stream I never had much opinion of it. It has good spawning beds, but few of those haunts where the salmon love to lie and rest. For jack and bottom fishers the river has many attractions, and to them I can heartily recommend its willowy banks.

XII.

APHRODITÉ

THE wind that swept along the shore
In one grand pæan died away,

And with the last faint echo of its roar

Far o'er the deep there 'rose the break of day; The heavy storm-clouds parted right and left, Red burned the flashes through the rugged cleft.

And then the sun clomb in the sky,

To send a broad'ning crimson track

Across the waves to where the wet sands lie,

A glistening scythe that cuts the bold waves back; And now and then, with quick'ning interval,

Gleamed through the waves a light most magical.

And now the day was well begun,

The sunrise rays had left the sea,

The shamefaced clouds had fled before the sun,
Of fairest blue the heavenly canopy;
'Twas then a wave that overtopped the rest
Surged on, and bore the Goddess on its crest.

She crouched within a monster shell,
Her blue-black hair around her clung,
As shaking off a heaven-created spell,
With sudden motion to her feet she sprung;
And iridescent gleams of green and gold
Flashed from the shell in glories manifold.

Abroad her massy hair she threw,

And bared her white limbs to the day;
With happy wonder in her eyes' deep blue
She glanced around the circle of the bay;
And from the inner chambers of the shell
A sweet Æolian music 'gan to swell.

Then when her shell-car touched the strand

She scanned the fertile valleys o'er,

And, glad at heart, she raised her pink-white hand
And sang, 'I love, I love," and evermore

With that sweet song and those sweet words doth ring
The world where Aphrodité seeks her king.

XIII.

BURN FISHING

EVERY trout-fisher knows a spot like that described by a Shropshire clergyman in the following lines:— "Where round about the mossy stones the glimmering water whirls, With bubbles making rings of light and strewing shadowy pearls ; Where through the sunlights and the shadows, by the ancient roots, Under the grey arch fringed with fern, the arrowy ousel shoots, Where the larches' glorious greenness shines all up the slanting height

Greenness shining, not a colour, but a tender living light."

And although he may not be able to reproduce in print, for the benefit of others, the impressions that the beauty of earth, wood, water, and sky make upon his mind, or though he may not even care to talk about them, for fear of being accused of "sentiment" (of which most men have a wholesome horror), yet he feels them all the same, and perhaps all the more deeply.

H

The praises of trout fishing have, goodness knows, been sung often enough, yet there are hundreds for whom the dose cannot be made large enough. With the hope, therefore, of pleasing these, and of bringing to the recollections of the elders of the guild the keen delights and healthy excitements of their younger days, I ask my readers to accompany me on another fishing excursion.

It is a sunshiny afternoon late in April. A few showers in the morning have wakened into life all the myriad forms of animal and insect life that we see about us as we strike into the wood. The singing of the birds is almost deafening. No wonder they put forth all their powers on such a day as this; I, too, feel inclined to burst into song, but am restrained by the knowledge that I have no voice. My vocal powers have been so persistently denied by an otherwise appreciative family, that I do not care to commit myself. Never mind, I can listen. As we wend our way along the mossy glades, the rabbits flit across in numbers, giving a derisive flip of their white tails as they seem to recognize the harmlessness of the fishing rods we carry. Acting on the rule that it is always best when walking along the side of a hill to keep high, we proceed along the crest of the wood and listen to the brawling stream which flows far down on