182 AN ANGLER'S SEASON 



means take from a pikeless lake in a 

 month. That is the puzzle. That is 

 what confounds what Mr. Ruskin calls 

 the imagination analytic. According to 

 natural understanding, trout of 1 Ib. or 

 so, which are old enough to be wary but 

 not too old to be tired of flies, should 

 rise most freely where pike are absent ; 

 yet, whilst there they hardly ever rise at 

 all, they rise particularly well where their 

 natural enemies are constantly on the 

 watch ! Is this an argument for planting 

 pike in waters where Nature has left 

 them out? Certainly it is not. Some 

 who thought it was have been painfully 

 undeceived. Nature knows the ideally 

 perfect relations between trout and 

 pike, and in many a place contrives 

 to maintain them from century to 

 century ; but man is not yet able to 

 make successful experiments in the 

 mysterious domain. Disaster is the out- 

 come of any attempt to improve a 

 stock of trout by introducing a pack of 

 pike. The trout disappear from the 



