Notes and Sport of a Dry-Fly Purist. 135 



grass at my feet. And while they were being 

 arranged in the creel for presentation to a friend, 

 embellished with the wild flowers mimulus and 

 willow-herb, the clock of Twyford church slowly 

 tolled out the hour of eight. Twilight was passing 

 into darkness ; Mars, the evening star, low down in 

 the south-western sky, showed large and luminous ; 

 birds were mute the silence was oppressive. 



The evening of September 12th was bright, 

 rather cool and windy, but at 6.40 black gnats were 

 dancing in mazy groups under the boughs of trees 

 and pale midges around my cap as I stood near the 

 poplar-tree above Shawford Bridge. The river was 

 very full and flowing swiftly, but smooth and 

 favourable for dry-fly practice. Many small trout 

 were unavoidably hooked and time was lost in 

 putting them back, but one weighing l^lb. was 

 kept, because an invalid friend wanted it, and I 

 was not likely to fish in this part of the river again 

 until the trout season would be over. Half an 

 hour afterwards grayling were rising to dark-winged 

 olive duns; I changed my fly for the Englefield 

 quill pattern with silver tag, dressed on No. hooks, 

 and by a little after eight o'clock it had tempted 

 three brace to their fate, measuring lO^in. to 11 in. 

 when I had to hurry away to catch my train. It 

 was very pretty sport, and a good wind-up of the 

 foregoing ten evenings' sport and pastime, on each 



