VI. PBEPAOB. ' 



of the annually increasing passion for angling, is to convert open into 

 private waters. This spirit of exclusiveness prevails more in Scot- 

 land than in the sister kingdom, where, however, each year closes 

 some station that was previously free to the wandering sportsman. 

 The beneficial influence of the Fishery Act of 1861 is also fertile 

 in changes ; converting, rapidly and surely, bad streams into good 

 ones. Everywhere through the land salmon are on the increase, 

 not merely as regards numbers, but also as respects size, and in 

 the few rivers where artificial propagation has been steadily and 

 systematically followed that increase has been great indeed. 



Whilst in Canada and the United States the king of fish is day 

 by day becoming more scarce, in Great Britain it is growing more 

 numerous. 



Halcyon days are in store for the rising generation of anglers ; 

 and should one of these, faint and weary from the battle of life, 

 stumble on this volume, then probably long forgotten, may he do 

 as I have done, and gain new strength for the combat, through the 

 healing influence of a second "Yeae of Libeety." 



W. P. 

 June, 1867. 



