IV ADVERTISEMENT. 



If any candid reader of apprehensive mind will peruse the " COM- 

 PLETE ANGLEK" he must agree with me that it lacks the instruc- 

 tive element it amuses far more than it teaches it talks more of 

 fish and of catching them than it shows hy detailed practical direc- 

 tions how to catch them. Occasionally directions are given ; but 

 they are not always correct, and, except in a few instances, they are 

 antiquated and not unfrequently erroneous. At least I think so; 

 and have endeavoured to apply a remedy. Wherever I have found 

 the piscatorial directions of Walton arid Cotton right I have said so, 

 and not interfered. Where I have found them contrariwise, I have 

 pointed it out and written new instructions, frequently at great 

 length more lengthened than the original chapters to which they 

 stand appended. 



I will not encroach upon the reader's time by stating minutely 

 all that I have done. In a word, I will at once and fearlessly pre- 

 dicate that I have written, by means of foot-notes and complemen- 

 tary essays to chapters, a complete modern treatise on the different 

 branches of angling on bottom-fishing, spinning, and trolling, on 

 fly-fishing with the artificial fly, and on daping or dibbing with the 

 natural one. I have written succinctly the natural history of each of 

 our river-fish that of the salmon rather lengthily than succinctly 

 I have shown their habits, pointed out their haunts, named the best 

 baits for them, and shown how they are to be used. I have taught 

 how the rod and line are to be handled, and how the artificial fly is 

 to be thrown and worked in the water, as far as a long-practised 

 pen can teach it. I have described the best sorts of angling gear ; 

 and to Cotton's instructions for making artificial flies I have added 

 my own, elucidated with drawings of the natural fly and of the 

 artificial one in its finished state and in the incipient and progres- 

 sive stages of its fabrication. 



Of what I have done, enough. The book will tell its own tale 

 one I trust that will not dim, by even a passing shade, the re- 

 putation of him who, for more than fifteen years, has been the pis- 

 catory preacher of Sell's Life, who has written A Hand-look of 

 Angling, and The Book of the Salmon, and more besides in fine, 

 reader, of your tutor, brother and friend, 



LONDON, March, 1853. EPHEMEKA. 



N.B. The notes signed "H." are from Sir John Hawkins's edi- 

 tion of Walton : those with " ED." attached are original. 



