NINTH DAY.] ANGLING FOR FROGS. 257 



entirely English ; and though I have travelled much, 

 I do not recollect ever to have seen fly-fishing 

 practised by native anglers abroad. 



HAL. I assure you there are fishers with the 

 artificial fly in different parts of Switzerland, Ger- 

 many, and Illyria, though always with rude tackle, 

 and usually upon rapid streams. Besides the Traun, I 

 can mention the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Drave, as 

 rivers where I have seen fish caught with rude 

 imitations of flies used by native anglers. In Italy, 

 where trout and grayling are very rare, and only 

 found amongst the highest mountain chains, I have 

 never seen any fly-fishers ; but near Ravenna I have 

 sometimes seen anglers for frogs, who threw their 

 bait exactly as we throw a fly, and caught great 

 numbers of these animals : and the nature of their 

 apparatus surprised me more than their method of 

 using it ; instead of a hook and bait, they employed 

 a small dry frog, tied to a long piece of twine, the 

 forelegs of which projected like two hooks, and this 

 they threw at a distance, by means of a long rod. 

 The frogs rose like fish and gorged the small dry 

 frog, by the legs of which they were pulled out of 

 the water. I was informed by one of these fishermen 

 that he sometimes took two hundred frogs in this 

 way in a morning, and that the frogs never swallowed 

 any bait when still or apparently dead, but caught at 



