DEDICATION. 



TO 



MY WORTHY AND EXCELLENT FRIEND 



THE EEV. JAMES MULES, LLB. 



A FRIENDSHIP of not less than sixty years, and that 

 friendship uninterrupted, we have experienced through 

 boyhood and manhood ; companions in recreation and 

 toil; the former more especially in our favourite 

 amusement of u fishing," when in early life we passed 

 our school-boy days, forgetful, I fear, that those hours 

 were intended, not to teach the young idea how to 

 fish, but how to shoot. Our recreation, let me believe, 

 however, was not a vicious one, for the good old 

 Izaak Walton tells us that Angling is an art worthy 

 the knowledge and practice of a wise man, and that 

 contemplation and action belong to this honest, in- 

 genuous, quiet, and harmless art of Angling. 



It is with no small degree of pleasure I dedicate 

 this treatise, on the best mode of rendering fishing a 

 merciful pursuit, to you, my early friend, knowing 

 that I place it in the hands of one possessed with the 

 milk of human kindness, and who, mindful of that 

 celebrated passage in Shakespeare, "the poor beetle 



-1.OS9340 



