be bigger than ever. I must catch that
fish! Surely he would bite at something. It was quite evident that his
mind was not wholly unsusceptible to emotions emanating from an
awakening appetite, and I believed that if he saw exactly what he
wanted, he would not neglect an opportunity of availing himself of it.
But what did he want? I must certainly find out. Drawing myself back
again, I took off the yellow fly, and put on another. This was a white
one, with black blotches, like a big miller moth which had fallen into
an ink-pot. It was surely a conspicuous creature, and as I crept forward
and sent it swooping over the stream, I could not see how any trout,
with a single insectivorous tooth in his head, could fail to rise to
such an occasion. But this trout did not rise. He would not even come
out from under his bank to look at the swiftly flitting creature. He
probably could see it well enough from where he was.

But I was not to be discouraged. I put on another fly; a green one with
a red tail. It did not look like any insect that I had ever seen, but I
thought that the trout might know more about such things than I. He did
come out to look at it, but probably considering it a product of that
modern aestheticism which sacrifices natural beauty to mediaeval crudeness
of color and form, he retired without evincing any disposition to
countenance this style of art.

It was evident that it would be useless to put on any other flies, for
the two I had left were a good deal bedraggled, and not nearly so
attractive as those I had used. Just before leaving the house that
morning, Peter's son had given me a wooden match-box filled with worms
for bait, which, although I did not expect to need, I put in my pocket.
As a last resort I determined to try the trout with a worm. I selected
the plumpest and most comely of the lot; I put a new hook on my line; I
looped him about it in graceful coils, and cautiously approached the
water, as before. Now a worm never attempts to wildly leap across a
flowing brook, nor does he flit in thoughtless innocence through the
sunny air, and over the bright transparent stream. If he happens to fall
into the water, he sinks to the bottom; and if he be of a kind not
subject to drowning, he generally endeavors to secrete himself under a
stone, or to burrow in the soft mud. With this knowledge of his nature I
gently dropped my worm upon the surface of the stream, and then allowed
him slowly to sink. Out