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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 which the Egyptian Cleopatra fooled that far-famed Roman wight, Marc Antony, when they were angling together on the Nile. As I recall it, from a perusal in early boyhood, Antony was having very bad luck indeed; in fact he had taken nothing, and was sadly put out about it. Cleopatra, thinking to get a rise out of him, secretly told one of her attendants to dive over the opposite side of the barge and fasten a salt fish to the Roman general's hook. The attendant was much pleased with this commission, and, having executed it, proceeded to add a fine stroke of his own; for when he had made the fish fast on the hook, he gave a great pull to the line and held on tightly. Antony was much excited and began to haul violently at his tackle.