PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 24, NO. 7-8, OCT. -NOV., 1922 167 



the "Compleat Angler," was not a poet. If so, it easily may 

 be shown that not only was he a poet, but an entomologist as 

 well. The following quotation from his celebrated work will, I 

 think, prove beyond a peradventure the contention that Walton 

 was an entomologist and that he might have qualified as a taxon- 

 omist had such an undreamed-of profession then existed. He is 

 describing a caterpillar: 



"Nay, the very colors are, as one has observed, very elegant 

 and beautiful. I shall for a taste of the rest, describe one of 

 them, which I will sometime the next month show you feeding on 

 the willow tree, and you shall find him punctually to answer this 

 very description: his lips and mouth somewhat yellow, his eyes 

 black as jet, his forehead purple, his feet and hinderparts green, 

 his tail two-forked and black; the whole body stained with a 

 kind of red spots which run along the neck and shoulder-blade, 

 [Walton's terminology here is somewhat obsolete] not unlike 

 the form of Saint Andrew's cross, or the letter X, made thus 

 cross-wise, and a white line drawn down his back to his tail; all 

 of which add much beauty to his whole body." 



Please observe the ecological note at the beginning of this 

 description which shows plainly that Walton not only knew his 

 insects, but had made mental note of their food-plants, doubt- 

 less as an aid to piscatorial success. Indeed, it would be safe 

 to assume that anglers in those days of primitive entomology 

 were comparatively well-informed regarding the ecology of such 

 forms as were valued in the "gentle art." In further proof of 

 this assumption, the following is offered from "The Book of 

 Saint Albans," published by Wynkyn de Worde, in 1496 (four 

 years after the discovery of America), which contains the 

 earliest known treatise in the English language on "Fysshynge 

 Wyth an Angle." The author of this work, strange to relate, 

 is said to have been one Juliana Berners or Barnes, the prioress 

 of a convent at Sopwell, and Merely 1 says that Dame Berners 

 wrote these papers about 1460. 



Speaking of baits for the cheven or chub, the treatise says: 

 "In May [place] ye bayte that bredyth on the osyer leyf and 

 the docke-canker together upon your hoke. Also a bayte that 

 bredyth upon a fern leyf; ye codworme and a bayte that bredyth 

 on an hawthorn. In June taket the creket and the 



bayte that bredyth in a dunghyll; and a grete greshop. In July 

 the greshop and the humblybee in the medow. Also a grete 

 brended flye that bredyth in pathes of medowes, " etc. 



Referring to the present divergence of practice as to the use 

 of the term "grasshopper" and "locust," between the entomolo- 

 gists of the United States and their brethren of England and 

 Canada when referring to the short-horned grasshoppers, the 



'Manual of English Literature, Henry Merely, New York, 1879, p. 121. 



