the silk hanging as in this plate, touch it at this place with varnish; you may wing it with turkey or "glede" (kite's) tail feather, mallard, &c., like the plate of the plain fly, opposite No. 7, or like the wing of the gaudy Irish salmon fly immediately under that number at the bottom of the plate, (I mention these two flies in this manner to distinguish them from the plate on Salmon Hooks). These two are models of a plain, and gaudy Irish fly; the delicacy of the body of the gaudy one, as the silk and tinsel is so finely wrought between each joint of harl and hackles, is beyond compare; and the wing is finely mixed, although not so perfect as the beautiful engravings of the twelve salmon flies. Before I begin the gaudy salmon fly, I will here show how the palmer is made, in two or three ways. [Illustration: TO MAKE THE PALMER OR DOUBLE HACKLEFLY.] TO MAKE THE PALMER, OR DOUBLE-HACKLE FLY. You tie on the hook firmly as before, and prepare two hackles for the fly, as you may see in the plate of Feathers, two hackles tied together at the roots, which keeps them on their sides evenly while rolling them on; you hold the hook by the shank in your left hand, tie in the hackles, the inside downwards, that when tied on and finished, the outside of the feathers appears to the eye (see the hackle tied in at the points, and the body and tinsel rolled on, at the bottom of the plates of Trout Flies for the season); tie in the tinsel to the body, and the peacock's harl, or mohair, or floss silk, to form it, at the same place--turn the hook in your fingers, and hold it by the bend; take the harls in your right hand, and roll them up to the head, or mohair, or your floss silk in the same way; take a turn of the tying silk over, with a running knot, clip off the ends of the harl, (leave a little of the end of the shank of the hook bare to finish on, or you will not be enabled to roll the two hackles neatly up to this place). Next, roll the tinsel over the harl, and tie, slope it as you go up; then take hold of the hackles in your right hand, and roll them over the body close beside the tinsel slopingly, taking care at the same time to keep the third or middle finger of the hand the fly is held in tight against them at each turn, and roll them closer as you go up to the shoulder, pull them tight here, and if there are any fibres left on the stem of the hackle that are superfluous, pull them off, still keeping your finger against them, and holding hard the hook; now take a roll or two of the tying silk over them and the knots, give the stem another pull to tighten them, and clip it off, tie down the head neatly with two running knots, and varnish it; press the fly between your fingers to slant the hackles downwards; and if any of the fibres of the hackles stand the wrong way cut them off, although, if they are rolled evenly together on their sides or back, you will turn the fly out correct,--see the beautiful Palmer in the plate, with the hook tied in on the back, which is a perfect model,--these hooks are tied together on the same piece of gut first, and then make the fly over them. It is difficult to perform this job until you know how to make a palmer on a single hook. [Illustration: How to make the Salmon-Fly] The foregoing is my favorite way of making a palmer, but you must be proficient before you can manage it well. I will here show how it can be made in a very easy manner, when you are able to handle the materials, and tie on nicely. When you have the hook and gut neatly tied on, take two hackles, and tie them in at the end of the shank by the roots on their back, tie in the peacock harl and tinsel to rib it at the same place; holding your hook of course by the bend in the left hand, take hold of the two hackles in your pliers by the points, and when the tinsel and body is rolled on, turn the hackles over the body close with the tinsel on their backs slopingly, till you reach the tail; here let go the pliers, and they will hang with the ends of the hackles still in them, till you take two turns of the silk over them, clip off the ends of the hackles, and tie it neatly with two running knots, lay on a little varnish; the fly will look rather rough in this method when finished, but with a little pain you will soon accomplish it; press down the fibres with your fingers, and cut away the superfluities. You should have a palmer ready made before you always while making this fly, which will facilitate you in your progress. When you find it difficult to place on the hackles first while you are making a fly, pull off one side of the fibres, and lay two evenly together, and draw them back at the points where you tie them in, as the hackle in the plate of Feathers, and roll them always slopingly over the body to the shoulder, on their edge with the outside of them next the head; and, according as you come up to the end of the shank, roll them closer, which makes the fly appear full there, press them well down with your fingers, (see the three-hackle, or Palmer Flies for Trout, 7, 8, and 9). The hackles of these three flies are beautifully struck. HOW TO MAKE THE SALMON FLY, AS SHOWN IN THE BEAUTIFUL PLATE OF ENGRAVINGS ON SALMON HOOKS. Reader, you will have an idea of the sorts of materials you require for the different processes on each hook in the plates, as the models were tied by me in strict proportion, and are most exquisite engravings: You take a piece of twisted gut to form the loop on the fly, double it over a needle, or "picker," to form an eye, and pare off the ends slantingly to lie nice and even when tied, as you may see in Plate I. on Salmon Hooks; wind your waxed silk round the shank of the hook about four or five times, before placing on the gut; hold the hook in the left hand near the end of the shank, lay the gut-loop underneath, and hold on between your finger and thumb tightly, to prevent it turning round when you lap the tying silk over it, and keep shifting your fingers down the shank out of the way of the tying silk in its progress to the tail, which you will see in Plate I. You now draw out a small piece of yellow, or red mohair, keep it tight between the nails and tie it on, first tip the fly immediately under the tail, as in Plate I.; you make it even with your scissars at the point, as that tail is seen; you now take a piece of yellow or orange floss silk, and lap it from the tail about two-eighths of an inch up to where you see the hackle and tinsel tied in, Plate II.; after having tied the hackle and tinsel on as you see it there, (you may draw the point of the hackle back, as the hackle prepared in the plate of Feathers, instead of cutting it at the point, as you may see also the hackle cut, in the plate of Feathers). You now shift your finger and thumb up the body a little, and just where you finished the knot over the floss silk twist a little pig hair round the tying silk sparingly, and roll it over the shank to the head, or within the eighth of an inch of the head, as you may see in Plate II.; you now take the two pieces of tinsel in the right hand and roll them up slopingly to where the silk is hanging, Plate II., and whip it down; you next take the stem of the hackle in the right hand, and roll it evenly beside the tinsel on its side, or partly on its back (this is done by giving the stem a gentle twist in your fingers) till you bring it to the head where there may be two or three extra rolls of it given to make it full at the shoulder, or where you tie on the wings, (see the hackle, beautifully rolled on from tail to shoulder, Plate III). You now take a piece of mallard feather, stripped off with your nails, and press it small at the end of the roots where it is to be tied on, (see the Mallard Wing prepared in the plate of Feathers); you strip another piece like it, and lay them even together; you take the other two pieces in like manner and do the same, so that each wing, when tied on, will be double; you now take the fly, Plate III., in your hand between the nails close to the shoulder, and wax well the piece of silk that hangs here; you take up one wing and lay it on at the off side, and give two whips of the silk over it tightly, holding on at the shoulder well with the left hand, to keep the wing from turning round under the belly; you now take up the near side wing, and lay it on in like manner, whipping it twice over, and then a running knot, (see the Mallard Wings, tied beautifully on, Plate IV.); and in that plate you see the root ends projecting over the loop, cut them off, and finish it with three or four turns of the silk, and two knots, close to the root of the wings to make all even. I will now proceed to show how the other three flies are formed--5, 6, and 7. These may be termed middling gaudy, and are famous for the rivers in the north of Scotland, or the clear waters of Ireland. You perform the operation of tying on the hook as Plate I; tip the fly at the tail, and tie on a topping; take a piece of black ostrich or peacock harl, tie it in at the roots, and roll it evenly over the shank two or three times (see the harl tag, Plate V); tie in the hackle above the ostrich tag, leave it hanging, and roll the twist up the body, previously formed of floss silk nicely tapered (see the Body of Plate V); take the hackle in the right hand, and roll it evenly with the tinsel, and fasten it as Plate VI; leave the silk hanging here to tie on the wings and the head. The wings of Plate VII, may be seen tied on the reverse way, and the body and hackle formed afterwards; they are now ready to turn back in their proper place to hang over the body, this is done by turning them neatly up with the thumb nail of the right hand, and laying them evenly on each side of the fly, with the best side of the feather out. The spots and shades which are perceivable in the wings and hackles of all the engraved specimens of fly, are shown to great perfection--I have described the whole of them, to match the shades exactly, so that it is impossible to go astray when tying on each fibre of feather. We will now return to Plate VI, and teach how it is to be winged--You cut off a strip from the turkey tail feather, which must be unbroken, as a whole wing; after measuring the proper length of it for the hook, you draw each piece small with the nails where it is to be tied on, as the strip is broader at the root, so that, take it on the whole, it must be narrow where this piece of feather is made small at the roots, as seen in the plate of Feathers, to keep it so whole, touch it with a little varnish, and let it dry a little on the table. You take hold of the fly in your left hand, close to the head, draw the fibres of the hackle out of the way by placing them under your fingers; take the wing in your right hand and lay it on, catching it between the left finger and thumb on the top of the hook tightly, and give two rolls of the tying silk over it; take up the other wing, like the last, and lay it on the near side, and lap the silk over it in like manner (renew the silk with wax before the wings are tied on); you now may tie on a few fibres of golden pheasant neck, and tail feathers at each side of the wings just put on, and a piece of macaw feather at each side; head it with ostrich, or roll a little pig hair round the silk sparingly, lap it over twice, and finish by giving two running knots over it close to the root of the wings (see the wing of the middling plain Salmon Fly, Plate II, immediately above the Sea-Trout Fly and May Fly.) The reader will perceive in this plate ON SALMON HOOKS, that I have just described a garden, as it were fully cultivated, there is hardly a space left waste, like the broad fields of industrious England, whose sons "never, never shall be slaves." All the other plates are likewise full of useful matter, which will prove my hard labour, and at the same time show that I have hid nothing from the Fly-Fisher in all the processes. If the fly (Plate V., ON SALMON HOOKS) is winged with feathers, like the Irish gaudy wing, prepared in the plate of Feathers, it will be found to approach near the gaudy fly at the bottom of the plate, with "picker" at top. I will now describe the process of making the Gaudy Salmon Fly, the plate of which is invaluable to the Salmon fisher:-- [Illustration: _Process of making the Gaudy Salmon-fly_] PROCESS OF MAKING THE GAUDY SALMON FLY. (_See Plate._) You commence by tying the hook and gut firmly together, and that it may be more easy and convenient to the reader to accomplish this process of making the Gaudy Salmon Fly, I will tell how it is done in my own favourite way.--Take the hook in the left hand and hold by the shank immediately opposite the barb, here fasten on a piece of fine tying silk, finer than you tied the hook and gut on with, tie on a piece of tinsel, and roll it over the hook three or four times to tip the fly; place the nail of the left thumb on it, and tie with one knot (see the tip on the first fly in the plate, just below the ostrich tag); take a middling size golden pheasant topping, and tie it on just below the ostrich tag with a piece of tinsel, about a finger length, to rib the body (see the tinsel); take a hackle to suit the size of the hook, draw it a little back from the point, that is the fibres (see the hackle ready to tie in at tail in the first fly); take a fibre of ostrich, tie it on, and give two or three rolls of it from you, and as you turn it over keep the soft pile of the feather towards the tail, as this will make the tag appear even, and give a running knot, the less knots the better at this point to prevent clumsiness; now take a piece of pig hair, and twist it round the tying silk (see the pig hair round the silk, and the hackle tied on just above it), roll the pig hair over the body, giving it a turn or two between the ostrich tag and the hackle, that when the hackle is struck it may appear from the centre of the fly to the shoulder; the pig hair is now on, roll the tinsel over it slopingly till you come within the eighth of an inch of the loop; take hold of the end of the hackle in the right hand, and roll it up on its edge, or partly on its back, in rotation with the tinsel, and tie it down with two knots, clip off the end of the hackle and tinsel. If the fly is to be made with the hackle struck only round the shoulder (see hackle tied in at shoulder, on the second fly in this plate. I have not numbered the three flies on this plate, to distinguish it from the plate of AN EASY METHOD OF MAKING A SALMON FLY.) See pig hair body and tinsel rolled on; shift your hand up the hook in the left, and hold by the middle, take the hackle in the right, and roll it from you closely round the shoulder, (see hackle tied in at shoulder), leaving at the same time enough of the hook bare at the end of the shank to tie on the wings, and to roll on the jay feather (see jay hackle ready), the hackle supposed to be rolled round the shoulder, cut off the tinsel and pig hair which you see on the piece of silk, leaving another piece attached in the same place to tie on the wings (see the piece of tinsel and pig hair left at the head ready to be cut off, and the silk hanging to tie on the wings--second fly). The first fly, which we made above, is now no other in appearance than the third fly at the bottom of the plate, which shows hook, body, and tinsel. We now come to the most critical part of tying on the gaudy wings firmly, (see mixed gaudy wing ready to tie on). You take a neck-feather of the golden pheasant with a piece of silver pheasant tail, a piece of peacock wing, a teal feather, and a piece of wood-duck, &c., lay them all evenly together, and break the fibres between your nails, when you tie them on the hook to make the whole small, as you may see done at the root of the wing in the plate; take another golden pheasant neck feather, and prepare it exactly like the last, that the wing may be the same at each side when tied on; you now take hold of the fly in the left, the fibres of the hackle remaining under your finger and thumb, cut away the bit of tinsel and hackle-stem first, take the wing in your right, and lay it on the best side next you, and hold it tight with the left finger and thumb nails; give two laps of the silk over it, press it down tightly with the thumb nail, and take another turn of the silk, place the third finger against it to keep it on, till you lay on the off side wing; take it up as you did the other, and tie it down at the small part of the end, on the off side, hold it tight between the left finger and thumb, pressing it at the same time well down with the thumb nail of the right, take two rolls of the silk firmly over it, hold on manfully with the left, and give it another nail or two with the right thumb, make a running knot, lay it down awhile to rest your fingers; clip off the roots left hanging or projecting at the head closely (be careful always to leave enough of the hook bare to receive the wings, or you cannot manage it easily), now take two or three turns more over the head to make it tighter and even, leaving a little bit of the point to stand out; you then take a strip of macaw, and tie it on each side, clip off the ends, take an ostrich harl and tie it on about the centre of the head, and roll it over from you two or three times, the downy part of the stem next the loop to keep it all the one way, and when up to the root of the wings, take the silk which hangs here lap it twice over, and give a running knot; clip off the silk and end of the harl, lay on a little varnish very lightly at the point, and where the silk has been just tied down, keep the varnish off the ostrich harl; you may take a little pig hair, and twist it round the silk, roll it over the head very sparingly, and finish at the root of the wings in the same manner, laying on a little varnish. [Illustration: The plate of Feathers] I will here repeat the tying on of the gaudy wing, with two or three fibres of various sorts of feathers, &c., which may be a little more easy to accomplish than the foregoing to the young beginner. When you have the tail, tinsel, and hackle put together on the hook, and the eighth of an inch of the shank left bare to receive the wings; wax the silk well that it may make the head firm, and proceed thus.--First strip off two fibres of the peacock's wing feather, and place them with three or four fibres of brown mallard, and the same quantity of spotted turkey tail, add to it a piece of neck and tail feather of the golden pheasant, with a little guinea hen, teal, and red macaw feather, yellow, orange, and blue. Keep these all even together, and break them at the roots like the gaudy wing in the last plate, and divide them in equal parts; now having mixed both your wings alike, take up one wing in your right fore-finger and thumb nails and hold it tightly, take up your fly with the left hand, and with the right hand place the wing on at the off side, laying it under the fore-finger of the left hand, and with the right hand give two turns of the tying silk over it, at the same time holding on tight between the nails of the left hand, and press it down with the thumb nail of the right, which keeps the head firm; then in like manner take up the other wing and place it on the near side, keep the wings the same length, and to extend two eighths of an inch longer than the bend of the hook, having taken two laps over the near side wing, cut off the root ends at the head closely, holding tight with the left-hand nails, and press both wings down tightly with the right thumb nail; wax the silk well here, and lap it over the part where you cut off the ends evenly; bring the silk down on the gut and give three or four rolls of it just below the point of the shank to guard it from friction when throwing the fly; bring the silk up again close to the root of the wings, and tie on a fibre of blue and yellow macaw tail feather for horns, let them be the eighth of an inch longer than the wings, clip off the ends; take a jay feather and prepare it, tie it on at the off side of the head with the bare side next the belly of the fly, roll it with the right hand over the head, about three turns, and lap the silk over it while under the nail of the left; cut off the stem, lay on a blue kingfisher feather each side, tie on a black ostrich harl, give three or four rolls of it over the head, letting the stem be next to the root of the wings as you roll it, take it under the nail of the left thumb, and lap two turns of the silk over it close to the root of the wings, and with the finger and thumb press up the fibres of the ostrich towards the wings, to make it stand even in its proper place; cut off the silk, and lay on a little varnish at the point of the head, and your fly is completed. As it is my intention to instruct the reader in every point necessary for his benefit, according to my own knowledge and experience, throughout the pages of this book, it affords me much pleasure to be enabled to do so, and to offer something to the fly-fisher worth having, there is scarcely a page he opens that he will not find something valuable to himself, if he is a real lover of the art. "There is a pleasure in angling that no one knows but the angler himself." I will now show how the India-rubber Green Drake is made, with a cock-tail, like the beautiful engraving in the plate, (see Green Drake). The Grouse, and Golden Plover hackle may also be made in a similar manner, to suit fine evenings in the summer, without the tail. To compose the fly, take a piece of gold tinsel, and cut a long strip of light india-rubber very thin, hackle, wings, tail, and all laid down ready,--tie the gut on the top of the hook, to project about three-sixteenths of an inch below the bend, or tie the gut underneath in the usual way, and lay a piece of gut on the top somewhat thicker, to work the tail upon, (see the tail in the engraving,--look often at the flies to refresh the memory); take three hairs of the mane of a black horse, and tie them on the end of the piece of gut, about an inch in length, let the silk be fine and well waxed, then tie in the end of the gold tinsel, and the finest end of the piece of india-rubber at the tail, that the thick end may be towards the shoulder to make it taper; after the body is made very even with a little yellow floss silk, hold the fly by the shank in the left hand, with the nails in close contact with each other, and roll the tinsel closely up, shifting your hand; this fastened down with the tying silk, take hold of the india-rubber in the right, and the extreme end of the gut tail in your left nails; warm the rubber a little in the fingers to soften it, draw it out to its full extent, and roll it over the end of the gut, and at every roll keep the third finger of the left hand tight against it to prevent it starting, move the nails up the hook as you proceed with the rubber to the shoulder; give two laps of the tying silk over it, and a running knot. The body now formed, take a very light brown grouse hackle (see the grouse hackle prepared in the plate of Feathers,--the partridge and the plover hackles are prepared in the same way, and all feathers of this shape for the throat, you may either draw them back at the end, or cut them like the wren tail feather), and tie it on at the shoulder, roll it about three times over on its back, keeping the fibres down towards the left under the fingers, tie the stem with a running knot, and do not give too many laps of the tying silk at the head to make it bulky, for it occasions the wings to turn round on the hook, as then there is no foundation for them, but when they are tied hard on the hook, they sit firm--you can not wing it neatly otherwise; to prevent a vacancy at the shoulder, lay on a little yellow-green mohair to fill it up, and roll the hackle over it, you may now guard the gut with the silk before you tie on the wings, do not allow the body of the fly to come too close up to the head, or as I said before, you cannot tie on the wings properly. Now take the dyed mallard feather for the wings, strip two pieces off, and lay them together for one wing, and two pieces for the other wing in like manner; hold the body by the left close to the head, and lay on the off side wing first, hold it tight under the nails of the left, and take a turn or two of the silk tightly over it, take up the other wing and lay it on, catching it under the nails of the left, taking two turns more over it in the same way, and press it tight down with the nails of the right thumb, give another turn or two of the silk, press back the roots of the wings with the thumb nail of the right, cut them close off, roll the silk evenly over it, and give two knots, now take a peacock's harl, tie it in by the root end, and roll it over the head two or three times towards the wing, and tie it firmly here with two knots of the tying silk, cut off silk and harl, lay on a little varnish, and your fly is completed; press up the head to make it look even, cut off all superfluous fibres that may stand uneven, so that all will appear like the plate. There is another excellent way of making a body:--thus, take a piece or length of very flat gut, and soak it well in hot water till it becomes soft, tie it in at the end of the tail as you did the india-rubber, form a body nicely tapered of straw, roll some white floss silk over it at intervals, roll the soft gut closely over it to the head and tie it fast; then put a small partridge hackle round the throat, and wing it the same as before. Before you lay on the straw, cut it taper to suit the size of hook you are using, gold-beater's skin rolled over flat gold tinsel is also good. I will here teach the making of the beautiful WINGED LARVA, specimens of which are shown in the plate with the May Fly. There is nothing can exceed the beauty of these flies, and as artificial specimens for killing fish during easterly winds they are invaluable. It was in a strong east wind which lasted some weeks, five or six years ago, that I had such great success with this sort of fly in the river Tweed; grilse, sea-trout, and river-trout took it greedily. The two engravings in the plate of these flies are very beautiful. It would be a general killer in heavy running rivers under trees, or in rapid streams. [Illustration: TO MAKE THE WINGED LARVA.] TO MAKE THE WINGED LARVA. Tie on the hook and gut as before (say a hook about No. 8) and form a brown body of mohair on it, wing the fly with a portion of hen pheasant tail feather and woodcock wing; having the yellow brown body formed on the hook, and the wings ready to tie on, take a piece of the shrivelled larva you will find attached to the ends of the lengths of salmon gut, choose those that are nice and taper, and at the fine end tie on two fibres of golden pheasant neck feather for tail, clip off the end of the gut, lay on a little varnish at the end of the tail to keep it from coming off; now tie on the larva close to the shoulder, cut off the end of the gut, lay on a little varnish there, take some mohair of the same colour as the body, and roll it over the throat to cover the tying, leaving at the same time enough of the hook to receive the wings, you then take a light brown grouse hackle, off the neck of the bird, and roll it twice round the shoulder for the legs, or a woodcock feather, to be found at the root of the wings, outside, the latter I think is best. Now tie the wings on a little longer than the bend of the hook, clip off the ends at the head, and form a head with a piece of peacock harl, of a bronze colour as usual, fasten with the silk, and cut off all the superfluities. It would be well to draw out a little of the mohair at the shoulder to hang over the larva body, and to flatten the end of the gut a little where you tie on the tail, which keeps it on. Tie the larva at the side, so as it may appear like a double body to the fish in the water. It may be made by tying on the wings first, and let them remain until the body, the larva, and the hackle, are all tied in their proper places, and then turn back the wings over the body with your thumb nail, and tie them firmly down with the silk, taking two laps over the roots, and finish with two knots on the end of the shank immediately above the head. Do not neglect to tie in the larva tightly below the wings at the shoulder, to prevent it drawing out from the mohair body. You must hold on tight and press it well down with the nail of the right thumb, as you do the wings when tying them on last. It is best to look at the larvas engraved in the plate occasionally, to give you an idea how it is done. When the wings are turned up last, and a head formed of the root of them with the tying silk, you next roll on a piece of brown peacock harl at the root of the wings, a harl with long pile or fibres is best, as you can press it up with your fingers to hang over the root of the wings. The great nicety in making this fly to look well is, in tying on the two fibres of the golden pheasant feathers at the tail with fine silk, and the tying on of the larva itself at the shoulder of the fly, and then covering the silk that appeared bare with a little mohair twisted round the tying silk, and then rolled over it; it is over this bit of mohair the hackle should be rolled, and secured with two knots. The wing of the small larva in the plate is tied on last, and a most curious and killing looking fly it is; the other one does best in deep water, or for grilse or sea-trout in July and August, particularly in the latter month. The Salmon Fly, No. 11, in the centre of the plate, with the larvas, is a capital specimen for the light streams north of the Tweed, and would kill well in that splendid river at low water in summer, particularly at the "Throughs," three miles above the town of Kelso. The above fly I will describe hereafter, with the other engravings in the plates. To proceed regularly with the various methods of Fly Making, before touching on another subject, will be much more convenient to the tyro as he proceeds, so I will finish this branch of an "Angler's Education" with a Catechism, which will be found instructive and very curious to the beginner. It is accompanied with a copper-plate engraving of six flies, showing the whole process to the eye, which cannot fail to give a lasting idea to the fly maker who will properly study it. In this last process, the reader should lay out every thing necessary for making a single fly in a piece of folded paper, so that he can look at the various articles as he rehearses them over in the book,--this will keep them more strongly in his mind. Have each article to suit the size of the hook exactly, that when the fly is completed, it will appear in strict proportion: for instance, the hackle should be chosen small to suit the legs of the trout fly, and the large flies to have hackles off the saddle of the cock, that are old and stiff, to withstand the motion of the water; and fine silk, both floss and tying for the bodies of the small flies, and every thing in unison, as you read in the book; handling every thing sparingly, delicately, and nicely in the fingers. There is a good deal of the "battle fought" by letting the nails grow to a pretty fair length so as to hold on grimly. A CATECHISM OF FLY-MAKING, BY WILLIAM BLACKER _Question._--What do you mean by Fly-making? _Answer._--I mean the artificial assimilation of those beautiful insects that appear on brooks and rivers during the summer season. _Q._--What are these artificial flies used for in general? _A._--They are principally used to afford gentlemen rural amusement and recreation, by their taking both trout and salmon with the rod, line, and fly. _Q._--Name the different materials requisite for making the Artificial Fly. [Illustration: _To make the Trout-fly as taught in the_ CATHECHISM.] _A._--The necessary materials for making the Artificial Fly are as follows:--various kinds of feathers, furs, mohair, pig hair, dyed hackles, silks, tinsel, &c., &c. _Q._--When the tyro has all the materials prepared, and seated at the table, how does he commence to make the fly? _A._--First, the hook is firmly tied on the gut, and one eighth of an inch of the end of the shank left bare to receive the wings (see plate, hook, gut, and tail, tied on). _Q._--How are the wings tied on? _A._--They may be tied on the reverse way first, at the extreme end of the shank, and after the tail, body, and legs are formed, turn up the wings, divide and tie them down, and form the head. _Q._--Is there any other way of placing on the wings of a trout fly? _A._--Yes, by forming the tail, body, and legs first, and tie on the wings last. _Q._--Having the wings the reverse way, to appear in strict proportion over the fly when turned, what is the next part to be performed? _A._--Next, I take hold of the shank opposite the barb in my left, and here tie on a short piece of tinsel for the tip, roll it over two or three times evenly, and secure it with a running knot, immediately above this tie on the tail. _Q._--When the wings are tied on reversed, the tip and tail secured, how do you form the body? _A._--I take hold of the hook in my left hand close to the tail, and with my right draw out a small quantity of mohair, twist it round the tying silk close to the hook, draw it gradually full under the fingers to taper it, I then roll it closely over the shank to the root of the wings and fasten it. Leave a vacancy to receive the hackle if rolled on at the shoulder. _Q._--If there is not sufficient mohair twisted on the silk to form the whole body, what must be done? _A._--When the mohair on the silk becomes short, I tie it down on the centre of the shank, and tie in the point of the hackle here (see the second and third flies in the plate of this process), and apply a little more stuff to fill the shoulder, leaving a little of the hook to receive the wings. _Q._--Having tied the hackle on towards the shoulder of the fly, how do you strike it in its proper place? _A._--I hold the hook in my left hand by the bend, and with the right take hold of the stem of the hackle and roll it round the shank on its back, and tie it down (the fly may be ribbed and hackled from the tail like the fourth fly in the plate). _Q._--The hackle, body, tail, and tinsel now neatly tied, how do you tie on the wings? _A._--I now hold the fly in my left hand by the body, drawing the fibres underneath my finger and thumb out of the way, lay on the wings double, catch them under the nails of the left and give two laps of the tying silk over them, press them down at this place with the right nail divide and let the fibres of the hackle spring up between them, cut off the roots, lap the silk closely over the head and fasten with two knots (see the cock tail at the bottom of this plate). _Note._--The wings of this fly were tied on first, as seen, and turned up last; the fuller the fly is at the shoulder the more the wings will stand upright on the back, and it often occurs that when the wings of the fly lie flat on the back, and it happens to be an end fly on the casting line, which is usually under the surface of the water, that the fish takes it for a drowned fly eagerly, and the wings much longer than the bend of the hook, this is not unnatural, as the wings of numbers of the brown and olive flies seen on the water have their wings much longer than the body, and when not on the wing lie flat on their backs. I will here give a more easy way of making a Trout fly. _Q._--How do you commence to make the Fly in this way? _A._--I tie on the wings first, turn them up, tie down the head, and finish the fly at the tail. _Q._--When the wings are tied on first, and turned before you commence the body and legs, how do you proceed? _A._--I take a small hackle to suit the size of the hook, strip off the flue, and tie it on by the root at the head, and a piece of tinsel to rib the body. _Q._--Having tied on the hackle thus, what is the next thing to be done? _A._--I draw out a little mohair, twist it tightly round the tying silk, roll it down to the tail and fasten it, and roll the tinsel over in like manner. _Q._--The body and tinsel being formed, how is the hackle struck on? _A._--I take hold of the hackle in my right hand with either my fingers or pliers, and roll it over the body to the tail, fasten and cut off the ends, tie in a tail and the fly is complete. This is the style of the fifth fly in the plate. _Q._--When a fly is to be made in the above way without wings, called a hackle fly, how is it done? _A._--Having previously tied, I take two hackles of equal size, lay them even together, and tie them on by the roots at the end of the shank, and then the piece of tinsel to rib it. _Q._--How do you form the body and tinsel after tying on the hackles? _A._--I twist a very small quantity of mohair round the silk and roll it to the tail, or a peacock's harl, and fasten it there, over this I roll the tinsel. _Q._--As the hackles are a nice point to perform, how are they struck? _A._--I take hold of the hackles with the pliers at the points, both to stand the one way, give two rolls round the shoulder to make it full, and proceed with them slantingly on their backs to the tail, let the pliers hang with them and roll the tying silk twice over them, cut off the superfluous fibres of the hackles, take two running knots, and lay on a little varnish to harden the tying, press down the hackles with the fingers to slope them towards the tail, and the fly is completed. _Q._--When you wish to make a larger Salmon Fly, how do you undertake it? _A._--I tie on the hook and gut firmly together, as in Plate I, ON SALMON HOOKS, take hold of it by the shank opposite the barb, roll on a piece of broad tinsel to tip it, tie on a topping for tail, with a black ostrich tag. _Q._--Having gone thus far, how do you manage the pig hair body? _A._--Having laid before me two or three colours of pig hair, I roll a piece of fine floss silk on first next the tail, I then twist a piece of pig hair on the silk, roll it up towards the head, shifting up a little and tie, take another piece of hair, and another, and do in like manner (see the pig hair body of No. 2, ON SALMON HOOKS). _Q._--How is the hackle struck on over the body? _A._-Having held the fly by the shank to form the body, I now turn it and hold it by the bend, the hackle and tinsel previously tied in, as in Plate II, ON SALMON HOOKS, I roll the tinsel up first and the hackle next in rotation with it; Plate V. will show the tinsel rolled over the floss silk body, and the hackle ready to roll on. _Q._--Having rolled on the hackle, and turned a jay hackle over the shoulder, how do you proceed with the wing? _A._--I take two golden pheasant neck feathers and tie them on tightly first, then sprig them at each side with various fibres of feathers (see the wing in the plate prepared). _Q._--How do you cover the lump occasioned by the quantity of tying silk at the head? _A._--I draw out a small quantity of pig hair, twist it on the tying silk, and roll it over two or three times towards the root of the wings tightly, give three knots, lay on a little varnish, cut off the silk, and the fly is finished. _Note._--If you make a pike fly, use large double hooks and gymp, with broad tinsel, and make the body full with pig hair, large saddlecock hackles for legs, wing them with peacock moon feathers, and add two large blue beads over spangles for eyes, and green or red pig hair towards the head. Fasten on the beads with fine copper wire, rolling it over the head two or three times, and also three times through the eyes, and tie down the wire tightly with the silk; roll the pig hair round the silk and then over the head and between the beads, fasten it with three knots, and lay on the varnish. These large artificial flies kill pike or jack best on windy days with rain; they will not rise at the fly on fine days, except there is a strong ripple on the water. You humour the fly on the surface as you would move a salmon one, using a strong rod, reel, and line. If he is a large fish, he will rush off with the fly when hooked; but, if a small one, lift him out when he makes a double quick shake on the top of the water. I would advise the fisher to strike a jack quickly, for he often throws the fly out of his mouth when he finds the deception. THE TROUT FLIES FOR THE SEASON. I will now give a description of those flies which will be found most killing, as they are imitations of the natural ones that appear in each month, so that the fly-fisher may practice with them to very great advantage. The numbers of each correspond with the engravings in the plates of the catalogue of flies. THE TROUT is a game and sportive fish, and affords much amusement to the fly-fishers, as well as being generally esteemed the best of our fresh-water fishes for the table. The spawning time of the trout is much the same as that of the salmon, about October and November, and their haunts very similar; they fix upon some gravelly bottom to deposit their spawn, in either river or lake, and are never good when big with roe. After they have spawned they become lean and wasted, and their beautiful spots disappear; in this state they retire to the deep and still parts of the river during the winter months. As soon as the weather becomes open in February, they begin to leave the deeps and approach the rapid streams, where they soon obtain vigour for the summer sport. They delight in sandy and rocky beds and pools, into which sharp and swift streams run, and under shady banks, behind large stones and in eddies; in streams where there are sedges and weeds in the spring of the year. In the summer months they get strange, and haunt the deepest parts of swift running streams; they are found also at the upper ends of mill-pools and weirs, under bridges, and in the return of streams where the water boils in deep places. At the decline of the year they resort to the tails of streams and deep water. They are in season from February till the end of September. These few suggestions may benefit the young angler by giving him an idea of knowing where to cast his flies for them. [Illustration: Plate of 15 Trout-flies.] FLIES FOR MARCH. No. 1. THE MARCH BROWN.--The body is made of light brown mohair, mixed with a little fur of the hare's neck, and a little yellow mohair, ribbed with yellow silk; a small brown partridge hackle for legs (this feather is found on the back of the partridge), hen pheasant wing feather for the wings, and two fibres of the same bird's tail feather for the tail of the fly. No. 8 hook. This fly is well taken by the trout, and continues good till the end of April. The following flies appear before the March brown, but it being a great favorite, I have given it first. No. 2. THE EARLY DARK DUN.--The body is made of water-rat's fur, mixed with a little red mohair, the red more towards the head, an iron-blue dun hackle for legs, and the wings of water-hen or water-rail wing. No. 9 hook. There is another variety or two of this fly that kill well in February and March, which are as follows: A black red hackle, with the above wings and body; a mallard wing, and the above body; a peacock harl body, a soot-coloured dun hackle, and a tip of gold. No. 10 hook. There is a small fly, which I term the "heath fly," which is an excellent one in this month, and is made thus: The body is made of the fine fur of the belly of the hedgehog, or rat back fur (common rat), mixed with red squirrel fur, and a little orange mohair, rolled on thin and taper; a small silver grey hackle for legs, and winged with the grey tail feather of the partridge. A grey mallard and red squirrel fur makes another good fly. No. 10 hook. No. 3. THE LITTLE BLUE DUN.--The body is made of mole's fur, slightly mixed with bright yellow mohair, a light blue dun hackle for legs, and starling wings. No. 12 hook. This delicate little fly appears on cold days in March, and is well taken by the trout from ten till four in the evening, with the little red dun. No. 4. THE ORANGE DUN.--The body is made of orange and hare's fur, a honey dun hackle for legs, and grey mallard wings. No. 10 hook. Good on windy days in this month and the next. There should be but little hackle used on small flies in the early season, as the fur is sufficient or nearly so. No. 5. THE MARLOW BUZZ.--The body is made of peacock harl, a dun hackle over it from the tail, and two dark red ones round the shoulder, rib of silver. This fly does best where there are large trees growing over the river banks. No. 6. THE BROWN HACKLE.--The body is made of yellow brown mohair, a little orange fox fur, and two short fibred brown-red hackles rolled from the tail over the body, and ribbed with gold wire for evening fishing. It will be found a good one for large trout in river or lake, winged with hen pheasant tail, and forked with two fibres of the same feather, hook No. 10 for the small fly, and No. 6 for the larger size. There is also a small red fly comes on in this month, very killing; the body is made of red squirrel's fur, a turn of a red hackle round the throat, and grey mallard wings mixed with partridge; hook No. 8. FLIES FOR APRIL. No. 7. THE SOLDIER FLY.--The body is made of scarlet-colored mohair, ribbed with fine gold twist, and two black-red cock hackles run up over the body from the tail, (it is made also with orange floss silk body, ribbed with black silk), a small furnace hackle round the throat and a darkish starling wing. The dark red furnace hackle has a dark mark round the edges. It may also be made to advantage with peacock harl and black-red hackles over it, and tipped with gold. The latter way makes it the "cochybonddu" of Wales. It kills best on windy days in general, with the cow-dung fly, and partridge hackle. No. 8. THE CUCKOO HACKLE.--The body is made of peacock's harl, and two dark dun hackles, with darkish bars across them, rolled up to the throat; give it a tag of yellow green silk, at the end of the tail, silver. The Granam fly may be made thus:--The wings are made of hen pheasant wing feather, hare's ear fur for body, and a grizzled cock hackle for legs. It is a four-winged fly, and when it flutters on the water it is very much like the engraving in the plate; but when it sails down the surface, the wings lie flat on its back, and as soon as it touches the water it drops its eggs; the trout take it freely for about a week in this month, with the gravel or spider fly,--dun body, black hackle, and woodcock wings; some use lead-coloured body. No. 9. THE BLACK PALMER, OR HACKLE.--The body is made of yellow floss silk, ribbed with silver tinsel, and two short fibred black hackles struck on from the tail to the shoulder. Hook No. 8.--Vary the body of this fly with peacock harl without the silver, and it will be a capital one for light clear water on No. 12 hook. Use the cow-dung fly on windy days, with the above-named one. No. 10. THE DUN FOX FLY.--The body is made of the fur found on the neck of the fox next the skin, mixed with golden yellow mohair. The wings are the wing feather of the starling or fieldfare, with two fibres of a stiff honey dun cock hackle for tail; pick out the fur a little at the shoulder for legs; hook No. 12. Never was there a better little fly than this thrown on the water, it will kill fish any day in the year. Put on the little black hackle, with peacock harl body with it as a drop fly; and when the dun fox is used as a drop fly, put on the March brown as a stretcher. There may be seen three shades of this fly on the water at the same time occasionally; the other two shades are the ash and blue fox,--the first is a very light dun colour of the fox cub's neck or face, the other is of a darker blue shade; they are great favorites with the trout, artificially; in mild weather throughout the summer, a small wren and grouse hackle may be used with them, the bodies made very thin and taper, and rather full at the shoulder--the wren with orange mohair body, and the grouse with golden yellow floss silk body. No. 11. THE DUN DRAKE.--The body is made of golden olive mohair, mixed with hare's ear fur, the light and dark, and forked with two short fibres of brown mallard. The wings are made of land-rail wing, and a little brown mallard, mixed nicely together. Hook, No. 9. There is a dark red, and a dark dun fly on the water at the same time as the dun-drake, all of which will be found good ones till the end of May. The Irish name for the dun drake, is "Coughlan,"[A] made thus:--The wings, grey partridge tail; the body, light brown bear's fur, with bright yellow mohair, hare's fur from the face, mixed altogether, forked with two stripes of a dark mallard's feather, and a partridge hackle. No. 8 hook. In Ireland they consider this the most useful fly they have in April and May, as a stretcher, used with the little dun fox, and black-red, (soldier fly). No. 12. THE STONE FLY.--The body is made of brown mohair ribbed with yellow silk, a tuft or tag of yellow mohair or silk at the tail, and a little yellow mohair worked in under the shoulder, over which roll the hackle, which should be of a brown-red colour; the wings are made of the hen pheasant tail mixed with copper brown mallard, made full, and larger than the body. No. 6 hook. If this fly is made of good colours, as above described, hardly any large trout, in humour of taking, can well refuse it. An odd one of them may be seen in March, when the weather is mild; but in April and May, when it becomes more congenial to them, they appear numerous towards the evening. Ribbed with gold twist, it makes a famous grilse fly. No. 13. THE YELLOW SALLY.--The body is made of buff-colored fur, and a small yellow hackle for legs round the head; the wings are made of the buff-coloured feather inside the wing of the thrush. No. 13 hook. This is the forerunner of the Green Drake or May fly. The trout take this little fly freely, and it is a most excellent killer on fine days, if made according to the description. It will be found on the water till the end of May. The partridge hackle is also good in this month. [Illustration: Plate of 16 Flies] FOOTNOTE: [Footnote A: "Taylor's Angler."] FLIES FOR MAY. No. 14. THE BLACK GNAT.--The body is made of black hair from the spaniel's ear which is fine and soft, or a black ostrich feather clipped very close, and a small black hackle for legs; the wings are from the starling's wing feather. No. 13 hook. This is a good fly throughout a clear day, used as a dropper with the foregoing fly, and wren tail. It floats on the surface of the water in numbers on sultry days with mild showers of rain. It may be varied to advantage with blue silk body. No. 15. THE LITTLE BROWN MIDGE.--The body is made of brown mohair with a shade of orange mohair at the shoulder, two turns of a small brown-red hackle for legs; the wings are made of brown mallard and a little strip of land-rail mixed. No. 13 hook, snick bend. There appears to be a variety of small flies on the water with the above fly about the middle of the day, dark browns, pea-greens, and dun flies, all water insects, which the trout take very freely. No. 16. THE LITTLE IRON BLUE.--The body is made of a little light coloured water-rat's fur mixed with a few hairs of yellow, an iron blue coloured dun hackle for legs, and the wings from a blue dun feather to be found underneath the wing of a dun hen, or starling wing feather, tail it with a dun hackle, two fibres. No. 10 hook. It sails upright on its legs on the water, with both tail and wings cocked up, so that it would suit best as a bob fly. It will be found a useful fly throughout the season, varied a little in shade according to the weather, the darker ones on fine clear days. The Coachman, Oral, and the Governor flies will be found good ones in this month towards night, when the beautiful White Moth may be also seen. No. 17. HARE'S EAR AND YELLOW.--The body is made of the light part of the fur from the hare's ear, ribbed with yellow silk; the wings are from the wing of the starling or fieldfare, and two stiff fibres of honey dun cock's hackle, from the rump for tail, to cock up, pick out the fur at the head for legs, No. 12 hook. It will kill fish every day in this month, and will be found good till the end of July. It may be also called the Little Cocktail. No. 18. THE GREEN DRAKE.--The body of this beautiful fly is made of yellow green mohair, the color of a gosling newly come out of the shell, and ribbed with yellow-brown silk, a shade of light brown mohair at the tail, and a tuft of the same color at the shoulder, picked out between the hackle, the whisks of the tail to be of three black hairs of the mane of a horse, about three-quarters of an inch long; the hackle to be a greenish buff dyed, (dye a silver dun hackle with bars across it called a cuckoo), or a light ginger hackle bordering on a yellow. The wings, which should be made full, and to stand upright, are made of dyed mallard feathers of a greenish buff, or yellowish shade: a brown head of peacock harl tied neatly above the wings, No. 6 hook. The wings may be made of the ends of two large dyed mallard feathers, with each side stripped off, and the beautiful long ends to form the wings, tie them on whole back to back, a little longer than the bend of the hook--these feathers stand up well and appear very natural in the water; large size ones kill well in lakes, with bright yellow mohair bodies and gold twist rolled up them; a long honey dun palmer kills well on windy days, allowed to sink near the bottom, ribbed with gold twist (see the palmer in the plate with double hook). The trout take it no doubt for the Creeper or "Cad Bait;" a very small swivel tied on at the head, would improve its life-like appearance in the water as you move it with the rod; and the larger size one would also do better with a swivel. No. 19.--THE GREY DRAKE.--The body is made of pale yellow mohair, or floss, three fibres of dark mallard for tail, ribbed with brown silk, a grizzled dun-cock's hackle for legs, or silver grey; grey mallard for wings, and a peacock harl head. The body should be made taper, and full at the head, it is a capital fly on rough days in May and June, and used to advantage on warm evenings. The body may be also made of dun fox fur, grey at the ends, a silver grey hackle for legs, and forked with three hairs from a fitch's tail; the wings grey mallard and widgeon mixed. It is also made of straw body, grey cock's hackle, and mallard wings--these two methods are very good. They kill well in Scotland, and in Ireland are called the "Grey Cochlan." These flies may be seen in "Taylor's Angler." Mr. Taylor was an angler of no small pretensions, he was very fond of the Irish coloured flies, and has adopted many of them as standards for Scotland, England, and many rivers in Wales. FLIES FOR JUNE. No. 20.--THE GREAT RED SPINNER.--The body is made of red mohair, ribbed with fine gold wire, and a red cock hackle for legs; the wings are made of brown and grey mallard, the grey underneath; two fibres of stiff cock's saddle hackle for tail, No. 6 or 7 hook. The Small Red Spinner is made as the above, but instead of mallard use starling wings. It is an excellent fly for a dark evening in June and July, with the furnace hackle. No. 21.--THE ALDER FLY.--The body is made of brown coloured peacock harl, a black-red cock hackle for legs, the wings are made of hen pheasant tail feathers, hook No 6. There is another way or two of making this fly which cannot be beaten, they are mostly used in Ireland, and are known to be killers in England and Scotland. The body is made of bronze brown mohair, a very small brown grouse hackle round the head, and the wings from a brown spotted hen's wing, No. 8 hook. The other is made with grey and red partridge tail mixed for wings, a copper brown peacock harl body, and a dark brown red hackle off a cock's neck for legs. The legs may be also made of the wren's tail or woodcock hackle, this feather is found on the roots of the outside of the wings of the woodcock. These are good flies in lakes or rivers for large trout--rib with gold for lakes. No. 22.--THE SAND FLY.--The body is made of the sandy coloured fur from the hare's pole, mixed with orange mohair, and a small ginger coloured cock's hackle for legs; the wings are made of a sandy coloured brown hen's wing, No. 10 hook. An excellent little fly on fine days with a little wind and occasional showers. There is another little fly that will be found equally good, made thus:--the wings are made of red and grey partridge tail feathers, orange body, and black-red hackle rolled up from the tail to the head, it will kill well on dark days, ribbed with gold, No. 8 hook. No. 23.--THE WHITE MOTH.--The body is made of white mohair, which is lively ribbed with orange floss, a white cock's hackle rolled round the shoulder; the wings from a white feather of the swan that grows over the back. It may be varied with cream coloured mohair, very light ginger hackle, and a buff wing from a hen of that colour; and a browner one may be made from a matted brown hen's wing, or light brown grouse tail, or large hackle off the rump of the same bird, brown-red cock's hackle, the whole to be made full, of good coloured and stiff materials, that they may not absorb the water, and alight heavy when thrown on the surface. No. 24. THE OAK FLY.--The body is made of orange silk, and a little hare's ear fur under the shoulder, rib it with a furnace hackle from the centre of the body up (if the hackles are tied on at the tail they are very apt to get cut with the teeth of the fish in a very short time). The wings may be made from the mottled brown hen, or the woodcock wings, of a red tinge. No. 8 hook. This fly cannot be too highly valued for its killing qualities. It will be found useful for large trout of a windy day with a grey cloud over head, and not likely to rain. "Mr. Bowlker," in his "Art of Angling," mentions the oak fly in this manner: "The oak, ash, woodcock, cannon, or down-hill fly, comes on about the sixteenth of May, and continues on till about a week in June; it is to be found on the butts of trees, with its head always downwards, which gives it the name of the down-hill fly. It is bred in oak-apples, and is the best of all flies for bobbing at the bush in the natural way, and a good fly for the dab-line, when made artificially." The wings are made from a feather out of the wing of the partridge or woodcock, the body with a bittern's feather, and the head with a little of the brown part of hare's fur. The hook, No. 6. Some dub it with an orange, tawny, and black ground, and with blackish wool and gold twist; the wings off the brown part of a mallard's feather. FLIES FOR JULY. No. 25.--THE GREAT WHIRLING DUN.--The body is made of water-rat's fur, mixed with yellow mohair, and ribbed with yellow silk; a reddish blue dun hackle for legs; grey mallard wings, or starling--try both. No. 8 hook. There are two or three varieties of this fly, which make their appearance in this month, and are very killing on fine, mild days, with occasional showers; their colours run from a dark to a light sky-blue. "Mr. Bowlker," in his "Art of Angling," an authority which I like, as he was himself a fisherman, speaks thus of one of these beautiful flies: "It comes on about the end of May, and continues till the middle of July. It is a neat, curious, and beautiful fly; its wings are transparent, stand upright on its back, and are of a fine blue colour, its body is of a pale yellow, its tail forked, and the colour of its wings. It is a fly that the fishes take extremely well from seven o'clock in the evening till sun-set. The wings are made from the light blue feather of a hen; the body is made with pale yellow mohair, mixed with light blue fur, and ribbed with a fine cock's hackle, dyed yellow, the hook, No. 8." This is taken from "Bowlker's" original work. No. 26. THE LITTLE PEACOCK FLY.--The body is made of bright brown peacock's harl, with a tip of gold at the tail, or gold colour floss silk; a red hackle for legs, and a starling wing. This little fly comes on about the middle of July, and continues till the end of August. It may be used to advantage on fine days, with the blue dun, and cinnamon brown. I have seen this latter fly on the river "Mole," in August, of a fine brown colour, and plump in the body, about the size of the Great Whirling Dun. The body was red brown, the legs an amber brown, the wings were a mottled light brown, and the tail of the same colour as the wings. I have seen the above fly some time after on the "Bann," in the north of Ireland, a river six times the size of the Mole, not half the size, in August. This circumstance of the difference in size, must be the nature of the soil through which the rivers flow; the "Bann" is a gravelly bed, full of large stones, with a very fall strong running stream; the "Mole" not so. It is my opinion that in the summer months there is more sport to be had with flies as small as can be made, than with the general run, except late in the evening, then use a large fly--a brown, or white moth, where a large fish shows himself. No. 27. THE BLUE BLOW.--The body is made of mole's fur mixed with yellow mohair, run very taper from the tail up; the wings are made of a tom-tit's tail feather, or water hen; the tail is two hairs of a mouse's whisker, or fibres of dark dun hackle; the body is picked out a little at the head to imitate legs; the fly altogether to be made very small and delicate, hook No. 13. These little flies may be seen on good size rivers in hundreds, in the summer on sultry days; where there is a stone projecting out of the water they gather round it, and with the motion are carried up and down on the side of the stone, where large trout lie, like ant bears, sucking them in by the dozen; the wing of the water-rail is capital to imitate that of the fly. There is another excellent killing fly that may be used with the above, made thus;--body, gold colour mohair; tip of gold; woodcock or wren hackle for legs; grey partridge tail for wrings; and two fibres of the same for tail; No. 10 hook. They are good where the river is low, and are excellent till the end of August, used with the little brown fly, and ash fox. There are also three little flies which are very good in this month and the next, and although they are not very well known by name, nevertheless they will be found killing. First, the "Orange Wren," with orange mohair body, and wren tail hackle. Second, the "Golden Wren," with golden yellow mohair body, and wren tail hackle for legs. Third, the "Green Wren," with green floss body, and wren tail for legs. The Brown Wren, and the little Peacock Wren, are also good. No. 13 hook. The latter little fly is called the "Shiner." No. 28. THE YELLOW DUN.--The body is made of light buff-coloured fur, white sable far dyed yellow, and a honey dun cock's hackle for legs; two fibres of the same feather for tail; the wings are made of starling wing feather. No. 12 hook. This pretty little fly is a great favourite with the trout in the evenings of sultry days, till the end of August and September. FLIES FOR AUGUST. No. 29. THE RED DUN.--The body is made of red orange hair, over which roll a small dun hackle; the wings are a dun grey, and are made of starling wing feather, mixed with a little mallard. No. 10 hook. It may be varied thus: Red legs and dun body; orange floss body, over which roll a black hackle, and starling wing. The size of hook to vary from No. 10 to No. 7. This is an excellent fly in rapid streams where there are large trout; it is so attractive that they cannot refuse it when it moves over them. Trout that lie or haunt strong streams, are called, in Ireland, "Hunters." The cause is, no doubt, through their being thin and long in the body, and are possessed with enormous mouths to take in their prey. They take small trout freely. No. 30. THE ANT FLY.--The body is made of brown floss silk, and a small fibred peacock harl at tail; a brown red hackle for legs, and wings of starling feather. No. 10 hook. There is a black ant the same size as the above, and a red and black one much larger; the black one is made of black floss for the body, small black hackle for legs, and a blackbird's wing for the wings of the fly. The small ones kill on fine days, and the larger ones when there is a strong wind, which blows them on the water, and causes a ripple. No. 31. THE CAPERER.--The body is made of brown mohair, or floss silk of a copper colour, and tipped with gold at the tail; a brown red cock's hackle at the shoulder for legs, and winged with the woodcock wing feather. No. 8 hook. This fly may be seen on fine sultry days whirling up and down over the water, and occasionally dipping on the surface; the trout take them very freely. This fly will be found on the water till the end of September, with the paler dun, yellow dun, blue dun, and willow fly. The greyling also like these little flies. [Illustration: Plate of Larvas and Green Drakes.] THE WINGED LARVA.--The body is made of brown mohair; the larva is attached to this body at the shoulder, and tailed with two fibres of golden pheasant neck feather, a woodcock hackle round the shoulder, and winged with hen pheasant tail, mixed with a little woodcock or partridge tail feather, and a bronze peacock head. No. 8 hook. It will be found a good fly on dark windy days in this month and the next, and during the prevalence of winds from the east; it will do best where a strong rapid stream runs into a deep pool. A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE WINGED LARVA:--The body is made of bright golden yellow mohair, which looks very transparent; a woodcock wing, and a hackle off the same bird, with two fibres of golden pheasant neck feather for tail. No. 8 hook. THE WILLOW FLIES.--The body of the first is made of blue squirrel's fur, mixed with a little yellow mohair; a blue dun cock's hackle round the shoulder, and a tomtit wing. No. 8 hook. The second fly is made of orange silk body, ribbed with fine black silk; a very dark furnace hackle round the head, and blackbird's wing. No. 10 hook. The third fly is made of the wings or blue feather of the sea-swallow, for the wing of the fly, and the lightest blue fur that can be got for body (the fine blue of the fox's neck, next to the skin; the fur of a very young water-rat, or the lightest blue fur of the squirrel); a light dun cock's hackle, and a tail of the same. No. 10 hook. These little flies will kill till the end of October, and are excellent fur greyling. There are hundreds of other flies that make their appearance on the water through the summer months, which come under the angler's notice when in pursuit of his pastime, that may be imitated to advantage, the varieties of which must fill the mind with admiration. FISHING RODS AND FLY FISHING. For a trout rod, to have a good balance from the butt to the extreme top, it is essentially necessary that the wood should be well-seasoned, straight in the grain, and free from knots and imperfections. It should consist of three or four joints, according to fancy. There is not the least occasion for a rod to be glued up in pieces first, and then cut into lengths and fitted with ferrules, for then you have the unnecessary trouble of lapping the splices, but it is best to clean each piece separately, and measure the exact taper each piece should be to one another with the ferrules to fit in the same proportion, the least thing wider at the lower end than at the top; the ends to be bored for the tongues to fit into tightly to prevent shaking, that when they are double brazed they may fit air-tight. The ends must be bored previous to planing down the substance of the pieces, and tied round with waxed thread to prevent them from opening or cracking, so that these pieces may be pushed into each end of the boring whilst the rod is planed up to its proper substance or size, except the tops, which should be well glued-up pieces of bamboo cane, and filed down to their proper sizes to suit the other parts of the rod; this may be also done by fastening the tongue of the top in the bored joint next in size. The butt should be made of ash, the middle piece of hickory, and the top of bamboo, which is the lightest and toughest of all woods that can be brought to so fine a consistency. The length of the rod for single-hand fly fishing should be from twelve to thirteen feet long--a length which may be used with great facility without tiring the arm. The butt should be easy in the grasp and not a great deal of timber in it; the next piece to be nearly as stout as the butt above the ferrule for a foot and a half, this prevents its being weak at that particular part, which otherwise would cause the rod to be limber in the middle; the next or fourth piece to be stiffer and lighter in the wood to keep up the top; the whole rod to stand nearly straight up when held in the hand, and to have a smart spring above, which assists materially in getting out the line when throwing. The splices of the tops should be tightly bound over with the finest silk, well waxed, and over all three or four coats of good varnish that is not liable to crack. You cannot bind the splices tight enough with coarse three-cord silk, the top being so small it cannot be drawn together near so well as with fine silk, and when the varnish rubs off it opens and admits the water, which loosens the glued splice inside. The fine waxed silk is to be preferred by all means, as it lies closer on the wood, becomes harder, and makes the splice stiffer to work with the other parts. When the whole is ringed, ferruled, and fitted for the reel complete, it should not (a twelve foot) exceed one pound; it will afford great comfort to the fly fisher in his innocent pursuit, and will not fatigue him during a long summer day. The reel should be light, in proportion to the rod, and to contain thirty yards of silk and hair line made fine and taper, and when the rod is grasped in the hand a little way above the reel, the balance should be the same above the hand as below it, so that it may be used with the greatest ease. The beautiful rent and glued-up bamboo-cane fly rods, which I turn out to the greatest perfection, are very valuable, as they are both light and powerful, and throw the line with great facility. The cane for these rods must be of the very best description, or they will not last any time. They will last for years if properly made, and of course the fisher must take care of them; they are best when made into pocket rods, in eight joints, with all the knots cut out, and the good pieces between each knot rent and glued up; these may be had in my shop of as good a balance as a three-joint rod, most superbly made of the lightest brazings. They make capital perch and roach rods with a bait top added to the extra fly top, with bored butt to hold all. These rods can be made to suit a lady's hand for either boat or fly fishing. The salmon rod should be made in four pieces or joints. The butt of the best long grained solid ash, the wood of which is not so heavy as hickory, and is not liable to break at the ferrule, that is, if the ferrule is put on "flush," without letting it into the wood by scoring it; the piece above the butt, and the joint next the top, should be of the very best well-seasoned hickory, without crack or flaw; the tops to be made of the best yellow bamboo cane, either rent and glued up in three pieces, or spliced in short lengths with the knots cut away; the first joint to be nearly as stout as the substance of the wood above the ferrule as the end of the butt for a foot and a half, to prevent the rod being limber in the middle; the next joint that holds the top should be very smart, and come up at a touch when bent with the hand, and the extreme lightness of the cane top prevents all appearance of its being top-heavy, which cannot be prevented with lance-wood, unless it is made very fine indeed, and then it becomes useless. The length of the rod should not exceed seventeen or eighteen feet long, and for light rivers, sixteen feet is quite long enough; if the angler fly fishes for salmon from a boat, fourteen feet will be sufficient, made, of course, very powerful throughout, as in some large rivers a salmon will take the fly close to the boat in strong and deep streams. The rings should be pretty large, to admit of the line running freely, and the joints double brazed, which prevents the bare wood of the tongues twisting off when the rod is taken to pieces after a day's fishing, particularly when they get wet. The reel fittings should be about a foot and a half, or say twenty inches from the extreme end, that there may be room for the left hand to grasp it easily below the reel, which prevents the rod hanging heavy on the arms, and will balance it much better than having the reel too near the end of the butt. When the salmon rod is bent after playing a fish, it can be easily straightened by turning it when the next fish is hooked, and allow the line to run through the rings on the top of the rod; by holding it in that position, you can see how you are winding up the line on the reel, and regulate it according as the fish runs towards you, for if the reel is held underneath when the fish is on, if he runs towards you, it cannot be seen whether the line runs on in a lump or not, which, if it does, often causes it to stop, and may occasion the loss of your fish. The most essential and nicest point of all is in casting the line and trout flies neatly on the water, which, when properly accomplished in a masterly way, will be the greatest means towards the success of the fly fisher in hooking and catching his fish. In the first place, the fisher should keep as far off the water as possible when throwing next his own side, and make it a rule, whenever he can, to angle on the bank from which the wind blows, as it will enable him to throw the flies across to the opposite bank, and play them gently down the stream in a slanting direction towards him, moving backwards as they approach his side, drawing them up along the bank if the stream is any ways deep, as a trout of good size is often lying in such a place when undisturbed, as you fish cautiously down. The line should not be let off the reel too fast when you begin to throw, that the stream may be carefully covered near you, and as you move along let it off so as to cover the whole of the water. Hold the rod firmly above the reel in the right hand, and take hold of the end of the casting line in the left, give it a motion towards your left shoulder, and over the head with a circle to the full length of the flies behind you, and with a spring of the rod and motion of the arm bring them right before you on to the stream, as straightly and lightly as possible, and by this method you will prevent them whipping off behind in a very short time; allow the line always to stretch to its full length behind, and keep them on the move, with the backward sweep of the rod round the head propel them forward to the place you desire they should fall, and I do not doubt that you will make neither splash nor ripple on the surface. And when a fish makes a rise, move the rod upwards with a gentle pull, which is better than striking hard, as the small hook is easily driven, and there is no occasion to break the hold or line. Never hold too hard on a large fish, but let him run if he will, a small one may be landed immediately. By no means attempt to go "an angling" without a landing net, as there may be danger in losing your fish, after having the trouble or sport of playing him a long time, and the bank high on your side. I have been always in the habit of fishing down the stream, throwing my flies slantingly to the opposite bank, and letting them fall gradually with the current, and walking slowly along lifting and throwing them at my leisure--it is all fancy whether up or down you go, so as it is well done--what you have habituated yourself to in fly fishing in general, that do. Keep your shadow as much as possible off the water, and when you land your fish let his head drop into the net first, and his whole weight will follow, lift him clean up on the bank with a pull of the net towards you, as this prevents him dropping out. FLY-FISHING FOR SALMON. When you begin fly-fishing for Salmon, you must be careful not to let out too much of the reel line first, but when you become accustomed to it, and are master of throwing a short one, let it out gradually till you are enabled to cover the pool over which you cast with ease. If you practice throwing over a smooth wide part of the river, you will see how your line falls on the water, whether thrown in a lump, or light and straight without a splash; but at one time you may cast the line right out over the stream at its full length, and on giving another cast you may allow the line to fall on the water in the middle of it first, and the fly to fall last, which is not so good, but in either way the fish will rise and take it; by the last cast you may get the line farther off, and the fly alighting near the opposite bank, it is very apt to be taken by a fish lying close under it; and when throwing, keep the point of the rod up out of the water, and do not let it strike it; throw across in a rather slanting direction, allowing the fly to sweep down without a curve in the middle of the line, and at the same time move the rod playfully to give the fly a life-like appearance; drawing it in towards your side of the bank, moving it up and down gradually with the current, and when a fish takes the fly raise your hand, and fasten the hook without a jerk, holding up your rod at the same time with what is termed a "sweet fast," that it may not get slack at any time till you have killed him; when you poise the rod in your hands for a throw, the whole knack is in keeping the left hand steady, and with a turn of the right hand cause the line to make a circle round the left shoulder and over the head, propel it forward with the spring of the rod, keeping the fly going all the time till it falls on the water before you as straight as possible; when you lift the fly out of the water to throw again, you require to make use of the strength of the right arm, giving it the proper turn round with the wrist, making a sweep of the extent of the line behind you, and with the spring and power of the rod direct the fly on that part of the stream where you desire it should fall; letting the line out occasionally off the reel with your hand, which gives the fly a very natural motion on the water, moving it gradually down towards your side, when you lift the line out and make another throw as before a little lower down, and so on until you cover the whole stream. You may change to the left hand when you are tired with the right, or according to the side you are fishing from, to facilitate and ease your exertion as much as possible when throwing a long line. When I have happened to be in a barn at a farm house on the river side, I have often thought when taking up the flail to thrash awhile, whilst the man was resting himself, that the exertion was remarkably like throwing the fly with the Salmon rod, the whole method appears to be in the turn of the wrist and arm, for when the flail is raised up and wound over the left shoulder, with a certain impulse known to one's self you propel it forward over the head, striking the sheaf on the ground with full force on any part you like, where you think there are any ears in it. Many may not be acquainted with flail thrashing, but were they to understand the knack, it is easily done; so, also, is the using of the salmon rod, with a little practice, and observing a good thrower if you happen to meet one on the river, or an old fisherman you employ. Keep yourself steady on your feet, and your body well up when casting, as it gives more power to the muscles, and when a salmon is fairly hooked it will prevent your being nervous or striking too quick, but as I said before, rise your hand and keep the line taut; as the fish will often rise several times out of the water in succession when first pricked with the hook, on finding himself detained; when he runs keep the rod nearly perpendicular, as the spring of it will soon tire him out; if he is a good way off and makes a rush towards you, wind up your line quickly, keeping it taut at the same time, and moving backwards till he is near your own shore: if he rolls over in the water apply the gaff and lift him out, but if he is not regularly beat he will rush off again on seeing the gaff with great strength, give in he must at last by the gentle strain of the rod that is always upon him. He often gets sulky, and lies down on the bottom of the river, when it will be found difficult to start him again: a clearing ring let down the line on his nose will cause him to run, and when he does so, it is best to bear stronger upon him, as in so doing you have the best chance of quickly tiring and capturing him. I think it the best plan to lay the gaff under him, and gaff him in the gills, which prevents tearing or making a hole in the fish. The Salmon reel should be made of the lightest and hardest material, not too much contracted, but a good width, that the line may be wound up evenly without incumbrance; a plain upright handle is much the safest when playing a fish, as the portable ones are apt to crack or snap off if they meet the least obstruction in the running out of the line; and the portable handle stands too far out, which catches the line almost every time it is drawn off or a cast given. Small reels may be made with portable handles, without any fear of their breaking, as the fish are small and can be managed easily. The salmon line should be of silk and hair eight-plait or four-plait, eighty or a hundred yards long, and for small rivers, sixty yards for a sixteen feet rod. The casting line for clear waters should be half treble and half single gut, to suit grilse or small salmon flies in summer; and in the spring of the year when large flies are in use, good strong-twisted gut, three yards long, is what is necessary for a heavy reel line, particularly in large rivers, as the Shannon and the Bann in Ireland, and the Tweed in Scotland. There are not three better Salmon Rivers in the world than the above, were the salmon allowed access into them during the summer months for the amusement of those great angling gentlemen who would visit them during that period, or even if there were but a few let up past the "cruives" or "cuts," that there might be a sprinkling for them to throw flies over. It would not matter to them what nets the fishermen along the shores of the estuaries used, as they only affect the "Cruives," or "Fixed Traps" built across the rivers, as of course less fish run into them, and there would be abundance of salmon and grilse go up the centre or deep part of the river, which the fishermen could not possibly reach. These "Traps" are kept down all the summer, from the early spring till the end of August, at which period they are what is termed "lifted," and up run the spawning fish; and the great fly fishers now lay by their rods and tackle for that season, as fly fishing is prohibited when the salmon are spawning in the rivers. There is certainly a respite in the Tweed, when the nets are taken off at the end of the season for the accommodation of the fly fisher; and were it so in the Shannon and the Bann, there would be very great satisfaction in having a month or six weeks' fishing in these splendid rivers. They are certainly free throughout the summer to the fly fisher, but he might labour a whole day with his rod and fly without getting a rise, except by chance. There will never be any good done until the "cruives" or "cuts" are removed off the rivers, unless the head landlord would make an agreement with the renter of the "cruive," and enforce it as a law,--to lift the "cruive" two days in the week, that there might be fish in the rivers for the accommodation of the great body of gentlemen anglers who make it their business to travel to these rivers to find amusement in Fly Fishing, at very great expense; although I do not know if even this would do,--it would be best by all means to remove them; and, independent of fair netting for the general supply at the mouths and estuaries, a Society of Anglers could rent the entire river, were the owner to meet them on liberal terms which no doubt he would, and this would prevent the destruction by degrees of the best breeding-fish in the river. AN ACCOUNT OF THE SALMON, AND ITS VARIETIES. I desire merely to give some account of this beautiful fish for the information of my readers, the knowledge of which has come under my own notice, in the rivers of Ireland in particular, amongst the fishermen at their mouths, at the "cruives" or "cuts," and throughout my rambles along their banks. This excellent salmon is a very handsome fish, the head is small, the body rather long and covered with bright scales, the back is of a bluish shade, the other parts white, and marked with irregular dark brown spots on the head, the covers of the gills, down each side from the lateral lines to near the edge of the back, very few are to be seen below the lines which run from head to tail; the tail is forked. He takes great delight in pursuing small fish and fry, and in playing and jumping on the top of the water, at insects no doubt, and for his own sport. It has been often said that there was never any thing found in the salmon's stomach such as edibles, but it has been recently discovered that they prey upon herrings, sprats, fry, and other dainties in their native element; and as these fish are very nutritious and fat in themselves, no doubt the nourishing channel in them receives the substance of the food very quickly, as it appears to be digested so rapidly in their stomachs. He leaves the sea for the fresh water rivers about January and February, and continues to run up till September and October, their spawning time, and some spawn after this time; they are often big with roe in December and January, in the end of August or the beginning of September; when they are in roe regularly, they cannot be in proper season; they get soft, their beautiful color and spots vanish, and they do not appear like the same fish. They travel up rivers as far as they can possibly get, into lakes and their feeders, and tributaries of large rivers, where they take delight in the broad gravelly fords, and strong deep running currents, which they like to be as clear as crystal, to effect which they will leap over weirs, waterfalls, "cuts," "cruives," and "traps," when there is a flood rushing over them, to the great delight of the fly fisher, who loves to see them run and escape these obstructions. The male fish is supplied by nature with a hard gristly beak on the end of the under jaw, which fits into a socket in the upper jaw to a nicety; with this the Salmon go to work with their heads up stream, rising their tails sometimes nearly perpendicular, and root up the sand and gravel in heaps, leaving a hollow between, wherein the female deposits the eggs; the male fish still performing his part, chasing away the large trout that are ready to root it up (the spawn), he covers it over substantially against the forthcoming winter's floods and storms. By this time he becomes wearied, spent, and sickly, and then turns himself round and makes head for the sea, where, if once happily arrived, he soon makes up for the debility in his blue, his fresh, and ever free element. The refreshing and purging nature of the salt water soon makes him once more strong and healthy, he may be seen leaping and playing in the sea near the river's mouth on his recovery. I have been told by fishermen that they proceed in shoals to the ice fields in the North Seas, and return to the rivers and estuaries in the spring and summer as they departed, in large shoals; they discover themselves in the bays by jumping out of the water as they near the river. The Salmon haunts the deepest, strongest, and most rapid rivers, and is rarely to be seen in those wherein there is much traffic, or that are sullen or muddy. They prefer the upper parts of rough streams that run into large pools, and the tails of these pools, behind large stones, in the middle and at sides of waterfalls in the eddies, these are the parts to throw for them, but the fisherman on the water will show the angler all the best places. The best months to angle for them are from March till the middle of August, after September they are out of season. They will take the fly best from six or seven o'clock in the morning till nine, and from three in the afternoon till dark, with a good wind blowing up stream. I have hooked them on the very top of a precipice, after surmounting the leap, where they lie to rest in the first deep pool they come to; they generally run down over the rocks or falls of water to the pool beneath, when they often get killed by the rapid descent. THE SALMON FRY. These beautiful little fish, the production of the spawn of the salmon, make their appearance in March and April, and if a flood happens to rise or swell the rivers about the end of the latter month, they are taken down in great numbers, till at last they enter the brackish water, where they grow in a short time as large as white trout. The salt water adds much to their growth. In the following spring and summer they run up the rivers in great quantities if they are allowed, and return to the sea again before winter. On their second return up the rivers they will be grown very large, and are then called "Grilse," or "Peals," &c. There is a SALMON TROUT of the same species, which is rounder in proportion to the Salmon, of a reddish hue when in season; it has small fine scales, beautifully intermixed with rich red and black spots on both sides of the lateral lines, from head to tail, and its handsome head is spotted over, as also the covers of the gills; the tail is shorter, and not so much forked as the salmon, and the fins are very strong. The flesh is most delicious, and some prefer it to salmon. They may be seen in the Fishmongers' shops from May till the end of August. Another species is the Sewen of Wales, the White Trout of Ireland and England, and the Whiting of Scotland; they are very bright in colour, and run about the size of Mackerel; they haunt the roughest, strong streams, and gravelly bottoms. When they are hooked on the fly they will spring repeatedly out of the water, and afford pleasant sport for the angler. They take small gaudy flies like the Salmon Trout, and when the water is low, dun flies, black hackle flies with silver ribs, and grouse hackles of a light brown colour and yellow bodies. The hooks about Nos. 6 and 8. Another species is the Bull-Trout, which has a short thick head, and a brownish body, covered with spots of a brown colour, and are found in all rivers having communication with the sea, and their tributaries, if there are no obstructions to prevent their running up. They are found running up the rivers in June and July, and in these months and August, are in good season. They are rather a dry fish. The PAR or LAST-SPRING are most plentiful in salmon rivers from May till the end of August, and are very much like the salmon fry, only for the dark bars across them, and towards the end of the season they are variously marked. There is no little fish so plump and lively when taken with the fly, except the Salmon Fry. As the Sea-Trout are known to grow to the weight of sixteen and twenty pounds in large rivers, such as the Tweed, the Shannon, and the Bann, the Par may be the fry of these fish, which run up the rivers in the spring and summer. These Sea-Trout differ much in shape and colour to the real Salmon, and are what are termed Salmon in the London markets.--This I heard from a fisherman at the mouth of the Tweed, who pointed out a large creel full to me, just taken in the nets, and amongst the whole there was but one Salmon. The Sea-Trout may be known by being paler, and covered with more spots, and by being longer and thinner in the body; the head is also much longer. There is a rich golden hue over the Salmon when you get a side look of it; the body is plump and boar-backed, the head is very small, and there are few spots, except above the lateral lines. I have seen the Par so numerous in the River Dovey, in Wales, that a man (a guide), took my salmon rod, and a cast of four small flies, the sun shining, and in two hours he killed nine pounds weight of these fish, about a finger in length or less. It perfectly surprised me; but it seems that this was but a small quantity in comparison to what the fishers were in the habit of taking out in a day. It appeared so, as the inn-keeper's wife potted them in large jars. These rivers abound with Sewen, Sea-Trout, and White Trout; the first-named fish is the White Trout of Wales, which corresponds with the Irish fish of that name, and called in Wales, Sewen. The Par may be the fry of these fish, which are of the Salmon species, and ought to be protected by law. [Illustration: Plate of Gaudy Flies, Nos. 1, 2, 3] A DESCRIPTION OF THE FIFTEEN SALMON FLIES ENGRAVED IN THE PLATES. These fifteen Salmon Flies may be considered by my readers as specimens of real perfection, and the "dons" of the present time amongst the great Salmon fishers. There is such a combination of colours in them throughout, that they will be found most killing in the rivers of Scotland and Ireland, if made on hooks of sizes to suit each, and their proper seasons. I have taken the greatest pains imaginable to make them in proportion, and of the most choice materials, which will greatly amuse the amateur in his leisure hours to imitate them, and if he goes by the models, and their descriptions, he will find them, when completed, what may be termed by a Salmon fisher, magnificent. Their life-like and alluring appearance, when humoured attractively with the rod and line, will cause them to be very deceptive to the Salmon, and they will rise out of the water at them with such greediness (the fun of it is) as to mistake them for living insects. I have seen them swim after the fly for some distance, as quietly as possible, before making a rush at it, then seize it, show their back fin, and then the points of their tail--the break of the water they have made closes--you "rise your hand," and the hook is "anchored." No. 1. I shall name this THE SPIRIT FLY, in consequence of its numerously-jointed body, its fanciful, florid, and delicate appearance. Its colours will be found most enticing to the fish, and is a sister fly to Ondine, in the "Book of the Salmon," by "Ephemera." The wings are made of six toppings, with a broad strip of wood duck on each side, a red Hymalaya crest feather at top, a cock of the rock feather, blue kingfisher feather at each side, a black head, and feelers of macaw. The body is made of joints of black, orange floss, and a tip of gold tinsel at the tail, tail two small toppings, a tag of puce silk and ostrich, (it must be tied with very fine silk that the body may not be lumpy, but to show gradually taper from the tail to the head, and the hackle to be stripped at one side to roll even), and at each joint a scarlet hackle, with a tip of gold tinsel under each joint, to make it lively looking. There is a purple hackle, or very dark blue, struck round the shoulder. The size of the hook is No. 6 or 7. Salmon, B or BB. No. 2. The wings are composed of golden pheasant tail feather, mixed with the following: strips of bustard, scarlet macaw, wood-duck, mallard, yellow macaw body feather, silver pheasant, and a topping over all, extending a little longer than the other feathers; blue and yellow macaw feelers. The wing, as above, should be laid out on a piece of paper, ready to tie on after the body and legs are formed, the jay rolled over the head in this fly, and the head tied on last, of black ostrich. The tail is a topping, mixed with a strip of wood-duck feather, tipped with silver twist, a tag of gold-colour floss, and black ostrich; the body puce floss to the centre, and the remainder orange pig hair or mohair, ribbed with broad silver tinsel, and a guinea-hen rump feather rolled over the orange beneath the jay hackle. This is about as fine a specimen of a Salmon fly as ever was thrown into the water, and will kill Salmon and Grilse, made small, in every Salmon river in Great Britain. The hook No. 6 or 9, Limerick. The best Irish hooks are numbered from No. 1, largest Salmon size, to No. 10, Sea-Trout size. No. 3. This is another of the Spirit Flies that kill so well in the rivers of Ireland and Scotland, at high water, particularly the Spey and Tweed. The wings are made of the following mixtures of feathers, each side of the wings to be alike: Brown mallard, bustard and wood-duck; a topping, scarlet macaw, teal, golden pheasant neck feather, a strip of yellow macaw, and feelers of blue and yellow tail; a head of black ostrich; the tail to be a topping, mixed with green and red parrot tail; the body is composed of joints, first a tip of silver, a tag of morone floss, a tag of black, a joint of brown, green and brown-red hackle, puce and red, green and yellow, blue and orange, with a tip of gold tinsel at each joint, a very small red hackle, and two red toucan feathers round the shoulder, and blue kingfisher's feather on each side of the wings. The hook No. 6, and No. 10 for Grilse. No. 4. A celebrated Claret Fly, of very killing qualities both in Scotland and Ireland, and in the Thames as a trout fly. The wings are composed of two wood-duck feathers wanting the white tips, and two strips of the same kind of feather with white tips; the head is made of peacock harl; the tail is two or three strips of hen pheasant tail, with a short tuft of red orange macaw body feather or parrot, tipped with silver, and gold ribbing over the body, which is formed of claret pig hair, over which roll two richly dyed claret hackles, struck in fine proportion from the tail up. The hook No. 6 or 10. It is a capital fly in lakes for large trout, as a breeze or gentle gale only causes a ripple, and a strong wind does not do so well in lakes with the fly, as it makes waves, although good for a large size minnow. [Illustration: Plate of three Salmon-flies, Nos. 4, 5, 6] No. 5. A brown fly, a general favorite among the "old ones," on every salmon river in Ireland and Scotland, particularly the latter, and in rivers a good way up from the sea, on a dark day, with a good breeze blowing up the stream. The following fly, No. 6, may be used in a similar manner. The wings are made of the golden pheasant tail that has the long clouded bar in the feather, rather full, and two rather broad strips of light brown white-tipped turkey tail feather at each side; a good size peacock harl head, and feelers of scarlet macaw feather; tipped at the tail with gold tinsel--the tail a small bright topping, and a tag of gold-colour floss silk; the body is made of cinnamon, or yellow-brown pig hair or mohair, ribbed with double silver twist; over the body roll a real brown red cock's hackle, and round the throttle roll on a bright red-brown small-spotted grouse hackle, or a brown mottled feather of the hen Argus pheasant's neck or back. BB hook, or a No. 8. No. 6. A Silver Grey Fly, a great favorite on the lakes of Killarney for Salmon and Grilse, and at Waterville, in the County of Kerry, for Sea and White Trout, made small on a No. 10 hook, about the size of a No. 6 Trout hook of English make. The wings are made of golden pheasant tail feather, mixed with mallard, red macaw, blue and yellow body feathers of the macaw, guinea hen, and golden pheasant neck feathers, with feelers of blue and yellow macaw, a black head; tipped at the tail with silver and orange floss tag, the tail a topping mixed with red and blue macaw feather, (those blues that are found under the wings of that bird which are of a very light hue) and guinea hen: the body is made of the silver dun monkey if it can be got, light dun fox or squirrel fur, or dyed blue dun mohair mixed with yellow,--all these are good for a body, ribbed with broad silver tinsel, and a hackle of a real dun cock that has a yellowish motley shade throughout it, rolled up to the head, and round the shoulder a bright orange dyed hackle, underneath which tie in a little orange mohair. It may be varied with a claret hackle at the head, or a fiery brown one. No. 9 hook. A small grilse or sea-trout hook, for small rivers in either Scotland or Ireland, and also in the rivers of Wales, where it is a native dun colour among the anglers. It will be found a "don" to rise them. No. 7. A large dun palmer with a double hook, which, will be observed, is of a tortuous shape in the body, as it appears in the plate. The shape may be obtained by tying the hooks back to back, the top one to be tied about quarter way down the shank of the end one, and the gut tied tightly on each, (twisted gut of course when you form a loop). [Illustration: Plate of four Flies, Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10] It will be found a "killer" in large pools surrounded with trees in stormy weather, and in rapid streams running into or near the sea, where they take it most likely for a shrimp, as it corresponds in color. The legs are composed of about six hackles of a real blue dun old cock-saddle feather, having a motley yellowish hue, and peacock harl head, rather full; the body is made of orange pig hair and yellow mohair mixed, the former drawn out amongst the fibres of the hackles, which must be struck on two at a time, commencing at the tail, till it is all built up to the head, where there may be three hackles to make it fuller,--it would be as well to have a small swivel at the head, that it might spin gently round when moved in the water. No. 9 hook, or small grilse size for large trout. It may be varied with gold, old dun cock's hackles, and red body. No. 8 is a beautiful specimen of a gaudy fly. The wings, which are finely mixed of rich feathers, are made of the following sorts:--orange, yellow, and blue macaw body feathers, three strips of each; teal, bustard, and golden pheasant neck feathers broken in strips; silver pheasant tail, light brown golden pheasant tail feather, and a topping over all a little longer; a peacock harl head, and blue and yellow feelers. The body is formed in three joints, a tip of gold twist at the tail, a tag of peacock harl, and a bright small topping for tail; first, a joint of yellow floss, a joint of peacock, and two feathers of the red-tipped feather of the crest of the cock of the rock tied short above the harl and ribbed with gold; the next is a blue floss silk joint ribbed with gold, a peacock harl rolled on close, and two feathers of the crest of the cock of the rock tied close above it; and the third is an orange floss silk joint, a peacock harl tag, and ribbed with gold, two of the red-tipped feathers tied on close as above, and a blue jay round the shoulder. No. 8 hook on B. This is a famous grilse fly. No. 9 is another great beauty, and a capital grilse or small salmon fly for any river under the sun. The wings are made of two jungle-cock feathers, and two shorter feathers of the golden pheasant neck, the white ends of the jungle-cock to show well beyond the golden pheasant neck, two broad strips of wood-duck, one at each side, and a topping or two extending longer than the other feathers for feelers, a black ostrich head; a tip of gold at the tail, a tag of yellow-green silk, a tag of black ostrich, and a bright topping for tail, above the ostrich a blue tag, and the body made of claret floss silk, ribbed with gold tinsel, and claret dyed hackle struck over the body, with a blue jay feather at the shoulder. The hook B or BB. No. 10. This is a famous high water fly for all salmon rivers, particularly in Scotland, and is not unlike the once celebrated "Parson Fly," the favourite killer in all rivers of the Reverend St. John's; there is no salmon can resist its attractions in rapid pools in rivers near the sea. The preceding fly, No. 9, will be found to kill better a few miles higher up from the sea, as all plain flies do. If the No. 9 is winged with brown mallard or brown turkey tail feather, it will be found just the thing. The wings are made of two golden pheasant neck feathers, with a broad strip of peacock wing feather on each side, and a strip of scarlet macaw tail feather, the latter to be a little longer than the other feathers, a black ostrich head with a full brilliant blue jay feather round the shoulder. The body is made thus:--a tip of silver twist, a yellow floss silk tag, two small toppings for tail, the body is of golden yellow pig hair or mohair, ribbed with silver twist, with two golden yellow dyed hackles with a black streak up the centre, rolled from the tail to the head. No. 9 hook, B, or BB. No. 11 is a fly that will kill grilse or salmon in the light running rivers of the North of Scotland, and in all rivers where the salmon and its varieties haunt, and is made of different sizes. The wings are made of a few fibres of each of the following feathers: black and white small spotted bustard rump feather, teal, wood-duck, silver hen pheasant tail, and the silver cock pheasant tail black and white spotted feathers, the neck feather of the golden pheasant, and the red spear feather of the same bird, and at each side two small feathers of the black and white jungle cock, a black head, and topping. The body is made half yellow and half purple pig hair or mohair, the latter colour next the head, over which roll close up two black heron feathers off the crest; a tip of gold, and a small topping for tail, and over the yellow or purple body roll double gold twist. No. 7 hook, or BB. The Sea-Trout Fly underneath No. 11 in the same plate, will be found a killer either for sea-trout or grilse, in the rivers in Scotland, and the South of Ireland. The wings are made of a dark brown grouse hackle that grows on the rump of the bird, just above the tail, mixed with a small quantity of light brown turkey tail, or kite tail, which is the salmon tail glede of the north, and two feelers of blue and yellow macaw; a black head; the body is made with a tip of silver twist at the tail, and a tag of black ostrich; the tail is a mixture of golden pheasant neck feather, and brown mallard, two or three fibres of each; the body is blue floss silk, rather light, with an old black cock's hackle rolled over it, ribbed with fine silver twist; round the shoulder roll a claret or scarlet hackle. The hook No. 10, or C, double CC, or B, for grilse. There may be three or four varieties of this fly made thus:--body blue, with blue jay, same wings, with a little neck feather of the golden pheasant; orange body, same coloured hackle, and same wings, blue jay at head; a dun body, with fiery brown hackle at the head; a claret body--a yellow body, and small grouse; blue body, and guinea hen; and a yellow body, with guinea hen; a black body, black hackle, and the same wings and tail; a black fly, with teal wings; a brown body, brown hackle, and "glede" wings, two fibres of the same for tail. All these are the choicest colours for sea-trout and grilse flies in every salmon river in the kingdom. [Illustration: Large Spring Salmon-fly] No. 12. Is a large SPRING FLY used generally in the Shannon, and the Tweed, when the rivers are very high and rapid. It will be found a magnificent specimen of a gaudy salmon fly, and is the proper size for March and April, when the fulness of the stream prevents the fish from seeing smaller ones. This fly will be seen to perfection in the Plate. With this, I will describe three or four others of the same size, of different colours, which came into my possession from Castle Connell, on the Banks of the Shannon. The wings of No. 12 are made of the small spotted brown Argus tail feather, golden pheasant tail, and the black and white peacock wing feather; scarlet and blue macaw, and in the centre an orange macaw feather whole, those that are tipped with blue and green--they are found on the shoulders of the red macaw and down the back; a tuft of broken neck feather of the golden pheasant at the head, and feelers of blue and yellow macaw; a black head; a tip of gold at the tail, a tag of blue, another of orange floss and black ostrich, a good sized topping in the tail, and at its root a tuft of red spear feather of the golden pheasant rump; there is about half an inch body at the tail end, made of yellow mohair, and yellow hackle over it, ribbed with gold, the remainder of the body is made of puce floss silk, with a dark wine-purple hackle struck over it, ribbed with silver twist and flat gold, and a yellow body feather of the macaw rolled round the shoulder. The hook, No. 2 or 3, large Salmon size. SPRING FLIES. The following fine large flies will be excellent killers in the Shannon, the Tweed, the Thurso, the Spey, and the Tay, in the spring season. The bodies to be made small, the wings large. No. 1. The body is made of sky blue floss silk, ribbed with broad silver tinsel, tip of silver, and orange tag; a dark blue hackle from the tail up; two toppings in the tail, a large yellow pig hair or mohair head (white seal fur dyed yellow does well), a blue jay round the shoulder; the wings are a large yellow and a large blue feather of the macaw, which grows on the back and under the wings of that bird, two orange macaw feathers an inch shorter on each side of them, two toppings, a mixture of argus, bustard, scarlet and blue macaw, good size strips of each. No. 1 hook, full salmon size. No. 2. The body is made of black floss silk, tipped with silver, tag of orange, ribbed with broad silver plate up the body, beside which a claret hackle, and the tail two toppings; the wings are made of a large red rump spear feather of the golden pheasant in the centre, four large toppings with a mixture of sprigging at each side of the following: Argus pheasant tail, bustard, blue and yellow macaw, blue jay at the shoulder, and a large size head of puce pig hair. Hook No. 1 or 2, Spring Salmon size. No. 3. The body is made of black floss silk, ribbed with silver, orange tag, tip of silver, tail a topping with a little red; the wings are made of the whole yellow feathers of the macaw which grow under the wings of the bird, two tipped feathers mixed with bustard, Argus, blue and scarlet macaw, and a blue head of pig hair or mohair. No. 1 or 2 hook. No. 4. The body is made of light puce floss silk, ribbed with silver plate and gold twist, a claret hackle over it, tipped with silver, a topping for tail, and orange tag; the wings are made of yellow macaw, a red spear feather, four toppings, a mixture of bustard golden pheasant tail, kingfisher's each side, and a large blue head of mohair. (It cannot be too large for the Shannon). No. 1 hook, large Salmon size. No. 5. The body is made of puce floss, ribbed with broad silver and gold twist, purple hackle over it, orange tag, tip of silver, and tail a topping; the wings are made of two body feathers of the yellow macaw, mixed with blue macaw tail and Argus, two large toppings, and a dark blue pig hair head. Salmon hook No. 2, spring size. No. 6. This is another excellent fly. The wings are like the last named fly; a black floss body, ribbed with silver, and yellow hackle over it; a large blue head, picked out to hang down like a hackle. No. 3 hook. This is a fly of "The Ogormans," of Ennis, in the County of Clare, see his Work on Angling. The two Salmon Flies in the plate, with "picker," are described for Killarney. SALMON RIVERS. It will be most advantageous to my readers that I should give them some accurate accounts of the various Salmon Rivers, pointing out at the same time the best station on each where sport may be expected with the fly, and to know where to proceed before starting on their angling excursion, as the whole fun is in knowing the right places to prevent disappointment. There are numerous small size rivers, the local flies for which are of a plain and sombre hue, and which it will be necessary the fisher should be acquainted with--these I will give as I proceed. In summer, when the rivers are low, small plain flies are best, or rather so on dark days, with a good ripple, then they will entice them. They do not rise often when the sun is warm, except in rapid streams. Use small black bodied flies with silver and middling gaudy wings, mixed with teal or cock of the north feather--change it to a gaudy one if they do not take the black. Early in the mornings before the sun strikes the water, and from three o'clock till dark, or about sunset is a good time to move a large fish with a fly he likes. The two flies at the bottom of the plate with "picker," are most likely ones for that time in the day. The plain one is brown body, and wings of mallard. The bottom one is green body, and mixed wings of gaudy feathers; the body is a jointed one, of peacock green. I made it nearly twenty years ago,--it is a beautiful specimen of a gaudy fly for rapids after a flood. THE RIVER TWEED. I will begin with this large and beautiful salmon river, which runs rapidly along the borders of England and Scotland, taking a course from West to East. It flows majestically through a highly picturesque and cultivated country, washing many good towns on its way to the sea, where it discharges its valuable waters at Berwick. The town of Kelso is the best station, as there is good fishing above and below it. There is a magnificent spot for a month or more of salmon fishing at a place called "The Throughs," three miles above the town,--it is a real picture of a place to the eyes of the fisher. Higher up is St. Boswell's, and a little higher, Melrose--both charming places. There is good angling in the Tiviot, at Kelso, in the spring; it runs into the Tweed on the opposite side. The trout are numerous in it. There are several capital stations below the town, where the fish take the fly most freely, which is not the case in most of the rivers of the same magnitude. The fifteen painted salmon flies will be found excellent killers in this noble river, and the six large spring flies. I have killed Grilse, Sea-Trout, and River-Trout with the Winged Larva at the "Throughs" in August. Easterly winds were prevailing at the time, and the fish would not stir at any other sort of fly. When the river runs very low small flies are best. THE RIVER SHANNON. This is the largest and finest Salmon river in Britain. There is not a river in Norway that can be compared to it for fishing, were it properly used. The angler must proceed to its banks before he can say, conscientiously, that he has ever seen a salmon river. In its course it expands into three large and beautiful lakes, Lough Allen, Lough Ree, and Lough Derg. There are numerous islands in the latter one, with ruins of religious edifices, &c. This noble river receives many tributaries, in which there is capital fly fishing, with rapids and falls of water till it reaches Limerick. It runs a hundred and twenty miles to this place, and sixty more to the sea. It is on leaving the lakes that it abounds with many delightful streams--the haunts of large Salmon and fine Trout. Six miles above Limerick, at Castle Connel, there is a splendid place for the fly, and Trout fishing is good. The angler will here behold a scene that will greatly amuse him. There are other capital casts for Salmon up to Killaloe, where the Pike and Eels are of an extraordinary size and quality. Lough Derg is close to this place, in which are caught the "Gillaroe" Trout; they have gizzards like turkeys, are short and round in the body, very red in the flesh when cooked, and they have a most delicious flavour. The best flies for the Shannon are the fifteen painted ones, and the six large flies for spring. You cannot fail with these beautiful flies. THE LAKES OF CLARE. From the town of Killaloe the angler may proceed to the lakes of the County of Clare. You go west to the town of Broadford, eight miles distant, where there are three or four lakes, the furthest off one, Dromore; this town is eighteen miles off, and about eight from the county town, Ennis, on the river Fergus. Twelve miles up this river is Corrafin, a neat town, near which is the celebrated lake of "Inchiquin," famous for its large trout and splendid views. Here the angler will find boats and every accommodation. The flies in my list for the season will kill exceedingly well in these lakes, made two or three sizes larger, and in fine weather the size they are. They are fond of grouse hackle, wrens, browns, turf-coloured flies, amber, black, grey, &c., &c., with brown grouse wings. The "yarn fly"[B] is not used here. Before the tourist angler leaves Killaloe, if he has time, he should by all means see the antiquities of the place, Lough Derg and Holy Island, where there are to be seen the ruins of seven churches, and a round tower 70 feet high, the entrenchments of "Brian Boroimhe," King of Munster, at Cancora, and his tomb near the Cathedral in the town. This ancient town is seated on the western bank of the Shannon, in the County of Clare, over which there is a bridge of nineteen arches; at a short distance below it, this grand river rolls over tremendous ledges of rocks, where there is an excellent fishery. It is a great pity that this fine river should be prevented from being of the greatest benefit to the country through which it runs, all owing to the "cruives," the "stake nets," "bag nets," and every other destructive invention that can be contrived for the wholesale slaughter of the splendid Salmon. Oh! look to it, you that have the power. From Limerick the angler may proceed to Athlone and Galway, but I should advise him to proceed to the south first, and fish the Blackwater and the lakes of Killarney; Mr. Jas. Butler has prohibited the fishing at Waterville this spring, in consequence, as he says, "of the numbers visiting, coupled with acts of poaching." I should say the lake is free, as it always was and ever has been, knowing that Mr. Butler is most polite to gentlemen. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote B: Net.] THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY. From Mallow, on the Blackwater, the angler proceeds to Killarney. It would be as well to go to Lismore, farther down from Mallow, where there is good Salmon fishing to be had; there is a Mr. Foley here (who rents the "weirs" of the Duke of Devonshire), he is most polite to strangers, and allows them to fish in the weirs, which are of some extent; and most of the Gentlemen residing on its banks, from Lismore up, will allow the stranger to fly-fish through their grounds, send their keepers to shew them the best places, and are most hospitable and polite. At the Killarney junction, Mallow, the angler takes his seat, and in a little time is delighted with the sight of the Lakes. I visited Killarney in 1848, on an angling excursion in Ireland, to recruit my fallen spirits, if possible, after many years of industrious labour, "and it is myself that would advise the sickly to go there, if he had legs to walk on," says poor Pat. To my great disappointment at the time, the Lakes were netted by their respective owners, which rather damped my spirits after going so far "a fishing"--my sport there was but inferior. It is not so now, many thanks to Lord Kenmare and Mr. Herbert, who have put a stop to the netting and other contrivances, to the delight of the anglers and inn keepers of the neighbourhood. I have been given to understand that the Salmon fishing is capital now in the lakes and river. At Ennisfallen Island there is a favourite cast, and another between that and Ross Island; another to the south west of it; towards Mucruss Abbey, to the north-east, there is good water for the fly, and in "Glena" bay, all of which the boatmen will show. At the latter place parties dine, in a very beautiful situation at the foot of the hill, sheltered by trees to the water's edge. On the west side of it is shown a curiosity--a holly, a thorn, a birch, a hazel, an ash, and an oak, so curiously entwined, that they appear as one tree; at this place there is a good fishery, at the cottage they cut the salmon into pieces, skewer them with arbutus, and roast them over a turf fire; they say arbutus gives them a fine flavour. Between Brickeen Bridge and the Upper Lake there is good fishing, in the narrow gorge between the lakes; the charges of boats, &c., have been regulated, so that they cannot now impose upon visitors. The scenery in the vicinity of "Brickeen Bridge" and the Eagle's Nest is sublime, and must delight the heart of the Angler who may be seeking health and pastime, either by himself or with his dear admiring friends. There is not a table, either in inn or lodging house in the town of Killarney, wanting a Guide to the Lakes, written by some intelligent person or other, so that the angler cannot go astray. There are numerous good inns in the town and neighbourhood, the people and landlords of which are polite, civil, and obliging to strangers, as are the guides and boatmen. There is a Miss Smith, in New Street, who keeps a comfortable lodging, the most honest creature I ever came across, go to her, you gentle ones. The delightful Island of Ennisfallen, which used to be my favourite spot during my stay, would be a kind of Heaven on Earth to the invalid; it is covered with verdure and beautiful large trees, the arbutus, &c. There is a thorn growing through a tomb stone, a holly fourteen feet thick, a curious crab tree, and the bed of honour, which the guides say if you lie down in it, having no children up to the present time, "your honor will be sure to have plenty of them after your return home."--This place is a hollow about the size of a large bed, in a projecting rock over-hung with holly and hawthorn. In an aperture in the "crab tree" the guides recommend ladies to pass. There are ruins of a once celebrated Abbey here, founded in an early date of St. Finian. The annals of Ennisfallen comprise a history of the world up to A.D. 430, and a history of Ireland up to 1320. They are preserved in Trinity College, Dublin. There is an enormous ash tree growing out of the floor of the abbey. It is unquestionably a healthy spot, and soon excites an appetite by inhaling its salubrious air. The remains of the once beautiful edifice "Mucruss Abbey" is well worth seeing, as the ravages of death, which were once too prominent, have been cleared away by the humane Mr. Herbert, so that there may be a close inspection made of the ruins; the architecture of the eastern window is admirable; and the extraordinary "yew tree" growing in the centre of the ancient cloisters and over-spreading its walls is curious in the extreme, in the fork of the yew, above the great trunk, there is a kind of unctuous gum constantly flowing down, which is said by the peasantry that "the yew is shedding tears for the fate of the abbey." The Salmon flies to suit the Lakes, are Nos. 2, 4, 5, and 6, 8 and 9 the two at the bottom of the plate with "picker," and No. 4 plate on Salmon hooks, the paintings of which are exact to the models. The three latter flies are, first, a cinnamon-brown body, brown wings, and brown red hackle, mixed tail; second, a jointed body fly of blue and green, gaudy mixed wing, topping in the tail--this fly may be used in very rough water, and the brown one with a nice ripple and grey cloud; the No. 4 fly on Salmon hooks, is mallard wings, fiery brown body ribbed with gold, brown red hackle, hook No. 6, B, CC, and a yellow and red mixed tail. The Dun Salmon Fly, No 6, and the one above it, No 5, are favourite killers in the lakes and river. My advise is, that my friends (I call every angler who reads this book a friend), should beware of the "mountain dew"[C] and goat's milk, sold by the damsels of Killarney, in the vicinity of Brickeen Bridge, and the Eagle's nest; they are harmless and cleanly creatures, but their importunity to taste their goat's milk is teasing--buy their goat's milk, but reject their "dew," gentle fishers. The river "Lane," which issues out of the Lower Lake, as it is now preserved by the inn keepers, is a capital stream for salmon and sea trout fishing; about four miles from Killarney, at the Bridge leading to "Dunloe Gap," is a good place to begin to fish, either up or down the river; the trout in both lakes and river are as yellow as gold when taken out of the water, they are spotted over with beautiful brown-red marks, and are very handsome to look at. The Trout Flies in the list will be found excellent for the lakes and river. A grouse hackle, with orange silk body, and a little strip of grey partridge tail for wings--this with the ant brown, hare's ear, and amber fly; the red dun, caperer, wren and cuckoo hackle, and duns of various shades and size, ribbed with silver. The land-rail fly, brown-red hackle, and ash fox, an orange body with black hackle from the tail up, and starling wings. The silver dun, with grey mallard wings, mixed with the wing of the bunting lark, ribbed with silver, and tail of the hackle fibres, the body yellow dun--this is a great favourite made of sea-trout size for the river, and large for salmon in the lakes. The sand and cinnamon flies are also good, and the red spinner; the winged larva is an excellent fly below the Bridge, allowed to sink a little beneath the surface when fished with, grilse and sea-trout will take it. The river Lane is remarkable for its firm footing along the banks, and no where obstructed by trees, it is the most pleasant place I ever saw for fishing, combined with wild and fanciful scenery. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote C: Whiskey--Oh! whiskey, whiskey,--cruel whiskey, you are the cause of poor Pat's giant poverty, you have rushed in upon him like one armed. Oh! thou accursed evil spirit.] LOUGH CURRAN, WATERVILLE. The angler may proceed any morning he feels disposed, to Waterville river and lake, southwest of Killarney, in the County Kerry; there is a car from the Kenmare Arms Hotel about eight o'clock in the morning, passing through Killorglan at the foot of the river Lane, which you have in view up to this place; Three miles farther on you come to the river "Corra," where there is an Inn, at the Bridge, for the accommodation of anglers, and where they may procure capital sea-trout and small grilse fishing; the lake Carra, out of which the river flows, is seen to the left before reaching the river at the bridge. It would be worth while staying a few days at this place, as the sea-trout fishing is beyond comparison, below the bridge to the sea, and above it as far as the lake, and also in the lake. The flies I have just named will kill well in the Carra, with a small black one, like a midge, ribbed with silver, with a honey dun fly made very small. You reach "Cahirceveen" in about eight hours from Killarney, from whence you take a car eight miles further on to Waterville, where you arrive comfortably in the evening to rest and have a talk with Mr. Butler, the proprietor of the "cuts;" the angler will find him most civil and polite, and on asking you get instant permission to angle for salmon in the river, and "keep all you catch" which has been a general rule for a length of time; the lake is free for salmon and trout fishing, it abounds with fine sea-trout, which appear to be continually running up between the bars of the "cruives." The river is very small, having but one pool in it close to the sea for salmon, the run of it is very short as the lake and sea almost meet, they are separated merely by a neck of land on which the bridge and "cuts" are erected, about three or four perches altogether. There is good sport to be had in the lake and river when it is flooded, and the angler will find every convenience with respect to men and boats; there are two inns in the place, at least when I was there in 1848, there were two. The flies for Waterville are the same as those I have just given, except for salmon in the river, which should be very plain and sombre, they are brown bodies, with dark hackles over a roll or two of gold tinsel, and brown turkey wings of a reddish hue; small blue flies, with gaudy wings, ribbed with silver, and black heads, the hackle to be dyed blue, and floss silk body, hook No. 10 or C. CC. When the water is up they will take Nos. 3, 4, and 5 flies in the plates; and the fly No. 11 is most excellent. They use a good sized fly in the lake for trout, when I fished it my flies were of the smaller sort, and in the hot sun the trout took small amber flies best with me. The local flies were darker--say drake size, with brown bodies, black hackles, and turkey wings, nevertheless they take them in a windy day exceedingly quick, and in a very short time the fishermen in the boats catch a large dish of them, say in about a hour; the trout and grilse in this lake I must say are most delicious, "they almost melt in the mouth," says he. The angler, when he gets tired here, may return to Killarney, and make head for the west and north, "and sure enough he may have another throw on the lakes, if he pleases, by way of bidding them good bye." He might take a start before he goes across the hills to Kenmare, by car, and have a day or two on the river Blackwater, usually called "Kerry Blackwater;" it is about eight miles from Kenmare, on the south-west side of the estuary of that name, on the road to "Derrynane Beg," or Derrynane Abbey. There is an inn on the river as you cross the road, but no town. The angler might go to it for a day or so from Waterville, by hiring a car at the inn, there and back. He will have an opportunity of seeing the mansion of the late Mr. D. O'Connell, at Derrynane, as he passes it to his right off the road, in a most healthy situation, sequestered amongst dwarf trees of the most fanciful appearance, close to a bay of the sea, or what is called "Kenmare River," the salt water of which is as clear as crystal. The flies used on this prolific little river are brown bodies, three ribs of gold tinsel, black hackles, and grouse and mallard wings; but I would strongly advise the angler to have some of the small flies made smaller still for this river, than in the plates of flies. A very small blue jay, a silver grey or "hedgehog fly," with a small black one ribbed with silver, are all good for this stream. The angler returns to old Killarney, and takes rail for Limerick, from thence by steam to Athlone, on the "Great Western;" there are fine Trout and Salmon here in summer. Go on from here to Galway, and fly fish Lough Carib (the river, I believe, is now broken up to facilitate the navigation between the bay and this grand expanse of fresh water). There are very large Trout to be met with in the Lough, and every accommodation respecting fishermen and boats at the town. The angler will find it very pleasant for a day or two's fish in the lake, with a ripple on the water and a grey cloud above. CONNAMARA AND BALLYNAHINCH. In this western region there are some beautiful lakes and rivers, once celebrated for the abundance of Salmon and Trout which they contained, but, alas! the "weirs" and nets have "wed" them all away, to the grief of the tourist angler, who might have enjoyed the "wild sports of the west." So he will yet, for there is a reformation to take place that will restore them to their pristine numbers both in lake and river. They are about to take down the "weirs," and net the bays, which will not only give the Salmon a free passage up, but augment them a hundred-fold,--then, "hurrah for Connamara, the land of the west." Derry Clare Lake is a good one for the fly, so is Lough Inna, and above and below the "weirs." If the generous proprietors of the fishery would consult upon the subject, they would immediately put a stop to the obstructions, if not, it it is quite impossible that there can be good fishing up to Lough Inna. Thirty gentlemen might fly fish these waters without the least inconvenience, were the Salmon allowed to go free. The Salmon Flies for Connamara are rather small and plain; various brown, black, red, olive, and orange flies kill well, ribbed with gold and silver. Those Sea-Trout ones, described for Waterville, do also well, and orange floss silk, ribbed with gold, small topping for tail, jay round the head, and mallard mixed wings. Hook C or CC. A small black fly, yellow tag, topping for tail, rib of silver, teal, and golden pheasant neck, breast feather of the peacock wing, mixed, blue feelers of macaw, jay at the shoulder. Hook B, or No. 9. A green body, ribbed with gold, black red hackle, orange macaw, or cock of the rock feather in the tail, short; a nice mixed gaudy wing, with a good deal of mallard and wood-duck prevailing, or silver pheasant wing, the hen bird is best. C, CC or B hook; vary the size for high and low water. A small claret fly, and the three flies in the Plates, Nos. 3, 4, and 5, with No. 11, all made on small hooks, these are the sorts to kill. The Sea-Trout ones are very small black and red hackles, grouse and wren hackles, dun flies, and little brown ants, hare's ear and yellow, silver greys, and the small flies enumerated in the catalogue. Use a sixteen feet salmon rod, and single gut casting lines, with one or two twisted lengths next to the reel line, which should be plaited silk and hair. There are plenty of boats and boatmen to be had at Ballynahinch River and Lakes, all civil fellows, and if used with common kindness and decency, they will confess that "the English anglers are the best fellows in the whole world,--Good luck to their honors. Long life to their honors." The scenery of this wild country is quite equal to any in Scotland, if the intelligent tourist angler would be at the pains of penetrating into the mountainous regions which surround Connamara. The islands in the bays are interesting and beautiful, as well as the stupendous hills standing up in order like giants, as it were, to bid defiance to the wild waves of the great Atlantic. Ireland is proverbial for the finest breeding rivers in the world for Salmon and Trout, in no country can there be found such splendid rivers and lakes for Salmon; see, for instance, the rivers Shannon, Erin, Bann, and the stupendous lakes out of which they issue, and of which, it is sufficient to show, that at "Burn Cranna," two miles below Coleraine, with the cross nets, three tons of Salmon were caught in one day by the fishermen some years back. This will give an idea of what the rivers in Ireland, in general, can produce. The Bann is preserved in the right season for the fry to come to perfection in great shoals, and from March till August the nets and "cruives" are worked. The flavour and quality of the Irish Salmon far exceed those of any other part of the United Kingdom, for when the fish are sent up from the north to the London markets they often lose their flavour, if not properly packed in the ice boxes; how can it be otherwise, when the distance is considered. The real Salmon of the Tweed, Tay, and Spay, are delicious, through the quickness of transit. Above Ballynahinch are seen the "Twelve Pins," or rocky precipices of "Beanabola." On the right of this mountainous road, beyond Ballynahinch, opposite the beautiful island of "Ennisbofine," are seen green mountain heights of great elevation, with romantic winding vallies, rivers, and views, that strike the heart with admiration. There is a large river in this neighbourhood, called the "Owen Rieve," which abounds with Salmon, and falls into the sea south of Clue Bay. At the head of the Bay, a short way up, there is a Salmon Fishery, but no inn. BALLYNA. The angler may now proceed to the river Moy, at Ballyna, in the County of Mayo, a celebrated place for ages for Salmon fishing with the fly, and also a place where he may find every facility for insuring sport by the kind and obliging conduct of the renter of the "cruives," or cuts, who politely allows the angler to fish where he pleases, on condition that he gives up his fish save one per day, which he may freely reserve for himself, and as a trophy of his success, have the honor of "cutting it pink" by a good turf fire, tired after the day's sport, washing it down with a smoking hot tumbler of "whiskey punch," drinking the health of the Queen, and success to the arms of our brave countrymen in the East. Lough Con will be found also good, but the trout fishing is best in it--fly fish the river for salmon. It is about ten miles up to the southwest, and in it may be caught with the fly, the gilla-roe trout that have gizzards, the same as in Lough Derg on the Shannon. From the town of Ballyna up to Foxford, eight miles distant, is all capital water for salmon; there are plenty of boats to be had, and those who do not like a boat may fish from the shore; the salmon will rise and take the fly in every part of this water, so that the angler cannot go astray. The flies in use here are rather plain than gaudy, except in the spring, like all other rivers, they must be larger and more of a gaudy hue. A claret body, claret hackle and gold rib, tail a small topping, an orange tag rather tapered to the shoulder, jay at head, mallard wings mixed with blue and yellow macaw, neck feather of the golden pheasant, a topping over all, guinea hen, teal, and blue macaw feelers each side with a kingfisher, hook CC, 9, or BB. [Illustration: Plate of 7 Flies and Salmon.] A fly, with a fiery brown floss silk body, black ostrich tag, hackle of the same colour as body, rib of gold, tail of topping, mallard, golden pheasant tail, neck, and red rump feathers mixed, a blue jay or small guinea hen feather at the shoulder, hook No. 9, or B in low water. A blue body, blue jay over it, tag of orange floss, topping for tail, the hackle to be made full by another jay at the shoulder, under which roll a piece of orange pig-hair and pick it out well through the jay; the wings to be mixed ones with a topping in the centre; scarlet macaw feelers, and black head; hook No. 9 and B; rib the body with silver tinsel, and let it be the same colour as the jay. These with Nos. 1, 3, 4, and 5, in the plates of flies for salmon will be found excellent. No. 11 is a good one; and a fly made with black silk body ribbed with silver twist, a very small topping in the tail, mixed with a sprig or two of guinea hen and Ibis, a small guinea hen hackle over the body and cut slantingly underneath the body to be longer at the shoulder, and a black or peacock head with a small blue jay round it; wings mixed with dark mallard, teal, neck feather, blue and yellow macaw, and a strip or two of wood-duck each side, and a fibre or two of peacock neck and white spotted wing feather, hook CC, B. If these flies are attended to, they will kill when many others fail; do not lose your sport and time, keep to what I say. BALLYSHANNON. From Ballyna the angler may proceed to the Erne, at Ballyshannon, by coach, where he will find, on his arrival, a beautiful river, and every accommodation he requires; it is a short running river, with a deep and rapid current, about three or four miles in length; at the town of Bellick it flows out of the grand expanse of Lough Erne, fifty miles in length, and in some parts twelve in width. The salmon leap of Ballyshannon, is a broad body of water falling over a perpendicular rock twelve feet high, up which the salmon run, showing their dark backs through the foaming water, and again falling back into the pool below after many attempts to surmount it; they seldom leap clean up out of the water, but in general I have seen them rushing up through the falling current, which shows the extraordinary strength they possess. I have remarked that they always remain a day or two in the first pool they come to after their ascent, and in this they take the fly most greedily, generally at the head of the leap. The fishermen sweep the river with nets below the leap, and the enormous quantities they take is most surprising, still there is abundance in the river; in summer in consequence of the netting, of course the salmon are not so plentiful up the river. The fish house stands on an island, which may be seen from the bridge of fourteen arches, and in the distance the sea views are grand. There is capital fishing below the bridge, and many fine salmon throws or haunts all the way up to Belleek; this town is finely situated on the north of Lough Erne, where it begins to discharge its waters into the channel which conveys them into the bay of Donnegal. The river at this place has a fall of twenty feet, forming a beautiful scene, enriched by foliage and steep precipices. The trout fishing here is good. The river Erne has a long course, the source of which is "Lough Gonnagh," in the County Longford, a short way from "Lough Sheelin," and the celebrated Lakes of West Meath. It then enters "Lough Oughter," in the County Cavan, after a serpentine course of eighteen or twenty miles, although the distance between the lakes is only eight miles; after passing through this lake, it takes another winding course of the same distance, passing Belturbet, an ancient town on its banks, it then enters the upper Lough Erne, and falls into the sea at Ballyshannon. Seeing the abundance of fish which these grand lakes, and clear running streams throughout the country produce, it is not at all to be wondered at the quantities taken at Ballyshannon. The flies in use here are very gaudy, Nos. 1, 2, and 3, in the plates, will be found capital killers, and up to No. 11 in fine days in summer when the water is low. There is another good killer which I will here describe:--body yellow brown mohair, ribbed with silver twist, puce tag, topping for tail with a little scarlet ibis mixed, a good dyed yellow hackle rolled over the body, and a scarlet hackle round the head; the wings are four toppings with strips of summer duck, a sprig or two of pheasant tail and neck, a strip of dyed white tipped turkey tail, and a sprig of guinea hen and glede or kite tail, the tail feather of the hen Hymalean pheasant is as good as what is called in Scotland "salmon tail glede," and the topping or crest of the cock bird which is a transparent scarlet colour, and like a topping of the golden pheasant stands over all; blue kingfisher each side, and scarlet macaw feelers, black ostrich head, hook No. 9 or 8 in high water. This is a magnificent specimen of a salmon fly, and cannot be made properly at a small expense, either by the amateur himself who buys his foreign feathers, or by the fly-maker who gets his bread by it. The three flies in the plates Nos. 1, 2, and 3, will be found to do the work well. With this one, see the gaudy jointed fly in the plate, with "picker" at top. THE RIVERS BUSH AND BANN. From Ballyshannon the angler proceeds to the Enniskillen and Derry railway, where he takes his seat for Coleraine; on arriving at this town he need not expect much fishing, except that he may take a throw at the head of the leap, and take also a view of that stupendous fall of fresh water which there can be little doubt of its surprising him, with the grand and delightful scenes around. When he gets on the suspension bridge, over the very top of the leap, he must hold by the rails to steady himself, and consider where he really is; the noise which the great body of water in the centre fall makes, when it descends into the pool beneath, dins his very ears, this with the broad rapid running river close beneath his feet as he stands on the light iron bridge, holding by a single rail with his hand, must almost take his sight away; and if he never had the pleasure of seeing the shadow of fear before, rely upon it he feels himself in a fearful plight just then "for a short time any how." On the County Derry side the falls are not so strong, and on these the "cuts" are erected, for no salmon could surmount the centre fall, and these "cuts" are so high from the top of the leap, that the salmon cannot get over them even in floods, except by mere chance. This productive fishery belongs to the London Fishmongers' Company, on application the stranger will be allowed on the bridge to view the falls, and at the same time he will see the traps crowded with salmon of all sizes, from the small "graul," as they call them there, to the largest size salmon; sometimes the fish can hardly swim in these "cuts" or "cruives" they are so numerous, what a treat for the eyes of the fly fisher to behold. The angler may fly fish at will, and has his choice either to go up the Bann to Kilrea, or go first to the Bush river, it is only seven miles from Coleraine to Bush Mills, so that as he is now in that town it would be advisable to try his hand at the Bush first, and then proceed to Kilrea, on the Bann, about fourteen miles up that river, by car. When the angler arrives at Bush Mills, which he will do in an hour from Coleraine, the inn keeper will make him acquainted with the rules of the fishing. The river is now in possession of a club of gentlemen, who will with great pleasure allow the stranger to fly fish. It will be necessary to have a guide, who will show you all the best throws for salmon; and when tired of fishing, point out the "Causeway" to you, which is two miles from the town. The best of the fishing extends about two miles--one mile below the town to the sea, and one mile above it at the salmon leap. There are some good throws on the top of the leap, and towards the tail of the large pool beneath; another famous throw between that and the town called "Lagan Drade;" at the top of this long pool there are two large stones projecting out of the water, between which the current of the stream rushes violently, in this rapid place between the stones the fish will take the fly, and below the stones along the left side of the Bush, and on the rising ground at the foot of the pool; if you can manage to throw well over the bushes you will be very apt to hook a salmon in the mid-water. There is another good throw below the bridge; the deepest part lying along the gardens, and three or four more between that and the sea; there is a large stone lies in the middle of the river, over which the water may be seen boiling, if you can manage to throw beyond it, and draw the fly across it letting it fall a little below it, you will have a chance to hook a fish immediately. Just below this stone, a little way from the sea, at a narrow part of the river, is another capital place, fish it from the right side and do not come abruptly upon the place or the fish will see you, which will prevent them from rising, but this you can avoid, as you will see this contracted part from the stone throw; prepare a good fly before you come up, and keep as far off it as possible. It is a shelving elbow shaped rock narrowing the river, so that your fly must be gradually moved down commencing a few yards above the elbow rock, which cannot be seen as the grass grows on it to the very edge, till you look over it into the water; just as the fly rounds the point all the fish see it that are lying under the brow of the hollow rock, where you may expect a rise; this is the deepest part of the whole river, and the first resting place for the fish after leaving the sea. In this place the depth of the water requires a bright fly; the following one will prove a killer:--Body, orange floss silk, a small topping for tail with a fibre or two of mallard, ribbed with fine gold tinsel, and a rich brown-red cock's hackle from the tail up, not too long in the fibres, the hackle to be a little black at the head when rolled on; the wing of copper brown mallard with a strip of wood-duck each side, and a topping over all; feelers of macaw, and a black ostrich head. Hook CC. Should you rise a fish with this old favorite, and it does not take, try him once or twice more with it, and no doubt you will have him. If he does not hook himself with it, change it for a light blue one, the body the blue colour of the sky, legs the same, and a mallard wing ribbed with gold. You now come to the sea, at "Bushfoot." There is a pool here into which the tide ebbs and flows, and at times the fish are plunging over and over on the top of each other, which the fishermen net when this is the case. When the tide is out the Salmon will rise and take the fly in it freely, as the flowing of the river into it pushes out the brackish water before it, and when the tide is flowing, before it enters the pool, is the best time,--in fact, this is the best place to stay at for the sole purpose of being enabled to fish, as the river above is so low in summer, except after rains, that it is useless to try. The Castle of old "Dunluce" is near Bushfoot, it stands on a rock close to the cliff on the mainland in the sea, and is built on the surface or top of the rock, close to its very edge all round, and the corner stones appear to have been brought from the Giant's Causeway. There is a deep chasm between the castle and the land, over which the range wall of the old bridge is yet standing; the bridge itself is completely gone. This narrow wall, about fourteen inches wide, may be easily crossed going into the castle, but on recrossing it to the land side it strikes terror into the heart. Some years ago I visited this old ruin, and crossed the wall into it quite easily and fearlessly, but on my returning, to my great surprise, I was afraid of my life to recross it. The cause was, no doubt, that the wall and yawning chasm appeared more under me on coming out than on going in, the wall being narrow and the chasm deep. At last I crept over it very slowly on my hands and knees, and it was with difficulty I reached the land. As I sat panting on the grass, looking towards the dark old pile, I vowed that the walls of "Dunluce Castle" should never again hold me. I was most likely stricken with a fairy talisman. The "GIANT'S CAUSEWAY" is two miles from Bushfoot, where the stranger may spend a few pleasant days with a kind friend, amidst rocks and caves, glens and tremendous cliffs, causeways, chasms, and pillars of wondrous height. These rows of pillars stand up the face of the cliff, which is 360 feet high, from the base of which three broad causeways extend, of honeycomb shape, nine hundred feet into the sea. The pillars of these low causeways are generally six, seven, and many three and nine-sided, and as even as if they had been cut with a chisel; they rest one upon another in joints, the top one round to fit into the one beneath like a socket, and the pillars are so closely packed, that you can hardly get the point of a knife between them. There are other pillars in the face of the cliffs, called the Giant's Loom, the Giant's Chair, the Giant's Organ, and the Giant's Well. The natural wildness and grandeur of these and the adjoining promontories, exceed any thing that can be imagined. THE RIVER BANN. Portna is considered the best ford for Salmon and Trout fishing on this noble stream. At this place, which is merely an inn, kept by a Mr. Moore, for the accommodation of anglers, the river, which is a large one, falls over ledges of rock, large stones, broad fords of gravel, deep gorges in places, rushing down inclined plains, which spread into currents five and six feet deep, dimpling as it flows along, where large trout may be seen taking down the natural insects, and making the surface boil. These places might be swarming, were it not for the "cruives," with the largest salmon in Britain. During the summer months you may take a good many salmon here, but on some days you cannot see a fish, as they are mostly stopped at the "cuts." These salmon traps are called "cuts," in Ireland, and "cruives," in Scotland. I need not explain their formation, as they are too well known to the fly fishers. Notwithstanding all this, the generous renter of the fishery at the Leap of Coleraine, gives liberty to all anglers visiting the Bann, from March to August, and the courtesy and politeness which he evinces towards gentlemen, causes him to take no notice of their fishing with the salmon fly till September. I have been informed by Mr. Moore, the inn-keeper, at Portna, that there is now a "Queen's Gap" made in the "cuts," on Sundays, to allow some of the salmon to escape. This is a great boon to the angler. The town of Kilrea is a mile from Portna, where there is a good inn, kept by an Englishman, a Mr. Adcock. At the bridge, which is half a mile from the town, there is a famous throw for a salmon; you let off the line, while standing on the bridge, to where the fish lie, a little lower down. There are capital streams for salmon near "Moor Lodge," a delightful spot, down as far as "Bevanaher" ford. The boatmen take you through the gorges in racehorse style. The man brings the bow of the boat to the very edge of the rapid, steadies her by making you sit down with himself, and in a minute or two she shoots down the gorge in a very pleasant manner into the broad ford below; when he returns with the boat, he pulls her up the side of the stream. The Bann boatmen, I must say, are very civil fellows, and charge moderately for their labour and boats--half-a-crown a day, pot luck, and a smoke of tobacco--"an ould fly, and a gut casting line, if it's no use to your honor." THE FLIES to suit the Bann are as follows:-- No. 1. Body claret pig hair, ribbed with gold tinsel, orange tag, a topping, and a little wood-duck for tail; a dark claret hackle rolled up to the shoulder, and a blue jay above it; mallard wings, mixed with bustard--the dark small spotted bustard feather is best for this river, the light coloured for Scotland and Wales--golden pheasant tail and neck, peacock wing, wood-duck feelers of blue and yellow macaw, and a black head. Hook No. 8 or 9. This is a great favourite. No. 2. Scarlet body, scarlet hackle, and mallard wing, gold over body, topping for tail, and one in the centre of the wings, jay at the shoulder, and a black head. Hook No. 8. Large for the Spring, and B, BB for June and July. No. 3. Fiery brown body, brown-red hackle, gold tinsel, mallard wings with a little wood-duck and golden pheasant neck feather mixed with it, macaw feelers, and a small topping for tail mixed with wood-duck. Hook BB or G. Grouse hackle round the shoulder, and a black head. No. 4. Body yellow pig hair, half way up from the tail, the remainder wine purple or dark blue, a purple hackle over it, and a claret one at the shoulder; blue head picked out the colour of the sky; two toppings in the centre of wings of mallard and brown turkey mixed, and macaw feeler. Hook No. 9. Silver tinsel over the body. No. 5. Orange body, broad gold tinsel, dark brown-red hackle over it; strips of wood-duck and neck feather for tail; strips of spotted Argus pheasant; a dark full mallard wing with two neck feathers in the centre, and a black head. Hook No. 9, BB, or 8. Large for high water or deep places. No. 6. A puce body, ribbed with silver tinsel and gold twist, topping in the tail mixed with wood-duck fibres; puce hackle struck full up to the head, blue jay here, and kingfisher each side of the wings, which are of a very nice mixture of Argus pheasant small spotted feather, peacock wings, mallard, teal, guinea hen, kite tail, pheasant tail, blue and orange macaw, scarlet macaw, green parrot tails, Ibis, and silver pheasant tail (the hen); feelers of macaw, a topping over all, with the crest feather of the Hymalean pheasant, and a bronze head. Hook, Nos. 9 and 8. These, with the eleven flies in the Plates, and No. 12, early in the Spring, with the five Shannon flies, are all "first-rate killers," indeed, the fourteen painted flies are all capital ones for this river. THE TROUT FLIES are generally the same as those in the catalogue of flies for the season. In the spring they run rather large, but in the summer months they are used very small. Olive flies of various hues are very much used, and a fly with a green body and the feather off the root of the landrail's wing; another with orange body, black-red hackle, and woodcock wings. Hooks No. 8, in spring, Nos. 10 and 12, in summer. The various browns are capital in the early season, and the green olive, sooty olive, hare's ear and olive, brown and olive flies made full in the wings, and to be longer than the body. There are no hackles used in the spring, till a little further on in the season, then hackle flies are used; the wren tails of different sorts are very much prized, and the light red-brown grouse hackle, and yellow body; a blue body fly, black hackle, and wings of the starling; a gosling green olive fly, with mallard wings, mixed with landrail, and a hook No. 8 or 10; a fly with a yellow body of silk, red hackle dyed yellow, starling wing mixed with mallard, and a little partridge tail; the golden wren is good; a very small black gnat is good; and the never-failing "blue blow." The body of this little fly, as used on the Bann, is mole's fur mixed with golden olive, picked out at the shoulder, and a black bird's wing, to be fished with on warm sultry days. These flies are killers, and the trout are fond of them, which will be found excellent and plentiful at Portna. On the shores of Lough Neagh, towards the Bridge of Toome, where the river issues out of the lake, there is good angling in the Drake season in June. There is a small inn at Toome Bridge, where the angler can procure a boat. It is but four miles north of "Randalstown," on the Belfast and Ballymena Railway. I have spent many a day on these waters, when a young man. From Shane's Castle, the Earl O'Neil's, to the bridge, and from the town of Antrim to Shane's Castle, there are large trout taken with the fly; at the end of May, and throughout June, the whole surface of the lake along the shore is covered with the natural fly. The Drake, in the Plate, would be a good one made on a large size hook, to throw amongst them. Earl O'Neil grants permission to gentlemen to fly-fish in the demesne of Shane's Castle, by sending a note from the inn at Randalstown, to the Steward. There are numerous rivers running into Lough Neagh, from five different counties, which it borders. The Bann rises in the Mourne Mountains, in the County of Down, and passing through the Lough, issues out of it at the Bridge of Toome, forming a stupendous body of fresh water. The Lough is twenty-three miles long, and twelve in width. To get at the various small trout rivers running into all these great lakes in the north of Ireland, I would recommend, to gain information of the cross-roads, Leigh's Road Book of Ireland and Dublin Railway Guide. The angler will now take his departure from the north and proceed to Dublin, _viâ_ Belfast and Draugheda, at this place he comes to the river Boyne, where he may spend a few pleasant days at "Old Bridge," a place about three miles up the river at the "weirs." There is good Salmon fishing at this place when the tide is out, and on the flow of the tide he will take capital Grilse and Sea-Trout. For the Boyne, the best flies are claret, brown, olive, green, orange, and black, with brown mallard wings, and turkey tail feathers. Plain ones in general are best. LAKES OF WESTMEATH. After leaving Draugheda, the angler will reach Dublin by rail in a very short time, where he will take his place in the railway carriage for Mullingar, the county town of Westmeath; here, he is in the centre of numerous fine lakes, well stored with large trout that will take the fly most freely in May and June; the whole country round this place is most pleasingly diversified by romantic sites, gentlemen's mansions, and extensive lakes. There are two lakes in the neighbourhood, or environs of Mullingar, which are "Lough Ennel" and "Lough Owel," to the north of the town; the first named one is the best for large trout. There are good boats and fishermen to be had here. A little farther northward is Lough Iron, and the river Jenny, which takes its course to the Shannon. The best lake of them all is "Derevaragh," still further to the north; the town of Castlepollard is the best station to stay to fish this fine lake; the trout run twelve and fourteen pounds in it. Lough Lane and Dromore are close to the last named lake. The angling in May is most excellent, with the green drake; it is called the drake season, and at this period the largest fish are caught; the green drake which I have described, is the right sort for the lakes, with large whole upright wings double the ordinary size. The trout flies in general are brown, green, grey, red, black, hare's ear and yellow, hare's ear and brown, hare's ear and olive, fiery brown, claret, orange, and yellow flies, and in rough weather gaudy grilse flies are good. The flexible minnow would be a capital bait, drawn after the boat, when the trout are not inclined to take the fly.--See an angling tour of the lakes by "Jeffery Green Drake." There is very good salmon and trout fishing to be had in the County Tipperary, at the town of Cahir, situated on the Suir; Kilcommon Cottage on the river side, is a place of great beauty, and the angler may amuse himself in the demesne of Lord Cahir, which contains 560 acres; this place and Clonmel may be reached by railway from Dublin, and on arriving at Kilkenny there is very good fishing in the river Barrow at the town, on the road to Cahir. There is a small river called Killmacow, two miles above Waterford, running into the Suir, in which there is beautiful trout fishing, in the Spring and June. There are some nice streams in Wexford, for salmon and trout fishing. The "Slaney," at Scarrawalsh Bridge, near the Barony Forth, is capital for sea trout, in August and the early Spring; there is good trout fishing the higher you proceed up this fine river. In Lord Courtown's demesne, beyond Tara Hill, there is good grilse and sea trout fishing, the river runs through the town of Ballycannew, a few miles above Gorey; Lord Courtown's is not far from Gorey, who will allow any gentleman to angle with the fly in his charming demesne. They say that his lordship can contrive to "fish these fish" into the kettle alive out of the river, part of which runs under the mansion; I cannot tell how true this may be, the river runs close to the house, in which there are plenty of salmon and trout. The flies used here are rather gaudy, sea trout size; and the list of flies for the season will answer admirably for trout fishing. From the above place the angler may conveniently visit the rivers in the County Wicklow, which are all trout streams, arriving at Arklow, on the river Ovoca. There is a very nice river[D] running along the southern side of the Wicklow Mountains, passing by a place called "Little Aghrim," from whence to the wooden bridge, three miles from Arklow, there is excellent trout fishing in March, April, and May; it passes through a long lough or piece of deep water, out of which the trout issue in the spring into the river; there is no obstruction on its banks from the Wooden Bridge Inn up to Aghrim. There is a bridge crosses the river three miles up from the Wooden Bridge, where the angler may fish up to Aghrim or down to the "Meetings." The Wooden Bridge is called the "Lower Meetings of the Waters,"--this is the most beautiful place of any in the neighbourhood of the Vale of Ovoca, as you can see fine vales from the mount behind the Inn; although from the grounds of Howard Castle, where the little and great Avon meet, the views are sublime,--this is Moore's "Sweet Vale of Ovoca, where the bright waters meet." From the town of Rathdrum to the Meetings there is good fly fishing in the spring; through the vale there is no angling in the river, in consequence of the copper mine water running into it from the hills on each side, Cronebane, and Balymurtagh. There is very little fishing in the river Dargle, as the stream is so small, but the scenery is magnificent, particularly in the vicinity of Powers Court Waterfall, it is about two miles and a half from the village of Powers Court. The best way to go from Dublin to fish the rivers "Avon" and "Derry," would be through Bray and Rathdrum; begin here to fish the Avon, to the Bridge at Howard Castle; and from the Wooden Bridge angle up the Derry to Aghrim, I never saw so many small trout in my life as there are in this beautiful stream, in the spring; there are numbers of small rivers descending the Wicklow Mountains, towards the east, south, and west, in which the trout run small. We will return to Dublin and pay a visit to the once celebrated "salmon leap," at Leixlip, a few miles west of the City--this is a charming place, where a few days may be spent to advantage; the groves and rocks, and the romantic glen are the theme of admiration. And the Park of Castletown, the most beautiful in the Kingdom; from the ancient castle at the end of the town there are views of the river and waterfall. The salmon fishing has been spoiled here by the sewers of the City running into the Liffey. At New Bridge, on the banks of the Liffey, the station before you come to Kildare, on the Cork railroad, close to the celebrated "Curragh of Kildare," a race course of 3000 acres of verdant plain, there is capital trout fishing in April and May, and pretty fair sport may be had throughout the summer; the flies to suit the river Liffey are very small, and those little ones in my list for the season will answer well. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote D: The River Derry.] THE RIVER LEE, AT CORK, Would be as good a place as any in Ireland "to go to fish," were it not for the "weirs," and foul play in many ways, which is practised all the way up, on the poor salmon; there is some little sport to be had in it in the spring, and after heavy rains. The flies to suit it are rather plain and small, blue, grey, brown, claret, and green; mallard wings, mixed with a little golden pheasant tail and neck feathers; blue macaw feelers, black head, and mixed tails like the wings. Hook B CC, in high water BB and No. 9. SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND. We will bid adieu to old Ireland for a season, and its fair city Dublin, "with the blue sky over it," and step into the steam boat at Kingston for Holyhead, seat ourselves in a carriage, and trundle off to bonny Scotland--a country of many waters, stored with fine fish; we cross the Tweed, at Berwick, of pastoral fame, and dash into "Auld Reekey" with flying colours in no time. The beautiful city of Edinburgh must not be left without viewing it from end to end, as it is worth while to spend a day or two in it, if you have not been there, were it only to inspect its monuments and antiquities, which are numerous, in fact, the city at large is a complete curiosity. From here the angler will be able to take rail for Perth, on the banks of the famous "river Tay;" and as the line touches on Stirling, should it be convenient, there might be a day or two spent on the Forth. There are abundance of trout about four miles up the river, and some salmon; small plain flies suit it best. THE RIVER TAY. This beautiful salmon river is the principal one in Perthshire, in its course it expands into Loch Tay, on leaving which it finds itself a channel and becomes rapid for miles; it has a long course, passing the towns of Dunkeld and Perth, and falls into the sea at Dundee. The river Erne, after a long and rapid course falls into the Tay below Perth. There is also the "Timel," at the pass of Cillecrankey, on the road to Inverness from Dunkeld, and is fourteen miles from the latter place, there is a small inn close to the river, in which there is good trout fishing; the coach from Perth stops here to change horses and breakfast; it is a fine rushing stream. And also the "Keith," at Blair Dummond, where there is a very high waterfall, the sound of which can be heard at some distance; it falls into the Tay. There is excellent angling for salmon and sea trout in the river Tay, five or six miles above Perth, in September and October; the white trout are in abundance in this river in the latter month; the salmon run very large in this water, in April, May, and June; and are best taken with large salmon flies of rather a sombre hue. At the town of Dunkeld there is famous fishing in the Spring and Autumn. From Dundee to Perth and Dunkeld, through the "Carse of Gowrie," the Valley of the Tay is one of the most beautiful parts of all Scotland, in my estimation; at both sides of the river it is interspersed with excellent gentlemen's seats, and beautiful grounds. There is a fishery a little above the Bridge of Perth, which is very productive. The flies to suit this fine river are:-- No. 1. Brown pig hair bodies, ribbed with gold, dark brown-red hackle, wings light brown spotted turkey tail, red tag, and a scarlet joint above it; the body to be made long and taper. Hook No. 8. Rather large for the spring. No. 2. A bronze peacock harl body, ribbed with gold tinsel, a brown-red hackle, and wings of mallard mixed with hen pheasant tail, the tail of the golden pheasant, red tail of mohair cut short, and the body to be thin. No. 9 hook. No. 3. Brown mohair body, with a long red-brown spotted grouse hackle; the wings a mixture of mallard, brown turkey, and a little hen pheasant tail. Hook No. 8 or 9. No. 4. A puce mohair body ribbed with silver, purple hackle over it, yellow tail of small topping, and a yellow hackle round the shoulder; wings of golden pheasant tail, with a little spotted bustard, a topping over all, and a black head. Hook No. 8 or 9. (A piece of wood-duck each side.) No. 5. An orange body ribbed with black silk and gold tinsel, topping in the tail, and a black-red hackle over it, (a hackle with the black streak running all the way through it); scarlet tag and tail; wings light brown turkey tail, rather lighter at the tips, a few fibres of wood-duck each side, the same quantity of bustard, and a bronze head. Hook No. 9, or for high water, No. 7. This fly will be found an excellent killer in the Tay, or any other river in Scotland. These, with the twelve painted and engraved flies, no man can desire better. Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 11, will be found excellent in low water, and Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, in high water. THE SEA-TROUT FLIES are orange bodies, mixed wings, jay at shoulder, silver tinsel, and a small topping for tail. Hook _fff_ or C, say No. 6, Kendal. Blue body, black hackle ribbed with silver, and mallard wings. Hook CC. Green body, black hackle, gold twist, and dark brown turkey wings. Light brown body, red hackle, gold twist, two fibres of red Ibis for tail, and glede wings. Hook No. 6 or 7. In low water they take them rather small, with the tinsel, of course. Hare's ear body, ribbed with silver twist, a greyish dark hackle, the colour of the dark fur on the ear, mallard wings, and tail of the same. Make another fly mixed with orange and yellow mohair. A black fly ribbed with silver tinsel, black wing with white tips, black hackle, and a yellow head and tail. Hook C. It would be as well to try very small gaudy flies occasionally, as you may rise a grilse during the time you are fishing for white-trout. A grilse loves to rise at a middling gaudy fly after leaving the sea. Blue, green, and red flies are all good. I will give three more favorites that will not miss:-- No. 1. Body brown claret colour, mixed with the fur of hare's ear, ribbed with silver twist, a short black hackle, wings rather light brown mallard, and a black head. Hook, Green Drake size, or No. 6. No. 2. A black body, tipped with orange silk, ribbed with silver twist, a black hackle, and dark brown turkey tail wings. Hook No. 6 or C, varied with blue body and black-red hackle. No. 3. A blue dun body, a dun hackle ribbed with silver twist, tail two fibres of mallard, and grey mallard for wings. Hook C, or No. 6. A fly with an olive body, and one with yellow and mallard wings, are good. These flies will be found great killers where the fish are plentiful, with a good ripple on the water, and would do admirably on the Dee and Don, at Aberdeen. THE DEE AND DON. These rivers run into the sea at Aberdeen, and are excellent for Salmon and Trout fishing--the Dee for Salmon, and the Don more for Trout, which are most delicious for the table; they cut as pink as Salmon. The white-trout fishing is good here in October, and the flies I have just given for the Tay will kill admirably in these rivers; and for salmon, will be capital ones, made a size or two larger. When I visited that country a few years back, I walked up the Dee one evening, and at a shallow ford, above the bridge, there were two men "stroke-hauling" the salmon as they run up out of the pool below, and which they called their rented fishery; they rushed into the stream with a sort of net in their hands, and had them out in quick time. As the fish run, the water did not appear to cover their backs. I was told, were it not for this practice, the river would be swarming. THE RIVER SPEY. This splendid Salmon river runs through Elginshire, and a nobler one there is not to be found for fishing with the salmon fly, particularly in high water, and in the large pools when the water is low. In summer there is little sport to be had, except in these pools, with a good ripple, and towards the sea, from the bridge at Fochabers, a capital station, with an excellent inn. Early in the morning and late in the evening, are the best times in the heat of summer. I had a fly sent me some years past, by McPherson Grant, about the size of C or drake size, with which he killed a salmon, twenty pounds weight, in the Spey. The body of the fly was made of yellow silk, red cock's hackle, toucan tail ribbed with gold, jay at the shoulder, a neat gaudily mixed wing, feelers of blue and yellow macaw, and a small black head. It was one of my flies, which, if made on large size hooks, will kill anywhere. The above little fly is just the sort for low water, and should be adopted, made very small, in the summer months. The salmon should be thrown for with this sort of fly, in rapid currents rushing into deep holes, where the fish lie. The winged larva would do well in such places for grilse and sea-trout. In the spring, flies the size of No. 12, are used, with long thin silk bodies of orange, yellow, red, and green colours, red hackles, jay and mixed wings, with red feathers prevailing in them, and black heads, ribbed with gold and silver tinsel. The fifteen painted Salmon Flies will be found great killers in this river, varied in size according to the state of the water. There is a river which runs past the town of Banff, the Keith, in which there is good angling a few miles up from the broad part of the water. Guinea hen and jay hackles kill here, with grouse and brown body, mallard wings mixed with turkey tail, and small size hooks, say CC or B. THE FINDHORN is another fine Salmon river after heavy rains, which swell it to a prodigious size, as shown by its channel in low water, high ridges of sand and gravel being thrown up on each side of its banks at every flat running ford in its course to the sea. The flies to suit it are:-- No. 1. Brown body, gold tinsel, wings copper-coloured mallard, and a brown grouse hackle. Hook No. 8, and BB. No. 2. Body brown floss silk, ribbed with silver, large motley brown cock's tail feather over the body, and a spotted turkey tail for wings. No. 9 hook. No. 3. Body, puce floss silk ribbed with silver, black-red hackle, a mixed wing of glede, turkey tail, and mallard, with a topping over all, and a dark claret or purple hackle. Hook No. 9. No. 4. Light puce body with a hackle of the same colour, topping for tail, and a gaudily mixed wing, (not too much so) broad silver. No. 8 hook. No. 5. Yellow body, puce hackle, mixed wings, rib of silver, and tail a topping. Hook No. 9. These, with the painted ones, will do the work to a nicety in this dashing river. The River Nairne, in these quarters, is not a bad one for grilse and salmon fishing in September; the town of Nairne, is the most convenient station, beginning a few miles up, and proceeding higher; the small salmon flies that I have given for the Spey will suit this river well. RIVERS AND LAKES ADJACENT TO FORT WILLIAM, ON THE CALEDONIAN CANAL. These wild and majestic scenes in the heart of the Highlands of Scotland are without doubt splendid, either to look upon or for the purpose of salmon and trout fishing, the recollections of such to the intelligent and contemplative mind of the gentle angler who has visited this region, must be lasting and agreeable. [E]The sail down the Clyde from Glasgow, passing Dumbarton Castle (on a rock in the water to the right), to Greenock, is most enchanting; opposite this fine town the angler will observe a grand expanse of deep and blue salt water, bordered in the distance with mountains dark and high, filling the imagination with awe, while pacing the decks of the frail but well appointed little steam boat Helen McGregor in the gloom, as she creaks away through briny silvered waves of lakes, estuaries, and straits, to Caledonia's "noblest work"--the Great Canal. Rounding a rough northern head land, where seven currents meet, of seas, sounds, and straits, Crenan in the wake, compassing the shore in Jura Sound, the "little Helen" struggling with the swelling tide, appeared to be standing still though at full speed; Loch Etive, on the starboard--into whose bosom, Awe's serpentine waters steal at solitary "Bunaw;" Lismore in the distance, Mull in our wake, due West--the rapid subsiding--through it "the fair one" tripped gallantly. In these "meetings of the waters," what oceans of salmon sported and played at large in their blue and fresh element, far from the wily bars! The "Heroine" seemed at once to be stepping up hills from lock to lock, till she levelled the base of "Ben Nevis;" close to which mighty mountain, the "fair one" squatted for the night. Glad enough were her living freight to get on firm footing, and wend their way across a mossy plain, without a rolling stone, to a little house under a hill, that kept beds "well aired," and "usquebaugh," for travellers. At the dawn of morning, through the haze, could be descried, "Fair Helen," smoking--her steam was up--sitting, "sidey for sidey," by the lofty Ben, the sight of which, to look up at, was staggering. He had yet his nightcap on of hazy grey, but enough of the giant hill could be denoted that his base on that side was hewn away, facilitating the great track. This morning, away went the "fair one," rattling like "sticks a breaking." Hurrah for Fort William--a voice, "and the Camerons of Lochiel,"--here we are at Crystal Laggan, Lochiel, and Lochey's excellent waters for the Salmon Trout--(I will give the flies to suit them a little further on). "Fair Helen" began her movements slowly for some time, creeping through locks, o'er hills, in basins--Macomer on the starboard,--Lochiel, farewell!--now skimming into saltless "Lochey's" (famed for its ancient mountain clans) soft and balmy waters; through the lake she dashed, breast high--a strait ahead--steaming by Balalister at seven knots by the log, soundings the deep nine, "Fair Helen" entered the gorge, and now rushing down an inclined plain, to the fear of the timid, and delight of the stouthearted, double quick did run the "fair one," making up for lost time experienced in the "meeting of the waters"--through lock gates, up hills, &c., now through an embankment, nearing Fort Augustus, and the head of Lochness, down she settled between two stupendous lock gates. "What aw-fu' gates!" What work bestowed on them--what an enormous depth are they--the wet and muddy sides of which beat chilly. Down, "down below," went the "fair one," till she levelled the golden waters of--"O, that lovely lake,"--into which she slipped like a fairy elf. After her cold incarceration, "Helen the Fair" tripped merrily down the centre of the "fathomless Lochness," the sun breaking, beamed out upon us cheeringly after the chill and hazy morning. Like looking-glass did that sun-lit lake appear, stretching away before us, losing itself in the distance, bordered by hills and mountains on either side, till on the larboard was seen Morrison's lonely glen and meandering stream. We neared the bay, sounded whistle, and lowered steam. A few minutes more, and off went the Helen McGregor, making head like a waddling duck through the valley of golden[F] waters. Hush! The mountain sylph is heard in the cabin. Hush! by the powers, it's Phillips, warbling the incantation of the wizard of the glen. "Farewell to the mountain, And sun-lighted vale." O, shade of Wilson! the soul of Scottish song. Angler, may you rest in peace. On the starboard was observed the "Falls of Fyres," descending, perpendicularly, over a craggy precipice--most curious. "Bonny Helen" slid smoothly along, till, at the "heel of the evening," we entered the last embankment of Caledonia's Grand Canal, just where the beautiful river Ness issues out of "that lake," opening into a lovely and fertile valley, in the centre of which is a boat upset, an antiquity, covered with motley trees. A few minutes more and we were safely landed at the quay of the fair and sweet metropolis of the ancient Highlands, Inverness, seated on a hill above the river. O, I sigh for the days that will never return! High and airy rock, I split upon you twice, steering northwise fra' bonny Dundee, through the "Carse o' Gowrie," by Laburnam, to famed Dunkeld, on Tay's noble waters; Blair Athol and Fore's Macbeth crossed the source of Spay, through a waste and dreary plain, with villages far apart, where ran those weirdy thinly kilted lads to see the "four-in-hand;" up hill, down dale, and heathered moor we steered, till at length we galloped towards the glooming, by the graves of dark Culloden's blood-stained field--nearing the city, on went the drag, and over a well macadamised road, "knapped" by the hardy highland wight, we hurried into Inverness. Alas! this bronchial asthma, that shuts me from that fishing. Fond memory brings the light of other days around me. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote E: The Author's trip.] [Footnote F: There is a kind of slimy weed, of a yellow colour, that is produced at the bottom of the lake, which causes that appearance, and is injurious to fly fishing in the river.] SALMON FLIES FOR FORT WILLIAM, &c. &c. The flies to suit the various waters surrounding Fort William are generally of a medium size and middling gaudy. The engraved ones in my list, for Salmon in general, from No. 2 to 11, will kill well. The list for the season for Trout. No. 1. Light blue body, rib of silver, guinea hen hackle, blue jay, topping in tail; wings, teal, mallard, guinea hen rump feather, peacock wing feather, and blue and yellow feelers of macaw. No. 9 hook, or BB. No. 2. A small size fly like the above, varied with black floss body. A good sort for the Lochy. Hook C or CC. No. 3. A fly like the first, varied in the body thus: yellow tag, silver tints, and a small topping for tail; a blue mohair joint, then a red one, another blue joint, then an orange one under the fly at the shoulder, and a blue head. Hook No. 9 or BB; a C for lake Trout. No. 4. A claret fly, with wings and tail like the first one, varied with yellow-brown body and hackle, and ribbed with gold. BB hook, and CC for lake Trout, with a bronze head. No. 5. A fly with grass-green floss silk, ribbed with gold, black-red hackle, and blue head; the wings and tail like the first. Vary the body with different greens. Hooks from CC up to No. 9. No. 6. A black body, with black legs, silver tinsel and cock of the north rump feathers for the wings; some call it the "copperkeilsey." Hook C, CC and B. This is the celebrated Kenloch of Kenloch. SALMON FLIES FOR THE NESS. No. 1. Body half black and yellow, a jay and purple hackle ribbed with silver, orange head, mallard, peacock wing and jungle cock wings. Hook BB. No. 2. Body black hair, orange tag, ribbed with gold and silver, black hackle, jay at the shoulder, wings mixed, of guinea hen, teal, two small tipped feathers, and two toppings over all a little longer, tail a small topping, and a bronze head. Hook B or BB. This will be found a great killer in the Ness and Beauley, a beautiful stream at the head of the Murray Firth. No. 3. Body yellow-brown pig hair, ribbed with gold, small, topping for tail, red cock's hackle and blue jay, wings of golden pheasant tail, mixed with mallard, neck feather, teal, and guinea hen, green parrot and macaw feelers, and a black head. Hook No. 9 or B; for low water, C. This is a capital fly for either the Ness or Beauley. These, with the painted flies, made small, will suit well. There is a kind of yellowish slimy weed on the bottom of the Ness which proceeds from Loch Ness, that is injurious to the propagation of the salmon of late years, and it affects the fly fishing considerably, to the great disappointment and vexation of the good anglers of the north. THE RIVER SHIN. Classic Shin, on whose heath-clad banks and flowing waters the great and good fly fishers roam, who never saw "Kelt of Baggit" there--the haunt of monarchs of the sea, and shepherd swains that watch His flocks, and feed His Dams--the theme of poetess, and the learned. O, "Ephemera," how beautifully written is that "Book of the Salmon;" how exquisitely delineated that "Ova;" how admirably that "golden fish," which bounds up falls and cataracts in that purling "meandering" stream; how charming to gaze upon that lovely "Goddess of the Brooks"--the famed Ondine--how rightly represented. Oh! excellent "Ephemera"--my good and constant friend--the "great and good Will Blacker's" tears (I blush) descend like rain through these sky lights, and damp the very sheets my palsied pen doth blot. Alas! well-a-day-that noble salmon fishing--what sport! These lean and bellows'd sides are winded--this flattened chest, once full, now dented--these calves, once plump, now thin and gone--these shins, once clad, are now protruding. The "puss" more chronic heaves, yes, I still can fish! These cheeks, how pale (their bones "can't grind"), once rosy, the pride of more than "Reva's" lovely blooming rose, my blessed bosom friend, my wife, whose lamp is trimmed. O, "Ephemera!" friend, when shall we meet, with rod in hand, on pure and crystal Shin?-- "When summer comes, The heather bells entice, Our feet to roam. The mournful dove, Within the dale invites, To peace and love." O, summer's glorious sun! I await thee, to tan this shrivelled, shorn hide. O! come, and regenerate this sapless tree with heavenly warmth. My heart's in the Highlands, My heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlands, Chasing the deer, Chasing the wild deer, And following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands, Wherever I go. I cannot add a fly to the list for the Shin in the "Book of the Salmon," by "Ephemera," except that I submit to the notice of the great salmon fishers of Shin those model flies in my list for trial, which, no doubt, will kill. I never fished the Shin, although I have been twice near it. Mr. Young, of Invershin, the renter of the river, will show gentlemen angling there every possible facility, civility, and politeness. The "Queen's Gap," in the cruives, is lifted on sabbath days. THE RIVER THURSO. The Thurso, famed for its fresh run salmon throughout the year, is the most northern river in Scotland. The town of Thurso, in Caithness-shire, is the best station, and the route, from Aberdeen to Wick. The salmon flies for Thurso are rather of a plain and sombre cast, varying in size through the fishing months. The river is remarkably high and full in the spring, in consequence of the melting of the snow and ice, and at that period requires large flies, like No. 12; further on in the season they are much smaller in size, like Nos. 1, 2, 3, to No. 11, which are capital ones for it, and the other engravings are likewise good in low water for the fresh run grilse. Throughout the summer months the following are also good for this river:-- No. 1. Body black floss silk, orange tag, tip of gold, small topping for tail, black-red hackle, mallard wings mixed with peacock wing, a topping over all, and a black head. Hook BB, B. No. 2. Body claret silk, claret hackle, ribbed with gold, a short topping tail, with silver tip, mallard wings mixed with tipped feathers, macaw feelers, and a black head. Hook No. 9, or B. This is an admirable fly for lake trout, on C hook. No. 3. Body yellow-brown mohair, red hackle, a short topping for tail, ribbed with gold, claret hackle round the shoulder, and mixed wings rather grey, and inclined to be gaudy. No. 9 hook, or BB. C, for lake trout. No. 4. A black fly, with yellow head, tail of mohair, black hackle, ribbed with broad silver, wings black turkey tail with white tip, varied with brown turkey tail. A fly of each is useful. Hook No. 8 or 9. No. 5. A green fly, both body and hackle, mixed wings rather gaudy, ribbed with gold, orange head, topping in tail, varied with a black-red hackle, and light green silk body ribbed with gold twist. Hook B or BB. No. 6. A dark brown fly, brown red hackle and body, ribbed with gold twist, and glede wings, varied with brown spotted turkey tail feather or mallard, one of each. Hook No. 8 or 9, B for low water. There is a good deal of guinea hen and teal feathers used in the flies of these northern rivers, which appears to be an improvement, with jungle-cock and wood-duck. There is a river issues out of Loch Naver, a short way from the source of the Thurso, which falls into the sea in the same direction west of the town of Thurso; it has a winding course, and would be a very good river for salmon were it well preserved. There are numerous rivers running into the firths on the east side of Sutherland, which produce salmon and fine trout that run up from the sea:--the Wick and Helmsdale in Caithness, the Brora near Golspie, the Dornoch into which the river Shin flows, Drummond and Loch Clash, Dingwall river and lake, and the river Beauley at the head of the Murray Firth. Lord Lovat is the owner of this river, and he is very willing to grant permission to gentlemen to fish on sending in their cards. THE RIVER ESK. The North and South Esk are rivers of Forfar, falling into the sea near Montrose. The North Esk is the best of the two, and affords excellent angling for salmon and sea-trout in August and September. These rivers may be visited by rail from Aberdeen or Dundee, at the present day. I have been told by a gentleman residing at Forfar, that the North Esk was sometimes swarming with salmon and grilse to an incredible extent. The wealthy proprietor of the river will give instant permission to gentlemen to fly fish, information of which he can obtain at the town of Montrose, on the Great Northern Railroad. The flies to suit these rivers are small and plain. A small claret fly with mallard wings; a fly with brown body and a furnace hackle, mallard wings mixed with blue peacock neck feather, strips of mallard in tail, and gold. Hook C or CC. An orange body fly of floss silk, a black hackle, gold, the wings mixed of light and dark mallard, the light feathers are found under the wings of the wild drake on the body, the brown copper-coloured ones on its back growing down from the roots of the wings, (use floss silk for the bodies). A black fly, with silver and black hackle, and teal wings mixed with blue peacock neck. Hook C or CC. LOCH LEVEN. The trout fly fisher staying at Stirling, or its neighbourhood, on the Great Northern, will find himself agreeably situated in the centre of many beautiful streams, to which he may have easy access. At the town of Kinross, by the head of Loch Leven, is a nice station for the lake, and at the village of Largo, to fish the river Leven, below which place it enters the sea at the mouth of the Firth of Forth. A short distance from Largo, near the Promontory, is the town of Anstruther, famous for a monument to the memory of "Maggy Lauder." I had the pleasure of once seeing it. On the Edinburgh and Northern line from Stirling, is the town of Kettle, on the "River Eden," a good station. There are grilse and sea-trout run up it out of the bay of St. Andrew's, in the spring and autumn. Try about the town of Cupar, and near its source, at "Auchtermuchty." The flies to suit it are, hare's ears, black hackles, red hackles, and furnace flies, varied in size. THE RIVER ALLAN. This is a good stream for trout fishing; it enters the Forth below Stirling, just above the town of Aloa. It has an extraordinary winding course, flowing through a picturesque country, and famed in poetic lore as "Allan's winding stream." "On the banks of Allan water, When the sweet spring time did fall, Lived the miller's lovely daughter, The fairest of them all. For his bride a soldier sought her, And a winning tongue had he; On the banks of Allan's water, There was none so gay as she." Sea-trout and grilse run up the Allan in spring and autumn, which afford good sport. The small trout flies in my list suit this river capitally. A few miles above Stirling there is good fishing up to Loch Katrine, commencing below the town of Dumblane, on the Scottish Central Line, and fish up to "Callander," on the east of Ben Lomond. Dumblane is famed as the birth place of "Charming Jessie," in Burns' poetic muse-- "The sun had gan' doun O'er the lofty Ben Lomond, And left the red clouds To preside o'er the scene, When lanely I stray'd in The calm summer gla'ming, To muse on sweet Jessie, The flower of Dumblane." There is another stream that runs down from "Aberfildy" to Stirling, in which there is excellent trout fishing. It has a winding course, falling over rocks, rushing through gorges, down precipices in its way, where it forms deep holes for itself, which in the summer are the haunts of large and fine trout. The flies to suit it are, small dark hare's ears, small black hackles, red and black ants, browns, small duns, and hare's ear and yellow, the blue blow, the brown midge, and in the spring, the March brown, and stone fly, for large fish. There is a very nice stream running out of "Loch Lomond" into the river Clyde, at the town of Dumbarton, in which there are sea-trout in the spring and autumn. They take very small dun flies, silver greys and black midges, the dark hare's ear, and red hackle. The picturesque Loch Lomond affords good trout fishing along its gravelly shores, and near the islands. There are two flies that kill well in it, which are as follows: Black body and hackle, tip of silver, wings of the short bronze feathers of the back of the peacock. No. 6 hook, or _fff_. The other one is, red body, red hackle, and a wing like the first, both tailed with two fibres of the feather of the wings. I received these two flies from a gentleman, one time when I was at Glasgow, who confirmed them as "out-and-outers." There are fish called Pullen, very numerous in Loch Lomond, the shape and size of herrings, which are also numerous in Loch Neagh, in the north of Ireland. They sell in Belfast as "fresh water herrings." When a young man, I denominated Belfast my favorite home, among my dear friends of the rod and gun. Newry, in the County of Down, was the home of my ancestors. My first crying was behind "Cronebaun" hills, in the County of Wicklow, near the "Ovoca," famed for "sweetness" and poetic muse of Erin's humble bard, Tom Moore. Looking over the Wicklow sands, where many a poor fisherman foundered, in the village[G] of "Red Cross," was the first sight my "mama" got of me; like a cloistered nun, I was covered in a veil, which, they say, would always keep me from the "briny depths." Many "crosses" have I had since January 14th, 1814, the "hard winter" which corresponds with that of last year. Mature years of experience make wise men. Forty and one summers having rolled over my head, the dishevelled ringlets of which are now sprinkled with "honorable grey"--bashful man, hide your blushes--my ruddy tint flies when I tell you, my dear anglers, that my sincere desire is to love every good man, as God has taught me. There is no one I despise, disposed at all times to revere superiors, condescend to those who perchance may be my inferiors, continent to kind friends, and forgiving to enemies, if any. Unless we profit by charity, all other profit seems void. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote G: The mansion is roofless, says "Rory O'More."] LOCH AWE AND RIVER. This celebrated lake, on the western side of Scotland, may be conveniently reached from Glasgow. There are steam boats sail two or three times a week up Loch Fine to Inverary, where there can be every information gained respecting conveyances to the inn at Loch Awe, where boats and men are to be had. It is a long and narrow lake in places, and in summer most cheering and pleasant to the fly fishers resorting there. Good angling may be found in the river running by Glenorchy into the lake, where it again issues out of it, and is called the River Awe. It runs with a full and rapid stream, has but a short course, falling into the salt water lake, or estuary, called "Etive," opposite the island of Mull. There could be no better river or lake in the kingdom for salmon, were it not for the "cruives," that, of course, "weed them all away," the proprietor of which is most obliging to grant permission to gentlemen anglers who visit it. The purity of these waters facilitates the propagation of the salmon wonderfully, were they allowed ingress and egress. When the fishing laws are altered, and a reformation made, there will be grand fly fishing, as good as can be found in Norway. In the neighbourhood of good salmon and trout fishing rivers, the people, whom the anglers employ, are very much benefited, and particularly innkeepers, on their banks, and in towns where there is not much traffic. The angler's heart is "in fishing" wherever he goes. The salmon and trout flies to suit Loch Awe and river (my memoranda are generally correct). No. 1. An original and most killing fly for salmon:--Body black ostrich harl, ribbed with gold, a tag of yellow mohair at the tail, tail a very short topping, a rich black-red hackle rolled over the black sparingly, and a mallard wing, made to stand well up and apart. Hook BB, or No. 9. C for lake trout. No. 2. A brown body, black hackle ribbed with gold, and grouse wings. Hook CC. No. 3. Bronze peacock body, ribbed with gold twist, black-red cock's hackle, and dark brown grouse rump feather mixed with turkey tail for wings. Hook BB. C for trout in the lake. No. 4. A cinnamon fly, with glede wings mixed with jungle cock, and ribbed with gold. B hook. No. 9 for the river. No. 5. A black body, silver tinsel, black hackle, full teal wings, yellow head, and tail. Hook B. No. 6. A dark green fly ribbed with gold, silver pheasant tail mixed with mallard for wings, a small topping in tail, and orange head. Hook BB, or C. A blue fly with teal wings and blue hackle ribbed with silver, topping in the tail, and red head of mohair, hook B, or BB; and a fly with peacock harl body, black hackle, hen pheasant tail wings mixed, and the tail of the cock bird. Hook B, or C for trout. The large trout flies in my list for the season are excellent ones for the lake, and Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 11, for salmon. There is good salmon fishing to be had in Islay, south of Mull. The steam boat from Glasgow calls there twice a week. Mr. Campbell, the laird, resides in the island, who gives permission, unhesitatingly, to gentlemen making application to him. The river is at the landing place of the steamer; the salmon, which are numerous in it, take small gaudy flies--blue body and hackle, brown, claret, red, black, and green flies. There is also salmon fishing to be had in "Jura Isle," a little to the north of Islay. THE RIVERS IRVINE, GIRVAN, AND STINCHER, IN AYRSHIRE. In this westerly quarter may be found excellent Salmon and Trout fishing in the spring and autumn in these beautiful streams, which can be reached from the city of Glasgow every day by rail. The Stincher is the best for salmon, the flies for which are browns, blacks, reds, and greys, all plainly dressed ones. I will describe one here, a great favourite of a gentleman friend of mine, Mr. Murdoch,--Stephen Blair, &c. At Glasgow, some years ago, on my stay in that city; I give his name, as he used to call my flies "mest noble flees," and laughed heartily to see the manoeuvring of the hook in my fingers. The body of Mr. Murdoch's fly was in joints of pig hair picked out, and at the head a black-red hackle; first, there was a tip of gold, a tag of yellow hair, then a joint of orange, a joint of fiery brown, a joint of claret, and a joint of black pig hair or mohair, spaniel hair is best; the wings a light brown turkey tail feather with white tips, tied on topping a little longer than the bend of the hook, a very small topping in the tail. Hook No. 8 for high water. Mr. Murdoch was a native of Ayr, and a keen fisher, and used to speak much of his angling in the "waters o' Doon." From Ayr, the angler may proceed to the lakes of Cumberland, _viâ_ Carlisle, Keswick, and Bowness. RIVERS OF WALES.--THE CONWAY. There would be excellent salmon fishing in Wales were the rivers properly preserved. The Conway (North Wales) is a beautiful stream, and it is a great pity it should be neglected; however, I believe it will be very soon protected from the nets, &c., as there are a few spirited gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Llanwrist and Aberconway, who will rent and preserve it for fly fishing only, all the way up from the town of Conway to Capel Curig. The salmon flies in my list, made on small size hooks, will suit it well, varied according to the state of the water; and my list of trout flies will be found admirable for it. Information respecting season tickets, and rules of the fishing, may be obtained at the Inn at Llanwrist. THE RIVER DOVEY. The Dovey is a nice stream, but runs off very soon, like all others descending from the mountains. The salmon would be, nevertheless, very plentiful in it, as there are many capital large pools for them to haunt, if they were allowed to reach them. It is so very much netted at its mouth that it cannot be possible for fly fishing to be good. The neighbourhood of Machynlleth is the best place to fly fish it. In the spring and autumn the salmon flies in the plates will be found admirable for it, made on CC hooks, and C for low water. The furnace and black-red hackles are excellent local flies, made on C hooks, for summer. Sewen take small duns, and the Cochybonddu. RIVER TIVEY. The Tivey is considered the very best and most prolific river in all Wales. It has a long and winding course to Cardigan, and before it reaches this place, at Newcastle Emlyn, it is a picture of a river for salmon fishing. Lampeter, higher up, is a very good station, near to which place are the "Tivey Pools," where the fish lie in low water. My list of both salmon and trout flies would be excellent for the Tivey, dressed on small hooks. THE WYE, MONMOUTH. The Wye, at the town of Monmouth, and up towards Leominster, is an excellent river for salmon; and the Usk, in the same quarter, is also good for salmon and fine trout. The latter river is a very short way from the Wye, and may be conveniently reached from Monmouth to Abergavenny, close to which town it passes, and enters the mouth of the Severn at Newport; the Wye falls into it higher up, at Chepstow. The painted flies in the plates will be just the sort for the Wye made smaller, and will suit the Usk admirably, dressed smaller still. There is a local fly or two which I will give, viz.--Body yellow mohair bordering on orange, a red ginger cock's hackle long in the fibre rolled over it, ribbed with plate gold, a red tail, and light brown turkey tail feather with white tips for the wings. Hook No. 9. Another fly with the same body, and wings of the bittern's neck, two feathers should be tied in, and the whole to stand well up. Another fly, with brown body, brown hackle, brown wings, and tail, ribbed with gold. The Dun Palmer, in the Plate No. 7, and the Dun Salmon fly, No. 6, made on smaller size hooks, will be found excellent ones. Nos. 4, 5, and 10, are also good, the latter for high water. Never were there better flies seen for the Welsh rivers in general than these, made to suit the state of the water. THE RIVER SEVERN. The river Severn has its source in Montgomeryshire, takes a long course, passing the towns of Welshpool and Shrewsbury. It is a fine stream, and there could be no better one were it well preserved. There is excellent greyling fishing below Shrewsbury, but little or no salmon fishing. "Mr. Taylor," in his Book on Angling, who was a native of this place, says, "that he hooked and killed a greyling in the Severn, below Shrewsbury, five pounds weight." THE RIVER THAME rises in Wales, near Bishop's Castle, and joins the Severn below Worcester. It produces excellent fish, particularly trout and greyling. Begin to fish at Ludlow, and move down the stream. The flies in my list are good for it. THE TRENT is a good river for greyling fishing, near the town of Newark, on the Nottingham and Lincoln Railroad. The flies to suit it are small blue duns, cochybonddus, small black hackles, orange duns, red hackles without wings, wren hackles, small grouse hackles, ash duns, willow flies, blue blows, &c. The well known Lakes and Rivers of Cumberland are excellent for fly fishing, particularly Ulswater for trout, and the beautiful Lake Windermere for a fish called Char. These delicious fish take a fly like the sea-trout, which they resemble in shape, although much darker in colour. A small fly made on No. 8 hook, or No. 6, with puce body and hackle, ribbed with silver, the wings of brown mallard, and a tail the same feather as the wings; a fly with an orange body, black hackle, and mallard wings; another with woodcock wings, orange body, and furnace red hackle; a fly with a bronze peacock harl body, rib of gold, black hackle, and jay wings, varied with light grey mallard for wings; and my list of trout flies for the season will be found excellent for the trout in the lakes and rivers. Bowness, Patterdale, Poolybridge, and Keswick, are all nice stations, where men and boats may be had conveniently. RIVERS OF YORK AND DERBY. The beautiful streams of these counties are excellent for trout fishing, and the scenery varied and pleasing throughout. The river Wharf is a delightful stream in the neighbourhood of Bolton Abbey, a well known place of "Hofland." See his painting of it, which gives a good idea of the magnificent scene. Harrowgate, and Harewood Bridge, would be very convenient stations for the fly fisher to stay at. The greyling are good here, and the small duns, wren, and grouse hackles, do well; the Dottrille hackle, and black and red hackle, with yellow waxed silk bodies, and starling wing, are good; a small fly with peacock body, black hackle, and starling wing. No. 13 hook, or 12. These flies may be seen in my list. They will also kill well at Driffield. THE HODDER. Whitewell is a favourite spot for anglers to meet during the May fly season, it is beautifully situated for scenery and sport; my list of flies will be found excellent killers in this stream for both trout and greyling; there is a comfortable inn here. RIVERS OF DERBY. Derbyshire is watered by many delightful streams, which abound with trout and greyling, the owners of which allow the angler to fish without the least hesitation on making application and sending in his card. The River Dove, at "Dove Dale," is as charming a place for a few days fly fishing as any in the County, and is famed for the pleasing recollections of the early days of "Walton and Cotton's" rambles on its banks. There is an inn at the entrance of the Dale, and Mapleton and Ashbourne convenient stations. The flies to suit the Dove are, small duns of various sorts, greys, and browns, as described in my list for the season, there cannot be better flies for it if made to answer the state of the water. The beautiful river Wye, at the town of "Bakewell," is a capital stream for the fly, and many a good angler makes his appearance here in the drake season; the winged larva and May fly in the engraving would do well on windy days, when the natural May fly did not show itself in great numbers; my list for the season will be found excellent ones for the Wye. The Derwent is also another nice fly-fishing stream for trout and fine greyling; the best places to proceed to fish would be Baslow and Rowsley Bridge, my list of flies will suit it well. THE RIVERS WANDLE AND COLN. These rivers are convenient to London, and are famous for fly fishing: they are in general private property, but the owners are very civil in granting one or two days' angling on application and sending your card. There are two or three places on the Wandle that may be angled in at will, about the neighbourhood of Carshalton, and Ackbridge; and on the Coln, at Watford and Rickmansworth. The flies to suit the Wandle are generally well known, which are--the Carshalton cocktail, dark hare's ear, blue and pale duns, little peacock fly, furnace fly, small soldier fly, and little black red palmers, the little brown midge and the March brown made very small, small black gnat, and red ant, these flies may be seen in my list for the season, they cannot fail to afford diversion. The flies to suit the river Coln, are--the brown Caperer, large cinnamon fly, brown-red palmer, and Orl fly with a dun hackle and yellow body, the stone fly, March brown, brown grouse hackle, wren-tail fly, large red ant, black gnat, and dun drake, a red hackle fly made full with the red and grey tail feather of the partridge mixed, bronze peacock harl body. Hook No. 8. The Great Whirling Dun, Red Spinner, the Coachman, and the Large Governor flies will be found with those good for the evening, with a nice ripple on the water. The river Itchen, at Itchen Abbas, Hants, is a very nice stream for fly fishing, and the Avon at Salisbury Plain, the Kennet, at Hungerford, Berks, is also good, and the river Mole at Leatherhead, Surrey, is a beautiful stream for fly fishing, in the vicinity of Randal's Park. It has been preserved in the park for years, and abounds with large trout. Whitchurch and Stockbridge are also good places for the fly, in Hampshire; and the famed "Lea" at Ware, the resort of many a good London angler; the river Stour is another fine trout stream, it receives the rivers of Wilts in its course, waters Hampshire, and falls into the sea at Christchurch. My list of flies will kill here. There are many very beautiful rivers in Devonshire for trout fishing, which are, the Ex at Exeter and Tiverton, the Ax at Axminster, and the Tamar which separates Cornwall and Devon, a very considerable river, in which there are salmon and fine white trout in the spring of the year, March and April. Launceston would be the most convenient station for the tourist angler to fish this fine river. The salmon in it take small flies, with claret and dark brown bodies, ribbed with gold, mallard wings mixed with a little tipped feather, and tails of the same; at high water they rise and take more gaudily dressed ones, made on B and BB hooks. I sent the colours to a gentleman to suit this river some time ago, who told me it would be an excellent one for salmon, were it well taken care of. He made his own flies. I have also sent fishing colours, hackles, and flies, to suit every river, or nearly so, in Great Britain, to gentlemen residing on their banks, which has been a great advantage to me in obtaining the knowledge of the local flies, but in general my flies have succeeded best in the hands of those Fly fishers who have made it their study and practice. It will be seen that I have not withheld the local flies for each river from accompanying my own, and those great anglers who visit Norway will find the Salmon flies in the plates most killing, and it will be a great advantage to them to have this book in their possession, to give them a knowledge of fishing colours, and the various modes of dressing both salmon and trout flies, the delineation of which they will see I have given to a nicety, having studied from my youth, and learned from my own observation. I have been all my life too fond of fishing, which has been sometimes to my disadvantage, but I loved the scenes of woods, green hills, of singing birds, meadows, and fresh air, rushing rivers, and above all, to look at the beautiful fish jumping to catch the fly on the surface of the water. [Illustration: Plate of Minnow tackle, &c.] BAIT FISHING. THE RIVER THAMES. After jumping over old "tower'd" Thames on our way to the south, we now return to him to wind up this little chapter on rivers; there cannot be a better river for the purposes of trolling, spinning, or bait fishing in general, than the Thames, there is not a town on its banks from Richmond to Oxford, that does not afford capital angling with the bait, and in many places large trout may be caught with the fly in the evening, these large trout are very delicious and grow fat on the quantities of minnows and gudgeons which they prey upon, and of which there are an inexhaustible supply. I have taken a few of them with large size blood red flies, brown flies, and large palmers of the like colours. The flies Nos. 4, 5, and 7, in the plates, are just the sort made a size or two smaller; Hampton Court, Sunbury, Weybridge, and Pentonhook, are likely places to rise a fish about seven in the evening, and early in the morning from six to eight. A light general rod with spare tops for fly fishing, about sixteen or seventeen feet long, with reel, and line of sixty yards, would be about the sort I would recommend, made of good hickory, or split cane; this sort of rod would suit any purpose, either for trolling, spinning, or for barbel fishing with the lob worm, &c. Mr. Stoddart in his "Work on Angling" speaks very highly of worm and bait fishing in general. And "Mr. Salter's Book," is a very good authority for trolling and spinning. The greater part of the fishermen and punt men on the Thames are capital hands at using the trolling and spinning tackle, so that the young angler who desires to become expert at this sort of fishing, can easily gain instruction from these civil men; they are also good barbel and trout fishers with the lob worm. There are many good trout caught by spinning, and when bait fishing with the lob worm for barbel in places where they would rise and take the fly were they let alone, this is the cause of their being so scarce, as trout from half-a-pound and upwards will take the worm. The Thames produces many kinds of fish--trout, perch, barbel, pike, roach, dace, carp, chub, gudgeons, minnows, eels, &c. As all these fish take the bait in general, I will here give the proper sorts for each, with the tackle to suit the purpose, and will show the angler which to use to his best advantage in every river he fishes in. PERCH. The Perch is a very handsome fish, and is best taken with the worm or live minnow, the larger size ones take the latter bait well and the smaller ones take the brandling and red worms best, using a No. 7 or 8 hook, and put on two worms at a time; use a small cork float, and as many shot on the line as will keep the bait steady about a foot from the bottom; use fine tackle in clear deep water, and keep as much out of their view as possible; the Paternoster is an excellent tackle for taking them, baited with live minnows in rapid waters near the sides of weirs, roving with a small live minnow, having a shot on the line of fine gut to keep it in mid water. If you know there are pike in the place, use fine gymp instead of gut, as these fish are taken in the same manner. BARBEL. The Barbel are strong fish, and require strong tackle to catch them, a No. 4 or 5 hook tied on stout single gut, and have a small bullet with a hole through it on your line, and a shot about a foot from the hook to be stationary, to prevent the bullet from running down on the bait; when you have a bite he draws the line through the bullet gently at first let him do so for a little, and then strike not too hard. The best bait for him is the lob worm well scoured. [Illustration: Plate of Pike tackle, &c.] I consider this a famous plan for catching salmon, when they will not rise at the fly, in deep running streams. If you can find out where there is one lying drop it into the water above him and let it fall towards his nose, and he will be almost sure to take it. In low water you can throw the lob worm, if well scoured, on a gut casting line, like the fly, on a No. 6 hook; moving up the river, throwing it in before you, and allowing it to fall gently with the current till you feel a bite, raising your hand after allowing time, the same as if it had taken the fly; you may wade up the river at convenient places with your boots, try Cording's waterproofs, in the Strand. There is good trout fishing after rains, with the running line, with shot attached; use gut hooks No. 7 or 8, and let the bait run with the stream gently, keeping the line taut, and when it stops rise your hand a little to free it, allowing it to move on again, and when you feel a bite wait a little till he takes it, and then strike gently, if a small fish pull him out, if a large one play him. The best places to throw in are at the sides of streams, in the smooth parts, in eddies, and where the current of the pool is breaking off at the foot into another stream, and when the flood is subsiding after rain, are the best times, using brandling worms and small lob worms. This was my favourite way of catching trout when a boy. PIKE. The Pike is a rough customer (if large) to come across, and the tackle which is required to catch him is as rough and as terrible as himself; he will take almost anything that is thrown to him if moved in the water he haunts. Roving with the minnow using a float, is, I think, the nicest way of fishing for him in deep places, but he is oftener taken by spinning, or trolling the gorge bait, tackle which is well known to every angler. The pike take the larger double hook gaudy fly, in deep running places, beyond the weeds, when there is a stiff breeze blowing and small close rain falling, and at no other time will he look at a fly; it is useless to try unless in a rapid stream, which is an unusual place for him to haunt in general. Autumn is the best time for these fish. When you prepare the trolling bait for jack or pike, have a needle to draw the gymp through the bait, say a minnow, gudgeon, or dace, putting it in at the mouth of the fish and out near the root of the tail; sew up the mouth of the bait, and tie the tail part to the end of the hooks, which has been often explained before. Throw it in sideways into deep places, letting it sink a foot or two, and draw it in pretty quick towards you, and when the fish makes a run to take it, give him a little time; when your line begins to shiver and shake and he moves off, raise your hand and anchor the hook in him; if he is a small one whip him out of the water with your stiff and patent line at your feet, if a large one play him as you would a salmon, keep his head well up and draw him through the weeds if any and gaff him quickly. The best rods to use for trolling are made of the toughest hickory, as the cane often gives way with a large fish; upright rings, and prepared silk and hair line, with reel to suit the rod, forty yards, if the place you angle in is not very broad, will be sufficient; and when fishing in a boat with a salmon rod, if there is a chance of pike fishing in lakes when the salmon will not take the fly, using the short top would be found stiff enough, that is, when you have not a trolling rod with you in the boat. The large flexible minnow would be a capital bait for jack in lakes or deep rivers; and the glass minnow is also good. These fish rush at very bright imitations of the natural fish bait best, and a good size white trout would be a valuable little fish to throw for him--a large size dace is also good. These baits could be preserved in whiskey for weeks. They preserve fry and sprats in Scotland in this way for salmon or pike fishing. The old fishermen in the north say that "sprats" are the fry of the herring. I am persuaded that they would be excellent bait for salmon, preserved so as to keep their brilliancy. The Paternoster Tackle cannot fail to suit the purpose of those who prefer angling in a punt for jack at the sides of large streams near the bank where there are alders or willows growing, overhanging the water, with a gravelly bottom. Nice plump bright minnows are the best, or large size gudgeons; the hooks No. 4 or 5, mounted on gymp. _Note._--The best trolling rods, spinning, and bait rods, with trolling tackle of the strongest sort; minnow tackle, gut hooks, gymp hooks, treble and double hooks, gorge and snap hooks, and every sort of the best hooks and tackle to suit trolling, spinning, and bait fishing, to be had at my shop, 54, Dean Street, Soho, London. Try my spinning trace, half twisted and half single salmon gut, mounted with swivels and large shot, for large trout or salmon. ROACH. The Roach is a handsome fish, and when taken of the size of half a pound or a pound, are not such bad eating as is said of them. They are very bony, it is true, but particularly wholesome. These fish do not thrive so well in ponds where they are exceedingly numerous, but in deep running rivers, with sandy and gravelly bottoms. They excel in both flavour and size. Let the place to angle for them be about four or five feet deep, plumb the depth, and allow your bait to be very near the bottom. The baits are paste, or gentles. When you begin, throw into the place you angle in some ground bait, to bring them together; keep your eye to the float, which should be a quill one, and the gut line with as many shot attached to it as will carry the float about a quarter the length of it out of the water, and strike smartly, but gently when you see it move downwards. They bite best in mild dark days. Work the paste between the hands (bread without wet), and when rather tough, mix a little vermilion with it, they like this best. Let the shot be about half a foot or so from the hook, which should be a No. 10 or 12, and where there are large ones, No. 8, tied on gut. When I was a little boy this sort of angling used to be my favourite amusement, with the running bait for trout after a flood. DACE. The Dace is a lively brisk little fish, and affords much amusement in catching him, particularly with very small flies, which he will rise at from May to October. They like the rapid streams, along the sides of them, and in the middle, they may be seen in shoals. The vicinity of Richmond is a very good place to go for a day's Dace fishing with the fly. They haunt the same places as the Roach, are taken with the same baits, and angled for near the bottom. Hooks No. 12 or 13. CARP. It is a very difficult matter to catch Carp with the bait, as they are most cunning fish to detect at once the deception, and swim away on the least sight of the rod or the shadow of the fisherman. The Carp haunt the deep parts of gently running streams, and those caught in rivers are the best; those that are very numerous in ponds are lean and soft in the flesh, and rather insipid. The best plan to angle for them would be with a very fine gut line, a No. 9 hook, baited with a couple of small red worms or two gentles, thrown into the water where they are, very cautiously, and keep well out of sight. Let the bait sink a short way from the surface, and draw it gently towards you, using at the same time a very long rod, rather stiff. Strike immediately they take the bait, gently, and play them as you would a trout on the fly. CHUB. The Chub is rather a handsome fish when in season, and those caught with the artificial fly in many parts of the Thames, are very brilliant and pretty to look at; but, unfortunately, they are full of very small bones, when cooked the roe is wholesome. They haunt the deepest pools and rivers under shaded banks overhung with trees, the sides of weirs, and in ponds where a small spring runs in and out of them, with rather a rocky or gravelly bottom. Autumn is the best season for them, although I have caught them with the fly in the Thames in summer in good perfection, when fishing for trout. The way to angle for them would be to use a quill float, with a No. 8 hook, or larger, a gut line, and some shot about ten inches from the bait to sink the float, bait the hook with bread paste made red, and made tough in clean hands, put on a piece of it the size of a nut, throw in gently, and keep out of sight. Good cheese, well worked to make it tough, is also good. They will take gentles turned inside out on the hook one over the other, and when you have a bite strike rather quickly. They will also take grasshoppers, blue bottles, cadbait, and cockchafers; and with red or yellow flies, and black and brown palmers in the ordinary way of fishing for trout. GUDGEONS AND MINNOWS. These are very beautiful little fish, and most wholesome food; they are the best bait for perch, jack, and large trout, that can be, as I mentioned before. The way to angle for them is to have a couple of very small hooks tied on hair or fine gut, with a shot or two to carry the float off the bottom, say a small quill float, bait your hook with a very small red worm, or a piece of a brandling worm; they may be seen very numerous in the Thames, along the sides of streams, and in smooth running water with gravelly bottom; they afford nice amusement to the young angler, and when taken out of the water are remarkably handsome to look at. BAITS. To scour worms:--put them in clean damp moss, changing it in two or three days, place them between two layers of it, and choose those that are free from knots. The lob worms are found in gardens; brandlings and red worms are scoured with the lob worm in the same pot covered at top; those found in old tan yards are the best, and may be used without scouring. When you use the worms, dip them in cream, which will refresh their colour. The cadis worm or cad bait is excellent for trout fishing, placed on the hook double, and cast gently with the wind into the stream, or dropped into the water beneath bushes that grow on the banks of pools where large fish lie, and are the most likely places. In rivers clearing off after floods in the summer they do well, and are also good for perch in deep running water. These cad worms produce many of the flies for the season after remaining during the cold weather at the bottom rolling about, and when the spring and summer appear they change into these beautiful insects; before the change takes place, during the winter, they form themselves a cover to protect them from the inroads of their enemies. Their instinct[H] prompts them to incase themselves like a snail in a piece of hollow reed, open at each end, and covered with small gravel and little shells, which they attach with a kind of glutinous substance to resist the force of the water; they creep on the bottom with six legs, and having their little house on their backs draw into it at pleasure, and settle amongst the stones like a piece of rotten branch or stick. The Trout and other fish feed upon them in the winter, when the winged insects are nowhere to be seen. [Illustration: Paternoster and Barbel tackle] Showery windy days are generally best for fly fishing, blowing from the south, south-west, west, and north; there are but few fish take in east winds. When the wind blows warm in the beginning of the season it is good for bait fishing, and in autumn mild days are best. In days when there is no likelihood of constant rain after clear nights, and a nice grey cloud covers the sky, with a good cool breeze blowing to ripple the water, this is the time to rise the large trout, and which afford the best sport. "Full nature swarms with one wondrous mass Of animals, or atoms organized, Waiting the vital breath, when parent heaven Shall bid His spirit blow." THOMSON. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote H: Given them by the Great Author of nature.] THE ART OF DYEING FISHING COLOURS, WHICH ARE PIG'S HAIR, MOHAIR, FUR, & HACKLES, COMMONLY CALLED DUBBING. The great advantage the fly fisher must derive from a knowledge of dyeing his colours and hackles is obvious. It affords amusement to the enthusiastic fisher to be acquainted with the various shades required for making his flies to suit the rivers, and the flies become valuable when made of good colours and hackles. Every hackle and colour that is used for making a salmon fly must be of the richest dye imaginable, that they may show brilliant and good to the fish's eye at the bottom of the water, and entice them to rise and take it at the top. The hackles must be taken from old cocks, both the neck and saddle ones, as they hold the dye best. Wool is not good for the fly, as it soaks the water, and is dull and heavy. Pig hair, that next the skin, with the stiff and coarse bristles picked and cleared away, and mohair, which is Spanish goat hair, a most beautiful brilliant substance for fly making when dyed well; white seal's fur, and furs of different kinds of a white colour. White hackles are best for yellows, oranges, gold colours, blues, greens, &c.; red hackles do best to dye claret, red, or fiery browns, olives, and cinnamon browns, &c., and black hackles for sooty olives, and tawny colours. When the angler sees a white old cock he should buy him to procure his hackles, or a black cock, a grey cock, and old red cocks of every hue, all of which are good for dyeing. These also must be washed in soap and hot water before being dyed, and the flue stripped off, tied in bunches (see the bunch of white hackles in the Plate of Feathers, ready for the dye) of proper sizes, and when about to be put into the dye-pot, wet them and the hair in hot water. Provide a small crucible or earthen pot, glazed inside, with an earthen handle, to hold a quart of soft water, and before you put in your hackles or hair, wash them well, as I said before, in soap and hot water. The five principal colours to work upon are blue, red, yellow, brown, and black. From the combination of two or more of these may be produced every shade required, from the lightest to the darkest, so that it only requires some practice, to know the different ingredients to use, to become a Dyer of Fishing Colours. TO DYE YELLOW. I will begin with yellow, the most useful colour in general for the gentle craft. Put your crucible on a slow fire nearly full of water, or say half full, for the first trial. Take a tea cup, and into it put a table-spoonful of the best turmeric, pour over it some warm water, and stir it well with a clean piece of fire wood; when the water begins to simmer in the pot, put in the ingredient out of the cup, and stir it well with a piece of stick; have a second crucible, about half full of soft water, and boil it, into this put two table-spoonfuls of ground alum and one tea-spoonful of crystal of tartar, while these are boiling and perfectly dissolved, put into it your hackles or hair, and boil gently for an hour or half an hour; take off your pots and enter the hackles into the yellow dye out of the liquor into which you put the alum and tartar, and boil them very slowly for an hour, taking them out at intervals to see the shade you require; if too pale you must put more turmeric in, and if too heavy in shade the next trial, put in less, and do the same with all colours till you please your own eye. When they are the proper colour, take them out and wash them in soap and hot water. Draw them evenly through your fingers in the bunch, and let them dry, as this keeps them in shape. There are three or four ways to dye yellow by changing the stuff. Fill your pots nearly full of soft water, and put into one the tartar and alum, and into the other two or three handfuls of yellow wood, which must be boiled slowly for three or four hours; when it is well boiled, strain off the liquor from the wood into a basin, and throw the wood away; put the dyeing liquor into the pot again, and when boiling take out the hackles from the mordant of tartar and alum and put them into the yellow dye, let them boil gently for some time till the yellow colour has entered the hackles or hair, then take them out and wash them in soap and water, straighten them between the fingers, and let them dry; take them in the right hand and strike them on the fore-finger of the left till they are quite dry. By boiling two handfuls of fustic and a table-spoonful of turmeric together, and repeating the above process, there will be produced a golden yellow, which is very good for fly making. There must not be too much alum used, neither must the ingredients be boiled too long. Persian berries, bruised and boiled slowly, with a spoonful of turmeric, produces a good yellow; and an ingredient called weld, boiled as before, and adding the alum, is a good dye for yellow,--indeed, the weld is the best dye, if care is taken with it. TO DYE BROWN. Put into your dye pot about two handfuls of walnut rinds, or as much as it will hold nicely to boil; simmer this slowly over the fire for three or four hours, and add a little water to it as it boils away. When all the juice of the dye is taken out of the rinds, strain the liquor off, put it into the basin, and throw away the rinds; you take two handfuls more and boil them in the same way, and add the stuff together in the pot; the rinds being thrown away, put your hackles, &c., previously washed, into the dye, and simmer them on the fire for four or five hours, till you have the proper colour struck on the hackles. The alum and tartar need not be added to this dye. Take out the feathers and wash them well; the walnut roots cut small, dye in the same way. TO DYE A YELLOW BROWN. The Saunders' Wood, brought from the Indies, and sold in powder or ground mixed with sumach is good, it takes long to boil, adding the alum. A Cinnamon Brown or Fiery Brown may be struck on the hackles or colours (pig hair or mohair) by first dyeing them yellow, the same as explained in the yellow dye; put the hackles, previously dyed yellow, into the liquor of walnut rinds, and simmer them over the fire slowly for three or four hours, and leave them in all night, if a dark fiery brown is required; the less of the rinds produce cinnamon or yellow brown, the roots and rinds of the walnut are the best for the various shades; the rind of the alder dyed with alum and tartar is also good. TO DYE BLUE. Fill your crucible three parts full of soft water, and put it on a slow fire, at the same time put in your blue ingredients, previously prepared, (this is done by dissolving the powdered blue in oil of vitriol and water in a stopper bottle for twenty-four hours). If there is a very light shade of blue required, put in a couple of table-spoonfuls of the blue ingredient, and add to it as the shade may be varied at will according to the quantity of the stuff; boil the hackles in tartar and alum, say a table-spoonful of each, or rather less of the tartar, simmer it on the fire for two or three hours according to the process mentioned before; and when the proper colour is produced take out the hackles, hair, or fur, and wash them well in soap and hot water. There is a paste blue prepared at the dry-salters all ready for the dye pot, take a table-spoonful of it and stir it well up in your pot nearly full of soft water, and boil it gently for about an hour (or less), then put in your hackles or hair, previously washed and wet going in, boil for two hours very slowly and wash off the dye; any shade of blue may be had in a very short time by this process; there are two or three dry-salters in Long Acre where this paste blue is sold, and any of the other ingredients may be purchased at their shops, or at chymists. TO DYE RED. Prepare your dye pot by nearly filling it with soft water; and keep it at a scalding heat when the dye stuff is put in, as it must not boil, if it is allowed to boil it becomes dull in colour; put into the dye pot a handful of finest grape madder, and simmer it slowly over the fire, stir well, and prepare the hackles or hair in the alum and red tartar liquor; after having boiled an hour slowly, take out a bunch and look at them between your eyes and the sun or light to see how they take the dye, if too pale there must be more madder added, and allow them to remain in the dye all night, simmer them slowly, next day take them out, rinse and wash them well, and allow them to dry in the air; mix a table-spoonful of cochineal with the madder. TO DYE ORANGE. When orange is desired take a handful of best madder and mix it with a spoonful of cochineal, boil it for an hour or two, add too a little ground red wood which requires more boiling than the madder itself; dye your hackles or stuff yellow first, and dip them into the red dye a short time, take them out and look at the shade you have; if too light allow them to remain in longer, and you will have darker shades of colour, put a little red tartar and ground alum into the dye to assist the red wood to strike on the materials, take them out and wash them in soap and hot water, and afterwards rinse them in urine which gives a lustre and softness to the stuff. TO DYE PURPLE OR VIOLET. First dye the hackles or stuffs blue, and lay them to dry; then, fill the dye-pot more than half with soft water, and in the other pot prepare the tartar and alum, dip your hackles into this for a little while, and lay them on the table till you prepare the red dye; bruise a couple of table-spoonfuls of cochineal, and put them into the pot of hot soft water, boil for an hour, and put in the blue hackles, and allow them to simmer over the fire very slowly to keep them from burning; when you have the proper shade, take them out and wash them well. TO DYE CRIMSON. Boil your hackles or hair in a tea-spoonful of alum, and nearly as much pure tartar, for an hour; bruise two table-spoonfuls of cochineal, and boil them in your clean water; take out the hackles from the alum-water, and put them into the cochineal liquor, and boil for two or three hours slowly or less, according to the shade you require; then take out the feathers and wash them well, and you will have the color desired. TO DYE SCARLET. Boil your hackles, &c., in a little crystal of tartar; procure two table-spoonfuls of cochineal, bruise them a little, and boil them gently over the fire for an hour or two; take the hackles you have just boiled in the tartar, and put them into the dye-pot, and simmer them slowly for some time, say half an hour; then take your "spirits of grain,"[I] and put into the dye-pot a tea-spoonful or a little more; take them out occasionally, and look at them between your eyes and the light, and when the right shade is obtained, rinse them and dry. If you are in a hurry for scarlet, you may drop the particles of block-tin into aqua-fortis till they are dissolved, and add a little to the scarlet dye; the other is best, as it gives a more brilliant shade;--boil slow. If the extract of bismuth is added to the red liquor of the cochineal in a small quantity, it will change it to a purple or violet colour. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote I: Spirits of grain for scarlet,--a quarter pint of spirits of nitre, a quarter of an ounce of ammoniac, add half water in a bottle, and drop into it half an ounce of block-tin in grains till dissolved.] CRIMSON RED IN GRAIN. Boil your hackles or hair in a quarter of an ounce of alum, and the same quantity of pure tartar, an hour gently; wash them out of this, fill your dye-pot with clean water, or as much as will conveniently boil; put in an ounce of well-powdered dye stuff they call "grain," with one drachm of red arsenic, and one spoonful of burnt wine lees, this gives a lustre; wash and rinse well after boiling a short time, and the colour is good. TO DYE GREEN DRAKE, FEATHERS AND FUR. Boil your hackles, mohair, or fur, in alum and tartar, a quarter of an ounce of each; rinse them well, and put them into the dye-pot, with an ounce of savory, and as much green-wood as the pot will contain; (it is best to boil off the savory and green-wood first, throw away the wood, and boil the feathers in the liquor;) boil gently, and look at the feathers occasionally to see if they are the right shade, these give the natural shades of yellow green. The quantity of tartar and alum, and of dye-stuff is given in this dye; and the preceding which will show what must be used in all shades of colour, according to the quality or your own taste. TO DYE CLARET. Boil two handfuls of red-wood, or ground Brazil-wood, for an hour, with a handful of log-wood; then take a table-spoonful of oil of vitriol, and put it into half a tea cup of cold water; and when the dye-pot is a little cold, add it to the liquor, stir it, and put it on with the hackles or hair, and boil it gently for two hours; take out your material, and put it into cold water; add to the dye it comes out of a little copperas, and a small quantity of pearlashes, about the size of a nut of copperas, and a quarter that size of the ashes; put in your hackles or material again, and when the proper shade is obtained, rinse and wash well, and finish in urine, which brightens them, and your colour is good. ANOTHER WAY TO DYE CLARET. Take a handful of nut galls and bruise them, put them into the crucible and boil them half an hour, add to the dye a table-spoonful of oil of vitriol in half a cup of water, put in the hackles and boil two hours; then add to the liquor a little pearl ashes, and a piece of copperas the size of a nut, boil gently for two hours or as long as required to suit the taste of the dyer, rinse and wash them well, the ashes need not be used in this dye, but if used a very small quantity will suffice. Another way:--boil red wood powdered for two hours (two handfuls), and then put the hackles in, boil an hour longer, let the liquor cool, and put into a tea cup half full of water nearly a table-spoonful of aqua-fortis and pour it into the dye, stir well occasionally and keep the hackles down, boil for two hours more and rinse off, finish in a little urine. If a very dark claret is required lay them in to boil for a day and night with a scalding heat. TO DYE BLACK. Boil two good handfuls of log-wood with a little sumach and elder bark for an hour, put in the stuff or hackles (boil very gently), bruise a piece of copperas about the size of two Spanish nuts, put it in with a little argil and soda; take out the hackles and hold them in the open air a little, then put them in again and leave them all night gently heated, wash the dye well out of them and your black will be fine. The argil and soda soften the dye stuff of the copperas, but a small quantity must be put in. TO DYE GREENS OF VARIOUS SHADES. The greatest nicety of all is in finding the exact quantity of ingredients to put in, so as to prevent the dye stuff from injuring the fibres of the hackles, &c.; for the light shades add the smallest quantity, and augment it by degrees. Dye the hackles a very light shade of blue first, in prepared indigo,[J] as I said before, take a spoonful and put it into the dye pot and boil it softly for half an hour. Add a very small quantity of alum and tartar to the dye, put in your hackles, and boil for a short time; add to the dye a table-spoonful of the best turmeric, savoy, or green wood, a little of each would do best, boil slowly for an hour, take out the hackles, rinse them, and you will have a green: you may have any shade of green by dyeing the blues darker or lighter, and putting in more yellowing stuff and less blue when light yellow greens are required, boil gently, and look at the hackles often to see that they have taken the shade you want. TO DYE LAVENDER OR SLATE DUN, &c. &c. Boil ground logwood with bruised nut galls and a small quantity of copperas, according to judgment: you may have a pigeon dun, lead colour, light, or dark dun. The ingredients must be used in small quantities, according to taste. You may have raven grey, or duns of various shades, by boiling with the logwood a small quantity of alum and copperas. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote J: Half a tea cupful of water, and the same quantity of oil of vitriol, put into a bottle, the indigo to remain in twenty-four hours to dissolve.] BLUES. Dissolve some indigo in oil of vitriol for twenty-four hours, put a couple of spoonfuls in your pot, add a little crystal of tartar, put in your hackles and boil, or at least keep them at a scalding heat, or the vitriol will burn the feathers, furs, &c., take them out, rinse them well, and the colour will be lasting. If to the above liquor some fustic chips, well boiled by themselves, and the juice added, you may then have any shade of the best green. A SILVER GREY. Boil some fenugreek and a little alum half an hour, put in the white hackles, &c., and add a little pearlash and Brazil-wood, boil them gently an hour, rinse them, and your colour will be lasting. A COFFEE OR CHESNUT. Boil the hackles, &c., that have been previously dyed brown, in some nut gall, sumach, and alder bark, then add a small quantity of green copperas to the liquor, allow it to remain a day and a night in water that you can bear the hand in, and all the stuff will enter the materials. TO DYE OLIVES AND A MIXTURE OF COLOURS. Olives are dyed from blue, red, and brown, of every shade, according to fancy. From yellow, blue, and brown, are made olives of all kinds. From brown, blue, and black, brown and green olives are made. From red, yellow, and brown, are produced orange, gold colour, marigold, cinnamon, &c. See Haigh's Dyer's Assistant of Woollen Goods, for larger quantities. A CONCISE WAY OF DYEING COLOURS. I will now add the way to dye the colours, for pighair, mohair, hackles, &c., in a concise and summary manner, to avoid giving trouble in too many words, and the quantities of ingredients I have given before, which would be superfluous to mention over so often, and which the dyer must know by this time. The great art is in knowing the quantities that each dye requires to obtain the exact colour, and this may be known by a close observation to the rules I have given. Fustic and alum water will dye yellow, the hackles dipped three times in fresh stuff. Weld, turmeric, and fenugreek, will give a yellow, boiled in alum water, and the hackles dipped often, till they are the proper colour. These may be dyed without tartar at pleasure. Brazil-wood, boiled till you have a strong decoction, strain off the juice, then add alum water, boil the hackles in it slowly for a day or two, and it will produce good reds. If the colour of the Brazil-wood be very strong, there may be reds obtained in an hour's boiling. This is a wood which is of a hard nature, and it is difficult to extract the colour from it, although a good dye. A claret may be produced from Brazil-wood mixed with red archil, and boiled in the usual manner, dipped in potash liquor, or brilla will act in the same way to strike the colour; use hard water. A fiery brown may be made from fustic and turmeric boiled together with alum and a little crystal of tartar, (soft water for this dye), and then dip in liquor of potash. A cinnamon brown may be made with a little madder, or stone crottle, boiled with alum and tartar, with a little turmeric to finish it. A good blue may be had by boiling the hackles with alum water, and add a spoonful of the liquid blue; this is done by putting some oil of vitriol into a bottle with a little water, and then the indigo, powdered, which will dissolve in twenty-four hours, and be ready for use. (I have mentioned this twice before, as I am very particular.) For a purple, dye blue first, then add the red dye, and dip it in potash; when the hackles, &c., are left long in the red, it is more of a wine purple. To have a good green, dye blue first, then boil in turmeric and fustic bark, with alum and tartar, as usual. You may have any shade of green by noticing the process in the dye pot. To dye an orange, first make it a turkey red with Brazil-wood and alum water, then finish with turmeric and fustic till the colour pleases you. To dye a golden olive, boil sumach and turmeric with alum water, add a little potash and copperas, and finish with new turmeric and a little potash. Green olive may be made with a little more copperas and verdigris. Sooty olive is made by adding to the first a little alder or oak bark, and finishing with turmeric and alum water. An amber may be made with red, and finished with yellow dye; the first with stone crottle or madder, and finish with turmeric bark; the yellow with alum water. All fishing colours should be dyed yellow first with alum and crystal of tartar, but claret. Claret may be made from Brazil-wood, barked first in alum water, adding new Brazil three or four times fresh to the liquor, and simmer slowly for a day or two. A fiery brown may be made from lima or peth-wood, barked with turmeric and alum water. A golden yellow may be had from citrine bark, boiled in new stuff three times slowly, bark with alum, and dip in potash or brilla. All blues may be dipped in potash, to sadden the colour. A crottle or red orange, boil madder and stone crottle together, and bark with alum water; the madder will do if the crottle cannot be had. The crottle grows on stones in rocky places, like red moss. An orange may be had by dyeing yellow in strong liquid three times fresh; bark with alum, and dip in potash. A Green Drake may be made by dyeing a good yellow first, and adding a few drops of the blue decoction from the bottle of prepared blue dye, this comes to the green drake colour; add a little copperas to make a green dark or light, as you please. A golden olive may be made by dyeing brown red hackles in fustic and a little copperas, and dipped in potashes, finished in turmeric and alum; you will have a sooty olive by adding but very little of the turmeric root. A sooty olive may be made by dyeing black hackles in yellow first with alum water, add fresh yellow stuff three times to the dye pot, and dip them in potashes. A wine purple may be made from light dyed blue hackles, put them in the red dye of madder, Brazil, or cochineal, and dip them twice in potashes. Liver-coloured hackles may be had from brown red hackles, barked with alum, and boiled in Brazil-wood juice, dipped in liquor of potash. A bright olive may be made from fustic and oak bark, adding a little turmeric and alum water. A fiery cinnamon may be had from yellow dye, Brazil juice, and madder mixed, boil these well, and add a little turmeric with alum. A golden crottle may be made from stone crottle and yellow dyes with turmeric and alum water. The stone crottle is best for all golden colours, but as it may not be easily got at, use madder instead; golden orange may be had from the above, adding a little potashes, and boil very slowly. A pea green may be had by dyeing yellow first, and add a few drops out of the blue dye bottle, till it comes to the shade, it may be darkened to a leek or bottle green. A stone blue,--bark the hackle with alum, and add to the alum water as much of the prepared dye out of the bottle as will make it dark enough, this may be easily seen from the appearance of the liquor in the dye pot. A Prussian blue is done in the same way, keeping out the indigo, and adding the Prussian blue. Dip a red into potashes and you have a light wine purple; blue and red dye is best. Dip a good yellow in potashes, well boiled and stir, and you will have an orange. A little tartar is good for all colours but black. Sumach, logwood, iron liquor, and copperas, will form a black. Boil a small quantity of copperas with logwood, and it will dye gut properly. A tawny cinnamon may be dyed from stone crottle or madder, mixed with turmeric, alum, and a little tartar, these must be gently boiled in fresh stuff, adding a little copperas. THE MATERIALS NECESSARY FOR ARTIFICIAL FLY MAKING. The necessary articles used for fly making in general are as follows: Those feathers that are of a most gaudy hue are best for the wings of salmon flies, which are golden pheasant feathers, cock of the rock, the crest of the Hymalaya pheasant, the blue and yellow macaw, the scarlet macaw, red macaw, green parrot's feathers, particularly the Amazon parrot tail, the scarlet Ibis, blue king fishers, and chattern, the splendid Trogan, the Argus pheasant, the bustard, red parrot, and the Bird of Paradise; the wood-duck feathers (try the cock of the north feathers, black hackle, white body, and gold); the jungle cock; the spotted turkey, brown, light, and dark feathers; brown mallard, or wild drake; teal feathers; heron feather, black and blue; glede or kite tail feathers; grey mallard, widgeon, and shovel duck; various dyed and natural cock hackles; grouse hackles; guinea hen hackles, the rump and back feathers; silver pheasant, cock and hen bird tail, wings, and body feathers; yellow toucan feathers; blue jay feathers, and the wings of the jay for trout flies; peacock feathers, off wings, tail, and body; black ostrich feathers, and the white ostrich for dyeing all colours for the heads of flies, &c., with floss silk of every shade; gold and silver twist, and plate of different sizes; pighair, mohair, furs, &c. The materials for small trout flies are, mohair, furs of every colour, water rat, fitch, squirrel, mole's fur, hare's ears and neck furs, mouse and common rat fur, martin's fur, sable fur, black spaniel's hair off the ear, black bear's hair for tailing the drake, and all white furs dyed of various shades, such as yellow, yellow-green, gold, orange, cinnamon, light duns, &c; starling wings, grouse feathers, snipe wings, woodcock wings, thrush and blackbird's wings, fieldfare wings, wren tails, tomtit tails, bunton lark wing, skylark wings, sparrow wings, landrail wings, water-hen wings, water-rail wings, partridge tails and hackle feathers, brown hen wings, tail, and body feathers, dun hen wings, &c.; dun cock hackles, dun hen hackles, dottril wings and hackles, and all dun, brown, and grey feathers that can be found on every bird that flies are useful for imitating the natural insects; tying silks of every shade, yellow and orange being the favorites; hooks of sizes, and silk-worm gut. And now to wind up the line. I humbly beg to say that if I have deceived the friends of the rod in anything, they have a right to be indifferent with my profession of friendship, and ought to retain a sensibility of my misfortune; my conscience is clear it is not so, for I know that I would deceive myself were I to think that I could do without my admirable friends of the angle--without me they could do--but I value their worth, as in hope I rest, although they say "hope told a flattering tale." I am not deceived by flattery, be it far from us; I dislike deceit. I have hid nothing; I have done my endeavours in this book to show the youths of the angle, as well as the great fly fishers, all I know about the matter so far, and as the Chinamen say, that "time and industry convert a mulberry leaf into a silk shawl," so perseverance will be the means of the fly maker's success, if he allows himself an opportunity of accomplishing that which he requires to know and to perform, and at the same time neglect not to prepare for the "coming struggle," it will be his own fault if he does not become a skilful angler, &c. I will therefore consider myself highly honoured if the young gentlemen of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, appreciate my labour, and to be enabled, by the natural genius they possess, descending from Him who visited us through the "Orient" from on high to enlighten our understandings in every good, to find out the information they desire in the perusal of these pages. FINIS. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Book uses both pearl-ash and pearl ash; salmon-fly and salmon fly. Varied hyphenation was retained. Text also uses archaic spelling, "scissars". Page vii, "cloured" changed to "coloured" (buff-coloured fur and) Page viii, "surperbly" changed to "superbly" (superbly painted to suit) Page viii, "Britian" changed to "Britain" (any river in Britain) Page 15, "growse" changed to "grouse" to match rest of usage (grouse hackle prepared) Page 23, "pains" changed to "pain" (with a little pain) Page 36, word "to" added to text (next to the root) Page 75, "woodcook" changed to "woodcock" (woodcock or wren grackle) Page 148, "hymalean" changed to "Hymalean" (hen Hymalean pheasant is an) Page 166, "Arklaw" changed to "Arklow" (Arklow, on the river Ovoca) 
40446	----	TO FISHERMEN. R. B. LODGE INVITES ATTENTION TO HIS Permanent * Portraits OF ANGLERS AT THE RIVER SIDE WHILE ACTUALLY FISHING. These aim at being not only Portraits, but also Pictures, which show you engaged in your favourite sport by the side of some pool, or knee deep in some shallow of your own particular river, the sight of which in after years will bring back to your memory many pleasant reminiscences of bygone success. _Angling Outings and Matches attended by appointment._ Terms on application to R. B. LODGE, 1, Chase Green Villa, =ENFIELD.= +Fishing on the Itchen.+ TO LET, _BY THE DAY, WEEK, MONTH, OR SEASON_. Apply to W. CHALKLEY, +Practical Fisherman, And Fishing Tackle Maker+, +=The Square=+, WINCHESTER. =THE= "+Bayonet-Pointed Gaff+" =(DR. BRUNTON'S PATTERN).= (REGISTERED.) [Illustration] These Hooks are made of really good steel, carefully hardened and tempered, and each one separately tested with an opening strain of 56lb. See notices in _Land and Water_, February 5; +Fishing Gazette+, February, 12; and _Field_, February 19, 1887. No. 1. Length 6in., gape of hook 2in.: price 4s. No. 2. " 7in., " " 2-1/2in.: price 5s. No. 3. " 8in., " " 3in.: price 6s. Also made with long concave shank for binding on handle at 6d. each extra. To be obtained through all Fishing Tackle dealers and Cutlers, or of the Makers, R. H. BROWNE & CO., Brunswick Street, Well Street, Hackney, London, E. _New Illustrated Catalogue (2000 Engravings and Coloured Plate of Flies), Post Free, 2d._ Shooting. Fishing. [Illustration] TRADE MARK. =GODFREY C. COOPER,= Gun, Rifle, Revolver, and Fishing Tackle Manufacturer. _SPORTSMAN'S COMPLETE OUTFITTER FOR ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD._ =Every Requisite for the Angler.= _SPLIT CANE RODS (my own make), a Speciality_, (Guaranteed for two years.) RODS, LINES, REELS, WADERS, BROGUES, &c., &c. ANGLERS CAN HAVE THE USE OF MY PRIVATE PUNT ON THE THAMES, ON GIVING SHORT NOTICE. =FINEST STOCK OF FLIES IN LONDON.= MY NEW CREEL, WITH LANDING-NET ATTACHMENT, THE MOST HANDY MADE. All Articles of the most Modern and Improved Patterns. _ALL ORDERS FAITHFULLY EXECUTED BY SKILLED LABOUR._ =GODFREY C. COOPER,= _Practical Gun, Rifle, Revolver, and Fishing Tackle Manufacturer_, 131, HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON, W.C.= "RED PALMER." OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE FIRST EDITION. "LAND AND WATER." "This unpretentious, yet well written, work contains a large amount of information, which may be read with advantage by all followers of the more refined branch of the gentle art." "FISHING GAZETTE." "Like Piscator's humble friend, the chub, it is 'a good dish of meat,' and excellent for entering a young angler. Mr. Tayler's views as to tackle are generally sound and practical. On the subject of flies he gives excellent advice. We can safely recommend it as a useful manual for any young aspirant to Fly-Fishing honours." "FISHING." "The author, in its pages, gives the result of many years' practical experience of Fly-Fishing, and evidently is no tyro. His work, therefore, will afford much useful information to those who are in need of it." "HAMPSHIRE COUNTY TIMES." "This capitally written essay on the whole art of Fly-Fishing is from the pen of Mr. James Tayler, who is recognised throughout the kingdom as an authority in the sport on which he gives such excellent instruction." =OF JAMES TAYLER,= 25, HAZELVILLE ROAD, HORNSEY RISE, LONDON, N. AND OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. _PRICE ONE SHILLING; By Post, 1s. 1-1/2d._ _SECOND EDITION._ [Illustration] RED PALMER: A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON FLY FISHING. BY JAMES TAYLER. LONDON: +Published by the Empire Printing and Publishing Co., Lim.+, 2 and 3, Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, E.C. 1888. LONDON: EMPIRE PRINTING AND PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED, 2 AND 3, SALISBURY COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C. +Dear Dr. Brunton+, I dedicate this little book to you, knowing that you have proved yourself to be one of the most skilful anglers of the present day; while all anglers who have the pleasure of your acquaintance know you to be a most genial and intelligent member of the craft, always ready to promote its interest, and to communicate the result of your great researches and experience to your fellow-fishermen. Yours faithfully and respectfully, JAMES TAYLER. +To J. Brunton, Esq., M.A., M.D.+ FLY-FISHING. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. Having read papers on Fly-fishing before the Gresham and Islington Angling Societies, and contributed occasional articles to the fishing periodicals, I have been persuaded by some of the members of those societies to publish my ideas on the subject, and I now submit them to the public, premising that the following treatise is neither historic nor scientific, but simply an endeavour to communicate what nearly fifty years of practice and careful observation have taught me to consider as correct principles in a concise and practical form. Trusting that it will be received as such, and will be of some assistance to young anglers in cultivating that, which, we are assured by the highest authority on angling, is "an art worth learning." In preparing this short treatise I have assumed, what is generally admitted by fishermen, that catching trout with an artificial fly is the highest branch of the piscatorial art; for, although some bottom-fishers and spinners claim that as much skill is required in their branch as is in fly-fishing, yet I think the palm must be yielded to the fly-fisher. It differs in many respect from all other kinds. The greatest care must be taken not to scare the fish, either by the sight of the angler or his shadow, or by awkwardness in managing the rod, line, and flies. You have only to watch a fly-fisher and a bottom-fisher a short time to decide where the greatest skill is required and attained. I recollect, when a very little boy, having a book, in which there was a coloured print of a trout, and underneath were these lines-- "Angler, mind well what you're about, If you would catch the cunning trout," and I suppose I must have profited by the advice, for in an old diary, kept by me in 1839, there is a record of my having caught four trout weighing 7-1/4lbs. when I was thirteen years of age. But those were not caught with a fly. The late Mr. Francis Francis, than whom there is no higher authority, says in one of his books, "There is far greater skill, caution, patience, and cunning required to delude a brook trout than is thought of in landing the noblest twenty-pound salmon that ever sailed up Tweed or Tay." And in further proof of this I will give an extract from that excellent little book, "Stewart's Practical Angler." The author says: "Everything combines to render fly-fishing the most attractive of all branches of the angler's art. The attempt to capture trout, which are seen to rise at natural flies, is in itself an excitement which no other method possesses. Then the smallness of the hook and the fineness of the tackle necessary for success increases the danger of escape, and consequently the excitement and the pleasure of the capture; and, for our own part, we would rather hook, play, and capture a trout of a pound weight with fly, than one of a pound and a half with minnow or worm, where, the hooks being larger, there is less chance of their losing their hold, and, the gut being stronger, there is less risk of its breaking. Artificial fly-fishing is also the cleanest and most gentlemanly of all the methods of capturing trout. The angler who practises it is saved the trouble of working with worms, of catching, keeping alive, or salting minnows, or searching the river's bank for the natural insect. Armed with a light single-handed rod and a few flies, he may wander from county to county and kill trout wherever they are to be found." In addition to the pleasure and satisfaction experienced in exerting the faculties necessary to capture the most cunning and cautious of fish, what can be more delightful in the sweet spring-time than to take one's rod and stroll away into the green meadows, by the side of the rippling brook, where the eye is gratified by the trees and hedge-rows which are putting forth their young leaves; where the sense of smell is refreshed by innumerable wild flowers and herbs, and where the ear is charmed by the soft "coo" of the wood pigeon, the tinkling of a distant sheep-bell, the cry of a partridge to its mate, or the occasional splash of a trout in the stream, which sounds alone disturb the silence? Well may Walton exclaim:-- "I was for that time lifted above earth, Possessed of joys not promised in my birth." An all-wise Creator gave man dominion "over the fish of the sea, over the fowls of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth;" and a very large proportion of the human race, either from motives of necessity or recreation, exercise the powers thus given them either in killing or subjugating the lower branches of the animal creation. Without wishing to detract from other sports, I think Walton was quite right in claiming for angling a decided preference. In the present day it is followed by men of all classes, from the nobleman who owns miles of salmon river to the East-end mechanic or apprentice, who trudges off to the Lea river on a Sunday morning with his eighteenpenny roach-rod, and many of whom, but for this angling opportunity, would have no relaxation from the dull, mill-horse round of their daily lives, save some kind, perhaps, far more demoralising; but who, by its judicious indulgence, by breathing the pure air of the country, and by being brought into contact with beautiful river scenery and animal and vegetable life, re-invigorate their bodies, exalt their minds, and beget a state of quiet contentment, patience, and perseverance exceedingly useful in these days of high-pressure wear-and-tear. Sir Henry Wotton says of angling, he found it "a cheerer of the spirits, a tranquillizer of the mind, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a diverter of sadness." Ladies, too, ever since the time of Cleopatra, have liked to "betray tawny-finn'd fishes," and Dame Juliana Berners has shown by her "Boke of St. Albans" that she had a minute and practical knowledge of "fyshynge with an angle" far beyond the previous writers on the art; and with the present rage for out-of-door amusements among the fair sex, fishing has its votaries, notwithstanding the attractions of croquet and lawn-tennis. Having been a fly-fisher many years, I venture to offer a few ideas on the subject, not with a view to instruct my elder brethren in the art, but merely to explain some principles that my experience has proved to be correct, and thereby to save, perhaps, some trouble and loss of time to young beginners. I am fully aware that no amount of theory without practice will ever make a fly-fisher, but I am also aware that practice will become much easier, and be far more likely to prove successful, if based on a correct theory, than if left to itself. CHAPTER II. WET AND DRY FLY-FISHING. Various opinions prevail as to wet and dry fishing, and I think in this matter, if we want to deceive trout, we should follow Nature as closely as possible. On a dry, quiet day the wings of the natural fly are dry, and when it falls on the water it takes some time before they become saturated, and until then it floats on the surface. Imitate this by giving your artificial fly two or three flicks backwards and forwards before you finally throw it. You thus shake the water out of it, and it floats. But on wet or very windy days the natural fly soon becomes wet with rain, or from the broken surface of the water, and at such times let the artificial lure sink a few inches beneath the surface, and if the trout are feeding, fishing in this manner is most deadly. At night I have generally found wet fly-fishing to answer best, even when there has been no rain, and I attribute this to the natural flies becoming damp with dew and thereby sinking. For dry fly-fishing floating flies are now much used. The great objection to them appears to be the hardness of their bodies, which is no sooner found by trout to be different to the natural fly than they blow it out without giving time to strike. I have found this particularly with cork-bodied May-flies, and prefer the ordinary body in consequence. Mr. G. Holland, of Salisbury, makes a speciality of floating flies on eyed hooks and cobweb gut, which bear an excellent reputation; and my friend, Mr. R. B. Lodge, has lately invented a floating fly with an air-tight body, which floats well and does not get water-logged. If he can make it of a soft material, not liable to be punctured by the trout's teeth, I think there will be no doubt of its being a great improvement. CHAPTER III. TACKLE. An important point is to commence with proper tackle, for it is of no use to attempt to catch trout with a cart-rope tied to a hedge-stake. First, then, with regard to the Rod. A good rod is the angler's chief requisite, and extraordinary progress has been made in the art of manufacturing rods within the last few years. There are so many excellent makers that it is only necessary to visit one of them and select a rod suitable to your height, strength, and fancy, and in this, as in many other respects, fancy goes a long way. For all ordinary purposes, a rod from ten to twelve feet in length will be sufficient, and I have generally used those made in four pieces, the lower three of greenheart, or hickory, and the top of bamboo. It should be tolerably stiff, for in windy weather it is impossible with a light whippy-rod to throw against or across the wind and attain any degree of accuracy. It should be double-brazed, so that the joints may not become fixed by the swelling of the wood when wet, and the brass joints should be made slightly tapering, and the whole, when put together, should taper regularly from butt to point, and when held horizontally should be stiff enough to lie almost level. It should, of course, be fitted with small brass rings for the line to run through, which, if placed at proper distances, divide the strain equally, keep the line snug, and prevent entanglements. Another matter of apparently trifling importance, but really very essential, is, that near the ends of each length of the rod, and being parallel with it, should be a small brass loop or hitcher, tied on with fine binding wire. Before commencing to fish, pass a piece of thread or twist round each two of these loops, and tie the joints firmly together; this will prevent them from slipping, which is often the cause of losing a good fish or breaking the rod. After the season is over, clean the rod with very fine emery powder, then let it lie in a trough filled with oil for a day or two, and after it has been out of the oil long enough for the surface to get dry, give it a couple of coats of clear carriage varnish, and put it away for the winter. Split-cane rods appear to be much on the increase, but they are rather expensive. It may be, perhaps, from having been accustomed for many years to greenheart that I do not take readily to the light, springing motion of cane. This lightness is somewhat modified by the use of steel centres, but unless they can be made much cheaper than at present, which I think doubtful, the price will be a great hindrance to their coming into general use. There were some splendid rods in the last Sportsmen's Exhibition, and the man must be very hard to please who could not find one to his taste there. Among them all, the best I could see for usefulness, at a moderate price, was a little rod called the "Hotspur," built by Messrs. Hardy, of Alnwick. It is made of greenheart, in two lengths, and only ten feet long, but wonderfully powerful as well as pliant, and is fitted with a spiral joint fastening, which renders the tying above recommended unnecessary. CHAPTER IV. THE WINCH LINE AND GUT. Now, as to the reel. Notwithstanding that some of the books on fishing call the multiplying reel an abomination, I always prefer one; finding that when you hook a fish it is very desirable to have the means of winding in the slack line quickly should he come towards you. I have used a two-inch brass multiplier some years, and never, to my knowledge, lost a fish by its inaction. The revolving plate is a great improvement on the old windlass. Messrs. Foster, of Ashbourne, are making an improved winch with a male screw to fit into the female thread at the butt of the rod, where the spear is usually fixed. This is a great advantage, as the liability to get the line entangled is not so great as with a side winch, and it also enables the angler to make more of the length of his rod by grasping it lower down. The best line I know of is the "Acmé," also made by Messrs. Foster. It is constructed of plaited silk, with a very fine strand of annealed copper wire running through it. The wire gives a little weight and stiffness to the line, so that it does not kink or knot up so readily as one made of all silk, while it is about half the size of the old-fashioned line made of mixed silk and hair. With this line much more accurate casting can be made than with one of all silk; and the late David Foster, the inventor of it, says that by using it he increased the length of his throw from 29-1/2yds. to 32-1/2yds. with a single-handed fly rod. But this is extraordinary casting, such as few can accomplish. At the Casting Tournament, held at Hendon five years ago, I saw 30yds. 6in. thrown. Anyone who can throw a fly 25yds., clean and straight, and pitch it within a yard of the object aimed at, may consider himself a pretty good hand. Where one can do it, ninety-nine cannot. The gut or casting line should be moderately stout at the upper part, and tapered down to the point, and if stained of a dull blue or green colour is less likely to be seen than when quite white. I always make up my own casts by picking out suitable lengths of gut and tying them together by a fisherman's knot, and if anything gives way I have no one but myself to blame. In cutting off the ends of the gut do not cut them quite close to the knot, but leave just sufficient to take hold of with a pair of tweezers. Flatten out the ends by pinching them; you thus prevent the knot from drawing, and it need not be clumsy. It is far more economical to use the best gut that can be obtained than to whip off your flies, or lose a fish, by having a cheaper article. The whole--rod, running line and casting line, wholly and separately--should taper from one end to the other, and should be in thorough proportion to each other, and nothing but experience will enable one how to ascertain when this is so. If the rod is too stiff for the line you cannot deliver the latter properly, and if the line is too heavy for the rod you run the risk of breaking the rod's back; while, if the gut is too heavy for the line, it will pitch all in a heap, and, of course, scare the fish. Flies are commonly made with a loop at the end of the gut, to be passed through a corresponding loop at the end of the casting line. A much neater plan is to cut off the loops, or buy your flies without them, and tie the two ends together as above described. Flies tied on eyed hooks are a great improvement on the old style. They are more easily packed, not having that awkward coil of gut attached to them, which is always so difficult to manage in a book, and which is almost certain to result in the loss of some flies on a windy day. They can be readily attached and detached when necessary, and are lighter and float better, and there is not that friction of the gut at the most important point, as with flies tied on gut. I have frequently found when fishing that the fly I particularly wished to use on clear water was tied on stout gut for rough water, and was larger than my gut cast above it. This is wrong in principle, but with eyed hooks gut to suit the water could easily be tied on. Never go out without a landing-net. The most convenient is that with a telescopic handle and folding ring. Near the upper end of the outside part of the handle should be a brass spring hook, to slip over the strap which crosses your chest towards the left side. When you hook a fish, you can, without moving the right hand from the rod, lift the landing-net off with the left hand and throw out the handle ready for use. A pair of waterproof wading-boots or stockings, a good pocket-knife, a piece of india-rubber, with which to straighten the gut, a wicker creel, and something to eat, drink, and smoke, and you are equipped for a day's sport, with the exception of flies, of which I shall next treat. CHAPTER V. FLIES. There is no subject on which anglers differ so much as to what assortment of flies is necessary. Some will carry as many as a hundred sorts in their book, while a few, following Mr. Cholmondely Pennell, are content with three nondescripts of quite an unnatural appearance, and pretend they can catch as many fish as the man who goes prepared with a larger quantity. Walton names _nine_, beside caterpillars; and Cotton mentions _sixty-nine_; while Ronald, in his splendid work, describes very many more to choose from. David Foster speaks of _thirty-one_. My experience has taught me that about _twenty_ are necessary and sufficient for all ordinary purposes. In calm weather and smooth water one fly at a time is enough; but in rain, wind, or broken water, two, three, or even four flies may be used with advantage, as you give the fish a variety to choose from, and can thereby find out which kind they are taking, and adapt your cast to their taste. The fly nearest the rod is called the "first drop," the next the "second drop," and so on, and the farthest from the rod the "stretcher." The last drop should be about 20in. from the stretcher, and the other drops 12in. or 14in. apart. When it is thought desirable to use more than one fly, bend the loop of your drop fly round one of the knots in the casting-line, and pass the drop through the loop thus bent and draw it tight. The drop fly will thus stand at right angles with the casting-line, and should be about 3in. from it, and the trout will not be likely to come in contact with the line when seizing the fly. It does not very often happen that you hook two trout at a time, and after you have hooked them, the difficulty is to get them both into the landing-net, as they dart about in divers directions; but I succeeded in hooking and landing two at a time on three occasions in the summer of 1881. In such cases get the fish on the stretcher into the net first. Two at a time necessitates good tackle and very careful handling. When one can accomplish this difficult feat, with two trout of a pound weight each, he may consider himself a fly-fisher. Artificial flies should represent, in size, shape, and colour, as nearly as possible the natural flies which frequent the water you are fishing. On examining the following selection it will be found that the natural flies are chiefly represented by three colours--green, yellow, and brown; and, although Mr. Pennell was so far right, the general appearance of natural flies must also be imitated, if you would achieve success. I do not hold it necessary to follow minutely every colour, or the exact shape of the natural fly, because nine out of every ten fish caught seize the fly immediately it alights on the water, and sometimes even before it touches; therefore they cannot have time to study very particularly every detail of the lure thus suddenly presented to them, but, seeing something apparently resembling what they are feeding on, dash at it instantaneously, and find out the mistake when it is too late. What is of far greater importance than the exact representation of the natural fly is, that when the artificial falls on the water there should be nothing else occurring at the same time to scare the fish. The motion of the arm, the flash of the rod, the bungling of the casting-line, or pitching the fly on the water in an unnatural manner, all tend to make trout rise short, or not rise at all. In determining what colours to use it is desirable to look at both natural and artificial specimens through water from underneath, as they then appear quite different to what they do when viewed out of water. The late John Hammond, of Winchester, designer of the Hammond's Adopted and Wickham's Fancy, once showed me this through a clear-bottomed decanter. The following list of flies will be found in the greater part of the United Kingdom, although they may be called by different names in different localities, the chief variation being in size rather than colour or shape; and it is always desirable to use artificial flies of the size of the natural ones which are to be found in the locality you are fishing:-- _Red Spinner_, _March Brown_, _Blue Dun_, _Alder Fly_, _Hofland's Fancy_, _Stone Fly_, _Grannum_, _Wickham's Fancy_, _Oak Fly_, _Sedge_, _Green Drake_, _Grey Drake_, _Coachman_, _Black Palmer_, _Red Palmer_, _Coch-y-bonddhu_, _Red Ant_, _July Dun_, _Black Gnat_, _White Moth_. I am convinced that, with the above assortment of flies, there are not many days in the season but that one or other of them will do execution, and there is seldom a day that trout do not rise at some time or other in it, unless the water be too thick for them to see the fly. As I am writing for the average fly-fisher, who need not waste the time or take the trouble to make his own flies, I will not attempt to describe the manner of making them, believing that it is much better to visit a good tackle shop and get what is required; yet I think it desirable to show of what materials they should be composed, in order that he may know what are the most killing sorts, and how to distinguish them in ordering. +February and March.+ 1. _The Red Spinner._--Body, brown silk, ribbed with fine gold twist; tail, two fibres of a red cock's hackle; wings, of some transparent brown feather. 2. _March Brown, or Brown Drake._--This, like the other drakes, is a great favourite with trout in its season, which is during March and April, and it may also be used in the autumn. Body, orange-coloured silk or deep straw colour, on which wind fur from a hare's poll; legs, a honey-dun hackle; wings, to stand erect, of the top of the light or inner fibres of the feather of the hen pheasant's wing; tail, two fibres of the same feather. Rib with gold twist for your tail fly, and let the droppers be without any twist. The above is "Ephemera's" way of making it, but Mr. Ronalds says: "Body, fur of the hare's face ribbed over with olive silk and tied with brown silk; tail, two strands of a partridge's feather; wings, feather of the pheasant's wing; legs, a feather from the back of a partridge." 3. _Blue Dun._--Body, of the hare's ear, dark and yellow part mixed with a little yellow mohair, the whole to be spun on yellow silk; wings, from a feather of the starling's wing stained in onion dye; tail, two whiskers of a rabbit; legs, to be picked out of the dubbing at the thick part near the wings. 4. _Alder Fly._--Body, dark claret-coloured fur; upper wings, red fibre of the landrail's wing, or red tail feather of the partridge; lower wings, of the starling's wing feather; legs, dark red hackle; horns and tail, of fibres the colour of the legs, the horns to be shorter than the body of the fly, but the tail a little longer. 5. _Hofland's Fancy._--Body, reddish dark brown silk; wings, woodcock's wing; legs, red hackle; tail, two strands of a red hackle. +April.+ 6. _Stone Fly._--Body, fur from hare's ear mixed with yellow worsted and spun on yellow silk; tail, two strands of partridge feather; wings, pheasant's quill feather from wings; legs, greenish brown hackle. 7. _Grannum, or Green-Tail._--"Ephemera" says: "The grannum is a four-winged fly, and as it swims down the water its wings lie flat on the back. It has a small bunch of eggs of a green colour at the tail end of the body, which gives it the name of the green-tail fly. As soon as it alights on the water it drops its eggs." It is dressed as follows:-- Body, fur of hare's face left rough and spun on brown silk. A little green floss silk may be worked in at the tail, to represent the bunch of eggs there. Wings, feather from that of the partridge, and made very full; legs, a pale ginger hen's hackle. Made buzz with a feather from the back of a partridge's neck, wound upon the above body. 8. _Wickham's Fancy._--Wings, light starling; body, flat gold ribbed with fine gold wire; hackle and whisk, bright red gamecock. This is one of the best general flies, and is a standing favourite in the south of England; and I have it on the authority of the late John Hammond that he made it under the direction of Dr. Wickham, of Winchester--hence its name. +May and June.+ 9. _Oak Fly, or Down-Looker._--It is generally found on the trunks of oak trees by the river-side, with its head pointing downwards, and is a very useful fly. "Ephemera" recommends it to be dressed as follows: "Body, yellow mohair, ribbed regularly with dark brown silk; legs, a honey dun hackle wound thrice under the wings, which are to lie flat and short, and to be made of the wing feather of a young partridge or hen pheasant. To be tipped with pale gold twist." 10. _Sedge._--Wings, wing of landrail; body, white floss silk ribbed with silver wire; hackle, ginger cock's hackle down the body. 11. _The May-fly, or Green Drake_, is not only a very beautiful fly, but one of the most captivating that is used, and, as I have stated elsewhere, it requires special manipulation. On a windy dull day, in the middle of the May-fly season, when there are not many natural flies out, it will very soon fill the basket, particularly if the water is turbulent. "Ephemera" says: "This famous fly is the opprobrium of fly-makers. Try how they will they cannot, in my opinion, imitate it well. The wings are their greatest foil. In making the body they succeed tolerably well. Still, the best imitation is defective, and, except upon rare occasions, the artificial May-fly is not a deadly bait." My experience has been the very contrary of this. Whether it is from the fly-tiers having succeeded in imitating the natural fly since "Ephemera" wrote, or not, I do not know, but I have before me two specimens tied by Mrs. Ogden that I make no doubt would bring me ten or a dozen brace of trout on a good day in the season. May-flies are often made with cork bodies, but I am not partial to them, for the same objection which applies generally to floating flies, viz.: that trout find they have something hard and unnatural in their mouths, and immediately reject it. On a dry bright day use it as a dry fly, but on a very wet or windy day fish with it a few inches under the surface, and, as Walton says, you will have "store of trouts." On one occasion last season I caught ten brace of trout with one May-fly obtained of Messrs. Alfred and Son, and have it by me now, but there is not a vestige of wing left, all having been bitten off. Mr. Ronalds recommends it to be dressed as follows: "Body, the middle part of a pale straw-coloured floss silk, ribbed with silver twist; extremities (head and tail), brown peacock's harl, tied with light brown silk thread; tail, three rabbit's whiskers; wings and legs, made buzz with a mottled feather of the mallard, stained olive." Instead of the bodies being made of straw-coloured silk they are now frequently made of strips of wheat straw. 12. _Grey Drake._--This is said to be a metamorphosis of the green drake, or female changing to a male. Dress it thus: Body, the middle part of white floss silk, ribbed over neatly with silver twist; extremities, brown peacock's harl; wings and legs made buzz with a mottled feather of the mallard, stained a faint purple; legs, three rabbit's whiskers. 13. _The Coachman._--Body, peacock's harl, full and short; wings, fibres of any small white feather; legs, a turn or two of a red hackle. Mr. Blaine remarks: "Throughout the summer months, as an early evening fly, and until twilight, it proves most valuable in the midland counties, and the bordering ones within eighty miles of London. On the Colne, and throughout its course, in the Hampshire, Dorsetshire, and Devonshire waters, where we have been for many years in the habit of using it, in our opinion there is no fly to at all equal it." 14. _Black Palmer._--Body, black ostrich harl, ribbed with gold twist, black cock's hackle wound over the whole. 15. _Red Palmer._--Body, dark red-coloured mohair, with a richly-tinted red fur intermixed, to be ribbed with gold or silver twist; legs, a blood-red cock's hackle. Or, body, a peacock harl with a red cock's hackle wrapped over it, and tied with dark brown silk thread. I have used the Red Palmer in all weathers and seasons for nearly fifty years, and believe it to be the best general fly there is, although, strictly speaking, not a fly, but an imitation of the caterpillar, or larva of the tiger moth. Having had such success with it I have adopted its name as my _nom de plume_, and as the title of this little book. +July.+ 16. _Coch-y-bonddhu._--Body, black ostrich harl, twisted with peacock's harl, and made with red silk thread; the wings and legs made buzz with a dark furnace hackle. 17. _Red Ant._--Body, copper coloured peacock's harl, full near the wings and tail; wings, a lark's wing feather; legs, red cock's hackle. 18. _July Dun._--Body, mole's fur and pale yellow mohair mixed, and spun on yellow silk; wings, dark part of a feather from the starling's wing, stained dark in strong onion dye; legs, dark dun hackle; tail, the two flies of the hackle. +August.+ 19. _Black Gnat._--Body, one of the smallest feathers of the green plover's top-knot, or of a black harl, to be dressed short; wings, the darkest fibres of an old starling's wing feather. 20. _White Moth._--Wings, white pigeon's feather; body, white crewel; legs, white hen's hackle. Although I have classified these flies under the different months, it does not follow by any means that they will kill only in the months named; on the contrary, some of them may be used month after month, particularly the hackle flies, which may be used almost through the season. I exhibited samples of the above kinds in my lecture to the Gresham and Islington Angling Societies, showing the relative sizes and colours. These samples were selected from the stock of Messrs. Alfred and Son, of Moorgate Street, where I generally obtain what I require, and find their flies are to be depended on. As with gut, so with flies, it is false economy to buy the cheapest. It requires a deal of patience at times before you can hook a fish; and, after you have been so fortunate, it is terribly annoying to find the gut draw, and leave the fly in its mouth. To guard against this, _burn all your old flies at the end of the season_, except one or two of a sort for patterns, and this is another reason why you should not have a heavy stock; and take care, in buying your new stock at the spring of the year, that you get new, and not those of the previous year. In tying gut to the hook, a little varnish generally touches the gut, and at this most critical point the varnish hardens the gut and causes it to snap. This, of course, does not occur with eyed hooks, but even with them it is better to have new flies than old, as the colours are fresher and the tying more secure. Messrs. Ogden and Scotford, the well-known firm of Cheltenham, have lately sent me a few samples of their flies, tied by Mrs. Ogden, who has long enjoyed a very high reputation for her tying. They are beautifully made, and I have no doubt will prove good killers; but, as the season is now over, have had no opportunity of trying them. CHAPTER VI. UP OR DOWN STREAM. So much for the tackle to be used in fly-fishing, and, being thus provided, in what way should the tyro go to work? The first point to be considered is, Should he fish up stream or down? Old Father Izaak says, "fish down stream," but he was not much of a fly-fisher, and I cannot help thinking that if he had lived in the present day he would have seen fit to alter his opinion in this respect. Fish, like human beings, have advanced in education since that time, and, if you want to catch a trout, get behind him. I caught a large trout about eight years ago in clear smooth water, where I did not much expect to catch one, and on examining him I found that he had only one eye, and I had got on the blind side and pitched over him. The advantages of fishing up stream appear to me so great that I can hardly believe any good fly-fisher can hold a contrary opinion; but, lest I should seem prejudiced, I will give some reasons for my faith. The trout always lies with its head up stream, waiting for the food to come down, and if you approach it from the rear you are not so likely to be seen as when approaching it face to face. Again, the natural fly floats down stream, and by throwing up and letting the artificial float down you imitate the motion of the natural fly, taking care to raise the point of the rod as the fly approaches you, so as not to have any slack line out, for if you have, you cannot strike properly. Another reason is, that if while fishing _up_ a trout rises, when you strike you will in all probability hook it in the side of the mouth as it turns; but when fishing _down_, if you strike, the motion tends to draw the fly out of the fish's mouth, and he does not lose much time in getting rid of it if found not to his taste, and then "The trout within yon wimplin burn Glides swift, a silver dart, And, safe beneath the shady thorn, Defies the angler's art." Another important matter to consider is the direction of the wind. Always, if you can, fish with the wind behind you, or, at all events, so that you can throw across it; but, if you must make a choice of evils, choose the lesser, and fish _up_ stream and _against_ the wind, rather than _down_ stream and _with_ the wind. In considering which side of the river to fish, do not, if you can help it, fish from that side whence the sun would cast your shadow on the water, as nothing is more alarming to trout. It is impossible, in a short treatise like the present, to give such instruction in throwing the fly as will make the tyro an adept. It is desirable to practise throwing with both the right and left sweep, as by changing from one to the other you avoid getting into the bad habit of twisting the rod, which would assuredly warp and spoil it; and by practising short throws with the left hand you will be able to give the right arm a few minutes' rest occasionally, a great relief in a long day's fishing. My advice is, to commence with a short line, and when you find that you can deliver the line so as to be prepared to hook a fish as soon as the fly touches the water, gradually increase the length, taking care never to attempt to throw more than you can send out clean and straight, without disturbing the water. But more can be learnt in this respect by an hour's practice with an old hand, than by any amount of theory. The great points are to keep well out of sight, and to imitate the descent of the natural fly on the water, which in the case of the smaller flies is as soft and gentle as a piece of thistle-down; but with the larger ones, such as the drakes and moths, whose bodies are heavy in proportion to the size of their wings, compared with other flies, let them fall with a slight spat on the water, causing a ring to take place on the surface, and letting the fish know it is there. CHAPTER VII. STRIKING AND PLAYING. Considerable discussion has taken place in the angling papers from time to time as to the proper time for striking a fish; and three or four years since some extraordinary calculations were made with regard to the period that should elapse before striking, and for the motion from the arm to reach the hook. My opinion, as expressed in the "Angler's Journal" at that time, and lately repeated in "Fishing," is as follows: "As soon as you become aware, either by sight, sound, or feeling, that a fish has risen, put the hook in him." But you must be careful not to strike too hard, or you will either tear the hook out, or snap the gut, and thus lose the fish. It should only be a slight twitch, given from the wrist, as quick as thought, just enough to drive the hook in beyond the barb, but not enough to tear the flesh out. I have often amused myself by feeding trout, and have noticed that, after they have taken several pieces, say of bread or paste, if I threw in something like it in appearance, such, for instance, as a small white stone, they would seize it, and, finding the substance different, instantly blow it out again. It is reasonable to assume that they would do the same with an artificial fly, particularly those having cork bodies; therefore you cannot strike too quickly. But, as this is a branch of the subject on which great differences of opinion exist, I will here quote some eminent angling authorities in support of my views. _Francis Francis_ says: "If a fish rises, a slight upward turn of the wrist will be sufficient to fix the hook. As for giving any direct rules when to strike, they would be of little avail, as sometimes fish rise quickly, sometimes with more circumspection, and sometimes altogether falsely." Next, _Cummins_: "When a trout takes your fly do not strike too hard; more fish are lost by anglers striking when using small flies than are secured by such means. The line tightened is sufficient in most cases, particularly in fishing streams." In "Fishing" of March 31st last I say: "I agree that in rapid stream fishing there is no necessity for striking." _Ephemera_ also advises that, "The moment you see, and then feel, a rise, strike gently from the wrist." _Blaine_ also writes to the same effect. _Stewart_, in the "Practical Angler," has the following passage: "A difference of opinion exists as to whether trout should be struck on rising; but, in common with the majority of anglers, we advocate immediate striking. When a trout takes a fly it shuts its mouth, and if the angler strikes then he is almost sure to bring the hook into contact with the closed jaws. We have frequently watched the motions of trout on taking a fly, and when left to do with it as they chose, they very quickly expelled it from their mouths with considerable force; and we think that, if the angler strikes, even when the trout's mouth is open, he will have a much better chance than by leaving it to hook itself. A trout on seizing an artificial fly is almost instantaneously aware that it is a counterfeit, and never attempts to swallow it; very frequently letting it go before the angler has time to strike, so that it is of the utmost importance to strike immediately, and this is the reason why a quick eye and a ready hand are considered the most necessary qualifications for a fly-fisher." _Foster_, in the "Scientific Angler" says: "The action requisite is a short quick wrist-motion, commenced sharply but ended almost instantly and abruptly, like a quick movement of the hand in bringing a foil in fencing from _tierce_ to _carte_." It is impossible to strike too quick, but it is quite possible to strike too hard. All the above opinions are based on the supposition that a fish _has risen_. It is not very often that a trout is seen in the act of rising, but should it be, of course sufficient time must be given for it to reach the fly, then strike at once. When you find that you have hooked your fish, be prepared for its rush, and then comes the time when all your patience, experience, and lightness of hand, are called into requisition. Let the fish have its head a little at first, taking care to steer it clear of weeds, bushes, and sunken obstacles in the water, and then give it a slight pressure from the rod, in addition to the friction of the line which it is dragging through the water; and if you can get it down stream, so as not to disturb the fish above, so much the better. When you have got it down stream, and under command, do not be in too great a hurry to land it, for sometimes when you think it is spent it will make a sudden dart, and you lose it. Give it plenty of time to tire itself out, then put the landing net quietly into the water, slip it under the fish, and lift it out. Then put the thumb of your right hand into its mouth, with the fingers at the back of its head, and press the upper jaw back until its spine is broken. This is far better than letting the fish flop about and discolour itself in the creel. CHAPTER VIII. WHEN TO GO FISHING. Having explained the apparatus necessary for catching trout, the next part of my subject appears to be the time _when_ to go fishing, and one important point is the weather. Notwithstanding what some writers have said about catching trout in an east wind, I do not believe in it. With a wind from the South, West, or South-west, and a dull or showery day, one may fairly expect success; but to go out on a bright clear day, with wind from the North or East, is, in my opinion, neither pleasant nor profitable. I have done it many times when I had less experience, though not more enthusiasm, than at present, but I seldom do it now. An old song says: "A Southerly wind and a cloudy sky Proclaim a hunting morning;" and they also tell the fly-fisher when to be off to the river. I should not be doing justice to this part of my subject if I were not to allude to the fly-fisher's carnival, the May-fly season. From about the last week in May till the middle of June is the time above all others to catch trout. I have frequently caught five or six brace in a couple of hours during this short season; but as soon as it is over I put away the rod for a few days, for, the fish being fairly glutted with the natural fly, do not care much for the artificial after the former is gone, although it will sometimes happen that on a rough, dull day, you can have good sport for a week or ten days afterwards. The length of the May-fly season depends greatly on the weather. It generally lasts about three weeks; but the present season (1888) has been exceptionally wet and cold, and the flies were only hatched at long and irregular intervals, owing to the absence of sun. Consequently the season extended from the second or third day of June till the second week of July. On the 11th of June last I was fishing with a May-fly and a small Soldier-palmer for drop, my usual custom, and was struck by the difference of the manner in which fish rose at the two flies. The rise at the May-fly was bold and decisive, but without undue haste, whilst that at the Palmer was a sudden swish, without giving time to strike. I can only account for this by the circumstance that the natural May-fly is longer on the water than the Palmer before it gets water-logged and sinks, and the fish therefore know that they can take their time about it. The stream was very difficult to fish, and I lost a great many fish as well as flies from getting entangled in the bushes; nevertheless I succeeded in landing twelve brace of trout, besides some returned. Next, as to the time of day. The most preferable times are from about 8 a.m. till noon, and after 4 p.m. till midnight. In many trout clubs there is a rule prohibiting fishing after half-past nine; but, if you are not restricted in that respect, you will find that the largest fish are taken from sunset till ten or eleven o'clock. The only justification for late fishing is that the very large trout, which often attain their great size from preying on their own species, then come out of their hiding-places and chase the small fry up and down the shallows. These cannibalistic old gentlemen, who do more harm than good in a trout stream, do not usually rise at a fly, and can only be caught with a live bait or worm, or by night fishing with a sunk fly, and the end justifies the means. White or brown moths are the favourites. I had some moths made specially large, on strong gut, for late fishing, but found it advisable to use a short line and only one fly, and to get the fish into the landing-net as soon as possible, for it is awkward work to land a big fish after dark, particularly if you are hampered with weeds or bushes. CHAPTER IX. HABITS OF TROUT. A knowledge of the habits of trout is very essential, and this knowledge can only be acquired by careful observation. The largest fish are generally to be found where they can obtain the best supply of food--such points as just below sharp bends of the stream, behind large stones or other obstructions, at the head or tail of deep pools, and on the margin of swift currents, or under overhanging banks; and, if you take a good fish at any particular spot, you will probably find, a day or two afterwards, that the next best fish in that locality has taken the place of the one you captured. It has often occurred to me that there are several reasons why brook trout do not thrive in the lower part of rivers communicating with the sea. One thing is, to my mind, very certain--they do not feel at home in salt, or even brackish, water, and do not seek it of their own accord. Having lived many years within sight of a point where a fresh water stream flows into salt water, I have had perhaps exceptional opportunities of observing them, and forming an opinion on the subject; and, although I have lately seen an apparently well-supported contrary opinion strongly expressed, I am not yet convinced, thinking that probably some error may have crept in as to the kind of fish, or some disturbing cause taken place in the state of the water. Occasionally they get washed down by floods, or by the breaking away or uplifting of hatches or gates; but, as soon as the rush of water subsides, they begin to work their way up again, and if there is an obstacle to their ascending, such as a weir or mill, they are sure to be found close up to it, having got as far as they can. They always seem prompted by instinct to work upwards into shallow rapid water, where the bottom is gravelly, and, I believe, for the following reasons: They can there deposit and cover up their ova, and, when hatched, the young fry can get protection among it from their numerous enemies in their early days; and, although food may be plentiful in muddy sluggish streams near salt water, it is not of the kind that trout delight in. Larva, flies, and minnows abound in clear bright streams, and there the trout can clean themselves from their parasites, and, with healthy bodies and abundance of the food they enjoy, come into condition early, and become lusty and strong. In the breeding time they, like many other animals, lose their usual caution and shyness, and when performing their natural functions seem to take no notice of what is passing around them; and thus very many of the best fish are captured in shallow water, and the streams almost depopulated. The greatest vigilance should be exercised in the spawning time to prevent poachers, both human and others, from preying upon them. In addition to men, swans, ducks, otters, herons, pike, perch, &c., &c., all prey on the luckless trout and its ova and fry, and the wonder is that the stock is so well maintained as it is. Otters and herons in particular appreciate this dainty, and either of them will travel across country many miles to get to a well-stocked trout stream. So strong is the instinct of the trout to get into shallow streams to deposit their spawn, that they will leap waterfalls several feet in height, or wriggle up over gravel where there is not half enough water to cover them, and where it is frequently impossible for them to get back again, and there they are often destroyed. CHAPTER X. WHERE TO GO FISHING. Having spoken of the _how_ and _when_, next comes the _where_; and under this head I feel bound, in the interests of friends, not to describe, other than in very general terms, the localities where good fishing is to be had. Walton, from frequently visiting Winchester, where his remains lie, and where a statue of him has lately been erected by anglers, (the movement for which I had the honour of starting), was doubtless well acquainted with Hampshire--or, as he quaintly calls it, "Hantshire,"--which, he says, "exceeds all England for its swift, shallow, clear, pleasant brooks, and store of trouts." In his will he mentions part of his books as being at Droxford (about eleven miles from Winchester), where it is presumed he resided occasionally. I know no better trout stream than that in this locality. Many a basket of goodly trout have I had from it in days gone by. It was near here that I caught the two large trout at one time, before alluded to. I suppose at the present time the Avon, the Test, and the Itchen are unsurpassed in the United Kingdom. All the north, or what is commonly called the _upper_, part of Hampshire, forms part of the south-western edge of the basin of the Thames, and is drained into it by the Wey, the Enborn, and the Blackwater. The district east of Alton and north of the South Downs is drained by the Rother, which is a tributary of the river Arun, and discharges into the English Channel, near Arundel, in Sussex. In all these rivers, springing out of the chalk hills, there is good trout fishing, but not equal to that on the south side of the South Downs, where the country, sloping away to the southward and westward, either drains into the Solent or the river Avon; and it is to these southern rivers and streams that Walton more particularly alluded. The Test, or Anton, rises in the neighbourhood of Andover and Whitchurch, and falls into the Southampton Water to the westward of the town of Southampton, while the Itchen, rising near Alresford, and passing Winchester and Bishopstoke, discharges into Southampton Water to the eastward of the town. The Avon, entering Hampshire from Wiltshire, and passing Fordingbridge and Ringwood, discharges into Christchurch Bay, where the Stour also empties itself. There are also several smaller streams rising south of the hills which stretch from Winchester to Petersfield, and discharge themselves into the Solent. All these streams are well stocked with trout, and some of them contain roach, perch, pike, and grayling, and the larger ones also salmon. If greater facilities were given to salmon to ascend they would doubtless do so, as they are occasionally caught in stake nets while working their way along the south coast, evidently in search of rivers, up which to ascend for the purpose of spawning. But the river proprietors do not provide means for the salmon to go upwards, it being generally considered that salmon and trout do not thrive well together, and that if the breeding of salmon was encouraged it would be at the expense of the trout fisheries. Nearly all these Hampshire rivers are strictly preserved, and some of those in the vicinity of Andover, Stockbridge, Houghton, and Winchester are in the hands of first-class clubs, the subscriptions to which are high, and access difficult. Still, there are a few pieces of free water at Winchester, Bishopstoke, and Romsey; and Mr. Currell and Mr. Chalkley, both of Winchester, rent considerable portions of the river there, and issue season and day tickets. At Bishopstoke, where there is some splendid trout and grayling fishing, season and day tickets are now being issued by the proprietor of a large estate, who has hitherto preserved very highly, and would scarcely allow his own friends to fish; and several instances have come to my knowledge lately where landed proprietors, only able to obtain a reduced income from their farms, have been glad to supplement it by making a few pounds annually out of their fishing. So that, to the angler as well as the land owner, agricultural distress is not an unmitigated evil. And if more attention was paid to the stocking and preserving of rivers, the incomes of landed proprietors might be considerably increased, and a very important addition made to the food of the country. The Avon, at Ringwood, in the New Forest, about 100 miles S.W. of London, has some good salmon, trout and grayling fishing, and also very fine roach and perch. Day tickets can be obtained of the hotel keepers. The Beaulieu river, the tidal portion of which is, of course, free, is noted, not only for its coarse fish, but also for quantities of sea-trout that frequent it in the autumn months. Fishermen have increased so rapidly in the last few years that those who have fishing rights take care of them, and where one could formerly go unchallenged, he now has to ask permission for a day, and very often may consider himself lucky if he gets it. There are now about 180 angling societies in and around London, consisting of nearly 5,000 members, besides a large number of anglers who do not belong to any society; consequently fish have been becoming more and more scarce year after year, and the increase of population and pollution of rivers have also tended to drive them away. But, in order to supply to some extent the deficiency, artificial breeding has become very general. The National Piscicultural Society breed and distribute immense numbers of young trout every year. Greater efforts are also being made than formerly to prevent poaching, the destruction of undersized fish, and taking them when out of season; therefore, the prospects of anglers are beginning to look brighter. In describing the _where_ to go fishing, I have alluded more particularly to Hampshire, not only because it is the best part of England for trout, but because it also happens to be the county with which I am best acquainted. Throughout the whole of the county, fishing for trout with anything but an artificial fly is considered unsportsmanlike, and is strictly prohibited in all the clubs. Still, there are many other localities where, if the angler does not mind going farther afield, good trout fishing can be obtained. For instance, Scotland and Wales, where, from the hilly conformation of the country, the streams are rapid and therefore suitable for trout; Devonshire, where the trout are small, but very numerous; the neighbourhood of the Peak, in Derbyshire, than which there is none much better; the upper portions of the Thames and Lea and their tributaries--all these are worth the fly-fisher's attention, and many of them will repay him for the time and trouble spent in visiting them. CHAPTER XI. CURIOUS CAPTURES. When fishing in Hampshire some ten or twelve years ago, a moorhen came out of some bushes near me and rushed down the brook, with its feet just trailing along on the surface. As it was going over my line I gave a twitch and hooked it in the under part of the foot, where the skin is as tough as leather. Then I had a lively time for about twenty minutes, up and down, in and out; but my tackle was good, and I handled the rod carefully, till at length the bird was pretty well tired, and got in among some bushes, and a friend who was with me went into the water and got it into the landing-net. I preserved it and had it mounted. On another occasion I saw a rat swimming across the stream, and pitched my fly just beyond him and hooked him firmly. Of course he dived, but could not get away from me, and at last came ashore into the long grass where I was standing. It was nearly dark and I could not see him, but presently found he had got the line entangled round my legs. I threw the rod down, and stamped about, thinking to tread on him, but suppose I trod on the gut, for he got away with it. When I picked up my rod I found I had stamped on it also and broken it; therefore I determined to let the next rat alone. Another time I had been fishing late, with a white moth, and, on leaving off, twisted the gut and fly round my hat. Getting through a hedge the gut caught in a bramble, and the fly went into my scalp, and the more I pulled the worse it was. The same friend was with me, and helped me out of it. We then went to a doctor, who snipped away the hair and cut the hook out. It is not very often that an eel is taken with a fly, but I was once fishing with a Palmer, and, being tired, very carelessly laid my rod down with the fly in the water, which, of course, sank to the bottom. I strolled about, and coming back picked up the rod, and found an eel attached, which I landed. CHAPTER XII. CONCLUSION. Finally, fly-fishing may be considered one of the best of sports, because it can be followed late in life. Most devotees of sport, when the nerves become shaky and the eyes grow dim, must content themselves with thinking or talking of what they did in their youth. But it is not so with the fly-fisher. He can still throw a fly and play a trout, better perhaps than in his youth, because of his greater experience; and, when in the down-hill of life he looks back on the hopes and anticipations of his boyhood days, it must be gratifying to feel that the times spent among the beauties of nature in exercising the angler's art have been the most enjoyable parts of his life, and that he is none the worse man for having obeyed the precepts and followed the example of our grand old past master, Izaak Walton. APPENDIX. It is doubtful whether the gratification of taking fish is equal to that which results from the recital of the achievement, and describing to a sympathetic audience the method and tackle by which the prey has been ensnared. Walton and his friends, after a long day, loved to meet at some village alehouse, and fight their battles o'er again; and in the present day one of the most enjoyable parts of the evening spent at an Angling Society is when the chairman asks, "Has any one been fishing?" and the members recount their piscatorial experiences since the last meeting. Any one unaccustomed to such meetings would be surprised at the knowledge of rivers, the country, the habits, and the haunts of particular kinds of fish and insects, the various sorts of baits and tackle to be used, and all the technical information which the London angler displays on such occasions; and this broader view of nature and life is not the least of the benefits derived from following the piscatorial art. The London clubs number about 200, with upwards of 5,000 members; and considering that a very large number of anglers do not belong to any club, it will be readily understood that the angling fraternity form a considerable part of the community, whose great aim is to enjoy themselves in a rational and innocent manner, away from the clank of machinery, the roar of street traffic, and the stifling atmosphere of a great city; and every assistance and encouragement should be given them to do so--and they are progressing. Many of them practice fly-fishing; and if trout are not to be got, there are chub, dace, and bleak, and occasionally a roach, to reward them for their skill. The one great difficulty is where to get good fishing, and this is to some extent overcome by the co-operation of anglers, through their clubs and associations, who not only rent waters for their members, but make arrangements with the railway companies to take them into the country and back at greatly reduced fares. The preserving and re-stocking of waters also form an important part of the business of angling clubs. Experience has taught them that it is of very little use to turn in fry before they are old enough to take care of themselves, but that it is more satisfactory, and ultimately more economical to purchase yearling fish in the first place. These various matters have been so well attended to, that, notwithstanding the great increase in the number of anglers, access to well-stocked rivers is more easy of attainment now than it was a few years ago. Of course, every care should be taken to prevent poaching, to keep down predaceous fish, and prevent undersized and out-of-season fish from being taken; but with these precautions, if the river is naturally adapted for the kind of fish required, there should be no difficulty. In the case of trout, the quantity, quality, and size will very much depend on the quantity and kind of food to be obtained. There should be plenty of weeds, sedge, flags, &c., not only for shelter, but they are the natural breeding places of insects and crustacea, in which trout delight, and if the river is overhung with trees and bushes it not only adds to the security of the fish, but harbours flies and other insects which drop off into the water. WET _v._ DRY. The difference between wet and dry fly-fishing is this: the wet fly is worked gently along some few inches beneath the surface until a fish is found, which, when they are scarce, or not rising, may be a tedious process, and often the first intimation is a sudden tug without any rise, which should be immediately answered by as sudden a twitch from the wrist. The dry-fly fisherman walks quietly along by the side of the stream, and if he sees a trout rising, drops his fly lightly a little above it, and preferably also a little on one side, and lets it float down stream on the surface to the fish, gently raising the point of his rod in the meantime. In case no fish are rising, he carefully casts to the most likely-looking spots, and particularly under the bank on which he is standing. In nine cases out of ten, a trout, if it rises at all, takes the dry fly immediately it touches the water; therefore, one should learn to cast clean and straight, without any slack line. TACKLE. There is a great difference of opinion among anglers as to the amount of pliancy a fly-rod ought to possess. From the old-fashioned, heavy, stiff rod, we have gone to the other extreme, and had cane rods so light and whippy as to be entirely useless on a windy day; and now we have what is, in my opinion, a somewhat sensible reaction, and are coming back to a greenheart from ten to twelve feet long, of medium substance and pliability. Such a rod, with an Acme line suited to it, and the whole adapted to the height and strength of the angler, ought to make good casting. Long casting may be showy, but in practice it is far better to cast lightly and accurately, and this tends to fill the basket much more than being able to get out an extra length. One piece of advice may be relied on: never part with a good rod after you have become accustomed to it. It is not only the pleasurable associations connected with it, but the confidence you have in it, and, through it, in yourself, enables you to kill fish with it. With care, it may be made to last a lifetime. I used, the other day, at the International Tournament, a greenheart that I have used almost exclusively for about twelve years, and with which I have killed many hundred brace of trout. If, on the occasion referred to, I had used an Ogden and Scotford's _multum in parvo_, I believe I should have thrown two yards farther. FLIES. I see no reason to alter the list given in the first edition, indeed, subsequent experience has tended to confirm my opinion expressed therein. Many old anglers say it is of no use in the May-fly season to try any other fly. I generally use a May-fly as stretcher, and a small Soldier-palmer as drop, and out of seventeen-and-a-half brace of trout caught last Whitsuntide in two half-days, one-third of them were caught on the Palmer. Others say it is useless to try a May-fly, except when the natural fly is out; but this is also subject to modification. There have been two or three well-authenticated cases reported in the sporting journals lately, of fish having been killed some weeks before and after the season on _Ephemera vulgata_. Indeed, there has been seen in Ireland this autumn a _second_ very strong rise of May-fly. In the first edition I speak of the Grey-drake thus:--"This is said to be a metamorphosis of the green drake, or female, changing to a male." The passage should have read thus:--"This is _said by some writers_ to be," &c. I had not the slightest intention of giving that as a fact, or as my own opinion, knowing otherwise. Flies tied on eyed hooks with cocked or upright wings, in imitation of the natural fly when floating down a stream, are coming into use more and more, and apparently will supersede those tied on gut, and with flat wings. WHEN TO GO FISHING. A century ago it was not possible to get forecasts of the weather from the daily papers, and the death of Admiral Fitzroy in middle life, and in the midst of his scientific discoveries, was a great blow to the advancement of this branch of science. But with greater facilities for conveying intelligence round the whole globe, it could not but happen that more accurate information of air currents should be sent forward to the countries likely to be affected by them. The following is from the "Art of Angling," published in 1810:--"It is the best fishing in a river somewhat disturbed by rain, or on a cloudy day when the waters are moved with a gentle breeze; the south and west winds are the best, and if the wind blows high, yet not so but that you may conveniently guide your tackle, then fishes will rise in the still deeps; but if there is little wind stirring, the best angling is in swift streams. "In casting your line, do it always before you, and in such a manner that the fly may fall first on the water. When you throw your line, wave the rod in a small circumference round your head, and never make a return of it before the line has had its full scope, or the fly will snap off. "Although when you angle the day is cloudy and windy, and the water thick, you must keep the fly in continual motion, otherwise the fishes will discern the deceit. "'... Upon the curling surface let it glide With nat'ral motion from your hand suppli'd; Against the stream now let it gently play, Now in the rapid eddy float away.' "When fishes rise at the fly very often, and yet never take it, you may conclude that it is not what they like, therefore change it for the one they do." PLAYING A FISH. "... Should you lure From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook, Behoves you then to ply your finest art; Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly, And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear: At last, while haply o'er the shaded sun Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death With sullen plunge: at once he darts along, Deep struck, and runs out all the lengthen'd line, Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed, The cavern'd bank, his own secure abode; And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool, Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand, That feels him still, yet to his furious course Gives way, you, now retiring, following now Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage, Till floating broad upon his breathless side, And to his fate abandon'd, to the shore You gaily drag your unresisting prize." CASTING. There are several kinds of casts to be used, for the _ordinary_ casts will be of little avail under some circumstances. To make the ordinary cast, begin with a short line, and by the action of the wrist and forearm propel it out in front of you, so that when it is extended to the full length, the fly will be two or three feet above the surface, on which it should fall by its own weight. In repeating the cast raise the point of the rod slowly, and bring it back over your right shoulder, so that the line shall describe the shape of a horse-shoe behind you; then throw it forward again in the same manner as before; keep casting in this way until you can throw a tolerable length, say, twelve or fourteen yards, always striving more for accuracy and delicacy than length. Sometimes a fish may be seen rising which is out of reach of the ordinary cast. In such case it will be necessary to adopt what is called the _augmented_ cast. Throw out as much line as you can in the ordinary way, then with the forefinger of the right-hand press the line against the rod, draw two or three yards off the reel with the left hand; bring back the line and throw it forward again, and just before it reaches its fullest extent remove your finger, and the impetus of the line will carry out the two or three yards taken off the reel. The _spey_ throw is used for a similar purpose. If you are fishing a large river or lake with a strong wind behind you, when the line is extended to its utmost limit by the ordinary cast, whisk the fly off the water by an upward and backward movement of the hand; but deliver it forward again, just as the last of the reel line is leaving the surface, by a rapid downward cut with the upper portion of the rod. It is possible in this way to get out four or five yards more line than by the ordinary cast. When trees or bushes overhang the water the _side_ cast is sometimes useful. Let out a short line, and wave the rod from side to side horizontally, until the line follows the motion of the rod, then pull a yard or two off the reel and swish it on to the water. The best way to get it off again is to reel in. It will occasionally happen that when trees are overhanging there is not room on either side to use the side cast. The _underhand_ cast here comes in. Take the fly between the finger and thumb of the left hand, and by giving the rod a forward and upward motion, drop the fly on to the water in front of you. When high bushes stand between you and the river the _steeple_ cast is handy. By the action of the rod work the line up perpendicularly above your head, then pitch it down over the bushes on to the water. These special casts are only used in special circumstances requiring them, but they are often instrumental in producing big fish from otherwise inaccessible spots, and it is in such spots that the big fish generally lie. ANGLING CLUBS. In conclusion, I would recommend all anglers, whether living in London or the provinces, to join a good club: they there meet kindred spirits, and form friendships and connections, that make life pleasant. Many of these clubs rent waters for the use of their members, which would not be within the reach of individuals. Scientific papers on the art are occasionally read, and discussions based on them; lectures and smoking concerts are often added to the programme; some of them possess extensive circulating libraries accessible to their members only, while most of their rooms are hung with specimen fish, portraits of prominent anglers, aquatic birds, flies, &c. In winter evenings, when angling is out of the question, the interest in the sport is thus kept up, and plans for the coming season formed, tackle compared, and various other matters arranged. Most of the London clubs admit country members at a lower rate of subscription than ordinary members, and thus benefits accrue on both sides. Country members, when in town, can obtain all the advantages enumerated, and they have occasionally the opportunity of procuring the town member a day's fishing "far from the madding crowd." RED PALMER. [Illustration] ALFRED & SON, FISHING ROD AND TACKLE MAKERS TO H.R.H. THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH, =20, MOORGATE STREET, E.C.= =BEFORE BUYING= FISHING TACKLE CALL AND INSPECT Our Selection of Trout Rods, the most complete Stock in London. SINGLE BRAZED FLY RODS FROM =7/6= Check Winches from 2s. Fly Lines, 1d., 2d., and 3d. per yard. Gut Casts from 4d. to 1s. each. Flies dressed on best Drawn Gut, kept in Stock, or tied to any Pattern, 2s. per doz. SEND A GUINEA FOR OUR FLY-FISHING OUTFIT _Comprising Brazed Rod, Metal Winch, 40 yards Line, Casts, and Book of Flies._ Foreign and Country Orders must enclose Remittance. =Note the Address: 20, MOORGATE STREET, LONDON. E.C.= =THE ACME= METAL CENTRED LINES are the Finest and Best yet made. They are the most Scientifically constructed Fly and Spinning Lines ever introduced to the Angling public. They are supplied on this condition of purchase: Cash refunded or duplicate line supplied if line be not deemed satisfactory after twelve months' wear. [Illustration] Mr. +Wm. Senior+, (Angling) Editor of the _Field_, says: "My experience of the lines with wire centre is quite another thing, and it is confined to the 'Acme' of Messrs. D. & W. H. Foster, of Ashbourne.... I ordered a line that will do for light salmon or Pike Spinning (No. 1), and another for trout fishing (No. 0). This was two seasons ago. I have used both lines hard ever since, and they appear to be quite good for the chances of 1886. They are, in short, the best lines I ever had."--Contribution to a controversy _re_ Lines, in the _Fishing Gazette_, March 27th, 1886. See also recommendations of the +Acme+ in _Land and Water_, August 28th, 1888; _Bell's Life_, September 18th, 1885; _Fishing Gazette_, September 19th, 1885: _Field_, August 16th, 1884; and the leading journals of Russia, Austria, the U.S.A., Finland, &c. =The British Braided All-Silk Waterproof Lines= (1-1/2d. per yd.), and =The Indestructible Ditto= (1/6 per score yds.) are the best all-silk Lines in the Market. The Best Killing Flies are the new Skin Winged "=BITTERN=." Patent applied for. Price =3/-= per dozen. [Illustration] They are fifty per cent. nearer nature than the old style artificials. "Two of the three varieties sent had a fair trial, and they proved more successful than any other flies."--The Rev. +A. R. Francis, M.A.+, in the _Fishing Gazette_, September 15th, 1888. =For New and Refined Improvements in Tackle, see FOSTER'S CATALOGUE.= =PHENOMENAL SUCCESS= Has attended the Inventions and Improvements we have, during the past half century, introduced. Every Angler should possess a copy of our Newly Issued Catalogue. Well worth 1s., vide _Fishing Gazette_. It contains 133 pages, and over 200 illustrations (some in colours). Post free, four stamps. D. & W. H. FOSTER, Manufacturers, =ASHBOURNE, ENGLAND.= HARDY'S RODS. CANE BUILT STEEL-CENTRE, CANE BUILT GREENHEART, AND GENERAL TACKLE STAND. =UNRIVALLED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.= _This is proved by the great number of AWARDS given them, and their GENERAL USE by ANGLERS of NOTE._ REGISTERED [Illustration] TRADE MARK. Those who wish for PERFECT ADAPTABILITY, giving the BEST RESULTS with the LEAST EXPENDITURE of FORCE or CASH, should send _THREE STAMPS for our ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE and ANGLERS' GUIDE_. HARDY BROTHERS, LONDON & NORTH BRITISH WORKS, ALNWICK, NORTHUMBERLAND. =~HOLLAND'S FLOATING FLIES.~= GEO. HOLLAND, of BRIDGE STREET, SALISBURY, Practical Fly-Fisher and Fly Maker, begs to inform Anglers that he is now prepared to execute orders for his STANDARD TROUT and GRAYLING FLIES for Hampshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and all other Streams, at the following prices for cash:--Hackle Flies, 1s. 9d. per dozen; Single-winged Flies, 2s. per dozen; Double-winged Floaters, 2s. 6d. per dozen; Ibis, Macaw, and Indian Crow Tags, 2s. 6d. per dozen. Bumbles, ditto, on gut, or Eyed Hooks. EVERY HOOK IS TESTED BOTH BEFORE AND AFTER TYING. G. H. is agent for the Celebrated English Split-Cane Fly Rods, made by Messrs. Hardy Brothers, and has Special Patterns for Dry-Fly Fishing, as used by some of the best Hampshire Anglers. Agent for Messrs. S. Allcock and Co.'s Celebrated "Standard" Angling Requisites. Holland's Cobweb Gut sold in three-yard Tapered Casts, or in Hanks. This Gut is of the best quality obtainable, and carefully selected. Flies made to order, and from the patterns given in Mr. Halford's "Floating Flies and How to Dress Them." G. H., having personal and practical knowledge of Fly-Fishing both in North and South Country Streams, is able to advise his Customers as to the Best Killers for different seasons and localities. By Special Appointment Sole Agent in this neighbourhood for Messrs. +S. Allcock and Co., Standard Works, Redditch+. Being a Specialist for Trout and Grayling Requisites, gentlemen may rely on getting just what they want. I am very much pleased with the flies. They are splendidly tied and are just what I wanted. +Francis Francis, Esq.+ * * * * * G. Holland is one of the most excellent professional fly tiers in the three kingdoms, and has carried the department of Floating Fly-tying to special excellence. +H. Cholmondeley Pennell, Esq.+--_Badminton Library._ * * * * * I never saw anything more life-like or perfect. +Francis M. Walbran, Esq.+ * * * * * As a fly fisher of more than fifty years, I have had very extensive experience of Fly Dressing, and it is fairly due to you to state that I have never met with flies better or more artistically tied than yours, and I never miss an opportunity of recommending your flies. +H. R. Francis, Esq.+--_Badminton Library._ * * * * * COBWEB DRAWN GUT WITH UNBROKEN SKIN. "Examined by the microscope the gut is much rounder and more perfect in structure than any I have seen, also smaller in diameter; some of the lengths are 3-1,000ths of an inch only. Its transparency is also very great, and there are seen no fibres along the length, which is so common with the ordinary drawn gut. Please send two more hanks." +J. Hawksley, Esq.+, London. * * * * * Dear Sir,--I promised to let you know how those small eyed snecks did among heavy fish. I am glad to find them exceeding good; so far I have had no accidents with them, and I had some very heavy fish. Amongst others, I have killed during the last four days six grayling weighing 15lb., the heaviest brace going a trifle over 5-3/4lb. All these fish have been killed on your cobweb gut, which is the best I ever had--a perfect marvel of strength and fineness combined. Most of my fish have succumbed to the tiny Orange Tags I had from you a fortnight ago, though the largest fish, a three-pounder, came home on a light Olive. The Orange Tag is, however, about the best grayling fly it is possible to use on a sunny day, and it will, in bright weather, frequently do execution with trout. I hooked three good fish with it in less than ten minutes one day last week. Yours very truly, +H. S. Hall+. +Ogden & Scotford+, MANUFACTURERS OF Fishing Rods, Flies and Tackle For all Parts of the World. 25, CRAYFORD ROAD, HOLLOWAY =LONDON.= Works at PITVILLE, CHELTENHAM. PRIZE MEDALLISTS, FISHERIES EXHIBITION, LONDON, 1883. SIX INTERNATIONAL AWARDS. Only Makers of the Prize Medal "MULTUM IN PARVO" TROUT ROD, now used by most of the =Leading Sportsmen.= Only Makers of the Celebrated "DEVERAUX MAHOE" SALMON AND TROUT RODS; The lightest and toughest Wood Rods ever yet introduced. _Rods to Order of any Description, all warranted Hand Made._ The Original and World Renowned =JAMES OGDEN'S TROUT FLIES,= OF FIRST QUALITY ONLY, DRESSED BY MRS. JAMES OGDEN. Special attention given to Pattern Flies. Outfits for any part of the World on the shortest notice possible. Transcriber's notes: Text in italics is marked with _underscore_, bold text with the =equals sign= and small capitals with +plus+. Double underlined text marked with ~tilde~. Archaic spelling retained. The following corrections have been made: p. 25: "opprobium" corrected to "opprobrium" p. 43: "Southamption" corrected to "Southampton" Advertisement "Holland's Floating Flies": "miscroscope"corrected to "microscope". Obvious punctuation errors repaired (e.g. added period after No "No. 0"). 
