ON RAPID STREAMS. 15 



early ideas of the means we possess, the more 

 ample in practice shall we find our resources and 

 the fewer will be the days known to us so often 

 alluded to by others when the fish will not sport, 

 an idle excuse, begotten of ignorance and adopted 

 to conceal the cause of want of success, which 

 more candidly and truthfully had better have been 

 at once confessed to be owing to want of skill ; 

 blame should have been admitted by the fisher- 

 man as due to himself, and not cast so absurdly 

 on the fish, but we well know how loath we all 

 are to confess our own ignorance and bear the 

 taunts of others, and how fond we are of finding 

 excuses to save our own reputation. We shall in 

 course recur to the detail of various modes of 

 fishing; in the mean while let us briefly take a 

 glimpse of the trout himself. 



Any one who has observed a trout in the midst 

 of a rapid, well knows that he is constantly ply- 

 ing his fins to maintain his position against the 

 force of the falling water, and that if he did not 

 do so he must as any other inert object obey the 

 force of the water and partake in its rapidity of 

 course. The exertion the fish has to undergo to 

 maintain his position will be proportionally great 

 as the force of the stream acting against him ; 

 the greater the fall of water and force there- 

 by acquired, the greater power or muscular ex- 

 ertion must the fish perform to maintain his 

 position ; again as the fish has constantly almost 

 to be darting across or even swim directly up or 

 against the opposing current to secure his food, it 



