146 ON MINNOW AND PARR-TAIL FISHING. 



found, indeed, should the flood happen to be a large 

 one, scattered about in all places of comparative shelter, 

 close below banks, among side-runs and small whirls, 

 in fact, everywhere, except in central and violently- 

 agitated currents. 



I am now brought, having specified when and where 

 this branch of the art ought to be pursued, to add some 

 instructions as to the manner of pursuing it with suc- 

 cess. The movements of the minnow on its appropriate 

 tackle and under swivel traces, spinning, as it is made 

 to do, with great rapidity, and often in the teeth of a 

 strong current, are allowedly unnatural, nearly as much 

 so as are the vagaries forced on the artificial salmon- 

 fly. How, then, the inquiry arises, are trout, the 

 wariest of all the finny tribes, deceived by them ? This 

 is a question of which it is vain to attempt giving 

 the satisfactory solution. It is evident, however, that 

 if trout regard the bait in question as a minnow at all, 

 they do so under the notion that it is a sickened or 

 injured one an individual separated from its resort, 

 and unable, through weakness or loss of instinctive 

 consciousness, either to regain it or to take refuge else- 

 where. As a proof of this, I may mention that, not 

 unfrequently, when drawing the lure referred to 

 through a host of live minnows, I have been sur- 

 prised by the appearance of a good trout darting 

 suddenly at my bait, from some shelter stone, in the 

 very centre of the spot, preferring it, seemingly, be- 

 cause, (notwithstanding its mangled and spitted con- 

 dition), an easier prey, to any individual of the shoal 

 among which it dwelt. On the same principle it 

 is, namely, the comparative facility with which they 

 are captured, that vermin, carrion crows, and beasts 

 of prey search out and assail wounded and stray 



