* * * *

Here, then, let us lounge a full two hours, too comfortable and too
tired to care for fishing, till the hall-bell rings for that dinner
which we as good anglers will despise. Then we will make our way to
the broad reaches above the house. The evening breeze should be
ruffling them gallantly; and see, the fly is getting up. Countless
thousands are rising off the grass, and flickering to and fro above
the stream. Stand still a moment, and you will hear the air full of
the soft rustle of innumerable wings. Hundreds more, even more
delicate and gauzy, are rising through the water, and floating
helplessly along the surface, as Aphrodite may have done when she
rose in the AEgean, half frightened at the sight of the new upper
world. And, see, the great trout are moving everywhere. Fish too
large and well fed to care for the fly at any other season, who have
been lounging among the weeds all day and snapping at passing
minnows, have come to the surface; and are feeding steadily,
splashing five or six times in succession, and then going down awhile
to bolt their mouthful of victims; while here and there a heavy
silent swirl tells of a fly taken before it has reached the surface,
untimely slain before it has seen the day.

Now--put your Green-drake on; and throw, regardless of bank-fishing
or any other rule, wherever you see a fish rise. Do not work your
flies in the least, but let them float down over the fish, or sink if
they will; he is more likely to take them under water than on the
top. And mind this rule: be patient with your fish; and do not
fancy that because he does not rise to you the first or the tenth
time, therefore he will not rise at all. He may have filled his