e primitive lords of creation, stalking about in the
condition of gorgeous irresponsibility incident to the Stone Period, would
have lowered himself to the level of the kid-gloved example of the present
stage of evolution who fishes in Maine. It cannot be supposed that the
pre-historic gentleman would have disgraced himself by catching fish he
could not use. He never caught ten times as many of the _Salmo fontinalis_
as he and all his friends could eat, and then threw the rest away to rot.
This kind of thing has prevailed to a great extent, but natural causes have
nearly brought it to an end. The wholesale slaughter of the fish has
reduced their numbers, and a surfeit of indecent sport can no longer be
indulged in. Such fishermen should be confined by law to a large aquarium,
in which the fish they most affected could be taught to undergo catching
and re-catching until the gentlemen had had enough. The fish might grow to
like it eventually, and submit as a purely business matter to being caught
regularly for a daily consideration in chopped liver and real flies. But
how our ancestor, just alluded to, would despise the sport of this
progressive age! With his primitive but natural acceptation of Nature's law
of supply and demand, what would he think of the gentlemen who killed fish
to rot in the sun or drove a few thousand buffaloes over a precipice--all
for sport? It is probably the propensity to "do murder" which accounts for
these things, for "sport," within decent and proper limits, is a good
thing, and has been favored by the best of men in all ages--fishing
particularly, because it predisposes to pleasant contemplation, to equity
of criticism in the consideration of most matters of life, and to no little
self-benignancy. No one knew this better (although Shakespeare himself was
a poacher) than Christopher North, and where more fitly could the brightest
pages of the _Noctes Ambrosianae_ have been conceived or inspired than when
their author was, rod in hand, on the banks of a brawling Highland
trout-stream?

The fish had ceased to bite where we were, and at Mr. McGrath's suggestion
we dropped down the stream to where my friend and his darkey were. His
experience with the flies had been similar to mine, but he had too much
regard for his fine fly-rod, he said, to use it for "slinging round a bait
as big as a herring." He had taken it to pieces and put it away. He was
sitting with his elbows on his knees and a brier-root