xiv A SUBURBAN FISHERY 245 



his imagination, and to stimulate him to 

 rapid action by the sight of the impossible 

 fly's jerky attractions. 



Spotted Charlie weighs three or four 

 pounds, and is invariably polite (which is 

 why I love him) ; there, you may observe 

 how he follows the Silver Doctor just to 

 show that he is not insensible of the compli- 

 ment. A yard or two in attendance, and he 

 conceives that duty has been accomplished ; 

 then he returns to his own place with 

 dignity. He will go through the same 

 formality with any other monstrous fly you 

 like to throw at him, but at the end of it 

 all his own place will not miss him. Yet 

 it is just possible that on some warm even- 

 ing, in that brief interval between dusk and 

 dark, he might attempt to destroy the silver- 

 bodied alien that has invaded his feeding- 

 ground (for, I take it, a trout only seizes a 

 salmon fly out of ferocity), and then then 

 his position would be vacant for a smaller 

 brother. 



A few yards higher up lies Didymus, 

 another big fish. He, as his name implies, 

 is of a deeply suspicious nature, and the 

 advent of an artificial fly, great or small, is 



