THE DEVERON 223 



and pillared balustrade, whose apparent age 

 lends credence to the legend that a Queen of 

 Scots had crossed it one day on her journeying. 



These trees recall that here one year, late in 

 the month of May, a flight of at least a hundred 

 fieldfares still lingered. How comes it that 

 these beautiful thrushes ever refuse to remain 

 to nest in this country, while in Germany they 

 have for long been known to breed and are, 

 indeed, steadily reaching southwards ? But so 

 it is, that the supposititious cases, now and then 

 reported, are always found on investigation to 

 be nests of missel-thrushes. This stream which 

 we are now passing reminds us that here, one 

 cold spring day, when trout were 'dour' and 

 nothing doing, the fisherman was startled by a 

 sudden thunder-peal right overhead, followed 

 by a heavy hailstorm ; when all at once the 

 water was alive with rising fish attracted by the 

 sudden appearance of swarms of the little ' iron 

 blue,' which tiny insect seems to revel in cold 

 and wet. 



A gaunt old ash-tree gives its name to the 

 next big pool where a wide stretch of gravel 

 extends in ordinary states of the river from the 

 water to the bank. Here once a lesson was 

 learned of a danger to be guarded against when 

 fishing these northern rivers. While wading in 



