14 The Complete Angler 



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. 



AUCEPS. 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 recrea- 

 tion. 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 she then 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 mag- 

 nificent palaces which we adore and wonder at; 

 from w r hich height, I can make her to descend by 

 a word from my mouth, which she both knows and 

 obeys, to accept of meat from my hand, to own me 



