264 THE CURVED MEADOW. 



fly put up was a ginger quill, dressed so 

 sparsely that the hook appeared in attractive 

 nudity; odourless paraffin taking the place, upon 

 its rounded form, of the gauze-like raiment 

 which encases the cool arms of a summer syren. 



At other times a black gnat, in the garb of 

 a crepe-clad widowy girl, has brought its 

 followers quite as freely : while a floating 

 Wickham, with its gilded corsage; a sober olive, 

 with its artistic green drapery; or a pale 

 watery dun, have added fish after fish to the 

 bank behind the rushes. Nimium ne crede 

 colori, is here as good a motto as any. 



On disappointing evenings you may change 

 from fly to fly, and effect nothing. Fish are 

 there, and are rising, but they are not in the 

 mood for eating hooks; and no dressing or 

 ribbing is able to provide the sauce or to change 

 their sullen demeanour. 



I have always promised myself and never 

 kept the promise to try dapping under the 

 beech roots. There is an ideal seat, backed 

 by the red cliff, and carpeted with harts' 

 tongues, exactly over the deep water, where two 

 and sometimes three special young bloods take 

 every fly that passes even those you catch and 

 throw down to them. 



To attempt anything on an ordinary cast, 

 attached to a rod top, must be useless. A dive 

 of a few feet would wind the gut round a net 

 work of roots and effect a break in record time. 



