glorious border-land of Wales for their battle-field, and it is one of the greatest changes conceivable to come from Wales to Norfolk. From crags and hills to marish flats and gently undulating meadows; from dashing torrents and crystal streams to slowly creeping rivers and sleeping dykes, such as would make the lament of the dying swan doubly mournful, floated he down their oily waters; from salmon and trout to pike and bream; from deep bays hemmed in by frowning headlands, whence the seafowl clang and sweep, to a bare coast that trends away right and left in monotonous flatness. Such is the change and contrast. Yet there is a charm in the evidences of superior cultivation and farming in Norfolk. There is a beauty in the marshes even, that stretch far away with their many-coloured grasses, of ever-changing sheen, as the cloud-shadows fleet over them and the wind sways them into billowy undulations. The cattle stand and lie in picturesque groups, and the wherries on the rivers, the windmills on the banks, and the semiDutch river-side houses lend a foreign look to the scene, as viewed by an unaccustomed eye.

I availed myself of an invitation for a day's pike fishing at Buxton, on the river Bure, or North River, and drove over with my friend the previous evening. One of the first questions to the man on our arrival

was

"What sort of bait have you got?"

"About a dozen small gudgeon, sir, and one ‘flat’"

(a small bream).

"That won't do. You must take the nets the first thing in the morning and get some more."

Over our grog and pipes we had a long and pleasant chat, and Mr. G- showed me a form of gorge bait tackle which was new to me, and may be new to some of my readers. The brass wire of the ordinary gorge hook is cut away, and the gimp fastened to the thickest part or shoulder of the lead, either by drilling a hole through or otherwise. The lead is then pushed inside the bait, and the gimp is brought with a needle out at its shoulder. Mr. G- informed me that a hook so baited is much more killing than a hook baited in the ordinary fashion, and I can quite believe it, as its gyrations in the water would be much more varied; but I fancy it would be much more likely to catch in the weeds. I intend to try it at the first opportunity, and report upon it. In the "draws," I believe, the bait will spin capitally.

The morning came, dull and cloudy, with a strong wind and promise of rain, which promise was pretty liberally fulfilled. From the window we could see the men with the casting-net far down the river, and presently we went to meet them, my host, a man of

fifty, challenging me to jump the wide ditches, which challenge I declined, on account of an ankle still weak from an old sprain. The baits consisted of small gudgeons, too small for our tackle and the clouded water, and one small bream, which Mr. G— put on his flight, with the object of tempting a big fish, which lay in a bend of the river above the mills. The boat was taken through the lock to a broad reach of water, above where the "channel" was from six to eight feet in depth, and the "fleet" (Norfolk for shallow) was free from weeds. It was past eleven o'clock when we embarked, and the wind had risen to a regular gale, which blew up stream, and sent us along at such a rate that it was sometimes necessary to back water to prevent the baits coming to the surface. We trailed this reach up and down through pouring rain, and hard work it was for the man who rowed us. Mr. Gand I sat one at each end of the boat, and when one or other of us stood up, the wind would "slew" the boat around, to our boatman's intense disgust.

Landing Mr. G- by the boathouse to spin for his big fish, which had escaped him some time ago, I went on, and soon struck and landed a nice little fish of three pounds. This appears to be an excellent reach for pike and perch, and Mr. G- told me of an enormous catch of bream he once had there. The day was

so wretched that we could not possibly expect good sport, yet I had two or three more runs there, and Mr. G-landed another small jack. At half-past one we left off for a feed, and afterwards drove to Brampton, a spot higher up the river; and in the tail water below Burgh Mills it seemed as if we were going to make up for the previous ill luck. It was well on in the afternoon, and the rain had ceased. Almost at the first cast I had a run, and landed a fish. A few yards lower down another fish broke away three times, and I hooked and landed him the fourth. In another half-dozen yards I got hold of "the largest fish of the day," and of course he broke away, the gimp parting at a strain of certainly not over two pounds. I could not get a sight of the fish, so I could not speculate as to his weight. With him went the only spinning flight I had that would do for the small baits we were using, so I put on a gorge hook, and immediately had a run in the same spot, and I believe from the same fish; but he refused to pouch it. I signalled to the boy who carried the gudgeons (which were in a pail half full of water), and who was some distance off, and proceeded to unloose my trace. Looking around again, I saw Mr. G— and the boy engaged in groping among the grass. Fearing the worst, I hurried up, and found that the unlucky urchin had got the pail between his

legs in his hurry, and tumbled over it, shooting its contents into a ditch. All our bait was gone just as the pike were on the feed. It was no use crying over 'spilt milk," so I rummaged up an old bait, and with it caught another jack. Then we had to leave off. Mr. G― had caught two in the mill-tail; and if our bait had not vanished we might have had several more, as the pike had suddenly commenced feeding well. They refused, however, to look at the spoon bait, although the American pattern, with a tuft of red wool over the hooks, is generally very killing among the pike and perch in Norfolk waters. As it was, we left off with seven jack; none of them large. I saw enough of the water to believe that it contains some heavy fish, and I am informed that such is the case. As the river is navigable some distance further up, the weeds are kept down, and the absence of bushes on the bank renders it delightfully easy work spinning. Above Burgh Mills is a long reach of water, where some heavy fish lie. The season had been so mild, that the fish were even then heavy in spawn and inactive, and the pike season closed much earlier than usual that year. Several very heavy fish were caught in the preserved waters in Norfolk the same season, the heaviest in those waters, where it is the custom to turn in all those under three pounds or so.