gHETHER we call ourselves " Saxon, or Dane, or 

 Norman," we who speak the English tongue are 

 most of us piscatorially inclined. As boys, we 



disport ourselves with a hazel stick, a piece of 



whipcord, aucl a crooked pin ; as men, we are proud of our 

 exploits with rod and line, and learned in " flies," and expert 

 in all the mysteries of the " gentle art/' Or, if not experts 

 ourselves, we are more or less interested in the achievements 

 of those of our friends who are so ; or, at all events, we go 

 down to the coast, and learn something of fishing as distinct 

 from angling; or, finally, we are gastronomes, aiid include 

 the products of the fisheries in our daily bill of fare. The 

 sea and the loch and the river are so various and abundant 

 in their supplies that every taste is gratified ; and the mail 

 who shuns the humble herring can regale himself on salmon 

 or the "lordly turbot;" he who shrinks from the dyspeptic 

 lobster may indulge without fear in the nutritious oyster. 

 So that, in one way or another, we are all interested in fish, 

 and the modes of capturing them ; in the herring-boat and 

 the salmon-net, in the lobster-trap and the oyster-farm. " It 

 is only the Arabs of the desert," says an old proverb, " who 

 affect to despise fish;" and they, because they are unable to 

 catch them ! In Greece, as Dr. Doran pleasantly remarks, 

 " sages discussed their qualities, and tragic writers introduced 

 heroes holding dialogues on the qualities of fish-sauce." And 

 in Great Britain the " finny prey " are not less esteemed by 

 the poor than by the wealthy ; by the labourer who dines oif 



