868 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



fDEC. 7, 1882. 



!#* mid £}iver ^ishhtg. 



■■tiitbtli'. Has ho Tat; HosBebttl 



Feet. And swallowed too, my Subtle. 1 hav« given him Hue anrt 



now lie pluys I'falMi. 

 s>ih. And Shall we twitch bimi 

 /Vec Through both the Kills." 



■ if 1 can sti'lk-eaflne hook into him now. 



The Temple-church, there have I east my angle 

 "Well, pray for me. I'll about It. 

 3ul>, What more gudgeons I" 



-Hen JotlsO n, "Th, Al.i.. . 



WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 



IV.— A MEMORY. 

 Hou Beautiful tbi3 lligbt I the balmiest flgli 

 Which vernal zephyrs breathe In evening's ear 

 Were discord to I lie speakine ouletutle 

 That wraps this moveless scene. -Shelley. 



THIS casual presence oj two oj three out-of-town veterans 

 of the craft gave a retrospective cast to the conversa- 

 tion at a recent reunion of the local brotherhood. With 

 one of our guests 1 had tabernacled for twenty years in the 

 less. No man was eveiMnoru companionable or had 

 more df the characteristics of true nobility, lnphysique 

 he was robust as an athlete, but in thought "and fecllngbe 

 was as impressive as a child and as, gentle as a woman. "He 

 was, withal, as moderate in his sports as he was temperate 

 in his habits. In seeking his own pleasure he never forgot 

 the pleasure of others, nor did he ever envy others the 

 "luck" he sometimes failed to enjoy hirnsi li'. Indeed, I 

 have known bitn I o slip away from" a promising "spring 

 hull'" which was Uis own by right of possession, that a loss 

 expert aneler miglil fish undisturbed and be happy. He is 

 some years my senior, and although still as buoyant in 

 spirit lis wnen be. would "sot the table in a roar" by the un- 

 ceasing flow of bis inimitable humor, he hears, on body and 

 brow, the ear-rnarks of weariness, if no! of decay. When I 

 meet him he always reminds me of my fancy picture of 

 grand old "Kit North"— that princely king of the iuiiuil- 

 able "Nortes Ambrosiiiiue." lie is like hint in his tastes, 

 in his enthusiasm and in his irrepressible love of the gentle 

 pastime Which constituted the rarest pleasure of his youth 

 and the chief joy of his green old age. He is like hini also 

 in that he finds unalloyed delight in re-traversim;-, in imagi- 

 nation, the quiet places, where in his prime and' later man- 

 hood, he was woni to go a-flshing. 



Aud another of our guests was cast from the same mold. 

 He had, for thirty years, without a single intermission, regu- 

 larly visited the Norlh Woods. He knew every foot of that 

 tangled wilderness; bad fished in every accessible brook, 

 river and lake, and had never been known to do aught that 

 did not become an angler and a man. In all my long asso- 

 ciation with him, in town and forest, around the home 

 health and the camp-fire, 1 never but once saw Mm out of 

 humor The single exception was when a conceited cockney 

 —who had more of the spirit of the vandal than 

 gentle angler— happened along where we were i$ camp n 

 challenged him to a day's Cshing to "count," Although 

 proverbially hospitable ;,nd never more happy than when 

 entertaining casual guests, he mar!:, his contempt for his 

 challenger so unmistakable that the fellow was glad to 

 "vamose the ranch 1 ' at. the earliest possible moment, It" ; ,ij 

 other honorable angleis were equally emphatic In their de- 

 nunciation of tltis vile habit, our trout, streams would not 

 b,_ so soon depleted, 



After all were comfortably seated around the open fire- 

 place, and our venerable guests and allot us were w. 11 down 

 to the middle of our first cigar, the oldest and most honored 

 of the circle said: 



• 'Well, this is coin fori able. This crackling wood Are. this 

 fragrant Havana (only it should he a pipe), and these friendly 

 and familiar faces have knocked thirty years of lime into 

 oblivion and dropped me down into the cosy precincts of a 

 bark shanty at the foot of Big Tupper." Some of you 

 younger gentlemen were then still in your swaddling clothes, 

 but jou and you and yon [naming three of us] were there 

 or thereabouts years before and for many years thereafter. 

