106 AN ANGLER'S SEASON 



sport; that the flies they take are very 

 large ; and that their proneness towards 

 such lures is attributable to their taste 

 having been vitiated by the rich and 

 rather gross artificial feeding of their 

 youth and adolescence. A very brief 

 reflection sufficed to show that these 

 tidings cast no light upon the problem. 

 It is easy to believe that trout brought 

 up on horse-flesh or liver may come to 

 have a perverted appetite and false 

 instincts, and it is known that in some 

 cases fish reared in hatcheries are a good 

 long time in stream or lake before they 

 revert to the ways of wild trout ; but what 

 has that to do with a matter such as Loch 

 Derculich ? Derculich has no sophistica- 

 tion about it. Lying in mountainous 

 land far up towards Faragon, it is at least 

 a thousand feet above the sea. No man 

 has ever, so far as is known, put into it 

 an alien trout. Only a few men, indeed, 

 have ever seen the beautiful and splendid 

 water, which is far away from any public 

 path. In short, Derculich, like Rannoch, 



