As pants the hart for water-brooks, so pants the soul of the town-stayed mortal for the trout-stream (though not perhaps so much in July and August). If he can't get there ever again; or only seldom, here is Mr. Arthur Ransome's Rod and Line (Cape, 7s. 6d.) to remind him of sights and sounds that he used to know and love. Friendly, charming, and useful are these little essays - what can one say more? For their usefulness, let the angler perpend and practise the tips contained in the paper on wet flies for down-stream fishing, and he is more than likely to add some day to his basket. One does not say bag, for though Mr. Ransome does on occasion (no doubt) carry a bag on the sedate and classic chalk-streams of the south or on the somewhat haughty Dove, one feels sure that a creel is his most frequent friend, as it is to most wet-fly men and all-round anglers. Not alone trouting with the fly or clear-worming up the beck engages his attention, but he has much that is jolly to read about the morose carp, the chicken-hearted chub, and the tench which he failed to catch; but then he did not (it seems) try the head-end of a large black-headed worm. Forty pages of the book are devoted to one Aksakov (1791-1859), a Russian, who (rather surprisingly) wrote about fishing, but we would much rather have had more Ransome, for he is an angling-catholic who practises and delights in every sort of freshwater fishing and can make every other fishing heart share in his delight.