140 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 



was not a dumb creature about Elleray but what 

 he had knowledge of and became friends with. 

 He was a keen sportsman, a good naturalist, 

 and of birds he has written some of the best 

 descriptions in the language. It is true that in 

 his outdoor sketches there is but little of the 

 " pretty upholstery of nature," as regards dorsal 

 fins and tail feathers, but each subject he describes 

 is essentially a wild creature in its haunts. 

 " Christopher North," in his sporting jacket, was 

 a familiar figure on the moors, and but few of 

 his friends could tramp through the heather so 

 long or with such success. He was as skilful with 

 the gun as with the rod, and flogging the trout 

 streams in spring was among his chiefest delights. 

 There were none of the old-fashioned country 

 sports in which Wilson did not indulge, and in all 

 he himself was a proficient. If he did not sport his 

 figure in the ring, he attended at all the annual 

 wrestlings, and gave prizes and belts to the com- 

 petitors. He was not slow to show his strength 

 and prowess in private, and the yeomen and 

 farmers were often treated to an exhibition of his 

 skill. He threw some of the champion wrestlers 

 of the time ; and was also a clever boxer. Anent 

 the repute in which wrestling was held, Wilson 

 tells how a political friend of his, a staunch fellow, 

 in passing through the Lakes, heard of nothing 



