BRIEF SKETCH OF DAVID FOSTER, 



THE NATURALIST ANGLER OF THE PEAK. 



' Honour and shame from no condition rise ; 

 Act well your part, there all the honour lies.' 



DAVID FOSTER was one of those men who leave a mark behind 

 them. He did not quit the world as he found it, but impressed 

 upon it the character of his mind and heart ; and his friends feel that 

 he ought not to pass away without a memorial. To extend and 

 perpetuate the influence of his genius this instructive volume has 

 been compiled. 



Mr. Foster was born at Burton-on-Trent, September 22nd, 1816. 

 He was the son of a respectable tradesman, and happily knew nothing 

 in his younger days of those indulgences by which so many promising 

 minds are made effeminate and slothful. He was accustomed to say 

 that he owed most of what was good in his character and profession 

 to his early privations and hardships. As a boy he was buoyant and 

 energetic, a great favourite with other boys, and " king among them 

 in their sports." At an early age he was apprenticed to a jeweller, 

 but young David preferred to roam the fields and woods, prying into 

 the secrets of insect life. His delight was to talk with the old 

 fishermen on the banks of the Trent, and to learn from them some- 

 thing of the habits and haunts of fish. 



"The child was father of the man." The art of angling so fired 

 his soul that he arranged to enter the famous fish-hook manufactory of 

 Messrs. Allcock & Co., at Redditch. The work absorbed all his powers; 

 he originated many improvements in fishing tackle, and was justly 

 valued for his cleverness and ingenuity. Someone has said " angling is 

 somewhat like poetry, men are born to be so." The subject of this 

 brief biographical sketch was a born student of nature angler and 

 naturalist his whole lite being spent in the pursuit of knowledge 



