no ANGLERS' EVENINGS. 



as were high enough above its banks to keep most of their 

 roots out of its reach, and kickily so placed as not to be 

 destroyed at the top by chemical fumes, had preserved 

 their leaves and lives. Excepting these, a very few rats, 

 and now and then a melancholy-looking sandpiper, who, 

 no doubt, kept to the river side, not from choice but from 

 family tradition, with an occasional lock-gate keeper, and 

 those few others of the genus houio and genus equus who 

 earned their living in connection with the navigation, 

 there was not a thing with life to be seen. Indeed the 

 navigation itself is almost destroyed by the persistent 

 river pollution, so many tons of rubbish being put in, that 

 the dredging is a very serious and almost overbearing cost. 



One of our greatest treats in my boy-days was to walk 

 down to Mode-Wheel lock, there to meet the packet-boat, 

 sail down to Warrington or Runcorn, and buy some Eccles 

 cakes at Warrington. Returning by the boat the same day 

 was sometimes practicable, but more frequently we had to 

 return by one of the Liverpool coaches, which placed us 

 nearer home at Pendleton. On these packet-boat journeys 

 we always, or nearly always, disturbed some angler who 

 was fishing from the towing-path ; though, of course, 

 fishers were more numerous on the bank where they were 

 not likely to be disturbed. 



It would require many journeys now to find one man 

 fishing in this stream. Even the mouth of Glaze Brook, 

 once famous for its bream, has lost its prestige ; and only 

 the Mersey and Bollin retain at their outfalls sufficient 

 purity to keep eels and gudgeons alive. 



About 1825 I became acquainted with practical fly- 



