SPAI]^, FEANCE AND POBTUGAL 



or the fierce critic ; but to be happy, man must have this capacity 

 of wholesale enjoyment, of seeing something in all things. I 

 am aware that this is at times called the artistic temperament, 

 this seeing things that apparently do not exist, but never- 

 theless, I beheve it is worthy of cultivation and is a strong 

 factor in the evolution of man from savagery to civilization. 

 This occurred to me in France one winter day, when I 

 watched a group of anglers fishing in the Seine, where they 

 had to keep moving or the Une would freeze to the rod. Again 

 in Eome when I stood and watched a freezing angler cast into 

 the muddy waters of the Tiber ; and again on the Eiviera at 

 Menton, on the ItaUan Une, men and boys were fishing for echini, 

 eating them au naturel, and happy. 



Often at Biarritz, France, the rocks are seen lined with sea- 

 anglers armed with rods of extraordinary length, some being^ 

 forty feet long, or twice the length of a salmon rod. Vicomte 

 Henri de France states that although many of these sea 

 anglers have reels they prefer not to use them. The Une, 

 about as long as the rod, is sufficient for aU purposes, and when 

 the rod is raised the fish and the four hooks come in muck 

 quicker than if reeled. In fact, the rod is so cumbersome that 

 two hands are necessary to handle it. 



It is difficult to find a land where there is no fishing. If such 

 does exist, man soon comes to the rescue, as in the case of Argen- 

 tina, whose inland waters a few years ago had no finny game ;, 

 now, thanks to the official camaraderie of England, Germany, and 

 America, it has whitefish, quinnat salmon, brook trout, lake 

 trout, blue-back salmon, silver salmon, steelhead, rainbow trout, 

 land-locked salmon, Atlantic salmon and European brown trout, 

 four million two hundred and sixty thousand four hundred 

 eggs having been placed in its waters between 1904 and 1909 with, 

 most satisfactory results. 



In a previous chapter, I have referred to the fishes of the 

 Mediterranean as having an extraordinary resemblance to the 

 fauna of the Hawaiian Islands, an item of interest to the angler. 



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