MAECH 79 



east bank is a veritable switchback now flinging itself 

 upon the face of a rocky bluff now falling plump to 

 the level of the river beside which it runs. The 

 morning sun lights the oak copse into golden russet and 

 silver of indescribable delicacy, with delicious verdure 

 of velvet moss ; but there is no trace of spring there, 

 except in the tasselled hazel and in the scattered 

 rosettes of wood hyacinth leaves, where will be a cloud 

 of blue blossoms in their season. Among scattered 

 birches by the river many blackcock are congregated, 

 going through the grotesque antics appropriate to the 

 time of courtship. Blackcocks alone not a grey hen 

 is to be seen, for these only visit their lords at stated 

 hours. The rest of the day is spent by the cocks in 

 strutting, drumming, puffing themselves out ridicu- 

 lously, nibbling birch buds and young clover in the 

 sown grass, and cooing as amorously as any turtle- 

 dove. 



There is plenty to occupy eye and ear till the chosen 

 scene of operations is reached, than which no salmon 

 fisher could desire a more lovely theatre. For more 

 than a mile the river runs a tumultuous course among 

 cliffs and boulders ; there is not a yard of still water in 

 the whole of it, but experience has proved the invincible 

 attraction for spring fish possessed by certain lodges in 

 this torrent. Were it not that salmon are notoriously 

 indifferent to their terrestrial surroundings (being as 

 much addicted to the most commonplace resorts, such 

 as the well-known cast in the middle of the town of 

 Galway, as to the most romantic gorges), one would be 



