Vll 



I almost as necessary an appendage to their outfit as the rifle or 

 the pistol. 



As a proof of the vast increase in the number of anglers, 

 j both in this and other countries, we may refer to the fact, that 

 j forty years ago, there were not more than six or seven fishing- 

 rod and tackle-makers and sellers in the metropolis ; noWj 

 there are between forty and fifty ; and no small portion of the 

 business of these establishments, is the exportation of rods and 

 tackle to almost every part of the civilized world. 



In reference to the present small work, on the Rivers and 

 Lochs of Scotland, now offered to the public, I have little to 

 say ; nor is there much required. I have told my own story, 

 I hope in plain and simple language, and in my own fashion. 

 I hold the opinion that angling should be lightly treated, and 

 that nothing tends to depress the art, and make it a dull and 

 lifeless thing to be written about, than the practice of compil- 

 ing treatises upon it, like Parliamentary Blue Books, full of 

 statistical and foreign matters, not in fair keeping with the 

 end or object of rod-fishing. That end is chiefly to open out 

 and stimulate the contemplative and reflective powers of the 

 inward man; and to make him feel the delightful pleasures 

 flowing from a free and direct intercourse with external na- 

 ture. Unless this grand end be kept in view, and all our 

 written dissertations upon it have a reference to it, angling is 

 not worth a moment's consideration. The moral and thought- 

 ful habits ought to be the primary objects we aim at forming 

 and strengthening, in every mode of describing and recom- 

 mending the art. Besides, minute matters of detail can be of 

 no real service in the acquirement of the art. Xo man can be 



