JUNE. TROUT-FISHING IN THE FINDHORN. 233 



book caught my eye, and I put it on: the moment I 

 cast this fly over the trout he came straight at it 

 in quite a different manner, taking it well into his 

 wide mouth as if at last in earnest. He was well 

 hooked, and then came the tug of war and the 

 trial of patience. The fly was literally speaking a 

 midge, made more as an experiment in fly-making 

 than for any expected use, and it was tied on the 

 finest gut. The trout, on finding that instead of 

 catching a fly he was caught himself, immediately 

 began to try every device that a trout ever imag- 

 ined to get rid of his tiny enemy. Now he was 

 down at the bottom rubbing his nose on the gravel: 

 the next moment flying straight up into the air 

 with the agility of a harlequin; sometimes with 

 forty yards of line out, and sometimes right under 

 my feet; then away he went as if about to run over 

 the shallow at the end of the pool on his way to 

 the sea, but changing his mind, darted like an arrow 

 up to the deepest part of the pool, and there he lay 

 like a stone at the bottom. After a little waiting 

 I pelted him out of that mood, and beginning my- 

 self to grow eager and desperate (moreover having 

 now more confidence in my midge, which had 

 already passed through a trial which a larger hook 

 might not have stood equally well), I turned his 

 head down the stream, and began to take the game 



