198 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[May, 
•tile—are either animals or plants—so the Naturalists say. 
Now, what is the difference between an animal and a 
plant? It is easy to see that a cow is not like a rose 
bush, or a mouse has not much in common with a maple 
tree—there are a great many differences between these; 
but when the Zoologist comes to study the little, minute 
forms of life, so small that he must use a microscope—so 
small that a drop of water could contain thousands of 
them—he says he can not tell the animal from the plant. 
But for our purpose an animal is a living being that can 
move around and has feeling; eats, drinks, and sleeps. 
How many animals are. there on a farm? Some will 
guess five; others ten, and some will go as high as fifty. 
Fishing and Fishers. 
There is something about fishing that is very attractive 
to youth. The very thought of pulling out a great fish 
—hand over hand—is enough to make a boy’s heart go 
thump! and make him wish to leave his work, or his 
desk at school, and try his luck with a baited hook in the 
lake or the running stream. It has always been so, and 
it is not likely that the love for catching fish will ever die 
out. I remember as if it were yesterday the first time I 
ever caught a fish on a hook. It was a Bmall lake perch, 
a very appropriate fish for a small lad to get on his hook. 
But it was not long before I added another to my string, 
the rushing, roaring, boisterous freshet-river of a few 
weeks ago—now so faint in its music and so lazy in its 
motion. The best pool has been found—it is not always 
the largest—and by the looks of things the boys have 
been at work for some time—but still they come—I mean 
the fish, not the boys. What a nice fish the largest boy 
in the front of the picture is taking from its watery home. 
How he enjoys the work of bringing him to the shore; 
but on the other hand, what a new world i6 suddenly 
opened to the eyes of the astonished fish, suspended there 
in mid-air above the pond I It will be observed that the 
fisherman on the left of the pond does not take any de¬ 
light in the captnre of this fish. The truth is, he has had 
BOYS’ MAY HOLIDAY A T THE P O N D. 
THE 
Suppose we should count them, using the number of legs 
as a guide. How many with four legs?—All will men¬ 
tion the horse, cow, pig, sheep, and dog. That makes 
five four-legged animals. But there are the mice and 
rats that most barns contain ; the woodchuck is down by 
the woods, and near him there may be the squirrel, the 
weasel, the coon, and that bad smelling fellow, the 
skunk. If we look closely, there are other four-legged 
animals to be found, but let us go on. Are there any 
animals with three legs? Not unless one with four 
legs has lost one in a trap or some other way. Two- 
legged animals are numerous, and some of them very 
important—one does not have to go very far from himself 
to find one of these. There are the birds, and the 
chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, etc., all of which are 
birds.—Are there any one-legged animals ? The only 
one-legged thing common on farms is the milking stool, 
but that not being an animal, can not be counted here. 
We shall have to give up our search for animals with 
only one leg. Here we come to a thought. Are legs in 
pairs in all animals ? We have found them thus far in 
twos and fours. Are there any animals on the farm with 
six legs? Just look at the insects; the flies, beetles, 
bugs, butterflies, etc., of which there are hundreds of 
kinds on every farm—they all have six legs. If spiders 
are examined it will be found that they have four pairs 
of legs. But we can not go all the way from the two- 
legged animals to the “ thousand-legged worms,” and 
see if they are all in pairs, but must take the word of 
those who have looked over the whole list—the Zoologists 
tell us legs are always in pairs. 
If we should take the eyes and ears, the teeth and 
brains, and all the other parts, and find out about them 
in the thousands of kinds of animals, we should then be¬ 
come Zoologists. The subject of Zoology is a very large 
one, but no children have the chance of learning about all 
sorts of animals like farmer’s boys and girls. Some of 
our best Zoologists have lived upon farms while young. 
