for this year, they make no distinction, and greedily seize any small object in motion on the water. You see the alder fly is quite as successful as the May fly; but there is a fish which has refused it, and because he has been feeding, glutton like, on the May fly: that is the fifth he has swallowed in a minute. Now I shall throw the drake a foot above him. It floats down, and he has taken it. A fine fish; I think at least 4lbs. This is the largest fish we have yet seen, but in the deep water still lower down, there are larger fish. One of 5lbs. I have known taken here, and once a fish a little short only of 6lbs.

POIET.-I have just landed a fish which I suppose you will consider as a small one; yet I am tempted to kill him.

HAL. He is not a fish to kill, throw him back, he is much under 2lbs. and, as I ought to have told you before, we are not allowed to kill any fish of less size; and I am sure we shall all have more than we ought to carry away even of this size. Pray put him into the well, or rather give him to the fisherman to turn back into the water.

POIET.-I cannot say I approve of this manner of fishing: I lose my labour.

HAL.-As the object of your fishing, I hope, is innocent amusement, you can enjoy this, and show your skill in catching the animal; and if every fish that took the May fly were to be killed, there would be an end to the sport in the river, for none would remain for next year.

PHYS. The number of flies seems to increase as the day advances, and I never saw a more animated water scene: all nature seems alive; even the water-wagtails have joined the attack upon these helpless and lovely creations from the waters.

HAL.-It is now one o'clock; and between twelve and three is the time when the May fly rises with most vigour. It is a very warm day, and with such a quantity of fly, every fish in the river will probably be soon feeding. See, below the wear, there are two or three large trout lately come out; and from the quiet way in which they swallow their prey, and from the size of the tranquil undulation that follows their rise, I suspect

they are the giants of this river. Try if you cannot reach them: one is near the bank in a convenient place for a throw, for the water is sufficiently rough to hide the deception, and these large fish do not take the fly well in calm water, though with natural flies on the hook they might all be raised.

POIET.-I have him! Alas! he has broken me, and carried away half my bottom line. He must have been a fish of 7 or 8lbs. What a dash he made! He carried off my fly by main force.

HAL.-You should have allowed your reel to play and your line to run: you held him too tight.

POIET.-He was too powerful a fish for my tackle; and even if I had done so, would probably have broken me by running amongst the weeds.

HAL.-Let me tell you, my friend, you should never allow a fish to run to the weeds, or to strike across the stream; you should carry him always down stream, keeping his head high, and in the current. If in a weedy river you allow a large fish to run up

stream, you are almost sure to lose him. There, I have hooked the companion of your lost fish, on the other side of the stream,—a powerful creature: he tries, you see, to make way to the weeds, but I hold him tight.

POIET.-I see you are obliged to run with him, and have carried him safely through the weeds.

HAL. I have him now in the rapids on the shallow, and I have no fear of losing him, unless he strikes the hook out of his mouth.

POIET.-He springs again and again.

HAL.-He is off; in one of these somersets he detached the steel, and he now leaps to celebrate his escape. We will leave this place, where there are more great fish, and return to it after a while, when the alarm produced by our operations has subsided.

It is now a quarter of an hour since we left the large pool: let us return to it; I see the fish are again rising.

POIET.-I am astonished!

It appears to me that the very same fish are again feeding. There are two fish rising nearly in the same spot where they rose before: can they be the same fish?

HAL.-It is very possible. It is not likely that three other fish of that size should occupy the same haunts.

POIET.-But I thought after a fish had been hooked, he remained sick and sulky for some time, feeling his wounds uncomfortable.

HAL. The fish that I hooked is not rising in the same place, and therefore, probably was hurt by the hook; but one of these fish seems to be the same that carried off your fly, and it is probable that the hook only struck him in a part of the mouth where there are no nerves; and that he suffered little at the moment, and does not now feel his annoyance.

POIET.-I have seen him take four or five flies: I shall throw over him. There, he

rose, but refused the fly. He has at least

learnt from the experiment he has made,