ON SEA TROUT 



By The Right Hon. Sir EDWARD GREY, M.P. 



All through May and June the keenest angler may well be 

 content to stay by a good dry-fly river, for he is having there 

 the best and most interesting fishing that this part of the 

 season can give him. But after June is over, good though 

 some days in July may be, I own that a certain feeling of 

 restlessness comes over me. I struggle against it, for it seems 

 a sort of disloyalty to the river and the country which have 

 given so much pleasure, but it will assert itself, just as per- 

 haps the migratory instinct works in the nature of birds, 

 some of which leave their summer homes long before the 

 warm days have come to an end, while there is still abun- 

 dance of food and everything that they need. As the summer 

 goes on, it is felt more and more that the glory of the woods 

 of the south of England is over, that they have subsided into 

 a sombre monotony and silence, which will last till autumn. 

 One feels too that the water meadows are a little too soft and 

 that the air lacks freshness ; and so, without consciously 

 desiring a change, one begins to think of rocks and keener 

 air. The even-flowing chalk stream, with its mills and dams 

 and hatches, the river which is so clear and gentle, so docile 

 and perfectly under control, seems just a little tame, till at 

 last there rises up before one's mind the full-formed images 



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