9O THe Determined Angler 



breeding and character, is none the less a little villain 

 at the killing game, like the less admired feline and 

 canine and serpentine species, for he will devour the 

 daintiest and gaudiest butterfly that ever poet sang of. 

 Fledgling robins and bluebirds, orioles and wrens are 

 meat and drink to him. Young chipmunks and 

 squirrels that lose their balance in the storm fall into 

 his ready maw. The bat, the bee, the beetle and lady- 

 bug are rich morsels to his gastric eye, and the golden 

 lizard, the umber ant, the silvery eel, the crawling 

 angleworm, the chirping cricket, creeping spider, the 

 grasshopper, the hopping frog, and e'en the heavenly 

 hummingbird are but mealtime mites to him. Per- 

 haps the knowledge of this life-destroying trait in all 

 the fishes made Cleopatra indifferent to the gentler 

 mode of fishing, just as it had a softer influence over 

 Audrey, for she, though loving both the fishes and their 

 victims, was induced to angle and thus punish, but 

 never kill, her finny favorites. She had heard of the 

 artificial dry fly Anglers of Europe using the barbless 

 hook that held the trout without pain or injury, and 

 this she made herself, tying up dozens of somber- 

 hued and lustrous patterns on the bent bit of bronze 

 that formed the snare. The ruly trout who gently 

 waver in the deep pool, satisfied with the food supplied 

 by their fair mistress, and who behave themselves 

 when they swim abroad in the general ponds and 

 streams, are not molested, but the rebellious urchins 

 who, disdaining the bits of liver and worm fed to 

 them in plenty, go forth to slay the happy ladybug 

 and butterfly, are made the game of the barbless hook. 

 Audrey has five or six thousand trout in the pond 

 and the stream flowing into it. The surrounding 

 country is wildly beautiful, the water being surrounded 



