138 THE TROUT. 



CHAPTER V. 

 ARTIFICIAL FLY-FISHING. 



VARIKTIKS OK TBOUT UCSTBUCTIOXS AS TO KODS AXD TACKLE HOW TO USB 

 T1IKM WKAT1IER HOW TO CHOOSE FLIES DRR8S XKJHT-FISHIN ;.;. 



TIIE TROUT (Salmofario). 



PROBABLY of all the fish that inhabit the fresh waters, there 

 is none which affords so wide-spread and great an amount 

 of sport to the angler as the trout ; and this is partly owing 

 to the nature of the fish itself, and partly to the exceed- 

 ingly wide area of its distribution, for it is found in almost 

 all temperate and cold climates. But if the localities in 

 which it is found are various, scarcely less so are the 

 characteristics of the fish itself. Indeed, it is difficult to 

 believe that the strongly-marked differences found to 

 exist do not almost constitute separate species. I do not 

 allude to the mere question of size, though that is suffici- 

 ently striking at times to raise a doubt as to their identity 

 in the angler's mind ; for who that looks upon the noble 

 Thames trout of fourteen or fifteen pounds weight, in all 

 its panoply of silver and gold, could, when placing it beside 

 the little dark-coloured, smutty- looking troutling of two 

 or three ounces, hooked out from under some overhanging 

 bank in a moss burn, hold that they were brothers of the 

 same family? But there are often actual differences in 

 their anatomy, in so far as relates to the numbers of their 

 fin rays and vertebra?. Indeed, in examining two trout 

 from different streams, even though one may be a tributary 



