FOR WORM-FISHING. 1*75 



effect in severe and long-continued droughts, in the 

 brightest sunshine, and in the calmest weather, when 

 the waters are too low and clear to admit of any other 

 method of fishing whatever. At this time, the majority 

 of the fish, especially the larger ones, retire into the 

 deepest pools in the neighbourhood, where they snugly 

 shelter themselves from the rays of the sun, underneath 

 stones, bushes, roots, holes in the banks, or any other 

 objects, during the day, and are often at such times 

 very scantily fed and hungry. The professional angler 

 then steals forth, armed with a long rod of sixteen feet, 

 and a line of the very finest gut, a small hook, and some 

 well-scoured small worms. The sun is probably shining 

 overhead with a dazzling blaze that threatens to scorch 

 everything off the face of the earth, without a cloud in 

 the heavens to afford even a passing shadow to the land- 

 scape below; the half dried-up river, contracted into 

 the dimensions of a tiny rivulet, scarce retaining suffi- 

 cient water to cover its inhabitants, and dribbling 

 through the gravel and stones, only halting here and 

 there to recover and collect its scattered waters in an 

 occasional pool, whose unruffled surface shines like a 

 mirror, and whose depths are as pellucid as the purest 

 crystal. In this seemingly hopeless state of things, our 

 hero, nothing daunted, wends his way to the river-side. 

 Having adjusted his bait, he cautiously approaching the 

 bank, probably on his hands and knees the better to 

 keep out of sight, at the same time keeping his face 

 towards the sun, that no shadow of either rod or line 

 may fall upon the water jerks his worm over the 



