CURIOSITIES OF ANGLING LITERATURE. 2G3 



world of life the insect classes the wise ordering 

 of which keeps our rivers free from organic matter, 

 and which is never ceasing in its beneficial conver- 

 sion of what is effete into fresh combinations and vital 

 material. 



The Eev. C. D. Badham, in his Prose Halieutics, 

 says that the Izaak Waltons of antiquity employed 

 divers pastes, equal to (and it would be hard to sur- 

 pass) our own, for complicity of composition, and the 

 truly surprising effects resulting from the different 

 ingredients introduced. 



That some fish were attracted by strong scents, 

 and would take a whole pharmacopoeia of " fcetids," 

 prescribed by a scientific practitioner, was indeed as 

 well known to the poacher of early days as now. 

 Oppian speaks of myrrh dissolved in wine-lees, and 

 again of certain drugs familiar to the sons of ^scu- 

 lapius as well as fishermen, and turned to account by 

 the latter in impregnating their nets, as expedients 

 that never failed. These substances entered into the 

 composition of many fishing pastes, the recipes for 

 which have come down to us. They were of two 

 classes, intoxicating and poisonous. Pliny records 

 that all aristolochias yield an aromatic smell, but 

 that one, called popularly "the earth's poison," is 

 successfully used by Campanian fishermen for the 

 purposes of their craft. 



" I have seen them use the plant," says he, " in- 



