ps been extravagant in our expenditure, and also
over-sanguine as to the probable result. The river when we took
possession swarmed with pike and dace, and had a few trout in the lower
part, and in the upper was fairly stocked. When we gave it up the pike
had been practically exterminated, and every yard of the river was
fully stocked with trout of strains far superior to the indigenous
slimy, yellow _Salmo fario_ of the Kennet."

The plain fact was that at the end of four years four of the best of
our dry-fly fishers gave up a water of which they had become very fond
because the trout did not rise at the little floating fly that
appeared, and the sport had decreased to a marked degree. A fishery
that gave poor and diminishing results, even with the Mayfly, sedge,
and Welshman's button, was not suitable for dry-fly experts, and the
Ramsbury experiment was abandoned. The moral has yet to be drawn, and
I have not yet seen anyone grapple at close quarters with the question
of cause and effect with the Ramsbury experiment as a test. "Making a
Fishery" sets down in detail what was done; the _Autobiography_ tells
what came of it. Being one of those who has not faltered in the belief
that the clearing out of coarse fish, the introduction of new strains
of trout, and the artificial feeding of fish may be overdone, I used to
discuss the matter with Halford, but he did not agree with me.

Having known the Ramsbury water before the reformation was undertaken,
I can testify that I seldom at any time saw a good rise of duns upon
it, and that a basket of trout more or less was, notwithstanding, a
reasonable certainty there under ordinarily favourable circumstances,
spite of pike and dace. I have with the wet fly, on days when no
floating fly was coming down, caught my two or three brace of trout
with some such pattern as Red Spinner, Governor, Alder, or Coachman for
the evening; indeed, if I remember correctly, it was on a six-brace day
with the "Red Spinner" on this water that, enamoured of that
artificial, I annexed its name for a series of articles contributed in
1874 to the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and have held by it ever since.
Foli, the opera-singer, once caught three half-pounders at a cast, and
the keeper netted them all, on this fishery.

One evening we met at Ramsbury, after an afternoon without sign of fly
or rising trout. Halford and Basil Field were there, and we stood and
bewailed the absence of duns and lack