10 THE PRACTICAL ANGLER 



but refused to lead evidence by showing his fish. 

 Aided by our friends, however, we succeeded in 

 temporarily poinding his pannier, and dived into 

 its depths. There, amidst boots, stockings, empty 

 flasks, and sandwich papers, we discovered the 

 concealed trouts. Troutkins rather not trouts ! 

 Half-pounders ! the whole four together would 

 scarcely have weighed half a pound. Whether it 

 was a too lively imagination that had caused the 

 discrepancy between the ideal trouts of the plat- 

 form and the real trouts of the basket, we care not 

 to inquire ; but we wonder if the same angler will 

 ever again multiply the weight of his take by four, 

 or by any other figure, or whether, made wise by 

 experience, and by this crushing exposure, he will 

 carefully take note of the size of his fish before con- 

 signing them to his basket, and not trust to a hasty 

 glance to impress a memory which, let us charitably 

 suppose, may be defective. At all events, people 

 who do not put a padlock on their baskets ought 

 to put one on their mouths. 



Some anglers have also a habit of characterising 

 large takes as butchery ; the point where sport 

 stops and butchery commences lying about the 

 individual's greatest take. We cannot see the jus- 

 tice of an opinion that considers the capture of a 

 certain number of trout sport, and of twice that 

 number taken by the same means butchery. If 

 the sport of angling lies in the capture of fish, it 

 seems evident that the more fish the better sport ; 

 and it is our intention to treat of the different 



