FI.Y FISHING FOR TROUT 5 



form has developed in Great Britain in a most strik- 

 ing degree ; but I venture to think that no sport or 

 pastime has attracted a greater number of votaries 

 than has fishing, whether it be for coarse fish or trout. 

 Let him who does not credit this go, on almost any 

 day between May and August, to one of the main 

 London stations when an early train is leaving for 

 the districts through which Kennet, Test, Lea, 

 Alimram, Chess, or other trout-yielding river gently 

 flows. His scepticism touching the attractiveness of 

 the 'gentle art ' as practised in this year of grace must 

 then surely be abandoned. If it be moderately fa- 

 vourable weather, there will almost to a certainty be 

 there discovered not a few men clad in rough work- 

 manlike clothes, bearing fishing bags and rods, who 

 are anxiously wondering whether for once the fates 

 are going to be propitious and send them that most 

 essential and also for some reason or other rarest - 

 of all the elementary conditions of fishing, an up- 

 stream brecxe. Where ten years ago there might be 

 found one such angler, now twenty have appeared. 



Or let our doubting friend go to the Midlands of 

 England and seek the banks of Wye, 1 )ove, or 1 )erwcnt, 

 and there, on every possible occasion, such as a Bank 

 Holiday or a Saturday during the fishing season, he 

 will discover people who have come long distances to 



