TRUE TEST TROUT 23 



fish in a season may perhaps succeed in doing so 

 if the water is high enough to admit of their 

 making the attempt during the spawning period ; 

 but at the same time, so far as my experience of 

 the river above Romsey extends, and for several 

 years I fished both above and below the latter 

 town, I do not think that the brown trout is as 

 plentiful as the Test trout. This may be accounted 

 for by the latter being the more powerful and 

 pugnacious of the two, and their having thinned 

 out the former. However, as I have no statis- 

 tics to produce in favour of such an argument, 

 this is purely theoretical, and merely my own idea 

 as to what may have caused the difference between 

 the two fish. The Lochleven trout are a more 

 modern innovation in the river, and whether they 

 have joined forces with the other trout during the 

 breeding season, since their introduction, I cannot 

 say. Such may perhaps be the case, but the 

 varieties of which I speak existed prior to the 

 introduction of the Lochleven fish. 



I have noticed during several seasons, when 

 salmon-fishing in the Test early in March, that a 

 few brown trout are annually caught with the 

 salmon-fly, which they have had the audacity to 

 take ; and these fish have invariably been in the 

 most perfect condition. But it is always the 

 brown trout ; the others do not show so early in 

 the season, and in the upper portions of the same 



