Shorter Notices Great Angling Stories. Selected and edited by John
M. Dickie, (Chambers. 15s.) MANY, perhaps the majority, of fishermen in these islands have been unable to visit the streams of their hearts during the last couple of seasons. Exigencies of war, absence of holidays, short- age of petrol have combined to banish them—except possibly for a hard-won day or two—from the moorland and mountain burns or the southern chalk streams that they love. Mr. Dickie's anthology is therefore particularly timely, and he claims it to be, as far as he knows, the first of its kind. Whether or not this is the case, and the present reviewer thinks it may well be so, Mr. Dickie has brought together from life and literature a very fascinating and catholic assembly of stories and anecdotes of salmon and trout caught, escaped or returned—legitimately and illegitimately. His authors include Claudius Aelianus - of A.D. 300 or 8o, who gives perhaps the first description in history of fishing with the artificial fly, and, of course, Izaak Walton, the master. R. D. Blackmore takes- us to the Culm, still one of the loveliest and most unspoiled rivers of Devonshire. Modern experts such as Francis Francis, William Senior and H. T. Sheringham are gathered into his fold; and if John Buchan and Maurice Walsh, excelled by none in describing the poaching of a salmon, have defeated the anthologist in the disentangle- ment of their fishing episodes from their stories, such delightful writers as Roland Pertwee and Patrick Chalmers are there to fill the gaps. Relations and friends of _fishermen need look no further this year for a birthday present.
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