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PRETTY POLLY PITKIN.-"HOW! WHAT?' CRIED POLLY STARTING UP. YOU KNOW THE LETTER BY HEART. I SEE IT ALL. YOU ARE SMITH-THE FALSE, TERFILIOUS SMITH!'" SEE PAGE 11.

Vol. XVIII., No. 1-2.

"For the Lord's sake, don't!" cried Timmins, frantic- | righted their real or supposed wrongs with knife or pistol, ally. "Some one might come in. You might have a fit, and would not have been at all surprised if "P. P.” had and there isn't a drop of water in the office. You'll par- incontinently produced any number of those little things ticularly oblige me if you won't." and dispatched him before he could say Jack Robinson. "Thank you," said he, meekly; "I'll do it."

"I won't," said Maria Louise, rapidly recovering herself. "I will do anything to oblige you. I will not faint. I will be strong. I will tell you all. I will show you how, after wooing me in a hundred letters, each breathing the soul of passion, he has failed to answer my last letter, in which I urge him to end my fond suspense and to name the happy day."

"Couldn't you put it off until to-morrow, or next month, or a year or two? I'm pressed for time. You'd better," stuttered Timmins.

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"P.P,'" groaned Timmins.

"That's you

?"

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"To the return of those letters," said P. P., severely, a condition is attached. It will, perhaps, be a penalty.

I shall require you to call twice a week on me at my own house, and each time repeat your apology, and each time

"Of course it is. Maria Louise, otherwise Polly Pitkin. 'P. P.,' he writes, "I know you are the loveliest of women.' Look at me, Mr. Timmins, and tell me was II will return you a letter in exchange for one insidiously wrong to believe him ?"

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"In his mind," said Timmins, dreamily, going away from his own individuality, and suffering a momentary metempsychosis into Fitz Clarence Smith. "In his mind's eye, Horatio, P. P."

"I imagine to myself,'" continued Polly, reading slowly, and with well-considered emphasis, "those rosy lips, those tender eyes swimming in liquid light"That rounded form,' broke in Timmins, like a man talking in his sleep, "those glancing shoulders whiter than Parian marble. All, all, adored P. P., enchant, enchain, subdue me

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procured from me under your assumed name. Goodmorning, sir."

What boots it to relate the rest of this awful tale? A child could see through it. Dreading discovery, fearful of exposure, sure that if his identity with William Fitz Clarence Smith ever became public, he would be a common laughing-stock, a lost monster, he obeyed. He called twice a week on Pretty Polly Pitkin. But he never recovered a quarter of his letters, for before he got to the twelfth she married him.

And it is as sure as two and two make four she meant to do it. She meant it from the first.

It is pleasant to relate that she cured him. If he have any modesty left, it is hard to find. Like Bottom, he is translated," and stares in the most confident manner at every pretty woman he meets.

66

In point of fact, Mrs. Rudolph Timmins would have her hands full, if she should ever cease to be either less clear-headed and determined, or less good-looking as a wife, than she was as Pretty Polly Pitkin.

THE BROOK-TROUT.

BY M. SEYMOUR.

THE brook-trout, the subject of the present article, is a member of the salmon family-quite an extensive family, by-the-way-and is to be met with from the Atlantic coast westward as far as Minnesota, and from Hudson's Bay to Virginia. The trout of the Rocky Mountains is another species, of which we may treat at another time.

The brook-trout (Salmo fontinalis) is a glorious, crimson-spotted, goldbrown-shadowed fish. The very name brings up associations of leafy quivering canopies over brawling brooks, chattering and gullying their noisy way through mossy rocks and ferny banks tangled with sumach, nut-bushes and alders; with cozy lakes nestling between hills of pine and birch and maple, to whose lilypadded shores the gray deer come down to drink and browse, and, startled by the loon's rude laughter, shrink back into the forest shades again. Oh! those lake-mirrors of storm and sunshine, how beautiful and peaceful they are laying their magical calm on the feverish pulses of care, envy and all uncharitableness.

