CHAPTER XIX 



May-fly Dreams 



May-fly season comes almost before many 

 of us — Londoners by profession, but anglers 

 and countrymen by persuasion — have had 

 time to grasp the fact that the youth of the 

 year is getting to be middle-aged ; that, by 

 tradition at any rate, light-hearted sun-and- 

 shower-mixt April, and May with lap full to 

 overflowing of flowers and birds' eggs, are 

 already ' portions and parcels of the dreadful 

 past.' The song-thrush sings as well in 

 many a London park, open space, square, 

 ay, even small back garden, hard by the 

 very busiest thoroughfare, as he does in 

 the thickets and dingles of the Hampshire 

 wood and common where my boyhood was, 

 in matters others than those of mere study 



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