building, his visions may be pleasantly realised, even on a sandy foundation.

A TRUTH OR TWO TOUCHING FISHING RODS. -In the first edition I wrote an entire chapter on fishing rods. On reconsidering it I consider much of it superfluous, and some of it more likely to mislead than to inform. I have in consequence suppressed it, and shall now substitute better and briefer information.

A trout single hand fly-rod should vary from eleven to fourteen feet; but the average and best general length is 12 feet 4 inches. That is the length I prefer. A rod fourteen feet long is only necessary in wide rivers where large fish are to be met with. There are not many men who can with one arm wield it conveniently. It is an implement for the strong in the arm alone.

The materials of which fly-rods should be made are, ash for butt, hickory for middle pieces, bamboo cane for top. The butts of small flyrods for lads and ladies may be made of willow. It is a nice light wood, and sufficiently elastic for toy-rods. Lancewood is unfit for fly-rods. The ash, hickory and bamboo used should be perfectly seasoned and completely void of blemish or flaw. Let your fly-rod be in four pieces; a greater number are injurious; a lesser inconvenient. Balance in a fly-rod is the main point. The flyrods, whether for trout or salmon, made by Mr.

Blacker of 54. Dean Street, Soho, are never defective in this point. Any rod coming from the hands of his journeymen, defective in balance or unsound from apparent blemish in the material, he destroys.

Salmon fly-rods should vary from sixteen to eighteen feet in length-those of sixteen feet for grilse, sea trout, and so forth; those of eighteen for salmon of any size. A salmon rod 17 feet 4 inches is of the preferable average length. It should be made of the same materials as the trout fly-rod, and should also consist of four pieces.

I suggest the following improvement in salmonrods. There should be no spare top for trolling or spinning, but merely a spare fly-top, which should be of bamboo cane rent longitudinally into three wedge-shaped pieces, then glued together, reduced to the proper tapering thickness, and ringed and whipped with unusual care and neatness. This spare top should be reserved for heavy work in rivers, in and over which there are rocks and trees, rendering the playing of a fish unusually difficult, and tackle of more than ordinary strength necessary. I have changed my opinion with respect to rods made entirely of rent cane or of any other wood rent. Their defects will always more than counter-balance their merits.

Trolling and spinning rods should be about twelve feet long. Those made of mottled East

India cane, by Mr. Little of 15. Fetter Lane, are the handsomest and best I have seen. The above cane is sometimes scarce. The best substitutes

are ash for butt, hickory for middle pieces, and bamboo cane for top-the latter stout and short. Trolling and spinning rods of the last-mentioned materials are well made by Mr. C. Farlow, 221. Strand, whose foreman is a first-rate rod maker, and by Mr. Cheek of 132. Oxford Street. The latter manufacturer sells a general roda fly, trolling, spinning, and bottom rod in one-which I strongly recommend for convenience and fair fishing qualities, and for economy in more things than money.

Those of my readers who wish to know more about rods, and desire an opportunity of becoming practically acquainted with a greater variety of them, should examine the depôts of the following best London fishing-tackle makers:- Alfred N. H., 41. Coleman Street, City; Bernard, J., 4. Church Place, Piccadilly; Bond and Son, 62. Cannon Street; Bowness and Son, 12. and 14. Bell Yard, Temple Bar, and Bowness, Geo., jun., 33. Bell Yard; Eaton, George, 6. and 7. Crooked Lane, City; Farlow, J., 5. Crooked Lane; Holmes, Charles, jun., 2. Sydney Alley, Leicester Square; Holmes and Son, 123. Fetter Lane; Jones James, 111. Jermyn Street, St. James's; Robson, Thos., 30. Upper Marylebone Street.

In Ireland, the best tackle-makers are Martin Kelly, Dublin; Hackett, Great George's Street, Cork; and O'Shaughnessy, Limerick :-In Scotland, J. D. Dougall, Argyle Arcade, Glasgow; Forest, Kelso, and Douglas, Edinburgh.

S

258 RANK OF FISH IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

CHAPTER IX.

ON PISCATORIAL PHYSIOLOGY.

In order to clear up, for angling purposes, how far fish see, hear, smell, taste, and generally feel, I solicited one of my best friends, Erasmus Wilson, F.R.S., a well-known and accomplished anatomist and physiologist, to write me briefly his opinions on the subject. He obligingly complied, and the following is the useful result.

From the humble position of the fish in the animal kingdom, namely, at the very foot of the scale of the vertebrate series, in other words, the lowliest of that large group of animals distinguished by the possession of a spine, it may naturally be inferred that those higher attributes of animals which depend on the presence of nerves, and of a nervous system, present a corresponding degree of inferiority. Such an inference would be strictly true; for, whatever element of their construction we examine, whether their bones, muscles, vessels, nerves, or organs of nutrition, sense, or reproduction, all suggest alike the idea of inferiority as contrasted with the higher animals and man, but of exquisite beauty as compared