44 AN ANGLERS BASKET. 



1 Tell the difference ? Yes, alive or dead ; on the line or 

 cooked.' * Bill,' says I to my mate behind me, very quiet 

 like, * while I purtend to be fettling up some baits with my 

 back to him up here, pass me over them codlings, and I 

 will make 'em into whitings afore he knows.' So Bill he 

 passes 'em over and I takes 'em and skins 'em in the nose 

 of the boat, and a codling ye may know, sir, comes out 

 white and smooth like a whiting when it is skinned, and I 

 sticks their tails through their eyes, and when he was tired 

 of catching codling and went away, I says to him, * You 

 will pardon me, I know, sir, for being so bold, but me and 

 my mate catched a lot o' whitings this morning, and, 

 knowing you like 'em, if you will accept of 'em you shall 

 have 'em with pleasure.' And he thanked us and said he 

 should be really glad of 'em. So I gives him these here 

 codlings as I had made into whitings, and I says, ' Now 

 these are a different fish from what you have been a 

 catching on, and a nicer lot of whiting I never see'd.' And 

 he said they were beautiful ; and I said, quiet like, * Ye're 

 sure they're whiting, sir ;' and he said he were, and he 

 were much obliged ; so then I says, * Well, if you will 

 pardon me, sir, I am glad ye're sure, because you said you 

 could tell 'em from codling anyhow, and you have been 

 catching nought but codlings, and them's them.' " 



OPINIONS ON FISHING RODS. 



I do not know anything more amusing to an observant 

 man than the varieties of opinion expressed by different 

 anglers upon the same fishing rod. Say you have given 

 Forrest, of Kelso, 505. for a downright good rod which you 

 think is above criticism, though you invite it. It is eleven 

 feet long, moderately stiff, and what Artemus Ward would 

 have called "a fair even-going critter." No. i, asked what 

 he thinks of it, damns it at once with faint praise. " Well," 



