4 
to a concviiiently shaded gravel bar and replace my 
light tackle with a heavier leader and larger tlies. Then, 
after letting pass the time requisiet to smoke a pipe, so 
as to allay any suspicions my movements near the pool 
may have caused, I approach once more. A short cast 
brings no results; a little more line, and a cast just be- 
yond the point where the ripple smooths out over the 
deeper water, and— iiop! I strike instinctively. He is 
hooked! What gymnastics! But only for a moment. 
Suddenly, with that sickening sag, back conies my empty 
line. He is off — not well hooked. But it Avas heart- 
thumping work for the few seconds it lasted. No use 
to try him again at present, so I move off dejectedly 
down the brook in search of other prizes. A good two- 
pounder he was, and I might have had him! Smile not, 
ye ftshers on Maine lakes or Canadian rivers, for a two- 
pounder from so civilized a stream will match a fish 
of twice the Aveight from your wilderness waters. Four 
times during our stay did we hook that same fish, but 
each time his own cunning or the fnendly snags saved 
him. We even made a special expedition for him on the 
day we came away, but he would not be cajoled, though 
approaching close to the pool we had clear sight of him 
lying in the cool depths in safety. Would the plebeian 
worm have tempted him? Many a royal scion has been 
ruined by vulgar tastes. We know not, for we disdained 
to try. May he avoid all lures for a year to come! May 
he gain another pound in weight, until we can make an- 
other visit to his crystal palace! 
"Will," said I„ while we were at breakfast on the third 
day, "let's try the gorge this morning just for the sake 
of variety." 
To this he assented, with an elder brother's indulgent 
spirit, and John went to harness the little colt that we 
might drive to our destination, for the gorge, where our 
brook bursts through the mountain wall, is three or four 
miles away, and we are lazy. John carries us well up into 
the favine, and we are speedily at work. Here the crystal 
clearness of the sti'eam is accentuated by the light gray 
rocks forming its bed. The water is perfectly trans- 
parent. Perhaps this may explain the fact that the trout 
do not rise as well as they do below in the meadows. But 
the beauty of our surroundings makes ample recompense 
for our light creels. What fish we do capture are of 
surprising plumpness and size. Once, while standing 
on a huge boulder, a dozen feet above the brook and 
casting far down the stream, I hook the largest fish of 
the day. Fearing to lift him,' I call W^ill and his net. 
The roar of the brook drowns my words, and Will only 
infers from my tone and expression that I have seen 
something exciting. He gazes back up the brook or up 
the steep wooded side of the ravine, expecting to see a 
bear or a wildcat loom on his view. Then the word 
net catches his ear, and brings him back to things pis- 
catorial. Dropping his rod, he slides rapidly down the 
boulder and skillfully nets my fish, a fine fellow, nearly 
lib. in weight. A little further down the brook a nice 
fish drops from the hook just as he reaches the edge 
of the water. Simultaneously I make a dive, and suc- 
ceed in stunning both the fish and my nose, for I ran 
my face into a boulder by the brookside. Fifteen fish 
were all we captured that morning; fifteen fish and an 
enormous appetite, which did full justice to the boun- 
tiful table of good things ready for us on onr return. 
But our four days draw rapidly to a close, each iu 
general outline like its predecessor, but infinitely varied 
in details. Our schedule would read somewhat after 
this fashion: A comparatively late breakfast, down 
the brook for three or four hours, a dinner eaten with 
all the angler's gusto, followed necessarily by a siesta 
of an hour or two, and then in the late afternoon and 
evening a second stroll down the brook. Never did 
we return with very heavy creels, fotit we enjoyed good 
sport and were content. Were there then no draw- 
backs, no frayed leaders parting with a good fish? 
No broken rods, no snags? Yes, for the angler's 
temper, gentle though his art be, is oft sorely tried. 
Once I climbed 15ft. tip a scraggy elm to secure a new 
cast of flies I had securely lodged there, and lo! after 
some minutes of heart-breaking work the flies were 
not there. The recoil of the limb had doubtless snapped 
them to some unknown hiding place. Once I caught 
my flies in a back-ward cast upon a sturdy thistle, and 
the result was a broken rod. But it mattered little. The 
angler never hurries, and as I sat beneath an alder's shade 
and temporarily repaired the rod, a veery from a neigh- 
boring thicket made me ample consolation with his 
mysterious, circling song. And to repay my iitdustry 
a good trout seized my fly at the first cast with the 
mended rod. Mosquitoes there were none during the 
day; as night fell and they became troublesome a single 
application of a potent ointment protected us from their 
attacks. 
