D
DISAPPOINTING Days! How well we all know them, and how terribly frequent they are. Full of ardour and keen as mustard, we anticipate great things, only to find that another day of disappointment is to be added to the many already recorded in our angling diary. And it is sometimes so difficult to anticipate them; all the omens seem to be propitious, and yet the fates are inexorable.
There are days admittedly hopeless, when the river side is only sought for its companionship, and for the unknown possibilities of fortune; and others that are worse than hopeless, when to try to fish for salmon with a fly would be the height of absurdity, as, for instance, when the river is in high spate, or so full of snow brue or ice as to render your chances almost ridiculous. These, in a sense, are certainly disappointing; but it is not of them that I would write, but rather of those inexplicable days when all seems to be fairly propitious and yet we come home "blank."
Fortunately, fishermen are not easily browbeaten by unkind fortune, and these black letter days only serve to give a renewed zest to the future, in anticipation of the more fortunate days that we all confidently believe to be in store for us.
Everything seems on some occasions to go unaccountably wrong. The water may be in order, the fish up, and yet at the end of the day you have nothing but mishaps to record, your confident expectations have been rudely dissipated, and you have met with a series of misfortunes.
Perhaps on starting you find that you have left your flask or your tobacco pouch lying on your mantelpiece, and imprudently have turned back to secure them. That circumstance alone, in the eyes of your gillie, will prove amply sufficient to give you a "disappointing day." You have already discounted your luck, and must not grumble at the result. On reaching the water side you find that you have brought with you the wrong box of flies, and only have with you the one you had discarded overnight as containing those of a size too large. Well, you must make the best of it, mount the least objectionable of those at your disposal, and proceed to wade out into the stream with half your confidence gone. You soon realise that your waders, which had already given you warning indications of hard wear, are leaking somewhat unpleasantly. After working your way half down the pool you discover that your pipe is smoked out, and as you are in need of the consoling influence of tobacco, you propose to refill it, proceeding to knock out the ashes on the butt of your rod; in doing so the pipe slips through your fingers and disappears in the stream at your feet. It is impossible to recover it, so you are pipeless, and therefore inconsolable all day.
Some disappointments are sheer ill fortune; some we bring upon ourselves. You are, for example, casting mechanically, and therefore badly; moreover, you are not watching your fly, nevertheless you get a rise. You step back a yard or so, in order to be sure of getting the length right for the next cast, and in so doing forget the slimy green boulder that you had just negotiated on your way down. An awkward struggle, in which you have to use the butt of your rod as a stick to avoid an upset, does not serve to mend matters, but rather to unsteady you the more. At any rate, you have escaped a real ducking and are proportionately thankful.
Then, your mental balance being somewhat upset, you cast over your rising fish; he comes up well, a good boil, but you are tooanxious and keen, and fairly pull the fly out of the fish's mouth. You have pricked him, and you will hardly get another rise out of him. Still there is a Will-o'-the-wisp kind of luck awaiting you, for near the tail of the pool you get a fair head-and-tail rise, and are fast in a good fish. He won't come up into your pool, but insists on making down, through the broken water, into the pool below. Having guided him to the best of your ability through the intricacies of the run, you hasten to get ashore to get on terms with him, keeping your rod point well up. More haste, less speed. The fact of your mental balance being upset reacts upon your bodily balance, and you catch the toe of your brogue on a submerged rock whilst working your way ashore, and this time you go a real "howler." Thoroughly wet, with a big chunk cut out of your wrist in your fall, you pick yourself up to find that you have broken your favourite rod point. Disconsolately you begin to reel up, the broken top meanwhile floating on your line in the water.
Still a gleam of luck: the fish is on, and, moreover, is complacently careering round the head of the new pool. Thoroughly aroused, you take the greatest care in getting on to terms with him again. Your rod has now a somewhat quaint appearance, like a dismasted yacht. Half the play of it is gone, and the top swirls about on the water in a most disconcerting manner. With set teeth, you grimly determine that, come what may, you will land that salmon. And you meet with some measure of reward, for after a somewhat prolonged duel, he begins to flop about on the surface, and to show unmistakable signs of having had enough of it.
