146 ANGLING LITERATURE IN 



certain pool near Sees, five miles from the castle of Exme, 

 fought during the night so furiously with each other in 

 the water and out of it, that the neighbouring people were 

 attracted by the strange noise to the spot ; and, so 

 desperate was the conflict, that scarcely a fish was found 

 alive in the morning. " Thus," says the author, " by a 

 wonderful and unheard-of prognostic, foretelling the death 

 of one by that of many." 4 



Akin to the loves and hatreds of fish, a portion of 

 the literature of angling is devoted to the fascination 

 or charming of them. We find recipes for this purpose 

 in nearly all the works on fishing published in the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There have been 

 entertained the most singular opinions on this subject 

 in all countries. Becke, in his book on c Angling/ Leipsic, 

 1606, tell us, that if we take a gold ring and look 

 through it with one eye at a trout, in a clear pool of 

 water, for the space of two minutes consecutively, the 

 fish will be quite fascinated, and you may go and take it 

 out of the water with your hand. The number of 

 compounds for baits, to intoxicate and charm the finny 

 tribes, are almost innumerable ; and many of the instruc- 

 tions for making and using them, in English works, are 

 given in rhyme. We shall select the two following as 



curious. 



4 Geraldus, lib. i, p. 6. 



