Preface. vii 



hunting, hawking, and fowling, that he omits the directions for making rods and 

 lines, and has rearranged the matter of the " Treatyse." 



The chapters on the places and weather for angling, and on its "lets" or 

 impediments ; on the baits for particular fish ; on artificial flies ; on colouring 

 lines ; and on the selection of lines and plumbing them, are closely copied from 

 the "Treatyse" of 1496, the variations in the language being only such as would 

 be made by a transcriber who was himself practically acquainted with the Art, 

 Occasionally, however, he allows himself greater licence, and adds to the 

 instructions given in the " Treatyse." The chapter on the Carp has been 

 rewritten, and its baits are specified, though the sentence, about being " loth to 

 add more than I know and have proved," is preserved. The recent introduction 

 of this fish is also here reasserted (and twice elsewhere in the book), but assumes 

 this form : " The first bringer of them into England (as I have been credibly 

 informed) was Master Mascoll of Plumsted in Sussex, who also brought first 

 the planring of the Pippin in England." On the authority of this passage. 

 Fuller assigns to Leonard Mascall the honour of first introducing the carp, 

 and gives 15 14 as the date of its introduction, but the assertion is refuted, as 

 has been many times pointed out, by the fact that the "Treatyse," written 

 certainly before 1496, and possibly before 1450, mentions this fish, and adds, 

 "but there ben but fewe in England." Mascall may indeed have brought carp 

 into the country, but he cannot be called the "first bringer of them." 



How much of the rest of the book is the author's own and how much is 

 drawn from other sources I have not been able precisely to ascertain, but 

 Chapters (59) to (70) are, I find, taken from " L'agriculture et maison rustique 

 de M. Charles Estienne, Docteur en Medecine" (liv. iv., chapters 13—18, 

 22— 26), and the particular edition used appears to have been that: "A Pans, 

 Chez Jacques Du-Puys, 1570." This is inferred from the headings of the chapters 



