lviii WALTON TO THE READER. 



times, yet the whole discourse is, or rather was, a picture 

 of my own disposition ; especially in such (lavs and times 

 as I have laid aside business, and gone a-fisbing with ho- 

 nest Nat. and R. Roe : hut they are gone, and with them 

 most of my pleasant hours, even as a shadow that passeth 

 away and returns not. 



And next let me add this, that he that likes not the 

 book should like the excellent Picture of the Trout, and 

 some of the other fish ; which I may take a liberty to com- 

 mend, because they concern not myself. 



Next let me tell the Reader, that in that which is the 

 more useful part of this Discourse, that is to say, the ob- 

 servations of the nature, and breeding, and seasons, and 

 catching, of Fisb, I am not so simple as not to know, that 

 a captious Reader may find exceptions against something 

 said of some of these : and therefore I must entreat him to 

 consider, that experience teaches us to know, that several 

 countries alter the time, and I think almost the manner, 

 of Fishes' breeding, but doubtless of their being in season ; 

 as may appear by three rivers in Monmouthshire, namely, 

 Severn, Wye, and Usk ; where Camden, (Brit. fol. 633,) 

 observes, that in the river Wye, Salmon are in season 

 from September to April ; and we are certain that in 

 Thames, and Trent, and in most other rivers, they be in 

 season the six hotter months. 



Now for the Art of Catching Fish, that is to say, how 

 to make a man that was none, to be an Angler by a hook ; 

 he that undertakes it shall undertake a harder task than 

 Mr. Hales, a most valiant and excellent Fencer, who in a 

 printed hook, called " A private school of Defence," un- 

 dertook to teach that art or science, and was laughed at 

 for his labour. Not but that many useful things might be 

 learned by that book, but he was laughed at, because that 

 art was not to be taught by words, but practice : and so 



