AND HOW TO CATCH HIM, 



13 



eleven or twelve. The same trouts were again turned into the 

 same ponds, which were again let dry about eight months after- 

 wards, when some were found to have attained twenty-two inches, 

 and to have weighed upwards of three pounds : others were sixteen 

 inches, and some not more than twelve. This was certainly a 

 prodigious increase in size, considering the shortness of time 

 allowed, and shews the manifest advantage of good food and 

 water ; for in most waters the growth is far slower, though the 

 precise time at which these fish arrive at maturity has not yet been 

 ascertained, but which very few have the fortune to reach ; their 

 days, of by far the greater number, being not only cut short by 

 the wiles of the angler, or even the poacher, (the latter term I 

 apply indiscriminately to all gentle or simple who employ a net 

 for the capture of trout,) but also by otters, pike, perch, eels, and 

 not unfrequently by the larger of their own kind ; to say nothing 

 of water fowl, water rats, and many other enemies almost too 

 numerous to mention, so that among so many foes, but few can 

 possibly escape till by the course of time they would have acquired 

 their full size. 



With respect to eels being destructive to trout an intimate 

 friend of mine, and on whose veracity I can place the firmest reli- 

 ance, informed me that he was an eye witness to a singular mode 

 of attack an eel made upon a small trout, which it attacked by 

 darting towards it, as it lay quietly in the water, striking it forci- 

 bly with its lower jaw, which in the eel projects somewhat beyond 

 the upper, near the eye, and with such a stunning effect that the trout 

 immediately turned upon its back and drifted on insensibly down 

 the stream, when my friend by means of his fishing rod hooked it 

 ashore as a lawful waif; the eel having darted off on his approach, 

 of course not choosing to dispute the possession of the spoil with 

 so formidable an antagonist. 



That the size and condition of trout depends in a great measure 

 on the kind of food with which they are supplied, appears from 

 an experiment made by Mr. Stoddart, and which he mentions in 

 his Art of Angling ; where trout were placed in three separate 

 tanks, one being supplied with worms, another with minnows, and 

 the third with flies. Those fed with worms thrived badly both in 

 growth and condition ; those with minnows grew much larger, but 

 did not attain a high condition ; whilst those that were supplied 

 with flies increased so much both in size and condition as to weigh 



