ANGLING. 207 



While watching the float, as it sails gently about 

 with the wind, occasionally dimpling the surface of the 

 water, we do not confine our attention to this alone. 

 Not a bubble on the glossy sheen of the lake, or the 

 flitting shadow of a cloud as it passes over the sky, 

 escapes our notice. Every thing that moves, and every 

 thing that can be seen or heard, excites our curiosity as 

 in the still darkness of night. When the fishes are 

 inactive, as they often are during the heat of the day, 

 we have little to do except to watch and observe the 

 scenes and objects around us. At such times our atten- 

 tion is frequently attracted to something, that hitherto 

 might always have been unobserved ; and the squirrel 

 that sits watching us on the bough of a neighboring 

 tree; the little bird that is busy weaving stems, at no 

 great distance, into the fork of a hazel-bush, and the 

 sober cattle that have waded up to their knees into the 

 shallow water, are all observed and studied with delight. 



But the amusement of angling is not associated with 

 sedentary observations alone ; it is also connected with 

 many interesting excursions in quest of more lucky 

 fishing ground. How often has it led us into delightful 

 explorations of the woody boundaries of ponds, carry- 

 ing us into seemingly impenetrable thickets, and caus- 

 ing the sudden discovery of some beautiful or curious 

 plant, hitherto unknown to us, or introduced us to some 

 new and interesting bird or quadruped. It was on one 

 of these rambles, by its musical and melancholy coo- 

 ings, that I first discovered the wicker-nest of the turtle- 

 dove, with its solitary egg, in the branches of a slender 

 white pine. On one of these occasions, also, I encoun- 

 tered for the first time, the drooping fragrant flower of 

 the linnsea borealis — that exquisite production of 



