38 DOWN THE BECK 



and streams, and probably in the same fish in the 

 prime and end of the season. In one bickering rivulet 

 the trout will all be vigorous and bold, leaping out 

 of the water when hooked and dying hard, " game 

 to the back-bone," in sporting phrase. In a sluggish 

 brook the fish seem often to participate in its 

 idiosyncracy, the larger ones tamely surrendering 

 after a few monotonous struggles, the little trout 

 diving to the bottom, and, like tench, hiding their 

 heads in the mud. We have had to stir such fish 

 up with the landing net before it was possible to 

 do anything with them. Another curious fact is, 

 that if a fish be taken out of a favourite hole, 

 another will almost always be found to have re- 

 placed it the next day. Perhaps the most remark- 

 able theory which has been advanced concerning 

 the intelligence of trout is that of Sir H. Davy in 

 " Salmonia," which he terms their " local memory." 

 A brief outline may furnish one more subject of 

 observation to the philosophic angler. Sir H. Davy 

 asserts that if a trout be pricked with a fly (say a 

 blue upright), and then escape, he will never rise 

 again in the same pool to that particular fly while 

 the surrounding circumstances are the same. Drive 

 him, however, down to another hole, or wait till a 

 flood has changed the aspect of his familiar haunt, 

 and he will take it as greedily as a fish that has 



