THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOELD 



' The sun was setting and vespers done, the monks came one by one, 

 And down they went through the garden trim in cassock and cowl to 



the river's brim. 

 Every brother his rod he took, every rod had a line and hook, 

 Evely hook had a bait so fine, and thus they sang in the even shine^ 

 " Oh ! to-morrow will be Friday, so' we fish the stream to-day ! 

 Oh! to-morrow will be Friday, so we fish the stream to-day ! " — 



, Benedict. 



If it was not the salmon season doubtless the Prioress and 

 the nuns caught pike, carp, trout, percli and tench from the 

 Priory pond. 



Oppian in his Hcdieutica gave the Eomans a treatise on angUng ; 

 and that the Greeks were anglers Homer tells us, 



' Of beetling rocks that overhang the flood, 

 Where silent anglers cast insidious food, 

 With fraudful care await the fitony prize, 

 And sudden lift it quivering to the sMes.' 



Alexander the Great was entertained by sages who told him 

 how the Macedonians caught fish with what they called a 

 ' hippurus,' the first fly known. It was as large as a hornet, 

 looked- Uke a wasp, and when properly used, buzzed like a bee. 

 This, doubtless, was the origin of the wasp fly, and was used with 

 success on the river Astreus for certain ' speckled fishes ' of Aelian. 



Flies are not referred to in the Bible, but in the prophecies of 

 Isaiah xix. ver. 8, we read, ' The fishes also shall mourn and all 

 they that cast angles into the brooks.' This prophet must have 

 known an angler who had cast into a brook, lost his fish, and 

 who, like aU anglers, ancient and modern, perhaps mourned 

 because the biggest fish ever hooked got away. 



Salmon fishing is practically the same in England and Eastern 

 America. The fish is the same (8almo solar) ; it takes the fiy ; 

 the chief differences are that the rivers in America where the 

 best salmon fishing is found are larger, wilder, the conditions 

 more primitive, the distances greater, the fish possibly larger, 

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