86 HARBINGERS OF TROUT-FISHING. 



breeze, raising a fine deep blue curl on the face of the 

 pools ; while a few roving blue clouds chase each other 

 across a deep cserulean sky with streaks of cirro-strata 

 across it, and which serve at intervals by their shadows 

 to keep in check the sun, eager to blaze down with 

 dazzling radiance on the smiling landscape. On, then, 

 ye votaries of the streams, with your duns of divers 

 shades, dun drakes, and gravel-flies ; there is sport in 

 store for you ! On such a day the trouts must die I 

 and if I am not mistaken, long ere its close, if your lines, 

 directed by ordinary skill, should be fortunate enough 

 to fall on such waters as the Tweed, the Whitadder, the 

 Breamish, the Coquet, or the Glen, your shoulders will 

 ache with the weight of your captives, and you will 

 repose that night without rocking. 



MAXIMS. 



Trout-fishing may commence when the frog leaves 

 his winter quarters and begins to spawn in the month 

 of March ; while, by the time the thrush commences 

 his song, the lapwing takes up his abode on the fallows, 

 and the wagtail and the sandpiper visit the pebbly 

 margins of the streams, the season for fly-fishing will 

 have fairly set in. 



In March and the early part of the season, the worm 

 must be used in the morning and early part of the day ; 

 and the fly or minnow, according to the state of the water, 

 in the afternoon : but in cold weather, the worm all 

 day long. 