Sunday brought us a day of veritable rest. AVe ate, 
we smoked, we talked — ^like Ceesar's famous message, 
three words sum up our day. Monday found us once 
more and for the last time in our fishing gear. On 
Tuesday our time was up, and we returned to the city 
with many fat trout in our baskets and less substantial 
but more lasting than these, rich stores of memories to 
last us until some other time when it may be our for- 
tune to stray together down the brook. 
A. L. W. 
■New Haven. Cnon, ^ 
One of the most sensible fishing regulations adopted in 
New York State is one enacted by the last Legislature 
which limits the transportation of trout of any kind, sal- 
mon, or landlocked salmon to carriage when accompanied 
by the actual owner, and forbids transporting more than 
twelve pounds of brook, brown or rainbow trout at one 
time. This law will not be so easy of enforcement as is 
the one limiting the transportation of venison, but if it 
shall be honestly observed it will effectually cut oiT the 
marketing of brook trout, and will therefore be one of the 
best protective expedients we could have. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday. 
Correspondence intended for publication should reach us at the 
latest by Monday and as much earlier as practicable. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Old Age in Sport. 
It is considered a fine thing to "grow old gracefully." 
A finer thing, to me, is the sight of one growing old 
\dgorously and heartily. It is as beautiful and cheering 
as the sight of a veteran apple tree, gnarled and knotted, 
and perhaps twisted and bowed, putting forth in the 
spring a glory of pink and white blossoms, a wonder- 
ful cloak of promise, trailitag from its old shoulders like 
the ermine mantle of a king. I love to see an old man 
or woman clinging bravely and successfully to the heart 
and the strength of youth, zesiful and sprightlj^ and 
happy and hopeful up to the end, only setting down the 
cup of life after a last, deep, satisfying draught, like one 
whose thirst is quenched and whose soul is satisfied. 
Thank God that the physical shelving of old age is a' 
th iug of the past! What an emancipation we have had 
in that respect! It is a glorious thing to see gray- 
haired men and women still sharing the activities and 
recreations of youth. How they seem to rejoice in their 
new-found freedom, their escape from the shackles of 
a false and heartless conventionalism ! Fifty years ago 
an old man taking any sort of recreation would have 
been viewed with amazement. The whole community 
would have been shocked and scandalized. Those who 
considered themselves responsible for him would have 
been on pins and needles until they had coerced the 
poor old boy back to his easy chair, and compelled him 
to resume the process of wasting away by physical in- 
action. Why, if tniddle-aged men, or even youths, had 
been subjected to the same process of physical shelving 
that old age had to bear in the days of our foolish 
forefathers, they would have rusted out in tlieir prime, 
and sunk into their graves by a kind of physical oxida- 
tion. Poor old men, who used to have to steal away for 
a furtive chance to "play boy" for a little while, and 
so renew their still unspent youth and strength ! What a 
pity they could not have lived to see this daj^, when an 
old man on a bicycle, spinning along with the swiftness 
of the wind, is as common a sight as a child with a toy 
cart. How these old boys would have started up, with 
trembling eagerness and delight, at the sight of the hale, 
firm-stepping, bright-eyed, elastic-muscled veterans of to- . 
da.y, in their golfing suits and bicycle costumes and shoot- 
ing rigs ! If the century had done nothing more than 
emancipate old age from the pitiful bondage of a false 
prejudice and conventionalism, it would have been a 
hundred years well spent for mankind. 
The zest and vigor and improved physical condition of 
old age, since it was permitted to share the healthful 
recreations of --outh and middle-life, are proof positive 
that the joy and stimulus of outdoor sport are what the 
"failing half" of humanity has needed for generations. 
To this, more than to anything else, no doubt, is due 
the constantly increasing longevity of the race. Up to 
the present time, we have been killing off our old people 
by a perfectly evident process — a lack of use or function 
for them. vVe have been slowly wiping them out, as na- 
ture wipes out organs that have ceased to have any 
part in the conservation or development of life. By 
retiring our grandfathers and grandmothers at sixty- 
five, and limiting their range of interest and activity to 
the path between the cushioned chair and the dining table, 
we have been actuallv putting them out of the way by a 
kind of protracted and unconscious fratricide. No rnan 
can live long without the stimulus of interest and activity 
— least of all an old man, whose life was formerly vigor- 
ous and energetic. It is an actual crueltj' to deprive the 
old of work, if that is all that is left to them — but how 
much more of a cruelty to deprive them of that which 
they nave fair!-- earned by a. long life of patient toil, the 
joy of congenial, recuperative recreation, ,such as con- 
serves and preserves failing physical powers, without 
overtaxing them, and makes pleasant and healthful the 
down-hill path of life. 
