SEA-TROUT. 75 



" What is it ?" "A devil," he replied. He gave me 

 materials, and while sailing down the river I made 

 one. One day at the Home Pool I saw ten or a dozen 

 large trout. They paid no heed to my flies. " Try the 

 devil/' my guide whispered. In a moment of weakness 

 I yielded to the tempter and put it on. The first cast 

 caused commotion in the watery camp. At the second 

 I struck and soon drew out on the beach a pound and 

 a half trout. I looked upon the beautiful fish with 

 compassion, cursed myself for resorting to such unfair 

 means, removed the cruel hooks as tenderly as I could 

 from the mangled and bleeding mouth, and taking off 

 the devilish invention threw it as far as possible into 

 the woods. 



. . . . " The beasts of game 

 The privilege of chase may claim." 



I have not since used, and shall not in the future 

 use, this rightly named instrument, and hope no angler 

 will. I have narrated this only unpleasant feature of 

 my bout to illustrate the devilish ingenuity of "pot 

 fishermen " and the curiosity of sea-trout. I wonder 

 what was the gender of the fish ! 



With a view of showing the capabilities of our river 

 in the production of fish, I have aggregated the scores 

 from 1872 to 1882 inclusive. In one of these years 

 three rods were in use, in three others two, and in the 

 other years but one. The average time of fishing in 

 each year was about three weeks. 



Number of trout taken, 5,525 ; aggregate weight, 



