no ELEMENTS OF ANGLING. 



they have their origin wholly or partly in chalk 

 springs, are of more even and constant volume, 

 and are very much richer in weed and insect life. 

 This last fact enables them to grow trout of a 

 greater general size than the mountain stream 

 can ; whereas in the west country a quarter of a 

 pound would be a good average for a basket, a 

 basket from a chalk stream ought never to work 

 out at less than three-quarters of a pound per fish. 

 But one reckons one's sport by " the brace " 

 instead of by " the dozen," and the three-quarter 

 pounder of the rich lands will scarcely fight 

 harder than his smaller relative of the moors, 

 so the dry-fly stream cannot claim unchallenged 

 superiority in its powers of giving pleasure to the 

 fisherman? 



Pleasure, however, of the rarest kind it can and 

 does give, and it is easy to understand how many 

 men forsake all other fishing for the sake of it, and 

 how it is that the designation " dry-fly purist " has 

 come to have a special and exclusive significance. 

 I do not think that dry-fly fishing is so difficult or 

 arduous as wet-fly fishing and some other kinds, 

 but it is more suited to the contemplative man's 

 ideal than some of them, and has more minute 

 points of interest than any, arising out of the fact 

 touched on before, that one can see so much of one's 



