Sport is usually to be depended upon in the may-fly time, as long as you are not late for the rise.  Of late years the fly has “come up” so early and in such limited quantities that but few fishermen were on the water in time.

We are apt to grumble, declaring that the whole river has gone to the bad; that the fish are smaller and fewer in numbers than of yore,—­but is this borne out by facts?  The year 1896 was no doubt rather a failure as regards the may-fly; but as I glance over the pages of the game-book in which I record as far as possible every fish that is killed, I cannot help thinking that sport has been very wonderful, take it all round, during six out of seven seasons.

It is a lovely day during the last week in May.  There has been no rain for more than a fortnight; the wind is north-east, and the sun shines brightly,—­yet we walk down to the River Coln, anticinating a good day’s sport among the trout:  for, during the may-fly season, no matter how unpropitious the weather may appear, sport is more of a certainty on this stream than at any other time of year.  Early in the season drought does not appear to have any effect on the springs; we might get no rain from the middle of April until half-way through June, and yet the water will keep up and remain a good colour all the time.  But after June is “out,” down goes the water, lower and lower every week; no amount of rain will then make any perceptible increase to the volume of the stream, and not until the nights begin to lengthen out and the autumnal gales have done their work will the water rise again to its normal height.  If you ask Tom Peregrine why these things are so, he will only tell you that after a few gales the “springs be frum.”  The word “frum,” the derivation of which is, Anglo-Saxon, “fram,” or “from” = strong, flourishing, is the local expression for the bursting of the springs.

Our friend Tom Peregrine is full of these quaint expressions.  When he sees a covey of partridges dusting themselves in the roads, he will tell you they are “bathering.”  A dog hunting through a wood is always said to be “breveting.”  “I don’t like that dog of So-and-so’s, he do ‘brevet’ so,” is a favourite saying.  The ground on a frosty morning “scrumps” or “feels scrumpety,” as you walk across the fields; and the partridges when wild, are “teert.”  All these phrases are very happy, the sound of the words illustrating exactly the idea they are intended to convey.  Besides ordinary Gloucestershire expressions, the keeper has a large variety that he has invented for himself.

When the river comes down clear, it is invariably described as like looking into a gin bottle, or “as clear as gin.”  A trout rising boldly at a fly is said to “‘quap’ up,” or “boil up,” or even “come at it like a dog.”  The word “mess” is used to imply disgust of any sort:  “I see one boil up just above that mess of weed”; or, if you get a bit of weed on the hook, he will