Salmon Fishing. 135 



frequently happen, that the fish which have 

 escaped are invariably the finest and best? 

 " Well, my boy, what sport ?" " Oh, horrors of 

 all horrors ! Such a monster have I just lost that 

 would have made your hair stand on end, had 

 you beheld him !" Who has not heard, if not 

 these very words, at any rate, the substance 

 of them over and over again? Perhaps it was 

 this habit of giving too loose a rein to the 

 imagination, that led the scurrilous old farmer, 

 when appealed to for his opinion by two men he 

 heard hotly engaged in discussing their past 

 shooting and fishing exploits, to exclaim, 

 " All shooters is liars, but all fishers is 

 nation liars ! ! " 



From spending so many hours on the banks 

 of the same river year after year, not a few 

 incidents have I witnessed, in the majority of 

 cases of a most amusing nature, but in some 

 quite the reverse. On one of the occasions few 

 and far between (we are solitary birds), when 

 my friend and I were strolling together down 



