164 The Carnatic Carp. CHAP. xr. 



sure of till they have thus tried it. Only on this principle can we 

 understand a Salmon taking into his mouth all the extraordinary 

 coloured artificial flies he does, not like anything that he has seen in 

 the sea. An extra reason for a fish taking unknown things into his 

 mouth for examination is that, in rivers, they are carried past so rapidly 

 that the fish has not time to trust entirely to the eye. It is this brief 

 interval, then, between sucking in for investigation, in the belief that 

 the artificial fly is or may be food, and the blowing of it out again on 

 the detection of the fraud, that you have for striking your fish. In the 

 case of the Salmon and Mahseer you are helped at the critical moment 

 by the fish's habit of descending to its place at the bottom, and by the 

 weight of the fish tautening your line, so that if your line is thrown and 

 kept straight, as it should be, the tautening takes effect at once, you 

 only have to resist and hold on to it, much as you would to a stum- 

 bling horse. The Trout helps you just a little by the same habit of 

 descending to his place at the bottom, but the Trout's weight is not 

 enough to tauten your line decidedly, and the trout line is by no means 

 always straight, especially when throwing up and pulling down stream 

 with so light a line, and when throwing across it is often bellied by the 

 force of the stream, and when there is wind to contend with it is 

 impossible to throw a light Trout line quite as straight as a heavier 

 Salmon or Mahseer line. Consequently you need to strike quick for a 

 Trout, as quick as you like, you can't have too quick an eye and wrist. 

 But the hero of this chapter, like the Dace, the Barbus filamentosus, 

 and others to whom I shall introduce you, does not descend to take up 

 his place at the bottom ; he does not aid you, therefore, the slightest 

 bit in taking the slack out of your line, and the interval left you for 

 hooking him is shorter. In consequence you have to strike if possible 

 still more quickly. On these grounds I hold that you cannot strike too 

 quickly for the Carnatic Carp. With this idea in my head, I have 

 watched these fish. They were taking some small natural fly very 

 freely, and refusing to look at our artificial flies, showing thereby that 

 our flies were not like their natural food then on the water, yet now 

 and again at long intervals, when there was less natural food on the 

 water, some one fish would take our fly out of pure curiosity. Thus 

 the adventurous got taken in. The much-fished Trout has learnt that 

 this spirit of enquiry doesn't pay, and he won't take a fly into his mouth 

 unless its colours and its size and motion are so exactly like the natural 



