The Gamekeeper at Home. 



under the banks, the dark places where a black 

 shadow falls from overhanging trees and is with diffi- 

 culty pierced even by a practised eye. They expose 

 themselves in open places, and meet an untimely 

 fate. 



Besides pike, tench are occasionally wired, and 

 now and then even a large roach ; the tench, though 

 a bottom fish, in the shallow brooks may be sometimes 

 detected by the eye, and is not a difficult fish to 

 capture. Every one has heard of tickling trout : the 

 tench is almost equally amenable to titillation. 

 Lying at full length on the sward, with his hat off 

 lest it should fall into the water, the poacher peers 

 down into the hole where he has reason to think 

 tench may be found. This fish is so dark in colour 

 when viewed from above that for a minute or two, till 

 the sight adapts itself to the dull light of the water, 

 the poacher cannot distinguish what he is searching 

 for. Presently, having made out the position of the 

 tench, he slips his bared arm in slowly, and without 

 splash, and finds little or no trouble as a rule in get- 

 ting his hand close to the fish without alarming it : 

 tench, indeed, seem rather sluggish. He then passes 

 his fingers under the belly and gently rubs it. Now 

 it would appear that he has the fish in his power, and 

 has only to grasp it. But grasping is not so easy ; or 



