THE DEVONSHIRE AVON 



the streams of Wales and Cumberland. And if the 

 larch, first of all trees to illuminate the brown woods, 

 is in fair and welcome evidence here, one may be 

 thankful for the comparative scarcity of the sombre 

 pine in all its varieties. The rectangular fir plantation 

 with its monotonous colouring and stiffness of out- 

 line, so baneful to my thinking in many northern 

 valleys, is happily not an obtrusive feature in south- 

 west England. 



Both salmon and peal (Devonian for sea trout) run 

 up the Avon in limited quantities, but very few of the 

 former are taken, while the latter do not, as in the 

 Tavy, rise freely either by day or night. Let us hope, 

 even if such a thing be possible, no attempt will be 

 made to spoil one of the best trout streams in the 

 county by turning it into a second-class salmon river ; 

 for there is little doubt that a horde of young salmon 

 fry makes demands upon the food of a river that 

 is most detrimental to its stock of trout. The Barle, 

 the Bray, and the torrential and beautiful Lynn seem 

 still to retain a fair portion of their old fecundity. The 

 Tavy, which the peal love and rise freely in, though 

 the salmon reject it for the larger Tamar, is also a 

 fair trouting stream despite the copper mines in its 

 upper waters. So are the Lydd and the Lew, which 

 flow out of Dartmoor to join the Tamar with the 

 Plym, the Meavy, and the Walkham, all beautiful 

 little rivers which find their several ways into Ply- 

 mouth Sound. 



Away from the two great moors and their skirts, the 

 beauty of inland Devon lies almost wholly in its deep, 

 winding valleys. Save perhaps in the south-east, the 



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