THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 161 



favourable weather you may easily take three or four dozen 

 fellows ranging between half a pound and a pound, witu 

 once now and then larger fish. It is a distinct specimen 

 from the lake trout, which cuts as red as a salmon and has a 

 salmon flavour ; these yellow river fish are neither so well 

 coloured nor flavoured. 



On my last evening at Toome I saw a most wonderful 

 sight. In the west, over the mountains, looking almost 

 ethereal in the fading light, the sun was sinking into a world 

 of golden cloud-architecture, at which one looked with a 

 feeling akin to awe. Turrets were piled upon turrets, their 

 tops gilded with a reddish hue ; there were seas and moun- 

 tains and forests in that mystic land of shadows, and they 

 all melted into thin air like a dream. Directly eastward, on 

 turning from this glorious pageantry, I found the moon 

 rising full and weird out of a bank of dark purple clouds 

 which brooded over that portion of the lake. The moon- 

 rising was as wonderful in its way as the sunset, and ap- 

 peared, indeed, to be in sympathy with it. It seemed as if 

 the Queen of Night had resolved to emulate the God of 

 Day, and, from the dusk, carve out another such city as that 

 which had faded in the western sky ; but the attempt was 

 not successful, and the moon, as if observing it, gave 

 up the contest, and broke into a genial smile, which was- 

 reflected in ripples of silver all over the lough. 



PRACTICAL NOTES. 



Murray's Handbook has been mentioned in the preceding; 

 chapter as a sensible guide to the angler in Ireland. The 

 best angling work respecting the sister isle, to my know- 



M 



