TROUT AND TBOUTING IN SPAIN. 



175 



rocks, which stud the arcana of the depths. But it fell to 

 our lot to demonstrate to our worthy friends that this 

 theory was untenable. With a light twelve-foot bamboo, 

 and on gut finer far than ever entered a Spanish angler's 

 dream (though it all comes from Catalonia), we had the 

 satisfaction of raising, playing, and landing sundry creels- 

 full of shapely fish that exceeded, both as to numbers and 

 weight, the best local performances in manifold propor- 

 tion. Do not, kind reader, attribute egotistic motives for 

 this statement. No great measure of skill was required to 

 treble or quadruple the natives' takes ; and any angler 



will say at once that such was just the result that might 

 have been expected. While we write, comes a letter from 

 that out-of-the-world spot, asking for a supply of our 

 English gut and flies. 



In Portugal also — save on the monotonous levels of the 

 Alemtejo and Algarve— the trout exists in nearly all suit- 

 able localities — that is, they are confined to the streams of 

 the hill-country of the north. Years ago, on the virgin 

 rivers of the Entre-])ouro-e-Minho, our friend Mr. J. L. 

 Teage enjoyed good sport with trout and gillaroo. It was 

 indeed, to some extent, the success of his mosca encantada 

 that helped to arouse the slumbering utilitarian greed of 



