208 WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



it ; it is hidden from us, but we should not have 

 to look long before we found it, concealed near 

 to, in the luxuriant woodland growth. We are re- 

 minded that there is life in the pools at least ; for, 

 as we are looking at one of them, there is a very 

 gentle rise just enough to cause a few rings in the 

 water, but they proceed from a good trout. All 

 large fish rise gently, compared with small ones ; 

 a trout of two ounces will make more show in taking 

 the fly than a two-pounder. 



It is their close season, however, now, and they 

 can dispose of themselves as they like. They will 

 run up the rills like water-rats at play a little 

 circumstance that the herons profit by. These 

 birds have been well acquainted with the quantity 

 and quality of the trout in this particular moor- 

 stream, and that of others round about these hills, 

 from past records. Generations after generations 

 of herons have, by means and ways known to their 

 family alone, handed the knowledge down, through 

 successive ages, that our moorland streams and 

 this one in particular in November are full of 

 trout. As we travel down the moor the stream 

 widens ; large rush - tufts, in rank luxuriance of 



