90 MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS 



I have cut out six small trouts, pars, or smolts, averag- 

 ing five inches long : the one first swallowed digested 

 nearly to the bones, the last, whole and entire, still 

 stuck in the gullet for lack of capacity in the stomach 

 equal to the voracity of its nature. This trout took my 

 imitation fly, over and above this gorged bellyful, 

 by which it was caught. 



The trout is not the capricious creature he has 

 so often been represented to be ; every motion and 

 appetite of his being as exact to taste as that of any 

 creature, bird or beast, that we wot of. There is not 

 a mistake in the constitution of his nature and habits; 

 all things seemingly so arise from our own miscon- 

 ceptions, through ignorance of his true characteris- 

 tics ; and be it also particularly remarked, that water- 

 flies arise from their grub state on the bottom not 

 at all according to months and terms, but agreeably 

 with the state of weather. Any, and all of these 

 kinds of flies, the spring and early summer kinds 

 particularly, may be three weeks, or even six, later 

 in one season than another ; and the trouts are not 

 waiting for these flies coming to the surface, as they 

 are always, summer and winter, helping themselves 

 to them in the grub state, and to any particular 

 kind of them, agreeably to their seasonable tastes, 

 and following them to the surface as they arise, 



