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Gentleman's Magazine 1900 part 2 p.360
about midnight and continue gorging, with few lulls, till
daybreak. It is not necessary to be expert in fishing, and
many, who do not think they possess enough patience for the
sport, will be surprised how interesting they find such a
night on the water. Often incidents of an amusing or
exciting nature happen. We were once rowing along the top
reach of Windermere in pitch darkness when our oarsmen
suddenly put on a spurt. For a few secons, the boat simply
tore through the water, then from out of space, or maybe the
bottom of the lake, sprang a rock, and we crashed into it
with tremendous force. We were shot over the thwarts into a
confused heap on the boat's floor, and I well remember that
someone's red hot pipe reclined for one agonising second on
my ear. The difficulty of gauging distances across water is
always great, but when night comes on it is doubly hard. Yet
a sunrise viewed from a boat is well worth the amount of
discomfort incurred. To some, the silence reigning over the
waters is an unspeakable delight - when the shadows drop
like a curtain into the valleys, and the night glow fringes
the northern mountains, the lights begin to glow in the
houses by the shore, and the utter loneliness becomes
oppresive. But when light after light goes out and the faint
whisperings cease to come from the land, your spirits
recover and a happy time commences. Don't, however, go to
sleep in your boat while waiting for daybreak. When walking
early by the shore of Windermere Lake I glanced over a wall
and saw, hard and fast on a miniature sandbank, a boat in
the stern of which two figures were lying fast asleep. I
passed quite close and for a moment thought to waken them,
then, thinking that the increased power of the sun would
arouse them without the start inseparable to my call, I
passed on.
One July night we went "sugaring" for moths. We were not a
trio of experienced entomologists; indeed, our leader only
would have known the difference between "an old lady" and a
"hay-time moth."
By nine o'clock it was thought sufficiently dark for our
purpose. At the first hitch, while my brother went back for
some requisite, I was left in charge of the tin containing
our lure. With a small paint brush I dabbed this fairly over
some nine square inches of a sycamore. Retiring to the
bridge, in a few minutes I noticed some large moths
fluttering among the outside leaves of the tree; doubtless
the strong scent of sugar, rum, and beer had attracted them.
In less than three minutes my brother returned, and we had
the pleasure of finding on the tree a good specimen of the
swallow-tailed moth, not a common insect with us. As we
passed up the
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