112 AX ANGLER'S REMINISCENCES. 



the rasping trill of the kingfisher ; the cdor of the ferns and the sweet breath of the 

 opening flowers ! 



No wonder that the ardent angler takes the spring fever and begins to lift down 

 his rods from the rack and overhaul his tackle. Even the small boy catches the 

 infection and sighs for the waterside as he sits on his workbench and whispers : 



"Father ! they say the trout bite good now !" 



"Bite, do they? Well, well; you stick to your work and they won't bite you." 



What a Babcock extinguisher to the youthful fire! "Truth crushed to earth 

 shall rise again;" but what of ambition thus mercilessly nipped in the bud? Where 

 is Izaak? Shades of the departed! 



There are those who affect to despise anglers. Perhaps they associate them 

 with worms? Well, none of us should be too fastidious. One common destiny 

 waits on us, and all will have to succumb to it sooner or later. We are liable, at 

 any time, to furnish ground bait for bottom fish. 



It is not for me to champion the Fraternity of Fishermen. They are abundantly 

 able to speak for themselves. Even the fisherwomen are lusty in their self-assertion. 

 It is hard to circumvent the eloquence of Billingsgate. 



Daniel O'Connell and Richard Brinsley Sheridan both tried to talk down the 

 fish wives. The great counsellor even went so far as to call one of them an "old 

 hypothenuse !" but she berated him into ignominious flight ! 



(That was the last of the O'Connells.) 



Heroically she defended the well-earned reputation of the craft, intensifying 

 with glowing visage the reflected luster of the emblematic twelfth sign of the 

 zodiac "In hoc signo vinces." 



Numerically, the angling fraternity is a power. In the city of London alone it 

 is said there are nearly 100 clubs, with a membership of 3,000, to say nothing of 

 as many more regular anglers who do not belong to clubs. 



In America are at least 100 organized angling clubs, with an average member- 

 ship of over thirty persons. That this constituency is recognized as a power in the 

 United States is demonstrated by the deference shown to sportsmen by hotel pro- 

 prietors and transportation lines all over the country. Special excursion tickets are 

 issued every season by many railroad companies, and some of them furnish excur- 

 sion cars expressly fitted up for sportsmen, with sleeping bunks, kitchen apparatus, 

 rod racks, etc. One line defers so particularly to this class of patronage that it has 

 dubbed itself "The Fishing Line." For several years many railroad companies have 

 catered especially to the anglers and sportsmen in general their roads reaching 

 many of the finest fishing localities on the globe. In Worcester, Mass., there is 

 an excursion car company which leases cars to sportsmen, fitted up with every 

 appliance suited to their requirements. Parties pay so much per day and travel 

 wherever they wish, ad libitum. 



Many of the most enthusiastic anglers are the railroad officials themselves. A 

 fellow feeling, therefore, makes them wondrous kind. Let us be grateful, then, for 

 the cordial sympathy thus begotten, and hasten to avail ourselves of the facilities 

 which they provide. Now is the accepted time : 



"Oh, while fishing last, enjoy it; "He who clothed their banks with verdure, 



Let us to the streams repair; Dotted them with various flowers, 



Snatch some hours from toil and study, Meant that ye, tho' doomed to labor, 



Nature's blessed gifts to share. Should enjoy some cheering hours; 



Ye, who stand behind the counter, Wipe your reeking brows, come with us, 



Or grown pallid at the loom, With your basket and your rod, 



Leave the measure and the shuttle, And with happy hearts look up, from 



To the rippling stream come, come! Nature unto Nature's God." 



