A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



Brown trout and sea trout are in equally good hands. Mr. 

 Sydney Buxton has snatched odd moments from an abnor- 

 mally exacting session on the Front Bench to string together 

 fascinating memories of the placid streams in which his mas- 

 tery of the floating fly has played havoc with lusty fish not to 

 be beguiled by the duffer. Yet, for all his artistic appreciation 

 of the dry-fly, Mr. Buxton assuredly is no purist imbued with 

 lofty and exclusive contempt for any and every other method. 

 He might for choice always fish the rise and not the water, 

 but, if needs must, he can sink his fly with the best and feel 

 no shame in filling his creel by such simpler but still legitimate 

 arts. His harassed colleague, Sir Edward Grey, writes of sea 

 trout with a picturesque touch that proves him as persuasive 

 with fish as with ambassadors. Tact, as well as firmness, is 

 needed by the angler who plays heavy fish on fine tackle, and 

 he also has to practise the give and take called for in diplomacy, 

 more particularly that form of yielding which softens refusal ; 

 and it may be that our Foreign Secretary occasionally finds 

 the arts of the waterside, of which he is an acknowledged master, 

 stand him in good stead in the councils of the nations. Public 

 affairs have left him no leisure for writing of his favourite 

 sport quite recently, but, in giving permission to reprint a 

 chapter from his book, he expresses his conviction that he has 

 not in the interval added to his knowledge of sea trout, and 

 that he would in other circumstances have written a very similar 

 article to-day. Trout are not, however, caught in rivers only, 

 and the may-fly week on Irish Loughs is a festival of which 

 Sir Thomas Esmonde tells a delightful story abounding in 



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