An Angler's Paradise. 37 



trout for the lake, being part of a much larger number put into it 

 by the energetic lessee, G. Ward, Esq., of Bala, whose genial 

 face was visible on the platform as the train glided alongside 

 with its precious freight. 



I had breakfasted e?t route, and therefore, after seeing the 

 fish carefully transferred to the waggons that were waiting for 

 them, Mr. Ward and I drove off, to do the twelve miles that 

 intervened between us and our destination. The air was fresh 

 and balmy and still smelt of the morning, as it was wafted, by the 

 delightfully cooling breezes, round hilly corners covered with 

 enchanting foliage, and over flower-decked meads hemmed in by 

 densely wooded slopes. Between the little chats on fish and 

 kindred matters, which which we enlivened the journey, I had time 

 to look around and to enjoy the beauty and freshness of the 

 scene. The plaintive cooing of the dove ( Columba palumbus) 

 was heard as we passed through belts of woodland, and at one 

 bend of the road the harsh scream of the jay ( ' Garrulus glan- 

 darius) resounded through groves of oak and hazel, while the 

 little tits (Pants major and cceruleus) cried "ze zrrr," as they 

 hung suspended from the twigs on which they searched the buds 

 for insects. All Nature seemed alive and in her gayest garb. Even 

 the butterflies upon the flowers looked fresh and beautiful, except 

 Vanessa, fluttering round a stone heap; where she flickered her 

 bedraggled wings, that told of hybernation and the clammy chills 

 of winter, past and gone. Beneath us lay a trout stream, in 

 places almost hidden from the gaze of man by vegetation of the 

 richest kind that grows in those parts. 



Our conversation was of trout, varied with little bits of 

 'history, natural and otherwise, but like a famous member of the 

 feline race, of which I've heard in song, it would "come back" 

 again to trout, their culture and their means of capture. Thus 

 we found ourselves at length upon the mountains, where the 

 curlew called at distant intervals. W T e crossed the dashing moorland 

 stream, on which the dipper makes his home. The height we 

 have come over is upwards of 1,000 feet above the level of the 

 sea, and the descent into the valley, which we now must cross, is 

 sharp, and by a zig-zag path cut out of a hill side. 'Tis well our 

 leader is sure footed, for as it is, the traveller who is unaccustomed 



