224 FISHING GOSSIP. 
The salmon “ meet” at Llangollen, to borrow the 
familiar phraseology of another department of the 
sporting world, is the next on the river. The turn- 
out of pink and white on the field is not quite so 
large as at Overton ; but the barrier being more per- 
pendicular, and better adjusted to the muscular forces 
of the gymnasts, the practice is perhaps superior. 
While admiring the play of the performers, prepara- 
tory to the final jump, I thought of Dick Milliken’s 
bit of natural history in the famous “Groves of 
Blarney,” in which he introduces— 
“The trout and salmon, 
Playing at backgammon ;” 
and concluded that the parody of the Dublin “ Droll” 
was not after all more extravagant, in making the 
“finsters” of Blarney engage in a “twopenny hit” 
at backgammon, than the antics attributed to Irish 
characters by a certain class of novelists for the 
amusement of the public. Milliken’s was at least the 
racy genuine specimen of what Moore nicely defines 
as the “back-water of Irish wit ;” theirs the vulgar 
pinchbeck imitation, fabricated out of materials 
gleaned within the “Circular Road” of the Irish 
metropolis. But whether intoxicated by the sparkling 
champagne of the pool, flowing down cool and fresh 
from the mountain-springs, or intent upon higher 
purposes up stream, it is certain salmon are seldom 
tempted by the angler’s lures on occasions of public . 
