VI 



THE LAST SALMON BEFORE CLOSE 



TIME 



EXTRACT FROIM A LETTER FROM MY BROTHER, 

 PERCY POPJOY, ESQ., IN NORTH BRITAIN 



[Reprinted from Frasers Magazine, January 1S57.] 



I PERFECTLY agree with you in considering a 

 Hampshire trout-stream to be a very charming thing 

 in its way ; that bright chalk-water, so smooth and 

 clear that one might fancy that it was nothing more 

 than limpid air a little condensed, with its waving 

 tufts of green weed and glassy swirls, is a thing not to 

 be sneezed at. Moreover, I admire exceedingly your 

 Hampshire trout, in all their marvellous beauty, — 

 dropped with tiny bright crimson spots, small in the 

 head, deep in girth, mighty in spread of fin and 

 power of tail, astute beyond all fishes. But yet I 

 frankly confess that I would not give up the chance 

 of catching one wee * black trootie,' even in his most 

 disreputable and out-of-season state, — when his eye 

 is wild and lurid, and his jowl ravenous and 

 dyspeptic ; with a back like a toad, and a stomach 