46169	----	FISHING WITH FLOATING FLIES FISHING WITH FLOATING FLIES BY SAMUEL G. CAMP AUTHOR OF "FISHING KITS AND EQUIPMENT," "FINE ART OF FISHING," ETC OUTING HANDBOOKS [Illustration] NEW YORK OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY MCMXIII COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY All rights reserved CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE MATTER OF EQUIPMENT 9 II. THE FLY ROD 22 III. THE REEL, LINE AND FLIES 36 IV. HOW TO CAST THE FLOATING FLY 55 V. WHERE AND WHEN TO USE THE FLOATING FLY 68 VI. HOW TO FISH THE FLOATING FLY 80 VII. HOW TO FISH THE FLOATING FLY, CONTINUED 93 VIII. INSECTS OF THE TROUT STREAM 107 FISHING WITH FLOATING FLIES FISHING WITH FLOATING FLIES CHAPTER I THE MATTER OF EQUIPMENT No man knows, or ever will know, the art of fly-fishing in its entirety, and the present writer is far from claiming omniscience in the matter. Wherefore the fact may well be emphasized that the following pages are not intended for the expert--the seasoned angler skilled in wet, dry, and mid-water fly-fishing--but, rather, for the beginner at the sport of fishing with floating flies and for the novice who may take up fly-fishing with the purpose of ultimately employing the dry fly. At the outset, before going into the details of the dry fly caster's equipment and methods, it would seem necessary to outline certain general phases of the subject with special reference to the enlightenment of the veritable beginner at dry or wet fly fishing, and also with regard to the present status of the sport of dry fly casting practiced upon American waters. American dry fly fishing may be defined briefly as the art of displaying to the trout a single artificial fly floating upon the surface of the stream in the exact manner of the natural insect. Upon occasions, somewhat rare, indeed, but nevertheless of sufficient frequency to render the fact noteworthy, the American dry fly man casts consciously to a rising and feeding trout--the invariable custom of the English dry fly "purist." On the trout streams of this country, however, the orthodox manner of fishing the floating fly is to fish all the water as when wet fly casting. In America, owing to the fact that the dry fly angler fishes the water and not the rise, wet and dry fly fishing are far more closely related than is the case in England where the orthodox sportsman stalks the trout, casting exclusively to a rising and feeding fish; from this it may be easily deduced that much of the following discussion on the subject of fishing with floating flies is--in the very nature of things must be--equally applicable to either dry or wet fly fishing. Moreover, angling conditions are such in this country that the fly-fisherman to be consistently successful cannot rely solely upon either one method or the other--he should be passably expert with either the dry or the wet fly, employing one or the other as conditions warrant or the occasion renders imperative. Dry fly fishing conditions here and in England are quite dissimilar. The English dry fly specialist follows his sport, in general, upon the gin-clear, quiet chalk streams; slow, placid rivers, preserved waters artificially stocked with brown trout (_Salmo fario_), and hard-fished by the owners or lessees. The open season is a long one, extending, taking an average, from early in the spring, about the first of March, to the first of October; and as a consequence of the steady and hard fishing the trout naturally become very shy and sophisticated. Owing to the placidity of the streams the rise of a trout is not difficult to detect, and it seems to pay best to cast to a single trout actually known to be on the rise and feeding rather than to fish all the water on the principle of chuck-and-chance-it. On the other hand, the American fly-caster largely enjoys his sport upon the trout streams of the woods or wilderness; erratic rivers with current alternating between swift and slow, broken water and smooth, rapid and waterfall, deep pool and shallow riffle. While insect life is not, of course, absent, one can actually follow such a stream for days without observing the rise of a feeding trout, although, as noted above, sometimes a rising fish will, of course, be seen; but seldom will a sufficient number be observed to warrant the angler's relying exclusively upon casting to the rise. That, indeed, upon the average trout stream of this country, the well-chosen and cleverly cast floating fly has its place has been amply proved by the experience of many anglers. Upon the typical wilderness trout stream, where the fish are both very abundant and totally uneducated, dry fly fishing would be in the nature of a farce--although doubtless successful in view of the fact that the wild trout of such a stream will rise to almost anything chucked almost anyhow. But the average American trout stream may now be classed as a civilized stream, and it is upon such waters that the dry fly has proved its worth by succeeding time and again, under certain conditions, when the wet fly has failed. The conditions under which the balance of probable success is on the side of the dry fly and against the wet will be more particularly detailed in succeeding chapters; in general, it may be said that the angler who fishes largely upon hard-fished public streams--and that means the great majority of fly-fishermen--where much whipping and wading of the stream by all sorts and conditions of fishermen, good, bad, and indifferent, have rendered the trout wise in their generation, cannot well afford to overlook the possibilities of the floating fly. In such streams the trout only upon rare occasions are afforded the opportunity of seeing a single artificial fly, singularly lifelike in appearance, cocked and floating in a natural way upon the surface--and they will rise to such a fly, if cleverly placed on the water in such a manner as not to arouse suspicion, when a drag of two or more wet flies would only serve to set them down still more obstinately. Parenthetically, in this connection, in view of the fact that fishing with the dry fly is beyond doubt a very successful method of taking trout when or where other methods may have failed, it should be obvious--to put the matter on a strictly practical basis--that the assumption of an "holier than thou" relation by the dry fly enthusiast toward his brother of the wet fly, on the ground that dry fly fishing is more sportsmanlike, is, to say the least, somewhat illogical. Surely there is little virtue in the resort to and employment of an angling method of proved deadliness under conditions which at the time render the sunken fly harmless--however, we are not here concerned with the ethics of the matter. But dry fly casting does, indeed, call for a high degree of skill on the part of the angler, both in casting and fishing the fly; additionally, it is imperative that one should be familiar with the best there is in fishing tackle and know much about the habits of the trout and of stream-life in general. In a word, the customary rough-and-ready equipment of the average desultory fly-caster will not do--nor will the ordinary unrefined and casual methods of the average wet fly fisherman. To succeed with the dry fly, the wet fly fisherman of average skill must study to become still more proficient; the veritable novice at fly fishing for trout should, it would seem, first become fairly adept with the wet fly before going on to the finer-drawn art of dry fly casting. Therefore successful dry fly fishing, as done in America, is predicated upon a thorough knowledge of the craft of the wet fly fisher. The beginner at fly-fishing must strive to become a first-rate fly-caster--to cast a light and accurate fly, not necessarily a long line. He must study fishing tackle in order to know the tools best suited to the sport under normal conditions, and also under the conditions as he finds them. He must familiarize himself by much actual stream experience with the habits of the trout--learn to read a trout stream as another man might read a book. Moreover, he should cultivate the power of observation and apply it constantly to stream-life in general and the insect life of the stream in particular. The correct fundamental theory of fly-fishing for trout, with either wet or dry flies, consists in the closest possible simulation, by means of an artificial fly, of the form, coloration, and action of some natural insect then upon the water and upon which the trout are feeding. In England this theory has always been very closely followed by expert fly-fishermen, although over there, as in this country, various fancy flies--not dressed to counterfeit any certain natural fly--have long been in successful use. In England it is the custom of many good fly-fishers who are also skillful fly-tiers, to take with them to the stream a small kit of fly dressing materials and to tie at the stream-side correct imitations of the natural flies then upon the water. The American fly-fisherman, speaking of the class generally, has never followed the theory of exact imitation of nature in the selection of his trout flies. The larger part of our so-called American trout fly patterns are actually of English origin, and were introduced to the waters of this country through the medium of our first professional fly-tiers, Englishmen and Scotchmen, who, as a matter of course, after coming to this country, continued to dress the patterns with which they were familiar. A certain few of our most famous artificial flies are, indeed, of American invention--flies such as the Seth Green, Reuben Wood, Parmachenee Belle, Imbrie, Barrington, and a few others. Other patterns, so familiar to the fly-fishermen of this country that the fact that they are not of American origin seems very strange, are the coachman, grizzly king, Montreal (Canadian), Cahill, governor, cowdung, silver doctor, Beaverkill--in fact, nearly all of our most killing and widely known patterns. Regarding the Beaverkill, the name of which is so suggestively American to one at all familiar with the trout streams of the East, it might be well to amplify to some extent, as I am sure many anglers would otherwise take exception to the statement that this fly is of English origin. In "Familiar Flies," by Mary Orvis Marbury--an invaluable book for the fly-fisherman--it is related that an American angler, fishing one day with a cast of three English flies, had particularly good luck with a certain one of the three, and subsequently had the pattern copied by the famous old-time fly-tier, Harry Pritchard. At that time the fly was christened the Beaverkill, it being evident, from the facts as stated, that the English name of the pattern was unknown to the parties. From the story as told in "Familiar Flies" it may be gathered that even the persons who introduced the "Beaverkill" to American waters in time lost sight of the fact that the fly was originally dressed after an imported model. Personally, I am sure that the Beaverkill is none other than the "silver sedge," a well-known English pattern used frequently in both wet and dry fly fishing, and I am certain that anyone who will take the trouble to compare the two flies side by side will quite agree with me. As to the basic principle of trout fly-fishing, that of approximating with the utmost fidelity, in the dressing and manipulation of the artificial fly, the shade, shape, and movement of the natural fly, various "schools" have arisen from time to time in advocacy of the greater importance of coloration as compared to size and shape (within reasonable limits, of course), or, again, of the action imparted to the artificial fly as compared with its coloration, size, or form. Into matters of this sort it is needless to enter here. The practical, common-sense point of view would seem to be that neither the proper color nor the correct imitative action of the artificial fly can safely be disregarded by the angler; moreover, the size and the shape of the artificial, varied to suit the occasion, are factors of great importance. By the skilful employment of the modern tackle and methods of the dry fly caster the angler approaches very closely to the ideal principle of his craft--exact imitation of nature. Recalling a foregoing statement to the effect that the American fly-caster, in general, has not to any serious extent followed the theory of exact imitation of nature; moreover, in view of the fact that practically no artificial flies are to be had dressed in imitation of the native insects common to our trout waters, it should be obvious that the dry fly caster must continue to rely upon artificials of English pattern or manufacture. It is a fact, however, that it is possible, provided your fly book is passably well filled with various patterns, to approximate very closely the appearance of many of the natural insects you will see upon the water. Furthermore, in view of this state of affairs, it would seem best to avoid at this time any lengthy reference to the entomology of the trout stream, as leading only to confusion worse confounded--there is an instant and imperative need of an authoritative American fly-fishing entomology and of a fairly comprehensive series of artificial flies, dry and wet, dressed in imitation of the native insects common to our streams and upon which our trout are known to feed; until these are available we must adapt the means at hand to the end desired. In this connection, however, it should be noted that it is not strictly necessary for success that the angler at all times use an exact copy of a natural fly--witness the wide employment of various fancy patterns both here and abroad, and the further fact that our native trout are still fortunately rather less discriminating in the matter of rising to the artificial fly than the brown trout of England. The selection of the proper tackle for dry fly fishing is obviously dependent upon a thorough knowledge of the manner in which it is to be used. Possibly it is unnecessary to say that the dry fly caster invariably works upstream, casting, preferably, upstream and slightly across the current, and that between casts it is generally necessary to dry the fly by several false casts, that is, without allowing the fly to touch the water. To the fly-fisherman of any experience it should be very plain that a first-class fly-rod and a skilled wrist are somewhat essential. Moreover, the dry fly man works largely, although not exclusively, on the still pools and quiet reaches, where only the best of tackle, handled with a more than moderate degree of skill and care, can produce consistent results. Furthermore, no little skill must be exercised by the angler in order properly to manipulate, or fish, the single "floater" when the cast has been made and the fly is upon the water, it must be allowed to float naturally downstream in the manner of the natural fly under like circumstances. All of which sounds perhaps not so very difficult, but, in practice, the operation really has complications of which the tyro little dreams. It is true that a dry fly possesses a certain degree of buoyancy, but if bunglingly cast and subsequently awkwardly manipulated, the fly is soon "drowned," drawn under water by the weight of a carelessly slack line or from some other cause really, as a rule, preventable by the careful and skilled rod-handler. Indeed, the difficulties of clean-cut dry fly-casting are such that even an expert caster can do little with a poor equipment; the beginner, therefore, should be extremely careful in the selection of his tackle. The disappointments and difficulties of the game are quite numerous enough without starting in with the very serious handicap of a poorly adapted outfit. CHAPTER II THE FLY ROD It would seem that the tentative dry fly caster cannot too carefully consider the details of the rod which he will use in the pursuit of the sport. The majority of anglers cannot well afford a battery of fly-rods; moreover, there is no market for used fishing rods, as in the case of firearms, so that if the rod proves unsatisfactory it cannot be got rid of unless one practically gives it away. It is claimed that, in time, an angler will "grow to" any sort of rod, regardless of its unfitness to him personally or of inherent faultiness in some respect; possibly this is true. Patience is, indeed, a virtue possessed by many good fishermen, but, in this instance, it is safe to say that not one fly-caster in twenty can bring himself to the continued use of a rod from which he derives no pleasure and which actually handicaps him on the stream. The demands of dry fly casting on the rod are exacting in the extreme. On a river where there is much dry fly water probably the rod does double the amount of work required of the wet fly rod; the need of continually drying the fly by false casting keeps the rod in almost constant action. If the rod is unsuitable in length, balance, or in some other detail of construction, this continual whipping in casting and drying the fly is anything but enjoyable. If the rod is really poorly constructed, of poor material, and thrown together rather than painstakingly fitted, a few hours of dry fly work will surely bring about its relegation to the scrap-heap--where, indeed, it belonged in the first place. The selection of the rod for dry fly work, then, should be made with deliberation and based upon the best information obtainable. In this connection it may be noted that it is the fashion with a certain class of sportsmen to consider the purchase of a fly-rod which, relatively, may be termed an expensive one, simply a foolish waste of money and entirely a matter of "pretense and affectation." Usually this opinion is wholly the result of misinformation and lack of experience. No angler who ever had the pleasure of a day's fishing with a first-class fly-rod--provided, initially, he possessed sufficient skill and experience to thoroughly appreciate the revelation, for the action of such a rod is, indeed, a revelation to one accustomed to the use of an inferior article--ever willingly returned to the use of the makeshift rod with which perhaps he had theretofore been contented. The purchaser of a shotgun is usually aware of the fact that beyond a certain limit, varying with guns by different makers, he is paying for finish pure and simple--not for practical shooting efficiency in the weapon. But in the case of the fly-rod this is not true--with due deference to the opinion of the man who holds otherwise, simply, I am sure, because he has yet to cast a fly with a genuine fly-rod. All this, of course, within reason; it should be manifest that a merely "highly ornate" rod spells increased cost without return in practical casting and fishing value. However, the gingerbread fly-rod is so rare that it may safely be disregarded as a factor in the present discussion--also, parenthetically, as a factor in the day's score on the trout stream. Reducing the matter to the practical dollars-and-cents basis, it may be said in all truthfulness that up to thirty dollars, taking an average of fly-rods by different makers, every additional dollar spent on the rod inevitably means a commensurate increase in the rod's efficiency, serviceability, and all-round desirability. But while no experienced fly-caster would, I believe, take exception to the above, it still remains to be said that if economy is, indeed, an object--and that it is may usually be taken for granted--a very good rod, quite satisfactory in action, hang, and general construction, may be obtained for half the above amount plus some little discretion in its purchase. Wherefore, for the benefit of the sportsman who is willing to grant that only the best of tools are suited to the purpose of the fly-caster, and particularly to the work of the dry fly man, but who, nevertheless, wishes to obtain his outfit with the least expenditure commensurate with real efficiency in the equipment, it would seem desirable to describe briefly the characteristics of a first-class fly-rod. To the question, Exactly what constitutes a really efficient and satisfactory rod for dry fly-fishing? ninety-nine out of one hundred expert and experienced fly-fishermen--men who have been through the mill, and so far as the rod is concerned, passed the experimental stage of the game--would, I believe, answer at once, with the utmost confidence, practically as follows: A rod constructed by hand, by an experienced rod-maker, of thoroughly seasoned and carefully-selected split-bamboo, in six strips; in length suited to the character of the water and the fishing upon and for which it will be used, having good balance (not heavy in or out of hand), strength, adequate casting power together with a pleasant and resilient action, a speedy not a slow rod, not too pliant nor too stiff, and, finally, beyond reproach in the matter of guides, windings, handgrasp material, ferrules, and so on. The sportsman familiar with the diversity of fishing-rod materials will at once note the implied elimination of rods constructed of the various solid woods, such as bethabara, greenheart, lancewood, dagama, and others, as well as of split-cane rods of other than six-strip construction, such as the eight-strip, steel-centered, double-built, and so on. It is not my purpose to consider at length historically, theoretically, or practically, the matter of fishing-rod materials as compared one with the other--matters quite fully discussed in my volume on "Fishing Kits and Equipment." Rather it seems best to state once and for all that past experience has proved and present use serves only to emphasize the fact that there is no better fly-rod, all things considered, for the trout fly-fisherman than the one of six strips of cane, rent from the whole cane, carefully fashioned by hand and assembled with skill. Of the solid wood fly-rods it is generally believed that bethabara (washaba, "noibwood") is the best. My own experience with this material has been such that I cannot discuss it with any great enthusiasm. Greenheart is largely used in England for all sorts of fishing-rods, but over there, also, the split-cane rod is conceded first place for the trout fly-rod, and is constantly increasing in use. Parenthetically, the present trend of English anglers is toward the use of shorter and lighter rods of the American style, the two-handed fourteen-foot affair for trout fly-fishing being little in evidence; in fact, one of our most reputable firms of rod-makers annually sends a considerable number of fly-rods to England. But the split-cane fly-rods of the English makers and anglers are still much stiffer and heavier, length for length, than those favored in this country. For instance, a split-cane fly-rod constructed by a very famous firm of rod-makers according to the directions of Mr. F. M. Halford, whose angling books and articles, largely on dry fly-fishing, are absolutely authoritative as well as most readable, sensible, and genuinely informative for the American as well as the English fly-fisherman, is nine and a half feet in length with a weight of nine and a half ounces. An American split-bamboo fly-rod of this length would not, at the utmost, weigh over six ounces. Moreover, this proportion of weight to length--except in rods called "featherweights"--is maintained throughout the general run of English split-cane fly-rods in common use. The American fly-caster for trout need not concern himself other than theoretically, as a matter of general angling information, with octagonal, double-built, or steel-centered split-cane rods. Eight-strip rods are commonly produced in this country--at a considerably higher figure than the rod of six strips--but it is generally and wholly agreed among those who know that there is nothing to recommend the octagonal over the hexagonal rod. The double-built rod--a rod in which each triangular strip of cane, as finally ready for completing the rod, is composed of two strips cemented together, superimposed, thus having two thicknesses of the hard outer enamel--is undoubtedly desirable where great strength is imperative, but hardly requisite for the trout fly-rod. Practically the same may be said of the steel-centered rod. Double-built rods are not made in this country. Only one firm of rod-makers produces a steel-centered rod. To the experienced fly-fisherman the impossibility of such a thing as an "all-round" fly-rod is constantly more apparent. No one rod can, in the very nature of things, prove thoroughly adapted to the variety of trout streams whipped by the angler even within a restricted territory. Angling conditions vary considerably with each stream; upon one water a rod of four ounces, or even less, eight feet in length is exactly the thing; for another stream the wise angler would rightly select a ten-foot rod of six ounces or thereabouts. In view of this it is scarcely possible for one to recommend any particular length or weight of rod as being the most satisfactory and efficient. For small trout in small streams only the lightest tackle should be used for fly-fishing, either wet or dry. But, particularly with reference to casting the dry fly, it may be said that a fly-rod of from nine and a half to ten feet is the most desirable for streams of average size. While it is seldom necessary for the dry fly caster to cast any great distance, it is only in the longer rods that really good casting power can be obtained; and casting power, in view of the preferable use of a somewhat heavy tapered line and the constantly repeated process of drying the fly, Is very necessary. The ten-foot fly-rod, other things being equal, is probably the most efficient tool for the dry fly fisherman. However, a nine-and-a-half-foot rod is a sweeter rod to handle, is suited to a greater diversity of trout waters, and, granting good material and action, is sufficiently powerful for average work--the foregoing, by the way, with the understanding that increased length spells increased capacity for handling the line, which certainly does not follow unless the rods are built on the same proportional dimensions and in proportionate weights. The five-ounce rod of the tournament fly-caster is a very different matter from the five-ounce rod of the average practical stream fisherman. The rod for dry fly casting must not be too light in the butt; otherwise the rod will lack line-driving power; the tip, also, must not be too light and pliant, or it will result in the practical impossibility of lifting the heavy tapered line quickly and neatly from the water when a fair length of line is out. However, while a strong, speedy, and resilient rod is manifestly indicated, its action must not be too harsh--if possible the golden mean should be the final choice. The fly-caster should never lose sight of the fact that fly-casting, pure and simple, is by no means all of fly-fishing--that in the selection of the fly-rod its suitability to striking, playing, and landing a trout must receive careful consideration. Fly-rods which answer all too strongly to the quick impulse of the angler's wrist when striking a rising fish are by no means rare. Bearing in mind the small flies and delicate leaders necessarily used in dry fly fishing, the result of striking too strenuously can easily be imagined, but the fault cannot be corrected if the use of a rod too stiff and harsh in action is persisted in. Moreover, during the process of playing a trout, it is essential that the rod give and take with the movements of the fish, exerting an even but not too decided strain. A stiff rod is a very risky one with which to play a fish; there is great danger of the unconscious employment of too much force; a trout even poorly hooked may usually be safely landed if delicately handled, but a fish quite firmly fastened can easily be lost if forced by the angler. A rod possessing just the correct degree of elasticity and resiliency may often offset errors of judgment on the part of the angler while playing a fish, but a rod of incorrect action can never be other than a handicap no matter how skilfully It may be handled. In the selection of the dry fly-rod it is well, however, while avoiding the really stiff rod, to favor one with an adequate degree of "backbone"--in other words, steer very clear of the whippy rod. For dry fly casting no line is the equal of the double-tapered silk line, enameled or vacuum-dressed, and a rather heavier article than the ordinary level line chosen for wet fly fishing should be used. The rod must have sufficient casting power to handle a line of this sort. The line generally employed is size E. The matter of the mutual adaptability of line and rod will be treated later; it can, however, be noted here that only a rod tending to stiffness rather than whippiness is capable of rightly handling the line designated. I have elsewhere ("Fishing Kits and Equipment," pages 48-50) described the manner of testing a fly-rod with a view to ascertaining its possession or lack of the various qualities and characteristics outlined above. Therefore it seems best not to rehearse the matter here, but, in this connection and as a final word on the question of the desirable fly-rod qualities from the viewpoint of general utility and practical serviceability in dry fly casting, to simply suggest that you accept no rod, by no matter what maker, without first putting it to every possible test. I have endeavored to make it plain that a first-class rod is the result of first-class labor and material, and that it must possess a degree of excellence not found in the common run of fishing rods. The obvious corollary is that any sort of rod passed over the counter to you should not be duly and dutifully accepted on anyone's mere say-so. Regarding the practical details of the rod, apart from the general matters already discussed, and recalling the recommendation of six-strip construction, it would seem that much stream usage and experimentation in the tackle shop and on the casting platform have resulted in the standardization of several forms of fly-rod fittings as being best adapted to the purpose in hand and producing the utmost efficiency in the rod. In the matter of ferrules, only those of German silver should be considered. Also they should be capped, welted, split or serrated, and waterproofed. Furthermore, it is perhaps unnecessary to suggest the elimination of the "patent lock-fast joint"--the omission being based upon the fact that American rod-makers, knowing the efficiency and safety of the plain suction ferrules with which their rods are fitted, employ no other sort. German silver is also the best material for the reel-seat. It should perhaps be noted that "German silver" is a substance varying considerably in strength, appearance, and merit as applied to use on the fly-rod; the best ferrules and reel-seats of this material are hand wrought and drawn to almost steel-like hardness. The writer would not advise a "skeleton" reel-seat for use on any fly-rod for fishing either wet or dry. It is generally conceded by experienced fly-casters and rod-makers that the very best handgrasp for the fly-rod is of solid cork, formed by closely fitting a number of thick cork rings over a wooden core. Cheap rods have handgrasps of thin cork sheathing glued over a form of wood--about the most unsatisfactory of all handgrasps. Steel guides, of the snake pattern, are preferable to those of German silver; in time the friction of the line wears deep grooves in the latter. While not imperative it is, nevertheless, a good plan to have the rod fitted with agate first and tip guides, thereby eliminating much line-wear and friction, which occurs principally at these points, increasing quite appreciably the casting power of the rod. The rod should be plainly wound at intervals varying from not more than an inch at the butt to a quarter-inch at the tip. Experimentation in the matter of rod-windings has never resulted in anything definitely better than the ordinary plain silk winding carefully done and well-protected with varnish. CHAPTER III THE REEL, LINE AND FLIES As in the case of fly-rods and fly-rod materials, a complete, comparative study of fishing reels is not here purposed. It is hoped that the reader will accept as true the following statements and suggestions regarding the reel and its selection--and this applies equally to the other articles of equipment mentioned in this chapter--without the necessity of much argument pro and con or the presentation of many reasons in every instance. In fact, the general matter of fly tackle is one which has been very thoroughly threshed out in other books, and, as regards dry-fly fishing, differs only in degree, not in essentials. It is the intent of the present chapter merely to take up the subject of fly-tackle aside from the rod to an extent which will enable the beginner to start right, at any rate, without the necessity of reference to other volumes or sources of information. The single-action click reel has for many years been recognized by experienced fly-fishermen as the only reel suited to the purpose. In general, multiplying reels, whether double or quadruple, are entirely unsuited to use on the fly-rod. The rapid retrieve of the multiplier is of no advantage--rather the opposite--to the fly-fishermen for trout. Line fouling occurs constantly over the projecting handle of the multiplying reel; moreover, as a general thing, multiplying reels are too heavy for the purpose and balance the rod poorly. Reels of the automatic persuasion have not received the unstinted approbation of anglers. Granting that the single-action reel is exclusively the one with which we need here concern ourselves, it does not follow that there is little choice in the selection of the reel. On the contrary, single-action reels are made of rather numerous materials and certainly in varying degrees of desirability. For use on the trout fly-rod a reel of solid metal, capable of holding thirty or forty yards of double-tapered line, size E, is apt to be too heavy, although this may possibly be a personal prejudice of the writer. Aluminum reels are, of course, light, but reels of this material are easily damaged and put out of commission--usually at a very critical time. The last statement applies also to reels of hard rubber without metal protection. Possibly it is more or less a personal matter, but the writer has always favored in single-action click reels of the ordinary construction the reel of hard rubber with metal bands around the edges of the side plates. These bands are either of nickeled brass or German silver, the latter naturally being the more expensive. The band on the handle side of the reel projects over the edge so as to form a protection against line fouling, and the reel handle revolves within this protecting band. The reels commonly used in England and also easily procurable in this country are of the "revolving-disc" style--a very efficient and satisfactory form of reel; perhaps, all things considered, the best. In the revolving disc reel the handle is attached directly to the side plate, which itself revolves and is affixed to the spool or spindle. The reel selected should be as light as possible, but strong and capable of holding at least thirty yards of double-tapered line of size E. The spool should be narrow; that is, the space between the side plates contracted, so that the line may build up quickly when reeling in. The click, or "check," should not be too stiff. On the other hand, if it is weak and unreliable, over-runs and back lashes will occur constantly. Regarding the size, it should be noted that the sizes designated in yards assigned to various reels by the tackle dealers are based upon the reel's capacity for holding very small caliber line. If the reel is to hold without crowding thirty yards of size E double-tapered line the side plates must have a diameter of about two and three-quarters to three inches, depending upon the make and style of the reel. The subject of the fly-casting line is worthy of far more extended treatment than it can possibly receive here--it is doubtful if there is any more interesting or vital question to the fly-fisherman. Generally speaking, with the right line all things are possible; but an unsuitable line is capable of defeating the efforts of the most expert fly-caster. In the selection of the line there are two principal points to be considered: The line must be of the right material, and its weight or caliber must be suited to the rod upon which it will be used. Lines for fly-casting are usually known as "waterproof, enameled silk lines." This description hardly fits the vacuum-dressed line, of which I shall speak in a later paragraph, but the term may be used as generally defining the very best line for the purpose of the fly-caster with either wet or floating flies. In order to cast well the line must possess weight; at the same time it must be flexible without flimsiness, and smooth. These requirements are fully answered by the enameled line, and by no other. At the present time it is generally believed by experienced anglers that the soft-enameled, vacuum-dressed line of English manufacture is the superior of all lines for dry fly casting and fishing. Lines of this character are repeatedly filled with pure, boiled linseed oil under the exhausted receiver of an air pump, being dried out after each filling in an oven heated to 150 degrees Fahrenheit, and subsequently dressed down by hand. The ordinary "enameled" line is dressed only superficially. Manifestly the vacuum-dressed line is the more serviceable; and the combination of weight, flexibility, smoothness, and perfect action in casting found in this line is difficult to surpass. The vacuum-dressed line is necessarily somewhat expensive, and the angler who does not care to invest too heavily in what may possibly be merely an experimental outfit will find the ordinary enameled or varnished line, in the best quality, quite satisfactory and fairly serviceable. The length and caliber of the line should be determined by the character of the fishing--always bearing in mind the fact that the line must of necessity be suited to the rod, a matter wherein the beginner is prone to go wrong and concerning which he is apt to receive some very bad advice from the man who angles chiefly in streams of printer's ink. From the time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary the "gossamer line" of the trout fly-fisherman has been a favorite topic of the producer of the "speckled-beauty" style of literature--the practical fly-fisherman knows that there is nothing more absolutely futile than the attempt to cast a line which in effect is without weight. Very little thought will convince the reader that only a line which indeed has weight will carry well through the air when cast, and that a very small caliber line simply will not do. I shall not trouble to enlarge upon the matter. Concisely, for the average fly-rod of nine to ten feet the line should be of size F or E, the latter for the nine and a half or ten-foot rod. For the rod somewhat above the average in weight, length or casting power size D may perhaps be best suited. Unless, however, the line is thoroughly adapted in weight to the rod upon which it is used, satisfactory casting will be quite impossible. In the matter of suiting the line to the rod, remember that a line which is too light will fail to bring out the action of the rod and cannot successfully be employed. On the other hand, if the line is too heavy, the overburdened rod cannot lift it quickly and neatly from the water; if the angler wishes to make a somewhat longer cast than usual he may smash his rod in the endeavor to perform the impossible. The casting power of a rod is not determined purely by its weight or length; wherefore, if the opportunity offers, it is well to fit the line to the rod by practical experiment. That a tapered line is most efficient and satisfactory for dry-fly casting is generally conceded. By the employment of a line of this character, the line being gradually fined down toward the ends, the caster has all the advantage of a heavy line in casting, while at the same time the line may be cast delicately and lightly. Also a tapered line, exactly suited to the rod upon which it is used, may be cast farther and more accurately than a level line. The majority of American fly-casters undoubtedly fish downstream and use the level line; when dry fly-fishing, however, it is imperative that the angler fish or cast upstream and by all odds the better plan to employ the tapered line. For ordinary work select a double-tapered line, both ends graduated, of thirty yards' length. The length of the taper varies from fifteen (occasionally less) to eighteen feet. As to the proper length of taper, that again, other things being equal, depends somewhat upon the nature of the fishing for which the line will be used. If rather short casts are to be a rule, a short taper will work best for the reason that more of the "swell" of the line will be in use and not merely wound upon the reel. A short taper also works best against the wind for the same reason. It should be obvious, although the fact has not been adequately emphasized by angling writers, that if the caster can as a rule (owing to the restricted nature of the stream, which may be small and with banks thickly wooded) use only the light tapered end of his line on a rod really adapted to the size of the swell of the line, he is working at a great disadvantage. For average small-stream fly casting it is best to select a line having a "quick" taper, fifteen feet or less. The leaders furnished by the tackle dealers especially for dry-fly fishing are usually of very good quality--the best is none too good--with dropper loops, of course, and from six to nine feet in length. The angler who elects to tie his own leaders, a very simple matter and by far the better plan, should purchase the very best silk-worm gut for the purpose--round, hard and clear. It will be necessary to have gut of different weights or caliber from heavy to very fine, in order that the leader may be tapered from about the size of the end of the reel line to very fine undrawn gut nearest the fly. Drawn gut was at one time extensively used by dry-fly fishermen, but it is now generally recognized that fine undrawn gut is quite as efficient and the additional strength gained by its use is a distinct advantage. The tapered leader certainly aids materially in fine work over clear, still water and shy fish. I believe it was Henry P. Wells, the author of "Fly-Rods and Fly Tackle," a work familiar to both American and English fly fishermen, who stated that in his opinion the most important factor for successful fly fishing was to make invisible any connection between the fly and the line, and the use of fine terminal tackle tends to bring this about. Moreover, fine caliber gut near the fly assists in floating it. Better, straighter casting can be done when a tapered leader is used. The proper length of leader varies with the immediate angling conditions. Under no circumstances, for practical fishing, should the leader exceed the rod in length--this entirely in the opinion of the writer, although concurred in by many other anglers. Under rough weather conditions a short leader works best. For long, fine casting a nine-foot leader should be used. For average dry-fly fishing on the general run of American trout streams, I believe a seven-foot leader to be the most practical and efficient. As regards the color of leaders, the fact that any advantage is gained by the use of variously stained gut (with a view to making the leader invisible) has never been conclusively proved--natural or mist-color leaders answer every purpose. For attaching eyed-hooks to the leader or snell there are several different knots; one of the best of these, and the simplest, is shown in Fig. 1. The gut must be rendered perfectly pliable by soaking in water before tying on the fly. Pass the end of the gut through the eye of the hook, bend it back and make a slip-knot or half-hitch around the gut; draw the slip-knot nearly tight and slide it up to and over the eye of the hook, and pull tight. This forms a jam-knot easily upset but impossible to disengage by a straight pull. After making the knot, cut off the superfluous end of the gut. For cutting off gut ends after changing flies at the stream-side nothing is handier to carry or use than an ordinary fingernail clip. [Illustration: Figure 1.] In Fig. 2 is shown the method of knotting together two strands of gut in tying a leader or making repairs in one. The two half-hitches should be pulled perfectly tight and then drawn together. [Illustration: Figure 2.] For attaching the leader to the line use the jam-knot shown in Fig. 3. [Illustration: Figure 3.] If you wish to attach a dropper fly to a dry-fly leader without loops use the method shown In Fig. 4, attaching at a point where two strands are knotted together. [Illustration: Figure 4.] So many intricate details are connected with the subject of artificial flies, and with dry or floating flies particularly, that in order to reduce the discussion of the matter herein to a not inordinate length many points must of necessity be merely touched upon. In later chapters, the efficiency of various patterns, as well as how and when to use them, will be discussed; at this point we are concerned chiefly with the purely material details of the "floater." The construction of the dry fly differs considerably from that of the wet, but as this is a matter pertaining rather to the art of the fly dresser the subject need not be considered as imperatively within the province of the present discussion. It has previously been noted that at present the larger part of the dry flies obtainable in this country are imported from England. The tendency of the tackle dealers is to furnish comparatively few of the familiar American patterns tied dry. The dry fly is, of course, dressed with the purpose of causing it to float as well as may be, and this is effected--although the method of construction varies to some extent with various patterns--by dressing the fly with double or "split" wings tied at right angles to the body (called "erect" wings) and with the hackling arranged to stand out well from the shank of the hook. The body of the fly is dressed very lightly and in some instances is of cork, straw or quill. In the case of some of the latest patterns horsehair is used for the body material. As a rule dry flies are dressed upon small hooks, number twelve and smaller, and the hooks are of light wire. A list of floating flies which have been found effective on American trout streams is given in a later paragraph. Almost without exception floating flies are dressed on eyed hooks; that is, without gut snells whipped to the shank of the hook, following the time-honored American custom, but with an eye or ring at the end of the shank by means of which the fly is attached directly to the leader. If space permitted the practical advantages of the eyed hook could very well be emphasized in detail; at present I can only urge every fly fisherman to adopt the use of the eyed fly for either dry or wet fly-fishing. If for no other reason than that of economy, the use of the eyed hook justifies itself: the feelings of the angler, who when looking over and testing his tackle for the approaching trout season pulls the snells without difficulty out of an even two dozen of the old-style trout flies which have never even been once used, are best left to the imagination. Eyed hooks are made in two styles, with turned-up and turned-down eye; that is, in the case of the turned-down eye the eye is on the under side of the hook shank or bent toward the barb of the hook, the opposite being true of the other form. Much controversy has taken place regarding the respective merits of the two styles of eyed hooks, various authorities enthusiastically and convincingly championing either one or the other. It would seem that each form has its virtues and is quite satisfactory. Undoubtedly the reader, impartially experimenting with both styles, will soon discover which is best--for him. The greater part of the floating flies which come to this country are dressed on turned-up eyed hooks. As to the form of the hook, whether Sproat, Pennell (turned-down), O'Shaughnessy, Sneck, and so on, it is a matter in which one cannot exercise personal choice to any great extent--one must needs be contented with the flies as he finds them. Hooks with the Sneck bend are favored for the smaller patterns; others may be dressed on any of the above-named hooks. Unless you are willing, many times, to undergo great delay in stocking your fly box, you must sacrifice a personal prejudice toward any particular form of hook for the sake of obtaining the pattern you wish in the desired size. I give below a list of a few floating flies which I know to be successful under average angling conditions, and would suggest that in making your selection of dry flies you obtain some, at least, of the patterns dressed upon number ten hooks. The use of the very small English patterns, tied, as a rule, on number twelve hooks at the largest, is not at all times and in all places most advantageous on American trout streams. The flies named are, as far as may be, typical; that is, selected with a view to approximately imitating the general insect life (consisting largely of water-bred insects) of any trout stream, so that the angler may as a general thing find in his list a fairly close imitation of most of the natural flies, any one of which may be temporarily abundant on the water, and upon which there is reason to believe the fish are feeding. The list is as follows: Coachman, Cahill, gold-ribbed hare's ear, Wickham's fancy, brown sedge, silver sedge, iron blue dun, whirling blue dun, and olive dun. These should be dressed upon hooks, numbers twelve and ten. It is seldom necessary to use smaller than a number twelve dry-fly, although, of course, occasionally only the very smallest flies are effective. To the flies named should be added the green May female, brown May female, and spent gnat female, of the new series of floating flies developed by Mr. F. M. Halford. Of the above the coachman, Wickham's fancy, gold-ribbed hare's ear and Cahill are frankly "fancy" flies, not intended to represent any particular natural fly. The Wickham's fancy, coachman and gold-ribbed hare's ear are wonderfully successful patterns, as a rule, throughout the entire season, and under a great variety of angling conditions. The Cahill is a fly of very delicate coloration and dressing and is particularly useful over very low and clear water. The duns, olive, whirling blue and iron blue are dressed in imitation of various ephemera in the sub-imago or dun stage, and when the fish are feeding upon the natural fly these are apt to prove exceedingly successful. The green and brown May fly patterns are representative of the corresponding Ephemeridæ, and their usefulness upon streams when and where the May fly is abundant is sufficiently obvious. The Caddis flies in the nomenclature of the dry fly are known as "sedges"; the silver sedge and brown sedge belong to this class. The spent gnat pattern represents the female May fly which, having voided her eggs upon the water, thereafter falls upon the surface of the stream practically lifeless and with wings flat and outstretched. The spent gnat, accordingly, is dressed with horizontal, not erect, wings. For carrying eyed-flies various fly-boxes are furnished by the tackle dealers. The method of holding the flies is usually by means of a metal clip, although some boxes have several small compartments with transparent (celluloid) covers, and others have cork strips into which the fly may be fastened. The last sort is the least satisfactory. As a rule, in the ordinary form of eyed fly box the metal clips are set very closely together, and it is advisable to procure a box capable of holding at least double the number of flies you intend to carry, so that they may be inserted without crushing and be easily distinguished and removed. Paraffin oil, or some one of the other similar waterproofing liquids furnished by the tackle dealers, is a necessity to the dry-fly caster. A floating fly, if perfectly dry, will float fairly well for a number of casts without the use of paraffin; but it soon becomes drowned and sodden and very difficult to dry out by merely false casting. Whatever preparation may be used (and I have found very little practical difference in them) it should be carried in a small bottle having a stopper with brush attached. Apply the oil to the fly lightly, and remove the superfluous liquid by pressing the fly between folds in your handkerchief. It is usually practicable to prepare a number of flies in this way before going to the stream, thus obviating the the necessity of carrying the "oiler." It would seem unnecessary to consider the matter of the creel, waders and other general fly-fishing equipment, as these are familiar to every fly-fisherman of any experience. However, for the benefit of the virtual beginner it may be said that a rather larger basket than that usually advised to the trout-fisherman say a creel of twenty-pound size--is preferable for many reasons. The new style sling, which suspends the basket from the left shoulder, should be used. Waders, of course, are necessary. Whether wading pants, wading stockings, or ordinary sporting rubber boots are worn is more or less a personal matter generally dependent upon the conditions under which the fishing will be done. The wading stockings, worn with woolen socks and hobnailed wading shoes, are as a rule the most satisfactory equipment. A leader-box in which extra leaders may be carried between pads of dampened felt and a landing net are other requisites. CHAPTER IV HOW TO CAST THE FLOATING FLY The sportsman who has fished only with the wet fly may rest assured that should he take up dry fly fishing he will discover a renewed interest in the sport of fly fishing for trout, which, perhaps, through custom, may have lost something of its former charm. Moreover, in dry fly fishing he will find a sport of such wide scope that, it is safe to say, he will never consider himself other than a beginner in the art. For the scientifically inclined sportsman--the man who chronically seeks to know the "reason why"--it is difficult to name any outdoor recreation which would prove more to his liking or more worthy of serious research and study in its various branches, particularly that dealing with the entomology of the trout stream. In photographic work most people are perfectly willing to "follow the directions," trusting that the results will be good enough, and caring little for intimate knowledge of the scientific details of the various processes which produce the completed photograph. This, certainly, is not at all the state of mind with which to take up dry fly fishing, or, for that matter, angling of any sort. In fact, the dry fly man should be a student of causes as well as of effects, for the simple reason that only in comparatively rare instances can the desired effect be produced unless the angler knows the underlying cause and proceeds to utilize it practically. This is particularly true of the selection and manipulation of the floating fly and, in a lesser but quite considerable degree, of casting the fly. Almost every book on angling contains a more or less understandable treatise on fly-casting, and it is only for the benefit of the virtual beginner at fly-fishing for trout, and further with a view to completeness and the emphasizing of certain points which even the old hand is prone to forget or possibly neglect through carelessness that the following brief explanation is incorporated here. Casting the floating fly differs little essentially from the manner of casting the sunken fly; in detail, however, the difference is very great. Casting the floating fly divides naturally into two quite distinct phases; first, the actual cast which places the fly, cocked and floating, upon the surface of the stream; second, the subsequent manipulation of the fly in such a manner that its action approximates with all possible fidelity the action of the natural fly--the fly must float in the exact manner of the natural fly under like circumstances. Granting judicious selection of the fly in the first instance and some skill and finesse in placing it, it is with the correct action of the fly--after all the most important thing in the whole art of dry fly fishing--that the sportsman has chiefly to deal, and the dealing is not always of the easiest. It should go without saying that properly and effectively to cast and fish the floating fly it is essential that the tackle be correctly assembled. In this regard I believe the point most in need of emphasis is the question of the right way to fit the reel to the rod; that this should be done so that the reel is underneath the rod with its handle to the right (in the case of the right-handed caster) is in my experience the only satisfactory and thoroughly efficient way. With the reel thus placed it is never necessary, when playing a fish, to turn the rod over so that the reel is above, as in the case when the reel is fitted to the rod with the handle to the left. After a fish is struck, if it becomes necessary to use the reel, the rod is simply shifted to the left hand--without the awkward necessity of turning it over to bring the reel on top--and the fingers of the right hand fall naturally upon the handle of the reel. Of the English books on the subject of dry fly fishing I have seen only those of Mr. Halford. In "Dry Fly Fishing," by this author, the cut illustrating the proper grip of the rod shows the reel rigged underneath the rod with its handle to the left, and this is the method advised by the author. It may be said with certainty that this manner of assembling rod and reel is not sanctioned by the majority of American fly-fishermen. The manner of casting a fly is best described by an explanation of the overhead cast--the typical cast although by no means the one exclusively used in fly fishing, and in dry fly fishing, for reasons stated below, a cast which is used only when the horizontal cast is for any reason rendered difficult. Having assembled rod, reel, line, leader, and fly, using the knots shown in Chapter III., and taking pains to see that the leader before bending on the fly and attaching to the line has been previously well-softened by soaking in the leader-box, proceed to make the overhead cast as follows. In the case of the beginner at fly-casting, the first practice casting may best be done casting downstream as the current will help to straighten out the line and leader. Two distinct motions constitute the complete overhead cast; first the back cast which throws the line behind the caster, then the forward cast which returns it in the desired direction. Fifteen or twenty feet is enough line to use for the first practice casting. The right hand should grip the rod firmly with the thumb extended along the upper surface of the handgrasp--this is the only proper grip of the rod and is a distinct factor for accuracy in placing the fly and also tends to make the caster use his wrist. Good casting results only from utilizing the elasticity of the rod; the casting power of the rod is brought into play in one way only--by using the wrist in casting. Keep the elbow low. In the back cast swing the rod smartly up to a position but slightly beyond the vertical and inclined a little toward the right so that the line when passing to the rear, or returning, will not tend to strike the rod. In the back cast throw the line up in order that there may be no possibility of its falling upon the water behind you--a high back cast is very essential. Lift the line from the water quickly and neatly. Care must be taken not to carry the rod too far back--only a little beyond the perpendicular--as this will inevitably result in loss of control over the line. Instantaneous photography has conclusively proved the fallacy of the orthodox advice of the older school of angling writers, to "wait for the line to straighten out behind you" before starting the forward cast. This fact was noted sometime ago in a short paper in one of the outdoor periodicals and the writer at once proceeded to verify it--since which time I have often seen in print the old, familiar warning to the novice stated above. However, it is now generally recognized by well-informed anglers that when casting any fair length of line there is a considerable loop of line and leader which straightens out only after the forward cast has been started; that, in fact, the right time to begin the forward motion of the rod is when the line first begins to pull noticeably on the tip of the rod--a psychological moment soon readily recognized after a little practice. To avoid weakening the leader by whipping, or in rare instances snapping off the fly, the forward cast should not be started too forcefully. Start the forward motion of the rod, then, when the line, having passed to the rear, begins to pull back on the rod-tip, and carry the rod forward and down with increasing speed, stopping it when it is a little beyond parallel with the water. Before beginning another back cast be careful to reel or strip in any slack line. The beginner should concentrate on casting accurately and delicately; ability to cover average fishing distances is soon gained without much conscious effort to that end. As for accuracy, the dry fly man cannot possibly over-rate its importance or more profitably seek to perfect himself in any other branch of the sport. Particularly when casting to a rising fish, other things being equal, everything depends upon accuracy. At this point it seems best to note the matter of the use of the left hand in fly-casting for the purpose of controlling the rendition and retrieve of the line while casting, playing a trout, or floating a dry fly. In brief, the caster should control the line, practically at all times, by holding it in his left hand, as it comes from the reel, stripping in the line through the guides of the rod when it should be shortened, or allowing it to run out through the fingers when a longer line is needed in casting or when giving line to a hooked fish. It should be understood that the left hand, when used in this manner, need not be held in an awkward position, that is, close up to the reel, but may be held in a natural way at about the waist-line; it is simply a matter of the length of the loop of line drawn out by the left hand between the reel and the first guide of the rod. When this loop for any reason becomes so long that there may be a possibility of fouling it may be taken care of by shifting the rod to the left hand, clipping the line to the handgrasp of the rod beneath the fingers of the left hand, and winding up the superfluous slack line. The beginner should accustom himself to handling the line in this way when first learning the use of the fly-rod; later it will be all the more difficult to master since at the same time he will be under the necessity of correcting other casting habits which may have become almost second nature. Further reference to this manner of manipulating the line--a most important factor in effective fly casting and fishing--will be found in connection with various subjects such as playing and landing a trout, methods of preventing drag, and so on; in fact, in one way or another the method is essentially a part of practically every phase of the purely manual side of dry or wet fly fishing. It has been noted above that the overhead cast, although the typical cast and the one, by the way, with which the greatest accuracy and distance may be attained, is less used in dry fly fishing than the horizontal; in the latter the rod, in the back and forward casts, moves in a plane about parallel with the water. The reason for this preference is a very real and practical one although difficult to explain in detail; the fact of the matter is, however, that the horizontal cast is far more apt to cock the fly--to place it upon the surface of the stream with its wings upright and not floating on its side--than is the overhead. The reader should carefully note the above point and, wherever it may be possible, always employ the horizontal cast. It would not do to say that every trout would refuse to rise to the fly when floating down on its side--although I have seen a statement made to that effect; but with shy fish the probability of a rise to the correctly cocked and floating fly is greater than to the fly coming down upset. Apart from the known advantage of the horizontal cast cocking the fly is a matter quite beyond the caster's control. Where there is smoothly flowing water with little chance of drag, and little if any wind, if the fly is cast with some skill it will float properly with wings upright more often than not. If the horizontal cast cannot be used, owing to the conformation of the banks or other reasons, the caster in employing the overhead cast should direct his fly at an imaginary point in the air some two or three feet directly above the spot where he intends to place the fly; the greater delicacy in delivering the fly resulting from this will tend to multiply the chances of cocking the fly. As I have said, the horizontal cast is made by swinging the rod, in the back and forward casts, in a plane parallel with, or slightly above, the water. The back of the caster's hand should be turned toward the water, the fingers uppermost. The attempt to cast too long a line, or the slightest delay in starting the forward cast, will cause the fly to fall upon the water behind you--a thing to be religiously avoided. The above includes the essential details of the first phase of casting the dry fly--the actual cast which places the fly, cocked and floating, upon the water over a trout which has been seen to rise or where the angler may have reason to believe a fish is lying, the latter being more frequently the case upon American streams. We come now to the second phase of dry fly casting, the subsequent manipulation of the fly in such a manner that it simulates as accurately as possible the action of the natural fly floating in a like position. The importance of simulating with all possible fidelity the action of the natural insect has previously been emphasized; the subject is one of very broad application, but at present we may note merely the necessity of upstream casting. I believe that printed briefs for or against up or down stream fishing with the fly are wearisome to the average well-read and experienced angler; wherefore brevity in discussing this point seems advisable. As regards wet fly fishing any broad-minded angler willingly concedes that under certain conditions it is best to fish the stream up and under other conditions to fish down. The dry fly man, however, has no option in the matter; regardless of all other factors for upstream fishing, the practical fact remains that the floating fly cannot be fished downstream for when thus cast it is drowned almost at once. But even if this were not the case the application of the rule of exact imitation of nature upon which dry fly fishing is based would prove the method of casting downstream and pulling the fly up against the trend of the current wholly wrong. Even the wet fly should never be fished in this way. Parenthetically, the present writer has always recognized a distinction between fishing downstream and casting downstream; the progress of the angler may be with the direction of the current--always most advantageous upon the swift and rocky mountain trout stream--while the actual casting may be cross-current, a very effective way of fishing the wet fly under normal conditions, or upstream and slightly across if desirable. When upon the water the natural insect floats downstream as the current directs it; wherefore, as invariably as may be, the dry fly caster should cast upstream, allowing the fly to float down toward him without restraint from the line, following the natural trend of the current. Leaving aside for later discussion the matter of drag, a state of affairs wherein the artificial fly tends to travel at an unnatural rate due to conflicting currents in the stream which affect line and fly differently, and also passing over for the moment certain other points more or less intimately connected with the advisability of upstream casting, there remains for present consideration the matter of false casting, or drying the fly. As a rule, when casting a fair amount of line, the fly will be quite free from moisture--if previously well-waterproofed--when the angler has again lengthened out his line after having made a cast and allowed the fly to float down over the water he desired to cover. Unless the fly has become thoroughly soaked four or five false casts are enough. These should be made as gently as possible to avoid whipping the fly; the constant casting tends to shred the wings, and if this results the fly loses much of its natural appearance and is more difficult to cock. The longer the line used when drying the fly the longer distance the fly travels through the air; thus a lesser number of false casts are necessary to dry it. But it is better to take more time, use a shorter line and more casts, and endeavor not to whip the fly out of shape. After playing and landing a fish the fly will be thoroughly soaked and draggled. Ordinarily it is then best to put up a new fly; if this seems unnecessary, much of the water can be removed by holding the fly close to the mouth and blowing off the moisture, after which the wings should be nursed into their original form. CHAPTER V WHERE AND WHEN TO USE THE FLOATING FLY Before going further into the details of casting and fishing the dry fly it would be well to consider at some length the question of the best times and the most favorable places when and where the angler would be wise to depend solely upon the floater. That the fascination of dry fly fishing is such that many fly-fishermen elect to practice no other method under any and all conditions goes without saying, but the fact remains that under average American fly-fishing conditions the floating fly is sometimes at a disadvantage and the average American angler may well accept this fact with good grace, using the dry or sunken fly turn and turn about as the occasion determines. In this I do not wish to be understood as holding any brief for the wet as against the dry fly for any such reason as that "bigger bags" may at times be killed with the wet fly than with the dry--it is merely a question of a few good fish taken by fair methods under the prevailing conditions. If these may be taken by dry fly casting, so much the better; if not, then assuredly the average angler, whose fishing trips are few and to whom a moderate success on the stream seems very desirable, may have recourse to the wet fly without losing caste. That, at times, nothing can be done fishing dry is a fact easily susceptible of proof. Personally I have never so fully enjoyed fly-fishing as I have since taking up the dry fly, which I have now come to use almost exclusively and often when I know perfectly well that more success would attend the use of the sunken fly. This, however, I take to be a strictly personal matter; my fishing opportunities are many, and although I am on the stream a great deal (during the last ten years at the very least four days a week throughout the season) it is only infrequently that I go out with any great desire to "catch fish." To the general run of trout-fishermen, for the reasons stated above, I would not advise the exclusive use of the dry fly; if, on the other hand, the angler elects to practice this method to the exclusion of all others, that is his affair--and a matter for congratulation. It would seem that the ideal conditions for the dry fly are somewhat as follows: A clear, smoothly flowing stream, whether fast or slow being immaterial if the surface is not too broken; the stage of water should be normal, although at the lower levels, as the season advances, everything is in favor of the dry as against the wet fly; finally, insect life should be fairly abundant on the stream and the trout feeding more or less at the surface on the natural fly. In the early days of the season, when the stream is apt to be in flood and the water very cold and more or less discolored, the wet or sunken fly is plainly indicated. Until, with the progress of spring, air and water have grown warm, and the bright sunshine brings on the natural ephemeridae, the fish are usually ground-feeding, or feeding in mid-water, and will rise only infrequently to the fly fished upon the surface. At such times the fly caster who holds to the employment of the dry fly is doomed to disappointment. In fact, it would seem that fly-fishing under these conditions should be done more along the lines of bass or salmon fly-fishing --not with the idea of simulating even approximately the natural insect food of the fish but rather with the purpose of exciting the trout and inducing them to strike by the use of a glittering or highly colored fly which, fished considerably beneath the surface, arouses their curiosity or anger or may be taken for a small minnow. This style of fishing with the fly is distinctly on a lower level than the correct imitation of the natural floating insect by means of the dry fly; nevertheless, in fairness to the many fishermen whose days on the stream are rare and eagerly anticipated with attendant hopes of some practical success, I cannot but advise the use of the sunken fly under the conditions named or when, at any time during the season, somewhat similar conditions prevail. In an average season the dry fly man may confidently expect success on suitable water from about the first of May to the last days of the open time. The trout streams are now clear and at or below the normal stage of water; the temperature of the water is rising steadily; the observant fly-fisherman will note the natural ephemeridae abundant at intervals over and on the stream--and there is no sight in nature (at least from the writer's viewpoint and, I fancy, from that of all other trout fly-fishermen) more interesting or more wonderful than a good hatch of duns. With the advance of the season and the usual gradual falling of the water, conditions ever grow more and more in favor of the dry and against the wet fly. I could easily cite numerous instances which have occurred in both my own experience and in that of other anglers which go to prove the effectiveness of the floating fly on low, clear water, late in the season, when the wet fly is usually ineffectual. Without, however, going into narrative detail, it should be sufficiently obvious that, under the conditions named, a very delicately dressed floating fly, in appearance quite similar to the natural ephemeridae common to the stream, attached to a practically invisible leader and riding down buoyantly on the surface, with wings erect, in the exact, jaunty manner of the natural dun, is far more apt to deceive the fish than two or more wet flies, shapeless and draggled, of dubious coloration, pulled across or against the current in a manner never followed by the natural insect. Wherever a fly may be floated the dry fly is distinctly the thing for late spring and summer fishing. Much has been said and written concerning the character of the streams favorable for the employment of the dry fly--that is, as regards the natural characteristics of the water itself, whether fast or slow in current, smooth or broken, shallow or deep, and so on. The dry fly having originated upon the placid currents of the south of England rivers, it is only natural that the impression should prevail that a floating fly can be used effectively only on a slow stream. The practice and experience of American fly-casters has thoroughly proved this an erroneous theory. It may be truthfully said that the dry fly may be successfully used upon all except white water. It is not the rate of the current which determines the suitability of the floating fly to any given stream; wherever the surface of the water is unbroken the dry fly works well, but where white water prevails, although the angler may persist in the use of the dry fly, actual dry fly fishing is impossible, the fly can only be made to float for an infinitesimal length of time, is almost immediately drowned by a wave or drawn under by a whirlpool, and the result is a hybrid sort of angling in the nature of wet fly fishing with a dry fly. The point has been made that even under these conditions it is best to use the dry fly on the ground that, dry or wet, the floating fly is materially, in form and coloration, a better imitation of the natural fly than is the average wet fly. Under like circumstances the natural insect acts in a similar manner, that is, is drawn under the surface in broken water and carried here and there by conflicting currents. For some time it has been my custom to use dry flies for wet fly fishing, but I would emphasize the fact that fishing a drowned dry fly in white water is hardly genuine dry fly fishing and that any resultant success must be accredited to the wet fly method. Any statement to the effect that the dry fly may be used in the rapids of any trout stream where white water is the rule must be taken with a grain of salt and with due allowance for the enthusiasm of the man who makes it. In any stream the swift runs where the water is smooth may be very effectively fished with the dry fly; taking an average of American trout streams, excepting the smaller rocky, mountain brooks (generally a succession of shallow, rough rapids with comparatively few smooth places) it may be said that a fly may be quite successfully floated over probably three-quarters of the water comprised. By smooth water I do not wish to be understood as meaning absolutely flat water--the floating fly will ride a wave or a succession of them with surprising buoyancy; but if the crests of the waves are broken into miniature "white-caps" then the fly is soon drowned. The wet fly, or wet fly methods, should be followed wherever the water is of the latter description. The writer's own custom when fishing a stream wherein smooth and white water alternate constantly is to use a single dry fly, a coachman or Wickham's fancy, casting dry or wet as the nature of the stream may seem to render expedient. In line with a general discussion of the times and localities when and where the dry fly is indicated it should possibly be noted that dry fly casting, as the more clever method and designed particularly for the purpose of angling for educated trout, should be favored over wet fly fishing on any stream which is whipped a great deal by wet fly fishermen. That the trout of such a stream grow "gut shy" and exceedingly canny and, at best, when the stream is clear and natural insect food somewhat abundant, rise reluctantly to the wet fly, is axiomatic. In view of the fine tackle, the finesse, and the fidelity to nature afforded by the dry fly method it would seem that no angler could for a moment doubt the efficacy of the floating fly under such circumstances. On the other hand, I believe--although practical experimentation has never yet been possible--that a skilfully fished wet fly, on a stream where dry fly fishing has become the rule, might, on occasion, by the very novelty of the thing, be made to do wonders. Finally, as regards the general question of when and where to use the dry fly, let me emphasize the fact that, for success, the sportsman must have confidence in the floater and use it constantly wherever he may consistently do so--that he must not consider his box of dry flies as merely supplementary to his familiar, old-time book of wet flies, but must give preference to the dry fly method, consider himself, in fact, a dry fly fisherman, and have recourse to the wet fly only when his common fishing sense advertises the fact that the floater is not the thing for the time being. Sporadic experimentation with the dry fly when the wet has failed, although frequently successful in its purpose, is not a true test of the efficacy of the method when followed consistently, for the degree of true sport which the dry fly is capable of affording. Of all forms of angling, the phrase "it is not all of fishing to catch fish" is most true of fishing with the floating fly. Coming now to the question of when and where to fish the floating fly on water evidently suitable therefor, in view of the fact that the American dry fly caster of necessity usually fishes the water rather than the rise, it is evident that the fly-fisherman must depend upon his knowledge of trout haunts and habits in the determination of this matter. Given a stream fairly abundantly stocked with trout, either _fontinalis_, the native speckled brook trout, _fario_, the brown trout, or with rainbows, where the most, the best, or any trout will be found, is to a considerable extent a matter of time and temperature--notwithstanding which the careful angler, and in particular the dry fly fisherman, will proceed to fish all the water except such as may be known to be barren of trout. In general, trout will be found at the head and foot of riffles and rapids; at the head and tail of pools; in the lee of rocks in swift runs; under shady, shelving banks and boulders and similar "hides"; particularly in warm weather, where small, cold, spring-fed brooks enter the trout stream; and anywhere where the set of the current, as in little bays and on the bends, is such as to collect insect food in quantity. Really the angler need only remember that trout require cold, moving, and aërated water, especially brook trout, and the same thing is true of brown trout in somewhat lesser degree. To enlarge upon the matter further would be impracticable here. In point of fact, stream experience alone will enable the angler to spot confidently and with precision the places where a good trout may be lying. Each trout taken by an observant fly-fisherman adds to the angler's sum of knowledge regarding "where the trout hide"; it would seem that a mental picture of the place is retained subconsciously--the trend of the current, the character of the banks and stream-bed, and where, in relation to some prominent object, such as a large boulder or possibly a sunken log, the trout rose; all these and other details are noted and mentally recorded, and eventually the angler, by the correlation and association of these mental pictures, comes to recognize instantly, almost to a matter of inches, the places where a rise may be expected. That an experienced fly-fisherman can tell "almost to a matter of inches" where a trout will rise may seem, to the casual reader, to be putting it rather strongly. However, inquiry of some sportsman of many seasons' experience with the fly-rod will definitely settle the matter one way or another. While, indeed, the character of American trout streams is such as to definitely discourage fishing the rise purely, it cannot be too strongly emphasized that the dry fly-angler, while fishing the water, should constantly be on the lookout for a rising trout. Time and time again, while fishing a good pool or run where the rise of a trout could be noted, the writer has spotted rising fish to his very practical advantage. In this regard it might be well to note the fact that a rising and feeding trout creates very little disturbance on the surface of the stream, and does not, in accordance with the popular idea, leap above the surface; sometimes there is a slight "plop," and at times a little spray thrown, but the fish very seldom shows itself, and twenty trout could rise within the vision of an inexperienced and inattentive angler without attracting his attention. Upon glassy, still pools the subsequent widening circle of ripples tells the plain story of a rise; in a current, however, the actual rise must be seen--and often is if you are looking for it. CHAPTER VI HOW TO FISH THE FLOATING FLY Presuming that the angler has outfitted correctly and that he is a fly-caster of average ability, and further assuming that the stream he is on is at least fair dry fly water--which he will fish upstream manipulating the fly with whatever skill he may command with the purpose of imitating the action and appearance of the natural fly floating down on the surface--success, then, is predicated wholly (apart from the question of the right fly at the right time) upon the manner in which the fly is fished. Under this head--how to fish the floating fly--there are many points for consideration, of which not the least in importance is the matter of drag. Drag occurs when the artificial fly travels at a rate different from that of the natural fly in the same position--either faster or slower or with a tendency to move across or contrary to the current. It is caused by conflicting currents which exert dissimilar forces upon fly and line. The natural dun coming down without restraint, of course, from line or leader, is affected only by the current whereon it floats; the artificial fly, attached to line and leader, several feet of which must often lie upon the surface, is subject not only to the rate and direction of the current upon which it floats, but also--unless the angler so handles his tackle as to prevent it--to the force and direction of the currents which play upon the line and leader. Thus, when the fly is so cast that it falls upon still or slow water while the line is allowed to rest upon swift water, the artificial fly will at once drag rapidly across or over the still place in an utterly unnatural manner. The natural fly would rest quietly upon such a place, or, if there were a slight current, float slowly downstream. The foregoing is an extreme case, cited merely with the purpose of making clear exactly what is meant by the expression "drag." Ordinarily when drag occurs the conditions are rather more subtle and complicated than in the foregoing example. Conversely to the above, when the fly falls upon swift water and the line upon slow, the natural downstream course of the fly is retarded. Again it often happens that unless the sportsman notes clearly the trend of the currents whereon fly and line will rest, he may cast a taut line over a place where the currents are actually moving in contrary directions, the fly may rest upon a "set-back" (a current moving upstream) while the line is carried downstream with the general trend of the stream, in which case, if the natural current is the stronger and a taut line is thrown, the fly will drag upstream in relation to the current whereon it floats, and across and generally quite contrary to the action of the natural insect in the same position. In the matter of preventing drag I think that the one rule above all others for the sportsman to observe is this: Before making a cast--by all means before casting over a rising fish--study carefully the trend of the currents which may affect your line and fly. In other words, the best way to alleviate drag lies in the ounce of prevention which may be applied before the cast is made. It is generally possible to cast over any given place or over a rising trout from a number of different points; one of these will be found to offer the least chance of drag. The necessity of obviating drag, so far as possible, arises from the fact that a shy trout, feeding on the natural ephemeridae, is not apt to rise to the imitation--however good--which comes over it in an unusual way. A feeding trout, possibly rising from a fixed vantage point wherefrom it can easily see and capture the duns floating down on the surface within striking distance, will, as a rule, rise only to the artificial fly which floats in an exactly similar manner to that of the natural flies which come within its vision. The novice should also bear this in mind and religiously observe it: Avoid any upward or backward motion of the rod at the instant when the fly falls upon the water or immediately thereafter. In line with this it may also be said that no matter how fast the current may be, the angler should never begin to strip in the line until the fly is well started on its downstream journey. The seasoned wet fly-fisherman, upon his initial attempts at casting the dry fly, will doubtless find that he has an habitual tendency to raise the point of the rod at the moment when the forward cast has been completed and the fly has just fallen upon the surface of the stream; if this is done, the fly is at once pulled under the surface--drowned--and the habit is one which must be constantly resisted. The same may be said of the tendency to begin stripping in the line prematurely while it is still taut; the slightest pull upon the line at this time is at once communicated to the fly and either drags or drowns it. The proper and strictly necessary procedure, then, for the dry fly-caster is this: At the completion of the forward cast hold the rod absolutely motionless for a moment until the fly, floating down, has created more or less slack line, in accordance with the character of the water over which the cast has been made; then slowly bring up the tip of the rod or carefully strip in the line, or both, bearing in mind that to float the fly successfully there must always be more or less slack line between rod-point and fly. As above noted, the best way to prevent drag is to first study the nature of the water over which the cast is to be made, eventually casting from the stand which seems most favorable for the cast's coming off well. If, however, it is absolutely necessary to cast so that the fly will fall upon a slower current than will the line or upon a swifter run than will affect the line, the only remedy is to cast a slack line--the fly will then float for a greater or less distance without restraint. If the fly is cast upon a still or slow place while the line rests upon swift water, drag will not set up until the slack line has passed downstream and begins to pull upon the fly. In the opposite instance, when the fly is on a swift run and the line in slow water, the cast being so made that the slack lies in the swifter current, the fly will float without drag until it has taken up the slack, when the line will retard it. How, when, and where drag will occur is not only a matter of the set and strength of the currents acting upon fly and line, but also dependent upon the point from which the angler casts in relation to the currents--obviously a matter which cannot be detailed in a manner to cover satisfactorily even a few of the situations where drag is likely to occur. The angler must practically solve each problem of this sort for himself, as it is presented in the course of the day's fishing. But in practically every case the slack-line cast, varied to suit the occasion, is the best way out of the difficulty. The usual way in which the slack-line cast is made may be described as follows: The angler, in lengthening out his line, strips from the reel a number of feet more than will be necessary to reach the spot where he desires to place the fly; then, the line having been extended, in making the final forward cast the rod is momentarily but decidedly checked when half way, or possibly a little more, through the forward swing, with the result that the line is doubled back upon itself and the fly settles down upon the surface at the end of a considerable loop of line and leader. The motion of the rod should be stopped only for an instant, and the rod should then be carried down to its usual position at the end of the forward cast, about parallel with the water. A variation of the above method of casting a slack line, one which the writer has found very useful at times, while essentially similar to the method described, differs somewhat in that a loop of slack line, drawn from the reel by the left hand while "lengthening-out," is prematurely released, when making the last forward cast, the result being that the extra line does not "shoot" out straight, but comes down curved and slack upon the surface. To make the slack-line cast and place the fly accurately--as when casting to a rising trout--is a matter of much practice, and, it may be admitted, sometimes equally a matter of much good luck. Although the matter of striking a rising trout will be treated in a subsequent chapter, it should perhaps be noted here that the seasoned wet fly fisherman, accustomed to fishing a fairly taut line, will soon learn to strike his trout with the loose line most often used in dry fly casting with really fewer resultant misses than is the average when using the sunken fly and a tight line fished downstream or partly down and across. That the average angler whose dry fly knowledge is confined wholly to a greater or lesser familiarity with the literature of the subject, seriously doubts his ability--or that of any man--to strike his fish successfully with a slack line is, I am sure, a fact; and this identical thing, possibly more than anything else, is responsible for the hesitancy with which the confirmed wet fly fisherman turns to the dry fly. In point of fact, the trick is soon picked up and the angler finds his percentage of trout well-hooked really larger than when wet fly fishing. Two of the chief reasons for this are that the dry fly, being a very close imitation of the natural insect in appearance and (when properly fished) in action, is generally taken by the fish with far more confidence than is the wet fly; as a result fewer fish are merely foul-hooked by chance or simply pricked, and unless the fly is missed entirely--even the natural fly is missed at times--the trout is generally well-fastened. Also, inasmuch as the dry fly is fished upstream, and, as a rule, the angler is below the rising fish, the direction of the strike is toward the fish and not away from it, as is frequently the case when casting the wet fly downstream. That the tendency toward establishing a satisfactory connection is greater in the first instance should be obvious. The angler has only to learn to disregard the slack loop in his line--which, of course, must never be allowed to get absolutely beyond control--and to strike with certainly no more force than he has been accustomed to use in wet fly fishing. To recapitulate, before going on to discuss in a more general way the matter of fishing the floating fly, it would seem that the chief points for the dry fly-caster to observe are somewhat as follows: To use a single floating fly generally selected as to size and color with regard to the natural ephemeridae common on the stream at the time; to cast the fly upstream, allowing it to come down after the manner of the natural insect, favoring the horizontal cast to insure, as far as may be, cocking the fly; to avoid immediately raising the point of the rod or stripping in line at the finish of the forward cast, but to hold the rod motionless until the fly is well started on its downstream course; finally, to avoid drag by casting a slack line. In general, dry fly-fishing as done in America naturally divides into fishing the water and fishing the rise. The dry fly caster when fishing all the water should proceed much after the manner of the wet fly fisherman: the angler who has been accustomed to fish upstream with the wet fly need not alter his general methods in the least, save as regards floating the fly and avoiding drag. As a rule, it is best to follow or wade along the left bank, looking upstream, as this will give you an unobstructed right-handed horizontal cast. As the dry fly man works upstream and the trout habitually lie facing the current, the careful and quiet angler seldom needs to cast a long line--provided, of course, he is casting practically straight up and actually stalking the fish from behind. But when casting diagonally up and across from either bank, in which manner it may happen that a great deal of the water may be most advantageously worked, the familiar fact that "keeping out of sight" is half the battle in trout-fishing must never be forgotten. This time-honored rule of the trout-fisherman is, it would seem, quite frequently neglected by even the most experienced anglers, its non-observance often constituting the "inexplicable" reason for failure when casting to a rising fish or when fishing a good pool. It is always best to use the shortest line compatible with safety, constantly bearing in mind the well-known very acute vision of the trout. The chances of failing to hook a rising fish or of eventually losing a fish successfully fastened increase measurably with the length of line in use. Moreover, with a short line it is easier to prevent drag because there is less line upon the water. On windy days when the ordinarily smooth reaches are choppy, and always when fishing the swifter, broken runs, a thirty, even a twenty-five-foot cast is ample, if you are fishing nearly upstream and take pains to swing the rod low. On several occasions, having allowed my fly to float down very close to me in order to lift it from the water without wetting (if you lift your fly from the water when it is well away from you, the pull upon the submerged leader drags it under), I have had a rise less than five feet away. But to successfully fish close-up, the angler's progress must be slow, careful, and quiet, and the rod must be kept down low. Overhead motion, more than anything else, alarms the fish. You have only to pass your hand over a can of fingerling trout fresh from the hatchery to verify this and to appreciate the instinctive alarm of trout at anything moving in the air above them. Avoid quick motions--in fact, dry fly fishing is a game which simply cannot be successfully played in a hurry. Not infrequently the downstream wet fly fisherman covers several miles of water in a day's fishing--I know, because I have done it innumerable times myself, and I do not say that there is not much charm, good exercise, and generally a few fish to be found in this sort of fishing. But anything of the kind is strictly incompatible with properly fishing the dry fly. The wet fly man who takes up the dry fly method should understand at the outset that the cast-once-and-walk-a-mile sort of fly-fishing is simply out of the question. If you know your stream, select a moderate reach of evidently good dry fly water, and fish it leisurely, deliberately, and searchingly. Keep an eye out for rising fish, and observe closely the natural insects, if any, about and on the water. Cover all the water thoroughly, floating your fly not once but several times over the best places. If the water is equally good from bank to bank, let each cast be not more than two feet to the right of the preceding one, beginning under your own bank (generally the left facing upstream) and working across the stream. Then move up slowly and proceed to cover the unfished water above in a similar manner. Pools should be fished in the same way--covered thoroughly from foot to head. The matter of the most likely places to look for trout has been discussed in a foregoing chapter and need not be reconsidered here. The suggestions to follow on casting to a rising fish will also be found to have a general application in many ways to fishing the water. CHAPTER VII HOW TO FISH THE FLOATING FLY (_Continued_) Casting purely to the rise is the orthodox way of dry fly fishing on the English chalk streams; that this manner of fishing the floater is of necessity subordinated to fishing all the water on American streams has been mentioned heretofore. Save in extremely favorable localities where the conditions closely approximate those of the British streams, stalking the fish is practically love's labor lost. However, large, quiet pools may be fished in this way if the angler selects the most propitious time for rising trout--in the warm season a little before sundown and for some time thereafter. Extensive, quiet reaches where the fishing is open may also at times be resorted to with the idea of casting to the rise, and some fair sport obtained. Regarding the sporting merits of the two methods, I personally am sure that if conditions allowed I would never cast a fly except to a rising trout. The visible rise of a trout always appears in the nature of a challenge, and my inability to get away from a place where I positively know a good trout is located has frequently resulted in my return with a pretty light creel. When casting over a pool, no matter how good, while fishing all the water, lack of success eventually breeds a doubt as to the presence of a trout therein; anglers going before may have temporarily fished it out or for some other reason, the pool may be barren at the time. But when casting over a rising trout everything is certain and well-defined. You know where the fish is located, or at least where he came up; you generally have a pretty fair idea of his size; if duly observant you can guess closely to what sort of natural fly the fish rose, everything is sure save the eventual capture of that particular trout. You are fairly certain that if the right fly is put over the fish in the right way success will follow. It is up to you. To cast with some understanding to a rising trout, it is very necessary that the angler be somewhat familiar with the habits of the fish when feeding upon the floating insect and also be fairly conversant with the life histories of what may be termed the fishing flies. That rises occur when the fish are not feeding, that sometimes the trout roll up to or leap above the surface, is well known to the experienced stream fisherman. With this feature of the matter we are not here concerned; the habit has been variously accounted for by anglers and icthyologists but the motive of the fish in thus acting is still debatable. However this may be, the angler may safely conclude that any visible rise--save generally a clear leap above the surface--is a rise to the natural fly by a feeding trout until the contrary may appear from the attendant circumstances. It is with the _bona fide_ rise of a trout to the floating natural fly that the dry fly caster is chiefly concerned. But in this connection it should be noted that the feeding of trout upon the natural insect is by no means confined to the time of the latter's appearance strictly on the surface. Of the water-bred insects the _Ephemeridae_, called "duns" when in the sub-imago state, occupy the place of greatest importance in the entomology of the dry fly fisherman. In a later chapter something is said of the commoner insect life of the stream; it should here be noted, however, that trout feed upon the _Ephemeridae_, for instance, at all stages of their existence. From the eggs deposited upon or in the water by the adult insect, or "spinner," in due time the nymphs are hatched. Upon these the trout feed at times on the stream-bed and in the weeds, nosing upon the bottom and in the aquatic vegetation in somewhat the same way as the common sucker or the German carp go about their business of drawing sustenance from the muck and weeds of the stream-bed. This habit of the trout, when followed in shallow water, results in an occasional disturbance of the surface by the tails of the fish and is called "tailing" in the nomenclature of the English dry fly fisherman. In this connection it should be noted, however, that the nymphs of the _Ephemeridae_ which burrow under rocks and in the stream-bed and there remain until about to assume the first winged, or dun, state are practically inaccessible to the fish, although doubtless taken at times. Tailing trout are usually feeding upon caddis and other larvae. Subsequently the nymphs, having undergone certain physical changes while in the nymphal stage, are ready to rise to the surface, cast off the nymphal shuck or envelope, and emerge into the air in the first winged state (sub-imago) at which time, as noted, they are called duns. During the rise of the nymphs to the surface, when about to assume the dun state, they are often taken by the trout with avidity, and frequently when the nymph has neared the surface a trout taking it will visibly disturb the surface or break water--again in dry fly parlance called "bulging." Ground-feeding or tailing trout and trout feeding in mid-water upon nymphs floating up to the surface--bulging trout--are manifestly not genuinely rising fish. To consider briefly once more the life history of the _Ephemeridae_: when the "hatch" is on, the nymph upon reaching the surface splits open the nymphal envelope and at once takes wing as a dun--an ephemeral fly in the sub-imago or first winged state. When the duns are thus hatching the fly may float for some little distance while ridding itself of the nymphal envelope and drying its wings for flight; a rise to the fly at this time is a true rise. It would seem, however, from very close observation of the water during a good many plentiful hatches of duns, that only an occasional insect, as compared with the great numbers hatching, remains upon the water for any appreciable time while undergoing the metamorphosis from nymph to dun--the change is in most cases practically instantaneous. You may select any certain area of water, when duns are emerging constantly from every part of a pool, and watch that certain area with the utmost intentness; the chances are you will not see a single fly actually upon the water although many do, indeed, emerge from the water under observation and fly away. In "American Insects" Professor Vernon L. Kellogg, of Leland Stanford University, writes as follows: "At the end of the immature life the nymphs rise to the surface, and after floating there a short time suddenly split open the cuticle along the back and after hardly a second's pause expand the delicate wings and fly away. Some nymphs brought into the laboratory from a watering trough at Stanford University emerged one after the other from the aquarium with amazing quickness." This from an undoubted authority, with my own experience, comparatively short but to the same end, leads me to believe that rises to the duns on the surface at the time of metamorphosis from the nymph are certainly less frequent than commonly believed and implied by dry fly writers; the rise would have to come at such an acutely psychological instant that the chances are altogether too many against it. In fact it would seem that when the duns are hatching many, perhaps most, rises are to the floating nymph and not to the winged insect. Autopsy shows a marked preponderance of larvae and nymphae about to change to the winged state over winged insects in the stomachs of trout taken under natural conditions. Furthermore, I might quote Mr. Halford when, in discussing bulging trout, he says: "Fish, when feeding on larvae and nymphae, at times rise quietly, without moving about from place to place. It is almost impossible under these circumstances to distinguish the apparent from _bona fide_ rises." All of which does not militate in the least against the theory that the artificial fly should correspond with the natural; when a decided hatch is on the trout are fully aware of the nature of the prevalent fly and if feeding upon it are quite likely to notice no other either natural or artificial. But the theory does, indeed, explain some phases of dry fly fishing which otherwise are quite inexplicable; for instance, inability to induce a rise to the properly fished winged artificial when its corresponding natural is hatching and "apparent" rises to it are evidently common. It seems fairly certain that at such times the fish are feeding exclusively on the floating nymphs, taking them on the surface in practically the same way as the winged dun is taken. Also fish thus feeding would hardly come within the technical definition of bulging trout as that term is generally understood. Having assumed the first winged state, scientifically the sub-imago, the duns thereafter are upon the water more or less during its continuance, sometimes blown upon the water or descending to the surface without apparent reason, and the trout rise to and feed upon them when in the mood. In a short time the dun or sub-imago undergoes another metamorphosis to the imago or "spinner"--the adult insect. The male spinners are subsequently upon the water in a spent or practically lifeless condition following the completion of the act of coition. The latter takes place over the stream to which the female spinner then descends to void her eggs. This, with some species, is done upon the surface, the fly floating downstream the while eventually to rise again and fly, generally it would seem, upstream--unless the program is incontinently halted by the accurate rise of a trout. The spent spinners ("spent gnats") also serve as food for the trout--the male when it has completed the act of procreation and falls to the stream, the female when all the eggs have been voided. Excluding, then, bottom-feeding or tailing fish, also fish feeding upon nymphs either in mid-water or, as noted, practically upon the surface, the trout feed upon the _Ephemeridae_ first as duns and subsequently when, as spinners, the female floats on the surface when voiding her eggs, and upon both males and females when spent. Before casting to a rising trout the angler should, as far as may be, determine the nature of the rise and the fly to which it was made. The question of the right fly having been decided, it remains only for the angler to put the fly over the fish in the right way. When you see the rise of a presumably feeding trout, spot it carefully; that is, make very sure of the exact spot where the fish rose. Unless this is done it will be necessary to wait for another rise, which may never come, or to cast haphazardly over the approximate place, which usually results in failure. As a general rule the artificial must travel in practically the same path as the natural fly if the trout is to rise to it Choose your place from which to cast over the trout with two things in mind--to avoid being seen by the fish, and to lessen the liability of drag. Keep low and cast not a foot more line than necessary. Do not cast to the exact place of the rise; drop your fly some two or three feet above it so that the fly will float down over the place where the fish rose. Moreover, if possible, avoid throwing your leader over the fish--which will not occur unless you cast actually in line with it from below. If the fish fails to rise let your fly float well below it before lifting it from the water--for which the reason should be obvious. My own experience leads me to believe that often a trout will rise only to a fly, natural or artificial, floating over a certain small area of the surface which sometimes the fish seems to have selected for the purpose of feeding; if the artificial fly fails to cover the exact spot to which the trout is rising it may be the fish will wholly disregard it. Frequently I have cast to a rising fish and failed through difficulties of drag--and poor casting--to get the fly over the right place in the right way until possibly the fifteenth or twentieth cast, and in the meantime have seen the fish rise to the natural fly within six inches of the artificial. But when I have had the right fly and by dint of persistent casting have at last floated it over the exact spot--the "dead line" for the natural fly--the response has almost always been instantaneous and emphatic. So I would advise not letting up on a rising fish until you are sure that what may be termed the feeding zone of the trout--often very restricted--has been covered by your fly while cocked and floating in an absolutely natural way. At the same time it is poor business to keep hammering away at a very particular fish for the simple reason that the more you cast to him the more shy and finicky he is apt to become--certainly if the casting is not done with the utmost possible skill and unobtrusiveness--and eventually you may set him down to stay. It is best to divide your attentions, fishing the water above or below, and returning from time to time to make some half-dozen casts over the reluctant one. I believe it pays best when fishing all the water to use a fairly large fly--as dry flies go--say a fly dressed on a No. 10 long-shanked hook. I have had particularly good results from the floaters tied on these long-shanked hooks and am of the opinion that for average dry fly fishing under American conditions, when fishing all the water, they are more successful than the orthodox patterns. This goes for the larger, deeper streams and, as noted, for fishing all the water. For small stream fishing smaller flies are preferable. So far as I know dry fly patterns on No. 10 long-shanked hooks are procurable only from William Mills & Son, New York. But when casting to a rising trout, even if you cannot discern to what fly the fish is rising it is best to discard the fancy pattern--hare's ear, Wickham, or coachman, which are generally best to use when fishing all the water for general results--and to put up an imitation of some one of the duns, olive, iron blue, whirling blue, and so on, dressed on a No. 12 or 14 hook which best approximate in size the natural ephemera ordinarily prevalent on the trout streams. The common-sense of this should not need argument, and it is best to try the small dun before possibly setting down the fish with a fancy pattern. From the above it could be gathered that one of the approximately exact imitations of the duns might be superior to a so-called fancy pattern for steady fishing, fishing all the water; and, indeed, upon occasions, this is certainly the case. In the season of 1911 I was out one day with a wet fly fisherman on one of the smaller Berkshire streams, upon which occasion we took eight trout from a small pool at the foot of a falls. The wet fly man, who, by the way, has played the game some thirty-five years during which time he has learned some few things about it, took two fish with the coachman and then cast for fully half an hour without results. In the meantime I busied myself with the camera, by no means, however, failing to note several rises in various parts of the pool. When the wet fly man had gone on about his nefarious business I rested the pool while putting up an olive dun dressed on a No. 14 hook. Shortly thereafter I had six good trout for my pains and a still greater respect for the great little dry fly--in addition to a good working "bulge" on the veteran. But below the pool I could do nothing with the little dun and I was eventually compelled to return to my favorite golden ribbed hare's ear with which I then killed several good fish. For straightaway all-water fishing it would seem that a good fancy pattern, rather large, ordinarily gives the best results, save over very clear or low water when everything depends upon refining the tackle. Moreover, when fishing the water it is distinctly easier to keep a comparatively large fly dry and floating--the very small patterns when in constant use soon become thoroughly soaked and difficult to float. CHAPTER VIII INSECTS OF THE TROUT STREAM The order _Ephemeridae_ includes the natural insects most important to the dry fly-fisherman, the May flies and other day or ephemeral flies; of the life history of these Insects a fairly complete sketch has been given in the preceding chapter. Of course the locality will determine In great measure the natural flies which the angler must approximate with his artificials, the duns having precedence practically everywhere, but the caddis flies, _Trichoptera_, are quite certain to be prevalent at times, and also the stone flies, _Plecoptera_; in addition there are many small two-winged insects, _Diptera_, which occasionally appear on the water. However, the strictly water-bred flies, such as the May flies and duns, caddis and stone flies, are practically the only ones with which the angler is intimately concerned. The life histories of the caddis and stone flies, with which the writer does not feel sufficiently familiar to warrant discussion, are very interestingly given by Prof. Vernon L. Kellogg in his book, to which I have previously alluded, "American Insects," a volume, by the way, invaluable to the tentative American dry fly fisherman. (Published by Henry Holt & Company, New York.) "So it was that my first summer's camping and climbing in the Rockies acquired a special interest from the slight acquaintanceship I then made with a group of insects which, unfortunately, are so little known and studied in this country that the amateur has practically no written help at all to enable him to become acquainted with their various kinds. These insects are the caddis flies; not limited in their distribution by any means to the Rocky Mountains, but found all over the country where there are streams. But it is in mountain streams that the caddis flies become conspicuous by their own abundance and by the scarcity of other kinds of insects. "In Europe the caddis flies have been pretty well studied and more than 500 kinds are known. In this country about 150 kinds have been determined, but these are only a fraction of the species which occur here. Popularly the adults are hardly known at all, the knowledge of the group being almost restricted to the aquatic larvae, whose cleverly built protecting cases or houses made of sand, pebbles, or bits of wood held together with silken threads give the insects their common name, i. e., case or caddis worms. "The cases are familiar objects in most clear streams and ponds. There is great variety in the materials used and in the size and shape of the cases, each kind of caddis worm having a particular and constant style of house-building. Grains of sand may be fastened together to form tiny, smooth-walled, symmetrical cornucopias, or small stones to form larger, rough-walled, irregular cylinders. Small bits of twigs or pine needles may be used; and these chips may be laid longitudinally or transversely and with projecting ends. Small snail-shells or bits of leaves and grass may serve for building materials. "While most of the cases are free and are carried about by the worm in its ramblings, some are fastened to the boulders or rock banks or bed of the stream. These fixed cases are usually composed of bits of stone or smooth pebbles irregularly tied together with silken threads. In all the cases silk spun by the caddis worm is used to tie or cement together the foreign building materials, and often a complete inner silken lining is made. "The larvae within the cases are worm- or caterpillar-like, with head and thorax usually brown and horny-walled, while the rest of the body is soft and whitish. The head with the mouth-parts, and the thorax with the long strong legs, are the only parts of the body that project from the protecting case, and hence need to be specially hardened. At the posterior tip of the abdomen is a pair of strong hooks pointing outward. These hooks can be fastened into the sides of the case and thus hold the larva safely in its house.... The caddis worm crawls slowly about searching for food, which consists of vegetable matter. Those larvae which have fixed cases have to leave it in search of food. Some of them make occasional foraging expeditions to considerable distances from home. Others have the interesting habit of spinning nearby a tiny net fastened and stretched in such a way that its broad shallow mouth is directed upstream, so that the current may bring into it the small aquatic creatures which serve these caddis-fishermen as food. The caddis flies live several months, and according to Howard some pass the winter in the larval stage. "When the caddis worms are ready to transform they withdraw wholly into the case and close the opening with a loose wall of stones or chips and silk. This wall keeps out enemies, but always admits the water which is necessary for respiration.... When ready to issue the pupa usually comes out from the submerged case, crawls up on some support above water and there moults, the winged imago soon flying away. Some kinds, however, emerge from the water. Comstock observed the pupa of one of the net-building kinds to swim to the surface of the water.... The instant the creature was free from the water the wings expanded to their full size and it flew away several feet.... The time required for the insect to expand its wings and take its first flight was scarcely more than one second; certainly less than two. As such caddis flies normally emerge from rapidly flowing streams which dash over rocks, it is evident that if much time were required for the wings to become fit for use, as is the case with most other insects, the wave succeeding that which swept one from the water would sweep it back again and destroy it. "The adult caddis flies ... are mostly obscurely colored, rather small moth-like creatures, that limit their flying to short, uncertain excursions along the stream or pond shore, and spend long hours of resting in the close foliage of the bank.... They probably do not live long." Of the stone flies Prof. Kellogg writes as follows: "On the under side of the same stones in the brook 'riffles' where the May fly nymphs may be found, one can almost certainly find the very similar nymphs of the stone flies, an order of insects called _Plecoptera_. More flattened and usually darker, or tiger-striped with black and white, the stone fly nymphs live side by side with the young May flies. But they are only to be certainly distinguished from them by careful examination.... The feet of the stone flies have two claws, while those of the young May flies have but one. The stone fly nymph has a pair of large compound eyes, as well as three small simple eyes, strong jaws for biting and chewing (perhaps for chewing her nearest neighbors, the soft-bodied smaller May fly nymphs), and two slender backward-projecting processes on the tip of the abdomen. The legs are usually fringed with hairs, which makes them good swimming as well as running organs. The nymphs can run swiftly, and quickly conceal themselves when disturbed. "All stone fly nymphs, as far as known, require well aërated water; they cannot live in stagnant pools or foul streams.... It is perfectly certain that the nymphs serve as food for fishes.... The eggs, of which 5000 or 6000 may be deposited by a single female, are probably dropped on the surface of the water, and sink to the bottom after being, however, well distributed by the current. Sometimes the eggs are carried about for a while by the female, enclosed in a capsule attached to the abdomen. The young moult several times in their growth, but probably not nearly as many times as is common among May flies. When ready for the final moulting the nymph crawls out on a rock or on a tree-root or trunk on the bank, and splitting its cuticle along the back, issues as a winged adult. The cast exuviae are common objects along swift brooks. "The adults vary much in size and color, the smallest being less than one-fifth of an inch long, while the largest reach a length of two inches. Some are pale green, some grayish, others brownish to black. There are four rather large membranous, many-veined wings without pattern, the hind wings being larger than the front ones. When at rest, the fore wings lie flat on the back, covering the much-folded hind wings. "About 100 species of stone flies are known in North America. The adults are to be found flying over or near streams, though sometimes straying far away. They rest on trees and bushes along the banks. The green ones usually keep to the green foliage, while the dark ones perch on the trunks and branches." This list of floating flies given in Chapter III., comprising the Coachman, Cahill, gold-ribbed hare's ear, Wickham's fancy, brown sedge, silver sedge (or Beaverkill), iron blue dun, whirling blue dun, green May female, brown May female, and spent gnat female, will be found as a rule quite sufficient (if the angler is stocked with a fair variety of sizes) to enable the sportsman to match with adequate fidelity any natural fly which may be temporarily prevalent on the water. In the matter of the selection of fly, with regard to the theories of the "colorists," "formalists," and other sects of the dry fly, much might be written, but, it would seem, matters of this sort are rather out of place in a practical handbook for the mere beginner. If the angler will follow the few simple suggestions made in the preceding pages, constantly holding to the idea that the _natural action_ of the artificial fly is of first importance, he cannot go far wrong; and if, as a result of actual experience, he may wish to go deeper into the science of the dry fly, he will find the relation, theoretical and otherwise, of the artificial fly to the natural detailed at length in more ambitious treatises than the present. It is very important that the angler use flies true to pattern, and as tackle dealers are prone to substitution, and furthermore as different fly-dressers frequently turn out quite dissimilar flies under the same name, the angler should make sure that the flies he may purchase are correct in coloration, size and shape. STRIKING A TROUT In a previous chapter something has been said of the manner of striking a rising trout when employing the slack-line cast as a preventive against drag. Other things being equal, success hinges upon the angler's ability to strike at the right time and with correct force--or lack of force. When fishing downstream with the wet fly, which the fish often takes beneath the surface, quick striking, at the first suggestion of the strike of the trout, is at a premium; it would seem that when casting the dry fly the strike should be timed just a bit slower in the majority of instances, although when floating the fly down a swift run one can hardly strike too promptly. To avoid drowning the fly when fishing "up" in a fair current the line must be stripped in gradually and with the greatest care; at the same time it is well to take up every inch possible that there may not be too much slack to straighten out in the event of a rise. Striking should be done from the wrist and with strict avoidance of anything like a sudden jerk which will almost surely snap the fine leader if a heavy fish has taken the fly or possibly tear out the hook if the fish is hooked lightly; the motion should be smooth, swift and even, and it must cease at once when the barb has gone home. PLAYING A TROUT As a rule when fishing with the dry fly the fish will be upstream from the angler when hooked. If possible keep him there. In the majority of instances the trout will bore upstream, or angle upstream to one side or the other, and will not turn and run down with the current unless roughly and carelessly handled. Nurse the fish along, exerting a constant but not too heavy strain, so that he will continue to fight upstream against the current, thus tiring more quickly; in other words, "play it safe." If by any chance the fish gets below you, "takes the bit in his teeth" and runs with the current, go with him. Wade if you can, but if this is impossible get out of the stream as quickly as you can and follow down along the bank. As soon as possible get the fish upstream from you again. Never try to net a fish which is downstream from you; get below him and let the current float him over the net--not away from it. With regard to tackle handling while playing a trout, I might abbreviate here from an article which I contributed to _The Outing Magazine_ for July, 1911, as further experience has served only to strengthen my belief in the methods set forth therein. That skilled tackle handling, after the rise, is at a premium in trout fly-fishing is due not only to the delicacy of the tackle ordinarily employed, particularly the very small hooks and often fragile leaders, but to the distinctly game qualities of the brook trout itself and the usually difficult angling conditions afforded by its habitat. There is all the difference in the world between playing a fish in still and fast water, and the brook trout is essentially a fast water fish. The way you will play a trout depends in great measure upon how your tackle is rigged. If you have assembled rod, reel and line correctly, the chances are that you will soon discover and adopt the best method of handling a hooked trout; on the other hand, if your tackle is improperly adjusted, it will be physically impossible for you to go after your trout the right way. The necessity of saying something about how to adjust your rod, reel and line is apparent. In his book "The Theory and Practice of Dry Fly Fishing," Mr. F. M. Halford advises a method of assembling rod and reel which is directly contrary to the usage and advice of most seasoned American fly-fishermen. Briefly, his advice is to have the reel on the under side of the rod with the handle to the left, presuming that the angler casts with the right hand. When a trout is hooked the rod is passed to the left hand, turned over so the reel is on top, and the fish is then played directly from the reel. In view of the fact that Mr. Halford is a universally acknowledged authority in fly-fishing matters, it would, indeed, be presumptuous in me to say that this method of handling a hooked trout and of assembling rod and reel is all wrong, were it not that, as I am quite sure, the majority of experienced American fly-casters so regard it. The practice of most expert fly-casters in this country is to adjust the reel underneath the rod, but, in contradistinction to the method above described, with the handle of the reel to the right. Thus, when a fish is hooked, it is not necessary to turn the rod over when it is passed from the right to the left hand, but the reel is retained underneath the rod at all times, the very best position for it, for several reasons, for the business of fly-fishing. Moreover, the best way to play a trout is distinctly not from the reel. It is taken for granted in the above discussion, and also in the following, that the fly-caster uses a single-action reel. I believe implicitly that the best way to handle a hooked trout, the one sooner or later adopted by most anglers who do much fly-fishing, is as follows: Having, as above noted, your reel underneath the rod with the handle to the right, maintain at all times, both when casting the flies and playing a fish, a loop of line of convenient length between the reel and the first guide of the rod. This loop of line is controlled by the left hand, allowing the line to run out through the guides or, when necessary, drawing it back. Use the reel only when the loop of line grows so long that, when you are wading the stream, there is danger of fouling the line. When casting from a boat or canoe there is little chance of fouling the line no matter what the length of the loop may be if you take pains to lay down the line evenly on the bottom boards. Now when you hook a trout you do not, at this very critical point, have to pass the rod from the right to the left hand and, what is worse, turn the rod over so that the reel will be on top. On the contrary, you "stand pat," as it were, still keeping the rod in the right hand and, if the trout is a large one, yielding the line to him through the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, or, if the fish is a small one, gradually drawing in the line--and the trout--with the left hand without recourse to the reel. When stripping in the line, clip it to the handgrasp of the rod between the first and second fingers of the rod-hand. If the trout is a fairly large one and is hooked in fast water it will often happen that his first run will exhaust the loop of free line. Then, when he stops running, pass the rod from the right to the left hand--you do not have to turn it over because your reel handle is placed to the right--and play him from the reel until he gives in a little, when you at once return the rod to the right hand and strip in line with the left. Playing a trout in this manner one is master of the situation at every stage of the game from the strike to the landing net; and if, at any time, some unusual action of the fish renders the outcome more than ordinarily doubtful, your chances are many times better for getting out of the difficulty than if you depend upon the reel for the intake of your line; for instance, every experienced trout fisherman knows that often a trout will run out many feet of line from the reel and then incontinently about-face and run in toward the angler--one of the most difficult situations the fly-caster is ordinarily called upon to face. About nine times out of ten--at least it is not safe to rely upon odds more favorable although, of course, sometimes the fish will be so deeply hooked that the chance is lessened--a slack line spells a lost trout. The rapidity with which a fish coming directly toward the angler creates a wake of slack line is difficult to estimate; in any event, the fly-caster's single-action reel is utterly unable to cope with the situation no matter how skilfully the angler may manipulate it. The fly-caster who handles his fish as here indicated is of all anglers best armed against the running back of a hooked trout. Once you have reduced the action of stripping in the line with the left hand to a purely automatic motion, so that you perform it quickly, expertly, and without forethought in the matter of how to go about it, it is a very fast fish, indeed, which can accumulate much slack line, for the line may be retrieved through the guides far faster than with any sort of reel and almost always with sufficient rapidity to save the fish. It seems, too--indeed, it is a fact--that when playing a trout in this manner one can usually tell what the fish is going to do before he does it, and the value of this forewarning should be obvious. Every slightest movement of the fish is carried to the left hand of the angler holding the line, and the least lessening or increase of tension between the rod-tip and the quarry is instantly sensed and line taken or given accordingly. Moreover, the method insures against forcing the fish too strenuously because one knows to a practical certainty when there is too much pull--a thing far more difficult to estimate when killing the fish on the reel. A FINAL CAST We have now considered more or less completely most of the matters with which the beginner at dry fly fishing should be familiar, namely, the correct tackle, how to cast, and where, when and how to fish the floating fly; also we have said something of the insect life of the trout stream and of the playing and landing of the fish when hooked. But we have almost entirely neglected any hint of the great fascination of fishing with the floating fly. It is the writer's earnest hope that these pages, which deal so exclusively with the practical side of the matter, may, nevertheless, lead the reader to the stream-side, fly-rod in hand, where, as he quietly follows the stream and his sport, it will presently appear that the matters upon which we have herein placed the most emphasis are, after all, rather unimportant--that the true reason for the dry fly may be found in the sunshine on the riffles, the cool lapping of the stream about a moss-grown boulder, in the quiet of a glassy pool where the duns dance and the peaceful pines are reflected clearly. THE END TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE -Plain print and punctuation errors fixed. 
43874	----	DEDICATED TO THE LADY KATHERINE HARDY. [Illustration: A WOODLAND STREAM.] CHATS ON ANGLING. BY CAPTAIN H. V. HART-DAVIS, Author of "Stalking Sketches." WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR. LONDON: HORACE COX, WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS, E.C. 1906. LONDON: PRINTED BY HORACE COX, WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS, E.C. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. A WOODLAND STREAM _Frontispiece._ WAITING FOR A RISE _Facing page_ 5 BRINGING HIM DOWN TO THE NET " 25 THE SEDGE HOUR " 35 A DRY FLY DAY ON LOCH ARD " 47 LUNCHEON " 61 NEARING THE END " 72 GET THE GAFF READY " 79 HE MEANS GOING DOWN " 88 THE FALL'S POOL " 101 CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY _page_ 1 CHAPTER I. IN PRAISE OF THE DRY FLY " 3 CHAPTER II. DRY FLY TACKLE AND EQUIPMENT " 7 CHAPTER III. DRY FLY MAXIMS " 13 CHAPTER IV. EDUCATION OF THE SOUTH COUNTRY TROUT " 23 CHAPTER V. THE MAY FLY " 27 CHAPTER VI. THE EVENING RISE " 33 CHAPTER VII. "JACK" " 37 CHAPTER VIII. WEED CUTTING " 40 CHAPTER IX. THE ANGLER AND AMBIDEXTERITY " 43 CHAPTER X. LOCH FISHING " 46 CHAPTER XI. DAPPING FOR TROUT " 53 CHAPTER XII. GRAYLING FISHING " 57 CHAPTER XIII. NOTES ON RAINBOW TROUT " 61 CHAPTER XIV. SALMON FISHING " 66 CHAPTER XV. A TRIP TO IRELAND " 79 CHAPTER XVI. SALMON AND FLIES " 86 CHAPTER XVII. SALMON OF THE AWE " 91 CHAPTER XVIII. DISAPPOINTING DAYS " 97 CHAPTER XIX. SEA TROUT FISHING AND ITS CHANCES " 106 L'ENVOI " 113 CHATS ON ANGLING INTRODUCTORY. TO those who love angling, with all its associations and surroundings, no apology may be needed for inflicting on them in book form certain short articles which have mainly appeared in the columns of the _Field_. They are "Chats" rather than didactic deliverances, and are offered in the belief that much will be forgiven to a brother angler, since all that pertains to the beloved pastime has some interest, and the experiences of the poorest writer that ever recorded his views and fancies may haply strike some responsive note. But to the outside world, to those who care nought for all we hold so dear, to those who would rank all fishermen as fools, and would classify them as Dr. Johnson was said to have done--to such these notes cannot appeal; they will regard them, not unnaturally perhaps, as yet one more addition, of a desultory kind, to an already overladen subject. No form of sport has so enduring a charm to its votaries as angling. Its praises have been sung for centuries, from Dame Julia Berners to the present day. Once an angler, always an angler; years roll by only to increase the fervour of our devotion. It is a quiet, simple, unassuming kind of madness, without any of the excitement or the glamour of the race meeting or of the hunting field, and the love and the madness are incomprehensible and inexplicable to those who neither share them nor know them. The quiet stroll by the stream or river bank, the constant communing with nature, the watching of bird and insect life, appeal with irresistible force and power to the angler. As the short winter days draw out, and spring begins to assert her revivifying powers, the longing, intense as ever, comes over us, and we yearn for the river side. And the lessons that we learn from our love for it are not without value; patience and self-control come naturally to those who have the real angling instinct. How widely spread this natural instinct is we may gather from observing the long lines of fishermen, each with his few feet of bank pegged out, engaged in some competition, and watching with intense interest for long hours the quiet float in front of him. Give him but a better chance of following up his instinct, and doubtless he would take with increased zeal to those higher branches of the sport that appeal more directly to most of us--the keenness is there, the opportunity alone is wanting. Seeing that fishing and its charms have been so amply extolled and set forth by such able and various pens, from Father Walton, the merchant, prince of all writers on this subject, down to later days in continuous line, through such names as Kingsley (man of letters), or Sir Edward Grey (man of affairs)--writers whose works will live, and who can inspire in us the enthusiasm of sympathetic feeling--why, it may be asked, is it that we are not content, and that so many of us cannot refrain from publishing our impressions? There can be no answer to this query except it be as in my own case, the confession of a desire to record some of the experiences, gained through many years, in the hope that some crumb of information may be gleaned therefrom, and that the pleasure taken in recording them may find a responsive echo in some breast. I would wish at once to disarm possible criticism by candidly admitting that this little work has no literary, or indeed any other pretensions. It is merely what it purports to be--a series of articles strung together, with the object that I have already described. I would desire also to thank the proprietors of the _Field_ for their permission to reprint such articles as have already appeared in that paper. My thanks are also due to my old friend Mr. W. Senior and to Mr. Sheringham for having been kind enough to glance through my MSS. and give me the benefit of their most valued criticism. WARDLEY HALL, _August, 1905_. [Illustration] CHAPTER I. IN PRAISE OF THE DRY FLY. THE methods of the "Dry Fly" Fisherman, as compared with those of his brother of the "Wet Fly," are absolutely distinct, and demand totally different characteristics. It is idle to compare them, or to praise one to the disparagement of the other. The sooner this kind of carping criticism is entirely abandoned the better. The dry fly purist may argue until he is black in the face; he will never convert the wet fly devotee. Nor, on the other hand, is there the slightest chance of the South Country chalk stream Angler being induced to give up his favourite form of sport. Quite apart from the fact that different waters require different treatment, the two methods appeal to absolutely different temperaments. Take for example the wet fly man. He wends his way, probably down stream, fishing all the fishable water before him, carefully searching with his flies all the quick water and stickles; placing his flies deftly near the eddy by that half-sunken rock, round which the swirl comes, forming a convenient resting-place for a goodly trout; or with careful underhand cast searches under the overhanging branches of yonder tree; always alert and on the move, leaving untried no likely holt, keeping as far as possible out of sight, and showing himself to be a master of his art. But he has always a roving commission. He may, of course, elect to fish up stream, and many an expert in that line may be met with; but, even then, his art differs radically from that of the angler with the floating fly. [Illustration: WAITING FOR A RISE.] From the latter are required in a special degree a quick and accurate eye, great delicacy and accuracy in the actual cast, and above all, a quiet, watchful disposition; he cannot whip the water on the chance of catching an unseen trout. His _rôle_ is to scan the water, to watch the duns and ascertain their identity, to spot at once the dimple of a rising fish, and to differentiate between such a rise and the swirl made by a tailing fish. He will note the flow of the stream, and whether he will have to counteract the fateful drag. Having made up his mind, arranged his plan of action, and selected his fly, he will crawl up as near as may be desirable below his fish, taking care not to alarm in his approach any other that may lie between him and it; then, after one or two preliminary casts to regulate his distance, he will despatch his fly, to alight, as lightly as may be, some three or four inches above his fish. His field glasses will have told him, even if his natural eyesight could not, the quality of the fish he is trying for, and for good or evil his cast is made. Perhaps he has under-estimated the distance, and if it be a bank fish he is attacking his fly may float down some twelve inches from the bank under which the fish is lying. In that case he will not withdraw it until it is well past the trout, but he may have noted that half-defined, but encouraging, movement which the trout made as the fly sailed past. His next cast is a better one, and, guided by the stream under the bank, the fly, jauntily cocking, an olive quill of the right size and shade, will pass over the trout's nose. A natural dun comes along abreast of his; will his poor imitation be taken in preference to the Simon pure? By the powers, it is! A confident upward tilt of the trout, a pink mouth opens, and the 000 hook is sucked in; one turn of the wrist, and he is hooked. Despite a mad dash up stream the bonnie two-pounder--in the lusty vigour of high condition--is soon controlled and steadied by the even strain of the ten-foot cane-built rod. Down stream now he rushes; he will soon exhaust himself at that game. Keep quietly below him, and keep the rod-point up. That was a narrow squeak! He nearly gained that weed-bank! Had he effected his purpose, nothing but hand-lining would have had the slightest chance of extricating him, but the rod strain being applied at the right moment and in the right direction, the gallant fish is turned back. That effort, happily counteracted, has beaten him; he soon begins to flop upon the surface and show evident signs of surrendering. The landing net is quietly disengaged and half submerged in the stream below him--for if he sees it he will be nerved to fresh efforts--and his head being kept up, he is guided without fuss into its embrace. And after he is given his instant and humane quietus with one tap, rightly placed, of the "Priest," the pipe is lit, tackle is adjusted, and there is leisure to admire the beautiful proportions of a newly caught trout, the glorious colouring of his spots and golden belly. Something has been accomplished, something done. A fair stalk has been rewarded, and it is no chance success. Those happy days when there is a good rise of fly, when the fish are in their stations, heads up, and lying near the top of the water, and the wind is not too contrary, should indeed be gratefully remembered. A short length of water will suffice for the dry fly man--a few hundred yards. For him there need be no restless rushing from place to place. Quiet watching and waiting, constant observation of what is going on in the river beneath him, these are his requirements. But on the days when the rise is scant and short, and the trout seem to be all glued to the bottom, or when a strong down stream wind nearly baffles the angler, then his patience will be somewhat sorely tested; even under these discouraging conditions there are places in the river unswept by wind, most rivers having a serpentine course; on one of these our angler will take up his position, and his patience and perseverance will be rewarded. And if the trout be, as I have said, glued to the bed of the river, and there is no rise of fly to tempt them to the surface, he will wait patiently. It will not be always so; a change of temperature will come or some subtle atmospheric change about which we know so little, but which effects a wonderful change in the trout. They begin, as it were, at such changes to wake up from their lethargy, to come nearer to the surface and to re-assume their favourite positions--at the tail of yonder weed bank--or in the oily glide under the bank side. The first few flies of the hatch may be allowed to pass by them, apparently unheeded or unnoticed, but before long they settle down to feeding in a serious manner. Now is your opportunity, make the most of it; and if you keep well down and make no bungling cast, your creel will soon be somewhat weightier than it promised to be a short hour ago. Our friend the chalk stream trout will brook no bungling; he is easily put down and scared, and the delicate accuracy needed in securing him forms the most potent of the many charms of this most beautiful of sports. Should, as may often prove to be the case, the unpropitious conditions continue without improvement, our angler is not without resource. His surroundings are so entirely congenial; he lies on the fresh green meadow-grass, the hedgerows ablaze with blossom, the copses in their newly-donned green mantles, blue with the shimmering sheen of countless blue-bells, are full of rejoicing and of promise. The birds, instinct with their love-making and nesting operations, are full of life; all nature seems to be vigorous with new-born hope. The true angler can rejoice with them all, sharing their pleasure and delight, drinking in pure draughts of ozone, and adding, perchance, to his store of knowledge of insect and animal life. His field glasses, as he lies prone and sheltered, bring him within touch and range of many sights that otherwise would have passed unnoticed. That water vole coasting along the bank side, pausing incontinently to sit up and look around, those rabbits playing near the burrow mouth, the moorhens cruising round the flags and sedges, all afford interest and instruction. In the very grass on which he lies he will find ample scope for observation and amusement in his enforced leisure should he care to watch the teeming multitudes of insects that throng it, his ears meanwhile being solaced and refreshed by countless woodland songsters. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. DRY FLY TACKLE AND EQUIPMENT. MODERN glued-up cane rods have practically done away with hickory, blue gum, or other wooden rods--at any rate, as far as dry fly angling is concerned. Their action when well made is so true and quick, they pick up the line from the water in the way their forerunners never could; they are not liable to snap or break, and if tended carefully are very long-lived. Most of us have old favourite greenheart or other rods, companions in many a pleasant hour. We would not part with them, but on the other hand would leave them lying in their cases, taking out our cane rods in preference. The big grip on the butt, whether of cork, leather, or wood, prevents to a great extent the cramp to the fingers that would be certain to come from using our former small-butted rods in dry fly work. Built-up cane rods vary, of course, greatly in quality and durability. Cheap ones may be bought, and they will certainly turn out a dear purchase. It is best to buy one from the very best makers only, and eschew as worthless all cheap imitations. Having decided to purchase a built-up rod, we have to consider its length, etc. It is, I think, generally agreed that a length of from 9 ft. 6 in. to 10 ft. 6 in. is ample--the latter, in my opinion, for choice. Messrs. Hardy, of Alnwick and London, have devoted so much labour and attention to built-up rods as to deserve a somewhat pre-eminent position amongst the many successful firms that make them. This firm produces many forms of rods suitable for dry fly work. Their "Perfection" rod is a very sweet weapon for the purpose, quick in its action, true as steel, has great power of recovery, and is light in the hand; but for choice I would pin my faith to one of their 10 ft. 6 in. "Pope" rods in two pieces. Such a one has been my constant companion for some seasons, and, though other makers may be able to turn out as good a rod, I feel convinced that none could turn out a better. The old attachments of the ferrules of former days have also gone by the board, and a bayonet joint has superseded them, to our great advantage. The upper ring on the point should be of the Bickerdyke pattern, the other rod rings of the ordinary snake pattern and made of German silver. The reel fittings should be of the "Universal" type, a conical socket taking one end of the reel base, the other end being secured by a loose ring. Personally, I do not care for a spear; I find them awkward at times, their only advantage being that your rod may be spiked when putting on a fly or when hand-lining a "weeded" fish. If one is desired, it should be carried inside the handle of the butt, the button screwing over it and holding it in its place. I would not advocate a steel-centred rod, at any rate for a single-handed trout rod. The absolute union of metal and cane can never be secured, nor can the action of the two be precisely identical. Besides, how are you advantaged? The hexagonal form of the built-up rod is ideal for strength, and a rod without a steel centre can be made with perfect action, able to do all that may be required of it. Reels also have undergone great improvements of late years. They are lighter, more easily cleaned, the check action is better regulated; a double check spring that allows the line to be reeled up quickly and easily, and at the same time offers a stronger resistance to an outward pull, is now almost universally employed. Aluminium, thin-brazed steel, have replaced brass and even ebonite. The air is admitted to the coils of line, and reeling up is rendered more rapid and effective. The "Moscrop" reel is excellent in many ways, and fulfils many of the chief requirements of modern reels, it has, moreover, a screw drag, which can be used to regulate the retarding action of the check. Messrs. Hardy produce an altogether admirable reel, which they have patented and call the "Perfect." Such a reel for an ordinary cane-built rod of the length we have chosen should be three inches in diameter, and will carry forty yards of tapered line, with some backing, if thought necessary or desirable. Avoid for choice patent aluminium American reels. I have one by me whilst writing. The check action is outside, and can be taken off at pleasure and the line allowed to run freely without hindrance. The perforated face of the drum which carries the handle is counter-balanced, so that it may be used as a Nottingham reel. But the main advantage claimed is that the rim, within which the drum revolves freely, is springy, and by pressing the thumb upon it the drum is at once arrested and its revolution stopped. Of course, by this means your line can be absolutely stopped at any moment should a fish make a determined rush into any obstacle, but at the expense of your fly and cast. I am told that experts with this reel cast with a free line, arresting the fly at the precise moment required by the thumb pressure, and thereby assisting themselves in judging the length of the cast, and that the check is never clicked into action until the fish is hooked. I have often tried it, and found that the inadvertent pressure of the thumb or wrist upon the rim has cost me several good fish. In fixing your reel, I would counsel its being so placed that the handle is on the left side of the rod. In playing the fish it will be necessary, therefore, to reverse your rod; the line will then run near the rod and avoid the friction against the rings, and the strain will be taken off your rod, or, rather, applied in a contrary direction to that which it so constantly receives when casting. The line should be tapered, and should be of oil-dressed silk, such as is now supplied by all good tackle makers. The taper should be five or six yards in length, and when in use, in order to obviate the constant shortening process it receives from attaching it to your cast, I invariably whip a length of stoutish grilse gut to its end, to which I attach my cast. This upper length can always be renewed at pleasure. This plan I find better than a loop. The weight of the line is a most important point; it should be as heavy in its centre part beyond the taper as will bring out the best casting powers of your rod. The balance of the line to the rod is all important; a little trouble in selecting a suitable line will be amply repaid. Do not forget, after using it, to draw off many coils of line to dry before finally putting your reel away, and, as it is important that your line should float well, do not forget to take some deer's fat with you with which to anoint it. We next come to the cast. Two and a half yards of tapered gut are all that is necessary, tapered from stout to the finest undrawn procurable. I would discard drawn gut altogether, possibly because I am too clumsy to use it to my satisfaction. It is generally, however, easy to procure real undrawn gut of sufficient fineness from such firms as Ramsbottom, and a hank of such gut, in fifteen or sixteen-inch strands, should always be acquired when found. If kept out of the light, wrapped preferably in chamois leather, it will keep a long time. Take with you some dozen or so of such strands and a spare made-up cast in your damping box, and you will have all you will require in a day's fishing. Your landing-net should be ample in circumference. The net itself deep and commodious; the ring should be solid, of bent wood, with a knuckle joint of gunmetal to attach it to the handle. The net should be of dressed cord, so that the fly will not become fixed in the knots. It is a great mistake to have too short a handle; you may have to reach far over sedges to get at your fish to land him. If you sling your landing-net on your left side, as is usually done, a long handle is very inconvenient in kneeling; therefore, use a telescope handle for choice. Wading trousers or stockings and brogues will complete your equipment, though, of course, some kind of basket or bag will be needed to enable you to carry your luncheon, your tackle, and your fish. All tackle makers will supply you with an ample assortment for choice in this matter. Possibly a waterproof bag with partitions and an outside net to place the fish in is the most convenient. Small linen bags in which to place the fish or linen cloths in which to wrap them are not out of place. One further article I should advise you to take with you, and that is a good pair of field glasses. They will multiply the pleasure of your stalk tenfold. With them you can search the water before you can spot effectively the most desirable fish, and ascertain more exactly what flies the fish are taking; whilst, if nothing is doing and the fish are lying like stones on the river bed or huddled away in the recesses of the weeds, you can amuse yourself with watching bird life and while away the time to your infinite pleasure. Having fully equipped ourselves so far, we have now to consider our flies. I take it that no one who fishes with the floating fly nowadays clings to the use of flies mounted upon gut. Eyed flies have no doubt replaced them for all time. The very drying of your fly is too severe upon the heads of gut-mounted flies. Eyed hooks have, however, had to fight their way to the front, so prejudiced are we all, and I can picture to myself now a prominent legislator, a great angler and the author of one of the best sporting books published of late, standing by me on Test side, on a meadow near Longparish, his cap literally covered with artificial flies attached to strands of gut--a most extraordinary sight. The fish were most unkind, taking greedily some kind of small black insect, or fisherman's curse. We had offered them every kind of midge fly or black gnat we could think of, with scant success. Our friend, in gazing for the twentieth time at his fly-bedecked cap, saw a group of black ants, on gut, amongst others. The first one put on not only procured a rise, but hooked the fish; one run, and he was gone, the fly remaining in his mouth. So with the next. In vain we soaked the gut; each fly met with the same result--it was at once taken and the fish was at once lost. The gut was absolutely rotten, and that pattern of ant was apparently the only medicine. Our friend fairly danced upon the bank in rage and disappointment. And it was all he could do to restrain himself from dancing on his rod and from using very unparliamentary language. I believe that even he is a convert to eyed flies now. Whether the flies should have turned up or turned down eyes is a matter of controversy. Personally, I prefer the latter. In any case, the eye should not be too small, or much mental anguish will result. It is needless to say that they should be well tempered and with sound barbs. They should be tested in a piece of soft wood. Have a reserve box of flies, made in compartments, so that you can replenish from time to time the little box you carry with you. This pocket box may be quite small. I like one three inches square and one inch deep, with rounded corners, and with bars of cork across it inside. It will carry all you need. My pliers I always attach to one of the buttons of my coat, as otherwise I am always misplacing them. Nothing beats Major Turle's Knot as an attachment of the gut collar to the fly. If you should be fishing the evening rise at a time when it is difficult to thread the eye of a fly, even with the expenditure of many matches, do not forget before you go out to mount some sedges or large red quills upon fairly stout gut points and put them in your cap. They will come in most usefully, and save a strain upon your temper. The use of deodorised mineral oil for anointing your flies has been greatly decried of late. I can only say that it is a great assistance, especially on a pouring wet day, and I should be sorry to be without it. I do not like, however, the inconvenient bottle generally carried for this purpose. I use a common metal matchbox, in which I have placed a piece of spungeo-piline, on which I have poured a few drops of the oil. The hackles of the fly can be pressed against this, and so anointed with the greatest ease. Fish do not appear to mind the appearance of the oil that, of course, appears to float round your fly; and, as they do not mind and it enables you better to keep your fly floating and cocked under adverse conditions, why not use it? As to the flies to be used, as I have said in another chapter, the fewer the better. [Illustration] CHAPTER III. SOME DRY FLY MAXIMS. IT would ill become a humble follower of the art to enter into a minute description of the various methods of casting, seeing that the subject has been so fully thrashed out by Mr. Halford, in his "Dry Fly Fishing"; mere repetition would be both wearisome and valueless. If anyone needs instruction on the subject, let him turn to that volume, and read, mark, and learn. It seems to me, however, that a correct style can best be obtained by accompanying and watching a really competent fisherman. No amount of book reading will secure this, and as in all kindred sports, practice, and intelligent practice, is absolutely necessary if the tyro would aspire to any excellence. The art of fishing the floating fly is not one that will admit of any mediocrity. It requires and demands such accuracy, such co-ordination of delicacy and strength, that mediocrity is impossible. A few points may, however, be discussed with advantage. First, and foremost, do not be ambitious as to the length of line you can cast, or the amount of water you can cover. Be content, rather, to fish with just that length of line that you can control with ease and accuracy. In the actual act of casting never sway the body; keep the trunk rigidly still, never let your hand, in the backward cast, go beyond a vertical point above your shoulder; keeping the elbow near the side, get all the work you can out of the rod; it will do all that is required of it so long as you do not over-cast with it. Watch the expert angler; how easily he works his twenty yards of line; there is an entire absence of all effort; it looks as easy as shelling peas. The beginner or duffer will invariably put too much effort into his cast; he will not allow time for the line to extend itself behind him; he will bring his hand so far back that the fly will be hung up in the grasses or bushes behind him, and the force of his forward cast will make the line cut the water like a knife, and the fly will be delivered in the midst of a series of curls of gut, presenting anything but an attractive appearance to the fish. The movement of the hand in an accomplished fisherman is singularly slight; I doubt if it ever traverses much more than twelve inches from the vertical position. Rest content with the ordinary overhead cast until you are an absolute master of it. When this desirable result is accomplished, there are one or two casts well deserving of care and attention. One in particular you should seek to accomplish--viz., the cast into the teeth of an adverse wind. Recollect that, under those circumstances, you can usually approach much nearer to fish than when the wind is up stream or non-existent; therefore you can use a shorter line. The cast is called the "downward" cast, and is really very simple. The backward part is the same as in ordinary casting, but in the forward delivery the hand traverses a much greater angle, and at the finish the rod point is near to the water. At the moment of delivery the elbow is brought up level with the shoulder, the thumb is depressed, the knuckles being kept uppermost. The resultant effect is that the line cuts straight into the wind, and is little affected by it. In a foul wind flies cock and float more easily than in a down stream wind; so this, at any rate, is in your favour. Yet one more style of casting should be practised. I have found it invaluable when awkward trees have been overhanging my own bank. It is what is called by salmon anglers the "Spey Cast." Inasmuch as it avoids the necessity of bringing your line behind you, its value is self-evident. This is the method of the cast: Having got out as much line as you think you will need, get it out up stream of you, bring the fly quickly towards you out of the water, allow the fly just to kiss the water when it is just level with you, the curve of the line being down stream of you, then, with a similar kind of action to that advocated for the downward cast, your line will be sent forward in a series of coils to the desired spot. It is always worth trying and may secure you a good fish, one perhaps that others have passed by as unapproachable, and which may thereby have acquired a confidence that may be misplaced. This form of casting is much easier in salmon fishing, as you are then fishing down stream, and the water extends and straightens your line for you. It is, however, quite easy of accomplishment, with a moderately short line, in up stream fishing. Mr. Halford, in "Dry Fly Angling," p. 62, describes a cast which he terms the "Switch Cast," and it is one which, though difficult of acquisition, will accomplish the same object. He says, "It is accomplished by drawing the line towards you on the water, and throwing the fly with a kind of roll outwards on the water--in fact, a sort of downward cast; the possibility of making the cast depending upon the fly being in the water at the moment the rod point is brought down," &c. Personally, I should prefer the Spey cast, and inasmuch as most salmon fishermen know something of that peculiar cast, I would urge its occasional use in dry fly work, more especially having regard to the fact that fish in such positions have acquired a confidence through never having been angled for, and therefore there is greater chance of a somewhat bungling presentment of the dry fly being overlooked. To describe the Spey cast accurately so as to convey the desired instruction in such a way that all who run may read, is not by any means easy; but, as I have before said, it is probably familiar to many anglers from salmon fishing experiences. One more thing deserves to be borne in mind: always imagine that the plane of the water is some foot or so higher than it really is--that is to say, cast as if the fish, and the water in which it lies, were a foot higher than in reality. The result will be that your collar will fall as lightly as gossamer. One of the most proficient manipulators of the rod and line I have ever seen can pitch a fly, cocked and floating, almost anywhere within reasonable limits, but his line invariably cuts the water from point to fly, straight and accurate enough may be, but like whip-cord. Consequently, he is not the successful angler that his qualifications entitle him to be. An ordinary fisherman casting a less straight, but lighter, line will frequently beat him in catching fish. Our friend would beat most opponents in a casting tournament, but I would back many that I know against him in filling a creel. Keep down out of sight, walk and crawl warily, and above all things avoid walking near the bank edge and unnecessarily scaring fish that others following you might otherwise have secured. When trout are "bulging" (that is to say, as every angler knows, when they are taking the "nymphæ" just below the surface), it is almost hopeless to endeavour to secure them with a dry, floating fly. The fish are intent on another kind of game, and are best left severely alone. Unfortunately, even experienced anglers are apt to be deceived by such a fish; the rise is often apparently that of a trout at a surface fly; a little careful observation will, however, convince you that such is not the case, for no floating flies are passing near him at the time of his rise. Don't waste another moment upon him, but try to find another in a more reasonable frame of mind. If all the fish on your stretch of water seem to be similarly occupied, and you are not willing to wait until they have decided to make a change of diet, then a gold ribbed hare's ear may, if fished wet, entice an odd fish, as it somewhat resembles a nympha. It is, however, very chance work, as is that of endeavouring to secure a "tailing" fish with a down stream fly sunk below the surface, and jerked about in front of where his nose should be. No keen angler would call this serious fishing--it is a mere travesty of the real sport; but it may serve to pass the time, and perchance to wile a trout into your basket. The angler's patience will, however, be far more severely tried when fish are "smutting." What prophet is there who can tell us what we should do then? Those abominable "curses," so well named, appear to be able to baffle entirely the skill of the ablest of our entomologists, and the ability of our most capable of fly dressers. No lure has yet been discovered that can have any reasonable hope of imitating them. To watch a big trout slowly and majestically sail here and there on a still, hot day, barely dimpling the surface as he sucks down one after another of these little insignificant "curses," is quite enough to satisfy you as to the remoteness of your chance of deceiving him. Nothing that human hands could tie could simulate them. Place in the track of one of these fish the smallest gnat in your box, attached to the finest of undrawn gut, delivered with the lightest and truest cast of which the human hand is capable and, as you watch the fish fade slowly down into the depths in disgust at the evident deception, you will realise the hopelessness of your endeavour. It is an old accusation against fishermen that they are apt to overload themselves with multitudinous flies, of which perhaps they never try half; and in this accusation there is a good deal of truth. I recollect one occasion in particular, when five men sallied forth to fish, and on their return all more or less bewailed the shyness of the trout, and each declared that, though he had tried many changes of fly, he had only found one to succeed. Oddly enough, each man had pitched on a different fly: they were the Driffield dun, the pale olive, the hare's ear and yellow, the ginger quill, and the red quill. In each case the size was similar, viz., 000; but the fact is, that most men have a favourite fly to which they pin their faith, and to which they give ten chances for one to the others. There are occasions, of course, where one fly and only one will succeed. I well remember one day, on the Tichbourne water on the Itchen, when that fine stretch of water was simply alive with olives, coming in droves and batches over the fish, and when it seemed hopeless for one's poor imitation to succeed, even when put correctly cocked in front of a batch, or behind a drove, or by itself. The trout were rising slowly and methodically, letting many flies pass scatheless, but now and then picking out one without moving an inch from their position. I tried vainly to discover the method of their madness, and at last realised that they were selecting from amongst the myriads of toothsome _ephemeridæ_ floating over their heads a redder-looking fly. I could not wade, I could not manage to get one with my landing net, so I put on at hazard a small red quill, with no response; then a Hawker's yellow got a rise or two, and even deluded a brace of fish into my creel, and then the glorious rise was over. Next morning, when whirling back to town, I found myself in a carriage with four or five anglers who had been fishing the next beat, and the murder was out. One fortunate man had ascertained that they were taking the ginger quills, which were very sparsely scattered amongst the olives, and that information resulted in his taking nine brace of beautiful fish. But as a rule, it is far more a question of the correct delivery of the fly than anything else, provided the size be right. For myself, I never leave a rising fish that I have not scared, unless I am convinced there is some objectionable and unavoidable drag; sooner or later you will get him, possibly with the same fly that has been over his head a dozen or so of times. We are all too ready to resort to a change of fly, and to leave a non-responsive fish in disgust, in the hope of finding an easier quarry. My advice is to stick to your fish unless, or until, he is scared. Possibly the most annoying fish is the one that drops slowly down, with his nose in close proximity to the fly, evidently uncertain as to whether or no it is the Simon Pure, until he gets perilously near to you. Even his scruples may be overcome if he gets back into position without being alarmed. One of the most successful anglers I ever knew on the upper Test, who owned a well-known stretch of water, was wont to sally forth with two rods put up, one of which he carried, while the other was carried by his keeper. On one was mounted a hare's ear, on the other a blue dun; and that these flies answered their purpose his records could testify. A difficulty that presents itself to the chalk stream angler is the tendency of fish when hooked and when scared by seeing the angler to bury themselves in the heavy masses of weed. This has now been discounted by the modern method of hand lining--_i.e._, spiking the rod and taking a good deal of slack line off the reel, and then holding the line in the hand and using a gentle pressure on the fish in the direction contrary to that in which he went. He usually responds very readily, and the rod may then be resumed. Indeed, it is astonishing how fish can be led and coaxed under this influence--the fact being that, the upward play of the rod always tending to lift the fish out of his own element and so drown him, he naturally plays hard to avoid this; take the upward strain off him and he becomes another creature. Yet another difficulty encountered by the dry fly fisherman is caused by fish coming short. What angler is there who has not experienced this annoyance, and how often, as Mr. Halford in his work on Dry Fly Fishing has noticed, does the angler find that after the first rush is over and the hook comes away there is a small scale firmly fixed on the barb, showing that the fish has been foul-hooked? My observations on this class of rise would lead me to believe that the fish moved to the fly in the ordinary manner, but that something arose to excite his mistrust, and that he closed his mouth while the impetus of his rise broke the water, making the angler think that it was a real rise, so that he struck, and on his striking the hook took a light hold on the outside--a hold seldom effective, though most fishermen have landed fish hooked in such a way. I have generally found in such cases that a smaller hook has produced a more confident rise, and my experience would not lead me to endorse Mr. Halford's view that the use of a 000 hook handicaps the angler very heavily. It may do so with the heavy Houghton water fish, but I have not found it a severe handicap with the smaller trout--1 lb. to 2½ lb.--of the upper Test and similar waters. A very keen and expert dry fly fisherman, the late Mr. Harry Maxwell, one of the best of friends and anglers, once showed me a method of taking fish lying with their tails against a wire fencing that crossed the Test at right-angles, the wire moreover being barbed. I was fishing in Hurstbourne Park, and he was accompanying me, as he often did, with his field-glass. Below the "cascade" a four or five-stranded barbed wire fence went straight across the water. Just above it, in mid-stream, in the stickle, a plump, transparent-looking Test fish of about 1½ lb. had taken up his position, and was boldly taking every dun within reach. My friend told me to catch him, and I said at once I did not know how to do it without getting hung up. He then explained his dodge, which may be carried out as follows:--Having waded in below the fish, take some loose coils of line off the reel in the left hand, then cast well above, and let the dry well-cocked fly float down to him. If he accepts it and comes down under the fence slack off the loose coils, get up to the fence as quickly as possible, pass the rod under and over, and then you are free to play the trout below you. If, on the other hand, he refuses the fly, do not attempt to recover the line in the usual manner or you will inevitably be hung up. Simply lower your rod point to the water, and then the quiet drag of the stream will bring your cast and fly slowly up and over the fence, even although the fly had floated a foot or two down-stream and under the wire. The action is so slow and even that there is no chance of being entangled in the wires, and as a fish in such a position thinks he is in possession of a vantage-point, and is seldom fished for, he is generally a bold feeder. Having explained the method, my friend made me try the cast myself, and the first fly floating near enough to tempt the fish was taken boldly; the whole manoeuvre succeeded, and I was able to land my trout below me. Since then I have frequently made use of my experience, and with invariable success. If any anglers who are not aware of this method care to try the experiment they will see how sweetly the line travels over the fence without the slightest risk of entanglement. There is but little doubt that the fly that is kept going catches most fish. On a seemingly hopeless day an odd fish here and there can be picked up if really sought for; and on these days the rise, if any, is so inconstant and so short-lived that it may easily be missed. On such a day, on the wide shallows of the Longparish water of the Test, three of us were struggling with the adverse conditions of a lowish river, a bright sun, and a great lack of duns. We had agreed to meet at luncheon at about 1 p.m. in the hut on the river's bank. I had found a seat upon the upturned stump of a tree in mid-stream. There were fish all round me in the shallows, but all on the bottom, apparently asleep. I knew that if I left my place and waded ashore I should move them all. I was enjoying my pipe, and so sat on. The whistles and calls from the hut passed unheeded, for I had noticed that my friends the trout showed more signs of animation. An olive or two came down, and gradually the fish seemed to rise from the bottom and take up their positions. More calls from the shore. I shouted back to them not to wait, and at length they gave me up as a bad job. Soon a fish on my left front took an obvious olive, a pale one, and I had a pale olive on my cast. Still I waited, and soon the first few olives were followed by quite a little procession. I then cast over my fish, and at the first offer he took it. I got him down below me, and soon netted him out, wading up again most carefully and slowly to my seat; and from that position, in about twenty minutes, got seven fish in succession, all taken with the same fly and from the same spot. They were none of them very big, it is true, but they were all over a pound in weight. By this time my friends had finished their luncheon, and came out of the hut just as I was netting my seventh fish. Hastily getting their rods, they were just in time to get a fish apiece from the bankside, and the rise was over. Moreover, it was the only rise vouchsafed to us that morning or afternoon. So that the moral is that you can never tell when the psychological moment may arrive, and may easily miss it when it does come if you are lying on your back reading a novel, or with your eyes anywhere but on the water. One must lunch, no doubt, but it can generally be best enjoyed in the outer air, where you can watch the water and the fish whilst enjoying your luncheon and your rest. And on such inauspicious days do not relax your precautions in approaching the water, or from nonchalance or weariness allow yourself to cast carelessly. Your field glasses will often reveal to you a more likely fish--at the tail of the weed, maybe, or under the thorn bush on the opposite bank--and it may be worth while to float a fly over him and give him a trial. If he accepts the offer he is worth to you several got out under more favourable conditions. When fish are really smutting, and the water is almost boiling with rises, the angler's patience is most sorely tried. Nothing seems to tempt them; the smallest gnats ever tied are far too big. Who will tell us what to do in such a case? In truth, I know not. All I can say is that they are in a peculiarly aggravating humour. How vexatious, too, are the tailing fish, boring their heads into the weeds and breaking the water with their broad tails--and their tails always look particularly broad at such times. I have at times caught them with a big alder, fished wet, and jerked past them when they have finished for the moment their diving operations, and their heads are up. It is chance work, and, if not productive of much use of the landing-net, will serve to pass the time and amuse you; for if you don't succeed in hooking many you will certainly get an occasional one to run at your fly, his back fin breaking the water and making as big a wave as if he were twice the size. In the quick water by the hatch holes on such a day you may find a rising fish, though when hooked he will probably prove unsizeable. Never despair or give it up, unless you are one of the fortunate individuals who live by their water side, and who can therefore pick and choose. Where all days are yours it would be folly to persevere on really bad ones; but most of us are not so favourably situated, and we have to make the most of the odd chances we get. Therefore my counsel is to examine and watch the water, and be ever on the alert. Where Sunday fishing is not permitted, the day of rest always seems to be the best angling day of the week, and you are tempted to be annoyed and objurgate Dame Fortune. Even then, if you are a wise man, you can turn such a day to your advantage by stalking up the water as carefully as if you were fishing, and by making mental notes that will very materially assist you on the following day. And if Sunday fishing is allowed, do not give umbrage to many of the parishioners going to church by making a parade of your waders and fishing rod. Either get to your water before church time or else wait till the church bells are over before you walk along the village street. Busy City men get scant leisure for sport, and may fairly be excused for utilising their week-end holiday to the full. Much latitude may be allowed to them in this respect, provided they are careful not to outrage the religious feelings of others. A walk along the river bank, enjoying and drinking in to the full the beauties of Nature and of God's creation, may be as productive of good to yourself as an indifferent sermon. It depends upon your temperament and the power that the beauties of Nature have over your mind. They can preach as eloquent a sermon as was ever delivered from the pulpit, and may produce in you a frame of mind that may be of real and lasting benefit to you. No man should be judged hastily by narrow-minded bigots, or be termed a Sabbath-breaker for so acting. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. EDUCATION OF THE SOUTH-COUNTRY TROUT. SURELY angling with the dry fly can be claimed as the highest branch of the gentle craft? It cannot be doubted that those who have once experienced the fascination of "spotting" and stalking a well-fed and highly-educated south-country trout are bitten for life, and are, especially at first, rendered somewhat unappreciative of the sister art. The best fisherman is he who can best adapt himself to his environment and is ready to adopt the method most likely to be successful on the water he happens to be fishing. But undoubtedly dry-fishing labours under one serious disadvantage that does not affect the wet-fly fisherman, namely, the much dreaded drag, so sadly familiar to those who fish the rise with the floating fly. Who is there, however, who has not experienced legitimate pride and pleasure when, by change of position or by deft casting, its baleful effects have been overcome and discounted? It is not given to everyone to command the sleight of hand of a master and to be able at will to pitch a fly, cocked and floating exactly right, whilst a bag of the line has been simultaneously sent up stream, so that for a short few moments whilst passing over the fateful spot the fly may float truly with the stream, out of the influence of the more rapid water between the fish and the fisherman. In streams where wading is allowed the fisherman has undoubtedly an advantage, as he can get more directly behind the fish, and so avoid the heavy current. But wading is not always feasible in waters such as those of the lower Test, where the depth of the stream precludes it. Even then, skill and local knowledge will often overcome the difficulty, and a fish in such a position usually falls a ready victim to the fly that floats truly, as he has been lulled into a sense of false security by his previous experience that dangerous flies leave a trailing mark behind them. But what a revelation it is of the education that trout have received, and how capable they are of absorbing and profiting by it! It seems almost as if the constant catching and destruction of the freest rising fish must be having effect in leaving those only to propagate their species which are either past masters in cunning or which are more coarsely organised fish, that devote their time and energies to bottom feeding and avoid surface feeding, except, possibly, at night; the universally acknowledged fact that fish are far more difficult to catch than they formerly were may thus be explained. Certainly, nowadays, an angler would be somewhat out of it who tried to emulate the far-famed Colonel Hawker, of Long Parish, and to catch the wily trout in that beautiful stretch of the Test while fishing off a horse's back. Nor could any modern angler hope or expect to approach the baskets that were formerly creeled. So is it everywhere. On the beautiful Driffield Beck, in Yorkshire, a paradise for the dry-fly angler, the club limit of ten brace of sizeable fish in one day used to be constantly attained, and that, too, with the wet fly up or even down stream. Now, with split cane rods, the finest gut, and the deftest of floating duns, five or six brace is about the best basket obtainable by experienced and most skilful anglers. [Illustration: BRINGING HIM DOWN TO THE NET.] The natural question that perplexes and worries chalk-stream anglers is whether this "advanced" education of brook and river trout is to go on increasing. If we can only hope to catch half the amount of fish our progenitors did, what are the prospects of the next generation? Shall we have to fall back on black bass or rainbow trout to secure a race of free-rising fish? Or does the fault lie in over-cutting of weeds and bad river farming? I am inclined to think it does. Riverside mills are in an almost hopeless position commercially. The miller requires a heavier head of water than formerly, and with a decaying industry it is hard to refuse him, the result being that to maintain his head of water the weeds are ruthlessly and unscientifically cut over vast stretches of water, shallows are bared, and the holts or refuges of trout are done away with, and as a natural consequence trout become less confiding and far more easily alarmed. Modern agricultural drainage has, moreover, increased the difficulty by carrying off the water too rapidly. It behoves votaries of the gentle art to consider most carefully whether anything can be done to remedy the seriousness of the future outlook, and to disseminate the results of their inquiry; and if the Fly Fishers' Club, or some well-known leaders of repute, would take the matter up and tackle it seriously they would earn the blessings of the angling world. It is considered to be undoubtedly a disadvantage in a club water to include one or two pre-eminently brilliant anglers, as it seems to breed a fear of their always being able to catch the easy fish, so that the more difficult ones only are left for the ordinary angler to attack. Not long ago I was invited to fish a certain well-known beat on the Itchen, but my host, in inviting me, said, "I don't know if it is much use, for So-and-So fishes our water, and has caught all the easy fish." This may be true in a sense, but favourite positions are always re-taken by other fish if the former occupant is killed. Just as a house in Grosvenor Square, or some well-known centre of fashion, will always secure a tenant, so a position where the trend of the current brings the flies quietly and steadily over a fish will never remain unoccupied. It is not so much the fish that is easy as his position, and therefore the ordinary duffer need never despond. One thing is certain--that the brilliant angler will never scare fish unnecessarily, and I would rather fish behind such an one than a so-called angler who, having successfully put his fish down by bad angling, proceeds to stand upright and possibly walk along the bankside close to the water's edge, scaring many a fish on his way up, utterly regardless of his brother anglers. Indeed, in this respect I think the etiquette of angling is hardly sufficiently considered in these modern days. Who is there that has not met, on club waters, the ardent and unsuccessful angler who wanders up and down, covering vast stretches of water, and effectually scaring many otherwise takeable fish, in the vain hope that he may find some purblind trout idiotic enough to take his proffered fly? I consider that unwritten etiquette demands that the utmost care should be taken by fishermen to do all in their power to prevent spoiling the sport of those who may be following. I can well recollect a day when the wind was foul, and there was one stretch of water sheltered on the windward side by a thick belt of trees, and in this stretch were located many heavy fish. Working up to that water, I found an ardent ignoramus doing "sentry-go" up and down the stream, walking on the very edge of the water. I presume he thought that if he only persevered he would eventually find the "fool of the family," but the result--the inevitable result--was that the fish were scared throughout that whole length for the rest of that day, as that stretch was bare and sadly lacking in shelter. In considering the merits and demerits of dry-fly fishing, one cannot be altogether blind to the fact that down-stream fishing must inevitably prick and therefore educate many more fish than the floating fly. This being so, it is still more inexplicable that in former days, in chalk-stream waters, our forerunners were able to account for far heavier baskets of trout than we are, despite the heavy restocking our streams now receive, to their great advantage; and we necessarily come back to the old point, what can we do to secure an adequacy of free-rising fish? Is our system of fishing the rise wrong? Or does the mischief lie more in our river, water, and weed management? And can we so improve these as to obtain the desired results? Angling is now so much sought after, chalk-stream and other similar waters command such high rents, that surely it is worth the while of those interested in the sport to initiate and carry through some exhaustive inquiry into the subject. CHAPTER V. THE MAY FLY. THE May fly is up! Every year, about the first week in June, telegrams to this effect are hurriedly despatched to those favoured few who own or rent water where this member of the _ephemeridæ_ disports himself. It used to be called the May fly Carnival. There are, however, grave disadvantages in connection with our friend that greatly discount the apparent advantages. Fish gorged with this luscious food are wont to try a course of semi-starvation after their over-indulgence, and for a long time will not look at smaller and more wholesome diet. Then, to my thinking, a May fly is a horrible thing to cast with. It is not at all like casting with the more delicate duns or quill gnats. There is a clumsy feeling about it; it is exceedingly difficult to dry, and if you catch a fish a change of fly is at once necessary, the old chawed-up imitation being rendered useless. It is also not easy to get exactly the right pattern to suit, though for choice the small dark-winged May fly has given me the best results. It is, unless you live near your water, very difficult to hit off the precise day--you are always too early or too late; you are told "You should have been there yesterday; there was a grand rise of fly, and the fish were simply mad after them, and no one was on the water"--and so on. Cheery news, no doubt, when you find the fish all lying near the bottom. When they really are on, there is excitement enough; mad splashes all round you, frequently made by the smaller fish. Your proffered imitation may produce a rise or two, but somehow or other the fish don't take hold as you think they ought. You are inclined to lose your calmness of mental balance, to cast without sufficient care and with a half-dried fly. In desperation you put on a fair-sized red quill, fish more carefully, and probably get better results. The main charm, however, lies in the fact that the advent of _Ephemera Danica_ does bring up the big fish of the water in a way that no other fly food does or can. Hence its popularity, and in waters where the May fly is hatched in quantity, and there are heavy, big fish that as a rule find cannibalism pay better than duns, then the May fly has a real value. In other waters, however, were these big monsters taken out in order to secure a larger numerical stock of comparatively small but sizeable fish, I would have none of it; I would prefer to extend my angling season rather than take a large bulk of it condensed into one week of questionable pleasure. Certainly, the May fly season comes at about the best time of the year to enjoy angling. A fine week about the commencement of June is most enjoyable on any river. All nature is at its best--leafy June, when sauntering by the riverside, even with scanty sport, is in itself a pleasure not to be despised. Mr. Sidney Buxton, in his admirable "Fishing and Shooting," graphically describes a day in the Carnival time, when he grassed thirty fish from two pounds down, and of another when he creeled forty; but, good sportsman as he is, I rather fancy he would have enjoyed even more a day with half to a third of the basket when each fish had been stalked and picked out with a small fly. Not for a moment would I suggest or imply that equal care is not needed in casting with the May fly if you wish to fill your creel; but, all said and done, a bungling cast will often secure a good fish with that lure which would inevitably have put him down and scared him had he been feeding upon the ordinary flies. It is very noticeable nowadays how capricious the rise is. Indiscriminate weed cutting has almost entirely eradicated the May fly from some waters, and quite entirely on others--a boon to some minds, my own included, but a boon that bears sour fruit in other ways, for irregular and injudicious weed-cutting hits other fly food hard. It is curious, also, that in places where more judicious weed farming has been resorted to of late the May fly has begun to return, patchily and scantily enough, but nevertheless in increasing quantities every year. I would fain leave them to hatch out upon the Kennet and the Colne and similar waters, and leave our bonnie streams alone, but here there is no choice; if they come, they come, and we must make the best of them. A big rise of May fly is indeed a wonderful sight, the drakes flopping into your face, covering everything, seeming almost like a plague of locusts. Fat, luscious insects, enjoying to the full their brief spell of winged life, after having spent months in the larval state. See that one floating down-stream, airing and drying his wings, floating on his nymphal envelope. He is floating dangerously near that trout that has already annexed a goodly number of his fellows. Will he be taken too? No; he flutters off, clumsily enough, making for the shore, only to be swallowed by a hungry chaffinch. So his brief period of air life is over. And what a feast he and his congeners provide for the swallows, the finches, and other birds. Towards sunset, males and females of the green drake tribe float and flutter about in the air, make love and pair, then the female deposits her eggs on the water, and at last both fall on the river with outspread wings, forming what we call the spent gnat. The trout take heavy toll of the nymphæ rising upwards before they reach the water surface, and will not then look at a floating imitation; and when the act of reproduction is completed they feed greedily upon the empty shucks and the spent gnats. Altogether, our friend the May fly seems to spend a hazardous and somewhat inglorious life. Could he but see himself in his larval state, I feel sure he would lose his self-respect. He is then no beauty, and to grovel and lie low in the mud at the bed of the river for, as some say, two years, cannot form a very exciting kind of life; whilst if he escapes in the imago state, countless enemies lie in wait for him, and his very love-making costs him his life. The return of the May fly to a certain well-known chalk stream in Yorkshire seems to be an accomplished fact, though one not altogether to the satisfaction of the members of the club that fish its waters. This stream, known as the Driffield Beck, ranks high amongst kindred waters, the dry fly reigns supreme, the stream is as swift and even, the water as crystal clear, and the trout as fully educated as those of their brothers of the Itchen or Test. In former times the May fly hatched in countless numbers on this stream, and the Carnival used in those days to be reserved strictly for the members of the club; but whether it were attributable to over-cutting of the weeds, or to some other cause, the May fly died away entirely from the stream, and for many a season not a fly was hatched. We members of the club--a very old one, by the way--rather congratulated ourselves on this change, as, instead of gorged fish who would not look at a dun for weeks after the May fly period, we were treated to an even rise at the small fly throughout all the angling months. But two seasons before we had noticed, to our surprise, the advent of a few May flies. I recollect impaling one upon a hook and drifting it down cunningly over a good 2½ lb. fish who had taken up his position under a thorn bush on my side of the river, and the scared bolt he made when it got to him and he had had a good look at it was a thing to remember. And, in fact, the few May flies which that year floated over fish in position made them all bolt as if they had been shot. Then in the next season there was a more considerable hatching of the fly, and in one spot in particular a few fish were taken with the green drake. The third year we arrived at the right time for the hatch, then a very local one on our stream; but in that particular part of the river there was a rise of May fly to satisfy the most gluttonous of those who love that form of angling. But the curious thing was the way in which the fish treated the fly. Every now and again the ½ lb. and ¾ lb. fish would take them boldly, and here and there a fish of that size would settle down to a regular feed, taking all within reach; but the heavier fish seemed to be thoroughly disinclined to take them. The bolder young ones now and again paid the penalty of their temerity, being consigned to the basket if fully 11 inches in length, or returned to the water if, as was too frequently the case, they were not sizeable. I do not pretend to any great experience of May fly fishing, though I have been a devoted dry-fly angler for many years; but I do not remember to have seen fish act so capriciously in my previous experiences. The birds, however--the warblers, chaffinches, &c.--were quite equal to the occasion, and took heavy toll of the _ephemeridæ_. I particularly noticed what I never remember to have seen before, _i.e._, a cock blackbird darting out of the bushes at intervals to secure a fluttering _Ephemera Danica_, and returning to his shelter to pick the luscious morsel to pieces at his leisure. My luck was not considerable; the rise of dun was insignificant, the wind was simply abhorrent, and my baskets, naturally, were not as heavy as I could have wished. The water was in perfect order, the fish abundant, but sport indifferent. One day I went up one of the upper feeding streams, where I had often, poor performer though I may be, secured a really good basket of good fish. After rising and pricking more than a dozen fish, all of which rose short, and turning over and getting a short run out of a three-pounder which had permanently taken up his position above a bridge by a garden-side under some sedges in a difficult position--rendered more difficult by the violence of the wind--I had to content myself with a poor brace of 1¼ pounders, going home feeling regretfully that I had done that day a good deal in the way of educating fish! The last day of my visit (June 10) I had somewhat of a more interesting experience. The wind was still high, though warmer, and, though no rain fell, there was a feeling that rain was not far off. The report that the May fly was up and in quantity had brought out a number of anglers, and when I got to the water-side, armed with a box of May flies given me by a prince among anglers, I found all the 'vantage spots (in the small extent of the water where the fly hatched in any quantity) duly occupied by an ardent angler ready for the fray. So I quietly gave that game up and retired to a small island between two branches of the river near the keeper's cottage. I had but a couple of hundred yards to fish, while the ground where I was standing was sedge covered elbow-high with charmingly and conveniently placed bushes here and there behind me, ready to hitch up any fly that, in the backward cast, should be driven by the wind into their embrace. The only chance was to keep up a kind of steeple cast, as the stream was a fair width across. The charm of the position, however, was that on the other side was a high bank with a plantation on it, which shed a welcome shade over the bank fish on that side. It was very difficult to locate a rise, but the stream was even and there was no drag. Nor was it an easy matter to land a fish, as the fringe of sedges was wide and thick, and the water deep; my landing-net was also over-short--a bad fault--and caused me to lose three good fish, one well over 2 lb. I spent nearly all the day on this place, and managed to hook every fish I saw rise, and that was not a great number, the rise of dun being so small and the wind blowing them off the river almost as soon as they started on their swim down-stream. However, I managed to land five fish, all on a 000 gold-ribbed hare's ear, the best one 1 lb. 9 oz. and the smallest a little over a pound; but as they were all in the pink of condition, and each fish was a problem to get, I enjoyed the day far more than a more prolific one, when the duns might be sailing steadily, the fish all in position, and where catching them would be far more of a certainty, and where even a duffer could not have failed to score. Perhaps I may have been somewhat unfortunate in my May fly experiences, and most anglers would be disinclined to agree with my faint appreciation of this insect and of the sport he assists to produce. Most of my friends speak of this form of angling in a totally different strain, therefore, presumably, I must be wrong in my view. To me, however, the May fly (as a means to an end) is of great value in tempting up the bigger cannibal fish, but as an adjunct to sport, I am inclined to consider him overrated. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. THE EVENING RISE. HAVING recorded my heterodox views about May fly fishing, I fear I shall run counter to the opinions of many if I venture to state my ideas relative to the evening rise. For my part I find it, in the main, vanity and vexation of spirit. Doubtless, in the hot days of July and August, when rivers appear, under sultry conditions, to be almost tenantless, when after, say, 3 p.m., you may watch for all you are worth without seeing a dimple or a rise, it is some consolation to go home for a little rest and an early meal, intending to avail yourself of the evening chances with a possible brace or so of fish to save, maybe, coming in clean. Eyes tired with the glare of the water are grateful for the rest, and with the proverbial hope rising freely in the angler's bosom, you mentally reckon up the big captures you are going to make in the short time afforded by the evening rise. Refreshed in mind and body, you regain your favourite spot at 7 or 7.30 p.m., and the evening seems to promise well. It does not look as if those cruel mists would begin to rise at sundown; there is little or no wind; the hatch of fly throughout the day has been insignificant; surely there must be a good rise this evening, everything seems to foreshadow it. You take up your station and watch the water carefully, especially the one or two spots near the opposite bank that you know full well ought to be occupied by good fish. A few spinners hatch out and dance merrily about; the gnats hover purposely up and down; an odd dun sails down ignored, as far as the fish are concerned, and at length, freeing himself from the water, gains the bank side. Surely that was a rising fish by the bank of rushes yonder? But the shadow of the rushes thrown by the lowered sun prevents you from locating him exactly. It was a floppy rise, probably caused by some small fish. Something must be done, for the time is short; so, letting out your line to the required length, you despatch your olive to sail down the bank of rushes. No response. Another trial provokes a rise, and you are fast in the fish; but, as anticipated, he proves to be a half-pounder, and, handling him gently, after having removed the fly, which was provokingly well fixed in his tongue, you carefully hold him in the water until he has regained his wind and recovered from his exhaustion. Whilst so engaged you hear a heavy splash to your right. Hastily glancing up, you cannot locate that rise either, but it is something that they are beginning. No sedges have appeared, so you retain your olive. A good quiet mid-stream boil above you attracts your attention. That fellow means business, anyhow. Your olive, however, though deftly offered, sails over his position unnoticed and despised. You change to a bigger fly, a 00 red quill; the light is still good. He refuses that equally, and whilst you are doubting whether to change or no, up he comes again. What is he taking? Some small fly, no doubt, but none that you can see. Try him with a hare's ear. You change, and whilst you are tying on the fly you hear a succession of floppy rises below you. You somewhat undecidedly give the trout one more chance, but half-heartedly, as you want to get down to those other fish--result, a bad cast, effectually putting down our friend. [Illustration: THE SEDGE HOUR.] The light is beginning to go, so you re-change to your bigger red quill and try your luck with those below you. Fly after fly, carefully placed, cocked and floating, produces but little result, one pounder succumbing. You see he is not a big one, and give him scant grace, meaning to get him into the net as soon as possible, and so bring him in half done. The net somewhat too hurriedly shown him produces an effort on his part, and he has weeded you. You spike your rod and try hand-lining; he does not seem to yield, and you are impatient, and resume your rod. Something must go; you have no time to lose. Suddenly with a wriggle he extricates himself from the weed, to your infinite astonishment, and he is then soon brought to book. But many precious minutes have been wasted; the fly has got itself fixed in one of the knots in your landing net. Never mind, break it off; you must get to sterner business. So you take some few more minutes in threading the eye of a small, dark sedge fly, as the fish by now must be at work upon the larger flies. Flop! flop! on the opposite side, under the shadow of the reeds. See that your fly is dry and cocks well; keep out of sight--an absolute essential in evening fishing--and go for that uppermost fish. That was a good rise; was it at your fly? It is hard to see by the waning light. Evidently not. Try him again. This time he rises well, and you are fast in him; but you struck too heavily; he was a good fish, and you have left your fly in him, bad luck to it! This time you have to make use of a match to enable you to thread the eye, but after some fumbling struggles you at last succeed. One more try. Pity you had not put on a somewhat stouter cast, but it is too late now. You must be a bit more gentle with them; a slight turn of the wrist is all you want. There is a good rise, just beyond mid-stream, and a good cast just four inches above the rise. You can see your fly, and also the neb of a good trout as he breaks the water to suck him in. Now gently does it! He is hooked, and goes careering up stream to the tune of the song of the reel. Steady him now; don't let him get into the rushes. The light is fast going, and you are inclined to hurry him. Better be cautious; his tail looked broad as he turned over that time; he is fat and in lusty condition, and has no intention of surrendering his life without a good struggle. Don't show him the net; that last run must have settled him; he flops on the surface; he is gently led into the mouth of the net, and is yours. Not so big as you fancied, by any means; might be 1½ lb.; you put him down as well over 2 lb. He is well hooked, and after taking the fly from his mouth you grip him well and give his head a good hard tap against the handle of your landing net; in so doing he slips from your grasp and nearly flops into the river. Hurriedly you put yourself between him and the water and get hold of him, making sure of him this time, and he goes into your bag. Is there still light for one more? Hardly, and it is no pleasure when you cannot see your fly. You take up your rod again, and pass your hand down the line and cast. Where is that fly? Caught up somewhere in your struggles with the trout. It is engagingly fixed in your coat, about the small of your back. So you lay your rod down again, take off your coat, and extricate your fly with your knife at the cost of some of the cloth of your coat. Pack up your things and trudge home somewhat annoyed with yourself and thinking of the opportunities you had lost, and determining next evening to have some points of gut attached to suitable flies in your cap, ready for the fray--no more threading eyes under such adverse conditions for you. Next evening you repair to the place where you know the big trout lie and are sure to rise well. Fully equipped in every detail, and determined not to be induced to hurry, but to take things quietly and composedly, you reach your station. What is that in the meadow over there? A mist, by Jove! And soon the aforesaid mist begins to rise on the water, most effectually stopping all hope of sport; so reluctantly you leave the water side, a sadder and a wiser man, reflecting that the evening rise is by no means the certainty you had fondly hoped. Of course it is not always so. I recollect one evening on the Test, when, after a hot day with scarce a semblance of a feeding fish, except tailers, there was a grand evening rise, and on a big red quill I got seven fish, almost from the same spot, in little over a quarter of an hour; but these days are too infrequent to alter my stated opinion that the evening rise is an overrated pleasure, and generally produces vexation of spirit. If you do fish in the evening hours, recollect that you must be just as cautious in approaching fish as if it were broad daylight; that any sign of drag will as effectually put a fish down as in the earlier hours. Your fly must float and cock as jauntily as in the morning, but you lose the chief charm of fishing the floating fly, namely, that you cannot spot your fish in the water and watch their movements; you have to cast at a rise, or where you imagine a rise to have been. Use a small fly at first and then a little later change to a big red quill, or, if the sedge flies are out, to a small dark sedge. You can afford to have a point of stronger gut, for you will have often to play a fish pretty hard, and they don't appear to be so gut shy as the evening closes in. But as soon as you can no longer see your sedge fly on the water, reel up. Fishing in the dark is no true sport, and it is uncommonly near to poaching. [Illustration] CHAPTER VII. "JACK." THE upper waters of the Bourne and Test flow through Hurstbourne, Lord Portsmouth's beautiful park, and were tenanted until a few years ago by portly trout of aldermanic weight and size. It was found, however, that they proved too costly to be retained, as the toll they took of the smaller fish was prodigious, and out of proportion to their value. They were accordingly captured by degrees, and replaced by a more numerous colony of smaller fish. It used to be a grand sight to watch the big fellows lying in the quick water near the big stone bridge, or chasing the pounders with angry rushes. When I knew the water, some ten or twelve years ago, there were still a few of these goodly-proportioned fish remaining. They were well-known, and each one had his nickname. Thus one was known as "Jack"; he almost invariably lay in a narrow outlet to a culvert that led the surplus water from the pool above under the roadway into the pool below the bridge. For the greater portion of its length the water ran underground, emerging from the culvert some two or three yards from the river. The ground on either side at the end of the culvert was fully three feet above the water, the banks being nearly vertical, while the stream at the culvert's mouth was only about a foot wide. In this narrow gully or channel lay Jack, his nose being only a few inches from the masonry. Any unwary footfall speedily dislodged him from his little bay into the main stream, but by crawling up warily he could be seen and admired. Many had tried to secure him by fair fishing, but though once or twice hooked he had so far got off scot free. Nor was his post an easy one to attack; the water was, of course, gin-clear, very narrow, and also very shallow. The slightest sign of gut--and he was off. On a lovely summer morning--to be accurate, the 26th of June, 1893--my dear old friend Harry Maxwell and I had fished up from the bee-hive, past the cascade, and were nearing the bridge with rather more than average success, and had decided to eat our luncheon on the bankside, under the friendly shade of the bridge. It was, however, barely half-past twelve--too early, we agreed, for lunch--so Maxwell went up a little to fish the shallow above, and I elected to have a try for Jack, as I had reconnoitred and found him to be occupying his accustomed corner. As the river was rather low, and as bright as only a chalk stream can be, I decided to break through my general rule and put on two lengths of the finest drawn gut, feeling that in this instance any natural gut, however fine, would be out of the question. I was careful to draw the gut through a bunch of weed, to diminish the glare; the Whitchurch dun was on the water, and its counterfeit had already secured us some fair fish, but for some reason or other I was impelled to select a small 000 pale watery dun, called the Driffield dun, for my lure. After carefully testing my line and cast I waded out into the heavy stream, opposite to and commanding the outlet of Jack's bay. Knowing that there was little hope of dropping my fly at the desired spot without giving my friend a glimpse of the gut, after a preliminary cast or two, to make sure of my distance, I sent off my fly on its errand, intending to pitch it on the grass just above the culvert. The first cast, fortunately, went right, and by a gentle tap or two on the butt of my rod I dislodged the fly from the grass, and it fluttered down airily in front of Master Jack, the fine gut never having touched the water. No sooner had it done so than Jack had it. Fortunately I did not strike too hard, as one is so liable to do under such circumstances; just the requisite turn of the wrist and the small hook went home. Before I had time to realise fully what had happened the fish had bolted from his holt into the main stream, a bag of unavoidable line behind him as he charged straight towards me. On regaining touch with him I found that the hook had still firm hold, and that Jack was boring up for the bridge in the heavy water. Naturally, I had no idea of allowing him to thread his way up through the arch, as I could ill follow him there, so I had to keep up as steady and strong a strain as I dared. He soon had enough of that fun, and down he came at express speed past me, leaving me to get in my line by hand as best I could. By good luck, I was able to get the slack reeled up whilst Jack was careering about in the broader water below me. Hardly had I done so when, at the end of his run, he gave a grand leap, after the fashion of a sea trout; a dip of rod-point to his majesty saved a catastrophe, and I now began to try to reach terra firma. My friend, however, was not at all disposed to give me much time for such an operation, and just as I was trying to regain the bank--a sufficiently ticklish operation with a wild fish held only by the finest of drawn gut--he made a most determined rush for the big bed of flags below the bridge. Once let him attain that stronghold and I was fairly done; so I had once more to test my gut, and resolutely to determine that he should obey my will. Better be broke at once than lose him in that weed bed. Once more he gave way, and I was able to regain the bank. At that moment Maxwell turned up for luncheon, and the fish, now absolutely beaten, was successfully netted out. I found that in his mad rushes and gyrations he had managed to get two full turns of the gut round his gills. This no doubt accounted for his coming to bank so speedily. He weighed just over 3¼ lb.--no great monster after all, you may ejaculate, but he was about the most perfect specimen of a trout I have ever seen, and was in the pink of condition. He now graces my study in a glass case, the only specimen of a fish that I have ever set up. But there was some justification for this temporary mental aberration, and I often now look at him and recall his sporting end, and the difficult conditions under which I managed to capture him. He carries back my mind to the fond recollections of my old friend, now no more, one of the best and most unselfish of anglers, whose untimely loss has left a blank among his many friends that cannot be filled. [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. WEED CUTTING. ALL dry fly anglers owe a deep grudge to modern sub-soil drainage, which hurries, helter skelter, all the rain that falls into the river, thus doing away with the former gentle soakage into the soil, which served to feed our springs and keep up an even flow and an even head of water. Now we have but alternations of flood and emptiness; the millers, moreover, suffering from these alterations, and sadly lacking water in most seasons, cry out loudly against any obstacle in the river-bed; consequently the river weeds are ruthlessly and unscientifically cut away. The weeds, the natural nurseries of fish food, being thus reduced in quantity, the supply of food is seriously compromised, holts for the fish are destroyed, bare areas of river bed--on which moving one fish means possibly the moving of scores--afford neither refuge nor shelter, and become practically impossible to fish. All fish need shelter in the hot weather from the summer sun, all need refuges to which to resort if scared; take these away and the result must be deplorable. Those amongst us who have had the privilege of fishing in waters where the cutting of the weeds has been scientifically and wisely performed will have realised the difference this point alone can make to a fishery. All the details of weed and water-farming have been so exhaustively treated by Mr. Halford in his various works on "Dry fly fishing," that they need not be described here. No better mentor could be chosen. But some of the chief points that ought to be had in mind may be touched upon. The chief desiderata, where there is an ample supply of weed, are, to put the matter very shortly, to cut in the deeper parts of the river lanes along both banks some ten feet wide, and in the shallower parts to cut bars or lanes across the water at right angles to the banks. At the same time lanes should, also, be cut parallel to the banks, to encourage the bank fish. Where weed is not in abundance recourse must be had to artificial shelters, or hides, under which the fish can obtain the shelter that they require. Stakes driven into the river bed soon attract a clinging mass of floating weed, the only drawback to their being used is that hooked fish may be lost through their bolting for and round them. Piles driven into the shallows afford a welcome rest to fish, and it will be found that a trout will nearly always take up his position behind them. Similarly, big stones placed in the shallows will have a beneficial effect. The constant and irregular cutting of weeds has, moreover, a very trying effect both upon the sport and the temper of an angler. Huge masses of weed floating down, just at the moment when the hatch of fly, so patiently waited for, is in full swing, and the fish in the mood to take them, will sorely tax our powers of self-control. How often has such a state of things extracted from us a "swear word"! These very weeds may, nevertheless, be made to serve a useful purpose. There is a fine fish lying a yard or so from the opposite bank; the stream between us is heavy and quick; over the fish is an oily glide of water, the pace of the stream being checked by friction with the river bank. On this the duns float steadily, led by the stream into its embrace. Our friend the trout knows this full well, and therefore persistently takes up his station at that spot. We have often tried for him, but the pace of the stream between us, stand where we will, has always beaten us: no sooner has our well-cocked fly sailed into the head of the glide than it is hurried across it, leaving a most unnatural trail, or wake, behind it such as no living insect ever made. This trail of the serpent, or "drag" as it is called, is one of the greatest difficulties that we have to cope with in angling with the floating fly. It is, like the poor, always with us. But the very weeds we have been so persistently abusing may be brought into our service to overcome it. Watch a mass of floating weed that is about to be carried over the position of your fish, throw your fly so that the gut lies on the advancing weed; the fly, with some inches of free gut, should rest upon the water in front of the weed; the rest of your cast, being supported by the weed, will be freed from the drag of the stream, and the fly will float proudly over the fish. Unsuspecting he rises, sucks the fly down in absolute confidence, and at last he is yours. Backwaters may be overcome in a similar manner, and to this slight extent the curse of the floating masses of weed may be converted into a real boon. This slight advantage cannot be considered as counterbalancing the drawback of indiscriminate weed cutting, it is merely an attempt to turn to our use an otherwise unmitigated evil. Proprietors of valuable fishing rights are strangely unappreciative of the advantages of scientific weed cutting and weed growing; they seem to be inclined to let matters take their course, and in consequence suffer considerably, and until they realise what this carelessness means to them things will be allowed to go on in the old groove. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. THE ANGLER AND AMBIDEXTERITY. IT has always been an enigma to me why, having been endowed by Providence with two hands, we should knowingly and deliberately minimise the boon. All ranks and conditions of men, be their occupations what they may, are affected. The nerves, sinews, and powers of our left hands are equally as efficient and valuable as those of our right hands; or, more strictly speaking, would be so if we only gave them half a chance. Who has not experienced the difficulty of folding a tie, tying a knot, or even buttoning a collar or a boot, &c., when the right hand has been temporarily incapacitated? And who, except the ambidextrous man, would be bold enough to shave himself entirely with the left hand? Injure a man's right hand, and you render him practically useless. Of all the arts, music alone trains both hands equally; in some trades, such as cotton weaving, spinning, &c., the left hands do their proper share of the work. Consider for a moment the amount of wastage there is in manual work alone through this premeditated reduction of effective power! We seem to be content, apparently, to halve our powers, and this for no useful purpose whatever. The very children, who naturally would be ambidextrous, are chidden and checked by their parents if, following a natural instinct, they take up a pencil or a spoon in their left hands; and so on through their school days, and even after, each and every attempt to make a proper use of their left hand is sternly reproved, until at last the poor unused and untaught left hands and arms become of very secondary importance. Is there any phase of life in which ambidexterity would not be a factor of the greatest value? Would it not be a priceless boon equally to the soldier, the surgeon, the engineer, the craftsman, the clerk, or the artisan? And does not the same apply in the domain of sport? In shooting, would you not be at an advantage if you could shoot equally from either shoulder? The fisherman--how would it favour him? I unhesitatingly answer that it would aid him in every branch of his sport. What angler amongst us could tie a Turle knot, or even thread an eyed fly, left-handed? We should fumble and fume, and probably give it up in despair. To the dry-fly fisherman the advantage that would accrue through equality of arms and hands would simply mean a duplication of effective power. Think of the countless occasions when an overhanging tree or obtrusive bush has rendered a right-hand cast difficult, if not impossible. In one position in particular a left-hand cast is of extreme value. It enables you to command the water under your own bank without having recourse to an awkward and always precarious back-handed cast. You are carefully stalking your way up stream, the wind perhaps blowing towards your own bank, the left bank of the river. About twenty yards above you there is an overhanging tussock of grass with fringing blades hanging over the stream. Near this tussock, or a little above it, you note the dimple of a feeding trout; he is in a position where all the duns are brought quietly sailing past his vantage post. A well-cocked fly must inevitably secure him. You watch the duns one by one taken by him; he is feeding steadily, and seems to be a good fish. To reach him you have to cast with the right hand over the left shoulder. It is ten to one that, if the length of cast is correct, the fly will be guided, partly by the wind and partly by your arm, into the fringing grasses. If it can be snatched off without scaring your trout, well and good; but sooner or later, unless a particularly happy cast overcomes the difficulty, you are bound to be hung up in the aforesaid tussock so firmly as to necessitate a careful crawl to try and disengage your fly. If you can free the fly without scaring the trout, well, you are so far a lucky man. You either then recommence your struggle with adverse circumstances, or more probably give him up as a bad job. Use your left hand and arm, if you can, and the cast becomes a perfectly simple one. Every dry-fly angler, moreover, knows full well how soon constant casting and drying the fly tires and cramps the wrist and arm. What a relief, then, to rest your right hand and give your left a chance. Nature has a wonderful recuperative power, and will reassert herself provided you allow her to do so. The reacquisition of normal left-hand dexterity is by no means difficult; a little assiduous practice, despite the first feeling of awkwardness, will soon encourage you to persevere. Practise on the lawn at a saucer, and in varying conditions of wind, before the season commences; you will not only gain additional interest in your casting, but will have acquired an asset of considerable value. Not long ago, commenting upon what it was pleased to call the "latest craze," viz., ambidexterity, an evening paper made merry over the subject, and declared that there were enough awkward single-handed men in the world without seeking to add an army of still more awkward double-handed men. Such chaff may provoke a passing smile, but no chaff will ever detract one iota from the value of double-handedness, and I most strongly urge all anglers, old or young, to devote some little time and attention to the acquirement of this most useful, though so long neglected, bi-manual dexterity. [Illustration] CHAPTER X. LOCH FISHING. LOCH fishing for trout is carried on for the most part amidst glorious and romantic scenery. There is a sense of repose in the drifting boat and the rhythmical cast. As a means of recreation and enjoyment it has a distinct place in the affections of many of its votaries, and that they are numbered by thousands the records of Loch Leven will amply testify. To the overworked man, to those who are debarred from active pedestrian exercise, this method of angling has a peculiar charm. To the thronging multitudes of big Scottish cities (such as Glasgow, for instance) the frequent competitions upon Loch Lomond or Loch Ard offer a change of scene and environment that is simply invaluable, whilst the ozone imbibed in such surroundings acts as an antidote to the smoke-laden air to which their lungs are ordinarily subjected. [Illustration: A DRY FLY DAY ON LOCH ARD.] But when all is said and done, to the ardent angler it forms but a monotonous kind of enjoyment. There is something so mechanical in the constant casting of your collar of three or four flies on the chance that some fish may take one of them. The row across the loch, the drift over the same ground, repeated constantly are apt to pall. Doubtless skill will assert itself in the long run, and every Scottish or Irish loch has its record breakers, men who can be relied upon to hold their own against all comers; but the novice and the bungler will often succeed where more experienced anglers fail. Perhaps the stream angler is too apt to work his flies to the top of the water, whilst the novice, perforce, lets them sink; and, as a rule, the deeper you sink your flies, within reason, and the less you play them, the better. There is yet one more drawback to loch fishing, and that is, that you are entirely at the mercy of the wind--or, rather, of the want of wind. A still, glassy surface, and your boat fisherman is done. May that not be because he is wedded to his three or four flies fished wet? Let him try a dry fly under such circumstances; not necessarily on the ordinary banks he is wont to fish so sedulously, but rather in the bays and creeks and shallowing water amongst the rushes. On one occasion, about four years ago, I was in Perthshire, on the side of Loch Ard--that sweet loch, more beautiful in some respects than far-famed Loch Katrine. It was in early May. A big competition from busy Glasgow had put fourteen boats upon the loch, and some eight-and-twenty men were ready with double-handed and single-handed rods to measure their skill against each other. It was a lovely day, not a ripple upon the water. Ben Lomond's tops were reflected in the glassy mirror, so that it was hard to tell which was the original and which the mirrored counterfeit. For some hours these boats had, with precise and repeated regularity, drifted across the best ground without the semblance of a rise, only to be rowed round again to follow in the same procession. There is no doubt that their occupants were sternly in earnest, and would leave no chance untried. A faint catspaw of a ripple might secure a rise, or perchance a fish, but catspaws were few and far between. Hour after hour the rods were plied with stolid monotony, responseless and unnoticed. And, as the day wore on to noon, the conditions remained unvaried, and the catspaws even ceased to add a temporary and evanescent interest. About that time--noon--I, having nothing in particular to do, took one of the gillies with me in a boat across the loch. He was astonished to see me take a rod, and no doubt put me down as a mad-brained Sassenach. Nevertheless I took my little cane-built Pope rod and a box of Test flies I happened to have with me, and we pulled up the loch and into one of the bays at the far end. There I bade him rest on his oars, as we were slowly drifting along the scanty rushes that grew out of the bed of the loch. I soon saw a fish or two move--at what I could not make out--so, taking an oar and gently using it as a paddle, I moved along until I could locate an exact rise, and I noticed a small fly near where the rise had been. Using the blade of my oar as a ladle I annexed the insect, and found it to be a small green beetle. In my box I found a small Coch-y-bondhu, which had a red tag and a peacock herl body. My scissors soon removed the red tag, and then I fancied it might do as a coarse representation of the Simon Pure. Having tied it on, I cast it dry at the ring of the next rise. It was instantly taken, and a plump ¾ lb. Loch Leven trout was soon in the net. And so it went on; a cast here or there at the rises amidst the rushes, and in a short hour and a quarter seven good trout had paid the penalty. We then rowed home for luncheon, and, on inquiry, I found afterwards that the united efforts of some twenty-eight men, all as keen as mustard, had produced three fish. Does not this tell a tale of lost opportunities, and of the folly of being wedded to one style of angling? Had there been a good fresh breeze my dry fly would have been nowhere in competition with my eight-and-twenty friends. The best fisherman is the best all-round fisherman, able and willing to adapt himself to the circumstances in which he may be placed. But how little of this dry-fly work is tried upon our numerous lochs?--not a breath of wind, no good to fish! Yet ripples here and there are breaking the surface, showing that the fish are feeding. Many pleasant half-hours have I had on the same loch, after dinner, under the rising moon, at the season when the main object of life is the grouse shooting. On a mid-August evening, after a hot day, the loch looks deliciously cool. Let us try our luck after dinner. We take our rods, and put up for choice a small gold-ribbed hare's ear. Let us get into that bay, in our boat, with our backs to the shelving shore and the moon before us. There is a good rise. Paddle gently, but quickly, near it; judge your distance accurately, keeping your eye on the very centre of the now expanded rings. You pitch it accurately, and it floats like a cork. Don't hurry to take it off--loch fish cruise about--he may see it. I thought so; a good rise and well hooked, and the pound Loch Leven fish merrily runs out your line. Now you've turned him. Don't let him get under the boat. He has run past you into the shadows, as that splash fully indicated. You can't see your line, nor where he is. Never mind, keep his head up, and, above all things, keep him away from the boat until he is done. He fights well, but the contest is a very one-sided one; he cannot beat you as his brother of the river often can, and in due course he is netted. Now dry your fly well; or, better still, put on that other hare's ear you have already mounted upon a point of gut. We have rather disturbed this water; let us move a bit further up the bank. The rises are sadly infrequent, perhaps, but a brace of good fish taken under such circumstances is worth catching, especially as the loch is generally considered to be an early one, and the fishing to end in June for all practical purposes. If only you will try it, this floating fly work will add a very great interest to your enjoyment of your lovely loch. Perhaps I may be treating this subject somewhat too cavalierly, and unduly emphasising my own views and predilections. Certainly I am free to admit that I have enjoyed many pleasant days on our Scottish lochs. One particular day stands out pre-eminently in my recollections. I was staying at a shooting lodge near Pitlochry, and the famous Loch Broom was within the precincts of our moor. To reach it we had a longish walk and stiff climb, as it lies on the far side of a high, saddle-backed line of hills. There were three boats on the loch, and one of them belonged to my host. I was told that it was heavily stocked with good fish, but that a strong breeze was necessary if good results were to be obtained. In due course a gillie and I sallied forth one morning, somewhat late in the season, armed with rods, tackle, and flies, to see what Loch Broom would do for us. There certainly promised to be an ample supply of wind to start with, and, as the day wore on, it had no tendency whatever to go down, but rather to increase unduly; and when we reached the loch side after our six or seven mile walk, we found miniature foam-crested billows on its surface; in fact, rather more than we had bargained for. The boat had been merely grounded in the rushes at the loch side, and required baling out and adjusting. Intending to lose no time, I speedily put up my rod and my cast of three flies and placed it in the stern of the boat in order to soak the cast, then devoting my attention to the assistance of the gillie, who was getting the boat in readiness. Whilst I was doing so my reel began to screech, and I found I had hooked a good trout, my cast of flies having apparently been dancing over the wind-swept waves. It was certainly a good augury of what was to come. After a good deal of trouble we got our boat launched, and, though leaking a bit, it was in a floatable state. The wind was too high to admit of a slow drift across the little loch, but it did not much matter. At every cast there were rises, not at one of the flies, but often at all three--no skill was required. The fish were rampant, and would be hooked. In fact, the main part of the fun lay in seeing how often one could land two fish hooked simultaneously. We only made three drifts in all, for it is easy to be surfeited with such sport. After our third drift was finished and the boat was hauled up again into its place we had leisure to count the slain; they were certainly very numerous. I somewhat reluctantly transcribe the entry in my fishing diary lest the tale may be set down as a "fisherman's story." They amounted in all to ninety-two, and weighed between 40 and 50 lb. It certainly was a record day for even that prolific loch. There is yet one more entry in the same fishing log to the effect that the 15 odd pounds weight of trout that I personally carried home that afternoon formed a considerable addition to the labour of the walk over the hills and against the gale, and that I frequently wished them at Jericho. But you might go to Loch Broom on a still day and you would be almost inclined to declare that it was untenanted, so fickle in their behaviour are these selfsame trout. There is a little loch--Loch Dhu--in Forfarshire, high up in the hollow of the hills, tenanted by many little black trout, who refuse to be beguiled by the artificial fly. I tried it once or twice whilst grouse shooting at Rottal, but with the poorest results. One day, very early in the morning, I was going up the hill with my rifle and glass in the hope of getting a stalk at a red deer before our grouse drive began. On my way up I passed within half to three-quarters of a mile of Loch Dhu, and happened to notice a strange turmoil on its usually unruffled surface. Bringing my glass to bear upon it, I discovered the cause. A swarm of bees was crossing the loch, a few inches above the surface, and apparently every one of the little black tenants of the water was engaged in gymnastic attempts to secure some of the bees by leaping bodily out of the water. The constant rising of the fish followed the swarm accurately across the loch, and only ceased when it reached terra firma. Then all again was silence and solitude. I certainly never tried afterwards to catch them with a solitary bee as a lure, and I fear that it would have required a whole swarm of artificial bees to arouse sufficiently the predatory instincts of these particular fish. There exists in Perthshire, on Ben Venue side, snugly ensconced in a beautiful hollow below the lower tops, a lochan, or small loch, by name Loch Tinkler--why so called this deponent knoweth not. Round its heather-covered sides I have shot many a grouse, and enjoyed the great pleasure of watching favourite setters and pointers--those delightful companions of the now somewhat old-fashioned form of grouse shooting--point and back, with unfailing accuracy. Hither I have not infrequently resorted with my rod for an hour or so of fishing along its shores. The loch is very irregular in shape, and has frequent heather-clad promontories jutting out into its waters, which permit the angler to cover the fish more effectually, and seldom have I gone unrewarded. Of no great size or weight, a half-pounder being perhaps above the average, the Loch Leven trout that tenant it attain wonderful condition and brilliancy of colouring. They play well, and I should be more than ungrateful were I not to record the pleasant hours I have spent there. But, after all, a small loch such as this is, commanded as it is for all practical purposes from the shore, hardly falls under the category of loch fishing, a branch of angling which presupposes the use of a boat. Owing, no doubt, to my peculiar temperament, I fear that I am not worthy of loch fishing proper. The thraldom of being confined for long periods in a boat, the unvarying monotony of the cast, are apt to pall upon me; and sooner or later, or, to be strictly accurate, sooner rather than later, I long to be ashore again, even though it be only to fish up a small Highland burn. And perhaps I am not quite alone in this respect, for I note that my friend who has given us those pleasant "Autumns in Argyleshire" asserts (p. 182) that he would prefer "indifferent sport in a river or burn to fishing the finest loch in the Highlands." So that if I err I do so in the very best of company. And this same burn fishing has always had a charm for me. It is passing pleasant to wander with a small 9 ft. rod up the rocky bed, casting your fly into that miniature salmon pool or into that quaint stickle, whose larger stones shelter the little denizens of the stream, which, for their size, fight like little demons, sportive, hungry, diminutive specimens of the race that produces their bulky Test and Itchen brethren. One makes one's way over the rocky bed, under the birches and the rowan trees, watching the grouse, the black game, or maybe the roe deer silently creeping up, at peace with all the world, just as intent upon the capture of the little fellows as if they were salmon. The creel soon fills if the day be at all suitable. Their rocky home affords little enough of insect food, as their miniature forms testify; but look at them closely; how perfect their form, how beautiful their colouring. A sandwich and a pipe give you all you require in the way of lunch; the whole day is your own, to do as you like with. Freed from all care, you are intent only on enjoying to the full the beauties of Nature that so lavishly surround you. Such quiet, gentle sport cannot but have a purifying and ennobling influence if you interpret aright all the beauty of creation. And it may be that interpretation is not needed; it is enough to _feel_ that one has a place in so fair a world. [Illustration] CHAPTER XI. DAPPING FOR TROUT. THIS form of angling has been brought to a fine art in Ireland, and on many Irish loughs, in the May fly season, the heaviest trout are brought to book by means of the natural insect and the blow line. The columns of the _Field_ newspaper testify every year to the efficacy of dapping, and, without doubt, many a heavy fish that otherwise would only live to prey upon its smaller brethren is thus accounted for. We do not all of us have leisure or opportunity to test these Irish waters, or this particular form of sport with the blow line; but many of us come across deep, heavy runs of water, overhung with continuous branches, where the heavy trout lie, unapproachable and unvanquished, to become gross and even pike-like in the carnivorous and cannibalistic form of life. Such fish are well worth catching, if you can get them, and far better out of the stream than in it. Wise in their own generation, they take up their holt in places where casting is impossible with an ordinary fly, and where, could you by any possibility get one out, your fly would remain almost immovable in the sluggish deeps and overhung holes. The problem is then presented to you as to how their capture can best be effected. This is your opportunity for trying dapping; and although, to my unorthodox mind, such fishing is parlously near akin to poaching, yet the accomplishment of their capture is so eminently desirable that the end fully justifies the means. 'Twas in the lower reaches of such a stream, not many miles from Bassenthwaite Water, that a certain number of leviathan cannibals had taken up their station. The stream was so tortuous and overhung that no boat could be manoeuvred through it, and a carefully constructed raft, with anchor astern, had been tried and come to signal grief, pitching its unfortunate occupant unceremoniously into an unsolicited cold bath, from which he emerged with some difficulty. We then decided that it was impracticable for fishing purposes of the ordinary kind. Walking home along this bush-covered length we could see the fish clearly in its waters, calculate their weight, and wonder how their natural fortifications could be sapped and overcome. We nicknamed all the fish, so constant and regular were they in their places. One, an ugly, ill-shapen fish, with a heavy head, was called "Bradlaugh"; another veteran, solemn and heavy, was dubbed "Gladstone"; a third, more dashing and combative, we christened "Randolph Churchill." There were about seven that we knew and named, and to the heaviest and thickest of all we gave the name of "Lord Salisbury." It was a constant source of interest to us, in going up and down the stream, to note what our named friends were doing and how they were faring. Notes were compared when we came in after fishing, and they gradually became an integral portion of our life and party. One evening I noticed "Randolph Churchill" greatly on the move, darting hither and thither in quest of some article of food. Peering through the bushes, I made out that he was taking something that was falling from the trees and bushes above, but what that something was I could not precisely make out. A poor bumble bee that had fallen into the stream was buzzing about, trying to free himself from his watery toils, and floating slowly over "Churchill"; the latter came up to look at the buzzer, and then bolted as if he had been shot. Evidently that disturbed even his equanimity. I had contemplated dapping with a palmer or Marlow buzz; and I sat down to cogitate. I called to mind the incident, referred to on page 50, of the bold rises of the trout in Loch Dhu at the swarm of bees crossing its surface. Whilst trying to reconcile their action with that of "Churchill" I was reclining on the grass, and happened to espy a green grasshopper. That might do, thought I, and rising, with the captured insect in my fingers, I again approached the water side. The bumble bee had most effectually scared "Randolph," so I walked down to where "Gladstone" had taken up his abode. Nipping the grasshopper with my fingers so as to kill it, I managed to flick it over the bushes towards my friend. It happened to light on the water at the proper place, and I had the pleasure of watching "Gladstone" sail slowly and majestically up to the floating insect, open a huge pink mouth, and swallow it. That was quite good enough for me, and after dinner I retailed to my friend my evening's experiences. We were soon busily engaged in hunting up bare hooks and stiff rods. Fortunately for us there were some long cane-bottom fishing rods in the lodge, which evidently had been used in former times for bait fishing; the joints were indifferent, the whippings rotten, but the rods were, in the main, sound. A little waxed thread and varnish soon put them into workable trim, and before going to bed we pledged a parting glass that some of our friends should gain a new experience on the morrow. And so it fell out. We knew that playing fish in such overgrown haunts was out of the question, and that if we had the luck to hook them it would be a question of pull devil, pull baker. Towards evening we met at our trysting-place. Green grasshoppers were numerous, so there was no lack of bait. As I anticipated, "Randolph Churchill's" inquisitiveness and audacity caused him to become our first victim. The bushes were far too thick to let us drop our bait near him in the ordinary manner. Our only chance was to roll the line round our rods, poke it through the bushes, unroll it carefully, dangle it before his nose, and then, if we had the luck to hook him, to give him no law, but to trust to our tackle and to hold on like grim death. The next victim that evening was "Bradlaugh," a bold riser, who fought well, and who thoroughly justified his cognomen when on the bank. "Disraeli" was for some time our master; he knew a trick or two, and was by no means easily beguiled, though often pricked and once lightly hooked. Even his caution was at length overcome, and hardly an evening passed but that one or more of these, relatively speaking, monsters of some 2½ to 5 lb. in weight was landed. "Lord Salisbury," however, proved to be a very difficult nut to crack, and beyond our powers of persuasion. He would solemnly inspect our lure, sniff round it, as it were, and then sink slowly down to his accustomed place. He seemed to know all about it, so, intent on other sport with the gun, we at last let him severely alone, telling the river keeper to get him out if he could. One evening, as we were at dinner, there came a pressing message from the keeper to be allowed to see us; so, on ordering him in, a smiling rubicund visage appeared at the door, that of our friend the keeper, bearing in his hands a dish, on which reposed the vast proportions of "Lord Sallusberry," as he termed him, a tardy victim to the wiles of patience, combined with the reiterated attractions of a green grasshopper. Possibly this kind of dapping may be deemed to be a poor kind of sport, and, speaking from a strictly orthodox point of view, the accusation cannot be denied. But, after all, it has its merits. It enables you, in waters where there are no May flies, to seduce the heavy fish into unwonted activity, and into taking surface flies. Thus you remove what are little short of pests in a trout stream, and you gain an interest in overcoming the difficulties of an otherwise impossible situation. [Illustration] CHAPTER XII. GRAYLING FISHING. GRAYLING have one advantage over trout in that they extend your fishing season by at least three months. Whereas trout may be called spring and summer fish, grayling are autumn and winter fish. While trout love positions under overhanging banks, or in the side runs by the bank side, grayling, on the other hand, generally occupy positions in mid-stream, lying near, or on, the bottom. In rivers that contain both fish, a bank rise may be generally put down to a trout. I would have substituted the word "confidently" for "generally," had not a very competent critic placed a marginal note to my MS., stating that "he would it were so." I can well recall a day on lower Testwater when, in October, on a wild, squally day, with gusty rain, I was endeavouring to beguile some imprudent grayling into taking my fly. The river keeper accompanied me, and together we descried a nice dimpling rise against the far bank, above a plank bridge. I at once put it down as a trout, and was for leaving it alone; but my keeper friend would not have it so, and on persuasion I proffered the fish the fly that happened to be on my line. As luck would have it the fly pitched fairly accurately, and, nicely cocked, sailed down the bank side just where the rise had been. A confident rise produced an equally confident turn of the wrist; our friend was well hooked, and a merry five minutes we had before he could be beguiled into the landing net. He proved to be a fine trout, over 3 lb. in weight and in magnificent condition, but the month was against us, and we had to replace him with all due care in his native element before resuming our search for the grayling, who were not at all inclined to favour us, on that occasion at any rate. This particular fish certainly endorsed my view, for I felt confident in my first opinion, viz., that it was the rise of a trout, and not that of a grayling. The keeper, however, was equally confident until he was proved wrong, and, as his experiences were a hundredfold greater than mine, I would certainly not attempt to advance my own as against his. It is so terribly easy to generalise from inadequate experience. One thing I certainly have learned with regard to grayling fishing with a hackle fly, fished wet and up stream, and that is, how easily one may miss them through want of rapidity in the strike. I remember a friend of mine dancing with laughter on the river bank as he watched me miss rise after rise under such circumstances. I seemed to be always a little after the fair. It was blind kind of work, casting at the rises, the fish having to come up from the bottom to the fly, and somehow or other they seemed always to take the wrong psychological moment for their rise as far as I was concerned. Occasionally, of course, I hooked what I fancied to be a silly idiot of a fish, and it was not until my friend had a turn at them and then declared they were rising disgracefully short that I was able to turn the laugh against him. When I was angling it was always the fault of the angler that the fish were not hooked; when his turn came it was entirely the fault of the fish. At the same time it is undeniable that to secure grayling, especially heavy ones, by this manner of angling requires great alertness, and, as it were, sympathy of touch in hooking them. I cannot pretend to any considerable experiences in grayling fishing, but I do not agree with Mr. G. A. B. Dewar, who, in his "Book of the Dry Fly," p. 54 (Lawrence & Bullen, 1897), states confidently that angling for the grayling with the dry fly is "poor fun." On the contrary, I have found him a bold riser, and a really free fighter in his own style. He will take a dry fly in hot, bright weather, though his real value comes in on frosty days, after the trout have earned their well-deserved rest from the plague of artificial flies. A grayling, moreover, is in his element in deep pools and quiet hollows, where one would hardly expect to see the dimple of a rising trout. At the same time the fish loves rapid streams and shallows, retiring for rest to the deeper pools. To be absolutely candid, I would always prefer to fish for trout rather than to fish for grayling. This may possibly be through lack of experience and opportunity; but no one can gainsay the fact that grayling are in condition when trout are not, that they are a worthy quarry and gamesome, despite (Brother) Cotton's condemnation of them as "dead-hearted" fish. To be able to defer putting away one's favourite rods until October, November, and even December have passed away is no mean advantage, and I, for one, would be indeed sorry to decry the grayling in any way whatever. Grayling do not, as a rule, rise as freely as trout will do during heavy rain, nor does muggy weather suit them; the best time for grayling fishing in late autumn or early winter is from about twelve to two, on a bright day, after a sharp and crisp frost. As they lie so low in the water and have to come to the surface to take a fly, they frequently miss their object, whether real or artificial; and after they have taken the fly, or missed it, as the case may be, they dive downwards to the bottom again, often breaking the water with their forked tails in so doing. They are, therefore, more easy of approach than trout, as there is a larger intervening amount of water to screen you. As they take surface food, and yet lie so deep, their quaint lozenge-shaped eyes have an upward turn. They are peculiarly gut shy, and any undue coarseness in this respect or glistening glare in your cast will effectually choke them off from their intended rise. They may be taken by almost any of the ordinary surface flies, by a red tag, or by means of many of the pale watery hackle flies fished wet. The depth of the water in which they love to lie renders them less susceptible to continued flogging than trout. Remember, if you hook a good grayling, that the corners of his mouth are very tender compared with those of a trout, and that, salmon-like, he takes a header downwards after taking your fly, thus tending to hook himself; therefore the quickest and gentlest of wrist turns is sufficient to cement the attachment between you. And although grayling fishermen will not admit that the mouth of a grayling is more tender, generally speaking, than that of a trout, it is extraordinary how often the fly happens to attach itself to those particularly tender spots. In playing him, this fact should not be forgotten, nor the fact that the appearance of the landing net seems to produce in him the wildest and most frantic efforts for freedom. Grayling receive universal condemnation for poaching trout and salmon ova, and it is only right to own that they are grave delinquents in this respect. The unfortunate ova have, however, a multitude of enemies in the shape of various water birds, ducks, swans, &c., and the toll taken by the grayling in proportion cannot be so very heavy after all, or they would not be permitted to continue to populate our south country streams, where the trout is the chief object of worship. At any rate, they have no other cannibal proclivities, which is more than can be said for the noble trout himself, who is a marked sinner in both respects. Grayling will not thrive in all streams; they love alternate shallows and deeps, and are particularly partial to quiet backwaters. They are very migratory, and will frequently shift their quarters. The character of the river appears to be all-important in their case, and many streams suitable for trout will not hold grayling. But where the surrounding circumstances are suitable, and the temperature of the water is neither too cold nor too hot, it seems a pity that they should not be given a trial. They spawn in April, and recover their condition more rapidly than trout. I do not know whether the origin of these fish in British waters has ever been ascertained. They may have been brought to these islands by the monks in former time, who so carefully husbanded all resources in the shape of fish food; but I have never seen or read any authentic statement to this effect, and would prefer to consider them as indigenous. [Illustration] [Illustration: LUNCHEON.] CHAPTER XIII. NOTES ON RAINBOW TROUT. RAINBOWS are a comparatively recent importation into our native waters, and appeared just at the time when they were most needed. It is but a few years since our British waters, neglected, except in a few instances, began to receive the attention they deserved, in view of their intrinsic value. Steps were then taken to diminish, if not entirely to remove, the terribly universal pollution of our streams and rivers. From that time trout fishing prospects in river and stream began to look up and improve; but our ponds and reservoirs, if stocked with fish at all, contained only the coarse fish of former times. By a happy coincidence the rainbow trout, which we owe to our cousins of the United States, began to be talked about and known. Speedily our fish-culturists took them up and established them in their hatcheries, with the best results. A more sporting or gamer fish does not exist. He rises most freely to the fly--up to a certain weight--and, when hooked, plays as gamely as any sea trout. He grows with astonishing rapidity. In our local waters, two-year-old fish, 8 in. long in February, have grown to ¾ lb. fish and even to pounders in September. There is therefore no excuse for leaving our ponds untenanted by these gamesome fish. Moreover, their edible qualities are quite first-rate; they are shapely, beautiful in colouring, and thrive in any kind of water. One point, however, should be carefully guarded against. Rainbows are great travellers; they will push up, especially before spawning, and it is therefore necessary to confine them by a grid at the head and foot of your water. The spawning time for these fish in their natural habitat is rather late in the spring; but, as might be expected from analogy, rainbows bred and reared in this country appear to be adapting themselves to their environment, and to be gradually assimilating their time for spawning to that of our local trout. The bulk of rainbows spawn in British waters about February and March, many retain their old times of May and June, whilst a proportion have adapted themselves to their surroundings and spawn as early as brook trout. I think that the date is more or less influenced by the amount of fish food obtainable. Thus, for instance, with hand-fed fish the old later dates are maintained; but it is still doubtful, as far as my experience goes, as to whether the ova of the fish that are dependent entirely upon natural food is ever vivified. My fish undoubtedly have spawned on the prepared beds, but, so far, I have not been able to establish any evidence of matured fry. The edges of the water this summer were filled with multitudinous small fry no doubt, but on careful inspection they proved to be entirely the fry of sticklebacks, perch, &c. I have found hen fish gravid with ova as early as November and as late as April. In time, no doubt, their spawning season will coincide with that of our brown trout. And herein lies a field for investigation and careful watching. It is held in many quarters that rainbows do not breed in Great Britain. My experience hardly tallies with this belief. On our waters in Lancashire, where we had no gravel beds suitable for the deposit of ova, I found late last year several hen fish, of from 1½ lb. to 2 lb. in weight, dead in the water; they were full of ripe ova, and had undoubtedly died through being egg-bound. I then made some spawning redds suitable for the deposit and fertilisation of the ova, and it has been highly interesting to see the fish elbowing each other to secure a spot for themselves. Since then I have caught many spent fish, both cock and hen, showing that the ova, at any rate, have been duly deposited; but so far I have not been able to identify the fry. A large quantity of fry of sorts I have secured this season, but they proved to be the fry of stickleback. The "Trinity" two-year-old fish I restocked with seem to be growing admirably. This form of rainbow trout have the reputation of being, if possible, freer risers, quicker growers, and harder fighters than the ordinary kind; so far they seem to act up to their reputation. The few I have caught fought like little demons, and it was almost difficult to be able to restore them to the water and free the hook before they had been practically exhausted by their frantic efforts for freedom. The proper amount of fish with which to stock a given area of water depends several circumstances. First and foremost, of course, it depends upon the amount of fish food in it. Many pools and ponds are full of fresh-water shrimps, snails, and the like, all of which are of very great value in developing and fattening your fish. But as you do not want to depend upon bottom feeding for their whole stock of food, admirable adjunct though it may be, it is well to place round the margins of your waters all plants that encourage the increase of fly food. Beds of the ordinary watercress are not only valuable in this respect, but afford welcome shelter. Water lilies, if kept within bounds, are equally valuable, and it must never be forgotten that, especially in shallow water, shelter from the summer sun is an absolute necessity if you wish your stock to improve. Other aquatic and semi-aquatic plants should also be utilised freely, such as marsh marigolds, starworts, bulrushes, &c. Nor should it be forgotten to plant alders and fringing willows here and there. All trout, particularly rainbows, take an alder fly readily. A certain area of water will not support more than a certain weight of fish life. You can therefore either have that weight made up by a large quantity of small fish or by a correspondingly smaller number of larger fish. It is not prudent, therefore, to overstock. This question has necessarily very considerable bearing upon your calculations. Nor is it possible to fix arbitrarily any precise number of fish as being capable of being supported by a given area of water; an examination of the water itself would be needed to determine this with any degree of accuracy. Having, however, once determined upon the proper stock required--and, in my opinion, it pays better to stock with two-year-old fish than with yearlings--then an accurate account should be kept of the fish taken out of the water each season, and a corresponding number should be turned in each November for restocking, a few being added for contingencies. As I have already stated, when rainbows grow into really big fish--say over 2½ lb.--they appear, in our British waters, to develop lazy, bottom-feeding proclivities. It will be necessary, therefore, or at any rate advisable, to take these fish out by using a bright salmon fly, fished deep, or a minnow, fished as deep as the water will admit. When the fish are first placed in their fresh home it is customary to feed them with artificial food until they get accustomed to their surroundings. For this purpose liver is often used, and it is quite an amusing sight to see them "boil" when such food is distributed. It is very doubtful whether it is wise to feed with such fat-producing foods. Some authorities hold that fatty foods of any kind produce disease of the liver and fatty degeneration, and condemn absolutely all red meat. If this be so--and it appears to be not only probable, but proved by expert experience--it is better to let the fish take care of themselves and eschew all kinds of artificial food stuffs. When stocking, every care should be taken to see that when the fish arrive they are placed as soon as possible where the water is most lively and broken, so that they may, at the earliest practicable moment, obtain the air they so much need after their journey. The water in the cans should never be allowed to stagnate. One more precaution is indispensable, viz., to see, by means of a thermometer, that the temperature of the water in the stream or pond is the same as that in the cans. If there should be any difference--and there will almost certainly be--it can easily be adjusted by letting some water out of the cans and substituting that of the stream. By doing this gradually the fish will become acclimatised to the change. The cans on the cart, meanwhile, should be agitated, and therefore aerated, by keeping the cart on the move. Neglect of this will cause serious risk of loss. Once safely deposited in their new home, the fish will speedily spread over your whole water, even if all were put in at one spot. Perhaps it is unnecessary to add that fish should never be handled when being put into the water. A small flat net will pick up any that may have fallen on the ground during the change of water. It is surprising how thoughtless many people are about handling and treating fish. Thus, for instance, if an undersized fish is caught it is, in common parlance, "thrown back," and is often in reality so treated. Too much care cannot be taken in replacing fish. If put back gently and held for a few seconds in a proper position, back up, they will soon recover from their exhaustion and glide away unharmed; whereas, if "thrown in," or dropped in in a careless manner, they will turn belly up, and probably never recover. When all precautions are taken, and your waters have been intelligently treated, and suitable spawning redds are provided, you will never regret having stocked with rainbows, for the sport you will obtain from them will more than amply repay you for the trouble you may have taken. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV. SALMON FISHING. FORMERLY, and indeed not so very long ago, no one in the Highlands of Scotland was considered free of the hill, or indeed of any account, unless and until he had slain a stag, a salmon, and an eagle. Nowadays, matters are somewhat different. The two former, inhabiting as they do the forests and rivers, are in great request, and have a considerable money value, and, in consequence, have passed into the hands of those who have the deepest purses, saving and except where some few Highland lairds and noblemen retain their ancient rights in their own hands, and dispense their hospitality amongst their friends as of yore. As for the golden eagle, few would attempt, or even wish, to shoot so noble a bird. The ordinary forest fine of £500 is a sufficient deterrent, if, indeed, any is necessary. Every effort is now being made, and should be made, to keep the (now, alas! scarce) king of the birds amongst us. But if, as we have said, the large majority of the forests and salmon rivers are rented by those who are able and willing to pay almost any price for the dignity of being lessees of such tempting and highly-prized sporting grounds, the general appetite and desire have developed and grown enormously. Ever-increasing facilities for travelling have brought with them an ever-growing army of men, all eager to get good salmon fishing, and searching high and low to secure it. Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Canada, British Columbia, and a host of other portions of the globe have been brought into requisition in order to satisfy some portion of this craving. Small wonder, then, that rents for rivers, spring or autumn, continue to increase, and that the Government of the day is being constantly and consistently urged to increase the close time for net fishing, in order that the upper riparian owners may have some chance of replenishing their pools. A man who has once hooked and played a clean-run salmon, and has experienced the thrill of excitement that continues from the rise until the salmon is safely landed, is not at all likely to forget it, or to miss any chance of renewing his acquaintance with _Salmo salar_. The contest is such a fair one, there are so many chances in favour of the fish, that no element of sport is wanting. He is so strong in the water, so perfectly built for speed, that unless you handle him both carefully and skilfully you may easily lose him, even if you have brought him exhausted to the gaff. In that perilous moment, when flopping and surging near the top of the water, how many a fish effects his escape! And who is there amongst us but has experienced the sickening feeling of the straightened rod, and the fly released from the worn hold in the fish's mouth? It is just the uncertainty of the sport, added to the strength and vigour of a hooked fish, that form the great allurement to salmon anglers. Whilst in trout fishing--more especially with the dry fly--great accuracy and delicacy of cast are required, the actual fishing for salmon with the fly makes no such demands upon the angler. Provided that he can throw a tolerably straight line of reasonable length, so as to cover the places in the pools where the salmon are wont to rise, many faults that would entail failure with the dry fly will pass unnoticed, owing to the fly having been cast into swiftly running water, which brawling water straightens out in the kindest manner the kinks formed in the line by the incompetency of the wielder of the rod. To this extent, therefore, a novice may have the good fortune to beat the more experienced hand. Once hooked, however, the novice is out of it, unless he has at hand an experienced mentor, and the odds are largely in favour of the fish. It is then that the accomplished angler asserts himself. I have heard of men who consider that the excitement of salmon fishing begins and ends with the hooking of the fish, who are willing to hand over to their attendant, or gillie, the duty which they consider to be monotonous and fatiguing--of playing the fish. For my part, I look at the matter from an entirely different point of view. The combat between the fisherman and the fish is essentially a gallant one. In the water, a clean-run fish of, say, 18 lb. really plays the angler for some space of time, and you recognise that although your experience and intelligence may enable you, within a reasonable time, to be the victor, yet that you have attached to you a quarry well worthy of your skill, and one, moreover, who may yet call forth all your activity and resource, and who cannot be accounted as caught until he is absolutely on the grass beside you. I, on the contrary, always consider that playing a salmon is the most exciting and interesting part of the sport. In playing a fish, whether it be a heavy trout on a light, single-handed rod, or a clean-run active salmon on a proportionately suitable rod, a sense of touch is needed that bears some resemblance to that necessary for the proper handling of the reins in riding a keen young thoroughbred horse. You require a keen appreciation of when to allow a certain latitude and when to exercise all the pressure that the occasion demands. A heavy-handed man will soon render a sensitive-mouthed young horse half demented, whilst at the same time quiet, strong hands exert just that influence that is needed to control his vagaries. Some men are born with the requisite sensitiveness of touch, others will be clumsy and heavy-handed to the end of their days. Some will give undue licence to a fish, will allow him to play for an inordinate length of time, triplicating thereby the risk of losing him. It is not possible to lay down on paper any regulations for playing fish beyond what may be termed the "A B C" of the game. You should never allow your rod point to be dragged down below an angle of 45° with the vertical, or a smash of your casting line will be risked. On the other hand, if the rod be kept too vertical an unfair tax is placed upon the strength of your middle joint. Another cardinal point, as every angler knows, is that you should never allow more line off your reel than you can avoid; that is to say, if your fish means running either up or down stream, and you feel instinctively that it would be neither prudent nor practicable to hold him too hard, then you must try to keep on terms with him by means of your own movements on the bank side; for it is to be presumed that, although you may have hooked your fish when wading in mid-stream, you have taken the earliest opportunity of wading ashore. Keep nearly level with him, or down stream of him if you can, and get the weight of the water acting against him as well as the weight of the line. Never try to force a fish up a heavy stream unless such a course is absolutely necessary, for the weight of the water, added to that of the fish, may unduly strain your tackle. That you may be compelled to try to prevent his going down stream at times goes without saying, for it may be absolutely necessary to do so; but to endeavour to force a fresh and strong fish up stream against his will is to court disaster. Should you have decided that your fish, if it is to be killed at all, must be kept in the pool in which he then is at all hazards, by judiciously giving him his head, by means of taking off the strain, may frequently induce him to abandon his attempt to force his way down stream, and, under the impression that he has already gained his freedom, he may often, of his own free will, head up stream once again. It is a risky, but often the only, course to adopt, if you cannot or will not follow a fish down. Mr. Sidney Buxton, in that most charming of books, "Fishing and Shooting" (John Murray, 1902), sums up the whole matter admirably when he describes catching and playing salmon as "living moments." I have seen stalwart soldiers, and I have one V.C. particularly before my eyes at the moment of writing, covered with perspiration and quivering in every limb after a long and successful duel with a clean-run fish. In this respect salmon fishing is ahead of trout fishing, for the contest is a more even one; though in my opinion the two, being distinct and incomparable, ought never to be put into the scales and weighed the one against the other. Watch an old hand at the game, and observe how easily he controls the most determined and vigorous rushes of his worthy antagonist; take out your watch and see how long it will be before the 18 or 20 pounder is brought alongside for the gaff; and then watch the poor performer, hesitating and uncertain as to when pressure should be applied or licence given; see how long it takes him to land the 8 lb. or 10 lb. fish; count the number of times that he has to thank a beneficent providence that he has not lost him; and if, after so doing, you still incline to your statement that there is nothing in landing a fish, that the whole pleasurable excitement is concentrated in hooking him, then I can only reply that I don't agree. The contest between the hooked salmon and the fisherman is no uneven one--witness the number of hooked fish that escape--and it is one that is still capable of giving a thrill of real excitement to those who really love angling. A salmon hooked from a boat in a large loch is, of course, a different matter; here the odds are so largely in favour of the rod holder as to unduly diminish the chances of escape to the fish. Such salmon fishing is outside the scope of our present argument, and falls into a totally different category. With river-bank fishing, and it is with that that we are dealing, it would be a bold fisherman indeed that would count a fish hooked as a fish landed, and a half-hearted angler that would be content to hand over to the gillie the cream of the contest between the fish and the man. _Apropos_ of this nervous excitement, in October, 1900, I formed one of a shooting party on Don side. The river Don ran within half a mile from the house, forming as perfect a series of natural pools as the heart of man could desire. My mouth watered when I saw it, and I longed to wet a line in it. I found, however, that my host not only loathed fishing, but was absolutely devoted to bridge. We had but short days out shooting, everyone rushing back to the lodge to get a rubber or two before dinner. Professing ignorance of bridge, I begged my host to let me try the river, as, having been lately fishing on the Dee, I had my rods and waders with me. With a pitying smile he told me that I could, of course, amuse myself as I thought best. With no loss of time I made my way down to the river side, and found it in grand ply. I was fully aware that the particular part of the Don that we were on was not popularly supposed to contain many fish at that time of the year, but it was well worth a trial, and I knew that a ship laden with lime had lately been sunk at the mouth of the Dee, and I fancied and hoped that some of the autumn fish might be finding their way into and up the Don. The pools were so perfect in shape that no gillie was needed to point me out the best rising-places; they spoke for themselves and told their own tale. My first evening produced two clean-run fish of 16½ lb. and 8 lb., and my host, when he saw them later, began to think that, after all, there might be something in angling. The second evening the river was up and unfishable, but by the third evening it had fined down into order, and I got a beauty of 20 lb. and a small salmon of 7½ lb. The glowing accounts I gave of the play of these fish at length excited my host, and, even at the cost of his rubber of bridge, the next evening saw him by my side, carefully fishing a leg of mutton pool near the house, where I had seen and risen a fish the night before. I had to hold the rod with him and show him how to cast, but I knew pretty well where my fish lay, and that he was within easy reach. We worked down to the spot, and, sure enough, up he came with a grand head and tail rise, hooking himself handsomely. Leaving the rod in my friend's hands, I told him that he had to do the rest. The first rush nearly pulled the rod down to the water level, my friend hanging on like grim death. Fortunately, the gut was sound and stood the strain. Nearly dying with laughter at his frantic appeals for help and advice, I shouted to him to keep his rod point up, thoroughly enjoying the fact that he was having a taste of what he had characterised as a "poor and tame kind of sport." As I particularly wanted him to catch that fish I went to his assistance. Trembling with excitement and bathed in perspiration, he was, shortly afterwards, delightedly examining his first salmon, a clean-run hen fish of 16 lb. I never shall forget his shake of the hand and his exclamation, "By Jupiter! you have taught me something, this is worth living for!" Needless to say, he is now mad keen on salmon angling, and a very capable performer to boot. Many of us, however, not quite so young as we were, are paying the penalty of imprudent wading in the times when we scorned to put on wading trousers. The rheumatic twinges, that hesitation about deep wading in rivers with bad bottoms, all these are largely bred of our former contempt for getting wet, and our ill-founded confidence in our powers of resisting the effects of such very minor matters as wet legs and feet. We therefore find our choice of fishing water still more limited: we seek fishings where many of the pools can be commanded from the bank side, or where, if wading be unavoidable, the bottom is sound and shelving, and where there are no round slippery stones to trip us up. Enough for most of us, if we are lucky enough to get into touch with a good fish, is it that we may have a longish travel over very rough ground, up and down, before we can call him ours. [Illustration: NEARING THE END.] One particularly bad-bottomed pool I remember very well in the Aberdeenshire Dee, not very far below Aboyne. It was a long pool, the head of water very heavy, the wading throughout simply vile. At the bottom of the pool was a big rock, nearly in mid-stream, and by that stone there generally lay a good fish. To reach him you had to wade as deep as your waders would permit, your elbows almost in the water, leaning your body against the swirl of the stream, and taking cautious steps forward, inch by inch, to avoid being tripped up by the slippery big round stones. Then the best cast you were able to produce with your 18 ft. Castleconnel would just about reach him. I never could resist trying for him, though I knew he would go down stream if hooked, and it seemed impossible to follow him down, so I always half wished that he might not come. Wading back against that heavy stream, with a twenty or thirty pounder making tracks round the corner into the next pool, would have been no easy job; and, if you had succeeded in reaching terra firma, there were some big overhanging trees at the corner, beneath which the current had cut a deep hole. Mercifully for me, though I often tried for him, he never did take hold, though I rose him several times. It was always with a chastened spirit of thankfulness that I gave him up and went further down to try the easier waters of the Boat pool. There is a local story of a mighty fish, hooked in that self-same spot, which took its captor down so that he was obliged, perforce, to swim the deep water under the trees, and was afterwards taken down, as hard as he could run, through pool after pool, until at length he managed to steady it in the third pool of the next fishing water. Then, after a period of sulks, during which both regained their wind, the fish ran right away up again to his old haunts, where he succeeded in getting rid of the hook against his favourite rock. All lost fish are big, and the lapse of time has not in any way diminished his fabled weight. Perhaps the one drawback to salmon fishing as an art is that to which I have already alluded, viz., that the friendly stream corrects of itself all, or nearly all, errors of slovenly casting, and in that respect places the duffer more on a par with the really competent. On the other hand, knowledge and experience, and perhaps more particularly local experience, will assert itself in the long run, even against the adventitious success of the novice. The mere fact of having really fished a pool, whether success reward your efforts or no, is of itself an element of enjoyment; the feeling that you have fished, and fished with a really working fly every inch of fishable water, is _per se_ a cause of satisfaction and pleasure. Here you are master of the situation; on you depends your chance of sport, if any is to be obtained. In grouse driving you may draw the worst butt; or, if you have the luck to draw the best, the birds may unaccountably take an unusual line, and, though you may have drawn the "King's butt," nearly every bird may pass over the heads of your comrades to the right and left of you. You are, as it were, a mere automaton, to shoot whatever may come within range; you may be the victim of circumstances, and may get very few chances. In hunting, unless you hunt the hounds yourself, you have little chance of seeing, and none whatever of controlling, the best part of the game, the working of the hounds. Your main object is to be with them; they and the huntsman, or master, do the work, you are merely an accessory. In fishing, whether it be for trout or salmon, everything from start to finish rests with yourself; you have to work out your own salvation; and I venture to assert that it is in consequence of this individual responsibility that fishing, apart from its other many merits, holds so high a place in all our affections. I doubt whether there are many men who have not become aware, in playing salmon (and perhaps more often when the fish is nearly played out), of a second fish following the hooked one in all its movements and stratagems to free itself from the unwelcome attachment of the rod and line. It has several times happened to me personally, and on two occasions that I can call to mind I was within an ace of being able to gaff the free fish when bringing the exhausted and hooked fish past me for the gaffing process. I feel confident that, had I not been too much engaged in seeing that my hooked fish did not get free through any unintentional slackening of my line at that most critical moment, I could have done so successfully, so assiduous was the (apparently) hen fish in attendance upon the fish at the end of my line. Is this a mere matter of curiosity on his or her part, or may it be attributed to a feeling of _camaraderie_ or friendship? I think no one can seriously contend for the latter hypothesis, as instances of affection between such cold-blooded animals as fish have never to my knowledge been even suggested. We must therefore, I take it, assume that it is mere curiosity, a desire to see why the hooked fish is acting so capriciously; and, if this be so, has it not a tendency to modify somewhat our views as to the necessity of resting pools after a fish has disturbed them by his being played? The following fish will, of course, have been taken out of the place where it would probably rise at a fly, and, therefore, out of any danger for the time being; but travelling fish are not infrequently hooked and landed. My observations of salmon, such as they have been, have rather tended to inspire me with the belief that salmon, when resting in a pool, take little or no notice of what is going on round them. They will move just so far aside as to let a rampant fish pass them, gliding back into their former position the moment he has passed. How often, when fish are really "on the job," have fishermen caught their four, five, or even more fish out of one pool of very moderate dimensions, every square yard of which must have been disturbed by the vagaries of those caught before them? It seems to me that we are all inclined to be a bit too cautious and careful in this respect. When the water is in order, then I should be inclined to say, seize the happy moment, often short-lived enough, and don't waste time in going to other pools as long as you have any reason to suppose that the fish are "up," and that there are other occupants of the pool that you are fishing that may be grassed. Somehow or other, if a fish be lightly hooked the information is conveyed through the line, as through a telephone, to the wielder of the rod. You obtain a kind of realisation that such is the case, no matter how well you have endeavoured to drive the barb home. And his subsequent play shows you how well-founded your feeling was. You are in constant expectation of seeing your rod point come up--unwelcome sight--and if you have the luck to get the gaff home, and the hook drops out of his mouth, you are not one whit astonished, only thankful that your luck for once was in the ascendant, and that you have not one more to add to the very considerable number of fish hooked and lost. In the same way with a fish that "jiggers," I, rightly or wrongly, always set him down as being lightly hooked, and invariably offer up a thanksgiving if he be safely brought to bank. Can anyone tell us why a fish so acts? It is undoubtedly most disconcerting to the angler, and must assuredly have a tendency to wear the hold of the hook. But if it is so effectual, why do not more fish adopt it? Is it not permissible to think that my hypothesis is right, and that a lightly-hooked fish is able to appreciate that if he can only enlarge the hold of the fly he may get free? Or, if this is too much to attribute to fish intelligence, what other suggestion can be made? Of course, all my argument is upset if my premise is unsound, that it is lightly-hooked fish that employ the manoeuvre of "jiggering" to free themselves. The question is, of course, difficult of solution; at the same time, I have invariably found that it is just those fish that I have already set down in my mind as being lightly hooked that have resorted to that expedient. I have always found it very advantageous to keep a good yard of free casting line in my left hand, letting this slack go at the end of the cast. This is exceedingly useful in getting out a long line; indeed, it has become such a part of my nature that I invariably do the same in dry-fly fishing for trout. In that case I find it helps me to pitch my fly more lightly, and to correct my length; it has one drawback in trout fishing, in that it prevents you from striking from the reel, but it does not inconvenience me, for I merely turn the wrist in striking a trout, so that the fact of my fingers gripping the line against the rod does not matter. It may not be quite orthodox, but I find it convenient, and always practise it; in fact, it is so much a matter of second nature with me that I could not give it up, even if I wished to do so. It is of great advantage, in fishing any pool, to have seen the river in all its various stages, so as to know as much as possible of its bed. As everyone knows, the places where fish rise vary as the river may be high or low; one place where, in high water, you might reckon on getting a rise if anywhere, would be absolutely unlikely when the river is low; and so also in the intermediate stages. Until you have become fully acquainted with the bed of the various pools, you are not in a position to make the best of them; that is why a gillie with local knowledge is so necessary. Perhaps you have fished a pool when it was in perfect order. The next time you try it the river has sunk a foot; it may still be fishable, but if you get a rise it will be almost certainly in a different spot from the time before. On the Awe, in Argyleshire, a few years ago, after a summer drought the river had dwindled down to about half its normal volume. A rod had been fishing very sedulously a favourite pool of mine called Arroch. I watched him for some time, and at last suggested that I did not think he was at all likely to get a fish in the tail of the pool, where he was employing most of his energies. He replied that he had caught many a fish in that very part. I told him that it was doubtless true when the river was in proper order, but that it was most unlikely in its then condition. Somewhat nettled, he asked me to show him where I would propose to fish; and, having my rod with me, I commenced to fish at the very top of the pool, in a narrow, deep neck. At about my fourth or fifth cast with a very short line, I noticed below me the silvery glint of a fish that my fly had evidently moved. Stepping back a little, I began, with great deliberation, to fill and light a pipe, and then began again where I had originally commenced. At my fourth cast I saw the same glint, and also felt the fish, which had taken the fly when it was well sunk and was swirling about in the quick and heavy stream. It was, of course, a great piece of luck, yet it served to point my moral and adorn my tale. My friend was good enough to say that it was a revelation to him, that he would no more have thought of fishing that neck of the pool than of flying. It is astonishing how many anglers are similarly constituted. They are content to fish a pool in just the same way, no matter what the state of the river may be. They never seem to fish from their heads, nor to bring any intelligence to bear. In a really big river it is possible to pick up an odd fish in the most extraordinary places. Once on the Carlogie water of the Dee, the river was in big flood, full of snow-brue, and apparently hopeless to fish; but the grilse had begun to run, and my time on the water was drawing to a close. Something must be done; it seemed foolish to stop at home and waste a day, so I walked up to the top of the Long Pool and fished my own bank down with a short line. My perseverance was rewarded, and I managed to secure three grilse. The great thing is to keep going, and to try to bring all your acquired experience to bear. A dry fly will never catch a salmon; your fly must be kept in the water, and not on the bank. The assiduous fisherman will beat the lazy one into fits. National interest is, undoubtedly, being more constantly directed to the importance of our salmon fisheries. Thus, this very year, 1905, an influential deputation, headed by the Duke of Abercorn, was received at the Offices of the Board of Agriculture, the object being to obtain Governmental support to a private Bill that had been drafted with the idea of giving increased powers to the Central Board, and to boards of Conservators generally. The Bill, mild and tentative though it was in its provisions, met with but qualified support at headquarters, as it involved questions of finance, and possible rate aid to boards of Conservators in carrying out necessary improvements in cases where the local authorities refused to act. The question is, however, too vast and too important to be dealt with by piecemeal legislation of any kind, and, in regard to the vast national asset that is being squandered and frittered away, demands energetic legislation on a bold scale. The salmon fishery industry is a factor in the prosperity of the nation, and the whole issue, with all its branches and ramifications, should be fairly and squarely tackled in a Government Bill, not in the interests of a class, but in that of the nation. It is satisfactory to learn from Lord Onslow that the Government Bill dealing with obstructions and fish passes, though temporarily withdrawn last Session, still embodies the views of the present Administration. We must be thankful for small mercies, but this Bill merely touches one item of importance, and any Government that has the courage and wisdom to deal with the question as a whole will certainly have done something to merit the lasting gratitude of the whole country. Since these lines were penned, the Election of January, 1906, has come and gone, and with it a vast change in the aspect of political matters. The point, however, that we are advocating is not a party question. It is a matter affecting the interests of all classes, and it is devoutly to be hoped that the new Government will take a "liberal" view of this important matter, and will bring forward a bill, in the interests of the nation at large, dealing with the whole question of our salmon harvest in the rivers as well as the sea. [Illustration] [Illustration: GET THE GAFF READY.] CHAPTER XV. A TRIP TO IRELAND. SOME years ago, when Ireland was greatly disturbed--it was the year after Lord Leitrim's assassination--a party of three, of which I formed one, decided to fish the Clady, in Co. Donegal. We went _viâ_ Belfast and Letterkenny, bound for Gweedore. We had received many warnings against our projected trip, and were told that the "Boys" would not allow us to cross the mountains in our outside cars on our long drive from Letterkenny. Death's heads and crossbones, however, did not deter us, though our car drivers were sufficiently impressed and alarmed to insist that, if they took us, we should undertake to keep them at Gweedore until we returned. This we had to concede, and off we set. The reports of the Clady were most temptingly satisfactory. The malcontents had burnt the nets at the mouth of the river at Dum-Dum, as they were the property of our landlord; the fish had, therefore, a clean run up the river. The talented author of "Three in Norway, by One of Them," had taken a fabulous number of salmon shortly before--report said fifty fish in one fortnight--so it was not likely that three sturdy fishermen would be frightened by paper threats. As a proper measure of protection we were each of us in possession of a revolver, more for show, should occasion arise, than because we were likely to need it for our protection. Our drive, if my memory serves me right, was over fifty miles in length, and was satisfactorily accomplished without any startling incident or need for the display of our lethal weapons. We were not sorry when it was over, and we were able to get off our cars and see what comforts the hotel could provide. The local peasantry, of course, were not inimical to us as individuals, but were determined to score off our landlord, and to destroy or diminish his profits from the fishing. We had, therefore, to house and care for our gillies as well, in order to save them from maltreatment. Fortunately the river, though on the low side, was in fair order, and the pools were crammed full of fish--too full, indeed, for sport; and though we did not exactly equal the totals credited to our predecessor, still, we could not complain of the results. The fish, bright and clean, were not heavy--averaging not more than 10 lb. to 11 lb.--but they fought well. Neither were they by any means perfect in shape, being long and narrow, altogether less good-looking than their cousins of the Crolly, who use the same _embouchure_. These latter are perfect in contour and shape, more like Awe or Avon fish. Sport throughout our fortnight's stay was distinctly good, though not remarkable, but the visit gave rise to some, to me, interesting experiences. Thus, in one pool, called the Pulpit pool, the usual cast is from the top of some very high rocks, as the name implies, into the cauldron below. The fish lie near the rocks on the pulpit side; from there the fly would never hang or fish properly; do what you would, it resembled a bunch of dead feathers. On the other hand, there was a convenient run on that side, down which a fish could be taken into the pool below; and, as the fish hooked there always would insist on going down, this point was one of some importance. On the opposite side of the pool there was a charming shelving beach, or bank, and if you could find a fly so well tempered as to stand being thrown against the rocks opposite to you, you were almost certain of a rise, as your fly then played admirably over the taking part of the pool. The problem was then how your fish could be played when hooked, for between you and the before-mentioned run was a line of serrated rocks, and a fish hooked that meant going down would inevitably cut you. He must, therefore, not be allowed to go down. Luckily, between you and this line of rocks was a deepish backwater, and this was our _deus ex machina_, and solved the difficulty. In this backwater we stationed the gillie, gaff in hand, and crouched down; no sooner was a fish hooked than, before he could realise the situation, he was unceremoniously hurried across the pool into the backwater, and there equally unceremoniously gaffed. After two or three fish had been so treated our gillie remarked sadly, "Well, sorr, you may call this fishing, but I call it murther"; and so it really was. As an example of how a difficulty may be overcome it was not without its value. The moral is that a fish, when first hooked and before he has realised what is happening, can be readily persuaded to act according to your will, as he will never consent to do later on. Just as a heavy trout lying amongst a bank of weeds can, if you can get his head up, be led holus-bolus over and across the weeds into reasonable water directly you have hooked him, so, in a similar manner, a salmon will often allow you a latitude in dealing with him at first that he won't give you a second time. Frequently the heaviest fish take some time after being hooked before they are roused to a sense of their position, and exert themselves to the full to get rid of the annoying restraint. The strong upward pull of a salmon rod, tending to pull him out of his natural element, is what a fish girds against, naturally enough, and I have frequently found it of advantage to take the strain entirely off a fish that is making too determined an effort to leave a pool. Give him his head and he will often stop his run and save you from the risk of being cut or broken. There is necessarily a considerable element of risk in so doing, but desperate cases often require desperate remedies. As with trout, so with salmon, hand lining can frequently be resorted to advantageously, and it is wonderful how easily salmon can be led by that means out of dangerous places, and even brought to the gaff; the strain being removed, they do not seem to resist an insidious and horizontal pull. In the pool below the Pulpit I had my first experience in learning how to deal with a clean-run fish, hooked fairly and firmly in the thick part of the tail. I had, of course, had to play foul-hooked fish, but I had never hooked one in that part before. I was casting a longish line, and rose a fish at the tail of the pool. On my offering him the fly a second time he made a big splashy rise; I struck, and was in him. Down he went into the next pool like a mad thing. The travelling, for me, was bad, and the gillie had to steady me by holding on to the band of my Norfolk jacket. I held the fish as hard as I dared, but he was bent on running, out of one pool into and through the next; race as I would over the wet and slippery rocks, I never could get on terms with him, and he led me by some forty or fifty yards of line. As he had never shown so far and was playing so hard, both my gillie and I thought we were into a real big one. We were now nearing the falls above the sea pool; I was pretty near pumped out, so some resolute measures had to be taken. I accordingly, whilst holding on for all I was worth, sent the gillie ahead to stone him up. No sooner was he turned than he was done, and the gaff in him, and then only did we find out how he was hooked. He weighed no more than 14 lb., and had we known where the hook was, and had we not put him down as a real big fish, he would have never have been permitted to play such pranks and lead us such a dance. Had I held him really hard, his down-stream rush would soon have finished him, as the water running through his gills would have choked him. One day we decided to try the Crolly, wishing to sample some of those beautiful fish, and, as it meant a seven-mile walk over the hills, we left our salmon rods at home, taking instead only double-handed trout rods. On arriving, we found the wind very foul, blowing partly across and partly up the river, so that it was no easy matter to command the pools at all properly with our small rods. One fish in particular annoyed us by showing constantly in a part of the water we could barely reach and could not command, so we instituted a kind of angling tournament, each of us in turn trying to get over him properly. Our gillies were watching intently and open-mouthed. One of them, Pat by name, had a peculiarly ugly mouth, with heavy, protruding lips; and whilst he was watching thus intently, the unkind wind brought my friend's fly, a big Jock Scott, right into his mouth, fixed it firmly into his lower lip, the forward cast sending it well home, and nearly dragging poor Pat into the river. We none of us felt equal to attacking the fly in its weird position, so we sent Pat down to the village, a mile or more away, to get the local doctor to extract it. Down he went, only to return an hour later with the fly still sticking in its former position, and having received a severe drubbing with shillelahs from the locals for having presumed to gillie for us. Pretty well black and blue all over, his lower lip enormously swollen, he looked indeed a sorry sight. Something had now to be done, so it then occurred to one of us to strip the fly, which fortunately was not an eyed one, and take it out the reverse way. This was done accordingly without delay, a plug of tobacco was stuffed into the gaping hole, a good jorum of "the craytur" was speedily administered, and Pat soon forgot all about his thrashing and his sore lip in his keenness to gaff the fish we managed to catch. Owing to our being so severely boycotted, we had to manage for food at the hotel as best we could, and the monotonous diet of salmon in every form or shape, varied with a ham or piece of bacon, disagreed thoroughly with me, and somewhat marred the perfect enjoyment of my trip. On Sundays we used to drive to the Protestant church in a big brake, so as to take the servants with us and protect them from possible violence; and one sermon we heard there amused us mightily. We were sitting in the big square pew just under the pulpit. The parson preached us an impassioned sermon on intolerance, and I must candidly admit that I have seldom listened to a more intolerant one. He launched forth into a tirade of abuse of most things, of absenteeism in particular, bewailing the sorrows of his poor, distressful country, and attributing the large majority of her troubles to a non-resident gentry. "They come here," said he, "not to do their duty or to help us, but merely to gratify their miserable sporting instincts" (and here we began to feel very small); "but," he added, leaning over the side of the pulpit in our direction, "not, gintlemen, that I allude to angling, for that is a grand sport. One of the greatest of the apostles, Saint Peter, was an ardent angler, and I am an angler myself." Mentally bowing our acknowledgments, we left the church, grateful that so eloquent a divine should be appreciative of our favourite sport. One more anecdote and I have done. We were going back to England on the morrow, and were settling up generally, when my gillie Pat said to me, "Your honour, would ye buy me a pig?" "And why should I do that, Pat? Are you not content with your tip?" "Well, your honour, I don't want ye to pay altogither for it, but only to buy it for me." After some further conversation I consented to go up to the shanty on the hill where his old mother lived. There I found her haggling over the price of a sow; she averred that £3 was more than the sow was worth, the man was holding out for £3 10_s._ Eventually I became the purchaser at £3, and, paying the money, told Pat that as he had been a good gillie to me he could have the pig for his own. All the blessings of heaven were showered on my head by Pat and his mother; but no sooner had the dealer departed than Pat, producing an old stocking, extracted three sovereigns therefrom and solemnly handed them to me. Asked what all this comedy meant, Pat at once replied, "Ach, sorr, would ye have me let the praste know I'd got three sovereigns in my pocket?" Were the nets at the mouth of the Clady and the Crolly kept within reasonable limits, few better rivers for summer angling could be found. Having seen their capabilities when the nets were perforce removed altogether, I gained an idea of what the sport might be in our sea-girt island, with its innumerable rivers, were the angling not throttled by the vast array of legalised nets that threaten to destroy, or at any rate reduce very heavily, the sport and profit of riparian owners. That much has been done and that more is being done in this respect cannot be gainsaid. The allowance of longer slaps, the purchase outright of netting rights in individual cases, are undoubted steps in the right direction. But until the process is more universally applied its effect cannot be considerable. Salmon coast along such an extent of our shores before reaching their destination that bag and coast nets miles away may take heavy toll of the fish that are seeking your estuary, even though they would have a free run up your river if once they could attain it. Is it too much to hope that some day a wise Government may take the matter in hand, not by piecemeal legislation, but with the determination of so apportioning and circumscribing the respective rights of all concerned and interested, that the price of salmon as an article of food may not be increased, and the true rights of both net fisherman and angler may be secured? These two are so much bound up together that over net fishing must necessarily and improperly reduce the number of spawning fish, and thus injure the rivers which, by furnishing the spawning grounds, are the geese that lay the golden eggs. Kill the geese and you get no more eggs of gold. Treat the rivers unfairly, either by pollution or by over-netting, and not only will the net fishing industry suffer, but the general public also, for salmon will rise to famine price. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVI. SALMON AND FLIES. WHY does a salmon take a salmon fly, and what does it represent to him? These are conundrums that are not readily answered. Obviously it cannot be because it represents any particular article of food to which salmon are accustomed when in the river. If one may presume to dogmatise at all upon so abstruse a question, it must be because their curiosity and predatory instincts are aroused by a queer object, moving with a series of jerks and a somewhat lifelike movement of fibres. Any salmon angler with the slightest experience will know what is meant by "hanging a fly" properly, and its taking powers as compared with a bunch of lifeless feathers floating down stream. So far we are all agreed; but when we attempt to discuss the details of the fly itself we are prone to differ amazingly. Some years ago, on the occasion before alluded to, when I was fishing the River Clady, in Donegal, the nets having been removed for that year, the river was full of fresh-run fish--it was in July. There was a pool in which the fish lay in serried rows in the stream, which at that point ran under a steep, high bank. I lay down on the bank overlooking and a little behind the rows of salmon, and some twenty feet above them. By shading my eyes I could make out all the fish as clearly as if I were looking at them in an aquarium. I arranged a code of signals with my fishing friend, and he went some thirty yards or so up the river to fish the pool. As soon as his fly began to work over the first line I signalled that he had got the length; there was, however, no movement among the fish. I then signalled to cast again with the same length of line. As the fly worked over the fish for the second time they all seemed to shun it, dropping down stream a foot or so, with the exception of one fish, which, separating from the others, came up some three feet to follow the fly, eventually leaving it and dropping back into his former position. A third passage of the fly produced similar results, the same fish moving again. He made a break in the water, which my friend saw, but he had come short. A fourth cast secured him. I could come to no other conclusion but that the fish had been bored into taking that fly. His curiosity had been excited at first, and in ordinary circumstances the fisherman would have known nothing and passed on. Does not this tend to show that many a fish may be moved without our knowledge, and that a subsequent fly might secure him? It is often thought that the first fly over a pool stands the best chance, provided, of course, that it is properly offered. Personally, I would just as soon follow a good angler down a pool as precede him. Unless a fish breaks the water in his rise, the fisherman can tell little of what is happening below the water level, except when, by chance, a glimpse of a silver flash is accorded him. But he may have moved a fish with his fly, and, knowing nothing, will have moved a yard down stream, his next cast being a yard below the fish. The next fly, suitably offered, if it be about the same size, may lure our friend to his destruction. Could we all know exactly what is going on under the water out of our sight, many more fish would doubtless be brought to bank. Of course, on those days when the temperature of both air and water have attained that precise relative proportion that seems to cause a simultaneous rise of fish in every pool, the first fly will pay best, for on such happy occasions that fly, however ill delivered, may secure the best fish. And what fisherman cannot recall instances of "duffer's luck," the veriest tyro catching, perhaps, the fish of the season? I remember once trying to teach a would be angler how to cast, and in a most unlikely spot--the river being dead low--was endeavouring to instil into him the rhythm of the cast, and trying to make him get his line out well behind him. Holding the rod with him, I kept the same length of line, steadily flogging the water to the tune of "one, two," when, at about the ninth or tenth cast, a travelling fish seized our fly, and eventually came to the gaff, a clean-run salmon of 18 lb. [Illustration: HE MEANS GOING DOWN.] But surely the precise pattern of the fly, within limits, is of small moment; the size, coupled with the proper working of the fibres, is the main thing. Every angler has, naturally, his own favourite shibboleth, mainly, in my opinion, because he has succeeded with it, and therefore perseveres with it far more steadily than with any other pattern. In the same way local fetishes are set up, and when once adopted are hard to shift. On the Beauly, years ago, fishing on that lovely water in the spring, we were using the orthodox spring fly, a sort of exaggerated Alexandra, and were mainly catching kelts. When one of us suggested a Gordon (having lately used it on the Dee) the fishermen laughed us to scorn, and said we might as well fish with it on the high road. Nevertheless, the fly was tried, and nearly all the clean fish we got that week were secured by it. When our time was up our gillies begged for our worn specimens of the goodly Gordon, and the next lessee caught all his fish upon flies of that pattern; and, for aught I know, that fly may now be reckoned as one of the standard flies of the river. To revert to the original query. Can it be answered satisfactorily? Surely it must represent some food taken whilst the salmon are in their sea home; and yet, if this be the only probable answer, how comes it that on some rivers, as is the case in Canada, salmon cannot be persuaded to rise at any fly of the kind? After all, whether the question is unanswerable or no, the glorious uncertainty of salmon fishing forms one of its most potent fascinations. If every bungling cast hooked a salmon, few people would care for the sport. All this said, then, what form of fly are we to use? Here we get upon very debatable ground, and whatever conclusion we arrive at will probably be strenuously opposed. The patterns of salmon flies are legion, many differing but slightly from others. Are we to credit salmon with such extraordinary intelligence as to believe them able to differentiate between varieties of almost similar flies, and to have such a correct eye for colour as to refuse a fly because the colour of the body or hackle is a shade unorthodox? The size of the fly, no doubt, is a most important factor, both as regards the size and volume of the river and the time of the year. It would be the height of absurdity to use in fine run water in the summer a three inch fly that would be a suitable lure on the brawling Thurso in the spring, and _vice versâ_. The finer the water the smaller the fly--within reason. So far, I think, we are all agreed. It is when we attempt to reduce the vast number of flies now in vogue that differences of opinion will begin to assert themselves. On the whole, perhaps, there will be less divergence of opinion about that singularly fortunate combination of fur, feather, and tinsel, termed the Jock Scott. It seems, to an extraordinary degree, to be effective on most rivers where the artificial fly is used. The combination of colour is most happy, and the fibres of its mixed wing give it, in the water, a most life-like appearance. Few anglers would care to be without Jock Scotts of sizes. Similarly, in bright water the Silver Doctor is a universal favourite, and justly so. As a direct contrast the Thunder and Lightning is bad to beat, and I should be sorry to be without a Blue Doctor. Eagles, grey and yellow, hold their sway on the Dee, and the play of the feathers seems to be alluring in the quick waters of that river. How would such a fly suit the quiet waters of the Avon? You would imagine that you might as well fish with a mop-head! The fibres of Eagles require fast, fleet water to make them work, and to use an Eagle as your lure in slow-running rivers would appear to be most inappropriate. The play of the rod point may, however, be substituted for the play of the water, and a tempting opening and closing of fibrous and mixed winged flies can be obtained by a judicious rhythmical raising and lowering of your rod point. Indeed, if you watch an experienced salmon fisherman from a distance, you can tell at once the kind of water his fly is working through. If the stream be sufficiently broken and rapid to work his fly automatically, his rod point will be still. If the water should be sluggish, you will note the work of the rod top. It would, therefore, be folly to dogmatise on such a matter, and I should be sorry to attempt to do so. Gordons, Butchers, Wilkinsons, and a host of others have their staunch advocates. It is, however, unnecessary to run through the whole gamut; suffice it to say that in my opinion, a good selection of, say four or five, would be as effective as twenty or thirty. The main difficulty is local prejudice, and the uncertain kind of feeling--that if you had not discarded local favourites your blank day might have been fruitful. Once, however, you have shaken yourself free from this feeling, you will very soon gain full confidence in your theory. The blank day that you are mourning would probably have been equally blank if you had been equipped with all that local fancy could suggest. Can it be seriously suggested that salmon can be credited with sufficient intelligence to refuse a Silver Doctor or Silver Grey and to accept only a Wilkinson? Is it not rather that the fly that was accepted was presented in a most alluring manner, whilst the others which were rejected did not come within the salmon's ken in such a way as to tempt him? Are we not all too prone to change our flies on the slightest provocation, and are we not all inclined to have our own favourite fetish--a fly that succeeds with us simply because we give it ten chances to one of any other? The vagaries of salmon are universally admitted; at one time they will allow all lures to pass them unnoticed, and in the next half hour may take any fly, of the proper size, suitably offered. The relative temperatures of air and water have, I feel convinced, much to say with regard to this. The fly in which an angler believes, and with which, therefore, he perseveres most, will bring him more fish to bank than any other. It goes without saying that the fly that is most in the water, in the fishable parts of the pools, of course, will catch most fish. The patient, persistent angler has that great advantage over his less energetic brother of the angle. What angler is there, who ties his own flies, who has not built up a combination of fur, feathers, and silk by the river side, and, on trying the novelty, perhaps after days of disappointment, has found it unexpectedly to succeed, and who has thereupon fondly imagined that he has found a "medicine," only to be equally disappointed the next time it is tried? Scrope, in his day, seems to have been satisfied with five patterns. To come to later times and later writers, Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Gathorne Hardy both advocate four only. The colour of the bottom of the river, of the sky, the brightness of the day, or its cloudiness, all these will affect our choice of fly, whilst the size and volume of the water will affect our choice of size. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVII. SALMON OF THE AWE. THE River Awe, in Argyllshire, presents, to my mind, the perfection of angling water. A fine brawling stream, a constant succession of pools, some easy to fish, some only fishable by past masters, lovely, deep, roach-backed salmon trout--all these are bad to beat, and when one adds the fact that the run of the heavy fish takes place in June and July, after the Orchy fish have run through, the two months of all others, perhaps, when salmon fishing is enjoyable, I do not think any further arguments need be urged to enforce my point. Were I a rich man--which I am not--I should feel inclined to do my best to secure the fishing rights on that merry little river in preference to many others of high repute. It is now many years since I first wetted a line on the Awe. My old gillie, Black Peter, or the "Otter," as he was frequently called, has, I fear, gaffed his last salmon and drunk his last glass of whisky, and (save the mark!) he was mighty good at both. I can see him now, in his somewhat tattered kilt, hanging on to the porch of the Clachan, trying to steady himself, to give me a right cordial welcome when I arrived. No more will he swim the Awe when in spate to land a fish for the "Colonel" that had jumped itself on the rocks on the opposite side of the river, some mile or two above the bridge--a foolhardy feat in such water; but he was always full of sport, and not infrequently, alas, equally full of whisky. The head of water in this bonnie little river is always maintained fairly well by its being the affluent of Loch Awe. It is not, therefore, so liable to the quick rises and falls of most rivers. The loch is fed by the River Orchy, which flows into its north-eastern end, whilst the Awe, after passing through the Pass of Brander, forms its only outlet. All the Orchy fish, therefore, have to run up the Awe to get to their own waters. These fish run early in the spring, never dwelling for any length of time in the Awe; and, curiously enough, any tyro could at once differentiate between the salmon of the two rivers, though they have a common outlet to the sea. The Orchy fish are long, lanky, and plain as compared with the short, thick-set beauties of the Awe. I recollect once in Ireland coming across the same difference in fish using the same _embouchure_. It was in Donegal, where the Crolly and the Clady unite at Dum Drum. In this case also one lot of fish are poor in shape, whilst the others are of totally different calibre. And, moreover, in that case the fish never seem to lose their way. Seldom is a Crolly fish found in the Clady, or _vice versâ_. How accurate are the instincts of nature! The lower reaches of the river Awe are very varied and very beautiful. The river has churned its way through the solid rock. The two Otter Pools, Arroch and the Long Pool, are good examples of the rock-hewn gorges. In the latter, a fine quiet stretch of water, where local knowledge of the lie of fish is valuable, switching or spey casting is necessary if you wish to avoid being constantly hung up in the trees above. The Red Pool, just above the stepping stones, can only be fished from a plank staging fixed high above the water, and should you hook a heavy one at the tail end and he means going down you will be thankful enough when you have safely negotiated the return journey on the high plank and reached the shore. Even then you have plenty of excitement in store before you can hope to see him on the bank. The rocky sides of the chasm do not form a racing track. But get him once safely down to the Stepping Stone Pool and he should be yours. This same pool, by the way, is not altogether the place for a beginner, for when the river is in order the aforesaid stepping stones have about two feet or more of fairly heavy water over them; and as they are well-worn boulders, somewhat inclined to be rounded on the top, and are placed at a rather inconvenient distance from one another, they are apt to make a nervous man think. One friend, I can well remember, when I asked him to fish the pool, absolutely declined, asking me if I took him for a "blooming acrobat." Below again we come to the Cruive Pool, a long cast from another staging, the fish lying on the far side, just about as far as an 18 ft. rod will get you. But be there in July when the sun is setting, the redder the better, behind the hills on the far side, and suddenly the silent oily water becomes broken with countless rises, also on the far side. Put on then a cast of sea trout flies and use your salmon rod, otherwise you will never reach them. Do not bother with a landing net, but run them ashore on the shelving bank below you and let your gillie take them off the hooks, and get to casting again as soon as you can. The rise, though a good one, lasts, I assure you, but a tantalisingly short time, and then the pool is as quiet and oily as ever, and you would feel inclined to stake your bottom dollar that there was not a sea trout within miles. The Thunder and Lightning and the Blue Doctor are the local lures, and kill well. One year, when the river was low and the fish as stiff as pokers, I tied a "medicine" of my own that I fondly hoped would form a standard fly on that water, for its effect was admirable at that time. It was an olive fly, body olive silk ribbed with silver, tag a golden pheasant, dark olive hackles, a light mixed wing with golden pheasant topping. Having caught several fish that year with this fly, I got Messrs. Eaton and Deller to dress me a stock, and must candidly admit that never since then have I caught a single salmon with the "olives." There are two pools, however, above the Long Pool that I have not attempted to describe--the lower one the Yellow Pool, an ideal, leg of mutton-shaped piece of water, where a beginner could not well go wrong, and above it the Bridge Pool, so called because the railway line crosses the neck of it. It was in this pool that I once had a rare bit of sport. The whole of the water I have attempted to describe was then hotel water, the fishermen staying at the inn having the right to fish for a nominal sum--5_s._ a day I think it was. But the river had been in fair order, and several good fish had been got. It was then rapidly getting on the small side. The records of the previous week having been published in the columns of the _Field_, the inevitable result was a rush of ardent anglers, and the dozen or so of good pools--nice water for two rods--was perfectly inadequate to accommodate the six keen fishermen who had arrived to try their luck. It was necessary, therefore, to "straw" for the pools, and to my lot fell the Bridge and Yellow Pools. The next morning, on reaching my little beat, I found the Yellow Pool far too low to be fishable, and there remained only the Bridge Pool. Fishing it down carefully twice produced no result, so I lit a pipe and clambered up on to the railway bridge to scan the water below me. I was able, after a careful search with shaded eyes, to locate three fish, all low down on the far side, lying behind a big stone below the water and upon a slab. I could see at once that to reach them I should have to do my utmost in the casting way, and should have, moreover, to bring my line up through the centre arch of the bridge above me to get out the length I wanted; but it seemed to me that if I could get my fly to travel and work well over the oily water formed by the stone it ought to be irresistible to any well-conducted fish. So, putting on a small Thunder, I regained the water side. The second cast brought up the smallest of the three fish, who made no bones about it, but hooked himself handsomely, and was shortly after disposed of in the tail of the pool; he weighed a bare 9 lb. The other two I knew were better fish; one I had seen should be over 20 lb., the other, a very pale-coloured fish, I could not see distinctly enough to form any idea as to his weight. Back I went to my spying point, only just missing being caught on the narrow bridge by a passing train, to see, to my delight, that the other two fish were there, apparently undisturbed. After a few casts the fly went exactly as I could have wished, and there was the answering boil. "By Jove! that is the big one I think; anyway, he is hooked, and well hooked, too." After a long, splashy fight in the pool I got on terms with him, and he began to flounder, and then I could see I had the light-coloured fish on. The big one was still there, I hoped. The pale fish soon came to the gaff, and, getting it nicely home with the left hand, I hauled him on to the bank, a good fish, and in good condition, turning the scale at barely 17 lb. By this time the pool had had a good doing, and I judged it advisable to give it a rest. The Yellow Pool, which I had fished down more for occupation than for anything else, yielding me no response--and, indeed, it was all I expected--I ate my luncheon, lit my pipe, and proceeded once more to my vantage spot. There, sure enough, was the big fish, undisturbed and immutable. Unable to restrain my impatience, I sent a fly (the same one that had accounted for the two other fish) on its errand of quest. But there was no movement, no reply, nor was there to two other changes of fly I put over him. Having nowhere else to fish, and being disinclined to try the Yellow Pool again, as I felt sure it would be hopeless, I sat me down to cogitate and look over my fly box. The day had become sultry and heavy, and clouds had been rolling up, and suddenly there broke a regular deluge of rain, turning the pool into a seething mass of big drops. Instinctively I ran for shelter under the bridge, but before I reached it changed my mind and determined to try once more for the big one in the heavy rainstorm. Hastily putting on a Thunder and Lightning two sizes larger, I sent him out, braving the ducking I was undergoing. The first fly that reached the spot was answered by a fine head and tail rise, and I was fast in the big one. For a short time he played sulkily, either through not grasping the situation or through trying to induce me to believe him to be a small one. But I was not to be deluded, and, as he kept edging up into the big water coming down the centre arch of the railway bridge, I let him have a bit of the butt of my 18 ft. Castleconnell. But, with a savage shake of his head and strong whisk of his broad tail, he was now thoroughly aroused, and, despite all I could do, up he went, carefully threading the central arch and working up for all he was worth into the heavy water round the corner. My running line was thus against the buttress, but, despite the imminent danger of being cut, there was nothing to do but give him "beans." Fortunately for me my lucky star was in the ascendant. A convenient patch of moss between the courses of the bricks saved my line from the grinding process; the strain of my supple rod, combined with the weight of the water, did the trick. I felt him yield, reeled up as hard as I could, but, as he turned tail and came down (fortunately for me through the same arch), I soon had to give up reeling in in order to haul in the line by hand to keep touch with him in his downward rush. Steadying the line when he got ahead of me, I felt he was still on. Ten minutes of the fight against rod, water, and luck had been enough for him, and, rolling on his side, he swung round into the slack below me. I had had no chance till then of taking my gaff off my back; luckily it came off my shoulders quite freely, and the steel went home. As I hauled him out with some difficulty, the hook, which had worn a big hole, came out of his jaw; so my luck continued to the last. I could not make him scale 30 lb.; he was a good 29½ lb., and, inasmuch as I had never landed a fish of 30 lb. or upwards, that part was somewhat aggravating. But, as I toiled home that evening over the three miles of sleepers and rails to the inn with the three fish weighing just about half-a-hundredweight, I several times wished he had not been quite so heavy. The upper waters of the Awe, above Awe Bridge, formerly retained by the Marquis of Breadalbane in his own hands, and therefore not open to the general public, can nowadays be fished from Dalmally Hotel. Through that nobleman's enterprise one of the two big cruives has been done away with, and there is to be an additional slap nightly, between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. The results cannot but be both beneficial and prudent. The characteristics of these upper waters are totally distinct from those of the lower ones, being unusually broken and rapid, the pools small, and not easily distinguishable. The pent up waters of Loch Awe, finding through the dark Pass of Brander their only outlet to the sea, take full advantage of their opportunity, and rush and boil over the boulder-bestrewn bed of the river in a way that renders it imperative that your gut should be of the best, your tackle sound, and your determination great that you will not consent to be a mere follower of a hooked fish, but intend to give him "beans" when necessary. The Black and Seal Pools and Verie are fairly typical of the upper Awe waters; most of them are fished from planks rigged out on staging, and wading is not generally practicable. A hooked fish can never be reckoned on as caught, nor can you ever be certain of him until the gaff has gone home and your fish lies on the bank beside you. This remark, of course, applies in a greater or lesser degree to all salmon fishing; but here the perils from heavy water, combined with the rugged, rock-strewn bed, afford unusual chances of escape, and at the same time add much to the sporting charms of a successful capture. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVIII. DISAPPOINTING DAYS. DISAPPOINTING Days! How well we all know them, and how terribly frequent they are. Full of ardour and keen as mustard, we anticipate great things, only to find that another day of disappointment is to be added to the many already recorded in our angling diary. And it is sometimes so difficult to anticipate them; all the omens seem to be propitious, and yet the fates are inexorable. There are days admittedly hopeless, when the river side is only sought for its companionship, and for the unknown possibilities of fortune; and others that are worse than hopeless, when to try to fish for salmon with a fly would be the height of absurdity, as, for instance, when the river is in high spate, or so full of snow brue or ice as to render your chances almost ridiculous. These, in a sense, are certainly disappointing; but it is not of them that I would write, but rather of those inexplicable days when all seems to be fairly propitious and yet we come home "blank." Fortunately, fishermen are not easily browbeaten by unkind fortune, and these black letter days only serve to give a renewed zest to the future, in anticipation of the more fortunate days that we all confidently believe to be in store for us. Everything seems on some occasions to go unaccountably wrong. The water may be in order, the fish up, and yet at the end of the day you have nothing but mishaps to record, your confident expectations have been rudely dissipated, and you have met with a series of misfortunes. Perhaps on starting you find that you have left your flask or your tobacco pouch lying on your mantelpiece, and imprudently have turned back to secure them. That circumstance alone, in the eyes of your gillie, will prove amply sufficient to give you a "disappointing day." You have already discounted your luck, and must not grumble at the result. On reaching the water side you find that you have brought with you the wrong box of flies, and only have with you the one you had discarded overnight as containing those of a size too large. Well, you must make the best of it, mount the least objectionable of those at your disposal, and proceed to wade out into the stream with half your confidence gone. You soon realise that your waders, which had already given you warning indications of hard wear, are leaking somewhat unpleasantly. After working your way half down the pool you discover that your pipe is smoked out, and as you are in need of the consoling influence of tobacco, you propose to refill it, proceeding to knock out the ashes on the butt of your rod; in doing so the pipe slips through your fingers and disappears in the stream at your feet. It is impossible to recover it, so you are pipeless, and therefore inconsolable all day. Some disappointments are sheer ill fortune; some we bring upon ourselves. You are, for example, casting mechanically, and therefore badly; moreover, you are not watching your fly, nevertheless you get a rise. You step back a yard or so, in order to be sure of getting the length right for the next cast, and in so doing forget the slimy green boulder that you had just negotiated on your way down. An awkward struggle, in which you have to use the butt of your rod as a stick to avoid an upset, does not serve to mend matters, but rather to unsteady you the more. At any rate, you have escaped a real ducking and are proportionately thankful. Then, your mental balance being somewhat upset, you cast over your rising fish; he comes up well, a good boil, but you are too anxious and keen, and fairly pull the fly out of the fish's mouth. You have pricked him, and you will hardly get another rise out of him. Still there is a Will-o'-the-wisp kind of luck awaiting you, for near the tail of the pool you get a fair head-and-tail rise, and are fast in a good fish. He won't come up into your pool, but insists on making down, through the broken water, into the pool below. Having guided him to the best of your ability through the intricacies of the run, you hasten to get ashore to get on terms with him, keeping your rod point well up. More haste, less speed. The fact of your mental balance being upset reacts upon your bodily balance, and you catch the toe of your brogue on a submerged rock whilst working your way ashore, and this time you go a real "howler." Thoroughly wet, with a big chunk cut out of your wrist in your fall, you pick yourself up to find that you have broken your favourite rod point. Disconsolately you begin to reel up, the broken top meanwhile floating on your line in the water. Still a gleam of luck: the fish is on, and, moreover, is complacently careering round the head of the new pool. Thoroughly aroused, you take the greatest care in getting on to terms with him again. Your rod has now a somewhat quaint appearance, like a dismasted yacht. Half the play of it is gone, and the top swirls about on the water in a most disconcerting manner. With set teeth, you grimly determine that, come what may, you will land that salmon. And you meet with some measure of reward, for after a somewhat prolonged duel, he begins to flop about on the surface, and to show unmistakable signs of having had enough of it. With the greatest care you select the best spot for gaffing him, and successfully get the gaff free from your shoulder. Your now stiff and stodgy rod is, however, not best suited for bringing him in to the gaff. It is some little time before you get anything, like a fair chance. Then, with the rod in your left hand, your trusty gaff in the right, he is led in, down stream, and he flops about. The hold, alas, has been somewhat worn, and, just as you are making ready for your stroke, the fish makes one more roll and surge and is free. A wild scrape with the gaff only scores a scale or two from his side, and, slowly gliding out of sight into the deep water, he disappears for ever. You feel that you have only yourself to thank for such a _dénouement_, but that is scant consolation. [Illustration: THE FALL'S POOL.] Damp and annoyed, you sit yourself down by the river side to try to make matters straight. Where is that waxed silk? At home, of course. So you have to content yourself with sacrificing a good length of the taper of your line in order to make a temporary splice. Taking all things into consideration, your efforts to rig up a jury top are reasonably successful, and it might yet kill a fish. If only you had a pipe to console yourself with, things might look brighter and better; but the loss of your pipe is an undeniably severe one. The pool that you are now fishing has a shelving stone bank on your side, the deep water being opposite to you. It is ideal water to fish, as the fly works out of the heavy stream into the shallowing water on your side. The wading, moreover, is easy, and the pool a long one, so that there is every probability of your being able to yet retrieve your fortunes, and of being able to account for a heavy fish before you have done with it. Still keeping mounted the fly that, contrary to your expectations, had already deluded the former fish, you wade out and recommence operations. The cast, however, demands a certain length of line to cover the fish, and your rod is hardly the man it was; the breeze has increased a good deal, and is directly behind you; still, you manage to cover the water fairly well, and are beginning to get on better terms with yourself. A few yards down there is a good rise and a welcome heavy "rugg." The fly, however, comes away, and you are left lamenting. The long pool is steadily fished down, and some hundred yards or so lower you get another bold and confident rise. You strike, and the fly again comes back. Reeling up, sadly you wade ashore, and, on examining your fly, find the barb gone. In all probability it was broken at the head of the pool on the shelving bank behind you, the strong wind at your back and the long cast with a weak rod having brought about the misfortune. Why, in the name of goodness, had you not examined the fly when it came back after your last rise? No doubt but that the barb had gone long before that. Mentally cursing your carelessness, objurgating Dame Fortune, and longing for the companionship of a pipe, there is nothing to be done but to mount another fly and to fish, albeit somewhat mechanically, the next stretch of water. But there is now no response. That inexplicable co-relation between the temperature of the air and the water that seems to cause salmon to rise has undergone some modification, the breeze has dropped, and the mists are beginning to rise. Do what you will, not a fish will move. Had your luck been in the ascendant, or had you paid more respect to the superstitions of your attendant gillie, things might have been so different. You have had three good chances, each of which, under normal circumstances, might have been fairly expected to score, and that with flies that, in your judgment, were a size too large. Fate had determined that you were to have a "disappointing day," and you cannot say that you have not scored one. In September, 1902, having received an invitation from an old friend to fish one of the upper beats of the Spean, I journeyed up North, full of eagerness. I had long wished to try that river. My host had informed me that that river was low, but that everything pointed to broken weather and rain; and though this forecast was true as regards some portions of Great Britain, the change never came during the fortnight that I spent on Spean side, that bonnie river getting finer and finer day by day, until at last it became a mere shadow of its former self. At the time of my arrival everything looked promising. Heavy clouds were gathering, and it looked as if the promised rainfall could not be long delayed. At the lodge I found, besides my host, another angler whom I am also privileged to call an old friend, and in such company I knew that, whether sport were good or no, we should at least have a jolly time. That evening we discussed flies and angling details as only fishermen can, and with a last look out of the window at the murky sky, and a tap to my barometer as I turned in somewhat early, looking forward to the morrow with the keenest anticipation. Early astir next morning, I drew up my blinds to find an almost cloudless sky and a bright sun. All the evening promise had been dissipated, and the rain-laden clouds had wandered out to sea to discharge their precious stores where least required. The river, though small, was, nevertheless, still fishable, and there were plenty of salmon up. At the lowest pool on the beat I put up my rod and fixed up the local "medicine"--a Thunder and Lightning--and, wading out, fished the pool down carefully, without result. My host then fished it, also blank. Several fish had shown at the tail, but we could not get a rise out of them. Then we wandered up the beat, trying all the likely pools in turn. In the mill pool I managed to get into a small salmon, about 7 lb. in weight, and duly got him out; otherwise our efforts were entirely unrewarded. It was a great thing to learn the pools, and to know where it was safe to wade, etc., and so I felt that the day was not a lost one as far as I was concerned, though of course less interesting to my friend S. and to my host. As we came home the clouds again began to gather, to lure us, Will-o'-the-wisp-like, on to further baseless hope, as the following bright, hot morning amply testified. And so the days wore on, rocks gradually appearing where water had flowed before, shallows becoming stony strands, and the fish more pool-locked than ever. Finer grew the tackle used, smaller the flies. We were really learning the geography of the bed of the river to some weariness. After a few days S. gave up trying for the salmon, and contented himself with trout waders and a trout rod as being more productive of amusement. Being, however, of a more dogged temperament, I stuck to the salmon, fishing with the smallest flies I could get, and almost trout gut. By means of these allurements I did succeed in amusing myself, rising and hooking quite a respectable number of fish, but somehow or other I never could get a good hold of them; all were lightly hooked, and got off in playing or eventually broke me. One fish I was particularly annoyed with; he was a heavy one, well over 20 lb., and might have been 30 lb. I had often seen him showing in the pool at the end of the Red Bank. This formed really the head of the Mill Pool, but was now cut off from the main part of the Mill Pool by a daily lowering shallow some 1 ft. to 18 in. deep, through which sharp-cutting rocks jutted at intervals. In mid-stream quite a highish bank of stones was now disclosed, and on our side had quite cut off the flow of water and formed a large backwater. The pool was fishable with a short line, and the high, rocky bank behind formed a good shelter whilst working down the very rough bank side. About four o'clock one afternoon I saw my friend show twice in the head of the pool, and determined to give him another trial with the little Popham that had already risen fish. He took it grandly, with a head-and-tail rise, right up in the roughish water in the neck, and then proceeded to sail round the diminished proportions of the deep hole. He played very heavily, but did not jigger or show any signs of being lightly hooked. After some time of this kind of work, which was taking but little out of him, my light cast forbidding any heroic measures on my part, I began to wonder how I could manage to kill him. He could have got up into the pool above, where it would have been an easier matter to deal with him, but no arts of mine could induce him up stream. I thought that if I could get him down into the backwater I could more readily manage to play and kill him, so I walked him steadily down stream, and he followed for some distance like a lamb. Suddenly, however, he made up his mind for a run, or, realising the object of my manoeuvre, off he went, churning his way across the wide shallow, his back fin almost showing, bound for the main stream on the other side. Sixty yards of line were soon gone, then seventy, then eighty, and, as I could not follow, it was merely a question of when he would break me, when apparently he changed his mind, turned clean round and ran back through the shallow towards me for all he was worth. Holding the rod as high as I could to prevent my line being cut by the half-submerged, jagged rocks, and paying in line as hard as I could at the same time, I got him within twenty yards of the spot where he was hooked, the little Popham holding well, and with no slack line. Just as my gillie and I were congratulating ourselves that we had him now, up came the point of my rod, and he was gone. The light cast had been terribly frayed by his mad rush across the shallow water, and he retained my Popham and left me lamenting. It certainly was hard lines, when all the dangers of the run had been so successfully overcome and hooked fish were so scarce. It is useless, however, to repine in such circumstances, and after all, in a very dead time, he had given me a good twenty minutes to half an hour of sport. My friend S. came up just as we parted company, and condoled with me. That same afternoon my host managed to land a 21 lb. fish on a stouter tackle, and he was not very red--the fish I mean, not my host!--although he must have been up some time. The same thing went on all the next week. A few desultory showers did not help us much, and at the end of a fortnight's solid work I could only show two small salmon of 7 lb. apiece, my host one of 21 lb., and S., who had confined his attention to the trout after the first few days, had not landed any fish. And so it is--too often, alas!--that our hopes are doomed to disappointment. There were the fish, plenty of them; but also there were the gradually dwindling river and the expanding river bed. Nothing was wanting save a kindly and copious fall of rain--so much needed by three ardent anglers--rain that was falling only too copiously down South, whilst the normally wet North-West coast of Scotland was languishing for want of it. A dear fishing friend of mine took a rod for February one year, and lived at Brawl Castle for the month at the rate of about £1 per day. During the whole month the river and even Loch More were ice-bound, and his rods reposed in the box. The trip must have cost him the best part of £100. So our Spean experience was as nothing to his. And these disappointments make an admirable foil for those happy, though not too frequent, times when, for a wonder, river, fish, and weather are all we could desire them to be. How little we should value them were they of constant recurrence. So, consoling ourselves with these reflections, we enjoy to the full the pleasure of the company of kindred spirits, tie flies, grease lines, and fettle up rods generally, yarn away our fishermen's tales, drink nightly the toast of "Rain, and lots of it," and retire at night, confident, despite all, of the morrow. Perchance your next holiday up North you may find your pet river in sullen, heavy flood, the skies pouring down upon the devoted hills a constant deluge. Each day you mark on the river bank the water level, only to find your mark submerged the next day. Supposing even it were to stop now. Could the river fine down sufficiently before the end of your stay to enable you to have a glimmering hope of a fish? It is possible, but doubtful. Next day's deluge settles the matter, and you are done. But still, it is a poor heart that never rejoices. Next time, after such a run of bad luck, you are bound to have an innings. Men who have the instincts of sportsmen and who deserve the name have a marvellous power of rising superior to adverse circumstances, and consequently get their reward, whilst the dead-hearted give it up as a bad job. Come good or bad luck, let your heart be in the right place. You will be able to extract from either much enjoyment and some experience, and will be just as keen to take the luck that comes the very next opportunity you get of testing it. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIX. SEA TROUT FISHING AND ITS CHANCES. FOR his size and weight there is no more sporting fish in the wide world than the sea trout. His play when hooked is so full of vivacity, so strenuous, you never know what he is going to do next. Half the time of the contest he spends out of the water in the air. He rushes hither and thither in the most unexpected manner, and having no particular stronghold or shelter to make for, such as his cousins, the brown trout, possess in their rivers, he tries by resourceful activity to rid himself of the irksome restraint of the rod and line. His rise, too, is so determined and so dashing--no quiet sucking down of a dun without much perceptible body movement, but rather a rapid dash to secure an article of food before his comrades can get it. Not much need to strike with him; he hooks himself pretty effectually by his own efforts. Given a single-handed split cane rod, fine tackle, and plenty of fresh run sea trout in a Highland river, and you have the prospect of as good a day's sport as any you ever enjoyed. You never know what the next cast will produce; it may be a half-pounder or something twelve times as big. The worst of sea trout, from the angler's point of view, is that they are rather gregarious and keep in shoals; they are always anxious to move up to the still deeps they love so well, and you may just miss the shoal--they may be just above your water. But if you do happen to hit them off, you will have no reason to regret it. Not many seasons ago I was invited by a friend to shoot with him on one of the many Western islands near Mull. Just before I reached the lodge, in my somewhat long drive up from the landing place, I met my friend, rod in hand, by a deep-looking, leg-of-mutton-shaped pool where his stream found its outlet into the brackish waters of the arm of the sea that looked like a land-locked loch. "Get out of the trap; I've got a treat for you," were his first words of greeting; and then he explained that they had had, the evening before, the first run of the sea trout, and that, standing on a little rock in the brackish water, he had caught quantities of fine fish. Nothing loth to stretch my arms and legs, I took the proffered rod with many thanks, and fished the pool down carefully without a rise of any kind, or a sign of a fish. Putting on another fly, I tried it down again, and also the brackish water at its mouth, with similar results. My friend had foreborne to throw a fly on it until my arrival, and so he chaffed me unmercifully at my want of success after the extraordinary sport he had experienced the afternoon before. I told him that I did not believe there was a trout in the water, and as he had the netting rights, and had come down in the boat with the nets in it, we carefully netted the pool. My host was so convinced that the sea trout were there, that he offered to bet me any odds against a blank draw. He would, however, have lost had I taken his bet, for sure enough there was not a single fish in the whole pool. Whilst I made my way up to the lodge, he went up to try some of the higher pools, but not a rise did he get. The whole big run, shoal like, had run clean up into a small lochan, of which his stream was the outlet. But when you happen to find them just in the right place, where you are, then you may congratulate yourself, if you have not too big a rod with you, for half the pleasure of angling is to suit your rod and tackle to the river and the fish. It is giving the show away and discounting half your sport to be "over-rodded." To fish, for instance, in the upper beats of, say, the Helmsdale, in Sutherland, with an 18 ft. rod is absurd. A 16 ft. or 14 ft. grilse rod will enable you to cover the water well, and the sport you will get from the 9 lb. to 14 lb. salmon in the well-stocked river will be greatly enhanced. A powerful 18 ft. Castleconnel will choke the fish unadvisedly. You might as well use a sledge hammer to crack an egg. So, too, with sea trout, a 14 ft. double-handed rod robs you of the better part of the sport and gives you no real satisfaction. On the other hand, if, as you may well do, you happen to get into a grilse or small salmon with your small rod and forty yards of line, then the sport you get will be worth living for, and will often recur to your remembrance in after times. You will need all your knowledge and resource not to be broken; you will in all probability have no gaff with you, and will have to tail him out, or, better still, persuade him to kick himself ashore on a shelving beach when played out. And it is extraordinary how little pressure of the rod is needed in such cases to keep his head the right way, and each kick and wriggle sends him further up the beach. Then getting between him and the river, having laid down your rod, you can put him out of his misery and despatch him. A few seasons ago, when grouse shooting in the North, I was kindly given an opportunity to fish the Glentana beats of the Dee. The river was low, and as it was then early September, what fish were up were red and ugly, but a change to the river side was welcome, and I had never seen the pools in that part of the water. So, donning my waders, I took with me a 10 ft. 6 in. rod, cane-built, by Walbran, some light grilse and trout casts, and the smallest grilse flies I had by me. I also fortunately put in my bag a small box of Test flies. Nothing had been done for days in any of the Ballater waters, or indeed in any part of that brawling river Dee. The few anglers who had gone out had religiously kept to the orthodox salmon rod, salmon gut, and big flies, and had caught nothing. When I got out of the dogcart and put up my little rod I noticed a smile upon the river keeper's face, but nothing daunted thereby, I followed him down the slopes to a beautiful pool below. I put on a baby Jock Scott, and fished the pool most carefully. At the tail of the pool a big red fish gave a sullen kind of plunge, but not at my fly, for it was not near him at the time. I put the Jock Scott over him without result, and then tried him with a tiny Silver Doctor; but he ignored that also; and so I wandered down from pool to pool, learning a good deal of the river bed, owing to the lowness of the water. After a bit, I saw what I took to be the rise of a trout on the far side, so taking off my "Doctor," I opened my Test fly box and examined its contents. I hit off a gold-ribbed hare's ear, dressed on a 00 hook, which I thought might do, and wading out, had to make my little rod do all it could to reach the required spot. I fished the water above first, in order to soak my fly and make it sink. When I reached the place where I thought I had seen the rise, I fished with more care, and soon as my fly was working round below me, I felt a vigorous tug; something had taken it under water without showing. I was soon convinced that it was no trout that had laid hold, and got ashore as quickly as I could, but I had only forty yards of line and a little backing, so was soon compelled to take to the water again, as my fish was playing sullenly on the far side of the stream. I put on what pressure I dare in order to get on better terms with him, and this roused him a bit, for a vigorous run up to the head of the pool nearly ran my line out, although I was wading as deep as I dared do. My friend the keeper now became interested, and waded in alongside me. Though big, the fish was rather craven-hearted, and I was soon able to get ashore again. However, his weight was great, and when he got into the stream down he went into the next pool, I following, rod point up and reel freely running. There were about forty minutes of this slow kind of play and several incursions into the water, and then I began to see my backing on the reel perilously diminishing. The 00 hook, however, still held well, and at last I had the satisfaction of seeing the big brute floundering on the surface. The keeper, meanwhile, had gone lip to the house to get a gaff, and, walking backwards from the river, I tried to drag the exhausted salmon within his reach; but, although the rod point was about level with the reel, the dead weight of the fish was more than I could manage. So my friend the keeper, deploring the irreparable damage that must have been done to my rod, waded in, thigh deep, and drove the steel into about as ugly and as red an old cock fish as I have ever seen. His under jaw was crooked, and he looked like an evil monster. He weighed just 17½ lb. As soon as the strain was off my Walbran rod it sprang up as straight and as limber as ever, to the great astonishment of the keeper, who had, oddly enough, never come across a rod of that description. Burying our red fish in the bracken, we went down a bit lower, and, two pools below the house, got out another cock fish of 10 lb., and returning home secured a third in the very same pool where I had caught the first; this proved to be a hen fish of 12 lb. They were all red and ugly, but the last one was, comparatively speaking, quite passable. As soon as she was gaffed we looked up the first fish; he had turned quite black, and was a gruesome sight. So, leaving the three fish with the keeper, to kipper or do what he liked with, I got into the dogcart and drove home. Of course, these fish would not have come to the gaff in the way they did had they been spring fish, or lately arrived in the water; but, all the circumstances being taken into account, the 21st September, 1900, will always recur to my mind as a real sporting day. Sundry other salmon has this little rod accounted for, and it is as true as steel and fit for any fight. Such incidents as these add very materially to the interest of sea trout fishing, for, as I have said, you never can tell what your next cast may produce. It is small wonder, therefore, that good sea trout angling is so eagerly sought after and so hard to get. Your best chance of getting such sport is to go a bit further afield, to the Shetland Isles, the Orkneys, or somewhere a little out of the beaten track. [Illustration: FINIS] [Illustration] _L'ENVOI_ _Seasons come and go, each in its turn bringing us nearer to the last, those that remain for our enjoyment growing steadily and inevitably fewer. But the instinct of sport, inbred in most of us, dies hard. I, too, would echo Mr. Sydney Buxton's words, and hope that when my time comes, and my loved rods hang useless in their cases, Old Charon will permit me to loiter awhile on the Styx, and cast one last fly on its dark and turgid waters._ ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR. UNIFORM WITH "CHATS ON ANGLING." STALKING SKETCHES. With Numerous Illustrations by the Author. CONTENTS. I.--INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. II.--THE FOREST AND SANCTUARY. III.--THE STALKER. IV.--PERSONAL EQUIPMENT. V.--THE SHOT AND THE GRALLOCH. VI.--DEER AND THEIR ANTLERS. VII.--PECULIARITIES OF DEER. VIII.--HIND SHOOTING. IX.--DEERHOUNDS AND WOUNDED DEER. X.--THE SPIRACULA OF DEER. ILLUSTRATIONS. OVER THE PASS (Frontispiece). BY THE LOCH SIDE. BRINGING HIM IN. THE POOL IN THE SANCTUARY. A FAMILY PARTY. A GOOD REST. CREEPING DOWN THE HILL. SPYING. A WET CRAWL. A DOWN-HILL SHOT. HEAD OF RED DEER STAG (44 Points). CURIOUS ONE-HORNED STAG. DEFIANCE. THE HUMMEL AND THE HORNED STAG. SENTINELS OF THE FOREST. CHILDREN OF THE MIST. THE LAST ACT. _EXTRACTS FROM PRESS NOTICES._ "The book will be found a welcome addition to the sportsman's library."--_Liverpool Mercury._ "The author's full-page illustrations are delightful things--pictures in the best sense of the word."--_Newcastle Chronicle._ "Capt. Hart-Davis's delightfully breezy pages contain, besides a quantity of advice to novices, and, for that matter, others besides novices, a number of excellently written accounts of stalks and good stories of the 'hull.' The writer's pencil sketches add not a little to the attractiveness of a volume that is sure to take its place on the shelves of the enthusiastic stalker.... Every page contains sound and wholesome advice on the sport and everything connected with it."--_County Gentleman._ "The seventeen full-page illustrations are a pleasure to look at, filled as they are with the very breath and spaciousness of the lonely haunts of the deer."--_Glasgow Herald._ "Such a compleat stalker is Capt. Hart-Davis, and many who view his hardier craft with scant interest, or even with scant sympathy, may spend a delightful hour in looking over his admirable drawings."--_Yorkshire Observer._ "The prime essential to make a book worth reading is that the author should have familiar knowledge of his subject; but when he adds just that degree of enthusiasm which renders him eloquent as well, the reader deems himself fortunate. Capt. Hart-Davis, however, adds a third grace, for he is his own artist likewise, and has drawn a series of beautiful illustrations, rich in the true atmosphere of the Highlands."--_Notts Guardian._ "Without bringing Landseer into comparison, there are a number of drawings here, which for their presentment of stag and hind, of moor and fell, and misty mountain side may fairly be placed against anything of the kind from the pencils of Ansdell or Frederick Taylor."--_Bookseller._ "One great merit that the book possesses is originality, for although the subject is by no means new, the author's treatment of it imparts a freshness which carries the reader from page to page with sustained interest."--_The Field._ "His chapters on 'Personal Equipment' and 'The Shot' are excellent, and ought to be closely studied by all novices at this sport."--_Sporting and Dramatic News._ "Capt. Hart-Davis deserves thanks not only for what he has written and sketched, but also for what his book suggests of the sport which holds the first place in Scotland."--_Land and Water._ "The surroundings of stags in the forests of Scotland are excellently represented in 'Stalking Sketches,' a reprint of articles contributed to _The Field_, illustrated by the author's drawings, which for the most part have considerable artistic merit. The articles justify republication, being pleasantly written and full of sound advice.... The volume is attractively got up, and should please many besides deerstalkers."--_Athenæum._ "Capt. Hart-Davis has now published in book form his very interesting series of 'Stalking Sketches' which originally appeared in _The Field_. The volume is very well illustrated with a number of full-page original pictures by the author. Everyone interested in our forests and stalking, whether through the good fortune of personal experience, or merely through the literature of sport, will welcome these articles in their present form."--_Dundee Advertiser._ "Sportsmen who love the red deer will give a ready welcome to this readable book. It is on every page lively with the interest born of an intimate practical knowledge of the sport, and is illustrated by many drawings, which are not only noticeable from their artistic merits, but have a didactic value of their own for naturalists and young sportsmen. The work makes a valuable addition to the literature of its subject."--_Scotsman._ London: HORACE COX, Windsor House, Bream's Buildings, E.C. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. All weights have a space between the number and the "lb." This was also done with "ft." and "in." Page 56, duplicate word "a" removed from text. Original read (a a smiling rubicund) Page 63, "circumstanses" changed to "circumstances" (upon several circumstances) 
