THE AMERICAN TROUT. 15 
snows and blasts of winter, a warm day is very desirable ; 
later, and in tlie heats of summer, a cold, windy day will 
insure success. Dead calm is dangerous, althongli many 
trout are taken in water as still, clear and transparent 
as the heavens above. The first rule is never to give 
np ; there is hardly a day but at some hour, if there be 
trout, they will rise, and steady, patient industry disci- 
plines the mind and invigorates the muscles. A south- 
erly, especially a southeasterly wind, has a singular 
tendency to darken the surface, and in clear, fine waters 
is particularly advantageous ; a southwester comes next in 
order ; a northeaster, in which, by the by, occasionally 
there is great success, is the next ; and a northwester is 
the worst and clearest of all. Give me wind on any 
terms, a southerly wind if I can have it ; but give me 
wind. It is not known what quality of the wind darkens 
the water, it may be a haziness produced in the atmos- 
phere, although with a cloudy sky the water is often too 
transparent; it may be the peculiar character of the 
waves, short and broken, as contradistinguished from 
long and rolling ; but the fact is entitled to reliance. 
Slight changes will often aftect the fish. On one day 
in June, in the writer's experience, after having no luck 
till eleven o'clock, the trout suddenly commenced rising, 
and kept on without cessation, scarcely giving time to 
cast, till two, when they as suddenly stopped. There was 
no observable change in the weather, except the advent 
of a slight haze, the wind remaining precisely the same. 
I was much disappointed, not having half fished the 
ground and being prevented, by the numbers that were 
taken, from casting over some of the largest fish that 
