LAKE AND STREAM 195 



Town house for the season. The trout in 

 lakes live in much greater privacy. It is 

 only on rare occasions, as when looking 

 from a boat into a sand-bottomed bay on 

 which a rock reflects the sunlight, that 

 you can see any of them at all ; and these 

 do not teU you much. They may be big ; 

 but they are no evidence as to the size of 

 the trout in other places. There may be 

 a good many of them ; but that gives no 

 cause for believing that fish are in equal 

 numbers all over the water. Thus, in 

 fishing on a lake, you never know what 

 your luck is to be. Any day may bring 

 you a trout so big that the basket would 

 not hold it. 



To most of those who habitually fish 

 with flies such good fortune comes but 

 rarely. On certain Irish loughs very 

 large trout do sometimes rise at flies ; but 

 that is in exceptional cases. They rise 

 when the Green Drake, an insect of the 

 Mayfly family, is abroad ; but on most 

 lakes flies of that kind are never to be 

 seen. On most lakes, therefore, the great 



