ALDERS AND REEDS. 95 



so settled the matter for the self-constituted trout- 

 preserver. 



I have just returned from a week's ramble ; it 

 takes that time in the long summer days to explore, 

 as I have been doing, those nine miles of boggy 

 water-courses, from their spring-heads high up in 

 the hills, to the place where they deliver their 

 waters into the river Wey. No matter what these 

 streams run through, alders, reeds, or quaking- 

 bogs, their beds are of stone; not the hard iron- 

 stone of the uplands, which was smelted in and 

 about this district in times past, but still bearing 

 a close resemblance to it. Up in the moors the 

 rills cut their way through peat, in some places 

 three and four feet in depth. The large stones 

 in the bed of the main stream made rare hovers 

 for the trout to lie in ; and there are good thick 

 fish, with golden backs, spotted with dark spots 

 and small vermilion ones, having cream - coloured 

 stomachs. Strong these are when hooked, and they 

 make a good fight of it before they are grassed; 

 for the stream swirls, rushes, and ripples along in 

 fine style. In some places the stream follows the 

 main road so very closely that you could throw 



