Some like white or light-colored flies; others prefer gay feathers, such as ibis, golden pheasant, peacock, woodpecker, and woodduck; while others still use different flies for different days, and vary the shape and color as the season advances. The making of an artificial fly is technically called "tying the fly," and is so minute and difficult an operation that it is better to buy flies of the dealers than to attempt to tie them yourself. The angler usually carries a supply of flies in a pocket case called a fly-book. The fly attached to the end of the stretcher is called Fly fishing for Block Boss. the "tail-fly," and the one attached further up is called the "dropper," or "bob-fly." Now, having " rigged your cast," you may go to the nearest water and practice casting the fly, just as you learned with the bit of wood. You will find this exercise rather tiresome to the right arm at first, but you can soon overcome every difficulty. In the beginning, you should choose a smooth, open space of water on which to practice, until you can cast well enough to begin angling for game. Girls can use a fly-rod just as well as boys, and they will find in it a new and delightful means of enjoyment. VOL. X.-50. the rod? She quickly "strikes "- that is, she gives a short, sharp jerk with her right hand, and then the fight begins. The rod is bent like a whip; whiz goes the click-reel as the strong fish pulls off yard after yard of the line. Hold him back, quick! Now, as our little girl changes the rod from her right hand to her left, in order to manage the reel, the fish makes a big lunge and turns a somersault clear out of the water. The hook is an extra good one, or it would have broken under that strain. We all look on with tremulous excitement as the bass falls back again into the swirling current and begins to dart this way and that, making the line sing and whirl. Now our "But where are any trout brooks?" you in- determined little angler begins to force the fight. quire. Trout brooks are rather scarce, it is true, but bass streams are not. The black bass is found in nearly all the brooks and rivers of a large portion of the United States, and it is the gamest and boldest fish that swims. It will take the fly, if properly offered, more readily than salmon, trout, or grayling. So, girls and boys, let us go a-fishing for black bass. A good brook or rivulet is close by almost any country house or town. A short drive or walk takes us to where we can hear the bubble and murmur, and see the pure water rippling and gleaming among the shining stones. The big plane-trees, sometimes called sycamores, lean over the brook's current, and there is a woodsy fragrance and freshness in the air. Birds sing overhead and round about in the thickets. We walk cautiously along the brook-side until we find a place where the water is dashing merrily among big stones and whirling in shining circles, frothed with clots of snowy foam. This is a promising place for a cast. Let us try. Give way, boys, and let one of the girls have the first cast. Now! See her take the fly in her left hand, lightly between the thumb and forefinger, her beautiful slender rod held almost vertically in her right hand. She waves the rod backward over her left shoulder, at the same time loosing the fly, then she whips the rod forward with a slight whirl to the right, and away spins the fly. But it falls somewhat short. Quickly and deftly she slips a few feet more of line from the reel, gracefully whirls the rod backward again, and, as the line straightens behind her, she casts as before. Again and again she does this, lengthening the line a little at each cast, until, at last, the gay fly falls lightly among the shining waves close by a little whirlpool. Splash! What a fine fish leaps up! You see his scales gleam and his fins flash as he "flips" himself almost bodily above the water and seizes the fly. And what does my little lady with She turns the butt of the rod more forward, thus raising the tip, and begins to steadily turn the reel-crank with her right hand. See the slender rod bend almost double! Hurry, boys,- some one of you,- get the landing-net and be ready to dip up the game! As the line is shortened, the bass is drawn nearer and nearer to the grassy bank. There! his prickly dorsal fin cuts the water! Now get the landing-net under him. Good! he is ours, and he weighs a full pound and a quarter. That was a well-managed campaign on the part of our young lady. Which one of the boys can beat it? You may think that it would be a very easy task to manage a fish weighing no more than a pound and a half; but when a live and stubborn bass of that size is at the end of ten or twelve yards of line, and your rod is as limber as a whip, the thing is n't so easy after all. I have seen grown men fail in the undertaking. One of the most difficult things in fly-fishing is to get your fly to fall just where you wish it to. It requires no little skill to be able to cast out twenty feet of line and make your gaudy insect drop exactly where you aim. Sometimes bass are very stupid, or very cunning, or not very hungry, or lazy, for they will balance themselves in a clear current, with their heads up-stream, and, no matter how cleverly you present your fly, not a rise will they make. At other times, they will take your fly as fast as you can offer it. A great many pleasant things come to pass when you are down by the brook. In fact, a brook always seems to flow through the very heart of ily along beside the stream, looking for a good place to cast your fly, you often come upon these wild things unaware, which gives you an excellent opportunity for studying their habits. tled in a tuft of grass. No sooner had it touched than something grabbed it savagely, and, when I reeled in my line, I found that I had caught