THE FASNEY ITS STARVED TROUTS, 167 



the Fasney are of the regular heather-burn species. 

 The stream is a hill-burn magnified, and its inhabitants 

 are black, large-headed, powerful of jaw, and poor of 

 flesh. They are not, on the whole, so small as the 

 trout usually are in such waters ; for although a poun- 

 der is rare, there are many of half-a-pound, and the 

 run is not much under a quarter. But the impression 

 produced by a Fasney trout of half-a-pound is painfully 

 suggestive of age and ravenousness. The head is much 

 too big in proportion to the body, the teeth are long 

 and sharp ; and you might fancy that just as constant 

 exertion develops the muscles of the blacksmith's arm, 

 constant indulgence of voracity had exaggerated the 

 masticating members of these fish. But the truth is, 

 that the trout's head seems to continue to grow when 

 the food is too scarce to carry forward the shoulders at 

 an equal rate, and it is by its dentition and the length 

 of its maxillary bones that the patriarch of a pool may 

 often be detected, rather than by its weight. A two- 

 year-old trout of the Blackadder is probably heavier 

 than a ten -year-old trout of the Fasney but lay their 

 heads together, and see the verification of the adage 

 about old crania and young shoulders ! As might be 

 inferred from our description, the Fasney is a late 

 stream, the spring being far advanced before the trout 

 in it will take fly, or are worth catching. But in sum- 

 mer it is a certain producer ; and we have fished it with 

 worm on the worst of all sorts of days for worm-fishing, 

 when a driving mist filled the lonely glen, and the 

 whirr of the grouse rising from amongst the heather 

 was like the noise of thunder, and yet we found our 

 creel as full as we cared to carry home by the evening. 



