THE TALE OF THE FISHES 



gun to appear on the fins but are absent on the 

 back, and to the blue aureoles encircling some of 

 the spots. The Dublin fish represents a relic of a 

 southward distribution of the intermediate race as the 

 Sunapee and blue back trouts are surviving southern 

 forms of an Alpine or Arctic charr, the probable centre 

 of derivation of the brook trout being south of the St. 

 Lawrence. 



And last is our transcendent beauty, the Angel of 

 the Brooks, among all the fishes the Lord Paramount 

 of our affection (Plate No. 10). It has taken 

 millions of years at the hands of the Divine Artificer 

 to bring to its present perfection the finished product. 

 In our comprehending admiration of it, we are indeed 

 carried into the very presence of the God who fashioned 

 it in the aeonic march of events the God who kindles 

 and extinguishes suns and constellations. 



When I was only a lad of eleven, good old Dom- 

 inie Fowler of Monticello introduced this fish to me. 

 I was captivated. I lost my heart then and there, and 

 never, in the long years of my life, have I felt impelled 

 to ask the object of my passion to return it, as did the 

 poet his Maid of Athens. And yet I may appropri- 



49 



