Its outline in places is broken by brownish splotches, merging in the shadows of the gravel stones and exactly coinciding with themthe true secret of camouflage, as known to the tiger and the zebra. It is quite still, near the bottom. It looks like a long, lanky pike, but it takes me several minutes to make up my mind that it really is one. Then I remember the wire in my pocket, creep away from the water, and fetch a long withy-pole from the mill. It does not take long to attach a wire noose to the end, and then the excitement begins. One thing is certain-directly the pole is shown the trout will be off up-stream, probably into the weed-bed, and it is ten to one that he disturbs the pike. That is exactly what happens, but luckily the pike makes only a short dart and remains clear of the weeds, so that it is still just possible to slip the noose over him, taking care that it does not touch his back, sides or belly; not an easy business, because refraction makes it difficult to judge his true position, and he lies rather deep in the water for such an operation. I leave him for some minutes to settle down, and he plays into my hands by rising a little nearer to the surface. He pays no attention to the pole or wire. I lower the noose gently into the water, move it slowly

along his body, fearing every moment that the wire may touch the tip of a fin and send him shooting off. Then I give a sudden rapid sideways pull on the pole, feel his struggling weight in the noose, and haul him hand over hand quickly to the side and up the bank amongst the dock-leaves, falling backwards myself into a bed of nettles-the wire having parted from the tip of the pole just as I got him well on to the bank! I must have left a kink in it.

I have never known such poisonous nettles as we grow in these parts. It is a merciful decree of nature that causes dock-leaves to grow so near to them!

VI

THE FIRST DRY-FLY DAY

HE first dry-fly day! Freedom to ramble

THE

in the valley of a South of England chalkstream in the month of May. A valley shut in by down-lands, its sides clothed with copses of beech-trees ringing with the song of birds. Water-meadows blazing with colour and the crystal waters of the stream itself meandering through them. Freedom to fish with the dryfly for trout from some of those meadows! The country-side at its very best, and the climax of a fisherman's expectation during a long winter in these parts at last arriving. A good hatch of fly seen yesterday, and every prospect of another to-day.

I am just back from my first dry-fly day, tired out but happy. The Chancellor of the Exchequer can do his worst and I shall bear him no ill-will. I have the luck to know the tenant of the mill, with fishing rights on both banks for about four hundred yards of copse and meadow. He lets me go there whenever

I like, and me alone. He wires the pike himself, works his will upon the eels by every method of barbarism known to him, and leaves the trout to me. I have been watching his water for weeks, and I marked down five good trout therein. This evening there are three left. But I am going ahead too fast. I could not help it. Two beauties are lying in state on a big dish in the hall, to be admired by passers-by, and I cannot resist sitting down to share the joy of their capture with my brethren of the dry-fly who are pining in cities and longing to be where every sensible man should be when the thorn-trees are white with blossom-by the banks of a river.

To-day's captures are small-headed, deep in girth, and still keeping the golden and silver shimmer on their sides that they had when first out of the water, kicking in the fresh meadow grass. The reason of their beauty enduring so long is a special secret, not known to all troutfishers-the secret of wrapping them up in newspaper directly after they are caught. Those who do not know of this, I recommend to try the experiment. But I have got too far ahead again with my story. The first trout of the season was the smaller of the two. He was rising confidently near my bank as I walked

up through the copse above the mill. An impossible cast. Bushes all round me, the stream too deep, the bottom too muddy to wade in, and a strong wind blowing straight in my face. A patch of clear bank lay on the opposite side, so the best chance was to walk all the way down to the mill and up the other bank. He was still coming up to fly when I got up to him; a final touch of oil on the fly -a small "variant" with gold body-and then the first cast of the year over a fish, always a doubtful moment; but the wind helped: the fly dropped softly a yard above him, floated beautifully exactly over his nose, was sucked in, and in a few minutes he was in the net, a nice lively fish, a few ounces over a pound. Then back to the mill again to cross, because the stream bends sharply higher up and is fringed on my bank with trees, an open meadow on the other side. That meadow was the scene of to-day's great battle.

Walking cautiously up the bank beyond the copse, there was no sign of fish-life for about two hundred yards, though there was plenty of fly. A few big flies, sailing majestically amongst the lesser sorts, were fluttering on the surface or struggling to leave it. And then-a And then-a dimple, a few yards below a weed-bed, just where, a week ago, I had marked down a big trout. I