14 THE PRACTICAL ANGLER 



cruelty have got into nice disquisitions upon the 



subject of trouts 1 feelings. Having already referred 



our readers to Izaak Walton and a learned Doctor 



of Divinity for the solution of this difficulty, we 



need not do more than remark that their feelings 



do not seem to be by any means acute. They have 



frequently been caught with flies in their mouths 



which had been left there by some angler a few 



hours previous ; the trout, as Professor Wilson 



observed, having gone off, " with a fly in one cheek 



and his tongue in the other." A friend 'of ours met 



with a remarkable instance of this want of feeling 



when angling in the Whitadder with worm. He 



had just made his first cast when a trout went off' 



with the whole apparatus of hook and casting-line. 



Without moving from where he stood, in the middle 



of the water, he put on another, and first cast with 



it caught the trout with the previous casting-line 



hanging from its mouth, and the hook firmly fixed 



in it. The vagaries which they exhibit when hooked 



are usually attributed to pain, but more probably 



arise from a mixed feeling of surprise and just 



indignation at having their powers of locomotion 



suddenly curtailed. 



Of all the senses trout possess, that of sight is the 

 most perfect, and is the one which most affects the 

 angler in pursuit of his vocation. Naturalists say 

 that the appearance and structure of the eye do not 

 lead to the conclusion that their sight is very acute ; 

 but the angler has every reason to believe otherwise. 

 They can detect the smallest fly even in running 



