1 78 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



hunting developed in them, is a strong argument 

 in favour of letting hounds alone as much as 

 possible. Having failed to kill my deer, and 

 having made sure that the Circe in a hammock 

 was only a phantom created by the ardent 

 imagination of the young man who wrote the 

 guide-book, I betook myself seriously to fishing, 

 more especially as the camp was getting so 

 ravenous that our host's cow was within an ace 

 of being sacrificed. 



There is a professional angler, named Lee 

 Harris, who spends a good part of his year 

 within hail of Fort William Henry Hotel, on 

 Lake George. Of all those who angle for black 

 bass with grasshoppers, for pickerel or lake-trout 

 with ' shiners/ or in any other manner for any 

 other fish, Lee Harris is facile princeps. To 

 him I went for instruction, and as his plumes 

 had been a good deal ruffled lately by the advent 

 of a rival Izaak Walton from Australia, I found 

 him extremely communicative. Unfortunately it 

 was the old story. ' When I first came here,' 

 Lee Harris said, ' there were more fish in the 

 lakes than Dick Birch will tell you there were 

 deer in the forests when he first came along. 

 But it's not worth your while putting them 

 things together now,' pointing to my pile of rods. 

 ' There are a few pickerel (jack you call -'em in 



