Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 Excerpt:...but for the most part making no appeal to sentiment. They told people what to catch, and how to catch it--often, I am sorry to say, in other people's words. The revival of picturesque fishing writing came with the Nineteenth century. Perhaps Sir Humphry Davy's Salmonia (1828), may be taken as marking the beginning of the new epoch. It is a return to the dialogue method of Walton, though its stilted and rather pedantic style militates against its being a rival to The Compleat Angler. Its author is always the scientist unbending rather than the angler in ecstasy. A 5 lb. trout has just been caught at Denham, and four anglers are regarding it and estimating its weight with all the coolness in the world. One, a novice, says, "O! I see you take the mathematical law. that similar solids are to each other in the triplicate ratio of one of their dimensions." I myself once saw four anglers similarly regarding a 5 lb. trout just caught at Uxbridge, a little lower down the Colne. One, the captor, danced. The others spoke in turn, "By Jove!" "Great Scott!!" " My hat!!!" I do not say that we have improved, but we have certainly changed! Salmonia is, none the less, for its style, a very interesting book. On a shelf near Salmonia stands the Nodes of Christopher North into which the judicious reader should look if only to find the Shepherd saying:--"Poo! That was nae day's fishin' ava, man, in comparison to ane o' mine on St. Mary's Loch. To say naething about the countless sma' anes, twa hnnder about half a pun', ae hunder about a haill pun', fifty about twa pun', five-andtwenty about fowre pun', and the lave rinnin' frae half a stane up to a stane and a half, except about half a dizzin, aboon a' wecbt, that put Geordie Gudefal...