ROACH AND RUDD, 45 



and you will find that he can be even hypercritical 

 upon occasion. He will swim above it or below 

 it, he will swim round and round it, only at last 

 to be disgusted at its clumsiness, to give a 

 delicate wave of his tail, and glide gracefully 

 away. And then the roach of my acquaintance are 

 like those of an eminent Frenchman inclined to 

 controversy, indecisive in conclusions. Some- 

 times they will bite, sometimes they will not ; one 

 never knows the reason why. To catch him the 

 fisherman must have a subtle eye and a steady 

 hand. One should take all sorts of precautions, 

 for if he is curious, he is also at the same time 

 excessively suspicious, and to catch him, one 

 must use the finest possible tackle. 



The spot from which I watch my shoal of 

 roach is half buried in lush summer grass, so that 

 while I can see the fish, they cannot see me. All 

 their movements are the very poetry of motion, 

 and the shoal seem to act by some subtle, hidden 

 impulse. They occupy a deep pool in a trout- 

 stream, and as the anglers complain that they 

 destroy the ground-food of the trout for eight 

 months of the year, we have set about catching 

 them. The small fry of their kind are easily 

 taken in quantity, and to these the title of " water- 

 sheep" may be apt enough. An angler has to 

 put forth all his wiles to get round the bigger 



