The Darenth in June 131 



often a fairly steady rise all day, whereas 

 later on in the season the afternoon is apt 

 to be entirely barren of sport. Then there 

 is still observable throughout a considerable 

 part of this month a great deal of bird life — 

 in which most anglers take an interest — 

 though it is not the teeming life of early 

 May, when the summer visitors are noisily 

 settling down to their nesting operations. 



A three-mile walk from Swanley one June 

 day last season to a little stretch of the 

 Darenth in which I was entitled to fish 

 would have been perhaps more agreeable 

 had it not been for the dust, fine as flour, 

 which every passing cyclist — and the wheel- 

 ing folk on Kent highroads at holiday-time 

 may be numbered by tens of thousands — 

 stirred up in clouds. The excessive dustiness 

 of the roads is, indeed, one of the chief 

 drawbacks of hop and strawberry land for 

 the cyclist or pedestrian. It tends to lessen 

 to his view 



' All the pensive glory 

 That fills the Kentish hills.' 



