92 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING. 



Next to wading in water, comes, I think, the pastime 

 of trudging over bogs and fens — ground intimately 

 allied to it, and which Colonel Hawker has made quite 

 classical. This is a sort of debateable land, and the 

 natural inhabitants of it reject you with most unequi- 

 vocal signs of disapprobation. The red shank, the 

 pewet, the curlew, and all their allies, scream and dart 

 around you, inhospitable as they are, and tell you, as 

 plainly as bills can speak, to sheer off, and not invade 

 their premises. But we are a sort of Paul Pry, and 

 love to persist responding now and then with our 

 double barrel, which we more especial^ direct towards 

 the ruff, snipe, wild duck, and teal — birds whose merit 

 we particularly appreciate. Thus we are, as may be 

 seen, of an amphibious nature, and respond to the fat 

 knight's description, when he compared Hostess 

 Quickly to our namesake. That this predilection for 

 humidity is with me an instinct, may be seen from the 

 following brief notice of my infant propensities. 



When I was an urchin I stole off, and wandered up 

 the stream that came winding through the verdant 

 meadows of my native valley, till I arrived at the foot 

 of the Castle Hill ; following the little path that dived 

 into a thicket, and wound round its base near the mar- 

 gin of the river ; thence, amongst irregular clumps of 

 thorn bushes, holly trees, and other wild wood, stopping 

 a while to gather the cowslips and white violets that 

 dappled the sunny slopes, I pursued my way through a 

 tangled thicket, whose branches overhung the stream. 

 I remember even now that the sunbeam glittered on 

 the leaves, struck through the masses here and there 



