MINOR TACTICS OF THE 



CHALK STREAM, 



AND KINDRED STUDIES 



CHAPTER I 

 OF THE BEGINNING OF THINGS 



OF THE INQUIRING MIND. 



I READ recently in that fine novel, " A Superfluous 

 Woman/' a sentence enunciating a principle of 

 wide application, to which anglers might with 

 advantage give heed : " We ought not so much to 

 name mistakes disaster as the common practice of 

 servile imitation and faint-hearted acquiescence." 

 In no art are its practitioners more slavishly con- 

 tent ''jurare in verba magistri " than in angling. 

 Tradition and authority are so much, and indi- 

 vidual observation and experiment so little. 



There is, indeed, this excuse for the novice, that, 

 going back to the authorities of the past after 

 much experiment, he will find that they know 

 in substance all, or practically all, that, apart 

 from the advance of mechanical conveniences and 

 entomological science, is known in the present 



I 



