FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 305 
‘scenes sung by him who sings no more.’ On this moorland a 
large pool was formed, of perhaps thirty-five acres, its forma- 
tion aided by the course of the burn. The moss-hags which 
had quaked along the winding banks of the streamlet were 
scooped away till the gravel below was reached, and the peaty 
soil was used to form a raised barrier round the extensive 
hollow, so as to deepen the waters still further. About five 
years after this artificial lake had been formed and stocked 
from the bit burnie that fed it, I had the permission of the 
owner, George Witham, Esq.—a name then well known in the 
scientific world, but my tale is some forty years old—to try the 
fly one summer’s evening on its waters. I was very fortunate, 
either in my day or my choice of flies, or both; for though 
I had been told that the fish could rarely be coaxed to rise, 
I killed in a short evening’s fishing, with my Scotch lake flies, 
eleven trout, of which the smallest weighed above a pound, the 
largest two and three-quarters. 
I made a yet heavier basket ina rough afternoon the following 
year. Finer fish I have rarely seen, small-headed, hog-backed, 
and strong on the line. They took the fly in the grandest 
style ; showing snout, back fin and tail, and coming dowz on 
their prey with such certainty that I missed but one fish in 
each day. The water, as well as parts of the bottom, being 
darkish, and the depth considerable, their outside hue was 
clouded gold rather than silver, but they cut as red as trout of 
the Thames. 
I knowasimilar instance ina deep reservoir on the Brown Clee 
Hill, fed by a petty brooklet. The fish in the pool are Patagonians, 
and not more large than good—those of the brook of the small 
dimensions suited to theirresidence. Thus there is but one step 
between the two questions of breeding and feeding. A well-fed 
trout will, generally speaking, be a good trout, and a large 
range of water will supply its inhabitants with at least a respect- 
able dietary. In this way mills do the angler good service; the 
fish in the mill dam have, so to say, a larger pasture, and mostly 
weigh heavier than those in the shallow reaches of the Thames. 
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