182 FLY FISHING FOR TROUT. 



third edition, the only one I have seen) quotes 

 him as an equal authority on fishponds with 

 Dubravius, high praise from a writer of that 

 date. And, by the way, Hartlib, though he 

 knew Taverner, had never heard of Markham 

 or Barker (he could hardly have heard of 

 Walton), for he laments that there is no good 

 treatise on angling in English. 



Though Taverner does not actually describe 

 the splitting open of the ephemera nymph and 

 the birth of the subimago, he comes near it. 

 Cotton, an acute observer, knew a good deal, but 

 he knew less than Taverner. He tells us much 

 about the Stonefly and Mayfly, though he is 

 wrong about their underwater life, for he imag- 

 ined they came from caddises. It is odd that he 

 should not have identified the Creeper. Still 

 Cotton, though inferior to Taverner, was a fair 

 field naturalist and knew the dates of appear- 

 ance of the different flies. From Cotton know- 

 ledge gradually progresses. It was of course 

 handicapped by the absence of good scientific 

 works. I suppose the Theater of Insects by 

 Dr. Thomas Moffett, published with Topsel's 

 History of Fourfooted Beasts, 1658, is a fair 

 type of current entomology. Its author, whose 

 name is also spelt Muffet or Moufet, was a 

 celebrated doctor, and an acute observer of 

 insects; but in spite of this, and in spite of 

 quite good illustrations, one of which I take 

 to be a mayfly, the book would assuredly not be 

 much help to the eager and perplexed fisher- 



