ii4 THE EVOLUTIONIST AT LARGE. 



XII. 

 SPECKLED TROUT. 



IT is a piece of the common vanity of anglers 

 to suppose that they know something about 

 speckled trout. A fox might almost as well 

 pretend that he was intimately acquainted 

 with the domestic habits of poultry, or an 

 Iroquois describe the customs of the Algon- 

 quins from observations made upon the speci- 

 mens who had come under his scalping-knife. 

 I will allow that anglers are well versed in 

 the necessity for fishing up-stream rather than 

 in the opposite direction ; and I grant that 

 they have attained an empirical knowledge of 

 the aesthetic preferences of trout in the matter 

 of blue duns and red palmers ; but that as a 

 body they are familiar with the speckled trout 



