io6 ANGLING 



his haunt under the stump. Losing no time, Mr. Hopper 

 again spun the minnow past the trout's home, and he again 

 rushed out, and, this time seizing the minnow savagely, paid 

 the penalty for his temerity by being safely landed on the bank 

 and deposited, after a tap on the head, in Mr. Hopper's creel. 

 Will any one, after this episode, aver that that particular trout 

 experienced such a sensation of pain as to intimidate him from 

 again rushing on to his fate ? They may say that Mr. Hopper 

 was an awful duffer not to catch him the first time, but that is 

 beside the question under discussion. Yet another instance. 

 This year, when fishing on the Trent with a well-known angler 

 called Billyboy, Mr. Hopper landed a barbel of 4ilbs weight in 

 whose jaw was a hook which Mr. Hopper, only the day 

 previous, had given to Billyboy, and to which hook was 

 attached 16 or 18 inches of gut tackle. Billyboy had been 

 broken several times in succession by barbel, and it was under 

 the circumstances of such breakages that Mr. Hopper handed 

 over to Billyboy the aforesaid hook with a strong gut trace 

 attached of about 18 inches. Mr. Hopper naturally thought 

 that Billyboy would attach such trace to his line, but instead of 

 doing so he fixed it on the remainder of his own brittle gut trace, 

 which had already on at least four occasions proved too weak. 

 The result was, of course, another smash, but not in Mr. 

 Hopper's length of gut. Now if this barbel had been so pained 

 by the hook which had been firmly fixed in his jaw for about 

 24 hours, with a hanging appendage of nearly a foot-and-a-half 

 of gut constantly to remind him of the unusual incumbrance in 

 his mouth, is it reasonable to suppose that he would have 

 taken a precisely similar bait to that which the previous day 

 had concealed something he had not bargained for? Some 

 people will probably say, " Oh ! poor beggar ! he must have 

 his supper." But if he was in great pain Mr. Hopper thinks 

 he would not feel strongly inclined that way. A poet once 

 wrote 



The poor beetle which we tread upon. 

 In corporal suffrance feels a pang 

 As great as when a giant dies. 



But that is a tale that won't wash with Mr. Hopper, whose 

 opinion is that fish when hooked bolt away because they feel 

 intensely indignant at having their liberty so unceremoniously 

 interfered with. So much for the sense of feeling in fish. 