46680	----	provided by the Internet Archive FISHING WITH THE FLY By Charles F. Orvis and Others Copyright 1883 "Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield." --Pope. "Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation, calm and quiet. So much for the prologue of what I mean to say."--Izaac Walton. FISHING WITH THE FLY. ETCHINGS ON A SALMON STREAM. By Charles Hallock I suppose that all that can he instructively written of the salmon has already been said. The processes of natural and artificial propagation have become familiar to all who desire to learn; the secrets of their periodical migrations--their advents and their absences--have been fathomed from the depths of ocean; their form and beauty have been lined by the artist's brush, and their flavor (in cans) is known to all the world where commerce spreads her wings. And yet, the subject always carries with it a perennial freshness and piquancy, which is renewed with each recurring spring, and enhanced by every utterance which attempts to make it vocal; just as the heavenly choirs repeat the anthem of the constructed universe intoned to the music of the assenting spheres! The enthusiasm which constantly invests it like a halo has not been dissipated or abated by the persistent pursuit of many centuries, albeit the sentiments of to-day are but the rehearsal of the original inspiration, and present knowledge the hereditary outcome of ancient germs. All down the ages echo has answered echo, and the sounding forks have transmitted orally the accented annals wherever the lordly salmon swims. Now, hold rhapsody, and let us look to the river! Do you mark the regal presence in yonder glinting pool, upon which the sun flashes with an intensity which reveals the smallest pebble on the bottom? Nay? You cannot see that salmon, just there at the curl of the rapid? Nor his knightly retinue drawn up there abreast just behind him in supporting position? Then, my friend, you are indeed a novice on the river, and the refraction of the solar rays upon its surface blinds your unaccustomed eyes. Well, they do certainly look but shadows in the quiet pool, so motionless and inanimate, or but counterfeiting the swaying of the pensile rock-weeds of the middle stream. What comfortable satisfaction or foreboding premonitions do you imagine possess the noble lord while he is taking his recuperative rest in the middle chamber, after passing from his matriculation in the sea? Faith! you can almost read his emotions in the slow pulsations of his pectoral fins, and the inflection of his throbbing tail! Perhaps he shrinks from the barricade of rock and foam before him; or hesitates to essay the royal arch above the gorge, which reflects in prismatic hues of emblematic glory the mist and mysteries of the unattempted passage. And his doughty squires around him; do they share his misgivings, or are they all royal bloods together, _sans peur sans reproche_, in scaled armiture of blue and silver, eager to attain the land of promise and the ultimate degree of revelation? Ah! the way is indeed beset with difficulties and crucial tests, but its end is joy and the fulness of knowledge: and "knowledge is the beginning of life." Let us go nearer, and with caution. Ha! what flash was that across the pool, so swift and sudden that it seemed to begin and end at once? It sped like a silver arrow across the line of sight, but it was not a silver arrow; only _the salmon_ on his route up stream, at the rate of 90 miles per hour. Were it not for the obstructions of the cascades and the long rapids, and perchance the wicked set-nets of the fishermen, it would not take him long to accomplish his journey to the head of the stream, and there prepare for the spawning-beds. But were-the way to procreation made thus easy, and should all the salmon of a season's hatching survive, they would stock their native rivers so full in a couple of years that there would be no room for them. So the sacrifice of life is necessary that life may continue. Strange the paradox! I love to see the salmon leap in the sunlight on the first flood of a "June rise," and I love to hear his splash in the darkness of the still night, when the place where he jumped can be determined only by the sound, unless perchance his break in the water disturbed the reflection of a star. I have stood on heights afar off at the opening of the season, ere my unconsecrated rod had chance to exercise its magic, or my lips and feet to kiss the river, and with the combined exhilaration of impatience, desire, and joy, watched the incessant spirits of silvery spray until my chained and chafed spirit almost broke at the strain; and I have lain on my couch at midnight sleepless and kept awake by the constant splash of the salmon leaps. More interesting, if not so stimulating, is the leap of the salmon at obstructing falls, with the air filled with dozens of darting, tumbling, and falling fish--the foam dashing and sparkling in the sun, the air resonant with roar, and damp with the ever-tossing spray. Nay, more: I have seen a fall whose breast was an unbroken sheet thirty feet perpendicular, inclosed by lateral abutments of shelving crags which had been honey-combed by the churning of the water in time of flood; and over these crags the side-flow of the falls ran in struggling rivulets, filling up the holes and providing little reservoirs of temporary rest and refreshment for the running salmon; and I have actually seen and caught with my hands a twelve-pound salmon which had worked its way nearly to the counterscarp of the topmost ledge in its almost successful effort to surmount a barrier so insuperable! Surely, the example of such consummate pertinacity should teach men to laugh at average obstacles which stand in the pathway of their ambition! I always become enthusiastic oyer the rugged grandeur of some Canadian rivers with which I am familiar. We have no such rivers in our own domain, except on the Pacific slope; and except in parts of Scotland and Norway, the streams of Europe must be tame in comparison. It is because so few of our own anglers have the experience to enable them to draw contrasts, that they do not more appreciate the charm of salmon fishing. Even a vivid description fails to enforce the reality upon their comprehension, and they remain listless and content with smaller game. Beyond the circumscribed horizon of grass-meadows and the mountain trout streams of New England and the Blue Ridge their vision does not reach. There is a higher plane both of eminence and art. Opportunely for man's periodical proclivities, nature has given to salmon and green peas a vernal flavor and adaptation to each other, as well as to his desires, so that, when the spring comes around they act directly on his liver, expelling all the effete accumulations of winter, stimulating the action of the nerves and brain, and imparting an irresistible desire to go a-fishing. They oil the hinges of the tongue and keep it wagging until June. When that auspicious, leafy month arrives, not all the cares of State will hold a President, Vice-President, or even a Vice-Regent, from taking his annual outing on the salmon streams. Representatives of royalty and representatives of republicanism join sympathies and hands. The Governor-General of Canada sails to his favorite river in a government vessel with her officers in full panoply of brass buttons and navy-blue. The President of the United States abandons the well-worn star routes for more congenial by-paths. Wealthy Americans in private yachts steam away to the tributaries of the St. Lawrence, and clubs cross lines on their exclusive casting grounds. The humbler citizen, with more limited purse, betakes his solitary way to the rehabilitated streams of Maine, enjoys fair sport, and while he fishes, thanks the indefatigable Fish Commissioners of the State for the good work which they have accomplished. "So everybody is happy, and nobody left out; and therefore so long as the season lasts--Hurrah for Salmon and Green Peas, and vive la Salmo Salar! I may, peradventure, give you some instructions that may be of use even in your own rivers; and shall bring you acquainted with more flies than Father Walton has taken notice of in his Complete Angler."--Charles Cotton. "Eh, man! what a conceit it is when ye reach a fine run on a warm spring mornin', the wuds hatchin' wi' birds, an' dauds o' licht noos and thans glintin' on the water; an' the water itsel' in trim order, a wee doon, after a nicht's spate, and wi' a drap o' porter in't, an' rowin' and bubblin' ower the big stanes, curlin' into the linn and oot o't; and you up tae the henches in a dark neuk whaur the fish canna see ye; an' than to get a lang cast in the breeze that soughs in the bushes, an' see yer flee licht in the verra place ye want, quiet as a midge lichts on yer nose, or a bumbee on a flower o' clover."--Norman McLeod, D.D. "Salmon fishing is confessedly the highest department in the school of angling."--George Dawson. [Illustration: 0016] 1. Prince Wm. of Orange. 2. Butcher. 3. Jock Scott. 4. Silver Doctor. 5. Fairy 6. Silver Gray. 7. Curtis. "The noblest of fish, the mighty salmon, refuses bait utterly, and only with the most artistic tackle and the greatest skill can he be taken; the trout, which ranks second to the salmon, demands an almost equal perfection of bait, and in his true season, the genial days of spring and summer, scorns every allurement but the tempting fly. The black bass prefers the fly, but will take the trolling spoon, and even bait, at all seasons; whereas the fish of lesser station give a preference to bait, or accept it alone. This order of precedence sufficiently proves what every thorough sportsman will endorse--that bait fishing, although an art of intricacy and difficulty, is altogether inferior to the science of fly fishing."--_Robert B. Roosevelt._ "Sometimes a body may keep threshin' the water for a week without seein' a snout--and sometimes a bodyhyucks a fish at the very first thrau!"--_Christopher North._ "Salmon fishing is, to all other kinds of angling, as buck shooting to shooting of any meaner description. The salmon is in this particular the king of fish. It requires a dexterous hand and an accurate eye to raise and strike him; and when this is achieved, the sport is only begun, where, even in trout angling, unless in case of an unusually lively and strong fish, it is at once commenced and ended. Indeed the most sprightly trout that ever was hooked, shows mere child's play in comparison to a fresh run salmon."--_Sir Walter Scott._ "'I chose the largest fly I could find,' said the captain, 'because the water here is very deep and strong; and as the salmon lies near the bottom I must have a large fly to attract his attention; but I must not have a gaudy fly, because the water is so clear that the sparkle of the tinsel would be more glittering than anything in nature; and the fish, when he had risen and come near enough to distinguish it, would be very apt to turn short.' "'You have it now, precisely,' said the parson; 'the depth of the water regulates the size of the fly, and the clearness of the water its colors. This rule, of course, is not without exceptions; if it were there would be no science in fishing. The sun, the wind, the season, the state of the atmosphere, must also be taken into consideration; for instance, this rapid we are going to fish now, is the very same water we have been fishing in below, and therefore just as clear, but it is rough, and overhung by rocks and trees. I mean therefore to put on a gayer fly than any we have used hitherto.'"--_Rev. Henry Newland._ "I unhesitatingly assert that there is no single moment with horse or gun into which is concentrated such a thrill of hope, fear, expectation, and exultation, as that of the rise and successful striking of a heavy salmon. I have seen men literally unable to stand, or to hold their rod, from sheer excitement."--_H. Choimondeley Pennell._ FLY CASTING FOR SALMON. By George Dawson. There is no essential difference between trout and salmon casting. The same general principles apply to both, and it only requires the careful application of the skill attained in 'the one to become equally expert in the other. The difference is simply the difference in weight. A twelve-foot trout rod weighs, say, eight ounces, and an eighteen-foot salmon rod, with reel, weighs two or three times as much. The one can be manipulated with one hand; the other requires both. With the one you ordinarily cast forty or fifty feet; with the other sixty or eighty; and with rods equally approximating perfection, it is as easy to cast the eighty feet with the one as the forty feet with the other. I do not mean to say that no more muscular exertion is required in the one case than in the other, but simply that with such slight effort as is necessary with either, it is as easy to place your fly where you wish it with the one rod as with the other. No great muscular exertion is necessary to cast with either. Indeed, the chief difficulty in casting is to get rid of the idea that a great deal of muscular effort is necessary to get out a long line. That coveted result is not to be attained by mere muscle. If you have a giant's strength you mustn't use it like a giant. If you do you will never make a long or a graceful cast with either trout or salmon rod. With both there must be only such strength used as is necessary to give the line a quick but not a snappy back movement--keeping up the motion evenly until the fly is placed where you desire it. The most difficult attainment, in both salmon and trout casting, is to be able, with instinctive accuracy, to measure the distance traversed by the backward movement of your line. If you begin the return too soon your line will snap and thereby endanger your fly; if you are too tardy it will droop and thereby lose the continuity of tension indispensable to a graceful and effective forward movement. This essential art can only be attained by practice. Some attain it readily; others never;--just as some measure time in music with unerring accuracy, without a teacher; some only acquire the art after protracted drilling, and others never acquire it at all. There is almost as perfect rhythm in fly-casting as in music. Given a definite length of line and the expert can measure his cast by his one, two, three, four, as accurately as a teacher can regulate the time of his orchestra by the movement of his _baton_. While this is true in casting with either rod it is most noticeable in easting for salmon. The heavy line, the massive springy rod, and the great distance to be traversed, render each movement--the lift from the water, the backward flight of the line, the return motion, and the drop at the point desired--as distinct to a quick perception as the beat of a bar in music. But there are occasions when it would not do to cast by count. If the wind is strong in any direction the movement of the line is perceptibly effected; and if the wind happens to be at your back, it requires great skill and care to counteract its influence and secure satisfactory results. With such a wind, unless you are perfect master of the situation, you will be apt to snap off more flies in an hour than you will be likely to lose legitimately in a fortnight. Nine-tenths of all the flies I ever lost took their departure before I learned how to cast safely with a high wind at my back. In many salmon rivers the pools are so placed and the general body of water is of such depth that you can always cast from your anchored canoe. As, under such circumstances, there are no obstructions behind you, less care is required in keeping your fly well up in its backward flight than when casting from the shore--as in some rivers you always have to do. In the salmon season the water is usually well down in the banks, and in many rivers the slope from high water mark to the summer channel is considerable. In casting, as a rule, you stand near the water; unless, therefore, you cast high--that is, unless you keep your fly well up in its backward flight it will almost certainly come in contact with a stone or boulder of some sort and be broken. To avoid this mishap requires great care. You must keep the point of your rod well up always--several degrees higher than when casting on the water. My first experience in shore-casting where the banks had a precipitous slope cost me a great many pet flies; and I never got to feel really "at home" in casting under such circumstances. It detracts from the sport when your mind is occupied with the proper swing of the line. But enough of ecstacy remains to enable one to overlook this inconsiderable drawback. Only give the angler an opportunity to cast from any sort of standpoint and he will speedily discover the proper lift and swing to overcome any obstacle, and be happy. Salmon casting--especially the frequency of the cast--depends largely upon the character of the water you are fishing. If the pool is straight and narrow and the current strong, and you are casting from a canoe, you can so manipulate your fly as to render frequent casts unnecessary--the important thing being not to let your fly sink, as it is not likely to do in such a current. In large pools where the current is sluggish, as is sometimes the case, frequent casts are necessary in order to touch it at every point with your fly on the surface. Where you are able to cast across a pool, if the current moves with a moderate force, you can sweep it at each cast by giving your rod the proper motion. This latter class of pools are those most coveted, because you can cover a great deal of ground with very little effort. If you fall in with a pool--as you sometimes will--where the current is so sluggish as to be almost imperceptible, frequent casts are unavoidable. Without them, not only will your fly sink, but your line will soon acquire a slack which not only gives one an uncomfortable feeling but is unsafe in case of a rise. The very first requisite in salmon fishing is a taut line. It is not only requisite for safety, but without it it is impossible to promptly and properly recover your line for a new cast. But there is nothing so tests a salmon angler's skill and patience as to cast in an eddy or whirl. No matter how carefully or at what distance one casts, the moment the fly touches the water it begins to come back upon you, compelling constant casting if you cast at all. The result is a great deal of hard work with very little effect, because to keep a straight line your fly must be lifted almost the very moment it finds a lodgment on the surface. In such a pool one soon becomes weary with his efforts to place and hold his fly in the desired position, for it is not often that he is rewarded by a rise. Since my first experience in such a pool I have never hankered after its counterpart. And yet it was a sort of success in this wray: Having become tired casting I allowed my fly to go as it pleased. It was soon out of sight, having been drawn down by one of the whirls, and in reeling up to prevent its being twisted around the rock I presumed to be the primary cause of the whirl, I found myself hooked to a fish which had taken my fly at least ten or twelve feet below the surface. When I first felt him he came up as easily as a six-ounce chub, and I supposed I had nothing heavier than a medium sized trout. But as soon as he felt the hook and saw my canoe he showed his mettle, and gave me just such a fight as I might have expected from a twenty-pound salmon, as he proved to be. That was the first and last salmon I ever took with the fly so far under water. The rule with some anglers is "to let the fly sink a little"; my rule is never to let it sink at all. When a fish strikes I want to see him. There is no movement that so thrills and delights me as the rush of the salmon for the fly. To me, half the pleasure of a rise is lost if I don't see the head and shoulders of the kingly fish when he leaps for the lure. The manner of casting is almost as varied as the casters themselves. You will seldom see two salmon anglers cast precisely alike. Some cast with a straight backward and forward movement, without the divergence of a hair. Others secure a half sweep to the line by giving the backward movement over the left shoulder and the return over the right, or _vice versa_. Still others almost invariably cast sideways, or "under" as it is called, seldom lifting their rod perpendicularly. Some stand as erect and motionless as a statue when they cast. Others sway to and fro as if they made their body rather than their arms do the work; and others still push themselves forward as they cast, as if they were not sure their fly would reach its destination unless they followed it. These, however, are simple mannerisms. Each may be equally expert--that is, equally successful in placing his fly just where he wants it and just at such distance as he please. My own preference and practice is, a slight sway of the body and a nearly straight backward and forward movement of the line. There are, of course, occasions when a semicircle sweep of the line, or a lateral movement, or an under cast is necessary to reach some desired objective point. All these movements, when they are deemed necessary, will come from experience; but for unobstructed waters I prefer a straight cast, and only such slight motion of the body as will give occasional respite to the arms; for it is no boy's play to so handle a ponderous salmon rod for hours in succession as to give the needed sweep to an eighty-foot line. The flies used for salmon are more numerous and varied than those used for trout, and quite as uncertain and puzzling to those who use them. I have taken salmon, as I have taken trout, out of the same water within the same hour with flies of directly opposite hues, and of shapes and sizes which were the counterpart of nothing "in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth." There are, however, standard flies which experience has shown to be generally more "taking" than others, and for this sufficient reason are always found in salmon anglers' fly books. But no expert deems any fly or any dozen flies invariably adapted to all waters and all conditions of wind and weather. It is superlative nonsense, therefore, to multiply varieties indefinitely. It is only necessary to have an "assortment," gaudy and sombre, large and small, but plenty of them. It is very unpleasant to run short when you are two or three hundred miles away from "the shop." Those who have had any considerable experience know just what they want, and the only safe thing for the novice to do, when ready to lay in his stock, is to seek advice of someone who knows something of what may be required in the waters to be visited. And then let him go to the quiet and roaring rivers where salmon congregate, experiment with such flies as he has, lure the fish by his skilful casts, strike quick, fight hard, and be happy. Albany, Dec. 7th, 1882. THE SALMON AND TROUT OF ALASKA. By L. A. Beardslee, Captain D. S. Navy. From the great salmon of the Yukon, to the tiny fingerlings, which in innumerable quantities throng in the various creeks of Alaska, and are as ambitious to seize a single salmon egg as are their larger brethren to appropriate great masses of the same, however illy the bait may cover and disguise the hook which impales it, there is not, I am convinced, an Alaskan fish, which through any merit of its own, is entitled to an introduction to the angling fraternity through the medium of this volume, and to the companionship of the beautiful fac-similes of the flies, which in life they scorned. From personal observation and collected information, I am prepared to accuse all of the salmon family which are found in Alaska, of the grave offence of utterly ignoring the fly, either as food or plaything, and of depending upon more gross and substantial resources. They are odd fish, and require peculiar treatment both in catching and discussing. And it is to this cause alone that they are indebted for the honor of being made honorary members of the gallant band of game-fishes of which this volume treats. I have selected them as the subject of my contribution, because a single glance at the array of well-known names of those who are to be my co-contributors, convinced me that if I wished to present any new, interesting, or valuable facts upon any icthyological subjects within my range, I would have to travel well out of the ordinary tracks, and go prospecting in some "far countree." This I have done, and I feel confident that I alone of the contributors have been forced by circumstances over which I had no control, into a situation where the obtaining of my notes became pleasure instead of toil. The notes which will be woven into this paper are not all of them entirely new. Some have entered into a series of letters, which over the signature "Piseco" have appeared in the columns of the _Forest and Stream_, during 1879-80-81. Through the courtesy of the editor of that journal, I am permitted to again make use of them. I have preferred a grave charge against the salmon and trout of Alaska; it is but just that I should explain the basis upon which it is founded, and endeavor to establish my claim to be somewhat of an authority on the subject. From the middle of June, 1879, to the latter part of September, 1880, I, as the commander of the U. S. ship of war _Jamestown_, was stationed in the Territory of Alaska, with general instructions to restore and preserve order among the incongruous collections of Whites, Creoles, and Indians of which the inhabitants of that forsaken country was composed. My command was moored in Sitka Harbor, but during the two summers and autumns of my sojourn, my duties called upon me to make frequent trips of from ten to two hundred miles, to various portions of the Territory. These trips were made in small steamers which I hired, steam launches and boats of the ship, and Indian canoes, and in them I explored many of the straits and sounds which separate the islands of the Alexander Archipelago. Naturally fond of fishing and gunning, my Orvis rods, with full assortment of flies, all gear necessary for salt-water fishing, and my rifle and shot-gun, were my inseparable companions; and after days spent in explorations, sometimes of bays and sounds never before entered by white men, and in one case of a large bay forty miles deep by fifteen broad, existing where the latest charts showed solid land only, my evenings were spent poring over works on natural history, icthyology, and ornithology, and jotting down in my note-book descriptions of my finds. Such jolly times! One day a mineral lode, another great flocks of ptarmigan, another a bear, a mountain sheep, or some new fish--gave me something to dream of. The Alexander Archipelago, of which Baranoff, Kruzoff, and Tchitagofi Islands are the principal, is separated from the coast by Chatham Strait, which, beginning at the southward as a continuation of Puget Sound reaches to above 60° north at Chilkhat; it is from three to ten miles wide, deep and steep, too, throughout, bordered on the coast side by high, heavily timbered, snow-clad mountains, and on the other by high wooded islands. On both sides, many of the ravines are occupied by immense glaciers, from which flow icy streams, the birthplace of salmon. Running nearly east and west there are several straits and sounds connecting Chatham Strait with the Pacific Ocean, of which Peril Strait, Icy Strait, and Cross Sound, are the principal. These, too, are bordered, as is Chatham Straits, and are the homes of glaciers and glacial streams. Many of these streams I have personally fished, and among those under my command were several with kindred tastes, and I became possessed of the results of their experience. I have read all that I could find of works on Alaska, and since my return have naturally conversed much with every one whom I have met who had also an Alaskan episode in his life, and have collected testimony on the point at issue. One and all affirm that my experience has been theirs, and the most strenuous efforts with well selected flies have failed to record a single capture of trout or salmon. The first bit of evidence I collected is worth recording. When the news that the Yankees had purchased Alaska, and thus become owners of the land north as well as south of British Columbia, was communicated to the Scotch Admiral of the English squadron at Victoria, Vancouver's Island, he ejaculated, "_Dom the country! let 'em have it; the blausted saumon won't rise to a floi._" Such was our united experience and verdict. Of course, as we caught no end of them (trout and salmon) there were baits which would seduce them, and these were, for the trout, salmon roe, and for the salmon, live herrings. There was no poetry in our trout fishing, for compared with salmon roe in slippery, sticky, slimy chunks, fish worms are aesthetically dainty. There are several little lakes and more streams in the vicinity of Sitka; some within reach for a day's fishing, and some within an hour's. The principal of these are _Piseco Lake_ and stream, back of and running through the town; _Indian River_ and pond, _Saw-Mill_ creek and lakes, from one to five miles to the eastward; the _Redoubt_ river, lake, and fall, seven miles to the southward; and a nameless lake and outlet on Kruzoff Island, the lake embedded in a deep valley, one side of which is formed by the foot-hills of Mount Edgecomb, a noble, eternally snow-clad extinct volcano. In all of these trout or salmon are abundant in the season; in some both, and in some are found species which do not exist in others. At the "_Redoubt_" I believe that all varieties and species are found. The place is named from a huge dam winch the Russians built across the mouth of a deep and wide ravine, thus forming a large lake of the river which here empties into the sea. The dam is provided with a number of salmon gates and traps. From the first run to the last, every passing school leaves here its tribute, seduced by the proximity of the beautiful lake; which tribute, duly smoked or salted, is barrelled for the San Francisco market by a very "lone fisherman," a Russian who for many years, without other companionship than his klootchman (Indian wife) and dogs, has devoted his life to the business. If in this paper I make an occasional blunder, by transposition, or misapplication of the terms "specie" and "variety," or fail on a scientific nomenclature, I beg that it will be remembered that my claim is not to be an authority on icthyology, when such names are necessary, but on Alaska fish, which get along very well with their English, Indian, or Russian names. I find in my note-book memoranda of the capture of _bathymaster-signatus, chirus deccagramus, and even a cotlus-polycicantliocejrfialous_, but had not Professor Bean instructed me, I should have continued (and I believe I did) to call the first two after the fish they most resembled, viz., rock cod and sea bass; and of the last named I have lost and forgotten the description. But we can spare him; the salmon and trout will, I feel sure, furnish all the material needed, and I will confine myself to them. THE SALMON. Five species of salmon haye been identified as found in Alaska; these are: The Oncorhynchus Chouicha, The Oncorhynchus Keta, The Oncorhynchus Nerka, The Oncorhynchus Kisutch, The Oncorhynchus Garbosha. I am indebted to Professor Bean for the above list. In it I recognize some familiar Russian names, and I will supplement the nomenclature. The "_Keta_" is the big hump-backed salmon of the Yukon, sometimes attaining a weight of sixty pounds; the _Nerha_ is also called by the Russians _Crassnarebia_, or red-fleshed; and the distinction is well made, for compared with it, the flesh of the other species seems to fade into pink; the "_Kisutch_" or "black throat" is so called on account of the intense blackness of the roof of the mouth and throat; the flesh is lighter red than the _Nerkas_, but more so than any other species, and as a table fish it excels all others, bringing twice the price at retail; the _Garbosha_ is the small hump-back, and strikingly resembles the "red fish" of Idaho. This is the only salmon that I am sure ascends any of the streams near Sitka, except at the Redoubt, where the _Kisutch_ and _Crassna-rebia_ are taken in late August and early September. The common name for the _garbosha_ is the "dog salmon," and a more _hideous_ object than one of them as found swimming listlessly or dying in one of the pools, it is hard to conceive of. I find this note of description: "Aug. 26th.--In a shallow pool I saw a fish some two feet long, feebly struggling as though he were trying to push himself ashore. I picked him up and laid him on the grass. A sicker fish never continued to wag his tail; his skin was yellow, picked out with green and blue spots, from an inch to three in diameter; and one on his side was about an inch wide and six inches long, bleeding and raw as though gnawed by mice. One eye was gone, one gill cover eaten through, and every fin and the tail were but ragged bristles, all web between the rays having disappeared." The first run of the salmon is well worth description. About the middle of May, varying from year to year by a few days only, the inhabitants of dull, sleepy old Sitka experience a sensation, and are aroused from the lethargy in which they have existed through the long winter. The word spreads like wildfire, _the salmon are coming!_ Everybody rushes to the heights which furnish prospect, and strain their eyes for confirmation. One of our sailors, musically inclined, paraphrased very neatly the old song, "_The Campbells are Coming!_ huzza! huzza!" and achieved fame by portraying the emotions nightly under the lee of the forecastle. So good an outlook has been kept by the keen-eyed Indians, and the Creole boy in the belfry of the Greek church, that when first the glad tidings are announced, the fish are many miles away, and no signs of their advent visible to the unpracticed eye. Ear away to the southward, there hangs all winter a dense black bank, the accumulation of the constant uprising of vapor from the warm surface of the Kuro-siwo, or Japanese Gulf Stream, which washes the shores of this archipelago; condensed by the cold winds sweeping over the snow-clad mountains to the northward, it is swept by them, and piled up as far as the eye can reach, covering and hiding the southern horizon as with a pall. Presently our glasses reveal bright flashes upon the face of this curtain; and soon, to the naked eye, it appears as though the whole horizon had been encircled with a coral reef, against which the dashing waves were being shattered into foamy breakers. The breakers advance, and soon among them we discern black, rapidly-moving forms, and here our previous nautical experience comes into play, and, "Holymither, d'ye mind the say pigs!" as shouted by Paddy Sullivan, the captain of the afterguard, explains most graphically the phenomenon. The salmon _are_ coming, and with them, among, and after them, a host of porpoises; an army so great, that an attempt to estimate in numbers would be futile. The Bay and Sound of Sitka are dotted with many beautiful, well-wooded islands; between them, the channels are deep and blue, and these are soon thronged by the fleeing salmon and their pursuers; the harbor is soon reached; but it does not prove one of safety, for although there are immense flats covered only at half to whole tide, where the salmon could, and the porpoises could not go, the former avoid them, and, clinging to the deep water, seek vainly the protection of our ship and boats, which do not deter the porpoises in the slightest degree. For two or three days, our eyes, and at night, our ears, tell us that the warfare, or rather massacre, is unceasing; then there comes an interval of several days, during which there are no salmon nor porpoises. I had formed an idea, a wrong one, that the presence of salmon would be made manifest by the leaping of the fish; on the contrary, were we to judge by this sign alone, but very few had visited us. The first school had hardly gotten fairly into the harbor, before I, with others, was in pursuit. The cannery boats, and Indians, with their seines, and I with a trolling line and fly-rod. A single fish apparently, was at intervals of perhaps a minute, leaping near a point. Indian Dick, one of my staff, excitedly pointed that way, and urged me to go. "_There! there! sawmo sugataheen_" (plenty). I was inclined to look elsewhere, or wait for a larger school; but Dick remonstrated, "_Man see one fish jump, sir, may be got thousand don't jump, be under_." And Dick was right; but a very small percentage leap from the water, of which I became more fully convinced when I went with Tom McCauley, head fisherman of the cannery, on seining trips, or rather on a seining trip, for the affair disgusted me; and, as with my experience of Spanish bull-fighting, one trial was enough. Imagine so many fish that _tons_ were the units used in estimating, penned up by the walls of the seines, into an enclosure, massed so solidly that five Indians, striking rapidly at random into the mass, with short-handled gaff hooks, at such rate that, upon one day's fishing, this boat, manned by eight Indians and one white man, secured _thirteen tons_ of marketable fish. It was bloody, nasty butchery, and sickened me. Not a fish attempted to leap out of the net. McCauley supplied me with some data, from his point of view. "_About the middle of June, the fish are plentiful enough to start the cannery, and the season lasts from ten to twelve weeks" He has observed "Seven different kinds of salmon, all of which are good for canning and for the table; but two species which come latest are the most valuable, the flesh being very red and rich with oil_" (Kisutch and Crassna Rebia); that "_all of the salmon 'dog' more or less, and that the dogging begins immediately after they have attempted to enter the streams, not before August; that after this process has begun_ (and he discovered it in fish which, to my unexperienced eyes showed no signs of it) _the value for canning was depreciated_," and all such he rejected, and gave to the flock of poor Indians, who, in their canoes, followed us to secure them. If McCauley's ideas are correct, the Alaska salmon caught in salt water, should be superior to those of the Columbia River and elsewhere, caught in brackish water. During the season of 1879 there was packed at this cannery, 144,000 lbs. of fish; the largest catch of any one day was 30,000 lbs. (over 16 tons); the greatest quantity canned, 9,000 lbs.; the largest fish obtained, 51 lbs.; and the average weight 12 lbs. The cost of the fish can be estimated at less than one cent per pound. Just what "dogging" is, I don't know. McCauley's opinion, which was shared by many others familiar with the fishing, is that it is a sickness indicated by a change of form and color, produced by contact with fresh water, and that the most hideously hump-backed, hook-jawed, red and purple garbosha, was once a straight-backed, comely fish; which, if true, upsets some theories. All I know about it is, that previous to the advent of the garboshas, in August, no change of form and color is observable in any of the fish, none of which enter the streams. During August, at the same time and place in the creeks, there can be seen garbosha salmon in all stages of the transformation, and the change in form and color is coincident. Some are silvery and nearly straight; others tarnished, and with slight elevation of back; others red, with greater protuberance; and finally, some purple-red, with fully developed humps, which more than double their height above the median line; and these monsters the Indians like best, and say that they are better for smoking than any other. Another idea which I had imbibed in regard to salmon, became greatly modified by my experience. I thought, and I believe many do, that the instinct which prompts the salmon to run in from the sea, is to reach, by the shortest route, the place of birth; and that they make a straight wake from the ocean to the mouth of their native creeks; and that while impelled by this instinct, they refrain altogether from food. In all of this, I think that I was mistaken; and that the fish which begin to swarm in Sitka Harbor in May, and continue coming and going for nearly three months before any enter the stream, are simply visitors, which, on their way north, are driven in to seek shelter from the porpoises and other enemies. That they feed at this time, I have plenty of evidence. We caught small ones, on hand-lines baited with venison. Numbers were taken trolling, using any ordinary spoon. I had with me pickerel, bass, and lake trout spoons, of brass and silvery surface. All were successful, the silvery ones the most so. And I had many good strikes upon _spectabilis_ or salmon trout, of six to eight inches, spun on a gang and trolled. The Indians in Chatham Strait catch a great many upon hooks baited with live herring; these are attached to short lines, which are fastened to duckshaped wooden buoys, and allowed to float away from the canoe. I have myself been present at the capture of a number in this manner. The Greek Priest, and companies of the least poor of the Creoles, own seine boats, which go out daily; and after every fair clay's seining the sandy beach in front of Russian town presents a picturesque appearance, dotted as it is with heaps of from one to three tons of salmon, whose silvery sheen reflects the light of the bonfires, around which, knives in hand, squat all the old squaws and children, cleaning on shares. Nearly all of the fish taken by them are smoked for winter's use. Every glacial stream in Alaska is, in its season, full of salmon, alive and dead. One, which for want of a better, was given my name, and appears on the charts as _Beardslee_ River, I will describe; for in it I saw, for the first time, that which had been described to me, but which I had doubted; a stream so crowded with fish that one could hardly wade it and not step on them; this and other as interesting sights fell to me that pleasant August day. As we, in our little steamer, neared _William Henry Bay_, situated on the west side of _Chatham Strait_, and an indentation of _Baranoff Island_, we found ourselves in a pea-green sea, dotted here and there with the backs of garbosha salmon; the fish, which were of the few that had survived the crisis of reproduction, having drifted out of the hay, and with their huge humps projecting, were swimming aimlessly, and apparently blindly (for after anchoring, they would run against our boats, and directly into hands held out to catch them), in the brackish surface water; made so and given its peculiar color by the water of Beardslee River, which arising at the foot of a glacier, had been fed by rivulets from others on its course to the sea, and through its lower specific gravity, rested upon the salt water. These sick salmon were so plentiful that I thought that a large percentage had lived and escaped the danger, but upon landing at the mouth of the river, saw that I was mistaken. For several miles the river meanders through an alluvial flat, the moraine of receded glaciers. The moraine was covered with a thick growth of timothy and wild barley, some standing six feet in height; much more pressed flat by layers, three and four deep, of dead salmon, which had been left by the waters falling. Thousands of gulls and fish crows were feeding upon the eyes and entrails of these fish, and in the soft mud innumerable tracks of bears and other animals were interspersed with bodiless heads of salmon, showing that they, too, had attended the feast. I waded the river for over two miles, and the scene was always the same. That wade was one to be remembered. In advance of me generally, but checked at times by shoal water, there rushed a struggling and splashing mass of salmon, and when through the shoaling, or by turning a short corner, I got among them, progress was almost impossible; they were around me, under me, and once when, through stepping on one I fell, I fancy over me. All were headed up stream, and I presumed, ascending, until, while resting on a dry rock, I noticed that many, although _headed up_, were actually slowly _drifting down stream_. In many pools that I passed, the gravel bottom was hollowed out into great wallows, from which, as I approached, crowds of salmon would dart; and I could see that the bottom was thickly covered with eggs, and feasting on them were numbers of immense salmon trout. I saw frequently the act of spawning; and I saw once, a greedy trout rush at a female salmon, seize the exuding ova, and tear it away, and I thought that perhaps in some such rushes, lay the explanation of the wounds which so frequently are found on the female salmon's belly after spawning. At first, I thought there were two species of salmon in the creek; one unmistakably the hideous garboslia, the other a dark straight-backed fish; but upon examining quite a number of each variety which I had picked up, I found that all the hump-backed fish were males, and the others all females; that is, all that I examined; but as they were all spent fish, I could not be sure. I therefore shot quite a number of livelier ones, and found confirmation. I saw one female that was just finishing spawning. She lay quiet, as though faint, for a couple of minutes, then began to topple slowly over on to her side, recovered herself, and then, as though suddenly startled from a deep sleep, darted forward, and thrust herself half of her length out of the water, upon a gravel bar, and continued to work her way until she was completely out of water, and there I left her to die. A very large proportion of the fish were more or less bruised and discolored; and upon nearly all there extended oyer the belly a fungoid growth resembling rough yellow blotting paper. The size of the fish was quite uniform, ranging from two feet to thirty inches. But that I had seen the living spent fish in the bay, I could have readily believed the truth of the impression of many, that the act of spawning terminates the life of the salmon of the Pacific coast. One more point on the salmon, and I will leave them. Upon our first arrival, we all indulged very heartily upon them, and in two or three days, a new disease made its appearance among us. A number of us were seized with very severe gripes and cramps, and these lasted, in all cases, for several days, and in some for a much longer period, two of the men becoming so reduced that it was necessary to send them to hospital. The direct cause, our doctor ascertained, was the diet of salmon to which we had taken; and by regulating and reducing the consumption, the difficulties were checked. In conclusion, I would say that I have made every effort that would naturally occur to a fisherman to take Alaska salmon with flies, of which I had good assortment, and never got a rise. ALASKA TROUT. I am indebted to Professor Tarleton II. Bean for a classification of the various trout, of which specimens had been duly bottled and labelled, during our stay in Alaska. I had fancied, from differences in the markings, that I had _five_ species at the least, but Bean ruthlessly cut the number down to three, viz.: _Salvelina Malma, or Spectabilis, or Bairdil_ _Salmo Gardnieri_, and _Salmo Purpuratus_, or Clark's trout. The first named, called commonly by us the salmon trout, was abundant in all of the streams, from about middle of June until middle of September, evidently timing their arrival and departure by the movements of the salmon, upon whose eggs they live. I have noted, on June 1st, "No salmon trout yet in any of the streams. Several fine, large ones captured by the Indians in nets set in sea." Ten days after, the streams were full of them, and in the earlier part of the interim many would run into the pools of the lower parts with the flooding tide, and out again on the ebb. When they left us in September, it is probable that they migrated south, for in a letter to _Forest and Stream_, dated Portland, Oregon, September 28, a correspondent states that, in that month, "there begins to appear in the streams near the Columbia river, a trout," whose description tallies exactly with that of the _spec-tabilis_, except that the correspondent speaks of their affording _fine sport with the fly_; this the trout while in Alaska fails to do. At first, the _spectabilis_ affect the rapids, but after a few days seek the deep pools, where they gather in great numbers, and bite ravenously on hooks covered with spawn and sunk to the bottom. Occasionally, when spawn was out, we used a bit of fresh venison; but at the best they cared little for it, and when the blood became soaked out, the bait was useless. Although fairly gamey when hooked, fishing for these trout was but a poor substitute, for one who had felt and remembered the thrills caused by sudden strikes of our Adirondack fish. I have often when pool-fishing, seen them leisurely approach the bait, and nibble at it as a dainty, full-fed kitten will at a bit of meat, and when one did get the hook, we found it out only by a slight resistance to the series of light twitches which it was necessary to give it. They have evidently been taught by experience that salmon roe is not apt to attempt escape. The usual size of the fish ranged from six to twelve inches--now and then one larger. The largest taken by any of us, near Sitka, fell victim to my "salmon spawn fly," and gave my little Orvis rod half an hour's good work. It measured twenty-one inches, but was very light for the length, weighing but two and three-quarter pounds. At the Redoubt river, much larger ones were taken; and two which I shot in Beardslee river were over two feet in length; how much they weighed I never found out, for their surroundings of sick and dying salmon, upon whose eggs they were feeding, prejudiced me against them and I left them. In shape and color the _spectabilis_ vary greatly, both factors depending upon the length of time they have been in fresh water. When fresh run, they are long and lean, shaped somewhat like the lake trout of Adirondack lakes. The colors are dark lustrous olive-green back, growing lighter as the median line is approached, and blending into a silvery gray tint, which pales to a pure white on the belly; the green portion is sprinkled with golden specks; the flesh is hard, and very good for the table. After a yery short sojourn in the creek, bright crimson specks appear among the golden, which, however, fade to a pale yellow; the lustre of the green disappears, they become heavier, but the flesh becomes soft and uneatable, and the skin is covered with slime. Salmon trout taken late in August and early in September, were full of ripe ova. Professor Bean placed some fish, that had been taken in salt water, into a bucket of fresh, and the crimson spots made their appearance in less than a day. When fully decked with these, and fattened, they resembled our _fontanalis_ greatly--the head, however, being somewhat larger, and the tail less square. _Salmo Gardneri_. My acquaintance with this species is yery limited. The first one that I saw I took in Sawmill Creek, well up to the head, in September, 1879. Seeing that it differed greatly from the _spectabilis_, I preserved it in alcohol, and it was subsequently identified by Professor Bean. It measured a trifle over ten inches, and was very plump, weighing seven and a quarter ounces. In my notes, I describe it thus: "Body, dark green on back, but in general colors very much like a steel head or quinnat salmon; covered with round, black spots, from one-sixteenth to one-eighth inch in diameter; these extend considerably below the median line, and the tail and dorsal fins are covered with them; the second dorsal adipose, but less so than that of the _fontanalis_, having a slight show of membrane, on which there are four spots; ventral and anal fins, yellowish in centre, bordered with red; belly, dull white; tail, nearly square; scales, quite large, about the size of those of a fingerling chub; flesh, firm; and skin, not slimy. No signs of ova or milt." On the 28th of April, 1880, I made note: "The first salmon of the season made their début to-day--that is, if they are salmon, which I doubt. "Five beauties, from thirty to forty inches long, were brought alongside, in a canoe paddled by a wild-looking and awe-struck Siwash, who, with his crouching Klootchman and papoose, gazed upon our ship, guns, and us with an expression that showed them to be unfamiliar sights. He was evidently a stranger, and was taken in, for he took willingly two bits (25 cents) each for the fish, and no Sitka Siwasli but would have charged treble the price. Through an interpreter, I learned that he had spent the last seven months in a shanty on the western side of Kruzoff Island, and that well up, among the foot-hills of Mount Edgecomb, there was a little lake, from which there flowed a small stream into the Pacific, and that in the headwaters of this stream he had speared these fish, which run up the stream in the fall, remain all winter in the lake, and in early spring spawn in the head of the outlet." All of this militated strongly against the theory that they were salmon, and when, on being dressed, the females were found to be full of ripe ova, said theory was upset completely. My ten-inch specimen of last September supplied us with a clue, and it was soon decided that these magnificent fish were indeed trout; for in every respect except size, and size of spots, some of which were a quarter of an inch in diameter, the fish were identical. Whitford, the oldest inhabitant, confirmed the Indian's story, and gave me in addition the Indian name for the fish--_Quot_ and that of the Russians, which I forget, but it meant "Mountain Trout," and said that they are found only in the lakes, high up in the mountains, and that in winter the Indians spear and catch them through holes in the ice. We found the flesh to be very delicious--far more so than the best of the salmon. The processes of cooking, both by broiling and boiling, had a curious effect, for the flesh, which, when uncooked, was of a very bright red, blanched to pure white. The trip to Mount Edgecomb, in the early spring, involved hardship and danger; and although several of us resolved that we would undertake it, for the sake of such fish, somehow we never did, and I have thus described all of the _gardneri_ that I ever saw. _Salmo purpuratus (Clarkii)_. The most beautiful of the trout family, although in no way equal to our Eastern trout in any other respect. The _purpuratus_ is a lake trout, and found only in low-lying lakes. Just back of Sitka, at the foot of the mountains, and elevated perhaps twenty feet above the sea, is a little lake dubbed by me "_Piseco_". Handy to get at, and its outlet running through the centre of the town, it became, in early spring, our first resort for fishing. Arriving in June, 1879, many of us had, through days of fruitless endeavor, during the summer and autumn, grown to disbelieve the tales of the inhabitants, that this lake abounded in trout; but on the 20th of May, 1880, from somewhere, there thronged the shallow edges, among the lily pads, great schools of these trout, and for about two weeks there was no limit to the number one could take of them. Salmon spawn was the best bait, but a bit of venison would answer. A fly they would not rise to. In size, they ranged from six to twelve inches--the latter size being, however, very exceptional; their average was about eight inches. The description in my notes is: "Specimen, May 27th. Length, nine and one-half inches; depth, two and three-eighth inches; weight, five ounces; colors--back, rich, dark brown, growing lighter toward medial line; at which, covering it for a space of half an inch, there is a longitudinal stripe of rich purple, extending from opercle nearly to tail; below the median line, bright olive-green, lightening to silvery white on belly. All of the tinted portion is profusely sprinkled with oval black spots, which mark also the dorsal, caudal, and adipose fins; the ventral and anal fins are yellowish bordered with crimson; tail, nearly square. "The entire tinted portion has a beautiful golden iridescence, so that when held in the sunlight, and looked at from the rear, it seems to be gilded." It may be noticed that, with the exception of the purple stripe and the golden iridescence, the description of this fish is almost identical with that of the _gardneri_. I think it quite possible that they are the same at different ages, and that later in life these Clarkii may become ambitious and seek more lofty lakes. None that were taken contained ova. Where they came from, unless they run up the inlet at night, no one found out, for although closely watched in the daytime, none were ever seen in it. After about two weeks the greater portion disappeared, and although sought in the deep waters of the lake, could not be found. Major William Governeur Morris, the Collector of Customs of Alaska, assures me, however, that during the summer of 1882, he found certain places in the lake where he caught them until August. On July 4th he with a friend catching four hundred and three in three hours, baiting with a single salmon egg. I am not sure that we could not have again found them, but the fishing having grown slack in the lake, and growing daily better in the creeks, we spent most of our time on the latter. COMPARISON OF ALASKA WITH EASTERN TROUT. The principal differences between the Alaska and Eastern trout are, first, all Alaskans have hyoid teeth, the eastern trout have not. No Alaskan trout will take a fly. All Alaskan trout, I think, spend a portion of their lives in salt water. Length being equal, the Alaska trout, with the exception of the Gardneri, or mountain trout, are lighter than those of our eastern streams. Using as a standard the average weight of a number of ten-inch Adirondack trout, the following table will show this: [Illustration: 0051] Fontanalis-Adirondack, length 10 inches, Fresh-run Spectabilis, " 10 " Crimson-specked " 10.3 " Sal mo Clarkii, " 9 " Salmo Gardneri, " 10.1 " In conclusion, I must again request that this contribution shall not be considered and judged as an attempt to scientifically describe the fish treated upon, but rather as what it really is, a condensation of the field-notes of an amateur angler. I have, in giving the sizes, weights, and other data in regard to the Alaska salmon and trout, depended almost entirely upon my personal knowledge and experience; it may not be out of place to add to them some data gathered from reliable authorities. In his report on the resources of Alaska, Major Mm. Governeur Morris writes: "Sixty thousand Indians and several thousand Aleuts and Esquimaux depend for the most part upon dried salmon for their winter sustenance." The Hon. Wm. S. Hodge, formerly Mayor of Sitka, states in an official report: "And additional testimony comes to us from numerous persons, that at Cook's Inlet the salmon average in weight sixty pounds, and some of them reach a weight of one hundred and twenty pounds, and Mr. T. G. Murphy only last week brought down from there on the _Newbern_ a barrel full, containing only _four_ fish." Surgeon Thomas T. Minor, who some years ago visited Cook's Inlet, in connection with business of the Smithsonian Institution, makes statements which confirm the foregoing. In the vicinity of Klawaek a cannery is established. A catch of seven thousand fish at one haul of the seines is not unusual, many weighing over forty pounds. Mr. Frederick Whymper, artist to the Russian Overland Telegraph Expedition, says in his well-written and interesting account of his adventures: "The Yukon salmon is by no means to be despised. One large variety is so rich that there is no necessity when frying it to put fat in the pan. The fish sometimes measure five feet in length, and I have seen boats whose sides were made of the tough skin." And a writer who, if disposed to strain the truth would not do so to say anything in favor of Alaska, says in an article in Harper's Magazine, Vol. LV. page 815: "The number of spawning fish that ascend the Yukon every June or July is something fabulous.... It would appear reasonable to anticipate, therefore, the adoption by our fishermen of some machinery by which they can visit the Yukon when the salmon begin to run, and while they ascend the river catch a million pounds a day, for the raw material is there, of the largest size, the finest flavor, and the greatest number known to any stream in the world.'" My general views about Alaska differ widely from those of the writer, but on the salmon question, I indorse all I have quoted, excepting only the word flavor. I do not think the Alaska salmon equal in this respect to those of the Atlantic coast, and far behind those of the Rhine; they are, however, superior to those of the Columbia River. In speaking of the salmon, I find I have omitted to mention that in early spring, before the arrival of the salmon trout, and after their departure in fall, great quantities of fingerling salmon pervaded the streams, and bit eagerly at any kind of meat bait. While the _spectabilis_ were present, these little fellows kept out of sight and notice. Since the body of this paper was written there has been on exhibition by Mr. Blackford, of Fulton Market, Yew York, a number of trout, pronounced to be the _salmo irideus_, one of which, weighing fifteen pounds, was sent to the Smithsonian Institution, and there identified by Professor Bean as being "_Salmo gardneri, the great trout of Edgecomb Lake_." I, studying these fish in their glass tank, did not form this opinion, for Blackford's trout had a broad red band extending from just back of the eye to the tail, covering the opercule, a marking not existing on any of the Edgecomb trout I have seen. But the Professor assures me that "_color on the lateral line is not a specific character_." On comparing my notes of description of these fish, I find that in all other respects they did appear identical, hence that the conclusion arrived at by Prof. Bean, that "the _gardneri_ and the _irideus_ (or rainbow trout of McCloud River), are identical seems well founded. If so, and my crude supposition that the Clarkii, obtained in Piseco Lake near Sitka are also identical with the gardneri turns out to be correct, there can be a condensation of nomenclature, which will lead to at least one valuable result from this paper. "No sooner had the barbed hook fastened in its insidious hold, and the impaled monarch learned that he was captive, than every effort of his lithe and agile frame was brought into play to recover freedom. In every struggle, in every effort to burst thee bonds that made him captive, there was an utter recklesness of consequences, a disregard for life that was previously unknown, as from side to side of the pool he rushed, or headlong stemmed the sweeping current. Nor did the hero confine himself to His own element; again and again he burst from its surface to fall back fatigued, but not conquered. The battle was a severe one, a struggle to the death; and when the landing net placed the victim at my feet, I felt that he had died the death of a hero. Such was my first sea-trout, no gamer, truly, than hundreds I have captured since; but what can be expected of a race of which every member is a hero?"--_Parker Gilmore_. "If, indeed, you be an angler, join us and welcome, for then it is known to you that no man is in perfect condition to enjoy scenery unless he have a fly-rod in his hand and a fly-book in his pocket."--_Wm. G. Prime_. "It was something more than a splendid trout that he brought to our view as we met him at the landing. The young heart in the old body--the genuine enthusiasm of the veteran angler--the glorification of the gentle art which has soothed and comforted many an aged philosopher--all this he revealed to us, and we wanted to lift the grand old man to our shoulders and bear him in reverent triumph up the ascent."--A. Judd Northrop. "From the fisherman's point of view, the sea trout is equal to the finest grilse that ever ascended Tay or Tweed, exceeding, as he does, for gameness and pertinacity every other British fish."--_David Foster_. [Illustration: 0056] 1. Silver Doctor. 2. Scarlet Ibis. 3. Black June. 4. Gray Drake. 5. Captain. 6.'Academy. "As to flies, the indifference of sea-trout about kind, when they are in the humor to take any, almost warrants the belief of some anglers that they leap in mere sport at whatever chances to be floating. It is true they will take incredible combinations, as if color-blind and blind to form. But experiments on their caprice are not safe. If their desire is to be tempted, that may most surely be done with three insects, adapted to proper places and seasons. One need not go beyond the range of a red-bodied fly with blue tip and wood-duck wings for ordinary use, a small all gray fly for low water in bright light, and a yellowish fly, green striped and winged with curlew feathers, for a fine cast under the alders for the patriarchs."--_A. R. Macdonough_. "His tackle, for brieht airless days, is o' gossamere; and at a wee distance aff, you think he's fishin' without ony line ava, till whirr gangs the pirn, and up springs the sea-trout, silver-brieht, twa yards out o' the water, by a delicate jerk o' the wrist, hyucked inextricably by the tongue clean ower the barb o' the kirby-bend. Midge-flees!"--_The Ettrick Shepherd_. "O, sir, doubt not but that Angling is an art; is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly?"--_Izaak-Walton._ "Sea-trout show themselves wherever salmon are found, but not always simultaneously with them. In rivers where the salmon run begins in May or early June, you need not look for sea-trout in any considerable numbers before well on into July. Intermediately they are found in tide-water at the mouths of the salmon rivers, and often in such numbers and of such weight as give the angler superb sport."--_George Dawson_. SEA-TROUT. By Fitz James Fitch. Sunday morning, August 2, 1874, found us, Mr. A. R. Macdonough and me, at Tadousac, a French. Canadian village, very small for its age, situated on the northeast shore of the Saguenay River, one and a half miles from the junction of its dark and mighty waters with the turbid and mightier St. Lawrence. This day was the beginning of the culmination of four months of preparation for a month's release from the business world, its toil, care and worry. The preparations began with the payment of $150 in gold--$171.20 currency--the rent named in a lease securing to us the exclusive right to fish a river on the north shore of, and emptying into, the St. Lawrence many miles below the Saguenay. We left New York sweltering in a temperature that sent the mercury up to the nineties; were fanned by the cool evening breeze of the Hudson, and later by the cooler breath of the old Catskills, around which cluster the recollections and associations of thirty years of my life. We had travelled by rail to Montreal, 412 miles, and spent a day there; by steamboat to Quebec, 180 miles, where we passed twenty-four hours. We had left this, the most interesting city of English-speaking North America, in the morning by steamboat, and, after a day of delights upon this majestic river, the St. Lawrence, reached L'Anse à l'Eau, the landing for Tadousac, 130 miles, in the evening of August 1st. We felt as we walked out upon the wide piazza of the Tadousac Hotel that "summer Sunday morn When Nature's face was fair," and looked up that mysterious river, the Saguenay, and upon its castellated mountains of granite, that indeed "the lines had fallen to us in pleasant places." We had reached the end, as our course lay, of railroads and steamboat lines, and must finish our journey in _chaloupe_ and birch-bark canoe. We were there to leave civilization and its conveniences for nature and primitive modes of life. In the story I am relating my progress up to this point has been as rapid as was our transit. From this point on it must correspond with our slower mode of progression; and hence there must be more of detail in what follows. I hope, but cannot expect, that the reader will find the change as agreeable and free from irksomeness as we found our _chaloupe_, canoe, tent, and life in the woods. After an excellent breakfast, we lighted cigars and walked down to the humble cottage of my guide, David, on the beach of the little bay of Tadousac, who had in charge our tents, stores, camp equipments, and three new birch-bark canoes, ordered months before, and for which we paid $75 in gold. David paddled us out to our _chaloupe_, anchored in the bay, and introduced me to Captain Edward Ovington, master, and his nephew, Fabian, a lad of sixteen or seventeen years, his mate. The _chaloupe_ was thirty feet "fore and aft;" beam, 9 1/2 feet. Six or eight feet aft we called the quarter-deck. A comfortable seat surrounded three sides of it, affording sittings for eight or ten persons. Next forward of this, and separated from it by a bulkhead, was a space of six or eight feet for freight. Next came our cabin, eight by nine feet, and just high enough to enable us to sit upright on the low shelf which was to serve as a seat by day and bed at night. Then came the forecastle, in which was a very small cooking stove. The vessel was rigged with main and topmast, strengthened by iron shrouds, with a large mainsail, topsail, jib and "jigger," as it is called by Canadian boatmen. It was in respect to the jigger that the craft differed from a sloop-rigged yacht or boat. Clear aft, and back of the rudder-post, was a mast about fifteen feet high; running from the stern of the vessel was a stationary jigger boom, something like the jib-boom, except that it was horizontal; on these was rigged a sail in shape like the mainsail. The boat was a fair sailer, strong, well built, and from four to six tons burden. In returning to the hotel we stopped at and entered the little French Roman Catholic Church. It is not known when it was erected. Jacques Cartier, in his second visit to America, in 1535, explored the Saguenay; and Father Marquette made Tadousac his residence for a short time. When he first came to this country in 1665, tradition tells us, he established a mission there and built a log chapel on the site where the church we entered stands. The latter is a wooden building, about twenty-five by thirty feet, with a handsome altar placed in a recess chancel, the rear wall of which is adorned with three oil paintings. The centre one, over the altar, wras the Crucifixion. A small porch, or vestibule, of rough boards, had been added in modern times. A little antique bell swung in the belfry on the east gable, which was surmounted by an iron floriated cross. The church was filled with devout _habitans_, mainly--there was a sprinkling of summer boarders and anglers--who listened with apparent interest to the extempore sermon of a young French priest of prepossessing appearance and manner. In the afternoon I attended the English Episcopal Church, about a mile from the hotel, and midway between Tadousac and L'Anse à l'Eau. Here I felt quite at home, enjoyed the services, and joined heartily in the prayer for the "Queen, the Royal Family, and all who are in authority." I was compelled to put a U. S. greenback, to represent my contribution of one dollar, upon the plate. I have been sorry ever since that I did not secure a reputation for honesty and fair dealing by adding a dime to pay the premium on gold, and thus make good our (then) depreciated currency. August 3d.--A gray flannel suit and shirt were donned this morning. Our fishing clothes and paraphernalia were packed in large canvas bags, toilet articles, etc., in grip sacks, and all else left in our Saratoga trunks, and in charge of the hotel manager until our return. At 11 o'clock we walked down to the beach where David and the Captain met us with our respective canoes. I asked "Dah-veede" (he was very particular about the pronunciation of his name), "how shall I dispose of myself in this cranky thing?" "Sit down on the bottom, sir." The latter part of the sitting process was rather emphatic. I wondered how I was to get up! All being on board the good _chaloupe_ Quebec, the sails were spread to the breeze, and by one o'clock we had beat out of the bay, down the Saguenay, and were on the St. Lawrence. As we sailed, the canoes which had been in tow were hoisted on deck; one, turned upon its side, was lashed to the shrouds of the vessel on either side, and the third, turned bottom up, was laid upon the cabin deck. The wind was N. W., and favorable, so that we made about eight knots an hour. We landed at Escomains, to take on board Pierre Jacques, a full-blooded Indian, possessing the usual characteristics of his race--laziness and love of whiskey. He was Mr. Macdonough's guide; and, despite the weaknesses mentioned, proved a good guide and a most skilful canoeist. We continued to sail until ten o'clock at night, when we dropped anchor. The night was dark and rainy, the wind fresh, and the river very rough, causing our little craft to dance, roll, and pitch in a most disgusting manner. We had no seasickness on board, but much wakefulness on my side of the cabin. Being thus "Rocked in the cradle of the deep," was not a success as a soporific, in my case, at least. _August 4th_.--Seven o'clock, A. M. We have been sailing since daylight this morning, and are now at anchor near the Sault au Cochon. Mr. Macdonough had occasion to visit a country store near the falls, and suggested that I try to catch a trout for breakfast. The stream which empties into the St. Lawrence here is of considerable size--say forty feet wide--and pours over a ledge of rocks, or precipice, about fifty feet in height, into the head of a small bay. The water under and near the fall is very rough and swift. My guide launched my canoe, paddled me out, and placed me in such a position that I could cast in the eddy formed by the swift waters from the fall. With a hornbeam rod, of ten ounces in weight, and twelve feet in length, armed with two flies, I whipped the waters. A few casts brought up a trout. I saw its head as it rose for my dropper, struck, and hooked the fish. It ran down with the current, my click reel singing the tune so delightful to anglers' ears, until near one hundred feet of line was out. Placing my gloved thumb upon the barrel of the reel, I checked its progress. The trout dashed right and left, from and towards me, at times putting my tackle to a severe test. It kept below the surface of the water; therefore, I could only judge of the size of my captive by the strength it exerted in its efforts to escape. My enthusiastic guide was much excited, and cheered me by such remarks as, "Juge he big trout. He weigh three, four, five pounds! He very big trout!" I concurred in his opinion, as it often required the utmost strength of my right hand and wrist to hold my rod at the proper angle. After playing the fish fifteen or twenty minutes, without its showing any signs of exhaustion, I slowly, and by sheer force, reeled the fish to the canoe, and my guide scooped it out with the landing net. I then discovered it was not the monster we had supposed it to be, but that it was hooked by the tail fly at the roots of the caudal fin. The fish was killed, by a blow upon the head, and weighed. The scales showed two pounds two ounces. The guide paddled ashore, and upon the rocks near the falls built a fire, and prepared our breakfast. The fish was split open on the back, spread out upon a plank, to which it was secured by wooden pegs, set up before the fire, and thus broiled, or more properly, roasted. A more delicious trout I never tasted. Up to this point, what has been written has been abstracted from the prolix journal that I kept of this bout. As I have taken my first sea-trout from Canadian waters it is fitting that I turn to the subject of this article, SEA-TROUT. Like all anadromous fishes its "ways are dark and past finding out." Hence scientists, naturalists, anglers and guides differ widely and materially in regard to its proper name, its species, and its habits. Scarcely any two writers upon the subject have agreed in all these points. Sea-trout (_Salmo Trutta_) abound in northern Europe. As stated by Foster in his "Scientific Angler," in "nearly every beck and burn, loch and river of Scotland and Ireland; and are readily taken with a fly." These sea-trout have been mentioned and described by many eminent writers--Sir Humphry Davy, Yarrel, Foster, and others. The description given of this fish, the number of rays in its fins, its coloring and markings, and lastly the absence of all red or vermilion spots render it absolutely certain that they are not in species identical with the sea trout of the Dominion of Canada. As is shown by Thaddeus Norris, in his admirable work, "The American Angler's Book," conclusively I think, the supposed identity of the two kinds of sea-trout mentioned have led many writers astray when speaking of the sea-trout found in American waters. Norris has applied to the latter fish the name _Salmo Canadensis_, given, I believe, by Col. Hamilton Smith, in 1834. Whether icthyologists can find a better or more appropriate one matters not. It is desirable that there be a name to distinguish this fish from all others, and this one, if generally adopted, will serve all necessary purposes. In describing the fish Norris writes thus: "A Canadian trout, fresh from the sea, as compared with the brook trout, has larger and more distinct scales; the form is not so much compressed; the markings on the back are lighter and not so vermiculated in form, but resemble more the broken segments of a circle; it has fewer red spots, which are also less distinct." He also thinks the sea-trout, until they attain the weight of two pounds, more slender in form. Again I quote verbatim: "In color, when fresh run from the sea, this fish is a light, bluish green on the back, light silvery gray on the sides, and brilliant white on the belly; the ventral and anal fins entirely white; the pectorals brownish blue in front and the posterior rays rosy white. The tail is quite forked in the young fish, as in all the salmonidæ, but when fully grown is slightly lunate." Genio C. Scott, who laid no claim to being a scientist, but who was a close observer, also compares the same fish, which he calls the Silver-trout or sea-trout, _Trutta Argentina_, or _Trutta Marina_, with the brook trout. He says, "The sea-trout is similar to the brook-trout in all facial peculiarities. It is shaped like the brook-trout. The vermicular marks on the back, and above the lateral line, are like those of the brook-trout; its vermicular white and amber dots are like the brook-trout's; its fins are like the brook-trout's, even to the square or slightly lunate end of the tail. It has the amber back and silver sides of such brook-trout as have access to the estuary food of the eggs of different fishes, the young herring," etc. These descriptions differ but little, and are, I believe, as accurate in the main as can be given. Both these writers, as will be seen, are discussing, and have taken opposite sides upon the question, whether the Canadian sea-trout is an anadromous brook-trout. This question was very well presented by Mr. Macdonough (my companion) in an article entitled "Sea-Trout Fishing," published in _Scribner's Monthly Magazine_ for May, 1877. He begins thus: "What is a sea-trout? A problem to begin with, though quite a minor one, since naturalists have for some time past kept specimens waiting their leisure to decide whether he is a cadet of the noble salmon race, or merely the chief of the familiar brook-trout tribe. Science inclines to the former view upon certain slight but sure indications noted in spines and gill covers. The witness of guides and gaffers leads the same way; and the Indians all say that the habits of the sea-trout and brook-trout differ, and that the contrast between the markings of the two kinds of fish taken from the same pool, forbids the idea of their identity. Yet the testimony of many accomplished sportsmen affirms it. The gradual change of color in the same fish as he ascends the stream from plain silvery gray to deepest dotted bronze; his haunts at the lower end of pools, behind rocks, and among roots; his action in taking the fly with an upward leap, not downwards from above--all these resemblances support the theory that the sea-trout is only an anadromous brook-trout.... Indeed the difference in color between the brook-trout and sea-trout ranges within a far narrower scale than that between parr, grilse, and salmon." The reader who has not read the paper would doubtless thank me for quoting it entire. As will have been seen, the conscientious and lamented Thad. Norris, when he wrote as above quoted, thought that the Canadian sea-trout were not the English _Salmo Trutta_, nor the _Salmo Fontinalis_, and as proof gave this table showing the number of rays in the fins of the following fish: [Illustration: 0069] He adds, speaking of the last two fish--"there being only a difference of one ray in the pectorals, which may be accidental." I am credibly informed that some years after his book was written, and after a more familiar acquaintance with the _S. Canadensis_, his views underwent an entire change, and that he wrote "the _S. Canadensis_ is the _S. Fontinalis_ gone to sea." The space allowed me for this paper will not admit of my quoting further from the writings of those above mentioned or of others upon this subject. I will now state, as briefly as I can, my own views resulting from long familiarity with brook-trout, gained by thirty-five years of angling for them, my acquaintance with the sea-trout of Long Island, and those found in Canadian waters. In regard to the markings of the fish _immediately after migrating from salt to fresh water_ it is unnecessary to say more, except that the vermicular marks differ somewhat in different fish. Some that I caught and examined closely had, as Scott says, "vermiculate marks on the back very plain and distinct." And on others, as Norris writes, "the markings on the back were lighter and not so vermiculated in form, but resembling more the broken segments of a circle." The fish in this respect differ from each other far less than often do brook trout, taken from the same pool. Norris thinks the sea-trout more slender in form than the brook-trout until the former attains the weight of two pounds. I have not been able to discover this difference between sea-trout and the brook-trout taken from the waters of this State. The trout of Rangeley Lake, and waters adjacent in Maine (I assume, as I believe, they are genuine brook trout), are thicker and shorter than trout of the same weight caught in the State of New York, or the Canadian sea-trout. I have two careful and accurate drawings--one of a sea-trout which weighed four and one-quarter pounds, and measured twenty-two and one-half inches in length, and five and one-eighth inches in depth--the other of a Rangeley trout that weighed eight pounds, and measured twenty-six inches in length, and eight and a half inches in depth. I have seen and measured several Rangeley trout two of seven pounds each, one of four and one-half pounds, etc., and in all I think there was a similar disproportion as compared with the other trout above mentioned. As regards the number of rays in the fins of sea-trout I can only say that while fishing for them I counted the rays and found them to compare in number with those of the brook-trout as given by Norris in the table inserted ante. All the writers from whom I have quoted, and all persons with whom I have conversed who have fished for these sea-trout, concur in the opinion that soon after the sea-trout enters fresh water, a change in color and appearance begins, which ends in assimilating, as nearly as may be, the fish in question to the brook trout. On the first day's fishing, when my guide accompanied me, he opened the mouth of a trout and called my attention to small parasites--"Sea-lice," he called them--in the mouth and throat of the fish. He said that the presence of these parasites was a sure indication that the fish had just left the salt water; that they would soon disappear in fresh water. As a matter of curiosity I examined the mouths of several fish, and invariably found that if they presented the appearance described by Norris and Scott, the parasites were present; but if they had assumed a gayer livery none were to be found. The change in color, which begins with the trout's advent to fresh water, is progressive, and ceases only when the object of its mission, the deposit and impregnation of the spawn, is accomplished. In proof of this I will state that during the last days of our stay on the stream, and notably in fish taken fifteen or twenty miles from tide water, it was not infrequent that we caught trout as gorgeous and brilliant in color as the male brook trout at the spawning season. Whether this change of color is attributable to the character of the water in which it "lives, moves, and has its being," to the food it eats, or other causes, it is impossible to say. I often caught from the same or adjacent pools, trout fresh from the sea and dull in color, and those showing in a greater or less degree the brilliancy of the mountain brook trout. Of course they differ widely in appearance, and therefore it is not surprising that the "Indians all say," as expressed by Mr. Macdonough, "that the contrast between the markings of the two kinds of fish forbids the idea of their identity." As mentioned by Mr. Macdonough the sea-trout have their "haunts at the lower end of pools" [and upper end he might have added with truth], "behind rocks, among roots," in short, in the same parts of a stream that an experienced angler expects to find and does find the brook trout. The sea trout will take the same bait, rise at the same fly, and rest at the same hours of the day, as brook trout. The flies that I ordered, made from samples furnished by Mr. Macdonough, who had had some years' experience on the stream before I accompanied him, were much larger and more gaudy than the usual trout flies, and ordinarily were sufficiently _taking_ in character; but, on very bright days, when the water was low and clear, we found that the flies used by us on the Beaver Kill, and Neversink, in Sullivan County, New York, were better. The largest trout taken by us on this bout--four and one-quarter pounds--was hooked with a stone fly made by Pritchard Brothers, of New York, for use on those streams. On one occasion, I took at one cast, and landed safely, two trout, weighing three pounds and one-quarter, and one and three-quarters pounds, respectively, upon one of the said stone flies and a mediumsized gray hackle. In conclusion of this part of my article, I will say that, for the reasons above given, I have no doubt but that the Canada sea-trout are anadromous brook trout, and that they should be classed with the _salmo fontinalis_, or, if preferred, _salvelinus fontinalis_. The trout in question come up the St. Lawrence from the ocean in large numbers, and file off, probably in accordance with the instinct of anadromous fishes, to the streams in which they were severally hatched. The detachment for our stream reaches it invariably in the first days of August. "When once fairly in the current" (I quote from Mr. Macdonough's paper), "their movements up-stream are very rapid. Passionless and almost sexless, as the mode of the nuptials, they are on their way to complete, may seem to more highly organized beings, they drive with headlong eagerness through torrent and foam, toward the shining reaches and gravelly beds far up the river, where their ova are to be deposited." They stop for but a short time for rest in certain pools; one of these resting places was directly in front of our tents. Two, three, or more, could be taken from it in the morning; sometimes, not always, in the evening; but assuredly the ensuing morning; and so on, until the beginning of September. When these fish return to "the ocean, that great receptacle of fishes," as Goldsmith styles it, is a problem not yet solved. Some think they remain until winter, or spring. I incline to the opinion that they go back to the sea in the fall soon after their procreative duty is performed. It is well known that the _salmo fontinalis_ gives no care or thought to its offspring; and evinces no love or affection for it after it passes the embryotic or ova-otic stage; and that during that stage their parental fondness is akin to that of the cannibal for the conventional "fat missionary." The voraciousness that prompts the parent trout to eat all the eggs they can find as soon as deposited and fertilized, would also prompt them to return to the estuaries so well stocked with food suited to their taste and wants. What becomes of the young fry during early _fishhood_ is another problem. From the fact that no small trout are caught or seen in the rivers, at the source and in the tributaries of which millions are hatched, it is fair to assume that the young remain where they were incubated until they attain age, size, and strength that enable them to evade, if not defend themselves against, the attack of their many enemies. When this time arrives, they doubtless accompany their parents, or the parents of other troutlings (it is, indeed, a wise fish "that knows its own father"--or mother), on their migration to the sea. During our stay upon the stream I caught but two trout as small as one-fourth of a pound, but one of six ounces, and few as small as half a pound. The average size of our whole catch was one pound four ounces. Since writing the foregoing, I have received from Dr. J. A. Henshall, an answer to a letter that I addressed to him, before I began this article, in which I asked him to give me the nomenclature of the sea trout of the lower St. Lawrence, and also to inform me whether he thought these fish anadromous brook trout. I here record my thanks to the Doctor for his courteous compliance with my request, and give a copy of so much of his letter as relates to the fish under consideration, which, to my mind, settles the question of the _status_ of the sea-trout of Canada. "Cynthiana, Ky., Jan. 29, 1883. "Dear Sir,--The so-called 'sea-trout' or 'salmon-trout' of the lower St. Lawrence, is the brook trout (_S. fontinalis_), but having access to the sea, becomes anadromous, and like all anadromous and marine fishes, becomes of a silvery appearance, losing, somewhat, its characteristic colors. The brook trout has a wide range (from northern Georgia to the Arctic regions), and of course presents some geographical variations in appearance, habits, etc...but does not vary in its specific relations. Mr. ------" (naming an American author to whom I referred), "was wrong in calling this fish _Salmo trutta, S. trutta_ is a European species; and if he applied the name to the Canadian brook trout it is a misnomer. I cannot say, not having read --------" (a work by said author mentioned by me). "Trusting this may meet your wants, I am, "Yours very sincerely, "J. A. Henshall. "P.S.--On next page please find nomenclature of the sea-trout of the lower St. Lawrence. "Canadian Sea-Trout. "_Salvelinus fontinalis_, (Mitchell), Gill & Jordan. "Synonomy.--_Salmo canadensis_, Ham. Smith, in Griffith's Cuvier, x, 474, 1834. _Salmo immaculatus_, H. R. Storer, in _Bost, Jour. Nat. Hist_., vi, 364, 1850. "Vernacular Names.--Canadian brook trout, sea-trout, salmon trout, unspotted salmon, white sea-trout, etc. "Specific Description.--Body oblong or ovate, moderately compressed; depth of body one-fourth to one-fifth of length; back broad and rounded. "Head large, not very long, sloping symmetrically above and below; head contained four or five times in length of body. Nostrils double; vomer boat-shaped; jaws with minute teeth; no teeth on hyoid bone; mouth large, the maxillary reaching to the eye; eye large. "Scales very small, in two hundred and twenty-five transverse rows; caudal fin slightly lunate in adult, forked in young; adipose fin small. "Fin rays: D. 10; A. 9; P. 13; V. 8; C. 19. "Color: back mottled with dark markings; sides lighter; belly silvery white; red and yellow spots on body, mostly on sides. "Coloration often plain and silvery in sea-run individuals." The so-called "sea-trout" of Long Island, as stated by Mr. Charles Hallock, in his "Fishing Tourist," and of certain streams in Connecticut, as mentioned by Mr. W. C. Prime in "I go a-Fishing," are genuine brook trout. Although they have access to the salt water, and go there for food--and hence are fat and delicious in flavor--they _are not anadromous brook trout_. They do not "pass from the sea into fresh waters, at _stated seasons_" (Webster's Dic.). They are caught at all times from February or March until the following autumn in fresh water, and, as Hallock expresses it, "they run in and out with the tide." When this article was commenced it was my intention to write not only of the sea-trout, but to give an account of our excursion in 1874; and in doing so to speak of the events of each day succeeding those of which I have written. It has already exceeded in length the measure that was fixed upon, hence I can give the reader only a casual glance at us as we proceed to our destination; and a look now and then into our camp. I left our party--breakfast over--at the Sault au Cochon, at about eight A. M. of August 4th. Soon thereafter we set sail and made such progress that a few hours brought us to the mouth of our river. It was low tide when we reached it--low tide means something here, as the tide has a rise and fall of fifteen feet--and hence the anchor was dropped near the river's mouth, canoes launched, our personal baggage transferred to our respective canoes--Macdonough's was named _Commodore_, in honor of his father, who made an imperishable name on Lake Champlain in the war of 1812, and mine _La Dame_, in honor of some one who lived in my imagination; I never met her elsewhere. In the third canoe were placed the tents, camp utensils, and stores for twenty-four hours. When all was in readiness I lighted my pipe, seated myself on the bottom of my canoe, leaned back against one of the _bords_ or cross bars; then David, sitting upon the V formed by the sides of the canoe at the stern, with paddle in hand, sent the birch bark flying up our river. Like most Canadian trout streams it consists of a series of still, deep pools, and swift, rocky rapids, alternating. Often the rapids have a fall of one foot in ten, and are from one to five, and sometimes ten or more rods in length. It is marvellous how these canoeists will force a loaded canoe up them. In doing so they stand near the back end and use a long, iron-pointed "setting pole." Before sunset we reached our camping place, five or six miles from the St. Lawrence. The guides built a fire to dispel the mosquitoes, which were fearfully numerous and bloodthirsty, and then set about pitching our tents. M. and I lighted cigars, put our rods together, and in ten minutes' time had taken from the pool in front of us, each two trout, weighing from one pound two, to one pound eight ounces each. Having caught enough for dinner we busied ourselves in arranging our tents, preparing our beds, etc. My journal for the day ends with the following brief entry: Nine P. M.--We are now settled in camp, have eaten a good dinner, smoked our cigars, and are going to bed. _Aug. 5th_.--Having had a good night's sleep I rose at five A. M., made a hasty toilet, took my rod and threw into the pool, within forty feet of my tent, and took during a few minutes three trout weighing three-quarters, one and a-quarter, and one and a-quarter pounds respectively. M. soon followed and caught two of one and a-quarter pounds each. Breakfast over we sent our guides with the canoes down to the _chaloupe_ for the rest of our tents, stores, etc., and consequently we can only fish the home pool to-day. With a hatchet I cut out a path through the laurel thicket to the head of the pool, six or eight rods distant; returned to camp, put on my India rubber wading pants and rubber shoes (having a leather sole filled with Hungarian nails), took my rod, walked to the head of the pool, and cast my flies on the swift waters. In an instant a pair of capacious jaws emerged from the water. I struck, and as the head disappeared, saw the tail and half the body of an enormous trout.... In twenty minutes the fish was in my landing net. I walked proudly and in a most contented frame of mind back to camp. "That," said Mr. Macdonough, "looks like old times." The scales were hooked in his jaw, the index showed three pounds, eight ounces.... Our camp is on a sandy point of land around which curves the pool, and from which, for the space of about one-eighth of an acre, all trees were cut and the land cleared off, under the direction, tradition states, of Sir Gore Ouseley, who first encamped here about twenty years ago, with eighteen servants, retainers, and guides, of whom my guide was one, and the cook. The stumps have rotted away, and the clearing is covered with timothy and red-top grasses. We have cut much of this with our knives, and intend to finish haying to-day. The grass when cured is to be used in making our beds more luxurious. The pool in front is nearly two hundred feet across at one point, and in places ten or fifteen feet deep. In the centre and near the foot is a rock island about seventy-five feet long. In the foot of the pool between this rock and our camp large trout have been seen at all hours of the day. Opposite our camp is quite a hill covered with spruce, larch, and white birch. We have canvas beds, supported by crotched sticks about eighteen inches high, upon which poles are laid and the canvas stretched. 5 P.M.--I have filled two canvas sacks with hay for a bed, and a pillow-case with the same, for a bolster. These, with my small feather pillow, sheets, blankets, and night-shirts, will render sleeping in the "bush" Christian-like and endurable. 7 p. m.--I have just cast into the pool and caught a pound and a-half trout, making for the day six trout, weighing nine pounds four ounces, and have not fished in the aggregate one hour. The guides, Captain and Fabian, have arrived with the three canoes and all stores. _Aug. 6th_, 7.30 a. m.--We have just finished breakfast. It consisted of coffee, trout fish-balls, broiled ham, rice and wheat _crepes_ (pancakes) with butter and maple sugar. My guide is an excellent cook and our stores abundant and of good quality. We purchased them in Quebec at a cost of $73.59 in gold. A tub of butter, barrel of bread, and sack of coarse salt, to preserve the trout, were purchased at Tadousac, and cost $11.34 in gold. 5 P.M.--I have just come in from my first day's fishing. Began at 10 A. M., quit at 4 P. M. I fished below and Macdonough above the camp. "M. killed 15 fish, weight 26 lbs., 4oz. "F. " 25" " 31 lbs., 4 oz. 57 lbs., 8 oz. _Aug. 7th_.--... Dinner is a great institution with us. Next to catching a trout of three pounds or over it is the event of the day. Ours of this evening was as follows: "Soup: bean with extract of beef. "Fish: boiled trout. "Vegetables: potatoes and boiled onions. "Pastry: rice cakes and maple sugar. "Dessert: crackers, cheese, and orange marmalade. "Wines: claret and sherry. "Tea: English breakfast." Our canoes are beauties. They are eighteen feet long, three feet three inches wide in the centre, and fifteen inches in depth. With two men in they draw but three or four inches of water. _Aug. 9th_.--We left our camp with one tent, two canoes, and provisions for four days; walked through the woods three miles to a lake, through which our river runs, which is eight miles above us by the stream. ... It is a lovely sheet of water about three and a-half miles long and one and a-half wide, surrounded, except at the inlet and outlet, by rocky cliffs, in many places five to eight hundred feet high.... _Aug. 10th_.--To our usual breakfast was added this morning a broiled partridge (ruffed grouse) which Fabian killed with a stick or stone yesterday, in making the portage. While at breakfast a gray or silver fox ran past us within twenty feet of where we sat. The woods are filled with squirrels; their chattering is heard constantly. Large and very tame fish-hawks abound--reminding one of the beach from Sandy Hook to Long Branch.... We have tickled the lake with a spinner, trolled with a long hand line, for pickerel. We fished but an hour with two lines. We caught fourteen, weighing thirty-four pounds. _Aug. 11th_.--We fished down from the Middle Camp (as our present one is called). M. had the morning's fishing in the "spring hole," and took six fish averaging two pounds each. In the Magdalen pool I took three one pound trout immediately upon throwing in. Suddenly not ten feet from where I stood (I was in the water up nearly to my waist), and directly in front of me, a monster fish from three to four feet long, and of thirty or thirty-five pounds weight, shot up from the water, stood seemingly upon its tail for an instant, and with a heavy splash fell over into the pool. "My God! what is that?" I asked my guide. "It's a _saumon_, sir," he calmly replied. I was all excitement and began whipping vigorously where it rose. Failing to get it up, I put on a salmon fly. By this time salmon were leaping above me, below me, and at my very feet. I whipped diligently, letting my fly fall like thistledown upon the water, and then with a splash to attract attention, and now letting it sink and float with the current. It was all in vain; three hours of my most skilful fishing failed to entice one of the wily monsters. Neither could I get up a trout; they had all been driven away by the salmon. I caused my guide to paddle me over the still pool just above, and saw in the pellucid water, three or four feet beneath the surface, ten or fifteen large salmon. They lay perfectly still for a time, and then darted through and around the pool in every direction, as if in play. Suddenly they would congregate in the centre of the pool and lay with their heads up stream, the largest slightly in advance of the rest, as motionless as if the water had become ice, encasing the fish. _Aug. 12th_.--At Main Camp.... The canoeing down from the Middle Camp--five miles--was delightful, and at times very exciting; that is, in running the rapids, which are numerous. In making a portage around the "Little Falls" we started up a cock partridge. It alighted upon the limb of a dead tree no higher than my head. "We approached within six feet of it, and stood for a minute or two gazing at the graceful bird. It returned our gaze with head turned aside, and a look of curious inquiry which said, as plainly as if it had spoken, 'What kind of animals are you?' I could easily have hit it with my landing-net handle hut would not make it a victim of misplaced confidence." This incident reminded me of the lines of Alexander Selkirk, in the English Reader, which was in use in my early school-boy days: "They are so unacquainted with man, Their tameness is shocking to me." I may add that squirrels were constantly running about our camp, exhibiting no more fear than those in the parks of Philadelphia. _Aug. 14th_.--"David build a fire between our tents, it is cold," I called out about five o'clock this morning. "Yes, sir," he replied; "a black frost this morning, had to thaw out my boots before I could get them on." Our little encampment consists of two wall tents, ten feet square, for the use of Mr. Macdonough and myself. They are about fifteen feet apart, opening towards each other, upon a line twenty feet from the pool, upon ground five or six feet above it. Back of our tents is our dining-table, made of planks split from the spruce, and sheltered with a tent fly. In rear of this is the kitchen fire; and still farther back, two "A tents," one for the use of our men, and the other for-the protection of our stores. I do not often look into our kitchen: Seeing Fabian wipe my silver-plated fork upon his pantaloons, between courses, cured me of this. "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." I did, however, look into the kitchen to-day to see how our excellent bread was baked. It was properly made with "raising powder," kneaded and formed into loaves. A trench was dug in the ashes and sand, forming the bed of our camp fire, wide and long enough to admit of three loaves. They were put into the trench, without any covering except the hot sand and ashes, with which they were surrounded on all sides, top and bottom. Live coals were raked over the mound, and it was left for time and heat to do the rest. An hour or so after I saw the bread taken from the ashes. It was brushed slightly with a wisp broom, which removed the little of ashes and sand adhering; and the bread was as clean as if it had just left the baker's oven, and was of a uniform rich brown color. Lamb and green peas (French canned) formed one course at dinner to-day. The flavor of fresh mutton is much improved by non-intercourse with the butcher for two weeks. _Sunday, Aug_. 16.--Another bright and beautiful day. It would be pleasant to hear "the sound of the churchgoing bell, which these rocks and these valleys ne'er heard," It is now near two weeks since we entered upon our camp life, and we have seen no signs of civilization, save in our camp; nothing but forest, rock, water and sky, all as they came from their Great Creators hand. No sounds have been heard to carry us back in thought to the world of life and labor, save the occasional booming of the fog cannon at a government station on the south side of the St. Lawrence. How strangely did the warning voice of this gun, telling us of danger to the mariner, break upon the silence of the hour as we sat watching the fairy forms and fantastic shapes in our first evening's camp-fire! Pleasant as it is to the writer to live over again the days of which he has written--to dwell upon the scenes in which he was an actor, so vividly presented to his mind's eye as he writes of them--pity for the too-long suffering reader has prompted him to close the lids of his journal and restore it to its place in the book-case. It only remains to write somewhat of our success in fishing. The season was a very dry one, our river very low, and no rain sufficient to affect it fell during our stay, consequently the trout did not come up in as large numbers as usual, and the clearness of the water rendered successful fly-fishing more difficult. We caught on this occasion but two hundred and forty-three trout, of the aggregate weight of three hundred and four pounds. All these fish were taken with a fly, save one: thereby hangs a tale heretofore untold. At Tadousac, on our way out, I saw a gentleman, to whom I had been introduced, making something in the construction of which he used three snelled hooks and about three inches in length of thin white rubber tubing. I asked, "What is it?" "A devil," he replied. He gave me materials, and while sailing down the river I made one. One day at the Home Pool I saw ten or a dozen large trout. They paid no heed to my flies. "Try the devil," my guide whispered. In a moment of weakness I yielded to the tempter and put it on. The first cast caused commotion in the watery camp. At the second I struck and soon drew out on the beach a pound and a half trout. I looked upon the beautiful fish with compassion, cursed myself for resorting to such unfair means, removed the cruel hooks as tenderly as I could from the mangled and bleeding mouth, and taking off the _devilish_ invention threw it as far as possible into the woods. .........."The beasts of game The privilege of chase may claim." I have not since used, and shall not in the future use, this rightly named instrument, and hope no angler will. I have narrated this only unpleasant feature of my bout to illustrate the _devilish_ ingenuity of "pot fishermen" and the curiosity of sea-trout. I wonder what was the gender of the fish! With a view of showing the capabilities of our river in the production of fish, I have aggregated the scores from 1872 to 1882 inclusive. In one of these years three rods were in use, in three others two, and in the other years but one. The average time of fishing in each year was about three weeks. Number of trout taken, 5,525; aggregate weight, 6,625 pounds; average about one pound three ounces. In the year 1881 the average size of two hundred and thirteen trout taken with a single rod in eight days' fishing was one pound fourteen ounces. Not one of these fish was wasted. A few were eaten upon the stream, but most of them were given to the guides, who salted and packed them in barrels for future use. A sack of coarse salt and empty fish barrels were always included in the anglers' stores. Three days after the last date mentioned we were again on board our _chaloupe_ "homeward bound." The loss in weight in our stores was made good by the barrel of salted _anadromous salvelinus-fontinalis_ which were to supplement and eke out the pork barrel of our honest and worthy guides during the long ice-bound winter before them. Tadousac was reached about sunrise on a bright morning. At nine o'clock we were in citizen's dress and seated at the hotel breakfast table. A glance around the room showed that summer birds and Cook's tourists had mainly migrated to more southern latitudes. Our trunks were re-packed, our guides paid $1.50 each per day, and the captain $2.00, gold, and bade adieu. We took the Saguenay steamboat for Quebec, the Grand Trunk Railroad from Point Levi to Montreal, where we passed the night. The next morning we travelled by rail to Rouse's Point and by boat down that charming Lake, Champlain. At the various landings many persons, including several friends, came on board. Nearly all carried snugly-cased fishing rods, whose summer work was ended. The Chateaugay, the Saranacs, Paul Smith's, Baker's, Martin's, and various other familiar names met our ears. We envied none of them. Our cup of joy, happiness and contentment was full to the brim. There was no room for "envy, hatred and malice," but a feeling of gratitude and thankfulness to the Author of every "good and perfect gift," welled up from our hearts. "Every angler has his own peculiar notion in regard to the best fly; and the difficulty of presenting a perfect catalogue will be very apparent, when it is considered that the _name_ of the fly of one writer bears a different name and description from that of another, and it is more than probable that the name and description of some of the flies in my list may not be in accordance with the views and opinions of many old and experienced anglers."--"_Frank Forester_." "After staying in a village parlor till the family had all retired, I have returned to the woods, and partly with a view to the next day's dinner, spent the hours of midnight fishing from a boat by moonlight, serenaded by owls and foxes, and hearing, from time to time, the croaking note of some unknown bird close at hand."--_Henry D. Thoreau_. "He sat down on a lump of granite, and took out his fly-book. It is a sport, he added, as he was selecting the flies, that there is less to be said against than shooting, I imagine. I don't like the idea of shooting birds, especially after I have missed one or two. Birds are such harmless creatures. But the fish is different--the fish is making a murderous snap at an innocent fly, when a little bit of steel catches him in the very act. It serves him right, from the moral point of view."--_William Black_. "There is much diversity of opinion about the manner of fishing, whether up or down the stream; the great majority of anglers, both In Europe and this country, favor the latter method, and very few the former."--_John J. Brown_. "'Beautiful!' Well you may say so, for what is more beautiful than a well-developed pound trout?"--_Charles W. Stevens_. [Illustration: 0092] 7. Ferguson, 8. Abbey. 9. Royal Coachman. 10. Seth Green. 11. Professor. 12. Montreal. "Reader, did you ever throw the fly to tempt the silvery denizen of the lake, or river, to his destruction? Have you watched him, as it skimmed like a living insect along the surface, dart from his hiding-place, and rush upon the tempting but deceitful morsel; and have you noticed his astonishment when he found the hook was in his jaw? Have you watched him as he bent your slender rod 'like a reed shaken by the wind,' in his efforts to free himself, and then have you reeled him to your hand and deposited him in your basket, as the spoil of your good right arm? If you have _not_, leave the dull, monotonous, every-day things around you, and flee to the Chazy Lake."--_S. H. Hammond._ "I now come to not only the most sportsman-like, but the most delightful method of trout-fishing. One not only endeared by a thousand delightful memories, but by the devotion of many of our wisest and best men for ages past; and, next to my thanks for existence, health, and daily bread, I thank God for the good gift of fly-fishing. If the fishes are to be killed for our use, there is no way in which they are put to so little pain as in fly-fishing. The fish rises, takes your fly as though it were his ordinary food; the hook fixes in the hard gristly jaw, where there is little or no sensation. After a few struggles he is hauled on shore, and a tap on the head terminates his life; and so slight is the pain or alarm that he feels from the hook, that I have over and over caught a trout, with the fly still in his mouth which he has broken off in his struggles an hour or even half an hour previously. I have seen fish that have thus broken off swim away with my fly in their mouths and begin to rise at the natural fly again almost directly."--_Francis Francis._ RANGELEY BROOK TROUT. By James A. Williamson, Sec. Oquossoc Angling Association. About twelve summers ago, when spending a delightful vacation at Manchester, Vermont, under the shadow of Mt. Equinox, my attention was called to a little book which gave a description of the exceptionally large brook trout inhabiting the waters of the Rangeley Lakes. Never having heard, heretofore, of a fish of that species that weighed more than three pounds, and never having caught any over a pound and a half (although I had dropped a line in many waters and exerted my utmost muscle in casting a line for fingerlings), I could not bring my mind to believe that such fish as were described really existed, and at once pronounced it another fish story. Although much interested in the narrative I finally threw down the book in disgust, and as I did so, observed for the first time that the author was Robert G. Allerton, a very old friend, whom I had always esteemed a man of veracity. I at once took a new interest in the subject and determined to investigate the matter personally. I came to New York, had an interview with Mr. Allerton, who was the Treasurer of the Oquossoc Angling Association, and by his advice joined the club, and in due time started for the promised land of mountains, lakes, and large trout, and after the usual vicissitudes of travel reached my destination at Camp Kennebago about the middle of September. The forests were just developing their autumnal hues, the air was fresh and bracing, and all nature seemed to conspire to make one realize that there was health in every breath inhaled, and beauty in every phase of land and water. Having secured a first-rate guide and boat, and partaken of a trout breakfast, which was relished immensely, such as can only be appreciated by one who has left the haunts of civilization and gone into the wilderness for recuperation, I considered my first duty was to pay my respects to Mr. Allerton, who was in camp at Bugle Cove. From this location Lake Mooselemeguntic lies spread out before you, while Mt. Washington in the distance rears its snowy peak, overtopping Jefferson, Monroe, and the other giants of the White Hills of New Hampshire. The crystal waters of the lake tempt us to cast a fly, and a suitable place having been secured, we proceed to business. After making several casts in a manner more or less scientific but without success, my former unbelief came creeping over me, and, as my arm became tired and almost refused to do its duty, a sense of despondency overcame me, which I am sure sensibly affected the beauty if not the efficacy of my casts. But suddenly I am awakened to the realization of the fact that a big fish has seized the fly and is making the reel hum in its frantic endeavors to secure its liberty. Fathom after fathom of the dainty line disappears beneath the water, and at last prudence dictates a gentle snub, which finally terminates in a decided check to the mad career of the quarry. Having succeeded in turning his head in a different direction, another rush is made across stream, making the line whiz as it cuts through the water; then suddenly he takes a downward course and ceases from all apparent effort to free himself. He now sulks for a long time, and impatience begins to take the place of the excitement with which the fight began. The guide, who, during the fray had hoisted his anchor, got ready his landing-net, and was now holding his boat in position with the oars, suggested that I had better send him a telegraphic message, which was accordingly done by striking the rod with a key. The first few strokes seemed to make little or no impression, but presently he convinced us that he was still there, although we had some forebodings that he had escaped by winding the line around a log or some other object at the bottom of the stream. He was up and alive in every sense, and performed the same tactics for liberty with apparently more vigor than at first. These were kept up for about half an hour, when he again took a turn of sulking, but this time of shorter duration, and when he again began his rushes it was with an evident loss of strength, but no diminution of determination and pluck. A friend who was watching and timing me from his boat came oyer to inquire how the battle was progressing, and pertinently asked, "Whether the fish was going to take me or I the fish." At last the strength of the tackle, the pliability of the rod, and the determination of the rodster overcame the pluck and strength of the fish, and he was brought to the boat turned upon his side and was beautifully landed by the guide. The scales were at once applied, with a result of eight pounds full weight. My inquiring and interested friend informed me that I had been two hours and twenty minutes in the fight, and as I sat down in the boat I, for the first time, realized that I was tired. Now, my dear reader, do not think that this kind of sport is of common occurrence, for from that time to this, I have taken but two fish of equal weight; the average, however, has been much larger than trout from any other locality in which I have fished. Any fish under half a pound is considered unfit to land, and is again committed to the water to grow larger. The number of trout does not seem to be falling off; but this can be accounted for by the annual plant of fry from the Hatching House of the Oquossoc Angling Association, who have for years past turned about one million fish into these waters, and now contemplate increasing the amount to five million; still I think there is a sensible diminution of the size of the catch, which now run from one-half to four pounds, and anything over that weight is the exception. This would seem to confirm the supposition of Professor Agassiz, made many years ago, that these large fish possibly may have reached an age of from 100 to 200 years, as they were evidently very old. Any one who has been thrilled with the vigorous strike of one of the ordinary sized fish would be almost beside himself when one from three to five pounds rose to his fly, and if his tackle was good, the sport derived therefrom, would serve him a lifetime; and when the shades of night had fallen upon the camp, and he with his fellow-fishermen collected around the great fire, point and vigor would be given to his recital of how he caught and played the monster he that day had brought to his creel. "Let it be seen that a love of the 'gentle art' openeth first the heart, then the fly-book, and soon the stores of experience and knowledge garnered up through long years, wheresoever we meet a 'Brother of the Angle'; and that to us 'angling is an employment of our idle time,'; that therein we find 'a rest to the mind, a cheerer of the spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of the passions, a procurer of contentedness, and that it begets habits of peace and patience in chose that possess and practice it.'"--_Thaddeus Norris_. "Fly-fishing holds the same relation to bait-fishing that poetry does to prose. Not only the fly, but every implement of the fly-fisher's outfit is a materialized poem."--_James A. Henshall, M.D._ "Between the tyro and the proficient grayling fisher there exists a wider gulf than is the case with the experienced and inexperienced in any other branch in the whole art of fishing. Practical skill and general artistic bearing are more fully exemplified in fishing for grayling, than for trout and salmon, whilst upon the same ground the unskilled efforts of the bungler stand at a yet more glaring contrast."--_David Foster_. "Hooking a large grayling, I had good evidences of his plucky qualities; the pliant rod bent as he struggled against the line, curling his body around columns of water that failed to sustain his grasp, and setting his great dorsal fin like an oar backing water, while we cautiously worked him in, his tender mouth requiring rather more careful handling than would be necessary for a trout; making a spurt up stream, he requires a yielding line, but after a time he submits to be brought in, rallying for a dart under the boat, or beneath a log, as an attempt is made to place the landing net under him."--_Professor Milner_. [Illustration: 0102] 13. Bee. 14. Tomah Jo. 15. "No Name." 16. Blue Bottle. 17. Grasshopper. 18. Canada. "Do not despair. There was--alas! that I must say there was--an illustrious philosopher, who was nearly of the age of fifty before he made angling a pursuit, yet he became a distinguished fly-fisher."--_Sir Humphry Davy_. "Fly-fishing for grayling and trout are not altogether identical. Both are frequently found in the same water, and are to be taken with the same cast of flies. Finer tackle, as a rule, is required in the case of the former, as also smaller and brighter flies." --_David Foster_. "The grayling generally springs entirely out of the water when first struck by the hook, and tugs strongly at the line, requiring as much dexterity to land it safely as it would to secure a trout of six times the size."--_Dr. Richardson._ "Grayling will often take the fly under water, rising so quietly that you will scarcely see any rise or break of the water at all. It is desirable, therefore, to watch the line narrowly, and to strike whenever you think it stops or checks, and you will now and then be surprised, although there is no break in the water, to find a good grayling on the hook. For, as is often the case with trout, the big ones are very quiet risers."--_Francis Francis._ "To be a perfect fisherman you require more excellencies than are usually to be found in such a small space as is allotted to a man's carcass."--_Parker Gilmore_. "The trout has, so to speak, a Herculean cast of beauty; the grayling rather that of an Apollo--light, delicate, and gracefully symmetrical."--_H. Cholmondely-Pennell_. THE GRAYLING. By Fred Mather. The very name of my beloved fish calls up a host of recollections that form themselves into a picture that, above all others, is the most cheerful one adorning memory's wall. We old fellows live largely in the past, and can afford to let younger men revel in the future; and in my own case, I can say that, having filled Shakespeare's apothegm of "one man in his time plays many parts," there are often retrospects of life as a boyish angler, an older hunter, trapper, and general vagabond on the frontiers; a soldier; and a later return to a first love. Of these glances over the shoulder of time, a few trips to Northern Michigan and its grayling streams mark the journey of life with a white stone. When Prof. Cope announced, in 1865, that he had received specimens from Michigan, the English anglers in America were incredulous, and there was some spicy correspondence, in the sportsmen's papers of those days, concerning the identity of the fishes. As usual, the scientist discomfited the angler, and proved his position. The fish had long been known to the raftsmen and natives of Michigan by local names, but had never been identified as the historic grayling. Some eight years after the discovery of Prof. Cope that we had the grayling in American waters; Mr. D. H. Pitzhugh, Jr., sent some of them to Mr. Charles Hallock, then editor of _Forest and Stream_, and they were shown in New York to the doubters, who even then were not convinced. Mr. Pitzhugh took great interest in the new fish, which, as a lumberman and an angler, he had long known as a "Michigan trout," but had never recognized as the gentle grayling, and he has since done more than any other man to popularize it and introduce it to anglers. He invited Mr. Hallock, Prof. Milner, and myself to come up and fish for it, and we each extolled its attractions in the press. As a consequence, the fish has been nearly exterminated by vandals who fish for count, and the waters where we fished at first are nearly barren. Of all game fishes the grayling is my favorite. It is gamy but not savage; one does not feel the savage instinct to kill that the black bass or the pike raises in him, but rather a feeling of love for a vigorous fighter for its life who is handicapped with a tender mouth. To me the fish is always thought of as the "gentle grayling," and the "golden-eyed grayling," although the latter epithet is not always a correct one, owing to the changes in the iris. In fishing for grayling it is well to use a mediumsized fly of a subdued color; a yellow body and a brown wing is the fly that should be used if only one is recommended; it is a most killing combination. Brown Hackles, Bed Ibis, Professor, Queen of the Water, and other trout flies are also killing; but the first-mentioned fly, whose name I do not know, owing to a defective memory and the vagaries of fly nomenclature, is the most killing, and a cast into the upper edge of a pool below a rapid is usually most successful. * * Oak-fly. The beauty of the grayling is of a kind that is better appreciated after some acquaintance. The bright colors of its "magnificent dorsal," as the phrase went a few years ago, are not its chief claim to admiration. Its shapely contour, striped ventrals, iridescent caudal, and its beatific countenance win the heart of the angler and make him love the grayling, and feel that it is a fish to respect for the higher qualities expressed in its physiognomy, and not one that it is merely a satisfaction to kill as he would a savage pike. True, we kill the grayling, but we do it in a different spirit from that in which we kill some other thing. It was not only my good fortune to know "Uncle Thad" Norris, but to have fished with him. The dear lovable old man, who long since paid his fare to the grim ferryman, once said: "When I look into a grayling's eye I am sorry I killed it; but that feeling never prevents me from making another cast just to see if another will rise." In another century Norris will be more read and appreciated than he is to-day. Of all American angling writers of this century he will stand foremost, and yet he never wrote as fully as he intended of the fish that he told me had afforded him more pleasure than any other. He had not revised his "American Angler's Book" for some time before his death, and so his remarks on Back's grayling must stand as he wrote them before the era of the Michigan grayling. He there says of the Arctic grayling: "The grayling being a fish in the capture of which the American angler cannot participate, we give no account of the manner of angling for them, but refer the reader who may have interest or curiosity on that score to English authors." He intended to revise that sentence and give his own experience, but the Reaper judged him ripe for the harvest before he did it. In my opinion he was one of those who should never have been ripe for that harvest, and his loss to our angling literature was a severe one. That the grayling will take bait, truth requires the admission; would that it were not so. I would prefer that its food was the soaring insect, or even the floating thistledown, with an occasional feather from an angel's wing dropped in the moonlit flood; but science has laid bare its interior with the searching scalpel, and the Caesarian operation has brought forth the lowly caddis-worm and other larvae, and the bait-fisher has taken advantage of the knowledge and pandered to the baser appetite of the fish. That the grayling does not eat other fish is proved by its small month, as well as by its known habits. It is not a leaper, like the trout, but takes the fly from the surface with merely an exposure of a portion of its head. When struck, it makes a rigorous rush, and, if it does not fight as long as the trout does, it gives much resistance at the last moment by the sidelong movement it makes when being reeled in, which is due to the size and curvature of its dorsal fin. It inhabits only the coldest of streams, and while the grayling of Europe is found in the trout streams, it is not to be found there in Michigan. We have several species of grayling in America. Two of these only are accessible to anglers, the Michigan grayling, _Thymallus tricolor_, and one at the head waters of the Yellowstone, the _T. Montanus_, The other species are Arctic. The Michigan fish is reported to grow to nearly two pounds weight; I never saw one that I thought would weigh much over a pound, and I have taken them in spawning season for the purpose of procuring their eggs. Whether this fish will bear acclimatization to other waters, I cannot say. I raised a few until a year old at my former trout farm in Western New York, and when I left them I opened the pond and let them into the stream below, but none have ever been taken there, as far as I know. It seems a pity to allow this elegant fish to become extinct, as it will in a few years in its limited habitat, and if opportunity offered I would again try to domesticate it. The trout-fisher needs no special directions nor tackle to fish for grayling; he may cast in the usual manner, only remembering that the fish has a very tender mouth, and must be treated with this fact ever in mind. The Michigan grayling streams are not suited for wading, and, therefore, fishing from a boat is the rule. This may not suit some anglers, to whom I can only say, every one to his fancy, but no wading for me; dry feet are more comfortable than wet ones, and boat-fishing or bank-fishing are more suitable to my taste, than to be immersed up to my hips in cold water for half a day. I have killed, I believe, every game fish in America east of the Rocky Mountains, except the salmon, for which I have a rod in readiness, that I hope to use soon, and I can say that while I do not think the grayling the superior of all of them for gameness, yet there is something of romance in the remembrance of the grayling, a kind of sentimental retrospect, that endears the fish to me above all others. Whether it was owing to the pine woods and the genial companionship, I do not care to consider; but each year there comes a longing to repeat the pleasant experiences of the Au Sable and its delicate grayling. TROUT FLIES "The trout-fly does not resemble any known species of insect. It is a 'conventionalized' creation, as we say of ornamentation. The theory is, that, fly-fishing being a high art, the fly must not be a tame imitation of nature, but an artistic suggestion of it. It requires an artist to construct one; and not every bungler can take a bit of red flannel, a peacock's feather, a flash of tinsel thread, a cock's plume, a section of a hen's wing, and fabricate a tiny object that will not look like any fly, but still will suggest the universal conventional fly."--_Charles Dudley Warner_. "When you fish with a flie, if it be possible, let no pary of your line touch the water, but your flie only."--_Izaak Walton_. [Illustration: 0112] 1. Coachman. 2. Leadwing Coach. 3. Royal Coachman. 4. Coachman red tip. 5. Gilt Coachman. 6. Cowdung. 7. Fern. 8. Blue Jay. 9. Abbey. 10. Red Ant. 11. Black Ant. 12. Seth Green. 13. Professor. 14. Blue Professor. 15. Dark Stone. "A combination of English Jay is one of the most effective flies in the world, as it can be put into as gay a fly as you please, and also into as plain a one as you like."--_Capt. Peel ("Dinks")_. "When I think of the great secrets of Nature locked up from our knowledge (yet under our eyes at every turn of your daily duty), and imagine what a mine of intellectual wealth remains to be opened out by quickness of sight, clearness of intellect, and the pickaxe of hard work, a great panorama opens before me. How ignorant--how terribly ignorant--are we of God's great laws as applied to the creatures that live in the element in which we are forbidden to exist!"--_Frank Buckland_. "The ancient belief in the stoppage of sport during a thunderstorm is not strictly true."--_David Foster_. "A fish will _hook himself only_ in cases where the fly first touches the water at the end of a straight line, or when the line is being withdrawn smartly for a new cast. In all other cases the skill of the angler must be employed."--_Charles Hallock_. "We had determined on a feast, and trout were to be its daintiest dainty. We waited until the confusing pepper of a shower had passed away and left the water calm. We tossed to the fish humbugs of wool, silk and feathers, gauds such as captivate the greedy or the guileless. The trout, on the lookout for novelty, dashed up and swallowed disappointing juiceless morsels, and with them swallowed hooks. Then, O Walton! O Davy! O Scrope! ye fishers hard by taverns! luxury was ours of which ye know nothing. Under the noble yellow birch we cooked our own fish. We used our scanty kitchen-battery with skill. We cooked with the high art of simplicity. Where Nature has done her best, only fools rush in to improve. On the salmonids, fresh and salt, she has lavished her creative refinements. Cookery should only ripen and develop."--_Theodore Winthrop_. "As a general thing, it is a waste of time to be forever changing your flies. If the trout are not rising, it is entirely useless to fling an assortment of flies at them."--_T. S. Up de Graff, M.D._ "In taking the fly, I award the palm to the trout, as he usually throws himself out of the water to do so. The salmon does not, he scarcely more than shows himself; but after being hooked the sport commences, and it is all activity to the death, rarely any sulking."--_Charles W. Stevens_ A TROUTING TRIP TO ST. IGNACE ISLAND. By W. Thomson Towards the end of August, 1877, I had become pretty well fagged out with office work and felt that I must have a week or two of out-door recreation or sport of some kind, so I naturally decided upon a troutfishing expedition; and I selected, as the scene, the island of St. Ignace, in Lake Superior, of which I had heard most excellent accounts in regard to fish products. I had, it is true, caught a great many brook trout throughout the summer, in small streams close at hand; but these were mostly fish of inferior size, few indeed reaching one pound in weight; while I was assured by an ancient fisherman of repute, that at the Island, the real _Salmo fontinalis_ often attained to four, five, and even seven pounds. This was the kind of ground I had been, for many years, anxious to find, and I made up my mind to try it at all events. The first thing to do was to secure two suitable companions, and a man or boy of all work. The former I quickly enlisted in the persons of a genial M.D. and an overworked limb of the law. The latter opportunely turned up in the shape of "Jim," a colored youth of sixteen, as black as the ten of spades, but no less celebrated for his culinary skill than for his impish tricks and imperturbable good humor and honesty. To banish formality once for all, and put things upon an easy and familiar footing at the start, I christened the M.D. "Squills" and the lawyer "Bluffy," out of compliment to his usual style of treating witnesses in court. In deference to my advanced age and _general good looks_, the boys called me "Governor," I being then about fifty-three and neither of them thirty. Our supplies, consisting of a ten by twelve tent, three camp beds and bedding, two small boats, a stock of provisions for six men for two weeks, one rifle, two fowling pieces, and our fishing tackle, were soon got together, and in twenty-four hours from the first proposal, we were ready to take the cars for Collingwood. At that point we secured an ample supply of ice; and then embarked with our traps on board a steamer bound for Duluth and intermediate ports, and touching at St. Ignace on her way. This island is situated in Canadian waters, about thirty-five miles from the mouth of Nepigon River, forty-seven miles east of the famous Silver Islet and some seventy from Thunder Bay. I say island, but there are in fact _two_ called St. Ignace; the largest being about sixteen miles long by ten wide; with generally bluff shores and high headlands, one of these rising to a height of thirteen hundred and fifty feet above the lake level. The smaller island, at which steamers touch and upon which we camped, is separated from the larger by a channel of from fifty to a hundred yards wide, and is about two miles by a half a mile in size, having one bold headland five hundred feet high. Neither island is inhabited except by occasional Indians and other fishermen; nor do either of them, so far as I observed, contain any agricultural land, the formation being rock. Both, however, as well as contiguous groups, are mostly covered with a thick growth of spruce, balsam, birch and mountain ash. This last is so plentiful that in the autumn its brilliant red leaves may be seen from quite a distance at sea, framed in a background of dark green spruce, and presenting a most charming view. The larger island contains in itself numerous small lakes which abound in pike (_E. Indus_), and what we Canadians call yellow pickerel (_Stizostedium vitreum_), really pike-perch. No one bothers catching these, however, as the surrounding waters yield an enormous supply of choicer fish, among which are said to be ten varieties of the salmon family; besides whitefish, some of which attain to seventeen pounds in weight! I took some trouble to ascertain the local names by which the various species of trout are known, and the greatest attested weight of individuals of each. I am indebted to Mr. Wm. Boon, of Barrie, Ontario, a professional fisherman who spends four months of every year upon the island, for the following list, which I give without vouching in any way for this queer addition to the salmon family: 1. Salmon trout, weight up to..................... 70 lbs. 2. "Siskowitt," weight up to...................... 12 " 3. Half-breed Siskowitt, weight up to............ 5 " 4. "Potgut," very inferior fish, weight up to..... 12 " 5. Rock or black trout, weight up to.............. 40 " 6. Large gray or shovel-nose trout, weight up to.... 70 " 7. "California trout/yellow spots and flesh, weight up to 10" 8. "Half-breed red trout," weight up to........... 15 " 9. Common brook or speckled trout, weight up to.. 7 " 10. "Red trout," weight up to.......................42 " All of these, of course, are local names, but the fish are all true trout; crossed and re-crossed, I presume, _ad infinitum_. The brook trout is the only species found here with a square tail, those of all the others being more or less forked. The "red trout" is far superior to any of its confrères, and is called by the Indians--Pugwashooaneg, that is, Paysplatt--District-fish, as it is taken only in this locality, and only in the fall of the year as a rule. The Indians come from Nepigon expressly to fish for it, and care for no other trout in comparison. It is much more highly esteemed than the brook trout. This very day on which I write this article, I had a salted piece of one of these "red trout" for dinner and found the flesh of a bright pink, and the flavor exquisite. I shall refer to it again. On our passage from Collingwood we touched at the following ports and "landings," viz.: Meaford, Owen Sound, Killarney, Little Current, Bruce Mines, Hilton, or St. Joseph Island, Garden River, and the Sault. Thence, via Michipicoton Island to St. Ignace. I may say here, before I forget it, that among the useful productions of this last are incredible quantities of huckleberries and "sand cranberries." The former were just in season at the date of our visit, and after the first day "Jim" always gave us capital puddings and pies made from them. We found many pleasant people on board the steamer, with whom we picked acquaintance in that free and easy manner peculiar the world over to anglers. After a delightful trip of four days, we made the landing on our Island at about five o'clock on a beautiful evening, and, having got our whole outfit ashore, selected a charming spot in the midst of a spruce grove as a camping ground. The tent was put up, beds and bedding arranged, supplies for present use unpacked, a table improvised and things generally "set out" in a most orderly manner by the Doctor and "Bluffy," while I employed myself in the construction of a fish corral, the use of which will be seen further on. Meantime, "Jim" had, with a few loose stones, made for himself a very passable fire-place, and soon had tea and coffee prepared, several appetizing dishes cooked, and called us to supper at 6.30. After a hearty and enjoyable meal, we proceeded to put the finishing touches to our work; sorted out and overhauled our fishing tackle; caught a few minnows and placed them in a perforated bucket in the lake; and before dark were all in ship-shape and thoroughly comfortable. "Jim" slung his hammock between and beneath two umbrageous trees, and by eight o'clock, with a full stomach and clear conscience, was roosting in it, happy as a lord! From this coign of vantage, with the gathering darkness to hide his _blushes_, he favored us with several choice negro melodies rendered in a style and with a pathos which any "professional" might have envied. As the night deepened we drank in with appropriate senses all the delights of our surroundings. The great fire before which we three sat, lighting up with weird and fantastic effects the sombre foliage of the adjacent forest; the plaintive cry of the distant loon; the harsher notes of the bittern, and the even, gentle murmur of the softly lapping waves, all united to inspire us with a sense of freedom and happiness unknown to the busy world. Serene and contented, we "turned in" at ten, with blissful anticipations for the morrow. We had not forgotten that prime necessity of a well-ordered camp, light, but had brought with us several pounds of sperm candles, two gallons of oil and a good swinging lamp, which, suspended from the centre-pole, not only rendered the tent cheerful, but gave facilities for performing with ease and comfort the thousand and one little jobs which precious daylight could not be wasted upon. Reader, did you ever "camp out" in the midst of a dense grove of pine or spruce trees? If not, you have yet to enjoy the luxury of the most balmy and refreshing sleep which can bless mortal man. There is a something in the delicious aroma of the resinous woods which induces a perfect repose, obtainable, in my experience, through no other means. A sound, sweet, wholesome, and yet not heavy sleep; quiet and dreamless, and from which you awake, not drowsy and cross, but with a buoyancy of spirits, a strength of body and clearness of mind which make even hard daily toil seem a mere pastime. And so, with thankful hearts sank we to rest on this our first night at St. Ignace. There are no black flies on the Island, and the season was too far advanced for mosquitoes to be troublesome; facts which added not a little to our serenity of mind and took away the last excuse for ill-humor. The next morning, after partaking of a breakfast which fully sustained Jim's reputation as a cook, "Squills" and "Bluffy" agreed to go out in the larger of the two boats, leaving the small one for me. They were provided with various kinds of bait, including frogs, worms, grubs, grasshoppers, and minnows, as well as a goodly supply of spoons and other lures. I had decided upon trying flies for the first day, and if found effective I intended to stick to them. The boys anchored out at about a hundred yards from shore and went to work; and I moved slowly along the coast-line, closely examining the bottom and the lay of the submerged rocks, as well as the trend of the contiguous land. When an angler is in strange waters he will find this preliminary survey to be always a paying operation. By and by I found a lovely-looking reef which extended from the shore to deep water. This reef or ledge was broad and smooth on one side, but the other dipped down sharply, and presented a rough, jagged, and cavernous face. Here, if anywhere, I judged _fontinalis_ would be sure to lurk; so I anchored within twenty feet of the precipitous edge of the reef, with water apparently about ten feet deep under the boat, but of profound depth a few yards from the ledge. At that time I had no split bamboo rod, a fact which I have ever since regretted, but I had an excellent ash and lance-wood, which had killed myriads of fish, and is still to the fore. I never was and never will be a skilful fly-fisherman, or perhaps I should say--as too much modesty savors of affectation--a skilful fly-_caster_. That is I never could, nor can I yet, make an effective and proper cast of over forty-two feet from reel to fly. I have always found, however, that I _take as many fish_ as those artistic anglers who can cast more than double that distance. On this occasion I tried a white miller as tail fly, and a common gray hackle as dropper, and they succeeded so well that I only thereafter changed them as a matter of experiment. I never at any time during this trip used more than two flies at once, as that number gave me quite enough to do. Well, this morning of which I am now writing, was one to make glad the heart of an angler. A southwest wind blew softly, and the sun was obscured by warm gray clouds. No fish of any decency or self-respect could _help_ biting on such a day! I felt so sure of good luck that I put overboard a wicker-work basket, with a hole in the lid, so arranged, with a falling spring door, that fish could be put in but could not get out. This floated astern and would keep fully a hundred pounds of fish alive, if necessary, for any length of time. Having fixed everything to my liking, I stood up and made my first cast along the edge of the reef. No result! but I thought I saw a faint suspicion of a shadowy form or two, and a slight movement of the water just behind my flies. Have been too quick, I thought; and so tried again, letting the flies this time rest until they sank an inch or so below the surface, when I _attempted_ to draw them slowly in. I say attempted, because they had not moved six inches when first the dropper and then the tail fly were taken in a rush, by two large trout which didn't draw towards me worth a cent, for some fifteen minutes at least. On the contrary they darted away as if the Old Hick was after them with a red-hot frying-pan; pulling in unison like a pair of well-broken colts and severely trying my rather too light tackle. Any decided check was out of the question. I could only put on such pressure as the single gut leader would bear, and that was sufficient to make a half-circle of my rod. I had beautiful open water in which to play the fish, but as they rushed along and down the face of the submerged cliff, I did not know what hidden dangers might lurk in the unseen depths, nor at what moment a sharp, jagged rock might cut the line, or some profound recess furnish a retreat from whence it might be impossible to withdraw my prize. So far however, all went well. The fish in their terror had sought deep water and not touched rock at all. Soon the distraction of the heavy, ceaseless strain caused them to forget the glorious maxim that, "in union is strength." and they began to pull different ways. Now I was sure of them! and very gradually and gently, inch by inch, I coaxed them away from the dangerous ground, and got them safely above the smooth bottom of the plateau on the farther side of the boat, where I could see their every motion and watch their brave struggles for life. A prettier sight I never witnessed than the curious way in which the movements of one fish neutralized those of the other. If one sought the bottom, his mate went for the surface; if one rushed away seawards, the other came towards the boat. They literally _played each other_, and I was for awhile a mere spectator! After looking upon these cross-purposes for some minutes, I noticed that the fish on the tail fly became entangled with the line above his comrade on the dropper, and both then began to whirl furiously round and round after the usual manner of trout in a like predicament. When the wildest of this flurry was over, I drew them cautiously to the boat and dipped up both at once with my landing net. An immediate application of my pocket scale proved their weight to be twenty-nine and thirty-three ounces respectively, the heaviest trout being that on the drop or upper fly. They were evidently a mated pair, and both were broad-shouldered, deep fish, but not very long, the largest being only sixteen and a half inches. Their backs were beautifully clouded and mottled, but the carmine spots on their sides were not quite so vivid as those of dark river-water trout. Fortunately they were merely lip-hooked, and being at once placed in the floating creel, soon revived. Now I began to feel big, and thought myself quite an expert, but in less than five minutes the conceit was taken out of me with a vengeance, for on my very next cast I struck a magnificent fish and lost him, and half my leader, instanter. On feeling the hook old _Salmo_ went like a shot over the brow of the declivity and (I suppose) into a hole, and cut the line short off. After that mishap I became more careful, and never dropped my fly more than six inches from the edge of the reef; and whenever a fish was struck I drew him at once, at all hazards, away from the risky ground and played him on the plateau. By ten o'clock I had secured fifteen beauties, some running close upon three pounds. Eleven of these were as lively as ever, but four had been hooked in the throat and soon died. As the day was now becoming bright and hot, I thought it time to look after my boys, who were out of sight around a point. I soon came up with them and found "Squills" asleep in the bottom of the boat while "Bluffy" sat smoking, with his rod lying idly across the gunnel with the line in the water. "What luck, boys?" I shouted. "Squills" awoke and replied, "What luck yourself, Governor? Not one blessed fish in this region." I settled on my sculls, ready for a quick start, and said, "Why, Squills, you don't know _how_ to fish. Just compound a few of your best prescriptions and throw them overboard. They have generally proved fatal to your patients, and will murder the fish sure." "Squills" made a wicked dab at my head with his long-handled net, but a stroke put me in safety, and I added, "And you, friend 'Bluffy,' just rehash that famous trespass-case speech of yours, which gave the judge fits and nearly killed the jury, and if you don't have lots of dead fish, I'm a Dutchman." The poor boys, however, were past joking; and I rowed back and examined their ground. They had actually been fishing all the morning in water nine feet deep; over a bottom smooth as a billiard table, without a weed, rock or stone to hide them from the fish; all of which, within a hundred yards, could plainly see them and their boat. So I said, "Come boys, we'll go to camp and have an early trout dinner, and in the evening you shall catch fish to your heart's content." Then up, after this manner, spoke the dolorous "Squills". "That is all right, Governor, but it strikes me that in order fully to enjoy a trout-dinner, it is, above all things, necessary first to have the trout." "True, most sapient medicus, and here they are," I rejoined, at the same time lifting the lid of my creel. "Glory to Galen!" "Thunder and turf!" "Ghost of Walton! where did you get those, Governor?" both exclaimed in a breath. "Boys," said I, "you are hungry, tired, and cross; possess your souls in patience; come to camp; take some lime-juice and water, with a little of something in it; eat, drink, and recover your strength, and you shall have the best afternoon's sport you ever saw." These words of wisdom cheered the fellows up wonderfully, and we all put off for camp. That redolent and shiny youth, Jim, soon cleaned two of the dead fish, together about five pounds, cooked them in a style of his own, and we sat down at the unfashionable hour of eleven to our first camp dinner. I will, for once, give the _menu_, merely to show what awful _hardships_ we had to encounter! Brook trout, fried in red-hot lard, garnished with bread crumbs; broiled mutton chops; baked potatoes; cold tongue; pickles; sauces and jellies: aftercourse--pancakes with maple syrup; wind up--Stilton cheese. Didn't we just suffer for our country? After the inevitable and welcome pipe (not cigars), and some choice and (I am happy to say) _chaste_ anecdotes by "Bluffy," we laid down for a two hours' siesta. Oh, the glory, the happiness of out-door life, away from posts, telegraphs, or newspapers! Oh, the delight of feeling that every fresh breath of pure ozone-laden air, adds to health and wholesome animal spirits, and is rapidly re-invigorating your system, and fitting you to more effectually take part in renewed and honest work! At four o'clock the sun was again obscured by kindly clouds and we all went ont to the reef; the boys, as before, in one boat, and I in the other. And then occurred sport such as is seldom seen in genuine troutfishing. My friends stuck to their minnow and grasshopper bait, while I retained the fly. I induced them to anchor quite close to the edge of the reef, so that they might, if necessary, drop their lines perpendicularly down its face. They had not fished five minutes when "Bluffy" gave a whoop, which might have awakened a petit-juror or scared a witness out of his boots. I glanced that way, and found the man of law standing up in the boat with curved and straining rod and a glow of intense satisfaction pervading his jolly countenance. "I've got him, Governor! He's a whopper; an old he fellow! None of your three pounders," he yelled in great excitement. Sure enough, he _had_ him, and after ten minutes of skilful play, landed a trout of over four pounds. This beat me all hollow! Indeed the largest _S. fontinalis_ I took on this trip weighed three pounds, one ounce, being two ounces lighter than the heaviest I have ever yet caught. "Squills" now got his hand in and brought out a dashing fish of three and a-half pounds, in a manner so pretty and artistic as to elicit a warm eulogium from the "Governor," who, of course, had not meantime been idle himself. In fact, I had taken a double and single while the boys got their two; but these outweighed my three. All through our excursion the _largest_ fish were invariably taken by bait, but not so many of them as by the fly. However, the fly was so much less trouble and so much prettier, and cleaner to handle, I did not care to change, seeing at once that we should catch more fish than we wanted anyway. It was a great treat to me to watch the enjoyment the boys had in their sport. Neither of them had been out before for years, and no student at the beginning of a long vacation could have manifested such unbounded delight at his freedom, as did they with their fishing and its accompanying pleasures. It is a fact worthy of note that while I, using the fly, took only speckled trout (_S. fontinalis_), my friends, with bait, secured several of other and larger kinds. Well, amid laughter, joke and repartee, the afternoon wore away, and evening shades came all too quickly. Our sport had been almost unique in its exhilarating success and joyousness. When the sun sank below the waters we had taken in all seventy-six fine trout, none under one pound. Of this number my fly was responsible for thirty-two, "Squills" had taken twenty-one, and "Bluffy" twenty-three. A lovelier lot of fish was never seen; and with the exception of eight dead ones, we transferred them all safely to the corral, built in the edge of the lake near our tent, with large stones. Here, about eighty per cent, of all the fish taken on this trip remained alive during the whole time of our stay. Whenever one showed signs of failing we dipped him out for present use. This corral, hacked up by our supply of ice, gave us full assurances that our good luck would not be followed by reckless waste. But I had almost forgotten the chief incident of this memorable day. As we approached the camp we saw "Jim" on the shore dancing a double "Virginny break-down" and grinning all over from head to foot; his shining ebony face and gleaming teeth fairly illuminating the coming darkness. On seeing us he yelled out, "I got him, gentlemen; I beats you all; takes this nigger to catch fish!" The imp had actually made for himself a raft of drift-wood, paddled it out to deep water, and taken with bait a great salmon trout of twenty pounds! and it was now swimming about in the corral like a yery leviathan among my morning's catch. This tickled us all so immensely that we then and there bestowed upon "Jim" an extra "quarter" each. This boy was indeed a treasure; a first-class cook and care-taker; willing, faithful, and honest; while his store of songs, exhibits of dancing, and never-failing fun and good-humor, would haye sufficed to keep cheerful any camp in the world. Poor fellow! he was drowned two years later in Lake Michigan, while bathing. If I did not fear to spin out this already dull narrative to an inordinate length, I should like to give a detailed account of each of the twelve days we fished and shot in this vicinity. _Twelve_ days only, mind you, for not a line was wet on Sunday. Our one rifle proved a useful adjunct, but we found no use for the shot-guns, the season being too early and the weather too fine for ducks. The delicately sighted Winchester, however, procured us several fine specimens of the loon or great northern diver, and one or two large blue cranes, all of which, I presume, now adorn "Squills'" sanctum in British Columbia. Almost every day we had choice sport, and we limited our catch only by the facilities we possessed for saving and carrying away the fish. One particular day we devoted to salmon and red trout, which we fished for away off in very deep water, all of us using either spoons or live herring bait, in trolling. We had plenty of wholesome exercise in rowing, and very fair luck as regards fish; taking in all, seven salmon trout and five red trout. The honors of this day fell to "Squills," who captured with his spoon a salmon trout of nineteen pounds, while I got a red trout of ten pounds. This last named fish is as pink in the flesh and as fine flavored as _Salmo salar_. It is said by local fishermen to be in fact the same fish, and they suppose that in ages long past sea salmon had some means of reaching this lake, and when the waters subsided some were left, and that from them the red trout is descended. As I have myself no scientific knowledge whatever I cannot offer an opinion upon this point. I can only say that if a skilled fisherman, or even a scientist, were to receive one of these fish from, say Quebec, he could hardly distinguish it from the veritable _Salmo salar_, though it bears even a more exact resemblance to the salmon of Frazer Fiver, British Columbia. I am told that this red trout will rise to the fly, but I cannot vouch for the fact, as all we took were captured with bait or spoon. A rather curious, though frequently occurring, thing happened one evening as we were all fishing, with our boats not more than fifty feet apart. I had hooked, and was playing a medium sized speckled trout, when it was seized and gorged by a sixteen-pound salmon trout. I realized the situation instantly and gave line freely, so as to allow the poacher lots of time to swallow his stolen prey. The rifle was in the other boat, and I asked the boys to come alongside, as we should probably have to use cold lead, the fish being too large for our landing nets. By the time they were in position, about sixty feet of my line had gone slowly out, and I judged that the large fish had got the small one fairly in his stomach. I then began to reel in very gently, and was surprised to find that the big trout followed my lead with great docility until I had brought him quite near the surface. Then he became alarmed and dashed off--a proceeding to which I made no resistance, as I feared pulling the bait from his throat. Being apparently satisfied that all was right, my unknown friend soon became quiescent, and I could only feel a slight tremor of the line as he settled his supper satisfactorily in his maw. Again I coaxed him slowly and cautiously towards the boat in which stood "Bluffy" with poised rifle. This time I ventured to make him show himself within twenty feet of the muzzle of the gun, when "Bluffy" very neatly put a bullet through his head, and he turned belly up and was got on board. "Well done, "Bluffy," said "Squills;" "your _practice_ could not have done greater _execution_ if you had been making out a bill of costs for a client." "Well, no," says 'Bluffy;' "but I think perhaps one of _your curative pills_ would have killed the fish more unutterably dead." "Peace, boys, peace," said the "Governor"; "this is a solemn occasion; we have used unlawful and unsportsmanlike means to take a game fish; but as it could not be helped we will condone the offence by giving the fish away to the first deserving object we meet." "And that will be 'Jim,' quietly observed 'Squills.'" But dear me! what is the use of trying to tell all the fun and glorious sport we had? The pen of a "Frank Forester" or a Hallock might do justice to the subject, mine cannot. Suffice it to say that, as the days went on, each one made me feel younger and younger, until I found it hard to convince myself that I was over twenty-five. As to my comrades, we had not been out a week before they were boys of sixteen! Last days will come, however, and all too quickly, let us bear up never so bravely. The fifteenth morning saw us packing up and preparing to return once more to civilized life and "the busy haunts of men." I am afraid to say how many trout we had at the finish, but I know that we packed in ice more than three hundred pounds weight to take home with us; and gave away, almost alive from the corral, nearly as many more to the captain of the steamer, thereby calling down upon our heads the earnest blessings of passengers and crew. I find, on looking over this MS. that I have forgotten to say that we discovered several places along the channel edge of the island where most excellent trout-fishing could be had from the shore; and that, by the advice of local fishermen, my friends tried the "hearts" of killed trout as bait, and found such very effective. This "heart" is a piece of flesh which lies inside the pointed part of the fish's belly which runs between the gill covers. It looks much like a genuine heart, and _pulsates_ for several seconds after being removed from the fish. I suppose that it is in fact a real heart. Never once did this bait fail to attract a bite; but, of course, not many hearts could be obtained, as we extracted the delicate morsel only from such fish as were required for immediate consumption. Me finally bade farewell to our two weeks' elysium, with sorrowful feelings, but before the lapse of twenty-four hours, kind and loving thoughts of wives, little ones, and home re-asserted themselves, and we landed at Collingwood in jubilant spirits and vigorous health, fully prepared to resume our several avocations, and fight again the battles of life with renewed courage and hope. P.S.--We were absent from Barrie twenty-five days in all, and the whole trip cost us only one hundred and thirty-five dollars, or forty-five dollars each. Our ice was kept almost intact by being wrapped in blankets and covered with spruce boughs. Mr. Boon, before referred to, has built and is this winter (1883) filling a large ice-house on the small island for his own use and that of any visitors who may fish in the neighborhood next summer. Mr. Boon took five hundred half barrels of choice fish on these grounds last season; with nets, of course. THE ANGLER'S GREETING. By W. David Tomlin. Whither away, friend! Your black slender rod-box and the creel denote you are on fishing intent, but where are you bound? A momentary glance, a cordial good evening; the question then came--To whom am I indebted for this greeting? An exchange of cards resulted in a long and cordial grasp of hands; glad to meet you! Is it possible? The magic pasteboard revealed two names not unknown to each other through the columns of their favorite angling journal, and this visitor had come to the little country station in quest of some of the fishing often spoken of in the said paper. The fates had led the correspondent to the railway station to bid good-bye to a friend when the angler unlimbered himself therefrom; and was looking around as strangers do. "Can you recommend a quiet inn near this point where I can find decent treatment? I am not inclined to be fussy." A few minutes' walk and I introduced him to mine host, who was a genuine piscator, and nothing pleased him better than to have an angler under his roof: he took possession of him and considered nothing too much trouble, so long as he gave his guests good fishing, clean beds, a square meal, and satisfaction. While supper was being prepared, we pleasantly chatted over the prospect of sport, and the angler's aim and ambition. He wanted a day or two of trouting, and some roach fishing with a fly, as he had read some letters giving an experience in fishing for these dainty fish, and intended trying them. The inspection of a well-filled fly-book showed how carefully he had selected his stock. The early supper over, we strolled up the hillsides overlooking this lovely vale. On the grassy downs we seated ourselves, and I pointed out to him the various fishing points; yonder is a splendid reach where the trout are always found; see that sheeny rivulet coming down through that clump of trees! that is the best trout stream in this section of country. Note the different water-courses. The canal runs through the middle of the valley; see here, clear away to the west, a little brook comes tumbling in; see just below that point, a silvery-looking stream on the farther side of the canal--that is a fine trout stream; follow its course until it loses itself in that big clump of willows: a saw-mill is hidden in those willows, and the stream, after supplying the mill with power, drops into a culvert under the bed of the canal; there it is again in that piece of open moorland; there it is coming out from that long clump of willows, and finally joining the stream mentioned before as the best trout stream in this region; thus the two streams, the Gade and the little Bourne, are swallowed up in the canal; and have always been splendid waters for roach fishing. The hills hide the canal and streams in their winding course, or I would point out to you the best fishing grounds for miles along this Hertfordshire valley; but I presume there lies under your observation enough fishing ground for a day or two. The sun is tending downward like a huge ball of fire, the vale is in a dreamy shade; how glistening the appearance of the water-courses, like a big silvery thread winding in and out along the vale! the evening air is full of music; the bee is humming around you; what a flood of music comes from the throat of that woodland thrush in yonder thorn hedge! the strain is taken up, and the very woods echo again with the song of the black-bird. As he ceases his roundelay, the soft clear note of another bird strikes on the ear; for the moment' nature seems hushed; almost breathless you wait; the notes come rich and clear, as silvery as a lute, a flood of melody; the sound dies away and instantly the woods ring again; all the sweet-throated songsters seem as if applauding the song of the nightingale; we sit and drink in these sounds, until one by one the songs drop into silence, leaving the nightingale to pour out its tuneful music until far into the night. At this moment there comes in the air the quivering boom of a bell ringing ont the hour of nine from the steeple of the church yonder, faintly limned on the evening shadows. Ah! listen again! there comes the evening chime. How the quivering notes pulsate up here on these-hilltops! how silvery the tones; as the chords of the vesper hymn rings out sweet and clear, our hearts beat in rhythm to the strain! Lovely vale! Israel's grandest seer, who with eye undimmed and natural force unabated, even from Pisgah's lofty heights gazed on no lovelier scene than this we have surveyed. We descend into the shadows; promising to meet my angling friend some time during the following day, I wend my way homeward and to rest. The evening shadows were again falling ere I could join our angler, but the flies were on the waters and roach were fairly jumping, the surface of the stream was alive with fish, both roach and dace breaking water around us. My friend was no novice; I found him whipping the stream from bank to bank, and his creel testified to his success. He was using a tail fly and dropper, a red hackle for the former, and an imitation of the common blue house-fly for the dropper. These fish are fastidious in their tastes; they do not rise at flies like a trout, but come to the surface of the water and just break for the fly and at once turn tail up. He who fishes for them must have a quick eye and steady hand; then he can kill readily enough. They are a toothsome fish, but a trifle bony. Eye and hand must work together, and when fish are feeding they will readily take the fly. They are tender in the mouth and require care in handling. They afford good sport in streams where they are abundant, and are often killed weighing from one and a-half to two pounds. My angling friend had come well prepared with letters introducing him to the owners of the fine trout streams, and readily obtained permission to fish these preserved waters. It was rare sport to watch him daintily lay out his line across the stream, his stretcher a June fly, or at times a floating May-fly skittered across the surface until close to the farther hank. Here lay a big _Salmo fario_. We had been watching him lazily coming to the surface to suck in a fly or bug that had tumbled from the trees overhead. A big cockchafer came spinning and buzzing down stream. All laziness gone in an instant, up came the _Salmo_ showing his huge sides. A fierce lunge and a heavy splash and the chafer was gone into the cavern of the open mouth. The fly-book was out in an instant. A dark brown fly somewhat resembling the 'chafer replaced the stretcher. A careful cast a little up stream, a lunge and a miss from the trout. Another cast close in to the bank, a slight jerk and the fly assumed the appearance of the buzzing chafer; the same sharp dash, the hand was as quick as the trout this time, the hook was driven home and the fun began. Such a dashing, splurging, rushing I had never seen. He was determined to use every art known to trout-lore before he surrendered. The rod bent and sprung, the line fairly swished as he tore up stream; above him lay the limb of a tree, scraggy and ragged; toward this he plunged, but the line tightened on him; he tugged and jerked, but gained not an inch; he came to the surface and thrashed the water with his broad tail. Fatal error! as he did so the line came in as fast as fingers could fly round, the landing net was slipped under him, a quick upward movement and Master _Salmo_ was flung high and dry. He was too big for the net and so was ignominiously flung ashore. What a noble trout! His silver sides and belly gleamed in the light, his blood-red spots seemed to glow with indignation at his cruel death. He had long been a lordling over the other trout and now was strangling! Kill him! I cannot bear to see a trout gasping. Killed and scaled he weighs three and a half pounds. A credit to the angler: but at times, during the contest, it was a question to which the honor belonged; it was: "Splendid rod!" "Ah! how skilfully he handles his fish." "Who would have dreamt that little thing would have stood such a strain?" Gentle angler, let us leave our friend to the contemplation of the beauties of the fairest of all England's garden landscapes, and the preserved trout streams, and plunge with me into an American forest. By a beautiful lake in the famous State of Michigan a little settlement is springing up. Over in that bay is a trout creek emptying; it is full of trout--trout _galore_--trout by the hundreds can be seen. Come with me, I will show them to you. Let me drop a fly into this hole. Ah! there he is! see him dash for it. He won't come again, let us push along. Push along, you say? do you expect I am coming through that brush? Hot much; I am not a crank. If you are so fond of trying to break your neck for a string of trout, why go. I go! am quite willing to be alone on this lovely little creek, for it contains some of the handsomest trout it has ever been my good luck to kill. Here and there I drop in a fly; sometimes a "Yellow May," sometimes a "Professor," sometimes a "Stone-fly"; once in a while an "Ibis" is fancied by some fastidious trout. How and then a "Floating May-fly" seems a favorite. Where the brush overhangs and is a darksome, lonely spot, I drop in a "Royal Coachman," and out comes a big trout lusty and fighting; sometimes fancy flies are spurned and hackles of all colors kill; then a fly composed of alternate feathers, red and white, of no name, but a favorite with the writer, will kill when trout will not take any other fly. I am enjoying the fun, and the creel is getting heavy. Half a mile of fishing and twenty-five handsome trout is doing good enough for mid-day fishing. As the evening falls I take my split bamboo and the fly-book, pull on the wading hoots, and go down to the mouth of the creek, wading out until I am as far as the sand runs. I cast out more for practice than to expect trout. I have on a big bass-fly large enough for a salmon-fly. As it strikes the water twenty-five feet from me there is a commotion. "Ye gods and little fishes!" What was the fuss? I cast again, and as true as I am here if a number of trout did not jump clear out for that fly, big as it was! Hastily reeling in I put on a dun-colored fly, and cast again; the same jump and dash, but no trout. Changing my flies until at last I put on as a stretcher a "White Miller," I flung out clear beyond any former cast into the midst of what appeared like a boiling spring. The fly dropped softly and out came a host of trout. School kept just then, for I certainly had struck a school of trout. Striking, I fastened into a fine fish; reeling in, I dried my fly and cast again and hooked again. The fun grew fast and furious; my little bamboo swished and bent; hooks were snipped off; I was excited and jubilant, when along came an itinerant parson. The twenty-five or thirty trout I had, set him longing; he must fish. Jerking off his boots, pulling up his pants, he waded into the icy cold water equipped with a stick cut from the forest. He had nosed out a line and some hooks from a supply I had left on the bank in my fishing-case, and without so much as "by your leave" began threshing the water as close to the school as he could get his line; this was baited with a piece of dead fish. To say that I was disgusted faintly expresses my feeling. I would have ceased fishing, but my friend with whom I was staying said, "Ho, don't stop while sport is so good." I put on a "Royal Coachman" and cast out again, hooking and bringing out trout every second or third cast. I began casting wide, the school followed my flies. I tried the "Professor's," "Dun's," "Hackle's," "Seth Green," "Governor," and "May-flies," with good success. With one pure "Yellow May" I caught a dozen handsome trout, but in this event the evening shadows were fast falling. As they deepened, the "Royal Coachman" and "White Millers" were the killing flies. I cast until I could not see where my flies fell, and even then once in a while hooked and brought in a trout. I had been thoughtless enough to leave my creel up in the house, never expecting to have this run of good luck. All my trout were taken from the hook and thrown twenty-five feet to shore. I lost many of them in this way. Thirty my friends claimed, yet when I came to count tails, I found forty as handsome trout as ever man wished to see, and all caught from 6 in the evening until dark, about 7.45. I had no net, no creel, therefore had to lead my trout into my hand. The friend at whose house I was staying claims I lost more than I caught by having them flounder off the hook while trying to take them by the gills, and by flinging them ashore. I have used flies on this creek many times, but never had such luck before nor since. My experience has been that the fine fancy flies of the eastern streams are useless on these Michigan streams; the nearer the flies approach to a species of small moth found flitting amidst the foliage of the forest, the greater the success. A word, brother angler, and I have done. Learn to cast a fly, and you will never go back to bait fishing from choice. Get good flies, and you won't regret the extra money they cost you; don't buy cheap imitations or trade made flies--"they are frauds." Don't buy a pole big enough for the staff of a Philistine Goliath; to fish for trout, buy a fine rod, take care of it, learn to use it thoroughly. Never buy a cheap rod; a rod fit for trouting must be as fine as it is possible to make them, and it should not make a shadow on the water. Cheap rods are like cheap guns, scham-dahms! Good trout rods cost a good deal of time and labor; cheap rods are turned out in a rapid-running lathe. They are a delusion. Get the best materials of everything you need, and buy of a good maker. Never be tempted to buy "cheap flies because they are bargains"--cheap rods because some one is selling out; "want to get out of the business, no money in it." Remember you are the party who will be sold. Cheap things for trouting are a "fraud, a delusion, and a snare." Almost every angler has been bitten, but the prevailing opinion is: buy the best tackle your pocket-book can afford and take care of it. And my word for it, as an angler who learned to cast a line for pickerel at ten years old, you will love the sport and think it the best way to spend a summer's vacation of any amusement under the sun. "In using the fly the object is to imitate the movements of the natural insect as nearly as possible. To drop the line naturally on the water, and then to keep the fly endued with life, is the stratagem. From the moment the fly touches the water the angler should keep his eye on it. Trout often feed a little under the surface; they do not always break when they rise, but quietly suck in the fly."--_Charles Hallock_. "'An angler, sir, uses the finest tackle, and catches his fish scientifically--trout, for instance--with the artificial fly, and he is mostly a quiet, well-behaved gentleman. A fisherman, sir, uses any kind of 'ooks and lines, and catches them any way; so he gets them it's all one to 'im, and he is generally a noisy fellah, sir, something like a gunner.'"--_Doctor Bethune._ [Illustration: 0148] 16. Silver Black. 17. Scarlet Ibis. 18. Stone Fly. 19. White Miller. 20. Fiery Brown. 21. Yellow Drake. 22. Grir. King. 23. Imbrie. 24. Soldier Palmer. 25. Cha 26. Portland. 27. Ethel May. 28. Pale Evening Dun. 29. Great Dun. 30. Whimbrel. "Be stil moving your fly upon the water, or casting it into the water; you yourself, being also alwaies moving down the stream.--_Izaak Walton._ "When once alarmed, trout will never bite."--_Seth Green_. "Fly-fishers are usually brain-workers in society. Along the banks of purling streams, beneath the shadows of umbrageous trees, or in the secluded nooks of charming lakes, they have ever been found, drinking deep of the invigorating forces of nature--giving rest and tone to over-taxed brains and wearied nerves--while gracefully wielding the supple rod, the invisible leader, and the fairy-like fly."--_James A. Henshall, M.D._ "It is generally true that if a trout is pricked by a fly-hook he will not rise to it again."--_W. C. Prime_. "Christopher North.--Would you believe it, my dear Shepherd, that my piscatory passions are almost dead within me; and I like now to saunter along the banks and braes, eyeing the younkers angling, or to lay me down on some sunny spot, and with my face up to heaven, watch the slow changing clouds!" "Shepherd.--I'll no believe that, sir, till I see't--and scarcely then--for a bluidier-minded fisher nor Christopher North never threw a hackle. Your creel fu'--your shootin'-bag fu'--your jacket-pouches fu', the pouches o' your verra breeks fu'--half-a-dozen wee anes in your waistcoat, no' to forget them in the croon o' your hat,--and, last o' a', when there's nae place to stow awa ony mair o' them, a willow-wand drawn through the gills of some great big anes, like them ither folk would grup wi' the worm or the mennon--buta' gruppit wi' the flee--Phin's delight, as you ca't,--a killen inseck--and on gut that's no easily broken--witness yon four pounder aneath Elibank wood, where your line, sir, got entangled wi' the auld oak-root, and yet at last ye landed him on the bank, wi' a' his crosses and his stars glitterin' like gold and silver amang the gravel! I confess, sir, you're the King o' Anglers. But dinna tell me that you have lost your passion for the art; for we never lose our passion for ony pastime at which we continue to excel." THE LURE. By "Bourgeois." Among the delightful summer resorts of Colorado Estes Park may be justly considered one of the most attractive. It is now easy of access. Seven years ago it began to be frequented, the trail having given way to the wagon road. Before the days of easy ingress, I had m cast my lures upon the waters of the Thompson and Fall River, with gratifying success. In the summer of 1875, the Governor, the Governor's mother, and myself, determined upon Estes Park for a six weeks' vacation. With this end in view, in the latter part of July, I sent off the team loaded with the camp outfit. Two days after we took the morning train for Longmont, on the Colorado Central, and had an early lunch at the tail end of the wagon just outside the town. Before noon we were on the fifteen-mile drive into the canon of the St. Vrain, for camp. By sunrise the following morning we had started, with twenty miles to make over a new road part of the way, and no road at all in places, and the places were many. However, we had to hitch on to the end of the tongue but once, to snake the wagon over an otherwise impassable boulder. The rock stood a foot out of ground, stretched entirely across where the road was to be, and at an angle of 45°. The team could barely get a foothold upon the top, when the traces were let out full, and the double-tree hooked on the end of the tongue. The horses understood their business, and upon a word settled their shoulders into the collars together, the breeching gradually lifted as their knees bent a little; without a slip their iron-shod hoofs held to the hard granite, and we were up as deftly as a French dancing master would raise his hat to a lady. In travelling in the hills there is nothing so gratifying as a team whose pulling powers you can swear by; a balky horse is an engine of destruction or death; if you know his failing, shoot him before you reach the foothills. As the sun dropped behind the range, lighting up the high peaks with his golden rays, and the pines were beginning to take on tints of darker green, we reached the head of the Park, and within three miles of our camping ground. To the right of us "Olympus," with the dying sunlight dancing on his granite head, to the left Long's Peak, with patches of snow here and there, towering godlike above the surrounding giants. Before us, Prospect Mountain with its rugged front far reaching above its robes of green, while around its base and toward us came leaping the beautiful mountain stream for two miles through the meadow-hued park, with scarce a willow upon its banks. What a place to cast a fly! Aye, indeed it is; and what a place it was to catch trout. But we must move on around Prospect Mountain to Ferguson's for camp, which we make on a little eminence near a great spring and close by the cabin where we know we shall be welcome. A late supper disposed of, and the Governor stowed away in the blankets, Ferguson and I fall talking at his broad fire-place about Horse Shoe Park and Fall River; of course trout are plenty there; he had been up the day before and knew whereof he spoke; yes, there were quite a number of tourists in the park, but the streams were not "fished out." He rather thought that with "a pole" to every rod of the stream the fishing improved; at least for him. Our genial friend who obeyed Joshua in the long ago, was out of bed next day sooner than I. Dick, the pony, gave me a cheerful good morning as I put in an appearance and changed his picket pin. I received his salutation as a good omen. Breakfast over and Dick saddled, it was eight o'clock. We had five miles to go. I strapped my rod and creel to the pommel, and with a caution to the Governor's mother not to let him fall into the spring, Ferguson and I were off. There was no occasion to hurry; if we reached the beaver-dams in Horse Shoe Park by ten o'clock we would be just in time. Experience had taught me that the two hours before noon, and after five o'clock were the hours for success. Our route was a "cut off" without any trail, but familiar; across the Thompson, up stream, westward for a mile, we turned up a "draw" to the right, for a swale in the ridge dividing the Thompson and its tributary, Fall River. By nine o'clock we had reached the summit of the divide. Before and below us lay a beautiful park, three miles in length, by a mile in width toward its upper end, where it rounded at the base of the mountain range, giving it the shape of a horse shoe, which no doubt suggested its name. To the north it is guarded by an immense mountain of rocks, where towering and impenetrable cliffs stand out against the background of blue sky, as though the Titans had some time builded there, and mother earth had turned their castles into ruins, and left them as monuments of her power. To the south a long, low-lying, pine-covered hill, while from the range in the west with its snow covered summit and base of soft verdure, comes a limpid stream winding down through the grass-covered park, its course marked by the deeper green of the wild grass and the willows. A mile away a band of mountain sheep are feeding; they have evidently been down to water and are making their way back to their haunts in the cliffs, and whence we know they will quickly scud when they see or wind us. Ferguson longed for his rifle; it was just his luck; he had the "old girl" with him the last time, but "nary hoof" had he seen. To me they were precious hints of man's absence, and the wilderness. Reaching the stream we picketed the ponies in the grass to their knees; the nutritions mountain grass, the mother of cream so thick that you have to dip it ont of the jug with a spoon. The ponies were happy, and I became nervous; it seemed half an hour before I could get my tackle rigged. But after I had sent my favorite gray hackle on its mission and had snatched a ten-inch trout from his native element, my nerves were braced. A second and a third followed; I heard nothing from Ferguson except the "swish" of his old cane pole above the music of the waters. The trout struck and I landed them so fast that the sport began to be monotonous, and I followed up the sound of the cane. Going round a clump of willows I discovered the old gentleman upon the edge of the pool, and that old rod going up and down with the regularity of a trip hammer, the owner combining business and sport. I asked him what he was doing; he said he was fishing, and I thought he was. Wandering up stream, taking it leisurely, I had by noon filled my creel, and was enjoying a sandwich under the shelter of some willows, when my companion came along with his sixteen pound lard-can filled, besides a dozen upon a stick. I asked him when he intended to quit. He said he had never seen fish "bite" so; he hated to stop, and yet had all he could carry, but concluded with me that enough was as good as a feast. Then he began to banter me about my ash and lancewood, and the excess of his catch over mine. I told him to wait till some other day. It came in the course of time, upon the same stream. The trout refused everything I had, grasshoppers included. Finally I fished up an old fly-book from the depths of my coat pocket, and in it were half a dozen nameless blue-bodied flies with a mouse-colored feather upon a number six Kirby. Upon sight, I remembered to have discarded them in disgust, but I thought I would try one for luck, and lo! the mystery was solved. I had been working industriously for two hours and had two trout. Ferguson had been no more successful, but was in sight when the trout began to rise to my cast-off fly. He came down my way, wanted to know what I was using, and I gave him one; he lost that and his leader in some half-sunken brush, and I gave him another. But his good genius had deserted him; I persuaded a trout right away from his lure, and he quit in disgust, while I said never a word. Though a little sensitive upon the score of success, he was and is a genial and companionable angler, and one who can make a good cast withal, an he have proper tools. Willow Park, an adjunct to Estes Park, through which runs a branch of the Thompson, has afforded me many a day's sport, and is nearer to camp. Upon a memorable occasion I had been fishing down stream, when, with a well-filled creel, I encountered a gigantic boulder on the hank. Just beyond it was a pool that was suggestive; to reach the base of the boulder it was necessary to get over a little bayou of about five feet in width and three in depth. To jump it were easy but for the willows, yet I must get to that pool. Selecting a place where I think the willows will give way to my weight, I essay the leap. My feet reach the opposite hank, my body presses back the brush, but I feel a rebound that assures me of my fate. I clutch frantically at the swaying bush; it breaks in my hand, and I sit down quite helplessly, muttering a prayer till the cold water bids me shut my mouth. Emerging I hear a well defined laugh, but not being in the mind to fear the spirits that haunt these wilds, I make for the base of that boulder and the coveted pool. A moment after I discover a face bedecked with glasses upon the opposite side of the brook, and recognize the smiling countenance of a genial member of the guild looking at me through the willows. "Oh, is that you?" To this lucid inquiry I reply in the affirmative. "Where's Ferguson?" "At home, I suppose." "I thought I heard him fall in the creek." I told him I did not think Ferguson had a monopoly of the bathing privileges of the Thompson and its tributaries. "Well, I thought it was funny." "Thought what was funny?" "Why, I heard the splash, and supposed it was Ferguson; then I remembered Ferguson was a church member in good standing." I took my revenge by competing with my brother for the contents of that pool, and beat him by one. But to this day he greets me with a smile. When I got back to camp I learned that the Governor had been trying to follow in the footsteps of his father, and had tumbled into the spring. He had been fished out by the combined efforts of his mother and Mrs. Ferguson, and I discovered him swathed in a blanket by the kitchen stove, mad as a hornet; I shook hands with him. Our camp is pitched in a pleasant spot, with two tall pines, a hundred feet away, for sentinels. _Coup de soleil_ is unknown in Colorado, so I prefer the sun's rays to lightning, especially while trees seared from top to bottom are plentiful in the Park as monitors. To the right is Prospect Mountain, with its west end a beetling cliff, perhaps two thousand feet high, where I once had the buck-ague during an interview with a "big-horn." To the left and in front, the range, where the storm-king holds high carnival, while lower down and nearer is a mountain of towers and pinnacles of brown and red and gray, carved out by that whimsical sculptor, Old Time. With the sun for my artist, the range for both his easel and background, I have lounged away many an hour under one of the old janes. My gaze wandering down the green slope to the river half a mile away, and with the weird music of the tumbling waters coming and receding on the summer breeze to help my dreams, we have together wrought out fantastic ruins and ghostly shapes to people them. A drifting cloud, perhaps, will change a barbacan to a spire, and a Doric capital to a Corinthian, or the knight panoplied to a brownie with a lily for a throne, and "......jolly satyrs, full of fresh delight, Come dancing forth, and with them nimbly ledd Faire Helenore, with girlonds all bespredd, Whom their May-lady they had newly made;" to give place again, as the golden meshes weave, to cowled monks or ladies, fair, as suits the whim of the artist's patron. Again, the goblins of the range begin their game of nine-pins, and the fleecy clouds that have been slowly drifting, drifting all the day, settle down upon the mountain top and change from white to gray and from gray to black as the sport grows furious. Something these elves must have to light up their frolic, and presently it comes in great flashes of wicked steel-blue and red, zigzaging down the mountain side, or in straight blinding bolts that rive paths in the hard granite, scattering the loose rock and shivering the pines, while the noise of the jolly nine-pins rattles and re-echoes among the crags, and dies away to come again more quickly, until the mountain-top is a sheet of lurid flame and the din unceasing, so closely follows peal upon peal. The game is too violent to last, but the gnomes love to hug the range in their pastime, and I, understanding the signs, and having no fear of their electric lights, watch the fast growing rift of azure that crowds hard upon the driving blackness. At last the mellow rays touch up my mountain ruins, and they are arrayed in new splendors and peopled with other phantoms. So I have dreamed, and might go on dreaming, but this time I am brought back to the green slope and a little figure. The Governor is toiling up the trail with a quart bucket, his special chattel, from the spring, whence he volunteered to bring a drink for his mother. I can see no impediment in his path, yet he stumbles and falls. Would I had been there to warn him; but the water is spilled. He does not cry, but gathers himself and his property up, and goes back to begin his task over again. Just then there came to me pat, an aphorism, I think, of "Poor Goldsmith": "True greatness consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall;" and I took it as an omen of good for the boy. The time is approaching when we must break camp and go back to the brick and mortar and the realities of civilization. Duties to be performed will be undertaken with better zest when I get to them, but I cast lingering looks toward my mountain ruins as the day of departure draws nigh. I even have a thought that it would be pleasant to relapse into barbarism, if out of such as mine our civilization has grown--we might build up a better. As this may not be, I am encouraged by the thought that another season will come, and with hope in my heart I am better prepared for the work awaiting me. I know that I shall go back with a fresher feeling for my kind, and more charity. So when one September morning, after a day of gray mist hanging oyer the îange, the wind comes down chill from the heights, and the morning sun lights up my castles and pinnacles in diadems of new-fallen snow, I say we must be off. We gather together our lares of nomadic life, and with a regretful farewell to those I cannot bring away, we make the journey home, a better man and woman, with a nut-brown, healthy boy, for much of which I give credit to the artificial fly, and the beautiful denizens of the mountain streams. FLY FISHING IN THE YOSEMITE. By A. Louis Miner, Jr. A merry party had come for a holiday to the Yosemite, and their camp was established between the north and south domes near the forks of the Merced. Toward the east the Tenajo Canon opened, revealing through its vista of granite crags the highest peak of "Clouds' Rest," crowned with eternal snows. Westward, the Sentinel Rock, like a minaret among the domes, pierced the sky. There were seven in the party, including a heathen from the flowery kingdom, almond-eyed--Ah Yang. His nominal function was to do as he was bid, and serve as man of all work, but in reality he ruled; and ruled with a rod of iron. Yang had been induced to come by motives purely sordid; but the others, aside from seeing the wondrous valley, had various reasons for making the journey. The Judge came for relaxation. He needed it. For the last dozen years he had devoted himself to reading the morning papers, lunching at his club, and entertaining his friends sumptuously at dinner. His wife, who, in the levelling atmosphere of camp, came to be styled the _Judgess_, imagined herself on the verge of a decline, and sought recuperation in the forest. If the Judgess were described as fat and forty, omitting the fair, the description would fall far short of truth. In spite of her ailments, the Judgess would haye enjoyed herself in a way, had it not been for the young woman she was chaperoning. This was Madge. Certain young men in San Francisco called her a _rattler_, and certainly there was nothing slow about her. The chief end of her existence, at home and everywhere, seemed to be the pursuit of fun; to this end she flirted with anything that came in her way, from stray herdsmen on the plains to an English baronet at a Yosemite hotel. When nothing else was at hand, and to the Judgess' indignation, she flirted with the Judge. With charming zest she played continued games of poker with him till his honor's purse was far thinner than its owner. The Judge's admiration for Madge was profound, but after an hour at cards, he would usually remark, "that girl has the devil in her, _as it were_, bigger than a wolf." It is said that all men have a ruling passion. Be that as it may, a passion certainly ruled a worthy clergyman of the company. The men of our generation affected with beetle mania are many, but his Reverence was absolutely devoted to bugs. The Judgess, a zealot to such a degree that Mary of England was but lukewarm in comparison, said that his Reverence valued a butterfly more than a human soul; and Madge insisted that, while he pretended to read his office, he was engaged in dissecting a coleoptera or something. The Doctor, who was Madge's unworthy brother, had come with the avowed intention of sketching. All the long way from San Francisco he had been at work with brushes and blotting paper. Often the "prairie schooner," in which the party travelled, had "lain to" while the Doctor washed in patches of blue and white to represent cloud-effects, or a jagged gray band against streaks of orange, portraying sunrise in the Sierras. The last member of the party without professional distinction, and familiarly called "Jack," had also a _penchant_, though many years had passed since it had been gratified. When they had left the San Joaquin plain and its sluggish rivers oozing their way through mud and reeds, and had climbed into the mountain, a halt was made in a deep canon. Here was a stream indeed. How blithely it danced along, eager to find the Golden Gate and the Pacific! How it sang to Jack of fellow streams near the other ocean! How it whispered of trout streams ahead! Presently a long-cherished fly book was produced and Jack was poring over it. His Reverence, attracted by the little volume, looked over Jack's shoulder. He was entranced. A volume of ecclesiastical Latin would not have interested him half so much. He began to criticise and expound. Some were perfect. Some were caricatures of diptera. The other members of the party drew around. "Pooh!" said the Doctor, "I hope you don't expect to catch any trout with those things in Yosemite! Everybody knows that the Merced trout don't take the fly." The Doctor went on to say, "that with a common string, such as any grocer would use to tie up a package of tea, a good strong hook, and a worm," he would catch in the same time, more fish than could all the sportsmen of California, fishing with fancy flies. The Doctor, like most cynics, was somewhat given to hyperbole. During the remainder of the journey into the valley, Jack felt himself regarded as the victim of a mild halucination. The Doctor could sketch; beetles were awaiting his Reverence's microscope; flirtation and frolic were dawning on Madge's horizon; even the Judge and Judgess could get rid of a stone or two avoirdupois if they tried; but poor Jack had come, it appeared, to fish, and there were no fish to catch, or at least to catch with a fly. Such was the tradition, and so the Doctor had asserted, and no one ever disputed the Doctor excepting Yang, the Chinaman. Our friends had been revelling in the enchantments of the valley a week; had climbed the trails that crept zig-zag up the dizzy heights; had spent hours among the soft mist and rainbows at the first landing of that wonder of the world, the Yosemite Falls; and still Jack had not accomplished the cherished desire of his heart. He had not the moral courage to take from its swaddling clothes his beloved rod (which the Doctor would persist in calling "your fish-pole"). Never had he so longed to cast a fly; but he thought, of the teasing Madge and waited. At best, he was but a poor male creature. Madge, in his place, would have been whipping the stream, with defiance and determination, an hour after her arrival. His Reverence and the Doctor had arranged to ascend Clouds' Rest on a Thursday and return next day. Early Thursday morning, before Yang or the birds were stirring, Jack sauntered forth to his morning bath in the icy waters of the river. This Rio, de la Merced, would it prove to him indeed a _river of mercy_, or a river of humiliation? But what a glorious stream it was! Here it glided through wooded banks, the opposite side black in the shadow of overhanging manzanita, while nearer the rippling waters were checkered with the shadows of the cotton-wood leaves, trembling in the growing light. Further on, the river whirled and eddied around great boulders, resting among the mossy rocks in deep, dark pools, bordered with fern and flecked with patches of lace-like foam. Further still, it wound silently through the sedges, reflecting on its glassy surface the storaied-carved Cathedral Rocks, or the huge mass of El Capitan. Here was an ideal trout stream, but were there trout in it! No doubt, for the Doctor had taken his grocers' string and a worm and a veritable pole, and after a day's tramp had returned to camp wet, hungry, in a sulphurous mood, but with four unmistakable trout. These, served up the next morning, were appropriated by the Judgess, and made an excellent appetizer to more abundant bacon and flap-jacks. Jack had reached that pearl of waters, the Mirror Lake, and was watching the marvellous beauties pictured on its bosom, when suddenly there was a soft plash, the sleeping depths were troubled, a circling ripple crept toward him, and Jack's pulses bounded. A trout had risen! Through the dewy chaparral and the fragrant whispering pines, our friend hurried back to camp in a fever of impatience. He tried to help Yang with breakfast, but was told by that dignitary to "giv' us a rest," and so humbly retired. He then waked his Reverence. He wakened the Doctor and was greeted by language far from complimentary. He aroused the Judgess, and was pierced with daggers from her eyes while she hurriedly adjusted her teeth. After breakfast more torturing delays, the Judgess declined to join the mountain party. The others must not think that she feared to ride the mules, for she adored mountain climbing, and the exercise and all that. (This was a dreadful fib, which was probably made use of at her next confession.) Both the Judge and herself were pining for a few refinements of life at the hotel. Without napkins and finger-bowls, life became a burden. The poor Judge had to acquiesce and said: "She wants a little civilization _as it were_." Then Jack rebelled. There was a general confusion, in the midst of which Yang began to fire his pistol. This pistol was the idol of his pagan soul, and his frequent salutes the terror of the party. No one dared to interfere. At this time the volley was continued and promiscuous. The Judgess screamed, and having no immediate revenge in the shape of ill-cooked dinners to fear, sharply expostulated. Thereupon Yang, with utmost _sang froid,_ told her to "shut your head" and journey to regions he had probably heard the Doctor name. This was too much. The Judgess climbed into the wagon and stated her opinion of people who permitted such "goings on" and of a priest who allowed a Christian woman to be sworn at. Madge was convulsed with laughter, even his Reverence smiled, while the Judge, poor man, looking as if every brewery on the continent had been burned, snapped his whip, and the wagon was lost to sight beneath the arching sequoias. It was high noon when the sure-footed mules had arrived and the party fairly started off. Jack waved an adieu with one hand, and with the other reached down his rod from the branches of a live oak. Yang proceeded to dissect a sucker he had caught for bait, saying: "If you fisliee, me fishee too, but j'ou no sabee nothing." Later in the afternoon Jack stood on the grassy point where the lake narrows into the river. He had adjusted his flies, and everything was in readiness. He paused to watch Yang, who was stationed below on the river, fasten a cubic inch of sucker to his hook, expectorate upon it, turn around three times, and fling it with a tremendous splash into the water. Whether these performances were the result of Oriental superstition, or whether the Chinaman imitated some American example, he did not stop to consider. His long unpractised hand, trembling a little now, had sent the flies far out beneath the shadows of some willows. Another cast was made, and then another. At the fourth there was a rise, and the fish was hooked. The struggle was short but spirited. Yang, abandoning his primitive tackle, was ready with the landing-net, and the fish was killed. As the sport continued, Jack grew calmer, while Yang's excitement increased. He trembled as if the ague were upon him. His stoicism was laid aside. He laughed, jabbered, and Jack was obliged to address him as the Chinaman had addressed the Judgess. Yang begged to try the rod, and by reason of his imitative faculties might have made good use of it, but he had to content himself with the net. At last the lengthening shadows deepened into twilight, and the gathering darkness put an end to the sport. The great dome of Mt. Watkins, inverted in the motionless water, had changed from gold to crimson, and from crimson to violet; they paid no heed until the reflection faded, then, looking up, the real mountain, circled by rising mists, seemed to float in the darkening sky, and Jack, with that feeling of perfect content and peace which kings can never know unless they are anglers, stowed away his flies, unjointed his rod, while Yang shouldered the catch. It was a happy couple that went down the Tenajo canon that evening. The moon smiled upon them; an owl hooted enviously; Jack softly whistled a strain from Schubert, while Yang made the towering rocks echo and re-echo to the joyous banging of the pistol. The fish were dressed, supper eaten, Yang's tin dishes washed, and everything was snug for the night. Jack, stretched beneath a giant pine and smoking his evening pipe, was watching the weird play of the firelight in the canopy of foliage above. The Celestial appeared. "Me heap lonesome, got no more cartridges; you no care; go down hotel stay Chinaboy to-night." Unselfish, devoted, and charitable as Yang claimed to be, he could hardly pretend to heroism. The Chinaman was permitted to go, and Jack, appropriating the Judgess' hammock, turned in. This hammock owed Jack a lodging. All the way across the plains, and up the mountains, and in the valley, that hammock had almost nightly collapsed. Perhaps the Judge did not know how to tie a knot; perhaps the ample physique of the Judgess was too much for any knot, but the thing kept occurring, to the great discomfiture of the Judgess and all the rest of the party. As Jack, with his feet at the fire, and his head on a sack of barley, lay studying the midnight heavens, there would come a shock as of an earthquake. The Judge was a little deaf and after a night or two of experience, would lie just beyond reach of whatever member his better half could disentangle with which to punch him. First, his Reverence would be summoned; but he slept the sleep of the just. Then cries for Ah Yang and the others would follow. Yang was too wise a Chinaman to awaken. Jack sometimes rolled over and kicked the Doctor till he roused, and the good lady hearing his exclamations, claimed his assistance; but sometimes Jack also shed his blankets and relieved the massive limbs from a state of suspension. With content Jack rolled himself in the hammock. Never had he slept in such profound solitude. The nearest camp was far away down the valley; and towards the east, beyond the mountain-barrier, nothing but the wild desert, and solitary, sage-clad hills of Nevada. The river murmured over the pebbles, the pines faintly whispered, and that was all. For once he was alone, and oh! the peace of it! Was it such a night as this that tempted men to leave their fellows for a hermitage? Such visions came to him as seldom visit men beneath a roof. At last he slept, and dreamed of the first trout he had killed in a little New England meadow-brook. He was filling a creel with bass from a fair Wisconsin lake. He was in a plunger off Montauk Point, striking the blue-fish. He was trolling for pike through Champlain, and casting a fly from a canoe on Adirondack waters. The South Dome was glowing in the ruddy morning light; a flock of blackbirds were piping cheerily; an odor of fried trout and coffee was in the air, and Yang was tugging at the blankets, and saying: "Come, you heap laze, bleakfast all leddy. Git up!" What a dinner Yang and Jack had in readiness for the party that night! The Judge and spouse, after much pressing, had come. The lady could not withstand the trout, especially on a Friday. The judicial pair arrived just as Madge and his Reverence raced into camp on the sturdy mules. The Doctor and guide followed. Madge's cheeks were glowing, her eyes sparkling, and her tongue rattling, as she leaped from her saddle. "Such a time as they had had! His Reverence had been a duck, and the Doctor for once had behaved himself and kept civil." She gave her hand to the Judgess, but kissed the Judge. At Yang's summons, a jovial company sat down to such a table as campers in the Sierras seldom see. Madge was in ecstasies, and even the Judgess expressed approval. There was real damask upon it, with napkins and silver forks and wine from the hotel, with all sorts of garnitures of Yang's contrivance. The dinner began, continued, and ended with fish; but fish cooked in every way which Oriental imagination could devise, and camp facilities permit. Even "Simpson's Fish Dinner," of seven courses, in Billingsgate, could not surpass it. The Judgess, having disposed of about a dozen fish, remarked that, after all, these were _only_ California trout, and entirely lacked the flavor, as they lacked the beauty, of their Eastern cousins. She thought, however, that Yang's salad--of cresses from the Merced--was not bad; but wine--even if it was champagne--when sipped from a tin cup, left much to be desired. Alas! Jack had forgotten to borrow the glasses. All that evening, around the camp-fire, the party listened to an account of the catch. The Doctor did not hesitate to express his entire disbelief in the story. It was his opinion that Jack had hired the Indians to fish for him, and bribed Yang to hold his tongue. Then Yang spoke: "You think you heap smart. Jack heap sabee how fish, and you no sabee, but me sabee you. Last Fliday you go fish, and when me water horse, see Injun sellee you fish. I sabee _you_." In the peals of laughter which followed, the Doctor went away to his blankets muttering. So the trout the Judgess had enjoyed a week before were not the Doctor's catching, after all. A week longer the party lingered in the valley. Madge and his Reverence became quite expert with the fly. The lake seemed to have yielded all its finny treasures to Jack, but the Merced afforded ample sport. Many strings of trout were sent to fellow-campers, and to friends at the hotel; and one little hamper made the long journey by stage and rail to San Francisco. The "trout-camp" became famous in the valley, and paragraphs noticing the catch appeared in the _Stockton Independent_, and even in the _Sacramento Bee_. Jack had accomplished his purpose, and had not come to the Yosemite in vain. Then the prairie schooner sailed away through the mountains, Madge and his Reverence driving by turns, while the Judge held his ponderous foot on the brake. Yang was mounted on a mustang, while the doctor and Jack trudged through the dust. Frequent halts were made, the Judgess taking her noon-day siesta; the "three fishers," as she called Madge, his Reverence and Jack, striking out for some neighboring stream. Near the Tuolumne big trees his Reverence took the largest trout of the trip--a four-pounder. On the Tuolumne Biver the three met with fair success; but on the upper waters of the Stanislaus the sport was better. They tarried by the stream winding through that dead little mining town, Big Oak Flat. The banks of the little river were honey-combed by the old placer mining. The population of the Flat wondered to see Madge cast a fly. Even the Chinamen who were still washing for gold, would throw aside their cradles and pans to gaze. An ancient beau of the town stranded there fifteen years ago (such a man as Bret Harte would have gloried in), became so enamored with the fair angler that he would have followed in her wake; but the fickle object of his admiration eluded her admirer, and the miner sadly headed his mustang toward his mountain home, promising to call "next time he went to 'Frisco." The schooner dropped anchor in Oakland. The Judge asked all to dine with him that day week--"a sort of a re-union, _as it were_, you know." His Reverence hastened to don something more in keeping with his cloth than a blue shirt; Madge threw a kiss to Jack as the Doctor handed her into a carriage; and Jack was left to cross the ferry alone. Yang, however, had not abandoned him. He produced a piece of red paper and asked Jack to write his address upon it. "I hab one fliend who come get your washee Monday." Jack, inured to submission, could not refuse, and Yang's "fliend" still does his "washee." Since the Yosemite excursion Jack has trailed salmon flies on the noble Columbia River, and whipped the California trout streams from the cactus-covered plains of the Mexican border to the glaciers of Mount Shasta, but he has never had such keen enjoyment with the fly as on that afternoon at Mirror Lake. When he arranges his tackle for a little holiday sport on the Russian River, or the streams among the red woods of Santa Cruz, he sees again the reflected fir-trees and granite dome trembling in the water as the trout leap to his fly; he again hears Yang's ejaculations and commands. "Fifty-sleven, Jack. Hi! that big fish; fifty-eight. You _heap_ sabee. Hold him tight.'Rusalem, him sabee how swim! Pull like hella, fifty-nine!" "Trout take some flies because they resemble the real fly on which they feed. They take other flies for no such reason."--_W. C. Prime._ "The oft-repeated quotation, 'Spare the rod and spoil the child,' has been misconstrued for many a long day, and if I had known early in life its real significance it would hardly have made so doleful an impression. There is no doubt to-day in my mind that this 'rod' meant a _fishing-rod_, and the timely cherishing of it in youth tends to develop the portion of one's nature to which the former use was entirely innocent."--_Thomas Sedgwick Steele._ "My favorite fly of all is a snipe feather and mouse body."--"_Frank Forester_." [Illustration: 0178] 31. Cinnamon. 32. Deerfly. 33. Red Fox. 34. Camlet Dun. 35. Governor. 36. Green Drake. 37. Alder. 38. Cheney. 39. Soldier. 40. Hod. 41. Kingdom. 42. Oak Fly. 43. Gray Coflin. 44. Fire Fly. 45. Beaverkill. 46. Yellow May. 47. Black Jun.. 48. Quaker. "Often the whereabouts of a trend is betrayed by a break or a leap from the surface, and the wide-awake angler will make it his business to toss his fly over the spot sooner or later. Sometimes the trout rush at the lure like a flash, leaping clear over it in their eagerness. They are difficult to hook then."--_Charles Bollock._ "No description of the brook trout, that has ever been given, does him justice. It stands unrivalled as a game fish."--_Theodatus Garlick, M.D._ "The best flies to use are imitations of those which are born on the water; for, though trout will often take land flies, and indeed almost any insect you can throw on the water, yet it is on the water-flies which he chiefly depends for his sustenance."--_Francis Francis_. "A trout does not always get the fly when he attempts to; it may be lying against the leader, making it impossible for him to get it in his mouth; you may strike too quickly, taking it out of reach; the strike may be too hard, tearing his mouth. More trout by far are pricked than hooked. Practice only can teach you when to strike; you see a faint gleam under the surface, when you instinctively twitch, to find you have hooked a beauty. Few fishermen can separate force from quickness of motion. Never use your arm in making the strike, only your wrist; then will the difficulty be overcome."-- _T. S. Up de Graff, M.D._ "Innocent stranger! Thou who readest these lines! perhaps you never caught a trout. If so, thou knowest not for what life was originally intended. Thou art a vain, insignificant mortal! pursuing shadows! Ambition lures thee, fame dazzles, wealth leads thee on, panting! Thou art chasing spectres, goblins that satisfy not. If thou hast not caught a trout, this world is to thee, as yet, a blank, existence is a dream. Go and weep."--_Thaddeus Norris._ "On one occasion the writer was awakened at a very early hour, when, lo! Mr. Webster, who happened to be in a particularly playful mood, was seen going through the graceful motions of an angler throwing a fly and striking a trout, and then, without a word, disappeared. As a matter of course, that day was given to fishing."--_Lawman's Life of Webster_. HOW TO CAST A FLY. By Seth Green. I am asked a great many times what is the secret of fly-casting? There are three principles. First, quick out of the water; second, give the line time to straighten behind you; third, throw. I will explain these principles more definitely. Raise your rod straight up, or nearly so, the inclination being backward; then make a quick stroke forward. When you take the line from the water it should be done with a quick jerk; then give your line time to straighten behind; then give it the same stroke forward that you did to get it out of the water. Why so many fail in fly-casting is, they throw the rod backward too near the ground behind them, and when they make the forward stroke, and the line gets straightened out, it is some distance above the water and kinks back, so that when it falls upon the water it lies crooked, and is some distance short of what it would have been if it had struck the water as soon as it was straightened out. If a fish should strike at your flies at this time you are pretty sure to miss him. By never throwing your rod back more than to a slight angle from the perpendicular, and making the stroke forward, your line goes straight out and the flies go to the point you desire. Great care should be taken when you have thrown the line behind you, that the line is given time to straighten before making the stroke forward. I have t thrown seventy feet of line against a strong wind, first, by giving my rod a quick, strong back stroke, carrying my rod but slightly back of the perpendicular, and giving my line time to straighten behind me, then making the same stroke forward that I did to get it back of me. I nearly forgot to mention that it is more important to have your line fit your rod than it is to have your coat fit your back. You may think it strange that I should tell you three or four times over in the same article, that in order to do good fly-casting you must throw your rod back only just so far, and then wait for your line to straighten behind you; and when your line is straight, to make a quick stroke forward, without carrying your rod forward, even a little, before delivering your line, but these movements are the essential principles in flycasting. By observing them one may hope to become a skilful fly-caster. TROUT: MEETING THEM ON THE "JUNE RISEN BY "NESSMUK." There is a spot where plumy pines O'erhang the sylvan banks of Otter; Where wood-ducks build among the vines That bend above the crystal water. And there the blue-jay makes her nest, In thickest shade of water beeches; The fish-hawk, statuesque in rest, Keeps guard o'er glassy pools and reaches. Tis there the deer come down to drink, From laurel brakes and wooded ridges; The trout, beneath the sedgy brink, Are sharp on ship-wrecked flies and midges. And of the scores of mountain trout-streams that I have fished, the Otter is associated with the most pleasing memories. It is, or was, a model trout-stream; a thing to dream of. Haying its rise within three miles of the Tillage, it meandered southward for ten miles through a mountain valley to its confluence with the second fork of Pine Creek, six miles of the distance being through a forest without settler or clearing. The stream was swift, stony, and exceptionally free of brush, fallen timber and the usual _débris_ that is so trying to the angler on most wooded streams. Then, it was just the right distance from town. It was so handy to start from the Tillage in the middle of an afternoon in early summer, walk an hour and a half at a leisurely pace, and find one's self on a brawling brook where speckled trout were plenty as a reasonable man could wish. Fishing only the most promising places for a couple of miles always gave trout enough for supper and breakfast, and brought the angler to the "Trout-House," as a modest cottage of squared logs was called, it being the last house in the clearings and owned by good-natured Charley Datis, who never refused to entertain fishermen with the best his little house afforded. His accommodations were of the narrowest, but also of the neatest, and few women could fry trout so nicely as Mrs. Davis. True, there was only one spare bed, and, if more than two anglers desired lodgings, they were relegated to the barn, with a supply of buffalo skins and blankets. On a soft bed of sweet hay this was all that could be desired by way of lodgings, with the advantage of being free from mosquitoes and punkies. The best of rich, yellow butter with good bread were always to be bad at Charley's, and his charges were 12 1/2 cents for meals, and the same for lodging. The two miles of fishing above the "Trout-House" led through clearings, and the banks were much overgrown with willows, making it expedient to use bait, or a single fly. I chose the latter: my favorite bug for such fishing being the red hackle, though I am obliged to confess that the fellow who used a white grub generally beat me. But the evening episode was only preliminary; it meant a pleasant walk, thirty or forty brook-trout for supper and breakfast, and a quiet night's rest. The real angling commenced the next morning at the bridge, with a six-mile stretch of clear, cold, rushing water to fish. My old-fashioned creel held an honest twelve pounds of dressed trout, and I do not recollect that I ever missed filling it, with time to spare, on that stretch of water. Nor, though I could sometimes fill it in a forenoon, did I ever continue to fish after it _was_ full. Twelve pounds of trout is enough for any but a trout-hog. But the peculiar phase of trout lore that most interested me, was the "run" of trout that were sure to find their way up stream whenever we had a flood late in May or the first half of June. They were distinct and different from the trout that came up with the early spring freshets. Lighter in color, deeper in body, with smaller heads, and better conditioned altogether. They could be distinguished at a glance; the individuals of any school were as like as peas in color and size, and we never saw them except on a summer flood. The natives called them river trout. They came in schools of one hundred to five times as many, just as the flood was subsiding, and they had a way of halting to rest at the deep pools and spring-holes along their route. Lucky was the angler who could find them at rest in a deep pool, under a scooped out bank, or at the foot of a rushing cascade. At such times they seemed to lose their usual shyness, and would take the fly or worm indifferently, until their numbers were reduced more than one-half. To "meet them on the June rise" was the ardent desire of every angler who fished the streams which they were accustomed to ascend. These streams were not numerous. The First, Second, and Third Forks of Pine Creek, with the Otter, comprised the list so far as I know. And no man could be certain of striking a school at any time; it depended somewhat on judgment, but more on luck. Two or three times I tried it on the Otter and missed; while a friend who had the pluck and muscle to make a ten-mile tramp over the mountain to Second Fork took forty pounds of fine trout from a single school. It was a hoggish thing to do; but he was a native and knew no reason for letting up. At length my white day came around. There was a fierce rain for three days, and the raging waters took mills, fences and lumber down stream in a way to be remembered. Luckily it also took the lumbermen the same way, and left few native anglers at home. When the waters had subsided to a fair volume, and the streams had still a suspicion of milkiness, I started at 3 P.M. of a lovely June afternoon for the Trout-House. An easy two hours walk, an hour of delightful angling, and I reached the little hostelry with three dozen brook trout, averaging about seven inches in length only, but fresh and sweet, all caught on a single red hackle, which will probably remain my favorite bug until I go over the last carry (though I notice it has gone well out of fashion with modern anglers). A supper of trout; an evening such as must be seen and felt to be appreciated; trout again for breakfast, with a dozen packed for lunch, and I struck in at the bridge before sunrise for an all day bout, "to meet 'em on the June rise." I didn't do it. I took the entire day to whip that six miles of bright, dashing water. I filled a twelve-pound creel with trout, putting back everything under eight inches. I put back more than I kept. I had one of the most enjoyable days of my life; I came out at the lower bridge after sundown--and I had not seen or caught one fresh-run river trout. They were all the slender, large-moutlied, dark-mottled fish of the gloomy forest, with crimson spots like fresh drops of blood. But I was not discouraged. Had the trout been there I should have met them. I walked half a mile to the little inn at Babb's, selected a dozen of my best fish for supper and breakfast, gave away the rest, and, tired as a hound, slept the sleep of the just man. At 4 o'clock the next morning I was on the stream again, feeling my way carefully down, catching a trout at every cast, and putting them mostly back with care, that they might live; but' for an hour no sign of a fresh-run river trout. Below the bridge there is a meadow, the oldest clearing on the creek; there are trees scattered about this meadow that are models of arborial beauty, black walnut, elm, ash, birch, hickory, maple, etc. Most of them grand, spreading trees. One of them, a large, umbrageous yellow-birch, stood on the left bank of the stream, and was already in danger of a fall by "The swifter current that mined its roots." It was here I met them on the June rise. I dropped my cast of two flies just above the roots of the birch, and on the instant, two fresh-run, silver-sided, red-spotted trout immolated themselves, with a generous self-abnegation that I shall never forget. Standing there on that glorious June morning, I made cast after cast, taking, usually, two at each cast. I made no boyish show of "playing" them. They were lifted out as soon as struck. To have fooled with them would have tangled me, and very likely have scattered the school. It was old-time angling; I shall not see it again. My cast was a red hackle for tail-fly, with something like the brown hen for hand-fly. I only used two, with four-foot leader; and I was about the only angler who used a fly at all in those days, on these waters. I fished about one hour. I caught sixty-four trout, weighing thirteen and three quarter pounds. I caught too many. I was obliged to _string_ some of them, as the creel would not hold them all. But my head was moderately level. When I had caught as many as I thought right I held up; and I said, if any of these natives get on to this school, they will take the last trout, if it be a hundred pounds. And they will _salt them down_. So when I was done, and the fishing was good as at the start, I cut a long "staddle," with a bush at the top, and I just went for that school of trout. I chevied, harried and scattered them, up stream and down, until I could not see a fish. Then I packed my duffle and went to the little inn for breakfast. Of course every male biped was anxious to know "where I met 'em." I told them truly; and they started, man and boy, for the "Big Birch," with beech rods, stiff linen lines,' and a full stock of white grubs. I was credibly informed afterward, that these backwoods cherubs did not succeed in "Meeting 'em on the June rise." I have a word to add, which is not important though it may be novel. There is a roaring, impetuous brook emptying into Second Fork, called "Rock Run." It heads in a level swamp, near the summit of the mountain. The swamp contains about forty acres, and is simply a level bed of loose stones, completely overgrown with bright green moss. "Rock Run" heads in a strong, ice-cold spring, but is soon sunken and lost among the loose stones of the swamp. Just where the immense hemlocks, that make the swamp a sunless gloom, get their foothold, is one of the things I shall never find out. But, all the same, they are there. And "Rock Run" finds its way underground for 80 rods with never a ray of sunlight to illumine its course. Not once in its swamp course does it break out to daylight. You may follow it by its heavy gurgling, going by ear; but you cannot see the water. Now remove the heavy coating of moss here and there, and you may see glimpses of dark, cold water, three or four feet beneath the surface. Drop a hook, baited with angle-worm down these dark watery holes, and it will be instantly taken by a dark, crimson-spotted specimen of simon pure Salmo funtinalis. They are small, four to six inches in length, hard, sweet; the _beau ideal_ of mountain trout. Follow this subterranean brook for eighty rods, and you find it gushing over the mountain's brink in a cascade that no fish could or would attempt to ascend. Follow the roaring brook down to its confluence with Second Fork, and you will not find one trout in the course of a mile. The stream is simply a succession of falls, cascades, and rapids, up which no fish can beat its way for one hundred yards. And yet at the head of this stream is a subterranean brook stocked with the finest specimens of _Salmo fontinalis_. They did not breed on the mountain top. They _cannot_ ascend the stream. Where did they originate? When, and how did they manage to get there? I leave the questions to _savans_ and _naturalists_. As for myself, I state the fact--still demonstrable--for the trout are yet there. But I take it to be one of the conundrums "no fellah can ever find out." P. S.--A word as to bugs, lures, flies, etc. Now I have no criticism to offer as regards flies or lures. I saw a Gotham banker in 1880, making a cast on Third lake, with a leader that carried _twelve_ flies. Why not? He enjoyed it; and he caught some trout. Even the guides laughed at him. I did not: he rode his hobby, and he rode it well. Fishing beside him, with a five-dollar rod, I caught two trout to his one. What did he care? He came out to enjoy himself after his own fashion, and he did it. Like myself, he only cared for the sport--the recreation and enough trout for supper. (I cannot cast twelve flies.) Now my favorite lures--with forty years' experience--stand about thus. Tail fly, red hackle; second, brown hen; third, Romeyn. Or, tail fly, red ibis; second, brown hackle; third, queen of the waters. Or, red hackle, queen, royal coachman. Sometimes trout will not rise to the fly. I respect their tastes. I use then--tail fly, an angle worm, with a bit of clear pork for the head, and a white miller for second. If this fails I go to camp and sleep. I am not above worms and grubs, but prefer the fly. _And I take but what I need for present use_. Can all brother anglers say the same? "It has so happened that all the public services that I have rendered 'in the world, in my day and generation, have been connected with the general government. I think I ought to make an exception. I was ten days a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, and I turned my thoughts to the search of some good object in which I could be useful in that position; and after much reflection I introduced a bill which, with the consent of both houses of the Legislature, passed into a law, and is now a law of the State, which enacts that no man in the State shall catch trout in any manner than in the old way, with an ordinary hook and line."--_Daniel 'Webster_. "If you do not know a river it is always most desirable to have someone with you who does."--_Francis Francis_. [Illustration: 0194] 49. The Teal. 50. Reuben Wood. 51. Red Spinner. 52. No. 68. 53. Hawthorne. 54. Dorset. 55. Widow. 56. Grasshopper. 57. Stebbins. 58. March Brown. 59. Shoemaker. 60. Orange Black. 61. King of the Water. 62. Gen: Hooker. 63. Gray Drake. "The angler atte the leest, hath his holsom walke, and mery at his ease, a swete ayre of the swete savoure of the mede floures, that makyth him hungry; he hereth the melodyous armony of fowles; he seeth the yonge swannes, heerons, duck's, cotes, and many other fowles, wyth theyr brodes; whyche me semyth better than allé the noyse of houndys, the blastes of hornys, and the scrye of foulis, that hunters, fawkeners, and fowlers can make. And if the angler take fysshe; surely, thenne, is there noo man merier than he is in his spyryte."--_Dame Juliana Berners._ "Skill, and trained skill at that, does the good work, and the angler's score is just in proportion to his knowledge of 'how to do it.'"--_Wm. C. Harris._ "A gray-haired bait-fisher is very rare, while the passion for fly-easting, whether for trout or salmon, grows by what it feeds upon, and continues a source of the highest pleasure even after the grasshopper becomes a burden."--_George Dawson._ "It is not the number of fish he captures that makes the angler contented, for the true angler can enjoy the mere casting of the fly if he has only an occasional fish to reward his efforts."--"_Random Casts._" "The great charm of fly-fishing for trout is derived from the fact that you then see the movements of your fish, and if you are not an expert hand, the chances are that you will capture but one out of the hundred that may rise to your hook. You can seldom save a trout unless you strike the very instant that he leaps. The swiftness with which a trout can dart from his hiding-place after a fly is truly astonishing; and we never see one perform this operation without feeling an indescribable thrill quivering through our frame."--_Charles Lanman_. "There is nothing grovelling in fly-fishing--nothing gross or demoralizing."--_Charles Hallock_. "Angling is a maist innocent, poetical, moral and religious amusement. Gin I saw a fisher gruppin creelfu' after creelfu' o' trouts, and then flingin' them a' awa among the heather and the brackens on his way hame, I micht begin to suspee that the idiot was by nature rather a savage. But as for me, I send presents to my freens, and devour dizzens on dizzens every week in the family--maistly dune in the pan, wi' plenty o' fresh butter and roun' meal--sae that prevents the possibility o' cruelty in my fishin', and in the fishin' o' a' reasonable creatures."--_James Hogg_. WHY PETER WENT A-FISHING. By W. C. Prime. Never was night more pure, never was sea more winning; never were the hearts of men moved by deeper emotions than on that night and by that sea when Peter and John, and other of the disciples, were waiting for the Master. Peter said, "I go a-fishing." John and Thomas, and James and Nathanael, and the others, said, "We will go with you," and they went. Some commentators have supposed and taught that, when Peter said, "I go a-fishing," he announced the intention of returning to the ways in which he had earned his daily bread from childhood; that his Master was gone, and he thought that nothing remained for him but the old, hard life of toil, and the sad labor of living. But this seems scarcely credible, or consistent with the circumstances. The sorrow which had weighed down the disciples when gathered in Jerusalem on that darkest Sabbath day of all the Hebrew story, had given way to joy and exultation in the morning when the empty tomb revealed the hitherto hidden glory of the resurrection, joy which was ten-fold increased by are interview with the risen Lord, and confirmed by his direction, sending them into Galilee to await Him there. And thus it seems incredible that Peter and John--John, the beloved--could have been in any such gloom and despondency as to think of resuming their old employment at this time, when they were actually waiting for His coming, who had promised to meet them. Probably they were on this particular evening weary with earnest expectancy, yet not satisfied; tired of waiting and longing, and looking up the hillside on the Jerusalem road for His appearance; and I have no doubt that, when this weariness became exhausting, Peter sought on the water something of the old excitement that he had known from boyhood, and that to all the group it seemed a fitting way in which to pass the long night before them, otherwise to be weary as well as sleepless. If one could have the story of that night of fishing, of the surrounding scenes, the conversation in the boat, the unspoken thoughts of the fishermen, it would make the grandest story of fishing that the world has ever known. Its end was grand when in the morning the voice of the Master came over the sea, asking them the familiar question, in substance the same which they, like all fishermen, had heard a thousand times, "Have you any fish?" * * * * * The memory of this scene is not unfitting to the modern angler. Was it possible to forget it when I first wet a line in the water of the Sea of Galilee? Is it any less likely to come hack to me on any lake among the hills when the twilight hides the mountains, and overhead the same stars look on our waters that looked on Gennesaret, so that the soft night air feels on one's forehead like the dews of Hermon? I do not think that this was the last, though it be the last recorded fishing done by Peter or by John. I don't believe these Galilee fishermen ever lost the love for their old employment. It was a memorable fact for them that the Master had gone a-fishing with them on the day that He called them to be His disciples; and this latest meeting with Him in Galilee, the commission to Peter, "Feed my sheep," and the words so startling to John, "If I will that he tarry till I come,"--words which He must have recalled when He uttered that last longing cry, "Even so come, Lord"--all these were associated with that last recorded fishing scene on the waters of Gennesaret. Fishermen never lose their love for the employment, and it is notably true that the men who fish for a living love their work quite as much as those who fish for pleasure love their sport. Find an old fisherman, if you can, in any sea-shore town, who does not enjoy his fishing. There are days, without doubt, when he does not care to go out, when he would rather that need did not drive him to the sea; but keep him at home a few days, or set him at other labor, and you shall see that he longs for the toss of the swell on the reef, and the sudden joy of a strong pull on his line. Drift up along side of him in your boat when he is quietly at his work, without his knowing that you are near. You can do it easily. He is pondering solemnly a question, of deep importance to him, and he has not stirred eye, or hand, or head for ten minutes. But see that start and sharp jerk of his elbow, and now hear him talk, not to you--to the fish. He exults as he brings him in, yet mingles his exultation with something of pity as he baits his hook for another. Could you gather the words that he has in many years flung on the sea winds, you would haye a history of his life and adventures, mingled with very much of his inmost thinking, for he tells much to the sea and the fish that he would never whisper in human ears. Thus the habit of going a-fishing always modifies the character. The angler, I think, dreams of his favorite sport oftener than other men of theirs. There is a peculiar excitement in it, which perhaps arises from somewhat of the same causes which make the interest in searching for ancient treasures, opening Egyptian tombs and digging into old ruins. One does not know what is under the surface. There may be something or there may be nothing. He tries, and the rush of something startles every nerve. Let no man laugh at a comparison of trout-fishing with antiquarian researches. I know a man who has done a great deal of both, and who scarcely knows which is the most absorbing or most remunerating; for each enriches mind and body, each gratifies the most refined taste, each becomes a passion unless the pursuer guard his enthusiasm and moderate his desire. ***** To you, my friend, who know nothing of the gentle and purifying association of the angler's life, these may seem strange notions--to some, indeed, they may even sound profane. But the angler for whom I write will not so think them, nor may I, who, thinking these same thoughts, have cast my line on the sea of Galilee, and taken the descendants of old fish in the swift waters of the Jordan. Trout fishing is employment for all men, of all minds. It tends to dreamy life, and it leads to much thought and reflection. I do not know in any book or story of modern times a more touching and exquisite scene than that which Mrs. Gordon gives in her admirable biography of her father, the leonine Christopher North, when the feeble old man waved his rod for the last time over the Dochart, where he had taken trout from his boyhood. Shall we ever look upon his like again? He was a giant among men of intellectual greatness. Of all anglers since apostolic days, he was the greatest; and there is no angler who does not look to him with veneration and love, while the English language will forever possess higher value that he has lived and written. It would be thought very strange were one to say that Wilson would never have been half the man he was were he not an angler. But he would have said so himself, and I am not sure but he did say so, and, whether he did or not, I have no doubt of the truth of the saying. It has happened to me to fish the Dochart, from the old inn at Luib down to the bridge, and the form of the great Christopher was forever before me along the bank, and in the rapids, making his last casts as Mrs. Gordon here so tenderly describes him: "Had my father been able to endure the fatigue, we too would have had something to boast of, but he was unable to do more than loiter by the river-side, close in the neighborhood of the inn--never without his rod." "How now do his feet touch the heather? Not, as of old, with a bound, but with slow and unsteady step, supported on the one hand by his stick, while the other carries his rod. The breeze gently moves his locks, no longer glittering with the light of life, but dimmed by its decay. Yet are his shoulders broad and unbent. The lion-like presence is somewhat softened down, but not gone. He surely will not venture into the deeps of the water, for only one hand is free for a 'cast.' and those large stones, now slippery with moss, are dangerous stumbling-blocks in the way. Besides, he promised his daughters he would not wade, but, on the contrary, walk quietly with them by the river's edge, there gliding 'at its own sweet will,' Silvery band of pebbled shore leading to loamy colored pools, dark as the glow of a southern eye, how could he resist the temptation of near approach? In he goes, up to the ankles, then to the knees, tottering every other step, but never falling. Trout after trout he catches, small ones certainly, but plenty of them. Into his pocket with them all this time, manouvering in the most skilful manner both stick and rod; until weary, he is obliged to rest on the bank, sitting with his feet in the water, laughing at his daughters' horror, and obstinately continuing the sport in spite of all remonstrance. At last he gives in and retires. Wonderful to say, he did not seem to suffer from these imprudent liberties." And Mrs. Gordon gives us another exquisite picture in the very last day of the grand old Christopher: * * * "And then he gathered around him, when the spring mornings brought gay jets of sunshine into the little room where he lay, the relics of a youthful passion, one that with him never grew old. It was an affecting sight to see him busy, nay, quite absorbed with the fishing tackle scattered about his bed, propped up with pillows--his noble head, yet glorious with its flowing locks, carefully combed by attentive hands, and falling on each side of his unfaded face. How neatly he picked out each elegantly dressed fly from its little bunch, drawing it out with trembling hand along the white coverlet, and then replacing it in his pocket-book, he would tell ever and anon of the streams he used to fish in of old, and of the deeds he had performed in his childhood and youth." There is no angler who will not appreciate the beauty of these pictures, and I do not believe any one of us, retaining his mental faculties, will fail, in extremest age, to recall with the keenest enjoyment, of which memory is capable, the scenes of our happiest sport. Was Peter less or more than man? Was John not of like passions with ourselves? Believe me, the old dweller on Patmos, the old Bishop of Ephesus, lingering between the memories of his Lord in Galilee and the longing for Him to come quickly yet again, saw often before his dim eyes the ripple on Gennesaret and the flashing scales of the silver fish that had gladdened him many a time before he knew the Master. It is one of the most pleasant and absorbing thoughts which possess the traveller in those regions, that the child Christ was a child among the hills of Galilee, and loved them with all the gentle fervor of his human soul. Doubtless many times before He had challenged the fisher on the sea with that same question which we anglers so frequently hear, "Have you taken any fish?" He may have often seen Peter and the others at their work. Perhaps sometimes He had talked with them, and, it may well be, gone with them on the sea, and helped them. Por they were kindly men, as fishermen are always in all countries, and they loved to talk of their work, and of a thousand other things, of which, in their contemplative lives, they had thought without talking. In an age when few men were learned, and, in fact, few in any grade or walk of life could even read or write, I am inclined to think there was no class from whom better trained intellects could be selected than from among these thoughtful fishermen. They had doubtless the Oriental characteristics of calmness and reserve, and these had been somewhat modified by their employment. Given to sober reflection, patient to investigate, quick to trust when their faith was demanded by one whom they respected, slow to act when haste was not necessary, prompt and swift on any emergency, filled full of love for nature, all harsh elements of character softened into a deep benevolence and pity and love--such are the fishermen of our day, and such, I doubt not, were the fishermen of old. They were men with whom a mother would willingly trust her young boy, to whom he would become attached, with whom he would enjoy talking, and, above all, who would pour out their very souls in talking with him, when among their fellow-men they would be reserved, diffident, and silent. They were men, too, who would recognize in the boy the greatness of his lineage, the divine shining out from his eyes. Who shall prevail to imagine the pleasantness of those days on the sea when Peter and John talked with the holy boy, as they waited for the fish, and their boat rocked to the winds that came down from Lebanon. Who can say that there were not some memories of those days, as well as of the others when we know Christ was with him, which, when he was tired of the waiting, led Peter to say, "I go a-fishing!" I believe that he went a-fishing because he felt exactly as I have felt, exactly as scores of men have felt who knew the charm of the gentle art, as we now call it. The other has such attraction. Men love hunting, love boating, love games of varied sorts, love many amusements of many kinds, but I do not know of any like fishing to which men go for relief in weariness, for rest after labor, for solace in sorrow. I can well understand how those sad men, not yet fully appreciating the grand truth that their Master had risen from the dead, believing; yet doubting, how even Thomas, who had so lately seen the wounds and heard the voice; how even John, loving and loved, who had rejoiced a week ago in Jerusalem at the presence of the triumphant Lord; how Peter, always fearful; how Nathanael, full of impulsive faith, how each and all of them, wearied with their long waiting for Him on the shore of the sea, sought comfort and solace, opportunity and incitement to thought in going a-fishing. I can understand it, for, though far be it from me to compare any weariness or sorrow of mine with theirs, I have known that there was no better way in which I could find rest. I have written for lovers of the gentle art, and if this which I have written fall into other hands, let him who reads understand that it is not for him. We who go a-fishing are a peculiar people. Like other men and women in many respects, we are like one another, and like no others, in other respects. We understand each other's thoughts by an intuition of which you know nothing. So closely are we alike in some regards, so different from the rest of the world in these respects, and so important are these characteristics of mind and of thought, that I sometimes think no man but one of us can properly understand the mind of Peter, or appreciate the glorious visions of the son of Zebedee. FROM "GAME FISH OF THE NORTH." By R. B. Roosevelt. There are innumerable rules applicable to trout fishing, and innumerable exceptions to each; neither man nor fish is infallible. A change of weather is always desirable; if it has been-clear, a rainy day is favorable; if cold, a warm one; if the wind has been north, a southerly one is advantageous; a zephyr if it has been blowing a tornado. Generally, in early spring, amid the fading snows and blasts of winter, a warm day is very desirable; later, in the heats of summer, a cold, windy day will insure success. Dead calm is dangerous, although many trout are taken in water as still, clear and transparent as the heavens above. The first rule is never to give up; there is hardly a day but at some hour, if there be trout, they will rise, and steady, patient industry disciplines the mind and invigorates the muscles. A southerly, especially a south-easterly wind, has a singular tendency to darken the surface, and in clear, fine waters is particularly advantageous; a south-wester comes next in order; a north-easter, in which, by-the-by, occasionally there is great success, is the next; and a north-wester is the worst and dearest of all. Give me wind on any terms, a southerly wind, if I can have it; but give me wind. It is not known what quality of wind darkens the water; it may be a haziness produced in the atmosphere, although with a cloudy sky the water is often too transparent; it may be the peculiar character of the waves, short and broken, as contra-distinguished from long and rolling; but the fact is entitled to reliance. Slight changes will often affect the fish. On one day in June, in the writer's experience, after having no luck until eleven o'clock, the trout suddenly commenced rising, and kept on without cessation, scarcely giving time to cast, till two, when they as suddenly stopped. There was no observable change in the weather, except the advent of a slight haze, the wind remaining precisely the same. I was much disappointed, not having half fished the ground, and being prevented, by the numbers that were taken, from casting over some of the largest fish that broke. As it was I caught seventy trout in what are ordinarily considered the worst hours of the day. But in this particular, also, the same rules apply as to the warmth of the weather. In early spring it is useless to be up with the lark, even supposing such a bird exists; no fish will break water till the sun has warmed the air; but in summer, the dawn should blush to find the sportsman napping. In fact, trout will not rise well unless the air is warmer than the water. They do not like to risk taking cold by exposing themselves to a sudden draught. There is a very absurd impression that trout will not take the fly early in the season; this is entirely unfounded. As soon as the ice disappears they will be found gambolling in the salt-water streams, and leaping readily at the fly. At such times, on lucky days, immense numbers are taken. In March they have run up the sluice-ways and are in the lower ponds, lying sullenly in the deepest water; then is the Cowdung, politely called the Dark Cinnamon, the most attractive fly. In April, May and June they are scattered, and entrapped by the Hackles, Professor, Ibis, and all the medium-sized flies. In July and August they have sought the head-waters of navigation, the cool spring brooks, and hide around the weeds and water-cresses, whence the midges alone can tempt them. Any flies will catch fish, cast in any manner, if the fish are plenty and in humor to be caught. A few feathers torn from the nearest and least suspicious chicken, and tied on an ordinary hook with a piece of thread, will constitute a fly in the imagination of a trout, provided he follows, as he sometimes appears to do, the advice of young folks--shuts his eyes and opens his mouth. I cannot recommend such tackle, being convinced the most skilfully made is the best; but I do advise simplicity of color. ***** Good luck, that synonym for all the virtues, does not depend so much upon the kind of flies as the skill in casting, and a poor fly lightly cast into the right spot will do better execution than the best fly roughly cast into the wrong place. The lure must be put where the fish habit, often before their very noses, or they will not take it; and when they lie, as they generally do in running streams, in the deep holes under the banks, where the bushes are closest and cause the densest shade, it requires some skill to cast properly into the exact spot. Sacrifice everything to lightness in casting; let the line go straight without a kink if you can, drop the fly into the right ripple if possible, but it must drop gently on the surface of the water. An ugly splash of a clear day in pure water, and the prey will dart in every direction, and the angler's hopes scatter with them. A beginner may practice a certain formula, such as lifting the line with a wave and smart spring, swinging it backward in a half circle, and when it is directly behind him, casting straight forward; but as soon as he has overcome the rudimentary principles, he should cast in every manner, making the tip of his rod cut full circles, figure eights, and all other figures, behind him, according to the wind; bearing in mind, however, ever to make his fly drop as lightly as a feather. He should use his wrist mainly, and practice with each hand, and should never be otherwise than ashamed of a bungling cast, though he be alone, and none but the fish there to despise him. If the line falls the first time with a heartrending splash, all in a tangle, it is useless to make the next cast properly. The fish have found out the trick, and know too much to risk their necks in any such noose. A skilful fisherman can cast almost any length of line, but practically, fifty feet, counting from the reel, is all that can be used to advantage. Some English books say only the leader [gut links] should alight in the water; but this is nonsense, for at least one-half the line must fall into the water, unless the fisherman stand on a high bank. With a long line, the difficulties of striking and landing the fish are greatly increased. In striking, there is much slack line to be taken up. In landing, it requires some time to get the fish under control, and he is apt to reach the weeds or a stump. That most excellent fisherman and learned scholar, Dr. Bethune, in his edition of Walton, Part II., page 73, says that candid anglers must confess that nine out of ten trout hook themselves. This may be so in streams teeming with fish, where a dozen start at once, frantically striving to be the first; but in clear, well-fished streams, not one fish in a thousand will hook himself; and on Long Island, an angler would grow gray ere he filled his basket if he did not strike, and that quickly. Striking, to my mind, is by far the most important point, and hundreds of fish have I seen escape for want of quickness. It must be done quickly but steadily, and not with a jerk, as the latter is apt, by the double action of the rod, to bend the tip forward, and loosen instead of tightening the line. There are days when fish cannot be struck, although they are rising freely. Whether they are playing or oyer-cautious, I never could determine; whether they are not hungry, or the water is too clear, they put a man's capacities at defiance. Their appearance must be signalled to the eye, by that reported to the brain, which then directs the nerves to command the muscles to move the wrist; and ere this complicated performance is completed, the fish has blown from his mouth the feathery deception, and has darted back to his haunts of safety. A fish will occasionally leap up, seize the fly, discover the cheat, and shaking his head, jump several feet along the surface of the water to rid his mouth of it, and do this so quickly as not to give a quick angler time to strike. How often fish are caught when they rise the second time, as then the angler is more on the alert; whereas, on the first rise, he was off his guard! How often fish rise when the angler's head is turned away from his line, or when he is busy at something else, and how rarely are they caught! In my experience, it is so great a rarity, that it might almost be said they never hook themselves. In the language of youth, the only hooking they do, is to hook off. Dr. Bethune, page 97, says the rod should not exceed one pound in weight. Indeed, it should not; and if it does, it exemplifies the old maxim, so far as to have a fool at one end. If we could fish by steam, a rod exceeding a pound and measuring over fourteen feet might answer well; but in these benighted days, while wrists are of bone, muscles, cartilages, and the like, the lighter the better. A rod--and if perfection is absolutely indispensable, a cedar rod--of eleven or twelve feet, weighing nine or ten ounces, will catch trout. Cedar rods can only be obtained in America, and then only on compulsion; but this wood makes the most elastic rods in the world. They spring instantly to every motion of the hand, and never warp. They are delicate. The wood is like woman--cross-grained, but invaluable, if carefully treated. The reel should be a simple click, never a multiplier, but large-barrelled, and fastened to the butt with a leather strap. The line silk, covered, with a preparation of oil, tapered, if possible, at each end, and thirty to forty yards long. The basket--positive--a fish basket; the angler--comparative--a fisherman. Thus equipped, go forth mildly, approving where the writer's opinions coincide with yours, simply incredulous where they do not. ***** There are several ways of landing a trout, but not all equally sportsmanlike. Large trout may be gaffed; small ones landed in a net; and where neither of these means is at hand, they must be dragged out of the water, or floated up among the bushes, according to the taste of the angler and the strength of his tackle. A tyro was once fishing in the same boat with me, using bait, when he struck his first trout. One can imagine how entirely misspent had been his previous existence, when it is said he had never taken a trout, no, nor any other fish, before. It was not a large fish; such luck rarely falls to the share of the beginner; and in spite of what elderly gentlemen may say to the contrary, an ignorant countryman, with his sapling rod and coarse tackle, never takes the largest fish nor the greatest in quantity. Were it otherwise, sportsmen had better turn louts, and tackle makers take to cutting straight saplings in the woods. My companion, nevertheless, was not a little surprised at the vigorous rushes the trout made to escape, but his line being strong and rod stiff, he steadily reeled him in. Great was the excitement; his whole mind was devoted to shortening the line, regardless of what was to be done next. We had a darkey named Joe with us, to row the boat and land the fish, and our luck having been bad during the morning he was delighted with this turn of affairs, and ready, net in hand, to do his duty. The fish was being reeled up till but a few feet of the line remained below the top, when with a shout of "land, Joe, land him!" my companion suddenly lifted up his rod, carrying the trout far above our heads. There it dangled, swaying to and fro, bouncing and jumping, while the agonized fisherman besought the darky to land him, and the latter, reaching up as far as he could with the net, his eyes starting out of his head with wonder at this novel mode of proceeding, came far short of his object. Never was seen such a sight; the hopeless despair of my friend, the eagerness of the darky, who fairly strove to climb the rod as the fish danced about far out of reach. What was to be clone? The line would not render, the rod was so long we could not reach the tip in the boat; and the only horrible alternative appeared to be my friend's losing his first fish. The latter, however, by this remarkable course of treatment, had grown peaceable and when he was dropped back into the water, made but feeble efforts, while my companion, as quietly as he could, worked out his line till he could land him like a Christian. Great were the rejoicings when the prize earned with so much anxiety was secured. That is the way not to land a trout. One afternoon of a very boisterous day, I struck a large fish at the deep hole in the centre of Phillipse's Pond, on Long Island. He came out fiercely, and taking my fly as he went down, darted at once for the bottom, which is absolutely covered with long, thick weeds. The moment he found he was struck he took refuge among them, and tangled himself so effectually that I could not feel him, and supposed he had escaped. By carefully exerting sufficient force, however, the weeds were loosened from the bottom, and the electric thrill of his renewed motion was again perceptible. He was allowed to draw the line through the weeds and play below them, as by so doing they would give a little, while if confined in them he would have a leverage against them, and could, with one vigorous twist, tear out the hook. When he was somewhat exhausted, the question as to the better mode of landing him arose. The wind was blowing so hard as to raise quite a sea, which washed the weeds before it in spite of any strain that could be exerted by the rod, and drifted the boat as well, rendering the latter almost unmanageable, while the fish was still so vigorous as to threaten every moment to escape. I besought the boatman, who was an old hand, and thoroughly up to his business, to drop the boat down to the weeds and let me try and land my fish with one hand while holding the rod with the other. He knew the dangers of such a course, and insisted upon rowing slowly and carefully for shore at a shallow place sheltered from the wind, although I greatly feared the hook would tear out or the rod snap under the strain of towing both weeds and fish; once near shore, he deliberately forced an oar into the mud and made the boat fast to it, and then taking up the net watched for a favorable chance. He waited for some time, carefully putting the weeds aside until a gleaming line of silver glanced for a moment beneath the water, when darting the net down he as suddenly brought it up, revealing within its folds the glorious colors of a splendid trout. That was the way to land a trout under difficulties, although I still think I could have done it successfully by myself. Generally the utmost delicacy should be shown in killing a fish, but there are times when force must be exerted. If the fish is making for a stump, or even weeds, he must be stopped at any reasonable risk of the rod's breaking or the fly's tearing out. A stump is the most dangerous; one turn around that and he is off, leaving your flies probably in a most inconvenient place and many feet below the surface of the water. But remember the oft-repeated maxim of a friend of the writer, who had been with him many a joyous fishing day, "That one trout hooked is worth a dozen not hooked." Small trout are more apt to escape than large ones, because the skin around the mouth of the latter is tougher. With either, however, there is risk enough. The hook is small, and often takes but a slight hold; the gut is delicate, and frequently half worn through by continual casting. Fish are, in a majority of instances, hooked in the corner of the upper jaw, where there is but a thin skin to hold them; by long continued struggling the hole wears larger, and finally, to the agony of the fisherman, the hook slips out. There are occasions when force must be exerted, and then good tackle and a well-made rod will repay the cost. At dusk, one night, I cautiously approached the edge of a newly made pond, that was as full of stumps as of fish, both being about the extreme limit, and casting into the clear water struck a fine fish of three-quarters of a pound. Not a minute's grace did he receive, but I lugged and he fought, and after a general turmoil I succeeded in bringing him to land, in spite of weeds and stumps and twigs, which he did his best to reach. The same was done with Severn fish after a loss of only three flies and with a rod that weighed only eight ounces. In landing a fish wait till he is pretty well exhausted, bring his mouth above water, and keep it there till he is drawn into the net, and warn your assistant to remove the net at once if he gets his head down. By diving after him with the net the assistant would certainly not catch the fish and might tangle one of your other flies. The fish should be led into the net, and the latter kept as still as possible; he knows as well as you do what it is for, and if his attention is drawn to it will dart off as madly as ever. * * * * * The trout is admitted to be the most beautiful of all our fish; not so large or powerful as the salmon, he is much more numerous, abounding in all the brooks and rivulets of our Northern States. He lives at our very doors; in the stream that meanders across yon meadow, where the haymakers are now busy with their scythes, we have taken him in our early days; down yonder in that wood is a brook filled with bright, lively little fellows; and away over there we know of pools where there are splendid ones. Who has not said or thought such words as he stood in the bright summer's day under the grateful shade of the piazza running round the old country house where he played--a boy? He does not make the nerves thrill and tingle like the salmon, he does not leap so madly into the air nor make such fierce, resolute rushes; he has not the silver sides, nor the great strength; but he is beautiful as the sunset sky, brave as bravery itself, and is our own home darling. How he flashes upon the sight as he grasps the spurious insect, and turns down with a quick little slap of the tail! How he darts hither and thither when he finds he is hooked! How persistently he struggles till enveloped in the net! And then with what heart-rending sighs he breathes away his life! Who does not love the lovely trout? With eye as deep and melting, skin as rich and soft, and ways as wildly wilful as angelic woman--who loves not one loves not the other. Who would not win the one cares not to win the other. Strange that man should kill the thing he loves but if to possess them kills them, he must kill. If women, like the _Ephemerae_, died, as they often do, in their love, we should still love them. Such is man; do not think I praise him. No one kills fish for the pleasure of killing; but they cannot live out of water, nor we in it, therefore one of us must die. The man who kills to kill, who is not satisfied with reasonable sport, who slays unfairly or out of season, who adds one wanton pang, that man receives the contempt of all good sportsmen and deserves the felon's doom. Of such there are but few. We seek this, our favorite fish, in early spring, when the ice has just melted, and the cold winds remind one forcibly of bleak December, and when we find him in the salt streams, especially of Long Island and Cape Cod; but we love most to follow him in the early summer, along the merry streams of old Orange, or the mountain brooks of Sullivan county; where the air is full of gladness, and the trees are heavy with foliage--where the birds are singing on every bough, and the grass redolent of violets and early flowers. There we wade the cold brooks, leafy branches bowing us a welcome as we pass, the water rippling over the hidden rocks, and telling us, in its wayward way, of the fine fish it carries in its bosom. With creel upon our shoulder and rod in hand, we reck not of the hours, and only when the sinking sun warns of the approaching darkness do we seek, with sharpened appetite, the hospitable country inn, and the comfortable supper that our prey will furnish forth. ***** There is no fish more difficult to catch, nor that gives the true angler more genuine sport, than the trout. His capture requires the nicest tackle, the greatest skill, the most complete self-command, the highest qualities of mind and body. The arm must be strong that wields the rod, the eye true that sees the rise; the wrist quick that strikes at the instant; the judgment good that selects the best spot, the most suitable fly, and knows just how to kill the fish. A fine temper is required to bear up against the loss of a noble fish, and patient perseverance to conquer ill luck. Hence it is that the fisherman is so proud of his basket of a dozen half-pound trout. He feels that any one more awkward or less resolute could not have done so well. He feels conscious that he does not owe his success to mere luck, but has deserved the glory. He feels that he has elevated himself by the very effort. Do not suppose I mean that there is no skill in other fishing; there is in all, even in catching minnows for bait, but most of all in trout-fishing. TROUT FLIES. "That _we are_ wise men, I shall not stoop to maintain, but that we do love angling we are assured of, and therein we know that we are in unison with very many greatly wise and wisely good men."--_Thaddeus Norris._ "The true angler is not confined to fly-fishing, as many imagine. When the fly can be used it always should be used, but where the fly is impracticable, or your fish will not rise to it, he is a very foolish angler who declines to use bait."--_W. C. Prime_. "The creative power of genius can make a feather-fly live, and move, and have being; and a wisely stricken fish gives up the ghost in transports."--"_J. Cypress, Jr._" [Illustration: 0224] 64. Jungle Cock. 65. Lake Green. 66. Jenny Lind. 67. Poor Man's Fly. 68. Pheasant. 69. Romeyn. 70. Morrison. 71. Katy-did. 72. Claret. 73. Hoskins. 74. Caldwell. 75. Iron Dun. 76. Queen of the Water. 77. Olive Gnat. 78. Brown Coffin. "The deftly-tossed fly, taking wing on the nerve of a masterly cast, will drop gracefully far out in the stream where the heavier gear of the bait rod would never aspire to reach."--_Charles Bullock._ "Fly-fishing may well be considered the most beautiful of all rural sports."--"_Frank Forester_." "To be a perfect trout fisher, to my mind, a man should follow no other branch of fishing. It spoils his hand if he does. I myself, from the practice of striking so hard in both salmon, pike and other fishing, lose numbers of fish and flies in the course of the season; and what makes it the more vexing is that they are nearly always the best and heaviest fish."--_Francis Francis_. "If a pricked trout is chased into another pool, he will, I believe, soon again take the artificial fly."--_Sir Humphry Davy._ "It is only the inexperienced and thoughtless who find pleasure in killing fish for the mere sake of killing them. No sportsman does this."--_W. C. Prime._ "We persevered, notwithstanding the storm, and got our hundred trout, all alive and active, into Lake Salubria. They did not, however, multiply as we hoped they would. For years one would hear occasionally of a great trout being caught in the lake, till at last they were all gone. They lacked the ripples and the running water. They lived to be old, and then died without progeny, 'making no sign.'"--_S. H. Hammond._ "The trout is such a light food, that eight of them, some ten inches long, will not make a supper for a hearty man, leading this wilderness life."--"_Porte Crayon_." "I believe I am sincere in saying that I enjoy seeing another man throw a fly, if he is a good and graceful sportsman, quite as much as doing it myself."--_W. C. Prime_. "I was content with my one glimpse, by twilight, at the forest's great and solemn heart; and having once, alone, and in such an hour, touched it with my own hand and listened to its throb, I have felt the awe of that experience evermore."--_A. Judd Northrup._ THE POETRY OF FLY FISHING By F. E. Pond. It has been said that the angler, like the poet, is born, not made. This is a self-evident fact. Few men have risen to the dignity of anglers who did not in early youth feel the unbearable impulse to go a-fishing. There are, of course, noteworthy exceptions, but the rule holds good. It might be added, too, that the genuine angler is almost invariably a poet, although he may not be a jingler of rhymes--a ballad-monger. Though, perhaps, lacking the art of versification, his whole life is in itself a well-rounded poem, and he never misses the opportunity to "cast his lines in pleasant places." This is particularly true of the artistic fly-fisher, for with him each line is cast with the poetry of motion. Ned Locus, the inimitable character of J. Cypress' "Fire Island Ana," is made to aver that he "once threw his fly so far, so delicately, and suspendedly, that it took life and wings, and would have flown away, but that a four-pound trout, seeing it start, jumped a foot from the water and seized it, thus changing the course of the insect's travel from the upper atmosphere to the bottom of his throat." Being quoted from memory, these may not be the words exactly, as Toodles would say, but the sentiment is the same. There is the true poetical spirit pervading the very air, whispering from the leaves, murmuring in the brook, and thus the surroundings of the angler complete that which nature began, and make him a poet. In common with other sports of the field, though in greater degree: "It is a mingled rapture, and we find The bodily spirit mounting to the mind." Bards have sung its praises, traditions have hallowed it, and philosophers have revelled in the gentle pastime, from the days of Oppian and Homer down to Walton, Christopher North and Tennyson. Although the art of fly-fishing was not known to the ancients, the poetry of angling has been enriched by the bards of ye-olden-time to a remarkable degree. In Pope's translation of the Iliad, the following passage occurs: "As from some rock that overhangs the flood, The silent fisher casts the insidious food; With fraudful care he waits the finny prize, Then sudden lifts it quivering to the skies." One of the most familiar of �sop's fables, in rhyme, is that of the Fisherman and the Little Fish, while Theocritus, who flourished about the year 270 B. c., gives us a spirited idyl representing the life of a Greek fisherman. Oppian and Aristotle each prepared a classical volume on fish and fishing. Pliny in his "Historia Naturalis" treats at length of the finny tribes, and Ansonius in his poem, "Mostella," describes the tench, salmon and other varieties of fish. Among the early contributions to English literature on angling, the "Poeticæ," generally attributed to a Scottish balladist known as Blind Harry, is conspicuous. Then the "Boke of St. Albans," by Dame Juliana Berners, and quaint old Izaak Walton's "Compleat Angler"--a brace of classic volumes dear to the heart of all who love the rod and reel. In modern times the literature of angling has had scores of staunch and able supporters among the writers of Britain and our own land. Sir Humphry Davy's "Salmonia"; Christopher North's essays on angling, in "Noctes Ambrosianæ"; Stoddart's Angling Songs; all these and a score of others are familiar to rodsters on both sides of the Atlantic. The clever poet and satirist, Tom Hood, discourses thus in praise of the gentle art: "Of all sports ever sported, commend me to angling. It is the wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best; the safest, cheapest, and in all likelihood the oldest of pastimes. It is a one-handed game that would have suited Adam himself; and it was the only one by which Noah could have amused himself in the ark. Hunting and shooting come in second and third. The common phrase, 'fish, flesh and fowl,' clearly hints at this order of precedence. * * * To refer to my own experience, I certainly became acquainted with the angling rod soon after the birchen one, and long before I had any practical knowledge of 'Nimrod' or 'Ramroch' The truth is, angling comes by nature. It is _in the system_, as the doctors say." It is no exaggeration to state that the real poetry of fly-fishing, as given in the grand old book of Nature, is appreciated to the fullest by American anglers. The breezy air of the forest leaves is found in the charming works of Bethune, of Herbert, Hawes, Norris, Dawson, Hallock and many other worthies, past and present. The modern Horace--he of the traditional white hat--never wrote a better essay than that descriptive of his early fishing days. The same is true of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and Charles Dudley Warner's most graphic pen picture is his inimitable sketch, "A Fight with a Trout." The number of really good books on American field sports is principally made up of angling works, a fact which goes far to establish the truth of Wm. T. Porter's assertion, namely: "No man ever truly polished a book unless he were something of an angler, or at least loved the occupation. He who steals from the haunts of men into the green solitudes of Nature, by the banks of gliding, silvery streams, under the checkering lights of sun, leaf and cloud, may always hope to cast his lines, whether of the rod or the 'record book,' in pleasant places." This may be appropriately supplemented by the opinion, poetically expressed by the same author, with reference to the art of fishing with the artificial fly, thus: "Fly-fishing has been designated the royal and aristocratic branch of the angler's craft, and unquestionably it is the most difficult, the most elegant, and to men of taste, by myriads of degrees the most pleasant and exciting mode of angling. To land a trout of three, four or five pounds weight, and sometimes heavier, with a hook almost invisible, with a gut line almost as delicate and beautiful as a single hair from the raven tresses of a mountain sylph, and with a rod not heavier than a tandem whip, is an achievement requiring no little presence of mind, united to consummate skill. If it be not so, and if it do not give you some very pretty palpitations of the heart in the performance, may we never, wet a line in Lake George, or raise a trout in the Susquehanna." Thomson, the much admired author of "The Seasons," was in his youth a zealous angler, frequently casting his fly in the rippling waters of the Tweed, a trout-stream justly famous along the Scottish border. The poet has eulogized his favorite pastime of fly-fishing in the following elegant lines: "Now, when the first foul torrent of the brooks, Swell'd with the vernal rains, is ebb'd away; And, whitening, down their mossy tinctur'd stream Descends the billowy foam, now is the time, While yet the dark brown water aids the guile To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly-- The rod, fine tapering with elastic spring, Snatch'd from the hoary stud the floating line. And all thy slender wat'ry stores prepare; But let not on thy hook the tortur'd worm Convulsive twist in agonizing folds, Which, by rapacious hunger swallow'd deep, Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast Of the weak, helpless, uncomplaining wretch, Harsh pain and horror to the tender hand." When, with his lively ray, the potent sun Has pierc'd the streams, and rous'd the finny race, Then, issuing cheerful to thy sport repair; Chief should the western breezes curling play, And light o'er ether bear the shadowy clouds, High to their fount, this day, amid the hills And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks; The next pursue their rocky-c-hannel'd maze Down to the river, in whose ample wave Their little Naiads love to sport at large. Just in the dubious point, where with the pool Is mix'd the trembling stream, or where it boils Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank Reverted plays in undulating flow, There throw, nice judging, the delusive fly; And, as you lead it round the artful curve, With eye attentive mark the springing game. Straight as above the surface of the flood They wanton rise, or, urged by hunger, leap, Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook; Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank, And to the shelving shore slow dragging some With various hand proportion'd to their force. If yet too young, and easily deceiv'd, A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod.' Him, piteous of his youth, and the short space He has enjoy'd the vital light of heaven, Soft disengage, and back into the stream The speckl'd captive throw; but, should you lure From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook, Behooves you then to ply your finest art. Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly, And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear. At last, while haply o'er the shaded sun Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death With sullen plunge: at once he darts along, Deep struck, and runs out all the lengthen'd line, Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed, The cavern'd bank, his old secure above, And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool, Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand, That feels him still, yet to his furious course Gives way, you, now retiring, following now, Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage, Till floating broad upon his breathless side, And to his fate abandon'd, to the shore You gayly drag your unresisting prize." Angling, like every other manly pastime, has had numerous assailants--some of them "men of mark," as in the case of Lord Byron, whose "fine plirensy" in denouncing Walton and the gentle art failed not to draw down upon himself the laughter of a world. The plaint of Lord Byron runs thus: "Then there were billiards; cards, too; but no dice, Save in the clubs no man of honor plays-- Boats when'twas water, skating when'twas ice, And the hard frost destroy'd the scenting days; And angling, too, that solitary vice, Whatever Izaac Walton sings or says; The quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet, Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it." Another famous satirist of the old school defines angling as "a stick and a string, with a fish at one end and a fool at the other," while a third, the well-known Peter Pindar, in closing a "Ballad to a Pish in the Brook," takes occasion to say: "Enjoy thy stream, oh, harmless fish, "And when an angler for his dish, Through gluttony's vile sin, Attempts--a wretch--to pull thee out, God give thee strength, oh, gentle trout, To pull the rascal in." All who love to go a-fishing can well afford to smile at the malicious flings of morbid critics, and while recreating both mind and body in casting the mimic fly along the dashing mountain stream, think of the deluded satirists in pity rather than condemnation. Let us, then, in unison with the quaint and charming poet, Gay: "Mark well the various seasons of the year, How the succeeding insect race appear, In their revolving moon one color reigns, Which in the next the fickle trout disdains; Oft have I seen a skilful angler try The various colors of the treach'rous fly; When he "with fruitless pain hath skim'd the brook, And the coy fish rejects the skipping hook. He shakes the boughs that on the margin grow, Which o'er the stream a weaving forest throw; When if an insect fall (his certain guide) He gently takes him from the whirling tide; Examines well his form with curious eyes, His gaudy vest, his wings, his horns, his size. Then round his hook the chosen fur he winds, And on the back a speckled feather binds; So just the colors shine through every part, That nature seems to live again in art." A PERFECT DAY By Geo. W. Van Siclen. I take my rod this fair June morning, and go forth to be alone with nature. No business cares, no roar of the city, no recitals of others' troubles and woes which make the lawyer a human hygrometer, no doubts nor fears to disturb me as, drinking in the clear, sweet air with blissful anticipation, I saunter through the wood-path toward the mountain lake. As I brush the dew from the bushes around me, I spy in a glade golden flowers glowing on a carpet of pure green, mingled with the snowy stars of white blossoms; with their fragrance comes the liquid, bell-like voice of the swamp-robin, hidden from curious eyes. Soon seated in my boat, I paddle to the shade of a tall, dark hemlock and rest there, lulled by the intense quiet. Ever and anon as I dreamily cast my ethereal fly, a thrill of pleasure electrifies me, as it is seized by a vigorous trout. I have long classed trout with flowers and birds, and bright sunsets, and charming scenery, and beautiful women, as given for the rational enjoyment and delight of thoughtful men of aesthetic tastes. And if "By deeds our lives shall measured be, And not by length of days," then a perfect life has been lived by many a noble trout whose years have been few, but who, caught by the fisher's lure (to which he was predestined, as aforesaid), has leaped into the air and shaken the sparkling drops from his purple, golden, crimson, graceful form and struggled to be free, to the intense delight of the artist who brought him to the basket, where he belonged. Thus resting, and floating apparently between the translucent crystal and the blue ether, silent, I have felt the presence of a spirit who inspires one with pure thoughts of matters far above the affairs of daily life and toil, of the universe and what lies beyond the blue sky, and of the mind and soul of man, and his future after death. * * I _love_ the mountains, and the meadows, and the woods. Later satisfied, but not satiated, with fair provision of corn, and wine, and oil, and my creel well filled, the shadows lengthen and the day begins to die. Some day I shall hear no more forever the birds sing in the sylvan shade. My eyes will no more behold the woods I love so well. For the last time my feet will slowly tread this woodland road, and I shall watch for the last time the changing shadows made by the clouds upon the hillsides. There will come a time when the setting sun will paint the west as the bridegroom colors the cheek of the bride; but I shall not know it, and I shall never again share such hours of peace with the leafy trees. Then, with folded hands upon my quiet breast, my friends will briefly gaze upon my face and I shall be gone. In that last day, so full of deepest interest to me, may my soul be pure. Filled with such thoughts, I regret that I cannot express them like the poet, whose name I know not, but whose words I will recall: "Good-bye, sweet day, good-bye! I have so loved thee, but I cannot hold thee; Departing like a dream the shadows fold thee. Slowly thy perfect beauty fades away; Good-bye, sweet day. "Good-bye, sweet day, good-bye! Dear were the golden hours of tranquil splendor. Sadly thou yieldest to the evening tender, Who wert so fair from thy first morning ray. Good-bye, sweet day. "Good-bye, sweet day, good-bye! Thy glow and charm, thy smiles and tones and glances Vanish at last and solemn night advances. Ah! couldst thou yet a little longer stay. Good-bye, sweet day. "Good-bye, sweet day, good-bye! All thy rich gifts my grateful heart remembers, The while I watched thy sunset's smouldering embers Die in the west beneath the twilight gray. Good-bye, sweet day." As the balsam-breathing night wind begins to blow, I turn my back upon the silver glancing of the moonlight on the rippling waves of the fairy lake, and step bravely into the darkness of the woods, where I cannot see the places where my foot shall fall, but I know that others have safely passed it before, and that I shall find comfort and home at the end. Note.--"Description of a day on Balsam Lake (headwaters of the Beaverkill) where no house was ever built. From the lake it is two miles through the woods (about ten miles in the dark) to the nearest house,"--Extract from letter accompanying article. "I handle this 'brown hackle' as gently as a relic, not alone because it is the memento of an unusual achievement, but because the sight of it brings up vividly before me the beautiful lake where the trout lay; its crystal waters; the glinting of its ruffled surface as the bright sun fell upon it; the densely wooded hills which encircled it; the soughing of the tall pines as the summer's breeze swept through their branches; and the thrill which coursed through every nerve as trout after trout leaped to the cast, and, after such manipulation and 'play' as only those who have had personal experience can comprehend, were duly captured."--_George Dawson._ "Don't be in too great a hurry to change your flies."--_Francis Francis._ [Illustration: 0242] 1. Brown Hackle. 2. Scarlet Hackle. 3. White Hackle. 4. Yellow Hackle. 5. Ginger Hackle. 6. Gray Hackle. 7. Black Hackle. 8. Coch-y-Bouddr. 9. Gray Hackle. 1. Emerald Gnat. 2. Black C. 3. Soldier Gnat. 1. Brown Pennell. Pennell Hackles. 2. Yellow Pennell. 3. Green Pennell. "And now we have got through the poetry of the art. Hitherto things have gone happy as a marriage bell. I unhesitatingly declare, and I confidently appeal to my brother Angler, whether he, a fly fisherman, does not feel similarly. To me fly-fishing is a labor of love; the other is labor--alone. But notwithstanding such are my feelings, it by no means follows that every one else so fancies it. Every one to his taste."--_Capt. Peel ("Dinks")_ When Spring comes round, look to your tackle with careful inspection, and see that all are in perfect order. Above all, look well to your flies; reject all specimens that have been injured by use, and all frayed gut lengths. It is better to throw away a handful now, than to lose flies and heavy fish together the first time you fasten to a rise."--_Charles Hallock_. "That hook is for a very little fly, and you must make your wings accordingly; for as the case stands it must be a little fly, and a very little one too, that must do your business."--_Charles Cotton._ "For some reason which I have not succeeded in fathoming, the yellow fly always seems to kill best in the position of dropper, or bob-fly, and the green when employed as the stretcher, or tail-fly. The brown can be used in either position."--_H. Gholmon-deley-Pennell._ "Note that usually, the smallest flies are best; and note also, that the light flie does usually make most sport in a dark day; and the darkest and least flie in a bright or clear day."--_Izaak Walton_. "No description with pen or tongue can teach you how to cast a fly. Accompany an expert and watch him."--_T. S. Up de Graff, M. D._ "There is no more graceful and healthful accomplishment for a lady than fly-fishing, and there is no reason why a lady should not in every respect rival a gentleman in the gentle art."--_W. C. Prime._ "Everything which makes deception more alluring should be resorted to by an Angler; for, let his experience be ever so great, he will always find opportunities to regret his deficiencies."--_Parker Gilmore._ SUGGESTIONS By Charles F. Orvis. During my long intercourse with the angling fraternity, I have always found its members very ready to receive and impart suggestions, in the most friendly manner. It appears to me that those who are devoted to "the gentle art," are especially good-natured; and while very many have their own peculiar ideas as to this or that, yet they are always willing and anxious to hear the opinions of others. Believing this, I am prompted to make a few suggestions, in regard to fly-fishing for trout, and the tackle used for that purpose; and if I differ from any, which will be very likely, I trust that what appears erroneous will be regarded charitably; and if I shall be so fortunate as to make any suggestions that will add to the enjoyment of any "brother of the Angle," I shall be content. The rod, of course, is of the first importance in an outfit, as very much depends on its perfection. For ordinary fly-fishing for trout, a rod from ten to twelve feet in length will be found most convenient. I use a ten-foot rod, and find it meets all my requirements. It is well to let your rod have weight enough to have some "back-bone" in it; _very_ light and _very_ limber rods are objectionable, because with them one cannot cast well against, or across the wind; and it is impossible to hook your fish with any certainty--especially with a long line out--or to handle one properly when hooked. A _very_ limber rod will not re-act quickly enough, nor strongly enough to lift the line and fix the hook firmly; because, when the upward motion is made, in the act of striking, the point of the rod first goes down; and, unless it is as stiff as it will do to have it and cast well, it will not re-act until the fish has found out his mistake and rejected the fraud. Rods ten to twelve feet long should weigh from seven and one-half to ten and one-half ounces, depending on the material and weight of mountings, size of handpiece, etc. Many, perhaps, would say, that eight to ten ounces, for a single-handed fly-rod, is too heavy; that such rods would prove tiresome to handle. Much depends on how the rod hangs. If a ten-ounce rod is properly balanced, it will be no harder work to use it than a poorly balanced seven-ounce rod--in fact, not as fatiguing. Some men can handle an eleven-foot rod with the same ease that another could one that was a foot shorter. Hence, the rod should be adapted to the person who is to use it. The stiffness of a split bamboo rod is one of its great merits. When I say stiffness, I mean the steel-like elasticity which causes it to re-act with such quickness. For material for fly-rods, bamboo ranks first, lance-wood next; after mentioning these, there is not much to say. Green-heart is too uncertain. Paddlewood is very fine, but as yet, extremely difficult to obtain in any quantity. The balance, or "hang," of a rod is of the greatest importance. Let it be never so well made otherwise, if not properly balanced it will be worthless. The elasticity should be uniform, from tip to near the hand; a true taper will not give this, because the ferules interfere with the uniform spring of the rod. For this reason a little enlargement between the ferules should be made, to compensate for the non-elasticity of the metal. These enlargements cannot be located by measurements, as much depends on the material and the length of the joint. Spliced rods can be made nearer a true taper, for obvious reasons; although there is no doubt that a spliced rod is stronger and much more perfect in casting qualities, yet they require such care to preserve the delicate ends of the splice, and are so troublesome in many ways, that few will use them. The details of rod-making having been so often told, I do not purpose making any suggestions on that subject, but will say that, in order to make a good fly-rod, the maker ought to know how to handle it, when finished. I believe in a very narrow reel, and use one that is only one-half inch between outside plates. As both outside and spool plates are perforated, my line never mildews or gets tender. Hence, it is unnecessary to take the line off to dry it, as should be done when solid reel plates are used. With such a reel my line never tangles. If your reel be narrow between plates, and large in circumference, it will take up line rapidly, and obviate the use of a multiplier, which is objectionable for fly-fishing. A light click is desirable, just strong enough to hold the handle and keep the line from over-running. More friction is of no use, and may cause you the loss of many fish. Experience satisfies me that you should use your reel on the under side of your rod, with handle towards the right--because the weight of the reel so placed holds the rod in proper position without your giving it a thought, and your right hand finds the reel handle without trouble; because your reel is thus entirely out of the way of your arm; because with the rod always in proper position, your left hand finds the line every time, to draw it from the reel when wanted for a longer cast; because with the reel on the under side the rod is always exactly balanced, and you will not have to grasp it with anywhere near the force required with the reel on the upper side. And you can make your casts with ease and lay out your flies gently and more accurately than you could with the firmer grip needful to be kept on the rod with the reel in the latter position, and because, without constant attention, your reel is never on the upper side of the rod to any certainty, but anywhere and everywhere. Keep your reels well oiled. Enamelled, or water-proof, braided silk, tapered, American fly-lines, are the best made for fly-fishing. It is important that the size of the line should be adapted to the rod. A heavy line on a very light rod would be bad. A very light line on a heavy rod would be worse. No. 3 or E, and Ko. 4 or E, are the two best sizes. I find many are inclined to use too light lines, supposing the lighter the line the less trouble there will be in casting it. This, I think, is an error.' It is impossible to cast well against or across the wind, with a very light line; and very light lines do not "lay out" as easily or accurately as heavier ones. Leaders, or casting lines, I like rather heavy, proportionate to the line. To use a very light leader on a Ko. 4 line is not well; for what is the leader but a continuation of the line? Therefore it should approximate the size of the line, that there may be no sudden change in size where the leader begins, in order that the flies shall keep ahead, where they belong. Leaders should be made with loops at proper intervals, to which the flies are to be attached. Leaders with such loops will last at least twice as long as those without them. Three flies are generally used; perhaps two are just as good. But I use three and often find the increased number to work well, as presenting a greater variety to the fickle notions of the many trout, and it is best to take all the chances. The first dropper loop should be about thirty inches from the stretcher, or tail-fly. Second dropper, twenty-four inches above first dropper--depending somewhat on the length of the leader. Let the flies be as far apart as I have indicated. A greater distance is not objectionable--a lesser is. Leaders should be tapered and made of the best quality of round gut. "Mist colored" or stained leaders are, by many, thought to be better than the clear white gut; but I must say I never have been able to see that they are, or that there is any difference, practically. There is no great objection to the colored leaders, and I use them myself usually. I will not undertake to settle the much-discussed question. Either plain or colored are good enough, if properly made and from good gut. Always let your leader lie in the water awhile before commencing to cast, that the gut may soften--or you may lose your leader, fish and temper, and blame some one because you think you have been cheated, when no one was in fault but yourself in your haste. When you have finished fishing, wind your leader around your hat, and the next time you use it it will not look like a cork-screw, and bother you half an hour in casting. To one who has not acquired the art of fishing with the fly, let me suggest that a day or two with an expert will save much time and trouble. There are many little things that cannot well be described, and would take a long time to find out by experience, that can be learned very quickly when seen. It is not easy to tell one exactly how to fish with the fly. I remember well my first trout; I remember as well, the first fine rod and tackle I ever saw, and the genial old gentleman who handled them. I had thought I knew how to fish with the fly; but when I saw my old friend step into the stream and make a cast, I just wound that line of mine around the "pole" I had supposed was about right, and I followed an artist. (I never used that "pole" again.) I devoted my time that afternoon to what to me was a revelation, and the quiet, cordial way in which the old gentleman accepted my admiration, and the pleasure he evidently took in lending to me a rod until I could get one, is one of the pleasant things I shall always retain in memory. To really enjoy fly-fishing one must be able to cast at least fairly well; to cast a very long line is not at all important--to cast easily and gently is. Fifty to sixty feet is all that is necessary for practical purposes, the great majority of trout are taken within forty feet. It is not easy to tell one how to cast. The art must be acquired by practice. As I have said, much can be learned by observing an expert. There is one great mistake made by most beginners; i.e., far too much strength is used. Let me suggest to the novice to begin with the line about the length of the rod; learn to lay that out gently, and as you take your flies off the water, do it with a quick movement, decreasing the motion until your rod is at an angle of not quite forty-five degrees behind you, this angle to be varied according to circumstances which cannot be foreseen. Then the rod must come to a short pause, just long enough to allow the line and leader time to straighten out fairly, no more. Then the forward motion must be made with a degree of force and quickness in proportion to the length of line you have _out_, decreasing the force until the rod is about horizontal; do not bring your rod to a sudden stop, or your line and your flies will come down with a splash and all in a heap; but lay your line out gently, my friend, and your flies will fall like snowflakes. It is not muscle but "gentle art" that is required. "Take it easy" and keep trying. In an open space, from a boat for instance, take your flies very nearly straight off the water; never dropping the point of your rod much to the right, as this leaves your line on the water and makes it hard to lift. Take your flies up with a quick movement, nearly vertical, and wait for them to straighten and cast again directly towards the point to which you wish them to go. After you have acquired the skill to cast straight 'before you will be time enough for you to practise side casts, under casts, etc., that you will have to use where there are obstacles before and behind you. The same movements to cast and retrieve your lines, will apply under all circumstances, whether in open water or on streams overhung with trees, or fringed with bushes. Much vexatious catching of flies may be avoided by not being too eager, and by not using too long a line. Let me add--just before your flies touch the water, draw back your rod slightly and gently; this will straighten the line, and your flies will fall exactly where you want them. Cast your flies so that they fall as lightly as possible, with your leader extended to its full length; then draw your flies in the direction you wish, being careful not to draw them too far, or you will have trouble in retrieving your line for another cast. With your rod too perpendicular you cannot lift your line quickly enough to carry it back with sufficient force to straighten it out, and your next cast will be a failure. There is also much danger of breaking your rod. Usually you will get your rise just an instant after your flies touch the water, or before you have drawn them more than a little distance. It is better to cast often and draw your flies back just far enough so that you can easily lift your line for another cast. Moreover, with your rod too perpendicular it is not easy to hook your fish; so cast often and cover all parts of the pool. I think most skilful fly-fishers draw their flies with a slightly tremulous motion, to make the flies imitate the struggles of an insect, and I believe it to be a good method. It certainly is not objectionable, and you will find it can be done without thought; the habit once formed and it will be difficult for you to draw your flies otherwise. The instant you see a rise at one of your flies, strike quickly, but not too strongly, nor with a long pull, but with a short, sharp motion, not too strong or long enough to raise even a small fish from the water, but just enough to drive the hook firmly in. This may be done by an upward and inward motion, or a side motion, as circumstances may dictate. A slight turn of the wrist is often all that is required; but if you have a long line out, you will have to use your arm and more force. Your fish hooked, keep him well in hand; don't give him any more line than is necessary. When he is determined to run, let him do so; but keep your fingers on the line and put all the strain on him you safely can, increasing the strain the further he goes. Turn him as soon as possible, and the instant you have done so, begin to reel him in. When he runs again, repeat the dose and get his head out of the water a little as soon as you dare. This exhausts him quickly. Don't raise him too far out of the water, or in his struggles he will break loose. Should a fish try to run under the boat, reel up until your line is no longer than your rod, or nearly so, then firmly guide him around the end--remembering always "it is skill against brute force." In stream-fishing, always wade if you can. When fishing from a boat never stand up if you can help it, but learn to cast sitting down. It is just as easy if you once learn how. On streams it is better to wade, because your feet produce no jar for you cannot well raise them out of the water, and dare not often. And for various reasons a person alarms the fish less in wading than in fishing from the bank. Fish down stream always if possible. You can, in so doing, look over the pools and approach them to the best advantage. It is easier to wade with the current, and as you cast your flies you can let them float naturally for just an instant, without their being drawn under the surface. This instant is the time that, in a great majority of cases, you get your rise. Every one who has fished much with a fly knows how often he has whipped every inch of a pool and failed to get a rise where he was sure his flies could be seen from any part of it, and at last, when he placed his flies in one particular spot, his hopes were realized in an instant. Why did not the trout rise before? Because he waited until his food came to him. In streams, especially, trout usually rise an instant after the flies touch the water, and I believe that trout in streams commonly wait for their food to come to them, and do not often dart out from where they are lying to any great distance, but wait until the fly comes nearly or quite over them, and then rise to the surface and take the fly with a snap and instantly turn head down to regain the position they had left. In doing this they often turn a somersault and throw themselves out of the water; as they go over, their tails come down on the water with a splash, which some persons think is intentionally done to strike the fly or insect in order to kill or injure it and then afterwards capture it. Such persons fail to see the trout's head at all, for very often it barely comes to the surface, but the quick motion to go down throws the tail up and over--hence the error, as I consider it. Any one who will take the trouble to throw house flies to trout in an aquarium, will never again think trout strike their prey with their tails. The kinds of flies to be used vary with the locality, stream, state and stage of the water, weather, etc. The fly that pleased the fancy of the trout to-day--to-morrow perhaps in the same stream and under the same conditions, as far as any one could see, would fail. The only way is to keep trying until the one is found that _does_ please. Don't change too often, but give each "cast" a fair trial. I do not believe in certain flies for certain months in the year. I have stood up to my knees in snow and taken trout, in mid-winter, with the same flies I had used in mid-summer. In low, clear water, especially in streams, small flies should be used. In higher water, larger flies are better, as a rule. When the water is high--as early in the season--larger and brighter-colored flies may be used to more advantage. Later, when the water is low and clear, smaller flies and more sober colors are best. I believe, however, that rules for the choice of flies have a great many exceptions, and the best rule I know of, is to keep trying different kinds and sizes until successful. It is often said, "there is no need of so great a variety of flies." I do not think this is true. Doubtless there are many styles that might well be dispensed with, but one never knows which to discard, and no man can tell him, for the very flies one man would say were worthless, another would consider the best--and prove it, plainly, by the success he had had with that very fly. So it is well to be provided with many kinds and sizes. I have learned of the merits of so many different kinds of flies that I sometimes think nearly all are good--at some time or under some circumstances. There is much doubt in my mind as to the necessity of having the artificial flies like the insects that are near or on the water. One of the best flies that has ever been known--the Coachman--does not in the least resemble any known insect, I believe--and but few of the many patterns made imitate anything in nature. The Cowdung fly, another one of the most "taking" flies--_does_ very much resemble the natural fly of that name--but I never saw or heard of their being on or near the water. Early in the season, while the weather is yet cold, the middle of the day is usually quite as good, and I think the best time for fly-fishing. Later, in warm weather, the evening is the best, and often the last two hours of a pleasant day are worth all the rest of it. Generally speaking, a gentle southerly breeze is the most favorable wind; yet I have had splendid sport during a strong north-easterly wind, but not often. In conclusion, be patient and persevering, move quietly, step lightly, keep as much out of sight of the fish as possible, and remember, trout are not feeding all the time. Perhaps during the last hour before dark you may fill your basket, that has been nearly empty since noon. Don't give up, as long as you can see--or even after--and you may when about to despair take some fine large fish. Unless one can enjoy himself fishing with the fly, even when his efforts are unrewarded, he loses much real pleasure. More than half the intense enjoyment of fly fishing is derived from the beautiful surroundings, the satisfaction felt from being in the open air, the new lease of life secured thereby, and the many, many pleasant recollections of all one has seen, heard and done. BASS FLIES. "Doubt not, therefore, sir, but that angling is an art, and an art worth your learning; the question is, rather, whether you be capable of learning it, for angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so: I mean with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice; but he that hopes to be a good angler must not only bring an inquiring, searching, observing wit, but he must bring a large measure of hope and patience, and a love and propensity to the art itself; but having once got and practised it, then doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant that it will prove to be like virtue, a reward to itself."--_Izaak Walton_. "The black bass are unquestionably as fine a fish for angling purposes as any we possess, and as an article of food are equal to our best."--_Parker Gilmore._ [Illustration: 0260] 1. Cheney. 2. White Miller. 3. La Belle. 4. Scarlet Ibis. 5. Shad-Fly. 6. Green and Gold. "Never use too much power in casting; it is not only not necessary, but it is injurious. You cast the line with the top and half the second joint, and very little force suffices to bring this into play. If you use more, all the effect is to bring the lower part of the rod into action, which has very little spring compared with the top of it."-- _Francis Francis._ "Although trout are taken with numerous angle worms, still frequently all these will fail, and a colored imitation fly will lure them, and herein lastly consists the science of the fisherman, in judging what style of fly is appropriate to a peculiar state of the atmosphere or reality." _A. Robinson Warren._ "Black bass when struck and played will always head down stream."--_W. C. Harris._ "Fish always lose by being 'got in and dressed.' It is best to weigh them while they are in the water. The only really large one I ever caught got away with my leader when I first struck him. He weighed ten pounds."--_Charles Dudley Warner._ "The aim of the angler ought to be, to have his artificial fly calculated, by its form and colors, to attract the notice of the fish; in which case he has a much greater chance of success, than by making the greatest efforts to imitate any particular species of fly." --_Professor Rennie._ "I fear it will be almost deemed heresy to place the black bass on a par with the trout; at least, some such idea I had when I first heard the two compared; but I am bold, and will go further. I consider he is the superior of the two, for he is equally good as an article of food, and much stronger and untiring in his efforts to escape when hooked."--_Parker Gilmore_. "The one great ingredient in successful fly-fishing is patience. The man whose fly is always on the water has the best chance. There is always a chance of a fish or two, no matter how hopeless it looks. You never know what may happen in fly-fishing."--_Francis Francis._ "In bass fishing we have thought the moon to be an advantage. If it does not guide the prey to the lure, it at least lends beauty to the scene and bathes in its pale light the surroundings of the fisherman, which are often so exceedingly beautiful. In addition, it assists him in his work and enables him to handle his tackle more easily and play his fish more comfortably."--_Seth Green._ THE RESOURCES OF FLY-FISHING. By Dr. James A. Henshall. The charms of fly-fishing have been sung in song and story from time immemorial by the poetically gifted devotees of the gentle art, who have embalmed the memory of its aesthetic features in the living green of graceful ferns, in the sweet-scented flowers of dell and dingle, and in the liquid music of purling streams. The fly-fisher is a lover of Nature, pure and simple, and has a true and just appreciation of her poetic side, though he may lack the artist's skill to limn her beauties, or the poet's genius to describe them. "To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language." And what delightful converse she holds with the fly-fisher, as with rod and creel he follows the banks of the meandering stream, or wades its pellucid waters, easting, ever and anon, the gossamer leader and feathery lure into shadowy nooks, below sunny rapids, over foam-flecked eddies, and on silent pools. She speaks to him through the rustling leaves, murmurs to him from the flowing stream, and sighs to him in the summer breeze. She is vocal in a myriad of voices, and manifest in innumerable ways. The still fisher, reclining on the mossy bank, is disposed to dreamy reveries, to pleasant fancies; but the fly-fisher, with quickened senses, has an ear for every sound, an eye for every object, and is alive to every motion. He hears the hum of the bee, the chirp of the cricket, the twitter of the sparrow, the dip of the swallow; he sees the gay butterfly in its uncertain flight, the shadow of the drifting cloud, the mossy rock, the modest violet, the open-eyed daisy; he is conscious of the passing breeze, of the mellow sunlight, of the odors of the flowers, of the fragrance of the fields. Nothing escapes his keen notice as he easts his flies, hither and yon, in the eager expectation of a rise. Fly-fishing is, indeed, the poetry of angling. The capture of the salmon is an epic poem, the taking of the trout an idyl. But it is not my presumptuous purpose to ring the changes on the delights of salmon or trout fishing, for they have been immortalized by the pens of gifted anglers for ages. My feeble effort would be but a sorry imitation of those glorious spirits who have made their last cast, who have crossed to the other side of the river, and "Gone before To that unknown and silent shore." So, leaving the salmon, the trout, and the grayling to their well-earned laurels, I wish to say a word for several less pretentious, because less known, game-fishes, whose merits are perhaps as great for the fly-fisher as those familiar game-beauties of the waters. It is among the possibilities, in this world of transitory things, that fly-fishing for the salmonids in the United States will, in the near future, be known only by tradition. It should, therefore, be a source of great consolation to the fly-fisher to know that there are now, and perhaps will ever be, in the streams and lakes of this broad land, percoid game-fishes equally worthy of his skill, which require only to be known to be properly appreciated. First among these is the black bass, which already ranks the brook trout in the estimation of those anglers who know him best: and when I say black bass, I include both species. The black bass is, at least, the peer of the trout in game qualities, and in rising to the artificial fly, under proper conditions. An allusion to a few of these conditions may not seem out of place. As a rule, the best time of day for fly-fishing for the black bass is from an hour before sunset until dark, though there are times when he will rise to the fly at almost any hour of the day. It is important that the angler keep out of sight, and that the shadow of his rod be not disclosed to the wary and suspicious bass; for if he sees either, he will not notice the flies, however skillfully and coaxingly they may be cast. Thus it is that the earlier and later hours of the day are best; the angler, facing the sun, the shadows are cast far behind him; or, before sunrise or after sunset, or on cloudy days, the shadows are not so apparent, and the bass are more apt to rise. If the fly-fisher for black bass will faithfully follow these precautions, he will not be disappointed at the result. There is another condition, equally important, that must ever be borne in mind: The black bass will rise to the fly only in comparatively shallow water, say from one to six feet in depth. This is a feature often overlooked by many fly-fishers in their first experiences in black bass fishing. They seem to think that he should rise to the fly in any situation where he can be taken with bait; but a moment's consideration will show this to be fallacious. A brook trout will take a bait twenty feet below the surface, but will not rise to a fly from the same depth. Trout streams are generally shallow, while the salmon swims very near the surface; thus it is that the angler is seldom disappointed in their rising to the fly. On the other hand, the black bass, while inhabiting larger and deeper streams, is, unlike the trout, a great rover, or forager, frequenting both deep and shallow waters. As a rule, he is in shallow water early in the season, retiring to the depths in the hottest weather; again appearing on the shallows in the fall, and in winter seeking the deepest water to be found. Trout inhabiting deep ponds and lakes rise to the fly only when in comparatively shallow water, or when near the surface. The fly-fisher, therefore, must expect to be successful only when the proper conditions exist. I would like to pursue this subject further, but in so brief an article as this, only the most general and important features can be noticed. Any good trout fly-rod, from ten to eleven feet long, and from eight to nine ounces in weight, will answer for black bass fishing; the heavier rod to be used only where the bass run quite large, averaging three pounds or more. The best line is one of braided silk, tapered, waterproof, and polished. The leader should be six feet of strong single gut, and but two flies should be used in the cast. As to flies, the angler must take his choice. My experience has led me to confine myself to a dozen varieties for black bass fishing, and they are usually, though not always, best in the order named: Polka, King of the Waters, Professor, Oriole, Grizzly King, Coachman, Henshall, Oconomowoe, Ped Ibis, Lord Baltimore, White and Ibis, and the various hackles (palmers), the best being the brown. The Abbey, or Soldier, may often be substituted for the King of the Waters, being similar in appearance, and others may be substituted in like manner for several in the above list. The Polka, Oriole, Oconomowoc and Henshall, are flies of my own designing, and are usually very killing, especially the Polka, Their construction is as follows: Polka.--Body, scarlet, gold twist; hackle, red; wings black with white spots (guinea fowl); tail, brown and white, mixed. Oriole.--Body, black, gold tinsel; hackle, black; wings, yellow or orange; tail, black and yellow, mixed. Oconomowoc.--Body, creamy yellow; liackle, white and dun (deer's tail); tail, ginger; wings, cinnamon (woodcock). Henshall.--Body, peacock herl; hackle, white hairs from deer's tail; wings, light drab (dove); tail, two or three fibres of peacock's tail-feather. The Lord Baltimore fly originated with Prof. Alfred M. Mayer, of the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, its formula being as follows: Lord Baltimore.