76 The American Salmon-fisherman. 



usually called " for short," is peculiarly so. A boat under 

 such circumstances usually remains bottom up, thus seem- 

 ing to share the misfortune of the shipwreck, and to 

 sympathize with its unhappy passengers. Not so a birch. 

 Without a premonitory symptom of impatience, and 

 quicker than a wink, it will vanish beneath its occupant 

 and leave him struggling in the water. And when he 

 rises to the surface and gives his first snort of surprise and 

 disgust, there it will stand just about where it was left, 

 floating as jauntily as a bubble, and with hardly a teacup- 

 ful of water in it seeming to say as plainly as though 

 its attitude were embodied in speech, " What ! you don't 

 mean to say that that was my fault, do you ?" 



With a boat, too, you can, ordinarily at least, find a 

 dry spot on its bottom perhaps even right it and climb 

 in. But a birch, when it has once spilled its cargo, passes 

 from the placid demureness of a cat into the friskiness of 

 a kitten. Touch it, and it squirms and sidles off like a 

 country-girl at a merry-making when some gallant tries 

 to put his arm around her waist. It does not squeal, it is 

 true; but it acts just as skittishly as if it did. Of all the 

 floating constructions of man, to none is the application 

 of the feminine personal pronoun more appropriate. 



But after all a birch has its good points, and a good 

 many of them; and, take it all in all, is to be preferred for 

 salmon-fishing to any other form of boat I have ever seen. 

 It is a little ticklish about the upper part of the ribs. But 

 keep your hands off that part, observe due decorum, and 

 take no liberties, and it will carry you as safely as a rock- 

 ing-chair. It can be handled by two men like a top, and 

 will back and fill, and turn and twist to face the vagaries 

 of a fighting salmon, as though endowed with volition 



