108 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Feb. 0, 189o. 
trifle over eight feet long. We punch it in the side ex- 
amine its teeth and slap the planks with its queer tail. 
''Hain't you glad you're here, old fellow?" said Jack, 
giving me a punch in the ribs. 
"Just see the strange beasts, and fishes, and things 
which do abound hereabouts." 
"Yes," I responded. "But the fish are not noteworthy 
either for size or variety." 
"That's so," he cheerfully assented. "But then we're 
fishing in the Pacific Ocean just the same." 
I could not deny this, so we went to fishing again. 
How many did we get? Honest now. Well, we caught 
and safely landed seven mackeiel, ranging from five to 
eight inches long; five smelts of about the same size; 
two sardelloes, and one pompano. Laden with these, all 
told, including basket, they would weigh perhaps three 
pounds, we wended our way homeward at the time of 
the going down of the sun, and thus ended our first fish- 
ing in the great and mighty ocean, 
Myron Cooley. 
Colton, Cal. 
GUDDLING TROUT. 
Auburn, Cal.— Some time ago there were several 
articles upon this form of sport; and it seemed to be the 
concensus of opinion that it was no sport at all. Some of 
the writers even questioned the possibility of capturing 
trout in the hands, in the way described. The term 
"guddling" was even sneered at, as a fitting name for an 
unsportsmanlike pursuit. I confess that in my youth 
I used to "guddle," myself occasionally, the knack of it 
having been handed down in the family from my Scotch 
"forbears." Poor, misguided boy, I did not know it was 
unsportsmanlike in those days! Doubtless had I done 
so, I would never have tickled a trout. 
So, when the question of guddling was "on. " in Forest 
and Stream columns, and I found the popular sentiment 
overwhelmingly against the practice, I discreetly held my 
peace. 
The other day I was reading one of the works of the 
Scotch author. S. R. Crockett, and came across a chapter 
entitled "Legitimate Sport." It gave me such delight in 
the reading that I thought I would quote, almost entire, 
for the benefit of the readers of "our" paper. I will have 
to preface the story with a short explanation. 
The work quoted from is entitled "The Lilse Sunbon- 
net," and no doubt has been read by many who will see 
these lines; but for the benefit of those who have never 
seen it, I am going to beg the author's permission to 
steal the chapter. 
It is a good, clean, healthy love story, such as I confess 
to an enjoyment of, even yet. It is strong of the Scotch 
vernacular, and in that respect also is congenial to my 
taste. 
The young hero of the tale, Ralph Peden by name, and 
a divinity student by occupation, has had a slight mis- 
understanding with his sweetheart, Winsome Charteris, 
and she slips out of the house while he is in conversation 
"wi' her granny," and takes her away to a mountain 
stream in "fair Galloway." in company with a cottar's 
lad named Andra Kissock. This "bit laddie," Andra, 
has a fervid imagination, and about this time is fevered 
by some letters from his brother in far America, and in 
consequence is continually "playin' Injun," as our 
youngsters would term it. This explanation is needed to 
make intelligible some of Andra's actions and expres- 
sions, and now to our tale. I quote: 
' 'Ralph passed through the yard to the gate which led to 
the hill. As he was crossing the brook which flows 
partly over, and partly under the road at the horse 
watering-place, he looked down into the dell among the 
tangles of birch, and the thick viscous foliage of the 
green-berried elder. There he caught the flash of a light 
dress, and as he climbed t.ie opposite grassy bank on his 
way to the village, he saw immediately beneath him the 
maiden of his dreams and his love-verses. Now she 
leaped merrily from stone to stone; now she bent stealth- 
ily over till her palms came together in the water; now 
she paused to dash her hair back from her flushed face. 
And all the time the water glimmered and sparkled 
about her feet. With her was Andra Kissock, a bare- 
legged, bonnetless squire of dames. Sometimes he pur- 
sued the wily burn trout with relentless ferocity, and the 
silent intentness of a sleuth hound. Often, however, he 
would pause, and with his finger indicate some favorite 
stone to Winsome. Then the young lady, utterly forget- 
ful of all else, and with a tremulous eagerness, delicately 
circumvented the red-spotted beauties. 
Once, throwing her head back to clear the tumbling 
avalanches of her hair, she chanced to see Ralph standing 
silent above. For a moment Winsome was annoyed. 
She had gone to the hill brook with Andra, so that she 
need not speak further with Ralph Peden, and here he 
had followed her. But it did not need a second look to 
see that he was infinitely more embarrassed than she. 
