TROUT AND TROUTING IN SPAIN. " 181 



the first seething pool yielded a brace, besides false rises, 

 and in half an hour we had " creeled " several and began to 

 hoi^e for better things. But it was not to be. 



The trout here were white, or silvery in colour, more 

 like salmon-smolts — none of the deep greens, violets and 

 gold of our home fish — and rose extremely shy, coming so 

 short that hardly one in three gave a chance of getting 

 fast. It was not that they rolled over the flies, or merely 

 " flicked " at them — they simply came so short that, unless 

 self-hooked, they were gone almost ere they had come. A 

 dozen trout was the result of this day, yet our companion 

 told us he had not, ditring two years, made a better 

 basket. Oh, tantalizing streams and provoking troutlets 

 of Biscaya ! 



Pleasant days, nevertheless, were those spent by this 

 wild riverside. The love of sport is strong in our breasts, 

 but it is not the sole, or an all-potent factor therein. 

 Other things are strong to charm, and here the scenery 

 and accompaniments lacked nothing of beauty and interest 

 — the grand hills, not high but severe in jagged skylines 

 and escarpments that shone like marble in the sun. The 

 air resounded with the music of leaping waters, with the 

 merry carol of Sandpiper and gentler warble of Whinchat : 

 and further off the soaring flight of Buzzard and Eaven 

 lent life to the silent hills.* From rock-crannies, splashed 

 with the spra}^ of trickling rivulets from above, peeped 

 bouquets of gentian and maiden-hair : the stony "haughs" 

 glowed with bloom of purple iris and asphodel, anemones 

 and wild geraniums, orchids, heaths, ferns, and wild-flowers 

 of a hundred kinds unknown to us. 



The weather of the Cantabrian spring-time is strangely 

 variable : every day we had spells of sunshine and shower, 

 wind and calm, fog and fair alternately, often culminating 

 in a sudden clap of thunder that rolled majestically along 

 the deep ravines. Then, for an hour, came down the rain 

 in torrents, and we sought the shelter of some village 

 venta where, for a peseta, we fared sumptuously on good 



• We fomid a nest of the Sandpiper {Totanus hy2)oleuciis) with, fonv 

 nearly fresh eggs on May 23rd — Provincia de Santander. 