With the greatest care you select the best spot for gaffing him, and successfully get the gaff free from your shoulder. Your now stiff and stodgy rod is, however, not best suited for bringing him in to the gaff. It is some little time before you get anything, like a fair chance. Then, with the rod in your left hand, your trusty gaff in the right, he is led in, down stream, and he flops about. The hold, alas, has been somewhat worn, and, just as you are making ready for your stroke, the fish makes one more roll and surge and is free. A wild scrape with the gaff only scores a scale or two from his side, and, slowly gliding out of sight into the deep water, he disappears forever. You feel that you have only yourself to thank for such adénouement, but that is scant consolation.
Damp and annoyed, you sit yourself down by the river side to try to make matters straight. Where is that waxed silk? At home, of course. So you have to content yourself with sacrificing a good length of the taper of your line in order to make a temporary splice.
Taking all things into consideration, your efforts to rig up a jury top are reasonably successful, and it might yet kill a fish. If only you had a pipe to console yourself with, things might look brighter and better; but the loss of your pipe is an undeniably severe one. The pool that you are now fishing has a shelving stone bank on your side, the deep water being opposite to you. It is ideal water to fish, as the fly works out of the heavy stream into the shallowing water on your side. The wading, moreover, is easy, and the pool a long one, so that there is every probability of your being able to yet retrieve your fortunes, and of being able to account for a heavy fish before you have done with it.
Still keeping mounted the fly that, contrary to your expectations, had already deluded the former fish, you wade out and recommence operations. The cast, however, demands a certain length of line to cover the fish, and your rod is hardly the man it was; the breeze has increased a good deal, and is directly behind you; still, you manage to cover the water fairly well, and are beginning to get on better terms with yourself. A few yards down there is a good rise and a welcome heavy "rugg." The fly, however, comes away, and you are left lamenting. The long pool is steadily fished down, and some hundred yards or so lower you get another bold and confident rise. You strike, and the fly again comes back. Reeling up, sadly you wade ashore, and, on examining your fly, find the barb gone.
small waterfallThe Fall's Pool.
The Fall's Pool.
In all probability it was broken at the head of the pool on the shelving bank behind you, the strong wind at your back and the long cast with a weak rod having brought about the misfortune. Why, in the name of goodness, had you not examined the fly when it came back after your last rise? No doubt but that the barb had gone long before that. Mentally cursing your carelessness, objurgating Dame Fortune, and longing for the companionship of a pipe, there is nothingto be done but to mount another fly and to fish, albeit somewhat mechanically, the next stretch of water. But there is now no response. That inexplicable co-relation between the temperature of the air and the water that seems to cause salmon to rise has undergone some modification, the breeze has dropped, and the mists are beginning to rise. Do what you will, not a fish will move.
Had your luck been in the ascendant, or had you paid more respect to the superstitions of your attendant gillie, things might have been so different. You have had three good chances, each of which, under normal circumstances, might have been fairly expected to score, and that with flies that, in your judgment, were a size too large. Fate had determined that you were to have a "disappointing day," and you cannot say that you have not scored one.
In September, 1902, having received an invitation from an old friend to fish one of the upper beats of the Spean, I journeyed up North, full of eagerness. I had long wished to try that river. My host had informed me that that river was low, but that everything pointed to broken weather and rain; and though this forecast was true as regards some portions of Great Britain, the change never came during the fortnight that I spent on Spean side, that bonnie river getting finer and finer day by day, until at last it became a mere shadow of its former self. At the time of my arrival everything looked promising. Heavy clouds were gathering, and it looked as if the promised rainfall could not be long delayed. At the lodge I found, besides my host, another angler whom I am also privileged to call an old friend, and in such company I knew that, whether sport were good or no, we should at least have a jolly time. That evening we discussed flies and angling details as only fishermen can, and with a last look out of the window at the murky sky, and a tap to my barometer as I turned in somewhat early, looking forward to the morrow with the keenest anticipation.
