FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 313 
every urchin who has ‘ paidlit in the burn,’ where it is found 
cuddling cannily under the shady side of a stone. Elderly 
trout pursue the loach most greedily, and seem to prefer it even 
to the minnow. Ihave never known the experiment tried of 
introducing it into a trout stream, though I have known severai 
in which it was quite at home. But from the great variety of 
brooks in which it thrives, ranging from Scotland to Devon- 
shire, I think such an experiment would be well worth trying 
It would succeed, I feel assured, wherever there are plenty of 
gravelly shallows, broken by stones from the size of a fist to 
that of a brickbat. 
The ‘miller’s thumb,’ or ‘bull-head,’ has nearly the same 
habits as the loach, and is relished by trout in spite of his spiny 
shoulders, 
Again, there are certain small crustaceans, popularly known 
as ‘fresh-water shrimps’ (Cammarine, I think, is their learned 
name), which are found in fine sand in sundry streams known 
for the firmness and flavour of their trout. But of the habits 
of these queer little wrigglers I know nothing. I have merely 
a general impression that they ought to be classed among 
‘movable feasts’ for trout, with a vague hope that some 
brother angler with equal zeal and more knowledge will succeed 
in introducing them to new waters for the fattening of under- 
fed fish. 
It is well known that small shell fish form a large part of 
the diet on which fish thrive in many celebrated lakes. Loch 
Leven may be mentioned as a case in point, though the area 
of the weed beds from which its trout pick their favourite food 
has been greatly reduced. The gillaroo seems to owe his 
special excellence to the same ‘hard meat,’ and I have little 
doubt that his distinctive gizzard is merely an organ developed 
in the course of many generations to aid in the crunching of 
shell fish. But I have never seen it suggested that the trout of 
our brooks and rivers have the same taste for these rough mor- 
sels, There is, however, one genus—that of Zzmnaeus—several 
species of which might, I think, do good service in a trout 
