SOME HEAVY BASKETS AND BIG FISH 127 



invariably, so to speak, c hand-fed ' fish. They are 

 trout which have for years inhabited some deep mil]- 

 head or heavy water close to a house, where they 

 have been regularly fed on scraps and leavings from 

 the kitchen ; or have dwelt near the mouth of some 

 drain where they fattened on sewage relics. And in 

 general it is not by the agency of any artificial fly 

 that these great fish have died. By worm ; by pieces 

 of bread or other bait have they been captured ; and 

 thus they hardly come into the category of English 

 trout which have been fairly killed. 



The late Mr. Frank Buckland, in his * Natural 

 History of British Fishes/ recounts how in February 

 1868 some one sent him from Alresford a huge trout 

 which weighed 14 Ibs. The model of this fish was des- 

 patched to the Fish Museum in South Kensington. 



It was taken how is not stated in the act of 

 spawning in a small stream running through the 

 shrubberies at Alresford. Mr. Buckland carefully 

 weighed the fish, which was 30^ inches in length with 

 a girth of 19 inches at the middle of the abdomen. 



He likewise mentions a trout which Lord Dor- 

 chester wrote about. This was also 14 Ibs. weight, 

 and was taken near Winchfield. 



Mr. Buckland further states in his notes on 

 Thames trout, that a friend of his, Mr. Forbes of 



