426 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[MarcH 17, 1906. 

Sea and River Fishing. 
When the Ichthyophagous Dines. 
THE eating of strange and fearsome dishes by 
the Canadian Camp Club at its dinner in New 
York city the other day, recalls the deeds of the 
Ichthyophagous Club, which flourished in New 
York in the last century. The club’s specialty 
was the testing of the edible qualities or possi- 
bilities of uncanny water creatures not commonly 
reckoned as food but looked upon with disgust 
and loathing. In their day and generation the 
Ichthyophagi were a jolly crowd, and if they 
actually failed to increase the country’s food sup- 
ply by enlarging the list of sea products which 
might be sent to market, it is not to be denied 
that the literature of dining and of fishing was 
notably enriched by the poem “When the Ichthyo- 
phagous Dines,” which was written by Fred 
Mather for one of the last of the Ichthyophagian 
banquets. Mr. Mather found an artist of sympa- 
thetic imagination who drew a series of illustra- 
tions for the verses. The drawings, which have 
never before been printed, having come into the 
possession of the ForEST AND STREAM, are here 
given to accompany a reprint of the famous poem. 
When the Ichthyophagous dines 
There’ll be many a curious dish 
Of things ne’er caught with lines, 
And not at all like fish— 
Steaks of porpoise and ribs of whales, 
Salmi of muskrat and beaver tails, 
Aspic of jellyfish, octopus stew, 
Shark-fin soup and gurry gur-roo, 
When the Ichthyophagous dines. 
For the Ichthyophagous eats 
All things that live in the sea— 
Slimy crawlers instead of meats, 
Unusual to you and me. 
Menobranchus from out the lakes, 
Mud puppies, turtles and water snakes, 
Devilled hell-bender with sauce hellgramite, 
Garfish older than tribolite, 
When the Ichthyophagous dines. 
There will come to this ichthyic feast 
Things that crawl or swim or squirm; 
The fish, the scaphiopus beast, 
And the arenarious worm, 
The garrulous frog and the frisky skate, 
The batrachian toadfish with flattened pate, 
The flying-fish with hyaline wing, 
Will come with sea nettles, which prick and sting, 
When the Ichthyophagous dines. 












THE GURNARD WILL WALK ARM-IN-ARM WITH THE DAB, 
Tke cei and the sturgeon will come, 
And the lamprey with his nine eyes, 
The swordfish and croaking drum, 
And the sculpin with look of surprise, 
The gurnard will walk arm-in-arm with the dab, 
The horsefoot will waltz with the great spider crab, 
The sullen-eyed angler will ogle the sprat, 
And the devilfish twine the shrimps round his hat 
When the Ichthyophagous dines. 
The fiddler crabs will fiddle 
To the crowd so strange and weird, 
And the prawns dance down the middle, 
While the mussel strokes his beard; 
The oysters will swim in cuttlefish ink, 
The starfish will tip the soft clam a wink; 
Periwinkles served in skilly go lee, 
A sight worth footing it miles to see, 
When the Ichthyophagus dines. 
When the Ichthyophagous dines 
There’ll be queer prog to eat; 
The usual thing in the way of wines 
And a single course of meat; 
The lobster will come in his coat of mail; 
Weak stomachs will shrink from eating the snail, 
But the brave ones will sample every dish, 
Whether water-snake, muskrat, snail or fish, 
When the Ichthyophagous dines. 

“HE GARRULOUS FROG AND THE FRISKY SKATE. 
Dame Juliana Berners. 
THE first English book on angling was the 
“Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle,” by 
Dame Juliana Berners, printed in 1496. It is 
now in the original one of the rarest works in 
angling literature; and extremely few are they 
who may have the privilege of looking upon 
the black letter pages printed by Wynkyn de 
Worde. In 1880 a fac simile reproduction was 
published by Elliot Stock, of London, with an 
introduction by Rev. M. G. Watkins. From 
that edition we have reproduced the accompany- 
ing two pages; and we quote from Mr. Watkins’ 
appreciative chronicle of the “Treatyse’’: 
The book is of extreme interest for several 
reasons, not the least curious being that it has 
served as a literary quarry to so many suc- 
ceeding writers on fishing, who have not dis- 
dained to adapt the authoress’s sentiments to 
their own use, and even to borrow them word 
for word without acknowledgment. Walton 
himself was evidently familiar with in, and has 
clearly taken his “jury of flies” from its “xij 
flyes wyth whyche ye shall angle to ye trought 
& grayllyng;’ while Burton, that universal 
plunderer, has extracted her eloquent eulogy on 
the secondary pleasures of angling for incorpo- 
ration with the patchwork structure of his “An- 
atomy of Melancholy.” Besides giving the 
earliest account of the art of fishing, the esti- 
mate which the authoress torms of the moral 
value of the craft is not only very high, but 
has served to strike the keynote for all sub- 
sequent followers of the art both in their praises 
and their practice of it. To this little treatise 
more than to any other belongs the credit of 
having assigned in popular estimation to the 
angler his meditative and gentle nature. Many 
pure and noble intellects have kindled into last- 
ing devotion to angling on reading her eloquent 
commendation of it. Such men as Donne, 
Wotton, and Herbert, Paley, Bell, and Davy, 
together with many another excellent and 
simple disposition, have caught enthusiasm from 
her lofty sentiments, and found that not their 
bodily health only, but also their morals, were 
improved by angling. It became a school of 
virtues, a quiet pastime in which, while looking 
into their own hearts, they learnt lessons of the 
highest wisdom, reverence, resignation, and love 
—love of their fellow-men, of the lower creat- 
ures, and of their Creator. 
Nothing definite is known of the reputed 
authoress, Dame Julian Barnes or Berners. 
‘She is said to have been a daughter of Sir 
James Berners of Roding Berners in the count 
of Essex, a favorite of King Richard the Second, 
who was beheaded in 1388 as an evil counsellor 
to the king and an enemy to the public weal. 
She was celebrated for her extreme beauty and 
