A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



difference must be infinitesimal. Still, the variety of choice, 

 if it does not specially hurt the fish, benefits the fishing-tackle 

 maker, while in the fisherman any change of fly greatly stimu- 

 lates the waning hope. 



But it is idle to dogmatise, or even to speculate, about the 

 likes and dislikes of the salmon. His growth, his digestion, 

 his spawning, his goings out and his comings in, are wrapped 

 in mystery. 



Why is it, for instance, that day after day, when the day is 

 not blank — it mostly is — that a single salmon, and a single 

 fish only, is caught ? One would have thought that, by rights, 

 the day's fishing for salmon, like a day's fishing for other fish, 

 would, in the generality, be either a blank day, or that a fair 

 number of fish would be caught, or, at least, risen. Yet the 

 single salmon is the rule, and not the exception ; though 

 scores, often hundreds, of fish will have seen the fly in the 

 course of the day. 



Is it that among so many fish covered by the fly there is 

 each day, in one pool, only one fish more active, more enter- 

 prising, more alert, keener sighted, and more intelligent ? 

 Or is he (or she) the village idiot, the slow-witted, the stupid 

 and unthinking fish ? Or is it the fish that has the least jaded 

 appetite, or whose curiosity is the most active ? 



Who can tell ? 



III.— Pike 

 As these are random thoughts on fish and fishing, and as, 

 probably, less is known about the pike than any other non- 



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