SECOND DAY.] TROUT DESCRIBED. 31 



for weeks together ; but his memory may have been 

 kept awake by this practice, and the recollection seems 

 local and associated with surrounding objects ; and if 

 a pricked trout is chased into another pool, he will, I 

 believe, soon again take the artificial fly. Or if the 

 objects around him are changed, as in Autumn, by 

 the decay of weeds, or by their being cut, the same 

 thing happens; and a flood, or a rough wind, I 

 believe, assists the fly-fisher, not merely by obscuring the 

 vision of the fish, but, in a river much fished, by 

 changing the appearance of their haunts : large trouts 

 almost always occupy particular stations, under, or 

 close to, a large stone or tree; and, probably, most 

 of their recollected sensations are connected with this 

 dwelling. 



PHYS. I think I understand you, that the memory 

 of the danger and pain does not last long, unless 

 there is a permanent sensation with which it can 

 remain associated, such as the station of the trout ; 

 and that the recollection of the mere form of the 

 artificial fly, without this association, is evanescent. 



ORN. You are diving into metaphysics; yet I 

 think, in fowling, I have observed that the memory 

 of birds is local. A woodcock, that has been much 

 shot at and scared in a particular wood, runs to the 

 side where he has usually escaped, the moment he 

 hears the dogs ; but if driven into a new wood, he 



