GO 
WILD NORWAY. 
of wonclrously translucent water through green valleys, 
a mile or more in width, and flanked by the forest-clad 
slopes of the fj eld. In these larger rivers it is not 
always easy at a superficial glance to distinguish exactly 
the gradual alternation of salmon-holding pool and fish¬ 
less rapid, so imperceptibly does the one merge into the 
other. The depth is often uniform from bank to bank, 
save where the main current has scoured away its gravel 
bed. There are, of course, pools whose existence and 
extent are more clearly defined, those, for example, 
where the river impinges on the rock-walls of its valley, 
or where a sharp bend gives fuller scope to the erosive 
action of the water. Yet it is sometimes difficult to 
distinguish, this a pool, that a rapid, in these broader 
Scandinavian streams, though every pool and eddy, 
its back-sets and “ holds,” are intimately known to 
the local fishermen, and each stretch has its name. 
Very large rivers are necessarily unsuitable for fly¬ 
fishing, since such breadths of water cannot be 
commanded by casting—as well stand on the North 
Cape and angle for whales. Moreover, their rapid 
currents, the extreme clearness of the water, and, lastly, 
its depth, render surface-fishing, in such streams, un¬ 
certain and unreliable. It is on the smaller rivers, and 
on the upper waters of the larger, that fly-fishing for 
salmon is practised in Norway. On many of the larger 
rivers and lower reaches, mid-water fishing is the only 
means of thoroughly commanding the whole stream— 
that is, harling with fly or spinning lures, angel, spoon, 
or phantom, in their various forms. 
On great rivers, such as Alten and Tana in Arctic 
Norway, Namsen and Vefsen, harling is the exclusive 
