about the end of August they have more élan de l'âme. Still one must live, even if one is melancholic and cynical, and a luscious frog, or roachlet, is sweet to clean jaws, even if one takes it with the don't-care-if-I-do nonchalance of the earthly millionaire.

The frog is tied on with silk, head downwards and he swims away from the rod which shepherds him. Some people will use him more than once. But this is hardly honourable. When a live bait has done his best, has endured risks, and made sacrifices, it is but fair play to release him. The honourable angler is grateful, not only to his riparian hosts, but to his mute helpmates. He thanks them, by acknowledging that they have earned their liberties, when their service is over and it is some consolation to unsuccess to set free the minnow and watch the frisk of intelligence with which he scampers away. He at least has no doubt that life is worth living, and as you follow him with your eye you can shoulder your pack and mutter

"Teach me half the gladness that thy soul must know."

Large pike in open waters are, of course, large because they are very well educated

in wariness. Folk say that such will take a duckling, a dead chick or sparrow, a mouse, or a champagne cork covered with the skin of a calf tail, and tricked out with a bootlace tail and buttons for eyes. A more certain fact is that none of these things, nor any others that the wit of man will devise, ensure a run. A man of a cautious and sanguine temperament, who goes often, and tries many things, is more likely to catch a monster and to have some temporary glory in the local press than one who visits the streams but seldom and then has but few tricks. But you never know. There is a fable of the fox and the cat. The ways of Nature are not for mere man to bet about. Let him take success with gentleness and abate swearing at his failures. He may be a little cast down at the end of the day and say, as he looks at his lank bag, with the dejected Shelley, "How sweet did any heart now share in its emotion." But yet, let him turn further, and he will soon be consoled :

"And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured May,

Perfect epithet!

"There grew broad flag flowers, purple prankt with white,

And starry river buds among the sedge,
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.”*

"That is all very well," says the impatient angler, "but after I have spent so much time and money." There he is wrong. He ought to spend the time. It will keep him from business, and so is well spent but not much money. Instead of that noble guinea greenheart, with appendices, and all to match, he ought to have bought a stout bamboo for a shilling. They are common enough, being used to pack cargoes in ship's holds. On to this he should have whipped about a dozen snake rings, with fine waxed twine, for which fourpence is outlay enough. The top should have a movable ring, wired on with copper whipping and the smaller end of the rod should be judiciously strengthened also. A couple of stout rubber rings will hold on the reel and a piece of lead *The Question.

must be inserted in the butt, in order to balance the whole rod to his hand. A few bits of sealing wax dissolved in spirit will protect the dressings, and with a little care and wit the man may have a fine rod, joyful to carry and obedient to his wishes for halfa-crown. The reel perhaps had better cost him thrice that sum, and the line must also he a good one, for it is not made for child's

ay. The float, trace, landing net and bait hooks, must meet local needs, but, on the whole, thirty shillings ought to be expenditure enough to catch sixty jack and pike, or even twice that number.

The pike is said to eat twice his weight of food every week and allowing that the frogs, snails, worms, rats, birds, and other small deer, form half his rations, it is no exaggeration to suppose that he eats his own weight of fish every seven days. A tenpounder thus demolishes 520 pounds of fish in the year; and the great monsters of the record would do away with a ton at the least. Few things give one such a sense of the abundance with which the waters bring - forth, as to discover that at least a pair of jack are to be found in every decent pool and bend, in the pikey streams. If you take

them, their places are not vacant for long. Just as the city man is zealous to find an eligible site on the Surrey side of London; just as the moment death, or bankruptcy or the police, cause him to leave his desirable mansion, it is snapt up by a rival ravager, so the pike family take one another's tenancies with zeal and swiftness. How do they know that there is a vacant pool, or an unoccupied lair at the commanding corner? It is a great mystery, but we may partly guess that the advertising agents are the quarry themselves. Old so-and-so is taken by a spoon bait, and his wife joins him in the realms above. The edible inhabitants feel relief. They browse where their masters once digested their relatives and ancestors. They spread themselves down stream and the next pike notices that a chain of banquets is let down from the higher pool. "Good heavens!" they exclaim, "Could this be, if old so and so yet survived? Would he have allowed this foolish fat thing to drift down to our pool?" He comes to see either out of curiosity, or reason, or on some hunting expedition. The former tenant is gone and has left his furniture and effects, his stock and fowl yard. The door is open and the