SALMON ANGLING IX IRELAND. i} 



"De Visiles' Stream," and the ^BuU Sod;" on the north, Ex Hole, 

 the Island, and De Visnes. All these are close to each other, and 

 within three minutes' walk of the town. There are also good 

 pools for a mile below ; whilst between the bridge and the weirs, 

 some weeks later, are three or four casts scarcely second to any on 

 the Blackwater. Besides salmon, this river contains many inhabitants 

 of a lower grade in fish society some of them, indeed, being ex- 

 ceedingly low and vulgar. There are white trout, pike, perch, eels, 

 gudgeon, brown trout, and flounders ; and still one fish, '* the Arab 

 of the water," remains to be mentioned. There is little, of course, 

 to be said in his praise, as he is carrion of the highest order; how- 

 ever, he will ent^r the estuary, whether we like him or not, in June 

 and July, to spawn, but does not ascend much beyond the extreme 

 tidal limit; he differs widely from the true alausa of the Severn, 

 and is, I believe, identical with the twaite of that river. This 

 naughty boy is only mentioned because he rises rather freely at a 

 grilse-fly. 



Owing to its width and general unsuitableness for wading, the 

 Blackwater is not an easy river to fish successfully, but the rods 

 employed are unusually long, and enable a skilful hand to deliver 

 from twenty-five to thirty yards of line ; but it is useless to-day, so 

 we will extend our walk to the Castle grounds, through which the 

 angler will have to pass on his way to the upper water. 



The forest odours are already stealing through these beautiful 

 woods. The bullfinch in his bridal jacket flits from spray to spray, 

 and the woodrush spreads its shining and striated foliage as a carpet 

 for our feet. 



The present castle was founded in 1185 by John Earl of Morton ; 

 and its ruin and restoration through many bloody centuries would 

 fill a volume. There it stands, on the verge of a precipitous cliff 

 below flows the river, far above the tops of the forest trees rise tower 

 and battlement, and, from the terrace, the view over mountain and 

 valley is exquisitely beautiful. In the shade of the ancient giove 

 Raleigh perhaps once stood : here, too, Spenser may have dreamed, 

 and peopled the solitude with naked kem and stalwart knight. 



