30 CHATS ON ANGLING. 



numbers on this stream, and the Carnival used in those days to be reserved 

 strictly for the members of the club ; but whether it were attributable 

 to over-cutting of the weeds, or to some other cause, the May fly 

 died away entirely from the stream, and for many a season not a 

 fly was hatched. We members of the club — a very old one, by the way — 

 rather congratulated ourselves on this change, as, instead of gorged fish 

 who would not look at a dun for weeks after the May fly period, we 

 were treated to an even rise at the small fly throughout all the angling 

 months. But two seasons before we had noticed, to our surprise, the 

 advent of a few May flies. I recollect impaling one upon a hook and 

 drifting it down cunningly over a good 2Mb. fish who had taken up 

 his position under a thorn bush on my side of the river, and the scared 

 bolt he made when it got to him and he had had a good look at it was a 

 thing to remember. And, in fact, the few May flies which that year floated 

 over fish in position made them all bolt as if they had been shot. Then 

 in the next season there was a more considerable hatching of the fly, and 

 in one spot in particular a few fish were taken with the green drake. The 

 third year we arrived at the right time for the hatch, then a very local one 

 on our stream ; but in that particular part of the river there was a rise of 

 May fly to satisfy the most gluttonous of those who love that form of 

 angling. But the curious thing was the way in which the fish treated the 

 fly. Every now and again the |lb. and fib. fish would take them boldly, 

 and here and there a fish of that size would settle down to a regular feed, 

 taking all within reach ; but the heavier fish seemed to be thoroughly 

 disinclined to take them. The bolder young ones now and again paid the 

 penalty of their temerity, being consigned to the basket if fully 1 1 inches 

 in length, or returned to the water if, as was too frequently the case, they 

 were not sizeable. I do not pretend to any great experience of May 

 fly fishing, though I have been a devoted dry-fly angler for many years ; 

 but I do not remember to have seen fish act so capriciously in my previous 

 experiences. The birds, however — the warblers, chaffinches, &c. — were 

 quite equal to the occasion, and took heavy toll of the ephemeridce. 

 I particularly noticed what I never remember to have seen before, i.e., a 

 cock blackbird darting out of the bushes at intervals to secure a fluttering 

 Ephemera Danica, and returning to his shelter to pick the luscious morsel 

 to pieces at his leisure. 



