( 'hut. vi. Contributions Thankfully Received. 85 



!■> spend a little leave or leisure, and even old hands would find, 

 when transferred by business or pleasure to new localities, that 

 they could tumble better en their legs than they could without 

 this information, and that there were a lot of other fellows hesides 

 themselves that "know a thing or two." To the charitably dis- 

 i. therefore, I make my appeal on behalf of brother anglers.* 



This appeal was thin made in the first edition, and kindly 

 has it been responded to, both by direct communication and by 

 letters to the" Field" and "Asian." The result appears in the Chapter 

 on Fishing Localities. It falls, however, very far short of what I 

 had limped to attain to, and as it is the chapter which may well 

 be the most useful part of the whole book to really good fisher- 

 men, I will let the appeal still stand, in the hope that brothers 

 of the angle may continue to communicate their knowledge of 

 localities. 



But supposing we have arrived at the river's side at a good 

 locality, where in it are we to find our fish ? An old hand does 

 not, need to be told, for he knows instinctively, though he has 

 never seen the river before in his life. You can tell well enough 

 from the outside of a house whether it is a poor man's cottage or 

 a gentleman's mansion, and if you have an eye for the water, you 

 will be able to make a very shrewd guess as to where the best fish 

 lie. As a ride the swell is to be found in the best house, except 

 in Ireland, by the way, where the finest structure in the villages 

 is the poorhouse. But then every tlung goes by contraries in 

 " poor owld Ireland," even down to the cereals, for there Paddy 

 raises the riot, instead of the Ryot raising paddy, as he does here. 

 Still, out of Ireland, the rule holds good, and the swell fish, as well 

 as his brother biped, is to be found in the best quarters ; and those 

 are readily recognizable. 



Look for a Mahseer in just such water as you would expect 

 to find a salmon, in the deep runs, especially where a fall enters a 

 pool, and in the eddies of those runs. 



The depth should not be less than up to the fork, and after 

 that the deeper the better; though Mahseer, like trout, visit the 

 shallows in search of small fish, etc., when the water is discoloured, 

 and at night when the water is bright, returning with light to 



• My present address is Madras, but any communication through my publishers, 

 or through Messrs. Arbuthnot <t Co., Madras, «ill always find me. 



