THE PUFF PISCATORIAL. 211 



private delectation. If the Teme grayling will rush 

 at the bait like greyhounds, or any other hounds or 

 whales, if they like in heaven's name let them ; let 

 Mr. Allies work his BIG HOOK as many times up, and 

 as many times down, per minute, " more or less," as he 

 pleases ; yea, and let the anglers " who consider the ar- 

 tificial grasshopper to be either a mountain or a mouse," 

 still remain in that somewhat peculiar zoological belief; 

 we will not, even by our affectionate solicitude, run 

 any risk of damaging the symmetry of the structure. 

 Mr. Allies' circular shall remain in its " integrity for 

 us ; one perfect whole, inimitable, impayable." 



So much for the puff direct. 



Another branch of piscatorial puffing, and one 

 which is rapidly assuming most obnoxious propor- 

 tions, is exemplified every week in the advertising 

 columns of our sporting literature. This is the " puff 

 hyperbolical," wherein certain unscrupulous owners 

 and lessees of hotels, fishing-quarters, and rivers of 

 unpronounceable orthography in various outskirts of 

 the three kingdoms, endeavour to delude the guileless 

 into their nets, or more correctly " man-traps." Woe 

 betide the fisherman who commits himself to the Night 

 Mail North, or, still worse, the Irish Express, on the 

 faith of such tempting allurements. The chances are 

 two to one that the confiding wretch so beguiled finds 

 himself landed at "a well-appointed family hotel," 

 (consisting of a couple of roofless attics over a floor- 



