SPECKLED TROUT 97 



for all that, with its two saw-mill dams, its pretty 

 cascades, its high, shelving rocks sheltering the 

 mossy nests of the phoebe-bird, and its general wild 

 and forbidding aspects. 



But a meadow brook was always a favorite. The 

 trout like meadows; doubtless their food is more 

 abundant there, and, usually, the good hiding-places 

 are more numerous. As soon as you strike a meadow 

 the character of the creek changes: it goes slower 

 and lies deeper; it tarries to enjoy the high, cool 

 banks and to half hide beneath them; it loves the 

 willows, or rather the willows love it and shelter it 

 from the sun; its spring runs are kept cool by the 

 overhanging grass, and the heavy turf that faces its 

 open banks is not cut away by the sharp hoofs of 

 the grazing cattle. Then there are the bobolinks 

 and starlings and meadowlarks, always interested 

 spectators of the angler; there are also the marsh 

 marigolds, the buttercups, or the spotted lilies, and 

 the good angler is always an interested spectator of 

 them. In fact, the patches of meadow land that lie 

 in the angler's course are like the happy experiences 

 in his own life, or like the fine passages in the poem 

 he is reading; the pasture oftener contains the shal- 

 low and monotonous places. In the small streams 

 the cattle scare the fish, and soil their element and 

 break down their retreats under the banks. Wood- 

 land alternates the best with meadow: the creek 

 loves to burrow under the roots of a great tree, to 

 scoop out a pool after leaping over the prostrate trunk 

 of one, and to pause at the foot of a ledge of moss- 



