INTRODUCTORY. 3 



"inter alia" by making her slaves dive and affix 

 live fish to his hook, as they sat and enjoyed the 

 sport of angling together. Angling was an amuse- 

 ment in which her very remote Egyptian pre- 

 decessors appear to have delighted, and natives 

 of high rank are depicted as catching fish with a 

 line. I am afraid of appearing too pedantic, or I 

 might quote Oppian, a Greek writer who flourished 

 about AD. 170, and wrote a poem in five books 

 upon fish and fishing ; or Homer, who lived a thou- 

 sand years before him, and who more than once 

 distinctly refers to the art of angling : the monster 

 Scylla is represented as catching dolphins. 



But I need not insist further : angling must be 

 admitted to be one of the most ancient, and I claim 

 for it the credit of being the most scientific, the 

 most absorbing, and the most satisfying amusement 

 that can be followed in the way of sport. Neither 

 is the fascination it exercises over its votaries of an 

 evanescent character. Men " lose their nerve " and 

 give up hunting ; they lack strength for walking ; 

 their eyesight fails and they give up shooting; 

 rowing, after a certain time of life, becomes irk- 

 some ; cricket and football are out of the question : 

 but who ever gave up fishing ? or has heard of any 

 one giving up fishing, so long as he could handle a 

 rod, or hobble along the bank, or even sit in a 