 Providence has dealt kindly with all of Us". ' My own cruse 

 has never been without oil, and I never look physic enOugl) 

 to nauseate a cat. In the beautifully expressive, language 

 of Scripture, my 'lines have bee cast in pleasant, places.' 

 I never had an ailment, a week's fishing wouldn't cure, and 

 f never envied prince, potentate or president so long' as I 

 could find the time, (and I always did) and had the opportu- 

 tunity to make a 'cast.' I think I am and have been as 

 sympathetic as mosL men. ["Hear, hear," nil around the 

 circle.] 1 know 1 have lost many a night's sleep on hearing 

 of the misfortune of some friend who deserved a better 

 fate. 1 know, too, that I would rather loss a dollar to a 

 beggar than exchange salutations with a king, and I have 

 had both experiences. Indeed, my sympathies have uni- 

 formlj beeu with 'the under dog in the tight,' no matter 

 iiliieh was the aggrrssor. But my heart has always been 

 stirred to it-, deepest depths when I'lmvc met a good' fellow 

 who was so insensible to his own happiness, so absorbed in 

 his acquisition of wealth, and so iuappreeiativc of the ex- 

 ample of the holy apostles as never to have cultivated a 

 taste tor the angle. ["Hear, hear," and a senile ripple of 

 applause.] Why, what is life? aud what is the prime 

 object of living? In one respect 'life is a vapor'; but it is 

 something more. It embodies all the o|pmenti of an active 

 verb— to be, to do, to suffer (as little as possible') and to 

 enjoy (all you can). That is a condensed epitome of life, as 

 I understand it. And what: is (lie object of living? SimpTj 

 to do good aud be happy. The one is dependent upon the 

 other. They are inseparable, and indivisible; and 'what 

 God has joined together let no man put asunder.' I know 

 that an old Scotch philosopher — antl no class of philosophers 

 blend more hard sense with their incomprehensible meta- 

 physics— has said that the root of all happiness lies in 'a 

 clear conscience and open bowels.' So far as that aphorism 

 goes it is inconl tablj ©mid and profoundly sensible. But 

 there is a link missing, f insist that however cleai bnd 

 clean one may keep his conscience, and however regularly 

 the. complicated machinery of his 'fearfully and wonder- 

 fully mad ' . any do its office, it is impossibl In 



should c-v. I for the highest good or reach the 



i 'j - " i"- ■" ■- i innuclc of eaithly felicity, unless he has 



■ 'Mi-Miplutivi; niiud. the gentle spirit, the poetic taste, 

 the quiet habit and the sturdy common sense of the man 

 who love to go a- fishing. ["Bravo!" "Well put," with 

 approviHg smiles >tud flcirmakive hsad-nods iirnoj i 



Now, you sec, 1 know what I am talking about. I was ten 

 venrs old before I killed a trout. If my early education 

 had not been neglected I would have begun fishing at five. 

 The loss of those live years have always been a source of re- 

 gret tome, and 1 more than once questioned my father's kind- 

 ness because, with all his own love for, and appreciation of, 

 the sport, 'he kept his only son, myself, at home' daring 

 these five years, while he himself made his weekly excur- 

 sions to the trout streams in our immediate neighborhood, 

 lam told that during those five lost years I was delicate, 

 morose, flippant and querulous, No 'wonder. Mv inher- 

 ited angling blood WftS It) rebellion against thecruel 'restraint 

 imposed upon me. But with a curie blanche at ten to fish 

 When and where I pleased, the whole mental and moral 

 structure of my being was changed, aud I became ductile, 

 obedient and happy; aud 1 have been fairly good and very 

 happy ever since, but never so happy as when I have had a 

 'lodge iii some vast wilderness,' through which course melo- 

 liorj trout brooks or roaring salmon livers." [Applause] 



When fresh cigars were lit and the blazing lire replenished, 

 our venerable friend was reminded that he had not yet told 

 us about the pleasant time he had in his bark shanty at the 

 foot of Big Tupper thirty years ago. 



