92 A HUNT FOR THE NIGHTINGALE. 



is in pursuit of. Every sense and faculty were con- 

 centrated upon that hovering fly. This man wooed 

 the stream, quivering with pleasure and expectation. 

 Every foot of it he tickled with his decoy. His close 

 was evidently a short one, and he made the most of 

 it. He lingered over every cast, and repeated it again 

 and again. An American angler would have been out 

 of sight down stream long ago. But this fisherman 

 was not going to bolt his preserve ; his line should 

 taste every drop of it. His eager, stealthy move- 

 ments denoted his enjoyment and his absorption. 

 When a trout was caught, it was quickly rapped on 

 the head and slipped into his basket, as if in punish- 

 ment for its tardiness in jumping. " Be quicker next 

 time, will you." (British trout, by the way, are not 

 so beautiful as our own. They have more of a 

 domesticated look. They are less brilliantly marked, 

 and have much coarser scales. There is no gold or 

 vermilion in their coloring.) 



Presently there arose from a bushy corner of a 

 near field a low, peculiar purring or humming sound, 

 that sent a thrill through me ; of course, I thought 

 my bird was inflating her throat. Then the sound 

 increased, and was answered or repeated in various 

 other directions. It had a curious ventriloquial 

 effect. I presently knew it to be the night-jar or 

 goat-sucker, a bird that answers to our whip-poor- 

 will. Very soon the sound seemed to be floating 

 all about me Jr-r-r-r-r or Chr-r-r-r-r, slightly sug- 

 gesting the call of our toads, but more vague as to 