a bull-frog! In fly-fishing for bass, you find the streams more easily approached than trout brooks, and there is less in your way when casting. In fact, I can say with confidence to the girls and boys of the ST. NICHOLAS household, that they could not wish for better sport than they can get from fly-angling in almost any of our larger brooks, when once the secret of the gentle art is discovered by them. It seems strange that even enthusiastic anglers are just beginning to find out the great merits of the black bass as a game fish to be taken with the fly. All these years men have been making long journeys to Canada and to northern Michigan for trout and salmon, when the streams that flow through every county of nearly all our States are teeming with bass gamer than salmon and more vora cious than trout! Bass brooks, as a rule, are shallow, so that there is little danger of drowning in them, and you can wade where you please. Some girls may think angling is too much like boys' sport for them; but if they will try it once, some sweet June day, they will change their minds. There is a great deal more fun in wading a clear, running brook, than in wallowing in the surf of the sea; and then, if you get a big bass, he gives you excitement that makes the blood leap in your veins. Some very good and tenderhearted people think of angling as a most cruel and wicked sport. I can not decide this matter for any one but myself. If you are afraid that killing fish is wicked, don't angle, for a timid angler never gets a rise, or, if he does, he strikes too feebly or too late to get One day, some years ago, I was casting in a nar- the game. To succeed at fly-fishing, one must row, weedy stream in the South, and was trying to go at it with a clear conscience and a steady make my fly fall upon a small pool near the op- nerve. Be sure you are right, and then don't posite bank, when it went a little too far and set- let the fish get away-that is my rule! THE HOME-MADE MOTHER GOOSE. BY ADELIA B. BEARD. ored worsted, then place the squares neatly together and stitch them directly through the center with strong thread. (Fig. 1.) Fold them over, stitch again, as in Fig. 2, and your book is finished and ready for the pictures. It is in the preparation of these pictures that you will find the novelty of the plan I propose. Instead of pasting in those cards which have become too familiar to awaken much interest, let the young book-makers design and form their own pictures by cutting special figures, or parts of figures, from different cards, and then pasting them together so as to form new combinations. Any subject which pleases the fancy can be illustrated in this way, and you will soon be deeply interested in the work, and delighted at the weary of looking them over. A great many young folk paste their cards into scrap-books. While examining one of these volumes a short time ago, it occurred to me that the cards might be utilized in a new way, by dividing and combining them. Let me, then, try to show you how, with the aid of scissors and mucilage, the pictures that have become so familiar may be made to undergo transformations that are indeed wonderful. The nursery scrap-books made of linen or paper cambric are, perhaps, familiar to most of my readers; but for the benefit of those who may not yet have seen these durable little books, I will give the following directions for making one: Cut from a piece of strong linen, colored paper cambric, or white muslin, four squares, twenty-four inches long by twelve inches wide. Button-holestitch the edges all around with some bright-col FIG. 4. strange and striking pictorial characters that can be produced by ingenious combinations. FIG. 5. Stories and little poems may be very nicely and aptly illustrated; but the "Mother Goose Melodies" are, perhaps, the most suitable subjects with which to interest younger children, as they will be easily recognized by the little folk. Take, for instance, the "Three Wise Men of Gotham" who went to FIG. 6. sea in a bowl. Will not Figure 4 serve very well as an illustration of this subject? Yet these figures are cut from advertising cards, and no two from the same card. Fig. 3 shows the materials, Fig. 4 the result of combining them. Again, the little man dancing so gayly (Fig. 5) is transformed into "Little Jacky Horner" eating his Christmas pie (Fig. 6) by simply cutting off his legs and sub stituting a dress and pair of feet clipped from another card. The Christmas pie in his lap is from still another picture. "I Had a Little Husband no Bigger than My Thumb" is represented in the tail-piece. "The Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe," as presented here, will be recognized immediately by all who have ever heard of that wonderful woman, whose family was much too large for her rather limited accommodations. She is going through the trying duty of whipping "them all soundly," and tucked behind in the shoe may be seen the children she has already "sent to bed." It must be remembered, in looking at this picture, that many of the figures were not originally in the positions in which you now see them. Babies have been placed in arms which, on the cards they were stolen from, held only some cakes of soap, perhaps, or boxes of blacking; heads have been ruthlessly torn from the bodies to which they belonged and as ruthlessly clapped upon strange shoulders. Some figures have even been forced to sit, when the artist had painted them standing. But you will be surprised to see what amusing and often excellent illustrations present themselves, as the result of a little ingenuity in clipping and pasting; and the book composed in this way not only affords amusement during the making, but presents, when finished, a unique and original addition to the home stock of picture-books. |