We wish all our many young readers would interest 
themselves to study animals, and in time become Zoolo¬ 
gists, so far as having a knowledge of common things 
about common animals will make them such. 
after which fortune did not seem to favor me, try as I 
best could, and no more were taken. Before this, I had 
done a little fishing on a very small scale in the way of 
hand-catching among the stones in a little stream that 
flowed through the farm. With my shoes and stockings 
on the bank, and my trousers rolled tightly up over my 
knees, I would wade along the stream until some 
frightened minnow was seen to dart under a flat stone, 
when with hands extended around the opening I would 
corner the poor fellow—provided he did not get out some 
back way or pass like a flash between my feet or fingers. 
Sometimes I have succeded in catching much more than 
I bargained for, when some old crab grasped my toes or 
fingers as they extended into its secluded hiding place.— 
But the little slippery fish did not always get away, aud 
in the course of an hour or so I sometimes had a number 
of them in my little tin pail. Frequently I made a small 
pond for my fish and put them in it; but better still—for 
me at least—was the watering trough at the well near the 
barn, into which I put my minnows, and with stones and 
pieces of brick made them a place to run under to get in 
the shade and out of the sight of the horses, and I may 
add, away from the eyes of a person who came with the 
horses. But it did not matter much what I did with my 
little fish, something would happen to them, and it was 
frequently found necessary to get a new supply from the 
brook to keep up the stock. In the course of a few years 
I outgrew this pail and finger-fishing, and with a line 
made of strong thread—shoe thread—a hook which had 
once served as a pin, and a few worms from the chip 
dirt or from under stumps, overturned many times a year 
for bait, I would go with the neighboring boys for an after¬ 
noon of fishing in the pools and deep places in the bends, 
and at the foot of large trees in the same brook from 
which the minnows were taken when I was too small to 
handle a line, but too big to stay at home. The artist 
has given us a view of one of these fishing days—one of 
those Saturday afternoons in May when fishing is so 
much enjoyed, because it comes so near to doing noth¬ 
ing—a kind of occupation which the warm, sultry days, 
so frequent at this season, render doubly inviting. 
The stream is not a large one, not to be compared with 
“ bad luck,” and it begins to tell upon lii6 face, which is 
growing long as the sun is getting low. He has either 
had a bad hook, poor bait, unfavorable light, a shallow 
place, put his line too deep, or held his line wrong In 
some way, so that the fish have gone to more inviting 
hooks. It is sometimes hard to see just why the boy at 
your side will catch the fish right away from your hook. 
The little lucky fellow on the opposite side of the pool 
has a fine string of fish, and is evidently telling something 
to that effect to his unfortunate friend. He appears to 
be so well satisfied with his afternoon’s work that he 
will soon go home and exhibit his catch to the older 
members of the family—and perhaps find out how the fish 
taste, when nicely cooked, before he goes to bed. The 
dog, though only a “ looker on,” evidently “ sees most 
of the game,” and is as much pleased when a good fish is 
caught as any one else in the fishing party. From the 
way the nearest cow pricks up her head and ears, there 
must be 6ome shouting being done by the boys—over the 
capture of the biggest fish of the day. But the boy must 
look out or it may get away and flop into the pond again, 
as one is seen to be doing, to a boy’s dissatisfaction. 
Many fishermen believe that when a fish thus regains the 
water, and is in the society of his uncaught friends, he 
communicates his experience to them, and cautions all 
the rest against taking any tempting worm or fly that 
may be presented. From that hour fishing is dull work. 
“They won’t bite.” So the story goes. That there is 
a fish-sympathy, though “cold-blooded” in its nature, 
is not unreasonable to believe. 
I can not linger longer over this scene of my boyhood 
pleasure; and the boys must soon go too, and drive up 
the cows and see to their other chores; but as a last 
word, while they are trying for their final catch , the “ last 
but not least’’—the “just one more”—let me say that 
there is much fishing which they will find through life, 
though it may go by other names—it may be a hook well 
baited and thrown into the busy whirlpool of business— 
for money, or into society—for friends, station, honor. 
In this fishing there may be some “ luck,” but in the long 
run it is the patient, untiring, upright, honest fisherman 
that goes to his rest in peace. Uncus Hal. 
