As pants the hart for water-brooks, .so pants the soul
of the town-stayed mortal for the trout-stream (though not perhaps so much in July and August). If he can't get there ever again; or only seldom, here is Mr. Arthur Ransome's Rail and Line (Cape, ' 7s. ad.) to remind him of sights and sounds that he used to know and love. Friendly, charming, and useful are these little essays—what can one say more ? For their usefulness, let the angler perpend and practise the tips contained in the paper on wet flies for down-stream fishing, and he is more than likely to add some day to his basket. One does not say bag, for though Mr. Ransome does on occasion (no doubt) carry a bag on the sedate and classic chalk-streams of the south or on the somewhat haughty Dove, one feels sure that a creel is his most frequent friend, as it is to most wet-fly men and all-round anglers. Not alone trouting with the fly or clear-worming up the beck engages his attention, but he has much that is jolly to read about the morose carp, the chicken-hearted chub, and the tench which he failed to catch ; but then he did not (it seems) try the head-end of a large black-headed worm. Forty pages of the book are devoted to one Aksakov (1791-1859), a Russian, who (rather surprisingly) wrote about fishing, but we would much rather have had more Ransome, for he is an angling-catholic who practises and delights in every sort of freshwater fishing and can make every other fishing heart share in his delight.
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