294 WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



Rods and lines, and all the mat^iel of the craft, will now 

 be laid in ordinary, and till spring comes round again, 

 other sports must occupy the idle hours. I have learned 

 more — although I acknowledge, with all humility, my 

 unworthiness as an angler — by a few day's practical 

 experience, than I could have almost considered possible ; 

 and I have ascertained how inadequate theory is to 

 instruct a neophyte in the art. In angling, however, 

 like other manly exercises, men are constituted by 

 nature to succeed or fail. We know that there are per- 

 sons who, though born in a preserve y could never shoot 

 even tolerably, while others, with less advantages, 

 speedily become adepts. One man can never learn to 

 ride ; and another, in a short time, can cross the country 

 like " a winged Mercury.'* The same rule holds good 

 in angling ; — A. in a short period becomes perfect 

 master of the arcana of the gentle science ; while B. will 

 thresh a river to eternity, dismissing flies, breaking 

 tops, losing foot-links, and perpetrating every enormity 

 with which a tyro is chargeable. 



Yet to a man naturally handy ^ and observant, little 

 is required to acquire the art, but a good stream and 

 tolerable attention. He will soon gain more practical 

 information and mechanical science than any book can 

 inculcate. And it will be only when, by practice, he 

 has acquired a knowledge of the science, that he will 

 be able to comprehend what written theories profess 

 to teach. 



We had scarcely left the river, when a man, who stood 

 upon an eminence that commanded an extensive view 

 seaward, gesticulated with great energy, and made, 

 what appeared to me, some momentous communication 

 in the mother tongue. 