"Thank you for the reminder." Well, you see. no matter 

 how fond "one becomes of the woods in general, or how 

 happy be may be wherever there arc plenty fish and 

 pleasant scenery, he will get a special fondness for some 

 special spot, and will never deem his outing complete with- 

 out paying it a visit. I always had several 'such pet places, 

 aud Cok'g Point, at the loot of Big Tupper, was one of 

 them. I came to like the spot not alone because of its pleas- 

 ant surroundings— although that counted for something — 

 but also because, within easy distance, there were some of 

 the best casting places, dining the early season, to be found 

 anywhere in the woods, notably the Point itself, Peter's 

 Bock and Lothrop's chopping. My acquaintance with these 

 localities began nearly forty year's ago, when the regular 

 visitors to those waters could be counted upon your two 

 thumbs and eight fingers, and when you could float fifty 

 miles without meeting a white man or encountering a house. 

 There are now, I am told, a hundred places of entertain- 

 ment within the boundaries ol the grand old forest where 

 we used to pitch our tents without fear of molestation from 

 cockney anglers or 'Murray's fools.' As I was saying, Cole's 

 Point was one of my favorite resorts. The 'occasion to 

 which my memory drifted just now was only distin- 

 guished from many another because, of two or three inci- 

 dents which rendered it especially memorable. I was ac- 

 companied by two of the most companionable fellows I ever 

 met. They "were born anglers, and curried wit is them all 

 the scholarly tastes and jovousness of spirit characteristic of 

 the old masters of the art. Dull care never Obtruded nis ugly 

 visnee within the precincts of their tabernacle. Although 

 they were masters Of all the sciences, and had earned all the 

 titles at the disposal of all the schools, they were as Wee 

 from guile and ostentation as a true angler is f ram cruelty 

 or conceit. While we were in camp the moon was at her 

 full, so thai the nights were as luminous as the early gloam- 

 ing, ami as serene and beautiful as the placid waters of the 

 great lake which stretched out iilimitabiy before us. As we 

 satin rapt testacy outside our primitive camp looking up 

 and out upon the unclouded sky, the silvery sheen of the 

 quiet waters and the rugged bluffs which loomed up in the 

 clear moonlight like giant warders at the portals of the lake, 

 no sound broke upon the ear save the low ripple pf the tiny 

 rapids just below as, and the occasional whistle of some be- 

 lated wood-bird who had missed his mate. You know I 

 have been a world-wide wanderer. There is not a historic 

 painting, nor a chronicled statue, nor a noted palace, from 

 the Hudson to the Bosphorus, that I have not seen, I have 

 slept upon an Alpine glacier, have sat in wonderment and 

 awe beneath the ponderous dome of St. Peters, have looked 

 down from the belfry of St. Paul's, have traversed the 

 Rbiqe. have bowed my bead at the entrance of the Golden 

 Gate, have wandered through the 'garden of lire gods,' and 

 taken in all the exquisite beauty and inajestic yraudeui of the 

 Yosemite Valley, tint my soul 'was never so Hoiked as dur- 

 ing these never-to-be-forgotten, eight* of ecstacy and beauty 

 at the loot o f Big Tupper, when superadded lo what I saw 

 and felt, my two companions made the dense solitude vocal 

 with the concord of sweet sounds,' breathed from cornet 

 and flute, played with a sweetness and harmony which 

 proved them as much the masters of those instruments as 

 they were of Greek and belle-lettrcs and of rod aud reel. 

 Much that I have seen and enjoyed is forgotten, but this 

 memory of thirty years ago remains as fresh and vivid as 

 any pleasurable emotion that has come to me within the past 

 fortnight. Oh, no; as our respected chronicler of the pleas- 

 ures o'f our favorite pa time lias said, "it is not all of fishing 

 to lish,' and he who thinks so has not yet learned the first- 

 letter in the alphabet of the true angler. [Hippies of ap- 

 plause] 



"Did some one ask me what sport we had '.' In those days 

 it required more skill to keep from 'striking' than to 



hly ■ 



nt to fish, wo need not then to have 

 ■ heart of the forest lo get what we went 

 vns but an incident, then as always. The 

 lie recuperation, the ten thousand delights 

 id and heart from mountain and river ami 

 finitely more than the mere act of taking 

 fish, constituted and still constitute the chief charm of 

 th se immey r*rnb!es. Astnyfriend here has said betoi,* me. 

