178 The Fishing Bay, 



perhaps to any other ; and the scenes among which his early days 

 have been passed leave a far deeper impression on the angler's mind 

 than the sport itself. My early days were spent in the quiet of a 

 secluded village by the side of a sluggish inland stream ; and the 

 only fish met with in it were the pike, perch, chub, bream, gudgeon, 

 roach, eel, and a few other kinds, which the scientific fly-fisher 

 would despise. But the village was, perhaps, one of the prettiest 

 in England, and the stream gently wound its crooked, Scheldt-like 

 course through a lovely pastoral landscape. I have since that day 

 Wandered over many lands, and fished in mountain streams which 

 came dashing and tumbling over beds and masses of rock in all the 

 magnificence of wild, untamed nature, through scenery of the 

 grandest description. I have seen the lordly salmon quivering in 

 his last death-throe by the side of the dark pool, whose waters hissed 

 and bubbled at the bottom of the fall which carried the upland flood 

 with a resistless force down to the sea. Yet the old mill, the 

 staunch, and the lock on my own native stream, are far dearer to 

 me than all these : and if 1 only had my choice, I would rather by 

 far spend one afternoon in again watching the perch as they sail to 

 and fro around the piles of the old rustic bridge across the back- 

 water, or the chub, as he lazily rises in the still, deep hole under the 

 old pollard which overhangs the little stream where my first angling 

 lessons were learnt, than see the largest salmon killed in the finest 

 river, which is bound to me by no early associations, and in a land 

 where all men are strangers to me. 



It would be a difficult task to choose any individual day from the 

 many spent so happily by the side of our own favourite little stream. 

 Let us take any one towards the end of July (which used to be our 

 favourite season for perch), and all we shall require to aid our sketch 

 will be a dark, cloudy morning, wind S.W., with just such a breeze 

 on the water as slightly rustles through the flags and willows which 

 fringe the margin of the river, and curls the ripple on tlie dark 

 waters of our favourite pit or hole. 



The evening before an excursion like the present was generally a 

 busy one. The minnows and gudgeons had to be looked over and 



