CURIOSITIES OF ANGLING LITERATURE. 267 
metheus brought fire from heaven. Polipody—almost 
as filthy in smell as the preceding—will be found 
under the class Cryptogamia, amongst the last and 
lowest of vegetables. It is of the fern tribe. The 
oil of ivy is the tear which exudes from the stem of 
that parasite when the limb is wounded. “We are not 
sufficient chemists to determine what is oil of Peter, 
unless it was some preparation, secret or otherwise, 
of a medieval “Peter of the Pool,” or that of St. 
Peter’s wort. 
This reference occasionally to the flesh of whelps, 
in combination with oils, as a lure for fish, recalls a 
passage in the life of the great French chirurgeon 
Ambrose Paré, in which he dwélls upon the difficulties 
he had to: encounter during two whole years of self- 
imposed retirement from his business, to obtain from 
a professional contemporary at Turin (femp. 1536) his 
secret of curing wounds made by gunshot. He 
writes— 
“Tt fell out that the Marshall of Montejan, the King’s 
lieutenant-general, then in Piedmont, died ; wherefore I went 
unto my chirurgeon, and told him that I could take no plea- 
sure in living there, the favourer and Maecenas of my studies 
being taken away ; and that I intended forthwith to return 
to Paris, and that it would neither hinder nor discredit him 
to teach his remedy to me, who should be so far remote from 
him. When he heard this he made no delay, but presently 
wished me to provide two whelps, one pound of earth-worms, 
two pounds of oil of lilies, six ounces of Venice turpentine, and 
