Related article: held Clinker well in hand.. Radi-
cal, as I expected, when close to
the gate, turned right across
Clinker. I stuck the spurs in,
knocked Douglas over the gate
and sent Radical heels over head,
and lying on this side of it.
Douglas did not lose his horse,
his snaffle-rein was fastened to
his wrist, and he was soon back
again and mounted : but it fin-
ished the match effectually. I
turned round, jumped the corner
of the fence and gained such a
lead that he never got near me
again. I suppose in these shop-
keeping days killing a man in
that way would be brought in
• Wilful Murder.' Not so in 1826 :
the verdict would have been
• justifiable homicide.* "
There were some queer scenes
too in the hunting-field in those
days, when the whip occasion-
ally played the part I have de-
scribed it as playing in the hands
of some old-time jockeys. Dick
Christian, the famous rough rider,
used to tell a story of how he and
Bill Wright got on ill terms
through a misunderstanding — Bill
believing wrongly that Dick had
been finding fault with a horse
the other was trying to sell. I
will give the anecdote in Dick's
own graphic phraseology. ** Bill
Wright, of Uppingham, was a
good-hearted chap, but given to
such very vulgar language. Bill
and me were always very par-
tikler intimate — boys together in
the racing stables. We once
quarrelled out hunting with Lord
Lonsdale. If we didn't get to
horse- whipping each other ! — we
did, indeed ! — for three miles
straight across country, cut for
cut. It was from Preston Gorse
in the Prior's Coppice country.
All the gentlemen shouted * Well
done, Dick ! ' « Well done, Bill ! '
It pleased them uncommonly.
We took our fences reg'lar all the
time. If he was first over he
stopped for me. If I'd a have
fell, he'd have Timoptic 0.5 jumped on me,
and, blame me, if I wouldn't ha*
jumped smack on top of him. We
fought back hand, or any way we
could cut. Dal ! I was as strong
as an elephant then. We pulled
our horses slap bang against
each other. He gives me such
tinglers on the back and shoulders,
but I Generic Timoptic fetches him a clip with the
hook end of my whip on the side
of his head — Buy Timoptic such a settler — and
gives him a black eye. Then I
says, * Bill, will you have any
more, 'cos I'm ready prepared for
you ? * But he'd got his dose for
that day. Six weeks after that,
Reeves, the landlord of the Falcon
at Uppingham, says to me,
* What's this between you and
Bill ? I'll stand a bottle of wine
to see you make it up. Let's
send for him.' * Well,' I says, * I
don't malice him if he don't
malice me ; * so he comes, and
though we was rather awkward at
first, after we'd had a glass we
shook hands and cleared up our
differences, and after that we was
like brothers. Lord bless thee, if
you want to like a man thorough
there's nothing like fighting him
first."
366
[Mat
The Sportsman's Library.
Very timely is the appearance
of this revised edition of Mr.
Frederick Halford's ** Dry Fly
Fishing."* Few men possess the
many qualities necessary to make
a really expert fisherman, and
fewer still combine with those
qualities the ability to impart
their knowledge on paper, how-
ever well they may be able to
coach a pupil at the river- side.
Mr. Halford is one of the latter.
Readers of the delightful articles
contributed by ** Detached
Badger " to the Field, know that
they are following the fortunes of
a man who has few superiors
when matched against the edu-
cated trout of our chalk streams,
and the first Timoptic Drops edition of his work
proved his talent as an Timoptic Xe 0.5 instructor.
The new edition has had the ad-
vantage of the author's longer
experience, and also of the help-
ful criticism of angling friends.
Too often the disciple of the
floating fly method adopts an
attitude of pitying contempt to-
wards the sunk fly; so wide a
difference does he discover be-
tween the two that one might
suppose dry fly Timoptic Xe fishing is to wet
fly fishing what picking your bird
is to blazing into the brown. Mr.
Halford is far too good a sports-
man to ridicule the time-honoured
form of sport ; he greatly prefers
the method he is at such praise-
worthy pains to teach, but does
not seek to minimise the skill
required for success with the
drowned fly. His frankness con-
cerning the drawbacks of dry fly
fishing is in keeping with this
attitude.
** A dry fly fisher must expect to miss an
abnormally large proportion of rises, owing
to the small flies he uses, and some of our
* "Dry Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice."
New and revised edition. By Frederick M.
Halford. (Vinton & Co.). 155.
friends are apt to quote this as aa arf~-
ment against the Hampshire school, kx-
getting that even if an undsly la^
proportion are missed, yet in p^^ices, aiid
on days hot, bright and calm, n-tiea tk
sunk fly is utterly hopeless, the chilk
stream Hsher will rise fish after fish, and y>
excitement will be kept up by hopes Timoptic Eye Drops and
judicial comparison. It is the
difference between seeing your
stag, stalking and mis^og, aod
tramping the hills without seeing
game. The care and minuteness
with which the author describes
the several modes of casting under
varying conditions of wind and
surroundings cannot be too highiv
commended, and equally deserv-
ing of study are his many valuable
hints for extricating one's tackle
from those frequent mlsha;^
which befall a score of times ia
a day's fishing. In regard to the
much discussed question of the
ability of fish to discriminate be-
tween shades of colour, Mr.
Halford belongs to the school
which adopts a middle course:
which school, we think, has the
largest number of pupils. He
holds that judgment as to where,
how and when to place the fly is
of greater importance than the
exact shade of colour. The
author's careful directions fo:
mastery of the several styles ot
casting are admirably pictured by
Mr. D. Moul, who can evideniiy
handle his rod as cleverly as his
pencil. Witness the frontispiece
here reproduced, showing an
angler in the act of scientificallv
using the landing net. Short of
a course of personal instruction
from the author, the ambitioas
dry fly pupil could not better
equip himself for success than by
careful study of Mr. Halford's
** Dry Fly Fishing" and " Dry Fly
Entomology."