IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



hour for Lac a Moreau; time enough, how- 

 ever, to prove that the lake was filled with 

 trout to its capacity for sustaining them. 

 They had multiplied at the expense of di- 

 mension; had become une race degeneree. 

 Large fish there might be, almost certainly 

 were, though not in the humour for dis- 

 puting the surface supply of food with 

 smaller nimbler competitors. One of a full 

 pound was the best we took, — a strong 

 though slender fish, bright as a herring, 

 justifying the ancient account in all but 

 size.* 



Tradition placed our two lakes a few 

 hundred yards apart, for time deals kindly 

 with distance and difficulty; it took a long 

 half hour to make the portage, even with 

 the aid of the canoe in crossing a couple of 

 ponds. These had the dead unwholesome 

 look of water unrefreshed by a living 

 stream; the moraines containing them 

 might easily have been mistaken for old 



*Tt has long been matter of common observation that 

 the colour of a trout depends upon his environment and 

 changes with it- A new and strange fact not long since 

 has come to light- Where the trout in subterranean wnters 

 are blind, or where trout lose their sight, no such change 

 takes place. The process then is not automatic and un- 

 conscious (as one might suppose it to be), but the trout 

 has a chameleon power of harmonizing himself with his 

 surroimdtngs as he sees fhem. U 



164 



