4 IGNORANCE ABOUT ANGLING. 



commonly practised than bottom-fishing in Eng- 

 land, is more generally so than trolling, more 

 particularly in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. 



Although in teaching an art it would be more 

 regular to commence with the easiest branches of 

 it, I begin, for several reasons, with fly-fishing, 

 acknowledging it, however, to be that division of 

 the art of angling which is learned the least 

 easily. I shall only give one reason for my ir- 

 regularity, viz. that he who has learned the prac- 

 tice of fly-fishing will readily learn the two other 

 branches of angling. He will learn them more 

 readily than if he began with either ; for he who 

 has begun with fly-fishing and succeeded must 

 have attained quickness of eye and lightness of 

 hand. If the reader should desire to be more 

 methodical than I am, he has the power of being 

 so, by reading this handbook as if it were written 

 in Hebrew. He will then find the last first, and 

 the first almost last. If he wishes for slow, but 

 sure advancement, let him reverse the order of 

 reading, moving from nearly the back rank to 

 the centre, and so on to the front. 



The long-continued, unbroken chain of ignor- 

 ance that runs, in many instances, through the 

 world is almost incomprehensible to the active 

 mind. It is a miracle of visible darkness amidst 

 the intelligence that surrounds us. 4 The dic- 

 tionary-making pensioner,' as Cobbett used to 



