FEBRUARY 33 



the facts of nature. Save in respect that 

 in the South it is generally recognised as 

 " bad form " to take trout of less than a 

 certain size, all the notions of the Hamp- 

 shire school, which is very influential 

 among country cousins, are demonstrably 

 absurd. Its limit to the variety of flies 

 has been shown to be unnatural and there- 

 fore unscientific. The understanding that 

 its method of angling, with one fly at 

 a time and that fly oiled, is a much finer 

 art than the method generally practised 

 elsewhere is equally frail. The art, says 

 one of its recent exponents, reveringly, 

 "is to be studied almost with prayer and 

 fasting." Is it, now ? Why, the trout 

 of any Hampshire stream are at least as 

 easily caught, either with wet fly or with 

 dry, as those of any stream of similar size 

 in any part of the United Kingdom 1 

 This will be admitted by any one whose 

 experience enables him to judge. If The 

 Times disclosure indicated a general 

 practice, we cannot be astonished. 



The other notion on which we have 



3 



