DIES PISCATORI^. 



Many readers, when they come to " Appendix," will shut 

 up a book and throw it aside, for the word sounds to them 

 very much like " appendage," and is associated in their minds 

 with caudal appendage, or, according to the nomenclature 

 adopted by that eminent naturalist Mr. Sparrowgrass, in his 

 observations on the dog, " organ of recognition." Such 

 people think, with Mr. Sparrowgrass's butcher, that a dog's 

 tail or any other appendix is a useless or superfluous thing. 

 I differ with them, for it is not so with the appendix to a 

 good book or to a good saddle of mutton. An author, 

 though, or a politician, must not combat popular prejudice, 

 if he would gain the ear of the people ; but when an old 

 idea or an old principle becomes hackneyed or unpopular, it 

 may still be presented to advantage under a new name, " by 

 either of the aforesaid, as the case may be." I therefore dis- 

 card that stale old word " appendix," and use the new bait at 

 the head of this page, to lure the reader on to the end of the 

 book. 



In the following pages, I have taken up the old angling 

 authors' dialogue-method of telling what I have to say about 

 fishing-places. The information given is fact, the scenes 

 described are real, and the persons appearing to take part in 

 the dialogue are real and of the "Houseless." The place 

 mentioned as the scene of each nooning is real or supposed, 



or both, or like the romance " founded on fact." 



(489) 



