546 ikings of tbe 1Rofc, IRtfle, ant> Gun 



I am more useful and happy as I am than I would 

 be in Parliament is not to be shaken. There is no man 

 in Scotland from whom I would consider the suggestion 

 a greater honour." 



But amid all the whirl of politics and all the 

 multiform responsibilities of an editor, Russel never 

 lost his love of sport. He was ever the enthusiastic 

 angler, and his knowledge not only of the art of 

 salmon- and trout-fishing but of the habits of the fish 

 made him an acknowledged authority on everything 

 pertaining to angling and pisciculture. On several 

 occasions he was examined as an expert before 

 Committees of both Houses of Parliament, sitting to 

 report upon the Salmon Fisheries. He contributed 

 articles on salmon-fishing to both the Quarterly 

 and Edinburgh Reviews^ and these were subsequently 

 collected and published in his great work on "The 

 Salmon," which holds a high place in angling 

 literature. 



The introductory chapter on the pleasures of salmon- 

 fishing, with his defence of the sport against those who 

 brand it as cruel, is an admirable specimen of Russel in 

 his playful and humorous mood. Take, for example, 

 the following passage : 



" Salmon-fishing is indeed a passion, perhaps un- 

 accountable as to its origin, but certainly irrepressible 

 in an ever increasing proportion of the people ; while in 

 individuals the appetite, once implanted, almost in- 

 variably grows rapidly till the end on the very little 

 indeed that now-a-days it has to feed upon. It is 

 strange to think of the exceeding desperateness of the 



