OUR OPENING DAY. 7 



us in a roar by his comic recital of a day's bream 

 fishing on one of the Norfolk Broads, and the cowardly 

 behaviour of the flat bellows-shaped brute in the com- 

 partment next but one to the sixty-three-ounce perch. 



And so we pass the time, silently overlooked by carefully 

 preserved tench, carp, barbel, dace, roach, rudd, and pike, 

 which strangers come from afar to admire, and which recall 

 many a pleasant memory to be fondly lingered over and 

 cherished; and smiled upon benignantly by the ancient 

 picture of a wholesome looking old man, with long white 

 hair, smooth face, steeple crowned hat, and broad white 

 collar the man who is father of us all. 



To-morrow a small party are bound on an expedition to 

 the waterside according to annual custom. We begin our 

 campaign on the ist of April. News of fish feeding and 

 moving has arrived by express to gladden our hearts. 

 Some of us have already opened our fly-books by the early 

 streams elsewhere, and are hoping to do gallant deeds with 

 a particularly neat March brown that is never out of season. 

 Others have been busy during the day removing rods and 

 tackle from their winter resting-places, and in lovingly pre- 

 paring them for active service. 



Do you smile at the high character given to so simple an 

 occupation ? Then you know not how fertile are the 

 sources whence spring the angler's joys. When the north 

 winds blow, and the east winds bite, and the yellow floods 

 overflow the spongy banks, and the fisher is a prisoner at 

 home, he forgets, in overhauling his stock, both his ill-luck 

 and the unfriendly elements. He sits at the blurred window 

 with his scissors, waxed thread, varnish, feathers, fur, and 

 wool spread out before him ; he tests his lines and casts, 



