THE BLACK BASS AS A GAME FISH. 381 



No doubt the Bass is the appointed successor of the Trout : not 

 through heritage, nor selection, nor by interloping, but by Ibrc- 

 ordination. Truly, it is sad to contemplate, in the not distant 

 future, the extinction of a beautiful race of creatures, whose at- 

 tributes have been sung by all the poets; but we regard the 

 inevitable with the same calm philosophy with which the astronomer 

 watches the burning out of a world, knowing that it will be suc- 

 ceeded by a new creation. 



As we mark the soft vari-tinted flush of the Trout disappear in 

 the eventide, behold the sparkle of the coming Ba^s as he leaps into 

 the morning of his glory! We hardly know which to admire the 

 most — the velvet livery and the charming graces of the departing 

 courtier, or the flash of the armor-plates on the advancing warrior. 

 No doubt the Bass will prove himself a worthy substitute for his 

 predecessor, and a candidate for a full legacy of honors. 



No doubt, when every one of the older States shall become as 

 densely settled as Great Britain itself, and all the rural aspects of 

 the crowded domain resemble the suburban surroundings of our 

 Boston; when every feature of the pastoral landscape 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 per 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 venerable 

 piscator, in whose memory still lingers the joy of fishing, the brawl- 

 ing stream which tumbled over the rocks in the tangled wildwood, 

 and moistened the arbutus and the bunchberries which garnished 

 its banks, will totter forth to the velvety edge of some peacefully- 

 flowing scream, 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 will rush to the signal for their early morn- 

 ing meal, and from the center of the boil which follows the fall of 

 the handsful thrown in, my piscator of the ancient days will hook a 



