52 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM 



support a low wooden bridge over which carts pass 

 to carry the meadow hay. Here he ejected the 

 three or four occupants, and estabhshed himself 

 finally, with his neb close up under the sill of the 

 bridge — too close for a fly to be got in ahead of 

 him — obviously with the key of the larder in his 

 pocket ; and here daily for the next five days of 

 my stay I saw him firmly planted, but, though I 

 plied him with Sedge, and Quill, and Tup's Indis- 

 pensable, wet fly and dry fly, I never got an offer 

 or an indication of a desire to offer from him, nor 

 did I ever see him break the surface, and I left 

 him in situ at the end of my visit. 



During these five days, however, crossing from 

 the smaller stream to the main, I saw a trout in 

 a foot-wide runnel hovering with that quivering 

 of the fins that indicates a wilhngness to feed. 

 He was not a big fish — about one pound — but I 

 thought it would be sport to try and cast to him 

 and catch him in so narrow a channel, and I knelt 

 down to dehver the fly. He saw me, however, 

 and moved up. It was on my way 'cross meadow 

 to the main, so I followed him till I came to the 

 place where the runnel's water-supply issued from 

 a pipe which entered its head, at right angles to 

 its course, from the centre of one of the tables. 

 The flow from the pipe had worried out a comer 

 hole, which was wide and deep enough to admit 

 my whole landing-net and a bit over, and I dipped 

 it in. I saw the amber gleam of my trout as he 



