APPENDIX. 233 



Large quantities of both are often found in the stomachs 

 of the trout when taken. Here sport with the fly is gener- 

 ally good, because the lake is shallow and clear, and the 

 fish see the fly well. In other lakes again, where these 

 species of weeds, which form the harbor and subsistence 

 of these insects, are wanting, it will usually be found that 

 the trout are small, or, if large, ill-fed and meagre. I 

 know also a small lake in Wales, where the fish never take 

 a fly until after dark, when fish from two to three pounds' 

 weight (an unusual size for Wales) may be taken. This 

 lake abounds in leeches, and the trout are very fine in it. 

 A quarter of a mile oflf is a similar lake, in which trout do 

 not thrive at all, and, indeed, are seldom found; while 

 about a mile from it are one or two small lakes, in which 

 the trout do not average three ounces. And yet the char- 

 acter of the lakes, and the soil in and about all of them, 

 are apparently precisely similar. 



" Yet one more instance I must select, to show the 

 changeable and contrary habits of fish. In a large mill- 

 pool, belonging to a friend at Alton, are some wonderfully 

 fine trout, the trout running from two to twelve pounds. 

 To take trout of five and six pounds with the fly, and to 

 hook them of even larger size, is not at all uncommon. 

 Last season (the summer of '64) I took four fish in two 

 evenings, which together weighed close upon seventeen 

 pounds, and magnificent fish they were. Yet the fish in 

 the stream that feeds the pool seldom get beyond two 

 pounds, or thereabouts, in weight; of course there is a 

 great deal of food in the pool, mainly consisting of water- 

 snails and stioklebacks. Some years the fish run very 

 freely at the minnow, and do not notice the fly much, but 

 in other years the minnow is at a discount, and the fly at a 

 premium. I have never seen any very large flies in the 

 pool, yet the flies the fish take are usually large palmers — 



