ANGLING. 



PART L HOW TO ANGLE. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 



THE art of angling is one of the most ancient amusements and 

 practices of which we have any record in the history of the human 

 family. We read of it in the Old Testament ; and in the records 

 of ancient Egypt, Assyria, and the whole of the eastern section of 

 the globe, once the seat of powerful empires, and of a civilized 

 people, we have innumerable testimonies in their several sepulchral 

 and architectural remains, that angling as we angle at this day 

 was an art well known, and generally practised, both as an amuse- 

 ment, and as a means of support. In the polished and literary 

 states of Greece and Rome we have still more pointed and irre- 

 fragable testimony of the high antiquity of the art. The bucolic 

 writers of Greek poetry descant upon the subject in a variety of 

 forms ; while graver historians among that singular and enlightened 

 people dwell upon the art as one firmly embedded in the permanent 

 customs and habits of the nation. The literature of Rome like- 

 wise portrays the existence of the gentle art among the warlike 

 conquerors of the world. Not only formal works were composed 

 on the subject, but we find that the classic poets, both serious and 

 comic, make many direct allusions to the amusement of the rod- 

 fisher, and to the fish he was in the habit of catching. 



From the Christian era, and during the first centuries of the 

 decline of Roman power and conquest, we find that angling con- 

 tinued to be one of the common pursuits of many nations, then in 

 a state of transition from barbarism to refinement and knowledge. 

 Pliny wrote on fish ; and Ausonius, between the third and fourth 

 century, expatiates with rapture on the abundance of fine salmon 

 that were caught in the "blue Moselle ;" a river in Trance, that 



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