SALMONIDiE. 17 



away. I heard Bob White whistle to his mate in June, and 

 knew where to find his family when the young brood hatched 

 out. I had pets of all kinds: tame squirrels, and crows, 

 haw^ks, owls and coons. All the live-stock on the farm were 

 my friends. I rode the cows from pasture, drove a cosset 

 four-in-hand, jumped the donkey off the bridge to the detri- 

 ment of both our necks, and even trained a heifer so that I 

 could fire my shot-gun at rest between her budding horns. 

 I learned where to gather all the berries, roots, barks, and 

 " yarbs " that grew in the woods ; and so unconsciously be- 

 came a naturahst and an earnest student of botany. As to 

 fishing, it was my passion. There were great lakes that re- 

 posed in the solitude of the woods, at whose outlets the hum 

 and buzz of busy saw-mills were heard, and whose waters 

 were filled with ''pickerel : and, most glorious of all, there 

 were mountain streams, foaming, purling, eddying and rip- 

 pling with a life and a dash and a joyousness that made our 

 lives merry, and filled our hearts to overflowing with pleas- 

 ure. 



Fly-fishing was in its infancy then. It was an art scarcely 

 known in America and but little practised in England. The 

 progressive school of old Isaak and Kit North had but few 

 gi-aduates with honor. We boys, my cousin and I, had little 

 conception of the curious de'vdces of feathers and tinsel w^hich 

 we afterwards learned to use ; and to the angling fraternity 

 the artifices of Thomdyke, Stickler and Bethune were as 

 mysterious as the occult sciences themselves. We used sim- 

 ply a wattle and a worm, and whipped the trout out by hun- 

 dreds ; for the streams fairly teemed with them. And it re- 

 quired some little skill to do it, too — much knowledge of the 

 haunts of the speckled beauties, much caution in creeping 

 up to the more exposed pools, where a passing shadow would 

 have dashed our hopes in an instant ; and no little dexterity 

 in dropping the bait quietly out of sight under the bank, 

 w^here we knew a wary trout was lurking. What a thrill 

 there was when the expected tug came ! and when we had 

 3 



