4 AN- ANGL&tfS BASKET. 



in spite of himself; he cannot help it ; and, if he be an 

 angler, he finds no inconsiderable part of his pleasure in the 

 surroundings among which he is placed. It is impossible to- 

 wander through the amber woodlands in the soft light of an 

 autumnal day, soothed by the gentle murmuring of the river 

 and the plaintive notes of birds, without being struck with 

 speechless wonder at, and reverence for, the wealth that 

 nature has provided for the meanest eye that cares to look 

 into her care in fashioning what we call common things, for 

 around the feet of every riverside angler are hundreds of 

 Aveeds, perfect in shape and exquisite in colour, beyond 

 conception beautiful in their variety and purpose. I say we 

 who see these things are better for the privilege in body and 

 in spirit, and that is why the art of angling keeps and will 

 keep its place as a recreative sport, in spite of the latter-day 

 philosophers who would persuade us our business is solely to 

 catch, or try to catch, fish. 



A TYPICAL TIME. 



If a non-angler, I will not say a scoffer, were in search of 

 proof of the truth of the saying " That the whole art of 

 angling is not comprised in the science of catching fish," let 

 him travel up the Vales of Llanrwst and Llugwy, say in the 

 first week of an ordinary June. The country is all like a 

 garden, as Longfellow described England in spring in his- 

 far-off western home. The hedgerows and the umbrageous 

 lanes are fringed with lilacs and laburnums and wild flowers 

 in profusion ; the first fresh green of the reluctant spring 

 is on every tree and every blade ; acres of apple blossom 

 are all around, and meadow-sweet and hawthorn scent 

 the air ; melodious birds are singing among the trembling 

 leaves and in the sky, and white cascades divide deep 

 pine-covered hill-sides, and are foaming and dashing and 

 making merry music everywhere as they go to join the 



