GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 9 



shown to the fish, and not the slightest prowess by 

 the fisherman. It is fish-slaughter murder any- 

 thing you like but it is not " sport." The essence 

 of sport consists in the amount of skill, difficulty, 

 or danger to be exerted or overcome in its pursuit. 



BOTTOM OR FLOAT-FISHING. 



" BOTTOM FISHING," whatever the term may have 

 originally conveyed, does not now always mean 

 fishing on the bottom. Several branches of angling, 

 such as paternostering, which comply with this con- 

 dition, are excluded ; and others, as for example 

 float-fishing in mid-water, which do not comply 

 with it, are embraced. The expression bottom- 

 fishing in the angler's dictionary has come to imply 

 simply rod-fishing with a float ; and if we were to 

 exclude Pike, Trout, and Grayling from the 

 category, float-fishing and bottom-fishing might be 

 said to be synonymous. 



Bottom-fishing is divided into two classes : the 

 old style, or ordinary bottom-fishing, and the new 

 style, or " Nottingham fishing/' These two 

 methods of float-fishing differ mainly in their 

 details of manipulation. And as by one or other 



