TACKLE AND EQUIPMENT 57 



be able to step out in a foot of water or thereabouts, to 

 land a fish and follow him. Some hardy individuals 

 take to the water in ordinary costume ; but they are 

 rather beacons to warn than examples to follow. 

 Such habitual rashness usually ends in rheumatism or 

 worse evils : and Scrope's advice, I should imagine, 

 was partly satirical. He considers Mackintosh's 

 invention wholly ' uncalled for,' 'accounting it an un- 

 pardonable intrusion to place a solution of india-rubber 

 between the human body and the refreshing element. 

 It is like taking a shower bath under the shelter of an 

 umbrella.' In another passage he advises you ' never 

 to go into the water deeper than the fifth button of 

 yotir waistcoat : even this does not always agree with 

 tender constitutions in frosty weather. As you are 

 not likely to take a just estimate of the cold in the 

 excitement of the sport, should you be of a delicate 

 temperament, and be wading in the month of 

 February, when it may chance to freeze very hard, pull 

 clown your stockings and examine your legs. Should 

 they be black, or even purple, it might, perhaps, be as 

 well to get on dry land ; but if they are only rubi- 

 cund, you may continue to enjoy the water if it so 

 pleases you.' 



There were giants in those days ! For my own 

 part, I have never found it necessary to examine the 



