Antiquity of the Gentle Aet. 143 



to croak, the trout to leap, the wild geese to honk, the kine 

 to low, and material nature gushingly bursts forth into new 

 life and loveliness. If he 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. 



" It 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 race 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 sjDort 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 



