INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 7 



flies are the prey of certain speckled fish, which no sooner 

 see them settling on the water than they glide gently beneath, 

 and before the hippurus is aware, snap at and carry him as 

 suddenly under the stream as an eagle will seize and bear 

 aloft a goose from a farm-yard, or a wolf take a sheep from 

 its fold. The predilection of these speckled fish for their 

 prey, though familiarly known to all who inhabit the dis- 

 trict, does not induce the angler to attempt their capture by 

 impaling the living insect, which is of so delicate a nature 

 that the least handling would spoil its colour and appearance, 

 and render it unfit as a lure. But adepts in the sport have 

 contrived a taking device to circumvent them ; for which 

 purpose they invest the body of the hook with purple wool, 

 and having adjusted two wings of a waxy colour, so as to 

 form an exact imitation of the hippurus, they drop these 

 abstruse cheats gently down the stream. The scaly pursuers 

 who hastily rise and expect nothing less than a dainty bait, 

 snap the decoy, and are immediately fixed to the hook." 

 Indeed, hundreds of years before Antony and Cleopatra 

 amused themselves by angling, the craft was practised in 

 different countries, for representations of fish and fishing 

 have been found upon some of the oldest temples, and most 

 venerable remains. In savage and uncivilized countries also 

 instruments of angling are found very rude, but still effective 

 for the wants of those employing them, thus showing that 

 the various arts used in fishing must have had a primitive 

 and almost universal invention. Enough has been said about 

 ancient angling, and I will now therefore turn to a more 

 modern period. Angling can claim the distinction of being 

 one of the first subjects treated of in a printed book, for 

 within ten years of the first book printed in England by 

 Caxton there appeared the famous " Boke of St. Albans," 

 attributed to Dame Juliana Berners, or Baines, Prioress of 

 Sop well, near St. Albans. It was published by Wynkyn de 

 "Worde in A.D. 1486, and contained chapters on hunting, 

 hawking, horses, and coat-armour, and also one on fishing, 

 which was thus introduced, " Here begynnyth the treatyse 

 of fysshynge with an Angle." This was the first contribu- 

 tion to angling literature ; and I believe it was not until an 



