MARCH 75 



a strong wire has been strained along the face of it as 

 an aid to wading; and just above the wire a pair of 

 water-ousels have built their nest, year after year, for 

 several seasons. Now, the water-ousel or dipper is 

 usually a most cryptic architect, choosing secret spots 

 for domestic joys and cares — behind a waterfall, perhaps, 

 or half-way up an inaccessible crag. But this pair 

 have fixed on a most conspicuous site — conspicuous, 

 at least, to one wading along the foot of a cliff; which, 

 however, none but a salmon-fisher or otter-hunter 

 would have occasion to do. The first day I passed 

 this nest nothing but the mossy floor of it had been 

 laid; to-day — 17th March — the dome is complete, with 

 a cap of snow atop of it. 



But my interest in this nest is not purely ornithologi- 

 cal. It so happened that on each of the last three days 

 oh which I fished this cast, I got a pull when standing 

 just under the nest, hooked and landed a spring 

 salmon. On this, my fourth visit to the Hollen Bush, 

 nothing had moved to the fly in the upper part of the 

 cast except a couple of kelts, which were hauled out 

 (or rather required a lot of hauling before they could 

 be got out, for a big kelt in this strong water often 

 offers more effective resistance than a spring fish). In 

 approaching the dippers' nest, then, I felt, in more 

 than the usual degree, that tremulous anticipation 

 which constitutes half the fascination of salmon- 

 fishing. 



Yard by yard I moved down, the big Red Ranger fly 

 searching the cast with precision. There is the nest, 

 right enough; the next cast will be over the exact — 



