FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 311 



has a chance, and never attains so large a growth as when he is 

 abundantly supplied with minnows or other small fry. It is 

 true that a kind of ' stall feeding ' may be pursued with great 

 success. About the year 1840, a distinguished officer informed 

 me that at a Waterloo Banquet which he had recently attended 

 there were served up two trout nearly of a size, from the pre- 

 serves of Sir Home Popham, near Hungerford, which together 

 weighed 36 Ibs. These fish had been fed on chopped liver, 

 and my informant assured me that no salmon could be better 

 eating. But a few years afterwards I heard of a still heavier 

 specimen, weighing 23 Ibs. 7 oz., sent up to London from the 

 same neighbourhood. 



This, as far as I know, was the largest specimen of Salmo 

 fario on record in the British Isles. 



A fish of twenty-one pounds is said to have been caught in the 

 river Exe. I remember the capture with pike tackle of one 

 over fifteen pounds in Marlow Pool, and have heard of other 

 fish from the Thames that weighed eighteen pounds. The Drif- 

 field Club used to exhibit a stuffed seventeen-pounder, caught 

 in days when there was a periodical migration of countless 

 minnows up the various feeders of the 'Beck,' pursued by flights 

 of the small black-headed tern or ' carr-swallow.' But till I 

 hear of a rival candidate for first honours, I shall still say to 

 that noble trout of Hungerford, ' Tu maximus ille es.' 



The system of feeding which gave him and sundry other 

 stately ' bulks ' like Arac's brethren to the market was briefly 

 as follows. Two adjacent tanks for the eaters and the eaten 

 were supplied by a running stream, and now and then a 

 large hooped landing net with small mesh was dipped into the 

 reservoir of bait, and its contents handed over to the cannibals 

 hard by. Then ensued a grand scene : a dozen speckled 

 giants appeared, rushing, plunging, gulping, walloping, till the 

 last victim had disappeared, when tranquil digestion became 

 the order of the day. Under this system of training, a trout 

 on a large scale, caught lank and lean after breeding, might 

 easily double his weight in the course of the season. It should, 



