PREFACE 



Although its production was undertaken at the 

 instigation of a friend, the writer himself assumes the 

 entire responsibility for a book he feels to be without 

 excuse^ — save the irrepressible loquacity of the angler 

 whose eagerness to share .with others all he knows and 

 much of which he knows nothing, is within the experi- 

 ence of everyone who owns his friendship. The book 

 contains little that is new. It supplies no felt want. 

 Though the reader may find in it an occasional hint 

 not altogether valueless, its purpose is not instructive ; 

 it merely records the impressions of a casual angler 

 whose methods are neither artful — in any sense of the 

 term — nor scientific, and who angrles as Sarah Battle's 

 young acquaintance took a hand at whist — with the 

 object of unbending his mind. The writer makes no 

 claim to the possession of originality ; he is not a 

 person of many inventions ; his ingenuity is unequal to 

 the feats some other fishermen perform. In difficulties 

 he is without resource. If the trout are simple enough 

 to accept the flies he offers them they may, haply, find 



