PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 6 



Although my last was my thirty-fifth annual 

 visit to angling waters, it was anticipated with 

 greater interest and with higher hopes of quiet 

 enjoyment than any which had preceded it. And 

 this, as all biography teaches, has been the experi- 

 ence of all true lovers of the angle. Sir Hum- 

 phrey Davy retained his enthusiasm to the last. 

 "When, like Jacob, he had to lean heavily upon his 

 staff, the author of Noctes Ambrosiana would 

 wade his favorite streams with all the pleasure of 

 his early manhood ; and long after every other de- 

 light had waxed and waned, this remained as the 

 veritable elixir of perpetual youth. " Kit North's " 

 daughter (Mrs. Gordon) gives this charming pic- 

 ture of him when a hopeless invalid : 



"And then he gathered around him, when the spring 

 morning brought gay jets of sunshine into the little room 

 where he lay, the relics of a youthful passion, one that with 

 him never grew old. It was an affecting sight to see him 

 busy, nay quite absorbed, with the fishing tackle about his 

 bed, propped up with pillows his noble head, yet glorious 

 with its flowing locks, carefully combed by attentive hands, 

 and falling on each side of his unfaded face. How neatly 

 he picked out each elegantly dressed fly from its little 

 bunch, drawing it with trembling hand across the white 

 coverlet, and then, replacing it in his pocket-book, he 

 would tell, ever and anon, of the streams he used to fish 

 in of old, and of the deeds he had performed in his child- 

 hood and youth." 



