w. Heavy jacks are not often wired, and scarcely ever in
brooks.

For jack the shape of the loop should be circular; for trout it should
be oval, and considerably larger in proportion to the apparent bulk of
the fish. Jack are straight-grown and do not thicken much in the middle;
with trout it is different. The noose should be about six inches from
the top of the rod. Orion said he would go twenty yards farther up; I
went direct from the centre of the withy-bed to the stream.

The bank rose a little above the level of the withy-bed; it was a broad
mound full of ash stoles and willow--the sort that is grown for poles.
At that spot the vines of wild hops had killed all the underwood,
leaving open spaces between the stoles; the vines were matted so thickly
that they hid the ground. This was too exposed a place, so I went back
and farther up till I could just hear Orion rustling through the
hemlocks. Here the dead grass and some elder bushes afforded shelter,
and the water could be approached unseen.

It was about six or eight inches deep; the opposite shore was bordered
for several yards out with flags and rushes. The cattle nibbled their
tender tops off, as far as they could reach; farther out they were
pushing up straight and pointed. The rib and groove of the flag so
closely resemble those of the ancient bayonet that it might be supposed
the weapon was modelled from the plant. Indoors among the lumber there
was a rusty old bayonet that immediately called forth the comparison:
the modern make seem more triangular.

The rushes grew nearer the shore of the meadow--the old ones yellow, the
young green: in places this fringe of rush and sedge and flag must have
been five or six yards wide, and it extended as far as could be seen up
the brook. No doubt the cattle trod in the edge of the firm ground by
degrees every year to get at the water, and thus widened the marsh. It
was easy to understand now why all the water-fowl, teal and duck,
moorhen and snipe, seemed in winter to make in this direction.

The ducks especially exercised all our ingenuity and quite exhausted our
patience in the effort to get near them in winter. In the large
water-meadows a small flock sometimes remained all day: it was possible
to approach near enough by stalking behind the hedges to see the colour
of the mallards; but they were always out of gunshot. This place must be
full of teal then; as for moorhens, there were signs of them everywhere,
and