SPECKLED TROUT. 113 



an auspicious day arrived, I would make a trip to a 

 stream a couple of miles distant, that came down out 

 of a comparatively new settlement. It was a rapid 

 mountain brook presenting many difficult problems to 

 the young angler, but a very enticing stream for all 

 that, with its two saw-mill dams, its pretty cascades, 

 its high, shelving rocks sheltering the mossy nests of 

 the phcebe bird, and its general wild and forbidding 

 aspects. 



But a meadow brook was always a favorite. The 

 trout like meadows ; doubtless their food is more 

 abundant there, and, usually, the good hiding-places 

 are more numerous. As soon as you strike a meadow 

 the character of the creek changes ; it goes slower 

 and lies deeper; it tarries to enjoy the high, cool 

 banks and to half hide beneath them; it loves the 

 willows, or rather, the willows love it and shelter it 

 from the sun ; its spring runs are kept cool by the 

 overhanging grass, and the heavy turf that face its 

 open banks is not cut away by the sharp hoofs of 

 the grazing cattle. Then there are the bobolinks and 

 starlings and meadow larks, always interested spec- 

 tators of the angler ; there are also the marsh mar- 

 igolds, the buttercups, or the spotted lilies, and the 

 good angler is always an interested spectator of them. 

 In fact, the patches of meadow land that lie in the 

 angler's course are like the happy experiences in his 

 ow*v life, or like the fine passages in the poem he 

 is . eading ; the pasture of tener contains the shallow 

 and monotonous places. In the small streams tt 

 8 



