IN THE CATSKILLS 



lie in the angler's course are like the happy experi- 

 ences in his own life, or like the fine passages in the 

 poem he is reading ; the pasture oftener contains 

 the shallow and monotonous places. In the small 

 streams the cattle scare the fish, and soil their ele- 

 ment and break down their retreats under the banks. 

 Woodland alternates the best with meadow: the 

 creek loves to burrow under the roots of a great 

 tree, to scoop out a pool after leaping over the pros- 

 trate trunk of one, and to pause at the foot of a 

 ledge of moss-covered rocks, with ice-cold water 

 dripping down. How straight the current goes for 

 the rock! Note its corrugated, muscular appearance; 

 it strikes and glances off, but accumulates, deepens 

 with well-defined eddies above and to one side; on 

 the edge of these the trout lurk and spring upon 

 their prey. 



The angler learns that it is generally some obstacle 

 or hindrance that makes a deep place in the creek, 

 as in a brave life ; and his ideal brook is one that lies 

 in deep, well-defined banks, yet makes many a shift 

 from right to left, meets with many rebuffs and ad- 

 ventures, hurled back upon itself by rocks, waylaid 

 by snags and trees, tripped up by precipices, but 

 sooner or later reposing under meadow banks, deep- 

 ening and eddying beneath bridges, or prosperous 

 and strong in some level stretch of cultivated land 

 with great elms shading it here and there. 



But I early learned that from almost any stream 

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