38 WILD LIFE OF SCOTLAND 



gradations, besides many more ; and the same trout 

 may be one thing one day, and another the next. 



The safer plan is to fall back on the brown 

 trout, and to group all the others, found in stream, or 

 lake, round this, not excluding the Salmo ferox of 

 the loch. Even the sea-trout crosses freely with 

 the burn-trout, and, when shut up in fresh water, 

 takes on the appearance of the other. 



A few have left the tiny pools and purling 

 currents, where the soft, unstimulating food was 

 washed out of the bank, to spend awhile in the 

 bigger watery world of the lake. There they have 

 lain at ease in the still weedy depths round the 

 edges, feeding, and fattening on the shell-fish 

 clinging to the swordlike sedges. And now they 

 have returned, so transfigured that the angler 

 does not know them again. 



The earlier of the stone flies are already begin- 

 ning to crawl up the iris ] eaves, and the stems 

 of the reed grasses; while the rest await their 

 speedy apotheosis at the bottom, meantime pro- 

 viding an inexhaustible supply, in the form of 

 caddis. 



Not that the rush of insect life has begun ; other 

 forms lie down there yet imperfect ; among them 

 that grandest of stream insects the May-fly. The 



