99 



knows most of minute uatiual history invariably catches 

 most fish. An hour spent in examining the insect life 

 amongst the river weeds, or in a tributary ditch, will }deld 

 a rich reward to the student ; for it is only by such study 

 that he can expect to understand the why and the wherefore 

 of scientihc Hy-hshing. To the " chuck-and-chance-it " 

 school of anglers Dame Nature and her secrets are a sealed 

 book ; but to the modern fly-fisherman there is far more in 

 his art than the mere slaughter of trout. This is a digres- 

 sion, so we Avill move on, touching only, "vvith a flying 

 finger, the wren's nest that we peered into, finding the little 

 lady at home, and the colonies of immature sedge, alder, 

 silverhorns. and caperers whom we interviewed in their cad- 

 die housed in a shallow piece of backwater. 



That colony of caddis, in the water at our feet, would 

 enable us to beguile half an hour away, if you were disposed 

 to join me in the attempt to investigate what varieties of 

 " phregania " are included amongst those " crawling bits 

 of stick " as you call them. They are all flies in the larval 

 state, but inasmuch as there are some two hundred varieties 

 of this one species of case-breeding water flies they afford 

 materials for the study of a life time. 



Some people say that the best of all companions in a 

 country ramble is a dog, but he is very much in the way on 

 a May fly-fishing trip. A grand old field spaniel from an 

 adjacent farmhouse took it into his clever old head that he 

 could be useful to us, and being old acquaintances, he came 

 down to the river uninvited and set to work at once. Hunt- 

 ing the water-rats, sometimes in the river, and at others on 

 the bank, he nearly drove us wild, and the look of reproach- 

 ful sadness with which he met our attempts to drive hiin 

 home were very comical. Go back he would not ; he laid 

 himself down at our feet, with his head on his forepaws, and 

 looked beseechingly at us out of his lovelv great brown eves. 

 There was nothing for it but to take the dog home, so awav 

 we went to the house. "We foregathered with the farmer, 

 who had lost all his fruit by the frost, and sympathised 

 with him in his trouble ; then we set ourselves seriously to 

 the task of making up the number of trout to complete tlie 



