Birds and Nature, Vol. 08, No. 1, June 1900: In Natural ColorsVarious
History
Birds and Nature, Vol. 08, No. 1, June 1900: In Natural Colors
Various
Birds -- Periodicals; Natural history -- Periodicals
But the man who knows a large part of them has not only learned fish,
but a host of other things as well. He calls to mind rosy-spotted trout
of the Maine woods, and still rosier of many brooks of Unalaska. He
has seen the blue parrot fishes of the Cuban reefs and the leaping
grayling of the Gallatin and the Au Sable. He has tried the inconnu
of the Mackenzie River and the tarpon of the Florida reefs. He knows
the sparkling darters of the French Broad and the Swannanoa, the
clear-skinned _pescados blancos_ of the Chapala Lake and the pop-eyes
and grenadiers of three miles drop of Bering Sea. Till you learn to
know fish you cannot imagine what the water depths still have for you
to know.
The second good reason why you should go a-fishing is that you may know
the places where fishes go. All the finest scenery is full of fish. The
Fire-Hole Canyon, the Roaring River, the Agna Bonita, the Rio Blanco,
de Orizaba, the creek of Captains Harbor, the Saranna, the Roanoke,
the Restigouche, the Nipigon, and the lakes of the St. John, all these
are good fishing water of their kind. So is the Rio Almendares, the
Twin Lakes, and the Eagle River, the Sawtooth Mountains, the Venados
Islands, the shores of Clipperton, the Pearl Islands, Dead Man's Reef,
No Man's Land, and the sand reaches of San Diego, Santa Barbara,
Pensacola, and Beaufort. If you know all these you know the rest of the
United States, with Canada and Mexico as well. All this is a goodly
country, which it is well for a good citizen to understand. If you
go a-fishing to know the fish, the rest will be granted to you. And
with all the rest you have filled your mind not only with pictures of
plunging trout, of leaping muscallonge and diving barracuda, but you
have enriched it with endless vistas of deep, green pools; of foamy
cascades, flower-carpeted meadows, of dark pines and sunny pines, white
birch and clinging vines and wallowing mangrove. You have "dominion
over palm and pine," the only dominion there is, for your dominion doth
not "speedily pass away." You know the crescent bay, with its white
breakers, the rush of the eager waters through the tide-worn estuary,
the clinging fucus on the rocks at low-tide, the bark of sea wolves,
and the roar of sea lions in the long lines of swaying kelp which reach
far out into the farthest sea. This is good for you to know, for it is
an antidote to selfishness and doubt and care. Then, too, it is good
to know the men that live in the open where the fishes are. To shake
their hands and share their hospitality will cure you of pessimism and
distrust of democracy, and banish all the chimeras and goblins which
vex those who live too long in cities. To hear the elk's whistle and
the ouzel's call, the whirr of the grouse's wings and the rush of the
water in the canyon, will get out of your brain the shriek of cable
cars, the rattle of the elevated railway, and all the unwholesome
jangle of men who meet to make money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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