ute;
but the other, in the corner of the bay, is tilting up and down more
violently: it must be a larger fish. Great Dagon! There's another red
signal flying, away over by the point! You hesitate, you make a few
strokes in one direction, then you whirl around and dart the other way.
Meantime one of the tilt-ups, constructed with too short a cross-stick,
has been pulled to one side, and disappears in the hole. One pickerel in
the pond carries a flag. Another tilt-up ceases to move and falls flat
upon the ice. The bait has been stolen. You dash desperately toward
the third flag and pull in the only fish that is left,--probably the
smallest of them all!

A surplus of opportunities does not insure the best luck.

A room with seven doors--like the famous apartment in Washington's
headquarters at Newburgh--is an invitation to bewilderment. I would
rather see one fair opening in life than be confused by three dazzling
chances.

There was a good story about fishing through the ice which formed part
of the stock-in-conversation of that ingenious woodsman, Martin Moody,
Esquire, of Big Tupper Lake. "'T was a blame cold day," he said, "and
the lines friz up stiffer 'n a fence-wire, jus' as fast as I pulled 'em
in, and my fingers got so dum' frosted I could n't bait the hooks. But
the fish was thicker and hungrier 'n flies in June. So I jus' took
a piece of bait and held it over one o' the holes. Every time a fish
jumped up to git it, I 'd kick him out on the ice. I tell ye, sir, I
kicked out more 'n four hundred pounds of pick'rel that morning. Yaas,
't was a big lot, I 'low, but then 't was a cold day! I jus' stacked 'em
up solid, like cordwood."

Let us now leave this frigid subject! Iced fishing is but a chilling and
unsatisfactory imitation of real sport. The angler will soon turn from
it with satiety, and seek a better consolation for the winter of his
discontent in the entertainment of fishing in books.

Angling is the only sport that boasts the honour of having given a
classic to literature.

Izaak Walton's success with THE COMPLEAT ANGLER was a fine illustration
of fisherman's luck. He set out, with some aid from an adept in
fly-fishing and cookery, named Thomas Barker, to produce a little
"discourse of fish and fishing" which should serve as a useful manual
for quiet persons inclined to follow the contemplative man's recreation.
He came home with a book which has made his name beloved by ten
generations of gentl