HOBBIES. 71 



pounds each, and have evidence, satisfactory to me, that 

 at least two trout, the veritable Salmo fontinalis, our 

 speckled brook trout, were killed in Rangely Lake weigh- 

 ing a trifle over eleven pounds each. This was years 

 ago, when I first knew those waters, before these times 

 in which they are more thoroughly fished ; but at the 

 present day it is not uncommon to take them in Moose- 

 tockmaguntic and Rangely lakes running over seven 

 pounds. 



Always when the Doctor has killed a large fish he be- 

 comes talkative, but not as in town, where he is apt, if 

 excited, to be intolerant and abusive. One may as well 

 use plain words and speak truth, and 1 do it though he be 

 in a rage when he reads what I have written. It would 

 seem as if piscatorial success mollified the inner man and 

 toned down the more objectionable characteristics. We 

 all know that anglers love to talk, and to talk of their 

 several special hobbies, whatever they may be. Hence 

 it occurs that parties going a-fishing together find no lack 

 of subjects of conversation, and there is no subject in the 

 world which does not properly and naturally belong to 

 trout -fishing as one of its accompaniments. I have a 

 friend who is given to paleontological studies when in 

 his own library, and who, when we are fishing together, 

 talks steadfastly from morning till night, and oftener from 

 night till morning, about fossils and formations that are 

 utterly unintelligible to me. But do I stop him ? Not at 

 all. An angler would no more think of stopping his 

 friend's trotting on a hobby than he would of stopping 

 the noise of a brook that he was fishing. For what one 

 of us may not find the time when he wants a passive, con- 

 tented listener? It's a luxury to have a human ear to 

 talk into, even if all you say goes out at the ear opposite. 



