By (he Am&tettr Angler
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ON A SUNSHINE HOLYDAY
 
 BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 FRANK'S RANCHE; or, My Holidays in the 
 Rockies, 1885. 5*. 
 
 J3P This book went through Five Editions. The fifth edition 
 is quite out of print, but a few copies of the third edition 
 may still be had. 
 
 AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE 
 
 DALE. Imp. 32mo, is. and is. 6d. 
 The Athenaeum said of it :" Written with much brightness 
 
 and considerable literary skill." 
 Standard. "Exceptionally bright and genial style." 
 
 HOW STANLEY WROTE "IN DARKEST 
 AFRICA." Crown 8vo, with numerous Illustra- 
 tions, boards, is. 
 
 FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW. 
 
 i6mo, is. 
 
 Nature said : " Both in subject and treatment it is a gem." 
 Saturday Review. " A real acquisition to lovers of natural 
 
 history." 
 Athenaeum." Amateur Angler writes as agreeably as ever." 
 
 DAYS IN CLOVER. i6mo, is. 
 
 The Daily News said: "Delightful records of holidays by 
 river and lake side." 
 
 World. " He is a lover of the country, a naturalist who de- 
 scribes all he sees with good taste and hearty appreciation." 
 
 Mr. Andrew Lang in "The Illustrated News." "De- 
 lightful to the contemplative man." 
 
 Athenaeum. "Another pleasant contribution to literature." 
 
 Scotsman. "They are brightly written." 
 
 BY MEADOW AND STREAM. Pleasant 
 Memories of Pleasant Places. 
 
 25 numbered copies, printed on Japanese vellum, 12.?., and 250 
 copies India proofs, 6s., all sold. Cheap edition, illus- 
 trated, cloth, gilt edges, is. 6d. Boards, is. 
 
 The Athenaeum said : " Another of those tasteful and agree- 
 able volumes for which the public is his debtor." 
 
 Speaker. "There are passages in it of quite idyllic charm." 
 
 Daily News. "Describes country sights and sounds with 
 inspiring freshness and genuine love of his subject." 
 
 Globe. " He knows how to write charmingly about the pastime 
 which he loves." 
 
 Leeds Mercury. " Has the freshness of new-mown hay." 
 
 \Vorld. " His quiet humour reminds us of Elia, while his close 
 observation has the charm of Thoreau." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. "It is extremely well written." 
 
 Star. " It is a charming little book."
 
 "On a Sunshine Holyday 5 ' 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AMATEUR ANGLER 
 
 " Meadows trim with daisies pied, 
 Shallow brooks, and rivers wide." 
 
 L' Allegro. 
 
 LONDON 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON AND COMPANY 
 
 Limited 
 
 St. Dunstan's SOUSE 
 
 FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.G. 
 
 1897
 
 CH1SWICK PRESS I CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
 
 MY DEAR DOROTHY, 
 
 ,T is thirteen years since I dedicated my first 
 volume to your cousin Lorna, who was then 
 an enthusiastic angler, nearly three years old, 
 and who fished in Dovedale with my walking 
 stick for her rod, two yards of twine for her line, a bent 
 pin for her hook, and a battered tin minnow ior her fish. 
 You and she, and Kathleen, and many other of your 
 brothers and cousins, my grandchildren, boys and girls, 
 are now old enough to criticise my style both of fishing 
 and writing from the superior standpoint of youth. I 
 admit at once that you can all do much better than I 
 can, so I beg you not to be very severe in your criticism. 
 Complying with your special request, I am pleased to 
 dedicate this my last book to you, and to express the 
 hope that you and your cousins a round score now in 
 the heyday of girlhood and boyhood, may grow up to 
 be good men and women. 
 
 E. M. 
 LONDON, 
 November, 1897.
 
 viii NOTE. 
 
 by many friends, and by the public, and my 
 gratitude is due to them. This kindness and 
 generosity has led me once again to put together 
 my occasional contributions to " The Fishing 
 Gazette "y and so, with some alterations and 
 additions, to form a volume of similar dimen- 
 sions, I fear not better, I hope not -worse, than 
 its predecessors. I am well aware that from 
 the standpoint of " literature " these papers pos- 
 sess no claim for a separate existence. What 
 I have written has been for me a pleasant 
 occupation of leisure moments, and if to read 
 this volume affords as much pleasure to my 
 friends and my friendly ctitics as its prede- 
 cessors seem to have done, I shall be fully 
 rewarded. 
 
 The chapters are not all about fishing, for I 
 had but few fishing excursions to record; the 
 chief connection between them is that all have 
 reference, more or less, to "sunshine holy days" 
 
 E. M.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. WOODPECKERS AND VIPERS 2 
 
 II. HAMPSTEAD HEATH ON A BANK HOLIDAY n 
 
 III. " TALES FROM THE TELLING HOUSE " . 21 
 
 IV. SALISBURY PLAIN AND THE VALLEY OF 
 
 THE AVON 30 
 
 V. MAY FLY FISHING ON THE ITCHEN (1896) 38 
 
 VI. "ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY" . . 44 
 
 VII. ROUND AND ABOUT LOWESTOFT ... 55 
 
 VIII. THE PROSE OF FLY FISHING .... 65 
 
 IX. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GILBERT WHITE . 74 
 
 X. ' ' THE COMPLEAT ANGLER " 80 
 
 XI. OUR MAY FLY OUTING ON THE TEST 
 
 (1897) 88 
 
 XII. OUR MAY FLY OUTING ON THE ITCHEN 
 
 (1897) 97 
 
 XIII. AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY FISHING 
 
 (A SINGULAR AND CURIOUS INCIDENT) 103 
 
 XIV. ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR no 
 
 XV. THE DOONE VALLEY 125 
 
 XVI. " FAMILIAR WILD BIRDS " 137
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PLOVER'S BARROWS frontispiece 
 
 LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER . . . to face 4 
 
 VIPERS ( Vipera Aspis L. ) ,, 10 
 
 VALE OF HEALTH, HAMPSTEAD HEATH . ,, 12 
 
 THE WATER SLIDE, BADGERY WATER . ,, 24 
 
 BUTCHER BIRDS ,, 32 
 
 STONEHENGE (THE TRILITHON) 34 
 
 THE EUROPEAN BADGER (Meles taxus] . ,, 48 
 
 THE BEACH, LOWESTOFT ,, 56 
 
 IZAAK WALTON'S MARRIAGE CHEST . . ,, 86 
 
 DULVERTON ,, IIO 
 
 OUR DIGGINGS , 112 
 
 THE BUZZARD , 114 
 
 LANDACRE BRIDGE ,, n8 
 
 KESTREL , 136 
 
 CREEPER ,, 138
 
 "ON A SUNSHINE HOLYDAY." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WOODPECKERS AND VIPERS. 
 
 NE of the consequences of the publica- 
 tion of my little book, "By Meadow and 
 Stream," is that I have been dubbed a 
 naturalist a title to which I beg to 
 be permitted to say I have no claim whatever. 
 
 Some of my friends have got the impression 
 that I know all about every bird, insect, or 
 reptile to be found on this island. I thought I 
 had sufficiently guarded myself against this too 
 flattering assumption by stating that my ex- 
 perience and my life amongst birds and beasts 
 began and ended nearly sixty years ago. Since 
 then my lot has been cast rather among un- 
 feathered bipeds and four-footed creatures of 
 the canine and feline species. I have found 
 B
 
 2 WOODPECKERS AND VIPERS. 
 
 neither time nor opportunity for studying nature 
 beyond what is left of it in a pretty but city- 
 haunted suburban garden. 
 
 The late Sir Richard Owen was able, owing 
 to his great genius and life-long experience, to 
 construct a whole antediluvian animal of mega- 
 therium dimensions from a single bone or tooth. 
 In like manner have I been called upon to con- 
 struct a bird from a few feathers. 
 
 A good lady, who had done me the honour of 
 reading my book, sent me not long ago, from 
 the neighbourhood of Abergavenny, a small 
 shattered wing of a bird, which her cat had 
 killed and mangled in her garden. She had 
 never seen a bird like it, and she particularly 
 wished me to tell her what it was. Luckily by 
 a mere fluke, as it were I have been able to re- 
 construct this bird from its few feathers, and to 
 furnish the lady with a perfect description of it. 
 A friend staying with me, of a very observant 
 nature, inquiring mind, and retentive memory, 
 told me that she had seen, only a few days ago, 
 a bird of exactly similar plumage hung up by its 
 beak in a poulterer's shop. She inquired what 
 the bird was ; it was there clearly for show 
 rather than for gastronomic purposes ; she was 
 told that it was a woodpecker. 
 
 Now, if there is one bird of the rarer kind that 
 I thought I remembered better than any other, 
 it is a woodpecker. I have seen lots of them in
 
 WOODPECKERS AND VIPERS. 3 
 
 the woods and orchards on the old farm in the 
 days of old, and I am quite sure that I have 
 never seen one since ; but surely, unless my 
 memory has sadly played me false, all my wood- 
 peckers were green, with a bit of red on their 
 heads, and three times the size of the bird which 
 this wing represents, and which is not much 
 larger than a sparrow's wing, and it is striped 
 black and white. This, of course, will sufficiently 
 show the extent of my ornithological knowledge. 
 I had only seen one species, and supposed there 
 was one only. I turned to Gilbert White, but, 
 to my surprise, the woodpecker is not indexed 
 in my edition, and the only reference I could 
 find is that he appears about Michaelmas, and 
 disappears about April. 
 
 Bewick, however, is more informing. He not 
 only tells me that there are three kinds, the 
 " green," the " greater," and the " lesser spotted" 
 the latter he calls the barred woodpecker he 
 says the smallest of the three is only five inches 
 and a half in length ; weight nearly one ounce, 
 and that the crown of the head is crimson. He 
 furnishes a lovely little woodcut of this bird, and, 
 on comparing it with my wing, I am astonished 
 at its absolute fidelity bar for bar, spot for spot. 
 Every feather is there as distinct as if he had 
 had this particular wing to copy. 
 
 Robert Mudie, author of " Feathered Tribes 
 of the British Islands," says : " The several
 
 4 WOODPECKERS AND VIPERS. 
 
 woodpeckers vary in tint with the general 
 colours of the trees which they select." 
 
 Dr. Hamilton, in his delightful book, "The 
 Riverside Naturalist," describes all three in a 
 very interesting way. " The green woodpecker," 
 he says, "when not too much disturbed, will 
 take the same round day after day, visiting the 
 same trees, beginning at the base, and work- 
 ing round and round all up the trunk, searching 
 for food. It is especially fond of ants, and hops 
 in a curious upright position from one ant hill to 
 another. ... Its laughing cry has given it the 
 provincial name of Yaffel. 
 
 " The lesser spotted woodpecker is more 
 common than its larger cousin, the greater 
 spotted, and if looked for carefully enough in 
 the elms and poplars may often be noticed. . . . 
 It is more barred in the wing, with its back 
 more white than the greater. The crown of the 
 head is red. 
 
 " The greater spotted is not so common." 
 
 Dr. Bull says : "The great spotted 'woodpecker, 
 though nowhere numerous, is yet not rare in the 
 oak woods and orchards of Herefordshire. 
 
 " The lesser spotted, though not abundant in 
 Herefordshire, is yet not a rare bird." 
 
 R. Bowdler Sharpe says : " The lesser spotted 
 woodpecker is easily recognized by its lesser 
 size, being no bigger than a nuthatch. Both 
 sexes have the head scarlet."
 
 I.KSSF.K SPOTTED Wool >PF.( KKK.
 
 WOODPECKERS AND VIPERS. 5 
 
 Mudie says its prevailing colour on the upper 
 part is black, with dull red on the hind head 
 and partially on the crown. 
 
 Thus have these learned authorities taught 
 me to build up my black and white barred and 
 battered wing into a beautiful lesser spotted 
 woodpecker. The only difference, if it can be 
 called a difference, between them is that Bewick 
 says the head is crimson, Dr. Hamilton says it 
 is red, R. Bowdler Sharpe says it is scarlet, and 
 Mudie says it is dull red. 
 
 In my vagabond school days it was my de- 
 light, when not fishing, to stroll off on a spring 
 holiday afternoon into the woods to listen to the 
 birds, for, although I have not a musical ear, and 
 could never whistle or sing a tune properly, yet 
 the songs of many birds have always had a 
 singular charm for me. A number of birds 
 singing their own songs must, I should think, 
 produce on sensitive ears a jarring discord. I 
 suppose I am so far insensible as not to feel the 
 jar, though sensitive enough to find it pleasant 
 harmony. 
 
 "... Therefore am I still 
 A lover of the meadows, and the woods 
 And mountains, and of all that we behold 
 From this green earth." 
 
 One day I was sitting under a beech in the 
 wood, manufacturing a whistle out of a stem of
 
 6 WOODPECKERS AND VIPERS, 
 
 mountain ash, when I heard a tap, tap, on an 
 oak branch close by. 
 
 " Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound, 
 But the woodpecker tapping the hollow oak tree. " 
 
 MOORE. 
 
 There was a beautiful green woodpecker 
 labouring away at the bark with his strong 
 beak, supported by his two front claws, clinging 
 to the tree, and assisted by his strong tail 
 feathers pressed close against the bark. I had 
 never seen one so near before. They are so 
 shy that it is no easy matter to catch them at 
 work. One generally sees them on the wing, 
 flitting from one tree to another, with a peculiar 
 undulating flight ; wings spread and flapping for 
 the rise, and closed for the fall. He was chip- 
 ping off great bits of soft wood bent on working 
 a hole into the rotten wood to nest in, or else 
 seeking for insects. Mudie informs me that he 
 tries round the tree till he comes to a place 
 which is hollow, and upon that he beats the 
 drum in loud and rolling taps, but yet without in 
 the least perforating the tree ; and the bird con- 
 trives to make the sound merry, and in some 
 degree musical, and if his mate catches the 
 sound she answers to it, the bargain is concluded, 
 and the labour of the season begins. This 
 drumming on the tree is, in fact, his love-note 
 and a summons to his mate that a nest is to be
 
 WOODPECKERS AND VIPERS. 7 
 
 formed and food to be found. When really en- 
 gaged in boring for nesting purposes the sound 
 is different, and resembles the grinding of a 
 thick piece of steel on a rather smooth stone, 
 and may be heard at a considerable distance. 
 
 I asked old Bollington, the parish clerk, who 
 happened to be on his way through the wood, 
 what he called the bird : " Why," says he, 
 "that's a hicklc, and he's tapping for rain." 
 Old B. was an excellent clerk, and said 
 "Aamen" with sonorous dignity, but he was 
 too fond of wandering down the steep of that 
 wood to the village pub. below. He went, un- 
 happily, once too often, for not long after my 
 interview he was found dead on a Sunday 
 morning in a quarry in the wood near to the 
 path, into which he had fallen on his return from 
 the pub. 
 
 VIPERS AND ADDERS. 
 
 Are they identical ? Do they bite, and do 
 they sting ? Truly, a little knowledge is a dan- 
 gerous thing. I am clearly getting beyond my 
 depth in discussing this grave question. 1 I turn 
 to my Gilbert White, and he solemnly tells me : 
 " Providence has been so indulgent to us as to 
 allow of only one venomous reptile of the serpent 
 kind in these kingdoms, and that is the viper? 
 
 1 Previously referred to in " By Meadow and Stream."
 
 8 WOODPECKERS AND VIPERS. 
 
 He does not use the word adder, but, of course, 
 he means it. That was a source of some com- 
 fort to me, but on turning over the leaves of 
 Wm. Howitt's "Year Book of the Country," to 
 see if he has anything to say about woodpeckers, 
 I came across the following remarks, which 
 compel me to offer another apology to Mr. Van 
 Dyke, the author of " Little Rivers," for whose 
 benefit, it will be remembered, that I quoted 
 Scripture to prove that he was wrong about 
 adders stinging. And " Cotswold Isys " quoted 
 Scripture to prove that I was wrong. 1 
 
 " In the midst of the thickets we had nearly 
 trodden upon a viper two feet three inches long, 
 black as ink, which we killed. It would appear 
 that we have in this country (these kingdoms, 
 G. White says) two species of venomous snakes : 
 the black kind, and the lesser red-brown kind, or 
 adder, found on the sunny heaths. The wood- 
 man said that this owed its deep jet blackness to 
 its recent change of skin. Perhaps so ; but this 
 was evidently of a totally different kind to the 
 brown adder of the moors. Besides its intense 
 inky colour and its poison fangs in the mouth, it 
 had a sting in its tail ! 
 
 " The keeper, to whose house we took it, pro- 
 nounced it of the most venomous kind." 
 
 Dr. Hamilton (" Riverside Naturalist") says 
 
 1 See " By Meadow and Stream."
 
 WOODPECKERS AND VIPERS. 9 
 
 we have only one venomous snake in the country, 
 and that, although the bite of an adder will cause 
 very unpleasant symptoms, he believes there is 
 no record of death being caused by it among 
 the human race. As a boy I have killed dozens 
 of adders when I have found them basking on 
 sunny banks. The proper method I was told 
 was to lash them on the tail first with a pliant ash 
 or hazel switch. My method was to strike on the 
 tail first and then thrash away as fast as I could 
 ply the stick indiscriminately all over the body. 
 The largest I ever killed was about eighteen 
 inches 1 Dr. Hamilton says that any over 
 twenty-four inches must be considered as great 
 rarities. The best remedy for the bite is ammonia 
 employed both externally and taken internally. 
 They are very easily approached, being as they 
 are said to be deaf, or at least very sound 
 sleepers ; or it may be, as it has been said in 
 
 1 I remember about twenty-five years ago, when in 
 Devonshire fishing, I was being driven by a farmer from 
 Exford to Withypool, across a part of Exmoor, when we 
 saw an adder on the road ; the farmer pulled up his 
 horse, jumped off the trap, and went for the reptile, but 
 the latter was too quick for him, and disappeared behind 
 a bush in the bank. The farmer pulled the bush and 
 grass about with his hands to try to find the adder, but 
 failed to do so. He told me afterwards that if he had had 
 time to mark a circle round the brute on the road and 
 say a particular verse from the Psalms, the adder could 
 not have moved out of the circle. R. B. M.
 
 io WOODPECKERS AND VIPERS. 
 
 fable, that the adder, to prevent hearing the 
 voice of a charmer, lays one ear on the ground 
 and sticks his tail into the other. 1 2 
 
 1 Dr. Brewer's " Dictionary of Phrase and Fable." 
 " One day Bach found the painter Gainsborough fag- 
 ging at the bassoon. " Nay now," said Gainsborough, 
 " it is the richest bass in the world. Now listen again." 
 " Listen," cried Bach, " I did listen at your door, and 
 by all the powers above, it is just for all the world as the 
 veritable braying of a jackass." " Damn it," retorted 
 Gainsborough, " why, you have no ear, man ; no more 
 than an adder." MRS. ARTHUR BELL'S Life of Thomas 
 Gainsborough.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HAMPSTEAD HEATH ON BANK HOLIDAY. 
 
 N Hampstead Heath, Easter Bank 
 Holiday begins on Good Friday. As 
 a dweller in Hampstead for some years, 
 I could not help but learn, through 
 the medium of the Press or otherwise, that the 
 Heath on Bank Holidays is largely visited by 
 its owners, its landlords in perpetuity. My im- 
 pression is that the inhabitants of Hampstead 
 know nothing whatever of these owners or lords 
 of the Heath. Never is rural, quiet Hampstead 
 so absolutely peaceful and quiet, especially that 
 part of it to the west of High Street, as on Bank 
 Holiday. I suppose, as a rule, it moves away 
 to the sea, or is off angling by some pleasant 
 stream, or it goes somewhere far enough off; 
 those who remain shut themselves up in their 
 houses, and keep themselves in intentional 
 ignorance of the crowds of visitors which rail- 
 ways, 'buses, carriages, cabs and carts, horse-
 
 12 HAMPSTEAD HEATH 
 
 men, donkeymen, and footmen pour upon the 
 Heath close by. 
 
 I confess that I myself, in all the years of my 
 residence here, have never till now found an 
 opportunity of seeing what this happy hill is 
 like on a Bank Holiday. On such occasions I 
 have generally preferred to hie me away to the 
 water side. 
 
 We who reside in Hampstead know well 
 enough what our Heath is like on all other days 
 of the year ; we know that it stands high above, 
 and overlooks the greatest city in the world, 
 and that it is altogether that great city's most 
 charming suburb ; its scenery is exquisite in its 
 wild variety ; its extensive views for many miles 
 on every side are unsurpassed. On all days but 
 Bank Holidays we call it our Heath, and are 
 very proud of it. Yet, why should we be so 
 proud ? It no more belongs to us individually 
 than it does to each individual of the hundred 
 or, may be, two hundred thousands of our 
 brothers and sisters who come from the utter- 
 most parts of London on these rare occasions to 
 pay a visit to their property. 
 
 Here are no less than 481 acres of most 
 delightful lands, of hill and dale, copses, ferns, 
 gorse, and ponds, purchased mainly by the 
 people of London at a cost of nearly ,360,000. 
 To be precise, I will give exact figures, quoting 
 from that excellent work, " Records of Hamp-
 
 ON BANK H OLID A Y. 13 
 
 stead," by R. E. Baines, C.B. I learn that the 
 East and West Heaths, comprising 220 acres, 
 were purchased in 1869 from the lord of the 
 manor, Sir John Maryon Wilson, by the Metro- 
 politan Board of Works for the sum of ,57,000 ; 
 and in 1889 Parliament Hill Fields and the 
 Brickfields, comprising 261 acres, were acquired 
 and paid for as follows : 
 
 London County Council ,151,000 
 
 City Parochial Charities 50,000 
 
 Vestries : St. Pancras 30,000 
 
 Hampstead 20,000 
 
 St. Marylebone .... 5,000 
 
 Raised by public subscriptions . . 46,000 
 
 ,302,000 
 Add cost of East and West Heaths . 57,ooo 
 
 .359,ooo 
 
 These figures may be interesting to some 
 readers. 
 
 Parliament Hill was formerly better known as 
 Traitors' Hill, for here it was popularly believed 
 that the Guy Fawkes conspirators had assembled 
 to view the blowing up of the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, Nov. 5, 1605, probably a popular fiction. 
 