The brook-trout runs from a few ounces to twelve pounds; one instance records twenty-two pounds, caught in England, on the Thames, with a white fly, late in the evening. This royal fish was presented to the Queen,

who had it painted, life size, by Rolfe, the eminent fishpainter. The general appearance, weight and flavor of the trout vary with the water it inhabits. Wherever it is possible it indulges, like the salmon, in an annual trip to the salt water for recuperation-like other exhausted beauties of a different type-and these are the most precious in the eyes of the sportsman and epicure. The trout spawns in November, and by March is fit for the table, although protected in some States by law until May. From that month until September he is the cause of much anxiety to anglers, and especially to mothers of small boys, who fail to respond to the supper-call.

As soon as the ice goes out and the trailing arbutus crimsons the lingering snow-patches in fresh shades, the trout come along the shores of ponds and rivers to feed greedily on submarine larvæ and worms washed from the banks, and then the largest are taken; later in the season they betake themselves to deeper water, and become more capricious in their appetite, and in the Summer heats they congregate around the spring-holes on the shallow borders of ponds.

The habits of the brook-trout proper remain unchanged, provided any are left after June, until the fall freshets enable them to go up to the outlet of the nearest pond.

It has been my good fortune to take trout from Maine to California, and from Upper St. Maurice to Virginia. When under every favorable circumstance I have expected a good day's sport, I have had none, and vice versa, in a broiling sun and windless water I have taken a big string; consequently, my angler friend, nil desperandum, stick to it, and some day they will stick to you.

Now, here's a glorious May day; the plum bushes are just whitening, the lilacs bursting into bloom, and the rich balsam odor fills yonder woods. Let us take a couple of handy Japanese rods, costing twenty-five cents each, a box of worms, a good supply of No. 8 Sproat hooks, a strip of tea-chest lead for sinkers, some home-made breadand-butter, and a few slices of raw fat pork-you won't catch cold if you do get your feet wet-and now we'll strike across lots for an old logging-road through yonder woods that crosses a bully brook. Just hark! how the birds sing; hear that swamp-robin and his answer, and the golden robin's whistle, and the chirrup of the flying, glossy swallows. Here's the edge of the woods. Whirr goes a partridge. Come along, scrambling through the cedar and maple scrub, treading the white anemones and violets at every step; and now a few moments will bring us to the brook we can hear.

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Now, put up your rod and a short line, not more than two feet, and drop in. No, stand away back, remembering a trout has the eyes of a hawk. Where that tangle of brush chokes up the current, I bet there's some. Got him? That won't do. You must not "yank" him half a mile behind you, but strike him by a twist of the wrist, and draw him out. Don't get excited, and try again.

Ah! you hooked him, but not firmly. That's better. Now we'll divide the worms and hooks. You go down and I'll go up the brook, and when the sun gets overhead retrace your steps, and meet me here. Put only a light sinker on, or you'll get caught in brush and logs all the time.

Hullo! how many? You don't know? Well, count up-fifty-six and seventy-five. None more than one-quarter of a pound. Now, I'll get a fire going; then wrap up a lot in well-buttered paper, and bury in hot ashes. When cooked, split up the back and clean, and here's a dish, as dear old Walton says, "fit only for anglers, or very honest gentlemen."

Now you've had your initiation into trouting. Next time we will try for bigger fish, with more skill. You want a good fly-rod, forty yards of silk line, two six-feet sinew leaders, two dozen assorted flies, and landing net. Where this brook empties in the river is a wide, shallow pool, where we can practice casting a fly. Get in the canoe. I will paddle you out. Now you have two flies on, to begin with. Now try and hit that lily-pad twenty feet away. Hear that crack? One of your flies gone. How? By not allowing the line to straighten out before drawing it back, you cracked it like a whip. Make allowance, and try again. Hi! that was a pounder rose at the stretcher, or last fly. Try him again. Got him? Keep a tight line, and keep cool. Now the rod bends nearly double. What! gone? Don't look so blank; it was your fault; you failed to keep a tight line, and be broke away. This is very apt to happen. Go ahead, and try a few feet more line. Now you have one !-tight line, mind. Here's the net; there she is a beauty! threequarters of a pound. Just see the glorious color on him. Now you begin to see that this is an art-an inseparable gulf divides the fly-fisher from the brook-prowler. You begin to be interested, and appreciate the angler's art. All this time you are under the unconscious spell of Nature's teaching, and find

