AND HOW TO CATCH THEM. 69 



a piscatorial point of view considerably enriched, by 

 this peculiarity of theirs. I was fly fishing in one of 

 those charming little trout streams which, rising on 

 the Cornish moors, fed by clear bright springs flowing 

 so abundantly from amongst the old grey mist-capped 

 Tors, flashing, rippling, and brawling through a brief 

 existence, and then, like another grain of sand to the 

 desert, taken up and whirled away amongst the grand 

 white-crested waves, as they come thundering in on 

 the Cornish coast. The day was bright, the water 

 clear, and not a rise broke the surface of the pools. 

 Trout were not to be inveigled, that was quite out of 

 the question, much before evening ; so I sat myself on 

 the parapet of the bridge, and watched the movements 

 of a particularly dusty young miller, who, pocket- 

 knife in hand, was, with the dexterity peculiar to 

 Cornish men and women, cleaning a large pail of 

 pilchards, throwing the offal into the pool at his feet. 

 My attention was very rapidly transferred from the 

 active miller to the no less active eels, which were 

 flocking from all quarters in the highest possible state 

 of wriggle and eagerness. Small pieces of the offal 

 on a fly hook denuded of feathers, and dropped directly 

 before their noses at the end of my casting line, 

 proved highly destructive, and a heavy basket of eels, 

 topped up with some trout taken in the evening, was 

 the result. 



Perhaps one of the most successful modes of catch- 

 ing eels in tidal rivers is by clotting, which is thug 



