FROM COTTON TO STEWART. 95 



equal it. It is smaller than the single hair 

 ordinarily used. He adds : 'I have seen an 

 imitation of these Worm Gut Lines in England, 

 and indifferent strong too, but not like that I 

 have mentioned in Italy; yet these will hold a 

 fish of good Size too, if she is not too violent, 

 and does not nimbly harness herself among 

 Weeds, and Roots of Trees.' Gut came into 

 use only gradually ; and was hardly known until 

 the second half of the eighteenth century. In 

 1770 Onesimus Ustonson the tackle maker 

 advertised 'a fresh Parcel of superfine Silk 

 Worm Gut, no better ever seen in England, as 

 fine as Hair, and as strong as Six, the only 

 thing for Trout Carp and Salmon,' and 

 Bibliotheca Piscatoria quotes an advertisement 

 of George Bowness of Bell Yard, another 

 London tackle maker, where silk worm gut is 

 advertised as a new article in 1760. It is 

 seldom mentioned in the eighteenth century; 

 but it became universal soon after its close. 

 Sir Humphry Davy mentions it in a passage 

 headed May 1810, and Penn in his Maxims 

 (1833), which is a description of the Houghton 

 water on the Test, does not think it necessary 

 even to allude to hair as an alternative. 



Rings are first described by Howlett in 1706. 

 They were upright, those on the butt being 

 loops of stiff iron wire driven into the rod, and 

 for the top loops of brass were lashed on length- 

 ways and then turned up at right angles so as 

 to stand out. They are therefore more like the 



