x NOTE 



Mr. Blackmore was my junior only by a few months. 

 Beneath a portrait of him in my possession he has written 

 the following quaint and characteristic note of his birth 



' ' / was launched into this vale of tears on the jth of June, 

 1825, at Longworth in Berkshire. Before I was four months 

 old, my mother was taken to a better world, and so I started 

 crookedly." 



Then, or rather before him, in the order of time, WILLIAM 

 BLACK was called away. He died comparatively young, 

 but my acquaintance with him began thirty years ago, and 

 to him I am indebted for many most kindly and encouraging 

 letters about my small literary attempts. 



It has been a source of no small pleasure to me that the 

 authors of books so v\ idely known as Lorna Doone and The 

 Princess of Thule should have given me so much encourage- 

 ment, but it will be remembered that Mr. Blackmoje was 

 an ardent trout angler, and as for Mr. Black, I fancy he 

 felt more pride in catching a twenty-five pound salmon than 

 in writing one of his best novels and he certainly did not 

 despise the superior art of fly fishing for trout ; there we 

 were on common ground. 



Then again let me call to mind and to memory my old 

 friend J. G. MORTEN a most skilful trout and salmon 

 angler, and all-round sportsman he too, only a few months 

 ago, went very suddenly over to join "the great majority." 

 It was in his good company that I spent many a pleasant 

 day on the Wiltshire Avon as recorded in this and my 

 previous volume, On a Sunshine Holyday. Lastly, among 

 my old angling friends, let me bear an old man's testimony to 

 Doctor JOHN WIBLIN, who went to his rest only a few 

 months ago. He was seventy-five when I first knew him 

 hale and hearty, happy and joyous, an enthusiastic fly fisher, 

 both for salmon and trout, who wielded a mighty rod, heavy 

 as a weaver's beam, as easily as I could wield an eight-ounce 

 Leonard. He it was who first introduced me to the lichen, 

 and there for several years we fished together and had very 

 pleasant times, the memory whereof will linger with me all 

 my days. He gave up fishing when he was eighty-two or 

 thereabouts, and now at the good old age of eighty-seven he 

 too has crossed to " the Beyond." 



These reminiscences, de senectute, in reminding me that I 

 myself am no longer young, suggested the title I have given 

 to my book. 



A. A. 