 This year (1896) the Heath, owing to the very 
 mild winter and favourable weather since, began 
 early to assume its spring mantle of green. The
 
 14 HAMPSTEAD HEATH 
 
 grass on the East Heath and on Parliament 
 Hill Fields is lush and long enough to cover 
 one's feet. Willows, elms, chestnuts, hawthorns, 
 and all other trees and shrubs are budding and 
 bursting into leaf and flower. Gorse on the 
 West Heath is in full bloom. 
 
 " The green buds glisten in the dews of spring, 
 And all is vernal rapture as of old." 
 
 KEBLE. 
 
 All nature seems flush and ready for the Easter 
 merry-making. 
 
 On Good Friday I was first reminded that 
 Easter Monday was at hand. Our city pro- 
 prietors from down Whitechapel way had 
 already taken possession of their beautiful fields. 
 Here were many thousands of them, and they 
 brought with them loads of cocoa-nuts, swings, 
 and attractions of all sorts ; a roaring trade was 
 going on. On Saturday morning I strolled over 
 the same ground, and all had vanished. Only 
 a few swings remained, and these were carefully 
 tied up, so as not to be played with in the 
 absence of the proprietors. 
 
 On Monday morning, Bank Holiday, I again 
 visited the same scene, now, as if by magic, all 
 and a good deal more had returned. From the 
 railway station, all the way up the hill, past the 
 Vale of Health, and up to the Spaniards Road 
 near the flagstaff, the road was lined with long
 
 ON BANK HOLIDAY. 15 
 
 sheets fixed on poles, forming a background for 
 numberless cocoa-nut shies, and the play was 
 fast and furious. Besides these cocoa-nut con- 
 tests, what grand sights we saw as we pressed 
 through the crowd. Here was on view "the 
 largest rat that ever was seen," and " two 
 wonderful four-horned sheep, bred on the rugged 
 mountains, imported by a well-known nobleman ; 
 very fierce animals, they have been known to 
 kill human beings." Then comes "the mascu- 
 line-feminine-gender girl, who was born with a 
 most beautiful cranium orifice." I don't quite 
 know what a " cranium orifice " is, but assuming 
 that one may take the whole human head as a 
 cranium, then doubtless the " orifice " may be 
 taken as the beautiful maiden's mouth but this 
 is wild conjecture. After this is to be seen 
 " Madame Leonie, the fattest woman in the 
 world ; she travelled in the United States with 
 Barnum's show." Close by is the American 
 game of baseball, which, it seems, means throw- 
 ing balls at the head of a living nigger. This 
 nigger enjoys the fun. His head is protruded 
 through a small aperture in a wooden frame, and 
 the fun, at three shies a penny, is to hit his thick 
 head with an indiarubber ball. " Play up, gents," 
 he shouts, "twenty can shie at me at once, the 
 more the merrier." There are more misses than 
 hits, and he dodges the hits cleverly, so as to 
 receive them on his crown rather than his nose.
 
 16 HAMPSTEAD HEATH 
 
 Of course, refreshments abound on all sides, 
 but, above all (and this may be interesting to 
 anglers), the air is scented, if not embalmed, 
 with the fragrant odours of frying fish, cooked 
 in rivers of fat over charcoal fires truly giving 
 forth " an ancient and a fish-like smell." 
 
 Swings by the thousand abound all along the 
 line. In one of them I saw, or thought I saw, 
 an old friend enjoying the fun like a young sky- 
 lark. " Up to the sky go we, go we ! " he 
 seemed to be singing, and up to the highest 
 height the swing would reach went he. Down 
 again, and up again, his bald head gleaming in 
 the air, his rosy countenance a picture of happi- 
 ness, and his velveteen coat flaps enjoying the 
 flight. I thought my old friend had gone a-fish- 
 ing up the Thames. It is just possible that I 
 may have been mistaken, after all, for my sight 
 is not as good as it was. 
 
 The steam " merry go-round " at the Vale of 
 Health was kept merrily going all day, and the 
 owner must have made a mint o' money. 
 
 Then there were machines for athletes to test 
 their strength by striking a wedge with a beetle 
 or heavy sledge hammer, which sent an indicator 
 up a slotted pole to a number, which told the 
 relative strength of the competitors. 
 
 And so I squeezed through the crowd till I 
 came to the most wonderful sight of all, but it 
 did not seem to obtain the patronage it deserved.
 
 ON BANK HOLIDA Y. 17 
 
 It was a show which contained a monster de- 
 scribed as an animal partly man and partly pig. 
 The showman was savage at the stupidity of the 
 passers by. " If," says he, " it was some machine 
 wrought by the hand of man, you would rush to 
 see it ; but here is not the work of man ; it is 
 the work of Nature ; it is far more man than pig. 
 A well educated and most intelligent young man 
 you will find him. Go in for one penny, and 
 you will see one of the most remarkable freaks 
 that Nature ever produced." 
 
 I may say that, not caring to be " disillu- 
 sionised," I preferred taking the pictures and 
 statements made outside as correct, without 
 further investigation. 
 
 Much as I rejoice in the wild enjoyment of my 
 fellow owners of this beautiful heath on this 
 lovely April day, I am not sorry when I get 
 through the throng of merry makers and reach 
 the Spaniards Road. The West Heath was not 
 crowded with visitors ; it had no attractions in 
 the way of shows and swings and cocoa-nut shies. 
 Still it was well studded here and there with 
 mooning young couples and groups of youths and 
 maidens playing at "kiss in the ring." 
 
 Angling in the Hampstead ponds being for- 
 bidden, owing to the close time, from March to 
 June, that favourite resort of young and old 
 cockney anglers, the Leg of Mutton pond, was 
 quite deserted. 
 
 c
 
 i8 HAMPSTEAD HEATH 
 
 What a very singular aquatic bird is the moor- 
 hen. Down our rivers one cannot approach him 
 within a hundred yards but he dives and is off 
 like a shot ; now here, on this Leg of Mutton 
 pond, a pair of moorhens reared a brood last year, 
 and here I see them now, as tame as barn-door 
 ducks, and yet this pond is a sort of pandemonium 
 for dogs and boys. The birds, it is true, keep 
 to the knuckle end of the pond, amongst the 
 coverts of sedge weeds, and there they seem to be 
 quite unscared by boys or dogs. 
 
 I supposed that I was the only angler in that 
 great throng for who, if he could help it, would 
 choose charms even such as I have tried to de- 
 scribe, rather than wanderings by pleasant rivers ? 
 and yet to my astonishment, as I sauntered 
 quietly up the hill, my ears were assailed by a 
 shout, "Hollo, 'Amateur Angler'! how are 
 you?" Surely it was Vox et prccterea nihil .' 
 unless indeed it proceeded from the stentorian 
 lungs of " Red Spinner," for on turning round I 
 caught sight of the back of him spinning down 
 the hill at a speed of twenty miles an hour on a 
 bicycle. The delights of cycling must be near 
 akin to angling when such an expert on such a 
 day prefers the former to the latter. 
 
 I did not count the owners who came to visit 
 their Heath to-day ; I am therefore unable to 
 say within a few thousands how many there may 
 have been ; if I may be allowed to guess, I
 
 ON BANK HOLIDAY. 19 
 
 should say the number could not be less than 
 two hundred thousand. 
 
 How they came, and how they vanished, is a 
 mystery ; but this may truly be said of them, so 
 far as my observation went, and I spent four 
 hours on the ground, they were, considering 
 their numbers, the most orderly, peaceful, law 
 abiding crowd that ever assembled. Surely 
 they presented a fine example of the benefits 
 conferred on the people by the education derived 
 from Board Schools. In fact, if one wanted to 
 be captious, one might almost complain that 
 they seemed to be too good. There was really 
 nothing for the police to do. Think of the 
 glories of Hampstead Heath and the other 
 heaths around London a hundred years ago, 
 and look at them now. 
 
 ' ' Are the days then gone when on Hounslow Heath 
 
 We flashed our nags ? 
 When the stoutest bosoms quailed beneath 
 
 The voice of Bags ? 
 Ne'er was my work half undone, lest 
 
 I should be nabbed ; 
 Slow was old Bags, but he never ceased 
 
 Till the whole was grabbed. " 
 
 Paul Clifford. 
 
 Let it not be supposed for a moment that I 
 think that those blood-stirring old times were 
 better than the mild excitements of to-day. But 
 let us think of the difference to these people
 
 20 HAMPSTEAD HEATH. 
 
 between a fine April day, as this Easter Monday 
 has been, and how that immense throng would 
 have fared on a pouring rainy day. I am sure 
 this has been a happy day both for sightseers 
 and those who provided the sights ; many bushels 
 full of coppers must have been exchanged 
 between them, and all retired to their homes in 
 the far away east and south full of happy ex- 
 periences which will last them to rejoice over for 
 many months to come.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 "TALES FROM THE TELLING HOUSE." l 
 
 T is not necessary to introduce the 
 author of " Lorna Doone " to my 
 readers. His great romance is known 
 wherever the English language is 
 spoken ; it has become an English classic, and 
 ranks with the best productions of the best 
 writers of romance of the century. As Sir Walter 
 Scott was called the " Wizard of the North," so 
 has R. D. Blackmore been called the "Wizard 
 of the West," for this applies to all the other 
 writings of the same author. It may be in a 
 less degree, for " Lorna Doone " has taken a 
 hold upon all classes of readers, and in quarters 
 where works of imagination are not usually 
 much esteemed. You hear its merits discussed 
 on the top of four-horse coaches coachman 
 
 1 " Tales from the Telling House." By R. D. Black- 
 more, author of " Lorna Doone."
 
 22 "TALES FROM THE 
 
 and guard know all about it. You will find it in 
 the cottages of the West, where it is treasured 
 as a work, constantly read and remembered. 
 " Lorna Doone " to a Devonshire man is as 
 good as clotted cream, almost. 1 And yet there 
 are characters, incidents, thrilling adventures, 
 lovely descriptions of picturesque scenes prob- 
 ing with a magic touch the very heart of nature 
 to be found in every one of Mr. Blackmore's 
 romances. What thrilling one might almost 
 say blood-curdling incidents are to be found in 
 " Clara Vaughan." What bright humour and 
 droll pictures in " Cripps the Carrier." What 
 strange adventures in " Cradock Nowell," 
 " Christowell," " Alice Lorraine," and " Mary 
 Anerley," and the rest of them. And the last, 
 " Perlycross," equals the best. 
 
 Anglers all should feel a special and particular 
 interest in all Mr. Blackmore's books, for in 
 nearly all of them will be found, interspersed 
 with matter of more dramatic character, many 
 very agreeable bits of angling adventures, de- 
 scribed in a way no angling writer has ever yet 
 surpassed. 
 
 Even in the tragic story " Slain by the 
 Doones," which is the first of four stories under 
 the general title "Tales from the Telling 
 House," ' 2 Mr. Sylvester Ford, the fine old Eng- 
 
 1 Preface to " Lorna Doone," 6th edit. 
 
 - "The 'Telling-houses' on the moor are rude cots
 
 TELLING HOUSE." 23 
 
 lish gentleman, who met with such a tragic fate 
 at the hands of the ruthless Doones, was an 
 ardent angler. His daughter, who tells the sad 
 story, relates that " with a fishing rod made by 
 himself, and a basket strapped over his shoulder 
 ... he set off in the highest spirits, as anglers 
 always seem to do, to balance the state in which 
 they shall return." 
 
 His Sylvia waited, alas, in vain for his return. 
 
 " But the shadows of the trees grew darker, 
 and the song of the gray-bird died out among 
 them, and the silent wings of the owl swept by, 
 and all the mysterious sounds of night in the 
 depth of forest loneliness, and the glimmer of a 
 star through the leaves here and there, to tell us 
 that there still was light in heaven ; but of 
 an earthly father not a sign ; only pain, and 
 long sighs, and deep sinking of the heart." 
 
 The squire and his daughter lived all by 
 themselves in a wood, and trees were the only 
 creatures near them some five or six miles 
 from the Doones' Valley. The good squire, 
 notwithstanding the bad reputation of these 
 gentlemanly Doones, scorned the idea that men 
 of birth could ever behave like savages. No 
 gentleman would ever dream of attacking an 
 unarmed man, he thought, and so he resolved to 
 fish the brook which ran away from their strong - 
 
 where the shepherds meet to ' tell ' their sheep at the end 
 of the pasturing season." Lorna Doom.
 
 24 "TALES FROM THE 
 
 hold, believing that he may see some of them 
 and have a peaceful interview. And so he wan- 
 dered through the woods till he came upon the 
 Badgery water, taking with him Dick Hutchings. 
 The boy, who was the only witness of what 
 happened, related how 
 
 " Squire had catched a tidy few, and he 
 seemed well pleased with himself, and then we 
 came to a sort of a hollow place where one 
 brook floweth into the other. Here was a cast- 
 ing of his fly, most careful, for if there was ever 
 a trout on the feed, it was like to be a big one. 
 Lucky for me, I was keeping round the corner, 
 when a kingfisher bird flew along like a string- 
 bolt, and there were three great men coming 
 round a fuzz-bush. 
 
 " ' Ho, fellow ! ' one of them called out to 
 squire, ' who give thee leave to fish in our 
 river ? ' 
 
 " ' Open moor,' says squire, ' and belongeth to 
 the King, if it belongeth to anybody. Any of 
 you gentlemen hold his Majesty's warrant to 
 forbid an old officer of his ? ' " 
 
 This put them in a dreadful rage, and they 
 requested him to give up his spoil. The squire 
 walked up from the pebbles at that and stood 
 before the three of them. 
 
 " ' You be young men, but I am old ; neverthe- 
 less, I will not be robbed by three or by thirty of 
 you. If you be cowards enough, come on.' "
 
 TELLING HOUSE." 25 
 
 Then the cowards attacked him ; one of them 
 he slew with the butt end of his fishing rod, and 
 then one of them ran a long blade into squire, 
 "and there he was a lying as straight as a 
 lath, with the end of his white beard as red as a 
 rose." 
 
 Then comes a most vivid account of a con- 
 certed attack on the Doones by the Devon and 
 Somerset heroes, led on by Colonel Jeremy 
 Stickles. They had mounted their culverins on 
 opposite heights above the Doone Valley, with 
 the intention of pounding the Doones therefrom, 
 when suddenly " An elderly gentleman of great 
 authority appeared among the Somerset Bom- 
 bardiers. On his breast he wore a badge of 
 office, and in his hat a noble plume of the 
 sea eagle, and he handed his horse to a man in 
 red clothes. 
 
 " ' Just in time,' he shouted, ' and the Lord be 
 thanked for that ! By order of his Majesty I take 
 supreme command. Ha, and high time for it. 
 You idiots ! Where are you pointing your guns ? 
 what allowance have you made for windage ? 
 Why, at that elevation you'll shoot yourselves. 
 Up with your muzzles, you yellow jackanapes ! 
 Down on your bellies ! Hand me the linstock ! 
 By the Lord, you don't even know how to touch 
 them off ! '" 
 
 This was no other than Councillor Doone 
 himself. He had pointed the gun right into the
 
 26 "TALES FROM THE 
 
 Devonshire men on the opposite bank, who 
 promptly returned the fire, the result being that 
 young Captain Purvis was hit in the breast by a 
 flat-bottomed bottle, and was carried wounded 
 into Miss Sylvia Ford's cottage. She nursed 
 him so well, and felt such pity for his weakness, 
 " until when the tray came out of his room soon 
 after one of those pitiful moments, it was plain 
 . . . that the young man had left very little upon 
 a shoulder of Exmoor mutton, and nothing in a 
 bowl of thick onion sauce ; " after such treat- 
 ment, what could he do but fall in love with 
 her? 
 
 Readers of " Lorna Doone " will remember 
 that tremendously exciting scene where John 
 Ridd, by the aid of Gwenny Carfax, rescued 
 Lorna from them. It was a considerable time 
 after that event that this tragedy happened to 
 the squire a story, " every word of which is 
 true, and the stoutest writer of history cannot 
 make less cf it by denial." Carver Doone had 
 lost his Lorna through the might of John Ridd. 
 He had heard of the beauty of Sylvia, and had 
 determined to carry her off to replace his lost 
 Lorna, and now that he had brutally murdered 
 her father, he made a fiendish attack upon the 
 daughter by breaking into her house at mid- 
 night. How her house was stormed, and how 
 heroically defended, I will leave readers to find 
 out. That, and the subsequent carrying off the
 
 TELLING HOUSE." 27 
 
 young lady, her release by young Purvis, " as 
 fine a young trooper as ever drew sword," and 
 the battle on a saddle-backed bridge in a deep 
 wooded glen, with roaring water under it in 
 which John Ridd, with a staff like the stem of a 
 young oak tree, fought like a giant, is about as 
 brilliant a bit of descriptive writing as was ever 
 penned in history or fiction. 
 
 One distinguishing characteristic of all Mr. 
 Blackmore's writings is that they will bear re- 
 peated readings. If read a first time in a 
 hurried and breathless way for the purpose of 
 following up and unravelling the plot, you will 
 be astonished on a second and more deliberate 
 reading to note how much of real beauty of 
 style and language has been overlooked. You 
 will find nothing commonplace or slipshod any- 
 where. Every sentence has been carefully 
 thought out and constructed, and the result is 
 a. charm of rhythm which brightens even the 
 least interesting theme. 
 
 " Frida ; or, the Lover's Leap, a Legend of 
 the West Country," of the time of Charles I., is 
 the next story- a story full of pathetic interest 
 which will repay more than one reading on 
 account of its tragic termination, the interest of 
 its story, and the poetry of its prose. The Baron 
 de Wichehalse, around whom and his daughter 
 the story centres, was doubtless an ancestor of 
 the Count de Wichehalse who figures largely
 
 28 "TALES FROM THE 
 
 both in " Lorna Doone " and in " Slain by the 
 Doones." A recent writer has called it " One of 
 the saddest tales of woman's love and man's 
 leaving that has ever been written.''' 
 
 The next story, " George Bowring," is one of 
 modern life, and tells how the teller of the story 
 and his friend, George Bowring, took a holiday 
 trip into Wales, the one an angler, the other an 
 artist. They found themselves at length at a 
 village called Aber Aydyr, lying under Cader 
 Idris. Here they halted, the one to sketch, and 
 the other to fish. 
 
 " Here George put his rod together, and I 
 heard the click of reel as he drew the loop at the 
 end of the line through the rings, and I heard 
 him cry ' Chut ! ; as he took his flies from his 
 Scotch cap and found a tangle ; and I saw the 
 glistening of his rod, as the sunshine pierced 
 the valley, and then his tall, straight figure pass 
 the corner of a crag that stood as upright as a 
 tombstone, and after that no more of any live 
 and bright George Bowring." 
 
 Then the teller tells how poor G. B. was found 
 dead, and how the murderer was discovered 
 twenty years after. 
 
 Lastly we come to a real fishing story, and 
 one whose brightness and sparkle, and true 
 sportsmanlike description could only have been 
 written by an accomplished scholar and a man 
 of infinite wit and humour. Read it quietly and
 
 TELLING HOUSE." 29 
 
 carefully, my friends, and do not hasten on to 
 discover whether that big trout was ever pulled 
 out of " Crocker's Hole." You will pick up 
 many a gem of thought and expression ; many 
 a bit of subtle humour, which in a hasty perusal 
 you would miss. Let me tell you again this 
 little book, " Tales from the Telling House," is 
 one to be taken up when you want to be restful 
 and quiet. Take it to a cosy corner and you 
 will find it soothing and pleasant, always piquant 
 and fresh, and never commonplace. It comes 
 from the pen of a master hand. I will not spoil 
 your pleasure by further quotation or comment. 
 I leave you to wander with young Pike in the 
 Devonshire valleys and along the banks of the 
 Culm, and find out the many schemes of this 
 youngster, and whether he succeeded or not in 
 catching that big trout in " Crocker's Hole."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SALISBURY PLAIN AND THE VALLEY OF THE 
 AVON. 
 
 May, 1896. 
 
 " Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade 
 To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, 
 Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy 
 To kings that fear their subjects' treachery." 
 
 King Henry V. 
 
 F in my childhood I ever read that 
 wonderful story by Hannah More, 
 " The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain," 
 I am ashamed to say that I have for- 
 gotten all about it ; but I have lately been across 
 a large part of Salisbury Plain, and have seen 
 many a shepherd and many thousands of sheep ; 
 and a pretty sight it is, to see a thousand sheep 
 just released from their pen on the top of the 
 Downs on a hot afternoon rushing helter-skelter 
 do\vn the steep hillsides to the water ; a scene 
 which occurs daily, but which, seen for the first
 
 VALLEY OF THE AVON. 31 
 
 time, seems quite an exciting and picturesque 
 feature in the landscape. The shepherds are a 
 stalwart race of men, as good, I'll warrant, all 
 of 'em, as the particularly good man immortalized 
 by Hannah More. 
 
 To pleasure seekers, and all such as care for 
 nothing but their own special amusement, this 
 present month of May must have been wonder- 
 fully attractive ; it derived from April a fair 
 amount of moisture, for 
 
 " April showers prepare the way for May flowers," 
 
 and up to the middle of the month the meadows 
 have preserved a pleasant degree of lush verdure, 
 and plenty of buttercups and daisies ; but now 
 are the croakers beginning to croak, and predict 
 a droughty summer, and lament over it before 
 it comes. 
 
 I must own myself to be among the pleasure 
 seekers. A cordial, genial invitation to run down 
 and fish the Wiltshire Avon fetched me at once 
 right off my office stool, and sent me one day 
 last week away by rail and road to attractive, 
 pretty Amesbury. Thereby flows the pleasant 
 Avon. That pleasant river has a great reputa- 
 tion for the abundance and size of its trout, as 
 all you anglers know ; and my genial host is the 
 happy possessor of three miles of it. Your i Ib. 
 or ^ Ib. trout is there looked upon as nought. 
 Notwithstanding the drought of the last fortnight
 
 32 SALISBURY PLAIN AND THE 
 
 or three weeks, water was plentiful, and weeds 
 abundant. I cannot boast of the rise, for the 
 big trout were otherwise engaged ; but, as we 
 all know, the smaller the rise of fish the greater 
 the skill of the angler who can fill his basket. 
 It is not for me to boast. I will not needlessly 
 proclaim what I did under circumstances such 
 as I have foreshadowed. After all, what matters 
 it whether you catch a few trout or many. 
 What angler wants to know any more than he 
 already knows about the kicking, and niggling, 
 and splashing, and dashing of a big trout when 
 you have got him by the lip ? 
 
