CHAP. vi. Short-sightedness of Fish under Water. 95 



is close by, and that he can be into it in a second. It is the hypothesis 

 of short-sightedness only that makes it intelligible to me why a fish 

 which suspects your bait/follows so very close behind it, within a few 

 inches instead of feet or yards, examining it before it makes up its 

 mind, and requires to follow it for some time too, scrutinizing at those 

 close quarters, before it can satisfy itself about it. This theory of short- 

 sightedness, and especially laterally, in the water, has special application 

 to running water, in which the line of vision is much broken by the 

 disturbances in the stream, not necessarily violent disturbances as in a 

 run or stickle, but as in a gentle eddy, as in any part of a river in which 

 some water is passing other water, and thus breaking the line of vision. 

 This must be constant in all rivers, for there is always friction between 

 particles of water in the flow of the stream, and always a back draught 

 or upward flow along the edge of every river. There is more or less 

 friction, according as the stream is more or less rapid. Through per- 

 fectly clear and still water fish may be able to see, somewhat indistinctly, 

 some little distance laterally, as through thick plate-glass, but when 

 the water is broken their plate-glass becomes to them like ground glass. 

 That is my theory, and I think fishermen will find that adoption of it, 

 and attention to it, will influence their sport. 



It is true that large and small fish ordinarily frequent slightly 

 different parts of a river, still they are not so far apart but that the big 

 fish ought to be able to see the little ones, if the density of the element 

 did not curtail their length of vision, and the broken rays refract it. 

 This my belief becomes a reason in my mind for spinning in right 

 places, for showing your bait exactly where a fish is likely to be lying, 

 and one of the several explanations why a good fisherman, who knows 

 such places intuitively, kills more fish than a tyro. It is one of the 

 grounds for my opinion that a spun dead bait is preferable to a live 

 bait, which, from being stationary, is not shown to nearly so many fish. 

 It is to their short-sightedness under water that I trust, and find I trust 

 rightly, in wading in to fish, in preference to standing on the bank. If 

 they could see far laterally in water, they could not fail to see the 

 fisherman's two legs and trousers all in the water up to the fork, and 

 seeing, they would refuse his lure. And yet all fishermen find that it 

 pays very well to wade. 



This argument of short-sightedness is in favour, therefore, of spin- 

 ning slowly, so as to let a fish see, and to give it a chance and a 



