FLOATS NETS. 89 



hooks are manufactured London and Limerick, and the 

 hooks assume the name of these respective places. 



Good hooks are of essential importance to the angler; 

 and we would earnestly recommend all our countrymen 

 who visit the continent for the purpose of fishing, to 

 provide themselves amply in England with these neces- 

 sary articles, of all sorts and sizes. The French hooks 

 we can assure them are very indifferent indeed. 



FLOATS are necessary things in certain kinds of 

 angling, and in some particular waters; but they are 

 nevertheless, as all our best brethren will admit, neces- 

 sary evils. For our own part, we never behold a grown- 

 up specimen of humanity angling with a float, without 

 regarding him with a compound feeling of compassion 

 and derision. The float is associated in the mind of the 

 sportsman with the infantile and imbecile part of the 

 craft; and when more lofty and dignified sport has been 

 long enjoyed, it is scarcely possible to bring back the 

 mind to the placid endurance of such appendages. 



anfc &aff. 



These sort of things are perhaps absolutely necessary 

 in particular rivers and waters, where, owing to the 

 nature of the banks and sides, it is difficult to land large 

 fish. When made in a portable manner, so as to be car- 

 ried in a fishing-basket or creel, they are occasionally 

 useful adjuncts to an angler's equipment. They are 

 quite unnecessary, however, in streams which have a 

 broad and channelly bed ; and we should never recom- 

 mend them in such situations, for this plain reason, 

 that fish are easily enough brought to shore from 