--Body, orange; hackle, tail, and wings black, with small upper wings of jungle-cock. Professor Mayer and myself, being natives of Baltimore, designed, unknown to each other, a fly to embody the heraldic colors of Lord Baltimore and the coat of arms of Maryland--black and orange. He named his fly, "Lord Baltimore," while mine I designated the "Oriole," from the Baltimore oriole, or hanging bird, which beautiful songster was named in honor of Lord Baltimore, its colors being black and orange. Black bass flies should not be too large, nor yet too small, the largest brook trout flies being about the right size. They should be tied on Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks, the first-named being the best, from Nos. 2 to 5. In the above list of flies, most of them are "general" flies, one of which, at least, can be used in the cast under almost any circumstances. The darkest ones are best for bright days and clear water, the brighter ones for dark days or high water, and the lightest ones, e. g.; Coachman and White and Ibis, after sundown. There are several other inland fishes belonging to the same family (_Centrarchidoe_) as the black bass, which, though generally lightly esteemed, are good pan-fishes, are quite gamy, will rise eagerly to the fly, and in the absence of more desirable fishes, afford good sport to the fly-fisher with light and suitable tackle. The Rock Bass (_Ambloplites rupestris_), sometimes called "Red-eye," is well-known west of the Allegha-nies. Its color is olive-green, with dark mottled markings and brassy and coppery reflections. The iris of the eye is scarlet. The dorsal fin has eleven spines and eleven soft rays; anal fin, six spines and ten soft rays. It has a large mouth, rises well to the fly, and when it attains its maximum weight of a pound or two, fights vigorously on a six-ounce fly-rod and light tackle. Any of the "general" trout flies, tied on Sproat hooks, Nos. 5 to 7, will answer for rock bass. The Calico Bass (_Pomoxys sparoides_), variously known as "Northern Croppie," "Strawberry Bass," "Grass Bass," "Silver Bass," "Chincapin Perch," etc., is a very handsome fish, bright green and silvery, with purplish reflections, and numerous dark spots or blotches. The fins are also much mottled, especially the anal fin. It has a smaller mouth, and is not quite so gamy as the rock bass, but is, withal, a great favorite with many anglers. The radial formula of its fins are: Dorsal, seven spines, fifteen soft rays; anal, six spines, eighteen soft rays. The Southern Croppie (_Pomoxys annularis_) is also called "Bachelor," "Tin-month," "Speckled-perch," "New-light," "Campbellite," etc. It is closely allied to the last-named species, but is not quite so deep in body, and has a larger, thinner, and more delicate mouth. It is also much lighter in color, olivaceous, and silvery, sometimes quite pale, with much smaller spots, and the anal fin is pale and scarcely marked. Its dorsal fin has but six spines, and fifteen soft rays; anal fin, six spines, eighteen rays. Both the "Croppies" have large anal fins, fully as large as the dorsals. They grow to two or three pounds in weight, usually swim in schools, and lurk about logs, brush, or fallen trees, under dams, etc. They give fair sport on a five-ounce rod. Trout flies of subdued tints should be used for croppies, as the gray, brown and red hackles, gray drake, brown drake, stone fly, black gnat, blue dun, etc. The Black Sunfish (_Chaenobryttus gulosus_), known in the South as the "War-mouth Perch," is more nearly related to the black bass than any other member of the family in its large mouth, the radial formula of its fins, and to some extent in its coloration; it also partakes of the gamy nature of the black bass to no inconsiderable degree. Its color is dark olive-green on the back, the sides lighter, with blotches of blue and coppery red, the belly brassy or yellowish; iris red; ear-flap black, bordered with pale red. It has teeth on the tongue. Dorsal fin, ten spines, nine soft rays; anal, three spines, eight rays. With a six-ounce fly-rod, and any of the flies named for black bass, the fly-fisher will find this fish worthy of his steel, as it grows to two pounds in weight. The Blue Sunfish (_Lepomis pallidus_) is a very common and widely-diffused species. In the South, it is known as the "Blue Bream," and "Copper-nosed Bream." Its mouth is quite small. In color it is olivaceous or bluish-green, with a distinct dusky spot on the last rays of dorsal and anal fins. The dorsal has ten spines, eleven rays; anal, three spines and ten soft rays. It is closely allied to the following species. The Long-eared Sunfish (_Lepomis megalotis_), or "Red-bellied Bream," or "Red-bellied Perch," of the Southwest, is one of the handsomest sunfishes. Its color is bluish on the back, with the belly red or orange; cheeks with blue and red stripes; colors very brilliant; iris bright red; ear-flap very large, black, with pale border. Dorsal fin with ten spines, ten soft rays; anal, three spines, ten rays. Both this and the last-named species are quite wary, very gamy, and are greatly esteemed by Southern anglers, and not without reason. When they reach a pound or two in weight they furnish excellent sport on a five-ounce rod. Any of the trout-flies of gay patterns, as Red Ibis, White and Ibis, Professor, Grizzly King, etc., on Sproat hooks, Nos. 8 to 10, will answer, if the day be not too bright, in which event less showy flies should be used. As a rule, any of the hackles (palmers), are good flies for these or any fishes of this family. The striped-bass group, or sub-family (_Labracinoe_), is composed of some of our best game-fishes. They will all rise to the fly, but more especially the fresh water species. Those of the coast, the striped-bass or rock-fish (_Roccus lineatus_), and the white perch (_Roccus americanus_), when they enter brackish and fresh-water streams, are frequently taken with a gaudy fly. The White Bass (_Roccus chrysops_), also called "Striped Lake Bass," and "Fresh-water Striped Bass," is a well-known game-fish of the great lakes and Upper Mississippi Valley, and is rightly held in much favor by western anglers. Its color is silvery, darker above, with a number of dark stripes along the sides, four or five being above the lateral line. The mouth is large. There are two distinct dorsal fins, being entirely separated. The first dorsal has nine spines; the second dorsal, one spine and fourteen soft rays; anal fin has three spines and twelve soft rays. A patch of teeth on base of tongue. Its usual weight is one to three pounds, though it is occasionally taken up to four or five pounds. It is good game, rises well to the fly, and on a six or seven-ounce rod is capable of giving fine sport. The Yellow Bass (_Roccus interruptus_), or "Brassy Bass," or "Short Striped Bass" takes the place of the white bass in the Lower Mississippi Valley, and is closely allied to it, though it usually does not grow so large by a pound or two. It has a smaller mouth, and has no teeth on the base of its tongue. Its color is brassy, olivaceous above, with seven very black stripes along its sides. The dorsal fins are somewhat connected at the base. First dorsal has nine spines; second dorsal has one spine and twelve soft rays; anal fin, three spines, nine soft rays. Any of the flies recommended for the black bass, though made smaller and tied on Sproat hooks, Nos. 4 to 6, will be found excellent for the white and yellow bass. In the perch family (_Percidoe_) are several species that are excellent for the table, and not to be despised as game-fishes. The most commonly known is The Yellow Perch (_Perca americana_), which inhabits most of the waters of the Northwest and East, being found in both fresh and brackish waters. In color it is dark olive with yellow sides, and some halfdozen dark vertical bars; upper fins, dusky yellowish; lower fins, reddish. Mouth moderate in size. First dorsal fin has thirteen spines; second dorsal, one spine and thirteen soft rays; anal, two spines, eight soft rays. It grows usually to a pound, though sometimes to double that weight. It rises pretty well at times, to a small gaudy fly, and on a five-ounce rod will give considerable sport to the angler. The Pike-Perch (_Stizostedium vitreum_), likewise known as "Mall-eyed Pike," "Glass Eye," and in some waters called "Salmon," and in Canada known as "Pickerel," is a fine table fish, growing occasionally to fifteen or twenty, and even to forty pounds, though its usual weight is from four to six pounds. Its color is a greenish-olive, mottled with brassy yellow; it has a large black spot on the first dorsal fin. Eye large. First dorsal fin has thirteen spines; second dorsal, two spines and twenty soft rays; anal, two spines, twelve rays. There is a much smaller variety of this species (var. _salmoneum_), which grows to but two or three pounds. It has a larger eye. Its color is bluer, or greener than the above, and not so brassy. First dorsal has fourteen spines; second dorsal, one spine, twenty soft rays; anal fin, two spines, thirteen soft rays. Both of these fishes, together with the next-named, are hard-pulling, vigorous fishes on the rod, though they do not exhibit much dash or take much line. They swim away rather slowly, but are constantly jerking, tugging and pulling on the line in such a way as to compel the angler to handle them carefully to preserve his tackle intact. They are regarded with much favor by anglers in the West and Northwest. The same tackle is used as for black bass. The Saugek (_Stizostedium canadense_) is also called "Jack," "Sand-pike," "Gray-pike," and "Battle-snake-pike." It is closely related to the foregoing species, though smaller, growing to a length of twelve to fifteen inches. It is longer and rounder in proportion than any of the pike-perches, with a more pointed head and smaller eye. Its color is paler, grayish above, with brassy sides, which are marked by several blackish blotches or patches. First dorsal fin has two or three rows of' round black spots. First dorsal has twelve spines; second dorsal, one spine, seventeen soft rays; anal, two spines, twelve soft rays. Both species of pike-perch are nocturnal (the last not so much so), and are very similar in their habits. Usually they rise best to the fly at sundown, continuing until late in the evening, especially on moonlight nights; therefore at least one fly in the cast should be some light-colored fly, as the Coachman, White and Ibis, or Miller. Sometimes, however, darker flies are just as good after nightfall as during daylight. The flies for pike-perch should be as large or larger than bass flies, and should be tied on Sproat hooks, Nos. 1 to 3. The angler who is so unfortunately situated as to be debarred from salmon, trout, or black bass fly-fishing, can always find in the small streams or ponds near him, one or more of the fishes described in the foregoing account, when, by the use of very light and suitable tackle, he can enjoy to a great degree the delights and pleasures of fly-fishing. Even the despised pike or pickerel species (_Esocidoe_) and some of the catfishes will rise to a large and gaudy fly. In Florida I have taken catfish with the artificial fly until my arms ached and I was fain to cry quits. I have also taken many marine species with the fly, as red-fish, blue-fish, sea-trout, snappers, groupers, crevalle, bone-fish, snooks, etc., etc., and once, as a matter of experiment, a five-foot alligator. The 'gator was taken with a "fly" tied on a shark-hook, the hackled body being a squirrel's tail, with wings of a small seagull. The rod, used on that occasion only, was a light pine sprit (belonging to the sail of a small boat), fifteen feet in length, an inch and a half in diameter at the centre and tapering to an inch at each end. Thus it will be seen that the opportunities and resources for fly-fishing are nearly as great as for baitfishing, and that it only remains for the angler to take advantage of them, study the habits of the fishes, attain the necessary skill in casting, and practice due caution in fishing. "All the charm of the angler's life would be lost but for these hours of thought and memory. All along a brook, all day on lake or river, while he takes his sport, he thinks. All the long evenings in camp, or cottage, or inn, he tells stories of his own life, hears stories of his friends' lives, and if alone calls up the magic of memory."--_W. C. Prime._ "It is a mooted question among the very best 'fly-fishers,' whether an exact representation of the living insect is necessary to insure success in angling with the fly. The Scotch flies are not imitations of living insects; and the best anglers in that country maintain the opinion that it is absolutely useless and unnecessary to imitate any insect either winged or otherwise."--"_Frank Forester._" [Illustration: 0278] 7. Henshall. 8. "Oconomowoc." 9. Oriole. 10. Polka. 11. Ondawa. 12. "W. T." "Sometimes, of course, the loss of fish, or even fish and tackle, cannot be avoided: but good, careful work and the best materials will frequently obviate so annoying an ordeal. However, having struck your fish, the tackle and your own coolness are generally responsible for the issue, and woe betide you if careless knot or indifferent tying should have been made in constructing your leader or fry,"--_Parker Gilmore_. "It is well known that no person who regards his reputation will ever kill a trout with anything but a fly. It requires some training on the part of the trout to take to this method. The uncultivated, unsophisticated trout in unfrequented waters prefers the bait and the rural people, whose sole object in going a-fishing appears to be to catch fish, indulge them in their primitive taste for the worm. No sportsman, however, will use anything but a fly, except he happens to be alone."--_Charles Dudley Warner._ "The true fly-fisher, who practises his art _con amore_, does not delight in big catches, nor revel in undue and cruel slaughter. He is ever satisfied with a moderate creel, and is content with the scientific and skilful capture of a few good fish. The beauties of nature, as revealed in his surroundings--the sparkling water, the shadow and sunshine, the rustling leaves, the song of birds and hum of insects, the health-giving breeze--make up to him a measure of true enjoyment, and peace, and thankfulness, that is totally unknown to the slaughterer of the innocents, whose sole ambition is to fill his creel and record his captures by the score."--_James A. Henshall, M.D._ "In the fly book the sportsman collects his treasures--the fairy imitations of the tiny nymphs of the water side--and it is the source of much delight in inspecting, replenishing and arranging during the season that the trout are safe from honorable pursuit."--_R. B. Roosevelt_. "There have been caught in Walden, pickerel, one weighing seven pounds, to say nothing of another which carried off a reel with great velocity, which the fisherman safely set down at eight pounds, because he did not see him. I am thus particular, because the weight of a fish is commonly its only title to fame."--_Henry D. Thoreau_. "Wet days in camp try 'grit.' 'Clear grit' brightens more crystalline the more it is rained upon; sham grit dissolves into mud and water."--_Theodore Winthrop_. WINTER ANGLING By Frank S. Pinckney. The best winter angling is to be Had in that charming interval between the hallowed old holidays and that sloppy period which, of late years, heralds the slow approach of spring in these our latitudes. The practice of angling at this season of the year for large trout, immense black bass and preternatural mascalonge, has grown of late to proportions which seem to warrant some special mention of so delightful, if unseasonable, a sport, as well as some brief description of the tackle and paraphernalia required for its fullest enjoyment. To the winter angler a first-class outfit is of prime importance. The poles should be of well-seasoned hickory or hard maple, from eight to ten inches in diameter, in sections about three feet in length. These need not to be divested of their rich covering of bark, curved, bronzed and lichened, but should be fitted, fresh from the sheltered pile, with careful skill into an old-fashioned open fire-place, about which, in years agone, the angling forefathers of the angler of to-day told marvellous tales of deeds of "derring do" with "dipscys," bobs and poles; and about which now _his_ children list with wonder, not unmingled with some tinge of incredulity, to His yet more wondrous recitals of brave contests and curious captures with dainty rods and delicate reels. The winter anglers wading shoes may be made of any soft material that will protect his feet should they chance to slip from the old brass fender down upon the sombre painted brick hearth below, during some delicious drowse. Most anglers have lady friends--fair cousins and others, who make them nicely with substantially embroidered lily-pads and firm strong rosebuds and vigorous elastic daffadowndillys. These are a good protection--but the soles? Two dollars and a half, without hob nails, and no deduction for small feet! Even winter angling has its drawbacks. The winter angler's fishing coat should be warmly quilted to protect him from the cold, and may be of a color to suit his complexion if he has one. It should be given him by his wife or "ladye faire" as a sample of her skill in manipulating the needle and--the dressmaker. As to the kind of lure required, much must depend upon the taste of the individual angler, but it certainly ought to be hot and not have _too_ much water in it. For protection against black flies, midgets and mosquitoes, he may, if he likes, smear his face and hands with oils either of tar or of pennyroyal, or he may build a "smudge" on the library table, but the most successful winter anglers I know use for this purpose a hollow tube of convenient length with a bowl at one end and a set of teeth, either real or artificial, at the other. The bowl may be filled with any harmless weed capable of burning slowly as, for example, tobacco. As a rule, one of these will answer the purpose, but if the flies are especially troublesome, or the angler should chance to be bald-headed, he may be forced to ask a brother angler to come to his assistance with a contrivance of a similar nature. Together they will probably be able to defy all attacks of the black flies or even the blues. As to creels (or baskets) the merest mention will suffice. At the nearest newspaper office will be found one of suitable size and fair proportions. It is called a "waste basket" and is specially constructed to hold the abnormal catches made by winter anglers. Possibly the highest charm of winter angling (or as some call it "Fireside fishing") is the grand wide ranging freedom of it. Three vast realms are at one's command. The realm of Memory, with its myriad streams of recollection filled with the fish and fancies of the Past. The realm of Anticipation bright with golden dreams of the coming open season, and lastly the realm of Pure Lying, wherein from the deep, dark pools of his own inner turpitude the angler at each cast hooks a speckled-sided Hallucination (_Salmo Hullucionidus_), a large-moutlied Prevarication (_Micropterus Prevaricatrix_), or a silver-gleaming Falsehood (_Salmoides Falsus_), each more huge than the other, and all "beating the record" quite out of the field. * * Note--The writer respectfully submits this nomenclature to revision by Dr. Henshall, an unquestioned authority. What wonderful vistas, what remotely narrowing perspectives, stretch away into the vague distances of the first two of these grand realms! How far reachingly the life-lines of anglers uncoil in both directions from the reel of time--"playing" the hoarded treasures of memory at one end, and making tournament easts into the future with the other! Are not the time-worn rod-case and the well-thumbed fly-book and note-book on his table, side by side with the last daintily tapered product of his plane, rasp and scraper--his rod, just finished for the coming summer--which, perchance for him may never come? Is he not at once revelling in the past and dreaming of the future? There is no sport, when known in all its branches, that is so fully an all-the-year-round delight as is angling. Many an idle hour of the long winter evenings may be pleasantly passed by the angler in "going over" his tackle, oiling his reels, airing his lines, and re-arranging his flies, freeing them from the moth and rust that do corrupt. He is but a slovenly worshipper at the shrine of the good Saint Izaak, who casts aside his panoply after the last bout of autumn and gives no thought to it again till spring makes her annual jail-delivery of imprisoned life. Constant care of the belongings of his art, be he fly or bait fisher, is characteristic of the faithful angler, and only simple justice to the tackle maker. There is nothing sadder or more dejected-looking than a crippled rod and a neglected "kit" full of snarled lines, rusty hooks, and moth-eaten flies. In the matter of winter angling, the fly-fisherman has a decided advantage over him who uses bait alone. The art for him has more side issues. He may, if he can, learn to tie flies or contrive and construct newfangled fly-books. The effort to learn will probably ruin his temper and break up his domestic relations if he has any, but it is not for me to say that "_le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle_." If no domestic ties trend him toward caution as yet, and he dreads none in the future, he may even venture the attempt to make his own rods. Let me say a word here of amateur tackle-making from the standpoint of personal experience. It is agreeable--it is even fascinating, but it does not _pay_; very few have the mechanical deftness, the patience, taste, and judgment combined to really excel in any of its branches. No young man with a career to make for himself by dint of constant toil or close application to a business or profession has any right to devote to these arts the time and attention they demand if even a fair degree of skill is to be attained. For the angler of "elegant leisure" this has no weight perhaps, but he too will, as a rule, find better tackle than he can make, readily at his command at a cost so inconsiderable as to quite justify me in saying that his amateur work will not _pay_--for, if he be young, out-of-door sports will far better serve to lay up in his still developing frame the treasures of health and vitality for future use. There are those, indeed, for whom it is a proper employment of time and who are endowed with the peculiar faculties required. To such it is a charming occupation, a delightful distraction, and a choice factor in the enjoyment of the winter angler by the fireside. Every angler ought to keep a record or diary of his angling bouts. Most anglers do so, I think. Therein should be recorded not only the weight and size of daily catch, the number saved, and the number _thrown back_, (I look back with especial pride upon my record in this direction), but also some jottings of scenes, impressions, and incidents. Reading therefrom years after at the fireside he will detect a faint perfume of old forests in the winter air, and hear again in fancy the swirl of swift waters sweeping among mossy rocks. I take up my own, quoting from it almost at random note, if you please, how, in untamed words, have expressed themselves the exhilaration of the stream--the tingling of healthy blood through ample veins--the joy in nature's aspects, and the delightful sense of unrestraint that comes only of fresh air, of wholesome exercise, of angling. "May 20th.-- * * * The streams hereabout lack two important elements which are the charm of my favorite-----kill, to wit, picturesqueness and the possibility of large trout--large, I mean, for our mountain brooks where still found _au naturel_. I went over the other day to Bright's Run. I don't know exactly where it is, and I consider it (next to Bright's disease of the kidneys) the very worst thing Bright has developed. It is a stream such as might properly empty into the Dismal Swamp, and find itself quite at home there. It is totally devoid, of romantic beauty--and nearly so of trout. I never worked so hard in my life for twenty-two little ones, that put me to the blush as I put them in the basket. I was perpetually in a row with the overhanging thickets and the underlying logs, and my thoughts were a monologue of exclamation points. I would not angle in Bright's turgid waters again for all the trout the most minute analysis might discover in them. "Yesterday I had a much more agreeable day without a seven-mile ride on a pesky buck-board. I went quite alone, up the Buckhill as far as the Fall. This is a pleasant stream full of nature--and sawdust--with here and there a speckled trout and here and there a black snake. (By special permission of mr. Tennyson.) There really are now and then cool little nooks which make one envy the trout; and an occasional spring dripping with a fresh _rat-tat-tat_ over rocks and moss and into one's whiskey in spite of all one can do. This sort of thing is what makes a trout-stream after all. You may catch a whale in a goose-pond but it isn't angling. To me much depends upon surroundings. I like to form a picturesque part of a picturesque whole. Even when there is no audience in the gallery. "Given, a dark glen fringed with pines that sigh and pine high up aloft--a pool whose sweep is deep, around which rocks in tiers, mossy as tombstones centuries old, bow their heads in mourning--heads crowned with weeds, and grave-mounds of mother earth, and pallid flowers, pale plants and sapless vines that struggle through shadows of a day in coma, laid in the hearse of night, without a proper permit, and I am happy. I don't know just why, but if I meet an undertaker I mean to ask him. All these deep, dark hiding spots of nature seem but so many foils to the keen sense of life and thrills of vitality that fill me. My nervous system sparkles against such sombre backgrounds. "Then, too, the Fall was lovely. Next to Niagara, the Kauterskill and Adams', this Buckhill Fall is one of the most successful, in a small way, that I know of. It might be bigger and higher and have twenty-five cents worth more water coming over it out of a dam; but for a mere casual Fall gotten up inadvertently by nature, it is very good, in an amateurish sort of away, you know! "There is, I believe (hang it, there _always_ is!) a romantic legend connected with--but stay!--you already guess it. Big Buck Indian--years ago--in love with mother-in-law--commits suicide--jumps over the ledge--ever since on moonlight nights, water the color of blood (probably tannery just above the Fall), Buck Kill, now corrupted into Buckhill. In the march of civilization the last _impedimenta_ to be left by the wayside are the beautiful superstitions of ignorance. "I am now quite alone here. A young music composer, hitherto my companion, left yesterday, so I am handcuffed to nature in solitary confinement. "By the way, my composer was a voluntary exile from the domestic arena. He had but recently married--to formulate it by proportions--say about a ton of mother-in-law to about an ounce of wife, and when the contest waxed fiercer than became the endurance of a sensitive nature, he packed his bag and came a-fishing. He was a capital angler--a phenomenal musician and had an appetite and digestion like one or more of the valiant trencher men of England's merrie days, so he solaced his grief with Sonatas and buckwheat cakes in the mornings and tears and ginger-bread in the evenings. He was a born genius and as beautiful as a dream, so I advised him to go home, choke his m-in-l, kiss his wife and live happily all the days of his life. I think he has gone to try the plan. "Speaking of buckwheat cakes, you can go out here most any time and catch a nice mess running about a half a pound and _game_ all the way through. No! No! "I'm thinking of the trout! I mean they are light as a feather, and taste to me just as did those I never had half enough of when I was a lad with my good old Presbyterian grandmother, who would not 'set' the batter on Saturday night lest it should 'work' on the Sabbath. "Just here I wish to record an event which has happened to me while yet each detail is fresh in my memory. "The day had been showery, yet the fishing had been very poor, so I went at sunset to try my luck in the stream near the house, where are some fair pools and a semi-occasional trout. "The darkness had begun to gather, indeed it was so dark that I knew only by the instinct of habit where my flies fell upon the water, for I could not fairly see them. I had just made a cast across a little rock which protruded somewhat above the surface into a small pool behind, and was slowly drawing my line toward me, when I perceived a frog seated upon the rock, watching the proceedings with some apparent anxiety. Hardly had I made out his frogship in the gloaming, when pop! he went into the water. 'Kerchung!' At this instant I felt a _strike_ and returned the compliment sharply, so as to set my hook well in and make sure of my trout. He was very _game_, and I was obliged to play him with a five and a half ounce rod for some time, but finally landed him in good form, only to discover that instead of a trout I had taken froggy on a black hackle fly, setting the hook firmly into the thin membrane which connects the two hind legs and just where the tail _ought_ to be. This left him the fullest freedom of action and gave him so good a chance to fight me that I never suspected him of being anything less than a half-pounder. He must have jumped from the rock directly on to the fly trailing behind it and been thus hooked by my 'strike.' Mem. --This story is true as gospel, but better not tell it where you enjoy an exceptional reputation for veracity. "_July 19th._ * * * Nothing has happened! Nothing ever does happen here. Delightful existence, free from events! I remember hearing Homer Martin once say that it was the height of his artistic ambition to paint a picture without objects. The confounded objects, he said, always would get wrong and destroy his best effects. How far this was intended to be a humorous paradox and how far the suggestion of an artistic ideal, I know not, but I surely somewhere have seen a painting--from whose brush I cannot say--which quite nearly fulfilled this strange condition. It represented an horizon, where met a cloudless, moonless, starless summer sky and a waveless, almost motionless sea--these and an atmosphere. The effect was that one could hardly perceive where the sea ceased and the sky began. I wonder if it would not be thus with a life quite devoid of events--would one be able to distinguish such from Heaven? "The charm of it is that it leaves both the physical and intellectual in one to develop freely. When a cow, grazing in a woodland pasture, comes at noonday to the brook to drink and then calmly and not without a certain ungainly majesty of movement, crosses the deep pool and climbs the steep hank on the other side, by no apparent motive urged save of her own sweet will, she always looks refreshed and filled in some sort with the stolid bovine expression of great contentment. Mark how different it all is when the same cow crosses the same brook driven by the barefooted urchin with a gad and shrill cries and a possible small dog in the background. How wearily and breathlessly she wades, and with what distressful pan tings she climbs, and how unhappy and enduring and long-suffering she appears, as you watch her shuffle away down the cow-path homeward! It's the Must that hurts. It's the barefooted urchin Necessity with his infernal gad Ambition and his ugly little cur dog Want, always chasing and shouting after one, that makes it so tiresome to cross the stream. "Then, too, as to the mind. Shall not one gain better intellectual growth when beyond the reach of the imperial ukase of daily custom which fixes the mind upon and chains the tongue to some leading event of the passing hour? "In swift and endless succession come foul murders, robberies, revolutions, sickening disasters, nameless crimes, and all the long list of events, and are as so many manacles upon the mind. "I hate Events. They bore me. _All except taking a pound trout_. "Alas! what a rent these last words make in the balloon I have been inflating! Logic (another troublesome nuisance, evolved, probably, at Hunter's Point) forces me from the clouds to earth and insists that I shall accept a trite aphorism: 'Little events fill little minds; great events for big ones.' "Then if I take refuge in the cowardly device of saying I don't want a big mind, what becomes of my theory of intellectual development as the outgrowth of an eventless life! "I decline to follow out more in detail this or any other line of argument. One can't argue in the face of such an event as the thermometer in the nineties away up here in the mountains. "This chance allusion to logic reminds me that I have recently heard from a dear old angling friend. He writes incidentally that since his return to his active professional duties he has made money enough to pay many times over the expenses of his recent two weeks' fishing bout with me. I have written him that he might find it well to start at once upon another trip. I have no doubt there exists a certain correlation of forces whereby a week's fishing, with its resultant increase of oxygenation, and rebuilding of gray tissue, accurately represents a certain amount of possible mental labor and thus, indirectly, a fixed sum of money. "It is then alarming to think how abnormally rich a man might become if he fished all the time." If I have thus quoted somewhat at length vaporings of other days from my note book it has been only to suggest to others, whose angling experiences are and have been wider and more varied than my own, how readily they can organize a "preserve" for winter angling. Believe me, no event, no feeling, no passing observation of your surroundings can be too trivial to record, and each written line will, in years to come, suggest a page of pleasant memories when as "Nessmuk" says-- "The Winter streams are frozen And the Nor'west winds are out." "Mr. Webster's sport of angling has given him many opportunities for composition, his famous address on Bunker Hill having been mostly planned out on Marshpee Brook; and it is said that the following exclamation was first heard by a couple of huge trout immediately on their being transferred to his fishing-basket, as it subsequently was heard at Bunker Hill by many thousands of his fellow-citizens: 'Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives that you might behold this joyous day.'"--_Lan-man's Life of Webster._ "How, I love fishing dearly. There is no sport like it for me, but there is a vast deal in fishing besides catching fish."--_H. H. Thompson._ [Illustration: 0296] 13. The Triumph. 14. Alexandra. 15. Seth Green. 16. Jungle Cock. 17. Fitz-Maurice. 18. Caddis. 19. Davis. "When fish are basking during the mid-day hours in the hot summer months, they are not always to be drawn to the surface. But the combination more suitable for this method is the dressing known as the 'Alexandra Fly.'"--_David Foster._ "The exertion of crossing the Atlantic for fly-fishing will be amply repaid the sportsman by the quantity and weight of the fish he will capture; for there the fish are not troubled with the fastidiousness of appetite which in Great Britain causes it always to be a source of doubt whether the water is in proper order, the wind in the east, or thunder overhead, either of which, or all combined, too frequently cause the most industrious to return, after a long and laborious day, with an empty basket."--_Parser Gilmore._ "Of all places, commend me, in the still of the evening, to the long placid pool, shallow on one side, with deeper water and an abrupt overhanging bank opposite. Where the sun has shone all day, and legions of ephemera sported in its declining rays; the bloom of the rye or clover scenting the air from the adjoining field! Now light a fresh pipe, and put on a pale Ginger Hackle for your tail-fly, and a little white-winged Coachman for your dropper. Then wade in cautiously--move like a shadow--don't make a ripple. Cast, slowly, long, light; let your stretcher sink a little. There, he has taken the Ginger--lead him around gently to the shallow side as you reel him in, but don't move from your position--let him tug awhile, put your net under him, break his neck, and slip him into your creel. Draw your line through the rings--cast again; another and another--keep on until you can see only the ripple made by your fly; or know when it falls, by the slight tremor it imparts through the whole line down to your hand--until the whip-poor-will begins his evening song, and the little water-frog tweets in the grass close by not till then is it time to go home."--_Thaddeus Norris_. "You may always know a large trout when feeding in the evening. He rises continuously, or at small intervals--in a still water almost always in the same place, and makes little noise--barely elevating his mouth to suck in the fly, and sometimes showing his back-fin and tail. A large circle spreads around him, but there are seldom any bubbles when he breaks the water, which usually indicates the coarser fish."--_Sir Humphry Davy_. "It is not difficult to learn how to cast; but it is difficult to learn not to snap the fins off at every throw."--_Charles Dudley Warner._ NOT ALL OF FISHING TO FISH By A. Nelson Cheney. "We cast our flies on many waters, where memories and fancies and facts rise, and we take them and show them to each other, and, small or large, we are content with our catch."--_W. G. Prime_. The commonly accepted definition of fly-fishing is the casting--with a light, strong, elastic, pliant rod--of two, three or four artificial flies, on a delicate leader attached to a fine tapered silk line over the surface of waters inhabited by the lordly, silver-coated salmon; that aristocratic beauty, the speckled trout, or the more sombre-colored but gamy black bass. This, in truth, is called the acme of fishing, the highest degree attainable in the school of the angler. But of what a small portion, comparatively, of the pleasure of angling does the mere casting of the fly, however artistic, and the creeling of the fish, however large, consist. If it were all of fishing to fish; if fish were only to be obtained in pools, in a desert waste that never reflected leaf or twig; from walled-in reservoirs, where fish are fattened like a bullock for the shambles; from sluggish, muddy streams within the hearing of great towns, redolent of odors that are bred and disseminated where humanity is massed between walls of brick and mortar, or even from a perfect fish preserve, where everything is artificial except the water; or if the beginning of fishing was making the first cast and the end the creeling of the last fish, would the gentle art under such conditions have been a theme for the poet's pen, a subject for the artist's brush, or a topic for the interesting story during the centuries that have passed since the first line was written, or the first words sung? I think not. Fishing for the fish alone would not have inspired Dame Juliana Berners, Izaak Walton, Charles Cotton, Sir Humphry Davy, John Bunyan, Sir Walter Scott, "Christopher North," and other and more modern writers to tell of the peace, the quiet, the health and the pleasure to be gained in the pursuit of this pastime. The skill exercised and the delicate tackle used by a past master of the art would have been unnecessary to cultivate or fashion, solely to supply the brain with food through the alimentary canal. An angler's brain is fed by absorption as well as by assimilation. There might be reason in calling a fisherman with an eye simply to the catching of fish, a "lover of cruel sport," but the cruelty would be of the same kind, but in a less degree, as that displayed by the butcher who supplies our tables with beef and mutton. To an angler the pleasures of the rod and reel are far-reaching and have no boundary save when the mind ceases to anticipate and the brain to remember. I have had the grandest sport on a midwinter's night with the snow piled high outside and the north wind roaring down the chimney, while I sat with my feet to the blaze on the hearth, holding in my hand an old fly-book. The smoke from my lighted pipe, aided by imagination, contained rod, fish, creel, odorous balsam, drooping hemlock and purling brook or ruffled lake. I seemed to hear the twittering birds, leaves rustled by the wind and the music of running water, while the incense of wild flowers saluted my nostrils. The heat of the fire was but the warm rays of the sun and the crackle of the burning wood the noise of the forest. Thus streams that I have fished once or twice have been fished a score of times. I had nothing to show for the later fishings, but I could feel that God was good and my memory unimpaired. The fish in the pipe-smoke has been as active as was the fish in the water, and afforded as fine play. My reel has clicked as merrily in the half-dream as on the rod in the long ago, and my rod has bent to the play of the fish as though it were in my hand instead of lying flat on a shelf in a cool room up-stairs. I have had in my musings all the pleasure of actual fishing, everything but the fish in the flesh. When Winter comes and the ravages in tackle have been repaired and all is in perfect order for another season, I put my rods where they will not be injured by the modern furnace heat, each joint of each rod placed flat on a shelf. But the tackle trunk, securely locked that no vandal hand may get to its treasures, is where my eye rests upon it daily, and my fly books are in one of the drawers of my writing desk where I can easily reach them. 'When I take one of the books out of an evening, or at any time during my walking hours in early winter, I generally seek out some tattered fly that is wrapped carefully in a paper and placed in one of its pockets. The book may be full of flies, sombre or gorgeous in all the freshness of untried silk, mohair, feathers and tinsel; but take for instance this one with the legend written on its wrapper: "Puffer Pond, June, 1867.--Thirty-five pounds of trout in two hours. The last of the gentlemen that did the deed." This, to me, tells the story of a very pleasant week spent in the Adirondacks. I remember, as I hold the ragged, faded fly in my hand and see that it still retains something of the dark blue of its mohair body and the sheen of its cock-feather wings, that it was one of six flies that I had in my fly-book that June day that stands out from other June days, in my memory, like a Titan amongst pygmies. The fly had no name, but the trout liked it for all that, and rose to it with as much avidity as though they had been properly introduced to some real bug of which this was an excellent counterfeit. That glorious two hours' time--with its excitement of catching and landing without a net some of the most beautiful and gamy fish that ever moved fin--comes back to me as vividly as though at this moment the four walls of my room were the forest-circled shores of that far-away pond, and I stand in that leaky boat, almost ankle deep in the water that Frank, the guide, has no time to bail, occupied as he is in watching my casts and admiring my whip-like rod during the play of a fish, or fishes, and in turning the boat's gunwale to the water's edge to let my trout in when they are exhausted. It is sharp, quick work, and the blue-bodied fly is always first of all the flies composing the cast to get a rise, until I take off all but the one kind, and then one after another I see them torn, mutilated and destroyed. Later they will be put away as warriors gone to rest and the epitaph written on their wrappings: "Thy work was well done; thy rest well earned." Now there is no time to mantle the fallen or sing paeans to the victors; the action is at its height. I put my last blue fly on my leader and cast it again and again with success, before those dark open jaws, that come out of the water every time it falls on the surface, have destroyed its beauty forever. Frank says the time is up and we must go. The boat, propelled with broken oars, is headed for the landing-place, and I sit back in the stern admiring those sleek beauties that lie in the bottom, and that have fought so well and so vainly. My rod is inclined over my shoulder and the blue fly is trailing on the water astern. Suddenly I feel a twitch and hear a splash, and turning around find I am fast to a fish, the noblest Roman of that, day's struggle. Once, twice, thrice he shows himself in all his fair proportions. "Two pounds and a half, if an ounce," says Frank. I get down on my knees in the water of the cranky boat, as the reel sings the merriest tune that ever delighted the ear of an angler. Two or three mad dashes, and I think the trout is tiring. I reel him slowly in, but the sight of the boat gives him new life and he darts under it in spite of my efforts to swing him around the stern. The rod tip is passed clear of the boat and the fight continues. Exhausted? The fight is only begun. The unwieldy boat is far too slow to follow the fish, and I see my line growing rapidly less on my reel with no sign of weakness on the part of the fish. I am compelled to advance the butt of the rod and the tip droops nearer and, hesitatingly, still nearer to it, as though the tip would whisperingly confess that the strain is greater than it can bear, while the stout nature of the wood rebels at the confession. Involuntarily I raise myself by a muscular action as though the cords and sinews of my body could relieve the pressure on the lancewood and save the rod. "You'll smash your pole!" is the warning Frank utters. I care not now, for the fight has been a glorious one, but the "pole" survives to fight many another fight; the trout is turned and, at last, comes side up, to the boat, vanquished but not subdued. Here, in another paper, are three flies fastened together. A Chicken Red Palmer Hackle, a Grizzly King and a fly with black body, brown wings, red tail and tip. They are large trout flies and won honorable retirement by catching three small-mouthed black bass at one and the same time. Fishing from a boat in the Hudson River, above a long rough rapid, I cast inshore and saw the stretcher fly taken by a small bass; immediately after the two droppers were taken by other bass that did not show themselves when taking the lures. My rod was the same that I have already mentioned, an ash and lancewood of eight ounces--scale weight--and my entire attention was directed to it and the fish, that were bending it like a willow wand; when, suddenly, I discovered that the boatman had also been interested in the play of the fish and allowed the boat to drift into the swift water at the head of the rapids. The boatman made an effort to row up stream at the same time the fish decided to go down, and I found I must either smash my tackle and lose the fish--at this time I had seen but the one bass that took the stretcher fly--or run the rapids at the risk of an upset. I was very anxious to see the size of the fish that were struggling on my leader in that swift running water, and every angler will know the decision that was instantly made, to "shoot the rapids." The sight of these old tinseled lures brings back to me the wild excitement of that driving, whirling ride through the racing, seething waters. Hatless I crouch down in the boat, one hand clutching the gunwale of the broad river craft, and the other holding aloft my rod. I give no thought to the possible fate of the occupants of the boat. My anxiety is for the fish. When the curved line is straight again, will I feel the bass at the end or only the bare flies? These very flies! Very soon the boat is rocking in the lumpy water at the foot of the chute, and I stand up, fill my lungs, and find my fish are still fast. Here in the broad water I bring to net three small-mouthed bass that together weigh four and one-quarter pounds, only one of which, at any time, showed himself above water. As I put the faded flies back into their paper coverings I find that my pulse has quickened and my pipe no longer burns. I must not exhibit all my treasures here, to the public. These old souvenirs are only for the eyes of sympathizing angling friends when me meet to blow a cloud and talk of other days. A little brown-eyed maiden once, looking into my fly-book, asked why I had the old frayed flies tied up in separate papers and marked, while the nice new flies did not show this care. Had she been of maturer years I might have quoted Alonzo of Aragon's commendation of old friends, but instead, I merely said: "The nice new flies I can easily buy, but no one sells such old flies, therefore I take the greater care of them because of their rarity." The new flies will not be slighted, for they, also, have their season of admiration and caressing touch. When their day has come the old veterans of many a fight will not be forgotten either, but while maturing plans for augmenting their numbers, the recruits in their new, bright dress will be inspected to see what claims they may have for future honors. The lengthening days and diminishing snowbanks naturally turn the angler's thoughts forward, and he sniffs the south wind as though he would discover some slight remaining odor of fragrant apple blossoms borne to him from the far southland as the forerunner of warm air, blue sky, bursting buds, open streams, green grass, "gentle spring," and time to go a-fishing. Then the untried flies are examined and speculation is rife as to their excellence, each for its own particular kind of fish. Day dreams and evening musings give place to an activity of mind and body when fishing is under consideration. The lessons of the last season and other seasons are brought to bear to perfect all arrangements for a fresh campaign. Consultations with brother anglers are frequent, and plans many and various are weighed and discussed. The tackle box is overhauled again and again, notwithstanding the attention paid to it at the close of the last season, to be sure that nothing is wanting or left undone. Lines are tested; leaders are subjected to the closest scrutiny to see that no flaws or chafed places exist to give way at a critical moment during some future contest, when a trifle will turn the scales; reels are taken apart and carefully oiled; rods sent to the maker for a new coat of varnish, and, perhaps, a few new whippings for the guide rings; fishing shoes, although they have a row of holes just above the soles, get an extra dressing of oil to keep the leather soft; and an inventory of the wardrobe is taken and old garments are selected that appear for the time, considering the use they are to serve, far more faultless than when first sent home by the tailor. "About these days your business letters, if written to people into whose souls the love of angling has entered, may terminate as follows: "P. S.--What are the prospects for the spring fishing in your neighborhood? Did the late freshets of last fall destroy the trout eggs deposited in the streams about you?" or, "Did the unusual severity of the winter cause destruction to the trout spawn in the headwaters of your brooks?" Some evening when the "fever is on" you will write to a guide up in the North Woods, some honest, faithful fellow that you have known in all weathers for many seasons: "Be sure and take a boat over to Mahogany Pond, (that is not the name of it, for its title is taken from a domestic wood that grows on its shores), before the snow goes off and keep me informed as to the condition of things, for I wish to start and be with you as soon as the water is free from ice. I shall bring a friend with me, the gentleman I told you about last summer, who knows the name of every plant that grows in the woods, as well as the name of every fish that swims in the water. The old camp, with a few repairs, will answer, as Mr. ------ is an old woodsman and angler of the first order, and requires no more than the few simples that you usually take to camp. He, like myself, goes into the woods to fish and fill his lungs with the pure mountain air that you live in." When Dick reads the letter he smiles, for it contains nothing unknown to him before. It is his own idea to carry a boat to the pond on the snow, for there is no road, path or trail, but he only says to himself: "He's got it just as bad this spring as ever. The medicine will be ready for him." The angler does all this and more; mind, I say the _angler,_ for the other fellow that goes a-fishing because it is the thing to do, or because he has heard some one dilate upon the pleasure to be found in practising the art, will do nothing of the sort. It is too much trouble, or, more likely, these things never occur to him. How the man of severe aspect who, if he smiles, looks as though he wore a petrified smile that he had bought at a bargain, and whose sole ambition and pleasure is to make money, live as long as he can in doing so, and die as rich as possible; this man, if he could know, and comprehend, what is passing through the angler's mind at this season, would say such vagabonds are the cumberers of the earth; but he could not find a "cumberer" in all the land who would change places with him, take his joyless life, sapless heart, frozen visage, narrow views and great wealth, and give in return the angler's light heart, happy disposition, love of God, his fellow-man and Nature; his resources within himself, engendered by his fondness for the wild woods, to enjoy the past and anticipate the future, whatever betide; his desire to see good in every thing, his clear conscience and his fishing tackle. Bear in mind that the pleasure of angling is not alone the consummation of your hopes for a large score. Hear what Sir Humphrey Davy says on this subject: "From the savage in his rudest and most primitive state, who destroys a piece of game, or a fish, with a club or spear, to man in the most cultivated state of society, who employs artifice, machinery, and the resources of various other animals, to secure his object, the origin of the pleasure is similar, and its object the same: but that kind of it requiring most art may be said to characterize man in his highest or intellectual state; and the fisher for salmon and trout with the fly employs not only machinery to assist his physical powers, but applies sagacity to conquer difficulties; and the pleasure derived from ingenious resources and devices, as well as from active pursuits, belongs to this amusement. Then, as to its philosophical tendency, it is a pursuit of moral discipline, requiring patience, forbearance, and command of temper. "As connected with natural science, it may be vaunted as demanding a knowledge of the habits of a considerable tribe of created beings--fishes, and the animals that they prey upon, and an acquaintance with the signs and tokens of the weather, and its changes, the nature of waters, and of the atmosphere. As to its poetical relations, it carries us into the most wild and beautiful scenery of nature, amongst the mountain lakes, and the clear and lovely streams that gush from the higher ranges of elevated hills, or that make their way through the cavities of calcareous strata. How delightful in the early spring, after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the frosts disappear and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent the odors of the bank perfumed by the violet, and enamelled as it were with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the music of the bee; and on the surface of the waters to view the gaudy flies sparkling like animated gems in the sunbeams, whilst the bright and beautiful trout is watching them from below; to hear the twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; and, as the season advances, to find all these objects changed for others of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and the trout contend as it were for the gaudy Mayfly, and till in pursuing your amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you are serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush and melodious nightingale, performing the office of paternal love, in thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine." While it is not all of fishing to fish, it does not consist entirely of preparation, and it must have something substantial as a basis for the day dream or fireside musing. You must catch some fish, as capital stock, to talk about. I never knew an angler that was satisfied to do all the listening. In my native State the law makes it legally possible to wet a hook for speckled trout, for the first time each year on April first, and this day has come to be called "Opening Day," and is spoken of in such glowing language that one might think it the opening of some vast commercial enterprise instead of the opening of the fishing season. As the result of an angler's hopes and preparations, as I have tried, imperfectly, to sketch them, I will quote from my fishing diary what is there set down as one consummation: "_April 1st_, 1878.--Opening day. Fished Halfway brook from Morgan brook to, and through the woods; then fished Ogden brook from Van Husen's road to Gleason's. Banks more than full of roily snow water; weather decidedly cold; strong wind from the Northwest; cloudy sky. Caught one small trout that I returned to his native element to grow; discovered from my single specimen of the _Salvelinus fontinalis_ that they have the same bright spots that they have always had; look the same, smell the same, _feel_ the same; other peculiarities lacking. Warm sun and rain required to develop the characteristics we so much admire in our leaping friend. Managed to fall into the Ogden brook--in fact, went in without the slightest difficulty, amid applause from the bank; discovered from my involuntary plunge that the water is just as wet as last year, and if memory serves, a trifle colder. Reached home in the evening, cold, wet, tired and hungry. Nevertheless, had a most _glorious time_." "These flies, I am sure, would kill fish."--_Charles Cotton_. "I would advise all experts to keep a well-filled fly-book. It is a pleasure to experiment, and the educated eye takes delight in looking at the varieties of colors, shapes and forms which the skilled workman in fly-art has provided as lures for the speckled beauties."--_George Dawson_. "Fly-fishing and bait-fishing are co-ordinate branches of the same study, and each must be thoroughly learned to qualify the aspirant to honors for the sublime degree of Master of the Art."--_Charles Hallock._ "Americans have reason to be proud of the black bass, for its game qualities endear it to the fisherman, and its nutty, sweet flavor to the _gourmand_."--_Parker Gilmore._ [Illustration: 0316] 20. Black Maria. 21. Tipperlinn. 22. Premier. 23. Grizzly King. 24. Ferguson. 25. Californian. "'What flies do you most affect here?' 'Any, at times, and almost all. In some weather I have killed well with middlesized gaudy lake-flies; but my favorites, on the whole, are all the red, brown, orange and yellow hackles, and the blue and yellow duns.'"--_Henry Wm. Herbert._ "Fish will frequently, although breaking freely, refuse the fly, but generally a few will be misled, and occasionally one will be caught."--_P. B. Roosevelt._ "The _natural_ and acquired skill actually necessary before any man can throw a 'neat fly' is only known to those who have made this method of angling their study and amusement."--"_Frank Forester_." "Luck has little to do with the size of an angling score; for skill in handling, a knowledge of the haunts of the fish, of the conditions of wind, weather and water, character of baits to be used, of the changes and drift of tideways, sun-rays and shadows, and a familiar acquaintance with the natural history of the family pisces, their habits, habitat, and idiosyncrasies (for no other animal is so erratic as these scaly fins), all go to make up the complete angler, known as such from the days and writings of Izaak Walton, in the seventeenth, up to this great nineteenth century."--_Wm. C. Harris_. "What is the use of my telling you what manoeuvres that trout will perform before he comes to the landing-net, gently as a lamb? I don't know what he will do; never saw two of them act alike."--_Oliver Gills, Jr._ "Probably the secret of the infatuation of this amusement to most or many of the brothers of the angle, is to be found in the close and quiet communion and sympathy with nature essential to the pursuit of the spoil of the water."--_John Lyle King_. "The principle of the rod is in reality only this, that it is the home end of the line, stiffened and made springy, so that you can guide and manage it--cast and draw it, keep a gentle pressure with it on the hook, so that the fish shall not rid himself of it, and finally lift him to the landing net."--_W. C. Prime._ FLY-FISHING IN FLORIDA By Dr. J. C. Kenworthy. The votaries of the rod and reel have overlooked an important field for sport, for, in my opinion, no portion of the United States offers such advantages for fly-fishing as portions of Florida during the winter months. The health of the State is beyond cavil or dispute; the climate is all the most fastidious can ask; there is an almost total absence of insect pests, and last though not least, a greater variety of fish that will take the fly than in any other section of the Union. My own experience is mainly based on opportunities for observation on the south-west coast, and it is possible that points on the eastern coast, as the Indian River inlet and the outlet of Lake Worth, may offer advantages over the section referred to. As far as my knowledge extends, fly-fishers are indebted to my friend, Geo. C. Johnson, of Bridgeport, Conn., for the development of fly-fishing in Florida. Some years since I met Mr. Johnson on his arrival in this city _en route_ to Homosassa. He remarked that he had brought his fly-rod with him, and I suggested that a heavy bass rod would prove more serviceable. On the evening of his arrival at Homosassa he visited the dock in front of Jones' house, and noticed fish breaking water near the shore. He proceeded to the house, rigged his rod, and was followed to the dock by a number of laughing sceptics, who ridiculed the "spindly rod and feather baits." In compliance with Mr. Johnson's request, Dr. Ferber rowed him a short distance from the dock, and the fun commenced with large-mouthed bass and red trout; and from that evening fly-fishing became an established institution on the south-west coast of Florida. For a number of years Dr. Ferber has devoted his winters to fly-fishing on the south-west coast, and it is to be regretted that he was not requested to give his ripe and ample experience, instead of one who is far beneath him in experience and ability to wield the split bamboo or pen. The next season after Mr. Johnson's visit to Homosassa Mr. Francis Endicott, of New York, visited the locality and indulged in fly-fishing. He informed me that he had captured with the fly eight distinct species of fish on the Homosassa River; and I will ask where else in the United States can the devotee of the gentle art capture eight distinct species of fish with the fly on a river but ten miles in length? My friend, Dr. Ferber, on his return from the southwest coast in April last, visited me, and stated that he had caught on that coast, with artificial flies, eleven distinct species of fish. Among the number I may mention large-mouthed bass (trout of the South), channel bass, cavalli, ravallia, skip jacks, sea trout, brown snappers, roach, and three species of bream. Instead of wading icy-cold and over-fished brooks, tearing clothes and flesh in creeping through briers and brush, and being subjected to the sanguinary attention of mosquitoes and black flies in bringing to creel a few fingerlings, in Florida the angler can cast his fly from a sandy beach or boat, inhale an invigorating atmosphere, bask in the sunshine, and capture specimens of the finny tribe, the weight of which can be determined by pounds instead of ounces. Sea trout of the South are closely allied to the weak fish of the North, and frequent rapid waters, oyster beds and weedy flats. They range from one to five pounds, are good biters and make a noble resistance to avoid the landing net. Large-mouthed black bass (trout of the South) exist in great numbers in the lakes and streams of the State. In very clear lakes and streams they are not disposed to indulge in artificial baits. As fighters they are unworthy of the notice of experts. It has been my lot to capture them in many localities, and I have found that after the first few struggles they open their mouths and come to gaff like a grain bag. Brown snappers exist in countless numbers in some of the streams of the State--as in the Homosassa. They range from six ounces to one pound, and cannot resist the temptation to capture a hook decorated with feathers. They are good biters and full of game. Owing to the presence of a number of rat-like teeth, they play sad havoc with flies; and we would advise those who propose engaging in the capture of this fish to provide an ample supply of feathery lures. Skip-jacks (or bone-fish) visit the streams in schools. They range from two to six pounds. They readily take a fly and die game. Owing to their build, size of fins, and muscular development, they are worthy of notice. On one occasion I was camped at Little Gasparilla pass, and at the bay side of the inlet there existed an eddy in which I could see hundreds of skip-jacks. Tor some time I amused myself by casting, and the moment the bait would touch the water the surface would be in a boil. I would strike and the next instant a bone-fish would be two or three feet in the air. As a rule they enter the streams with the flood tide, and as they are constantly breaking the water they can be followed in a boat. By following the fish on the flood and ebb the rodster may enjoy a number of hours of exciting sport. Between Esteno and Marco passes I have seen them for hours at a time feeding on minnows near the beach. The Ravallia is a fish with which I am unacquainted, although I have reason to believe that it exists in quantity at certain points on the south-west coast. My friend Dr. Ferber, informed me that in one of his cruises he entered Billy Bow Legs Creek and noticed a deep pool. He made a cast and landed a ravallia. Nearly every cast he would land one or two ranging from one to three pounds, unless a ravenous cavalli interfered. The cavalli of large size would seem to tire of the flouncing and floundering of their neighbors, and would join in the fray, when the doctor would part with a fly or leader. The doctor assured me that the sport was kept up until he was surfeited. He describes the fish as resembling a pike perch of the North, and is loud in its praise as a game fish. Friends have informed me that they have captured specimens of this fish, with cut bait, weighing thirty pounds. My impression is, that if pools and inlets south of Punta Passa were thoroughly tried with the fly that the piscator would be rewarded with large-sized specimens. Bream of several species exist in great numbers in many of the streams and lakes of the State. They range from four ounces to one pound, and afford considerable sport on a light rod. Roach are not plentiful, but there they exist they will not refuse a brown hackle. In many of the streams of the State war-mouthed perch exist in numbers, ranging from one to three pounds. When the streams are low, they readily take a fly, and give the angler all lie can attend to. In some of the creeks tributary to the St. Johns' and in some of the interior lakes, pickerel exercise their snapping propensities, and do not object to appropriate a gaudy fly in the early mom or at the close of the day. On the Eastern Coast, more especially at Indian River inlet, small blue fish congregate in numbers during the winter months, and at times will not refuse a fly. They are fair fighters, and as the piscator can fish from a sandy beach, much enjoyment can be secured. In Florida cat fish will take a fly, and I may also add a spinner. In this State we have a number of species of this fish, and one is a surface feeder. In the evening, when they are feeding on the surface, they will not reject a large and gaudy fly. To those who have been accustomed to capture with a stout rod diminutive specimens of catties, I will say, hook on to a catty weighing from six to twelve pounds and there will be "music in the air," and unless skill is exercised on the part of the fisherman the leader will go to where the "woodbine twineth." In Florida, as everywhere else, the best fishing is near where A., B. or C. run a hotel or keep a boarding house, or where certain steamboats make a terminal landing. But in my experience the best places to fish, as a rule, are where there are no hotels or specimens of the colored persuasion with their cast nets. When "I go a-fishing" I leave civilization, hotels, and boarding-houses in the rear. The best points for fly-fishing for large-mouthed bass are on the upper St. Johns, the tributaries of Indian river, the Kessimmee and the streams and lagoons on the south-west coast. For pickerel and bream the best points are the tributaries of the St. Johns between Mandarin and Lake Monroe. For war-mouthed perch, the best streams will be found in Alachua County. From all that I can glean from gentlemen who have fished the locality, the lower Indian River and its tributaries will furnish a fine field for the fly-caster. West of Cedar Keys to St. Marks is a shoal coast covered with marine algæ; and the coast line is cut up with a number of small streams stocked--nay, swarming--with fish. This section is uninhabited, the streams have not been fished, and a fine field for sport awaits the fisherman. In addition, hand line or bass rod fishing can be enjoyed for sheepshead and channel bass. The woods abound with deer, the hummocks contain plenty of turkeys, and the bays and grassy flats during the winter are alive with ducks, and in certain localities geese and brant will be found. Beech birds, as snipe and curlews, can be bagged in quantity. The first stream worthy of notice on the southwest coast is the Homosassa River, forty miles south of Cedar Keys. But this beautiful river has lost its greatest attraction, "Mother Jones." I have been informed that she left Homosassa, and, as a sequence, there will be wanting the clean rooms and beds, the stewed and scalloped oysters, the aromatic coffee, the delicious breakfast bacon, and the luscious sheepshead done to a turn. With "Mother Jones" will depart many of the attractions of the place, more particularly the cuisine. I write feelingly, for I was the first to make known the attractions of my favorite Homosassa. According to my friend, Dr. Ferber, Billy Bow Legs Creek, a tributary of Sarasota Bay, presents many attractions to the fly-fisher, more especially in the capture of cavalli and ravallia. Long Boat Inlet, an entrance to this bay, must not be overlooked. Many points in Charlotte Harbor offer inducements to the fly-fisher. If he tires of using the split bamboo, he can troll with a spinner and land large channel bass and cavalli; for diversement he can seat himself in an arm chair on the dock at Punta Passa and imitate my friend Matthew Quay (late Secretary of State of Pennsylvania), who landed fifty-six large sheepshead in one hour. If dissatisfied with this description of sport the piscator can indulge in the capture of Jew-fish, weighing from one to three hundred pounds. On the Calloosahatchee, above the islands, the fly caster can be satiated with sport in landing large-sized eavalli. From Charlotte Harbor southward every entrance, bay, pass and lagoon will afford royal sport. Delicate mist-colored leaders are not a necessity, for Florida fish have not been educated or posted with regard to the tricks of the craft. They seem to recognize but little difference between a single strand of gut and a clothes-line. The main things requisite are strong leaders and large-sized hooks, for when fish are so plentiful and valueless the fisherman is apt to try and see how many he can land within a given period. With regard to flies, almost any of the more common ones will answer a good purpose. My choice for channel bass, eavalli, sea trout and bone fish is a large-sized gaudy fly with a large-sized hook. To reach the south-west coast persons can go direct from Savannah or Fernandina, or visit Jacksonville _en route_. At Cedar Keys, Tampa, or Manatee they can charter a sloop or schooner of from four to six tons for five or six dollars per day. This amount will cover captain, boy, small boat, bedding, stove and cooking utensils. Fish, beach birds, oysters and clams are plentiful, and the expense of the culinary department will be from fifty cents to five dollars per capita per diem, according to the Dutch proclivities of the persons comprising the party. The coast is shallow, the ten-fathom line ranging from thirty to forty miles from shore, and as a consequence there is no undertow, rollers or heavy seas. The passage from Cedar Keys to Bay Biscayne can be made in a small boat at almost any time. On one occasion the writer made the trip from Key West to Cedar Keys in a boat sixteen feet in length. Fly-fishing in Florida is a recent development, and it offers a large field for experiment and investigation; and I trust that the period is not far distant when the sport will be indulged in by the many. By the first of January, 1884, Tampa will be reached from this city in twenty-four hours via Sanford and Kissimmee. From what we know of railroads in this State we feel assured that one will be completed to Punta Passa within two years; when Charlotte Harbor and Estero Bay, the greatest of fishing points, will be rendered accessible to all. In preparing this article we have used the common names of fish, and the reason for so doing will be obvious to all. In passing through this city, if fly-fishers will call upon me between 12 m. and 2 p.m., I will endeavor to smooth the road for them. Jacksonville, Fla. FLY-FISHING. By Col. E. Z. C. Judson.--"Ned Buntline." Fishermen are _born_ such--not made! That is my private opinion, publicly expressed. It is founded upon the experience of full half a century on ocean, lake, river, and brook. I have taken a mature man with me on a fishing trip, who had never cast "a line in pleasant places," lent him rod and tackle, made a few casts in his presence, caught perhaps a half a dozen trout, and then watched his imitative power combined with the tact _born_ in him. If he was one of the right sort he would go right on improving every hour, and in a little while begin to fill his creel with the best of us. My personal knowledge of fish and fishing began early. My father had few superiors as an angler, and trouting was his specialty. He made his own rods, lines and flies. The first was a tapering ashen pole--generally about ten feet long--scraped, oiled and varnished till it was as smooth and bright as glass. The line was made from horse-hair and braided with a care and patience that used to be a wonder to me. The blue-jay, the red-headed woodpecker, the pheasant and wood-duck were shot for fly-feathers. When I was a wee toddler in skirts I used to hold hooks and snells and play at "helping papa." All this was done here at the head of the Delaware, where both my father and myself were born. But a change came. When I was about six years old my father bought a large tract of wild land in the wildest part of Wayne County, Pennsylvania, and settled on it. The Lackawaxen Creek ran right through it, and that then lovely stream was literally alive with speckled trout. From the day we entered our log house there I was a _fisher_-boy. I caught trout every day in the summer, for a big spring rose within a rod of the house and from it ran a lively brook to the main stream, ten rods away, and even a pin-hook and linen thread would draw them out. As I grew older I would go with my father to the big eddies and deep holes, where he would lure the largest to his fly and I was only too--too utterly happy when allowed to wade waist deep in the water to carry or float his string of trout toward home. Since then never a summer has passed, except when actively engaged in naval or military service for my country, that has not found me fishing somewhere. I have covered the best waters in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont; Canada and the British Provinces know me of old; California, Oregon and British Columbia--all along the Big Rockies--have seen me testing flies and bait, the former often tied rudely on the spur of necessity, but generally very effectively. For where trout are _very_ plenty, food is scarce, and they will bite at anything. I speak of trout mostly, for that is my _favorite_ fish. Salmon next, although the work comes in when you strike anything oyer eight or ten pounds, and sport degenerates when it becomes _labor_. I have heard of "labors of love," but I never took stock in anything of the kind. In all this active piscatorial life, I have studied _Fishermen_ as well as fish. And I have come to the conclusion which opens this article--that fishermen are _born_ for it and can't he manufactured out of _raw_ material! I have felt thankful to our Father above that nine out of ten of the _tourists_ who take to the streams in easy reach, are indifferent fishermen. For thereby the streams still contain fish. Were all who fish in them skillful and hoggish, in a little while there would be no fishing except in "far-away" places, difficult to reach. I do not claim to hold a Master's Degree as a fly-fisherman. I do delight in the art, for one of the arts and sciences it surely is. I have bowed my head in reverence before the skilled hand of my dear friend, George Dawson--now beside the bright waters of the Happy Land above. I have stood silent and pleased while Seth Green deftly made casts which I could only feebly imitate. Yet those who know me best say that I _can_ use a fly-rod and catch trout and salmon therewith, so I essay a few words on the subject, speaking only from my own experience. I have never been observant enough to see a trout strout strike a fly with his tail, drown it and then eat it. I always take a trout in the mouth on my fly--generally hooked in the upper lip, showing that he does _his_ part of the business in a straightforward way and does not come tail first to the lure. I own to be a little particular about my rod, the middle joint not too limber, but with back-bone as well as spring; it suits me if it tapers so as to describe a perfect arc when the tip is brought near to the butt. I specify no makers--though I own to favorites in that line. I wish to make no petty jealousies here. A rod as near ten feet long as may be, for trout fishing, weight from seven to eight ounces, never over ten, with the reel close to and _under_ the butt; an easy running click-reel; a line of braided hair and silk, strong and weighty enough for a cast against the wind as well as with it; a clear, strong, looped leader for a quick change of flies; a book well supplied with the latter to give the speckled beauties a choice, and I am ready for work. The idea of special flies for special seasons of the year I have found to be a humbug. Trout are exceedingly whimsical about flies. Watch those that are on the stream, see which the trout leap for and get as near the like of them as your book will allow. Always, if possible, fish down stream. It is easier. You can detect swirls, eddies, shaded pools, coverts of rock, mossy-banks and overhanging branches, from above, better than below. Trout do not scare so easily that a cast of fifteen or twenty feet will not find them ready to rise if they are hungry. You have also the aid of the current in guiding your fly to each coveted spot after it touches the water. Enter a stream, say its average width is seventy-five or one hundred feet, few of our mountain streams are so much, and a skilled rodster can cover it with ease--for wading down lie chooses his water, makes his casts, seldom over twenty or twenty-five feet of line to a cast, much of oftener less, and in "good waters" fills his creel. For a forward cast, with your line as far out as may be necessary for the distance, throw your rod sharply back to an angle of not over fifteen degrees, and then bring it forward quickly till, as your line and flies are extended, the tip is on a level with your breast, never lower so as to dip water. With a line "taut," so to speak, if a trout rises as your fly or flies touch the stream, a sharp, quick turn of the wrist will strike the hook home and secure him. Your strike must be firm and decisive; give the trout one second to understand and he _spits_ the fly out. Laugh if you will, but that is what he does. When hooked, if not too large for your tackle, _draw_ the trout swiftly to you, _lift_ him out, and break his neck, by bending back the head where it joins the back-bone. Thus he is out of pain, and does not bruise and flop himself soft, while dying, in your creel. "Playing" a trout for the mere fun of the thing, is unnecessary torture; besides, you frighten more than you secure, in the process. A very large trout, of course, must be weakened in the water, but many fishermen think there is no sport without they "play" a fish, no matter how small he is. Never cast a foot more line than you need. You cannot gather slack half as easy as you can pay it out. In regard to flies--I have found the brighter the day, as a general thing, the darker fly do trout want. At early dawn, or in the soft twilight of evening, a very light fly--a Coachman, is best. Next, Gray Miller, and especially the Stone fly. I use more Coachmen, Black Gnats and Stone flies in _one_ season, than I do of all other flies put together in three summers. Be sure, of all things, that your line runs easy through the standing guides, or guide-rings. I like the former best. In casting right or left, to reach under bushy or over-hanging limbs, the same sharp, or quick action which makes an over-cast successful, is required, and great care not to draw any slack line when your fly drops where you want it. Many fly-fishermen are considered adepts according to the _length_ rather than the grace and certainty of their casts. I do not think in actual stream fishing an average of a day's casting, would reach over fifteen feet to a cast. I never made but one _very_ long cast in actual angling in my life. Once, on the bank of a mill-pond in the upper part of Alder Brook, in Ulster County, N. Y., I saw a trout in shoal water, the largest I ever caught in that vicinity. To reach him without alarm, I cast seventy-two feet, _measured_ afterward from a knot on my line near my reel, and got my fish. He weighed two and a quarter pounds, and I had to play him some to save him. And now, with a word to young fishermen and old _beginners_, I will close. Learn first to cast a line and take a trout with bait before you try a fly. You will thereby gain confidence, learn to hook your fish at the instant he strikes, and gain the supple use of arm and wrist which makes the fly-fisherman skillful. My dear wife, by whose sick bed I pen these words, for one long joyous summer in camp, fished by my side, using bait while she saw me casting no lure but flies. The next time we went on the stream she had a six-ounce fly-rod, and fifty beautiful trout in two hours to her basket proved how apt a pupil she had been. With many words of cheer to all who love the glorious pastime, I remain, as of yore--Uncle Ned--_a born fisherman_. "Eagle's Nest," Delaware Co., N. Y. "There are two peculiarities of all sorts of fish, which are frequently unnoticed; that they are largely attracted to their food by scent, and that they feed at night."--_Seth Green_. "The first and last object of the fly-fisher is to show as much of the fly to the fish as possible, and as little of anything else."--_Francis Francis_. "The notion of the main mass of anglers would appear to be, that if an unusually cunning fish takes up an impregnable-looking position he is to be religiously left unassailed. 'Breakers ahead!' seem to be scented by the over-cautious pliers of the rod, when the chances of conquest are really 'as even' as in less dangerous localities; and even supposing this were not so, the greater the difficulties the more exciting the sport, and the keener the pleasure."--_David Foster._ (Illustration Missing) 26. Manchester. 27. Blue Jay. 28. Imperial. 29. McLeod. 30. Black and Gold. 31. White and Jungle Cock. "Many men of fame, even equal to Dr. Johnson's, have been eminent as anglers, and have redeemed and disculpated angling from his surly and foolish sneer."--_John Lyle King._ "I invariably endeavor, when dressing a fly, to imitate the living insect; still I have seen nondescript flies beat all the palmer hackles and the most life-like flies that ever graced a casting-line."--"_Frank Forester_." "If we are content with an ungainly fly, we will be satisfied with inferiority of rod and tackle; and although the fish may not see the difference, the angler may become, from neglecting one point, slovenly in all. A well-made fly is a beautiful object, an ill-made one an eye-sore and annoyance; and it is a great satisfaction both to exhibit and examine a well-filled book of handsomely tied flies."--_R. B. Roosevelt_. "What is life, after all, but just going a-fishing all the time, casting flies on many rivers and lakes, and going quietly home as the day is ending?"--_W. C. Prime._ "This fishing story is at an end; not for want of material, for there are other scenes and other times of equal pleasure that crowd my memory as I write these lines. And so it will ever be to you, my friend, should you, even in your later years, take up the angler's art: it grows with its growth, and strengthens with its strength, and, if uncurbed, may perchance, with many of us, become a passion. "But, for all that, it will fill the storehouse of our memories with many a scene of unalloyed pleasure, which in the sunset of life we may look back upon with fondest satisfaction. "If in the minds of any one of you who as yet are ignorant of the charm of fishing, as it has here been revealed. I have induced the desire for a test, 'Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once,' provided it be the season, and, the word of an old fisherman for it, you will thank me for these random pages."--_Charles W. Stevens._ 
40018	----	file was produced from images generously made available by Biodiversity Heritage Library.) [Illustration front cover] _THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S LIBRARY_ _EDITED BY CASPAR WHITNEY_ BASS, PIKE, PERCH AND OTHERS [Illustration illo 003] [Illustration illo 005] BASS, PIKE, PERCH AND OTHERS BY JAMES A. HENSHALL, M.D. AUTHOR OF "BOOK OF THE BLACK-BASS," "MORE ABOUT THE BLACK-BASS." "CAMPING AND CRUISING IN FLORIDA," "YE GODS AND LITTLE FISHES," ETC. [Illustration illo 006] New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1903 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1903. BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped April, 1903. Norwood Press J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. INTRODUCTION In this volume are included all of the game-fishes of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, except the salmons and trouts, and the tarpon, jewfish, and other fishes of large size, which are described in other volumes of this series. As a matter of convenience I have grouped the fishes in families, whenever possible, but in their sequence I have been guided chiefly by their importance as game-fishes, and not in accordance with their natural order. The latter feature, however, has been provided for in a systematic list on a subsequent page. In order not to burden the text with matter that might not be of general interest, the technical descriptions of the fishes of each group are given in small type at the head of each chapter; and that they may be readily understood by the lay reader the following explanations seem necessary. The length of the head is from the point of the snout to the hindmost point or margin of the gill-cover. The length of the body is from the point of the snout to the base of the caudal fin, the fin itself not being included. The depth of the body is from the highest point of the dorsal line to the lowest point of the ventral line, usually from the base of the first dorsal fin to the base of the ventral fin. The expression "head 5" means that the length of the head is contained five times in the length of the body; the expression "depth 5" means that the depth of the body is contained five times in its length; "eye 5" means that the diameter of the eye is contained five times in the length of the head. In describing the fins the spiny rays are denoted by Roman numerals, and the soft rays by Arabic numerals, and the fins themselves by initials; thus "D. 9" means that the dorsal fin is single and composed of nine soft rays; "D. IX, 10" means that the single dorsal fin has nine spiny rays and ten soft rays; when separated by a hyphen, as "D. X-12," it means that there are two dorsal fins, the first composed of ten spiny rays and the second of twelve soft ones; "A. III, 11" means that the anal fin has three spines and eleven soft rays. The expression "scales 7-65-18" indicates that there are seven rows of scales between the dorsal fin and the lateral line, sixty-five scales along the lateral line, and eighteen oblique or horizontal rows between the lateral line and the ventral line. The number of rays in the fins and the number of scales along the lateral line, as given, represent the average number, and are subject to slight variation; thus in some localities the number of rays in a fin may be found to vary one or two, and the number of scales along the lateral line may vary from one to five, more or less, from the number given in the descriptions. I have adhered strictly to the nomenclature of the "Fishes of Middle and North America" (Bulletin, U.S. National Museum, No. 47), by Jordan and Evermann, and in the main I have followed the descriptions as recorded in that admirable work; but in many instances I have depended on my own notes. The suggestions as to angling and the tools and tackle recommended may be confidently relied on, as they are in conformity with my own practice and are based on my personal experience, covering a period of forty years, on many waters, from Canada to the West Indies, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. JAMES A. HENSHALL. BOZEMAN, MONTANA. February 1, 1903. SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT OF THE FISHES DESCRIBED IN THIS VOLUME FAMILY =SILURIDÆ= =Ictalurus punctatus= (Rafinesque). =The Channel Catfish=. FAMILY =CYPRINIDÆ= =Cyprinus carpio=, Linnæus. =The German Carp=. FAMILY =ELOPIDÆ= =Elops saurus=, Linnæus. =The Ten-pounder=. FAMILY =ALBULIDÆ= =Albula vulpes= (Linnæus). =The Lady-Fish=. FAMILY =SALMONIDÆ= =Coregonus williamsoni=, Girard. =The Rocky Mountain Whitefish=. =Argyrosomus artedi sisco=, Jordan. =The Cisco=. FAMILY =THYMALLIDÆ= =Thymallus signifer= (Richardson). =The Arctic Grayling=. =Thymallus tricolor=, Cope. =The Michigan Grayling=. =Thymallus montanus=, Milner. =The Montana Grayling=. FAMILY =ARGENTINIDÆ= =Osmerus mordax= (Mitchill). =The Smelt=. FAMILY =ESOCIDÆ= =Esox americanus=, Gmelin. =The Banded Pickerel=. =Esox vermiculatus=, Le Sueur. =The Western Pickerel=. =Esox reticulatus=, Le Sueur. =The Eastern Pickerel=. =Esox lucius=, Linnæus. =The Pike=. =Esox nobilior=, Thompson. =The Mascalonge=. FAMILY =HOLOCENTRIDÆ= =Holocentrus ascensionis= (Osbeck). =The Squirrel Fish=. FAMILY =SCOMBRIDÆ= =Sarda sarda= (Bloch). =The Bonito=. =Scomberomorus maculatus= (Mitchill). =The Spanish Mackerel=. =Scomberomorus regalis= (Bloch). =The Cero=. FAMILY =CARANGIDÆ= =Carangus crysos= (Mitchill). =The Runner=. =Carangus latus= (Agassiz). =The Horse-eye Jack=. =Trachinotus glaucus= (Bloch). =The Gaff Top-sail Pompano=. =Trachinotus goodei=, Jordan & Evermann. =The Permit=. =Trachinotus carolinus= (Linnæus). =The Pompano=. FAMILY =RACHYCENTRIDÆ= =Rachycentron canadus= (Linnæus). =The Cobia=. FAMILY =CENTRARCHIDÆ= =Pomoxis annularis=, Rafinesque. =The Crappie=. =Pomoxis sparoides= (Lacépéde). =The Calico-bass=. =Ambloplites rupestris= (Rafinesque). =The Rock-bass=. =Archoplites interruptus= (Girard). =The Sacramento Perch=. =Chænobryttus gulosus= (Cuvier & Valenciennes). =The Warmouth Perch=. =Lepomis auritus= (Linnæus). =The Red-breast Sunfish=. =Lepomis megalotis= (Rafinesque). =The Long-eared Sunfish=. =Lepomis pallidus= (Mitchill). =The Blue Sunfish=. =Eupomotis gibbosus= (Linnæus). =The Common Sunfish=. =Micropterus dolomieu=, Lacépéde. =The Small-mouth Black-bass=. =Micropterus salmoides= (Lacépéde). =The Large-mouth Black-bass=. FAMILY =PERCIDÆ= =Stizostedion vitreum= (Mitchill). =The Pike-perch=. =Stizostedion canadense= (Smith). =The Sauger=. =Perca flavescens= (Mitchill). =The Yellow Perch=. FAMILY =CENTROPOMIDÆ= =Centropomus undecimalis= (Bloch). =The Snook, or Rovallia=. FAMILY =SERRANIDÆ= =Roccus chrysops= (Rafinesque). =The White-bass=. =Roccus lineatus= (Bloch). =The Striped-bass=. =Morone interrupta=, Gill. =The Yellow-bass=. =Morone americana= (Gmelin). =The White Perch=. =Petrometopon cruentatus= (Lacépéde). =The Coney=. =Bodianus fulvus= (Linnæus). =The Nigger Fish=. =Epinephelus adscensionis= (Osbeck). =The Rock Hind=. =Epinephelus guttatus= (Linnæus). =The Red Hind=. =Mycteroperca venenosa= (Linnæus). =The Yellow Fin Grouper=. =Mycteroperca microlepis= (Goode & Bean). =The Gag=. =Mycteroperca falcata phenax=, Jordan & Swain. =The Scamp=. =Centropristes striatas= (Linnæus). =The Sea-bass=. =Centropristes ocyurus= (Jordan & Evermann). =The Gulf Sea-bass=. =Centropristes philadelphicus= (Linnæus). =The Southern Sea-bass=. =Diplectrum formosum= (Linnæus). =The Sand-fish=. FAMILY =LOBOTIDÆ= =Lobotes surinamensis= (Bloch). =The Triple Tail=. FAMILY =LUTIANIDÆ= =Lutianus jocu= (Bloch & Schneider). =The Dog Snapper=. =Lutianus apodus= (Walbaum). =The Schoolmaster=. =Lutianus aya= (Bloch). =The Red Snapper=. =Lutianus synagri=s (Linnæus). =The Lane Snapper=. =Ocyurus chrysurus= (Bloch). =The Yellow-tail=. FAMILY =HÆMULIDÆ= =Hæmulon album=, Curvier & Valenciennes. =The Margate-fish=. =Hæmulon macrostomum=, Gunther. =The Gray Grunt=. =Hæmulon parra= (Desmarest). =The Sailor's Choice=. =Hæmulon sciurus= (Shaw). =The Yellow Grunt=. =Hæmulon plumieri= (Lacépéde). =The Black Grunt=. =Hæmulon flavolineatum= (Desmarest). =The French Grunt=. =Anisotremus virginicus= (Linnæus). =The Pork-fish=. =Orthopristis chrysopterus= (Linnæus). =The Pig-fish=. FAMILY =SPARIDÆ= =Stenotomus chrysops= (Linnæus). =The Scup=. =Stenotomus aculeatus= (Cuvier & Valenciennes). =The Southern Porgy=. =Calamus calamus= (Cuvier & Valenciennes). =The Saucer-eye Porgy=. =Calamus proridens=, Jordan & Gilbert. =The Little Head Porgy=. =Calamus bajonado= (Bloch & Schneider). =The Jolt Head Porgy=. =Calamus arctifrons=, Goode & Bean. =The Grass Porgy=. =Lagodon rhomboides= (Linnæus). =The Pin-fish=. =Archosargus probatocephalus= (Walbaum). =The Sheepshead=. FAMILY =KYPHOSIDÆ= =Kyphosus sectatrix= (Linnæus). =The Bermuda Chub=. FAMILY =SCIÆNIDÆ= =Cynoscion nothus= (Holbrook). =The Bastard Weakfish=. =Cynoscion regalis= (Bloch & Schneider). =The Weakfish=. =Cynoscion thalassinus= (Holbrook). =The Deep-water Weakfish=. =Cynoscion nebulosus= (Cuvier & Valenciennes). =The Spotted Weakfish=. =Leiostomus xanthurus=, Lacépéde. =The Lafayette, or Spot=. =Micropogon undulatus= (Linnæus). =The Croaker=. =Menticirrhus saxatilis= (Bloch & Schneider). =The Kingfish=. =Aplodinotus grunniens=, Rafinesque. =The Fresh-water Drumfish=. FAMILY =LABRIDÆ= =Tautogolabrus adspersus= (Walbaum). =The Cunner=. FAMILY =EPHIPPIDÆ= =Chætodipterus faber= (Broussonet). =The Angel-fish=. FAMILY =BALISTIDÆ= =Balistes carolinensis=, Gmelin. =The Turbot=. FAMILY =PLEURONECTIDÆ= =Pseudopleuronectes americanus= (Walbaum). =The Flounder=. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE SUNFISH FAMILY, _Centrarchidæ_ 1 The Small-mouth Black-bass, _Micropterus dolomieu_ 3 The Large-mouth Black-bass, _Micropterus salmoides_ 30 The Rock-bass, _Ambloplites rupestris_ 52 The Sacramento Perch, _Archoplites interruptus_ 57 The Warmouth Perch, _Chænobryttus gulosus_ 58 The Blue Sunfish, _Lepomis pallidus_ 62 The Long-eared Sunfish, _Lepomis megalotis_ 65 The Red-breast Sunfish, _Lepomis auritus_ 67 The Common Sunfish, _Eupomotis gibbosus_ 69 The Calico-bass, _Pomoxis sparoide_ 73 The Crappie, _Pomoxis annularis_ 79 CHAPTER II THE BASS FAMILY, _Serranidæ_ 85 The White-bass, _Roccus chrysops_ 86 The Yellow-bass, _Morone interrupta_ 90 CHAPTER III THE SEA-BASS FAMILY, _Serranidæ_ (continued) 95 The Striped-bass, _Roccus lineatus_ 96 The White-perch, _Morone americana_ 110 The Sea-bass, _Centropristes striatus_ 115 The Southern Sea-bass, _Centropristes philadelphicus_ 118 The Gulf Sea-bass, _Centropristes ocyuru_ 119 CHAPTER IV THE PIKE FAMILY, _Esocidæ_ 120 The Mascalonge, _Esox nobilior_ 122 The Pike, _Esox lucius_ 137 The Eastern Pickerel, _Esox reticulatus_ 149 The Western Pickerel, _Esox vermiculatus_ 153 The Banded Pickerel, _Esox americanus_ 154 CHAPTER V THE PERCH FAMILY, _Percidæ_ 156 The Pike-perch, _Stizostedion vitreum_ 157 The Sauger, _Stizostedion canadense_ 164 The Yellow-perch, _Perca flavescens_ 165 CHAPTER VI THE GRAYLING FAMILY, _Thymallidæ_ 173 The Arctic Grayling, _Thymallus signifer_ 176 The Michigan Grayling, _Thymallus tricolor_ 178 The Montana Grayling, _Thymallus montanus_ 181 CHAPTER VII THE SALMON FAMILY, _Salmonidæ_ 203 The Rocky Mountain Whitefish, _Coregonus williamsoni_ 204 The Cisco, _Argyrosomus artedi sisco_ 207 CHAPTER VIII THE DRUM FAMILY, _Sciænidæ_ 213 The Weakfish, _Cynoscion regalis_ 215 The Bastard Weakfish, _Cynoscion nothus_ 221 The Kingfish, _Menticirrhus saxatilis_ 221 The Croaker, _Micropogon undulatus_ 226 The Lafayette, _Leiostomus xanthurus_ 228 CHAPTER IX THE DRUM FAMILY, _Sciænidæ_ (continued) 232 The Fresh-water Drumfish, _Aplodinotus grunniens_ 232 CHAPTER X THE MINNOW FAMILY, _Cyprinidæ_ 236 The German Carp, _Cyprinus carpio_ 236 CHAPTER XI THE CATFISH FAMILY, _Siluridæ_ 244 The Channel-catfish, _Ictalurus punctatus_ 244 CHAPTER XII THE SHEEPSHEAD FAMILY, _Sparidæ_ 251 The Sheepshead, _Archosargus probatocephalus_ 252 The Scup, _Stenotomus chrysops_ 259 CHAPTER XIII MISCELLANEOUS FISHES The Cunner, _Tautogolabrus adspersus_ 264 The Flounder, _Pseudopleuronectes americanus_ 266 The Smelt, _Osmerus mordax_ 269 CHAPTER XIV THE MACKEREL FAMILY, _Scombridæ_ 272 The Spanish Mackerel, _Scomberomorus maculatus_ 273 The Cero, _Scomberomorus regalis_ 278 The Bonito, _Sarda sarda_ 282 CHAPTER XV THE GROUPER FAMILY, _Serranidæ_ 285 The Gag, _Mycteroperca microlepis_ 287 The Scamp, _Mycteroperca falcata phenax_ 291 The Yellow-finned Grouper, _Mycteroperca venenosa_ 294 The Rock Hind, _Epinephelus adscensionis_ 295 The Red Hind, _Epinephelus guttatus_ 297 The Coney, _Petrometopon cruentatus_ 299 The Nigger-fish, _Bodianus fulvus_ 300 The Sand-fish, _Diplectrum formosum_ 303 CHAPTER XVI THE CAVALLI FAMILY, _Carangidæ_ 306 The Runner, _Carangus chrysos_ 307 The Horse-eye Jack, _Carangus latus_ 310 The Pompano, _Trachinotus carolinus_ 311 CHAPTER XVII THE CHANNEL FISHES THE GRUNT FAMILY, _Hæmulidæ_ 321 The Black Grunt, _Hæmulon plumieri_ 323 The Yellow Grunt, _Hæmulon sciurus_ 326 The Margate-fish, _Hæmulon album_ 328 The Sailor's Choice, _Hæmulon parra_ 330 The Pig-fish, _Orthopristis chrysopterus_ 331 The Pork-fish, _Anisotremus virginicus_ 334 THE SNAPPER FAMILY, _Lutianidæ_ 336 The Yellow-tail, _Ocyurus chrysurus_ 338 The Lane Snapper, _Lutianus synagris_ 339 The Red Snapper, _Lutianus aya_ 342 The Dog Snapper, _Lutianus jocu_ 344 The Schoolmaster, _Lutianus apodus_ 345 THE PORGY FAMILY, _Sparidæ_ 347 The Jolt-head Porgy, _Calamus bajonado_ 348 The Saucer-eye Porgy, _Calamus calamus_ 350 The Little-head Porgy, _Calamus proridens_ 352 The Grass Porgy, _Calamus arctifrons_ 353 CHAPTER XVIII MISCELLANEOUS FISHES The Lady-fish, _Albula vulpes_ 355 The Ten-pounder, _Elops saurus_ 361 The Snook, _Centropomus undecimalis_ 366 The Triple-tail, _Lobotes surinamensis_ 370 The Cobia, _Rachycentron canadus_ 373 The Spotted Weakfish, _Cynoscion nebulosus_ 376 The Deep-sea Weakfish, _Cynoscion thalassinus_ 381 The Bermuda Chub, _Kyphosus sectatrix_ 382 The Angel-fish, _Chætodipterus faber_ 384 The Pinfish, _Lagodon rhomboides_ 386 The Squirrel-fish, _Holocentrus ascensionis_ 388 The Turbot, _Balistes carolinensis_ 390 INDEX 401 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE OSWEGO (LARGE-MOUTH) BASS 36 THE SMALL-MOUTH BLACK-BASS. THE LARGE-MOUTH BLACK-BASS. THE ROCK-BASS 62 SURF-FISHING FOR BASS 96 CATCHING SEA-BASS OFF NEWPORT 100 THE SEA-BASS. THE MASCALONGE. THE PIKE 114 THE MASCALONGE OF THE WEEDS. TROLLING WITH HANDLINE 120 THE EASTERN PICKEREL. THE WESTERN PICKEREL. THE PIKE-PERCH. THE YELLOW-PERCH 140 THE ARCTIC GRAYLING. THE MICHIGAN GRAYLING. THE MONTANA GRAYLING 174 THE MORE SPORTSMANLY WAY OF CATCHING MASCALONGE 200 THE WEAKFISH. THE KINGFISH. THE GERMAN CARP 226 THE CHANNEL-CATFISH. THE SHEEPSHEAD. THE CUNNER 244 FISHING FOR CUNNERS 250 THE FLOUNDER. THE SMELT. THE SPANISH MACKEREL 264 THE BONITO. THE NIGGER-FISH. THE POMPANO 280 CATCHING SPANISH MACKEREL ON THE EDGE OF THE GULF STREAM 300 THE BLACK GRUNT. THE RED SNAPPER 322 THE JOLT-HEAD PORGY. THE LADY-FISH. THE COBIA 348 TAKING BONITO BY TROLLING OFF BLOCK ISLAND 350 THE ANGEL-FISH. THE TURBOT 384 BASS, PIKE, AND PERCH CHAPTER I THE SUNFISH FAMILY (_Centrarchidæ_) The sunfish family is composed entirely of fresh-water fishes. They are characterized by a symmetrically-shaped body, rather short and compressed; mouth terminal; teeth small, without canines; scales rather large; cheeks and gill-covers scaly; scales mostly smooth; border of preopercle smooth, or but slightly serrated; opercle ending in two flat points, or in a black flap; a single dorsal fin, composed of both spiny and soft rays; anal fin also having both spines and soft rays; the dorsal spines varying from 6 to 13 in the different species, with from 3 to 9 in the anal fin; sexes similar; coloration mostly greenish. GENUS MICROPTERUS _Micropterus dolomieu._ Small-mouth Black-bass. Body ovate-oblong; head 3; depth 3; eye 6; D. X, 13; A. III, 10; scales 11-73-17; mouth large, the maxillary reaching front of eye; scales on cheek minute, in 17 rows; teeth villiform. _Micropterus salmoides._ Large-mouth Black-bass. Body ovate-oblong; head 3; depth 3; eye 5; D. X, 13; A. III, 11; scales 8-68-16; scales on cheek large, in 10 rows; mouth very large, maxillary extending beyond the eye; teeth villiform. GENUS AMBLOPLITES _Ambloplites rupestris._ Rock-bass. Body oblong, moderately compressed; head 2-3/4; depth 2-1/2; eye 4; D. XI, 10; A. VI, 10; scales 5-40-12, with 6 to 8 rows on cheeks; mouth large, maxillary extending to posterior part of pupil; teeth small, single patch on tongue; gill-rakers 7 to 10, on lower part of arch; preopercle serrate near its angle; opercle ends in 2 flat points. GENUS ARCHOPLITES _Archoplites interruptus._ Sacramento Perch. Body oblong-ovate, compressed; head 2-2/3; depth 2-1/2; eye 4; D. XII, 10; A. VI, 10; scales 7-45-14; 8 rows on cheeks; mouth very large, maxillary extending beyond pupil; teeth numerous and small, with 2 patches on tongue; gill-rakers 20; opercle emarginate; most of the membrane bones of head serrate. GENUS CHÆNOBRYTTUS _Chænobryttus gulosus._ Warmouth Perch. Body heavy and deep; head 2-1/2; depth 2-1/4; eye 4; D. X, 9; A. III, 8; scales 6-42-11; 6 to 8 rows on cheeks; teeth small and numerous; gill-rakers 9; preopercle entire; mouth very large; opercle ends in a black convex flap. GENUS LEPOMIS _Lepomis pallidus._ Blue Sunfish. Body short and deep, compressed; head 3; depth 2; eye 3-1/2; D. X, 12; A. III, 12; scales 7-46-16; 5 rows on cheeks; mouth small, maxillary barely reaching eye; teeth small and sharp; opercular flap without pale edge; gill-rakers x + 11 to 13. _Lepomis megalotis._ Long-eared Sunfish. Body short and deep, the back arched; head 3; depth 2; eye 4; D. X, 11; A. III, 9; scales 5-40-14; 5 rows on cheeks; mouth small and oblique; opercular flap long and broad, with red or blue margin; gill-rakers x + 8 or 9. _Lepomis auritus._ Red-breast Sunfish. Body elongate; head 3; depth 3; eye 4; D. X, 11; A. III, 9; scales 6-45-15; mouth large, oblique; palatine teeth present; gill-rakers _x_ + 8 or 9, quite short; opercular flap very long and narrow; scales on breast very small; 7 rows scales on cheeks. GENUS EUPOMOTIS _Eupomotis gibbosus._ Common Sunfish. Body short and deep, compressed; head 3; depth 2; eye 4; D. X, 11; A. III, 10; scales 6-45-13; 4 rows on cheeks; mouth small, oblique, maxillary scarcely reaching front of eye; pharyngeal teeth paved and rounded; gill-rakers soft and small, _x_ + 10; opercular flap rather small, the lower part bright scarlet. GENUS POMOXIS _Pomoxis sparoides._ Calico-bass. Body oblong, elevated, much compressed; head 3; depth 2; D. VII, 15; A. VI, 17; scales 40 to 45; 6 rows on cheeks; mouth large, maxillary reaching to posterior edge of pupil; snout projecting; fins very high, anal higher than dorsal. _Pomoxis annularis._ Crappie. Body rather elongate; head 3; depth 2-1/3; D. VI, 15; A. VI, 18; scales 36 to 48; 4 or 5 rows on cheek; mouth very wide; fins very high, but lower than _sparoides_. THE SMALL-MOUTH BLACK-BASS (_Micropterus dolomieu_) The generic name _Micropterus_ was given to the small-mouth black-bass by the French ichthyologist Lacépéde, in 1802, who was the first to describe it. The name _Micropterus_, which means "small fin," was bestowed on account of the mutilated condition of the dorsal fin of the specimen, a few of the posterior rays of the fin being detached and broken off, giving the appearance of a short and separate fin. The specimen was sent to Paris from an unknown locality in America, and is still preserved in the Museum of Natural History at Paris, where I personally examined it. It is a fine example, about a foot in length, and is remarkably well preserved. As there was no known genus to which the specimen with the curious dorsal fin could be referred, Lacépéde created the new genus _Micropterus_. He gave it the specific name _dolomieu_ as a compliment to his friend M. Dolomieu, a French mineralogist, for whom the mineral dolomite was also named. Originally, the small-mouth black-bass was restricted to the Great Lake region, parts of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and along the upper reaches of streams flowing from the Alleghany Mountains in the Southern states. It has, however, been introduced into all of the New England and Middle states, and into many Western states. It has a compressed, rather elliptical body, the dorsal and ventral outlines being nearly equal; it becomes deeper with age. As its range, or distribution, is so great and extensive, and the waters it inhabits are so different in hue and character, the coloration of the small-mouth bass varies from almost black to the faintest tinge of green, in different sections of the country. The coloration is so variable that it differs even in fish in the same waters. It is influenced mostly by the hue of the water, character of the bottom, the presence or absence of weeds about the haunts of the bass, and, moreover, the changes in color may occur in a very short time when subject to these various conditions. The general color, however, is greenish of various shades, always darker on the back, and paling to white or whitish on the belly. When markings are present, they form vertical patches or bars, never horizontal. Three bronze streaks extend from the eye across the cheeks. All markings, however, may become obsolete with age. The natural food of both species is crawfish, which might be inferred from the character of their teeth and wide-opening mouth. There is a popular belief that they are essentially and habitually piscivorous; but this is an error; they are not so black as they are painted. They feed on minute crustaceans and larval forms of insects when young, and afterward on crawfish, minnows, frogs, insects, etc., as do most fishes that have teeth in the jaws. But the teeth of the black-bass are villiform and closely packed, presenting an even surface as uniform as the surface of a tooth-brush. Such teeth are incapable of wounding, and merely form a rough surface for holding their prey securely. All truly piscivorous fishes have fewer, but sharp, conical teeth, of unequal length, like the yellow-perch, pike-perch, mascalonge, and trout, or lancet-shaped teeth like the bluefish. The black-bass is far less destructive to fish life than any of the fishes mentioned; on the contrary, it suffers the most in a mixed community of fishes, and is the first to disappear. There are small lakes in Canada and Michigan where the brook-trout and black-bass have coexisted from time immemorial without jeopardy to the trout. There are small lakes in Wisconsin where black-bass and cisco, with other species, have coexisted for all time; and while the cisco is as numerous as ever, the black-bass has almost disappeared. It does not follow, however, that black-bass should be introduced in trout waters; far from it. Brook-trout are being exterminated fast enough, owing to the changed natural conditions of the streams and their surroundings, without adding another contestant for the limited supply of food in such waters. Both species of black-bass have been introduced into Germany, France, Russia, and the Netherlands. In Germany, especially, they have found a permanent home. It was my privilege materially to assist Herr Max von dem Borne, of Berneuchen, with such advice as enabled him to start on a sure footing in his enterprise, and with such subsequent success in its establishment that he published several brochures on the black-bass to meet the demand for information as to its habits and merits as a game and food-fish. An effort was made some years ago to introduce the black-bass into English waters, but without success, owing to a want of knowledge as to the proper species to experiment with. The small-mouth bass was placed in weedy ponds or small lakes in which only the large-mouth bass would live. The small-mouth bass thrives only in comparatively clear, cool, and rocky or gravelly streams, and in lakes and ponds supplied by such streams or having cold bottom springs. In lakes of the latter character, in northern sections, it coexists with large-mouth bass in many instances. In such cases, however, the small-mouth will be found usually at the inlet, or about the springs, and the large-mouth at the outlet or in sheltered, grassy situations. In winter it undergoes a state of partial or complete torpidity. In ponds that have been drained in the winter season it has been found snugly ensconced in the crevices of rocks, beneath shelving banks, logs, roots, or among masses of vegetation, undergoing its winter sleep. In the spring, when the temperature of the water rises above fifty degrees, the small-mouth bass emerges from its winter quarters, about which it lingers until the water becomes still warmer, when it departs in search of suitable locations for spawning. At this time, owing to a semi-migratory instinct, it ascends streams, and roams about in lakes or ponds, often ascending inlet streams, or in some instances descending outlet streams. When favorable situations are found, the male and female pair off and proceed to fulfil the reproductive instinct. The spawning period extends from May to July, according to the section of the country it inhabits, and when the temperature of the water is suitable. The nests are formed on a bottom of gravel or coarse sand, or on a flat rock in very rocky streams. The male fish does the work of preparation by scouring with fins and tail a space about twice his length in diameter, forming a shallow, saucer-shaped depression, in which the female deposits her eggs, which are fertilized by the male, who hovers near by. The eggs are heavy and adhesive, being invested with a glutinous matter that enables them to adhere to the pebbles on the bottom. The number of eggs varies from two thousand to twenty-five thousand, according to the size and weight of the female. The nest is carefully guarded by the parents until the eggs hatch, the period of incubation being from one to two weeks, according to the temperature of the water. The resultant fry are then watched and brooded by the male fish for several days or a week, when they seek the shelter of weeds and grasses in shallow water. The young fry feed on minute crustaceans and the larval forms of insects. When a month old they are about an inch long, and continue to grow, if food is plentiful, so that they reach a length of from three to six inches in the fall. Thereafter they increase a pound a year under the most favorable conditions, until the maximum weight is attained, which is about five pounds. In some instances, however, they have reached a weight of seven or even ten pounds, where the environment has been unusually favorable; notably in Glen Lake, near Glens Falls, New York, where a half-dozen or more have been taken weighing from eight to ten pounds. One of ten pounds was twenty-five and one-half inches long and nineteen inches in girth. As a game-fish the black-bass has come into his inheritance. As the French say, he has arrived. With the special tools and tackle now furnished for his capture, he has proved my aphorism. "Inch for inch, and pound for pound, he is the gamest fish that swims." When I ventured this opinion twenty-five years ago, there were no special articles made for his capture except the Kentucky reel and the McGinnis rod, twelve feet long and fifteen ounces in weight. In awarding the palm as a game-fish to the black-bass, I do so advisedly, in the light of ample experience with all other game-fishes, and without prejudice, for I have an innate love and admiration for all, from the lovely trout of the mountain brook to the giant tarpon of the sea. In the application of so broad and sweeping an assertion each and every attribute of a game-fish must be well considered: his habitat; his aptitude to rise to the fly; his struggle for freedom; his manner of resistance; his weight as compared with other game-fishes; and his excellence as a food-fish, must be separately and collectively considered and duly and impartially weighed. His haunts are amid most charming and varied scenes. Not in the silent and solemn solitudes of the primeval forests, where animated Nature is evidenced mainly in swarms of gnats, black-flies, and mosquitoes; nor under the shadows of grand and lofty mountains, guarded by serried ranks of pines and firs, but whose sombre depths are void of feathered songsters. However grand, sublime, and impressive such scenes truly are, they do not appeal profoundly to the angler. He must have life, motion, sound. He courts Nature in her more communicative moods, and in the haunts of the black-bass his desires are realized. Wading down the rippling stream, casting his flies hither and yon, alert for the responsive tug, the sunlight is filtered through overhanging trees, while the thrush, blackbird, and cardinal render the air vocal with sweet sounds, and his rival, the kingfisher, greets him with vibrant voice. The summer breeze, laden with the scent of woodland blossoms, whispers among the leaves, the wild bee flits by on droning wing, the squirrel barks defiantly, and the tinkle of the cow-bell is mellowed in the distance. I know of such streams in the mountain valleys of West Virginia, amid the green rolling hills of Kentucky and Tennessee, and in the hill country where Missouri and Arkansas meet. The aptitude of the black-bass to rise to the artificial fly is not questioned by the twentieth-century angler, though it was considered a matter of doubt by many anglers during the last quarter of the nineteenth. The doubt was mainly owing to a lack of experience, for fly-fishing for black-bass was successfully practised in Kentucky as early, certainly, as 1845. I have before me a click reel made in 1848 by the late Mr. J.L. Sage, of Lexington, Kentucky, especially for fly-fishing. I have also seen his fly-rod made by him about the same time, and used by him for many years on the famous bass streams of that state. And I might say, in passing, that blackbass bait-fishing, as an art, originated in Kentucky a century ago. George Snyder, of Paris, Kentucky, when president of the Bourbon County Angling Club, made the first multiplying reel for casting the minnow, in 1810, and as early as 1830 many such reels were used in that state. The rods employed by those pioneers of black-bass fishing were about ten feet long, weighing but several ounces, cut from the small end of a Mississippi cane, with the reel lashed to the butt. They used the smallest Chinese "sea-grass" lines, or home-made lines of three strands of black sewing-silk twisted together. Those old disciples of Walton would have been shocked, could they have seen the heavy rods and coarse lines that are still used in some sections, for their own tackle was as light, if not so elegant, as any made at the present day. Another quality in a game-fish is measured by his resistance when hooked and by his efforts to escape. I think no fish of equal weight exhibits so much finesse and stubborn resistance, under such conditions, as the black-bass. Most fishes when hooked attempt to escape by tugging and pulling in one direction, or by boring toward the bottom, and if not successful in breaking away soon give up the unequal contest. But the black-bass exhibits, if not intelligence, something akin to it, in his strategical manoeuvres. Sometimes his first effort is to bound into the air at once and attempt to shake out the hook, as if he knew his misfortune came from above. At other times he dashes furiously, first in one direction, then in another, pulling strongly meanwhile, then leaps into the air several times in quick succession, madly shaking himself with open jaws. I have seen him fall on a slack line, and again by using his tail as a lever and the water as a fulcrum, throw himself over a taut line, evidently with the intent to break it or tear out the hook. Another clever ruse is to wind the line around a root or rock, and still another is to embed himself in a clump of water-weeds if permitted to do so. Or, finding it useless to pull straight away, he reverses his tactics and swims rapidly toward the angler, shaking himself and working his jaws, meanwhile, as if he knew that with a slack line he would be more apt to disengage the hook. I have never known a black-bass to sulk like the salmon by lying motionless on the bottom. He is never still unless he succeeds in reaching a bed of weeds. He is wily and adroit, but at the same time he is brave and valiant. He seems to employ all the known tactics of other fishes, and to add a few of his own in his gallant fight for freedom. As a food-fish there is, in my estimation, but one fresh-water fish that is better, the whitefish of the Great Lakes. Its flesh is white, firm, and flaky, with a fine savor, and a juicy, succulent quality that is lacking with most other fresh-water fishes. About the spawning period, especially in fish from weedy ponds, it is somewhat musky or muddy in flavor, like other fishes in similar situations; but by skinning the fish instead of scaling it much of that unpleasant feature is removed. BLACK-BASS TACKLE The first consideration for the fly-fisher is suitable tools and tackle, and the most important article of his outfit is the fly-rod. Fortunately, at the present day, manufacturers turn out such good work that one does not have to seek far to obtain the best. And the best is one made of split bamboo by a first-class maker. Such a rod necessarily commands a good price, but it is the cheapest in the end, for with proper care it will last a lifetime. I have rods of this character that I have used for thirty years that are still as good as new. But the angler should eschew the shoddy split-bamboo rods that are sold in the department stores for a dollar. A wooden rod at a moderate price is far better than a split-bamboo rod at double its cost. Rods are now made much better, of better material, and considerably shorter and lighter than formerly, and withal they are much better in balance and action. If any evidence were needed to prove and establish the superiority of the modern single-handed fly-rod over the old-style rod, it is only necessary to refer to the following facts: At the tournament of the New York State Sportsman's Association, in 1880, a cast of seventy feet won the first prize for distance; and at that time the longest on record was Seth Green's cast of eighty-six feet. At a contest of the San Francisco Fly-casting Club held on October 11, 1902, at Stow Lake, Golden Gate Park, Mr. H.C. Golcher made the remarkable and wonderful cast of one hundred and forty feet, beating the previous record cast of one hundred and thirty-four feet, held jointly by Mr. Golcher and Mr. W.D. Mansfield of the same club. A suitable fly-rod for black-bass fishing may be from nine to ten and one-half feet in length, and weigh from six and one-half to eight ounces, according to the preferences of the angler and the waters to be fished. For an all-round rod for all-round work my ideal is ten and a quarter feet long and weighing seven ounces in split bamboo and eight ounces in ash and lancewood, or ash and bethabara. It should be made in three pieces, with a stiffish backbone, constituting the lower third of its length, and with most of the bend in the upper two-thirds. A rod constructed on this principle will afford just the requisite amount of resiliency for casting, with sufficient pliancy and elasticity for playing a fish, and embody all the power and strength needed. The reel-seat should be simply a shallow groove in the hand-piece, with reel-bands, instead of the solid metal reel-seat, which subserves no good purpose and is only added weight; moreover, it is now put on the cheapest rods as a trap to catch the unwary. All metal mountings should be German silver or brass. Nickel-plated mountings are cheap and nasty. A light, single-action click reel of German silver or aluminum of fifty or sixty yards' capacity is the best. A plain crank handle is to be preferred to a balance handle, but in either case there should be a projecting rim or safety band, within which the handle revolves, in order to prevent fouling of the line. My own preference is for the English pattern, with a knobbed handle affixed to the edge of a revolving disk on the face of the reel. A multiplying reel with an adjustable click may be utilized instead of a click reel for fly-fishing. The enamelled, braided silk line is the only one suitable for casting the fly, and there is no better. A level line will answer, but a tapered one is better adapted for long casts. It may taper toward one end or both ways from the centre, the latter being preferable. From twenty-five to thirty yards is sufficient for all emergencies. It should be thoroughly dried every day it is used. A convenient way is to wind it around the back of a chair. Leaders may be from three to six feet long, accordingly as one or two flies are used in the cast. It should be composed of single, clear, round silkworm-gut fibre, tapering from the reel line to the distal end. It should not be tested to a greater weight than two pounds, as testing silkworm-gut weakens it very materially. It may be stained or not, though there is no advantage in coloring it; I prefer the natural hue. There should be a loop at the small end, and one three feet above it, for attaching the snells of flies. Before using it, it must be soaked in water until soft and pliable. Extra leaders may be carried in a box between layers of damp felt, so as to be ready for emergencies. The best and smallest and most secure knot for tying the lengths of gut together in making the leader is a simple half-hitch, like tying a single knot in a piece of string. When thoroughly soaked, the two ends to be tied are lapped a couple of inches, and a single knot, or half-hitch made in them, pulling the knot tight, and cutting off the loose ends closely. Snells should be three or four inches long, of good single gut, the shorter length for end fly. If the flies are made with a loop at the head, the snells for same should have a loop at each end for attaching to both fly and leader. If flies are made on eyed hooks, the snell should have but one loop for the leader, and a free end for tying to the eye of hook. The best knot for the purpose is made by passing the end of snell through the eye of hook, then around the shank just below the eye, and then between the shank and snell and draw tight, forming a jam knot. Where the snell is tied to the fly, it should likewise have a loop for attaching to the leader. It should also be reinforced by a piece of gut an inch long at the head of the fly to strengthen it and prevent chafing. Snells, whether separate or tied to flies, should be carried like leaders between layers of damp felt. Most flies made for black-bass fishing are too large. The largest trout flies tied on hooks Nos. 4 to 6 are big enough. As just mentioned, they are tied directly to the snell on tapered hooks, or made with a small gut loop at the head of the fly, which is much the best way. Since the introduction of the eyed hook, or rather a revival of it, for trout flies, they are now utilized for bass flies also. As between the Pennell hook with turned-down eye and the Hall hook with turned-up eye, there is not much choice. Both patterns are based on the old Limerick hook. I prefer the Sproat or O'Shaughnessy to either, with gut loop at the head of the fly. If the black-bass is not color-blind, he seems to have a penchant for brown, gray, black, and yellow, as flies embodying these colors seem to be more attractive to him than others. One can judge in this matter, however, only from experience. And even then the deduction of one angler is often at variance with the inference of another. The most successful bass flies, like salmon flies, are not made in imitation of natural insects. This is true also of some of the "general" trout flies that have proved particularly pleasing to the black-bass, as the professor, grizzly king, king of the waters, Montreal, coachman, etc. True, the black, gray, red, and yellow hackles, which are supposed to be imitations of caterpillars, are very useful on nearly all waters; but their resemblance to any known larval forms is very slight. There is a well-known rule in regard to the size and color of flies to be used at particular states and stages of the water, and in accordance with the time and character of the day. It is to use small and dark flies on bright days, with low and clear water; and larger and brighter flies on dark days with high or turbid water, and at dusk. This rule is hoary with age. It has come down to us through past centuries with the indorsement of thousands of intelligent and observant anglers, and should be respected accordingly. It is in the main reliable and trustworthy. Of course there will occur exceptions to prove the rule. And some iconoclastic anglers at this late day, in view of the exceptions, declare that it is entirely valueless as a guide; but they offer nothing better. It is true, nevertheless, and a safe rule to follow. FLY-FISHING To be a successful fly-fisher for black-bass the angler must know something of the habits of his quarry, or at least of its haunts and favorite places of resort. On streams these places are in the eddies of rocks or large boulders, in the deeper water above and below riffles, under shelving banks and rocks, among the submerged roots of trees on the bank, near weed patches, driftwood, and logs, and in the vicinity of gravelly bars and shoals. Except in cloudy weather the angler may rest during the noon hours, as the most favorable time is in the morning and late afternoon until dusk. If wading, the angler should fish down-stream, and when the shadows are long, should endeavor to keep the sun in front. He should move slowly and cautiously, making as little noise as possible, casting to the sides and in front over every likely spot. Casts of thirty or forty feet are usually sufficient. The flies should be allowed to float down-stream, with tremulous motions, sidewise, to imitate the struggles of a drowning insect, and then permitted to sink several inches or a foot at each cast. Whipping the stream is sometimes quite successful where the bass does not respond to ordinary casting. This is done by casting in quick succession and repeatedly over one spot, allowing the flies merely to touch the water, until several such casts are made, when they should be permitted to sink, for a few seconds, as before. In making up the cast, two flies should be selected of different combinations of colors, as polka and professor. If necessary, changes should be made until two are selected that seem to meet the fastidious fancy of the fish. If a taut line is maintained, the bass usually hooks himself, but the angler should strike quickly upon feeling the slightest tug, or when seeing the swirl of the fish. One cannot strike too quickly. By striking is meant a simple turning of the hand sidewise, with a perfectly tight line; this is amply sufficient to set the hook. Should the line be slack and lifeless at the moment, a more vigorous movement is required, but even then it is usually too late. When a bass is hooked, the contest should be between rod and fish, rather than between the reel and fish. It is the spring of the rod that conquers him, not the giving and taking of line. If the rod is held firmly, at an angle of forty-five degrees, with the thumb on the spool of the reel, there is no likelihood of a good rod breaking. Line should be given grudgingly, and the fish kept on the surface as much as possible. When exhausted he should be drawn over the landing-net and lifted out quickly, at the same time releasing the thumb from the reel to relieve the strain on the rod. In fishing from the bank in deeper streams, or from a boat on small lakes, whereby the fish is better enabled to see the angler, longer casts are necessary, or the angler must screen himself from observation by trees or bushes on the bank. The boat should be kept in the deeper water and the casts made toward the shallows of bars, shoals, and weed patches. The best time for boat fishing on lakes or ponds is from near sundown until dark. CASTING THE MINNOW The live minnow, shiner preferred, is by far the best bait for the black-bass, as it is more easily seen, and the best way of presenting it is by casting from the reel. For this purpose a rod eight or nine feet long is much better than a shorter or longer one. After a long series of experiments with rods from six to twelve feet, I arrived at the conclusion that the one now known as the Henshall rod, eight and one-fourth feet long and from seven to eight ounces in weight, fulfils all the requirements of casting, hooking, and playing a black-bass. It is light, strong, and of beautiful proportions. In first-class split bamboo it may be as light as six and one-half ounces, but should not exceed seven and one-half ounces. In ash and lancewood, or bethabara, from seven to eight ounces is the correct weight. A multiplying reel is indispensable. It may be two, three, or four-ply, but the best work and the most effective casting can only be done with the most perfect reel. It should be as light as possible, in a fifty or sixty-yard reel. German silver is the best material, though brass is fully as serviceable, and costs less. Some very good reels are made of hard rubber and metal. Only braided lines should be used, as twisted ones kink too much in casting. Undressed silk, of the smallest caliber, size H, is best. Braided linen is stronger, but of larger caliber, and not so suitable for good casting. Neither can effective casting be done with oil-dressed or enamelled lines. Snelled hooks on single-gut snells, size No. 1 or No. 2, Sproat preferred and O'Shaughnessy next, are the best in any method of bait-fishing for black-bass. There are several other styles of hooks used, but, everything considered, those named are the most faultless, and for shape, strength, and general excellence cannot be excelled. No leader is used, as the minnow must be reeled up to within a foot or two of the tip of the rod in casting. The snell of the hook is attached to the reel-line by the smallest brass box-swivel, or it may be tied directly to the line. The casts are made from right or left and underhand, not overhead as in casting the fly. Casts of 160 feet have been made in this way. The chief factor in this style of casting is the proper control of the reel by the thumb--by a gentle but constant and uniform pressure on the revolving spool, to prevent overrunning of the line during the cast, and a stronger pressure to stop the reel at the end of the cast. The thumb must be thoroughly educated to this work, and, once acquired, the rest is easy, as but little muscular effort is required. The novice must begin with short casts and increase their length as he becomes more proficient in the management of the reel. Perfect casting from the reel is more difficult than casting the fly, and more artistic. In wading a stream the casts are directed to the same likely places mentioned under the head of fly-fishing. The minnow is allowed to sink to half the depth of the water and reeled in slowly, which gives a lifelike motion to the bait when hooked through the lips. If there is no response, the next cast should be made to another spot, as a bass, if inclined to take the lure at all, will usually do so upon its first presentation. In fly-fishing it is imperative to strike as soon as the bass seizes the fly, otherwise he ejects it at once, if not hooked by a taut line, for he is conscious of the deception as soon as the fly is taken into his mouth. With natural bait it is different. The bass first seizes the minnow crosswise or tail first, turns it in his mouth, and swallows it head first. This takes a little time. Usually he holds it in his mouth and bolts away from other fish, or rushes toward a secure hiding-place--hence the vigorous initial dash and taking of line. If stopped before being hooked, he gives several tugs in quick succession, when he should be given line slowly. The angler, with thumb on the spool of the reel, can feel every motion of the fish. When he pulls steadily and strongly and increases his speed, the hook should be driven in by striking in the opposite direction to his course, or upward. A vigorous "yank" is not needed. With the strained line a movement of the tip of the rod a foot or two is sufficient with a sharp hook. If fishing from a boat, where the angler is more apt to be seen, it should be kept in deep water and the casts made toward the haunts of the bass in shallow water. Should the hooked bass break water on a long line, the slight straightening of the bent rod that ensues will tend to keep it taut, and there is nothing more to do. On a short line, however (the bend of the rod being maintained), he should be followed back to the water by a slight lowering of the tip, but it should again be raised as soon as he touches the water. The critical moment is when he is apparently standing on his tail, shaking himself, with wide-opened jaws. If he is given any slack line at this time, the hook is likely to be thrown out. Lowering the tip to a leaping fish is a good old rule when done understandingly. It has been ridiculed by some anglers who do not seem to have a clear conception of it. They claim that by lowering the tip it gives sufficient slack line to enable the fish to free himself. But if the rod is bent, as it should be, the simple lowering of the tip with a short line merely relieves it somewhat from the weight of the fish; there is no slack line, nor could there be unless the rod is lowered until it is perfectly straight, which no wide-awake angler would permit. As the fish is in the air but a second or two, the careless angler simply does nothing, which is, perhaps, the best thing that could happen for him. Trolling is practised from a moving boat along the edges of weeds or rushes, or in the neighborhood of gravelly shoals and bars or rocky ledges. The bait may be a minnow or a very small trolling-spoon; if the latter, it should have but a single hook. The revolving spoon is itself the lure, and any addition of a bunch of feathers, a minnow, or a strip of pork-rind does not add to its efficiency in the least, and moreover savors of pot-fishing. A rod and reel should always be used, as trolling with a hand-line is very unsportsmanlike. Still-fishing is practised from the bank or from an anchored boat. If the bait is live minnows, no float is necessary; but if crawfish, helgramites, cut-bait, or worms are employed, a very small float is useful to keep the bait off the bottom. The boat should be anchored in close proximity to the feeding-grounds of the bass, and the angler should keep as still as possible. Contrary to the popular opinion, fish hear sounds, not only those made in the water, but those in the air as well, otherwise they would not be provided with so delicate an auditory apparatus; because they do not always notice sounds made in the air is no proof that they do not hear them. The suggestions already made as to the hooking and playing and landing the bass apply to still-fishing as well. The minnow is best hooked through both lips, but if they are very small, they may be hooked just under the dorsal fin. THE LARGE-MOUTH BLACK-BASS (_Micropterus salmoides_) The large-mouth black-bass was also first described by the French ichthyologist Lacépéde, in 1802, from a drawing and description sent to him from South Carolina by M. Bosc, under the local name of "trout-perch." Owing to the vernacular name, he gave it the specific name of _salmoides_, "salmon-like" or "trout-like." Thirty years before, pressed skins of the large-mouth bass had been sent to Linnæus by Dr. Garden from Charleston. South Carolina, under the name of "freshwater trout," but Linnæus failed to describe or name it. The black-bass is called "trout" to this day in the Southern states. The large-mouth black-bass is very similar in appearance to the small-mouth bass. It is not quite so trimly built, being somewhat more "stocky" and robust. Its mouth is larger, the angle reaching behind the eye. It has larger scales, and those on the cheeks are not much smaller than those on the body, while in the small-mouth bass the cheek scales are very small compared with its body scales. The large-mouth is more muscular, and has a broader and more powerful tail. Its distribution is perhaps wider than that of any other game-fish, its range extending from Canada to Florida and Mexico, and, through transplantation, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It has also been introduced into Germany. France, Russia, and the Netherlands, where it is greatly esteemed both as a game-fish and food-fish. The coloration of the large-mouth bass is often of the same hue as the small-mouth bass, though usually it is not so dark, being mostly bronze-green, fading to white on the belly. When markings are present, they tend to form longitudinal streaks of aggregated spots, and not vertical ones, as in the small-mouth. Its habits of feeding, spawning, etc., are very similar to those of the small-mouth. It prefers stiller water, and is more at home in weedy situations, and will thrive in quiet, mossy ponds with muddy bottom where the small-mouth would eventually become extinct; on the other hand, the large-mouth can exist wherever it is possible for the small-mouth to do so. It is better able to withstand the vicissitudes of climate and temperature, and has a wonderful adaptability that enables it to become reconciled to its environment. The feeding habits of the two black-basses are much the same, though they differ as to their haunts. The large-mouth favors weedy rather than rocky places, and though its food is also much the same, the large-mouth is perhaps more partial to frogs and minnows, in the absence of crawfish, which, like the other species, it prefers. In the Northern states it hibernates, and reaches a maximum weight of six or eight pounds, while in the Gulf states, where it is active the year round, it is taken weighing twenty pounds or more. In Florida I have taken it on the fly up to fourteen pounds, and up to twenty pounds with natural bait. In waters where it coexists with the small-mouth bass there is no difference in their excellence as food-fish. I have often eaten the large-mouth bass from the clear-water lakes of Utah and Washington, that, with the single exception of the whitefish of Lake Superior, were the best of all fresh-water fishes. And I can truly say the same of those from some of the large rivers of Florida, notably the St. Lucie, St. Sebastian, and New rivers. It prefers to spawn on gravel or sand, but if such situations are lacking, it makes its nest on a clay or mud bottom, or on the roots of water-plants; or in ponds of very deep water without shallow shores, it will spawn on the top of masses of weeds, in order to get near enough to sunlight. In other respects its breeding habits are similar to its cousin the small-mouth, the time of incubation and the guarding of the eggs and young being about the same. As to the much-mooted subject of the gameness of the large-mouth bass I have no hesitation in saying, from an experience of nearly forty years, covering all sections of the country, that where the two species coexist there is no difference in their game qualities. The large-mouth is fully the equal of the small-mouth where they are exposed to the same conditions. Many anglers profess to think otherwise, but their deductions are drawn from a comparison of the two species when subject to totally different environment; for it is altogether a matter of environment and not of physical structure or idiosyncrasy that influences their game qualities. A small-mouth bass in a clear, rocky stream, highly aerated as it must be, is, as a matter of course, more active than a large-mouth bass in a quiet, weedy pond. With others the opinion is merely a matter of prejudice or hearsay, a prejudice that is, indeed, difficult to account for. It does not make the small-mouth bass a gamer fish by disparaging the large-mouth. As I have said elsewhere, if the large-mouth bass is just as game as the small-mouth, the angler is just that much better off. As prejudice and ignorance go hand in hand, we are not surprised when we hear persons--I do not style them anglers--call the small-mouth the "true" black-bass, implying that the large-mouth is not a black-bass, but is, as they often say, the Oswego bass, which is, of course, absurd. I am glad to add, however, that the prejudice against the large-mouth bass is dying out among observant anglers, who know that a trout in a clear stream is more vigorous than one in a weedy, mucky pond. From my own experience I am prepared to say that the large-mouth bass is more to be relied on in rising to the fly than the small-mouth, which fact should be taken into consideration when the gameness of the two species is compared. The remarks concerning fly-fishing for the small-mouth bass are also applicable to the large-mouth, as both are fished for in the same way, and with the same tackle, except that the rod may be a little heavier. For the large bass of the Gulf states the rod should be fully eight ounces in weight, and the flies a trifle larger, on hooks Nos. 2 to 6; otherwise the tackle should be the same. Minnow-casting for the large-mouth need not differ from that described for the small-mouth bass. The tackle likewise may be the same, though for the heavy bass of Florida the rod may be eight, or even nine ounces, if preferred. Hooks may also be employed of a larger size, say Nos. 1 to 1-0, or even 2-0, as larger minnows are used for bait. Some anglers of the Middle West have adopted a very short rod of six feet or less for casting the live frog or pork-rind overhead, in the same way as casting a fly. This is a very primitive style of bait-casting, being the same as practised by bucolic boys and Southern negroes using a sapling pole without a reel. The frog is reeled up to within a few inches of the tip and propelled like a wad of clay from a slender stick as we were wont to do as boys. The frog is projected with great accuracy, but not without a smack and splash on the water. With such a rod most of the pleasure of playing a bass to a finish is lost. Presumably the end justifies the means, but this method does not appeal to the artistic angler. If bait must be used, a small minnow, lightly cast from a suitable rod, is more in accordance with the eternal fitness of things and the practice and traditions of the gentle art. In very weedy ponds and lakes, however, where there is not open water enough to play a bass, and where it must be landed as soon as possible, this rod and style of casting answer a good purpose. [Illustration OSWEGO (LARGE-MOUTH) BASS] Still-fishing is the same for either species of black-bass, but as it is usually done from an anchored boat on Northern lakes, where the large-mouth bass is of greater size and weight than the small-mouth bass, somewhat heavier tackle may be used than recommended for the small-mouth. Trolling with the live or dead minnow, or a small spoon with a single hook, is a very successful method on lakes, ponds, and broad, still rivers. A greater length of line can be utilized in trolling, whereby the fish is not so apt to see the angler. More ground can also be covered than in any other style of fishing. The boat should be propelled slowly along the borders of rushes and weed patches, over shoals and gravelly banks, and near projecting points of the shore. Considerable care should be exercised to move as noiselessly as possible, avoiding splashing with the oars or paddle, or making any undue noise with the feet or otherwise in the boat, as such sounds are conveyed a long distance in so dense a medium as water. In trolling, the line may be lengthened to fifty yards, if necessary, though from twenty to thirty yards will usually be sufficient, especially when a good breeze is blowing. Bobbing for the large-mouth bass is much in vogue in the Gulf states, but is more often practised in Florida. The conventional "bob" is formed by tying a strip of deer's tail, with or without a piece of red flannel, around a triangle of hooks, the hairs completely investing the hooks. A single hook, however, answers fully as well or better. The hook is of large size, Nos. 3-0 to 5-0. The method of procedure is as follows: The boat is propelled by a single-bladed paddle, the paddler being seated in the stern. The boat is moved silently and cautiously, skirting the edges of water-lilies and bonnets, which grow thickly along the margin of the channels. The angler is seated in the bow with a very long cane rod, to which is affixed a short line of a few feet, not to exceed six. As the boat advances, the angler dances the bob as far ahead as possible. It is held a few inches or a foot above the water, into which it is "bobbed" at short intervals. Sometimes the bass leaps from the water to seize it. When hooked, the fish islanded without any ceremony and as soon as possible, keeping it meanwhile on the surface, to prevent its taking to the weeds. Bartram described bobbing as practised in Florida, for black-bass, nearly a century and a half ago. Although bass fishing dates back to the middle of the eighteenth century, when bobbing, skittering, and still-fishing were common methods in the extreme Southern states for the large-mouth bass, and though the dawn of the nineteenth century saw bait-fishing and fly-fishing for the small-mouth bass in Kentucky, it is surprising how little was known in the Northern and Eastern states about the black-bass and bass fishing a century after Bartram described bobbing for that game-fish in the narrative of his travels. Even so late as 1871, when the _Forest and Stream_ was established, very little appeared in its pages anent bass fishing. Indeed, a few years later, a discussion lasting a year or more appeared in its columns from week to week, as to whether the black-bass would rise to the fly. Previous to the publication of the writer's "Book of the Black-bass" in 1881, no work on angling gave any but the most meagre account of black-bass or bass fishing. The "American Angler's Guide," published in 1849 by John J. Brown, states that the black-bass has rows of small teeth, two dorsal fins, and a swallowtail. In the same work the large-mouth bass of the Southern states is classified under the head of "brook trout," the author being misled apparently by its Southern name of "trout," and goes on to say that they "grow much larger than Northern trout," and that they "are fished for with the same arrangement of tackle as the striped bass or salmon." A contributor to the work, however, from Buffalo, New York, treats briefly and vaguely of still-fishing with minnows and crawfish. Brief notes also from Southern and Western anglers give fair descriptions of the appearance and habits of both species of black-bass. Frank Forester (Henry W. Herbert) knew no more of the black-bass than Mr. Brown, and acknowledges that he never caught one. That old Nestor of angling, Uncle Thad Norris, in his "American Angler's Book," 1864, gives the descriptions of Louis Agassiz and Dr. Holbrook for the black-bass, and then relates his only experience as follows, "I have taken this bass in the vicinity of St. Louis, on a moonshiny night, by skittering a light spoon over the surface of the water, while standing on the shore." Genio C. Scott in his "Fishing in American Waters," 1869, has less to say, and evidently knew less of the black-bass than any of the earlier writers. He gives just three lines concerning black-bass fishing, saying, "This fish is taken by casting the artificial fly, or by trolling with the feathered spoon, with a minnow impaled on a gang of hooks, and forming spinning tackle." Of all the angling authors prior to 1870, Robert B. Roosevelt is the only one who knew anything about black-bass or black-bass fishing, having fished for it in the St. Lawrence basin. He says, "They will take minnows, shiners, grasshoppers, frogs, worms, or almost anything else that can be called a bait." Also, "They may be captured by casting the fly as for salmon or trout, and this is by far the most sportsmanlike way, but the most destructive and usually resorted to is trolling." The only personal experience he gives of black-bass fishing, unfortunately, is by trolling with large flies. In his "Game Fish of the North," 1862, he devotes five pages to the black-bass, but apparently does not discriminate between the two species. In "Superior Fishing," 1865, he devotes two pages to the black-bass of Canada and the Great Lakes, in a general way, but gives two instances of fishing as follows, "Pedro soon hooked a splendid black-bass, and landed him after a vigorous struggle of half an hour; he weighed three pounds and three-quarters, and was thoroughly game." And again, "That evening was again devoted to the black-bass, which took both the fly and spoon greedily." During the period covered by the authors named, from 1849 to 1869, the anglers of the South and Middle West were using light cane rods, Kentucky reels, and the smallest sea-grass lines for bait-fishing, and trout fly-rods and trout-tackle for fly-fishing, rods and tackle as light, to say the least, as those in use to-day. In 1866 I removed to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, where there were thirty lakes within ten miles abounding in black-bass of both species, with pike, rock-bass, crappies, perch, etc. On my home grounds was a large shallow pond fed from Fowler Lake. Becoming much interested in the black-bass, and finding but little information available in the books of that day concerning their habits, I determined to give some study to the subject. Accordingly I cut a ditch from the pond to the lake, with suitable screens, and stocked it with black-bass of both species. During their spawning period in the summer I watched them faithfully and constantly from a blind of bushes on the bank. This I did for several years, turning the adult bass into the lake when the fry were large enough to look out for themselves, and turning the fry out also in the fall. I extended my observations of the bass during their breeding season to the many lakes near by. I found a difference of several weeks in the time of their spawning in these lakes, owing to the difference in temperature, caused by their varying depth. The appearance of the bass also differed slightly in the various lakes, so that it was possible, from a close study of their variations in color, size, and contour, to determine in what particular lake any string of bass was taken. About the same time, from 1868 to 1870, Mr. Cyrus Mann and Mr. H.D. Dousman established their trout hatchery and ponds not far from Oconomowoc, and Colonel George Shears, of Beaver Lake, a few miles away, also began hatching trout on a smaller scale. These establishments presented an opportunity to study the artificial propagation of brook-trout, and I soon became familiar with the _modus operandi_. This was before the institution of the United States Fish Commission, though the state of Wisconsin already had an able and efficient Fish Commission, Mr. H.D. Dousman being one of the commissioners. Colonel Shears also experimented with black-bass culture, and between us we reared many thousands to the age of three months, before turning them out. Near my pond was a shallow, marshy cove to which the pike resorted in early spring to spawn, giving me an opportunity to study their breeding habits, also. There being so many lakes and ponds in the vicinity, and their being so well supplied with fishes of various kinds, my opportunities for the observation of fish life were as great as fortunate. The differences of opinion among anglers, of all men, pertaining to the practice of their art, has become axiomatic. Some will differ even to the estimation of a hair in the legs of an artificial fly, while it is averred others will go so far as to "divide a hair 'twixt south and south-west side," as Butler has it. But, seriously, there are several moot points which I have endeavored to discuss in the following piscatorial polemic. Two friends went fishing. Both were famous black-bass anglers, with the enthusiasm born of a genuine love and an inherent appreciation of the gentle art so common among Kentucky gentlemen. One was a fly-fisher, the other a bait-fisher. Each was a devotee to his especial mode of angling, though generously tolerant of the other's method. They had fished together for years when the dogwood and redbud blossomed in the spring, and when the autumnal tints clothed the hillsides with scarlet and gold. They differed in their methods of fishing from choice, or from some peculiar, personal idiosyncrasy, for each was an adept with both bait and fly. But this difference in their piscatorial practices, like the diversity of nature, produced perfect harmony instead of discord. Each extolled the advantages and sportsmanship of his own method, but always in a brotherly and kindly manner; never dictatorial or opinionated in argument, or vainglorious and boastful as to his skill, for both were possessed of the generous impulses of gentlemen and the kindly influences of the gentle art. Moreover, they were innately conscious of a common aim, and differed only as to the ways and means of best attaining that end, which, while dissimilar, were not inharmonious. And so the Silver Doctor and the Golden Shiner, as they dubbed each other, went trudging along the bank of the merry stream together. The Doctor, lightly equipped with only rod, fly-book, and creel, sometimes relieved the Shiner by toting his minnow bucket or minnow net. They were fishing a rocky, gently flowing river, characteristic of the Blue Grass section. They stopped at a broad, lakelike expansion of the stream, caused by a mill-dam, and, in a quiet cove at the entrance of a clear brook. Golden Shiner proceeded to fill his minnow bucket with lively minnows, using for the purpose an umbrella-like folding net. This he attached to a long, stout pole, and, after baiting it with crushed biscuit, lowered it into the water. In a short time he had all the bait necessary--chubs, shiners, and steelbacks. "The golden shiner is the best of all," said he, "especially for roily or milky water; but the chub and steelback are stronger and livelier on the hook, and for very clear water are good enough." They then proceeded below the mill-dam, where there was a strong riffle, with likely-looking pools and eddies. "The proper way to hook a minnow is through the lips," continued Golden Shiner, "especially for casting. One can give a more natural motion to the minnow on drawing it through the water. For still-fishing, hooking through the tail or under the back fin will answer; but even then I prefer my method, unless the minnow is less than two inches in length." And he made a long cast toward the eddy of a large boulder. "For the same reason," acquiesced Silver Doctor, "artificial flies are tied with the head next the snell,"--industriously casting to right and left over the riffle. "But some flies are tied with the tail next to the snell," ventured Shiner. "That is true, but it is unnatural. I never saw an insect swim tail first up-stream. Nature is the best teacher, and one should endeavor to follow her lead." Just then the Doctor snapped off his point fly. Upon examination he found that the snell was dry and brittle next to the head of the fly, though he had previously soaked it well in a glass of water. He discovered that a drop of shellac varnish had encroached beyond the head of the fly for perhaps the sixteenth of an inch on the snell. This portion, being waterproof, remained dry and brittle--a very common fault with cheap flies. "This fly," said the Doctor, "was given to me for trial by Judge Hackle. He tied it himself. The broken end of the snell still shows a portion of shellac coating." "I never thought of that before," remarked Shiner. "No doubt many flies are cracked off from the same cause." "Without a doubt, as you say. I know a lady," continued the Doctor, "who, as Walton says, 'has a fine hand,' and who superintends an extensive artificial fly establishment--and who has written the best book ever published on the subject of artificial flies--who personally inspects every fly turned out by her tyers. And, moreover, she varnishes the head of every fly herself, in order that not the least particle of shellac may touch the snell. Such careful supervision and honest work, to quote Walton again, 'like virtue, bring their own reward,'" and the Doctor resumed his casting with another fly. "Well, Doctor, I sympathize with you; but my snells are clear-quill and no varnish. I may throw off a minnow once in a while by a very long cast, but it is soon replaced, and costs nothing. And, speaking of casting, I observed that you made half a dozen casts to reach yonder rock but sixty feet away, while I placed my minnow, by a single cast, a hundred feet in the other direction. Moreover, I reel my line toward me through undisturbed water, while you whipped the entire distance by several preliminary casts." "That is necessarily true," answered the Doctor; "but while you must recover all of your line for a new cast, I can cast repeatedly with the extreme length of my line in any direction; so I think honors are easy on the question of casting." "But," persisted Shiner, "with my quadruple multiplying reel, it is only a matter of a few seconds to prepare for a new cast. Then again. I have better control of a hooked fish, and can give and take line much faster than you with your single-action click reel." "While I grant your reel has a great advantage in speed, I hold that a single-action click reel is all-sufficient to play and land a hooked fish. Your reel is intended particularly to make long initial casts, and it is admirably adapted for that especial purpose; but in playing a bass it has no advantage over a click reel; in fact, I prefer the latter for that purpose. Really, the engine of destruction to the hooked fish is the rod. Its constant strain and yielding resistance, even without a reel of any kind, will soon place him _hors de combat_." Golden Shiner was not slow to perceive the force of the Doctor's arguments and held his peace. In the meantime both anglers had succeeded in killing some half-dozen bass, the largest ones falling to the rod of the bait fisher, as is usually the case. The sun was now climbing toward the zenith, and the Doctor's flies seemed to have lost their attractiveness for the wary bass, while the Shiner, seeking deeper water, was still successful in his efforts. The day, however, was becoming uncomfortably warm. "You will admit, Doctor, that you must cast your flies early in the day or late in the afternoon to insure much success, while I can fish during the middle of the day in deeper water and still have a measure of reward, which I consider quite an advantage of bait over fly." "Granted. Fish rise to the fly only in comparatively shallow water, and are found in such situations in bright weather only early and late in the day. But I prefer to fish at just those times. I do not care to fish during the middle portion of the day in summer." And the Doctor proceeded to reel in his final cast. Just then his friend hooked the largest fish of the morning's outing. It was an unusually gamy bass, and leaped several times in rapid succession from the water, shaking itself violently each time. But the Shiner was equal to "his tricks and his manners," and soon had him in the landing-net. "Doctor, why does a hooked bass break water and shake his head? Is it through fear or rage?" "It is to rid his jaws of the hook. He can neither pick his teeth with a fin, nor remove a foreign substance from his mouth with his tail. His mouth is his prehensile organ. A horse, cow, dog, or fowl will shake the head violently to rid its mouth of an offending object. But a fish, having no neck to speak of, can only shake his head by shaking his body, and that only in a lateral direction. As a bass cannot shake himself energetically enough beneath the water to dislodge the hook, owing to the resistance of the denser medium, he naturally leaps into the air for that purpose; and he always does so with widely extended jaws, as you have seen time and again this morning. He probably also fortifies himself at the same time by taking in oxygen from the air. He does so, at all events, willy-nilly." "How high can a black-bass leap from the water, do you think?" "A foot or two at most, as you well know," replied the Doctor. "In rocky streams like this, one has a good gauge for measuring the leap. I never saw a bass leap as high as yonder boulder, which is about three feet above the water; and as you have taken several fish in its eddy, you might have proved it by your own observation, as I did myself." "I distinctly remember, now," affirmed Shiner, "that my last catch--the big fellow--leaped several times very near that same rock, and he did not go half as high." The two friends then repaired to a cool spring beneath a spreading beech, to enjoy a luncheon and a quiet pipe,--well satisfied with their morning's sport,--and to continue the _argumentum ad hominem_ anent fly and bait, with the usual result that; "A man convinced against his will. Is of the same opinion still." THE ROCK-BASS (_Ambloplites rupestris_) In the same family with the black-bass are a number of other sunfishes that will next be considered, merely as a matter of sequence, and not on account of their importance as game-fishes. The rock-bass was first described by the French naturalist, Rafinesque, in 1817, while travelling in America. His specimens were from New York and Vermont, which he named _rupestris_, "living among rocks." In the Northern states it is generally known as the rock-bass, but in Kentucky and other states of the Middle West it is called red-eye, goggle-eye, etc. Its original habitat was from Canada and Lake Champlain southward along the Mississippi Valley to Louisiana and Texas, but its range has been extended to many other states east and west by transplantation. In its general appearance it resembles somewhat the black-bass, but it is a deeper fish and is more compressed. Its dorsal and anal fins are comparatively larger and stronger. It has a large eye and a capacious mouth well filled with small teeth, some on the roof of the mouth being rather sharp. The color is of various shades of olive-green, with brassy or coppery reflection, more or less mottled with black, forming broken and indistinct lines along the sides. The iris of the eye is scarlet, hence "red-eye"; there is a black spot on the angle of the gill-cover and dark mottlings on the soft dorsal, anal, and caudal fins. It prefers clear streams and lakes, and congregates in small schools about rocky situations, gravelly bars, about mill-dams, and in the vicinity of weed patches in ponds. It spawns in the spring and early summer, making and guarding its nest like the black-bass, and feeds on crawfish, small minnows, and insect larvæ. In size it usually runs from a half-pound to a pound in streams, though reaching two pounds or more in lakes. It is a good pan-fish for the table, and is well thought of in the Mississippi Valley, though held in lighter esteem in the St. Lawrence basin, where it coexists with larger and better fishes. The rock-bass is an attractive-looking fish, and for its size is very pugnacious. It will take the artificial fly, or natural or artificial bait. It bites freely at small minnows, grubs, grasshoppers, cut-bait, or angle-worms. It is capable of affording considerable sport with light tackle, owing to its large and strong fins, and its habit of curling its sides in opposition to the strain of the rod. With a light fly-rod of four or five ounces, and corresponding tackle, and trout flies on hooks Nos. 5 to 7, the rock-bass is not a mean adversary. It rises to the various hackles, and to such flies as coachman, brown drake, gray drake, and stone fly, especially toward evening. The flies must be allowed to sink with every cast after fluttering them awhile on the surface. For bait-fishing a trout bait-rod of the weight just mentioned, with a reel of small caliber and the smallest braided silk line, will be about right. Sproat hooks Nos. 3 to 4 on light gut snells tied with red silk are the best. Live minnows about two inches long, carefully hooked through the lips, are to be lightly cast and allowed to sink nearly to the bottom and slowly reeled in again. Or if a float is used, the minnow may be hooked just under the dorsal fin. A small float is necessary when white grubs, crawfish, cut-bait, or worms are used as bait. On lakes it is readily taken by trolling with a very small spoon, about the size of a nickel, with a single Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hook No. 1 attached. A rod nine or ten feet long cut from the small end of a native cane pole, weighing but a few ounces, with a line of sea-grass or raw silk about the length of the rod, will answer very well for bait-fishing. This is the tackle mostly used by boys in the Middle West, and it might be profitably employed by boys of larger growth. A dozen "red-eyes," gleaming with green and gold, on the string of the boy angler, is something to be proud of. He gazes with fond admiration on the wide-open crimson eyes, which to him seem more precious than rubies. He admires the bristling fins, the gracefully sloping sides, the gaping mouth and forked tail, with boyish enthusiasm and appreciation. Although hot and tired, and with many a scratch and bruise on hands and feet, such trifles are lighter than air, and do not admit of a moment's consideration. Seated on a rock at the margin of the stream, with the string of fish in the water, he feasts his eyes on the finny beauties with the conscious pride of well-earned success and the happy culmination of his outing. In imagination the battles are all fought over and over again. He knows just where and under what condition and circumstance each fish was caught, as, with bare toes, he separates and indicates the individual on the string. That largest one was hooked under the dam beside the big rock. The next in size was taken among the roots of the old sycamore at the bend of the creek. Another and still another from the deep hole under the rocky cliff. Oh, the joyous days of youth and going a-fishing in the glad springtime of life! And then, having laved his swollen feet in the cooling stream, he washes the blood and scales from his hands, scrapes the mud and slime from his well-worn clothes, shoulders his lance of elm, and starts for home, bearing his trophies with as proud a mien as a warrior of old returning with the spoils of war. THE SACRAMENTO PERCH (_Archoplites interruptus_) The Sacramento perch is closely allied in structure to the rock-bass, and is the only perchlike fish in fresh water west of the Rocky Mountains. It was collected by the Pacific Railroad Survey and described and named _interruptus_ by Girard, in 1854, owing to the interrupted character of the vertical markings. It inhabits the Sacramento and Joaquin rivers in California, and is much esteemed as a food-fish, but unfortunately it is being rapidly exterminated by the carp and catfish that are said to infest its spawning grounds. In its conformation it is almost identical with the rock-bass, but differs in having more teeth on the tongue and more gill-rakers. In coloration, however, it differs very much, being sometimes uniformly blackish or brassy, but usually the black coloration is disposed in several vertical bars or markings of an irregular shape. It has a black spot on the angle of the gill-cover. I have had no experience in angling for the Sacramento perch, which is said to be taken with the hook in large quantities for the market. I have no doubt but the tackle recommended for the rock-bass would be just as effective for this fish, with similar baits. THE WARMOUTH PERCH (_Chænobryttus gulosus_) The warmouth perch, also known as the black sunfish in the North, was first described by the French naturalists, Cuvier and Valenciennes, in 1829, from specimens from Lake Pontchartrain. Louisiana. They named it _gulosus_, "large-mouthed," owing to its big mouth. There is a slight variation between the Northern and Southern forms. It abounds in all coastwise streams from North Carolina to Florida and Texas, and sparingly in Lake Michigan and the upper Mississippi Valley. In its general shape and appearance it is not unlike the rock-bass, though in the radial formula of its fins and in its large mouth it approaches nearer the black-bass than any other species of the family. It has a large head and deep body, almost as deep as long, and is nearly symmetrical in outline. Its teeth are in brushlike bands on the jaws, with patches on the tongue. The Southern form has one or two less soft rays in the dorsal and anal fins. It is dark olive on the back, lighter on the sides, with blotches of blue and coppery red, and the belly brassy or yellowish. Iris red, ear-flap black, bordered with pale red, with three dusky red bars radiating from the eye across the cheeks. Fins mottled with a darker color, and a black blotch on the last rays of the soft portion of the dorsal fin. It is not so gregarious as the rock-bass, but otherwise is similar in its habits, though not so partial to rocky situations, rather loving deep pools and quiet water. It feeds on minnows, tadpoles, frogs, insects, and their larvæ. It spawns in the spring. It is a good pan-fish, and grows to eight or ten inches in length and a weight of nearly a pound. For its size, it is the gamest member of the family except the black-bass, and is more like that fish than the others. It is a favorite game-fish in the South, rising well to the fly, and is a free biter at natural bait. In angling for the warmouth, the same rods and tackle mentioned under the head of rock-bass are well suited. In the Southern states a light native cane rod, ten or twelve feet long, and a line of the smallest caliber, sea-grass or twisted silk, is the favorite style of tackle, with hooks Nos. 2 to 3 tied on light gut, and a quill float and split-shot sinker. The usual bait is the black cricket, or the catalpa worm or caterpillar. The white grub found in decayed stumps, and other larvæ, crawfish and small minnows, are all useful. Of these the minnow is the best. On streams a small float is necessary to keep the bait from the roots of overhanging trees. In the stillness of Southern streams, under the moss-draped trees, I have idled away many a dreamy hour in the pleasure of fishing for the warmouth, but at the same time fully alive to the weird surroundings. Occasionally the splashing of a hooked fish on the surface entices an alligator from his lair in expectation of a fishy morsel. The echoes are awakened time and again by the pumping of the bittern, the hoarse cry of the crane, or the hooting of an owl in the dark recesses of the cypress swamp. The solitudes of those waters are very fascinating to the lone fisher. The novelty of the situation appeals very strongly to the angler-naturalist whose experiences have been on the clear, sparkling, tumbling streams of the North. There Nature is ever bright and joyous; here she is quiet and sombre and subdued. But the fishes know no north or south or east or west,--always the same creatures of interest and beauty, and ever responding to the wiles of the angler. I was once fishing on St. Francis River, in Arkansas, where the warmouths were both large and gamy. One day I went through the woods and cane-brakes to the banks of Mud Lake, situated in the midst of a cypress swamp. The lake was much smaller than it had been formerly, as was apparent from the wide margins of the shores, which were of considerable extent between the timber and the water. On this margin was a group of four cypress trees that in size exceeded any that I had ever seen, and I think worthy of mention. They were from twenty to twenty-five feet in diameter, or sixty to sixty-five feet in circumference, three feet above the ground. They were buttressed like the wall of a mediæval stronghold. In comparing notes with many naturalists and travellers, they have declared the size of those cypress trees to be both unique and wonderful. THE BLUE SUNFISH (_Lepomis pallidus_) The blue sunfish was first described by Dr. Mitchill from the waters of New York in 1815. He named it _pallidus_, meaning "pale," as it was more sober in hue than the other brilliantly colored sunfishes. It is the largest of the sunfishes, so-called, as the black-bass, warmouth, and crappies are not popularly regarded as "sunfishes." The blue sunfish has a wider distribution than any other member of its family except the black-bass. Its range extends from the Great Lakes through the Mississippi Valley to Texas, and along the South Atlantic states to Florida. In the Middle West it is known as blue gill and in the South as blue bream and copper-nosed bream. It has a medium-sized head and very deep body, its depth varying from one-half its length to almost as deep as long, in which case, barring head and tail, it is almost round in outline. It is much compressed. The ear-flap is quite black, without the pale or red border usual in the other sunfishes. [Illustration THE SMALL-MOUTH BLACK-BASS _Micropterus dolomieu_] [Illustration THE LARGE-MOUTH BLACK-BASS _Micropterus salmoides_] [Illustration THE ROCK-BASS _Ambloplites rupestris_] As might be inferred from its extensive range, its coloration varies greatly. In large and old examples it is sometimes of a uniform slaty hue with purplish reflections. In others it is olive-green or bluish green, darker above, with the breast and belly coppery red. Young specimens are more brilliantly colored, with silvery reflections and various chainlike markings. It thrives alike in stream, pond, or lake, adapting itself to almost any environment. It feeds on insects and their larvæ, very small minnows, and other small aquatic organisms. It spawns in the spring and early summer, and its manner of nesting and guarding its young is similar to that of the other members of the family. It grows to six or eight inches in length usually, but often to a foot, especially in large waters. It is quite a favorite game-fish in most localities, and with such tackle as recommended for the rock-bass it gives considerable sport, especially in localities that are lacking in larger and better game-fishes. It rises well to the fly, and will take any of the baits recommended for the other sunfishes. In those states of the Middle West, where the brook-trout does not exist, the "blue gill" is greatly esteemed and much sought after, as it furnishes the opportunity to employ light trout tackle in its capture, and with such gear it affords fine sport. I have taken the blue sunfish in all waters from Wisconsin to Florida. In the latter state many years ago I fished a fresh-water lake on Point Pinellas, near St. Petersburg, Florida, though there were but two houses there at that time. I was using a very light rod, and the fish were as large and round as a breakfast plate, and moreover the gamest and most beautiful in coloration of any blue gill I had ever met. The characteristic blue was replaced by a deep, intense, and brilliant purple, shot with silvery and golden reflections. While playing one on the surface, an osprey sat on a dead pine watching with apparent concern and eagerness. The fish made a stubborn resistance, with much splashing. Then a strange thing happened. The fish-hawk swooped down and seized the fish and attempted to fly away with it. Perhaps the hook became fast to his claw, but at any rate he circled around and around the pond, tethered to my line. It was the first, last, and only time that I did the aerial act of playing a bird on the wing. After a few seconds of this exciting and novel sport the osprey broke away, carrying both fish and hook. THE LONG-EARED SUNFISH (_Lepomis megalotis_) This species was first described by Rafinesque in 1820 from streams in Kentucky. He named it _megalotis_, meaning "large ear," owing to its large and conspicuous ear-flap. It is one of the handsomest sunfishes in its brilliant coloration, and a great favorite with the youthful Waltonians of the Mississippi Valley. It inhabits small streams in Michigan and the Mississippi Valley, and the Atlantic slope from South Carolina to Florida and Mexico, and is very abundant in Kentucky, where it is sometimes called "tobacco-box," owing to its "lid-like" opercle. Its body is short and deep, with quite a hump or arch anteriorly, making the profile of the face quite steep in old specimens. The ear-flap is very long and wide, blackish in color, with a border usually of pale bluish or a reddish hue; its back is blue, with chestnut or orange belly; sides with red spots and bluish lines; iris of eye red; lips blue. The soft rays of the dorsal fin are blue, with orange between. Ventral and anal fins are dusky blue. The top of the head and nape is dark. The coloration is very brilliant and varies in different localities. Its habits of feeding and spawning are similar to those of the blue sunfish, though it usually inhabits smaller streams; it grows to a length of from six to eight inches, and is regarded as a good pan-fish by many. It is an eager biter at angle-worms, which is the bait _par excellence_ of juvenile anglers, who greatly enjoy fishing for "sunnies." The only tackle needed is a light cane rod, very fine line, and small hooks, Nos. 6 or 8, split-shot sinker, and, of course, a float, for no boy would care to fish without a "bob" or "cork." Half of the pleasure of the young angler is in watching the float. But the fly-fisher may also obtain sport to his liking with a rod of a few ounces' weight and midge flies on No. 10 hooks, for at the close of the day the long-eared sunfish rises well. In the absence of better fishing this is not to be despised. I once saw a boy fishing for "tobacco-boxes" from a rock beneath a mill-dam on a Kentucky stream. He hooked one of good size, and in his eagerness to secure it tumbled into the pool, which was quite deep, much over his head. After some little delay we got him out, almost drowned, and in a very limp and exhausted condition. When finally he was restored and capable of speech he exclaimed, "I saved my tobacco-box, anyhow!" During all the struggle he held on to his rod, and still clutched it when "landed." Whether he did so from the desperation with which drowning men are said to cling to straws, or from an inherent sporting instinct, deponent sayeth not. A clergyman, who knew nothing of fish, but who was attracted to the scene, said to the dripping boy, "My lad, let this be a solemn warning to you: throw away the tobacco-box you have saved and give up chewing; it may drown you yet." THE RED-BREAST SUNFISH (_Lepomis auritus_) This handsome sunfish was the first of its family to receive the recognition of a naturalist, being described by Linnæus in 1758. He named it _auritus_, or "eared," from its conspicuous ear-flap. His specimen was credited to Philadelphia, and was, presumably, from some neighboring water. It is a fish of the Atlantic slope, with a range extending from Maine to Florida, and is also found in Louisiana. It is very abundant in the South Atlantic states. Its form is similar to the long-eared sunfish, but with a more prominent snout and a depression in front of the eye. Its ear-flap is as long but not so broad; its color olive or bluish above; sides bluish with reddish spots; breast and belly orange or red; blue stripes on the front of the head. The southern form has a dusky blotch on the last rays of the dorsal fin, which is lacking in those of northern waters. Its habits are similar to those of the other sunfishes proper, as to food, spawning, etc. It grows to a length of from eight to ten inches. It is a favorite food and game-fish in the South, where it is known as red-breast bream and red-bellied perch. The same remarks as to angling mentioned under the head of warmouth perch will apply to this fish as well. My angling career really began with the capture of "silversides" with a paste of bread crumbs, but was inaugurated with taking this "sunny" and the "punkin-seed" on the artificial fly. An old English gamekeeper, in the employ of our family as gardener and hostler, taught me to tie a fly and cast it with a willow wand when but five years of age. At the feet of that Gamaliel in corduroy I imbibed a love of angling that has constantly grown with the lapse of years. But increased knowledge of fishes and a wider experience in angling have not lessened my affection for my first love--the "sunny." This acknowledgment is due one of the humblest and least important, but also one of the prettiest species of the finny tribe. THE COMMON SUNFISH (_Eupomotis gibbosus_) This is the pumpkin-seed or "sunny" of fragrant memory. It is enshrined in the heart of many an American angler as his first love, when with pin hook, thread line, and willow wand he essayed its capture in the nearest brook or mill-pond. Looking backward over an angling career of half a century, the gamesome "sunny" with its coat of many colors shines out as a bright particular star among those of greater magnitude. It is here set down, then, mainly as a matter of sentiment and to keep its memory green. The little "sunny" was christened by the greatest naturalist that ever lived, Linnæus, who in 1758 named it "_gibbosus_" owing to the gibbous outline of its little body. His specimens were from South Carolina. It inhabits the Great Lake region, and the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Florida, and the northern portion of the Mississippi Valley. In outline it is not unlike a pumpkin-seed, hence one of its popular names. This is well expressed in its specific name _gibbosus_. It has quite a small mouth, but large eye. In coloration it rivals the gayly-tinted fishes of the coral reefs in tropical seas. The predominating colors are yellow and blue, being bluish on the back, paling on the sides to a lighter shade, with yellow blotches and coppery reflections, and belly bright orange-yellow; the cheeks are yellow with blue streaks; rays of dorsal fin blue, the connecting membrane yellow; ear-flap black, ending in a scarlet border; lips blue; iris of eye scarlet. Its habits of spawning, nest-making, and care of eggs and fry are similar to those of the other sunfishes mentioned. It is partial to clear water, with sandy or gravelly bottom, in the vicinity of weed patches. It feeds on insects and their larvæ and minute crustaceans, and is especially fond of the eggs and fry of other species. It grows to a size of eight inches, though usually from three to six inches. Like all the sunfishes, it is an eager biter, and with very light tackle much real pleasure can be enjoyed by the angler who is not too particular as to his preferences. It rises readily to small dark flies, as the several hackles, black gnat, etc., on hooks Nos. 10 to 12. For bait-fishing nothing is quite so good as earthworms on hooks Nos. 8 to 10. There are quite a number of other sunfishes belonging to this family, but those named are the most important. In the Southern states, where the sunfishes are known generically as "bream" or "brim" and "perch," they are more appreciated than in the Northern states, where the brook-trout is the favorite among the smaller species. If fished for with very light and suitable tackle, there is a great measure of enjoyment to be derived from bream-fishing, north or south. Certainly for beauty of coloration they are not excelled, and as pan-fish they are preferred by many to the dainty brook-trout. There is a certain fascination in fishing with a float, or "cork," or "bob," as the boys have it. And among us "old boys" there is a certain undefined feeling, it may be a reminiscent affection, connected with the float, much the same as that with which we regard the powder-flask and shot-pouch of the days of yore. And I am not sure but that the old things and old ways were best, or at least more enjoyable. One can heartily agree with Alonzo of Aragon in his preferences for old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. What old angler does not remember the eagerness and expectancy with which he watched the "cork" in days gone by? How well he knew and understood every motion of it, responsive to the nibbling "sunny": first a gentle spinning, then a preliminary bobble, then a premonitory start away an inch or two, and then--O joy!--its swift and sudden disappearance beneath the surface. The lapse of time cannot wither nor modern custom stale the pleasures of youthful fishing. To be sure, it was not all piscatorial cakes and ale; there were a few thorns with the roses; there were the bruised fingers and toes, the wet and torn clothes, and the impending and dreaded "dressing down" when home was reached; but these disagreeable concomitants were soon forgotten, and are now scarcely remembered, while the pleasures are laid up in the lavender of sweet recollection. The old-time zest of fishing with a float can still be gratified; we can renew our youth by fishing for "sunnies" in the old-fashioned way. In the wooded streams of the Southern states the float is a _sine qua non_ for bream-fishing, owing to the many tangled roots of trees on the banks, and the mosses, grasses, and other aquatic plants that grow so luxuriantly in the sluggish waters. Then here's to the float and the sunny and the bream! THE CALICO-BASS (_Pomoxis sparoides_) The calico-bass was first described by Lacépéde from specimens sent to France from South Carolina. He named it _sparoides_ from a fancied resemblance, either in its scales or compressed body, to those features in fishes belonging to the family _Sparidæ_. Owing to its wide distribution it has received many names, more or less descriptive. In the Northern states it is variously called crappie, croppie, strawberry-bass, grass-bass, bank lick bass, silver-bass, big-fin bass, Lake Erie bass, razor back, bitter-head, lamplighter, etc., while in the Southern states it is known as speckled perch, goggle-eyed perch, chincapin perch, bridge perch, etc. As the calico-bass and the next fish to be described, the crappie, belong to the same genus of the sunfish family, and resemble each other very much, the vernacular nomenclature is much confused, and in some instances is interchangeable. Some years ago I proposed to call them northern and southern crappie; but as the name calico-bass has obtained considerable currency, it is best to adopt that name for the northern species, leaving the name crappie for the southern form. The calico-bass is found in the Great Lake region and the upper Mississippi Valley, and along the Atlantic slope from New Jersey to Florida and Texas. Its range has been considerably extended by transplantation, even to France, where it thrives well as a pond fish. It is a handsome fish, resembling in its general features and shape the sunfishes, but with a thinner body and larger fins. It has a long head and a large mouth, with thin lips and projecting lower jaw. The eye is large with a dark, bluish iris. Its fins are large and strong. It grows usually to eight or ten inches in length, weighing from half a pound to a pound, but occasionally reaches a foot in length and two or three pounds in weight. Its color is bright olive-green, with silvery reflections, darker on the back, and paling to the belly. In some localities it is of a much darker and purplish hue with brassy lustre. It is profusely covered with dark spots or blotches, as large as the finger-tips or "chincapins." The fins are mottled with pale spots on a darker or olive ground. It is gregarious, being usually found in schools, and prefers clear water. It is especially adapted to pond culture, and spawns in spring or early summer, according to locality; it prepares its nest in sand, gravel, or on a flat rock in the same way as the sunfishes. Its food is the same, also, though it is more partial to young fish. It is an excellent pan-fish but does not excel as a game-fish, for though a very free biter, it does not offer much resistance when hooked. However, with very light tackle it affords considerable sport, as it does not cease biting, usually, until most of the school are taken. The usual method of angling for this fish is from an anchored boat on ponds or small lakes, or from the bank. At times it rises pretty well to the fly, and trolling with a very small spoon is also successful on lakes. The lightest rods and tackle should be employed, with hooks Nos. 3 to 5 on gut snells. A small quill float is useful in very weedy ponds with mossy bottom. The best bait is a small minnow, though grasshoppers, crickets, crawfish, cut-bait, or worms are all greedily taken. Fly-fishing is more successful during the late afternoon hours until dusk. The flies should be trout patterns of coachman, gray drake, black gnat, Henshall, or any of the hackles on hooks Nos. 4 to 5. I first became acquainted with the calico-bass during my residence in Wisconsin, many years ago. In the vicinity of Oconomowoc it was known as the silver-bass, though summer visitors from St. Louis, confusing it with the kindred species, the crappie, called it "croppie," as the real crappie is known at Murdoch Lake near that city. Owing to its greedy, free-biting habits it was a prime favorite with youthful anglers and the fair sex; for once a school was located, the contest was free, fast, and furious until, perhaps, the entire school was captured. It was frequently taken by black-bass fishers when casting the minnow or trolling, much to their disgust. Of course it is always the unexpected that happens, in fishing as in other affairs of life, and the angler who was casting a fine minnow for a black-bass, viewed with disdain if not anger the unlucky "pickerel," rock-bass, perch, or calico bass that appropriated--or, as the English angler has it, "hypothecated"--the said choice shiner. I was once fishing with General Phil Sheridan and General Anson Stager for black-bass on a lake near Oconomowoc. When the great telegrapher, after a beautiful cast near a bed of rushes, hooked a calico-bass, and was anathematizing the "measly silver-bass" with all the dots and dashes of the Morse alphabet, Sheridan quietly remarked, "Oh, let up, Stager, it is one of the fortunes of war; better luck next time!" Stager smiled, gently unhooked the offending fish, and returned it to the water, saying, "Good-by, croppie, my regards to the rest of the family; but don't monkey with my minnow again." When cruising on the St. Johns, or camping on some of the fresh-water lakes of Florida, I have greatly enjoyed both the fishing with light tackle and the eating of this fine pan-fish. It is there known as the perch, silver perch, or speckled perch. It may not be out of place to say that the generic term "bass" is connected only with salt-water fishes in the Southern states. Fishes that are known in the Northern states as bass of some kind become, generically, "perch" in the South; and the black-bass becomes a "trout" or jumping-perch. If bait-fishing, one is never at a loss for bait on the lakes of Florida. The black-bass and calico-bass lie in open water, adjacent to the patches of lily-pads or bonnets. Among the latter frequent the minnows and small fry. To catch your minnow the bait is also handy. In the stems of the lilies and bonnets there lies concealed a small worm, which is readily seen by splitting the stems. With the worm first catch your minnow, which is transferred to your bass hook, which is next cast into clear, deeper water, to be taken by a black-bass or "speckled perch." What a simple and admirable arrangement for the lazy fisherman! My old friend, Dr. Theodatus Garlick, who with Dr. H.A. Ackley were the fathers of fish-culture in America, having succeeded in hatching brook-trout as early as 1853, relates the following instance of the remarkable tenacity of life in the calico-bass: "A specimen from which a drawing was made, was wrapped in a piece of paper when taken from the water, and carried in my coat pocket for over four hours, and when placed in a bucket of water soon revived, and seems at the present time to enjoy excellent health. In warm weather, however, it would not, in all probability, survive so severe a test of its vital powers." I imagine that this circumstance happened in winter, and that the fish became frozen before or after being placed in his pocket; otherwise I doubt if the fish could have survived so long, unless the piece of paper was very large and very wet. I know of many instances occurring with myself and others where freshly caught fish have been revived after being frozen for several hours. THE CRAPPIE (_Pomoxis annularis_) The crappie was first described by Rafinesque in 1818 from specimens collected at the Falls of the Ohio, near Louisville, Kentucky. He named it _annularis_, "having rings," as it was said to have "a golden ring at the base of the tail," but I have never seen it; it does have a gold ring, however, around the iris of the eye, and this was probably the occasion of the name. Like the calico-bass, the crappie has received a great many local names. In the northern region of its range it is variously known as white croppie, crappie, barfish, bachelor, etc., and in Kentucky as newlight, Campbellite, and tin-mouth, while farther south it is called silver perch, speckled perch, goggle-eye, sac-à-lait, shad, etc. It inhabits the Ohio and Mississippi river basins from Kansas to Louisiana and Texas, and is more abundant in Kentucky and other Southern states than farther north. Its range, however, has been extended by transplantation to many states. In general features it resembles the calico-bass very much, though to the trained eye the differences are very apparent. It is not quite so deep nor so robust as the calico-bass. The mouth is somewhat larger, and the snout more prominent or projecting on account of a depression or indentation in front of the eye. The eye is a little larger, and the membrane of the jaws is quite thin and transparent, hence one of its names,--"tin-mouth." The crappie has but six spines in the dorsal fin, whereas the calico-bass has seven, whereby they may be readily distinguished. It grows to about the same size and weight as the calico-bass, ten or twelve inches, though under favorable conditions it grows larger, reaching a weight of three pounds. I have frequently taken it as heavy, or a little heavier, in Kentucky, where many ponds and streams seem peculiarly fitted for it. In coloration it is much paler than the calico-bass, and the markings are not so dark or in such large spots or blotches. It is silvery olive-green, much mottled with a darker shade of same color, especially on the back, the lower sides and belly being more silvery and seemingly translucent. The dorsal and caudal fins are much mottled with shades of green, though the anal fin is almost plain. The iris of the eye is dark, with a silvery or golden border. It is found in clear streams and likewise in still, weedy ponds and bayous, or in all situations adapted to the large-mouth black-bass, with which fish it is nearly always associated. It is admirably suited for pond culture. It is quite gregarious and loves to congregate about the submerged top of a fallen tree or sunken brush, and about mill-dams. It feeds on all small aquatic organisms and insects and their larvæ, and the fry of other fishes, tadpoles, etc. While a very free-biting fish, its game qualities, when hooked, are not remarkable. It is pulled out with scarcely a struggle. It is rather a shy fish, withal, and must be fished for cautiously, and with little noise or confusion. When these precautions are observed, and with very small minnows for bait, nearly the entire school can be captured in a short time. It is an excellent pan-fish, and on this account is a prime favorite. For still-fishing, a light rod of a few ounces in weight, and a line of the smallest caliber, size H, should be used. Hooks for bait-fishing should be about No. 3, as the crappie has a large mouth; they should be tied on gut snells. A quill float is useful in weedy places, or about brush and logs. The best bait is a very small minnow, hooked under the dorsal fin, care being taken not to injure the spinal cord. Soft crawfish, cut-bait, or earthworms may be substituted where minnows are scarce. A reel is not necessary for bait-fishing, but a short leader should always be used, and where required a split-shot sinker is heavy enough. For fly-fishing, the lightest trout fly-rod and the smallest click reel should be employed, with a braided, enamelled silk line of the smallest caliber, and dark or grayish flies of small size, on hooks No. 4, on gut snells, with a fine leader. The most useful flies are gray, red, and black hackles, black gnat, blue dun, gray and brown drake, and stone fly; but far the best fly that I have ever used is the Henshall of a small size. It has a body of green peacock harl, hackle of white hairs from a deer's tail, gray wings, and tail of a fibre or two from the tail feather of a peacock; they will rise to this fly when no other will tempt them to the surface. Toward sunset, with the tackle named, on a breezy summer day, the angler will be amply rewarded, for under these conditions fly-fishing for the crappie is a sport not to be despised. It has been alleged that the name "Campbellite," by which the crappie is sometimes known in Kentucky, was bestowed because the fish first appeared in Kentucky streams about the same time that the religious sect founded by Alexander Campbell became established in that state. This may have been the origin of the name, but I am inclined to doubt it from the fact that the crappie has probably always inhabited Kentucky streams, inasmuch as it was first described by Rafinesque in 1820 from Kentucky waters. He gave gold ring and silver perch as the common names then in vogue for it at Louisville. I think it more likely the name originated in this wise: among the many names given to this fish is "newlight," probably owing to its bright and apparently translucent appearance; and as this name was also bestowed by some on the religious sect referred to, the names newlight and Campbellite became interchangeable for both fish and sect. It is, however, seldom called Campbellite, while newlight is the most universal name for it in central Kentucky. The name crappie, or croppie, has an unknown derivation; perhaps it comes from the French _crêpe_, a "pan-cake," from its shape or deliciousness when fried, for it was always a great favorite with the French of St. Louis and the creoles of Louisiana. In the latter state it is also known as _sac-à-lait_, "bag for milk" (?). Great numbers of crappies are annually seined from the shallow bayous and sloughs bordering the Illinois and Mississippi rivers by the United States Fish Commission, and planted in suitable waters. If allowed to remain in the sloughs, which dry up in the summer and fall, they would eventually perish. CHAPTER II THE BASS FAMILY (_Serranidæ_) The bass family is composed mostly of marine fishes, nearly all of which are good game and food-fishes. These will be described among the fishes of the East Coast and Florida in subsequent pages. It is the most typical group among the percoid (perchlike) fishes. Only two species of the family inhabit fresh water,--the white-bass and the yellow-bass. The fishes of this family are characterized by an oblong body, large mouth, brushlike or bristlelike teeth, sometimes with canines; one or two dorsal fins, the first always composed of spiny rays; the anal fin, always with three spines; scales adherent and rough (ctenoid); preopercle usually serrate; opercle with flat points or spines; cheeks and opercles always scaly; premaxillary protractile; dorsal and ventral outlines do not always correspond; caudal fin not deeply forked; its peduncle stout. THE WHITE-BASS (_Roccus chrysops_) _Roccus chrysops._ The White-bass. Body oblong, deep, and compressed; head 3-1/2; depth 2-1\2; eye 5; D. IX-I, 14; A. III, 12; scales 10-60-15; mouth moderate, maxillary reaching middle of pupil; a patch of teeth at base of tongue, and a patch on each side; preopercle serrate; subopercle with a deep notch; lower jaw somewhat projecting; dorsal fins separate; gill-rakers long and slender, _x_ + 14. _Morone interrupta._ The Yellow-bass. Body oblong, ovate, the back arched; head 3; depth 2-2/3; eye 4-1/2; D. IX-I, 12; A. III, 9; scales 7-50-11; dorsal fins slightly joined; jaws subequal; no teeth on base of tongue; gill-rakers moderate, _x_ + 13 to 16; preorbital and suprascapula serrate. The white-bass was first described by Rafinesque in 1820 from the falls of the Ohio River, near Louisville, Kentucky. He named it _chrysops_, or "gold eye," owing to the golden hue of the iris. It is known also as white lake-bass and fresh-water striped-bass. It is abundant in Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, and upper Mississippi River, especially in Lake Pepin, and in Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin. It was formerly not uncommon in the Ohio River, but is now rare. Its body is compressed and rather deep, with the back arched; its head is rather small, but the mouth is large, with the lower jaw protruding; the eye is large; teeth brushlike, without canines. The color is silvery white, greenish above, golden below, with six or more narrow dusky lines along the body, most conspicuous above the lateral line; those below broken, or not continuous. The white-bass is found in water of moderate depth, preferring those that are clear and cool, as it does not resort to weedy situations. It is essentially a lake fish, except in spring, when it undergoes a semi-migration, entering the tributaries of lakes in large schools. It spawns usually in May. It feeds on small fishes, crawfish, insects, and their larvæ, etc. Its usual size is a pound or a little less, but occasionally it grows to three pounds. It is a food-fish of much excellence, its flesh firm, white, flaky, and of good flavor. It is one of the best fresh-water game-fishes, being a bold biter, and on light and suitable tackle affords much sport to the appreciative angler. For fly-fishing, the best season is during the spring, when it enters the tributary streams of lakes. At this time the fly-fisher will be successful at any hour of the day. He may fish from the bank or from an anchored boat, the latter plan being the best. As the fish are swimming in schools, either headed up or down stream, no particular place need be selected, though off the points at the edge of the channel, or in the narrowest portions of the streams, are perhaps the best. In the summer and fall the fish are in the lakes or deeper water, when the fishing will be more successful during the late afternoon hours until sundown, and the angler may be guided by the conditions followed in black-bass fly-fishing, as mentioned in a previous chapter. A trout fly-rod of six or seven ounces, with the usual trout click reel and corresponding tackle, will subserve a good purpose. When the fish are running in the streams the most useful flies are gray drake, green drake, stone fly, brown hackle, gray hackle, Henshall, and Montreal, of the usual trout patterns, on hooks Nos. 5 to 7. For bait-fishing, a light black-bass or trout rod, with multiplying reel, braided silk line of the smallest caliber, a leader of small gut three feet long, and hooks Nos. 3 or 4 tied on gut snells, will answer well. The best and in fact the only bait that can be successfully used is a small minnow, hooked through the lips. The fishing is done from an anchored boat on lakes or the deep pools of streams, either by casting or still-fishing. No fish will rise to the artificial fly except in comparatively shallow water, or when near the surface, and this is especially true of the white-bass when it resorts to the depths after the spring run is over. I remember a striking instance of this that once occurred in Wisconsin. I was fishing for black-bass in the Neenah channel of Lake Winnebago during the May-fly season, when the black-bass were taking the artificial fly right along, being near the surface feeding on the natural flies, though the water was quite deep, with a rocky bottom. A party of bait-fishers anchored near my boat, and began fishing with heavy sinkers, as the water was very swift, and with small minnows for bait. The white-bass were not slow in taking the proffered minnows, and they caught a goodly number, but not a single black-bass; nor did I take a single white-bass during several hours of fishing, for they were lying among the rocks at the bottom. In the rocky coves about the Bass Islands of Put-in-Bay, on Lake Erie, I have had really good sport, in the summer months, bait-fishing for white-bass, with light tackle, the fish running about two pounds; but with the fly my success was generally _nil_, as they were in deep water, and nothing but minnows would attract them. But in the upper Mississippi, notably on Lake Pepin, the case was different. About the rocky points of that beautiful lake, and in the clear water of the river below, I have enjoyed royal sport fly-fishing for white-bass. This was years ago. Afterward I made a trip in a steam yacht from Cincinnati to St. Paul, traversing the Mississippi from Cairo to the head of navigation, and also going up the St. Croix River to Taylor's Falls. On this trip the white-bass fishing was not so good as in former years, though the black-bass seemed to have held their own pretty well. I might remark, in passing, that the upper Mississippi is one of the most beautiful and scenic rivers in the world, and is unsurpassed for black-bass fly-fishing. At one time the islands of that river furnished superb woodcock shooting in summer, which could be varied with fine fishing. THE YELLOW-BASS (_Morone interrupta_) The yellow-bass was first described by Dr. Theodore Gill in 1860. His type specimens were from the lower Mississippi River in the vicinity of St. Louis and New Orleans. He named it _interrupta_, in allusion to the broken or "interrupted" lines along its sides. It is also known as brassy-bass. It belongs to the same genus as the white-perch of the East Coast. It is found only in the lower Mississippi River and its tributaries, sometimes extending its range a short distance up the Ohio River. The yellow-bass might be called a cousin of the white-bass, though it belongs to a different genus. It takes the place of that fish in the lower Mississippi Valley. Compared with the white-bass it has a somewhat longer head, with a body not quite so deep; otherwise the general shape is much the same. The mouth is a little larger, though the snout does not project quite so much, and the profile of the head is straighter, and it has a larger eye. The posterior border of the cheek-bone is finely serrated. The general color is brassy or yellowish, darker on the back and lighter on the belly. There are about half a dozen very distinct and black longitudinal lines along the sides, the lower ones broken or "interrupted," the posterior portions dropping below the anterior, like a "fault" in a stratum of rocks. It is fond of the deeper pools in the rivers and clear-water bayous, and the foot of rapids and riffles. It is partial to the same character of food as the white-bass, small minnows constituting the greater part. It likewise spawns in the spring, and grows to a pound or two in weight, sometimes reaching three pounds. It is an excellent food-fish. I have had good sport with the yellow-bass on St. Francis River in Arkansas, and at the head of the Yazoo Pass, in Mississippi, with the same tackle and by similar methods as recommended for the white-bass on a prior page. As with the two black-basses and the two crappies, the white-bass and yellow-bass having similar habits and kindred tastes, the same tackle and the same modes of angling are as well suited for one as for the other. This will apply to both fly-fishing and bait-fishing. I was once, one autumn, with a party on a river steam yacht on the lower Mississippi when geese, ducks, deer, and turkeys were more plentiful than they are now. Up the St. Francis River, in the "sunk lands" of Arkansas, the yacht was moored at Cow Bayou, near a steep clay bluff, on the top of which was a dilapidated tent occupied by a young man and his wife, who were building a shanty boat in which to float down to sunnier climes for the winter, as the man was "nigh gone" with consumption. One morning I was out early fishing for yellow-bass after a rainy night. As I was landing a fish I saw the woman at the top of the bluff, looking for a way down to the yacht. She was quite a fresh and comely-looking woman, too. She started down very carefully, for the wet clay was quite slippery. I became interested to see how she would succeed. Suddenly her bare feet slipped from under her, and she came down with a rush, her one garment, as I soon discovered, an old calico gown, slipping back over her head, disclosing her nude form, which appeared very white in contrast to the red clay. Then I looked the other way just as she flopped over from a prone to a supine position. When she reached the river side she looked like a sculptor's model in clay. She quietly adjusted her gown as if nothing unusual had occurred, and asked: "Has you-uns got any matches? We-uns' matches all got wet in the drizzle last night, and I want to cook my old man's breakfus." I pulled ashore and handed her my matchbox, and scarcely knowing what to say, I remarked. "You had better change your dress before you cook breakfast." She replied, "I hain't got another one." While the boys were eating their breakfast of fried fish, deer steak, and broiled duck, I related the "toboggan" episode, and mentioned the "one frock." When the meal was concluded the boys overhauled their belongings and chipped in several pairs of slippers, long woollen stockings, underclothing, and blankets, and the "skipper" threw in some calico and muslin from the yacht's stores. These were made into bundles and carried to the top of the bluff by a more circuitous route. Proceeding to the tent they deposited their offerings, together with some ducks and venison. The man and woman were overcome with gratitude, but the boys said they were glad to get rid of the stuff. The skipper had taken his camera along to get a snap-shot at the tent and its occupants, which being made known to them the woman said. "Wait a minnit!" She went into the tent, but immediately reappeared wearing a large sun-bonnet, in which she was "took" with her "old man." I have often wondered since why she put on that sun-bonnet. My excuse for this digression may be found in the memorable words of George Dawson, "It is not all of fishing to fish." CHAPTER III THE BASS FAMILY (_CONTINUED_) (_Serranidæ_) In addition to the fresh-water species of this family and those of the East Coast are the groupers, cabrillas, etc., of Florida waters, to be noticed later. The family name is founded on Cuvier's genus _Serranus_, from the Latin _serra_, or "saw," in allusion to the serrated edge of the cheek-bones, common to all fishes of this family. _Roccus lineatus._ The Striped-bass. Body rather elongate, little compressed; head 3-1/4; depth 3-1/2; eye 6; D. IX-I, 12; A. III, 11; scales 8-67-11; back little arched; head subconical; mouth large, maxillary reaching middle of orbit; lower jaw projecting; teeth on base of tongue in two parallel patches; preorbital entire; preopercle weakly serrate; margin of subopercle entire; suprascapula entire; gill-rakers long and slender, 4 + 15; dorsal fins separate; caudal fin forked. _Morone americana._ The White-perch. Body oblong, ovate, the back moderately elevated; head 3; depth 2-1/2; eye 4; D. IX-I, 12; A. III, 8; scales 8-50-12; head depressed above eyes; snout rather pointed; mouth small, maxillary not reaching middle of orbit; preorbital entire; base of tongue without teeth; head scaled; dorsal fins connected at base; gill-rakers 4 + 16. _Centropristes striatus._ The Sea-bass. Body robust, elevated anteriorly, somewhat compressed; head 2-2/3; depth 2-2/3; eye 5; D. X, 11; A. III, 7; scales 5-55-17; head large and thick, naked on top; mouth rather large, lower jaw projecting; teeth in broad bands, the canines small; preopercle serrate; gill-rakers long, about _x_ + 18; scales on cheeks in 11 rows; caudal fin double concave or three-lobed. THE STRIPED-BASS (_Roccus lineatu_) The specific name _lineatus_, or "striped," was bestowed by Bloch in 1792. North of the Delaware River it is universally called striped-bass, but in more southern waters it is known as rock or rockfish, from its habit of foraging on rocky shores in search of crustaceans and small fishes. From this vernacular name comes the generic name _Roccus_. It is found from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Florida, but is most abundant from Buzzards Bay to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. It has been successfully transplanted to the Pacific coast, where it is now common near San Francisco. The form of the striped-bass varies considerably with age. Young specimens are rather slender and symmetrical in outline, the depth being about a fourth of the length. The depth increases with the weight of the fish, while the back becomes more arched, and the belly more pendulous. The head equals in length the depth of the body usually. The mouth is large, opening obliquely; the snout is rather sharp, and the lower jaw projects. The color is olivaceous, often bluish on the back, sides with silvery lustre, fading to white on the belly. There are six to eight horizontal rows of dark spots, forming interrupted stripes, four or five running from head to caudal fin, with three shorter ones below; the fins are pale and usually unmarked. It is found within the range given during the entire year, though it frequents certain situations at different seasons. The largest fish resort to the rocky shores of the bays and indentations of the coast between the shores and outer reefs, those of smaller size frequent the estuaries and tideways, and still smaller ones seek the shallower and quieter waters. [Illustration SURF-FISHING FOR BASS] It spawns in the spring, usually in May, in both fresh and brackish water. Large schools ascend rivers for long distances in the spring, more particularly those rivers resorted to by the shad, which they seem to follow, perhaps for the purpose of feeding on shad spawn, as they are said to do. Others follow the smelt up certain rivers farther north. A large female will deposit from a million to two million eggs, which are about one-seventh of an inch in diameter, are free, transparent, and semi-buoyant, and hatch in a few days. Owing to a large oil-drop in the front part of the yolk-sac, the young fry at first swim with the head toward the surface of the water, and not in the horizontal position usual with the fry of most fishes. Its food consists of small fishes, crabs, lobsters, shrimps, squids, sandworms, and other marine invertebrates. It grows to a very large size, being frequently taken by anglers from thirty to sixty pounds, and in the nets of fishermen as heavy as one hundred pounds or more. In the city of Baltimore, in boyhood days, I often went to the fish markets on Saturdays to see and admire the various kinds of fishes. On one occasion there were several large rockfish being weighed on the old-time balance, consisting of a beam and two large, flat, wooden scales supported by chains. The largest fish did not weigh quite two fifty-six-pound weights. A man then asked me how much I weighed, and I replied one hundred and three pounds. I was then placed on the scale instead of the weights, with the result that the fish outweighed me perhaps a pound or two. At all events it weighed between one hundred and three and one hundred and twelve pounds--probably one hundred and five pounds. It was as long as an average man. The striped-bass is a food-fish of fine quality, and the markets of the eastern cities are well supplied with it during summer and fall, and to a certain extent during the winter. It is very active from early spring until late in the fall, when it resorts to the back-waters and bayous of tidal rivers for the winter. It is said by some to hibernate, but this is doubtful. The opinion is probably due to the fact that it is more sluggish and listless while in winter quarters, and refuses to respond to the wiles of the angler. That the striped-bass is a game-fish of high degree goes without saying. It is rated by some enthusiastic anglers as being superior even to the salmon in game qualities. This opinion, however, is hardly correct when the two are compared weight for weight. In surf-fishing the first rush of a large fish, upon feeling the hook, is something to be remembered. It is probably longer and stronger than that of a salmon of equal weight, for the reason that while the latter fish is leaping from the water in its efforts to escape, the bass is making his furious dash for liberty beneath the surface, and exerting every ounce of his muscular fibre in the effort. But this immense strain cannot long be continued, and as he seldom breaks water like the salmon, and does not sulk, he resorts to strategy and finesse to free himself. After making several desperate but ineffectual rushes to escape, he may endeavor to chafe or part the line against sharp rocks, or to foul it among the kelp or sea-weeds. Sometimes, but not often, he dives toward the angler to obtain slack line, which is a dangerous move if the reel does not respond quickly in taking up the loose line. When it is considered that all of these manoeuvres of a monster bass to free himself occur amidst the rolling and tumbling of the surf, or in the dashing of foam-crested combers, while the angler often has but a precarious footing on a slippery rock, and perhaps with a half gale of wind blowing, some idea may be formed of the skill and good judgment required to subdue and land so valorous a fish. And under such conditions it is very natural for the angler to rank his noble quarry with the salmon. When a Baltimore boy I thought there was no better sport than still-fishing for rockfish running from a half to a pound or two, on the flats off Fort McHenry, the Lazaretto, or up the Patapsco River near the Long Bridge. It was good sport, too, for the fish were plentiful in those days, and from an anchored boat, with light cane rod and shrimp bait, I was often on the ground to catch the young flood tide at sunrise, or before, on summer mornings, and seldom failed to be rewarded with a full basket of small striped-bass. [Illustration CATCHING SEA-BASS OFF NEWPORT] Still-fishing in summer is best practised in comparatively shallow water in the estuaries, at the edge of the tideways, near the mouths of rivers, or up streams of good size as far as the tide reaches. In some cases the fishing may be done from bridges, piers, wharves, or from the bank, but usually from an anchored boat. In the estuaries and at the mouths of rivers the first of the flood and the last of the ebb are usually the best stages of the tide. In the shallow bays and lagoons, or far up the rivers, the full tide is the most favorable time. For this fishing the rod should be light, pliable, and not more than nine feet in length. A black-bass rod can be utilized to good advantage. The best rod for the purpose, however, is the "Little Giant," a modification of the Henshall black-bass rod. It is in two pieces, seven and one-half feet long, and weighs eight ounces in ash and lancewood, or seven ounces in split bamboo. It is stiffer than the Henshall rod, so that a two or four-ounce sinker can be used with it whenever necessary. A good multiplying reel must be employed with black-bass rods. The line should be fifty yards of braided linen, smallest size, with a three-foot leader of single gut; Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks Nos. 1 or 2 on gut snells are large enough for bass up to two or three pounds. A small float is useful on grassy bottom with shrimp or crab bait, and sinkers of weights in accordance with the strength of the tidal current must be employed, also a landing-net. Shrimps, soft or shedder crabs, soft-shelled clams, sandworms, small minnows, silversides, spearing or killifishes, are all good baits in their season. Shrimp is perhaps the best all-round lure. It should be hooked under the back plates, and a single shrimp is sufficient for small bass. Shedder or soft crab should be cut in small pieces. The scallop is likewise an attractive bait, especially in the fall, when clam bait may also be used to advantage. Early in the spring shad roe may be used in quiet waters, or at slack tide, but it is a difficult and unpleasant bait to handle. The bait should be from one to three feet above the bottom, and should be kept in motion. Even crab bait should not be allowed to lie on the bottom, as some anglers advise. To maintain the proper position and depth of the bait the angler may employ a float, with or without a sinker, as the exigencies or conditions demand. Very often hand-lines or stiff cane poles are used in estuary fishing, and the bass, even when of several pounds in weight, are yanked out of the water into the boat at once. But with the tackle recommended above the pleasure of the angler is enhanced, and the fish given a chance for his life in the brief struggle that follows. In trolling for fish of from three to ten pounds a natural bamboo rod, eight or nine feet long, answers well with one hundred yards of braided linen line, size E or F, and Sproat hooks No. 2-0 to 3-0 on gut snells. Where the bass run larger, two hundred feet of line, size E, with hooks Nos. 5-0 to 6-0 may be required, also a heavier rod. The baits for trolling are bloodworms of large size, a minnow hooked through the lips, the natural squid or an eel-tail; also the artificial squid of bone or block tin, or a trolling-spoon or spinner with a single hook. When the spoon or artificial squid is used it is not necessary or advisable to add sandworms or other natural bait, as is often done. Employ one or the other, but never both in combination. The artificial baits are sufficiently attractive in themselves, and the additions mentioned do not enhance their effectiveness. The boat should be rowed alongshore, or over rocky reefs or shoals, and about the eddies of rock pools. As the fish always hooks itself in trolling, it only remains for the angler to play and land his quarry in good form, always having a large landing-net or gaff in the boat. Casting menhaden bait from the rocky shores of the coast requires tools and tackle of great excellence and strength, as the largest bass are taken in this way. The most approved rod is a first-class split-bamboo, eight or eight and one-half feet long, and weighing from twelve to sixteen ounces. A more serviceable rod, that is, one that will admit of harder usage, is made of greenheart, lancewood, or bethabara, of the same length, but somewhat heavier. A cheaper rod, but one that will give good satisfaction, and withal is lighter than a wooden rod, is made of natural male Calcutta bamboo, and is known as a "chum" rod. Rods of eight or eight and one-half feet in length should be made in two or three pieces, or if not exceeding seven and one-half feet may be made of one six-foot piece with a handle of eighteen inches. They should have double bell-mouth guides and funnel top. The more expensive rods should have the guides, or at least the funnel top, lined with agate. The reel must be a first-class multiplier, made expressly for surf-fishing, with jewelled or steel bearings, with a capacity of two hundred yards of from twelve to eighteen-thread Cuttyhunk line. The hooks should be knobbed Sproat or O'Shaughnessy, Nos. 5-0 to 7-0, and attached to the line by two half-hitches, the loose end turned up and secured by another half-hitch. A long-handled gaff-hook of good steel and very sharp is indispensable. A chum knife and spoon are also necessary, and a woollen thumb-stall will be needed for thumbing the reel, or a piece of leather may be affixed to one of its bars as a brake. The bait for casting may be the tail of a lobster, cleaned of every vestige of shell, but menhaden bait is generally used. After scaling the fish, a slice of several inches is cut from its side, tail end, and scored on the flesh side longitudinally with a sharp knife, to admit of its being more readily folded along the hook, which it should envelop completely. The small end of the bait is affixed to the head of the hook by a half-hitch or two, its bend and barb being concealed by the broader end of the bait. This is the conventional method of baiting, though I have had good success in more southern waters by using an entire bait of mullet or other silvery fish, five or six inches in length, and hooked through the lips. The residue of the menhaden, after the baits are cut off, is chopped fine, and is known as "chum." This is thrown in the water to attract the bass. It is called "chumming," and causes an oily "slick" that spreads over the surface for a long distance. The pieces of cut fish thrown in are soon swallowed by scup, cunners, bass, and other fishes, leaving nothing but the oily slick on the surface. The bluefish, being a surface feeder, is probably attracted by the slick, but it is questionable if it is noticed by the striped-bass, a bottom and mid-water feeder. And even if the common belief were true, it is not likely that the bass would be tolled directly toward the angler through a slick covering many acres. The real attraction is in the chopped menhaden that sinks below the surface. Casting the menhaden is quite an art. It is somewhat in the nature of casting a minnow for black-bass as described on a previous page, though the rod is a two-handed one and the bait much heavier. The bait is reeled up to within a foot or two of the rod tip, and the rod grasped by both hands, one just above and one below the reel, with the thumb of the lower hand resting on the spool of the reel, and protected by a woollen or leather thumb-stall. With the rod at one side, it is given a preliminary whirl, or swing or two, and the bait cast, underhand, much like striking at a hip-high or shoulder-high ball with a bat. The cast is made from either side, and while some anglers place the right hand below in casting from both sides, it is not the best way. In casting from the right side the left hand should be below, and the reel controlled by the left thumb; while in casting from the left side the right hand should be below. The thumb should maintain a gentle and uniform pressure on the spool as it revolves, to prevent backlashing, and by a stronger pressure stop the revolution of the spool as the bait reaches the water. As long a cast is made as possible, and when the bait settles it should be reeled in again very slowly and the cast repeated until the bait is taken by a bass. When the water is very rough, so as to churn the bait and keep it in constant motion, fewer casts are necessary, as the bait can be left in the water for a longer time before making a new cast. When the fish is hooked and starts on his initial rush, line should be given, the thumb always on the spool to check him when it can be done without endangering the tackle. His first rush will probably be his strongest, and he must then be killed on the rod and reeled in to the gaffer. During the struggle of playing the fish, great care must be observed to prevent the cutting or chafing of the line against sharp rocks, and to keep the fish away from weeds, timbers, or other obstructions. As the bass may weigh anywhere from ten to fifty pounds, the utmost skill and precaution are necessary to land him safely. Very often the angler has not only to contend with the fish, but with the strength and undertow of the tide and the tossing of breakers--factors that are by no means to be despised or neglected. But once fairly gaffed, the angler may feast his eyes on the grand fish, weighing, perhaps, thirty pounds or more, and congratulate himself on a great achievement. When the bass are running far up the fresh-water streams in the spring, they will often take the artificial fly. As the fish do not run much heavier than black-bass, the rod and tackle used in fly-fishing for that fish can be utilized, employing such flies as oriole, polka, coachman, red ibis, or other showy creations. The fishing is more successful about sundown. Many years ago the striped-bass was planted in the waters of the Pacific coast by the United States Fish Commission. It has multiplied exceedingly, so that bass-fishing is now a favorite sport with San Francisco anglers, who fish the neighboring bays, rivers, and sloughs with great success. The baits commonly used are clams and the trolling-spoon. The sport has culminated in the formation of several striped-bass clubs, with quite a large membership. THE WHITE-PERCH (_Morone americana_) The white-perch was described, but not named, by Shöpf, in 1788, from the waters near New York. From his description Gmelin named it, in the same year, _Perca americana_, or "American perch." The genus _Morone_ was established for it in 1814 by Dr. Mitchill, as owing to structural differences it could not properly be placed in the genus _Perca_. The white-perch is one of the most abundant fishes of the brackish waters on the Atlantic coast, its range extending from Nova Scotia to South Carolina, but more especially from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras. It is also landlocked in fresh-water ponds at various places along the coast. It is a handsome fish, symmetrical in outline, and well proportioned. Its body is compressed, its depth is not quite a third of its length. Its head is as long as the depth of the body, depressed above the eyes, and with a somewhat pointed snout. The mouth is rather small; the teeth are small, without canines; there are a few teeth on the edge of the tongue, but none on its base. There are two dorsal fins, though they are connected at the base. Its color is olivaceous, or green of various shades on the head and back, with silvery or greenish sides, and silvery white belly. Sometimes the color is bluish on the back and head. Those confined in ponds are always darker in hue. The white-perch is one of the best and most esteemed pan-fishes of the eastern coast. It grows to a foot or more in length, occasionally weighing three pounds; but the usual size is from six to nine inches, and from one-half to a pound in weight in brackish water. Smaller ones ascend the streams to fresh water. It is usually found associating with small striped-bass, and their habits are much alike, feeding on the same food, as small minnows, young eels, shrimp, etc. It spawns in the spring, usually in May, in shallow, weedy situations in both fresh and brackish water. The eggs are quite small, about forty thousand to a fish, and hatch in three or four days. As a boy I was very fond of fishing for white-perch, which were then very abundant in the Spring Garden branch of the Patapsco River, at Baltimore, from Ferry Bar to the mud-flats near the Long Bridge, and also above the bridge on the main river in brackish water. Being gregarious, it was found in large schools, and was a free biter at shrimps, shedder-crab, small minnows, and earthworms. At the time of which I write it was very plentiful at the mouths of all tidal rivers emptying into Chesapeake Bay. I have seen great wagon loads brought ashore in one haul of a long market seine. And in camping along the Bay, during my summer vacations, they seemed to be as plentiful as blackberries. There was never any dearth of fried white-perch or other fishes in our camp, and we never tired of them. We feasted on them daily, with terrapin, soft-shelled crabs, oysters, green corn, tomatoes, cantaloupes, and watermelons, and all to be had for the mere catching or asking. Any light rod may be used for white-perch, with or without a small multiplying reel, with a line of braided linen, smallest size, and hooks Nos. 6 to 8. Most anglers use two or three hooks, but I would advise a single hook for all kinds of fishing. A short leader of single gut, about three feet long, is an advantage, and hooks should be tied on gut snells. In quiet water, with small, live minnows for bait, a sinker or float need not be used. In tidal waters a sinker is necessary to keep the bait at mid-water, or a few feet from the bottom, especially when shrimp, crab, or earthworms are used for bait. The weight of the sinker must be adapted to the strength of the tide. The best season is during late summer or autumn in brackish water, from an anchored boat, at half-flood or half-ebb tide; up the tidal rivers at high tide. At low water they must be looked for in the deep holes, among the rocks. Wherever found the white-perch will not disappoint the angler, but is ever ready to respond to his baited hook. It rises pretty well to the artificial fly, especially when landlocked in ponds, or far up the streams. Trout tackle and trout flies are just right, on hooks Nos. 7 or 8; and as the most favorable time for fishing is toward dusk, light-colored flies are the best, as coachman, gray drake, red ibis, oriole, etc. I was once fishing for white-perch on Gunpowder River, in Maryland, with a companion who happened to lose one of his hooks through a defective snell, which, however, he soon recovered by catching the perch that had stolen it. We were perfectly sure that it was his, as he had tied his hooks himself with a peculiar shade of sewing silk. He then marked the fish by clipping off a portion of one of the spines of the dorsal fin, and returned it to the water, only to be retaken three times, twice by my friend and once by myself. The lips of the perch being then quite ragged from the frequent hooking, it was humanely killed and deposited in the basket. From my experience with both wild and domesticated fish I am quite sure that cold-blooded animals, like fishes and batrachians, are not very sensitive to pain. Owing to the very small brain and the gelatinous character of the spinal marrow of fishes, it is very doubtful if they suffer much, if any, pain from the infliction of so slight an injury as the pricking of a fish-hook. If it were otherwise, I do not think a hooked fish would offer so much resistance and pull so hard upon the hook if it caused much pain. Nor does it seem reasonable that a fish would repeatedly subject itself to the same experience if its mouth felt at all sore, as all experienced anglers know they do, time and again. The mouth and throat of a fish cannot be very sensitive when it is considered that it swallows, whole, such prey as sunfish and catfish fry, bristling with sharp fins and spines, and those of the catfish are always erect, even if swallowed head first. Marine fishes also swallow crabs, lobsters, prawns, besides mollusks, sea-urchins, and other creatures that would be exceedingly irritating and painful to a sensitive throat. [Illustration THE SEA-BASS] [_Centropristes striatus_] [Illustration THE MASCALONGE] [_Esox nobilior_] [Illustration THE PIKE] [_Esox lucius_] THE SEA-BASS (_Centropristes striatus_) The sea-bass is known in various localities as black sea-bass, black will, black harry, hannahills, humpback, and also by names belonging rightly to other well-known fishes, as blackfish, bluefish, and rock-bass. The name sea-bass, however, is in most general use, and is the most distinctive and appropriate. Linnæus described it briefly, in 1758, and named it _striatus_, or "striped." He afterward received specimens from South Carolina, which in 1766 he named _atraria_, or "blackish," but the older name must hold according to the law of priority. It is confined to the Atlantic coast, with range extending from Cape Cod to Florida, but it is most abundant along the coast of New Jersey. It has a robust body, its depth not quite a third of its length; the back is elevated over the shoulder, the "hump" being more prominent in males during the breeding season. The head is large and thick, with a large, oblique mouth, leathery lips, and projecting lower jaw. The fin rays are long and slender, and the caudal fin is double concave. Its color is bluish black, sometimes greenish black or dusky brown on the back and top of the head, lighter on the sides and belly. The edges of the scales being dark, give a mottled, streaked, or reticulated appearance. The dorsal fin has several series of bluish white elongated spots; the other fins are bluish or dusky, and are more or less mottled. Young specimens have a broad dusky band or stripe along the sides, which later becomes broken up, forming cross shades. The sea-bass, as its name implies, is a sea fish, seldom entering brackish water. It congregates in large schools about the offshore rocky reefs and shoals, and about old wrecks, feeding on crabs, shrimps, and other marine organisms, often in company with the tautog and porgy. It is a deep-water fish, and of course a bottom feeder. It spawns in summer, between May and August, depending on the temperature of the water, but usually in June. The eggs are quite small, about twenty-five to the inch, and hatch in from four to six days. Its usual weight is from one-half to two or three pounds, occasionally weighing ten or twelve pounds. It is very voracious and will take almost any kind of bait that is offered. It is taken in large numbers by market fishermen on hand-lines and clam bait. It commands a ready sale, being a good food-fish, with firm, flaky flesh of a fine savor, and is highly valued for chowders. It is a hard-pulling fish on the line, boring toward the bottom with vicious tugs. A light cane chum rod is very suitable, or perhaps the Little Giant rod is better. It is seven and one-half feet long and weighs eight ounces, and will bear the strain of such sinkers as must be used. The line should be braided linen of small caliber, and a multiplying reel should always be used. A short leader of three or four feet, and Sproat hooks, Nos. 1-0 to 3-0, on silkworm fibre and a sinker adapted to the strength of the tide, make up the rest of the tackle. As the fishing is done from an anchored boat a landing-net should be provided. With the tackle just mentioned, at slack tide, and with clam, shedder-crab, sandworms, or shrimp bait, the angler can enjoy a good measure of sport with the sea-bass. Where the tide runs very strong, compelling the use of heavy sinkers of from three to six ounces, a striped-bass rod should be employed, especially in water from fifteen to thirty feet deep. Great crowds of men, women, and children patronize the excursion boats from New York and Philadelphia, in the summer season, to catch bass, porgies, tautog, and flounders on the various fishing banks off the Jersey coast, where they use hand-lines and clam bait. While such fishing is greatly enjoyed by the uninitiated, it does not appeal to the angler. THE SOUTHERN SEA-BASS (_Centropristes philadelphicus_) This species was described by Linnæus in 1758, and named _philadelphicus_, under the impression that his specimen was from the vicinity of that city. Afterward he received specimens from the South Carolina coast, which, in 1766, he named _trifurca_, meaning "three-forked," in allusion to its "triple-tail." The older name, unfortunately, must stand. Its color is olive-gray, darkest on the back, whitish below, with seven oblique dusky and diffuse bars along the upper portion of the sides. The three-forked appearance of the caudal fin is more pronounced than in the northern sea-bass; otherwise there is no structural difference, except in coloration. Its habits are similar. The same remarks apply equally to the following species, except that it has a few less gill-rakers than the northern species. They may eventually all prove to be the same species, or geographical varieties. The directions as to fishing apply as well to both these southern forms as to the northern sea-bass. THE GULF SEA-BASS (_Centropristes ocyurus_) This species was described from the "snapper banks," off Pensacola, by Jordan and Evermann in 1886, who named it _ocyurus_, or "swift tail." It has not been recorded from any other locality. It agrees with the northern sea-bass, except as mentioned, and in its coloration, which is grayish or pale olive, darker on the back, with three longitudinal rows of black blotches along the sides. It is called "tally-wag" by the snapper fisherman. CHAPTER IV THE PIKE FAMILY (_Esocidæ_) The fishes of this family have a long body, not much compressed, and not elevated. The head is long, with a flattened and prolonged snout; a very large mouth filled with long and very sharp, cardlike teeth on the jaws and roof of the mouth, and with smaller teeth on the tongue. They have a single dorsal fin composed entirely of soft rays, and situated very far back and opposite to the anal fin, which is likewise composed of soft rays. The scales are small; the cheeks and gill-covers are more or less scaly; the head is naked above. All are greedy, voracious fishes, marauding tyrants, living almost entirely on other fishes. There is but one genus, _Esox_. _Esox nobilior._ The Mascalonge. Body elongate; head 3-2/3; depth 6; eye 5; B. 17 to 19; D. 17; A. 15; scales 150 along the lateral line; cheeks and opercles naked below, scaly above; in about 8 rows. [Illustration THE MASCALONGE OF THE WEEDS. TROLLING WITH HAND-LINE] _Esox lucius._ The Pike. Body elongate; head 3-1/3; depth 5; eye 6; B. 14 to 16; D. 16 or 17; A. 13 or 14; scales 125; cheeks entirely covered with scales; lower half of opercles naked, upper half with scales. _Esox reticulatus._ Eastern Pickerel. Body elongate; head 3-1/2; depth 6; eye 8; B. 14 to 16; D. 14; A. 13; scales 125; cheeks and opercles entirely covered with scales. _Esox vermiculatus._ The Western Pickerel. Body elongate; head 3-1/4; depth 5 to 6; eye 6; B. 12; D. 11 or 12; A. 11 or 12; scales 105 along the lateral line; cheeks and opercles entirely covered with scales. _Esox americanus._ The Banded Pickerel. Body elongate; head 3-1/2; depth 5-1/2; eye 5; B. 12 or 13; D. 11 or 12; A. 11 or 12; scales 105; cheeks and opercles entirely covered with scales. As some anglers find it difficult to distinguish a large pike from a mascalonge, or a pike from a pickerel, owing to the similar shape and appearance, the several species can be easily identified by means of the following artificial key: The mascalonge (_Esox nobilior_) has the upper part of both the cheeks and gill-covers scaly, while the lower half of both cheeks and gill-covers is naked; it has from 17 to 19 branchiostegal rays (the branchiostegals are the rays on the under side of the gill-cover, that, like the ribs of an umbrella, assist in opening and closing it during breathing). Its coloration is of a uniform grayish hue, or when marked with spots or bars they are always of a much darker color or shade than the ground color. The pike (_Esox lucius_) has the cheeks entirely scaly, but only the upper part of the gill-cover, the lower half being naked; it has from 14 to 16 branchiostegal rays; its coloration is a bluish or greenish gray, with elongated or bean-shaped spots covering the sides, and which are always of a lighter hue than the ground color. The eastern or reticulated pickerel (_Esox reticulatus_) has both the cheeks and the gill-covers entirely covered with scales; it has from 14 to 16 branchiostegal rays; its coloration is shades of green, with sides of golden lustre, and marked with dark reticulations, mostly horizontal. It is rarely or never found west of the Alleghanies. The little western pickerel (_Esox vermiculatus_) has both cheeks and gill-covers entirely scaly, as have all the pickerels; it has from 11 to 13, usually 12, branchiostegal rays; its coloration is greenish or grayish, with curved streaks on the sides forming bars or reticulations; the color is quite variable, sometimes plain olive. It is found only west of the Alleghanies. The banded or American pickerel (_Esox americanus_) has, like the other true pickerels, both the cheeks and the gill-covers entirely covered with scales; it has 12 or 13 branchiostegal rays; coloration dark green, sides with many distinct black curved transverse bars; a black bar below the eye, and one from the snout through the eye to the gill-cover. It is found only east of the Alleghanies. THE MASCALONGE (_Esox nobilior_) The specific name _nobilior_, long current for the mascalonge, and the one based on its earliest accurate description, was conferred by Rev. Zadoc Thompson in 1849 in "Notes on Certain Vermont Fishes," in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, Vol. III, published July 18, 1849, and later he described it fully in the "History of Vermont," 1853, Part I. It is an excellent and appropriate name, and one that has become familiar to anglers. I have retained it, inasmuch as it was discarded, I think, for a very insufficient reason. The specific name _masquinongy_, which has recently been given to this species in the books, is supposed to have been given to the mascalonge by Dr. Mitchill in 1824. His description, however, cannot now be found. It is alluded to by De Kay in his "Fishes of New York," in 1842, who gives its reference as "Mirror, 1824, page 297"; but I have searched for it in vain, as have others. De Kay merely says: "According to Mitchill, who describes a specimen 47.0 long and weighing thirty pounds, the fin rays are as follows: 'D. 21; P. 14; V. 11; A. 17; C. 26.' But this radial formula is just as applicable to Richardson's _E. lucius_: 'D. 20; P. 16; A. 18,' also given by De Kay." The size and weight of the alleged specimen of Mitchill would seem to indicate the mascalonge, but the great northern pickerel, _Esox lucius_, occasionally reaches a like size and weight. I once caught one weighing twenty-five pounds in northern Wisconsin, and saw several a little heavier, one of fully twenty-eight pounds. Dr. Kirtland, in 1838, had, previous to De Kay, applied Mitchill's name _masquinongy_ to a specimen from Lake Erie, and it is upon this evidence, principally, that this name has been adopted as the specific title of the mascalonge. But afterward Dr. Kirtland used Thompson's name _nobilis_ (meaning _nobilior_) and Le Sueur's name _estor_ for the mascalonge. He also subsequently described the mascalonge from Lake Erie as _atromaculatus_, and one from the Mahoning River, Ohio, as _ohiensis_. From this it would appear that Dr. Kirtland, although a good naturalist in his day, was not at all clear in his estimation of the mascalonge. There has been considerable controversy concerning the common or vernacular name of the mascalonge. Some claim it is from the French, and derived from the words "masque" and "allonge," which virtually mean "long face," and which is certainly nearer to the common pronunciation of mascalonge or muscalunge. Others claim it is an Indian name from the Ojibwa language, as "mash," meaning "strong," and "kinoje," meaning "pike." "Mash" is also said to mean "spotted" and "deformed." From mash and kinoje come "maskinonge," as it appears in the statutes of Canada. The name has been spelled in numerous ways, as evidenced in the Century Dictionary, which gives the following variations: maskalonge, mascalonge, maskalunge, maskallonge, masquallonge, masq'allonge, mascallonge, muscalonge, muskalonge, muskalinge, muskellunge, moskalonge, moscononge, maskinonge, maskanonge, maskenonge, maskenozha, maskinoje, and maskenonge, to which might be added muscalinga, mascalinga, etc. There is no authority or precedent for the name "muskellunge" as used by some writers and anglers, as neither the original French or Indian words have the letter "u" in either the first or last syllable. Moreover, the term "lunge" is in some sections applied to the lake trout. I am aware, of course, that the name has obtained considerable currency, but in much the same way that the black-bass is called "trout" in the South, and the pike-perch is denominated "salmon" in certain localities. Rev. Zadoc Thompson, who was the first to call attention to the scaling of the cheeks as a diagnostic character, gives the vernacular name "masquallonge," and attributes it to French derivation, to which opinion I am inclined. As the most prominent writers on fish and fishing give it as "mascalonge," that name should be universally adopted, no matter what its origin, or whether derived from the French Canadians or the Chippeway Indians; that question is more interesting to philologists than to anglers. As an instance of inconsistency, or of the irony of fate, the books give the scientific name of the subgenus as _mascalongus_, from the French, and the specific name as _masquinongy_, from the Ojibwa. The mascalonge is common in the St. Lawrence basin and the Great Lakes, more abundant in the lakes of northern Wisconsin, less common in the upper Mississippi River, Chautauqua Lake. New York, and Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, and rare in the upper Ohio River and tributaries. It has a long body, somewhat compressed, its depth being about one-fifth of its length; the head is large, about a fourth of the length of the body, and flattened, with the lower jaw projecting. It has a terrible array of teeth of assorted sizes. On the edge of each side of the lower jaw are several long, bayonet-shaped teeth, from one-half to an inch apart; in the front part of the tip of the projecting lower jaw are a few short but sharp teeth, recurved; in the front part of the upper jaw are three clusters of long, fanglike teeth, standing out amidst the smaller, cardlike teeth; on the edge of the forward half of the upper lip is a row of small, but very sharp, recurved teeth; back of these on the roof of the mouth (vomer and palatines), and extending back from the fangs in front to the throat, are three rows of cardlike teeth, recurved and very sharp. The coloration and markings vary so much that several varieties have been needlessly established, as the variations are found in every locality, and do not seem to depend on habitat or environment. The usual color is dark gray, greenish or brownish, always darker on the back, lighter on the sides, and belly white or whitish. The fins usually have dusky or slate-colored spots or blotches; the lower fins and caudal fin are often reddish. The markings of the body vary a great deal. In the young the upper half of the body is covered with small, round black spots, which usually disappear or change their shape as they grow old. In mature fish the spots are more diffuse, sometimes enlarging to an inch or more in diameter, or by coalescing form vertical broad bands, while in others there are no distinct dark markings. And while all of these various markings are found in fish from the same locality there is no apparent structural difference. I have examined and compared specimens from the St. Lawrence and Indian rivers, New York. Lake Erie, the Wisconsin lakes, Lake Pepin, Chautauqua and Conneaut lakes, Scioto and Mahoning rivers, in Ohio, and have seen preserved heads of large ones from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and found that they all agree so well in the number of branchiostegals, squamation of cheeks and opercles, in dentition, fins, and in measurements, that they must all be considered as one and the same species. At the Chicago Columbian Exposition there were some twenty very large specimens of mounted skins from Canadian waters, in the exhibit of the Ottawa Museum, which showed well the variation in markings. Some still showed the dark spots on a gray ground; others were more or less distinctly barred with broad or narrow bands; others showed both bars and diffuse spots; and still others were of a uniform slate or grayish coloration, without markings of any kind. In the museum of the Cuvier Club, in Cincinnati, there are quite a number of mounted skins of mascalonge from the Wisconsin lakes, mostly large ones, that also show all of the various markings, as well as those of a uniform coloration. About 1890 I donated to the Cincinnati Society of Natural History a specimen from Lake Erie; and in 1892 I donated to the United States National Museum two specimens from Lake Erie, and one from a tributary of the Muskingum River, in Ohio. All of these Ohio fish were from eighteen inches to two feet long, and all showed similar markings, being profusely covered with round black spots from an eighth to a quarter of an inch in diameter. Where the spots become diffused, and the bands are inclined to spread and coalesce, they are always more distinct toward the tail. In a mascalonge of less than a foot in length the spots are very black, very round, and quite small, not exceeding a sixth or an eighth of an inch in diameter. Various appellations have been bestowed on the mascalonge to denote its rapacity, as the shark, wolf, or tiger of the waters, all of which are well merited by that fierce marauder. It subsists entirely on fish, frogs, snakes, and even the young of aquatic mammals and water fowl. Nothing in the shape of food comes amiss to him. He is solitary in his habits, lying concealed among the water plants and rushes at the edges of the streams or channels and along the shores, or beside shelving rocks or banks in clear lakes, from whence he darts open-mouthed upon the luckless fish that approaches his lair. The number of fishes swallowed by a mascalonge during a single summer is almost incredible; and they are not minnows and small fry alone, such as are devoured by other predaceous fishes, but such as are old and large enough to reproduce their kind. It is fortunate that the mascalonge is comparatively a rare fish. As it is now being artificially propagated in some states, great care and judgment should be exercised as to the waters planted, so as not to jeopardize other and better game-fishes. It spawns early in the spring and in very shallow water, where most of the eggs are devoured by frogs, turtles, fishes, and water fowl--a wise provision of nature when it is considered that the female deposits from one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand eggs. The eggs are quite small, about ten or twelve to an inch, and hatch in about two weeks. The mascalonge is the most valuable food-fish of its family, and is pronounced by some as being really excellent; but I consider it much inferior to the whitefish, lake-trout, pike-perch, black-bass, or brook-trout. While possessing no especial flavor, its flesh is firm and flaky, more so than that of the pike or pickerel, and it commands a ready sale in the markets. It grows occasionally to an enormous size. I have taken it up to forty pounds, good weight. The late Judge Potter, of Toledo, Ohio, an angler of the old school, informed me that he had seen, in early days, many that weighed from fifty to seventy-five pounds. Mr. L.H. McCormick, formerly of Oberlin College, Ohio, saw one taken in a pound net that weighed seventy-two pounds. The late Dr. Elisha Sterling, formerly of Cleveland. Ohio, a contemporary of Judge Potter and the late Dr. Garlick, the father of artificial fish-culture in America, told me of one he once speared in Lake Erie that weighed eighty pounds, and said that those of fifty to sixty pounds were common in the forties. The mascalonge is the best game-fish of its family. When of large size, from twenty to thirty pounds, it exhibits a bull-like ferocity when hooked, making furious dashes for liberty, and if not stopped in time will eventually take to the weeds. It exhibits great powers of endurance, but little finesse or cunning in its efforts to escape. It depends on main strength alone, swimming swiftly in straight lines, as might be inferred from its shape. Its long body does not admit of the quick doublings of the black-bass or brook-trout. If kept on the surface with a taut line it sometimes leaps into the air; but if allowed its own sweet will it bores toward the bottom, or endeavors to reach the refuge of weeds or rushes. One of less weight than twelve pounds, when hooked, can scarcely be distinguished from the pike or pickerel in its manner of resistance, and exhibits but little more gameness. A black-bass rod of eight or nine ounces is sufficient for the largest mascalonge one is likely to encounter in these days. I caught one on the St. Lawrence, many years ago, that weighed thirty-two pounds, on an eight-ounce Henshall rod, and gaffed it in twenty minutes. Others have done the same even with a lighter rod. But it must be remembered that the weight of the fish, added to his fierce lunges, is very trying to a light rod, and I should not recommend one of less weight than eight ounces, which will answer for all emergencies in skilled hands. A good multiplying reel, a braided silk or linen line, size E or F, and Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks Nos. 3-0 to 5-0 on gimp snells, with brass box-swivel for connecting snell and line, constitute the rest of the tackle. The best season for mascalonge fishing is in May or June, and in September and October, the latter months preferable. The most favorable hours are in the early morning and late afternoon. The middle of the day may be fished with a better prospect of success on cloudy, lowering days, with a brisk wind. The best bait is a large minnow, either alive or dead, though a frog answers very well; and in the absence of either, a trolling-spoon, No. 4, with a single hook, may be utilized for casting. Rowing along in water from five to ten feet deep, the bait should be cast as far as possible to the edge of weed patches, reeling it again very slowly, or if the bait is alive it may be allowed to swim outside of the water-plants for a short time. By moving along continuously, and making frequent casts, this method is much more successful than still-fishing. When the wind is just right, or when the current is strong enough and the wind not contrary, it is a good plan to allow the boat to drift while casting. As soon as a fish is struck and hooked the boat should be moved to deeper and open water at once, in order to give free play to the fish and lessen the probability of its taking to the weeds. In open water the angler has a better chance successfully to play and land his quarry, which should be kept on the surface as much as possible. He can be aided very much in his efforts by the careful and judicious management of the boat by a skilful oarsman. When the mascalonge shows signs of weakness and can be drawn alongside, it should be gaffed at once. Not by striking at it with quick and violent motions, which serve only to frighten the fish and endanger the angler's tackle, but the gaff should be kept below the fish until it can be drawn over it, and then by raising it slowly and cautiously, until near enough, when, by a quick upward and drawing motion, the point of the hook should be driven into the throat or breast of the fish, and by the same motion the fish should be lifted into the boat. It should then be killed by a smart stroke on the head, as a wound from its sharp teeth is no trifling matter. In the absence of a gaff-hook the fish should be more thoroughly exhausted before bringing it alongside the boat, when it should be struck a stunning blow on the head before being taken in. The bait or spoon may be trolled along the edges of the channel, just outside of the weed patches, from a moving boat, with a line of thirty to fifty yards. In trolling, the revolving spoon, glistening and shining, is the attractive lure, and any addition of a minnow, or strip of fish or pork-rind, or other bait, as is often resorted to by some, is entirely unnecessary. It adds nothing to the chances of hooking a fish, and should never be practised by the consistent angler. He may use pork-rind if he wishes, but let it be used alone, on its own merits. A spoon is bad enough in any case, but it only makes it more reprehensible and repulsive, to the angler at least, to handicap it with bait of any kind; even the bunch of feathers that usually adorns the spoon should be discarded, as it is of no practical use. Most mascalonge are taken, I am sorry to say, by trolling with a hand-line of heavy braided linen, size B or C, and a spoon of very large size, as large as No. 8, which seems to be the favorite size with hand-trollers. In this method of fishing the mascalonge hooks himself when he strikes the spoon. It is then drawn in, hand over hand, as the sailors say, with might and muscle. And as might be supposed, those who practise this method are loudest in their praise of the mascalonge as the "king of all game-fishes." A quick pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together, with the hauling aboard as soon as possible of the struggling fish, amidst much splashing and floundering, seems to be their estimation of gameness in a fish. The foregoing remarks apply to fishing on lakes and quiet, weedy streams of the Northern states. In the clear and swifter waters of the upper Ohio, and its tributaries, the mascalonge lies in the deep pools during summer and fall, where it is taken by still-fishing. A large sucker, weighing from half a pound to a pound, is the favorite bait, with suitable rod and reel. The fish is given plenty of time to gorge the bait before striking, and this is quite important with so large a bait. Many large mascalonge, there called "pike," have been taken in this manner in those waters, events to belong remembered and talked about, while the head is carefully preserved for the admiration and envy of future generations of anglers. Once when returning from a fishing trip to northern Wisconsin when mascalonge were much more in evidence than at the present day, I was carrying the head of a forty-pounder that just filled an ordinary tin bucket. At Appleton, while waiting for the train to Green Bay, the big head was the centre of an admiring group of anglers. Then came the natural and inevitable query, "Where did you catch it?" In order to avoid a long recital, which only could have done justice to the subject, and expecting the train at any moment, I replied, "An Indian speared it on Lake St. Germain." They looked at me as if I had seven heads; then one said: "Well! well! It requires an awful lot of moral courage to make such an admission." But I killed it, all the same, on a nine-ounce rod, and my Indian canoe-man gaffed it. THE PIKE (_Esox lucius_) The pike is more generally known in the United States as "pickerel," and sometimes as the great northern pickerel to distinguish it from the pickerel, properly so-called. In England the young pike is a pickerel, an older one a jack, and the mature fish a pike. In England and continental Europe the pike (_E. lucius_) is the only species of the family inhabiting their waters, while there are five species of the family in America, which makes it all the more confusing when the name "pickerel" is applied indiscriminately to all,--even the mascalonge being sometimes alluded to as an "overgrown pickerel." The range of the pike in America is from Lake Champlain, the Great Lake region, and the upper Mississippi River, north to Alaska; it is rare in the Ohio Valley. Next to the mascalonge the pike is the most important and largest member of the pike family. It has a long body, somewhat compressed, its length being a little more than five times its depth. The head is large, somewhat more than a fourth of the length of the body, with a long, flattened, and projecting snout; the teeth are similar, but not quite so large or numerous as in the mascalonge. The coloration and markings of the pike are quite constant, not varying so much as in others of the family, and is very different from those of the mascalonge or any of the pickerels. The ground color is grayish or greenish gray, darker on the back and fading to silvery white on the belly; the sides, from head to tail, are profusely covered with irregular, oblong, or bean-shaped whitish spots or blotches, much lighter than the ground color; the dorsal, anal, and caudal fins are marked with dark spots or blotches. It is somewhat more gregarious, and is more of a rover than the mascalonge; otherwise its habits are very similar, and it coexists with that fish in many waters, especially in the region of the Great Lakes. It feeds on fish, frogs, and water-snakes. Its usual weight reaches fifteen pounds, though it occasionally grows to four feet in length and a weight of twenty-five or thirty pounds. As a food-fish it is variously estimated. Some consider it to be very good, and it sells well in the markets,--which, however, is not always a fair criterion. It is much better in the fall and winter than in summer. Most people who know it best, and I agree with them, think it inferior to any fresh-water fish for the table except the carp and sucker. Its flesh is soft and dry, and unless of large size is not flaky, and it is, moreover, very full of small bones. One of ten pounds, stuffed with a savory dressing and baked, is not unpalatable, but cannot be compared favorably with the whitefish, black-bass, or trout. The pike when of large size is a good game-fish. Its weight and strength, added to its bold rushes when hooked, are very trying to light tackle. One of fifteen pounds is worthy of the angler's most serious attention on an eight-ounce rod. Its manner of fighting is similar to that of the mascalonge, though in a lesser degree, and it does not continue its resistance so long. After a few frantic rushes it weakens very materially, and if kept away from weeds soon gives up the struggle for freedom. In England, where game-fishes are much scarcer than in this country, the pike is considered a fine game-fish and is much sought after by bait-fishers, and with a wonderful array of murderous traces, minnow-gangs, and spinning tackle. In the United States, where there are so many better game-fishes, it is not often made the object of special pursuit. Most pike are caught by anglers in northern waters when fishing for black-bass. Ordinary black-bass rods and tackle are very suitable for pike fishing, though where they run large, eight to fifteen pounds, an eight or nine-ounce rod is to be preferred to a lighter one. A good multiplying reel, a braided line, either silk or linen, size F, and Sproat hooks, Nos. 2-0 to 3-0, are better suited to large pike than black-bass. [Illustration THE EASTERN PICKEREL] [_Esox reticulatus_] [Illustration THE WESTERN PICKEREL] [_Esox vermiculatus_] [Illustration THE PIKE-PERCH] [_Stizostedion vitreum_] [Illustration THE YELLOW-PERCH] [_Perca flavescens_] A minnow, or a trolling-spoon of small size with a single Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hook, may be employed in casting from a boat along the edges of weed patches, lily-pads, and wild rice, and along the shoals and bars. The same tackle can be utilized for trolling in the same situations. Where the conditions are favorable it is advisable to allow the boat to drift, in order to dispense with the noise and confusion of rowing or paddling. The directions already given for black-bass fishing, as to playing and landing the fish, will answer just as well for the pike. As the pike seems to suggest the trolling-spoon, this is a good place to say a few words concerning that little-understood article of fishing tackle. In the first place, it should never have more than a _single_ hook, and that should never be handicapped by adding a minnow, frog, or strip of fish or bacon-skin, as is so often done. The hook should be left free to perform its function, untrammelled by extraneous and useless appendages. If the angler pins his faith to them, by all means give them a fair chance on a hook without a spoon; it is not only more logical, but more sportsmanlike. Give the fish a chance, also, and of two evils let it choose the least by using them separately. Seriously, the spoon is a most alluring and attractive bait in itself. Its bright and shining appearance when spinning and glancing through the water is well-nigh irresistible to a predaceous fish, and is in itself all that could be desired as an effective lure. The original trolling-spoon (made by Buell) was the bowl of a dessert spoon, with a hole in the broadest end for the line, and a single hook soldered to the narrow end. It is as effective as the best trolling-spoon made to-day. With a single hook, either loosely attached or soldered to the spoon, one is more apt to hook his fish, and more certain of landing it, to say nothing of the cruel and inhuman practice of using the triangle of three hooks usually attached to most trolling-spoons. Manufacturers generally affix a triangle of hooks to trolling-spoons, disguised by a bunch of red and white feathers that are worse than useless. The spoon is made of many shapes and of various sizes, and often of two or three spoons combined. They seem to vie with each other as to who can turn out the most ridiculous contrivance, for the farther it departs from the original spoon the more useless it becomes. Manufacturers are not all anglers, and endeavor to produce what is most novel and attractive to the prospective customer. Such appliances sell to the uninitiated and unwary, but do not catch many fish, or even anglers of experience. And the same remarks will apply in a measure to the gang or trace of several hooks, usually employed in trolling or spinning the minnow. A minnow, hooked through the lips--and it may be a dead one--with a single hook, will move more lifelike, and be really more attractive to the fish, than the whirling, wabbling one, bristling with a dozen hooks. It is cruel and heartless to employ so murderous a device. I have seen the mouths of bass and pike and lake-trout lacerated and mutilated, sometimes the lips and upper jaw torn completely off, by the triangle of the spoon or the half dozen or more hooks of the gang or trace. If their use cannot be dispensed with on the score of inutility, a single hook being far more successful, their employment should be relinquished in the name of humanity. The pike will not often rise to the artificial fly, but will take it if allowed to sink a foot or two after casting. Many years ago, in Wisconsin, I devised the "polka" black-bass fly, and on its first trial, at the very first cast, it was seized by a pike of six pounds. The polka has a body of red floss silk, with spotted wings of the guinea fowl. I have frequently taken the pike with other red-bodied flies, as the Abbey, red ibis, king of the water, and Montreal, but the polka was always the favorite. Flies with bodies of peacock harl, as coachman, Henshall, Governor Alvord, etc., are very useful, as well as some with yellow bodies, as professor, queen of the water, and Lord Baltimore. The afternoon hours, especially toward sundown and until dusk, are the most promising for fly-fishing. Large flies are also successfully used in trolling for pike, from a rather slow-moving boat. For fuller instructions for fly-fishing the reader is referred to those given for the black-bass, which will answer very well for the pike, especially where the two fishes inhabit the same waters. Fishing through the ice for pike or pickerel has quite a fascination for some persons, even for those who never fish in any other way. And there is a certain kind of enjoyment in it, though actual fishing, as we understand it, has but little to do with it. If the ice is glare and free of snow, one can vary the amusement with skating. The bracing, nipping air on a clear day, with the sun shining brightly on the winter landscape, has its charms, and fishing through the ice is a good pretext for a winter outing. A dozen or more holes are cut through the ice in a circle, its diameter extending over the feeding grounds of the pike, whether small or great in extent. A fire may be built in the centre, if far from the shore on a lake, or on the shore itself if convenient to the holes. The holes being cut and a fire made for comfort, the next thing to do is to place the "tip-ups," as they are called, and bait the hooks, when there is nothing more to be done but to fill one's pipe and wait by the fire for the anticipated event--the rising of a signal proclaiming a "bite." Tip-ups are made in several ways, but the simplest plan, which is as good as any, is to provide a piece of thin board, say two or three feet long and two or three inches wide. A few inches from one end a hole is bored, through which is thrust a round stick, like a section of a broom-handle, and long enough to extend well across the hole in the ice. A short line, usually three or four feet long, with suitable hook and sinker, is tied to the short end of the thin board, through a small hole bored for the purpose. The hook is then baited, placed in the water, and the thin board is laid down on its edge, with the short end at the middle of the hole in the ice, and the round stick straddling it. It will be readily understood that a fish pulling on the line at the short end of the thin board, or lever, will raise the long end, thus indicating to the watcher the looked-for event. The long end of the lever may be shaved to a point, to which a signal flag may be affixed. Where the fish are plentiful it will keep one pretty busy running from one hole to another to take off the pike or rebait the hooks. When residing at Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. I found that fishing through the ice for pike and yellow-perch was a favorite sport. I indulged in it once for pike and several times for perch, for the latter is a firm, sweet, and delicious pan-fish in the winter. Driving over La Belle Lake in my sleigh to the "pickerel grounds," where my man had cut the holes the day before, the tip-ups and lines were soon arranged and the hooks baited with live minnows. A fire was then built on the shore, near at hand, to warm the chilled fingers. It was pretty tame when considered from the angler's point of view; but with the keen, crisp winter air, and the bright sun sparkling on the pure white snow, on which I occasionally took a spin in the sleigh, it was quite an enjoyable experience. In the course of a few hours several pike were taken and left lying on the snow, where they soon became frozen stiff. Upon my arrival at home they were placed in a tub of cold water, when all but one or two revived and began to swim about; the latter were probably too thoroughly frozen or may have been dead before being frozen. Apropos of this: I had some minnows in a live box, at the edge of the lake near my home, that thawed out alive in the spring after being frozen all winter. They were evidently the same minnows, as there were no dead ones, and the live ones could hardly have got into the box from the lake. The mediocrity of the pike as a game-fish is doubtless a just estimation in a majority of cases, but once in a while one will exhibit game qualities that will surprise the most doubting and contemptuous angler, compelling his admiration, and forcing him to admit that there are exceptions to all rules, but more especially in fishing. I was once one of a party of black-bass fishers on a lake in Wisconsin. In one of the boats was a lady of Milwaukee, who was justly considered one of the most expert and level-headed anglers in the party. She always stood up in her boat, was a marvel in casting the minnow, and played a bass to a finish in a style both graceful and artistic after a short, sharp, and decisive contest. She used the lightest rods and tackle, and the best. On this occasion, after landing a number of gamy bass and logy pike, she hooked a pike of about six pounds that put her six-ounce rod to the severest test, and gave her twenty minutes of the liveliest work that a fish is capable of. It leaped repeatedly from the water, and rushed not only straight away, but twisted and turned and doubled in a manner that would have done credit to the gamest bass. Finally she brought it to the landing-net in triumph, though she was, to use her own expression, "completely tuckered out." I venture to say that no man of the party would have been successful in landing that pike, with the same tackle, in the same length of time. A woman who is an expert angler will risk her tackle to greater lengths than a man, and will take more chances in subduing a fish within a reasonable time. This is not because of recklessness, or because she does not understand or appreciate the tensile strength of her rod. On the contrary, she knows her tackle well, and has the utmost faith in its potentiality. I knew a lady friend who was never more than thirty minutes in bringing to gaff any salmon of from twenty-five to thirty pounds. And my Kentucky friend, Mrs. Bachmann (formerly Mrs. Stagg), killed her tarpon of two hundred and five pounds in eighty minutes. THE EASTERN PICKEREL (_Esox reticulatus_) The eastern pickerel, also called chain pickerel in the North, and jack in the South, was first described by Le Sueur, in 1818, from the Connecticut River. He named it _reticulatus_, owing to the "reticulations" or the netted character of the markings on the body. Its range extends from Maine along the coastwise streams to Florida and Louisiana. West of the Alleghanies it has been reported from the Ozark region of Missouri and Arkansas, but I am rather inclined to doubt it. In its general form the pickerel resembles a small pike, though it is more slender, has a larger eye, and its coloration is quite different. The ground color is either olive-brown or some shade of green, the sides with a golden lustre, and the belly white. The sides are marked with many dark lines and streaks, mostly oblique and horizontal, forming a kind of network. There is a dark vertical bar below the eye; the dorsal fin is plain; the lower fins sometimes reddish; the caudal fin occasionally has a few dark spots or blotches. In its habits of feeding and spawning it is similar to the pike, spawning in the early spring. It is found in weedy ponds in the North, and in the quiet, grassy reaches of southern streams. It feeds mostly on small fishes and frogs. It grows to a foot in length, usually, sometimes to two feet and weighing seven or eight pounds, though its usual maximum weight is three or four pounds. In the New England states it is regarded by many as not only a fine game-fish, but an excellent food-fish as well. Others despise it on both counts, and there you are. To many a Yankee boy fishing for pickerel was the highest ideal of angling, but with the larger experience of mature years his idol has been thrown from its pedestal, and he, too, has learned to look askance at the friend of his youth. But while the pickerel is not a game-fish of high degree, it is capable of furnishing a fair amount of sport with light black-bass tackle in waters not too weedy. Ordinary black-bass rods and tackle are quite suitable for pickerel fishing, either with bait or fly, though the hooks should be larger, about 1-0 to 2-0, on gimp snells or heavy silkworm fibre. Where the weeds are too thick to admit of playing the fish a reel can be dispensed with, and a plain, light bamboo or cane rod, in its natural state, can be substituted for the jointed rod. It should belong enough to furnish considerable elasticity, say twelve feet, as its flexibility must subserve, somewhat, the purposes of a reel. The pickerel will take a sunken fly in shallow water, after it has been fluttered on the surface awhile. The red ibis, soldier, Abbey, polka. Montreal, and coachman are all good pickerel flies, if cast toward the dusk of evening. Skittering is a favorite method of fishing for the pickerel in weedy ponds. It is practised with a long cane rod, and line of about the same length as the rod, with or without a reel. A spoon bait, frog, or a piece of white bacon-rind cut in the semblance of a fish, or a frog's hind legs, skinned, are skittered or fluttered on the surface near the lily-pads and pickerel weeds. The fish should be kept on the surface if possible, when hooked, and drawn into open water; otherwise it may become entangled in the weeds and lost. The pickerel may also be taken by still-fishing from a boat with the live minnow or frog. On open water, a very successful way is trolling with a small spoon and single hook, or a dead minnow. For these methods the reader is referred to pike or black-bass fishing on previous pages. I have found the pickerel as far south as eastern Florida, where it is known as "pike," though it is rarely met with, and owing to its rarity is held in pretty fair esteem as a game-fish. In the marshes and rice ditches of South Carolina, and some sluggish streams of south-east Georgia, it is rather more plentiful, though usually of inferior size and dusky coloration. I once caught several on the Cooper River in South Carolina when fishing with very light tackle for "bream," which were unusually active and strong, and which impressed me as entitled to a better reputation as a game-fish than is commonly accorded to it by anglers. On the whole, the eastern pickerel is not half a bad fish, as English anglers would say. One might go farther and fare worse. THE WESTERN PICKEREL (_Esox vermiculatus_) The western pickerel was first described by Le Sueur from the Wabash River. He named it _vermiculatus_, owing to the "wormlike" appearance of its markings. He collected it about 1818, but his description was not published until 1846. It inhabits the Mississippi Valley, south to Arkansas and Mississippi, and the tributaries of Lakes Erie and Michigan. It is not found east of the Alleghanies. It is formed on the same general lines as the other members of the pike family, but is rather more slender and rounder, with a shorter head, proportionally, but a larger eye. Its color is olive-green, or grayish green, darker on the back, and belly white. The sides are covered with many dark curved streaks, inextricably mixed, or forming reticulations. The coloration is quite variable in different waters. A dark vertical bar is usually present below the eye; the sides of the head are variegated. It is common in the grassy streams of the Middle West and weedy bayous of the South-west, never exceeding a foot in length. The late Dr. Elisha Sterling, of Cleveland, Ohio, once sent me a plaster cast of one not more than eight inches in length, with the ovaries exposed, showing the ripe ova. It is not of much importance as a game-fish or as a food-fish. It spawns in early spring, and feeds on small fish, frogs, and tadpoles. It may be fished for in the same way, and with the same tackle as recommended for crappies on a previous page. THE BANDED PICKEREL (_Esox americanus_) The banded pickerel, Long Island pickerel, or brook pickerel, as it is variously known, was one of the first of its family to be recognized. It was described by Gmelin, in 1788, from Long Island. New York. He named it _americanus_, or "American pike," as a variety of the European _Esox lucius_. It is found only east of the Alleghanies in coastwise streams from Massachusetts to Florida. It is almost a duplicate of the little western pickerel in its general form, and represents that species in eastern waters. The characteristics of fin rays, scales, and squamation of cheeks and gill-covers apply equally to both species. The ground color is dark green; belly white; sides with about twenty distinct, blackish, curved, vertical bars, often obscurely marked, but not distinctly reticulated. There is a black vertical bar below the eye, and a horizontal band extending from the snout, through the eye, to the gill-cover. The lower fins are often quite red. I have collected it on the east coast of Florida of a beautiful emerald-green coloration, without distinct dark markings, and with orange-colored lower fins--a most beautiful fish. Although an interesting little fish, it is of no importance to anglers and is merely mentioned here, with the little western pickerel, to enable the reader to identify the different members of the pike family. It spawns early in the spring. It seldom grows beyond a foot in length, and is usually much smaller. Fishing for it is on the same plane with sunfishing, and the lightest tackle should be employed. CHAPTER V THE PERCH FAMILY (_Percidæ_) Most of the species belonging to this family are the dwarf perches, the beautiful little darters of the clear streams. The only genera of importance as game-fishes are _Stizostedion_, the pike-perches, and _Perca_, the yellow-perch. They are characterized by an elongate, nearly round body; small, rough, and adherent scales; rather large mouth with sharp teeth; spines on opercle, and preopercle serrate; branchiostegals six or seven; two dorsal fins, the first composed of spines, the second of soft rays; the anal fin with two spines. GENUS STIZOSTEDION _Stizostedion vitreum._ The Pike-perch. Body elongate; back somewhat elevated; head 4; depth 5; eye 4; D. XIV-20; A. II, 12; scales 10-125-25; head and cheeks sparsely scaled; canine teeth on jaws and palatines; opercle with small spines; pyloric coeca 3. _Stizostedion canadense._ The Sauger. Body elongate and spindle-shaped; head 3-1/2; depth 4-1/2; eye 5; D. XIII-18; A. II, 12; scales 9-100-27; head and cheeks scaly; spines on opercle; head depressed and pointed; pyloric coeca 5 to 7. GENUS PERCA _Perca flavescens._ The Yellow-perch. Body oblong, somewhat compressed, the back elevated; head 3-1/4; depth 3-1/4; eye 5; D. XIV-15; A. II, 7; scales 6-75-17; top of head rough; profile convex from dorsal to occiput, thence concave to snout, which projects; cheeks scaly; opercles nearly naked; preopercle and shoulder girdle serrated; teeth in villiform bands; branchiostegals 7; scales strongly ctenoid. THE PIKE-PERCH (_Stizostedion vitreum_) The pike-perch or wall-eye was first described by Dr. Mitchill in 1818, from Cayuga Lake, New York. He named it _vitrea_ in allusion to its large vitreous or glassy eye. It would have been indeed fortunate if the name glass-eye or wall-eye, with or without the suffix perch, had been adopted; for this fine fish is a true perch, with nothing "pike-like" in form or habits, except its large mouth and canine teeth, and nothing "salmon-like" except its trimly-shaped body. But these fancied resemblances have caused it to be called in various localities wall-eyed pike, yellow pike, blue pike, glass-eyed pike, salmon, and jack salmon. It is also known in Canada as dorè and okow, and among the commercial fishermen as "pickerel." However, the names pike-perch and wall-eyed pike have been rather universally adopted, and it will probably be always known by these names. Pike-perch is the Anglicized form of _Lucioperca_, the Latin name of the genus in Europe. It is abundant in Canada and the Great Lake region, and fairly abundant in the upper Mississippi River and its tributaries, and especially in Lake Pepin. It is found also in the lake region of northern Minnesota, and in the lakes and streams of Wisconsin and Iowa. It is not uncommon in the upper Ohio River and tributaries, south to Tennessee. On the Atlantic slope it is more rarely found from Pennsylvania to Georgia, where it often exists in brackish water. I have taken it in my boyhood days at Ferry Bar, a point on the Patapsco River, near Baltimore. Maryland. Its range is being constantly extended by transplantation. The pike-perch is a very trimly-built and shapely fish. Its body is rather slender, not much compressed. The head is well shaped, neither too large nor too small, with a large mouth well filled with teeth, some quite long and sharp. The eye is very large and glassy. Like all the perches it has two dorsal fins, well separated; the caudal fin is forked. The scales are small and rough. The edge of the cheek-bone is toothed or serrated, and the edge of the gill-cover has one or more small spines. The color varies considerably in different localities, and even in the same waters. The usual color is olive, or greenish brown, mottled with brassy or yellowish blotches forming oblique but indistinct lines, or vermicular markings. The head is similarly colored and marked; the lower jaw is reddish; the belly and lower fins pinkish or yellowish; the first dorsal fin is not much marked, but has a large black blotch on its posterior border; the second dorsal fin is mottled with olive, brown, and yellow; the caudal fin is likewise mottled, with the tip of the lower lobe white or light colored. The pike-perch frequents waters of good depth, only entering the shallow portions of streams and lakes at spawning time, and at night when feeding. It prefers a bottom of rock or gravel in clear and cool water, and loves to lie in the deep pools at the foot of riffles, or at the entrance of streams; or where the current is strong and deep near mill-dams and under sunken logs, or shelving rocks and banks, and about the timbers of bridges in deep water. It is nocturnal in its habits, for which it is well fitted by its large and prominent eye, and seeks its prey, which consists mostly of small fishes, in shallow water. It spawns in the spring, and in lakes usually resorts to its spawning grounds in the winter, where it is caught through the ice in large numbers in certain localities, notably in Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie, and in Lake Pepin and other northern lakes. It spawns in sand or gravel in shallow water. Its eggs are small, twelve to an inch, and average fifty thousand to a female. After spawning it retires to deeper water, and in summer locates in the deepest pools. During the spring freshets it sometimes ascends smaller streams in its search for food. Its usual weight does not exceed three or four pounds, though it often grows much larger, from ten to twenty pounds. I have seen preserved heads of fish that must have weighed thirty or forty pounds, which had been caught in Kentucky--in Tygert Creek and Kentucky River. It is highly prized as a food-fish, its flesh being white, firm, and flaky, and of an excellent flavor. It is a commercial fish of much importance, especially on Lake Erie, from whence it is shipped in large numbers to the city markets, where it always commands a ready sale, being in great demand during the Lenten season. The pike-perch is a good game-fish, taking live bait eagerly, and rising pretty well to the fly. When hooked it is a vigorous fighter, pulling strongly and lustily. It does not exhibit much dash or take line rapidly, but swims away rather slowly, but at the same time is constantly tugging and jerking on the line in such a manner as to require careful handling with light tackle. Ordinary black-bass rods and tackle are well suited for the pike-perch up to six or eight pounds, either for bait-fishing or fly-fishing. Where they are found in considerable numbers, and especially on lakes where pickerel or pike abound, gimp snells should be used instead of gut snells to withstand their sharp teeth; otherwise the tackle may be the same as recommended for black-bass fishing. The best bait is a live minnow, though crawfish are successfully used. On lakes it should be fished for in comparatively deep water, over pebbly or rocky bottom. On streams the likely places are in deep and swift water, at the foot of rapids, or on a rocky lee shore with a brisk wind, where it congregates in search of minnows that are rendered almost helpless by the churning water. Owing to its nocturnal habits, the hours from about sunset until dark are the most favorable. Night fishing is also quite successful should any one care for it. As a matter of experiment I fished Pewaukee Lake, in Wisconsin, one moonlit evening in summer, many years ago, in company with three other anglers, there being two to a boat. In a few hours twenty-two were landed to each boat, weighing from three to four pounds each. This was my only experience in fishing for pike-perch at night, but I have known many others to practise it very successfully. Fly-fishing is most successful from about sundown until dark, or later, and on cloudy days also during the afternoon. Two flies on a four-foot leader may be used, one of which should be a light-colored one, as the coachman, or white miller; the other may be any of the hackles or the stone fly, oriole, gray drake, polka, professor, or Montreal. The same instructions concerning fly-fishing for black-bass may be profitably followed for the pike-perch, allowing the flies to sink two or three feet after each cast, though it is a more uncertain fish to locate, being much given to roaming in its search for food at different seasons. Years ago I had fine sport on several occasions, about sundown, fly-fishing for pike-perch from the bridge over Neenah channel, the outlet of Lake Winnebago, in Wisconsin. It was really the best fishing I have ever had for this fish. All the conditions seemed to be just right, and they responded eagerly to the coachman and oriole at first, but at the approach of dusk they preferred the dusty miller and gray hackle. The fish averaged three pounds, and in the swift water were quite gamy. I have been very successful, on many occasions, fly-fishing on the Muskingum River, in Ohio, fishing just below the dams late in the afternoon; and also about the rocky tow-heads on the upper Ohio River,--the fish, however, averaging only about a pound. But taking everything into consideration, the character of the stream and its surroundings, I think I have had the most enjoyable experience with the pike-perch, both in fly-fishing and bait-fishing, on Rock River, Wisconsin, in the southern part of the state. It is a beautiful, rocky river in places, an ideal stream for wading. The fish also were of good size, running up to five or six pounds. In fishing for pike-perch in different parts of the country I have noticed its variableness of coloration, which might be inferred from some of its names, as gray pike, yellow pike, blue pike, white salmon, etc. As I remember them, those caught in brackish water in Maryland were quite greenish, with silvery reflections and with dark markings. On Lake Erie the coloration varies somewhat with age, the younger ones being known as blue pike, the mature fish as yellow pike, and the oldest and largest as gray pike. On the rivers of the Middle West that are subject to periods of high and muddy water they are much paler. On the many pine-fringed lakes in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota the variation in color is quite apparent, both as to the ground color and markings. The older fish are very dark and dull on the back, and the younger ones much brighter. THE SAUGER (_Stizostedion canadense_) The sauger was first described by C.H. Smith, in 1834, who named it _canadensis_, from having collected his type specimens in Canada. It is also known as jack, sand-pike, gray-pike, and rattlesnake pike. It is closely related to the pike-perch, though smaller and more slender, with a more pointed head and smaller eye. It is distributed through the Great Lake region and in the upper portions of the Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers. It grows to a length of twelve to fifteen inches. Its color is paler than the pike-perch, grayish above, with brassy sides, which are marked by several blackish blotches or patches, hence "rattlesnake pike." It is not nearly so good a food-fish as the pike-perch, and is not of much importance as a game-fish. It may be fished for with the same tackle as that recommended for the calico-bass or crappie, in the same situations mentioned for the pike-perch. I have taken it with a gaudy fly on the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, in Ohio, and in the Big Sandy and Tygert Creek, in Kentucky; also by still-fishing and trolling on Lake Erie about the Bass Islands. The meaning or etymology of the name "sauger" is unknown. THE YELLOW-PERCH (_Perca flavescens_) The yellow-perch was first described by Dr. Mitchill in 1814, from the vicinity of New York. He named it _flavescens_, "yellowish," owing to its coloration. It is closely allied to the perch of Europe. It is commonly known as perch or yellow-perch, also as ringed-perch and raccoon-perch. It is abundant in the Great Lake region and in coastwise streams of the Atlantic slope from Nova Scotia to North Carolina. It is also common in some of the tributaries of the upper Mississippi River and in certain lakes in northern Indiana. It is a handsome fish, well proportioned, and of a lively disposition. It has a shapely body, with a depth of about one-third of its length, somewhat compressed, and with an arching back. The mouth is moderate in size, with bands of small, bristlelike teeth, but no canines, and has a projecting snout. The head is not quite one-third of the length of the body. Its back is dark olive, sides bright golden yellow, belly pale or pinkish, with half a dozen or more broad, dark, vertical bars. The lower fins are bright red or orange. While the coloration varies somewhat in different situations it is always brilliant, rendering it one of the handsomest fishes among the fresh-water species. The yellow-perch is gregarious, always in schools, and the fish of a school will be about of a uniform size, be that great or small. It frequents waters of a moderate depth in streams or lakes or ponds. In streams, early in the spring, it frequently resorts to the edge or foot of riffles, when feeding, but later prefers the deeper water under mill-dams and about the submerged timbers of bridges, and the still water under hollow banks, or in the eddies of old logs, rocks, etc. It is averse to a muddy bottom in fresh water, but along the eastern coast it is often found on the weedy shoals of shallow bays in brackish water. In my boyhood days it was a prime favorite with myself and companions. We sought it on the mud-flats, among the water-plants, of the Patapsco River, near Baltimore. It was there known as "yellow Ned," and was considered a good pan-fish. In Lake Michigan, after leaving its winter quarters in the spring, it fairly swarms about the piers and wharves of Chicago and other towns, where it is caught by thousands by men, women, and children with hand-lines, rods, and dip-nets. It is a very predaceous fish and feeds principally on small minnows and the young of other fishes, also on crawfish, tadpoles, small frogs, insects, etc. In large waters it grows to a pound or two in weight, sometimes more. Usually it is much smaller, a half-pound perch being a good-sized fish in most localities. In midsummer, in weedy ponds, it is not good; but at other seasons, or in clear, cold water, it is an excellent pan-fish, firm and flaky. In brackish water it is good at all seasons. Whenever it has a muddy taste, it should be skinned, by which the objectionable flavor is removed almost entirely, and owing to its adherent scales it is the best plan for dressing it. It spawns early in the spring, in March and April, though in very cold waters not until May. The eggs are about twelve to the inch, and are held together by a glutinous substance in long, ribbonlike masses from two to six feet in length, and from an inch to three or four inches wide. Light trout tackle, either for bait-fishing or fly-fishing, is suitable for the yellow-perch for those anglers who can appreciate the pleasure to be derived only by the use of appropriate and elegant tackle for any kind of fishing, and a pound perch is well worthy of such implements. With a fly-rod of a few ounces, a light click reel, an enamelled silk line, and a small leader and flies on hooks No. 7, the yellow-perch will not disappoint the most exacting angler who has a true love for the sport. Under such circumstances it is a good game-fish, eager to rise, bold to a degree, and fights to a finish. Most of the flies used for black-bass, as coachman, polka, oriole, professor, Abbey, etc., are successful, as well as the hackles of various shades, and occasionally red ibis and stone fly. The late afternoon hours are to be preferred for fly-fishing. The flies should be allowed to sink with each cast, after being fluttered on the surface a few seconds. In the absence of a more suitable rod, a light one of native cane, nine or ten feet long, will do good service without a reel. The line should be the smallest "sea-grass," or twisted silk. Hooks Nos. 5 or 6, on gut snells, with a small brass box-swivel for connecting snell and line, make up the rest of the tackle. The most taking bait is a small minnow, but grasshoppers, crickets, white grubs, or earthworms are good. In tidal waters the shrimp is preferred. But in the absence of any of these baits, cut-bait, either fish or flesh, may be used with good results, for the yellow-perch is not very particular or fastidious. Large perch are also easily taken by trolling with the minnow, or a very small spoon on lakes or ponds. If the spoon is employed, but a single hook should be used, and that not too large. I am not an advocate, however, for trolling for so small a fish, and merely mention it as one of the ways and means that may be followed. There are men who never rise above this method for any game-fish, but they are more to be pitied than blamed. They either lack the skill to practise more approved methods, or are too indolent to learn them. The yellow-perch has been introduced into some waters west of the Rockies. A few weighing about a pound were sent to me from a lake about forty miles west of Spokane, which were of exceptionally bright coloration and good flavor. In the same box were two pike of about four pounds each, and a large-mouth black-bass of eight pounds, dressed, and very fat, plump, and delicious. These fish were the result of a single plant by the United States Fish Commission some years ago. On the Missouri River, a few miles above the Great Falls, a large lake has been formed by an expansion of the river, caused by building a dam for an electric light plant. Several years ago some yellow-perch were placed in this lake, or in the river just above it, but by whom I have not been able to ascertain. At all events, the lake now swarms with perch, strings of one hundred or more not being an uncommon catch in a single day, as I am credibly informed. As the water above the forks of the Missouri River is too cold for the perch, and the water of the lake too warm for trout or grayling, there seems to be no probability of any harm resulting from the introduction of the yellow-perch, though it was not a wise thing to do. About the only fish in that portion of the Missouri, before the perch were planted just above the Great Falls, were ling, suckers, and catfish. In the many small lakes near Oconomowoc. Wisconsin, the yellow-perch thrives well. It is caught in the summer by men, women, and children with almost any kind of bait, and often with the rudest tackle. To the summer visitors it is a source of perennial delight, and an unfailing means of enjoyment to the juvenile anglers. In my day, Genesee Lake, a few miles from Oconomowoc, contained some of the largest perch of all the numerous lakes and lakelets. In this lake only the small-mouth bass and yellow-perch were found, no large-mouth bass or pike, and the bass and perch were of about the same size--two pounds. This uniformity of weight did not obtain in any of the other lakes. A basket of perch from Genesee Lake was a handsome sight, and the fish were unusually sweet and savory. During the winter the residents catch yellow-perch through holes cut in the ice in great numbers, in all of the lakes mentioned. It was here that I devised my "Oconomowoc" bass fly with creamy yellow body, hackle of hairs of deer's tail, cinnamon (woodcock) wings, and tail of ginger; but for the perch of Genesee I found that with a tail of scarlet wool it was more effective. Many a two-pound perch responded to that lure, in days long gone, and as Thoreau says, "It is a true fish, such as the angler loves to put into his basket or hang on top of his willow twig on shady afternoons." CHAPTER VI THE GRAYLING FAMILY (_Thymallidæ_) _Thymallus signifer._ Head 5-1/2; depth 4-2/3; eye 3; D. 24; A. II; scales 8-88 to 90-11; coeca 18; body elongate, compressed, highest under the anterior portion of the dorsal; head rather short, subconic, compressed, its upper outline continuous with anterior curve of the back; mouth moderate, the maxillary extending to below the middle of the eye; maxillary 6 (?) in head; jaws about equal; tongue, in the young, with teeth, which are usually absent in the adult; eye quite large, rather longer than snout; scales moderate; lateral line nearly straight; a small bare space behind isthmus; dorsal fin long and high, about 3-1/2 in length of body; adipose fin small; anal fin small; gill-rakers short and slender, about 12 below the angle. _Thymallus tricolor._ Head 5; depth 5-1/2; eye 4; D. 21 or 22; A. 10; scales 93 to 98; gill-rakers 7 + 12; maxillary 2-1/2 in head; dorsal fin 5-1/2 in length of body. Otherwise much as _T. signifer_. _Thymallus montanus._ Head 5; depth 4-1/2; eye 3-1/2; D. 18 to 21; A. 10 or 11; scales 8-82 to 85-10; gill-rakers 5 + 12; maxillary 3 in head; dorsal fin 4-1/2 in length of body. Other features much resembling _T. signifer_ and _T. tricolor_. Owing to the restricted area of its distribution, the "graceful, gliding grayling" is known to but comparatively few anglers in America. He who has been so fortunate as to have this beautiful fish respond to his deftly cast flies, will bear me out in the assertion that for courage, finesse, and all the qualities that constitute a true game-fish, the grayling is the equal of its congener, the trout. In France it is known as ombre, in Germany as asche, and in Norway as harren. Among all English-speaking people it is the grayling, though occasionally it is called umber in parts of England. All of these names are somewhat descriptive of its grayish, ashy, or bluish coloration. Gliding along in clear, swift water it seems, indeed, a gray shadow; but fresh out of its native element it becomes a creature of mother-of-pearl, so beautiful and varied are its tints. The graceful outlines and beautifully-moulded proportions of the grayling, together with the satiny sheen and delicate coloration of her adornment, have always impressed me as essentially feminine. The evanescent play of prismatic hues on her shapely and rounded sides, when fresh from the pure and crystal stream she loves so well, reminds one of changeable silk shot with all the colors of the rainbow. Her tall dorsal fin, with its rose-colored spots, she waves as gracefully and effectually as the nodding plume of a duchess. [Illustration THE ARCTIC GRAYLING] [_Thymallus signifer_] [Illustration THE MICHIGAN GRAYLING] [_Thymallus tricolor_] [Illustration THE MONTANA GRAYLING] [_Thymallus montanus_] The grayling was named by the ancients _Thymallus_, owing to a smell of thyme that was said to emanate from the fish when freshly caught. However that may have been in days of old, it is not so now, though an odor of cucumbers is sometimes perceptible when it is just out of the water. But the name, if not the odor, has endured to the present day, for _Thymallus_ is still its generic appellation. The graylings were formerly included in the salmon family, and are still so considered by European ichthyologists, who include them in the genus _Salmo_. Dr. Theodore Gill, however, has formed them into a separate family (_Thymallidæ_), owing to the peculiar structure of the skull, whereby the parietal bones meet at the median line, excluding the frontal bones from the supra-occipital; whereas in the other salmonids the parietals are separated by the intervention of the supra-occipital bone, which connects with the frontals. There are three species in America: one in the Arctic regions, one in Michigan, and one in Montana. To the untrained eye no great difference is apparent between these various species as to form and coloration, [1] and their habits are similar, all loving clear, cold, and swift water, with gravelly or sandy bottom. They feed on insects and their larvæ, small minnows, crustaceans, and such small organisms. They spawn in the spring. The eggs are smaller than trout eggs, running seven to the inch. They hatch in from ten days to two weeks, according to temperature of the water. THE ARCTIC GRAYLING (_Thymallus signifer_) The Arctic grayling was first described by Sir John Richardson, in 1823, from specimens collected at Winter Lake, near Fort Enterprise, in British America. He named it _signifer_, or "standard-bearer," in allusion to its tall, waving, gayly-colored dorsal fin. It is presumably the oldest and original species, and it is not unlikely that it was transported to Michigan and Montana on an ice-field during the glacial period. It is often called Bach's grayling, in honor of an officer of that name who took the first one on the fly, when with the Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin, in 1819. It abounds in clear, cold streams of the Mackenzie and Yukon provinces in British America, and in Alaska up to the Arctic Ocean. This boreal grayling has a somewhat smaller head than the other species, its upper outline being continuous with the curve of the back. The mouth is small, extending to below the middle of the eye, which latter is larger than in the other graylings, while its dorsal fin is both longer and higher, and contains a few more rays. The sides are purplish gray, darker on the back; head brownish, a blue mark on each side of the lower jaw; the dorsal fins dark gray, splashed with a lighter shade, with rows of deep blue spots edged with red; ventral fins with red and white stripes. Along the sides are scattered a few irregularly-shaped black spots. A friend of mine, an ardent angler, returned recently from Cape Nome and the Yukon, in Alaska, where he resided for several years. He informed me that the grayling is very abundant in the streams of that region, and that he had taken thousands on the fly; but not knowing that they differed from the Montana grayling, he did not examine them closely. THE MICHIGAN GRAYLING (_Thymallus tricolor_) The Michigan grayling was first described by Professor E.D. Cope, in 1865, from specimens from the Au Sable River. He named it _tricolor_, on account of its handsomely-decorated fins and body. At that time it was abundant in the Au Sable, Manistee, Marquette, Jordan, Pigeon, and other rivers in the northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan, and in Otter Creek, near Keweenah, in the upper peninsula. It has a somewhat larger head than the Arctic form, its length being about one-fifth of the length of the body; the outline of the latter does not differ except in not being so prominent over the shoulder. The coloration is purplish gray with silvery reflections, darker on the back, belly white and iridescent; sides of head with bright bluish and bronze lustre; sides of the body with small, black, irregular spots; ventral fins with oblique, rose-colored lines; dorsal with alternate dusky and rose-colored lines below, and alternate rows of dusky green and roseate spots above; caudal fin dusky with a middle roseate stripe. In 1870-1876 I visited most of the grayling streams in Michigan, and found it abundant, affording fine fishing. At that time it was also in the Boyne, and in Pine Lake and River. I also took it in Lake Michigan while fishing for cisco from the pier at Charlevoix. Fish running from a pound to a pound and a half were common, and occasionally one of two pounds was taken. It is sad to contemplate the gradual disappearance of this fish from the once densely populated streams of Michigan. At the present day the angler is fortunate, indeed, who succeeds in taking a brace of grayling where a few years ago his basket was soon filled. This deplorable state of affairs has been brought about by the axe of the lumberman, whose logs, descending the small streams on the spring rise, plough up the spawning beds, smothering the eggs and killing the helpless fry. As brook-trout spawn in the fall they escape this calamity, the fry being old enough in April to take pretty good care of themselves. The decrease of both trout and grayling is commonly attributed to overfishing; but while this may have its influence to a limited extent in lessening the numbers for a season, other causes must be looked for to account for the permanent depletion of certain waters. A stream or pond will support but a limited number of fish, the number depending on the supply of natural food for both young and mature. By the supply of food on one hand, and the natural enemies of the fish on the other, a certain balance is maintained which if disturbed by, say, overfishing one season, will be restored by natural laws the next. And this state of affairs will continue so long as the natural conditions of the waters remain undisturbed. By cutting down the pine trees at the sources of the streams and along the small tributaries, which are the spawning grounds of both trout and grayling, the natural conditions are changed. The scorching rays of the summer sun are admitted where once mosses and ferns and the trailing arbutus luxuriated in the shade of a dense growth of pines and hemlocks and firs. The soil becomes dry, the carpet of green shrivels and dies, and the myriads of insects that once bred and multiplied in the cool and grateful shade, and whose larvæ furnish the food for the baby fish, disappear. The brooks and rivulets diminish and vanish. A page has been torn from the book of nature, and the place that trout and grayling knew so well is known no more forever. THE MONTANA GRAYLING (_Thymallus montanus_) The Montana grayling was collected by Professor James W. Milner, of the United States Fish Commission, in 1872, from a tributary of the Missouri River, at Camp Baker, in Montana. He named it _montanus_, from the name of the state. Lewis and Clark, however, during their wonderful journey that blazed the western course of empire, described, but did not name it, seventy years before, from fish taken near the head waters of the Jefferson River. A few years ago (1898) it was my good fortune to be the first to call attention to this prior description. Knowing that Lewis and Clark ascended the Jefferson nearly to its source in the Rocky Mountains, in 1805, I thought it extremely probable that those remarkably close observers had mentioned the existence of this beautiful and well-marked species. Upon investigation I found my surmise to be correct. On page 545 of Dr. Elliott Coues's edition (1893) of "The Lewis and Clark Expedition," I found the following:-- "Toward evening we formed a drag of bushes, and in about two hours caught 528 very good fish, most of them large trout. Among them we observed for the first time ten or twelve trout of a white or silvery color, except on the back and head, where they are of a bluish cast; in appearance and shape they resemble exactly the speckled trout, except they are not so large, though the scales are much larger; the flavor is equally good." (In a foot-note Dr. Coues stated that this fish remained unidentified.) The locality where these fish were taken was near the head waters of the Jefferson River, where Lewis and Clark abandoned their canoes and crossed the Continental Divide on horses purchased from the Indians. At this point the grayling is abundant to-day, as I know from personal observation, and coexists with the red-throat trout almost to the exclusion of all other species. Lewis and Clark were both remarkable for clear and correct descriptions of the animals and plants met with during their journey, many of which were new to science; but as they neglected to give them scientific names, others have reaped the honors of many of their discoveries. I published my identification of the fish in question as being undoubtedly the grayling, and soon afterward received a letter from Dr. Coues, congratulating me and indorsing my opinion, which he said was certainly correct. The Montana grayling is found only in the tributaries of the Missouri River above the Great Falls. In Sheep and Tenderfoot creeks, tributaries of Smith River, in the Little Belt Mountains, it is fairly abundant, as it is likewise in the three forks of the Missouri,--the Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson rivers. Its ideal home is in several tributaries at the head of Red Rock Lake, swift gravelly streams, and especially in the upper reaches of the Madison above the upper cañon, where the water is rapid, though unbroken, the bottom being dark obsidian sand, with a succession of pools and shallows. I have taken fish weighing two pounds in Beaver Creek, in the upper cañon, which is also an ideal stream. Such situations are peculiarly adapted to the grayling, being preferred to the broken water of rocky streams so much favored by trout. The Montana grayling is a trimmer-built fish than its Michigan cousin, being not quite so deep, proportionally, and with larger scales. Its dorsal fin is about the same height, but with one or two less rays. Its back is gray, with purplish reflections; sides lighter, with lilac, pink, and silvery reflections; belly pearly white. It has a few irregularly-shaped black spots on the anterior part of the body, but none posteriorly as sometimes on the Michigan grayling. It has two oblong dark blotches in the cleft of the lower jaw, and a heavy dark line running from the ventrals to the pectoral fin; these markings are more pronounced in the male, being quite faint or wanting in the female. The dorsal fin has a rosy-red border, six or seven rows of roseate, roundish spots, ocellated with white, and gray blotches form lines between the rows of red spots; in the upper, posterior angle of the dorsal fin are several larger oblong rosy spots; the ventral fins have three rose-colored stripes along the rays; the pectoral and anal fins are plain; the caudal fin is forked. As a game-fish the grayling is fully the equal of the trout, though its way of taking the artificial fly is quite different, and the old hand at trout fishing must pay court to "the lady of the streams" with the greatest assiduity before he is successful in winning her attention to his lures. And even then he must become fully conversant with her coy and coquettish way of accepting his offer, though it be cast never so deftly. There is a rush and snap and vim in the rise of a trout to the fly that is lacking with the grayling. The trout often leaps above the water to seize the fly, while it is taken more quietly and deliberately, though just as eagerly, by the grayling from below. In other words, it is "sucked in," as English anglers term it, though that hardly expresses it, as the act is not so tame as might be inferred. On the contrary, the grayling rises from the bottom of a pool and darts upward like an arrow to seize the fly, though as a rule it does not break water, and is not so demonstrative as the trout; but it seldom misses the mark, if the fly is small enough, which the trout often does. Sometimes the grayling will rise a dozen times to a fly, and for some reason refuse it, but will take it at the very next cast. Just why this is so is one of the unanswerable problems that often vexes or confounds the angler. Presumably the fly is too large, or is not presented in just the right way to please her ladyship. But the angler should not despair under such circumstances, but remember the old couplet, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Moreover, he must remember that he is fishing for grayling, not for trout. He must not cast on a riffle, or at its head, but below, in the eddy or still water, where it is deepest. There lie the large fish, though small ones may be in the shallower water, and it is the latter that perplex one by their antics, oftentimes leaping over one's flies in play. Trout generally lie in ambush beneath the bank, shelving rocks, or roots, usually in shallow water, from whence they rush with tigerlike ferocity upon the fly, often leaping over it in their eagerness for the fancied prey. On the contrary, grayling lie on the bottom of pools, in swift water, entirely in the open. They are also gregarious, assembling in schools, while the trout is a lone watcher from his hidden lair. Some dry fly-fishers of England, echoing the opinion of Charles Cotton, term the grayling a "dead-hearted fish" that must be taken with a wet or sunken fly. This idea of its lack of gameness is implied in Tennyson's lines:-- "Here and there a lusty trout. And here and there a grayling." As the English grayling grows only to half of the weight of the trout, it suffers by comparison when killed on the heavy rods of our English brothers. Their assertion, also, that the grayling has a tender mouth, and must be handled gingerly, is another fallacy, inasmuch as it has as tough lips as the trout, but the smaller hooks of grayling flies do not hold so firmly as the larger and stronger hooks of trout flies. It must not be supposed that the grayling is not a leaping fish because it takes the fly from beneath the surface of the water. On the contrary, in its playful moods it may be seen leaping above the surface the same as a trout, and moreover it breaks water repeatedly after being hooked, which the trout seldom does. It puts up a stiff fight also beneath the surface, being much aided in its resistance by its tall dorsal fin. It is no disparagement, then, to the gamesome trout, to declare the grayling its equal when of similar size and weight. Grayling fishing has been practised in England for centuries. In addition to fly-fishing, swimming the maggot, where a tiny float is used, is a common method. An artificial bait, called the grasshopper, is likewise employed. While grayling are taken during the trout season, in spring and summer, the most successful season seems to be from September to December, when they are at their best, both as to gameness and condition. With English anglers the universal practice is to fish up-stream, as the fish are not so apt to see the angler, and that plan undoubtedly has its advantages in the clear and shallow streams of England. In fishing for grayling, however, it is advised by some of their best anglers to cast across the stream, instead of above, and allow the flies to float down. No reason is given for this deviation from the generally accepted method with trout; but I imagine that as grayling lie on the bottom of deep pools, it has been found by experience that they are not so apt to see the angler as other species in mid-water or near the surface, especially in the clear chalk streams. In America, the streams being deeper, the necessity for fishing up-stream is not so apparent. Fishing down-stream is by far the best plan, for obvious reasons, if the angler wades slowly and cautiously, so as not to roil the water. The principal reason is that one's line is always straight and taut in swift water, and the flies can be more easily controlled and floated down over the fish, which always heads up-stream. Upon hooking the fish it can be drawn to one side, whereby the other fish in the pool are not much more alarmed than in the case of casting up or across. Casting across seems to be really a concession to the advantage of fishing down-stream. The fly-rod, reel, line, and leader ordinarily employed for trout-fishing may be used also for grayling, though I would advise some modifications. While a first-class split-bamboo rod of three and a half or four ounces may be advantageously used by an angler who knows how to handle a very light rod, I prefer one of five or six ounces. Such a rod is certainly light enough to be used all day without fatigue, and it is well to have the resourceful reserve of an ounce or two for emergencies. In any case it should not exceed ten and one-half feet in length, if built on the modern plan, where most of the pliancy is in its upper two-thirds, the lower third being stiffish and springy, constituting its backbone. A very good rod can be constructed with ash butt, and lancewood, greenheart, or bethabara upper pieces, and one that will be almost as light as split-bamboo, and certainly more serviceable in the long run. I would also advise flush, non-dowelled joints, and reel-bands instead of a solid reel-seat, the latter being of no advantage and only adding to the weight of the rod; moreover, it is now put on the cheapest rods to make them sell. A plain groove for the reel, with bands, is very much better. As a matter of course the line should be of braided silk, enamelled, and suited to the weight of the rod, as small as size G, but not larger than size E. It may be level, but a tapered line is better for casting, and is also better adapted for the delicate leader that must be employed. A tapered leader six feet long is best, but should not be shorter than four feet. It must be made of the very best silkworm gut fibre, round, clear, and unstained. The distal end should be made of the finest drawn gut, known as gossamer, and taper to the larger or proximal end, which should be the smallest undrawn gut. In England the most delicate leaders and extremely small flies are employed for grayling. The flies are usually tied on Pennell hooks, turndown eye, sizes 0, 00, 000, Kendal scale, which are smaller than No. 12, Redditch scale, the latter being the smallest size commonly used in America. The favorite flies in England have yellowish--lemon to orange--bodies, and bodies of peacock harl, either green or bronze. Flies with purplish, black, or slate-colored bodies are more sparingly employed. They are either hackles or split-winged flies. The formulas for some of the favorites are as follows:-- _Red Tag._ Body bright green harl from the "moon" of a peacock's feather; hackle, bright red cock's hackle; tag, bright red wool; hook, No. 0, Kendal scale. _Orange Bumble._ Body, orange floss silk, ribbed with a strand of peacock's sword feather and fine flat gold tinsel; hackle, honey dun cock, wrapped all down the body; hook No. 0, Kendal scale. _Green Insect._ Body, bright green peacock's harl; hackled with a soft silver-gray hen's feather; hook No. 0, Kendal scale. _Bradshaw's Fancy._ Body, copper-colored peacock's harl; hackled with a feather from the neck of a Norwegian crow; tag, bright crimson wool or silk, with a couple of turns of the same at the head; tying silk, dark purple; hook No. 0, Kendal scale. _Claret Bumble._ Body, claret floss silk, ribbed with a strand of peacock's sword feather; medium blue dun cock's hackle; hook. No. 0, Kendal scale. Most of the foregoing are fancy flies, but are considered the best killers on English waters. In this country it has been demonstrated, also, that flies with bodies of peacock harl, or with yellowish bodies, have been more uniformly successful than others. From this it would appear that the predilection of grayling for certain colors in artificial flies is much the same both in this country and England. From my own experience I can recommend the following well-known flies, adding, however, that their construction should be a little different from the conventional trout flies of these names in having a red tag or tail of scarlet wool, instead of the usual tail, and in having narrow split wings instead of the regular style of full wings:-- Yellowish-bodied flies: professor, queen of the water, Oconomowoc, Lord Baltimore. Green-bodied flies: coachman, Henshall, and grizzly king. Other useful flies are black gnat, cinnamon, iron-blue dun, oriole, red ant, gray hackle, and black hackle. They should all be tied on Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks, No. 12, Redditch or common scale. Two flies only should be used in a cast, and of different colors. Bearing in mind that the portions of a stream mostly used by grayling are the sandy and gravelly pools in swift, smooth water, they are fished for in much the same way as trout, except that the flies are allowed to sink below the surface, very much as in black-bass fishing. It is very important that the line and leader are always taut, inasmuch as the rise of the fish is not always seen, except as a quick flash or shadow beneath the surface. With a tight line the fish will be more apt to hook itself. With the small hooks of grayling flies, it is not wise for the angler to attempt to "strike," as in trout or black-bass fishing. Upon hooking the fish it should be led sidewise from the pool, if possible, so as not to disturb or frighten the others of the school; and for the same reason it should be kept near the surface until taken into the landing-net. Either a light trout bait-rod or the fly-rod may be employed for bait-fishing for grayling, with fine silk line, leader, and hooks Nos. 6 to 8 with a split-shot sinker a foot above the hook. English anglers use a small float, but in fishing down-stream it is not advisable, as the current prevents the bait from touching the bottom, and renders the use of a float for this purpose unnecessary. The bait should be kept from six inches to a foot above the bottom. The best bait is the larva of the caddis-fly, a small worm or caterpillar encased in a bag or covering composed of bits of bark, sticks, etc.; it is known in the Rocky Mountain region as the "rockworm." Earthworms, small grasshoppers, crickets, and grubs of various kinds are also useful. When it became known to fishculturists, about 1874, that the grayling existed in Michigan, attempts were made to propagate it artificially, but without success, as the same lines were pursued as with the brook-trout. It remained for the United States Fish Commission to successfully cope with the problem in Montana, under my supervision. Beginning with 1898, we have hatched millions at Bozeman Station and the auxiliary station near Red Rock Lake, at the head of the Jefferson River. We have also shipped millions of eggs to different parts of the Union, as far east as Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, mostly to United States Fish Commission stations, where they were hatched and planted in suitable streams. It is to be hoped that some of these plants will result in the permanent establishment of this beautiful and desirable fish in eastern waters. The eggs of the grayling are smaller than those of the trout, being but one-seventh of an inch in diameter. When first extruded they are amber-colored, owing to a large oil-drop, which renders them lighter than trout eggs, almost semi-buoyant, and for this reason are best hatched, or at least "eyed," in hatching jars. My plan is to keep them in the hatching jars until the eye-spots show, when they are removed to hatching-trays until incubation is complete. In a few days after extrusion the eggs become crystal-like or hyaline in color, when the embryo can be seen in motion. The period of incubation is from ten days to two weeks. The fry when hatched are very small, about the size of mosquito "wigglers" (larvæ). Their umbilical yolk-sac is absorbed in a few days, when it becomes imperative to supply them with stream water, which contains the small organisms (_Entomostraca_) on which they feed at first. Afterward they can be fed artificially the same as trout fry, which they soon outgrow. There is an erroneous opinion that has gained considerable currency among anglers to the effect that grayling and trout are antagonistic, and that to this cause is to be attributed the decrease of grayling in the waters of Michigan. My observations have led me to the conclusion that this opinion is not supported by any evidence whatever. When I fished the streams of that state, years ago, both trout and grayling were plentiful in the same waters, and were living in harmony as they had done from time immemorial. Their habits and choice of locality being different, the trout hiding under cover and the grayling lying in exposed pools, their struggle for existence or supremacy does not bring them much in opposition, or cause them to prey on each other or on their eggs or fry in an unusual degree, or to such an extent as to effect the marked decrease of either species. Honors are even. It is the same in Montana. In that state the red-throat trout and grayling seek out such portions of the streams as are best suited to them; but very often they are found together on neutral ground, where they live peaceably and not at variance with each other. As no disturbing element has yet been introduced, their numbers still bear the same relative proportion that has existed since the days of yore. Likewise in England, in such historic waters as the Wye, the Derwent, the Wharfe, or the Dove, hallowed by "meek Walton's heavenly memory," the grayling and trout still coexist in about the same relative proportion that has been maintained since and before the days of Dame Juliana Berners, Izaak Walton, and Charles Cotton in the fifteenth century. On those quiet streams no cause has ever been allowed to militate against the well-being of either species, or to disturb the natural conditions to any considerable extent. In a recent number of the _London Fishing Gazette_ is one of the best articles on the English grayling that I have ever seen. It is written by Mr. E.F. Goodwin, who is undoubtedly fully conversant with his theme and well acquainted with the habits of that fish. Among other things he says:-- "When in season I maintain that the grayling will give excellent sport on suitable tackle, is splendid eating, and is as handsome a fish as any angler need wish to gaze upon. What more can one want? How Charles Cotton could have written in such terms of condemnation of the sporting qualities of this fish as to call him 'one of the deadest-hearted fishes in the world, and the bigger he is the more easily taken,' passes my understanding, although we must remember that this remark was passed to 'Viator' on his catching a grayling in the early part of March, when the fish would be out of condition in all probability. I confess to a feeling of disappointment at the summary way in which Walton dismisses the grayling, showing that he did not think very highly of him either from an edible or sporting point of view. "Grayling will rise readily to the artificial fly, and although they will come again time after time if missed (or perhaps I should say if they miss the fly, which is more usual), they require the neatest and finest tackle and the most delicate handling to secure them; and as Francis truly says, 'when you have hooked a grayling, your next job is to land him.'--There is a lot of difference between the way a well-conditioned trout and grayling fight after being hooked, and this may account for some of the condemnation heaped upon the latter as to its non-sportive character; for although not so lively as the trout with its mad rushes for liberty, yet the kind of resistance is more dangerous to the hold you have on him, for the grayling tries the hold of the hook in every possible way, and from every possible point of that hold. To my mind a grayling is much more difficult to land than a trout, and the more I fish for grayling the more convinced I am of his gameness and sporting qualities. Certainly there are a great many more grayling lost after being hooked than trout, and this is accounted for principally not so much from the reputed tenderness of the mouth as from the fact of the fish not being so firmly hooked as the trout usually is. "The ideas of grayling not heading up-stream and of being deleterious to the trout have been perpetuated by author after author, just copying one another without really ascertaining the facts.... As regards the advisability of introducing grayling into a trout stream, that depends entirely upon the nature of the river. As far as my experience and observation go, grayling only become detrimental to the trout in that, being active and voracious feeders, they consume the food that otherwise would have belonged to and been partaken of by the trout. It is certain that these fish live together in general amity. The grayling is but seldom a fish eater, and therefore any accusation as to its being destructive to the fry of trout is untenable. That it, in the trout-spawning season, may help itself to what it can find of the superfluous ova which float down the stream no one can object to, but as to its burrowing in the redds and disturbing the hatching ova. I very much doubt it. Both the late Dr. Brunton and Dr. Hamilton were very strong in their assertion that this was a matter of impossibility with the grayling, and yet we are assured by Dr. James A. Henshall that the fry of grayling are as much addicted to cannibalism as the pike-perch fry." After giving a brief space to natural bait-fishing, he goes on to say: "But after all there is only one way in which this fish should be caught, and that is with the fly. This ground has been gone over so many times that it only remains for me to say that, the grayling being a bold and daring riser, never be discouraged if you fail to hook him, even if he rise at your fly time after time. He lies very low in the river when watching for his prey, and therefore is not so easily disturbed; and if you remain quite still when he has risen and missed the fly and gone down to his lair, he will surely rise again. His rise, too, is different to a trout. A trout, from lying close to the surface when feeding, takes without effort the flies floating over him, and also is easily scared. A grayling, from lying deep in the water, quite close to the bottom, comes up with great rapidity, and seldom takes the fly until it has passed him; and should he miss it, which often happens, disappears so quickly that he may well be compared to a shadow--hence the name of 'umber,' from _umbra_, a shadow. Should you hook him, up goes his great dorsal fin and down goes his head in his determination to get to his hiding-place, and it depends on his size and gameness, as well as the skill of the angler, whether he succeeds or not. I have often heard anglers complain that grayling are more difficult to hook than trout. Experienced anglers are all aware that grayling are not so easily hooked on the rise as trout, but he offers the best compensation in his power by consenting to rise over and over again until if you do not hook him the fault is yours, not his. When he rises at a passing fly he must ascend at lightning speed in order to cover the distance in time to catch it; having done so, he turns instantly head down and descends at the same speed. This is really the 'somersault' so well known to grayling fishers. With a long line it is next to impossible to strike a grayling on the instant, and a taut line in this fishing is of even greater importance than in trout-fishing." [Illustration THE MORE SPORTSMANLY WAY OF CATCHING MASCALONGE] I have given the above liberal quotations because the article agrees so well with my own practice in grayling fishing, and accords with the habits of the American graylings as I have observed them. