10 



river, and returned in about half an hour to 

 where we lost the line, we hooked and killed 

 with a red hackle the same sort of fly it had 

 taken before the identical chub that had so 

 short a time previously snapped our gut, 

 having the red-hackle tail-fly stuck right 

 through the under jaw, and the other flies 'and 

 line entangled loosely round his body.* If 

 fly-fishing is to be considered a cruel sport, 

 there is scarcely one of our field-sports and, 



* Whilst Captain Medwin was fishing in a mill dam, his 

 friend hooked a trout which proved too strong for his 

 tackle, and he lost it ; five minutes after the Captain, 

 found himself violently tugged, and succeeded in landing 

 a trout of three pounds, with the identical hook and tac- 

 kle of his companion in its mouth. Angler. 



The following fact ought to put an end to any doubts 

 we may have relative to the insensibility of fish : " Some 

 time ago, two young gentlemen of Dumfries, while fishing 

 at Dalswinton Loch, having expended their stock of 

 worms, &c. had recourse to the expedient of picking out 

 the eyes of the dead perch, and attaching them to their 

 hooks, a bait which the perch is known to take quite as 

 readily as any other. One of the perch caught in this 

 manner struggled so much when taken out of the water, 

 that the hook had been no sooner loosened from its mouth, 

 than it came in contact with one of its own eyes, and 

 actually tore it. The pain, if so it can be called, occa- 

 sioned by this accident only made the fish struggle the 

 harder, until at last it fairly slipped through the holder's 

 fingers, and again escaped to its native element. The 

 disappointed fisher, still retaining the eye of the aquatic 

 fugitive, adjusted it on the hook, and again committed 

 his line to the waters. After a very short interval, on 

 pulling up the line, he was astonished to find the identical 

 perch that had eluded his grasp a few minutes before, 

 and which literally perished by swallowing its own eye .'" 



