DiSTEIBUTION. 73 



left my native city of Baltimore for a home in the west; 

 and I have a distinct impression of the matter, made at 

 the time of its occurrence, either from having heard it fre- 

 quently spoken of, or from reading accounts of it in the 

 public prints of the day; and my early impressions have 

 always connected the name of Mr. Stabler, then a con- 

 ductor of the Baltimore & Ohio Eailroad Company, with 

 the praiseworthy act. 



At all events, it excited my curiosity as to the black 

 bass, which I had then never seen, and prompted me to 

 seek the acquaintance of that grand game-fish, which I very 

 soon afterward proceeded to do, in the Miami River, near 

 Cincinnati. It is scarcely necessary to say that I have 

 ever since been on terms of the closest intimacy with him, 

 he having almost supplanted, in my affections, the love 

 I once bore my former piscatorial friends, the striped bass, 

 the blue-fish, and the white perch of the Chesapeake and 

 the Patapsco; but I must confess to an occasional retro- 

 spective weakness, and a kindly yearning for the old-time 

 friends of my boyish days, not excepting the diminutive, 

 but delicious " gudgeon " of the upper Patapsco and Her- 

 ring Run. 



