274 EARLY TROUT FISHING. 



from the peak of the hills where the snow 

 crown was so long laid. Every stream, writes 

 Mr. George Macdonald, has its own song, but 

 the mountain stream trolls its bravest chaunt in 

 the month of March, as it rushes between 

 the grey moss-tipped boulders full and buoyant. 

 The call of the brook to the eager angler the 

 first day he seeks its side, rod in hand, is won- 

 derfully pleasant. His eye scans the favourite 

 pools, and reaches, and heavy swirls of brown 

 water, which twelve months back he could 

 count upon for a "rise." The music seems 

 as familiar in his ears ^as though he had 

 never lost the tune of it, as though the re- 

 cord of the working world had been blotted 

 out from his mind altogether. It is strange 

 how completely and effectually river-sides pre- 

 serve their features. There is the thorn-bush, 

 with the nodding treacherous snag drooping 

 over the bank, where you came to grief with 

 your tackling before you went to college. 

 That tiny peninsula of sparkling sand has altered 

 neither shape nor dimensions since you can 

 remember it as a youngster personating Wal- 

 ton under the ignoble difficulties of a crooked 



