858 
FOREST AND STREAM 
When they were a little over one hundred yards 
distant the battery of four Winchesters opened 
fire on the bulls and got two of the three, where¬ 
upon the rest of the herd veered off and disap¬ 
peared in the woods. 
The leopard is more aggressive than the tiger. 
That is, he has a more grouchy disposition and 
will often charge instead of sneaking away as a 
tiger usually does unless wounded or cornered. 
But a man would feel that in a hand-to-hand 
fight to the death he would have a much more even 
chance with a leopard than when facing the in¬ 
vincible power of a tiger, which can crush a 
man’s head with one bite or kill him with one 
blow, or carry him off bodily no matter how 
much he might resist. 
The accompanying photos illustrate our hunt. 
The small one is a picture of a “little brown 
brother” archer of India; he can best be de¬ 
scribed by Kipling’s lines: ‘‘The clothing that he 
wore was nothing much before and a little less 
than half of that behind.” 
I unfortunately visited England and Scotland 
in winter and missed all the public archery meet¬ 
ings. In Edinburgh I had the pleasure of in¬ 
specting Archers’ Hall, the beautiful home of the 
Royal Archers. There is a membership of about 
five hundred, all of them being of the nobility, 
and they attend the king as his bodyguard when 
he visits Scotland. What a sight it must be for 
an archer to see five hundred bowmen in a body! 
May the time come when such a sight will be 
seen in America! In Archers’ Hall there is the 
oldest English long-bow in existence, being one 
of the sturdy weapons from the battlefield of 
Flodden, of which the four hundredth anniver¬ 
sary was celebrated last year. 
In London I visited the interesting showrooms 
of Messrs. T. Aldred & Sons, and Mr. Izzard 
showed me some Turkish bows such as Mr. Si¬ 
mon used in his world record flight shot of 459 
yards in France last year, and one of the arrows 
he used, which weighs only slightly over two 
shillings (the ordinary target arrow weighs from 
four to five shillings); it is modeled on the Turk¬ 
ish pattern and is a marvel of stiffness for its 
extreme lightness. 
Among the halcyon days which have come to 
me in my wanderings, none have been finer than 
the crystal days spent in drawing the bow in 
friendly contest with that prince of sportsmen, 
Will Thompson, at his beautiful home on the 
Seattle hills, looking out over the superb scenery 
of Lake Washington and the Sound and the 
snowy mountains, and the evenings spent at his 
fireside hearing him read and recite the stir¬ 
ring poems of nature, war and archery which 
he and his brother Maurice have written. Other 
days long to be remembered were spent shoot¬ 
ing with dear old Barnes, the bowmaker of the 
Sierras, at Forest Grove, amid the flowering or¬ 
chards of sunny Oregon, to the wild music of 
great flocks of geese passing overhead; and with 
the late Dr. Jones, a famous surgeon of the 
west, on his quiet range beside the Willamette at 
Portand. A splendid sportsman and companion 
he was, and a man of great attainments, in spite 
of the fact that he had never heard a sound since 
the explosion of a cannon at Gettysburg de¬ 
prived him of his hearing. 
Mingled with my boyhood memories—which 
are always a man’s finest heritage—are the memo¬ 
ries of the archery of the flowery days of the 
8o’s, when my home was often the rendezvous 
of the enthusiastic Highland Archers of Cincin¬ 
nati. I began to shoot as soon as I could pull a 
small bow, and I shall always hold precious the 
recollection that I have been privileged to contest 
on the range with those princely devotees of the 
ancient sport—Robinson, Beach, Williams, Wes¬ 
ton, Hussy, Mrs. Howell, the Kerns, Maxson, 
Taylor, Clark, McGowan and Thompson—as well 
as with the newer generation of champions. 
I suppose that Richardson, like Ford, England’s 
greatest archer, is but one in a generation or a 
century, and that i-t will not be within my life¬ 
time that his splendid record of 1,111 at the 
Double York Round in 1910 will be surpassed, 
for the previous record of 995 made by Colonel 
Williams remained untouched since 1885, as did 
the record of 1,097 at the Double American Round 
made by W. A. Clark in 1886, until beaten by 
G. P. Bryant in 1909. 
“THE DRY FLY ON FAST WATER.” 
The literature of angling is now very large 
and upon the whole, America makes a very good 
showing. Since the time of J. J. Brown and his 
forgotten Anglers’ Guide, we have had a number 
of first-rate original writers. Frank Forester was 
among the first who wrote of field sports, but 
we are thinking of men native to this land. 
