THE ANGLER'S SOUVENIR. 



285 



Fishing for a dinner through a hole in the ice, 

 will also be deemed sufficiently odd, though it is 

 said that parch will bite well then. 



Among other odd, or at least unorthodox, ways 

 of fishing, may be reckoned setting night-lines, 

 in which art the Norfolk yachtsmen are no mean 

 proficients, netting the smelts which crowd up the 

 Yare at certain seasons of the year, in the heart 

 of the city, and by the light of flaring torches ; 

 netting the weedy pools in Cheshire with a flue- 

 net ; the catching tench in hoop-nets baited with 

 a bunch of flowers or an old brass candlestick, 

 which attract the too curious fish ; eel-bags and 

 weirs, and the large eel-nets set in the Euro 

 below Acle ; leistering salmon and snaring pike ; 

 snatching fish by casting a bundle of hooks 

 into the water and dragging it rapidly over the 

 fish ; the use of salmon-roe and other too deadly 

 means of compassing the destruction of the finny 

 tribe. We fancy, however, that we have said 

 enough to call to the angler's remembrance that 

 his rod and line have formidable rivals, and that 

 it behoves him to do all in his power to suppress 

 and punish illegal and unfair sport, yet, at the 

 same time, to allow sufficient liberty to all whose 

 subsistence depends upon the capture of fish. 