Yes, thank God, that the old prejudice "whiGh pro- 
notmced it unseemly for age to refresh and recuperate 
itself by outdoor sport, is gone forever. Thank God that 
second childhood — if yoti will call it such — is no longer 
deprived of first childhood's happy privileges. No gray- 
haired man or woman need any longer wear the chains of 
a false and discarded social fetishism. God's outdoor 
world, with all its joyful invitations, with all the meth- 
ods man has contrived for using it and getting good 
out of it, are as free now to the septuagenarian as to the 
youth of twenty. No social ban will be placed upon 
the veteran, if he leads out his shining wheel and mounts 
it for a twenty-mile spin, or launches his trim canoe for 
a paddle on the river, or takes his golf stick and goes 
away with springy step to the links, or in any way proves 
himself still possessor of the heart and the strength to 
enjoy the blessings possible to the lover of outdoor life. 
And in how many ways old age, hale, well-preserved 
old age, is even fitted to take the lead in outdoor sport, 
and derive the richest share of enjo3'-ment from it! What 
the veteran lacks in physical elasticity and sprightliness, he 
often makes up in staying power and wise conserva- 
tion and expenditure of physical strength. His muscles, 
if stiffer. are more tempered and seasoned and wiry than 
the youth's. He has the advantage of what is called "the 
established constitution." Then consider the skill and 
knowledge and practical wisdom which his longer experi- 
ence has brought him. He sees more in nature than 
3'ounger men do, and gets more out of her. He thor- 
oughly understands the technique of sport; be controls 
the practiced eye and hand. No novice can cast a fly or 
shoot a gun like an "old stager." Skill, practice, knowl- 
edge, trained perception, an equipment of experience that 
insures against hot-headedness, mistakes, disappoint- 
ments — these are some of the advantages that age pos- 
sesses over youth, in the pursuit and enjoyment of out- 
door sport. 
Is there a sportsman or angler who cannot recall the 
picture of some gray-haired companion afield, some 
grizzled old guide, perhaps, tough as a knot, keen 
as a hawk, and knowing as a fox, who seemed 
to have attained the ideal physical and mental condi- 
tion for successful woodcraft, only after passing the 
seventieth milestone of life? Was there any yotith or 
middle-aged man in the woods who could hunt and fish 
and paddle and tramp and tell stories, and understand 
how to do things, and erfjoy himself, and make you en- 
joy yourself, like that past master in the secrets ol 
tM v J„ i; -^ ) 
nature and the sgfcret. of i>erenhi3.1 youth? Was tbt r>: 
not something in his deep, quiet enjoyment, and In- 
triumphant mastery of the whole science of sport, that 
put to shame even the buoyancy and exhilaration of boy:> ? 
That man, living far from conventionalities, was an ex'- 
ampie of the possibilities of old age in sport, when unfor- 
bidden and untrammeled. Talk about shelving a veteran 
of that sort! It would take any two of us to get him on 
the shelf, and then he would make a raft of it, andl 
go paddling awaj^ before we could catch our breath!, 
A^'erily, there is nothing in old age per se that should retire: 
it from the pursuit of wholesome outdoor sport. 
All honor and all bail to whomsoever keeps the sap' of 
life fresh in his veins, and refuses to wither until death','-:', 
hand tottches him ! Shall not age henceforth have its 
rightful place in .sport, since it has proved its fitness for 
it? Yea! And if any sour-faced Philistine says no, kt 
him be condemned to an easy chair and forty naps a 
day, until he shrinks up like a mummy and dies of total 
inanition. James Buckham. 
Through South Sea Reefs. 
In Samoa one takes a boat. Elsewhere there are 
plenty of facilities for assisted locomotion, the horse, the 
counless variety of things on wheels run by animal power, 
by electricity, by steam. But this vexed and lonely 
group of infinitesimal islands out in the heart of the 
South Pacific is devoid of all traveling facilities. To be 
sure, there are horses, just a few, and they are half- 
starved for lack of succulent grass. They are dts-- 
heartened little rats of ponies from the neighboring king-- 
dom of Tonga ; they can carry little, and that not for lotig. , 
\yhich is just as well, for there are no roads except in the- 
little town of Apia and the great German plantations; 
which lie at the town boundary, and these roads lead! 
nowhere. Even walking counts for little. Where thei-e; 
are jungle trails they are so beset with jagged rocks ass 
to cut to ribbons any foot gear less tough than the sole vS. 
the ordinary Samoan foot. 
