96 FISHING GOSSIP. 



jackal's duty on this occasion, and hasten forward to order 

 the dinner he must so urgently require." . . . 



Can any human being derive anything "practical" 

 from such a sentence as this unless indeed it "be a 

 practical warning against the habit of saying some- 

 thing upon a subject on which the author obviously 

 feels that he has nothing to say ? 



We fear, however, that Mr. Bagnall's difficulty 

 is akin to that of the zoologist who, having under- 

 taken to produce a treatise on Norwegian serpents, 

 had to begin and end it by the admission, " There are 

 no serpents in Norway." Verily, there is no practice 

 in Bagnall ! 



But we are doing our author injustice. There is 

 one point on which he is practical in the highest de- 

 gree, and that is in eating and drinking, or, as he 

 would call it, the liquid and viand department. His 

 appreciation of all that relates to the comforts of the 

 inward man is most remarkable ; and his information 

 on this subject appears to be the only thing that is 

 not borrowed in the book. The quotation above was 

 taken from page 11 ; five pages further on, and the 

 " local and historical allusions " which are promised 

 by Mr. Bagnall as enliveners of the angler's progress 

 again show a decided hankering after the flesh- 

 pots. " Presuming that we have arrived at our desti- 

 nation" ... he "pleads guilty to being suffi- 

 ciently mundane in his attributes (whatever they may 