 I will only say about our fishing that we had 
 a most delightful time. The scenery is enchant- 
 ing ; the meadows are green and yellow ; " the 
 earth is sown with flowers " ; chestnuts in full 
 bloom ; hedgerows white with hawthorn blos- 
 som ; birds singing their best songs ; all nature 
 alive, and bright, and gay ; the big trout could 
 be seen in the clear water, floundering about the 
 bottom of deep pools, but rarely casting a look 
 upwards to the feast we set floating above them. 
 The Major may be seen there, sitting on a log, 
 the picture of patience, waiting for a rise, which 
 seldom came ; but when an odd trout here and 
 there bubbled up to the top his deadly betrayer 
 was over him, and he came to grass and to 
 grief. 
 
 Amesbury, as you know, is situated in a beauti-
 
 VALLEY OF THE AVON. 33 
 
 ful vale on the edge of Salisbury Plain, and the 
 attractions of its surroundings are not limited to 
 angling. The willow beds on the river are the 
 haunts of many birds ; there I caught a glimpse 
 of a pair of butcher birds, quite new to me. Our 
 good host told us that he had seen a pair of them 
 surrounded by their young family. On the haw- 
 thorn spikes around their nest were impaled 
 numberless insects a sort of butcher's shop, 
 where provisions were laid in, with wonderful 
 instinct, for a rainy day. Bewick says it fre- 
 quently preys on young birds, which it seizes by 
 the throat, and after strangling fixes them on a 
 sharp thorn ; it likewise feeds on grasshoppers, 
 beetles, and other insects. 
 
 Another curious scene described to us by our 
 observant friend was one which indicates the 
 strategic capacity of ducks. He saw a flock of 
 about twenty of these intelligent birds spread 
 themselves out in a semicircle across the stream. 
 They then commenced to make a tremendous 
 flapping with their wings, their necks stretched 
 out, and swimming rapidly towards the shore. 
 In this way they drove before them shoals of 
 minnows right up to the gravel. Then they had 
 a fine feast and " the band played ! " Was ever 
 such a scene witnessed before ? 
 
 " And last the little minnow-fish, 
 Whose chief delight the gravel is." 
 
 WM. BROWNE. 
 D
 
 34 SALISBURY PLAIN AND THE 
 
 One day we took a delightful drive for ten miles 
 northwards, skirting the downs on our left, with 
 the valley of the Avon on our right, through the 
 pretty villages of Figeldean, Nether Avon, to 
 Up Avon ; the road on our right lined with elms 
 and beeches, amongst the green leaves of which 
 were gorgeous golden laburnums and rich red 
 and white May blossoms. On our return from 
 Nether Avon we struck across the plain, and had 
 a glorious five miles' drive over the heather till 
 we came to that marvellous mystery of gigantic 
 stones, known the world over as Stonehenge. 
 
 I am not going to describe Stonehenge that 
 has already been done scores of times or to tell 
 how, why, or when it came to be where it is. I 
 do not, because I cannot ; an immense amount of 
 archaeological skill and antiquarian lore has been 
 expended on these marvellous stones, but they 
 have steadily refused to betray the secret of their 
 origin. 
 
 Mr. Edgar Barclay has recently published a 
 most interesting and learned volume, under the 
 title of " Stonehenge and its Earthworks." In this 
 volume he has embodied and sifted all that has 
 ever been written on the subject, and has accom- 
 panied his studies with many very elaborate 
 diagrams, and those who are interested in this 
 extraordinary work of our stalwart predecessors 
 on this island will find in this volume an 
 exhaustive account of all the theories of all
 
 STONEHENGE (THE TRIL1THON).
 
 VALLEY OF THE AVON 35 
 
 previous investigators, as well as practical tests 
 and measurements of his own. His ground plan 
 of Stonehenge restored shows that the design 
 consisted of an outer circle of thirty uprights, 
 supporting twenty-eight traverse stones or lin- 
 tels ; then there is an inner circle of smaller 
 uprights, and within those, two horse-shoe forms 
 of stones. In the inner horse-shoe is an enormou,s 
 slab called the Altar. 
 
 These giant stones are all that now remain, 
 but who knows that they were not once covered 
 over and the interspaces filled in with some 
 perishable material ? If you pay a visit to 
 Stonehenge on June 2ist, and stand on the 
 south-western side at three o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, and looking between a trilithon of stones 
 at the back of the Altar Stone, and through 
 another opening on the opposite side of the 
 circle, the point of sunrise will be seen over the 
 tip of what is called the Sun Stone, placed 
 about 100 feet beyond the outer circle. In front 
 of this Sun Stone is an enormous stone lying 
 flat, which is called the Slaughter Stone, on 
 which the victims were sacrificed. That great 
 Sun Stone, 16 feet high, and standing alone, 
 and slightly bending forwards and looking to- 
 wards the temple, its back to the rising sun, 
 looked, as we drove across the plain, exactly 
 like the figure of an enormous Druid priest 
 or monk. One could almost realize the flow
 
 36 SALISBURY PLAIN AND THE 
 
 of a magnificent beard, and the shape of the 
 arms beneath the graceful folds of a long 
 cloak. 
 
 Here it was, in this "forest of monoliths 
 grouped upon the grassy expanse of plain," that 
 " Tess of the D'Urbervilles " found a brief refuge 
 from her pursuers. She had flung herself upon 
 an oblong slab that was sheltered from the wind 
 by a pillar evidently the slab known as the 
 Altar Stone and there she slept, " till the light 
 grew strong, and a ray shone upon her uncon- 
 scious form, peering under her eyelids and 
 waking her " ; and then they marched her off 
 to her doom. 
 
 The net result of all speculative inquiry seems 
 to be that Stonehenge may possibly not be of 
 the vast antiquity by many authorities attributed 
 to it, that it is not as old as the many barrows 
 surrounding it, and that it is not altogether of 
 Druidical origin. The prevailing opinion seems 
 to be that it belongs to the fourth century A.D., 
 and was erected as a memorial of what is called 
 "The Amesbury Massacre." About the year 
 A.D. 429, Hengest the Saxon prepared an enter- 
 tainment, to which he invited the British king, 
 nobles, and officers, to the number of about 
 three hundred. Then, concealing his wicked 
 intention, he ordered three hundred Saxons to 
 conceal each a knife under his foot, and to mix 
 with the Britons, and when they were sufficiently
 
 V 'ALLEY OF THE AVON. 37 
 
 inebriated, he ordered each man to draw his 
 knife and kill his man. 
 
 I will only further remark that this extra- 
 ordinary assemblage of monster rocks could 
 only have been brought together by giants of 
 the olden time, whether by Druids in prehistoric 
 time or by Britons and Romans at a later period ; 
 and could hardly have been erected, at such an 
 enormous cost, merely to commemorate such a 
 massacre as this ; they must have been erected 
 for some more needful purpose. Stonehenge is 
 truly worthy of a long pilgrimage, if the result 
 be only to excite one's awe and wonder. It is 
 only a pleasant walk of two miles from Ames- 
 bury village to this unique and ancient mystery. 
 
 Salisbury Plain is prolific in hares we saw 
 numbers of them in our drive across the plain 
 and I was glad to note this, and also the great 
 number of skylarks scattered all over the downs, 
 because elsewhere both hares and larks are said 
 to be growing scarce. 
 
 I would fain close my rambling notes with a 
 word in recognition of the hospitality of our 
 good friend who found for us this fine oppor- 
 tunity for a spring outing, such as we who are 
 denizens of a great city know how to appreciate.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MAY FLY FISHING ON THE ITCHEN (1896). 
 
 ]RIDAY, May 22, 1896, was the day on 
 which I had the first intimation that 
 the May Fly was up, but this was not 
 a proper use of the word, for on per- 
 ambulating our bit of the Itchen from one end 
 of our tether to the other, we saw perhaps one 
 May Fly sailing or being blown down stream or 
 clean off the water once in 200 or 300 yards. 
 It seemed useless to fish with the May Fly. 
 The Alder brought me in a good if Ib. trout 
 and a brace of grayling, which had to go 
 back. 
 
 May 23. This was a fine, dull day. Wind, 
 north-west. Fish taking every May Fly that 
 came up, but these were only intermittent. I did 
 a fair day's work, and was satisfied. 
 
 May 24 (Sunday). A charming day. Fish 
 taking May Fly in peace and quietness, un-
 
 MA Y FL Y FISHING ON THE ITCH EN. 39 
 
 terrified by shadow of man or rod or barb- 
 winged imitation. 
 
 May 25. A fine day with strong wind. May 
 Fly intermittent, but all taken. We captured 
 between us five brace of trout besides many 
 grasping grayling, which had to go back for 
 autumn reminders. 
 
 May 26. A similar day, and our taking was 
 similar. 
 
 May 27 and 28. I may say ditto. 
 
 May 29 (Friday). A memorable day bright, 
 genial, warm. May Fly up on river and meadow 
 in something like the old-fashioned style, but 
 what was most remarkable, was the undoubted 
 fact that trout were not taking them. They 
 would not, and could not, be lured by any 
 imitation of May Fly or any natural fly that 
 floated and yet they were greedily disturbing 
 rather than rising above the water. What did 
 it mean ? Our theory was that they were 
 gorging themselves with the May Fly larvae 
 (just when the final ecdysis occurs), snatching 
 each insect before it came to the surface and 
 completely got rid of its grubby shell. 
 
 We were four of us, and amongst us at least 
 three as accomplished fly casters as may often 
 be seen together (I say nothing of the fourth, 
 " The A. A."). We tried a variety of May Fly 
 imitations, chief amongst them the G.O.M. 
 We tried Alder, Ginger Quill, Duns of various
 
 40 MAY FLY FISHING ON THE ITCH EN. 
 
 hues, but I am compelled in truth to say that 
 during the whole of that lovely day, though we 
 toiled like men, hungry and starving, we came 
 home with " a beggarly account of" empty 
 baskets. Not a fish would come at us. 
 
 May 30 (Saturday). My last day for May 
 Fly, 1896. I did fairly well, but the rise seemed 
 almost over, though I hear since that on the 
 three days following there was still a rise of 
 May Fly, and that fish were taking the spent 
 fly. 
 
 I know that my experience does not go for 
 much amongst anglers, but I have thought it 
 just worth while briefly to record my doings. I 
 should say, on the whole, that it has been 
 about as bad a season for May Fly fishing as 
 we have had for some years. It came on quite 
 ten days earlier than is usual on our water, and 
 seemingly in too straggling and uncertain a way 
 wholly to attract and absorb the attention of our 
 well-fed trout, although it was most noticeable 
 that when a big trout was thoroughly aroused 
 from his lethargy how eagerly he would rush at 
 every fly that came within a roving distance of 
 his lair. 
 
 With reference to the May Fly, it had been 
 maintained by a distinguished connoisseur in all 
 matters pertaining to angling, that neither trout 
 nor grayling care a fico for the mere colour of 
 your "imitation" and he suggested for a
 
 MAY FLY FISHING ON THE ITCH EN. 41 
 
 change that a May Fly dyed pink or deep red 
 might prove a brilliant attraction for the gay 
 old stagers in our deep pools. 
 
 Accordingly I put this theory to a practical 
 test. I put on my collar a May Fly of a brilliant 
 red colour. I tried it for an hour or more 
 placing it as seductively as possible over many 
 a rising fish and I am bound to say that my 
 experience does not justify me in recommending 
 for general use this singular departure from the 
 more modest colour with which Nature usually 
 paints her May Flies. 
 
 You who are accustomed to watch the action 
 of fish in a stream have, of course, noticed that 
 dart-like and diagonal disturbance of the water 
 which a big trout makes when you startle him 
 from the bank on which you may be walking. 
 
 Well ! No sooner had my red fly come over 
 this rising fish than similar dart-like streaks 
 could be seen in every direction. This fiery 
 demon of a fly was a conspicuous object on the 
 water for many yards around. Not only would 
 my particular trout bolt like a shot, but every 
 other fish in his immediate neighbourhood 
 would make similar tracks ! 
 
 This, you will please to understand, was a 
 scientific experiment, and from it I am led to 
 conclude that both trout and grayling, and 
 possibly many another kind of fish, can not only 
 distinguish flies by their natural colours, but
 
 42 MAY FLY FISHING ON THE ITCH EN. 
 
 that of all the seven prismatic colours red is that 
 which scares them like the very deuce. 
 
 Green Drake and Yellow Drake and Gray 
 Drake they take most kindly to but I am well 
 assured, from actual experience, that Pink or 
 Red Drake they cannot and will not stand ! 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that our lines were 
 not so frequently tightened nor our baskets so 
 heavy as a genuine May Fly rise leads one to 
 expect, I am bound to say I had a very pleasant 
 week. Our straw-thatched hut at the corner of 
 our water, under the shadow of a lovely haw- 
 thorn in full bloom, is truly a pleasant retreat 
 for peaceful rest after the hard work of toiling 
 down to it. There one can sit and watch up 
 stream for rising fish ; there it was that I saw a 
 big banker fifty yards up absorb a May Fly with 
 the slightest motion possible. It was a long and 
 difficult cast up stream against wind and bank, 
 but I came down upon him nicely. He seized 
 my fly promptly, and led me a lively dance for 
 about ten minutes ; but at last he made a dash 
 under a ledge deep under the bank, from which 
 nothing would move him. At length my hold 
 loosened, and he went away in triumph with my 
 fly and a bit of gut fast in his mouth. A few days 
 after, " Piscator Major" wrote to me that he had 
 caught my two-pounder, with my fly and gut 
 still in him, to prove his identity ! I think it 
 quite too bad. That trout might, more happily
 
 At AY FLY FISHING ON THE ITCH EN. 43 
 
 both for himself and me, have come straight 
 into my basket last week he would have been 
 saved much tickling and worry in his mouth 
 and I should have been proud of him. Of course 
 I claimed the fly.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY THEIR 
 ACTIVITIES AND EMOTIONS." 1 
 
 N old friend offered the other day to 
 make me a present of a beautiful 
 Scotch terrier, a pup of the purest 
 breed, whose value in coin of the 
 realm was represented by many sovereigns. I 
 was touched by the offer, and would fain have 
 accepted him, but the reflection was forced upon 
 me, if I do accept him, what can I do with him ? 
 I live in a small suburban pill-box on the top 
 of a hill ; it is surrounded by a charming flower 
 garden, which is the admiration and, I think, 
 the envy of all my neighbours, and I am proud 
 of it. But the architect, in planning the premises, 
 made no allowance or accommodation for the 
 keep of a dog. There is no back yard or stable 
 yard. It is true I might build for him a little 
 wooden house down at the bottom of the 
 Hy ('. J. Cornish. London : Seeley and Co., Limited.
 
 "ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY." 45 
 
 garden, and chain him up there. But there are 
 several objections to that plan. In the first 
 place, what is the good of having a dog if he 
 must be always chained up out of your sight ? I 
 hate to chain up a dog, to say nothing of the 
 fact that a spirited animal would resent such 
 treatment ; he would yelp all day and howl all 
 night ; and so perhaps bring about, if not a law- 
 suit, at least a breach of the harmony which 
 should exist between neighbours. 
 
 It so happens that we have in the centre of 
 our lawn a lovely bed of begonias the shiest, 
 the tenderest, the sweetest of all flowers, to my 
 thinking. After much coaxing and tending we 
 have persuaded them to show up their colours 
 above the green leaves. Their lovely tinted, 
 wax-like cupolas are supported on the most 
 brittle stems, and generally the broad, coarse 
 leaves are spread over them to protect them 
 from all winds, just as a hen spreads her wings 
 over her chickens. These lovely little flowers 
 seem as if they were born to blush unseen ; but 
 when they do come out, as they are out now 
 in my bed, they are, for richness and delicacy 
 and variety of tints, far beyond all the other 
 flowers in my little parterre. 
 
 Now you may be quite sure that some day or 
 other that little terrier pup would break loose, 
 and the very first thing he would do would be 
 to make a dash through my bed of begonias
 
 46 "ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY 
 
 and one dash would do for them. Geraniums 
 and fuschias and such like can stand a little 
 rough usage of a dog-like nature, but the fragile- 
 stemmed, delicate begonia would be snapped 
 off at once by swish of tail or tread of foot. The 
 next thing that dog would do would be to bite 
 the butcher boy, or the newspaper boy, or the 
 milkman, and so render me liable to a heavy 
 fine, and last of all he would dash off like mad 
 into the street without a muzzle ; he would be 
 taken up by the police, and carried off to the 
 Dogs' Home. There they would starve him for 
 a few days, then give him a dose of prussic acid, 
 and so would end the life of that lively little 
 terrier pup. No, my dear good friend ! I am 
 truly obliged to you, but I regret that for his 
 own sake I must not accept your interesting 
 present ! 
 
 A young lady friend of mine once had a 
 beautiful " Pomeranian " spaniel ; she loved, nay, 
 she adored that dog. Truly to look at he was 
 one of the prettiest creatures that ever was seen. 
 His long white hair as white as milk and as soft as 
 silk ; his dark, bright, beautiful, intelligent eyes ; 
 his graceful head and his curly tail, made him a 
 thing to be admired ; but that dog was hated 
 by everyone but his mistress, and the more they 
 hated the more she adored him. He was de- 
 ceitful above all dogs, and desperately wicked. 
 The school children in the streets fled at the
 
 THEIR ACTIVITIES AND EMOTIONS." 47 
 
 very sight of him. He had his likes and his dis- 
 likes. To me he was generally civil, at least 
 he never bit me. His greatest aversion, perhaps, 
 was the postman, who wouldn't come near the 
 house till he knew he was locked up. The 
 parson he didn't like at all, and once tore off 
 the skirt of his coat. He seized a young lady 
 by the heel and tore off her slipper. The doctor 
 he pretended to like, but once suddenly seized 
 him by the hand and tore the flesh to the 
 bone. At length things came to such a pitch, 
 he had bitten so many people, that threats 
 of actions at law came pouring in, and some- 
 thing had to be done. So he was sent to a 
 dog dentist, several of his teeth were drawn, 
 others broken or filed down, and his mistress 
 mourned for him sorely. At last he came back 
 home, much humbled, but as deceitful and 
 vicious as ever. He still did all he could to bite 
 people and to frighten children. Still his mis- 
 tress loved him. During her absence from 
 home for a day or two he died suddenly of 
 spasms ; and she wept and bemoaned him 
 bitterly. 
 
 Really, Mr. Cornish, I must apologize. The 
 very title of your book, " Animals at Work and 
 Play," started me off in the wrong direction. I 
 meant to have devoted time and space to your 
 fascinating book ; but it does not much matter. 
 The very title is enough to attract all lovers of
 
 4 8 "ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY 
 
 natural history to the book, and when they have 
 once got it in hand they will not part company 
 with it easily. Besides, I had no thought of 
 writing a critique upon it. I am not a professed 
 naturalist or a professed critic. I am content 
 to take your stories about quadrupeds and 
 bipeds, birds, beasts, and fishes ; to read them 
 and be amused, like other people, and not to 
 question your accuracy about this or that. 
 
 It is very amusing to learn how animals make 
 their beds ; how they sleep and make their 
 toilettes ; how they love and how they hate ; how 
 they play, and what a curious sense of humour 
 they often display. It is surely interesting to 
 be told by a patient and quick observer what 
 animals do in rain ; how birds are lost in storms : 
 " Sweating Bees," " Animals in Sickness," 
 " Dangerous Animals in Europe," " Sanctuary of 
 Wild Birds," " The Animal View of Captivity," 
 etc. These are some of the chapter headings. 
 A philosopher made a grand discovery the other 
 day, that human beings, from Adam to this end 
 of the nineteenth century, had been lying abed 
 the wrong way ; instead of sleeping with their 
 heads on their pillows, the proper thing to do, 
 according to him, is to put their feet there and 
 their heads away down where the feet used to be. 
 This way of sleeping is said to be a perfect cure 
 for insomnia and many other ills to which mis- 
 taken humanity has hitherto been subject. Why
 
 THEIR ACTIVITIES AND EMOTIONS." 49 
 
 in this respect have we not long ago taken a 
 lesson from the badger ? Mr. Cornish informs us : 
 
 " The badger takes a quantity of grass in to 
 make its bed in the winter, and removes this 
 when he comes out more freely in the spring. 
 But the oddest fancy of the badger in bed is that 
 it achta/ly sleeps on its head. This is true in any 
 case of one of the Zoo badgers. Twice when 
 the straw in which he buries himself has been 
 removed, the writer has seen him, not curled 
 upon his side, but with the top of his flat head 
 on the ground, and the rest of his body curled 
 over it, as if it had fallen asleep in the middle of 
 turning head over heels." 
 
 This no doubt fully explains the general health- 
 fulness of the badger, and accounts for its 
 longevity. It is probably the only living creature 
 that has preserved this original law of nature. 
 But is there not some trace of it still left in 
 humanity ? How is it that human beings in the 
 tadpole stage are so fond of standing on their 
 heads instead of their feet, till the tendency has 
 been smacked out of them ? Our philosopher 
 above mentioned had probably discovered the 
 secret of the badger, and from it deduced the new 
 pillow theory as a stage in the right direction. 
 
 It would be easy to quote page after page from 
 
 this interesting book, but that would be unfair 
 
 to the author. Perhaps the most interesting 
 
 chapter to anglers is the one on "The Invisible 
 

 
 5 o "ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY 
 
 Food of Fishes." It appears that oatmeal given 
 to oysters to fatten them has just the opposite 
 effect, and causes them to lose weight and die, 
 and flour soon poisons them, whilst " the typhoid 
 bacillus is destroyed by passing through the 
 oyster's alimentary canal," which is good news 
 for the owner of oyster beds. What was until 
 recently thought to be the principal food of river 
 fishes now appears to play only a limited part in 
 their maintenance, and the common fisherman's 
 view, that river fishes work hard for their living, 
 and subsist mainly on worms and grubs, with a 
 change to May Fly in the season, and occasional 
 feasts of ground bait and paste, is almost as far 
 removed from fact as the showman's description 
 of the elephant's diet as consisting mainly of 
 cakes. 
 