Early astir next morning, I drew up my blinds to find an almost cloudless sky and a bright sun. All the evening promise had been dissipated, and the rain-laden clouds had wandered out to sea to discharge their precious stores where least required. The river, though small, was, nevertheless, still fishable, and there were plenty of salmon up.At the lowest pool on the beat I put up my rod and fixed up the local "medicine"—a Thunder and Lightning—and, wading out, fished the pool down carefully, without result. My host then fished it, also blank. Several fish had shown at the tail, but we could not get a rise out of them. Then we wandered up the beat, trying all the likely pools in turn. In the mill pool I managed to get into a small salmon, about 7 lb. in weight, and duly got him out; otherwise our efforts were entirely unrewarded. It was a great thing to learn the pools, and to know where it was safe to wade, etc., and so I felt that the day was not a lost one as far as I was concerned, though of course less interesting to my friend S. and to my host. As we came home the clouds again began to gather, to lure us, Will-o'-the-wisp-like, on to further baseless hope, as the following bright, hot morning amply testified.
And so the days wore on, rocks gradually appearing where water had flowed before, shallows becoming stony strands, and the fish more pool-locked than ever. Finer grew the tackle used, smaller the flies. We were really learning the geography of the bed of the river to some weariness. After a few days S. gave up trying for the salmon, and contented himself with trout waders and a trout rod as being more productive of amusement. Being, however, of a more dogged temperament, I stuck to the salmon, fishing with the smallest flies I could get, and almost trout gut. By means of these allurements I did succeed in amusing myself, rising and hooking quite a respectable number of fish, but somehow or other I never could get a good hold of them; all were lightly hooked, and got off in playing or eventually broke me. One fish I was particularly annoyed with; he was a heavy one, well over 20 lb., and might have been 30 lb. I had often seen him showing in the pool at the end of the Red Bank. This formed really the head of the Mill Pool, but was now cut off from the main part of the Mill Pool by a daily lowering shallow some 1 ft. to 18 in. deep, through which sharp-cutting rocks jutted at intervals. In mid-stream quite a highish bank of stones was now disclosed, and on our side had quite cut off the flow of water and formed a large backwater. The pool was fishable with a short line, and the high, rocky bank behind formed a good shelter whilst working down the very rough bank side. Aboutfour o'clock one afternoon I saw my friend show twice in the head of the pool, and determined to give him another trial with the little Popham that had already risen fish. He took it grandly, with a head-and-tail rise, right up in the roughish water in the neck, and then proceeded to sail round the diminished proportions of the deep hole. He played very heavily, but did not jigger or show any signs of being lightly hooked. After some time of this kind of work, which was taking but little out of him, my light cast forbidding any heroic measures on my part, I began to wonder how I could manage to kill him. He could have got up into the pool above, where it would have been an easier matter to deal with him, but no arts of mine could induce him up stream. I thought that if I could get him down into the backwater I could more readily manage to play and kill him, so I walked him steadily down stream, and he followed for some distance like a lamb. Suddenly, however, he made up his mind for a run, or, realising the object of my manoeuvre, off he went, churning his way across the wide shallow, his back fin almost showing, bound for the main stream on the other side. Sixty yards of line were soon gone, then seventy, then eighty, and, as I could not follow, it was merely a question of when he would break me, when apparently he changed his mind, turned clean round and ran back through the shallow towards me for all he was worth. Holding the rod as high as I could to prevent my line being cut by the half-submerged, jagged rocks, and paying in line as hard as I could at the same time, I got him within twenty yards of the spot where he was hooked, the little Popham holding well, and with no slack line. Just as my gillie and I were congratulating ourselves that we had him now, up came the point of my rod, and he was gone. The light cast had been terribly frayed by his mad rush across the shallow water, and he retained my Popham and left me lamenting. It certainly was hard lines, when all the dangers of the run had been so successfully overcome and hooked fish were so scarce.
