CHAPTER III 



THE TROUT STREAM; ITS SCENERY AND WILD 



LIFE 



The south country trouting waters might be 

 roughly divided into two broad classes, — the first 

 consisting in the main of chalk and partly chalk 

 streams, flowing in the counties of Kent, Middlesex, 

 Sussex, Surrey, Hants, Herts, Bucks, Berks, Wilts, 

 and Dorset, and the second of the hard stone, rock, 

 and limestone streams which predominate in 

 Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. But very striking 

 are the contrasts between many streams belonging, 

 so far as their origin is concerned, to the same 

 class. The Barle of Exmoor Forest and the Lyn 

 of North Devon are both rock-bound streams, but 

 they offer in their scenery a very vivid contrast. 

 At and above Simonsbath, where is Exmoor Forest 

 proper as distinct from the far larger tract com- 

 monly usurping the name, the Barle flows through 

 an almost treeless and desolate country, very 

 different from the sheltered and beautfully wooded 

 little gorge through which the Lyn, almost its 

 neighbour, rushes, often in white haste, to St. 

 George's Channel. Scarcely less striking is the con- 

 trast between the Chess of Buckinghamshire and the 



