284 TROUT FISHING. 



a big trout can hold his own in the Thames. 

 He must have a pretty strong stomach, and a 

 frame large enough to defy the cavernous 

 maws of the insatiable pike. How he escapes 

 destruction in infancy is astonishing; from his 

 birth he is as persecuted as the children of 

 princes were of old, and before he arrives at 

 maturity he has gone through as many hazards 

 as a soldier on active service. He who uses 

 worms, who has sat in a cockney punt with 

 baited hooks, who has entered into competition 

 for sending down the scales with comic singers 

 off duty at Hendon pond, will never be an 

 angler in the true sense of the word. He is 

 but a fisher for the pot, a mere purveyor. 

 The artificial fly, and nothing but the fly, 

 should be the shibboleth of the real sportsman. 

 I should object even to the employment of 

 the natural lure, the natural fly, oak or blue- 

 bottle. These latter are, no doubt, tempting 

 baits. I know that at high noon, when the 

 sky is inflected with a cloud, when the 

 air is not only warm but hot enough to silence 

 the birds, to cause the cows to pant in the 

 meadows, when the stream is shallow and clear 



