The Winter Angler 183 



rods, creels, and other once destructive engines 

 of war. 



" Listen," said the angler, leaning against the 

 corner, taking up the books one by one : " The 

 Treatyse of Fysshynge icyth an angle, Juliana 

 Berners, 1496; Leonard Mascall's Book of Fish- 

 ing icith Hook and Line, 1590; La Canna de 

 Piscare, Blakey; Bibliotheca Piscatoria, Van- 

 dunk; The Secrets of Angling ,AA3, John Dennys; 

 Salmonia, Sir Humphry Davy; Markham's Art 

 of Angling, 1614; Walton's Compleat Angler, 1st, 

 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th edition. These are the books 

 an angler never tires of. It is all very well to 

 take an edition with you on a fishing trip, and 

 I religiously do, but I fancy it is an affectation 

 though I do not acknowledge it. I always in- 

 tend to read, especially after dinner when I am 

 lying on the pine needles beneath some big tree 

 on the stream of my choice and in a philosophic 

 mood, but I rarely do. It is in winter when I 

 am far away and the trout streams or lakes are 

 frozen up that my favorite author is taken 

 down and gone over, lovingly and affectionately. 



" Perhaps it is Walton, or that old manu- 

 script entitled Piers of Fulham, the original of 

 which is in Trinity College, Cambridge, which 

 was written in 1420, and contains the first 

 account of angling in England. Walton doubt- 

 less took the term ' Contemplative Man's Recrea- 

 tion ' from this manuscript, which says, ' Loo, 



