SECOND DAY!] PRICKED TROUT. 27 



With respect to the fly, as it usually touches the 

 stream by a very small surface, that of the air-bubbles 

 on the fringes on its legs, it can scarcely affect the 

 water so as to give it any power of communicating 

 smell. And as you have seen, a ripple or motion on 

 the water is necessary to deceive fishes ; and as they 

 look at the fly from below, they see distinctly only 

 the legs and body, which, when the colours are like 

 those of the natural fly, may easily deceive them; 

 the wings, which are the worst imitated parts of the 

 artificial fly, seldom appear to them, except through 

 the different refractive power of the moving water 

 and the atmosphere, and when immersed, they form 

 masses not unlike the wings of a drowned fly, or one 

 wetted in rising.* 



***** 



It is now a quarter of an hour since we left the 

 large pool: let us return to it; I see the fish are 

 again rising. 



* [In confirmation of the above view, an anecdote may be given 

 illustrating the discriminating power of the trout, communicated in 

 conversation by the excellent author of " The British Fishes." 

 In the neighbourhood of Gravesend, in a cottage-garden, some Trouts 

 have been kept, which have become almost tame and of large size, 

 which visitors are in the habit of feeding for amusement. Frogs 

 which Mr. Yarrell had thrown in, for want of other food to give 

 them, they seized instantly, and swallowed unhesitatingly, but not 

 so, a toad ; when it was thrown in, they dashed towards it, but retreated 

 before touching it, leaving it afterwards free and unmolested, as if aware 

 of its " sweltered venom." J. D. ] 



