WET FLY TROUT FISHING 131 



This sense alone would be enough, but there 

 are outward and visible signs too. Green is 

 rising from the earth, and in some places is as 

 high as the tops of shrubs. There are scents 

 in the air and sounds of birds' songs; not the 

 delicate songs of summer warblers, at any rate 

 not in any quantity, but the more robust songs 

 of birds which have spent the winter in the 

 British Islands, and know the difference between 

 the winter and the spring. On such a day in 

 early April these birds will sing as if this were 

 the day for which they had longed and waited, as 

 if the highest bliss had come. Though some of 

 our feeling about the conscious enjoyment of birds 

 and other forms of life may be mere fancy, it is 

 altogether true that there is an ecstasy about the 

 first warm days of spring which cannot be resisted, 

 and we cannot tell how much comes from within 

 and how much from without us. There is a 

 spirit stirring abroad. We know that we share 

 it, and that it is not ours alone. This is what 

 may be felt on the way to the river, knowing 

 that the day is all before us and that all the day 

 is ours. Time was when, eager to begin to fish, 

 I used to hurry this part of the day, but that was 



