"If a pricked trout is chased into another pool, he will, I believe, soon again take the artificial fly."-Sir Humphry Davy.

"It is only the inexperienced and thoughtless who find pleasure in killing fish for the mere sake of killing them. No sportsman does this."-W. C. Prime.

"We persevered, notwithstanding the storm, and got our hundred trout, all alive and active, into Lake Salubria. They did not, however, multiply as we hoped they would. For years one would hear occasionally of a great trout being caught in the lake, till at last they were all gone. They lacked the ripples and the running water. They lived to be old, and then died without progeny, making no sign.'"-S. H. Hammond.

"The trout is such a light food, that eight of them, some ten inches long, will not make a supper for a hearty man, leading this wilderness life."-"Porte Crayon."

"I believe I am sincere in saying that I enjoy seeing another man throw a fly, if he is a good and graceful sportsman, quite as much as doing it myself."- W. C. Prime.

"I was content with my one glimpse, by twilight, at the forest's great and solemn heart; and having once, alone, and in such an hour, touched it with my own hand and listened to its throb, I have felt the awe of that experience evermore. - A. Judd Northrup.

"When the May-fly is full on the water, every fish in the river is feeding."-T. C. Hofland.

"I never let considerations of the wind or weather interfere with angling arrangements, for the simple reason that I have so often experienced the best sport on the most unlikely days."— R. B. Marston.

THE POETRY OF FLY FISHING.

BY

F. E. POND.

IT has been said that the angler, like the poet, is born, not made. This is a self-evident fact. Few men have risen to the dignity of anglers who did not in early youth feel the unconquerable impulse to go afishing. There are, of course, noteworthy exceptions, but the rule holds good. It might be added, too, that the genuine angler is almost invariably a poet, although he may not be a jingler of rhymes-a ballad-monger. Though, perhaps, lacking the art of vesification, his whole life is in itself a well-rounded poem, and he never misses the opportunity to "cast his lines in pleasant places."

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This is particularly true of the artistic fly-fisher, for with him each line is cast with the poetry of motion. Ned Locus, the inimitable character of J. Cypress' "Fire Island Ana," is made to aver that he once threw his fly so far, so delicately, and suspendedly, that it took life and wings, and would have flown away, but that a four-pound trout, seeing it start, jumped a foot from the water and seized it, thus changing the course of the insect's travel from the upper atmosphere to the

bottom of his throat." Being quoted from memory, these may not be the words exactly, as Toodles would say, but the sentiment is the same. There is the true poetical spirit pervading the very air, whispering from the leaves, murmuring in the brook, and thus the surroundings of the angler complete that which nature. began, and make him a poet. In common with other sports of the field, though in greater degree:

"It is a mingled rapture, and we find

The bodily spirit mounting to the mind."

Bards have sung its praises, traditions have hallowed it, and philosophers have revelled in the gentle pastime, from the days of Oppian and Homer down to Walton, Christopher North and Tennyson.

Although the art of fly-fishing was not known to the ancients, the poetry of angling has been enriched by the bards of ye-olden-time to a remarkable degree. In Pope's translation of the Iliad, the following passage

occurs:

"As from some rock that overhangs the flood,
The silent fisher casts the insidious food;
With fraudful care he waits the finny prize,
Then sudden lifts it quivering to the skies."

One of the most familiar of Esop's fables, in rhyme, is that of the Fisherman and the Little Fish, while Theocritus, who flourished about the year 270 B. C., gives us a spirited idyl representing the life of a Greek fisherman. Oppian and Aristotle each prepared a clas

sical volume on fish and fishing. Pliny in his "Historia Naturalis" treats at length of the finny tribes, and Ansonius in his poem, "Mostella," describes the tench, salmon and other varieties of fish.

Among the early contributions to English literature on angling, the "Poeticæ," generally attributed to a Scottish balladist known as Blind Harry, is conspicuous. Then the "Boke of St. Albans," by Dame Juliana Berners, and quaint old Izaak Walton's "Compleat Angler "-a brace of classic volumes dear to the heart of all who love the rod and reel.

In modern times the literature of angling has had scores of staunch and able supporters among the writers of Britain and our own land. Sir Humphry Davy's "Salmonia"; Christopher North's essays on angling, in "Noctes Ambrosiana"; Stoddart's Angling Songs; all these and a score of others are familiar to rodsters on both sides of the Atlantic. The clever poet and satirist, Tom Hood, discourses thus in praise of the gentle art:

"Of all sports ever sported, commend me to angling. It is the wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best; the safest, cheapest, and in all likelihood the oldest of pastimes. It is a one-handed game that would have suited Adam himself; and it was the only one by which Noah could have amused himself in the ark. Hunting and shooting come in second and third. The common phrase, 'fish, flesh and fowl,' clearly hints at this order of precedence. * * * To refer to my own experience, I

certainly became acquainted with the angling rod soon after the birchen one, and long before I had any practical knowledge of 'Nimrod' or 'Ramrod.' The truth is, angling comes by nature. It is in the system, as the doctors say."

It is no exaggeration to state that the real poetry of fly-fishing, as given in the grand old book of Nature, is appreciated to the fullest by American anglers. The breezy air of the forest leaves is found in the charming works of Bethune, of Herbert, Hawes, Norris, Dawson, Hallock and many other worthies, past and present. The modern Horace-he of the traditional white hatnever wrote a better essay than that descriptive of his early fishing days. The same is true of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and Charles Dudley Warner's most graphic pen picture is his inimitable sketch, "A Fight with a Trout." The number of really good books on American field sports is principally made up of angling works, a fact which goes far to establish the truth of Wm. T. Porter's assertion, namely: "No man ever truly polished a book unless he were something of an angler, or at least loved the occupation. He who steals from the haunts of men into the green solitudes of Nature, by the banks of gliding, silvery streams, under the checkering lights of sun, leaf and cloud, may always hope to cast his lines, whether of the rod or the ' record book,' in pleasant places."

This may be appropriately supplemented by the opinion, poetically expressed by the same author, with