vi • PREFACE 



That being so, the figurative Antipodes will surely 

 not be without them. The future, therefore, need 

 not be wholly strange and alarming. 



I find comfort, too, in another reflection. The 

 number of anglers has increased prodigiously 

 in a short year or two, and they will certainly 

 look after their own interests. That problem 

 of new waters to which I give brief and inade- 

 quate consideration in the fourteenth chapter will 

 no doubt be solved within the next generation. 

 Obviously trout-fishers must fish somewhere. As 

 for the rest of it a will must find a way. Here is 

 a moral. Some of the prettiest little fly-rods I 

 ever saw were made by a friend of mine out of the 

 canes you use in gardening as supports for chrys- 

 anthemums and other herbage. The material for 

 them cost about 2^. 6d. per rod all told. Now I 

 suppose it would cost 5s. But we can save up. 



Anyhow, come what may, even a tax on the air 

 we breathe and a rise in the price of the dust in 

 which we walk, we trout-fishers will somehow 

 manage to go on fishing. And, if it be not in- 

 decent to say so, I hope we shall all go on reading 



books about the sport ! 



H. T. S. 

 March 1920. 



Note. — I have to express my gratitude to The Field for 

 permission to employ a good deal of material whieh I originally 

 published in its columns, and to The Cornhill Magazine for 

 similar indulgence in regard to Chapter III. 



