THE HERON AND ITS HAUNTS 97 



them together, more rarely three, oftenest a solitary 

 one. The moor rills are full of small trout about the 

 size of gudgeon. If a fly tumbles into the water or 

 rests on it, twenty rush for him at once. They will 

 rush, too, for shelter in shoals when alarmed in droves 

 one might say. Just the size for Jack Hern they 

 are, and he finds them a dainty morsel. No angler 

 would take the trouble to catch these. So many 

 mouths too, though small, require a great amount of 

 food to fill them. You will not find a fish the size of 

 a herring in the rills that run down from the moor. 

 Besides which, the bottom is peaty, and large trout do 

 not run up to spawn there ; they want a gravel bot- 

 tom, and a clean one for that. There is a certain 

 amount of policy in allowing the heron to fish un- 

 disturbed in these rills. Better it is for him to visit 

 the moor rills than the streams below where the trout 

 are larger ; for very few trout of a pound in weight 

 and larger ever recover from a stroke made by the 

 heron if they do manage to escape at the time. Some 

 gentlemen, through whose property these little streams 

 trickle, have made them wider in places, and formed 

 ponds. Where this has been done the small moorland 

 trout have vanished, you will not find one. Large 

 trout have come in their place, much to the satisfaction 

 of the gentlemen fishers, but not to that of the heron. 



II 



