ANGLING IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



CHAPTER I. 



A GENERAL SURVEY. 



The opening sentence of this Handbook I should like to 

 be the expression of a belief — to wit that, take it all in all, 

 year in and year out, there is no better sport in the world 

 for the angler than in Great Britain. The affected sighing 

 after the good old times, and the gloomy apprehension that 

 this highly favoured country is going to the dogs, with 

 which we are all but too familiar, are shared in by him, of 

 course, if he would live up to his privileges ; nevertheless, 

 grumbling granted, and too much cause for grumbling 

 granted in the same breath, he has not a great deal to 

 complain of 



At a very interesting meeting last year at the Society of 

 Arts, when a goodly congregation of anglers met to hear 

 and discuss a paper by Mr. Marston on the propagation of 

 coarse fish, we were all highly amused at a speech from an 

 eminent American pisciculturist, who dilated upon the 

 excellent qualities of the Black Bass, and suggested the 

 propriety of introducing that sportive fish into certain 

 British waters. He incidentally referred to some of the 

 angling paragraphs which appear week after week in the 

 English sporting papers, and raised an easy laugh by 

 dwelling upon the fuss sometimes made over infinitesimal 



B 



