DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 137 



CHAPTER XIII 



FLIES GOOD AND BAD — A DAY ON THE KENNET — 



mac's old EEOWN 



Flies are, at times, more to some folk than the progeny 

 of all else that went into the Ark with Noah. They can, 

 and do, raise fishermen to the highest pinnacle of 

 expectation and delight, and then, in the t\^inkhng 

 of an eye, cause them to use such language as leaves 

 them little hope of — of — well ! of catching fish. 

 PoHtics, beer, and racing have much to answer for, 

 their records are bad, especially politics, but flies 

 are an easy first with these. The stag is king of the 

 forest until the all-conquering midge appears, and 

 then, without fight or parley, he vacates his throne. 

 Bulls and hons, Nature's boldest beasts, get up and 

 run when their particular fly commences to serenade. 

 Men of all colours and every clime hope that there 

 \\ill be a time and place in which flies will have no 

 share. 



A Scottish friend of mine must have a great dread 

 of these insects, for when a son of his, grown tired of 

 his captures, was about to set some free from their 

 paper cage, he called to him so loudly as to make me 

 jump, *Na, na, you'll no be loosing them. I'll no be 

 having the beesties in a hoose of mine.' 



They are by no means a modem terror, for the great- 

 grandson of Noah, no other than the might}^ Nimrod. 

 was so woiTied by them that he called for the cleverest 

 artificers of his kingdom to build a chamber that 

 would give him a time of freedom from them. It did 

 not answer, so he was really worse off than we are, 

 for there was neither tobacco not coal tar in those 

 days. 