 It seems to have been a problem hitherto un- 
 explained as to what non-carniverous fish, from 
 the whale to the pilchard or herring, could pos- 
 sibly find to live on in seas apparently barren of 
 all kinds of food. The explanation is that : 
 
 " The microscopic creatures which are in parts 
 of the Atlantic massed so thickly in the water as 
 to discolour the surface, and give abundant food 
 for the whale, are present, not so thickly, but in 
 numbers comparable to motes in the air, in all 
 parts of the sea. For the purposes of the herring 
 and the pilchard, and countless other shell fish 
 and zoophytes, the upper waters of the sea are
 
 THEIR ACTIVITIES AND EMOTIONS." 51 
 
 in fact a nutritive soup teeming with food exactly 
 suited to their need. These microscopic creatures 
 are the basis of all the larger life of the ocean, 
 and in a great degree of the growth and increase 
 of fresh water fishes. Some of these tiny creatures 
 are water-fleas, others like carpaced shrimps . . . 
 and are of prodigious fecundity. ... In rivers 
 they are almost the sole food of all young fish, 
 and probably the main resource of the older fish 
 when other supplies fail. In the first days of 
 spring the creatures in every stage eggs, larvae, 
 and perfect though microscopic entomostraca 
 swarm in the water, on the mud, and on the 
 foliage of the water plants. At such times even 
 trout feed mainly on them . . . they are then 
 said to be tailing}' 1 
 
 We all know what tailing means from an 
 angler's point of view. Let the day be ever so 
 promising, the wind in the right quarter, and 
 insects abundant on the surface, if a trout is 
 tailing you might as well pack up and go home. 
 
 " They are eating the weed bare of the cling- 
 ing film of microscopic larvae, of water- fleas, 
 cyclops, and other fresh water entomostraca. . . . 
 Experiments made on trout showed that when 
 fed upon worms only they grew slowly; others 
 fed upon minnows did better ; but a single fish 
 fed upon insects weighed twice as much at the 
 end of the experiment as a pair of those reared 
 upon worms and minnows respectively. . . .
 
 52 ''ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY 
 
 Carp were formerly believed to be vegetable 
 feeders, and the carp ponds of Germany used to 
 be drained and planted with rye as carp food. So 
 it was, but only as being itself food for the 
 microscopic millions. The carp chews the 
 water weed, sucks off the insects, and then spits 
 it out again." 
 
 There have been many learned discussions in 
 "The Fishing Gazette " as to how salmon manage 
 to live in fresh water without the least particle 
 of food ever being found in their stomachs. 
 Well, here is the solution: They "live upon 
 nothing but victuals and drink," but of the 
 microscopic and invisible kind now known as 
 entomostraca; just as whales and pilchards and 
 herrings flourish in seas apparently barren of all 
 food, so do salmon live and flourish on the 
 billions of invisible creatures swarming in rivers, 
 which they assimilate as soon as swallowed, and 
 therefore no food is ever found within them. I 
 regard this theory as a discovery. Palmam qui 
 meruit ferat, to Mr. Cornish belongs the palm. 
 I only tell the story. 
 
 The mention of carp reminds me that when 
 " Piscator Major" and I were in Paris some 
 time ago, we ran down to Fontainebleau solely 
 and wholly for the purpose of having a look at 
 the big carp, for doth not our master say that he 
 is " the Queen of rivers," in the same sense, I 
 suppose, as the salmon is called the King of
 
 THEIR ACTIVITIES AND EMOTIONS." 53 
 
 rivers " a stately, a good, and a very subtle 
 fish." He also says that " if he have water room 
 and good feed, will grow to a very great bigness 
 and length ; I have heard, to be much above a 
 yard long." The fine old chateau which Napo- 
 leon III. renovated, and built a gorgeous theatre 
 therein, was closed when we arrived at five 
 o'clock. The theatre was completed a few 
 weeks only before the outbreak of the Franco- 
 Prussian war of 1870, and so the poor emperor 
 saw it only on a few occasions, and it has never 
 been played in since. The park gates were 
 open, and the fine lake was accessible. There 
 is a tradition floating about that this lake con- 
 tains carp more than a hundred years old. On 
 the other hand, it is said that the Cossacks, in 
 1815, drained the lake dry, and ate up every 
 carp. If that is so, and the lake was immediately 
 restocked, the oldest carp to be found there now 
 can barely have reached the respectable age of 
 eighty. It is certain, however, that the lake 
 swarms with carp of all ages, and they seem to 
 be in a very lively and healthy condition. 
 
 An old woman sits in a small alcove sur- 
 rounded with loaves of bread, which she sells to 
 the visitors at a penny a hunch. The carp were 
 there in hundreds, and we fed them. Fine fun 
 it was to see the helter-skelter dash they would 
 make for a small lump of bread. A large crust 
 caused most excitement, because they could not
 
 54 "ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY." 
 
 easily seize it, and presently a big old fellow, a 
 yard long, would sail round or come up from 
 below, push the others aside with his pig-like 
 snout, and swallow the lump just as an old sow 
 would. It was interesting- to notice the respect 
 paid to a pair of stately swans by all the carp 
 big and little. When they sailed in for a share 
 of the food there was a general skedaddle, and 
 the swans took their bread with proper dignity. 
 We saw several fellows there that were quite a 
 yard long ; and a few nearly white, which gave 
 them the appearance of venerable age. They 
 seemed to thrive on bread, but probably more 
 so on the invisible entomostraca mentioned by 
 Mr. Cornish. 
 
 It will be seen that I have made of this little 
 book a sort of peg to hang a variety of odds and 
 ends upon. I will finish by recommending it 
 heartily to all readers who can find interest in 
 the doings of all sorts of animals, when at work 
 or at play.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ROUND AND ABOUT LOWESTOFT. 
 
 OWESTOFT being situated on the 
 most easterly point of England, and 
 fully exposed to any sea breezes that 
 may blow from the north, or the east, 
 or the south, most certainly possesses at least 
 this one advantage over many of the seaside 
 resorts on the south coast, that its breezes are 
 bracing and its air invigorating ; and, as these 
 happen to be the recuperative qualities most 
 needed by those who go down to the sea, Lowes- 
 toft has become very popular, and consequently, 
 it must be added, very dear for the accommoda- 
 tion it affords, as compared with other and more 
 fashionable resorts. The season here is short ; 
 limited, indeed, so I am told, to two or three 
 months, which are the harvest times for the in- 
 habitants, and it is no discredit to them to say 
 that they do their best to make hay while the 
 sun shines.
 
 56 ROUND AND ABOUT LOWESTOFT. 
 
 The expense of board and lodging does not 
 weigh quite so heavily on me as it does on large 
 family parties occupying many rooms ; and 
 weekly family bills, for being braced up by the 
 breezes and strengthened by the sea air which 
 pervades Lowestoft, make a large inroad on 
 holiday expenses, and folk cannot live on breezes 
 alone. Altogether, therefore, I think it may be 
 said to be an expensive place. The people who 
 go there in such crowds seem to be of a class 
 most easily satisfied with the very mildest of 
 entertainments. Bands play at intervals, an 
 open-air concert on the sands in the evening, 
 preaching and disputing and shouting, make up 
 the sum total of what the visitor will at any time 
 encounter in a tramp through the whole extent 
 of south Lowestoft, from the Grand Hotel to the 
 bridge, which separates the north from the south, 
 as well as the inner and the outer harbours. At 
 the north end of north Lowestoft is an exceed- 
 ingly pretty little park, and down below on the 
 Denes is the model fresh water yacht pond, an 
 interesting and attractive spot, on which young 
 people sail their boats. The largest of these 
 juvenile yachts are modelled to scale on the 
 best racing yachts of the Solent, and miniature 
 races take place periodically under Yacht Club 
 rules. 
 
 Two rival phrenologists occupy tents on dif- 
 ferent parts of the sands, and seem always to be
 
 ROUND AND ABOUT LOWESTOFT. 57 
 
 engaged in examining the heads of the rising 
 generation, and teaching the anxious mothers 
 how to teach their children to avoid the shoals 
 and quicksands of life which their bumps fore- 
 shadow. It would be curious to compare the 
 opinions of these two learned scientists on their 
 examination of the same head. 
 
 Lowestoft and its surroundings are certainly 
 not without many attractions. There is a very 
 long and attractive pier, and there must be two 
 or three miles or more of walls surrounding the 
 harbours, and on these walls or platforms may 
 be seen at any time of the day hundreds upon 
 hundreds of anglers, young and old, fishing for 
 anything that may come ; and it is surprising to 
 see the number of little fishes these persevering 
 and most patient young and old anglers will pull 
 out. 
 
 Then there are the neighbouring broads and 
 rivers. One day we went, some of us by rail and 
 some by steamer, to St. Olave's, which is within 
 a mile or two of the enchanting Fritton Lake, so 
 well known to all anglers. There we hired boats 
 and floated idly round the lake ; or, anchored in 
 seductive places, we fished and fished, but nothing 
 came of it but the fun of the thing. Men, women, 
 and children our family party a-fishing num- 
 bered twelve all chattering, all fishing, all 
 swinging rods and lines, and floats, and hooks, 
 and baits about in the liveliest manner imagin-
 
 58 ROUND AND ABOUT LOWESTOFT. 
 
 able. A most delightful way of fishing, but to 
 the surprise of some of us not a fish was caught. 
 They kept off at a respectful distance from our 
 boats, and were much amused at the wild antics 
 being played above them on the surface of the 
 water; for if they could not hear the laughter, 
 and shouting, and screaming of the youngsters 
 over their heads, they could plainly enough see 
 the fantastic allurements now splashed down 
 upon them and now as suddenly jerked up. It 
 amused the fishes, it amused the children, we 
 were all amused, and no one was hurt. 
 
 When we got ashore again we wandered 
 through the pretty woods and gardens we 
 romped on the lawns, and had swings and 
 other diversions ; and altogether we had a jolly 
 time, old ones as merry and light-hearted as the 
 young ones. Fritton Lake is over three miles 
 long and probably a mile wide in some places, 
 much narrower in others. It is charmingly 
 surrounded by dark green woods, with pretty 
 nooks and corners, where, shutting out the 
 troubles and sorrows, the worrits and anxieties 
 of the wicked world we have left behind, we 
 might long to fish and float on and on for ever. 
 
 Another time, on serious angling bent, we left 
 the children to play on the sands, and started 
 off, " Piscator Major," another young enthusiast, 
 and I, for a day's fishing in the Yare. 
 
 It is curious to note as you pass along these
 
 ROUND AND ABOUT LOWESTOFT. 59 
 
 rivers and broads the number of ardent anglers 
 you will see patiently sitting in punts moored to 
 the banks and waiting for a bite, and how, quite 
 unconsciously, as it were, they would, if they 
 happened to be successful, haul up their keep 
 nets (which are usually suspended outside the 
 boat in the water), and, as if to see that all was 
 right, pretend to examine their catches, but 
 really to show us passers-by what tremendous 
 fellows they were for catching fish ! Well, we 
 who laughed at their mild ostentation, and 
 envied their success, were bent, when we reached 
 our destination (at Coldham Hall, on the Yare), 
 on doing the same thing. 
 
 We hired a punt ; we provided lunch for our- 
 selves and ground-bait for the fishes. We had 
 a couple of long poles, which we stuck in the 
 mud at each end of our punt, and to these, 
 having found a likely place for fishing, we 
 moored ourselves. We were careful not to get 
 too far out in the stream on account of the big 
 steamers and yawls, and yachts and barges that 
 were constantly passing up and down the river. 
 We measured the depth of water, and adjusted 
 our floats and shot and baits thereto, so that 
 the bait might not be suspended midway from 
 the bottom or lie idly thereon an inch or two 
 off the bottom is best. 
 
 Meanwhile we had cast into the water many 
 a handful of ground bait. The bait we used
 
 60 ROUND AND ABOUT LOWESTOFT. 
 
 was paste, sometimes white, sometimes coloured 
 pink, always nice and tough so that it would 
 bear rather rough swinging from the rod to get 
 it out a good distance from the punt ; and so 
 we three sat in that punt patiently watching our 
 floats. I may say that we had only two rods 
 between us, for I regarded myself as an out- 
 sider a mere spectator and I must say that 
 sitting in a punt for hours, watching a float, 
 with a hot sun in front of you and a cold easterly 
 wind blowing lumbago blasts at your back is not 
 the kind of fishing that enlists my sympathy ; I 
 soon grew tired of it. But there I was im- 
 prisoned, in deep water, ten yards from shore, 
 and to get there meant pulling up our mooring 
 poles and rowing a hundred yards away for a 
 landing place, thus disturbing all the arrange- 
 ments. Aware of this, I for a long and weary time 
 exercised all the patience at my command, but 
 I at last begged to be put ashore, and I was 
 glad to stretch my stiffened legs by prowling 
 about the fields. I had seen my young friends 
 pull in a number of small fish, and I had caught 
 one or two myself. 
 
 There does not seem to me to be much skill 
 required in this sort of fishing patience is the 
 great thing, and luck has something to do with 
 it, else why did that big bream not come at me 
 instead of the Major? How that fool of a fish 
 fought and splashed and dashed about was good
 
 ROUND AND ABOUT LOWESTOFT. 61 
 
 to see, but the Major had him in a firm grip, 
 and after many a struggle he got him to the 
 top of the water ; but we had no landing net,'.and 
 to have lifted him bodily by the hook and gut 
 into the boat would have been an impossible 
 feat, he would inevitably have smashed that 
 slender gut. Happy thought ! We hauled up 
 our keep net, already alive with a number of 
 decent roach. We managed to get this under 
 the monster, and we got him into it, where he 
 made a lively time for himself and the others 
 suspended in the water till the boat came home. 
 
 When brought ashore he was pronounced to 
 be the biggest bream that had been caught in 
 those waters this season. Bream are not usually 
 considered to be particularly good for food, but 
 our ferryman, to whom we presented him, said 
 all that depended upon the way he was cooked. 
 " First," says he, " let him be well scraped and 
 cleaned (he had just jumped out of the net and 
 
 wallowed in the mud), and then " but I am 
 
 not called upon to give a lesson in cooking 
 bream, let it be sufficient to say that he seemed 
 delighted to get him, and intended to call his 
 friends and his neighbours together and give 
 them a jolly supper. 
 
 "Piscator Major" and the other young en- 
 thusiast seemed to be well satisfied with their 
 day's sport. I do not think I care just yet about 
 having another dose of punt fishing, but to those
 
 62 ROUND AND ABOUT LOWESTOFT. 
 
 who like this kind of fishing what unlimited 
 scope there is on these great broads and rivers 
 of the east for an unlimited number of anglers ! 
 and seeing that so much of the fishing is free, 
 and you can hitch up your boat wherever you 
 please, so long as you do not interrupt the traffic, 
 one's chief cause for surprise is that so few 
 London anglers find their way down to them, 
 notwithstanding the fact, which one would have 
 thought was pretty well known, that, contrary 
 to some other railway companies, the G.E.R. 
 affords every facility, accommodation, and 
 economy to bond fide anglers throughout their 
 system, and the expense of getting down to 
 these waters is certainly not burdensome, while 
 the sport for those who like it is pretty certain 
 and good. 
 
 I have not the conceit to suppose that I am 
 the only one who has ever made a pilgrimage 
 from Lowestoft to Blunderstone. One day A. M. 
 and I took a small Norwich car (and very con- 
 venient little traps they are) and drove over 
 to Blunderstone being about five miles from 
 Lowestoft to see if by chance we could dis- 
 cover " The Rookery," the house in which David 
 Copperfield was born, and where his earliest 
 days were spent. Blunderstone is a long 
 straggling village. Our driver had never heard 
 of David Copperfield, nor for a long time could 
 we find anyone in the village who knew where
 
 ROUND AND ABOUT LOWESTOFT. 63 
 
 the Rookery was (the rooks, it will be re- 
 membered, had deserted the elms before David's 
 time). One woman, standing in her little front 
 garden, when we politely asked if she could 
 direct us to the place we were in search of, 
 would not give us a reply at all ; she rushed 
 into her house and banged the door behind her. 
 
 At length we came to the blacksmith, a good- 
 tempered, bright-eyed, young fellow, who clearly- 
 had the whole story by heart. We were told to 
 bear round to the right, and to take the first 
 turning to the left till we came to a barn, and 
 there, standing back some two or three hundred 
 yards from the road, we should see the identical 
 house which had lately fallen almost into ruins, 
 the roof off, but had now been thoroughly 
 repaired. "There," said the blacksmith, "you 
 will see the window at the back where young 
 David Copperfield used to lie and watch the 
 church and churchyard and the daws and rooks 
 for hours in those doleful times when he was 
 incarcerated for biting Mr. Murdstone's fist." 
 
 We found the barn and the house as directed 
 now a freshly painted pleasant villa, with a 
 parlour to the right and a parlour to the left, the 
 door in the middle. The house being a con- 
 siderable distance from the road, with a small 
 paddock and lawn intervening, we thought it 
 not rude to stop our steed in the road in order 
 to have a good look at it ; but we had to move
 
 64 ROUND AND ABOUT LOWESTOFT. 
 
 on, for a man immediately came out with a gun 
 in his hand. 
 
 I do not pretend to say, or wish it to be 
 inferred, that that man meant to shoot us 
 indeed, I am inclined to doubt whether he even 
 saw us ; he was most likely going to shoot at 
 the blackbirds or starlings in the fruit trees in 
 the garden at the back but we were curiously 
 startled ; it is not comfortable to stand staring 
 at a man with a gun in his own garden, however 
 amiable his real intention may be, and so we 
 drove on, contenting ourselves with a glimpse 
 at the front of the house, not daring to approach 
 it nearer. We also got a glimpse of the very 
 interesting looking old church with its remark- 
 able round tower. 
 
 We had only two hours at our disposal when 
 we left Lowestoft, and that time was nearly up, 
 so we had to content ourselves with the glimpses 
 we had got. We travelled for some distance 
 along the Yarmouth road, so familiar to David, 
 and Barkis, and Peggotty, and all the rest of 
 'em. Surely it was somewhere along this road 
 that Mr. Barkis, the carrier, on learning that 
 Peggotty made all the apple parsties and did all 
 the cooking, instructed David (whom he was 
 taking from his home to Yarmouth), if he should 
 happen to be writing to Peggotty, to add those 
 immortal words, " Barkis is willin'."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PROSE OF FLY FISHING. 
 
 September, 1896. 
 
 R. H. R. FRANCIS, M.A., has 
 recently issued a choice little pam- 
 phlet, under the title of " The Poetry 
 of Fly Fishing." I had the peculiar 
 privilege of reading this charming little work 
 under circumstances not altogether conducive to 
 the pleasure or enjoyment of fly fishing for I 
 read it one day sitting in our fishing hut, where 
 I had perforce taken shelter from a continuous 
 downpour. My lively little basket carrier com- 
 forted me with a contribution to the poetry of 
 fly fishing not to be found in Mr. Francis's book. 
 " Never mind, sir," said he, 
 
 " Sunshine and shower 
 Change every half-hour." 
 
 Rhyme only partly true in my case, for the 
 
 sunshine did not appear at all, but the rain 
 
 F
 
 66 THE PROSE OF FLY FISHING, 
 
 continued all day. It was a happy thought that 
 led me to put that pretty booklet into my pocket, 
 for it betrays a personal acquaintance with all 
 that has been said by all the poets, ancient and 
 modern, on the subject of angling. It is, indeed, 
 a sort of defence of the poetry of angling against 
 maligners who have stated as a proof of defect 
 that angling has found but little favour with the 
 poets and where could be found so suitable a 
 place for reading it as in a hut specially appro- 
 priated to anglers, and looking out, as it does, 
 from beneath the shade of a wide-spreading 
 hawthorn, where one can sit and watch the big 
 expanse of water in front of us for any fish that 
 rise but none ever rose. 
 
 My lively boy, whom I have already quoted, 
 and who seems to have something of the spirit 
 of a young naturalist in him, drew my attention 
 to the performances of three " dabberchicks," as 
 he called them, swimming about in the pool 
 regardless of us, perhaps because they could 
 not see us. At one moment the water would be 
 quite clear of them then up they were again, 
 alternately diving and swimming in a happy 
 state of enjoyment. " I wish I could dive and 
 swim like they," cried young twelve-year-old, 
 " I'd soon put some fish in the basket." 
 
 A little further up stream were a pair of birds, 
 unknown to me, feeding on a small island of cut 
 weeds that had not long before been released
 
 THE PROSE OF FLY FISHING. 67 
 
 from one of the arches of the bridge above. A 
 mixture of decayed vegetable matter, apparently 
 alive with insects, for the birds seemed to be 
 delighted with their feast ; now flying up and 
 snatching insects in the air, now pecking away 
 at the weeds. " Look up yonder, sir, at that 
 pair of ' Pollydishwashers ' ; they are such funny 
 birds, and play such curious antics, specially 
 when they're flying, popping up and down ; I've 
 seen lots of 'em about the river." 
 
 Then my young naturalist, peering into the 
 bushes hanging over the water at our feet, 
 whispered to me to look down there. "See 
 that water rat on the weeds eating quite con- 
 tentedly the long stems of grass that come up 
 from the water ; ain't his eyes bright ? " The 
 little vole was not easily disturbed, and when he 
 was he would pop into the water for a few 
 seconds, then up again, and munch away at his 
 weed as happy as ever. 
 
 Presently my young hopeful brought some- 
 thing in his hand. "Look here, sir," says he, 
 " here ; s a case that spiders build their nests in." 
 A filmy kind of thin bladder, about an inch 
 in diameter, which had been the birthplace of 
 hundreds of young spiders. Then my restless 
 youngster drew my attention to a hawk up in the 
 sky. " He 's mousing ; you watch and you'll 
 see him presently put his wings together, and 
 come flop down like a lump of lead. See,
 
 68 THE PROSE OF FLY FISHING. 
 
 there he goes. Ah ! He 's missed the mouse 
 this time." 
 
 This was the way we passed our time, plea- 
 santly enough, in our cosy hut, whilst the rain 
 poured down, and the wind in howling gusts 
 swept the water into rolling waves. 
 
 Since I came down to these parts in the May 
 Fly time, which was by no means as good a time 
 as it usually is, I have not had a rod in my hand, 
 and I had chosen a singularly unfortunate time, 
 for the weather was dead against me. I arrived 
 on Friday afternoon, and that evening I caught 
 a fine brace of grayling and a nearly 2 Ib. trout, 
 and I have caught nothing since, and my accom- 
 plished friend the Professor was equally unlucky. 
 Saturday was an awful day, it rained in torrents 
 all day almost without a break, but we ventured 
 forth well clad in mackintosh and waders. We 
 fished now and then, when we could, in the short 
 intervals, when the heavy rain gave us the least 
 chance, but the wind blew half a gale, and we 
 watched wistfully for a rise. The wind blew all 
 the flies away, and we grumbled because there 
 was no rise. 
 