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote 1: SPECIFIC CHARACTERIZATIONS OF THE GRAYLINGS +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ | | T. signifer | T. tricolor | T. montanus | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Head in length | 5-1/2 | 5 | 5 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Depth in length | 4-2/3 | 5-1/2 | 4-1/2 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Eye in head | 3 | 4 | 3-1/2 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Maxillary in head | 6 (?) | 2-1/2 | 3 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Scales | 8-88 to 90-11 | 93-98 | 8-82 to 85-10 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Gill-rakers |12 below the angle| 7 + 12 | 5 + 12 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Dorsal rays | 20-24 | 21-22 | 18-21 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Height of dorsal fin| 3-1/2 in length |5-1/2 in length|4-1/2 in length| +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+] CHAPTER VII THE SALMON FAMILY (_Salmonidæ_) This is quite an extensive family, embracing the salmons, trouts, and whitefishes, and is characterized principally by an adipose fin and small, smooth scales. It is my province to consider only the Rocky Mountain whitefish and the cisco, as the salmons and trouts are described in another volume of this series. There are a number of whitefishes, but none of them can be considered game-fishes except the one about to be described, as they rarely or never take the fly or bait. _Coregonus williamsoni._ Rocky Mountain Whitefish. Head 4-1/2 to 5; depth 4 to 5; eye 4-2/3; D. 11 to 14; A. 11 to 13; scales 8 to 10-83 to 87-7 to 10; body oblong, little compressed; head short, conic, the profile rather abruptly decurved; snout compressed and somewhat pointed at tip, which is below the level of the eye; preorbital broad, 2/3 the width of the eye; maxillary short and very broad, reaching to the anterior margin of eye, and is contained 4 times in length of head; mandible 3 times; gill-rakers short and thick, 9 + 15; pectoral fin 1-1/5 in head; ventral 1-2/5; adipose fin large, extending behind the anal fin. _Coregonus williamsoni cis-montanus._ Montana Whitefish. Head 5; depth 5 to 5^1; pectoral fin 1^1 in head; ventral 1-4/5; scales 90. Otherwise like the typical form. _Argyrosomus artedi sisco._ Cisco. Head 4 to 5; depth 4 to 4-1/2; eye 4 to 5; D. 10; A. 12; scales 8-65 to 80-8; body long, slender and somewhat compressed; head long, pointed and compressed; mouth large, lower jaw somewhat projecting, maxillary reaching to pupil; mandible 2-1/3 in head; dorsal fin high, its rays rapidly shortened; caudal fin forked. THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN WHITEFISH (_Coregonus williamsoni_) This fine fish was first described from the Des Chutes River in Oregon by Dr. Charles Girard in 1856, who described most of the fishes collected during the Pacific Railroad Survey, and named the one under consideration in honor of Lieutenant R.S. Williamson, who had charge of one of the divisions of the Survey. Its general form is not unlike that of the grayling, which has led to the absurd opinion, held by some, that the grayling is a hybrid, or cross, between this whitefish and the red-throat trout, its body being rather long, nearly elliptical in outline, and somewhat compressed. It is found in the clear streams on both slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and on both sides of the Cascade Range. In the tributaries of the Missouri River in Montana it differs slightly from the typical form, and is known as the variety _cis-montanus_. It is bluish or greenish on the back, sides silvery, belly white. All of the fins are tipped with black; caudal and adipose fins are steel-blue. I know this fish only from the streams of Montana, where it coexists with the red-throat trout and grayling. It spawns in the fall. It feeds on insects and their larvæ, small crustaceans, and the eggs of other fishes. It grows to about a foot in length, usually, and to a pound in weight, though I have taken much larger specimens. It is a very fair food-fish,--as good, I think, as the red-throat trout, as its flesh is firmer and flaky, and devoid of any muddy or musky flavor. It rises to the artificial fly as readily as the trout or grayling, and to the same flies, though a little more partial to small, dark, or grayish ones, as black, brown, and gray hackles, black gnat, oriole, gray drake, etc. When the streams are higher and not so clear, lighter-colored flies are useful, as professor, coachman, Henshall, miller, etc. Light trout fly-rods and tackle are used both for fly and bait-fishing by Rocky Mountain anglers,--the bait, when used, being the larva of the caddis-fly, and known as "rockworm." Grasshoppers are employed in the late summer and fall. Fly-fishing, however, is the most successful method. Large baskets of whitefish are made in the three forks of the Missouri River, especially in the lower Gallatin River, where it is taken with the grayling, the red-throat trout not being so plentiful in that part of the stream. The tributaries of this river are also well supplied with whitefish. Bridger Creek, one of the tributaries of East Gallatin River, has some large whitefish. I have taken them in that stream up to two pounds; for gameness they were equal to trout of the same weight, and just as good for the table. They are at their best in the early fall months, before spawning, when they are fat and in fine fettle. At this season they must be looked for in deep holes, especially in August and September, when they are gregarious, and one's basket may be filled from a single hole when of considerable extent. Later they depart for the shallows and pair off for spawning, when they seldom rise to the fly. There is a sentiment among trout fishers, and among people generally in a trout region, that no other fish is quite so good to eat, or possessed of as much gameness, as the trout. While I concede beauty of form and coloration to the trout, far excelling all other fresh-water fishes, there are others equally as good for the table, or even better. When camping by mountain streams, freshly-caught trout, fried to crispness in bacon fat, has a happy combined trout-bacon flavor that is certainly delicious, especially when one has the sauce of a camping appetite to favor it; but under similar conditions the mountain whitefish, in my opinion, is fully as good. Nine out of ten persons who are prejudiced in favor of the trout will declare that it has no scales, thus showing a lack of comparison and observation. In the Rocky Mountain region, where there are so few species of fish for the angler, usually only trout, grayling, and whitefish, the latter should be better appreciated. THE CISCO (_Argyrosomus artedi sisco_) The cisco, or so-called "lake-herring," was first described by the French ichthyologist, Le Sueur, in 1818, from Lake Erie and the Niagara River. He named it in honor of Petrus Artedi, the associate of Linnæus, and the "Father of Ichthyology." The variety _sisco_ was described and named by Dr. David Starr Jordan, in 1875, from Lake Tippecanoe, Indiana. It was for a long time supposed to exist only in Lake Geneva. Wisconsin, except in the Great Lakes, and an absurd opinion was prevalent that there was an underground communication between that lake and Lake Superior by which the cisco entered it. Soon after Dr. Jordan had discovered it in Tippecanoe Lake I found it in several lakes in Wisconsin, as La Belle, Oconomowoc, and Okauchee. The cisco is somewhat smaller than the lake-herring, but otherwise it is about the same. It is almost elliptical in outline, the body being compressed. The mouth is rather large, with the jaws more projecting than in the lake white-fishes. The coloration is bluish or greenish on the back, with silvery sides and white belly. The scales are sprinkled with black specks. It is a very pretty fish, is gregarious, swimming in large schools, and feeds on the minute organisms found in lakes of good depth. It remains in deep water most of the year, but resorts to shallower water in the summer, preparatory to spawning. From the last of May to June, when the May-fly appears in vast swarms on the western lakes, the cisco approaches the surface to feed on them. It is at this time that they take an artificial fly of a grayish hue. It grows to a length of ten or twelve inches, and is highly esteemed as a food-fish. At Lake Geneva, when the May-fly appears, crowds of anglers assemble to cast the artificial fly and the natural "cisco-fly," as the May-fly is called. A very light trout fly-rod with corresponding tackle can be utilized for cisco, with gray hackle, gray drake, or green drake, on hooks Nos. 8 to 10. The fishing is done from boats or the shore. In using the natural fly the same sized hooks mentioned will answer. As the May-fly alights on every object, the boat and clothing of the angler as well, the supply of bait is constant and convenient. The cisco can be caught in winter, through the ice, in water from fifty to seventy-five feet deep, and many are taken in this way from the lakes near Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. A small white or bright object is used as a decoy to attract the fish, which is kept in motion near the baited hook, and on a separate line. The bait may be a very small bit of white bacon or ham fat, or fish flesh, though insect larva is better. When the talismanic words, "The cisco is running," are pronounced, crowds of anglers from Chicago, Milwaukee, and all intermediate points, with a unanimity of purpose, rush as one man to the common centre of Lake Geneva, in eager anticipation of the brief but happy season of "ciscoing." Anglers of every degree--armed with implements of every description, from the artistic split-bamboo rod of four ounces to the plebeian cane pole or bucolic sapling of slender proportions, and with lines of enamelled silk, linen, or wrapping cord--vie with one another in good-natured rivalry in the capture of the silvery cisco. Very little skill is required to fill the creel, as the schools are on the surface of the water in myriads, and the most bungling cast may hook a fish. Though the etymology of the cisco is unknown, it is a veritable entity, whose name is legion during the month of June at Lake Geneva. The cisco is a localized variety of the so-called lake-herring of the Great Lakes, and holds the same relation to it that the landlocked salmon does to the Atlantic salmon. Being confined to small lakes, the cisco does not grow so large as the lake herring. Before the Chicago and Milwaukee railway was built, in Wisconsin, there was a plank road extending from Milwaukee to Watertown, and thirty miles west of Milwaukee this road crossed the outlet of Oconomowoc Lake. Within fifty yards or so of the bridge there stood a roadside tavern where the freight wagons stopped at noon on their way from Lake Michigan to Watertown. I have been informed by old residents of that section that in the fall of the year, about the spawning period of the cisco, boxes of fresh fish were frequently carried by these wagons, some of which were cleaned and dressed for dinner on the bank of the outlet of the lake, and the offal thrown into the stream. It is not unlikely, inasmuch as the fish were so recently caught, that the eggs and milt of the cisco thus became commingled, fertilizing the eggs, which were subsequently hatched. This opinion is supported by the fact that the cisco is found in that locality only in the chain of lakes composed of Oconomowoc, Okauchee, and La Belle lakes, all of which are connected by Oconomowoc River. It is possible that Lake Geneva was stocked in a similar manner from Racine or Kenosha. If it is objected that eggs from dead fish would not be fertilized, there is still a tenable theory: When the fish are taken from the nets alive, many of them are so ripe that the eggs and milt ooze from them. Under these circumstances some of the eggs would become fertilized without a doubt, and by adhering to the fish when placed in the boxes for transportation, they might be carried to the place mentioned, and there deposited in the stream in the manner related. CHAPTER VIII THE DRUM FAMILY (_Sciænidæ_) The drumfish or croaker family is quite a large one, comprising nearly one hundred and fifty species, inhabiting the sandy shores of the seas or the brackish water of the bays and estuaries, sometimes ascending tributary rivers to fresh water; the fresh-water drum, hereafter to be described, however, is the only species permanently residing in fresh water. The members of this family have usually an elongate body, with rough-edged (ctenoid) scales; the dorsal fin is deeply notched, or in some species separated into two fins, with the soft-rayed portion, or the second dorsal, composed of many rays, while the spiny-rayed portion has but few; some have barbels, but all have large ear-bones; the air-bladder is usually large and complicated, and is supposed to be the source of the drumming, croaking, or grunting sounds common to most of the species. _Cynoscion regalis._ The Weakfish. Body elongate, somewhat compressed; head 3-1/8; depth 4-1/4; eye 6; D. X-I, 27; A. II, 12; scales 6-56-11; mouth large, maxillary reaching beyond pupil; teeth sharp, in narrow bands, canines large; soft dorsal and anal fins scaly, the scales caducous; gill-rakers long and slender, _x_ + 11. _Cynoscion nothus._ The Bastard Weakfish. Body elongate, slightly compressed; head 3-1/2; depth 3-3/4; eye 4; D. X-I, 27; A. II, 9 or 10; scales 6-60-7; mouth moderate, maxillary reaching posterior margin of pupil; snout short; body rather deep and more compressed than above species; back somewhat elevated; caudal fin weakly double concave; gill-rakers long and slender, 4 + 9. _Menticirrhus saxatilis._ The Kingfish. Body elongate, but little compressed; head 4; depth 4-1/2; eye small 7; D. X-I, 26; A. I, 8; scales 7-53-9; mouth large, maxillary reaching middle of eye; spinous dorsal elevated; pectoral fins long; teeth villiform; snout long and bluntish; scales all ctenoid. _Micropogon undulatus._ The Croaker. Body rather robust, the back somewhat elevated and compressed; head 3; depth 3-1/3; eye 5; D. X-I, 28; A. II, 7; scales 9-54-12; mouth rather large, maxillary reaching front of eye; profile rounded; snout convex, prominent; preopercle strongly serrate; anal under middle of soft dorsal; caudal fin double truncate; gill-rakers very short and slender, 7 + 16. _Leiostomus xanthurus._ The Lafayette. Body oblong, ovate, the back compressed; head 3-1/2; depth 3; eye 3-1/2; D. X-I, 31; A. II, 12; back in front of dorsal high, convex and compressed to a sharp edge; profile steep and convex, depressed over the eyes; mouth small and inferior, maxillary reaching to below pupil; snout blunt; pharyngeals with three series of molars posteriorly; teeth in upper jaw minute, none in lower jaw in adult; gill-rakers short and slender, 8 + 22; caudal long and forked. THE WEAKFISH (_Cynoscion regalis_) The weakfish, or squeteague, was first described by Bloch and Schneider, in 1801, from the vicinity of New York. They named it _regalis_, or "royal." In the Southern states it is called gray-trout and sea-trout. The name weakfish is doubtless derived from the Dutch, and is said to have originally meant a soft fish. Jacob Steendam, in a poem in "Praise of New Netherland," in 1661, has "Weekvis, en Schol, en Carper, Bot, en Snoek," meaning weakfish, plaice, carp, turbot, and pike. The name squeteague is of Indian origin. The natural habitat of the weakfish is along the Atlantic coast south of Cape Cod, occasionally straying to the Gulf of Mexico. It is most abundant between Buzzards Bay and Chesapeake Bay. It is a handsome, shapely fish, resembling somewhat the salmon in outline. It has a robust body, with a depth of about one-fourth of its length. It has a long, pointed head, nearly as long as the depth of the body. The mouth is large, with projecting lower jaw. The teeth are sharp, in narrow bands, with several fanglike canines in front of the upper jaw. The dorsal fins are but slightly separated, and the caudal fin is almost square. The color of the back and top of the head is bluish or bluish gray, with silvery sides and white belly, and with purple and golden iridescence. A series of dark, diffused spots or blotches form transverse or oblique streaks, more pronounced on the upper part of the body, from whence they run downward and forward. The cheeks and gill-covers are silvery and chin yellowish; the ventral and anal fins are orange; dorsal fin dusky; pectoral fins yellowish; caudal fin with upper part dark and lower part yellowish. The weakfish is a warm-water fish, visiting the coast and bays during the spring, summer, and fall, though more abundant in the summer. They are surface feeders, and swim in large schools in quest of menhaden, scup, and other small fishes. They are more numerous some seasons than others, probably owing to certain conditions affecting their food, temperature of water, and the abundance or scarcity of their enemy, the bluefish. They seldom, if ever, ascend the streams to fresh water, but remain about the outer beaches, entering the inlets and estuaries on the flood tide in pursuit of their prey, and go out again with the ebb; at least this is the habit of the largest fish, known as "tide-runners." Smaller fish probably remain in the bays and bayous, resorting to deep holes at low water. Its breeding habits are not well understood, though it spawns in the bays in early summer, about May or June. The eggs are quite small, about thirty to the inch, are buoyant or floating, and hatch in a few days, usually in two. I have taken many hundreds in Chesapeake Bay in August, but do not remember ever catching one containing roe during that month. It is an excellent food-fish if perfectly fresh, but soon deteriorates, becoming quite soft and losing its characteristic flavor when out of the water a few hours. It is quite an important commercial fish during summer in the eastern markets. Small ones, below a pound in weight, are delicious pan-fish; larger ones should be baked. Its usual weight is two or three pounds, and its maximum ten or twelve; occasionally they are taken still heavier--twenty or twenty-five pounds. Being a surface feeder it is a good game-fish on light tackle, taking bait or an artificial fly with a rush and snap that reminds one of a trout, and for a short time it resists capture bravely. Its first spurt, when hooked, is a grand one, and when checked darts in various directions, making for the weeds if any are near, or toward the bottom, or rushing to the surface leaps out, shaking itself madly to dislodge the hook. It must be handled carefully and gingerly, for it has a tender mouth from which the hook is apt to be torn if too much strain is exerted at first. A very light striped-bass rod may be utilized, but the most suitable is the "Little Giant" rod of seven and one-half feet and eight ounces in ash and lancewood. A good multiplying reel with fifty yards of braided linen line, size G, a three-foot leader, and snelled hooks, Sproat the best. Nos. 1-0 to 3-0 for the tide-runners, and Nos. 1 or 2 for school fish, together with a landing-net, constitute the rest of the tackle. The most satisfactory mode of fishing for weakfish is from a boat anchored near the channel, or tied to a pier or wharf in a tideway. The time for fishing is on the flood tide, from half flood to half ebb, as the tide-runners are going in or out in large schools. As little noise as possible should be made by any necessary movements in the boat, as the fish are easily frightened. Long casts should be made toward the advancing or retreating fish, and the bait kept in motion by being reeled in. No sinker or float is required, as the bait must be kept near the surface. Menhaden or minnows, shedder-crab, lobster, bloodworms, clam, and shrimp are all good natural baits. A small spinner, or a small mother-of-pearl squid, if reeled in rapidly, often proves very taking; also a large, gaudy fly, as the red ibis, soldier, silver doctor, Jock Scott, royal coachman, etc., can be used with good effect when the fish are running strongly and in goodly numbers. Still-fishing, with a float, and a sinker adapted to the strength of the tidal current, can be practised in the eddies of the tide, or at slack water near deep holes, using the natural baits mentioned. Another method is casting with heavy hand-line in the surf from the outside beaches, using block tin or bone squids, and hauling the fish in, when hooked, by main strength. The largest fish are taken in this way; but while it is in a degree exciting, it can only be said to be fishing, not angling. Many anglers, however, prefer it to any other mode of fishing. Another favorite method, but a tame one, is drifting with the wind and tide, following a school of fish and taking them by trolling with hand-line. If suitable rods and tackle were used, it would not be objectionable. Next to the striped-bass the weakfish is the most important game-fish of the East Coast, and to judge from the greater number of anglers who pursue "weakfishing," it is far and away the favorite with the majority. The estuaries and bays of the Jersey coast, Long Island, and Staten Island, and along the Sound, afford good fishing in the season and at favorable stages of the tide. These localities are more frequented by anglers than any other section of the East Coast. While ideal angling can only be found on inland waters in casting the fly for salmon, black-bass, or trout, amidst the rural and pastoral scenes of hill and hollow, with the birds and sweet-scented blossoms ever near the rippling streams--a full measure of enjoyment is vouchsafed to the salt-water angler in the exhilarating sail to the fishing-banks, the sunlit crests of the incoming tide, and the health-giving ozone of the chlorinated breeze. Then follows the ready response of the gamy weakfish to the angler's lure, the brave fight and happy landing of the prize. This is surely sport galore, and not to be gainsaid by the most prejudiced. THE BASTARD WEAKFISH (_Cynoscion nothus_) The bastard weakfish was first described by Dr. Holbrook, in 1860, from the coast of South Carolina. He named it _nothus_, meaning "bastard," in contradistinction to the well-known weakfish just described. It is a rare fish of the South Atlantic coast, preferring deep water, but otherwise of similar habits, and of the same general form as the weakfish of the northern waters. It differs from it in coloration, and has somewhat smaller scales, a smaller mouth, and more compressed body, which is also a little deeper and more elevated. Its color is grayish-silvery, thickly sprinkled with small, dark specks on the upper half of the body, and silvery below, a row of dark spots marking the division. There is another species inhabiting the Gulf coast which will be noticed later. Whenever met with they can be taken by the same methods and with the same tackle as recommended for the northern weakfish. THE KINGFISH (_Menticirrhus saxatilis_) The kingfish is also known as barb and sea mink in the North, and in the South as whiting. It was first described by Bloch and Schneider, in 1801, from the vicinity of New York. They named it _saxatilis_, meaning "living among rocks," which by the way it does not do, as it prefers hard, sandy shoals. Its range extends along the Atlantic coast south of Buzzards Bay, occasionally straying to the Gulf of Mexico. It is most abundant, however, between Montauk Point and Cape Hatteras. It has a long, rather round body, not much compressed, its depth being nearly a fourth of its length. The head is long, with a blunt snout projecting beyond the mouth, which is small, with tough, leathery lips, and with a single barbel on the chin. Both jaws have bands of small, brushlike teeth, the outer ones in the upper jaw somewhat longer. The upper angle of the caudal fin is sharp, the lower angle rounded. Its color is gray with steely lustre on the back, fading gradually to the belly, which is bluish white. There are several dark, oblique bands, running from the back downward and forward, and one extending from the nape downward, forming a broad "V" with the one next to it; along the border of the belly is a horizontal dark streak running from the middle of the body to the tail. The kingfish is a bottom feeder, and as might be inferred from the character of the teeth is partial to crabs, shrimps, young lobsters, and mussels, but does not object to the sand-lance and other small fishes, and sandworms, and is found on the hard, sandy shoals where such organisms abound. It visits the shores from spring until November, but is more abundant in the summer, when it enters the bays and rivers. It is usually found in deep water, feeding along the channels. Although it seems to consort a good deal with the weakfish, its habits of feeding are quite different from that fish. It spawns in the summer, earlier or later, according to the temperature of the water, though but little is known of its breeding habits. Its flesh is flaky, of firm texture, and has a delicious flavor when perfectly fresh, which, however, is lost when out of the water a short time. It is of small size, usually weighing from a half pound to two pounds, though occasionally reaching five or six pounds. But although so small it is justly esteemed and in great demand, the smaller ones as pan-fishes, for breakfast, and the larger ones for chowders, for which it is unexcelled by any other fish. For its size, the kingfish is considered the gamest of all salt-water fishes. It bites savagely, suddenly, and with a vim and purpose that are sometimes startling to the unwary angler. And when he takes the proffered bait he stands not upon the order of going, but goes at once, and with a dash that is remarkable for its length in so small a fish. When checked, he darts from side to side with amazing quickness, or makes straight for the surface, when the angler is surprised to find him of so small a size. He is _multum in parvo_,--a large soul in a small body. In sheltered estuaries and bays where the tide does not run strongly or swiftly, or during the stages of slack water, the most suitable tackle consists of a black-bass bait-rod and reel, one hundred yards of fine braided linen line, a three-foot leader, and Sproat hooks, Nos. 1 or 1-0, on stout gut snells, the leader being connected with the line by a brass box-swivel or swivel-sinker of small size. Where the rush of the tide is greater, a natural bamboo chum rod or the Little Giant rod is appropriate, as a heavy sinker must be used to keep the bait near the bottom. To meet the varying conditions of the tide, sinkers of different weights are needed, and a landing-net should not be forgotten when the rod is a light one. The fishing is done from a boat anchored near the edge of the channels or in the vicinity of hard shoals of sand, ledges of rocks, or near oyster bars, in water of pretty good depth. The bait may be shedder-crab, clam, blood-worm, or shrimp. All are good, but crab is, perhaps, the best, and should be kept in motion. The northern kingfish must not be confounded with the kingfish of the Florida Keys, which is a fish of the mackerel tribe, akin to the Spanish mackerel, a game-fish of high order, growing to a weight of forty pounds. I was amused several years ago when a correspondent applied to the angling editor of one of the sportsman's journals for information concerning the kingfish of Florida. The editor, not knowing any better, confounded it with the northern kingfish, and recommended the usual means of capture for that fish. I wondered, at the time, how the inquiring angler succeeded with the nimble acrobat of the coral reefs, still-fishing, with such tackle. There are two closely allied species--the Carolina whiting (_Menticirrhus americanus_) and the surf or silver whiting (_Menticirrhus littoralis_), which differ somewhat in coloration and in some unimportant structural differences; otherwise they are very similar to the kingfish. The former inhabits the deeper water, while the latter frequents the shallow sandy shores of the southern coast from Carolina to Texas. Their feeding habits are similar to those of the kingfish, and in their season they can be captured in the same way. THE CROAKER (_Micropogon undulatus_) The croaker was described by Linnæus, in 1766, from South Carolina. He named it _undulatus_, "undulating or wavy," owing to the undulating character of the markings on the body and fins. Its range extends along the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico from the Middle states to Texas, though it is more abundant from the Chesapeake Bay to Florida. The outline of the body is somewhat elliptical and compressed, not much elevated on the back, but with rather a regular curve from the snout to the tail; its depth is less than a third of its length. The head is about as long as the depth of the body, with a prominent, somewhat blunt snout, and a rather large mouth, with small barbels beneath the lower jaw. [Illustration THE WEAKFISH] [_Cynoscion regalis_] [Illustration THE KINGFISH] [_Menticirrhus saxatilis_] [Illustration THE GERMAN CARP] [_Cyprinus carpio_] The border of the cheek-bones is strongly toothed. The teeth of the jaws are in brushlike bands, with somewhat longer ones in the upper jaw. There are two dorsal fins, slightly connected; the caudal fin is double concave or trifurcate. The back is dusky gray with silvery lustre, sides silvery or brassy, belly white and iridescent. There are a number of dusky or cloudy vertical or oblique bands, and the upper part of the body is profusely sprinkled with numerous dark spots, irregularly placed, in undulating lines. A dusky spot is at the base of the pectoral fin; the dorsal fins are marked with dark spots, which form lines along the soft dorsal fin. The croaker frequents grassy situations in the brackish water of bays and bayous, feeding on crabs, shrimps, and other crustaceans, and small fishes. It grows to a length of ten or twelve inches, and is a good pan-fish when perfectly fresh. It spawns in the autumn. On the grassy flats of the Patapsco and other tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay I have caught countless numbers of the "crocus," as we boys called it. Just under the gill-cover, nearly always, we found a parasitic crustacean or sea-louse, a half inch in length, resembling the land crustacean known as the wood-louse, or sow-bug,--probably an isopod. A very light rod, a fine linen line, snelled hooks Nos. 1 to 3, and a small sinker or brass swivel for connecting line and snell are all that are needed for the croaker, as a reel is not necessary. The boat is anchored on grassy flats in water from six to twelve feet in depth. Shrimp is the best bait, though cut-bait of clam or fish is good. A float may be used to keep the bait from the bottom in still water. While this fish and the next, the spot or Lafayette, are usually classed as small fry, and particularly suited to boy anglers, they are such good pan-fish that many "grown-ups" are quite enthusiastic in their capture. They hold about the same relation to the more important game-fishes of the coast that the sunfishes do to the black-bass, trout, pike, etc., of inland waters. When no better fishing offers they will fill the void very satisfactorily when light and suitable tackle is employed. THE LAFAYETTE (_Leiostomus xanthurus_) The Lafayette, spot, or goody, as it is variously called, was described by Lacépéde, in 1802, from South Carolina. He named it _xanthurus_, meaning "yellow tail," under the impression that its caudal fin was yellow,--which, however, it is not. Its range extends from Cape Cod to Texas, though it is most abundant from New Jersey to Florida. It is found throughout its range in brackish-water bays and bayous, and is somewhat similar in appearance to the croaker. It has a short, deep body; the back in front of the dorsal fin is compressed to a sharp edge or "razor-back"; the outline of the back is arched, highest over the shoulder, with a steep profile from thence to the snout; the depth of the body is more than a third of its length. The head is not so long as the depth of the body; the snout is blunt and prominent; the mouth is small. There are few or no teeth in the lower jaw, while those in the upper jaw are quite small. The throat is well armed with molars and brushlike teeth. There are two dorsal fins, slightly connected; the caudal fin is forked. It is bluish or dusky above, with silvery sides and white belly; when fresh from the water it is very iridescent. It has about fifteen narrow, dark, wavy bands extending obliquely downward and forward, from the back to below the lateral line; the fins are olivaceous and plain; it has a very prominent and distinct round black spot just above the base of the pectoral fin, which has given rise to the name spot in some localities. Like the croaker, the Lafayette resorts to grassy and weedy situations in the brackish-water bays, estuaries, and tributaries. In Florida it is present all the year, but does not enter northern waters until summer and autumn, when it is often found in company with the croaker or white-perch. It feeds on shrimps and other small crustaceans and small mollusks. It spawns in southern waters in the fall. Although but a small fish, growing to eight or ten inches in length, and usually to but six inches, it is a great favorite as a pan-fish, as when perfectly fresh it is a delicious tidbit or _bonne-bouche_ of most excellent flavor. The same tackle recommended for the croaker is well adapted for the spot, though the hooks should be smaller, Nos. 4 to 6. It is found in the same situations as the croaker, and often in shallow water, or about the piling of bridges and wharves, wherever shrimps abound. My method, many years ago, was to use a light cane rod, ten or twelve feet in length, and a fine line of about the same length, very small hooks, about No. 8, with bait of shrimp, cut clam, oyster, sandworm, or earthworm. I used no float, but held the rod elevated sufficiently to keep the bait from touching the bottom, thus maintaining a taut line, so that the slightest nibble of the fish could be felt, when I would endeavor to hook it at once, for it is as well versed in bait-stealing as the cunner. It is only necessary to refer to the many names by which this little fish is known in various sections of the country to prove its popularity. Some of these are the spot, goody, Cape May goody, and Lafayette of northern waters, the roach and chub of Carolina, and the chopa blanca (white bream) and besugo (sea-bream) of the Portuguese and Spanish fishermen of Florida. It appeared in unusually large numbers in northern waters about the time that Lafayette visited this country in 1834, hence one of its numerous names. Years ago I have seen crowds of men, women, and boys occupying front seats on the wood-wharves of Baltimore harbor engaged in fishing for spots and croakers, on Saturday afternoons, and many a boy was tardy at Sunday-school the next morning through picking out the bones from his Sunday breakfast. CHAPTER IX THE DRUM FAMILY (_CONTINUED_) (_Sciænidæ_) The most conspicuous and characteristic features by which the members of this family may be known were given in the preceding chapter, where the brackish-water and salt-water species were described. There is but one species found in fresh water, a description of which follows. _Aplodinotus grunniens._ The Fresh-water Drum. Body oblong, much elevated, and compressed; profile long and steep; snout blunt; head 3-1/3; depth 2-3/4; eye moderate; D. X, 30; A. II, 7; scales 9-55-13; mouth small, low, and horizontal, lower jaw included; teeth in villiform bands, pharyngeals with coarse, blunt, paved teeth; preopercle slightly serrate; the dorsal fins somewhat connected; scaly sheaths at base of spiny portion of dorsal and anal fins; second anal spine very large; gill-rakers short, 6 + 14; pyloric coeca 7; caudal fin double truncate. THE FRESH-WATER DRUMFISH (_Aplodinotus grunniens_) This well-known fish of the Middle West is also known as lake-sheepshead on the Great Lakes, white-perch on the Ohio River, gaspergou in Louisiana, and as bubbler, croaker, thunder-pumper, and other names in various sections of the country. It was first described by Rafinesque, in 1819, from the Ohio River. He named it _grunniens_, meaning "grunting," from the grunting sound it makes, in common with other members of the drum family, when taken from the water. It inhabits the Great Lakes and other smaller lakes in the vicinity, extending along the Mississippi Valley to Louisiana. Texas, and Mexico. The fresh-water drum is somewhat elliptical in outline, with quite a hump over the shoulders, with a depth of about one-third of its length, while its head constitutes more than a fourth of the length of the body. The single dorsal fin has the appearance of two. The ear-bones (otoliths) are quite large and resemble porcelain in their peculiar whiteness, and have a semblance of the letter "L" seemingly cut on them. From this circumstance they are known as "lucky-stones," and are often carried by boys as pocket-pieces. It is of a grayish silvery hue, dark on the back, fading to white on the belly. In the lakes of the North it has several oblique dusky streaks or bands, resembling in a minor degree those of the sheepshead of the coastwise streams and bays. In southern waters the streaks are not so apparent, and it is called white-perch, owing to its silvery appearance. It is a bottom fish, feeding mostly on mollusks, which it crushes with the blunt teeth of the throat. It also feeds on small fishes, crawfish, and other small organisms. Its spawning habits are unknown, but it probably spawns in the spring and summer. On the Great Lakes it grows to an enormous size, occasionally reaching fifty or sixty pounds, though as usually taken by anglers it is from three to ten pounds in weight. It is of no value as a food-fish in that region, being seldom eaten and heartily despised. On the Ohio and lower Mississippi rivers its weight is much less, from one to six pounds, and it is there considered a good pan-fish, selling readily in the markets. There is no doubt but that it is of better flavor in southern waters when of small size. As a commercial fish it is taken in nets in the North, and in fyke-nets in the southern extent of its range. On northern lakes it is often taken by anglers when fishing for black-bass, and being a strong, vigorous fish with the family habit of boring toward the bottom when hooked, it furnishes fair sport, and with considerable jeopardy to light tackle, when of large size. The angler is at first elated with what he imagines to be a fine bass until its identity is established, when his enthusiasm gives place to infinite disgust. And this is one reason why it is despised in northern waters, and very unjustly, too, for it is game enough, so far as resistance is concerned, and is entitled to that much credit. In southern waters it bites freely at small minnows, crawfish, or mussels, and is there better appreciated and has a fair reputation as a game-fish. I have enjoyed fishing for it with light tackle on White and St. Francis rivers in Arkansas, and some of the streams in Mississippi. Light black-bass tackle is quite suitable for it. CHAPTER X THE MINNOW FAMILY (_Cyprinidæ_) This family of fresh-water fishes numbers probably a thousand species, mostly of small size in America and known universally as "minnows." In the eastern hemisphere the species grow larger, and of these, two have been introduced into America,--the German carp and the goldfish. _Cyprinus carpio._ The German Carp. Body robust, compressed, heavy anteriorly; head 4-1/2; depth 3-1/2; scales (normally) 5-38-5; mouth moderate, with four long barbels; teeth molar, 1, 1, 3-3, 1, 1; dorsal fin elongate, dorsal and anal fins each preceded by a serrated spine. D. III, 20; A. III, 5. THE GERMAN CARP (_Cyprinus carpio_) The carp was described and named by Linnæus in 1758. Its original home was in China, and from thence it was introduced into Europe, and from there to America. Since the introduction of the carp into the United States, some thirty years ago, it may now be said to inhabit every state in the Union, having escaped from the ponds in which it was placed at first, into almost every stream, especially in the Mississippi Valley. The dorsal fin is single, extending from the middle of the back nearly to the tail, highest in front. In the typical scale-carp the scales are large, there being about thirty-eight along the lateral line, with five rows above it and five rows below. But domestication has greatly altered the squamation; thus in the leather-carp the body is naked, with the exception of a few very large ones on the back; in the mirror-carp there are a few rows of very large scales. The coloration is as variable as its scales. It is usually of some shade of olive or brown, with golden lustre, darkest on the back, with the belly whitish or yellowish. In Europe the carp hibernates, or remains dormant during the winter, burying itself in the mud of the bottom with its tail only exposed. In America it seems to have abandoned this habit almost entirely, especially in the more southern waters. It is not strictly, if at all, a herbivorous fish as has been alleged, but stirs up the bottom of ponds in search of minute animal organisms, rendering the water foul and muddy. It also devours the spawn of other fishes, though some persons contend that it does not, which is absurd, when it is considered that almost all fishes are addicted to this natural vice. I know from my own observation that the carp is not exempt from the habit. It grows to a length of two feet under favorable conditions. One of twenty-four inches will weigh about ten pounds. As a food-fish it ranks below the buffalo or sucker. It sells readily, however, to negroes. Chinese, and Polish Jews of the cities. I have no love for the German carp, but as it is now so plentiful in most waters, especially in the Mississippi Valley, and is constantly increasing in numbers, it may be well enough to devote a small space to it as a game-fish. It is a very poor fish at best, and as the poor we have always with us, we will never be rid of it. In England, where it has existed for centuries, it is considered a very shy and uncertain fish to catch; and the larger the fish, the more difficult to circumvent. The best success, and the best is very poor, is met with on small, stagnant ponds, with comparatively small fish. English anglers use a small quill float and split-shot sinker, allowing the bait to just touch the bottom. They then stick the butt of the rod in the ground and retire out of sight of the fish, watching the float meanwhile. They use for bait, worms, maggots, and pastes of various kinds, and usually ground-bait the "swims" to be fished, a day in advance. Where the carp are large, five or six pounds, the rod, reel, and line recommended for black-bass fishing will subserve a good purpose. A leader three feet long, stained mud color, must be used, with small hooks, Nos. 7 or 8, tied on gut snells. One of the best baits is a red earthworm. I think the hook can hardly be too small; Nos. 10 or 12 would probably be more successful than larger ones, as the fish is apt to eject the bait at once upon feeling the hook concealed in it. And this is especially important if such baits as bread paste, hard-boiled potato, or boiled grain are employed. The carp has a peculiar mouth, and feeds much like the sucker. It draws in mud and water and food together, strains the water through the gills, expelling it by the gill-openings, and probably macerates the residue by means of the tongue and the cushiony lining of the buccal cavity before swallowing it. During this process of mouthing the bait the fish is very likely to discover the hook, if large, and eject it. When once hooked, the fish is not to be lightly esteemed. The angler will have all he can attend to with a light rod in a weedy pond, or even in clear water if the fish is of large size. As most other game-fishes may in time disappear before the Asiatic carp, the analogue of the Mongolian boxer, it may be well and prudent to learn some of the ways to outwit him. In China and Japan the carp is considered before any other fish for food, and is emblematic of strength, vigor, and other good qualities. It is a custom in Japanese households, upon the birth of a male child, to hoist a flag representing a carp, in order that he may grow in strength and all manly attributes. In England the carp is not much liked. On the continent of Europe it is considered a good food-fish, but it is confined in clear running water to deprive it of its earthy flavor before it is marketed or eaten. It is likewise kept within proper bounds, although it has been cultivated for centuries. In the United States, however, it has spread over the Mississippi Valley and elsewhere from overflowed ponds until it bids fair to become a nuisance, inasmuch as our waters seem to be particularly suited to it. As there are so many better species of food-fishes in this country, both in fresh and salt water, there was no excuse or necessity for its introduction, which I consider as great a calamity as that of the English sparrow or the Shanghai chicken, and adding a third foreign evil that we will never be rid of. I have experimented with carp fishing, but I think the results were never twice alike. A great deal depends on the condition of the water. In ponds that are kept constantly muddy by the rooting of the carp, it is difficult for them to see the bait, and they must then depend on the olfactory sense to find it. This may take a longer time than the patience of the angler will admit. When the water is clear, as on a stream, the carp is too apt to see the angler, and being naturally a shy fish will not go near the bait under these circumstances. There is then nothing to do but to fix the rod in the bank and lie down beside it, or behind a bush or screen, until the moving of the float announces the hooking of the fish. By using a small float, fine line, and very small hooks, and a variety of baits, as earthworms, boiled grain or vegetables, pastes of various kinds, and a good stock of patience, one may eventually succeed in taking a few fish; but the game is hardly worth the candle. As the fish has its advocates, however, I add the following account of angling for carp in England, where it has been acclimated for several centuries. The directions given are abridged from Cornwall Simeon, a writer on natural history and angling:-- "The tackle required will simply be a long rod, a reel containing not less than fifty yards of fineish line, a fine but sound casting-line nearly as long as the rod, hooks of about No. 9 size tied on gut to match, and a small, unpretending float, besides a good lump of the crumb of new bread, and a landing-net. Select a quiet, shallow part of the pond, especially if the weather be hot, and near its edge stick a few small bushes as a screen. Then plumb the depth of the water, and cover the whole of your hook, leaving not the slightest part visible, with a piece of bread kneaded into paste, and setting the float two or three feet _farther from the bait_ than the depth of the water, throw it well out, drawing in afterward all the slack of your line. You may then rest your rod on a forked stick, and sitting down, smoke your pipe if you like, and proceed to ground-bait the place by filliping in bread pills all round your bait and pretty wide of it. The two great objects should be not to alarm the carp and to get them to feed. They are very timid, and if they once take fright at anything and leave a place in consequence, it will generally be a good while before they will return to it. For this reason I prefer not to throw in any ground-bait when fishing for them until all my preparations are made and the actual bait is in the water. When they begin to come to the bread, if the bottom is at all muddy and the water not too deep, you will see lines of mud stirred up by them as they come on, nuzzling in it like so many pigs. You have then only to keep quiet and bide your time. The float will give you sufficient warning when to strike, and you should only do so when the carp is going well and steadily away with it. If your tackle is sound, and you are not intoo great a hurry, you may make pretty sure of landing him." CHAPTER XI THE CATFISH FAMILY (_Siluridæ_) The catfish family is represented by many species in the United States. They have the body entirely naked, barbels about the mouth, and an adipose fin, after the fashion of the fishes of the salmon family. They vary greatly in size, from the little stone-cat of three inches to the immense Mississippi-cat of nearly two hundred pounds. But one species will be noticed. _Ictalurus punctatus._ The Channel-catfish. Body elongate, slender, compressed posteriorly; head 4; depth 5; eye large; D. I, 6; A. 25 to 30; head slender and conical; mouth small, upper jaw longest; barbels long, the longest reaching considerably beyond the gill opening; humeral process long and slender; caudal fin long and deeply forked. THE CHANNEL-CATFISH (_Ictalurus punctatus_) The channel-cat was first described by Rafinesque, in 1820, from the Ohio River. He named it _punctatus_, or "spotted," owing to the black spots on its sides. It is also known as white-cat and blue-cat in various parts of its range. It is found in rivers of the Great Lake region and Mississippi Valley, and in the streams tributary to the Gulf of Mexico. [Illustration THE CHANNEL-CATFISH] [_Ictalurus punctatus_] [Illustration THE SHEEPSHEAD] [_Archosargus probatocephalus_] [Illustration THE CUNNER] [_Tautogolabrus adspersus_] It is the most trimly-built of all the catfishes, with a long, slender body and small head. It is olivaceous or slate color above, sides pale and silvery, with small, round, dark spots; belly white; fins usually with dark edgings. Unlike most of the catfishes the channel-cat is found only in clear or swift streams, never in still, muddy situations. It is a clean, wholesome fish, and feeds mostly on minnows and crawfish. It is a good food-fish, the flesh being white and firm and of a rich flavor. It grows to a weight of twenty pounds, occasionally, though usually to five or six pounds. The channel-cat is a very fine game-fish. It takes the live minnow readily, also shedder crawfish, and will not refuse earthworms, cut butcher meat or liver. When hooked it is second to no other fish of its size as a bold, strong fighter beneath the surface. The angler who has "tackled," in a literal sense, a channel-cat of five pounds, on a light rod, can vouch for its gameness. As it coexists with the black-bass in streams in the Mississippi Valley, and is usually taken by the angler when angling for that fish, the rod, reel, line, and hook recommended for the black-bass will be found eminently serviceable for the channel-cat. It is fond of the deep pools below mill-dams, and in the channels of streams off gravelly or rocky shoals, and near shelving banks and rocks. The method of casting the minnow for black-bass answers well for the channel-cat, though the casts should not be so frequently made, and more time should be allowed for the display of the minnow in mid-water. Still-fishing with a small, live minnow for bait is the plan generally followed; and as the bait should be left to its own devices for several minutes at a time, a light float is sometimes useful for keeping it off the bottom. When crawfish, cut-bait, or worms are used, the float must always be employed for the same reason. The fish should be given several seconds to gorge the bait, and then hooked by an upward, short, and quick movement of the tip of the rod. When hooked it should feel constantly the strain of the bent rod, and no more line given than is actually necessary; otherwise the struggle will last a long time. No half-hearted measures will answer for the channel-cat, which has a wonderful amount of vitality. He must be subdued by the determined opposition of a good rod and a strong arm. There are a number of other catfishes that are taken by angling, but none are worthy of the name of game-fishes, though as food they are nearly all to be commended. There are two other species of channel-cats, though neither is quite so good either as game-fishes or for food. They are the blue-cat, also known as chuckle-head cat (_Ictalurus furcatus_), which may be known by its more extensive anal fin, which has from thirty to thirty-five rays, and its bluish silvery color, and with but few if any spots. The other is the willow-cat, or eel-cat (_Ictalurus anguilla_), of a pale yellowish or olivaceous color, without spots. Both of these fishes are found in southern waters from Ohio to Louisiana. The channel-cats are often called forked-tail cats, as they are the only catfishes that have the caudal fin deeply forked. I think no one appreciates the gameness of the channel-catfish, or has such a just estimation of its toothsomeness, as the Kentucky darky. He will sit all day long, a monument of patience, on a log or rock at the edge of a "cat-hole" of the stream, with hickory pole, strong line and hook, and a bottle cork for a float. He baits his hook with a piece of liver or a shedder crawfish--"soft craw," he calls it, and only uses minnows when the other baits fail. Apropos of this love for the channel-cat may be related the true incident of the "cornfield" darky who, while fishing for cats, had the luck to hook a fine black-bass, which was landed after a "strenuous" struggle, to the envy of his companions. After surveying it with evident admiration awhile, he unhooked it, and with a profound sigh he deliberately threw it back into the stream to the amazement and disgust of the others. "Good Lawd, Jeff," exclaimed one, "w'at yo' done do dat fur? dat sholy wa' a good bass; must a weighed more'n a couple o'poun's!" He surveyed the group with supreme contempt for a moment before he replied, "W'en I go a-cattin'. I go a-cattin'." What greater tribute to the channel-cat than this! On the other hand I was once fly-fishing on a black-bass stream in Kentucky, with a friend from Ohio who was casting the minnow. Having each made a good basket we were ready to quit, as the evening shadows were lengthening and the air was becoming decidedly cool. I was taking my rod apart, but my friend wanted to make "just one more cast," which happened to be on an inviting-looking "cat-hole." As I was tying the strings of my rod case I heard him exclaim joyfully. "I've got the boss bass of the season!" Turning, I perceived him wildly dancing on the edge of the pool, his rod bent to an alarming curve, and the strain on his line evidently near the danger point. I watched in vain for the leap of the bass, and then concluded he had business on hand for an uncertain period, for I felt sure that he had hooked a channel-cat of considerable avoirdupois. The fight was well sustained, and a gallant one on both sides; but it seemed impossible for the light rod to bring the fish near enough to slip the landing-net under it. Finally he backed away from the stream, drawing the fish close to the shore, where I netted it--a channel-cat of five pounds. When my friend saw what it was, he was the most disappointed and disgusted man in Kentucky. "Great Scott!" he yelled. "I nearly ruined my rod for a confounded catfish."--"Well," said I, "you had your fun; he put up a good fight; what more do you want?"--"Want! want!" he angrily cried, "I want to stamp the life out of the horrid brute; and I'll do it, too!" But I unhooked the fish and strung it on a willow branch. I had it stuffed and baked for our dinner next day, when he acknowledged that it was the best fish he ever ate, and was entirely consoled for the strain to his rod, to say nothing of his temper, and ever after had a better opinion of the channel-cat. [Illustration FISHING FOR CUNNERS] CHAPTER XII THE SHEEPSHEAD FAMILY (_Sparidæ_) This family embraces the sheepshead, porgies, and sea-breams. It is characterized principally by a heavy, compressed body, strong jaws and teeth, the front ones incisor-like and broad, and flat, grinding teeth or molars in the back of the mouth, like a pavement of small, rounded pebbles, for crushing the shells of mollusks. _Archosargus probatocephalus._ The Sheepshead. Body short, deep, and compressed, with large scales; head 3-1/2; depth 2 to 2-1/2; eye 4; D. XII, 10 or 12; A. III, 10 or 11; scales 8-48-15; mouth large, nearly horizontal, maxillary 2-2/3 in head; incisors 3/4, entire in adult; molars in 3 series above and 2 below; gill-rakers about 3 + 6; dorsal and anal spines notably heteracanthous; frontal bone between the eyes convex and honeycombed; occipital crest broad and honeycombed. _Stenotomus chrysops._ The Scup. Body ovate-elliptical; head 3-1/2; depth 2; eye 4; D. XII, 12; A. III, 11; scales 8-50-16; profile steep; nape convex; a strong depression in front of the eye; snout short; temporal crest obsolete; incisor teeth narrow; molars in 2 rows above; gill-rakers small, about 6 + 10; caudal fin forked; top of head, snout, orbitals, and chin naked; a scaly sheath at base of soft dorsal and anal fins; scales on cheeks. THE SHEEPSHEAD (_Archosargus probatocephalus_) In his account of the fishes in the vicinity of New York, in 1788, Schöpf, a surgeon in the British army, placed the sheepshead in the European genus _Sparus_, but gave it no specific name. From his description the ichthyologist Walbaum, in 1792, named it _probatocephalus_, which being translated means "sheep head." This fish inhabits the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Cape Cod to Texas, where it is common during the summer months, but it is especially abundant in the bays of Florida during the entire year. Its body is nearly half as deep as long, is much compressed, and elevated and arched over the shoulder. The head is large, about a third of the length of the body, with a steep profile, rounded in front of the eyes, which with its incisor teeth bears a slight resemblance to the profile of a sheep. The mouth is large, with strong incisor teeth in front, and several series of molar teeth in both jaws. The general tint is dusky gray, with silvery lustre, paling to the belly; about half a dozen broad, black bars cross the body, from above downward, very distinct in the young, but becoming fainter with age. As might be inferred from the character of its teeth, the sheepshead resorts to mussel shoals, oyster bars, bridge piers, and old wrecks, where mussels and barnacles abound, and on which it feeds, pinching them from their beds with its strong incisor teeth and crushing them with its molars. It is gregarious, feeding in schools, especially in southern waters, several hundred having been taken on a single tide at places in Florida. It appears in northern waters in June and disappears in the fall, probably wintering at great depths of the sea contiguous to the coast. Its usual maximum weight in northern waters is from three to six pounds, though occasionally reaching ten, fifteen, or even twenty pounds, though these heavy fish are exceedingly rare. Its average size in Florida is less than in the North. It is highly esteemed on the East Coast as a dinner fish, baked or boiled, and owing to its fine flavor has been called the turbot of America, though it is really much superior, in northern waters, to that vaunted aldermanic delicacy. In Florida, however, it is very lightly esteemed as a food-fish, and is seldom eaten where other and better fishes are available. Perhaps its abundance has something to do with its depreciation, though I am convinced, from numerous trials and tests, that it is not so good a fish in southern waters as in the North, having a sharp, saline taste that is not agreeable to most palates. While confined to salt and brackish waters in the North, it often ascends the rivers of Florida to fresh water. I have seen it in the large springs, the head waters of several rivers on the Gulf coast, its barred sides being plainly discernible on the bottom at a depth of fifty or seventy-five feet, in the clear and crystal-like water. The difference in flavor between the sheepshead of the North and South may perhaps be due to the character of their food. It is especially noticeable that fishes of the salt water that pass the winter season in the deep sea, as the salmon, shad, etc., possess a more superior flavor than those that feed constantly and during the entire year along the shores. While nothing is really known concerning the spawning habits of the sheepshead in northern waters, it probably spawns in early summer. From my own knowledge I can say that it spawns in Florida, on the Gulf coast, during March and April. Its eggs are very small, about thirty to the inch, are buoyant or floating, and hatch in two days. A good rod for sheepshead fishing is the natural bamboo rod, known as the striped-bass chum rod. It is light, and strong enough to withstand the vicious tugs, spurts, and especially the propensity of boring toward the bottom, that is characteristic of this fish. A rod of steel, or lancewood, or ash and greenheart, or bethabara, though heavier, is better and stronger. It should be about eight feet in length, with double guides. A multiplying reel carrying sixty yards of braided linen line, size E or F, Sproat hooks, Nos. 1-0 to 3-0 on gimp snells, with sinkers, and a wide-mouthed landing-net, make up the rest of the tackle. The short barb, with cutting edges, of the Sproat hook renders it superior to the Virginia. Chestertown, or blackfish hooks formerly so much in vogue for the sheepshead. A brass box-swivel is necessary for connecting the line with the snell of the hook. While the sheepshead often bites at all stages of the tide, the most favorable time is about slack water; from that stage, to half flood or half ebb, good success may usually be expected. The largest fish are taken from a boat anchored over or near mussel shoals or oyster beds. Smaller ones can be caught from old wharves or bridges whose piling is studded with barnacles and mussels, and about which shrimp abound. During slack water a light sinker is sufficient; but when the tide runs strongly, heavier ones must be used, as it is imperative to keep the bait near the bottom, especially if fishing from a boat. If fishing from a wharf, it does not matter so much, provided the bait is deep enough to prevent the fish from seeing the angler. While this is a precaution that must be observed with all fishes, I do not think the sheepshead is so shy a fish as some maintain; at least I have never found it so. The best bait is shedder-crab, fiddlers, or hermit crabs. Clam bait, though, is cheaper and more universally used in the North. In Florida the fiddlers can be scooped up by the peck on the inside beaches of the bays, and contiguous to good sheepshead fishing. If the clam is large, the meat should be cut up for bait; but if quite small, or if mussels are used, the shells may be merely cracked or smashed, and put on the hook entire. The latter is the mode where the fish are scarce or shy, but I prefer to use the meat only, discarding the shells; in the case of fiddlers, when very small, they should be used _au naturel_, or whole. The bait should be cast and allowed to sink, and the line reeled enough to keep the bait off the bottom, but close to it. A taut line should be maintained always, so as to feel the slightest nibble. If crab bait, or cut clam, is used, the fish should be hooked, if possible, at the first bite, however slight, by a quick and somewhat vigorous upward jerk of the tip, otherwise the sheepshead is apt to nip off the bait; or if sufficient force is not used, the hook fails to enter the well-armed mouth. One or other of these contingencies is almost sure to follow, if the fish be not hooked. A small sheepshead is a more adroit stealer of bait than the cunner. It has a way of deftly pinching the bait from the hook without much, if any, disturbance. When small clams or mussels are used in the cracked shells, it is thought best by some anglers to give the fish a little time to "shuck" the bait before jerking on the rod. But my advice is to yank him just as quickly as if crab bait were employed. To hesitate is to be defrauded of either the fish or the bait. When the fish is hooked he should be kept from the bottom by the spring of the rod, and brought as near the surface as possible. When line is given during his frantic rushes, the spring and resistance of the rod should never be lessened. Once on the surface he is easily kept there until conquered; but if allowed to descend to the bottom, he is pretty hard to manage, as his resistance then is very much greater, and he endeavors to tear out the hook by forcing his jaws among the rocks and débris or weeds. He should always be taken into the landing-net, and care must be observed to avoid his strong and sharp fins when removing the hook. In Florida the sheepshead is almost gregarious, congregating about oyster bars, old wharves, and near inlets in great numbers. At Colonel Summerlin's wharf, at Punta Rassa, I knew of a man, fishing for market, I presume, who took several hundred on a single tide. The wharf just across the bay at Sanibel Island is also a famous locality for sheepshead. The largest I ever caught in that state was just inside of Little Gasparilla inlet, near a steep bank on the north side. The settlers of Florida take them in cast-nets, and the commercial fishermen in haul seines; the latter either ship them on ice, or salt them along with mullet, as they take salt well. With the exception of the mullet, the sheepshead is the most abundant fish of both the east and west coasts of Florida, but it is seldom found in the dense salt water along the keys at the southern end of the peninsula, as it is essentially a brackish-water fish. The angler need never repine for a lack of sport in the "flowery state" if he is fond of "sheepsheading," and he will have no difficulty in securing bait, for the fiddlers are to be found in myriads convenient to good fishing grounds. THE SCUP (_Stenotomus chrysops_) Another fish of the _Sparidæ_ family is the scup, or porgy, which was first described by Linnæus, in 1766, from specimens sent to him from South Carolina by Dr. Garden. He named it _chrysops_, or "golden eye." The names scup and porgy are derived from the Indian name scuppaug. The porgy is mentioned, like the cunner, in deference to the ladies and the rising generation of anglers, to whom it is fair game on the summer excursions to the seashore. It is confined to the Atlantic coast from Cape Cod to South Carolina, being especially abundant in northern waters. A kindred species, the fair maid (_Stenotomus aculeatus_), is common from Cape Hatteras southward, there taking the place of the northern scup. The porgy is a short, deep, and compressed fish, rather elliptical in outline, its depth being nearly half of its length, and with the back elevated over the nape. Its head is of moderate size, with a steep profile, depressed in front of the small eye. The mouth is rather small and the snout short. Its incisor teeth are very narrow and rather conical or pointed, resembling canines; there are two rows of molar teeth in the upper jaw. The color is brownish on the top of the head and back with greenish and golden reflections, and bright and silvery below; the dorsal, anal, and caudal fins are dusky or mottled, and the pectoral fin yellowish. The scup appears along the shores of the East Coast about the first of May, sometimes earlier, and continues until late in the fall, when it retires to its winter quarters in the depths of the sea. It is a bottom fish, feeding on crustaceans and small mollusks, and is found wherever they abound on the outer shoals. It usually spawns in June; the eggs are quite small, measuring about twenty-five to the inch; they are buoyant or floating, and hatch in four or five days. When perfectly fresh it is an excellent pan-fish, its flesh being firm, white, flaky, and of a fine, sweet flavor, but owing to its abundance is not properly appreciated. It grows to a foot or more in length, weighing a pound or two, though its usual maximum length is ten inches, and weight half a pound. Very rarely the oldest fish sometimes reach a length of fifteen to eighteen inches, weighing from two to four pounds. The scup is usually taken by hand-line and clam bait on the fishing banks from the excursion steamers; but fishing from small boats anchored over the shoals, with suitable tackle, is more sportsmanlike. It is a very free-biting fish, but is not possessed of much gameness, though the pleasure of angling for it is much enhanced by the employment of light tackle. A trout bait-rod is quite in order for the scup, though a light natural cane rod about ten feet long, fitted with reel seat and guides, will answer a good purpose. A small multiplying reel is not essential, though it is an advantage in accommodating the line to different depths; and then a larger fish than the scup may be hooked. The line should be of small size, Sproat hooks Nos. 6 to 8 on gut snells, with leader three feet long, connected to the line by a swivel-sinker, and of a weight adapted to the strength of the tide. A float may be used in shallow water to keep the bait from the bottom when clam or shrimp is used. In localities where tautog, sea-bass, or weakfish are likely to be met with, a heavier rod, like the Little Giant, or a light striped-bass rod, may be of an advantage to one not accustomed to lighter rods, and the hook may be a trifle larger. CHAPTER XIII CUNNER, FLOUNDER, SMELT _Tautogolabrus adspersus._ The Cunner. Family _Labridæ_, the Wrasse fishes. Body oblong, not elevated, slender and compressed, with cycloid scales; lateral line well developed; mouth moderate, terminal; premaxillaries protractile; maxillaries without supplemental bone, slipping under edge of preorbital; head pointed; snout moderate; maxillary reaching front of eye; preopercle serrate; opercles scaly; interopercle naked; head 3-1/4; depth 3-1/4; D. XVIII, 10; A. III, 9; scales 6-46-12; 5 canines in front of upper jaw, about 4 in the lower; bands of small concave teeth behind canines; preopercle with 5 rows of small scales; opercle with 4 rows, rest of head naked; gill-rakers very short, about 6 + 11. _Pseudopleuronectes americanus._ The Flatfish or Flounder. Family _Pleuronectidæ_, the Flatfishes. Head 4; depth 2-1/4; D. 65; A. 48; scales 83; body elliptical, an angle above the eye; head covered above with imbricated ctenoid scales, blind side of head nearly naked; body dextral; teeth compressed, incisor-like, widened toward tips, closely set, forming a continuous cutting edge; right side of each jaw toothless; highest dorsal rays less than length of pectorals, and more than half the length of head; anal spines present. _Osmerus mordax._ The Smelt. The American smelt belongs to the family _Argentinidæ_. The body is long and slender; head 4; depth 6-1/2; eye 4; D. 10; A. 15; P. 13; scales 68; head and mouth large; small teeth along the edge of the maxillary; strong, fanglike teeth on tongue and front of vomer; cardiform teeth on palatines, pterygoids, and hyoid bone; mandible with moderate teeth, its tip projecting; maxillary reaching middle of eye; scales deciduous; dorsal fin rather posterior, the ventrals under its front. THE CUNNER (_Tautogolabrus adspersus_) The cunner was named _adspersus_, meaning "besprinkled," by Walbaum, in 1792, from the description of Schöpf, who simply gave its common name, burgall, in his "History of New York Fishes," in 1788. Its specific name is in allusion to the fancied mottled markings. It belongs to the _Labridæ_ family. Its habitat is the North Atlantic coast from Labrador to Sandy Hook, not appearing much farther south. The cunner is known by various other names, as burgall, chogset, blue-perch, etc. It has an oblong and rather robust body, its depth being about a third of its length. Its head is about as long as the depth of the body and pointed, with a mouth of moderate size, well filled with unequal, conical, and sharp teeth, in several series. The coloration is variable, though usually bluish, more or less mixed with bronze or brown, with brassy sides and pale belly; sometimes brassy spots on the head and back; young examples exhibit dark blotches and markings. It resorts to the same feeding grounds as the tautog, and about old wharves and bridges where shrimp and barnacles abound, and in such situations is always abundant. It spawns in the early summer, about June. Its eggs are small, about twenty-five to the inch, and hatch in four or five days. It grows to about a pound in weight, though it usually does not exceed half that amount. [Illustration THE FLOUNDER] [_Pseudopleuronectes americanus_] [Illustration THE SMELT] [_Osmerus mordax_] [Illustration THE SPANISH MACKEREL] [_Scomberomorus maculatus_] While it is generally considered worthless, or at best a poor food-fish, it is really a pretty fair pan-fish, and if it were not so common would be found oftener on the table of fish lovers. As a game-fish it is anathema with most anglers. It is despised because it responds so readily to the angler's lures, taking the bait intended for larger and more desirable fish. But on this very account it is ever dear to the heart of the juvenile fisherman, who glories in his string of cunners with as much pride and enthusiasm as his larger brothers with their tautog, sea-bass, or striped-bass. It can be caught with almost any kind of tackle or bait. The cunner has no particular vanity in the way of either. A piece of liver on an ungainly hook and twine string is as welcome as the choicest shrimp on one of Harrison's best Sproat hooks on a snell of the finest silkworm fibre. My heart goes out to the boy angler with his cane pole and cut-bait, fishing for cunners. And should he in time become the most finished salmon fisher, he will look back to his cunner days as conducive of more real pleasure than any he may have found since. The cunner is here recorded for the urchin with the cane pole. THE FLOUNDER (_Pseudopleuronectes americanus_) There are quite a number of flounders, or flatfishes, on the East Coast, but the one best known to juvenile anglers is the one with the long name recorded above. It belongs to the flatfish family _Pleuronectidæ_, and was noticed by Schöpf as early as 1788, and from his description was named by Walbaum _Pleuronectes americanus_, which means, literally, "the American side-swimmer." It inhabits the North Atlantic coast from Labrador to the Chesapeake Bay, and is abundant in all the bays and estuaries of the Middle states, where it is variously known as flatfish, flounder, winter flounder, mud-dab, etc. Its body is elliptical in outline, about twice as long as broad, and very much compressed or flat. The head is small, less than a fourth of the length of the body, with a small mouth containing closely set, incisor-like teeth. As usual with all of the flatfishes, the dorsal and anal fins are very long, horizontally, the color on the exposed or right side is rusty brown, obscurely mottled, with the under or left side white. The flounder is partial to sheltered coves and quiet bays, preferring bottoms of sand or mud, though sometimes it is found in rocky situations. It is sedentary in its habits, partially burying itself in the sand or mud, where it remains during the entire year, feeding on minute shells, crustaceans, worms, etc. It spawns in the spring, during March and April. The eggs are very small, about thirty to the inch; and unlike those of most marine fishes they do not float, but are heavy enough to sink, forming bunches or clusters on the bottom, adhering to the weeds, etc., where they hatch in from two to three weeks. The fry swim upright, like other fishes, with an eye on each side of the head, but as they grow older they incline to one side, the under eye moving gradually to the upper side, so that at the age of three or four months both eyes are on the upper side, as the result of a twisting of the bones of the head. The right side, being constantly exposed to the light, becomes darker or colored, while the left side, being deprived of light, becomes pure white. It is an excellent food-fish, its flesh being firm, white, and of good flavor; and as it is easily procured in winter when other fishes are comparatively scarce, it is a favorite at that season. It rarely grows to more than a foot in length or a pound in weight. As it can be caught in early spring, late fall, and winter, when other fishes are absent or not inclined to bite, the angler with light tackle may obtain considerable sport with this fish, as it will eagerly take almost any kind of natural bait. A bait-rod used for trout or black-bass or a light cane rod can be utilized, with very fine linen line, a three-foot leader, and hooks Nos. 7 or 8, on gut snells; a reel is not necessary, but is convenient. Using as light a sinker as possible, with clam or sandworm bait, the angler may be assured of success. The fishing may be done from a boat anchored at low tide on muddy or grassy flats, or from wharves or piers favorably located. THE SMELT (_Osmerus mordax_) The smelts were formerly classed with the salmon family, but are now placed in a separate one, _Argentinidæ_, in which are included a number of allied species. To all external appearances the smelt is a true salmonid, and differs from the trouts and salmon chiefly in the form of the stomach and its appendages. The American or Atlantic smelt was first described by Dr. Mitchill, in 1815, from the vicinity of New York; he named it _mordax_, or "biting." Its habitat is along the Atlantic coast from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Virginia, but it is most abundant northward. It islandlocked in a number of northern lakes. The smelt is a very pretty, graceful fish, with a long, slender body, long, pointed head, and large mouth, with a somewhat projecting lower jaw. The small adipose fin, which is peculiar to all of the salmonids, is situated far back, opposite the end of the anal fin; the caudal fin is deeply forked. Its color is pale olive-green above, silvery below, translucent, with an obscure, longitudinal, broad, satin-like band along the sides. The fins are greenish, with a few punctulations. The smelt enters the tidal rivers and brackish bays in the fall and winter in countless myriads, preparatory to spawning. It feeds principally on the small fry of other fishes, mostly at night, and along the shores in shallow water. It spawns in March, in both fresh and brackish water. The eggs are small, about twenty to the inch, and are adhesive. A medium-sized fish yields fifty thousand eggs, which hatch in two or three weeks, according to the temperature of the water, though usually in from sixteen to eighteen days. Though small, it is highly prized as a food-fish, having a delicate and delicious flavor. When fresh it emits an odor resembling that of cucumbers. Its usual size is from five to nine inches and weighing from two to four ounces, though occasionally reaching a foot or more in length. The smaller fish are more prized, the largest having a rank oily flavor. It is caught in large seines by fishermen and shipped fresh to the markets, and in winter is taken in great numbers with hook and line through the ice. Smelt fishing is a very popular pastime along the East Coast in the fall and winter, as it is at a time when not many other fishes are to be caught. In the inland lakes it is, as has just been mentioned, caught with hook and line through holes cut in the ice; but this is tame sport compared with fishing in open water with very light tackle. The angler can utilize his trout fly or bait-rod, or if he prefers, a very light natural cane rod eight or ten feet long. A reel is not necessary. The line should be of the smallest size, linen or silk, though silk lines soon rot in salt water. A fine leader three or four feet long, with hooks Nos. 3 to 6, on single gut snells, are next in order. When the fish are swimming in schools near the surface, especially at night, a sinker need not be used; under other circumstances, and when the tide is strong, one of suitable weight should be added. The fishing is usually best on the flood tide, and almost any kind of bait will answer; but shrimp is best, though sandworms, very small minnows, or even earthworms are useful. Given the proper time and place, and with tackle and bait in readiness, it only remains to cast the baited hook, retrieve the fish, and so on _ad infinitum_. CHAPTER XIV THE MACKEREL FAMILY (_Scombridæ_) The fishes of this family are all pelagic, and most of them are highly valued for food. They are characterized by an elongate body, more or less compressed; pointed head; large mouth; sharp teeth; two dorsal fins; the anal and second dorsal fins are similar in shape and size, and both are followed by detached finlets; the caudal fin is widely forked or falcate, its pedicle very slender and with a sharp keel; scales small and smooth. _Scomberomorus maculatus._ The Spanish Mackerel. Body elongate, covered with rudimentary scales, which do not form a distinct corselet; head pointed, short and small; mouth wide; strong teeth in jaws, knife-shaped; sandlike teeth on vomer and palatines; gill-rakers 2 + 11; caudal peduncle with a single keel; head 4-1/2; depth 4-1/2; D. XVII-18-IX; A. II-17-IX; eye 4-3/4; soft dorsal inserted in advance of anal, somewhat; lateral line undulating, with about 175 pores; spots bronze. _Scomberomorus regalis._ The Cero. Body rather elongate, its dorsal and ventral curves about equal; mouth large, maxillary reaching to below the eye; angle of preopercle produced backward; pectorals scaly; caudal less widely forked than _maculatus_; teeth triangular, compressed, about 40 in each jaw; pectorals scaly; spots and stripes brownish; head 4-1/4; depth 4-1/2; D. XVII-I, 15-VIII; A. II, 14-VIII. _Sarda sarda._ The Bonito. Body elongate, moderately compressed, robust; head 3-3/4; depth 4; D. XXI-I, 13-VIII; A. I, 13-VII; P. 10; scales small, those of the pectoral region forming a distinct corselet; teeth moderate, slightly compressed, about 40 in each jaw; mouth large, maxillary reaching beyond orbit; lateral line slightly undulating, with nowhere a decided curve. THE SPANISH MACKEREL (_Scomberomorus maculatus_) The Spanish mackerel was first described by Dr. Mitchill, in 1815, from the vicinity of New York. He named it _maculatus_, or "spotted," owing to the large bronze spots on its sides. It is common to the southern portions of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Gulf of Mexico, ranging in summer as far north as Cape Cod, and is one of the trimmest and most graceful fishes known, as well as one of the most beautiful both in form and coloration. It is especially adapted for rapid and sustained motion. Its long, graceful, and elliptical body is four times its depth. The head is as long as the depth of the body, with a large mouth, and sharp, lancet-shaped teeth in both jaws. It has two dorsal fins; the second dorsal and anal fins are nearly opposite each other, are similar in outline, and are each followed by nine detached finlets; the caudal fin is widely forked, the lobes being long and pointed or crescent-shaped. Its color is silvery, bluish or greenish above, paling to white on the belly, with iridescent reflections; the sides are dotted with some thirty bronze or golden spots, a fourth of an inch or more in diameter; the first dorsal fin is dark in front, whitish behind; the second dorsal is yellowish; the anal fin is pale; the pectoral fin is yellow, bordered with black; the caudal fin is dusky. The Spanish mackerel is gregarious and migratory, swimming in large schools, and feeding at the surface on pilchards, anchovies, and sardines in Florida, and on silversides and menhaden in northern waters. When feeding, the schools are constantly leaping above the surface, and the flashing of their silvery forms in the bright sunlight is a beautiful and inspiriting sight, enhanced by the flocks of gulls and terns whirling and darting above the schools, eager for such stray morsels and fragments as they are able to seize. In the Gulf of Mexico it often feeds in company with the salt-water trout, and in northern waters with the bluefish and weakfish. It is a fish of the warm seas, approaching the shores for spawning and feeding when the temperature becomes suitable. It appears on the Gulf coast of Florida in March and April, though I have observed it as early as January in forward seasons. Its advent on the Atlantic coast is later, progressing gradually northward, reaching the vicinity of New York in July and August, and disappearing in October or November. Its breeding season in the Gulf of Mexico is in the early spring, and as late as August or September at the northern extent of its range. Its spawning may cover a period of many weeks, as the fish do not all mature at one and the same time. The eggs are quite small, about twenty-five to the inch, float at the surface, and hatch in a single day. The newly hatched fry are very small, about the tenth of an inch long, but in a year will have attained a length of six inches. The average weight of a mature fish is from two to four pounds, rarely exceeding six or eight pounds. The Spanish mackerel is held in the highest esteem as a food-fish, being considered one of the very best, second only to the pompano of the Gulf or the whitefish of the Great Lakes. It has a mackerel flavor, but one peculiarly its own for richness and sapidity of savor. It is a game-fish of high degree, and worthy of the angler's highest regard. Its manner of fighting, when hooked, is mostly on the surface of the water, darting here and there with dazzling rapidity, in straight and curving lines, leaping into air, and bounding over the water with a velocity and nimbleness that is difficult to follow with the eye in the bright sunlight. In northern waters it is usually taken by trolling with a small mother-of-pearl squid, or one of block tin, using a long hand-line, as the fish is rather shy and difficult to approach with a boat. In Florida, however, great sport can be had with a light rod, both in fly-fishing and bait-fishing, from the sand-spits at the entrance to deep inlets, and from the long piers and wharves that extend to deep water. The angling is done in March and April, when the fish are running into the bays in great schools on the flood tide, often in company with the salt-water trout. A black-bass or trout fly-rod of seven or eight ounces is very suitable for fly-fishing, with a click reel and a braided linen line of pretty large size, say D or E, in order to give weight enough for casting. The enamelled silk line is, of course, better, but it does not last long in salt water. Any bright or gaudy fly will answer, on hooks Nos. 1 to 3, though yellowish or grayish flies are perhaps more attractive. A single fly only should be used, with a three or four foot leader. Black-bass rods and tackle are just right for bait-fishing for the Spanish mackerel, except that a braided linen line, and not a silk line, should be used for reasons just given. The best bait is a small, bright fish, three or four inches long, either mullet or anchovy, hooked through the lips. A small pearl squid, or a very small trolling-spoon or spinner, may be used instead, but the minnow is far and away the most attractive lure. The bait is cast as far as possible toward the school as it is running past the point of an inlet or the end of a pier, and reeled in slowly, but rapidly enough to keep the bait on or near the surface, no sinker being employed. If the fishing is done from a pier, a very long-handled landing-net must be provided. The best plan is to fish from a small boat moored to the pier, as the angler is not so likely to be seen by the fish, and they are more easily landed. The same method is pursued in fly-fishing in the general features, except that the fly is allowed to sink after fluttering it awhile on the surface; no other special suggestions are needed. I have found the following flies useful: gray drake, green drake, red ibis, oriole, professor, and silver doctor, in black-bass patterns, on hooks Nos. 1 to 3. THE CERO (_Scomberomorus regalis_) The cero, or sierra, was described by Bloch, in 1795, from a drawing of a specimen from the West Indies, by Plumier. He named it _regalis_, meaning "royal" or "regal." It belongs to the West Indian fauna of fishes, and is common from Florida to Brazil. Occasionally it strays in the summer as far north as Massachusetts. It is closely allied to the Spanish mackerel, and resembles it in form, but differs very much in coloration and size, being more sombre and much larger. Its color is brownish on the back, with silvery sides and belly; it is marked with two dusky longitudinal stripes, and several rows of dark spots, not bronze or golden as in the Spanish mackerel. I have met with the cero only along the Florida reefs and keys. It does not swim in such large schools as the Spanish mackerel, and does not accompany it in its wanderings into the bays or along the shores, but seeks the same localities, and is of similar habits, as the kingfish-mackerel. It feeds entirely on fishes. Its breeding habits have not been studied, though they are doubtless not unlike those of the Spanish mackerel, except as to the locality and season of depositing its eggs. Its usual weight is five or six pounds, though it sometimes grows to five feet in length and twenty pounds or more in weight. I have taken it with bone and block-tin squids, trolling from a yacht, and also from an anchored boat with rod and line, by casting mullet or sardines for bait. A striped-bass rod and tackle are suitable, as it is a strong and powerful fish, making extraordinary leaps when hooked. For its weight I know of no gamer fish, but my experience in rod-fishing has been somewhat limited, being confined to the capture of half a dozen fish. I was once yachting along the Florida keys, and while anchored near Bahia Honda I put off in the dinghy to cast mullet bait for cero and kingfish (_Scomberomorus cavalla_). The latter is a near relative of the cero, and they resemble each other so closely that it is often difficult to distinguish between them. The kingfish is rather more slender, the adult fish being of a uniform slaty hue, usually without spots or markings of any kind, and grows to a larger size, often to fifty pounds or more. It is fully described in another volume of this series. On the occasion referred to I captured a number of kingfish and two ceros of about the same relative weight, from eight to ten pounds. The conditions were quite favorable to compare their gameness, but I was unable to perceive any difference in this respect. Both fish took the bait with a rush, and when hooked exhibited game qualities of the highest order, leaping continuously and to a height of five or six feet. Their swift rushes, as they cut through the water with incredible swiftness, and for which they are especially built, were very trying to my light striped-bass rod. I lost a number of fish that shook out the hook when leaping. I used the Sproat bend, No. 7-0, but 5-0 would be large enough for the average-sized cero. My line was a braided linen, size E, to which the snelled hook was attached by a small brass box-swivel; but knobbed hooks, if they can be obtained of suitable size, are to be preferred. [Illustration THE BONITO] [_Sarda sarda_] [Illustration THE NIGGER-FISH] [_Bodianus fulvus_] [Illustration THE POMPANO] [_Trachinotus carolinus_] The market fishermen of Key West troll for kingfish and cero in their schooner smacks, using coarse hand-laid cotton lines, and codfish or other large hooks as mentioned. The bait is usually a piece of white bacon-rind, cut in an elliptical shape to resemble a fish, and strung along the shank of the hook, and fastened at the top by a piece of fine copper wire. This rude device is very successful, as they take hundreds of fish in a few days, of a size running from ten to fifty pounds. The cero and the kingfish are favorite food-fishes in Key West, where large quantities are consumed; and years ago many were carried to Havana by the smacks, until a prohibitive duty was imposed by the Spanish governor-general, in order to favor Spanish fishermen. Under the changed conditions that now exist in Cuba this trade will doubtless be resumed. Both the cero and kingfish are excellent food-fishes, with a flavor much like that of the Spanish mackerel, but more pronounced,--that is, not so delicate and delicious, but more pungent. Northern anglers who go to Florida in quest of the tarpon will find in the cero and kingfish game-fishes of great merit on light tackle. THE BONITO (_Sarda sarda_) The bonito is a very handsome and gamy fish belonging to the mackerel family. It was named _sarda_ by Bloch, in 1793, from its being taken in the vicinity of Sardinia. It inhabits both coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea. It is not uncommon from the region of Cape Cod southward to Florida and the West Indies, where it is more abundant. It has a long, graceful body, nearly round, its depth a fourth of its length. It is elliptical in outline, tapering to a very slender caudal pedicle, which is strongly keeled. The mouth is large, with strong, conical teeth. The caudal fin is deeply forked, or swallow-like. Its color is dark steel-blue above, silvery below, with white belly. There are numerous dark oblique stripes running from the back downward and forward, by which it is easily recognized. The ventral fins are whitish, the other fins are bluish black. The bonito is a pelagic fish, approaching the shores in search of food, which consists of small fishes almost entirely. It grows to a length of three or four feet, though it is usually taken of ten or twelve pounds in weight. It does not rank high as a food-fish, having rather dark flesh of a strong mackerel flavor, rather too pungent to be agreeable, but it is liked generally by sailors. There is another fish of the Atlantic coast (_Gymnosarda pelamis_), of the mackerel family, that is known as the oceanic bonito. It may be distinguished by its stripes being horizontal, instead of oblique; it is rather rare. The bonito is taken only by trolling with a small fish for bait, or a block-tin, bone, or shell squid, from a sailing vessel, and with bluefish tackle. It is frequently caught by the Key West fishermen when trolling for kingfish with a bait of bacon-rind. It is a powerful fish, and withal a very game one, being a swift swimmer, and must be handled very carefully when hooked. The line should be a heavy one of braided linen or cotton, and a foot or two of brass or copper wire should be used as a snell to withstand its sharp and numerous teeth. A Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hook, No. 7-0, is about right when bait is used, and one of similar size with artificial squids, or spinners. I was once trolling in the vicinity of the Dry Tortugas, and in a short time took four bonitos of about twelve pounds each. As the yacht was going at a spanking rate with a beam wind, the strain on the line was tremendous, and in each case the vessel had to be luffed up into the wind to enable me to land them. As one fish was more than enough for the crew, and as I had occasion to land at Fort Jefferson, on Garden Key, I resolved to donate the others to the garrison of the fortress. On going ashore I found the "garrison" to consist of one man, the corporal in charge of the property. He said he did not think he alone could get away with the fish, but as the lighthouse keeper of the fort would return from Loggerhead Key in the afternoon, he thought that they, together with his dog, might manage to dispose of them. Afterward he informed me that he and the light-keeper had finished one bonito, and the dog, whose name was Bonaparte, had made way with the others, or as he expressed it: "Bone eet two," and said this without any intent to pun on bon-i-to; he thought that I was amused at the capacity of Bonaparte as an ichthyophagist, being unconscious of his play on the words which caused my merriment. CHAPTER XV THE GROUPER FAMILY (_Serranidæ_) The fishes of this family are characterized by an oblong body, more or less compressed, covered with adherent scales of moderate or small size, which are usually ctenoid; the dorsal and ventral outlines do not usually correspond; premaxillaries protractile; teeth all conical or pointed, in bands, present on jaws, vomer, and palatines; pseudobranchiæ large; gill-membranes separate, free from isthmus; cheeks and opercles scaly; preopercle usually serrate; opercle ending in one or two flat spines; lateral line not extending on the caudal fin; lower pharyngeals narrow, with pointed teeth; gill-rakers armed with teeth. _Mycteroperca microlepis._ The Gag. Body comparatively elongate and compressed; head 2-1/2; depth 3-1/2; eye 6; D. XI, 16 to 19; A. III, 11; scales 24-140-50; pores about 90; dorsal fin single, its spines slender and weak; head long and pointed; mouth large, the maxillary reaching beyond the eye; teeth in narrow bands, each jaw with two canines; gill-rakers few, 12 on lower part of anterior arch; scales very small, chiefly cycloid; preopercle with a shallow emargination above the angle, with radiating serræ; caudal lunate; lower jaw projecting. _Mycteroperca falcata phenax._ The Scamp. Body elongate; head 3; depth 3-1/2; D. XI, 18; A. III, 11; eye 5; scales 24-135-43; dorsal fin single, the spines slender and weak; head pointed; mouth large, the maxillary reaching posterior border of the eye; teeth in narrow bands, each jaw with two strong canines, nearly vertical; preopercle finely serrate, a notch above the angle; scales mostly cycloid; outer rays of caudal produced. _Mycteroperca venenosa._ The Yellow-finned Grouper. Body elongate; head 3; depth 3-1/4; eye 7; scales 24-125-_x_; D. XI, 16; A. III, 11; head rather blunt; mouth large, the maxillary reaching much beyond the eye; teeth in narrow bands, each jaw with two strong canines, not directed forward; preopercle without salient angle, its emargination slight; dorsal fin single, its spines not very weak; caudal fin lunate; anal rounded. _Epinephelus adscensionis._ The Rock Hind. Body robust, little compressed; head 2-1/2; depth 3; eye 6; scales 12-100-40; D. XI, 17; A. III, 7; head subconic, acute; anterior profile straight; mouth large, the maxillary reaching beyond the eye; lower jaw strongly projecting; teeth in broad bands, the canines short and stout, those of the lower jaw the largest; preopercle finely serrate, convex, with but slight emargination; scales strongly ctenoid; dorsal fin single, its spines strong; caudal fin slightly rounded; gill-rakers short and thick. _Epinephelus guttatus._ The Red Hind. Body rather slender, moderately compressed, the back somewhat elevated; head 2-1/2; depth 3-1/3; eye 4-1/3; scales 19-100-x; D. XI, 16; A. III, 8; head long and pointed; mouth moderate, the maxillary reaching below posterior margin of eye; lower jaw rather weak, its tip little projecting; teeth rather strong, in moderate bands, both jaws with two curved canines, those in upper jaw largest; preopercle weakly serrate, with a salient angle, which is armed with stronger teeth; caudal fin rounded. Petrometopon cruentatus. The Coney. Body oblong, rather deep and compressed; head 2-1/2; depth 2-3/4; eye 5; scales 8-90-30; D. IX, 14; A. III, 8; head moderate, a little acute anteriorly, profile nearly straight; mouth large, the maxillary reaching beyond the eye; lower jaw not strongly projecting; teeth in narrow bands, the depressible teeth of the inner series very long and slender, those of the lower jaw and front of upper especially enlarged, longer than the small, subequal canines; preopercle convex, very weakly serrate, its posterior angle obliquely subtruncate, without salient angle or distinct emargination; opercle with three distinct spines; scales rather large, and mostly strongly ctenoid; dorsal fin single, its spines rather slender and pungent; anal fin rounded; pectorals long; caudal fin very convex. _Bodianus fulvus._ The Nigger-fish. Body oblong, moderately compressed; head 2-2/3; depth 3; eye 5; scales 9-100-33; D. IX, 14 to 16; A. III, 8 or 9; head rather pointed, with curved profile; mouth moderate, the maxillary reaching beyond the eye; lower jaw strongly projecting; teeth in narrow bands, rather large, the depressible teeth rather small, canines small, subequal; preopercle with weak serrations, its outline convex, with a shallow emargination; opercle with three distinct spines; dorsal fin single, with slender and pungent spines; scales rather large, mostly strongly ctenoid; caudal fin truncate, its angles slightly rounded; pectorals long; ventrals short. _Diplectrum formosum._ The Sand-fish. Body elongate, the profile strongly arched above the eyes; head 3; depth 3-1/2; eye 5; scales 9-85-22; mouth large, maxillary reaching middle of eye; lower jaw slightly projecting; canine teeth small; preopercle finely serrate at upper margin; preopercle with two clusters of divergent spines; opercular flap short and sharp; top of cranium smooth and very convex; 11 rows of scales on cheeks; fins, except caudal, scaleless; 15 scales before dorsal; dorsal fin single, with low spines, the first three graduated; caudal deeply lunate, the upper lobe the longest, sometimes ending in a long filament. THE GAG (_Mycteroperca microlepis_) The gag is one of the series of fishes known as groupers in Florida, of which there are quite a number. It was first described by Goode and Bean, in 1879, from West Florida; they named it _microlepis_, or "small scale," as its scales are of less size than the other species of the same genus. It is known only from the South Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico, from North Carolina south to Pensacola. It has a rather long, shapely body, with pointed head and an evenly curved profile. Its mouth is large, with projecting lower jaw. Both jaws are armed with narrow bands of sharp teeth and two canines, the upper ones directed forward. The predominating hue of the gag is brownish or brownish gray, with lighter sides, in deep-water specimens; those of shallow water, especially in grassy situations, are greenish or olivaceous, mottled with a darker shade, and more or less clouded. Very small and indistinct dusky spots sometimes cover the entire body, and a faint mustache is usually present. The dorsal fin is olive; the top of the soft dorsal fin rays is darker, with white edge; the caudal fin is bluish black, with white edge. It is a voracious fish, feeding on small fishes and crustaceans, and grows to a large size; twenty or thirty, or even fifty, pounds in weight is not uncommon, though usually taken of from six to ten pounds. It resorts, when large, to the banks and rocky reefs in deep water. Those of less size frequent the inshore waters. It is a fine food-fish, and a very game one on the rod. A light striped-bass rod, or the natural bamboo chum rod, with good multiplying reel and fifty yards of braided linen line, size E, and Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks, Nos. 3-0 or 4-0, on gimp snells, with a brass box-swivel for connecting snell and line, and a sinker adapted to the strength of the tide, make up the tackle for the gag. A large landing-net or a gaff-hook should not be forgotten. Rod fishing is done in comparatively deep water on the rocky reefs or shelly banks along the keys, from an anchored boat. Any natural bait, as a small fish, crab, crawfish, or conch, will answer, though a small fish, as the mullet, sardine, or anchovy, is the best. When of large size the gag is a very gamy fish, and must be handled very carefully to preserve one's tackle intact. It is taken more frequently by trolling with a strong hand-line from a sailing yacht, in the same way as trolling for bluefish. A small silvery fish is the best lure, though a strong spinner or a shell or block-tin squid answers well. Even a piece of bacon-rind cut in the semblance of a fish proves very attractive, in the manner commonly used by the fishermen of Key West in trolling for the kingfish. The largest groupers can be taken on rocky bottom in the deep holes about the inlets. On the south-east coast, Indian River Inlet, under the mangroves, and Jupiter Inlet, both afford good grouper fishing. Farther south, at Hillsboro and New River inlets, and in the deep holes about the passes between the Florida Keys, from Cape Florida to Key West, groupers are more or less abundant. The first gag I ever caught was in the winter of 1877, while trolling off Cape Florida; it was a big one, too, weighing about fifty pounds. "What is it?" asked a Kentucky boy who was with me. I was compelled to look it up in my books before replying that I thought it was a "scamp," as it agreed pretty well with the description of that grouper, though I was not fully satisfied that my identification was correct, and less so, when in about an hour we caught a real scamp. This was some two years before the gag was described as a new species by Drs. Goode and Bean, from Pensacola. As I had no means of preserving the fish, it was baked for our dinner, and proved to be very good indeed. In fishing for groupers the angler must keep them well in hand so as to prevent their getting into the holes and crevices of the rocks, as they are sure to do if given the chance, and from where it is almost impossible to dislodge them. They should be brought to the surface, or near it, as soon as possible after hooking them, and kept there until ready for the landing-net or gaff-hook. Most people in Florida fish for groupers with hand-lines, but with the tackle recommended the fish will be more easily subdued and landed, and the pleasure much enhanced, to say nothing of the question of sportsmanship as between the two methods. THE SCAMP (_Mycteroperca falcata phenax_) The scamp is a grouper that resembles very much the gag. It was first described by the Cuban ichthyologist Poey, in 1860, from Cuban waters. He named it _falcata_, or "scythe-shaped," from the curving of the caudal fin. The form common to Florida is a variety or subspecies, that differs principally in the angle of the canine teeth and to some extent in coloration. The variety was first described by Jordan and Swain, in 1884, who named it _phenax_, meaning "deceptive," and equivalent to "scamp." It is abundant along the Florida Keys and the offshore "snapper banks," from Key West to Pensacola; those of smaller size frequent inshore waters. It resembles the gag very much in its general appearance and in the shape of its body, with a somewhat larger mouth and more projecting lower jaw, also a larger caudal fin, which is more crescentic or scythe-shaped. The depth of its body is about a third of its length. The teeth are in narrow bands, with two canines in each jaw, but these are not so strong as in the Cuban form, and those in the upper jaw are not directed so much forward, nor the lower ones so much backward. The caudal fin is concave or crescentic, and the scales are larger than those of the gag. The color is pinkish gray above, paler purplish gray below; the upper part of the body and head is covered with small, rounded, irregular dark brown spots; the sides and caudal fin with larger and longer pale brownish blotches, somewhat reticulate; fins dusky, some edged with white. Its habits are similar to those of the gag, just described, in whose company it is found. It grows to a length of two feet or more, and to ten pounds or more in weight. The remarks concerning the tackle and fishing for the gag apply equally as well for the scamp. This fish, with the gag, is sometimes taken on the snapper banks by the red-snapper fishermen, though it is not shipped to the northern markets as it does not bear transportation so well as the red-snapper, and is sold for home consumption or eaten by the crews. I first saw this fish as has just been related, in 1877, when it was caught by a Kentucky friend, and it had very much the same appearance as the gag. We then decided that both fish were scamps, my friend remarking that "The only difference is that this fellow seems to be more of a scamp than the other one," an opinion I fully indorsed. The scamp does not stray so far north as the gag, being confined to subtropical regions. It is regularly taken to the Key West market by the commercial fisherman, where it commands a ready sale, being well esteemed as a food-fish. The first specimens I afterward preserved were secured from this source. THE YELLOW-FINNED GROUPER (_Mycteroperca venenosa_) This grouper was first noticed by Catesby, in 1743, from the Bahamas, and was named by Linnæus, in 1758, who bestowed the specific title _venenosa_, or "venomous," as its flesh was said by Catesby to be poisonous at certain times. It is common at the Bahamas, and from the Florida Keys southward to the West Indies, and perhaps to South America. Its form is very similar to the gag and scamp; its depth is a third of its length. Its head is as long as the depth of the body, and rather blunt, with the profile somewhat uneven, but curved; the mouth is large, with narrow bands of teeth, and two canines in each jaw which are not directed forward. Not much is known concerning this fish, as its flesh is reputed to be poisonous at times, and it is seldom eaten. Its coloration is quite varied and beautiful; it is olive-green on the back, pearly bluish below, breast rosy. The upper parts are marked with broad reticulations and curved blotches of bright light green, which are especially distinct on the top of the head; the entire body and head are covered with orange-brown spots of various sizes with dark centres; the iris of the eye is orange, as is the inside of the mouth; the dorsal fin is olive-brown, with whitish blotches and a few dark spots; the pectoral fin is yellow, and all other fins have black edges. Its habits are similar to those of the other groupers. It grows to three feet in length, and frequents rocky situations. THE ROCK HIND (_Epinephelus adscensionis_) This grouper is one of the most bizarre and gayly colored in the family _Serranidæ_. It was first accurately described by Osbeck, in 1757, from Ascension Island, which accounts for its specific name, _adscensionis_, as bestowed by him. It is very widely distributed over both hemispheres, being known from Ascension and St. Helena Islands, Cape of Good Hope, and is abundant from the Florida Keys to Brazil. In outline it resembles the other groupers, having a robust body, but little compressed; its depth is a third of its length, its head is as long as the depth of the body, is pointed, with a profile straight from the snout to the nape, thence curved regularly to the tail. The mouth is large, with the lower jaw more prominent or projecting than in any of the other groupers; the teeth are in broad bands, with short and stout canines. Its ground color is olivaceous gray, with darker clouds; the head and entire body are profusely covered with red or orange spots of varying size, those on the lower part of the body the largest, nearly as large as the pupil of the eye; parts of the body and fins have irregularly-shaped, whitish spots or blotches; there are several ill-defined, clouded, blackish, vertical, or oblique blotches across the body, some of them extending upward on to the dorsal fin, with the interspaces lighter; the fins are likewise spotted with red and white. The groupers known as "hinds," as the red, rock, brown, speckled, spotted, or John Paw hinds, are so named from being spotted, and resembling somewhat in this way the hind or female red deer. They are all good food-fishes, and are found regularly in the Key West market, though not so plentiful as the snappers, grunts, etc., but bringing a better price. The rock hind, as might be inferred from its name, frequents rocky situations about the channels between the keys, feeding mostly on small fishes and marine invertebrates. It grows to a length of eighteen inches. Its spawning habits have not been studied, though it probably spawns in the spring. A light bait-rod, similar to a black-bass rod, with corresponding tackle, with hooks Nos. 2-0 to 3-0, on gimp snells, will answer for this fish, using sardines or anchovies, which are abundant along the shores, for bait. THE RED HIND (_Epinephelus guttatus_) This beautiful grouper rivals the rock hind in its gay and varied coloration. There is some uncertainty about the correct specific name of this well-marked species. The last name to be adopted is _guttatus_, meaning "spotted," conferred by Linnæus in 1758, based on the early and vague descriptions of Marcgrave and others on specimens from Brazil and the West Indies. It belongs to the West Indian fauna, its range extending from the Florida Keys to South America; it occasionally strays north in the summer to the Carolina coast. It resembles the other groupers in its general form, but is more slender, has a larger eye, and its lower jaw does not project so much. The depth of its body is a little more than a third of its length. Its head is long and pointed, considerably longer than the depth of its body, with a mouth of moderate size, and a weak lower jaw, which projects but slightly; the eye is very large; the teeth are in bands, with two curved canines in each. The pattern of the coloration and the markings are similar to those of the rock hind, but differ in color. The upper part of the body is grayish or yellowish olive, the belly reddish; the entire head and body are profusely covered with scarlet spots of nearly uniform size, except those on the breast and belly, which are a little larger; there are a few spots, both red and whitish, on the bases of the fins; there are three broad, oblique, obscure bands running upward and backward on the sides, extending on to the dorsal fin; the upper fins are edged with black; the pectoral fin is reddish yellow. The red hind, like the rock hind, frequents rocky places and feeds mostly on small fishes. It grows to a length of about eighteen inches, and is an excellent food-fish. Not much is known concerning its breeding habits, though it probably spawns in the spring. The same tackle recommended for the rock hind, and the same baits, will do as well for the red hind, as they are found together. THE CONEY (_Petrometopon cruentatus_) This beautiful fish is allied to the groupers, and belongs to the family _Serranidæ_, previously described. It was described and named by Lacépéde from a drawing by Plumier, made from a specimen from Martinique. Lacépéde recorded it in his "Natural History of Fishes," 1803, conferring on it the name _cruentatus_, meaning "dyed with blood," in allusion to its red spots. It belongs to the West Indian fauna, with a range extending from the Florida Keys to Brazil; it is quite common about Key West, being seen in the markets every day. The body has the somewhat elliptical outline of the other groupers, but is more oblong and deeper, its depth being more than a third of its length. The head is moderate in size, rather pointed, its length less than the depth of the body; the mouth is large, with the lower jaw projecting but slightly; the teeth are in narrow bands, the inner series long, slender, and depressible; the canines small. Its ground color is reddish gray, a little paler below; the head and body are covered with bright vermilion spots, larger and brighter anteriorly. It frequents rocky situations, like the coney of Holy Writ. It is highly esteemed as a food-fish, but is of smaller size than the groupers previously described, seldom growing beyond a foot in length or a pound in weight. It probably spawns in the spring. It is quite a gamy fish for its size on light tackle. It is usually taken by the market fishermen on the same tackle as the grunts, snappers, porgies, etc., among the rocks of the channels, in rather deep water, with fish bait. It is well worth catching, if only to admire its graceful shape and brilliant coloration. For the coney, black-bass rods, braided linen line, size F, with Sproat hooks, No. 2-0 or 3-0, on gimp snells, and sinker adapted to the strength of the tide, with the smallest fish for bait, will answer admirably. The little whirligig mullet, or spiny crawfish, or even cut-fish bait, are all good baits to use as occasion may demand. THE NIGGER-FISH (_Bodianus fulvus_) It is difficult to account for names, we know; but just why this handsome fish should be called "nigger-fish" is hard to imagine. It is sometimes called yellow-fish, a better and more descriptive name, but no doubt nigger-fish it always will be. It differs from the other groupers in the less number of spiny rays in the dorsal fin; otherwise it is much the same. It was described by Linnæus, in 1758, from the account of the "yellow-fish" by Catesby, in 1743, from the Bahamas. Linnæus named it _fulvus_, or "tawny," from its coloration. This is also a fish belonging to the West Indian fauna, its range extending from the Bahamas and the Florida Keys to South America. [Illustration CATCHING SPANISH MACKEREL ON THE EDGE OF THE GULF STREAM] The outline of body of the nigger-fish is similar to that of the hinds, being nearly elliptical, and with a depth of a third of its length, and moderately compressed. The head is long and pointed, longer than the depth of the body, with an evenly curved profile from the snout to the dorsal fin; the lower jaw projects very much; the mouth is large, with narrow bands of teeth, and small canines. Its general color is yellow, darker or orange-red on the back, with two black spots on the tail; there are a few violet spots about the eye, and some blue spots on the head and anterior half of the body, those on the head with dark margins; the head, and pectoral and dorsal fins, are reddish. The nigger-fish is found in the deeper channels in rocky situations. It feeds on small fishes principally. It is not very common, and is much prized as a food-fish by the people of Key West. The common varieties are the red and brown nigger-fishes, which differ only in coloration from the yellow ones. It is taken with the other channel fishes, and with the same baits and similar tackle, by the market fishermen; but the angler should utilize his black-bass rod, with braided linen line, size F, and hooks No. 2-0 on gimp snells. As it is a bottom feeder a sinker must be used to keep the bait at the proper depth. For baits, any small fish or sea-crawfish or prawns or shrimps will answer. I was once fishing for channel fishes in sight of Key West, and having just landed a nigger-fish. I asked my boatman, a Bahama negro, why it was so called. He answered in the lingo peculiar to both white and black Bahamians:-- "Vell, maybe it's along of its yaller and red color, for niggers is right fond of yaller and red; but vether that's the horigin of its fust name is 'ard to tell. Now, Hamericans calls us Bahama people conchs 'cause we eats conchs, but nigger-fish don't eat niggers, no more does jellyfish eat jelly. I think they are called nigger-fish 'cause they is so 'andsome." THE SAND-FISH (_Diplectrum formosum_) The sand-fish, or, as it is sometimes called, the squirrel-fish, also belongs to the family _Serranidæ_. It was first described by Linnæus, in 1766, from Dr. Garden's specimens from South Carolina; he named it _formosa_, or "handsome," from its pretty form and coloration. It inhabits the Atlantic coast from South Carolina to South America, and is common to both coasts of Florida, and especially about the keys. It has a rather elliptical body in outline; its depth is less than a third of its length, being elongate and rather slender as compared with other allied species. The head is as long as the depth of the body, with an arched profile above the eyes; the mouth is large, the lower jaw projecting a little; the upper border of the cheek-bone is serrated, with two clusters of small, sharp spines; the teeth are in narrow bands; the canine teeth are small. Its color is light brown above, silvery white below; there are several dark and broad vertical bars across the body, and a dark blotch at the base of the caudal fin; the body has eight narrow bright blue longitudinal stripes, which are more distinct above, and paler below; the head is yellow, with several wavy blue stripes below the eye and several between the eyes; the upper fins have blue and yellow stripes, and the caudal fin has yellow spots surrounded by bluish markings. It frequents sandy shoals, and also rocky shores, feeding on small fishes and crustaceans. It is a good pan-fish, growing to about a foot in length, but usually to six or eight inches. The same tackle and baits used for the hinds, coney, and nigger-fish will also answer well for the sand-fish, which consists of black-bass rod, braided linen line, size F, hooks No. 1 or 1-0, and suitable sinker and swivel. It is a good game-fish for its size on the light tackle just mentioned, and is well worth a trial on account of its beauty, and excellence for the table, even if its gameness is not considered. While engaged in a scientific expedition to Florida many years ago, my vessel ran aground one afternoon in Barnes Sound, south-west of Biscayne Bay. The bottom was a sandy marl and quite soft, so that we were unable to use the setting poles to any advantage in moving the boat. I observed quite a school of fish surrounding the vessel, which proved to be sand-fish. I put out a stake to mark the stage of the tide, and while waiting for the flood tide I put in the time fishing, and soon had enough sand-fish for supper and breakfast. This was rather fortunate, as we were still aground the next morning, for strange to say the depth of the water had neither increased nor diminished for sixteen hours; there was no tide in that remote corner of the universe. We then took out the ballast of about a ton of pig-iron and put it in the dory we had intow. This lightened up the vessel enough to enable us to shove her off into deeper water. I think we never enjoyed any fish quite so much as those delicious little sand-fish, and it has ever since been one of my favorite fishes. CHAPTER XVI THE CAVALLI FAMILY (_Carangidæ_) The members of this family differ from the true mackerels by a less number of spines in the first dorsal fin, and in having but two spines in the anal fin, and no detached finlets; also in having smaller teeth. Some of the species are described in another volume of this series, to which the reader is referred. _Carangus chrysos._ The Runner. Body oblong, moderately elevated, the dorsal and ventral outlines about equally arched; head 3-3/4; depth 3-1/4; eye 3-1/2; lateral line with 50 scutes; D. VIII-I, 24; A. II-I, 19; profile forms a uniform curve; snout rather sharp; mouth moderate, slightly oblique, maxillary reaching middle of orbit; teeth comparatively large; a single series in lower jaw; upper jaw with an inner series of smaller teeth; no canines; teeth on vomer, palatines, and tongue; gill-rakers long and numerous; pectoral fin not longer than head; scales moderate; cheeks and breast scaly; black opercular spot. _Carangus latus._ The Horse-eye Jack. Moderately deep; head 3-3/4; depth 2-1/2; scutes 30; D. VIII-I, 20; A. II-I, 17; head bluntish; profile curved; mouth moderate; lower jaw prominent; villiform teeth on upper jaw, vomer, palatines, and tongue; weak canines in lower jaw; breast scaly; maxillary reaching posterior edge of pupil; pectoral fin about as long as head; cheeks and upper part of opercles scaly; gill-rakers rather long, about 12 below the angle. _Trachinotus carolinus._ The Pompano. Body oblong, comparatively robust; head 4; depth 2-1/3; eye 4-1/2; scales small and smooth; D. VI-I, 25; A. II-I, 23; profile of head evenly convex; snout bluntly rounded; mouth small, maxillary reaching middle of eye; jaws without teeth in the adult; maxillary without supplemental bone; dorsal and anal fins falcate, anterior rays nearly reaching middle of fins when depressed; dorsal lobe 4-1/2 in body; anal 5-1/2; dorsal lobe pale. THE RUNNER (_Carangus chrysos_) The runner was first described by Dr. S.L. Mitchill, in 1815, from the vicinity of New York. He named it _chrysos_, meaning "gold," from the golden sheen of its sides. It inhabits the Atlantic coast from Cape Cod to Brazil, but is most abundant on southern shores and in the Gulf of Mexico. It has an oblong body, its depth a little less than a third of its length, with the dorsal and ventral curves about equal. The head is shorter than the depth of the body, with a uniformly curved profile and rather sharp snout. The mouth is moderate in size and low, with a single series of teeth in the lower jaw, and two in the upper one, but no canines; there are also small teeth on the roof of the mouth and tongue. Its colour is greenish olive on the back, and golden yellow or silvery below; there is a black blotch on the border of the gill-cover; the fins are all plain. The runner, as its name indicates, is a great forager, and is the swiftest and most graceful of all the jacks or cavallies. It ranges farther northward than the other species of the genus. It frequents the reefs and the shores of the keys and mainland of Florida in search of food, which consists of small fishes, as sardines, anchovies, mullets, etc., crustaceans, and other small organisms. It is the best of the jacks as a food-fish, and is in great favor at Key West. For its size it is also the gamest, but as it rarely exceeds a foot in length it is not so much sought, generally, as the larger jacks. It is, however, a great favorite with the juvenile anglers at Key West, as it can be taken from the wharves with almost any kind of bait. On account of its activity and gameness it furnishes fine sport on light tackle, and under these conditions is worthy the attention of the angler. A light black-bass rod, braided linen line, size G, hooks No. 1 or 1-0 on gimp snells, a light multiplying reel and sinker adapted to the tidal current, comprise a good outfit for the runner, which is also known as hard-tail and jurel in some localities. About Key West and the neighboring keys the best bait is the little whirligig mullet (_Querimana gyrans_), which whirls on the surface in large schools, or cut bait or shrimps may be used to advantage. The author of a recently published book on the fishes of Florida makes the following queer statement, "It seems to me the runners are hybrids from the crevalle and bluefish species or families, as they certainly resemble both of those fishes." It would be strange did they not resemble the fishes named, as all are of the mackerel tribe, and all are distinguished by having falcate anal and dorsal fins of about the same relative size, and placed about opposite each other, and also have swallow-shaped caudal fins with slender caudal pedicle; but there the greatest resemblance ends. I have never seen a hybrid among fishes in the natural state. They can be produced by the fishculturist between kindred species, but there is no especial benefit to be derived from such experiments. Hybrids, or so-called mules, are infertile, and incapable of reproducing their kind. THE HORSE-EYE JACK (_Carangus latus_) The horse-eye jack was first described by Louis Agassiz, in 1829, from Brazil, who named it _latus_, or "broad," owing to its short and deep form. It differs from the runner mostly in being deeper in body, and in its large eye. It has a few less soft rays in the dorsal and anal fins, and but thirty-five bony scutes along the lateral line; otherwise it is very similar. Its color is bluish above and golden or silvery below, and it has a black spot on the margin of the gill-cover, but of less size than that of the runner. While it is similar in habits to the runner, it has a more extended range, inhabiting all warm seas. The horse-eye jack grows to a larger size than the runner, but is not nearly so good a food-fish, though nearly its equal as a game-fish. Its flesh is reputed to be poisonous at certain seasons in the tropics, and whether true or not, it is not held in much favor, though it is caught by boys at the wharves of Key West, and I presume is eaten. The same tackle and baits recommended for the runner can be utilized for the horse-eye jack. THE POMPANO (_Trachinotus carolinus_) The pompano was first described by Linnæus, in 1766, from Dr. Garden's specimens from South Carolina, which accounts for its specific name. It is abundant on the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts, to which it is mostly confined, though it occasionally strays north to Cape Cod in summer, and rarely to the West Indies. It has a short, deep body, being nearly half as deep as long, oblong and robust. Its head is short, about half as long as the depth of the body, with a small, low mouth, and with few or no teeth in the jaws; the snout is blunt, the profile from end of snout to the eye about vertical, and from thence to the dorsal fin is regularly arched. The color is bluish above and golden or silvery below; the pectoral and anal fins are yellow, shaded with blue; caudal fin with bluish reflections. The pompano frequents the sandy beaches of the keys and islands of the Gulf coast, mostly the outside shores, where it feeds on beach-fleas and the beautiful little mollusks known as "pompano-shells," also on small shrimps and other shore-loving organisms. I consider the pompano to be the best food-fish in either salt or fresh water--the prince of food-fishes, it is incomparable. It is caught principally in haul seines by the fishermen on the flood tide. On the Atlantic coast it is abundant at Jupiter inlet and at Lake Worth, but not so plentiful as about the outside and inside beaches of the islands about Charlotte Harbor on the Gulf coast. In the summer it strays northward to the Carolina coasts. Its usual weight is a pound or two, rarely exceeding eighteen inches in length or four pounds in weight. It is often confounded with several other species, as the permit (_Trachinotus goodei_), which reaches three feet in length and twenty-five or thirty pounds in weight; also with the gaff top-sail pompano (_Trachinotus glaucus_), and the round pompano (_Trachinotus falcatus_), both of which grow larger than the true pompano and are often sold for the genuine article by dealers; but no one who has eaten a true pompano can be deceived by these other species. It spawns in the summer. It is difficult to take the pompano with the hook except on the flood tide, when it is running in schools, feeding along the shores, though it is occasionally caught by still-fishing in the bays with bait of beach-fleas or cut clam. The tackle should be very light and the hook small, Nos. 6 or 8, on fine gut snells. When hooked it is a game-fish of more than ordinary cunning and cleverness, and one of two pounds will tax the angler's skill on a six-ounce rod. They can be taken in the surf of the outside beaches of the islands, on the flood tide, with beach-flea bait, by casting it into the schools with a fly-rod; and this is the best form of fishing for this grand fish. The hooked pompano frequently breaks water among its other manoeuvres to escape the angler, and as a leaper at other times has quite a reputation. I have often had them leap into my boat, both when anchored and moving, but usually when sailing near a school. The name pompano is probably derived from the Spanish word _pampana_, a "vine leaf," owing to its shape resembling somewhat a leaf of some kind of vine; the books say a "grape leaf," to which the pompano has a remote resemblance if the extended fins are taken into account. There is another Spanish word _pampano_, more nearly resembling pompano in sound and spelling. It means "a young vine branch or tendril," and if the aquatic capers and aerial saltations of the pompano when hooked are to be brought into the comparison, they cannot be exceeded by that most intricate dance, the "grape-vine twist," even when performed by the most agile plantation negro. But seriously, when its size is considered, one would have to go far afield, or rather search the waters under the earth, for a better fish for the angler or the epicure. I have seen more pompano about the beaches of Big and Little Gasparilla Keys of Charlotte Harbor, on the Gulf coast, than elsewhere in Florida. On their outside beaches, during the flood tide, the beach-fleas and pompano-shells come rolling in on every wave. The little mollusks disappear beneath the sand in the twinkling of an eye, but the crustaceans are again carried out by the receding wave. And this continues during the first half of the flood tide, during which time schools of pompano are feeding on them. On one such occasion myself and a friend were "flea-fishing" for pompano; that is, we were using fly-rods and very small hooks baited with beach-fleas, which we cast in the same manner as artificial flies. My friend, fishing at the water's edge, often forgot in his eagerness to step back to avoid each "ninth wave," which would wet him to his knees. However, in that warm, sunny clime the involuntary bath did him no harm, and he had his compensation in a basket of fine pompano, which were duly planked for dinner and eaten, bones and all,--for their bones are very soft and semi-cartilaginous. The head of a broiled or planked pompano is a _bonne-bouche_ that once eaten will ever be held in grateful and gratified remembrance. CHAPTER XVII THE CHANNEL FISHES The channels among the reefs and keys from Cape Florida to Key West and vicinity abound with a number of percoid, or perchlike, fishes, belonging to several families. They are mostly of small size, comparatively, but afford good bottom fishing. They are all good food-fishes and find a ready sale in the markets of Key West. Most of them are remarkable for their gay and brilliant coloration. The coralline formation of the keys and reefs renders the use of seines and nets impossible, so that all of the fishing for market is done with hook and line,--usually with sea-crawfish bait, though a few are taken in traps formed of heavy wire. The fishes consist of grunts, snappers, groupers, porgies, etc., and are carried to market alive in the wells of the small vessels known as "smackees." A fleet of larger vessels, mostly schooner-rigged, troll along the keys and reefs for the larger surface-feeding fishes, as kingfish, cero, Spanish mackerel, bonitos, large groupers and snappers, etc. The troll is usually a piece of bacon-skin cut of an elliptical shape to simulate a fish, and is impaled on a codfish hook with a snell of copper wire, and a laid cotton codfish line of a size nearly as large as a lead-pencil. The hooking and hauling aboard of the fish, while under sail, so disables it that it is killed by a blow on the head and carried to market on ice. As all of the grunts, snappers, porgies, and other channel fishes grow only to a foot or two in length, the same tackle may answer for all. The fishing is done in water of varying depth, from a few feet to twenty or more, from an anchored boat. The best plan for the angler who is visiting Key West for the first time is to go out with a market fisherman in his boat and learn by ocular evidence the _modus operandi_ of channel fishing. After that he will be prepared to follow his own devices and fish in the same or an improved way. A stiffish black-bass rod, or the Little Giant rod of seven and one-half feet and eight ounces, a modification of the Henshall black-bass rod, are quite suitable, though the market fishermen use hand-lines altogether. The rest of the tackle needed is a multiplying reel, a braided linen line, size E or F, Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks of various sizes, from Nos. 1 to 3-0, according to the size of the mouths of the different fishes, though No. 1-0 will be found to be a good average size. Sinkers of different weights, from one to six ounces, to meet the strength of the tide, and a strong landing-net must be added. The hooks should be tied on single, strong silkworm fibre. The best bait is the sea-crawfish (_Palinurus_), or spiny lobster, which grows to the size of the common lobster, and is found in the crevices of the coral reefs or among the rocks and shells at the bottom, from whence it is taken by the fish spear called "grains." The flesh is taken from the shell and cut up for bait, and the shell itself is tied to a line and sunk near the bottom to attract the fish. Shrimps are also good bait, as are any of the small fishes, or conchs cut into suitable sizes. Any of the various crabs can also be utilized. The large conchs _Strombus_ and _Pyrula_ are good, and a large one will furnish bait for a whole day. BAIT FISHES For the information of anglers who would like to know something of the small fishes used for bait, their names at least, I think it not out of place to mention them here. The mullet is one of the fishes most frequently utilized. There are several species belonging to the family _Mugilidæ_: the common mullet (_Mugil cephalus_), the white mullet (_Mugil curema_), both of which are abundant in Florida, especially the first named. There is a somewhat rare species along the coasts, but common at Key West, the fan-tail mullet (_Mugil trichodon_). A very abundant but very small species, and one that makes a capital bait for fishes with small mouths, is the whirligig mullet (_Querimana gyrans_). There are several species of sardines belonging to the herring family (_Clupeidæ_). They may be found in all bays along the coasts, going in and out of the inlets with the tide. The most common species are the silver sardine (_Sardinella humeralis_), which has a dark spot at the base of the pectoral fin, and the striped sardine (Sardinella sardina), which has faint streaks along the sides. The anchovies belong to the family _Engraulididæ_, and may be distinguished by their very wide mouths, which open back to the gill-cover. The species all look very much alike; the most common ones are the banded anchovy (_Stolephorus perfasciatus_), with narrow silvery longitudinal band, and from two to three inches long; the big anchovy (_Stolephorus brownii_), which is deeper and grows larger, from four to six inches in length; these two species are mostly confined to the south and west coasts. Another species, also abundant on the east coast, is the silver anchovy (_Stolephorus mitchilli_), which is more silvery or translucent in appearance than the others, with yellowish fins and dotted body. There are a number of crabs that are excellent baits, as the hermit crab (_Eupagurus_), which lives in the cast-off shells of univalve mollusks; fiddler crab (_Gelasimus_), which abounds in myriads on the inside shores of the bays; the spider crab (_Libinia_), which is quite common in shallow water, sometimes covered with bits of weeds, shells, etc.; the common crab (_Cancer_); the lady crab (_Platyonichus_), beautifully spotted; the stone crab (_Menippe_), quite a large crab, with very large claws; the mud crab (_Panopeus_), a small crab and a very good bait. There are a number of crustaceans, commonly called beach-fleas, that are good baits for small-mouthed fishes along the Florida coasts, among which may be mentioned the beach-flea (_Orchestia_); the sand-bug (_Hippa_); the gribble (_Limnoria_); also the shrimp (_Gammarus_); and the prawn (_Palæmonetes_). THE GRUNT FAMILY (_Hæmulidæ_) The grunts have an oblong body, more or less elevated and compressed; head large, its sides usually scaly; mouth low and horizontal, usually curved; sharp or pointed teeth; dorsal fin single, with a marked angle at the junction of the spiny and soft portions; the dorsal spines ten or twelve; anal fin with three spines, the second one the largest; caudal fin concave. The coloration is bizarre and usually brilliant, with the lips and inside of the mouth bright red or scarlet. They are all good pan-fishes, and from their habit of emitting vocal sounds when caught are called "grunts." They feed on crustaceans, small fishes, and the innumerable marine invertebrates that inhabit the coral reefs and coralline rocks. _Hæmulon plumieri._ The Common Grunt. Body moderately elongate; the back elevated and somewhat compressed; head long, the sharp snout projecting; head 2-2/3; depth 2-2/3; eye 5; D. XII, 16; A. III, 8; scales 5-50-17; anterior profile more or less S-shaped; the nape gibbous; mouth very large, the gape curved, maxillary reaching beyond front of eye; lower jaw slightly included; teeth strong, in broad bands, those of the outer series enlarged; antrorse teeth of posterior part of both jaws strong; interorbital space convex; preorbital rather deep; preopercle finely serrate; scales above lateral line much enlarged anteriorly. _Hæmulon sciurus._ The Yellow Grunt. Body oblong, the back not much elevated; head 2-3/4; depth 2-3/5; eye 4; scales 7-53-14; D. XII, 16; A. III, 8; interorbital space convex; preopercle finely serrate; profile nearly straight; snout moderately acute; mouth large, the gape curved, the maxillary reaching a little past front of pupil; lower jaw slightly included; teeth strong; upper jaw in front with about 3 strong canines on each side; front teeth of lower jaw rather strong; blue stripes on body. _Hæmulon album._ The Margate-fish. Body comparatively deep, the back much elevated and compressed; the anterior profile steep; head 3; depth 2-2/3; eye 6; scales 7-46-16; D. XII, 16; A. III, 7; snout pointed; mouth large, the maxillary extending to front of eye; lower jaw included; teeth not very large, in narrow bands; interorbital space strongly convex; preorbital deep; preopercle finely serrate; soft part of anal and dorsal fins covered with thin, translucent scales. _Hæmulon parra._ The Sailor's Choice. Body comparatively deep, the back compressed and arched; anterior profile rather steep and convex; head 3; depth 2-2/3; eye 4; scales 5-50-14; D. XII, 17; A. III, 7; mouth rather small, the maxillary extending to front of eye; teeth in bands, rather strong, the outer large, antrorse teeth of lower jaw well developed; preopercle finely serrate; lower jaw slightly included; interorbital space convex; preorbital rather deep. _Orthopristis chrysopterus._ The Pig-fish. Body ovate-elliptical, somewhat elevated at shoulders, considerably compressed; head 3-1/8; depth 2-3/4; eye 5; scales 10-60-19; D. XII, 16; A. III, 12; snout long and sharp; jaws equal, each with a narrow band of slender teeth, the outer above a little larger; mouth small, the maxillary not reaching to eye; preopercle very slightly serrate above; snout and lower jaw naked, rest of head scaly; dorsal and anal spines enclosed in a deep, scaly sheath; soft rays naked. Anisotremus virginicus. The Pork-fish. Body ovate, the back very much elevated; the anterior profile steep; very much arched at nape; head 3-1/8; depth 2-1/10; eye 4; scales 11-56-17; D. XII, 17; A. III, 10; mouth small, the maxillary extending to anterior nostril; jaws subequal; outer row of teeth enlarged; about 6 gill-rakers. [Illustration THE BLACK GRUNT] [_Hæmulon plumieri_] [Illustration THE RED SNAPPER] [_Lutianus aya_] THE BLACK GRUNT (_Hæmulon plumieri_) The black or common grunt is the most abundant and one of the most popular food-fishes in the vicinity of Key West. It was named by Lacépéde, in 1802, in honor of Father Plumier, an early naturalist, who sent drawings of the fishes of Martinique to the museums of Europe. It belongs to the West Indian fauna, and is abundant near Key West, and not uncommon about the rocks and reefs at the lower end of Tampa Bay and other rocky localities on the Gulf coast of Florida. On the Atlantic coast it is found as far north as Cape Hatteras. The depth of the body is a little more than a third of its length, compressed, with elevated shoulder. The head is as long as the depth of the body, with a large, curved mouth and a pointed and projecting snout. The profile is concave in front of the eye. The jaws are armed with bands of strong and conical teeth, the outer ones largest and the rear ones curving forward. Its color is bluish gray, with the bases of the scales bronze, tinged with olive, forming oblique stripes running upward and backward. The head is golden bronze, with many bright blue stripes, very distinct, a few of which extend to the shoulder. The inside of the mouth is scarlet, becoming lighter, or yellowish, on the jaws. The dorsal fin is grayish, with a yellow border on the spinous portion; the anal fin is gray tinged with yellow; the ventral fins are bluish gray; the pectoral fins are gray with a dusky bar at the base; the caudal fin is plain gray. The common grunt grows usually to a foot in length, though more are caught under that size than over. It is often called "sow grunt" by the market fishermen, in contradistinction to the "boar grunt," as the yellow grunt is often designated by them, wrongly supposing one to be the male and the other the female. While the general remarks on its feeding habits, as given in the paragraph relating to the family characteristics of the grunts, are correct, it may be stated that they are essentially carnivorous, devouring small fishes, crustaceans, and other marine invertebrates that abound on the coralline reefs. They spawn late in the summer, on the rocky shoals and hard, sandy bars, congregating at such times in large schools. As a food-fish it is held in greater esteem than any other fish in the Key West market, and selling from a nickel to a dime for a bunch of about half a dozen, it forms the staple breakfast dish of all Key Westers, who are inordinately fond of it. While assistant chief of the fisheries department of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in 1893, I had among other visitors a young lady friend from Key West, who never before had been away from her island home, having been educated at the convent of Key West. She could not find words to express her delight at scenes so entirely new and novel, and said that some things gave her a better idea of heaven; but there was one thing, she said, that was lacking amidst all the wonders and delights from the four quarters of the globe, and without which everything else paled into insignificance,--"fried grunts for breakfast." I made her happy by escorting her to the Aquarium and showing her the live grunts swimming in a tank, seemingly as much at home as on the coral reefs of Florida. The methods of angling, and the tackle and baits used for grunts, are given in the opening paragraphs of this chapter, to which the reader is referred. THE YELLOW GRUNT (_Hæmulon sciurus_) The yellow grunt was first noticed by Bloch, in 1790, from the West Indies; but owing to a mistake as to its proper identification it was named _sciurus_, meaning "squirrel," by Shaw, in 1803, based on Bloch's description and figure. The name squirrel is in allusion to the grunting noise it emits when captured, which is compared to the barking of that animal. It is abundant in the West Indies and south to Brazil, and is quite common about Key West. The yellow grunt is very similar to the common grunt in the conformation of its body and fins, but has a rather curved profile instead of a depression in front of the eye. The teeth are similar, with about three strong canines on each side. The scales on the upper part of the body are relatively smaller than in the black grunt. Its color is uniformly brassy yellow, with about a dozen longitudinal and distinct stripes of sky-blue, somewhat wavy, extending from the snout to the anal fin; the fins are yellowish; the inside of the mouth is scarlet. It grows to about a foot in length, but occasionally to eighteen inches. It is the handsomest in coloration and appearance of all the grunts, and is often called "boar grunt" by the Key West fishermen. A black-bass bait rod, braided linen line, snelled hooks No. 1-0, with sinker adapted to the depth and current of the water, and sea-crawfish, shrimps, prawns, or cut-fish bait, will be found quite applicable for grunt fishing. Although the yellow grunt was known to science from the West Indies as early as 1790, it was not recorded from the waters of the United States until a century later, when in 1881 I collected it at Key West. This is the more remarkable inasmuch as it is rather common along the keys, and is moreover such a striking, well-marked, and handsome species that it is difficult to imagine how it had been overlooked. The field has, however, been pretty well worked since, and many new species have been recorded. The Florida Keys, like the southern portion of the peninsula, are of recent formation, and are underlaid by oolitic and coral limestones. These coralline rocks are formed by the action of the waves and weather on the calcareous secretions of coral polyps, those beautiful "flowers of the sea" which are still building better than they know on the outlying submerged reefs, and where may be seen those tiny "toilers of the sea," madrepores, astreans, mæandrinas, porites, gorgonias, etc., rivalling in beauty of form and color the most charming and delicate ferns, fungi, mosses, and shrubs. The fishes that frequent the coral reefs are very handsome, both in form and coloration: silvery, rosy, scarlet, brown, and golden bodies, with sky-blue, bright yellow, rosy, or black stripes and bands, or spotted, stellated, and mottled with all the hues of the rainbow; and with jewelled eyes of scarlet, blue, yellow, or black; fins of all colors and shapes, and lips of scarlet red, blue, or silver. THE MARGATE-FISH (_Hæmulon album_) The margate-fish, or margate grunt, is the largest of the family, growing to two feet or more in length and eight or ten pounds in weight, though usually it weighs from two to six pounds as taken to market. It was noticed by Catesby in his "History of the Carolinas," in 1742, and was wrongly identified from his description by Walbaum in 1792. It received its present name from Cuvier and Valenciennes, in 1830, from West Indian specimens; they called it _album_, meaning "white," as it is the lightest in coloration of any of the grunts. It is much esteemed as a food-fish at Key West. It is abundant from Key West to Brazil, being quite common about the Florida Keys, especially in the immediate vicinity of Key West, being usually found in deep water, except when it approaches the shallows to feed on crustaceans, etc. It is rather a warm-water fish. The margate-fish is of much the same proportions, and of similar appearance, as the yellow grunt, but with a more elevated and arching back, and is more compressed. The teeth are in narrow bands, and are somewhat smaller than in the other grunts. The adult fish is whitish, olivaceous on the back, with faint spots on the scales of back and sides. The inside of the mouth is orange; the lips and snout yellowish; the fins dusky greenish; a broad but indistinct band extends along the sides. Younger fish are bluish in coloration of body and fins, with dark parallel stripes below. Somewhat larger hooks, say No. 2-0, and a little heavier line, braided linen, size F, are more suitable for this fish; otherwise the same tackle and baits can be employed as for the other grunts and channel fishes. THE SAILOR'S CHOICE (_Hæmulon parra_) This grunt is sometimes called bastard margaret by the Key West fisherman. The name sailor's choice is often wrongly applied to the pinfish (_Lagodon rhomboides_) and the pig-fish (_Orthopristis chrysopterus_) The sailor's choice was first described by Desmarest, in 1823, from Havana; he named it _parra_ in honor of the Cuban naturalist, Parra. It is a good pan-fish, eight or ten inches long, usually, but sometimes growing to a foot in length. It is abundant from Key West to Brazil. I have taken it from the line of keys south-west of Cape Florida, and along the mainland from Biscayne Bay to Marco and Lemon Bay on the Gulf coast. Its body is of about the same proportions, and of the same general appearance, as that of the yellow grunt, and it grows to about the same size. The radial formula of its fins and size of scales are also much the same. The mouth is smaller, but the teeth are of about the same character. Its color is dull pearly gray, belly grayish, each scale of the body with a distinct olive-brown spot, forming interrupted, oblique, and wavy streaks; fins dusky. The inside of the mouth is not so red as in the other grunts. There is a distinct black spot on the lower edge of the cheek-bone. THE GRAY GRUNT AND FRENCH GRUNT The gray grunt (_Hæmulon macrostomum_) and the French grunt (_Hæmulon flavolineatum_) are not so common about the Florida Keys as the other grunts, but grow to about the same size, and are often taken with them, and with the same baits and the same mode of fishing. THE PIG-FISH (_Orthopristis chrysopterus_) Another pan-fish belonging to the grunt family and common to the waters of Florida, and one much esteemed as a food-fish, is the pig-fish. It is known as hog-fish in Chesapeake Bay, and sailor's choice on the South Atlantic coast. It was described by Linnæus, in 1766, from South Carolina. He named it _chrysopterus_, or "gold fin." Its range extends from the Chesapeake Bay along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts to Florida and Texas, and occasionally it strays as far north as Long Island. It resembles the grunts very much in its general appearance. Its body is rather more than a third of its length, elevated at the shoulder, and compressed. Its head is a third of the length of the body, with a long, sharp snout and a small mouth placed low. There is a narrow band of slender teeth in each jaw, the outer ones in the upper jaw somewhat larger. The color of the pig-fish is light blue above, shading gradually to silvery below; the upper lip is marked with blue; the body scales have a blue centre, the edges with a bronze spot, forming very distinct orange-brown stripes along the rows of scales on the back and sides, those above the lateral line extending obliquely upward and backward, those below being nearly horizontal; the snout, cheeks, and gill-covers have distinct bronze spots, larger than those of the body; the inside of the mouth is pale, the back of the mouth somewhat golden in hue; the dorsal fin is translucent, with bronze spots or shades, the edge of the fin dusky; the other fins are more or less dusky, with yellowish shades. Along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts it resorts to sandy shoals in rather shallow water, but along the Florida Keys it is found also about rocky bars, and on the Gulf coast is often on grassy flats, or wherever crabs, shrimp, beach-fleas, and other crustaceans abound, on which it feeds, principally, though it is also fond of the young fry of other fishes. It is an excellent pan-fish, of delicious flavor, and is a favorite wherever its merits are known. It grows to a length of ten inches, sometimes to twelve or fifteen inches in favorable localities, but in Florida is mostly from six to eight inches in length. It spawns in the spring in April and May. It is much sought after in Chesapeake Bay, and is a favorite food-fish at Norfolk, Virginia, where it is known as hog-fish. It grows there somewhat larger, and is also a favorite fish with anglers. The lightest tackle must be employed for its capture, and hooks Nos. 2 to 3, on gut snells, for it has a small mouth. Sea-crawfish, crab, shrimp, beach-fleas, and other crustaceans are the best baits, though cut conch and fish will answer pretty well. It is a bottom feeder, and sinkers must be used to keep the bait near the fish. THE PORK-FISH (_Anisotremus virginicus_) Another pan-fish of the grunt family (_Hæmulidæ_) is the pork-fish, a handsome and beautifully-marked species. It was named by Linnæus, in 1758, from South America, though why he called it _virginicus_, "Virginia," is not known. It is a tropical fish, its range extending from the Florida Keys to Brazil. It is very abundant in the vicinity of Key West, and is seen in the markets daily. It has a short, compressed body, its depth being half of its length, with the back very much elevated. Its head is short compared with its height, with a very steep profile, slightly convex in front and very much arched at the nape. The mouth is quite small, with thick lips; the jaws are armed with bands of sharp, pointed teeth, the outer row enlarged. The ground color of the body is pearly gray; an oblique black bar, as wide as the eye, extends from the nape through the eye to the angle of the mouth; another broader and jet-black vertical bar extends from the front of the dorsal fin to the base of the pectoral fin; the interspace between the bars is pearly gray, with yellow spots, becoming confluent above; beginning at the vertical bar and extending backward are half a dozen deep yellow, longitudinal, and parallel stripes, the lower ones reaching the caudal fin; all of the fins are deep yellow. The pork-fish resorts to the reefs and coralline rocks, feeding on crustaceans, small marine invertebrates, and small, soft-shelled mollusks, which it crushes with the blunt teeth in its throat. Its usual size runs from half a pound to a pound, but occasionally grows to two pounds. It should be fished for with very light tackle, about the same as used for the pig-fish, but with smaller hooks. No. 5 or 6, on gut snells, and cut-conch bait, small shrimps, and beach-fleas. The pork-fish has been known from the time of Marcgrave, over two centuries ago, from Brazil, and from the West Indies for many years, but was not recorded from the waters of the United States until 1881, when I collected it near Key West. As in the case of the yellow grunt and the lane snapper, it is surprising that such long-described and well-marked and beautiful species should have been overlooked in our own waters until my collection of that year. THE SNAPPER FAMILY (_Lutianidæ_) This family of perchlike fishes is related to the grunts on one hand, and to the groupers, or sea-basses, on the other. Those to be described here are mostly of small or moderate size, but are all good food-fishes and fair game-fishes. They are abundant along the Florida Keys, and with the exception of the red snapper are caught in a similar manner, and with the same tackle and baits, as the grunts. They are characterized by an oblong body more or less elevated and compressed; rough scales, large head and mouth; teeth sharp and unequal; dorsal fin single, with ten or twelve spines; anal fin similar in shape to soft dorsal fin, with three spines; the caudal fin concave. _Ocyurus chrysurus._ The Yellow-tail. The yellow-tail differs from the other snappers in the formation of the skull, the peculiar form of its body, the large, deeply-forked caudal fin, and the presence of pterygoid teeth. Its body is elliptical, with regularly-arched back; head 3; depth 3; scales 7-65-15; D. X, 13; A. III, 9; mouth small, oblique, the lower jaw projecting, maxillary reaching front of orbit; snout pointed; caudal peduncle long and slender; eye small, 5; interorbital space very convex, with median keel; upper jaw with a narrow band of villiform teeth, outside of which is a single series of larger teeth, several in front being caninelike; a large, oval patch of teeth on tongue; an arrow-shaped patch on the vomer; a narrow band of pterygoid teeth in the adult; gill-rakers long and slender, 8 + 21. _Lutianus synagris._ The Lane Snapper. Body oblong and compressed, back arched and slightly elevated; profile almost straight; head 2-3/5; depth 2-4/5; eye 5; scales 8-60-15; D. X, 12; A. III, 8; mouth moderate, maxillary reaching front of orbit; interorbital space gently convex; upper jaw with a narrow band of villiform teeth, outside of which a single series of enlarged ones; lower jaw with villiform band in front only, the row of larger teeth nearly equal in size, none of them canines; vomer and tongue with each a single patch; preopercle finely serrate, with coarser teeth at angle; gill-rakers rather long, 5 + 9; 4 small canines in front of upper jaw. _Lutianus aya._ The Red Snapper. Body rather deep, moderately compressed, the back well elevated, profile steep; head 2-3/5; depth 2-3/5; eye 5-1/2; scales 8-60-15; mouth rather large, maxillary reaching front of orbit; snout rather pointed; interorbital space strongly convex; upper jaw with a narrow band of villiform teeth, and a row of small teeth outside; lower jaw with a single row of small teeth, some of which are almost caninelike; within these is a very narrow band of villiform teeth in front of jaw only; tongue with a broad oval patch of teeth, in front of which a small, irregular patch; vomer with a broad, arrow-shaped patch; preopercle with serrated edge above, lower border dentate; gill-rakers moderate, 8 on lower arch; 4 canines in front of upper jaw. _Lutianus jocu._ The Dog Snapper. Body comparatively deep and compressed; the back elevated and profile straight; head 2-1/2; depth 2-1/2; eye 4-3/4; scales 8-56-15; D. X, 14; A. III, 8; mouth rather large, jaws subequal, maxillary reaching front of orbit; upper jaw with a narrow band of villiform teeth, a single series of larger ones, and 4 canines in front, 2 of them very large; lower jaw with a narrow, villiform band in front only, and a series of larger teeth outside, some almost caninelike; tongue with a single patch of teeth; an arrow-shaped patch on vomer; preopercle finely serrate above, coarser teeth at angle; gill-rakers short and thick, about 9 on lower arch. _Lutianus apodus._ The Schoolmaster Snapper. Body comparatively deep, moderately compressed, the back elevated and profile straight; head 2-1/2; depth 2-1/2; eye 4-1/3; scales 6-43-13; D. X, 14; A. III, 8; mouth large, maxillary reaching front of orbit; snout long and pointed; interorbital space flattish; upper jaw with a narrow band of villiform teeth, a single series of larger ones outside, and 4 canines in front, one on each side very large; lower jaw with a narrow, villiform band in front, an enlarged series outside; tongue with a large, single patch; an arrow-shaped patch on vomer; preopercle finely serrate above; gill-rakers short and thick, about 9 on lower part of arch. THE YELLOW-TAIL (_Ocyurus chrysurus_) The yellow-tail is a very handsome fish, and one of the favorite pan-fishes at Key West. It was named _chrysurus_, or "gold-tail," by Bloch, in 1790, from its description by Marcgrave in his "Fishes of Brazil." Its habitat is from southern Florida to South America. It is abundant in the vicinity of Key West in the channels between the reefs and keys. The yellow-tail is well proportioned, compressed, and elliptical, being regularly curved from head to tail. Its head is as long as the depth of the body, with a pointed snout; the mouth is rather small, with the lower jaw projecting. The color above is olivaceous, or bluish, below violet; a broad, deep yellow stripe runs from the snout, through the eye, and along the middle of the body to the caudal fin; above this stripe there are a number of deep yellow blotches, as if made by the finger tips; below the broad yellow stripe are quite a number of narrow, parallel yellow stripes, with violet interspaces; the iris of the eye is scarlet; the very long caudal fin is entirely deep yellow, and the other fins are bordered with yellow. The yellow-tail associates with the grunts and porgies about the coralline rocks in the channels, feeding on small fishes and crustaceans. Its average size is ten or twelve inches in length and nearly a pound in weight, though it sometimes is taken up to two feet, and three or four pounds. It is quite a good game-fish and very voracious, eagerly taking sea-crawfish, crab, conch, or small fish bait. Some of the large conchs, as _Pyrula_ and _Strombus_, will furnish bait for an entire outing, the animal being as large as a child's forearm. Black-bass tackle, with hooks Nos. 1 to 1-0 on gut snells, will answer for the yellow-tail. THE LANE SNAPPER (_Lutianus synagris_) The lane snapper is another beautiful fish common about the reefs and keys. It was named by Linnæus, in 1758, who called it _synagris_, as it resembled a related fish of Europe (_Dentex dentex_), whose old name was _synagris_. Catesby mentioned the lane snapper in his "History of Carolina," in 1743. It is abundant from the Florida Keys to South America, and not uncommon on the west coast of Florida, as far north as Tampa Bay, and west to Pensacola. The lane snapper resembles very much the yellow-tail in the shape of its body, which is semi-elliptical in outline, compressed, with the back regularly curved from the snout to the tail; its depth is a little more than a third of its length. Its head is as long as the depth of the body; the mouth is large, and the snout pointed. It is rose color, tinged with silver below, with a narrow bluish or greenish border on the top of the back; the belly is white, tinged with yellow; there are deep yellow stripes along the sides, with indistinct, broad, rosy cross bars; the iris of the eye and the lips are scarlet; the cheeks and gill-covers are rosy, with blue above; the pectoral fins are pink, the lower fins yellow, the soft dorsal pink, the spiny dorsal translucent, with yellow border, and the caudal fin scarlet; there is a large and conspicuous dark blotch just below the front part of the soft dorsal fin. The lane snapper feeds on small fishes and crustaceans about the keys and reefs, in rather shallow water. It grows to a foot in length, though usually about eight or nine inches, and is a free biter at the same baits as the yellow-tail. While it is freely conceded that the highest branch of angling is casting the artificial fly on inland waters, and that the fullest measure of enjoyment is found only in the pursuit of the salmon, black-bass, trout, or grayling, it must be admitted that salt-water angling likewise has joys and pleasures that are, as Walton says, "Worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man." And nowhere does salt-water angling offer more charms to the appreciative angler, or appeal to his sense of the curious and beautiful in nature, than along the keys off the southern extremity of the peninsula of Florida. The palm-crowned islets are laved by the waters of the Gulf Stream, as clear and bright and green as an emerald of the purest ray serene. Through their limpid depths are seen the lovely and varied tints of coral polyps, the graceful fronds of sea-feathers and sea-fans in gorgeous hues, and the curious and fantastic coralline caves, amid whose crannies and arches swim the most beautiful creations of the finny tribe, whose capture is at once a joy and a delight. THE RED SNAPPER (_Lutianus aya_) The red snapper was named _aya_ by Bloch, in 1790, that being the Portuguese name for it in Brazil, according to Marcgrave. It was described by Goode and Bean as a new species, in 1878, and named _blackfordi_, in honor of Eugene G. Blackford, of New York, in consideration of his eminent services and interest in fishculture. The red snapper, while not a game-fish, is one of the best known of Florida fishes, inasmuch as it is shipped all over the country as a good dinner fish, its fine, firm flesh bearing transportation well. It is especially abundant in the Gulf of Mexico, in water from ten to fifty fathoms deep, on the "snapper banks," from ten to fifty miles offshore, and thence south to Brazil, occasionally straying north on the Atlantic coast to Long Island. The depth of its body is a little more than a third of its length, being rather deep and compressed, the back elevated and regularly arched from the eye to the tail. The head is large, its length equal to the depth of the body, with a pointed snout, large mouth, and straight profile. The color of the red snapper is a uniform rose-red, paler on the throat; fins all red, the vertical fins bordered with dusky blue; there is a dark blotch under the front of the soft portion of the dorsal fin, except in the oldest and largest fish; the iris of the eye is scarlet. The red snapper, being a deep-water fish, is seldom found along the shores, and is of no importance to the angler. It is a bottom fish, feeding in company with the large groupers on small fishes and crustaceans. It grows to twenty or thirty pounds, but its usual size is from five to ten pounds. It spawns in summer. The commercial fishing for the red snapper is done on the "snapper banks" in very deep water. Strong hand-lines and codfish hooks are used, with cut bait. By the time the fish is brought to the surface from the bottom it is almost exhausted, and would afford no sport to the angler. The bringing of the fish from depths where the pressure of the water is so great, to the surface, where it is comparatively so much less, causes the fish to swell up, and the air-bladder to be so filled that the fish would float; it is therefore pricked with a sharp awl to let out the air, as otherwise the fish would not sink in the well of the vessel in which it is carried alive to port. THE DOG SNAPPER (_Lutianus jocu_) The dog snapper is very similar in shape to the red snapper, but is much smaller and of different coloration. It was named _jocu_ by Bloch, in 1801, from Parra's description, in 1787, _jocu_ being the Cuban name of the fish. It is called dog snapper, owing to its large canine teeth. Its range extends from the South Atlantic coast to Brazil. It is abundant along the Florida Keys, and very rarely strays along the Atlantic coast northward, but has been taken on the Massachusetts coast in summer. It has a robust, somewhat compressed body, its depth a third of its length, and the back elevated over the shoulder. Its head is large, somewhat longer than the depth of the body, with a straight profile and a rather long and pointed snout. The ground color of the body is dull red or coppery, dark olivaceous or bluish on the back, with about a dozen lighter-colored vertical stripes across the body; the cheeks and gill-covers are red, with a pale area from the eye to the angle of the mouth; there is a row of small, round blue spots from the snout to the angle of the gill-cover, also a bluish or dusky stripe; the upper fins and the caudal fin are mostly orange in color; the lower fins are yellow, and the iris of the eye red. The dog snapper, like the other snappers, feeds on small fishes and crustaceans. It grows to a foot in length and to a pound or two in weight. It is a good food-fish, selling readily in the markets. It is quite gamy and voracious, and with light tackle is worthy of the angler's skill. Hooks No. 1-0 or 2-0 on gut snells, and sea-crawfish, or a small minnow, are good baits. THE SCHOOLMASTER (_Lutianus apodus_) The schoolmaster snapper was named by Walbaum, in 1792, based on Catesby's description and figure of the schoolmaster in his "History of Carolina," but in his figure he omitted the pectoral fins, for which reason Walbaum named it _apoda_, meaning "without a foot." Its range extends from the Florida Keys to Brazil, and is abundant in the vicinity of Key West, where it is seen daily in the markets. Under favorable conditions of temperature it has been taken on the Massachusetts coast. The schoolmaster is very similar to the dog snapper in its general form, but differs greatly in coloration. Its body is rather deep and compressed, its depth being more than a third of its length, and the back is more elevated than in the dog snapper. The head is large, as long as the depth of the body, with a large mouth; the profile is straight from snout to the nape, thence regularly arched to the tail; the snout is long and pointed. The predominating color is orange, olivaceous on the back and top of the head, with eight or nine vertical bars across the body, equidistant, of a pale or bluish white color, the wider interspaces being red; the cheeks and gill-covers are red, with a row of small blue spots from the snout across the cheeks, just below the eye; all of the fins are yellow, more or less shaded with red. The schoolmaster grows to about the same size as the dog snapper, usually from eight to ten inches, sometimes to a foot in length, and a pound or two in weight. It feeds on small fishes, crabs, and other crustaceans, and is a good food-fish. It is a fairly good game-fish, and on light tackle fights with vigor and considerable resistance. Sproat hooks Nos. 1-0 and 2-0 are quite suitable, and should be tied on gut snells. A sinker adapted to the strength of the tide must be used in the deep-water channels. Sea-crawfish, anchovies, or whirligig mullets are good baits. The mangrove snapper (_Lutianus griseus_) and the mutton-fish (_Lutianus analis_) are larger snappers and better game-fishes. They are described in another volume of this series. THE PORGY FAMILY (_Sparidæ_) The porgies of Florida belong to the family _Sparidæ_ previously described, but not to the same genus as the northern porgy, as the scup is sometimes called. They are characterized by a deep, compressed body, humpbacked, with a large head and deep snout, and with a knob in front of the eye. The mouth is small, with strong, caninelike teeth and molars. _Calamus bajonado._ The Jolt-head Porgy. Body oblong, compressed and elevated over the shoulders; head 3; depth 2-2/5; eye 3; scales 7-54-17; D. XII, 12; A. III, 10; anterior profile evenly curved; mouth moderate, maxillary not reaching front of eye; snout long and pointed; teeth strong, conical; anterior teeth enlarged, 2 or 3 on each side in the upper jaw, and 3 or 4 on each side in the lower; molars in 3 series in the upper, and 2 in the lower jaw; dorsal fin single with slender spines. _Calamus calamus._ The Saucer-eye Porgy. Body oblong, elevated more than the other porgies; head 3-1/3; depth 2; eye 3-3/4; scales 9-54-16; D. XII, 12; A. III, 10; anterior profile steep; outline of snout slightly curved; mouth small, maxillary not reaching front of eye; outer teeth strong, 10 or 12 in number, the outer one in each jaw, on each side, caninelike; dorsal spines rather strong. _Calamus proridens._ The Little-head Porgy. Body oblong and much elevated; head 3-1/4; depth 2-1/3; eye 4; scales 9-58-16; D. XII, 12; A. III, 10; anterior profile steep and straight; mouth moderate, maxillary scarcely reaching front of eye; anterior teeth of outer series slightly longer and more robust than those of the cardiform band; on each side of the upper jaw one of these teeth becomes much enlarged, caninelike, directed obliquely forward and downward, and strongly curved, the upper surface concave; there are usually 7 teeth of the outer series between these two canines; no evident accessory series of molars; dorsal spines slender and high. _Calamus arctifrons._ The Grass Porgy. Body oblong, but little elevated; head 3-1/4; depth 2-2/5; eye 4-1/2; scales 6-48-13; D. XII, 12; A. III, 10; anterior profile unevenly curved, very convex before the eye; head narrow above; dorsal outline not forming a regular arch; a rather sharp angle at nape; preorbital deep; canine teeth, 8 in upper jaw and 10 in lower. THE JOLT-HEAD PORGY (_Calamus bajonado_) This is the largest and most abundant of the porgies. It was described by Bloch, in 1801, who named it _bajonado_, after the Cuban name given by Parra in his "Natural History of Cuba." [Illustration THE JOLT-HEAD PORGY] [_Calamus bajonado_] [Illustration THE LADY-FISH] [_Albula vulpes_] [Illustration THE COBIA] [_Rachycentron canadus_] It is not certain what the name is intended to signify. It may allude to the "bayonet-like," interhæmal bones, or to _bajio_, meaning a "sandbank" or "shoal," in allusion to its habitat. The jolt-head is abundant along the Florida Keys, especially in the vicinity of Key West, where it is one of the commonest market fishes; its range extends to the West Indies. It has a short, deep body, compressed, its depth being half its length; its back is more regularly arched than in the other porgies, or not so humpbacked. The head is large, with a long, pointed snout, and mouth moderate in size; the profile is more regularly curved than in the other porgies. The predominating color is dusky or bluish, with brassy reflections; the upper fins are pale or bluish, more or less mottled with darker shades; the lower fins are plain; the cheeks are coppery in hue. The jolt-head resorts to the rocks and reefs, as well as to hard, sandy shoals, feeding on small fishes, crustaceans, and soft-shelled mollusks. It grows usually to eight or ten inches, but often to two feet in length, and six or eight pounds in weight. It is a good food-fish, much in favor with the people of Key West, and is always one of the commonest fishes in the markets. It spawns in the summer. It is very voracious, taking almost any kind of bait greedily. It is caught in company with the grunts and snappers, and on the same tackle, which should be light. Hooks Nos. 1 to 2 are large enough, Sproat-bend preferred on account of its short barb with cutting edges and strong wire. Sinkers adapted to the tide and depth of water must be used. While catching porgies at a lively rate one day I asked my boatman, a Bahama negro, why the big porgy was called "jolt-head." He answered in the cockney dialect peculiar to Bahama fishermen: "Vell, you see, sir, 'e 'as a big 'ed and an 'ump back, and 'e butts the rocks like a billy-goat, a-joltin' off the snail-shells and shrimps, and 'e goes a-blunderin' along like a wessel that 'as a bluff bow and a small 'elm. 'E 'as more happetite than gumption, and swallers anythink that comes 'andy, like the jolt-'ed or numbskull that 'e is. 'E is werry heasy to ketch and werry good to heat." THE SAUCER-EYE PORGY (_Calamus calamus_) This porgy is called "saucer-eye," owing to its having a larger eye than the other porgies. It was first described by Cuvier and Valenciennes, in 1830, from the West Indies. They named it _calamus_, meaning "quill" or "reed," from the quill-like bones (interhæmal) that articulate with the spines of the anal fin. It is abundant in the West Indies, and is common about the Florida Keys, but not so plentiful as the jolt-head or little-head porgies. [Illustration TAKING BONITO BY TROLLING OFF BLOCK ISLAND] It is very similar in conformation to the jolt-head, but is more humpbacked, being quite elevated above the shoulder. The body is short, its depth about half its length. Its head is short and deep, with a thin and gibbous profile, and small mouth. Its color is silvery with bluish reflections; the scales golden, forming longitudinal stripes, with pearly-bluish interspaces; the cheeks and snout are purplish, with round brassy spots; the fins are pale, blotched with orange; the iris of the eye is golden. The saucer-eye grows to twelve or fifteen inches in length, and is considered a good pan-fish at Key West, commanding a ready sale. It is found in the same situations as the other porgies, grunts, and snappers, and is equally voracious, taking the proffered bait eagerly. The tackle for this porgy is the same as for the others, consisting of a light rod, multiplying reel, braided linen line, size F or G, three-foot leader, Sproat-bend hooks. No. 1 or 2, on gut snells, with sinker in accordance with the depth of the water and the strength of the tide. Almost any bait will answer, as sea-crawfish, cut conch, or fish. THE LITTLE-HEAD PORGY (_Calamus proridens_) This species was first described by Jordan and Gilbert, in 1883, from Key West. They named it _proridens_, meaning "prow tooth," owing to its projecting canines. It is abundant in the West Indies, and is quite common about Key West and the neighboring keys. It is one of the smallest and prettiest of the porgies, and is called little-head in contradistinction to the jolt-head or big-head porgy. It is almost identical in shape to the saucer-eye porgy, both in head and body. It is brighter in color than the other porgies, being quite silvery with iridescent reflections; the scales of the upper part of the body have violet spots, forming longitudinal streaks; those on the lower part have pale orange spots; the sides have several dark bands; the snout and cheeks have horizontal, wavy stripes of violet-blue; the dorsal fin is violet, with orange border; the anal fin is blue; the caudal fin has an orange band. It is of similar habits to the other porgies, and found with them, but is less common. It is a good pan-fish, growing only to six or eight inches in length. The little-head porgy, though small in size, is equally as voracious as the other porgies, and is well worth catching if only to admire its beauty. The same tackle will answer as for the others, or more especially that mentioned for the saucer-eye, and the same baits can be employed. My Bahama negro boatman, alluded to under the jolt-head, continued his dissertation on the porgies somewhat in this wise: "Now, sir, the little-'ed porgy is a cute little chap; 'e gits to vind'ard o' the big-'ed, hevry time. 'E doesn't butt 'is 'ed aginst the rocks, a-knockin' the shells, but 'e 'as two long teeth like gouge-chisels, and 'e jist scoops hoff the crawlin' things from the rock-patches as 'andsome as you like. Little-'ed little wit; big-'ed not a bit!" THE GRASS PORGY (_Calamus arctifrons_) This pretty porgy was first described by Goode and Bean, in 1882, from Pensacola, Florida. They named it _arctifrons_, meaning "contracted forehead," owing to the narrow forehead. It has a more extended range in the Gulf of Mexico than the other porgies, being common in grassy situations from Pensacola to Key West; it is not known from the West Indies. The general outline of the grass porgy is very similar to that of the saucer-eye and little-head porgies, though the back is not quite so elevated; the profile is unevenly curved, being quite convex in front of the eye. The mouth is slightly larger than in the saucer-eye. Its color is olivaceous, with dark spots, and several dark vertical bars across the body; many of the scales have pearly spots; there are several yellow spots along the lateral line; the cheeks are brownish, with yellow shades; the upper fins are barred or spotted; the lower fins are paler. It is the smallest of the porgies, but one of the prettiest. It grows to six or eight inches in length. It is mentioned incidentally with the others of its family in order that it may be known to anglers who are so fortunate as to catch it and admire it. The same tackle and bait employed for the others are suitable. It is found usually in grassy situations. CHAPTER XVIII MISCELLANEOUS FISHES THE LADY-FISH (_Albula vulpes_) _Albula vulpes._ The Lady-fish. Body rather elongate, little compressed, covered with rather small, brilliantly-silvery scales; head naked; snout conic, subquadrangular, shaped like the snout of a pig, and overlapping the small, inferior, horizontal mouth; head 3-3/4; depth 4; scales 9-71-7; D. 15; A. 8; maxillary rather strong, short, with a distinct supplemental bone, slipping under the membraneous edge of the very broad preorbital; premaxillaries short, not protractile; lateral margin of upper jaw formed by the maxillaries; both jaws, vomer and palatines, with bands of villiform teeth; broad patches of coarse, blunt, paved teeth on the tongue behind and on the sphenoid and pterygoid bones; opercle moderate, firm; preopercle with a broad, flat, membraneous edge, which extends backward over the base of the opercle; gill membranes separate; no gular plate; a fold of skin across gill membranes, its free edge crenate; belly flattish, covered with ordinary scales, not carinate; eye large, with a bony ridge above it, and almost covered with an annular adipose eyelid. The lady-fish, or bone-fish, is the only representative of the family _Albulidæ_. It has long been known to science through the early voyagers to the southern coasts of America. It was first described by Marcgrave in his "History of Brazil," in 1648, and afterward by Catesby, in his "History of the Carolinas," in 1737, and named _vulpes_, or "fox," by Linnæus, in 1758, from a specimen taken at the Bahamas. It inhabits the sandy shores of all warm seas and is, perhaps, the most cosmopolitan of all game-fishes, being known from Asia, Arabia. North and South America, the Pacific Islands, etc. It is common on the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific in the United States, and is especially abundant in Florida waters, occasionally straying in summer as far north as Long Island. The lady-fish is allied to the herring tribe. It has a long, gracefully-shaped body, nearly round, or but little compressed; its depth is a fourth of its length; it has a long head with a projecting, piglike snout, overlapping the small mouth, which is well armed with teeth; both jaws and the roof of the mouth in front have bands of brushlike teeth, with patches of coarse, blunt, paved teeth on the back of the mouth and tongue. Its color is bluish green above, with metallic reflections; the sides are very bright and silvery, with faint streaks along the rows of scales; the belly is white, and it feeds on small fishes and crustaceans. Its spawning habits are not well understood, though the young pass through a metamorphosis, being band-shaped, with very small head and loose, transparent tissues. I have found them abundant on the Gulf coast of Florida. The lady-fish grows to a length of from one to three feet, and to a weight of from one to twelve pounds, though it is usually taken from two to five pounds. It is a good food-fish, highly esteemed at Key West and in the Bermudas by those who know it best. For its size it is one of the gamest fishes of the seacoast. When hooked it fights as much in the air as in the water, continually leaping above the surface like an animated silver shuttle, to which I likened it more than twenty years ago. It is now becoming better known to anglers who visit Florida in the winter season, who recognize in it much more enjoyable sport on light tackle than they can obtain with the heavy tools required for the tarpon and jewfish. A black-bass rod, or the Little Giant rod of eight ounces, is light enough, as a heavier fish than the lady-fish is apt to be hooked. A good multiplying reel and fifty yards of braided linen line, size F, and Sproat hooks, No. 1 or 2, on gut snells, will be found eminently suitable. No sinker is needed, as the fishing is done on the surface, though a small brass box-swivel may be used to connect the snell and line, as in black-bass fishing. A leader is not necessary, but it may be used if thought best. The bait may be a beach-flea, or a very small, silvery fish, as a sardine, pilchard, or mullet, though a small shell squid, or a trolling-spoon of the size of a nickel, with a single hook, may be employed in lieu of live bait, and is quite successful if kept in constant motion. The minnow is to be hooked through the lips and cast as in black-bass fishing, reeling it in slowly on or near the surface. The fishing may be done from any convenient place near a pass or inlet on the flood tide. A sand-spit at the entrance, or a boat anchored just within the inlet, are desirable places, though good fishing is sometimes available from the end of a pier in a tideway. Fine fishing may also be had at other stages of the tide about offshore reefs and shoals. I have taken the lady-fish, with both fly and bait, in Biscayne Bay, in Cards and Barnes sounds, along the keys to Key West, and at nearly every inlet on the Gulf coast, as far north as Pass-a-Grille, above Tampa Bay, and usually found it associated with the ten-pounder. The lady-fish, when hooked, will probably astonish the angler who is attached to one for the first time, by its aërial gyrations and quick movements. But the rod must be held at an angle of forty-five degrees, so as to maintain a taut line, notwithstanding its constant leaping; for if any slack line is given, it is almost sure to shake out the hook. And as the leaps are made in such quick succession, the only safe plan is to keep the rod bent, either in giving or taking line, or when holding the fish on the strain of the rod. The lady-fish will often take a gaudy black-bass fly, in which event a black-bass fly-rod or a heavy trout fly-rod will come handy, with corresponding tackle. A heavy braided linen line, size D, is better suited for salt water than the enamelled silk line, and will cast a fly nearly as well. The flies advised for the Spanish mackerel will answer as well for the lady-fish, though I have found the silver-doctor and coachman both very taking toward dusk, which is the most favorable time for fly-fishing, though the first half of the flood tide and the last half of the ebb are usually both favorable times about the inlets. Twenty years or more ago I called the attention of northern anglers to the lady-fish, or bone-fish, and the ten-pounder, or bony-fish, as game-fishes of high degree, and accorded equal praise to both species as to gameness. I have never been able to convince myself as to which is entitled to the palm; but they are both good enough, and comparisons are indeed odious as between them. I am glad to note that they are coming to the front and their merits at last recognized. Of late years northern anglers are having great sport with the lady-fish on Biscayne Bay; but judging from their communications in the sportsman's journals, they are confusing the lady-fish with the ten-pounder. This is easily accounted for, inasmuch as they are usually of about the same size, and have very much the same general appearance in form and bright silvery coloration; and moreover there is a confusion attending their vernacular names, as the lady-fish is sometimes known as bony-fish. It should be remembered that the lady-fish has an overhanging, piglike snout and larger scales, while the ten-pounder has a terminal mouth with the jaws about equal, and smaller scales. Moreover, the bony-fish, or ten-pounder, has a bony plate under the lower jaw, like the tarpon, which is absent in the lady-fish. Both are cosmopolitan, inhabiting the warm seas of both continents. They have been known to science for a century and a half, and have been described by many naturalists from different parts of the world. The current specific names were both bestowed by Linnæus. Catesby, in 1837, called the lady-fish (_Albula vulpes_) of the Bahamas "bone-fish," while Captain William Dampier, one of the early explorers, called the bony-fish (_Elops saurus_) of the Bahamas "ten-pounder." The fishermen of Key West usually know the lady-fish as bone-fish, and the ten-pounder as bony-fish. The best plan for anglers is to adopt the names lady-fish and ten-pounder for them, and relegate or ignore the names bone-fish, bony-fish, and skip-jack. THE TEN-POUNDER (_Elops saurus_) _Elops saurus._ The Ten-pounder. Body elongate, covered with small, silvery scales; head 4-1/4; depth 6; eye 4, large; scales 12-120-13; D. 20; A. 13; dorsal fin slightly behind ventrals, its last rays short, depressible into a sheath of scales; anal fin smaller, similarly depressible; pectoral and ventral fins moderate, each with a long, accessory scale; opercular bones thin, with expanded membraneous borders; a scaly occipital collar; gular plate 3 to 4 times as long as broad; pseudobranchiæ large; lateral line straight, its tubes simple. The ten-pounder, or bony-fish, belongs to the same family, _Elopidæ_, as the tarpon, and both are allied to the herring tribe. The ten-pounder was first described by Linnæus, in 1776, from specimens sent to him from South Carolina by Dr. Garden. He named it _saurus_, or "lizard," but there is nothing lizard-like about the ten-pounder. I imagine that Dr. Garden sent the fish under the name of "lizard," from hearing it called by its Spanish name of "lisa," which is pronounced much like lizard. The ten-pounder was mentioned by some of the old voyagers to the West Indies and Carolinas. Like the lady-fish, the ten-pounder is a cosmopolitan, existing in the warm seas of both hemispheres. In the United States it is common to the southern portions of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Gulf of Mexico. In the general aspect and contour of its silvery body the ten-pounder has much the appearance of the lady-fish, and has been often confounded with it by anglers. Its body, however, is more slender than that of the lady-fish, with smaller scales and a very different head and mouth; the lady-fish has a piglike, overhanging snout, while the lower jaw of the ten-pounder projects slightly. The depth of the body of the ten-pounder is only about a sixth of its length, and the body is not much compressed, being nearly round. The head is long and pointed, with a very wide mouth, with upper and lower lips nearly equal, or terminal. The eye is large, hence one of its names, big-eyed herring. There are many series of small and sharp cardlike teeth on the jaws, tongue, and roof of the mouth. There is a bony plate beneath the lower jaw. The color on the back is greenish or bluish, the sides silvery and bright, and belly white; the top of the head is greenish, with bronze reflections; the cheeks have a golden lustre; the lower fins are tinged with yellow, the others dusky. Its habits are not unlike those of the lady-fish, and they often associate. It feeds principally on crustaceans and also on small fishes. It frequents sandy shoals and banks in shallow water at high tide, also grassy situations where its food abounds. Its breeding habits are not well understood, though, like the lady-fish, its young pass through a larval form, and are ribbon-shaped. It grows to a length of two feet or more, and weighs several pounds, sometimes ten or more. It is quite bony, and is not considered a good food-fish, but excels as a game-fish, being equal to the lady-fish in this respect. The same tackle as that recommended for its congener, the lady-fish, answers just as well for the ten-pounder, and it can be fished for in the same locations. It frequents shallow water on the grassy banks and sandy shoals rather more than the lady-fish, and can be sought there accordingly, as well as at the inlets when the tide is making. Both the ten-pounder and the lady-fish are warm-water fishes. They are to be found in Biscayne Bay and along the neighboring keys during winter, and as the water becomes warmer they extend their range northward on both coasts. After the disastrous frosts that occurred during the winters of 1886 and 1895 in Florida, I saw windrows of dead ten-pounders, lady-fishes, and tarpon on the beaches about Charlotte Harbor. They had become chilled from the sudden lowering of the temperature. I have caught both the ten-pounder and lady-fish as far north as Tampa Bay on the west coast of Florida, and Indian River Inlet on the east coast. My fishing was mostly done from the points of inlets and passes, on the flood tide, and usually with the artificial fly, in shallow water, the time and places mentioned being the most favorable for fly-fishing. At other times I have fished on the shallow bars and grassy banks, using such crustaceans as fiddlers, beach-fleas, and shrimps for bait, alternated with small minnows. When beach-fleas are used a fly-rod is preferable and the hook should be smaller than where other bait is employed; No. 4 is about right, if of the Sproat or O'Shaughnessy pattern, they being of larger and stronger wire than other patterns. If beach-fleas are used with a bait-rod, a small sinker must be added to give weight to the cast. The ten-pounder snaps at the bait or fly in the manner of most fishes, and is off immediately in a wild whirl, skimming through the water, if shallow, in a way to astonish the angler who hooks one for the first time. Then follows a series of brilliant leaps and aërial contortions that commands the admiration of the coldest-blooded fisher. The lady-fish, however, owing to the position of its mouth, being underneath its projecting snout, does not at first take the bait with the vim and snap of the ten-pounder, but apparently nibbles or mouths it for a while, but when hooked displays the same energy and desperate efforts to escape as its congener. The consistent angler may truly exclaim with Pope:-- "How happy could I be with either. Were t'other dear charmer away." THE SNOOK, OR ROVALLIA (_Centropomus undecimalis_) _Centropomus undecimalis._ The Snook. Body elongate, with elevated back and straight abdomen; head 3; depth 4; eye 7; scales 9-75-16; D. VIII-I, 10; A. III, 6; head depressed, pikelike, the lower jaw projecting; villiform teeth in bands on jaws, vomer, and palatines; tongue smooth; dorsal fins well separated; preorbital faintly serrated; subopercular flap extending nearly to dorsal fin; maxillary to middle of eye; gill-rakers 4 + 9. The snook belongs to the family _Centropomidæ_, which embraces a dozen or more species, most of which inhabit the West Indies and the southern Pacific coast, and are all good game-fishes. The snook was first described by Bloch from Jamaica, in 1792; he named it _undecimalis_, or "eleven," as the soft dorsal fin has eleven rays. The name snook was mentioned as the name of this fish by the early explorers, among whom was Captain William Dampier, who also mentioned several others, as "ten-pounders," "cavallies," "tarpoms," etc. Snook is derived from "snoek," the Dutch name for the pike, which it resembles slightly in the shape of the head, though it is more like the pike-perch in its structure and appearance. On the east coast of Florida this fish is known as the snook, and on the Gulf coast as rovallia, the latter name being a corruption of its Spanish name _robalo_, by which it is known in Havana. It is sometimes called sergeant-fish, from the black stripe along its sides. It is common along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, from Texas to the West Indies, and is especially abundant in the bays and lagoons of both coasts of Florida, often ascending the rivers to fresh water. It has a long, robust, and nearly round body, its depth being a fourth of its length; the back is slightly elevated and arched. The head is long and depressed, or flat, and is more than a third of the total length of the body; the mouth is large, with a projecting lower jaw; the gill-cover is very long; there are brushlike teeth on the jaws and the roof of the mouth, but no sharp or conical teeth as in the pike or pike-perch. The color of the back is olive-green, the sides silvery, and the belly white; there is a distinct and very black stripe along the side, following the lateral line from the head to the caudal fin; the dorsal fins are dusky; the lower fins are yellowish. The snook is a very voracious fish, feeding on fishes, crabs, and other crustaceans, and resorts to sandy shoals and grassy flats where its food is found. It grows to a length of two or three feet, and a weight of twenty or thirty pounds. It is a fair food-fish, though not held in much favor in Florida where so many better food-fishes are common. It is better flavored if skinned instead of scaled. It is a strong, active game-fish, that, when hooked, starts off with a rush that is dangerous to light tackle, and its subsequent manoeuvres require very careful handling when it is of a large size. It has smashed many light rods in the hands of anglers who were not aware of its pugnacity. It will take any kind of natural bait, and rises well to the artificial fly. A rather heavy black-bass rod or a light striped-bass rod is required for the large fish of the bays and estuaries, though ordinary black-bass tackle will answer for those of less weight at the mouths of streams, or in fresh water, to which it often resorts. A good multiplying reel and fifty yards of braided linen line are sufficient, though one hundred yards will not be amiss, as large fishes of other species are very apt to be hooked in Florida waters. Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks, Nos. 1-0 to 3-0, on heavy gut snells are required, with a brass box-swivel to connect the snell with the reel line; a sinker may be used or not, depending on the strength of the tide, though the fishing is usually practised in quiet water, and not in the tideways. A small fish, mullet or sardine, or fiddler-crab bait, will prove very enticing to the snook, though the minnow is better adapted for casting. The fishing is much like black-bass fishing in fresh waters, and the snook takes the bait in its mouth in much the same way as a bass, starting off at once with a great commotion if near the surface. Its desperate and vigorous spurts and rushes are apt to put one's tackle in jeopardy if the fish is large, and it must be handled with caution and skill. For fly-fishing, a rod of nine or ten ounces is not too heavy where the fish run large. A heavy braided linen line, size D or E, is best for casting the fly in salt water. Black-bass flies of showy patterns, on hooks No. 1 or 2, as coachman, silver-doctor, polka, oriole, red ibis, professor, etc., will answer. The most favorable time is on the flood tide near the inlets, or toward evening if in quiet coves or lagoons. The fly should be repeatedly cast and then allowed to sink a foot or two. If fishing from a boat, it must be kept in the deeper water, and the casts made under the mangroves, or to the edges of sand-spits, shoals, or mud-flats, which abound in all bays on the west coast of Florida. The snook is easily captured by trolling with hand-line and the spoon or minnow, though it is a questionable style of sport at best. Along the edges of shoals and mud-flats and over grassy banks the snook will be found at home. A landing-net should always be used for any kind of fishing with the fly. THE TRIPLE-TAIL (_Lobotes surinamensis_) _Lobotes surinamensis._ The Triple-tail. Body oblong, deep, compressed and elevated; head 3; depth 2; scales 47; head small; snout short; mouth moderate, oblique, with thick lips; profile of head concave; upper jaw very protractile; the lower, the longest; maxillary without supplemental bone; jaws with narrow bands of villiform teeth, in front of which is a row of larger conical teeth, directed backward; no teeth on vomer or palatines; preopercle strongly serrate; maxillary reaching middle of orbit; scales around eyes small, those on opercles large; eye small; small scales running up on the base of soft dorsal, anal, and caudal fins; caudal rounded; D. XII, 15; A. III, 11; soft rays of dorsal and anal fins elevated, of nearly equal size, and opposite each other; anal spines graduated; branchial rays 6. The triple-tail belongs to the family _Lobotidæ_. It is allied to the snapper family, but differs in having no teeth on the roof of the mouth. It was first described by Bloch, in 1790, from Surinam. South America. He named it _surinamensis_, from the name of the locality whence his specimens were procured. There is another species on the Pacific coast, _Lobotes pacificus_, that is quite abundant at Panama, where it is known as berrugate. The triple-tail is known in all warm seas. Its range on the Atlantic coast extends from South America north to Cape Cod, though it is not abundant. I have taken it on both the east and west coasts of Florida. At Tampa it is called black snapper, and in South Carolina it is known as black perch. I have never heard it called flasher, which is said to be its name in the markets of New York. It is a short, thick, robust fish, nearly half as deep as long, with an elevated back, and with the ventral outline corresponding with its dorsal curve. The head is a third of the length of the body, its profile concave, the snout prominent, and the lower jaw projecting; the mouth is of moderate size, with thick lips. The color of the back is dark, or greenish black, the sides silvery gray, sometimes blotched and tinged with yellow; the fins are dusky gray or yellowish. In life these colors are very bright, but after death they become almost black. It feeds on small fishes, mussels, and crustaceans and grows to a length of two or three feet, weighing from ten to fifteen pounds, though its usual size is not more than one-half of this length and weight. Its breeding habits are unknown. It is found in northern waters only during the summer months, but from South Carolina to Florida it is common all the year. It is a strong and vigorous fish, but rather slow and sluggish in its movements, and not remarkable for game qualities, though it pulls steadily and strongly when hooked. It will take shrimp, clam, fiddler, or small fishes as bait. A light striped-bass chum rod is very suitable for the triple-tail when of good size. A multiplying reel and fifty yards of braided linen line, hooks No. 1-0 or 2-0, on heavy gut snells, and a brass box-swivel, make up the rest of the tackle. A sinker will probably not be needed as it is usually found in quiet coves about sandy shoals or grassy flats. I have taken it on both coasts of Florida, though it is more common on the east coast. I have also caught it in Chesapeake Bay and near Charleston, South Carolina, but never over five pounds in weight, though I have seen it taken in nets up to about ten pounds. Its short and rounded caudal fin, with the soft portions of the dorsal and anal fins, together, give the appearance of three tails, hence the name triple-tail, by which it is generally known. THE COBIA (_Rachycentron canadus_) _Rachycentron canadus._ The Cobia. Body elongate, fusiform, subcylindrical, covered with very small, smooth, adherent scales; head 4-1/4; depth 5-2/3; D. VIII-I, 26; A. II, 25; head broad, low, pikelike, the bones above appearing through the thin skin; mouth wide, nearly horizontal, the maxillary reaching front of eye; both jaws, vomer, palatines, and tongue with bands of short, sharp teeth; lower jaw longest; premaxillaries not protractile; preopercle unarmed; two dorsal fins, the spines of the first depressible in a groove; soft dorsal long and low, somewhat falcate, similar to, and nearly opposite, the anal; caudal fin strongly forked; no caudal keel; no finlets; gill-rakers short and stout; pectorals broad and falcate. The cobia, or sergeant-fish, is the only fish of its family, _Rachycentridæ_. It was first described by Linnæus, in 1766, from a specimen sent to him by Dr. Garden from South Carolina; it is allied to the mackerel tribe, and is found in all warm seas in the old and new worlds. On the Atlantic coast it is common from the Chesapeake Bay to Florida, but occasionally strays north to Cape Cod in the summer. It is rather rare on the west coast of Florida, but common on the east coast. It is a long and round-bodied fish, quite gracefully formed, with a depth of about one-fifth of its length. The head is broad and flat, something like that of the pike, with a wide mouth, and with jaws, roof of mouth, and tongue armed with bands of short, sharp teeth; the lower jaw projects. The back is olive-brown, or dusky, the sides lighter and silvery, and the belly white; a distinct broad and very dark stripe extends from the upper jaw and through the eye to the caudal fin, with an indistinct one above and below, and parallel with it. Owing to this dark stripe the cobia is sometimes called sergeant-fish, thus confounding it with the snook. The habits of the cobia are not unlike those of the pike, or mascalonge, of fresh waters, in that it is solitary and lies in wait for its prey, and is almost as rapacious. It lies under the mangroves and cocoa-plum bushes along Indian River and other streams of the east coast of Florida, watching for stray fishes and crabs on which it feeds. It is commonly seen of a length of two or three feet, but grows considerably longer, with a weight of fifteen to twenty pounds. The largest I have seen was at Key West; it was fully five feet long. It is not uncommon in the Chesapeake Bay, and like most of the mackerel tribe it is a fairly good food-fish. It spawns in summer, but its breeding habits are not fully understood. As might be imagined from its shape and habits, it is a good game-fish, and quite strong and vigorous on the rod. It requires all of the angler's skill to land it safely, especially when it is taken about the mangroves, among whose arching and numerous roots it is sure to take refuge if it can do so. It will take a small fish bait or a crab, going for it with a pikelike rush. I once took one on Indian River with a large red ibis fly, but never succeeded in catching another with the same lure. A strong, rather heavy rod is necessary for the cobia, which the Key West fishermen call cobi-ó. A striped-bass chum rod of natural bamboo is a good and serviceable tool for the work, with multiplying reel and braided linen line, to which is affixed a Sproat hook, No. 3-0, on gimp snell, by a brass box-swivel. A sinker should not be used about the mangroves. A fiddler-crab, a mullet, or other small fish is hooked through the lips, and is cast from a boat to the edge of the mangroves or other bushes, in the same way as in casting for mascalonge in northern waters. I have never tried casting with a spoon, which might be successful, but a minnow is better by far. The cobia takes the bait with a fierce lunge, and turning quickly endeavors to return to his lair, a proceeding that must be thwarted by the angler at all hazards to his rod or tackle, for once under the arching roots of the mangroves he is as good as gone. The boat must be rowed to open water at once, while a strong strain is maintained by the rod on the fish. With open water the angler can play his fish with leisure, though he will be severely taxed by the struggles of as game a fish as he is likely to meet during a winter's sojourn in Florida. THE SPOTTED WEAKFISH (_Cynoscion nebulosus_) _Cynoscion nebulosus._ The Spotted Weakfish. Body rather elongate, compressed; head 3-1/2; depth 4-1/2; scales 10-70-11; D. X-I, 26; A. II, 10; eye 7; snout long and acute; mouth large, maxillary reaching to posterior edge of eye; lower pharyngeals narrow, each with 7 or 8 series of short teeth, the inner enlarged; maxillary, preorbital, and lower jaw naked; canines in upper jaw strong; lower jaw without canines, other teeth in narrow bands, sharp, but closely set; membrane of preopercle serrate, the bone entire; pseudobranchiæ well developed; caudal lunate; soft rays of dorsal and anal scaleless; gill-rakers short and thick, 4 + 7. This fish is closely allied to the northern weakfish, and belongs to the same family, _Sciænidæ_. It is known very generally in Florida as trout, salt-water trout, or sea-trout, owing to its spots. It is, of course, not a trout at all, and these names should be set aside; moreover, the name sea-trout is preoccupied by the sea-run brook-trout of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Its present specific name, _nebulosus_, or "clouded," was bestowed by Cuvier and Valenciennes, in 1830, displacing the earlier and better name _maculatus_, or "spotted," conferred by Dr. S.L. Mitchill, in 1815, for reasons that it is unnecessary to refer to here. It is abundant from Virginia to Florida, and along the Gulf coast to Texas. It occasionally strays as far north as New Jersey. It is almost the counterpart of the common weakfish in the form of its body, the depth of which is about a fourth of its length, and with a similar head, eye, and mouth, but with somewhat smaller scales, and a few less rays in the second dorsal fin. Its mouth is large, with narrow bands of sharp teeth on the jaws, and two long canine teeth in the upper jaw. Its color is bluish gray on the back, with steely reflections, the sides are silvery and the belly white. The upper half of the body has numerous black spots, as large as the pupil of the eye, with smaller ones on the soft dorsal and anal fins; the other fins are plainer, and the anal fin is dusky. The spotted weakfish is a better food-fish, and also a better game-fish, than its northern cousin. It is abundant in the bays of Florida during the entire year, often ascending the streams to fresh water. Its usual weight is from two to four pounds, often of six to eight, and sometimes of even ten pounds or more. It appears in schools in March and April, often in company with the Spanish mackerel, and runs into brackish water for the purpose of spawning. It spawns in the spring; the eggs are buoyant, quite small, about thirty to the inch, and hatch in two days. It feeds on small fishes and crustaceans. All things considered, it is one of the best game-fishes of Florida. It is a surface feeder and takes the artificial fly eagerly, as well as natural bait, or the artificial squid and trolling-spoon. With light tackle it affords good sport, being a strong and determined fighter. It is a great favorite with all anglers who are acquainted with its merits. When of the usual weight of from two to four pounds, black-bass tackle is very suitable and serviceable in rod, reel, line, hooks, or flies, though a rather heavy braided linen line is better adapted for salt water than a silk one. To be more explicit, an eight-ounce rod, multiplying reel, line size F, Sproat hooks Nos. 2-0 to 3-0 on gut or gimp snells, will be found to be just about right for bait-fishing. For fly-fishing, a rod of eight ounces, click reel, braided linen line, size E, leader of three or four feet, single gut, and black-bass flies such as silver-doctor, red ibis, Abbey, soldier, oriole, coachman, etc., on hooks Nos. 1 to 2, will be found to answer in skilful hands. A heavier rod may be used when the fish run larger, and also flies on hooks a size or two larger. Very small phantom minnows, spoons, or squids may be often used with success when the fish are running in schools in the spring. Fishing, either with fly or bait, can be practised with good results at flood tide from the end of long piers that extend to deep water, or at the points of inlets during the running season. The piers at Port Tampa and St. Petersburg, on Tampa Bay, also at Mullet Key and Egmont Key, or Pass-a-Grille, in the same vicinity, are famed fishing resorts in March and April. I prefer to fish from a boat moored to the pier, rather than from the pier itself, as the fish are not so likely to see one, and they are more conveniently landed. During the winter the best fishing will be found in the bays and bayous, or in the streams, in the vicinity of sand-shoals or mud-flats, at almost any stage of the tide, which usually rises but a foot or two in the bays of the west coast. At the inlets and passes, at the first of the flood and last of the ebb tide, the fishing is also good during the winter months. The spotted weakfish takes its prey at the surface with a snap of its jaws that is quite audible, especially at night when one's yacht is at anchor. It takes the angler's fly or bait in the same way. It will remind him forcibly of the bite of a large brook-trout, and its manner of resistance when hooked is very much the same as with that fish--one reason for the name sea-trout. The fishing is especially good in Tampa and Sarasota bays, and the upper portion of Charlotte Harbor, on the west coast; and on the east coast at the mouths of streams entering Halifax River. Mosquito Lagoon, or Indian River. THE DEEP-SEA WEAKFISH (_Cynoscion thalassinus_) This species was first described by Dr. Holbrook, in 1859, from the coast of South Carolina. He named it _thalassinus_, or "pertaining to the sea," from its supposed habit of living in deep water. It is either a rare fish or it has been confounded with the common weakfish. It has been recorded from several places on the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts, in Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi. It is supposed to inhabit the deep water of the sea and Gulf, though this is by no means certain. Its form is very similar to the spotted weakfish, with a more pointed snout and somewhat larger eye; otherwise it is much the same. Its color is brownish above, lighter below; the middle of the sides is marked with many dark dots; there is a dark blotch on the upper part of the cheek; the first dorsal fin is black, the second dorsal and anal fins are dusky, and the other fins pale. The same remarks as to fishing for the spotted weakfish will apply as well to this species, if the opportunity should occur to the angler. It is a doubtful species at best, and may eventually prove to be an aberrant form of the spotted weakfish. THE BERMUDA CHUB (_Kyphosus sectatrix_) _Kyphosus sectatrix._ The Bermuda Chub. Body ovate, somewhat compressed; head 3-3/4; depth 2-1/8; scales 10-55-16; D. XI, 12; A. III, 11; head short, with blunt snout; mouth small, maxillary reaching front of eye; each jaw with a series of narrow incisors, implanted with compressed conspicuous roots posteriorly; behind these a narrow band of villiform teeth; fine teeth on vomer, palatines, and tongue; teeth 35 to 40 on each side; preopercle weakly serrate; top and sides of head finely scaled; interorbital region gibbous, below which point snout is truncate; soft dorsal and anal very low; second anal spine highest; caudal well forked, the lower lobe longest; gill-rakers long; dorsal spines depressible in a groove of scales; small ctenoid scales entirely covering the soft portions of the vertical fins, and extending up on the paired fins. The chub belongs to the family of rudder-fishes, _Kyphosidæ_. It was noticed as _sectatrix_ by Catesby in his "History of the Carolinas," in 1738, and was so named by Linnæus in 1758. _Sectatrix_ is the feminine of _sectator_, meaning "one who follows," in allusion to its habit of following vessels. Its range is along the South Atlantic coast to the West Indies, sometimes straying as far north as Cape Cod in the summer. It is common on the west coast of Florida. It has an oblong, elliptical body, its depth being more than a third of its length. The head is short, with a blunt snout and small mouth, and a curved profile. There are well-developed incisor teeth in each jaw, with peculiar horizontal bases. Its color is bluish-gray, with steely lustre; the sides have numerous narrow, indistinct, yellowish or brassy stripes, alternating with bluish ones; there is a pale stripe below the eye, and a yellowish one above and below it; the fins are dull grayish. The chub feeds on barnacles and other small mollusks, and is found wherever they abound, sometimes in rather deep water. Its usual size is six to ten inches, weighing from one to three or four pounds, but it occasionally grows to fifteen or eighteen inches in length in favorable locations. Its spawning habits have not been studied. It is an excellent pan-fish. Light tackle is needed for the chub and pin-fish, both being usually found together. The hook should be small but strong, with gimp snell; Sproat hooks, No. 1 or 2, are very suitable. The best bait is fiddler-crab or hermit-crab. It is quite a game little fish. I was once staying for a few days' fishing at the Quarantine Station on Mullet Key, in Tampa Bay. The station is built on piles in water twenty feet deep. There was a trap-door in the floor of one of the rooms, through which many kinds of fish could be seen swimming about in the very clear water. These fishes could be readily taken with the hook or the spear, as they were unable to see any one in the dark room above. I was much interested watching the chub and sheepshead pinching off the barnacles from the piles with their chisel-like teeth. A dozen could be easily taken in as many minutes with fiddler bait, and the table was kept well supplied with chub, which was the favorite food-fish during my sojourn. THE ANGEL-FISH (_Chætodipterus faber_) _Chætodipterus faber._ The Angel-fish. Body much elevated and compressed, its outline nearly orbicular, the anterior profile nearly vertical; head 3; depth 1 to 1-1/2; scales 60; D. VIII-I, 20; A. III, 18; jaws about equal; no teeth on vomer or palatines; teeth on jaws slender, somewhat movable; preopercle finely serrate; two dorsal fins, somewhat connected; vertical fins falcate in the adult; first soft ray of dorsal filamentous; ventral fin with a large accessory scale. There are a number of angel-fishes in Florida, remarkable for their bizarre and beautiful coloration, but of no importance to the angler as they do not often take the baited hook, their very small mouths and weak teeth being only adapted for feeding on the minute organisms about the coral reefs. The common angel-fish, or spade-fish, is more sombre in hue than the others, and belongs to a different family, _Ephippidæ_; it has a somewhat larger mouth, and is more widely distributed. It was described by Broussonet, in 1782, from Jamaica, who named it _faber_, or "blacksmith," though why is difficult to imagine, except that it is dark in its general hue, with smutty cross bars. It is very abundant from the South Atlantic coast to South America, and is not uncommon, occasionally, as far north as Cape Cod. It is very common on the east and west coasts of Florida. [Illustration THE ANGEL-FISH] [_Chætodipterus faber_] [Illustration THE TURBOT] [_Balistes carolinensis_] It has a short, very deep body, nearly round in outline, and very much compressed; it is almost as deep as long. Its head is short and deep, with its profile nearly vertical. The mouth is small, with slender, movable teeth, on jaws only; the soft dorsal and anal fins are quite large and winglike, extending far backward nearly to the tail; they are quite scaly, which adds much to their thickness and stiffness; the caudal fin is broad and nearly square. The general color is usually gray or slate color, often bluish with iridescent tints; there are several dusky, broad vertical bars across the body, becoming obsolete or faint with age. It feeds on small marine organisms, and grows to a length of two feet, occasionally, though its usual size is ten or twelve inches, and average weight from one to three or four pounds. It is an excellent food-fish, though its good qualities in this respect are not generally known. It spawns in the spring. It is usually taken in seines in the bays of the Gulf coast, and salted with mullet and sheepshead by the fishermen. It can be caught by the angler with a very small hook, No. 5 or 6, and cut clam or conch bait. It is a fair game-fish on light tackle, which may be the same as advised for the Bermuda chub. THE PIN-FISH (_Lagodon rhomboides_) _Lagodon rhomboides._ The Pin-fish. Body elongate, elliptical; head 3-1/5; depth 2-1/2; eye 4; scales 10-65-17; D. XII, 11; A. III, 11; mouth moderate, maxillary not reaching front of orbit; head flattened; snout pointed; profile not very steep; 4 incisors in each jaw, all deeply notched; two series of molars in each jaw; dorsal fin single, with high spines; caudal fin deeply forked. The pin-fish, also called sailor's choice and bream in some localities, belongs to the family _Sparidæ_, and is closely related to the sheepshead of that family, having incisor and molar teeth. It differs from it in the conformation of the skull. The pin-fish was first described by Linnæus, in 1766, from specimens sent to him by Dr. Garden from South Carolina. He named it _rhomboides_, meaning "rhomboid," from the shape of its body. It is abundant on the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts, extending south to Cuba, and occasionally north to Cape Cod. It is found in all bays on the east and west coasts of Florida. Its body is symmetrical, being rather evenly curved on both dorsal and ventral lines, and rather deep; its head is large, with a depression in front of the eye. Its color is olivaceous, darkest on the back, with bluish silvery sides, and narrow horizontal stripes of blue and gold, alternating, and six faint, broad vertical bars; it has a dark spot on the shoulder at the top of the gill-cover; the dorsal fin is bluish with gilt edge; the anal fin is bluish with yellow band; the caudal fin is yellow, faintly barred; the ventral fins are yellowish; the pectoral fins are plain. It is a pretty fish, and is usually abundant wherever found. It feeds on small mollusks and barnacles, resorting to old wharves and about the mangroves where such food abounds. It grows to a length of six or eight inches, and though small, it is a good pan-fish. It spawns in the spring. The same light tackle used for the pig-fish and pork-fish can be utilized for the pin-fish, with small, strong hooks, as Sproat bend, No. 4 or 5, on gut snells. The ends of piers and wharves, in comparatively shallow water, are favorable localities for fishing. THE SQUIRREL-FISH (_Holocentrus ascensionis_) _Holocentrus ascensionis._ The Squirrel-fish. Body oblong, moderately compressed, the back a little elevated; head 3-2/3; depth 3-2/5; eye 3; scales 5-50-7; D. XI, 15; A. IV, 10; head compressed, narrowed forward; opercle with a strong spine above, below with the edge sharply serrated; preopercle with a strong spine at its angle; mouth small, little oblique, with the lower jaw projecting somewhat; eye excessively large; upper lobe of caudal fin the longest; soft dorsal fin pointed, as high as the body; third anal spine very strong, as long as longest anal ray. The squirrel-fish belongs to the family _Holocentridæ_, the species comprising that family having very rough or spinous scales, a single dorsal fin, deeply divided, with the spines very tall; the caudal fin deeply forked; the anal fin with four spines; and a very large eye. The squirrel-fish belongs to the West Indian fauna, ranging from the Florida Keys to South America. It was first described by Osbeck, in 1771, from Ascension Island, who named it for that locality. It is not uncommon along the reefs, where I have taken it a number of times. Its body is oblong, moderately compressed, its depth about a third of its length, with the back slightly elevated, and the ventral outline nearly straight. Its mouth is small, the eye enormously large, and the caudal fin deeply forked. Its color is bright crimson, with a darker shade on the back, and a somewhat lighter tint below, with silver streaks along the sides. The fins are also red, some bordered with olive; the head is red above, with an oblique white bar running back and down from the eye. It feeds about the reefs on small fishes and marine invertebrates, and grows to two feet in length, occasionally, but is usually found smaller. It is a good food-fish and sells at sight in the market. It is a remarkably handsome and attractive fish in appearance. In one of Stockton's stories, John Gayther, the gardener, tells of the curious and beautiful things to be seen on a coral reef in the tropics, with the aid of a long box with a glass in the end. His description applies just as well to the vicinity of the Dry Tortugas, where I have often viewed the wonders of the sea-floor through a sponge-glass, a wooden pail with a glass bottom:-- "Where the water is so clear that with a little help you can see everything just as if it were out in the open air,--bushes and vines and hedges; all sorts of waving plants, all made of seaweed and coral, growing in the white sand; and instead of birds flying about among their branches, there were little fishes of every color: canary-colored fishes, fishes like robin-redbreasts, and others which you might have thought were blue jays if they had been up in the air instead of down in the water." THE TURBOT (_Balistes carolinensis_) _Balistes carolinensis._ The Turbot. The fishes comprising the family _Balistidæ_ are characterized by an ovate body, much compressed; small and low mouth, with separate incisor teeth; eye very high; gill opening a small slit; the absence of ventral fins; the dorsal fins widely separated, the first with but 1 to 3 spines. The turbot has a very deep compressed body, covered with thick, rough plates or scales; head 3-1/4; depth 1-3/4; eye small; scales about 60; about 35 scales in an oblique series from vent upward and forward; D. III, 27; A. 25; third dorsal spine stouter than the second and remote from it; plates on head similar to those on body; caudal lobes produced; soft dorsal high; ventral flaps large, supported by several pungent spines; lateral line very slender, undulating, and very crooked, showing only when scales are dry; a groove before the eye; larger plates behind the gill opening. The turbot, or leather-fish, belongs to the family _Balistidæ_, or trigger-fishes. It was first described by Gmelin, in 1788, from Carolina, from one of Dr. Garden's specimens, Gmelin being a coadjutor of Linnæus, to whom the specimen was sent. The locality from which the type specimen was sent accounts for its name. The turbot, as it is called by the Key West fishermen, is an inhabitant of tropical waters, and is abundant on the South Atlantic coast and along the Florida Keys; it is known also from the Mediterranean Sea. Like all of the trigger-fishes it has a curious form and appearance. It is as deep as long, and slants both ways from the dorsal fin above and from the ventral flap below, presenting somewhat of a diamond shape. The head is triangular, and the fins are thick and leathery. The first dorsal spine is locked when erect by the second, or "trigger." The soft dorsal and anal fins are opposite each other, and are of similar size and shape. The color is olive-gray, or slate color, with some purplish spots on the back; two obscure cross bars are under the second dorsal fin; a ring of blue spots alternating with greenish streaks are about the eye; there are violet marks on the sides of the snout; the first dorsal is spotted and clouded with bluish; the second dorsal has pale yellowish spots, with rows of blue ones, separated by greenish reticulations; the anal fin is colored like the second dorsal; the pectoral fins are bluish with olive spots. The leather-fish, or turbot, resorts to rocky shoals and coral reefs, feeding on the small marine organisms that are abundant in such localities. Nothing is known of its breeding habits. It grows to a foot in length and is considered a good food-fish by the people of Key West. The thick skin and rough scales are pared off together with a sharp knife by the fishermen when delivered to a customer. It is caught, with the grunts, porgies, etc., in the channels among the keys and reefs with the baited hook, and also in wire traps. Very small hooks must be used for the turbot, as it has a very small mouth. Cut crawfish, conch, or barnacles are good baits. CONCLUSION In closing this account it occurs to me to say that the angler who has a genuine love for the finny tribe, and who has never visited the sunny waters of Florida, has in store an experience of joy and delight in the wonderful variety of its fishes. Some idea may be formed of their number from the fact that I have collected nearly three hundred species in the fresh and salt water of that sub-tropical wonderland. And the fishing lasts the year round, and is always good, except when an unusually cold "norther" is blowing. The warm-water species, like the tarpon, lady-fish, and ten-pounder, are more plentiful, and extend their range farther northward in the summer. At that season all of the inlets and passes of both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts abound with them; but the winter visitor will find them in Biscayne Bay, Barnes Sound, Cards Sound, and south-west along the keys to the Dry Tortugas. The brackish water species will be found all winter in the bays and estuaries of either coast. A just idea of the fishing resources of Florida twenty years ago--and it is much the same today--may, perhaps, be gathered from the following excerpts from my "Camping and Cruising in Florida":-- "At flood-tide the channels under the mangroves teem with redfish, groupers, and snappers, while near the beds of coon oysters are schools of sheepshead and drum. In fact, all of the passes and inlets of the Gulf coast are fairly alive with fishes, from the mullet to sharks and sawfish. While lying in his bunk, one can hear all night long the voices of the deep, under and around him. "The hollow, muffled boom of the drumfish seems to be just under one's pillow; schools of sparoid fishes feeding on shell-fish at the bottom, sounds like the snapping of dry twigs on a hot fire; while a hundred tiny hammers in the hands of ocean sprites are tapping on the keel. Then is heard the powerful rush of the tarpon, the blowing of porpoises, and the snapping jaws of the sea-trout among the swarms of mullet, which, leaping from the surface by thousands, awake the watery echoes like showers of silvery fishes falling in fitful gusts and squalls. "Sanibel Island, at the entrance of Caloosa Bay and opposite Punta Rassa, is renowned for its fine fishing. The angler can here fairly revel in piscatorial abandon and cover himself with piscine glory and fish scales. If ichthyc variety is the spice of the angler's life, Sanibel and its sister keys are the Spice Islands. Sharks, rays, and devil-fish, tarpon and jewfish, redfish, snappers and groupers, Spanish mackerel and kingfish, sea-trout, bonito and cavallies, ladyfish and sergeant-fish, sheepshead and drum, a host of smaller fry--spots, grunts, and porgies, and the ever-present and ubiquitous catfish--can here be jerked, and yanked and snaked, and pulled and hauled, until the unfortunate angler will lament that he was ever born--under the last but not least of the zodiacal signs." * * * * * The foregoing excerpts relate to fishing on the Gulf coast, but on the east coast, while the variety of fishes is not so great, the angler will find enough and to spare, and many that are worthy of his best efforts. Large-mouth black-bass are plentiful in Tomoka River, near Ormond on the Halifax, and in Elbow Creek, Turkey Creek. Sebastian River, Taylor's Creek, and the St. Lucie River, all tributaries of Indian River. At the mouths of these streams, brackish-water fishes will be found in more or less abundance, comprising most of the species inhabiting the Gulf coast. Some of the best localities are at Daytona. New Smyrna, Rock Ledge, Indian River Inlet, Gilbert's Bar, and Jupiter Inlet. Still farther south the fishing is much better, notably at Lake Worth, and on Hillsboro' and New rivers. Mangrove snappers, bluefish, amber-jacks, and barracudas are especially abundant south of Indian River Inlet, more so than on the Gulf coast. In all of the fresh-water lakes in the interior of the state the angler will be amply rewarded, as large-mouth black-bass, calico bass, warmouth perch, and bream are in most of them. As a matter of fact, one can hardly go amiss for some kind of fishing in Florida, wherever there is water, salt or fresh, provided one proceeds with patience and intelligence, and with a due regard for the amenities of the gentle art. Perhaps the queer descriptions and homely comparisons of some of the fishes as given by my negro boatman from the Bahamas, whom I have before mentioned, may not be uninteresting. I always employed him when possible, for he was a good fisherman and sailor, and had a never-ending fund of anecdotes; and being a close observer, he had a good general idea of the fishes of the locality. I always encouraged him in his quaint and original remarks about fishes, and in this way obtained considerable knowledge of their habits from this faithful Achates. Some of his observations, as I remember them, and which seem very odd in his Bahamian lingo, were as follows:-- "Vell, sir, it's curious 'ow some fish is made; but w'atever their model in length, beam, and draft, there is some good reason vy they is built so." "Yes," I would answer, "they are all endowed by Nature with the shape best fitted for their mode of life and environment." "Vell, 'wironment or not, as you say, and I'm not gainsayin' it, there's as much diff'rence in their model as atween a man-o'-war 'awk and an 'ummin'-bird. Now, sir, just look at the stingaree and the wipporee; they is flat as pancakes, and goes a-skimmin' along like a turkey buzzard, or a-wabblin' like a jolly-boat in the breakers, and then they flops down on a sandbank like a flounder, when feedin', 'cause their mouth is hunderneath like a shark. And they crawls along on their belly a-gobblin' hup the periwinkles and fiddlers, and crounches 'em vith a set of teeth like a pair o'mill-stones." "Yes," I assented, "the rays are curious creatures, and have very remarkable teeth." "Now, on the hother 'and, sir, look at the moonfish. They is all length and draft and no beam, like the 'ind weel of a vaggon; it couldn't cast a shadder if it was facin' the sun. And the angel-fish 'aven't much more beam to swear by. Now, sir, hall these slimjims 'ave small mouths and pinchers for teeth, and goes a-nosin' 'round the rocks, and a-vorkin' of theirselves thro' the narrow crannies, and a-pinchin' hoff the coral-bugs and sea-lice. Now, sir, a flounder is wicey wersy from a moonfish, it 'asn't hany draft, and don't carry any sail to speak of, and so it 'ides in the sand a-waitin' for sumpthin' to turn hup in the vay o'grub." "That's true," I would say, "they lead a very lazy, humdrum life, and don't hustle much for a living." "But for a real racin' yacht," he would continue, "give me the kingfish, or Spanish mackerel, or boneeto; they ketches their food on the run and jump; and speakin' o'jumpin', sir, look at the tarpon, and bone-fish, and skipjack; they is the kankeroos o' the sea." "Many fishes," I would observe, "have their analogues; that is, they seem to bear some fancied resemblance, either in habits or appearance, to some object or animal of the land." "Vell, sir, it's as true as gospel; a man is like a fish out o' water; 'e puffs like a porpus and drinks like a fish. And the butterflies are the yellow grunts and pork-fish and little snappers and cockeyed pilots; and the red snappers and squirrel-fish are the fillimingoes and pink curlews; and the nigger-fish and conies is the le'pards; and the blowfish and puffers is the 'edge'ogs and porkupines. And then there's the poll-parrots, red, blue, yellow, and green, from the puddin'-wife to slippery-dick; if they'd vings like the flyin'-fish, we'd put 'em in cages." "True, enough," I would assent; "and up north we have fish that go into hiding and sleep all winter, like the bears; and some that make nests for their eggs, and guard them, and take care of their young ones like a hen broods her chicks. And in some countries there are fish that crawl out on the land, and climb trees like squirrels." He listened to this apparently very doubtfully, and frowned fiercely, but kept silent until he filled and lighted his pipe; then, after scanning the horizon, he said meekly:-- "I think we'll be goin' 'ome, sir; it looks werry squally in the sou' east." INDEX _Albula vulpes_, ladyfish, 355, 361. _Ambloplites rupestris_, rock-bass, 2, 52. Anchovy, banded, 320, big, 320, silver, 320. Angel-fish, 384, description, 385, tackle and fishing, 386. Angling, fresh-water, 341. salt-water, 341. _Anisotremus virginicus_, pork-fish, 323, 334. _Aplodinotus grunniens_, fresh-water drum, 232. _Archoplites interruptus_, Sacramento perch, 2, 57. _Archosargus probatocephalus_, sheepshead, 251, 252. Arctic grayling, 176. coloration, 177, 178. description, 177, 178. _Argyrosomus artedi sisco_, cisco, 204, 207. Artificial flies, 20, 21. rules for, 21. Artificial key to pike species, 121, 122. Bachelor, 80. _Balistes carolinensis_, turbot, 390. Banded pickerel, 121, description, 154. tackle and fishing, 155. Bank lick bass, 73. Barb, 221. Bar-fish, 80. Bass, bank lick, 73. big-fin, 74. black, large-mouth, 30. black, small-mouth, 3. brassy, 90. calico, 73. family, 85. fresh-water striped, 86. grass, 73. Lake Erie, 74. rock, 52, 115. sea, 115. sea, Gulf, 119. sea, southern, 118. silver, 73. strawberry, 73. striped, 96. white, 86. white lake, 86. yellow, 90. Bastard margaret, 330. Bastard weakfish, 221. description, 221. habits and habitat, 222. Beach-fleas, 321. Bermuda chub, 382. description, 382. tackle and fishing, 383, 384. Besugo, 231. Big-fin bass, 74. Bitter-head, 74. Black-bass, small-mouth, 3. description, 1-6. gameness, 10-15. Black-bass [_continued_] habits and habitat, 7-9. tackle and fishing, 15-29. Black-bass, large-mouth, 30. description, 31. gameness, 34, 35. habits and habitat, 32-43. spawning and nesting, 33-43. tackle and fishing, 36-52. Blackfish, 115. Black grunt, 323. description, 323. tackle and fishing, 326. Black harry, 115. Black sea-bass, 115. Black sunfish, 58. Black will, 115. Blue bream, 62. Bluefish, 115. Blue gill, 62. Blue perch, 264. Blue sunfish, 62. description, 62. tackle and fishing, 64. _Bodianus fulvus_, nigger-fish, 287, 300. Bone-fish, 355, 361. Bonito, 282. description, 282. tackle and fishing, 283. Bony-fish, 361. Boy and tobacco-box, 67. Boyhood days, 72. Bream, blue, 62. copper-nosed, 62. red-breast, 68. Bridge perch, 74. Bubbler, 232. Burgall, 264. _Calamus arctifrons_, grass porgy, 348, 353. _Calamus bajonado_, jolt-head porgy, 347, 348. _Calamus calamus_, saucer-eye porgy, 348, 350. _Calamus proridens_, little-head porgy, 348, 352. Calico-bass, 73. description, 74. habits and habitat, 75. tackle and fishing, 75-78. Campbellite, 80. _Cancer_, common crab genus, 320. Cape May goody, 231. _Carangidæ, cavalli_ family, 306. _Carangus crysos_, runner, 306, 307. _Carangus latus_, horse-eye jack, 306, 310. Carp, German, 236. leather, 237. mirror, 237. scale, 237. Catfish, blue, 247. channel, 244. chuckle-head, 247. eel, 247. family, 244. forked-tail, 247. white, 245. willow, 247. Cavalli family, 306. _Centrarchidæ_, sunfish family, 1. _Centropomus undecimalis_, snook, 366. _Centropristes ocyurus_, Gulf sea-bass, 119. _Centropristes philadelphicus_, southern sea-bass, 118. _Centropristes striatus_, sea-bass, 96, 115. Cero, 278. description, 278. habits and habitat, 278, 279. tackle and fishing, 279-281. _Chænobryttus gulosus_, warmouth, 2, 58. _Chætodipterus faber_, angel-fish, 384. Channel catfish, 244. description, 245. tackle and fishing, 245-247. Channel fishes, 316. tackle and bait, 317, 318. Chincapin perch, 74. Chogset, 264. Chopa blanca, 231. Chub, 231. Cisco, 207. description, 208. tackle and fishing, 209, 210. _Clupeidæ_, herring family, 319. Cobia, 373. description, 374. tackle and fishing, 375, 376. Cobió, 375. Commercial fishing, Key West, 316, 317. Common sunfish, 69. description, 70. tackle and fishing, 71-73. Conchs, 318. Conclusion, 393. Coney, 286, 299. description, 299. tackle and fishing, 300. Copper-nosed bream, 62. Coral fishes, 328. polyps, 328. reefs, 327, 389, 390. Coralline formation, Florida reefs, 316. _Coregonus williamsoni_, Rocky Mountain whitefish, 203, 204. _Coregonus williamsoni cis-montanus_, 204, 205. Crab, common, 320. fiddler, 320. hermit, 320. lady, 320. mud, 320. spider, 320. stone, 320. Crappie, 73, 79-80. description, 80, 81. tackle and fishing, 82, 83. Croaker, 226, 232. description, 226, 227. tackle and fishing, 228. Crocus, 227. Croppie, 73, 80. Cunner, 263, 264. description, 264. tackle and fishing, 265, 266. _Cynoscion nebulosus_, spotted weakfish, 376. _Cynoscion nothus_, bastard weakfish, 221. _Cynoscion regalis_, weakfish, 214, 215. _Cynoscion thalassinus_, deep-sea weakfish, 381. Cypress trees, giant, 61, 62. _Cyprinidæ_, minnow family, 236. _Cyprinus carpio_, German carp, 236. Darky and catfish, 248. Deep-sea weakfish, 381. description, 381. tackle and fishing, 381. Diplectrum formosum, sand-fish, 287, 303. Dog snapper, 344. description, 344. tackle and fishing, 345. Drum family, 213, 232. fresh-water, 232. Eastern pickerel, 149. description, 149, 150. tackle and fishing, 151, 152. _Elops saurus_, ten-pounder, 361. _Engraulididæ_, anchovy family, 319, 320. _Epinephelus adscensionis_, rock hind, 286, 295. _Epinephelus guttatus_, red hind, 286, 297. _Esocidæ_, pike family, 120. _Esox americanus_, banded pickerel, 121, 154. _Esox lucius_, pike, 121, 137. _Esox nobilior_, mascalonge, 120, 121, 122. _Esox reticulatus_, eastern pickerel, 121, 149. _Esox vermiculatus_, western pickerel, 121, 153. _Eupagurus_, hermit crab genus, 320. _Eupomotis gibbosus_, common sunfish, 3, 69. Fascination of the float, 71. Fishes not sensitive to pain, 114. Fishing through ice, 145, 146. with the cork, 72. Flasher, 371. Flatfish, 266. Float, fascination of, 71. Florida Keys, 341. Flounder, 263, 266. description, 266, 267. tackle and fishing, 268. Fresh-water drumfish, 232, description, 232, 233. tackle and fishing, 234, 235. Frozen fish reviving, 78, 79, 147. Gag, 285, 287. description, 288. tackle and fishing, 289-290. _Gammurus_, shrimp genus, 321. Gaspergou, 232. _Gelasimus_, fiddler crab genus, 320. Generals Sheridan and Stager, 77. German carp, 236. description, 236-238. tackle and fishing, 238-243. Giant cypress trees, 61, 62. Goggle-eye, 53. perch, 74, 80. Goody, 228. Cape May, 231. Grass-bass, 73. Grass porgy, 353. description, 353. tackle and fishing, 354. Grayling, Arctic, 176. description, 176, 177. fishing, 178. Grayling, English, 174. fishing, 191, 197-201. Grayling, Michigan, 178. fishing, 179. scarcity of, 179-181. Grayling, Montana, 181. description, 184, 185. gameness, 185, 186. propagation of, 194, 195. tackle and fishing, 188-193. Gribble, 321. Grouper family, 285. yellow-finned, 286, 294. Grunt, black, 323. boar, 327. common, 321, 323. family, 321. French, 331. gray, 331. margate, 329. sow, 324. white, 329. yellow, 322, 326. Gulf sea-bass, 119. description, 119. habits and habitat, 119. Gymnosarda pelamis, oceanic bonito, 283. Hæmulidæ, grunt family, 321. Hæmulon album, margate-fish, 322, 328. _Hæmulon flavolineatum_, French grunt, 331. _Hæmulon macrostomum_, gray grunt, 331. _Hæmulon parra_, sailor's choice, 322, 330. _Hæmulon plumieri_, black grunt, 321, 323. _Hæmulon sciurus_, yellow grunt, 322, 326. Hannahills, 115. Hard-tail, 309. Henshall rod, 25. Hind, brown, 296. John Paw, 296. red, 286, 297. rock, 286, 295. spotted, 296. _Hippa_, sand-bug genus, 321. Hog-fish, 331, 333. _Holocentrus ascensionis_, squirrel-fish, 388. Horse-eye Jack, 306, 310. description, 310. tackle and fishing, 310. Hybrids, 309. Ichthyophagous dog, 284. _Ictalurus anguilla_, eel-cat, 247. _Ictalurus furcatus_, chuckle-head cat, 247. _Ictalurus punctatus_, channel-cat, 244. Jack, horse-eye, 310. Jack salmon, 157. Jolt-head porgy, 348. description, 348, 349. tackle and fishing, 350. Jurel, 309. Key to pike species, 121, 122. Kingfish, 221. description, 222-224. tackle and fishing, 224, 225. Kingfish-mackerel, 279, 280. Knot, for leader, 19. jam, for eyed hook, 19. _Kyphosus sectatrix_, Bermuda chub, 382. Lady anglers, 148, 149. Lady-fish, 355. Lafayette, 228. description, 229. tackle and fishing, 230, 231. _Lagodon rhomboides_, pin-fish, 330, 386. Lake Erie bass, 74. Lake-herring, 207. Lake-sheepshead, 232. Lamplighter, 74. Lane snapper, 339. description, 340. habits and habitat, 341. Large-mouth black-bass, 30. Leather-fish, 390. _Leiostomus xanthurus_, Lafayette, 214, 228. _Lepomis auritus_, red-breast sunfish, 67. _Lepomis megalotis_, long-eared sunfish, 65. _Lepomis pallidus_, blue sunfish, 62. Lewis and Clark, 181-183. _Libinia_, spider crab genus, 320. _Limnoria_, gribble genus, 321. Little Giant rod, 101, 102. Little-head porgy, 352. description, 352. tackle and fishing, 353. _Lobotes pacificus_, berrugate, 371. _Lobotes surinamensis_, triple-tail, 370. Long-eared sunfish, 65. description, 65. tackle and fishing, 66. Lucky stones, 233. _Lutianidæ_, snapper family, 336. _Lutianus analis_, mutton-fish, 347. _Lutianus apodus_, schoolmaster, 338, 345. _Lutianus aya_, red snapper, 337, 342. _Lutianus griseus_, mangrove snapper, 347. _Lutianus jocu_, dog snapper, 337, 344. _Lutianus synagris_, lane snapper, 337, 339. Mackerel family, 272. kingfish, 279. Spanish, 273. Margate fish, 328. description, 328, 329. tackle and fishing, 330. Mascalonge, 122. coloration, 127-129. description, 126, 127. distribution, 126. nomenclature, 122-126. tackle and fishing, 132-135. Maskinonge, 124. _Menippe_, stone crab genus, 320. _Menticirrhus americanus_, whiting, 225. _Menticirrhus littoralis_, silver whiting, 225. _Menticirrhus saxatilis_, kingfish, 221. Michigan grayling, 178. _Micropogon undulatus_, croaker, 214, 226. _Micropterus dolomieu_, small-mouth black-bass, 1, 3. _Micropterus salmoides_, large-mouth black-bass, 2, 30. Minnow family, 236. Minnow gangs, 143. Montana grayling, 181. _Morone americana_, white-perch, 95, 110. _Morone interrupta_, yellow-bass, 90. Mud-dab, 266. _Mugil cephalus_, common mullet, 319. _Mugil curema_, white mullet, 319. _Mugil trichodon_, fan-tail mullet, 319. _Mugilidæ_, mullet family, 319. Mullet, common, 319. fan-tail, 319. whirligig, 319. white, 319. Multiplying reel, invention of, 13. Muskellunge, 125. _Mycteroperca falcata phenax_, scamp, 286, 291. _Mycteroperca microlepis_, gag, 285, 287. _Mycteroperca venenosa_, yellow-fin grouper, 286, 294. Newlight, 80. Nigger-fish, 287, 300. description, 300, 301. tackle and fishing, 302. Not all of fishing to fish, 92-94. Oceanic bonito, 283. _Ocyurus chrysurus_, yellow-tail, 336, 338. _Orchestia_, beach-flea genus, 321. _Orthopristis chrysopterus_, pig-fish, 322, 330, 331. _Osmerus mordax_, smelt, 263, 269. Osprey on the fly, 64. _Palinurus_, sea-crawfish genus, 318. _Palæmonetes_, prawn genus, 321. _Panopeus_, mud crab genus, 320. _Perca flavescens_, yellow-perch, 165. Perch, black, 371. blue, 264. bridge, 74. chincapin, 74. family, 156. goggle-eye, 74, 80. pike, 157. raccoon, 166. red-bellied, 68. ringed, 166. Sacramento, 57. warmouth, 58. white, 110, 234. yellow, 165. _Percidæ_, perch family, 156. Permit, 312. _Petrometopon cruentatus_, coney, 286, 299. Pickerel, banded, 154. brook, 154. eastern, 149. great northern, 137. Long Island, 154. reticulated, 149. western, 153. Pig-fish, 322, 330, 331. description, 331, 332. tackle and fishing, 333. Pike, 137. description, 137-140. fishing through ice, 144-146. tackle and fishing, 141-147. Pike family, 120. glass-eyed, 157. gray, 164. rattlesnake, 164. sand, 164. wall-eyed, 157. yellow, 157. Pike-perch, 157. description, 157-160. night fishing, 162. tackle and fishing, 161-163. Pikes, key to, 121, 122. Pin-fish, 386. description, 386, 387. tackle and fishing, 387. Piscatorial polemic, 44. _Platyonichus_, lady crab genus, 320. _Pomoxis annularis_, crappie, 3, 79. _Pomoxis sparoides_, calico-bass, 3, 73. Pompano, 311. description, 311-314. best of food-fishes, 312, 314. tackle and fishing, 313, 314. Pompano, common, 307, 311. gaff top-sail, 312. permit, 312. round, 312. Porgy, 259. big-head, 347, 348. family, 347. grass, 348, 353. jolt-head, 348. little-head, 348, 352. saucer-eye, 348, 350. Pork-fish, 323, 334. description, 334, 335. tackle and fishing, 335. Prawn, 321. _Pseudopleuronectes americanus_, flounder, 263, 266. Pumpkin-seed, 69. _Pyrula_, mollusk genus, 318, 339. _Querimana gyrans_, whirligig mullet, 319. Razor back, 74. Record fly-casting, 16. Red-bellied perch, 68. Red-breast bream, 68. Red-breast sunfish, 67. Red-eye, 53. Red hind, 286, 297. description, 297. tackle and fishing, 298. Red snapper, 342. description, 342. tackle and fishing, 343, 344. Red sunfish, 67. Reel, click, 17. Reel, multiplying, 13. Roach, 231. _Roccus chrysops_, white-bass, 86. _Roccus lineatus_, striped-bass, 95, 96. Rock, 96. Rock-bass, 52. description, 53. tackle and fishing, 54-57. Rockfish, 96. Rock hind, 286, 295. description, 295, 296. tackle and fishing, 297. Rocky Mountain whitefish, 204. description, 204. tackle and fishing, 205, 206. Rod, Henshall, 25. Little Giant, 101, 102. Rovallia, 366. Rules for artificial flies, 21. Runner, 306, 307. description, 307. tackle and fishing, 308. Sac-a-lait, 80. Sacramento perch, 57. description, 57. tackle and fishing, 58. Sailor's choice, 330, 331, 386. description, 330. tackle and fishing, 331. Salmon family, 203. _Salmonidæ_, 203. Sand-bug, 321. Sand-fish, 287, 303. description, 303. tackle and fishing, 304. _Sarda sarda_, bonito, 273, 282. Sardine, silver, 319. striped, 319. _Sardinella humeralis_, silver sardine, 319. _Sardinella sardinia_, striped sardine, 319. Saucer-eye porgy, 350. description, 351. tackle and fishing, 352. Sauger, 164. description, 165. tackle and fishing, 165. Scamp, 286, 291. description, 292. tackle and fishing, 293. Schoolmaster, 345. description, 345, 346. tackle and fishing, 347. _Sciænidæ_, drum family, 213, 232. _Scomberomorus cavalla_, kingfish, 279, 280. _Scomberomorus maculatus_, Spanish mackerel, 272, 273. _Scomberomorus regalis_, cero, 272, 278. _Scombridæ_, mackerel family, 272. Scup, 259. description, 260. tackle and fishing, 261. Scuppaug, 259. Sea-bass, 115. description, 115, 116. tackle and fishing, 117, 118. Sea-bass, family, 95, 285. black, 115. Gulf, 119. southern, 118. Sea-crawfish, 318. Sergeant-fish, 366, 374. _Serranidæ_, bass family, 85, 95, 285. Shad, 80. Sheepshead, 252. description, 252-254. tackle and fishing, 255-259. Sheepshead family, 251. lake, 232. Sheridan and Stager, 77. Shrimp, 321. _Siluridæ_, catfish family, 244. Silver-bass, 74. Small-mouth black-bass, 3. Smelt, 263, 269. description, 269. tackle and fishing, 270, 271. Snapper, black, 371. dog, 337, 344. family, 336. lane, 337, 339. red, 337, 342. schoolmaster, 338, 345. Snook, 366. description, 366, 367. tackle and fishing, 368-370. Southern sea-bass, 118. description, 118. habits and habitat, 119. Spade-fish, 385. Spanish mackerel, 273. description, 273-275. tackle and fishing, 276-278. _Sparidæ_, porgy family, 251, 347. Speckled perch, 74, 80. Spot, 228. Spotted weakfish, 376. description, 377, 378. tackle and fishing, 379, 380. Squeteague, 215. Squirrel-fish, 388. description, 388. tackle and fishing, 389. _Stenotomus chrysops_, scup, 251, 259. _Stenotomus aculeatus_, fair maid, 259. _Stizostedion canadense_, sauger, 156, 164. _Stizostedion vitreum_, pike-perch, 156, 157. _Stolephorus brownii_, big anchovy, 320. _Stolephorus mitchilli_, silver anchovy, 320. _Stolephorus perfasciatus_, banded anchovy, 320. Strawberry-bass, 73. Striped-bass, 96. description, 96-100. fly-fishing, 109. still-fishing, 101. surf-fishing, 104-108. tools and tackle, 101-105. _Strombus_, mollusk genus, 318, 339. Sunfish, black, 58. blue, 62. common, 69. family, 1. long-eared, 65. red-breast, 67. Susquehanna salmon, 157. Tally-wag, 119. _Tautogolabrus adspersus_, cunner, 263, 264. Ten-pounder, 361. description, 361, 362. tackle and fishing, 363-365. Thunder-pumper, 233. _Thymallidæ_, grayling family, 173. _Thymallus montanus_, Montana grayling, 173, 181. _Thymallus signifer_, Arctic grayling, 173, 176. _Thymallus tricolor_, Michigan grayling, 173, 178. Tip-ups, 146. Tobacco-box, 65. Toboggan episode, 92-94. _Trachinotus carolinus_, common pompano, 307, 311. _Trachinotus falcatus_, round pompano, 312. _Trachinotus glaucus_, gaff top-sail pompano, 312. _Trachinotus goodei_, permit pompano, 312. Triple-tail, 370. description, 370, 371. tackle and fishing, 372. Trolling-spoon, 141-143. Turbot, 390. description, 390, 391. habits and habitat, 392. Wall-eyed pike, 157. Warmouth perch, 58. description, 58, 59. tackle and fishing, 60-62. Weakfish, 215. description, 215-217. tackle and fishing, 218-220. Weakfish, bastard, 221. deep-sea, 381. northern, 214. spotted, 376. Western pickerel, 153. description, 153. tackle and fishing, 154. White-bass, 86. description, 86. tackle and fishing, 87-89. Whitefish, Rocky Mountain, 204. White lake-bass, 86. White-perch, 110, 234. description, 110, 111. tackle and fishing, 112, 113. Whiting, 221. Wonders of the sea, 327, 389, 390. Yellow-bass, 90. description, 90, 91. tackle and fishing, 92. Yellow-finned grouper, 294. description, 294. habits and habitat, 295. Yellow grunt, 326. description, 326. tackle and fishing, 327. Yellow-perch, 165. description, 165-167. tackle and fishing, 168-172. Yellow-tail, 338. description, 338. tackle and fishing, 339. Youthful angling, 72. AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S LIBRARY Edited by CASPAR WHITNEY To be completed in ten volumes, with numerous illustrations Each of these volumes will be prepared by a writer, or group of writers, thoroughly in sympathy with the work, and fitted for his special subject. The series will be under the editorial supervision of Mr. Caspar Whitney, the editor of _Outing_, and for many years sporting editor of _Harper's Weekly_. =THE DEER FAMILY.= By =Hon. Theodore Roosevelt=, =T.S. Van Dyke=, and =H.G. Stone=. Illustrated by CARL RUNGIUS. _Now ready._ =Price $2.00, net.= =UPLAND GAME BIRDS.= By =Edwyn Sandys=. Illustrated by LOUIS AGASSIZ FUERTES, A.B. FROST, and J.O. NUGENT. _Now ready._ =Price $2.00, net.= =SALMON AND TROUT.= By =Dean Sage= and =William C. Harris=. Illustrated by A.B. FROST and others. _Now ready._ =Price $2.00, net.= Further volumes will include articles on the Bear Family. Water Fowl, Wild Fowl, Taxidermy, etc., Cougar, Wild Cat. Wolf, Fox, etc., Tuna, Tarpon, etc., Bass, Perch, Pickerel, etc. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK =AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S LIBRARY= =The Water-fowl Family= By LEONARD C. SANFORD, L.B. BISHOP, and T.S. VAN DYKE. Illustrated by L.A. FUERTES, A.B. FROST, and C.L. BULL. Bass, Pike, Perch, and Pickerel By JAMES A. HENSHALL, M.D. Illustrated by MARTIN JUSTICE and others. IN PREPARATION FOR EARLY ISSUE Big Game Fishes of the United States By CHARLES F. HOLDER. Illustrated by CHARLES F.W. MILLATZ and others. Guns, Ammunition, and Tackle By A.W. MONEY, W.E. CARLIN, A.L.A. HIMMELWEIGHT, and J. HARRINGTON KEENE. Illustrated. The Bison, Musk-ox, Sheep, and Goat Family By GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL, OWEN WISTER, and CASPAR WHITNEY. Illustrated by CARL RUNGIUS and others. Photography for the Sportsman Naturalist By W.E. CARLIN. Illustrated. Further volumes will include articles on The Bear Family; The Cougar. Wild Cat, Wolf, and Fox; The Sporting Dog; American Race Horse and Running Horse; Trotting and Pacing; Riding and Driving; Yachting, Small Boat Sailing, and Canoeing; Baseball and Football; Rowing, Track Athletics, and Swimming; Lacrosse, Lawn Tennis, Wrestling, Racquets, Squash, and Court Tennis; Skating, Hockey, Ice Yachting, Coasting, and Skate Sailing. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK * * * * * Transcriber's Notes Italic text is denoted by _underscore_ and bold text by = sign Obvious spelling and punctuation errors repaired. To preserve the flow of this text, all illustrations are hyperlinked. Index added to Table of Contents. The oe and ae ligatures in the text has been left as it appears in the original book. UTF-8 coding. Both "black-bass" and "blackbass" used in this text. Both "lady-fish" and "ladyfish" used in this text. Both "skipjack" and "skip-jack" used in this text. Both "subtropical" and "sub-tropical" used in this text. In ambiguous cases, the text has been left as it appears in the original book. In particular, the following have not been changed: Double punctuation End quote missing punctuation No punctuation at para end 
9198	----	Proofreaders THE COMPLETE ANGLER; OR, _THE CONTEMPLATIVE MAN'S RECREATION_. By ISAAK WALTON. Being a _Facsimile_ Reprint of the First Edition published in 1653. With a Preface by RICHARD LE GALLIENNE. PREFACE. The "first edition" has been a favourite theme for the scorn of those who love it not. "The first edition--and the worst!" gibes a modern poet, and many are the true lovers of literature entirely insensitive to the accessory, historical or sentimental, associations of books. The present writer possesses a copy of one of Walton's Lives, that of Bishop Sanderson, with the author's donatory inscription to a friend upon the title-page. To keep this in his little library he has undergone willingly many privations, cheerfully faced hunger and cold rather than let it pass from his hand; yet, how often when, tremulously, he has unveiled this treasure to his visitors, how often has it been examined with undilating eyes, and cold, unenvious hearts! Yet so he must confess himself to have looked upon a friend's superb first edition of "Pickwick" though surely not without that measure of interest which all, save the quite unlettered or unintelligent, must feel in seeing the first visible shape of a book of such resounding significance in English literature. Such interest may, without fear of denial, be claimed for a facsimile of the first edition of "The Compleat Angler" after "Robinson Crusoe" perhaps the most popular of English classics. Thomas Westwood, whose gentle poetry, it is to be feared, has won but few listeners, has drawn this fancy picture of the commotion in St. Dunstan's Churchyard on a May morning of the year 1653, when Richard Marriott first published the famous discourse, little dreaming that he had been chosen for the godfather of so distinguished an immortality. The lines form an epilogue to twelve beautiful sonnets_ à propos _of the bi-centenary of Walton's death: "What, not a word for thee, O little tome, Brown-jerkined, friendly-faced--of all my books The one that wears the quaintest, kindliest looks-- Seems most completely, cosily at home Amongst its fellows. Ah! if thou couldst tell Thy story--how, in sixteen fifty-three, Good Master Marriott, standing at its door, Saw Anglers hurrying--fifty--nay, three score, To buy thee ere noon pealed from Dunstan's bell:-- And how he stared and ... shook his sides with glee. One story, this, which fact or fiction weaves. Meanwhile, adorn my shelf, beloved of all-- Old book! with lavender between thy leaves, And twenty ballads round thee on the wall." Whether there was quite such a rush as this on its publishing day we have no certain knowledge, though Westwood, in his "Chronicle of the Compleat Angler" speaks of "the almost immediate sale of the entire edition." According to Sir Harris Nicolas, it was thus advertised in_ The Perfect Diurnall_: from Monday, May 9th, to Monday, May 16th, 1653: _"The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation_, being a discourse of Fish and Fishing, not unworthy the perusal of most Anglers, of 18 pence price. Written by Iz. Wa. Also the Gipsee, never till now published: Both printed for Richard Marriot, to be sold at his shop in Saint Dunstan's Churchyard, Fleet street." And it was thus calmly, unexcitedly noticed in the_ Mercurius Politicus_: from Thursday, May 12, to Thursday, May 19, 1653: _"There is newly extant, a Book of 18d. price, called the Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation, being a discourse of Fish and Fishing, not unworthy the perusal of most Anglers. Printed for Richard Marriot, to be sold at his shop in St. Dunstan's Churchyard, Fleet street_." Thus for it, as for most great births, the bare announcement sufficed. One of the most beautiful of the world's books had been born into the world, and was still to be bought in its birthday form--for eighteen-pence. In 1816, Mr. Marston calculates, the market value was about £4 4s. In 1847 Dr. Bethune estimated it at £12 12s. In 1883 Westwood reckoned it "from £70 to £80 or even more" and since then copies have fetched £235 and £310, though in 1894 we have a sudden drop at Sotheby's to £150--which, however, was more likely due to the state of the copy than to any diminution in the zeal of Waltonian collectors, a zeal, indeed, which burns more ardently from year to year. Sufficiently out of reach of the poor collector as it is at present, it is probable that it will mount still higher, and consent only to belong to richer and richer men. And thus, in course of time, this facsimile will, in clerical language, find an increasing sphere of usefulness; for it is to those who have more instant demands to satisfy with their hundred-pound notes that this facsimile is designed to bring consolation. If it is not the rose itself, it is a photographic refection of it, and it will undoubtedly give its possessor a sufficiently faithful idea of its original. But, apart from the satisfaction of such curiosity, the facsimile has a literary value, in that it differs very materially from succeeding editions. The text by which "The Compleat Angler" is generally known is that of the fifth edition, published in 1676, the last which Walton corrected and finally revised, seven years before his death. But in the second edition (1655) the book was already very near to its final shape, for Walton had enlarged it by about a third, and the dialogue was now sustained by three persons, Piscator, Venator and Auceps, instead of two--the original "Viator" also having changed his name to "Venator." Those interested in tracing the changes will find them all laboriously noted in Sir Harris Nicolas's great edition. Of the further additions made in the fifth edition, Sir Harris Nicolas makes this just criticism: "It is questionable," he says, "whether the additions which he then made to it have increased its interest. The garrulity and sentiments of an octogenarian are very apparent in some of the alterations; and the subdued colouring of religious feeling which prevails throughout the former editions, and forms one of the charms of the piece, is, in this impression, so much heightened as to become almost obtrusive." There is a third raison d'être for this facsimile, which to name with approbation will no doubt seem impiety to many, but which, as a personal predilection, I venture to risk--there is no Cotton! The relation between Walton and Cotton is a charming incongruity to contemplate, and one stands by their little fishing-house in Dovedale as before an altar of friendship. Happy and pleasant in their lives, it is good to see them still undivided in their deaths--but, to my mind, their association between the boards of the same book mars a charming classic. No doubt Cotton has admirably caught the spirit of his master, but the very cleverness with which he has done it increases the sense of parody with which his portion of the book always offends me. Nor can I be the only reader of the book for whom it ends with that gentle benediction--"And upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare trust in his providence, and be quiet, and go a Angling"--and that sweet exhortation from I Thess. iv. 11--"Study to be quiet." After the exquisite quietism of this farewell, it is distracting to come precipitately upon the fine gentleman with the great wig and the Frenchified airs. This is nothing against "hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton's strain" of which, in Walton's own setting and in his own poetical issues, I am a sufficient admirer. Cotton was a clever literary man, and a fine engaging figure of a gentleman, but, save by the accident of friendship, he has little more claim to be printed along with Walton than the gallant Col. Robert Venables, who, in the fifth edition, contributed still a third part, entitled "The Experienc'd Angler: or, Angling Improv'd. Being a General Discourse of Angling," etc., to a book that was immortally complete in its first. While "The Compleat Angler" was regarded mainly as a text-book for practical anglers, one can understand its publisher wishing to make it as complete as possible by the addition of such technical appendices; but now, when it has so long been elevated above such literary drudgery, there is no further need for their perpetuation. For I imagine that the men to-day who really catch fish, as distinguished from the men who write sentimentally about angling, would as soon think of consulting Izaak Walton as they would Dame Juliana Berners. But anyone can catch fish--can he, do you say?--the thing is to have so written about catching them that your book is a pastoral, the freshness of which a hundred editions have left unexhausted,--a book in which the grass is for ever green, and the shining brooks do indeed go on forever. _RICHARD LE GALLIENNE_. [Frontispiece Text: The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being a Discourse of FISH and FISHING, Not unworthy the perusal of most Anglers. Simon Peter said, I go a fishing; and they said. We also wil go with thee. John 21.3. London, Printed by T. Maxes for RICH. MARRIOT, in S. Dunstans Churchyard Fleet Street, 1653.] To the Right Worshipful JOHN OFFLEY Of MADELY Manor in the County of _Stafford_, Esq, My most honoured Friend. SIR, I have made so ill use of your former favors, as by them to be encouraged to intreat that they may be enlarged to the patronage and protection of this Book; and I have put on a modest confidence, that I shall not be denyed, because 'tis a discourse of Fish and Fishing, which you both know so well, and love and practice so much. You are assur'd (though there be ignorant men of an other belief) that Angling is an Art; and you know that Art better then any that I know: and that this is truth, is demostrated by the fruits of that pleasant labor which you enjoy when you purpose to give rest to your mind, and devest your self of your more serious business, and (which is often) dedicate a day or two to this Recreation. At which time, if common Anglers should attend you, and be eye-witnesses of the success, not of your fortune, but your skill, it would doubtless beget in them an emulation to be like you, and that emulation might beget an industrious diligence to be so: but I know it is not atainable by common capacities. Sir, this pleasant curiositie of Fish and Fishing (of which you are so great a Master) has been thought worthy the_ pens _and_ practices _of divers in other Nations, which have been reputed men of great_ Learning _and_ Wisdome; _and amongst those of this Nation, I remember Sir_ Henry Wotton _(a dear lover of this Art) has told me, that his intentions were to write a discourse of the Art, and in the praise of Angling, and doubtless he had done so, if death had not prevented him; the remembrance of which hath often made me sorry; for, if he had lived to do it, then the unlearned Angler (of which I am one) had seen some Treatise of this Art worthy his perusal, which (though some have undertaken it) I could never yet see in English. But mine may be thought: as weak and as unworthy of common view: and I do here freely confess that I should rather excuse myself, then censure others my own Discourse being liable to so many exceptions; against which, you (Sir) might make this one, That it can contribute nothing to your knowledge; and lest a longer Epistle may diminish your pleasure, I shall not adventure to make this Epistle longer then to add this following truth, That I am really, Sir, Your most affectionate Friend, and most humble Servant, Iz. Wa. To the _Reader of this Discourse_: But especially, To the honest ANGLER. I think fit to tell thee these following truths; that I did not undertake to write, or to publish this discourse of _fish_ and _fishing_, to please my self, and that I wish it may not displease others; for, I have confest there are many defects in it. And yet, I cannot doubt, but that by it, some readers may receive so much _profit_ or _pleasure_, as if they be not very busie men, may make it not unworthy the time of their perusall; and this is all the confidence that I can put on concerning the merit of this Book. And I wish the Reader also to take notice, that in writing of it, I have made a recreation, of a recreation; and that it might prove so to thee in the reading, and not to read _dull_, and _tediously_, I have in severall places mixt some innocent Mirth; of which, if thou be a severe, sowr complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent Judg. For Divines say, _there are offences given; and offences taken, but not given_. And I am the willinger to justifie this _innocent Mirth_, because the whole discourse is a kind of picture of my owne disposition, at least of my disposition in such daies and times as I allow my self, when honest _Nat_. and _R. R._ and I go a fishing together; and let me adde this, that he that likes not the discourse, should like the pictures the _Trout_ and other fish, which I may commend, because they concern not my self. And I am also to tel the Reader, that in that which is the more usefull part of this discourse; that is to say, the observations of the _nature_ and _breeding_, and _seasons_, and _catching of fish_, I am not so simple as not to think but that he may find exceptions in some of these; and therefore I must intreat him to know, or rather note, that severall Countreys, and several Rivers alter the _time_ and _manner_ of fishes Breeding; and therefore if he bring not candor to the reading of this Discourse, he shall both injure me, and possibly himself too by too many Criticisms. Now for the Art of catching fish; that is to say, how to make a man that was none, an Angler by a book: he that undertakes it, shall undertake a harder task then _Hales_ offered to thy view and censure; I with thee as much in the perusal of it, and so might that in his printed Book [called the private School of defence] undertook by it to teach the Art of Fencing, and was laught at for his labour. Not but that something usefull might be observed out of that Book; but that Art was not to be taught by words; nor is the Art of Angling. And yet, I think, that most that love that Game, may here learn something that may be worth their money, if they be not needy: and if they be, then my advice is, that they forbear; for, I write not to get money, but for pleasure; and this discourse boasts of no more: for I hate to promise much, and fail. But pleasure I have found both in the _search_ and _conference_ about what is here offered to thy view and censure; I wish thee as much in the perusal of it, and so might here take my leave; but I will stay thee a little longer by telling thee, that whereas it is said by many, that in _Fly-fishing_ for a _Trout_, the Angler must observe his twelve _Flyes_ for every Month; I say, if he observe that, he shall be as certain to catch fish, as they that make Hay by the fair dayes in Almanacks, and be no surer: for doubtless, three or four _Flyes_ rightly made, do serve for a _Trout_ all _Summer_, and for _Winter-flies_, all _Anglers_ know, they are as useful as an _Almanack_ out of date. Of these (because no man is born an _Artist_ nor an _Angler_) I thought fit to give thee this notice. I might say more, but it is not fit for this place; but if this Discourse which follows shall come to a second impression, which is possible, for slight books have been in this Age observed to have that fortune; I shall then for thy sake be glad to correct what is faulty, or by a conference with any to explain or enlarge what is defective: but for this time I have neither a willingness nor leasure to say more, then wish thee a rainy evening to read this book in, and that the east wind may never blow when thou goest a fishing. Farewel. Iz. Wa. Because in this Discourse of _Fish_ and _Fishing_ I have not observed a method, which (though the Discourse be not long) may be some inconvenience to the Reader, I have therefore for his easier finding out some particular things which are spoken of, made this following Table. _The first Chapter is spent in a_ vindication _or_ commendation _of the Art of Angling_. _In the second are some observations of the nature of the_ Otter, _and also some observations of the_ Chub _or_ Cheven, _with directions how and with what baits to fish for him_. In chapt. 3. _are some observations of_ Trouts, _both of their nature, their kinds, and their breeding_. In chap. 4. _are some direction concerning baits for the_ Trout, _with advise how to make the_ Fly, _and keep the live baits_. In chap. 5. _are some direction how to fish for the_ Trout _by night; and a question, Whether fish bear? and lastly, some direction how to fish for the_ Umber _or_ Greyling. In chap. 6. _are some observations concerning the_ Salmon, _with direction how to fish for him_. In chap. 7 _are several observations concerning the_ Luce _or_ Pike, _with some directions how and with what baits to fish for him_. In chap. 8. _are several observations of the nature and breeding of_ Carps, _with some observations how to angle for them_. In chap. 9. _are some observations concerning the_ Bream, _the_ Tench, _and_ Pearch, _with some directions with what baits to fish for them_. In chap. 10. _are several observations of the nature and breeding of_ Eeles, _with advice how to fish for them_. In chap. 11 _are some observations of the nature and breeding of_ Barbels, _with some advice how, and with what baits to fish for them; as also for the_ Gudgion _and_ Bleak. In chap. 12. _are general directions how and with what baits to fish for the_ Russe _or_ Pope, _the_ Roch, _the_ Dace, _and other small fish, with directions how to keep_ Ant-flies _and_ Gentles _in winter, with some other observations not unfit to be known of Anglers_. In chap. 13. _are observations for the colouring of your_ Rod _and_ Hair. These directions the Reader may take as an ease in his search after some particular Fish, and the baits proper for them; and he will shew himselfe courteous in mending or passing by some errors in the Printer, which are not so many but that they may be pardoned. The Complete ANGLER. OR, The contemplative Mans RECREATION. | PISCATOR | | VIATOR | _Piscator_. You are wel overtaken Sir; a good morning to you; I have stretch'd my legs up _Totnam Hil_ to overtake you, hoping your businesse may occasion you towards _Ware_, this fine pleasant fresh _May day_ in the Morning. _Viator_. Sir. I shall almost answer your hopes: for my purpose is to be at _Hodsden_ (three miles short of that Town) I wil not say, before I drink; but before I break my fast: for I have appointed a friend or two to meet me there at the thatcht house, about nine of the clock this morning; and that made me so early up, and indeed, to walk so fast. _Pisc_. Sir, I know the _thatcht house_ very well: I often make it my resting place, and taste a cup of Ale there, for which liquor that place is very remarkable; and to that house I shall by your favour accompany you, and either abate of my pace, or mend it, to enjoy such a companion as you seem to be, knowing that (as the Italians say) _Good company makes the way seem shorter_. _Viat_. It may do so Sir, with the help of good discourse, which (me thinks) I may promise from you, that both look and speak so cheerfully. And to invite you to it, I do here promise you, that for my part, I will be as free and open-hearted, as discretion will warrant me to be with a stranger. _Pisc_. Sir, I am right glad of your answer; and in confidence that you speak the truth, I shall (Sir) put on a boldness to ask, whether pleasure or businesse has occasioned your Journey. _Viat_. Indeed, Sir, a little business, and more pleasure: for my purpose is to bestow a day or two in hunting the _Otter_ (which my friend that I go to meet, tells me is more pleasant then any hunting whatsoever:) and having dispatched a little businesse this day, my purpose is tomorrow to follow a pack of dogs of honest Mr. ---- ----, who hath appointed me and my friend to meet him upon _Amwel hill_ to morrow morning by day break. _Pisc_. Sir, my fortune hath answered my desires; and my purpose is to bestow a day or two in helping to destroy some of those villainous vermin: for I hate them perfectly, because they love fish so well, or rather, because they destroy so much: indeed, so much, that in my judgment, all men that keep Otter dogs ought to have a Pension from the Commonwealth to incourage them to destroy the very breed of those base _Otters_, they do so much mischief. _Viat_. But what say you to the _Foxes_ of this Nation? would not you as willingly have them destroyed? for doubtlesse they do as much mischief as the _Otters_. _Pisc_. Oh Sir, if they do, it is not so much to me and my Fraternitie, as that base Vermin the _Otters_ do. _Viat_. Why Sir, I pray, of what Fraternity are you, that you are so angry with the poor _Otter_? _Pisc_. I am a Brother of the _Angle_, and therefore an enemy to the _Otter_, he does me and my friends so much mischief; for you are to know, that we _Anglers_ all love one another: and therefore do I hate the _Otter_ perfectly, even for their sakes that are of my Brotherhood. _Viat_. Sir, to be plain with you, I am sorry you are an _Angler_: for I have heard many grave, serious men pitie, and many pleasant men scoff at _Anglers_. _Pisc_. Sir, There are many men that are by others taken to be serious grave men, which we contemn and pitie; men of sowre complexions; mony-getting-men, that spend all their time first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it: men that are condemn'd to be rich, and alwayes discontented, or busie. For these poor-rich-men, wee Anglers pitie them; and stand in no need to borrow their thoughts to think our selves happie: For (trust me, Sir) we enjoy a contentednesse above the reach of such dispositions. And as for any scoffer, _qui mockat mockabitur_. Let mee tell you, (that you may tell him) what the wittie French-man [the Lord Mountagne in his Apol. for Ra-Se-bond.] sayes in such a Case. _When my_ Cat _and I entertaine each other with mutuall apish tricks (as playing with a garter,) who knows but that I make her more sport then she makes me? Shall I conclude her simple, that has her time to begin or refuse sportivenesse as freely as I my self have? Nay, who knows but that our agreeing no better, is the defect of my not understanding her language? (for doubtlesse Cats talk and reason with one another) and that shee laughs at, and censures my folly, for making her sport, and pities mee for understanding her no better?_ To this purpose speaks _Mountagne_ concerning _Cats_: And I hope I may take as great a libertie to blame any Scoffer, that has never heard what an Angler can say in the justification of his Art and Pleasure. But, if this satisfie not, I pray bid the Scoffer put this Epigram into his pocket, and read it every morning for his breakfast (for I wish him no better;) Hee shall finde it fix'd before the Dialogues of _Lucian_ (who may be justly accounted the father of the Family of all _Scoffers_:) And though I owe none of that Fraternitie so much as good will, yet I have taken a little pleasant pains to make such a conversion of it as may make it the fitter for all of that Fraternity. Lucian _well skill'd in_ scoffing, _this has writ, Friend, that's your folly which you think your wit; This you vent oft, void both of wit and fear, Meaning an other, when your self you jeer_. But no more of the _Scoffer_; for since _Solomon_ sayes, he is an abomination to men, he shall be so to me; and I think, to all that love _Vertue_ and _Angling_. _Viat_. Sir, you have almost amazed me [Pro 24. 9]: for though I am no Scoffer, yet I have (I pray let me speak it without offence) alwayes look'd upon _Anglers_ as more patient, and more simple men, then (I fear) I shall finde you to be. _Piscat_. Sir, I hope you will not judge my earnestnesse to be impatience: and for my _simplicitie_, if by that you mean a _harmlessnesse_, or that _simplicity_ that was usually found in the Primitive Christians, who were (as most _Anglers_ are) quiet men, and followed peace; men that were too wise to sell their consciences to buy riches for vexation, and a fear to die. Men that lived in those times when there were fewer Lawyers; for then a Lordship might have been safely conveyed in a piece of Parchment no bigger then your hand, though several skins are not sufficient to do it in this wiser Age. I say, Sir, if you take us Anglers to be such simple men as I have spoken of, then both my self, and those of my profession will be glad to be so understood. But if by simplicitie you meant to expresse any general defect in the understanding of those that professe and practice _Angling_, I hope to make it appear to you, that there is so much contrary reason (if you have but the patience to hear it) as may remove all the anticipations that Time or Discourse may have possess'd you with, against that Ancient and laudable Art. _Viat_. Why (Sir) is Angling of Antiquitie, and an Art, and an art not easily learn'd? _Pisc_. Yes (Sir:) and I doubt not but that if you and I were to converse together but til night, I should leave you possess'd with the same happie thoughts that now possesse me; not onely for the Antiquitie of it, but that it deserves commendations; and that 'tis an Art; and worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise, and a serious man. _Viat_. Sir, I pray speak of them what you shall think fit; for wee have yet five miles to walk before wee shall come to the _Thatcht house_. And, Sir, though my infirmities are many, yet I dare promise you, that both my patience and attention will indure to hear what you will say till wee come thither: and if you please to begin in order with the antiquity, when that is done, you shall not want my attention to the commendations and accommodations of it: and lastly, if you shall convince me that 'tis an Art, and an Art worth learning, I shall beg I may become your Scholer, both to wait upon you, and to be instructed in the Art it self. _Pisc_. Oh Sir, 'tis not to be questioned, but that it is an art, and an art worth your Learning: the question wil rather be, whether you be capable of learning it? For he that learns it, must not onely bring an enquiring, searching, and discerning wit; but he must bring also that _patience_ you talk of, and a love and propensity to the art itself: but having once got and practised it, then doubt not but the Art will (both for the pleasure and profit of it) prove like to _Vertue, a reward to it self_. _Viat_. Sir, I am now become so ful of expectation, that I long much to have you proceed in your discourse: And first, I pray Sir, let me hear concerning the antiquity of it. _Pisc_. Sir, I wil preface no longer, but proceed in order as you desire me: And first for the Antiquity of _Angling_, I shall not say much; but onely this; Some say, it is as ancient as _Deucalions_ Floud: and others (which I like better) say, that _Belus_ (who was the inventer of godly and vertuous Recreations) was the Inventer of it: and some others say, (for former times have had their Disquisitions about it) that _Seth_, one of the sons of _Adam_, taught it to his sons, and that by them it was derived to Posterity. Others say, that he left it engraven on those Pillars which hee erected to preserve the knowledg of the _Mathematicks, Musick_, and the rest of those precious Arts, which by Gods appointment or allowance, and his noble industry were thereby preserved from perishing in _Noah's_ Floud. These (my worthy Friend) have been the opinions of some men, that possibly may have endeavoured to make it more ancient then may well be warranted. But for my part, I shall content my self in telling you, That _Angling_ is much more ancient then the incarnation of our Saviour: For both in the Prophet _Amos_ [Chap. 42], and before him in _Job_ [Chap. 41], (which last Book is judged to be written by _Moses_) mention is made _fish-hooks_, which must imply _Anglers_ in those times. But (my worthy friend) as I would rather prove my self to be a Gentleman, by being _learned_ and _humble, valiant_ and _inoffensive, vertuous_ and _communicable_, then by a fond ostentation of _riches_; or (wanting these Vertues my self) boast that these were in my Ancestors; [And yet I confesse, that where a noble and ancient Descent and such Merits meet in any man, it is a double dignification of that person:] and so, if this Antiquitie of Angling (which, for my part, I have not forc'd) shall like an ancient Familie, by either an honour, or an ornament to this vertuous Art which I both love and practise, I shall be the gladder that I made an accidental mention of it; and shall proceed to the justification, or rather commendation of it. _Viat_. My worthy Friend, I am much pleased with your discourse, for that you seem to be so ingenuous, and so modest, as not to stretch arguments into Hyperbolicall expressions, but such as indeed they will reasonably bear; and I pray, proceed to the justification, or commendations of Angling, which I also long to hear from you. _Pisc_. Sir, I shall proceed; and my next discourse shall be rather a Commendation, then a Justification of Angling: for, in my judgment, if it deserves to be commended, it is more then justified; for some practices what may be justified, deserve no commendation: yet there are none that deserve commendation but may be justified. And now having said this much by way of preparation, I am next to tell you, that in ancient times a debate hath risen, (and it is not yet resolved) Whether _Contemplation_ or _Action_ be the chiefest thing wherin the happiness of a man doth most consist in this world? Concerning which, some have maintained their opinion of the first, by saying, "[That the nearer we Mortals come to God by way of imitation, the more happy we are:]" And that God injoyes himself only by _Contemplation_ of his own _Goodness, Eternity, Infiniteness_, and _Power_, and the like; and upon this ground many of them prefer _Contemplation_ before _Action_: and indeed, many of the Fathers seem to approve this opinion, as may appear in their Comments upon the words of our Saviour to _Martha_. [Luk. 10. 41, 42] And contrary to these, others of equal Authority and credit, have preferred _Action_ to be chief; as experiments in _Physick_, and the application of it, both for the ease and prolongation of mans life, by which man is enabled to act, and to do good to others: And they say also, That _Action_ is not only Doctrinal, but a maintainer of humane Society; and for these, and other reasons, to be preferr'd before _Contemplation_. Concerning which two opinions, I shall forbear to add a third, by declaring my own, and rest my self contented in telling you (my worthy friend) that both these meet together, and do most properly belong to the most honest, ingenious, harmless Art of Angling. And first I shall tel you what some have observed, and I have found in my self, That the very sitting by the Rivers side, is not only the fittest place for, but will invite the Angler to Contemplation: That it is the fittest place, seems to be witnessed by the children of _Israel_, [Psal. 137.] who having banish'd all mirth and Musick from their pensive hearts, and having hung up their then mute Instruments upon the Willow trees, growing by the Rivers of _Babylon_, sate down upon those banks bemoaning the _ruines of Sion_, and contemplating their own sad condition. And an ingenuous _Spaniard_ sayes, "[That both Rivers, and the inhabitants of the watery Element, were created for wise men to contemplate, and fools to pass by without consideration.]" And though I am too wise to rank myself in the first number, yet give me leave to free my self from the last, by offering to thee a short contemplation, first of Rivers, and then of Fish: concerning which, I doubt not but to relate to you many things very considerable. Concerning Rivers, there be divers wonders reported of them by Authors, of such credit, that we need not deny them an Historical faith. As of a River in _Epirus_, that puts out any lighted Torch, and kindles any Torch that was not lighted. Of the River _Selarus_, that in a few hours turns a rod or a wand into stone (and our _Camden_ mentions the like wonder in _England_:) that there is a River in _Arabia_, of which all the Sheep that drink thereof have their Wool turned into a Vermilion colour. And one of no less credit then _Aristotle_, [in his Wonders of nature, this is confirmed by _Ennius_ and _Solon_ in his holy History.] tels us of a merry River, the River _Elusina_, that dances at the noise of Musick, that with Musick it bubbles, dances, and growes sandy, but returns to a wonted calmness and clearness when the Musick ceases. And lastly, (for I would not tire your patience) _Josephus_, that learned _Jew_, tells us of a River in _Judea_, that runs and moves swiftly all the six dayes of the week, and stands still and rests upon their _Sabbath_ day. But Sir, lest this discourse may seem tedious, I shall give it a sweet conclusion out of that holy Poet Mr. _George Herbert_ his Divine Contemplation on Gods providence. Lord, who hath praise enough, nay, who hath any? None can express thy works, but he that knows them: And none can know thy works, they are so many, And so complete, but only he that owes them. We all acknowledge both thy power and love To be exact, transcendent, and divine; Who does so strangely, and so sweetly move, Whilst all things have their end, yet none but thine. Wherefore, most Sacred Spirit, I here present For me, and all my fellows praise to thee: And just it is that I should pay the rent, Because the benefit accrues to me. And as concerning _Fish_, in that Psalm [Psal. 104], wherein, for height of Poetry and Wonders, the Prophet _David_ seems even to exceed himself; how doth he there express himselfe in choice Metaphors, even to the amazement of a contemplative Reader, concerning the Sea, the Rivers, and the Fish therein contained. And the great Naturallist _Pliny_ sayes, "[That Natures great and wonderful power is more demonstrated in the Sea, then on the Land.]" And this may appear by the numerous and various Creatures, inhabiting both in and about that Element: as to the Readers of _Gesner, Randelitius, Pliny, Aristotle_, and others is demonstrated: But I will sweeten this discourse also out of a contemplation in Divine _Dubartas_, who sayes [in the fifth day], _God quickened in the Sea and in the Rivers, So many fishes of so many features, That in the waters we may see all Creatures; Even all that on the earth is to be found, As if the world were in deep waters drownd. For seas (as well as Skies) have Sun, Moon, Stars; (As wel as air) Swallows, Rooks, and Stares; (As wel as earth) Vines, Roses, Nettles, Melons, Mushrooms, Pinks, Gilliflowers and many milions Of other plants, more rare, more strange then these; As very fishes living in the seas; And also Rams, Calves, Horses, Hares and Hogs, Wolves, Urchins, Lions, Elephants and Dogs; Yea, Men and Maids, and which I most admire, The Mitred Bishop, and the cowled Fryer. Of which examples but a few years since, Were shewn the_ Norway _and_ Polonian _Prince_. These seem to be wonders, but have had so many confirmations from men of Learning and credit, that you need not doubt them; nor are the number, nor the various shapes of fishes, more strange or more fit for contemplation, then their different natures, inclinations and actions: concerning which I shall beg your patient ear a little longer. The _Cuttle-fish_ wil cast a long gut out of her throat, which (like as an Angler does his line) she sendeth, forth and pulleth in again at her pleasure, according as she sees some little fish come neer to her [Mount _Elsayes_: and others affirm this]; and the _Cuttle-fish_ (being then hid in the gravel) lets the smaller fish nibble and bite the end of it; at which time shee by little and little draws the smaller fish so neer to her, that she may leap upon her, and then catches and devours her: and for this reason some have called this fish the _Sea-Angler_. There are also lustful and chaste fishes, of which I shall also give you examples. And first, what _Dubartas_ sayes of a fish called the _Sargus_; which (because none can express it better then he does) I shall give you in his own words, supposing it shall not have the less credit for being Verse, for he hath gathered this, and other observations out of Authors that have been great and industrious searchers into the secrets of nature. _The Adulterous_ Sargus _doth not only change, Wives every day in the deep streams, but (strange) As if the honey of Sea-love delight Could not suffice his ranging appetite, Goes courting_ She-Goats _on the grassie shore, Horning their husbands that had horns before_. And the same Author writes concerning the _Cantharus_, that which you shall also heare in his own words. _But contrary, the constant_ Cantharus, _Is ever constant to his faithful Spouse, In nuptial duties spending his chaste life, Never loves any but his own dear wife_. Sir, but a little longer, and I have done. _Viat_. Sir, take what liberty you think fit, for your discourse seems to be Musick, and charms me into an attention. _Pisc_. Why then Sir, I will take a little libertie to tell, or rather to remember you what is said of _Turtle Doves_: First, that they silently plight their troth and marry; and that then, the Survivor scorns (as the _Thracian_ women are said to do) to out-live his or her Mate; and this is taken for such a truth, that if the Survivor shall ever couple with another, the he or she, not only the living, but the dead, is denyed the name and honour of a true _Turtle Dove_. And to parallel this Land Variety & teach mankind moral faithfulness & to condemn those that talk of Religion, and yet come short of the moral faith of fish and fowl; Men that violate the Law, affirm'd by Saint _Paul_ [Rom. 2.14.15] to be writ in their hearts, and which he sayes shal at the last day condemn and leave them without excuse. I pray hearken to what _Dubartas_ sings [5. day.] (for the hearing of such conjugal faithfulness, will be Musick to all chaste ears) and therefore, I say, hearken to what _Dubartas_ sings of the _Mullet_: _But for chaste love the_ Mullet _hath no peer, For, if the Fisher hath surprised her pheer, As mad with woe to shoare she followeth, Prest to consort him both in life and death_. On the contrary, what shall I say of the _House-Cock_, which treads any Hen, and then (contrary to the _Swan_, the _Partridg_, and _Pigeon_) takes no care to hatch, to feed, or to cherish his own Brood, but is sensless though they perish. And 'tis considerable, that the _Hen_ (which because she also takes any _Cock_, expects it not) who is sure the Chickens be her own, hath by a moral impression her care, and affection to her own Broode, more then doubled, even to such a height, that our Saviour in expressing his love to _Jerusalem_, [Mat. 23. 37] quotes her for an example of tender affection, as his Father had done _Job_ for a pattern of patience. And to parallel this _Cock_, there be divers fishes that cast their spawne on flags or stones, and then leave it uncovered and exposed to become a prey, and be devoured by Vermine or other fishes: but other fishes (as namely the _Barbel_) take such care for the preservation of their seed, that (unlike to the _Cock_ or the _Cuckoe_) they mutually labour (both the Spawner, and the Melter) to cover their spawne with sand, or watch it, or hide it in some secret place unfrequented by Vermine, or by any fish but themselves. Sir, these examples may, to you and others, seem strange; but they are testified, some by _Aristotle_, some by _Pliny_, some by _Gesner_, and by divers others of credit, and are believed and known by divers, both of wisdom and experience, to be a truth; and are (as I said at the beginning) fit for the contemplation of a most serious, and a most pious man. And that they be fit for the contemplation of the most prudent and pious, and peaceable men, seems to be testified by the practice of so many devout and contemplative men; as the Patriarks or Prophets of old, and of the Apostles of our Saviour in these later times, of which twelve he chose four that were Fishermen: concerning which choice some have made these Observations. First, That he never reproved these for their Imployment or Calling, as he did the Scribes and the Mony-Changers. And secondly, That he found the hearts of such men, men that by nature were fitted for contemplation and quietness; men of mild, and sweet, and peaceable spirits, (as indeed most Anglers are) these men our blessed Saviour (who is observed to love to plant grace in good natures) though nothing be too hard for him, yet these men he chose to call from their irreprovable imployment, and gave them grace to be his Disciples and to follow him. And it is observable, that it was our Saviours will that his four Fishermen Apostles should have a prioritie of nomination in the catalogue of his twelve Apostles, as namely first, S. _Peter, Andrew, James_ [Mat. 10.] and _John_, and then the rest in their order. And it is yet more observable, that when our blessed Saviour went up into the Mount, at his Transfiguration, when he left the rest of his Disciples and chose onely three to bear him company, that these three were all Fishermen. And since I have your promise to hear me with patience, I will take a liberty to look back upon an observation that hath been made by an ingenuous and learned man, who observes that God hath been pleased to allow those whom he himselfe hath appointed, to write his holy will in holy Writ, yet to express his will in such Metaphors as their former affections or practise had inclined them to; and he brings _Solomon_ for an example, who before his conversion was remarkably amorous, and after by Gods appointment, writ that Love-Song [the Canticles] betwixt God and his Church. And if this hold in reason (as I see none to the contrary) then it may be probably concluded, that _Moses_ (whom I told you before, writ the book of _Job_) and the Prophet _Amos_ were both Anglers, for you shal in all the old Testaments find fish-hooks but twice mentioned; namely, by meek _Moses_, the friend of God; and by the humble Prophet _Amos_. Concerning which last, namely, the Prophet _Amos_, I shall make but this Observation, That he that shall read the humble, lowly, plain stile of that Prophet, and compare it with the high, glorious, eloquent stile of the prophet _Isaiah_ (though they be both equally true) may easily believe him to be a good natured, plaine Fisher-man. Which I do the rather believe, by comparing the affectionate, lowly, humble epistles of S. _Peter_, S. _James_ and S. _John_, whom we know were Fishers, with the glorious language and high Metaphors of S. _Paul_, who we know was not. Let me give you the example of two men more, that have lived nearer to our own times: first of Doctor _Nowel_ sometimes Dean of S. _Paul's_, (in which Church his Monument stands yet undefaced) a man that in the Reformation of Queen _Elizabeth_ (not that of _Henry the VIII_.) was so noted for his meek spirit, deep Learning, Prudence and Piety, that the then Parliament and Convocation, both chose, injoyned, and trusted him to be the man to make a Catechism for publick use, such a one as should stand as a rule for faith and manners to their posteritie: And the good man (though he was very learned, yet knowing that God leads us not to heaven by hard questions) made that good, plain, unperplext Catechism, that is printed with the old Service Book. I say, this good man was as dear a lover, and constant practicer of Angling, as any Age can produce; and his custome was to spend (besides his fixt hours of prayer, those hours which by command of the Church were enjoined the old Clergy, and voluntarily dedicated to devotion by many Primitive Christians:) besides those hours, this good man was observed to spend, or if you will, to bestow a tenth part of his time in Angling; and also (for I have conversed with those which have conversed with him) to bestow a tenth part of his Revenue, and all his fish, amongst the poor that inhabited near to those Rivers in which it was caught, saying often, _That Charity gave life to Religion_: and at his return would praise God he had spent that day free from worldly trouble, both harmlesly and in a Recreation that became a Church-man. My next and last example shall be that undervaluer of money, the late Provost of _Eaton Colledg_, Sir _Henry Wotton_, (a man with whom I have often fish'd and convers'd) a man whose forraign imployments in the service of this Nation, and whose experience, learning, wit and cheerfulness, made his company to be esteemed one of the delights of mankind; this man, whose very approbation of Angling were sufficient to convince any modest Censurer of it, this man was also a most dear lover, and a frequent practicer of the Art of Angling, of which he would say, "['Twas an imployment for his idle time, which was not idly spent;]" for Angling was after tedious study "[A rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a divertion of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a Moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness, and that it begot habits of peace and patience in those that profest and practic'd it.]" Sir, This was the saying of that Learned man; and I do easily believe that peace, and patience, and a calm content did cohabit in the cheerful heart of Sir _Henry Wotton_, because I know, that when he was beyond seventy years of age he made this description of a part of the present pleasure that possest him, as he sate quietly in a Summers evening on a bank a fishing; it is a description of the Spring, which because it glides as soft and sweetly from his pen, as that River does now by which it was then made, I shall repeat unto you. _This day dame Nature seem'd in love: The lustie sap began to move; Fresh juice did stir th'imbracing Vines, And birds had drawn their_ Valentines. _The jealous_ Trout, _that low did lye, Rose at a well dissembled flie; There stood my friend with patient skill, Attending of his trembling quil. Already were the eaves possest With the swift Pilgrims dawbed nest: The Groves already did rejoice, In_ Philomels _triumphing voice: The showrs were short, the weather mild, The morning fresh, the evening smil'd_. Jone _takes her neat rubb'd pail, and now She trips to milk the sand-red Cow; Where for some sturdy foot-ball Swain_. Jone _strokes a_ Sillibub _or twaine. The fields and gardens were beset With_ Tulips, Crocus, Violet, _And now, though late, the modest_ Rose _Did more then half a blush disclose. Thus all looks gay and full of chear To welcome the new liveried year_. These were the thoughts that then possest the undisturbed mind of Sir _Henry Wotton_. Will you hear the wish of another Angler, and the commendation of his happy life [Jo. Da.], which he also sings in Verse. _Let me live harmlesly, and near the brink Of_ Trent _or_ Avon _have a dwelling place, Where I may see my quil or cork down sink, With eager bit of_ Pearch, _or_ Bleak, _or_ Dace; And on the world and my Creator think, Whilst some men strive, ill gotten goods t'imbrace; And others spend their time in base excess Of wine or worse, in war and wantonness. _Let them that list these pastimes still pursue, And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill, So I the fields and meadows green may view, And daily by fresh Rivers walk at will, Among the_ Daisies _and the_ Violets _blue, Red_ Hyacinth, _and yellow_ Daffadil, _Purple_ Narcissus, _like the morning rayes, Pale_ ganderglass _and azure_ Culverkayes. _I count it higher pleasure to behold The stately compass of the lofty_ Skie, _And in the midst thereof (like burning Gold) The flaming Chariot of the worlds great eye, The watry clouds, that in the aire up rold, With sundry kinds of painted colour flye; And fair_ Aurora _lifting up her head, Still blushing, rise from old_ Tithonius _bed. The_ hils _and_ mountains _raised from the_ plains, _The_ plains _extended level with the_ ground, _The_ grounds _divided into sundry_ vains, _The_ vains _inclos'd with_ rivers _running round; These_ rivers _making way through natures chains With headlong course into the sea profound; The raging sea, beneath the vallies low, Where_ lakes, _and_ rils, _and_ rivulets _do flow. The loftie woods, the Forrests wide and long Adorn'd with leaves & branches fresh & green, In whose cool bowres the birds with many a song Do welcom with their Quire the Sumers_ Queen: _The Meadows fair, where_ Flora's _gifts among Are intermixt, with verdant grass between. The silver-scaled fish that softly swim, Within the sweet brooks chrystal watry stream. All these, and many more of his Creation, That made the Heavens, the Angler oft doth see, Taking therein no little delectation, To think how strange, how wonderful they be; Framing thereof an inward contemplation, To set his heart from other fancies free; And whilst he looks on these with joyful eye, His mind is rapt above the Starry Skie_. Sir, I am glad my memory did not lose these last Verses, because they are somewhat more pleasant and more sutable to _May Day_, then my harsh Discourse, and I am glad your patience hath held out so long, as to hear them and me; for both together have brought us within the sight of the _Thatcht House_; and I must be your Debtor (if you think it worth your attention) for the rest of my promised discourse, till some other opportunity and a like time of leisure. _Viat_. Sir, You have Angled me on with much pleasure to the _thatcht House_, and I now find your words true, _That good company makes the way seem short_; for, trust me, Sir, I thought we had wanted three miles of the _thatcht House_, till you shewed it me: but now we are at it, we'l turn into it, and refresh our selves with a cup of Ale and a little rest. _Pisc_. Most gladly (Sir) and we'l drink a civil cup to all the _Otter Hunters_ that are to meet you to morrow. _Viat_. That we wil, Sir, and to all the lovers of Angling too, of which number, I am now one my self, for by the help of your good discourse and company, I have put on new thoughts both of the Art of Angling, and of all that profess it: and if you will but meet me too morrow at the time and place appointed, and bestow one day with me and my friends in hunting the _Otter_, I will the next two dayes wait upon you, and we two will for that time do nothing but angle, and talk of fish and fishing. _Pisc_. 'Tis a match, Sir, I'l not fail you, God willing, to be at _Amwel Hil_ to morrow morning before Sunrising. CHAP. II. _Viat_. My friend _Piscator_, you have kept time with my thoughts, for the Sun is just rising, and I my self just now come to this place, and the dogs have just now put down an _Otter_, look down at the bottom of the hil, there in that Meadow, chequered with water Lillies and Lady-smocks, there you may see what work they make: look, you see all busie, men and dogs, dogs and men, all busie. _Pisc_. Sir, I am right glad to meet you, and glad to have so fair an entrance into this dayes sport, and glad to see so many dogs, and more men all in pursuit of the _Otter_; lets complement no longer, but joine unto them; come honest _Viator_, lets be gone, lets make haste, I long to be doing; no reasonable hedge or ditch shall hold me. _Viat_. Gentleman Huntsman, where found you this _Otter_? _Hunt_. Marry (Sir) we found her a mile off this place a fishing; she has this morning eaten the greatest part of this _Trout_, she has only left thus much of it as you see, and was fishing for more; when we came we found her just at it: but we were here very early, we were here an hour before Sun-rise, and have given her no rest since we came: sure she'l hardly escape all these dogs and men. I am to have the skin if we kill him. _Viat_. Why, Sir, whats the skin worth? _Hunt_. 'Tis worth ten shillings to make gloves; the gloves of an _Otter_ are the best fortification for your hands against wet weather that can be thought of. _Pisc_. I pray, honest Huntsman, let me ask you a pleasant question, Do you hunt a Beast or a fish? _H_. Sir, It is not in my power to resolve you; for the question has been debated among many great Clerks, and they seem to differ about it; but most agree, that his tail is fish: and if his body be fish too, then I may say, that a fish will walk upon land (for an _Otter_ does so) sometimes five or six, or ten miles in a night. But (Sir) I can tell you certainly, that he devours much fish, and kils and spoils much more: And I can tell you, that he can smel a fish in the water one hundred yards from him (_Gesner_ sayes, much farther) and that his stones are good against the Falling-sickness: and that there is an herb _Benione_, which being hung in a linen cloth near a Fish Pond, or any haunt that he uses, makes him to avoid the place, which proves he can smell both by water and land. And thus much for my knowledg of the _Otter_, which you may now see above water at vent, and the dogs close with him; I now see he will not last long, follow therefore my Masters, follow, for _Sweetlips_ was like to have him at this vent. _via_. Oh me, all the Horse are got over the river, what shall we do now? _Hun_. Marry, stay a little & follow, both they and the dogs will be suddenly on this side again, I warrant you, and the _Otter_ too it may be: now have at him with _Kil buck_, for he vents again. _via_. Marry so he is, for look he vents in that corner. Now, now _Ringwood_ has him. Come bring him to me. Look, 'tis a Bitch _Otter_ upon my word, and she has lately whelped, lets go to the place where she was put down, and not far from it, you will find all her young ones, I dare warrant you: and kill them all too. _Hunt_. Come Gentlemen, come all, lets go to the place where we put downe the _Otter_; look you, hereabout it was that shee kennell'd; look you, here it was indeed, for here's her young ones, no less then five: come lets kill them all. _Pisc_. No, I pray Sir; save me one, and I'll try if I can make her tame, as I know an ingenuous Gentleman in _Leicester-shire_ has done; who hath not only made her tame, but to catch fish, and doe many things of much pleasure. _Hunt_. Take one with all my heart; but let us kill the rest. And now lets go to an honest Alehouse and sing _Old Rose_, and rejoice all of us together. _Viat_. Come my friend, let me invite you along with us; I'll bear your charges this night, and you shall beare mine to morrow; for my intention is to accompany you a day or two in fishing. _Pisc_. Sir, your request is granted, and I shall be right glad, both to exchange such a courtesie, and also to enjoy your company. * * * * * _Viat_. Well, now lets go to your sport of Angling. _Pisc_. Lets be going with all my heart, God keep you all, Gentlemen, and send you meet this day with another bitch _Otter_, and kill her merrily, and all her young ones too. _Viat_. Now _Piscator_, where wil you begin to fish? _Pisc_. We are not yet come to a likely place, I must walk a mile further yet before I begin. _Viat_. Well then, I pray, as we walk, tell me freely how you like my Hoste, and the company? is not mine Hoste a witty man? _Pisc_. Sir, To speak truly, he is not to me; for most of his conceits were either Scripture-jests, or lascivious jests; for which I count no man witty: for the Divel will help a man that way inclin'd, to the first, and his own corrupt nature (which he alwayes carries with him) to the latter. But a companion that feasts the company with wit and mirth, and leaves out the sin (which is usually mixt with them) he is the man: and indeed, such a man should have his charges born: and to such company I hope to bring you this night; for at _Trout-Hal_, not far from this place, where I purpose to lodg to night, there is usually an Angler that proves good company. But for such discourse as we heard last night, it infects others; the very boyes will learn to talk and swear as they heard mine Host, and another of the company that shall be nameless; well, you know what example is able to do, and I know what the Poet sayes in the like case: ----_Many a one Owes to his Country his Religion: And in another would as strongly grow, Had but his Nurse or Mother taught him so_. This is reason put into Verse, and worthy the consideration of a wise man. But of this no more, for though I love civility, yet I hate severe censures: I'll to my own Art, and I doubt not but at yonder tree I shall catch a _Chub_, and then we'll turn to an honest cleanly Alehouse that I know right well, rest our selves, and dress it for our dinner. _via_. Oh, Sir, a _Chub_ is the worst fish that swims, I hoped for a _Trout_ for my dinner. _Pis_. Trust me, Sir, there is not a likely place for a _Trout_ hereabout, and we staid so long to take our leave of your Huntsmen this morning, that the Sun is got so high, and shines so clear, that I will not undertake the catching of a _Trout_ till evening; and though a _Chub_ be by you and many others reckoned the worst of all fish, yet you shall see I'll make it good fish by dressing it. _Viat_. Why, how will you dress him? _Pisc_. I'll tell you when I have caught him: look you here, Sir, do you see? (but you must stand very close) there lye upon the top of the water twenty _Chubs_: I'll catch only one, and that shall be the biggest of them all: and that I will do so, I'll hold you twenty to one. _Viat_. I marry, Sir, now you talk like an Artist, and I'll say, you are one, when I shall see you perform what you say you can do; but I yet doubt it. _Pisc_. And that you shall see me do presently; look, the biggest of these _Chubs_ has had some bruise upon his tail, and that looks like a white spot; that very _Chub_ I mean to catch; sit you but down in the shade, and stay but a little while, and I'll warrant you I'll bring him to you. _viat_. I'll sit down and hope well, because you seem to be so confident. _Pisc_. Look you Sir, there he is, that very _Chub_ that I shewed you, with the white spot on his tail; and I'll be as certain to make him a good dish of meat, as I was to catch him. I'll now lead you to an honest Alehouse, where we shall find a cleanly room, Lavender in the windowes, and twenty Ballads stuck about the wall; there my Hostis (which I may tell you, is both cleanly and conveniently handsome) has drest many a one for me, and shall now dress it after my fashion, and I warrant it good meat. _viat_. Come Sir, with all my heart, for I begin to be hungry, and long to be at it, and indeed to rest my self too; for though I have walked but four miles this morning, yet I begin to be weary; yester dayes hunting hangs stil upon me. _Pisc_. Wel Sir, and you shal quickly be at rest, for yonder is the house I mean to bring you to. Come Hostis, how do you? wil you first give us a cup of your best Ale, and then dress this _Chub_, as you drest my last, when I and my friend were hereabout eight or ten daies ago? but you must do me one courtesie, it must be done instantly. _Host_. I wil do it, Mr. _Piscator_, and with all the speed I can. _Pisc_. Now Sir, has not my Hostis made haste? And does not the fish look lovely? _Viat_. Both, upon my word Sir, and therefore lets say Grace and fall to eating of it. _Pisc_. Well Sir, how do you like it? _viat_. Trust me, 'tis as good meat as ever I tasted: now let me thank you for it, drink to you, and beg a courtesie of you; but it must not be deny'd me. _Pisc_. What is it, I pray Sir? You are so modest, that me thinks I may promise to grant it before it is asked. _viat_. Why Sir, it is that from henceforth you wil allow me to call you Master, and that really I may be your Scholer, for you are such a companion, and have so quickly caught, and so excellently cook'd this fish, as makes me ambitious to be your scholer. _Pisc_. Give me your hand: from this time forward I wil be your Master, and teach you as much of this Art as I am able; and will, as you desire me, tel you somewhat of the nature of some of the fish which we are to Angle for; and I am sure I shal tel you more then every Angler yet knows. And first I will tel you how you shall catch such a _Chub_ as this was; & then how to cook him as this was: I could not have begun to teach you to catch any fish more easily then this fish is caught; but then it must be this particular way, and this you must do: Go to the same hole, where in most hot days you will finde floting neer the top of the water, at least a dozen or twenty _Chubs_; get a _Grashopper_ or two as you goe, and get secretly behinde the tree, put it then upon your hook, and let your hook hang a quarter of a yard short of the top of the water, and 'tis very likely that the shadow of your rod, which you must rest on the tree, will cause the _Chubs_ to sink down to the bottom with fear; for they be a very fearful fish, and the shadow of a bird flying over them will make them do so; but they will presently rise up to the top again, and there lie soaring till some shadow affrights them again: when they lie upon the top of the water, look out the best _Chub_, which you setting your self in a fit place, may very easily do, and move your Rod as softly as a Snail moves, to that _Chub_ you intend to catch; let your bait fall gently upon the water three or four inches before him, and he will infallibly take the bait, and you will be as sure to catch him; for he is one of the leather-mouth'd fishes, of which a hook does scarce ever lose his hold: and therefore give him play enough before you offer to take him out of the water. Go your way presently, take my rod, and doe as I bid you, and I will sit down and mend my tackling till you return back. _viat_. Truly, my loving Master, you have offered me as fair as I could wish: Ile go, and observe your directions. Look you, Master, what I have done; that which joyes my heart; caught just such another _Chub_ as yours was. _Pisc_. Marry, and I am glad of it: I am like to have a towardly Scholar of you. I now see, that with advice and practice you will make an Angler in a short time. _Viat_. But Master, What if I could not have found a _Grashopper_? _Pis_. Then I may tell you, that a black _Snail_, with his belly slit, to shew his white; or a piece of soft cheese will usually do as well; nay, sometimes a _worm_, or any kind of _fly_; as the _Ant-fly_, the _Flesh-fly_, or _Wall-fly_, or the _Dor_ or _Beetle_, (which you may find under a Cow-turd) or a _Bob_, which you will find in the same place, and in time wil be a _Beetle_; it is a short white worm, like to, and bigger then a Gentle, or a _Cod-worm_, or _Case-worm_: any of these will do very wel to fish in such a manner. And after this manner you may catch a _Trout_: in a hot evening, when as you walk by a Brook, and shal see or hear him leap at Flies, then if you get a _Grashopper_, put it on your hook, with your line about two yards long, standing behind a bush or tree where his hole is, and make your bait stir up and down on the top of the water; you may, if you stand close, be sure of a bit, but not sure to catch him, for he is not a leather mouthed fish: and after this manner you may fish for him with almost any kind of live Flie, but especially with a _Grashopper_. _Viat_. But before you go further, I pray good Master, what mean you by a leather mouthed fish. _Pisc_. By a leather mouthed fish, I mean such as have their teeth in their throat, as the _Chub_ or _Cheven_, and so the _Barbel_, the _Gudgion_ and _Carp_, and divers others have; and the hook being stuck into the leather or skin of such fish, does very seldome or never lose its hold: But on the contrary, a _Pike_, a _Pearch_, or _Trout_, and so some other fish, which have not their teeth in their throats, but in their mouthes, which you shal observe to be very full of bones, and the skin very thin, and little of it: I say, of these fish the hook never takes so sure hold, but you often lose the fish unless he have gorg'd it. _Viat_. I thank you good Master for this observation; but now what shal be done with my _Chub_ or _Cheven_ that I have caught. _Pisc_. Marry Sir, it shall be given away to some poor body, for Ile warrant you Ile give you a _Trout_ for your supper; and it is a good beginning of your Art to offer your first fruits to the poor, who will both thank God and you for it. And now lets walk towards the water again, and as I go Ile tel you when you catch your next _Chub_, how to dresse it as this was. _viat_. Come (good Master) I long to be going and learn your direction. _Pisc_. You must dress it, or see it drest thus: When you have scaled him, wash him very cleane, cut off his tail and fins; and wash him not after you gut him, but chine or cut him through the middle as a salt fish is cut, then give him four or five scotches with your knife, broil him upon wood-cole or char-cole; but as he is broiling; baste him often with butter that shal be choicely good; and put good store of salt into your butter, or salt him gently as you broil or baste him; and bruise or cut very smal into your butter, a little Time, or some other sweet herb that is in the Garden where you eat him: thus used, it takes away the watrish taste which the _Chub_ or _Chevin_ has, and makes him a choice dish of meat, as you your self know, for thus was that dressed, which you did eat of to your dinner. Or you may (for variety) dress a _Chub_ another way, and you will find him very good, and his tongue and head almost as good as a _Carps_; but then you must be sure that no grass or weeds be left in his mouth or throat. Thus you must dress him: Slit him through the middle, then cut him into four pieces: then put him into a pewter dish, and cover him with another, put into him as much White Wine as wil cover him, or Spring water and Vinegar, and store of Salt, with some branches of Time, and other sweet herbs; let him then be boiled gently over a Chafing-dish with wood coles, and when he is almost boiled enough, put half of the liquor from him, not the top of it; put then into him a convenient quantity of the best butter you can get, with a little Nutmeg grated into it, and sippets of white bread: thus ordered, you wil find the _Chevin_ and the sauce too, a choice dish of meat: And I have been the more careful to give you a perfect direction how to dress him, because he is a fish undervalued by many, and I would gladly restore him to some of his credit which he has lost by ill Cookery. _Viat_. But Master, have you no other way to catch a _Cheven_, or _Chub_? _Pisc_. Yes that I have, but I must take time to tel it you hereafter; or indeed, you must learn it by observation and practice, though this way that I have taught you was the easiest to catch a _Chub_, at this time, and at this place. And now we are come again to the River; I wil (as the Souldier sayes) prepare for skirmish; that is, draw out my Tackling, and try to catch a _Trout_ for supper. _Viat_. Trust me Master, I see now it is a harder matter to catch a _Trout_ then a _Chub_; for I have put on patience, and followed you this two hours, and not seen a fish stir, neither at your Minnow nor your worm. _Pisc_. Wel Scholer, you must indure worse luck sometime, or you will never make a good Angler. But what say you now? there is a _Trout_ now, and a good one too, if I can but hold him; and two or three turns more will tire him: Now you see he lies still, and the sleight is to land him: Reach me that Landing net: So (Sir) now he is mine own, what say you? is not this worth all my labour? _Viat_. On my word Master, this is a gallant _Trout_; what shall we do with him? _Pisc_. Marry ee'n eat him to supper: We'l go to my Hostis, from whence we came; she told me, as I was going out of door, that my brother _Peter_, a good Angler, and a cheerful companion, had sent word he would lodg there to night, and bring a friend with him. My Hostis has two beds, and I know you and I may have the best: we'l rejoice with my brother _Peter_ and his friend, tel tales, or sing Ballads, or make a Catch, or find some harmless sport to content us. _Viat_. A match, good Master, lets go to that house, for the linen looks white, and smels of Lavender, and I long to lye in a pair of sheets that smels so: lets be going, good Master, for I am hungry again with fishing. _Pisc_. Nay, stay a little good Scholer, I caught my last _Trout_ with a worm, now I wil put on a Minow and try a quarter of an hour about yonder trees for another, and so walk towards our lodging. Look you Scholer, thereabout we shall have a bit presently, or not at all: Have with you (Sir!) on my word I have him. Oh it is a great logger-headed _Chub_: Come, hang him upon that Willow twig, and let's be going. But turn out of the way a little, good Scholer, towards yonder high hedg: We'l sit whilst this showr falls so gently upon the teeming earth, and gives a sweeter smel to the lovely flowers that adorn the verdant Meadows. Look, under that broad _Beech tree_ I sate down when I was last this way a fishing, and the birds in the adjoining Grove seemed to have a friendly contention with an Echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow cave, near to the brow of that Primrose hil; there I sate viewing the Silver streams glide silently towards their center, the tempestuous Sea, yet sometimes opposed by rugged roots, and pibble stones, which broke their waves, and turned them into some: and sometimes viewing the harmless Lambs, some leaping securely in the cool shade, whilst others sported themselvs in the cheerful Sun; and others were craving comfort from the swolne Udders of their bleating Dams. As I thus sate, these and other sighs had so fully possest my soul, that I thought as the Poet has happily exprest it: _I was for that time lifted above earth; And possest joyes not promis'd in my birth_. As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a second pleasure entertained me, 'twas a handsome Milk-maid, that had cast away all care, and sung like a _Nightingale_; her voice was good, and the Ditty fitted for it; 'twas that smooth Song which was made by _Kit Marlow_, now at least fifty years ago; and the Milk maid's mother sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir _Walter Raleigh_ in his younger days. They were old fashioned Poetry, but choicely good, I think much better then that now in fashion in this Critical age. Look yonder, on my word, yonder they be both a milking again: I will give her the _Chub_, and persuade them to sing those two songs to us. _Pisc_. God speed, good woman, I have been a-fishing, and am going to _Bleak Hall_ to my bed, and having caught more fish then will sup my self and friend, will bestow this upon you and your daughter for I use to sell none. _Milkw_. Marry, God requite you Sir, and we'l eat it cheerfully: will you drink a draught of red Cow's milk? _Pisc_. No, I thank you: but I pray do us a courtesie that shal stand you and your daughter in nothing, and we wil think our selves stil something in your debt; it is but to sing us a Song, that that was sung by you and your daughter, when I last past over this Meadow, about eight or nine dayes since. _Milk_. what Song was it, I pray? was it, _Come Shepherds deck your heads_: or, _As at noon_ Dulcina _rested_: or _Philida flouts me_? _Pisc_. No, it is none of those: it is a Song that your daughter sung the first part, and you sung the answer to it. _Milk_. O I know it now, I learn'd the first part in my golden age, when I was about the age of my daughter; and the later part, which indeed fits me best, but two or three years ago; you shal, God willing, hear them both. Come _Maudlin_, sing the first part to the Gentlemen with a merrie heart, and Ile sing the second. The Milk maids Song. _Come live with me, and be my Love, And we wil all the pleasures prove That vallies, Groves, or hils, or fields, Or woods and steepie mountains yeelds. Where we will sit upon the_ Rocks, _And see the Shepherds feed our_ flocks, _By shallow_ Rivers, _to whose falls Mellodious birds sing_ madrigals. _And I wil make thee beds of_ Roses, _And then a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers and a Kirtle, Imbroidered all with leaves of Mirtle. A Gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty Lambs we pull, Slippers lin'd choicely for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold. A belt of straw and ivie buds, With Coral clasps, and Amber studs And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my Love. The Shepherds Swains shal dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me, and be my Love_. _Via_. Trust me Master, it is a choice Song, and sweetly sung by honest _Maudlin_: Ile bestow Sir _Thomas Overbury's_ Milk maids wish upon her, _That she may dye in the Spring, and have good store of flowers stuck round about her winding sheet_. The Milk maids mothers answer. _If all the world and love were young, And truth in every Shepherds tongue? These pretty pleasures might me move, To live with thee, and be thy love. But time drives flocks from field to fold: When rivers rage and rocks grow cold, And_ Philomel _becometh dumb, The Rest complains of cares to come. The Flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward Winter reckoning yeilds A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancies spring, but sorrows fall. Thy gowns, thy shooes, thy beds of Roses, Thy Cap, thy Kirtle, and thy Posies, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, In folly ripe, in reason rotten. Thy belt of straw and Ivie buds, Thy Coral clasps and Amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee, and be thy Love. But could youth last, and love stil breed, Had joys no date, nor age no need; Then those delights my mind might move To live with thee, and be thy love_. _Pisc_. Well sung, good woman, I thank you, I'l give you another dish of fish one of these dayes, and then beg another Song of you. Come Scholer, let Maudlin alone, do not you offer to spoil her voice. Look, yonder comes my Hostis to cal us to supper. How now? is my brother _Peter_ come? _Host_. Yes, and a friend with him, they are both glad to hear you are in these parts, and long to see you, and are hungry, and long to be at supper. CHAP. III. _Piscat_. Wel met brother _Peter_, I heard you & a friend would lodg here to night, and that has made me and my friend cast to lodge here too; my friend is one that would faine be a brother of the _Angle_: he has been an _Angler_ but this day, and I have taught him how to catch a _Chub_ with _daping_ a _Grashopper_, and he has caught a lusty one of nineteen inches long. But I pray you brother, who is it that is your companion? _Peter_. Brother _Piscator_, my friend is an honest Country man, and his name is _Coridon_, a most downright witty merry companion that met me here purposely to eat a _Trout_ and be pleasant, and I have not yet wet my line since I came from home: But I wil fit him to morrow with a _Trout_ for his breakfast, if the weather be any thing like. _Pisc_. Nay brother, you shall not delay him so long, for look you here is a _Trout_ will fill six reasonable bellies. Come Hostis, dress it presently, and get us what other meat the house wil afford, and give us some good Ale, and lets be merrie. _The Description of a_ Trout. [Illustration] _Peter_. On my word, this _Trout_ is in perfect season. Come, I thank you, and here's a hearty draught to you, and to all the brothers of the Angle, wheresoever they be, and to my young brothers good fortune to morrow; I wil furnish him with a rod, if you wil furnish him with the rest of the tackling, we wil set him up and make him a fisher. And I wil tel him one thing for his encouragement, that his fortune hath made him happy to be a Scholer to such a Master; a Master that knowes as much both of the nature and breeding of fish, as any man; and can also tell him as well how to catch and cook them, from the _Minnow_ to the _Sammon_, as any that I ever met withall. _Pisc_. Trust me, brother _Peter_, I find my Scholer to be so sutable to my own humour, which is to be free and pleasant, and civilly merry, that my resolution is to hide nothing from him. Believe me, Scholer, this is my resolution: and so here's to you a hearty draught, and to all that love us, and the honest Art of Angling. _Viat_. Trust me, good Master, you shall not sow your seed in barren ground, for I hope to return you an increase answerable to your hopes; but however, you shal find me obedient, and thankful, and serviceable to my best abilitie. _Pisc_. 'Tis enough, honest Scholer, come lets to supper. Come my friend _Coridon_, this _Trout_ looks lovely, it was twenty two inches when it was taken, and the belly of it look'd some part of it as yellow as a Marygold, and part of it as white as a Lily, and yet me thinks it looks better in this good fawce. _Coridon_. Indeed, honest friend, it looks well, and tastes well, I thank you for it, and so does my friend _Peter_, or else he is to blame. _Pet_. Yes, and so I do, we all thank you, and when we have supt, I wil get my friend _Coridon_ to sing you a Song, for requital. _Cor_. I wil sing a Song if anyboby wil sing another; else, to be plain with you, I wil sing none: I am none of those that sing for meat, but for company; I say, 'Tis merry in Hall when men sing all. _Pisc_. I'l promise you I'l sing a Song that was lately made at my request by Mr. _William Basse_, one that has made the choice Songs of the _Hunter in his carrere_, and of _Tom of Bedlam_, and many others of note; and this that I wil sing is in praise of Angling. _Cor_. And then mine shall be the praise of a Country mans life: What will the rest sing of? _Pet_. I wil promise you I wil sing another Song in praise of Angling, to-morrow night, for we wil not part till then, but fish to morrow, and sup together, and the next day every man leave fishing, and fall to his business. _Viat_. 'Tis a match, and I wil provide you a Song or a Ketch against then too, that shal give some addition of mirth to the company; for we wil be merrie. _Pisc_. 'Tis a match my masters; lets ev'n say Grace, and turn to the fire, drink the other cup to wet our whistles, and so sing away all sad thoughts. Come on my masters, who begins? I think it is best to draw cuts and avoid contention. _Pet_. It is a match. Look, the shortest Cut fals to _Coridon_. _Cor_. Well then, I wil begin; for I hate contention. CORIDONS Song. _Oh the sweet contentment The country man doth find! high trolollie laliloe high trolollie lee, That quiet contemplation Possesseth all my mind_: Then care away, and wend along with me. _For Courts are full of flattery, As hath too oft been tri'd; high trolollie lollie loe high trolollie lee, The City full of wantonness, and both are full of pride_: Then care away, and wend along with me. _But oh the honest countryman Speaks truly from his heart, high trolollie lollie loe high trolollie lee, His pride is in his Tillage, his Horses and his Cart_: Then care away, and wend along with me. _Our clothing is good sheep skins Gray russet for our wives, high trolollie lollie loe high trolollie lee. 'Tis warmth and not gay clothing that doth prolong our lives_: Then care away, and wend along with me, _The ploughman, though he labor hard, Yet on the_ Holy-day, _high trolollie lollie loe high trolollie lee, No Emperor so merrily does pass his time away_: Then care away, and wend along with me. _To recompence our Tillage, The Heavens afford us showrs; high trolollie lollie loe high trolollie lee, And for our sweet refreshments the earth affords us bowers_: Then care away, &c. _The_ Cuckoe _and the_ Nightingale _full merrily do sing, high trolollie lollie loe high trolollie lee, And with their pleasant roundelayes bid welcome to the_ Spring: Then care away, and wend along with me. _This is not half the happiness the Country man injoyes; high trolollie lollie loe high trolollie lee, Though others think they have as much yet he that says so lies_: Then come away, turn County man with me_. _Pisc_. Well sung _Coridon_, this Song was sung with mettle, and it was choicely fitted to the occasion; I shall love you for it as long as I know you: I would you were a brother of the Angle, for a companion that is cheerful and free from swearing and scurrilous discourse, is worth gold. I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning; nor men (that cannot wel bear it) to repent the money they spend when they be warmed with drink: and take this for a rule, you may pick out such times and such companies, that you may make your selves merrier for a little then a great deal of money; for _'Tis the company and not the charge that makes the feast_: and such a companion you prove, I thank you for it. But I will not complement you out of the debt that I owe you, and therefore I will begin my Song, and wish it may be as well liked. The ANGLERS Song. _As inward love breeds outward talk, The_ Hound _some praise, and some the_ Hawk, _Some better pleas'd with private sport, Use_ Tenis, _some a_ Mistris _court: But these delights I neither wish, Nor envy, while I freely fish. Who_ hunts, _doth oft in danger ride Who_ hauks, _lures oft both far & wide; Who uses games, may often prove A loser; but who fals in love, Is fettered in fond_ Cupids _snare: My Angle breeds me no such care. Of Recreation there is none So free as fishing is alone; All other pastimes do no less Then mind and body both possess; My hand alone my work can do, So I can fish and study too. I care not, I, to fish in seas, Fresh rivers best my mind do please, Whose sweet calm course I contemplate; And seek in life to imitate; In civil bounds I fain would keep, And for my past offences weep. And when the timerous_ Trout _I wait To take, and he devours my bait, How poor a thing sometimes I find Will captivate a greedy mind: And when none bite, I praise the wise, Whom vain alurements ne're surprise. But yet though while I fish, I fast, I make good fortune my repast, And there unto my friend invite, In whom I more then that delight: Who is more welcome to my dish, Then to my Angle was my fish. As well content no prize to take As use of taken prize to make; For so our Lord was pleased when He Fishers made Fishers of men; Where (which is in no other game) A man may fish and praise his name. The first men that our Saviour dear Did chuse to wait upon him here, Blest Fishers were; and fish the last Food was, that he on earth did taste. I therefore strive to follow those, Whom he to follow him hath chose. W.B. _Cor_. Well sung brother, you have paid your debt in good coyn, we Anglers are all beholding to the good man that made this Song. Come Hostis, give us more Ale and lets drink to him. And now lets everie one go to bed that we may rise early; but first lets pay our Reckoning, for I wil have nothing to hinder me in the morning for I will prevent the Sun rising. _Pet_. A match: Come _Coridon_, you are to be my Bed-fellow: I know brother you and your Scholer wil lie together; but where shal we meet to morrow night? for my friend _Coridon_ and I will go up the water towards _Ware_. _Pisc_. And my Scholer and I will go down towards _Waltam_. _Cor_. Then lets meet here, for here are fresh sheets that smel of Lavender, and, I am sure, we cannot expect better meat and better usage. _Pet_. 'Tis a match. Good night to every body. _Pisc_. And so say I. _Viat_. And so say I. * * * * * _Pisc_. Good morrow good Hostis, I see my brother _Peter_ is in bed still; Come, give my Scholer and me a cup of Ale, and be sure you get us a good dish of meat against supper, for we shall come hither as hungry as _Hawks_. Come Scholer, lets be going. _Viat_. Good Master, as we walk towards the water, wil you be pleased to make the way seeme shorter by telling me first the nature of the _Trout_, and then how to catch him. _Pisc_. My honest Scholer, I wil do it freely: The _Trout_ (for which I love to angle above any fish) may be justly said (as the ancient Poets say of Wine, and we English say of Venson) to be a generous fish, because he has his seasons, a fish that comes in, and goes out with the _Stag_ or _Buck_: and you are to observe, that as there be some _barren Does_, that are good in Summer; so there be some barren _Trouts_, that are good in Winter; but there are not many that are so, for usually they be in their perfection in the month of _May_, and decline with the _Buck_: Now you are to take notice, that in several Countries, as in _Germany_ and in other parts compar'd to ours, they differ much in their bigness, shape, and other wayes, and so do _Trouts_; 'tis wel known that in the Lake _Lemon_, the Lake of _Geneva_, there are _Trouts_ taken, of three Cubits long, as is affirmed by _Gesner_, a Writer of good credit: and _Mercator_ sayes, the _Trouts_ that are taken in the Lake of _Geneva_, are a great part of the Merchandize of that famous City. And you are further to know, that there be certaine waters that breed _Trouts_ remarkable, both for their number and smalness--I know a little Brook in _Kent_ that breeds them to a number incredible, and you may take them twentie or fortie in an hour, but none greater then about the size of a _Gudgion_. There are also in divers Rivers, especially that relate to, or be near to the Sea, (as _Winchester_, or the Thames about _Windsor_) a little _Trout_ called a _Samlet_ or _Skegger Trout_ (in both which places I have caught twentie or fortie at a standing) that will bite as fast and as freely as _Minnows_; these be by some taken to be young _Salmons_, but in those waters they never grow to bee bigger then a _Herring_. There is also in _Kent_, neer to _Canterbury_, a _Trout_ (called there a _Fordig Trout_) a _Trout_ (that bears the name of the Town where 'tis usually caught) that is accounted rare meat, many of them near the bigness of a _Salmon_, but knowne by their different colour, and in their best season cut very white; and none have been known to be caught with an Angle, unless it were one that was caught by honest Sir _George Hastings_, an excellent Angler (and now with God) and he has told me, he thought that _Trout_ bit not for hunger, but wantonness; and 'tis the rather to be believed, because both he then, and many others before him have been curious to search into their bellies what the food was by which they lived; and have found out nothing by which they might satisfie their curiositie. Concerning which you are to take notice, that it is reported, there is a fish that hath not any mouth, but lives by taking breath by the porinss of her gils, and feeds and is nourish'd by no man knows what; and this may be believed of the _Fordig Trout_, which (as it is said of the _Stork_, that he knowes his season, so he) knows his times (I think almost his day) of coming into that River out of the Sea, where he lives (and it is like feeds) nine months of the year, and about three in the River of _Fordig_. And now for some confirmation of this; you are to know, that this _Trout_ is thought to eat nothing in the fresh water; and it may be the better believed, because it is well known, that _Swallowes_, which are not seen to flye in _England_ for six months in the year, but about _Michaelmas_ leave us for a hotter climate; yet some of them, that have been left behind their fellows, [view Sir Fra. Bacon exper. 899.], have been found (many thousand at a time) in hollow trees, where they have been observed to live and sleep [see Topsel of Frogs] out the whole winter without meat; and so _Albertus_ observes that there is one kind of _Frog_ that hath her mouth naturally shut up about the end of _August_, and that she lives so all the Winter, and though it be strange to some, yet it is known to too many amongst us to bee doubted. And so much for these _Fordig Trouts_, which never afford an Angler sport, but either live their time of being in the fresh water by their meat formerly gotten in the Sea, (not unlike the _Swallow_ or _Frog_) or by the vertue of the fresh water only, as the _Camelion_ is said to live by the air. There is also in _Northumberland_, a _Trout_, called a _Bull Trout_, of a much greater length and bignesse then any in these Southern parts; and there is in many Rivers that relate to the Sea, _Salmon Trouts_ as much different one from another, both in shape and in their spots, as we see Sheep differ one from another in their shape and bigness, and in the finess of their wool: and certainly as some Pastures do breed larger Sheep, so do some Rivers, by reason of the ground over which they run, breed larger _Trouts_. Now the next thing that I will commend to your consideration is, That the _Trout_ is of a more sudden growth then other fish: concerning which you are also to take notice, that he lives not so long as the _Pearch_ and divers other fishes do, as Sir _Francis Bacon_ hath observed in his History of life and death. And next, you are to take notice, that after hee is come to his full growth, he declines in his bodie, but keeps his bigness or thrives in his head till his death. And you are to know that he wil about (especially before) the time of his Spawning, get almost miraculously through _Weires_ and _Floud-Gates_ against the stream, even through such high and swift places as is almost incredible. Next, that the _Trout_ usually Spawns about _October_ or _November_, but in some Rivers a little sooner or later; which is the more observable, because most other fish Spawne in the Spring or Summer, when the Sun hath warmed both the earth and water, and made it fit for generation. And next, you are to note, that till the Sun gets to such a height as to warm the earth and the water, the _Trout_ is sick, and lean, and lowsie, and unwholsome: for you shall in winter find him to have a big head, and then to be lank, and thin, & lean; at which time many of them have sticking on them Sugs, or _Trout_ lice, which is a kind of a worm, in shape like a Clove or a Pin, with a big head, and sticks close to him and sucks his moisture; those I think the _Trout_ breeds himselfe, and never thrives til he free himself from them, which is till warm weather comes, and then as he growes stronger, he gets from the dead, still water, into the sharp streames and the gravel, and there rubs off these worms or lice: and then as he grows stronger, so he gets him into swifter and swifter streams, and there lies at the watch for any flie or Minow that comes neer to him; and he especially loves the _May_ flie, which is bred of the _Cod-worm_ or _Caddis_; and these make the _Trout_ bold and lustie, and he is usually fatter, and better meat at the end of that month, then at any time of the year. Now you are to know, that it is observed that usually the best _Trouts_ are either red or yellow, though some be white and yet good; but that is not usual; and it is a note observable that the female _Trout_ hath usually a less head and a deeper body then the male _Trout_; and a little head to any fish, either _Trout, Salmon_, or other fish, is a sign that that fish is in season. But yet you are to note, that as you see some Willows or Palm trees bud and blossome sooner then others do, so some _Trouts_ be in some Rivers sooner in season; and as the Holly or Oak are longer before they cast their Leaves, so are some _Trouts_ in some Rivers longer before they go out of season. CHAP. IV. And having told you these Observations concerning _Trouts_, I shall next tell you how to catch them: which is usually with a _Worm_, or a _Minnow_ (which some call a _Penke_;) or with a _Flie_, either a _natural_ or an _artificial_ Flie: Concerning which three I wil give you some Observations and Directions. For Worms, there be very many sorts; some bred onely in the earth, as the _earth worm_; others amongst or of plants, as the _dug-worm_; and others in the bodies of living creatures; or some of dead flesh, as the _Magot_ or _Gentle_, and others. Now these be most of them particularly good for particular fishes: but for the _Trout_ the _dew-worm_, (which some also cal the _Lob-worm_) and the _Brandling_ are the chief; and especially the first for a great _Trout_, and the later for a lesse. There be also of _lob-worms_, some called _squirel-tails_ (a worm which has a red head, a streak down the back, and a broad tail) which are noted to be the best, because they are the toughest, and most lively, and live longest in the water: for you are to know, that a dead worm is but a dead bait, and like to catch nothing, compared to a lively, quick, stirring worm: And for a _Brandling_, hee is usually found in an old dunghil, or some very rotten place neer to it; but most usually in cow dung, or hogs dung, rather then horse dung, which is somewhat too hot and dry for that worm. There are also divers other kindes of worms, which for colour and shape alter even as the ground out of which they are got: as the _marsh-worm_, the _tag-tail_, the _flag-worm_, the _dock-worm_, the _oake-worm_, the _gilt-tail_, and too many to name, even as many sorts, as some think there be of severall kinds of birds in the air: of which I shall say no more, but tell you, that what worms soever you fish with, are the better for being long kept before they be used; and in case you have not been so provident, then the way to cleanse and scoure them quickly, is to put them all night in water, if they be _Lob-worms_, and then put them into your bag with fennel: but you must not put your _Brandling_ above an hour in water, and then put them into fennel for sudden use: but if you have time, and purpose to keep them long, then they be best preserved in an earthen pot with good store of _mosse_, which is to be fresh every week or eight dayes; or at least taken from them, and clean wash'd, and wrung betwixt your hands till it be dry, and then put it to them again: And for Moss you are to note, that there be divers kindes of it which I could name to you, but wil onely tel you, that that which is likest a _Bucks horn_ is the best; except it be _white_ Moss, which grows on some heaths, and is hard to be found. For the _Minnow_ or _Penke_, he is easily found and caught in April, for then hee appears in the Rivers: but Nature hath taught him to shelter and hide himself in the Winter in ditches that be neer to the River, and there both to hide and keep himself warm in the weeds, which rot not so soon as in a running River in which place if hee were in Winter, the distempered Floods that are usually in that season, would suffer him to have no rest, but carry him headlong to Mils and Weires to his confusion. And of these _Minnows_, first you are to know, that the biggest size is not the best; and next, that the middle size and the whitest are the best: and then you are to know, that I cannot well teach in words, but must shew you how to put it on your hook, that it may turn the better: And you are also to know, that it is impossible it should turn too quick: And you are yet to know, that in case you want a _Minnow_, then a small _Loch_, or a _Sticklebag_, or any other small Fish will serve as wel: And you are yet to know, that you may salt, and by that means keep them fit for use three or four dayes or longer; and that of salt, bay salt is the best. Now for _Flies_, which is the third bait wherewith _Trouts_ are usually taken. You are to know, that there are as many sorts of Flies as there be of Fruits: I will name you but some of them: as the _dun flie_, the _stone flie_, the _red flie_, the _moor flie_, the _tawny flie_, the _shel flie_, the _cloudy_ or blackish _flie_: there be of Flies, _Caterpillars_, and _Canker flies_, and _Bear flies_; and indeed, too many either for mee to name, or for you to remember: and their breeding is so various and wonderful, that I might easily amaze my self, and tire you in a relation of them. And yet I wil exercise your promised patience by saying a little of the _Caterpillar_, or the _Palmer flie_ or _worm_; that by them you may guess what a work it were in a Discourse but to run over those very many _flies, worms_, and little living creatures with which the Sun and Summer adorn and beautifie the river banks and meadows; both for the recreation and contemplation of the Angler: and which (I think) I myself enjoy more then any other man that is not of my profession. _Pliny_ holds an opinion, that many have their birth or being from a dew that in the Spring falls upon the leaves of trees; and that some kinds of them are from a dew left upon herbs or flowers: and others from a dew left upon Colworts or Cabbages: All which kindes of dews being thickened and condensed, are by the Suns generative heat most of them hatch'd, and in three dayes made living creatures, and of several shapes and colours; some being hard and tough, some smooth and soft; some are horned in their head, some in their tail, some have none; some have hair, some none; some have sixteen feet, some less, and some have none: but (as our _Topsel_ hath with great diligence observed) [in his _History_ of Serpents.] those which have none, move upon the earth, or upon broad leaves, their motion being not unlike to the waves of the sea. Some of them hee also observes to be bred of the eggs of other Caterpillers: and that those in their time turn to be _Butter-flies_; and again, that their eggs turn the following yeer to be _Caterpillars_. 'Tis endlesse to tell you what the curious Searchers into Natures productions, have observed of these Worms and Flies: But yet I shall tell you what our _Topsel_ sayes of the _Canker_, or _Palmer-worm_, or _Caterpiller_; That wheras others content themselves to feed on particular herbs or leaves (for most think, those very leaves that gave them life and shape, give them a particular feeding and nourishment, and that upon them they usually abide;) yet he observes, that this is called a _Pilgrim_ or _Palmer-worm_, for his very wandering life and various food; not contenting himself (as others do) with any certain place for his abode, nor any certain kinde of herb or flower for his feeding; but will boldly and disorderly wander up and down, and not endure to be kept to a diet, or fixt to a particular place. Nay, the very colours of _Caterpillers_ are, as one has observed, very elegant and beautiful: I shal (for a taste of the rest) describe one of them, which I will sometime the next month, shew you feeding on a Willow tree, and you shal find him punctually to answer this very description: "His lips and mouth somewhat yellow, his eyes black as Jet, his ore-head purple, his feet and hinder parts green, his tail two forked and black, the whole body stain'd with a kind of red spots which run along the neck and shoulder-blades, not unlike the form of a Cross, or the letter X, made thus cross-wise, and a white line drawn down his back to his tail; all which add much beauty to his whole body." And it is to me observable, that at a fix'd age this _Caterpiller_ gives over to eat, and towards winter comes to be coverd over with a strange shell or crust, and so lives a kind of dead life, without eating all the winter, and (as others of several kinds turn to be several kinds of flies and vermin, the Spring following) [view Sir _Fra. Bacon_ exper. 728 & 90 in his Natural History] so this _Caterpiller_ then turns to be a painted Butterflye. Come, come my Scholer, you see the River stops our morning walk, and I wil also here stop my discourse, only as we sit down under this Honey-Suckle hedge, whilst I look a Line to fit the Rod that our brother _Peter_ has lent you, I shall for a little confirmation of what I have said, repeat the observation of the Lord _Bartas_. _God not contented to each kind to give, And to infuse the vertue generative, By his wise power made many creatures breed Of liveless bodies, without_ Venus _deed. So the cold humour breeds the_ Salamander, _Who (in effect) like to her births commander With child with hundred winters, with her touch Quencheth the fire, though glowing ne'r so much. So in the fire in burning furnace springs The fly_ Perausta _with the flaming wings; Without the fire it dies, in it, it joyes, Living in that which all things else destroyes_. [Sidenote: Gerb. Herbal. Cabdem] _So slow_ Boötes _underneath him sees In th'icie Islands_ Goslings _hatcht of trees, Whose fruitful leaves falling into the water, Are turn'd ('tis known) to living fowls soon after. So rotten planks of broken ships, do change To_ Barnacles. _Oh transformation strange! 