56 FISHING GOSSIP. 



the Scripture calls him, does sadly delude us, even 

 when we rise at his best baits, and, as it were, his 

 true flies." 



Home Tooke's derivation of bait from bite is 

 supported by the well-known use of the word to 

 signify a refreshment, taken either by a horse or man 

 when travelling, thus alluded to by Spencer : 



" The Sun, that measures heaven all day long, 

 At night doth bait his steeds the ocean waves among." 



A local joke in connection with the word is 

 attached to the saddle-making town of Burford, in 

 Oxfordshire, not unknown to the fisherman, from its 

 position on the trouting river "Windrush. The 

 common phrase, " a Burford bait," however, does not 

 imply a light repast to stay the stomach, as quaint 

 old Fuller informs us, but one to lose the wits thereby, 

 and resolve at last into drunkenness. 



Bait, in short, consists of the animal or vegetable 

 substances that generally form the food of fishes, or 

 the artificial representations of such substances. Fly- 

 fishing, by the use of natural or artificial insects for 

 bait, being almost universally conceded to be the 

 highest branch of the art, and this month being 

 remarkable as the one in which the May-fly, the most 

 notable of all insect baits, springs into its short-lived 

 existence, the first portion of this paper may not in- 

 appropriately be devoted to so far-famed a bait, famous 



