ANGLING. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY BOTTOM FISHING. 



WHO first invented the art of angling it would be very 

 hard to say. Probably in all ages of the world the neces- 

 sities of mankind induced them to practise it in a more or 

 less rude fashion. When Dame Juliana Berners wrote 

 about it, hard upon four hundred years ago, to judge by 

 her illustrations and descriptions, it was rude enough in 

 all conscience; and even in the days of Walton and 

 Cotton, more than a hundred and fifty years later, it was 

 scarcely in a condition to fulfil the more modern require- 

 ments of the present century. Since those days hundreds 

 of books on angling have been written, and in the present 

 time they appear to issue from the press at the rate of 

 about one per month or even more ; and within the last 

 quarter of a century the art has made far greater strides 

 towards improvement than it ever did in four times the 

 period since Dame Juliana's day. And I fear that the 

 schoolmaster has been abroad, and the fish have become 



