86 THE AMERICAN TROUT. 



ebbing away, his breath growing shorter, his struggles 

 fainter! And when he has grown stiff in death, how 

 proudly sad we feel over a noble career cut short too 

 soon! 



The man who kills to kill, who is not satisfied with 

 reasonable sport, who slays unfairly or out of season, 

 who adds one wanton pang, that man receives the con- 

 tempt of all good sportsmen and deserves the felon's 

 doom. Of such there are but few. 



We seek this, our favorite fish, in early Spring, when, 

 the ice has just melted, and the cold winds remind one 

 forcibly of bleak December, and when we find him in 

 the salt water streams, especially of Long Island and 

 Cape Cod ; but we love most to follow him in the early 

 Summer, along the merry streams of old Orange, or the 

 mountain brooks of Sullivan County. Where the air is 

 full of gladness, and the trees are heavy with foliage 

 where the birds are singing upon every bough, and the 

 grass is redolent of violets and early flowers. There we 

 wade the cold brooks, the leafy branches bowing us a 

 welcome as we pass the water rippling over the hidden 

 rocks, and telling us, in its wayward way, of the fine fish 

 it carries in its bosom. With creel upon our shoulder and 

 rod in hand, we reck not of the hours, and only when 

 the sinking sun warns of the approaching darkness, do 

 we seek, with sharpened appetite, the hospitable country 

 inn, and the comfortable supper that our prey will fur- 

 nish forth. 



The brooks of Long Island, especially on the south- 

 ern shore, abound with trout. But they are few in com- 

 parison with the hordes that once swarmed in the 



