42 SOUTH COUNTRY TROUT STREAMS 



fusion of life are of the chalk streams. Long may- 

 it remain so ! Who would desire to see Dartmoor 

 under cultivation, or Simonsbath more than a little 

 shelter in the wilderness ? 



These moorland streams of Devon and Somerset 

 are, like the Cornish waters, quite sacred to the 

 trout. Coarse fish are here unknown, and the arti- 

 ficial fly is adhered to by the great majority of 

 anglers throughout the season. The fish run very 

 small, but they are extremely plentiful, full of 

 fight in their small way, and of exquisite beauty. 

 " Spots of cochineal," says Jefferies, " finely mixed 

 together dot his sides ; they are not red nor yellow 

 exactly, but as if gold dust were mixed with some 

 bright red. A line is drawn along his glistening 

 greenish side, and across this are faintly marked 

 lozenges of darker colour, so that in swimming 

 past he would appear barred. There are dark 

 spots on the head between the eyes, the tail at 

 its lower and upper edges is pinkish, his gills 

 are bright scarlet. Proportioned and exquisitely 

 shaped he looks like a living arrow formed to 

 shoot through the water. The delicate little 

 creature is finished in every detail, painted to 

 the utmost minutiae, and carries a wonderful store 

 of force, enabling him to easily surmount the 

 rapids." 



A long spring day devoted to filling a little creel 

 with two or three dozen troutlets in the land of the 

 wild red deer and the black grouse, or among the 

 sparkling streams of Cornwall, is not one to be 

 easily forgotten by the angler accustomed to more 

 luxurious forms of sport. The lights of his inn are 

 very welcome to the angler after a long trudge 

 home over a rough country ; such a day's sport 



