740 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 8, 1909! 
Even our own leisurely pursuits would not 
let us “loaf and invite our souls” to enjoy this 
prospect for long. Our quest for ' lake and 
fish drove us on. We scaled the high ridge, 
and skirting its northeast face, crossed a trans¬ 
verse ridge and began a rapid descent through 
a beautiful forest. Soon we struck the course 
of a little stream, which, after a long, hot sum¬ 
mer, was still icy cold and crystal clear and 
swarmed with small trout. Following the 
stream’s windings and leaps through dense 
forest, suddenly we found ourselves upon the 
shores of a peaceful, sunny lake of crescent 
shape, rimmed about by high hardwood ridges 
and bounded at its western end by the per¬ 
pendicular cliff face of a knob of rock about 
three hundred feet high. 
No craft was available, nor had we time to 
make a raft, so we jointed our rods, and wad¬ 
ing around the shallow and broad beaches of 
fine white sand that encircled the lake, tested 
the gaminess of its beautiful trout. They 
rose eagerly and fought hard. Only the click 
of the reel and the splash of the wader dis¬ 
turbed the perfect wildwood peace of a sunny 
September afternoon. 
We arrived about one o’clock. Soon it was 
5 :30, and with the mountains between us and 
the waning sun, it seemed high time to make 
tracks for camp. We found a gap in the 
western hill ramparts and hastened down the 
mountainside in the rapidly gathering gloom, 
somewhat anxious and uncertain as to whether 
we would be able to find the lumber trail or 
be forced to spend the night in the woods. 
We were successful, however, and by 9 o’clock 
supper of trout and bacon, roast potatoes and 
coffee was ready. Then with pipes in mouth 
we sat about the fire and unanimously voted 
the strenuous day’s outing one of our best. 
And, now, in the town, immersed in the 
routine of business, with cares and responsi¬ 
bilities and anxieties engrossing one’s mind, 
when one is aweary of the fret and fever, one 
turns back gladly to the memory image of that 
beautiful trout lake as it lay, untroubled, in 
sunny peace and beauty, framed with stately 
fir's and maples, with its crescent range of 
guardian hills. He revives the calm delight 
with which his eyes first rested on that scene, 
so varied, so harmonious in composition, so 
altogether enchanting. Over and above the 
varied picturesqueness, the mind enjoys in that 
scene the utter absence of any suggestion of 
human industry and commerce, of human 
striving and ambitions, of human desires and 
failures and sorrows. There lay the lake amid 
its encircling hills, just as it had lain for thou¬ 
sands of years, perhaps, witnessing only the 
recurrent changes of the seasons, peopled only 
by trout and waterfowl; seen of men only 
through the eyes of an occasional Indian 
hunter. Supreme in its own profitless and 
unseen beauty, it had slumbered, ready to dis¬ 
play to the seeing eye, when that should come, 
the plentitude and power and mysterious wis¬ 
dom of the universal life of nature — a life 
which clothes these stern Laurentian hills with 
the solemn beauty of forest and with the 
gleaming grace of lakelet and stream. 
One of the chiefest charms of a wild and 
harmoniously picturesque landscape is the utter 
absence of any sign of restless human striving, 
struggle or utility. In communion with such a 
scene the soul is freed from the fret and fever, 
the stress and strain of its workaday existence, 
and is fed from the peace-giving fountains of 
the universal life in nature. The soul thus 
seems to pass beyond its own narrow bounda¬ 
ries and to enter into the life of the universal 
soul. In this union with the universal spirit 
of nature, the human soul drops its corroding 
cares. It takes no anxious thought for the 
morrow. It considers the everlasting hills, how 
they stand, how they are clothed with the 
majestic forests, and how in their bosoms are 
planted the shining lakes with their wealth of 
trout and wildfowl. So the human soul finds 
the peace of a harmony that absorbs all striv¬ 
ing and desire, of a life that is free from the 
distractions of harassing cares and goading 
ambitions. 
And yet we three hurried away from that 
land of delight after a three hours’ enjoyment 
of a scene that it had taken us four hours to 
reach. Why? We must get back to camp, eat 
and sleep, strike our tent and move toward 
the city. An apologue of man’s lot in general! 
An oscillation between the Hruggle for spe¬ 
cific necessities and satisfaction and the re¬ 
pose of absorption in the universal life, and 
the one aspect of life is enhanced by its con¬ 
trast with the other. We are refreshed for our 
daily and neceseary activities in the company 
of men by these flights to nature which may 
indeed be taken without a journey to the Can¬ 
adian wilderness — which may be taken wher¬ 
ever there is field and forest, sky and sun. 
And our appreciation of the unhasting and un¬ 
striving peace and beauty in the visible soul 
of nature is enhanced by contrast with that life 
in the market place that we have left behind 
and to which we must soon return. 
