20 MINNOWS AND 



the appellation of Minnows, though, in nearly 

 all instances, the bright little Minnow has been 

 most unmercifully parodied. "Were it but 

 endowed with man's proud prerogative, speech, 

 would it not uplift its tiny voice against those 

 eccentricities, at whose baptism it has been 

 forced to stand godflither by proxy ? " Truth 

 is strange — stranger tlian fiction." In the 

 present instance, however, the Minnow is 

 a pretty, little, lively fellow, having nothing 

 strange about him ; but the fictions thereon 

 founded are strange indeed. The poet's mon- 

 sirum horrendum, wforme ingens cui lumen 

 ademptum, is not more remarkable than the 

 angler's Minnows. Fishermen may, perhaps, 

 have fixed upon the ^linnow as the generic 

 of his tribe ; and thus, as Nature sometimes 

 produces monstrosities, anglers have given to 

 the world extraordinary variations on the ori- 

 ginal : and, what is more extraordinary still, 

 some of their oddities are admirably adapted for 

 the purpose designed. 



Montaigne has something to the effect that 

 every kind of creature has a certain claim to 



