THE TALE OF THE FISHES 



baskets the fontinalis. It requires greater skill to pro- 

 voke a rise from the European stranger, for through his 

 longer association with intriguing white men he has 

 learned to distrust everything offered as food, and 

 scorns a fly clumsily dropped about his hiding place 

 or a live bait plumped into the water near his nose. 

 He is so cunning, shy and suspicious of everything un- 

 usual, that the man who lures him to his death must 

 possess extraordinary intellectual gifts and experienced 

 skill to match against his inherited instincts refined to 

 an extreme in a novel environment. And this is why 

 we not unfrequently hear of a big trout somewhere in 

 the Catskills holding his own throughout the season 

 in some deep pool where he laughs at the miscellany 

 of deceptions devised to tempt him by importunate sum- 

 mer guests. He simply knows. He is never caught 

 off guard. He is never too hungry to ignore the de- 

 natured flutter of the artifical fly, the cramped wriggle 

 of an impaled worm, or the limping sprawl of a trans- 

 fixed grass-hopper. To circumvent such a monarch is 

 a feat worthy of the most accomplished craftsman. 



This beautiful fish that looks so innocent grows 

 rapidly where food is abundant, and in the Thames 



45 



