134 



THE ANGLER'S SOUVENIR. 



for the trout seem floating in air, so clear is the 

 stream. 



la not every yard of ground a perfect study ? 

 Look at that large, sloping rock above you. On 

 it grow the greenest mosses, glossy harts-tongue 

 ferns, the black maidenhair spleenwort, and the 

 graceful green spleenwort. Its broad surface is 

 stained with many shades of grey, brown, an:l 

 green ; and just at its foot, a clump of forget- 

 me-nots laughs at us with its blue eyes. At the 

 summit, a monster lady-fern waves its handsome 

 fronds in the light summer breeze, while down 

 one side of it the water slides in a black current, 

 broken into silver by opposing points of rock ; and 

 at ths foot of the waterfall, on a projecting spur, 

 sits a white-breasted water-ouzel, nipping its tail, 

 and singing its robin-like song. 



To-day we have little difficulty in picking up a 

 trout from each likely pool, and so we scramble on 

 over the uneven ground, getting used to the murmur 

 of the water, so that it becomes a silence in which 

 we can hear the hum of that cloud of gnats, golden 

 in the sunlight, which quivers above us. 



And now the ravine grows narrower, and its sides 

 higher and more precipitous. The brambles and the 

 thorns are fewer, but the ferns are doubly luxu- 

 riant. Every crest and coign of vantage is crowded 

 with lady-ferns, and some on the edge of the rock, 

 which, from some cause or other, have met with a 

 premature death, hang over in clustered tresses of 



