3o8 The Course, the Camp, the Chase 



fully made waterproof, tapered lines, and marvellous 

 " floating flies," make " dry-fly " fishing comparatively easy 

 to what it was when this form of angling first came into 

 fashion. Successful as this is on the sluggish chalk 

 streams of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Southern England, 

 it must not be deemed that there is no skill required to 

 capture the sharp-eyed trout by the wet-fly process in the 

 well-whipped, rocky streams of the North of England. 

 Many a dry-fly fisherman, who has thought in his heart of 

 hearts that he was about to give the natives a lesson, has 

 had to confess that he had something yet to learn, when 

 he ruefully compares his own light basket at the end of 

 the day with the well-filled panniers of those he thought 

 he was about to teach. 



In racing, the desire is all for " short cuts," and plenty 

 of them, in lieu of the old four-mile races, and " heats," 

 and whereas the latter imperatively required a stout, true 

 made, strong constitutioned animal to be successful, while 

 the former may be won by a horse possessing only the one 

 attribute of speed, it is obvious that the result of the 

 racing of this century has not been altogether in the 

 direction of the improvement of the horse, as a generally 

 useful animal. In this no doubt the old truism still holds 

 good, as in every other walk of life, " medio tutissimus 

 ibis," and if the Jockey Club will but resolutely follow 

 out the plan that they have sketched, of increasing the 

 distances for older horses, and deferring the running of 

 two-year-olds till the autumn of their year, much good 

 may result. The professed object of permitting racing 

 to take place at all, is the improvement of the breed of 

 horses, and if, on the contrary, deterioration takes place, 

 the only weapon of defence is taken away from the fol- 



