using the wrist and not the length of the arm in casting.

You will again and again find Halford's wisdom as if carelessly thrown
down upon a bald place. Some of the critics in the daily press were
fond of saying of his books, "Yes, yes: this is all very good no doubt,
but it does look as if page after page is simply a monotonous recital
of catching trout that are very much alike by processes that have a
strong family likeness." A careless surveyor of the page perhaps would
think in this way, and never for the life of him perceive the point
sought to be made by the writer of the book.

Halford was an angler from his youth upwards, and himself tells us that
by his family he was considered "fishing mad," which, as so many of my
readers may remember, is the orthodox manner in which the young
enthusiast is classified by the unbelievers of his family. He fished
often and in various places as a youth, but it was not till he became a
member of the Houghton Club water on the Test that he plunged into his
life-work for anglers. The date may be given as 1877, and the fire was
kindled by being on the river one April day, and witnessing one of
those marvellous rises of grannom that might once be relied upon every
season on the Test. Many of us who still linger have seen this
phenomenon, only equalled by the hatch of Mayfly in the Kennet Valley
twenty years ago. Just as clouds of Mayfly would greet you on the
railway platforms between Reading and Hungerford, flying into the open
windows, clinging to the lamp-posts and seats, so at Houghton and
Stockbridge the shucks of the grannom would drift into eddies and
collect almost as solid as a weed-bed. Such things are not to be seen
now, and have not been seen for years.

From the swaddling clothes of the risen grannom, cast thus upon the
surface of the water by the insect made perfect, Halford turned to the
artificial imitations then in use. They were of importance in those
days, for the grannom was an institution much regarded, and the grannom
season was held in high esteem. Anglers packed their kit and hurried
away when the grannom was signalled up. There were as many patterns of
the artificial grannom as there are to-day of the March brown, and it
was because Halford found them of varying forms and colourings, and not
a really good imitation of the natural fly amongst them all, that he
resolved to learn how to dress a fly for himself. His stores of
patience were heavily