180 TROUT FISHING 



Having heard this, you will understand how it is 

 with us, with Caradoc, with the schoolmaster, with 

 the ornithologist, with the angler to whom I must 

 make only the most distant reference, and with me. 

 And those others, the estimable folk who inhabit 

 the same inn with us, also appreciate a half-pounder. 

 They know how long and broad and deep and thick 

 he feels when you lay an eager hand on him in the 

 meshes of the landing-net. Persons who only fish 

 in chalk streams have no inkling of the merits of 

 half-pounders. " Just not sizeable " is a poor way 

 in which to speak of fishes which make Caradoc 

 arise early in the morning, pedagogues forget the 

 Greek for " strike," bird-men accept a statement 

 that a cuckoo in winter turns into a hawk. All 

 which strange things I have, so to speak, watched 

 happening. 



One spring we had a drought and then it was 

 lamentable but true that half-pounders did not 

 happen at all, not the real, unquestionable, eight- 

 ounce-to-the-half-pound creatures which alone pass 

 the severe inspection of Ap Evan. I did all that I 

 could in the way of asseveration for a seven-ounce 

 specimen brought back one evening by the rod 

 fourth on my list. If that were not a half-pounder, 

 then might I never behold half-pounders more — 

 and so on. But it was all no use. Seven ounces 



