24 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



and, therefore, you two having declared yourselves, 

 the one to be a lover of hawks, the other of hounds, 

 I shall be most glad to hear what you can say in the 

 commendation of that recreation which each of you 

 love and practise ; and having heard what you can say, 

 I shall be glad to exercise your attention with what I 

 can say concerning my own recreation and art of angling, 

 and by this means we shall make the way to seem the 

 shorter ; and if you like my motion, I would have Mr. 

 Falconer to begin. 



AUG. Your motion is consented to with all my heart ; 

 and to testify it, I will begin as you have desired me. 



And first, for the element that I use to trade in, which 

 is the air, an element of more worth than weight 

 an element that doubtless exceeds both the earth and 

 water ; for though I sometimes deal in both, yet the air 

 is most properly mine ; I and my hawks use that most, 

 and it yields us most recreation : it stops not the high 

 soaring of my noble, generous falcon ; in it she ascends 

 to such a height as the dull eyes of beasts and fish are 

 not able to reach to ; their bodies are too gross for such 

 high elevations : in the air my troops of hawks soar 

 up on high, and when they are lost in the sight of men, 

 then they attend upon and converse with the gods ; 

 therefore I think my eagle is so justly styled " Jove's 

 servant in ordinary " : and that very falcon, that I am now 

 going to see, deserves no meaner a title, for she usually 

 in her flight endangers herself, like the son of Daedalus, 

 to have her wings scorched by the sun's heat, she flies 

 so near it ; but her mettle makes her careless of danger ; 

 for then she heeds nothing, but makes her nimble pinions 

 cut the fluid air, and so makes her highway over the 

 steepest mountains and deepest rivers, and in her glorious 

 career looks with contempt upon those high steeples 

 and magnificent palaces which we adore and wonder 

 at ; from which height I can make her to descend by 



