ROACH-FISHING AS A FINE ART. 337 



bred, or degenerated by circumstances into a caricature of the 

 type, it haunts our ponds and lakes. A slant of sunlight upon 

 the very ditches will reveal it hurrying to cover as you approach. 

 Save in the Black Country and in the inky water of manufac- 

 turing districts, it thrives in the canals. A summer or two since 

 I saw the surface of the Regent's Canal, at College Street, 

 Camden Town, alive with roach of six inches long or there- 

 abouts. It is found, in a word, not in single spies, but bat- 

 talions. 



Not a little of the popularity of the roach must be 

 assigned to the associations of summer connected with it. The 

 majority of roach anglers are of the fair weather order. Keen 

 sportsmen, of that particular degree, get their best fish in the 

 winter months, but the dilettanti rank and file of the craft finish 

 with October. Notwithstanding the Philistine sneer at the 

 assertion that the beauties of Nature are a strong attraction 

 for the angler, the fact remains. The meadows, woods, birds, 

 bees, dragon flies, forget-me-nots, meadowsweet, and even the 

 water-vole, and moorhen, enter into the vision which tempts 

 the angler to the waterside. Whatever the ordinary bottom- 

 angler may do, the roach-fisher who raises the pastime to the 

 fine-art stage, least of all, perhaps, abandons himself to the 

 glamour of the surroundings, for his attention must not be 

 diverted for a moment from the serious occupation in which he 

 is engaged. But he is in a minority. The bulk of English 

 roach-fishers will assure you that the pleasures of the country 

 are of more account to them than gross weight. And rural 

 England, even the cockney portion of the Thames is, rail- 

 ways and factories notwithstanding, a lovely thing indeed, from 

 the June days when roach-fishing commences, onwards to the 

 end of the season. A little angling, with a good deal of the 

 sweet sights and sounds which it brings, is a boon to tens of 

 thousands who ought to be ever grateful to the roach, which is 

 their excuse and opportunity. 



Some descriptions of angling, as many of us know too well, 

 are very costly in comparison with the results. Roach-fishing, 



II. Z 



