a) 
“SUN-SPEA RING.” 131 
refection and a careful toilette before venturing into 
the morning air. Of such a pupil it may be safely 
predicted he will never spear an eel well, much less 
make the “terror” of the jungle “bite the dust,” on 
joining the Fag an beleachsin India. There is, I own, 
a certain spice of man’s primeval instincts, which un- 
consciously clings to our skirts in the highest stages of 
civilisation, necessary to the success and enjoyment 
of this sport. But against this ruder aspect of the 
pursuit are to be placed, on the per contra side of the 
ledger, the humanising influences with which nature 
surrounds its practice. I would not, for the best 
“monkey-drake” in my flybook, figure before a mate- 
tial age as a sentimental savage, gibbering of humanity 
and fine feelings with a spear inmy hand. Yet I can- 
not help thinking there is a principle within us which 
finds something to admire in the prime of the year— 
wild scenery and the hopeful hour of dawn—quite as 
much as in a heavy “ balance-sheet” or the highest 
quotations of “scrip.” If any branch of our art more 
than another tends to foster this nobler principle of 
our nature, it is that which now engages our attention. 
Around none clusters a more poetic combination of 
circumstances, scenic and intellectual, than waits on 
the exercise of this pursuit. Short indeed must be 
the memory, and defective the organisation, of the 
youthful débutant in this amusement, who, standing 
on the heights overhanging the theatre of his imme- 
