266 FISHING GOSSIP. 
than mere assertion, because, if they would insinuate 
that the variety of preparations of “rabbit, roasted 
bacon, white bread, mutton-kidney, butter and cheese,” 
followed with a constitutional nip of “ aniseed,” was 
but to serve as a sly dinner for the biped and not for 
the fish, they must be prepared to show that men in 
that time were equally disposed to refect upon “the 
flesh of whelps,” turmeric mixed with bean or wheat 
flour, or a dash of assafcetida, and the whole washed 
down with a full draught of Venice turpentine, instead 
of Barclay and Perkins or Ind Coope. 
“I make but little boast,” writes one who fished in the 
fifteenth century, “of my unguents, for there are those about 
who would steal of my secrets and lie in wait, abounding like 
a robber for that which I use, that they the whereof could take 
to the man of cunning, and set aside each of its components, 
and thus become master of that which is none of theirs ; but 
this I will venture, for none such purloiners of man’s goods is 
there even the most simple of pastes left, for that, being made 
of white bread and milk, needeth clean hands.” 
Another angler tells us that “assafcetida, oil of 
polipody, of the oak, oil of ivy, oil of Peter, and gum 
ivy, mixed up as paste, will wonderfully increase your 
sport.” . : 
Now, of all the abominable stinks assafcetida is 
the worst. But if the fish like it, the credit due to 
the angler in providing it for them, in spite of all 
objections, is great. It is produced from a species of 
ferula, in the dry stalk of which we are told Pro- 
