AND HOW TO CATCH HIM. 11 



of two pounds. The stream I caught it in was called the Gan- 

 nell ; a mere rill scarcely sufficient to supply a small mill leat in 

 the summer season ; and in this leat it was that I captured the fish. 

 It was indeed a beautiful specimen ; fat as a Neapolitan prize pig ; 

 and though somewhat dark in colour, its scales were exceedingly 

 brilliant. I had the fortune to partake of it afterwards, and never 

 did I meet with a trout that equalled it in flavour, yet the flesh 

 had not the slightest pink cast, but was of an opaque cream colour 

 generally, with a deep brown cast under the skin. In fact the flesh 

 in appearance very much resembled that of the grey mullet when 

 in highest season, and never since have I met with a trout of so 

 exquisite a taste. But in those rivers that breed red trouts, I do not 

 think those that are not of that colour in those localities have arrived 

 at perfection ; and generally speaking red trouts are better fish than 

 those that never acquire that tint. Still where the fish acquire 

 the highest perfection they are liable to fall back in the same 

 ratio ; and I have found the Hampshire trout, which perhaps in 

 this kingdom are not to be surpassed, even if equalled, far inferior 

 to those in Devon and Cornwall in the early part of the season, 

 though the fish in the latter counties have no pretentious to vie 

 with those of the first-rate Hampshire streams, as the Avon,Test,and 

 Itchen, during the time those rivers are in their highest perfection. 

 Still to the angler the abundance offish he may depend upon catching 

 almost every month throughout the year, and the extent of ground 

 he may fish over without let or denial throughout the greater part 

 of Devon and Cornwall, affords a strong set off against the superior 

 fish he may chance to catch in Hampshire's choicest streams, even 

 if he can obtain the liberty to fish there ; a boon only to be ob- 

 tained by a happy few, and that at an expense of a ponderous load 

 of obligation, which must always press heavily on the shoulders 

 of the party obliged, to say nothing of the almost disabling log of 

 a keeper at his heels, he is so frequently hampered with. 



Now before dismissing the subject as to how the colour of the 

 flesh of the trout bears upon the condition of the fish, I cannot 

 forbear remarking how much I was surprised to find in that part 

 of " Cuvier's Animal Kingdom," which treats of fishes, it should 

 be stated generally that the flesh of trout is white, and what is not 

 much less wonderful, a similar error should also occur in the 

 British Naturalist. As I before stated, the colour of the flesh is 

 guided chiefly by the food and perhaps some other causes incidental 



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