I70 ON SURREY HILLS. 



How often he has hummed round my head, and 

 then settled on a blade of sedge close to, looking 

 more like king hornet than a moth ! I admired him, 

 but never attempted his capture. Insects, to my 

 mind, are most beautiful, in fact only in their true 

 beauty, when seen alive. I would that I might 

 write a whole book concerning the natural life in and 

 about that stream. As it is, I may only give a very 

 slight idea of it. 



As a food-stream for fish it was not to be sur- 

 passed. The general run of the bottom was sand 

 and bright gravel, studded here and there with large 

 stones. Bright-green weeds waved in long streamers 

 to and fro in the current — so thickly in some parts 

 that they only left a clear channel about a foot wide 

 in the middle of the stream. Where a large stone 

 was bedded, the weeds would wave round it on either 

 side. Below it would be a hole about three feet in 

 depth, and, as a rule, six feet in diameter, scooped 

 out by the current that ran round the large stones. 

 In these holes — and they numbered about a dozen 

 down the whole length of the stream — the finest fish 

 congregated. 



We had our choice of fish in those days ; if we 



