IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



session with an ancient and vigorous, if less 

 adaptable, race. At first the trout kept 

 themselves strictly apart, upon their own 

 side of the lake; but in the course of a few 

 years some sort of relations were established 

 with the first-comers, not, I fear, to the ad- 

 vantage of the latter. There is some 

 ground for suspecting cross-breeding, and 

 the less agreeable fact must be mentioned 

 that once a fontinalis was taken with a 

 nitidus half-way down his throat. The 

 unaggressive nitidus are rapidly diminish- 

 ing in numbers, and it looks as though they 

 would not survive; but it is the fortunes of 

 the fontinalis, and at the moment of those 

 in the lower lake, that concern us here. 



The hundred and fifty-two appear to 

 have lived, almost to a fish. By 1912 they 

 had grown and altered their appearance 

 beyond recognition. Averaging well over 

 the pound, very uniform in size, they were 

 lighter in colour, pink of flesh, fat, lusty, 

 well-shaped and of great staying-power. 

 Every one of them might have served as 

 a painter's model, and the killing of a dozen 

 in the course of an evening was more to a 

 fisherman's taste than some fabulous basket 

 of less dashing and courageous fish. 1913 

 brought them up to two pounds. In 1914, 

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