168 FISHING WITH THE FLY. 



loose stones, completely overgrown with, bright green 

 moss. 



"Rock Run" heads in a strong, ice-cold spring, hut 

 is soon sunken and lost among the loose stones of the 

 swamp. Just where the immense hemlocks, that make 

 the swamp a sunless gloom, get their foothold, is one 

 of the things I shall never find out. But, all the same, 

 they are there. And " Rock Run " finds its way under- 

 ground for 80 rods with never a ray of sunlight to il- 

 lumine its course. Not once in its swamp course does 

 it break out to daylight. You may follow it by its 

 heavy gurgling, going by ear ; but you cannot see the 

 water. Now remove the heavy coating of moss here 

 and there, and you may see glimpses of dark, cold 

 water, three or four feet beneath the surface. Drop a 

 hook, baited with angle-worm down these dark watery 

 holes, and it will be instantly taken by a dark, crim- 

 son-spotted specimen of simon pure Sahno fontinalis. 

 They are small, four to six inches in length, hard, 

 sweet ; the beau ideal of mountain trout. Follow this 

 subterranean brook for eighty rods, and you find it 

 gushing over the mountain's brink in a cascade that no 

 fish could or would attempt to ascend. Follow the 

 roaring brook down to its confluence with Second Fork, 

 and you will not find one trout in the course of a mile. 

 The stream is simply a succession of falls, cascades, and 

 rapids, up which no fish can beat its way for one hun- 

 dred yards. And yet at the head of this stream is a 

 subterranean brook stocked witfy the finest specimens 



