72 NOTES ON PISH AND PISHING. 



century. There are anglers and angling clubs in Paris 

 and its neighbourhood, and elsewhere in France. There 

 are some hundreds of enthusiastic fishermen for small 

 fry in Belgium, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, 

 and even Spain ; while in the United States the formation 

 of angling societies, and the increasing interest taken in 

 piscatorial matters, show that angling will, ere long, be- 

 come one of the most popular pastimes on the other side of 

 the " herring-pond." But we are still far ahead of all 

 others in our love of angling as a sport, and are still the 

 only veritable pecheurs a la ligne. Inheriting a taste for 

 the angle from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, we have cul- 

 tivated it till angling has become one of the most popular 

 of our pastimes and recreations ; and the peoples of other 

 countries in this, as in many other matters of sport, 

 are gradually following our example, and paying us 

 the compliment of adopting the English methods of 

 angling with float, spinning bait, and fly. An English- 

 man whipping a continental stream is now no longer in 

 danger of being hauled before the local authorities on the 

 charge of having " dealings with the devil," as was once 

 a fellow-countrymen (if tradition speaks truly) at Heidel- 

 berg, because an alarmed populace were eye-witnesses to 

 the fact that he caught fish in the Neckar " without bait- 

 ing his hook," the crass " Patherlanders " being innocent 

 of the use of the artificial fly. In having thus become " a 

 nation of anglers," we give evidence of our civilization, for 

 angling for mere sport's sake is a mark of civilization, 

 which several other pastimes can hardly be said to be ; for 

 instance, as Lacepede says, " II y a cette difference entre la 

 chasse et la p£che, que cette derniere convient aux peuples 

 les plus civilises." 



