66 A SCOTTISH FLY-FISHER 



Had he waited but twenty-four hours longer he would 

 have learned that the loch was not quite empty, 

 and the siofht of the mag^nificent basket of fish which 

 had succumbed to the flies so repugnant to their tastes 

 might possibly — a remote possibility — have convinced 

 him that, like the people down in Judee, he did not 

 know everything. 



I have heard an angler express surprise that the 

 Coch-y-Bondhu should be taken by the trout in Scottish 

 waters, and, conversely, that a fly successful in Scotland 

 should be equally acceptable in Wales. Why should he 

 have been surprised ? Surely it would be astonishing 

 were it otherwise. The trout in the two countries are 

 of the same species ; they possess the same instincts, 

 the same desires, the same appetites, and with, perhaps, 

 some trifling variations in detail, subsist on 

 the same fare. These variations are not 

 due to any innate distinction between the 

 fish ; they are the result of local conditions. 

 They are not determined by the choice of 

 trout ; they are imposed on him from with- 

 out. In his diet he is necessarily restricted 

 to insects bred in his neighbourhood, but he 

 is unlikely to refuse a member of a foreign species, 

 even if he be capable of recognising it as foreign, 



