"That we are wise men, I shall not stoop to maintain, but that we do love angling we are assured of, and therein we know that we are in unison with very many greatly wise and wisely good men." Thaddeus Norris. "The tr not confined to fly-fishing, as many imag POETRY ✪ it always should be used, but fish will not rise to it, he BY 91 e bait."-W. C. Prime. power of genius can make a feather-fly live, and being; and a wisely stricken fish gives up the 'orts.”—“ J. Cypress, Jr.” IT has be born, not made "The deftly-tossed fly, taking wing on the nerve of a masterly cast, will drop gracefully far out in the stream where the heavier gear of the bait rod would never aspire to reach."--Charles Hallock. "Fly-fishing may well be considered the most beautiful of all rural sports."-" Frank Forester." "To be a perfect trout fisher, to my mind, a man should follow no other branch of fishing. It spoils his hand if he does. I myself, from the practice of striking so hard in both salmon, pike and other fishing, lose numbers of fish and flies in the course of the season; and what makes it the more vexing is that they are nearly always the best and heaviest fish."-Francis Francis. "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 hun dred trout, all alive and active, into Lake Salwria. They did not, however, multiply as we hoped they would. For years one would hear occasionally of a great trout being caught in the Yake, 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. - 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." 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, One of the most familiar of Æsop'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 |