DRY FLY FISHING 35 



as the Test and the Itchen. There may be, 

 and too often is, a spring drought in other 

 countries, and on the great downs of Hampshire 

 itself. Other rivers may shrink, and leave their 

 banks dry, but the Hampshire chalk streams run 

 brim full, 1 and their valleys are all of water 

 meadows, intersected by streams and runnels 

 and channels and cuts of all sorts and sizes 

 carrying over the land the bounty of water. 

 Hence it is, that on the way to our river we 

 have no thought of what order it will be in, or 

 of what rain there has been lately. The river is 

 sure to be found full and clear. North country 

 rivers are fed by constant tributaries. Down 

 every glen comes a burn, and after heavy rain 

 there is a rush of surface water, which swells 

 them all. A true chalk stream has few tribu- 

 taries. The valleys on the higher ground near 

 it have no streams ; the rain falls upon the 

 great expanse of high exposed downs, and sinks 

 silently into the chalk, till somewhere in a large 

 low valley it rises in constant springs, and a full 



1 Undoubtedly this is generally the case, but an exception must be 

 made in regard to the angling season of 1898. The upper Test, for 

 instance, was far lower in April 1898 than in the June of the preceding 

 year, when it was gloriously full. Eos. 



