56 FISHING GOSSIP. 
the Scripture calls him, does sadly delude us, even 
when we rise at his best baits, and, as it were, his 
true flies.” 
Horne Tooke’s derivation of bait from bite is 
supported by the well-known use of the word to 
signify a refreshment, taken either by a horse or man 
when travelling, thus alluded to by Spencer :— 
“ The Sun, that measures heaven all day long, 
At night doth bait his steeds the ocean waves among.” 
A local joke in connection with the word is 
attached to the saddle-making town of Burford, in 
Oxfordshire, not unknown to the fisherman, from its 
position on the trouting river Windrush. The 
common phrase, “a Burford bait,’ however, does not 
imply a light repast to stay the stomach, as quaint 
old Fuller informs us, but one to lose the wits thereby, 
and resolve at last into drunkenness. 
Bait, in short, consists of the animal or vegetable 
substances that generally form the food of fishes, or 
the artificial representations of such substances. Fly- 
fishing, by the use of natural or artificial insects for 
bait, being almost universally conceded to be the 
highest branch of the art, and this month being 
remarkable as the one in which the May-fly, the most 
notable of all insect baits, springs into its short-lived 
existence, the first portion of this paper may not in- 
appropriately be devoted to so far-famed a bait, famous 
