CHAPTER X 



TROUT 



' ' Friends of my youth, where are they ? " 



From the Arabic. 



WHEN the salmon first ascended by means of 

 the ladder to the hitherto salmonless waters, 

 the surprise and, we may imagine, the indig- 

 nation of the original inhabitants, the common 

 river trout, must have been great. And with 

 the salmon came even worse marauders, the 

 active and irrepressible sea trout, who less 

 troubled than the salmon by a disordered 

 digestion and less impeded by a corpulent 

 frame, swallowed greedily such meagre food 

 as the river afforded, and must have worried 

 the poor Fario to distraction. But time 

 brought consolation and revenge. The pro- 

 tective wall of the Fos abolished, and a free 

 trade regime established, the new-comers com- 

 menced at once to deposit myriads of ova, 

 from which sprang countless little fishes. The 

 brown trout saw his opportunity ; he wel- 



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