Angling
"When I was a mere schoolboy, Ere yet I learnt my book, I felt an itch for angling In every little brook. "An osier rod, some thread for line, A crooked pin for hook; And, thus equipp'd, I angled In every little brook. "Where sticklebacks and minnows Each day I caught in store, With stone-roaches and miller's thumbs;- These brooks afford no more. "But I a little angler, With crooked pin for hook, Would shun each noisy wrangler, To fish the little brook.
WHAT can be more delightful than angling ? Not indeed so much on account of the fish we may catch, but for the pleasantness of the recreation itself, for the cool streams, the shady trees, the little sunny hooks, the tiny or gigantic cascades, the meandering rills, the still pools, "with sedges overhung;" the picturesque mill-wheels, the deep mill ponds, "smooth sheeted by the flood ;" and above all, for the hair-breadth escapes, for the duckings, for the hazards, for the triumphs. We do not wonder at boys being fond of angling, it is almost an instinct with them, and has long been a favourite amusement with boys of all degrees, ages and constitutions. Therefore we shall be somewhat comprehensive in our notices of this interesting sport, that every boy who can bait a hook and hold a line may be an angler if he will.