130 DAYS IN THE OPEN 



must have scared the foxes on Deer Island, three 

 miles away. How much did he weigh? Such in- 

 quisitiveness is really painful; but if you must 

 know, the scales said two pounds, fourteen ounces. 

 All fishermen will understand that a fish shrinks 

 rapidly after being taken from the water, and it 

 must have been at least ten minutes after his 

 capture before he was weighed. This accounts for 

 some things. 



Will some wise man rise up and explain the 

 puzzling vagaries of the trout? Why does he 

 strike freely at a certain fly one day, and entirely 

 ignore it on the day following? Why will he sulk 

 for hours, and then make the water boil with his 

 acrobatic exercises? One morning, when all the 

 signs were propitious, Mr. D. and the writer sought 

 the mouth of South Brook, a place famous in all 

 this region for the number and size of its trout. 

 Mrs. N., a veteran angler and successful, was just 

 leaving in deep disgust. She had been fishing since 

 five o'clock and not a strike had rewarded her 

 patient toil. One hour, two hours, we cast in vain. 

 We might as well have been fishing in the Dead 

 Sea so far as any signs of trout were concerned. 

 Under the overhanging alders, by the side of old 

 logs, up close to the bridge, down where the stream 

 meets the bay, back and forth we went, but all in 

 vain. At last, over by the big rock, a splash is 

 heard and the widening ripples tell that a trout has 

 jumped. Quietly we seek the spot. When some 



