Chapt. v. Mahseer loquitur. 63 



dare say they often enough take us for fools, and are 

 perhaps not far wrong in doing so. I can well under- 

 stand a sensible old Mahseer, or an .experienced, may I 

 say well informed, trout, saying to himself or to his 

 wife or friend "Look at that fool of a biped there on the 

 "bank; thinks I'm as big an ass as himself; as if I had 

 "not been watching him for the last half hour dangling 

 "that thing in the water and pulling it about insanely. 

 "I declare it is an insult to one's intelligence to think 

 "any fish could possibly be such an idiot as-to mistake 

 "a string-tied, hook-bristling, wabbling, clumsy con- 

 "trivance like" that for a live minnow. As if I didn't 

 "know* a hawk from a hernshaw. I wonder how long 

 "he's going on amusing himself in that ridiculous way." 

 From this the fish's point of view there is some sense in 

 Johnson's well known definition of an angler, "a stick 

 "and a string with a worm at one end and a fool at the 

 other" though the learned man spake it in ignorance. 



I repeat again, the fish at least is no fool. Eradicate 

 that idea. Take a new creed. Say rather he is a thinking 

 animal. I might go on multiplying examples to prove 

 it, but I should weary you. Pray do not breathe a word 

 about reason and instinct, or I shall have to begin again 

 and write a whole chapter on that well worn though in- 

 teresting subject. Do just please concede for peace' sake 



*A man might use the vulgarized version of stable-boys, "doesn't 

 "know a horse from a handsaw," but my noble friend the Mahseer knows 

 better, and alludes to hawking days, and the difficulty of knowing which 

 was uppermost when towering in the distance. 



