JUNE 131 



LI 



This is the month of all the year which Christopher 

 North, not without good reason, preferred above all 

 others for trout-fishing in Scottish lochs. Loc n Trout- 

 Dry-fly adepts hesitate to recognise the most FiB&ias 

 successful lake-fisher as an artist, and there is some 

 reason for their superciliousness. For the fact is, that 

 whereas a bungler may catch fish by casting flies at 

 random from a boat, he must be purged of his bungling 

 before scoring a single capture in a chalk-stream, and 

 have ascended many degrees towards excellence before 

 he can number his victims by brace. Nevertheless, the 

 bungler, bungle he never so diligently, will find that 

 the trout in most Scottish lochs are no longer the 

 ravenous dupes that once they were. They take a lot 

 of catching, though exacting consideration of a different 

 kind from that required on the Test or Itchen. 



The angler passing from the banks of a southern 

 stream to the shores of a Scottish loch meets with fish 

 of identically the same species as he has left behind 

 him; but how different is their behaviour! Compare 

 the hurried, splashing, hit-or-miss rise of a Highland 

 trout with the leisurely approach, suspicious scrutiny, 

 and noiseless ' sip ' of his relative in Hampshire. After 

 all, there is a reason for this ; though it did not occur 

 to me till after several days' salmon fishing in a lake 

 led me to reflect on the different behaviour in taking 

 the fly pursued by the salmon in the lake, compared 

 with that of the same fish in the river running out of 



