2 The Angler's Tackle and Equipment. 



seems to add to their number, while the cry is 

 " still they come." In this increasing crowd of 

 votaries the true angler will find no cause for 

 alarm ; for whatever leads to greater wariness on 

 the part of the fish, will call for only a higher 

 degree of skill on the part of the fisher. Al- 

 though the multiplication of rods can hardly be 

 said to be the only reason why trout are scarcer 

 now than they were forty years ago, it is at all 

 events sufficient to assure us, and delight us with 

 the assurance, that the innocent and healthful joys 

 of angling are no longer confined to the few who 

 caught the big baskets of former days, but are 

 now being more universally recognised and more 

 ardently pursued. 



Nor is this throng of disciples likely to suffer 

 from lack of instruction, or at least from lack of 

 instructors. For, from the days of Dame Juliana 

 Berners until now, there have issued from the press 

 about six hundred works on angling, and these 

 chiefly in English, a collection ample enough, it 

 might be supposed, to contain every principle of 

 the fisher's art, and every rule for its practice. 

 Much, however, I am convinced, remains to be 

 discovered or explained before the angling frater- 

 nity can be said even to be in full possession of 

 every fact which bears upon their art, much less 

 to have attained to the highest perfection therein. 



