FISHING WITH THE FLY.

ETCHINGS ON A SALMON STREAM.

BY

CHARLES HALLOCK.

I SUPPOSE that all that can be instructively written of the salmon has already been said. The processes of natural and artificial propagation have become familiar to all who desire to learn; the secrets of their periodical migrations-their advents and their absences-have been fathomed from the depths of ocean; their form and beauty have been lined by the artist's brush, and their flavor (in cans) is known to all the world where commerce spreads her wings. And yet, the subject always carries with it a perennial freshness and piquancy, which is renewed with each recurring spring, and enlivened by every utterance which attempts to make it vocal; just as the heavenly choirs repeat the anthem of the constructed universe intoned to the music of the assenting spheres! The enthusiasm which constantly invests it like a halo has not been dissipated or abated by the persistent pursuit of many centuries, albeit the sentiments of to-day are but the rehearsal of the orig

inal inspiration, and present knowledge the hereditary outcome of ancient germs.

All down the ages echo has answered echo, and the sounding forks have transmitted orally the accented annals wherever the lordly salmon swims.

Now, hold rhapsody, and let us look to the river! Do you mark the regal presence in yonder glinting pool, upon which the sun flashes with an intensity which reveals the smallest pebble on the bottom? Nay? You cannot see that salmon, just there at the curl of the rapid? Nor his knightly retinue drawn up there abreast just behind him in supporting position? Then, my friend, you are indeed a novice on the river, and the refraction of the solar rays upon its surface blinds your unaccustomed eyes. Well, they do certainly look but shadows in the quiet pool, so motionless and inanimate, or but counterfeiting the swaying of the pensile rock-weeds of the middle stream. What comfortable satisfaction or foreboding premonitions do you imagine possess the noble lord while he is taking his recuperative rest in the middle chamber, after passing from his matriculation in the sea? Faith! you can almost read his emotions in the slow pulsations of his pectoral fins, and the inflection of his throbbing tail! Perhaps he shrinks from the barricade of rock and foam. before him; or hesitates to essay the royal arch above the gorge, which reflects in prismatic hues of emblematic glory the mist and mysteries of the unattempted passage.

And his doughty squires around him; do they share his misgivings, or are they all royal bloods together, sans peur sans reproche, in scaled armiture of blue and silver, eager to attain the land of promise and the ultimate degree of revelation? Ah! the way is indeed. beset with difficulties and crucial tests, but its end is joy and the fulness of knowledge: and "knowledge is the beginning of life."

Let us go nearer, and with caution. Ha! what flash was that across the pool, so swift and sudden that it seemed to begin and end at once? It sped like a silver arrow across the line of sight, but it was not a silver arrow; only the salmon on his route up stream, at the rate of 90 miles per hour. Were it not for the obstructions of the cascades and the long rapids, and perchance the wicked set-nets of the fishermen, it would not take him long to accomplish his journey to the head of the stream, and there prepare for the spawning-beds. But were the way to procreation made thus easy, and should all the salmon of a season's hatching survive, they would stock their native rivers so full in a couple of years that there would be no room for them. So the sacrifice of life is necessary that life may continue. Strange the paradox!

I love to see the salmon leap in the sunlight on the first flood of a "June rise," and I love to hear his splash in the darkness of the still night, when the place where he jumped can be determined only by the sound, unless perchance his break in the water disturbed

the reflection of a star. I have stood on heights afar off at the opening of the season, ere my unconsecrated rod had chance to exercise its magic, or my lips and feet to kiss the river, and with the combined exhilaration of impatience, desire, and joy, watched the incessant spirits of silvery spray until my chained and chafed spirit almost broke at the strain; and I have lain on my couch at midnight sleepless and kept awake by the constant splash of the salmon leaps. More interesting, if not so stimulating, is the leap of the salmon at obstructing falls, with the air filled with dozens of darting, tumbling, and falling fish-the foam dashing and sparkling in the sun, the air resonant with roar, and damp with the ever-tossing spray. Nay, more: I have seen a fall whose breast was an unbroken sheet thirty feet perpendicular, inclosed by lateral abutments of shelving crags which had been honey-combed by the churning of the water in time of flood; and over these crags the side-flow of the falls ran in struggling rivulets, filling up the holes and providing little reservoirs of temporary rest and refreshment for the running salmon; and I have actually seen and caught with my hands a twelve-pound salmon which had worked its way nearly to the counterscarp of the topmost ledge in its almost successful effort to surmount a barrier so insuperable! Surely, the example of such consummate pertinacity should teach men to laugh at average obstacles which stand in the pathway of their ambition!

I always become enthusiastic over the rugged grandeur of some Canadian rivers with which I am familiar. We have no such rivers in our own domain, except on the Pacific slope; and except in parts of Scotland and Norway, the streams of Europe must be tame in comparison. It is because so few of our own anglers have the experience to enable them to draw contrasts, that they do not more appreciate the charm of salmon fishing. Even a vivid description fails to enforce the reality upon their comprehension, and they remain listless and content with smaller game. Beyond the circumscribed horizon of grass-meadows and the mountain trout streams of New England and the Blue Ridge their vision does not reach. There is a higher plane both of eminence and art.

Opportunely for man's periodical proclivities, nature has given to salmon and green peas a vernal flavor and adaptation to each other, as well as to his desires, so that, when the spring comes around they act directly on his liver, expelling all the effete accumulations of winter, stimulating the action of the nerves and brain, and imparting an irresistible desire to go a-fishing. They oil the hinges of the tongue and keep it wagging until June. When that auspicious, leafy month arrives, not all the cares of State will hold a President, VicePresident, or even a Vice-Regent, from taking his annual outing on the salmon streams. Representatives of royalty and representatives of republicanism join sympathies and hands. The Governor-General of Canada