122 The Lije Story of the 'Fish 



mean, then, that fish learn from each other? Or are we per- 

 haps trying to put our explanations on too high a plane? 



I am inclined to tiiink that this is the case, and that 

 hereditary, or environmentally produced, caution plays a 

 larger part than learning. In streams which are continually 

 disturbed, the fish are in a constant state of fright. Anything 

 the least bit out of the ordinary will make them hide, and 

 it is only when conditions are, so to speak, "supernormal," 

 that they will come out and feed. They are "educated" only 

 in that they are in a state of chronic wariness. 



As for the big fish, they are harder to catch than the little 

 ones because they are wary, and they are big because they 

 are wary, and they are wary partly because of what they 

 have learned, but largely because they were born that way. 

 If they had not been born that way they would not have 

 lived to grow big. The fish that are easy to catch all get 

 caught when they are small, for life is a struggle, and the 

 rash little fi.sh which goes around poking its nose into every- 

 thing which arouses its curiosity soon becomes a victim of 

 one enemy or another, beast or human. But the fish which at 

 birth is constitutionally supplied with more than the usual 

 share of caution lives to grow old and large, and to become 

 the anguish and the delight of the angler. 