'Twas first a green tree, then a broken hull, Lately a Mushroom, now a flying Gull_. _Vi_. Oh my good Master, this morning walk has been spent to my great pleasure and wonder: but I pray, when shall I have your direction how to make Artificial flyes, like to those that the _Trout_ loves best? and also how to use them? _Pisc_. My honest Scholer, it is now past five of the Clock, we will fish til nine, and then go to Breakfast: Go you to yonder _Sycamore tree_, and hide your bottle of drink under the hollow root of it; for about that time, and in that place, we wil make a brave Breakfast with a piece of powdered Bief, and a Radish or two that I have in my Fish-bag; we shall, I warrant you, make a good, honest, wholsome, hungry Breakfast, and I will give you direction for the making and using of your fly: and in the mean time, there is your Rod and line; and my advice is, that you fish as you see mee do, and lets try which can catch the first fish. _Viat_. I thank you, Master, I will observe and practice your direction as far as I am able. _Pisc_. Look you Scholer, you see I have hold of a good fish: I now see it is a _Trout_; I pray put that net under him, and touch not my line, for if you do, then wee break all. Well done, Scholer, I thank you. Now for an other. Trust me, I have another bite: Come Scholer, come lay down your Rod, and help me to land this as you did the other. So, now we shall be sure to have a good dish of fish for supper. _Viat_. I am glad of that, but I have no fortune; sure Master yours is a better Rod, and better Tackling. _Pisc_. Nay then, take mine and I will fish with yours. Look you, Scholer, I have another: come, do as you did before. And now I have a bite at another. Oh me he has broke all, there's half a line and a good hook lost. _Viat_. Master, I can neither catch with the first nor second Angle; I have no fortune. _Pisc_. Look you, Scholer, I have yet another: and now having caught three brace of _Trouts_, I will tel you a short Tale as we walk towards our Breakfast. A Scholer (a Preacher I should say) that was to preach to procure the approbation of a Parish, that he might be their Lecturer, had got from a fellow Pupil of his the Copy of a Sermon that was first preached with a great commendation by him that composed and precht it; and though the borrower of it preach't it word for word, as it was at first, yet it was utterly dislik'd as it was preach'd by the second; which the Sermon Borrower complained of to the Lender of it, and was thus answered; I lent you indeed my _Fiddle_, but not my _Fiddlestick_; and you are to know, that every one cannot make musick with my words which are fitted for my own mouth. And so my Scholer, you are to know, that as the ill pronunciation or ill accenting of a word in a Sermon spoiles it, so the ill carriage of your Line, or not fishing even to a foot in a right place, makes you lose your labour: and you are to know, that though you have my Fiddle, that is, my very Rod and Tacklings with which you see I catch fish, yet you have not my Fiddle stick, that is, skill to know how to carry your hand and line; and this must be taught you (for you are to remember I told you Angling is an Art) either by practice, or a long observation, or both. But now lets say Grace, and fall to Breakfast; what say you Scholer, to the providence of an old Angler? Does not this meat taste well? And was not this place well chosen to eat it? for this _Sycamore_ tree will shade us from the Suns heat. _Viat_. All excellent good, Master, and my stomack excellent too; I have been at many costly Dinners that have not afforded me half this content: and now good Master, to your promised direction for making and ordering my Artificiall flye. _Pisc_. My honest Scholer, I will do it, for it is a debt due unto you, by my promise: and because you shall not think your self more engaged to me then indeed you really are, therefore I will tell you freely, I find Mr. _Thomas Barker_ (a Gentleman that has spent much time and money in Angling) deal so judicially and freely in a little book of his of Angling, and especially of making and Angling with a _flye_ for a _Trout_, that I will give you his very directions without much variation, which shal follow. Let your rod be light, and very gentle, I think the best are of two pieces; the line should not exceed, (especially for three or four links towards the hook) I say, not exceed three or four haires; but if you can attain to Angle with one haire; you will have more rises, and catch more fish. Now you must bee sure not to cumber yourselfe with too long a Line, as most do: and before you begin to angle, cast to have the wind on your back, and the Sun (if it shines) to be before you, and to fish down the streame, and carry the point or tip of the Rod downeward; by which meanes the shadow of yourselfe, and Rod too will be the least offensive to the Fish, for the sight of any shadow amazes the fish, and spoiles your sport, of which you must take a great care. In the middle of _March_ ('till which time a man should not in honestie catch a _Trout_) or in April, if the weather be dark, or a little windy, or cloudie, the best fishing is with the _Palmer-worm_, of which I last spoke to you; but of these there be divers kinds, or at least of divers colours, these and the _May-fly_ are the ground of all _fly_-Angling, which are to be thus made: First you must arm your hook, with the line in the inside of it; then take your Scissers and cut so much of a browne _Malards_ feather as in your own reason wil make the wings of it, you having with all regard to the bigness or littleness of your hook, then lay the outmost part of your feather next to your hook, then the point of your feather next the shank of your hook; and having so done, whip it three or four times about the hook with the same Silk, with which your hook was armed, and having made the Silk fast, take the hackel of a _Cock_ or _Capons_ neck, or a _Plovers_ top, which is usually better; take off the one side of the feather, and then take the hackel, Silk or Crewel, Gold or Silver thred, make these fast at the bent of the hook (that is to say, below your arming), then you must take the hackel, the silver or gold thred, and work it up to the wings, shifting or stil removing your fingers as you turn the Silk about the hook: and still looking at every stop or turne that your gold, or what materials soever you make your Fly of, do lye right and neatly; and if you find they do so, then when you have made the head, make all fast, and then work your hackel up to the head, and make that fast; and then with a needle or pin divide the wing into two, and then with the arming Silk whip it about crosswayes betwixt the wings, and then with your thumb you must turn the point of the feather towards the bent of the hook, and then work three or four times about the shank of the hook and then view the proportion, and if all be neat, and to your liking, fasten. I confess, no direction can be given to make a man of a dull capacity able to make a flye well; and yet I know, this, with a little practice, wil help an ingenuous Angler in a good degree; but to see a fly made by another, is the best teaching to make it, and then an ingenuous Angler may walk by the River and mark what fly falls on the water that day, and catch one of them, if he see the _Trouts_ leap at a fly of that kind, and having alwaies hooks ready hung with him, and having a bag also, alwaies with him with Bears hair, or the hair of a brown or sad coloured Heifer, hackels of a Cock or Capon, several coloured Silk and Crewel to make the body of the fly, the feathers of a Drakes head, black or brown sheeps wool, or Hogs wool, or hair, thred of Gold, and of silver; silk of several colours (especially sad coloured to make the head:) and there be also other colour'd feathers both of birds and of peckled fowl. I say, having those with him in a bag, and trying to make a flie, though he miss at first, yet shal he at last hit it better, even to a perfection which none can well teach him; and if he hit to make his flie right, and have the luck to hit also where there is store of _trouts_, and a right wind, he shall catch such store of them, as will encourage him to grow more and more in love with the Art of _flie-making_. _Viat_. But my loving Master, if any wind will not serve, then I wish I were in _Lapland_, to buy a good wind of one of the honest witches, that sell so many winds, and so cheap. _Pisc_. Marry Scholer, but I would not be there, nor indeed from under this tree; for look how it begins to rain, and by the clouds (if I mistake not) we shall presently have a smoaking showre; and therefore fit close, this _Sycamore tree_ will shelter us; and I will tell you, as they shall come into my mind, more observations of flie-fishing for a _Trout_. But first, for the Winde; you are to take notice that of the windes the South winde is said to be best. One observes, That _When the winde is south, It blows your bait into a fishes mouth_. Next to that, the _west_ winde is believed to be the best: and having told you that the _East_ winde is the worst, I need not tell you which winde is best in the third degree: And yet (as _Solomon_ observes, that _Hee that considers the winde shall never sow_:) so hee that busies his head too much about them, (if the weather be not made extreme cold by an East winde) shall be a little superstitious: for as it is observed by some, That there is no good horse of a bad colour; so I have observed, that if it be a clowdy day, and not extreme cold, let the winde sit in what corner it will, and do its worst. And yet take this for a Rule, that I would willingly fish on the Lee-shore: and you are to take notice, that the Fish lies, or swimms neerer the bottom in Winter then in Summer, and also neerer the bottom in any cold day. But I promised to tell you more of the Flie-fishing for a _Trout_, (which I may have time enough to do, for you see it rains _May-utter_). First for a _May-flie_, you may make his body with greenish coloured crewel, or willow colour; darkning it in most places, with waxed silk, or rib'd with a black hare, or some of them rib'd with silver thred; and such wings for the colour as you see the flie to have at that season; nay at that very day on the water. Or you may make the _Oak-flie_ with an Orange-tawny and black ground, and the brown of a Mallards feather for the wings; and you are to know, that these two are most excellent _flies_, that is, the _May-flie_ and the _Oak-flie_: And let me again tell you, that you keep as far from the water as you can possibly, whether you fish with a flie or worm, and fish down the stream; and when you fish with a flie, if it be possible, let no part of your line touch the water, but your flie only; and be stil moving your fly upon the water, or casting it into the water; you your self, being also alwaies moving down the stream. Mr. _Barker_ commends severall sorts of the palmer flies, not only those rib'd with silver and gold, but others that have their bodies all made of black, or some with red, and a red hackel; you may also make the _hawthorn-flie_ which is all black and not big, but very smal, the smaller the better; or the _oak-fly_, the body of which is Orange colour and black crewel, with a brown wing, or a _fly_ made with a peacocks feather, is excellent in a bright day: you must be sure you want not in your _Magazin_ bag, the Peacocks feather, and grounds of such wool, and crewel as will make the Grasshopper: and note, that usually, the smallest flies are best; and note also, that, the light flie does usually make most sport in a dark day: and the darkest and least flie in a bright or cleare day; and lastly note, that you are to repaire upon any occasion to your _Magazin_ bag, and upon any occasion vary and make them according to your fancy. And now I shall tell you, that the fishing with a naturall flie is excellent, and affords much pleasure; they may be found thus, the _May-fly_ usually in and about that month neer to the River side, especially against rain; the _Oak-fly_ on the Butt or body of an _Oak_ or _Ash_, from the beginning of _May_ to the end of _August_ it is a brownish fly, and easie to be so found, and stands usually with his head downward, that is to say, towards the root of the tree, the small black fly, or _hawthorn_ fly is to be had on any Hawthorn bush, after the leaves be come forth; with these and a short Line (as I shewed to Angle for a _Chub_) you may dap or dop, and also with a _Grashopper_, behind a tree, or in any deep hole, still making it to move on the top of the water, as if it were alive, and still keeping your self out of sight, you shall certainly have sport if there be _Trouts_; yea in a hot day, but especially in the evening of a hot day. And now, Scholer, my direction for _fly-fishing_ is ended with this showre, for it has done raining, and now look about you, and see how pleasantly that Meadow looks, nay and the earth smels as sweetly too. Come let me tell you what holy Mr. _Herbert_ saies of such dayes and Flowers as these, and then we will thank God that we enjoy them, and walk to the River and sit down quietly and try to catch the other brace of _Trouts_. Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and skie, Sweet dews shal weep thy fall to night, for thou must die. Sweet Rose, whose hew angry and brave Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, Thy root is ever in its grave, and thou must die. Sweet Spring, ful of sweet days & roses, A box where sweets compacted lie; My Musick shewes you have your closes, and all must die. Only a sweet and vertuous soul, Like seasoned timber never gives, But when the whole world turns to cole, then chiefly lives. _Viat_. I thank you, good Master, for your good direction for fly-fishing, and for the sweet enjoyment of the pleasant day, which is so far spent without offence to God or man. And I thank you for the sweet close of your discourse with Mr. _Herberts_ Verses, which I have heard, loved Angling; and I do the rather believe it, because he had a spirit sutable to Anglers, and to those Primitive Christians that you love, and have so much commended. _Pisc_. Well, my loving Scholer, and I am pleased to know that you are so well pleased with my direction and discourse; and I hope you will be pleased too, if you find a _Trout_ at one of our Angles, which we left in the water to fish for it self; you shall chuse which shall be yours, and it is an even lay, one catches; And let me tell you, this kind of fishing, and laying Night-hooks, are like putting money to use, for they both work for the Owners, when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or rejoice, as you know we have done this last hour, and fate as quietly and as free from cares under this _Sycamore_, as _Virgils Tityrus_ and his _Melibaeus_ did under their broad _Beech_ tree: No life, my honest Scholer, no life so happy and so pleasant as the Anglers, unless it be the Beggers life in Summer; for then only they take no care, but are as happy as we Anglers. _Viat_. Indeed Master, and so they be, as is witnessed by the beggers Song, made long since by _Frank Davison_, a good Poet, who was not a Begger, though he were a good Poet. _Pisc_. Can you sing it, Scholer? _Viat_. Sit down a little, good Master, and I wil try. _Bright shines the Sun, play beggers, play, here's scraps enough to serve to day: What noise of viols is so sweet As when our merry clappers ring? What mirth doth want when beggers meet? A beggers life is for a King: Eat, drink and play, sleep when we list, Go where we will so stocks be mist. Bright shines the Sun, play beggers, &c. The world is ours and ours alone, For we alone have world at will; We purchase not, all is our own, Both fields and streets we beggers fill: Play beggers play, play beggers play, here's scraps enough to serve to day. A hundred herds of black and white Upon our Gowns securely feed, And yet if any dare us bite, He dies therefore as sure as Creed: Thus beggers Lord it as they please, And only beggers live at ease: Bright shines the Sun, play beggers play, here's scraps enough to serve to day_. _Pisc_. I thank you good Scholer, this Song was well humor'd by the maker, and well remembred and sung by you; and I pray forget not the Ketch which you promised to make against night, for our Country man honest _Coridon_ will expect your Ketch and my Song, which I must be forc'd to patch up, for it is so long since I learnt it, that I have forgot a part of it. But come, lets stretch our legs a little in a gentle walk to the River, and try what interest our Angles wil pay us for lending them so long to be used by the _Trouts_. _Viat_. Oh me, look you Master, a fish, a fish. _Pisc_. I marry Sir. that was a good fish indeed; if I had had the luck to have taken up that Rod, 'tis twenty to one he should not have broke my line by running to the Rods end, as you suffered him; I would have held him, unless he had been fellow to the great _Trout_ that is neer an ell long, which had his picture drawne, and now to be seen at mine Hoste _Rickabies_ at the _George_ in _Ware_; and it may be, by giving that _Trout_ the Rod, that is, by casting it to him into the water, I might have caught him at the long run, for so I use alwaies to do when I meet with an over-grown fish, and you will learn to do so hereafter; for I tell you, Scholer, fishing is an Art, or at least, it is an Art to catch fish. _Viat_. But, Master, will this _Trout_ die, for it is like he has the hook in his belly? _Pisc_. I wil tel you, Scholer, that unless the hook be fast in his very Gorge, he wil live, and a little time with the help of the water, wil rust the hook, & it wil in time wear away as the gravel does in the horse hoof, which only leaves a false quarter. And now Scholer, lets go to my Rod. Look you Scholer, I have a fish too, but it proves a logger-headed _Chub_; and this is not much a miss, for this wil pleasure some poor body, as we go to our lodging to meet our brother _Peter_ and honest _Coridon_--Come, now bait your hook again, and lay it into the water, for it rains again, and we wil ev'n retire to the _Sycamore_ tree, and there I wil give you more directions concerning fishing; for I would fain make you an Artist. _Viat_. Yes, good Master, I pray let it be so. CHAP. V. _Pisc_. Wel, Scholer, now we are sate downe and are at ease, I shall tel you a little more of _Trout_ fishing before I speak of the _Salmon_ (which I purpose shall be next) and then of the _Pike_ or _Luce_. You are to know, there is night as well as day-fishing for a _Trout_, and that then the best are out of their holds; and the manner of taking them is on the top of the water with a great _Lob_ or _Garden worm_, or rather two; which you are to fish for in a place where the water runs somewhat quietly (for in a stream it wil not be so well discerned.) I say, in a quiet or dead place neer to some swift, there draw your bait over the top of the water to and fro, and if there be a good _Trout_ in the hole, he wil take it, especially if the night be dark; for then he lies boldly neer the top of the water, watching the motion of any _Frog_ or _Water-mouse_, or _Rat_ betwixt him and the skie, which he hunts for if he sees the water but wrinkle or move in one of these dead holes, where the great _Trouts_ usually lye neer to their hold. And you must fish for him with a strong line, and not a little hook, and let him have time to gorge your hook, for he does not usually forsake it, as he oft will in the day-fishing: and if the night be not dark, then fish so with an _Artificial fly_ of a light colour; nay he will sometimes rise at a dead Mouse or a piece of cloth, or any thing that seemes to swim cross the water, or to be in motion: this is a choice way, but I have not oft used it because it is void of the pleasures that such dayes as these that we now injoy, afford an _Angler_. And you are to know, that in _Hamp-shire_, (which I think exceeds all _England_ for pleasant Brooks, and store of _Trouts_) they use to catch _Trouts_ in the night by the light of a Torch or straw, which when they have discovered, they strike with a _Trout_ spear; this kind of way they catch many, but I would not believe it till I was an eye-witness of it, nor like it now I have seen it. _Viat_. But Master, do not _Trouts_ see us in the night? _Pisc_. Yes, and hear, and smel too, both then and in the day time, for _Gesner_ observes, the _Otter_ smels a fish forty furlong off him in the water; and that it may be true, is affirmed by Sir _Francis Bacon_ (in the eighth Century of his Natural History) who there proves, that waters may be the _Medium_ of sounds, by demonstrating it thus, _That if you knock two stones together very deep under the water, those that stand on a bank neer to that place may hear the noise without any diminution of it by the water_. He also offers the like experiment concerning the letting an _Anchor_ fall by a very long Cable or rope on a Rock, or the sand within the Sea: and this being so wel observed and demonstrated, as it is by that learned man, has made me to believe that _Eeles_ unbed themselves, and stir at the noise of the Thunder, and not only as some think, by the motion or the stirring of the earth, which is occasioned by that Thunder. And this reason of Sir _Francis Bacons_ [Exper. 792] has made me crave pardon of one that I laught at, for affirming that he knew _Carps_ come to a certain place in a Pond to be fed at the ringing of a Bel; and it shall be a rule for me to make as little noise as I can when I am a fishing, until Sir _Francis Bacon_ be confuted, which I shal give any man leave to do, and so leave off this Philosophical discourse for a discourse of fishing. Of which my next shall be to tell you, it is certain, that certain fields neer _Lemster_, a Town in _Herefordshire_, are observed, that they make the Sheep that graze upon them more fat then the next, and also to bear finer Wool; that is to say, that that year in which they feed in such a particular pasture, they shall yeeld finer wool then the yeer before they came to feed in it, and courser again if they shall return to their former pasture, and again return to a finer wool being fed in the fine wool ground. Which I tell you, that you may the better believe that I am certain, If I catch a _Trout_ in one Meadow, he shall be white and _faint_ and very like to be _lowsie_; and as certainly if I catch a _Trout_ in the next Meadow, he shal be strong, and _red_, and _lusty_, and much better meat: Trust me (Scholer) I have caught many a _Trout_ in a particular Meadow, that the very shape and inamelled colour of him, has joyed me to look upon him, and I have with _Solomon_ concluded, _Every thing is beautifull in his season_. It is now time to tell you next, (according to promise) some observations of the _Salmon_; But first, I wil tel you there is a fish, called by some an _Umber_, and by some a _Greyling_, a choice fish, esteemed by many to be equally good with the _Trout_: it is a fish that is usually about eighteen inches long, he lives in such streams as the _Trout_ does; and is indeed taken with the same bait as a _Trout_ is, for he will bite both at the _Minnow_, the _Worm_, and the _Fly_, both _Natural_ and _Artificial_: of this fish there be many in _Trent_, and in the River that runs by _Salisbury_, and in some other lesser Brooks; but he is not so general a fish as the _Trout_, nor to me either so good to eat, or so pleasant to fish for as the _Trout_ is; of which two fishes I will now take my leave, and come to my promised Observations of the _Salmon_, and a little advice for the catching him. CHAP. VI. The _Salmon_ is ever bred in the fresh Rivers (and in most Rivers about the month of _August_) and never grows big but in the Sea; and there to an incredible bigness in a very short time; to which place they covet to swim, by the instinct of nature, about a set time: but if they be stopp'd by _Mills, Floud-gates_ or _Weirs_, or be by accident lost in the fresh water, when the others go (which is usually by flocks or sholes) then they thrive not. And the old _Salmon_, both the _Melter_ and _Spawner_, strive also to get into the _Sea_ before Winter; but being stopt that course, or lost; grow sick in fresh waters, and by degrees unseasonable, and kipper, that is, to have a bony gristle, to grow (not unlike a _Hauks_ beak) on one of his chaps, which hinders him from feeding, and then he pines and dies. But if he gets to _Sea_, then that gristle wears away, or is cast off (as the _Eagle_ is said to cast his bill) and he recovers his strength, and comes next Summer to the same River, (if it be possible) to enjoy the former pleasures that there possest him; for (as one has wittily observed) he has (like some persons of Honour and Riches, which have both their winter and Summer houses) the fresh Rivers for Summer, and the salt water for winter to spend his life in; which is not (as Sir _Francis Bacon_ hath observed) [in his History of Life and Death] above ten years: And it is to be observed, that though they grow big in the _Sea_, yet they grow not fat but in fresh Rivers; and it is observed, that the farther they get from the _Sea_, the better they be. And it is observed, that, to the end they may get far from the _Sea_, either to Spawne or to possess the pleasure that they then and there find, they will force themselves over the tops of _Weirs_, or _Hedges_, or _stops_ in the water, by taking their tails into their mouthes, and leaping over those places, even to a height beyond common belief: and sometimes by forcing themselves against the streame through Sluces and Floud-gates, beyond common credit. And 'tis observed by _Gesner_, that there is none bigger then in _England_, nor none better then in Thames. And for the _Salmons_ sudden growth, it has been observed by tying a Ribon in the tail of some number of the young _Salmons_, which have been taken in _Weires_, as they swimm'd towards the salt water, and then by taking a part of them again with the same mark, at the same place, at their returne from the Sea, which is usually about six months after; and the like experiment hath been tried upon young _Swallows_, who have after six months absence, been observed to return to the same chimney, there to make their nests, and their habitations for the Summer following; which hath inclined many to think, that every _Salmon_ usually returns to the same River in which it was bred, as young _Pigeons_ taken out of the same Dove-cote, have also been observed to do. And you are yet to observe further, that the He _Salmon_ is usually bigger then the Spawner, and that he is more kipper, & less able to endure a winter in the fresh water, then the She is; yet she is at that time of looking less kipper and better, as watry and as bad meat. And yet you are to observe, that as there is no general rule without an exception, so there is some few Rivers in this Nation that have _Trouts_ and _Salmon_ in season in winter. But for the observations of that and many other things, I must in manners omit, because they wil prove too large for our narrow compass of time, and therefore I shall next fall upon my direction how to fish for the _Salmon_. And for that, first, you shall observe, that usually he staies not long in a place (as _Trouts_ wil) but (as I said) covets still to go neerer the Spring head; and that he does not (as the _Trout_ and many other fish) lie neer the water side or bank, or roots of trees, but swims usually in the middle, and neer the ground; and that there you are to fish for him; and that he is to be caught as the _Trout_ is, with a _Worm_, a _Minnow_, (which some call a _Penke_) or with a _Fly_. And you are to observe, that he is very, very seldom observed to bite at a _Minnow_ (yet sometime he will) and not oft at a _fly_, but more usually at a _Worm_, and then most usually at a _Lob_ or _Garden worm_, which should be wel scowred, that is to say, seven or eight dayes in Moss before you fish with them; and if you double your time of eight into sixteen, or more, into twenty or more days, it is still the better, for the worms will stil be clearer, tougher, and more lively, and continue so longer upon your hook. And now I shall tell you, that which may be called a secret: I have been a fishing with old _Oliver Henly_ (now with God) a noted Fisher, both for _Trout_ and _Salmon_, and have observed that he would usually take three or four worms out of his bag and put them into a little box in his pocket, where he would usually let them continue half an hour or more, before he would bait his hook with them; I have ask'd him his reason, and he has replied, _He did but pick the best out to be in a readiness against he baited his hook the next time_: But he has been observed both by others, and my self, to catch more fish then I or any other body, that has ever gone a fishing with him, could do, especially _Salmons_; and I have been told lately by one of his most intimate and secret friends, that the box in which he put those worms was anointed with a drop, or two, or three of the Oil of _Ivy-berries_, made by expression or infusion, and that by the wormes remaining in that box an hour, or a like time, they had incorporated a kind of smel that was irresistibly attractive, enough to force any fish, within the smel of them, to bite. This I heard not long since from a friend, but have not tryed it; yet I grant it probable, and refer my Reader to Sir _Francis Bacons_ Natural History, where he proves fishes may hear; and I am certain _Gesner_ sayes, the _Otter_ can smell in the water, and know not that but fish may do so too: 'tis left for a lover of Angling, or any that desires to improve that Art, to try this conclusion. I shall also impart another experiment (but not tryed by my selfe) which I wil deliver in the same words as it was by a friend, given me in writing. _Take the stinking oil drawn out of_ Poly pody _of the_ Oak, _by a retort mixt with_ Turpentine, _and Hive-honey, and annoint your bait therewith, and it will doubtlesse draw the fish to it_. But in these things I have no great faith, yet grant it probable, and have had from some chemical men (namely, from Sir _George Hastings_ and others) an affirmation of them to be very advantageous: but no more of these, especially not in this place. I might here, before I take my leave of the _Salmon_, tell you, that there is more then one sort of them, as namely, a _Tecon_, and another called in some places a _Samlet_, or by some, a _Skegger_: but these (and others which I forbear to name) may be fish of another kind, and differ, as we know a _Herring_ and a _Pilcher_ do; but must by me be left to the disquisitions of men of more leisure and of greater abilities, then I profess myself to have. And lastly, I am to borrow so much of your promised patience, as to tell you, that the _Trout_ or _Salmon_, being in season, have at their first taking out of the water (which continues during life) their bodies adorned, the one with such red spots, and the other with black or blackish spots, which gives them such an addition of natural beautie, as I (that yet am no enemy to it) think was never given to any woman by the Artificial Paint or Patches in which they so much pride themselves in this age. And so I shall leave them and proceed to some Observations of the _Pike_. CHAP. VII. _Pisc_. It is not to be doubted but that the _Luce_, or _Pikrell_, or _Pike_ breeds by Spawning; and yet _Gesner_ sayes, that some of them breed, where none ever was, out of a weed called _Pikrell-weed_, and other glutinous matter, which with the help of the Suns heat proves in some particular ponds (apted by nature for it) to become _Pikes_. Sir _Francis Bacon_ [in his History of Life and Death] observes the _Pike_ to be the longest lived of any fresh water fish, and yet that his life is not usually above fortie years; and yet _Gesner_ mentions a _Pike_ taken in _Swedeland_ in the year 1449, with a Ring about his neck, declaring he was put into the Pond by _Frederick_ the second, more then two hundred years before he was last taken, as the Inscription of that Ring, being Greek, was interpreted by the then Bishop of _Worms_. But of this no more, but that it is observed that the old or very great _Pikes_ have in them more of state then goodness; the smaller or middle siz'd _Pikes_ being by the most and choicest palates observed to be the best meat; but contrary, the _Eele_ is observed to be the better for age and bigness. All _Pikes_ that live long prove chargeable to their keepers, because their life is maintained by the death of so many other fish, even those of his owne kind, which has made him by some Writers to bee called the Tyrant of the Rivers, or the Fresh water-wolf, by reason of his bold, greedy, devouring disposition; which is so keen, as _Gesner_ relates, a man going to a Pond (where it seems a _Pike_ had devoured all the fish) to water his Mule, had a _Pike_ bit his Mule by the lips, to which the _Pike_ hung so fast, that the Mule drew him out of the water, and by that accident the owner of the Mule got the _Pike_; I tell you who relates it, and shall with it tel you what a wise man has observed, _it is a hard thing to perswade the belly, because it hath no ears_. But if this relation of _Gesners_ bee dis-believed, it is too evident to bee doubted that a _Pike_ will devoure a fish of his own kind, that shall be bigger then this belly or throat will receive; and swallow a part of him, and let the other part remaine in his mouth till the swallowed part be digested, and then swallow that other part that was in his mouth, and so put it over by degrees. And it is observed, that the _Pike_ will eat venemous things (as some kind of _Frogs_ are) and yet live without being harmed by them: for, as some say, he has in him a natural Balsome or Antidote against all Poison: and others, that he never eats a venemous _Frog_ till he hath first killed her, and then (as _Ducks_ are observed to do to _Frogs_ in Spawning time, at which time some _Frogs_ are observed to be venemous) so throughly washt her, by tumbling her up and down in the water, that he may devour her without danger. And _Gesner_ affirms, that a _Polonian_ Gentleman did faithfully assure him, he had seen two young Geese at one time in the belly of a _Pike_: and hee observes, that in _Spain_ there is no _Pikes_, and that the biggest are in the _Lake Thracimane_ in _Italy_, and the next, if not equal to them, are the _Pikes_ of _England_. The _Pike_ is also observed to be a melancholly, and a bold fish: Melancholly, because he alwaies swims or rests himselfe alone, and never swims in sholes, or with company, as _Roach_, and _Dace_, and most other fish do: And bold, because he fears not a shadow, or to see or be seen of any body, as the _Trout_ and _Chub_, and all other fish do. And it is observed by _Gesner_, that the bones, and hearts, & gals of _Pikes_ are very medicinable for several Diseases, as to stop bloud, to abate Fevers, to cure Agues, to oppose or expel the infection of the Plague, and to be many wayes medicinable and useful for the good of mankind; but that the biting of a _Pike_ is venemous and hard to be cured. And it is observed, that the _Pike_ is a fish that breeds but once a year, and that other fish (as namely _Loaches_) do breed oftner; as we are certaine Pigeons do almost every month, and yet the Hawk, a bird of prey (as the _Pike_ is of fish) breeds but once in twelve months: and you are to note, that his time of breeding or Spawning is usually about the end of _February_; or somewhat later, in _March_, as the weather proves colder or warmer: and to note, that his manner of breeding is thus, a He and a She _Pike_ will usually go together out of a River into some ditch or creek, and that there the Spawner casts her eggs, and the Melter hovers over her all that time that she is casting her Spawn, but touches her not. I might say more of this, but it might be thought curiosity or worse, and shall therefore forbear it, and take up so much of your attention as to tell you that the best of _Pikes_ are noted to be in Rivers, then those in great Ponds or Meres, and the worst in smal Ponds. And now I shall proceed to give you some directions how to catch this _Pike_, which you have with so much patience heard me talk of. [Illustration of a Pike] His feeding is usually _fish_ or _frogs_, and sometime a weed of his owne, called _Pikrel-weed_, of which I told you some think some _Pikes_ are bred; for they have observed, that where no _Pikes_ have been put into a Pond, yet that there they have been found, and that there has been plenty of that weed in that Pond, and that that weed both breeds and feeds them; but whether those _Pikes_ so bred will ever breed by generation as the others do, I shall leave to the disquisitions of men of more curiosity and leisure then I profess my self to have; and shall proceed to tell you, that you may fish for a _Pike_, either with a ledger, or a walking-bait; and you are to note, that I call that a ledger which is fix'd, or made to rest in one certaine place when you shall be absent; and that I call that a walking bait, which you take with you, and have ever in motion. Concerning which two, I shall give you this direction, That your ledger bait is best to be a living bait, whether it be a fish or a Frog; and that you may make them live the longer, you may, or indeed you must take this course: First, for your live bait of fish, a _Roch_ or _Dace_ is (I think) best and most tempting, and a _Pearch_ the longest liv'd on a hook; you must take your knife, (which cannot be too sharp) and betwixt the head and the fin on his back, cut or make an insition, or such a scar as you may put the arming wyer of your hook into it, with as little bruising or hurting the fish as Art and diligence will enable you to do, and so carrying your arming wyer along his back, unto, or neer the tail of your fish, betwixt the skin and the body of it, draw out that wyer or arming of your hook at another scar neer to his tail; then tye him about it with thred, but no harder then of necessitie you must to prevent hurting the fish; and the better to avoid hurting the fish, some have a kind of probe to open the way, for the more easie entrance and passage of your wyer or arming: but as for these, time and a little experience will teach you better then I can by words; for of this I will for the present say no more, but come next to give you some directions how to bait your hook with a Frog. _Viat_. But, good Master, did not you say even now, that some _Frogs_ were venemous, and is it not dangerous to touch them? _Pisc_. Yes, but I wil give you some Rules or Cautions concerning them: And first, you are to note, there is two kinds of _Frogs_; that is to say, (if I may so express my self) a _flesh_ and _a fish-frog_: by flesh _frogs_, I mean, _frogs_ that breed and live on the land; and of these there be several sorts and colours, some being peckled, some greenish, some blackish, or brown: the green _Frog_, which is a smal one, is by _Topsell_ taken to be venemous; and so is the _Padock_, or _Frog-Padock_, which usually keeps or breeds on the land, and is very large and bony, and big, especially the She _frog_ of that kind; yet these wil sometime come into the water, but it is not often; and the land _frogs_ are some of them observed by him, to breed by laying eggs, and others to breed of the slime and dust of the earth, and that in winter they turn to slime again, and that the next Summer that very slime returns to be a living creature; this is the opinion of _Pliny_: and [in his 16th Book De subtil. ex.] _Cardanus_ undertakes to give reason for the raining of _Frogs_; but if it were in my power, it should rain none but water _Frogs_, for those I think are not venemous, especially the right water _Frog_, which about _February_ or _March_ breeds in ditches by slime and blackish eggs in that slime, about which time of breeding the He and She _frog_ are observed to use divers simber salts, and to croke and make a noise, which the land _frog_, or _Padock frog_ never does. Now of these water _Frogs_, you are to chuse the yellowest that you can get, for that the _Pike_ ever likes best. And thus use your _Frog_, that he may continue long alive: Put your hook into his mouth, which you may easily do from about the middle of _April_ till _August_, and then the _Frogs_ mouth grows up and he continues so for at least six months without eating, but is sustained, none, but he whose name is Wonderful, knows how. I say, put your hook, I mean the arming wire, through his mouth and out at his gills, and then with a fine needle and Silk sow the upper part of his leg with only one stitch to the armed wire of your hook, or tie the _frogs_ leg above the upper joint to the armed wire, and in so doing use him as though you loved him, that is, harme him as little as you may possibly, that he may live the longer. And now, having given you this direction for the baiting your ledger hook with a live _fish_ or _frog_, my next must be to tell you, how your hook thus baited must or may be used; and it is thus: Having fastned your hook to a line, which if it be not fourteen yards long, should not be less then twelve; you are to fasten that line to any bow neer to a hole where a _Pike_ is, or is likely to lye, or to have a haunt, and then wind your line on any forked stick, all your line, except a half yard of it, or rather more, and split that forked stick with such a nick or notch at one end of it, as may keep the line from any more of it ravelling from about the stick, then so much of it as you intended; and chuse your forked stick to be of that bigness as may keep the _fish_ or _frog_ from pulling the forked stick under the water till the _Pike_ bites, and then the _Pike_ having pulled the line forth of the clift or nick in which it was gently fastened, will have line enough to go to his hold and powch the bait: and if you would have this ledger bait to keep at a fixt place, undisturbed by wind or other accidents which may drive it to the shoare side (for you are to note that it is likeliest to catch a _Pike_ in the midst of the water) then hang a small Plummet of lead, a stone, or piece of tyle, or a turfe in a string, and cast it into the water, with the forked stick to hang upon the ground, to be as an Anchor to keep the forked stick from moving out of your intended place till the _Pike_ come. This I take to be a very good way, to use so many ledger baits as you intend to make tryal of. Or if you bait your hooks thus, with live fish or Frogs, and in a windy day fasten them thus to a bow or bundle of straw, and by the help of that wind can get them to move cross a _Pond_ or _Mere_, you are like to stand still on the shoar and see sport, if there be any store of _Pikes_; or these live baits may make sport, being tied about the body or wings of a _Goose_ or _Duck_, and she chased over a Pond: and the like may be done with turning three or four live baits thus fastened to bladders, or boughs, or bottles of hay, or flags, to swim down a River, whilst you walk quietly on the shore along with them, and are still in expectation of sport. The rest must be taught you by practice, for time will not alow me to say more of this kind of fishing with live baits. And for your dead bait for a _Pike_, for that you may be taught by one dayes going a fishing with me or any other body that fishes for him, for the baiting your hook with a dead _Gudgion_ or a _Roch_, and moving it up and down the water, is too easie a thing to take up any time to direct you to do it; and yet, because I cut you short in that, I will commute for it, by telling you that that was told me for a secret: it is this: _Dissolve_ Gum of Ivie _in Oyle of_ Spike, _and therewith annoint your dead bait for a_ Pike, _and then cast it into a likely place, and when it has layen a short time at the bottom, draw it towards the top of the water, and so up the stream, and it is more then likely that you have a_ Pike _follow you with more then common eagerness_. This has not been tryed by me, but told me by a friend of note, that pretended to do me a courtesie: but if this direction to catch a _Pike_ thus do you no good, I am certaine this direction how to roste him when he is caught, is choicely good, for I have tryed it, and it is somewhat the better for not being common; but with my direction you must take this Caution, that your Pike must not be a smal one. _First open your_ Pike _at the gills, and if need be, cut also a little slit towards his belly; out of these, take his guts, and keep his liver, which you are to shred very small with_ Time, Sweet Margerom, _and a little_ Winter-Savoury; _to these put some pickled_ Oysters, _and some_ Anchovis, _both these last whole (for the_ Anchovis _will melt, and the_ Oysters _should not) to these you must add also a pound of sweet_ Butter, _which you are to mix with the herbs that are shred, and let them all be well salted (if the_ Pike _be more then a yard long, then you may put into these herbs more then a pound, or if he be less, then less_ Butter _will suffice:) these being thus mixt, with a blade or two of Mace, must be put into the_ Pikes _belly, and then his belly sowed up; then you are to thrust the spit through his mouth out at his tail; and then with four, or five, or six split sticks or very thin laths, and a convenient quantitie of tape or filiting, these laths are to be tyed roundabout the_ Pikes _body, from his head to his tail, and the tape tied somewhat thick to prevent his breaking or falling off from the spit; let him be rosted very leisurely, and often basted with Claret wine, and Anchovis, and butter mixt together, and also with what moisture falls from him into the pan: when you have rosted him sufficiently, you are to hold under him (when you unwind or cut the tape that ties him) such a dish as you purpose to eat him out of, and let him fall into it with the sawce that is rosted in his belly; and by this means the_ Pike _will be kept unbroken and complete; then to the sawce, which was within him, and also in the pan, you are to add a fit quantity of the best butter, and to squeeze the juice of three or four Oranges: lastly, you may either put into the_ Pike _with the_ Oysters, _two cloves of Garlick, and take it whole out when the_ Pike _is cut off the spit, or to give the sawce a hogoe, let the dish (into which you let the_ Pike _fall) be rubed with it; the using or not using of this Garlick is left to your discretion. This dish of meat is too good for any but Anglers or honest men; and, I trust, you wil prove both, and therefore I have trusted you with this Secret. And now I shall proceed to give you some Observations concerning the _Carp_. CHAP. VIII. _Pisc_. The _Carp_ is a stately, a good, and a subtle fish, a fish that hath not (as it is said) been long in _England_, but said to be by one Mr. _Mascall_ (a Gentleman then living at _Plumsted_ in _Sussex_) brought into this Nation: and for the better confirmation of this, you are to remember I told you that _Gesner_ sayes, there is not a _Pike_ in _Spain_, and that except the _Eele_, which lives longest out of the water, there is none that will endure more hardness, or live longer then a _Carp_ will out of it, and so the report of his being brought out of a forrain Nation into this, is the more probable. _Carps_ and _Loches_ are observed to breed several months in one year, which most other fish do not, and it is the rather believed, because you shall scarce or never take a Male _Carp_ without a _Melt_, or a _Female_ without a _Roe_ or _Spawn_; and for the most part very much, and especially all the Summer season; and it is observed, that they breed more naturally in Ponds then in running waters, and that those that live in Rivers are taken by men of the best palates to be much the better meat. And it is observed, that in some Ponds _Carps_ will not breed, especially in cold Ponds; but where they will breed, they breed innumerably, if there be no _Pikes_ nor _Pearch_ to devour their Spawn, when it is cast upon grass, or flags, or weeds, where it lies ten or twelve dayes before it be enlivened. The _Carp_, if he have water room and good feed, will grow to a very great bigness and length: I have heard, to above a yard long; though I never saw one above thirty three inches, which was a very great and goodly fish. Now as the increase of _Carps_ is wonderful for their number; so there is not a reason found out, I think, by any, why the should breed in some Ponds, and not in others of the same nature, for soil and all other circumstances; and as their breeding, so are their decayes also very mysterious; I have both read it, and been told by a Gentleman of tryed honestie, that he has knowne sixtie or more large _Carps_ put into several Ponds neer to a house, where by reason of the stakes in the Ponds, and the Owners constant being neer to them, it was impossible they should be stole away from him, and that when he has after three or four years emptied the Pond, and expected an increase from them by breeding young ones (for that they might do so, he had, as the rule is, put in three Melters for one Spawner) he has, I say, after three or four years found neither a young nor old _Carp_ remaining: And the like I have known of one that has almost watched his Pond, and at a like distance of time at the fishing of a Pond, found of seventy or eighty large _Carps_, not above five or six: and that he had forborn longer to fish the said Pond, but that he saw in a hot day in Summer, a large _Carp_ swim neer to the top of the water with a _Frog_ upon his head, and that he upon that occasion caused his Pond to be let dry: and I say, of seventie or eighty _Carps_, only found five or six in the said Pond, and those very sick and lean, and with every one a Frog sticking so fast on the head of the said _Carps_, that the Frog would not bee got off without extreme force or killing, and the Gentleman that did affirm this to me he saw it, and did declare his belief to be (and I also believe the same) that he thought the other _Carps_ that were so strangely lost, were so killed by _Frogs_, and then devoured. But I am faln into this discourse by accident, of which I might say more, but it has proved longer then I intended, and possibly may not to you be considerable; I shall therefore give you three or four more short observations of the _Carp_, and then fall upon some directions how you shall fish for him. The age of _Carps_ is by S. _Francis Bacon_ (in his History of Life and Death) observed to be but ten years; yet others think they live longer: but most conclude, that (contrary to the _Pike_ or _Luce_) all _Carps_ are the better for age and bigness; the tongues of _Carps_ are noted to be choice and costly meat, especially to them that buy them; but _Gesner_ sayes, _Carps_ have no tongues like other fish, but a piece of flesh-like-fish in their mouth like to a tongue, and may be so called, but it is certain it is choicely good, and that the _Carp_ is to be reckoned amongst those leather mouthed fish, which I told you have their teeth in their throat, and for that reason he is very seldome lost by breaking his hold, if your hook bee once stuck into his chaps. I told you, that Sir _Francis Bacon_ thinks that the _Carp_ lives but ten years; but _Janus Dubravius_ (a _Germane_ as I think) has writ a book in Latine of Fish and Fish Ponds, in which he sayes, that _Carps_ begin to Spawn at the age of three yeers, and continue to do so till thirty; he sayes also, that in the time of their breeding, which is in Summer when the Sun hath warmed both the earth and water, and so apted them also for generation, that then three or four Male _Carps_ will follow a Female, and that then she putting on a seeming coyness, they force her through weeds and flags, where she lets fall her eggs or Spawn, which sticks fast to the weeds, and then they let fall their Melt upon it, and so it becomes in a short time to be a living fish; and, as I told you, it is thought the _Carp_ does this several months in the yeer, and most believe that most fish breed after this manner, except the _Eele_: and it is thought that all _Carps_ are not bred by generation, but that some breed otherwayes, as some _Pikes_ do. * * * * * Much more might be said out of him, and out of _Aristotle_, which Dubravius often quotes in his Discourse, but it might rather perplex then satisfie you, and therefore I shall rather chuse to direct you how to catch, then spend more time discoursing either of the nature or the breeding of this _Carp_, or of any more circumstances concerning him, but yet I shall remember you of what I told you before, that he is a very subtle fish and hard to be caught. [Illustration of a Carp] And my first directon is, that if you will fish for a _Carp_, you must put on a very large measure of patience, especially to fish for a River _Carp_: I have knowne a very good Fisher angle diligently four or six hours in a day, for three or four dayes together for a River _Carp_, and not have a bite: and you are to note, that in some Ponds it is as hard to catch a _Carp_ as in a River; that is to say, where they have store of feed, & the water is of a clayish colour; but you are to remember, that I have told you there is no rule without an exception, and therefore being possest with that hope and patience which I wish to all Fishers, especially to the _Carp-Angler_, I shall tell you with what bait to fish for him; but that must be either early or late, and let me tell you, that in hot weather (for he will seldome bite in cold) you cannot bee too early or too late at it. The _Carp_ bites either at wormes or at Paste; and of worms I think the blewish Marsh or Meadow worm is best; but possibly another worm not too big may do as well, and so may a Gentle: and as for Pastes, there are almost as many sorts as there are Medicines for the Toothach, but doubtless sweet Pastes are best; I mean, Pastes mixt with honey, or with Sugar; which, that you may the better beguile this crafty fish, should be thrown into the Pond or place in which you fish for him some hours before you undertake your tryal of skil by the Angle-Rod: and doubtless, if it be thrown into the water a day or two before, at several times, and in smal pellets, you are the likelier when you fish for the _Carp_, to obtain your desired sport: or in a large Pond, to draw them to any certain place, that they may the better and with more hope be fished for: you are to throw into it, in some certaine place, either grains, or bloud mixt with Cow-dung, or with bran; or any Garbage, as Chickens guts or the like, and then some of your smal sweet pellets, with which you purpose to angle; these smal pellets, being few of them thrown in as you are Angling. And your Paste must bee thus made: Take the flesh of a Rabet or Cat cut smal, and Bean-flower, or (if not easily got then) other flowre, and then mix these together, and put to them either Sugar, or Honey, which I think better, and then beat these together in a Mortar; or sometimes work them in your hands, (your hands being very clean) and then make it into a ball, or two, or three, as you like best for your use: but you must work or pound it so long in the Mortar, as to make it so tough as to hang upon your hook without washing from it, yet not too hard; or that you may the better keep it on your hook, you may kneade with your Paste a little (and not much) white or yellowish wool. And if you would have this Paste keep all the year for any other fish, then mix with it _Virgins-wax_ and _clarified honey_, and work them together with your hands before the fire; then make these into balls, and it will keep all the yeer. And if you fish for a _Carp_ with Gentles, then put upon your hook a small piece of Scarlet about this bigness {breadth of two letters}, it being soked in, or anointed with _Oyl of Peter_, called by some, _Oyl of the Rock_; and if your Gentles be put two or three dayes before into a box or horn anointed with Honey, and so put upon your hook, as to preserve them to be living, you are as like to kill this craftie fish this way as any other; but still as you are fishing, chaw a little white or brown bread in your mouth, and cast it into the Pond about the place where your flote swims. Other baits there be, but these with diligence, and patient watchfulness, will do it as well as any as I have ever practised, or heard of: and yet I shall tell you, that the crumbs of white bread and honey made into a Paste, is a good bait for a _Carp_, and you know it is more easily made. And having said thus much of the _Carp_, my next discourse shal be of the _Bream_, which shall not prove so tedious, and therefore I desire the continuance of your attention. CHAP. IX. _Pisc_. The _Bream_ being at a full growth, is a large and stately fish, he will breed both in Rivers and Ponds, but loves best to live in Ponds, where, if he likes the aire, he will grow not only to be very large, but as fat as a Hog: he is by _Gesner_ taken to be more pleasant or sweet then wholesome; this fish is long in growing, but breeds exceedingly in a water that pleases him, yea, in many Ponds so fast, as to over store them, and starve the other fish. The Baits good for to catch the _Bream_ are many; as namely, young Wasps, and a Paste made of brown bread and honey, or Gentels, or especially a worm, a worm that is not much unlike a Magot, which you will find at the roots of _Docks_, or of _Flags_, or of _Rushes_ that grow in the water, or watry places, and a _Grashopper_ having his legs nip'd off, or a flye that is in _June_ and _July_ to be found amongst the green Reed, growing by the water side, those are said to bee excellent baits. I doubt not but there be many others that both the _Bream_ and the _Carp_ also would bite at; but these time and experience will teach you how to find out: And so having according to my promise given you these short Observations concerning the _Bream_, I shall also give you some Observations concerning the _Tench_, and those also very briefly. The _Tench_ is observed to love to live in Ponds; but if he be in a River, then in the still places of the River, he is observed to be a Physician to other fishes, and is so called by many that have been searchers into the nature of fish; and it is said, that a _Pike_ will neither devour nor hurt him, because the _Pike_ being sick or hurt by any accident, is cured by touching the _Tench_, and the _Tench_ does the like to other fishes, either by touching them, or by being in their company. _Randelitius_ sayes in his discourse of fishes (quoted by _Gesner_) that at his being at _Rome_, he saw certaine Jewes apply _Tenches_ to the feet of a sick man for a cure; and it is observed, that many of those people have many Secrets unknown to Christians, secrets which have never been written, but have been successsively since the dayes of Solomon (who knew the nature of all things from the Shrub to the Cedar) delivered by tradition from the father to the son, and so from generation to generation without writing, or (unless it were casually) without the least communicating them to any other Nation or Tribe (for to do so, they account a profanation): yet this fish, that does by a natural inbred Balsome, not only cure himselfe if he be wounded, but others also, loves not to live in clear streams paved with gravel, but in standing waters, where mud and the worst of weeds abound, and therefore it is, I think, that this _Tench_ is by so many accounted better for Medicines then for meat: but for the first, I am able to say little; and for the later, can say positively, that he eats pleasantly; and will therefore give you a few, and but a few directions how to catch him. [Illustration of a Tench] He will bite at a Paste made of brown bread and honey, or at a Marsh-worm, or a Lob-worm; he will bite also at a smaller worm, with his head nip'd off, and a Cod-worm put on the hook before the worm; and I doubt not but that he will also in the three hot months (for in the nine colder he stirs not much) bite at a Flag-worm, or at a green Gentle, but can positively say no more of the _Tench_, he being a fish that I have not often Angled for; but I wish my honest Scholer may, and be ever fortunate when hee fishes. _Viat_. I thank you good Master: but I pray Sir, since you see it still rains _May_ butter, give me some observations and directions concerning the _Pearch_, for they say he is both a very good and a bold biting fish, and I would faine learne to fish for him. _Pisc_. You say true, Scholer, the _Pearch_ is a very good, and a very bold biting fish, he is one of the fishes of prey, that, like the _Pike_ and _Trout_, carries his teeth in his mouth, not in his throat, and dare venture to kill and devour another fish; this fish, and the _Pike_ are (sayes _Gesner_) the best of fresh water fish; he Spawns but once a year, and is by Physicians held very nutritive; yet by many to be hard of digestion: They abound more in the River _Poe_, and in _England_, (sayes _Randelitius_) then other parts, and have in their brain a stone, which is in forrain parts sold by Apothecaries, being there noted to be very medicinable against the stone in the reins: These be a part of the commendations which some Philosophycal brain have bestowed upon the fresh-water _Pearch_, yet they commend the _Sea Pearch_, which is known by having but one fin on his back, (of which they say, we _English_ see but a few) to be a much better fish. The _Pearch_ grows slowly, yet will grow, as I have been credibly informed, to be almost two foot long; for my Informer told me, such a one was not long since taken by Sir _Abraham Williams_, a Gentleman of worth, and a lover of Angling, that yet lives, and I wish he may: this was a deep bodied fish; and doubtless durst have devoured a _Pike_ of half his own length; for I have told you, he is a bold fish, such a one, as but for extreme hunger, the _Pike_ will not devour; for to affright the _Pike_, the _Pearch_ will set up his fins, much like as a _Turkie-Cock_ wil sometimes set up his tail. But, my Scholer, the _Pearch_ is not only valiant to defend himself, but he is (as you said) a bold biting fish, yet he will not bite at all seasons of the yeer; he is very abstemious in Winter; and hath been observed by some, not usually to bite till the _Mulberry tree_ buds, that is to say, till extreme Frosts be past for that Spring; for when the _Mulberry tree_ blossomes, many Gardners observe their forward fruit to be past the danger of Frosts, and some have made the like observation of the _Pearches_ biting. [Illustration of a Pearch] But bite the _Pearch_ will, and that very boldly, and as one has wittily observed, if there be twentie or fortie in a hole, they may be at one standing all catch'd one after another; they being, as he saies, like the wicked of the world, not afraid, though their fellowes and companions perish in their sight. And the baits for this bold fish are not many; I mean, he will bite as well at some, or at any of these three, as at any or all others whatsoever; a _Worm_, a _Minnow_, or a little _Frog_ (of which you may find many in hay time) and of _worms_, the Dunghill worm, called a _brandling_, I take to be best, being well scowred in Moss or Fennel; and if you fish for a _Pearch_ with a _Minnow_, then it is best to be alive, you sticking your hook through his back fin, and letting him swim up and down about mid-water, or a little lower, and you still keeping him to about that depth, by a Cork, which ought not to be a very light one: and the like way you are to fish for the _Pearch_ with a small _Frog_, your hook being fastened through the skin of his leg, towards the upper part of it: And lastly, I will give you but this advise, that you give the _Pearch_ time enough when he bites, for there was scarse ever any _Angler_ that has given him too much. And now I think best to rest my selfe, for I have almost spent my spirits with talking so long. _Viat_. Nay, good Master, one fish more, for you see it rains still, and you know our Angles are like money put to usury; they may thrive though we sit still and do nothing, but talk & enjoy one another. Come, come the other fish, good Master. _Pisc_. But Scholer, have you nothing to mix with this Discourse, which now grows both tedious and tiresome? Shall I have nothing from you that seems to have both a good memorie, and a cheerful Spirit? _Viat_. Yes, Master, I will speak you a Coppie of Verses that were made by Doctor _Donne_, and made to shew the world that hee could make soft and smooth Verses, when he thought them fit and worth his labour; and I love them the better, because they allude to Rivers, and fish, and fishing. They bee these: _Come live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove, Of golden sands, and Christal brooks, With silken lines and silver hooks. There will the River wispering run, Warm'd by thy eyes more then the Sun; And there th'inamel'd fish wil stay, Begging themselves they may betray. When thou wilt swim in that live bath, Each fish, which every channel hath Most amorously to thee will swim, Gladder to catch thee, then thou him. If thou, to be so seen, beest loath By Sun or Moon, thou darknest both; And, if mine eyes have leave to see, I need not their light, having thee. Let others freeze with Angling Reeds, And cut their legs with shels & weeds, Or treacherously poor fish beset, With strangling snares, or windowy net. Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest, The bedded fish in banks outwrest, Let curious Traitors sleave silk flies, To 'witch poor wandring fishes eyes. For thee, thou needst no such deceit, For thou thy self art thine own bait; Tha fish that is not catch'd thereby, Is wiser far, alas, then I_. _Pisc_. Well remembred, honest Scholer, I thank you for these choice Verses, which I have heard formerly, but had quite forgot, till they were recovered by your happie memorie. Well, being I have now rested my self a little, I will make you some requital, by telling you some observations of the _Eele_, for it rains still, and (as you say) our Angles are as money put to use, that thrive when we play. CHAP. X. It is agreed by most men, that the _Eele_ is both a good and a most daintie fish; but most men differ about his breeding; some say, they breed by generation as other fish do; and others, that they breed (as some worms do) out of the putrifaction of the earth, and divers other waies; those that denie them to breed by generation, as other fish do, ask, if any man ever saw an _Eel_ to have Spawn or Melt? And they are answered, That they may be as certain of their breeding, as if they had seen Spawn; for they say, that they are certain that _Eeles_ have all parts fit for generation, like other fish, but so smal as not to be easily discerned, by reason of their fatness; but that discerned they may be; and that the Hee and the She _Eele_ may be distinguished by their fins. And others say, that _Eeles_ growing old, breed other _Eeles_ out of the corruption of their own age, which Sir _Francis Bacon_ sayes, exceeds not ten years. And others say, that _Eeles_ are bred of a particular dew falling in the Months of _May_ or _June_ on the banks of some particular Ponds or Rivers (apted by nature for that end) which in a few dayes is by the Suns heat turned into _Eeles_. I have seen in the beginning of _July_, in a River not far from _Canterbury_, some parts of it covered over with young _Eeles_ about the thickness of a straw; and these _Eeles_ did lye on the top of that water, as thick as motes are said to be in the Sun; and I have heard the like of other Rivers, as namely, in _Severn_, and in a _pond_ or _Mere_ in _Stafford-shire_, where about a set time in Summer, such small _Eeles_ abound so much, that many of the poorer sort of people, that inhabit near to it, take such _Eeles_ out of this Mere, with sieves or sheets, and make a kind of _Eele-cake_ of them, and eat it like as bread. And _Gesner_ quotes venerable _Bede_ to say, that in _England_ there is an Iland called _Ely_, by reason of the innumerable number of _Eeles_ that breed in it. But that _Eeles_ may be bred as some worms and some kind of _Bees_ and _Wasps_ are, either of dew, or out of the corruption of the earth, seems to be made probable by the _Barnacles_ and young _Goslings_ bred by the Suns heat and the rotten planks of an old Ship, and hatched of trees, both which are related for truths by _Dubartas_, and our learned _Cambden_, and laborious _Gerrard_ in his _Herball_. It is said by _Randelitius_, that those _Eeles_ that are bred in Rivers, that relate to, or be neer to the Sea, never return to the fresh waters (as the _Salmon_ does alwaies desire to do) when they have once tasted the salt water; and I do the more easily believe this, because I am certain that powdered Bief is a most excellent bait to catch an _Eele_: and S'r. _Francis Bacon_ will allow the _Eeles_ life to be but ten years; yet he in his History of Life and Death, mentions a _Lamprey_, belonging to the _Roman_ Emperor, to be made tame, and so kept for almost three score yeers; and that such useful and pleasant observations were made of this _Lamprey_, that _Crassus_ the Oratour (who kept her) lamented her death. It is granted by all, or most men, that _Eeles_, for about six months (that is to say, the six cold months of the yeer) stir not up and down, neither in the Rivers nor the Pools in which they are, but get into the soft earth or mud, and there many of them together bed themselves, and live without feeding upon any thing (as I have told you some _Swallows_ have been observed to do in hollow trees for those six cold months); and this the _Eele_ and _Swallow_ do, as not being able to endure winter weather; for _Gesner_ quotes _Albertus_ to say, that in the yeer 1125 (that years winter being more cold then usual) _Eeles_ did by natures instinct get out of the water into a stack of hay in a Meadow upon dry ground, and there bedded themselves, but yet at last died there. I shall say no more of the _Eele_, but that, as it is observed, he is impatient of cold, so it has been observed, that in warm weather an _Eele_ has been known to live five days out of the water. And lastly, let me tell you, that some curious searchers into the natures of fish, observe that there be several sorts or kinds of _Eeles_, as the _Silver-Eele_, and green or greenish _Eel_ (with which the River of Thames abounds, and are called _Gregs_); and a blackish _Eele_, whose head is more flat and bigger then ordinary _Eeles_; and also an _Eele_ whose fins are redish, and but seldome taken in this Nation (and yet taken sometimes): These several kinds of _Eeles_, are (say some) diversly bred; as namely, out of the corruption of the earth, and by dew, and other wayes (as I have said to you:) and yet it is affirmed by some, that for a certain, the _Silver-Eele_ breeds by generation, but not by Spawning as other fish do, but that her Brood come alive from her no bigger nor longer then a pin, and I have had too many testimonies of this to doubt the truth of it. And this _Eele_ of which I have said so much to you, may be caught with divers kinds of baits; as namely, with powdered Bief, with a _Lob_ or _Garden-worm_, with a _Minnow_, or gut of a _Hen, Chicken_, or with almost any thing, for he is a greedy fish: but the _Eele_ seldome stirs in the day, but then hides himselfe, and therefore he is usually caught by night, with one of these baits of which I have spoken, and then caught by laying hooks, which you are to fasten to the bank, or twigs of a tree; or by throwing a string cross the stream, with many hooks at it, and baited with the foresaid baits, and a clod or plummet, or stone, thrown into the River with this line, that so you may in the morning find it neer to some fixt place, and then take it up with a drag-hook or otherwise: but these things are indeed too common to be spoken of; and an hours fishing with any _Angler_ will teach you better, both for these, and many other common things in the practical part of _Angling_, then a weeks discourse. I shall therefore conclude this direction for taking the _Eele_, by telling you, that in a warm day in Summer, I have taken many a good _Eele_ by _snigling_, and have been much pleased with that sport. And because you that are but a young Angler, know not what _snigling_ is, I wil now teach it to you: you remember I told you that _Eeles_ do not usually stir in the day time, for then they hide themselvs under some covert, or under boards, or planks about Floud-gates, or Weirs, or Mils, or in holes in the River banks; and you observing your time in a warm day, when the water is lowest, may take a hook tied to a strong line, or to a string about a yard long, and then into one of these holes, or between any boards about a Mill, or under any great stone or plank, or any place where you think an _Eele_ may hide or shelter her selfe, there with the help of a short stick put in your bait, but leisurely, and as far as you may conveniently; and it is scarce to be doubted, but that if there be an Eel within the sight of it, the _Eele_ will bite instantly, and as certainly gorge it; and you need not doubt to have him, if you pull him not out of the hole too quickly, but pull him out by degrees, for he lying folded double in his hole, will, with the help of his taile, break all, unless you give him time to be wearied with pulling, and so get him out by degrees; not pulling too hard. And thus much for this present time concerning the _Eele_: I wil next tel you a little of the _Barbell_, and hope with a little discourse of him, to have an end of this showr, and fal to fishing, for the weather clears up a little. CHAP. XI. _Pisc_. The _Barbell_, is so called (sayes _Gesner_) from or by reason of his beard, or wattles at his mouth, his mouth being under his nose or chaps, and he is one of the leather mouthed fish that has his teeth in his throat, he loves to live in very swift streams, and where it is gravelly, and in the gravel will root or dig with his nose like a Hog, and there nest himself, taking so fast hold of any weeds or moss that grows on stones, or on piles about _Weirs_, or _Floud-gates_, or _Bridges_, that the water is not able, be it never so swift, to force him from the place which he seems to contend for: this is his constant custome in Summer, when both he, and most living creatures joy and sport themselves in the Sun; but at the approach of Winter, then he forsakes the swift streams and shallow waters, and by degrees retires to those parts of the River that are quiet and deeper; in which places, (and I think about that time) he Spawns; and as I have formerly told you, with the help of the Melter, hides his Spawn or eggs in holes, which they both dig in the gravel, and then they mutually labour to cover it with the same sand to prevent it from being devoured by other fish. There be such store of this fish in the River _Danubie_, that _Randelitius_ sayes, they may in some places of it, and in some months of the yeer, be taken by those that dwel neer to the River, with their hands, eight or ten load at a time; he sayes, they begin to be good in _May_, and that they cease to be so in _August_; but it is found to be otherwise in this Nation: but thus far we agree with him, that the Spawne of a _Barbell_ is, if be not poison, as he sayes, yet that it is dangerous meat, and especially in the month of _May_; and _Gesner_ declares, it had an ill effect upon him, to the indangering of his life. [Illustration of a Barbell] This fish is of a fine cast and handsome shape, and may be rather said not to be ill, then to bee good meat; the _Chub_ and he have (I think) both lost a part of their credit by ill Cookery, they being reputed the worst or coarsest of fresh water fish: but the _Barbell_ affords an _Angler_ choice sport, being a lustie and a cunning fish; so lustie and cunning as to endanger the breaking of the Anglers line, by running his head forcibly towards any covert or hole, or bank, and then striking at the line, to break it off with his tail (as is observed by _Plutark_, in his book _De industria animalium_) and also so cunning to nibble and suck off your worme close to the hook, and yet avoid the letting the hook come into his mouth. The _Barbell_ is also curious for his baits, that is to say, that they be clean and sweet; that is to say, to have your worms well scowred, and not kept in sowre or mustie moss; for at a well scowred Lob-worm, he will bite as boldly as at any bait, especially, if the night or two before you fish for him, you shall bait the places where you intend to fish for him with big worms cut into pieces; and Gentles (not being too much scowred, but green) are a choice bait for him, and so is cheese, which is not to be too hard, but kept a day or two in a wet linnen cloth to make it tough; with this you may also bait the water a day or two before you fish for the _Barbel_, and be much the likelier to catch store; and if the cheese were laid in clarified honey a short time before (as namely, an hour or two) you were still the likelier to catch fish; some have directed to cut the cheese into thin pieces, and toste it, and then tye it on the hook with fine Silk: and some advise to fish for the _Barbell_ with Sheeps tallow and soft cheese beaten or work'd into a Paste, and that it is choicely good in _August_; and I believe it: but doubtless the Lob-worm well scoured, and the Gentle not too much scowred, and cheese ordered as I have directed, are baits enough, and I think will serve in any Month; though I shall commend any Angler that tryes conclusions, and is industrious to improve the Art. And now, my honest Scholer, the long showre, and my tedious discourse are both ended together; and I shall give you but this Observation, That when you fish for a _Barbell_, your Rod and Line be both long, and of good strength, for you will find him a heavy and a doged fish to be dealt withal, yet he seldom or never breaks his hold if he be once strucken. And now lets go and see what interest the _Trouts_ will pay us for letting our Angle-rods lye so long and so quietly in the water. Come, Scholer; which will you take up? _Viat_. Which you think fit, Master. _Pisc_. Why, you shall take up that; for I am certain by viewing the Line, it has a fish at it. Look you, Scholer, well done. Come now, take up the other too; well, now you may tell my brother _Peter_ at night, that you have caught a lease of _Trouts_ this day. And now lets move toward our lodging, and drink a draught of Red-Cows milk, as we go, and give pretty _Maudlin_ and her mother a brace of _Trouts_ for their supper. _Viat_. Master, I like your motion very well, and I think it is now about milking time, and yonder they be at it. _Pisc_. God speed you good woman, I thank you both for our Songs last night; I and my companion had such fortune a fishing this day, that we resolve to give you and _Maudlin_ a brace of _Trouts_ for supper, and we will now taste a draught of your Red Cows milk. _Milkw_. Marry, and that you shal with all my heart, and I will be still your debtor: when you come next this way, if you will but speak the word, I will make you a good _Sillabub_ and then you may sit down in a _Hay-cock_ and eat it, and _Maudlin_ shal sit by and sing you the good old Song of the _Hunting in Chevy Chase_, or some other good Ballad, for she hath good store of them: _Maudlin_ hath a notable memory. _Viat_. We thank you, and intend once in a Month to call upon you again, and give you a little warning, and so good night; good night _Maudlin_. And now, good Master, lets lose no time, but tell me somewhat more of fishing; and if you please, first something of fishing for a _Gudgion_. _Pisc_. I will, honest Scholer. The _Gudgion_ is an excellent fish to eat, and good also to enter a young _Angler_; he is easie to bee taken with a smal red worm at the ground and is one of those leather mouthed fish that has his teeth in his throat and will hardly be lost off from the hook if he be once strucken: they be usually scattered up and down every River in the shallows, in the heat of Summer; but in _Autome_, when the weeds begin to grow sowre or rot, and the weather colder, then they gather together, and get into the deeper parts of the water, and are to be fish'd for there, with your hook alwaies touching the ground, if you fish for him with a flote or with a cork; but many will fish for the _Gudgion_ by hand, with a running line upon the ground without a cork as a _Trout_ is fished for, and it is an excellent way. There is also another fish called a _Pope_, and by some a _Russe_, a fish that is not known to be in some Rivers; it is much like the _Pearch_ for his shape, but will not grow to be bigger then a _Gudgion_; he is an excellent fish, no fish that swims is of a pleasanter taste; and he is also excellent to enter a young _Angler_, for he is a greedy biter, and they will usually lye abundance of them, together in one reserved place where the water is deep, and runs quietly, and an easie Angler, if he has found where they lye, may catch fortie or fiftie, or sometimes twice so many at a standing. There is also a _Bleak_, a fish that is ever in motion, and therefore called by some the River Swallow; for just as you shall observe the _Swallow_ to be most evenings in Summer ever in motion, making short and quick turns when he flies to catch flies in the aire, by which he lives, so does the _Bleak_ at the top of the water; and this fish is best caught with a fine smal Artificial Fly, which is to be of a brown colour, and very smal, and the hook answerable: There is no better sport then whipping for _Bleaks_ in a boat in a Summers evening, with a hazle top about five or six foot long, and a line twice the length of the Rod. I have heard Sir _Henry Wotton_ say, that there be many that in _Italy_ will catch _Swallows_ so, or especially _Martins_ (the Bird-Angler standing on the top of a Steeple to do it, and with a line twice so long, as I have spoke of) and let me tell you, Scholer, that both _Martins_ and _Blekes_ be most excellent meat. I might now tell you how to catch _Roch_ and _Dace_, and some other fish of little note, that I have not yet spoke of; but you see we are almost at our lodging, and indeed if we were not, I would omit to give you any directions concerning them, or how to fish for them, not but that they be both good fish (being in season) and especially to some palates, and they also make the Angler good sport (and you know the Hunter sayes, there is more sport in hunting the Hare, then in eating of her) but I will forbear to give you any direction concerning them, because you may go a few dayes and take the pleasure of the fresh aire, and bear any common Angler company that fishes for them, and by that means learn more then any direction I can give you in words, can make you capable of; and I will therefore end my discourse, for yonder comes our brother _Peter_ and honest _Coridon_, but I will promise you that as you and I fish, and walk to morrow towards _London_, if I have now forgotten any thing that I can then remember, I will not keep it from you. Well met, Gentlemen, this is luckie that we meet so just together at this very door. Come Hostis, where are you? is Supper ready? come, first give us drink, and be as quick as you can, for I believe wee are all very hungry. Wel, brother _Peter_ and _Coridon_ to you both; come drink, and tell me what luck of fish: we two have caught but ten _Trouts_, of which my Scholer caught three; look here's eight, and a brace we gave away: we have had a most pleasant day for fishing, and talking, and now returned home both weary and hungry, and now meat and rest will be pleasant. _Pet_. And _Coridon_ and I have not had an unpleasant day, and yet I have caught but five _Trouts_; for indeed we went to a good honest Alehouse, and there we plaid at shovel-board half the day; all the time that it rained we were there, and as merry as they that fish'd, and I am glad we are now with a dry house over our heads, for heark how it rains and blows. Come Hostis, give us more Ale, and our Supper with what haste you may, and when we have sup'd, lets have your Song, _Piscator_, and the Ketch that your Scholer promised us, or else _Coridon_ wil be doged. _Pisc_. Nay, I will not be worse then my word, you shall not want my Song, and I hope I shall be perfect in it. _Viat_. And I hope the like for my Ketch, which I have ready too, and therefore lets go merrily to Supper, and then have a gentle touch at singing and drinking; but the last with moderation. _Cor_. Come, now for your Song, for we have fed heartily. Come Hostis, give us a little more drink, and lay a few more sticks on the fire, and now sing when you will. _Pisc_. Well then, here's to you _Coridon_; and now for my Song. _Oh the brave Fisher's life, It is the best of any, 'Tis full of pleasure, void of strife, And 'tis belov'd of many: Other joyes are but toyes, only this lawful is, for our skil breeds no ill, but content and pleasure. In a morning up we rise Ere_ Aurora's _peeping, Drink a cup to wash our eyes, Leave the sluggard sleeping; Then we go too and fro, with our knacks at our backs, to such streams as the_ Thames _if we have the leisure. When we please to walk abroad For our recreation, In the fields is our abode, Full of delectation: Where in a Brook with a hook, or a Lake fish we take, there we sit for a bit, till we fish intangle. We have Gentles in a horn, We have Paste and worms too, We can watch both night and morn. Suffer rain and storms too: None do here use to swear, oathes do fray fish away. we sit still, watch our quill, Fishers must not rangle. If the Suns excessive heat Makes our bodies swelter To an_ Osier _hedge we get For a friendly shelter, where in a dike_ Pearch _or_ Pike, Roch _or_ Dace _we do chase_ Bleak _or_ Gudgion _without grudging, we are still contented. Or we sometimes pass an hour, Under a green willow, That defends us from a showr, Making earth our pillow, There we may think and pray before death stops our breath; other joyes are but toyes and to be lamented_. _Viat_. Well sung, Master; this dayes fortune and pleasure, and this nights company and Song, do all make me more and more in love with _Angling_. Gentlemen, my Master left me alone for an hour this day, and I verily believe he retir'd himself from talking with me, that he might be so perfect in this Song; was it not Master? _Pisc_. Yes indeed, for it is many yeers since I learn'd it, and having forgotten a part of it, I was forced to patch it up by the help of my own invention, who am not excellent at Poetry, as my part of the Song may testifie: But of that I will say no more, least you should think I mean by discommending it, to beg your commendations of it. And therefore without replications, lets hear your Ketch, Scholer, which I hope will be a good one, for you are both Musical, and have a good fancie to boot. _Viat_. Marry, and that you shall, and as freely as I would have my honest Master tel me some more secrets of fish and fishing as we walk and fish towards _London_ to morrow. But Master, first let me tell you, that that very hour which you were absent from me, I sate down under a Willow tree by the water side, and considered what you had told me of the owner of that pleasant Meadow in which you then left me, that he had a plentiful estate, and not a heart to think so; that he had at this time many Law Suites depending, and that they both damp'd his mirth and took up so much of his time and thoughts, that he himselfe had not leisure to take the sweet content that I, who pretended no title, took in his fields; for I could there sit quietly, and looking on the water, see fishes leaping at Flies of several shapes and colours; looking on the Hils, could behold them spotted with Woods and Groves; looking down the Meadows, could see here a Boy gathering _Lillies_ and _Lady-smocks_, and there a Girle cropping _Culverkeys_ and _Cowslips_, all to make Garlands sutable to this pleasant Month of _May_; these and many other Field-flowers so perfum'd the air, that I thought this Meadow like the field in _Sicily_ (of which _Diodorus_ speaks) where the perfumes arising from the place, makes all dogs that hunt in it, to fall off, and to lose their hottest sent. I say, as I thus sate joying in mine own happy condition, and pittying that rich mans that ought this, and many other pleasant Groves and Meadows about me, I did thankfully remember what my Saviour said, that _the meek possess the earth_; for indeed they are free from those high, those restless thoughts and contentions which corrode the sweets of life. For they, and they only, can say as the Poet has happily exprest it. _Hail blest estate of poverty! Happy enjoyment of such minds, As rich in low contentedness. Can, like the reeds in roughest winds, By yeelding make that blow but smal At which proud Oaks and Cedars fal_. Gentlemen, these were a part of the thoughts that then possest me, and I there made a conversion of a piece of an old Ketch, and added more to it, fitting them to be sung by us Anglers: Come, Master, you can sing well, you must sing a part of it as it is in this paper. [Illustration: Song with notes] The ANGLERS Song. _For two Voyces, Treble and Basso. CANTUS. Mr. Henry Lawes_. An's life is but vain; for 'tis subject to pain, and sorrow, and short as a buble; 'tis a hodge podge of business, and mony, and care; and care, and mony, and trouble. But we'l take no care when the weather proves fair, nor will we vex now though it rain; we'l banish all sorrow, and sing till tomorrow, and Angle, and Angle again. The ANGLERS song. _BASSUS. For two Voyces. By Mr. Henry Lawes_. An's life is but vain; for 'tis subiect to pain and sorrow, and short as a buble, 'tis a hodge podge of business, and mony, and care; and care, and mony, and trouble. But we'l take no care when the weather proves fair, nor will we vex now though it rain; we'l banish all sorrow, and sing till to morrow, and Angle, and Angle again. _Pet_. I marry Sir, this is Musick indeed, this has cheered my heart, and made me to remember six Verses in praise of Musick, which I will speak to you instantly. _Musick, miraculous Rhetorick, that speak'st sense Without a tongue, excelling eloquence; With what ease might thy errors be excus'd Wert thou as truly lov'd as th'art abus'd. But though dull souls neglect, and some reprove thee, I cannot hate thee, 'cause the Angels love thee_. _Piscat_. Well remembred, brother _Peter_, these Verses came seasonably. Come, we will all joine together, mine Hoste and all, and sing my Scholers Ketch over again, and then each man drink the tother cup and to bed, and thank God we have a dry house over our heads. _Pisc_. Well now, good night to every body. _Pet_. And so say I. _Viat_. And so say I. _Cor_. Good night to you all, and I thank you. _Pisc_. Good morrow brother _Peter_, and the like to you, honest _Coridon_; come, my Hostis sayes there's seven shillings to pay, lets each man drink a pot for his mornings draught, and lay downe his two shillings, that so my Hostis may not have occasion to repent her self of being so diligent, and using us so kindly. _Pet_. The motion is liked by every body; And so Hostis, here's your mony, we Anglers are all beholding to you, it wil not be long ere Ile see you again. And now brother _Piscator_, I wish you and my brother your Scholer a fair day, and good fortune. Come _Coridon_, this is our way. CHAP. XII. _Viat_. Good Master, as we go now towards _London_, be still so courteous as to give me more instructions, for I have several boxes in my memory in which I will keep them all very safe, there shall not one of them be lost. _Pisc_. Well Scholer, that I will, and I will hide nothing from you that I can remember, and may help you forward towards a perfection in this Art; and because we have so much time, and I have said so little of _Roch_ and _Dace_, I will give you some directions concerning some several kinds of baits with which they be usually taken; they will bite almost at any flies, but especially at Ant-flies; concerning which, take this direction, for it is very good. Take the blackish _Ant-fly_ out of the Mole-hill, or Ant-hil, in which place you shall find them in the Months of _June_; or if that be too early in the yeer, then doubtless you may find them in _July, August_ and most of _September_; gather them alive with both their wings, and then put them into a glass, that will hold a quart or a pottle; but first, put into the glass, a handful or more of the moist earth out of which you gather them, and as much of the roots of the grass of the said Hillock; and then put in the flies gently, that they lose their wings, and as many as are put into the glass without bruising, will live there a month or more, and be alwaies in a readiness for you to fish with; but if you would have them keep longer, then get any great earthen pot or barrel of three or four gallons (which is better) then wash your barrel with water and honey; and having put into it a quantitie of earth and grass roots, then put in your flies and cover it, and they will live a quarter of a year; these in any stream and clear water are a deadly bait for _Roch_ or _Dace_, or for a _Chub_, and your rule is to fish not less then a handful from the bottom. I shall next tell you a winter bait for a _Roch_, a _Dace_, or _Chub_, and it is choicely good. About _All-hollantide_ (and so till Frost comes) when you see men ploughing up heath-ground, or sandy ground, or greenswards, then follow the plough, and you shall find a white worm, as big as two Magots, and it hath a red head, (you may observe in what ground most are, for there the Crows will be very watchful, and follow the Plough very close) it is all soft, and full of whitish guts; a worm that is in Norfolk, and some other Countries called a _Grub_, and is bred of the spawn or eggs of a Beetle, which she leaves in holes that she digs in the ground under Cow or Horse-dung, and there rests all Winter, and in _March_ or _April_ comes to be first a red, and then a black Beetle: gather a thousand or two of these, and put them with a peck or two of their own earth into some tub or firkin, and cover and keep them so warm, that the frost or cold air, or winds kill them not, and you may keep them all winter and kill fish with them at any time, and if you put some of them into a little earth and honey a day before you use them, you will find them an excellent baite for _Breame_ or _Carp_. And after this manner you may also keep _Gentles_ all winter, which is a good bait then, and much the better for being lively and tuffe, or you may breed and keep Gentle thus: Take a piece of beasts liver and with a cross stick, hang it in some corner over a pot or barrel half full of dry clay, and as the Gentles grow big, they wil fall into the barrel and scowre themselves, and be alwayes ready for use whensoever you incline to fish; and these Gentles may be thus made til after _Michaelmas_: But if you desire to keep Gentles to fish with all the yeer, then get a dead _Cat_ or a _Kite_, and let it be fly-blowne, and when the Gentles begin to be alive and to stir, then bury it and them in moist earth, but as free from frost as you can, and these you may dig up at any time when you intend to use them; these wil last till _March_, and about that time turn to be flies. But if you be nice to fowl your fingers (which good Anglers seldome are) then take this bait: Get a handful of well made Mault, and put it into a dish of water, and then wash and rub it betwixt your hands til you make it cleane, and as free from husks as you can; then put that water from it, and put a small quantitie of fresh water to it, and set it in something that is fit for that purpose, over the fire, where it is not to boil apace, but leisurely, and very softly, until it become somewhat soft, which you may try by feeling it betwixt your finger and thumb; and when it is soft, then put your water from it, and then take a sharp knife, and turning the sprout end of the corn upward, with the point of your knife take the back part of the husk off from it, and yet leaving a kind of husk on the corn, or else it is marr'd; and then cut off that sprouted end (I mean a little of it) that the white may appear, and so pull off the husk on the cloven side (as I directed you) and then cutting off a very little of the other end, that so your hook may enter, and if your hook be small and good, you will find this to be a very choice bait either for Winter or Summer, you sometimes casting a little of it into the place where your flote swims. And to take the _Roch_ and _Dace_, a good bait is the young brood of Wasps or Bees, baked or hardened in their husks in an Oven, after the bread is taken out of it, or on a fire-shovel; and so also is the thick blood of _Sheep_, being half dryed on a trencher that you may cut it into such pieces as may best fit the size of your hook, and a little salt keeps it from growing black, and makes it not the worse but better; this is taken to be a choice bait, if rightly ordered. There be several Oiles of a strong smel that I have been told of, and to be excellent to tempt fish to bite, of which I could say much, but I remember I once carried a small bottle from Sir _George Hastings_ to Sir _Henry Wotton_ (they were both chimical men) as a great present; but upon enquiry, I found it did not answer the expectation of Sir _Henry_, which with the help of other circumstances, makes me have little belief in such things as many men talk of; not but that I think fishes both smell and hear (as I have exprest in my former discourse) but there is a mysterious knack, which (though it be much easier then the Philosophers-Stone, yet) is not atainable by common capacities, or else lies locked up in the braine or brest of some chimical men, that, like the _Rosi-crutions_, yet will not reveal it. But I stepped by chance into this discourse of Oiles, and fishes smelling; and though there might be more said, both of it, and of baits for _Roch_ and _Dace_, and other flote fish, yet I will forbear it at this time, and tell you in the next place how you are to prepare your tackling: concerning which I will for sport sake give you an old Rhime out of an old Fish-book, which will be a part of what you are to provide. _My rod, and my line, my flote and my lead, My hook, & my plummet, my whetstone & knife, My Basket, my baits, both living and dead, My net, and my meat for that is the chief; Then I must have thred & hairs great & smal, With mine Angling purse, and so you have all_. But you must have all these tackling, and twice so many more, with which, if you mean to be a fisher, you must store your selfe: and to that purpose I will go with you either to _Charles Brandons_ (neer to the _Swan_ in _Golding-lane_); or to Mr. _Fletchers_ in the Court which did once belong to Dr. _Nowel_ the Dean of _Pauls_, that I told you was a good man, and a good Fisher; it is hard by the west end of Saint _Pauls_ Church; they be both honest men, and will fit an Angler with what tackling hee wants. _Viat_. Then, good Master, let it be at _Charles Brandons_, for he is neerest to my dwelling, and I pray lets meet there the ninth of _May_ next about two of the Clock, and I'l want nothing that a Fisher should be furnished with. _Pisc_. Well, and Ile not fail you, God willing, at the time and place appointed. _Viat_. I thank you, good Master, and I will not fail you: and good Master, tell me what baits more you remember, for it wil not now be long ere we shal be at _Totenham High-Cross_, and when we come thither, I wil make you some requital of your pains, by repeating as choice a copy of Verses, as any we have heard since we met together; and that is a proud word; for wee have heard very good ones. _Pisc_. Wel, Scholer, and I shal be right glad to hear them; and I wil tel you whatsoever comes in my mind, that I think may be worth your hearing: you may make another choice bait thus, Take a handful or two of the best and biggest _Wheat_ you can get, boil it in a little milk like as Frumitie is boiled, boil it so till it be soft, and then fry it very leisurely with honey, and a little beaten _Saffron_ dissolved in milk, and you wil find this a choice bait, and good I think for any fish, especially for _Roch, Dace, Chub_ or _Greyling_; I know not but that it may be as good for a River _Carp_, and especially if the ground be a little baited with it. You are also to know, that there be divers kinds of _Cadis_, or _Case-worms_ that are to bee found in this Nation in several distinct Counties, & in several little Brooks that relate to bigger Rivers, as namely one _Cadis_ called a _Piper_, whose husk or case is a piece of reed about an inch long or longer, and as big about as the compass of a two pence; these worms being kept three or four days in a woollen bag with sand at the bottom of it, and the bag wet once a day will in three or four dayes turne to be yellow; and these be a choice bait for the _Chub_ or _Chavender_, or indeed for any great fish, for it is a large bait. There is also a lesser _Cadis-worm_, called a _Cock-spur_, being in fashion like the spur of a _Cock_, sharp at one end, and the case or house in which this dwels is made of smal _husks_ and _gravel_, and _slime_, most curiously made of these, even so as to be wondred at, but not made by man (no more then the nest of a bird is): this is a choice bait for any flote fish, it is much less then the _Piper Cadis_, and to be so ordered; and these may be so preserved ten, fifteen, or twentie dayes. There is also another _Cadis_ called by some a _Straw-worm_, and by some a _Russe-coate_, whose house or case is made of little pieces of bents and Rushes, and straws, and water weeds, and I know not what which are so knit together with condens'd slime, that they stick up about her husk or case, not unlike the _bristles_ of a _Hedg-hog_; these three _Cadis_ are commonly taken in the beginning of Summer, and are good indeed to take any kind of fish with flote or otherwise, I might tell you of many more, which, as these doe early, so those have their time of turning to be flies later in Summer; but I might lose my selfe, and tire you by such a discourse, I shall therefore but remember you, that to know these, and their several kinds, and to what flies every particular _Cadis_ turns, and then how to use them, first as they bee _Cadis_, and then as they be flies, is an Art, and an Art that every one that professes Angling is not capable of. But let mee tell you, I have been much pleased to walk quietly by a Brook with a little stick in my hand, with which I might easily take these, and consider the curiosity of their composure; and if you shall ever like to do so, then note, that your stick must be cleft, or have a nick at one end of it, by which meanes you may with ease take many of them out of the water, before you have any occasion to use them. These, my honest Scholer, are some observations told to you as they now come suddenly into my memory, of which you may make some use: but for the practical part, it is that that makes an Angler; it is diligence, and observation, and practice that must do it. CHAP. XIII. _Pisc_. Well, Scholar, I have held you too long about these _Cadis_, and my spirits are almost spent, and so I doubt is your patience; but being we are now within sight of _Totenham_, where I first met you, and where wee are to part, I will give you a little direction how to colour the hair of which you make your lines, for that is very needful to be known of an _Angler_; and also how to paint your rod, especially your top, for a right grown top is a choice Commoditie, and should be preserved from the water soking into it, which makes it in wet weather to be heavy, and fish ill favouredly, and also to rot quickly. Take a pint of strong Ale, half a pound of soot, and a like quantity of the juice of Walnut-tree leaves, and an equal quantitie of Allome, put these together into a pot, or pan, or pipkin, and boil them half an hour, and having so done, let it cool, and being cold, put your hair into it, and there let it lye; it wil turn your hair to be a kind of water, or glass colour, or greenish, and the longer you let it lye, the deeper coloured it will bee; you might be taught to make many other colours, but it is to little purpose; for doubtlesse the water or glass coloured haire is the most choice and most useful for an _Angler_. But if you desire to colour haire green, then doe it thus: Take a quart of smal Ale, halfe a pound of Allome, then put these into a pan or pipkin, and your haire into it with them, then put it upon a fire and let it boile softly for half an hour, and then take out your hair, and let it dry, and having so done, then take a pottle of water, and put into it two handful of Mary-golds, and cover it with a tile or what you think fit, and set it again on the fire, where it is to boil softly for half an hour, about which time the scum will turn yellow, then put into it half a pound of Copporis beaten smal, and with it the hair that you intend to colour, then let the hair be boiled softly till half the liquor be wasted, & then let it cool three or four hours with your hair in it; and you are to observe, that the more Copporis you put into it, the greener it will be, but doubtless the pale green is best; but if you desire yellow hair (which is only good when the weeds rot) then put in the more _Mary-golds_, and abate most of the Copporis, or leave it out, and take a little Verdigreece in stead of it. This for colouring your hair. And as for painting your rod, which must be in Oyl, you must first make a size with glue and water, boiled together until the glue be dissolved, and the size of a lie colour; then strike your size upon the wood with a bristle brush or pensil, whilst it is hot: that being quite dry, take white lead, and a little red lead, and a little cole black, so much as all together will make an ash colour, grind these all together with Linseed oyle, let it be thick, and lay it thin upon the wood with a brush or pensil, this do for the ground of any colour to lie upon wood. _For a Green_. Take Pink and Verdigreece, and grind them together in Linseed oyl, as thick as you can well grind it, then lay it smoothly on with your brush, and drive it thin, once doing for the most part will serve, if you lay it wel, and be sure your first colour be thoroughly dry, before you lay on a second. Well, Scholer, you now see _Totenham_, and I am weary, and therefore glad that we are so near it; but if I were to walk many more days with you, I could stil be telling you more and more of the mysterious Art of Angling; but I wil hope for another opportunitie, and then I wil acquaint you with many more, both necessary and true observations concerning fish and fishing: but now no more, lets turn into yonder Arbour, for it is a cleane and cool place. _Viat_. 'Tis a faire motion, and I will requite a part of your courtesies with a bottle of _Sack_, and _Milk_, and _Oranges_ and _Sugar_, which all put together, make a drink too good for anybody, but us Anglers: and so Master, here is a full glass to you of that liquor, and when you have pledged me, I wil repeat the Verses which I promised you, it is a Copy printed amongst Sir _Henry Wottons_ Verses, and doubtless made either by him, or by a lover of Angling: Come Master, now drink a glass to me, and then I will pledge you, and fall to my repetition; it is a discription of such Country recreations as I have enjoyed since I had the happiness to fall into your company. _Quivering fears, heart tearing cares, Anxious sighes, untimely tears, Fly, fly to Courts, Fly to fond wordlings sports, Where strain'd Sardonick smiles are glosing stil And grief is forc'd to laugh against her will. Where mirths but Mummery, And sorrows only real be. Fly from our Country pastimes, fly, Sad troops of humane misery, Come serene looks, Clear as the Christal Brooks, Or the pure azur'd heaven that smiles to see The rich attendance on our poverty; Peace and a secure mind Which all men seek, we only find. Abused Mortals did you know Where joy, hearts ease, and comforts grow, You'd scorn proud Towers, And seek them in these Bowers, Where winds sometimes our woods perhaps may shake, But blustering care could never tempest make, No murmurs ere come nigh us, Saving of Fountains that glide by us. Here's no fantastick Mask nor Dance, But of our kids that frisk, and prance; Nor wars are seen Unless upon the green Two harmless Lambs are butting one the other, Which done, both bleating, run each to his mother: And wounds are never found, Save what the Plough-share gives the ground. Here are no false entrapping baits To hasten too too hasty fates Unles it be The fond credulitie Of silly fish, which, worldling like, still look Upon the bait, but never on the hook; Nor envy, 'nless among The birds, for price of their sweet Song. Go, let the diving_ Negro _seek For gems hid in some forlorn creek, We all Pearls scorn, Save what the dewy morne Congeals upon each little spire of grasse, Which careless Shepherds beat down as they passe, And Gold ne're here appears Save what the yellow_ Ceres _bears. Blest silent Groves, oh may you be For ever mirths blest nursery, May pure contents For ever pitch their tents Upon these downs, these Meads, these rocks, these mountains, And peace stil slumber by these purling fountains Which we may every year find when we come a fishing here_. _Pisc_. Trust me, Scholer, I thank you heartily for these Verses, they be choicely good, and doubtless made by a lover of Angling: Come, now drink a glass to me, and I wil requite you with a very good Copy of Verses; it is a farewel to the vanities of the world, and some say written by D'r. D, but let them bee writ by whom they will, he that writ them had a brave soul, and must needs be possest with happy thoughts at the time of their composure. _Farwel ye guilded follies, pleasing troubles, Farwel ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles; Fame's but a hollow eccho, gold pure clay, Honour the darling but of one short day. Beauty (th'eyes idol) but a damask'd skin, State but a golden prison, to live in And torture free-born minds; imbroider'd trains Meerly but Pageants, for proud swelling vains, And blood ally'd to greatness is alone Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own. Fame, honor, beauty, state, train, blood & birth, Are but the fading blossomes of the earth. I would be great, but that the Sun doth still, Level his rayes against the rising hill: I would be high, but see the proudest Oak Most subject to the rending Thunder-Stroke; I would be rich, but see men too unkind Dig in the bowels of the richest mind; I would be wise, but that I often see The Fox suspected whilst the Ass goes free; I would be fair, but see the fair and proud Like the bright Sun, oft setting in a cloud; I would be poor, but know the humble grass Still trampled on by each unworthy Asse: Rich, hated; wise, suspected; scorn'd, if poor; Great, fear'd; fair, tempted; high, stil envi'd more I have wish'd all, but now I wish for neither, Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair, poor I'l be rather. Would the world now adopt me for her heir, Would beauties Queen entitle me the Fair, Fame speak me fortunes Minion, could I vie Angels w'th India, w'th a speaking eye Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike Justice dumb As wel as blind and lame, or give a tongue To stones, by Epitaphs, be call'd great Master, In the loose Rhimes of every Poetaster Could I be more then any man that lives, Great, fair, rich, wise in all Superlatives; Yet I more freely would these gifts resign, Then ever fortune would have made them mine And hold one minute of this holy leasure, Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure. Welcom pure thoughts, welcome ye silent groves, These guests, these Courts, my soul most dearly loves, Now the wing'd people of the Skie shall sing My chereful Anthems to the gladsome Spring; A Pray'r book now shall be my looking glasse, In which I will adore sweet vertues face. Here dwell no hateful locks, no Pallace cares, No broken vows dwell here, nor pale fac'd fears, Then here I'l sit and sigh my hot loves folly, And learn t'affect an holy melancholy. And if contentment be a stranger, then I'l nere look for it, but in heaven again_. _Viat_. Wel Master, these be Verses that be worthy to keep a room in every mans memory. I thank you for them, and I thank you for your many instructions, which I will not forget; your company and discourse have been so pleasant, that I may truly say, I have only lived, since I enjoyed you and them, and turned Angler. I am sorry to part with you here, here in this place where I first met you, but it must be so: I shall long for the ninth of _May_, for then we are to meet at _Charls Brandons_. This intermitted time wil seem to me (as it does to men in sorrow,) to pass slowly, but I wil hasten it as fast as I can by my wishes, and in the mean time _the blessing of Saint_ Peters _Master be with mine_. _Pisc_. And the like be upon my honest Scholer. And upon all that hate contentions, and love _quietnesse_, and _vertue_, and _Angling_. FINIS. 
683	----	IZAAK WALTON THE COMPLEAT ANGLER To the Right worshipful John Offley of Madeley Manor, in the County of Stafford Esquire, My most honoured Friend Sir,--I have made so ill use of your former favours, as by them to be encouraged to entreat, that they may be enlarged to the patronage and protection of this Book: and I have put on a modest confidence, that I shall not be denied, because it is a discourse of Fish and Fishing, which you know so well, and both love and practice so much. You are assured, though there be ignorant men of another belief, that Angling is an Art: and you know that Art better than others; and that this is truth is demonstrated by the fruits of that pleasant labour which you enjoy, when you purpose to give rest to your mind, and divest yourself of your more serious business, and, which is often, dedicate a day or two to this recreation. At which time, if common Anglers should attend you, and be eyewitnesses of the success, not of your fortune, but your skill, it would doubtless beget in them an emulation to be like you, and that emulation might beget an industrious diligence to be so; but I know it is not attainable by common capacities: and there be now many men of great wisdom, learning, and experience, which love and practice this Art, that know I speak the truth. Sir, this pleasant curiosity of Fish and Fishing, of which you are so great a master, has been thought worthy the pens and practices of divers in other nations, that have been reputed men of great learning and wisdom. And amongst those of this nation, I remember Sir Henry Wotton, a dear lover of this Art, has told me, that his intentions were to write a Discourse of the Art, and in praise of Angling; and doubtless he had done so, if death had not prevented him; the remembrance of which had often made me sorry, for if he had lived to do it, then the unlearned Angler had seen some better treatise of this Art, a treatise that might have proved worthy his perusal, which, though some have undertaken, I could never yet see in English. But mine may be thought as weak, and as unworthy of common view; and I do here freely confess, that I should rather excuse myself, than censure others, my own discourse being liable to so many exceptions; against which you, Sir, might make this one, that it can contribute nothing to YOUR knowledge. And lest a longer epistle may diminish your pleasure, I shall make this no longer than to add this following truth, that I am really, Sir, your most affectionate Friend, and most humble Servant, Iz. Wa. The epistle to the reader To all Readers of this discourse, but especially to the honest Angler I think fit to tell thee these following truths; that I did neither undertake, nor write, nor publish, and much less own, this Discourse to please myself: and, having been too easily drawn to do all to please others, as I propose not the gaining of credit by this undertaking, so I would not willingly lose any part of that to which I had a just title before I began it; and do therefore desire and hope, if I deserve not commendations, yet I may obtain pardon. And though this Discourse may be liable to some exceptions, yet I cannot doubt but that most Readers may receive so much pleasure or profit by it, as may make it worthy the time of their perusal, if they be not too grave or too busy men. And this is all the confidence that I can put on, concerning the merit of what is here offered to their consideration and censure; and if the last prove too severe, as I have a liberty, so I am resolved to use it, and neglect all sour censures. And I wish the Reader also to take notice, that in writing of it I have made myself a recreation of a recreation; and that it might prove so to him, and not read dull and tediously, I have in several places mixed, not any scurrility, but some innocent, harmless mirth, of which, if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge; for divines say, there are offences given, and offences not given but taken. And I am the willinger to justify the pleasant part of it, because though it is known I can be serious at seasonable times, yet the whole Discourse is, or rather was, a picture of my own disposition, especially in such days and times as I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing with honest Nat. and R. Roe; but they are gone, and with them most of my pleasant hours, even as a shadow that passeth away and returns not. And next let me add this, that he that likes not the book, should like the excellent picture of the Trout, and some of the other fish, which I may take a liberty to commend, because they concern not myself. Next, let me tell the Reader, that in that which is the more useful part of this Discourse, that is to say, the observations of the nature and breeding, and seasons, and catching of fish, I am not so simple as not to know, that a captious reader may find exceptions against something said of some of these; and therefore I must entreat him to consider, that experience teaches us to know that several countries alter the time, and I think, almost the manner, of fishes' breeding, but doubtless of their being in season; as may appear by three rivers in Monmouthshire, namely, Severn, Wye, and Usk, where Camden observes, that in the river Wye, Salmon are in season from September to April; and we are certain, that in Thames and Trent, and in most other rivers, they be in season the six hotter months. Now for the Art of catching fish, that is to say, How to make a man that was none to be an Angler by a book, he that undertakes it shall undertake a harder task than Mr. Hales, a most valiant and excellent fencer, who in a printed book called A Private School of Defence undertook to teach that art or science, and was laughed at for his labour. Not but that many useful things might be learned by that book, but he was laughed at because that art was not to be taught by words, but practice: and so must Angling. And note also, that in this Discourse I do not undertake to say all that is known, or may be said of it, but I undertake to acquaint the Reader with many things that are not usually known to every Angler; and I shall leave gleanings and observations enough to be made out of the experience of all that love and practice this recreation, to which I shall encourage them. For Angling may be said to be so like the Mathematicks, that it can never be fully learnt; at least not so fully, but that there will still be more new experiments left for the trial of other men that succeed us. But I think all that love this game may here learn something that may be worth their money, if they be not poor and needy men: and in case they be, I then wish them to forbear to buy it; for I write not to get money, but for pleasure, and this Discourse boasts of no more, for I hate to promise much, and deceive the Reader. And however it proves to him, yet I am sure I have found a high content in the search and conference of what is here offered to the Reader's view and censure. I wish him as much in the perusal of it, and so I might here take my leave; but will stay a little and tell him, that whereas it is said by many, that in fly-fishing for a Trout, the Angler must observe his twelve several flies for the twelve months of the year, I say, he that follows that rule, shall be as sure to catch fish, and be as wise, as he that makes hay by the fair days in an Almanack, and no surer; for those very flies that used to appear about, and on, the water in one month of the year, may the following year come almost a month sooner or later, as the same year proves colder or hotter: and yet, in the following Discourse, I have set down the twelve flies that are in reputation with many anglers; and they may serve to give him some observations concerning them. And he may note, that there are in Wales, and other countries, peculiar flies, proper to the particular place or country; and doubtless, unless a man makes a fly to counterfeit that very fly in that place, he is like to lose his labour, or much of it; but for the generality, three or four flies neat and rightly made, and not too big, serve for a Trout in most rivers, all the summer: and for winter fly-fishing it is as useful as an Almanack out of date. And of these, because as no man is born an artist, so no man is born an Angler, I thought fit to give thee this notice. When I have told the reader, that in this fifth impression there are many enlargements, gathered both by my own observation, and the communication with friends, I shall stay him no longer than to wish him a rainy evening to read this following Discourse; and that if he be an honest Angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a-fishing. I. W. The first day A Conference betwixt an Angler, a Falconer, and a Hunter, each commending his Recreation Chapter I Piscator, Venator, Auceps Piscator. You are well overtaken, Gentlemen! A good morning to you both! I have stretched my legs up Tottenham Hill to overtake you, hoping your business may occasion you towards Ware, whither I am going this fine fresh May morning. Venator. Sir, I, for my part, shall almost answer your hopes; for my purpose is to drink my morning's draught at the Thatched House in Hoddesden; and I think not to rest till I come thither, where I have appointed a friend or two to meet me: but for this gentleman that you see with me, I know not how far he intends his journey; he came so lately into my company, that I have scarce had time to ask him the question. Auceps. Sir, I shall by your favour bear you company as far as Theobalds, and there leave you; for then I turn up to a friend's house, who mews a Hawk for me, which I now long to see. Venator. Sir, we are all so happy as to have a fine, fresh, cool morning; and I hope we shall each be the happier in the others' company. And, Gentlemen, that I may not lose yours, I shall either abate or amend my pace to enjoy it, knowing that, as the Italians say, "Good company in a journey makes the way to seem the shorter". Auceps. It may do so, Sir, with the help of good discourse, which, methinks, we may promise from you, that both look and speak so cheerfully: and for my part, I promise you, as an invitation to it, that I will be as free and open hearted as discretion will allow me to be with strangers. Venator. And, Sir, I promise the like. Piscator. I am right glad to hear your answers; and, in confidence you speak the truth, I shall put on a boldness to ask you, Sir, whether business or pleasure caused you to be so early up, and walk so fast? for this other gentleman hath declared he is going to see a hawk, that a friend mews for him. Venator. Sir, mine is a mixture of both, a little business and more pleasure; for I intend this day to do all my business, and then bestow another day or two in hunting the Otter, which a friend, that I go to meet, tells me is much pleasanter than any other chase whatsoever: howsoever, I mean to try it; for to-morrow morning we shall meet a pack of Otter-dogs of noble Mr. Sadler's, upon Amwell Hill, who will be there so early, that they intend to prevent the sunrising. Piscator. Sir, my fortune has answered my desires, and my purpose is to bestow a day or two in helping to destroy some of those villanous vermin: for I hate them perfectly, because they love fish so well, or rather, because they destroy so much; indeed so much, that, in my judgment all men that keep Otter-dogs ought to have pensions from the King, to encourage them to destroy the very breed of those base Otters, they do so much mischief. Venator. But what say you to the Foxes of the Nation, would not you as willingly have them destroyed? for doubtless they do as much mischief as Otters do. Piscator. Oh, Sir, if they do, it is not so much to me and my fraternity, as those base vermin the Otters do. Auceps. Why, Sir, I pray, of what fraternity are you, that you are so angry with the poor Otters? Piscator. I am, Sir, a Brother of the Angle, and therefore an enemy to the Otter: for you are to note, that we Anglers all love one another, and therefore do I hate the Otter both for my own, and their sakes who are of my brotherhood. Venator. And I am a lover of Hounds; I have followed many a pack of dogs many a mile, and heard many merry Huntsmen make sport and scoff at Anglers. Auceps. And I profess myself a Falconer, and have heard many grave, serious men pity them, it is such a heavy, contemptible, dull recreation. Piscator. You know, Gentlemen, it is an easy thing to scoff at any art or recreation; a little wit mixed with ill nature, confidence, and malice, will do it; but though they often venture boldly, yet they are often caught, even in their own trap, according to that of Lucian, the father of the family of Scoffers: "_Lucian, well skilled in scoffing, this hath writ; Friend, that's your folly, which you think your wit: This, you vent oft, void both of wit and fear, Meaning another, when yourself you jeer._" If to this you add what Solomon says of Scoffers, that "they are an abomination to mankind," let him that thinks fit scoff on, and be a Scoffer still; but I account them enemies to me and all that love Virtue and Angling. And for you that have heard many grave, serious men pity Anglers; let me tell you, Sir, there be many men that are by others taken to be serious and grave men, whom we contemn and pity. Men that are taken to be grave, because nature hath made them of a sour complexion; money-getting men, men that spend all their time, first in getting, and next, in anxious care to keep it; men that are condemned to be rich, and then always busy or discontented: for these poor rich-men, we Anglers pity them perfectly, and stand in no need to borrow their thoughts to think ourselves so happy. No, no, Sir, we enjoy a contentedness above the reach of such dispositions, and as the learned and ingenuous Montaigne says, like himself, freely, "When my Cat and I entertain each other with mutual apish tricks, as playing with a garter, who knows but that I make my Cat more sport than she makes me? Shall I conclude her to be simple, that has her time to begin or refuse, to play as freely as I myself have? Nay, who knows but that it is a defect of my not understanding her language, for doubtless Cats talk and reason with one another, that we agree no better: and who knows but that she pities me for being no wiser than to play with her, and laughs and censures my folly, for making sport for her, when we two play together?" Thus freely speaks Montaigne concerning Cats; and I hope I may take as great a liberty to blame any man, and laugh at him too, let him be never so grave, that hath not heard what Anglers can say in the justification of their Art and Recreation; which I may again tell you, is so full of pleasure, that we need not borrow their thoughts, to think ourselves happy. Venator. Sir, you have almost amazed me; for though I am no Scoffer, yet I have, I pray let me speak it without offence, always looked upon Anglers, as more patient, and more simple men, than I fear I shall find you to be. Piscator. Sir, I hope you will not judge my earnestness to be impatience: and for my simplicity, if by that you mean a harmlessness, or that simplicity which was usually found in the primitive Christians, who were, as most Anglers are, quiet men, and followers of peace; men that were so simply wise, as not to sell their consciences to buy riches, and with them vexation and a fear to die; if you mean such simple men as lived in those times when there were fewer lawyers; when men might have had a lordship safely conveyed to them in a piece of parchment no bigger than your hand, though several sheets will not do it safely in this wiser age; I say, Sir, if you take us Anglers to be such simple men as I have spoke of, then myself and those of my profession will be glad to be so understood: But if by simplicity you meant to express a general defect in those that profess and practice the excellent Art of Angling, I hope in time to disabuse you, and make the contrary appear so evidently, that if you will but have patience to hear me, I shall remove all the anticipations that discourse, or time, or prejudice, have possessed you with against that laudable and ancient Art; for I know it is worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man. But, Gentlemen, though I be able to do this, I am not so unmannerly as to engross all the discourse to myself; and, therefore, you two having declared yourselves, the one to be a lover of Hawks, the other of Hounds, I shall be most glad to hear what you can say in the commendation of that recreation which each of you love and practice; and having heard what you can say, I shall be glad to exercise your attention with what I can say concerning my own recreation and Art of Angling, and by this means we shall make the way to seem the shorter: and if you like my motion, I would have Mr. Falconer to begin. Auceps. Your motion is consented to with all my heart; and to testify it, I will begin as you have desired me. And first, for the Element that I use to trade in, which is the Air, an element of more worth than weight, an element that doubtless exceeds both the Earth and Water; for though I sometimes deal in both, yet the air is most properly mine, I and my Hawks use that most, and it yields us most recreation. It stops not the high soaring of my noble, generous Falcon; in it she ascends to such a height as the dull eyes of beasts and fish are not able to reach to; their bodies are too gross for such high elevations; in the Air my troops of Hawks soar up on high, and when they are lost in the sight of men, then they attend upon and converse with the Gods; therefore I think my Eagle is so justly styled Jove's servant in ordinary: and that very Falcon, that I am now going to see, deserves no meaner a title, for she usually in her flight endangers herself, like the son of Daedalus, to have her wings scorched by the sun's heat, she flies so near it, but her mettle makes her careless of danger; for she then heeds nothing, but makes her nimble pinions cut the fluid air, and so makes her highway over the steepest mountains and deepest rivers, and in her glorious career looks with contempt upon those high steeples and magnificent palaces which we adore and wonder at; from which height, I can make her to descend by a word from my mouth, which she both knows and obeys, to accept of meat from my hand, to own me for her Master, to go home with me, and be willing the next day to afford me the like recreation. And more; this element of air which I profess to trade in, the worth of it is such, and it is of such necessity, that no creature whatsoever--not only those numerous creatures that feed on the face of the earth, but those various creatures that have their dwelling within the waters, every creature that hath life in its nostrils, stands in need of my element. The waters cannot preserve the Fish without air, witness the not breaking of ice in an extreme frost; the reason is, for that if the inspiring and expiring organ of any animal be stopped, it suddenly yields to nature, and dies. Thus necessary is air, to the existence both of Fish and Beasts, nay, even to Man himself; that air, or breath of life, with which God at first inspired mankind, he, if he wants it, dies presently, becomes a sad object to all that loved and beheld him, and in an instant turns to putrefaction. Nay more; the very birds of the air, those that be not Hawks, are both so many and so useful and pleasant to mankind, that I must not let them pass without some observations. They both feed and refresh him; feed him with their choice bodies, and refresh him with their heavenly voices. I will not undertake to mention the several kinds of Fowl by which this is done: and his curious palate pleased by day, and which with their very excrements afford him a soft lodging at night. These I will pass by, but not those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art. As first the Lark, when she means to rejoice, to cheer herself and those that hear her; she then quits the earth, and sings as she ascends higher into the air and having ended her heavenly employment, grows then mute, and sad, to think she must descend to the dull earth, which she would not touch, but for necessity. How do the Blackbird and Thrassel with their melodious voices bid welcome to the cheerful Spring, and in their fixed months warble forth such ditties as no art or instrument can reach to! Nay, the smaller birds also do the like in their particular seasons, as namely the Laverock, the Tit-lark, the little Linnet, and the honest Robin that loves mankind both alive and dead. But the Nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet loud musick out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind to think miracles are not ceased. He that at midnight, when the very labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth, and say, "Lord, what musick hast thou provided for the Saints in Heaven, when thou affordest bad men such musick on Earth!" And this makes me the less to wonder at the many Aviaries in Italy, or at the great charge of Varro's Aviary, the ruins of which are yet to be seen in Rome, and is still so famous there, that it is reckoned for one of those notables which men of foreign nations either record, or lay up in their memories when they return from travel. This for the birds of pleasure, of which very much more might be said. My next shall be of birds of political use. I think it is not to be doubted that Swallows have been taught to carry letters between two armies; but 'tis certain that when the Turks besieged Malta or Rhodes, I now remember not which it was, Pigeons are then related to carry and recarry letters: and Mr. G. Sandys, in his Travels, relates it to be done betwixt Aleppo and Babylon, But if that be disbelieved, it is not to be doubted that the Dove was sent out of the ark by Noah, to give him notice of land, when to him all appeared to be sea; and the Dove proved a faithful and comfortable messenger. And for the sacrifices of the law, a pair of Turtle-doves, or young Pigeons, were as well accepted as costly Bulls and Rams; and when God would feed the Prophet Elijah, after a kind of miraculous manner, he did it by Ravens, who brought him meat morning and evening. Lastly, the Holy Ghost, when he descended visibly upon our Saviour, did it by assuming the shape of a Dove. And, to conclude this part of my discourse, pray remember these wonders were done by birds of air, the element in which they, and I, take so much pleasure. There is also a little contemptible winged creature, an inhabitant of my aerial element, namely the laborious Bee, of whose prudence, policy, and regular government of their own commonwealth, I might say much, as also of their several kinds, and how useful their honey and wax are both for meat and medicines to mankind; but I will leave them to their sweet labour, without the least disturbance, believing them to be all very busy at this very time amongst the herbs and flowers that we see nature puts forth this May morning. And now to return to my Hawks, from whom I have made too long a digression. You are to note, that they are usually distinguished into two kinds; namely, the long-winged, and the short-winged Hawk: of the first kind, there be chiefly in use amongst us in this nation, The Gerfalcon and Jerkin, The Falcon and Tassel-gentle, The Laner and Laneret, The Bockerel and Bockeret, The Saker and Sacaret, The Merlin and Jack Merlin, The Hobby and Jack: There is the Stelletto of Spain, The Blood-red Rook from Turkey, The Waskite from Virginia: And there is of short-winged Hawks, The Eagle and Iron The Goshawk and Tarcel, The Sparhawk and Musket, The French Pye of two sorts: These are reckoned Hawks of note and worth; but we have also of an inferior rank, The Stanyel, the Ringtail, The Raven, the Buzzard, The Forked Kite, the Bald Buzzard, The Hen-driver, and others that I forbear to name. Gentlemen, if I should enlarge my discourse to the observation of the Eires, the Brancher, the Ramish Hawk, the Haggard, and the two sorts of Lentners, and then treat of their several Ayries, their Mewings, rare order of casting, and the renovation of their feathers: their reclaiming, dieting, and then come to their rare stories of practice; I say, if I should enter into these, and many other observations that I could make, it would be much, very much pleasure to me: but lest I should break the rules of civility with you, by taking up more than the proportion of time allotted to me, I will here break off, and entreat you, Mr. Venator, to say what you are able in the commendation of Hunting, to which you are so much affected; and if time will serve, I will beg your favour for a further enlargement of some of those several heads of which I have spoken. But no more at present. Venator. Well, Sir, and I will now take my turn, and will first begin with a commendation of the Earth, as you have done most excellently of the Air; the Earth being that element upon which I drive my pleasant, wholesome, hungry trade. The Earth is a solid, settled element; an element most universally beneficial both to man and beast; to men who have their several recreations upon it, as horse-races, hunting, sweet smells, pleasant walks: the earth feeds man, and all those several beasts that both feed him, and afford him recreation. What pleasure doth man take in hunting the stately Stag, the generous Buck, the wild Boar, the cunning Otter, the crafty Fox, and the fearful Hare! And if I may descend to a lower game, what pleasure is it sometimes with gins to betray the very vermin of the earth; as namely, the Fichat, the Fulimart, the Ferret, the Pole-cat, the Mouldwarp, and the like creatures that live upon the face, and within the bowels of, the Earth. How doth the Earth bring forth herbs, flowers, and fruits, both for physick and the pleasure of mankind! and above all, to me at least, the fruitful vine, of which when I drink moderately, it clears my brain, cheers my heart, and sharpens my wit. How could Cleopatra have feasted Mark Antony with eight wild Boars roasted whole at one supper, and other meat suitable, if the earth had not been a bountiful mother? But to pass by the mighty Elephant, which the Earth breeds and nourisheth, and descend to the least of creatures, how doth the earth afford us a doctrinal example in the little Pismire, who in the summer provides and lays up her winter provision, and teaches man to do the like! The earth feeds and carries those horses that carry us. If I would be prodigal of my time and your patience, what might not I say in commendations of the earth? That puts limits to the proud and raging sea, and by that means preserves both man and beast, that it destroys them not, as we see it daily doth those that venture upon the sea, and are there shipwrecked, drowned, and left to feed Haddocks; when we that are so wise as to keep ourselves on earth, walk, and talk, and live, and eat, and drink, and go a hunting: of which recreation I will say a little, and then leave Mr. Piscator to the commendation of Angling. Hunting is a game for princes and noble persons; it hath been highly prized in all ages; it was one of the qualifications that Xenophon bestowed on his Cyrus, that he was a hunter of wild beasts. Hunting trains up the younger nobility to the use of manly exercises in their riper age. What more manly exercise than hunting the Wild Boar, the Stag, the Buck, the Fox, or the Hare? How doth it preserve health, and increase strength and activity! And for the dogs that we use, who can commend their excellency to that height which they deserve? How perfect is the hound at smelling, who never leaves or forsakes his first scent, but follows it through so many changes and varieties of other scents, even over, and in, the water, and into the earth! What music doth a pack of dogs then make to any man, whose heart and ears are so happy as to be set to the tune of such instruments! How will a right Greyhound fix his eye on the best Buck in a herd, single him out, and follow him, and him only, through a whole herd of rascal game, and still know and then kill him! For my hounds, I know the language of them, and they know the language and meaning of one another, as perfectly as we know the voices of those with whom we discourse daily. I might enlarge myself in the commendation of Hunting, and of the noble Hound especially, as also of the docibleness of dogs in general; and I might make many observations of land-creatures, that for composition, order, figure, and constitution, approach nearest to the completeness and understanding of man; especially of those creatures, which Moses in the Law permitted to the Jews, which have cloven hoofs, and chew the cud; which I shall forbear to name, because I will not be so uncivil to Mr. Piscator, as not to allow him a time for the commendation of Angling, which he calls an art; but doubtless it is an easy one: and, Mr. Auceps, I doubt we shall hear a watery discourse of it, but I hope it will not be a long one. Auceps. And I hope so too, though I fear it will. Piscator. Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation, calm and quiet; we seldom take the name of God into our mouths, but it is either to praise him, or pray to him: if others use it vainly in the midst of their recreations, so vainly as if they meant to conjure, I must tell you, it is neither our fault nor our custom; we protest against it. But, pray remember, I accuse nobody; for as I would not make a "watery discourse," so I would not put too much vinegar into it; nor would I raise the reputation of my own art, by the diminution or ruin of another's. And so much for the prologue to what I mean to say. And now for the Water, the element that I trade in. The water is the eldest daughter of the creation, the element upon which the Spirit of God did first move, the element which God commanded to bring forth living creatures abundantly; and without which, those that inhabit the land, even all creatures that have breath in their nostrils, must suddenly return to putrefaction. Moses, the great lawgiver and chief philosopher, skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians, who was called the friend of God, and knew the mind of the Almighty, names this element the first in the creation: this is the element upon which the Spirit of God did first move, and is the chief ingredient in the creation: many philosophers have made it to comprehend all the other elements, and most allow it the chiefest in the mixtion of all living creatures. There be that profess to believe that all bodies are made of water, and may be reduced back again to water only; they endeavour to demonstrate it thus: Take a willow, or any like speedy growing plant newly rooted in a box or barrel full of earth, weigh them all together exactly when the tree begins to grow, and then weigh all together after the tree is increased from its first rooting, to weigh a hundred pound weight more than when it was first rooted and weighed; and you shall find this augment of the tree to be without the diminution of one drachm weight of the earth. Hence they infer this increase of wood to be from water of rain, or from dew, and not to be from any other element; and they affirm, they can reduce this wood back again to water; and they affirm also, the same may be done in any animal or vegetable. And this I take to be a fair testimony of the excellency of my element of water. The water is more productive than the earth. Nay, the earth hath no fruitfulness without showers or dews; for all the herbs, and flowers, and fruit, are produced and thrive by the water; and the very minerals are fed by streams that run under ground, whose natural course carries them to the tops of many high mountains, as we see by several springs breaking forth on the tops of the highest hills; and this is also witnessed by the daily trial and testimony of several miners. Nay, the increase of those creatures that are bred and fed in the water are not only more and more miraculous, but more advantageous to man, not only for the lengthening of his life, but for the preventing of sickness; for it is observed by the most learned physicians, that the casting off of Lent, and other fish days, which hath not only given the lie to so many learned, pious, wise founders of colleges, for which we should be ashamed, hath doubtless been the chief cause of those many putrid, shaking intermitting agues, unto which this nation of ours is now more subject, than those wiser countries that feed on herbs, salads, and plenty of fish; of which it is observed in story, that the greatest part of the world now do. And it may be fit to remember that Moses appointed fish to be the chief diet for the best commonwealth that ever yet was. And it is observable, not only that there are fish, as namely the Whale, three times as big as the mighty Elephant, that is so fierce in battle, but that the mightiest feasts have been of fish. The Romans, in the height of their glory, have made fish the mistress of all their entertainments; they have had musick to usher in their Sturgeons, Lampreys, and Mullets, which they would purchase at rates rather to be wondered at than believed. He that shall view the writings of Macrobius, or Varro, may be confirmed and informed of this, and of the incredible value of their fish and fish-ponds. But, Gentlemen, I have almost lost myself, which I confess I may easily do in this philosophical discourse; I met with most of it very lately, and, I hope, happily, in a conference with a most learned physician, Dr. Wharton, a dear friend, that loves both me and my art of Angling. But, however, I will wade no deeper into these mysterious arguments, but pass to such observations as I can manage with more pleasure, and less fear of running into error. But I must not yet forsake the waters, by whose help we have so many known advantages. And first, to pass by the miraculous cures of our known baths, how advantageous is the sea for our daily traffick, without which we could not now subsist. How does it not only furnish us with food and physick for the bodies, but with such observations for the mind as ingenious persons would not want! How ignorant had we been of the beauty of Florence, of the monuments, urns, and rarities that yet remain in and near unto old and new Rome, so many as it is said will take up a year's time to view, and afford to each of them but a convenient consideration! And therefore it is not to be wondered at, that so learned and devout a father as St. Jerome, after his wish to have seen Christ in the flesh, and to have heard St. Paul preach, makes his third wish, to have seen Rome in her glory; and that glory is not yet all lost, for what pleasure is it to see the monuments of Livy, the choicest of the historians; of Tully, the best of orators; and to see the bay trees that now grow out of the very tomb of Virgil! These, to any that love learning, must be pleasing. But what pleasure is it to a devout Christian, to see there the humble house in which St. Paul was content to dwell, and to view the many rich statues that are made in honour of his memory! nay, to see the very place in which St. Peter and he lie buried together! These are in and near to Rome. And how much more doth it please the pious curiosity of a Christian, to see that place, on which the blessed Saviour of the world was pleased to humble himself, and to take our nature upon him, and to converse with men: to see Mount Sion, Jerusalem, and the very sepulchre of our Lord Jesus! How may it beget and heighten the zeal of a Christian, to see the devotions that are daily paid to him at that place! Gentlemen, lest I forget myself, I will stop here, and remember you, that but for my element of water, the inhabitants of this poor island must remain ignorant that such things ever were, or that any of them have yet a being. Gentlemen, I might both enlarge and lose myself in such like arguments. I might tell you that Almighty God is said to have spoken to a fish, but never to a beast; that he hath made a whale a ship, to carry and set his prophet, Jonah, safe on the appointed shore. Of these I might speak, but I must in manners break off, for I see Theobald's House. I cry you mercy for being so long, and thank you for your patience. Auceps. Sir, my pardon is easily granted you: I except against nothing that you have said: nevertheless, I must part with you at this park-wall, for which I am very sorry; but I assure you, Mr. Piscator, I now part with you full of good thoughts, not only of yourself, but your recreation. And so, Gentlemen, God keep you both. Piscator. Well, now, Mr. Venator, you shall neither want time, nor my attention to hear you enlarge your discourse concerning hunting. Venator. Not I, Sir: I remember you said that Angling itself was of great antiquity, and a perfect art, and an art not easily attained to; and you have so won upon me in your former discourse, that I am very desirous to hear what you can say further concerning those particulars. Piscator. Sir, I did say so: and I doubt not but if you and I did converse together but a few hours, to leave you possessed with the same high and happy thoughts that now possess me of it; not only of the antiquity of Angling, but that it deserves commendations; and that it is an art, and an art worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man. Venator. Pray, Sir, speak of them what you think fit, for we have yet five miles to the Thatched House; during which walk, I dare promise you, my patience and diligent attention shall not be wanting. And if you shall make that to appear which you have undertaken, first, that it is an art, and an art worth the learning, I shall beg that I may attend you a day or two a-fishing, and that I may become your scholar, and be instructed in the art itself which you so much magnify. Piscator. O, Sir, doubt not but that Angling is an art; is it not an art to deceive a Trout with an artificial Fly? a Trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any Hawk you have named, and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled Merlin is bold? and yet, I doubt not to catch a brace or two to-morrow, for a friend's breakfast: doubt not therefore, Sir, but that angling is an art, and an art worth your learning. The question is rather, whether you be capable of learning it? angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so: I mean, with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice: but he that hopes to be a good angler, must not only bring an inquiring, searching, observing wit, but he must bring a large measure of hope and patience, and a love and propensity to the art itself; but having once got and practiced it, then doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant, that it will prove to be, like virtue, a reward to itself. Venator. Sir, I am now become so full of expectation, that I long much to have you proceed, and in the order that you propose. Piscator. Then first, for the antiquity of Angling, of which I shall not say much, but only this; some say it is as ancient as Deucalion's flood: others, that Belus, who was the first inventor of godly and virtuous recreations, was the first inventor of Angling: and some others say, for former times have had their disquisitions about the antiquity of it, that Seth, one of the sons of Adam, taught it to his sons, and that by them it was derived to posterity: others say that he left it engraven on those pillars which he erected, and trusted to preserve the knowledge of the mathematicks, musick, and the rest of that precious knowledge, and those useful arts, which by God's appointment or allowance, and his noble industry, were thereby preserved from perishing in Noah's flood. These, Sir, have been the opinions of several men, that have possibly endeavoured to make angling more ancient than is needful, or may well be warranted; but for my part, I shall content myself in telling you, that angling is much more ancient than the incarnation of our Saviour; for in the Prophet Amos mention is made of fish-hooks; and in the book of Job, which was long before the days of Amos, for that book is said to have been written by Moses, mention is made also of fish-hooks, which must imply anglers in those times. But, my worthy friend, as I would rather prove myself a gentleman, by being learned and humble, valiant and inoffensive, virtuous and communicable, than by any fond ostentation of riches, or, wanting those virtues myself, boast that these were in my ancestors; and yet I grant, that where a noble and ancient descent and such merit meet in any man, it is a double dignification of that person; so if this antiquity of angling, which for my part I have not forced, shall, like an ancient family, be either an honour, or an ornament to this virtuous art which I profess to love and practice, I shall be the gladder that I made an accidental mention of the antiquity of it, of which I shall say no more, but proceed to that just commendation which I think it deserves. And for that, I shall tell you, that in ancient times a debate hath risen, and it remains yet unresolved, whether the happiness of man in this world doth consist more in contemplation or action? Concerning which, some have endeavoured to maintain their opinion of the first; by saying, that the nearer we mortals come to God by way of imitation, the more happy we are. And they say, that God enjoys himself only, by a contemplation of his own infiniteness, eternity, power, and goodness, and the like. And upon this ground, many cloisteral men of great learning and devotion, prefer contemplation before action. And many of the fathers seem to approve this opinion, as may appear in their commentaries upon the words of our Saviour to Martha. And on the contrary, there want not men of equal authority and credit, that prefer action to be the more excellent; as namely, experiments in physick, and the application of it, both for the ease and prolongation of man's life; by which each man is enabled to act and do good to others, either to serve his country, or do good to particular persons: and they say also, that action is doctrinal, and teaches both art and virtue, and is a maintainer of human society; and for these, and other like reasons, to be preferred before contemplation. Concerning which two opinions I shall forbear to add a third, by declaring my own; and rest myself contented in telling you, my very worthy friend, that both these meet together, and do most properly belong to the most honest, ingenuous, quiet, and harmless art of angling. And first, I shall tell you what some have observed, and I have found it to be a real truth, that the very sitting by the river's side is not only the quietest and fittest place for contemplation, but will invite an angler to it: and this seems to be maintained by the learned Peter du Moulin, who, in his discourse of the fulfilling of Prophecies, observes, that when God intended to reveal any future events or high notions to his prophets, he then carried them either to the deserts, or the sea-shore, that having so separated them from amidst the press of people and business, and the cares of the world, he might settle their mind in a quiet repose, and there make them fit for revelation. And this seems also to be imitated by the children of Israel, who having in a sad condition banished all mirth and musick from their pensive hearts, and having hung up their then mute harps upon the willow-trees growing by the rivers of Babylon, sat down upon those banks, bemoaning the ruins of Sion, and contemplating their own sad condition. And an ingenious Spaniard says, that "rivers and the inhabitants of the watery element were made for wise men to contemplate, and fools to pass by without consideration ". And though I will not rank myself in the number of the first, yet give me leave to free myself from the last, by offering to you a short contemplation, first of rivers, and then of fish; concerning which I doubt not but to give you many observations that will appear very considerable: I am sure they have appeared so to me, and made many an hour pass away more pleasantly, as I have sat quietly on a flowery bank by a calm river, and contemplated what I shall now relate to you. And first concerning rivers; there be so many wonders reported and written of them, and of the several creatures that be bred and live in them, and those by authors of so good credit, that we need not to deny them an historical faith. As namely of a river in Epirus that puts out any lighted torch, and kindles any torch that was not lighted. Some waters being drunk, cause madness, some drunkenness, and some laughter to death. The river Selarus in a few hours turns a rod or wand to stone: and our Camden mentions the like in England, and the like in Lochmere in Ireland. There is also a river in Arabia, of which all the sheep that drink thereof have their wool turned into a vermilion colour. And one of no less credit than Aristotle, tells us of a merry river, the river Elusina, that dances at the noise of musick, for with musick it bubbles, dances, and grows sandy, and so continues till the musick ceases, but then it presently returns to its wonted calmness and clearness. And Camden tells us of a well near to Kirby, in Westmoreland, that ebbs and flows several times every day: and he tells us of a river in Surrey, it is called Mole, that after it has run several miles, being opposed by hills, finds or makes itself a way under ground, and breaks out again so far off, that the inhabitants thereabout boast, as the Spaniards do of their river Anus, that they feed divers flocks of sheep upon a bridge. And lastly, for I would not tire your patience, one of no less authority than Josephus, that learned Jew, tells us of a river in Judea that runs swiftly all the six days of the week, and stands still and rests all their sabbath. But I will lay aside my discourse of rivers, and tell you some things of the monsters, or fish, call them what you will, that they breed and feed in them. Pliny the philosopher says, in the third chapter of his ninth book, that in the Indian Sea, the fish called Balaena or Whirlpool, is so long and broad, as to take up more in length and breadth than two acres of ground; and, of other fish, of two hundred cubits long; and that in the river Ganges, there be Eels of thirty feet long. He says there, that these monsters appear in that sea, only when the tempestuous winds oppose the torrents of water falling from the rocks into it, and so turning what lay at the bottom to be seen on the water's top. And he says, that the people of Cadara, an island near this place, make the timber for their houses of those fish bones. He there tells us, that there are sometimes a thousand of these great Eels found wrapt or interwoven together He tells us there, that it appears that dolphins love musick, and will come when called for, by some men or boys that know, and use to feed them; and that they can swim as swift as an arrow can be shot out of a bow; and much of this is spoken concerning the dolphin, and other fish, as may be found also in the learned Dr. Casaubon's Discourse of Credulity and Incredulity, printed by him about the year 1670. I know, we Islanders are averse to the belief of these wonders; but there be so many strange creatures to be now seen, many collected by John Tradescant, and others added by my friend Elias Ashmole, Esq., who now keeps them carefully and methodically at his house near to Lambeth, near London, as may get some belief of some of the other wonders I mentioned. I will tell you some of the wonders that you may now see, and not till then believe, unless you think fit. You may there see the Hog-fish, the Dog-fish, the Dolphin, the Cony-fish, the Parrot-fish, the Shark, the Poison-fish, Sword-fish, and not only other incredible fish, but you may there see the Salamander, several sorts of Barnacles, of Solan-Geese, the Bird of Paradise, such sorts of Snakes, and such Birds'-nests, and of so various forms, and so wonderfully made, as may beget wonder and amusement in any beholder; and so many hundred of other rarities in that collection, as will make the other wonders I spake of, the less incredible; for, you may note, that the waters are Nature's store-house, in which she locks up her wonders. But, Sir, lest this discourse may seem tedious, I shall give it a sweet conclusion out of that holy poet, Mr. George Herbert his divine "Contemplation on God's Providence". Lord! who hath praise enough, nay, who hath any? None can express thy works, but he that knows them; And none can know thy works, they are so many, And so complete, but only he that owes them. We all acknowledge both thy power and love To be exact, transcendant, and divine; Who cost so strangely and so sweetly move, Whilst all things have their end, yet none but thine. Wherefore, most sacred Spirit! I here present, For me, and all my fellows, praise to thee; And just it is, that I should pay the rent, Because the benefit accrues to me. And as concerning fish, in that psalm, wherein, for height of poetry and wonders, the prophet David seems even to exceed himself, how doth he there express himself in choice metaphors, even to the amazement of a contemplative reader, concerning the sea, the rivers, and the fish therein contained! And the great naturalist Pliny says, "That nature's great and wonderful power is more demonstrated in the sea than on the land ". And this may appear, by the numerous and various creatures inhabiting both in and about that element; as to the readers of Gesner, Rondeletius, Pliny, Ausonius, Aristotle, and others, may be demonstrated. But I will sweeten this discourse also out of a contemplation in divine Du Bartas, who says: God quickened in the sea, and in the rivers, So many fishes of so many features, That in the waters we may see all creatures, Even all that on the earth are to be found, As if the world were in deep waters drown'd. For seas--as well as skies--have Sun, Moon, Stars As well as air--Swallows, Rooks, and Stares; As well as earth--Vines, Roses, Nettles, Melons, Mushrooms, Pinks, Gilliflowers, and many millions Of other plants, more rare, more strange than these, As very fishes, living in the seas; As also Rams, Calves, Horses, Hares, and Hogs, Wolves, Urchins, Lions, Elephants, and Dogs; Yea, Men and Maids, and, which I most admire, The mitred Bishop and the cowled Friar: Of which, examples, but a few years since, Were strewn the Norway and Polonian prince. These seem to be wonders; but have had so many confirmations from men of learning and credit, that you need not doubt them. Nor are the number, nor the various shapes, of fishes more strange, or more fit for contemplation, than their different natures, inclinations, and actions; concerning which, I shall beg your patient ear a little longer. The Cuttle-fish will cast a long gut out of her throat, which, like as an Angler doth his line, she sendeth forth, and pulleth in again at her pleasure, according as she sees some little fish come near to her; and the Cuttle-fish, being then hid in the gravel, lets the smaller fish nibble and bite the end of it; at which time she, by little and little, draws the smaller fish so near to her, that she may leap upon her, and then catches and devours her: and for this reason some have called this fish the Sea-angler. And there is a fish called a Hermit, that at a certain age gets into a dead fish's shell, and, like a hermit, dwells there alone, studying the wind and weather and so turns her shell, that she makes it defend her from the injuries that they would bring upon her. There is also a fish called by �lian the Adonis, or Darling of the Sea; so called, because it is a loving and innocent fish, a fish that hurts nothing that hath life, and is at peace with all the numerous inhabitants of that vast watery element; and truly, I think most Anglers are so disposed to most of mankind. And there are, also, lustful and chaste fishes; of which I shall give you examples. And first, what Du Bartas says of a fish called the Sargus; which, because none can express it better than he does, I shall give you in his own words, supposing it shall not have the less credit for being verse; for he hath gathered this and other observations out of authors that have been great and industrious searchers into the secrets of nature. The adult'rous Sargus doth not only change Wives every day, in the deep streams, but, strange! As if the honey of sea-love delight Could not suffice his ranging appetite, Goes courting she-goats on the grassy shore, Horning their husbands that had horns before. And the same author writes concerning the Cantharus, that which you shall also hear in his own words: But, contrary, the constant Cantharus Is ever constant to his faithful spouse In nuptial duties, spending his chaste life. Never loves any but his own dear wife. Sir, but a little longer, and I have done. Venator. Sir, take what liberty you think fit, for your discourse seems to be musick, and charms me to an attention. Piscator. Why then, Sir, I will take a little liberty to tell, or rather to remember you what is said of Turtle-doves; first, that they silently plight their troth, and marry; and that then the survivor scorns, as the Thracian women are said to do, to outlive his or her mate, and this is taken for a truth; and if the survivor shall ever couple with another, then, not only the living, but the dead, be it either the he or the she, is denied the name and honour of a true Turtle-dove. And to parallel this land-rarity, and teach mankind moral faithfulness, and to condemn those that talk of religion, and yet come short of the moral faith of fish and fowl, men that violate the law affirmed by St. Paul to be writ in their hearts, and which, he says, shall at the Last Day condemn and leave them without excuse--I pray hearken to what Du Bartas sings, for the hearing of such conjugal faithfulness will be musick to all chaste ears, and therefore I pray hearken to what Du Bartas sings of the Mullet. But for chaste love the Mullet hath no peer; For, if the fisher hath surpris'd her pheer As mad with wo, to shore she followeth Prest to consort him, both in life and death. On the contrary, what shall I say of the House-Cock, which treads any hen; and, then, contrary to the Swan, the Partridge, and Pigeon, takes no care to hatch, to feed, or cherish his own brood, but is senseless, though they perish. And it is considerable, that the Hen, which, because she also takes any Cock, expects it not, who is sure the chickens be her own, hath by a moral impression her care and affection to her own brood more than doubled, even to such a height, that our Saviour, in expressing his love to Jerusalem, quotes her, for an example of tender affection, as his Father had done Job, for a pattern of patience. And to parallel this Cock, there be divers fishes that cast their spawn on flags or stones, and then leave it uncovered, and exposed to become a prey and be devoured by vermin or other fishes. But other fishes, as namely the Barbel, take such care for the preservation of their seed, that, unlike to the Cock, or the Cuckoo, they mutually labour, both the spawner and the melter, to cover their spawn with sand, or watch it, or hide it in some secret place unfrequented by vermin or by any fish but themselves. Sir, these examples may, to you and others, seem strange; but they are testified, some by Aristotle, some by Pliny, some by Gesner, and by many others of credit; and are believed and known by divers, both of wisdom and experience, to be a truth; and indeed are, as I said at the beginning, fit for the contemplation of a most serious and a most pious man. And, doubtless, this made the prophet David say, "They that occupy themselves in deep waters, see the wonderful works of God": indeed such wonders and pleasures too, as the land affords not. And that they be fit for the contemplation of the most prudent, and pious, and peaceable men, seems to be testified by the practice of so many devout and contemplative men, as the Patriarchs and Prophets of old; and of the Apostles of our Saviour in our latter times, of which twelve, we are sure, he chose four that were simple fishermen, whom he inspired, and sent to publish his blessed will to the Gentiles; and inspired them also with a power to speak all languages, and by their powerful eloquence to beget faith in the unbelieving Jews; and themselves to suffer for that Saviour, whom their forefathers and they had crucified; and, in their sufferings, to preach freedom from the incumbrances of the law, and a new way to everlasting life: this was the employment of these happy fishermen. Concerning which choice, some have made these observations: First, that he never reproved these, for their employment or calling, as he did the Scribes and the Money-changers. And secondly, he found that the hearts of such men, by nature, were fitted for contemplation and quietness; men of mild, and sweet, and peaceable spirits, as indeed most Anglers are: these men our blessed Saviour, who is observed to love to plant grace in good natures, though indeed nothing be too hard for him, yet these men he chose to call from their irreprovable employment of fishing, and gave them grace to be his disciples, and to follow him, and do wonders; I say four of twelve. And it is observable, that it was our Saviour's will that these, our four fishermen, should have a priority of nomination in the catalogue of his twelve Apostles, as namely, first St. Peter, St. Andrew, St. James, and St. John; and, then, the rest in their order. And it is yet more observable, that when our blessed Saviour went up into the mount, when he left the rest of his disciples, and chose only three to bear him company at his Transfiguration, that those three were all fishermen. And it is to be believed, that all the other Apostles, after they betook themselves to follow Christ, betook themselves to be fishermen too; for it is certain, that the greater number of them were found together, fishing, by Jesus after his resurrection, as it is recorded in the twenty-first chapter of St. John's gospel. And since I have your promise to hear me with patience, I will take a liberty to look back upon an observation that hath been made by an ingenious and learned man; who observes, that God hath been pleased to allow those whom he himself hath appointed to write his holy will in holy writ, yet to express his will in such metaphors as their former affections or practice had inclined them to. And he brings Solomon for an example, who, before his conversion, was remarkably carnally amorous; and after, by God's appointment, wrote that spiritual dialogue, or holy amorous love-song the Canticles, betwixt God and his church: in which he says, "his beloved had eyes like the fish-pools of Heshbon". And if this hold in reason, as I see none to the contrary, then it may be probably concluded, that Moses, who I told you before writ the book of Job, and the Prophet Amos, who was a shepherd, were both Anglers; for you shall, in all the Old Testament, find fish-hooks, I think but twice mentioned, namely, by meek Moses the friend of God, and by the humble prophet Amos. Concerning which last, namely the prophet Amos, I shall make but this observation, that he that shall read the humble, lowly, plain style of that prophet, and compare it with the high, glorious, eloquent style of the prophet Isaiah, though they be both equally true, may easily believe Amos to be, not only a shepherd, but a good-natured plain fisherman. Which I do the rather believe, by comparing the affectionate, loving, lowly, humble Epistles of St. Peter, St. James, and St. John, whom we know were all fishers, with the glorious language and high metaphors of St. Paul, who we may believe was not. And for the lawfulness of fishing: it may very well be maintained by our Saviour's bidding St. Peter cast his hook into the water and catch a fish, for money to pay tribute to Caesar. And let me tell you, that Angling is of high esteem, and of much use in other nations. He that reads the Voyages of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, shall find that there he declares to have found a king and several priests a-fishing. And he that reads Plutarch, shall find, that Angling was not contemptible in the days of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and that they, in the midst of their wonderful glory, used Angling as a principal recreation. And let me tell you, that in the Scripture, Angling is always taken in the best sense; and that though hunting may be sometimes so taken, yet it is but seldom to be so understood. And let me add this more: he that views the ancient Ecclesiastical Canons, shall find hunting to be forbidden to Churchmen, as being a turbulent, toilsome, perplexing recreation; and shall find Angling allowed to clergymen, as being a harmless recreation, a recreation that invites them to contemplation and quietness. I might here enlarge myself, by telling you what commendations our learned Perkins bestows on Angling: and how dear a lover, and great a practiser of it, our learned Dr. Whitaker was; as indeed many others of great learning have been. But I will content myself with two memorable men, that lived near to our own time, whom I also take to have been ornaments to the art of Angling. The first is Dr. Nowel, sometime dean of the cathedral church of St. Paul, in London, where his monument stands yet undefaced; a man that, in the reformation of Queen Elizabeth, not that of Henry VIII., was so noted for his meek spirit, deep learning, prudence, and piety, that the then Parliament and Convocation, both, chose, enjoined, and trusted him to be the man to make a Catechism for public use, such a one as should stand as a rule for faith and manners to their posterity. And the good old man, though he was very learned, yet knowing that God leads us not to heaven by many, nor by hard questions, like an honest Angler, made that good, plain, unperplexed Catechism which is printed with our good old Service-book. I say, this good man was a dear lover and constant practiser of Angling, as any age can produce: and his custom was to spend besides his fixed hours of prayer, those hours which, by command of the church, were enjoined the clergy, and voluntarily dedicated to devotion by many primitive Christians, I say, besides those hours, this good man was observed to spend a tenth part of his time in Angling; and, also, for I have conversed with those which have conversed with him, to bestow a tenth part of his revenue, and usually all his fish, amongst the poor that inhabited near to those rivers in which it was caught; saying often, "that charity gave life to religion ": and, at his return to his house, would praise God he had spent that day free from worldly trouble; both harmlessly, and in a recreation that became a churchman. And this good man was well content, if not desirous, that posterity should know he was an Angler; as may appear by his picture, now to be seen, and carefully kept, in Brazen-nose College, to which he was a liberal benefactor. In which picture he is drawn leaning on a desk, with his Bible before him; and on one hand of him, his lines, hooks, and other tackling, lying in a round; and, on his other hand, are his Angle-rods of several sorts; and by them this is written, "that he died 13 Feb. 1601, being aged ninety-five years, forty-four of which he had been Dean of St. Paul's church, and that his age neither impaired his hearing, nor dimmed his eyes, nor weakened his memory, nor made any of the faculties of his mind weak or useless". It is said that Angling and temperance were great causes of these blessings; and I wish the like to all that imitate him, and love the memory of so good a man. My next and last example shall be that under-valuer of money, the late provost of Eton College, Sir Henry Wotton, a man with whom I have often fished and conversed, a man whose foreign employments in the service of this nation, and whose experience, learning, wit, and cheerfulness, made his company to be esteemed one of the delights of mankind. This man, whose very approbation of Angling were sufficient to convince any modest censurer of it, this man was also a most dear lover, and a frequent practiser of the art of Angling; of which he would say, "it was an employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent"; for Angling was, after tedious study, "a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness; and that it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and practiced it ". Indeed, my friend, you will find Angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit, and a world of other blessings attending upon it. Sir, this was the saying of that learned man. And I do easily believe, that peace, and patience, and a calm content, did cohabit in the cheerful heart of Sir Henry Wotton, because I know that when he was beyond seventy years of age, he made this description of a part of the present pleasure that possessed him, as he sat quietly, in a summer's evening, on a bank a-fishing. It is a description of the spring; which, because it glided as soft and sweetly from his pen, as that river does at this time, by which it was then made, I shall repeat it unto you:-- This day dame Nature seem'd in love The lusty sap began to move; Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines. And birds had drawn their valentines. The jealous trout, that low did lie Rose at a well-dissembled fly There stood my Friend, with patient skill, Attending of his trembling quill. Already were the eaves possess'd With the swift pilgrim's daubed nest; The groves already did rejoice In Philomel's triumphing voice: The showers were short, the weather mild, The morning fresh, the evening smil'd. Joan takes her neat-rubb'd pail, and now, She trips to milk the sand-red cow; Where, for some sturdy foot-ball swain, Joan strokes a syllabub or twain. The fields and gardens were beset With tulips, crocus, violet; And now, though late, the modest rose Did more than half a blush disclose. Thus all looks gay, and full of cheer, To welcome the new-livery'd year. These were the thoughts that then possessed the undisturbed mind of Sir Henry Wotton. Will you hear the wish of another Angler, and the commendation of his happy life, which he also sings in verse: viz. Jo. Davors, Esq. Let me live harmlessly, and near the brink Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place Where I may see my quill, or cork, down sink With eager bite of Perch, or Bleak, or Dace; And on the world and my Creator think: Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t' embrace; And others spend their time in base excess Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness. Let them that list, these pastimes still pursue, And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill; So I the fields and meadows green may view, And daily by fresh rivers walk at will Among the daisies and the violets blue, Red hyacinth, and yellow daffodil, Purple Narcissus like the morning rays, Pale gander-grass, and azure culver-keys. I count it higher pleasure to behold The stately compass of the lofty sky; And in the midst thereof, like burning gold, The flaming chariot of the world's great eye: The watery clouds that in the air up-roll'd With sundry kinds of painted colours fly; And fair Aurora, lifting up her head, Still blushing, rise from old Tithonus' bed. The hills and mountains raised from the plains, The plains extended level with the ground The grounds divided into sundry veins, The veins inclos'd with rivers running round; These rivers making way through nature's chains, With headlong course, into the sea profound; The raging sea, beneath the vallies low, Where lakes, and rills, and rivulets do flow: The lofty woods, the forests wide and long, Adorned with leaves and branches fresh and green, In whose cool bowers the birds with many a song, Do welcome with their quire the summer's Queen; The meadows fair, where Flora's gifts, among Are intermix'd with verdant grass between; The silver-scaled fish that softly swim Within the sweet brook's crystal, watery stream. All these, and many more of his creation That made the heavens, the Angler oft doth see; Taking therein no little delectation, To think how strange, how wonderful they be: Framing thereof an inward contemplation To set his heart from other fancies free; And whilst he looks on these with joyful eye, His mind is rapt above the starry sky. Sir, I am glad my memory has not lost these last verses, because they are somewhat more pleasant and more suitable to May-day than my harsh discourse. And I am glad your patience hath held out so long as to hear them and me, for both together have brought us within the sight of the Thatched House. And I must be your debtor, if you think it worth your attention, for the rest of my promised discourse, till some other opportunity, and a like time of leisure. Venator. Sir, you have angled me on with much pleasure to the Thatched House; and I now find your words true, "that good company makes the way seem short"; for trust me, Sir, I thought we had wanted three miles of this house, till you showed it to me. But now we are at it, we'll turn into it, and refresh ourselves with a cup of drink, and a little rest. Piscator. Most gladly, Sir, and we'll drink a civil cup to all the Otter-hunters that are to meet you to-morrow. Venator. That we will, Sir, and to all the lovers of Angling too, of which number I am now willing to be one myself; for, by the help of your good discourse and company, I have put on new thoughts both of the art of Angling and of all that profess it; and if you will but meet me to-morrow at the time and place appointed, and bestow one day with me and my friends, in hunting the Otter, I will dedicate the next two days to wait upon you; and we too will, for that time, do nothing but angle, and talk of fish and fishing. Piscator. It is a match, Sir, I will not fail you, God willing, to be at Amwell Hill to-morrow morning before sun-rising. The second day On the Otter and the Chub Chapter II Piscator, Venator, Huntsman, and Hostess Venator. My friend Piscator, you have kept time with my thoughts; for the sun is just rising, and I myself just now come to this place, and the dogs have just now put down an Otter. Look! down at the bottom of the hill there, in that meadow, chequered with water-lilies and lady-smocks; there you may see what work they make; look! look! you may see all busy; men and dogs; dogs and men; all busy. Piscator. Sir, I am right glad to meet you, and glad to have so fair an entrance into this day's sport, and glad to see so many dogs, and more men, all in pursuit of the Otter. Let us compliment no longer, but join unto them. Come, honest Venator, let us be gone, let us make haste; I long to be doing; no reasonable hedge or ditch shall hold me. Venator. Gentleman Huntsman, where found you this Otter? Huntsman. Marry, Sir, we found her a mile from this place, a-fishing. She has this morning eaten the greatest part of this Trout; she has only left thus much of it as you see, and was fishing for more; when we came we found her just at it: but we were here very early, we were here an hour before sunrise, and have given her no rest since we came; sure she will hardly escape all these dogs and men. I am to have the skin if we kill her. Venator. Why, Sir, what is the skin worth? Huntsman. It is worth ten shillings to make gloves; the gloves of an Otter are the best fortification for your hands that can be thought on against wet weather. Piscator. I pray, honest Huntsman, let me ask you a pleasant question: do you hunt a beast or a fish? Huntsman. Sir, it is not in my power to resolve you; I leave it to be resolved by the college of Carthusians, who have made vows never to eat flesh. But, I have heard, the question hath been debated among many great clerks, and they seem to differ about it; yet most agree that her tail is fish: and if her body be fish too, then I may say that a fish will walk upon land: for an Otter does so sometimes, five or six or ten miles in a night, to catch for her young ones, or to glut herself with fish. And I can tell you that Pigeons will fly forty miles for a breakfast: but, Sir, I am sure the Otter devours much fish, and kills and spoils much more than he eats. And I can tell you, that this dog-fisher, for so the Latins call him, can smell a fish in the water a hundred yards from him: Gesner says much farther: and that his stones are good against the falling sickness; and that there is an herb, Benione, which, being hung in a linen cloth near a fish-pond, or any haunt that he uses, makes him to avoid the place; which proves he smells both by water and land. And, I can tell you, there is brave hunting this water-dog in Cornwall; where there have been so many, that our learned Camden says there is a river called Ottersey, which was so named by reason of the abundance of Otters that bred and fed in it. And thus much for my knowledge of the Otter; which you may now see above water at vent, and the dogs close with him; I now see he will not last long. Follow, therefore, my masters, follow; for Sweetlips was like to have him at this last vent. Venator. Oh me! all the horse are got over the river, what shall we do now? shall we follow them over the water? Huntsman. No, Sir, no; be not so eager; stay a little, and follow me; for both they and the dogs will be suddenly on this side again, I warrant you, and the Otter too, it may be. Now have at him with Kilbuck, for he vents again. Venator. Marry! so he does; for, look! he vents in that corner. Now, now, Ringwood has him: now, he is gone again, and has bit the poor dog. Now Sweetlips has her; hold her, Sweetlips! now all the dogs have her; some above and some under water: but, now, now she is tired, and past losing. Come bring her to me, Sweetlips. Look! it is a Bitch-otter, and she has lately whelp'd. Let's go to the place where she was put down; and, not far from it, you will find all her young ones, I dare warrant you, and kill them all too. Huntsman. Come, Gentlemen! come, all! let's go to the place where we put down the Otter. Look you! hereabout it was that she kennelled; look you! here it was indeed; for here's her young ones, no less than five: come, let us kill them all. Piscator. No: I pray, Sir, save me one, and I'll try if I can make her tame, as I know an ingenious gentleman in Leicestershire, Mr. Nich. Segrave, has done; who hath not only made her tame, but to catch fish, and do many other things of much pleasure. Huntsman. Take one with all my heart; but let us kill the rest. And now let's go to an honest ale-house, where we may have a cup of good barley wine, and sing "Old Rose," and all of us rejoice together. Venator. Come, my friend Piscator, let me invite you along with us. I'll bear your charges this night, and you shall bear mine to-morrow; for my intention is to accompany you a day or two in fishing. Piscator. Sir, your request is granted; and I shall be right glad both to exchange such a courtesy, and also to enjoy your company. The third day Venator. Well, now let's go to your sport of Angling. Piscator. Let's be going, with all my heart. God keep you all, Gentlemen; and send you meet, this day, with another Bitch-otter, and kill her merrily, and all her young ones too. Venator. NOW, Piscator, where will you begin to fish? Piscator. We are not yet come to a likely place; I must walk a mile further yet before I beam. Venator. Well then, I pray, as we walk, tell me freely, how do you like your lodging, and mine host and the company? Is not mine host a witty man? Piscator. Sir, I will tell you, presently, what I think of your host: but, first, I will tell you, I am glad these Otters were killed; and I am sorry there are no more Otter-killers; for I know that the want of Otter-killers, and the not keeping the fence-months for the preservation of fish, will, in time, prove the destruction of all rivers. And those very few that are left, that make conscience of the laws of the nation, and of keeping days of abstinence, will be forced to eat flesh, or suffer more inconveniences than are yet foreseen. Venator. Why, Sir, what be those that you call the fence-months? Piscator. Sir, they be principally three, namely, March, April, and May: for these be the usual months that Salmon come out of the sea to spawn in most fresh rivers. And their fry would, about a certain time, return back to the salt water, if they were not hindered by weirs and unlawful gins, which the greedy fishermen set, and so destroy them by thousands; as they would, being so taught by nature, change the fresh for salt water. He that shall view the wise Statutes made in the 13th of Edward the First, and the like in Richard the Second, may see several provisions made against the destruction of fish: and though I profess no knowledge of the law, yet I am sure the regulation of these defects might be easily mended. But I remember that a wise friend of mine did usually say, "that which is everybody's business is nobody's business": if it were otherwise, there could not be so many nets and fish, that are under the statute size, sold daily amongst us; and of which the conservators of the waters should be ashamed. But, above all, the taking fish in spawning-time may be said to be against nature: it is like taking the dam on the nest when she hatches her young, a sin so against nature, that Almighty God hath in the Levitical law made a law against it. But the poor fish have enemies enough besides such unnatural fishermen; as namely, the Otters that I spake of, the Cormorant, the Bittern, the Osprey, the Sea-gull, the Hern, the King-fisher, the Gorara, the Puet, the Swan, Goose, Duck, and the Craber, which some call the Water-rat: against all which any honest man may make a just quarrel, but I will not; I will leave them to be quarrelled with and killed by others, for I am not of a cruel nature, I love to kill nothing but fish. And, now, to your question concerning your host. To speak truly, he is not to me a good companion, for most of his conceits were either scripture jests, or lascivious jests, for which I count no man witty: for the devil will help a man, that way inclined, to the first; and his own corrupt nature, which he always carries with him, to the latter. But a companion that feasts the company with wit and mirth, and leaves out the sin which is usually mixed with them, he is the man, and indeed such a companion should have his charges borne; and to such company I hope to bring you this night; for at Trout-hall, not far from this place, where I purpose to lodge to-night, there is usually an Angler that proves good company. And let me tell you, good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue. But for such discourse as we heard last night, it infects others: the very boys will learn to talk and swear, as they heard mine host, and another of the company that shall be nameless. I am sorry the other is a gentleman, for less religion will not save their souls than a beggar's: I think more will be required at the last great day. Well! you know what example is able to do; and I know what the poet says in the like case, which is worthy to be noted by all parents and people of civility: ....many a one Owes to his country his religion; And in another, would as strongly grow, Had but his nurse or mother taught him so. This is reason put into verse, and worthy the consideration of a wise man. But of this no more; for though I love civility, yet I hate severe censures. I'll to my own art; and I doubt not but at yonder tree I shall catch a Chub: and then we'll turn to an honest cleanly hostess, that I know right well; rest ourselves there; and dress it for our dinner. Venator. Oh, Sir! a Chub is the worst fish that swims; I hoped for a Trout to my dinner. Piscator. Trust me, Sir, there is not a likely place for a Trout hereabout: and we staid so long to take our leave of your huntsmen this morning, that the sun is got so high, and shines so clear, that I will not undertake the catching of a Trout till evening. And though a Chub be, by you and many others, reckoned the worst of fish, yet you shall see I'll make it a good fish by dressing it. Venator. Why, how will you dress him? Piscator. I'll tell you by-and-by, when I have caught him. Look you here, Sir, do you see? but you must stand very close, there lie upon the top of the water, in this very hole, twenty Chubs. I'll catch only one and that shall be the biggest of them all: and that I will do so, I'll hold you twenty to one, and you shall see it done. Venator. Ay, marry! Sir, now you talk like an artist, and I'll say you are one, when I shall see you perform what you say you can do: but I yet doubt it. Piscator. You shall not doubt it long; for you shall see me do it presently. Look! the biggest of these Chubs has had some bruise upon his tail, by a Pike or some other accident; and that looks like a white spot. That very Chub I mean to put into your hands presently; sit you but down in the shade, and stay but a little while; and I'll warrant you, I'll bring him to you. Venator. I'll sit down; and hope well, because you seem to be so confident. Piscator. Look you, Sir, there is a trial of my skill; there he is: that very Chub, that I showed you, with the white spot on his tail. And I'll be as certain to make him a good dish of meat as I was to catch him: I'll now lead you to an honest ale-house, where we shall find a cleanly room, lavender in the windows, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall. There my hostess, which I may tell you is both cleanly, and handsome, and civil, hath dressed many a one for me; and shall now dress it after my fashion, and I warrant it good meat. Venator. Come, Sir, with all my heart, for I begin to be hungry, and long to be at it, and indeed to rest myself too; for though I have walked but four miles this morning, yet I begin to be weary; yesterday's hunting hangs still upon me. Piscator. Well, Sir, and you shall quickly be at rest, for yonder is the house I mean to bring you to. Come, hostess, how do you? Will you first give us a cup of your best drink, and then dress this Chub, as you dressed my last, when I and my friend were here about eight or ten days ago? But you must do me one courtesy, it must be done instantly. Hostess. I will do it, Mr. Piscator, and with all the speed I can. Piscator. NOW, Sir, has not my hostess made haste? and does not the fish look lovely? Venator. Both, upon my word, Sir; and therefore let's say grace and fall to eating of it. Piscator. Well, Sir, how do you like it? Venator. Trust me, 'tis as good meat as I ever tasted. Now let me thank you for it, drink to you and beg a courtesy of you; but it must not be denied me. Piscator. What is it, I pray, Sir? You are so modest, that methinks I may promise to grant it before it is asked. Venator. Why, Sir, it is, that from henceforth you would allow me to call you Master, and that really I may be your scholar; for you are such a companion, and have so quickly caught and so excellently cooked this fish, as makes me ambitious to be your scholar. Piscator. Give me your hand; from this time forward I will be your Master, and teach you as much of this art as I am able; and will, as you desire me, tell you somewhat of the nature of most of the fish that we are to angle for, and I am sure I both can and will tell you more than any common angler yet knows. The third day-continued How to fish for, and to dress, the Chavender of Chub Chapter III Piscator and Venator Piscator. The Chub, though he eat well, thus dressed, yet as he is usually dressed, he does not. He is objected against, not only for being full of small forked bones, dispersed through all his body, but that he eats waterish, and that the flesh of him is not firm, but short and tasteless. The French esteem him so mean, as to call him Un Villain; nevertheless he may be so dressed as to make him very good meat; as, namely, if he be a large Chub, then dress him thus: First, scale him, and then wash him clean, and then take out his guts; and to that end make the hole as little, and near to his gills, as you may conveniently, and especially make clean his throat from the grass and weeds that are usually in it; for if that be not very clean, it will make him to taste very sour. Having so done, put some sweet herbs into his belly; and then tie him with two or three splinters to a spit, and roast him, basted often with vinegar, or rather verjuice and butter, with good store of salt mixed with it. Being thus dressed, you will find him a much better dish of meat than you, or most folk, even than anglers themselves, do imagine: for this dries up the fluid watery humour with which all Chubs do abound. But take this rule with you, That a Chub newly taken and newly dressed, is so much better than a Chub of a day's keeping after he is dead, that I can compare him to nothing so fitly as to cherries newly gathered from a tree, and others that have been bruised and lain a day or two in water. But the Chub being thus used, and dressed presently; and not washed after he is gutted, for note, that lying long in water, and washing the blood out of any fish after they be gutted, abates much of their sweetness; you will find the Chub, being dressed in the blood, and quickly, to be such meat as will recompense your labour, and disabuse your opinion. Or you may dress the Chavender or Chub thus: When you have scaled him, and cut off his tail and fins, and washed him very clean, then chine or slit him through the middle, as a salt-fish is usually cut; then give him three or four cuts or scotches on the back with your knife, and broil him on charcoal, or wood coal, that are free from smoke; and all the time he is a-broiling, baste him with the best sweet butter, and good store of salt mixed with it. And, to this, add a little thyme cut exceedingly small, or bruised into the butter. The Cheven thus dressed hath the watery taste taken away, for which so many except against him. Thus was the Cheven dressed that you now liked so well, and commended so much. But note again, that if this Chub that you eat of had been kept till to-morrow, he had not been worth a rush. And remember, that his throat be washed very clean, I say very clean, and his body not washed after he is gutted, as indeed no fish should be. Well, scholar, you see what pains I have taken to recover the lost credit of the poor despised Chub. And now I will give you some rules how to catch him: and I am glad to enter you into the art of fishing by catching a Chub, for there is no fish better to enter a young Angler, he is so easily caught, but then it must be this particular way: Go to the same hole in which I caught my Chub, where, in most hot days, you will find a dozen or twenty Chevens floating near the top of the water. Get two or three grasshoppers, as you go over the meadow: and get secretly behind the tree, and stand as free from motion as is possible. Then put a grasshopper on your hook, and let your hook hang a quarter of a yard short of the water, to which end you must rest your rod on some bough of the tree. But it is likely the Chubs will sink down towards the bottom of the water, at the first shadow of your rod (for Chub is the fearfullest of fishes), and will do so if but a bird flies over him and makes the least shadow on the water; but they will presently rise up to the top again, and there lie soaring till some shadow affrights them again. I say, when they lie upon the top of the water, look out the best Chub, which you, setting yourself in a fit place, may very easily see, and move your rod, as softly as a snail moves, to that Chub you intend to catch; let your bait fall gently upon the water three or four inches before him, and he will infallibly take the bait. And you will be as sure to catch him; for he is one of the leather-mouthed fishes, of which a hook does scarce ever lose its hold; and therefore give him play enough before you offer to take him out of the water. Go your way presently; take my rod, and do as I bid you; and I will sit down and mend my tackling till you return back. Venator. Truly, my loving master, you have offered me as fair as I could wish. I'll go and observe your directions. Look you, master, what I have done, that which joys my heart, caught just such another Chub as yours was. Piscator. Marry, and I am glad of it: I am like to have a towardly scholar of you. I now see, that with advice and practice, you will make an Angler in a short time. Have but a love to it; and I'll warrant you. Venator. But, master! what if I could not have found a grasshopper? Piscator. Then I may tell you, That a black snail, with his belly slit, to show his white, or a piece of soft cheese, will usually do as well. Nay, sometimes a worm, or any kind of fly, as the ant-fly, the flesh-fly, or wall-fly; or the dor or beetle which you may find under cow-dung; or a bob which you will find in the same place, and in time will be a beetle; it is a short white worm, like to and bigger than a gentle; or a cod-worm; or a case-worm; any of these will do very well to fish in such a manner. And after this manner you may catch a Trout in a hot evening: when, as you walk by a brook, and shall see or hear him leap at flies, then, if you get a grasshopper, put it on your hook, with your line about two yards long; standing behind a bush or tree where his hole is: and make your bait stir up and down on the top of the water. You may, if you stand close, be sure of a bite, but not sure to catch him, for he is not a leather-mouthed fish. And after this manner you may fish for him with almost any kind of live fly, but especially with a grasshopper. Venator. But before you go further, I pray, good master, what mean you by a leather-mouthed fish? Piscator. By a leather-mouthed fish, I mean such as have their teeth in their throat, as the Chub or Cheven: and so the Barbel, the Gudgeon, and Carp, and divers others have. And the hook being stuck into the leather, or skin, of the mouth of such fish, does very seldom or never lose its hold: but on the contrary, a Pike, a Perch, or Trout, and so some other fish, which have not their teeth in their throats, but in their mouths, which you shall observe to be very full of bones, and the skin very thin, and little of it. I say, of these fish the hook never takes so sure hold but you often lose your fish, unless he have gorged it. Venator. I thank you, good master, for this observation. But now what shall be done with my Chub or Cheven that I have caught? Piscator. Marry, Sir, it shall be given away to some poor body; for I'll warrant you I'll give you a Trout for your supper: and it is a good beginning of your art to offer your first-fruits to the poor, who will both thank you and God for it, which I see by your silence you seem to consent to. And for your willingness to part with it so charitably, I will also teach more concerning Chub-fishing. You are to note, that in March and April he is usually taken with worms; in May, June, and July, he will bite at any fly, or at cherries, or at beetles with their legs and wings cut off, or at any kind of snail, or at the black bee that breeds in clay walls. And he never refuses a grasshopper, on the top of a swift stream, nor, at the bottom, the young humble bee that breeds in long grass, and is ordinarily found by the mower of it. In August, and in the cooler months, a yellow paste, made of the strongest cheese, and pounded in a mortar, with a little butter and saffron, so much of it as, being beaten small, will turn it to a lemon colour. And some make a paste for the winter months, at which time the Chub is accounted best, for then it is observed, that the forked bones are lost, or turned into a kind of gristle, especially if he be baked, of cheese and turpentine. He will bite also at a minnow, or peek, as a Trout will: of which I shall tell you more hereafter, and of divers other baits. But take this for a rule, that, in hot weather, he is to be fished for towards the mid-water, or near the top; and in colder weather, nearer the bottom; and if you fish for him on the top, with a beetle, or any fly, then be sure to let your line be very long, and to keep out of sight. And having told you, that his spawn is excellent meat, and that the head of a large Cheven, the throat being well washed, is the best part of him, I will say no more of this fish at the present, but wish you may catch the next you fish for. But, lest you may judge me too nice in urging to have the Chub dressed so presently after he is taken, I will commend to your consideration how curious former times have been in the like kind. You shall read in Seneca, his Natural Questions, that the ancients were so curious in the newness of their fish, that that seemed not new enough that was not put alive into the guest's hand; and he says, that to that end they did usually keep them living in glass bottles in their dining-rooms, and they did glory much in their entertaining of friends, to have that fish taken from under their table alive that was instantly to be fed upon; and he says, they took great pleasure to see their Mullets change to several colours when they were dying. But enough of this; for I doubt I have staid too long from giving you some Observations of the Trout, and how to fish for him, which shall take up the next of my spare time. The third day-continued On the Nature and Breeding of the Trout, and how to fish for him Chapter IV Piscator, Venator, Milk-woman, Maudlin, Hostess Piscator. The Trout is a fish highly valued, both in this and foreign nations. He may be justly said, as the old poet said of wine, and we English say of venison, to be a generous fish: a fish that is so like the buck, that he also has his seasons; for it is observed, that he comes in and goes out of season with the stag and buck. Gesner says, his name is of a German offspring; and says he is a fish that feeds clean and purely, in the swiftest streams, and on the hardest gravel; and that he may justly contend with all fresh water fish, as the Mullet may with all sea fish, for precedency and daintiness of taste; and that being in right season, the most dainty palates have allowed precedency to him. And before I go farther in my discourse, let me tell you, that you are to observe, that as there be some barren does that are good in summer, so there be some barren Trouts that are good in winter; but there are not many that are so; for usually they be in their perfection in the month of May, and decline with the buck. Now you are to take notice, that in several countries, as in Germany, and in other parts, compared to ours, fish do differ much in their bigness, and shape, and other ways; and so do Trouts. It is well known that in the Lake Leman, the Lake of Geneva, there are Trouts taken of three cubits long; as is affirmed by Gesner, a writer of good credit: and Mercator says, the Trouts that are taken in the Lake of Geneva are a great part of the merchandize of that famous city. And you are further to know, that there be certain waters that breed Trouts remarkable, both for their number and smallness. I know a little brook in Kent, that breeds them to a number incredible, and you may take them twenty or forty in an hour, but none greater than about the size of a Gudgeon. There are also, in divers rivers, especially that relate to, or be near to the sea, as Winchester, or the Thames about Windsor, a little Trout called a Samlet, or Skegger Trout, in both which places I have caught twenty or forty at a standing, that will bite as fast and as freely as Minnows: these be by some taken to be young Salmons; but in those waters they never grow to be bigger than a Herring. There is also in Kent, near to Canterbury, a Trout called there a Fordidge Trout, a Trout that bears the name of the town where it is usually caught, that is accounted the rarest of fish; many of them near the bigness of a Salmon, but known by their different colour; and in their best season they cut very white: and none of these have been known to be caught with an angle, unless it were one that was caught by Sir George Hastings, an excellent angler, and now with God: and he hath told me, he thought that Trout bit not for hunger but wantonness; and it is the rather to be believed, because both he, then, and many others before him, have been curious to search into their bellies, what the food was by which they lived; and have found out nothing by which they might satisfy their curiosity. Concerning which you are to take notice, that it is reported by good authors, that grasshoppers and some fish have no mouths, but are nourished and take breath by the porousness of their gills, man knows not how: and this may be believed, if we consider that when the raven hath hatched her eggs, she takes no further care, but leaves her young ones to the care of the God of nature, who is said, in the Psalms, "to feed the young ravens that call upon him ". And they be kept alive and fed by a dew; or worms that breed in their nests; or some other ways that we mortals know not. And this may be believed of the Fordidge Trout, which, as it is said of the stork, that he knows his season, so he knows his times, I think almost his day of coming into that river out of the sea; where he lives, and, it is like, feeds, nine months of the year, and fasts three in the river of Fordidge. And you are to note, that those townsmen are very punctual in observing the time of beginning to fish for them; and boast much, that their river affords a Trout that exceeds all others. And just so does Sussex boast of several fish; as, namely, a Shelsey Cockle, a Chichester Lobster, an Arundel Mullet, and an Amerly Trout. And, now, for some confirmation of the Fordidge Trout: you are to know that this Trout is thought to eat nothing in the fresh water; and it may be the better believed, because it is well known, that swallows, and bats, and wagtails, which are called half-year birds, and not seen to fly in England for six months in the year, but about Michaelmas leave us for a hotter climate, yet some of them that have been left behind their fellows, have been found, many thousands at a time, in hollow trees, or clay caves, where they have been observed to live, and sleep out the whole winter, without meat. And so Albertus observes, that there is one kind of frog that hath her mouth naturally shut up about the end of August, and that she lives so all the winter: and though it be strange to some, yet it is known to too many among us to be doubted. And so much for these Fordidge Trouts, which never afford an angler sport, but either live their time of being in the fresh water, by their meat formerly gotten in the sea, not unlike the swallow or frog, or, by the virtue of the fresh water only; or, as the birds of Paradise and the cameleon are said to live, by the sun and the air. There is also in Northumberland a Trout called a Bull-trout, of a much greater length and bigness than any in these southern parts; and there are, in many rivers that relate to the sea, Salmon-trouts, as much different from others, both in shape and in their spots, as we see sheep in some countries differ one from another in their shape and bigness, and in the fineness of the wool: and, certainly, as some pastures breed larger sheep; so do some rivers, by reason of the ground over which they run, breed larger Trouts. Now the next thing that I will commend to your consideration is, that the Trout is of a more sudden growth than other fish. Concerning which, you are also to take notice, that he lives not so long as the Pearch, and divers other fishes do, as Sir Francis Bacon hath observed in his History of Life and Death. And next you are to take notice, that he is not like the Crocodile, which if he lives never so long, yet always thrives till his death: but 'tis not so with the Trout; for after he is come to his full growth, he declines in his body, and keeps his bigness, or thrives only in his head till his death. And you are to know, that he will, about, especially before, the time of his spawning, get, almost miraculously, through weirs and flood-gates, against the stream; even through such high and swift places as is almost incredible. Next, that the Trout usually spawns about October or November, but in some rivers a little sooner or later; which is the more observable, because most other fish spawn in the spring or summer, when the sun hath warmed both the earth and water, and made it fit for generation. And you are to note, that he continues many months out of season; for it may be observed of the Trout, that he is like the Buck or the Ox, that will not be fat in many months, though he go in the very same pastures that horses do, which will be fat in one month: and so you may observe, That most other fishes recover strength, and grow sooner fat and in season than the Trout doth. And next you are to note, That till the sun gets to such a height as to warm the earth and the water, the Trout is sick, and lean, and lousy, and unwholesome; for you shall, in winter, find him to have a big head, and, then, to be lank and thin and lean; at which time many of them have sticking on them Sugs, or Trout-lice; which is a kind of a worm, in shape like a clove, or pin with a big head, and sticks close to him, and sucks his moisture, those, I think, the Trout breeds himself: and never thrives till he free himself from them, which is when warm weather comes; and, then, as he grows stronger, he gets from the dead still water into the sharp streams and the gravel, and, there, rubs off these worms or lice; and then, as he grows stronger, so he gets him into swifter and swifter streams, and there lies at the watch for any fly or minnow that comes near to him; and he especially loves the May-fly, which is bred of the cod-worm, or cadis; and these make the Trout bold and lusty, and he is usually fatter and better meat at the end of that month than at any time of the year. Now you are to know that it is observed, that usually the best Trouts are either red or yellow; though some, as the Fordidge Trout, be white and yet good; but that is not usual: and it is a note observable, that the female Trout hath usually a less head, and a deeper body than the male Trout, and is usually the better meat. And note, that a hog back and a little head, to either Trout, Salmon or any other fish, is a sign that that fish is in season. But yet you are to note, that as you see some willows or palm-trees bud and blossom sooner than others do, so some Trouts be, in rivers, sooner in season: and as some hollies, or oaks, are longer before they cast their leaves, so are some Trouts, in rivers, longer before they go out of season. And you are to note, that there are several kinds of Trouts: but these several kinds are not considered but by very few men; for they go under the general name of Trouts; just as pigeons do, in most places; though it is certain, there are tame and wild pigeons; and of the tame, there be hermits and runts, and carriers and cropers, and indeed too many to name. Nay, the Royal Society have found and published lately, that there be thirty and three kinds of spiders; and yet all, for aught I know, go under that one general name of spider. And it is so with many kinds of fish, and of Trouts especially; which differ in their bigness, and shape, and spots, and colour. The great Kentish hens may be an instance, compared to other hens: and, doubtless, there is a kind of small Trout, which will never thrive to be big; that breeds very many more than others do, that be of a larger size: which you may rasher believe, if you consider that the little wren and titmouse will have twenty young ones at a time, when, usually, the noble hawk, or the musical thrassel or blackbird, exceed not four or five. And now you shall see me try my skill to catch a Trout; and at my next walking, either this evening or to-morrow morning, I will give you direction how you yourself shall fish for him. Venator. Trust me, master, I see now it is a harder matter to catch a Trout than a Chub; for I have put on patience, and followed you these two hours, and not seen a fish stir, neither at your minnow nor your worm. Piscator. Well, scholar, you must endure worse luck sometime, or you will never make a good angler. But what say you now? there is a Trout now, and a good one too, if I can but hold him; and two or three turns more will tire him. Now you see he lies still, and the sleight is to land him: reach me that landing-net. So, Sir, now he is mine own: what say you now, is not this worth all my labour and your patience? Venator. On my word, master, this is a gallant Trout; what shall we do with him? Piscator. Marry, e'en eat him to supper: we'll go to my hostess from whence we came; she told me, as I was going out of door, that my brother Peter, a good angler and a cheerful companion, had sent word he would lodge there to-night, and bring a friend with him. My hostess has two beds, and I know you and I may have the best: we'll rejoice with my brother Peter and his friend, tell tales, or sing ballads, or make a catch, or find some harmless sport to content us, and pass away a little time without offence to God or man. Venator. A match, good master, let's go to that house, for the linen looks white, and smells of lavender, and I long to lie in a pair of sheets that smell so. Let's be going, good master, for I am hungry again with fishing. Piscator. Nay, stay a little, good scholar. I caught my last Trout with a worm; now I will put on a minnow, and try a quarter of an hour about yonder trees for another; and, so, walk towards our lodging. Look you, scholar, thereabout we shall have a bite presently, or not at all. Have with you, Sir: o' my word I have hold of him. Oh! it is a great logger-headed Chub; come, hang him upon that willow twig, and let's be going. But turn out of the way a little, good scholar! toward yonder high honeysuckle hedge; there we'll sit and sing whilst this shower falls so gently upon the teeming earth, and gives yet a sweeter smell to the lovely flowers that adorn these verdant meadows. Look! under that broad beech-tree I sat down, when I was last this way a-fishing; and the birds in the adjoining grove seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree near to the brow of that primrose-hill. There I sat viewing the silver streams glide silently towards their centre, the tempestuous sea; yet sometimes opposed by rugged roots and pebble-stones, which broke their waves, and turned them into foam; and sometimes I beguiled time by viewing the harmless lambs; some leaping securely in the cool shade, whilst others sported themselves in the cheerful sun; and saw others craving comfort from the swollen udders of their bleating dams. As I thus sat, these and other sights had so fully possess my soul with content, that I thought, as the poet has happily express it, I was for that time lifted above earth, And possest joys not promis'd in my birth. As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a second pleasure entertained me; 'twas a handsome milk-maid, that had not yet attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears of many things that will never be, as too many men too often do; but she cast away all care, and sung like a nightingale. Her voice was good, and the ditty fitted for it; it was that smooth song which was made by Kit Marlow, now at least fifty years ago; and the milk-maid's mother sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh, in his younger days. They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good; I think much better than the strong lines that are now in fashion in this critical age. Look yonder! on my word, yonder, they both be a-milking again. I will give her the Chub, and persuade them to sing those two songs to us. God speed you, good woman! I have been a-fishing; and am going to Bleak Hall to my bed; and having caught more fish than will sup myself and my friend, I will bestow this upon you and your daughter, for I use to sell none. Milk-woman. Marry! God requite you, Sir, and we'll eat it cheerfully. And if you come this way a-fishing two months hence, a grace of God! I'll give you a syllabub of new verjuice, in a new-made hay-cock, for it. And my Maudlin shall sing you one of her best ballads; for she and I both love all anglers, they be such honest, civil, quiet men. In the meantime will you drink a draught of red cow's milk? you shall have it freely. Piscator. No, I thank you; but, I pray, do us a courtesy that shall stand you and your daughter in nothing, and yet we will think ourselves still something in your debt: it is but to sing us a song that was sung by your daughter when I last passed over this meadow, about eight or nine days since. Milk-woman. What song was it, I pray? Was it, "Come, Shepherds, deck your herds "? or, "As at noon Dulcina rested"? or, "Phillida flouts me"? or, "Chevy Chace"? or, "Johnny Armstrong"? or, "Troy Town"? Piscator. No, it is none of those; it is a Song that your daughter sung the first part, and you sung the answer to it. Milk-woman. O, I know it now. I learned the first part in my golden age, when I was about the age of my poor daughter; and the latter part, which indeed fits me best now, but two or three years ago, when the cares of the world began to take hold of me: but you shall, God willing, hear them both; and sung as well as we can, for we both love anglers. Come, Maudlin, sing the first part to the gentlemen, with a merry heart; and I'll sing the second when you have done. The Milk-maid's song. Come live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That valleys, groves, or hills, or fields, Or woods, and steepy mountains yields; Where we will sit upon the rocks, And see the shepherds feed our flocks, By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses; And, then, a thousand fragrant posies; A cap of flowers, and a kirtle, Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull Slippers, lin'd choicely for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold; A belt of straw and ivy-buds, With coral clasps, and amber studs. And if these pleasures may thee move, Come, live with me, and be my love, Thy silver dishes, for thy meat As precious as the Gods do eat Shall, on an ivory table, be Prepared each day for thee and me. The shepherd swains shall dance and sing For thy delight, each May morning. If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me, and be my love. Venator. Trust me, master, it is a choice song, and sweetly sung by honest Maudlin. I now see it was not without cause that our good queen Elizabeth did so often wish herself a milk-maid all the month of May, because they are not troubled with fears and cares, but sing sweetly all the day, and sleep securely all the night: and without doubt, honest, innocent, pretty Maudlin does so. I'll bestow Sir Thomas Overbury's milk-maid's wish upon her, "that she may die in the Spring; and, being dead, may have good store of flowers stuck round about her winding-sheet". The Milk-maid's mother's answer If all the world and love were young And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee, and be thy love. But Time drives flocks from field to fold. When rivers rage, and rocks grow cold Then Philomel becometh dumb And age complains of cares to come. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields. A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring but sorrow's fall. Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten; In folly rise, in reason rotten. Thy belt of straw, and ivy buds, Thy coral clasps, and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee, and be thy love. What should we talk of dainties, then, Of better meat than's fit for men? These are but vain: that's only good Which God hath blessed and sent for food. But could youth last, and love still breed; Had joys no date, nor age no need; Then those delights my mind might move To live with thee, and be thy love. Mother. Well! I have done my song. But stay, honest anglers; for I will make Maudlin sing you one short song more. Maudlin! sing that song that you sung last night, when young Coridon the shepherd played so purely on his oaten pipe to you and your cousin Betty. Maudlin. I will, mother. I married a wife of late, The more's my unhappy fate: I married her for love, As my fancy did me move, And not for a worldly estate: But oh! the green sickness Soon changed her likeness; And all her beauty did fail. But 'tis not so With those that go Thro'frost and snow As all men know, And carry the milking-pail. Piscator. Well sung, good woman; I thank you. I'll give you another dish of fish one of these days; and then beg another song of you. Come, scholar! let Maudlin alone: do not you offer to spoil her voice. Look! yonder comes mine hostess, to call us to supper. How now! is my brother Peter come? Hostess. Yes, and a friend with him. They are both glad to hear that you are in these parts; and long to see you; and long to be at supper, for they be very hungry. The third day-continued On the Trout Chapter V Piscator, Peter, Venator, Coridon Piscator. Well met, brother Peter! I heard you and a friend would lodge here to-night; and that hath made me to bring my friend to lodge here too. My friend is one that would fain be a brother of the angle: he hath been an angler but this day; and I have taught him how to catch a Chub, by dapping with a grasshopper; and the Chub he caught was a lusty one of nineteen inches long. But pray, brother Peter, who is your companion? Peter. Brother Piscator, my friend is an honest countryman, and his name is Coridon; and he is a downright witty companion, that met me here purposely to be pleasant and eat a Trout; and I have not yet wetted my line since we met together: but I hope to fit him with a Trout for his breakfast; for I'll be early up. Piscator. Nay, brother, you shall not stay so long; for, look you! here is a Trout will fill six reasonable bellies. Come, hostess, dress it presently; and get us what other meat the house will afford; and give us some of your best barley-wine, the good liquor that our honest forefathers did use to think of; the drink which preserved their health, and made them live so long, and to do so many good deeds. Peter. On my word, this Trout is perfect in season. Come, I thank you, and here is a hearty draught to you, and to all the brothers of the angle wheresoever they be, and to my young brother's good fortune to-morrow. I will furnish him with a rod, if you will furnish him with the rest of the tackling: we will set him up, and make him a fisher. And I will tell him one thing for his encouragement, that his fortune hath made him happy to be scholar to such a master; a master that knows as much, both of the nature and breeding of fish, as any man; and can also tell him as well how to catch and cook them, from the Minnow to the Salmon, as any that I ever met withal. Piscator. Trust me, brother Peter, I find my scholar to be so suitable to my own humour, which is to be free and pleasant and civilly merry, that my resolution is to hide nothing that I know from him. Believe me, scholar, this is my resolution; and so here's to you a hearty draught, and to all that love us and the honest art of Angling. Venator. Trust me, good master, you shall not sow your seed in barren ground; for I hope to return you an increase answerable to your hopes: but, however, you shall find me obedient, and thankful, and serviceable to my best ability. Piscator. 'Tis enough, honest scholar! come, let's to supper. Come, my friend Coridon, this Trout looks lovely; it was twenty-two inches when it was taken; and the belly of it looked, some part of it, as yellow as a marigold, and part of it as white as a lily; and yet, methinks, it looks better in this good sauce. Coridon. Indeed, honest friend, it looks well, and tastes well: I thank you for it, and so doth my friend Peter, or else he is to blame. Peter. Yes, and so I do; we all thank you: and, when we have supped, I will get my friend Coridon to sing you a song for requital. Coridon. I will sing a song, if anybody will sing another, else, to be plain with you, I will sing none. I am none of those that sing for meat, but for company: I say, '"Tis merry in hall, When men sing all." Piscator. I'll promise you I'll sing a song that was lately made, at my request, by Mr. William Basse; one that hath made the choice songs of the "Hunter in his Career," and of "Tom of Bedlam," and many others of note; and this, that I will sing, is in praise of Angling. Coridon. And then mine shall be the praise of a Countryman's life. What will the rest sing of? Peter. I will promise you, I will sing another song in praise of Angling to-morrow night; for we will not part till then; but fish to-morrow, and sup together: and the next day every man leave fishing, and fall to his business. Venator. Tis a match; and I will provide you a song or a catch against then, too, which shall give some addition of mirth to the company; for we will be civil and as merry as beggars. Piscator. Tis a match, my masters. Let's e'en say grace, and turn to the fire, drink the other cup to whet our whistles, and so sing away all sad thoughts. Come on, my masters, who begins? I think it is best to draw cuts, and avoid contention. Peter. It is a match. Look, the shortest cut falls to Coridon. Coridon. Well, then, I will begin, for I hate contention Coridon's song. Oh the sweet contentment The countryman doth find! Heigh trolollie lollie foe, Heigh trolollie lee. That quiet contemplation Possesseth all my mind: Then care away And wend along with me. For Courts are full of flattery, As hath too oft been tried Heigh trolollie lollie foe, etc., The city full of wantonness, And both are full of pride: Then care away, etc. But oh, the honest countryman Speaks truly from his heart Heigh trolollie lollie foe, etc. His pride is in his tillage, His horses, and his cart: Then care away, etc. Our cloathing is good sheep-skins Grey russet for our wives Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc. 'Tis warmth and not gay cloathing That doth prolong our lives: Then care away, etc. The ploughman, tho' he labour hard, Yet on the holy-day Heigh trolollie lollie foe, etc. No emperor so merrily Does pass his time away: Then care away, etc. To recompense our tillage, The heavens afford us showers Heigh trolollie lollie foe, etc. And for our sweet refreshment. The earth affords us bowers: Then care away, etc. The cuckow and the nightingale Full merrily do sing, Heigh trolollie lollie foe, etc. And with their pleasant roundelays Bid welcome to the spring: Then care away, etc. This is not half the happiness The countryman enjoys Heigh trolollie lollie foe, etc., Though others think they have as much, Yet he that says so lies: Then come away, Turn countrymen with me. Jo. Chalkhill. Piscator. Well sung, Coridon, this song was sung with mettle; and it was choicely fitted to the occasion: I shall love you for it as long as I know you. I would you were a brother of the angle; for a companion that is cheerful, and free from swearing and scurrilous discourse, is worth gold. I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning; nor men, that cannot well bear it, to repent the money they spend when they be warmed with drink. And take this for a rule: you may pick out such times and such companies, that you make yourselves merrier for a little than a great deal of money; for "'Tis the company and not the charge that makes the feast"; and such a companion you prove: I thank you for it. But I will not compliment you out of the debt that I owe you, and therefore I will begin my song, and wish it may be so well liked. The Angler's song. As inward love breeds outward talk The hound some praise, and some the hawk Some, better pleas'd with private sport Use tennis, some a mistress court: But these delights I neither wish Nor envy, while I freely fish. Who hunts, doth oft in danger ride; Who hawks, lures oft both far and wide Who uses games shall often prove A loser, but who falls in love, Is fetter'd in fond Cupid's snare: My angle breeds me no such care. Of recreation there is none So free as fishing is alone; All other pastimes do no less Than mind and body both possess: My hand alone my work can do, So I can fish and study too. I care not, I, to fish in seas, Fresh rivers best my mind do please, Whose sweet calm course I contemplate, And seek in life to imitate: In civil bounds I fain would keep, And for my past offences weep. And when the timorous Trout I wait To take, and he devours my bait, How poor a thing, sometimes I find, Will captivate a greedy mind: And when none bite, I praise the wise Whom vain allurements ne'er surprise. But yet, though while I fish, I fast, I make good fortune my repast; And thereunto my friend invite, In whom I more than that delight: Who is more welcome to my dish Than to my angle was my fish. As well content no prize to take, As use of taken prize to make: For so our Lord was pleased, when He fishers made fishers of men; Where, which is in no other game, A man may fish and praise his name. The first men that our Saviour dear Did choose to wait upon him here, Blest fishers were, and fish the last Food was that he on earth did taste: I therefore strive to follow those Whom he to follow him hath chose. W. B. Coridon. Well sung, brother, you have paid your debt in good coin. We anglers are all beholden to the good man that made this song: come, hostess, give us more ale, and let's drink to him. And now let's every one go to bed, that we may rise early: but first let's pay our reckoning, for I will have nothing to hinder me in the morning; for my purpose is to prevent the sun-rising. Peter. A match. Come, Coridon, you are to be my bed-fellow. I know, brother, you and your scholar will lie together. But where shall we meet to-morrow night? for my friend Coridon and I will go up the water towards Ware. Piscator. And my scholar and I will go down towards Waltham. Coridon. Then let's meet here, for here are fresh sheets that smell of lavender; and I am sure we cannot expect better meat, or better usage in any place. Peter. 'Tis a match. Good-night to everybody. Piscator. And so say I. Venator. And so say I. The fourth day Piscator. Good-morrow, good hostess, I see my brother Peter is still in bed. Come, give my scholar and me a morning drink, and a bit of meat to breakfast: and be sure to get a dish of meat or two against supper, for we shall come home as hungry as hawks. Come, scholar, let's be going. Venator. Well now, good master, as we walk towards the river, give me direction, according to your promise, how I shall fish for a Trout. Piscator. My honest scholar, I will take this very convenient opportunity to do it. The Trout is usually caught with a worm, or a minnow, which some call a peek, or with a fly, viz. either a natural or an artificial fly: concerning which three, I will give you some observations and directions. And, first, for worms. Of these there be very many sorts: some breed only in the earth, as the earth-worm; others of, or amongst plants, as the dug-worm; and others breed either out of excrements, or in the bodies of living creatures, as in the horns of sheep or deer; or some of dead flesh, as the maggot or gentle, and others. Now these be most of them particularly good for particular fishes. But for the Trout, the dew-worm, which some also call the lob-worm, and the brandling, are the chief; and especially the first for a great Trout, and the latter for a less. There be also of lob-worms, some called squirrel-tails, a worm that has a red head, a streak down the back, and a broad tail, which are noted to be the best, because they are the toughest and most lively, and live longest in the water; for you are to know that a dead worm is but a dead bait, and like to catch nothing, compared to a lively, quick, stirring worm. And for a brandling, he is usually found in an old dunghill, or some very rotten place near to it, but most usually in cow-dung, or hog's-dung, rather than horse-dung, which is somewhat too hot and dry for that worm. But the best of them are to be found in the bark of the tanners, which they cast up in heaps after they have used it about their leather. There are also divers other kinds of worms, which, for colour and shape, alter even as the ground out of which they are got; as the marsh-worm, the tag-tail, the flag-worm, the dock-worm, the oak-worm, the gilt-tail, the twachel or lob-worm, which of all others is the most excellent bait for a salmon, and too many to name, even as many sorts as some think there be of several herbs or shrubs, or of several kinds of birds in the air: of which I shall say no more, but tell you, that what worms soever you fish with, are the better for being well scoured, that is, long kept before they be used: and in case you have not been so provident, then the way to cleanse and scour them quickly, is, to put them all night in water, if they be lob-worms, and then put them into your bag with fennel. But you must not put your brandlings above an hour in water, and then put them into fennel, for sudden use: but if you have time, and purpose to keep them long, then they be best preserved in an earthen pot, with good store of moss, which is to be fresh every three or four days in summer, and every week or eight days in winter; or, at least, the moss taken from them, and clean washed, and wrung betwixt your hands till it be dry, and then put it to them again. And when your worms, especially the brandling, begins to be sick and lose of his bigness, then you may recover him, by putting a little milk or cream, about a spoonful in a day, into them, by drops on the moss; and if there be added to the cream an egg beaten and boiled in it, then it will both fatten and preserve them long. And note, that when the knot, which is near to the middle of the brandling, begins to swell, then he is sick; and, if he be not well looked to, is near dying. And for moss, you are to note, that there be divers kinds of it, which I could name to you, but I will only tell you that that which is likest a buck's-horn is the best, except it be soft white moss, which grows on some heaths, and is hard to be found. And note, that in a very dry time, when you are put to an extremity for worms, walnut-tree leaves squeezed into water, or salt in water, to make it bitter or salt, and then that water poured on the ground where you shall see worms are used to rise in the night, will make them to appear above ground presently. And you may take notice, some say that camphire put into your bag with your moss and worms gives them a strong and so tempting a smell, that the fish fare the worse and you the better for it. And now, I shall shew you how to bait your hook with a worm so as shall prevent you from much trouble, and the loss of many a hook, too, when you fish for a Trout with a running line; that is to say, when you fish for him by hand at the ground. I will direct you in this as plainly as I can, that you may not mistake. Suppose it be a big lob-worm: put your hook into him somewhat above the middle, and out again a little below the middle: having so done, draw your worm above the arming of your hook; but note, that, at the entering of your hook, it must not be at the head-end of the worm, but at the tail-end of him, that the point of your hook may come out toward the head-end; and, having drawn him above the arming of your hook, then put the point of your hook again into the very head of the worm, till it come near to the place where the point of the hook first came out, and then draw back that part of the worm that was above the shank or arming of your hook, and so fish with it. And if you mean to fish with two worms, then put the second on before you turn back the hook's-head of the first worm. You cannot lose above two or three worms before you attain to what I direct you; and having attained it, you will find it very useful, and thank me for it: for you will run on the ground without tangling. Now for the Minnow or Penk: he is not easily found and caught till March, or in April, for then he appears first in the river; nature having taught him to shelter and hide himself, in the winter, in ditches that be near to the river; and there both to hide, and keep himself warm, in the mud, or in the weeds, which rot not so soon as in a running river, in which place if he were in winter, the distempered floods that are usually in that season would suffer him to take no rest, but carry him headlong to mills and weirs, to his confusion. And of these Minnows: first, you are to know, that the biggest size is not the best; and next, that the middle size and the whitest are the best; and then you are to know, that your minnow must be so put on your hook, that it must turn round when 'tis drawn against the stream; and, that it may turn nimbly, you must put it on a big-sized hook, as I shall now direct you, which is thus: Put your hook in at his mouth, and out at his gill; then, having drawn your hook two or three inches beyond or through his gill, put it again into his mouth, and the point and beard out at his tail; and then tie the hook and his tail about, very neatly, with a white thread, which will make it the apter to turn quick in the water; that done, pull back that part of your line which was slack when you did put your hook into the minnow the second time; I say, pull that part of your line back, so that it shall fasten the head, so that the body of the minnow shall be almost straight on your hook: this done, try how it will turn, by drawing it across the water or against a stream; and if it do not turn nimbly, then turn the tail a little to the right or left hand, and try again, till it turn quick; for if not, you are in danger to catch nothing: for know, that it is impossible that it should turn too quick. And you are yet to know, that in case you want a minnow, then a small loach, or a stickle-bag, or any other small fish that will turn quick, will serve as well. And you are yet to know that you may salt them, and by that means keep them ready and fit for use three or four days, or longer; and that, of salt, bay-salt is the best. And here let me tell you, what many old anglers know right well, that at some times, and in some waters, a minnow is not to be got; and therefore, let me tell you, I have, which I will shew to you, an artificial minnow, that will catch a Trout as well as an artificial fly: and it was made by a handsome woman that had a fine hand, and a live minnow lying by her: the mould or body of the minnow was cloth, and wrought upon, or over it, thus, with a needle; the back of it with very sad French green silk, and paler green silk towards the belly, shadowed as perfectly as you can imagine, just as you see a minnow: the belly was wrought also with a needle, and it was, a part of it, white silk; and another part of it with silver thread: the tail and fins were of a quill, which was shaven thin: the eyes were of two little black beads: and the head was so shadowed, and all of it so curiously wrought, and so exactly dissembled, that it would beguile any sharp-sighted Trout in a swift stream. And this minnow I will now shew you; look, here it is, and, if you like it, lend it you, to have two or three made by it; for they be easily carried about an angler, and be of excellent use: for note, that a large Trout will come as fiercely at a minnow as the highest-mettled hawk doth seize on a partridge, or a greyhound on a hare. I have been told that one hundred and sixty minnows have been found in a Trout's belly: either the Trout had devoured so many, or the miller that gave it a friend of mine had forced them down his throat after he had taken him. Now for Flies; which is the third bait wherewith Trouts are usually taken. You are to know, that there are so many sorts of flies as there be of fruits: I will name you but some of them; as the dun-fly, the stone-fly, the red-fly, the moor-fly, the tawny-fly, the shell-fly, the cloudy or blackish-fly, the flag-fly, the vine-fly; there be of flies, caterpillars, and canker-flies, and bear-flies; and indeed too many either for me to name, or for you to remember. And their breeding is so various and wonderful, that I might easily amaze myself, and tire you in a relation of them. And, yet, I will exercise your promised patience by saying a little of the caterpillar, or the palmer-fly or worm; that by them you may guess what a work it were, in a discourse, but to run over those very many flies, worms, and little living creatures, with which the sun and summer adorn and beautify the river-banks and meadows, both for the recreation and contemplation of us anglers; pleasures which, I think, myself enjoy more than any other man that is not of my profession. Pliny holds an opinion, that many have their birth, or being, from a dew that in the spring falls upon the leaves of trees; and that some kinds of them are from a dew left upon herbs or flowers; and others from a dew left upon coleworts or cabbages: all which kinds of dews being thickened and condensed, are by the sun's generative heat, most of them, hatched, and in three days made living creatures, and these of several shapes and colours; some being hard and tough, some smooth and soft; some are horned in their head, some in their tail, some have none; some have hair, some none: some have sixteen feet, some less, and some have none: but, as our Topsel hath with great diligence observed, those which have none, move upon the earth, or upon broad leaves, their motion being not unlike to the waves of the sea. Some of them he also observes to be bred of the eggs of other caterpillars, and that those in their time turn to be butterflies; and again, that their eggs turn the following year to be caterpillars. And some affirm, that every plant has its particular fly or caterpillar, which it breeds and feeds. I have seen, and may therefore affirm it, a green caterpillar, or worm, as big as a small peascod, which had fourteen legs; eight on the belly, four under the neck, and two near the tail. It was found on a hedge of privet; and was taken thence, and put into a large box, and a little branch or two of privet put to it, on which I saw it feed as sharply as a dog gnaws a bone: it lived thus, five or six days, and thrived, and changed the colour two or three times but by some neglect in the keeper of it, it then died and did not turn to a fly: but if it had lived, it had doubtless turned to one of those flies that some call Flies of prey, which those that walk by the rivers may, in summer, see fasten on smaller flies, and, I think, make them their food. And 'tis observable, that as there be these flies of prey, which be very large; so there be others, very little, created, I think, only to feed them, and breed out of I know not what; whose life, they say, nature intended not to exceed an hour; and yet that life is thus made shorter by other flies, or accident. 'Tis endless to tell you what the curious searchers into nature's productions have observed of these worms and flies: but yet I shall tell you what Aldrovandus, our Topsel, and others, say of the Palmer-worm, or Caterpillar: that whereas others content themselves to feed on particular herbs or leaves; for most think, those very leaves that gave them life and shape, give them a particular feeding and nourishment, and that upon them they usually abide; yet he observes, that this is called a pilgrim, or palmer-worm, for his very wandering life, and various food; not contenting himself, as others do, with any one certain place for his abode, nor any certain kind of herb or flower for his feeding, but will boldly and disorderly wander up and down, and not endure to be kept to a diet, or fixt to a particular place. Nay, the very colours of caterpillars are, as one has observed, very elegant and beautiful I shall, for a taste of the rest, describe one of them; which I will, some time the next month, shew you feeding on a willow-tree; and you shall find him punctually to answer this very description: his lips and mouth somewhat yellow; his eyes black as jet; his forehead purple; his feet and hinder parts green; his tail two-forked and black; the whole body stained with a kind of red spots, which run along the neck and shoulder-blade, not unlike the form of St. Andrew's cross, or the letter X, made thus crosswise, and a white line drawn down his back to his tail; all which add much beauty to his whole body. And it is to me observable, that at a fixed age this caterpillar gives over to eat, and towards winter comes to be covered over with a strange shell or crust, called an aurelia; and so lives a kind of dead life, without eating all the winter. And as others of several kinds turn to be several kinds of flies and vermin, the Spring following; so this caterpillar then turns to be a painted butterfly. Come, come, my scholar, you see the river stops our morning walk: and I will also here stop my discourse: only as we sit down under this honeysuckle hedge, whilst I look a line to fit the rod that our brother Peter hath lent you, I shall, for a little confirmation of what I have said, repeat the observation of Du Bartas: God, not contented to each kind to give And to infuse the virtue generative, Made, by his wisdom, many creatures breed Of lifeless bodies, without Venus' deed. So, the cold humour breeds the Salamander, Who, in effect, like to her birth's commander, With child with hundred winters, with her touch Quencheth the fire, tho'glowing ne'er so much. So of the fire, in burning furnace, springs The fly Pyrausta with the flaming wings: Without the fire, it dies: within it joys, Living in that which each shine else destroys. So, slow Boôtes underneath him sees In th' icy isles those goslings hatch'd of trees; Whose fruitful leaves, falling into the water, Are turn'd, they say, to living fowls soon after. So, rotten sides of broken ships do change To barnacles. O transformation strange! 'Twas first a green tree; then, a gallant hull; Lately a mushroom; now, a flying gull. Venator. O my good master, this morning-walk has been spent to my great pleasure and wonder: but, I pray, when shall I have your direction how to make artificial flies, like to those that the Trout loves best; and, also, how to use them? Piscator. My honest scholar, it is now past five of the clock: we will fish till nine; and then go to breakfast. Go you to yonder sycamore-tree, and hide your bottle of drink under the hollow root of it; for about that time, and in that place, we will make a brave breakfast with a piece of powdered beef, and a radish or two, that I have in my fish bag: we shall, I warrant you, make a good, honest, wholesome hungry breakfast. And I will then give you direction for the making and using of your flies: and in the meantime, there is your rod and line; and my advice is, that you fish as you see me do, and let's try which can catch the first fish. Venator. I thank you, master. I will observe and practice your direction as far as I am able. Piscator. Look you, scholar; you see I have hold of a good fish: I now see it is a Trout. I pray, put that net under him; and touch not my line, for if you do, then we break all. Well done, scholar: I thank you. Now for another. Trust me, I have another bite. Come, scholar, come lay down your rod, and help me to land this as you did the other. So now we shall be sure to have a good dish of fish for supper. Venator. I am glad of that: but I have no fortune: sure, master, yours is a better rod and better tackling. Piscator. Nay, then, take mine; and I will fish with yours. Look you, scholar, I have another. Come, do as you did before. And now I have a bite at another. Oh me! he has broke all: there's half a line and a good hook lost. Venator. Ay, and a good Trout too. Piscator. Nay, the Trout is not lost; for pray take notice, no man can lose what he never had. Venator. Master, I can neither catch with the first nor second angle: I have no fortune. Piscator. Look you, scholar, I have yet another. And now, having caught three brace of Trouts, I will tell you a short tale as we walk towards our breakfast. A scholar, a preacher I should say, that was to preach to procure the approbation of a parish that he might be their lecturer, had got from his fellow-pupil the copy of a sermon that was first preached with great commendation by him that composed it: and though the borrower of it preached it, word for word, as it was at first, yet it was utterly disliked as it was preached by the second to his congregation, which the sermon-borrower complained of to the lender of it: and was thus answered: "I lent you, indeed, my fiddle, but not my fiddle-stick; for you are to know, that every one cannot make musick with my words, which are fitted for my own mouth". And so, my scholar, you are to know, that as the ill pronunciation or ill accenting of words in a sermon spoils it, so the ill carriage of your line, or not fishing even to a foot in a right place, makes you lose your labour: and you are to know, that though you have my fiddle, that is, my very rod and tacklings with which you see I catch fish, yet you have not my fiddle-stick, that is, you yet have not skill to know how to carry your hand and line, nor how to guide it to a right place: and this must be taught you; for you are to remember, I told you Angling is an art, either by practice or a long observation, or both. But take this for a rule, When you fish for a Trout with a worm, let your line have so much, and not more lead than will fit the stream in which you fish; that is to say, more in a great troublesome stream than in a smaller that is quieter; as near as may be, so much as will sink the bait to the bottom, and keep it still in motion, and not more. But now, let's say grace, and fall to breakfast. What say you, scholar, to the providence of an old angler? Does not this meat taste well? and was not this place well chosen to eat it? for this sycamore-tree will shade us from the sun's heat. Venator. All excellent good; and my stomach excellent good, too. And now I remember, and find that true which devout Lessius says, "that poor men, and those that fast often, have much more pleasure in eating than rich men, and gluttons, that always feed before their stomachs are empty of their last meat and call for more; for by that means they rob themselves of that pleasure that hunger brings to poor men". And I do seriously approve of that saying of yours, "that you had rather be a civil, well-governed, well-grounded, temperate, poor angler, than a drunken lord ": but I hope there is none such. However, I am certain of this, that I have been at many very costly dinners that have not afforded me half the content that this has done; for which I thank God and you. And now, good master, proceed to your promised direction for making and ordering my artificial fly. Piscator. My honest scholar, I will do it; for it is a debt due unto you by my promise. And because you shall not think yourself more engaged to me than indeed you really are, I will freely give you such directions as were lately given to me by an ingenious brother of the angle, an honest man, and a most excellent fly-fisher. You are to note, that there are twelve kinds of artificial made Flies, to angle with upon the top of the water. Note, by the way, that the fittest season of using these is in a blustering windy day, when the waters are so troubled that the natural fly cannot be seen, or rest upon them. The first is the dun-fly, in March: the body is made of dun wool; the wings, of the partridge's feathers. The second is another dun-fly: the body, of black wool; and the wings made of the black drake's feathers, and of the feathers under his tail. The third is the stone-fly, in April: the body is made of black wool; made yellow under the wings and under the tail, and so made with wings of the drake. The fourth is the ruddy-fly, in the beginning of May: the body made of red wool, wrapt about with black silk; and the feathers are the wings of the drake; with the feathers of a red capon also, which hang dangling on his sides next to the tail. The fifth is the yellow or greenish fly, in May likewise: the body made of yellow wool; and the wings made of the red cock's hackle or tail. The sixth is the black-fly, in May also: the body made of black wool, and lapt about with the herle of a peacock's tail: the wings are made of the wings of a brown capon, with his blue feathers in his head. The seventh is the sad yellow-fly in June: the body is made of black wool, with a yellow list on either side; and the wings taken off the wings of a buzzard, bound with black braked hemp. The eighth is the moorish-fly; made, with the body, of duskish wool; and the wings made of the blackish mail of the drake. The ninth is the tawny-fly, good until the middle of June: the body made of tawny wool; the wings made contrary one against the other, made of the whitish mail of the wild drake. The tenth is the wasp-fly in July; the body made of black wool, lapt about with yellow silk; the wings made of the feathers of the drake, or of the buzzard. The eleventh is the shell-fly, good in mid-July: the body made of greenish wool, lapt about with the herle of a peacock's tail: and the wings made of the wings of the buzzard. The twelfth is the dark drake-fly, good in August: the body made with black wool, lapt about with black silk; his wings are made with the mail of the black drake, with a black head. Thus have you a jury of flies, likely to betray and condemn all the Trouts in the river. I shall next give you some other directions for fly-fishing, such as are given by Mr. Thomas Barker, a gentleman that hath spent much time in fishing: but I shall do it with a little variation. First, let your rod be light, and very gentle: I take the best to be of two pieces. And let not your line exceed, especially for three or four links next to the hook, I say, not exceed three or four hairs at the most; though you may fish a little stronger above, in the upper part of your line: but if you can attain to angle with one hair, you shall have more rises, and catch more fish. Now you must be sure not to cumber yourself with too long a line, as most do. And before you begin to angle, cast to have the wind on your back; and the sun, if it shines, to be before you; and to fish down the stream; and carry the point or top of your rod downward, by which means the shadow of yourself and rod too, will be the least offensive to the fish, for the sight of any shade amazes the fish, and spoils your sport, of which you must take great care. In the middle of March, till which time a man should not in honesty catch a Trout; or in April, it the weather be dark, or a little windy or cloudy; the best fishing is with the palmer-worm, of which I last spoke to you; but of these there be divers kinds, or at least of divers colours: these and the May-fly are the ground of all fly-angling: which are to be thus made: First, you must arm your hook with the line, in the inside of it: then take your scissors, and cut so much of a brown mallard's feather as, in your own reason, will make the wings of it, you having, withal, regard to the bigness or littleness of your hook; then lay the outmost part of your feather next to your hook; then the point of your feather next the shank of your hook, and, having so done, whip it three or four times about the hook with the same silk with which your hook was armed; and having made the silk fast, take the hackle of a cock or capon's neck, or a plover's top, which is usually better: take off the one side of the feather, and then take the hackle, silk or crewel, gold or silver thread; make these fast at the bent of the hook, that is to say, below your arming; then you must take the hackle, the silver or gold thread, and work it up to the wings, shifting or still removing your finger as you turn the silk about the hook, and still looking, at every stop or turn, that your gold, or what materials soever you make your fly of, do lie right and neatly; and if you find they do so, then when you have made the head, make all fast: and then work your hackle up to the head, and make that fast: and then, with a needle, or pin, divide the wing into two; and then, with the arming silk, whip it about cross-ways betwixt the wings: and then with your thumb you must turn the point of the feather towards the bent of the hook; and then work three or four times about the shank of the hook; and then view the proportion; and if all be neat, and to your liking, fasten. I confess, no direction can be given to make a man of a dull capacity able to make a fly well: and yet I know this, with a little practice, will help an ingenious angler in a good degree. But to see a fly made by an artist in that kind, is the best teaching to make it. And, then, an ingenious angler may walk by the river, and mark what flies fall on the water that day; and catch one of them, if he sees the Trouts leap at a fly of that kind: and then having always hooks ready-hung with him, and having a bag always with him, with bear's hair, or the hair of a brown or sad-coloured heifer, hackles of a cock or capon, several coloured silk and crewel to make the body of the fly, the feathers of a drake's head, black or brown sheep's wool, or hog's wool, or hair, thread of gold and of silver; silk of several colours, especially sad-coloured, to make the fly's head: and there be also other coloured feathers, both of little birds and of speckled fowl: I say, having those with him in a bag, and trying to make a fly, though he miss at first, yet shall he at last hit it better, even to such a perfection as none can well teach him. And if he hit to make his fly right, and have the luck to hit, also, where there is store of Trouts, a dark day, and a right wind, he will catch such store of them, as will encourage him to grow more and more in love with the art of fly-making. Venator. But, my loving master, if any wind will not serve, then I wish I were in Lapland, to buy a good wind of one of the honest witches, that sell so many winds there, and so cheap. Piscator. Marry, scholar, but I would not be there, nor indeed from under this tree; for look how it begins to rain, and by the clouds, if I mistake not, we shall presently have a smoking shower, and therefore sit close; this sycamore-tree will shelter us: and I will tell you, as they shall come into my mind, more observations of fly-fishing for a Trout. But first for the wind: you are to take notice that of the winds the south wind is said to be best. One observes, that ...when the wind is south, It blows your bait into a fish's mouth. Next to that, the west wind is believed to be the best: and having told you that the east wind is the worst, I need not tell you which wind is the best in the third degree: and yet, as Solomon observes, that "he that considers the wind shall never sow"; so he that busies his head too much about them, if the weather be not made extreme cold by an east wind, shall be a little superstitious: for as it is observed by some, that "there is no good horse of a bad colour"; so I have observed, that if it be a cloudy day, and not extreme cold, let the wind sit in what corner it will and do its worst, I heed it not. And yet take this for a rule, that I would willingly fish, standing on the lee-shore: and you are to take notice, that the fish lies or swims nearer the bottom, and in deeper water, in winter than in summer; and also nearer the bottom in any cold day, and then gets nearest the lee-side of the water. But I promised to tell you more of the Fly-fishing for a Trout; which I may have time enough to do, for you see it rains May-butter. First for a Mayfly: you may make his body with greenish-coloured crewel, or willowish colour; darkening it in most places with waxed silk; or ribbed with black hair; or, some of them, ribbed with silver thread; and such wings, for the colour, as you see the fly to have at that season, nay, at that very day on the water. Or you may make the Oak-fly: with an orange, tawny, and black ground; and the brown of a mallard's feather for the wings. And you are to know, that these two are most excellent flies, that is, the May-fly and the Oak-fly. And let me again tell you, that you keep as far from the water as you can possibly, whether you fish with a fly or worm; and fish down the stream. And when you fish with a fly, if it be possible, let no part of your line touch the water, but your fly only; and be still moving your fly upon the water, or casting it into the water, you yourself being also always moving down the stream. Mr. Barker commends several sorts of the palmer-flies; not only those ribbed with silver and gold, but others that have their bodies all made of black; or some with red, and a red hackle. You may also make the Hawthorn-fly: which is all black, and not big, but very small, the smaller the better. Or the oak-fly, the body of which is orange colour and black crewel, with a brown wing. Or a fly made with a peacock's feather is excellent in a bright day: you must be sure you want not in your magazine-bag the peacock's feather; and grounds of such wool and crewel as will make the grasshopper. And note, that usually the smallest flies are the best; and note also, that the light fly does usually make most sport in a dark day, and the darkest and least fly in a bright or clear day: and lastly note, that you are to repair upon any occasion to your magazine-bag: and upon any occasion, vary and make them lighter or sadder, according to your fancy, or the day. And now I shall tell you, that the fishing with a natural-fly is excellent, and affords much pleasure. They may be found thus: the May-fly, usually in and about that month, near to the river-side, especially against rain: the Oak-fly, on the butt or body of an oak or ash, from the beginning of May to the end of August; it is a brownish fly and easy to be so found, and stands usually with his head downward, that is to say, towards the root of the tree: the small black-fly, or Hawthorn-fly, is to be had on any hawthorn bush after the leaves be come forth. With these and a short line, as I shewed to angle for a Chub, you may cape or cop, and also with a grasshopper, behind a tree, or in any deep hole; still making it to move on the top of the water as if it were alive, and still keeping yourself out of sight, you shall certainly have sport if there be Trouts; yea, in a hot day, but especially in the evening of a hot day, you will have sport. And now, scholar, my direction for fly-fishing is ended with this shower, for it has done raining. And now look about you, and see how pleasantly that meadow looks; nay, and the earth smells so sweetly too. Come let me tell you what holy Mr. Herbert says of such days and flowers as these, and then we will thank God that we enjoy them, and walk to the river and sit down quietly, and try to catch the other place of Trouts. Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky, Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night, For thou must die. Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie; My music shews you have your closes, And all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like season'd timber, never gives, But when the whole world turns to coal, Then chiefly lives. Venator. I thank you, good master, for your good direction for fly-fishing, and for the sweet enjoyment of the pleasant day, which is so far spent without offence to God or man: and I thank you for the sweet close of your discourse with Mr. Herbert's verses; who, I have heard, loved angling; and I do the rather believe it, because he had a spirit suitable to anglers, and to those primitive Christians that you love, and have so much commended. Piscator. Well, my loving scholar, and I am pleased to know that you are so well pleased with my direction and discourse. And since you like these verses of Mr. Herbert's so well, let me tell you what a reverend and learned divine that professes to imitate him, and has indeed done so most excellently, hath writ of our book of Common Prayer; which I know you will like the better, because he is a friend of mine, and I am sure no enemy to angling. What! Pray'r by th' book? and Common? Yes; Why not? The spirit of grace And supplication Is not left free alone For time and place, But manner too: to read, or speak, by rote, Is all alike to him that prays, In's heart, what with his mouth he says. They that in private, by themselves alone, Do pray, may take What liberty they please, In chusing of the ways Wherein to make Their soul's most intimate affections known To him that sees in secret, when Th' are most conceal'd from other men. But he, that unto others leads the way In public prayer, Should do it so, As all, that hear, may know They need not fear To tune their hearts unto his tongue, and say Amen; not doubt they were betray'd To blaspheme, when they meant to have pray'd. Devotion will add life unto the letter: And why should not That, which authority Prescribes, esteemed be Advantage got? If th' prayer be good, the commoner the better, Prayer in the Church's words, as well As sense, of all prayers bears the bell. And now, scholar, I think it will be time to repair to our angle-rods, which we left in the water to fish for themselves; and you shall choose which shall be yours; and it is an even lay, one of them catches. And, let me tell you, this kind of fishing with a dead rod, and laying night-hooks, are like putting money to use; for they both work for the owners when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or rejoice, as you know we have done this last hour, and sat as quietly and as free from cares under this sycamore, as Virgil's Tityrus and his Meliboeus did under their broad beech-tree. No life, my honest scholar, no life so happy and so pleasant as the life of a well-governed angler; for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business, and the statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on cowslip-banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did"; and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling. I'll tell you, scholar; when I sat last on this primrose-bank, and looked down these meadows, I thought of them as Charles the emperor did of the city of Florence: "That they were too pleasant to be looked on, but only on holy-days". As I then sat on this very grass, I turned my present thoughts into verse: 'twas a Wish, which I'll repeat to you:-- The Angler's wish. I in these flowery meads would be: These crystal streams should solace me; To whose harmonious bubbling noise I with my Angle would rejoice: Sit here, and see the turtle-dove Court his chaste mate to acts of love: Or, on that bank, feel the west wind Breathe health and plenty: please my mind, To see sweet dew-drops kiss these flowers, And then washed off by April showers: Here, hear my Kenna sing a song; There, see a blackbird feed her young. Or a leverock build her nest: Here, give my weary spirits rest, And raise my low-pitch'd thoughts above Earth, or what poor mortals love: Thus, free from law-suits and the noise Of princes' courts, I would rejoice: Or, with my Bryan, and a book, Loiter long days near Shawford-brook; There sit by him, and eat my meat, There see the sun both rise and set: There bid good morning to next day; There meditate my time away, And Angle on; and beg to have A quiet passage to a welcome grave. When I had ended this composure, I left this place, and saw a brother of the angle sit under that honeysuckle hedge, one that will prove worth your acquaintance. I sat down by him, and presently we met with an accidental piece of merriment, which I will relate to you, for it rains still. On the other side of this very hedge sat a gang of gypsies; and near to them sat a gang of beggars. The gypsies were then to divide all the money that had been got that week, either by stealing linen or poultry, or by fortune-telling or legerdemain, or, indeed, by any other sleights and secrets belonging to their mysterious government. And the sum that was got that week proved to be but twenty and some odd shillings. The odd money was agreed to be distributed amongst the poor of their own corporation: and for the remaining twenty shillings, that was to be divided unto four gentlemen gypsies, according to their several degrees in their commonwealth. And the first or chiefest gypsy was, by consent, to have a third part of the twenty shillings, which all men know is 6s. 8d. The second was to have a fourth part of the 20s., which all men know to be 5s. The third was to have a fifth part of the 20s., which all men know to be 4s. The fourth and last gypsy was to have a sixth part of the 20s., which all men know to be 3s. 4d. As for example, 3 times 6s. 8d. are 20s. And so is 4 times 5s. are 20s. And so is 5 times 4s. are 20s. And so is 6 times 3s. 4d. are 20s. And yet he that divided the money was so very a gypsy, that though he gave to every one these said sums, yet he kept one shilling of it for himself As, for example, s. d. 6 8 5 0 4 0 3 4 ------ make but . . . . . . 19 0 But now you shall know, that when the four gypsies saw that he had got one shilling by dividing the money, though not one of them knew any reason to demand more, yet, like lords and courtiers, every gypsy envied him that was the gainer; and wrangled with him; and every one said the remaining shilling belonged to him; and so they fell to so high a contest about it, as none that knows the faithfulness of one gypsy to another will easily believe; only we that have lived these last twenty years are certain that money has been able to do much mischief. However, the gypsies were too wise to go to law, and did therefore choose their choice friends Rook and Shark, and our late English Gusman, to be their arbitrators and umpires. And so they left this honeysuckle hedge; and went to tell fortunes and cheat, and get more money and lodging in the next village. When these were gone, we heard as high a contention amongst the beggars, whether it was easiest to rip a cloak, or to unrip a cloak? One beggar affirmed it was all one: but that was denied, by asking her, If doing and undoing were all one? Then another said, 'twas easiest to unrip a cloak; for that was to let it alone: but she was answered, by asking her, how she unript it if she let it alone? and she confess herself mistaken. These and twenty such like questions were proposed and answered, with as much beggarly logick and earnestness as was ever heard to proceed from the mouth of the pertinacious schismatick; and sometimes all the beggars, whose number was neither more nor less than the poets' nine muses, talked all together about this ripping and unripping; and so loud, that not one heard what the other said: but, at last, one beggar craved audience; and told them that old father Clause, whom Ben Jonson, in his Beggar's Bush, created King of their corporation, was to lodge at an ale-house, called "Catch-her-by-the-way," not far from Waltham Cross, and in the high road towards London; and he therefore desired them to spend no more time about that and such like questions, but refer all to father Clause at night, for he was an upright judge, and in the meantime draw cuts, what song should be next sung, and who should sing it. They all agreed to the motion; and the lot fell to her that was the youngest, and veriest virgin of the company. And she sung Frank Davison's song, which he made forty years ago; and all the others of the company joined to sing the burthen with her. The ditty was this; but first the burthen: Bright shines the sun; play, Beggars, play; Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. What noise of viols is so sweet, As when our merry clappers ring? What mirth doth want where Beggars meet? A Beggar's life is for a King. Eat, drink, and play, sleep when we list Go where we will, so stocks be mist. Bright shines the sun; play, Beggars, play, Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. The world is ours, and ours alone; For we alone have world at will We purchase not, all is our own; Both fields and streets we Beggars fill. Nor care to get, nor fear to keep, Did ever break a Beggar's sleep, Play, Beggars, play; play, Beggars, play; Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. A hundred head of black and white Upon our gowns securely feed If any dare his master bite He dies therefore, as sure as creed. Thus Beggars lord it as they please; And only Beggars live at ease. Bright shines the sun; play, Beggars, play; Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. Venator. I thank you, good master, for this piece of merriment, and this song, which was well humoured by the maker, and well remembered by you. Piscator. But, I pray, forget not the catch which you promised to make against night; for our countryman, honest Coridon, will expect your catch, and my song, which I must be forced to patch up, for it is so long since I learnt it, that I have forgot a part of it. But, come, now it hath done raining, let's stretch our legs a little in a gentle walk to the river, and try what interest our angles will pay us for lending them so long to be used by the Trouts; lent them indeed, like usurers, for our profit and their destruction. Venator. Oh me! look you, master, a fish! a fish! Oh, alas, master, I have lost her. Piscator. Ay marry, Sir, that was a good fish indeed: if I had had the luck to have taken up that rod, then 'tis twenty to one he should not have broken my line by running to the rod's end, as you suffered him. I would have held him within the bent of my rod, unless he had been fellow to the great Trout that is near an ell long, which was of such a length and depth, that he had his picture drawn, and now is to be seen at mine host Rickabie's, at the George in Ware, and it may be, by giving that very great Trout the rod, that is, by casting it to him into the water, I might have caught him at the long run, for so I use always to do when I meet with an over-grown fish; and you will learn to do so too, hereafter, for I tell you, scholar, fishing is an art, or, at least, it is an art to catch fish. Venator. But, master, I have heard that the great Trout you speak of is a Salmon. Piscator. Trust me, scholar, I know not what to say to it. There are many country people that believe hares change sexes every year: and there be very many learned men think so too, for in their dissecting them they find many reasons to incline them to that belief. And to make the wonder seem yet less, that hares change sexes, note that Dr. Mer. Casaubon affirms, in his book "Of credible and incredible things," that Gasper Peucerus, a learned physician, tells us of a people that once a year turn wolves, partly in shape, and partly in conditions. And so, whether this were a Salmon when he came into fresh water, and his not returning into the sea hath altered him to another colour or kind, I am not able to say; but I am certain he hath all the signs of being a Trout, both for his shape, colour, and spots; and yet many think he is not. Venator. But, master, will this Trout which I had hold of die? for it is like he hath the hook in his belly. Piscator. I will tell you, scholar, that unless the hook be fast in his very gorge, 'tis more than probable he will live, and a little time, with the help of the water, will rust the hook, and it will in time wear away, as the gravel doth in the horse-hoof, which only leaves a false quarter. And now, scholar, let's go to my rod. Look you, scholar, I have a fish too, but it proves a logger-headed Chub: and this is not much amiss, for this will pleasure some poor body, as we go to our lodging to meet our brother Peter and honest Coridon. Come, now bait your hook again, and lay it into the water, for it rains again; and we will even retire to the Sycamore-tree, and there I will give you more directions concerning fishing, for I would fain make you an artist. Venator. Yes, good master, I pray let it be so. Piscator. Well, scholar, now that we are sate down and are at ease, I shall tell you a little more of Trout-fishing, before I speak of the Salmon, which I purpose shall be next, and then of the Pike or Luce. You are to know, there is night as well as day fishing for a Trout; and that, in the night, the best Trouts come out of their holes. And the manner of taking them is on the top of the water with a great lob or garden-worm, or rather two, which you are to fish with in a stream where the waters run somewhat quietly, for in a stream the bait will not be so well discerned. I say, in a quiet or dead place, near to some swift, there draw your bait over the top of the water, to and fro, and if there be a good Trout in the hole, he will take it, especially if the night be dark, for then he is bold, and lies near the top of the water, watching the motion of any frog or water-rat, or mouse, that swims betwixt him and the sky; these he hunts after, if he sees the water but wrinkle or move in one of these dead holes, where these great old Trouts usually lie, near to their holds; for you are to note, that the great old Trout is both subtle and fearful, and lies close all day, and does not usually stir out of his hold, but lies in it as close in the day as the timorous hare does in her form; for the chief feeding of either is seldom in the day, but usually in the night, and then the great Trout feeds very boldly. And you must fish for him with a strong line, and not a little hook; and let him have time to gorge your hook, for he does not usually forsake it, as he oft will in the day-fishing. And if the night be not dark, then fish so with an artificial fly of a light colour, and at the snap: nay, he will sometimes rise at a dead mouse, or a piece of cloth, or anything that seems to swim across the water, or to be in motion. This is a choice way, but I have not oft used it, because it is void of the pleasures that such days as these, that we two now enjoy, afford an angler. And you are to know, that in Hampshire, which I think exceeds all England for swift, shallow, clear, pleasant brooks, and store of Trouts, they used to catch Trouts in the night, by the light of a torch or straw, which, when they have discovered, they strike with a Trout-spear, or other ways. This kind of way they catch very many: but I would not believe it till I was an eye-witness of it, nor do I like it now I have seen it. Venator. But, master, do not Trouts see us in the night? Piscator Yes, and hear, and smell too, both then and in the day-time: for Gesner observes, the Otter smells a fish forty furlongs off him in the water: and that it may be true, seems to be affirmed by Sir Francis Bacon, in the eighth century of his Natural History, who there proves that waters may be the medium of sounds, by demonstrating it thus: "That if you knock two stones together very deep under the water, those that stand on a bank near to that place may hear the noise without any diminution of it by the water ". He also offers the like experiment concerning the letting an anchor fall, by a very long cable or rope, on a rock, or the sand, within the sea. And this being so well observed and demonstrated as it is by that learned man, has made me to believe that Eels unbed themselves and stir at the noise of thunder, and not only, as some think, by the motion or stirring of the earth which is occasioned by that thunder. And this reason of Sir Francis Bacon has made me crave pardon of one that I laughed at for affirming that he knew Carps come to a certain place, in a pond, to be fed at the ringing of a bell or the beating of a drum. And, however, it shall be a rule for me to make as little noise as I can when I am fishing, until Sir Francis Bacon be confuted, which I shall give any man leave to do. And lest you may think him singular in this opinion, I will tell you, this seems to be believed by our learned Doctor Hakewill, who in his Apology of God's power and providence, quotes Pliny to report that one of the emperors had particular fish-ponds, and, in them, several fish that appeared and came when they were called by their particular names. And St. James tells us, that all things in the sea have been tamed by mankind. And Pliny tells us, that Antonia, the wife of Drusus, had a Lamprey at whose gills she hung jewels or ear-rings; and that others have been so tender-hearted as to shed tears at the death of fishes which they have kept and loved. And these observations, which will to most hearers seem wonderful, seem to have a further confirmation from Martial, who writes thus:-- Piscator, fuge; ne nocens, etc. Angler! would'st thou be guiltless ? then forbear; For these are sacred fishes that swim here, Who know their sovereign, and will lick his hand, Than which none's greater in the world's command; Nay more they've names, and, when they called are, Do to their several owner's call repair. All the further use that I shall make of this shall be, to advise anglers to be patient, and forbear swearing, lest they be heard, and catch no fish. And so I shall proceed next to tell you, it is certain that certain fields near Leominster, a town in Herefordshire, are observed to make the sheep that graze upon them more fat than the next, and also to bear finer wool; that is to say, that that year in which they feed in such a particular pasture, they shall yield finer wool than they did that year before they came to feed in it; and coarser, again, if they shall return to their former pasture; and, again, return to a finer wool, being fed in the fine wool ground: which I tell you, that you may the better believe that I am certain, if I catch a Trout in one meadow, he shall be white and faint, and very like to be lousy; and, as certainly, it I catch a Trout in the next meadow, he shall be strong, and red, and lusty, and much better meat. Trust me, scholar, I have caught many a Trout in a particular meadow, that the very shape and the enamelled colour of him hath been such as hath joyed me to look on him: and I have then, with much pleasure, concluded with Solomon, "Everything is beautiful in his season". I should, by promise, speak next of the Salmon; but I will, by your favour, say a little of the Umber or Grayling; which is so like a Trout for his shape and feeding, that I desire I may exercise your patience with a short discourse of him; and then, the next shall be of the Salmon. The fourth day-continued The Umber or Grayling Chapter VI Piscator The Umber and Grayling are thought by some to differ as the Herring and Pilchard do. But though they may do so in other nations, I think those in England differ nothing but in their names. Aldrovandus says, they be of a Trout kind; and Gesner says, that in his country, which is Switzerland, he is accounted the choicest of all fish. And in Italy, he is, in the month of May, so highly valued, that he is sold there at a much higher rate than any other fish. The French, which call the Chub Un Villain, call the Umber of the lake Leman Un Umble Chevalier; and they value the Umber or Grayling so highly, that they say he feeds on gold; and say, that many have been caught out of their famous river of Loire, out of whose bellies grains of gold have been often taken. And some think that he feeds on water thyme, and smells of it at his first taking out of the water; and they may think so with as good reason as we do that our Smelts smell like violets at their being first caught, which I think is a truth. Aldrovandus says, the Salmon, the Grayling, and Trout, and all fish that live in clear and sharp streams, are made by their mother Nature of such exact shape and pleasant colours purposely to invite us to a joy and contentedness in feasting with her. Whether this is a truth or not, is not my purpose to dispute: but 'tis certain, all that write of the Umber declare him to be very medicinable. And Gesner says, that the fat of an Umber or Grayling, being set, with a little honey, a day or two in the sun, in a little glass, is very excellent against redness or swarthiness, or anything that breeds in the eyes. Salvian takes him to be called Umber from his swift swimming, or gliding out of sight more like a shadow or a ghost than a fish. Much more might be said both of his smell and taste: but I shall only tell you that St. Ambrose, the glorious bishop of Milan, who lived when the church kept fasting-days, calls him the flower-fish, or flower of fishes; and that he was so far in love with him, that he would not let him pass without the honour of a long discourse; but I must; and pass on to tell you how to take this dainty fish. First note, that he grows not to the bigness of a Trout; for the biggest of them do not usually exceed eighteen inches. He lives in such rivers as the Trout does; and is usually taken with the same baits as the Trout is, and after the same manner; for he will bite both at the minnow, or worm, or fly, though he bites not often at the minnow, and is very gamesome at the fly; and much simpler, and therefore bolder than a Trout; for he will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise again. He has been taken with a fly made of the red feathers of a paroquet, a strange outlandish bird; and he will rise at a fly not unlike a gnat, or a small moth, or, indeed, at most flies that are not too big. He is a fish that lurks close all Winter, but is very pleasant and jolly after mid-April, and in May, and in the hot months. He is of a very fine shape, his flesh is white, his teeth, those little ones that he has, are in his throat, yet he has so tender a mouth, that he is oftener lost after an angler has hooked him than any other fish. Though there be many of these fishes in the delicate river Dove, and in Trent, and some other smaller rivers, as that which runs by Salisbury, yet he is not so general a fish as the Trout, nor to me so good to eat or to angle for. And so I shall take my leave of him: and now come to some observations of the Salmon, and how to catch him. The fourth day-continued The Salmon Chapter VII Piscator The Salmon is accounted the King of freshwater fish; and is ever bred in rivers relating to the sea, yet so high, or far from it, as admits of no tincture of salt, or brackishness. He is said to breed or cast his spawn, in most rivers, in the month of August: some say, that then they dig a hole or grave in a safe place in the gravel, and there place their eggs or spawn, after the melter has done his natural office, and then hide it most cunningly, and cover it over with gravel and stones; and then leave it to their Creator's protection, who, by a gentle heat which he infuses into that cold element, makes it brood, and beget life in the spawn, and to become Samlets early in the spring next following. The Salmons having spent their appointed time, and done this natural duty in the fresh waters, they then haste to the sea before winter, both the melter and spawner; but if they be stopped by flood-gates or weirs, or lost in the fresh waters, then those so left behind by degrees grow sick and lean, and unseasonable, and kipper, that is to say, have bony gristles grow out of their lower chaps, not unlike a hawk's beak, which hinders their feeding; and, in time, such fish so left behind pine away and die. 'Tis observed, that he may live thus one year from the sea; but he then grows insipid and tasteless, and loses both his blood and strength, and pines and dies the second year. And 'tis noted, that those little Salmons called Skeggers, which abound in many rivers relating to the sea, are bred by such sick Salmons that might not go to the sea, and that though they abound, yet they never thrive to any considerable bigness. But if the old Salmon gets to the sea, then that gristle which shews him to be kipper, wears away, or is cast off, as the eagle is said to cast his bill, and he recovers his strength, and comes next summer to the same river, if it be possible, to enjoy the former pleasures that there possess him; for, as one has wittily observed, he has, like some persons of honour and riches which have both their winter and summer houses, the fresh rivers for summer, and the salt water for winter, to spend his life in; which is not, as Sir Francis Bacon hath observed in his History of Life and Death, above ten years. And it is to be observed, that though the Salmon does grow big in the sea, yet he grows not fat but in fresh rivers; and it is observed, that the farther they get from the sea, they be both the fatter and better. Next, I shall tell you, that though they make very hard shift to get out of the fresh rivers into the sea yet they will make harder shift to get out of the salt into the fresh rivers, to spawn, or possess the pleasures that they have formerly found in them: to which end, they will force themselves through floodgates, or over weirs, or hedges, or stops in the water, even to a height beyond common belief. Gesner speaks of such places as are known to be above eight feet high above water. And our Camden mentions, in his Britannia, the like wonder to be in Pembrokeshire, where the river Tivy falls into the sea; and that the fall is so downright, and so high, that the people stand and wonder at the strength and sleight by which they see the Salmon use to get out of the sea into the said river; and the manner and height of the place is so notable, that it is known, far, by the name of the Salmon-leap. Concerning which, take this also out of Michael Drayton, my honest old friend; as he tells it you, in his Polyolbion: And when the Salmon seeks a fresher stream to find; (Which hither from the sea comes, yearly, by his kind,) As he towards season grows; and stems the watry tract Where Tivy, falling down, makes an high cataract, Forc'd by the rising rocks that there her course oppose, As tho' within her bounds they meant her to inclose; Here when the labouring fish does at the foot arrive, And finds that by his strength he does but vainly strive; His tail takes in his mouth, and, bending like a bow That's to full compass drawn, aloft himself doth throw, Then springing at his height, as doth a little wand That bended end to end, and started from man's hand, Far off itself doth cast, so does that Salmon vault; And if, at first, he fail, his second summersault He instantly essays, and, from his nimble ring Still yerking, never leaves until himself he fling Above the opposing stream----. This Michael Drayton tells you, of this leap or summersault of the Salmon. And, next, I shall tell you, that it is observed by Gesner and others, that there is no better Salmon than in England; and that though some of our northern counties have as fat, and as large, as the river Thames, yet none are of so excellent a taste. And as I have told you that Sir Francis Bacon observes, the age of a Salmon exceeds not ten years; so let me next tell you, that his growth is very sudden: it is said that after he is got into the sea, he becomes, from a Samlet not so big as a Gudgeon, to be a Salmon, in as short a time as a gosling becomes to be a goose. Much of this has been observed, by tying a riband, or some known tape or thread, in the tail of some young Salmons which have been taken in weirs as they have swimmed towards the salt water; and then by taking a part of them again, with the known mark, at the same place, at their return from the sea, which is usually about six months after; and the like experiment hath been tried upon young swallows, who have, after six months' absence, been observed to return to the same chimney, there to make their nests and habitations for the summer following; which has inclined many to think, that every Salmon usually returns to the same river in which it was bred, as young pigeons taken out of the same dovecote have also been observed to do. And you are yet to observe further, that the He-salmon is usually bigger than the Spawner; and that he is more kipper, and less able to endure a winter in the fresh water than the She is: yet she is, at that time of looking less kipper and better, as watry, and as bad meat. And yet you are to observe, that as there is no general rule without an exception, so there are some few rivers in this nation that have Trouts and Salmon in season in winter, as 'tis certain there be in the river Wye in Monmouthshire, where they be in season, as Camden observes, from September till April. But, my scholar, the observation of this and many other things I must in manners omit, because they will prove too large for our narrow compass of time, and, therefore, I shall next fall upon my directions how to fish for this Salmon. And, for that: First you shall observe, that usually he stays not long in a place, as Trouts will, but, as I said, covets still to go nearer the spring-head: and that he does not, as the Trout and many other fish, lie near the water-side or bank, or roots of trees, but swims in the deep and broad parts of the water, and usually in the middle, and near the ground, and that there you are to fish for him, and that he is to be caught, as the Trout is, with a worm, a minnow which some call a peek, or with a fly. And you are to observe, that he is very seldom observed to bite at a minnow, yet sometimes he will, and not usually at a fly, but more usually at a worm, and then most usually at a lob or garden-worm, which should be well scoured, that is to say, kept seven or eight days in moss before you fish with them: and if you double your time of eight into sixteen, twenty, or more days, it is still the better; for the worms will still be clearer, tougher, and more lively, and continue so longer upon your hook. And they may be kept longer by keeping them cool, and in fresh moss; and some advise to put camphire into it. Note also, that many used to fish for a Salmon with a ring of wire on the top of their rod, through which the line may run to as great a length as is needful, when he is hooked. And to that end, some use a wheel about the middle of their rod, or near their hand, which is to be observed better by seeing one of them than by a large demonstration of words. And now I shall tell you that which may be called a secret. I have been a-fishing with old Oliver Henly, now with God, a noted fisher both for Trout and Salmon; and have observed, that he would usually take three or four worms out of his bag, and put them into a little box in his pocket, where he would usually let them continue half an hour or more, before he would bait his hook with them. I have asked him his reason, and he has replied, "He did but pick the best out to be in readiness against he baited his hook the next time": but he has been observed, both by others and myself, to catch more fish than I, or any other body that has ever gone a-fishing with him, could do, and especially Salmons. And I have been told lately, by one of his most intimate and secret friends, that the box in which he put those worms was anointed with a drop, or two or three, of the oil of ivy-berries, made by expression or infusion; and told, that by the worms remaining in that box an hour, or a like time, they had incorporated a kind of smell that was irresistibly attractive, enough to force any fish within the smell of them to bite. This I heard not long since from a friend, but have not tried it; yet I grant it probable, and refer my reader to Sir Francis Bacon's Natural history, where he proves fishes may hear, and, doubtless, can more probably smell: and I am certain Gesner says, the Otter can smell in the water; and I know not but that fish may do so too. 'Tis left for a lover of angling, or any that desires to improve that art, to try this conclusion. I shall also impart two other experiments, but not tried by myself, which I will deliver in the same words that they were given me by an excellent angler and a very friend, in writing: he told me the latter was too good to be told, but in a learned language, lest it should be made common. "Take the stinking oil drawn out of polypody of the oak by a retort, mixed with turpentine and hive-honey, and anoint your bait therewith, and it will doubtless draw the fish to it." The other is this: "Vulnera hederae grandissimae inflicta sudant balsamum oleo gelato, albicantique persimile, odoris vero longe suavissimi". "'Tis supremely sweet to any fish, and yet assa foetida may do the like." But in these I have no great faith; yet grant it probable; and have had from some chymical men, namely, from Sir George Hastings and others, an affirmation of them to be very advantageous. But no more of these; especially not in this place. I might here, before I take my leave of the Salmon, tell you, that there is more than one sort of them, as namely, a Tecon, and another called in some places a Samlet, or by some a Skegger; but these, and others which I forbear to name, may be fish of another kind, and differ as we know a Herring and a Pilchard do, which, I think, are as different as the rivers in which they breed, and must, by me, be left to the disquisitions of men of more leisure, and of greater abilities than I profess myself to have. And lastly, I am to borrow so much of your promised patience, as to tell you, that the trout, or Salmon, being in season, have, at their first taking out of the water, which continues during life, their bodies adorned, the one with such red spots, and the other with such black or blackish spots, as give them such an addition of natural beauty as, I think, was never given to any woman by the artificial paint or patches in which they so much pride themselves in this age. And so I shall leave them both; and proceed to some observations of the Pike. The fourth day-continued On the Luce or Pike Chapter VIII Piscator and Venator Piscator. The mighty Luce or Pike is taken to be the tyrant, as the Salmon is the king, of the fresh water. 'Tis not to be doubted, but that they are bred, some by generation, and some not; as namely, of a weed called pickerel-weed, unless learned Gesner be much mistaken, for he says, this weed and other glutinous matter, with the help of the sun's heat, in some particular months, and some ponds, apted for it by nature, do become Pikes. But, doubtless, divers Pikes are bred after this manner, or are brought into some ponds some such other ways as is past man's finding out, of which we have daily testimonies. Sir Francis Bacon, in his History of Life and Death, observes the Pike to be the longest lived of any fresh-water fish; and yet he computes it to be not usually above forty years; and others think it to be not above ten years: and yet Gesner mentions a Pike taken in Swedeland, in the year 1449, with a ring about his neck, declaring he was put into that pond by Frederick the Second, more than two hundred years before he was last taken, as by the inscription in that ring, being Greek, was interpreted by the then Bishop of Worms. But of this no more; but that it is observed, that the old or very great Pikes have in them more of state than goodness; the smaller or middle-sized Pikes being, by the most and choicest palates, observed to be the best meat: and, contrary, the Eel is observed to be the better for age and bigness. All Pikes that live long prove chargeable to their keepers, because their life is maintained by the death of so many other fish, even those of their own kind, which has made him by some writers to be called the tyrant of the rivers, or the fresh-water wolf, by reason of his bold, greedy, devouring, disposition; which is so keen, as Gesner relates, A man going to a pond, where it seems a Pike had devoured all the fish, to water his mule, had a Pike bit his mule by the lips; to which the Pike hung so fast, that the mule drew him out of the water; and by that accident, the owner of the mule angled out the Pike. And the same Gesner observes, that a maid in Poland had a Pike bit her by the foot, as she was washing clothes in a pond. And I have heard the like of a woman in Killingworth pond, not far from Coventry. But I have been assured by my friend Mr. Segrave, of whom I spake to you formerly, that keeps tame Otters, that he hath known a Pike, in extreme hunger, fight with one of his Otters for a Carp that the Otter had caught, and was then bringing out of the water. I have told you who relate these things; and tell you they are persons of credit; and shall conclude this observation, by telling you, what a wise man has observed, "It is a hard thing to persuade the belly, because it has no ears". But if these relations be disbelieved, it is too evident to be doubted, that a Pike will devour a fish of his own kind that shall be bigger than his belly or throat will receive, and swallow a part of him, and let the other part remain in his mouth till the swallowed part be digested, and then swallow that other part that was in his mouth, and so put it over by degrees; which is not unlike the Ox, and some other beasts taking their meat, not out of their mouth immediately into their belly, but first into some place betwixt, and then chew it, or digest it by degrees after, which is called chewing the cud. And, doubtless, Pikes will bite when they are not hungry; but, as some think, even for very anger, when a tempting bait comes near to them. And it is observed, that the Pike will eat venomous things, as some kind of frogs are, and yet live without being harmed by them; for, as some say, he has in him a natural balsam, or antidote against all poison. And he has a strange heat, that though it appear to us to be cold, can yet digest or put over any fish-flesh, by degrees, without being sick. And others observe, that he never eats the venomous frog till he have first killed her, and then as ducks are observed to do to frogs in spawning-time, at which time some frogs are observed to be venomous, so thoroughly washed her, by tumbling her up and down in the water, that he may devour her without danger. And Gesner affirms, that a Polonian gentleman did faithfully assure him, he had seen two young geese at one time in the belly of a Pike. And doubtless a Pike in his height of hunger will bite at and devour a dog that swims in a pond; and there have been examples of it, or the like; for as I told you, "The belly has no ears when hunger comes upon it". The Pike is also observed to be a solitary, melancholy, and a bold fish; melancholy, because he always swims or rests himself alone, and never swims in shoals or with company, as Roach and Dace, and most other fish do: and bold, because he fears not a shadow, or to see or be seen of anybody, as the Trout and Chub, and all other fish do. And it is observed by Gesner, that the jaw-bones, and hearts, and galls of Pikes, are very medicinable for several diseases, or to stop blood, to abate fevers, to cure agues, to oppose or expel the infection of the plague, and to be many ways medicinable and useful for the good of mankind: but he observes, that the biting of a Pike is venomous, and hard to be cured. And it is observed, that the Pike is a fish that breeds but once a year; and that other fish, as namely Loaches, do breed oftener: as we are certain tame Pigeons do almost every month; and yet the Hawk, a bird of prey, as the Pike is a fish, breeds but once in twelve months. And you are to note, that his time of breeding, or spawning, is usually about the end of February, or, somewhat later, in March, as the weather proves colder or warmer: and to note, that his manner of breeding is thus: a he and a she Pike will usually go together out of a river into some ditch or creek; and that there the spawner casts her eggs, and the melter hovers over her all that time that she is casting her spawn, but touches her not. I might say more of this, but it might be thought curiosity or worse, and shall therefore forbear it; and take up so much of your attention as to tell you that the best of Pikes are noted to be in rivers; next, those in great ponds or meres; and the worst, in small ponds. But before I proceed further, I am to tell you, that there is a great antipathy betwixt the Pike and some frogs: and this may appear to the reader of Dubravius, a bishop in Bohemia, who, in his book Of Fish and Fish-ponds, relates what he says he saw with his own eyes, and could not forbear to tell the reader. Which was: "As he and the bishop Thurzo were walking by a large pond in Bohemia, they saw a frog, when the Pike lay very sleepily and quiet by the shore side, leap upon his head; and the frog having expressed malice or anger by his sworn cheeks and staring eyes, did stretch out his legs and embrace the Pike's head, and presently reached them to his eyes, tearing with them, and his teeth, those tender parts: the Pike, moved with anguish, moves up and down the water, and rubs himself against weeds, and whatever he thought might quit him of his enemy; but all in vain, for the frog did continue to ride triumphantly, and to bite and torment the Pike till his strength failed; and then the frog sunk with the Pike to the bottom of the water: then presently the frog appeared again at the top, and croaked, and seemed to rejoice like a conqueror, after which he presently retired to his secret hole. The bishop, that had beheld the battle, called his fisherman to fetch his nets, and by all means to get the Pike that they might declare what had happened: and the Pike was drawn forth, and both his eyes eaten out; at which when they began to wonder, the fisherman wished them to forbear, and assured them he was certain that Pikes were often so served." I told this, which is to be read in the sixth chapter of the book of Dubravius, unto a friend, who replied, "It was as improbable as to have the mouse scratch out the cat's eyes". But he did not consider, that there be Fishing frogs, which the Dalmatians call the Water-devil, of which I might tell you as wonderful a story: but I shall tell you that 'tis not to be doubted but that there be some frogs so fearful of the water-snake, that when they swim in a place in which they fear to meet with him they then get a reed across into their mouths; which if they two meet by accident, secures the frog from the strength and malice of the snake; and note, that the frog usually swims the fastest of the two. And let me tell you, that as there be water and land frogs, so there be land and water snakes. Concerning which take this observation, that the land-snake breeds and hatches her eggs, which become young snakes, in some old dunghill, or a like hot place: but the water-snake, which is not venomous, and as I have been assured by a great observer of such secrets, does not hatch, but breed her young alive, which she does not then forsake, but bides with them, and in case of danger will take them all into her mouth and swim away from any apprehended danger, and then let them out again when she thinks all danger to be past: these be accidents that we Anglers sometimes see, and often talk of. But whither am I going? I had almost lost myself, by remembering the discourse of Dubravius. I will therefore stop here; and tell you, according to my promise, how to catch this Pike. His feeding is usually of fish or frogs; and sometimes a weed of his own, called pickerel-weed, of which I told you some think Pikes are bred; for they have observed, that where none have been put into ponds, yet they have there found many; and that there has been plenty of that weed in those ponds, and that that weed both breeds and feeds them: but whether those Pikes, so bred, will ever breed by generation as the others do, I shall leave to the disquisitions of men of more curiosity and leisure than I profess myself to have: and shall proceed to tell you, that you may fish for a Pike, either with a ledger or a walking-bait; and you are to note, that I call that a Ledger-bait, which is fixed or made to rest in one certain place when you shall be absent from it; and I call that a Walking-bait, which you take with you, and have ever in motion. Concerning which two, I shall give you this direction; that your ledger-bait is best to be a living bait (though a dead one may catch), whether it be a fish or a frog: and that you may make them live the longer, you may, or indeed you must, take this course: First, for your LIVE-BAIT. Of fish, a roach or dace is, I think, best and most tempting; and a perch is the longest lived on a hook, and having cut off his fin on his back, which may be done without hurting him, you must take your knife, which cannot be too sharp, and betwixt the head and the fin on the back, cut or make an incision, or such a scar, as you may put the arming-wire of your hook into it, with as little bruising or hurting the fish as art and diligence will enable you to do; and so carrying your arming-wire along his back, unto or near the tail of your fish, betwixt the skin and the body of it, draw out that wire or arming of your hook at another scar near to his tail then tie him about it with thread, but no harder than of necessity, to prevent hurting the fish; and the better to avoid hurting the fish, some have a kind of probe to open the way for the more easy entrance and passage of your wire or arming: but as for these, time and a little experience will teach you better than I can by words. Therefore I will for the present say no more of this; but come next to give you some directions how to bait your hook with a frog. Venator. But, good master, did you not say even now, that some frogs were venomous; and is it not dangerous to touch them? Piscator. Yes, but I will give you some rules or cautions concerning them. And first you are to note, that there are two kinds of frogs, that is to say, if I may so express myself, a flesh and fish frog. By flesh-frogs, I mean frogs that breed and live on the land; and of these there be several sorts also, and of several colours, some being speckled, some greenish, some blackish, or brown: the green frog, which is a small one, is, by Topsel, taken to be venomous; and so is the paddock, or frog-paddock, which usually keeps or breeds on the land, and is very large and bony, and big, especially the she-frog of that kind: yet these will sometimes come into the water, but it is not often: and the land-frogs are some of them observed by him, to breed by laying eggs; and others to breed of the slime and dust of the earth, and that in winter they turn to slime again, and that the next summer that very slime returns to be a living creature, this is the opinion of Pliny. And Cardanus undertakes to give a reason for the raining of frogs: but if it were in my power, it should rain none but water-frogs; for those I think are not venomous, especially the right water-frog, which, about February or March, breeds in ditches, by slime, and blackish eggs in that slime: about which time of breeding, the he and she frogs are observed to use divers summersaults, and to croak and make a noise, which the land-frog, or paddock-frog, never does. Now of these water-frogs, if you intend to fish with a frog for a Pike, you are to choose the yellowest that you can get, for that the Pike ever likes best. And thus use your frog, that he may continue long alive: Put your hook into his mouth, which you may easily do from the middle of April till August; and then the frog's mouth grows up, and he continues so for at least six months without eating, but is sustained, none but He whose name is Wonderful knows how: I say, put your hook, I mean the arming-wire, through his mouth, and out at his gills; and then with a fine needle and silk sew the upper part of his leg, with only one stitch, to the arming-wire of your hook; or tie the frog's leg, above the upper joint, to the armed-wire; and, in so doing, use him as though you loved him, that is, harm him as little as you may possibly, that he may live the longer. And now, having given you this direction for the baiting your ledger-hook with a live fish or frog, my next must be to tell you, how your hook thus baited must or may be used; and it is thus: having fastened your hook to a line, which if it be not fourteen yards long should not be less than twelve, you are to fasten that line to any bough near to a hole where a Pike is, or is likely to lie, or to have a haunt; and then wind your line on any forked stick, all your line, except half a yard of it or rather more; and split that forked stick, with such a nick or notch at one end of it as may keep the line from any more of it ravelling from about the stick than so much of it as you intend. And choose your forked stick to be of that bigness as may keep the fish or frog from pulling the forked stick under the water till the Pike bites; and then the Pike having pulled the line forth of the cleft or nick of that stick in which it was gently fastened, he will have line enough to go to his hold and pouch the bait. And if you would have this ledger-bait to keep at a fixt place undisturbed by wind or other accidents which may drive it to the shore-side, for you are to note, that it is likeliest to catch a Pike in the midst of the water, then hang a small plummet of lead, a stone, or piece of tile, or a turf, in a string, and cast it into the water with the forked stick to hang upon the ground, to be a kind of anchor to keep the forked stick from moving out of your intended place till the Pike come: this I take to be a very good way to use so many ledger-baits as you intend to make trial of. Or if you bait your hooks thus with live fish or frogs, and in a windy day, fasten them thus to a bough or bundle of straw, and by the help of that wind can get them to move across a pond or mere, you are like to stand still on the shore and see sport presently, if there be any store of Pikes. Or these live baits may make sport, being tied about the body or wings of a goose or duck, and she chased over a pond. And the like may be done with turning three or four live baits, thus fastened to bladders, or boughs, or bottles of hay or flags, to swim down a river, whilst you walk quietly alone on the shore, and are still in expectaion of sport. The rest must be taught you by practice; for time will not allow me to say more of this kind of fishing with live baits. And for your DEAD-BAIT for a Pike: for that you may be taught by one day's going a-fishing with me, or any other body that fishes for him; for the baiting your hook with a dead gudgeon or a roach, and moving it up and down the water, is too easy a thing to take up any time to direct you to do it. And yet, because I cut you short in that, I will commute for it by telling you that that was told me for a secret: it is this: Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of spike, and therewith anoint your dead bait for a Pike; and then cast it into a likely place; and when it has lain a short time at the bottom, draw it towards the top of the water, and so up the stream; and it is more than likely that you have a Pike follow with more than common eagerness. And some affirm, that any bait anointed with the marrow of the thigh-bone of a heron is a great temptation to any fish. These have not been tried by me, but told me by a friend of note, that pretended to do me a courtesy. But if this direction to catch a Pike thus do you no good, yet I am certain this direction how to roast him when he is caught is choicely good; for I have tried it, and it is somewhat the better for not being common. But with my direction you must take this caution, that your Pike must not be a small one, that is, it must be more than half a yard, and should be bigger. "First, open your Pike at the gills, and if need be, cut also a little slit towards the belly. Out of these, take his guts; and keep his liver, which you are to shred very small, with thyme, sweet marjoram, and a little winter-savoury; to these put some pickled oysters, and some anchovies, two or three; both these last whole, for the anchovies will melt, and the oysters should not; to these, you must add also a pound of sweet butter, which you are to mix with the herbs that are shred, and let them all be well salted. If the Pike be more than a yard long, then you may put into these herbs more than a pound, or if he be less, then less butter will suffice: These, being thus mixt, with a blade or two of mace, must be put into the Pike's belly; and then his belly so sewed up as to keep all the butter in his belly if it be possible; if not, then as much of it as you possibly can. But take not off the scales. Then you are to thrust the spit through his mouth, out at his tail. And then take four or five or six split sticks, or very thin laths, and a convenient quantity of tape or filleting; these laths are to be tied round about the Pike's body, from his head to his tail, and the tape tied somewhat thick, to prevent his breaking or falling off from the spit. Let him be roasted very leisurely; and often basted with claret wine, and anchovies, and butter, mixt together; and also with what moisture falls from him into the pan. When you have roasted him sufficiently, you are to hold under him, when you unwind or cut the tape that ties him, such a dish as you purpose to eat him out of; and let him fall into it with the sauce that is roasted in his belly; and by this means the Pike will be kept unbroken and complete. Then, to the sauce which was within, and also that sauce in the pan, you are to add a fit quantity of the best butter, and to squeeze the juice of three or four oranges. Lastly, you may either put it into the Pike, with the oysters, two cloves of garlick, and take it whole out, when the Pike is cut off the spit; or, to give the sauce a haut goût, let the dish into which you let the Pike fall be rubbed with it: The using or not using of this garlick is left to your discretion. M. B." This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men; and I trust you will prove both, and therefore I have trusted you with this secret. Let me next tell you, that Gesner tells us, there are no Pikes in Spain, and that the largest are in the lake Thrasymene in Italy; and the next, if not equal to them, are the Pikes of England; and that in England, Lincolnshire boasteth to have the biggest. Just so doth Sussex boast of four sorts of fish, namely, an Arundel Mullet, a Chichester Lobster, a Shelsey Cockle, and an Amerly Trout. But I will take up no more of your time with this relation, but proceed to give you some Observations of the Carp, and how to angle for him; and to dress him but not till he is caught. The fourth day-continued On the Carp Chapter IX Piscator The Carp is the queen of rivers; a stately, a good, and a very subtil fish; that was not at first bred, nor hath been long in England, but is now naturalised. It is said, they were brought hither by one Mr. Mascal, a gentleman that then lived at Plumsted in Sussex, a county that abounds more with this fish than any in this nation. You may remember that I told you Gesner says there are no Pikes in Spain; and doubtless there was a time, about a hundred or a few more years ago, when there were no Carps in England, as may seem to be affirmed by Sir Richard Baker, in whose Chronicle you may find these verses: Hops and turkies, carps and beer, Came into England all in a year. And doubtless, as of sea-fish the Herring dies soonest out of the water, and of fresh-water fish the Trout, so, except the Eel, the Carp endures most hardness, and lives longest out of its own proper element; and, therefore, the report of the Carp's being brought out of a foreign country into this nation is the more probable. Carps and Loaches are observed to breed several months in one year, which Pikes and most other fish do not; and this is partly proved by tame and wild rabbits; as also by some ducks, which will lay eggs nine of the twelve months; and yet there be other ducks that lay not longer than about one month. And it is the rather to be believed, because you shall scarce or never take a male Carp without a melt, or a female without a roe or spawn, and for the most part very much, and especially all the summer season; and it is observed, that they breed more naturally in ponds than in running waters, if they breed there at all; and that those that live in rivers are taken by men of the best palates to be much the better meat. And it is observed that in some ponds Carps will not breed, especially in cold ponds; but where they will breed, they breed innumerably: Aristotle and Pliny say six times in a year, if there be no Pikes nor Perch to devour their spawn, when it is cast upon grass or flags, or weeds, where it lies ten or twelve days before it be enlivened. The Carp, if he have water-room and good feed, will grow to a very great bigness and length; I have heard, to be much above a yard long. It is said by Jovius, who hath writ of fishes, that in the lake Lurian in Italy, Carps have thriven to be more than fifty pounds weight: which is the more probable, for as the bear is conceived and born suddenly, and being born is but short lived; so, on the contrary, the elephant is said to be two years in his dam's belly, some think he is ten years in it, and being born, grows in bigness twenty years; and it is observed too, that he lives to the age of a hundred years. And 'tis also observed, that the crocodile is very long-lived; and more than that, that all that long life he thrives in bigness; and so I think some Carps do, especially in some places, though I never saw one above twenty-three inches, which was a great and goodly fish; but have been assured there are of a far greater size, and in England too. Now, as the increase of Carps is wonderful for their number, so there is not a reason found out, I think, by any, why they should breed in some ponds, and not in others, of the same nature for soil and all other circumstances. And as their breeding, so are their decays also very mysterious: I have both read it, and been told by a gentleman of tried honesty, that he has known sixty or more large Carps put into several ponds near to a house, where by reason of the stakes in the ponds, and the owner's constant being near to them, it was impossible they should be stole away from him; and that when he has, after three or four years, emptied the pond, and expected an increase from them by breeding young ones, for that they might do so he had, as the rule is, put in three melters for one spawner, he has, I say, after three or four years, found neither a young nor old Carp remaining. And the like I have known of one that had almost watched the pond, and, at a like distance of time, at the fishing of a pond, found, of seventy or eighty large Carps, not above five or six: and that he had forborne longer to fish the said pond, but that he saw, in a hot day in summer, a large Carp swim near the top of the water with a frog upon his head; and that he, upon that occasion, caused his pond to be let dry: and I say, of seventy or eighty Carps, only found five or six in the said pond, and those very sick and lean, and with every one a frog sticking so fast on the head of the said Carps, that the frog would not be got off without extreme force or killing. And the gentleman that did affirm this to me, told me he saw it; and did declare his belief to be, and I also believe the same, that he thought the other Carps, that were so strangely lost, were so killed by the frogs, and then devoured. And a person of honour, now living in Worcestershire, assured me he had seen a necklace, or collar of tadpoles, hang like a chain or necklace of beads about a Pike's neck, and to kill him: Whether it were for meat or malice, must be, to me, a question. But I am fallen into this discourse by accident; of which I might say more, but it has proved longer than I intended, and possibly may not to you be considerable: I shall therefore give you three or four more short observations of the Carp, and then fall upon some directions how you shall fish for him. The age of Carps is by Sir Francis Bacon, in his History of Life and Death, observed to be but ten years; yet others think they live longer. Gesner says, a Carp has been known to live in the Palatine above a hundred years. But most conclude, that, contrary to the Pike or Luce, all Carps are the better for age and bigness. The tongues of Carps are noted to be choice and costly meat, especially to them that buy them: but Gesner says, Carps have no tongue like other fish, but a piece of fleshlike fish in their mouth like to a tongue, and should be called a palate: but it is certain it is choicely good, and that the Carp is to be reckoned amongst those leather-mouthed fish which, I told you, have their teeth in their throat; and for that reason he is very seldom lost by breaking his hold, if your hook be once stuck into his chaps. I told you that Sir Francis Bacon thinks that the Carp lives but ten years: but Janus Dubravius has written a book Of fish and fish-ponds in which he says, that Carps begin to spawn at the age of three years, and continue to do so till thirty: he says also, that in the time of their breeding, which is in summer, when the sun hath warmed both the earth and water, and so apted them also for generation, that then three or four male Carps will follow a female; and that then, she putting on a seeming coyness, they force her through weeds and flags, where she lets fall her eggs or spawn, which sticks fast to the weeds; and then they let fall their melt upon it, and so it becomes in a short time to be a living fish: and, as I told you, it is thought that the Carp does this several months in the year; and most believe, that most fish breed after this manner, except the Eel. And it has been observed, that when the spawner has weakened herself by doing that natural office, that two or three melters have helped her from off the weeds, by bearing her up on both sides, and guarding her into the deep. And you may note, that though this may seem a curiosity not worth observing, yet others have judged it worth their time and costs to make glass hives, and order them in such a manner as to see how bees have bred and made their honeycombs, and how they have obeyed their king, and governed their commonwealth. But it is thought that all Carps are not bred by generation; but that some breed other ways, as some Pikes do. The physicians make the galls and stones in the heads of Carps to be very medicinable. But it is not to be doubted but that in Italy they make great profit of the spawn of Carps, by selling it to the Jews, who make it into red caviare; the Jews not being by their law admitted to eat of caviare made of the Sturgeon, that being a fish that wants scales, and, as may appear in Leviticus xi., by them reputed to be unclean. Much more might be said out of him, and out of Aristotle, which Dubravius often quotes in his Discourse of Fishes: but it might rather perplex than satisfy you; and therefore I shall rather choose to direct you how to catch, than spend more time in discoursing either of the nature or the breeding of this Carp, or of any more circumstances concerning him. But yet I shall remember you of what I told you before, that he is a very subtil fish, and hard to be caught. And my first direction is, that if you will fish for a Carp, you must put on a very large measure of patience, especially to fish for a river Carp: I have known a very good fisher angle diligently four or six hours in a day, for three or four days together, for a river Carp, and not have a bite. And you are to note, that, in some ponds, it is as hard to catch a Carp as in a river; that is to say, where they have store of feed, and the water is of a clayish colour. But you are to remember that I have told you there is no rule without an exception; and therefore being possess with that hope and patience which I wish to all fishers, especially to the Carp-angler, I shall tell you with what bait to fish for him. But first you are to know, that it must be either early, or late; and let me tell you, that in hot weather, for he will seldom bite in cold, you cannot be too early, or too late at it. And some have been so curious as to say, the tenth of April is a fatal day for Carps. The Carp bites either at worms, or at paste: and of worms I think the bluish marsh or meadow worm is best; but possibly another worm, not too big, may do as well, and so may a green gentle: and as for pastes, there are almost as many sorts as there are medicines for the toothache; but doubtless sweet pastes are best; I mean, pastes made with honey or with sugar: which, that you may the better beguile this crafty fish, should be thrown into the pond or place in which you fish for him, some hours, or longer, before you undertake your trial of skill with the angle-rod; and doubtless, if it be thrown into the water a day or two before, at several times, and in small pellets, you are the likelier, when you fish for the Carp, to obtain your desired sport. Or, in a large pond, to draw them to any certain place, that they may the better and with more hope be fished for, you are to throw into it, in some certain place, either grains, or blood mixt with cow-dung or with bran; or any garbage, as chicken's guts or the like; and then, some of your small sweet pellets with which you propose to angle: and these small pellets being a few of them also thrown in as you are angling, will be the better. And your paste must be thus made: take the flesh of a rabbit, or cat, cut small; and bean-flour; and if that may not be easily got, get other flour; and then, mix these together, and put to them either sugar, or honey, which I think better: and then beat these together in a mortar, or sometimes work them in your hands, your hands being very clean; and then make it into a ball, or two, or three, as you like best, for your use: but you must work or pound it so long in the mortar, as to make it so tough as to hang upon your hook without washing from it, yet not too hard: or, that you may the better keep it on your hook, you may knead with your paste a little, and not too much, white or yellowish wool. And if you would have this paste keep all the year, for any other fish, then mix with it virgin-wax and clarified honey, and work them together with your hands, before the fire; then make these into balls, and they will keep all the year. And if you fish for a Carp with gentles, then put upon your hook a small piece of scarlet about this bigness, it being soaked in or anointed with oil of petre, called by some, oil of the rock: and if your gentles be put, two or three days before, into a box or horn anointed with honey, and so put upon your hook as to preserve them to be living, you are as like to kill this crafty fish this way as any other: but still, as you are fishing, chew a little white or brown bread in your mouth, and cast it into the pond about the place where your float swims. Other baits there be; but these, with diligence and patient watchfulness, will do better than any that I have ever practiced or heard of. And yet I shall tell you, that the crumbs of white bread and honey made into a paste is a good bait for a Carp; and you know, it is more easily made. And having said thus much of the Carp, my next discourse shall be of the Bream, which shall not prove so tedious; and therefore I desire the continuance of your attention. But, first, I will tell you how to make this Carp, that is so curious to be caught, so curious a dish of meat as shall make him worth all your labour and patience. And though it is not without some trouble and charges, yet it will recompense both. Take a Carp, alive if possible; scour him, and rub him clean with water and salt, but scale him not: then open him; and put him, with his blood and his liver, which you must save when you open him, into a small pot or kettle: then take sweet marjoram, thyme, and parsley, of each half a handful; a sprig of rosemary, and another of savoury; bind them into two or three small bundles, and put them in your Carp, with four or five whole onions, twenty pickled oysters, and three anchovies. Then pour upon your Carp as much claret wine as will only cover him; and season your claret well with salt, cloves, and mace, and the rinds of oranges and lemons. That done, cover your pot and set it on a quick fire till it be sufficiently boiled. Then take out the Carp; and lay it, with the broth, into the dish; and pour upon it a quarter of a pound of the best fresh butter, melted, and beaten with half a dozen spoonfuls of the broth, the yolks of two or three eggs, and some of the herbs shred: garnish your dish with lemons, and so serve it up. And much good do you! Dr. T. The fourth day-continued On the Bream Chapter X Piscator The Bream, being at a full growth, is a large and stately fish. He will breed both in rivers and ponds: but loves best to live in ponds, and where, if he likes the water and air, he will grow not only to be very large, but as fat as a hog. He is by Gesner taken to be more pleasant, or sweet, than wholesome. This fish is long in growing; but breeds exceedingly in a water that pleases him; yea, in many ponds so fast, as to overstore them, and starve the other fish. He is very broad, with a forked tail, and his scales set in excellent order; he hath large eyes, and a narrow sucking mouth; he hath two sets of teeth, and a lozenge-like bone, a bone to help his grinding. The melter is observed to have two large melts; and the female, two large bags of eggs or spawn. Gesner reports, that in Poland a certain and a great number of large breams were put into a pond, which in the next following winter were frozen up into one entire ice, and not one drop of water remaining, nor one of these fish to be found, though they were diligently searched for; and yet the next spring, when the ice was thawed, and the weather warm, and fresh water got into the pond, he affirms they all appeared again. This Gesner affirms; and I quote my author, because it seems almost as incredible as the resurrection to an atheist: but it may win something, in point of believing it, to him that considers the breeding or renovation of the silk-worm, and of many insects. And that is considerable, which Sir Francis Bacon observes in his History of Life and Death, fol. 20, that there be some herbs that die and spring every year, and some endure longer. But though some do not, yet the French esteem this fish highly; and to that end have this proverb "He that hath Breams in his pond, is able to bid his friend welcome"; and it is noted, that the best part of a Bream is his belly and head. Some say, that Breams and Roaches will mix their eggs and melt together; and so there is in many places a bastard breed of Breams, that never come to be either large or good, but very numerous. The baits good to catch this Bream are many. First, paste made of brown bread and honey; gentles; or the brood of wasps that be young, and then not unlike gentles, and should be hardened in an oven, or dried on a tile before the fire to make them tough. Or, there is, at the root of docks or flags or rushes, in watery places, a worm not unlike a maggot, at which Tench will bite freely. Or he will bite at a grasshopper with his legs nipt off, in June and July; or at several flies, under water, which may be found on flags that grow near to the water-side. I doubt not but that there be many other baits that are good; but I will turn them all into this most excellent one, either for a Carp or Bream, in any river or mere: it was given to me by a most honest and excellent angler; and hoping you will prove both, I will impart it to you. 1. Let your bait be as big a red worm as you can find, without a knot: get a pint or quart of them in an evening, in garden-walks, or chalky commons, after a shower of rain; and put them with clean moss well washed and picked, and the water squeezed out of the moss as dry as you can, into an earthen pot or pipkin set dry; and change the moss fresh every three or four days, for three weeks or a month together; then your bait will be at the best, for it will be clear and lively. 2. Having thus prepared your baits, get your tackling ready and fitted for this sport. Take three long angling-rods; and as many and more silk, or silk and hair, lines; and as many large swan or goose-quill floats. Then take a piece of lead, and fasten them to the low ends of your lines: then fasten your link-hook also to the lead; and let there be about a foot or ten inches between the lead and the hook: but be sure the lead be heavy enough to sink the float or quill, a little under the water; and not the quill to bear up the lead, for the lead must lie on the ground. Note, that your link next the hook may be smaller than the rest of your line, if you dare adventure, for fear of taking the Pike or Perch, who will assuredly visit your hooks, till they be taken out, as I will show you afterwards, before either Carp or Bream will come near to bite. Note also, that when the worm is well baited, it will crawl up and down as far as the lead will give leave, which much enticeth the fish to bite without suspicion. 