172 ON SURREY HILLS. 



travels ; it will never do for him to go into that hole 

 as though he had got the gout. As I consider the 

 matter, a small piece of sedge comes bobbing and 

 jumping, down in the current. The hint is at once 

 acted on. I break the tip off one of the sedges, and 

 fix it about eight inches above the hook by simply 

 making a slit in the middle of it. Then on the small 

 hook I very carefully fix a shrimp, and hidden from 

 sight by a huge burdock, cast up-stream above that 

 hole. Down comes the sedge-tip dancing up and 

 down, it nears the hole, is over it, and for one brief 

 moment down goes that tip of flag. Snick ! we have 

 him, and at once get him out and down-stream. I 

 got six of the finest of dace that I have ever seen 

 out of that hole. Then they left off biting, and I 

 left the stream. They had began to look suspiciously 

 on the bit of flag-tip ; and when fish begin to get shy, 

 they are best left. 



Fine eels lived there — sharp-nosed or silver eel, 

 and the broad-nosed or frog-mouthed eel. The last 

 named is a ferocious feeder. A large eel of this 

 species will make his home in a place that one 

 would never suspect. To give an illustration of his 

 ways, a man with his boy, one I knew well, had 



