268 SALMON AND TROUT. 
the outline of your figure. Even the colour of your clothing is 
not unimportant. Black or white are on a bright day equally 
objectionable, especially for your hat. Jt should be remem- 
bered, too, that a screen is useful behind as well as in front of 
you. When there is barely footing between a high hedge and 
the water—I have a few such spots in my mind’s eye—the fish 
will hardly be aware of your presence unless you exhibit some 
violent contrast of colour. But a far commoner illustration of 
my meaning may be found in the neighbourhood of mills and 
factories, where a dead wall lies near the margin of an inviting 
stream or pool. Move cautiously with your back close to the 
brickwork, and you often find to your surprise and satisfaction 
that while you see the trout on the feed, they fail to see you. 
Casting from such a position no doubt requires a peculiar 
knack, but that difficulty once overcome the game is all in your 
favour. The fish to whom you have thrown takes the fly in the 
most confiding manner, and till repeated experience has fami- 
liarised you with this result the whole affair seems almost un- 
canny—as though you had the fern seed and walked invisible. 
There will, of course, be great danger of betraying your presence 
when landing your fish, and I can only recommend you to keep 
as close to the friendly wall as you can till you have led your 
trout some way down the stream, and not to use the landing 
net till he has made his last rush. 
There is another aid to concealment which I think is not 
generally recognised, but to which in certain waters (notably in 
Foston Beck in the East Riding) I have owed many a brace of 
heavy fish. Every angler has obtained some bold rises by 
casting somewhat heavily so as to break through the coating of 
foam—‘ beggars’! balm,’ Walton calls it—which forms over 
eddies for some distance below a fall or strong rush of water. 
But in calm hot weather there often forms over the shore-ward 
1 I have always suspected a mis-spelling here on Walton’s part; there is 
nothing suggestive of fragrance or healing in such scum. Beggars’ arm must 
surely be the true word—yeast which costs nothing.—[No doubt this is so.— 
Ep.] 
