4 PREFACE. 



so that anything in the form of a red letter 

 day here recorded can be easily rivalled by 

 others after a few years' practice and experience 

 who are similarly reduced to fish in stretches of 

 Hotel or other so called Preserved rivers where 

 the fool at one end of the line is certainly 

 pitting himself against a sharp eye and a 

 slippery skin at the other. And finally if I 

 can interest any reader in just that outside 

 fringe of natural history with which I am 

 acquainted, and induce him to derive pleasure 

 from the same source, and regard with indul- 

 gence all references to trivial experiences with 

 birds and flies with wings and hackle I shall 

 be glad to have recorded them. 



