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CHAPTER VIII. 



MINNOW- FISHING. 



" First Fisherman. Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the 

 sea. 



" Second FisJierman. Why, as men do a-land ; the great ones eat 

 up the little ones." 



Pericles. 



rpHOUGH "from the finny subject of the sea 

 these fishers tell the infirmities of men," the 

 observant angler, were he disposed so to moralise, 

 would find enough to give point to his satire in the 

 characteristic rapacity of the lords of the streams. 

 Pigmies as they are in comparison with the tyrants 

 of the brine, many of them, in their own way, 

 domineer, if not to the content of their hearts, at 

 least to the extent of their stomachs, over the 

 smaller fry not only of their own class but even 

 of their own species, and do not scruple, when 

 tempting subject and fitting opportunity offer, to 

 appropriate the persons of others to fatten their 

 own. The trout is not the least voracious of such 



