Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/42

32  in July 1846 as master-general of the ordnance, finally retiring with his chief in March 1852. His promotion in the army was continued by his appointment to the command of the horse guards in 1842, and completed by his advancement to the rank of field-marshal in 1846. A life of brave service and faithful devotion to duty was closed by a peaceful death on the 29th April 1854. The character of the Marquis of Anglesey, appreciated and admired by all classes and parties, was sketched by a contemporary journalist in the following terms : "Seldom have bravery, gentleness, and generosity been combined in such noble proportions. In his character there was not a fold, it was all open as the day. His politics were thoroughly liberal, und with more far-sighted and sound statesmanship in them than the world has perhaps given him credit for. . . . He had a sound, shrewd understanding, a judgment seldom at fault, often acting like an instinct, and accompanied with a moral courage not inferior to his brilliant physical bravely in the field of battle." He strenuously supported every measure of reform in church and state, and, with sagacious forecast anticipating public opinion, earnestly advocated in their days of unpopularity the great measures of Catholic emancipation, parliamentary reform, and free trade. The marquis had a large family by each of his two wives, two sons and six daughters by the first, and six sons and four daughters by the second. His eldest son, Henry, succeeded him in the marquisate.

 

art of angling, or of catching fish by a rod and line, is of very ancient derivation. The earliest writer upon it in our country was the Dame Juliana Berners, who wrote a treatise on it in the Book of St Albans, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1496. Between that time and the present there have been nearly a thousand books, or parts of books, written and published upon this subject.

The practice of angling may be arranged under three heads, viz., top or surface, mid-water, and bottom angling. Surface angling includes fishing with an artificial fly, or duping with a live fly or other insect; mid-water fishing includes spinning or trolling with a dead bait and fishing with a live bait; bottom fishing includes angling with worms and other baits, either resting on or travelling with the stream along the bottom. The last is usually the first practised by the angler, and we will therefore take it first.

Bottom Fishing.

The school-boy who comes home for the midsummer holidays, usually commences his apprenticeship to the art of angling by fishing for some of the carp tribe in some pond or river near his residence. For this purpose he provides himself with a rod usually of from 12 to 14 feet long, and generally made of bamboo-cane, which is the best for the purpose. A small reel, with 30 or 40 yards of silk line, a light quill float, a yard or two of fine silk-worm gut, and a hook tied on at the end of it, which for general work should be either Nos. 6, 7, 8, or 9 in size, and a few split shots pinched on the line for sinkers. He then plumbs the depth of the water by the aid of a plummet, and fixes his float on the line at such a depth that the hook barely or just touches the bottom. His chief baits are worms and gentles or maggots. The worm (the red dest are the best) is stuck on the hook by being threaded from head nearly to the tail. The gentles, to the number of two or three, being stuck on as may be convenient. For gentles the smaller hooks are used; and the hook being baited, is cast into the water and hangs suspended by the float. When there is a bite the float bobs under, and the angler jerks the rod up or strikes, hooks his fish, and, if a big one, plays it, that is, allows it to swim violently about until tired, when he draws it ashore and lands it. In still- water fishing for carp, tench, roach, &c., the angler uses now and then a handful of what is termed ground- bait to draw the fish round his hook. There are many substances used for this, worms, gentles, grains, boiled barley or wheat, &c., &c., but the best and most general is a mixture of bran, soaked bread, and a little boiled rice worked up together; if with this is mixed a few handfuls of carrion gentles, usually obtained from horse slaughter- yards, there is no better bait. To ensure sport it is often accessary to bait a spot, or pitch, as it is termed, one or two evenings previously. In still-water fishing this is all that has to be done. In bottom fishing in running water the same preliminaries are observed in taking the depth of the water, baiting, &c.; but when the tackle is dropped into the water the stream carries it along, and the angler, keep ing the top of his rod over his float, follows it down his swim, as it is called, until he reaches the end, or as far as he desires to fish, when he pulls his tackle out, and returns to the head of the swim, and recommences striking at every bob or dip of his float. In stream fishing he must either cast his ground-bait in so far up stream that it will find bottom in his swim, or he must knead it into balls with a stone in the middle or mixed with clay, so as to sink it to the bottom at once. In choosing a swim on the banks of a river, if the angler cannot see a good stock of fish any where, he should choose some spot which fish may be supposed to haunt, a spreading root, or bough, or over hanging bank with a hole under it, a deep hole near banks of weeds, or a deep eddy off some sharp stream. Here the bottom should be pretty level and free from obstructions, arid the stream not too swift nor too slow, so that the float may travel steadily and evenly without hinderance through out. If he cannot decide on any spot, let him look along the bank for places worn by the angler s feet, or where debris of bran, Arc., points out that some angler has previously fished and baited the stream. Having baited a pitch one day, it should never be neglected on the next, as the fish will have had time to find out the bait, and will perhaps be collected together there. Of course the choice of a pitch will be guided very much by the species of fish the angler desires to fish for. The places they frequent are noted hereafter. When the angler has hooked a big fish which he cannot lift out without danger to tackle, he uses a landing-net, that is, a bag-net on an iron ring fastened to the end of a pole, which he slips under the tired fish and lifts securely to the bank. When fishing on a river bank the last words in Walton s Complete Angler are to be strictly observed, viz., "Study to be quiet," for violent disturbance or motion is fatal to sport. Having deliberately chosen a pitch and baited it, the angler should not desert it hastily, or if he leaves it for a time for another, he should return to it and give it another trial. In angling from a punt or boat a shorter rod is used than from the bank, from 10 to 12 feet being the limit. In the Thames plan the punt or flat-bottomed boat is fixed directly across the stream by means of two iron-shod poles which are driven into the bottom. The depth being taken, and the ground-bait thrown in, the angler, sitting with his face down stream,, drops his tackle in close to the boat, and allows it to float down stream unchecked as far as the line, which is generally a yard or two longer than the rod, will permit, when he strikes, pulls up the tackle, drops it again in close to the