It is useless, however, to repine in such circumstances, and after all, in a very dead time, he had given me a good twenty minutes to half an hour of sport. My friend S. came up just as we parted company, and condoled with me. That same afternoon my host managed to land a 21 lb. fish on a stouter tackle, and he was notvery red—the fish I mean, not my host!—although he must have been up some time.
The same thing went on all the next week. A few desultory showers did not help us much, and at the end of a fortnight's solid work I could only show two small salmon of 7 lb. apiece, my host one of 21 lb., and S., who had confined his attention to the trout after the first few days, had not landed any fish. And so it is—too often, alas!—that our hopes are doomed to disappointment. There were the fish, plenty of them; but also there were the gradually dwindling river and the expanding river bed. Nothing was wanting save a kindly and copious fall of rain—so much needed by three ardent anglers—rain that was falling only too copiously down South, whilst the normally wet North-West coast of Scotland was languishing for want of it.
A dear fishing friend of mine took a rod for February one year, and lived at Brawl Castle for the month at the rate of about £1 per day. During the whole month the river and even Loch More were ice-bound, and his rods reposed in the box. The trip must have cost him the best part of £100. So our Spean experience was as nothing to his.
And these disappointments make an admirable foil for those happy, though not too frequent, times when, for a wonder, river, fish, and weather are all we could desire them to be. How little we should value them were they of constant recurrence. So, consoling ourselves with these reflections, we enjoy to the full the pleasure of the company of kindred spirits, tie flies, grease lines, and fettle up rods generally, yarn away our fishermen's tales, drink nightly the toast of "Rain, and lots of it," and retire at night, confident, despite all, of the morrow.
Perchance your next holiday up North you may find your pet river in sullen, heavy flood, the skies pouring down upon the devoted hills a constant deluge. Each day you mark on the river bank the water level, only to find your mark submerged the next day. Supposing even it were to stop now. Could the river fine down sufficiently before the end of your stay to enable you to have a glimmering hope of a fish? It is possible, but doubtful. Next day's deluge settles the matter, and you are done. But still, it is a poor heart that never rejoices. Nexttime, after such a run of bad luck, you are bound to have an innings. Men who have the instincts of sportsmen and who deserve the name have a marvellous power of rising superior to adverse circumstances, and consequently get their reward, whilst the dead-hearted give it up as a bad job. Come good or bad luck, let your heart be in the right place. You will be able to extract from either much enjoyment and some experience, and will be just as keen to take the luck that comes the very next opportunity you get of testing it.
F
FOR his size and weight there is no more sporting fish in the wide world than the sea trout. His play when hooked is so full of vivacity, so strenuous, you never know what he is going to do next. Half the time of the contest he spends out of the water in the air. He rushes hither and thither in the most unexpected manner, and having no particular stronghold or shelter to make for, such as his cousins, the brown trout, possess in their rivers, he tries by resourceful activity to rid himself of the irksome restraint of the rod and line. His rise, too, is so determined and so dashing—no quiet sucking down of a dun without much perceptible body movement, but rather a rapid dash to secure an article of food before his comrades can get it. Not much need to strike with him; he hooks himself pretty effectually by his own efforts. Given a single-handed split cane rod, fine tackle, and plenty of fresh run sea trout in a Highland river, and you have the prospect of as good a day's sport as any you ever enjoyed. You never know what the next cast will produce; it may be a half-pounder or something twelve times as big.
The worst of sea trout, from the angler's point of view, is that they are rather gregarious and keep in shoals; they are always anxious to move up to the still deeps they love so well, and you may just miss the shoal—they may be just above your water. But if you do happen to hit them off, you will have no reason to regret it. Not many seasons ago I was invited by a friend to shoot with him on one of the many Western islands near Mull. Just before I reached the lodge, in my somewhat long drive upfrom the landing place, I met my friend, rod in hand, by a deep-looking, leg-of-mutton-shaped pool where his stream found its outlet into the brackish waters of the arm of the sea that looked like a land-locked loch.
