'234: FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS. 



" Among the plagues on earth which God has sent, 



Of lighter torment is the plague of flies : 

 Not as of Egypt once the punishment, 



Yet such sometimes as feeble patience tries. 

 Where wild America in vastness lies, 



There diverse hordes the swamps and woods infest. 

 Banded or singly, these make man their prize ; 



Quick by their subtle dart is blood expressed 

 Or tumor raised. By tiny foe distressed, 



Travelers in forest rude with veil are fain 

 To arm the face ; men there whose dwellings rest 



Crouch in thick smoke ; like help their cattle gain. * 

 Oh wise in trials great, in troubles small, 



Who know to find mementoes of the Fall." 



Our two solitary " birdies" were piping the peculiar notes 

 of the Northern wilderness, the salmon were leaping and 

 splashing, and I longed to tackle the mate of the silver beau- 

 ty lost the evening previous. 



Having already. soaked my casting-line, I shouldered my 

 heavy and lengthy friend, the Castle Connell rod, and march- 

 ed up the river about a hundred rods to where a bend in the 

 shore threw the current out around the eddy rock. I select- 

 ed a medium -sized fly with purple body, blue legs, brown 

 mallard wings, and golden pheasant top -knot for the tail. 

 Then I commenced casting out toward the middle of the riv- 

 er, and letting the fly float down and around to near the 

 shore. About my third cast brought a bite and a leap that 

 made my heart palpitate with anxiety. I played him about 

 half an hour, he once and a while running off about two hun- 

 dred feet of line, and then coming back as tame and cosy as 

 possible, until by-and-by his patience became exhausted, and 

 lie thought he would start up the river a hundred miles or so 

 to the spawning-beds. He navigated the rapid about twen- 



* It is asserted as a truth by border settlers that, when burning off a sum- 

 mer fallow, and the smoke no longer protects cattle in contiguous pastures, 

 that they run lowing to the house to have the fire renewed ; and it is some- 

 times necessary that they shall stand in dense smoke to enable them to re- 

 main still long enough to be milked. 





