222 PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 



And talking of memory, what a wonderful 

 faculty it is ! How drolly things long forgotten 

 sometimes come back to us, without effort and 

 without thought, like a vision, as if the events of 

 ten or twenty years agone had occurred but yester- 

 day! The books are full of curious instances. 

 1 have a few not in the books, but apropos to my 

 theme, and which, while I am moving slowly on 

 my way to the Raquette, may afford some one a 

 moment's amusement. 



One morning, twenty years ago, while encamped 

 on the Fourth lake of the Fulton range, I was sit- 

 ting on a freshly fallen spruce tree adjusting my 

 reel for work, when the ever-welcome and long 

 waited for call to breakfast was sounded. I hur- 

 riedly laid aside the reel and responded to the call. 

 On sitting down to the table I found a disagreeable 

 quantity of the exudations of the spruce tree adher- 

 ing to my fingers. It troubled me to remove it, 

 and what with that and the pleasures of the table, 

 I was totally unable, afterward, to remember where 

 I had left my reel, and was obliged to provide 

 another for my day's fishing. Two years after- 

 ward I chanced to camp on the same spot, and 

 while idly moving about I discovered a hacked 

 spruce tree from which had exuded large globules 

 of gum, clear as crystal. In breaking it off, some 

 particles unpleasantly adhered to my fingers, when, 



