Notes 



Page 33. the fitchet, the fulimart, the ferret \ the pole-cat, the mould-warp. Prof. 

 Rennie says, that " the fitchet, or fitchew, the fulimart, or fumart, and the polecat, 

 appear to be all of the same species (mustela putorius)." The fulimart is named in 

 the Boke of St. Albans among the beasts of the chase, though Skinner, in his 

 Etymologium Lingua Anglicans, says the word only occurs in Walton. Foumart 

 is still used in Scotland. The mouldwarp is the mole. Mould-warp, i.e., a cast 

 earth, according to Verstigan. M. and B. 



Page 33. How could Cleopatra have feasted Mark Antony? See Plutarch's Life 

 of Antony, North's translation. 



5. rascal game. Rascall means a deer too lean to kill, but more 

 anciently, any beast too worthless for game. 



Other bestys all 

 Pfhencr ye theym fnde, rascall ye them call. 



Boke of St. Albans. B. 



Page 35. and I might make many observations of land creatures. Dr, Bethune 

 compares the whole of this part of the dialogue to Plutarch's De Solertia Animalium, 

 the translation of which Walton had probably seen. 



Page 36. The water is the eldest daughter of the creation. Thales, of Miletus 

 (540 B.C.), one of the seven wise men of Greece, like Homer, regarded water as 

 the primary element, the passive principle on which an intelligent Cause moved 

 to form all things. He meant by water chaos ; Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, i. 10 ; 

 Aristotle, {Metapbysica, i. 8. So Pindar : "Water is best." B. 



Page 36. ZMoses who was called the Friend of (jod. This title in the Scriptures 

 is usually applied to Abraham : vide 2 Chron. xx. 7 ; Isaiah xli. 8 ; James ii. 23 ; 

 but in Exodus xxxiii. II, it is said that "God spake to Moses as a Man to his 

 Friend." M. 



Page 38. He that shall view the writings of Macrobius or Varro. This passage 

 occurs first in the second edition of The Compleat Angler, 1655 ; and the materials 

 of it are taken, with little alteration in the language, from Lib. iv. sec. 6, p. 434 

 of Dr. Hakewill's Apology, etc. Aurelius Macrobius, above mentioned, was a Latin 

 writer of the fourth century, who is, by some, supposed to have been a Christian 

 and Chamberlain to the Emperor Theodosius II. His principal production is the 

 Saturnalia Convivia, which is in seven books, and consists of a miscellaneous col- 

 lection of antiquities and criticisms, supposed to have been derived from the con- 

 versation of some learned Romans, during the Saturnalian Festival. The circum- 

 stances mentioned in the text will be found in Lib. ii. cap. xi. of that work. He 

 also wrote a commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis, and many other books 

 which are now lost ; but his latinity is often corrupt, as he was not born in a part 

 of the Roman Empire where the Latin language was spoken. 



400 



