CHAPTER XL 



CLOSE OF THE SEASON NOVEMBER FISHING 

 WITH SALMON-ROE. 



MAY-FLY and OTTER. 



May. 'Tis yellow November; and on apace creep 

 chills and storms, those calamities among which the 

 year closes. Methinks there is a mood o' the mind 

 to every month in the calendar and now, 'tis our 

 month of melancholy. Let us hang up the wand, 

 Tom, until spring-tide. I have lost my love to it a 

 degree or two, and feel as if nature for a season 

 were wresting it from my hands. How hastily the 

 dark waters glide, leaf strewn, as it were by the fin- 

 gers of fairy foresters! They have too mournful a 

 hue for our flies, and not a trout can one note at the 

 surface. 



