THE AMERICAN TROUT. 21 



well, but in these benighted days, while wrists are made 

 of bone, muscles, cartilages and the like, the lighter the 

 better. A rod, and if perfection is absolutely indispens- 

 able, a cedar rod of eleven or twelve feet, weighing nine 

 or ten ounces, will catch trout. Cedar rods can only be 

 obtained in America, and then only on compulsion, but 

 this wood makes the most elastic rods in the world. They 

 spring instantly to every motion of the hand, and never 

 warp. They are delicate ; the wood is, like woman, cross- 

 grained, but invaluable if carefully treated. The reel 

 should be a simple click, never a multiplier, but large 

 barrelled, and fastened to the but with a leather strap. 

 The line, silk covered with a preparation of oil, tapered 

 if possible at each end, and thirty to forty yards long. 

 The basket, positive, a fish-basket ; the angler, compara- 

 tive, a fisher-man. 



Thus equipped, go forth mildly approving where the 

 writer's opinions coincide with yours, simply incredulous 

 where they do not. Ere you begin, however, you may 

 wish to know the size of the fish you can catch, a matter 

 of no little intricacy, for though we all know the size of 

 the fish we have ourselves caught, there is always some 

 one else that has caught larger. My largest trout, at 

 the time this is written, was taken on the Marshpee 

 River, on Cape Cod, and weighed three pounds and 

 fourteen ounces. But it is said there were inland 

 brook trout exhibited at the New York Club by a mem- 

 ber in the year 1857, the two largest of which weighed 

 cleaned six pounds and a half each. "I have my 

 doubts." These fish should have weighed, when first 

 taken, nearly eight pounds, double the size of any trout, 



