288 REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



And how this fascination — rather, this love — persists. Other pleasures grow 

 dull ; the things which thrilled the nerves and made the blood hot with joy when 

 youth and vigor were fresh and ardent cease to excite more than a languid 

 interest when age creeps on apace; but as the old and wornout warhorse at the 

 hurried beating of the drum and the clarion call of the bugle springs to his feet, 

 ready for the charge upon the ranks of an unseen foe, so the " Old Adirondacker " 

 at mention of his ancient haunts feels the old fire in his veins and his eyes gaze 

 with a new light and longing off toward the forest scenes where his younger days 

 were filled with an inexpressible joy. 



Some years ago (alas! it is a quarter of a century ago) the writer perpetrated 

 upon the public a little volume of personal experiences and observations in the 

 Adirondacks. One chapter was upon a happy summer at "Jock's Lake" (now 

 Honnedaga) in 1863 — his first taste of the Adirondacks. An old friend, who for 

 many months had been painfully and hopelessly ill, heard of the little book, sent 

 to the bookstore for it, and amid the racking, torturing, almost insufferable 

 pains of his body, read and reread the simple story of "Jock's Lake," where he 

 had spent some of the happiest days of his life. They said that while reading 

 it he forgot his pain and seemed to live over again with undiminished enjoyment 

 those other happy days. His grateful letter to the author also told it all. It was 

 a revelation of the strength and persistency of the fisherman's love of forest and 

 angling. 



Another instance — but let this same little book tell it in a brief quotation. 

 It happened (long ago, as we measure time in these days) at Paul Smith's, on 

 the St. Regis: 



"There was one learned old doctor and professor from New Haven who 

 interested me very much. He was quite infirm, and his son, who accompanied 

 him, with filial devotion anticipated every want. The brave old man was out 

 early every morning, and with a guide rowed around the little rocky peninsula, 

 southeasterly from the hotel, to the mouth of a cold stream that comes through 

 the tamaracks into the lake not far beyond. There at the edge of the lily-pads 

 (successors of those noted by W. C. Prime in his delicious volume, ' I Go 

 A-Fishing,' on page 125), he skillfully and patiently cast his flies until he took 

 the one big trout awaiting his morning call, and then returned to the hotel to 

 breakfast and for the day. 



"It was something more than a splendid trout that he brought to view as we 

 met him at the landing. The young heart in the old body, the genuine enthusiasm 

 of the veteran angler, the glorification of the gentle art which has soothed and 

 comforted many an aged philosopher — all this he revealed to us, and we wanted 



