PREFACE, 



The rapid advance of late years of theoretical and 

 material knowledge has produced a corresponding im- 

 provement in the practice of most of the arts and 

 sciences ; and the professors of the gentle art, though 

 in a quiet and unobtrusive way, have been by no means 

 behindhand in the general progress. The result is, that 

 the fisherman's library, for all practical purposes, consists 

 only of some dozen books, all, or almost all, being 

 the works of living authors. The names of Stoddart, 

 Peard, Francis, and Stewart, as preceptors in the use of 

 the rod and line ; and in the cognate departments of 

 ichthyology and angling belles lettres, those of Russel, 

 Westwood, and Buckland, are household words wherever 

 English anglers are to be found. 



With such a phalanx of authors already in the field, 

 however, it may be not unnaturally asked, Why is the 

 present volume published "i The answer is, that the 

 admirable works of the writers referred to are, with one 

 exception,"^ so far as the practice of angling is con- 

 cerned, monographs, or treatises on particular branches 

 only of fishing ; and that there is a demand for some 

 general and complete angling manual, bringing the 



* " A Book on Angling/' by Francis Francis, Esq Longman 

 and Co. 15s. 



