FOREST AND STREAM 
617 
also found in the woodland glades along the river 
bottoms, and penetrating our remotest and gloom¬ 
iest sandhills. It is a delicately fleshed little crea¬ 
ture and makes a most famous pot-pie. But now 
the “Pink! pink! pinking!” little junco bird is safe 
from all but sacrilegious guns. 
And in this little desultory chat about the wild 
things of the fields and woods, I agree with those 
deep thinking and intelligent sportsmen and nature 
students who say that birds and animals are gifted 
with powers of thought and reason. In fact, I 
believe that some birds and animals can give many 
of us cards and spades and beat us out by a block 
or two. 
In man it is called reason; in birds and animals 
instinct. But it strikes me these are pretty much 
the same thing, only more highly developed in 
man than in animal. When mother quail pretends 
that she has a broken wing, to draw you away 
from her brood of little brown babies hiding in 
the leaves or grass, it is simply instinct, without 
any reasoning, that actuates her in this neat bit 
of deception. Or when a crow, wise old fellow 
that he is, flies over head, and you raise your gun 
and he suddenly sheers to one side, or turns com¬ 
pletely about and retraces his flight, it is simply 
instinct. Or does the crow reason that there is 
danger lurking in that shining tube you carry? 
Or when the old mallard hen espies your decoys, 
and starts straight for them, but veers off just 
before getting in range of that far-reaching old 
gun you have ready at your shoulder, is that only 
the old lady’s instinct, or does she reason that 
peril lies within the tides back of those bobbing 
wooden counterfeits on the water before them? 
Queer, anyway, isn’t it, this wonderful instinct 
that so often saves the birds? 
To my way of thinking they show as much 
reason in their acts as we would in ours, if some 
nocturnal prowler would draw a gun on us and 
command us to throw up our hands. 
It is better to be right than oratorical and 
poetical when we have to deal with facts, no mat¬ 
ter how pathetic may be the significance of these 
facts. Even the unwelcome evidence that forces 
itself upon us year after year, tending to prove a 
constant and rapid decrease of our most beautiful 
and familiar American birds, should be studied 
without prejudice. We all love the birds of the 
wood, field and flood, but that is no good ground 
for neglecting any fact in considering the causes 
of their vanishing from the areas once teaming 
with them. The birds disappear, and in our 
grievous disappointment, when they do not come 
back, we hastily look about for some one to lay 
the blame upon. Although I claim to be as ardent 
a sportsman as draws the breath of life, I know 
this is the time for this individual to dodge and 
wince. The man with the gun must be able to 
withstand almost unlimited abuse, or he must be¬ 
take himself beyond the reach of it. He is guilty 
of sundry depredations, sins against the law of 
universal bird protection, that he cannot deny; 
but he may well object to vicarious respectivity 
when the day of punitive gift offering comes and 
somebody proposes making him the recipient of 
every other transgressor’s share as well as his 
own. Unwitting indeed, is all his wrong-doing. 
But some day, when the prohibition of all wild 
life killing is made a possibility, the veil will be 
lifted, and we all, for once at least, will see 
clearly. 
From An Angler’s Note Book 
Wherein is Contained A Presentation of the Beauties and Fascinations of Spring Trout Fishing 
By Robert Page Lincoln. 
T HE opening of the trout season often occurs 
under atmospheric conditions not exactly 
of the sort wherein the piscatorialist may 
indulge himself in his sport to the best advan¬ 
tage. Thus it is that the opening day of some 
seasons will be heralded with snowflakes crowd¬ 
ing the thin air and the ground white, but gen¬ 
erally more favorable circumstances rule the 
elements. Cold weather, is not infrequent, but 
the average held-back angler will breast any 
storm just for the pleasure of again wetting 
his line, whether he gets a fish or not. The use 
of the fly, either wet or dry, is then next to im¬ 
possible. Warren Smith, who is a skilled and 
intelligent angler, speaks of using the wet fly 
on opening day one year when the snow was 
falling so thickly that he could hardly see ten 
feet ahead of him, and when it was so cold that 
his hands were almost stiff. To his everlasting 
surprise he had the best success of the year with 
the wet fly, that first trip. 
The trout is really an odd fish, in temperament 
much like the black bass. It is characteristic 
that they also will strike sometimes at most any¬ 
thing, and then again will sulk and refuse to 
rise. In the early spring the trout are singularly 
inactive, save, of course, where the season is an 
exceptionally fine one. Streams at the opening 
of the season are na'turally muddy. The fish 
lie low and feed upon such things as are 
washed down to them. The bait method will 
then be the only one open to the angler. Much has 
been said about the unsportsmanlike procedure of 
bait fishing. Of course it has none of the ear¬ 
marks of the more poetic system, where the trout 
are skillfully, almost elaborately, taken on arti¬ 
ficial flies. But then even the most honorable 
angler cannot but admit the fascinations of bait¬ 
fishing. Perhaps there is a harder thing than 
to lie idle, waiting for fly-season, when your 
Along in August the Streams Are Low. 
