72 Sporting Sketches 



escapes beingdrawn into thewrathful six-inch cascade 

 below. Let us turn over a pebble, half buried in the 

 damp mould, and see if there be not a red, hairlike 

 worm under. He is in the stuff sticking to the stone. 

 Now let us drop him into the pool it's a trifle 

 rough on the worm, but the true quest for knowl- 

 edge knoweth not conscience. Did you see it- 

 that small point of light which seemed to flash from 

 nowhere in particular and to lose itself and the 

 worm in some mysterious fashion ? Now is our 

 river indeed a living stream, for that tiny flashing 

 thing was a trout. An inch-long, fairy fry was he, 

 but a trout for all that, with his full share of the 

 headlong dash and courage of his noble race. Can 

 he be taken ? Nay ! we could not find him in a 

 day's careful search, and such elusive morsels are 

 not to be grasped by hand. Hook him we could 

 not, for while he might bunt at a bait, the hook 

 is not made for those microscopic jaws. 



From here our river must journey on alone. We 

 have seen its birth and a something of earlier growth, 

 and we shall again see it one hundred miles to the 

 westward. It will traverse this winding corridor of 

 greenery where the tanager and the cardinal flower 

 glow like guiding lights ; where the water-thrush 

 rocks like a toy mandarin upon mossy boulders; 

 where the sly mink prowls from pool to pool ; where 

 the laugh of the crested flycatcher and the wail of 

 his lesser relative help to drown the hum of wild 

 bees and the summer drone of insects innumerable. 

 At the farther side of the wood sings another tribu- 

 tary stream, and our river glides on and on, gaining 

 volume from many sources as it goes, till at last it 



