INTRODUCTORY 13 



scientific knowledge to enable me to give com- 

 plete instruction, but even if I could do this 

 there would be no need for me to attempt it 

 now. There are so many splendid manuals of 

 instruction, that any angler, who wishes to get 

 technical knowledge, can learn the very best and 

 latest that is known from more than one recent 

 book about each special branch of angling. It 

 is not therefore my object to teach the art of 

 angling. But if I am ambitious to be an expert 

 at all, it is with regard to the pleasure of angling. 

 I am ready now to yield the palm for skill to 

 whoever chooses to claim it, but I do cherish a 

 belief that I am entitled to rank high amongst 

 those whose reputation as anglers is measured, not 

 by skill, but by their devotion to angling, and 

 by the delight which they have in it. A chief 

 object of this little book will be to express some 

 of this pleasure, to explain some of its qualities 

 and virtues, and to say how it is that we who are 

 anglers congratulate ourselves upon having one 

 of the best and most wonderful recreations that 

 have ever been known to man. 



There may be some natures whose work is 

 pleasure, and who have therefore neither care nor 



