12 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 



running from seven to ten pounds, but none of them at all 

 approximating the dimensions of this gamy monster. Mak- 

 ing all due allowance for the exaggerations of dim distance 

 and the fervid imagination of inexperienced youth, I have 

 not a doubt now, and never had, that he weighed fully 

 twelve pounds, avoirdupois. That was nearly fifty years 

 ago," he said, with a sigh, "but the recollection of the inci- 

 dent is as fresh in my memory as any event of the last twelve 

 month. But more than that, I attribute to the ecstasy 

 which came to me from the capture of that fish the passion 

 for angling which has grown with my years, and from 

 which I have derived more real pleasure (to parody an olrl 

 couplet) than 



'Any modern Caesar feels 



"With an obsequious Senate at his heels.' " 



"I suppose/' queried one of the party, "other fish than 

 bass were abundant in those days?" 



"Oh, yes! superabundant. Pickerel and muscalonge 

 were 'plenty as blackberries.' But I never took to either. 

 Pickerel were my especial boyhood abhorrence, and how 

 any true 'brother of the angle' can so much as touch one of 

 the slimy brutes is beyond my comprehension." 



This remark was received with cordial approval, and fresh 

 cigars all round. Not all present were veterans in the art, 

 but none of them had the bad taste to call pickerel fishing 

 a pastime. In commenting upon the subject, the veteran 

 var excellence among us spoke thusly : 



"No man ever fell in love with poetry by reading doggerel, 

 nor did any one ever acquire a passion for angling by catch- 

 ing pickerel. It had been my habit from youth up to idle 

 away an hour now and then fishing for perch, sunfish, bull- 

 pouts and low down trash of that sort. But I did that sim- 

 ply as an incident in my summer afternoon rambles by the 

 lake shore and river side, and not because I cared a straw for or 

 hankered after that kind of fishing; but once in my out-of- 

 thc way saunterings I fell in with a friend who was patient- 

 ly whipping a trout brook. It was a real pleasure to recline 

 beneath the shadow of a great rock and watch his graceful 



