58 FRESH WOODS. 



which cannot be too sharp, and betwixt the 

 head and the fin on the back cut or make an 

 incision, or such a scar as you may put the 

 arming wire of your hook into it ... and so 

 carrying your arming wire along his back . . . 

 draw out that wire at another scar near to his 

 tail," &c . I will not presume to differ from 

 so supreme an authority ; still I own the extra- 

 ordinary wriggling and gasping of the little 

 fish struck me as a curious manifestation of 

 pleasure. I am aware that all anglers act 

 upon the conviction that none of these cold- 

 blooded creatures roach, perch, frogs, or 

 worms can possibly feel anything like 

 agony when their knives and hooks are 

 forced through their vitals in the way above 

 described. Of course for a warm-blooded 

 mortal like the venerable Izaak the sensation 

 would be different if 



" That quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet 

 Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it." 



Don Juan. 



In wandering amongst these jolly anglers 

 I felt, I confess, a good deal like a " fish out 



gradual misuse of the verb "to hurt" whose signification 

 was originally limited to " to injure," and had no reference 

 to suffering inflicted by the injury. Withoiit hurting him 

 in Walton's time meant without injuring him for the purpose 

 for which he is intended in other words, without making him 

 dead instead of live-bait. 



