BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xxiii 



And now the purple, azure now, prevails, 



In varying beauty on thy shining scales. — (97-112.) 



Then he tells us of the Fario : 



Qui necdum Salmo, ner.dum Salar, ambigiiusque 

 Amborum medio, Fario, intercepto sub cbvo (125-130). 



Which neither trout nor salmon we may name ; 

 Perhaps 'twere either, were its age the same. 



(Quaere : was it the salmon-trout ? Ausonius has not 

 been the only one puzzled by the questions he suggests.) 



A little further on, among some minor sorts of angling, 

 he gives a clever description of a boy angling with a 

 float : 



Poised on a rock, hid from the fisher's gaze, 



His slender line the cautious angler plays, 



Inclining downward from his shadowed nook 



The pliant rod, whose tip with graceful crook. 



Yields gently to the plummet's chosen weight; 



The eager fish quick bites the flattering bait, 



— Then writhes in terror at the pang, that thrills 



From the barbed iron through his wounded gills, 



Down siJi/fs the jloat, And, with repeated nod, 



The struggling captive agitates the rod, — 



The ready stripling, through the hissing air. 



From right to left now springs the straining hair. 



And, flung upon the shore, his welcome prize 



Flounces awhile in death, and gasping dies. — (247-257.) 



Suhit indicium is the original for the words italicised 

 in my rough translation ; and, strange to say, I can find 

 no other distinct mention, among the ancients, of the float 

 or cork (or dohher, as it is called along the Hudson). 

 Floats or corks for nets are often spoken of by Julius Pol- 

 lux {Onomasticon v.), Oppian, and others, but if the 

 cork or float is elsewhere named, it has escaped my 

 search. 



It has excited some wonder that no mention is made 

 of fly-fishing by the Halieutical writers ; but the 



