June ii, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
939 
by years of constant friction^ dropped with 
scarcely a murmur into the cool depths of a 
roughly circular basin some' twenty yards 
across. Great close-standing hemlocks, un¬ 
touched by human hand or ax, cast over all a 
mystic gloom save where the sunlight, filtering 
in through little openings between the branches, 
lay like splashes of gold on the carpet of brown 
needles or brought into sharp relief the white 
blossoms of the laurel. At the further side of 
touched the water for a moment. There was an 
instant gleam below the unfortunate insect, a 
sudden swirl, and ever-widening circles spread 
across the surface to finally lose themselves 
along the rocky shore. “Judas! There’s cer¬ 
tainly some class to that fish,” quoth the En¬ 
gineer. “Here, I’ll match you for first chance 
at him.” They matched, and the older man 
won, so making a short detour to reach a more 
commanding position, he lengthened line with a 
indeed does one take so large a fish as this in 
that stream, and when the old fighter had been 
carefully measured and weighed he was wrapped 
in moistened fern leaves and stowed away in 
the creel, to be eventually mounted and hung in 
the dining room at home, there to bear silent 
witness to the fact that it is not every largest 
fish that gets away. 
Many a pretty sight and sound filled that 
afternoon with pleasure. Once when the Kid 
Plenty of Hiding Places for Trout or Angler. D r y pjy Water. 
ONE OF THE TROUT STREAMS IN THE NEW STATE PARK. 
the pool, high on the rocks where it had been 
tossed by some rushing spring freshet, lay the 
gaunt skeleton of a pine, its bark and smaller 
branches gone, the hard wood bleached and 
polished by long years of exposure. No 
wandering breeze penetrated there, and the 
silence was broken only by the musical tinkle of 
falling water and the cheery warble of a gros¬ 
beak, singing happily away to himself far up on 
the sunny mountainside. 
“Gee!” suddenly exclaimed the Kid; “did you 
see that! Watch up there just to the left of the 
falls, right beside that little patch of bubbles.” 
Both looked in the direction indicated, but 
for some minutes nothing happened. Then a 
may-fly, flitting incautiously across the pool, 
few swift swings of the rod, then dropped his 
flies lightly at the very edge of the falling water. 
Nothing happened. Again he cast, letting the 
flies rest a moment before starting to retrieve 
them with little fluttering, lifelike twitches. 
Then, as the tiny coachman at the end of the lead¬ 
er drifted past a jagged rock which raised its gray 
head above the surface, the big fellow came 
with a rush. Every trout-fisherman knows the 
sort of fight that followed; the mad dashes of 
the fish, the curving, vibrating rod, and the ex¬ 
cited companion on the bank wildly shouting 
advice and encouragement. In the end the light 
tackle triumphed, and the happy victor waded 
ashore proudly bearing in his net sixteen good 
inches of red- and gold-flecked beauty. Seldom 
was standing partially hidden behind a clump 
of willow bushes industriously picking out a 
snarl in his line, a slight noise in the under¬ 
growth caused him to glance up quickly. As 
he did. so the sound grew louder and there, 
not twenty feet away, a woodchuck emerged 
from the brush, looked warily about, then 
walked calmly down to the shallow water, drank 
thirstily, and, retreated whence he came. A little 
later the nest of a Louisiana water-thrush was 
discovered carefully hidden away among the 
roots of a black birch at the very edge of a deep 
riffle. So well had the site been chosen that the 
nest would never have been found had not the old 
bird, alarmed by a too-near approach, hastily 
deserted her eggs and darted down stream with 
