AND ANGLING SONGS. 31! 



tion, in a glass vessel of the description mentioned, no fresh 

 supply of water being administered to them during that period. 

 Care should be taken, when minnows for convenience are cooped 

 up in this fashion, not to introduce into the bottle more water 

 than shall occupy two-thirds of its area. By filling it com- 

 pletely, and then closely corking it up, you deprive your pri- 

 soners altogether of the sustaining principle, air, which is as 

 necessary for piscine as for human existence. The effect of its 

 seasonable introduction may be shown on an occasion when the 

 minnows, by rising to the surface of the water, and no longer 

 probing with their noses towards the bottom, exhibit signs of 

 languor and distress. In such an emergency you may, without 

 changing the water, restore them, in a certain measure, to their 

 wonted liveliness, simply by extracting the cork and shaking the 

 contents of the bottle, so as to combine with them a fresh supply 

 of the atmospheric element. 



Another method adopted by me in carrying minnows, is the 

 one above recommended in the transportation of the tench. It 

 consists simply in the committing of these little fishes to a loose 

 wrapping of grass or moss, well- wetted and placed in a corner of 

 the fishing-basket. Through means of this expedient, which has 

 been occasionally forced upon me in absence of a bottle or other 

 vessel, I have been enabled to preserve the life-power, and con- 

 sequent freshness, of my spinning-baits, throughout the day. 

 Upon the inconvenience which may arise from so primitive a 

 mode of managing my live-baits, I need not enlarge. It is 

 worth while, however, for the learner in piscatorial lore to know 

 all this, as the knowledge one day or other may prove serviceable 

 to him. The same treatment, I may add, will be found success- 

 ful when extended to loaches and sticklebacks. 



With all its adaptation for ready transference, it is somewhat 

 singular that the minnow has not as yet been introduced into 

 the northern counties of Scotland; Koss-shire, Caithness, and 



