2 THE PKACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



also, of the pursuit may be another reason why additional consideration 

 of angling could advantageously be given. The number of anglers 

 is so vast and so continually increasing that it very appropriately now 

 bears the title of a "national sport." With increasing numbers of 

 anglers the scarcity of fish, although not appreciably becoming greater, 

 undoubtedly does increase, and the education of the fish, combined with 

 this scarcity, require greater finesse and more subtle means for their 

 capture. Observations on these refinements are, therefore, not out of 

 place. I shall endeavour in the course of the following pages to give 

 notices of the latest of these, and the most effective, with various little 

 inventions of my own, which have been put in practice in view of the 

 increased skill required in the capture of our quarry. 



It is customary at all entertainments to issue a programme of what is 

 intended to be performed, and I will therefore follow so good an example. 

 Briefly, I may say that, under the title I have chosen, separate con- 

 sideration is given to the following cognate subjects : The general 

 history of angling, tackle and baits ; ichthyology, or the science of 

 fishes ; nearly every fish inhabiting the fresh water, or migratory, in 

 Great Britain, described in turn according to classification; and last, 

 bat not least, the art of tackle making is considered. Sea fishing 

 may form the subject of another treatise at some future time. It will be 

 observed that special attention is paid to the subject of ordinary tackle 

 making, for, to my mind, one of the chief charms of successful angling is 

 the reflection and knowledge that the fish captured are really and truly, 

 solely and wholly so, by one's own appliances and skill, and thus the 

 sense of possession is rendered doubly sweet. In treating also of each 

 fish for the convenience of reference, the following divisions and sub- 

 divisions are observed : Natural history including habitat, food, season, 

 diseases, &c. piscine folk lore, tackle, baits, and gastronomical, &c. Of 

 course, notwithstanding the comprehensiveness of this syllabus, I am 

 well aware that no book or treatise can alone make an angler. Hear 

 what Saint Izaak Walton says on this point : ' ' Now for the art of 

 catching fish, that is to say, how to make a man that was none to be an 

 angler by a book ; hie that undertakes it shall undertake a harder task 

 than Mr. Hales, that in a printed book called ' The Private School of 

 Defence' undertook to teach the art of fencing, and was laughed at 

 for his labour. Not but that many useful things might be observed 

 out of that book, but that the art was not to be taught by words ; nor 

 is the art of angling." Indeed, some hare gone to the length of applying 

 the old maxim, Poeta nascitur, non Jit, to the angler an angler is born, 

 not made, say they. I do not go quite so far as that, however, but 

 fully believe that one ounce of practice is worth a bushel of theory. 



