150 Dry-Fly Fishing. 



thinly covered with young leaves, barely enough to 

 hide the nesting birds, but summer immigrants 

 sang cheeringly from the hedge-tops, and in the 

 distance the two monotonous notes of the cuckoo 

 were faintly heard. But certainly all through the 

 month on the reaches of the river which came under 

 my notice hardly any flies came up, nor did the fish 

 rise well, save on the 23rd, when I killed two brace, 

 aggregating 41b. 2oz. in weight. 



Towards the end of May, all arrangements made, 

 and a good selection of favourite pattern of flies in 

 imitation of the great ephemera received, the always 

 sanguine and enthusiastic fly-fisher anxiously 

 watches for a letter or telegram from the keeper of 

 the fishery he rents or is invited to, to announce 

 that "the fly is up." Instantly the exciting news 

 causes his heart to beat quicker. But it is too late 

 in the day to take the long journey thither ; never- 

 theless, he straightway turns to Bradshaw and 

 wires to the keeper to meet him to-morrow morning 

 at 10.30, on arrival of the train at - - Station, his 

 mind full of anticipative pleasure and the memories 

 of former sport at the same place a decade ago, 

 when imago May-flies filled the air 



" Thickly as motes that people the sunbeams," 

 or sheltered from his too ardent rays in the rear of 

 hawthorn and withy bushes, or under trees, danced 

 in a mazy, circling waltz, or in quick ascents and 



