heard of one being on nineteen hours at a stretch, and when he was caught he was not a very big one, either."

'Aye, that is all very well for a salmon, but a pike does not fight so long. I saw a thirty-three pounder killed in a quarter of an hour, so this must be a veritable shark."

Well, matters went on in this way until four hours had elapsed, and still we seemed no nearer to the end. Then seventy yards away there was a huge "boil" at the top of the water, and the strain on the rod slackened.

"Hurrah! there he is.

He is beginning to give in.

It will only be a short time now."

My friend was right. Little by little I wound in my line, and nearer and nearer the monster came. At last we could distinctly see him rushing and wallowing about with widely-distended mouth, in the clear water. In length he was about five feet, and his weight, it is clear, must have been eighty pounds. What a proud man I felt at that moment! All my hopes were on the point of being realised. I drew him slowly and carefully in, and my friend struck the gaff into him, and then our united efforts▬▬

"Hallo! what's that knocking for?"

"Here's your hot-water, sir, and breakfast will be

ready in half an hour."

"Oh! murder! Where is the big pike!" I exclaimed, looking about. Alas! It was only a dream.

I had very good sport that day and the following, but not a fish was over ten pounds in weight, and my big pike has yet to be caught.

ON SOME ODD WAYS OF FISHING.

THE maxim that one half the world does not know how the other half lives may, with but slight variation, be applied to the world of sportsmen. The “sportsman" is not of any particular class. The highest in the land and the lowest may rub shoulders in the broad field of sport. This is peculiarly true as regards the gentle art. Wandering by the side of an unpreserved stream you may see my lord casting a fly over this shallow, and, twenty yards farther down, Tinker Ben seated by the side of a chub hole watching his float circling round in the eddy; and as the noble passes the boor an honest angler's greeting may be exchanged, and a light for the latter's pipe asked for and given. It may be taken as a general rule that between anglers who pursue their sport by fair means there is a levelling freemasonry of the craft which is as pleasant as it is right.

Between the fair fisherman and the poacher there is, however, a broad line of demarcation-a line which

bars the interchange of even the commonest civilities on the mutual ground of pursuing the same object. The fair fisherman hates the man who captures the finny tribe by unfair or illegal means as strongly as a fox-hunter hates a fox-killer, or a strict Sabbatarian hates a sinner who enjoys a Sunday afternoon's walk and the glimpses of nature it may afford him. There is also a line drawn between the man who fishes for amusement alone and him who fishes for profit. The division in the latter instance may not be so broad as in the former, but nevertheless it is wide enough to distinctly separate the two classes. Now, we think the fair and amateur angler is, in a great many instances, unaware of the shifts and dodges adopted by the poacher and pot-hunter to fill their pockets, and of the consequent hindrance to his own sport. Therefore, by way of warning, of information, and possible amusement, we have noted down a few of the instances which have come under our own observation. And as we do not expect any poacher to read this book our revelations will do no harm by way of suggestion.

Let any one take a boat and row down the sluggish Yare from the commission-haunted old city of Norwich, as the shades of evening are darkening the river, and he will see several uncouth rough-looking boats being slowly impelled down stream by rougher-looking men. He will notice that they have short, stout rods and long poles

in the boats, and if he watches them he will presently see them take up their stations by the margin of some reed bed, or in a quiet bay of the river. Driving the poles in the mud at the stems and sterns of their boats the men make them fast, and taking their seats proceed to “bob" for eels. A quantity of earthworms are strung on worsted, and, after being weighted, are suspended by a stout line from a short, thick rod. The solitary fisherman holds a rod in each hand, on each side of the boat, just feeling the bottom with the bait, and now and then pulling it up and shaking the eels, whose teeth get entangled in the worsted, into the boat. There he sits, silent and uncommunicative the greater part of the night, and in all weathers, for the sake, perhaps, of, on an average, a shilling's worth of eels each night. Altogether his berth must be a lonely one, and no angler will grudge him his sport. His companions take up their positions too far off to hold conversation with him, and the splash of a water-rat among the reeds, or the flapping of the canvas of a belated wherry, and the cheery goodnight of its steersman are the only sounds to beguile the tedium of his midnight watching.

Another mode of capturing eels is by “eel picking” in the lower waters of the Yare, near Cantley. The man, armed with his eel spear, takes his stand in the bow of his craft, and, stealing along by the edge of