144 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



spots where the fish hardly rise at a floating dun for 

 days together, feeding instead on the water shrimp. 

 I think I did once try to angle in this water some 

 years afterwards using a casting of three or four 

 Norwegian lake flies ! but the trout would not suffer my 

 strange lure to come near them. I thought then, and 

 I may have been right, that they were not trout that 

 had thought of flies 



Wherein is the thrall of angling with a single fly 

 for trout in these clear brooks ? Of course the sum- 

 mer scene by the chalk stream counts high. It is a 

 scene good to eye and nerve and brain, every mile 

 from source to sea ; and the beauty of the whole, as 

 the summer day draws to a close, has enchantments 

 subtle, supreme. Bransbury Common near nine o'clock 

 on a midsummer eve, with not a human figure in 

 sight, and the mists, winding-sheets for the dead 

 day, beginning to lie over the marsh what a scene 

 to rule us as we turn homeward ! But apart from 

 the scene, this fishing has a hold over me, powerful 

 and persistent. I have found nothing quite so absorb- 

 ing throughout an entire and a long day in other field 

 pursuits, nothing that has so masterful a thrall. 

 Hunting must be full of stimulation through the 

 splendid exercise and high spirit of the chase. Ang- 

 ling for a rising trout with a floating fly has not this 

 quality. Is the charm of it kindred with that of 

 shooting driven partridges ? To shoot these birds 

 means many minutes of strong interest and excitement 



