JUNE. TROUT-FISHING IN THE FINDHORN. 233 



caught my eye, and 1 put it on : the moment I cast 

 this fly over the trout he came straight at it in 

 quite a different manner, taking it well into his 

 wide mouth as if at last in earnest. He was well 

 hooked, and then came the tug of war and the trial 

 of patience. The fly was literally speaking a midge, 

 made more as an experiment in fly-making than for 

 any expected use, and it was tied on the finest gut. 

 The trout, on finding that instead of catching a fly 

 he was caught himself, immediately began to try 

 every device that a trout ever imagined to get rid 

 of his tiny enemy. Now he was down at the bottom 

 rubbing his nose on the gravel ; the next moment 

 flying straight up into the air with the agility of a 

 harlequin ; sometimes with forty yards of line out, 

 and sometimes right under my feet ; then away he 

 went as if about to run over the shallow at the end 

 of the pool on his way to the sea, but changing 

 his mind, darted like an arrow up to the deepest 

 part of the pool, and there he lay like a stone at the 

 bottom. After a little waiting I pelted him out of 

 that mood, and beginning myself to grow eager and 

 desperate (moreover having now more confidence in 

 my midge, which had already passed through a 

 trial which a larger hook might not have stood 

 equally well), I turned his head down the stream, 

 and began to take the game into my own hands a 



