Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/63

Rh sixty, and even seventy pounds, and that Salmon of this weight yield to the skilful angler, "with a diminutive artificial fly, a thin silkworm-gut line, and a rod of pieces lighter and more limber than a lady's riding wand," we may well say that the fly-fishing art is one fully worthy of the sportsman's enthusiasm.

The charges of cruelty and frivolity have been often brought against angling by those who have taken no interest in its gentle excitement. From the former we fear it cannot entirely be cleared, at least so long as living vertebrate animals, whether frog, fish, or mouse, are used as bait. But adepts in the art have maintained that these are not necessary, mimic representations being made sufficiently true, to answer every purpose of the troller. The accusation of frivolity seems no more applicable to this than to any other recreation, while it has recommendations peculiarly its own. A host of brilliant names might be cited among the lovers of angling, especially of its highest branch, fly-fishing. To one of these we shall confide its defence, himself an able master of the art, and a pleasing describer of its charms.

"The search after food," remarks Sir Humphrey Davy, "is an instinct belonging to our nature; and, from the savage in his rudest and most primitive state, who destroys a piece of game or a fish with club or spear, to man in the most cultivated state of society, who employs artifice, machinery, and the resources of various other animals, to secure his object, the origin of the pleasure is similar, and its object the same. That kind of skill, however, which requires most