he Cotswold Hills.

What strikes one so forcibly about this part of England, after a sojourn
in some smoky town, is its extraordinary cleanliness.

There is no such thing as _dirt_ in a limestone country. The very mud
off the roads in rainy weather is not dirt at all, sticky though it
undoubtedly is. It consists almost entirely of lime, which, though it
burns all the varnish off your carriage if allowed to remain on it for a
few days, has nothing repulsive about its nature, like ordinary mud.

How pleasant, too, is the contrast between the quiet, peaceful country
life and the restless din and never-ceasing commotion of the "busy
haunts of men"! As we pass along through villages gay with flowers, we
converse freely with the driver of the 'bus, chiefly about fishing. The
great question which every one asks in this part of the world in the
first week in June is whether the may-fly is up. The lovely green-drake
generally appears on the Windrush about this time, and then for ten days
nobody thinks or talks about anything else. Who that has ever witnessed
a real may-fly "rise" on a chalk or limestone stream will deny that it
is one of the most beautiful and interesting sights in all creation?
Myriads of olive-coloured, transparent insects, almost as large as
butterflies, rising out of the water, and floating on wings as light as
gossamer, only to live but one short day; great trout, flopping and
rolling in all directions, forgetful of all the wiles of which they are
generally capable; and then, when the evening sun is declining, the
female fly may be seen hovering over the water, and dropping her eggs
time after time, until, having accomplished the only purpose for which
she has existed in the winged state, she falls lifeless into the stream.
But though these lovely insects live but twenty-four hours, and during
that short period undergo a transformation from the _sub-imago_ to the
_imago_ state, they exist as larvae in the bed of the river for quite
two years from the time the eggs are dropped. The season of 1896 was one
of the worst ever known on some may-fly rivers; probably the great frost
two winters back was the cause of failure. The intense cold is supposed
to have killed the larvae.

The Windrush trout are very large indeed; a five-pound fish is not at
all uncommon. The driver of the 'bus talked of monsters of eight pounds
having been taken near Burford, but we took this _cum grano salis_.

After a five-mile drive