Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/528

502 has fished much, and read more, making notes by the way, and the little volume which he now offers to his brother anglers and the public he describes as a selection of "notes" from his commonplace book on angling, and from the enormous mass of piscine and piscatorial memoranda and extracts which have gradually accumulated round him. These "notes" are, therefore, of a somewhat miscellaneous order, and if they do not always contain anything very new, they are presented to us not unfrequently in a new dress, and with comments by the author which deserve perusal. Indeed the chief merit of the book before us, in our opinion, lies in the comparisons which the author draws between his own experience and that of others who have written on the subject before him. He quotes older authors on various knotty points, narrates the result of his own experience, and endeavours to reconcile or account for the curious discrepancies which are occasionally to be met with in the published statements of enthusiastic fishermen.

His first note, headed "Ichthyology," deals with the classification of fish, and their structure; and various speculations are made as to whether fish hear, sleep, and feel pain. On these points, however, the author does not speak very positively, apparently not having made any original experiments in the matter, but contents himself for the most part with quoting the opposite opinions of others.

In his second note, "On the Literature of Fishing," which occupies between thirty and forty pages, a brief account is given of some of the most notable books on angling, the subject being divided under the heads of, " Authors before Izaak Walton," "Walton's Contemporaries," "Authors after Walton to end of 18th century," and "Authors from 1800 to the present time."

The merits of "Fishing as a Sport" may be taken to be so universally recognized and admitted at the present day that our author's third " note," under this heading, might have remained unpublished without at all detracting from the value of his book; but Mr. Manley, like many another enthusiast when riding his hobby, cannot resist a desire to indite a defence of his favourite field sport against every attack, real or imaginary, that can be made against it.

The same may almost be said of the note on "Fishing as a Fine Art," upon which so much has at various times been written. But