WALTON AND SOME 



EARLIER WRITERS ON FISH 



AND FISHING. 



CHAPTER I. 



Piers of Fulham, 1420 Adventure of Sir Wil- 

 liam Wallace St. Patrick and some Fish 

 and Snake Stories. 



[LAKEY, in his Angling Litera- 

 ture a most interesting and 

 useful little work quotes from 

 a curious tract, taken from the 

 original manuscript in Trinity College 

 Cambridge, entitled Piers Fulham, sup- 

 posed to have been written about the year 

 1420, and containing probably the earliest 

 known reference to angling in English, 

 but a very short one. The writer says he 

 would never store stews with " pykes " or 

 " breame " or " tenche," because, " be it 

 closed never so well aboute," thieves are 

 sure to steal them. 



