of blankets to keep you warm, makes as comfortable a couch as you can buy of the upholsterer. A leaky tent or shanty is an unnecessary nuisance; while, by using a little forethought, your cuisine may be as palatable and healthful as any epicure could desire. It all depends upon one's own skill and knowledge, and these, like all wisdom, are only acquired by experience.

Nor to attain these comforts is it necessary to render yourself ridiculous by transporting a cartload of luggage. A large sack, which any one can shoulder, will hold your A or wall-tent, your bedding and all your rough garments. A hand valise is sufficient for your "store clothes." Two or three moderate sized packages will cover your necessary provender for an ordinary trip, and your tackling is easily portable. A Saratoga trunk on trout-stream or salmon river is as conclusive as a sonorous bray that a donkey is in the neighborhood. Yet these are sometimes seen, ordinarily accompanied by a biped decked off in long boots, velvet pants and jacket, a jaunty hat bedizzened with gaudy flies, and a body belt ornamented with bowie knife and pistol, as if he expected at every turn to encounter herds of wild cats or panthers, or a whole tribe of blood-thirsty Indians anxious for his precious scalp. All anglers in their wanderings have encountered such comical specimens of cockney sportsmen. They are generally harm

less, however, catching but few fish and killing too little game to materially affect the supply.

It is the attractive feature of these preserved waters that they can only be fished by those holding official permits to do so. In starting for a pool, your anticipations of sport are not disturbed by the apprehension that it may have already been seized and held by some "earlier bird" than yourself. It is all your own, to make the most of how and when you please. This conscious security comports with the leisurely habits of the true angler, and prevents those feelings of envy, strife and jealousy which are too often excited when one finds a favorite bit of water swept by a bevy of bait-fishers and lashed into foam by their whip-cord lines and heavy sinkers swung out from " larraping rods" huge enough to lift a leviathan. Here you pay for what you have, and you are sure to have what you pay for. No sly departures! No lying awake all night to "steal the march" of your neighbors in the morning! No studied deception! No unseemly racing to get ahead of "the other fellows!" Your assigned pool waits for you, whether the fish do or not; and you cast without haste or fear of disturbance, as the honored guest takes his ease in his inn. How many weary miles I have paddled and tramped among the Adirondacks to get out of the reach of the huge army

of "Murray's fools," who for a time swarmed that angler's paradise, with no more appreciation of the art, or of the delectable recreation of angling than a donkey has of the heavenly harmonies. I owe to them, however, the pleasant recollection of many weeks of delightful solitude and repose amid pathless woods and unfrequented lakes and streamlets. So I forgive them-glad, nevertheless, to be able, here, upon the far-off Cascapedia, to fish undisturbed, and to feast upon the magnificent scenery which everywhere meets the eye and gladdens the spirit, without fear of molestation from cockney intruders. This assured isolation during the hours set apart for angling constitutes one of the chief charms of these preserved waters. "Yet" (as that most lovable lover of nature, Thoreau, says) "I would not insist upon any one's trying it who has not a pretty good supply of internal sunshine; otherwise he would have, I judge, to spend too much of his time in fighting with his dark humors. To live alone comfortably, we must have that self-comfort which rays out of nature— a portion of it at least."

Forest solitudes, away off upon and beyond the verge of civilization, have an irresistible fascination. To be alone becomes a passion with some There are to-day, as there have been in all the past, hundreds of hunters and trappers in the

men.

wilderness of the far west who cannot endure contact with their fellow men, and are only happy when remote from all human habitations. But this exaggerated love of isolation of perpetual separation from their kind-is no proof of intellectual superiority or of an exalted appreciation of the beauty and grandeur of nature uncontaminated by the depravities and meannesses of a selfish civilization. Moral or esthetic considerations seldom enter the minds of these "mighty hunters." Their hermit-life is simply proof of a morbid and distorted condition of mind, which is neither to be commended, admired nor imitated. It would be as untruthful and as unjust to associate the angler who seeks, temporarily, for repose and recreation, the solitudes of the forest, with these uncouth, unkempt and unlettered trappers, as it would be to proclaim all angling debasing because professional "pot-hunters," who are alike indifferent to times and seasons and the processes by which they achieve results, engage in it.

Nor must it be inferred that isolation is the fixed status of the angler. At proper times and seasons in no class of men is the social element more fully developed. To have this demonstrated it is only necessary to visit the camp-fire after the sports of the day are over. John Wilson's "Noctes Ambrosiana" and "Dies Borealis," are no mere fic

tions. His unapproachable dialogues have their counterpart under many another canvas in our own primitive forests. They may not always be marked by the profound philosophy, rollicking humor, tender pathos, or glowing imagery which have given the recorded sayings of these eminent anglers a foremost place among the classics of the century. But they are kindred in tone and spirit, and often approach them in all the good qualities which will render them the delight of all thoughtful men of all the ages.

It is the recollection of these social re-unions, participated in by men of kindred tastes and sympathies, who have sought these far-off solitudes to be happy in their own simple way, quite as much as the strike and struggle of the gamey salmon, which makes the memory of these seasons of recreation and repose "a joy forever." Those who do not find it so have not yet imbibed the spirit of the Fathers, nor attained unto the highest possibilities of the gentle art.