PREFACE. Xlll 



dreaming that every human being who is worth 

 his salt should be an angler ; we have bethought 

 ourselves that we might venture, without even 

 the show of pride, to take upon ourselves the 

 task of telling the world the result of our ram- 

 bles. We have no vain object to serve ; no latent 

 spirit of envy to appease; no sordid purpose to 

 answer. We have a warm feeling towards all 

 writers on angling, both ancient and modern ; 

 and our only desire is that the world will not 

 think us too bold and proud, if we presume to 

 throw our own sayings and doings and gleanings, 

 into the common stock of angling, knowledge, 

 and peaceful pleasure. 



\Ve confess we feel a great deal of bashful 

 shyness, in thus doffing our cap in the face of 

 the great names who have gone before us as 

 authors on rod-fishing; but still we take courage 

 from the thought, that there is more of the true 

 milk of human kindness in the veins of anglers, 

 than in those of any other class of human beings. 

 W T hat errors, therefore, either of language, plan, 

 notion, or feeling we may have fallen into, will, 

 we trust, be kindly and fairly passed over, as 



