TROUT FISHING. 283 



buds the trout rod is often left to lie upon 

 the rack where it has hybernated. These little 

 fishes have scarce known the luxuries of gelid 

 water, or the full flavour of aromatic riparian 

 plants ; for, despite natural history, we prefer 

 to believe, as an agreeable fancy entertained in 

 common with the elder brethren of our craft, 

 that the trout not only enjoys the scents of 

 spearmint and meadow-sweet which grow near 

 his retreats, but that, in brooks more favoured 

 than others with fringes of odorous and pun- 

 gent flora, he himself smacks of them. 



There be trouts and trouts, as well as anglers 

 and anglers. There are monsters in the Thames 

 which, when a man descries, he reports as 

 though they were whales ; and people come 

 from all parts attempting the capture, and dis- 

 pensing, as it were, with harpoons, for the sake 

 of sport. In a sporting paper a correspondent 

 waites : " Abraham Stroud tells me there is a 

 very fine trout feeding between the lock and 

 the weir." Next week there will not be a bed 

 procurable at any of the inns situated near 

 the pasture district of this " very fine trout:" 

 he will have a hard time of it. Indeed, only 



