SECOND EMPTYING. 53 



the smallest was a tiny stickleback. The ambition of the 

 latter being in excess of his powers, he hung himself on to a 

 lob-worm, and having disposed of about a quarter of an inch 

 of it, he stopped there for the reason that he was unequal to 

 concealing any more of it about his person. If he could 

 have swallowed four inches more he might have come to 

 the hook; there is, however, a limit to all things, as the 

 hen found when she swallowed a yard and a half of boot lace, 

 and found the shoe at the other end of it. 



It is a curious fact that dry northerly and easterly winds 

 have the effect of clearing northern rivers considerably, and 

 usually very quickly. I have never heard a satisfactory 

 explanation of the reason why winds from this direction 

 should have this power, and a westerly wind not have 

 anything like the same effect. A wine merchant of my 

 acquaintance tells me that a pipe of wine in a dark cellar, 

 far removed as it would seem from the influence of the 

 wind, will clear during an easterly wind in half the time it 

 will under one from the west or south. It would appear 

 that, if the effect of the wind is so subtle, there is small 

 reason for wonder that fish do not feed so readily under a 

 wind " from the top corner," as the farmers say, as they do 

 when it blows from a more genial quarter. 



The Gwyniad is found now only in Ullswater, and that 

 in diminishing numbers. It is locally known as a "skelly," 

 the word being merely a corruption of ' scaley,' which is, in 

 that neighbourhood, applied to all kinds of coarse fish. 



It is true, I suppose, that half the world does not know how 

 the other half lives, and does not want to. High up a certain 



