* 



CHAPTER XVI. 



TROUT* FISHING IN MAINE. 



As the seasons roll past in rapid succession, and each 

 year appears to flit by with more velocity than its 

 predecessor, the same pleasures, the same sports recur 

 to our memory, always with the appetite more sharp- 

 ened for their enjoyment by the lapse of the close 

 season, in which the true sportsman would not enjoy 

 his favourite pastime, even if law and weather were 

 not both adverse. Age, if not accompanied by infir- 

 mity, in few instances reduces the enjoyment of field- 

 sports, if they were in our youth our all-absorbing 

 passion. A few pleasant spring-like days have their 

 effect upon the angler ; he that is skilled in flies and 

 rods, he that well knows the resorts of the speckled 

 beauties of the brook, their habits, and their devices to 



* (Salmo font'inalis.} Live specimens of these fish, which I procured 

 last winter in America, may now be seen alive at Mr. Buckland's 

 Museum of Economic Fish Culture, Royal Horticultural Gardens, South 

 Kensington. 



