CURIOSITIES OF ANGLING LITERA TURE. 267 



metheus brought fire from heaven. Polipody almost 

 as filthy in smell as the preceding will be found 

 under the class Cryptogamia, amongst the last and 

 lowest of vegetables. It is of the fern tribe. The 

 oil of ivy is the tear which exudes from the stem of 

 that parasite when the limb is wounded. "We are not 

 sufficient chemists to determine what is oil of Peter, 

 unless it was some preparation, secret or otherwise, 

 of a mediaeval " Peter of the Pool," or that of St. 

 Peter's wort. 



This reference occasionally to the flesh of whelps, 

 in combination with oils, as a lure for fish, recalls a 

 passage in the life of the great French chirurgeon 

 Ambrose Pare, in which he dwells upon the difficulties 

 he had to encounter during two whole years of self- 

 imposed retirement from his business, to obtain from 

 a professional contemporary at Turin (temp. 1536) his 

 secret of curing wounds made by gunshot He 

 writes 



" It fell out that the Marshall of Montejan, the King's 

 lieutenant-general, then in Piedmont, died ; wherefore I went 

 unto my chirurgeon, and told him that I could take no plea- 

 sure in living there, the favourer and Maecenas of my studies 

 being taken away ; and that I intended forthwith to return 

 to Paris, and that it would neither hinder nor discredit him 

 to teach his remedy to me, who should be so far remote from 

 him. When he heard this he made no delay, but presently 

 wished me to provide tico ichelps, one pound of earth-worms, 

 two pounds of oil of lilies, six ounces of Venice turpentine, and 



