324 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



diminutive waves. It is to mature man what the rocking 

 of the cradle is to the child ; the latter, because it has no 

 knowledge of the past or future, is lulled to sleep; the 

 former feels soothed for the present, arid in his enjoyment 

 forgets past trials, and hopes for fortune in time to come. 

 There is an alloy in this entrancing pastime as well as in 

 nearly all others to practice it is death and pain to that 

 which affords you the pleasure ; but how few of the grati- 

 fications of life are without this : the success of one is the 

 downfall of another. Even the mosquito, in gratifying his 

 appetite for blood, is not satisfied to depart after he has 

 glutted himself to excess, but he must leave a virus behind 

 him that poisons the orifice from whence he has drawn his 

 sustenance. 



At the mouth of all streams that salmon frequent in the 

 Dominion of Canada sea-trout will be found in abundance ; 

 even the estuaries which the larger species has forsaken 

 they do not in consequence desert. 



There was a time when the coast of Maine was abundant- 

 ly stocked with sea-trout ; but that age has passed ; for long 

 have these waters been glutted with the debris of manufac- 

 tures, or the still more injurious sawdust from the pine 

 logs which have been severed into planks for houses or 

 ship-building purposes. 



The sea-trout of Canada, we are informed by authorities, 

 differs from that of British waters. Although I have cap- 

 tured numbers of both, I have never been able to detect 

 where this distinction existed. To my eye they are iden- 

 tical in appearance; and the fly which lures the one cap- 

 tures the other. Even when hooked, their exertions to es- 

 cape are essentially the same, characterized by-efforts which 

 only cease when nature is exhausted. At the same time, I 

 would not be certain that both have the same number of 

 spines in the caudal, ventral, or dorsal fins ; and on a differ- 



