58 LOXG ISLAKD. 



dian waters ; but how can sucli cheaply earned success com- 

 pare for s2)ort with the capture of a good half-dozen fish in 

 waters where a tyro could not, perchance, provoke a single 

 rise ? For, be it known, Long Island trout are educated. 

 They are not only connoisseurs in taste and epicures in diet, 

 but quick to detect a fraud ; they have been taught in the 

 metropolitan school which "cuts eye-teeth." The marshy 

 brinks of their brackish realm are as bare of cover as a floor, 

 affording no screen for stealthy approach. The most delicate 

 tackle, a long line deftly cast, with flies that drop as snow- 

 flakes on the unbroken surface — these are the sole conditions 

 of success. The application of my remarks is' to creek-fish- 

 ing only — to the outlets of streams which head in limpid 

 ponds, whence, tumbling over artificial dams, and purling 

 under spreading willows, they wind through sinuous chan- 

 nels to the Sound or Ocean. Of course the tide ebbs and 

 flovv^s in them, and the water is salt ; but the trout are never- 

 theless the genuine speckled beauties of the mountains, in 

 full livery of blue and crimson, and much improved in flavor 

 by their access to the sea. They run in and out with the 

 tide, and it is said that specimens have been taken in nets in 

 the bays, three or four miles from shore. In these creeks 

 one may angle without let or hindrance, though full baskets 

 cannot be expected. To no others have I the right to invite 

 the indiscriminate public. But there are magnificent pre- 

 serves and private ponds, where full-fed monster trout can be 

 caught by the score from boat or bank by inexperts, provided 

 they have access thereto by proprietary indulgence, or the 

 " open sesame " of personal acquaintance. 



Notwithstanding the insular position of Long Island, and 

 the sandy character of its soil, Avhich extends in areas of bar- 

 ren plain over thousands of acres, its entire surface is diver- 

 sified by ponds and extensive swamps, which send forth copi- 

 ous streams, clear, cold, and sparkling. There are no less 

 than seventy of these streams. Most of them afford abun- 

 dant mill privileges, and some have been used as mill-sites 



