LONG ISLAND TROUT FISHING. o-'37 



other varieties, with which most books on fly-fishing abound, 

 vsque ad nauseam; for I am satisfied that such descriptions 

 must be entirely unsatisfactory and useless to the fisherman, 

 who should attempt to tie flies by their aid, without other and 

 more practical instruction ; and they are so well known to all 

 anglers, and to all tackle-makers, by their names, that they can 

 be readily and unmistakeably ordered by letter, and obtained at 

 any distance, from any of the large cities. 



In progress of this subject, I take the liberty of quoting, from 

 Dr. Bethune's very beautiful edition of Walton's Angler, the 

 following paper, which was drawn up and contributed to that 

 work by myself, on the Trout-fishing of Long Island, at the 

 request of the accomplished author. It contains everything 

 that I know or could collect at that time on this branch of the 

 subject ; and as I rest well assured that my borrowing it will in 

 nowise injure or interfere with that beautiful and admirable 

 work, while I feel that it would be useless and absurd to re-word 

 the same ideas and opinions, and so render it pseudo-original, I 

 do not hesitate to extract it entire : — 



" The principal distinctions that strike the careful observer 

 between the Trout of Long Island, or, indeed, I might say North 

 America in general, and those of the British Isles, is, first, the 

 great uniformity of size on the part of the former, which rarely 

 exceed two or three pounds in weight, and never, so far as I 

 have been able to ascertain, five or six ; and, secondly, the fact 

 that in the United States, Trout are never taken in the large 

 rivers, or, if ever, so rarely as to prove the rule by the wonder 

 arising from the exception, 



" On Long Island there are some half dozen instances on 



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