SIMPLE WISE MEN. 



Dear solitary groves, where peace does dwell! 

 How willingly could I forever stay 

 Beneath the shade of your embracing greens, 

 Listening to the harmony of warbling birds, 

 Tuned with the gentle murmur of the streams. 



Rochester. 



I HAVE often had to assure my critical and incredulous 

 friends that it is by no means all of fishing to fish. The 

 appreciative angler, who has inherited or acquired the true 

 spirit of the art is not alone happy while plying his voca- 

 tion, but happy also in the recollection of what has been, 

 and in the anticipation of what is to be. To him memory 

 and hope are equally satisfying the one luminous with 

 the mellow sunshine of the recent past, and the other all 

 aglow with the assured good cheer of the near future. 



Nor is the pleasure derived from a review of the incidents 

 of the last outing wholly or chiefly associated with its ma- 

 terial results. ' 'Casting" and ' 'striking" and ' 'killing" belong 

 to the mere mechanism of the art. Its real fascination lies 

 in what one sees and feels : in mountain and valley ; in river 

 and lake ; in sunshine and shadow ; in. the exhilarating at- 

 mosphere and delectable odors of the virgin forest; in the 

 music of singing birds and in the soothing monotone of run- 

 ning waters ; in the hush of the night watches, and in the 

 quiet and repose best found in the ' 'solitary places" where 

 anglers "most do congregate." 



Il strikes ni3 like the sound of a trumpet to remember my 

 fights with three-pound trout, five-pound bass or thirty- 

 pound salmon, but I find intenser ecstacy when I recall the 

 circumstancss and surroundings of these material experi- 

 ences, the transparent brook, whose ripples were rendered 



