ON RAPID STREAMS. 27 



seen running off in a contrary direction ; should 

 however the big one not take it, and at the same 

 time the lesser ones be not too much frightened, 

 some of them will rush away at the minnow and 

 try to eat a body often half as big as themselves. 

 The rapacity of the trout is truly astounding ; 

 often a trout's gullet and stomach will contain a 

 fish one-fourth or one-sixth as large as his whole 

 body, and in large streams, where the trout preys 

 much on his smaller brethren, we may conceive 

 this gorging tendency a further reason for their 

 being less constantly on the feed, than those trout 

 are which we are more directly attending to. I 

 have often caught a trout with the fly, whose gullet 

 has contained a fish large enough apparently to 

 satisfy his hunger for a whole day, and yet he 

 could not resist the temptation my artificial fly 

 afforded him. If their labour is constant, their 

 digestion is very rapid, and the whole amount 

 of food a trout would consume in a day, if it 

 could obtain it, would be something enormous. 

 I should much like to have an opportunity of 

 making an experiment as to the amount of daily 

 consumption by trout ; a general idea of the 

 extent or amount of their eating may be formed, 

 by opening the stomachs of trout feeding greedily 

 on flies, at such times as they are most abundant 

 on the water, when though every stomach seems 

 distended with food, yet all are busily engaged in 

 eating flies as fast as they can. Sometimes if we 

 watch a number of trout on the feed and where 

 food abounds, we may see that one will refuse 



