ARE TROUT CUNNING? 135 



and the past seems, in one half of it, a 

 succession of winters when the sound of 

 skates and curUng-stones was continuous 

 in the resonant air, while the heavily- 

 laden postman was always knee-deep in 

 Christmas snows, and, in the other half, a 

 succession of summers so glorious that 

 only the thought of partridges and 

 pheasants and grouse and red-deer when 

 the russet leaves should begin to fall, and 

 of the fox hunt when the trees were bare, 

 reconciled us to the passing of the sun- 

 shine. In these things memory knows no 

 breach of continuity. 



It plays us the same trick as regards 

 sport on the streams and lakes. All the 

 good days of ten years ago are vividly 

 remembered, and all the poor ones are 

 forgotten. In the present it is the poor 

 days that are conspicuous : the good ones 

 will not reach their ultimate grandeur 

 until another ten years have elapsed, and 

 then they will appear to us as a season 

 of unbroken brilliance. Can any one 

 honestly say of a well-preserved water 



