26 ANGLING IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



pleasing rather than imposingly wild and romantic. Our 

 rivers for the most part flow tranquilly through fat 

 meadows, upon which the mildest mannered kine graze 

 their fill. They are at every turn brought under tribute 

 by the millowner, sometimes becoming hopelessly de- 

 moralised as a reward for the service they render. They 

 do not thunder through gloomy granite gorge as, in some 

 portion of their career, do the rivers of Scotland. With 

 impetuous torrent they do not dash around massive 

 boulders, as do well-remembered Irish salmon streams. 

 They flow to the sea, seldom leaping, or boiling, or 

 swirling, after the manner of rivers cradled in mountain 

 heights. 



Thanks, however, to the liberally distributed tributaries, 

 and the drainage of the hill countries, the English angler 

 has, in the wide variety of waters from which he may take 

 his choice when meditating a piscatorial excursion, the 

 opportunity of forming acquaintance with many a bright, 

 swift-running river, making music in such solitary dales as 

 those of Derbyshire, or amongst the rocky walls and over- 

 hanging foliage characterising many of the Devonshire 

 streams. There is, in short, some sort of angling in every 

 part of the country. Even the Isle of Wight has a trout 

 stream if the tourist only knew it, and the trout of the Isle 

 of Man have certainly outlived the animal which is the 

 sign manual of the Manxman. 



In an essay of this description the writer is confronted 

 with the difficulty of deciding how to act, without dwelling 

 too much or too little upon any one subject. Clearly the 

 orthodox method of dealing with the many-sided topic of 

 angling will not answer. Space would altogether fail me 

 to deal in detail with the various methods of angling, or 

 with the thousand-and-onc appliances which are rccom- 



