TROUT ANGLING. 131 



and ripple), and (jumped* out half a stone of speckled 

 t routs, where my neighbours never suspected such a 

 thing existed. 



The poet is in error when he says 



The trout within yon wimplin' burn 



Glides swift, a silver dart; 

 And safe beneath the shady thorn, 



Defies the angler's art. 



This the trout cannot do, for his clammy nose is 

 ever protruded, and clear round eye ever on the 

 alert for a fly or a worm, and well the angler knows 

 where and how to drop the line into the pool before 

 him. \Yhcn a whale is not safe in the Polar Ocean, 

 talk, forsooth, of a trout in a burn ! dear shade 

 of Burns, the poetical portion of your earthly feelings 

 might have been too fine for an angler, as well as 

 that of your grand successor Byron, or perhaps it 

 might not, for all the fascination of song. I grant 

 you, however, that even I, when a hungry laddie 

 have often enough got into these fits of extreme sen- 

 sibility, returning the small trout to the stream 



As piteous of his 3 r outh, and the short space 

 He had enjoy'd the vital light of heaven. 



And, indeed, I have often felt the full force of Byron's 



'Tofiump to capture tvouts with the h;nids, beneath the kinks 

 and stones generally done in burns ,\nd small waters. [Knu.j 



