THE LIGHT ROD 117 



method, the Hght rod, which has come to be so 

 common, has an advantage over the big, heavy, 

 and clumsy weapon so frequently in the hands of 

 dry-fly men in the recent past. This is indeed a 

 notable instance of the superiority of the suavifer 

 in modo over the fortiter in re. 



OF THE LIGHT ROD ON CHALK STREAMS. 



In the catalog (I spell the word in the American 

 manner) of the house of William Mills and Son 

 of New York there is a portrait of Mr. Humphrey 

 Priddis (whose signature " Dabchick " at the foot 

 of Itchen reports is familiar to all readers of the 

 Field) holding up a two and one-eighth pound 

 trout which he had just killed on a two and 

 one-eighth ounce Leonard rod, the property of 

 young Mr. Mills, a son of that house. I was 

 down on the Itchen the afternoon on which that 

 feat was done. I saw the rod, the fish, and the 

 captor, and the place was pointed out to me. 

 The water was full of dense masses of waving 

 weeds, and in accomplishing the capture of such 

 a fish — a large one for the water — on such a rod 

 there is no doubt that the angler executed a feat 

 of which he had every right to be proud. He 

 declared himself amazed at the power of the rod, 

 and that he could throw three-and-twenty yards 

 with it. 



Young Mr. Mills was fishing with a nine-foot rod 

 weighing five ounces, a delightful tool capable of 



