246 THE TROUT 



delicate and at his best, rivals or surpasses the red 

 mullet. If he is handicapped by the absence of ' a 

 trail/ that is his misfortune, and nature is to blame. 

 The difference for the epicurean between salmon and 

 trout is this, that as to the former you may safely 

 generalise ; if not obviously out of season and condi- 

 tion, he is always good, if not super- excellent. The 

 salmon, like the sea-trout, not only is brought up in 

 the sea, but he goes back to the brine to recuperate 

 after each summer of inland degeneration. The trout, 

 on the contrary, except that unexceptionable Salmo 

 trutta, passes a lifetime in the same locality ; he is of 

 various species, and depends altogether for his flavour 

 on his particular food and the circumstances of his 

 surroundings. All the waters in the northern hemi- 

 sphere teem with trout of all sorts and sizes, from the 

 bleak little tarn lying in the dark solitudes of Highland 

 hills, to the broad estuary where the ocean surges are 

 breaking in foam over the shelving sand bars. There 

 are the trout of the tarn that multiply mysteriously 

 on the most anti-Malthusian principles, for to all 

 appearance there is next to nothing to eat. No May- 

 fly ever disports itself on those sub-Arctic waters, 

 cheerless as Athabasca or the Great Slave Lake. Not 

 many of the amphibious birds fly thither to take toll 

 of the spawn ; and the numbers are only slightly kept 



