MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR 



to make himself acquainted with their growth 

 and habits. 



Behind the Thwaite House Mr. Beever made 

 a big pond by damming a little rivulet which 

 flows down from the Guards Wood; and he 

 stocked his pond with fish of various kinds. 

 Once a year he caught each member of his 

 water-colony, and examined it to see how it was 

 grown. It was for his use that the picturesque 

 Gothic boat-house, which every visitor knows as 

 the station of the steam-gondola, was built by 

 Mr. Binns, the former landlord of the Thwaite, 

 before Mr. James Garth Marshall added it to 

 his property at Monk Coniston. 



The fishing-rod, described in the book, was 

 the result of long experiment and much pains- 

 taking. It was made about 1837, just in the 

 way our author recommends by a f clever 

 joiner, and a young one, 7 Mr. William Bell, 

 of Hawes Bank, Coniston, then a youth of 

 seventeen. He used to see a great deal of 

 Mr. Beever, and has a lively recollection of 

 him in several capacities as a fisherman, as a 

 very good shot, in those earlier days; on one 

 occasion bringing down twenty-two snipe at 

 twenty-one shots ; and an ingenious mechani- 

 cian. The pond behind the house served not 

 only as a fish-tank but as a reservoir for a water- 



xvii c 



