36 Reminiscences of 



times in my early sporting life with gun and rod, 

 I have overlooked the calm consideration I should 

 have given preference. 



In 1858 I made in the winter an excursion in 

 Maine to the Rangeley Lakes near the Canada line, 

 which set a color upon my sporting horizon which 

 has never been effaced, and since that period I have 

 never failed, amid the cares of an active business life, 

 to visit that region annually. Those trips at times 

 have been difficult to arrange when I have been 

 absent in distant places, but I have not failed in some 

 month of each year since 1858 to rendezvous at the 

 Rangeleys for from one to four and six months. 



Reports of unusually large trout at those lakes 

 had reached me for a year or two before the trip in 

 December of 1858, and some question existed if those 

 trout were of the Fontinalis species, as they had not 

 been so designated by a competent ichthyologist. I 

 arranged with three friends equally interested in the 

 subject for an excursion there, and after two days 

 from leaving the Grand Trunk Railroad, breaking 

 our way with team for forty miles through the snow, 

 we arrived at one of the lakes of the chain. The 

 last half of the distance through the forest was over 

 an old logging road which had not been broken out 

 that season, over which our progress was slow. 



It was about dark when we installed ourselves in 

 a dilapidated old logging camp at the foot of the 

 lake, and the following day proceeded over the ice 

 and its accumulated snow for a distance of six miles, 

 camping at and making headquarters in a compara- 

 tively good logging camp by the shore. We had 

 a single horse "pung" which we retained, sending 



