42 WILD LIFE OF SCOTLAND 



be considerable, since the angler is seldom troubled 

 with eels. The wonder is that any survive. 



The fish rise eagerly, and grip as they seldom do 

 in later months. Give me a spring day, just after 

 the willows, and birches have done flowering, and 

 before the beech, and chestnut have shaken off their 

 brown husks, for fishing. Soon, half a dozen are 

 lifted on shore. 



Nothing is prettier than a trout, before the sheen 

 dies out of its skin. The spots are peculiar to the 

 fresh-water species, or only shared by migratory 

 forms before they pay their first visit to the sea. 

 There must be some reason for this, as there is for 

 everything. Even the conspicuous stripes on a 

 zebra's back are said so to blend into one another in 

 the twilight, when beasts of prey are about, as to 

 make it invisible. The same holds good of the 

 grey shades, and stripes of a wild cat. These spots 

 may have something to do with the proportion of 

 bright quartz pebbles in the gravelly bottom, or the 

 points of light left by the trembling leaves over- 

 head, or the waving grasses on the bank. In 

 deeper waters, the spots scatter out into crosses, 

 deceptively blending with the lights and shadows of 

 the current, or the gentle riple caused by the wind. 



" The salmon's back is fenced with tiny blue slates 



