STRAY NOTES ON THE GAME-FISH 67 



insects are gobbled up in millions. The patient gulls 

 ■ — disappointed yesterday — now poise and sweep and 

 scream on every side, picking up two score to the 

 minute. Sand-martins work in shoals, passing, a dozen 

 at a time beneath one's rod, and never miss their 

 aim, flicking the surface with flying breast as each 

 victim is snapped off the stream. Wagtails (pied and 

 grey) are there, taking toll ; even the titlark and the 

 chaffinch dart out from the fringing alders and pick off 

 those floating luxuries with wholly unwonted dexterity. 

 The shy mallard forgets for a moment his deep-rooted 

 fears, and joins the feast. The air is flecked with 

 darting, poising, screaming forms, all working at top- 

 most pressure ; for all know how transient the oppor- 

 tunity may be. 



But what of the trout all this time? Hitherto, not one 

 has moved, and the "hatch" has been going on for five 

 minutes. Yes, there goes one at last — a dashing rise that 

 means business, with the glint of a golden side exposed. 

 A second follows, then another. Then, in a moment, the 

 whole water boils with rising trout. The fish have lost — 

 or wasted — or ignored (one cannot tell which) a full five 

 minutes, sometimes ten, of that precious opportunity. 

 They try to make up for that now. During ten minutes, 

 or twenty, this scene continues ; birds above, trout below, 

 gorge down the luckless ephemerae. Then, in one 

 moment, suddenly as they began, the trout, with one 

 accord, cease all at once. The fly still drifts down in 

 undiminished multitude ; yet not a rise now breaks the 

 surface. It ceased as by word of command. Are they 

 gorged ? All gorged, and at precisely the same moment ? 

 Who can say ? 



Presently you see a change — there are fewer fly — now 



