A Sportsman 431 



one place for life is difficult to explain; but they do. 

 And so we may say about men. Why will they stay 

 in one place and eke out an uncertain and precarious 

 existence, when they can go where they could do 

 so much better? I often think of this while I am 

 travelling about the world and witness the prosperity 

 of some localities and the misery of others, and find 

 humanity pleased and satisfied in each place. No 

 matter where I go it is mostly the same with the inhab- 

 itants, lauding the respective merits of their region and 

 claiming advantages not possessed by others; and so 

 they stay and die, and their children grow up after 

 them and follow in the footsteps of their parents. And 

 so it is, I presume, with the trout. If they could talk 

 and express themselves and be understood, it would 

 probably be found that they had very good reasons of 

 their own for continuing where they could not be other- 

 wise than slim and black, when they might go where 

 they would soon get fat and mellow with unctuous deli- 

 cacies. Occasionally a trout strikes out, as with human- 

 ity, and never returns, linking his fortune with another 

 colony, and unknown evermore among his old friends 

 and relatives. 



Trout are well protected and plentiful, and no sea- 

 son has been better than those of late years, and if the 

 fishermen who display their skill at the Upper Dam 

 during the season could see the large trout on the 

 spawning beds in October and November they would 

 hardly expect any diminution of the noble fish in the 

 immediate present. The water below the Upper Dam 

 when drawn down after October i, and the shallows 

 below, are covered with large trout of 4, 5, 6, and 8 Ibs., 

 that make great commotion and exhibit their immense 



