194 WINTER ANGLING 



from it. And this fish is the one that hereafter 

 shall make the blood thrill with an exquisite pleas- 

 ure as it bounds and flies up and down and across 

 the stream, securely hooked by the deft hand of 

 a piscator. How glorious are the works of the 

 Creator ! This tiny entity is, perchance, a young 

 salmon, for whose family miles and miles of paper 

 have been inscribed with laws, on whose flesh 

 hundreds of thousands have been fed, and whose 

 members have given health-bringing joy on the 

 salmon rivers of the world. 



Turn it back into the trough. See its huge, dis- 

 proportionate eyes, which shall be in future years 

 as brilliant and keen of sight as those of the 

 mountain eagle, dislike the light, and it "wab- 

 bles " to the bottom behind some sheltering stone, 

 there to mature its vitalized, but as yet unformed 

 and ungainly, body. 



As you are looking at this, your welcome homely 

 first-born, you perhaps may remark the frantic 

 movements which seem to be going on inside an 

 egg near, and should turn and watch the antic- 

 frolic. Pick it up with the siphon and hold the 

 glass with your warm hand a second, and see! 

 The shell has burst, and a pair of wide-open eyes 



