26 LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES 



upstanding wings, and in form of body and appen- 

 dages, as in the manner of its progress on the surface of 

 the stream, this counterfeit presentment must strictly 

 imitate the small ephemeridz which are hatching in the 

 bed and floating down the surface of the stream. As 

 the trout do not rise until the natural fly appears, and 

 as the hatches of fly are capricious, there are often 

 weary hours of waiting when the angler must be per- 

 force inactive. His exercise comes in full measure 

 when the hour of action does arrive, and he will find 

 some motion even in the eventless intervals by walking 

 up the river on the look-out for olive dun or black gnat. 



The whipper of the mountain streams, or the wet- 

 fly practitioner who fishes a river where the trout are 

 not particular in their tastes, is in the way of exercise 

 the most fortunate of all. He is ever passing from 

 pool to pool, lightly equipped, changing his scenery 

 every hour, now whipping in the shadow of overhang- 

 ing branches, now crouching behind a mossy crag, and 

 now brushing the sedges of an open section of the 

 stream. The broad tranquil flow is exchanged for 

 merry ripples and sparkling shallows, and these are 

 succeeded by strong and concentrated streams foam- 

 ing and eddying down a rocky gorge. Trout here 

 and there are dropped into the pannier from time to 

 time, and it is a wholesomely tired angler, with a grand 

 appetite and capacities for sound sleep, who at night 

 will welcome his slippers at the inn. 



Sea-trout angling is to me the choicest sport offered 

 by rod and line. One degree more exacting to arms 

 and legs than the more universal employment of the 

 pretty lo-foot trout rod with the purely fresh-water 

 species of the salmonidae, it still falls short of the heavier 

 demands of the salmon or pike rod. The double- 

 handed_rod, the moderately strong line and collar, and 



