Fishing for Pleasure and Catching It. By E. Marston. (T.
Werner Laurie. 3s. 6d. net.)—" Catching pleasure "----and very little else I The comment is so obvious that so old an hand, both at angling and at writing, must have intended that it should be made. If it does not hinder the pleasure of the " Amateur Angler" that he comes home with basket light, or even empty, still less does it hinder the pleasure of his readers. He is always cheery and good-humoured, at least by the time he has taken up his pen. The familiar evils of floods or cloud- less skies appear again and again in his experiences. It is not here, alas as Horace tells us it was in the Happy Isles which he counsels his countrymen to seek. The Rex caelitum does not moderate the rainy winds on the one hand, and the rage of the Dog Star on the other. And here, too, we have another trouble which Horace certainly never contemplated,— a sewage farm making the banks of a neighbouring stream im- passable. Readers who know how pleasantly Mr. E. Marston can write need not have his new volume any further commended. We must not omit a mention of the last two chapters, contributed by Mr. R. B. Marston (of the Fishing Gazette). He says something about the Conway that is worth noting. First, that salmon pools may be easily made by judicious building of dams. You deepen the water, and the fish will stay in it. This makes for sport ; but, unhappily, gas refuse and filth of all kinds are poured into the river, and the whole thing is ruined. Anglers are but a feeble folk, counted by scores at most, whereas there are thousands of tourists. So the Welsh proprietors seem to reason ; but it may be doubted whether they are wise.
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