GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 161 



The circumstance is one in which I have always felt the 

 greatest interest, for it occurred at the time wlien I first 

 left my native city of Baltimore for a home in the AVest ; 

 and I have a distinct impression of the matter, made at 

 the time of its occurrence, either from having heard it fre- 

 quently spoken of, or from reading accounts of it in the 

 public prints of the day ; and my early impressions have 

 always connected the name of Mr. Stabler, then a con- 

 ductor of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, with 

 the praiseworthy act. 



At all events, it excited my curiosity as to the Black 

 Bass, which 1 had then never seen, and prompted me to 

 seek the acquaintance of that grand game-fish, which I very 

 soon afterwards proceeded to do, in the Miami River, near 

 Cincinnati. It is scarcely necessary to say that I have 

 ever since been on terms of the closest intimacy with him, 

 he having entirely supplanted, in my affections, the love 

 I once bore my former piscatorial friends, the Striped Bass, 

 the Blue Fish, and the White Perch of the Chesapeake 

 and the Patapsco ; but I must confess to an occasional 

 retrospective weakness, and a kindly yearning for the old- 

 time friends of my boyish days, not excepting the diminu- 

 tive, but delicious "Gudgeon" of the Upper Patapsco and 



Herring Run. 

 14 



