DIES PISCATORI^, 677 



occupied the back leaves of your fly-book for long years are 

 profitable things to invest in this way, for three boj^s out of 

 four you meet with, will ask you to sell them " a pair of fly- 

 hooks," which of course results in your giving them a brace 

 or so that are a little the worse for wear, or too gay for your 

 own use. 



If the fly-fisher, though, would have " society where none 

 intrudes," or society that wovHt intrude, let him take a lad of 

 ten or twelve along to carry his dinner, and to relieve him 

 after the roast, by transferring part of the contents of his 

 creel to the empty dinner-basket. The garrulity and queer 

 questions of a country boy of this age are amusing, when you 

 are disposed to talk. Any person who has sojourned at my 

 friend Jim Henry's, and had his good-natured untiring boy 

 Luther for his gilly, will acknowledge the advantage of such 

 a "tail " even if it has not as many joints as a Highland laird's. 



If there is an objection to a Trout-roast, it is that a man 

 eats too much, and feels lazy after dinner. But what of that ? 

 it is a luxurious indolence, without care for the morrow — 

 Care ! why, he left that at home when he bought his railroad 

 ticket, and shook oft' the dust of the city from his hob- 

 nailed boots. 



What pretty bright Trout there are in this bold rocky 

 creek ! it would be called a river in England, and so it is. 

 We Americans have an ugly way of calling every stream not 

 a hundred yards wide, a creek. It is all well enough when 

 the name is applied to some still sedgy water, which loses 

 half of its depth, and three-fourths of its width, at low tide, 

 and is bank-full on the flood. But speckled fellows like 

 these don't live there. De Kay must have received some 

 inspiration at a Trout-roast, when he gave them the specific 

 name of "Fontinalis," and they are truly the Salmon of the 

 fountain; for a stream like this and its little tributaries, 

 37 



