FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 That, at least, is the time of day when I have had most success with them, 

 after spending many of the earlier hours trying, not always successfully, 

 to keep awake while the boatmen plied their oars. The battle, when it 

 comes, is worth waiting and working for, and the prize, when you have 

 won it, is sometimes a very handsome creature. Sometimes, however, it 

 is the reverse, for the old males turn very dark in autumn, like a kipper 

 salmon. 



Before parting from the British trout, courtesy to a distinguished 

 foreigner demands a tribute of admiration to the Rainbow trout (Salmo 

 irideus). Alas! that the elusive habits of that splendid creature require 

 that our admiration must be of a purely platonic character, for although 

 our allegiance to the British trout seemed at first in danger of being 

 shaken by the superior brilliancy and vigour of the rainbow, further 

 acquaintance with that species has proved how improbable it is that it has 

 come to stay. It disappears from waters to which it may be introduced 

 in the United Kingdom as surely and mysteriously as does its fellow- 

 countrymen, Salvelinus fontinalis. Our regret for this is mitigated by the 

 fact that the rainbow trout spawns at the same season as the grayling, 

 wherefore it is unseasonable throughout the fairest fishing months of the 

 angler's year. 



A few years ago it seemed as if the rainbow trout were going to obtain 

 almost exclusive possession of the Tamar, where they were introduced 

 by the Duke of Bedford at Endsleigh. In the summer of 1909 they were 

 simply swarming in that pretty river, chiefly of small size — ^three or four 

 to the pound, though there were a few taken about a pound in weight. In 

 fly-fishing one caught at least two rainbows to every yellow trout, and 

 they were worthless, being out of condition in summer. But the Duke 

 informs me that they are disappearing fast even from the Tamar, and no 

 man knoweth whither they have gone. To the sea, perhaps, unless it be 

 to that bourne whence no traveller returns. Rainbows certainly have been 

 taken in sea nets at the mouth of the Conway and elsewhere. One day in 

 February, noticing a brace of these fish weighing about 2 lb. apiece on 

 a London fishmonger's slab, I went to inquire whence they had come. 

 The salesman showed suspicion of me, thinking, I suppose, that I might 

 be an inspector sniffing about for a violated close -time. I had some diffi- 

 culty in persuading him that my inquiry was made purely in the interest 

 of natural history, when he vouchsafed the information that these pretty 

 foreigners had been taken in a net at the mouth of the Aberdeenshire Dee, 

 136 



