ANGLERS THE TRUE FRIENDS OF THE SALMON. 203 
time have its gamy qualities been questioned. In the eight- 
eenth century its shoals became so numerous as to make it 
necessary to guard, by a clause in indentures, against feed- 
ing apprentices with it more than two days in each week. 
This was the case in England and in some of its colonies. 
But from many of our rivers, which teemed with salmon at 
the beginning of the present century, this delicious and grace- 
ful fish has been driven away; and were it not that—through 
the efforts of a few angling philosophers—the public has be- 
come sutliciently enlightened to see the necessity for the em- 
ployment of means to restock our salmon rivers, it would be 
scarcely worth the time and ink necessary to describe the 
salmon in its varied aspects for the table, for commerce, and 
as an interesting feature in the recreative sports of the coun- 
try. 
But, thanks to a few public-spirited gentlemen, whose sci- 
entific discoveries were derived from experiments instituted 
at their own expense, the recent reports of the Fisheries Com- 
missioners of New England show that the waters are being 
restocked with such zeal and alacrity that it will not be more 
than five years before most of the rivers north of Pennsylva- 
nia will be literally repeopled with salmon. The favorable 
prospects thus extended, when coupled with the generosity 
of our Northern neighbors, whereby the Dominion permits us 
to compete equally with its own people in the leasing of Ca- 
nadian salmon-waters, gives hopeful promise that salmon-tish- 
‘ing with the fly will soon engage the attention of our anglers 
for striped bass during June and July, and thus add an inter- 
esting feature to the sports of the year, without trenching 
upon the best season for striped-bass angling. 
The Highlander who stated that “no man has any right to 
a hunter’s badge who has not killed a red deer, an eagle, a 
salmon, and a seal,” had never been in America, or he would 
have made some additions to his prerequisites. If it exhilar- 
ates and even astonishes to take a salmon in the modest riv- 
ers of the British Isles, with gafters as helpers, who know 
