only heed an artificial fly
that is dropped in front of them with upstanding wings, and in form of
body and appendages, as in the manner of its progress on the surface of
the stream, this counterfeit presentment must strictly imitate the
small ephemeridae which are hatching in the bed and floating down the
surface of the stream. As the trout do not rise until the natural fly
appears, and as the hatches of fly are capricious, there are often
weary hours of waiting when the angler must be perforce inactive. His
exercise comes in full measure when the hour of action does arrive, and
he will find some motion even in the eventless intervals by walking up
the river on the look-out for olive dun or black gnat.

The whipper of the mountain streams, or the wet-fly practitioner who
fishes a river where the trout are not particular in their tastes, is
in the way of exercise the most fortunate of all. He is ever passing
from pool to pool, lightly equipped, changing his scenery every hour,
now whipping in the shadow of overhanging branches, now crouching
behind a mossy crag, and now brushing the sedges of an open section of
the stream. The broad tranquil flow is exchanged for merry ripples and
sparkling shallows, and these are succeeded by strong and concentrated
streams foaming and eddying down a rocky gorge. Trout here and there
are dropped into the pannier from time to time, and it is a wholesomely
tired angler, with a grand appetite and capacities for sound sleep, who
at night will welcome his slippers at the inn.

Sea-trout angling is to me the choicest sport offered by rod and line.
One degree more exacting to arms and legs than the more universal
employment of the pretty 10-foot trout rod with the purely fresh-water
species of the salmonidae, it still falls short of the heavier demands
of the salmon or pike rod. The double-handed rod, the moderately
strong line and collar, and the flies that are a compromise between the
March brown or alder and the Jock Scott or Wilkinson, offer you salmon
fishing in miniature. The sea trout are regular visitors to the rivers
which are honoured by their periodical visits, but they never linger as
long as salmon in the pools, and must be taken on their passage without
shilly-shallying.

A good sea trout on a 14-foot rod, and in a bold run of water fretted
by opposition from hidden rocks and obstinate outstanding boulders, is
game for a king. The exquisitely shaped silver model is a d