PISCATORIA. 



Advantages. On the advantages and utility of a proposed 

 new treatise on the art of angling. London, printed by 

 C. Whittingham. [1832.] 12. 



Adventures of a salmon in the river Dee. By a friend of 

 the family [i.e. William Ayrton]. Together with notes for 

 the fly-fisher in North Wales. London: Pickering, 1853. 12. 



^Elfric. Archbishop of Canterbury . Colloquium [Latine et 

 Saxomce]. . .ab ^Ifrico primum compilatum, etc. (B. Thorpe's 

 Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, 1834, 8., pp. 101-18 ; 1846, 8., 

 pp. 18-36 ; Thomas Wright's A volume of Vocabularies, 

 etc. 1857.) 



[" The oldest English treatise on fishing," says the Rev. Professor 

 Skeat, is contained in this colloquy. An English translation, 

 with many valuable notes on the names of the fish mentioned, was 

 contributed by Mr. Skeat to the "Angler's note-book," 1880, pp. 76 

 -7> 155-6, 168-70. The original, a MS. of the loth century, is in 

 the Cottonian Collection, (Tiberius A. 3), British Museum.] 



^Elianus (Claudius). De natura animalium, libri xvii. Cum 

 animadversionibus C. Gesneri et D. W. Trilleri. Curanle 

 Abr. Gronovio. Gr. et Lat. Londini: Bowyer, 1744. 4. 

 Best edition by Schneider, Leipzig, 1784. 8. 



[The first, and indeed the only writer amongst the ancients who 

 makes mention of fishing with the artificial fly. In the I5th Book of 

 his History, he says: "The Macedonians, who live on the banks of 

 the river Astraeus, which flows midway between Berea and Thessa- 

 lonica, are in the habit of catching a particular fish in that river by 

 means of a fly called hippurus ; a very singular insect it is bold and 

 troublesome like all its kind, in size a hornet, marked like a wasp, 

 and buzzing like a bee." From his account of these fish they must 

 have been trout, and he exactly describes the method in which a 

 trout feeds at present, " when one of them sees the fly floating 

 down towards him, he approaches, swimming gently under the 

 water, fearing to move the surface lest his prey should be scared. 

 Then drawing nearer underneath, he sucks in the fly, as a wolf 

 snatches a sheep from the fold, or an eagle a goose from the farm- 

 yard, and having done so disappears under the ripple." The 

 fisherman, he adds, cannot use the natural tly, for a touch of the 

 human hand rubs off its delicate bloom and destroys its wings. 

 "Therefore," he resumes, "they overreach the fish by an artful 

 device. Round the hook they twist scarlet wool and two wings are 

 secured on this wool from the feathers which grow under the 

 wattles of a cock, brought up to the proper colour with wax. The 

 rod they use is six feet in length and the line is of the same length. 

 Then the angler lets fall his lure. The fish attracted by its colour, 

 and excited, draws close, and judging from its beautiful appearance 

 that it will obtain a marvellous banquet, forthwith opens its mouth, 

 but is caught by the hook, and bitter indeed is the feast it enjoys, 

 inasmuch as it is captured." 



Stephen Oliver ( Mr. Chatto) in his " Scenes and Recollections of 

 Fly Fishing," first pointed out this remarkable passage, but it is now, 

 for the first tifre, accurately translated. SElim lived in the 3rd century 



