1 8 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



periods of impulse and inertness. The most notable intellec- 

 tual revivals occurred about the years i486, 1590, 1676, 

 1750, 1800, and 1850, during which many good angling books 

 were printed — not many of great specific worth, but all valu- 

 able as chronological landmarks to indicate what fishes existed 

 at specified times, what have been extirpated or scattered 

 and disseminated by economic vicissitudes and incidents of 

 settlement, what were chiefly in request for sport or food, 

 and what devices and methods were in vogue for their cap- 

 ture or protection. 



During the whole of this long lapse of four centuries, less 

 visible advance was made than in the two last decades alone. 

 Genius and energy were long dormant. The adept had not 

 developed. The commonplace angler at first preferred to loll 

 on the bank and bob with worms. But art improves as 

 the passion grows. Gradually still-fishing developed into 

 trolling; trolling into spinning; spinning into dapping; and 

 dapping into fishing with the fly. Silk-worm gut is first men- 

 tioned in books ("Saunder's Compleat Fisherman") in 1724, 

 and two years later Salmon-fishing became a new experience 

 in England. In 1 746 the use of the artificial fly was intro- 

 duced. It was a lost art restored. At that date the ancient 

 hippiirus emerges from its long obscurity, and behold! a mar- 

 velous revelation in angling is at once unfolded. Pursuit and 

 quest were thereby stimulated and accelerated; and by and by 

 they became ennobled! 



Primitive ichthyology comprehended little more than a 

 superficial knowledge of the habits and habitudes of a few 

 fishes, and their general characteristics. Salmon and Trout 

 were prominent among those which engaged early attention, 

 for the Family Salvionidce are among the oldest of post-ter- 

 tiary fresh-water fish-forms, long antedating the glacial 

 epoch; and of all its one hundred recognized species, the 

 Salmon has held supremacy as chief from the beginning. 

 Evolution of the ages seems not to have made him a braver, 



