x THE PRACTICAL ANGLER 



For more than fifteen years we have pursued 

 angling with the greatest assiduity ; and during that 

 period have obtained information from a number of 

 excellent amateur anglers (among whom we may 

 mention the Secretary of the late St. Ronan's 

 Angling Club), to all of whom we take this oppor- 

 tunity of expressing our thanks. We have also 

 fished with, and watched while fishing, almost all the 

 best professional anglers of the day including the 

 celebrated James Baillie, considered by all who knew 

 him the ablest fly-fisher in Scotland, and from whom 

 we have received some valuable information upon 

 that branch of the art ; and it must be admitted 

 that there are few anglers like those whose ingenuity 

 and perseverance are stimulated by necessity. The 

 information received from these we have thoroughly 

 tested before admitting it into the following pages, 

 and we may safely say that we have gained more 

 from half an hour's conversation with such, than from 

 all the books we ever read upon the subject, and 

 their number is not small ; most works upon angling 

 being rather amusing than instructive. The angler 

 will not find this the case in the following volume : 

 if he finds nothing instructive, he will certainly find 

 nothing amusing ; and we found our claims to the 

 attention of the angling community solely upon the 

 ground of the information we have to convey, which 



