THE LITERATURE OF FJSH1NG. 57 



for making them. Each compartment has the pattern fly- 

 made in the best style, and accompanying it the feathers, 

 hackle, silk hair and twist, each separately and securely 

 fastened down, which are necessary for its exact manu- 

 facture. Altogether there are twenty-two flies thus 

 given, all "killers" in the present day; and I would add 

 that all interested in the art of fly-making should endea- 

 vour to get a glimpse of this book. The price, three 

 guineas, is prohibitive to " poor " anglers, but it is well 

 worth the money, if only as a work of art. I fear, how- 

 ever, that copies of the book are very scarce. I have 

 never seen but one. 



I shall now introduce a paragraph or two on the 

 " Poetical Literature of Angling," preferring to deal with 

 it separately than to mingle the authors connected with 

 it with those who have confined their labours to prose. 

 Among the ancients we learn that Numenius of Heraclea, 

 Csecius of Argos, Posidonius of Corinth, Leonides of 

 Byzantium, Pancratias the Arcadian, and Seleucua of 

 Tarsus were piscatory poets, but unfortunately their writ- 

 ings have been lost, and so we are reduced to Oppian, 

 whose Halieutics I have referred to at the beginning of 

 these remarks. 



The first poem we have in English on Angling is that 

 entitled, The Secrets of Angling : Teaching the choicest 

 Tooles, Baytes, and Seasons, for the taking of any Fish, in 

 Pond or River : — practised and familiarly opened in three 

 Boohes. By I. D., Esquire. This was printed and pub- 

 lished in London by Roger Jackson in 1613, and " Sould 

 at his shop nere Pleete Streete Conduit." One of the 

 very few copies of this book (i.e. the first edition) is in the 

 Bodleian Library at Oxford, and on the title-page is a 



