154 With Rod and Gun in New England 



" Agreed," replied the Doctor; " we will take the other canoe down to 

 the second pool, and you can continue your work in the upper one : who 

 knows but you may kill the salmon that carried away your casting-line ? 

 Stranger things have happened." 



The second canoe was carried by the falls, and the Doctor and myself 

 embarked in it, accompanied by Hiram. 



The water was still so high that we passed smoothly over " the rips " 

 into the lower pool, and we began casting industriously. I do not like to 

 cast from a canoe, and much prefer to wade a pool if the water is not too 

 deep ; I can handle my rod better, and can fight my fish more energetically. 

 My custom has until recently been to wade every pool I could, but increas- 

 ing years and threats of rheumatism now forbid such exposure. 



The Doctor, who was seated in the bow, cast to the right and before 

 him, while I was restricted to the left side of the canoe. The water was 

 dark and eddying, and was full of drifting leaves, reminders of the recent 

 storm. The shores of the pool were covered, and this meant that in the 

 deepest portions there were from fifteen to twenty feet of water. We, 

 therefore, used large, bright Mies, but it was long before our lures were 

 noticed. 



" We were longing for more water," said the Doctor, " and we 've now 

 more than we want." 



"We'd better give 'em a try down at the foot," said Hiram; "the 

 water shoals there and the fish will, likely, be among the rocks above the 

 rips." 



The canoe drifted down to the quicker water, the Doctor and I both 



" In the spring, if the wind be favorable, they will not stop or even come 

 in sight of the land here, but will fly straight from Cape Cod to some dis- 

 tant point in the east. The fall of '90 was favorable for birds, as the pre- 

 vailing winds were northeast during the flights. I do not think I saw one 

 thousand of these ducks during the fall, and I had letters from friends as 

 far east as Mt. Desert complaining of the same thing. My brother, who 

 worked at Delaware breakwater at Cape Henlopen the past summer, says 

 the scoter ducks there are just as tame as they used to be here, and fed all 

 around in the vicinity where they were at work, and did not mind boats, 

 only to get out of the way. They do not gun them south, and the same 

 birds which are so shy on the New England coast evidently feel a security 

 in that locality which they do not enjoy on our coast. 



" I will mention another point in regard to their migration : about the 

 6th of April the first flight of American scoter ducks comes, and ten days 

 later, the surf ducks. About the first of May the white-winged scoter 

 appears, and although there may be scattering birds of each kind during 

 all the time, you will not see any flocks only as the flights come, and in the 

 flight proper I have never seen the species together unless immature birds, 

 and even then I do not remember of ever seeing all three species at once." 



