68 ANGLING 



could not well be imagined. The river was fished with 

 uncommon care and assiduity; all kinds of flies were 

 tried in their turn, and every dodge which experience 

 teaches was successively resorted to, but never a fish 

 could be hooked; miles of ground were walked over, 

 but not even a solitary rise could be obtained, and the 

 fellow-craftsmen whom we met in our rambles were in 

 precisely the same predicament. The waters, in fact, 

 appeared as still and quiet as if there was not a single 

 trout in them to disturb the calm surface. Well ! in a 

 short time, out comes the explanation. The next day 

 is ushered in by a violent storm of snow and raiu ; the 

 waters rise, the floods come down, and the fish get 

 gorged with food to their hearts' content. Now, in 

 our humble opinion, for we speak with diffidence on 

 the subject, this is a striking exemplification of the 

 existence of a powerful instinct for a given end or 

 purpose. The secret influences of the atmosphere, 

 imperceptible to man, intimate to the wakeful and 

 conscious fish that an abundant supply of food is at 

 hand; and, on this account, they have no inclination 

 to forestall the copious repast which awaits them. We 

 may add to these statements, that we never saw trout 

 take freely immediately before or during powerful 

 thunderstorms. 



And we may observe in passing, that these statements 

 we have here made, grounded on our experience, as 

 well as on that of other anglers, have lately received 

 great weight in our minds from a fact connected with 

 the history of angling literature in Italy during the 

 Middle Ages. It was then the custom to have Piscatory 

 Dramas acted, and in one of these pieces we have a 

 song comparing the ordinary journey of human life to 

 the art of angling. It is clear, from the general scope 

 and bearing of the sentiment of this poetical effusion, 

 that the fact of fishermen experiencing what appeared 

 to them unaccountable disappointments in their amuse- 

 ments, must have been known and observed as a regular 

 condition of the art as then practised. We shall cite 

 these few lines, and the reader will be the better able 