Silver Doctor. 
Troui Flesh] Color Variation. 
Syracuse, N. Y., May i.- — Editor Forest and 
Stream: George P. Bosanquet, writing in 
Forest and Stream of April 24, under the head¬ 
ing “Trout Flesh Color Variation,” asks several 
pertinent questions along the line of variation, 
and while the following facts hardly answer his 
questions, they do so in part, and at the same 
time suggest others. 
Bishops’ and Poole’s brooks are two small 
streams in Onondaga county. New York, eight 
or ten miles east of Syracuse. They have been 
repeatedly stocked with brook trout by the 
Anglers’ Association of Syracuse, and the fish¬ 
ing is always good considering their close prox¬ 
imity to a large city from which they are easily 
accessible by trolley. About a week after the 
opening of the season last year, in company 
with a friend, I spent several hours fishing up 
Bishop’s Brook and was fortunate enough to 
secure a seven and a ten-inch brook trout. The 
portion fished was a half mile in length, where 
the stream flows over a light-colored marly 
bottom of shallow reaches and a few rapids, 
but no falls, the water at that time averaging 
six to twelve inches in depth, the stream being 
from three to four feet wide. 
On approaching the point nearest Poole’s 
Brook, here less than a quarter of a mile away, 
we sought the latter. At this point Poole’s 
Brook is a swiftly flowing stream, about eighteen 
to twenty-four inches wide, and almost as deep. 
flowing over a sloping plain, but in the opposite 
direction to Bishop’s. A few minutes after 
dropping our lines in this stream a trout—eleven 
inches in length—shot out from the turf along 
the edge and instead of taking the bait, rushed 
past it for six or eight feet, turned abruptly, 
and then deliberately placing himself in the line 
of the swiftly-moving bait, practically permitting 
it to float into his jaws, at the very last strik¬ 
ing to make sure. The water of the stream was 
so clear that every movement was readily dis¬ 
cernible. Although this action seemed peculiar 
—in that it illustrated the wonderful cleverness 
of fontinalis, and indicated a certain reasoning 
capacity or marked intelligence which even the 
most rabid trout fisherman would hardly ascribe 
to his beloved denizen of the brook—still no 
particular thought was given to it except to re¬ 
late the circumstance to my chum until our ar¬ 
rival at home, when he wished to display the 
catch to his family. Taking them from the 
creel and laying them upon the table, he called 
my attention to the largest fish, saying, “What 
is the matter with that last fish you caught? It 
is all fading out!” And sure enough the spots 
and markings which at first were of the usual 
brightness appeared dull beside the others. 
The fish were duly cleaned and fried for 
breakfast on the following morning, when the 
cook called my attention to the marked differ¬ 
ence in the color of their flesh. The two first 
were white or light colored and the flesh rich 
and juicy. The last was not merely a light pink, 
but a decidedly deep salmon color and its flesh 
was dry and quite similar in flavor to that of 
a salmon. This fact was remarked upon by all 
the members of the family who were given a 
taste of each. The fish was certainly a brook 
trout. Salmon have not been taken in this 
vicinity in a quarter of a century. 
Was this merely a case of variation, or did 
its strange behavior, duller markings, deeper 
color and peculiar taste indicate a different 
variety of trout? Unfortunately this question 
must necessarily remain unanswered. The dif¬ 
ferences in character of the two streams, so 
close together and flowing over practically the 
same sort of rock and soil, would be so slight 
as to hardly account for the variation. 
Philip F. Schneider. 
Newark Fly* and Bait-Casting Club. 
Newark, N. J., April 26 .— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The second annual banquet of this 
club will be held at Achtel-Stetter’s banquet 
hall, 844 Broad street, this city, Wednesday 
night, May 19, at 7:30 o’clock. 
Newark, N. J., May 2 .— Editor Forest and 
Stream: We held our first club contest May i 
with the aid of umbrellas and waders. The cast¬ 
ing was done in a strong cross wind and this ac¬ 
counts for some of the poor scores, which follow: 
One-half ounce 
accuracy, 
bait: 
Per C’t. 
Per C’t. 
Darling: .. 
.... 97.0 
Muldoon . 
. 95.2 
Champion . 
... 96.1 
Doughty ., 
. 93.2 
Kichlin . 
... 95.7 
Comppen . 
. 92.13 
Mapes . 
... 95.4 
Neu . 
. 92.3 
Distance, trout 
fly: 
« 
Feet. 
Feet. 
Darling . 
.103 
Doughty ... 
. 87 
iMapes . 
. 95 
Comppen ., 
. 68 
Champion . 
. 94 
The next contest will be held on 
May 22 . L. 
S. Darling has offered a cup which we have not 
fully decided just how to dispose of as yet. 
Fred T. Mapes, Sec’y. 
