178 TROUT FISHING 



was any truth in the reactionary heresy 

 against the much-extolled Dry Fly. He 

 caught eight trout, each a little above 

 three-quarters of a pound, the limit on 

 the stretch which we were fishing; his 



friend Mr. C also had eight, of 



similar size. The wet -fly basket was 

 twenty trout of the same dimensions. 



Once, at the invitation of Sir W 



P and Mr. W M R , 



I had a very pleasant day on the 

 Kennet, the trout in which are generally 

 supposed to be proof against all flies but 

 the Mayfly. At the end of it the creel 

 held sixteen trout weighing over twenty 

 pounds. The only very well-known 

 Enghsh river on which I have not fished 

 is the Itchen, and I cannot easily imagine 

 that water to be wholly different from 

 others on which the old-fashioned method 

 seems still to be not without merit. 



Being averse from such a narrative of 

 my own experiences, I would strike out 

 the last two pages if that could be done 

 without impairing the argument ; but if 



