PREFACE. Xlll 



of the accessories which he paints so gra- 

 phically and invitingly his " honey-suckle 

 hedges" his "airy creatures 1 " his "silver 

 streams" than for the actual fishing ? I verily 

 believe he has done as much to promote a 

 genial and healthy love of Nature as any man 

 who ever lived. 



That Fishing has, by thus leading up to 

 the study of Natural History, acquired a pre- 

 scriptive right to be associated with it as I 

 have taken leave to do in the subsequent 

 Notes- is a question which no angler would 

 probably dispute. 



1 Yarrell says, that few have expressed their admiration 

 of the Nightingale's song in more fervent or more natural 

 terms than " honest Izaak Walton, who loved birds almost as 

 well as he loved fish," quoting from him that graphic eulogy 

 of the bird : " But the Nightingale, another of my airy crea- 

 tures, breathes such sweet loud music out of her little instru- 

 mental throat, that it might make mankind to think that mi- 

 racles are not ceased. He that at midnight, when the very 

 labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often, 

 the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and fall- 

 ing, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be 

 lifted up above earth, and say, ' Lord, what music hast thou 

 provided for the saints in heaven, when thou affordest bad 

 men such music upon earth.'" British Birds, i. 319. 



