ON THE NORTH RIVER AGAIN 53 



after he is taken"; in fact, that he must be kept 

 alive till the pot is ready for him. The practice, 

 as in Germany, of keeping fish alive in wells in 

 the markets, perhaps for many days, does not 

 seem to me to be the same thing as cooking 

 them fresh from their native stream. Our chub, 

 when caught in a punt, is consigned to the water- 

 tank, and so preserved alive during the day a 

 prolongation of his life which, if there is any 

 sentiment in him, can only be to prolong his 

 misery. But enough of chub ! 



ON THE NORTH RIVER AGAIN. 



Wednesday, September and, did not confirm 

 our hopes as to the weather. On that day we 

 resumed our acquaintance with the North River, 

 and our experience, so far as it was controllable 

 by ourselves, was much the same as that which 

 I briefly described in the last chapter. The same 

 kind hospitality, the same river, and, curiously 

 enough, the same number of trout came into our 

 baskets. The experience which neither we nor 

 our host could control was that of the weather, 

 and that was instructive if not agreeable. 



Whether trout will or will not rise well in 

 thunder weather is a problem not yet satisfac- 

 torily solved; there are some who insist that 

 trout will rise and feed voraciously when thunder 

 is roaring in the heavens and rain, with a mixture 



