120 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



what it requires in the debris that remains after the auxiliary's 

 wants are satisfied. u A Green Frog will with predilection rest 

 on green leaves. The advantages of concealment are obvious, 

 and in this case he * adapts himself to the surroundings by 

 making for green localities; if he did not he would be eaten up 

 sooner than his more circumspect comrades. But this making 

 for, and sitting in, the green has has not necessarily made him of 

 that colour.'' * As Dr. Reid forcibly enquires, " By what term 

 shall we designate the action of the Spider when he builds his 

 web ? Does the animal not know for what purpose he constructs 

 it ? Was there ever a web-building in which there were not 

 circumstances novel alike to the experience of the individual and 

 to that of the species ? Or, when he runs along a thread to 

 capture his prey, or cuts loose a dangerous captive, does he not 

 consciously adapt means to ends, just as much as a man who runs 

 to secure a snared bird, or who builds a ' golden bridge ' for a flying 

 enemy ? " f What angler does not know the greater difficulty in 

 filling a basket from a stream much fished, than from one little 

 visited by anglers, and how the greater skill required is not an 

 incident of fewer fish, but of the greater caution acquired by the 

 same ? The Marquess of Granby truly observes : " Of course, at the 

 date when Canon Kingsley went a-fishing, Trout were easy to catch 

 compared with what they are now, at any rate in the best known 

 English rivers." . . . . " Trout, being very much fished over," in 

 many cases from over-weed-cutting, &c, " are highly educated and 

 more difficult to kill than ever they were before." I A recent 

 writer has illustrated this fact. Mr. Basil Field, describing his 

 experience in fly-fishing, states :— " If a fly be cast in one of Mr. 

 Andrew's stock-ponds at Guildford, there is a rush and fight for 

 it among all the Trout within whose range of vision it falls. If 

 it be cast again a few minutes after a Trout has been caught and 

 returned to the water, two or three fish only will compete for it. 

 Repeat the process, and perhaps one may come, slowly, shyly, and 

 in a half-hearted manner. But when several have been taken and 

 returned— although the pond is large and crowded with fish — 

 cast the fly where you will, the Trout are shy, suspicious, and 



* Haeckel and Gadow, ' The Last Link,' pp. 125-6, 



f ' The Present Evolution of Man,' p. 138. 



t ' The Trout ' (Fur, Feather, and Fin Series), pp. 87-8. 