3. Having thus prepared your baits, and fitted your tackling, repair to the river, where you have seen them swim in skulls or shoals, in the summer-time, in a hot afternoon, about three or four of the clock; and watch their going forth of their deep holes, and returning, which you may well discern, for they return about four of the clock, most of them seeking food at the bottom, yet one or two will lie on the top of the water, rolling and tumbling themselves, whilst the rest are under him at the bottom; and so you shall perceive him to keep sentinel: then mark where he plays most and stays longest, which commonly is in the broadest and deepest place of the river; and there, or near thereabouts, at a clear bottom and a convenient landing-place, take one of your angles ready fitted as aforesaid, and sound the bottom, which should be about eight or ten feet deep; two yards from the bank is best. Then consider with yourself, whether that water will rise or fall by the next morning, by reason of any water-mills near; and, according to your discretion, take the depth of the place, where you mean after to cast your ground-bait, and to fish, to half an inch; that the lead lying on or near the ground-bait, the top of the float may only appear upright half an inch above the water. Thus you having found and fitted for the place and depth thereof, then go home and prepare your ground-bait, which is, next to the fruit of your labours, to be regarded. The GROUND-BAIT. You shall take a peck, or a peck and a half, according to the greatness of the stream and deepness of the water, where you mean to angle, of sweet gross-ground barley-malt; and boil it in a kettle, one or two warms is enough: then strain it through a bag into a tub, the liquor whereof hath often done my horse much good; and when the bag and malt is near cold, take it down to the water-side, about eight or nine of the clock in the evening, and not before: cast in two parts of your ground-bait, squeezed hard between both your hands; it will sink presently to the bottom; and be sure it may rest in the very place where you mean to angle: if the stream run hard, or move a little, cast your malt in handfuls a little the higher, upwards the stream. You may, between your hands, close the malt so fast in handfuls, that the water will hardly part it with the fall. Your ground thus baited, and tackling fitted, leave your bag, with the rest of your tackling and ground-bait, near the sporting-place all night; and in the morning, about three or four of the clock, visit the water-side, but not too near, for they have a cunning watchman, and are watchful themselves too. Then, gently take one of your three rods, and bait your hook; casting it over your ground-bait, and gently and secretly draw it to you till the lead rests about the middle of the ground-bait. Then take a second rod, and cast in about a yard above, and your third a yard below the first rod; and stay the rods in the ground: but go yourself so far from the water-side, that you perceive nothing but the top of the floats, which you must watch most diligently. Then when you have a bite, you shall perceive the top of your float to sink suddenly into the water: yet, nevertheless, be not too hasty to run to your rods, until you see that the line goes clear away; then creep to the water-side, and give as much line as possibly you can: if it be a good Carp or Bream, they will go to the farther side of the river: then strike gently, and hold your rod at a bent, a little while; but if you both pull together, you are sure to lose your game, for either your line, or hook, or hold, will break: and after you have overcome them, they will make noble sport, and are very shy to be landed. The Carp is far stronger and more mettlesome than the Bream. Much more is to be observed in this kind of fish and fishing, but it is far fitter for experience and discourse than paper. Only, thus much is necessary for you to know, and to be mindful and careful of, that if the Pike or Perch do breed in that river, they will be sure to bite first, and must first be taken. And for the most part they are very large; and will repair to your ground-bait, not that they will eat of it, but will feed and sport themselves among the young fry that gather about and hover over the bait. The way to discern the Pike and to take him, it you mistrust your Bream hook, for I have taken a Pike a yard long several times at my Bream hooks, and sometimes he hath had the luck to share my line, may be thus: Take a small Bleak, or Roach, or Gudgeon, and bait it; and set it, alive, among your rods, two feet deep from the cork, with a little red worm on the point of the hook: then take a few crumbs of white bread, or some of the ground-bait, and sprinkle it gently amongst your rods. If Mr. Pike be there, then the little fish will skip out of the water at his appearance, but the live-set bait is sure to be taken. Thus continue your sport from four in the morning till eight, and if it be a gloomy windy day, they will bite all day long: but this is too long to stand to your rods, at one place; and it will spoil your evening sport that day, which is this. About four of the clock in the afternoon repair to your baited place; and as soon as you come to the water-side, cast in one-half of the rest of your ground-bait, and stand off; then whilst the fish are gathering together, for there they will most certainly come for their supper, you may take a pipe of tobacco: and then, in with your three rods, as in the morning. You will find excellent sport that evening, till eight of the clock: then cast in the residue of your ground-bait, and next morning, by four of the clock, visit them again for four hours, which is the best sport of all; and after that, let them rest till you and your friends have a mind to more sport. From St. James's-tide until Bartholomew-tide is the best; when they have had all the summer's food, they are the fattest. Observe, lastly, that after three or four days' fishing together, your game will be very shy and wary, and you shall hardly get above a bite or two at a baiting: then your only way is to desist from your sport, about two or three days: and in the meantime, on the place you late baited, and again intend to bait, you shall take a turf of green but short grass, as big or bigger than a round trencher; to the top of this turf, on the green side, you shall, with a needle and green thread, fasten one by one, as many little red worms as will near cover all the turf: then take a round board or trencher, make a hole in the middle thereof, and through the turf placed on the board or trencher, with a string or cord as long as is fitting, tied to a pole, let it down to the bottom of the water, for the fish to feed upon without disturbance about two or three days; and after that you have drawn it away, you may fall to, and enjoy your former recreation. B. A. The fourth day-continued On the Tench Chapter XI Piscator The Tench, the physician of fishes, is observed to love ponds better than rivers, and to love pits better than either: yet Camden observes, there is a river in Dorsetshire that abounds with Tenches, but doubtless they retire to the most deep and quiet places in it. This fish hath very large fins, very small and smooth scales, a red circle about his eyes, which are big and of a gold colour, and from either angle of his mouth there hangs down a little barb. In every Tench's head there are two little stones which foreign physicians make great use of, but he is not commended for wholesome meat, though there be very much use made of them for outward applications. Rondeletius says, that at his being at Rome, he saw a great cure done by applying a Tench to the feet of a very sick man. This, he says, was done after an unusual manner, by certain Jews. And it is observed that many of those people have many secrets yet unknown to Christians; secrets that have never yet been written, but have been since the days of their Solomon, who knew the nature of all things, even from the cedar to the shrub, delivered by tradition, from the father to the son, and so from generation to generation, without writing; or, unless it were casually, without the least communicating them to any other nation or tribe; for to do that they account a profanation. And, yet, it is thought that they, or some spirit worse than they, first told us, that lice, swallowed alive, were a certain cure for the yellow-jaundice. This, and many other medicines, were discovered by them, or by revelation; for, doubtless, we attained them not by study. Well, this fish, besides his eating, is very useful, both dead and alive, for the good of mankind. But I will meddle no more with that, my honest, humble art teaches no such boldness: there are too many foolish meddlers in physick and divinity that think themselves fit to meddle with hidden secrets, and so bring destruction to their followers. But I'll not meddle with them, any farther than to wish them wiser; and shall tell you next, for I hope I may be so bold, that the Tench is the physician of fishes, for the Pike especially, and that the Pike, being either sick or hurt, is cured by the touch of the Tench. And it is observed that the tyrant Pike will not be a wolf to his physician, but forbears to devour him though he be never so hungry. This fish, that carries a natural balsam in him to cure both himself and others, loves yet to feed in very foul water, and amongst weeds. And yet, I am sure, he eats pleasantly, and, doubtless, you will think so too, if you taste him. And I shall therefore proceed to give you some few, and but a few, directions how to catch this Tench, of which I have given you these observations. He will bite at a paste made of brown bread and honey, or at a marsh-worm, or a lob-worm; he inclines very much to any paste with which tar is mixt, and he will bite also at a smaller worm with his head nipped off, and a cod-worm put on the hook before that worm. And I doubt not but that he will also, in the three hot months, for in the nine colder he stirs not much, bite at a flag-worm or at a green gentle; but can positively say no more of the Tench, he being a fish I have not often angled for; but I wish my honest scholar may, and be ever fortunate when he fishes. The fourth day-continued On the Perch Chapter XII Piscator and Venator Piscator. The Perch is a very good and very bold biting fish. He is one of the fishes of prey that, like the Pike and Trout, carries his teeth in his mouth, which is very large: and he dare venture to kill and devour several other kinds of fish. He has a hooked or hog back, which is armed with sharp and stiff bristles, and all his skin armed, or covered over with thick dry hard scales, and hath, which few other fish have, two fins on his back. He is so bold that he will invade one of his own kind, which the Pike will not do so willingly; and you may, therefore, easily believe him to be a bold biter. The Perch is of great esteem in Italy, saith Aldrovandus: and especially the least are there esteemed a dainty dish. And Gesner prefers the Perch and Pike above the Trout, or any fresh-water fish: he says the Germans have this proverb, "More wholesome than a Perch of Rhine": and he says the River-Perch is so wholesome, that physicians allow him to be eaten by wounded men, or by men in fevers, or by women in child-bed. He spawns but once a year; and is, by physicians, held very nutritive; yet, by many, to be hard of digestion. They abound more in the river Po, and in England, says Rondeletius, than other parts: and have in their brain a stone, which is, in foreign parts, sold by apothecaries, being there noted to be very medicinable against the stone in the reins. These be a part of the commendations which some philosophical brains have bestowed upon the freshwater Perch: yet they commend the Sea-Perch which is known by having but one fin on his back, of which they say we English see but a few, to be a much better fish. The Perch grows slowly, yet will grow, as I have been credibly informed, to be almost two feet long; for an honest informer told me, such a one was not long since taken by Sir Abraham Williams, a gentleman of worth, and a brother of the angle, that yet lives, and I wish he may: this was a deep-bodied fish, and doubtless durst have devoured a Pike of half his own length. For I have told you, he is a bold fish; such a one as but for extreme hunger the Pike will not devour. For to affright the Pike, and save himself, the Perch will set up his fins, much like as a turkey-cock will sometimes set up his tail. But, my scholar, the Perch is not only valiant to defend himself, but he is, as I said, a bold-biting fish: yet he will not bite at all seasons of the year; he is very abstemious in winter, yet will bite then in the midst of the day, if it be warm: and note, that all fish bite best about the midst of warm day in winter. And he hath been observed, by some, not usually to bite till the mulberry-tree buds; that is to say, till extreme frosts be past the spring; for, when the mulberry-tree blossoms, many gardeners observe their forward fruit to be past the danger of frosts; and some have made the like observation of the Perch's biting. But bite the Perch will, and that very boldly. And, as one has wittily observed, if there be twenty or forty in a hole, they may be, at one standing, all catched one after another; they being, as he says, like the wicked of the world, not afraid, though their fellows and companions perish in their sight. And you may observe, that they are not like the solitary Pike, but love to accompany one another, and march together in troops. And the baits for this bold fish are not many: I mean, he will bite as well at some, or at any of these three, as at any or all others whatsoever: a worm, a minnow, or a little frog, of which you may find many in hay-time. And of worms; the dunghill worm called a brandling I take to be best, being well scoured in moss or fennel; or he will bite at a worm that lies under cow-dung, with a bluish head. And if you rove for a Perch with a minnow, then it is best to be alive; you sticking your hook through his back fin; or a minnow with the hook in his upper lip, and letting him swim up and down, about mid-water, or a little lower, and you still keeping him to about that depth by a cork, which ought not to be a very little one: and the like way you are to fish for the Perch with a small frog, your hook being fastened through the skin of his leg, towards the upper part of it: and, lastly, I will give you but this advice, that you give the Perch time enough when he bites; for there was scarce ever any angler that has given him too much. And now I think best to rest myself; for I have almost spent my spirits with talking so long. Venator. Nay, good master, one fish more, for you see it rains still: and you know our angles are like money put to usury; they may thrive, though we sit still, and do nothing but talk and enjoy one another. Come, come, the other fish, good master. Piscator. But, scholar, have you nothing to mix with this discourse, which now grows both tedious and tiresome? Shall I have nothing from you, that seem to have both a good memory and a cheerful spirit? Venator. Yes, master, I will speak you a copy of verses that were made by Doctor Donne, and made to shew the world that he could make soft and smooth verses, when he thought smoothness worth his labour: and I love them the better, because they allude to Rivers, and Fish and Fishing. They be these: Come, live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove, Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, With silken lines, and silver hooks. There will the river whisp'ring run, Warm'd by thy eyes more than the sun And there the enamel'd fish will stay Begging themselves they may betray. When thou wilt swim in that live bath, Each fish, which every channel hash, Most amorously to thee will swim, Gladder to catch thee, than thou him. If thou, to be so seen, beest loath By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both; And if mine eyes have leave to see, I need not their light, having thee, Let others freeze with angling reeds, And cut their legs with shells and weeds, Or treacherously poor fish beset With strangling snares or windowy net; Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest, The bedded fish in banks outwrest; Let curious traitors sleeve silk flies, To 'witch poor wand'ring fishes' eyes. For thee, thou need'st no such deceit, For thou thyself art shine own bait; That fish that is not catcht thereby, Is wiser afar, alas, than I. Piscator. Well remembered, honest scholar. I thank you for these choice verses; which I have heard formerly, but had quite forgot, till they were recovered by your happy memory. Well, being I have now rested myself a little, I will make you some requital, by telling you some observations of the Eel; for it rains still: and because, as you say, our angles are as money put to use, that thrives when we play, therefore we'll sit still, and enjoy ourselves a little longer under this honeysuckle hedge. The fourth day-continued Of the Eel, and other Fish that want Scales Chapter XIII Piscator It is agreed by most men, that the Eel is a most dainty fish: the Romans have esteemed her the Helena of their feasts; and some the queen of palate-pleasure. But most men differ about their breeding: some say they breed by generation, as other fish do; and others, that they breed, as some worms do, of mud; as rats and mice, and many other living creatures, are bred in Egypt, by the sun's heat when it shines upon the overflowing of the river Nilus; or out of the putrefaction of the earth, and divers other ways. Those that deny them to breed by generation, as other fish do, ask, If any man ever saw an Eel to have a spawn or melt? And they are answered, That they may be as certain of their breeding as if they had seen spawn; for they say, that they are certain that Eels have all parts fit for generation, like other fish, but so small as not to be easily discerned, by reason of their fatness; but that discerned they may be; and that the He and the She Eel may be distinguished by their fins. And Rondeletius says, he has seen Eels cling together like dew-worms. And others say, that Eels, growing old, breed other Eels out of the corruption of their own age; which, Sir Francis Bacon says, exceeds not ten years. And others say, that as pearls are made of glutinous dewdrops, which are condensed by the sun's heat in those countries, so Eels are bred of a particular dew, falling in the months of May or June on the banks of some particular ponds or rivers, apted by nature for that end; which in a few days are, by the sun's heat, turned into Eels: and some of the Ancients have called the Eels that are thus bred, the offspring of Jove. I have seen, in the beginning of July, in a river not far from Canterbury, some parts of it covered over with young Eels, about the thickness of a straw; and these Eels did lie on the top of that water, as thick as motes are said to be in the sun: and I have heard the like of other rivers, as namely, in Severn, where they are called Yelvers; and in a pond, or mere near unto Staffordshire, where, about a set time in summer, such small Eels abound so much, that many of the poorer sort of people that inhabit near to it, take such Eels out of this mere with sieves or sheets; and make a kind of Eel-cake of them, and eat it like as bread. And Gesner quotes Venerable Bede, to say, that in England there is an island called Ely, by reason of the innumerable number of Eels that breed in it. But that Eels may be bred as some worms, and some kind of bees and wasps are, either of dew, or out of the corruption of the earth, seems to be made probable by the barnacles and young goslings bred by the sun's heat and the rotten planks of an old ship, and hatched of trees; both which are related for truths by Du Bartas and Lobel, and also by our learned Camden, and laborious Gerhard in his Herbal. It is said by Rondeletius, that those Eels that are bred in rivers that relate to or be nearer to the sea, never return to the fresh waters, as the Salmon does always desire to do, when they have once tasted the salt water; and I do the more easily believe this, because I am certain that powdered beef is a most excellent bait to catch an Eel. And though Sir Francis Bacon will allow the Eel's life to be but ten years, yet he, in his History of Life and Death, mentions a Lamprey, belonging to the Roman emperor, to be made tame, and so kept for almost threescore years; and that such useful and pleasant observations were made of this Lamprey, that Crassus the orator, who kept her, lamented her death; and we read in Doctor Hakewill, that Hortensius was seen to weep at the death of a Lamprey that he had kept long, and loved exceedingly. It is granted by all, or most men, that Eels, for about six months, that is to say, the six cold months of the year, stir not up or down, neither in the rivers, nor in the pools in which they usually are, but get into the soft earth or mud; and there many of them together bed themselves, and live without feeding upon anything, as I have told you some swallows have been observed to do in hollow trees, for those six cold months. And this the Eel and Swallow do, as not being able to endure winter weather: for Gesner quotes Albertus to say, that in the year 1125, that year's winter being more cold than usually, Eels did, by nature's instinct, get out of the water into a stack of hay in a meadow upon dry ground; and there bedded themselves: but yet, at last, a frost killed them. And our Camden relates, that, in Lancashire, fishes were digged out of the earth with spades, where no water was near to the place. I shall say little more of the Eel, but that, as it is observed he is impatient of cold, so it hath been observed, that, in warm weather, an Eel has been known to live five days out of the water. And lastly, let me tell you, that some curious searchers into the natures of fish observe, that there be several sorts or kinds of Eels; as the silver Eel, the green or greenish Eel, with which the river of Thames abounds, and those are called Grigs; and a blackish Eel, whose head is more flat and bigger than ordinary Eels; and also an Eel whose fins are reddish, and but seldom taken in this nation, and yet taken sometimes. These several kind of Eels are, say some, diversely bred; as, namely, out of the corruption of the earth; and some by dew, and other ways, as I have said to you: and yet it is affirmed by some for a certain, that the silver Eel is bred by generation, but not by spawning as other fish do; but that her brood come alive from her, being then little live Eels no bigger nor longer than a pin; and I have had too many testimonies of this, to doubt the truth of it myself; and if I thought it needful I might prove it, but I think it is needless. And this Eel, of which I have said so much to you, may be caught with divers kinds of baits: as namely, with powdered beef; with a lob or garden worm; with a minnow; or gut of a hen, chicken, or the guts of any fish, or with almost anything, for he is a greedy fish. But the Eel may be caught, especially, with a little, a very little Lamprey, which some call a Pride, and may, in the hot months, be found many of them in the river Thames, and in many mud-heaps in other rivers; yea, almost as usually as one finds worms in a dunghill. Next note, that the Eel seldom stirs in the day, but then hides himself; and therefore he is usually caught by night, with one of these baits of which I have spoken; and may be then caught by laying hooks, which you are to fasten to the bank, or twigs of a tree; or by throwing a string across the stream, with many hooks at it, and those baited with the aforesaid baits; and a clod, or plummet, or stone, thrown into the river with this line, that so you may in the morning find it near to some fixed place; and then take it up with a drag-hook, or otherwise. But these things are, indeed, too common to be spoken of; and an hour's fishing with any angler will teach you better, both for these and many other common things in the practical part of angling, than a week's discourse. I shall therefore conclude this direction for taking the Eel, by telling you, that in a warm day in summer, I have taken many a good Eel by Snigling, and have been much pleased with that sport. And because you, that are but a young angler, know not what Snigling is I will now teach it to you. You remember I told you that Eels do not usually stir in the daytime; for then they hide themselves under some covert; or under boards or planks about flood-gates, or weirs, or mills; or in holes on the river banks: so that you, observing your time in a warm day, when the water is lowest, may take a strong small hook, tied to a strong line, or to a string about a yard long; and then into one of these holes, or between any boards about a mill, or under any great stone or plank, or any place where you think an Eel may hide or shelter herself, you may, with the help of a short stick, put in your bait, but leisurely, and as far as you may conveniently; and it is scarce to be doubted, but if there be an Eel within the sight of it, the Eel will bite instantly, and as certainly gorge it; and you need not doubt to have him if you pull him not out of the hole too quickly, but pull him out by degrees; for he, lying folded double in his hole, will, with the help of his tail, break all, unless you give him time to be wearied with pulling, and so get him out by degrees, not pulling too hard. And to commute for your patient hearing this long direction, I shall next tell you, how to make this Eel a most excellent dish of meat. First, wash him in water and salt; then pull off his skin below his vent or navel, and not much further: having done that, take out his guts as clean as you can, but wash him not: then give him three or four scotches with a knife; and then put into his belly and those scotches, sweet herbs, an anchovy, and a little nutmeg grated or cut very small, and your herbs and anchovies must also be cut very small; and mixt with good butter and salt: having done this, then pull his skin over him, all but his head, which you are to cut off, to the end you may tie his skin about that part where his head grew, and it must be so tied as to keep all his moisture within his skin: and having done this, tie him with tape or packthread to a spit, and roast him leisurely; and baste him with water and salt till his skin breaks, and then with butter; and having roasted him enough, let what was put into his belly, and what he drips, be his sauce. S. F. When I go to dress an Eel thus, I wish he were as long and as big as that which was caught in Peterborough river, in the year 1667; which was a yard and three quarters long. If you will not believe me, then go and see at one of the coffee-houses in King Street in Westminster. But now let me tell you, that though the Eel, thus drest, be not only excellent good, but more harmless than any other way, yet it is certain that physicians account the Eel dangerous meat; I will advise you therefore, as Solomon says of honey, "Hast thou found it, eat no more than is sufficient, lest thou surfeit, for it is not good to eat much honey". And let me add this, that the uncharitable Italian bids us "give Eels and no wine to our enemies". And I will beg a little more of your attention, to tell you, that Aldrovandus, and divers physicians, commend the Eel very much for medicine, though not for meat. But let me tell you one observation, that the Eel is never out of season; as Trouts, and most other fish, are at set times; at least, most Eels are not. I might here speak of many other fish, whose shape and nature are much like the Eel, and frequent both the sea and fresh rivers; as, namely, the Lamprel, the Lamprey, and the Lamperne: as also of the mighty Conger, taken often in Severn, about Gloucester: and might also tell in what high esteem many of them are for the curiosity of their taste. But these are not so proper to be talked of by me, because they make us anglers no sport; therefore I will let them alone, as the Jews do, to whom they are forbidden by their law. And, scholar, there is also a FLOUNDER, a sea-fish which will wander very far into fresh rivers, and there lose himself and dwell: and thrive to a hand's breadth, and almost twice so long: a fish without scales, and most excellent meat: and a fish that affords much sport to the angler, with any small worm, but especially a little bluish worm, gotten out of marsh-ground, or meadows, which should be well scoured. But this, though it be most excellent meat, yet it wants scales, and is, as I told you, therefore an abomination to the Jews. But, scholar, there is a fish that they in Lancashire boast very much of, called a CHAR; taken there, and I think there only, in a mere called Winander Mere; a mere, says Camden, that is the largest in this nation, being ten miles in length, and some say as smooth in the bottom as if it were paved with polished marble. This fish never exceeds fifteen or sixteen inches in length; and is spotted like a Trout: and has scarce a bone, but on the back. But this, though I do not know whether it make the angler sport, yet I would have you take notice of it, because it is a rarity, and of so high esteem with persons of great note. Nor would I have you ignorant of a rare fish called a GUINIAD; of which I shall tell you what Camden and others speak. The river Dee, which runs by Chester, springs in Merionethshire; and, as it runs toward Chester, it runs through Pemble Mere, which is a large water: and it is observed, that though the river Dee abounds with Salmon, and Pemble mere with the Guiniad, yet there is never any Salmon caught in the mere, nor a Guiniad in the river. And now my next observation shall be of the Barbel. The fourth day-continued Of the Barbel Chapter XIV Piscator, Venator, Milk-woman Piscator. The Barbel is so called, says Gesner, by reason of his barb or wattles at his mouth, which are under his nose or chaps. He is one of those leather-mouthed fishes that I told you of, that does very seldom break his hold if he be once hooked: but he is so strong, that he will often break both rod and line, if he proves to be a big one. But the Barbel, though he be of a fine shape, and looks big, yet he is not accounted the best fish to eat, neither for his wholesomeness nor his taste; but the male is reputed much better than the female, whose spawn is very hurtful, as I will presently declare to you. They flock together like sheep, and are at the worst in April, about which time they spawn; but quickly grow to be in season. He is able to live in the strongest swifts of the water: and, in summer, they love the shallowest and sharpest streams: and love to lurk under weeds, and to feed on gravel, against a rising ground; and will root and dig in the sands with his nose like a hog, and there nests himself: yet sometimes he retires to deep and swift bridges, or flood-gates, or weir; where he will nest himself amongst piles, or in hollow places; and take such hold of moss or weeds, that be the water never so swift, it is not able to force him from the place that he contends for. This is his constant custom in summer, when he and most living creatures sport themselves in the sun: but at the approach of winter, then he forsakes the swift streams and shallow waters, and, by degrees, retires to those parts of the river that are quiet and deeper; in which places, and I think about that time he spawns; and, as I have formerly told you, with the help of the melter, hides his spawn or eggs in holes, which they both dig in the gravel; and then they mutually labour to cover it with the same sand, to prevent it from being devoured by other fish. There be such store of this fish in the river Danube, that Rondeletius says they may, in some places of it, and in some months of the year, be taken, by those who dwell near to the river, with their hands, eight or ten load at a time. He says, they begin to be good in May, and that they cease to be so in August: but it is found to be otherwise in this nation. But thus far we agree with him, that the spawn of a Barbel, if it be not poison, as he says, yet that it is dangerous meat, and especially in the month of May, which is so certain, that Gesner and Gasius declare it had an ill effect upon them, even to the endangering of their lives. The fish is of a fine cast and handsome shape, with small scales, which are placed after a most exact and curious manner, and, as I told you, may be rather said not to be ill, than to be good meat, The Chub and he have, I think, both lost part of their credit by ill cookery; they being reputed the worst, or coarsest, of fresh-water fish. But the Barbel affords an angler choice sport, being a lusty and a cunning fish; so lusty and cunning as to endanger the breaking of the angler's line, by running his head forcibly towards any covert, or hole, or bank, and then striking at the line, to break it off, with his tail; as is observed by Plutarch, in his book De Industria Animalium: and also so cunning, to nibble and suck off your worm close to the hook, and yet avoid the letting the hook come into his mouth. The Barbel is also curious for his baits; that is to say, that they be clean and sweet; that is to say, to have your worms well scoured, and not kept in sour and musty moss, for he is a curious feeder: but at a well-scoured lob-worm he will bite as boldly as at any bait, and specially if, the night or two before you fish for him, you shall bait the places where you intend to fish for him, with big worms cut into pieces. And note, that none did ever over-bait the place, nor fish too early or too late for a Barbel. And the Barbel will bite also at generals, which, not being too much scoured, but green, are a choice bait for him: and so is cheese, which is not to be too hard, but kept a day or two in a wet linen cloth, to make it tough; with this you may also bait the water a day or two before you fish for the Barbel, and be much the likelier to catch store; and if the cheese were laid in clarified honey a short time before, as namely, an hour or two, you were still the likelier to catch fish. Some have directed to cut the cheese into thin pieces, and toast it; and then tie it on the hook with fine silk. And some advise to fish for the Barbel with sheep's tallow and soft cheese, beaten or worked into a paste; and that it is choicely good in August: and I believe it. Rut, doubtless, the lob-worm well scoured, and the gentle not too much scoured, and cheese ordered as I have directed, are baits enough, and I think will serve in any month: though I shall commend any angler that tries conclusions, and is industrious to improve the art. And now my honest scholar, the long shower and my tedious discourse are both ended together: and I shall give you but this observation, that when you fish for a Barbel, your rod and line be both long and of good strength; for, as I told you, you will find him a heavy and a dogged fish to be dealt withal; yet he seldom or never breaks his hold, if he be once strucken. And if you would know more of fishing for the Umber or Barbel, get into favour with Dr. Sheldon, whose skill is above others; and of that, the poor that dwell about him have a comfortable experience. And now let's go and see what interest the Trouts will pay us, for letting our angle-rods lie so long and so quietly in the water for their use. Come, scholar, which will you take up? Venator. Which you think fit, master. Piscator. Why, you shall take up that; for I am certain, by viewing the line, it has a fish at it. Look you, scholar! well done! Come, now take up the other too: well! now you may tell my brother Peter, at night, that you have caught a leash of Trouts this day. And now let's move towards our lodging, and drink a draught of red-cow's milk as we go; and give pretty Maudlin and her honest mother a brace of Trouts for their supper. Venator. Master, I like your motion very well: and I think it is now about milking-time; and yonder they be at it. Piscator. God speed you, good woman! I thank you both for our songs last night: I and my companion have had such fortune a-fishing this day, that we resolve to give you and Maudlin a brace of Trouts for supper; and we will now taste a draught of your red-cow's milk. Milk-woman. Marry, and that you shall with all my heart; and I will be still your debtor when you come this way. If you will but speak the word, I will make you a good syllabub of new verjuice; and then you may sit down in a haycock, and eat it; and Maudlin shall sit by and sing you the good old song of the "Hunting in Chevy Chace," or some other good ballad, for she hath store of them: Maudlin, my honest Maudlin, hath a notable memory, and she thinks nothing too good for you, because you be such honest men. Venator. We thank you; and intend, once in a month to call upon you again, and give you a little warning; and so, good-night Good-night, Maudlin. And now, good master, let's lose no time: but tell me somewhat more of fishing; and if you please, first, something of fishing for a Gudgeon. Piscator. I will, honest scholar. The fourth day-continued Of the Gudgeon, the Ruffe, and the Bleak Chapter XV Piscator The GUDGEON is reputed a fish of excellent taste, and to be very wholesome. He is of a fine shape, of a silver colour, and beautified with black spots both on his body and tail. He breeds two or three times in the year; and always in summer. He is commended for a fish of excellent nourishment. The Germans call him Groundling, by reason of his feeding on the ground; and he there feasts himself, in sharp streams and on the gravel. He and the Barbel both feed so: and do not hunt for flies at any time, as most other fishes do. He is an excellent fish to enter a young angler, being easy to be taken with a small red worm, on or very near to the ground. He is one of those leather-mouthed fish that has his teeth in his throat, and will hardly be lost off from the hook if he be once strucken. They be usually scattered up and down every river in the shallows, in the heat of summer: but in autumn, when the weeds begin to grow sour and rot, and the weather colder, then they gather together, and get into the deeper parts of the water; and are to be fished for there, with your hook always touching the ground, if you fish for him with a float or with a cork. But many will fish for the Gudgeon by hand, with a running line upon the ground, without a cork, as a Trout is fished for: and it is an excellent way, if you have a gentle rod, and as gentle a hand. There is also another fish called a POPE, and by some a RUFFE; a fish that is not known to be in some rivers: he is much like the Perch for his shape, and taken to be better than the Perch, but will not grow to be bigger than a Gudgeon. He is an excellent fish; no fish that swims is of a pleasanter taste. And he is also excellent to enter a young angler, for he is a greedy biter: and they will usually lie, abundance of them together, in one reserved place, where the water is deep and runs quietly; and an easy angler, if he has found where they lie, may catch forty or fifty, or sometimes twice so many, at a standing. You must fish for him with a small red worm; and if you bait the ground with earth, it is excellent. There is also a BLEAK or fresh-water Sprat; a fish that is ever in motion, and therefore called by some the river-swallow; for just as you shall observe the swallow to be, most evenings in summer, ever in motion, making short and quick turns when he flies to catch flies, in the air, by which he lives; so does the Bleak at the top of the water. Ausonius would have called him Bleak from his whitish colour: his back is of a pleasant sad or sea-water-green; his belly, white and shining as the mountain snow. And doubtless, though we have the fortune, which virtue has in poor people, to be neglected, yet the Bleak ought to be much valued, though we want Allamot salt, and the skill that the Italians have, to turn them into anchovies. This fish may be caught with a Pater-noster line; that is, six or eight very small hooks tied along the line, one half a foot above the other: I have seen five caught thus at one time; and the bait has been gentles, than which none is better. Or this fish may be caught with a fine small artificial fly, which is to be of a very sad brown colour, and very small, and the hook answerable. There is no better sport than whipping for Bleaks in a boat, or on a bank, in the swift water, in a summer's evening, with a hazel top about five or six foot long, and a line twice the length of the rod. I have heard Sir Henry Wotton say, that there be many that in Italy will catch swallows so, or especially martins; this bird-angler standing on the top of a steeple to do it, and with the line twice so long as I have spoken of. And let me tell you, scholar, that both Martins and Bleaks be most excellent meat. And let me tell you, that I have known a Heron, that did constantly frequent one place, caught with a hook baited with a big minnow or a small gudgeon. The line and hook must be strong: and tied to some loose staff, so big as she cannot fly away with it: a line not exceeding two yards. The fourth day-continued Is of nothing, or of nothing worth Chapter XVI Piscator, Venator, Peter, Coridon Piscator. My purpose was to give you some directions concerning ROACH and DACE, and some other inferior fish which make the angler excellent sport; for you know there is more pleasure in hunting the hare than in eating her: but I will forbear, at this time, to say any more, because you see yonder come our brother Peter and honest Coridon. But I will promise you, that as you and I fish and walk to-morrow towards London, if I have now forgotten anything that I can then remember, I will not keep it from you. Well met, gentlemen; this is lucky that we meet so just together at this very door, Come, hostess, where are you? is supper ready? Come, first give us a drink; and be as quick as you can, for I believe we are all very hungry. Well, brother Peter and Coridon, to you both! Come, drink: and then tell me what luck of fish: we two have caught but ten bouts, of which my scholar caught three. Look! here's eight; and a brace we gave away. We have had a most pleasant day for fishing and talking, and are returned home both weary and hungry; and now meat and rest will be pleasant. Peter. And Coridon and I have not had an unpleasant day: and yet I have caught but five bouts; for, indeed, we went to a good honest ale-house, and there we played at shovel-board half the day; all the time that it rained we were there, and as merry as they that fished. And I am glad we are now with a dry house over our heads; for, hark! how it rains and blows. Come, hostess, give us more ale, and our supper with what haste you may: and when we have supped, let us have your song, Piscator; and the catch that your scholar promised us; or else, Coridon will be dogged. Piscator. Nay, I will not be worse than my word; you shall not want my song, and I hope I shall be perfect in it. Venator. And I hope the like for my catch, which I have ready too: and therefore let's go merrily to supper, and then have a gentle touch at singing and drinking; but the last with moderation. Coridon. Come, now for your song; for we have fed heartily. Come, hostess, lay a few more sticks on the fire. And now, sing when you will. Piscator. Well then, here s to you, Coridon; and now for my song. O the gallant Fisher's life, It is the best of any; 'Tis full of pleasure, void of strife, And 'tis beloved of many: Other joys Are but toys; Only this Lawful is; For our skill Breeds no ill, But content and pleasure. In a morning up we rise Ere Aurora's peeping, Drink a cup to wash our eyes. Leave the sluggard sleeping; Then we go To and fro, With our knacks At our backs To such streams As the Thames If we have the leisure. When we please to walk abroad For our recreation, In the fields is our abode, Full of delectation: Where in a brook With a hook Or a lake Fish we take: There we sit For a bit, Till we fish entangle. We have gentles in a horn, We have paste and worms too We can watch both night and morn, Suffer rain and storms too; None do here Use to swear; Oaths do fray Fish away; We sit still, And watch our quill Fishers must not wrangle. If the sun's excessive heat Make our bodies swelter, To an osier hedge we get For a friendly shelter Where, in a dike, Perch or Pike Roach or Dace We do chase Bleak or Gudgeon, Without grudging We are still contented. Or we sometimes pass an hour Under a green willow, That defends us from a shower, Making earth our pillow; Where we may Think and pray Before death Stops our breath. Other joys Are but toys, And to be lamented. Jo. Chalkhill. Venator. Well sung, master; this day's fortune and pleasure, and the night's company and song, do all make me more and more in love with angling. Gentlemen, my master left me alone for an hour this day; and I verily believe he retired himself from talking with me that he might be so perfect in this song; was it not, master? Piscator. Yes indeed, for it is many years since I learned it; and having forgotten a part of it, I was forced to patch it up with the help of mine own invention, who am not excellent at poetry, as my part of the song may testify; but of that I will say no more, lest you should think I mean, by discommending it, to beg your commendations of it. And therefore, without replications, let's hear your catch, scholar; which I hope will be a good one, for you are both musical and have a good fancy to boot. Venator. Marry, and that you shall; and as freely as I would have my honest master tell me some more secrets of fish and fishing, as we walk and fish towards London to-morrow. But, master, first let me tell you, that very hour which you were absent from me, I sat down under a willow-tree by the water-side, and considered what you had told me of the owner of that pleasant meadow in which you then left me; that he had a plentiful estate, and not a heart to think so; that he had at this time many law-suits depending; and that they both damped his mirth, and took up so much of his time and thoughts, that he himself had not leisure to take the sweet content that I, who pretended no title to them, took in his fields: for I could there sit quietly; and looking on the water, see some fishes sport themselves in the silver streams, others leaping at flies of several shapes and colours; looking on the hills, I could behold them spotted with woods and groves; looking down the meadows, could see, here a boy gathering lilies and lady-smocks, and there a girl cropping culverkeys and cowslips, all to make garlands suitable to this present month of May: these, and many other field flowers, so perfumed the air, that I thought that very meadow like that field in Sicily of which Diodorus speaks, where the perfumes arising from the place make all dogs that hunt in it to fall off, and to lose their hottest scent I say, as I thus sat, joying in my own happy condition, and pitying this poor rich man that owned this and many other pleasant groves and meadows about me, I did thankfully remember what my Saviour said, that the meek possess the earth; or rather, they enjoy what the others possess, and enjoy not; for anglers and meek quiet-spirited men are free from those high, those restless thoughts, which corrode the sweets of life; and they, and they only, can say, as the poet has happily express it, Hail! blest estate of lowliness; Happy enjoyments of such minds As, rich in self-contentedness, Can, like the reeds, in roughest winds, By yielding make that blow but small At which proud oaks and cedars fall. There came also into my mind at that time certain verses in praise of a mean estate and humble mind: they were written by Phineas Fletcher, an excellent divine, and an excellent angler; and the author of excellent Piscatory Eclogues, in which you shall see the picture of this good man's mind: and I wish mine to be like it. No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright; No begging wants his middle fortune bite: But sweet content exiles both misery and spite. His certain life, that never can deceive him, Is full of thousand sweets and rich content The smooth-leav'd beeches in the field receive him, With coolest shade, till noon-tide's heat be spent. His life is neither tost in boisterous, seas, Or the vexatious world, or lost in slothful ease; Please and full blest he lives when he his God can please. His bed, more safe than soft, yields quiet sleeps, While by his side his faithful spouse teas place His little son into his bosom creeps, The lively picture of his father's face. His humble house or poor state ne'er torment him Less he could like, if less his God had lent him; And when he dies, green turfs do for a tomb content him, Gentlemen, these were a part of the thoughts that then possessed me. And I there made a conversion of a piece of an old catch, and added more to it, fitting them to be sung by us anglers. Come, Master, you can sing well: you must sing a part of it, as it is in this paper. Man's life is but vain, for 'tis subject to pain, And sorrow, and short as a bubble; 'Tis a hodge-podge of business, and money, and care, And care, and money, and trouble. But we'll take no care when the weather proves fair; Nor will we vex now though it rain; We'll banish all sorrow, and sing till to-morrow, And angle, and angle again. Peter. I marry, Sir, this is musick indeed; this has cheer'd my heart, and made me remember six verses in praise of musick, which I will speak to you instantly. Musick! miraculous rhetorick, thou speak'st sense Without a tongue, excelling eloquence; With what ease might thy errors be excus'd, Wert thou as truly lov'd as th' art abus'd! But though dull souls neglect, and some reprove thee, I cannot hate thee, 'cause the Angels love thee. Venator. And the repetition of these last verses of musick has called to my memory what Mr. Edmund Waller, a lover of the angle, says of love and musick. Whilst I listen to thy voice, Chloris! I feel my heart decay That powerful voice Calls my fleeting soul away: Oh! suppress that magic sound, Which destroys without a wound. Peace, Chloris! peace, or singing die, That together you and I To heaven may go; For all we know Of what the blessed do above Is, that they sing, and that they love. Piscator. Well remembered, brother Peter; these verses came seasonably, and we thank you heartily. Come, we will all join together, my host and all, and sing my scholar's catch over again; and then each man drink the tother cup, and to bed; and thank God we have a dry house over our heads. Piscator. Well, now, good-night to everybody. Peter. And so say I. Venator. And so say I. Coridon. Good-night to you all; and I thank you. The FIFTH day. Piscator. Good-morrow, brother Peter, and the like to you, honest Coridon. Come, my hostess says there is seven shillings to pay: let's each man drink a pot for his morning's draught, and lay down his two shillings, so that my hostess may not have occasion to repent herself of being so diligent, and using us so kindly. Peter. The motion is liked by everybody, and so, hostess, here's your money: we anglers are all beholden to you; it will not be long ere I'll see you again; and now, brother Piscator, I wish you, and my brother your scholar, a fair day and good fortune. Come, Coridon, this is our way. The FIFTH day-continued Of Roack and Dace Chapter XVII Venator and Piscator Venator. Good master, as we go now towards London, be still so courteous as to give me more instructions; for I have several boxes in my memory, in which I will keep them all very safe, there shall not one of them be lost. Piscator. Well, scholar, that I will: and I will hide nothing from you that I can remember, and can think may help you forward towards a perfection in this art. And because we have so much time, and I have said so little of Roach and Dace, I will give you some directions concerning them. Some say the Roach is so called from rutilus, which they say signifies red fins. He is a fish of no great reputation for his dainty taste; and his spawn is accounted much better than any other part of him. And you may take notice, that as the Carp is accounted the water-fox, for his cunning; so the Roach is accounted the water-sheep, for his simplicity or foolishness. It is noted, that the Roach and Dace recover strength, and grow in season in a fortnight after spawning; the Barbel and Chub in a month; the Trout in four months; and the Salmon in the like time, if he gets into the sea, and after into fresh water. Roaches be accounted much better in the river than in a pond, though ponds usually breed the biggest. But there is a kind of bastard small Roach, that breeds in ponds, with a very forked tail, and of a very small size; which some say is bred by the Bream and right Roach; and some ponds are stored with these beyond belief; and knowing-men, that know their difference, call them Ruds: they differ from the true Roach, as much as a Herring from a Pilchard. And these bastard breed of Roach are now scattered in many rivers: but I think not in the Thames, which I believe affords the largest and fattest in this nation, especially below London Bridge. The Roach is a leather-mouthed fish, and has a kind of saw-like teeth in his throat. And lastly, let me tell you, the Roach makes an angler excellent sport, especially the great Roaches about London, where I think there be the best Roach-anglers. And I think the best Trout-anglers be in Derbyshire; for the waters there are clear to an extremity. Next, let me tell you, you shall fish for this Roach in Winter, with paste or gentles; in April, with worms or cadis; in the very hot months, with little white snails; or with flies under water, for he seldom takes them at the top, though the Dace will. In many of the hot months, Roaches may also be caught thus: take a May-fly, or ant-fly, sink him with a little lead to the bottom, near to the piles or posts of a bridge, or near to any posts of a weir, I mean any deep place where Roaches lie quietly, and then pull your fly up very leisurely, and usually a Roach will follow your bait up to the very top of the water, and gaze on it there, and run at it, and take it, lest the fly should fly away from him. I have seen this done at Windsor and Henley Bridge, and great store of Roach taken; and sometimes, a Dace or Chub. And in August you may fish for them with a paste made only of the crumbs of bread, which should be of pure fine manchet; and that paste must be so tempered betwixt your hands till it be both soft and tough too: a very little water, and time, and labour, and clean hands, will make it a most excellent paste. But when you fish with it, you must have a small hook, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, or the bait is lost, and the fish too; if one may lose that which he never had. With this paste you may, as I said, take both the Roach and the Dace or Dare; for they be much of a kind, in manner of feeding, cunning, goodness, and usually in size. And therefore take this general direction, for some other baits which may concern you to take notice of: they will bite almost at any fly, but especially at ant-flies; concerning which take this direction, for it is very good. Take the blackish ant-fly out of the mole-hill or ant-hill, in which place you shall find them in the month of June; or if that be too early in the year, then, doubtless, you may find them in July, August, and most of September. Gather them alive, with both their wings: and then put them into a glass that will hold a quart or a pottle; but first put into the glass a handful, or more, of the moist earth out of which you gather them, and as much of the roots of the grass of the said hillock; and then put in the flies gently, that they lose not their wings: lay a clod of earth over it; and then so many as are put into the glass, without bruising, will live there a month or more, and be always in readiness for you to fish with: but if you would have them keep longer, then get any great earthen pot, or barrel of three or four gallons, which is better, then wash your barrel with water and honey; and having put into it a quantity of earth and grass roots, then put in your flies, and cover it, and they will live a quarter of a year. These, in any stream and clear water, are a deadly bait for Roach or Dace, or for a Chub: and your rule is to fish not less than a handful from the bottom. I shall next tell you a winter-bait for a Roach, a Dace, or Chub; and it is choicely good. About All-hallantide, and so till frost comes, when you see men ploughing up heath ground, or sandy ground, or greenswards, then follow the plough, and you shall find a white worm, as big as two maggots, and it hath a red head: you may observe in what ground most are, for there the crows will be very watchful and follow the plough very close: it is all soft, and full of whitish guts; a worm that is, in Norfolk and some other counties, called a grub; and is bred of the spawn or eggs of a beetle, which she leaves in holes that she digs in the ground under cow or horse dung, and there rests all winter, and in March or April comes to be first a red and then a black beetle. Gather a thousand or two of these, and put them, with a peck or two of their own earth, into some tub or firkin, and cover and keep them so warm that the frost or cold air, or winds, kill them not: these you may keep all winter, and kill fish with them at any time; and if you put some of them into a little earth and honey, a day before you use them, you will find them an excellent bait for Bream, Carp, or indeed for almost any fish. And after this manner you may also keep gentles all winter; which are a good bait then, and much the better for being lively and tough. Or you may breed and keep gentles thus: take a piece of beast's liver, and, with a cross stick, hang it in some corner, over a pot or barrel half full of dry clay; and as the gentles grow big, they will fall into the barrel and scour themselves, and be always ready for use whensoever you incline to fish; and these gentles may be thus created till after Michaelmas. But if you desire to keep gentles to fish with all the year, then get a dead cat, or a kite, and let it be flyblown; and when the gentles begin to be alive and to stir, then bury it and them in soft moist earth, but as free from frost as you can; and these you may dig up at any time when you intend to use them: these will last till March, and about that time turn to be flies. But if you be nice to foul your fingers, which good anglers seldom are, then take this bait: get a handful of well-made malt, and put it into a dish of water; and then wash and rub it betwixt your hands till you make it clean, and as free from husks as you can; then put that water from it, and put a small quantity of fresh water to it, and set it in something that is fit for that purpose, over the fire, where it is not to boil apace, but leisurely and very softly, until it become somewhat soft, which you may try by feeling it betwixt your finger and thumb; and when it is soft, then put your water from it: and then take a sharp knife, and turning the sprout end of the corn upward with the point of your knife, take the back part of the husk off from it, and yet leaving a kind of inward husk on the corn, or else it is marr'd and then cut off that sprouted end, I mean a little of it, that the white may appear; and so pull off the husk on the cloven side, as I directed you; and then cutting off a very little of the other end, that so your hook may enter; and if your hook be small and good, you will find this to be a very choice bait, either for winter or summer, you sometimes casting a little of it into the place where your float swims. And to take the Roach and Dace, a good bait is the young brood of wasps or bees, if you dip their heads in blood; especially good for Bream, if they be baked, or hardened in their husks in an oven, after the bread is taken out of it; or hardened on a fire-shovel: and so also is the thick blood of sheep, being half dried on a trencher, that so you may cut into such pieces as may best fit the size of your hook; and a little salt keeps it from growing black, and makes it not the worse, but better: this is taken to be a choice bait, if rightly ordered. There be several oils of a strong smell that I have been told of, and to be excellent to tempt fish to bite, of which I could say much. But I remember I once carried a small bottle from Sir George Hastings to Sir Henry Wotton, they were both chemical men, as a great present: it was sent, and receiv'd, and us'd, with great confidence; and yet, upon inquiry, I found it did not answer the expectation of Sir Henry; which, with the help of this and other circumstances, makes me have little belief in such things as many men talk of. Not but that I think that fishes both smell and hear, as I have express in my former discourse: but there is a mysterious knack, which though it be much easier than the philosopher's stone, yet is not attainable by common capacities, or else lies locked up in the brain or breast of some chemical man, that, like the Rosicrucians, will not yet reveal it. But let me nevertheless tell you, that camphire, put with moss into your worm-bag with your worms, makes them, if many anglers be not very much mistaken, a tempting bait, and the angler more fortunate. But I stepped by chance into this discourse of oils, and fishes smelling; and though there might be more said, both of it and of baits for Roach and Dace and other float-fish, yet I will forbear it at this time, and tell you, in the next place, how you are to prepare your tackling: concerning which, I will, for sport sake, give you an old rhyme out of an old fish book; which will prove a part, and but a part, of what you are to provide. My rod and my line, my float and my lead, My hook and my plummet, my whetstone and knife, My basket, my baits, both living and dead, My net, and my meat, for that is the chief: Then I must have thread, and hairs green and small, With mine angling purse: and so you have all. But you must have all these tackling, and twice so many more, with which, if you mean to be a fisher, you must store yourself; and to that purpose I will go with you, either to Mr. Margrave, who dwells amongst the book-sellers in St. Paul's Church-yard, or to Mr. John Stubs, near to the Swan in Goldinglane: they be both honest men, and will fit an angler with what tackling he lacks. Venator. Then, good master, let it be at--for he is nearest to my dwelling. And I pray let's meet there the ninth of May next, about two of the clock; and I'll want nothing that a fisher should be furnished with. Piscator. Well, and I'll not fail you, God willing, at the time and place appointed. Venator. I thank you, good master, and I will not fail you. And, good master, tell me what BAITS more you remember; for it will not now be long ere we shall be at Tottenham-High-Cross; and when we come thither I will make you some requital of your pains, by repeating as choice a copy of Verses as any we have heard since we met together; and that is a proud word, for we have heard very good ones. Piscator Well, scholar, and I shall be then right glad to hear them. And I will, as we walk, tell you whatsoever comes in my mind, that I think may be worth your hearing. You may make another choice bait thus: take a handful or two of the best and biggest wheat you can get; boil it in a little milk, like as frumity is boiled; boil it so till it be soft; and then fry it, very leisurely, with honey, and a little beaten saffron dissolved in milk; and you will find this a choice bait, and good, I think, for any fish, especially for Roach, Dace, Chub, or Grayling: I know not but that it may be as good for a river Carp, and especially if the ground be a little baited with it. And you may also note, that the SPAWN of most fish is a very tempting bait, being a little hardened on a warm tile and cut into fit pieces. Nay, mulberries, and those black-berries which grow upon briars, be good baits for Chubs or Carps: with these many have been taken in ponds, and in some rivers where such trees have grown near the water, and the fruit customarily drops into it. And there be a hundred other baits, more than can be well named, which, by constant baiting the water, will become a tempting bait for any fish in it. You are also to know, that there be divers kinds of CADIS, or Case-worms, that are to be found in this nation, in several distinct counties, in several little brooks that relate to bigger rivers; as namely, one cadis called a piper, whose husk, or case, is a piece of reed about an inch long, or longer, and as big about as the compass of a two-pence. These worms being kept three or four days in a woollen bag, with sand at the bottom of it, and the bag wet once a day, will in three or four days turn to be yellow; and these be a choice bait for the Chub or Chavender, or indeed for any great fish, for it is a large bait. There is also a lesser cadis-worm, called a Cockspur, being in fashion like the spur of a cock, sharp at one end: and the case, or house, in which this dwells, is made of small husks, and gravel, and slime, most curiously made of these, even so as to be wondered at, but not to be made by man, no more than a king-fisher's nest can, which is made of little fishes' bones, and have such a geometrical interweaving and connection as the like is not to be done by the art of man. This kind of cadis is a choice bait for any float-fish; it is much less than the piper-cadis, and to be so ordered: and these may be so preserved, ten, fifteen, or twenty days, or it may be longer. There is also another cadis, called by some a Straw-worm, and by some a Ruff-coat, whose house, or case, is made of little pieces of bents, and rushes, and straws, and water-weeds, and I know not what; which are so knit together with condensed slime, that they stick about her husk or case, not unlike the bristles of a hedge-hog. These three cadises are commonly taken in the beginning of summer; and are good, indeed, to take any kind of fish, with float or otherwise. I might tell you of many more, which as they do early, so those have their time also of turning to be flies in later summer; but I might lose myself, and tire you, by such a discourse: I shall therefore but remember you, that to know these, and their several kinds, and to what flies every particular cadis turns, and then how to use them, first as they be cadis, and after as they be flies, is an art, and an art that every one that professes to be an angler has not leisure to search after, and, if he had, is not capable of learning. I'll tell you, scholar; several countries have several kinds of cadises, that indeed differ as much as dogs do; that is to say, as much as a very cur and a greyhound do. These be usually bred in the very little rills, or ditches, that run into bigger rivers; and I think a more proper bait for those very rivers than any other. I know not how, or of what, this cadis receives life, or what coloured fly it turns to; but doubtless they are the death of many Trouts: and this is one killing way: Take one, or more if need be, of these large yellow cadis: pull off his head, and with it pull out his black gut; put the body, as little bruised as is possible, on a very little hook, armed on with a red hair, which will shew like the cadis-head; and a very little thin lead, so put upon the shank of the hook that it may sink presently. Throw this bait, thus ordered, which will look very yellow, into any great still hole where a Trout is, and he will presently venture his life for it, it is not to be doubted, if you be not espied; and that the bait first touch the water before the line. And this will do best in the deepest stillest water. Next, let me tell you, I have been much pleased to walk quietly by a brook, with a little stick in my hand, with which I might easily take these, and consider the curiosity of their composure: and if you should ever like to do so, then note, that your stick must be a little hazel, or willow, cleft, or have a nick at one end of it, by which means you may, with ease, take many of them in that nick out of the water, before you have any occasion to use them. These, my honest scholar, are some observations, told to you as they now come suddenly into my memory, of which you may make some use: but for the practical part, it is that that makes an angler: it is diligence, and observation, and practice, and an ambition to be the best in the art, that must do it. I will tell you, scholar, I once heard one say, "I envy not him that eats better meat than I do; nor him that is richer, or that wears better clothes than I do: I envy nobody but him, and him only, that catches more fish than I do". And such a man is like to prove an angler; and this noble emulation I wish to you, and all young anglers. The FIFTH day-continued Of the Minnow, or Penk; Loach, Bull-Head, or Miller's-Thumb: and the Stickle-bag Chapter XVIII Piscator and Venator Piscator. There be also three or four other little fish that I had almost forgot; that are all without scales; and may for excellency of meat, be compared to any fish of greatest value and largest size. They be usually full of eggs or spawn, all the months of summer; for they breed often, as 'tis observed mice and many of the smaller four-footed creatures of the earth do and as those, so these come quickly to their full growth and perfection. And it is needful that they breed both often and numerously; for they be, besides other accidents of ruin, both a prey and baits for other fish. And first I shall tell you of the Minnow or Penk. The MINNOW hath, when he is in perfect season, and not sick, which is only presently after spawning, a kind of dappled or waved colour, like to a panther, on its sides, inclining to a greenish or sky-colour; his belly being milk white; and his back almost black or blackish. He is a sharp biter at a small worm, and in hot weather makes excellent sport for young anglers, or boys, or women that love that recreation. And in the spring they make of them excellent Minnow-tansies; for being washed well in salt, and their heads and tails cut off, and their guts taken out, and not washed after, they prove excellent for that use; that is, being fried with yolk of eggs, the flowers of cowslips and of primroses, and a little tansy; thus used they make a dainty dish of meat. The LOACH is, as I told you, a most dainty fish: he breeds and feeds in little and clear swift brooks or rills, and lives there upon the gravel, and in the sharpest streams: he grows not to be above a finger long, and no thicker than is suitable to that length. The Loach is not unlike the shape of the Eel: he has a beard or wattles like a barbel. He has two fins at his sides, four at his belly, and one at his tail; he is dappled with many black or brown spots; his mouth is barbel-like under his nose. This fish is usually full of eggs or spawn; and is by Gesner, and other learned physicians, commended for great nourishment, and to be very grateful both to the palate and stomach of sick persons. He is to be fished for with a very small worm, at the bottom; for he very seldom, or never, rises above the gravel, on which I told you he usually gets his living. The MILLER'S-THUMB, or BULL-HEAD, is a fish of no pleasing shape. He is by Gesner compared to the Sea-toad-fish, for his similitude and shape. It has a head big and flat, much greater than suitable to his body; a mouth very wide, and usually gaping; he is without teeth, but his lips are very rough, much like to a file. He hath two fins near to his gills, which be roundish or crested; two fins also under the belly; two on the back; one below the vent; and the fin of his tail is round. Nature hath painted the body of this fish with whitish, blackish, brownish spots. They be usually full of eggs or spawn all the summer, I mean the females; and those eggs swell their vents almost into the form of a dug. They begin to spawn about April, and, as I told you, spawn several months in the summer. And in the winter, the Minnow, and Loach, and Bull-head dwell in the mud, as the Eel doth; or we know not where, no more than we know where the cuckoo and swallow, and other half-year birds, which first appear to us in April, spend their six cold, winter, melancholy months. This BULL-HEAD does usually dwell, and hide himself, in holes, or amongst stones in clear water; and in very hot days will lie a long time very still, and sun himself, and will be easy to be seen upon any flat stone, or any gravel; at which time he will suffer an angler to put a hook, baited with a small worm, very near unto his very mouth: and he never refuses to bite, nor indeed to be caught with the worst of anglers. Matthiolus commends him much more for his taste and nourishment, than for his shape or beauty. There is also a little fish called a STICKLEBAG, a fish without scales, but hath his body fenced with several prickles. I know not where he dwells in winter; nor what he is good for in summer, but only to make sport for boys and women-anglers, and to feed other fish that be fish of prey, as Trouts in particular, who will bite at him as at a Penk; and better, if your hook be rightly baited with him, for he may be so baited as, his tail turning like the sail of a wind-mill, will make him turn more quick than any Penk or Minnow can. For note, that the nimble turning of that, or the Minnow is the perfection of Minnow-fishing. To which end, if you put your hook into his mouth, and out at his tail; and then, having first tied him with white thread a little above his tail, and placed him after such a manner on your hook as he is like to turn then sew up his mouth to your line, and he is like to turn quick, and tempt any Trout: but if he does not turn quick, then turn his tail, a little more or less, towards the inner part, or towards the side of the hook; or put the Minnow or Sticklebag a little more crooked or more straight on your hook, until it will turn both true and fast; and then doubt not but to tempt any great Trout that lies in a swift stream. And the Loach that I told you of will do the like: no bait is more tempting, provided the Loach be not too big. And now, scholar, with the help of this fine morning, and your patient attention, I have said all that my present memory will afford me, concerning most of the several fish that are usually fished for in fresh waters. Venator. But, master, you have by your former civility made me hope that you will make good your promise, and say something of the several rivers that be of most note in this nation; and also of fish-ponds, and the ordering of them: and do it I pray, good master; for I love any discourse of rivers, and fish and fishing; the time spent in such discourse passes away very pleasantly. The FIFTH day-continued Of Rivers, and some Observations of Fish Chapter XIX Piscator WELL, scholar, since the ways and weather do both favour us, and that we yet see not Tottenham-Cross, you shall see my willingness to satisfy your desire. And, first, for the rivers of this nation: there be, as you may note out of Dr. Heylin's Geography and others, in number three hundred and twenty-five; but those of chiefest note he reckons and describes as followeth. The chief is THAMISIS, compounded of two rivers, Thame and Isis; whereof the former, rising somewhat beyond Thame in Buckinghamshire, and the latter near Cirencester in Gloucestershire, meet together about Dorchester in Oxfordshire; the issue of which happy conjunction is Thamisis, or Thames; hence it flieth betwixt Berks, Buckinghamshire, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent and Essex: and so weddeth itself to the Kentish Medway, in the very jaws of the ocean. This glorious river feeleth the violence and benefit of the sea more than any river in Europe; ebbing and flowing, twice a day, more than sixty miles; about whose banks are so many fair towns and princely palaces, that a German poet thus truly spake: Tot campos, &c. We saw so many woods and princely bowers, Sweet fields, brave palaces, and stately towers; So many gardens drest with curious care, That Thames with royal Tiber may compare. 2. The second river of note is SABRINA or SEVERN: it hath its beginning in Plinilimmon-hill, in Montgomeryshire; and his end seven miles from Bristol; washing, in the mean space, the walls of Shrewsbury, Worcester, and Gloucester, and divers other places and palaces of note. 3. TRENT, so called from thirty kind of fishes that are found in it, or for that it receiveth thirty lesser rivers; who having his fountain in Staffordshire, and gliding through the counties of Nottingham, Lincoln, Leicester, and York, augmenteth the turbulent current of Humber, the most violent stream of all the isle. This Humber is not, to say truth, a distinct river having a spring-head of his own, but it is rather the mouth or aestuarium of divers rivers here confluent and meeting together, namely, your Derwent, and especially of Ouse and Trent; and, as the Danow, having received into its channel the river Dravus, Savus, Tibiscus, and divers others, changeth his name into this of Humberabus, as the old geographers call it. 4. MEDWAY, a Kentish river, famous for harbouring the royal navy. 5. TWEED, the north-east bound of England; on whose northern banks is seated the strong and impregnable town of Berwick. 6. TYNE, famous for Newcastle, and her inexhaustible coal-pits. These, and the rest of principal note, are thus comprehended in one of Mr. Drayton's Sonnets: Our floods' queen, Thames, for ships and swans is crown'd And stately Severn for her shore is prais'd; The crystal Trent, for fords and fish renown'd; And Avon's fame to Albion's cliffs is rais'd. Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee; York many wonders of her Ouse can tell; The Peak, her Dove, whose banks so fertile be, And Kent will say her Medway doth excel: Cotswold commends her Isis to the Tame: Our northern borders boast of Tweed's fair flood; Our Western parts extol their Willy's fame, And the old Lea brags of the Danish blood. These observations are out of learned Dr. Heylin, and my old deceased friend, Michael Drayton; and because you say you love such discourses as these, of rivers, and fish, and fishing, I love you the better, and love the more to impart them to you. Nevertheless, scholar, if I should begin but to name the several sorts of strange fish that are usually taken in many of those rivers that run into the sea, I might beget wonder in you, or unbelief, or both: and yet I will venture to tell you a real truth concerning one lately dissected by Dr. Wharton, a man of great learning and experience, and of equal freedom to communicate it; one that loves me and my art; one to whom I have been beholden for many of the choicest observations that I have imparted to you. This good man, that dares do anything rather than tell an untruth, did, I say, tell me he had lately dissected one strange fish, and he thus described it to me: "This fish was almost a yard broad, and twice that length; his mouth wide enough to receive, or take into it, the head of a man; his stomach, seven or eight inches broad. He is of a slow motion; and usually lies or lurks close in the mud; and has a moveable string on his head, about a span or near unto a quarter of a yard long; by the moving of which, which is his natural bait, when he lies close and unseen in the mud, he draws other smaller fish so close to him, that he can suck them into his mouth, and so devours and digests them." And, scholar, do not wonder at this; for besides the credit of the relator, you are to note, many of these, and fishes which are of the like and more unusual shapes, are very often taken on the mouths of our sea rivers, and on the sea shore. And this will be no wonder to any that have travelled Egypt; where, 'tis known, the famous river Nilus does not only breed fishes that yet want names, but, by the overflowing of that river, and the help of the sun's heat on the fat slime which the river leaves on the banks when it falls back into its natural channel, such strange fish and beasts are also bred, that no man can give a name to; as Grotius in his Sopham, and others, have observed. But whither am I strayed in this discourse. I will end it by telling you, that at the mouth of some of these rivers of ours, Herrings are so plentiful, as namely, near to Yarmouth in Norfolk, and in the west country Pilchers so very plentiful, as you will wonder to read what our learned Camden relates of them in his Britannia. Well, scholar, I will stop here, and tell you what by reading and conference I have observed concerning fish-ponds. The FIFTH day-continued Of Fish-Ponds Chapter XX Piscator DOCTOR LEBAULT, the learned Frenchman, in his large discourse of Maison Rustique, gives this direction for making of fish-ponds. I shall refer you to him, to read it at large: but I think I shall contract it, and yet make it as useful. He adviseth, that when you have drained the ground, and made the earth firm where the head of the pond must be, that you must then, in that place, drive in two or three rows of oak or elm piles, which should be scorched in the fire, or half-burnt, before they be driven into the earth; for being thus used, it preserves them much longer from rotting. And having done so, lay faggots or bavins of smaller wood betwixt them: and then, earth betwixt and above them: and then, having first very well rammed them and the earth, use another pile in like manner as the first were: and note, that the second pile is to be of or about the height that you intend to make your sluice or floodgate, or the vent that you intend shall convey the overflowings of your pond in any flood that shall endanger the breaking of your pond-dam. Then he advises, that you plant willows or owlers, about it, or both: and then cast in bavins, in some places not far from the side, and in the most sandy places, for fish both to spawn upon, and to defend them and the young fry from the many fish, and also from vermin, that lie at watch to destroy them, especially the spawn of the Carp and Tench, when 'tis left to the mercy of ducks or vermin. He, and Dubravius, and all others advise, that you make choice of such a place for your pond, that it may be refreshed with a little rill, or with rain water, running or falling into it; by which fish are more inclined both to breed, and are also refreshed and fed the better, and do prove to be of a much sweeter and more pleasant taste. To which end it is observed, that such pools as be large and have most gravel, and shallows where fish may sport themselves, do afford fish of the purest taste. And note, that in all pools it is best for fish to have some retiring place; as namely, hollow banks, or shelves, or roots of trees, to keep them from danger, and, when they think fit, from the extreme heat of summer; as also from the extremity of cold in winter. And note, that if many trees be growing about your pond, the leaves thereof falling into the water, make it nauseous to the fish, and the fish to be so to the eater of it. 'Tis noted, that the Tench and Eel love mud; and the Carp loves gravelly ground, and in the hot months to feed on grass. You are to cleanse your pond, if you intend either profit or pleasure, once every three or four years, especially some ponds, and then let it dry six or twelve months, both to kill the water-weeds, as water-lilies, candocks, reate, and bulrushes, that breed there; and also that as these die for want of water, so grass may grow in the pond's bottom, which Carps will eat greedily in all the hot months, if the pond be clean. The letting your pond dry and sowing oats in the bottom is also good, for the fish feed the faster; and being sometimes let dry, you may observe what kind of fish either increases or thrives best in that water; for they differ much, both in their breeding and feeding. Lebault also advises, that if your ponds be not very large and roomy, that you often feed your fish, by throwing into them chippings of bread, curds, grains, or the entrails of chickens or of any fowl or beast that you kill to feed yourselves; for these afford fish a great relief. He says, that frogs and ducks do much harm, and devour both the spawn and the young fry of all fish, especially of the Carp; and I have, besides experience, many testimonies of it. But Lebault allows water-frogs to be good meat, especially in some months, if they be fat: but you are to note, that he is a Frenchman; and we English will hardly believe him, though we know frogs are usually eaten in his country: however he advises to destroy them and king-fishers out of your ponds. And he advises not to suffer much shooting at wild fowl; for that, he says, affrightens, and harms, and destroys the fish. Note, that Carps and Tench thrive and breed best when no other fish is put with them into the same pond; for all other fish devour their spawn, or at least the greatest part of it. And note, that clods of grass thrown into any pond feed any Carps in summer; and that garden-earth and parsley thrown into a pond recovers and refreshes the sick fish. And note, that when you store your pond, you are to put into it two or three melters for one spawner, if you put them into a breeding-pond; but if into a nurse-pond, or feeding-pond, in which they will not breed, then no care is to be taken whether there be most male or female Carps. It is observed that the best ponds to breed Carps are those that be stony or sandy, and are warm, and free from wind; and that are not deep, but have willow-trees and grass on their sides, over which the water does sometimes flow: and note, that Carps do more usually breed in marle-pits, or pits that have clean clay bottoms; or in new ponds, or ponds that lie dry a winter season, than in old ponds that be full of mud and weeds. Well, Scholar, I have told you the substance of all that either observation or discourse, or a diligent survey of Dubravius and Lebault hath told me: not that they, in their long discourses, have not said more; but the most of the rest are so common observations, as if a man should tell a good arithmetician that twice two is four. I will therefore put an end to this discourse; and we will here sit down and rest us. The FIFTH day-continued Chapter XXI Piscator and Venator Piscator. Well, Scholar, I have held you too long about these cadis, and smaller fish, and rivers, and fish-ponds; and my spirits are almost spent, and so I doubt is your patience; but being we are now almost at Tottenham where I first met you, and where we are to part, I will lose no time, but give you a little direction how to make and order your lines, and to colour the hair of which you make your lines, for that is very needful to be known of an angler; and also how to paint your rod, especially your top; for a right-grown top is a choice commodity, and should be preserved from the water soaking into it, which makes it in wet weather to be heavy and fish ill-favouredly, and not true; and also it rots quickly for want of painting: and I think a good top is worth preserving, or I had not taken care to keep a top above twenty years. But first for your Line. First note, that you are to take care that your hair be round and clear, and free from galls, or scabs, or frets: for a well-chosen, even, clear, round hair, of a kind of glass-colour, will prove as strong as three uneven scabby hairs that are ill-chosen, and full of galls or unevenness. You shall seldom find a black hair but it is round, but many white are flat and uneven; therefore, if you get a lock of right, round, clear, glass-colour hair, make much of it. And for making your line, observe this rule: first, let your hair be clean washed ere you go about to twist it; and then choose not only the clearest hair for it, but hairs that be of an equal bigness, for such do usually stretch all together, and break all together, which hairs of an unequal bigness never do, but break singly, and so deceive the angler that trusts to them. When you have twisted your links, lay them in water for a quarter of an hour at least, and then twist them over again before you tie them into a line: for those that do not so shall usually find their line to have a hair or two shrink, and be shorter than the rest, at the first fishing with it, which is so much of the strength of the line lost for want of first watering it, and then re-twisting it; and this is most visible in a seven-hair line, one of those which hath always a black hair in the middle. And for dyeing of your hairs, do it thus: take a pint of strong ale, half a pound of soot, and a little quantity of the juice of walnut-tree leaves, and an equal quantity of alum: put these together into a pot, pan, or pipkin, and boil them half an hour; and having so done, let it cool; and being cold, put your hair into it, and there let it lie; it will turn your hair to be a kind of water or glass colour, or greenish; and the longer you let it lie, the deeper coloured it will be. You might be taught to make many other colours, but it is to little purpose; for doubtless the water-colour or glass-coloured hair is the most choice and most useful for an angler, but let it not be too green. But if you desire to colour hair greener, then do it thus: take a quart of small ale, half a pound of alum; then put these into a pan or pipkin, and your hair into it with them; then put it upon a fire, and let it boil softly for half an hour; and then take out your hair, and let it dry; and having so done, then take a pottle of water, and put into it two handfuls of marigolds, and cover it with a tile or what you think fit, and set it again on the fire, where it is to boil again softly for half an hour, about which time the scum will turn yellow; then put into it half a pound of copperas, beaten small, and with it the hair that you intend to colour; then let the hair be boiled softly till half the liquor be wasted, and then let it cool three or four hours, with your hair in it; and you are to observe that the more copperas you put into it, the greener it will be; but doubtless the pale green is best. But if you desire yellow hair, which is only good when the weeds rot, then put in more marigolds; and abate most of the copperas, or leave it quite out, and take a little verdigris instead of it. This for colouring your hair. And as for painting your Rod, which must be in oil, you must first make a size with glue and water, boiled together until the glue be dissolved, and the size of a lye-colour: then strike your size upon the wood with a bristle, or a brush or pencil, whilst it is hot: that being quite dry, take white-lead, and a little red-lead, and a little coal-black, so much as altogether will make an ash-colour: grind these altogether with linseed-oil; let it be thick, and lay it thin upon the wood with a brush or pencil: this do for the ground of any colour to lie upon wood. For a green, take pink and verdigris, and grind them together in linseed oil, as thin as you can well grind it: then lay it smoothly on with your brush, and drive it thin; once doing, for the most part, will serve, if you lay it well; and if twice, be sure your first colour be thoroughly dry before you lay on a second. Well, Scholar, having now taught you to paint your rod, and we having still a mile to Tottenham High-Cross, I will, as we walk towards it in the cool shade of this sweet honeysuckle hedge, mention to you some of the thoughts and joys that have possessed my soul since we two met together. And these thoughts shall be told you, that you also may join with me in thankfulness to the Giver of every good and perfect gift, for our happiness. And that our present happiness may appear to be the greater, and we the more thankful for it, I will beg you to consider with me how many do, even at this very time, lie under the torment of the stone, the gout, and tooth-ache; and this we are free from. And every misery that I miss is a new mercy; and therefore let us be thankful. There have been, since we met, others that have met disasters or broken limbs; some have been blasted, others thunder-strucken: and we have been freed from these, and all those many other miseries that threaten human nature; let us therefore rejoice and be thankful. Nay, which is a far greater mercy, we are free from the insupportable burthen of an accusing tormenting conscience; a misery that none can bear: and therefore let us praise Him for His preventing grace, and say, Every misery that I miss is a new mercy. Nay, let me tell you, there be many that have forty times our estates, that would give the greatest part of it to be healthful and cheerful like us, who, with the expense of a little money, have eat and drunk, and laughed, and angled, and sung, and slept securely; and rose next day and cast away care, and sung, and laughed, and angled again; which are blessings rich men cannot purchase with all their money. Let me tell you, Scholar, I have a rich neighbour that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, and more money, that he may still get more and more money; he is still drudging on, and says, that Solomon says "The diligent hand maketh rich"; and it is true indeed: but he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy; for it was wisely said, by a man of great observation, "that there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them ". And yet God deliver us from pinching poverty; and grant, that having a competency, we may be content and thankful. Let not us repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound with riches; when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly. We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness: few consider him to be like the silk-worm, that, when she seems to play, is, at the very same time, spinning her own bowels, and consuming herself; and this many rich men do, loading themselves with corroding cares, to keep what they have, probably, unconscionably got. Let us, therefore, be thankful for health and a competence; and above all, for a quiet conscience. Let me tell you, Scholar, that Diogenes walked on a day, with his friend, to see a country fair; where he saw ribbons, and looking-glasses, and nutcrackers, and fiddles, and hobby-horses, and many other gimcracks; and, having observed them, and all the other finnimbruns that make a complete country-fair, he said to his friend, "Lord, how many things are there in this world of which Diogenes hath no need!" And truly it is so, or might be so, with very many who vex and toil themselves to get what they have no need of. Can any man charge God, that He hath not given him enough to make his life happy? No, doubtless; for nature is content with a little. And yet you shall hardly meet with a man that complains not of some want; though he, indeed, wants nothing but his will; it may be, nothing but his will of his poor neighbour, for not worshipping, or not flattering him: and thus, when we might be happy and quiet, we create trouble to ourselves. I have heard of a man that was angry with himself because he was no taller; and of a woman that broke her looking-glass because it would not shew her face to be as young and handsome as her next neighbour's was. And I knew another to whom God had given health and plenty; but a wife that nature had made peevish, and her husband's riches had made purse-proud; and must, because she was rich, and for no other virtue, sit in the highest pew in the church; which being denied her, she engaged her husband into a contention for it, and at last into a law-suit with a dogged neighbour who was as rich as he, and had a wife as peevish and purse-proud as the other: and this law-suit begot higher oppositions, and actionable words, and more vexations and lawsuits; for you must remember that both were rich, and must therefore have their wills. Well! this wilful, purse-proud law-suit lasted during the life of the first husband; after which his wife vext and chid, and chid and vext, till she also chid and vext herself into her grave: and so the wealth of these poor rich people was curst into a punishment, because they wanted meek and thankful hearts; for those only can make us happy. I knew a man that had health and riches; and several houses, all beautiful, and ready furnished; and would often trouble himself and family to be removing from one house to another: and being asked by a friend why he removed so often from one house to another, replied, "It was to find content in some one of them". But his friend, knowing his temper, told him, "If he would find content in any of his houses, he must leave himself behind him; for content will never dwell but in a meek and quiet soul". And this may appear, if we read and consider what our Saviour says in St. Matthew's Gospel; for He there says�"Blessed be the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed be the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed be the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And, "Blessed be the meek, for they shall possess the earth." Not that the meek shall not also obtain mercy, and see God, and be comforted, and at last come to the kingdom of heaven: but in the meantime, he, and he only, possesses the earth, as he goes towards that kingdom of heaven, by being humble and cheerful, and content with what his good God had allotted him. He has no turbulent, repining, vexatious thoughts that he deserves better; nor is vext when he see others possess of more honour or more riches than his wise God has allotted for his share: but he possesses what he has with a meek and contented quietness, such a quietness as makes his very dreams pleasing, both to God and himself. My honest Scholar, all this is told to incline you to thankfulness; and to incline you the more, let me tell you, and though the prophet David was guilty of murder and adultery, and many other of the most deadly sins, yet he was said to be a man after God's own heart, because he abounded more with thankfulness that any other that is mentioned in holy scripture, as may appear in his book of Psalms; where there is such a commixture, of his confessing of his sins and unworthiness, and such thankfulness for God's pardon and mercies, as did make him to be accounted, even by God himself, to be a man after his own heart: and let us, in that, labour to be as like him as we can; let not the blessings we receive daily from God make us not to value, or not praise Him, because they be common; let us not forget to praise Him for the innocent mirth and pleasure we have met with since we met together. What would a blind man give to see the pleasant rivers, and meadows, and flowers, and fountains, that we have met with since we met together? I have been told, that if a man that was born blind could obtain to have his sight for but only one hour during his whole life, and should, at the first opening of his eyes, fix his sight upon the sun when it was in its full glory, either at the rising or setting of it, he would be so transported and amazed, and so admire the glory of it, that he would not willingly turn his eyes from that first ravishing object, to behold all the other various beauties this world could present to him. And this, and many other like blessings, we enjoy daily. And for the most of them, because they be so common, most men forget to pay their praises: but let not us; because it is a sacrifice so pleasing to Him that made that sun and us, and still protects us, and gives us flowers, and showers, and stomachs, and meat, and content, and leisure to go a-fishing. Well, Scholar, I have almost tired myself, and, I fear, more than almost tired you. But I now see Tottenham High-Cross; and our short walk thither shall put a period to my too long discourse; in which my meaning was, and is, to plant that in your mind with which I labour to possess my own soul; that is, a meek and thankful heart. And to that end I have shewed you, that riches without them, do not make any man happy. But let me tell you, that riches with them remove many fears and cares. And therefore my advice is, that you endeavour to be honestly rich, or contentedly poor: but be sure that your riches be justly got, or you spoil all. For it is well said by Caussin, "He that loses his conscience has nothing left that is worth keeping". Therefore be sure you look to that. And, in the next place, look to your health: and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy; and therefore value it, and be thankful for it. As for money, which may be said to be the third blessing, neglect it not: but note, that there is no necessity of being rich; for I told you, there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side them: and if you have a competence, enjoy it with a meek, cheerful, thankful heart. I will tell you, Scholar, I have heard a grave Divine say, that God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart; which Almighty God grant to me, and to my honest Scholar. And so you are welcome to Tottenham High-Cross. Venator. Well, Master, I thank you for all your good directions; but for none more than this last, of thankfulness, which I hope I shall never forget. And pray let's now rest ourselves in this sweet shady arbour, which nature herself has woven with her own fine fingers; 'tis such a contexture of woodbines, sweetbriar, jasmine, and myrtle; and so interwoven, as will secure us both from the sun's violent heat, and from the approaching shower. And being set down, I will requite a part of your courtesies with a bottle of sack, milk, oranges, and sugar, which, all put together, make a drink like nectar; indeed, too good for any but us Anglers, And so, Master, here is a full glass to you of that liquor: and when you have pledged me, I will repeat the Verses which I promised you: it is a Copy printed among some of Sir Henry Wotton's, and doubtless made either by him, or by a lover of angling. Come, Master, now drink a glass to me, and then I will pledge you, and fall to my repetition; it is a description of such country recreations as I have enjoyed since I had the happiness to fall into your company. Quivering fears, heart-tearing cares, Anxious sighs, untimely tears, Fly, fly to courts, Fly to fond worldlings' sports, Where strain'd sardonic smiles are glosing still, And Grief is forc'd to laugh against her will: Where mirth's but mummery, And sorrows only real be. Fly from our country pastimes, fly, Sad troops of human misery. Come, serene looks, Clear as the crystal brooks, Or the pure azur'd heaven that smiles to see The rich attendance of our poverty: Peace and a secure mind, Which all men seek, we only find. Abused mortals I did you know Where joy, heart's-ease, and comforts grow, You'd scorn proud towers, And seek them in these bowers; Where winds, sometimes, our woods perhaps may shake, But blust'ring care could never tempest make, Nor murmurs e'er come nigh us, Saving of fountains that glide by us. Here's no fantastick mask, nor dance, But of our kids that frisk and prance; Nor wars are seen Unless upon the green Two harmless lambs are butting one the other, Which done, both bleating run, each to his mother And wounds are never found, Save what the plough-share gives the ground. Here are no false entrapping baits, To hasten too, too hasty Fates, Unless it be The fond credulity Of silly fish, which worldling like, still look Upon the bait, but never on the hook; Nor envy, unless among The birds, for prize of their sweet song. Go, let the diving negro seek For gems, hid in some forlorn creek: We all pearls scorn, Save what the dewy morn Congeals upon each little spire of grass, Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass: And gold ne'er here appears, Save what the yellow Ceres bears, Blest silent groves, oh may ye be, For ever, mirth's best nursery! May pure contents For ever pitch their tents Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains. And peace still slumber by these purling fountains: Which we may, every year, Meet when we come a-fishing here. Piscator. Trust me, Scholar, I thank you heartily for these Verses: they be choicely good, and doubtless made by a lover of angling. Come, now, drink a glass to me, and I will requite you with another very good copy: it is a farewell to the vanities of the world, and some say written by Sir Harry Wotton, who I told you was an excellent angler. But let them be writ by whom they will, he that writ them had a brave soul, and must needs be possess with happy thoughts at the time of their composure. Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles; Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles; Fame's but a hollow echo, Gold, pure clay; Honour the darling but of one short day; Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin; State, but a golden prison, to live in And torture free-born minds; embroider'd Trains, Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins; And Blood allied to greatness is alone Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own. Fame, Honour, Beauty, State, Train, Blood and Birth, Are but the fading blossoms of the earth. I would be great, but that the sun doth still Level his rays against the rising hill: I would be high, but see the proudest oak Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke: I would be rich, but see men, too unkind Dig in the bowels of the richest mind: I would be wise, but that I often see The fox suspected, whilst the ass goes free: I would be fair, but see the fair and proud, Like the bright sun, oft setting in a cloud: I would be poor, but know the humble grass Still trampled on by each unworthy ass: Rich, hated wise, suspected, scorn'd if poor; Great, fear'd, fair, tempted, high, still envy'd more. I have wish'd all, but now I wish for neither. Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair: poor I'll be rather. Would the World now adopt me for her heir; Would beauty's Queen entitle me the fair; Fame speak me fortune's minion, could I "vie Angels" with India with a speaking eye Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike justice dumb, As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue To stones by epitaphs, be call'd "great master" In the loose rhymes of every poetaster? Could I be more than any man that lives, Great, fair, rich wise, all in superlatives; Yet I more freely would these gifts resign Than ever fortune would have made them mine. And hold one minute of this holy leisure Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure. Welcome, pure thoughts; welcome, ye silent groves; These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves. Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring: A pray'r-book, now, shall be my looking-glass, In which I will adore sweet virtue's face. Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares, No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-fac'd fears; Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly, And learn t' affect an holy melancholy: And if contentment be a stranger then, I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven, again. Venator. Well, Master, these verses be worthy to keep a room in every man's memory. I thank you for them; and I thank you for your many instructions, which, God willing, I will not forget. And as St. Austin, in his Confessions, commemorates the kindness of his friend Verecundus, for lending him and his companion a country house, because there they rested and enjoyed themselves, free from the troubles of the world, so, having had the like advantage, both by your conversation and the art you have taught me, I ought ever to do the like; for, indeed, your company and discourse have been so useful and pleasant, that, I may truly say, I have only lived since I enjoyed them and turned angler, and not before. Nevertheless, here I must part with you; here in this now sad place, where I was so happy as first to meet you: but I shall long for the ninth of May; for then I hope again to enjoy your beloved company, at the appointed time and place. And now I wish for some somniferous potion, that might force me to sleep away the intermitted time, which will pass away with me as tediously as it does with men in sorrow; nevertheless I will make it as short as I can, by my hopes and wishes: and, my good Master, I will not forget the doctrine which you told me Socrates taught his scholars, that they should not think to be honoured so much for being philosophers, as to honour philosophy by their virtuous lives. You advised me to the like concerning Angling, and I will endeavour to do so; and to live like those many worthy men, of which you made mention in the former part of your discourse. This is my firm resolution. And as a pious man advised his friend, that, to beget mortification, he should frequent churches, and view monuments, and charnel-houses, and then and there consider how many dead bodies time had piled up at the gates of death, so when I would beget content, and increase confidence in the power, and wisdom, and providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadows, by some gliding stream, and there contemplate the lilies that take no care, and those very many other various little living creatures that are not only created, but fed, man knows not how, by the goodness of the God of Nature, and therefore trust in him. This is my purpose; and so, let everything that hath breath praise the Lord: and let the blessing of St. Peter's Master be with mine. Piscator. And upon all that are lovers of virtue; and dare trust in his providence; and be quiet; and go a-Angling. "Study to be quiet." 
48195	----	The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A REPORT UPON THE MOLLUSK FISHERIES OF MASSACHUSETTS. [Illustration] BOSTON: WRIGHT & POTTER PRINTING CO., STATE PRINTERS, 18 POST OFFICE SQUARE. 1909. APPROVED BY THE STATE BOARD OF PUBLICATION. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. COMMISSIONERS ON FISHERIES AND GAME, STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, Jan. 15, 1909. _To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives._ We herewith transmit a special report upon the mollusk fisheries of Massachusetts, as ordered by chapter 49, Resolves of 1905, relative to scallops; chapter 73, Resolves of 1905, relative to oysters; chapter 78, Resolves of 1905, relative to quahaugs; and chapter 93, Resolves of 1905, relative to clams. Respectfully submitted, G. W. FIELD, _Chairman_. REPORT ON THE MOLLUSK FISHERIES OF MASSACHUSETTS. INTRODUCTION. The general plan of the work was outlined by the chairman of the Commission on Fisheries and Game, who has given attention to such details as checking up scientific data, editing, revising, and confirming results, reports, etc. The work has been under the direct charge and personal supervision of the biologist to the commission, Mr. D. L. Belding. The able services of Prof. J. L. Kellogg of Williams College were early enlisted, and many valuable results which we are able to offer are the direct outcome of the practical application of the minute details discovered by Professor Kellogg in his careful study and original investigations of the anatomy and life histories of the lamellibranch mollusks. Of the other workers who, under the direction of Mr. Belding, have contributed directly, special mention should be made of Mr. J. R. Stevenson of Williams College, W. G. Vinal of Harvard University, F. C. Lane of Boston University, A. A. Perkins of Ipswich and C. L. Savery of Marion. Those who have for a briefer time been identified with the work are R. L. Buffum, W. H. Gates and K. B. Coulter of Williams College, and Anson Handy of Harvard University. In addition to the results here given, much valuable knowledge has been acquired, particularly upon the life histories of the scallop and of the quahaug, and the practical application of this knowledge to the pursuit of sea farming. It is hoped that the commission will later be enabled to publish these results. The present report is limited to a statement of the condition of the shellfish in each section of our coast, and to consideration of practical methods for securing increased opportunities for food and livelihood by better utilization of naturally productive lands under water. Since the chief purpose of legislative action under which this work was undertaken was to ascertain how the best economic results could be secured, we have thought it wise to embody the results of our investigation in a plan which is suggested as a basis for appropriate legislation for making possible a suitable system of shellfish cultivation similar to that which already exists in Rhode Island, Connecticut and many other coast States, and which has been carried on for more than two thousand years on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The following tentative outlines are offered, and it is intended to subject each topic to an unprejudiced examination and discussion:-- A PROPOSED SYSTEM OF CULTURE FOR THE TIDAL FLATS AND WATERS OF MASSACHUSETTS. _The Purpose._--The proposed system of shellfish culture aims to develop the latent wealth of the tidal waters, to increase the output of tidal flats already productive, and to make possible the reclamation of large portions of the waste shore areas of our Commonwealth. It is further designed to foster dependent and allied industries; to extend the shellfish market, both wholesale and retail; to multiply opportunities for the transient visitors and shore cottagers to fish for clams and quahaugs for family use, and to ensure fishermen a reliable source of bait supply; to increase the earnings of the shore fishermen, and to furnish work to thousands of unemployed; to increase the value of shore property; to add to the taxable property of the shore towns and cities of the State; to secure to all the citizens of the State a proper return from an unutilized State asset; to furnish the consuming public with a greater quantity of sea food of guaranteed purity; and in every way, both in the utilization of present and in the creation of new resources to build up and develop the fast-declining shellfish industries of the Commonwealth. _Private v. Public Ownership of Tidal Flats._--The first difficulty confronting this proposed system is the too frequently accepted fallacy that all lands between the tide marks now are and should be held in common by the inhabitants of the shore communities, to the exclusion of citizens from other sections of the State,--an assumption which is directly contrary to the more ancient law, supported by decisions of the highest courts, that the right of taking shellfish is a public right, freely open to any inhabitant of the State. Such unwarranted assumption of exclusive rights in the shellfisheries by individuals, corporations or towns sacrifices the rights of the majority. The disastrous effect of this policy is plainly demonstrated in the history of the rise and decline of the shellfisheries of Massachusetts. Secondly, this fallacious assumption is contrary to the fundamental principles of all economic doctrines. It may be safely affirmed that the individual ownership of property has proved not only a success but even is a necessary condition of progress, and has in fact at length become the foundation of all society. It inevitably follows that if the system is justifiable in the case of farm lands it is equally justifiable in the case of the tidal flats, for the same principle is involved in each. It is therefore fair to assume that if private ownership of farm land has proved to be for the best interests of human progress, so private ownership of the tidal flats will also be a benefit to the public. It is not our purpose to discuss the underlying principle involved in private ownership of property,--it is simply our purpose to call attention to two facts: (1) if individual control of real estate is just, private ownership of tidal flats and waters is likewise just; (2) that individual control of such areas is the only practical system yet devised capable of checking the alarming decline in the shellfisheries and of developing them to a normal state of productiveness, and rendering unnecessary an annually increasing mass of restrictive legislation. _The Present System._--The present system of controlling the shellfisheries is based on the communal ownership of the tidal flats. Ownership by the Commonwealth has degenerated into a system of town control, whereby every coast community has entire jurisdiction over its shellfisheries, to the practical exclusion of citizens of all other towns. Thus at the present time the mollusk fisheries of Massachusetts are divided into a number of separate and disorganized units, which are incapable of working together for the best interests of the towns or of the public. This communistic system is distinctly unsound, and is in direct opposition to the principles of social and economic development. The man who advocates keeping farm lands untilled and in common, for the sake of the few wild blackberries they might produce, would be considered mentally unbalanced; but it is precisely this system which holds sway over our relatively richer sea gardens. With no thought of seed time, but only of harvest, the fertile tidal flats are yearly divested of their fast-decreasing output by reckless and ruthless exploitation, and valuable territories when once exhausted are allowed to become barren. All hopes for the morrow are sacrificed to the clamorous demands of the present. The more the supply decreases, the more insistent becomes the demand; and the greater the demand, the more relentless grows the campaign of spoliation. The entire shore front of the Commonwealth is scoured and combed by irresponsible aliens and by exemplars of the "submerged tenth" who are now but despoilers, but who if opportunity were present might become cultivators of the flats rather than devastators. The thoughtful fisherman, who would control the industry in a measure, is under present conditions overruled by his selfish or short-sighted fellow workers, and is of necessity forced to join their ranks by the clinching argument that if the shellfisheries are to be ruined anyway, he might as well have his share as long as they last. The theory of public ownership of shellfisheries has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. The necessity for some radical change in the present system is becoming more and more apparent, and a system of private control, with certain modifications, is the logical result. _Need of Reform._--The shellfish supply of Massachusetts is steadily declining. So extensive is this decline that it is unnecessary to mention the abundant proofs of almost complete exhaustion in certain localities and of failing output in others. While the apparent cause of this decrease is overfishing and unsystematic digging, the real cause can be readily traced to the present defective system of town control, which has made possible, through inefficiency and neglect, the deplorable condition of this important industry. Unless the decline is at once checked, within a very few years our valuable shellfisheries will be exhausted to the point of commercial extinction. The legislation of former years, essentially restrictive and prohibitory in character, has unfortunately been constructed on a false economic basis. Its aim has been to protect these industries by restricting the demand rather than by increasing the supply. What the future requires is not merely protective or restrictive legislation, but rather constructive laws for developing the shellfisheries. The system of shellfish culture here presented appears to be the only practical method for improving the condition of these industries in such a way as to protect all vested interests of both private and public rights, and at the same time to make possible adequate utilization of the natural productive capacity. In brief, the proposed system of shellfish culture is based upon a system of leases to individuals. These leases should be divided into two classes: (1) those covering the territory between the tide lines, and consisting of small areas, from 1 to 2 acres; (2) the territory below low-water mark, comprised of two classes of grants, which differ only in size and distance from the shore,--the smaller (_a_), from 1 to 5 acres, to include the shore waters, small bays and inlets, and the larger (_b_), of unrestricted size, to be given in the deeper and more exposed waters. The owners of all grants shall be permitted to plant and grow all species of shellfish, and shall have exclusive control of the fisheries area covered by such lease. The large and more exposed grants, which cannot be economically worked without considerable capital, should be available for companies; while the smaller holdings, for which but small capital is required, are restricted to the use of the individual shore fishermen. For the tidal flats and shore waters but one-half of the whole territory in any one township shall be leased, the other half still remaining public property. _Success of this System._--The system of private control by leased grants is by no means a new and untried theory. In actual operation for many years in this and other States, in spite of lack of protection and other drawbacks which would be eliminated from a perfected system, it has proved an unqualified success. The rapid depletion and even extermination of the native oyster beds necessitated legislative consideration, and for years the oyster industry above and below low-water mark in this and other States has been dealt with by a similar system. The plan here suggested would be but a direct extension of a well-tested principle towards the cultivation of other species of mollusks. The financial value to the fishermen of such a step has been proved beyond all question in this State during the past three years by the demonstrations of the Massachusetts department of fisheries and game. These experiments have proved that tidal flats, with small outlay of capital and labor, will yield, acre for acre, a far more valuable harvest than any upland garden. This system has the further element of success by being based on individual effort, in contrast to the present communal regulation of shellfisheries. In all business individual initiative and effort furnish the keynote of success, and the future wellfare of the shellfisheries depends upon the application of this principle. Nature cannot without the aid and co-operation of man repair the ill-advised, untimely and exhaustive inroads made in her resources. This is shown in the thousands of acres of good farm lands made unproductive by unwise treatment, and by the wasteful destruction of our forests. It is as strikingly shown in the decline of our shellfisheries. The fisherman exhausts the wealth of the flats by destroying both young and adults, and returns nothing. The result is decrease and ultimate extermination. The farmer prepares his land carefully and intelligently, plants his seed and in due time reaps a harvest. If the fisherman could have similar rights over the tidal areas, he could with far less labor and capital and with far greater certainty year by year reap a continuous harvest at all seasons. The success of the leasing system in other States, notably Louisiana, Rhode Island and others, is definite and conspicuous. _The Obstacles to this Proposed System._--Before the proposed system of titles to shellfish ground can be put in actual operation, it is absolutely necessary to have all rights and special privileges pertaining to shore areas revested in State control by repeal of certain laws. In this centralization of authority four main factors must be carefully considered: (1) communal rights to fisheries in tidal areas, as in the colonial beach law of 1641-47; (2) the theory, practice and results of town supervision and control; (3) the rights of riparian owners; (4) the rights of the fishermen and of all other inhabitants of the State. So important are all four that it is necessary to discuss each in turn. (1) _Communal Fishery Rights of the Public._--The fundamental principle upon which the shellfish laws of the State are founded is the so-called beach or free fishing right of the public. While in other States shore property extends only to mean high water, in Massachusetts, Maine and Virginia, the earliest States to enact colonial laws, the riparian property holders own to mean low-water mark. But by specific exception and according to further provisions of this same ancient law the right of fishing (which includes the shellfisheries) below high-water mark is free to any inhabitant of the Commonwealth. The act reads as follows:-- SECTION 2. Every inhabitant who is an householder shall have free fishing and fowling in any great ponds, bays, coves and rivers, so far as the sea ebbs and flows within the precincts of the town where they dwell, unless the freemen of the same town or the General Court have otherwise appropriated them. It is necessary that some change be made in this law, which at present offers no protection to the planters. Its repeal is by no means necessary, as the matter can be adjusted by merely adding "except for the taking of mollusks from the areas set apart and leased for the cultivation of mollusks." (2) _Results of Town Administration of Mollusk Fisheries._--All authority to control mollusk privileges was originally vested in the State. The towns, as the ancient statutes will show, derived this authority from the higher State authority, developed their systems of local regulations or by-laws only with the State permission, and even now they enjoy the fruits of these concessions solely with the active consent of the Legislature. Thus the State has ever been, and is at present, the source of town control. The towns have no rights of supervision and control over shellfisheries except as derived from the General Court. The State gave them this authority in the beginning. It follows, therefore, that the Legislature can withdraw this delegated authority at any time when it is convinced that it is for the benefit of the State so to do. To those few who are directly profiting at the expense of the many, this resumption of authority by the State may seem at first sight a high-handed proceeding, but a brief survey of the facts will prove it to be justly warranted and eminently desirable. The present system of town control has had a sufficient trial. It is in its very essentials an un-business-like proceeding. A large number of towns acting in this matter as disorganized units working independently of one another could not in the nature of things evolve any co-ordinated and unified system which would be to the advantage of all. The problems involved are too complicated, requiring both broad and special knowledge, which cannot be acquired in a short term of experience. Lastly, the temptations of local politics have been found to be too insistent to guarantee completely fair allotment of valuable privileges. The Legislature has not only acted unwisely in allowing the towns in this respect thus to mismanage their affairs, but it has not fulfilled its duty to the Commonwealth as a whole. The Legislature has unwittingly delegated valuable sources of wealth and revenue, the fruits of which should have been enjoyed at least in some degree, directly or indirectly, by all citizens of the Commonwealth alike as well as by those of the coast towns. Many of the coast cities and towns have dealt with this opportunity very unwisely, and few have developed or even maintained unimpaired this extremely valuable asset of the State. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that such important sources of wealth as the shellfisheries are not the property of the coast towns alone; they are the property of the whole Commonwealth, and the whole Commonwealth should share in these benefits. In allowing these valuable resources to be mismanaged and dissipated by the shore towns, the Legislature has done a great injury to all the inland communities, and, indeed, even to those very coast towns for whose benefit such legislation was enacted. The Legislature was not justified, in the first place, in granting jurisdiction over these important industries belonging equally to the whole Commonwealth and to the coast towns. It was but an experiment. Inasmuch as these towns have grossly mismanaged the trust placed in them, the Legislature is doubly under the obligation to take advantage of the knowledge gained by this experimental delegation of the State authority to cities and towns. The completely obvious obligation of the Legislature is to remove what is either tacitly or frankly acknowledged by many city and town authorities to be an impossible burden upon the city or town, and to restore to State officers the general administrative control and supervision of the public rights in the shellfisheries. (3) _Riparian Ownership does not include Exclusive Fishing Rights._--The third objection is that in the assumption of State control is involved the much-discussed and vaguely understood question of riparian ownership. To make plain the conditions relative to the fisheries, including the shellfisheries on the tidal flats, it should be borne in mind that in only four States, Virginia and Maryland, Massachusetts and Maine, does the title of the riparian owner extend to low-water mark, but in these States the right of fishing, fowling and boating are specifically mentioned as not included in the title. Under the existing laws owners of seashore property in Massachusetts possess certain rights (though perhaps not in all cases clearly defined) over the tidal areas within 100 rods of the mean high-water mark. As the proposed system of shellfish grants deals with this territory between high and low water marks, it is necessary to see in what manner, if any, the rights at present possessed by riparian owners would be impaired by the leasing of certain rights of fishing. While the riparian owner has in a measure authority over the territory which borders his upland, there are certain specific limitations to this authority. He does not have exclusive rights of hunting, boating and fishing between the tide lines on his own property, but participates in these rights equally with every citizen of this Commonwealth. The courts have distinctly held that shellfish are fish, and that a man may fish--_i.e._, dig clams--on the tidal flats adjoining the shore without the consent of the riparian owner. (4) _Rights of the Fishermen and of All Citizens._--The fishermen as a class are best located to benefit most from an opportunity to lease exclusive fishing rights, whether they chance to be riparian owners or not, though every other citizen of this Commonwealth who so desired would not be excluded from an opportunity to secure a similar lease. The personnel of the fisher class has vastly changed in the past decade. There are to-day two distinct types: The permanent resident, usually native born, bound to a definite locality by ties of home and kin and of long association,--a most useful type of citizen. Contrasted with this is the other, a more rapidly increasing class,--foreign born, unnaturalized, nomadic, a humble soldier of fortune, a hanger-on in the outskirts of urban civilization, eking out an existence by selling or eating the shellfish from the public fishing grounds. Too ignorant to appreciate the importance of sanitary precaution, the alien clammer haunts the proscribed territory polluted by sewage, and does much to keep the dangerous typhoid germ in active circulation in the community. The public mollusk fisheries only foster such types of non-producers, and prevent them from becoming desirable citizens. The best class of fishermen and citizens has no advantage over the worst, but is practically compelled to engage in the same sort of petty buccaneering and wilfully destructive digging, in order to prevent that portion and privilege of fishing which the law says shall belong to every householder and freeman of the Commonwealth from being appropriated by these humble freebooters, who are at once the annoyance, the terror and the despair of cottagers and shore dwellers. All these conditions would be almost completely corrected by the lease of the flats to individuals, thus removing from the fishermen stultifying competition and compelling these irresponsible wandering aliens to acquire definite location. But most particularly a system of leasing would permit each person to profit according to his industry, perseverance, thrift and foresight. _The Grants._--As previously stated, the grants should be made into two divisions: (1) including suitable areas between the high and low water marks; (2) territory below mean low-water mark. The privilege of planting and growing all shellfish should be given for both classes of grants. Class 1 would be primarily for the planting of clams, with additional rights over oysters and quahaugs; class 2 would be primarily for the planting of quahaugs and oysters, with possible rights over clams and scallops. The grants should be leased for a limited period of years, with the privilege of renewal provided the owner had fulfilled the stipulated requirements of the lease. In order, however, that these leases should not degenerate into deeds, to be handed down from father to son, it might be necessary to assign a maximum time limit during which a man might remain in control of any particular lease. This would be merely fair play to all concerned, for it would not be just to allow one man to monopolize a particularly fine piece of property, while his equally deserving neighbor had land of far less productive value. In connection with this clause should follow some provisions for payment of the value of improvements. Should there be more than one claimant for lease of any particular area, some principle of selection, such as priority of application, highest bid, etc., should be established. That there may be no holding of grants for purposes other than those stipulated in the agreement, there should be a certain cultural standard of excellence to be decided upon relative to the use made of the granted areas. A clause of this kind is necessary in order to keep the system in a proper state of efficiency, and to insure the development of the shellfish industries. All taxes on the capital invested in these grants and taxes upon the income should go to the town in which the leasehold is situated. In addition, there should be a just and equable revenue assessed by the State on every grant, as rent for the same. This rent should be apportioned according to a fixed scale in determining the relative values of the grants, and should be paid annually, under penalty of forfeiture. The revenue might be divided into two parts: one part to go to the State department having the control of the shellfisheries, for the maintenance of a survey, control and protection of property on leased areas, and other work; the second part to go to the town treasury of the community in which the grant is located, to be expended under the direction and control of responsible State officials in restocking barren flats and otherwise developing the shellfish upon its unleased territory which is open for free public use. _Grants to be Nontransferable._--These grants, while designed for the use of all citizens of the Commonwealth, should be made especially available for the poor man with little capital. In order to assure the poor man of the enjoyment of his privilege, it is necessary to guard against the possibility of undue monopolization. Leases must, therefore, be strictly nontransferable. Neither should areas be rented to another individual under any consideration whatever. Every grant must be for the benefit of its individual owner. He should be at liberty to hire laborers to assist him in working his grant, but not to transfer it in any way. Any attempt on his part to do so should not only immediately result in the forfeiture of his grant, but should also subject him to a heavy penalty. _Survey._--In order to guard against confusion and to maintain an orderly system, an accurate survey of all granted areas should be made. The ranges of every grant should be determined and recorded. The plots should be numbered and properly staked or buoyed, and a record of the same, giving the name of the owner, yearly rental and value, should be kept on file at the proper town and State offices. The same system which is now in operation in the oyster industry of other States should be applied to all the mollusk fisheries of Massachusetts. _Administration._--The department of the State government under whose jurisdiction this system of leases may come should be indued with full authority, properly defined, to supervise the grants, furnish them with adequate protection by the employment of State or town police, oversee the survey, allot the grants, and to exercise such other powers as may be necessary to develop the system, remedy its defects and strengthen its efficiency. _Protection of Property and of the Rights granted by the Lease._--No system of shellfish grants is possible without absolute protection. The lessee must be permitted to cultivate his grant free from outside interference, and thus, with reasonably good fortune, he can enjoy the fruits of his labors. This protection, which is the greatest and most vital need of the entire system, and the foundation upon which depends its whole success, must be insured by proper legislation rigorously enforced, and accompanied by severe penalties. _Leasing of the Grants._--Every citizen of the Commonwealth is entitled to participate in this system, but for obvious reasons an inhabitant of any coast town should be given first choice of grants within the boundary of his particular town. The first grants might be given by allotment, but after the system had become well established, they could be issued in the order of their application. _Water Pollution._--The sanitary condition of the marketed shellfish taken from contaminated waters is not only at present to some extent endangering the public health, but is placing an undeserved stigma upon a most reputable and valuable source of food supply for the public. The public should demand laws closing, after proper scientific investigation, these polluted areas, and conferring the power to thoroughly enforce such laws. The danger arising from contamination should be reduced to a minimum by prescribing some definite regulations for transferring shellfish from these polluted waters to places free from contamination, where the shellfish may in brief season be rendered fit for the market. It should be unlawful to use any brand, label or other device for designation, intended to give the impression that certain oysters offered for sale were grown at specified places, _e.g._, Cotuit, Wellfleet, Wareham, etc., unless such oysters were actually planted, grown or cultivated within the towns or waters designated, for a period of at least three months immediately previous to the date of marketing. Furthermore, there should be appointed proper inspectors, whose duties would be to guarantee by certificates, labels and stamps the purity of shellfish placed upon the market, and likewise have the power of enforcing severe penalties on violators. THE SHELLFISHERIES OF MASSACHUSETTS: THEIR PRESENT CONDITION AND EXTENT. By D. L. BELDING, assisted by F. C. LANE. DR. GEORGE W. FIELD, _Chairman, Commission on Fisheries and Game_. SIR:--I herewith submit the following report upon the present extent and condition of the shellfish industries of Massachusetts. The following biological survey was made in connection with the work done under chapters 49, 73, 78 and 93, Resolves of 1905, and chapter 74, Resolves of 1906. The statistics and survey records which furnish the basis of the report were obtained by D. L. Belding and F. C. Lane. Respectfully submitted, DAVID L. BELDING, _Biologist_. INTRODUCTION. When money was first appropriated in 1905 for a three-year investigation of the life, habits and methods of culture of the clam, quahaug, oyster and scallop, provision was made for a survey of the present productive and nonproductive areas suitable for the cultivation of these four shellfish. The following report embodies the results of this survey. _A. Method of Work._--In making this survey two objects were in view, which permit the grouping of the work under two main heads:-- (1) A survey of the productive and nonproductive shellfish areas of the State was undertaken, showing by charts the location, extent and abundance of each of the four shellfish, as well as the biological conditions of the waters and soils of the areas along the entire coast which could be made more productive under proper cultural methods. Wherever possible, information as to the production of certain areas was obtained from the shellfishermen as a supplement to the survey work. (2) Statistical records of the four shellfish industries were formulated, showing their value and extent as regards (_a_) production, (_b_) capital invested, (_c_) men employed. Data for these records were obtained from town records, from market reports and from the dealers and shellfishermen, both by personal interviews and by tabulated forms of printed questions. Owing to the present chaotic condition of the shellfisheries, it has been impossible to obtain absolutely exact data. The statistics that have been obtained are to all purposes correct, and are the most exact figures ever published on the subject. _B. Value of the Survey._--Before any reform measures of practical value can be advanced, accurate and comprehensive knowledge of the present shellfish situation in Massachusetts is absolutely essential. Up to this time there have been only vague and inaccurate conjectures as to the value of the shellfisheries, and even the fisherman, outside his own district, has little knowledge of their extent and their economic possibilities. The consumer has far less knowledge. For the first time this problem of the Massachusetts shellfisheries has been approached from the point of view of the economic biologist. This survey is intended to present a concise yet detailed account of the present status of the shellfisheries of Massachusetts, and is therefore the first step towards the preservation of our shellfisheries by providing a workable basis for the restocking of the barren and unproductive areas. It is hoped that it will be of interest both to the fishermen and consumers. _C. Presentation of the Report._--The first part of the report presents the general results of the survey, _i.e._, the present condition of the shellfisheries, while the second part deals directly with details of the survey. The report is divided into four parts, each shellfish being considered separately. Under each is grouped (1) the industry as a whole; (2) a statistical summary of the industry for the whole State; (3) the towns of the State and their individual industries. A series of charts showing the shellfish areas of the State makes clear the description of the survey. _Geographical Situation._--The peculiar geographical situation of Massachusetts renders possible the production of the four edible shellfish--clam, oyster, quahaug and scallop,--in great abundance. Cape Cod forms the dividing line between the northern and the southern fauna, which furnish the coast of Massachusetts with a diversity of molluscan life. Zoölogically, the Massachusetts coast is the point where the habitats of the northern (the soft clam, _Mya arenaria_) and the southern clam (the quahaug, hard clam or little neck, _Venus mercenaria_) overlap. Nature has favored Massachusetts with a coast indented with bays, estuaries and inlets which are especially adapted for the growth of marine food mollusks. _Former Natural Abundance._--If we compare the natural shellfish areas of to-day with those of former years, we find a great change. All four shellfish formerly throve in large numbers in the numerous bays and indentations of our coast line. The area between tide marks was formerly inhabited by quantities of soft clams, and the muddy patches just below low-water mark produced great numbers of quahaugs. In the estuaries were extensive natural oyster beds. On our shoals it was possible to gather many thousand bushels of scallops. Now thousands of acres once productive lie barren, and we have but a remnant of the former abundant yield. _Historical Wastefulness._--History tells us that the Pilgrims at Plymouth "sucked the abundance of the seas" and found health and wealth. But between the lines of history we can read a tale of wastefulness and prodigality with hardly a parallel, and to-day we find the natural heritage of the shellfisheries almost totally wasted through the careless indifference of our forefathers. Prof. James L. Kellogg, in the introduction to his "Notes on Marine Food Mollusks of Louisiana," gives the following excellent account of the exploiting of natural resources:-- As one looks over the record of the settling of this country, and notes how a continent was reclaimed from a state of nature, he can hardly fail to be impressed with the reckless wastefulness of his ancestors in their use of the treasures which nature, through eons of time, had been collecting. In thousands of cases, natural resources, which, carefully conserved, would have provided comfort and even luxury for generations of men, have been dissipated and destroyed with no substantial benefit to any one. They scattered our inheritance. Such knowledge dulls a feeling of gratitude that may be due to them for their many beneficent acts,--though the truth probably is that few of them ever had a thought of their descendants. Men seldom seem to have a weighty sense of responsibility toward others than those who immediately follow them. The history of the prodigality of our ancestors since their occupation of this great continent has not fully been written,--and it should be, in such a way that the present generation might know it; for sometimes it seems as if the present generation were as criminally careless of the natural resources that remain to it as were any of those that are gone. Perhaps it is hardly that. We have learned some wisdom from the past, because our attention has recently been drawn to the fact of the annihilation of several former sources of subsistence. Rapidly in America, in recent years, the struggle to obtain support for a family has become more severe to the wage earner. In thirty years the increasing fierceness of competition has resulted in a revolution of business methods. In every profession and in every line of business only the most capable are able to obtain what the mediocre received for their honest labor in the last generation. But it is easier to condemn the past for its failures than to recognize and condemn those of our own generation. The average man really has a blind and unreasoning faith in his own time, and to laud only its successes is to be applauded as an optimist. In the present stage of our national life we certainly have no room for the pessimist, who is merely a dyspeptic faultfinder; nor for the optimist, who blinds his eyes to our faults and mistakes, and so fails to read their priceless lessons. Instead, our intelligence, as a race, has reached that degree of development which should give it the courage to consider "things as they are." Considering things as they are, we must admit that we are not realizing our obligations to future generations in many of the ways in which we are misusing our natural resources. This waste is often deliberate, though usually due to the notion that nature's supplies, especially of living organisms, are limitless. The waste of 70 or 80 per cent, in lumbering the Oregon "big trees," and the clean sweep of the Louisiana pine, now in progress, is deliberately calculated destruction for present gain,--and the future may take care of itself. In making millionaires of a very few men, most of whom are still living, a large part of the lower peninsula of Michigan was made a hopeless desert. To "cut and come again" is not a part of the moral codes of such men. It seems to mean sacrifice; and yet they are woefully mistaken, even in that. But most often, no doubt, the extinction of useful animals and plants, that we have so often witnessed, has been due to the ignorant assumption that, under any circumstances, the supply would last forever. This idea seems especially to prevail concerning marine food animals. The fact that the sea is vast might naturally give the impression that its inhabitants are numberless.... But when a natural food supply nears complete annihilation, men begin to think of the necessity of a method of artificial culture.[1] _Present Unimproved Resources._--In spite of the wastefulness of former generations, many areas can again be made to produce the normal yield if proper and adequate measures are promptly taken to restore to the flats, estuaries and bays of Massachusetts their normal productive capacity. In spite of the fact that some of the natural beds have entirely disappeared, either "fished out" or buried under the débris of civilization, and others are in imminent danger of becoming exhausted, Massachusetts still possesses a sufficient natural supply to restock most of these barren areas. _Possibilities of Development._--Opportunities for development are alluring. The shellfisheries could be increased, in these days of rapid transit and marketing facilities, into industries which would furnish steady employment for thousands of men and women, both directly and indirectly, resulting in a product valued at a minimum of $3,000,000 annually, with possibilities of indefinite expansion. At present the idea of marine farming attracts popular attention. The conditions are parallel to agriculture, except that in the case of marine farming the crops are more certain,--_i.e._, are not subject to so many fatalities. The experiments of the Department of Fisheries and Game for the past three years have proved that cultivation of shellfish offers great inducements and profit to both individuals and towns. When the present waste areas are again made productive, the value of the annual catch should be increased tenfold. _Statistical Summary of the Shellfisheries for 1907._ =================+=====================++=========+===========+========== | PRODUCTION. || | | NAME OF MOLLUSK. +----------+----------++ Area in | Capital | Men | Bushels. | Value. || Acres. | invested. | employed. -----------------+----------+----------++---------+-----------+---------- Clam, | 153,865 | $150,440 || 5,111 | $18,142 | 1,361 Oyster, | 161,182 | 176,142 || 2,400 | 268,702 | 159 Quahaug, | 144,044 | 194,687 || 28,090 | 94,260 | 745 Scallop, | 103,000 | 164,436 || 30,900 | 121,753 | 647 +----------+----------++---------+-----------+---------- Total, | 562,091 | $685,705 || 66,501 | $502,857 | 2,912 =================+==========+==========++=========+===========+========== In the above table the areas for the scallop, clam and quahaug are only approximate. The scallop and quahaug fisheries cover nearly the same areas, and employ to a great extent the same men and capital. _Annual Yields (in Bushels) of the Shellfisheries of Massachusetts since 1879, from United States Fish Commission Reports._ ===============+=========+==========+=========+==========+========= YEAR. | Clam. | Quahaug. | Oyster. | Scallop. | Totals. ---------------+---------+----------+---------+----------+--------- 1879, | 158,621 | 11,050 | 36,000 | 10,542 | 216,218 1887, | 230,659 | 35,540 | 43,183 | 41,964 | 351,346 1888, | 243,777 | 26,165 | 45,631 | 26,168 | 341,741 1898, | 147,095 | 63,817 | 101,225 | 128,863 | 441,000 1902, | 227,941 | 106,818 | 103,386 | 66,150 | 504,295 1905, | 217,519 | 166,526 | 112,580 | 43,872 | 540,497 1907,[2] | 153,865 | 144,044 | 161,182 | 103,000 | 562,091 ===============+=========+==========+=========+==========+========= Massachusetts fishermen to-day receive an annual income of $685,705 from the shellfisheries, which approximately cover a productive area of 40,000 acres. Under the present methods of production, the average value per acre is only $17; each acre, if properly farmed, should furnish an annual production of at least $100, or six times the present yield. The shellfish areas of Massachusetts which are at present utilized are giving almost a minimum production, instead of the enormous yield which they are capable of furnishing. All that is necessary to procure the maximum yield is the application of systematic cultural methods, instead of relying on an impoverished natural supply. Not only are the productive areas furnishing far less than they are capable of producing, but also Massachusetts possesses 6,000 acres of barren flats, which should become, under the proper cultural methods, as valuable as the productive areas. (This has been experimentally demonstrated by the commission.) While it is possible to develop, through cultural methods, these latent natural resources, it will take years to bring them to a high degree of development. It can be partially accomplished, at least, in the next few years, and the present production increased several times, _as nature responds to the slightest intelligent effort of man, and gives large returns_. DECLINE OF THE SHELLFISHERIES. _A. Is there a Decline?_ (1) So obvious is the general decline of the shellfisheries that almost every one is aware, through the increasing prices and difficulty of supplying the demand, that the natural supply is becoming exhausted. (2) Statistical figures of the shellfish production not only show a decline, but conceal a rapid diminution of the supply. (3) Production statistics alone should never be taken as typifying the real conditions of an industry, as such figures are often extremely deceiving. For instance:-- (4) The increased prices, stimulated by an increasing demand, have caused a greater number of men, equipped with the best modern implements, to swell the production by overworking shellfish areas which in reality are not one-fourth so productive as they were ten years ago. While the general decline of the shellfisheries is a matter of public knowledge, specific illustrations of this decline have been lacking. The present report calls attention to actual facts as proofs of the decline of each shellfishery, by a comparison of the present conditions in various localities with the conditions of 1879. The only past record of Massachusetts shellfisheries of any importance is found in the report of the United States Fish Commission for 1883, and, although this is very limited, it is sufficient to furnish many examples of the extinction or decline of the shellfisheries in certain localities. In a general consideration of the shellfisheries, it is noticeable that in certain localities the extinction of the industry has been total, in others only partial, while others have remained unchanged or have even improved. This last class is found either where the natural advantages are so great that the resources have not been exploited, or where men have, through wise laws and cultural methods (as in the oyster industry), preserved and built up the shellfisheries. _1879_ v. _1907_.--In comparing the present condition of the shellfisheries with that of 1879, it will be seen that many changes have taken place. Even twenty-five years ago inroads were being made upon the natural supply; from that time to the present can be traced a steady decline. During the past five years the production has been augmented by additional men, who have entered into the business under the attraction of higher prices, and the extension of the quahaug and oyster fisheries. Though the annual catch is greater, a disproportionately greater amount of time, labor and capital is required to secure an equal quantity of shellfish. ==========================+==========+==========+========== | 1907. | 1879. | Gain. --------------------------+----------+----------+---------- Production (bushels), | 562,991 | 264,818 | 297,273 Men, | 2,912 | 910 | 2,092 Capital, | $502,857 | $165,000 | $337,857 Area (acres), | 66,501 | 66,501 | - ==========================+==========+==========+========== The following instances illustrate specific decline in the various natural shellfisheries:-- (1) Oyster industry, natural beds: Wareham, Marion, Bourne, Wellfleet, Charles River. (2) Sea clam industry: Dennis, Chatham, Nantucket. (3) Scallop industry: Buzzards Bay and north side of Cape Cod (Barnstable). (4) Clam industry: Essex, Plymouth, Duxbury, Buzzards Bay, Annisquam, Wellfleet, Nantucket. (5) Quahaug industry: Chatham, Buzzards Bay, Fall River district. These are only a few of the more prominent cases. Similar cases will be found all along the coast of Massachusetts, and no one can deny that the natural supply is rapidly becoming exhausted, and that methods are needed to increase the production, or at least to save the little that remains. _B. Causes of the Decline._ I. _An Increasing Demand._--The indirect cause of the decline of the shellfisheries is the increased demand. To-day more shellfish are consumed than ever before, and the demand is much greater each succeeding year. It is an economic principle that there must be an equilibrium between supply and demand. If the demand is increasing, either the supply has to increase to meet the demand, or the price of the commodity goes up and a new equilibrium is established. The supply must equal the demand of the market. This increasing demand has worked havoc with the shellfisheries. There was a time when the natural supply was of such abundance that the moderate demand of those early days could be met without injury to the fishery. Soon this limit was passed, and with a steadily increasing demand came a corresponding drain on the natural resources, which little by little started a decline, the result of which is to-day apparent. The ill-advised policy of the past has been to check the demand by various devices, such as closed seasons, limited daily production, etc. These not only have proved without benefit to the fisherman, but also have hurt the consumer by the increased price. The demand can be checked by raising the price, but this tends towards a class distinction between the rich and the poor. The poor man should be able to enjoy "the bounties of the sea" as well as the rich. The policy of the future should be not to check the demand, but rather to increase the supply. Several causes contribute to this demand, which has unlimited possibilities of expansion:-- (1) The popularity of shellfish as an article of diet is steadily increasing, not merely for its nutritive value, but for variety and change in diet. Fashionable fads, _i.e._, the "little neck" of the restaurants and hotels, contribute to the popularity of these shellfish. (2) In the present age, transportation facilities and cold storage make possible shipments to all parts of the United States, and continually widen the market for sea foods. (3) The influx of summer people to the seashore not only causes an additional summer demand, but also widens the popular knowledge of these edible mollusks. (4) Advertising and more attractive methods of preserving and selling sea food by the dealers still further increase the demand. II. _Overfishing._--The immediate and direct cause of the decline is _overfishing_. Increased demand causes a severe drain upon the shellfish beds, which soon leads to _over_fishing. It is not merely the hard working of the beds, but the continuous unmethodical and indiscriminate fishing which has caused the total extermination of once flourishing beds in certain localities. Under present methods a bed is worked until all its natural recuperatory power is exhausted, and then it is thrust aside as worthless, a barren area. Prof. Jacob Reighard, in "Methods of Plankton Investigation in their Relation to Practical Problems,"[3] aptly sums up the situation in his opening paragraph:-- In this country the fisherman as a rule continues to fish in any locality until fishing in that locality has become unprofitable. He then moves his operations to new waters until these in turn are exhausted. He is apt to look upon each new body of water as inexhaustible, and rarely has occasion to ask himself whether it is possible to determine in advance the amount of fish that he may annually take from the water without soon depleting it. In this way the shellfish beds have become exhausted through the indifference and lack of knowledge on the part of the fishing public. In colonial days the resources of the shellfisheries were apparently inexhaustible. The conviction that man could ever exhaust the resources of nature took firm hold of the Puritan mind, and even in the present generation many still cling to this illogical doctrine, although proof to the contrary can be seen on all sides. This idea has caused great harm to the shellfisheries, stimulating men to wreck certain localities by overfishing. III. _Pollution of Harbors and Estuaries and the Ill Effects upon Public Health through the Shellfisheries._--The unscientific disposal of sewage, sludge, garbage and factory waste may tend to rapidly fill up the harbor channels, as well as the areas where the currents are not so rapid. Competent authorities scout the idea that Boston harbor is at present filling up to any considerable degree with sewage sludge, but the problem must be met in the not distant future. This sewage sludge upon entering salt or brackish water precipitates much more rapidly than in fresh water or upon land, and becomes relatively insoluble, hence the accumulation in harbors, _e.g._, Boston and New Bedford harbors and the estuaries of the Merrimac, Taunton and other rivers. This sludge, instead of undergoing the normal rapid oxidation and nitrification, as it does when exposed to the air on land, undergoes in the sea water a series of changes, mainly putrefactive, which results in the production of chemical substances which in solution may (1) drive away the fish which in incredible quantities formerly resorted to that place; (2) impair the vitality and even kill whatever fish spawn or fry may be present; (3) check the growth of or completely destroy the microscopic plants and animals which serve as food for the young fish and shellfish; (4) by developing areas of oily film floating upon the surface of the water, enormous numbers of the surface-swimming larvæ of clams, quahaugs, scallops, oysters, mussels and other marine animals may be destroyed annually. But most serious of all is the fact that all the edible mollusks, notably the clam, quahaug, oyster and mussel, act as living filters, whose function is to remove from the water the bacteria and other microscopic plants and animals. Most of these microscopic organisms serve as food for the mollusk; and in instances where the mollusk is eaten raw or imperfectly cooked, man is liable to infection, if the bacillus of typhoid fever or other disease chances to be present in the mollusk. Though the chance of such infection is remote, it is nevertheless actually operative. Many typhoid epidemics in this country and abroad have been found to be directly referable to shellfish from sewage-polluted waters. For these reasons approximately 1,500 acres in Boston harbor and 700 acres in New Bedford harbor have become unsuitable for the growth of shellfish; and the State Board of Health, after investigation, decided that clams, oysters and quahaugs found within these areas are likely to be the direct cause of a dangerous epidemic of typhoid. For this reason the taking of these shellfish for any purpose was very properly prohibited; but at the last session of the Legislature a bill was passed which permitted the taking of such shellfish for bait, upon securing permits from the Board of Health, and providing heavy penalties for both buying and selling. As a matter of fact, however, it is well-nigh impracticable to properly enforce this law, for the reason that it is possible only in very rare instances to keep any one lot of clams known to have been dug under these conditions under surveillance from the time of digging until they are placed upon the hook as bait. Complete prevention of the _taking_ of such shellfish is the only method by which the public health can be properly safeguarded. Even though in our opinion the annual financial loss to the public from the destruction of this public fishery by the dumping of city sewage into the water is not less than $400,000, the public health is of greater consequence, and should not be jeopardized, as is the fact under present conditions. Until such a time as the public realize that economic disposal of sewage must take place on land rather than in water, laws absolutely preventing any contact with the infected shellfish should be enforced without exception. In instances like these it is greatly to be deplored that but rarely under our system of government can legislation, which the best knowledge and common-sense demand for the public weal, be passed in its adequate and beneficial entirety, but is so frequently emasculated in the selfish interests of a few persons. IV. _Natural Agencies._--The above causes are given as they are obviously important, but by no means are they to be considered the only reasons. Geographic and climatic changes often explain the extinction of shellfish in certain localities. THE PRESENT ABUSES OF THE SHELLFISHERIES. Not only has this survey shown by specific examples the alarming but actual decline of the natural shellfish supply (in spite of deceptive production statistics), but it has brought to light numerous evils of various kinds. These abuses have developed gradually with the rise of the shellfisheries, until at the present day they cannot be overlooked or considered unimportant. So closely are these connected with the present status of our shellfishery that upon their abolition depends its future success or failure. Some need immediate attention; others will require attention later. After a thorough and competent investigation, remedies for the correction of each evil should be applied. In the future Massachusetts will have to utilize all her wealth of natural resources, to keep her leading position among the other States of the Union. To do this she should turn to her sea fisheries, which have in the past made her rich, and hold forth prospects of greater wealth in the future. Untold possibilities of wealth rest with her shellfisheries, if obsolete methods and traditions can be cast aside. In any age of progress the ancient and worthless must be buried beneath the ruins of the past, while the newer and better take their place. There is no more flagrant example of obsolete methods and traditions holding in check the development of an industry than with the shellfisheries, and it is time that Massachusetts realized these limitations. The shellfisheries of Massachusetts are in a chaotic state, both legally and economically. The finest natural facilities are wasted, and thousands of acres of profitable flats are allowed to lie barren merely for a lack of initiative on the part of the general public. This chaotic and unproductive state will exist until both the consumer and the fishermen alike understand the true condition of affairs, and realize that in the bays, estuaries and flats of Massachusetts lies as much or more wealth, acre for acre, as in the most productive market gardens. In Rhode Island the clam and scallop fisheries have almost disappeared. Five or ten years from now the shellfisheries of Massachusetts will be in a similar condition, and beyond remedy. Now is the time for reform. The solution of the problem is simple. Shellfish farming is the only possible way in which Massachusetts can restore her natural supply to its former abundance. I. _The Shellfish Laws._--The first evils which demand attention are the existing shellfish laws. While these are supposed to wisely regulate the shellfisheries, in reality they do more harm than good, and are direct obstacles to any movement toward improving the natural resources. Before Massachusetts can take any steps toward cultivating her unproductive shellfish areas, it will be necessary to modify the worst of these laws. _A. Fishery Rights of the Public._--The fundamental principle upon which the shellfish laws of the State are founded is the so-called beach or free fishing rights of the public. While in other States property extends only to mean high water, in Massachusetts the property holders own to extreme low-water mark. Nevertheless, according to further provisions of this ancient law, the right of fishing (which includes the shellfisheries) below high-water mark is free to any inhabitant of the Commonwealth. (1) _Origin._--The first authentic record of this law is found under an act of Massachusetts, in 1641-47, by which every householder was allowed "free fishing and fowling" in any of the great ponds, bays, coves and rivers, as far "as the sea ebbs and flows," in their respective towns, unless "the freemen" or the General Court "had otherwise appropriated them." From this date the shellfisheries were declared to be forever the property of the whole people, _i.e._, the State, and have been for a long period open to any inhabitant of the State who wished to dig the shellfish for food or for bait. (2) _Early Benefits._--In the early days, when the natural supply was apparently inexhaustible and practically the entire population resided on or near the seacoast, it was just that all people should have common rights to the shore fisheries. As long as the natural supply was more than sufficient for the demand, no law could have been better adapted for the public good. (3) _Present Inadequacy._--Two hundred and fifty years have passed since this law was first made. The condition of the shellfisheries has changed. No longer do the flats of Massachusetts yield the enormous harvest of former years, but lie barren and unproductive. The law which once was a benefit to all has now become antiquated, and incapable of meeting the new conditions. (4) _Evil Effects._--If this law were merely antiquated, it could be laid aside unnoticed. On the contrary, as applied to the present conditions of the shellfisheries it not only checks any advancement, but works positive harm. From the mistaken comprehension of the so-called beach rights of the people, the general public throughout the State is forced to pay an exorbitant price for sea food, and the enterprising fishermen are deprived of a more profitable livelihood. The present law discriminates against the progressive majority of fishermen in order to benefit a small unprogressive element. (5) _Protection._--If shellfish farming is ever to be put on a paying basis, it is essential that the planter have absolute _protection_. No man is willing to invest capital and labor when protection cannot be guaranteed. What good does it do a man to plant a hundred bushels of clams, if the next person has a legal right to dig them? Since the law absolutely refuses any protection to the shellfish culturist, Massachusetts can never restock her barren flats and re-establish her shellfisheries until this law is modified to meet the changed conditions. (6) _Who are the Objectors?_ Objectors to any new system are always found, and are not lacking in the case of shellfish culture. These would immediately raise the cry that the public is being deprived of its rights. To-day the public has fewer rights than ever. The present law causes class distinctions, and a few are benefited at the expense of the public. The industrious fisherman suffers because a few of the worthless, unenterprising class, who have no energy, do not wish others to succeed where they cannot. In every seacoast town in Massachusetts the more enlightened fishermen see clearly that the only way to preserve the shellfisheries is to _cultivate the barren areas_. Hon. B. F. Wood, in his report of the shellfisheries of New York, in 1906, clearly states the case.[4] There is, unfortunately, in some of the towns and villages upon our coast an unprogressive element, composed of those who prefer to reap where they have not sown; who rely upon what they term their "natural right" to rake where they may choose in the public waters. They deplete, but do not build up. They think because it may be possible to go out upon the waters for a few hours in the twenty-four (when the tide serves) and dig a half peck of shellfish, that it is sufficient reason why such lands should not be leased by the State to private planters. It might as well be said that it is wrong for the government to grant homestead farms to settlers, because a few blackberries might be plucked upon the lands by any who cared to look for them. The following is taken from the report of the Massachusetts Commissioners on Fisheries and Game for 1906:[5]-- There are at least four distinct classes within our Commonwealth, each of which either derive direct benefits from the mollusk fisheries of our coast, or are indirectly benefited by the products of the flats:-- (1) The general public,--the consumers, who ultimately pay the cost, who may either buy the joint product of the labor and capital invested in taking and distributing the shellfish from either natural or artificial beds, or who may dig shellfish for food or bait purposes for their own or family use. (2) The capitalist, who seeks a productive investment for money or brains, or both. Under present laws, such are practically restricted to _distribution_ of shellfish, except in the case of the oyster, where capital may be employed for _production_ as well,--an obvious advantage both to capital and to the public. (3) The fishermen, who, either as a permanent or temporary vocation, market the natural yield of the waters; or, as in the case of the shellfisheries, may with a little capital increase the natural yield and availability by cultivating an area of the tidal flats after the manner of a garden. (4) The owners of the land adjacent to the flats, who are under the present laws often subjected to loss or annoyance, or even positive discomfort, by inability to safeguard their proper rights to a certain degree of freedom from intruders and from damage to bathing or boating facilities, which constitute a definite portion of the value of shore property. All of these classes would be directly benefited by just laws, which would encourage and safeguard all well-advised projects for artificial cultivation of the tidal flats, and would deal justly and intelligently with the various coincident and conflicting rights of the fishermen, owners of shore property, bathers and other seekers of pleasure, recreation or profit, boatmen, and all others who hold public and private rights and concessions. That any one class should claim exclusive "natural valid rights," over any other class, to the shellfish products of the shores, which the law states expressly are the property of "the people," is as absurd as to claim that any class had exclusive natural rights to wild strawberries, raspberries, cranberries or other wild fruits, and that therefore the land upon which these grew could not be used for the purpose of increasing the yield of these fruits. This becomes the more absurd from the fact that the wild fruits pass to the owner of the title of the land, while the shellfish are specifically exempted, and remain the property of the public. The class most benefited by improved laws would be the fishermen, who would profit by better wages through the increased quantity of shellfish they could dig per hour, by a better market and by better prices, for the reason that the control of the output would secure regularity of supply. Moreover, when the market was unfavorable the shellfish could be kept in the beds with a reasonable certainty of finding them there when wanted, and with the added advantage of an increased volume by growth during the interval, together with the avoidance of cold-storage charges. Thus the diggers could be certain of securing a supply at almost any stage of the tide and in all but the most inclement weather, through a knowledge of "where to dig;" moreover, there would be a complete elimination of the reasoning which is now so prolific of ill feelings and so wasteful of the shellfish, viz., the incentive of "getting there ahead of the other fellow." _B._ All the shellfish laws should be revised, to secure a unity and clearness which should render graft, unfairness and avoidable economic loss impossible, and be replaced with a code of fair, intelligent and forceful laws, which would not only permit the advancement of the shellfish industry through the individual efforts of the progressive shellfishermen, but also protect the rights of the general public. _C._ The majority of the shellfish laws of the State are enacted by the individual towns. In 1880 the State first officially granted to each town the exclusive right to control and regulate its own shellfisheries, as provided under section 68 of chapter 91 of the Public Statutes. This was slightly modified by the Acts of 1889 and 1892 to read as follows (now section 85 of chapter 91 of the Revised Laws):-- SECTION 85. The mayor and aldermen of cities and the selectmen of towns, if so instructed by their cities and towns, may, except as provided in the two preceding sections, control, regulate or prohibit the taking of eels, clams, quahaugs and scallops within the same; and may grant permits prescribing the times and methods of taking eels and such shellfish within such cities and towns and make such other regulations in regard to said fisheries as they may deem expedient. But an inhabitant of the commonwealth, without such permit, may take eels and the shellfish above-named for his own family use from the waters of his own or any other city or town, and may take from the waters of his own city or town any of such shellfish for bait, not exceeding three bushels, including shells, in any one day, subject to the general rules of the mayor and aldermen and selectmen, respectively, as to the times and methods of taking such fish. The provisions of this section shall not authorize the taking of fish in violation of the provisions of sections forty-four and forty-five. Whoever takes any eels or any of said shellfish without such permit, and in violation of the provisions of this section, shall forfeit not less than three nor more than fifty dollars. Responsibility has thus been transferred from the State to the towns, and they alone, through their incompetence and neglect, are to blame for the decline of the shellfisheries. The town laws are miniature copies of the worst features of the State laws. While a few towns have succeeded in enacting fairly good laws, the majority have either passed no shellfish regulations at all, or made matters worse by unintelligent and harmful laws. It is time that a unified system of competent by-laws were enacted and enforced in every town. The ill-advised features which characterize the present town laws are numerous, and are best considered under the following headings:-- (1) _Unintelligent Laws._--One of the worst features of our town shellfish laws is their extreme unfitness. Numerous laws which are absolutely useless for the regulation and improvement of these industries have been made by towns, through men who knew nothing about the shellfisheries. These laws were made without any regard for the practical or biological conditions underlying the shellfish industry. It is to be expected that laws from such a source would often be ill-advised and unintelligent, but under the present system it cannot be avoided. Until sufficient knowledge of the habits and growth of shellfish is acquired by the authorities of State and town, Massachusetts can never expect to have intelligent and profitable shellfish laws. While the majority of these unintelligent laws do no harm, there are some that work hardship to the fishermen and are an injury to the shellfisheries. (2) _Unfairness; Town Politics._--Town politics offers many chances for unscrupulous discrimination in the shellfish laws. Here we find one class of fishermen benefiting by legislation at the expense of the other, as in the case of the quahaugers _v._ oystermen. In one town the oystermen will have the upper hand; in another, the quahaugers. In every case there is unfair discrimination, and a resultant financial loss to both parties. The waters of Massachusetts are large enough for both industries, and every man should have a "square deal," which is frequently lacking under the present régime. Besides party discrimination, there is discrimination against certain individuals, as illustrated in giving oyster grants. Town politics plays a distressing part here. Favoritism is repeatedly shown, and unfairness results. All this shows the unpopularity and impracticability of such regulations and the method of making them. (3) _Present Chaotic State._--The present town laws are in a chaotic condition, which it is almost impossible to simplify. No one knows the laws, there is merely a vague impression that such have existed. Even the selectmen themselves, often new to the office and unacquainted with the shellfisheries, know little about the accumulated shellfish laws of the past years, and find it impossible to comprehend them. The only remedy is to wipe out all the old and replace them with unified new laws. (4) _Unsystematic Laws._--The present laws are unsystematized. Each town has its own methods, good and bad, and the result is a heterogeneous mixture. Often there are two or three laws where one would definitely serve. To do absolute justice there should be a definite system, with laws elastic enough to satisfy the needs of all. (5) _Nonenforcement._--The worst feature of allowing town control of the shellfisheries is the nonenforcement of the laws already passed. We find in many towns that good by-laws have been made, but from inattention and lack of money these have never been enforced and have become practically nonexistent. The 1½-inch quahaug law of several towns is an instance of this. In but one town in the State, Edgartown, is any effort made to enforce this excellent town by-law, although several of the other towns have passed the same. The proper enforcement of laws is as important as the making, as a law might as well not be made if not properly enforced. The only way that this can be remedied is either to take the control completely out of the hands of the town, or else have a supervisory body which would force the town to look after violators. Besides the town by-laws there are other evils which result from the present system of town control. II. _Lack of Protection in Oyster Industry._--In no case is the management by towns more inefficient and confusing than in the case of the oyster industry. As this subject will be taken up in the oyster report which follows, it is only necessary here to state that there is great need of a proper survey of grants, fair laws, systematic methods, etc. Protection is necessary for the success of any industry, and is especially needed for the oyster industry. The oyster industry of Massachusetts will never become important until adequate protection is guaranteed to the planters. Under the present system, uncertainty rather than protection is the result. III. _Town Jealousy._--The evil of town jealousy, whereby one town forbids its shellfisheries to the inhabitant of neighboring towns, is to-day an important factor. It is fair that a town which improves its own shellfisheries should not be interfered with by a town which has allowed its shellfisheries to decline. While this is true perhaps of the clam, quahaug and oyster, it does not hold true of the scallop. The result of this close-fisted policy has resulted in the past in a great loss in the scallop industry. The town law in regard to scallops is all wrong. The scallop fisheries should be open to all the State, and no one town should "hog the fishing," and leave thousands of bushels to die from their dog-in-the-manger attitude. IV. _Sectional Jealousy._--Another evil, which in the past has been prominent, but is becoming less and less as the years go by, is the jealousy of the north shore _v._ the south shore, Cape Cod _v._ Cape Ann. In the past this has been a stumbling block against any advance, as any plan initiated on the south shore would be opposed from sheer prejudice by the north shore representatives, and _vice versa_. The cry of "entering wedge" has been raised again and again whenever any bill was introduced for the good of the shellfisheries by either party. Merely for political reasons good legislation has been defeated. However, the last few years have shown a decided change. The jealous feeling has in a large measure subsided; the shellfisheries need intelligent consideration, and all parties realize that united effort is necessary to insure the future of these industries. V. _Quahaugers_ v. _Oystermen_.--On the south shore the worst evil which at present exists is the interclass rivalry between the quahaugers and oystermen. This has caused much harm to both parties, through expensive lawsuits, economic loss, uncertainty of a livelihood, as well as retarding the proper development of both industries. VI. _Waste of Competition._--At the present day the utilization of waste products in all industries is becoming more and more important. In this age material which was considered useless by our forefathers is made to play its part in the economic world. Through science industrial waste of competition is being gradually reduced to a minimum, although in any business which deals with perishable commodities, such as fish, fruit, etc., there is bound to be a certain amount of loss. Under the present system the shellfisheries suffer from the effects of waste resulting from competition. Both the fisherman and the consumer feel the effects of this, in different ways,--the fisherman through poor market returns, the consumer through poor service. As long as the shellfisheries are free to all, there is bound to be that scramble to get ahead of "the other fellow," which not only results in the destructive waste of the actual catch, but also causes a "glutted" market, which gives a low return to the fisherman. Thousands of dollars are thus lost each year by the fishermen, who are forced to keep shipping their shellfish, often to perish in the market, merely because the present system invites ruthless competition. The fishermen in this respect alone should be the first to desire a new system, which would give to each a shellfish farm and the privilege of selecting his market. VII. At the present moment there are two evils which demand attention, and which can be lessened by the passage of two simple laws:-- (1) During the past three years many thousands of bushels of quahaugs under 1½ inches have been shipped out of the State, merely passing into the hands of New York oystermen, who replanted, reaping in one year a harvest of at least five bushels to every one "bedded." Through the inactivity of town control, the incentive to get ahead of the other fellow and the ignorance that they are wasting their own substance have caused many quahaugers in the past to do this at many places. The 1½-inch quahaug law has been for years a law for many towns in the State. It has been practically a dead letter in all but Edgartown, where it is enforced thoroughly. There should be a State law restricting the size of the quahaugs taken. (2) The enforcement of a 1½-inch clam law, especially in the towns of Fall River and Swansea, where the digging has reduced the clams to a small size, likewise deserves immediate attention. All the present evils have each contributed their share toward the ruin of the shellfisheries, and can be best summed up under one head, _i.e._, the abuse of nature. All the above evils have either directly or indirectly worked towards this end. This "abuse of nature" has resulted in several ways: (1) indiscriminate fishing, restricted by no laws, augmented by unwise laws; (2) overfishing in certain localities until the supply is exhausted, as, among other instances, with the Essex clam flats and the natural oyster beds of the Weweantit River; (3) exploiting and wasting the natural resources, so that nature cannot repair the inroads. Nature cannot cope with despoiling man,--man must assist nature. In the past there has been much feeling, especially among the clammers of the north shore, against the Fish and Game Commission. It therefore is necessary to correct a mistaken impression, which has arisen among the clammers, that "the State is going to take the clam flats away from us." This idea is on the face of it absurd. The Massachusetts Fish and Game Commission is seeking only to have this question solved in such a manner as to yield the most satisfactory results for the public good. At the present time it would be highly undesirable to take the complete control of the shellfisheries from any town, as long as that town shows itself capable of regulating them wisely. At the present day but few towns show any signs of this. What is necessary and desirable is to have an intelligent supervisory body, with power to compel each town to take proper care of its shellfisheries. It is advisable that there be a central power, co-operating with the town control in all matters pertaining to the shellfisheries, whether it be regulations or the restocking of barren areas. A board of arbitration, a committee of appeal for any grievance under the town control, and a commission that would act for the interests of the whole State, are what is most desirable at the present time. Such an arrangement would not be changing radically the present system of town control, but it would free it from its existing evils, place it on a firm and just basis, and give the shellfisheries a chance for improvement. THE FISHERMAN AND LAWS. The fisherman of to-day, though nominally his own master, is in reality subject to the demands of the market. To gain a living he is forced to work in all kinds of weather, at cold, disagreeable work. Under the present system he is oppressed by useless special town laws, which merely increase his daily labors without benefiting the fishery in the least. A few good laws only are necessary for the shellfisheries. It is time that the fisherman, one of the great factors in the commercial supremacy of Massachusetts, should be freed from all unnecessary burdens through a new system of satisfactory laws. THE REMEDY. In spite of all the existing evils of the town shellfisheries, the outlook is far from hopeless. To-day the shellfisheries of Massachusetts, owing to great natural resources, are as good or better than those of any other coast States, and only await development under proper methods to ensure a bright future. The Commissioners on Fisheries and Game can only point the way of reform; the result lies in the hands of the intelligent voters of this Commonwealth, whose action decides the future success or failure of the shellfisheries. It should be the object of every thinking voter, whether he be fisherman or consumer, to see that the right action be taken in regard to the shellfisheries. As shown in the preceding pages of this report, the attempted remedy has been based upon the false economic basis of attempting to check the demand by prohibiting digging for certain periods (closed seasons), limiting the amount to be legally dug by any one person, etc. It would be quite as logical for a town or city to prohibit by by-laws the use or digging of potatoes or any other food crop, when the supply was short, rather than to attempt to _increase_ the supply. An increasing demand cannot be checked by any such ill-advised measures, but can be met only by a corresponding increase in the natural production. The only remedy that can be applied successfully is shellfish culture, which means the utilizing of thousands of acres of barren shore area for the planting of farms which will furnish harvests of shellfish. In this way the latent potentialities of nature, which it is criminal to neglect, will be utilized for the good of the entire population of the State. /# We learn from the dictionaries that a farm is defined to be a tract of land under one control, devoted to agriculture, etc.; and that agriculture is the cultivation of the soil for food products or other useful or valuable growths. All this is very familiar knowledge, as applied to the dry land; but that there may fairly be brought within these definitions the operations of an industry in which lands covered by the salt waters of our bays and harbors are tilled, cultivated, raked, harrowed and planted with seedling bivalves, and harvests of a valuable product garnered, constituting a superb food for the masses, is less familiar, and to many may seem quite astonishing. It is within a comparatively few years that this unique style of farming has had its growth and development, until now many thousands of acres of land under water have been carefully surveyed, and the boundaries marked by buoys and stakes.[6] To bring the shellfisheries of Massachusetts to their maximum production will take years, but within five years the production can be nearly doubled, if work in the right direction is begun at once. Patience will be required to overcome the obstacles which must be met, and the change must necessarily be gradual. Every year the difficulties of reform increase. Owing to a steadily increasing demand, the natural supply is becoming smaller, and consequently the difficulty of increasing it becomes so much the harder. Soon the line of possibility will be crossed, and the shellfisheries will become an industry of the past. A few shellfish will always remain, but as an important industry, the shellfisheries, if no remedy is applied, in twenty-five years will be commercially extinct. While there is still time, let action be taken. The utilization of the barren shellfish areas, wise laws, good regulations and systematic methods of culture are necessary, in order to obtain the maximum production from these sea farms. The sea farm possesses one advantage over the ordinary farm,--the soil never becomes exhausted, as the shellfish derive their sustenance from the water, utilizing indirectly the waste nitrates of the land. To do this it is necessary that shellfish culture be at once begun, either by individuals or by towns. Three methods of shellfish culture offer ways of approach towards the utilization of the waste areas:-- (1) To leave the matter wholly in the hands of the town. This is the poorest way, as has been shown in the past. Unless the town officials were well informed about the shellfisheries, it would be an absurd farce to entrust the future of this important industry wholly in their hands. (2) Place all power with the State, instead of with the town. Have a unified and simplified system, whereby shellfish farms and grants can be leased by the individuals. This plan, much better than the first, and possibly the final solution, is, however, not practical of application to the existing conditions. Later, when these conditions are removed, it may prove the best solution of the problem. (3) The present system of town control to remain. The appointment of the Fish and Game Commission, or a similar commission, to have complete advisory power over the towns, and power to force each town to properly protect its shellfish. A State law would be passed, legalizing grants to individuals and dividing the flats into two equal parts,--public and private. The leasing of grants would be in the hands of the town authorities, but subject to appeal for any grievance to the Fish and Game Commission. In the chapter relating to each shellfish will be given the practical methods of cultivation for reclaiming the waste areas. These methods have been proved by the experimental work of this commission, the results of which may be published in a subsequent scientific report upon the shellfish. The commission has definitely shown that shellfish culture in Massachusetts is a possibility, and, moreover, a remunerative possibility. WHO WOULD BENEFIT? (1) Under the proposed system of practical shellfish culture, many classes of people would be benefited. The person who would be primarily benefited is the fisherman. In the following ways the condition of the industrious fisherman would be bettered: (_a_) his work would be steady, not uncertain; (_b_) he would know his exact annual income, and could govern his living expenses accordingly; (_c_) he would receive more money, with less hardship; (_d_) he would ensure steady market returns, which under the present system are very uncertain; (e) he would be his own master, and not forced to work for poor pay, under the stress of wasteful competition. (2) The shellfisheries are not for any particular class, but should benefit all, and any improvement in the industry affects all people. A second class would also be benefited by an increase in the shellfish industries. This class can be divided into two groups: (_a_) those directly influenced; (_b_) those indirectly. In the first group are the middlemen,--dealers. By an increased trade, more firms enter the business, more men are hired, etc. Comprising the second group are teamsters, coopers, shop owners, sailors, transportation lines,--an indefinite list, which would be indirectly benefited by an increase in the shellfish industry. (3) Thirdly, the consumer would receive the benefit of improved quality of goods, reasonable prices, etc. Through increased transportation facilities the inland consumer would have the pleasure of partaking of sea food, and what were once the luxuries of the rich could be had by all. CAPITAL. Capital is needed for the best success of any business. In a broad sense, the tools, implements, etc., of the shellfisherman are capital. In the future, if the shellfisheries are to become a great industry, money as working capital is indispensable. Blind objection to the employment of capital on the part of the fishermen works against the best interests of the shellfisheries. SHELLFISH MONOPOLY. For years the fishermen have feared that the shellfisheries would fall into the hands of a few companies or trusts, and the individual fisherman thereby lose his independence. As the present age tends toward the formation of monopolies in all business, the fears of the fishermen are not altogether groundless in this respect; nevertheless, while there are certain chances of monopoly in the shellfisheries, these chances are very small. In the first place, a monopoly of a raw edible product, such as shellfish, is hardly possible. Never can it be possible for any one company to control all or the majority of a shellfish supply, which possesses unlimited possibilities of expansion. Secondly, there are but two ways in which a monopoly of the shellfisheries can be obtained: one is the control of the market by buying up all the shellfish,--a thing far easier under the present conditions; the other, by buying through contract the rights of the individual planters. The success of such an enterprise would depend wholly upon the personnel of the shellfishermen, and such a result could never become possible if each shellfisherman would refuse to sell his rights. SUMMARY. This survey has shown (1) that the shellfisheries have declined (an established fact); (2) that the causes of the decline are overfishing and unwise laws; (3) that the remedy is, not to check the demand, as has been previously attempted, but to increase the production by the utilization of vast areas of barren flats, which have been experimentally proved capable of yielding a great harvest; (4) that the present chaotic laws render this impossible; (5) that there is a need of reform, or else the shellfisheries will soon disappear; (6) that the first step is the removal of these laws to permit the application of proper cultural methods. FOOTNOTES: [1] Gulf Biologic Station, Cameron, La., Bulletin No. 3, 1905. [2] Returns of Massachusetts Department of Fisheries and Game. [3] United States Fish Commission Pamphlet, 1898. [4] New York Shellfish Report, p. 7. [5] Report on the Shellfisheries, pp. 33-35. [6] Forest, Fish and Game Commission Bulletin, Shellfish Culture in New York, 1905. By B. Frank Wood. QUAHAUG (_Venus mercenaria_). Inhabiting common waters with the scallop, the northern range of the quahaug (the hard-shell clam or "little neck") in Massachusetts is Plymouth. Commercially it is found both on the north and south side of Cape Cod and in Buzzards Bay, the principal fisheries being at Wellfleet, Orleans, Edgartown, Nantucket and in Buzzards Bay. The quahaug, while essentially a southern and warm-water form, being found in the United States along the Atlantic seacoast as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, practically reaches its northern range in Massachusetts. In a few sheltered bays on the Maine coast quahaugs are sometimes found, but in small quantities. However, at Prince Edward Island there is said to be an abundance. Along the coast of Massachusetts north of Boston very few quahaugs are found, although they were formerly taken near Salem. The black quahaug (_Cyprina islandica_), so called from its dark epidermis, is often caught in the trawls, but this is a deep-sea form, and by no means a true quahaug. In Essex and Ipswich rivers and on Plum Island experimental beds have shown that quahaugs grow in these waters, but no spawn has yet been noticed, though ripe eggs were developed in the planted quahaugs. Owing to the swift currents, which carry the spawn perhaps for miles, it is impossible to determine accurately whether any set has taken place. During the past three years, as outlined by chapter 78, Resolves of 1905, the Fish and Game Commission has conducted a series of experiments upon the quahaug, designated to furnish sufficient data concerning the growth of this mollusk under a variety of conditions, to demonstrate the possibilities and value of practical quahaug farming. The results of these investigations upon the life, habits and culture of the quahaug are to be published in a later scientific report. It is necessary here to say that all statements in this report concerning the growth and culture of quahaugs have been proved by experiments, the results of which are on file at the office of the department of fisheries and game. It is the object of this report to present both to the fishermen and consumers (1) actual statistical figures of the industry of the State for 1907; (2) a biological survey of the quahauging areas, outlined by maps and descriptions; (3) a description of the industry. This survey should furnish a basis for determining any decline or advance in the quahaug industry of the future, as well as affording comparison with the United States Fish Commission survey of 1879, made by Ernest Ingersoll. Massachusetts, situated at the northern limit of the quahaug industry of the United States, is handicapped in comparison with other States, as only the southern waters of the State are given to this industry. Nevertheless, though possessing only a partial industry, Massachusetts ranks the fourth State in quahaug production, according to the 1906 report of the United States Fish Commission. The same natural conditions which suit so well the shallow-water scallop are also adapted to the growth of the quahaug. In nearly all the sheltered bays, inlets and rivers of the southern coast of Massachusetts the quahaug can be found in varying abundance. Technically, there is more territory which admits the possibility of quahaug growth than of any other shellfish. The bathymetric range of the quahaug is extensive, as the quahaug is raked in all depths of water up to 50 feet. In spite of the vast territory nature has provided for the quahaug in the waters of Massachusetts, the commercial fishery is found only in small parts of this large area. Scattered quahaugs are found over the rest of the area, but in paying quantities only in limited places. The possibilities of developing this great natural tract of quahaug ground are especially alluring,--far more so than any of the other shellfisheries. The quahaug has a greater area, greater possible expansion and a more profitable market. Nature has equipped southern Massachusetts with numerous bays with remarkable facilities for the production of quahaugs; it only remains for man to make the most of these. _Method of Work._--The method of work used in preparing this portion of the report varied but little from that relating to the other shellfish, though several features made it harder to obtain accurate information. There is a more general obscurity about the history of the quahaug than about any of the other shellfish, even though the quahaug industry is commercially the youngest of all. This is due, perhaps, to the gradual rise of the industry through the discovery of new territory. The only historical record obtainable is E. Ingersoll's report on the quahaug, in 1879, in which he deals briefly with the industry in Massachusetts. Town records help but little in determining the history of the industry, as only of late years have the towns required the taking of permits. In making the biological survey, the difficulty arises of defining what constitutes quahaug ground, since scattering quahaugs are found over vast territories, but only limited areas are commercially productive. The estimates of the quahaugers, both historically and in regard to production and areas, are often erroneous and vary greatly. By the use of market reports, express shipments, estimates of dealers, estimates of several reliable quahaugers, and all methods at our command, the facts of the industry were compiled and errors eliminated as far as possible. The home consumption is hard to determine, and is merely an estimate. The area of the quahaug territory was plotted on the map, and calculations made from the plots. Whenever personal inspection was not possible, as in Falmouth, the estimates of several quahaugers were taken. _Results._ 1. _Is the Quahaug Fishery declining?_--The decline of the quahaug fishery is well recognized. Even the production figures, which, when stimulated by high prices, usually give a deceptive appearance of prosperity to a declining industry, since more men enter the fishery, show a decline in the last few years. When such a point is reached,--when, in spite of higher prices and more men, the annual production becomes less and less,--not many years will pass before the industry will collapse completely. Increased prices show either an increase in demand or a falling off of the supply. Both are perhaps true of the quahaug industry. The demand, especially for "little necks," has been steadily on the increase, and a broad inland market is gradually opening, since the quahaug is capable of long transportation without perishing. So the increased prices are a sign of the diminution of the supply, as well as of an increased demand, the indeterminable factor being what ratio the one bears to the other. The only way to determine accurately the decline in the natural supply is to compare the amount the average quahauger could dig ten or twenty years ago with the amount dug to-day. Even this comparison is unfair, as the better rakes, improved methods, etc., of the present time tend to increase the daily yield of the quahauger. This decline can best be shown by taking special localities:-- (1) _Buzzards Bay._--The quahaug industry in Buzzards Bay has shown a great decline in the past ten to twenty years, and the industry is now at a low ebb, especially in the towns of Marion and Mattapoisett. Wareham, Bourne and Fairhaven still manage to ship about 27,000 bushels annually, employing over 200 men; but this is hardly up to their former standard. To-day at Wareham the daily catch per man is one-fifth of what it was twenty years ago; in 1887 a man could dig 5 bushels to a catch of 1 bushel now. Buzzards Bay perhaps has shown the greatest quahaug decline. (2) _South Side of Cape Cod._--While not so marked a decline has taken place as in Buzzards Bay, every quahauger agrees that the industry is gradually failing. In Bass River, at Hyannis, and in Chatham, there is a marked decrease, while at Cotuit and Osterville the industry has remained stationary. (3) _North Side of Cape Cod._--The best quahaug fishery of Massachusetts, except at Edgartown, is found on the north side of Cape Cod, in the towns of Wellfleet, Eastham and Orleans. These three towns give an annual yield of 75,000 bushels. Only about fifteen years old commercially, the industry has passed its prime and is on the decline. This decline is shown both by production figures and by the gradual moving to deeper water. As the quahaugs were thinned out in shallow water, the fishermen moved farther and farther out, using long rakes, until 60-foot rakes are now used at a depth of 50 feet. Probably the 60-foot limit will never be exceeded, unless a method of dredging is devised; and it will be only a question of years when the industry will become extinct. (4) _Nantucket._--The industry here has generally declined, though in the last few years there has been a slight increase in production. (5) _Edgartown._--The quahaug industry at Edgartown has declined little, if any, while the fishery has been carried on for many years. The natural resources have not been seriously impaired, owing to the efficient town management; and Edgartown can be congratulated on being the only town in the State that can boast of a protected industry. Although the quahaug industry has not openly shown the tendency to decline that the soft clam has manifested in southern Massachusetts, the danger is nevertheless very great, and the disaster would be far worse. The fishermen of Cape Cod realize that the clam industry has practically gone; but they are blind to the fact that a far more important one--the quahaug industry--is in as grave danger, and only when it is too late will they wake to a realization of the situation. The clam industry on Cape Cod and Buzzards Bay will never assume the importance it possesses on the north shore, owing to lack of extensive flats. Rather the quahaug industry is the main shellfish industry of the south shore, as it is more valuable, more important, and capable of vast expansion. The development of the quahaug industry should bring many hundred thousand dollars to Cape Cod. II. _Causes of the Decline._--The direct cause is overfishing. The quahaug is hardy, little harmed by climatic changes, and has but few natural enemies. Man alone has caused the decline of the natural supply. Not satisfied with taking the mediums and large quahaugs, but spurred on by the high prices offered for the "little neck," the quahaug fisherman has cleaned up everything he can get, and the natural supply has suffered greatly. If the market demands the capture of the "little neck," it is necessary to leave the large quahaugs as "spawners." At the present time, by the capture of both the industry is being ruined. _The Remedy._--_Quahaug Farming._ There is only _one way_ in which the present decline can be checked, and that is, to increase the natural supply by cultural methods to meet the demands of the market. The only way to accomplish this increase is to plant and raise quahaugs,--in fact, have a system of _quahaug farming_ for the whole south shore of Massachusetts. In considering quahaug farming, many questions naturally arise: (1) Is quahaug farming an established fact, or a mere theory? (2) Possibilities of quahaug farming. (3) What is the growth of the quahaug, and how long does it take to raise a crop? (4) What is the value of a quahaug farm? (5) What benefits would the quahaug industry receive from such a system? (1) _Quahaug Farming an Established Fact,--not a Theory._--It is not the object of this report to go into a scientific treatise upon experiments in quahaug culture. For the past three years the Commission on Fisheries and Game has been conducting experiments upon the growth and culture of quahaugs, the results of which will be published in a subsequent report. These experiments have shown that quahaug farming is no theory, but an established fact, and that, if taken up, it will make the quahaug fishery the most important shellfish industry of the State. These experiments, consisting of small beds one one-thousandth of an acre in area, were located at different places along the coast. Various conditions in regard to food, current, tide, soil, etc., were tested. The results from nearly every bed were excellent, and showed the ease of culture and the great profit which would result if larger areas were thus worked. The results obtained from the experiments of the commission alone are sufficient to prove the practicability of quahaug farming, even if there were no other proofs. As it is, there have been many tests made by the oystermen, both outside and inside the State. Some years ago the oystermen near New York realized the possibilities of raising quahaugs on their oyster grants, and to-day Massachusetts ships many barrels of "seed" quahaugs out of the State to these far-sighted business men, who reap large returns by replanting these small "little necks." The Massachusetts oystermen have not been slow to realize the large returns afforded by quahaug culture, and some have planted many bushels of the "seed," thus turning their grants into partial quahaug farms. These men have proved that this style of farming is practical, and that as a money-making proposition the quahaug is far ahead of the oyster. As affairs exist to-day in Massachusetts, a few men alone have the privilege of raising quahaugs, while the rest stand idle. Theoretically and legally, no one has the right to plant and raise quahaugs in the State; but practically and secretly it is done with great success. Who can blame the oysterman for raising quahaugs with his oysters, in view of the fast-declining quahaug industry? Rather by so doing he is helping perpetuate the natural supply. The objection to this present system of secret quahaug farming is its unfairness. A few men are enjoying the privileges that many others should likewise enjoy. There is plenty of room, and quahaug farming might as well be carried on openly, to the benefit of all. While the oystermen have made a move toward general quahaug farming, and have shown the great possibilities that this system possesses, the quahaugers have also exhibited a tendency in a similar direction. The originators of the town law in Eastham, Orleans and Wellfleet, which provides for the leasing of 5,625 square feet of flat for bedding the catch, and thus makes possible the advantage of a favorable market, probably did not imagine that this was the first great step on the part of the quahaugers towards shellfish farming. The success of this scheme has here opened the eyes of the intelligent quahaugers to the even better possibilities of quahaug culture, and any well-devised scheme of shellfish farming will be favorably received. The main impulse that makes people turn to quahaug culture is the steady decline of the industry, especially during the last few years. In the previous pages of this report there have been shown: (1) the actuality of the decline; (2) the causes of this decline. The proof of the decline is so generally apparent that it has created a popular demand for a fair system of quahaug farming, to check the diminution of the present supply. (2) _Possibilities of Quahaug Farming._--The quahaug has a wide range; it is found in all depths of water, from high tide line to sixty feet, and in various kinds of mud and sand bottom. This natural adaptability gives the quahaug a wider area than any other shellfish, as it will live in nearly any bottom, although the rate of growth depends essentially upon its location in respect to current. This permits the utilization of vast areas which to-day are unproductive, and which can all be made into profitable quahaug farms. Quahaugs will grow on thousands of acres of flats, such as the Common Flats of Chatham, if they are planted. There are indefinite possibilities of expansion in quahaug farming through the reclamation of this unproductive sea bottom. (3) _Rate of Growth of Quahaug._--The rate of growth of the quahaug varies greatly in regard to its location in respect to the current. The quahaugs which have the better current or circulation of water show the faster growth. The fastest growth recorded by the experiments of the Department on Fisheries and Game was a gain of 1 inch a year; _i.e._, 1½-inch quahaugs attained in one year a length of 2½ inches. The average growth is between ½ and ¾ inch a year, or a yield of 3 to 5 bushels for every bushel planted, or the return in one year of $4 for every $1 invested. In the more favorable localities there would be the enormous gain of $8 for every dollar invested. All this can be done in six months, as the quahaug grows only during the six summer months. The above figures are taken from experiments which have been conducted on Cape Cod, in Buzzards Bay and at Nantucket. (4) _Value of a Quahaug Farm._--An acre of "little-neck" quahaugs has a high market value. A conservative estimate of 10 per square foot gives the yield in one year of 2½-inch quahaugs as 600 bushels per acre; This means that 120 bushels of 1¾-inch quahaugs were planted to the acre. The price paid for the same would be $600, at the high price of $5 per bushel. The price received for the same, at $3 per bushel, would bring $1,800, or a gain of $3 for every $1 invested. This is a conservative estimate on all sides. Quahaugs could be planted two or three times as thick, seed might be purchased for less money, more money might be received for private shipments, and faster growth can be obtained. The only labor necessary is gathering the quahaugs for market. The quahaug farm requires no such care as the agricultural farm, and offers far more profit. (5) _Advantage of Quahaug Culture._--The quahaug is the most remunerative of any of our shellfish. It possesses several advantages over the oyster: (1) it is hardier,--less influenced by climatic conditions; (2) it has fewer enemies, as it lies protected under the sand; (3) it possesses a market the whole year; (4) there is more money for the planter in raising "little necks" than in raising oysters. If oyster culture has succeeded in Massachusetts, there is no question that, given a proper chance, quahaug culture can be put on a firm basis, and made the leading shellfish industry of Massachusetts. The value of the present quahaug industry lies chiefly in the production of "little necks." Under a cultural system of quahaug farms, this could be made a specialty. Old quahaugs would be kept as "seeders," and "little necks" alone raised for the market. The advantage of furnishing "little necks" of uniform size would lead to increased prices; steady customers would be obtained and certainty of production guaranteed. All the advantages lie with quahaug farming, as opposed to the present method of "free-for-all" digging. The quahaug industry of the future, if put on a cultural basis, will not only check the decline of a valuable industry, but will increase the present production many fold. A far larger supply, work for more men and better prices for the consumer will result. (6) _Spat Collecting._--The main obstacle that stands in the way of permanent quahaug culture is a lack of sufficient young "seed" quahaugs. While several heavy sets have been recorded, the "seed" quahaugs are never found in vast quantities, as are the young of the soft clam (_Mya arenaria_). The set of quahaugs is usually scattering and slight. A method of spat collecting, _i.e._, catching the spawn and raising the small quahaugs, is alone necessary for the complete success of quahaug culture. While nothing of practical importance has yet been found, indications are favorable that some means will be devised in the next few years, and that quantities of young quahaugs can be raised. Experiments have already shown that as many as 75 can be caught per square foot in box spat collectors; but a more practical method than this must be found to make the business profitable. _The Quahaug Industry._ _Methods of Capture._--Several methods of taking quahaugs are in vogue in Massachusetts, some simple and primitive, others more advanced and complex, but all modifications of simple raking or digging. These methods have arisen with the development of the industry, and record the historical changes in the quahaug fishery, as each new fishery or separate locality demands some modification of the usual methods. (1) "_Treading._"--The early settlers in Massachusetts quickly learned from the Indians the primitive method of "treading" quahaugs, which required no implements except the hands and feet. The "treader" catches the quahaug by wading about in the water, feeling for them with his toes in the soft mud, and then picking them up by hand. Nowhere in Massachusetts is it used as a method of commercial fishery. (2) _Tidal Flat Fishery._--Often quahaugs are found on the exposed tidal flats, where they can sometimes be taken by hand, but more often with ordinary clam hoes or short rakes. Owing to the scarcity of quahaugs between the tide lines, this method does not pay for market fishing, and is only resorted to by people who dig for home consumption. (3) _Tonging._--In most parts of Buzzards Bay and in a few places on Cape Cod quahaugs are taken with _oyster tongs_. This method is applicable only in water less than 12 feet deep, as the longest tongs measure but 16 feet. Four sizes of tongs are used, 8, 10, 12 and 16 feet in length. Tonging is carried on in the small coves and inlets, where there is little if any rough water. A muddy bottom is usually preferable, as a firm, hard soil increases the labor of manipulating the tongs, which are used in the same manner as in tonging oysters. (4) _Raking._--The most universal method of taking quahaugs is with rakes. This method is used in every quahaug locality in Massachusetts, each town having its special kind of rake. Four main types of rakes can be recognized:-- (_a_) _The Digger._--In some localities, chiefly in Buzzards Bay, the ordinary potato digger or rake, having four or five long, thin prongs, is used. Usually it has a back of wire netting, which holds the quahaugs when caught by the prongs. As the digger has a short handle of 5 feet, it can be used only in shallow water, where the quahauger, wading in the water, turns out the quahaugs with this narrow rake. This method yields but a scanty return, and is more often used for home consumption than for market. (_b_) _The Garden Rake._--The ordinary garden rake, equipped with a basket back of wire netting, is in more general use in shallow water, either by wading or from a boat, as it has the advantage of being wider than the potato digger. (_c_) _The Claw Rake._--This type of rake varies in size, width and length of handle. It is used chiefly at Nantucket. The usual style has a handle 6 feet long, while the iron part in the form of a claw or talon is 10 inches wide, with prongs 1 inch apart. Heavier rakes with longer handles are sometimes used for deep water, but for shallow water the usual form is the short-claw rake. (_d_) _The Basket Rake._-The greater part of the quahaug production is taken from deep water, with the basket rake. These rakes have handles running from 23 to 65 feet in length, according to the depth of water over the beds. Where the water is of various depths, several detachable handles of various lengths are used. At the end of these long handles is a small cross-piece, similar to the cross-piece of a lawn mower; this enables the quahauger to obtain a strong pull when raking. The handles are made of strong wood, and are very thin and flexible, not exceeding 1½ inches in diameter. The price of these handles varies according to the length, but the average price is about $2. As the long handles break very easily, great care must be taken in raking. Three forms of the basket rake are used in Massachusetts. These rakes vary greatly in form and size, and it is merely a question of opinion which variety is the best, as all are made on the same general principle,--a curved, basket-shaped body, the bottom edge of which is set with thin steel teeth. _The Wellfleet and Chatham Rake._--This rake is perhaps the most generally used for all deep-water quahauging on Cape Cod, and finds favor with all. It consists of an iron framework, forming a curved bowl, the under edge of which is set with thin steel teeth varying in length from 2 to 4 inches, though usually 2½-inch teeth are the favorite. Formerly these teeth were made of iron, but owing to the rapid wear it was found necessary to make them of steel. Over the bowl of this rake, which is strengthened by side and cross pieces of iron, is fitted a twine net, which, like the net of a scallop dredge, drags behind the framework. An average rake has from 19 to 21 teeth, and weighs from 15 to 20 pounds. _Edgartown Basket Rake._--The basket rake used at Edgartown and Nantucket is lighter and somewhat smaller than the Wellfleet rake. The whole rake, except the teeth, is made of iron. No netting is required, as thin iron wires 1/3 inch apart encircle lengthwise the whole basket, preventing the escape of any marketable quahaug, and at the same time allowing the mud to wash out. This rake has 16 steel teeth, 1½ inches long, fitted at intervals of 1 inch in the bottom scraping bar, which is 16 inches long; the depth of the basket is about 8 inches. Much shorter poles, not exceeding 30 feet in length, are used with this rake, and the whole rake is much lighter. The price of this rake is $7.50, while the poles cost $1.50. The third form of basket rake is a cross between the basket and claw rakes. This rake is used both at Nantucket and on Cape Cod, but is not so popular as the other types. The basket is formed by the curve of the prongs, which are held together by two long cross-bars at the top and bottom of the basket, while the ends are enclosed by short strips of iron. This rake exemplifies the transition stage between the claw and basket types, indicating that the basket form was derived from the former. Handles 20 to 30 feet long are generally used with these rakes. _Shallow v. Deep Water Quahauging._--Two kinds of quahauging are found in Massachusetts,--the deep and the shallow water fisheries. This arbitrary distinction also permits a division of localities in regard to the principal methods of fishing. Although in all localities there exists more or less shallow-water fishing, the main quahaug industry of several towns is the deep-water fishery. In all the Buzzards Bay towns except Fairhaven and New Bedford the shallow-water fishery prevails; this is also true of the south side of Cape Cod. On the north side of Cape Cod the opposite is true, as the quahauging at Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans and Brewster is practically all deep-water fishing. At Edgartown and Nantucket, although there is considerable shallow-water digging, the deep-water fishery is the more important. The deep-water fishery is vastly more productive than the shallow-water industry, furnishing annually 118,500 bushels, compared to 23,227 bushels, or more than 5 times as much. The deep-water fishery, _i.e._, the basket-rake fishery, is the main quahaug fishery of the State, and each year it is increasing, because of the opening of new beds. On the other hand, the shallow-water grounds are rapidly becoming barren from overfishing. The deep-water quahauging is harder work, requires considerable capital but has fewer working days. Naturally the earnings from this fishery should surpass those of the shallow-water industry. The deep-water quahauger averages from $5 to $8 for a working day, while the shallow-water fisherman earns only from $2 to $3 per day. _Deep-water Quahauging._--Both power and sail boats are used in deep-water quahauging, though power is gradually replacing the old method of sailing, because of its increased efficiency and saving of time. When the quahaug grounds are reached, the boat is anchored at both bow and stern, one continuous rope connecting both anchors, which are from 500 to 600 feet apart, in such a way that the bow of the boat is always headed against the tide. A sufficient amount of slack is required for the proper handling of the boat, which can be moved along this anchor "road" as on a cable, and a large territory raked. The rake is lowered from the bow of the boat, the length of the handle being regulated by the depth of the water, and the teeth worked into the sandy or muddy bottom. The quahauger then takes firm hold of the cross-piece at the end of the handle, and works the rake back to the stern of the boat, where it is hauled in and the contents dumped on the culling board or picked out of the net. In hauling in the net the rake is turned so that the opening is on top, and the mud and sand is washed out before it is taken on board. The long pole passes across the boat and extends into the water on the opposite side when the rake is hauled in. This process is repeated until the immediate locality becomes unprofitable, when the boat is shifted along the cable. The usual time for quahauging is from half ebb to half flood tide, thus avoiding the extra labor of high-water raking. Deep-water raking is especially hard labor, and six hours constitute a good day's work. _Boats._--Nearly all kinds of boats are utilized in the quahaug fishery, and are of all values, from the $10 second-hand skiff to the 38-foot power seine boat, which costs $1,500. The shallow-water industry requires but little invested capital. Dories and skiffs are the principal boats, costing from $10 to $25. Occasionally a sail or power boat may be used in this fishery. The deep-water industry requires larger and stronger boats. These are either power or sail boats, often auxiliary "cats," and their value runs anywhere from $150 to $1,500. The average price for the sail boats is $250, while the power boats are assessed at $350. At Orleans several large power seine boats, valued at about $1,500, are used in the quahaug fishery. These seine boats are 30 to 38 feet over all, have low double cabins, and are run by 8 to 12 horse-power gasolene engines. The ordinary power boats have gasolene engines from 2 to 6 horse-power. In this way each method of quahauging has its own boats, which are adapted for its needs. _Dredging._--So far as known, dredging is never used in quahauging in Massachusetts, although it is sometimes used on sea-clam beds. It has been tried, but without success, chiefly because of the uneven nature of the bottom. The invention of a suitable dredge is necessary, and there can be little doubt that in the future, if this difficulty is overcome, dredging will be used in the quahaug fishery. In 1879 Mr. Ernest Ingersoll reports in Rhode Island the use of a quahaug dredge similar in structure to our rake. Evidently this form was never especially successful, possibly because these dredges could not be dragged by sail boats. _Outfit of a Quahauger._--The implements and boats used in quahauging have already been mentioned. The outfit of the average quahauger in each fishery is here summarized:-- _Deep-water Quahauging._ Boat, $300 2 rakes, 20 3 poles, 6 ----- $326 _Shallow-water Quahauging._ Boat, $20 Tongs or rakes, 3 Baskets, 2 ----- $25 _Season._--The quahaug fishery is essentially a summer fishery, and little if any is done during the winter. The season in Massachusetts lasts for seven months, usually starting the last of March or the first of April, and ending about the first of November. The opening of the spring season varies several weeks, owing to the severity of the weather; and the same is true of the closing of the season. As a rule, the Buzzards Bay industry, where digging is done in the shallow waters of protected bays and coves, using short rakes and tongs, has a longer season than the quahaug industry of Cape Cod, where the fishery is carried on in deep and open waters. With the former, the cold work and hardship alone force the quahaugers to stop fishing, a long time after storms and rough weather have brought the latter industry to an end. The actual working days of the deep-water quahauger number hardly over 100 per season, while those of the shallow-water fishermen easily outnumber 150. The deep-water quahauger's daily earnings are two or three times the daily wages of the shallow-water quahauger, but the additional number of working days in part make up this difference. The quahaug season can be divided arbitrarily into three parts: (1) spring; (2) summer; (3) fall. The spring season lasts from April 1 to June 15, the summer season from June 15 to September 15, and the fall season from September 15 to November 1. These seasons are marked by an increase in the number of quahaugers in the spring and fall. The men who do summer boating quahaug in the spring before the summer people arrive, and in the fall after the summer season is over. The opening of the scallop season, in towns that are fortunate enough to possess both industries, marks the closing of the quahaug season. These two industries join so well, scalloping in the winter and quahauging in the summer, that a shellfisherman has work practically all the year. _The Principal Markets._--The principal markets for the sale of Massachusetts quahaugs are Boston and New York. In 1879 the Boston market, according to Mr. Ernest Ingersoll, sold comparatively few. At the present time the Boston market disposes of many thousand bushels annually, but nevertheless the greater part of the Massachusetts quahaugs are shipped to New York. This, again, is due to the better market prices offered by that city. Besides passing through these two main channels, quahaugs are shipped direct from the coast dealers to various parts of the country, especially the middle west. This last method seems to be on the increase, and the future may see a large portion of the quahaug trade carried on by direct inland shipments. _Shipment._--Quahaugs are shipped either in second-hand sugar or flour barrels or in bushel bags. The latter method is fast gaining popularity with the quahaugers and dealers, owing to its cheapness, and is now steadily used in some localities. When quahaugs are shipped in barrels, holes are made in the bottom and sides of the barrel, to allow free circulation of air and to let the water out, while burlap is used instead of wooden heads. "_Culls._"--Several culls are made for the market. These vary in number in different localities and with different firms, but essentially are modifications of the three "culls" made by the quahaugers: (1) "little necks;" (2) "sharps;" (3) "blunts." The divisions made by the firm of A. D. Davis & Co. of Wellfleet are as follows: (1) "little necks," small, 1½-2¼ inches; large, 2¼-3 inches; (2) medium "sharps," 3-3¾ inches; (3) large "sharps," 3¾ inches up; (4) small "blunts;" (5) large "blunts." _Price._--The prices received by the quahaugers are small, compared with the retail prices. "Little necks" fetch from $2.50 to $4 per bushel, sharps and small blunts from $1.10 to $2, and large blunts from 80 cents to $1.50, according to the season, fall and spring prices necessarily being higher than in summer. The price depends wholly upon the supply in the market, and varies greatly, although the "little necks" are fairly constant, as the demand for these small quahaugs is very great. To what excess the demand for "little necks" has reached can best be illustrated by a comparison between the price of $3 paid to the quahauger per bushel, and the actual price, $50, paid for the same by the consumer in the hotel restaurants. _Bedding Quahaugs for Market._--By town laws in Orleans, Eastham and Wellfleet, each quahauger may, upon application, secure from the selectmen a license, giving him not more than 75 feet square of tidal flat upon which to bed his catch of quahaugs. While no positive protection is guaranteed, public opinion recognizes the right of each man to his leased area, and this alone affords sufficient protection for the success of this communal effort, which is the first step by the people toward quahaug farming. The quahauger needs only to spread his catch on the surface, and within two tides the quahaugs will have buried themselves in the sand. Here they will remain, with no danger of moving away, as the quahaug moves but little. The quahauger loses nothing by this replanting, as not only do the quahaugs remain in a healthy condition, but even grow in their new environment. The result of this communal attempt at quahaug culture is beneficial. While the market price for "little necks" is almost always steady, the price of the larger quahaugs fluctuates considerably, and the market often becomes "glutted." This would naturally result in a severe loss to the quahauger if he were forced to keep shipping at a low price. As it is, the fortunate quahauger who possesses such a grant merely replants his daily catch until the market prices rise to their proper level. An additional advantage is gained by the quahauger, who at the end of the season has his grant well stocked, as higher prices are then offered. As many as 1,000 barrels are often held this way at the end of the season. _Food Value._--See food value table in scallop report. _Uses._--Besides its many uses as a food, raw, cooked and canned, the quahaug is of little importance in Massachusetts. (1) For bait the soft clam (_Mya arenaria_) is generally preferred, and but few quahaugs are used for this purpose. (2) The shell was once prized by the Indians for their wampum; now it is occasionally used for ornamental purposes. (3) Oystermen use it for cultch when they can get nothing better; though more fragile shells are usually preferred, so that the masses of oyster "set" can be easily broken apart. (4) Shell roads are occasionally made from quahaug shells. Possibly lime could be profitably obtained. _History of Quahaug Industry in Massachusetts._ South of Plymouth harbor quahaugs have always been plentiful along the shores of Cape Cod, Buzzards Bay and the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Frequent shell heaps show that the Indians were accustomed to use this mollusk as a food, and even indulged in an occasional clam bake. Colonial records show us that the early colonists were not slow in learning to "tread out" this mollusk from the mud flats. The shells of the quahaug were much prized by the Indians for wampum beads, because of their purplish color. Although reckoned inferior by many to the soft clam (_Mya arenaria_), the quahaug was dug for home consumption for years in Massachusetts, and but little attempt was made to put it on the market. The commercial quahaug fishery started on Cape Cod, about the first of the nineteenth century, growing in extent until about 1860. From 1860 to 1890 the production remained about constant. The production in 1879 for Massachusetts, as given by A. Howard Clark, totaled 11,050 bushels, valued at $5,525. It is only in the last fifteen to twenty years that the actual development of the quahaug fishery has taken place. The present production of Massachusetts is 144,044 bushels, valued at $194,687. To the popular demand for the "little neck" can be attributed the rapid development of the quahaug industry during the last ten years. This development has furnished employment for hundreds of men, and has given the quahaug an important value as a sea food. What it will lead to is easily seen. The maximum production was passed a few years ago, constant overfishing caused by an excessive demand is destroying the natural supply, and there will in a few years be practically no commercial fishery, unless measures are taken to increase the natural supply. Quahaug farming offers the best solution at the present time, and gives promise of permanent success. The following statistics, taken from the United States Fish Commission reports, show the rapidity of the development of the quahaug fishery:-- =============+============+===========+================ DATE. | Bushels. | Value. | Price (Cents). -------------+------------+-----------+---------------- 1879, | 11,050 | $5,525 | 50.0 1887, | 35,540 | 21,363 | 60.0 1888, | 26,165 | 14,822 | 56.5 1898, | 63,817 | 50,724 | 79.5 1902, | 106,818 | 131,139 | 124.0 1905, | 166,526 | 288,987 | 155.0 =============+============+===========+================ Not only has there been an increase in production, but also an increase in price, as can be seen from the above table, which shows that the price has more than doubled between 1888 and 1902. This increase in price has alone supported a declining fishery in many towns, making it still profitable for quahaugers to keep in the business, in spite of a much smaller catch. The advance in price is due both to the natural rise in the value of food products during the past twenty-five years and also to the popular demand for the "little neck," or small quahaug. _State Laws._--There are no State laws governing the quahaug fishery, except the regulations of the State Board of Health in regard to sewage pollution in Acushnet River and Boston Harbor. _Town Laws._--Regulation of the quahaug fishery was given to each town by the State under the general shellfish act of 1880; the industry is therefore entirely governed under the by-laws of the town. An interesting comparison can be made between the quahaug regulations of the different towns. Good, useless and harmful laws exist side by side. One town will pass excellent regulations, and enforce them; another town will make the same, but never trouble to see that they are observed. Edgartown enforces the 1½-inch quahaug law; Orleans, Eastham and Wellfleet have the same law, but fail to enforce it. Many towns allow the small seed quahaugs to be caught and shipped out of the State, thus losing $4 to every $1 gained. These towns refuse to make any regulation, such as a simple size limit, which would remedy this matter, and have no thought for the future of their quahaug industry. All that can be said is that the quahaug laws are the best of the town shellfish regulations, and that is but faint praise. _Statistics of the Quahaug Fishery._ In the following table the towns are arranged in alphabetical order, and the list includes only those towns which now possess a commercial quahaug fishery. In giving the number of men, both transient and regular quahaugers are included. In estimating the capital invested, the boats, implements, shanties and gear of the quahauger are alone considered, and personal apparel, such as oilskins, boots, etc., are not taken into account. The value of the production for each town is based upon what the quahaugers receive for their quahaugs, and not the price they bring in the market. The area of quahaug territory given for each town includes all ground where quahaugs are found, both thick beds and scattering quahaugs. =============+======+=========+======+=======+================+======+======= TOWN. |Number| Capital |Number|Number |1907 PRODUCTION.| | Value | of |invested.| of | of +--------+-------+ Area | of | Men. | |Boats.|Dories |Bushels.| Value.| in | Yield | | | | and | | |Acres.| per | | | |Skiffs.| | | | Acre. -------------+------+---------+------+-------+--------+-------+------+------- Barnstable, | 25 | $850 | - | 25 | 2,500| $3,700| 950| $3.95 | | | | | | | | Bourne, | 46 | 1,000 | - | 46 | 5,400| 8,400| 2,500| 3.36 | | | | | | | | Chatham, | 50 | 5,750 | 25 | 25 | 6,700| 10,000| 2,000| 5.00 | | | | | | | | Dennis, | 15 | 150 | - | 10 | 500| 950| 200| 4.75 | | | | | | | | Eastham, | 25 | 8,000 | 12 | - | 10,000| 11,500| 4,000| 2.87 | | | | | | | | Edgartown, | 70 | 12,000 | 42 | 18 | 20,000| 32,000| 1,800| 17.77 | | | | | | | | Fairhaven, | 115 | 5,000 | 11 | 100 | 15,000| 16,500| 3,000| 5.50 | | | | | | | | Falmouth, | - | - | - | - | 100| 115| 400| .29 | | | | | | | | Harwich, | 7 | 200 | - | 7 | 1,500| 2,550| 100| 25.50 | | | | | | | | Marion, | 19 | 250 | - | 19 | 800| 1,500| 400| 3.75 | | | | | | | | Mashpee, | 7 | 70 | - | 5 | 250| 285| 400| .71 | | | | | | | | Mattapoisett,| 28 | 500 | - | 28 | 800| 1,500| 750| 2.00 | | | | | | | | Nantucket, | 48 | 6,750 | 30 | 10 | 6,294| 8,487| 5,290| 1.60 | | | | | | | | Orleans, | 75 | 25,000 | 30 | 25 | 33,000| 41,350| 1,500| 27.56 | | | | | | | | Wareham, | 50 | 1,000 | - | 50 | 6,000| 10,500| 1,300| 8.08 | | | | | | | | Wellfleet, | 145 | 27,500 | 100 | - | 33,000| 41,350| 2,500| 16.54 | | | | | | | | Yarmouth, | 20 | 240 | - | 10 | 2,200| 4,000| 1,000| 4.00 -------------+------+---------+------+-------+--------+-------+------+------- | | | | | | | |Average Totals, | 745 | 94,260 | 250 | 378 | 144,044|194,687|28,090| $6.93 =============+======+=========+======+=======+========+=======+======+======= _Barnstable._ Barnstable, with its extensive bays both on the north or bay side and on the south or Vineyard Sound side, offers great possibilities for quahaug production. Although the quahaug ranks, in productive value, the third shellfish industry of Barnstable, the natural resources permit an expansion under cultural methods which would place the quahaug ahead of the oyster, which at the present time is the leading shellfish industry of the town. In Barnstable harbor, on the north coast of the town, a few quahaugs are found scattered in isolated patches. (See Map No. 9.) These are relatively of small importance commercially, and no regular fishery is carried on. In the future the vast barren flats of this harbor may be made productive of quahaugs as well as clams, although at present the total area of quahaug grounds is hardly 5 acres. The greater part of the quahaug industry of Barnstable is conducted on the south shore of the township, which is especially adapted, with its coves and inlets, for the successful growth of this shellfish. The principal fishery is in Cotuit harbor and West Bay, and is chiefly shared by the villages of Osterville, Marston's Mills and Cotuit, which lie on the east, north and west sides, respectively, of the bay. While the greater part of Cotuit harbor is taken up by oyster grants, there are certain parts, though limited in area, which are set aside for quahauging. The principal area for quahauging is the flat which runs along Oyster Island. This was originally an oyster grant taken out by Wendell Nickerson, and thrown open to quahaugers to protect the quahaug interests from the oyster planters. This territory, which comprises 70 acres, is mostly hard sand. Directly west in the center of the harbor lies a strip of 80 acres of mud and eel grass, where both quahaugs and scallops abound. The depth of water on quahauging grounds varies from 1 to 14 feet. Scattering quahaugs are found also in Osterville harbor, West Bay, Popponesset River and East Bay. This bottom is practically all sand, and comprises a total of 1,650 acres. This cannot all be considered good quahaug ground, although quahaugs can occasionally be found. At Hyannis the quahaug grounds are confined to Lewis Bay, where they cover an area of 800 acres. The quahaugs lie in scattered patches over this area, but in no place is there especially good quahauging. The bottom is hard, usually sandy, with patches of eel grass, while the average depth of water is hardly more than 6 feet. In Osterville Bay about 20 men, in Lewis Bay about 5, using the same number of dories, make a business of quahauging in the summer months. Three styles of implements are used: (1) oyster tongs, varying from 8 to 16 feet, according to the depth of water; (2) large basket rakes, with 30-foot handles; (3) ordinary garden rakes, with wire basket, for shallow-water digging. At Cotuit the quahaugs run one-third "little necks," one-third mediums and one-third large. Here several men, using long-handled rakes, make from $3 to $5 per day in favorable weather. The markets are principally New York and Boston, where the quahaugs are shipped, mostly in sacks, which is a cheaper and better way than shipment in barrels. Here the quahaug season lasts from April 1 to November 1, most of the work being done in the summer, when the oyster business is at a standstill. There are no town laws governing the quahaug fishery, other than forbidding a non-resident of the town the right of quahauging; and no licenses are required. No records of the history of the quahaug industry at Barnstable can be found. A. Howard Clark in 1879 makes the following brief statement, which is the only record obtainable:-- Both soft clams and quahaugs are found in the harbor [Osterville harbor], but no considerable fishing for them is carried on. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 950 Number of men, 25 Number of boats, - Value of boats, - Number of dories, 25 Value of dories, $500 Value of implements, $350 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 800 Value, $2,000 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 1,700 Value, $1,700 Total:-- Bushels, 2,500 Value, $3,700 _Bourne._ The town of Bourne was formerly included in the town of Sandwich, and many old laws relating to shellfish, such as oyster regulation in Barlow River, were enacted by the town of Sandwich. Situated at the head of Buzzards Bay, and separated from the adjacent town of Wareham by Cohasset Narrows, Bourne has many advantages for a profitable quahaug industry. It possesses nearly twice as much quahaug territory as Wareham, but, as most of this lies unproductive, has a smaller annual output. The territory includes over 2,500 acres of ground, most of which consists of flats of mud, sand and eel grass, covered with shallow water. It is very sparsely set with quahaugs. Outside the oyster grants practically the entire stretch of coast from Buttermilk Bay to Wings Neck is quahauging ground, as can be seen on Map No. 17. Other quahaug grounds lie between Basset's Island, Scraggy Neck and Handy's Point. It is our opinion that this large territory, which to-day yields on the average less than $3.50 per acre, in the future, under cultivation, can be made to yield an average of $100 per acre, thereby bringing into the town of Bourne a yearly income of at least $250,000, and furnishing labor for hundreds of men. About 46 men are engaged in the quahaug fishery of Bourne, using the same number of skiffs and dories, which represent approximately an investment of $875. The fishery lasts usually seven months during the summer, April 1 to November 1, while the winter digging is of small account. Practically all the digging is done in comparatively shallow water, with short-handled rakes or tongs. Rather more than a third of the quahaugs appear to be "little necks," while the mediums constitute one-tenth of the total catch. "Blunts" are of little consequence. The selectmen issue permits for the taking of quahaugs and clams. In 1906, 46 permits were issued, entitling the holder to 10 bushels of clams and 10 bushels of quahaugs per week. There is little to be said concerning the history of the Bourne quahaug industry, as no early records exist. Its development has been similar to that of the industries of the other Buzzards Bay towns. During the last few years the Bourne fishery, unlike most of the towns on Buzzards Bay, has shown signs of increasing. This is not due, however, to any increase in the natural supply, but to the decline of the oyster industry, which gives more opportunity to the quahaugers. The same antagonistic feeling that is prevalent in Wareham exists here between the oystermen and quahaugers. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 2,500 Number of men, 46 Number of boats, - Value of boats, - Number of skiffs, 46 Value of skiffs, $875 Value of implements, $125 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 2,000 Value, $5,000 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 3,400 Value, $3,400 Total:-- Bushels, 5,400 Value, $8,400 _Chatham._ Chatham is favorably situated in regard to the quahaug fishery, as this shellfish is found in the waters on the north and south sides of the town. The grounds are extensive, covering about 2,000 acres, the greater part of which consists of the vast area south of the town known as the "Common Flats." The quahauging grounds are in four localities: (1) Pleasant Bay; (2) Mill Pond; (3) Stage Harbor; (4) Common Flats. (1) Part of the waters of Pleasant Bay belong to the town of Chatham. In an arm of this bay, known as Crows Pond, the best Pleasant Bay fishery is carried on in water varying from 6 to 16 feet in depth. (2) An excellent "little neck" fishery is carried on in the upper part of the Mill Pond, in comparatively shallow water, comprising an area of 3 acres. On these bars in 1905 there was a very heavy set of small quahaugs, which were rapidly taken up before they had a chance to attain to a fair size. (3) Quahaugs are raked on the west side of Stage Harbor in 5 to 15 feet of water, in an area of 4 acres of muddy bottom. (4) The Common Flats comprise 1,700 acres, and are covered at low tide by a depth of only 1 to 2 feet of water. Quahaugs are found throughout this territory in scattering quantities, but practically all is good quahaug ground except the shifting outer part of the flat. The soil varies from a pure sand to a sandy mud, and in parts is thickly covered with eel grass, which makes raking hard. This area offers one of the best opportunities for successful quahaug planting in the State. The area is large, seed can be obtained easily and quahaugs grow well in this locality. If it were not for the lack of protection, Chatham could establish one of the best quahaug industries in the State by leasing out the Common Flats for planting purposes. Quahaugs are taken at Chatham only with rakes. In the deep water in Crows Pond and in Stage Harbor basket rakes are used; but in the shallow water on the Common Flats and in the Mill Pond the usual implement is an ordinary garden rake, with wire netting basket. Handles from 20 to 25 feet in length are used with the basket rakes. The quahaug industry has existed in Chatham for the past twelve years. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 2,000 Number of men, 50 Number of boats, 25 Value of boats, $5,000 Number of dories, 25 Value of dories, $350 Value of implements, $400 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 2,200 Value, $5,500 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 4,500 Value, $4,500 Total:-- Bushels, 6,700 Value, $10,000 _Dartmouth._ The quahaug industry of Dartmouth is of little consequence. In 1907, 320 permits were granted, mostly to New Bedford fishermen for "bait." _Dennis._ The quahauging grounds of Dennis are practically all in Bass River, where Dennis has equal fishery rights with Yarmouth. The area of these grounds is 200 acres, with a maximum depth of 6 feet of water over the beds. The history of the industry is the same as that of Yarmouth, as the two industries are closely associated, and a similar decline has resulted. The laws for both towns are the same. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 200 Number of men (transient), 15 Number of boats, - Value of boats, - Number of skiffs, 10 Value of skiffs, $100 Value of implements, $50 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 300 Value, $750 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 200 Value, $200 Total:-- Bushels, 500 Value, $950 _Eastham._ Eastham is similar to Orleans in situation, possessing a good coast line on both the east and west, which affords excellent opportunities for the quahaug fishery. On the west or bay side are extensive beds of quahaugs, for the most part blunts, extending into deep water for nearly 3 miles. This quahauging territory comprises about 4,000 acres, which is open to the quahaugers of both Wellfleet and Orleans. While scattering quahaugs are found over approximately all this territory, the fishery is conducted in only certain definite places. In Nauset harbor on the east side during the season of 1906 numerous beds of "little necks," about the 1½-inch size, were discovered. It is thought that these came from the spawn of certain quahaugs which the life savers were accustomed to bed in the harbor for their own use. These quahaugs were torn up and scattered by the ice during a severe winter, and in this way the nucleus of a new fishery was formed. Two men who discovered the best of these beds cleared $60 in one week. On the west coast of the town 25 men commonly dig with long-handled rakes. These fishermen work at quahauging about 100 days in the year, and average from 5 to 6 bushels per day. Power boats are used for the most part, although the boats are not so large or expensive as those of the Orleans fishermen, for the Eastham quahauger digs in the more sheltered waters of Wellfleet Bay. The production for 1906 was 10,000 bushels, but this does not give the true yield of the Eastham flats, as the Wellfleet and Orleans fishermen rake to a great extent in Eastham waters, and so many more bushels are actually taken within the town limits. The town laws of Eastham are the same as those of Wellfleet. (See Wellfleet.) The history of the Eastham quahaug industry is so closely connected with that of Orleans and Wellfleet that no additional features require mention. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 4,000 Number of men, 25 Number of boats, 12 Value of boats, $7,375 Number of dories, - Value of dories, - Value of implements, $625 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 1,000 Value, $2,500 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 9,000 Value, $9,000 Total:-- Bushels, 10,000 Value, $11,500 _Edgartown._ The finest "little neck" fishery in Massachusetts is found in Katama Bay, in the town of Edgartown. Two-fifths of the entire catch are "little necks." The most productive grounds are situated in the lower part of Katama Bay, while quahaugs are also found in Edgartown harbor and in Cape Poge Pond, the total area of these localities comprising 1,800 acres. The fishing is mostly done from power dories or sail boats with basket rakes. Poles from 20 to 25 feet long are used, as the water over the beds is less than 20 feet deep. Some quahaugs are taken in the shallow water with small claw rakes. The catch is shipped to the New York and Boston markets. The quahaug industry of Edgartown is the best-regulated shellfish industry in Massachusetts. If excellent care had not been taken of the "little neck" fishery of Katama Bay by enforcing a size limit of 1½ inches, through the employment of a special shellfish warden, the quahaug fishery of Edgartown would have been ruined long ago by the exportation of small "seed" quahaugs. To-day the number of small quahaugs which are returned to the water greatly exceeds the amount of marketable quahaugs taken. This is the only case in Massachusetts where the quahaug fishery, by careful regulations of the town, has maintained an undiminished supply. If other towns had taken similar care of their quahaug fisheries in the past, the general decline of the industry in this State would never have become so serious. The following is a copy of the shellfish permit, which every Edgartown quahauger is required to take out, at the cost of $2, before he can rake quahaugs for market. Any man over sixty years old obtains his permit free. This permit should serve as a model for other towns. SHELLFISH PERMIT. TOWN OF EDGARTOWN, SELECTMEN'S OFFICE, 190_. In consideration of having received from ____ of Edgartown the sum of $2, permission is hereby granted to him to take from any of the waters of this town daily, between sunrise and sunset, twenty-five bushels of scallops or clams, including shells, and four bushels, including shells, of quahaugs; of these four bushels, not more than two bushels are to be of the size known as "little necks." The acceptance of this permit constitutes an agreement by the holder thereof that he will, and that any other person who for the time being has or shall have in his custody or possession any building, boat, barrel, box, tub, crate or other vessel or receptacle containing or suitable for or capable of containing shellfish, and belonging to or under the control of the holder of this permit, shall, at any time or place when requested so to do by either of said selectmen or by their authorized agent, or by any constable or fish warden of said town, or by any other officer authorized to enforce the laws relating to shellfish or shellfisheries in said town, open any such building, boat, barrel, box, tub, crate or other vessel or receptacle, and fully expose to them or either of them the contents thereof for inspection; and if the holder of this permit or such other person as aforesaid, when so requested, refuses or neglects so to do, said selectmen may revoke this permit or suspend the same for any stated time, at their discretion. The holder of this permit is subject to the regulations for the taking of eels and shellfish as made and posted by the selectmen, and also to any additional regulations which said board may hereafter make and publish. If the person having this permit for the taking of shellfish violates any law of the Commonwealth or any regulation now or hereafter made by said selectmen, relating to shellfish or shellfisheries in said town, said selectmen may revoke said permit, or suspend the same for any stated time at their discretion. No person is allowed by law to take from the waters of said town, or to sell or offer for sale, or to have in his possession, any "little neck" clams or quahaugs measuring less than one and one-half inches across the widest part. Any person violating this provision of law is liable to a fine of not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars. This permit will expire April 1, 190 , unless sooner revoked. _Selectmen of Edgartown._ Ernest Ingersoll in 1879 makes the following statement concerning the quahaug fishery of Martha's Vineyard:-- Martha's Vineyard used to be bordered by good quahaug ground, but I am not aware that many are caught there now. In an old book I find the following allusion to it: "The poquau (_Venus mercenaria_) is found in Old Town Harbor, at Cape Poge, and in Menemsha Pond: great quantities are exported." A. Howard Clark in 1879 says:-- Soft clams and quahaugs are abundant in the harbor, and are used by the fishermen for bait.... Three hundred bushels of quahaugs and sea clams, valued at $150, were taken during the year 1879. If such were the conditions in 1879, the industry has had a great development. To-day Edgartown is one of the best quahaug towns of the State, and produces the finest "little necks." Comparing the production figures of 1879 and 1907, a great increase is noted:-- _Production, 1879._ Bushels, 300 Value, $150 _Production, 1907._ Bushels, 20,000 Value, $32,000 SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 1,800 Number of men, 70 Number of boats, 42 Value of boats, $10,500 Number of dories, 18 Value of dories, $450 Value of implements, $1,050 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 8,000 Value, $20,000 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 12,000 Value, $12,000 Total:-- Bushels, 20,000 Value, $32,000 _Fairhaven._ At Fairhaven the quahaug industry is of considerable importance, and the output from this town alone is nearly half the entire production of Buzzards Bay. Some 3,000 acres are more or less bedded with quahaugs. Of this, probably not more than one-tenth is very productive. The best quahauging is in Acushnet River, where digging for market has been forbidden because of sewage pollution (see New Bedford), and in Priests Cove as far as Sconticut Neck. In these grounds "little necks" are numerous. The grounds around West Island and Long Island, once very productive, are now largely dug out. Little Bay and the east coast of Sconticut Neck are fairly productive, while the west coast yields only a small amount. Most of the quahaugs now dug come from the deep water west-southwest of Sconticut Neck. Here, with rakes having handles from 40 to 60 feet long, the quahaugers dig in water 7 fathoms or more in depth. The quahaugs, mostly large sharps, are in bluish mud or sticky bottom, and are all large. A number of blunts are found with these large sharps. In the Acushnet River, owing to the enforced closed season, there are a large number of "little necks." About 115 men are employed now in quahauging. Before the Acushnet River was closed by law, over twice that number are reported to have been engaged in the business. Six power boats and five cat boats, besides a considerable number of skiffs and dories, are used in the fishery. No permits are required for ordinary quahauging except in the prescribed territory of Acushnet River, where permits to catch a certain amount for bait are given as in New Bedford. The production for 1879, as given by A. Howard Clark in "The Fisheries of Massachusetts," was 3,000 bushels, which is just one-fifth of the present production. The supply of quahaugs has decreased the last few years, though new territory is constantly being opened up, as the quahaugers go out further into the deeper water. The increased price, however, probably more than counterbalances the decline in production. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 3,000 Number of men, 115 Number of boats, 11 Value of boats, $2,600 Number of skiffs, 100 Value of skiffs, $1,500 Value of implements, $900 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 1,000 Value, $2,500 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 14,000 Value, $14,000 Total:-- Bushels, 15,000 Value, $16,500 _Falmouth._ There is practically no quahaug industry in Falmouth. Hardly 100 bushels are dug annually, and those only for home consumption. A few quahaugs are perhaps shipped by the oystermen. This town, with its numerous inlets, bays and brackish water ponds, offers perhaps as fine an opportunity for shellfish culture, especially for quahaugs, as exists in Massachusetts. There is no reason why the water of Waquoit Bay and the other brackish ponds should not produce a great supply of quahaugs, if properly worked. Quahaugs are found mostly in scattering quantities over a large area in Waquoit Bay and in small quantities on the north and west side of Great Pond, comprising a total of nearly 400 acres. Not all this ground, which is the greater part mud, is capable of producing quahaugs, but many parts could produce good harvests. On the bay side of the town small patches of good quahaugs are found at North Falmouth, Squeteague Pond, West Falmouth harbor on the southeast side, and a few are found in Hadley harbor, Naushon. These, together with the small patches in Great Pond, comprise about 1 acre of good quahaug ground, and are mostly dug by summer people. In the past twenty-five years there has been a great decline in the quahaug industry, especially in Waquoit Bay, which to-day barely produces 50 bushels. A. Howard Clark states, in 1879:[7]-- Quahaugs are plenty in Waquoit Bay, and are gathered and eaten by the villagers, but none are shipped. It is estimated that about 500 bushels of quahaugs are annually consumed by the people of Falmouth town. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 400 Number of men, -- Number of boats, -- Value of boats, -- Number of dories, -- Value of dories, -- Value of implements, -- _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 10 Value, $25 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 90 Value, $90 Total:-- Bushels, 100 Value, $115 _Harwich._ The quahaug fishery of the town of Harwich is carried on in that part of Pleasant Bay which lies within the town limits. In the southern waters of the town, on the Sound side, scattering quahaugs are found in certain localities, but are not of any commercial importance. The most important of those localities are off Dean's Creek and in Herring River, where quahaugs are dug for home consumption. Harwich shares with Chatham and Orleans the quahaug fishery of Pleasant Bay, but has a more limited territory, as only a small portion of Pleasant Bay lies within the town limits. Practically all this territory, comprising 100 acres, is quahauging ground, though the commercial quahauging is prosecuted over an area of 10 acres only. Scattering quahaugs are found over an area of 100 acres. As the waters of Pleasant Bay are sheltered, the fishing is all done from dories, with basket rakes having 20 to 25 foot poles. The depth of water over the quahaug beds is from 6 to 16 feet. In regard to the quahaug fishery in Pleasant Bay, Mr. Warren J. Nickerson of East Harwich, who has been acquainted with the industry for many years, says:-- Pleasant Bay is and has been a very valuable quahaug ground. Some fifty years ago there were shipped in vessels to New Haven and other places 13,000 bushels in one year from its waters. Since then there has been more or less taken from these waters by fishermen from the towns of Orleans, Chatham and Harwich. During the last few years there have been 25 regular fishermen and perhaps 12 transient. Probably 8,000 bushels a year for the last five years would be a fair estimate of the catch. Thirty per cent of these were "little necks." SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 100 Number of men, 7 Number of boats, -- Value of boats, -- Number of dories, 7 Value of dories, $100 Value of implements, $100 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 700 Value, $1,750 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 800 Value, $800 Total:-- Bushels, 1,500 Value, $2,550 _Marion._ The town of Marion, situated on the western side of Buzzards Bay, possesses a spacious harbor, the waters of which furnish excellent quahaug grounds. This territory, comprising a total of 400 acres, is chiefly confined to Marion harbor, running in a narrow strip parallel to the shore from Aucoot Cove all along the coast to Planting Island. Almost all the head of the harbor and all of Blankinship's and Planting Island Cove is quahaug area. Small grounds are also found at Wing's Cove and in the Weweantit River. The town law requires each year the possession of a permit costing $1 before a person is entitled to dig quahaugs for sale. Nineteen of these licenses were issued in 1906, but not more than 2 or 3 of these went to men who depend upon quahauging for a living. The remaining 16 engage in the fishery to a greater or lesser extent in the summer season. The annual production for 1906 was 800 bushels, valued at $1,500, as about half were "little necks." Mediums are not numerous, and are bought by the quahaug dealers at $1.25 per bushel and sold by them at so much per hundred. In Marion the quahaug industry once flourished to a marked degree, but at present is very much on the decline. The coves, which once were bedded with "little necks" and quahaugs, are now nearly exhausted. No reasons exist for this condition of affairs, so far as known, except overdigging. Gradually for many years the supply has perceptibly declined, until now it is at a very low ebb. Where a thousand barrels were formerly produced, it is doubtful if a thousand bushels are now dug during the entire season, and the overworked beds are becoming each year more depleted. A. Howard Clark, in his report on the fisheries of Marion, estimates the quahaug production in 1880 as 2,000 bushels. The yield for 1906 is only 800 bushels, which shows an alarming decline in production. If once the waters of Marion could produce a large amount of quahaugs, there is no reason why they cannot again be made to produce the same, or more. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 400 Number of men, 19 Number of boats, -- Value of boats, -- Number of skiffs, 19 Value of skiffs, $200 Value of implements, $50 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 400 Value, $1,100 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 400 Value, $400 Total:-- Bushels, 800 Value, $1,500 _Mashpee._ The quahaug industry at Mashpee is at a low ebb. Natural facilities are favorable, but a lack of initiative on the part of the inhabitants causes a small production. The best grounds are found in Popponessett Bay and River, where a territory of 200 acres includes several oyster grants which are worked but little. On the east side of Waquoit Bay scattering quahaugs are found in Mashpee waters. There are 3 regular and 4 intermittent quahaugers, with an invested capital of $70, who are obliged by the town laws to have a permit costing $1. The quahaug industry of the town has remained about the same for the last twenty-five years, and now a good quahauger can scarcely average 1½ to 2 bushels per day. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 400 Number of men, 7 Number of boats, -- Value of boats, -- Number of skiffs, 5 Value of skiffs, $50 Value of implements, $20 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 25 Value, $60 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 225 Value, $225 Total:-- Bushels, 250 Value, $285 _Mattapoisett._ The town of Mattapoisett, situated to the west of Marion, receives but little income from her shellfisheries, as the waters are for the most part too open and exposed for shellfish culture. The quahaug fishery is the most important shellfish industry of the town, but even this, when compared with the quahaug fishery of other towns, is rather unimportant, as most of the suitable territory is nonproductive. Quahaugs are very unevenly distributed over 800 acres. The best quahaugs are found in Aucoot Cove and at Brants. In the main harbor quahaugs are found, though scattering, as indicated on the map. No licenses or permits are required of the 28 men and boys who add to their income from time to time by quahauging. Most of these depend on other sources of employment for their main support. The industry as a whole is gradually declining, as overfishing has made it impossible for the natural supply to perpetuate itself. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 750 Number of men, 28 Number of boats, -- Value of boats, -- Number of skiffs, 28 Value of skiffs, $425 Value of implements, $75 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 400 Value, $1,100 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 400 Value, $400 Total:-- Bushels, 800 Value, $1,500 _Nantucket._ The quahaug industry of Nantucket ranks second to the main shellfish industry, the scallop fishery, and brings annually about $8,000 to the island. Nantucket is especially adapted for quahaugs, as Nantucket harbor, Maddequet harbor and the Island of Tuckernuck possess extensive territory. In spite of these natural advantages, which are as fine as any in the State, Nantucket produces only 6,000 bushels annually, whereas her resources, under proper cultural methods, warrant an annual production exceeding even that of Wellfleet, which is at present shipping 33,000 bushels. The quahauging territory of Nantucket is divided into three sections: (1) Nantucket harbor; (2) Maddequet harbor; and (3) Tuckernuck. In Nantucket harbor quahaugs are found over an area of 2,290 acres, both scattering and in thick patches. The principal areas are situated as follows:-- (1) Near the town between Monomoy Heights and the wharves is a territory of 240 acres. In the deep water directly out from the wharves there has been good quahauging although the bed was discovered only a few years ago. (2) On the east side of the harbor, between Abram's Point and Pocomo Head, including Polpis harbor, are extensive grounds, comprising about 900 acres, of scattering quahaugs. (3) On the opposite side of the harbor lies a strip of quahaug territory of 250 acres, which extends between Third Point and Bass Point. (4) At the head of the harbor on both sides quahaugs are found over an area of 900 acres. Maddequet harbor on the western end of the island has approximately 300 acres suitable for quahaugs, running from Broad Creek to Eel Point. On the eastern end of Tuckernuck Island is a bed of quahaugs covering about 200 acres; while on the west side, between Muskeget and Tuckernuck, is a large area of 2,500 acres, which is more or less productive. The Tuckernuck fishery is largely "little necks," and it is from here that the shipment of small "seed" quahaugs has been made. In the spring and fall men who have been boatmen during the summer work at quahauging. While 48 men work irregularly, about 18 men are engaged in the fishery during the entire summer, though probably never more than 30 are raking at any one time. The production in 1906, from April I to November I, was 2,159 barrels, or 6,477 bushels; value, $7,557. PRODUCTION, 1907.[8] ==============+========================================+ | QUAHAUGS | |---------+-----------+---------+--------+ | Barrels | Average | Bushels | Value | MONTHS | | price per | | | | | Barrel | | | --------------+---------+-----------+---------+--------+ April | 138 | $3.50 | 414 | $483 | May | 257 | 4.00 | 771 | 1,028 | June | 460 | 4.00 | 1,380 | 1,840 | July | 355 | 3.00 | 1,065 | 1,060 | August | 312 | 3.50 | 936 | 1,092 | September | 302 | 3.42 | 906 | 1,032 | October | 123 | 4.00 | 369 | 492 | November | 50 | 3.00 | 150 | 150 | +---------+-----------+---------+--------+ Total | 1,997 | $3.60 | 5,991 |$7,177 | "Little necks"| 101 | | 303 | 1,310 | +---------+-----------+---------+--------+ Grand total | 2,098 | | 6,294 |$8,487 | ==============+=========+===========+=========+========+ +======================================================= | | "LITTLE NECKS" | |---------+-----------+---------+-------- | | Barrels | Average | Bushels | Value | MONTHS | | price per | | | | | Barrel | | +--------------+---------+-----------+---------+-------- |April | -- | -- | -- | -- |May | 4 | $14.00 | 12 | $56 |June | 13 | 14.00 | 39 | 182 |July | 33 | 14.00 | 90 | 462 |August | 20 | 15.00 | 60 | 300 |September | 22 | 10.00 | 66 | 220 |October | 9 | 10.00 | 27 | 90 |November | -- | -- | -- | -- | +---------+-----------+---------+-------- | Total | 101 | $12.97 | 303 |$1,310 +==============|=========+===========+=========+======== The month of June shows the largest production, as the summer people do not arrive in any numbers until July. The men who do the summer boating are engaged in the quahaug fishery during this month, naturally increasing the production. The principal method is raking from a boat or dory with a long-handled basket rake, very similar in form to the rake used on Cape Cod. The second method, applicable only in shallow water, employs the use of a claw rake with a much shorter handle. The quahauger uses this rake in the shallow water, where he can wade at low tide. The largest claw rakes are often wider than the basket rakes, and are much cheaper. At Nantucket about 5 per cent. of the entire catch is "little necks," which are found mostly at Tuckernuck. The quahauger usually makes three culls of his catch: (1) "little necks"; (2) medium; (3) large. A few blunts are obtained. The quahaugs are shipped chiefly to New York and Boston markets, either directly by the quahaugers or through Nantucket firms. The boats used in the industry, numbering 24 sail, 6 power and 10 single dories, and approximating $6,150 in value, are in a way transitory capital, and are used in the winter for scalloping and other fishing. Nevertheless, it is necessary to class them as capital used in the quahaug fishery. No special town laws are made for the regulation of the Nantucket quahaug fishery, although at any time by vote of the town suitable regulations and by-laws can be made. Quahaugs have probably always been abundant at Nantucket, as over fifty years ago they were reported as plentiful. It is only of late years that the fishery has assumed any great importance, when the increasing prices, especially for the "little necks," made it profitable for men to enter the business. As it is, many men now quahaug only when they have nothing else to do. From the statistics of the United States Fish Commission for 1879 we find that the annual catch for that year amounted to 150 bushels, valued at $75. As a striking contrast to this, the present production of 6,294 bushels, valued at $8,487, shows the great development of the fishery, which has been caused by more men entering the business, the opening up of new beds, such as the "little neck" beds of Tuckernuck, and the improved methods of raking in the deep water. It is rather difficult to state definitely, from lack of past statistical figures, whether Nantucket industry is declining or improving. Between 1879 and 1906 no records are obtainable. The production figures for 1906 show 6,477 bushels, as compared with 6,144 bushels in 1907. Whether there was merely a sudden temporary increase in the supply by the opening up of new beds in 1906, or whether there is a steady decline, can only be determined by the production of future years. Many indications point to the latter, in spite of the assurance of the quahaugers that 1907 was a good season, because of high market prices. The last few years have witnessed a change in the quahaug fishery,--a realization that there is more money in planting and raising quahaugs than in oyster culture. The out-of-State oystermen, especially in New York, have been the first to realize this, and have been buying, at the rate of $4 to $5 per bushel, all the small quahaugs they can procure, merely replanting, to reap the following year a yield of 3 to 6 bushels for every bushel planted. Under the stimulus of the high prices offered, many bushels of small quahaugs have been shipped from the town, which thus lost what the planters gained. There is much feeling against such a practice, but so far nothing has been done by the town to stop this shipping of "seed" quahaugs. As the town has full control of its shellfisheries, it has only to pass a simple law allowing no quahaugs under 2 inches to be taken, and see that it is properly enforced. Such a matter should be attended to at once, as not only is the actual value of the catch diminished, but the industry is seriously impaired by the capture of these small quahaugs before they can spawn. The only other way to remedy this difficulty is to grant licenses allowing the replanting of these small quahaugs on the barren parts of the harbor until they have obtained a proper size. The results obtained from the experiments of the commission in Polpis harbor show that quahaugs will grow rapidly when thus replanted in suitable places, and that a gain of ½ to ¾ of an inch, or 3 to 6 bushels for every bushel bedded, can be obtained during the six summer months (May to November). SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 5,290 Number of men, 48 Number of boats, 30 Value of boats, $5,800 Number of dories, 10 Value of dories, $350 Value of gear, $600 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 303 Value, $1,310 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 5,991 Value, $7,177 Total:-- Bushels, 6,294 Value, $8,487 _New Bedford._ The quahaug industry of New Bedford was practically annihilated by the law of 1905, which closed the Acushnet River and Clark's Cove to both clammer and quahauger. Good beds of quahaugs, particularly "little necks," exist in both these waters, but can be taken only for bait. As several sewers run into the Acushnet River, and the public health was endangered by the consumption as food of the quahaugs taken from the river and the waters near its mouth, nearly 400 acres of quahaug territory were closed by the State Board of Health. What little available territory there is outside the prescribed area, off Clark's Point, is free to all. A license is required to dig quahaugs for bait in this territory, and such is issued free of charge. The maximum amount permitted to be dug is 2 bushels per week of clams or quahaugs, or of both. Some 320 permits have been issued since the law was passed, in 1905. Eleven of these have been since revoked for unlawful conduct on the part of the possessors. For the first offence the license is merely revoked, for the second a fine of $10, and for the third $100 is imposed. _Orleans._ Although Orleans is well represented by all four main types of shellfish, the quahaug fishery is the leading industry of the town. A favorable coast line, fronting on the west the waters of Cape Cod Bay and bounded on the east by Pleasant Bay, provides excellent facilities for the quahaug fishery. The main quahauging territory is in Cape Cod Bay. While the west coast of Orleans is only about a mile long, the privileges which allow the citizens of Orleans free fishing in Eastham waters, according to the act of incorporation in 1792, "whereby the benefits of the shellfishery were to be mutually shared," opens up an extensive tract of quahaug territory, from 2 to 3 miles in width, extending north as far as Billingsgate Island and the Wellfleet line. The actual Orleans quahaug territory consists only of 1,000 acres, which furnish but poor quahauging, while the water is several fathoms deep. On the east side an entirely different condition prevails. Here in the waters of Pleasant Bay is a bed of quahaugs which, though worked for a long time, is still in excellent condition. The proportion of "little necks" is larger than on the west side, running about one-half the entire catch; neither is the water as deep here, rarely having a greater depth than 12 feet, and by no means as rough as the more exposed waters of Cape Cod Bay. The quahauging grounds here comprise 500 acres. Although there are 1,500 acres of quahaug territory in the town of Orleans, only a small part of this is commercially productive, and the larger part of the fishery is carried on in Eastham waters. The possession of two entirely different quahaug grounds, one on the east, the other on the west coast, makes practically two different industries, each of which will have to be considered separately. (1) _Cape Cod Bay Industry._--In Cape Cod Bay 50 men rake quahaugs whenever the weather will permit. Owing to the great depth of water, the work is difficult, requiring rakes with handles often 60 feet long. Two men generally go in one boat, the usual type being an elongated dory, some 30 to 32 feet over all, carrying from 4 to 12 horse-power gasolene engines. These boats are built to stand rough weather, and cost from $700 to $1,000 apiece. Thirty boats are employed in this business in the bay. The quahauger averages perhaps 100 working days in a year, as in a strong wind and choppy sea it is impossible to rake in the deep water. A good fisherman expects to rake from 2 to 3 barrels of quahaugs a day. Five to ten years ago as many as 15 barrels were dug in a day by one man, but this is impossible now. Even as it is, the profits are large. The best quahauger in Orleans cleared in 1906 over $1,600, while several others made nearly $1,400. As at Wellfleet, the Orleans quahaugers receive licenses to replant their quahaugs along the shore, and it is customary to thus keep them until the New York or Boston markets offer suitable prices. Nearly two-thirds of these deep-water quahaugs are blunts, and perhaps one-tenth of the catch is "little necks." (2) _Pleasant Bay Industry._--About 25 men dig here from ordinary dories, using short rakes and tongs. The average wages are $2 to $3 per day, which is considerably less than the high wages of the Cape Cod Bay fishery; but many more days can be utilized during the year, while the work is much easier and the necessary outlay of capital is slight. Here the quahaugs run about one-half "little necks," and the proportion of blunts is small. Little evidence of decline can be seen in Pleasant Bay, where the bed of quahaugs, although raked for a long time, still shows few signs of decrease. On the Cape Cod Bay side the reverse is true, and the supply is gradually diminishing. The same town laws for regulation of the quahaug fishery apply for Wellfleet, Eastham and Orleans. (See Wellfleet.) The main historical features of the quahaug industry at Orleans have been similar to Wellfleet, the industry lying practically dormant until 1894, when it rapidly reached its present production. Unfortunately, but little data can be obtained for comparison of the industry of 1879 with 1907. Ernest Ingersoll reports, in 1879:-- At Orleans, some few men who go mackereling in summer stay at home and dig clams in winter, getting perhaps 50 barrels of quahaugs among others, which are peddled in the town. Comparing the two years by table, we find:-- =======================+=================+=============================== |1879. |1907. | -----------------------+-----------------+------------------------------+ Annual production, |150 bushels, |33,000 bushels. | Value of production, |$82.50, |$41,350. | Number of men, |A few, |75. | Location, quahaug beds,|Pleasant Bay, |Cape Cod Bay and Pleasant Bay.| Market, |Home consumption,|New York and Boston. | =======================+=================+=============================== SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. ==========================+===============+===============+========= | Cape Cod Bay. | Pleasant Bay. | Total. --------------------------+---------------+---------------+--------- Area (acres), | 1,000 | 500 | 1,500 Number of men, | 50 | 25 | 75 Number of boats, | 30 | - | 30 Value of boats, | $23,000 | - | $23,000 Number of dories, | - | 25 | 25 Value of dories, | - | $500 | $500 Value of implements, | $1,250 | $250 | $1,500 | | | _Production._ | | | | | | "Little necks":-- | | | Bushels, | 2,700 | 3,000 | 5,700 Value, | $6,750 | $7,000 | $13,750 | | | Quahaugs:-- | | | Bushels, | 24,300 | 3,000 | 27,300 Value, | $24,300 | $3,300 | $27,600 | | | Total:-- | | | Bushels, | 27,000 | 6,000 | 33,000 Value, | $31,050 | $10,300 | $41,350 ==========================+===============+===============+========= _Provincetown._ No commercial quahaug fishery is carried on at Provincetown. A few quahaugs, chiefly "little necks," are found in the tide pools among the thatch on the northwestern side of the harbor. _Swansea._ A quahaug fishery existed in Swansea until three years ago. Since that time there has been no commercial fishery, though a few quahaugs are still dug for home consumption. _Truro._ Occasionally a few scattering quahaugs are found on the bars, which extend out one-quarter of a mile from shore on the bay side. No quahaug fishery is carried on. _Wareham._ The town of Wareham, situated on the northeast side of Buzzards Bay and separated from the adjoining town of Bourne by Cohasset Narrows, has a coast line indented with numerous small inlets, bays and rivers, which afford excellent opportunities for the growth of the quahaug. The villages of Onset, Wareham and part of Buzzards Bay enjoy the privileges of this fishery. Quahaugs are found over practically the entire territory, and comprise a total area of about 1,300 acres. Although much of this area is barren, the commercial fishery is maintained by small isolated beds which occur here and there. The two principal centers of the industry are in the Wareham River and in Onset Bay. At Onset the whole bay, except the oyster grants, as included between the southeast end of Mashnee Island and Peters Neck, is used for quahauging. A few quahaugs are found in Broad Cove, and fair digging is obtained in Buttermilk Bay and Cohasset Narrows. The Wareham River, outside the oyster grants, and a narrow shore strip from Weweantit River to Tempe's Knob, comprise the rest of the territory. In Onset Channel a fine bed exists in deep water, 2 to 4 fathoms, but the ground is so hard that not much digging is done. It will be seen from the map that practically 75 per cent. of the quahaug territory is taken up by oyster grants, especially in the Wareham River and Onset Bay. Town sentiment is in a chaotic state over the oyster and quahaug deadlock, and much friction naturally exists between the opposing factions, the quahaugers and oystermen. The struggle between these two parties was at its height several years ago, and the enmity still continues, though not so openly, owing to the decline of the quahaug industry. Rightly managed, affairs ought to be so arranged that prosperity might be brought to both factions; but town customs and town laws, poorly enforced at the best, are hardly able to cope with this evil, which has resulted in much expense legally and financially to both parties, and both industries are badly crippled in consequence,--the oyster industry by lack of protection and the quahaug industry by loss of grounds. It is hoped that in the future suitable arrangements can be made for both industries, and that the quahaug industry, which is at present declining, can be put on an equal footing with the oyster industry, by granting licenses to plant and grow quahaugs. Most of the digging is done with garden rakes, potato diggers or by hand. Some tongs are used, but few if any long-handled basket rakes, since the digging is chiefly confined to the shallow water, not more than 10 feet deep, except in Onset Channel, where it ranges from 12 to 24 feet. No information or statistical records of the quahaug fishery of Wareham can be obtained, and it is therefore impossible to draw any comparison between the present industry and the industry of twenty-five years ago. The decline of the quahaug fishery in Wareham is an established fact. The production of 6,000 bushels for 1906 is far less than the production of five years ago. Since 1901 the output has steadily declined, and where the quahauger once was able to rake 5 bushels at a tide, to-day he can rake scarcely 1 bushel in the same time. It is only a question of a few years when the natural supply will be completely exterminated. The only salvation of the industry in Wareham is to increase the natural supply by quahaug farming. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 1,300 Number of men, 50 Number of boats, - Value of boats, - Number of dories, 50 Value of dories, $750 Value of implements, $250 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 3,000 Value, $7,500 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 3,000 Value, $3,000 Total:-- Bushels, 6,000 Value, $10,500 _Wellfleet._ The town of Wellfleet possesses the finest quahaug industry in Massachusetts. More men are engaged in the business and the annual production is larger than that of any other town of the State. In colonial days the towns of Orleans, Eastham and Wellfleet were incorporated as one town,--the town of Eastham. In 1763 an act was passed incorporating the North Precinct of Eastham into a district by the name of Wellfleet, "Reserving to the inhabitants of said town the privileges by them heretofore enjoyed of all ways to and of erecting houses on the beaches and islands for the convenience of the fishery of all kinds, and of anchorage and of landing all goods or wares at any of their common landing places in any of the harbors of said Eastham in like manner as they might have done if this act had never been made and passed." By this act were created the two independent towns of Eastham and Wellfleet, which held in common all fisheries, thus giving the mutual right of the shellfisheries to both towns. In 1797 another act of incorporation, separating Orleans from Eastham, was enacted, which provided that the benefits of the shellfisheries of these two towns were to be mutually enjoyed. The result of these two acts was to give Eastham and Wellfleet and at the same time Eastham and Orleans mutual rights of the shellfishery, but forbidding mutual shellfisheries between Wellfleet and Orleans. While this may seem to give theoretically the advantage to Eastham, actually the town gains nothing in the quahaug fishery, as Orleans has practically no productive grounds on the bay side, and the Orleans quahaugers fish in the Eastham waters. The quahaug territory of Wellfleet comprises about 2,500 acres, and approximately takes up all the harbor, wherever there are no oyster grants, running from the "Deep Hole" between Great Island and Indian Neck southward to the Eastham line. Outside of these limits a few quahaugs are found on the flats of Duck Creek and along the shore flats of the town. They are more abundant on the north side of Egg Island, where they are taken in shallow water with ordinary hand rakes. The best quahauging is found in the channel extending from an imaginary line between Lieutenant's Island and Great Beach Hill south to Billingsgate. The greatest depth at low tide is 4½ fathoms and the general average is about 3 fathoms. In this channel are found most of the "little necks," small blunts and small sharps. Outside of the oyster grants, quahaugs are found south of Great Island, north of Billingsgate Island on the west side of the harbor, on Lieutenant's Island bar and at the mouth of Blackfish Creek. A few quahaugs, both sharps and blunts, are raked with 25-foot rakes in the shallow water 6 to 8 feet near the beach, usually on a sandy bottom. The principal market for Wellfleet quahaugs is New York, though many are sent to Boston and other parts of the country, even to the middle west. Quahaugs have been shipped from Wellfleet to Milwaukee and arrived in good condition after ten days. The annual production is 33,000 bushels, one-sixth of these, 5,500 bushels, being "little necks." There were 140 men engaged in the fishery in 1906, and 145 permits were granted in 1907. The average yield for a day's raking is 4 bushels, although an exceptional quahauger can sometimes rake 7 bushels. Practically all the raking is done in deep water, with rakes the handles of which are often 47 feet long. Each quahauger has a set of handles of various lengths for different depths of water. Both power boats and "cats" are used here in quahauging, the power boats possessing considerable advantage over the sail boat. Thirty-eight power boats and 62 sail boats, both single and double manned, are used at Wellfleet. At present there is every indication of a declining fishery. Until the last three years the industry has been steadily on the increase since 1894. The maximum production was reached a few years ago, and the industry is slowly on the decline, unless the opening up of new beds gives it a fresh start. Unfortunately, all the quahaugers do not realize the possibility of this seemingly inexhaustible supply giving out, and believe it will continue forever; but any one can see that it is impossible for the natural supply to continue when such inroads are yearly made, and that it is only a question of time when the best business asset of the town will become extinct. For years there has been an antagonistic feeling between the quahaugers and the oystermen, due to the conflicting interests of these industries. Although the quahaug territory has been narrowed down by the giving of oyster grants in the harbor, the quahaug fishery has not suffered severely, as the poorer quahaug grounds were alone granted, with the idea that more money could be made by using these for oyster culture. Although these grants were laid out in good faith, injustice in many instances has been done the quahaug industry; but on the whole the change has been for the benefit of the town. In the broad waters of Wellfleet harbor there is room for both industries, and there is no reason why both should not prosper if wisely regulated, without the intervention of town politics. At present this antagonism has hurt the interests of both, and it is manifestly unfair that either should drive the other out while there is room for both to prosper. Wellfleet is the only town that can boast of a quahaug club. This club was formed in 1904, and had an enrollment of practically all the quahaugers. Permits are required of every man engaged in the quahaug fishery. These cost $1 apiece, and are granted on application to any one who has been a resident of the town for six months. These permits are to be obtained each year, on or before May 1, after which date an additional charge of 50 cents is made for collecting. No person without a regular permit is allowed to catch quahaugs for market. Permits were first issued in 1904. Section 2 of chapter 269 of the Acts of 1904 is as follows:-- SECTION 2. No inhabitant of said towns shall sell or offer for sale little neck clams or quahaugs which measure less than one and one-half inches across the widest part, and no person shall in any of said towns sell or offer for sale little neck clams or quahaugs which measure less than one and one-half inches across the widest part. This excellent law was passed for the towns of Eastham, Orleans and Wellfleet, but has never been enforced. Although enacted and technically lived up to, no measures are made for its enforcement, which would necessitate a shellfish inspector. This furnishes an example of the nonenforcement of one of the few good town laws. Section 4 of chapter 269 of the Acts of 1904 is as follows:-- SECTION 4. The selectmen of the said towns may, in their respective towns, grant licenses or permits for such periods, not exceeding two years, and under such conditions as they may deem proper, not however covering more than seventy-five feet square in area, to any inhabitants of the town to bed quahaugs in any waters, flats and creeks within the town at any place where there is no natural quahaug bed, not impairing the private rights of any person or materially obstructing any navigable waters. It shall be unlawful for any person, except the licensee and his agents, to take any quahaugs in or remove them from the territory covered by any such license. The above should receive well-deserved praise, as it is one of the most useful town laws ever enacted in Massachusetts. Each quahauger is thus enabled to stake off a little plot 75 feet square on the flats, whereon he can bed his catch whenever the market price is too low for shipment. This not only makes steadier work for the quahaugers, since a dull market does not stop digging, as before, but also enables him to obtain a better price for his quahaugs, and he is not forced to lose through the wastes of competition. Quahaugs have always been abundant at Wellfleet. Forty years ago about 15 men were engaged in the business, and shipped their catch to Boston by packet boats, quahaugs then wholesaling at 50 cents per bushel. In 1879 (report of the United States Fish Commission) Ernest Ingersoll gives the following account of the quahaug industry at Wellfleet, which furnishes such an excellent comparison with the present industry that it is given here:-- The early productiveness of Cape Cod is shown by the presence of numerous shellfish heaps, particularly in Wellfleet and Barnstable harbors, filled up by the Indians, and consisting almost wholly of the shells of this mollusk. Though in greatly depleted numbers, the quahaug still survives along the inside of the Cape, and at Wellfleet has been raked from early times by the settlers. Mr. F. W. True contributes some notes on this place, from which I learn that the quahaug fishery as a business there dates from the beginning of the nineteenth century. It grew in extent until 1863, and from that time until 1868 the trade was at its height, since when it has diminished year by year, owing to lack of good market rather than failure of the supply. Between 1863 and 1869 the average catch each year was not less than 2,500 bushels. Of this amount a comparatively small part was consumed at Wellfleet, and the rest were shipped to Boston, Provincetown, Salem, Newport, Manchester and a few other New England ports. From 1870 to 1876 the quantity of quahaugs taken per year decreased from 2,500 bushels to 1,800 bushels, and this latter amount has remained constant to the present year. Of the total catch in 1878, fully one-half, or 900 bushels, was consumed in Wellfleet, and the remaining 900 bushels were shipped to Boston and other neighboring towns. For three years, beginning with 1876, 75 bushels of quahaugs have been annually shipped to New York City. Quahaugs are found in all parts of Wellfleet Bay except in a small spot near the wharves, called the "Deep Hole," and a similar one on the west side of the bay. Both of these places are covered with a thick, soft mud. It is not usual, however, to fish in parts of the bay where the average depth at low water exceeds 8 feet. Most of the raking is done on the western side. In ordinary years, quahaug raking is begun the last of March and continues until the first of October. As a general thing, no raking is done through the winter months, although in some years a small amount has been done through holes cut in the ice. The fishermen rake about four tides per week, beginning at half-ebb and raking to half-flood. The boats used are either cat boats or yawls rigged with two sails. Each boat carries 1 man. The rake employed at Wellfleet is described by Mr. True as similar in form to an oyster rake, but made of steel instead of iron. In former days this instrument was of iron, the tips of the teeth only being of steel. An average rake has seventeen teeth, and weighs about 12 pounds. The handle or tail is of wood, and is about 23 feet long. The baskets in which the quahaugs are collected and measured are of ordinary manufacture, and hold about a bushel each; and the whole outfit of a quahaug fisherman does not cost over $150, and the total amount of capital invested in apparatus at the present time in Wellfleet does not exceed $800. This amount is about evenly divided between 5 men, none of whom are engaged in this fishery more than a part of their time. Quahaugs are sent to market always in the shell, and packed in second-hand flour or sugar barrels. The wholesale price of quahaugs for many years averaged 60 cents per bushel, but in 1879 it fell to 55 cents. One dollar and seventy-five cents is the average wholesale price per barrel. Quahaugs retail in Wellfleet at 80 cents per bushel. The usual method of transportation is by packet, at a cost of 25 cents per barrel.[9] COMPARISON OF 1879 WITH 1907. =========================+======================+====================== | 1879. | 1907. -------------------------+----------------------+---------------------- Annual production, |1,800, |33,000. | | Annual value, |$990, |$41,250. | | Average price per bushel,|55 cents, |$1.25. | | Number of men, |5, |145. | | Capital, |$800, |$25,950. | | Market, |Boston and New York, |New York, Boston, | |and other cities. | | Season, |April 1 to October 1, |April 1 to October 1. | | Boats, |5 sail boats, |100 boats, one-third | |power, two-thirds | |sail. | | Deepest water, |8 feet, |40 feet. | | Longest rake, |23 feet, |47 feet. | | Best quahaug beds, |West side of harbor, |Channel. =========================+======================+====================== From the account of Mr. Ingersoll the above table has been formulated, showing the vast increase in the quahaug business of Wellfleet since 1879, as well as certain changes in the industry. This by no means proves that the quahaug industry is on the increase; it merely shows that it has taken a tremendous development since 1879, and the fact that the quahaug industry of Wellfleet has passed its maximum production a few years ago and is now on the decline should not be overlooked in consulting this table, which otherwise would give an erroneous impression. The changing of the quahaug grounds from shallow to deeper water alone is a sign of the decline of the industry. The quahaug industry has developed to its present extent only since 1894, and is comparatively recent. By the opening of the great beds of "little necks" and quahaugs in the channel and deep water the industry suddenly became important. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 2,500 Number of men, 145 Number of power boats, 38 Value of power boats, $14,000 Number of sail boats, 62 Value of sail boats, $10,300 Value of implements, $3,200 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 5,500 Value, $13,850 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 27,500 Value, $27,500 Total:-- Bushels, 33,000 Value, $41,350 _Yarmouth._ The quahaug grounds, which lie mostly in Bass River, are free to the inhabitants of Dennis and Yarmouth, as these two towns have common fishery rights. Quahaugs are found in four localities: (1) Bass River; (2) Mill Creek; (3) Barnstable Bar on the north shore; and (4) Lewis Bay. The total area is 1,000 acres, which includes all grounds where there are any quahaugs, as there are now no thick beds. The average depth of water over the quahaug grounds is 4 feet. The town law governing the quahaug fishery reads thus:-- All persons other than the inhabitants of the towns of Dennis and Yarmouth are prohibited from taking clams and quahaugs from the shores and waters of the town of Yarmouth. Inhabitants of the Commonwealth not residents of Dennis and Yarmouth may obtain permits of the selectmen to take sufficient quantity of said shellfish for their family use. The history of the quahaug industry of Yarmouth is one of decline. The industry has existed for fifteen years, starting in 1892. Mr. Edgar N. Baker, who has been interested in the business ever since it started, says:-- In the last ten years it is safe to say that the catch has fallen off fully 75 per cent., and nothing but the constant advance in prices and lack of profitable employment has prompted men to give their attention to this method of obtaining their "bread and butter." The most conservative estimate would not put it below 50 per cent. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Area of quahaug territory (acres), 1,000 Number of men (transient), 20 Number of boats, -- Value of boats, -- Number of skiffs, 10 Value of skiffs, $100 Value of implements, $140 _Production._ "Little necks":-- Bushels, 1,200 Value, $3,000 Quahaugs:-- Bushels, 1,000 Value, $1,000 Total:-- Bushels, 2,200 Value, $4,000 FOOTNOTES: [7] "The Fisheries of Massachusetts," United States Fish Commission Report, Section II., p. 253. [8] Returns of Special Agent Wm. C. Dunham. [9] "The Oyster, Scallop, Clam, Mussel and Abalone Industries," by Ernest Ingersoll. United States Fish Commission Report, Section V., Vol. 2, p. 603. SCALLOP (_Pecten irradians_). The common shallow-water scallop is unknown commercially on the north shore, occurring only south of Boston. It is usually found in abundance along the southern shore of Cape Cod, in Buzzards Bay, and about the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. For the past three years investigations in regard to its growth, habits and culture have been carried on by the Commissioners on Fisheries and Game. These investigations are now practically completed. In another report the whole life history of this bivalve will be given, showing the application of this scientific study to the existing conditions of the industry. The scallop fishery in Massachusetts is only a partial industry, as it does not concern the whole coast line, but merely the Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay shore. Compared with other States, the production of Massachusetts is favorable, New York alone exceeding it in output. The southern coast of Massachusetts is especially adapted for this shellfish. Its bays, sheltered harbors and inlets afford excellent ground for the scallop, which requires protection against the heavy seas. Thousands of acres of eel-grass flats from 1 to 60 feet under water were formerly covered by beds of scallops, and in parts are still thickly set. While the extent of the scalloping area is large, only portions are ever productive at any one time. A set may be in one part this year, and the next year's spawn may catch in a different place. Thus, while all the ground is suitable for scallops, only a small part is in productive operation each year. While the possibilities of future development are not as alluring as in the other shellfisheries, yet much can be done to assist nature and help preserve the supply. Wise laws and well-directed efforts can save many bushels of the young scallops which yearly die on the exposed flats where they have set in unfavorable places. _Scope of the Report._--The object of this report is to present certain information concerning the scallop industry which will be of use to the scallop fishermen, and of interest to the general public and the consumers. While the scallop is well known as an article of food, the majority of people know little about the animal. It will therefore be necessary in the following report to give brief descriptions of the various methods used in the capture of this bivalve, in order to make clear the more technical portions. The first part of the report considers the general results of the survey, the history of the industry, the scallop laws, the methods of scalloping and the statistics of the industry. The second part gives a more detailed description, the following points being considered under each town: (1) survey; (2) statistics of industry; (3) town laws; (4) history. _Methods of Work._--Several difficulties stand in the way of procuring exact information concerning the scallop industry, especially in regard to historical data which should show the improvement or decline of the fishery. The town records are incomplete, lost, or furnish but slight information. Little has been written about this industry, and we were thus forced to rely upon the scallopers for information concerning the history and former production of each town. Fortunately, the scallop industry is of recent origin (thirty years), and the information is very nearly correct. By the use of town records, market reports, records of express shipments, personal surveys and estimates by the various scallopers, and by all other methods at our command, the facts of the last few years have been obtained in an approximately correct form. The area of the scallop territory was obtained by personal inspection and calculated by plottings on the maps. In designating the area suitable for scallops in any town by a certain number of acres or by plottings on the map, it does not mean that scallops are found each year over all this territory. Allowances must be made for the uncertainty of the scallop supply. Some years there will be no scallops; in other years, plenty. Even when scallops are plentiful, they rarely cover the whole territory, but are found only in certain parts in different years. The designation of an area as scallop territory means that scallops have been found in the past over this territory, and that the natural conditions of the territory appear favorable for scallops. _The Decline._ The most important questions which first come to mind when considering the scallop industry of to-day are these three: (1) Has there been any decline in the industry? If so, how extensive? (2) What are the causes of the decline? (3) How can the fishery be improved? I. _Extent of the Decline._--There is no question but that the industry as a whole has declined. This decline has made itself manifest, especially in certain localities, _e.g._, Buzzards Bay, where until 1907 the entire fishery, except at New Bedford and Fairhaven, had been totally extinct for the past seven years. Along the south side of Cape Cod, at Edgartown and Nantucket, the supply has on the average remained the same. Of course there is varying abundance each year, but as a whole the industry in these localities can hardly be said to have declined. On the other hand, on the north side of Cape Cod we find a marked decline. A scallop fishery no longer exists at Plymouth, Barnstable harbor, Wellfleet and Provincetown, though twenty-five years ago these places boasted of a valuable industry. So we have to-day in Massachusetts three localities, two of which show a marked decline in the scallop fishery, while the other shows some improvement. Of the two depleted areas, the one (north of the Cape) may never revive the industry; the other (Buzzards Bay) gives indications that the industry can once more be put on a very profitable footing. The only thing necessary is perpetual precaution on the part of the fishermen, in order to prevent this decline. Massachusetts must not allow the industry to become extinct, as in Rhode Island. II. _Causes of the Decline._--The causes of the decline of this industry can be grouped under three heads: (1) natural enemies; (2) overfishing by man; (3) adverse physical conditions. The natural enemy of the scallop which works the greatest mischief is the starfish, or "five finger," as it is often called. The starfish destroys the scallop in the same manner as it attacks the oyster. The decline of the scallop fishery in Buzzards Bay is attributed by the fishermen to the inroads of this pest. Undoubtedly the starfish was the chief apparent cause, since, according to report, dredges full of starfish could be hauled up. In other localities in Massachusetts the starfish has not been so plentiful. While the main cause of the decline of the natural clam, quahaug and oyster beds is overfishing by man, the decline of the scallop fishery cannot be so considered. The scallop has a short life, hardly 25 per cent. passing the two-year limit; so it does no harm to capture the marketable scallops which are over sixteen months old, as the scallop spawns when one year old, and dies a natural death usually before it reaches a second spawning season. When only old scallops are taken, as is generally the case, it is probably _impossible_ for man to exterminate the scallops by _overfishing_. Unfortunately, in certain localities in the past there has been a large capture of the "seed" scallop, viz., the scallop less than one year old, which has not spawned. This has worked the ruin of the scalloping in these localities. The capture of the spawners for another year merely makes the next year's set so much smaller, and causes a rapid decline. As a rule, it is hardly profitable to catch the "seed" scallop, owing to its small size. But a direct relation can be established between a high market price and the capture of seed. When the market price is high and scallops scarce, it becomes profitable to catch the young "seed." The present scallop law now defines a "seed" scallop, and forbids its capture. By protecting the "seed" scallop the State has done all that at present appears expedient to insure the future of the industry; the rest lies in the hands of the towns. So, while the scallop has declined in certain localities, and the decline has been hastened by unwise capture of the "seed" scallop, the main decline of the fishery cannot be attributed to wholesale overfishing, as it is impossible to overfish if only the old scallops (over one year old) are taken; for, unlike most other animals, the scallop usually breeds but once, and its natural period of life is unusually brief. These scallops, if not taken, will die, and prove a total loss; so every fisherman should bear in mind that, as long as the "seed" scallops are protected, severe fishing of large scallops is not likely to injure the future scallop industry. The principal causes of the decline of the fishery, besides the inroads of man, are best termed "adverse physical conditions." Severe winters, storms, anchor frost, etc., work destruction upon the hapless scallop. The "infant mortality" is especially great. As the scallop dies before reaching its second birthday, only one set of scallops spawn in any one season. There are never two generations of scallops spawning at one time. I quote from Ernest Ingersoll in this connection:-- This represents a case where the generations follow one another so rapidly that there are never two ranks, or generations, in condition to reproduce their kind at once, except in rare individual instances, since all, or nearly all, of the old ones die before the young ones have grown old enough to spawn. If such a state of affairs exists, of course any sudden catastrophe, such as a great and cold storm during the winter, or the covering of the water where they lie for a long period with a sheet of ice, happening to kill all the tender young (and old ones, too, often) in a particular district, will exterminate the breed there; since, even if the older and tougher ones survive this shock, they will not live long enough, or at any rate, will be unable to spawn again, and so start a new generation.[10] The set of young scallops is abundant in shallow water upon the eel-grass flats, which often, as is the case of the Common Flats at Chatham, are exposed at extremely low tides. A severe winter often kills off all the "seed" thus exposed. In this case no spawn is obtained the following summer, causing the suppression of the scallop fishery in that locality for at least a few years, and possibly its permanent extinction. III. _Improvement; restocking Barren Areas._--The scallop industry, unlike the clam and quahaug, offers but little inducement to private enterprise. For successful private culture small bays or coves would be needed, and suitable areas are very scarce. The scallop offers better opportunity for communal culture, _i.e._, by towns. There is but one way now known of artificial propagation for the scallop industry, and that is by transplanting in the fall the abundant set from the exposed places to the deeper water before the seed is killed by the winter. It is merely assisting nature by preventing a natural loss, and in no sense can properly be termed propagation. It is merely a preventive, and money used in this way to preserve the scallops is well expended. Usually the set is abundant, and can be transferred in large numbers. This is the only practical method now known of increasing our scallop supply, though it is hoped in the future that other methods may be devised. In connection with the above comes the question, if we can thus preserve scallops doomed to destruction, will it not be profitable to transplant scallops to places where the scalloping has been exterminated by various causes, and by means of these "seeders" furnish succeeding generations which may populate the barren areas? This plan is practical and feasible, and should be given due consideration. Why should not scallops be transplanted to our Buzzards Bay harbors, to again restock these areas? Often the attempt might fail, but there is bound to be success if there is perseverance. The best time to plant these scallops is in the fall, as a double service will be given: (1) preservation from destruction of the seed scallops; (2) furnishing spawn and young in the barren locality. Ingersoll speaks of the restocking of Oyster Bay in 1880:-- In the spring of 1880 eel grass came into the bay, bringing young scallops [the eel grass carries the scallops attached to it by the thread-like byssus]; thus the abundance of that year was accounted for, though there had not been a crop before in that bay since 1874. If such a restocking can be accomplished by nature, it can be done with more certain effect with man's assistance. _The Industry._ I. _The Methods._--The methods of scalloping follow the historical rise of the fishery. As the industry grew more and more important, improvements became necessary in the methods of capture, and thus, parallel with the development of the industry, we can trace a corresponding development in the implements used in the capture of the scallop. (_a_) _Gathering by Hand._--When the scallop was first used as an article of food, the primitive method of gathering this bivalve by hand was used. This method still exists on the flats of Brewster, and often in other localities after heavy gales wagons can be driven to the beach and loaded with the scallops which have been blown ashore. (_b_) _Scoop Nets._--This hand method was not rapid enough for the enterprising scallopers, and the next step in the industry was the use of scoop nets, about 8 inches in diameter, by which the scallops could be picked up in the water. These nets were attached to poles of various lengths, suitable to the depth of water. "This method," writes Ingersoll, "was speedily condemned, however, because it could be employed only where scallops are a foot thick and inches in length, as one fisherman expressed it." (_c_) _The Pusher._--The next invention was the so-called "pusher." The "pusher" consists of a wooden pole from 8 to 9 feet long, attached to a rectangular iron frame 3 by 1½ feet, upon which is fitted a netting bag 3 feet in depth. The scalloper, wading on the flats at low tide, gathers the scallops by shoving the "pusher" among the eel grass. When the bag is full, the contents are emptied into the dory and the process repeated. The scallopers who use the "pusher" go in dories, which are taken to the various parts of the scalloping ground and moved whenever the immediate locality is exhausted. This method is in use to-day, but is applicable only to shallow flats, and can be worked only at low tide, where dredging is impossible. It is hard work, and not as profitable as the better method of dredging. This method of scalloping is used chiefly at Chatham, Dennis and Yarmouth; occasionally it is used at Nantucket and other towns. (_d_) _Dredging._--The greater part of the scallop catch is taken by dredging, which is the most universal as well as the most profitable method. The dredge, commonly pronounced "drudge," consists of an iron framework about 3 by 1½ feet, with a netting bag attached, which will hold from one to two bushels of scallops. Cat boats, carrying from 6 to 10 dredges, are used for this method of scalloping. These boats, with several "reefs," cross the scallop grounds pulling the dredges, which hold the boat steady in her course. A single run with all the dredges overboard is called a "drift." The contents of all the dredges is said to be the result or catch of the "drift." When the dredges are hauled in they are emptied on what is known as a culling board. This board runs the width of the boat, projecting slightly on both sides. It is 3 feet wide, and has a guide 3 inches high along each side, leaving the ends open. The scallops are then separated from the rubbish, such as seaweed, shells, mud, etc., while the refuse and seed scallops are thrown overboard by merely pushing them off the end of the board. Each catch is culled out while the dredges are being pulled along on the back "drift," and the board is again clear for the next catch. The culled scallops are first put in buckets and later transferred either to bushel bags or dumped into the cockpit of the boat. Two men are usually required to tend from 6 to 8 dredges in a large cat boat, but often one man alone does all the work. This seems to be confined to localities, as at Nantucket nearly all the cat boats have two men. At Edgartown the reverse is true, one man to the boat, though in power dredging two men are always used. Several styles of dredges are used in scalloping, as each locality has its own special kind, which is best adapted to the scalloping bottom of that region. Four different styles are used in Massachusetts, two of which permit a subdivision, making in all six different forms. Each of these dredges is said by the scallopers using them to be the best; but for all-round work the "scraper" seems the most popular. (1) _The Chatham or Box Dredge._--As this dredge was first used in Chatham, the name of the town was given to it, to distinguish it from the other styles. At the present time its use is confined to Chatham and the neighboring towns of the Cape. With the exception of a very few used at Nantucket, it is not found elsewhere in Massachusetts. The style of the box dredge is peculiar, consisting of a rectangular framework, 27 by 12 inches, of flat iron 1 by ¼ inches, with an oval-shaped iron bar extending back as a support for the netting bag, which is attached to the rectangular frame. To the side of the rectangular frame is attached a heavy iron chain about 4 feet long, to which is fastened the drag rope. (2) _The Scraper._--As can be seen by the illustration, this style of dredge consists of a rigid iron frame of triangular shape, which has a curve of nearly 90° at the base, to form the bowl of the dredge. Above, a raised cross bar connects the two arms, while at the bottom of the dredge a strip of iron 2 inches wide extends from arm to arm. This strip acts as a scraping blade, and is set at an angle so as to dig into the bottom. The top of the net is fastened to the raised cross bar and the lower part to the blade. The usual dimensions of the dredge are: arms, 2½ feet; upper cross bar, 2 feet; blade, 2½ feet. The net varies in size, usually holding about a bushel of scallops, and running from 2 to 3 feet in length. Additional weights can be put on the cross bar when the scalloper desires the dredge to scrape deeper. A wooden bar, 2 feet long, buoys the net. Two styles of this dredge are in use. At Nantucket the whole net is made of twine, while at Edgartown and in Buzzards Bay the lower part of the net is formed of a netting of iron rings, the upper half of the net being twine. The iron rings are supposed to stand the wear better than the twine netting. This difference seems to be merely a matter of local choice. The "scraper" is perhaps the dredge most generally used, as, no matter what style is in use, a scalloper generally has a few "scrapers" among his dredges. (3) _The "Slider."_--The principle of the "slider" is the reverse of the "scraper," as the blade is set either level or with an upward incline, so the dredge can slide over the bottom. This dredge is used on rough bottom and in places where there is little eel-grass. In some dredges the blade is rigid, but in the majority the blade hangs loose. The "slider" used at Edgartown differs from the "scraper" by having perfectly straight arms and no curved bowl, the blade being fastened to the arms in a hook-and-eye fashion. The dimensions of this dredge are the same as those of the "scraper," although occasionally smaller dredges are found. (4) _The "Roller" Dredge._--This style of dredge is used only in the town of Mattapoisett, where the scallopers claim it is the most successful. The dredge is suitable for scalloping over rough ground, as the blade of the dredge is merely a line of leads, which roll over the surface of the ground gathering in the scallops. The dredge consists of an oval iron frame, 32 by 20 inches, which acts as the arms, and is attached to another iron frame, 32 by 3 inches. The blade of the dredge consists of a thin rope with attached leads. The net is made wholly of twine, and is about 2½ feet long. _Scalloping with Power Boats._--The season of 1907 has witnessed in Massachusetts the first use of auxiliary power in the scallop fishery. At Edgartown the main part of the scalloping is now done by power, which, in spite of the additional expense of 5 gallons of gasolene per day, gives a proportionately larger catch of scallops. The Edgartown scallopers claim that their daily catch, using power, is from one-third to one-half better than under the old method of dredging by sail. Not only can they scallop when the wind is too light or too heavy for successful scalloping by sail, but more "drifts" can be made in the same time. A slight disadvantage of scalloping with power is the necessity of having two men, as the steering of the power boat demands much closer attention than the sail boat, which is practically held to a fixed course by the dredges. A power boat for scalloping possesses only the disadvantage of additional cost; but it is only necessary to look forward a few years, when expedition rather than cheapness will be in demand, to a partial revolution in the present methods of scalloping, whereby the auxiliary cat boat will take the place of the sail boat in the scallop fishery. II. _Preparing the Scallop for Market._ (1) _The "Eye."_--The edible part of the scallop is the large adductor muscle. The rest of the animal is thrown away, though in certain localities it is used as fish bait and in others for fertilizer. Why the whole of the animal is not eaten is hard to say. Undoubtedly all is good, but popular prejudice, which molds opinion, has decreed that it is bad, so it is not used as food. This is perhaps due to the highly pigmented and colored portions of the animal. Nevertheless, there is a decided possibility that in the future we shall eat the entire scallop, as well as the luscious adductor muscle. The adductor muscle is called by the dealers and fishermen the "eye," a name given perhaps from its important position in the animal, and its appearance. The color of the "eye," which has a cylindrical form, is a yellowish white. (2) _The Shanties._--The catch of scallops is carried to the shanty of the fisherman, and there opened. These shanties are usually grouped on the dock, so the catch can be readily transferred. Inside of these shanties, usually 20 by 10 feet or larger, we find a large bench 3 to 3½ feet wide, running the length of the shanty, and a little more than waist high. On these benches the scallops are dumped from the baskets or bags, and pass through the hands of the openers. Under the bench are barrels for the shells and refuse. (3) _The Openers._--The openers are usually men and boys, though occasionally a few women try their hand at the work. Of late years there has been a difficulty in obtaining sufficient openers, and the scallopers often are forced to open their own scallops. The openers are paid from 20 to 30 cents per gallon, according to the size of the scallops. One bushel of average scallops will open 2½ to 3 quarts of "eyes." An opener can often open 8 to 10 gallons in a day, making an excellent day's work. The price now paid is more than double that paid in 1880, which was 12½ cents per gallon. Some openers are especially rapid, and their deft movements cause a continual dropping of shells in the barrel and "eyes" in the gallon measure. (4) _Method of opening the Scallop._--The opening of a scallop requires three movements. A flat piece of steel with a sharp but rounded end, inserted in a wooden handle, answers for a knife. The scallop is taken by a right-handed opener in the palm of the left hand, the hinge line farthest away from the body, the scallop in its natural resting position, the right or smooth valve down. The knife is inserted between the valves on the right-hand side. An upward turn with a cutting motion is given, severing the "eye" from the upper valve, while a flirt at the same moment throws back the upper shell. The second motion tears the soft rim and visceral mass of the scallop and casts it into the barrel, leaving the "eye" standing clear. A third movement separates the "eye" from the shell and casts it into a gallon measure. Frequently the last two movements are slightly different. The faster openers at the second motion merely tear off enough of the rim to allow the separation of the "eye" from the shell, and on the third movement cast the "eye" in the measure, while the shell with its adhering soft parts is thrown into the refuse barrel. These last two motions can hardly be separated, so quickly are they accomplished. (5) _"Soaking."_--The "eye" is then usually put through the following course of treatment before marketing; the treatment is what is familiarly known as "soaking." It has been noticed that whenever salt water products are allowed to soak in fresh water, an increase of bulk is found. This is due to a change, called osmosis, which causes the swelling of the tissues. The "eye" can be increased, by the process of osmosis, to a gain of more than one-third its natural size; that is, 4½ gallons of scallop "eyes" can be increased to 7 gallons by judicious "feeding" with fresh water. Also, a change has taken place in the scallops after a few hours' soaking. No longer do we find the poor yellow-colored small "eye" of the freshly opened scallop, but a beautiful white, plump "eye," which at once tempts the purchaser. While these changes have added to the salable properties of the scallop by beautifying its appearance and increasing its size, the scallop has lost much of its sweet flavor and freshness. Practically every scallop sold in the markets or shipped from any scalloping center is soaked, as the "soaking," if not already done by the fishermen, is administered by the retail dealers. There are scallopers who are ready to ship the unsoaked scallops at a proportionate price the moment the market demands them; but the consumer, through ignorance, demands the large, nice-appearing "eyes," and thus unwittingly favors the practice. However, as long as pure water is used and other sanitary precautions taken, no actual harm may arise from soaking scallops. Two methods of swelling scallops are in use. When the scallops are shipped in kegs, which usually contain 7 gallons, the following method is applied: 4½ to 5 gallons of "eyes" are placed in each keg, and are allowed to stand over night in fresh water; in the morning before shipment more water is added and the keg closed, and by the time of arrival to the New York or Boston market the scallops have increased to the full amount of 7 gallons. The second method of "soaking" is slightly more elaborate. The eyes are spread evenly in shallow wooden sinks 5 by 3 feet, with just enough fresh water to cover them, and left over night. In the morning a milky fluid is drawn off, and the "soaked" scallops are packed for market in kegs or butter tubs. (6) _Shipment._--The kegs in which the scallops are shipped cost 30 cents apiece, and contain about 7 gallons. A full keg is known as a "package." The butter tubs are less expensive, but hold only 4 to 5 gallons. Indeed, anything which will hold scallops for shipment is used to send them to market. When the scallops get to the market they are strained and weighed, 9 pounds being considered the weight of a gallon of meats. In this way about 6 gallons are realized from every 7-gallon keg. With the improved methods of modern times scallops can be shipped far west or be held for months in cold storage, for which purpose unsoaked scallops are required. Certain firms have tried this method of keeping the catch until prices were high, but it has not been especially successful. (7) _Market._--One of the greatest trials to the scallop fisherman is the uncertainty of market returns when shipping. He does not know the price he is to receive; and, as the price depends on the supply on the market, he may receive high wages or he may get scarcely anything. The wholesale market alone can regulate the price, and the fisherman is powerless. While this is hard on the scalloper, it does not appear that at the present time anything can be done to remedy the uncertainty of return. The scallop returns from the New York market are usually higher than from the Boston market. The result of this has been to give New York each year the greater part of the scallop trade, and practically all the Nantucket and Edgartown scallops are shipped to New York. Either from a feeling of loyalty, or because the market returns are sooner forwarded, or because the express charges are less, Cape Cod still ships to the Boston market, in spite of the better prices offered in New York. Why so many Cape scallopers should continue to ship to Boston, and resist the attractions of better prices, is impossible to determine, and appears to be only a question of custom. (8) _The Price._--The price of scallops varies with the supply. The demand is fairly constant, showing a slight but decided increase each year. On the other hand, the supply is irregular, some years scallops being plentiful, in other years scarce. _The Maine or Deep-sea Scallop._--In the Boston market the shallow-water scallop has a formidable rival in the giant scallop of the Maine coast, which is nearly twice as large. Nevertheless, the Cape scallop maintains its superiority and still leads its larger brother in popular favor, wholesaling at 50 to 70 cents more a gallon. There is no doubt that this competition has had a tendency to lower the price of the Cape scallop, possibly accounting for the higher market price in New York. _Outfit of a Scalloper._--While we have traced the scallop from its capture among the eel-grass to its final disposition, we have not considered the equipment of the scalloper. The average capital invested in the business can best be summed up under these two heads,--the boat fisherman and the dory fisherman. _Boat Fisherman._ Boat, $500.00 Dory, 20.00 Six dredges, 25.00 Rope and gear, 25.00 Culling board, 2.00 Incidentals, 3.00 Shanty, 50.00 ------- Total, $625.00 _Dory Fisherman._ Dory, $20.00 Oars, 1.50 Pusher, 2.50 Shanty, 25.00 ------- Total, $49.00 III. _The Scallop Season._--There is considerable diversity of opinion among the scallopers as to when the scallop season should open. Some advocate November 1 as the opening date, instead of October 1, as the present law reads; and many arguments are put forth by both sides. The class of fishermen who desire November 1 are those who are engaged in other fishing during the month of October, and either have to give it up or lose the first month of scalloping. Naturally, they wish a change, putting forth the additional argument of better prices if the season begins later. The scalloper who is not engaged in other fishing of course desires the law to remain as it is at the present time, claiming that the better weather of October gives easier work, more working days, and allows no chance of loss if the winter is severe. Under the present law, the town can regulate the opening of its season to suit the demands of the market and the desire of the inhabitants. This does away with the necessity of any State law on this point, which, under the present system of town control, would be inadvisable. The general opinion of the fishermen is in favor of the present date, October 1. As nearly as could be determined, about 75 per cent. favor October 1 and 25 per cent. November 1. This sentiment is divided by localities, as more men were in favor of November 1 at Nantucket and Edgartown than on Cape Cod and Buzzards Bay, where very few favored a change. IV. _The Utilization of Waste._--While it seems an enormous waste that out of a bushel of scallops only 2½ to 3 quarts of edible meats are obtained, it is not all absolute loss. Oyster growers buy the shells for cultch to catch the oyster seed, paying from 3 to 5 cents per bushel. Other uses are found, such as ornaments and in making shell roads. The refuse is used for fish bait, and often barrels of it are salted for this purpose. It is also used in some places for manure for agricultural purposes. In the last year a new use for scallop shells has developed. Similar to the souvenir postal card, scallop shells bound together with ribbon and containing miniature photographic views have been put on the market. Three firms near Boston make a business of this, and use only the lower or bright valve of the scallop. Certain scallopers furnish these scallop shells, cleaned of meat, at the rate of $6 per barrel; and, though it takes considerable time to separate the shells when opening, the excellent price makes this new industry pay. The question of the future is to find new and more important uses for our waste sea products. Some day what is now waste in the scallop industry may be utilized for the benefit of the public. V. _Food Value._--As a food the scallop stands ahead of all the other shellfish, containing much more nourishment than the oyster. The following figures are from the tables of Professor Atwater, rearranged by C. F. Langworthy:[11]-- (All values expressed as per cent.) ==============================+=========+======+=======+=========+===== | Refuse, | Salt | Water | Protein | Fat | Bone, | | | | | Skin, | | | | | etc. | | | | ------------------------------+---------+------+-------+---------+----- Oysters, solids, | -- | -- | 88.3 | 6.1 | 1.4 Oysters, in shell, | 82.3 | -- | 15.4 | 1.1 | .2 Oysters, canned, | -- | -- | 85.3 | 7.4 | 2.1 Scallops, | -- | -- | 80.3 | 14.7 | .2 Soft clams, in shell, | 43.6 | -- | 48.4 | 4.8 | .6 Soft clams, canned, | -- | -- | 84.5 | 9.0 | 1.3 Quahaugs, removed from shell, | -- | -- | 80.8 | 10.6 | 1.1 Quahaugs, in shell, | 68.3 | -- | 27.3 | 2.1 | .1 Quahaugs, canned, | -- | -- | 83.0 | 10.4 | .8 Mussels, | 49.3 | -- | 42.7 | 4.4 | .5 General average of mollusks | 60.2 | -- | 34.0 | 3.2 | .4 (exclusive of canned). | | | | | ==============================+=========+======+=======+=========+===== (All values expressed as per cent.) ==============================+=========+=========+===========+======= |Carbohy- | Mineral | Total | Fuel | drates | Matter | Nutrients | Value | | | | per | | | | Pound ------------------------------+---------+---------+-----------+------- Oysters, solids, | 3.3 | .9 | 11.7 | 235 Oysters, in shell, | .6 | .4 | 2.3 | 40 Oysters, canned, | 3.9 | 1.3 | 14.7 | 300 Scallops, | 3.4 | 1.4 | 19.7 | 345 Soft clams, in shell, | 1.1 | 1.5 | 8.0 | 135 Soft clams, canned, | 2.9 | 2.3 | 15.5 | 275 Quahaugs, removed from shell, | 5.2 | 2.3 | 19.2 | 340 Quahaugs, in shell, | 1.3 | .9 | 4.4 | 65 Quahaugs, canned, | 3.0 | 2.8 | 17.0 | 285 Mussels, | 2.1 | 1.0 | 8.0 | 140 General average of mollusks | 1.3 | .9 | 5.8 | 100 (exclusive of canned). | | | | ==============================+=========+=========+===========+====== _The Laws._ The State laws regulating the fishery were made for the benefit of the industry and for the preservation of the "seed" scallop, which is the only requirement necessary for insuring the future supply. Each town has charge over its scallop fishery, under the general shellfish act of 1880, which entrusted all regulation of the shellfisheries to the selectmen of the towns. The town laws governing the scallop fishery are by far the most satisfactory of the shellfish laws of the towns. Although in many respects beneficial, they have certain disadvantages. The main disadvantage of the town laws is found in the jealousy of neighboring towns. One town may make a law to oppose another town, and will often injure its own interests thereby. In this connection the condition at Dennis, during the winter of 1904-05, was an instance. As scallops were remarkably abundant, the town made by-laws intended to exclude from its scallop fisheries the residents of other towns. At the close of the scalloping season, when the ice came, the scallops were still abundant. The inhabitants of the town thought they could get the rest next season. They did not know that the scallop does not live two years. The next year not a single scallop of that set was to be found; they had died. If other scallopers had been allowed to go there, thousands of dollars could have been saved, and many scallopers given employment. This one case illustrates the disadvantages of town jealousy; and Dennis is by no means to blame, as it merely protected itself against the similar restrictions of neighboring Cape Cod towns. The town laws which benefit the scallop industry are made each year according to the condition of the industry. Edgartown and Nantucket have perhaps the best-governed scallop industries. Laws requiring licenses, regulating the opening of the season and restricting at proper times the catch, so as to get the best market prices instead of overstocking the market when the prices are low, are to be recommended on account of their benefit to the scallopers. _History._ In considering the rise of a fishing industry, it is often difficult to state exactly the year when the industry started, as there are differences of opinion as to how large a fishery should be before it could be justly considered an industry. The scallop fishery has existed for years, but did not become an established industry of the State before the year 1872. At that time there was hardly any demand for scallops, and the catch was with difficulty marketed. Since then the market demand for the scallop has steadily increased, until the supply can hardly meet the popular demand. It seems almost incredible that the scallop as an article of food should once have been scorned and practically unknown. During the years of 1876 and 1877 the industry took a sudden spurt. At this time the introduction of the dredge on Cape Cod revolutionized the industry, and made it possible to open up the deep-water fields. The industry on Cape Cod first started at Hyannis, where a number of men entered the new business; and for several years the production increased rapidly, with the opening of new territories and improved methods of capture. While the natural supply has remained the same or declined in certain localities, as has been shown in a previous part of this report, the value of the industry, in regard to the number of men engaged and capital invested, has steadily increased. SCALLOP PRODUCTION FOR MASSACHUSETTS.[12] ===================================================================== YEAR. | Bushels. | Value. | Gallons. | Price | | | | per Gallon. -------------------+-----------+----------+-----------+-------------- 1879, | 10,542 | $3,514 | 7,028 | $0.50 1887, | 41,964 | 38,933 | 27,976 | 1.39 1888, | 26,168 | 43,202 | 17,446 | 2.48 1898, | 128,863 | 85,383 | 85,908 | 0.99 1902, | 66,150 | 89,982 | 44,100 | 2.04 1905, | 43,872 | 98,712 | 29,248 | 3.37½ ===================================================================== These figures show that the price of scallops varies greatly, dependent largely upon the amount caught that season; also that there has been, in spite of the irregularity of the catch, a gradual rise in prices since 1879, due to a more extensive market. In considering the scallop industry the following points should be noted: (1) It has been necessary to record as scallop area any grounds where scallops have ever been found, in spite of the fact that only a portion of this total area is in any one year productive. (2) The boats engaged in the scallop fishery are but transitory capital, which is utilized, outside of the scallop season, in other fisheries. (3) The quahaug and scallop fisheries in many towns supplement each other, as the same men and boats are engaged in both industries. (4) The length of the season varies in the different localities. In New Bedford and Fairhaven the scallops are mostly caught in a few weeks, as many boats enter the business temporarily. This necessarily gives an excess of invested capital and a small production. In these two towns the number of scallop licenses are recorded as showing the number of men engaged in the fishery, while as a fact but a small part of these are steadily engaged in the industry. Key: N= Number ============+======+============+==========+=======+================+======= |Number| Boats | Extra | Value | Production |Area of | of | | Dories | of | 1907-08 |Scallop TOWN | Men +---+--------+---+------+ Gear +-------+--------+Grounds | | N | Value | N |Value | |Gallons| Value |(Acres) +------+---+--------+---+------+-------+-------+--------+------- Barnstable | 39 | 23| $8,000| -| -| $575| 1,530| $2,004| 2,800 Bourne | 38 | 30| 15,000| -| -| 1,200| 12,000| 15,720| 3,000 Chatham |107 | 35| 10,650| 61|$1,430| 1,185| 34,615| 45,345| 2,000 Dennis | 30 | 9| 4,230| 9| 180| 368| 2,950| 3,865| 2,250 Edgartown | 39 | 26| 8,000| -| -| 550| 17,000| 22,270| 2,000 Fairhaven |73[13]| 50| 12,500| -| -| 1,500| 1,300| 1,703| 2,500 Harwich | 12 | 7| 2,350| -| -| 280| 2,170| 2,843| 3,200 Marion | 44 | 16| 5,300| 24| 250| 580| 7,000| 9,170| 1,500 Mattapoisett| 22 | 19| 6,900| -| -| 760| 5,000| 6,550| 1,200 Nantucket | 99 | 47| 13,250| 20| 500| 700| 20,245| 26,539| 4,500 New Bedford |38[13]| 20| 5,000| -| -| 600| 700| 917| 400 Tisbury | 20 | 8| 3,000| 6| 90| 300| 3,000| 3,930| 800 Wareham | 45 | 36| 10,800| -| -| 1,300| 10,000| 13,100| 2,500 Yarmouth | 41 | 15| 3,750| 10| 200| 475| 8,000| 10,480| 2,250 ------------+------+---+--------+---+------+-------+-------+--------+------- Total | 647 |341|$108,730|130|$2,650|$10,373|125,510|$164,436| 30,900 ============+======+===+========+===+======+=======+=======+========+======= _Barnstable._ The principal scalloping grounds of the town of Barnstable are found in Hyannis bay and at Cotuit. Scallops are said to have once been abundant in Barnstable harbor, on the north side of Cape Cod. At the present day the scallop is unknown commercially in this locality, and few are found on the sand flats of the harbor. A. Howard Clark, in his report on the fisheries of Massachusetts, in 1880, makes the following statement concerning this industry in Barnstable harbor:-- Scallops are abundant along the shores of the harbor, and in 1876 a party of men from Hyannis established themselves here for the purpose of gathering them. In 1877 the price of scallops declined very greatly, forcing these men to abandon their enterprise. The fishery was continued, however, by two men of Barnstable. In the winter of 1877-78 the latter shipped 40 half-barrels of "eyes," and during the winter of 1878-79 only 6 half-barrels. They were sent to Boston and New York. This furnishes a concrete example of the extinction of the productive scallop beds in certain localities. The chances are that a severe winter or other adverse physical conditions killed all the scallops in the harbor, and rendered impossible any future supply. Although Barnstable harbor, with its swift tides, is not suitable for scallops in all parts, yet there are certain localities where they should thrive. In no way is it visionary or impossible that by the proper transplanting of young scallops from the waters on the south side of the Cape, these "seeders" might furnish other generations of scallops, and revive an extinct industry. At any rate, the chances for success in this line look favorable, and should be carefully considered. _Hyannis._--Although the scallop industry on the north coast of the town is extinct, it still flourishes as of old on the south coast. The bulk of the business is carried on here, and nearly all the shipments are made from this town. The scallop territory comprises 2,700 acres, in the following localities: (1) Lewis Bay; (2) near Squaw's Island; (3) Hyannisport harbor; and (4) the shore waters. At Hyannisport small scallops are taken with "pushers" in the shallow water, while large scallops are taken by dredging in the other three localities. Scallops are found in different parts and in varying abundance each year. Practically all this territory as outlined on the map is suitable for scallops. Two methods of scalloping are in use at Hyannis: (1) the hand "pusher," used in shallow water, especially in the harbor at Hyannisport; (2) dredging. These two methods cover different territories, and it is possible that one year scallops may be found only on the flats where it was impossible to dredge with a boat, and another year be all in the deep water where the "pusher" cannot be used. However, in most years both methods are in use. The dredge most commonly used is the "scraper," although the Chatham style is found here. Six to nine are carried by each boat. Hyannis claims the distinction of shipping the first Cape Cod scallops to market. This was in 1874, and was the start of a considerable industry which employed 80 men. There has been more or less scalloping ever since that time. Ernest Ingersoll, in his report on the scallop fishery of the United States, in 1880, says in reference to scallop fishing at Hyannis from 1876 to 1878:-- The most northerly locality at which such a fishery exists, as far as I am informed, is at Hyannis, Mass., and during the winter of 1877 many persons of all ages and conditions were employed in it there. One firm fitted up a large house expressly for the business, and employed a large number of openers. Skiffs, cat-rigged yawl boats, dories and punts, 200 in number, and of every size, shape, form and color, were used; most of them were flat bottomed, shaped like a flatiron, and therefore very "tender" when afloat. Each boat carried two dredges, locally termed "drags." In that year, according to Mr. F. W. True, each of the 200 boats averaged 120 bushels, or 100 gallons, during the season, which would give a total of 24,000 bushels, or 20,000 gallons for the fleet. The scallops were sent to New York and also to Boston, and an average price of $5 per half-barrel was received. In 1876 the price was $7, and in 1878 only $3.50. Further inquiries show that this spurt at Hyannis had no precedent, and has completely died away, so that at present there is no catch there, or at least no shipments. The 1904-05 fishery was very successful, while the season of 1905-06 proved the reverse. The production for 1905-06 was 1,350 gallons, valued at $3,200; while the 1906-07 season furnished 1,000 gallons, worth $2,000. The following notes, made in November, 1905, give the situation of the industry for that year:-- The scalloping areas this season have been at Squaw's Island and in Lewis Bay, the first locality furnishing the better fishing. By the middle of November both areas were practically exhausted and the season over. The production to November 12 was 900 gallons. After that time the shipments to the Boston and New York markets were small and irregular, in spite of the high price of $3 to $3.50 per gallon. _Cotuit._--In the report of Mr. Ingersoll we find no mention of scalloping at Cotuit. Either there was none in 1879, or it was too small to be of any importance. To-day the scalloping is of slight importance, and practically all is used for home trade. Undoubtedly there has been but little change in the past twenty-five years. Side by side with the pigmy scallop industry has grown the oyster industry, which has made Cotuit famous. Undoubtedly the latter has sapped the strength of the former by encroaching on its area; but it has always been for the best interests of the people, as the oyster industry here is far more valuable than the scallop fishery. The grounds of Cotuit are quite small, extending over an irregular strip of 100 acres. The bottom is mostly muddy, and covered with patches of eel grass. All the rest of the bay, where the bottom is more suited for oyster culture, is taken up by grants. This scalloping area, although small, is free to the scallopers of Osterville, Cotuit, Marston's Mills and Hyannis, and even where heavily set it is soon fished out. In the years previous to 1904-05 exceptionally fine scalloping had been reported by the fishermen. The season of 1904-05 was exceptionally poor, and in 1905-06 hardly any scallops were obtainable. In 1907 scalloping began October 1, and by December 15 all the boats were hauled up, as the scallops became too scarce for profitable fishing. Dredging is the only important method employed in the Cotuit fishery, although a few scallops were picked up on the flats. A town law forbidding the capture of scallops for market before December 1 was passed in 1899. This, nevertheless, permitted any resident of Barnstable, between October 1 and December 1, to catch scallops for his family use, and for this reason could never be strictly enforced. In 1907 this law was repealed, as many believed that it was detrimental rather than helpful to the Cotuit interests, as it gave the Hyannis scallopers, after they had fished for two months in Hyannis Bay, the cream of the Cotuit fishery. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. ============+=======+=================+=======+====================== | Number| BOATS. | Value | PRODUCTION, 1907-08. TOWN. | of +--------+--------+ of +----------+----------- | Men. | Value. | Number.| Gear. | Gallons. | Value. ------------+-------+--------+--------+-------+----------+----------- Hyannis, | 16 | $3,200 | 8 | $200 | 1,130 | $1,480 Hyannisport,| 14 | 2,800 | 7 | 200 | 100 | 131 Cotuit, | 9 | 2,000 | 8 | 175 | 300 | 393 ------------+-------+--------+--------+-------+----------+----------- Total, | 39 | $8,000 | 23 | $575 | 1,530 | $2,004 ============+=======+========+========+=======+==========+=========== _Bourne._ The villages of Buzzards Bay, Monument Beach and Cataumet share the scallop fishery of the town of Bourne, and have had during 1907-08 a successful season for the first time in eight years. The available scallop territory of the town covers approximately 3,000 acres, extending from Buttermilk Bay along the whole coast of the town to Cataumet. The fishing is mostly done by dredging with cat boats, carrying from six to ten dredges per boat, although a few scallopers dredge with power. The dredges are generally of the "scraper" type, with the chain bottom, similar to the dredges used at Edgartown. The scallopers both open their own catch and hire openers to assist them. Thirty boats, 8 carrying 2 men, and 22 with 1 man, totalling 38 men, are employed in the scallop fishery. The industry lasted until Jan. 1, 1908, when the boats were hauled up for winter. The total estimate for the season is 20,000 bushels, or 12,000 gallons (unsoaked), valued at $15,720. The largest daily catch recorded for one boat was 72 bushels. The principal market is New York, though part of the catch is sent to New Bedford. The price varied from $1.15 to $3 per gallon. The scallopers claim that they do not soak the scallops, as the "eye" is large enough to sell well without increasing its size. Undoubtedly soaking is done to some extent. The scallops are large, opening about 3½ quarts per bushel. Twelve hundred dollars are invested in gear and $15,000 in boats, which vary from $300 to $1,300 in value. Licenses costing $1 are required by the selectmen of every scalloper. Here again we find the old tale of the decline of a once prosperous industry, and new enthusiasm in the success of the 1907-08 season. The 1906-07 season was an improvement over the previous one, when eight licenses were issued, allowing a maximum of 1,605 bushels to be taken. In previous years no licenses were given, as there were no scallops. _Brewster._ Scalloping at Brewster can hardly be called an industry. Here the primitive method of picking up the scallops on the exposed flats at low tide is alone used. The scallops are washed by the heavy seas on the flats, and can be gathered by men, women and children when the tide goes down. Somewhere in the deeper water is a bed of scallops, but in 1905 no one had been able to locate it. In 1905 only one man made a business of gathering and shipping these scallops. He averaged 2 bushels per tide, going down with a team and carting them to his house, where he opened them. All shipments were made to Boston, at an average price of $1.75 to $2. The people pick up many for home use. _Chatham._ The town of Chatham, situated at the elbow of Cape Cod, possesses abundant facilities for all the shore fisheries. For the past twenty-five years the scallop fishery has held almost equal rank with the lobster and cod fisheries, for which Chatham is noted, and has in many years furnished employment when other fishing had failed. Scallops are found only in the southern waters of the town. Between Inward Point and Harding's Beach many acres of eel-grass flats, sheltered from the open ocean by Monomoy Island, furnish excellent grounds for scallops. The entire area of these grounds is approximately 2,000 acres, although this whole territory is never completely stocked in any one year. During the season of 1907-08 the following places constituted the scalloping grounds:-- (1) Island Flats in Stage Harbor, on the east side of the channel, opposite Harding's Beach, furnished a number of scallops, which were rapidly caught the first of the season, as these flats were near the town. Here the water is not more than 1½ to 2 feet deep at low tide, and thick eel grass covers the greater part except near the channel. The first of the season a man could obtain 8 bushels per day, but later a catch of 2 bushels was considered good. (2) Directly south of Harding's Beach lies John Perry's flat, commonly known as "Jerry's," where there has been good scalloping for many years. (3) The western half of the Common Flats furnished the best scalloping in 1907-08, as the scallops, though small (6 pecks to a gallon), were plentiful. These flats run nearly dry on low course tides, and are covered with eel grass. Nearly every year there is a heavy set of scallop seed, which, because of the exposed nature of the flats, is wholly or partially destroyed. The entire set was destroyed in the winter of 1904-05, while 30 per cent. was lost in 1906-07. (4) On the flats just south of Inward Point was another bed of scallops. (5) In the bend north of Inward Point scallops were plentiful. (6) On the northwest edge of the Common Flats scallops can be dredged over an area of 160 acres at a depth of 5 fathoms. These are of good size, opening 3½ quarts to the bushel. Two methods of obtaining scallops are employed: (1) by the use of the "pusher;" and (2) by dredging. As the "pusher" is used on the flats at low water where the boats cannot sail, the boat man possesses the advantage of "pushing" at low tide and dredging at high water. Sixty per cent. of the scallopers at Chatham go in dories and use "pushers," as the Common Flats afford excellent opportunity for this sort of fishing; the remaining 40 per cent. scallop in boats, using "pushers" to a limited extent. Four to six box dredges are used for each boat, the smaller boats carrying four, the larger six. