BROOK TROUT 



fish. The wannanish, or ouananiche, of the Grande 

 Descharge of Lake St. John, Quebec, a kindred con- 

 gener of the trout, is the most striking example of this 

 quality. In this tempestuous water large rocks lie 

 hither and yon and close together and the boiling cur- 

 rent dashes in volume and foam through and over 

 them at times at least fifty feet at race-horse speed. 

 In such a habitat the wannanish is at home, and in 

 keeping with the character of it shows game quali- 

 ties beyond those of any other member of the salmon 

 family. 



The environment of a mountain trout-stream is ele- 

 vating to the nature and mood of anyone who reposes 

 on the banks of the brook or wanders along its shores, 

 yet we have been told that fishing is a lazy man's 

 idling, and the saying has become somewhat of an 

 axiom with those who do not angle or value a knowl- 

 edge of the natural history of the water fauna of the 

 country. Fascinating as this study is, as it is taught 

 in books, it becomes doubly so when associated with 

 an angler's life on the stream, where the phases of ani- 

 mated nature are ceaselessly changing and with every 

 change unfolding a new delight. It is not an idle hour 

 to study the self-containment and posing of a patri- 

 archal trout, in his knot-rooted home-pool, or the wild 

 enjoyment of the giddy troutlets, just out of school, as 

 it were, who seem to be playing a game of shuttles 

 with their tails as battle-doors among the fluttering and 

 falling insects of the stream ; to watch the frightened 



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