140 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
was not a dumb creature about Elleray but what 
he had knowledge of and became friends with. 
He was a keen sportsman, a good naturalist, 
and of birds he has written some of the best 
descriptions in the language. It is true that in 
his outdoor sketches there is but little of the 
“pretty upholstery of nature,” as regards dorsal 
fins and tail feathers, but each subject he describes 
is essentially a wild creature in its haunts. 
“ Christopher North,” in his sporting jacket, was 
a familiar figure on the moors, and but few of 
his friends could tramp through the heather so 
long or with such success. He was as skilful with 
the gun as with the rod, and flogging the trout 
streams in spring was among his chiefest delights. 
There were none of the old-fashioned country 
sports in which Wilson did not indulge, and in all 
he himself was a proficient. If he did not sport his 
figure in the ring, he attended at all the annual 
wrestlings, and gave prizes and belts to the com- 
petitors. He was not slow to show his strength 
and prowess in private, and the yeomen and 
farmers were often treated to an exhibition of his 
skill. He threw some of the champion wrestlers 
of the time ; and was also aclever boxer. Anent 
the repute in which wrestling was held, Wilson 
tells how a political friend of his, a staunch fellow, 
in passing through the Lakes, heard of nothing 
