FIRST EMPTYING. 37 



ordinarily, though there are times when, in defiance of all 

 the usual methods of procedure, a fish will jump at a chance 

 of making a victim of himself in a way which in a creature 

 of larger brain substance would suggest drink, or, at least, a 

 very ill-balanced mind. 



And yet, as if to show what a mystery the art of angling 

 still is and is likely to remain, I can recall several instances 

 in my own experience to illustrate the queerness of fish. I 

 said just now their perceptions are acute, and so, un- 

 questionably, they are, but their perceptions, such as they 

 may be, appear to be due more to an abnormal power of 

 vision than to any reasoning faculty. But that trout must 

 possess some kind of instinct reasoning power (I hope the 

 expression may pass) is made plain to anglers in various 

 ways, and the more one has experience of them the stranger 

 do their ways become ; in fact, the wildest contradictions 

 are constantly appearing. 



There are a good many things about which I know 

 nothing. I do not know, for instance, that any philosopher 

 has defined accurately the line where what they call instinct 

 ends and reason begins in the lower creatures. An ordinary 

 man is a conceited animal, reluctant to credit anything with 

 sense that is below him in Nature's scale. Fortunately for 

 man and woman, some other animal, a long time ago, taught 

 him to talk, and this has been his chief occupation ever 

 since, when his lungs have not been occupied in the very 

 similar business of blowing his own trumpet ; but what, or 

 where, is the dividing line between what is called instinct 

 and reason ? Take a dog. Some men tell me a dog cannot 

 reason ; plainly, I do not believe this. My experience with 

 a dog, known when living to many hundreds of men and 

 women all over the north of England, was that he was 

 certainly capable of reasoning. I set aside all the tricks he 

 could do, the result of careful teaching, such as turning the 

 handles of all the doors in the house, or any house if the 



