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MR. PUNCH WITH ROD AND GUN

Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
underscores: _italics_.

PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

Edited by J. A. HAMMERTON

Designed to provide in a series of volumes, each complete in itself, the
cream of our national humour, contributed by the masters of comic
draughtsmanship and the leading wits of the age to "Punch", from its
beginning in 1841 to the present day

[Illustration]

[Illustration: A FEAT OF AGILITY.--_Voice from the Bow_ (_to Binks, who
is trying to adjust the moorings, and has arrived at the happy moment
when he is doubtful whether he will stay with the pole or return to the
punt_). "Now then, you idiot, keep still! I've got a nibble!"]

MR. PUNCH WITH ROD AND GUN

THE HUMOURS OF FISHING AND SHOOTING

[Illustration]

_WITH 193 ILLUSTRATIONS_

BY
CHARLES KEENE, JOHN LEECH,
PHIL MAY, GEORGE DU MAURIER,
L. RAVEN-HILL, C. SHEPPERSON,
CECIL ALDIN, BERNARD PARTRIDGE,
W. J. HODGSON, A. S. BOYD,
TOM BROWNE, REGINALD CLEAVER,
CHARLES PEARS, H. M. BROCK, AND OTHERS.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH THE PROPRIETORS OF "PUNCH"

[Illustration]

THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD.

THE PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

_Twenty-five volumes, crown 8vo, 192 pages fully illustrated_

LIFE IN LONDON
COUNTRY LIFE
IN THE HIGHLANDS
SCOTTISH HUMOUR
IRISH HUMOUR
COCKNEY HUMOUR
IN SOCIETY
AFTER DINNER STORIES
IN BOHEMIA
AT THE PLAY
MR. PUNCH AT HOME
ON THE CONTINONG
RAILWAY BOOK
AT THE SEASIDE
MR. PUNCH AFLOAT
IN THE HUNTING FIELD
MR. PUNCH ON TOUR
WITH ROD AND GUN
MR. PUNCH AWHEEL
BOOK OF SPORTS
GOLF STORIES
IN WIG AND GOWN
ON THE WARPATH
BOOK OF LOVE
WITH THE CHILDREN

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

PREFACE

As a fisherman MR. PUNCH is in the best of his humours. He makes merry
over the weaknesses of those who follow the craft of Old Izaak, always
with the slyest of genial manners. The angler's habit of exaggerating
the size of his catch--his patience or his impatience when the fish
won't bite--the conscious or unconscious ridicule he has to endure from
onlookers when he is unsuccessful--the proverbial thirst that attacks
the fisherman, whether he catches anything or not--MR. PUNCH has a keen
eye for all such incidentals and presents them so jovially that nobody
laughs over them more heartily than his victims themselves do.

[Illustration]

Leech, Charles Keene, Phil May, Du Maurier, Raven-Hill, Bernard
Partridge, G. D. Armour--most of the best-known PUNCH artists, old and
new, have revelled in the humours of both fishing and shooting.

[Illustration: "POTTING SHRIMPS"]

He gets as much laughter out of those who handle the gun. The infinite
variety of jokes he cracks about the bad shot, the man who can't hit the
birds, or is always hitting the dogs or his companion guns, is amazing.
He does not spare the lady shooter, and jests of the peril in which the
rest of the field are placed when she is out after the birds or rabbits;
and he gets a good deal of fun out of the Frenchman's alien notion of
sport.

[Illustration]

OBSERVATIONS ON GROUND BAIT.--Boys are often taught, though they never
learn, to regard fishing as a cruel amusement, when nevertheless
angling, at least as most commonly practised in the Thames, is
universally admitted to be particularly and pre-eminently the _gentle_
craft.

       *       *       *       *       *

EPITAPH ON AN ANGLER.--"Hooked it."

       *       *       *       *       *

THE DUFFER WITH A SALMON-ROD

FROM "THE CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER"

No pursuit is more sedentary, if one may talk of a sedentary pursuit,
and none more to my taste, than trout-fishing as practised in the South
of England. Given fine weather, and a good novel, nothing can be more
soothing than to sit on a convenient stump, under a willow, and watch
the placid kine standing in the water, while the brook murmurs on, and
perhaps the kingfisher flits to and fro. Here you sit and fleet the time
carelessly, till a trout rises. Then, indeed, duty demands that you
shall crawl in the manner of the serpent till you come within reach of
him, and cast a fly, which usually makes him postpone his dinner-hour.
But he will come on again, there is no need for you to change your
position, and you can always fill your basket easily--with irises and
marsh-marigolds.

Such are