The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-06-15

seemed to be charged with genera atiOns of weird wisdom. They st me think ing; and, perhaps to justify disssnt from the doctrine of the elders, whose pragmatical conservatism was dis tasteful, mentally I framed proposi- tiOn Tt is wrong to catch trout that are spawning or about to spawn. All trout in that state ar in the tributa- ries. Therefore, it cannot be wrong to fish in the main stream at this time, be- cause the trout in that state are not there. H re, for the moment, the re l. soning stopped. It did not reach the colodlary that if the gi7sy caught any trout they must be trout that were not in the usual run and therefore not out of condition. Perhaps that was be- cause, as he had none in his basket and was not getting bite, may not really have believed his legend of the strange fish. Since then the sch0olboy logic has been justified as regards the brief period during which the general run of trout are away from the main streams, spawning. Towards the close of March this year caught two trout in the Fay. One weighsd one pound, three ounces; the other, three-quarters of ponud. A lady had used the land- ing net, and, of course, left the fish at her house. Next day she told me that roe had been found in Goth of them, and that she had had it kept in phial of spirits. Ro: in trout at that time of the year! I went to see. The eggs were small; but they were unmistaka- ble. If the fish had been rainbows, which spawn five or six months later than the British trout, there would have been less cause for astonishment: 1: but they were undoubtedly brown trout. The matter seemed to demand an explanation from the Field. Fear ing that if I myself made inquiry I might display ignorance, I persuaded the lady to write a letter, and to dis patch it, together with the phial, to the editor. What was the meaning of brown trout with roe in March? The authoritative answer ran: Tt is un- common, but not unknown, One theo- " is that there are trout which spawn bisnnially." We had actually, on an afternoon, caught two of the peculiar trout which years before, with the orn- niscience of old age at thirteen, I had dismissed from mind as being a gipsy superstition!
 Soon afterwards the basket began to contain trout of the ordinary kind. One day there would be a brace; the 1neXt brace and a half; one fish, or none, day or two later; and suddenly as many as the creel would hold. Re- sembling most of the processes of na- ture, the return of the trout to the quarters of spring and summer is grad uaL The fish appear in the pools as if they were ghosts of themselves, stealthily, singly, but at length the pools are alive with them, just as the woodlands are filled with the notes of the wandering cuckoo, which has come not in f1ocks but in solitude. Nature, in short, is at once individualistic and social. If we could read with complete intelligence the life of an ant-heap, or of rookery, or of trout-stream, we might have a better understanding of human commonwealths. Mankind may be wrong in assuming itself to be out side the ordinary processes of nature.
 Musings such as these, however, ars not opportune in angling. That is an employment charged with points of in terrogation more immediate.
 Why does it so often happen that all the trout caught on a single day tend to be of the same size? This question has no kinship with the well-known royal problem as to why bowl of da- ter holding living fish was not aeav- fer than a bowl of the same size con- taining the same quantity of water without a fish. 1T doubt the fact, my liege," said courier to the king. The assertion that is implicit In our own problem cannot be utterly gainsaid
 Most anglers will admit it to be rough ly right. At times, it is true, the bas- ket will have in 1t trout of all sizes characteristic of the water, or of nearly all; but at other times it will not. One day the small fish rise, and the large one staydown; another day every fish landed is large, and the small ones seem to be done. This is more noticeable on a lake than on a stream. A lake in Perthshire on which sometimes spend few days is typical case. Unless the weather is unfavorable, twenty there. One day they will be not only four to the pound, but also quarter pounders individually; another day they will be three to the pound and g third of pound each; sometimes
 though not often, all of them will be approximately half-pounders. On g great river not far from the lake the uniformity in the size of the trout
 caught is in a certain respect more striking. There are in it fish of al | weights; yet on any day only fish oi l prfactically the same weight are taken l Sometimes they are light, from a thirG of pound to a half, and then one
 usually has dozen in an afternoon sometimes they are heavy, within al I ounce or so. more or less, of one anG three-quarters pounds, and then ont has four as rule. Of the very smal trout, those of the par size, of which there must be millions in the river,
 have never caught a single specimen This, perhaps, is the most astonishing fact in the problem. What is the Sc, cret
 Any anglers whom I have heard dis I cussing the question have very sim pie view. They assume that sometimes
 only the small fish are feeding; some