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for gain or for pleasure, employs art, in some 

 degree; "but," as Sir H. Davy truly says, 

 "that kind of it [search] requiring most art, 

 may be said to characterise man in his highest 

 or intellectual state : and the fisher for trout 

 or grayling with the fly, employs not only 

 machinery to assist his physical powers, but 

 applies sagacity to conquer difficulties; and 

 the pleasure derived from ingenious resources 

 and devices, as well as from active pursuit, 

 belongs to this amusement. Then, as to its 

 philosophical tendency, it is a pursuit of moral 

 discipline, requiring patience, forbearance, and 

 command of temper. As connected with 

 natural science, it may be vaunted as de- 

 manding a knowledge of the habits of a 

 considerable tribe of created beings fishes, 

 and the animals that they prey upon, and 

 an acquaintance with the signs and tokens 

 of the weather and its changes, the nature of 

 waters and of the atmosphere." 



Fly-fishing is so graceful and elegant an art, 

 requiring in the practice so much minute at- 

 tention and delicate manipulation, so much 

 quickness of eye and sensitiveness of touch, so 

 much ready apprehension, and which carries 

 us in its pursuit into so many scenes that cast 

 a glow over the fancy and the imagination, 

 that we are not surprised to see it chosen, as 



