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Show FISHERMAN'S LUCK fish, to receive their rations; and there are veterans among them, in ancient livery, with fringes of green moss on their shoulders, who could tell you pretty tales of being fed by the white hands of maids of honour, or even of nibbling their crumbs of bread from the jewelled lingers of a princess. There is no sport in bringing pets to the table. It may be necessary sometimes; but the true sportsman would always prefer to leave the unpleasant task of execution to menial hands, while he goes out into the wild country to capture his game by his own skill,-if he has good luck. I would rather run some ri•k in this enterprise (even as the young Tobias did, when the voracious pike sprang at him from the waters of the Tigris, and would have devoured him but for the friendly instruction of the piscatory Angel, who taught Tobias how to land the monster),-! would far rather take any number of chances in my sport than have it domesticated to the point of dulness. The trim plantations of trees which are called "forests" in certain parts of Europe--scientifically pruned and tended, counted every year by uni- 100 A WILD STR,.,.;\.WB,ERRY formed f orestel"$1 ·and ·aet:ori'dcd ll·g,ifnst l!ll .possi):>le depredatio_w,; ~ ar,e·'ad~irable aricj' ' useful 'in tbeii: way; but 'tl\ey .lack th<! Jn)lsti~ '€nchantm•nt l:lf th'e fragments of native ~O~jlio,d whi;m ;'Jl~~~r' among the Adirondacks and the White Mountains, or the vast, shaggy, sylvan wildernesses which hide the lakes and rivers of Canada. These Laurentian Hills lie in No Man's Land. Here you do not need to keep to the path, for there is none. You may make your own trail, whithersoever fancy leads you; and at night you may pitch your tent under any tree that looks friendly and firm. Here, if anywhere, you shall lind Dryads, and Naiads, and Oreads. And if you chance to see one, by moonlight, combing her long hair beside the glimmering waterfall, or slipping silently, with gleaming shoulders, through the grove of silver birches, you may call her by the name that pleases you best. She is all your own discovery. There is no social directory in the wilderness. One side of our nature, no doubt, finds its satisfaction in the regular, the proper, the conventional. But there is another side of our nature, underneath, 101 |