282 TROUT FISHING. 



countenance in death wears still an expression 

 of fright ; the turbot is simply an expanse of 

 white meat, suggestive of no antecedent his- 

 tory ; the gurnard is as ugly as a mythological 

 dolphin ; the mackerel and the red mullet have 

 already lost their claims to a certain gaudy 

 attractiveness by exposure to the air. But be- 

 hold the salmon, and his cousin-german, the 

 trout ! The one glitters in a noble silver coat 

 and lies in state like a king as he is ; the other 

 in a russet mantle studded with rubies, or ex- 

 hibiting an underwaistcoat of an Ophir hue, is in 

 every respect worthy his distinguished relative. 

 And the honest angler studies him with an 

 eye, let us hope, that brings with it the power 

 of seeing beyond the limits of the fishmonger's 

 stall. That three-pounder has certainly come 

 from a lake. That bouquet of troutuli if the 

 word may be coined surely they have been not 

 long since sportive neighbours in a frolicsome 

 beck, in a giddy brawling burn. They are all, 

 you are afraid, the victims of the net. Until 

 very recently they were protected from the 

 angler by the floods and the frost; for until 

 the time of the cuckoo and the hawthorn 



