FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 263 
the breeze that will soon break up the ‘ mellow reflex’ of the 
landscape around me, and refill the frame of the mirror with 
rippled silver. The purple-robed, grey-headed hills seem closing 
in upon me; high overhead sweeps the eagle, watchful, yet 
seemingly unterrified ; and see, by the foot of yon burnie the 
roe has stolen forth to drink, from his green couch amid the 
birches and brackens. Or, knee-deep in a ford of the Teme, 
where he lingers lovingly in many a circling sweep round the 
ivied cliffs and oak-clad slopes of Downton, I wave a potent, 
and in that well-proportioned stream, ‘ all-commanding wand’ 
over the rough eddy, sentinelled with watchful trout, or where 
the quieter run deepens into the haunts of the grayling. Now 
I seem to hear the hoarse chiding of the Greta, as he chafes 
along his narrow bed, or the roar of ‘old’ Conway’s foaming 
flood’—now the gentle murmur of some English stream, rippling 
through sunny meads, is ‘rife and perfect in my listening ear.’ 
The enjoyment of these local memories is heightened to 
anglers by association with the stirring details of what is always 
an interesting, often a most exciting sport. We remember 
where the monarch of the Test, long coy and recusant, was at 
length fascinated by the drop of the tiniest of midges over his 
very snout ; and where, with our gillie’s assistance, we contrived 
to land three lusty trout together, like the elfin in the ballad, 
‘a’ dancing in a string.’ We execrate the treacherous stake which 
had well-nigh robbed us of a good fish and a cast of flies at 
once, or bless the memory of the smooth sand bank, pleasant 
to weary feet, where we at last headed, turned, and wound in 
the salmon who had kept the lead for some three hundred 
yards down a rocky channel, among stones loose, sharp, and 
slippery—perilous at once to shins and tackle. How have we 
enjoyed the early breeze that crisped the stream on a summer 
morning ; the well-earned rest on a mossy bank in the deep 
hush of noon, and the homeward stroll through the pensive calm 
of evening. 
Independently of the fishes and insects with which the angler 
is more specially concerned—in themselves a little world of 
