HASTY VISITS TO AMERICA 253 



New York State, the trout fishing opens on April 15, 

 and the favourite country is in the Adirondacks, where 

 the wood-built veranda'd clubhouses are pitched here 

 and there over a vast tract of woods, beside lakes and 

 streams. To reach the Adirondacks you have a fifteen 

 hours' journey by rail, and waggon tracks over hilly, 

 and not macadamised roads, that will account for from 

 two to fifteen hours more, according to the retreat 

 chosen. You are here quite out of the world, and for 

 the nearest fishing grounds you may leave New York 

 by the evening train to-day, and be at work at even- 

 tide to-morrow. 



From Boston, the quiet city of studious men and 

 women, who regard their old town still as the " hub of 

 the universe," there are endless possibilities, more or 

 less inland. Connecticut, Vermont, and mountainous 

 New Hampshire, abound in charming minor streams 

 and picturesque scenery. The delights of this New 

 England fishing and camping have been faithfully im- 

 mortalised in that incomparable prose idyll " I Go a 

 Fishing," by Prime. Maine, however, is the United 

 States angler's paradise. This involves at least a 

 twenty-four hours' journey by rail and steamer, if you 

 would reach the famous lake region of that sporting 

 state. The trout run large, and I have seen the skin 

 of a handsome 9~lb. fontinalis killed there with the 

 fly. There are declared to be even bigger fish than 

 this ; but 4~lb. and 5-lb. fish are considered really good 

 specimens. The average is not lower than 2 lb., and 

 3~lb. fish may be taken as " good." The flies used are 

 never smaller than our sea-trout size, and they are 

 more often larger ; but the best anglers catalogue you 

 as a lubber if you wield anything heavier than a boy's 

 rod. I have looked over some fly books in active 

 service, and when some day I find myself in that log- 