"Get out of the trap; I've got a treat for you," were his first words of greeting; and then he explained that they had had, the evening before, the first run of the sea trout, and that, standing on a little rock in the brackish water, he had caught quantities of fine fish. Nothing loth to stretch my arms and legs, I took the proffered rod with many thanks, and fished the pool down carefully without a rise of any kind, or a sign of a fish. Putting on another fly, I tried it down again, and also the brackish water at its mouth, with similar results. My friend had foreborne to throw a fly on it until my arrival, and so he chaffed me unmercifully at my want of success after the extraordinary sport he had experienced the afternoon before. I told him that I did not believe there was a trout in the water, and as he had the netting rights, and had come down in the boat with the nets in it, we carefully netted the pool. My host was so convinced that the sea trout were there, that he offered to bet me any odds against a blank draw. He would, however, have lost had I taken his bet, for sure enough there was not a single fish in the whole pool. Whilst I made my way up to the lodge, he went up to try some of the higher pools, but not a rise did he get. The whole big run, shoal like, had run clean up into a small lochan, of which his stream was the outlet.
But when you happen to find them just in the right place, where you are, then you may congratulate yourself, if you have not too big a rod with you, for half the pleasure of angling is to suit your rod and tackle to the river and the fish. It is giving the show away and discounting half your sport to be "over-rodded." To fish, for instance, in the upper beats of, say, the Helmsdale, in Sutherland, with an 18 ft. rod is absurd. A 16 ft. or 14 ft. grilse rod will enable you to cover the water well, and the sport you will get from the 9 lb. to 14 lb. salmon in the well-stocked river will be greatly enhanced. A powerful 18 ft. Castleconnel will choke the fish unadvisedly. You might as well use a sledge hammer to crack an egg. So, too, with sea trout, a 14 ft. double-handed rod robs you of the better part of the sport and gives you no real satisfaction. On the other hand, if, as you may well do, you happen to get into agrilse or small salmon with your small rod and forty yards of line, then the sport you get will be worth living for, and will often recur to your remembrance in after times. You will need all your knowledge and resource not to be broken; you will in all probability have no gaff with you, and will have to tail him out, or, better still, persuade him to kick himself ashore on a shelving beach when played out. And it is extraordinary how little pressure of the rod is needed in such cases to keep his head the right way, and each kick and wriggle sends him further up the beach. Then getting between him and the river, having laid down your rod, you can put him out of his misery and despatch him.
A few seasons ago, when grouse shooting in the North, I was kindly given an opportunity to fish the Glentana beats of the Dee. The river was low, and as it was then early September, what fish were up were red and ugly, but a change to the river side was welcome, and I had never seen the pools in that part of the water. So, donning my waders, I took with me a 10 ft. 6 in. rod, cane-built, by Walbran, some light grilse and trout casts, and the smallest grilse flies I had by me. I also fortunately put in my bag a small box of Test flies. Nothing had been done for days in any of the Ballater waters, or indeed in any part of that brawling river Dee. The few anglers who had gone out had religiously kept to the orthodox salmon rod, salmon gut, and big flies, and had caught nothing. When I got out of the dogcart and put up my little rod I noticed a smile upon the river keeper's face, but nothing daunted thereby, I followed him down the slopes to a beautiful pool below.
