172 MOSTLY ABOUT TROUT 



lard, if they like they cannot hang sideways 

 on twigs and peck at it, as the tits do ; so they 

 could get very little, even if they cared about 

 it. We have other bird-visitors in the garden, 

 including bullfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches 

 and a wee gold-crest. Also, of course, thrushes 

 and blackbirds, the former a great joy for their 

 winter singing ; but they are not to be seen, 

 as a rule, from the study fire, as they do not 

 come for food by the window, excepting in the 

 very hardest weather. 



It is in the evening, when curtains are drawn 

 and lamps are lighted, that the study fire itself 

 is most attractive. A coal one is, of course, 

 out of the question for all but millionaires, and 

 so much the better. There is nothing in a 

 coal fire that touches the comfort and associa- 

 tions of a fire of logs or of peat. The scent of 

 peat-smoke always reminds me of happy fishing 

 days in Scotland, Ireland or the Shetlands. 

 Scents bring back memories more vividly than 

 either sights or sounds, but it is of indoors that 

 the peat-scent reminds me most, while the 

 scent of wood-smoke brings back outdoor 

 memories. A picnic on a Greek island, another 

 in a beautiful wooded hill-side in North Devon, 

 another on the west coast of Scotland, an 

 evening halt after a march in the Soudan 