 When the wind fell a little another torrent 
 came on, and we were driven to seek shelter 
 under our favourite wide-spreading ash, which 
 the Professor long since christened " The Pub," 
 a name which it will retain for ever. It must 
 have been in some such way as this that all
 
 THE PROSE OF FLY FISHING. 69 
 
 place names originated ; future generations will 
 therefore please note how and when this doubt- 
 less then celebrated spot came by its odd name. 
 The rain, coming, down straighter and heavier 
 than ever, soon found its way through the thick 
 foliage, and we had to move. We made a dash 
 through the pitiless storm for a quarter of a mile, 
 helter-skelter, to our never so pleasant old hut, 
 dripping and draggled like barn-door fowls who 
 couldn't or wouldn't go in when it rained. There 
 we were imprisoned for hours, watching the big 
 bubbles swept away now and then by mighty 
 blasts, rolling and tumbling the usually placid 
 pool into a boiling cauldron. So we started for 
 home at the farm, where we smoked and played 
 chess. 
 
 Sunday was wholly given up to Jupiter Pluvius, 
 and Monday was worse than Saturday we 
 fished all day in the rain without ever even see- 
 ing a rise, for really there was nothing to rise at, 
 and food was plentiful down below. 
 
 Tuesday morning was bright but blowy. The 
 Professor, having more chances of choosing his 
 time than I, gave up and went to town. I, as 
 usual, persevered, but still there was no rise, and 
 I got no fish. In the afternoon the rain came 
 down with renewed vigour, and, as already re- 
 corded, I spent my time in the hut till the time 
 came to catch a train for town, and so my little 
 fishing excursion in Hampshire ended.
 
 70 THE PROSE OF FLY FISHING. 
 
 Friday, Sept. 18, found me on the banks of 
 the Teme. A young friend of mine had got me 
 a day : s fishing on a strictly preserved and most 
 charming stretch of water not many miles above 
 Tenbury. It was a lovely day one might call 
 it an ideal day for grayling fishing. My young 
 friend is an expert ; he had caught over thirty 
 grayling and trout a fortnight before in the same 
 water, and his man, who accompanied him, 
 caught just as many ; he also accompanied us 
 on this occasion. We started full of such cer- 
 tainty of brilliant doings that there was posi- 
 tively no room for doubt. In face of these 
 masters of the angle I, of course, completely 
 effaced myself. I felt that I was nowhere. 
 There was no wind, no rain, and no sun a dull, 
 genial, pleasant day. I was led to expect to see 
 the pools bubbling with rising fish and the 
 streams alive with them. Our man, who on 
 this occasion was not fishing, except when I now 
 and then handed him my rod in order that 
 I might take a lesson in the most approved 
 method of wet fly fishing with two or three flies 
 on the cast, to which I had not been used and 
 who was loudest in praises of the river, the fish, 
 and the weather began soon to wonder what 
 was the matter. 
 
 "What a strange thing it is,'"' said he, "the 
 fish don't seem to be rising at all ; but never 
 mind, it doesn't much matter ; they'll take all the
 
 THE PROSE OF FLY FISHING. 71 
 
 better as we draw the flies gently just under the 
 water." Of course we all practised this method, 
 but it didn't seem to answer not a fish came 
 near either of us. " All right," exclaimed our 
 enthusiast, " you'll get plenty in the streams and 
 pools lower down." And I am bound to say 
 that I fished we all fished our mile or two 
 of water conscientiously, methodically, I may 
 almost say scientifically. I boast not of my own 
 skill, but my friends, both master and man, are 
 undoubtedly born artists, and knew every turn 
 and twist of the river, and where all the best fish 
 are to be found, and yet, after working from 
 1 1 a.m. to 5 p.m., we did not catch we did not 
 see even a single takable fish. We caught a 
 few samlets, which we put back, and we returned 
 home sorely discouraged, and with baskets as 
 empty as when we set out. 
 
 " Well ! I think it is time to put up ! 
 For it does not agree with my notions, 
 
 Wrist, elbow, and chine, 
 
 Stiff from throwing the line, 
 To take nothing at last by my motions." 
 
 HOOD. 
 
 Little bright-eyed, laughing Mary met us at 
 the door with a big dish in her hands, and there 
 were two other young ladies behind her, each 
 one with mocking smiles on her lips, also hold- 
 ing big dishes, hoping, but fearing they were
 
 72 THE PROSE OF FLY FISHING. 
 
 not large enough to hold the contents of our 
 bulging baskets. And didn't they compel us to 
 eat very humble pie. Expecting trout and gray- 
 ling, they said there was nothing else for dinner 
 but this humble pie, and so we must feed upon 
 that. And, after all, very nice apple pie it was. 
 
 Saturday, the iQth, I found myself with my 
 old friends on the banks of the Wye, not very 
 many miles north of Hereford. Here I had had 
 fresh fishing gear sent to me, in the hope of 
 catching a few perch, if not a trout or two ; but 
 I found the river very high and very muddy, 
 and I never unpacked my tackle. 
 
 By way of passing the time, on Monday I 
 accompanied my friend on a twenty-five miles' 
 drive through a lovely bit of country. It was a 
 fine, crisp morning, and we reached our destina- 
 tion rejoicing that fine, frosty weather had set in 
 at last. But, alas, no ! Just as we had finished 
 lunch a small black cloud, the size of a man's 
 hand, came up over the hills, and quickly spread 
 itself like a grim pall over the blue heavens, 
 and the rain came pelting down. The first 
 half of our journey was all sunshine, the second 
 half was a deluge. Our good mare brought us 
 home in fine style through the pelting storm. 
 She had trotted fifty miles that day, and was 
 fresh and ready for another fifty next day ; but 
 so were not we. We were diluvians dragged 
 up from the flood to our pleasant Pisgah, which
 
 THE PROSE OF FLY FISHING. 73 
 
 looks down upon the mighty river, now risen by 
 ten feet since we left it in the morning, and still 
 is rising rapidly. 
 
 Our road to the station will soon be six feet 
 under water. I rather like it, and won't hurry 
 home. Mushrooms are very plentiful ; we have 
 enough to live on if this place should become 
 an inaccessible island. 
 
 As Mr. Francis fully justified in his little 
 pamphlet the title he had chosen, "The Poetry 
 of Fly Fishing," so I think I may well claim my 
 experiences on this outing as " The Prose of 
 Fly Fishing."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GILBERT WHITE. 1 
 
 years ago I made a brief pilgrim- 
 age to the village of Selborne, cele- 
 brated the world over as the birthplace 
 and deathplace of Gilbert White. It 
 was in the month of April ; a bright, sunny 
 time, when all nature was gay and smiling. 
 
 Selborne, as White describes it, lies in the 
 extreme eastern corner of the county of Hamp- 
 shire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and 
 not far from the county of Surrey is about fifty 
 miles south-west from London. On the south- 
 west is a vast hill rising three hundred feet 
 above the village, which consists of one straggling 
 street about three-quarters of a mile long. The 
 hill overhanging the village is very appropriately 
 named " The Hanger." The whole of the hill 
 facing it is covered with beech trees, " the most 
 
 1 "A Bibliography of Gilbert White, the Natural 
 Historian and Antiquarian of Selborne." By Edward 
 A. Martin, F.G.S. (The Roxburgh Press.)
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GILBERT WHITE. 75 
 
 lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider 
 its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or 
 graceful pendulous boughs." 
 
 The house in which Gilbert White was born, 
 and in which he died, is called " The Wakes "- 
 a charming old-fashioned house in the village 
 street. This house is, of course, the goal of all 
 pilgrims, who travel to it from all parts, and who, 
 naturally, must be a source of considerable 
 exercise of patience to the occupiers. The 
 house was occupied for many years by Professor 
 Bell, the well-known writer of works on natural 
 history. He dwelt there from 1842 till the time 
 of his death in 1880. Then it came into the 
 possession of General Parr, who left it in 1892. 
 That was the time of our visit to Selborne, 
 and the house was then in a transition state in 
 preparation for the new occupier, and we were 
 not permitted to have even a glimpse of the 
 interior. It has now changed hands again, 
 having been purchased by Mr. Paxton Parkin. 
 
 At the time of our visit the older part was in 
 much the same state as it was when Gilbert 
 White died, as Professor Bell seems " to have 
 exhibited the greatest care in retaining, as far as 
 possible, the antique appearance of the house." 
 A northern wing had, however, been added. It 
 would, indeed, be a great pity if such a pic- 
 turesque old place should be subjected to any 
 "modern improvements."
 
 76 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Although we were unable to view the interior, 
 we got a distant view of the very pleasant lawn 
 and lovely meadow at the back from the footpath 
 which leads up to "The Hanger." The green 
 meadow runs back to the hill, and its whole 
 extent is literally overhung by the lovely beeches. 
 
 We had a pleasant walk up the zigzag, 
 through the beeches, and on to the common 
 which runs along the top, and we made many 
 other delightful excursions in the neighbourhood. 
 "The Well Head" is one of the sources of 
 the River Wey so frequently mentioned by 
 Gilbert White, and of which he gives the follow- 
 ing very interesting account : 
 
 " At each end of the village, which runs from 
 south-east to north-west, arises a small rivulet. 
 That at the north-west end frequently fails ; but 
 the other is a fine perennial spring, little in- 
 fluenced by drought or wet seasons, called 
 ' Well Head.' This breaks out of some high 
 grounds adjoining to Nore Hill, a noble chalk 
 promontory, remarkable for sending forth two 
 streams into two different seas. The one to the 
 south becomes a branch of the Arun, running to 
 Arundel, and so falling into the Bristol Channel ; 
 the other to the north. The Selborne stream 
 makes one branch of the Wey, and meeting 
 Blackdown stream at Hedleigh, and the Alton 
 and Farnham stream at Tilford Bridge, swells 
 into a considerable river, navigable at Godal-
 
 GILBERT WHITE. 77 
 
 ming, from whence it passes to Guildford, and 
 so into the Thames at Weybridge ; and then at 
 the Nore into the German Ocean." 
 
 The title of Mr. Martin's book strikes me as 
 being a misnomer, erring certainly on the side of 
 modesty, for although it contains three chapters 
 devoted to a most interesting and exhaustive 
 account of all the editions that have ever been 
 printed of " The Natural History and Antiquities 
 of Selborne," together with a chronological 
 summary, showing the date, publisher, printer, 
 editor, number of pages, illustrations, artists, 
 and engravers of every edition ranging from 1789 
 to 1895 ; it contains beside five other chapters, 
 which supply an admirable, sympathetic, warm- 
 hearted biography of Gilbert White himself, and 
 a charming story of rambles round, and descrip- 
 tion of, the village of Selborne. The chapters 
 on Gilbert White as a naturalist and as a poet 
 are very pleasant reading. 
 
 All admirers of Gilbert White naturally would 
 like to know something of his personal appear- 
 ance, but, although he often talked about having 
 his portrait painted, it was never done. On this 
 point Mr. Martin says : 
 
 " We must imagine White as he rambled 
 along the Lythe, or followed the scent-laden 
 path to the Priory Farm, dressed in the old- 
 fashioned costume of the period. Perhaps he 
 wore a clerical wig, whilst knee breeches and
 
 78 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 buckles were almost a necessity to a man of his 
 position. Many years ago an old woman was 
 asked what she remembered of Gilbert White. 
 Her recollection was of a man who used to walk 
 about the hollow lanes ' tap-tapping with his 
 cane.' . . . One account of our author describes 
 him as a little man, perhaps about 5 feet 3 inches 
 n height, and that he often rode a pony. . . . 
 Frank Buckland records that a villager, when 
 asked concerning Gilbert White, replied that 
 ' He was thought little of till he was dead and 
 gone, after which he was thought a great deal 
 of.' Another villager described him as ' A 
 little, thin, prim, upright man.' " 
 
 James Russell Lowell said of Gilbert White's 
 book, that " In simplicity of taste and natural 
 refinement it reminds one of Walton, and in 
 tenderness, of Cowper." 
 
 No angler's library would be complete without 
 Izaak Walton and Gilbert White side by side, 
 and the volume to which I am now drawing 
 attention should always be near them. The 
 popularity of these two delightful writers may 
 be gauged by the number of editions through 
 which their books have gone, and it would not 
 be easy to say which of the two has been the 
 most beloved by the generations which have 
 passed away since these bright examples of 
 humanity and students of nature put on im- 
 mortality. In the two hundred years which
 
 GILBERT WHITE. 79 
 
 have come and gone since Izaak Walton died, 
 in 1683, at the age of ninety, one hundred 
 editions of " The Compleat Angler " have been 
 called for, the bicentenary of his death (not far 
 from being the tercentenary of his birth) being 
 commemorated by the splendidly produced one 
 hundredth edition, edited by Mr. R. B. Marston, 
 who, like Mr. Martin, furnishes a summary with 
 dates of all the editions which precede his edition. 
 This one hundredth edition was published in 
 1888, and it may be said that several very beau- 
 tiful editions have been published since. 
 
 During the century which has elapsed since 
 Gilbert White died, at the age of seventy-three, 
 in the year 1793 (just two hundred years after 
 the birth of Walton), Mr. Martin supplies a list of 
 fifty-nine editions of " The Natural History of 
 Selborne." One may reasonably judge from 
 these curious facts that these two delightful 
 writers, and most excellent characters, have had, 
 and will continue to hold, an equal share in the 
 affection of all good people.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " THE COMPLEAT ANGLER." l 
 
 F making editions of Izaak Walton's 
 " Compleat Angler," it seems likely 
 enough there will be no end, seeing 
 that as time progresses the number 
 increases, and this has been going on for nearly 
 two hundred and fifty years. 
 
 As already mentioned Mr. R. B. Marston 
 brought out the " Lea and Dove" edition, being 
 the one hundredth edition. This was in 1888, and 
 already, only eight or nine years after that date, 
 Mr. Le Gallienne in his introduction to the pre- 
 sent edition says : " With the year 1653 came 
 the charming classic, which in the present 
 volume is published for the one hundred and 
 twenty-first time" 
 
 1 "The Compleat Angler." By Izaak Walton and 
 Charles Cotton. Edited, with an Introduction, by Richard 
 Le Gallienne. Illustrated by Edmund H. New. Quarto, 
 cloth extra, pp. Ixxxiv, 466. London and New York ; 
 John Lane, The Bodley Head. MDCCCXCVII.
 
 "THE COMPLEAT ANGLER." 81 
 
 Thus twenty editions of a work by an author 
 who has been dead two hundred and fourteen 
 years, have been called for during the last eight 
 years. Perhaps the expression "called for" is 
 not quite accurate. The public do not usually 
 call for such editions ; it is rather the enterprise 
 of publishers, who, by producing something 
 attractive and new, create a demand, which, but 
 for them, would not have been thought of. Many 
 of the editions enumerated are mere reprints, 
 and the continued demand for such editions is, 
 of course, a true indication of the vitality of the 
 charming old book ; but a newly edited and 
 elaborately illustrated edition, such as the " Lea 
 and Dove" edition, in two quarto volumes, may 
 be said to mark an epoch in the passing time. 
 
 The same may be said of the present edition, 
 which is most pleasantly edited, with an intro- 
 duction, by Richard Le Gallienne, and very 
 quaintly and prettily illustrated by Edmund H. 
 New, and, it may be added, printed and bound 
 with the good taste which is a noted charac- 
 teristic of the productions emanating from " The 
 Bodley Head." Such editions as these commend 
 themselves and command the attention of all 
 anglers. 
 
 "Perhaps," says Mr. Le Gallienne, "no Eng- 
 lish book except ' The Pilgrim's Progress ' and 
 ' Robinson Crusoe,' has been so beloved. Genera- 
 tion after generation has brought to it its young 
 G
 
 82 " THE COM PLEAT ANGLER." 
 
 affections, and there seems every reason to 
 suppose that the average of something like a 
 new edition for every two and a half years, 
 which so far the ' Compleat Angler ' has main- 
 tained, will even be surpassed in the future." 
 In point of immortality or, perhaps, one should 
 say perpetuation of vitality as well as similarity 
 in simplicity of character of the two writers, 
 Mr. Le Gallienne might have instanced Gilbert 
 White, who, in point of time, is a hundred 
 years younger than Izaak Walton and whose 
 "Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne" 
 has gone through fifty-nine editions at least, 
 probably many more. These are the kind of 
 books that publishers revel in there is no 
 author to pay, no one's copyright to infringe, 
 and a certain market for any decently got up 
 edition. Being but an amateur angler myself 
 I do not presume to assert the value to modern 
 anglers of Izaak Walton's teachings, but I am 
 inclined to think that Mr. Le Gallienne very 
 considerably undervalues his merits as a prac- 
 tical angler when he says : 
 
 " For after all, Walton is a sentiment, at least 
 as an angler ; for I understand that the ordinary 
 Philistine angler, to whom all that pretty warb- 
 ling talk of birds and honeysuckle hedges has 
 no appeal in comparison with a creel full of 
 speckled trout, thinks but small beer of poor 
 Izaak's angling methods. It is probably among
 
 "THE COM PLEAT ANGLER." 83 
 
 those who have never cast a line (like the 
 present editor), or like Washington Irving have 
 but fished ' to satisfy the sentiment ' that the 
 majority of Waltonians are to be found." 
 
 Doubtless there are many unsentimental 
 anglers who eschew " the sentiment " altogether, 
 but who, nevertheless, avail themselves of the 
 methods and laws for catching fish which " poor 
 Izaak" has laid down for them. 
 
 Undoubtedly Izaak Walton loved nature much, 
 but certainly he loved fishing more, and it is, 
 perhaps, the charming simplicity with which he 
 describes all nature, combined with the accurate 
 knowledge which he displays about all fresh 
 water fish and the various ways of catching 
 them, that keep his memory green in the hearts 
 of all anglers, whether of the sentimental or the 
 " Philistine " class. 
 
 I can, however, fully endorse Mr. Le Gal- 
 lienne's view of the sentimental part of angling : 
 
 " One might as well consult a fifteenth century 
 pharmacopoeia on Russian influenza as consult 
 'Honest Izaac' on any of the higher branches 
 of his art. But who minds that ? Angling was 
 simply an excuse for Walton's artless garrulity, 
 a peg on which to hang his ever fragrant dis- 
 course of stream and meadow. He followed 
 angling, as, indeed, any such sport is most in- 
 telligently followed, as a pretext for a day or 
 two in the fields, not so much to fill his basket
 
 84 ' ' THE COM PLEA T A NGLER. ' ' 
 
 as to refresh his spirit, and store his memory 
 with the sweetness of country sights and sounds. 
 The angler who merely angles for the sake of 
 what he can catch is not so much an angler as a 
 fishmonger." 
 
 As regards the facts of Izaak Walton's life, it 
 was hardly to be expected that Mr. Le Gallienne 
 could produce anything new for these he has 
 relied on former editors. The vexed question 
 as to whether Izaak Walton was a hosier or an 
 ironmonger he just leaves where he found it. 
 His chapter on " Walton's Literary Life and 
 Friendships " is very interesting, and it closes 
 with these delightful words : " But it is in vain 
 we strive by critical reagents to analyze the 
 unfading charm of this old book ; is it not 
 simply that the soul of a good man still breathes 
 through its pages like lavender?" 
 
 The text from which this edition is printed 
 is the fifth edition (the last to receive Walton's 
 own revision), the spelling being modernized, 
 including also Part II., by Cotton, respecting 
 which Mr. Le Gallienne says : " Whatever the 
 literary skill with which the style of Walton is 
 imitated, not to say parodied, whatever its 
 illustrative and associative value, or its import- 
 ance as a contribution to the art and science of 
 fly fishing, is, nevertheless, printed as an integral 
 part of that charming classic, an impertinence. 
 Its proper place is an appendix, whither I should
 
 " THE COM PLEAT ANGLER." 85 
 
 have relegated it in this edition had not tradition 
 been too strong to be gainsaid. Whom fame 
 has joined together let no man put asunder." 
 
 From a purely literary standpoint, Mr. Le 
 Gallienne is right in his judgment, for there 
 can be no comparison between the genuine 
 simplicity of Walton's writing and the imitative 
 and ostentatious simplicity of Cotton's ; but I am 
 very glad that Mr. Le Gallienne did not relegate 
 Cotton to an appendix, for I am sure it would 
 have condemned his beautiful volume in the 
 eyes of most anglers. 
 
 If, as Mr. Le Gallienne says, Cotton "is en- 
 tirely remembered to-day by his association 
 with Walton," it is pleasant also to remember 
 that but for him we should have known little or 
 nothing about Walton's visits to Beresford Hall, 
 his angling in "The Dove," and the delightful 
 old " Fishing House." 
 
 Mr. Le Gallienne dedicates his volume to the 
 Right Honourable Offley Ashburton, Earl of 
 Crewe, in a very pleasant poem of thirteen 
 lines. 
 
 As regards the illustrations, which are not the 
 least attractive feature in this memorable edition, 
 they have been made "as thoroughly as possible 
 from a topographical point of view"; mostly 
 made on the spot, comprising views on the 
 districts described by Walton on the Lea from 
 Tottenham to \Vare, and by Cotton from Brails-
 
 86 " THE COMPLEAT ANGLER." 
 
 ford to Beresford Hall on the Dove. They are 
 very numerous, and of a singular quaintness, 
 pleasing alike to the eye and one's sense of 
 appropriateness. Altogether, they number over 
 two hundred. 
 
 We have all heard of the old clock, which 
 makes no other claim to have been Izaak 
 Walton's than that it bears somewhere on it 
 the initials I. W. Mr. New, however, seems 
 to have made a real discovery which I fancy 
 has not been noted before. It is called Izaak 
 Walton's Marriage Chest, and is in the pos- 
 session of the Right Hon. the Earl of Warwick. 
 The inscription runs as follows : 
 
 " Isaak Walton. Rachel Floud. 
 
 Joyned Together In Ye Holie Bonde of Wedlocke 
 On Ye 2/th Dale of Decembre A. 1626 D. 
 
 We once were two, we two made one ; 
 We no more two, through Life be one." 
 
 Probably this is the Trunk of Linen which in 
 his will he gives to his son, Izaak Walton. 
 
