8 PLEASURES OF FLY-FISHING. 



moss-grown rocks, or brawling over a pebbly 

 bottom, are the scenes of the fly -fisher's triumphs. 

 The salmon, and salmonidae, the most frequent 

 prizes of the fly-fisher's skill, are not to be found 

 in the sluggish, turbid waters that flow through 

 flats and fens, but breed in, and inhabit, in due 

 season, those delightful streams that play over 

 table-lands. Their food is not the offal of slime 

 or mud, but the insects that disport on the sur- 

 face of clear water. There the bounding salmon 

 tribe seek them, and in that search they encounter 

 the fatal artificial insect of the fly-fisher, and all 

 the deadly resources of his craft. The shape, 

 the colour, the flavour of the fly-fisher's fish do 

 not mis-beseem the beauties that surround sal- * 

 mon, trout, and grayling streams. The plain, 

 nutritious sheep thrives well upon Leicester pas- 

 turage lands. In their waters breed prolifically 

 the heavy carp, chub, and tench. The heather of 

 the Highlands is the haunt of the dainty doe 

 and wild stag ; the crystal waters of their inland 

 cliffs produce the aristocracy of the finny race. 

 The concordances of life, society, nature, are ad- 

 mirable, unerring, and tally in delightful diver- 

 sity. The smooth waters of Lowland rivers and 

 ponds afford the placid bottom-fisher his sport. 

 The mountain torrents and lakes hold the quarry 

 the active fly-fisher is ambitious of capturing. 

 The broad, straight, even, thoroughfares of the 



