NOTE TO THE ISSUE OF 1907 xvii 



a great man ; for when I found myself, on the only 

 occasion I can remember to have set eyes on him, 

 fishing in the same Held, much the same sensations 

 stirred my breast as had swelled it not long previously 

 on being in with W. G. Grace in a provincial cricket- 

 match ; an elation, by the way, somewhat damped by 

 being promptly run out by him. Stewart's name was 

 certainly one to conjure with, beside the banks of those 

 eastern Border streams at any rate, while round the 

 firesides of the little homely fishing-inns his prowess 

 and his opinions were a frequent theme. His entomo- 

 logical scepticism was not seldom combated, particularly 

 by the occasional alien. But how could you stand up 

 against a man who proved his theories by always 

 hilling more fish than anybody else, and that too in 

 waters open to the public and frequented by hosts of 

 practised fishermen? Stewart believed that the way 

 in which a fiy was put to a trout and put into him 

 was nearly all the battle, so long as the fly was un- 

 remarkable, natural, and, above all, sparingly dressed. 

 Sizes, within reason, and still less shades, he set small 

 store by, except so far as they were adapted to the 

 trout's vision in various states of water. The imita- 

 tion of the natural insect of the moment, except 

 perhaps a drake, he laughed to scorn ; and yet no one 

 hilled more fish than he did season after season, and 

 very few so many. Black or red hackles (then and 

 doubtless still known as spiders in southern Scotland), 

 dressed very scantily with a plain silk wrapping for 

 body, were his favourites, with two or three wmged 

 files and as many other varieties of hackles. When 



