TROUT FISHING IN MAINE. 257 



State legislation has taken the matter in hand, and is 

 determined to enforce such severe penalties, that we 

 hope, ere long, to see the temporarily-deserted retreats 

 of the spotted, brilliant-hued trout again teeming with 

 their numbers, and the placid, sheltered pools, now still 

 and tenantless, boiling with their breaks and rises, as 

 they either roll over in sport, or rush headlong to the 

 surface after the dainty and fragile ephemera. 



A lady, who formed one of our party, frequently 

 of an evening, without moving from the bridge, took 

 a dozen fish in an hour or so, plainly proving that 

 even the uninitiated can here be successful, for Madame 

 previously had never seen a trout captured in her life. 

 The flies which we should recommend for this stream 

 are about the same in size as those in use on Scotch and 

 Irish rivers, and of the same colouring, black and red 

 hackles being preferable. We also found a fly con- 

 structed as follows most killing : wings from the tail 

 of the ruffed grouse, with a few strands of scarlet ibis, 

 brown cock's hackle under wings, body of ground hog's 

 fur, plucked off the stomach, with a couple of strands 

 of guinea-fowl feather for tail. If the water should 

 have been discoloured with rain, substitute a little of 

 the golden-pheasant topknot for the termination, instead 

 of the guinea-fowl. By coming here early in the sea- 

 son, as above advised, you will moreover escape the 



