SPECKLED TROUT 



through another strip of hemlocks, to where the 

 little stream joined the main creek of the valley. 



In June, when my trout fever ran pretty high, and 

 an auspicious day arrived, I would make a trip to 

 a stream a couple of miles distant, that came down 

 out of a comparatively new settlement. It was a 

 rapid mountain brook presenting many difficult 

 problems to the young angler, but a very enticing 

 stream for all that, with its two saw-mill dams, its 

 pretty cascades, its high, shelving rocks sheltering 

 the mossy nests of the phcebe-bird, and its general 

 wild and forbidding aspects. 



But a meadow brook was always a favorite. The 

 trout like meadows; doubtless their food is more 

 abundant there, and, usually, the good hiding-places 

 are more numerous. As soon as you strike a meadow 

 the character of the creek changes : it goes slower 

 and lies deeper; it tarries to enjoy the high, cool 

 banks and to half hide beneath them; it loves the 

 willows, or rather the willows love it and shelter it 

 from the sun ; its spring runs are kept cool by the 

 overhanging grass, and the heavy turf that faces its 

 open banks is not cut away by the sharp hoofs of 

 the grazing cattle. Then there are the bobolinks 

 and the starlings and the meadowlarks, always in- 

 terested spectators of the angler; there are also the 

 marsh marigolds, the buttercups, or the spotted lilies, 

 and the good angler is always an interested spectator 

 of them. In fact, the patches of meadow land that 

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