The only practicable way to travel, in and about nfte 
islands is the open boat, just a plain wooden boat, wet 
and sloppy, crowded and most uncomfortable. Waiting 
now of pa.st Samoan experiences with the steady 1mm of 
steam and electric cars in the ears, and constantly re.- 
minded of easy methods of transport, it seems almost im-- 
possible that it could ever have been a natural thing toi 
order out the boat to pay a call on the other side oii 
Apia harbor or to make a trip to another islgnd across; 
miles of open ocean. ■ Such a thing as taking a rovvboait 
at the Battery in New York for a trip to Long Branch 1 
would be so unusual that it would be hard to keep it kw _n 
becoming a newspaper sensation, yet that woujvil be 
nothing at all in the South Sea. This point rm&t be 
prefaced in order that it may be clear that these: eac jeri- 
ences in open boats and in jumping over and vixirif ^ling 
through coral reefs were not undertaken in. any spirit 
of adventure. In Samoa they were no more tliani O rdinary 
features of local travel, such things as might h3 ppen in 
other lands in the street cars. It is only wheua they are 
viewed in retrospect from the safe lands of" tbiif cab and 
the trolley that they are seen to be risks and W zards. 
The boat is the thing, it replaced the hoirf e and the 
car entirely. The boat in which these hvmdrf dc; of miles 
of sea trips were made was the best oi its. class in the 
South Sea. It was built expressly at the Mare Island! 
navy yard in California for this work, and, was ?i marvel! 
of strength and lightness. It was onJy :22ft. over all,, 
carvel built, four-oared, and had scanty s.pa ce in the sterri 
sheets for four passengers. Besides tl\e oars, it had a 
very small jib and mainsail, which cov,ld be used in run- 
ning before the wind. The crew had been carefuly selected 
from the whole of a village, and 'was well matched in 
every particular, even including thF.if voSces, so that they 
might sing agreeaWly as they rowetJ. That they Avere 
the best crew in tt'te best boat -was not only their own 
opinion, but they were willing to test it by a race with 
any one who was willing to contest their .supremacy, but 
there were no takers. Nothing can make a sea trip in 
such a small boat comfortable, but a good boat and a 
good crew can do much to maice it tolerable 
For much of the north sho.re of the island of Upolu 
there IS a coral reef which looakes an extensive lagoon 
of stdl water between the coral and the beach sands.' 
There are more than thirty miles of this easy waterway 
west of Apia, east of that port there are but five or six. 
Bound eastward, therefore, the voyager soon passes out 
from under the shelter of the coral bulwark and puts 
right out to sea. That has its own set of trials, but none 
at all comparable with tlie varied problems oi making 
landings. There are just three kinds of places at which 
to land, and each kind calls for different mana gement in' 
beaching the boat without getting the occupants too wet or 
damaging the timbers. 
The simplest of all such landings is where the sea 
runs right on an open beach, either of sand or pebbles 
Unless the sea is too high there is very little dilficulty 
about making such a landing even on the darkest night, 
There is such a landing at Laulii, a native town some six 
miles from Apia. There is a small bay, Letongo Mountain 
makes the western boundary, the sea rolls magnificently ini 
with the whole sweep of the northward Parific Ocean " 
behind it, the beach is a sharp shelf of black pebbles and 
chips of the coral broken from the branches in the sub- 
marine groves and cast up by the waves. There is a great;: 
fuss of foam and noise where the waves roll in, it is', 
more than a little terrifying to one whose practical ex- 
perience in making boat landings is restricted to obedience' 
of the admonition to keep hands off the gates. It is quite- 
a different thing to hold the yoke lines and assume the' 
responsibility of beaching the boat in an unbroken line of 
surf. But the Samoan boys know what to do. They 
come dashing in with the rush of the rollers until the 
bow of the boat is almost in the combers. In come all 
the oars with a rattle, numbers two and three attend' 
composedly to stowing the white ash, stroke reaches over 
and takes the yoke lines with the air of a man who knows 
just what he is about, and steers by the look of the follow - 
ing sea. Bow stands by, at the right moment and iust in 
the right place he heaves the anchor, the boat swings ini 
on the next wave, perched on its very crest in a swirl of 
spume, and seemingly resting on foam; before one can- 
separate the details of this style of landing the stern is. 
just clear of the black beach pebbles which the wave is.= 