I put on a baby Jock Scott, and fished the pool most carefully. At the tail of the pool a big red fish gave a sullen kind of plunge, but not at my fly, for it was not near him at the time. I put the Jock Scott over him without result, and then tried him with a tiny Silver Doctor; but he ignored that also; and so I wandered down from pool to pool, learning a good deal of the river bed, owing to the lowness of the water. After a bit, I saw what I took to be the rise of a trout on the far side, so taking off my "Doctor," I opened my Test fly box and examined its contents. I hit off a gold-ribbed hare's ear, dressed on a 00 hook, which I thought might do, and wading out, had to make my little rod do all it could to reach the required spot. I fished the water above first, in order to soak my fly and make it sink. When I reached the place whereI thought I had seen the rise, I fished with more care, and soon as my fly was working round below me, I felt a vigorous tug; something had taken it under water without showing. I was soon convinced that it was no trout that had laid hold, and got ashore as quickly as I could, but I had only forty yards of line and a little backing, so was soon compelled to take to the water again, as my fish was playing sullenly on the far side of the stream. I put on what pressure I dare in order to get on better terms with him, and this roused him a bit, for a vigorous run up to the head of the pool nearly ran my line out, although I was wading as deep as I dared do. My friend the keeper now became interested, and waded in alongside me.
Though big, the fish was rather craven-hearted, and I was soon able to get ashore again. However, his weight was great, and when he got into the stream down he went into the next pool, I following, rod point up and reel freely running. There were about forty minutes of this slow kind of play and several incursions into the water, and then I began to see my backing on the reel perilously diminishing. The 00 hook, however, still held well, and at last I had the satisfaction of seeing the big brute floundering on the surface. The keeper, meanwhile, had gone lip to the house to get a gaff, and, walking backwards from the river, I tried to drag the exhausted salmon within his reach; but, although the rod point was about level with the reel, the dead weight of the fish was more than I could manage. So my friend the keeper, deploring the irreparable damage that must have been done to my rod, waded in, thigh deep, and drove the steel into about as ugly and as red an old cock fish as I have ever seen. His under jaw was crooked, and he looked like an evil monster. He weighed just 17½ lb. As soon as the strain was off my Walbran rod it sprang up as straight and as limber as ever, to the great astonishment of the keeper, who had, oddly enough, never come across a rod of that description. Burying our red fish in the bracken, we went down a bit lower, and, two pools below the house, got out another cock fish of 10 lb., and returning home secured a third in the very same pool where I had caught the first; this proved to be a hen fish of 12 lb. They were all red and ugly, but the last one was, comparatively speaking, quite passable. As soon as she was gaffed we looked up the first fish; he had turned quite black,and was a gruesome sight. So, leaving the three fish with the keeper, to kipper or do what he liked with, I got into the dogcart and drove home. Of course, these fish would not have come to the gaff in the way they did had they been spring fish, or lately arrived in the water; but, all the circumstances being taken into account, the 21st September, 1900, will always recur to my mind as a real sporting day. Sundry other salmon has this little rod accounted for, and it is as true as steel and fit for any fight.
Such incidents as these add very materially to the interest of sea trout fishing, for, as I have said, you never can tell what your next cast may produce. It is small wonder, therefore, that good sea trout angling is so eagerly sought after and so hard to get. Your best chance of getting such sport is to go a bit further afield, to the Shetland Isles, the Orkneys, or somewhere a little out of the beaten track.
Finis
hills with sunset behind them
Seasons come and go, each in its turn bringing us nearer to the last, those that remain for our enjoyment growing steadily and inevitably fewer. But the instinct of sport, inbred in most of us, dies hard. I, too, would echo Mr. Sydney Buxton's words, and hope that when my time comes, and my loved rods hang useless in their cases, Old Charon will permit me to loiter awhile on the Styx, and cast one last fly on its dark and turgid waters.
ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
UNIFORM WITH "CHATS ON ANGLING."————————
STALKING SKETCHES.
With Numerous Illustrations by the Author.————————CONTENTS.
I.—INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.II.—THE FOREST AND SANCTUARY.III.—THE STALKER.IV.—PERSONAL EQUIPMENT.V.—THE SHOT AND THE GRALLOCH.VI.—DEER AND THEIR ANTLERS.VII.—PECULIARITIES OF DEER.VIII.—HIND SHOOTING.IX.—DEERHOUNDS AND WOUNDED DEER.X.—THE SPIRACULA OF DEER.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
————————EXTRACTS FROM PRESS NOTICES.
