324 THE DRY-FLY MAN'S HANDBOOK 



generally bid farewell to the keeper, and do not as 



a rule revisit the water before 

 Keepers" work in the following spring. Anglers 



autumn and winter. should know that their sport in 



the coming season is largely 

 dependent on the quantity and quality of the work 

 done by the keepers during the short days of the fall 

 and winter. Here and there are to be found keepers 

 who can be relied upon to work with the same zeal 

 and the same intelligence in their master's absence as 

 in his presence, but such keepers are unfortunately 

 the exceptions which go to prove the rule. 



With every desire to do his duty, it is, after all, 

 only human nature for the keeper to be depressed by 

 the lonely life on the river-banks and to be attracted 

 from his monotonous work by the congenial society of 

 his fellow-men in the nearest village inn. When once 

 he has acquired the habit of frequenting the tap-room 

 the seeds of intemperance are only too likely to be 

 sown, with the inevitable result of undermining his 

 constitution and eventually causing him to lose his 

 situation and become a loafer or worse, perhaps even 

 a poacher. Without any desire to palliate the offence, 

 it is yet a moot point whether the employer is not 

 often in a great degree to blame for the degeneration 

 of his employ^. A sportsman who is really Interested 

 in the work of maintaining and improving the stream 

 he fishes would certainly not be bored if he made it a 

 rule to spend one day in each month of the close 

 time at the river-side with his keeper. Such a 



