When spring arrives, and warns the shooter to give rest to the creatures of his pursuit, that they may pair, produce, and rear their broods; as he lays down the gun, he can take up the angle. Many a keen and devoted old sportsman, however, never knows when to lay down the gun. Though he will no longer fire at game, he likes through the spring and summer months to carry his gun on his arm through the woods, to knock down what he calls vermin,--stoats, weazels, polecats, jays, magpies, hawks, owls; all those creatures that destroy game, or their young broods, or suck their eggs. He is fond of spying out the nests of partridges and pheasants, and from time to time marking their progress. It is a grand anticipative pleasure to him when, passing along the furrow of the standing corn, his old pointer, or favourite spaniel starts the young birds just able to take the wing, and he counts them over with a silent exultation. He is fond of seeing to the training of his young dogs, of selecting fresh ones, of putting his fowling-pieces and all his shooting gear in order. There are some old sportsmen of my acquaintance, who, during what they call this idle time, have made collections of curious birds and small animals which might furnish some facts to natural history. An old uncle of mine in Derbyshire, who has shot away a fine estate, I scarcely ever recollect to have seen out of doors without his gun. I saw him lately, when in that county, a feeble, worn-out old man, just able to totter about, but still with the gun on his arm. For those, however, who can find it in their hearts to lay aside the gun at the prescribed time, and yet long for rural sports, what can so delightfully fill up the spring and summer as the fishing-rod? There is no rural art, except that of shooting, for which modern science and invention have done so much as angling. Since Izaak Walton gave such an impetus to this taste by his delicious old book, it has gradually assumed a new and fascinating character. A host of contrivances have been expended on fishing tackle. What splendid rods for simple angling, trolling, or fly-fishing, are now offered to the admiring eyes of the amateur! what a multitude of apparatus of one kind or other! what silver fish and endless artificial flies Angling has become widened and exalted in its sphere with the general expansion of knowledge and the improvement of taste. It has associated itself with the pleasures and refinements of literature and poetry. All those charms which worthy Izaak threw round it, have continued to cling to it, and others have grown up around them. The love of nature, the love of travel have intertwined themselves with the love of angling. Angling has thence become, as it were, a new and more attractive pursuit--a matter of taste and science as well as of health and pleasure. It is found that it may not only be followed by the tourist without diverting him from his