THE TROUT. 161 



for trout. At the best, they are not to be compared 

 with fly-fishing : — 



" The minnow in summer its monsters will kill, 

 And the worm loads the pannier, when nothing else will ; 

 But give me the spring-time, the light-dropping hackle, 

 And the masterly cast, with the finest of tackle." 



I do not wonder that the poets prefer fly-fishing to 

 worm-fishing. Says one, — 



" Around the steel no tortured worm shall twine, 

 No blood of living insect stain the line ; 

 Let me, less cruel, cast the feather'd hook 

 "With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook ; 

 Silent along the mazy margin stray, 

 And with the fur-wrought fly delude the prey." 



And another, after an invitation to fly-fishing, says, — • 



*' But let not on thy hook the tortured worm 

 Convulsive twist in agonizing folds, 

 Which by rapacious hunger swallow'd deep, 

 Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast 

 Of the weak, helpless, uncomplaining wretch, 

 Harsh pain and horror to the trembling hand." 



Their preference for fly-fishing is reasonable enough, 

 but it never seems to have struck these worthy songsters 

 that, as a matter of inhumanity, it must be as cruel to 

 impale a trout as to impale a worm. 



Thus the trout is taken by a greater variety of methods 

 and a greater variety of baits than any fish that swims. 



But not a word on " cross-fishing," or the use of salmon 

 roe. Let not these things be hardly as much as named 

 among us. 



And yet a jotting on " tickling" trout. I have read of 

 trout being tickled, heard of it from scores of persons, 



M 



