36 SOUTH COUNTRY TROUT STREAMS 



streams, into which the angler-naturaHst grown 

 incautious may sometimes find himself sinking far 

 more than knee deep ; cuckoos here and there and 

 ever}'whcre incessantly answering one another from 

 woods and clumps of elms on opposite sides of the 

 water ; swallows skimming up and down the river, 

 too often more eager than the trout for the rise of 

 small fly — these are a few of the many feathered 

 creatures which the chalk stream draws to itself. 



In the rich soil of the miles upon miles of 

 meadow land, which is watered not only by the 

 main stream and its fascinating branches and 

 tributaries and dykes — dykes, mind you, that 

 sometimes hold their four-pound trout — but also 

 by artificial feeders, there is a splendid array of 

 llowers, from the time of the "cowslip wan" of 

 April to that of the yellow loosestrife of August. 

 Fishing some famous shallows from an islet in 

 the Test towards the end of last August, I looked 

 up stream while waiting for a rise and saw a sight 

 on that calm afternoon that will not easily be 

 erased from the memory. One branch of the 

 stream, crystal clear, fit for slaking the thirst on a 

 hot day, came gliding swift but unbroken over 

 emerald green weeds and clean gravel, on which a 

 trout could here and there be distintlv seen 

 resting. On the islet formed by this branch and 

 the main stream, an islet not less lovely than that 

 lawny one that lives in Shelley's lyric, was a mass 

 of colour and variety which baffles all description. 

 There were tall graceful ash trees slightly inclining 

 over the water as though to catch their portraits in 

 nature's looking glass, and willows always so thirsty 

 for the wave, and in the midst of the islet small 

 oaks, which had kept their freshness longer than 



