2844 Birds. 



if that fail, where are you ? It is like the Irishman with his potato ; 

 when that rots there is famine. But it has been hinted that our 

 friend is not entirely confined to fish, and that he can occasionally 

 eke out his scanty repast with frogs: we shall not deny it; it is 

 probable enough : it is consoling even to have such a resource : in 

 this he but resembles the Frenchman. 



We have said that the angler is an enthusiast, much carried away 

 by his imagination : we have known two or three of this gentle tribe, 

 buoyed up with the hope of sport, set off from this part of the country, 

 walk all the way to Borough Bridge to try the waters of the silvery 

 Lune, and return the same night after fishing all day, a distance of 

 near forty miles ; perhaps not much encumbered by heavy panniers. 



But if the disciple of Walton is patient and persevering, and takes 

 long rambles in pursuit of his pleasures, we think he is exceeded in 

 every respect by the subject of our description. We believe there is 

 not a lake or tarn, still water with sedgy shore, or running brook with 

 sandy bottom, or even dike or ditch within a radius of ten miles from 

 his home (near Milnthorp), that is not well known to him, and in 

 which he has not pursued his solitary sport. 



We have been somewhat puzzled whether to class him as gentle- 

 man or poacher, for he partakes of the character of both, a kind of 

 hybrid between the two. He resembles the gentleman in not selling 

 his game, nor after serving his own needs does he dispose of it in any 

 other way except feeding his children when he happens to have any, 

 and then only while they are of tender age ; for they are soon turned 

 out of the parental shelter, and compelled to seek their own living in 

 the world at large,- like himself, by fishing. So it has been with his 

 progenitors ; so will it be with his posterity till the end of time. As 

 in the east with the Hindoos, and in a degree with other wanderers 

 like himself, as gipsies and potters, his family seem not to have got 

 beyond the system of castes, which it must be allowed shows but a 

 low point of civilization. But still as he sells not his fish, nor stoops 

 to any kind of vulgar labour, so far we must rank him as a gentleman. 

 On the other hand, however, as he cannot be called the owner of a 

 single rood of land or water, and yet presumes to sport whenever it 

 suits him, on the property of gentle or simple, yeoman or squire, with- 

 out condescending to ask leave of any man, we fear therefore, as far 

 as this goes, we must consider him a poacher. Moreover, like too 

 many of that lawless profession, he is wretchedly poor, and laying 

 nothing up for a wet day, he must be often sorely beset with his wants. 

 There is something in his looks that makes this but too probable; the 

 same lank, meagre figure he always was : let the season be ever so 



