204 FISHING WITH THE FLY. 



certainly became acquainted with the angling rod soon 

 after the birchen one, and long before I had any prac- 

 tical knowledge of 'Nimrod' or 'Ramrod.' The truth 

 is, angling comes by nature. It is in the system, as the 

 doctors say." 



It is no exaggeration to state that the real poetry of 

 fly-fishing, as given in the grand old book of Nature, 

 is appreciated to the fullest by American anglers. The 

 breezy air of the forest leaves is found in the charming 

 works of Bethune, of Herbert, Hawes, Norris, Dawson, 

 Hallock and many other worthies, past and present. 

 The modern Horace — he of the traditional white hat — 

 never wrote a better essay than that descriptive of his 

 early fishing days. The same is true of Rev. Henry 

 Ward Beecher, and Charles Dudley Warner's most 

 graphic pen picture is his inimitable sketch, "A Fight 

 with a Trout." The number of really good books on 

 American field sports is principally made up of angling 

 works, a fact which goes far to establish the truth of 

 AYm. T. Porter's assertion, namely: "No man ever 

 truly polished a book unless he were something of an 

 angler, or at least loved the occupation. He who steals 

 from the haunts of men into the green solitudes of 

 Nature, by the banks of gliding, silvery streams, under 

 the checkering lights of sun, leaf and cloud, may 

 always hope to cast his lines, whether of the rod or the 

 'record book,' in pleasant places." 



This may be appropriately supplemented by the 

 opinion, poetically expressed by the same author, with 



