SUMMER. Sr 



thing else, in the afternoon, to wake him from his sleep, 

 and send him fluttering over the stream ; while overhead 

 the black drake, who has changed his skin and reproduced 

 his species, dances in the sunshine, empty, hard, and happy, 

 like Festus Bailey's great black crow, who 



' All his life sings ho ! ho ! ho ! 

 For no one will eat him he well doth know.' " 



The peculiarities of May-fly fishing are so well known, 

 that there would be no excuse for pausing longer upon the 

 subject. Bungling indeed must be the angler who cannot 

 during this space of ten or twelve days catch fish, and the 

 barefacedness with which, under favourable circumstances, 

 the trick is done, rather leads one to regret that on any 

 English stream the custom still prevails of fishing for trout 

 with a living instead of artificial May-fly. The angler 

 who cannot score with one of the perfect imitations now 

 turned out, ought not to have a second chance. 



It is different in the celebrated lakes of West Meath, 

 where the big fish are not readily taken by the artificial 

 fly, and where it has been an immemorial custom to use 

 the impaled live insect with the blow line. Upon these 

 lakes, for which Mullingar, some forty miles from Dublin, 

 might be made convenient headquarters, the green drake 

 comes up in myriads. The brown trout which the waters 

 contain are in takeable condition as early as March, 

 and are to be enticed with some of the common artificial 

 flies used in the spring months. The most knowing fisher- 

 men in the drake season use two hooks tied back to back, 

 and two flies so arranged that the head of one shall lie 

 next to the tail of the other. The surface of the lakes, 

 amongst which I may mention Ennel, or Belvidere, Owel, 

 and Lough Ree (through which the Shannon runs), is 

 agitated all over with the rising of fish that are seldom 



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