EARLY FLY FISHING IN FRANCE. 53 



de Grammont, dit le Solitaire Inventif . It is 

 a most practical manual on fowling and snaring 

 generally, chiefly remarkable for its really 

 admirable illustrations, which are both well 

 drawn and well reproduced. And there is a 

 section on fishing, which makes it quite certain 

 that the Inventive Solitary was a born angler ; 

 for he says that all his elaborate rules are use- 

 less, unless you know how to time your strike 

 rightly. It is true that his book shows distinct 

 traces of the Treatise, or possibly of Mascall, 

 notably in the description of the rod, but in 

 spite of that it is a work of high originality. 

 It deserves more attention that it has received, 

 and luckily it is still easy to get. It gives the 

 first illustration I know of an eyed hook and of 

 the triangular landing net, now so common, of 

 which the author claims to be the inventor. Of 

 its sixteen fishing plates, most of them no doubt 

 of nets, are three of rods, hooks and lines. The 

 fly is not mentioned. The two fish which 

 chiefly interested the Inventive Solitary were 

 the carp and the pike. He made his rod of 

 two pieces, a hollow butt of holly or hornbeam 

 and a top of whalebone, and when carp ran 

 large he used a forerunner of the reel. He 

 took a slip of wood four inches long, with a 

 notch at each end, and passed his line, just 

 below the point of his rod, through one notch. 

 Then he wound some yards of spare line round 

 the slip and passed the line through the lower 

 notch. A big carp when hooked pulled the line 



