318 APPENDIX. 



10. Never regard what bunglers and slovens tell you; but believe 

 that neatness in your tackle, and a nice and curious hand in all your 

 work, especially in fly-mnking, are absolutely necessary. 



11. Be ever so provided as to he able to help yourself in all exigencies; 

 nor deem it a small incivility to interrupt your companion in his 

 sport, by frequently calling to him to lend you a plummet or a knife, 

 or to supply you with a hook, a float, a ivw shot, or any thing else 

 that you ought to be furnished with before you set out for your 

 recreation. 



12. Never fish in any water that is not common, without leave of 

 the owner, which is seldom denied to any but those who do not 

 deserve it. 



13. If at any time you happen to be overheated with walking, or 

 other exercise, avoid small liquors, especially water, as you would 

 poison, and rather take a glass of rum or brandy ; the instantaneous 

 effects whereof, in cooling the body and quenching drought, are 

 amazing. 



14. Never be tempted in the pursuit of your recreation to wade, 

 at least not as I have seen some do, to the waist. This indiscreet 

 practice has been known to bring on fevers that have terminated in 

 abscesses, and endangered the loss of a limb. 



15. Never, to preserve the character of an expert angler, be guilty 

 of that mean practice of buying fish * of such of your fellow sportsmen 

 as have had better success than yourself ; thereby giving occasion for 

 that bitter sarcasm, the more bitter for being true, " They were 

 caught with a silver hook." 



16. Remember that the wit and invention of mankind were bestowed 

 for other purposes than to deceive silly fish ; and that however 

 delightful angling may have l;een made to appear by the foregoing 

 pages, it ceases to be innocent when used otherwise than as a mere 

 recreation* f 



17. Lastly, when seated under a shady tree, on the side of a pleasant 

 river, or moving about on the banks of it, thou art otherwise pursuing 

 thy recreation ; when the gliding of waters, the singing of birds, the 

 bleating of flocks, the lowing of cattle, and the view of delightful 

 prospects, and the various occupations of rural industry, shall dispose 

 thee to thought and reflection ; let the beauties of Nature, the power, 

 wisdom, and goodness of the Almighty, as manifested in the production 

 of his creatures, the order and course of his providence in their 

 preservation, the rewards of a good life, and the certainty of thy end, 

 be the subjects of thy meditation. 



* There are oth* r to whom this caution against buying fish may be useful. One of 

 the greatest temptations to the fishing with unlawful nets in the Thames, near London, 

 is the high price which by an artifice some of the s-caly kinds of fish, that Is to say, 

 Roach and Dace, arc made to fetch ; for the takers of such first scrape off the scales, and 

 tell them by the pound to the necklace-makers, (who make thereof a kind of amalgama, 

 with which they cover wax beads, and thereby imitate pearls ;) and having so done, they 

 cry the smallest and very refuse ot the fish "about the streets, and sell them to ignorant 

 housekeepers for Gudgeons. 



t Some will be disposed to dispute the correctness of this conclusion. S. 



