136 TROUT FISHING 



which he has given fair trial, for not less 

 than the customary number of holidays, 

 that this season his sport has been less 

 good than usual ? Then, if it has been as 

 good as usual even on a single day, is 

 that not clear proof that it may yet be 

 as good as ever on many days ? Had 

 the trout really become as wary as many 

 of us suppose, they would not rise as 

 freely as of yore even for a single day. 



It may be said. If the trout have 

 learned nothing by experience, and, as the 

 poacher with his otter seems to show, 

 cannot discover the ruse which lies in a 

 fly of steel and fur and feather, why do 

 not they always rise readily at our lures ? 



Some of the reasons have been in- 

 dicated in earher chapters. They resolve 

 themselves into the knowledge that there 

 are conditions of the weather in which 

 sport is dull, and that the conditions, or 

 some of them, are very common. The 

 trout are not intelligently capricious. 

 Only, they are as sensitive to the atmo- 

 spherical conditions as the barometer it- 



