10 GOLDEN DAYS 



that moment when, for the first time in a 

 season, one puts a rod together ! Each 

 chck of the reel makes merry music. 

 Winter is past 1 Spring is in the air and 

 in our blood. Perhaps our pleasure 

 reaches its height when, cast in mouth, we 

 mark the first circle of the coming rise, and 

 then select the fly on which the fish will 

 soon be feeding. To-day no hatch of fly 

 was visible, so, putting up a tentative Blue 

 Dun, I started off to explore some likely 

 looking pools above the bridge. 



What a morning it was ! A heron flew 

 up like a ghost from the shallows at the 

 bend of the stream, and from the farther 

 bank, through willows and poplars, the 

 slanting sunlight dappled the landscape 

 in blue and gold. Here and there grey 

 clusters of rock showed stark amidst the 

 gorse, and farther up the hillside spring 

 buds were purple. The woods were awake. 

 High overhead a lark was singing. Mag- 

 pies chattered in a near thicket. The 

 river clattered over a gravel bed, and then 

 chuckled as it found a deep brown pool 

 below. There was only one note missing 

 from the symphony — that reiterated 



