PREFATORY NOTE. xl 



another famous angler (and politician), alas ! no more — 

 the Johnson of Scotland, as he was well called — I mean 

 Alex. Russel, Editor of the Scots7nan, and author of the 

 book of 'The Salmon.' He and Stewart were two 

 of the finest fishermen that it has ever been my lot 

 to know, and I loved them both well — for 'like and 

 difference,' as Mrs. Browning puts it — though Stewart 

 was very wroth with me afterwards and devoted a 

 whole pamphlet to my annihilation, pugnacious * moss- 

 trooping Scot ' as he was. . . . No reason that, how- 

 ever, why I should not write his epitaph in the Field 

 when he died ... 



I'd give the lands of Deloraine 



Stout Musgrave were alive again ! . . . 



But, some one asks 'Why do you not practise 

 what you preach ? You eulogise monographs, and you 

 write books yourself which embrace every variety of 

 angling and " fishey lore " from bait-breeding to salmon- 

 catching.' 



Dear critic (forgive the adjective when perhaps you 

 are in the very act of sharpening your ' scalping-knife '), 

 I do nothing of the sort ; and though it is true I have 

 'graduated' in most kinds of fishing, from sticklebacks 

 upwards, there are many subjects germane to angling, 

 such as fish-rearing — both of Salnioiiidce and ' coarse ' 

 fish — fish-acclimatisation, and several special depart- 

 ments of angling itself, where I have need to learn 

 rather than to pretend to teach. Consequently I have 

 thought myself fortunate to be able to secure for these 



