THE PRACTICAL ANGLER 



CHAPTEE I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



unlike excisemen, have no 

 ground of complaint against the de- 

 finition given of their occupation in 

 Johnson's Dictionary. Angling, the world 

 is there informed, is " the art of fishing 

 with a rod." This may be imperfect may 

 need a little filling up (the task, indeed, 

 which we propose to ourselves) but it is 

 perfectly fair and unprejudiced. Not so, however, 

 another definition, dropped from the lips of the 

 same great authority in private, and which has ever 

 since passed from mouth to mouth with a sneer. 

 " Angling," said Dr. Johnson, " means a rod with a 

 fly at one end and a fool at the other." Nothing has 

 rankled so deeply in the angling mind as this obiter 

 dictum of the Mitre. It came from one, however, 



A 



