CHAPTEE VI. 



IN PRAISE OF SOLITUDE. 



Dry-fly fisldny to be perfect xliould he so/ it an/. 

 This is my answer (too long pondered over and 

 delayed because I hoped in the interval that perhaps 

 a more facile pen than mine would reply) to the 

 interesting question propounded in the Field by 

 Mr. Basil Field, virtually to this effect : " Is 

 dry-fly fishing in rivers and streams social or 

 solitary ? " 



The accomplished writer of the short but highly 

 finished, and one would have thought sufficiently 

 attractive article to induce some correspondence, 

 came to the conclusion that " he loved to fish alone," 

 and he repeats this, witli a proviso, by saying, 

 " I jet me alone when the fish are on the feed." 

 With every word of the article I cordially agree, 

 not the less so because I can refer to many of my 

 own, published in the Field, wherein I emphasize 

 the fact that the companionship of Nature does 

 away with the solitude of an angler's environment, 

 given that he is a man of sentiment, with a touch 

 of poetry in his spirit. But I take a much more 



