OF PURFLING AND PURISM 61 



tioned, and here we are fishing through binoculars 

 in five steps. Have patience. These things un- 

 fold themselves slowly. 



One more stage, and the supereminent is just 

 beyond. Sport is, after all, only the handmaid 

 of natural history. It is good to seek healthy 

 recreation, but it is better to serve humanity. The 

 pursuit of birds, beasts, and fishes is in itself an 

 end to lower natures. Yet there is a savagery 

 about it which must revolt the Thinker. To 

 know that is the highest object of man's energy ; 

 and to know the trout aright we must know on 

 what he feeds. The angler, then, to whom I 

 would now direct your attention, having mastered 

 the things that the fish of his chosen study does, 

 turns his mind to the things that it eats. He 

 moves on by one other degree towards perfection. 

 He catches flies. 



Lastly and here I reach the supreme point 

 to which (so far as I know) the science of dry-fly 

 fishing has attained lastly is found the all-know- 

 ing fisherman who, abandoning rod, creel, waders, 

 trout, flies, and river as matters which no longer 

 concern the investigator, occupies his angling 

 hours in the loving study of the habits of the 

 birds. Beyond this I do not think fishing can go. 

 Yet mathematicians tell us that there is a fourth 

 dimension of existence inconceivable to common 



