CHAP. VIII.] T11E SECOND DAT. 429 



many and very great fish. And yet, there are some days 

 that are by no means proper for the sport : and in a calm 

 you shall not have near so much sport, even with daping, as 

 in a whistling gale of wind, for two reasons, both because 

 you are not then so easily discovered by the fish, and also 

 because there are then but few flies that can lie upon the 

 water ; for where they have so much choice, you may easily 

 imagine they will not be so eager and forward to rise at a 

 bait, that both the shadow of your body, and that of your 

 rod, nay, of your very line, in a hot, calm day, will, in spite 

 of your best caution, render suspected to them : but even 

 then, in swift streams, or by sitting down patiently behind 

 a willow-bush, you shall do more execution than at almost 

 any other time of the year with any other fly ; though one 

 may sometimes hit of a day, when he shall come home very 

 well satisfied with sport with several other flies. But with 

 these two, the green-drake and the stone-fly, I do verily 

 believe I could, some days in my life, had I not been weary 

 of slaughter, have loaden a lusty boy ; and have sometimes, 

 I do honestly assure you, given over upon the mere account 

 of satiety of sport ; which will be no hard matter to believe, 

 when I likewise assure you that, with this very fly, I have, 

 in this very river that runs by us, in three or four hours 

 taken thirty, five and thirty, and forty, of the best trouts in 

 the river. What shame and pity is it then, that such a river 

 should be destroyed by the basest sort of people, by those 

 unlawful ways of fire and netting in the night, and of 

 damming, groping, spearing, hanging, and hooking, by day ! 

 which are now grown so common, that, though we have very 

 good laws to punish such offenders, every rascal does it, for 

 aught I see, impune} 



To conclude, I cannot now, in honesty, but frankly tell 

 you, that many of these flies I have named, at least so made 

 as we make them here, will peradventure do you no great 

 service in your southern rivers ; and I will not conceal 

 from you, but that I have sent flies to several friends in 

 London, that for aught I could ever hear, never did any 

 great feats with them ; and, therefore, if you intend to profit 



1 Not now ; most of the waters are so vigilantly preserved that a man 

 may hardly walk along side some of them with a walking-stick. RENNIE. 



