What I have Seen while Fishing and How I Caught
any Fish. By Philip Geen. (P. Geen, Richmond. Is. 6d.)—Mr. Geen gives more than half of his volume to his Irish experiences, and he is manifestly right in doing so. He seems to have had both good sport and a good time generally ; and he mingles his descriptions and recollections of how he caught fish—salmon, trout, and pollack—with pleasant sketches of the people and their ways. He had a glimpse now and then of their superstitions, and he sometimes ventured on the dangerous ground of politics. "May we be preserved from getting all we ask," was the sagacious reply of a farmer when he was asked whether "laws could be better made in Dublin." From Ireland we pass to Scotland, where Mr. Geen seems to have had some successful spring salmon-fishing, probably the best thing to be got in the fishing way in these days of overcrowding. Finally we get to the Home Counties, which our author knows very well,—has he not been for more than a quarter of a century president of the Association of London Anglers? Ireland and Scotland are for, the few—non cuivis contingit—but the Thames, the Lee, the Ouse are within easy reach of many, and this part of the volume, though the smallest in number of pages, will very likely be the most generally welcome. In the Home Counties, anyhow, the angler is not liable to the fraud which Mr. Geen tells us was practised on ,a friend of his in respect of certain parts of a Scotch river. He paid £25 for a fortnight, and found that a firm of fish-dealers lad a simul- taneous right to fish the same parts with nets. The friend rose a salmon, and while he was waiting before throwing over the fish again, the men who worked the nets came on the scene. The angler did not have another chance; but the net-proprietor very hand- somely gave him the fish. That was nicely done; but what of the canny Scotsman who took the £25 ?
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