 among the multitude of blessings vouchsafed me '', a Mud 

 Providence, 1 count my pussionfor thil delightful* pastime 

 as chief, If not a better, I am sure [ have Been a happier 

 ig all my long life, 1 have foundpleaeure 

 ■)vei.l to go a-lishiug.'' [" So say wc, all 

 'hi shako all round followed the re- 

 isant memory. It was the preface to 

 recital, which held the merry-hearted 

 uto the "wee, sum' hours ayont the twal." 

 make "of record" before "reeling up" 



■rise.' II we 

 penetrated in 

 For. But lis! 

 freedom, the : 

 which come t 

 lake and fon 



man, bceausi 



hearsa! of this p 

 many another lil- 

 coterie together fa 

 aud which I 



these rambling "Talks on Summer Pastimes,"] G. D. 



Black Bass Of Salt Water. — We have on our coast a 



salt water lish, Cciiteeijrkti:! ulcari'ti, which is called sea 

 bass, black bass, etc., in different sections. Our heading 

 docs not refer to them but to the fresh wider black bass, 

 .- i ;-, which bus lived in salt: water. We quote from 

 the report in the London //.■■■', ing i .,■■.. ■';■■ oi November 8 u 

 part uf Mr. Silk's record of transporting this fish to England. 

 lie says; "After getting over the Great Bank and reaching 

 cooler water, 1 tried the experiment of putting black bass in 

 saltwater. They did not seem to mind it in' "the tea 

 alter being in for twenty-four hour.-., they went back into 

 fresh water as ll tins, ■■ .■' c. ■ i !>»en subjected t-o aoc -i,,-l. 

 expwimwrfc. " 



MY FIRST TROUT. 



IT was many years ago— I will not say how many— only 

 that I was a boy of thirteen. It was iu Maine, too, 

 that State paradisiac in the (yes of good I/aak Walton's 

 disciples, as well ;tj a charming one* to the lover of lino 

 scenery. If I mention Lincoln "county, I wonder if there 

 will be any reader of Forest AUD StSeam whose memories 

 will go pack to some one of those beautiful streams which 

 tumble into river or bay, aud from whose amber pools he 

 has lured many a beautiful trout, and, perhaps, single out 

 the. very "mill brook" I have in mind between Slieepscot 

 and Damariscott a rivers. 



Those were schoolboy days, and with two or three com- 

 panions, I was accustomed to trudge a three mile walk in 

 the Summer and autumn mouths "lo the academy. I say 

 trudge, but not because it was wearisome, for lively boy's 

 we weie, and could enter without a thought of being tired 

 into whatever play was going on during the hour, or half 

 hour, we arrived before school, but "simply because wc 

 walked and rarely had the favor of a ride. " It was not a 

 dreary road either — sufficiently up hill and down— mostly 

 through the woods. And what does a country boy like 

 better than the woods? What Sights are more beautiful to 

 him than the shady vistas, and what sounds more inspiring 

 and homelike than the twittering of birds, chattering of 

 squirrels, drumming of partridges aud babbling of biooks? 

 Sometimes his most* delightful holiday is when he receives 

 carte itemche for a tramp in the woods, and with a knife in 

 one pocket for the spruce gum, and a piece of twine and a 

 fish hook in another for a chub, or possible trout, he is off 

 following the rough track of some winter road, or tracing 

 the course of an unexplored brook. 



It was in one of these morning walks to school that I 

 dallied at the mill brook and caught that first trout, It hap- 

 pened that particular morning lhat my companions were 

 detained, aud I was alone. When the brook was reached I 

 knew that I was early and had time to bait the chubs a 

 little. But how should it be done? I had not br«ueht 

 along the twine and fish hook, nor had I any bait, without 

 trespassing upon my dinner of buttered biscuit, and as to 

 the latter, knowing nothing then of good Izaak'a devices, I 

 doubt whether it WolUd evci have occurred to mete commit 

 the trespass. The tape string of my dinner bag suggested a 

 line and a bent pin provided the hook, while for bait I 

 turned over the stones till I found a worm, which chanced 

 to be one of the great white oucs with black heads which 

 farmers so commonly find in their potato hills. With this 

 primitive apparatus'! was Speedily enjoying myself, prone 

 on the phmks of the bridge, trying to jerk ont the chubs. 

 which found the tempting morsel too large for their mouths. 

