LAKE AND STREAM 213 



keeps up they bite with a will all day. 

 What a peculiarly agreeable day it is ! 

 Often I have wondered what it is that 

 causes such a time to be remembered, or 

 looked for, with such pleasure. It is a 

 rare day, no doubt, floods in late spring 

 and in summer being infrequent ; and 

 perhaps the joy with which one contem- 

 plates the sport is in some measure due 

 to its novelty. Still, that cannot be the 

 whole explanation. Angling in a flood 

 has an attractiveness inherently its own. 



After much pondering, I have, I think, 

 hit upon the secret. 



A rise at a fly, dehghtful as it is and 

 always wUl be, is the joyous sensation of 

 a moment only ; but a nibble at a worm 

 is more. It is a protracted sensation. 

 If you watch any of these villagers who 

 are out upon the stream when it is flow- 

 ing from bank to brae, you wUl notice 

 that he does not strike the very moment 

 his line is stopped. O no : this art of 

 worm-fishing calls for much discrimina- 

 tion. It may be an eel that is taking 



