FLY-FISHING BY NIGHTLIGHT. 195 
reed-ponds, and the wooded shores of creeks and 
islands. Lakes which do not possess these local 
characteristics will seldom be found suitable for this 
kind ‘of angling. The large fish are doubtless at- 
tracted to the localities indicated by the small fry of 
various kinds which frequent them,and the abundance 
of insect life amongst woods and shady places. The 
proofs indeed of this idiosyncracy of large trout, if 
not visible to the eye, are often made sensibly audible 
to the ear of the night angler, by the frequent plunges 
after small fish, and the hollow gulps of juicy moths 
or caterpillars, heard amongst the reeds or under the 
shade of trees. 
But the conclusion of our remarks upon local 
fitness for this kind of angling, and of Pat’s yarn 
about the enchanted horse of the lake, has brought 
us to a favourable specimen of fishing-ground along 
the reedy and wooded shore of an island of consider- 
able extent. Pat instinctively and silently crosses 
the oars, the boat’s side is given to the breeze, and as 
it drifts evenly and slowly before the wind, the 
anglers alternately drop their flies on the waves. 
Expectation, not unfrequently mixed perhaps with 
rivalry about a first rise, supersedes precept and lake 
lore. The angling virtue of patience, however, so 
necessary on all occasions, is pre-eminently required 
here. The larger description of trout I have never 
found so numerous in any water that I have fished, 
