166 SUPPLEMENT TO THE BOOK OF THE BLACK BASfc. 



As the red man disappears before the tread of the white 

 man, the " living arrow " of the mountain streams goes 

 with him. 



The trout is essentially a creature of the pine forests. 

 Its natural home is in waters shaded by pine, balsam, spruce 

 and hemlock, where the cold mountain brooks retain their 

 low temperature, and the air is redolent with balsamic fra- 

 rance ; where the natural food of the trout is produced in 

 the greatest abundance, and where its breeding grounds are 

 undisturbed. 



But the iron has entered its soul. As the buffalo disap- 

 pears before the iron horse, the brook-trout vanishes before 

 the axe of the lumberman. As the giants of the forest are 

 laid low, and the rank and file decimated, and the wooden 

 walls of the streams battered down, the hot, fiery sun leaps 

 through the breaches, disclosing the most secret recesses of 

 forest and stream to the bright glare of mid-day. The 

 moisture of the earth is dissipated, the mosses and ferns 

 become shriveled and dry, the wintergreen and partridge- 

 berry, the ground pine and trailing arbutus struggle feebly 

 for existence ; the waters decrease in size and increase in 

 temperature, the conditions of the food supply and of the 

 breeding-grounds of the brook-trout are changed; it dete- 

 riorates in size and numbers and vitality, until finally, in 

 accordance with the immutable laws of nature and the great 

 principle of the " survival of the fittest " (not the fittest 

 from the angler's point of view, but the fittest to survive 

 the changes and mutations consequent on the march of 

 civilization), it disappears altogether. 



Much has been said about the " trout hog " in connec- 

 tion with the decrease of the trout. But while he deserves 

 all the odium and contempt heaped upon him by the honest 



