36 WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



old Antony, the otter-killer, one of that numerous and 

 nondescript personages who locate themselves in the 

 houses of the Irish gentry, passed the window with a 

 fine salmon and a brace of trout sixteen inches long. 

 How fresh and sparkling is the phosphoric shading of the 

 scales, as the old man turns them round for my inspec- 

 tion ! What a beautiful fish ! it barely measures 

 thirty inches, and is fully ten pounds weight ! That 

 short and deep-shouldered briddavm* is worth all the 

 lubberly roach, dace, perch, and gudgeons that the 

 Thames contains from its source to its debouchement. 

 I looked after the ancient otter-hunter with envy. 

 How lowly would he be estimated in the eyes of a Cheap- 

 side fisherman ; one who wears a modest-coloured 

 jacket,f l est a showy garment might annoy the plethoric 

 animals he is dabbling for whose white basket is 

 constructed of the finest wicker-work with rods and 

 reels, floats and flies, pastes and patties, lines and liqueurs 

 sufficient to load a donkey how contemptuously would 

 he look down upon honest Antony ! Figure to your- 

 self a little feeble man, dressed in a jerkin of coarse 

 blue cloth, with an otter (a fancy of my cousin's) 

 blazoned on his arm : in one hand he holds a fish-spear, 

 which assists him when he meets with rugged ground, 

 in the other, a very unpretending angle, jointed rudely 

 with a pen-knife, and secured by waxen threads ; a 

 cast of flies are wound about his hat, and his remaining 

 stock, not exceeding half-a-dozen, are contained between 



* A salmon. 



f " Our forefathers were wont to pursue even their amusements 

 with great formality : an angler, a century and a half back, must 

 have his fishing-coat, which, if not black, must at least be of a very 

 dark colour, a black velvet cap, like those which jockeys now wear, 

 and a rod with a stock like a halberd ; thus equipped, he stalked 

 forth, followed by the eyes of a whole neighbourhood." -Daniel. 



