THE WAYS OF A TROUT 



TROUT have less majesty than salmon, but more homeliness. 

 While salmon and their fellow-migrants, the sea-trout, are 

 particular in their choice of streams, and sufficiently scarce 

 to make them celebrated among anglers, brown trout of 

 more or less weight make their home in the obscurest parish 

 brook, so long as it is sufficiently brisk of current. The 

 largest brown trout are lake fish ; but even in the New River 

 in the north of London a trout was caught a few summers 

 ago which weighed seventeen pounds. The size of trout 

 depends on the plentifulness of food, and that to a great 

 extent on the area of water in proportion to the number of 

 the trout. This New River trout, like others which occupy 

 known stations in many streams flowing through towns, 

 had the monopoly of a large supply of casual offal. At the 

 other end of the scale are the troutlets no bigger than 

 minnows which one can find by diverting the water of some 

 tiny but perennial rivulet draining a small hollow among 

 the heathery hills. Though there is much dispute whether 

 various races of trout should rank as distinct species, no one 

 would question the specific identity of these dwarf trout of 

 our English brooks with the famous denizens of the Hamp- 

 shire and Derbyshire dry-fly streams. The whole race of 



