90 ANGLING. 



eluding their natural habits, their external aspect, 

 and their mode of capture. We regard our subject 

 as one of deep and sustaining interest in a philoso- 

 phical point of view, and of the highest and most 

 immediate importance when considered in relation 

 to the economical advantages derivable by the 

 human race. We shall endeavour to combine with 

 our immediate object, such miscellaneous informa- 

 tion as we can collect from genuine sources, with a 

 view to render this little essay more palatable to the 

 general reader ; and if any great deficiency in that 

 department is observable, we hope it may in some 

 measure be attributed to the very nature of this 

 branch of natural history, the subjects of which, 

 inhabiting another element from ourselves, have 

 thus their on-goings too often veiled from mortal 

 sight by a " world of waters" which no eye can 

 pierce, but the eye of HIM who called the light out 

 of darkness, and who created the " heavens and the 

 earth, the sea, and all that in them is.""* 



How much nobler and more soul sustaining are 

 these combined pursuits of the angler and naturalist, 

 than such as many worldly minded men do follow 

 after, who either fretting with fevered care 



* In our brief exposition of the structure and physiology of fishes, we 

 have mainly followed the masterly introduction prefixed 'by Baron 

 Cuvier to his (and M. Valencienne's) great work, the Histoire 

 Naturelle des Poissons, now amounting to 14 vols. We have also 

 availed ourselves occasionally of Mr. Yarrell's accurate and elegant 

 work on British Fishes, and have moreover sought to refresh ourselves 

 by turning in time of need to our own article, " Ichthyology," in 

 Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. xii. p. 151, to say nothing of the 

 Essay on " Angling" in that work, which, as already mentioned on 

 our fly leaf, forms the basis or but-end of the present publication. 



