40 TROUT FISHING 



are of this character might in itself be expounded 

 in a treatise of many pages, though I should not be 

 competent to write it. 



Instead of attempting to set down the catalogue 

 of days which I have at one time or another enjoyed 

 on these small waters, I will give some impressions 

 of a season on a little river which has been less 

 described in print than most of our southern streams 

 of any note, though it should perhaps have received 

 frequent celebration, because it was the stream by 

 which Izaak Walton must have spent many days 

 during the later part of his life. This stream is 

 the Meon, and anglers who are curious to trace 

 Walton's association with it should study the 

 chapter on " Izaak Walton at Droxford," in Canon 

 Vaughan's delightful book The Wild Flowers of 

 Selborne. It gives some information as to the 

 old man's Hampshire life and friends which I have 

 not found elsewhere. 



The Meon must have been a trout stream after 

 his own heart, if it had the same character in his 

 day that it has now. In the part which I know, at 

 any rate, it may be described as a chalk stream in 

 miniature. Lower down it may be more consider- 

 able, but I do not know the reaches near the sea. 

 Near Droxford, which was Walton's abode, it is 

 like the Test writ very small, with all its features 

 clear but tiny. There are intoxicated little ripples, 



