“The best time to set the long-line is after low water, when the tide has flowed a little, and brought the fish with it. To know the different ‘hauls’ is most important, as your success in a great measure depends upon the selection of a good one. After the line is set, _it should be left exactly one hour_; and, if you have hit upon a shoal, you will most likely half fill the boat. I have several times killed about a dozen, from twenty to fifty pounds’ weight, besides quantities of smaller. The fish for the most part taken are cod, ling, haddock, skate, large flounders, and enormous conger-eels—some of the latter more than half the length of your boat, and as thick as a man’s leg. These would generally be thrown back again, were it not for the havoc they make among the other fish, and the damage they do to the set lines. Their throats, therefore, are cut as soon as they are pulled up, after which operation they will live for hours. The skate is also very tenacious of life; and nothing can be more absurd than the grotesque pompous faces it will continue to exhibit for some time after being deposited in the boat.” Here Mr Colquhoun becomes slightly libellous—comparing the countenances of the unhappy skate to those of functionaries on the bench. Now we happen to have seen a moribund skate or two, but we never were impressed with such resemblance. We admit, however, that we have seen countenances under wigs look exceeding dolorous and fish-like when their party was going out of office. But enough of this kind of fishing, which is, after all, too strictly professional for our taste. We prefer the rod and fly; and even in the salt water the angler may use such implements, though in a coarser form than that to which he is accustomed. “Of all apologies for a fly, this (the white feather) is the clumsiest. It is only a swan’s or goose’s feather tied round a large and very coarse bait-hook, without the least pretence to art: any man who had never dressed a fly in his life would be as successful in the attempt as the most finished performer. The rod and line are in perfect keeping with the fly; a bamboo cane, or young hazel tree, with ten or twelve yards of oiled cord, and a length or two of double or triple gut next the hook: no reel is used.