ARE TROUT CUNNING? 133 



perience of the sportsman to suggest, it is 

 clear that adversity does not teach them, 

 and that the wariness with which they are 

 credited is an illusion. 



Beyond a doubt, it is. Reasoning will 

 assure us so. Some streams yield less 

 good baskets than they yielded in days 

 gone by ; but, if the subject is carefully 

 looked into, it will be discovered that the 

 falling -off may be explained as referable 

 to a thinning- out in the stock of fish. 

 Anglers increase in number year by year. 

 It is not surprising that on waters which 

 are said to have yielded three dozen trout 

 in a day fifty years ago three or four 

 brace in a day are now considered a fair 

 basket. This is particularly applicable to 

 Scotland, where there are many streams 

 open to the public. The anglers now are 

 at least ten times as many as they were in 

 the days of their grandfathers ; the " free 

 waters" are never re -stocked, or hardly 

 ever ; it is only in the nature of things 

 that as the sportsmen have been gradu- 

 ally multiplying the head of fish has 



