a visitor from the neighbouring river; but we all concluded
at the time, from the extreme dinginess of its coat, that it had lived
for years in its dark pool, a hermit apart from its fellows. I am not
now, however, altogether certain that the inference was a sound one.
Some fishes, like some men, have a wonderful ability of assuming the
colours that best suit their interests for the time. I have been unable
to determine whether the trout be one of these conformists; but it used
to strike me at this period as at least curious, that the fishes in even
the lower reaches of the dark little rivulet should differ so entirely
in hue from those of the greatly clearer Conon, into which its peaty
waters fall, and whose scaly denizens are of silvery brightness. No fish
seems to possess a more complete power over its dingy coat than a very
abundant one in the estuary of the Conon--the common flounder. Standing
on the bank, I have startled these creatures from off the patch of
bottom on which they lay--visible to only a very sharp eye--by pitching
a very small pebble right over them. Was the patch a pale one--for a
minute or so they carried its pale colour along with them into some
darker tract, where they remained distinctly visible from the contrast,
until, gradually acquiring the deeper hue, they again became
inconspicuous. But if startled back to the same pale patch from which
they had set out, I have then seen them visible for a minute or so, from
their over-dark tint, until, gradually losing it in turn, they paled
down, as at first, to the colour of the lighter ground. An old
Highlander, whose suit of tartan conformed to the general hue of the
heather, was invisible at a little distance, when traversing a moor, but
came full into view in crossing a green field or meadow: the suit given
by nature to the flounder, tinted apparently on the same principle of
concealment, exhibits a degree of adaptation to its varying
circumstances, which the tartan wanted. And it is certainly curious
enough to find, in one of our commonest fishes, a property which used to
be regarded as one of the standing marvels of the zoology of those
remote countries of which the chameleon is a native.

The pond in the piece of planting, though as unsightly a little patch of
water as might be, was, I found, a greatly richer study than the dark
rivulet. Mean and small as it was--not larger in area inside its fringe
of rushes than a fashionable drawing-room--its