 With reference to the Walton Wedding Chest 
 Mr. New sends us the following account. He 
 says : 
 
 " The finding of Walton's Marriage Chest was 
 an accident. A cousin of mine was sketching 
 some time ago at Warwick Castle, and the 
 housekeeper took her over the private rooms to 
 see the old furniture, pictures, etc. The chest
 
 \.
 
 "THE COMPLEAT ANGLER." 87 
 
 stood in a rather dark passage, but she happened 
 to catch the name of Walton on it as she passed, 
 and, knowing I was illustrating ' The Compleat 
 Angler,' she told me of it. Last autumn I wrote 
 to Lord Warwick asking for permission to see 
 the chest, and make a drawing of it if it seemed 
 really genuine. He replied that he was unaware 
 that he had such a chest, but that I was quite at 
 liberty to draw it if I could find it." 
 
 Mr. John Lane may well be congratulated in 
 having produced the last of the one hundred 
 and twenty-one editions published up to the 
 present time, and certainly, whether regarded 
 from the editorial or artistic point of view, one 
 of the most remarkable and valuable of all the 
 editions yet published.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 OUR MAY FLY OUTING ON THE TEST. 
 
 ATURDAY, May 29, 1897. I am 
 sitting in a large fisherman's hut on 
 the banks of the Test. The wind is 
 howling overhead, and the waves on 
 the river are like the waves of the sea when the 
 wind is blowing half a gale. This is our second 
 day. Yesterday the sky was leaden and lower- 
 ing, with occasional glimpses of sunshine. A 
 fair wind was blowing up from the south-west. 
 The May Fly came up occasionally and was 
 promptly taken down, a signal for us to place 
 our imitation on the spot where the real one had 
 disappeared. 
 
 Just now, however, I am more interested in the 
 antics of a pair of wagtails the most elegant 
 and graceful of birds. They are trying all they 
 know to make me believe they haven't got a 
 nest and young ones in the thatch overhead. 
 I know where it is. The hen, dressed in more
 
 OUR MAY FLY OUTING ON THE TEST. 89 
 
 sombre garb than her gay husband, peering 
 through the window, has got sight of me, sitting 
 in the farthest corner. She has a white grub in 
 her mouth ; but, instead of flying up to her nest 
 just above, she is off round the opposite corner, 
 and so gets to her young by a roundabout way, 
 and thinks she has tricked me nicely. Now 
 they are down on the grass yonder, twittering 
 and digging away, pretending to be quite un- 
 conscious that I am watching them. They 
 think this hut is their property that it grew up 
 where it is, quite away in an open meadow, far 
 away from the habitations of men folk, solely 
 and specially for them to build their nests in. 
 
 Yonder comes the male bird, with a great 
 bunch of grubs in his mouth, but scolding all 
 the same. His little bright eye is a Rontgen 
 ray ; he can see me as clearly as if there were 
 no glass between us, and I was not sitting 
 quietly in the darkest corner. Now comes his 
 wife with another mouthful ; and so they keep 
 on hour after hour, cramming the maws of those 
 little monsters up in the thatch. All my readers, 
 of course, know that the wagtail is the smallest 
 bird that walks. They may not all know the 
 riddle propounded, I think, by the late Lord 
 Melbourne on a solemn occasion : 
 
 " My first is a bird that hops, 
 
 My second makes hay crops, 
 
 My whole we eat with mutton chops."
 
 go OUR MAY FLY OUTING 
 
 But I must to business. There is a slight lull 
 of the wind, so I will go down and have another 
 try at that big trout just below the May bush. I 
 pricked him this morning, but I think he must 
 have forgotten that. Yes ; there he is a real 
 beauty, over 2 Ib. In this aristocratic stream no 
 fish is takable under i Ib. The wind is still 
 howling in the trees ; my fish is just under the 
 bank on my side. I must get a good way below 
 him and cast up. At my first cast, in a slight lull, 
 I got my fly just above him, and just after he had 
 swallowed a delicious morsel. I had put on a 
 new fly a favourite, called the G.O.M., specially 
 for him. Up he came, seized it ; I struck. He 
 was bewildered, first at the peculiar flavour of 
 this new thing, and then at the strange pricking 
 in his lip. Then he dashed madly across the 
 stream. I held on to him for a long time, but 
 he got down into the weeds, and, alas ! I failed 
 to release him, or, perhaps it is more proper to 
 say, I did release him. My hook came away, 
 and I left him behind. There he is still for 
 some more cunning hand. I have lost my last 
 chance at him. 
 
 I returned philosophically to the hut, and, 
 while I am waiting here for the wind to moderate 
 its fury, I may as well report our doings of yester- 
 day. We arrived here, no matter where, on 
 the Test on Thursday night, and we started 
 fishing early on Friday morning. A very jolly,
 
 ON THE TEST. 91 
 
 bright-eyed keeper, who has met with many curi- 
 ous adventures in his day, attended the Major. 
 He will be easily recognized by a smashed thumb, 
 by which he was pinned between the upper and 
 nether beams of a sluice for four hours in mortal 
 agony. Lenny, a smart young under-keeper, 
 attended me. He has a remarkably quick eye 
 for a rising fish. I may go a little further, by 
 way of identifying our water, by saying that it is 
 without doubt the finest stretch of trout water in 
 the United Kingdom. It has two large carriers, 
 one on each side of the main stream. The latter 
 flows majestically, deep and strong and straight, 
 for about a mile. We had, in fact, both sides of 
 three full rivers to fish. 
 
 About this first day's fishing I will only say 
 that we broke the record this season up to date. 
 Our joint efforts produced 19 Ib. weight, of which 
 two trout weighed 6 Ib., and not one of the rest 
 was under 2 Ib. I hooked, and, alas ! I lost in 
 weeds or banks, or through defective gut, six 
 good fish, and the Major lost more from the same 
 causes ; but then he caught more to make up for 
 it. We also caught many grayling, which, of 
 course, at this season, do not count. At the 
 conclusion I could only claim as my share one 
 brace and a half, weighing 6 Ib., out of the 19 Ib. 
 recorded. 
 
 Saturday, 29th, was, as I have already in- 
 timated, a tempestuous day. We started early.
 
 92 OUR MAY FLY OUTING 
 
 I caught, at my first cast over a rising fish, a very 
 fine trout, which I claimed as being up to the 
 standard of I lb., but which my znftdus Achates 
 vowed was only | lb. it was his opinion against 
 mine, for we had no scales. While we were 
 disputing the fish was dying ; so to settle the 
 question, back he went to his native element, 
 more dead than alive ; he soon recovered his 
 usual health and was off merrily. 
 
 The Major caught two or three big ones during 
 the morning, but, as I started by saying, the 
 wind was doing its utmost to drive the big stream 
 back to its source. I did nothing more till lunch 
 came down, and there in the hut we whiled away 
 two or three hours, the wind whistling above and 
 around us. 
 
 The long stretch of river I have already men- 
 tioned is called the Lake, and up this lake the 
 wind was driving, for the whole stretch is quite 
 unprotected by tree or shrub. The Major started 
 up one side, and I took the other, there being 
 from forty yards to sixty yards of river between 
 us. Not a fly could be seen on the tumbling 
 billows, and there was no sign of a rise. 
 
 " Look out ! " cried Lenny. " There 's a rise 
 up yonder, just about the middle of the stream, 
 by that weed." I had seen the rise at the same 
 time as Lenny. I made a cast, and the wind 
 carried my fly many feet to the left. But cast 
 number three came down nicely just over the
 
 ON THE TEST. 93 
 
 right spot, and whiz ! away went my fly up 
 stream, down, across, and back, and a dash into 
 the bank close to us. I kept a tight hold all the 
 time. Now he had got a yard into the bank, and 
 for a long time would not be dislodged ; but 
 Lenny, by stamping hard on the soft mould for 
 he was not more than a foot or two from the 
 surface started him out. Off he goes again 
 down stream, and I could scarcely get ahead of 
 him. Again he manages to get into the bank, 
 and again had to be stamped out ; but he was 
 there long enough to get fresh breath and vigour, 
 and off he made for a bed of weeds. I continued 
 to pull as hard as I dared to bring him in, but 
 he got down in spite of my efforts, and there he 
 stuck, fixed and immovable ; not an inch would 
 he move. My rod was like a rainbow all the 
 time. At last Lenny, full of excitement, rushed 
 off across the meadow, quite a quarter of a mile, 
 to get a long pole ; the Major and the keeper on 
 the other side were also excited. The keeper 
 urged the Major to wade across, and he started 
 to come, but his waders only covered his knees, 
 and my trout was in water six feet deep, so I 
 ordered him on no account to make the rash 
 attempt. 
 
 Now comes Lenny wildly and breathlessly 
 running with a long pole on his shoulder. All 
 was well still ; hook and gut, and line and 
 rod, and arm and angler firmly and immovably
 
 94 OUR MAY FLY OUTING 
 
 fixed. I feared for my lovely little split cane 
 rod, one of the best and truest ever made by 
 Leonard, of New York. Lenny prodded away 
 at the weeds ; the rod perceptibly straightened. 
 I slackened a bit, and away he goes again down 
 stream, but, failing to reach another bunch of 
 weeds, he tried another dodge. He leapt two 
 feet clean into the air, and then he gave up the 
 fight and came quietly into the net. Altogether 
 he must have given me about twenty minutes of 
 pleasurable excitement. During the process the 
 Major and the keeper were shouting all sorts of 
 advice, to which I paid no heed ; and afterwards 
 they said you should have done this and you 
 should have done that ; but I don't believe that 
 the Major himself, expert as he is, could have 
 handled that plucky trout better than did " The 
 A. A." They clapped their hands and cheered 
 when they saw my fish come to basket. After 
 all he weighed only 27 Ib. The Major caught 
 several bigger ones, but not one that fought like 
 mine. 
 
 In connection with this pugnacious fish, I wish 
 to add the following : 
 
 NOTICE. Found, firmly fixed in the root of 
 the pectoral fin of a 2f Ib. trout, a well-made 
 May Fly, pronounced by the Major, from its 
 special style, to be one of Mr. Yarde's " Pro- 
 fessors " made by Miss Ellis, of Exmouth. The 
 owner may have it on producing proof of identi-
 
 ON THE TEST. 95 
 
 fication. The trout is no longer in evidence, 
 having been eaten the next morning. 
 
 In spite of wind and weather, we found, when 
 we came to weigh-in, that we had got exactly 
 he same weight as yesterday viz., 19 Ib. 
 
 And now we have to quit this noble river, the 
 finest trout stream I have ever seen, and must 
 be off for "fresh woods and pastures new." 
 
 I find I have said little or nothing about the 
 May Fly, but of course it is understood we are 
 fishing with a variety of imitations of that re- 
 markable insect. They were up, it is true, but 
 only fitfully. On Friday they rode placidly on 
 the surface of the water, like frigates of the 
 olden time, or graceful yachts of the Solent ; 
 but on Saturday they were like storm-tossed 
 ships in a wild hurricane at sea, blown hither 
 and thither, and sometimes off the water there 
 was no chance for the brief life which nature at 
 best allows them. There were more strong- 
 winged swifts about than May Flies ; so that 
 between swift and trout, wind and wave, there 
 were surely none alive of Saturday's brood to 
 tell next day of their rough reception in their 
 new and winged world. So eager and voracious 
 were the swifts that they dashed at our imitations, 
 and three came to grief in this way. One caught 
 my fly and came fluttering down with the barbed 
 destroyer fixed in his bleeding mouth. I released 
 him gently, put him on the grass to test the truth
 
 96 OUR MAY FLY OUTING ON THE TEST. 
 
 of the saying that swifts cannot rise from the 
 ground owing to the length of their wings. The 
 saying is proved to be a fallacy. My swift, after 
 one or two awkward struggles, sprang into the 
 air and went his way rejoicing. The Major 
 caught another in the same way, and a third 
 came to grief by dashing against his rod. 
 
 "The A. A." and the Major have only now to 
 express their thanks to the good friend who 
 afforded them the opportunity of disporting 
 themselves so delightfully on his beautiful water.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OUR MAY FLY OUTING ON THE ITCHEN (1897). 
 
 fONDAY, May 31, to Whit Monday, 
 June 7, 1897. I have not much to 
 record in continuation of our work 
 on the Test, as already described. 
 Owing to my hard work there, I was personally 
 hors de combat for four days out of the eight at 
 my disposal. In that wretched period, when the 
 weather was all that could be desired, I was only 
 able painfully to hobble down to our bridge, and 
 there get distant glimpses of the rising trout, and 
 the Major's doings amongst them ; when I say 
 the " Major," be it well understood that " Piscator 
 Major" is meant, for there is another real major 
 fishing over yonder. (I have always used the 
 term Major in contradistinction to the minor 
 qualifications of" The A. A.") There are plenty 
 of fish here ; indeed, we complain of there being 
 too many grayling, but they are thoroughly well 
 H
 
 98 OUR MAY FLY OUTING 
 
 educated, and require much tact in handling, 
 being very well able to distinguish between the 
 real and the imitation, unless the latter comes 
 before them in a very unquestionable shape. 
 
 I am not going to crack up this water as being 
 superior to any other, but I must say that just 
 now the scenery hereabouts is superb, not for 
 grandeur, but for quiet rural beauty. Seated as 
 I am just now in our fishing hut, under the 
 grateful shade of a large May tree, now white 
 with bloom, and looking down upon the placid 
 lake-like stream where the Major last night had 
 an exciting battle with the monarch of the 
 stream, I feel content. The meadow in front of 
 us is one large field of burnished gold, and it 
 is surrounded by woods of various tints of green, 
 mixed also with bits of brown, for the foliage of 
 the young oaks in the woods has been blighted, 
 the leaves curled up and brown, more like 
 winter's remnant than spring's effulgence. Other- 
 wise the foliage is rich and abundant. 
 
 The birds hereabouts are more jubilant than 
 they are in common years, and in the bright 
 sunshine all nature is dancing for joy ; but of all 
 the birds of the air there are none happier or 
 more joyful just now than yonder loving couple, 
 yclept Sir Thomas Titmouse and his spouse, 
 Lady Titmouse. Their castle is made of cast 
 iron, quite impregnable ; wise Sir Thomas for 
 choosing so strong a fortress ; but, foolish Sir
 
 ON THE ITCHEN. 99 
 
 Thomas, why did you not consider that you had 
 chosen your abode on a bridge ? 
 
 When I first made your acquaintance you had 
 the fullest confidence in the goodness of the 
 wingless, featherless bipeds always crossing and 
 re-crossing your bridge. In the iron upright 
 stanchion, forming the end of the bridge, a cir- 
 cular hole, not required for continuation of the 
 lateral bar, had been left, and in that hole you 
 had built your nest. I admired your taste, but 
 I trembled for your future ; your boldness and 
 indiscretion distressed me. Within a yard of 
 where I was leaning on the bridge you and her 
 ladyship flitted in and out of that hole, your 
 mouths crammed with insects, the livelong day. 
 I moved away, and two lazy tramps came and 
 lolled on the bridge ; they soon caught sight of 
 your aperture ; one of them watched you going 
 in, and put his hand over the hole, and shouted 
 as if he had done something wonderful ; I begged 
 him to leave the little birds alone, and presently 
 they both loafed away. 
 
 Next morning my tits were at work as busily 
 as ever, but care, and doubt, and suspicion had 
 taken the place of the light-hearted gaiety of 
 yesterday ; now they approached their nest 
 stealthily, and with fear, looking all round to 
 see if any two-legged animal was about. The 
 next morning, when I went down, I found that 
 the boy tending cows in the next field had dis-
 
 ioo OUR MAY FLY OUTING 
 
 covered the nest ; he and the other boys had 
 found pleasure in tormenting them, and the next 
 day they had quite disappeared. The young 
 scamps had dropped stones into the pillar, and 
 so no doubt killed the fledglings, and the 
 bereaved parents have experienced the merci- 
 lessness and cruelty of boys. 
 
 The crop of May Fly is just now proving itself 
 to be far above the average ; the air, the bushes, 
 the long grass are clamorous with these noiseless 
 insects ; their songs as they dance in the air are 
 too ethereal for mortal ears to hear. Among 
 the deadly enemies of the May Fly I have 
 observed are fish, ducks, geese, swifts, swallows, 
 starlings, dragon flies, and all kinds of birds. It 
 was only to-day that I discovered a new and 
 formidable enemy. Walking through some long 
 and strong weeds, I observed ropes of gossamer 
 suspended from one thistle to another, row above 
 row, and on these lines were suspended like 
 chickens at a poulterer's, as closely packed as 
 possible, hundreds of May Flies. It must have 
 been a happy time for spiders as well as anglers 
 when the cry went forth, " The May Fly is up ! " 
 What on earth Master Spider thinks he is going 
 to do with the immense store he has laid up, 
 goodness knows ! He is like us anglers on 
 a Saturday night with a stock of fish we know 
 not what to do with. He cannot eat them all 
 himself, and his stock is frail and perishable.
 
 ON THE ITCHEN. 101 
 
 Usually " Piscator Major " takes his fishing 
 very calmly, but now he has come up from the 
 river in a state of considerable excitement. It is 
 about that monarch of the stream I mentioned 
 just now. Sitting on the bench in front of the 
 wooden mansion " sacred to fishermen," he had 
 seen that fish come up with a splash that 
 frightened the calves on the opposite bank, and 
 sent them off galloping across the meadow with 
 their tails up. 
 
 There he sat for an hour watching and waiting 
 for another rise ; at-length he was rewarded : up 
 he came again. He placed his G.O.M. nicely 
 over him. Then that mild lake became a tem- 
 pestuous sea ; the lashings of that trout left 
 a track behind like that of a screw steamer ; 
 and so the fight went on for a quarter of an hour. 
 At last he arrived at the point of the net, when 
 he decided to make one other and final effort for 
 liberty ; and, alas ! he went away rejoicing with 
 two yards of collar dangling after him. The gut 
 had given way just in its thickest, and therefore 
 supposed to be its strongest part. 
 
 The Major had once caught a five-pounder in 
 the Test, and when this fellow had come within 
 a foot of the net his imagination had already 
 stuffed him and placed him in a glass case as a 
 rival and companion to that Test five-pounder 
 which now hangs in his hall ; and now he has lost 
 him ! A thing to mourn over till next October.
 
 102 OUR MA Y FLY OUTING ON THE ITCHEN. 
 
 My own exploits on this expedition, and those 
 of the good Professor, who I omitted to say 
 is with us, seem in comparison with this great 
 battle to be but small, and yet, in fact, we did 
 very well. We had many good fights, and often 
 we came off conquerors. Needless forme to go 
 into details, for generally the catching of one 
 trout is very much like catching another trout. 
 The difference between us is that the Major has 
 a forceful way, which compels the attention of the 
 trout, who has to take what he puts before him. 
 We, the Professor and I, always try gentler and 
 more persuasive measures ; but it does not 
 answer as well he catches six for every one of 
 ours. 
 
 Altogether I may sum up by saying that we 
 have had a very successful and pleasant outing ; 
 glorious weather all the week. On Whit Monday 
 night I caught my last trout in a thunderstorm, 
 and returned to London the same evening, 
 leaving the Professor a few trout still to catch ; 
 I wish him all the success his ardour and quiet 
 skill entitle him to. 
 
 The May Fly fishing in these parts may now 
 be said to be over, and altogether I should say 
 that it has been a good season.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 BANK HOLIDAY FISHING. 
 
 Aiigust, 1897. 
 A Singular and Ciirious Incident. 
 
 I SH ING on the August Bank Holiday 
 is somewhat of a delusion. A south- 
 easterly wind, a blazing sun, and water 
 of the transparency of gin do not 
 seem to be conducive to a rise of flies or a rise 
 of trout and grayling. Yet it need hardly be 
 said that, even under these conditions, it is 
 better to come face to face with Nature and be 
 baked, than to sit in a London office and be 
 stewed. We had two days of it Saturday and 
 Monday. We could not catch fish in the sun, 
 first, because we could not stand the heat ; and, 
 secondly, because there were no fish to catch. 
 We traversed the whole length of our water 
 from above the bridge to the fishing hut without 
 seeing a rise. Trout and grayling alike had
 
 104 BANK H OLID A Y FISHING. 
 
 buried themselves in the weeds or hidden in the 
 banks. We walked, or, I may say, we loafed, 
 down the river, lingering under every bit of 
 available shelter till we reached our dulce 
 domum, piscatoribus sacrum. 
 
 There, as always, we found a cool and calm 
 retreat under the friendly shade of our beautiful 
 May tree, backed up by an equally friendly 
 wide-spreading oak, and surrounded by a colony 
 of hazel nut trees. 
 
 There we sat in our easy chairs, and lunched, 
 and chatted, and read ourselves to sleep, and so 
 we passed the livelong day. Sometimes we 
 amused ourselves by watching the antics of that 
 bold young vole whose acquaintance I had 
 made last year, who, regardless of our presence, 
 would jump out of his hole in the bank, almost 
 under our feet, on to a tuft of drift weeds, and 
 search about for the particular succulent stems 
 that suited his taste. Of these he would gather 
 a full mouthful, and drag them up to his hole ; 
 munch away at them for a time, and then 
 another plunge for more. This little game he 
 seemed to be keeping up all day. 
 
 It was not on either day till after six o'clock, 
 when the sun was beginning to climb down 
 behind the western hills, that the fish made any 
 motion whatever ; then here and there the 
 small grayling, amid stream, began to make 
 ripples on the smooth surface of the water, and
 
 BANK HOLIDAY FISHING. 105 
 
 later on a larger circle would be seen, and so by 
 degrees, and for a short time, certain portions 
 of the river, where the big grayling occasionally 
 flopped up, gave some sign that it was not 
 destitute of fish ; but they rose fitfully, and it 
 was not possible to see what they were rising 
 at, for there was no fly visible. 
 
 I caught a couple of brace of grayling the 
 first evening with the Red Tag a delusive 
 deception, like no insect that ever swam or 
 winged across the stream, but which has always 
 proved attractive to grayling. 
 
 On the evening of Bank Holiday I put on a 
 Red Spinner and thereby hangs a curious tale 
 of a singular incident which befell "The A. A.," 
 and but for which I should not have thought it 
 worth my while to write anything about so in- 
 significant an event as our summer visit to our 
 pleasant river of unattractive name. 
 
