604 The Artificial Fly and Silk -Worm Gut. 



Juliana Berners, in her " Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle," 

 printed in 1496, does not speak of the reel. 



ON THE ORIGIN OF THE ARTIFICIAL FLY AND THE SILK -WORM GUT. 



By Alfred M. Mayer. 



"Who has not seen the scarus rise, 

 Decoy'd and caught by fraudful flies ? " 



Martial, a. d. 43-104. 



The earliest explicit account of the use of the artificial fly is by 

 y£lian, a Latin author of the early part of the third century. In his 

 " De Natura Animalium," a work originally written in Greek, we 

 read : 



" I have heard of a Macedonian way of catching fish, and it is this : Between 

 Beroca and Thessalonica runs a river called the Astracus, and in it there are fish with 

 spotted (or speckled) skins ; what the natives of the country call them you had better 

 ask the Macedonians. These fish feed on a fly which is peculiar to the country, and 

 which hovers over the river. It is not like flies found elsewhere, nor does it resemble 

 a wasp in appearance, nor in shape would one justly describe it as a midge or a bee ; it 

 imitates the color of the wasp, and it hums like a bee. The natives call it Hippouros. 

 As these flies seek their food over the water, they do not escape the observation of the 

 fish swimming below. When, then, a fish observes a fly hovering above, it swims 

 quickly up, fearing to agitate the river, lest it should scare away its prey ; then coming 

 up by its shadow, it opens its jaws and gulps down the fly, like a wolf carrying off a 

 sheep from the flock or an eagle a goose from the farm-yard. Having done this, it 

 withdraws under the rippling water. Now, though the fishermen know of this, they do 

 not use these flies at all for bait for the fish ; for if a man's hand touch them, they lose 

 their color, their wings decay, and they become unfit for food for the fish. For this 

 reason, they have nothing to do with them, hating them for their bad character ; but 

 they have planned a snare for the fish, and get the better of them by their fisherman's 

 craft. They fasten red (crimson-red) wool round a hook, and fit on to the wool two 

 feathers, which grow under a cock's wattles, and which in color are like wax. Their 

 rod is six feet long, and the line is of the same length. Then they throw their snare, 

 and the fish, attracted and maddened by the color, comes up, thinking, from the pretty 

 sight, to get a dainty mouthful. When, however, it opens its jaws, it is caught by the 

 hook, and enjoys a bitter repast — a captive." 



Subsequent to Elian's time, fly-fishing is not mentioned by any 

 author till Dame Juliana Berners, in 1496, writes of it as a mode 

 of angling well known, for she introduces the subject abruptly, as 

 follows : 



