Percoidea, or Perch-like Fishes 303 



shall wear the finished appearance of European lands, and every 

 verdant field be closely cropped by lawn-mowers and guarded 

 by hedges, and every purling stream which meanders through 

 it has its water-bailiff, we shall still have speckled trout from 

 which the radiant spots have faded, and tasteless fish, to catch 

 at a dollar a pound (as we already have on Long Island), and 

 all the appurtenances and appointments of a genuine English 

 trouting privilege and a genuine English 'outing.' 



"In those future days, not long hence to come, some ven- 

 erable piscator, in whose memory still lingers the joy of fishing, 

 the brawling stream which tumbled over the rocks in the tangled 

 wildwood, and moistened the arbutus and the bunchberries 



FIG. 238. Small Mouth Black Bass Micropterus dolomieu Lac&pede. 



which garnished its banks, will totter forth to the velvet edge 

 of some peacefully flowing stream, and having seated himself 

 on a convenient point in a revolving easy-chair, placed there 

 by his careful attendant, cast right and left for the semblance 

 of sport long dead. 



"Hosts of liver-fed fish rush to the signal for their early 

 morning meal, and from the center of the boil which follows 

 the fall of the handfuls thrown in my piscator of the ancient 

 days will hook a two-pound trout, and play him hither and yon, 

 from surface to bottom, without disturbing the pampered gour- 

 mands which are gorging themselves upon the disgusting viands ; 

 and when he has leisurely brought him to land at last, and the 

 gillie has scooped him with his landing-net, he will feel in his 

 capacious pocket for his last trade dollar, and giving his friend 

 the tip, shuffle back to his house, and lay aside his rod forever." 



