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of tiling began to pall upon iis, and it was getting dusk, we 

 repaired to the mill-stream, by tlie footpath. The water 

 was low, but the trout were on the go along the sides, some- 

 times grubbing about with their back fins out of water. I 

 mounted a grey gnat, with a flat silver body and badger 

 legs, and those trout took it greedily. I made a basket of 

 four brace of fish before it became quite dark, and^ I took 

 the last brace quite close up to the stile shown in our illus- 

 tration. 



And the next day was a red-letter day with me, for 1 

 fished some distance above Winchester, and started by fall- 

 ing into one of the dykes which are used for irrigating 

 purposes. But this soaking did not matter much, because 

 it rained incessantly the whole mortal day, and we were 

 plodding through long grass up to our thighs. Yes, it was 

 what my Welsh friends call a " nice soft day," but the 

 trout took the sunk alder madly ! No wonder Kingsley 

 wrote a prose poem on this fly, if the Itchen trout take it 

 in that fashion. I paid ten shillings for my day's fishing, 

 and I had 1411). of trout for my money, including a couple 

 of two-pounders. 



In some lengths of this river, which I am accustomed to 

 fish, the grayling have crowded out the trout. But 

 " Thymallus " has a strong disinclination to rise to 

 a, floating fly, and of those fish which show upon the shal- 

 lows, very few, except the small ones, have been taking sur- 

 face food. This is, no doubt, due to the extraordinary 

 scarcity of natural fly, which has prevailed throughout the 

 whole season. In one of the lower lengths of the Itchen, the 

 other day, I fished over any number of big grayling that 

 were rooting amongst the weeds, and nothing in the shape of 

 a fly would they look at, either wet or dry. In this piece 

 of water " Thymallus " has increased and multiplied to such 

 an enormous extent that they bid fair to exterminate the 

 trout — and 3-et it has been impossible to kill anythijig like 

 a basket of fish iipon the fly. " Keep all you catch, regard- 

 less of si^e," said my host. "We want to reduce their 

 numbers." I did as he requested, and I was not at all proud 

 of the results of a long day's fishing. It is true that, by 