There was dear, old Uncle Thad. Norris, Robert 
Barnwell Roosevelt, an uncle of Colonel Roose¬ 
velt; W. C. Prime, and many others. In recent 
years the out of doors, and sportsmen magazines, 
have introduced a host of good men; sea fishing 
has been elevated to a science and we have such 
high authorities as Professor Holder, on the 
“Game Fishes of the World.” Dr. Henshall was 
the recognized authority on the black bass, but, 
since he wrote, short casting rods, new methods, 
and a host of extraordinary artificial baits have 
come in. Many names occur to me, but it is un¬ 
necessary to mention them now. 
For more than twenty years we were content 
to rely upon Englishmen as the supreme authori¬ 
ties on the use of the floating fly. Clever anglers 
began using this system regularly in the South 
of England about the year i860; although we 
have records of the occasional use of the dry 
fly at an earlier date, in both countries. After 
the publication of Mr. F. M. Halford’s “Dry 
Fly Fishing in Theory and Practie,” 1889, the art 
was gradually adopted in this country, but it made 
no great stir. This we attribute to the fact that 
American anglers who had been in the habit of 
fishing up-stream, with small flies, found the 
change from wet to dry comparatively easy. We 
have waters where conditions resembled those 
found in the South of England; but, for the 
most part, our anglers were accustomed to fish¬ 
ing the more turbulent mountain streams, on 
which the wet fly will always have its time and 
place. It was not until our sportsmen saw that 
the floater was frequently killing, when the wet 
fly failed, that the present vogue of the dry fly 
began. The first book on the subject appeared 
only two years ago. It was written by Mr. 
Emlyn M. Gill and undoubtedly caused a boom 
in dry fly fishing in all parts of this country. 
But the demand for good works upon angling is 
inexhaustible. Thousands of anglers, old and 
young, experienced and inexperienced, welcome a 
new book by one of the fraternity and are de¬ 
lighted to invest a few shekels in its purchase. 
There are few things that give one more pleasure 
on a winter’s night than a good work on fly 
fishing. 
I have just finished reading “The Dry Fly on 
Fast Water,” by Mr. George M. L. La Branche 
(Charles Scribners Sons), and expect to read it 
again. That, I fancy, is the test of a book or 
article. If we return to them with a relish they 
will surely please others. 
Mr. La Branche is an old hand at the game; 
his style is direct and to the point. He is a 
close observer of the habits of the fish and loves 
to study the problems presented every day in the 
season on our rapid streams. They are always 
rising and falling; conditions are never quite the 
same from day to day. Mr. La Branche gives 
many hints and wrinkles, and the leaves from the 
book of his experience will prove of value to 
many. His point of view is original, and there 
is not a dull page in this book. He has no great 
faith in the imitation of the natural insects and 
gives a very short list of artificial flies, dressed 
upon Nos. 10 to 16 (sized) hooks. Size is im¬ 
portant at times, he thinks, but he is not bigoted 
in any way. His theories are his own, but he is 
quite willing to allow other folks to have their 
own notions. We all have our opinions, based on 
a great or limited experience, and may at times 
become a trifle warm when asserting our views. 
It is just as well to remember that angling is only 
a recreation, not a profession. We usually find 
that men of the greatest experience are most 
liberal and least dogmatic. I remember an old 
angler saying to me some time ago: “I have 
fished for trout for forty years; I have studied 
their habits and the methods of taking them. 
Formerly I was quite sure that I had nothing to 
learn; I knew it all. Nowadays I make no such 
claims. I know very little about trout and never 
expect to know very much in regard to them.” 
It is often the man of limited experience who is 
most confident. 
There is nothing dogmatic in “The Dry Fly on 
Fast Water.” I know Mr. La Branche by reputa¬ 
tion, and his ideals are high. He fishes the float¬ 
ing fly only, and kills a few of the largest trout. 
All others are returned to the water. What 
splendid sport we would enjoy on free water, 
if fly fishing only was practiced, and the limit in 
size was raised to respectable proportions! I 
fancy that a trout should be big enough to take 
line from the reel before it is considered large 
enough to kill. The best of days is often the 
one when but there or four fish have been taken. 
The killing of large trout is remembered with a 
thrill of pleasure when heavy baskets of small 
trout are forgotten. If we reckoned our baskets 
in pounds instead of in numbers it would be bet¬ 
ter. The statement that a man has killed fifty 
or one hundred trout makes not the slightest im¬ 
pression on one’s mind, except possibly a slight 
feeling of disgust. We have seen too many such 
creels. I am afraid that we envy the angler who 
reports that old four-pounder we have known 
for years. I believe that all anglers who fish 
streams of rapid descent, will find pleasure and 
profit in this purely American work on dry fly 
fishing. I do not think that I have done the 
author justice. 
THEODORE GORDON. 
