Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/148

120 what it requires in the débris that remains after the auxiliary's wants are satisfied. "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?" 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." 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