FISHING IN MAINE. 143 



salar, the beloved of the angler, the bonne boicche of 

 the epicure, has almost disappeared, for unfortu- 

 nately, on all the outlets of the rivers, there are 

 towns, and the inhabitants have long since verified 

 the proverb of the goose and the golden egg. "What 

 Englishmen have done at home, so have their cousins 

 done across the Atlantic. Englishmen and Americans, 

 as merchants and traders, have been credited with 

 acumen and foresight ; such credit they may have 

 justly earned abroad; but their policy in reference 

 to their home fisheries has been totally the reverse. 

 Let us hope that they will at length see the error of 

 their ways, and unanimously adopt the means that 

 scientific men have pointed out, for remedying and 

 counteracting their past transgressions. 



But let not the enthusiast run away with the idea 

 that in Maine there are no drawbacks to pleasure, 

 that sport is found without an alloy, for the pests of 

 every new land here swarm, blacb-flies, mosquitoes, 

 and sand-flies ; but fortunately their reign of terror 

 does not exist over six weeks. The first (the black- 

 fly), which is about the size of a small house-fly, and 

 not dissimilar in appearance, is a perfect cannibal, re- 

 fusing to be driven away, willingly immolating him- 

 self in his thirst for blood, and drawing blood when- 



