2 INTR OD UC TION. 



some, notwithstanding the attempts at its alleviation by calling 

 in the aid of the last new novel from the library but they 

 cannot read all day ; walking in the heat is not agreeable ; 

 everyone is not interested in the study of marine zoology, 

 fashionable as it has become of late years, and deservedly so, 

 although the furore has now somewhat abated ; the common 

 objects of the sea-shore fail to afford amusement ; they have 

 had a complete surfeit of German bands ; mind and body are 

 alike satiated with that fashionable and intellectual amusement 

 so perseveringly followed by beach haunters of all ages, to wit, 

 pelting Father Neptune with the pebbly shingle where there is 

 any to the fore ; even the row or the sail require some addi- 

 tional zest. What, then, is there at hand to supply the 

 desideratum^ Nothing positively nothing but Sea-fishing, 

 which in its various phases, afloat or from the shore, affords a 

 field of observation and occupation of which the world at large 

 can have but small conception. Considering the variety of 

 sport to be derived from sea-fishing, its votaries have not been 

 many in number until the last thirty years ; latterly they have 

 much increased, and sufficiently to induce a few among them 

 to indite their experiences for the instruction of their fellow- 

 sportsmen. The author has frequently observed how very 

 partial is the knowledge of many amateurs of sea-fishing, and 

 how much sport they lose in consequence of their limited 

 acquaintance with the subject ; he has endeavoured, therefore, 

 in this work to supply the desideratum, feeling he might venture 

 so to do from the life-long experience he has had on various 

 parts of the coast of England and the Channel Islands. Re- 

 garding the fishing of these islands, the methods of taking, 

 preserving, and using the living Sand-Eel for bait, are so excel- 

 lent, and have been hitherto so little known on the British side 

 of the Channel, that the author has given them a prominent 

 position in both description and illustration, and he is happy to 

 say that former residents in the islands are following out these 

 methods on the British coasts, over the whole extent of which 

 they ought to be disseminated, as superior to all other methods 

 of coast-fishing for Mackerel, Bass, and Pollack in particular, 

 and eminently useful when applied to the capture of other fish. 



