Fly Fishing for Trout. 109 



Then seeks the farthest ooze, the shelt'ring weed, 

 The cavern's bank, his old secure abode, 

 And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool 

 Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand, 

 That feels him still, yet to his furious cast 

 Gives way, you now retiring, following now, 

 Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage, 

 Till, floating broad upon his breathless side, 

 And to his fate abandon'd, to the shore 

 You gaily drag your unresisting prize." 



What pleasant associations cross my mind as I 

 recall to memory days gone by, red-letter days 

 in the calendar of Hfe, when, forgetting all the cares 

 and troubles of a busy and anxious profession, and 

 accompanied by a brother angler, I have sped 

 away to some well-known river, revelling in the 

 bright spring morning, rejoicing in the sun's ex- 

 hilarating rays, and luring with the lightest of tackle 

 and the smallest of flies the wily trout. We meet 

 at midday to talk over the haps and mishaps, and 

 under the wide-spread branches of some old oak, drink 

 our glass of " barley wine," and smoke the fragrant 

 weed, luxuriating in the flowers carpeting the mea- 

 dows, " that beautiful earthly rainbow which springs 

 up year by year, as much the offspring of the sun 

 and rain as those arcs we love to gaze upon." Such 

 hours snatched from toil, few and far between 

 though they be, reinvigorate the whole man, dispel 

 his vapours, and are worth " a king's ransom." 



" The trout," says Walton, " is a fish highly 