This is the thing, above all others, which is fitted to make 
a woman calm and collected. It allows her to take the 
measure of her opportunity, and assures her of her super- 
iority. So, with a gay and quipsome wave of her hand 
in which Ralph was conscious of some faint resemblance 
to her grandmother, she called to him: 
"Come down and help us catch some trout for supper." 
Ralph descended, digging his heels determinedly into 
the steep bank till he found himself in the bed of the 
streamlet. Then he looked at Winsome for an explana- 
tion. This was something he had not practiced in the 
water of Leith. Andra Kissock glared at him with a ter- 
rible countenance, in which contempt was supposed to 
blend with a sullen ferocity characteristic of the noble 
savage. The effect was slightly marred by a black streak 
of mud, which was drawn from the angle of his mouth to 
the roots of his hair. Ralph thought from his expression 
that trout-fishing of this kind did not agree with him, 
and proposed to help Winsome instead of Andra. 
This proposal had the effect of drawing a melo-dra- 
matic "Ha, ha!" from that youth, ludicrously out of 
keeping with his usual demeanor. Once he had seen a 
play-acting show unbeknown to his mother, when Meg 
(his sister) had taken him to Cairn Edward September 
fair. 
So, "Ha, ha!" lie said, with a look of smothered des- 
peration which to the unprejudiced observer suggested a 
pain in his inside. "You guddle troot!" he cried, scorn- 
fully, "I wod admire to see ye! Ye wod only fyle (dirty) 
yer shoon, an' yer braw breeks!" 
Ralph glanced at the striped underskirt over which 
Winsome had looped her dress. It struck him with as- 
tonishment to note how she managed to keep it clean and 
dry, when Andra was apparently wet to the neck. 
"I do not know that I shall" be of any use," he said, 
meekly; "but I shall try." 
Winsome was standing poised on a stone, bending like 
a little maid, her hands in the clear water. There had 
been a swift and noiseless rush underneath the stone; a 
few grains of sand rose up where the white underpart of 
the trout had touched it as it glided beneath. Slowly and 
imperceptibly Winsome's hand worked its way beneath 
the stone. With the fingers of one hand she made that 
slight swirl of the water, which is supposed by expert 
"guddlers" to fascinate the trout, and to render them in- 
capable of resisting the beckoning fingers. Andra 
watched breathlessly from the bank above. Ralph came 
nearer to see the issue. The long, slender fingers, shin- 
ing mellow in the peaty water, were ju*t closing when 
the stone, on which Ralph was standing precariously, 
toppled over and fell into the burn with a splash. The 
trout darted out, and in a moment was down stream into 
the biggest pool for miles. 
Winsome rose with a flush of disappoinl ment, and 
looked very reproachfully at the culprit. Ralph, who had 
followed the stone, stood up to his knees in the water, 
looking the picture of crestfallen humility. 
Overhead on the bank Andra danced madly like an 
imp. He would not have dared to speak to Ralph on any 
other occasion, but guddling, like curling, loosens the 
tongue. He who fails, or causes the failures of others, 
is certain to hear very plainly of it from those who ac- 
company him to this very dramatic kind of fishing. 
"0 ! a' the stupid asses!" cried that young man. "Was 
there ever sic a beauty? a pund wecht gin it was an 
oonce! an' to fa' off a stane like a six-month's wean." 
His effective condemnation made Winsome laugh. 
Ralph laughed along with her, which very much in- 
creased the anger of Andra. Andra was moved to the 
extremity of scorn. 
"Hey, mon!" he called to Ralph, who was standing in 
the water's edge; "hey, mon!" he cried. 
"Well Andra, what is it?" asked Winsome Charteris, 
looking up after a moment. She had been busy think- 
ing. 
"Tell that chap fra Enbro (Edinburgh)," said Andra, 
collecting all his spleen into one tremendous and an- 
nihilating phrase — "him that tummilt aff the stane — 
that there's a feck o' paddocks (a good many frogs) up 
there in' the bog. He micht gang up there an' guddle 
for paddocks. It wod be safer for the like o' him!" The 
ironical method is the favorite mode or vehicle of humor 
among the common orders of Galloway. Andra was a 
master in it. 
"Andra," Slid Winsome, warmly, "you must not ■" 
"Please let him say whatever he likes. My awkward- 
ness deserves it all," said Ralph, with becoming meek- 
ness. 