 " Red Spinner " is the nom de guerre of a 
 celebrated writer and angler, whose pseudonym 
 I had once innocently maligned in a way which 
 brought a mild remonstrance from him. Now, 
 as the sequel will show, he hath his revenge. 
 Red Spinner has justified the adjective I then 
 applied to it, in a personal and very touching 
 manner. 
 
 The little incident to which I have referred 
 came about in this way an incident which very 
 narrowly escaped being a very serious, if not
 
 io6 BANK HOLIDAY FISHING. 
 
 dangerous, accident : I had begun our evening 
 fishing by catching a nice grayling in the pub. 
 field, my spirits rising, as the grayling evidently 
 were beginning to rise. I strode on up to the 
 Leg of Mutton, and then I cast my Red Spinner 
 over a big grayling that had just risen in mid- 
 stream, but he declined the offer ; again he 
 came up, and again I placed the Spinner on the 
 point of his nose, so to speak, but he still 
 declined. I was perhaps a little flustered at 
 this contempt. I drew up hastily, and as I drew 
 my foot slipped in a hole ; the consequence was 
 that a gust of wind brought line and gut in a 
 confused heap bang into my face ; there was no 
 entanglement, for I threw it all out again 
 straight over the still rising fish, but with the 
 impression, delicately conveyed to my ears by 
 the sound of the swish of my line, that the fly 
 was off. I wound up accordingly, and I found that 
 off it was, and I began making arrangements 
 for putting on a fresh one. I called out to the 
 Major who was near by and told him to have 
 a go at my grayling while I replaced my lost fly. 
 
 " Lost your fly ! " cried he, looking curiously 
 into my face ; " why, it 's sticking in your nose !" 
 And he burst into a roar of laughter. 
 
 Then I, wondering, put my finger to the tip of 
 my nose ; not as the usual uncomplimentary 
 mark of contempt, but really to find out whether 
 or no his exclamation had any truth in it. And
 
 BANK HOLIDAY FISHING. 107 
 
 there, to my astonishment, my horror, and, I 
 may add, my terror, I found the hook firmly 
 embedded in the cartilage at the very point of 
 my nose, with half an inch of gut attached to it. 
 When I made the recast I must have driven the 
 hook deeply into the nose, and far below the 
 barb. The force of the throw is indicated by 
 the fact that the gut had snapped. And yet, 
 most marvellous thing of all, I never felt the 
 slightest pang or twitch, and I was absolutely 
 ignorant that the fly was where it was until my 
 son exclaimed, " Why, it 's in your nose ! " 
 
 I have on more than one occasion expressed 
 some compunction on the score of giving pain 
 to fish by hooking them by the lip or gill. I 
 regard my own personal experience as a scien- 
 tific solution of the problem my doubts are now 
 removed if I, a full-blooded animal, can feel no 
 pain when a hook is violently forced into the 
 cartilage of my nose, how much less can a blood- 
 less fish, with no sensorial nerve, be supposed 
 to feel when gently drawn from his natural 
 element and landed on the green sod? 
 
 The Major, on examining the case more 
 closely, took a more serious view of it than his 
 first unseemly burst of hilarity indicated ; he saw 
 that the hook was in deep below the barb, and 
 that a surgical operation was necessary to get it 
 out. 
 
 Of course we knocked off fishing at once,
 
 io8 BANK HOLIDAY FISHING. 
 
 much to our regret and disappointment, for it 
 was our last night, and the grayling were show- 
 ing up. 
 
 Slowly and solemnly I marched home, cover- 
 ing up my face with my handkerchief whenever 
 I met anyone on the road. When I reached 
 the house I examined my nose in a looking- 
 glass, and I confess I felt woefully discouraged ; 
 the barbed-betrayer was there firmly fixed, and 
 I saw there was nothing for it but to send for 
 the doctor. 
 
 Our good friend M., the farmer, always ready 
 to help us in an emergency, at once drove off 
 three miles in search of one, and meanwhile I 
 managed to wash and brush up, and I sat down 
 to dinner with the hook in my nose, and with 
 the most gloomy forebodings as to what would 
 have to be done when the doctor arrived. 
 
 In about two hours he came, and found me 
 smoking a cigar, for, in spite of my misgivings, 
 I was determined to put a bold face on it. He 
 examined the position very carefully, shook his 
 head sadly, and said it was a very difficult, and 
 he feared painful, business. He thought at first 
 it would be possible to break off the eyed shank 
 of the hook, strip it of its feathers, and press the 
 whole hook through without the necessity of 
 cutting a hole in my nose ; but this was found 
 impracticable, he had no weapon strong enough 
 to cut the steel wire. A strong pair of scissors
 
 BANK HOLIDA Y FISHING. 109 
 
 was first tried, which made me feel, I fancy, 
 something like what a bull may feel when they 
 are putting a ring in his nose ; but nothing 
 came of it. The scissors were of no use. So 
 said the doctor, " There is nothing for it but to 
 use the lancet. It is but a small one, I shall 
 not hurt you much. Bring me a basin of warm 
 water and a sponge." 
 
 I pictured myself with my nose split open, and 
 a gash that would be a mark for the remainder 
 of my days, and my heart sank within me. 
 
 He seized my nose and the Red Spinner 
 between the finger and thumb of his left hand, 
 and with his right he began slashing away with 
 his lovely little lancet. I bore it all manfully, 
 although I thought surely he is cutting off the 
 end of my nose ! But really and truly, before I 
 had time to cry "Jack Robinson " he had done 
 the job, and gracefully handed me my Red 
 Spinner, of which the Major took possession, 
 and means to preserve it as a memento of what 
 we all look upon as a singular and curious in- 
 cident. 
 
 I cannot close this chapter without expressing 
 my thanks to the young surgeon who so deftly 
 performed this really delicate operation, for it 
 will hardly be believed that he has scarcely left 
 a mark behind him. A man who can perform 
 so small an operation so perfectly may safely be 
 intrusted with more serious work.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. 
 
 EPTEMBER 8, 1897. "The Flying 
 Dutchman " flew with me from Pad- 
 dington to Dulverton in four and a half 
 hours, only stopping at Bath, Bristol, 
 and Taunton for a few minutes. It was a lovely 
 morning, and so continued until we reached 
 Taunton. Then it began and continued to rain 
 for the remainder of the day and the following 
 night ; it ceased not until the next morning. 
 
 At Dulverton I was met by a good friend, my 
 future host, with a dogcart ; we started for a nine 
 miles' drive in a torrent of rain. A little way out 
 from Dulverton station, which is two miles from 
 the town, we found the road blocked and im- 
 passable. There were probably sixty or seventy 
 hunters men, women, and boys waiting at the 
 foot of Allen's Wood for the stag to come down 
 to the river ; but it was getting late, and he 
 came not, nor was the sound of horn or bark of
 
 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. in 
 
 hound to be heard. They seemed confident, 
 however, that down through the wood he would 
 presently dash, and so in a downpour they 
 waited, with more patience, perhaps, than polite- 
 ness. We were blocked, and instead of moving 
 they only gave us a grim stare. At last one of 
 them, more considerate than the rest, shouted, 
 " Make room there ; surely these gentlemen 
 have as much right to the public road as you." 
 This remonstrance moved them, and they 
 gradually formed a double row, leaving us 
 room to pass between. They looked thoroughly 
 soaked, and some of them woebegone; certainly 
 it was a trying time for them but so it was for us. 
 I came into this country to fish, not to hunt, 
 and so I have not heard whether they killed on 
 that occasion ; but I was afterwards told by one 
 of them, an enthusiastic hunter, that they made 
 a record run four days later, on Saturday, the 
 nth. The stag led them right on to the rocks 
 near Porlock, and got fixed on a ledge of rock, 
 where the hounds could not reach him. Lord 
 Ebrington tried to dislodge him. He climbed 
 down to some point under the ledge where the 
 deer was lodged, and had a very narrow escape 
 indeed, for the deer, in his excitement, dislodged 
 large blocks of rock, which came rolling down 
 over his lordship's head. Fortunately, none of 
 them touched him. He had, however, in his 
 eagerness, reached a point from which he could
 
 112 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. 
 
 not retreat, and they had to lower ropes for his 
 rescue. I tell the tale as it was told to me, but 
 as the " Field " correspondent was present, I 
 have no doubt a more detailed and accurate 
 account will be found in that paper. " Words," 
 says the " West Somerset Free Press," "are in- 
 adequate to describe the entrancing beauty of 
 the scene, as the stag, still panting, stood 
 sharply defined against the clear blue sky, with 
 liquid eye turned upon his clustering foes a 
 hundred feet below, while three climbers slowly 
 close on him with the dreaded rope a real wild 
 scene of a grandeur such as is rarely known in 
 prosaic England, the whole lit up by the mellow 
 rays of the September sun." 
 
 Two of the hounds lost their foothold on the 
 yielding stone slides, and fell over the rocks. 
 One of them was rescued, but " Old Cheshire 
 Dreamer" will hunt no more. 
 
 To return to my own particular story. I may 
 say that mine host, whom I had never met 
 before, proved a very intelligent and interesting 
 farmer. We drove through some very romantic 
 scenery all the time in a downpour. We 
 travelled over Winsford Hill, where the Devil's 
 Punch Bowl is but as yet I have not seen it 
 and towards Exford, and finally he landed me 
 at his home. 
 
 Here it was that I was met by the Pro- 
 fessor, who had secured for me these pleasant
 
 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOK. 113 
 
 diggings, and who not only gave me the friend- 
 liest of greetings, but, as usual, had sacrificed 
 his own comfort by giving up his bedroom to 
 me, the best in the house. So here we are, nine 
 miles from the nearest station. The postman 
 climbs this hill (we are nine hundred feet above 
 the sea) only three days a week. The post-office 
 Jubilee regulations have not reached these parts 
 yet. If we want to communicate with the out- 
 side world oftener than this, we must trudge it 
 some three miles to the nearest post office. 
 
 Next morning, which was bright and splendid 
 after the previous month of rain, I was able to 
 take a general survey of my holiday quarters. 
 
 If all the world ; s a stage, and all the men and 
 women merely players, I have discovered in this 
 little corner of Somerset a special and peculiar 
 stage on which I can strut alone or in the Pro- 
 fessor's company. My stage is of green grass, 
 my audience the green, beautiful, and silent 
 woods which surround my theatre ; my orchestra 
 the birds, and my music the running, roaring, or 
 bubbling river down yonder three hundred 
 yards down a green precipitous slope, which 
 dips from the edge of my platform. 
 
 Yonder, far above the river and the woods, 
 but just on a level with my platform, floats 
 a great broad-winged buzzard ; still higher, 
 amongst the gods, as it were, up and beyond 
 the tops of the green woods, are cultivated fields 
 I
 
 H4 ON THE EDGE OF EX MOOR. 
 
 of corn and wheat not yet gathered. I assure 
 you it is the prettiest amphitheatre that ever was 
 seen. 
 
 This was my first acquaintance with the 
 buzzard, a bird well known here. He is to be 
 distinguished from the hawk by his size and 
 sedentary disposition. He is about twenty inches 
 in length, and four feet and a half in the spread 
 of his wings. His habit is to sit for many hours 
 perched on a tree or some eminence waiting for 
 bird, reptile, or quadruped which may come 
 within his reach. 
 
 My platform is backed up by a very pic- 
 turesque old farmhouse white walls, thatched 
 roof, with a low, long frontage, facing a very 
 pretty flower garden, daintily laid out with 
 dahlias, love-lies-bleeding, marigolds, and many 
 other autumn flowers and ferns. I have tried in 
 my clumsy way to give a sketch of the house. 
 It is rough and imperfect, and I suppose no one 
 would imagine that behind that hedge a pretty 
 garden lies. It is in this picture of a " fit 
 retreat of health and peace" that the good 
 farmer and his wife, son, and daughter have 
 been so obliging as to find me lodgings for it is 
 a favour and here the Professor and I are fixed 
 for a time, to enjoy the lovely scenery, and to 
 catch as many fish as we can in the Barle, 
 which meanders down yonder in and out amid 
 the green foliage.
 
 THE BUZZARD. 
 (Falco 1'iitco.)
 
 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. 115 
 
 A curious thing about this farm, so it seems 
 to me, is that our old friend, the sparrow, is no- 
 where to be seen. On the other hand, the place 
 is alive with the songs of robins before sunrise, 
 and on till long after sunset. Have the robins, 
 which are quite numerous, driven the sparrows 
 away ? 
 
 The greater probability is that they had gone 
 away to the stubbles, but as a matter of fact 
 I was told that at no time are they numerous 
 here. In the valley below an enthusiastic 
 clergyman had estimated that at least a hundred 
 different kinds of birds may be seen and heard 
 in their seasons. 
 
 The first night of my abode in this solitary 
 dwelling I was awoke in the small hours by a 
 weird and unearthly shrieking at my window 
 the cry was something like kirriuee, kirrwee ! 
 It also disturbed the Professor on several occa- 
 sions. I am familiar enough with the hooting 
 of the common owl in the woods ; it was prob- 
 ably a screech owl, or a moping owl that " does 
 to the moon complain" ; at all events it was not 
 comfortable to be aroused by such an ill-omened 
 visitor. 
 
 So much for the surroundings. On the morn- 
 ing of the 9th we took a genera, survey of the 
 river in the immediate neighbourhood, and in 
 the afternoon I cast my first fly over the river, 
 and that was at once firmly fixed in an ash tree
 
 n6 ON THE EDGE OF EX MOOR. 
 
 across the stream, over a deep pool there it 
 had to remain. That was my first lesson. The 
 fact is, however, the river just now is brimful, 
 and rushing along with rapid strength ; there is 
 no wading to be done, and to cast from the bank 
 between two alder or nut bushes that meet at 
 the top, with a shrubbery behind you, and bushes 
 or trees overhanging the water in front of you, 
 and a strongish wind blowing just the way it 
 ought not to blow, it is easily to be understood 
 how I got hung up before I became acquainted 
 with the habits and customs of this sprightly 
 river. I caught one trout, and the Professor 
 caught none, for it is not always given to the 
 wise and prudent to catch fish here babes and 
 sucklings in the art sometimes beat them. 
 
 On Friday, the loth, a lovely bright day, I 
 toiled all day in the hot sun and caught nothing. 
 The Professor caught two brace. There was no 
 rise ; wind north-easterly. We fished from the 
 bottom of Bradley Ham to Withypool. River 
 still too strong to wade. The Professor is good 
 at climbing alders and dislodging flies from the 
 topmost branches with a hook and spike fixed at 
 the end of his net handle, an ingenious arrange- 
 ment of his own contrivance, and I kept him 
 pretty well employed in this exercise. On one 
 occasion I sent him, or I had better say his un- 
 bounded enthusiasm sent him, to climb an un- 
 usually tall and bushy alder, and my fly was in
 
 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. 117 
 
 the topmost branch. It is not easy to climb far 
 up an alder, for the branches are slender and 
 snappish. He had got up almost near enough 
 to reach my fly with his hook, when the brittle 
 branch on which he was resting for support gave 
 way, and down he came, but caught by the 
 branches under both arms, and so he hung sus- 
 pended over the water for some time. He soon 
 struggled out of his troubles and landed on the 
 firm earth, but not until he had rescued my 
 " Coachman." The adventure shook him a good 
 deal. It was a glorious day the scenery in its 
 infinite variety of hills and woods and shades 
 and colours quite enough to satisfy me without 
 the mere secondary consideration of catching a 
 few trout. I suppose that is why I was not 
 eminently successful. 
 
 The next day, Sept. n, we started early. We 
 had a long day before us. Our host very kindly 
 devoted his valuable time to our service by 
 driving us in the morning to some distance 
 above Withypool, and leaving us there to fish up 
 the river, Landacre Bridge way. 
 
 Here was another delightful day. We fished 
 upstream with more success, for the river is 
 more open and accessible, and had lowered now 
 sufficiently to enable us to wade here and there, 
 and so to reach spots where the trout lay. Con- 
 sequently, when lunch time came, which we 
 partook of under the wide-spreading branches
 
 n8 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. 
 
 of a lovely beech, we had each a fair show of 
 pretty trout small, of course, for there are no 
 large ones. This, I may remark, is the country 
 of beech trees. The hedgerows are all beech, 
 and capital, impenetrable hedges they make, as 
 we occasionally found. We came upon one 
 which ran from the top of a hill sheer down to 
 the very edge of the water we must either 
 climb that hill to reach an opening or get round 
 the water end of it. Now, this lower corner of 
 the field was a bog, and through the bog we had 
 to struggle to get to the end of the hedge. 
 
 The Professor is generally the first to tackle 
 any difficulty, but he did not like this job, so I 
 led the way, and a nasty job it was. I squeezed 
 through thick bushes to the water's edge, and 
 then found myself suspended by a few roots and 
 brittle branches over an abrupt precipice of 
 six feet above the water, which happened to be 
 one of the deepest holes in the river. I held 
 on, rod and net in one hand, sometimes grasping 
 green ferns, which snapped easily, then by 
 seizing young ash or beech branches, I clam- 
 bered through. The Professor was not quite so 
 lucky. Just when he had reached the most 
 dangerous part his right foot slipped, and he 
 found himself hanging over the gulf below with 
 only one foot resting on a rotten root and his 
 hands grasping whatever they could seize ; but he 
 got through all right after an anxious struggle.
 
 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. 119 
 
 Then we fished on up Landacre way till we 
 came to the bridge a very picturesque bridge 
 of six arches, of which I am enabled to give an 
 admirable picture from the illustrated edition of 
 " Lorna Doone." Here it was that Jeremy 
 Stickles had a fight for life first with the 
 great floods that came down over the bridge, 
 and then with the three Doones. This illus- 
 tration is from a drawing by a local celebrity 
 (Mr. F. Armstrong). It realizes the scene 
 perfectly. 
 
 Here it is an understood thing that, although 
 the fishing ticket issued by the Exe Conservancy 
 Board embraces the waters of the Exe and its 
 tributaries in the counties of Devon and Somer- 
 set, a certain formality has to be gone through 
 at this bridge in order to appease the owner of 
 this particular property. This formality consists 
 in walking up a steep hill on the South Molton 
 turnpike road, to Landacre House, where you 
 have to sign your name in a book kept there for 
 that purpose. Under ordinary circumstances 
 this would not be a very pleasant performance, 
 for it is no joke to climb such a hill as this in 
 heavy wading boots, after having walked for 
 many miles up the river. But to us, notwith- 
 standing these troubles (and we were almost 
 exhausted when we reached the house), it was a 
 peculiar pleasure, because the farmer and his 
 wife, Mr. and Mrs. Hill, and Miss Milton are all
 
 120 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. 
 
 old friends of the Professor. Consequently, we 
 were well entertained with most acceptable re- 
 freshments. Miss Milton told me that she was 
 born in that house, and her father lived there 
 for ninety years. 
 
 In turning over the leaves of the old book in 
 which we recorded our names, it was with a 
 peculiar sensation that I came across two names 
 not unknown, and, I may say, very dear to me. 
 The date was September, 1873 just twenty-four 
 years ago ; the names were R. B. Marston 
 (the "Major" of my booklets) and his brother, 
 E. P. Marston. This Landacre House is a very 
 interesting old farmhouse, and is situated on 
 the side of a hill, which commands grand views 
 over Withypool Common and Exmoor, the sides 
 of which, here and there, show signs of having 
 been cultivated in times gone by, when wheat 
 and oats were worth growing. The river here 
 runs broad and rapid, and free from encum- 
 brance of trees and bushes quite open, but by 
 no means free from a greater nuisance in the 
 way of bogs and swamps, which make the 
 approaches to the water sometimes incon- 
 venient. We returned to our pleasant residence, 
 which is not to be reached from any point 
 without considerable exertion. 
 
 In the evening, sitting round a cheerful fire, 
 we consulted our hosts as to the best way to get 
 across country to view the Doone Valley which
 
 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. 121 
 
 is supposed to be some fourteen or fifteen miles 
 away and it was finally agreed that he should 
 drive us over on the Monday or Tuesday follow- 
 ing. Our host told us, with a merry twinkle, 
 that he had not read " Lorna Doone," and so was 
 not acquainted with John Ridd ; " but," said he, 
 " I have often heard tell of one Ambrose Ridd, 
 who was a giant in his day. He may have been 
 the father or the uncle or the cousin of John. 
 In those days, and, indeed, in my own time, I 
 remember well when there were no wheels to be 
 seen in this country. My father was the first to 
 introduce them. Everything was carried on the 
 backs of horses in great sacks lime, corn, wool, 
 etc. On yonder hill are still to be seen the old 
 packhorse roads. Well, this Ambrose Ridd had 
 a load of wool 240 Ib. for South Molton Fair. 
 He scorned the use of horseflesh, and so took 
 the sack on his back and trudged over hill and 
 dale to South Molton. In passing through a 
 gate on a common the tail end of his sack was 
 hooked to the gate, probably by his Satanic 
 Majesty, 1 but, quite unaware of this, Ambrose 
 still trudged on, and when he reached his de- 
 stination the people were astonished to see the 
 gate still hanging on behind, and Ambrose was 
 as much surprised as they were." 
 
 Sunday, Sept. 12. My good friend the Pro- 
 
 1 Bewick has a tailpiece representing his majesty 
 engaged in a similar performance.
 
 122 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. 
 
 fessor, being a staunch churchman, took me 
 away on foot to Withypool Church, in which 
 church he has a special and peculiar interest. 
 Some eighteen years ago the tower of the old 
 church showed signs of danger, and it was 
 decided to pull it down, and down they pulled 
 two-thirds of it, when they found the stonework 
 so solid and so hard that nothing less than 
 dynamite could move it, and so there it remains 
 in this tumble-down state to this day. The 
 church itself was also in a sad ruinous state, and 
 so ten years ago my active friend, the Professor, 
 set about and organized subscriptions for the 
 restoration. He constituted himself architect, 
 surveyor, and clerk of the works. He devoted 
 himself heart and soul to the work, besides con- 
 tributing largely towards the cost, and so, with 
 the active assistance of the farmers in the 
 neighbourhood, he completed the renovation of 
 the interior in a very elegant and tasteful 
 manner. But as regards the tower, there it 
 remains as it was when pulled down years ago, 
 the stones piled up along the sides of the 
 churchyard, whilst the part still standing has 
 been roughly covered in. Pitiful it is to see, for 
 the old church is splendidly situated, and forms, 
 or rather will form when its new tower is built, 
 a most picturesque object in the landscape. 
 Why does not some millionaire in the county 
 take it in hand and find the money, it requires
 
 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. 123 
 
 only a few hundreds, and it would be a good 
 deed to perform ? 
 
