138 AMERICAN GAME. 



along the line of the Erie railroad, where the country 

 people will tell you that there are tw trout in the river, 

 though the small creeks are full of them. The truth is 

 the fish in the river are very much fewer in number, but 

 as much superior in size and weight. They who, like 

 me, prefer to kill a one, two or three-pounder to ten 

 dozen fingerlings of four or five ounces each, are advised 

 to try the miller by dusk or by moonlight, and if there 

 be a big fellow about, h,e is pretty sure to be tempted. 



The trout does not, when feeding, travel or swim in 

 shoals ; he lies in wait in his own peculiar haunt, and 

 thence strikes at whatever he sees passing that tempts 

 his appetite. This haunt is generally in the neighbor- 

 hood of a stone or root, near the head or tail of a rapid, 

 in an eddy or swirl of the current, or in the broken wa- 

 ter caused by the division of a current above the head 

 of an island or shoal, and its reunion below it. Here 

 they lie with the head up stream, perfectly motionless, 

 not even wagging a tail or twinkling a fin, until their 

 object is in view, and then darting upon it with speed 

 that mocks the eye. They are insensible to sound, but 

 so quick of sight, and so wary that the mere shadow of 

 the rod projected across the water will prevent their 

 taking a fly, however hungry they may be, and how- 

 ever skillfully the lure may be presented. 



It is better to fish down stream, away from the sun, 

 and across the wind, if possible ; but the three contin- 

 gencies are not always compatible. When a trout is 



