NOTE 



'ANY a year has gone by since I first bethought me 

 of Angling as an occupation for my brief holidays. 

 It was in July 1884, sixteen years ago, that I first 

 cast my line on the pleasant river Dove, where 

 it winds through the enchanting scenery of Dovedale. I 

 was truly but an amateur angler then, and I claim to be 

 nothing more than an amateur now ; that I take to mean an 

 unaccomplished lover of the angle, for although the art of 

 angling has ever since possessed for me a growing fascination, 

 my opportunities have been so rare that even now after 

 sixteen years of enthusiasm I find myself painfully deficient 

 in the skilful manipulation that comes first by nature (for one 

 must be born to it) and then by continuous practice. I must, 

 however, in extenuation, hold the bad weather I most fre- 

 quently had, in a large degree accountable for the repeated 

 failures herein recorded. 



If I were called upon to tell why I have taken the trouble 

 to print in a book these holiday sketches, I could only say 

 that I have done the same thing before, and my efforts have 

 been only too kindly appreciated by a number of friends who 

 have asked for " more," and also by very many most friendly 

 critics who have chosen to be " to my faults a little blind, 

 and to my virtues ever kind." 



Since my last booklet, On a Sunshine Holyday, was 

 published, many of my old friends have taken the voyage 



" Across to that strange country, the Beyond." 



Among these, first and foremost, was my dear old friend, for 

 nearly forty years, R. D. BLACKMORE, who always took a most 

 lively interest in my books, and whose kindly letters about 

 them I hold as golden treasures. Not the least treasure is 

 that singular little prose-poem which he did me the honour 

 of writing specially as a kindly introduction for my book 

 By Meadow and Stream, 



