has departed. A ten-pound fish is the largest I have heard of being taken in its waters this year, and I trolled three hours without a strike. It has been trolled and speared and buoyed and set-lined to death. It will soon cease to be visited by

any one.

But while I found the pond thus barren, the outlet was as fruitful of large brook-trout and black flies as ever. Amid such a swarm of the latter as would compel the instant retreat of any one not, as I was, thoroughly swabbed with tar oil, I caught several fish which weighed two and three pounds, the largest being the fattest and most beautifully marked fish I ever saw.

"Bog River Falls," at the head of "Big Tupper," proved so attractive that it held us in camp four days. The view from our camping ground, near the Falls, in sunshine or by moonlight, was entrancing. It revealed to us, at a glance, not only all the beauties of this most beautiful lake itself, but the cloud-capped summits of a score of mountains besides. "Grand," "beautiful," "majestic," "sublime," "transparent," "translucent," etc., etc., could all be used with propriety, were I in the descriptive mood. But, as this chapter is dedicated to fish and not to scenery, it is only proper to say that the large trout always found at the foot of the Falls, behaved handsomely, and graced our table

daily with as delicate morsels as ever melted on human palate.

It is, however, neighborly to warn all anglers against the assumption that because they may find large and delicious fish at the foot of the Falls there must be equally large and delicate fish up the river. It took several years' experience to convince me that this idea was erroneous. The fish up the river are neither large, abundant nor of delicate flavor. And the farther up you go, the worse you are off, until you strike Hitching's pond. The fish found at the Falls find their feed and growth and flavor in Big Tupper and adjacent waters. There is something in Bog river which causes a deterioration; and it is worse still in Little Tupper and its outlet. There the fish are lean and of poor flavor-not in winter and early spring alone, for the trout of all waters are infested with unpalatable and unseemly parasites until they pass into the rapids in the spring-but at all seasons. This positive statement may "turn the stomachs" of some of my friends who like to visit this lake because its trout are sometimes large and always abundant. But I can't help it. Truth is truth, and unclean trout should not be eaten. Little Tupper is a great resort for deer, and it will pay sportsmen to go there for them. But I advise those who persist in complementing their roast

venison with a dish of speckled trout to do, not as Mrs. GLASS suggests, "first catch and then cook," but first catch, then critically examine, and then eat "with what stomach you may."

After a week's further rambling, with delightful repetitions of pleasant days, charming scenery and abundant sport—at Hitching's pond, at Raquette Falls, Cold river, Big Rock, Split Rock and other places famous for the abundance and weight of their fish we reluctantly turned our faces homeward. But not until we had had evidence of the rapidity with which pickerel are multiplying in these waters. As they rarely take a fly, I was disgusted but once with a rise from one of them. But those who trolled, particularly around the Falls and in the vicinity of Cold river, were constantly annoyed by them. And this annoyance will increase every year (for no fish multiplies more rapidly,) until trout fishing in the Raquette will cease to be the attractive amusement which it has been these thirty years, and which it still is to those who know how to fish.

I have all my life heard of the monster fish caught in the rivers of Maine, and although I have angled in almost all the waters from Quebec to Minnesota, I have yet to experience the pleasure of landing a seven-pound trout. This pleasure I

hope to enjoy the coming season.

*

Meanwhile I bid adieu to the Adirondacks until another Springtime shall return, when, if all is well, I shall again "go a-fishing."

*This hope was realized in June, 74, in Rangely lake. I was casting with my lightest rod, when a large fish struck my fly, and after a two hours' fight I landed a genuine brook trout, which weighed exactly seven pounds. I have a fine portrait of the fish, painted in oil on birch bark, by my friend Dr. OTIS, of New York, who was of the party. It is a beautiful picture, and I cherish it above rubies.