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 107 Dory men ("pushers"), 62 Boat men (dredgers), 45 Number of boats, 35 Single-manned, 26 Double-manned, 9 Value of boats, $10,650 Number of dories, 61 Value of dories, $1,430 Value of scallop gear for dories, 135 Value of scallop gear for boats, 1,050 Total value of scallop gear, 1,185 Last season 34,615 gallons, valued at $45,345, were shipped to Boston and New York. Shipments are made in butter tubs, containing 4 to 6 gallons each. The larger scallops in the deep water are from 2½ to 2¾ inches in length, taking 5 pecks to open a gallon of "eyes." On the flats are smaller scallops, from 2 to 2¼ inches in length, of which 6½ pecks are required to make a gallon. About 4,000 gallons were bought in Chatham by two dealers, paying $1.30 per gallon; the rest were shipped to Boston and New York by the individual scallopers, shipments being made semiweekly to New York. The scallops were shipped in butter tubs containing from 4 to 6 gallons, on which the express charges were: to New York, 65 cents; to Boston, 35 cents. The 1907-08 production was 20,000 gallons, valued at $40,000. In 1905-06 practically all the catch were "seed" scallops of the set of 1905; only about 5 per cent. of the catch were scallops of the 1904 set. Owing to the exceptional cod fishing, only 15 men made a business of scalloping, going mostly one man to a boat, and averaging 3½ bushels per day after the scalloping "struck in," Dec. 1, 1905. The high prices alone made it profitable to catch these small scallops, which gave only 3 pints of "eyes" to a bushel of shells,--just one-half the amount yielded by a bushel of large scallops. The fishermen were all from South and West Chatham. The entire catch was estimated at 2,800 gallons. _Dennis._ The scallop grounds of Dennis and Yarmouth are common property for the inhabitants of both towns, while other towns are excluded from the fishery. The West Dennis scallopers fish mostly on the Yarmouth flats at the mouth of Parker River, and between Bass and Parker rivers on the shore flats. There is also scalloping along the shore on the Dennis grounds. These grounds are for the "pushers." Dredging is carried on at Dennisport, and the boats cover a wide territory at some distance from the shore. The town possesses a large area, which either has scattering scallops or is well stocked one year and barren the next. Nearly 2,250 acres of available territory is included in the waters of the town. The flats, which are of sand with thick or scattering eel grass, according to the locality, afford a good bottom for scallops. Were it not for the eel grass, the scallops would perish by being washed on the shore by southerly winds. Thirty men make a business of scalloping in the town of Dennis, 22 from Dennisport and 8 from West Dennis. At Dennisport scalloping is practically all done by dredging, while at West Dennis scallops are all taken by the use of "pushers." At Dennisport 9 boats, 3 sail and 6 cat boats, with power, carrying 18 men, are employed in the business. Here also are 4 dory scallopers. At West Dennis the scallopers go mostly in pairs, using only 5 dories. The dredges used at Dennisport are similar to the Chatham dredge. At Dennisport the scallopers open the scallops and also employ openers, while at West Dennis the scallopers do the entire work. In 1907-08 the production was 2,950 gallons, valued at $3,865. Scallops were shipped to the New York and Boston markets, although the greater part of the catch went to New York. The scallops taken at Dennisport are large, opening 3 quarts to the bushel. At West Dennis, where the fishing is done in the shallow water, the scallops are somewhat smaller, yielding only 2½ quarts to the bushel. During the month of November large quantities of scallops were blown ashore at Dennisport, and it is said that as many as 72 bushels were gathered by one man in a day. CAPITAL INVESTED. Value of boats:-- Sail, $1,230 Power, 3,000 Dories, 180 ------ Total, $4,410 Value of gear:-- Boat, 350 Dory, 18 ------ Total, $368 Permits are required for scalloping, but are issued free of charge by the selectmen. Dennis and Yarmouth have common scallop fishery rights, the town scallop regulation reading as follows:-- All persons other than the inhabitants of the towns of Dennis and Yarmouth are prohibited from taking scallops from the shores and waters of the town of Yarmouth excepting for their family use, and in no case without a permit. During the season of 1904-05 there existed off Dennisport one of the largest beds of scallops ever known in Massachusetts. Not only was it extensive, but the scallops were very numerous. An enormous yield was the result, affording great profit to a large number of scallopers, and bringing into the town thousands of dollars. It was stated by the scallopers that when the scalloping ceased because of the severe winter and ice the number of scallops appeared in no way diminished. During the season the catch averaged over 25 bushels per boat. Prospects looked good for the following season, as the fishermen expected the scallops to live until the next year. Unfortunately, the life of a scallop is less than two years, and before spring practically the whole of this large bed was dead,--a heavy loss to the fishing interests of the town and of the State. In cases like this the exclusion of scallopers from the neighboring towns, through the present system of town laws, has resulted in severe economic and financial loss to the State, as many more scallops could have been captured without injury to the future supply if more fishermen had been given an opportunity to enjoy this fishery. The following season, 1905-06, presented a marked contrast to that of 1904-05. Some adverse conditions had injured the set of 1905, and as a result there were scarcely any adult scallops. By January 1 the scallops of the 1906 set had become large enough in certain localities to permit capture. Owing to the high prices, these scallops, less than eight months old ("seed" scallops), were profitable to catch, and the season's catch at Dennisport after January 1 consisted of these young scallops. At that time the present "seed" scallop law was not in force, so the capture of these scallops was entirely legal. About 6 men were engaged during 1905-06 in scalloping at Dennisport. The scallops were obtained by dredging in the deeper water. The average catch was 3 to 4 bushels per day. The 1906-07 season was hardly above the average. At West Dennis 8 men were engaged in scalloping on the flats with "pushers." The scallops were small, averaging about 2 inches in width. It is only once every three or four years that West Dennis scallops are in the deep water where it is necessary to dredge them; usually the scallops are found on the shallow-water flats. The 1907-08 season is the best season the town has had since 1904-05. _Dartmouth._ A few scallops are occasionally found in Slocum's River and other places, but in no quantity to furnish any commercial fishery. _Eastham._ The scalloping grounds are on the west side of the town, about half a mile out. During the season of 1906-07, 6 men, working at intervals during the winter, managed to take a total of 500 bushels from these flats. _Edgartown._ Edgartown, situated at the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard, possesses extensive scallop grounds, and is one of the leading towns in the production of this shellfish. This fishery, even more important than the quahaug industry, furnishes steady winter employment for a large number of the inhabitants. The important grounds are in Cape Poge Pond and in Edgartown harbor, while occasionally beds of scallops, especially "seed," are found in Katama Bay. These grounds comprise an area of 2,000 acres, chiefly of grass bottom. At Edgartown scalloping is done both with sail and with power boats, which are generally auxiliary cat boats, though power dories are used to some extent. All but two of the power boats are doubly manned, while the sail boats carry but one man. Eleven sail and 15 power boats, employing 39 men, are engaged in the fishery. Two kinds of dredges are used, the "scraper" for scalloping in the eel grass and the "slider" for clean surface. The depth of water over the scallop beds is not more than 18 feet, necessitating 10½ fathoms of rope. The price of a dredge, including rope, is about $3, which is cheaper than in the Buzzards Bay towns. Each power boat uses six to eight, which are held out by "spreaders," poles extending from the sides of the boat, in order that the dredges may cover more ground and not trail behind one another. The greater part of the scalloping is done by power, and, in spite of the extra cost of nearly 90 cents per day, the proportionate increase makes this method more profitable; it is claimed to increase the catch about one-third. Scalloping with power necessitates the services of two men, as one man has to cull while the other steers. At the end of the "drift" the boat is stopped, and both men cull. With sail, culling can be done when dredges are overboard. When two men scallop, the owner of the boat takes three-fifths while his partner shares two-fifths of the profit. Twenty-five to 30 openers prepare the scallop for market during the afternoons and evenings. These are paid at the rate of 25 cents per gallon, and average about $1.50 per day, a good opener cutting out a gallon of "eyes" in an hour. Small scallops open 700 "eyes" per gallon; the larger ones, 500. The 1907-08 season was successful, as the scallops were plentiful, the daily catch per boat running between 5 and 50 bushels. About 17,000 gallons, valued at $22,270, were shipped between Oct. 1, 1907, and April 1, 1908. Shipments are made mostly to the New York market; a very few to Boston market. The freight charges on a keg, which weighs about 70 pounds, is 55 cents. In warm weather scallops are sent by express, the charges being 80 cents. The scallops are packed in butter tubs of large size, averaging from 6 to 7 gallons, and costing 8 cents apiece. These are obtained second hand from the grocery stores at New Bedford. The tubs are packed full and closed tightly. By the time the scallops arrive at market they are reduced in quantity by the jarring, in warm weather from 7 to 6 gallons, and in cold from 7 to 6½. Returns from the market are made in about a week. Scallops can be held back for better prices three to four days in warm weather, and about seven in cold. CAPITAL INVESTED. Value of power boats, $5,250 Value of sail boats, 2,750 Value of gear, 550 ------ Total, $8,550 By vote of the town, the season for several years has been open one month later than the State season. Shellfish permits costing $2 are required of every scalloper. The daily catch for one man is restricted to 25 bushels. Edgartown was one of the pioneer towns in the State in the scallop fishery, and as early as 1875 scallops were shipped to the market. The industry has maintained a steady supply, and has not shown the great variation of the Cape and Buzzards Bay fisheries. This is due perchance to the natural conditions, which render favorable the maintenance of an extensive industry. The last four seasons have been very successful, as when scallops were scarce the increased price more than made up for the diminished supply. The 1904-05 season was favorable, but, owing to the severe winter, fishing ceased about January 1, although scallops were plentiful both in Cape Poge Pond and Edgartown harbor. In 1905-06 scallops were found only in Cape Poge Pond, as the previous severe winter had killed all the harbor "seed." This season was most successful, as Nantucket and Edgartown, owing to the scarcity of scallops in other localities, received very high market prices. Scallops were more abundant in 1906-07, but the lower prices made the industry less prosperous than in the previous season. COMPARISON OF 1879 WITH 1907-08 PRODUCTION. =====================+=======+========= | 1879. | 1907-08. ---------------------+-------+--------- Gallons, | 500 | 17,000 Value, | $250 | $22,270 =====================+=======+========= _Fairhaven._ Fairhaven possesses, with New Bedford, the scalloping grounds of the Acushnet River, and in addition a much larger territory around Sconticut Neck and West Island. The scalloping territory comprises about 2,500 acres, most of which is unproductive or productive only at intervals. The town charges $1 for the license to each scalloper. Seventy-three licenses were issued in 1906-07. This is a larger number than has been issued in recent years. The highest number ever issued was 80. The capital invested is transitory, for the season, as in New Bedford, usually lasts only three weeks. Possibly $14,000 is invested in this way in boats and gear. In a good season as high as 2,000 gallons have been shipped in a week. The average season hardly produces this amount in the whole three weeks. In the season of 1907-08, 1,300 gallons were shipped. Some years ago the starfish was a source of damage to the fishery, but of late years it has attracted little notice. We find the following account of the scallop fishery of Fairhaven written by A. Howard Clark in 1879:-- Ten boats took 2,100 bushels of scallops in 1880. Fourteen men with 10 boats dredge for scallops from the middle of October to the middle of January. Great quantities are found in the Acushnet River, as well as along the western shore of the bay. A small dredge, holding about a bushel, is used. It is made with an oval-shaped iron frame, 3½ feet in length. Wire netting is used in the front part and twine at the back. Small sail boats, each with two men, fish with from one to twelve of these dredges in tow, sailing with just enough sheet to allow a slow headway. As soon as a dredge is filled, the men "luff up," haul in, empty, and go on. These little boats take from 10 to 75 bushels a day. If the breeze be unfavorable, one man takes the oars while the other tends the dredges. The amount of production at the present time is about the same, or even more, than the figures given for 1879. In all other respects the industry has changed. Five times as many men now work at the business, while more boats and capital are invested. This looks as if the industry had improved. The industry as regards the methods of capture has improved, but the actual production has remained the same. Now the season lasts barely three weeks, whereas twenty-five years ago with few men it lasted four months. _Fall River District._ No scallop fishery exists in these waters at the present time. In 1879, 800 gallons were taken from this region. This furnishes an excellent illustration of the total decline of the scallop fishery in certain localities. _Falmouth._ The town of Falmouth cannot be said to support any scallop industry of importance. Each year in Squeteague Pond, Wild Harbor, North Falmouth and in West Falmouth harbor a few scallops can be found; but these are used only for limited local consumption, and usually are very scarce. Scallops are occasionally present in small quantities in Waquoit Bay. _Harwich._ The scallop territory of Harwich covers an extensive area on the south side of the town, and in some places extends for a distance of from 2 to 3 miles out from shore. Usually the scallops are found, as in the last season (1907-08), outside the bar, at a distance of 3 miles from shore, where they can be taken only by dredging from sail or power boats. The intervening body of water sometimes contains a few scallops in a quantity to make a commercial fishery. The total area of the scallop grounds is about 3,200 acres. The bottom is mostly sandy, with patches of eel grass. All the scallops are caught by dredging, as the water is too deep for any other method. Twelve men were engaged in the fishery during the 1907-08 season. The boats, 7 in number, consisted of 3 power and 4 sail; 5 were manned by 2 men, 2 were sailed singly. The dredges used here are the same style as the Chatham dredge. The 1907-08 production was 2,170 gallons, valued at $2,843. The scallops were shipped to the Boston and New York markets, the greater part being shipped to New York, at an average price of $1.30 per gallon. The scallops taken in 1907-08 were large, opening 3½ quarts to the bushel. CAPITAL INVESTED. Value of boats, $2,350 Value of gear, 280 Value of shore property, 400 ------ Total, $3,030 For the last two years there has been practically no scallop fishery. The 1904-05 season was the last successful season, when the large bed of scallops was found off Dennis. The 1907-08 season, however, has been fairly good, and it is thought that the following year may be as successful. _Marion._ Marion was included in the general revival of the scallop fishery which came to Buzzards Bay during the past season of 1907-08, and for the first time in eight years has had a successful scallop season. The scallop grounds of the town extend over an area of 1,500 acres, situated on both sides of Great Neck, and extending from the Wareham line to Aucoot Cove. All scalloping is done by dredging. The fishery can be divided into two classes: (1) the boat fishery; (2) the skiff fishery. Under the first class comes the cat boat and sloop, carrying six dredges; while the second class consists of the small sail skiffs, with one dredge. The skiff scalloper rows or sails, as the wind permits, and with his one dredge makes an average catch of 3 bushels per day. Forty-four men, using 16 sail and power boats and 24 skiffs are engaged in the fishery. The business likewise requires the services of nearly 24 openers. About two-thirds of the dredges are of the "scraper" type, with chain netting; the rest "sliders," with loose blades. A very few "roller" or "lead" dredges are used. The production for 1907-08 was 7,000 gallons, valued at $9,170. The scallops were mostly sent to the New Bedford market. The scallops are of two sizes: the smaller, which are taken in the shallow water, open only 2½ quarts per bushel, while in the deeper water the larger scallops yield about 3½ quarts. The rest of the body of the scallop, after the removal of the eye, is saved for bait at Marion, the scalloper receiving 30 cents per bucket. CAPITAL INVESTED. Value of boats, $5,300 Value of skiffs, 250 Value of gear, 580 ------ Total $6,130 The three towns of Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester have common fishery rights, as all three were included in the original town of Rochester. In 1852 Marion became an independent town, and in 1857 Mattapoisett was likewise separated from Rochester. Until 1893 Marion and Mattapoisett had separate fishery rights, Rochester having mutual rights with both. Since then the fishery of these towns has been common to all three. Every scalloper is required to have a permit, the boatmen paying $2, the skiff scallopers $1, respectively. The scallop industry supplanted the waning oyster industry at Marion some twelve years ago, and for a time it flourished greatly. The abundance of scallops and extent of the grounds furnish excellent scalloping. After a few very successful years the industry suddenly died out and became practically extinct. The direct cause is claimed by the scallopers to have been the starfish, which came in the harbor in great abundance at the time of the decline of the industry. Up to this season but little scalloping had been done for several years, and not a single permit was issued for the season of 1906-07. _Mashpee._ The scallop territory of Mashpee lies in the Popponesset River and Bay, comprising at most 200 acres. For the last six years there has been no scallop industry in the town. A few scallops are occasionally taken for home consumption. _Mattapoisett._ The scallop territory of Mattapoisett, comprising an area of 1,200 acres, much of which is open and exposed, is in general confined to the following localities: Nasketucket Bay, Brant Bay, Brant Island Cove, Mattapoisett harbor, Pine Neck Cove and Aucoot Cove. The location and extent of these grounds are indicated on Map 8. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 22 Number of boats:-- Sail, 13 Power, 6 ------ Total, 19 Boats, how manned:-- Single, 16 Double, 3 Dredging is the only method of scalloping used in Mattapoisett. Small cat boats and a few power boats are employed in the fishery. The "roller" dredge is the most popular style with the Mattapoisett scallopers, who claim that on the uneven bottom this dredge is the most successful. This town is the only locality in the State where this kind of dredge is used. The cost of a dredge completely rigged with rope, which is often 15 fathoms long, is $4.50, and 8 to 10 dredges are used for each boat. During the 1907-08 season the production was 5,000 gallons, valued at $6,550. These were mostly marketed at New Bedford, where they were purchased unsoaked by the New Bedford Fish Company. At the first part of the season it was not uncommon for a boat to catch 25 bushels per day, but as the season progressed the size of the catch gradually diminished. The scallops were large, opening 3 quarts to the bushel. CAPITAL INVESTED. Value of boats, $6,900 Value of gear, 760 ------ Total, $7,660 The scallop industry at Mattapoisett, though once important, was extinct for several years. The present season has shown a revival, and the industry has again assumed a commercial value. _Nantucket._ Nantucket is one of the leading towns of the State in the scallop fishery. The grounds lie both in Nantucket harbor and in Maddequet harbor on the west end of the island. The former of these is the larger and more important, as the fishery is near the town. When the scallops become scarce in Nantucket harbor, the scallopers adjourn to the fresher beds of Maddequet. Nantucket harbor contains approximately 3,000 acres of scallop territory; Maddequet and Muskeget, 1,500 acres. Practically all the scalloping is done by dredging from sail boats, employing about 99 men in the fishery. The dredges are of the "slider" and the "scraper" types, the iron frames of which cost $1.50 and the netting bags 30 cents. From 6 to 10 of these are used per boat, and are dragged by 7 fathoms of 15-thread rope. Five regular openers are hired, who receive from 20 to 25 cents per gallon, according to the size of the scallops. A few scallops are taken in the shallow water by the dory fishermen with "pushers," which are locally known as "scoops." These differ from the Cape Cod "pusher," being more rounded and smaller in size. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of boats:-- Power, 10 Sail, 37 Dories, 20 Boats, how manned:-- Single, 15 Double, 32 Single dories, 20 In 1906-07 the production was 9,820 gallons, valued at $12,875. ==================+==========+===========+=========== | | Price | 1907-08.[14] | Gallons. |per Gallon.| Value. ------------------+----------+-----------+----------- October, | 2,639 | $1.25 | $3,298.75 November, | 4,160 | 1.00 | 4,160.00 December, | 5,430 | 1.00 | 5,430.00 January, | 5,910 | 1.50 | 8,865.00 February | 960 | 2.00 | 1,920.00 March, | 1,146 | 2.50 | 2,865.00 +----------+-----------+----------- Total, | 20,245 | $1.31 | $26,538.75 ==================+==========+===========+=========== Shipments were made by express to New York and Boston, the charges to New York being 95 cents, to Boston 55 cents per keg. The greater part was shipped to New York market. The scallops were shipped mostly in 7-gallon kegs, which cost 33 cents apiece. About 30 New York and 20 Boston firms receive shipments from the Nantucket scallopers. Two kinds of scallops, the large "channel" and the small or "eel grass," are obtained. The small scallops are more numerous than the large, but are naturally less desirable. CAPITAL INVESTED. Value of power boats, $4,000 Value of sail boats, 9,250 Value of dories, 500 Value of gear, 700 ------ Total, $14,450 Of late years the scallopers have taken an interest in protecting the scallop. Many scallopers when fishing in shallow water "cull out" the small "seed" scallops, and, instead of returning them to the shallow water, transplant them to the deep water of the channel, where they are not only protected in case of severe winter, but produce a larger scallop the following year. This is the only attempt at protecting the scallop ever made in Massachusetts, and shows how important the industry is to the town. For the two seasons previous to 1907-08 every scalloper was required to have a license. In 1905-06 the price was 50 cents, while the following year, 1906-07, 190 licenses, costing $1 each, were taken out. No licenses were required in 1907-08. Special by-laws, either limiting the catch or enforcing a close season to meet the demands of the fishery, are made by the town each year. Scallops have been always plentiful, but fifty-five years ago they were not caught, as they were considered poisonous. The present industry started in 1883, and since that time, in spite of its ups and downs, it has remained a constant source of revenue to the island. Notwithstanding a scarcity of scallops, the high prices of 1905-06 enabled the fishermen to have a fairly successful season. Both the 1906-07 and the 1907-08 seasons have been very prosperous, as scallops have been plentiful. _New Bedford._ The scallop industry at New Bedford has been in existence since about 1870, and has furnished a livelihood for an average of 15 men ever since. Of late years the industry has shown a marked decline. In 1879 A. Howard Clark says:-- Scallops are plentiful in the Acushnet River, and large quantities are taken with dredges from October through the winter. The business of late years has greatly increased. About the same time Ernest Ingersoll also writes:-- In the Acushnet River and all along the western shore of Buzzards Bay these little mollusks abound, and their catching has come to be of considerable importance in that locality. Mr. W. A. Wilcox, who sends me notes on the subject, says that it is only eighteen years ago that a fisherman of Fairhaven (opposite New Bedford) was unable to sell 5 gallons that he had caught. But the taste has been acquired, and a local market has grown up to important proportions, so that in 1880 14 men and 10 small boats (dories) were dredging for scallops in Buzzards Bay from the middle of October to the middle of January. Mr. Wilcox says: "These small boats will take from 10 to 75 bushels a day." These men are not willing to work every day, however, since the tautog and other fishing calls their attention, and there is danger of overstocking the market. It therefore happens that the total catch reported for both New Bedford and Fairhaven men will not exceed 6,400 gallons, valued at $3,864, 60 cents being a fair price in this and the Boston market. The value of the investment devoted to this business at Fairhaven is about $120. The scallop industry of 1907 cannot be compared with that of former years. The amount of scallops taken is not one-third of the former production. More men are engaged in the business than twenty-five years ago, but the beds are raked clean in a shorter time. The annual yield has sadly fallen off, in spite of improved methods of capture and increased number of fishermen. This decline cannot here be attributed to either of the natural enemies of the scallop, as neither the starfish nor oyster drill are abundant. Severe climatic conditions and overfishing by man are the direct causes of this decline. The scallop area of New Bedford comprises approximately 400 acres, principally in the Acushnet River and in Clark's Cove. In 1906-07, 38 licenses were issued by the city for scalloping. This is a marked decrease over former years. Probably not all these men fish regularly. In the last few years the season has been rather short, lasting between three and four weeks, as the scallops were practically all caught in that time. The capital required for the business, consisting of cat boats, skiffs, dredges, shanties, etc., amounts to about $5,600; but this is merely transient, and is only employed for three or four weeks, and then devoted to other fisheries. ANNUAL PRODUCTION. ======================================== YEAR. | Bushels. | Gallons. | Value. ---------+----------+----------+-------- 1905-06, | 1,000 | 1,000 | $3,000 1906-07, | 1,200 | 1,200 | 3,000 1907-08, | 700 | 700 | 917 ======================================== All scalloping is done by dredging from either cat boats or dories. Since 1879 improvements have been made, and cat boats instead of dories, each manned by one man with six dredges, now do the work once wholly performed, as Ingersoll says, by dories. All the scalloping takes place in deep water. When the law of 1905 made the Acushnet River and Clark's Cove forbidden shellfish territory, because of the sewage pollution of the harbor, the capture of scallops in season was still allowed. This was based on the principle that there is no danger in eating the clean "eye" of the scallop, although as a matter of fact there is actual danger of typhoid infection to those handling anything from sewage-polluted waters. The following notes were made Nov. 21, 1905, upon the fishery of that year:-- At the opening of the season a bed of scallops was discovered just outside the harbor beyond the light. Twenty-five boats set to work immediately, but there was not a sufficient supply of scallops to keep them long employed, and one by one they dropped out, until by November 21 only two or three boats were still engaged in the fishery. The scallops of this year were of large size, 2½ to 2¾ inches, and turned out a gallon of "eyes" per bushel,--an excellent yield, as the average scallops only shuck out 2½ to 3 quarts to a bushel of shells. If a man could obtain a gallon per day by November 21 he was lucky, and owing to the high retail price, he made a fair day's wages. _Orleans._ On the flats about ½ to 1 mile from the west shore scallops are occasionally found. Six years ago there was a fairly good season, but since that time there have been very few scallops, and these are taken only for home consumption. _Provincetown._ Scallops are obtained on the flats in the east bend of the harbor toward the Truro shore, where they are blown by a southwest wind. Evidently there must be a bed of scallops in the deep water from which the scallops are washed on the flats. In 1905-06 from 2 to 6 men were engaged in picking up these scallops and retailing them for home trade. About 1894 or 1895 scallops were numerous, and it was not uncommon for a man to pick up 5 bushels on the flats at one tide. Since 1900 but few scallops have been found. _Tisbury._ The scalloping grounds of Tisbury are in the harbor at Vineyard Haven. Only Vineyard Haven fishermen make a business of scalloping here. The scallop grounds comprise an area of 800 acres. Most of the scallops are obtained by dredging from cat boats, which are nearly all equipped with power. With two exceptions the boats are singly manned. Fourteen men go in 8 boats, using from six to eight dredges per boat. Six men scallop in skiffs, using one dredge. The dredges are similar to those used at Edgartown. During the season of 1907-08, 3,000 gallons of scallops, valued at $3,930 were captured. The fishermen ship chiefly to the New York market. The scallops are of an exceptionally large size, opening, it is said, 4 quarts to the bushel. The proportionate size of the "eye" to the shell is much greater than with the ordinary scallop. CAPITAL INVESTED. Value of boats, $3,000 Value of skiffs, 90 Value of gear, 300 ------ Total, $3,390 No licenses or permits are required for scalloping. The last season (1907-08) is the second season that scallops have been abundant in this locality. _Wareham._ Situated at the head of Buzzards Bay, the town of Wareham possesses a considerable water area which is suitable for scallops. The entire territory, embracing approximately 2,500 acres, extends in a southwesterly direction from Peter's Neck, including Onset Bay, to Abiel's Buoy and from there to Weweantit River. Scallops are also found in the Wareham River. Scallops are mostly found in the deeper water, which makes dredging the only profitable method of scalloping in this locality. Scalloping is practically all done by dredging either from sail or power boats, only 3 power boats being in use during the 1907-08 season. Three men from the village of Wareham use "pushers," but the yield from this style of fishing is very small. The style of dredge in most common use is the "scraper." This year the price paid for the frame of the dredge is $3.50. These dredges have the blade set downward firmly, and have a chain bottom of iron rings. The usual number per boat is eight, but at Onset any number from four to fourteen are used, according to the size of the boat and the individual choice of the scalloper. Nearly all the boats are cat boats, averaging in value about $300. About 30 regular openers have been engaged off and on by the scallopers. When the catch was large at the first of the season more openers were engaged,--often as many as 3 to a scalloper. One-tenth of the number are women. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of scallopers, 45 Number of boats:-- Power, 3 Sail, 33 ------ Total, 36 The quantity of scallops taken during 1907-08 was approximately 10,000 bushels, valued at $13,100. During October the catch was about 15 bushels per day for the average scalloper, but later became considerably less. The greater part of the scallops were sold to the New Bedford Fish Company, the representatives of which bought them unsoaked from the fishermen. Certain of the fishermen, however, preferred to ship their catch to the Boston and New York markets. CAPITAL INVESTED. Value of boats, $10,800 Value of gear, 1,300 Value of shore property, 7,000 ------ Total, $19,100 No permits were issued in 1907-08. Previous to this year, permits were required from every scalloper. Wareham has a fish committee, the duty of which is to enforce the fish laws. The first scalloping started in Wareham in 1879, when several boats from New Bedford commenced dredging in Wareham waters. From that time the industry rapidly developed, until it assumed considerable importance as a winter occupation. Since 1899 the industry has been practically dead until the present season of 1907-08. The Wareham scallopers to a man attribute this decline to the inroads of the destructive starfish. While the scallops have been so exterminated that no profitable fishery has been conducted the last seven years, they have not been wholly extinct, as a few could be found each year. Lately the number has been increasing, until in 1907-08 the season was very profitable. In connection with this it is said that the starfish were less numerous than usual. The prospects of another good season in 1908-09 are excellent, as "seed" scallops are said to be plentiful in many places, especially in the deep water, which furnishes protection in case of a severe winter. _Wellfleet._ At the present time in Wellfleet Bay there is no commercial scallop fishery, although scattering scallops are found in various parts of the harbor. _Yarmouth._ The scallop grounds of Yarmouth are on the south side of the town, on the flats which border the shore from Bass River to Lewis Bay. Part of the waters of Lewis Bay belong to the town of Yarmouth, and scallops are found over all this territory. The nature of the bottom is the same as at Dennis and Barnstable. The total area of scallop territory is estimated at 2,250 acres. The scallop grounds of Dennis are open to Yarmouth scallopers. Both dredges and "pushers" are employed in the scallop fishery of the town. The method depends upon the location of the scallops, whether in shallow or deep water, as well as the means of the individual scallopers. Both the Chatham dredge and the "scraper" are used. Forty-one men were engaged in the 1907-08 fishery, using 15 boats and ten dories. The production for 1907-08 was 8,000 gallons, valued at $10,480. Scallops were shipped to New York and Boston markets. CAPITAL INVESTED. Value of boats, $3,750 Value of dories, 200 Value of gear, 475 ------ Total, $4,425 The same laws as were quoted for Dennis, the two towns having common fishery rights. The 1904-05 season was prosperous, as Yarmouth scallopers had the privilege of scalloping in the large bed off Dennis. The two following years were very poor, and even the last season has not been up to the average. FOOTNOTES: [10] E. Ingersoll, "The Scallop Fishery," United States Fish Commission report, 1881. [11] United States Department of Agriculture, Farmers' Bulletin 85, 1898. [12] Statistics taken from the United States Fish Commission reports. [13] Licenses. [14] Return of Special Agent William C. Dunham. OYSTER (_Ostrea Virginiana_). _Introduction._ RESOLVES OF 1905, CHAPTER 73. _Resolved_, That the commissioners on fisheries and game are hereby authorized and directed to make a biological investigation and report as to the best methods, conditions and localities for the propagation of oysters under the conditions found in Massachusetts waters. The commissioners may expend for the purposes of this resolve a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars a year for a period of three years. As authorized by the above act, the Commissioners on Fisheries and Game have conducted experiments of a biological nature upon the oyster. At the start of the investigations, for a proper understanding of the various conditions in the different localities, it was necessary to make a survey of the oyster industry of the State. Recently this survey has been supplemented by sending printed questions to the oystermen, and the whole put in the form of a report, which gives an account of the industry. This first report on the oyster is merely a broad survey of the whole industry of the State, and is preliminary to future reports of a more scientific character. _The Need of a Survey._--In 1879 Mr. Ernest Ingersoll, in his "Monograph on the Oyster,"[15] gave an excellent account of the oyster industry of Massachusetts. Since that time no complete account, either statistical or biological, has been written. Meanwhile, the oyster industry of the State, owing to its steady improvement, has changed in the past twenty-eight years, and what was true of 1879 is not true of 1907. Not only have localities changed and new areas been opened up, but also the whole industry has expanded through the enterprise and business ability of the oystermen, and to-day Massachusetts possesses an oyster fishery which more than doubles the production of 1879. Thus a survey of this fishery, by comparison with that of 1879, shows the changes that have taken place, and gives some idea of the growth of the industry. It is hoped that this report will furnish sufficient data to give actual knowledge of the conditions of oyster culture in the State, show the success of this industry, and indicate what is essential for its future improvement. It is necessary, in view of the conflict between the quahaug and oyster fisheries, that the public understand the exact situation, and this is possible only through a published account of each industry. _Scope of the Report._--The object of the report is to furnish information which will be of value both to the oysterman and to the consumer. Primarily the report is for the oysterman, showing the extent of the industry in his own locality and in other parts of the coast, where perhaps he is unacquainted with the conditions. While exact facts are presented for the benefit of the oysterman, this report at the same time tries to give a general description of the industry for the consumer, who perhaps knows nothing of the oyster except as an article of food. The first part of the report has been arranged under the following headings: (1) the natural oyster beds; (2) results of the survey; (3) history of the industry; (4) the oyster laws; (5) the oyster industry; (6) general statistics. The second part considers separately the industry of each town or section. _Methods of Work._--The statistical figures for the oyster industry are reasonably complete as the oyster fishery is on a more systematic business basis than any of the other shellfisheries. Nevertheless, on certain points it was impossible to obtain absolutely correct information, as, for instance, the area of grants, since no survey is made of the grants when leased, and the oysterman himself does not know the exact area of his granted territory. Thus an estimate has to be made by each oysterman of his granted area, and, while this is approximately correct, it cannot be considered as absolutely true. The statistical returns were compiled by sending to each oysterman in the State a blank form, containing a series of questions, with the request that he would co-operate with the commission by answering. Many oystermen responded with complete answers, thus permitting the commission, through their aid, to publish an extended report on the oyster fishery. However, it was found impossible to obtain complete information from several towns, as a number of oystermen neglected to return these blanks. The return of each oysterman is filed at the office of the Commission on Fisheries and Game, and only the total for each town is published, thus treating as confidential the private business of individuals. The commission expresses a most cordial acknowledgment to the oystermen for their co-operation in this matter. The other parts of the report were obtained by personal inspection of the oyster beds as to their biological conditions, by means of town records, and interviews with the oystermen. Town records, which should have given the location, number and areas of the grants, proved nearly worthless in most cases, owing to incompleteness, loss and confusion. Owing to the frequent change in selectmen, little if any information could be obtained from this source, as the new selectmen were generally unacquainted with the work of their predecessors concerning the leasing of oyster grants. The grants were often incompletely described, bounds uncertain and the acreage unknown. The interviews with the individual oystermen furnished more and better information both in regard to the present condition of the industry and the general history for each town. Personal inspection of the oyster grounds was made, the biological conditions noted and the area of the grants plotted on the accompanying maps. Not all these grants are worked, and parts of the cultivated grants are unfit for oyster raising. The charted area includes all grants, cultivated or uncultivated. In reviewing the history of the industry, information was obtained from town records, oystermen who had been in the business for years, and various newspapers and periodicals. For a comparison of the oyster industry of 1879 and 1907 the excellent report of Mr. Ernest Ingersoll upon the "Oyster Industry," published in the tenth census of the United States, was used for comparison, and in many places directly quoted. Were it not for this work and the report of A. Howard Clark on the "Fisheries of Massachusetts," it would have been impossible to draw any reliable comparison with the oyster industry of twenty-eight years ago. _Massachusetts as an Oyster State._--Massachusetts is perhaps not so well adapted for oyster culture as it is for clam or quahaug farming, and does not equal other seacoast States in the extent of its oyster industry. Nevertheless, the oyster industry is on a much firmer footing than the other shellfisheries, and is an important adjunct to the wealth of the southern Massachusetts towns. All the oyster grants, except in the towns of Wellfleet, Eastham and Orleans, are found south of Cape Cod, as the southern shore of Massachusetts alone is adapted for the oyster industry. Along the south side of Cape Cod and in Buzzards Bay the numerous inlets and estuaries afford with their brackish water excellent ground for the cultivation of this bivalve, and many acres which otherwise would be barren have been made productive through the grant system; while the shores of Massachusetts which adjoin the waters of Narragansett Bay possess, in the Taunton, Cole and Lee's rivers, excellent waters for the growth of seed oysters. Thus Massachusetts possesses good facilities for oyster culture, which are capable of a far greater expansion than present conditions indicate. However well developed the oyster industry is at present, there is plenty of room for improvement. It is the consensus of opinion among the oystermen that the business is developing every year,--a fact that speaks well for its future. Improvements in the oyster industry can arise in three ways: (1) investment of more capital in the business, which will allow more extensive operations; (2) more intensive cultivation of the present grounds; (3) the opening of new areas for oyster culture and the utilization of waters at present useless. Everything indicates that the oyster industry will take advantage of opportunities as soon as they are given. _The Oyster Grant System._--Oyster culture in Massachusetts is the logical result of the failure of the natural oyster beds. When these beds became destitute of oysters through overfishing, it was necessary that means should be used to perpetuate the stock. Oyster planting had been successfully carried on in the States south of Massachusetts, and it was merely a question of experiment whether the oyster would respond to the same methods in Massachusetts. Thus oyster culture arose in this State at first as an experiment, later as an established industry. Grants were given, as through this way only could oyster planting become a success, and the "free fishery" people were forced to bow to public opinion, which decreed that grants should be leased. Thus oyster grants arose from necessity, as in no other way could Massachusetts preserve her oyster supply. The system of oyster grants and oyster culture, in spite of its many failings, has shown what can be done to preserve and increase a natural shellfish industry if the proper methods are used. Planted beds have furnished enough spawn to maintain the natural beds, which would have long ago been depleted through the inroads of overfishing. They have preserved a fishery which would have disappeared almost completely, and established a better and more extensive industry, not only benefiting the oystermen, but also those indirectly associated with the business, such as teamsters, transportation companies, etc. In the following report various abuses of the present system of oyster culture will be enumerated, and it is only necessary to state that many evils must be eliminated before the oyster industry can obtain its maximum expansion. Such evils as town politics, disputes with quahaugers, etc., will have to be remedied. The greatest obstacle which now checks the oyster industry is the _lack of protection_. Until complete protection is given to the oysterman, the industry will never attain to its full development. The removal of the abuses by the organization of the oyster industry of the State under a unified system is the best way to secure proper regulation and improvement of the oyster industry. _The Natural Oyster Beds._ While there has been much discussion whether oysters were ever native in Massachusetts Bay, or merely the result of southern "plants," the consensus of opinion is that there were natural oyster beds in existence when the first settlers came to this coast. Not only do historical records show this, but the remains of the natural beds at the present time indicate that oysters have existed for centuries. Thus there seems to be no reasonable doubt that the northern coast of Massachusetts, as well as the southern, once possessed extensive natural oyster beds. I. _Location of the Natural Oyster Beds._--(1) _Parker River._--A natural bed of oysters once existed in the Parker River at Newbury, and even fifty years ago it is said that oysters could still be obtained from this natural bed. About 1882 the experiment of fattening oysters for market was made, and many bushels were bedded on the flats during the summer by an oyster firm at Newbury. These oysters not only grew well, but threw considerable spawn, furnishing a good set in the river. Oyster raising was then tried, but the result was a failure, as the oysters which were planted in too shallow water were killed during the winter. (2) _Mystic and Charles Rivers._--Mr. Ernest Ingersoll states that: "In 1634 William Wood, in his 'New England's Prospect,' speaks of 'a great oyster bank' in Charles River, and another in the 'Mysticke,' each of which obstructed the navigation of its river." He locates the Charles River beds as either off Cambridgeport or near the site of the Boston Museum of Natural History. Dr. G. W. Field, chairman of this department, in his report in 1902 as biologist to the Charles River Dam Commission, makes the following statement about the Charles River oyster:-- The oyster (_Ostrea_), formerly abundant, is no longer living, and, from what indications I have been able to gather, probably became extinct within twenty-five years. Their dead shells are brought up by dredging operations. Their peculiar elongated shape is the result of growth being concentrated at the upper end, as a result of their closely crowded position in the bed, or of an attempt to keep the opening above the accumulating mud, and thus avoid being smothered. The fact that there are few signs of small "seed oysters" tends to prove that the bottom was so muddy that they found few places to "set." From the elongated shape of the shells may be inferred that the amount of sedimentation going on in that particular region was rapid during the life of the group of oysters whose shells are to be found in quantities in the material dredged between Harvard and Brookline bridges. This sediment need not necessarily have been sand or clay, or any material which is persistent, but it might have been flocculent organic débris, which remained but a short time and left little or no evidence, beyond its effect upon the shape of the oyster shells. In the above account Dr. Field not only locates the original oyster beds of Charles River, but also furnishes evidence which indicates the cause of their extinction, _i.e._, the débris and sewage, or waste poisonous, polluting materials, of a large city emptying into the river. This is not only true of the Charles, but also of the Mystic and Taunton river beds, which have been destroyed in like manner. (3) Mr. Ernest Ingersoll, in his report on the "Oyster Industry of the United States," in 1880 mentions that natural oyster beds were once at Weymouth, Ipswich, Barnstable and Rowley. Nothing further can be learned concerning these places. (4) _Wellfleet._--An extensive oyster bed was found at Wellfleet Bay, which not only furnished a sufficient supply for the first settlers, but enabled the inhabitants of Wellfleet to carry on a considerable trade by shipping them to Boston and other ports, until it was finally destroyed in 1775. Its destruction was due to overfishing and the utilization of the shells for lime, which soon destroyed the natural bar. (5) _Chatham._--A natural oyster bed once existed in the Oyster Pond, but no trace of it now remains. (6) _Harwich._--Herring River in the town of Harwich still possesses the remnants of a natural oyster bed, as occasionally a few oysters can be gathered along its banks. This bed once comprised a stretch of three-quarters of a mile along the river. (7) _Yarmouth._--The town of Yarmouth once possessed a natural oyster bed in Mill Creek, but this was fished out by 1895 and then granted for oyster culture. (8) _Barnstable._--There is a natural oyster bed at Centerville. (9) _Martha's Vineyard._--Native oysters are said to have existed in the brackish ponds on the south side of the island; a few are found there at the present time. (10) _Falmouth._--A few native oysters are to be found in the salt ponds on the south coast of the town. In Squeteague Pond and Wild Harbor oysters were once native. Buzzards Bay comprises the best natural oyster territory in the State. At the present time the natural oyster industry has been supplanted by oyster culture, which gradually took the place of the declining natural oyster fishery. While natural beds still exist to some extent, they are, to all practical purposes, extinct. Where once there were extensive areas, now there are only scattering oysters. In many cases the beds have been so completely destroyed that the ground has been granted for oyster culture. That Buzzards Bay is a "natural set area" can be readily seen by the amount of "seed oysters" that are caught by the oystermen who plant shells for the purpose. (11) _Bourne._--(_a_) _Red Brook Harbor._--In 1879 Ernest Ingersoll says:-- On the southern shore of this harbor, about a mile from its head, exists a living bed of natural oysters some 7 acres in extent, under the protection of the town for public benefit. The oysters growing on it are reported to be large, but not of extraordinary size, scalloped and roundish, differing in no respect from aged oysters grown after transplanting to another part of the bay. In 1907 this natural bed had been reduced to 3 acres, and the unproductive part granted. (_b_) _Barlow River._--In 1873 an act was passed to protect the oyster fishery in Barlow River, by ordering a closed season of one and one-half years. The passage of this act shows that a natural bed of importance existed in this river, and that even in 1873 the effects of overfishing were apparent. At the present time there are but few native oysters in Barlow River, or, as it is sometimes called, Pocasset River. (_c_) _Monument River._--A natural bed also existed in Monument River, which became so depleted that about 1875 the river was surveyed and divided into small grants. (12) _Wareham._--(_a_) _Wareham River._--Natural oysters are found in the Wareham or Agawam River, which has been one of the most productive natural beds in the State, and still furnishes a scant living for two or three men. In view of the overfishing, it is surprising that any of the natural oysters have survived, except on reserved areas of the town, which are opened every three or seven years for the capture of "seed." (_b_) _Weweantit River._--The Weweantit River, which lies between the towns of Wareham and Marion, has a larger and better natural oyster bed than the Wareham River, but this has also been depleted by overfishing, except on the reserved areas of the town of Wareham. (13) _Dartmouth._--A few oysters are found in Slocum's River. (14) _Westport._--Westport River has also a few oysters. (15) _Taunton River, Coles River and Lee's River._--These rivers once had extensive beds of natural oysters, but now are wholly devoted to growing oysters. Old records and laws show how important these natural beds were, and also furnish an excellent illustration of the effects of overfishing combined with water pollution from manufacturing sources. II. _Decline of the Natural Oyster Beds._--The above-mentioned examples furnish abundant proof that the natural oyster beds of the State, which once were sufficient to supply the wants of our forefathers, have declined to such an extent that at the present time but few natural oysters are tonged for the market. Where there were formerly many acres of excellent native oysters, to-day there is scarcely an acre that can be called good oyster fishing, except in a few cases where the towns maintain a nearly perpetual closed season. No proof of the decline is necessary; it is an established fact. There have been two principal causes which have ruined the natural oyster beds; besides these two,--(1) water pollution and (2) overfishing,--certain geographical changes have doubtless occurred, which have accelerated the decline. (1) _Water Pollution._--The effect of water pollution through the sediment deposited by sewage and manufacturing waste on the natural oyster beds is well illustrated by the destruction of the Charles River beds. This is also shown in a less degree in the Taunton River. (2) _Overfishing._--The primary cause of the decline of the natural oyster beds was overfishing. This is particularly true of the beds south of Cape Cod and in Buzzards Bay, which were of large extent, and unpolluted by manufacturing wastes or sewage. This overfishing has not been the result of the last few years, since records show that as early as 1824 Harwich passed an act to preserve the oyster fishery of the town; and that Sandwich, in the part which is now the town of Bourne, in 1832 passed regulations protecting the natural oyster fishery in Monument River; while at Wellfleet the natural oyster bed was completely exterminated by the year 1775. Overfishing has affected the natural beds in several ways, all of which have worked toward the general decline of the native oyster. (_a_) The first settlers took the large oysters from the natural beds, which under normal conditions had all they could do to keep up the supply. In this way the beds were deprived of the spawning oysters, with the result that in spite of the closed seasons, which gave little if any benefit, a gradual decline set in. (_b_) At the same time that the oysters were being taken from the beds, the early oystermen through ignorance were making an economic blunder by not returning the shells to the waters. The oyster shells furnish naturally the best surfaces for the collection of "seed," as spat will set only on clean surfaces. By taking the large oysters and with them the shells and other débris from the bed, the natural oyster bars were destroyed and less space given for the spat to catch. So both the taking of the large oysters in excessive amounts and the destruction of the natural spat collectors, either for lime, as was done at Wellfleet, or for other purposes, were sufficient in the early days to cause the decline of the natural oyster beds. (_c_) In more recent times the destruction of the natural beds has been hastened by the taking of the small oysters. This practice was due to two reasons: (1) the supply of large oysters was exhausted; (2) oyster culture became important, and the natural beds were raked clean for "seed" which the oystermen obtained for planting on their grants. Thus the oyster grant system has been the chief cause of the destruction of the natural beds in the last forty years. It was only when the natural beds failed that grants were given, and so oyster culture cannot be considered the primary cause of the destruction of the natural beds, but only a later agency in their total extermination. The natural beds in Buzzards Bay all bear testimony to these three means of overfishing, and in recent years particularly to the last. It has been a most fortunate thing for Massachusetts that the oyster grant system was inaugurated as soon as the decline of the natural fishery became manifest, else at the present time there would be no oysters in the State, for it is recognized that the present natural beds are perpetuated by the spawn which comes from the various oyster grants. Foresight has indeed provided an excellent oyster industry, which is rapidly improving. It is only necessary to apply similar methods of culture to the other shellfish industries of the State to insure their future also; otherwise the decline, which is following the same steps as the destruction of the natural oyster beds, will lead to the commercial extinction of these valuable fisheries. _Results of the Survey._ The survey of the oyster industry has shown several interesting facts which should be brought to the attention of the fishermen and consumers. In the first place, it has shown that the oyster fishery is a larger and more important industry than it has been commonly considered, and that the welfare of the shore fisheries of southern Massachusetts depends upon its maintenance. Secondly, the oyster industry is to-day in a position where it cannot reach its full development for the reason merely that the present laws do not encourage the expansion of the industry. Thirdly, the oyster industry is trammeled by certain abuses, chiefly of a legal nature, which hinder its development, and upon the abolition of which depends its future success. Fourthly, the oyster industry under present conditions encroaches to some extent upon the other shellfish rights, especially in relation to the quahaug fishery, and has caused much jealous feeling; but if properly regulated there should be room for both industries. In order to obtain the opinion of the oystermen concerning the present abuses of the oyster industry, and how these could be best remedied, the following question was asked of the individual planters: "What measures or laws would, in your opinion, be best adapted for the improvement of the oyster industry?" Although many neglected to answer this question, forty-three opinions were offered, dealing with the problems which the oystermen consider as needing attention and upon which the welfare of the industry depends. These answers have been arranged in tabular form, showing the number of oystermen who advocate certain measures. MEASURES SUGGESTED. Present laws satisfactory, 11 Direct State control of oyster industry, 11 Town control, with right of appeal to the department of fisheries and game, 1 Longer length of lease, 4 More certainty of re-leasing grants if improved, 7 More protection for industry, 4 Right to grow all kinds of shellfish, 1 More ground for cultivation, 1 State to forbid marketing of oysters from contaminated waters, 1 Provision for destruction of starfish, 2 ------ Total, 43 While these answers show a diversity of ideas, about 75 per cent. urge that something be done to improve the present system, and, while many are in favor of placing the industry under State control, the majority is definitely of the opinion that the present system of town control is proving a serious drawback to the oyster industry. The best interests of the oysterman and the consumer demand a better method of regulation of this industry. As long as town politics, partiality and carelessness enter into the leasing of oyster grants, and thus deprive certain people of their rights, it is safe to say that the oyster industry can never get beyond its present state of development. One solution of the difficulty might be full State control of leasing the grounds for the oyster industry. This is possibly too radical a step at present, and the system can perhaps be so adjusted as to remedy its defects without taking the control of the fishery entirely away from the hands of the town. Another solution is to continue the system of town control, but to have a State commission which would act as a board of appeal for all who felt aggrieved at the judgment of the selectmen. The advisability of ten-year grants has caused much comment among the oystermen. Practically all grants are now given for this period of time. As a system it is deservedly unpopular, since it does not help the quahaug interest, and it checks the development of the oyster industry. The oyster business, unlike the other branches of shellfish culture, requires a considerable capital. This system of ten-year grants operates directly to discourage the outlay of capital. If the oysterman were sure of reaping the benefits of his labor and capital, it would be to his selfish interest to develop his own grant to its maximum capacity. But what far-sighted business man will invest money in a business which stands a good chance of being completely "wiped out" in a few years? Again, this system makes three years out of the ten practically worthless. The oysterman usually "seeds" his grant about three years before he expects to reap his harvest; but when his grant has run for seven years, it is evident that he will plant no more oysters because of the uncertainty of obtaining a second lease, and naturally does not desire to invest his labor and money for the benefit of an unknown successor. The remedy for this is not difficult. If a grant were rented annually as long as the planter desired to hold it, to be forfeited if not improved to a certain standard (to be decided upon), or for non-payment of rent, the difficulties above enumerated would disappear. Much of the territory now held unimproved would either be brought up to a standard of excellence or given over to the quahaugers, and in either case direct benefits would result. If legislation were so arranged that any man might take, by the payment of a nominal rent, a small piece of ground, which he could hold as long as he improved it, the oyster industry could be put on a firmer footing; a man confident of enjoying the fruits of his labors could thus improve his grant, and, as he acquired skill and knowledge, could add other land and ultimately expect to build up a successful business. A third important suggestion relates to the marketing of oysters in a sanitary condition. The oyster industry of the State has suffered severely because of the scare resulting from the marketing of oysters from contaminated waters. The Cape and Buzzards Bay oysters are in general free from all sewage contamination, and should not be considered on the same basis as the impure varieties from outside the State. Naturally, the Massachusetts oystermen desire that there be some guarantee for the purity of the oysters marketed, as their interests suffer because this impure stock is often sold under the name of the Cape oyster. If laws were passed requiring the inspection and certification of marketed oysters in regard to healthful conditions under which they have been produced, both the oyster planter and the consumer would be benefited. There is but little doubt that the oyster industry can be still further developed by opening waste territory which at this time does not appear available, since under existing conditions proper capital cannot be induced to enter the business. The oyster industry demands more attention than it has hitherto received, and must be considered an important asset of the Commonwealth. _History of the Industry._ Although the oyster laws are the mile-stones which mark the progress of the oyster industry, and any consideration of the development of these laws naturally gives many historical features, it is nevertheless necessary, at the risk of repetition, to give a separate account of the history of the oyster fishery. The Massachusetts oyster fishery can be divided historically into three distinct periods: (1) the free fishing period; (2) the period of bedding southern oysters; (3) the period of oyster grants. (1) _The Free Native Fishery (1620-1840)._--In the early colonial days the oyster fishery was considered in the same way as the other shellfisheries are now looked upon, _i.e._, held to be the common property of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth. The natural supply was abundant enough to meet the needs of all the inhabitants, and for many years no signs of decline were manifest. In 1775 the natural beds of Wellfleet gave out, furnishing the first record of unmistakable decline. From that time there arose an extensive series of protective laws, with the one object of preserving the natural supply by limiting the demand. This policy of protective laws, though perhaps temporarily beneficial, was based on an erroneous principle. It was preventive, but not constructive, and did not build up the demolished fishery. (2) _Oyster Bedding (1840-70)._--With the decline of the natural beds, the practice of bedding southern "plants" became an important part of the oyster trade. The southern oysters were bedded on the flats in the spring and taken up for market in the fall. Salem, Wellfleet and Boston were the leading places in this new phase of the oyster industry, and many thousand bushels were annually planted. (3) _Oyster Grants (1870-1908)._--So successful was this summer bedding of southern oysters that experiments were soon made in rearing oysters. This proved successful from the start, and within a few years the extensive grant system which is now in vogue was inaugurated on Cape Cod and Buzzards Bay. These three methods, although separated by definite periods in which each have been the leaders, remain to a greater or less extent at the present day. The natural beds are still in existence, and, as at Wareham, are opened once in three or seven years, according to the discretion of the selectmen, for catching "seed." The summer bedding of oysters still continues, as certain planters find it more profitable to fatten than to grow oysters, and the oyster grant system is now in full operation. A comparison of the industry of 1907 with that of 1879 shows several changes. These changes are for the most part improvements which have arisen with the development of the industry. In some cases the changes have been detrimental, and a few localities have shown a decline. New fields have opened to the oysterman both in new localities and through the extension of the present beds. On the whole, there has been a great increase in the grant system of oyster culture, while the "bedding" of southern "plants," which in 1879 employed many men, boats and extensive capital, has practically disappeared. The annual production has increased gradually, and for 1906-07 is approximately five times as large as in 1879. The following figures, except for 1907, are taken from the United States Fish Commission's reports, and show the gradual increase in production:-- =========+==========+======== YEAR. | Bushels. | Value. ---------+----------+-------- 1879, | 36,000 | $41,800 1887, | 43,183 | 64,115 1888, | 45,631 | 66,453 1898, | 101,225 |$156,235 1902, | 103,386 | 133,682 1907,[16]| 161,182 | 176,142 =========+==========+======== _The Oyster Laws._ In submitting a complete report upon the oyster industry, the oyster laws, which have played an important part in the development of the fishery, cannot be totally neglected. However, so important a subject demands separate investigation, and offers excellent opportunities for legal research. Therefore it is not the purpose of this report to give more than a brief account of the present oyster laws and their history. The shellfish laws of Massachusetts constitute the foundation of the oyster industry, as they have taken a practically extinct native fishery and have built up the present extensive business. So closely are they connected with its welfare that the future of this growing industry depends upon the proper expansion of these laws to meet the new conditions. A survey of these oyster laws, with an analysis of their merits and defects, is needed. Their defects have brought about the present unsatisfactory situation in certain localities, and should be remedied. Their merits should be strengthened and amplified, as the basis of future expansion. They have come into being from time to time, in response to the immediate need of the hour; consequently they have no unity, and are, indeed, but imperfectly understood. An insight into their perplexing details should bring out many inconsistencies. Again, no comprehensive knowledge of the history of the industry is possible without a study of the laws. The errors once committed need not be repeated to further embarrass the industry, and the lessons learned by experience would be well applied to its future development. _Protective and Constructive Laws._--The oyster laws can be divided into two classes: (1) protective; and (2) constructive. The early laws, which were passed to save the natural supply, were of the first class; while the laws establishing the present system of oyster culture come under the second heading. The beginnings of all legislative enactment arose in the treatment of the natural oyster beds. These beds were fast becoming exhausted, when laws were passed to protect their important natural resources. This measure was only partially successful. It did succeed in preserving the remnant of those old beds from destruction, but it was powerless to build up an industry of any extent. When it became clearly evident that no possible fostering of native resources could supply the growing demands of the market, legislation quite logically directed itself toward the artificial propagation of oysters. From this step arose a series of problems which long proved baffling, and still engross a great deal of public attention. The artificial propagation of oysters necessitated the leasing of grants in tidal waters. This giving up of public property to private individuals aroused the opposition of rival shellfish industries, who saw in this measure a curtailment of their resources. Numerous other difficulties of minor significance arose from time to time, all demanding attention at the hands of the Legislature. Apart from the general supervision of the oyster industry, there have been two other sources of legislative enactment. First, special laws have been called for to regulate the fishery in certain waters under the oversight of the State Board of Health. Secondly, during the past few years the attention of the Legislature has been directed towards the development of the oyster fishery as an important asset of the Commonwealth, and laws authorizing various experiments, both scientific and practical, have been passed in order to devise methods of increasing and developing the industry. I. _Protective Laws._--The history of the oyster laws of Massachusetts is a history of the industry itself. The rise and decline of the fishery are distinctly traceable in the development of the legal machinery which regulates it. From the time of the Pilgrims the oyster beds of the coast had been regarded as inexhaustible mines. The fallacy of this view gradually became apparent, as these beds began to be depleted through overfishing. As early as 1796 a general law, entitled "An act to prevent the destruction of oysters and other shellfish," was passed by the Legislature. Prior to 1869 the town of Harwich adopted this old law. Shortly after, Swansea followed suit, and restricted the exploitation of her native oyster beds in the Lee and Cole rivers. In 1870 Wellfleet inaugurated an innovation, in the nature of a permit to take oysters, which was required of all citizens of the town. The idea of this permit was to regulate the fishery, centralize control in the hands of the selectmen and add to the income of the town. In 1873 Sandwich passed a law enforcing a close season on all her native beds, to last for a period of one year. In 1875 Brewster followed the lead of Wellfleet, in demanding permits of all outsiders and also from all citizens taking more than 3 bushels at any one time, although an unlimited amount might be taken for food. The aim of all this legislation was not to develop the industry directly, but indirectly by preserving and fostering the native beds. This theory, while excellent in motive, did not work out well, as the native beds could not by any possible protection be brought to produce an annual yield at all adequate to the growing demands of the market. The utilization of purely natural resources proving unequal to the demands of the occasion, the creation of other resources became necessary, and an entirely new epoch in the history of the oyster fishery was inaugurated. This epoch marked the beginning of the production of oysters by artificial means, and the establishment of this new industry and the perplexing complications which grew out of it have been the source of legislative strife for many years. II. _Constructive Laws._--The first legislation authorizing the present system of oyster culture was instituted at Swansea, in 1869. This was the beginning and the foundation of a broad movement of oyster culture which spread rapidly along the southern coast of the State. This curious law allowed the selectmen to sell, by public or private sale, the oyster privilege of Swansea outright to any person or persons who were citizens of the town. The measure, although apparently designed to restrict the exhaustion of the native resources, did not tend to develop the industry. It possessed one element of value, i.e., it increased the revenue of the town. Apart from its interest as the forerunner of artificial propagation of oysters, this old law is noteworthy, as it forms the basis of the system which to-day regulates the industry in that section of the country. The custom of selling an extensive oyster privilege, as apart from the system of leasing grants, first clearly outlined in the law of 1869, still holds throughout this section. It remains the usual custom to sell either the whole of a township's available oyster territory, or else an extensive part of it, to one man for a lump sum per year. In 1874 an important step occurred in the evolution of the oyster industry. Swansea and Somerset were given the privilege of granting any of their bays, shores, banks and creeks for the propagation of oysters. This act was far more sweeping and advanced than any of its predecessors, but it was in one respect too sweeping. It interfered with the rights of the property owners along the shore, and was therefore contrary to the general underlying principle of the State law, which allows the cultivation of oysters only in so far as such cultivation does not interfere with the vested rights of all citizens alike. The measure proved untenable, and was promptly repealed. Its repeal was on general principles a thing to be desired, but nevertheless a blow to the industry. The tidal waters along the coast have always been the most valuable part of the oyster territory, as they have proved to be the best adapted for obtaining "oyster set." This measure was therefore designed to aid the oyster growers, and give them valuable privileges which belonged originally to the adjoining property owners. Even to the present day the dividing line between the rights of property owners and oystermen has remained an unsettled question. It was about this time that the close season proved a failure in Buzzards Bay, and the towns of Wareham, Bourne and Marion turned their attention toward the establishment of an oyster industry. This attempt became a settled policy of these towns about 1875. In 1878 a peculiar act was passed, making it unlawful for any person to remove oysters from any grant, even his own, between the hours of sunset and sunrise. This act was necessary for the protection of the oyster planters, by preventing the stealing of oysters from the grant at night. Various efforts had been made to protect grants from such attacks, but the extreme difficulty of detection was always an insuperable obstacle to proper enforcement, and it was deemed expedient to prohibit all fishing at night. That this problem had become an important one is shown by the title of the law, which was styled "An act for the better protection of the oyster fisheries in this commonwealth." In 1884 an important act was passed, enlarging the limits of that territory which might lawfully be used for the cultivation of oysters. Practically all communal waters outside the jurisdiction of adjacent land owners was thrown open for oyster grants. In 1885 the institution of a public hearing was inaugurated. This was a concession to the hostile quahaug element, and allowed the public the opportunity of protesting against the granting of territory for oyster culture; nevertheless, the final power really remained in the hands of the selectmen. A further concession to this element was the law which called for the revoking of grants within two years if unimproved. The interests of the oystermen were also kept in sight, and legislation passed which was designed to protect grants still more from the depredations of outsiders. Provision was likewise made for the proper enforcement of these laws, and the penalties attached were increased. In 1886 an act was passed which was designed to do away with all possible outside monopoly. The danger of organized capital acquiring control of a large tract and excluding small individual planters had become apparent, and this means was taken to guard against it. The act prohibited the transfer of grants in any township to any person not a citizen of that township; thus, if any monopoly did exist it would be restricted to only one township. The limits during which fishing on grants might be carried on was lengthened two hours, so that it read from "one hour before sunrise to one hour after sunset." In 1892 the town of Yarmouth obtained a law requiring a permit for citizens to take oysters from native beds, not exceeding 2 bushels per week, from September 1 to June 1. This is now the only town in the Commonwealth to require such a permit from citizens. In 1895 legislation was passed relative to the proper definition of the boundaries of grants. This was rendered necessary because of the haphazard methods hitherto pursued in giving grants with very indefinite boundaries. Mean low-water mark was fixed as the shoreward boundary of grants, while mean high-water mark was defined as the limit to which shells might be placed to catch the set. This, however, was dependent upon the owners of the adjacent property, and their consent was held necessary before this territory between high and low water could thus be utilized. In 1901 special legislation was passed, restricting the catching of oysters in contaminated waters except for bait. In 1904 authority was granted to proper officials to develop the oyster industry by planting shellfish, or by close season. In 1905 the Fish and Game Commission was authorized to expend a sum not exceeding $500 per annum for the investigation of the oyster, by experiment or otherwise, with a view to developing the industry. The development of the oyster laws has been by a process of evolution. They have kept pace with the growth of the industry, and have been in fact the logical outcome of that expansion. The various acts which go to make up the bulk of this legislation have been passed from time to time to fill the immediate demands of the hour, and consequently lack that unity and consistency which might otherwise characterize them. Changing conditions have called for alterations in the legal machinery, as the industry has expanded, to meet new requirements. These additions have frequently been dictated by short-sighted policy, and the Commonwealth as a whole has often been lost sight of in the welfare of the community. Of all the shellfisheries, the oyster industry is most hampered by unwise legislation. It is the most difficult to handle, because it presents many perplexing phases from which the others are free. Clams, quahaugs and scallops flourish in their respective territories, and legislation merely tends to regulate their exploitation or marketing. With the oyster, however, other problems have arisen. The areas in the State where oysters grow naturally are few in number and relatively of small importance. The clam, quahaug and scallop grounds are to be compared with wild pastures and meadows, which yield their harvests without cultivation; while the oyster grants are gardens, which must be planted and carefully tended. With this distinction arises another question, of far-reaching significance,--the question of private ownership. The quahaug, clam and scallop fisheries demand that the tidal flats and waters be held in common as communal interests, and freely open to all citizens of the town; the oyster fishery requires that certain portions of these flats and waters be set aside for private ownership. With the economic questions involved in this discussion it is not the purpose of this report to deal. There is one fact, in any case, which cannot be argued away. The oyster industry is dependent solely upon private ownership of grants. If, therefore, the oyster industry is to be encouraged at all,--and it certainly has very great possibilities,--this fact of private ownership must be accepted at once. If, as some assert, it is an evil, it is a necessary evil, and it has come to stay. The questions remaining for legislation on this subject are the proper regulation of this private ownership, so as to give the maximum of encouragement to the oyster fishery, and the minimum of danger to the rival shellfish industries. The oyster and quahaug industries openly clash. This is an unfortunate occurrence, but it cannot be avoided, since the ground suitable for the culture of oysters is almost always the natural home of the quahaug. Therefore, when portions of this ground are given out to private individuals for the production of oysters, the available quahaug territory is necessarily reduced. Over this question endless disputes have arisen. The problem is undoubtedly one requiring delicate adjustment; but there is no reason why these two industries should not flourish side by side, as there would be plenty of room for both if all the available territory were properly utilized. There is one important feature of this problem, however, which the present laws have wholly failed to recognize. Wherever practicable, the best of the quahaug territory should not be granted; and as far as possible, the oystermen should utilize only those tracts of territory which are not naturally very productive of quahaugs. _The Oyster Industry._ For the benefit of those who perhaps are not familiar with the methods employed in the oyster industry, the following brief account is given:-- I. _Selecting the Grant._--The oysterman, in selecting a grant, has to consider first the nature of the soil; and secondly, the location as influencing the growth of the oyster. Not less important is the quality of the oyster, which means not only a good price, but also readiness of sale, as the oysters produced in certain localities are especially desirable in appearance and flavor. As the oyster will not grow on all kinds of bottom, but demands a firm soil, free from soft mud and shifting sand, the oyster area of the State is naturally limited. Usually but part of an oysterman's grant is suitable for the cultivation of oysters, and he is forced to let the rest of the territory lie idle, unless he can, with shells or gravel, artificially change this waste area into suitable ground. Shifting sand perhaps can never be made suitable for oysters; but many acres of soft mud can be made productive, if the oysterman only has a reasonable guarantee that he would receive the results of his labor. While the oyster culture is limited by the nature of the bottom, it is also restricted by other conditions. The salinity of the water has much to do with the rapidity of growth, and the oysters seem to thrive in localities where a slight amount of fresh water enters. The amount of food in the water is the principal factor in the rate of growth, and to this is due the fact that the rate of growth varies considerably in different localities. As a rule, the beds with good circulation of water (_i.e._, currents) show the more rapid growth. II. _Collecting the "Seed."_--The term "seed" is applied to one, two, three and even four year old oysters which the oystermen plant on their grants. These grants are in reality salt-water gardens, requiring constant supervision; and the obtaining of the "seed" for planting is a most important consideration. The gathering of the oyster "seed" is a simple process, but one which requires much research. Early in the summer, usually during the months of June and July in these waters, the Massachusetts oyster spawns. Both sperm from the adult male and the eggs from the adult female oysters are extruded in considerable quantities into the water, and there the eggs are fertilized. As fertilization is somewhat a matter of accident, undoubtedly the great majority of eggs never develop. The fertilized eggs pass rapidly through various changes in the course of a few hours, and emerge as microscopic embryos, with thin, transparent coverings. At this period these forms are free swimming, and are found in great numbers in the water. They are extremely delicate, and great quantities are destroyed by natural agencies, such as cold storms, sudden changes in temperature, etc. They likewise are subject to the depredations of all sorts of marine creatures, and comparatively few in proportion survive. The survivors, after leading this free-swimming existence for several days, settle to the bottom, where they attach themselves by a calcareous fixative to stones, shells, pieces of wood, etc. Here, unless buried by silt and soft mud or killed by exposure, poisonous pollution, etc., the young oyster rapidly becomes of a size suitable for planting. The economic utilization of this scientific knowledge is as follows: shells offer a very good surface for the attachment of the young oyster, and many thousand bushels are annually strewn over the bottom previous to the spawning season. Considerable judgment is needed in choosing the right time to plant these shells, which after a few weeks in the water become so coated with slime that fixation of the "spat" becomes impossible. In Massachusetts the area between high and low water mark has been found by experiment to be the most valuable territory for this purpose, as shells planted here collect the heaviest set and can be handled with the least expense. A projecting sand bar or point with a current is also well adapted for catching oyster spat. The scallop shell is the most serviceable in spat collecting, because it is more brittle, and the clusters of oysters when attached are readily broken apart. After the oysterman has obtained a successful set, he allows the young oysters to obtain a suitable growth before he makes a final planting, either in the spring or fall. III. _Size of the "Seed" used for Planting._--While many oysters are raised from native spat in the Buzzards Bay district, the greater part of the seed is purchased in Connecticut and Long Island, and is carried in schooners or steamers to Massachusetts waters. The usual price ranges from 35 cents to $1 per bushel, according to size and quality. The oystermen cannot always choose the size of "seed" they desire for planting, as the set of any one year is very uncertain, and several seasons may pass before a large quantity of "seed" can be obtained. Thus the oyster planters are forced to take whatever size they can obtain, whether it be two, three or four year old "seed." As a rule, the small "seed" is most in demand, as it means relatively faster growth and less money invested. Often, when the ground is most favorable for fattening, large oysters are preferred for planting, and certain oystermen make this line of work a specialty. Certain localities where there is plenty of lime in the water are well adapted for growth, and yet produce poor-"meated" oysters, while in other grounds the reverse is true. The oystermen occasionally by a double transfer utilize both grounds, planting oyster "seed" for the first few years in the rapid-growing localities, and then transplanting the large oysters to the "fattening" ground six months before marketing. IV. _Preparing the Grant._--The first step in preparing the grant is to remove all débris. In the deep water, this is usually done by dredging; in the shallow water, by whatever means is the easiest. If the bottom is of firm soil, the grant is then ready for planting; however, if the soil is soft mud, it is necessary to shell the bottom in order to give it greater firmness. The oysterman continually has to keep a sharp lookout in order to protect his grant from enemies such as the starfish and the oyster drill, and to keep it clear of seaweed and other matter which would interfere with the growth of the oyster. V. _Sowing the "Seed."_--The "seed" oysters are planted on the prepared bed by scattering them with shovels or scoops from the boats and scows. The oysterman, knowing the maximum amount of "seed" the bed will grow to the best advantage, plants the required number, taking care that the oysters are properly scattered, as for the best growth oysters should lie separate and not in crowded masses. The amount of "seed" that can be planted on a given area depends upon the natural conditions of the locality. VI. _Enemies._--The oyster, having passed through the countless dangers of his embryonic career, is still harassed by several enemies. Of these, the most destructive is the starfish. This animal, commonly known as the "five-finger," occurs along the entire Massachusetts coast, and is especially abundant in Buzzards Bay. Occasionally whole oyster beds are wiped out by this pest, which sweeps over the ground in vast armies. The method of attack of the starfish is unique. By exerting with its tube feet a steady pull in opposite directions on both valves of the shell of the victim, the starfish tires the contracted muscle of the oyster, and the shells open. The starfish then extrudes its stomach so as to enwrap the prey, and in this curious manner devours the oyster. A close second to the starfish in amount of damage is the oyster "drill" or "borer" (_Urosalpinx cinerea_). This little mollusk with its rasping tongue drills a small hole through the shell of the oyster, and then sucks out the contents. A third enemy, according to the oyster planters, is the "winkle" (_Fulgur carica_ and _F. caniculatus_). The method of attack is somewhat obscure. Besides this dangerous trio of living enemies, the oyster is subject to constant peril from inanimate agencies. Probably the greatest of these is shifting bottom. Where oysters are grown on sandy soil, the violent waves of winter storms frequently tear up the bottom, or else the force of currents is such as to kill the oysters by completely burying them in the sand. Again, if the oysters are growing in very muddy bottom they are constantly liable to be smothered in the slimy ooze. Ice in winter frequently tears oysters from their beds and bears them to some unfavorable environment, where they soon die. VII. _Harvesting the Oysters._--The oysterman completes his planting about June 1. During the summer months, the growing period of the oyster, the grants remain idle except for the care and supervision of the oystermen. As the oyster takes from three to five years to attain its growth, the oysterman practically harvests but one-fourth to one-third of his entire stock each year, beginning about September 1 and continuing through the winter as the weather permits. In winter the oysterman, to keep up the market supply, beds "culled" oysters near the shore, where he can tong them through the ice whenever it is impossible to obtain oysters from his grant. The implements used in gathering the oyster harvest are of three kinds: tongs, dredges and rakes. Tongs are employed principally by the smaller oyster growers, and on ground where the water is comparatively shallow. A pair of tongs is really a pair of long-handled rakes, fastened together like a pair of shears. The pole, corresponding to the blade of the shears, varies from 8 to 16 feet in length. The rakes, some 2 to 2½ feet broad, are so fitted to the end of the poles that when extended by spreading the handles they rest upon the bottom parallel to each other. These tongs are usually worked from skiffs or flat-bottomed boats, the oystermen first separating the tips of the handles and then bringing them together, thus causing a corresponding movement of the two rakes, which with their 2-inch iron teeth gather in all the intervening oysters. The tongs with their burden of oysters are then lifted into the boat, emptied, and the process repeated. Dredging is a much faster and less laborious method of oystering than tonging, and can be carried on over a much larger territory. The oyster dredge consists of a bag of woven iron rings attached to an iron framework. From each corner of the framework iron rods extend, converging at a point some feet away. At this point the rope is attached, by which the dredge is dragged from either a sail or power boat. The blade, resting horizontally on the surface, is armed with teeth which rake the oysters into the bag. When this bag, which holds from 3 to 8 bushels, is full, the dredge is raised, usually by a windlass worked by steam, gasolene or hand power, as the case may be, its contents dumped out and the dredge lowered for another haul. Rakes, the third implement in general use, are not employed as extensively as tongs or dredges, but are used in still water, where the bottom is suitable. VIII. _Marketing._--The "catch" as soon as it is dredged or tonged is brought in boats to the oyster houses, where men with hatchets or similar implements break apart the clustered oysters and cast aside the empty shells, bits of rock, etc. Three different varieties of marketable oysters are usually sorted out, according to size: (1) large, (2) medium and (3) small. The respective sizes vary somewhat with the locality, demands of the market and the season; but the large oysters commonly count about 900 to the barrel, the medium 1,000 or more, while the small run 1,200 or over. The different sizes as they are sorted out are packed in barrels and are then ready for shipment. The principal markets are of course New York and Boston, though the demand farther inland is increasing, and shipments to Chicago or places even farther west are frequently made. _General Statistics._ The following facts concerning the oyster industry have been compiled from the written statements of the different oystermen. Complete returns have not been received from Wareham, Barnstable, and Falmouth, while possibly a few oystermen in the other towns have been overlooked. Falmouth raises but few oysters for the market and these returns have been recorded, the remaining oystermen merely planting for their own use. In the towns of Barnstable and Wareham about four-fifths of the oystermen have made returns. The facts given in the following tables are based only on the returns at hand, and therefore do not give a complete report for these two towns. STATISTICAL SUMMARY. ====================+==============+============================+======= | NUMBER OF | AREA OF WORKED GRANTS | TOWN. | GRANTS. | (ACRES). |Number --------------------+------+-------+------+---------+-----------+of Men. |Total.|Worked.|Total.|Suitable.|Unsuitable.| --------------------+------+-------+------+---------+-----------+------- Wellfleet, | 35| 23| 967| 810| 157| 14 Chatham, | 21| 21| 65| 55| 10| 20 Dennis-Yarmouth, | 4| 2| 10| 10| -| 3 Barnstable, | 29| 29| 188| 121| 67| 33 Falmouth, | 22| 6| 44| 23| 21| 5 Bourne, | 135| 42| 100| 83| 17| 21 Wareham, | 125| 70| 196| 159| 37| 26 Fall River district,| 14| 14| 810| 510| 300| 36 Nantucket, | 2| 1| 20| 3| 17| 1 +------+-------+------+---------+-----------+------- Total, | 387| 208| 2,400| 1,774| 626| 159 ====================+======+=======+======+=========+===========+======= CAPITAL INVESTED. ================+========+===========+===========+==========+========== TOWN. | Boats. |Implements.| Shore | Bedded | Total. | | | Property. | Oysters.| ----------------+--------+-----------+-----------+----------+---------- Wellfleet, | $10,115| $575 | $1,200 | $19,500 | $31,390 Chatham, | 1,695| 313 | 1,225 | 23,300 | 26,533 Dennis-Yarmouth,| 25| 50 | 100 | 5,000 | 5,175 Barnstable, | 5,269| 1,139 | 4,300 | 28,850 | 39,558 Falmouth, | 1,525| 105 | 1,000 | 450 | 3,080 Bourne, | 5,515| 483 | 150 | 18,300 | 24,448 Wareham, | 9,355| 1,120 | 2,420 | 27,725 | 40,620 Fall River | | | | | district, | 19,840| 2,000 | 6,200 | 68,500 | 96,540 Nantucket, | 518| 15 | 25 | 800 | 1,358 +--------+-----------+-----------+----------+---------- Total, | $53,857| $5,800 | $16,620 | $192,425 | $268,702 ================+========+===========+===========+==========+========== PRODUCTION OF 1906-07. ================+====================+==================+=========== | MARKETABLE OYSTERS.| SEED OYSTERS. | Total TOWN. +---------+----------+--------+---------+ Value. | Bushels.| Value. |Bushels.| Value. | ----------------+---------+----------+--------+---------+----------- Wellfleet, | 22,500 | $24,850 | 1,000 | $1,000 | $25,850 Chatham, | 14,550 | 23,987 | - | - | 23,987 Dennis-Yarmouth,| 1,000 | 1,500 | - | - | 1,500 Barnstable, | 25,850 | 48,050 | 100 | 100 | 48,150 Falmouth, | 3,012 | 6,025 | - | - | 6,025 Bourne, | 2,100 | 4,100 | 23,000 | 15,000 | 19,100 Wareham, | 7,770 | 12,790 | 22,100 | 12,090 | 24,880 Fall River | | | | | district, | 38,000 | 26,250 | - | - | 26,250 Nantucket, | 200 | 400 | - | - | 400 +---------+----------+--------+---------+----------- Total, | 114,982 | $147,952 | 46,200 | $28,190 | $176,142 ================+=========+==========+========+=========+=========== SECTIONAL ARRANGEMENT OF TOWNS. _A._ North side of Cape Cod:-- 1. Wellfleet. 2. Eastham. 3. Orleans. _B._ South side of Cape Cod:-- 1. Chatham. 2. Harwich. 3. Dennis and Yarmouth. 4. Barnstable. 5. Mashpee. 6. Falmouth. _C._ Buzzards Bay:-- 1. Bourne. 2. Wareham. 3. Marion. _D._ Fall River district. _E._ Nantucket. _Wellfleet._ For the past thirty years there has been an extensive oyster industry at Wellfleet, and many grants have been taken out in the waters of Wellfleet Bay, which possesses some of the best oyster ground in the State. In spite of the success of the past years, the industry is declining, indicating, possibly, that after 1910 no more grants will be leased. Four parts of the bay are taken up by oyster grants in the vicinity of: (1) Mayo's Beach; (2) Great Island; (3) Indian Neck; (4) Lieutenant's Island. (1) Nine grants, covering an area of 176 acres of both flats and deeper water, extend out from Mayo's Beach a distance of 1,500 feet. These grants extend along shore from Commercial Wharf to Egg Island, a distance of 3,500 feet. Seven of these grants have each a shore extension of 200 feet, the other 2 having 600 and 1,500 feet respectively. The principal planting on these grants is done by D. Atwood & Co. (2) On the west side of the bay, along the shores of Great Island and Beach Hill, there are 7 grants which are now worked. Originally there were 12 grants in this locality, but 5 of them expired some time ago. The area included in these 5 grants is 500 acres, while the entire granted area covers 708 acres. Wright & Willis, R. R. Higgins and L. D. Baker have done most of the planting on these grants in the past few years. (3) On the east side of the bay, near Indian Neck, are 5 grants, comprising 224 acres. J. A. Stubbs does all the planting here. A single grant of 11 acres of flats is held in Duck Creek Cove by J. C. Wiles. These grants extend along the shore for 2,000 yards and run out into the bay for 1,000 yards. (4) Off Lieutenant's Island are 8 grants, comprising a total area of 1,062 acres. Only 3 of these, comprising 559 acres, are now worked. Joseph Crosby of Osterville is the principal planter on these grants. From the statistical returns of the oyster planters it is found that 23 grants are now held for oyster planting, comprising an area of 967 acres; 810 acres, or 83 per cent. of this area, is suitable for oyster culture. There is very little soft mud bottom, only 82 acres, while the shifting sand area is 75 acres. The total area of grants ever leased at Wellfleet comprises 2,182 acres, of which 1,473 are now held. The average depth of water over these grants at mean low tide is 4 feet, the extremes running from 1 to 12 feet. Capital invested, $31,390 Power boats, 4 Value of power boats, $9,250 Sail boats, 4 Value of sail boats, $750 Dories and skiffs, 8 Value of dories and skiffs, $115 Implements:-- Dredges, 14 Tongs, 12 Value of implements, $575 Value of shore property, $1,200 Value of oysters on grant, $19,500 Most of the oystering is done by dredging, two large gasolene oyster boats, the "Cultivator" and the "Marion," being employed for this purpose. Tongs are also used extensively. Fourteen men are engaged from six to twelve months each year in the oyster business. The production for 1906-07 was 22,500 bushels of marketable oysters, valued at $24,850; and 1,000 bushels of "seed," worth approximately $1,000. Most of the planted "seed" is obtained from Long Island and Connecticut. The damage from the natural enemies of the oyster is reported as very slight. The Wellfleet oyster has a peculiar salty flavor not possessed by other oysters. For some trade this is preferred, while for others it is not so desirable. Before marketing the extreme saltiness is sometimes removed by floating the oysters in Duck Creek, where the water is less salt, using large, scow-like floats, 30 by 15 feet. Several Boston firms are engaged in oyster culture at Wellfleet, including D. Atwood & Co., J. A. Stubbs and R. R. Higgins. For years there has been a conflict between the quahaugers and the oystermen at Wellfleet. This is very natural, owing to the rivalry between the two industries and the rapid rise of the quahaug fishery in the last fifteen years. Owing to their greater number, the quahaugers have obtained the upper hand in town affairs, with the result that in 1910, when all the oyster leases run out, it is said that no more will be granted, and the oyster business of Wellfleet will come to an end. This is especially unfortunate for the town, as there is room for both industries, and the destruction of either one would be a great financial loss. It is hoped that some means can be devised to straighten out the difficulties between the opposing factions before either industry is ruined. But little oyster spat has ever been caught in Wellfleet Bay. That oysters will set there is evidenced by the young "seed" caught on the piles of the wharves and on stones and rocks around the harbor. It is noteworthy that at Wellfleet the spat sets only between the tide lines, and does not catch where water is constantly over the ground. This is directly contrary to the conditions in Long Island Sound, where the set is caught in deep water. E. P. Cook and J. A. Stubbs have tried spat collecting in Herring River for several years, with the results of one or two good sets, the best being caught by Mr. Cook in 1906. The other years have proved failures in this line. There is no question but that oyster spat can be profitably caught if sufficient interest is taken in the matter. The early laws were as follows:-- In 1772 a law having been enacted by the General Court, regulating the taking of oysters in Billingsgate Bay, an amendment to that act was now asked by the town, namely, that during the summer months oysters shall not be taken to market, nor fished by the inhabitants of the town for their own use during the months of July and August. In 1773:-- That, inasmuch as the oyster fishery, which is of great value to the town and of great advantage to the Province, has received detriment from persons taking young oysters, the enactment of more stringent regulations are necessary to prevent their destruction. These early laws show that the natural oyster beds were highly prized by the Inhabitants in colonial days, and that measures, even then, were necessary to prevent their extinction. At the present time Wellfleet has no other regulations than the general oyster laws of the Commonwealth. The history of the oyster industry of Wellfleet can be divided into three periods: (1) the natural oyster fishery; (2) the "bedding" of southern oysters; (3) oyster planting. (1) _The Natural Oyster Beds of Wellfleet._--The first settlers found a natural oyster bed near Hitchin's Creek, or Silver Spring, in 1644, and it is said that oysters were very abundant at that time. Old shells are occasionally dredged or raked up at the present day from these beds. The Rev. Enoch Pratt, in his "History of Eastham, Wellfleet and Orleans," gives the following account of this early oyster industry:-- Oysters were found in great abundance on the flats at the first settlement [1644], but at this time [1770] the inhabitants had so increased and such quantities were taken for consumption and for the Boston market, that it became necessary, to prevent their entire destruction, for the district to take measures to preserve and propagate them.... Shops and stands were opened in Boston, Salem, Portland and other places, where the oysters were sold in quantities to suit the purchaser. In 1775 all the oysters in the bay died. What caused their destruction is not certainly known, but it is supposed that as, at this time, a large number of blackfish died and came on shore, where their carcasses remained, producing a very filthy condition of the water, it caused this mortality. A more probable explanation is given by Mr. E. P. Cook of Wellfleet. The early inhabitants, not knowing the value of the natural shell beds for catching the spat, greedily took every shell and burned them into lime as a fertilizer for their farms and plaster for their houses. There was once a fine strip of woods near this original oyster rock, but this was cut down, and the sand gradually washed over the beds, killing the young oysters. To these two causes can be attributed the final destruction of the natural beds in 1775. (2) _The Bedding of Southern Oysters._--After the destruction of the natural beds, an important industry arose in the "bedding" of southern oysters for northern trade. Privileges for bedding oysters on the flats were granted to a number of oyster firms. These men hired schooners in the latter part of the winter or the early spring, which went to the southern oyster grounds and brought back loads of oysters. These oysters were spread or bedded over the leased flats of the harbor, where they remained until the following fall, when they were taken up for market. In this way the oysters gained in size by the summer's growth, and were fattened for market. Considerable trade sprang up in the carrying of oysters, and many vessels were engaged in this traffic. In 1841 Mr. Gould, the conchologist, states that 120 men, with 30 vessels of about 40 tons each, were employed for three months of the year, and brought to the town an annual revenue of $8,000. In 1841 Capt. William Dill is credited with bringing into Wellfleet the first cargo from Virginia, which started a large trade in Chesapeake oysters. Mr. Ernest Ingersoll makes the following statement concerning the Virginia trade:-- Nevertheless, it was not until about 1845 or 1850 that the business began to confine itself to Virginia oysters, and a large business to be done. At its height, about 1850, it is probable that more than 100,000 bushels a year were laid down in the harbor; some say 150,000.... The favorite ground was at the mouth of Herring River. The Rev. Enoch Pratt writes, in 1844:-- The inhabitants of the town tried the experiment of bringing oysters from the south and laying them down on the flats, which succeeded well. In the course of a year they doubled their size and their quality was much improved. This soon became a large business, and a number of vessels have been employed in the spring of every year in bringing them here. The number of bushels which are now [1844] annually brought is about 60,000. Nearly all the oyster shops and stands in Boston, and other cities and towns in this State, are supplied from this place, and are kept by persons belonging to the town. This business affords a living for many families. Mr. Ernest Ingersoll thus describes the decline of the oyster trade in 1870:-- The war of the rebellion, however, interfered somewhat with the oyster trade, and it began to decline so far as Wellfleet was concerned. Then the various dealers in northern ports, having learned something, began to bed near home in their own harbors, and so saved freightage. Finally, the steamers from Norfolk and the railways entered into so serious a competition that fully ten years ago [1870] Wellfleet Bay was wholly deserted by the oystermen as a bedding ground, though her vessels still continue to carry cargoes in winter from Virginia to Boston, Portland, Salem, Portsmouth and the Providence River, to supply the active trade and fill the new beds, which the dealers at these various ports had learned could be established at home. The reader thus discovers how important a part Wellfleet has played in the history of the oyster trade of New England. A hundred thousand bushels of the bivalves once grew fat along her water front, and thousands of dollars were dispensed to the citizens in the industry they created. Now [1880] a little experimental propagation, to the value of a few hundred dollars, and about 6,000 bushels of bedded oysters from Virginia, worth perhaps $5,000 when sold, form the total active business. The oyster fleet, however, remains, though greatly diminished, and carrying its cargoes to Boston, Portland and elsewhere, instead of bringing them to be laid down in the home harbor. It will be long before Wellfleet, and its neighbor, Provincetown, lose the prestige of old custom as oyster carriers. (3) _Oyster Raising._--In 1876 the first attempt to raise oysters from "seed" at Wellfleet, is said to have been made by E. P. Cook, who obtained a grant from the town of about 30 acres, on which were planted 500 bushels of "seed" from Somerset, Mass. The "Oysterman" of Dec. 20, 1906, gives the following account of oyster planting at Wellfleet:-- In 1876 our informant, Mr. E. P. Cook, conceived the idea that these waters could grow "seed" oysters as well as fatten big stock. He went to Somerset, Mass., and got a carload of 500 bushels and planted them. A few had previously been planted but with ill success. The people laughed at him for dumping his good money overboard. He was the first man to lease a piece of oyster ground from the State, and of course had his pick, which was 600 feet on the shore next to the Silver Spring, the original spot of the natural rocks. Mr. Cook here showed his acumen as a culturist. The next spring they had made a remarkable growth, and all had lived. Then there was a stampede of the fellows who laughed, to get some ground, too. Soon every inch of available ground had been taken up. We mention the following who took up plats: Solomon Higgins, I. C. Young, Benjamin Oliver, Daniel Oliver, Edward Oliver, Cornelius Rogers, William Smith, S. B. Rich, Theodore Brown, Stephen Young. These men did not all plant. The next year Mr. Cook bought 500 bushels more, and now he had 1,000 bushels on his grounds. These were two-year-old plants, and when they had laid there three years he sold these primitive beauties for $5 per barrel. Some time after this he bought Mr. Rich's plot. Subsequently Mr. Cook sold 400 of his 600 feet to R. R. Higgins, the founder of the famous oyster-packing house by that name. This same man bought the 200 feet of Solomon Higgins. Now this house had 600 feet of shore ground. R. R. Higgins was the first wholesaler with capital invested in the culture of the Cape Cod oysters. Finally, this house absorbed all the ground Cook had. Eight years after this the Wright & Willis firm came on the scene; that period had elapsed since the first cargo of "seed" had been freighted here. They bought the remainder of the Solomon Higgins grant. Then Mr. Cook took out another grant below Smalley's Bar. Capt. Albert Harding and Capt. D. A. Newcomb took out leases. In 1892 Mr. Cook sold his lease to the D. Atwood Company. Then Mr. Cook bought the Capt. Albert Harding lease and sold the right to plant on it, the law then not allowing the lessee to turn over the grant in toto. Then H. & R. Atwood became interested here. About this time some friction between the planters and clammers existed, but it should be remembered that the planters occupied only about 200 of the 2,400 acres involved in this dispute. Then it was that J. A. Stubbs came on the stage of activity, and Mr. Cook secured a lease for this wholesale concern. _Eastham._ The oyster industry of Eastham is closely associated with the Wellfleet industry, and practically all the business is carried on by Wellfleet firms. The grants extend along the western shore from the Eastham-Wellfleet line south, running out into the bay a distance of 1 mile. The average width of these grants is 900 feet. Twenty-four grants have been given out by the selectmen, but only 12 of these are in existence at the present time, the others having lapsed for non-payment of dues. (The town charges $3 for the original grant, and $1 each year thereafter). The area of the grants is 800 acres, of which only 125 acres are under cultivation. As all the business, which is but small, is done by Wellfleet firms, the statistics of the industry are included in the Wellfleet report. All the grants, as at Wellfleet, expire in 1910. _Orleans._ There are 5 grants on the west coast of the town, but practically nothing is done in the oyster business. The oyster industry of Orleans is a dead issue, and quahaugers dig at will over all the granted territory. The grants are all eight to nine years old, and will not be renewed, as they are said to be unconstitutional, since the waters of Eastham and Orleans are common, and the consent of Eastham was not obtained when they were granted. The real reason for not renewing them will be because they are not profitable. The sand shifts on a good deal of the territory, and where the water is too deep for shifting, oyster culture does not seem to pay. Four years ago 15,000 bushels of two-year-old "seed" was sent here from Connecticut. The greater part of this "seed" died in transportation, and much of the remainder was killed by the shifting sand. Two years ago (1905) 3,000 bushels of marketable oysters were shipped from Orleans; but little has been done since then. No set has ever been caught here, although spat catches readily on the rocks which lie between the tide lines. _Chatham._ The oyster furnishes an important industry for the town of Chatham, which ranks next to Wellfleet and Cotuit in the production of "Cape" oysters. The oyster grants are all situated in Oyster Pond and Oyster Pond River, covering an area of 65 acres of excellent bottom. Of this, 55 acres is hard bottom; 6 acres, soft mud; and 4 acres of coarse shifting sand. The whole of Oyster Pond River and the most of the shore waters of Oyster Pond are taken up by grants. The central part of Oyster Pond possesses a soft bottom, and is therefore unsuited for oyster culture. The depth of water over the grants varies from dry to 6 feet at low tide. Records show that a natural oyster bed once existed in Oyster Pond, as in 1802 "excellent oysters, but scarce," were reported. Even now old shell heaps are found, which contain extremely large oyster shells, and indicate that the Indians used these oysters for food. Indeed, the name, Oyster Pond, was given long before grants were issued, and doubtless received this name because of these natural oysters. No natural oysters remained in 1877, when the first grants were issued to George S. Atwood, John Vanhise, Jonathan Small, Stephen Gould and Frank Lanpier. The last three named held together one grant in Oyster Pond River; Atwood's grant was in Oyster Pond; while Vanhise's grant was partly in Oyster Pond and partly in Stage harbor, where oyster culture was a failure. The planting was not very successful at first, owing to a lack of proper methods. These grants were issued in 1874 for a term of twenty years. The next series of grants were issued for ten years, and in 1893 the first grants were renewed for the same length of time. Since the period of the twenty-year grants there have been two ten-year leases, and the present leases will expire in 1911. A town regulation restricts the oyster grants to the southern waters of the town, and allows no grants to be given in the waters of Pleasant Bay, where there is considerable territory which might be suitable for oyster raising. As all the available territory is now taken up in Oyster Pond, no more grants can be issued. The method of obtaining a grant by a resident of the town is to choose the locality, stake out the grant and report the same to the selectmen, who will grant a license if the bounds are satisfactorily described, and no part of another grant is included. The price of the license, which runs for a period of ten years, is $2, and 50 cents is charged for recording it. No regular survey of the grant is made. Taxes are paid yearly on stock and working capital. Capital invested, $26,533 Power boats, 1 Value of power boats, $300 Sail boats, 2 Value of sail boats, $500 Dories and skiffs, 8 Value of dories and skiffs, $105 Scows, 12 Value of scows, $790 Implements:-- Dredges, 10 Tongs, 34 Value of implements, $313 Value of shore property, $1,225 Value of oysters on grant, $23,300 Owing to the shallow water, most of the work is done by tonging. Flat scows, 25 by 10 feet, are generally used for this work, as they afford excellent footing for the oysterman in tonging and plenty of room for the oysters. These scows, which have a capacity of 100 bushels, can be anchored by stakes or iron piping, and definite areas covered by the tonger. In the fall the oystermen make their "culls" on these scows. Chatham is the only town in Massachusetts where scows are in general use. Dredging is done only to a limited extent by 3 oystermen, the others all using tongs. Twenty men are engaged from four to six months of the year in the oyster business at Chatham. The production for 1906-07 was 14,550 bushels, valued at $23,987. The oyster industry has been increasing every year, the production for 1906-07 being one-third more than the 1905-06 output. The oystermen are unanimous in saying that the oyster business of Chatham is steadily improving. No "seed" oysters are raised in Chatham, as no large set has ever been caught, and all attempts in this line have proved unsuccessful. All the "seed" oysters are brought from Greenport, L. I. These run from two to four years old, the larger oysters being preferred. As a rule, oystermen are forced to take what they can get when they buy seed. The only natural enemy which infests the Chatham oyster is the oyster drill (_Urosalpinx cinerea_). The damage done by this pest is slight, amounting to nearly $800 annually. _Harwich._ No oyster industry is now carried on in the town of Harwich. A natural oyster bed once existed in Herring River, and occasionally a few oysters can be picked up at the present time; but the bed is practically fished out. This bed once extended a distance of three-quarters of a mile in the lower part of the river. In 1824 an act was passed to prevent "the wilful destruction of oysters and other shellfish in the town of Harwich," which shows that even as early as 1824 the natural bed in Herring River was on the verge of depletion. _Dennis and Yarmouth._ The oyster industries of Dennis and Yarmouth are so connected that they will have to be considered as belonging to one town. Four grants have been leased in the two towns, but only 2 of these are worked. Three grants are situated in Bass River, while the fourth, which is not operated, owing to the shifting sand, lies outside Dog Fish Bar. The 2 grants which are worked are situated in Bass River, and comprise an area of 10 acres of hard bottom, all of which is suitable for oyster culture. The Bass River grants, which are taxed at the valuation of $1,000 apiece, expire in 1914. Mill Creek, in West Yarmouth, one of the most valuable shellfish areas in the town, originally contained a natural oyster bed which extended from the mouth of the creek up for 1,000 feet, comprising an area of 2-1/3 acres. Nevertheless, this was granted in 1895 for a period of ten years. Two years ago the lease expired, and it is said that the oysters have come in again in abundance. All along the south shore of the two towns "seed" oysters, which have been washed out of Mill Creek, can be picked up. A small amount of "seed" is raised on the grants, but this is not enough to furnish the requisite amount required for planting purposes, so about 2,500 bushels is annually brought into the town from Oyster Bay, L. I. No damage is done in these waters by the natural enemies of the oyster, as both the starfish and oyster drill are very scarce. One thousand bushels of marketable oysters, valued at $1,500, were shipped in the season of 1906-07. Three men are engaged for a period of seven and one-half months in the oyster industry. Capital invested, $5,175 Dories, 2 Value of dories, $25 Tongs, 5 Value of implements, $50 Value of shore property, $100 Value of bedded oysters, $5,000 The oysters are taken by tonging from dories, as the water is comparatively shallow. No dredging is done. Yarmouth is the only town in the State which requires a license for taking oysters from a natural bed. _Barnstable._ Barnstable is the great oyster town of the Commonwealth, as it has the twofold distinction of possessing the most extensive industry and producing the finest quality of oysters. The causes which have brought the cultivation of oysters in this town to so flourishing a condition have been fourfold: first, Barnstable has a long coast line, much cut up by bays and rivers, which give it a very large available area; secondly, this area is remarkably suited for the cultivation of oysters, as it is for the most part hard, clean bottom, in comparatively shallow water and well sheltered from storms; thirdly, there is little damage from the enemies of the oyster,--the starfish, winkle and drill, fourthly, the waters of the township are notably pure, free from contamination, and well adapted for the production of a rapid-growing oyster of excellent quality. Barnstable township contains several villages, three of which, Cotuit, Marston's Mills and Osterville, are prosperous centers of the oyster fishery. Hyannis, a fourth village, once maintained a business of this nature, which proved unprofitable and has now practically disappeared. Oyster grants are scattered along the shores of Popponesset River and Bay, in Cotuit harbor, Bluff Channel, South Bay, Osterville Narrows and at Marston's Mills. In addition, a large but indefinite territory along the southern shore, as indicated on the map, is maintained as experimental grants. Cotuit is by far the most important center of the industry. Here the fishery is conducted on an extensive scale. The white, clean sandy bottom and the remarkably pure waters of the bay produce an oyster with a bright, clear shell, which distinguishes it from oysters grown elsewhere. This Cotuit oyster is much sought for by hotels and fancy dealers, and is universally considered par excellence among Massachusetts oysters. Barnstable, though supporting an immense industry, has by no means exhausted her latent resources. Extensive experiments to increase the productive area of the town have been carried on for the past few years. A strip of territory along the southern coast, some 4 miles long and 3 miles wide, has been granted. This territory is of doubtful utility, as the bottom is largely shifting sand exposed to the full force of southerly gales. These grants have hardly been in force long enough to demonstrate their possibilities, but it is probable that a large territory may be thoroughly suitable for the future expansion of the oyster industry. Unfortunately, several oystermen did not make statistical returns, thus rendering a complete record for the Barnstable oyster industry impossible. The majority of the oystermen willingly responded, and the present report comprises only those returns which have been sent in. The total area comprised by the grants, 29 in number, is 188 acres, of which 121 acres are of hard bottom, suitable for oyster culture. There is very little shifting bottom. The usual Cotuit bottom is a clear sand, which is especially favorable for the production of fine oysters. Thirty-three men are employed from six to eight months each year in the industry, which gave in 1906-07 a production of 25,850 bushels of marketable oysters, valued at $48,050. Except for a small natural oyster bed at Centerville, no "seed" is caught in Barnstable, and is all brought from Long Island and Connecticut. Several firms plant only large oysters, bedding them in the spring and taking them up the following fall, when they have acquired the Cotuit flavor. Capital invested, $39,558 Power boats, 4 Value of power boats, $3,900 Sail boats, 3 Value of sail boats, $800 Dories, 22 Value of dories, $413 Scows, 7 Value of scows, $156 Implements:-- Dredges, 23 Tongs, 45 Value of implements, $1,139 Value of shore property, $4,300 Value of oysters on grant, $28,850 _Mashpee._ The oyster industry of Mashpee is rather limited. Five grants exist in the west channel of Popponesset River, covering practically all the territory. Only about 5 to 10 acres of this territory is suitable for oyster culture. The ground granted for oysters is used indiscriminately for quahauging and scalloping, and seems to be almost public property. But one man is engaged in the oyster business, and he rarely ships any, but peddles them around the community. No "seed" is caught. Starfish and oyster drills are very scarce. A cat boat, dory and tongs constitute the capital invested, which is valued at $200. The annual production is valued at $100. _Falmouth._ The oyster industry of Falmouth is conducted on the south side of the town, in the waters of Waquoit Bay. There are no oysters on the Buzzards Bay side of the town. According to the town records, there are 22 grants in existence. These grants are mostly small, not averaging more than 2 to 10 acres, and are but little cultivated. Returns from 6 of these grants, which comprise all the territory worked for market, are alone used for the statistical figures. The best oyster territory is in Waquoit Bay and Child's River. In Waquoit Bay 6 acres are granted, 4½ acres of which is hard bottom, suitable for oyster culture. In Child's River the grants comprise 20 acres, two-thirds of which, or 13 acres, is hard bottom. Altogether, some 44 acres are granted, and, although a good deal of the surface is muddy, there are 23 acres of very fair oyster ground. No business is made of raising "seed," but from two to three year old "seed" is shipped from Greenport, L. I., and replanted. In 1906-07, 3,012 bushels of marketable oysters, valued at $6,025, were shipped. Many of the grants are leased to men who raise oysters for their own use only, while but few make a business of shipping oysters. The only enemy is the oyster drill, which does but slight damage here. Three men are engaged for nine months each year in the oyster industry at Falmouth; while 5 or more run grants for their own use. Capital invested, $3,080 Power boats, 1 Value of power boats, $800 Sail boats, 1 Value of sail boats, $250 Dories, 4 Value of dories, $75 Scows, 1 Value of scows, $400 Implements:-- Dredges, 2 Tongs, 6 Value of implements, $105 Value of shore property, $1,000 Value of bedded oysters, $450 _Buzzards Bay District._ The Buzzards Bay oyster industry is in a state verging on chaos. In some specially favored localities it is in a flourishing condition; in others hardly less favorable it is almost completely stagnant. Great natural advantages exist, which if properly utilized would create a business of immense proportions. These resources are for the most part but poorly improved, and in many cases are neglected altogether. A spirit of uncertainty, which discourages confidence and checks initiative, seems to pervade the business atmosphere. Amid this uncertainty and conflicting forces, one fact, at once the starting point of the whole difficulty and at the same time the sole solution of the problem, stands out vividly clear. This is the need of proper _legislation_. The troubles which beset the Buzzards Bay oyster industry are directly traceable to defects in the present legislative system. These defects are both active and passive. In some cases unwise and illogical laws are in operation, which hamper business activity; in other cases laws for which there is a crying need are laid aside or neglected. A reform in certain aspects of town supervision is the demand of the hour. Until the present system receives an overhauling, it is doubtful if the industry will ever experience full prosperity. In order to gain a clear insight into the difficulties which darken the immediate outlook in this region, it will be necessary to take a brief survey of the history and present status of the industry. The beginnings of the oyster fishery in Buzzards Bay arose from the exploitation and subsequent depletion of the natural beds. These beds, of which there are several scattered along the coast from Bourne to Mattapoisett, furnished for a long time a large annual output of oysters. In the early '70's the supply began to decrease rapidly, and the fear of total extermination caused the selectmen of Marion, Wareham and Sandwich (Bourne) to attempt a strict supervision of the fishery. These attempts were in all cases unsatisfactory, and about 1875 the artificial culture of oysters began almost simultaneously in the three towns by the issue of licenses or grants to private individuals. The measure was popular from the first. Almost all the available land was speedily appropriated, and a flourishing but exotic industry, stimulated by a considerable outlay of capital, burst into life. At Marion the new business lasted precisely fifteen years. The industry was largely a losing venture. The oysters did not grow well, and were of inferior quality. In time, doubtless, when the causes which produced these effects had been studied, a stable and well-ordered industry would have resulted. It is but natural to assume that where oysters grew in a "wild" state, cultivated ones could likewise be grown. Such an outcome, however, was not destined to follow. The grants had been so given that they all expired at the same time. When this date arrived, the majority of the inhabitants of Marion were of the opinion that the oyster grants would yield far better returns if utilized merely for the quahaugs which grew naturally on them, and the whole harbor was consequently thrown open as common ground. From that date the quahaug fishery has waned almost to the point of extinction, but no efforts have been made to resurrect the old oyster industry, which has practically disappeared. At Bourne the industry began with bright prospects. The present business, though somewhat impoverished, still possesses those inherent resources which are capable of developing a more extensive industry. At Wareham the business was of slower growth and more logical development, and it has continued to increase, until at present the town possesses an important industry. It has struggled with many problems which have retarded its growth, and which still embarrass it. These are primarily problems of legislation, as the industry stands in need of better regulations before it can attain its maximum development. In all these difficulties, which have been briefly outlined and hinted at, the main source of annoyance has been the strife between two rival factions,--the oyster and quahaug interests. These interests have ever been at war, and the result has been almost fatally destructive to both. The questions at stake in this controversy have been broad in their general interest. The quahaug industry is essentially democratic, representing roughly labor as against capital, and demands that tidal flats and waters be kept as common property for general use. The oyster industry, on the other hand, is essentially exclusive, representing organized capital, and maintains that oyster grants are as much the subject of private ownership as farms and city lots. The whole aim of legislation has been to reconcile these wholly opposite theories. The problem has been complex and many-sided, and it is not strange that the selectmen of the towns in question have been unable to harmonize the two factions or pass regulations suitable to both parties. Certain it is that in trying to benefit both they have benefited neither, and the present confusion has resulted. The matter is one certainly of sufficient importance to merit attention from the State. It is not merely local. The whole Commonwealth is interested vitally in the development of its industries, and it is unwise to allow so important an industry as the oyster fishery to remain solely in the hands of local authority, especially when local authority has shown itself unable to cope with the problem. The present system in vogue in the Buzzards Bay district is perhaps unfair to both parties in its policy. The selectmen may lease an unlimited number of grants, of an unlimited area, to any citizen or number of citizens of the town in question. Theoretically at least they may grant all the available area in sight to one man. There must of course be the formality of a hearing, and sufficient pressure may be and is frequently brought to bear upon the selectmen to retard them from exercising the full extent of their authority; but nevertheless the system is unjust to the majority, and it is small wonder that the quahaug fishermen feel aggrieved that some of their former privileges are thus curtailed. Furthermore, the clause which demands that these grants should be used for the cultivation of oysters is oftentimes openly evaded, and a good portion of the granted area, though not used for oysters, is closed to the quahaugers. On the other hand, the oystermen, while apparently enjoying great privileges, in reality are severely handicapped. An oysterman obtains a grant perhaps with great difficulty, owing to opposition from the quahaug men. He can carry on no extensive business without the expenditure of considerable capital. If he "seeds" his grant, the first two or three years are spent in the maturing of the first harvest. The grant is given only for ten years; consequently, when it has run for seven or eight years the owner is in doubt whether to plant any more "seed," as he does not know that his license will be renewed and naturally does not wish to plant a bed for his unknown successor. Again, if he is fairly successful and wishes to expand his business, he cannot without great risk invest in the costly equipment necessary for such an enterprise, as he has no certainty of getting a sufficient amount of territory or of keeping it any length of time. Furthermore, additional complications arise from the disputes with owners of adjoining shore property. This is particularly unfortunate, as this tidal area along the shore is most valuable for the collection of oyster set or "seed." From the foregoing statements it appears that the oyster and quahaug factions are in the position of two combatants who continue to fight, while the object of the strife is lost to both. It is impossible to handle so grave a problem by merely theorizing, but a few ideas might be suggested as bearing favorably on the subject. It would seem wise to refrain as far as possible from granting the best portions of quahaug territory, for there is sufficient room for both industries to flourish. Then, too, grants might be rented at so much per acre as long as the owner desired within certain time limits, assuming that he paid his annual rental and improved his grant. These and other suggestions might be made which would seem an improvement over the present circumstances; but it is doubtful if conditions can be much bettered until some motive force and centralized authority is supplied by proper legislation. _Bourne._ Bourne has long supported a promising oyster industry. In some respects it has greater advantages for the extension of this business than Wareham, but the invested capital, the annual product and the resulting revenue are all overshadowed by those of its neighboring rival. The great natural resources which Bourne possesses, its extensive available area, its multiplicity of bays, inlets, islands and rivers,--these and a variety of other causes combine to make it a most favorable locality for the growth of oysters; and it is indeed an unfortunate circumstance both for the shellfish interests of the community and the broader interests of the State that so great a source of economic wealth should be so little improved. The vexing questions which harass the oyster planters of Wareham and hamper their efforts are present here in even greater force. In many places where a flourishing business was once carried on the industry is at a standstill, while nowhere does it evince that life and activity which its decided advantages warrant. The town books contain records of 135 grants in force to-day. No accurate system of charting is in vogue except in the Monument River, and no absolutely reliable data concerning the total area is available, but the combined territory comprised in these grants aggregates nearly 600 acres. Of this territory, however, only a portion, and a relatively small portion, is really improved; the remainder is either allowed to lie dormant or is worked merely for the quahaugs which it produces. The oyster territory of Bourne is divided into five distinct sections: the Monument River section, the region about Mashnee Island, Toby Island and vicinity, Basset's Island and the neighborhood of Wing's Neck, and Pocasset and the Red Brook harbor or Cataumet district. Of these five regions, the Monument River ranks first, both in the total area and also in importance, and it is here that most of the business is carried on. The statistical returns of the Bourne oystermen show that only 42 grants comprising 100 acres are worked. Of this 83 acres is hard bottom suitable for oyster raising while the remaining 17 acres is mostly soft mud. Capital invested, $24,448 Power boats, 3 Value of power boats, $3,000 Sail boats, 8 Value of sail boats, $1,900 Dories and skiffs, 29 Value of dories and skiffs, $615 Implements:-- Dredges, 99 Tongs, 38 Value of implements, $483 Value of shore property, $150 Value of bedded oysters, $18,300 Twenty-one men make a living from the industry. The production for the year ending Aug. 1, 1907, amounted to 2,100 bushels of marketable oysters, valued at $4,100, and 23,000 bushels of "seed," worth $15,000. The methods employed in oyster culture here are similar to those in use at Wareham. Thousands of bushels of shells, preferably those of the scallop, are strewn over the bottom to collect the set, which is then taken up and transferred to the proper grant or shipped for sale. The two great enemies of the oyster, the borer or drill, and the starfish, flourish here. The borer seems more destructive in those sections which are comparatively sheltered, the starfish in more exposed localities. The history of the industry is one of picturesque variety. The beginnings of the industry were bright with promise; the sudden growth which followed was spectacular but erratic; and the difficulties which soon arose plunged it into complications from which it emerged much shattered and greatly declined. Originally there were three good natural beds,--in Monument River, Barlow's River and Red Brook harbor, respectively. These beds long supplied all the oysters produced, and when in 1834 they began to be depleted, legislation was enacted regulating them until 1863, when the town surveyed a number of grants in the Monument River, each with an average area of 1½ to 10 acres, and allowed one of these grants to every citizen desiring it, on the payment of $2.50. These old beds still linger as rather uncertain assets of the communal wealth. The Monument River grounds still supply a fairly large harvest, the Barlow River has declined much more, while the Cataumet beds are nearly extinct. The shellfish laws of this region are of vital importance, as it is their province to inaugurate order from chaos, put a stop to wasteful methods, and take such steps as appear necessary for the proper development of the industry. How greatly these laws fail in their mission is abundantly shown by the present conditions of the fishery. The whole situation is on the threshold of a change. What this change will be, whether for better or worse, depends upon the legislation of the future. _Wareham._ Wareham is the second town in the State in the production of oysters, being excelled in this respect by Barnstable alone. Its commanding position at the head of Buzzards Bay, the numerous indentations of its coast line, and the three rivers which lie partially within its borders, give it a wide expanse of available territory exceptionally favorable for the development of this shellfish industry. The substantial success which has attended the oyster business at Wareham has been attained by slow but steady growth. Many problems have been encountered,--problems of local prejudice, opposition from rival industries and the like; but these problems have simply hampered the industry,--they have not sufficed to check its growth. At present the business seems firmly established, and can enter on its future career of prosperity as soon as the barriers which block its progress shall have been removed. The town records show a total of 125 grants in operation to-day. These grants are poorly described and for the most part unsurveyed, but their total area approximates 1,000 acres. According to the statistical returns of the oystermen, 70 grants, comprising 196 acres, are under cultivation. Of this, 159 acres are of hard bottom, suitable for oyster planting, while the waste area is equally soft mud and shifting sand. Capital invested, $40,620 Power boats, 4 Value of power boats, $3,800 Sail boats, 17 Value of sail boats, $4,485 Dories and skiffs, 50 Value of dories and skiffs, $820 Scows, 2 Value of scows, $250 Implements:-- Dredges, 120 Tongs, 84 Value of implements, $1,120 Value of shore property, $2,420 Value of bedded oysters, $27,725 The catching of oyster "seed" at Wareham is more important than the raising of marketable oysters; 22,100 bushels of seed, valued at $12,090, were exported last year (1906-07). Thousands of bushels of shells, chiefly those of the scallop, are planted yearly in shallow water, to catch the set. The territory where these shells may be planted to the best advantage is on the fringe of tidal flats which skirt the coast. This area, however, which is consequently of considerable value, is of doubtful ownership, being claimed both by the oystermen and also by the owners of the adjacent shore property. The dispute arising over this question has been most harmful to the industry. The marketable oysters raised at Wareham are of very good quality. There were 7,770 bushels of these oysters, valued at $12,790, produced in 1906-07, and shipped mostly to New York and Boston. Altogether, there are 26 men depending on this industry for a living. Besides the grants, there are two native beds, one each in the Wareham and the Weweantit rivers. These beds comprise nearly 80 acres, and, though now greatly reduced, they still yield a considerable amount of seed oysters. The laws governing the industry here are similar to those at Bourne. The ten-year grant prevails, with all its attendant evils to the oysterman; while the quahaugers have abundant cause to complain, from the fact that practically all the available territory has been granted to the oystermen. While it is true that scarcely a third of this land is utilized for the cultivation of oysters, it is likewise true that the rights of the oystermen are by no means strictly observed by the quahauger. There can be but one result of this policy,--endless wrangling and confusion, and, in the end, loss to both parties. The unfortunate thing about the whole matter is that most of this wastefulness is entirely needless; but this is a problem for future legislation. _Marion._ The oyster industry at Marion is practically dead. The last grants expired some ten or twelve years ago, and were never renewed. Of the two original natural beds, that in Blankinship's Cove is now almost entirely depleted, while the larger and more important bed in the Weweantit River has greatly declined in importance. This bed, however, still supplies all the marketable oysters produced within the town, though the annual production is insignificant. From twenty-five to thirty years ago the oyster industry had its beginning, and for a time flourished. Almost all the available territory, both in the harbor and in the Weweantit River, was granted. The older grants were leased for fifteen years, and those of later date were arranged to run out at the same time; so it followed that all the leases expired simultaneously, and the industry came to an abrupt end. These old grants were not renewed, for two reasons: first, they had not paid very well; and, secondly, the growing quahaug industry promised more lucrative returns. The scallops, too, began to be abundant, and the old oyster business gave way before its newer and more prosperous competitors. _Fall River District._ The Fall River district, comprising the six towns of Fall River, Freetown, Berkley, Dighton, Somerset and Swansea, may best be treated as a geographical unit. The oyster industries of the individual communities overlap to a considerable extent, and make distinct separation difficult, while, as the same methods of culture everywhere obtain and the same problems and difficulties are encountered, a brief survey of this whole region may be comprehensively discussed in one article. The beautiful shores of Mount Hope Bay and its tributary streams, the Cole, Lee and Taunton rivers, furnish an extensive territory for a large oyster industry. The best of this area is now included within the confines of the bay itself, though the Cole and Lee rivers furnish a small but valuable addition. The Taunton River, however, which thirty years ago produced the finest oysters in the State, and was the main source of supply for this district, has become utterly worthless for the growth of marketable oysters. In fact, this river, with its curious history, and the difficulties which it now presents to the carrying on of an important and profitable industry, furnishes the most interesting problem of this whole region. This river embraces the entire oyster territory of Freetown, Berkley and Dighton and portions of Somerset and Fall River,--certainly half of all the available territory of the whole section; and yet it is an indisputable fact that this large and formerly profitable area is now altogether unsuitable for the production of edible shellfish. The causes for this transformation of a river which once supplied a large annual revenue to the prosperous communities which lined its banks, into a stream unwholesome and unfit for the proper maturing of its shellfish, have been much discussed. The prevailing opinion seems to lay the blame to the impurities discharged into the river by the Taunton factories. Other theories, ingenious but far less worthy of weight, have been urged; but the burden of evidence strongly points to the sewage of the city of Taunton as the probable main factor in the decline of the industry. While greatly impaired as a favorable territory for the propagation of oysters, the river, however, is still largely utilized. Extensive grants are sold by the towns of Dighton, Berkley and Freetown to oystermen, who bed them with "seed," which is allowed to remain until it is from two to three years old, when it is taken up and replanted in some other locality where the waters are uncontaminated, and here left for a certain time until it becomes "purified" and ready for shipment to market. By this method the old grants are still worked, though greatly declined in value, as oysters can no longer be sold to market direct, and the process of transplanting entails considerable expense. In the other towns of this region the industry is carried on much the same as in Buzzards Bay or Barnstable. A great deal of attention is paid to the enemies of the oyster, particularly the starfish. This animal is combated chiefly with "mops" of cotton waste which are dragged over the bottom, and the starfish, becoming entangled in the strands, are removed and destroyed. As this fairly effectual warfare is being constantly waged, the numbers of this pest are kept well reduced, and the grounds maintained in very good condition. By a peculiar local custom, which would be decidedly unpopular in some coast communities, the towns of this section usually sell their entire oyster privilege to some individual or company, ordinarily the highest bidder. In this manner, aided by the fact that some persons purchasing such rights re-sell them to others, the oyster industry of this entire region is owned and controlled by a very few men. This arrangement, however, does not seem to be unpopular, the only difficulty arising from those clammers who are accustomed to dig clams under water, and sometimes find a bed located on an oysterman's grant. In such cases the owners usually waive their rights, and allow the clammers to dig undisturbed. As has been said, the oyster industry in this district, while it has by no means attained its maximum development, has indeed reached very considerable proportions. The entire amount of area granted aggregates 810 acres. Of this total, some 510 acres are suitable for oyster culture, the remainder being soft mud, shifting sand, or otherwise unfit for utilization. The entire output for 1907 exceeded 38,000 bushels, valued at $26,250. Thirty-six men depend partially upon the business for a livelihood. Capital invested, $96,540 Power boats, 9 Value of power boats, $19,500 Dories and skiffs, 17 Value of dories and skiffs, $340 Implements:-- Dredges, 12 Tongs, 18 Value of implements, $2,000 Value of shore property, $6,200 Value of oysters on grant, $68,500 _Nantucket._ The oyster industry of Nantucket is of recent origin, and the oysters are as yet raised only for home consumption. Two grants have been leased by the selectmen, but only one of these is now planted. These grants are situated in the east and west bends of Polpis harbor. The cultivated grant in the west bend comprises some 20 acres, only 3 of which are of hard bottom and suitable for oyster culture, the remaining 17 having a soft mud bottom. The "seed" planted on the grant is obtained at New Haven. In the last few years the oysters on this grant have thrown a large quantity of spawn, which has caught on piles and stones at various places around Nantucket harbor. The only enemy to the Nantucket oyster is the oyster drill. The production of marketable oysters for 1906-07 was 200 bushels, valued at $400. These were sold for home trade on the island. One man is engaged in the oyster business for a period of three months each year. The oysters are taken both by dredging and with tongs. Capital invested, $1,358 Power boats, 1 Value of power boats, $500 Dories, 1 Value of dories, $18 Implements:-- Dredges, 2 Tongs, 1 Value of implements, $15 Value of shore property, $25 Value of oysters on grant, $800 FOOTNOTES: [15] The Oyster Industry in the United States. Tenth Census of the United States. [16] Returns of the Massachusetts department on fisheries and game. CLAM (_Mya arenaria_). _Mya arenaria_, commonly known as the "soft" or "long-neck" clam, is found along the entire Massachusetts coast, wherever there is afforded a sufficient shelter from the open ocean. Exposed beaches with open surf are never inhabited by this mollusk, which is usually found on the tide flats of bays, inlets and rivers, and on the sheltered beaches between high and low tide lines. The clam occurs in various kinds of soil, from rocky gravel to soft mud, but grows best in a tenacious soil of mud and sand, where it lies buried at a depth of from 6 to 12 inches. As Cape Cod marks the dividing line between a northern and a southern fauna, it also divides the clam flats of Massachusetts into two distinct areas. The same clam is found both north and south of Cape Cod, but the natural conditions under which it lives are quite different. In comparing these two areas, several points of difference are noted. (1) The clam areas of the north coast are mostly large flats, while those of the south shore are confined to a narrow shore strip, as Buzzards Bay and the south side of Cape Cod for certain geological reasons do not possess flats, but merely beaches. (2) The rise and fall of the tide is much higher on the north shore, thus giving an extent of available flats nearly six times the clam area south of Cape Cod. (3) Clam growth as a rule is much faster on the north shore. This is due to the great amount of tide flow over the river flats of the north shore. Current is the main essential for rapid clam growth, as it transports the food. The average south shore flats possess merely the rise and fall of the tide, and as a rule have not the currents of the north shore rivers. (4) The temperature of the northern waters is several degrees colder than the waters south of Cape Cod. This affords, as has been shown experimentally, a longer season of growth for the southern clam. The north shore clam in the Essex region only increases the size of its shell through the six summer months, while the south shore clam grows slightly during the winter. The present advantages lie wholly with the north shore district, as through overdigging the less extensive areas of southern Massachusetts have become in most parts commercially barren. Overdigging has not occurred to the same extent on the north shore, owing to the vast extent of the flats. Nevertheless, many acres of these, as at Plymouth, Kingston, Duxbury, and even Gloucester and Essex, have become wholly or partially unproductive. The only important clamming in Massachusetts to-day is found in the towns bordering Ipswich Bay. The south shore and a good part of the north shore furnish but few clams for the market. In view of restocking the barren areas through cultural methods, the north shore possesses two advantages over the south shore: it has a larger natural supply at present, which will make restocking easier; it has larger areas of flats, which can be made to produce twenty times the normal yield of the south shore flats. Although, compared with the north shore, the clam area of the south shore seems poor, it is above the average when compared with the clam areas of the other States south of Massachusetts, and when properly restocked the clam flats of southern Massachusetts should furnish a large annual production. If the clam industry is not properly cared for, it will be totally ruined before many years. The clammers do not realize this, because of a mistaken impression that nature will forever furnish them with good clamming, and they have little thought for the future; while, on the other hand, the consumer is indifferent from lack of knowledge. _Scope of the Report._--The object of this report is to present in brief form the condition of the clam fishery in Massachusetts. For this purpose facts showing the present extent of the industry have been compiled, with the view of furnishing both the clammer and consumer with certain desirable information. The report will consider: (1) general conditions of the industry of 1907; (2) a survey of the clam-producing area, illustrated by maps; (3) a plan of clam culture which will make productive many acres of barren flats; (4) the history of the clam industry, a comparison being made between the industries of 1879 and 1907; (5) a description of the industry. _Methods of Work._--The same methods as used with the other shellfish were pursued in obtaining the statistical data for the clam industry. The clam-producing areas were examined and the observations recorded. Town records, which were of some assistance with the other shellfish, furnished practically no clam data, compelling the Commission to rely upon the estimates of the clammers and clam dealers. While this method made it difficult to secure accurate detailed information, the statistics for each town were checked up in a variety of ways, thus furnishing as nearly correct figures as can be obtained. In making an historical comparison of 1879 and 1907, the report of Ernest Ingersoll on the clam fishery of the United States, and the report of A. Howard Clark on the fisheries of Massachusetts, as published in the United States Fish Commission Report, Section V, volume 2, and Section II., respectively, were of great use, as practically all of the statistics for 1879 were obtained from these two reports. In making the survey of the clam areas, records were made of: (1) soil; (2) food (_a_) in water, (_b_) on surface of soil; (3) rate of currents; (4) abundance of clams and localities of set; (5) barren flats that can be made productive. In the present report only the kind of soil, abundance of clams and area of barren flats will be given, the food problem being reserved for later publication. _Summary._--In the following summary the seacoast towns are arranged in geographical order from north to south. The number of men includes both regular and intermittent clammers who dig for the market; all others are excluded. In determining the production of any town it is impossible to obtain exactly correct figures, as the amount dug for home consumption is an unestimable quantity, and the clams are marketed in a number of ways, rendering it almost impossible to get complete statistics. The production statistics have been obtained in a variety of ways, and the final estimates have resulted from careful consideration of all facts. The invested capital includes the clammer's outfit and boat, but does not include personal apparel, such as boots and oil skins. The clam flats are divided into two main divisions: (1) productive; and (2) barren. The barren areas are those where at present no clams grow at all, not even scattering; and areas yielding even a few clams are still considered productive flats, though to all practical purposes barren. It was necessary to make the division thus, as otherwise no decisive line could be drawn. The barren flats are divided into those sections that can be made productive and those that can never be made to grow clams. The productive flats, on the other hand, are divided into areas of good clamming and areas of scattering clams which do not support a commercial fishery. The normal production of the clam flats has been carefully estimated, in view of the previous experiments of the Fish and Game Commission, and the different classes of flats have each been given a certain valuation in computing the total for each town. The areas given of the clam flats are based upon calculations, as no engineering survey was made. The price of clams varies in different localities, and chiefly depends upon the quality of clams and the method of marketing. In certain towns clams are "shucked" (removed from the shell),--a process which greatly increases their market value; while in other places they are sold only in the shell. These two facts account for the apparent variation in the value of the production in different localities, as each town is given its own market price. The following production table does not include an important factor,--the amount of clams dug by the summer people. An unestimable quantity is annually taken from the flats in this way, and is not included in the production statistics. Indeed, summer people have affected the clamming interests of several towns, as the selectmen have refused to place closed seasons, etc., on certain depleted flats in order to cater to the summer residents, who desire free clamming near their cottages. The total number of licenses issued by the boards of health of Boston and New Bedford for taking shellfish in their respective harbors are given as representing the number of clammers. In reality, however, only a few of these licensees make a regular business of clamming. SUMMARY OF THE CLAM INDUSTRY. =============+======+=========+=================+===========================+ | | |1907 PRODUCTION. | TOTAL AREA. | | | +--------+--------+-----+-----+-------+-------+ |Number| | | | | | |Mussels| TOWN. | of | Capital | | | | | |and Eel| | Men. |invested.|Bushels.| Value. |Sand.| Mud.|Gravel.| Grass.| -------------+------+---------+--------+--------+-----+-----+-------+-------+ Salisbury, |66[17]| $625 | 15,000| $16,500| 34| 216| - | - | Newburyport, |175 | 2,700 | 55,500| 61,000| 150| 930| - | - | Newbury, | 6 | 75 | 300| 250| 110| 250| - | - | Rowley, | 15 | 800 | 2,000| 1,500| 250| 150| - | - | Ipswich, |136[17] 7,500 | 25,000| 18,750| 390| 500| 55 | 25 | Essex, | 50 | 1,200 | 15,000| 12,750| 500| 125| - | 25 | Gloucester, | 31 | 600 | 6,000| 8,000| 250| 200| - | 100 | Manchester, | - | - | 100| 100| 10| 10| - | - | Beverly, | - | - | 100| 100| 30| 20| - | - | Salem, | 7 | 75 | 200| 200| 75| 25| - | - | Lynn, | 7 | 100 | 1,000| 1,000| 90| 300| 5 | 5 | Saugus, | 10 | 100 | 1,000| 1,000| 100| 150| - | - | Nahant, | - | - | 300| 300| 50| 100| 100 | - | Boston, |350[18] 2,250 | 7,500| 6,000| 525|3,325| 1,380 | 1,095 | Cohasset, | - | - | 200| 200| 50| 50| - | - | Scituate, | - | - | 200| 200| 50| 45| 5 | - | Marshfield, | - | - | 200| 200| 40| 50| 10 | - | =============+======+===================+===========+======+============ | | PRODUCTIVE AREA. | | | | +--------+----------+ | | | | | |Barren Area| Waste| Possible TOWN. |Total | Good |Scattering|possibly |Barren| Normal | Area |Clamming| Clams |Productive | Area |Production. -------------+------+--------+----------+-----------+------+------------ Salisbury, | 250| 150 | 100 | - | -| $70,000 Newburyport, | 1,080| 800 | 280 | - | -| 250,000 Newbury, | 360| - | 100 | 260 | -| 40,000 Rowley, | 400| 20 | 80 | 300 | -| 60,000 Ipswich, | 970| 400 | 420 | 125 | 25| 200,000 Essex, | 650| 150 | 150 | 325 | 25| 120,000 Gloucester, | 550| 75 | 100 | 275 | 100| 70,000 Manchester, | 20| - | 5 | 10 | 5| 2,000 Beverly, | 50| - | 10 | 30 | 10| 5,000 Salem | 100| 5 | 10 | 70 | 15| 11,000 Lynn, | 400| 10 | 30 | 160 | 200| 26,000 Saugus, | 250| 10 | 40 | 100 | 100| 22,000 Nahant, | 250| - | 50 | 150 | 50| 25,000 Boston, | 6,325| 100 | 1,180 | 1,000 | 4,045| 376,000 Cohasset, | 100| - | 10 | 40 | 50| 6,000 Scituate, | 100| - | 20 | 40 | 40| 8,000 Marshfield, | 100| - | 30 | 30 | 40| 9,000 =============+======+=========+=================+===========================+ | | |1907 PRODUCTION. | TOTAL AREA. | | | +--------+--------+-----+-----+-------+-------+ |Number| | | | | | |Mussels| TOWN. | of | Capital | | | | | |and Eel| | Men. |invested.|Bushels.| Value. |Sand.| Mud.|Gravel.| Grass.| -------------+------+---------+--------+--------+-----+-----+-------+-------+ Duxbury, | 5 | 60 | 700| 600| 800| -| - | 2,700 | Kingston, | 4 | 50 | 500| 450| 150| -| - | 450 | Plymouth, | 6 | 60 | 3,000| 2,500| 400| 100| - | 1,100 | Barnstable, | 25 | 200 | 700| 550| 200| 150| - | 50 | Yarmouth, | 5 | 40 | 600| 500| 25| 15| 10 | - | Orleans, | 30 | 200 | 3,000| 3,000| 125| 50| 20 | 5 | Eastham, | 36 | 250 | 4,000| 4,000| 100| 50| 30 | 20 | Wellfleet, | 11 | 300 | 800| 640| 450| 5| 150 | - | Truro, | 1 | 2 | 50| 60| 50| -| - | - | Provincetown,| 5 | 15 | 400| 320| 400| -| - | - | Chatham, | 10 | 400 | 1,500| 1,200| 330| 10| 20 | - | Harwich, | - | - | 100| 80| 10| 10| 10 | - | Dennis, | - | - | 50| 45| 25| 15| 10 | - | Mashpee, | 2 | 20 | 50| 45| 20| 5| 20 | 5 | Falmouth, | - | - | 200| 175| 40| 5| 5 | - | Bourne, | - | - | 100| 100| 5| 5| 30 | - | Wareham, | 6 | 100 | 800| 800| 15| 10| 75 | - | Marion, | 1 | 15 | 100| 100| -| -| 10 | - | Mattapoisett,| 1 | 15 | 100| 100| -| 5| 5 | - | Fairhaven, | - | - | 100| 100| -| 25| 25 | - | New Bedford, |320[18] - | 300| 225| 5| 5| 15 | - | Dartmouth, | 4 | 50 | 200| 160| 15| 10| 5 | - | =============+======+===================+===========+======+============ | | PRODUCTIVE AREA. | | | | +--------+----------+ | | | | | |Barren Area| Waste| Possible TOWN. |Total | Good |Scattering|possibly |Barren| Normal | Area |Clamming| Clams |Productive | Area |Production. -------------+------+--------+----------+-----------+------+------------ Duxbury, | 3,500| 5 | 10 | 800 | 2,685| 83,000 Kingston, | 600| 5 | 5 | 150 | 440| 18,000 Plymouth, | 1,600| 10 | 50 | 440 | 1,100| 58,000 Barnstable, | 400| 10 | 10 | 330 | 50| 39,000 Yarmouth, | 50| 5 | 10 | 25 | 10| 6,000 Orleans, | 200| 25 | 50 | 75 | 50| 27,000 Eastham, | 200| 25 | 50 | 100 | 25| 30,000 Wellfleet, | 605| 3 | 12 | 250 | 340| 28,000 Truro, | 50| 1 | 2 | 47 | -| 5,000 Provincetown,| 400| 3 | 3 | 200 | 194| 21,000 Chatham, | 360| 10 | 50 | 300 | -| 44,000 Harwich, | 30| 1 | 5 | 10 | 14| 2,400 Dennis, | 50| 1 | 4 | 30 | 15| 4,200 Mashpee, | 50| 2 | 8 | 30 | 10| 5,400 Falmouth, | 50| 2 | 8 | 40 | -| 6,400 Bourne, | 40| - | 30 | - | 10| 6,000 Wareham, | 100| - | 50 | - | 50| 10,000 Marion, | 10| - | 10 | - | -| 2,000 Mattapoisett,| 10| - | 10 | - | -| 2,000 Fairhaven, | 50| - | 25 | 25 | -| 7,500 New Bedford, | 25| - | 15 | - | 10| 3,000 Dartmouth, | 30| 5 | 15 | - | 10| 5,000 =============+======+=========+=================+===========================+ | | |1907 PRODUCTION. | TOTAL AREA. | | | +--------+--------+-----+-----+-------+-------+ |Number| | | | | | |Mussels| TOWN. | of | Capital | | | | | |and Eel| | Men. |invested.|Bushels.| Value. |Sand.| Mud.|Gravel.| Grass.| -------------+------+---------+--------+--------+-----+-----+-------+-------+ Swansea, | 25 | 250 | 5,000| 5,000| 100| 100| - | - | Somerset, | - | - | 50| 50| -| 25| 25 | - | Dighton, | - | - | 40| 40| -| 5| 5 | - | Berkley, | - | - | 25| 25| -| 5| 5 | - | Freetown, | - | - | 100| 100| -| 10| 15 | - | Fall River, | - | - | 100| 75| -| 20| 5 | - | Nantucket, | 4 | 40 | 400| 350| 150| 25| 25 | - | Edgartown, | 7 | 50 | 1,200| 1,000| 150| -| 50 | - | +------+---------+--------+--------+-----+-----+-------+-------+ Total, |1,361 | $18,142 | 153,865|$150,440|6,269|7,111| 2,125 | 5,580 | =============+======+=========+========+========+=====+=====+=======+=======+ =============+======+===================+===========+======+============ | | PRODUCTIVE AREA. | | | | +--------+----------+ | | | | | |Barren Area| Waste| Possible TOWN. |Total | Good |Scattering|possibly |Barren| Normal | Area |Clamming| Clams |Productive | Area |Production. -------------+------+--------+----------+-----------+------+------------ Swansea, | 200| 20 | 30 | 100 | 50| 24,000 Somerset, | 50| - | 10 | 20 | 20| 4,000 Dighton, | 10| - | 2 | 8 | -| 1,200 Berkley, | 10| - | 4 | 6 | -| 1,400 Freetown, | 25| - | 15 | - | 10| 3,000 Fall River, | 25| - | 10 | 15 | -| 3,500 Nantucket, | 200| 5 | 15 | 130 | 50| 18,000 Edgartown, | 200| 20 | 100 | 50 | 30| 33,000 +------+--------+----------+-----------+------+------------ Total, |21,085| 1,878 | 3,233 | 6,096 | 9,878|$1,801,000 =============+======+========+==========+===========+======+============ _Decline of the Natural Clam Supply._--The decline of the clam supply is a matter of general knowledge. People who live along the seashore realize that they can no longer gather the amount of clams they once could dig with ease from the same flats. On the southern shore of the State especially it is oftentimes difficult to obtain even enough for family use. The consumer also realizes the loss of the clam, as he is forced to pay higher prices. If specific cases of this decline are demanded, the following instances should show the exact depletion in the various localities. Even in the best clam-producing town of the State, Newburyport, where the clam production, according to statistics, has apparently increased during the last twenty-five years (as a result of more men entering the fishery), the supply has shown signs of failing. Essex now possesses many acres of flats formerly productive which now lie in a practically barren condition. Gloucester can no longer boast of her former clam industry, as the flats in Annisquam River are in poor condition. Hardly 30 men now make a business of clamming in that town, whereas 92 men were engaged in the fishery in 1879. Passing south of Gloucester, we find great evidence of decline in the Boston harbor flats. Even before the edict closing the harbor from clammers was in force, the production did not by any means equal that of 1879. Plymouth harbor, including the three towns of Duxbury, Kingston and Plymouth, furnishes an excellent illustration of this decline. Here an area of flats as extensive as all the other flats of the State combined now lies practically barren, whereas in former times great quantities of clams were taken. These flats had already become depleted to a marked extent by 1879, and to-day practically no clams are shipped to market from the Duxbury flats, although you can still read "Duxbury clams" on the menus of the hotels and restaurants, showing how important a clam industry this town once possessed. Buzzards Bay district lies at present unproductive except for supplying home consumption and the demands of the summer people. The shores of Cape Cod no longer yield their former supply of clams, and the most striking example of the extinction of a flourishing fishery is found in the town of Chatham, which now does not produce one-tenth part of its production in 1879. The Fall River or Narragansett Bay district does not come up to its past productiveness, and now chiefly yields clams which in former times would have been considered as too small to use. As can be seen by the following table, which gives a comparison between the industry in 1879 and 1907, the localities south of Gloucester all show a decline in their production, and there is no town on the coast which has not shown some depletion in the natural clam supply. The localities of the north shore, while indicating by their statistics a gain in production, nevertheless have not their former abundance, and the actual diminution of the supply is concealed by the fact that more men have entered the industry. =====================+=========================+=========================== | 1879. | 1907. LOCALITY. +-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------- | Men. |Bushels.| Value. | Men. |Bushels.| Value. ---------------------+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------- Ipswich, | 75 | 11,500 | $4,600 | 136 | 25,000 | $18,750 Salisbury and | | | | | | Newburyport, | 60 | 28,800 | 11,520 | 241 | 70,500 | 77,500 Essex, | 75 | 11,500 | 4,500 | 50 | 15,000 | 12,750 Gloucester, | 92 | 13,978 | 5,200 | 31 | 6,000 | 8,000 Boston harbor, | 90 | 40,000 | 20,000 | 350[19]| 7,500 | 6,000 Duxbury, | -[20]| 5,000 | 2,500 | 5 | 700 | 600 Plymouth | -[20]| 5,000 | 2,500 | 6 | 3,000 | 2,500 Harwich, | 15 | 1,125 | 400 | - | 100 | 80 Chatham, | 150 | 35,000 | 12,250 | 10 | 1,500 | 1,200 Nantucket, | -[19]| 2,253 | 872 | 4 | 400 | 350 Edgartown, | -[20]| 4,000 | 1,570 | 7 | 1,200 | 1,000 New Bedford district,| -[20]| 5,800 | 2,900 | 332[19]| 1,600 | 1,685 Fall River district, | -[20]| 3,375 | 3,121 | 25 | 5,315 | 5,290 =====================+=======+========+========+========+========+========== _Causes of the Decline._--The same cause which has been stated in the general report has contributed to the decline of the clam supply, _i.e._, the increasing demand which has led to overfishing. Thus the decline can be directly attributed to the exploiting of natural clam resources by man, although it must be admitted that natural agencies, such as geographical changes, destroy the clam flats of certain localities and build up others. This decline has become possible through the indifference of the towns to the welfare of their clam fishery, and by not restricting, through town laws, the extermination of the clams in time to allow nature to replenish the flats. Some towns, such as Ipswich, have regulated this matter by placing closed seasons on portions of the flats, which has been the partial means of preserving their natural supply. Thus the town laws have proved inadequate, as most towns have no laws at all, or have such unwise ones that they often defeat their own object. It is again necessary to emphasize the need of reform in the clam industry. This Commonwealth once possessed an extensive supply of clams, and still possesses part of its former abundance; but the present supply is diminishing at such a rate that it will not be a quarter of a century before the natural clam fishery will be commercially extinct. On the south shore clams are now commercially extinct, and it is only a question of time, if the present methods are allowed to remain, before the north shore clams will also disappear. The experiments of the Massachusetts department of fisheries and game and the work of men who have planted this shellfish all show that thousands of dollars can be brought into the State by utilizing the waste clam areas, and that the production can be so increased as to even exceed that of former years. Immediate action is necessary, if this important industry is to be saved. _The Remedy._--The remedy is comparatively simple, and abundant proof of its success is at hand. By restocking the barren and unproductive areas of the Commonwealth the present production can be increased many times. Experiments have shown that clams can be readily, successfully and economically transplanted, and that it is a completely practical undertaking. Not only can the barren areas be restocked, but the yield of the productive areas can be much increased. Clam farming is the only practical method of restocking these areas, and only through such means can the clam flats be made to yield their normal harvest. _Clam Farming._ The subject of clam farming has received a good deal of attention the past few years, and much has been said concerning the enormous profits which would result from the cultivation of this shellfish. While the newspaper statements have been for the most part correct, there has been considerable exaggeration and many details have been inaccurate. To remove any misapprehensions, the following account of clam farming is given. The value of clam farming has been perhaps overestimated. While no fabulous returns are ever to be expected, the yield is large in proportion to the labor, and steady returns are sure. The methods used are simple, the capital required is small, the area suitable for raising clams is extensive, and clam farming gives promise of becoming one of the most prominent and remunerative shore industries. The profits derived from such a system should furnish steady employment for hundreds of men on the Massachusetts coast. Massachusetts possesses thousands of acres of tidal flats which are capable of producing clams. Most of these flats are practically barren, _i.e._, produce no clams in paying quantities, and yet if planted with small clams will yield in from one to two years large quantities of marketable bivalves. This large area of barren flats should be divided into small farms, which should be leased to individuals for the purpose of planting and raising clams. _The Necessity of Clam Farming._--It is a well-known fact that the natural supply of clams is becoming rapidly exhausted, and that this important fishery will become commercially extinct unless steps are taken to check its decline. The only practical means known at the present time is _clam farming_. In the past, methods such as close seasons and restricting the catch have been used, but with poor results, as these have been economically wrong. The correct method in such cases is not to restrict the demand, but to increase the supply. Clam farming offers the only means of increasing the natural production, and not only checking the decline, but establishing a large industry. _Is Clam Farming Practical?_--Clam farming is not a theory but an _established fact_. Clams will grow if planted in suitable places, and will yield large returns. For three years the Commission of Fisheries and Game have made numerous experiments in clam farming in many seacoast towns. They have not only proved its complete practicability, but have also shown that large profits result from successful planting. Records are on file at the State House showing the exact results of these experimental farms, which indicate the future success of clam farming. Besides the experiments of the Commission on Fisheries and Game, _successful clam farming_ is now being carried on in several towns of the State. The leading town in this line is Essex, where at least 15 grants are held by the clammers. The only protection given is based upon public sentiment, which, however, is sufficient to insure the success of the enterprise. All these grants were staked out on flats which were producing no clams when granted, although part of this area was once very productive. So far these grants have proved most successful, thus proving by actual experience that clam farming is a worthy rival of agriculture. _Historical Attempts at Clam Farming._--Clam farming has been in existence for years. The first record of any legislation upon this subject is found in an act to regulate the clam fishery in and around the shores of Plymouth, Kingston and Duxbury in 1870, whereby a license was granted for a term not exceeding five years to any inhabitant of these towns to plant, cultivate and dig clams. This license cost $2.50, and gave the exclusive use of the flats and creeks described to the licensee and his heirs during the time specified, and also the right in an action of tort to recover treble damages from any person who, without his consent, dug or took clams from said grant. Evidently nothing was done to follow out this law, which was soon forgotten. In 1874 an act was passed to regulate the shellfisheries (including clams) in the waters of Mount Hope Bay and its tributaries. The terms of this act were practically the same as the Plymouth act, the only difference being the substitution of the word _shellfish_ for _clam_. In 1888 an act was passed by the town of Winthrop, authorizing the planting of clams on the shores of that town. The grant was to consist of not over 2 acres of _barren_ flats, situated more than 500 feet from high-water mark. The other provisions of this act were the same as those of the Plymouth act of 1870. The most important clam culture law was passed in 1888. This authorized the planting of clams on the shores of Essex. Here the provisions of the law were followed out, and the first energetic attempt at clam farming started. The law, the provisions of which were nearly the same as the previous laws, reads as follows:-- ACTS OF 1888, CHAPTER 198. AN ACT AUTHORIZING THE PLANTING OF CLAMS, IN AND AROUND THE SHORES OF ESSEX. _Be it enacted, etc., as follows:_ SECTION 1. The selectmen of the town of Essex may by writing under their hands grant a license for such a term of years, not exceeding five, as they in their discretion may deem necessary and the public good requires, to any inhabitant of said town, to plant, cultivate and dig clams upon and in any flats and creeks in said town now unproductive thereof, not exceeding two acres to any one person, and not impairing the private rights of any person. SECTION 2. Such license shall describe by metes and bounds the flats and creeks so appropriated and shall be recorded by the town clerk before it shall have any force, and the person licensed shall pay to the selectmen for the use of said town two dollars and to the clerk fifty cents. SECTION 3. The person so licensed and his heirs and assigns shall for the purposes aforesaid have the exclusive use of the flats and creeks described in the license during the term specified therein, and may in an action of tort recover treble damages of any person, who, without his or their consent digs or takes clams from such flats or creeks during the continuance of the license. SECTION 4. Said town of Essex at any legal meeting called for the purpose may make such by-laws, not repugnant to the laws of the commonwealth, as they may from time to time deem expedient to protect and preserve the shellfisheries within said town. SECTION 5. Whoever takes any shellfish from within the waters of said town of Essex in violation of the by-laws established by it or of the provisions of this act shall for every offence pay a fine of not less than five or more than ten dollars and costs of prosecution, and one dollar for every bushel of shellfish so taken. SECTION 6. This act shall take effect upon its passage. [_Approved April 9, 1888._] In the report of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries for 1894 Mr. Ansley Hall gives the following account of clam culture under this act:-- During the first two years (1889-90) the people were slow to avail themselves of the privilege of planting, for fear that after they had spent their time and labor they would not be able to secure protection from trespassers; but in 1891 and 1892 lots were obtained and planted. In 1892 there were 25 acres that were quite productive, about one-third of the entire catch of the section being obtained from them. The catch from these lots is not definitely known, but is estimated at about 2,500 barrels. Cultivated clams possess some advantage over the natural growth, from the fact that they are more uniform in size, and are as large as the best natural clam. They bring $1.75 per barrel, while the natural clams sell for $1.50 per barrel. This is the price received by the diggers. One acre of these clams is considered to be worth $1,000, if well seeded and favorably located so as not to be in danger of being submerged with sand. This valuation would be too high for an average, since all the acres are not equally well seeded and located. The clammers are generally impressed that the industry can be extensively and profitably developed, and their only fear is that they will not be able to secure lots permanently. The greater part of the land available for this purpose is covered by the deeds of people owning farms along the river, and the consent of the land owners has to be obtained before lots can be taken up. It seems probable, however, that the business will continue to progress unless checked by complications that may arise relative to the occupancy of the grounds. The result of this first practical attempt at clam culture was a complete failure, and after a few years' trial the clam farms were all given up. The main reason for this failure was lack of protection both from outsiders and from one another. Nevertheless, this attempt proved that with proper protection a most successful industry could be made of clam farming. The following statement by Prof. James L. Kellogg, in the United States Fish Commission Bulletin for 1899, describes the failure of clam culture at Essex:-- It is not difficult to determine the reasons for the failure of the culture experiment at Essex. The areas upon which clams were planted were those which were at the time unproductive. The beds still containing clams--the "town flats"--were free to any native of Essex. The one thing which was absolutely necessary to the success of any planter was that the clams on his leased ground should not be disturbed by other diggers. This protection was apparently not given in any case by the town authorities, and, as no person lived within sight of the majority of the beds, it was quite impossible for any man to guard his property much of the time. As to what followed it is not easy to obtain definite testimony from the clammers themselves. Other citizens of the town, however, and some few clammers, intimate that most of the men began to take clams from any property but their own, and that in this way the full result of no man's labor in planting was ever realized. Others who did not make clam digging a regular business, but only dug occasionally, are said to have had no respect for the rights of those who had leased property. It was said that at times when vessel builders and the shoe factory released employees, many of them, for lack of other occupation, turned their attention to clam digging, with the result that too many clams were at the time taken from the flats. Another reason for the failure of the Essex experiment is that a number of short-sighted clammers began to fear, after the clams had been planted, that the production might suddenly become so great as to glut their market, and, as a consequence, force prices down. Some few individuals, inspired by this fear, are reported to have said and to have done everything in their power to prevent the success of the experiment. In all cases, it is said, the selectmen of the town, who issued the leases, refused their aid in the prosecution of trespassers. In spite of the fact, which had been demonstrated in the experiment, that when properly planted the clams grew much more rapidly and became much larger than on the natural beds, no applications for a renewal of the leases were made when the first ones expired. No change in the condition at Essex may be hoped for until there is some evidence that a law protecting the planter will be strictly enforced. With proper protection, a great industry might, and probably would, be quickly established, not only in Essex, but in any region where clam flats are now unproductive because of excessive digging. _Protection Necessary._--The same lack of protection which ruined the Essex clam experiments has been the cause of similar failures in other shore towns. As long as no protection is given, clam farming can never become possible, as the whole success of the enterprise depends wholly upon the planter's having complete control of his land. The present law gives absolutely no protection, as according to the old free beach law a person has a right to dig a mess of clams anywhere between the tide lines, no matter whether natural or planted. This practically discourages clam farming, however profitable, as no clammer is going to the labor and expense of planting clams, if the next person who comes along has a legal right to dig as many as he pleases. Until a law is passed which gives to the clam planter absolute protection from this sort of trespassing, and does away with the antiquated free fishing law, clam culture can never become a successful industry. _Present Clam Culture._--In 1906 grants of barren flats were again issued for the purpose of clam culture in Essex, and this time the attempt seemed successful. Two things encouraged this: the excellent results of the experiments in Essex River by the Commission on Fisheries and Game, and the possible results indicated by the experiments of 1888. The only protection for these clam grants is by public sentiment, and the mutual agreement of all the clammers to respect the rights of the individual. So far there has been no trouble from trespassing and the lack of protection, which caused the failure of first attempts. It is hoped that these clam farms will become permanently successful, despite the lack of protection, as they will greatly increase the production of the Essex clam flats. _Clam Farming and Agriculture._--The comparison between clam farming and agriculture is very close, and both possess many common features, though there are several points of difference. The clam obtains its sustenance entirely from the water, while agricultural products obtain their nourishment chiefly from the soil. The nitrogenous waste products of the land washed into the streams furnish the nourishment to the little marine plants (diatoms) on which the clams feed. _Rate of Growth of the Clam._--The report of the Commission on Fisheries and Game for the year 1906 contains the following statements:-- _What is the natural growth of the clam per year?_ There is great diversity in the growth of the clam, owing to the location in respect to three essential conditions,--current, length of time submerged, and soil. The following figures give briefly the general trend of results from numerous experimental beds under great variety of conditions. For simplicity, a 1-inch clam is taken as the standard. A 1-inch clam will grow in one year to a size between 2 and 3 inches. Under fairly favorable conditions, with a moderate current, a 1-inch clam will increase to 2½ inches, or a gain of 900 per cent, in volume. For every quart planted, the yield in one year will be 9 quarts. For beds without current, 1-inch clams average about 2 inches, or a gain of 500 per cent.; _i.e._, five quarts for every quart planted. Beds under exceptionally fine conditions have shown the amazing return of 15 quarts for every quart of 1-inch clams planted. Clams increased in these beds from 1 to 3 inches in length. Therefore, by planting clams 1 inch or over, under _favorable_ conditions a _marketable_ clam can be produced in _one year_. _What is the maximum production per square foot?_ The number of clams per square foot that can be raised to the best advantage depends upon the location of the flat in respect to natural conditions. Clams thickly planted (15 to 20 per square foot) in favorable locations may show a greater growth than when thinly planted (5 per square foot) in less favorable locations; therefore, no definite statement can be made which will apply in all cases. The only rule that can be given is that a flat with a current will produce a greater number of clams per square foot than one without a current. On good flats clams can be planted conveniently and economically from 10 to 15 per square foot, or even a larger number. _What results can be obtained by planting on barren flats?_ There are two groups of flats which come under the term barren: (1) flats which once produced clams in great numbers, but now are practically barren, except for an occasional clam here and there; (2) flats which never have produced clams, and on which for physical reasons clams can never grow. The first group of flats is alone considered in this answer. Experimental beds were planted on certain flats in the Essex River which come within the first group of barren flats. These once productive flats had been cleaned out in the past, and for some reason had not seeded naturally. Forty beds were laid out under all kinds of conditions, with the object of finding a way to make these once more productive. Results have been all that could be hoped for. Only 4 poor beds were found, out of the 40 laid out; 36 beds were in thriving condition. It should be noted that no attempt was made to choose the best places, but all conditions were tried. Over two-thirds of the clams were re-dug, the increase averaging, in terms of 1-inch clams, over 1,000 per cent., or 10 quarts for every quart planted the year before. If many acres of Massachusetts flat, idle at present, are capable of such a yield, should such economic waste be allowed? Why should not the towns, by the expenditure of a little money, restock flats such as these for the benefit of their inhabitants? I do not say that all flats can be made productive in this way, as I know of many cases where the mere sowing of seed clams will not restock a flat; but I do say that Massachusetts possesses enough flats of the former nature, which should be made a profit to her clammers. Clam set occurs, as Mr. Stevenson shows in his report, in large quantities; the transportation of seed clams is easy; planting requires little labor, the practical way being to sow the clams, which burrow readily; while the yield in proportion to the labor is enormous. _What sized clams are best for planting?_ The size best adapted must be determined for each flat. Shore flats with little current will allow the planting of any size, from ¼ inch up; flats with a swift current necessitate a larger clam (1 to 1½ inches), as the smaller will be washed out of its burrow; soft mud also demands a larger clam, as the smaller will be stifled by the oozy silt. _What are the physical conditions that influence the growth of clams?_ There appear at least three essential conditions for rapid growth of clams: (1) a good current; (2) low and level flat; and (3) a tenacious soil, relatively free from decaying matter. A low flat gives the clams longer feeding periods, as the water remains over them longer, therefore there is a greater growth. This has been experimentally shown by Dr. A. D. Mead. According to Prof. J. L. Kellogg, clams cannot do well in a soil which contains much decaying organic matter, as the acids eat away the shells. Soils of this description also facilitate the spread of infection from one clam to another. Current is the chief essential for successful clam culture. The term "current" does not imply a rapid flow of water, but rather a good circulation of water over the flat. In the Essex and Ipswich rivers the clam flats have a continuous current. On such flats the growth is more rapid than on flats which have no circulation of water, in addition to the mere rise and fall of the tide. The current performs the work of (1) keeping the flats clean and carrying away all contamination, but its most important work is as (2) _food carrier_. _Value of a Clam Farm._--The value of an acre of clam flats, if properly cultivated, is about $450 per year for the average clam flat. Many of the more productive flats will yield a far greater amount, while others will not yield as much. It has been often erroneously stated that an acre of clam flats would produce $1,000 per year. This is a decided overestimation, as it would be hardly possible for the most productive flat to yield that amount. It is possible, however, for a good flat to yield about $750 per year, but this is only under the most favorable conditions. Such yields as these are large for the clammer, whose average yearly income is only $400 (a few of the more expert clammers make possibly $700 to $750), and a man possessing a clam farm of 1½ to 2 acres would make a good living. _Method of operating a Clam Farm: choosing the Ground._--In choosing a grant, the planter should have in mind three things: (1) the accessibility of the grant, for his own convenience, and nearness to the market, as much of the success of clam farming depends upon the expense of marketing the product, and the ease with which it can be disposed of; (2) the length of time allowed for labor by the exposure of the flat (flats vary greatly in the amount of time exposed each tide, the low flats being submerged nearly all the time, and the high flats having a much longer exposure),--a high flat possesses the advantage of allowing a longer working period for the clammer; (3) the natural facilities of the flat itself as regards the growth of clams. Moreover, the flat should be chosen in regard to (1) soil; (2) current; (3) tide. A good flat should have a soil which is tenacious and compact, affording at the same time easy digging. Probably the best soil is a mixture of fine sand and mud in a ratio of one-third mud to two-thirds sand, as this amount of mud gives the right degree of tenacity. The growth of a clam depends upon the circulation of water over the flat, as the current carries the food, and, therefore, the more current the more food for the clams. Current also keeps the bed clean, and prevents contamination and disease from spreading among the clams. Then, again, the growth of a clam depends upon the amount of water over the bed; _i.e._, length of time covered. The clam can only feed when the tide is over the bed, and thus the feeding time is limited for the higher flats. While experiments have shown that clams grow faster when continually under water than when exposed part of the time, the question of tide is not so great a factor as that of current in regard to clam growth, and can be almost disregarded. The best flat for clam planting is a _fairly high flat_ with a _good current_ over it, as it gives nearly as rapid growth and a much longer period to dig than a flat which is exposed only a short period. This flat must have the right kind of soil, which must not be shifting sand or too soft mud, but a compact, tenacious mixture. _The Seed Clams._--Nature has provided the means of stocking these farms. The set of clams is usually restricted to certain localities, which, however, vary from time to time, and heavy sets are found in limited areas. These sets run as thick as 2,000 per square foot of surface, occasionally covering an area of 3 acres. From these natural set areas the natural clam flats are partially restocked by the washing out of the small clams. More often these whole sets are wasted, as the clams, instead of washing on the good flats, are carried to unproductive places and consequently perish. Thus there are areas of heavy set which are of no use to any one, as practically all the clams perish before they become adults. These areas of heavy set occur in nearly every harbor of the coast to a greater or less extent, and are available for nearly every town. The problem now is to make use of these large sets, and not allow them to go to waste. It has been shown that these clams when transplanted will grow much faster, and will not perish; therefore, clam farming offers both the possibility of saving these natural sets and utilizing barren ground. Methods of spat collecting have been constantly referred to in connection with clam farming, especially by the Rhode Island Fish Commission, and the impression has been given that clam farming can never become a success until some practical method of spat collecting has been found. With the soft clam there is no need of any method of spat collecting, as the natural set is more than sufficient for restocking the barren flats. All that is necessary is to utilize the enormous natural sets. If this is done, the barren flats of Massachusetts can be made productive. The main difficulty is in devising some method of obtaining the small clams with sufficient rapidity. As the nature of the soil and the size of the clams vary, no one method can apply to every case, and it depends upon the ingenuity of the clammer. The methods used at present are: (1) digging with an ordinary clam hoe, which is slow work; (2) digging in shallow water, so that the clams may be washed out; (3) digging a series of trenches across the heavy set area, and scooping out the clams washed in these trenches; (4) carrying both sand and clams by the dory load; (5) by using a sieve, in the form of a cradle, which washes the clams out in the water. This last method is the most successful for small clams, and has been used by the commission in obtaining seed clams for their experimental beds. By using a cradle 3 by 2 feet, covered with sand wire netting, clams which ran 3,000 per quart, were obtained by 3 men at the rate of 2 bushels an hour,--an amount sufficient to plant from 1/25 to 1/10 of an acre. Another problem of importance is the transportation of seed clams, as in many instances the clams will have to be carried some distance. The best method of shipping seed clams is to pack them dry in damp sea weed, putting them in small packages, so they will not be crushed by their own weight. The best though most expensive method is to pack the clams in crates, such as are used for strawberries. It has been found that clams kept in water are not in such good condition as those shipped dry, and it is of the utmost importance that the clams be in good condition when planted. The length of time a clam will live out of its natural element depends upon the temperature; in cold weather it will keep for several days, and even weeks; while in warm weather the seed clam will be in poor condition after one day's exposure. _Preparing the Grant._--Usually the ground needs no preparation, and the clams can be planted at once. It is a good plan to remove any mussels and any of the enemies of the clam from the grant. _Planting the Clams._--The planting of the seed clams is perhaps the easiest work of the clam culturist, as it necessitates merely the sowing of the seed on the surface of the flat. The small clams when left this way burrow into the ground as soon as the water is over them, and require no planting on the part of the culturist. _Working the Farm._--This style of farming requires no cultivation for the growth of the clams. Once planted, the farmer has no further work until the time when he is ready to dig them. The clams grow better when undisturbed than when the soil is upturned by frequent digging. Protection from man and the natural enemies of the clam demand the attention of the owner at all times. _Harvesting the Clams._--The time of digging will vary as to the size of clam desired and the rate of growth on the grant. The clam farmer can cater to a particular trade by regulating the size of the clams marketed. He may find it more profitable to market a small clam after a short period of growth, or _vice versa_, on the same principle that a farmer raises hogs for the market. North of Boston, in localities favorable for fast growth, such as the Essex and Ipswich rivers, by planting large seed of at least l½ inches in the spring, marketable clams of 2½ to 3 inches can be obtained in the fall after six months' growth. Here the clams grow only during the summer months, and nothing would be gained by leaving them over winter. In this way a crop each year can be raised on these farms. In other localities of slower growth it will take from eighteen to twenty-four months to raise a crop. The clam farmer will have to regulate the size of the seed and length of growth to best suit the needs of his farm. _Advantages of Clam Farming._--Clam culture possesses several advantages over the old free-for-all digging: (1) steadier returns; (2) easier work; (3) better pay; (4) more clams per man. If the clammers of the Commonwealth only realized these facts they would make a united effort toward clam culture. _History._ I. _Early History._--The history of the Massachusetts clam industry began in obscurity. Even before the time of the earliest settlers the native Indians depended largely upon this abundant mollusk for their food supply, as is clearly indicated by the scattered shell heaps which mark their ancient camp fires. Upon the arrival of the Pilgrims, clam digging was incorporated among the most time-honored industries of the Commonwealth, and in times of want the early colonists depended largely upon this natural food supply. With the arrival of the colonists really began the first epoch of the clam fishery as an economic factor in this Commonwealth, a period which lasted nearly two hundred years. This period marked the exploitation of clam grounds merely for home consumption. Money was scarce, inland markets were practically unknown, and the importance of this shellfish was confined merely to local quarters. II. _Rise of the Bait Industry._--Early in the last century a growing demand for clams as bait for the sea fisheries became apparent. Clams had always been utilized for this purpose more or less, but an increased demand called for the development of an important industry in this line. Various centers of activity were established, particularly at Newburyport, Essex, Ipswich, Boston harbor and Chatham. The clams were mainly shucked, that is, removed from the shell, and shipped either fresh or salted in barrels to the fishermen at Gloucester, Boston and Provincetown. This industry opened up new fields of employment for many men and boys, and brought considerable ready money into various coast communities. III. _The Development of Inland Markets._--The consumption of clams for food in the coast towns continued throughout the rise and gradual decline of the bait industry, but the creation of inland markets did not begin to be an important factor until 1875. It was about this time that the clam came to be generally looked upon throughout the State as an article of food, and consequently an important industry was gradually evolved to meet this growing demand. This step marked the beginning of the extensive fishery of the present day. The mistaken policy of the average shellfish community, which regarded clam grounds as natural gardens of inexhaustible fertility, still persisted even after the fallacy of this policy had long proved apparent through the depletion of extensive tracts. The same ill-advised methods were pursued to the ultimate ruination of much valuable territory. All wise regard for the future was overshadowed by the immediate needs of the present; local legislation fostered the evil; State legislation was conspicuous by its absence; and, left to the mercy of unsystematic overdigging, these natural resources rapidly wasted away. The disastrous tendencies which have lurked in the ruling policy of the clam fishery have been shown in the rise and fall of the industry in certain localities. Forty years ago Duxbury and Plymouth ranked as the greatest clam towns of the coast. Their supply has long since become insignificant. Newburyport and Ipswich have become the chief producers of the State clam harvest; but Essex and Gloucester, in the same fertile regions, have greatly declined, and the industry at Rowley has become nearly extinct. In the Fall River district the digging of small seed clams for food has brought the fishery to the verge of ruin. The few resources of Buzzards Bay have become nearly exhausted, while on Cape Cod the industry has shown here and there a temporary increase, overshadowed by a far more extensive decline, such as at Chatham. Furthermore, the sewage contamination of coast waters in the harbors of Boston and several other large cities have closed extensive regions for the production of food. IV. _Attempts to develop the Industry._--Various efforts have been made to restrain overdigging the clam flats, by local regulations, particularly by "close" seasons. These attempts have been productive of little good. Other efforts, designed to develop extensive tracts made barren by wasteful methods of fishing, have been put in operation. These efforts have been along two independent lines: the first, an effort on the part of the community to seed in common flats by the appropriation of money for that purpose, as in the case of Wellfleet; the second, an attempt to arrive at the same end by leasing private grants to individuals, as at Essex and Plymouth. These efforts, while tending in the right direction, have not as yet yielded the results that might be wished for. Within the past three years the State has taken hold of the problem, and by an extensive series of experiments is endeavoring to devise practical means of developing the great inherent possibilities in this extensive industry. CLAM PRODUCTION TABLE FOR MASSACHUSETTS, OBTAINED FROM THE REPORTS OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. =======+==========+=========+=================== | | | YEAR. | Bushels. | Value. | Price per Bushel | | | (Cents). -------+----------+---------+------------------- 1880, | 158,626 | $76,195 | 41.73 1887, | 230,659 | 121,202 | 52.54 1888, | 243,777 | 127,838 | 52.44 1889, | 240,831 | 137,711 | 57.14 1892, | 191,923 | 133,529 | 69.57 1898, | 147,095 | 102,594 | 69.74 1902, | 227,941 | 157,247 | 68.98 1905, | 217,519 | 209,545 | 96.19 =======+==========+=========+=================== _The Clam Industry._ _Methods of Digging._--The ordinary method of taking clams is so simple as hardly to need explanation. Although simple, clam digging requires considerable skill, and it takes years of experience to become a good clammer. There are two methods of clam digging used in Massachusetts,--the "wet" and the "dry" digging. Wet digging is carried on when water is over the clam beds; dry digging, which is the common method, takes place when the flats are left exposed by the tides. The only places in Massachusetts where wet digging is carried on regularly are Eastham, Chatham, Swansea, and in Katama Bay, Edgartown. In the lower end of Katama Bay is found a submerged bed of clams which is one of the most productive beds of this class in Massachusetts. These submerged clams are taken with what is known locally as a "sea horse," which is an enlarged clam hoe, with prongs 12 to 14 inches long, and a strong wooden handle four feet in length. This handle has a belt attachment which is buckled around the clammer. Two men are required for this work. The sea horse is worked deep into the loose sand and is dragged along by one man, who wades in the shallow water over these submerged flats, while his partner follows, gathering the clams which the sea horse roots out. Another method of wet digging is called "churning," and is based on the same principle as the above method, only the clams are turned out under water by long forks or hoes. This method is not used in Massachusetts to any extent. Excellent results are usually obtained from wet digging. The methods used in dry digging depend upon the nature of the soil. The difference lies only in the kind of digger. The clam hoe of the south shore, where the soil is either coarse sand or gravel, has broad prongs, some even being 1¼ inches across. The usual number of prongs is four, but occasionally three broad prongs suffice. The clam hoe of the north shore, often called "hooker," has four thin, sharp prongs and a short handle. The set of this handle is a matter of choice with the individual clammers, some preferring a sharp, acute angle, and others a right angle. This style of clam hoe is best suited for the hard, tenacious clam flats of the north shore. At Essex spading forks are used for clamming, but not as extensively as the hooker. For sand digging the forks are said to be better, while for mud digging the hooker is preferred. _Outfit of a Clammer._--The outfit of a clammer does not require much outlay of capital. A skiff or dory, one or two clam hoes and three or four clam baskets complete the list. Occasionally, as at Ipswich, where the clam grounds are widely scattered, power dories are used, and this necessitates the investment of considerable capital; but the investment of the average clammer does not exceed $26. Personal apparel, such as oilskins and boots, are not considered under this head. CLAMMING OUTFIT. Skiff dory, $22.00 Two clam diggers, 1.50 Four clam baskets, 2.00 ------ Total, $25.50 The boats most often used by the north shore clammers are called "skiff dories," and in construction are between a dory and a skiff. These boats are especially adapted for use in rivers. _Marketing._--Clams are shipped to market either in the shell or "shucked out." Two rules are followed by the clammers in making this distinction: (1) small clams, or "steamers," are shipped in the shell, especially during the summer months, while the large clams are "shucked;" (2) the fine-appearing sand clam is usually sold in the shell, while the unprepossessing mud clam is shucked, _i.e._, the shell and the external covering of the siphon or neck are removed. This causes on the north shore a division by locality. The Ipswich and Essex clams, except for a few individual orders, are mostly shipped to market in the shell, while the Annisquam River and Newburyport clams are usually shucked in the winter. Little if any shucking is done by the south shore clammers. Shucking almost doubles the value, as a bushel of clams, worth in the shell 75 cents, will furnish, when soaked, about 10 quarts of shucked clams, which bring about 50 cents per gallon, or a total of $1.25 when marketed. The shucked clams are put through a process of soaking in the same way the scallop "eyes" are treated before marketing. They absorb a sufficient quantity of fresh water, after soaking six hours, to increase their bulk about one-third and give a plump appearance to the clams. While many clammers do not soak their clams, it seems to be a universal tendency, wherever clams are shucked, to gain by this method. Soaking of any sort impairs the flavor of the clam, and for this reason such a practice is to be deplored, but as long as the consumer is satisfied to take second-rate goods, this practice will continue, and it can be stopped only by the united demand of the shellfish dealers. _Shipment._--Second-hand flour and sugar barrels are used for the shipment of clams in the shell, while kegs and butter tubs hold the shucked clams. In winter clams can be shipped inland without perishing; but in hot weather they will spoil in a few days, unless iced. _Maine Clams._--Massachusetts annually consumes many thousand barrels of Maine clams. If the demand of the Boston market were not partially met by the influx of Maine clams, the clam flats of Massachusetts would be subject to a greater drain. _Market._--The principal market for the clam industry of Massachusetts is Boston. Gloucester, Newburyport, Salem and Lynn draw part of the clam trade of the north shore, but the greater portion goes to Boston, whence it is distributed throughout the State. In recent years shipments have been made from the Ipswich Bay region direct to New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. _Price._--The price of clams is fairly constant, varying but little in summer and winter. Naturally, this seems curious, when winter and summer clamming are compared. The production in winter is much smaller than in summer, which is due to (1) fewer clammers, because of the severe work in cold weather; (2) less working days, as the clammer is often unable to dig for weeks, and even months, and also cannot work early or late tides, as in summer. In spite of this diminution of supply, the winter price is practically no higher. This is due to a smaller demand in winter, as well as to the influx of the Maine clams at this season. In summer there is an increased demand for clams, caused by the arrival of the summer people at the seashore; and large quantities of this shellfish are used by hotels, cottages, etc. This increase in demand is enough to offset the increase in supply, resulting in a stationary price. The price varies as to the quality of the clams, whether soaked or unsoaked, small or large, good or poor looking shells, and fresh or stale. The average price as received by the clammer for clams in the shell is 75 cents per bushel; shucked clams, when soaked, 45-50 cents per gallon. _Arrangement of Towns._ Owing to the peculiarities of the different localities, it has been impossible to satisfactorily arrange the towns alphabetically. Therefore, in order to present local comparisons, they have been arranged in geographical order, starting at the northern boundary of the State. _Salisbury._ Salisbury, the most northerly town in the State, has a good clam territory, very similar to that of Newburyport, though much smaller in area. Almost all the clam ground, and practically all the very good digging, is comprised in a single flat, which extends along the northerly bank of the Merrimac for nearly 2 miles. This flat is about 900 feet wide, on an average, and has a total area of 216 acres. On the eastern end, and skirting the channel, it is sandy; but for the most part it is mud throughout, varying from a hard, smooth surface in the middle portion to a soft, scummy soil on the west. About 100 acres in the central section of this flat are covered with a thick set of clams, especially from 1 to 2 inches. This territory furnishes the bulk of the good digging, and is being constantly turned over and the larger clams sorted out. Roughly speaking, the main east half of the flat is sandy, or hard mud, with very good clamming, the western half softer mud, with fair or scattering clams. This is an exceptionally fine natural clam flat, and if properly cultivated its production would be immensely increased. At the eastern extremity of the flat a long, narrow cove extends in a general northerly direction into the main land. This cove, including the outer fringing bars, contains some 34 acres of flats, for the most part sandy and rather poorly productive, though no considerable area is anywhere strictly barren. The combined clam flat territory of the town aggregates 250 acres, comprising 150 acres of good clamming and 100 acres of scattering clams; of these, 216 acres are of mud and 34 acres of sand. While the town records show 66 licensed clammers, only about 50 make clamming their chief occupation. The industry is carried on in much the same manner as at Newburyport; $625 is invested in boats and implements, and some 15,000 bushels of clams, aggregating $16,500, are annually produced. The clam industry at Salisbury is largely stationary as regards available territory, while the production varies considerably from year to year. There is little or no town legislation affecting the industry, except the issuing of permits by the selectmen. These permits cost 25 cents, and are required from every clammer. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 66 Capital invested, $625 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 15,000 Value, $16,500 Total area (acres):-- Sand 34 Mud, 216 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 250 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 150 Scattering clams, 100 Barren area possibly productive (acres), - Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $70,000 _Newburyport._ Newburyport is pre-eminently the clam town of Massachusetts. It produces the most clams, gives employment to the most men, and has on the whole the finest flats. The total clam-growing area of this town comprises about 1,080 acres; of this, some 800 acres are more or less productive, while the balance, 280 acres, is practically nonproductive. Scattering clams exist everywhere, so there are, properly speaking, no truly barren flats. The flats of Newburyport, broad, level and continuous, are peculiarly adapted to clam culture. The general type of soil is mud, varying from a soft, sticky variety on the west coast, and also along the shores of Plum Island, to a firm, hard surface in the great middle section north of Woodbridge's Island, where clams flourish most abundantly and furnish the best digging within the city limits. Here nearly 100 acres are covered with a heavy set of 1 to 2 inch clams. Altogether there are some 930 acres of this mud. Much of this, especially to the west and south, is apparently unfavorable to clams, being soft and unwholesome, but even here at certain seasons clams are dug extensively. The sand flats include the shifting Hump sands that fringe the Merrimac channel and the Cove on Plum Island. These and other minor sections comprise about 150 acres. The Hump sands are quite productive. The other sand flats are not entirely barren, but practically unutilized. The clam industry at Newburyport furnishes employment for about 175 men, although over 200 depend upon it for some portion of their income. The season lasts the year round, though on account of storms and ice the winter's work is rather uncertain. A good fisherman will, under favorable circumstances, dig several bushels of clams at a tide, though the ordinary man will probably not average more than a bushel and a half, taking the whole year into account. The outlay of capital invested is comparatively small. A flat-bottom boat or dory, a clam hoe or two, and three or four wire-bottom baskets, constitute a clammer's outfit, costing altogether perhaps $15 or $20. As two or more men frequently go in one boat, even this expenditure may be reduced. The shore property in use, consisting of from 8 to 10 shanties, is also inconsiderable. Several power boats are used, however, and their added cost brings the aggregate money invested up to about $2,700. The flats of Newburyport are a large factor in its economic wealth. During 1907 they produced nearly 55,500 bushels of clams, exceeding $61,000 in value. Nearly two-thirds of these clams were shucked, that is, removed from the shell and sold by the gallon. In this form, usually soaked to increase their volume, they retail for about 45 cents per gallon. As clams in the shell, sold for "steamers," etc., will hardly bring more than 65 cents per bushel, the process of shucking nearly doubles the value to the fisherman, as a bushel of clams in the shell will produce from 2 to 3 gallons of soaked clams. The income of the average clammer will hardly exceed $350 per year, but a really energetic and industrious fisherman may in the same time make from $500 to $700, or even more. Many of the men have individual orders from dealers in Lynn, Haverhill and the neighboring cities, while the local dealers ship largely to Boston. The regulation of the industry by city ordinance is of very little note. Practically the only legislation pertaining to it is the law which requires every clammer to have a permit, but even this regulation is but indifferently enforced. The Newbury flats are likewise free to the Newburyport clammers, and part of the Newburyport production comes from these outside flats. The history of the clam industry at Newburyport is one of constant change. Twenty years ago large areas on southwest Joppa were practically barren; now they are quite productive. The reverse is true of Ball's flat on Plum Island, which, though once of great importance, is now almost waste. Though no serious inroads have as yet been made, a slow but steady decline in the industry is distinctly noticeable. COMPARISON OF 1907 WITH 1879 (SALISBURY AND NEWBURYPORT). =======+============+=========+======+==========+========== | | | | | YEAR. | Production | Value. | Men. | Capital. | Price | (Bushels). | | | | per | | | | | Bushel. =======+============+=========+======+==========+========== | | | | | 1879, | 28,800 | $11,520 | 60 | $750 | $0.40 | | | | | 1907, | 70,500 | 77,500 | 241 | 3,325 | 1.10 =======+============+=========+======+==========+========== SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 175 Capital invested, $2,700 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 55,500 Value, $61,000 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 150 Mud, 930 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 1,080 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 800 Scattering clams, 280 Barren area possibly productive (acres), - Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $250,000 _Newbury._ The town of Newbury has in itself no shellfish industry, although there is an extensive area of suitable flats which are worked with equal rights by the Newburyport clammers. These flats comprise some 360 acres, and extend along both sides of Plum Island Sound and Parker River. Over 100 acres of scattering clams occur, though not in sufficient quantities for the most part to make very profitable digging. The remainder, some 260 acres, though almost all suitable for the production of large quantities of clams, is practically barren. The principal type of soil is mud, and the mud flats comprise about 250 acres. The flats of Parker River and those in its immediate neighborhood, however, are largely sand, and altogether they aggregate about 110 acres. Of these, "the thoroughfare" is practically the only one which furnishes clams in any quantity. Sections of the broad flats which border on Plum Island Sound produce scattering clams of large size. There is, however, no very good digging in town, and no consistent effort seems ever to have been made to utilize the great wealth which lies dormant in the clam flat territory. Six Newbury men dig intermittently in the summer, and furnish some 300 bushels, worth about $250, for town trade. However, this does not take into consideration the amount taken from these flats by the Newburyport clammers. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 6 Capital invested, $75 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 300 Value, $250 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 110 Mud, 250 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 360 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 100 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 260 Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $40,000 _Rowley._ Rowley presents a more striking example of the decline in the shellfish industry than any other town in this region. Four hundred acres of good flats border Plum Island and Rowley River within the town limits, but of these only 20 at most are economically productive. Eighty acres more are not entirely barren, though practically worthless, while the remaining 300, though almost all well adapted for clam culture, are barren. The main type of soil is sand, and the sand flats, for the most part in Plum Island Sound, comprise some 250 acres. The remainder, 150 acres, is mostly mud in scattered sections along the Rowley River and in patches on the main flats. The only really productive flats are the little coves and creeks of Rowley River and the Knob Reefs in Plum Island Sound. The Knob Reef clam grounds produce very large and fine clams, which lie on the lower edge of the flat and are exposed only a short time every tide. Knob Reefs also has the distinction of possessing probably the finest clam set of its size in the State, which would furnish abundant opportunity for restocking all the barren Rowley River flats, if the town authorities had taken proper measures to transplant this seed. As it is, this extensive set, too thick for good growth, is rapidly wasting away. The history of the industry is one of steady decline. Reliable evidence exists to show that almost all the flats of Rowley once produced clams, and that large areas now waste were formerly productive. That these immense barren areas, possessing such an enormous latent wealth, should be allowed to remain thus unimproved, is a most conclusive argument for the need of radical action. No settled attempt, however, except for a single closed season in 1906, has ever been made by the clammers or town authorities to better the conditions, or to check the decline in the productive territory that remains. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 15 Capital invested, $800 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 2,000 Value, $1,500 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 250 Mud, 150 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 400 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 20 Scattering clams, 80 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 300 Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $60,000 _Ipswich._ Ipswich is second only to Newburyport in the production of clams, and has perhaps even greater possibilities of development. The clam territory of the two towns, while nearly equal in extent, is, however, markedly different in general characteristics. The flats of Newburyport, while few in number, are broad, continuous, and have a great degree of similarity throughout. The flats of Ipswich, on the other hand, are divided into a great number of relatively small sections, widely diversified in character, and scattered along an extensive coast line. As these flats are in many respects the most interesting and important of any town in the State, it seems well to examine them in detail. Four distinct divisions can be distinguished in the clam territory of this town: Ipswich River, Plum Island, Green's Creek and Roger Island, and Essex River flats. Taken in the order named, the Ipswich River has in itself a great variety of clam ground. Both sides of the river for nearly 3 miles are fringed with bars, mainly of mud though sandy near the mouth. Some of the mud flats are so soft that they are practically barren, or given up largely to mussel beds; while much of the sand, as, _e.g._, the main portion of the High Sands, is too shifting to be valuable. The larger part of these river flats are, however, productive. The Plum Island division comprises Lufkins, Point Peter, Appletons, Foresides and several other minor flats. Of these, Lufkins is very important. It occupies a semicircular depression on the coast of Plum Island, and, owing to its peculiar location, the swift current which flows past its outer edge makes a double eddy at both ebb and flood tide. These eddies sweep gently over its broad surface, and deposit a fine silt which has made the characteristic soil a hard, bluish clay. This is the only important clay flat of this region. The total area of Lufkins is 46 acres. The outer border to the north is mud, becoming soft; to the south, sandy. The portion near shore is, as has been stated, a clayey soil, and it is here that clams are found abundantly. An exceptionally good set of 1 to 2 inch clams occupies from 3 to 4 acres of this portion. Though clams are numerous, the exceeding hardness of the soil makes digging rather difficult. Point Peter, or "P'int" Peter, is also an important flat, comprising altogether 28 acres, though about 7 acres of the outer portion extend far into the current, and are of so shifting and sandy a nature as to be practically worthless. Most of the remainder is mud, varying from sand and hard mud on the outside to soft mud in the creeks that lead into the main land. The central portion of the flat is peculiarly adapted to the culture of clams, however, and is very productive. Appleton's flat comprises about 6 acres of hard sand, verging into mud, thickly strewn with old clam shells. It lies at the mouth of Perkins and Pine Creeks, which run for about a mile into the main land of Plum Island, and contain nearly 25 acres each of fairly productive mud flats. Appleton's is a valuable flat, and the clams dug here are large. The Foresides is a thatch island a little over a mile in length, lying in the mid channel of Plum Island Sound. The flats which surround it on all sides are practically all sand, and comprise about 80 acres. The whole western side is more or less productive, though the outer edge, where the strong cross currents of the channel sweep over, is too much rippled to be suitable for clam growth. The strip of sand along the northern and northeastern sides, though rather narrow and limited in area, is productive, while most of the southeastern portion, which projects far into the channel, is barren and totally unadapted for soft clams, though bedded with sea clams. The productive sections of this flat are much dug, and altogether it is one of the most important of the Ipswich clam grounds. The west coast of Plum Island Sound, comprising the Green's Creek and Roger Island territories, extends from the Ipswich to the Rowley rivers. This division contains the bulk of the waste and barren flats of the town, although there is exceptionally good clamming in Stacy's Creek, Third Creek and the "Nutfield." The Essex River region is rather remote for most of the clammers, and hard to reach, but furnishes on the whole some of the very best digging. The three main flats of this division are the Essex beach, Wheeler's, and the Spit. Essex beach has a very good set, evenly sprinkled over the ridgy, shifting bars that skirt the channel. Wheeler's is an irregular sand bar, occupying about 77 acres. Fully one-half of this is very productive, and in the main portion occurs another thick set very similar to that on Essex beach. The Spit, mainly sand or sandy mud, lies in the three towns of Ipswich, Essex and Gloucester. The whole area is some 300 acres, about a third lying within the town of Ipswich. This whole bar is so liable to change that any calculations based on its precise area or location are decidedly unreliable. Very good digging occurs, however, in limited areas on the north and west sides of the Ipswich territory. These four divisions comprise the clamming territory of Ipswich, and aggregate 970 acres, of which 390 acres is sand and 500 mud. This also includes 15 acres of mussels scattered along Ipswich River, Plum Island and Green's Creek region, and about 10 acres of eel grass in various localities. Over 800 acres is more or less productive, about half being good clamming. About 50 regular clammers depend upon these flats for a living, though 136 permits were issued in 1907. Here, owing to the greater distances to be traversed, many power boats are used. Nearly $7,500 is invested in the industry, and 25,000 bushels of clams, at a valuation of $18,750, are annually produced. The relative decrease in price as compared with Newburyport is due to the fact that shucking is not so extensively practised here. The town laws merely require a permit from every clammer, for which no charge is made. Such permit is issued at the discretion of the selectmen, and requires of the recipient six months' residence in the town and two years in the State. In past years the town has made several by-laws for the protection of shellfish, chiefly in the nature of partial closed seasons; but unfortunately considerable difficulty has been found in enforcing these excellent laws, and the results have been far from satisfactory. Ipswich has jealously guarded the rights of its clam flats, and has protected them in every way from the invasion of outsiders, which in part accounts for the excellent condition of these flats, which were originally deeded to the Commoners by the Crown, and from them to the town. Ipswich is the only town in the Commonwealth which has thus directly received its clam flats as its own property, and naturally has done more to improve its natural clam resources than any other town in the State. The history of the industry shows little change; some few flats once considered worthless have been opened and utilized; others once productive have been dug out and allowed to become waste. On the whole, the industry is following the trend of the shellfisheries everywhere, and slowly but steadily declining. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 136 Capital invested, $7,500 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 25,000 Value, $18,750 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 390 Mud, 500 Gravel, 55 Mussels and eel grass, 25 Total, 970 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 400 Scattering clams, 420 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 125 Waste barren area (acres), 25 Possible normal production, $200,000 _Essex._ Essex, while still ranking as an important clam-producing town, has a very imperfect development of her shellfish resources. The total clam flat area comprises some 650 acres, and, though scarcely more than 25 acres can be considered as unfit for the growth of clams, and consequently barren, only a little more than half the remainder is at all productive, and of this probably less than 150 acres yields any financial return. In other words, 325 acres of good clam flat is allowed to remain practically barren. The main type of soil is sand, and nearly 500 acres may be properly classed under this head. The remaining 150 acres are mud, and are located in the creeks along the river and in the coves north of Hog Island. The productive sections are scattered for the most part along both sides of the Essex River, and well-developed areas are also found at its mouth and on the Spit. There are several good locations of seed clams. One section of about 25 acres occurs on the west side of the Spit. This is composed of 1 to 2 inch clams, running 10 to 40 per square foot. At the mouth of the river on the north side occurs another set of ½-inch clams, covering about 10 acres. On the flats west of Cross Island is found a third set of ½ to 2 inch clams, comprising about 30 acres. Other smaller patches of set are scattered along the river almost up to its source. About 50 men derive an income from these flats. Some $1,200 is invested, and the annual product exceeds 15,000 bushels, valued at $12,750. The town of Essex has realized the importance of the clam problem, and has attempted through legislation to deal with it. The selectmen are empowered to grant to citizens of the town an area consisting of an acre or less on flats already barren, for the purpose of raising clams, and in this manner partially restock the flats. A rental of $2 is charged, covering a period of five years, and an additional fee of 50 cents is required for recording. In spite of inadequate protection, the experiment has been conducted long enough to prove that these flats can be made profitable to the clammers. The history of the clam industry at Essex is one of extensive decline. There is every reason to believe that the greater part at least of the waste area was once very productive. Prof. James L. Kellogg in the United States Fish Commission Bulletin for 1899, says:-- We have much evidence that the clam industry in Essex has, in the past, been extensive.... Much more testimony of a similar character may be had to show that the flats once very productive have almost entirely failed. COMPARISON OF 1907 WITH 1879. ======================+========+======== | | | 1879. | 1907. ----------------------+--------+-------- Production (bushels), | 500 | 15,000 Value, | $4,500 | $12,750 Men, | 75 | 50 Capital, | - | $1,200 Price (cents), | 40 | 85 ======================+========+========= SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 50 Capital invested, $1,200 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 15,000 Value, $12,750 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 500 Mud, 125 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, 25 Total, 650 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 150 Scattering clams, 150 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 325 Waste barren area (acres), 25 Possible normal production, $120,000 _Gloucester._ The far-celebrated deep sea fisheries of Gloucester overshadow her humble shellfish industry; but within her tidal flats lie undeveloped resources, which if properly brought out would form no inconsiderable factor in her annual revenue. Even now her clam fishery attains considerable proportions, though by no means what it once was, or what it might be were suitable cultural methods employed. The main areas of clam-producing territory lie in the Annisquam River and in the Essex River in West Gloucester. The grounds in the Annisquam are the more productive. This river is some 4 miles long, and is bordered for the greater part of this distance with tidal flats. Of these the sand flats predominate, though there are large areas of mud and extensive beds of mussels. On the extreme head of the river, known as the Dumfudgeon region, dredging operations for the Gloucester canal have somewhat impaired the flats, but as a whole the river seems in every way suitable for the production of an abundant harvest of clams. The flats of West Gloucester, including a portion of the Essex Spit, are largely unproductive. The Spit is the only flat of any extent in this region which is at present of real economic value; the remaining flats, scattered along the south shore of the Essex River and its tributary creeks, are for the most part practically barren. The total area of clam flats in Gloucester approximates 550 acres. Of this, some 250 acres are sand, 200 mud, while there are about 100 acres of mussels and eel grass, which cannot be considered at all adapted for clam culture. Only a fraction of the whole, 75 acres, more or less, is good clamming; a scant 100 acres produces scattering clams; 275 acres are barren, though capable of producing clams; while 100 acres may never be made productive. Eight men dig regularly on these flats the year round, and 23 others work intermittently. The capital invested amounts to over $600, and the annual output exceeds 6,000 bushels, valued at $8,000. Most of the clams produced at Gloucester are shucked either for market or bait. Local legislation has no bearing on the shellfish question, and no effort is being made either to better conditions in the clam industry or to check its steady decline. The industry has fallen off greatly in the past few years. In 1875 there were 90 regular clammers, and a man could dig 6 bushels to a tide, where now 8 regular and 23 intermittent clammers find it difficult to get from 1½ bushels to 3 bushels per tide. COMPARISON OF 1907 WITH 1879. ======+============+========+======+===========+======== YEAR. | Production | Value. | Men. | Capital | Price. | (Bushels). | | | Invested. | ------+------------+--------+------+-----------+-------- 1879, | 13,978 | $5,200 | 92 | $2,000 | $0.40 1907, | 6,000 | 8,000 | 31 | 600 | 1.33 ======+============+========+======+===========+======== SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 31 Capital invested, $600 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 6,000 Value, $8,000 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 250 Mud, 200 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, 100 Total, 550 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 75 Scattering clams, 100 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 275 Waste barren area (acres), 100 Possible normal production, $70,000 _Manchester._ Manchester has a coast line so much exposed, and consequently so small a territory of tidal flats, that it is not surprising to find its clam industry of very insignificant proportions. Affairs are in much the same state of apathy as at Beverly, though Manchester does not possess the resources of the former town, and could not, in the nature of the case, carry on any extensive clam business. Its facilities, however, poor as they are, are very imperfectly utilized; hence the present state of depletion, verging on absolute exhaustion. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 100 Value, $100 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 10 Mud, 10 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 20 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 5 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 10 Waste barren area (acres), 5 Possible normal production, $2,000 _Beverly._ Beverly has practically no clam industry. The area of tidal flats, comprising nearly 50 acres, is at present unprofitable and nearly worthless. As at Swampscott, some clams still continue to be dug for bait and for local clam bakes, but any evidence of a systematic business has long ceased to exist. Thirty years ago clams were far more abundant, though there was never an extensive industry. The town authorities require no licenses and make no efforts to revive the industry. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 100 Value, $100 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 30 Mud, 20 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 50 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 10 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 30 Waste barren area (acres), 10 Possible normal production, $5,000 _Salem._ Salem has far better natural advantages for clam culture than the other towns in its immediate vicinity, and leads in clam production, though the industry is of very inferior proportions. Seven men are at present employed in digging the harbor flats, where the clams have very recently seeded in. Many of these clams, though rather small, are shucked, and the remainder are sold in the local markets. The entire value of the annual production does not exceed $200, and the capital invested amounts to but $75. This is rather poor showing for 100 acres of flats for the most part comparatively good, and capable of yielding $11,000 annually. The Salem clammers dig also in the Danvers River in the town of Danvers. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 7 Capital invested, $75 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 200 Value, $200 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 75 Mud, 25 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 100 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 5 Scattering clams, 10 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 70 Waste barren area (acres), 15 Possible normal production, $11,000 _Lynn._ The city of Lynn has within its tidal flats the latent resources of an important industry. Its clam grounds could, if properly utilized, yield a great increase over their present inconsiderable return. No legislation on the part of the city authorities has intervened to improve the shellfish production or to prevent the depletion of valuable territory which has been allowed to gradually lapse into an unsanitary desert. While at low tide about 400 acres of flats spread over the broad harbor or border the banks of the Saugus River, but 40 acres of this wide expanse yield any appreciable revenue. The principal part of the digging is done on the mud flats of the Saugus River. Here 7 fishermen work intermittently to supply the local market during the summer months. There is some good territory at the mouth of the river toward the north, and scattering clams occur along the eastern shores, but the main flats of the harbor are for the most part barren. The deposit of sewage from the city drainage has undoubtedly had a prejudicial effect on much of this area, as the unpleasing scum which covers the soft, sticky mud and eel grass bears abundant witness. Whether measures undertaken to reclaim this lost area would in the long run yield profitable returns is an undecided question, but much might be done, by the employment of judicious cultural methods, to increase the yield of those flats which are properly productive. No exact returns of the annual clam harvest for this region are obtainable, as most of the output is disposed of at retail, but it cannot exceed 1,000 bushels, and probably falls far short of that figure; $1,000, then, or thereabouts, represents the total monetary income from this fishery. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 7 Capital invested, $100 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 1,000 Value, $1,000 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 90 Mud, 300 Gravel, 5 Mussels and eel grass, 5 Total, 400 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 10 Scattering clams, 30 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 160 Waste barren area (acres), 200 Possible normal production, $26,000 _Saugus._ At Saugus conditions in many respects parallel those at Lynn. The clam grounds, while they by no means equal those of the neighboring city in area, are on the whole better, as they are freer from contaminating sewage. Of the 250 acres which comprise the normal tide flat area, only 100 acres, or 40 per cent., can be said to be strictly barren. The remaining 150 acres is an undeveloped asset, as its value lies far more in its prospects than in its present productivity. While scattering clams occur throughout, no more than 25 acres can be accounted paying property. This remunerative territory lies chiefly in the Saugus River and in the vicinity of the Point of Pines. Here 10 men dig quite regularly, particularly in the summer, though none of them depend wholly upon this source of revenue for a livelihood. The annual output equals that of Lynn, both in amount and valuation. To these flats, with their undeveloped resources, local legislation gives practically no attention. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 10 Capital invested, $100 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 1,000 Value, $1,000 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 100 Mud, 150 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 250 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 10 Scattering clams, 40 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 100 Waste barren area (acres), 100 Possible normal production, $22,000 _Nahant._ Although Nahant has a large area of tidal flats, it is not on the whole favorably located, and much that would otherwise be available is necessarily waste. The territory which borders the western coast is not barren, but most of it is not productive enough to be profitable. A few scattered sections repay the clammer for his labor, and from these sections perhaps 300 bushels a year are dug for home consumption. Four or five men are employed at intervals in the summer months, but no one of them depends upon this source of income for more than transient employment, as the entire value of the yearly harvest does not exceed $300. As there are nearly 250 acres of flats in Nahant, this would be a revenue of $1.60 per acre, on an average. However, this is not a fair comparison, for much of the territory apparently available is, as has been stated, properly waste. Nevertheless, an industry of far greater proportions than at present could be attained if wise legislation were directed to that end. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 300 Value, $300 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 50 Mud, 100 Gravel, 100 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 250 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 50 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 150 Waste barren area (acres), 50 Possible normal production, $25,000 _Boston Harbor._ Owing to the danger arising from sewage contamination the State Board of Health, on Dec. 6, 1906, requested the Department of Fisheries and Game to prohibit the digging of clams for market in Boston harbor. The region closed by this law lies to the west of an imaginary line running from Point Shirley through Deer Island to the northeastern end of Peddocks Island; thence in a southwesterly direction to the extreme point of Hough's Neck. This territory includes Winthrop, Chelsea, Charlestown, Everett, Somerville, Cambridge, Boston, East Boston, South Boston, Dorchester, Neponset and Quincy. For convenience all the prescribed territory is treated under the head of "Boston harbor." The action of the State Board of Health in closing Boston harbor was necessitated by a due regard for the public health, as it seemed inexpedient to allow clams dug from this territory and subject to sewage contamination to be marketed for food. Necessary as this act may have been, the closing of 5,000 acres of flats for the production of edible shellfish made valueless an important source of revenue, and threw a large number of clammers out of employment. Some alleviation of these conditions has resulted through the granting of permits to take shellfish for bait from the prescribed waters, thus furnishing a number of men with transient employment. The value of the law, however, is almost completely nullified, for the danger to the public health is actual, and not imaginary. Under present conditions it is well-nigh impossible to make the necessary surveillance so complete as would be necessary to prove that clams "dug for bait" are not used as food. Further, even in the digging and handling of shellfish in polluted waters there is positive danger of transmitting the germs by hands of the digger to his own mouth or to other persons. The nature of the flats permit the division of Boston harbor into three sections: (1) the north shore, (2) the south shore, (3) and the islands. (1) The northern coast of the harbor has extensive mud and sand flats, covered for the most part with eel grass or scattered mussel beds. Much of the surface is a variety of pebbly gravel, while but little of it appears to be good clam ground. The mud flats are mostly covered with a sewage scum which renders them unsuitable for clams. Scattering clams are found throughout the entire region. The immediate vicinity of Snake Island in Winthrop and the cove on Point Shirley furnish fairly good clamming, while clams are found in a greater or less degree upon the extensive flats of Winthrop harbor. The flats of the Mystic River, which are of a tenacious mud rather unwholesome in appearance, in so far as they have not been encroached upon for building purposes, possess scattered patches of very good digging, and furnish transient employment to 20 or more men. The flats in the Charles and Chelsea rivers likewise furnish fair clamming. (2) The south shore of the harbor is much like the north, except that the mud type of soil predominates. The large flats, mainly mud, are not entirely barren though most of the clams are found in a narrow strip of beach along the shore. At South Boston as well as in Dorchester Bay clams are found in considerable numbers, though nowhere are there any large areas of good clamming. (3) The islands in the harbor are fringed with pebbly beach, where scattering clams are usually found. Apple Island and Governor's Island are surrounded with quite extensive flats, which are, however, but sparsely productive. Much digging for bait is carried on constantly on these pebbly beaches. _History._--Boston harbor has been in the past a good clamming region, as the magnitude of its available flats has rendered possible an extensive production. Naturally, the closing of the harbor by the State Board of Health has limited the annual production of clams from this vicinity, as now the only legal digging is for bait. Owing to this partial closed season the clams are said to have been on the increase during the last two years. Nevertheless, before the passage of this act the fishery had already greatly declined. The decline of the clam industry has been going on for years, as even in 1879 Mr. Ernest Ingersoll mentions:-- In Boston harbor clams are much depleted, owing to the fact that they are remorselessly dug the year through, chiefly by a class of ignorant foreigners who go down the harbor for the purpose. July and August are the most productive months, there being a large demand for the "clam bakes" which picnic parties from the cities indulge in on the various beaches. All the clams got in Boston harbor are very small, because they are allowed little chance to grow; in March and April they are hardly worth eating. COMPARISON WITH 1879. 1897. 1907. Number of men, 90 350 Annual production:-- Bushels, 40,000 7,500 Value, $20,000 $6,000 Number of dories, 50 - Capital invested, $1,350 $2,250 In 1879 A. Howard Clark states:-- The towns around Boston usually charge a license fee of $2 a year for the privilege of taking clams. The clams are in some cases bought up by small operators, who team them into the city, though the diggers sometimes bring them to the city and sell them to the dealers direct from their boats at the wharves. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of licenses, 350 Capital invested, $2,250 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 7,000 Value, $5,500 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 500 Mud, 2,500 Gravel, 1,000 Mussels and eel grass, 1,000 Total, 5,000 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 100 Scattering clams, 1,000 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 900 Waste barren area (acres), 3,000 Possible normal production, $330,000 _Weymouth._ Weymouth, with its two rivers, possesses an area of flats aggregating 250 acres. The shores of Fore River are stony, but in spite of the hard digging clams are found in fair numbers. The shores of Back River are similar, except for the mud flats on the channel, which are either barren or but sparsely productive. A few clams are dug for bait and home consumption. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 150 Value, $150 Total area (acres):-- Sand, - Mud, 150 Gravel, 80 Mussels and eel grass, 20 Total, 250 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 30 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 50 Waste barren area (acres), 170 Possible normal production, $11,000 _Hingham._ Hingham has an area of tidal flats comprising nearly 650 acres. The characteristic soil is of two kinds: a marginal strip of pebbly beach extending the full length of the shore, and the broad flats of Hingham harbor and Weir River, with their extensive areas of mud, eel grass and mussels. The clamming territory is confined for the most part to this narrow strip fringing the shore, though scattering clams are found in diminished numbers on the mud flats. The shellfish industry of the town consists mostly in procuring clams, mussels and cockles for bait. Clams are dug to some extent for home consumption and for the hotels at Nantasket; but the fishery is carried on in a desultory manner by a few men who dig when other work fails, and who do not wholly depend on clamming for a livelihood. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels,. 250 Value, $250 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 25 Mud, 450 Gravel, 100 Mussels and eel grass, 75 Total, 650 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 100 Barren area possibly productive (acres), - Waste barren area (acres), 550 Possible normal production, $20,000 _Hull._ The stony shores of Hull offer but little suitable clam area, though fair digging is found in the vicinity of Hog Island and in Weir River. The usual type of flat is a pebbly or gravel beach, while near White Head and Weir River there are large mud areas. Clams are dug only for home consumption or for bait. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 100 Value, $100 Total area (acres):-- Sand - Mud, 225 Gravel, 200 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 425 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 50 Barren area possibly productive (acres) 50 Waste barren area (acres) 325 Possible normal production, $15,000 _Cohasset._ Cohasset, though possessing sufficient suitable area to support a clam fishery, has no industry of any importance. The greater part of the tidal flats are barren, while the remainder are far from fertile. The region immediately about White Head and the territory opposite extending along Barson's beach are the most productive, while scattering clams are found in Little Harbor. The total acreage of available flat exceeds 100 acres. Of this, 90 acres are wholly unproductive, and the remainder, 10 acres, is not very valuable. The main type of soil is sand, though areas of mud are found in the coves. There are no regular clammers, though many clams are dug by the citizens of the town for their own use. There has never been a clam industry worthy of the name at Cohasset, and the present state of apathy appears to be normal. No local regulations of any kind govern the fishery. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 200 Value, $200 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 50 Mud, 50 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 100 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 10 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 40 Waste barren area (acres), 50 Possible normal production, $6,000 _Scituate._ There is no clam industry at Scituate. The selectmen of the town have forbidden all exportation of clams for market, and consequently the few clams dug are utilized for home consumption. The possibilities of a future clam industry at this town, while not alluring, give indications of some promise. Occasional clams are found on the shores of Scituate harbor, as well as its tributary creeks. The main undeveloped resource lies, however, along the broad flats of the North River. These flats undoubtedly constitute a considerable asset in the communal wealth, and the action of the selectmen in maintaining a close season will tend to the restocking and consequent utilization of this territory. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 200 Value, $200 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 50 Mud, 45 Gravel, 5 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 100 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 20 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 40 Waste barren area (acres), 40 Possible normal production, $8,000 _Marshfield._ Affairs at Marshfield are in practically the same state of inactivity as at Scituate. The town has considerable natural advantages, since the North River, which formerly made a wide sweep to the south before emptying into the ocean, has opened a new channel within the last ten years, forming many acres of excellent clam ground. A close season is maintained, although there has been considerable discontent on the part of certain individuals relative to this policy of the selectmen. A considerable quantity of clams, probably not exceeding 200 bushels per annum, are dug for home consumption. There are no shipments for market. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 200 Value, $200 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 40 Mud, 50 Gravel, 10 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 100 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 30 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 30 Waste barren area (acres), 40 Possible normal production, $9,000 _Duxbury._ The clam industry at Duxbury has a peculiar interest, owing to the many perplexing problems which it presents. A vast extent of tidal flats, far exceeding in area those of any other town in the State, and in a measure suitable for the production of clams, lie almost wholly barren. The enormous territory comprised in these flats exceeds 3,500 acres, or, roughly, 5½ square miles. This is greater than the combined clam area of Salisbury, Newburyport, Ipswich, Essex and Gloucester, which is the finest territory in the State, and produces most of the Massachusetts clams. Duxbury, with a greater area than all these towns, dug in 1907 about 700 bushels of clams,--an amount which could well have been produced from 2 acres of ground. An investigation into the history of the town shows us that this state of barrenness has not always existed. There was a time when Duxbury was justly celebrated for her shellfish, as is still shown by the allusions to Duxbury clams on the menus of many hotels and restaurants. The dealers at Taunton, Fall River and other Massachusetts cities formerly sent to Duxbury large orders for clams, which were always forthcoming. Now, as far as can be ascertained, not a single barrel is shipped out of the town from year to year. This transition from a state of prosperity to one of almost total barrenness is replete with interest, and is difficult of solution. Doubtless several causes may have contributed to this general decline. In the first place, it is evident that the Duxbury flats were never in so flourishing a state of production as those of the Cape Ann district. This assumption is amply supported by historical records, and it is also supplemented, at least, by the fact that a great per cent. of the present territory is largely unfit for the production of clams in any quantity. As these flats have changed scarcely at all for many years, is it unreasonable to suppose that they ever have been very suitable since the first settlement of the country? As for the historical records referred to, the weight of evidence everywhere tends to prove that many years ago there was a fairly large output of clams yearly from Duxbury. But while this output was large in itself, it was, in proportion to the possible area, exceedingly small. Mr. Ernest Ingersoll states that in 1879 there were yearly exported from Duxbury 5,000 bushels of clams. At that time, he says, the industry had declined. Clamming was then prosecuted with no such vigor as at the present time, for the price was low, and the demand, except for bait, by no means excessive. Clams had not yet come to be looked on as such important articles of food as at present, and the business of digging them as carried on then could have made little inroad on well-stocked flats. The great probability is that only a small percentage of the whole territory was ever very productive. An observer at the present time, viewing from an eminence the flats of Duxbury at low tide, could not help being struck with the singular appearance which they present. He would see spread out before him a broad expanse apparently of green meadows, with long, narrow streams of water winding in and out among them. These seeming meadows, stretching on mile after mile, broken here and there by a patch of clear sand, are the tidal flats of Duxbury, more than 2,700 acres of which are covered with a thick growth of eel grass. How many years this eel grass has covered the flats no one knows. It shifts somewhat, as the ice in winter sometimes plows up an immense surface, stripping it of its green covering. For the most part it seems to grow steadily year after year, until the roots, decaying stalks and the fine sediment which they have collected build up a spongy crust over the true bed of the flat. It is this spongy, clayey soil which is the predominant type in the eel-grass region, though a large area is soft mud with little patches of hard sand. It does not seem surprising that clams are not abundant in this soggy medium, covered with its thick matting of grass. Clams do exist, however, for occasionally when the ice in the winter storms has scraped bare a section of these flats, scattering large clams can be found. Whether anything can be done with these eel-grass flats on a sufficiently large scale to render the undertaking profitable, and whether they would prove good ground for clam culture if the eel grass were removed, is a problem. However, the sand flats free from eel grass comprise nearly 800 acres,--an area sufficient in itself to furnish a very large industry for the town. Smooth, hard and unshifting, they have the appearance of being in every way suitable for the production of an enormous amount of shellfish. Yet, barring cockles, mussels and razor clams, shellfish are rare on most of these flats, which, in spite of their inviting appearance, are practically barren. The only places where clams are dug in any quantity is along the shore. Here little scattered patches, remnants perhaps of the former large supply, repay the clammer's toil with a scant return. Little or no effort is made to dig them on the main flats, and few are so dug unless they happen to be unearthed by accident when the men are searching for razor clams for bait. The supply is hardly adequate for home consumption and the demands for bait by local fishermen. Whether all the great tidal territory of Duxbury can ever be reconstructed into profitable clam ground is a difficult question. There exist, however, no known reasons why a fishery at least as flourishing as that of twenty years ago could not be re-established and indefinitely developed. A great industry was once in evidence here. Outside the boggy eel-grass marshes (doubtful territory at best) are wide expanses of clean sand flats, suitable in every way for the cultivation of clams. That the ingenuity of man properly administered can build up an enormous industry on these sand flats alone, no thoughtful person can doubt, and then utilization of these great barren Duxbury wastes will partially, at least, be accomplished. COMPARISON OF 1907 WITH 1879. ======+============+========= YEAR. | Production | Value. | (Bushels). | ------+------------+--------- 1879, | 5,000 | $2,500 1907, | 700 | 600 ======+============+========= SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 5 Capital invested, $60 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 700 Value, $600 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 800 Mud, - Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, 2,700 Total, 3,500 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 5 Scattering clams, 10 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 800 Waste barren area (acres), 2,685 Possible normal production, $83,000 _Kingston._ The condition of the clam industry at Kingston is in many respects parallel to that at Duxbury. The clam flat area (some 600 acres) is very much smaller, but the character of the soil is essentially the same, consisting for the most part of clay, soft mud and eel-grass marshes, with a relatively small proportion of really suitable ground. The two main flats of the town are Egobert's and Gray's. Egobert's, the larger of the two, has an area of about 275 acres. Most of this is practically waste, owing to a thick growth of eel grass; but a triangular piece on the mid-southern section is bare. This portion of smooth, unshifting sand comprises about 80 acres. A few patches of clams are scattered along the outer edge, near the channel, but hardly any of these patches produce clams enough to make it profitable to dig them. The great bulk of this territory is entirely barren. Gray's flat is of an entirely different type. It is a long flat, with a fairly uniform width of about 100 yards. It runs through its entire length parallel to the shore, while on the other side it is separated from Egobert's by a 300-foot channel. Like Egobert's, it is covered for the most part by eel grass, but it is essentially different in the nature of its soil, which is mud throughout. Although the total area of the flat is about 115 acres, an irregular section of bare mud on the southeastern side, comprising 30 acres, is the only available clam territory. This section is composed of soft mud on the north and south, rather poorly suited for clam culture; but the mid section contains several acres of hard mud, which seems well adapted, and here clams are found in sufficient quantities to keep several men digging intermittently through the summer months. Along the shore a few clam grants have been given to individuals by the local authorities. These are managed with fair success, though no business other than that of supplying the local demand is carried on. The possibilities of forming a clam industry here of importance is evident, though through lack of available territory it could never give promise of such a development as might be looked for from Duxbury or Plymouth. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 4 Capital invested, $50 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 500 Value, $450 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 150 Mud, - Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, 450 Total, 600 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 5 Scattering clams, 5 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 150 Waste barren area (acres), 440 Possible normal production, $18,000 _Plymouth._ The clam industry at Plymouth is at a low ebb. The same problems which baffle progress at Duxbury and Kingston are present here with all their complications. The combined available territory, exceeding 1,600 acres, save for a few unimportant sections, is wholly barren. While it is true that fully two-thirds of this great area is eel-grass waste, and in its present state of little value for the production of clams, there remains over 500 acres of good flats, for the most part sand well adapted for shellfish culture. It is certain that a flourishing industry has existed here in former times. From the earliest history of the colony, records tell of the excellent clam flats at Plymouth; and we learn that the Pilgrims during the darkest hours of the early settlement depended in large measure upon these flats for support. As late as 1879 Ernest Ingersoll reports an annual output of 5,000 bushels of clams, and states that the industry had then greatly declined. It appears to have gone down steadily ever since, until now it merely furnishes transient employment to 4 or 5 men, who dig at rather uncertain intervals for local markets. The best clamming, probably because the most inaccessible, is around Clark's Island. Scattering clams occur on Wind flat, the Oyster grant, and in patches along the shore. But no considerable extent of good clamming occurs anywhere, and the bulk of the territory is wholly barren. The town of Plymouth has endeavored in several ways to develop the industry. It has appropriated money to restock the flats, a close season has been tried, and an attempt made to solve the problem by the giving of private grants. While these grants have not always been run in as energetic a manner as could be desired, the experiment has proved conclusively that there are great possibilities in such a system. In short, there can be little doubt that in the proper administration of private grants lies the key to the solution of the problem which confronts this whole region. As clams were once abundant in Plymouth harbor, and as no apparent causes other than excessive digging appear to have brought about the decline, there seems to be no logical reason why this amount of territory (500 acres) should not yield its proper harvest. As for the vast extent of eel-grass flats, with all their undetermined possibilities, they can well afford to wait until the more immediate and pressing problems of the flats already available for clam culture have been solved. COMPARISON OF 1907 WITH 1879. ======+============+========= YEAR. | Production | Value. | (Bushels). | ------+------------+--------- 1879, | 5,000 | $2,500 1907, | 3,000 | 2,500 ======+============+========= SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 6 Capital invested, $60 Value of shore property, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 3,000 Value, $2,500 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 400 Mud, 100 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, 1,100 Total, 1,600 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 10 Scattering clams, 50 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 440 Waste barren area (acres), 1,100 Possible normal production, $58,000 _Barnstable._ The clam industry at Barnstable, while not so extensive as at Ipswich or Essex, is nevertheless of special interest. The immensely long coast line, stretching for many miles on both the north and south shores of Cape Cod, gives the town a shellfish area both in Cape Cod Bay and Vineyard Sound which renders it unrivalled throughout the State for variety of marine life and diversity of natural environment. These conditions, as they affect clam culture, are best suited on the northern or bay side of the town, where the clam industry flourishes more extensively, as the southern shore is almost wholly given up to the rival quahaug, oyster and scallop fisheries. On the northern shore a large harbor, nearly 5 miles long and about 2 miles broad at its widest part, extends in a general westerly direction, ending in a vast waste of salt marshes interwoven with a network of creeks. Up this harbor the tides rush with great velocity, and when they sweep out to sea leave a broad expanse of flats, sandy on the north and central portions and muddy on the south. These flats cover an aggregate area of 400 acres, comprising 200 acres of hard sand and 150 acres of soft mud. Large stretches of these mud flats on the south are waste, and covered for the most part with eel grass. Other sections elsewhere are likewise waste for various causes, and are to be excluded as unprofitable or barren; yet the total available area remaining after making these deductions exceeds 350 acres. This is the theoretical condition,--the real condition is far otherwise: 20 acres at the most yield clams, and of these only 10 acres produce them in marketable quantities. The explanation of these conditions is interesting. In the winter the ice and the force of storms tear out great pieces of the tough marsh surf, and the tides sweep them down the harbor. Some of these huge masses are torn to pieces and washed away, others find lodgment on the broad surface of some tidal flat; these, becoming stationary, accumulate sediment; the grass grows upon them through the summer, and gradually a little island is formed. Surrounding these islands and oftentimes growing over their entire surface, bedded in among the roots of the marsh grass, we find a very thick set of clams. In short, all the digging of any kind is in the immediate vicinity of these islands. The deductions to be made from these facts are apparently simple. In the spawning season, when the microscopic clam larvæ are in their floating stage, they are carried here and there by the currents. Later, when they tend normally to settle in some fertile tract of flat, they are prevented from so doing by reason of the remarkable swiftness of the tides, which sweep strongly over the broad, smooth flats, and give the little clams no opportunity of lodgment. Only in the firm thatch of low-lying islands can they find anything to cling to, and here, with their slender byssus threads attached to unyielding grass or roots, they are able to withstand the wash of the current. Thus the clams are gathered in great numbers in these natural collectors, later are washed on the neighboring flat, and finally a little colony grows up about every island of this sort. That this is actually what happens is largely borne out both by observation and facts. It makes little difference where these islands are located; clams grow nearby, while all about may stretch smooth, hard flats, perfectly adapted for clams, yet altogether barren. In view of the somewhat incomplete investigations made in this region, it is perhaps too sweeping to point out any single factor as the sole cause for these waste areas; but undoubtedly the swift tides and smooth, hard flats, which offer no resting place for the young larvæ, constitute the main causes. Another odd circumstance in connection with the Barnstable clam industry is the local regulations which control the industry. Almost all digging is carried on in the winter, as a local by-law forbids the digging of clams in summer in any quantity exceeding 6 bushels per week for family use. This somewhat curious by-law is designed wholly for the benefit of the majority of the clammers, and to give them employment in that season of the year when work is most difficult to obtain. While interfering somewhat with summer clam bakes, the law appears to meet the approval of the townspeople. The south shore of Barnstable possesses many of the features of Buzzards Bay, and produces clams only in numbers sufficient for home consumption. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 25 Capital invested, $200 Value of shore property, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 700 Value, $550 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 200 Mud, 150 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, 50 Total, 400 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 10 Scattering clams, 10 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 330 Waste barren area (acres), 50 Possible normal production, $39,000 _Yarmouth._ The clam industry at Yarmouth, never extensive, has steadily declined, until now it barely supplies the demands of home consumption. Barnstable bar on the northern coast twenty years ago produced clams in considerable quantities, but the soil was never well adapted for this shellfish. Scattering clams are now found there, but the grounds are very much exposed, and cannot properly rank as clam-producing area. Sea clams abound there at certain seasons, and furnish a transient business; also razor clams, which are used extensively for bait. The best clam territory is in Mill Creek, on the south shore of the town. Scattered patches of clams also occur along the shore of Bass River, but the whole area really available does not exceed 50 acres, and this is not at all well improved. There are no regular clammers, but intermittent digging produces about 600 bushels of clams annually, which are used either for home consumption or for bait. No effort has been made on the part of the town authorities to better conditions, although the advisability of giving clam grants, at least on the northern or bay side, has been discussed. No permits are required, and local legislation does not in any way concern itself with the clam industry. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 5 Capital invested, $40 Value of shore property, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 600 Value, $500 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 25 Mud, 15 Gravel, 10 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 50 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 5 Scattering clams, 10 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 25 Waste barren area (acres), 10 Possible normal production, $6,000 _Orleans._ Orleans is one of the few towns in the State which shows an advance in the clam industry. This is largely due to an increased production on the rich flats of Nauset harbor, as the remaining available territory in the town is declining in value. The output of 1907 is an increase of nearly 40 per cent. over the yield of the previous year, which shows an encouraging development. The clam flat area of the town is divided into four rather distinct divisions, three on the east or Atlantic side and one on the Bay or western side. The grounds which have been dug for the longest time and yielded uniformly the best results lie in the waters of Town Cove. Here a strip of gravelly sand and mud about 30 feet wide extends along the shores of this cove for 2 or 3 miles. Clams are scattered throughout this strip, and are dug constantly. The second division includes the bars of Nauset harbor, which at present furnish the best digging in town. The increased value of the town's industry is largely due to the recent development of these flats. Clams have seeded in abundantly during the past two or three years, and now furnish very good digging. The third section comprises that portion of the clam flat area bordering the coast of Pleasant Bay which crosses the town boundaries on the southeast. Here clams are rather scarce, though dug occasionally. This section is economically the least important of the four. The fourth section extends along the western coast, on a belt of sand bars well out in Cape Cod Bay. Clams are found on a strip about a quarter of a mile in width, and lying over half a mile from shore. This is a very exposed location. Billingsgate Point, projecting out from the Wellfleet coast, offers some protection from northwest winds, and the hills of the Cape break the force of the easterly gales; but the full force of storms from the west and southwest sweeps these bars, and would seem to render them unsuitable for the growth of clams. Clams are here, however, in considerable numbers, though not so numerous as three or four years ago, and are dug to some extent. The greater part of the digging is done by intermittent clammers, who obtain perhaps 2½ bushels per day. No permits are required, as there are no town by-laws regulating the industry. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 30 Capital invested, $200 Value of shore property, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 3,000 Value, $3,000 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 125 Mud, 50 Gravel, 20 Mussels and eel grass, 5 Total, 200 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 25 Scattering clams, 50 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 75 Waste barren area (acres), 50 Possible normal production, $27,000 _Eastham._ The town of Eastham is a sparsely settled community, and the clam fishery, while not large, plays a rather important part in its business activity. Six men depend quite largely upon it for a livelihood, while some 30 others dig intermittently through the summer. The same peculiar condition as at Orleans exists on the western coast. Here far from shore clams are found in considerable numbers on the shifting bars. The main source of supply, however, comes from the productive sand flats of Nauset harbor. These flats have seeded in only in the past two or three years, but they have already shown latent possibilities of a future increase. In the so-called "Salt Pond" 2 men are employed nearly the year round in digging clams under water by a method of "churning," locally known as "rootling." The total available area in Eastham is about 200 acres. More than half of this is sand, which includes almost all the good digging, while the mud flats are interspersed with stretches of gravel and scattering patches of eel grass. The same abuses which have nearly ruined the Swansea fishery have begun here. Small seed clams are exported in considerable quantities to supply the summer demand of the New Bedford and Fall River districts. While this system has not yet made its ravages apparent, a glance at the Swansea report will serve to convince the most casual reader that unless some steps are taken to check this evil, the practical annihilation of the Eastham clam industry must follow. As it is, local legislation seems powerless to cope with the problem, and no laws of any kind relating to the clam fishery are in force. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 36 Capital invested, $250 Value of shore property, -- Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 4,000 Value, $4,000 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 100 Mud, 50 Gravel, 30 Mussels and eel grass, 20 Total, 200 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 25 Scattering clams, 50 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 100 Waste barren area (acres), 25 Possible normal production, $30,000 _Wellfleet._ Although possessing extensive flats, Wellfleet produces at present a relatively small amount of clams. The inhabitants realize that these flats are capable of producing a large harvest of clams if properly planted, and that in this way an extensive industry can be developed, and have undertaken to restock the flats, appropriating in 1906 for this purpose the sum of $1,000. At Billingsgate Island there are fair clam flats, but they are not easily accessible, as they lie at a distance of 5 miles from town. Clams can also be obtained in more or less abundance in the thatch which borders the flats of Blackfish Creek, Herring River and Duck Creek. A few clams are scattered over the flats of Blackfish Creek, particularly toward the head of the creek. Two patches of clams covering perhaps an acre are on the flats in front of the town: one in the stone and gravel east of Commercial wharf; the other, a more extensive area, just west of Mercantile wharf. Wellfleet possesses many acres of flats which, though now barren, are capable of excellent production if properly planted. Wellfleet flats extend from Duck Creek to Herring River and from Herring River along the shores of Great Island for a distance of 4½ miles, and cover an area of 400 acres. The Great Island flats are not especially adapted for clams, and only parts of these can ever be successfully cultivated, while possibly all the area between Duck Creek and Herring River can be reclaimed. South Wellfleet flats, which comprise an area of 200 acres, are much poorer flats, consisting for the most part of mud and shifting sand. Only the firmer portions, about 50 acres, can be made productive by planting with clams. At Wellfleet the soft clam fishery can hardly be styled an industry. In the winter a few men go clamming when there is nothing else to do. The majority prefer razor clamming, which is a considerable winter industry, owing to the demand for this bait at Provincetown. Three men clam during the summer, doing practically all their digging at Billingsgate, while 8 others are in this work during the winter. The flats of Wellfleet were never very productive, but formerly were capable of furnishing a far greater production than at present. This decline is only accounted for by overdigging, which has brought about the present scarcity. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 11 Capital invested, $300 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 800 Value, $640 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 450 Mud, 5 Gravel, 150 Mussels and eel grass, -- Total, 605 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 3 Scattering clams, 12 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 250 Waste barren area (acres), 340 Possible normal production, $28,000 _Truro._ The clam flats at Truro are confined principally to the Pamet River. At the mouth of this river near the head of the harbor bar is a sand flat comprising several acres, where the bulk of the clams are produced. In South Truro, Stony Bar and other similar patches of rocky beach are fairly well bedded with clams. Scattering clams are found over the shifting bars which skirt the main land on the bay side, but nowhere are clams sufficiently abundant to warrant any serious attempt at exportation. Fifteen to twenty years ago clams were everywhere much more abundant in this region than now, and in those days some market digging was carried on. At present the needs of the home market are with difficulty supplied from the local production, and 100 bushels per year would cover all clams dug both for food and bait. No effort has at any time been made by the town authorities to increase the industry, though the clam fishery, at least in the sheltered coves of Pamet River, is not without possibilities of development. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 1 Capital invested, $2 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 50 Value, $60 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 50 Mud, -- Gravel, -- Mussels and eel grass, -- Total, 50 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 1 Scattering clams, 2 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 47 Waste barren area (acres), -- Possible normal production, $5,000 _Provincetown._ For the last five years the flats of Provincetown have produced only a small amount of clams. Wherever clams have set in abundance they have been quickly dug by fishermen for bait, thus checking their natural propagation. Clams are found in the drains among the thatch beds on the southwest side of the harbor and in Race Run, while a considerable set is scattered between the wharves of the town. All the extensive flats at the southwest end of the harbor are entirely barren of clams, owing chiefly to the shifting nature of the sand, although on certain parts of these, especially near the thatch, clams would grow if planted. As it is, the shifting sand makes it impossible for the young clams to set on this area. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 5 Capital invested, $15 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 400 Value, $320 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 400 Mud, - Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 400 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 3 Scattering clams, 3 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 200 Waste barren area (acres), 194 Possible normal production, $21,000 _Chatham._ Chatham can no longer be considered as the best clam-producing town of southern Massachusetts. In 1879 Chatham produced a greater quantity of soft clams than all the rest of the Cape; to-day all has changed, and the annual output is far less than several other towns of the Cape district. The town of Chatham is situated in the southeastern portion of Cape Cod, and includes that part which is commonly called the "elbow" of the Cape. It is surrounded on the north, east and south sides by the ocean, while on the south the peninsula known as Monomoy Island extends for 9 miles. The clamming territory of Chatham is situated in Stage harbor, Pleasant Bay and at Monomoy Point. In Stage harbor clams are found along the sides of the Mill Pond, comprising possibly an acre, and in the eastern end of the harbor toward the dike, where about 3 acres of flats are thickly set. An extended area of sand flats are found in Pleasant Bay. But small parts of this area furnish good clamming, and the Common Flats on the inside of Monomoy Island, where once there were acres of good clams, now lie entirely barren except for a small patch of set just north of Brant Island, comprising about 1/5 of an acre. Here are about 100 acres of barren flats which only need planting to be made productive. The commercial clam fishery, of the town is carried on at Monomoy Point, where 5 acres of the best clamming in Massachusetts is found. The Powder Hole flats, formed of coarse, clean sand, are thickly set with clams of all sizes, and furnish excellent digging. A good clammer can obtain from 5 to 6 bushels per tide from these flats. Clams are dug at Chatham during the fishing season chiefly for bait. Such digging lasts through the fall and winter. In the summer, clams are dug only for food, as no cod fishing is conducted in the warm months. From 10 to 15 men were engaged in clamming during the summer of 1907, travelling from Chatham to Monomoy Point in power or sail dories. Practically all the clams dug came from the Powder Hole flats at Monomoy Point. These were purchased at Chatham wharf by fish firms at the price of $2 per barrel. The winter clam fishery of Chatham was once an important industry, which started in 1875 when clams were in great demand as fish bait. The following table shows how this industry has declined:-- =============================+=========+========= | 1879. | 1907. -----------------------------+---------+--------- Number of men, | 150 | 10 Annual production (bushels), | 35,000 | 1,500 Value of production, | $12,250 | $1,200 Price per bushel (cents), | 35 | 80 Capital invested, | $2,000 | $400 =============================+=========+========= Owing to the large amount of clams dug by fishing vessels, the following restrictions were incorporated in 1881 as a State law, which reads as follows:-- No fisherman or any other person shall take from the towns of Chatham and Nantucket any shellfish, for bait or other use, except clams and a shellfish commonly known by the name of horse feet, and no quantity exceeding seven bushels of clams, including shells or one hundred of said horse feet shall be taken in one week for each vessel or craft, nor in any case without a permit being first obtained from the selectmen of the town. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 10 Capital invested, $400 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 1,500 Value, $1,200 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 330 Mud, 10 Gravel, 20 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 360 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 10 Scattering clams, 50 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 300 Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $44,000 _Harwich._ The town of Harwich possesses but little clam area. A few clams are obtainable on the shores of Pleasant Bay and Mud Creek in limited localities, while in the southern waters of the town there is some digging in Wychmere harbor and in Herring River. The total area of clam flats is not more than 1½ acres. There are no regular clammers engaged in the business, all the clams dug being used only for home consumption. In 1905 there was a town law restricting the digging in Wychmere harbor, except for bait, to one day in the week. COMPARISON OF 1907 WITH 1879. ========+============+==========+====== YEAR. | Production | Value. | Men. | (Bushels). | | --------+------------+----------+------ 1879, | 1,125 | $400 | 15 1907, | 100 | 100 | - ========+============+==========+====== SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 100 Value, $80 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 10 Mud, 10 Gravel, 10 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 30 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 1 Scattering clams, 5 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 10 Waste barren area (acres), 14 Possible normal production, $2,400 _Dennis._ As the town of Dennis has mutual fishery rights with the town of Yarmouth, the clam flats of Bass River, which lie between the towns, are free to any inhabitant of Dennis. A few clams are also dug in Swan Pond River. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 50 Value, $45 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 25 Mud, 15 Gravel, 10 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 50 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 1 Scattering clams, 4 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 30 Waste barren area (acres), 15 Possible normal production, $4,200 _Mashpee._ The clam fishery at Mashpee is of hardly sufficient proportions to rank as an industry. The shores of the Popponesset River furnish perhaps favorable conditions for the growth of this shellfish, but the available territory is small, not exceeding 50 acres, and of this only a small percentage, comprising scattered patches of gravel-mud, produces clams in any abundance. No effort is made at exportation for market, and under the present circumstances it is doubtful if a greater yield than that required to supply home consumption could be expected. No effort is made on the part of local legislation to control the industry or foster it in any way. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 2 Capital invested, $20 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 50 Value, $45 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 20 Mud, 5 Gravel, 20 Mussels and eel grass, 5 Total, 50 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 2 Scattering clams, 8 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 30 Waste barren area (acres), 10 Possible normal production, $5,400 _Buzzards Bay._ The section of Massachusetts bordering the shores of Buzzards Bay supports a flourishing quahaug, oyster and scallop fishery, capable of great development. The clam industry, however, never very extensive, is of very slight significance at present, and can never attain the same degree of importance as the other shellfisheries, owing to the limited area available for clams. To those familiar with the harbors of Newburyport and Duxbury and their vast tidal flats with their latent possibilities, the shores of Buzzards Bay present indeed a notable contrast. Bluff and hilly for the most part, and frequently rocky, nowhere do they show extensive flats suitable for clam culture. That clams grow wherever opportunity permits is evident, for they are found on gravelly stretches or among rocks all along the coast, except in those localities openly exposed to the full force of the sea. But allowing for all possible favorable features, the lack of any considerable territory is a disadvantage that will forever act as a barrier to any expansion. Falmouth and Dartmouth on the east and west sides of Buzzards Bay respectively differ materially from the remaining towns of the district, in the fact that the characteristic soil of their clam grounds is sand; while the other towns have little in the shape of available territory except gravel stretches along the shores of coves, small areas of mud, and the rocky beaches of points and headlands. The yearly output hardly anywhere suffices for the needs of home consumption. Nowhere is any attempt at exportation possible. The business, such as it is, is carried on in a very intermittent fashion, chiefly in the summer, with but a small investment of capital. Special local regulation seems to remain aloof from the problem of insuring a future clam supply. That the combined area of all the towns of Buzzards Bay does not equal that of a single town in the Cape Ann district is an undeniable truth; but the fact nevertheless remains that an industry far more considerable than exists at present could be supported, and it is truly to the interest of the towns of this region to make the best possible use of their limited advantages. _Falmouth._ Falmouth has a long coast line not only on Buzzards Bay but also on Vineyard Sound. The flats at North and West Falmouth on the bay side are similar to those of Wareham and Bourne, though there are several small patches of quite good digging. On the southern shore there are clams scattered along the coasts of the various indentations, particularly at Waquoit Bay. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 200 Value, $175 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 40 Mud, 5 Gravel, 5 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 50 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 2 Scattering clams, 8 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 40 Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $6,400 _Bourne._ The clam industry at Bourne is practically extinct. Scarcely any clamming is carried on by the inhabitants of the town, even for their own use, as clams have become so scattering that it hardly pays to dig them. The territory is much the same in extent and general character as that of Wareham, but it has been over-dug to a greater degree, and has become nearly barren. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 100 Value, $100 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 5 Mud, 5 Gravel, 30 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 40 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 30 Barren area possibly productive (acres), - Waste barren area (acres), 10 Possible normal production, $6,000 _Wareham._ Wareham leads the towns of Buzzards Bay in the production of clams, although its annual output is only 600 bushels. This clearly shows the low ebb to which the industry has fallen in this region. There are no true tide flats in Wareham, but the total area of the mud-gravel and rocky bottom between high and low water mark where scattering clams are found is nearly 100 acres. There are no regular fishermen, but some half dozen quahaugers dig clams from time to time, chiefly during the summer, to supply the home market. The industry, such as it is, appears to be about stationary at present, though in production it has declined notably during the last twenty years. The town officials have attempted no measures to revive the failing fishery, and no town laws affect it in any way. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 6 Capital invested, $100 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 800 Value, $800 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 15 Mud, 10 Gravel, 75 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 100 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 50 Barren area possibly productive (acres), - Waste barren area (acres), 50 Possible normal production, $10,000 _Marion._ The wealthy summer residents at Marion create a demand for clams at a very substantial price. In spite of the increased price, there is little inducement to engage in this industry as a livelihood, and only 1 man digs steadily through the summer months, though intermittent digging is done by others to supply the local market. The best clamming is on the east coast of Great Neck and in Wing's Cove. These grounds are difficult of access, and consequently have not been so much overworked as the nearer shores of Ram's Island, Allan's Point and Blankinship's Cove. The total area does not exceed 10 acres, and this for the most part is very poor territory; while the clams coming from these rock and gravel beaches are not of very good quality, the shells being usually gnarled and crooked. There is no town legislation relating to this industry, and though it is becoming of less consequence every year, nothing is done to revive it. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 1 Capital invested, $15 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 100 Value, $100 Total area (acres):-- Sand, - Mud, - Gravel, 10 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 10 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 10 Barren area possibly productive (acres), - Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $2,000 _Mattapoisett._ The coast of Mattapoisett, more open and exposed than that of Fairhaven, does not offer equal advantages to the cultivation of clams. A similar strip of gravel-mud or sand occurs along the more sheltered portions of the coast, and wherever an indentation in the mainland offers shelter clams may be found, though never in sufficient quantities to make digging profitable. There is really no industry at all; the few clams that are dug go for home trade or are used as bait, and the prospects of any decided improvement appear to be slight. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 1 Capital invested, $15 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 100 Value, $100 Total area (acres):-- Sand, - Mud, 5 Gravel, 5 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 10 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 10 Barren area possibly productive (acres), - Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $2,000 _Fairhaven._ The clam industry at Fairhaven suffers from the unsanitary condition of the flats, though in a lesser degree than at New Bedford. The finest clam grounds of this town lie in the proscribed district of the Acushnet River, and handling or eating shellfish from this area is a positive menace to the public health. A strip of gravel-mud about 100 feet in average width fringes the shores of Priest's Cove, and this strip furnishes at present the best digging. Scattered patches of clams occur along the indentations of Sconticut Neck, around West Island and along the coast of Little Bay. No men are regularly employed in digging clams, though a rather inefficient attempt is made at times to supply the local demand. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 100 Value, $100 Total area (acres):-- Sand, - Mud, 25 Gravel, 25 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 50 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 25 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 25 Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $7,500 _New Bedford._ The clam industry at New Bedford was never of any great importance, but the unwise methods of sewage disposal of the city, whereby the effluent enters the harbor in close proximity to the clam flats, renders the taking of shellfish a positive menace to the public health. The action of the State Board of Health in closing the Acushnet River and Clark's Cove to the clam digger virtually annihilated the remnant of the industry. Now practically all the available territory of the city is proscribed, and no clams are allowed to be taken from this area except for use as bait. Licenses are also required to take clams even for bait from this proscribed territory. Three hundred and twenty of these licenses have been issued since the passage of the act in 1904. The annual yield of clams for this purpose cannot be accurately ascertained, but probably does not exceed 250 bushels. No important clam industry would ever have been possible at New Bedford, under any circumstances, but the slight possibilities which once existed have been swept away and can never return under the present conditions, though shellfish grown in this region could, if suitable legislation were enacted, be transplanted to a sanitary environment, where in a month all danger of spreading typhoid germs would be avoided. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Licenses for bait, 320 Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels (for bait), 300 Value, $225 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 5 Mud, 5 Gravel, 15 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 25 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 15 Barren area possibly productive (acres), - Waste barren area (acres), 10 Possible normal production, $3,000 _Dartmouth._ The town of Dartmouth possesses a wide expanse of territory, but the actual amount of available clam ground is not as large as it would appear at first sight. Clams are found in more or less abundance at the following places: (1) Rickerson's Point (2/3 acre); (2) Apponagansett River (6 acres); (3) Apponagansett harbor (1 acre); (4) Nonquit (1/10 acre); (5) Round Hill Point (1/5 acre); (6) Salter's Point (3/4 acre); (7) Smith's Neck (3/5 acre); (8) Little River (7-1/2 acres); (9) Slocum's River (6 acres); comprising a total of 23 acres. The best clamming is obtained on the flats of Little and Slocum's rivers. In Apponagansett River clams are dug in the summer for the Padanaram clam bakes. A town by-law placing a closed season on Slocum's River was in force during the years 1904 and 1905. In 1906 Dartmouth, by a State law, required permits for clamming. These permits are issued by the selectmen free of charge. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 4 Capital invested, $50 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 200 Value, $160 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 15 Mud, 10 Gravel, 5 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 30 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 5 Scattering clams, 15 Barren area possibly productive (acres), - Waste barren area (acres), 10 Possible normal production, $5,000 _The Fall River District (Narragansett Bay)._ The section of country bordering on Narragansett Bay and the Rhode Island line comprises a territory remote from the other clam-producing districts of the State, and possessing many characteristics not found in any other locality. Six towns of this region enjoy the privileges of a clam industry, situated as they are on the shores of Mt. Hope Bay and its tributary streams, the Cole, Lee and Taunton rivers. Beginning with the most westerly and taking them in order, these towns comprise Swansea, Somerset, Dighton, Berkley, Freetown and Fall River. These towns differ only in extent of resources or development of the industry, while the general nature of the clam flats and the methods employed in carrying on the business are essentially alike for all. The area in this region suitable for clam culture possesses some of the distinguishing features of the typical north shore flats, some of the Buzzards Bay variety and some peculiar to itself. There are scarcely any sand flats, and the prevailing type of soil is mud, as at Newburyport, or gravel, as in Buzzards Bay; while the greater part of the clam supply comes from a large and rather indefinite area, which is not properly tide flat at all, but lies continuously submerged. The methods employed in carrying on this industry include both wet and dry digging. On the tide flats the clams are dug as elsewhere on the south shore, with hoes or the common digger. Where, however, clams are dug in 2 or 3 feet of water, as is most frequently the case, an ordinary long-handled shovel and wire basket are employed. The soil containing the clams is shoveled into the baskets, and then the clams are sifted out under water. Several years ago an attempt was made to dig clams by machinery. An enterprising oysterman spent several hundred dollars in constructing a machine which was designed to farm the under-water districts more quickly and successfully than could be done by hand. The device had some of the principles of a suction pump, and theoretically the clams on the submerged flats could be washed out from the soil and collected in a receptacle. The machine worked well enough in extracting the clams from the mud, but failed completely when it came to collecting them. In short, after a thorough trial it was pronounced a failure and had to be abandoned. The main peculiarity of this region, and a far more important one than the type of soil or the methods of digging, is the nature of the clams which are produced. The inadequate territory and the constantly increasing demands of the Fall River markets have led to abuses which have had a most disastrous effect on the clam industry, and unless checked, and soon, these abuses will certainly cause its complete annihilation. The abuses in question are the universal custom of digging small seed clams for food. So importunate have the markets of Fall River and the vicinity become, that when the supply of suitable clams proves inadequate they demand and will gladly take "anything with a shell on," as the dealers say, so that it is no uncommon sight to see exposed for sale in the city markets clams of only 1 inch in length. This deplorable condition is fostered by the custom of digging under water, for the fine mesh of the woven-wire baskets retains even the smallest clams, which are saved for market. No quicker or surer way of destroying the industry completely could have been devised than this method of digging seed clams for food. One barrel of these clams would produce 10 to 15 barrels of marketable clams if left for one year under favorable circumstances. Thus, when a clammer digs 1 barrel of these clams he is in reality destroying 10 or more barrels. This is truly reaping the "seed" before it has had any time to mature the proper harvest. Also, these "seed" clams are so immature that in many cases they have not spawned, and thus the clammer by destroying the clams in this manner damages irrevocably all chances of restocking the flats. From the inherent difficulties of the problem, however, local regulation seems powerless to cope with the evil. The short-sighted clammers, while they know that these methods, if pursued very far, will ultimately destroy the industry, seem willing, nevertheless, to sacrifice the future for the present. The other clammers are inevitably brought into line on this mistaken policy, as they cannot but argue that if a few will persist in exploiting a natural resource it is the right of every man to have an equal chance, and take his share of the proceeds as long as they last. Another potent factor in this wastefulness is the irresponsible foreign element of the mill districts, who dig clams for their own use, large or small, with entire indifference. It might perhaps prove unjust and difficult to enforce laws preventing individuals digging "seed" clams for their own use; but legislation could possibly be enacted preventing the sale of such seed in the public market. This would strike a blow at the abuse sufficient to rob it of its worst features. The most casual glance at the facts in the case prove that there is a pressing need for some legislative action. The history of the clam industry in this region is one of steady and rapid decline. Any clammer of the vicinity is willing to acknowledge that conditions at present are in a very unsatisfactory state. The output of clams has greatly diminished, both in the consensus of opinion of those interested in the business, and also according to statistical figures. Furthermore, the end of the industry, as far as any economic importance is concerned, is plainly in sight, and at the present rate of destruction cannot long be delayed. It would seem that here was a striking example of the need of prompt and wise legislation for the protection and development of an industry which has made large profits for the community, and might yield still greater returns if properly regulated. The towns of this region can never compete with the towns of the Newburyport district in the production of clams, for the reason that they have by no means an equal acreage of suitable flats. The Taunton River is also a considerable factor, as its contaminated waters impair the quality of clams grown along its shores. There remains, however, a considerable extent of suitable territory which might yield a large product if rightly controlled, and this territory, with its inherent possibilities depleted to the verge of exhaustion by unwise and wasteful methods, it is for the interest of the Commonwealth to protect and improve. _Swansea._ Swansea, the most western town of this district, is by far the most favorably located, and has the greatest possibilities of clam production. Situated on the northern shore of Mt. Hope Bay, and containing the majority of the flats in the Cole and Lee rivers, it possesses a greater available territory free from the contaminating influences of the Taunton River than any other town in this region. Altogether, 200 acres comprise the possibly available clam area of this town. The best of this area is located in Cole's River, and includes Long Beach flat, the best flat of the district. Situated on the east shore of the river just below the railroad bridge, this flat stretches south in a broad triangle comprising some 20 acres of smooth, semihard mud. Over the main flat is sprinkled a very thick set of ½ inch to 1 inch clams, interspersed with some of larger growth. While this is the best flat, other flats extend along both shores far up the river until the clams become too "fresh" to be very good. Flats also occur in the Lee River, and there is a large and rather indeterminate amount of under-water territory. The total area suitable for culture is not far from 150 acres; of this, about 20 acres are gravel and the rest practically all mud. No permits are necessary to dig clams on tidal flats, but permits are required to "churn" clams under water. Twenty of these permits were issued last year. Usually in digging under water two men work together, one shovelling the mud into the wire baskets and the other sifting out the clams. About 75 per cent. of the clams produced come from these under-water areas, as the tide flats are for the most part nearly exhausted. The season lasts all the year round, though most of the clams are dug in the summer time. Of late years it has become increasingly hard for a man to earn a living by clamming, as only 1 to 1½ bushels now comprise an average day's work under the most favorable circumstances. Many of the clammers are leaving the business and seeking a livelihood in other employments. The history of the industry is one of marked decline. The most conservative clammer estimates that at the present rate the passing of five years will witness the complete annihilation of the industry. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 25 Capital invested, $250 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 5,000 Value, $5,000 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 100 Mud, 100 Gravel, - Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 200 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 20 Scattering clams, 30 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 100 Waste barren area (acres), 50 Possible normal production, $24,000 _Somerset._ Somerset, the next town in order, joins Swansea on the east and extends several miles up the left bank of the Taunton River. Its flats on the south and west, particularly in the Lee River, produce some clams, though the industry is practically run out. The total clam area comprises about 75 acres. This is mostly mud, though gravel stretches along the shore aggregate perhaps 10 acres. The development of latent possibilities in this territory is largely curtailed by the disastrous effects of the Taunton River upon the clams. This water, contaminated by the manufacturing plants of Taunton, makes the clams grown in the northern part of the town of inferior taste and quality. Six licenses, costing $1 apiece, were issued last year for "churning" clams. No permits other than these are required. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 50 Value, $50 Total area (acres):-- Sand, - Mud, 25 Gravel, 25 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 50 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 10 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 20 Waste barren area (acres), 20 Possible normal production, $4,000 _Dighton._ Dighton has a very limited area of clam flat, comprising only about 10 acres. Clams extend but little beyond the southern boundary of the town on the Taunton River and about ¾ mile up the Segregansett River on the west. Practically no business is made of clamming by the citizens of the town except for local consumption. About 40 bushels were "churned" last year by outsiders. No permits are issued. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 40 Value, $40 Total area (acres):-- Sand, - Mud, 5 Gravel, 5 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 10 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 2 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 8 Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $1,200 _Berkley._ Berkley, on the right bank of the Taunton River, opposite Dighton, has a very similar clam territory both in extent and characteristics. But little use is made of the clam except for bait, as the river water renders them very unsatisfactory as food. There is practically no industry, and there never could be any of importance, owing to the very limited area and the contamination of the waters. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 25 Value, $25 Total area (acres):-- Sand, - Mud, 5 Gravel, 5 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 10 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 4 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 6 Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $1,400 _Freetown._ Freetown, joining Berkley on the south near the Fall River line, possesses a number of clam flats, aggregating 25 acres. Very little business is carried on, although conditions are better than in Berkley or Dighton. The clams, too, are of better quality, being freer from the disagreeable flavor of clams grown farther up the river. The possibilities for clam culture in this town are not attractive, but the present conditions can be vastly improved. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 100 Value, $100 Total area (acres):-- Sand, - Mud, 10 Gravel, 15 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 25 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 15 Barren area possibly productive (acres), - Waste barren area (acres), 10 Possible normal production, $3,000 _Fall River._ Fall River has no clam territory on the south, owing to the wharves and other obstructions. On the more open waters of the north towards Freetown there is an extent of clam ground occupying about 25 acres. The foreign element in the city dig here for food, and some clams are likewise dug for bait, but the industry on the whole is of little consequence. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, - Capital invested, - Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 100 Value, $75 Total area (acres):-- Sand, - Mud, 20 Gravel, 5 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 25 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, - Scattering clams, 10 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 15 Waste barren area (acres), - Possible normal production, $3,500 _Nantucket._ At present Nantucket does not possess a clam industry of any importance. Years ago it is claimed that clams were abundant, and that quantities were dug for food or for bait. Now the reverse is true, and the fisherman often finds it difficult to procure clams even for bait. Indeed, Nantucket furnishes an excellent illustration of the decline of the clam industry. Practically all the flats of Nantucket are shore flats _i.e._, narrow flats along the shores of the harbor and on the sides of the creeks. Thus the area, though extending for many miles, is not great, and the clam industry of the island, though capable of development, nevertheless can never assume the importance of the quahaug and the scallop fisheries. In Nantucket harbor clams are found in the creeks, and particularly in Polpis harbor, although scattering clams are found all along the south shore of the harbor. A few clams are found on the north side in Coatou Creek and in First and Second Bend. The flats in Nantucket harbor are all coarse sand or a fine gravel, except in the creeks, where they become muddy. On the eastern and southern sides clams are found in scattering quantities in Maddequet harbor, on the north side of Tuckernuck and in the cove on the south side of Muskeget. COMPARISON OF 1907 WITH 1879. =============================+=================+================= PRODUCTION. | 1879. | 1907. -----------------------------+-----------------+----------------- Bushels, | 2,253 | 400 Value, | $872 | $350 =============================+=================+================= SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 4 Capital invested, $40 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 400 Value, $350 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 150 Mud, 25 Gravel, 25 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 200 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 5 Scattering clams, 15 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 130 Waste barren area (acres), 50 Possible normal production, $18,000 _Edgartown._ Although Edgartown possesses 200 acres of clam flats, it is not in a true sense a clam-producing town. The reason for this small production is due to the nature of the flats, which are mostly under water at low tide, making clamming difficult. Naturally Edgartown devotes its energies to the more profitable quahaug and scallop fisheries. The clam flats of the town are situated along the shores of Cape Poge Pond and in the lower part of Katama Bay, where many acres of flats are continually submerged. The shore flats are of small area, owing to the light rise and fall of the tide, less than 3 feet at this part of the coast. (1) _Cape Poge Pond._--Scattering clams are found all along the shore flats, except for a ¾-mile strip on the west side. The soil is of a coarse sand or gravel. (2) _Katama Bay._--The best clam flats of the town are situated in Katama Bay, and extend over a considerable territory. These flats, consisting of a coarse, sandy soil, lie continually submerged. Here the clams are dug by means of a "sea horse." This "animal" is nothing more than an elongated clam hoe with a belt attachment, whereby the clammer can "churn" out the clams at a depth of 2 to 3 feet. The clam industry of Edgartown has fallen off considerably since 1879. However, the clammers say that it has improved during the last fifteen years. The following comparison is made between the production of 1879 and 1907:-- COMPARISON OF 1907 WITH 1879. =========+============+============+============+============= YEAR. | Production | Production | Production | Value of | for Food | for Bait | (Bushels). | Production. | (Bushels). | (Bushels). | | ---------+------------+------------+------------+------------- 1879, | 1,000 | 3,000 | 4,000 | $1,570 1907, | 625 | 575 | 1,200 | 1,000 =========+============+============+============+============= The general shellfish regulations which govern the other shellfisheries of the town apply to the clam fishery; but the industry has never been considered important enough to need special legislation, and but slight attention has been given to it. SUMMARY OF INDUSTRY. Number of men, 7 Capital invested, $50 Production, 1907:-- Bushels, 1,200 Value, $1,000 Total area (acres):-- Sand, 150 Mud, - Gravel, 50 Mussels and eel grass, - Total, 200 Productive area (acres):-- Good clamming, 20 Scattering clams, 100 Barren area possibly productive (acres), 50 Waste barren area (acres), 30 Possible normal production, $33,000 In the opinion of many, doubtless, this report may appear unduly lengthy, and to include many seemingly trivial facts and unnecessary repetitions. To the trained observer, however, it seems of the greatest importance in dealing with such a practical and important problem to place on record all facts and opinions which may become of value, and to emphasize by frequent repetitions certain fundamental facts. Respectfully submitted, D. L. BELDING. The preceding report is intended to be a reliable statement of facts, and suggestions for consideration. On such a basis of facts the future policy of developing the shellfisheries must be based. It is the purpose of the Commissioners on Fisheries and Game to hold a series of public hearings in the different sections of the State for the purpose of giving personal expositions of the shellfish conditions and possibilities, and of giving a better opportunity for exchanging, discussing and weighing opinions. Meantime, in considering the conditions of the shellfisheries of Massachusetts, and the laws necessary to improve these conditions, the following points are of importance. The present shellfish laws are based upon the principle of "public" fisheries, and were made at times and at places where there was such a superabundance that the natural increase was sufficient to meet the market demands. Artificial cultivation was unnecessary. The fundamental laws were made in the colonial days. Since then the demand for shellfish as food has enormously increased, and for many years the annual natural increase has been entirely inadequate to meet these demands. We have outgrown the conditions which the original conception of that law covered. Under parallel conditions it has been found necessary to sell or lease the public lands, in order that the yield of food may be increased by cultivation under the immediate direction and responsibility of individual citizens, and under protection of State and national laws. When it was learned that the yield of a cultivated oyster bed far exceeded the natural product both in quantity and quality, the oyster laws were so modified that an important industry was built up, until to-day practically the entire oyster yield of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut is from cultivated beds, and the total product is many times the total catch from the natural beds in their palmiest days. To-day not only is it necessary to so modify the oyster laws as to increase the opportunities for better utilizing our bays and estuaries for oyster growing on a more extensive scale than is done at present, but also for developing similar methods of growing clams and quahaugs, and perhaps also scallops. The tidal flats must, as well as the deeper waters, be made to produce food and money by securing a larger yield per acre, and by the utilization of thousands of acres which are now practically idle, but which either are now adapted for growing shellfish or can readily be made so. Our present shellfish laws are a heterogeneous, conflicting patchwork, devised to meet temporary and local conditions, utterly inadequate to-day to permit the fishermen to secure a just return for their labor, and completely sacrificing the public interests. In many cases the responsible tax-paying citizen cannot find a place to dig a family supply of clams or quahaugs, neither can the industrious native fisherman get a fair day's pay for his labor. An entirely new code of shellfish laws is necessary, based upon the general principles (1) that in selling the shores the State reserved the right of fishing as "far as the tide doth ebb and flow," and (2) that the State may now lease these fishing rights under such conditions and restrictions as to secure to every citizen so desiring and so deserving an opportunity to cultivate such a definite area as may meet his needs and powers. Experience has proved conclusively that it is a correct economic principle for the State to give a secure title to certain carefully defined lands to a capable man, and to say: "This land is yours. You may raise potatoes, corn, hay or anything you choose. Every plant, fruit or tree growing on this property is yours. You have become responsible for its right and proper use. You have full and complete rights in this property, and can develop it by investing your labor and your money according to your own judgment, and the State will protect you in these rights as long as you do not interfere with the rights of other persons." Equally so it is an indubitable economic fact that the landowner finds it more profitable to plant or transplant corn, potatoes, grass, strawberries, etc., rather than to depend upon the natural methods and yield. Similarly, it is equally logical for the State to give to the fisherman equal opportunities with the farmer. The State should guarantee the tenure of the fisherman in his definitely bounded shellfish garden, and should protect his interests and the property on that garden as securely as if it were potatoes or corn, and should, so far as possible, guard him from local jealousy or the effects of petty politics so long as he continues wisely to improve his grant in conformity to the spirit and letter of laws which are found by experience to give the greatest good to the greatest number. Further, the State should protect the fishermen and the consumers of shellfish by defining the areas which from a sanitary point of view are (1) totally unsuitable for shellfish cultivation; (2) those where shellfish may be grown but not eaten; and, finally, (3) definite areas from which alone shellfish may be sold for food. Provide suitable penalties for sale of shellfish which have not been kept for the required time (at least thirty days) in sanitary surroundings before going to market. The entire question of pollution of streams and estuaries must be carefully considered in view of the public rights and of the commercial interests of the fishermen. Further, the laws must be so carefully drawn that the respective rights and interests of individual fishermen, shore owners, summer cottagers and the transient public at the seashore are completely safeguarded against the dangers of predatory wealth monopolizing the opportunities for cultivating shellfish in the waters and the tidal flats. The situation is extremely complicated on account of the diverse conditions and the numerous conflicting interests, oystermen, quahaugers, clammers and scallopers, native and alien fishermen, owners of shore property, town and State rights, local interests and petty politics, and careful judicial consideration is necessary not alone as to the substance of the necessary laws, but upon the methods of administering these laws. Respectfully submitted, G. W. FIELD. J. W. DELANO. G. H. GARFIELD. FOOTNOTES: [17] Licenses. [18] Licences for bait. [19] Licenses. [20] Statistics of the number of men engaged were unobtainable. INDEX. INDEX. Barnstable:-- Clam industry, 207-209 Oyster industry, 147-149 Quahaug industry, 52, 53 Scallop industry, 96-98 Berkley:-- Clam industry, 229, 230 Oyster industry, 156-158 Beverly, clam industry, 192 Boston harbor, clam industry, 196-198 Bourne:-- Clam industry, 220 Oyster industry, 153, 154 Quahaug industry, 53, 54 Scallop industry, 98, 99 Brewster, scallop industry, 99 Buzzard's Bay district:-- Clam industry, 219 Oyster industry, 150-152 Capital, 36 Chatham:-- Clam industry, 215, 216 Oyster industry, 144-146 Quahaug industry, 55, 56 Scallop industry, 99-101 Clam:-- Decline, 165, 166 Distribution, 159 Farming, 167-176 Growth, 171-173 History in Massachusetts, 176-178 Industry in Massachusetts, 178-180 Production for Massachusetts since 1880, 178 Remedy for decline, 167 Seed, 174 Statistics of industry in Massachusetts, 161-164 Cohasset, clam industry, 200 Dartmouth:-- Clam industry, 224, 225 Quahaug industry, 56 Scallop industry, 103 Dennis:-- Clam industry, 217, 218 Oyster industry, 146, 147 Quahaug industry, 56 Scallop industry, 101-103 Dighton:-- Clam industry, 229 Oyster industry, 156-158 Duxbury, clam industry, 202-204 Eastham:-- Clam industry, 211, 212 Oyster industry, 144 Quahaug industry, 56,57 Scallop industry, 103 Edgartown:-- Clam industry, 232, 233 Quahaug industry, 58-60 Scallop industry, 103-105 Essex, clam industry, 188-190 Fairhaven:-- Clam industry, 223 Quahaug industry, 60, 61 Scallop industry, 105, 106 Fall River, clam industry, 231 Fall River district:-- Clam industry, 225-227 Oyster industry, 156-158 Scallop industry, 106 Falmouth:-- Clam industry, 219, 220 Oyster industry, 149, 150 Quahaug industry, 61, 62 Scallop industry, 106 Fishing rights of the public, 26 Food value of shellfish, 92 Freetown:-- Clam industry, 230 Oyster industry, 156-158 Gloucester, clam industry, 190, 191 Harwich:-- Clam industry, 217 Oyster industry, 146 Quahaug industry, 62, 63 Scallop industry, 106, 107 Hingham, clam industry, 199 Hull, clam industry, 199, 200 Ipswich, clam industry, 185-188 Kingston, clam industry, 205, 206 Laws:-- Oyster, 127-132 Quahaug, 50, 51 Scallop, 92, 93 Shellfish, 25-30 Lynn, clam industry, 193, 194 Manchester, clam industry, 191, 192 Marion:-- Clam industry, 221, 222 Oyster industry, 156 Quahaug industry, 63, 64 Scallop industry, 107, 108 Marshfield, clam industry, 201, 202 Mashpee:-- Clam industry, 218 Oyster industry, 149 Quahaug industry, 64, 65 Scallop industry, 108 Mattapoisett:-- Clam industry, 222 Quahaug industry, 65, 66 Scallop industry, 108, 109 Methods of work, 16 Clam, 160, 161 Oyster, 117, 118 Quahaug, 38 Scallop, 81 Monopoly, 36 Nahant, clam industry, 195, 196 Nantucket:-- Clam industry, 231, 232 Oyster industry, 158, 159 Quahaug industry, 66-69 Scallop industry, 109-111 Narragansett Bay:-- Clam industry, 225-227 Oyster industry, 156-158 New Bedford:-- Clam industry, 223, 224 Quahaug industry, 69, 70 Scallop industry, 111-113 Newbury, clam industry, 184, 185 Newburyport, clam industry, 182, 183 Orleans:-- Clam industry, 210, 211 Oyster industry, 144 Quahaug industry, 70-72 Scallop industry, 113 Overfishing, 23 Oyster:-- Enemies, 155 Grants, 119 Natural beds, 119-123 Statistics, 136-138 Spat collecting, 133, 134 Oystermen v. quahaugers, 152 Plymouth, clam industry, 206, 207 Pollution, water, 23-25, 236 Protection, 26, 27 Provincetown:-- Clam industry, 214, 215 Quahaug industry, 72 Scallop industry, 113 Quahaug:-- Decline, 38-40 Distribution, 36, 37 Farming, 40-43 Growth, 42 History in Massachusetts, 49, 50 Industry, 43-49 Rakes, 44, 45 Spat collecting, 43 Statistics, 51 Quahaugers v. oystermen, 152 Resources, unimproved, 19 Salem, clam industry, 193 Salisbury, clam industry, 180-182 Sanitary conditions, 236 Saugus, clam industry, 194, 195 Scallop:-- Decline, 82-84 Distribution, 80 Dredges, 86-88 "Eye," 88 History in Massachusetts, 93, 94 Improvements, 84 Industry, 85-91 Maine, 90 Market, 90 Openers, 88 Outfit, 90, 91 "Pusher," 85 Season, 91 Shanties, 88 Soaking, 89, 90 Statistics, 95 Scituate, clam industry, 201 Sectional jealousy, 31 Shellfisheries:-- Abuses, 25-33 Decline, 20-25 Development, 19 Production since 1879, 20 Remedy, 33-35 Statistics, 19 Somerset:-- Clam industry, 228, 229 Oyster industry, 156-158 Statistical summaries:-- Clam industry, 161-164 Oyster industry, 136-138 Quahaug industry, 51 Scallop industry, 95 Shellfish industry, 19 Swansea:-- Clam industry, 227, 228 Oyster industry, 156-158 Quahaug industry, 72 Tisbury, scallop industry, 113 Town jealousy, 31 Truro:-- Clam industry, 213, 214 Quahaug industry, 72 Wareham:-- Clam industry, 221 Oyster industry, 154-156 Quahaug industry, 72-74 Scallop industry, 114, 115 Waste of competition, 31 Wastefulness, historical, 17-19 Wellfleet:-- Clam industry, 212, 213 Oyster industry, 138-143 Quahaug industry, 74-79 Scallop industry, 115 Weymouth, clam industry, 198 Yarmouth:-- Clam industry, 209, 210 Oyster industry, 146, 147 Quahaug industry, 79, 80 Scallop industry, 115, 116 [Illustration: The above map of the coast line of Massachusetts, with its numbered sections, furnishes an index to the following series of shellfish areas.] [Illustration: The above characters, as used on the following maps, indicate the position and relative quantities of the various shellfish in their respective localities. No attempt is made to give the relative abundance of scallops and oysters, while the present productive value of the different clam and quahaug areas is indicated by different standards of marking.] [Illustration: Map 1.] [Illustration: Map 2.] [Illustration: Map 3.] [Illustration: Map 4.] [Illustration: Map 5.] [Illustration: Map 6.] [Illustration: Map 7.] [Illustration: Map 8.] [Illustration: Map 9.] [Illustration: Map 10.] [Illustration: Map 11.] [Illustration: Map 12.] [Illustration: Map 13.] [Illustration: Map 14.] [Illustration: Map 15.] [Illustration: Map 16.] [Illustration: Map 17.] [Illustration: Map 18.] [Illustration: Map 19.] [Illustration: Map 20.] [Illustration: Map 21.] [Illustration: Map 22.] [Illustration: Map 23.] [Illustration: Map 24.] [Illustration: =The Scallop Pusher.=--This implement consists of a wooden pole, from 8 to 9 feet long, attached to a rectangular iron framework, 3 by 1½ feet, fitted with a netting bag, 3 feet in depth. The scalloper, wading in the shallow water, gathers the scallops from the flats by shoving the pusher among the eel grass. The photograph shows the correct position of the pusher in operation. Only a small part of the pole is shown.] [Illustration: =The Box Scallop Dredge.=--This dredge consists of a rectangular framework, 27 by 12 inches, with an oval-shaped iron bar extending backward as a support for the netting bag, which is attached to the rectangular frame. To the sides of this frame is joined a heavy iron chain about 4 feet long, to which the drag rope is fastened. This style of dredge is used only at Chatham and the neighboring towns of Cape Cod.] [Illustration: =Scallop Dredge=,--"=The Scraper.="--This implement has the form of a triangular iron framework, with a curve of nearly 90° at the base, to form the bowl of the dredge. On the upper side a raised cross bar connects the two arms, while at the bottom a strip of iron 2 inches wide extends across the dredge. This narrow strip acts as a scraping blade, and is set at an angle so as to dig into the soil. The top of the net is fastened to the cross bar and the lower part to the blade. The usual dimensions of the dredge are: arms, 2½ feet; upper cross bar, 2 feet; blade, 2½ feet. The net varies in size, usually running from 2 to 3 feet in length and holding between 1 and 2 bushels. Additional weights can be put on the cross bar when the scalloper desires the dredge to "scrape" deeper. A wooden bar 2 feet long buoys the net. The scraper used at Nantucket has the entire net made of twine, whereas in other localities the lower part consists of interwoven iron rings.] [Illustration: =The Oyster Dredge.=--This is the type of oyster dredge used on the large gasolene boats. The photograph was taken on board the oyster boat of Mr. James Monahan of Wareham. The dredge consists of a net of woven iron rings attached to an iron framework. From each corner of the framework rods extend, converging at a point some feet away, where the drag rope is attached. The blade, resting horizontally on the surface, is armed with large teeth which rake the oysters into the bag. When this bag, which holds from 8 to 15 bushels, is full, the dredge is raised by a gasolene hoist.] [Illustration: =The Basket Quahaug Rake.=--This style of basket rake is used at Edgartown and Nantucket. The whole rake is made of iron, no netting being required, as thin iron wires 1/3 of an inch apart encircle lengthwise the entire basket, preventing the escape of any marketable quahaugs, while at the same time allowing mud and sand to wash out. This rake has 16 steel teeth, 1½ inches long, fitted at intervals of 1 inch on the scraping bar. The depth of the basket is about 8 inches. Short poles not exceeding 30 feet in length are used, as the raking is carried on in water which does not exceed 25 feet in depth. Only the iron framework of the rake is shown.] [Illustration: =The Claw Quahaug Rake.=--This rake varies greatly in size and length. Its use is chiefly confined to Nantucket. The general style has a handle 6 feet long, while the iron part, in the form of a claw or talon, with prongs 1 inch apart, is 10 inches wide. A heavier rake, as here shown, is sometimes used in the deeper water.] [Illustration: =The Scallop Rake.=--The use of this rake is confined almost exclusively to the town of Chatham. Both scallops and quahaugs can be taken with it. The bowl is formed by a curve of the prongs, which are held together by two long cross bars at the top and bottom of the basket, while the ends are enclosed by short strips of iron. Handles from 15 to 20 feet long are generally used with this rake.] [Illustration: =Rowley Reef Clam Set.=--This photograph shows the surface of Rowley Reef, one of the flats of Plum Island Sound. In the summer of 1906 a heavy set of clams was found on this flat, averaging 1,500 to the square foot of surface. These rapidly diminished, and one year later, Aug. 27, 1907, when this photograph was taken, the clams numbered about 400 to the square foot. This area furnished an excellent illustration of the great destruction of natural clam set. Only 5 per cent. of these clams reached maturity, and the remaining 95 per cent., destroyed by natural agencies, could have been saved if proper measures had been taken. At least 100 acres of the barren flats of Rowley could have been planted with the "seed" from this flat, and after two years the crop would have been worth $30,000. The present shellfish laws of the Commonwealth are alone to blame for this waste. The clam hoe shown in the foreground is the typical digger or "hooker" of the North Shore clammer.] [Illustration: =Rowley Reef.=--This photograph, taken on the same date as the preceding, shows another section of the reef, where the clam set has been torn up and destroyed by horse-shoe crabs and cockles.] [Illustration: =Rowley Reef.=--A photograph, natural size, of a thickly set part of the same flat. The broken shells on top show clams which have been crowded out of the sand and destroyed. In this way nature regulates the number of clams in a given area.] [Illustration: =Castle Neck Flat= (=Essex River=).--A scene at low tide, Aug. 28, 1907, showing the area turned over by two clammers in one hour. At this date there was a heavy set of small clams on this flat.] [Illustration: =Plymouth Harbor.=--This photograph was taken at low tide, from the boat house of Mr. Frank Cole. In the foreground are a few of the experimental clam beds of the Massachusetts department of fisheries and game. Note the large tracts of eel grass covering the flats.] [Illustration: =Cole's Clam Grant.=--This photograph shows a portion of the grant leased to Mr. Frank Cole by the town of Kingston for the propagation of clams. Several of the experimental beds of the Massachusetts department of fisheries and game were situated on this grant.] [Illustration: =Clam Spat Box.=--This box was suspended from a raft during the summer of 1907. The small clams which were caught in it are heaped before the box. These clams vary in size from ½ to 2 inches in length, showing that the spawning season is at least of two months' duration. The spat box was put down May 15 and taken up October 15. Note the barnacles, silver shells (_Anomia_), etc., on the box and rope.] [Illustration: =A Clam Shanty.=--The shanty of Samuel Kilbourn, an experienced Ipswich clammer. The large heap of shells is the result of six weeks of steady digging. Numerous shanties of this sort are used for "shucking out" clams when marketed by the gallon. This photograph also shows the clam sifter which was used in obtaining the small "seed" clams from Rowley Reef for the experimental beds.] [Illustration: =Taking up One of the Clam Gardens of the Massachusetts Department of Fisheries and Game.=--The bed was planted Nov. 15, 1905, in Essex River, on a sand flat locally known as "Newfoundland." When the bed was planted the flat was considered barren, as it produced practically no clams. The photograph was obtained Nov. 15, 1907, when the bed was taken up, and shows the clammers at work. Note the heaps of marketable clams which were taken from the bed.] [Illustration: =Yield in Two Years of the Garden shown in the Preceding Photograph.=--Note the amount of clams planted, compared with the marketable clams taken out. The size of the bed was 1/100 of an acre. The clams had increased in size so that 8 quarts were obtained for every quart planted. This shows what could be done with many barren flats if individuals had the privilege of cultivating clam farms.] [Illustration: =The Winkle or Cockle= (=Lunatia heros and duplicata=).--An enemy of the clam, which it destroys by boring a hole through the shell and sucking out the contents.] [Illustration: =Clam Growth.=--This photograph gives a comparison between the growth of small and large clams from a single bed under the same natural conditions. The large clam shows a much slower growth than the small. Both clams were notched when planted on the "Spit" in Essex River, April 18, 1907. They were dug Aug. 28, 1907.] [Illustration: =Soft-shelled Clam= (=Mya arenaria=).--This large clam shell, measuring 5¾ inches in length, was found on Grey's Flat, Kingston. Where the flat has been worn away by erosion the ground is white with thousands of these shells in an upright position in the soil, showing that sudden destruction had overtaken them at some time in the past.] [Illustration: =Quahaugs from an Experimental Bed at Monomoy Point, showing Two Years' Growth.=--The two notches or file marks on the shells indicate the growth per year. The photograph is two-thirds life size. These quahaugs have shown rapid growth, having gained nearly 1 inch a year in length, which is the best growth thus far found in any of the experimental beds.] [Illustration: =Gathering "Seed" Oysters in the Weweantit River, Wareham, May 6, 1908.=--The natural beds of the town of Wareham had been closed for seven years, and on this date were opened for the period of one week for the inhabitants of the town to gather "seed" oysters, the photograph was taken on the opening day, and shows the oystermen at work tonging the "seed" oysters. In the foreground is a loaded skiff, ready to have its contents estimated by the inspector, who declares the number of bushels. The tongers pay the town 10 cents per bushel for the privilege of gathering the oysters, and sell them for 35 cents per bushel to the planters, thus realizing a profit of 25 cents.] [Illustration: =Typical Steam Dredger.=--The oyster boat of Mr. James Monahan of Wareham, showing oyster dredge and hoist. The large cans aboard the boat contain young flatfish from the Woods Hole Hatchery of the United States Fish Commission. Mr. Monahan is distributing these in Wareham river.] [Illustration: =Typical Oyster Schooner.=--Oyster schooner loaded with 1,935 bushels of Wareham "seed" for L. Dodge, Providence River. This "seed" was taken in May, 1908, from the natural oyster bed in the Agawam River, which had been closed for the past three years.] Transcriber's Notes: Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were silently corrected. Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed. P. 92 added "(All values expressed as per cent.)" in lieu of repeating per-cent. comment in every column header. Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_. Bold markup is enclosed in =equals=.