ce of similar modesty is found in Mr.
Andrew Lang, who entitles the first chapter of his delightful
ANGLING SKETCHES (without which no fisherman's library is complete),
"Confessions of a Duffer." This an engaging liberty which no one else
would dare to take.

The best English fish-story pure and simple, that I know, is "Crocker's
Hole," by H. D. Black-more, the creator of LORNA DOONE.

Let us turn now to American books about angling. Of these the merciful
dispensations of Providence have brought forth no small store since Mr.
William Andrew Chatto made the ill-natured remark which is pilloried at
the head of this chapter. By the way, it seems that Mr. Chatto had never
heard of "The Schuylkill Fishing Company," which was founded on that
romantic stream near Philadelphia in 1732, nor seen the AUTHENTIC
HISTORICAL MEMOIR of that celebrated and amusing society.

I am sorry for the man who cannot find pleasure in reading the appendix
of THE AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK, by Thaddeus Norris; or the discursive
pages of Frank Forester's FISH AND FISHING; or the introduction and
notes of that unexcelled edition of Walton which was made by the
Reverend Doctor George W. Bethune; or SUPERIOR FISHING and GAME FISH OF
THE NORTH, by Mr. Robert B. Roosevelt; or Henshall's BOOK OF THE BLACK
BASS; or the admirable disgressions of Mr. Henry P. Wells, in his
FLY-RODS AND FLY-TACKLE, and THE AMERICAN SALMON ANGLER. Dr. William C.
Prime has never put his profound knowledge of the art of angling into a
manual of technical instruction; but he has written of the delights of
the sport in OWL CREEK LETTERS, and in I GO A-FISHING, and in some of
the chapters of ALONG NEW ENGLAND ROADS and AMONG NEW ENGLAND HILLS,
with a persuasive skill that has created many new anglers, and made
many old ones grateful. It is a fitting coincidence of heredity that his
niece, Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson, is the author of the most tender and
pathetic of all angling stories, FISHIN' JIMMY.

But it is not only in books written altogether from his peculiar point
of view and to humour his harmless insanity, that the angler may find
pleasant reading about his favourite pastime. There are excellent bits
of fishing scattered all through the field of good literature. It seems
as if almost all the men who could write well had a friendly feeling for
the contemplative sport.

Plutarch, in THE LIVES OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS AND ROMANS, tells a capital
fish-story of the manner in w