"The book will be found a welcome addition to the sportsman's library."—Liverpool Mercury.
"The author's full-page illustrations are delightful things—pictures in the best sense of the word."—Newcastle Chronicle.
"Capt. Hart-Davis's delightfully breezy pages contain, besides a quantity of advice to novices, and, for that matter, others besides novices, a number of excellently written accounts of stalks and good stories of the 'hull.' The writer's pencil sketches add not a little to the attractiveness of a volume that is sure to take its place on the shelves of the enthusiastic stalker.... Every page contains sound and wholesome advice on the sport and everything connected with it."—County Gentleman.
"The seventeen full-page illustrations are a pleasure to look at, filled as they are with the very breath and spaciousness of the lonely haunts of the deer."—Glasgow Herald.
"Such a compleat stalker is Capt. Hart-Davis, and many who view his hardier craft with scant interest, or even with scant sympathy, may spend a delightful hour in looking over his admirable drawings."—Yorkshire Observer.
"The prime essential to make a book worth reading is that the author should have familiar knowledge of his subject; but when he adds just that degree of enthusiasm which renders him eloquent as well, the reader deems himself fortunate. Capt. Hart-Davis, however, adds a third grace, for he is his own artist likewise, and has drawn a series of beautiful illustrations, rich in the true atmosphere of the Highlands."—Notts Guardian.
"Without bringing Landseer into comparison, there are a number of drawings here, which for their presentment of stag and hind, of moor and fell, and misty mountain side may fairly be placed against anything of the kind from the pencils of Ansdell or Frederick Taylor."—Bookseller.
"One great merit that the book possesses is originality, for although the subject is by no means new, the author's treatment of it imparts a freshness which carries the reader from page to page with sustained interest."—The Field.
"His chapters on 'Personal Equipment' and 'The Shot' are excellent, and ought to be closely studied by all novices at this sport."—Sporting and Dramatic News.
"Capt. Hart-Davis deserves thanks not only for what he has written and sketched, but also for what his book suggests of the sport which holds the first place in Scotland."—Land and Water.
"The surroundings of stags in the forests of Scotland are excellently represented in 'Stalking Sketches,' a reprint of articles contributed toThe Field, illustrated by the author's drawings, which for the most part have considerable artistic merit. The articles justify republication, being pleasantly written and full of sound advice.... The volume is attractively got up, and should please many besides deerstalkers."—Athenæum.
"Capt. Hart-Davis has now published in book form his very interesting series of 'Stalking Sketches' which originally appeared inThe Field. The volume is very well illustrated with a number of full-page original pictures by the author. Everyone interested in our forests and stalking, whether through the good fortune of personal experience, or merely through the literature of sport, will welcome these articles in their present form."—Dundee Advertiser.
"Sportsmen who love the red deer will give a ready welcome to this readable book. It is on every page lively with the interest born of an intimate practical knowledge of the sport, and is illustrated by many drawings, which are not only noticeable from their artistic merits, but have a didactic value of their own for naturalists and young sportsmen. The work makes a valuable addition to the literature of its subject."—Scotsman.
————————London: HORACE COX, Windsor House, Bream's Buildings, E.C.
Transcriber's Notes:Obvious punctuation errors repaired. All weights have a space between the number and the "lb." This was also done with "ft." and "in."Page 56, duplicate word "a" removed from text. Original read (a a smiling rubicund)Page 63, "circumstanses" changed to "circumstances" (upon several circumstances)
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired. All weights have a space between the number and the "lb." This was also done with "ft." and "in."
Page 56, duplicate word "a" removed from text. Original read (a a smiling rubicund)
Page 63, "circumstanses" changed to "circumstances" (upon several circumstances)