 Suddenly the crowd of chubs darted awav in every direc- 

 tion, and in their place was one large lish eight' or ten 

 inches long. It was apparition like, so suddenly was he 

 there. Would he take the bait? 1 was in a tremor of hope 

 and expectation. No; he was away, after a moment oi' 

 poising in the. water, as suddenly as he had come, and i 

 was left in disappointment to try lo toll back my chubs. 

 But no; again. Before the chubs" could gather, the' appari- 

 tion had returned, seized the bait, and with a vigor of arrh 

 Ruflicicnt for ft greater feat was shot out, I know not how, 

 far upon the roadside. It was a case of "reflex action" 

 which would have delighted Dr. Caipenter. 



That was my first trout. I had never seen one before, 

 but as I hastily got my hands upon it and saw its golden 

 sides and vermilion spots, I needed no one lo tell me what 

 it was. And the triumph, the exultation of that moment I 

 need not describe. The feeling has not been surpassed anv 

 time these later years when a far larger trout has taken mv 

 fly and made my rod buckle and thrill through a protracted 

 play in larger waters. It was triumph enough for once, 

 and forthwith I hastened on and begged of the farmer's 

 wife, at the first house to keen it for me till I returned after 

 school, when I had the pleasure of bearing my trophy home 

 and with it two more of the same sort and size naught with 

 the same tape string aud pin hook. Monatiqiot. 



A LECTURE ON FISHES. 



AT the American Museum of Natural History, in New 

 York city, there are weekly lectures on subjects of 

 interest, to students in zoology, bast Saturday Prof Albert 

 S. Bickmore spoke upon.liie physiological construction, 

 habits and peculiarities of fishes, and we. give the following 

 resume of his remarks: 



"One of the essential characteristics of fishes," said the 

 Professor, "is that I hey are tail animals." A fish propels 

 itself .through the water by a lateral movement of its ver- 

 tebra. Large and strong muscles run along each side of a 

 fish's backbone, and it is the contraction and relaxation of 

 these muscles that moves the tail from right to left and 

 enables the fish to swim. These muscles, which extend 

 along fhe vertebra, constitute the principal part pf the meat 

 of an ordinary fish. The varieties of fish are so numerous 

 that it has been found very difficult to thoroughly classify 

 them. There are so many of the characteristics of" different 

 fishes that intertwine and clash with one another that in 

 some respects no satisfactory classification of fishes has yet 

 been arrived at. Prof. Agassiz proposed a classification" of 

 fishes according to their scales, but unfortunately somebody 

 caught a fish near the Canary Islands that had two kinds of 

 scales — one kind on the back and another kind ontheunder- 

 ridc. The word pakciohthyes is used to describe a class of 

 ancient fishes, to which the sharks and the rays belong. 



The Professor exhibited specimens of sharks, sharks' 

 jaws, and sharks' teeth, and caused magnified pictures of 

 various kinds of sharks and other fishes to be reflected 

 on the screen. He illustrated and described the hammer- 

 head, thrashing, aud basking sharks, and the common 

 shark or dogfish. An interior view of the bead of a fish 

 was given on Hie screen, showing the great, profusion of 

 nerves which give to a fish's nose an extraordinary sensitive- 

 ness of fueling. "A tish can feel his way withhis aoseaa 

 well as a blintf mini can with his fingers, " remarked the 

 lecturer. The simplest form of vertebrate was illustrated in 

 a lish about the shape and size of the blade ol a penknife. 

 -a. 1» li-h"-'. Prof,. Eickaurc explained, were found in the 

 sand on the shores of Kbith Carolina and along the Mediter- 

 raneai 3ea By means .of the magnified picture exhibited, 

 the muscles, nerves, aud internal organs of these tun fish 

 could be discerned. It was seen that they pi si 

 mouth and a heart with a complete svster* of pin.:; 



Sharks, as a rule, have round bodies, while rny. are 

 sharks with the hodico flattened or compressed. Printing 

 with his siick to a large illustration of a shark on the 



Bor > !! " Professor d sjrod hisaudttors to note thai the 



mrtut-h was away down underneath the h^ad ieet." 



