SOME TINY WATERS 21 



old thrill of excitement. " There must be a trout 

 here. If I can only dodge that bramble and get 

 the worm under the root. . . ." The mental 

 process will be the same if one lives to be a hundred 

 and is still capable of angling then. 



I have, of course, often wished that these odd 

 neglected little brooks had been rather better sup- 

 plied with fish, and yet I am not sure that their very 

 poverty is not part of their attraction. If one could 

 be sure of pulling a half-pounder out of every pool 

 the pursuit would, perhaps, lose some of its zest. 

 But when thirty pools yield no more tlian three 

 bites or other signs of fish, a trout becomes an event. 

 " I got two trout from tlie brook on Tuesday," you 

 will say in a tone of studious modesty, and the other 

 fellow will return a " Did you, though ? " which is 

 more than a little gratifying. 



This is not the best conceivable state of such a 

 brook, of course, and if I had the opportunity of 

 dealing with one freely I should make an earnest 

 endeavour to improve it and make it into a fly-water 

 of an amusing, if insignificant, kind. Very much 

 could be done in this way by introducing suitable 

 weeds — a property in which many such streams are 

 lacking — cutting bushes and boughs, though not 

 too lavishly, and clearing the pools of some of their 

 rushes and other useless encumbrnnces. Here and 

 there small dams would be useful, here and there a 



