FIRST MENTION OF ARTIFICIAL FLY 187 
displayed, despite deficiency in arrangement, a valuable collec- 
tion in Natural History,” to us fishermen matters little, for unto 
him has been ascribed the great glory of being the first author 
of all ages and of all countries specifically to mention and 
roughly describe an Artificial Fly. 
And not only is he the first, but also (with possibly one 
exception) the only author during fourteen hundred years, 
who makes any reference to any such fly.!. From #lian until 
the Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle we find no mention 
of, or allusion to, the Artificial Fly, but that it was. well known 
as a method of angling is easily deduced from the authoress’s 
abrupt introduction of the subject, “There ben the xij flies 
or dubbes with which ye shall angle.” 2 
The usually accurate Bibliotheca Piscatoria of Westwood 
and Satchell states under heading of ‘ lian,’ that Stephen 
Oliver (Mr. Chatto), in his Scenes and Recollections of Fly 
Fishing, first pointed out this remarkable passage. Now the 
first edition of Oliver’s book is dated 1834 ; so, if the Bzbliotheca 
Piscatoria be correct, AElian’s statement apparently remained 
unknown to Anglers for nearly eighteen centuries. 
I purposely set out a translation of the whole passage in 
‘Elian, XV. 1, because short extracts are usually given, and 
because these vary greatly on a very important point. I 
adopt with some alterations the translation by Mr. O. Lambert 
in his Angling Literature in England (1881). 
“T have heard of a Macedonian way of catching fish, and 
it is this: between Bercea and Thessalonica runs a river called 
the Astrzus, and in it there are fish with speckled skins ; what 
the natives of the country call them you had better ask the 
Macedonians. These fish feed on a fly peculiar to the country, 
/Elian extended such transference to his Natuval History also, his story of 
the Pinna, and others would seemingly demonstrate. Sir J. E. Sandys, 4 
History of Classical Scholarship, ed. 2 (Cambridge, 1906), i. 336, goes so far as 
to say: “‘ He is the author of seventeen books On Animals, mainly borrowed 
from Alexander of Myndos (first century a.D.).”’ 
1 Dr. W. J. Turrell, op. cit., XI., states that a Latin poem written by 
Richard de Fournival, about the thirteenth century, alludes incidentally to 
fishing, and from this it appears that the fly and the worm were among the 
lures then used by anglers, but does not state expressly whether Fournival’s 
fly was natural or artificial. 
2 Cf. H. Mayer, Sport with Rod and Line, Barnet and Phillips, New York. 
Oo 
