XX INTRODUCTION. 



The first portion of the volume, extending over eight 

 pages, is taken up principally with what relates to river- 

 trout, and the various methods of capturing them, as 

 pursued on TVeedside and elsewhere. My treatment 

 of this subject I have not allowed to interfere, except in 

 a corrective and elucidatory form, with what lies embo- 

 died in my former treatise. The views presently under 

 submission are the result of more extended practice and 

 enlarged information. They present, it is true, little 

 or no claim to originality ; but, as the cullings of yes- 

 terday, from a new field of experience, may possess, 

 perhaps, freshness enough in their details to attract and 

 interest the angling enthusiast. 



On the subject of trouting with the fly, as well as the 

 method of dressing fly-hooks, I have dwelt briefly and 

 generally. So many treatises have been written upon 

 these matters, that no room remains for their further 

 exposition; and when I behold the catalogue replete 

 with entomological science, which forms the sine qua 

 non of the modern angler's pocket-book, I shrink to 

 confess my own unpardonable ignorance in regard to 

 them. On the practice of worm-fishing in clear waters, 

 minnow and parr-tail spinning, the employment of the 

 salmon-roe as a bait, &c., I have entered into circum- 

 stantial details. The two first-mentioned branches of 

 the art are considered by all anglers of experience to 

 rank as highly as the pursuit of the fly-fisher. They are 

 certainly, although a degree more troublesome, as 

 exciting ; and they require, even under the most favour- 



