a bit of forked pickerel's tongue, by passing through the hook until it will hang lightly from the bend. Play it among the rapid currents around the points of the island, with thirty to forty yards of silk line out from a twelve-foot stiff rod, and you will say that your trout fishing will hardly excel it. You are no doubt aware that in August the bass are close to shore on rocky bottom, but such advice to you is "like coal to Newcastle." I give it as new to myself last summer. There is also a good trouting ground at the head of Salmon River, Richfield, Oswego County, about thirty miles from Rome, on the road to Ogdensburg. If the stream be well up, it is worth a visit.

My pen has run on in this quiet midnight until it threatens to make you weary, so thanking you, only add, as I heard an old preacher once bring up an incorrigibly old sermon of his by saying, finally and to conclude, I will say

no more.

Very sincerely yours,

CHAS. LANMAN, Esq., New York.

GEO. W. BETHUNE.

SAPTOGUS.

O FOR the rush of our darling stream,
With its strips of virgin meadow,

For the morning beam and the evening gleam
Through the deep forest shadow;

For our dove-like tent, with white wings bent
To shield us from the weather,

Where we make our bed of hemlock spread,
And sleep in peace together.

O for the free and sinless wild,

Far from the city's pother,

Where the spirit mild of Nature's child,
On the breast of his holy mother,
In the silence sweet, may hear the beat
Of her loving heart and tender,
Nor wish to change the greenwood range
For worldly pomp and splendor.

O for the laugh of the merry loon,
For the chant of the fearless thrushes,
Who pipe their tune to sun and moon,

In clear and liquid gushes;

For the roar of flood, and the echoing wood,

And the whisperings above us,

Of the twilight breeze through the trembling trees, Like words of those that love us.

O for a breath of the fresh, pure air,
With the smell of the pine and cedar,
And the relish rare, for his simple fare,
It gives to the happy feeder;

For the social smoke and the hurtless joke,
The snatch of song and chorus,

Ere we tread the slope in cheery hope
Of the busy sport before us.

O for the cast, with shrilly whisht,
Of golden wing and hackle-

The ready twist of the thrilling wrist—
The strain of rod and tackle;

The gallant play of the silvery prey,
Reel spinning as they ask it,
And the angler's pride when by his side
They fill the ample basket.

O that the willow's leaf were free,

And the dogwood were in flower,

When the heart-bound three once more might be

Within thy forest bower;

We three, who know where'er we go

All other sports are bogus,

Compared with those thy haunts disclose,

Thy secret haunts, Saptogus.

THE COMPLETE ANGLER.

PART I.