34 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



But a still earlier British author in connection with 

 angling is a Scotch rhymster called Blind Harry, who is 

 credited with the Poeticce, in which lines a contention about 

 fishing rights between Sir William Wallace and Lord Percy 

 is related. The date of the poem is put toward the end 

 of the fourteenth century. It does not seem to be recog- 

 nised in the Bibliotheca Piscatoria. The contention de- 

 scribed reminds one of the suggested etymology of rivaXxy, 

 from rivus, a river ; and certainly the constant disputes 

 about " fishing rights " up to the present day, e.g. those 

 connected with the Thames, which are still sub jiidice, 

 favour the suggestion. 



