CHAPTER XII 



TROUT-STALKING 



THE trout is a wary animal, extremely 

 suspicious of the human form, and when, 

 as in the height of summer, he is well- 

 fed and therefore under no compelling necessity 

 to accept anything which arouses within Jiim the 

 slightest doubt, there is no creature of the wild 

 more difficult of approach or more ready to take 

 alarm. 



In certain streams, smooth and placid, whose 

 banks are much frequented, trout may, it is said, 

 become so accustomed to the sight of man that 

 they remain totally unperturbed by his presence, 

 and will enjoy, with the utmost indifference to 

 a crowd of spectators, a banquet of flies or nymphae. 

 The merest glimpse of a waving rod, the slightest 

 flicker of light from gossamer gut, the least devia- 

 tion of a fly from the true path will, any one of 

 them, suffice to tell these trout that danger in 

 the form of an angler has arrived, for, despite their 

 seeming nonchalance, they are fully alive to the 

 perils that surround them. They are even more 

 difficult to lure than their brethren of the wild 

 moorland solitudes, who, though they recognise 

 an enemy in every man, and are therefore to be 

 approached with the greatest caution, are not 



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