Trout. 65 
bend over it, and great briars uncut since their first 
shoot was put forth ; the elder, too, grows luxuriously, 
whose white flowers, emitting a rich but sickly odour, 
the village girls still gather to make elder-water to 
remove freckles. These bushes hide the deep gully 
in which the current winds its way—so deep that no 
cattle can get down to drink. 
A cottage stands on the very edge a little further 
along ; the residents do not dip their water from the 
running stream, but have made a small pool beside it, 
with which no doubt it communicates, for the pool, 
or ‘dipping place,’ is ever full of cool, clear, limpid 
water. The plan is not without its advantages, 
because the stream itself, though usually clear, is 
liable to become foul from various causes—such as a 
flood, when it is white from suspended chalk, or from 
cattle higher up above the gully coming to slake their 
thirst and stirring the sandy grit of the bottom. But 
the little pool long remains clear, because the water 
from the stream to enter it has to strain itself through 
the narrow partition of chalky rubble. 
So limpid is the current in general, that the idea 
of seeing trout presently when it shall widen out 
naturally arises. But before then the soil changes, 
and clay and loam spoil the clean, sandy, or gravelly 
bottom trout delight in. In one such stream hard by, 
however, the experiment of keeping trout has been 
tried, and with some success: it could be done with- 
out a doubt if it were not that after a short course all 
F 
