FINE TACKLE. 125 



to me more satisfactory that such a helpless 

 animal, and one so useful in our gardens as a 

 devourer of insects, worms, and slugs, should 

 owe its safety to an acrid secretion, sufficiently 

 acrid for the purpose, than to an intensely 

 poisonous one, which can be of no use to the 

 creature in procuring it its food. We linger 

 here too long ; let us away. The want of wind, 

 and the perfect purity and clearness of the 

 water of the dubb, in which I see fish rising, 

 may caution us not to wet our lines here. 



AMICUS. See, a ripple is appearing. We are 

 now a good way down the lake, and still with- 

 out a run. Let us give up trolling, and try 

 our best flies and finest tackle. I shall use a 

 casting-line delicately graduated, made of gut 

 . that has been passed through a " gut-finer," an 

 ingenious little implement, for the knowledge 

 of which I stand indebted to an accomplished 

 angler. I see there is a reddish fly on the 

 water, and the fish are beginning to stir and 

 rise. 



PISCATOR. We may make the trial: I shall 

 use a casting-line, ending in a single hair, and 

 small flies tied to hair. But though we may 

 put forth all our skill, I cannot be sanguine of 



