APPROACHING THE WATER. 31 



already have seen him and bolted under the 

 weed with an appetite for surface food thoroughly 

 sated and a fright that may last an hour. 

 The angler, disgusted and disappointed, makes 

 a despairing cast at the spot and reels up his 

 line resignedly, mentally wondering how any 

 man with eyes in his head can be so wanting 

 in discernment as to suppose that the fish 

 cannot see also. 



I remember two sharp looking boys playing 

 this trick to me on the Itchen, and as they 

 looked keen and intelligent and might be about 

 the bank every day I tried to put the matter 

 clearly before them. ' Have you boys ever 

 trapped birds'? 'Yes,' they had, indeed they 

 had. * Well, if you had a sieve trap and one 

 of you staod twenty yards off with a long 

 string in your hand to pull it with, would you ' 

 looking at the other boy ' go and stand 

 right up alongside the sieve to see the birds 

 go under it ' ? ' Noo, he wouldn't, he knew 

 better than that.' * Then you may be quite 

 suiie that these trout have just as good eyes 

 as birds, and you have spoilt all my chance of 

 catching that fish this morning.' They took it 

 well and seemed decently sorry. Anyhow they 

 never resented it by stone throwing. 



It can never be waste of time to approach the 

 bank cautiously, more particularly if the rod has 

 to be put together, which may mean a quiet 

 quarter-of-an-hour very useful for observation, 

 from a point some yards back in the meadow. 

 To stand on a grassy knoll, or to sit on an 



