MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS. 329 



Preservation and care of Lines. Many adepts in the art 

 are careless and neglectful of their lines, often leaving them 

 (when soaked with water) on their reels, in which wet state, if 

 they long continue, they are apt to mildew and rot. Every line, 

 immediately after being used, should be run off from the reel 

 and laid out freely, or stretched on pegs to dry. Should they 

 have been lying by for any length of time, they should be 

 thoroughly examined and tried in every part before used. Lines 

 will chafe and fray out by constant wear, and many large fish 

 are often lost by carelessness in these small but important 

 matters. 



The scientific and graceful art of throwing the artificial fly is 

 a beautiful accomplishment, but not so difficult as is generally 

 imagined. In the months of May and June, the raft and lum- 

 bermen from the Delaware and rivers of Pennsylvania, are seen 

 in the fishing-tackle stores of New York, selecting with the eyes 

 of professors and connoisseurs the red, black, and grey hackle 

 flies, which they use with astonishing dexterity on the wooded 

 streams of their mountain homes. Those, therefore, who have 

 never tried this method of fishing, with such untutored examples 

 before them, should make a little effort towards the successful 

 practice of this branch of the art. 



^ 



A feeling Angler. A New Hampshire fisherman occasion- 

 ally when in need of amusement for an evening, and in want 

 of fresh fish for breakfast, takes a blazing torch of twisted birch 

 bark in his left hand, and goes down to the bank of the stream 

 at the time when the fishes dream, and cautiously takes out his 

 quantity of Trout and Perch, with his right hand, assisted in his 

 feeling propensities by his lighted torch, and retires to his home 

 with his stolen property. 



