The Merrimack River: its source and its tributaries. Embracing a history of manufactures, and of the towns along its course; their geography, topography, and products, with a description of the magnificent natural scenery about its upper waters./ By J. W. Meader.

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TIIE.[ERIVIfACK. RIVTER;
a boat, wiitll a careful sculler in the stern, armed with a twenty-two
foot rod and line to match, the boat pushes carefully along fifteen or
twenty yards outside the line of water-grass; the hook, baited with a
frog,'s leg peeled, is handled out and made to ricochet along the sur face. The pickedrel whirls out from his hiding-place, and, with a
powerful muscular movement, rushes upon the prey; at this time, ap
parently, in a completely inverted attitude. Experts differ as to the
best mode of proceeding from this point,- some contending that, as
hlie instinctively strikes his jaws together with great force to despatch
his prey before swallowing it, it is impossible to pull the hook away
from him; consequently he is sure to be fastened.. Others endorse the
theory that he never swallows the bait until satisfied that it is both
killed and palatable. Convinced that the frog's leg possesses the
latter quality, he is allowed to proceed with it in his own way. Hav ing got it in his mouth, he invariably retires to the vicinity of the
bottom, but a short distance, to test its quality. It is necessary to
keep a tolerably strai,lght line on him during this time, as hlie always
moves the moment he swallows the bait, and this movement is a
signal to take him in. It is believed that the latter mode is much
the surest and safest, as it hooks him stronger and more certain,
althou,gh practice is required to land him safely in the boat. The
pickerel is an excellent pan-fish, second only in value and quality to
the trout, and is, like the latter, a most important item of New
Hampshire inland fishing; and, althoug,h hlie is not found in brooks,
-or in the cold waters of the mountains, like the trout, hlie is indigenous
to all the other waters of the State, rivers as well as lakes and ponds.
One feature, not, however, peculiar to these waters, but which
adorns and beautifies them, is the starry magnificence of the milky
way of the great white water-lily of midsummer, which here flourishes in more than Oriental luxuriance and splendor, and may properly lbe termed the queen of the New Eingland flora. Gathered in
huge bunches, with long and leathery stelms like coils of lacings,
and placed in capacious vases on parlor tables, they are regally grand
to look upon, and emit an incomparable delicacy and richness of
fragrance, an intoxicating perfume pervading the house; but here is
not the theatre of their greatest attraction. Floating buoyant and
graceful along the lake, they seem an endless city, a great London,
in miniature palaces of ivory and gold.
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