 One of the Professor's friends whom we met 
 at church, learning that we were bent on an 
 expedition in search of the Doone Valley, 
 very kindly offered to drive us there ; and as he 
 had been stag-hunting over there the day before, 
 and knew the best road, we accepted his kind 
 offer. And so our friend and host was, I think, 
 a little disappointed that he was superseded. 
 
 On Monday, the I3th, nothing occurred of 
 consequence, except that, fishing up Bradley 
 Ham way I broke the top joint. I had hold of 
 a good trout (\ lb.), which is as big as they are 
 made in these rivers. This trout gave me no 
 end of trouble, scuttling about from one boulder 
 to another ; and it was in pulling him out from 
 under a rock that my rod snapped, but I 
 managed to bag my trout. I was helpless, for I 
 had no string, or wax, or anything to make a 
 splice with, and so I had to whistle for the 
 Professor. He soon turned up sliced a piece 
 of tough young ash, drew forth from_his capacious 
 pockets just the string that was wanted, and 
 also the necessary wax, and in a jiffy my rod 
 was restored to working order. We fished on 
 up the Ham till the appointed time for return 
 had arrived. Then, punctual to the minute, our 
 host came down the hillside with a couple of 
 ponies to carry the fatigued and weary and
 
 124 ON THE EDGE OF EXMOOR. 
 
 hungry anglers back home. We rode the 
 ponies, and our host trudged all the way back. 
 He is a much older man than I, and I felt con- 
 siderable compunction in allowing him to walk 
 whilst I was riding his beautiful four-year-old 
 cob " Progress " ; but, in truth, I was so ex- 
 hausted and footsore, that a three miles' walk 
 over those hills after fishing and wading all day 
 in heavy indiarubber soled boots would have 
 been pain and grief to me. I cannot recom- 
 mend such soles for such a rocky stream, for 
 they are as slippery as eels. The Professor 
 wore leather waders, with rough nailed leather 
 soles. With these he could safely grip stones 
 over which I was constantly stumbling.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE DOONE VALLEY. 
 
 N Tuesday, the I4th, we started for 
 Comer's Gate, on Winsford Hill, there 
 to meet the doctor, and there punctu- 
 ally to time agreed we saw a pair of 
 splendid grays come prancing over the hill. 
 The doctor drove his own horses, but had hired 
 a commodious wagonette, and in this carriage 
 was an enormous basket, occupying a fourth of 
 its whole length, and in this basket was con- 
 tained but I am not going to tell what it con- 
 tained and sitting next to this restaurant on 
 wheels, on each side, were two charming young 
 ladies Mrs. E. and her niece and next them 
 sat a fine cockaded and liveried groom, and still 
 there was room for us pilgrims of the moor 
 the Professor occupying the box seat. 
 
 I might also have said that the carriage was 
 freighted with a still more important personage 
 than any I have yet mentioned the pet darling
 
 126 THE DOONE VALLEY. 
 
 of the ladies and the idol of the doctor. He was 
 a little black thing, with prominent eyes, an 
 abnormally big forehead, betraying wonderful 
 intelligence, if not water on the brain. He had 
 four little spindles for legs, and he weighed just 
 3 Ib. He was not quite the sort of being for ex- 
 ploring the wildest part of Exmoor ; but it was 
 considered impossible to leave him behind on 
 account of his extraordinary ability for getting 
 into trouble. Sometimes he would get faceache 
 or toothache, or lumbago, or half choke himself 
 with a chicken bone. He wore a white coat, 
 trimmed with scarlet (if I remember rightly), and 
 he reposed and dozed quietly on the lap of his 
 mistress the whole journey. In fact, he behaved 
 in a quite gentlemanly way all the time. He 
 was all smiles and caresses, and knew nothing 
 of snapping or snarling, or barking and biting ; 
 and so we travelled, up hill and down dale, till we 
 came to Larksborough, a lone old farmhouse 
 and stabling, all in a state of dilapidation and 
 ruin, the house being now occupied by a Scotch 
 shepherd. Our splendid team had done this 
 rough work as if they had been used to it all 
 their lives, whereas, in fact, they had been more 
 used to the King's Road, Brighton. The groom 
 found stabling for them of some sort, and as 
 they carried their own provisions they were soon 
 made happy. 
 
 Now, here we are landed in the very centre of
 
 THE DOONE VALLEY. 127 
 
 Exmoor as wild and dreary a country as could 
 be seen, and we had to trudge the remainder of 
 the way. Just down below us is a small gutter, 
 through which some water trickles ; it is the 
 head water of Badgworthy River. We had now 
 to follow this stream, which gradually grew into 
 a respectable brook, for three or four, or perhaps 
 five, miles, before it reaches that renowned fall 
 up which John Ridd climbed and found Lorna 
 on the top of it. We kept the brook in view, 
 though sometimes climbing over hilltops and 
 crossing goyals. We had travelled in this way 
 about three miles, when Mrs. E. began to think 
 that it was too fatiguing for her little darling, 
 and so she sat down on the hillside waiting our 
 return. She was, I am sure, in mortal fear all 
 the time lest a rabbit should cross her path. In 
 that case the spirit of her darling would be irre- 
 pressible. He would burst his bonds and be 
 after that rabbit, and then if he caught him there 
 was the terrible possibility that the rabbit might 
 eat him ! The consequence of all this was that 
 the little tyrant had to be wrapped up and coddled 
 all the time we were away. 
 
 We pushed along our course over hill and dale 
 for about a mile further, the young lady tripping 
 it over the rocks and swamps just as Lorna her- 
 self might have done, and never owning to be 
 the least bit tired. We crossed the foot of 
 Thomshill, a place which, according to " Lorna
 
 128 THE DOONE VALLEY. 
 
 Doone," "folk were loth to speak of even on a 
 summer morning ; that Squire Thorn, who had 
 been murdered there a century ago or more, had 
 been seen by several shepherds, even in the 
 middle of the day, walking with his severed head 
 carried in his left hand, and his right arm lifted 
 towards the sun." 
 
 We reached a point called the Hut Circles, 
 three hillocks, very picturesquely situated, and 
 each of them covered with heaps of stone, which 
 had once doubtless formed huts. But it seemed 
 clear that as yet we had only reached the head 
 of the Doone Valley, which extends for three or 
 four miles down. Perhaps we had reached the 
 spot where it was easy to imagine the young 
 Lord Alan Brandir met his tragic fate at the 
 hands of Carver Doone. In order to get further 
 down it was necessary to cross the stream, which 
 now ran strong and full, and there is no bridge. 
 We were obliged to give it up for the present, 
 fully intending to return another day and attack 
 the valley from another point. 
 
 We have not seen all we wanted to see, for 
 it is hard and toilsome work on a very hot day 
 to climb up and down these rocky hills ; and it 
 became evident that we must pursue " The 
 Badgery " two or three miles further before we 
 can get into our minds a realistic picture of 
 the Doone Valley. 
 
 The great " Wizard of the West " has cast
 
 THE DOONR VALLEY. 129 
 
 such a glamour of romance and unreality over 
 the glen of the Doones, that one's discovery of 
 the real valley may turn out to be somewhat 
 disappointing. My next expedition, if I am 
 ever permitted to make another, will be first to 
 discover Plover's Barrows, and so follow John 
 Ridd over the track of that singular loach fish- 
 ing expedition, which had such astounding 
 consequences. I have much pleasure in being 
 able to give an excellent picture of Plover's 
 Barrows, by Mr. F. G. Armstrong, from the 
 illustrated edition of " Lorna Doone." Therein 
 will be seen the River Lynn winding through the 
 hills, down which John Ridd (when he was 
 turned fourteen, and put into small clothes, 
 buckled at the knee) went a-loaching with a 
 three-pronged fork fastened to a stout rod. Two 
 miles down it is joined by the Badgworthy, up 
 which John went, and " had very comely sport," 
 till he came to the water slide, which landed him 
 in the Doone Valley. Useless now for any bold 
 young angler to expect to find loach in either 
 of these streams John Ridd exterminated them. 
 During our drive back the admired and be- 
 loved miniature Jumbo behaved inmost becoming 
 manner, and was the centre of admiration of 
 all on board. We had a most delightful day, 
 and felt very grateful to our friends for giving 
 us the pleasure of their pleasant company, and 
 for our share in their carriage. 
 K
 
 130 THE DOONE VALLEY. 
 
 The next day, the iSth, we began our fishing 
 at Withypool, where on our return we should 
 find a brace of nags to convey our weary bones 
 back home. The most that can be said of it is 
 that it was, as usual, a pleasant day. I shot 
 ahead of the Professor ; and, as I was approach- 
 ing the part of the river on which Landacre 
 House looks down from a considerable distance, 
 I heard the furious barking of dogs, and three 
 big sheep-dogs came tearing down the meadows. 
 I was puzzled to know what they were after, but 
 on rounding a corner of the hill I descried away 
 off in the distance to my left, that is, on the 
 crest of Withypool Common, a solitary horse- 
 man, making his way slantingly towards the 
 South Moulton Road, which stretches away up 
 over Exmoor from Landacre Bridge. This 
 horseman was immediately followed by many 
 more. They came over the crest by the dozen, 
 and galloped off in the same direction. Others 
 came up from the other side down by Landacre 
 House, and galloped over the bridge and up the 
 road, making for the top, and there on the crest 
 of the distant hill scores of them stood, seem- 
 ingly not knowing which way to go, but gradu- 
 ally they vanished from my sight and I saw no 
 more of them. I suppose the stag and hounds 
 had gone over before I heard the farm dogs 
 bark, and so I missed what must have been a 
 very picturesque sight.
 
 THE DOONE VALLEY. 131 
 
 My business is to fish, not to hunt, but really I 
 should have been delighted with " Progress " 
 under me to have followed those gallant hunters. 
 I toiled back till I found the Professor, who had 
 given me up for lost. We caught a good many 
 trout that day. A worthy dweller in Withypool, 
 always alert for odd jobs so long as they don't 
 mean real work, who answers to the name of 
 Luke, brought our walking boots up to meet 
 us, and gladly we exchanged our heavy waders 
 and walked back to the Royal Oak. Here we 
 found the place crowded with hunters whose 
 horses had become blown and had given up the 
 chase. They were all crying out for gruel or 
 bran mash for their horses, and we had a diffi- 
 culty in getting our steeds ready. At last we 
 mounted, fishing rods in hand. Don Quixote- 
 like we charged the hill in front of us. Heavily 
 laden we were, and not quite in hunting trim. 
 But away up yonder gallops a redcoat, said by 
 the knowing ones to be Mr. Anthony, the 
 popular huntsman, followed by a few other 
 riders. This gallant stag a galloper they call 
 him must have led them a pretty chase, for it 
 was several hours since I had seen the hunters 
 disappear over the Western Hill, and now here 
 they are still pursuing over yonder Eastern Hill 
 towards Winsford. 
 
 He was started in the morning in Hawkridge 
 Covert, off by South Hill Cottages to Withypool,
 
 132 THE DOONE VALLEY. 
 
 and away then west by Knighton Combe and 
 Brightworthy Barrows to Delacombe and Kings- 
 land Pitts, West Holland Coverts, and at last 
 back up by Bradley and Comer's Gate. Our 
 route took us up to Comer's Gate and across 
 Winsford Hill, and when we got up there the 
 shades of evening were closing around us. But 
 my plucky " Progress " stood still, lifted his head 
 ears forward and neighed. Then he wanted 
 to be off. He had heard at a great distance the 
 sound of horses galloping over the heath, and he 
 longed to follow. I only caught sight of one 
 hunter, who soon disappeared towards the 
 Devil's Punch Bowl, and I managed to keep 
 " Progress " in the way he should go, for it 
 would not be a pretty picture to see me, fishing 
 rod and net in hand, two big baskets on my 
 back, galloping after the hounds. I am sure 
 " Progress " would have been off had the hounds 
 come in view. They had a most exciting run 
 of over thirty miles, but the stag did them at 
 last he was driven to soil in King's Weir, 
 where he was lost in the dark. 
 
 I do not feel it to be incumbent on me to 
 describe the flies mostly successful on this water. 
 We tried a variety, some good, some not ; but 
 the fly for this river, I was confidently told by 
 an old hand, is one which neither I nor my ex- 
 perienced friend, the Professor, have yet seen. 
 He called it the Devon Green. Will some good
 
 THE DOONE VALLEY. 133 
 
 reader, who knows it, be good enough to state 
 what are its constituent parts? It is, I believe, 
 specially intended for greenhorns or green 
 hands. 
 
 From what I hear, I fancy the trees and 
 bushes which encompass the Barle in the wooded 
 valleys are hung with as many "imitations" as 
 there are real flies on the water. I am not the 
 only one who got " hung up." 
 
 Thursday, i6th, was a dull, cold day. The 
 Professor laboured hard at the stream, and 
 brought home a good dish of trout. I fished 
 only for an hour, and, not feeling well, I gave 
 it up. Next day, I7th, heavy rain all day. I 
 rested at home to recruit. 
 
 On Saturday, i8th, we fished in the afternoon 
 up Withypool way, and caught a few nice trout 
 under difficulties, for we had a storm of thunder 
 and lightning and heavy rain, followed by a 
 hailstorm, and afterwards a strong wind. 
 
 On Sunday, iQth, we walked across country 
 to see the wonderful Torr Steps (formerly called 
 Tarr Steps), built over the Barle, not far from 
 Havvkridge, by his Satanic Majesty, according 
 to " Lorna Doone"; but another tradition is 
 that it was built by a man of the name of Tarr 
 centuries ago. The enormous blocks of stone 
 are supposed to have been dug out of the rocky 
 bed of the river a few yards above ; at all events, 
 there is a great pool there where the salmon lie.
 
 134 THE DOONR VALLEY. 
 
 Many years ago, one dark night, the Pro- 
 fessor, accompanied by our " Major," met with 
 a singular adventure here. They had been 
 spending the evening with the late rector close 
 by, and were crossing this river, homeward 
 bound, on a very dark night by this bridge of 
 steps, when the Professor slipped and fell plump 
 on his back into a deepish hole in the river. The 
 Major went into the stream and got him out. 
 The Professor had a quantity of loose silver and 
 a half-sovereign in his pocket, and these coins 
 all fell into the water. Next morning they went 
 down to the place, and by much groping in the 
 bright water recovered the treasure ; the half- 
 sovereign hangs on the Major's watch-chain as 
 a memento to this day. The Professor showed 
 me the exact spot where the accident happened ; 
 lucky for him that the back of his head just 
 escaped a big rock that stands up there above 
 the water. 
 
 The Rectory of Hawkridge and Withy pool 
 combined stands in a romantic spot a few 
 hundred yards above the river five miles away 
 from one parish and two from the other. We 
 spent a pleasant hour there. 
 
 On Monday, the 2oth, the morning was fine, 
 but windy. We ought to have gone on another 
 expedition in search of the Doone Valley, but 
 our steeds were not available. On our route we 
 should have passed Larksborough, on Exmoor,
 
 THE DOONE VALLEY. 135 
 
 and there we should have witnessed a lively 
 scene, for there was an assemblage of two or 
 three thousand people to witness what they call 
 Point-to-Point races a five miles' run across the 
 moor from Larksborough to Simonsbath. I did 
 not hear what the result was ; but two of the 
 consequences were that a rider fell and broke 
 his collar-bone, and a horse had his leg broken, 
 and was promptly shot. It must have been a 
 lively scene on that wild spot, in the wildest part 
 of Exmoor. 
 
 Tuesday and Wednesday were devoted to the 
 quiet and peaceful recreation of angling, with 
 fair results, and on Thursday I am homeward 
 bound. This little spell of outdoor life was 
 very pleasant for me and very healthful, but all 
 too short, for I enjoyed everything with the 
 exuberant feelings of a boy, though an old one 
 my pleasant residence, my pleasant, humorous, 
 and delightful companion, the delicious Devon- 
 shire cream and whortleberries, and, above all, 
 Devonshire junket, otherwise named by the 
 Professor " Patent slip down " ! all of which were 
 prepared for us by our venerable hostess and her 
 charming, sprightly, bright-eyed daughter. 
 
 On my return homewards over Winsford Hill, 
 we made a short detour to get a glimpse of the 
 far-famed Devil's Punch Bowl, which is quite 
 worth going a long way to see. It looks like an 
 enormous scallop taken bodily out of the side of
 
 136 THE DOONE VALLEY. 
 
 the mountain. I had only time to get a peep 
 over the rim. It is more in the shape of a horse- 
 shoe than a bowl, three parts of it being quite 
 circular, and the fourth opening out to the valley 
 below, looking northward. I will not hazard a 
 guess as to the number of hundreds of feet of its 
 depth, or as to its circumference. Its sides are 
 of grass and fern, but I should think it would be 
 perilous to attempt its descent. 
 
 Our sanguine expectations of October grayling 
 fishing on the Itchen have, alas ! come to 
 nought. The Major had serious illness in his 
 family, and I was otherwise prevented. That 
 big trout which our Major hooked and lost in 
 May, with a hook and two yards of gut attached 
 to him, still remains in his lair ; let us hope that 
 we shall find him in the full enjoyment of health 
 and freedom, with a pound added to his weight, 
 when the spring-time comes.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FAMILIAR WILD BIRDS." 1 
 
 HESE handy little volumes are most 
 charming. In the first place they 
 contain about one hundred and fifty 
 exquisitely printed coloured plates of 
 as many " Familiar Wild Birds," and innumer- 
 able little woodcuts such as the specimens I am 
 enabled to give by the kindness of the publishers. 
 As to the coloured plates a practical angler 
 might be tempted to put each of these lovely 
 birds dressed as they are in their natural 
 plumage under a microscope, in order to see 
 what feathers from breast, wing, or throat would 
 make the most killing imitations of winged 
 insects wherewith to deceive the lordly trout or 
 thymy grayling. But this was not the object 
 which Mr. Swaysland had in view when he got 
 Mr. Thorburn to make these exquisite pictures. 
 
 1 " Familiar Wild Birds." By W. Swaysland. In 
 four crown 8vo volumes. 
 
 L
 
 138 "FAMILIAR WILD BIRDS." 
 
 They are intended to enable us who are not 
 ornithologists, but who love all the birds we 
 meet with in our wanderings, to distinguish them 
 by their familiar names. For myself, I may say 
 that my early boyhood was spent " by meadow 
 and stream." In lovely woods and by pleasant 
 rivers I made acquaintance with very many of 
 the Familiar Birds here so accurately depicted, 
 and I knew them by their local names, some- 
 times differing from those given here, e.g., for 
 the Redstart our name was Brantail, etc. An 
 interval of sixty years is " the difference 'twixt 
 now and then," and in that interval my woodland 
 wanderings have been of rare occurrence. I 
 have forgotten the names of many birds, and 
 these pretty volumes bring back to me not only 
 forgotten names but pleasant memories of days 
 gone by. These coloured plates are wonderfully 
 accurate, not only in the colours of the plumage, 
 but in delineament of shape and attitude of each 
 bird, and there is at foot of each a note showing 
 the proportion of size which the picture bears to 
 the original bird. 
 
 Mr. Swaysland's text is as useful and as in- 
 teresting as are his pictures. In addition to the 
 coloured plates, the text is liberally interspersed 
 with pretty woodcuts, which add much to the 
 attraction of the volumes. 
 
 In the text the most persistent, prosy, prac- 
 tical angler might learn to distinguish a black-
 
 THE CREEPER. 
 (Certhia fa tit Hi a ris . )
 
 "FAMILIAR WILD BIRDS." 139 
 
 bird from a starling, a swallow from a sand 
 martin, or a swift from a leather-bat, and would 
 come to know in time that birds are far more 
 interesting beings than fishes. Mr. Swaysland 
 tells you all you want to know about them, their 
 habits, their migration, how and where they 
 build their nests, and the colour, markings, and 
 size of their eggs, with much more useful in- 
 formation. 
 
 If I could find it in my heart to blame these 
 volumes for anything, it would be because the 
 birds are not assorted they are thrown together 
 anyhow thus the shorelark is found in one 
 place, the skylark in another, and the woodlark 
 in another, and so with the buntings, and many 
 others. I am at a loss to know why birds of a 
 feather were not brought together. 
 
 It is true that when I come to the end of 
 vol. 4 I find an excellent classified index, in 
 which the birds are all brought together accord- 
 ing to their scientific affinities. There is also 
 what I must venture to call a very bad general 
 index, under which I can find neither bunting, 
 nor sandpiper, nor snipe, nor wren, nor wagtail, 
 nor probably a score of other familiar names. 
 If I want bunting, I must look to black-headed or 
 common, and I must search all through the index 
 before I can find anything about a snipe or a wren. 
 
 I strongly advise Mr. Swaysland to cancel 
 this index and substitute a decent one for it.
 
 140 
 
 1 FAMILIAR WILD BIRDS." 
 
 This small defect being remedied, I have 
 nothing but praise for these volumes, and can 
 very sincerely commend them to the attention 
 of all who are not, but who wish to become, 
 familiar with the names as well as the bodily 
 presentment of all the birds that haunt our 
 woods and streams. 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND co. 
 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
 
 EDITION DE LUXE, in 2 Vols. Royal t,to, each copy numbered and 
 
 signed, to Subscribers, Ten Guineas net 
 
 (.nearly all said). 
 
 The DEMY QUARTO EDITION, bound in half-morocco, gilt top, 
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 (THE IOOTH EDITION.) 
 
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 The principal feature of this Edition is a Set of 54 Full-page Photo- 
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 on the Lea, Dove, &c. , and about 100 other Illustrations. 
 
 "The edition which celebrates the centenary of 'The Complent 
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 Editor of the ' Fishing Gazette,' who is known as a ' deacon of the 
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 The type and paper make a masterpiece of mechanical work, and the 
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 little or nothing to be desired." The Times. 
 
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 Some Important Angling Works. 
 
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 ON FISH AND FISHING. By R. B. MARSTON, Editor of 
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 With Coloured Plates painted from Living Specimens, and Engraved 
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 THE RIVERSIDE NATURALIST. Notes on the 
 
 Various Forms of Life met with either in, on, or by the Water, or 
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 The Fishing Gazette. 
 
 A PAPER FOR ANGLERS. 
 
 EDITED BY R. B. MARSTON. 
 
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