"Doubt not, therefore, sir, but that angling is an art, and an art worth your learning; the question is, rather, whether you be capable of learning it, for angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so I mean with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice; but he that hopes to be a good angler must not only bring an inquiring, searching, observing wit, but he must bring a large measure of hope and patience, and a love and propensity to the art itself; but having once got and practised it, then doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant that it will prove to be like virtue, a reward to itself."-Izaak Walton.

"The black bass are unquestionably as fine a fish for angling purposes as any we possess, and as an article of food are equal to our best."-Parker Gilmore.

I. Cheney.

3. La Belle.

5. Shad-Fly.

2. White Miller.

4. Scarlet Ibis.

6. Green and Gold.

"Never use too much power in casting; it is not only not necessary, but it is injurious. You cast the line with the top and half the second joint, and very little force suffices to bring this into play. If you use more, all the effect is to bring the lower part of the rod into action, which has very little spring compared with the top of it."-Francis Francis.

'Although trout are taken with numerous grub and angle worms, still frequently all these will fail, and a brilliant colored imitation of a fly will lure them, and herein largely consists the science of the fisherman, in judging what style of fly is appropriate to a peculiar state of the atmosphere or locality."-T. Robinson Warren.

"Black bass when struck and played will always head down stream."- W. C. Harris.

Fish always lose by being got in and dressed.' It is best to weigh them while they are in the water. The only really large one I ever caught got away with my leader when I first struck him. He weighed ten pounds."-Charles Dudley Warner.

"The aim of the angler ought to be, to have his artificial fly calculated, by its form and colors, to attract the notice of the fish ; in which case he has a much greater chance of success, than by making the greatest efforts to imitate any particular species of fly." -Professor Rennie.

"I fear it will be almost deemed heresy to place the black bass on a par with the trout; at least, some such idea I had when I first heard the two compared ; but I am bold, and will go further. I consider he is the superior of the two, for he is equally good as an article of food, and much stronger and untiring in his efforts to escape when hooked."-Parker Gilmore.

"The one great ingredient in successful fly-fishing is patience. The man whose fly is always on the water has the best chance. There is always a chance of a fish or two, no matter how hopeless it looks. You never know what may happen in fly-fishing."Francis Francis.

"In bass fishing we have thought the moon to be an advantage. If it does not guide the prey to the lure, it at least lends beauty to the scene and bathes in its pale light the surroundings of the fisherman, which are often so exceedingly beautiful. In addition, it assists him in his work and enables him to handle his tackle more easily and play his fish more comfortably."-Seth Green.

"Recreation and amusement are the objects we seek; and therefore is it not reasonable to conclude that whatever methods and whatever appliances best conduce to these results are the best in themselves, even though the total catch were a little diminished thereby?"-Henry P. Wells.

THE RESOURCES OF FLY-FISHING.

BY

DR. JAMES A. HENSHALL.

THE charms of fly-fishing have been sung in song and story from time immemorial by the poetically gifted devotees of the gentle art, who have embalmed the memory of its æsthetic features in the living green of graceful ferns, in the sweet-scented flowers of dell and dingle, and in the liquid music of purling streams.

The fly-fisher is a lover of Nature, pure and simple, and has a true and just appreciation of her poetic side, though he may lack the artist's skill to limn her beauties, or the poet's genius to describe them.

"To him who in the love of Nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language."

And what delightful converse she holds with the flyfisher, as with rod and creel he follows the banks of the meandering stream, or wades its pellucid waters, casting, ever and anon, the gossamer leader and feathery lure into shadowy nooks, below sunny rapids, over foam-flecked eddies, and on silent pools. She speaks to him through the rustling leaves, murmurs to him from the flowing.

stream, and sighs to him in the summer breeze. She is vocal in a myriad of voices, and manifest in innumerable ways.

The still fisher, reclining on the mossy bank, is disposed to dreamy reveries, to pleasant fancies; but the fly-fisher, with quickened senses, has an ear for every sound, an eye for every object, and is alive to every motion. He hears the hum of the bee, the chirp of the cricket, the twitter of the sparrow, the dip of the swallow; he sees the gay butterfly in its uncertain flight, the shadow of the drifting cloud, the mossy rock, the modest violet, the open-eyed daisy; he is conscious of the passing breeze, of the mellow sunlight, of the odors of the flowers, of the fragrance of the fields. Nothing escapes his keen notice as he casts his flies, hither and yon, in the eager expectation of a rise.

Fly-fishing is, indeed, the poetry of angling. The capture of the salmon is an epic poem, the taking of the trout an idyl. But it is not my presumptuous purpose to ring the changes on the delights of salmon or trout fishing, for they have been immortalized by the pens of gifted anglers for ages. My feeble effort would be but a sorry imitation of those glorious spirits who have made their last cast, who have crossed to the other side of the river, and

"Gone before

To that unknown and silent shore."

So, leaving the salmon, the trout, and the grayling to their well-earned laurels, I wish to say a word for several

less pretentious, because less known, game-fishes, whose merits are perhaps as great for the fly-fisher as those familiar game-beauties of the waters.

It is among the possibilities, in this world of transitory things, that fly-fishing for the salmonids in the United States will, in the near future, be known only by tradition. It should, therefore, be a source of great consolation to the fly-fisher to know that there are now, and perhaps will ever be, in the streams and lakes of this broad land, percoid game-fishes equally worthy of his skill, which require only to be known to be properly appreciated.

First among these is the black bass, which already ranks the brook trout in the estimation of those anglers who know him best; and when I say black bass, I include both species. The black bass is, at least, the peer of the trout in game qualities, and in rising to the artificial fly, under proper conditions. An allusion to a few of these conditions may not seem out of place.

As a rule, the best time of day for fly-fishing for the black bass is from an hour before sunset until dark, though there are times when he will rise to the fly at almost any hour of the day.

It is important that the angler keep out of sight, and that the shadow of his rod be not disclosed to the wary and suspicious bass; for if he sees either, he will not notice the flies, however skillfully and coaxingly they may be cast. Thus it is that the earlier and later hours of the day are best; the angler, facing the sun, the