HOW AND WHERE TO SPIN. ni 



from disagreeable, and in hot suns will prevent those unplea- 

 sant excoriations and reddenings which, about August, we are all 

 familiar with on the noses of our Norwegian tourists, ' Alpine ' 

 climbers and nomadic brethren of the angle generally. 



I would have given a handsome sum for just a thimbleful 

 of the ' anti-midge mixture ' one day last August, when grouse 

 shooting in Kirkcudbrightshire with Mr. J. Colzean Kennedy. 

 At about four o'clock, when on tolerably high moorland, we. 

 were suddenly enveloped in a swarm of almost invisible tor- 

 mentors. Eyes, nostrils, ears, even between our shirts and our 

 necks, they clustered like bees. In vain we slapped the afflicted 

 parts with more energy than direction ; in vain we lit up pipes 

 all round and blew the wildest of 'clouds ;' the whole party, 

 dogs included, rubbed, scratched, and, I daresay, swore ; and 

 if we had happened to find birds at that moment, I doubt if 

 even the well-known science of my friend Mr. Kennedy, ' top- 

 weight ' as he is both at Hurlingham and the Gun Club, would 

 have added greatly to the ' bag.' 



But to return to my text. It is, I believe, a great fallacy to 

 suppose that large pike are more dikely to be found in large 

 deep waters, than in such quiet and undisturbed nooks, where 

 anglers come but seldom, and the supply of baits is usually 

 abundant. In just such a spot as that above described I once 

 saw a pike which I am satisfied must have weighed nearer 30 

 than 20 lbs. With my heart in my mouth I crept up to the 

 edge of the ' drawn,' about twenty yards from where he was 

 lying, and made my cast. It was neck or nothing as I knew, 

 because if he did not take the bait on the first impulse, he 

 would be inevitably scared and take refuge in his lair of water 

 lilies, from which there would be no tempting him. 



The bait fell exactly as I desired, and it had hardly touched 

 the surface when there was a sudden boiling and up-tearing of 

 the water, as the monster rushed hither and thither in his 

 efforts to seize, the bait. Alas ! he missed it, although I am' 

 bound to say, in justice to myself, that I did not violate my 

 own canon of neither checking nor expediting its motion. 



