ON LAKES, POOLS, ETC. 169 



the cast of his fly, sucking in the insects that play 

 over and alight on the lake, as day begins to wane, 

 and the purple shadows of the mountains begui to 

 lengthen and deepen? Oh, for that quiet delicious 

 hour when the cool evening breeze begins to spring 

 up, and Ifature to awaken from her noontide siesta, 

 when we can wander along the lonely strand, light of 

 heart and freed from care, casting the seductive flies 

 over each little circlet which betokens to the angler a 

 goodly and a hungry trout below. Now, the cast of 

 flies falls like thistledown, and — " by the bones of the 

 uncanonized St. Isaac, what a head and shoulders ; " 

 — ^with a dash curiously unlike the way he would 

 seize the natural fly, he has it, and turns to descend 

 with his dangerous prize. " What, ho ! bully-rook — 

 not so fast, fair sir !" and with a slight upward turn 

 of the wrist, the fine steel wire is fixed like the tooth 

 of the weasel in the eagle's leg, and it shall go hard, 

 but like it, too, it shall bring its would-be captor 

 to land. " Hoots toots, what a pother ! full twenty 

 yards of line, as I'm a living fisherman and a sinner." 

 That is all too far away for a near acquaintance, my 

 dainty salmo fario ; so, with your leave, my scaly 

 friend, we will gently persuade you to yield us back 

 that twenty yards of silken web you have so lustily 

 borrowed of us. So ! he feels the rankling steel, and 



