INTRODUCTION 27 



meter. At any rate, it is only what we 

 should expect that animals living in a 

 medium so sensitive to pressure as water 

 should be in close sympathy with baro- 

 metric variations. Many instances of 

 their real or supposed power to forecast 

 a change of weather for better or for 

 worse will be found recorded in the 

 following chapters. From Mold, in North 

 Wales, two independent witnesses testify 

 to the weatherwise talents of local trout. 

 Colonel Davies-Cooke assures me that 

 the fish have again and again foreseen and 

 foretold a coming change from twelve to 

 twenty-four hours before it was recorded 

 by his Admiral Fitzroy barometer ; and 

 Major Wynn Eyton writes : " I have a 

 small hatchery here, and on the morning of 

 the 28th August last the small fishes 

 would not come for their food. Even the 

 big fishes, terrible gluttons, would hardly 

 come to the surface for theirs. During 

 the next twenty -four hours we had 

 1*28 inches of rain. It looks as if the 

 fish were expecting a lot of bottom- 



