ARTIFICIAL FLIES. 119 



often as voracious as the pike he scours the streams 

 and margins of rivers in search of substantial bottom 

 food, when he will chace minnows until they fly out of 

 the water, and runs at any sizeable living thing that 

 comes in his way. His dart and his grab is like the 

 cat with the mouse, when his prey rarely escapes, or 

 him the baited hook ; although daring, he is very cun- 

 ning and acute in seeing and avoiding danger. In colored 

 or clearing waters he will oft run great risks, when it 

 is evident he is aware of danger. He will cut away 

 the tail-end of your minnow or strip it off the tackle, 

 and adroitly avoid the hooks ; or if struck his desperate 

 blast to dislodge them oft sends the minnow several 

 inches up the gut, and his game and struggles are 

 those of the salmon tribes. He will feint and gambol 

 with your fly or bait, and dash it with his tail ; but the 

 artful dodger has been stayed by the tenacious hook in 

 his slippery side. After rapacious nights he grounds 

 himself alone in his haunts by the side of a stone un- 

 til roused on his fins again by the flutter of the 

 new hatched flies above his head. He then takes no 

 notice of the minnows, or the minnows of him, save 

 giving him way as he moves, like other inferiors. When 

 the fly he selects comes in good plenty he refuses all 

 others, until he is satisfied or the supplies cease. Such 

 is the trout the most beautiful, cunning, and coura- 

 geous of all the finny tenantry of the streams the lead- 

 ing customer of the small flyfisher, with which he has 

 to deal in open day, and mostly in clear water; and for 

 which he must assimulate his wares to such as are 

 issuing on the market from nature's storehouses, and 

 arc in immediate request. 



