ANTIQUITY OF THE GENTLE ARY. 143 
to croak, the trout to leap, the wild ecese to honk, the kine 
to low, and material nature gushingly bursts forth into new 
life and loveliness. Ifhe is an ardent sportsman, the whole 
year is before him. When the trout in spring, the salmon in 
summer, the striped bass in early autumn, and the trolling 
for bluefish, Spanish mackerel, cero, and bonetta wind up the 
falling season, he may hie to the Carolinas and Florida, where 
the oranges, amid labyrinths of flowers, greet his senses, and 
there troll for black bass and angle for bream to his heart’s 
content. A 
“Tt was always so in the infancy of mankind; the finny 
tribes were pursued by a primitive people with as much ar- 
dor as they are by civilized men at the present time. Sav- 
age and cultivated nations equally followed, either as a busi- 
ness or as a pastime, the occupation of capturing fish with 
a line and hook, with or without a rod. We find its praises 
celebrated in ancient poetry, and its memory embalmed in 
holy writ.” The rudest appliances of'a savage life have been 
used to aid the angler at his delightful task, and science has 
not disdained to aid the modern fisherman in his sport. 
There are tribes who yet fashion fish-hooks out of human jaw- 
bones, and the Saxons managed to snare fish with hooks 
formed of flint. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon yace have followed 
angling with an energy and a zest far beyond any other na- 
tion, not excepting the Chinese, whose great perseverance is 
devoted rather to cultivate fishes than insnare them. We 
know the inhabitants of the British Isles pursued it as a prof- 
itable occupation in remote times, and we have it on the au- 
thority of the venerable Bede that the people of Sussex were 
at one time preserved from famine by being taught by Wil- 
fred to catch fish. Among the earliest printed books is one 
on fishing, by Dame Juliana Berners or Barnes, prioress of 
the nunnery of Sopwell, near St. Alban’s. This book was 
printed in 1496. The old lady shows that if sport fails the 
ambitious angler, his time is not spent in vain, for has he not, 
“atte the leest, his holsom walke, and merry at his ease, a 
