William Bartlett - A Breeze from the Woods, 2nd Ed.

Does a brook trout ever become a salmon trout? But the former goes down to the sea, and comes back the next year a larger fish. He ascends the same stream, and may be a foot or more in length, according to the size of the stream. I refer, of course, to those Coast Range streams which communicate with the ocean. If a bar or lagoon is formed at the mouth of a stream, so that it is closed for a few months, and nearly all the fish are taken out by the hook, on the opening of the lagoon or creek a fresh supply of trout will come in from the ocean, differing in no conceivable way from brook trout, except that they are larger. They take the grasshopper and the worm like honest fish bred up to a country diet. Some ichthyologist may show a distinction without a difference. The camp-fire reveals none.

The ocean slope of the Coast Range is much the best for a summer excursion. The woods and the waters are full of life. There is a stretch of sixty miles or more from the San Gregorio Creek in San Mateo County, to the Aptos Creek on Monterey Bay, in Santa Cruz County, where there is an average of one good trout stream for every five miles of coast line. There are wooded slopes, dense redwood forests, and mountains in the background where the lion still has a weakness for sucking colts, and the grizzly will sometimes make a breakfast on a cow, in default of tender pigs. But neither lion nor bear is lord of the forest. Both are sneaking cowards, the lion not even fighting for her whelps. It is better, however, on meeting either, not to prolong the scrutiny, until you have surveyed a tree every way suitable for climbing. The "shinning" having been done, you can make up faces and fling back defiance with some show of coolness. Then all along there is a fore-ground of yellow harvest fields, farm-houses and orchards; the cattle cluster under the evergreen oaks at mid-day. Wide off is the great sounding sea with its fretting shore line and its eternal reach of waters – so near and yet so remote. Low down on the horizon are the white specks of ships drawing near from the other side of the globe – coming perhaps from the dear old home to lay treasures at your feet in the new one – linking the new and the old together by this swift and silent journey, begun as of yesterday, and ended to-day. There is no place afar off. The palms lift up their "fronded" heads just over there; and the cocoanut drops down as from an opening heaven – more is the shame that those frowsy, low-browed cannibals are not content therewith, but so affect the rib roast of a white man, and that too in a tropical climate! If men would always look up for their food they might become angels. But looking down, they may yet become tadpoles or demons. It needs but a little Buddhism grafted on to the development theory to turn some of the human species back into devil-fish. For when one is wholly given up to seek his prey by virtue of suction and tentacula, he might as well live under water as out of it. It might be hard to go back and begin as a crocodile; but if some of our species have once been there and show no improvement worthy of mention since, why the sooner these voracious, jaw-snapping creatures are turned back perhaps the better. Ketchum has made a hundred thousand dollars this year in buying up doubtful titles and turning widows and orphans out of their homes. Tell me, oh Brahmin, if this man was not a crocodile a thousand years ago? And if he slips any where a link in his chain of development, where will he be a thousand years hence?

It is a good thing to pitch the tent hard by the seashore once in a while. Salt is preservative; and there is a tonic in the smell of sea weed. Your best preserved men and women have been duly salted. The deer sometimes come down to get a sip of saline water, and are partial to mineral springs, which one can find every few miles along the mountain slopes. The sea weeds, or mosses, are in their glory. Such hues of carnation and purple, and such delicate tracery as you shall never see in any royal garden. A hook was thrown in for the fish, perchance, with the dyes of Tyrian purple. But there came out a great wide-mouthed, slimy eel, which was kicked down the beach into the water, with a hint never to reveal so much ugliness again on any shore of the round world. Your sea-lion has no beauty to speak of; but he is an expert fisher and knows how to dry himself upon the rocks. When a hundred of them take to the water, with their black heads bobbing about, they might be taken for so many shipwrecked contrabands. How many ages were required for the ocean to quarry these grains of sand, which under a glass, become cubes and pentagons as goodly as the stones of Venice? No more under this head, for "quahaugs" and mussels are terribly anti-suggestive.

The young quails are only half-grown; but they run about in very wantonness in all directions. How keen is the instinct of danger in every tenant of the woods; and yet birds hop about in all directions with a consciousness that no evil will befall them. A couple of wood-peckers on a trunk of a tree just overhead, have curiously ribbed and beaded it up with acorns fitted into holes for winter use. So nicely is the work done, and so exact the fit, that the squirrels cannot get them out. And yet the wild doves which we want for our breakfast, flit away upon the first sign of approach. The era of shot-guns is not a millennium era, and the screech of a bursting shell is not exactly a psalm of life. The tenderness of the Hindoo in the matter of taking life, for food, I suspect, is because of his philosophy. Soul transmigration holds him in check, otherwise he might be found eating his grandmother. But a school-girl riots on tender lambs, and is not a whit afraid of eating her ancestors. There is a curious linking of innocence with blood-shedding in our times, enough to suggest an unconscious cannibalism, one remove from that of the happy islanders.

An old farmer came up to see us, attracted by the white tent, and having a lurking suspicion that we might be squatters. He confirmed the theory that the flow of water from springs in this region was permanently increased by the great earthquake. "You see," said he, "it gave natur' a powerful jog." After the shock, a column of dust arose from the chalk cliffs and falling banks on the shore line, which could have been seen for twenty miles. There was a noise as of the rumbling of chariots in the mountain tops, and the smoke went up as from the shock of armies in battle. The great sea was silent for a moment, and then broke along the shore with a deep sigh as though some mighty relief had come at last. All the trees of the mountain sides bowed their heads, as if adoring that Omnipotence which made the mountains tremble at its touch. If one could have been just here, he might have seen the grandest sight of ages; for this was the very focus of the earthquake. As it was, we got no impression of that event above a suspicion that a mad bull was butting away at the northwest corner of a little country church, with some alarming signs that he was getting the best of the encounter.

One learns to distinguish the sounds of this multitudinous life in the woods, after a few days, with great facility. The bark of the coyote becomes as familiar as that of a house dog. But there is the solitary chirp of a bird at midnight, never heard after daylight, of which beyond this we know nothing. We know better from whence come the cries, as of a lost child at night, far up the mountain. The magpies and the jays hop round the tent for crumbs; and a coon helped himself from the sugar box one day in our absence. He was welcome, though a question more nice than wise was raised as to whether, on that occasion, his hands and nose were clean. There is danger of knowing too much. It is better not to know a multitude of small things which are like nettles to the soul. What strangely morbid people are those who can suggest more unpleasant things in half an hour than one ought to hear in a life-time! Did I care before the question was raised, whether the coon's nose were clean or otherwise? Now there is a lurking suspicion that it was not. If you offer your friend wine, is it necessary to tell him that barefooted peasants trampled out the grapes? Is honeycomb any the sweeter for a confession that a bee was also ground to pulp between the teeth? We covet retentive memories. But more trash is laid up than most people know what to do with. There is great peace and blessedness in the art of forgetfulness. The memory of one sweet, patient soul is better than a record of a thousand selfish lives.