"I think you had better go home now," said Winsome; 
"it will soon be time for you to bring the kye home." 
"Ha ye aneuch troots for the mistress's denner?" 
said Andra, who knew very well how many there were 
"There are the four that you got, and the one I got 
beneath the bank, Andra," answered Winsome, 
"Nane o' them haf the size o' the yin that he fleyed 
(frightened) frae ablow (below) the big stane," said 
Andra. 
"It's near kye-time," again said Winsome, "I'se no 
gaun a fit till I hae showed ye baith what it is to guddle. 
For ye mauna gang awa' to Enbro, an' think that how- 
kin' (wi' a lassie to help ye) in among the gravel is gud- 
dlin'. You see here!" cried Andra, and before either 
Winsome or Ralph could say a word, he had stripped 
himself to his very brief breeches and ragged shirt, and 
was wading into the deepest part of the pool beneath the 
waterfall. 
Here he scurried and scuttled for all the world like a 
dipper, with his breast showing white like the bird, as 
he walked along the bottom of the pool. Most of the 
time his head was beneath the water, as well as all the 
rest of his body. His arms bored their way round the 
intricacies of the boulders at the bottom. His brown and 
freckled hands pursued the trout beneath the banks. 
Sometimes he would have one in each hand at the same 
time. 
When he caught them he had a careless and reckless 
way of throwing them up on the bank without looking 
where he was throwing. The first one he threw in this 
way took effect on the cheek of Ralph Peden to his ex- 
ceeding astonishment. 
Winsome again cried "Andra!" warningly, but Andra 
was far too busy to listen; beside, it is not easy to hear 
with one's head under water, and the frightened trout 
flashing in lightning wimples athwart the pool. 
But for all that, the fisherman's senses were acute, 
even under the water; for as Winsome and Ralph -were 
not very energetic in catching the fish which found them- 
selves so unexpectedly frisking on the green grass, one or 
two of them (putting, apparently, their tails in their 
mouths, and letting go, as with the release of a steel 
spring) turned a splashing somersault into the poo). An- 
dra did not seem to notice them as they fell, but in a fit- 
tie while he looked up with a trout in his hand, the peat- 
water running in bucketfuls from his hair and shirt, his 
face full of indignation. 
"Ye're littin' them back again!" he exclaimed, looking 
fiercely at the trout in his hand. "This is the second 
time I hae catched this yin wi' the wart on its tail!" he 
said. "D'ye think I'm catchin' them for fun, or to gie 
them a change o' air for their healths, like fowk thot 
come frae Enbro?" 
"Andra, I will not allow — -" Winsome began, who 
felt that on the ground of Craig Ronald, a guest of her 
grandmother's should be respected. 
But before she had got further, Andra was again under 
water, and again the trout began to rain out, taking oc- 
casional local effect upon both of them. 
Finally Andra looked up with an air of triumph. "It 
taks ye "a' yer time to grup them on the dry land, I'm 
thinkin'," said he, with some fine scorn; "ye had better 
try the paddocks. It's safer." So, shaking himself like 
a water-dog, he climbed up on the grass, where he col- 
lected the fish into a large fishing-basket which Winsome 
had brought. He looked them over, and said as he 
handled one of them: 
"Oh, ye're there, are ye? I kenned I wad get ye some 
day, impidence. Ye hae nae business i' this pool, any- 
way. Ye belang hauf a mile faurer up, my lad: ye'll 
bite off nae moir o' my heuks. There maun be three o' 
them i' his guts, the noo " 
Here Winsome looked a meaning look at him, upon 
which Andra said: 
"I'm juist gaun, Ye needna tell me that it's kye-time. 
See you an' be hame to tak' in yer grannie's tea. Ye're 
moir likely to be ahint yer time than me." 
Having sped this Parthian shaft, Andra betook himself 
over the moor with his backful of spoil. 
There now, you sneerers at guddling; how do you like 
that picture? 
> Can you not smell the moist, sweet scent of the purling 
stream; can you not see the dancing shadows of the 
leaves on the white sand; or the "frightened trout flash- 
ing in lightning wimples athwart the pool?" 
Go to! There is fishing and fishing! It all depends 
upon the_ spirit in which it is done — whether for sport, or 
I was going to say, profit — but will substitute greed. 
Akefae. 
"We Anglers." 
Mr. Joseph Ferris, of No. 202 Hope street, Glasgow, sends us an 
angling song, which in words and air is so taking that we have re- 
produced the nmsicfto go with it. WE ANGLERS. 
