With Cordings, Fishing Boots, and Macintosh Coat, you are weather proof; neither the water from above or below can affect you; by the aid of the boots you keep your feet perfectly dry, the coat enables you to continue fishing during the heaviest showers, and in Summer especially, when the flies and insects are beat down by such showers, the best of fish are then on the move; without the India Rubber Garment, you may get thoroughly wet in ten minutes. If you find shelter you probably loose some good sport, and if not, by continuing your fishing, you become so cold, wet, and exceedingly uncomfortable, that you generally deem it adviseable to proceed home with as little delay as possible. When the day is fine, and the water repeller not needed, avoid light, or glaring colours; brown, green, or grey garments are most suitable, particularly when the water is low and clear.
HEALTH,—CAUTION.
If your feet are wet either in Spring or Summer, do not, if you regard your health, sit down above two or three minutes. You may frequently have occasion to wait some considerable time by the water side, looking out for the expected feed, and consequent rising of the fish; at such times keep walking about in preference to sitting, which is the best way to avoid catching cold. When you return home loose not a moment in changing your wet garments. Colds and Rheumatism are the pains and penalties anglers are liable to, who do not follow the above advice.
THE EYE, THE ONLY ACUTE FACULTY IN FISH.
Trout, however quick sighted they may be, are like all the finny tribe, supposed to be incapable of hearing, in consequence of the density of the element in which they exist. Water has long ago been proved to be a non-conductor of sound, and if fish are possessed of any faculty of the kind, it must be the dullest imaginable. From the horny construction of the palate, their taste cannot be acute, and their sense of smelling (judging from the medium by which all odours are conveyed to them,) must be peculiarly defective. Taking the above suppositions to be correct, it is of course clearly apparent that they must be guided solely by the eye in the selection of their food; for instance, when fish are stupefied or fuddled as it is termed, I do not suppose their olfactory organs are affected by the berry or drugs, used to intoxicate or kill them. I am persuaded, that small balls of paste or bread would, if offered to them at the same time, be devoured at precisely the same rate as those prepared with unguents or drugs.
The formation of fish is peculiarly adapted to water, through which they glide with the greatest facility; their motions being regulated by the fins and tail; the tail indeed being to the fish precisely what a rudder is to a ship. The air bladder in fish is another wise provision of nature, by means of it they can remain for a long time under water; still they must from time to time take in supplies, for if during a severe frost the ice be not broken on ponds, the fish therein would perish for want of air. Some fish are much more tenacious of life than others; Roach, Perch and Tench, have been conveyed alive, for stocking ponds, thirty miles, packed only in wet leaves or grass. One thing is quite certain as regards all fish, viz., that they live longer out of their natural element in cold than in hot weather. A clever invention for the transport of fish has come under my notice; an account of this machine may prove interesting to some persons, and therefore I insert it.
THE TRANSPORT OF TROUT AND GREYLING.