"Books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

Now, experience alone can teach you, remembering to fish "fine and far off"; strike your fish at the furthest distance with most delicate tackle. Never use a larger fly-hook than No. 10, except for bass-the latter will test your skill and muscle more than any living fish of their size, not excepting the royal salmon.

The trout was one of the epicure's dainties in ancient Rome. To-day the artificial propagation of them is car ried to great perfection, nearly all the States being inter ested in the problem of cheap fish-food. When spawning, trout, like salmon, will vault quite a high fall to attain the gravelly reaches of higher waters for this purpose. Their peculiar leap is well represented in the illustration on page 24. After being hatched out, the trout fry are placed in shallow pans, and finally distributed to wired-off spaces of running water, where, besides their natural diet of flies and larvæ, they are fed on chopped-up liver. See illustration.

The flavor of these fish is far inferior to that of their wild brethren, but, on the other hand, they are always obtainable and bring a fancy price. Trout are carefully sought after by otter, mink, and other animals besides man, in spite of which their fecundity would fill the waters but for the shameful practice of taking them on the spawning-beds, and the newer but equally disgraceful slaughter of them by pot-hunters with dynamite cartridges.

In order to be a successful trout-fisher, many years of observation and practice are required. The trout, as is generally conceded, feeds at early morning and evening, but this, like all other rules, has exceptions. I have made excursions into the "forest primeval" at the head-waters of the Connecticut River, and patiently tried fly after fly. The next day I devoted to worms, and sliver of trout-fin, a splendid bait sometimes; then I tried a bunch of deer'stail hair with worm, another lure which they affect when they will not take anything else; then the caddis-grub; all without success. The latter you will notice has a shell of bark and tiny shells, etc., on the very edge of rivers and ponds. The grub turns to the famous may-fly. The green-drake variety of may-flv comes from a rich

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golden-colored caddis, found only under rocks and stones in streams. These grubs in May are almost certain baits, always provided you show not yourself to the fish.

As I said, I have spent a week or more patiently essaying everything I could think of, even berries from overhanging bushes, and barely got enough for a meal-all this under favorable weather, and suddenly a feeding fit would seize the fish, and they would take anything greedily. Now, how is this? The above experience will be borne out by all trout-fishers, I am sure. Now for my humble explanation: I think the trout, after the first gorge when the ice goes out, feed at irregular intervals, extending over many days, and then, so to speak, fast for awhile. I remember one evening drifting in my canoe in a shallow bay of a lake. The setting sun coloring the wooded hills and distant mountains drew my attention, which was diverted by a sudden splash of fish near the canoe. I waited a moment, and

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natural fly and tried it. I took a small trout, but not a fish of any size could I decoy.

Well, I was puzzled-and mad. My companion on shore was hoarse with yelling at me to let him into the canoe and share what he thought was my paradise, and I regret to say was rejoiced at my lack of luck. I pondered over the matter many a time, and one Winter's night a thought struck me, which I carried out next day, and waited patiently but feverishly to try it. It was a cork-bodied fly, and I found it successful beyond my expectations. My largest fish was nearly six pounds.

I see some one else has struck the same idea, and the may-flies, on this principle, are to be found at almost any tackle-store. Those wretched fish knew that a may-fly emerging from the chrysalis could not sink, and hence

A TROUT PRESERVE, NEAR ISLIP.

refused mine.

On another occasion I had a boy who was being initiated in trouting. We were crouching

among some alders at the base of an old dam. Presently his pole was jerked down, and he yanked up а twopound fish, which got hitched in the top of an alder. Notwithstanding all my advice to keep cool, he began a series of antics which ianded him overhead in the pool, and drew down a portion of the clay bank with him. I got down the fish

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