Wha on a bonnie morn in Mav 
Get up before the break o' day 
And to the rivers make their way? 
We anglers, we anglers, 
And even altho' the weather's wat 
"Wha no a button care for that 
Nae mair than duck or water rat? 
We anglers, w T e anglers. 
Wha on their way to hae a wap 
Abhor the very name o' Nap, 
And never, never taste a drap? 
We anglers, we anglers, 
Wha wonder mony a weary mile. 
Through bog and moss, o'er dyke and style* 
And sing and whistle a' the while? 
We anglers, we anglers. 
Wha hae the quick and .ready e'e 
A glint o' rising fish to see? 
Wha gently o'er them drap their flee? 
We anglers, we anglers. 
Wha see the swirl, wha feel the pook, 
Wha gie the tvvitch to fix the hook, 
Wha creel them for their f reens to cook? 
We anglers, we anglers. 
And when the fish are takin' weel, 
Wha sometimes get a guid fu! creel, 
Wha like its sonsy wecht to feel? 
We anglers, we anglers. 
But ui noos and thans" things look gey black 
When troot and greyl'in winna tak, 
Wha then vow they will ne'er gae back? 
We anglers, we anglers. 
Wha after just a guid nicht's rest. 
Forget their vows and a' the rest, 
And start again wi' keener zest? 
We anglers, we anglers. 
Wha o' contentment keep the key, 
Wha're just as gude as men can be, 
Wha hardly ever tell a lee? 
We anglers, we anglers. 
MASSACHUSETTS s ASSOCIATION. 
Boston, Jan. 31.— Editor Forest and Stream: The 
annual dinner of the Massachusetts Fish and Game 
Protective Association — an occasion always looked for- 
ward to with a great deal of interest — came off last 
evening at Young's Hotel, and from a variety of causes it 
was the general opinion that it was the most successful 
symposium ever enjoyed by the members and their 
friends. The committee entrusted with the arrange- 
ments were: John Fottler, Jr., chairman; Wm, B. 
Smart, secretary; B. C. Clark, C. I. H. Woodbury, 
Walter M. Brackett, Dr. Heber Bishop and W. B. 
Hastings. I can bear witness that they all did faithful 
work, especially Dr. Bishop and Artist Brackett, to 
whom were entrusted the important items of music and 
decorations. The walls of the hall were hung with the 
best fish and game paintings of Mr. Brackett and his 
son, Arthur. Splendid heads of elk and moose were 
shown, while upon the tables were elegantly mounted 
specimens of all the game birds, including a fine speci- 
men of the Mongolian pheasant, which is to be intro- 
duced into this region under the auspices of the 
association. The invited guests present were Gov. 
Wolcott, Rev. M. J. Savage, Capt. John C. Wynian, 
Speaker Meyer of the House of Representatives, Rev. 
E, A Horton, Senator Smith, chairman of the Fish 
and Game Committee; Fish Commissioners E, A., 
Brackett of Massachusetts, Wm. H. Shnrtleff, Wm. H. 
Griffin and Nathaniel Went worth of New Hampshire,, 
J. W. Titcomb of Vermont, and Henry O. Stanley of 
Maine, P. A Chase, president of the Metropolitan Park 
Commission; A. M, Howe and Theodore H. Tyndale, 
well known members of the bar. For the musical part 
of the programme Dr. Bishop furnished Tom Henry's 
orchestra and a band of colored singers furnished 
instrumental and vocal music, and you may be sure 
that there was plenty and all good. The menu was an 
elaborate one, and included about all the game in season, 
in addition to a saddle of moose that had been in the 
cold storage several weeks and which proved very tooth- 
some. When cigars were reached President Clark spoke, 
as follows : 
Brethren of the Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective 
Association: . „ . , 
I cannot deny myself the pleasure of congratulating you 
upon this brilliant gathering, and of extending in your name 
and on your behalf to all our guests who have honored us with 
their genial presence to-night, the heartiest and most cordial 
welcome which the warmest hospitality can offer. 
I need hardly remind the older members who are present 
that this occasion is the twenty-first birthday of our Associa- 
tion dating from the time when in 1874 our organization began 
its existence and was duly incorporated by the authority of 
the General Court under the name of the "Massachusetts An- 
glers' Association." . 
At thau time the purpose of the Association as defined in the 
Act of Incorporation was "for the purpose of securing and en- 
forcing proper restrictions upon the taking and killing of fish, 
