"Bebolfr tbe ffiir&s of tbe Hir" 



THE Oxford tutor l who has made the public his debtor 

 by his Year with the Birds, confesses to an experience 

 at which some at least of his readers are likely to stand 

 aghast. He began life as an angler, and not only has 

 forsaken his art, but considers that he, as well as the 

 Trout, is a gainer by the renunciation. That an ignorant 

 Philistine should speak disrespectfully of the gentle craft, 

 is only what every fisherman pityingly expects; but that 

 any of the initiated should cut himself adrift from the 

 brotherhood of anglers, is what probably none of that 

 brotherhood ever deemed conceivable. Do not fisher- 

 men boast that, quite apart from the question of mere 

 success in killing, their pursuit is essentially that of the 

 contemplative man, the most idyllic of all out-door 

 pastimes? that it not only leads its votaries into the 

 most beautiful corners of the land, but likewise 

 puts them in a frame of mind to appreciate their 

 beauties? that, as an American writer has it, no one 

 is in a condition to enjoy scenery to the full, unless 

 he have a fly-rod in his hand and a fly-book in his 

 pocket ? 



The instance is therefore phenomenal enough to sug- 

 gest inquiry as to what charm it is, that has availed to 

 break a spell usually so potent, and what master so 

 seductive as to allure a disciple away from the school of 

 Izaak Walton, and the answer which this query evokes 

 presents us with an interesting specimen of those re- 



1 The Rev. W. Warde Fowler. 

 IV. 



