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although the hold gives way just as I am bringing 

 him up to the net. Then I turn back down-stream 

 again ; and as I pass cautiously homewards, keeping 

 well away from the water, I see something quietly 

 rising on my own side, and from the appearance of the 

 rise diagnose a grayling. These fish are not yet in 

 good condition, but in the Lambourne we do every- 

 thing in our power to thin their numbers, even netting 

 them in October, when last year more than five 

 hundred were taken out of my water and the reach 

 below. They were artificially introduced into the 

 stream some thirty years ago, and, like the thistles 

 and rabbits in Australia, have become a perfect plague. 

 For some reason, which I have never been able satis- 

 factorily to explain, they hardly ever rise freely in 

 this river at the time when they are in season, and 

 they cannot be regarded as fairly earning their keep, 

 while they consume a good deal of the food that ought 

 to go to increase the size of the trout, besides destroy- 

 ing a quantity of trout-ova in the breeding season. 

 This one, at any rate, will trouble us no more, for at 

 the fourth offer he rises, and is landed. It is always 

 worth while persisting at a rising grayling until it 

 is frightened away, for, unlike trout, they yield to 

 importunity. 



As I pass the house again, on my way down, 

 Ben leaves me, and I wander round with vary- 

 ing success. Many dry-fly fishermen of far greater 

 skill than myself prefer to devote the whole of an 

 afternoon to a third of the extent of water which I 

 usually traverse. I believe that from the point of 

 view of success they are right, but I retain enough of 

 my old North-country habits to like to move about 



