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220 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S Kids notice things that adults, intent on their angling, take for granted or have stopped noticing—the chirrup of red- winged blackbirds flocking in the cattails, the tick of a swallow's wingtip on the surface of a glassy pond, the arch of a heron's neck, like a fully drawn bow, just before he strikes, the pink blush of the tiny blooms on common waterweeds, the garish neon shades that dress damselflies and dragonflies, the grump and burp of a big old bullfrog. Kids marvel at the purples of a bluegill's throat and the crimson of a yellow perch's pectoral fin, and when they point it out to you, you'll marvel at it, too, the way you once did when you were a kid. Adults can learn a lot from kids. William G. Tapply, Pocket Water, 2001. Submitted by Roger Bradley of E. Petersburg, Pennsylvania It occurs to me that stumps would be excellent places to ensconce certain people. Politicians, for instance. Maybe we should draft a law requiring everyone to sit on a stump at least one day a year. It would be a civic obligation, like jury duty. It would be therapeutic, a societal authorization to do nothing. Of course, there wouldn't be enough stumps to go around. Legitimate substitutes would include logs, rocks, streambanks, mountaintops, and the lower branches of trees. The number one rule, however, would remain in force: Stick to your stump. Charles Fergus, The Wingless Crow, 1984. Nothing goes unrecorded. Every word of leaf and snowflake and particle of dew as well as earthquake and avalanche, is written down in nature's book. John Muir—In His Own Words, 1988. Submitted by Frank Possert of Kenvil, New Jersey. I think it was at about this time that I was reminded of Sir James Barrie's pungent apothegm on work. "Nothing is really work," he said, "unless you would rather be doing something else." Edmund Ward Smith, A Tomato Can Chronicle, 1937. Submitted by Danny Barrett of Fruit Cove, Florida. To know that one is being followed at night—no matter how bright the moon may be—by a man-eater intent on securing a victim gives one an inferiority complex that is very unmoving and that is not mitigated by repetition. Jim Corbett, The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, 1948. Submitted by Bernard T. Walker of Creswell, North Carolina. Send us your favorite quotes from sporting literature and receive one free gift subscription for every quote that is published. Include the author, title of book, and date of publication. Send to: Quotes, Sporting Classics, PO Box 23707, Columbia, SC 29224 Quotes In sport, method is everything. The more skill the method calls for, the higher its yield of emotional stir and satisfaction, the higher its place must be in a sportsman's scale of values. Roderick Haig-Brown, Fisherman's Spring, 1951. Submitted by Lou Duncan of Sisters, Oregon. Can what we humans do legitimately be termed hunting? It's a bit of a stretch. Oh, a man thinks he's hunting, but in truth he's just out for a walk. Dogs hunt. Men give them a ride to the covert, then do a little shooting when the time comes. Afterwards, they carry the dead birds around. But it's dogs that do the hunting. Steven Mulak, Wings of Thunder, 1998. Submitted by Jerry Serie of Easton, Maryland.