Natural history -- Outdoor books; Nature; Nature study; Paris (France) -- Description and travel
walks like this naturally, and he will come in and tell you that he has
seen a fish basking, a partridge, a hare, or what not, when another
never gets near anything. This is where they have not been much
disturbed by loafers, who are worse than poachers.
As a rule, poachers are intermittent in their action, and they do not
want to disturb the game, as it makes it wild and interferes with their
profits. Loafers are not intermittent--they are always about, often in
gangs, and destroy others' sports without having any themselves. Near
large towns there are places where the fish have to be protected with
hurdles thrown across the stream on poles, that the stones and
brickbats hurled by every rascal passing may not make their very life a
burden. A rural poacher is infinitely preferable. The difference in the
ways of fish when they have been much disturbed and when they have been
let alone is at at once discerned. No sooner do you approach a fish who
has been much annoyed and driven than he strikes, and a quick-rotating
curl on the surface shows with what vehemence his tail was forced
against it. In other places, if a fish perceives you, he gives himself
so slight a propulsion that the curl hardly rises, and you can see him
gliding slowly into the deeper or overshadowed water. If in terror he
would go so quickly as to be almost invisible. In places where the fish
have been much disturbed the poacher, or any one who desires to watch
their habits, has to move as slowly as the hands of a clock, and even
then they will scarcely bear the very sight of a man, sometimes not at
all. The least briskness of movement would send them into the depths
out of sight. Cattle, to whom they are accustomed, walk slowly, and so
do horses left to themselves in the meads by water. The slowest man
walking past has quicker, perhaps because shorter, movements than those
of cattle and horses, so that, even when bushes intervene and conceal
his form, his very ways often proclaim him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account