30 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



Mr. John H. Keene, who comes of a well-known 

 angling " stock," and has, I am glad to hear, started as a 

 professional Thames fisherman at Wraysbury, is paying 

 special attention to this subject, and as he is as good a 

 fisherman as he is a naturalist, an angler who desires to 

 know somewhat of ichthyology may spend a very pleasant 

 and profitable day in his company. The result of many 

 of his researches into the various diseases of fish, and of 

 other ichthyological investigations, have from time to 

 time appeared in the pages of several London journals. 

 A connected treatise from his pen would find many 

 readers. 



But books and oral instructors are but poor teachers 

 unless supplemented by personal observation. I would 

 therefore advise all anglers who would also be naturalists 

 to. pay frequent visits to aquaria, and patiently watch the 

 occupants of the tanks. Such visits will often suggest 

 valuable hints on the art of angling itself. Most profit- 

 able and most interesting too is the study of fish casts 

 and paintings and a thousand odds and ends of things 

 piscatorial in Mr. Frank Buckland's Museum of Fish and 

 Fish Culture at South Kensington. Most true is it, as 

 Horace says in the trite quotation, — 



" Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem, 

 Quam quae sunt oeulis subjecta fidelibus," 



which, being briefly translated, is " Seeing is better than 

 hearing." 



I trust I have said enough to show how interesting a 

 study is ichthyology, and that the angler's pleasures would 

 be considerably enhanced if he were only "a bit of" an 

 ichthyologist; and once more to repeat myself, I hold 



