166 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



pick up the rabbit. Ergo, as on the first day he did so with me I 

 had never shot at a rabbit there, his experience must have arisen 

 with some other gunner. Knowing, therefore, through Wolf, 

 that my man had shot rabbits, I discharged him, on some addi- 

 tional proof. 



In the winter I discovered that all the trout in the lake on 

 the lawn ascended the stream which ran through the village 

 above my house, to spawn; and that when they did so they 

 became the prey of all the idle boys at the cottage doors. I 

 put up a stop at the verge of my premises in the shape of an 

 upright grating ; but this, when any flush of rain came, impeded 

 the stream so much that it flooded the village, and of course I 

 was obliged to take it down. Having observed that a trout as 

 well as a deer always got close under the impediment it wished 

 to jump, I applied the same principle in a stop to the fish that 

 I would have used in a fence to deer; and instead of putting 

 a high perpendicular grating that caught all rubbish and 

 blocked up the water, I had a grating made half the size, and 

 slanted it from the bottom, so that the top of it should be a 

 few inches only above the natural height of the stream. This 

 answered perfectly : in winter, when the water was clear, I used 

 to see the trout under it, and leaping up against it ; but in no 

 one instance did I ever know a fish to back and jump when the 

 fence rose above the water. As the flood, when it came, swept 

 right over this without blocking back the water, and as the fish, 

 even in times of flood, always occupied themselves in trying to 

 get up underneath it, instead of drawing back to the extreme 

 verge, it being necessary to give the trout a portion of the shoal 

 water to breed in, I put the fence some little way above my 

 premises. My agreeable landlord, who was living in a small 

 house he had built for himself in the village, in order to annoy 

 me, sent word to say he should take the stop I had put up 

 down ; the reply to this was, that if I caught him at it I would 

 fling him into the water. He did not pull it down ; and I kept 

 the lake full of trout during my residence there of two years. 

 I had originally taken the place on a lease for five or seven 



