CLEAR WATERS 



day while mayfly fishing. The colouring and luxuri- 

 ance of the early summer of that memorable season 

 is as unforgettable as the parching weariness of its 

 later months. And I well remember how the sunlit 

 radiancy of this procession of scudding kingfishers, 

 following the old bird, showed up against the fresh, 

 lustrous foliage of their woody background, as again 

 and again they flashed backwards and forwards. In 

 the grayling season they were still there, the whole 

 brood of them stronger on the wing perhaps, and still 

 more gorgeous of plumage. But the freshness of that 

 June foHage manthng upon the bank and quivering in 

 many coloured radiancy on the quick transparent 

 water, had vanished, and somehow the kingfishers 

 didn't look quite the same. Perhaps there was less 

 opportunity for admiring Nature. There was cer- 

 tainly less occasion for falling back upon her consola- 

 tions, for the grayling kept us materially contented 

 and very busy, whereas the trout that year had sup- 

 plied us with long interludes for reflection as well as 

 many periods of exasperation. We amused ourselves 

 betimes, too, in watching through strong binoculars 

 the demeanour of the fish we could not catch. The 

 dry-fly purist, I have no doubt, spends much time at 

 this, and extracts from it many precious truths. I 

 found it most fascinating, not merely from the in- 

 timacy on which it placed one with the elusive object 

 of our quest, but for the beauty of the gHding water 

 thus magnified and illumined by the sun's rays. I got 

 no nearer catching the fish, however. On the contrary, 

 the amount of food, winged and wingless, which 

 passed by unnoticed, as revealed through a strong glass, 

 i66 



