ANCIENT ANGLING AUTHORS 221 



had heard something beyond that ; he had a friend 

 of his in Northamptonshire, who stopped at a little 

 public house, and called for a bottle of ale ; it was set 

 on the table, and, being ripe, forced out the cork, 

 which went through the ceiling and roof of the house, 

 and hit a small bird which was that instant flying 

 along ; the bird dropped perpendicularly down into 

 the bottle, the cork followed plump into the neck 

 again, stopped the bottle and drowned the bird. My 

 friend very gravely replied, that was nothing ; for he 

 had heard his father say, that, by such an accident in 

 Wiltshire^ he caught a covey of partridges, consisting 

 of eight brace and a half of birds, and at one blow, 

 with this addition only, that it was a two quart bottle 

 they fell into, &c. 



The Art of Lying is certainly not among the lost 

 anglers' arts. We still meet with frequent examples 

 of the " recitative " lie. I have generally noticed that 

 the probability of these lies varies in an inverse ratio 

 to the distance of the scene of their alleged occurrence 

 from the place of their narration. 



I am told that Tarpon-fishing lends itself with 

 peculiar facility to the exercise of this Art. I am, 

 however, unacquainted with any Tarpon anglers, and 

 am therefore unable personally to vouch for their 

 skill with the Long Bow. The "tallest" stories 

 which I have heard have come from Norway. 



The A ngle^s Museum ; or, the Whole A rt of Float 

 and Fly Fishing. By Thomas Shirley, is another 

 unoriginal work. It appears to have been chiefly 

 compiled from Bovvlker's Art of Angling. The 

 frontispiece is a portrait of the famous fisher- 



