FIRST EMPTYING. 29 



fourth has heard a cuckoo which he insists was under the 

 influence of drink ; a fifth gets into a learned theological 

 disquisition, and I regret to say that drowsiness immediately 

 sets in, and indifference reigns supreme. 



Not that all men who take up the gentle art of angling 

 are thus susceptible to the surroundings among which they 

 find themselves. The yellow primrose is still a yellow 

 primrose, and nothing more, to some men, and the tocsin of 

 the soul is still the dinner bell. But these are rarities that 

 only serve to show the delight the angler almost always 

 takes in the freedom of the fields, the breezes of the 

 moorland, and the scenery into which his hobby leads him. 

 There are men who see nothing in it at all, and to whom an 

 exquisite bit of woodland, stretching for miles with the 

 river glimmering here and there among the deep foliage 

 like a silver thread, miles and miles away, is no more 

 beautiful than a Leeds fog. I recall a story of a man of 

 this kind who had been doing Westminster Abbey. He had 

 trodden the solemn dust of Poets' Corner, and gazed on the 

 tombs of kings and queens, and when at length he came 

 into the open air he remarked to his companion, " What I 

 like about this place is, it does so remind me of the Isle of 

 Man." Why, goodness only knows ! 



ATOMS AND ITEMS. 



Brother angler, you who are something more than a 

 mere pot hunter, and are sufficiently interested in your art 

 to look into some of the multitudinous matters that go to 

 make up the whole, have you ever in an idle or unsuccessful 

 hour paused to examine the apparently unattractive cases in 

 which the larvae of the phryganidse exist, the cases commonly 

 known as caddis or stick baits ? If you will condescend to 

 such trifles you will be surprised to notice first of all that 

 they differ ; each kind of fly of this species builds a different 



