CHANCE SHOTS AND ODD FISH. 251 



now if I wished, for the property has changed 

 owners. 



In some places fish are very difficult to catch 

 if they are any size; in other spots you may pull 

 them out, as a farm youngster once told me, 

 as fast as you like to put your line in. Now, to 

 look at, this pond was one of the most ordinary 

 character : it was only a small pond in a clayey 

 meadow, fringed round with bushes on all sides 

 excepting one. 



The bottom was continually trampled and stirred 

 up for a considerable distance out quite one-half 

 of the pond by the cattle going to drink on that 

 side, and by their standing in it up to their bellies 

 to cool themselves in the summer time. So that 

 the part of the pond which was too deep for them 

 to wade in was small. The ducks and geese 

 swam and dabbled there also. I have passed the 

 place frequently of late the pond is close to the 

 farmyard; and although the old-fashioned farm- 

 house is nothing to look at, yet it has the repu- 

 tation now that it had in my younger days, when 

 I fished there, of being the best tench -pond in 

 the district. So far as I have been able to glean, 



