A QUEER CAPTUEE. 183 



flap about in the liveliest fashion, and we soon made it 

 out to be a fine Thames trout. Vide Frontispiece. 



We weighed him to 9^ lb., and out of curiosity had 

 him photographed next day, a well-grown fish, and, as 

 none of our party were believers in stuffed fish, we eat 

 him, and excellent he was. 



The publication of this little incident drew down 

 upon our heads the most severe censure from some of 

 the reporters of Thames fishing, who chided us for not 

 having returned the fish to the river, in the interest of 

 those who were in the habit of spending much gold in 

 their attempts to capture such fish. 



As a matter of fact we do not attach the smallest 

 value to fish as soon as we have caught them, and this 

 fish might have gone back to his element for all we 

 should have cared, but being in the habit of killing 

 large fish, we perhaps did not attach sufficient im- 

 portance to the loss of one trout to Father Thames. 



When we came to consider that the anglers, for 

 whom cudgels had been taken up, had probably spent 

 as many years to catch him as he weighed pounds, the 

 enormity of the offence did not grow upon us, especially 

 as the ever-increasing age and experience of the fish 

 was daily expanding the odds against his would-be 

 captors. 



Trout, as is of course well known, have their par- 

 ticular lays, and this one we had noticed feeding many 

 a time, while smoking a pipe during the summer 

 evenings in the " Lion " enclosure. 



