AV PURSUIT OF THE MAY FLY 95 



Now was the time for me to place my G.O.M. on 

 the outer rim of that magic circle and let him 

 float gently down over the centre of it, when lo, 

 the deluge ! It was at that identical, that critical 

 moment, I am certain my trout, stimulated by 

 the delicious morsel he had just swallowed, was 

 coming at me, when swish ! down comes that 

 mighty avalanche of geese .right above my G.O.M. , 

 shrieking and screaming, splashing, and dashing, 

 and crashing, just as "the waters come down at 

 Lodore!" 



My first impulse was to curse those geese ; here 

 was my first, my only chance for days ; my first 

 May Fly swallowed by my first trout; my first 

 trout lost ; my G.O.M. in jeopardy by those 

 accursed geese. How rejoiced I should have been 

 if that villainous old gander had spied my G.O.M. 

 and that he had it firmly fixed in his gullet. 



But no, on reflection I bethought me, why should 

 I curse them ? They had done no harm to me, or 

 very little, after all. I began to feel amused rather 

 than angered. Geese are very curious animals ; 

 they have a clear and distinct vocabulary of their 

 own, and they talk to each other incessantly ; they 

 are gregarious ; they are sociable ; they are pug- 

 nacious ; and they taught the gods to hiss. 



" When the rain raineth and the goose winketh, 

 Little wots the gosling what the goose thinketh." 



The Compleat Bachelor, by Oliver Onions. 



Not for themselves do they feed themselves fat 

 on May Fly and other insects, to say nothing of the 



