372 : | i 

FOREST AND STREAM. 


I For Forest and Stream. 
THE CUNNING CARP AND THE CON- 
TENTED KNIGHT.* 
ee 
(Tothe Tune of St. George and the Dragon.) 
66 ITHIN the wood a virgin ash 
Had twenty summers seen; 
The elves and fairies marked it oft’ 
As they tripped on the green; 
But the woodman cut it with his axe, 
He cruelly cut it down, 
A rod to make for the Knight of the Lake, 
A knight of no renown. 
Turn and taper round, turner, 
Turn and taper round, 
For my line is of the grey palfrey’s tail, 
And it is slender and sound. 
St. George he was for England, 
St. Denis he was for France, 
St. Patrick taught the Irishman 
To tune the merry harp. 
Atthe bottom of this slimy pool, 
There lurks a crafty carp, 
Were he at the bottom of my line 
How merriiy he would dance. 
“In the Pacific ocean 
There dwelt a mighty whale, 
And o’er the waves from London town 
There went anoble sail. 
With hooks and crooks and ropes and boats 
»Twas furnished in and out, 
Boat-steerers and bold harpooners, 
With sailors brave and stout; 
The dart flew true and the monster slew, 
The seamen blessed the day, 
All from his fin a bone so thin, 
At the top of my rod doth play. 
St. George, Etc. 
*‘Moulded and mixedis the magic mass, 
The sun is below the hill, 
O’er the dark waters flits the bat, 
Hoarse sounds the murmuring rill, 
Slowly bends the willows’ bough 
To the beetle’s sullen tune. 
And grim and red is the angry head 
Of the archer in the moon, 
Softly, softly spread the spell, 
Softly spread it round; 
But name not the magic mixture 
To mortal that breathes on ground. ; 
St. George, Etc. 
‘The squire had tapped at the bower window, 
The day is one hour old, 
Thine armour assume, the work of the loom, 
To defend thee from the cold. 
The Knight arose and donned his clothes, 
For one hour old was the day, 
His armour he took, his rod and his hook, 
And his line of the palfrey grey; 
He has brushed the dew from off the lawn, 
He has taken the depth by the rule; 
Here is gentle to eat, come partake of the treat, 
Sly tenant of the pool. 
St. George, Etc. 
“The carp peeped out from his reedy bed, 
And forth he slyly crept; 
But he liked not the look, for he saw the black hook, 
So he turned his tail and slept. 
There is a flower grows in the field, 
Some call it a marigold-a 
And that which one fish would not take 
Another surely would—a! 
And the Knight had read in the books of the dead, 
So the Knight did not repine; 
For they that cannot get carp, sir, 
Upon tench may very well dine. 
St. George, Etc. 
‘“* He has brushed the dew from the lawn again, 
He hath taken the depth by the rule; 
Here is boiled bean and pea, come breakfast with me, 
Sly tenant of the pool. 
The carp peeped forth from his reedy bed, * 
The carp peeped forth in time; 
But he liked not the smell, so he cried Fare you well, 
And he stuck his nose in the slime, 
But the Knight had read, etc., etc. 
St. George, Etc. 
Then uv spoke the lord of Penbury’s board, 
Well skilled in musical lore, 
And he swore by himself, though cunning the elf, 
He would charm him and draw him ashore. 
The middle of the day he chose for the play, 
And he fiddled as in went the line; 
But the carp kept his head in the reedy bed, 
He chose not to dance nor to dine, 
{I prithee come dance me a reel, carp, 
I prithee come dance me a reel— 
Ithank you, my lord, I’ve no taste for your board, 
You'd much better play to the eel. 
St. George, Etc. 
* (he fair lady who versified my copy of this poetry expressed the hope 
that Old Abbott was sent to an Orthopedic Institute, and suggests that 
‘iia measure, being like nothing known to prosody, be calied Pterodacty- 
é See article on another page headed ‘‘Ancient Angling Lore and Lit- 
syabare, ”? A. GW. 
BEAUTIFUL SLUSH: 
—_+_—_. 
BY SEVERAL UNKNOWN AUTHORS. 
H, the slush, the beautiful slush! 
Mix’d with the mud in a savory mush, 
Soaking thro’ rubbers, and gaiters, and shoes, 
Tempting to suicide, sorrow and blues! 
Visions remorseful o’er memory rush— 
Once I was soft as the beautiful slush. 
Once I believed in Committees of Health; 
Once I had visions of fairly won wealth; 
Sweetly I trusted Inspectors of Streets, 
Guilelessly thoughtless of sinecure beats; 
Never conceiving the whitewaShing brush 
That can beautify blackest political slush. 
Oh, the slush, the beautiful slush! 
Even a pavement inspector might blush; 
Even a mermaid might murmur her hate 
If doomed to a worse than amphibious fate; 
Ever to paddle, and jostle, and crush, 
Half drowned in the beautiful city-made slush. 




ot J, R* 
ANCIENT ANGLING, LORE AND LITER- 
ATURE. 

U. §. Patent Orrice, Jan. 10, 1874. 
NDER this head the writer makes not the slightest 
pretense of originality. He hopes, however, by cul- 
ling from the many quaint and queer things that have been 
written about angling, to do a favor to some readers who 
do not have the time and opportunity,to say nothing of the 
inclination,to pour over the musty black letter tomes, where 
under masses of rubbish rare gems can befound. He must 
in any event be acquitted of selfishness, for while original 
articles of even small merit bring some credit, to this 
endeavor nothing save labor can possibly attach. Every 
lover of the ‘‘Gentle Art,” however, should be willing to 
aid in any way he best can the gentlemen, who at great 
labor and expense are furnishing a newspaper which is an 
unqualifiedly true exponent of the gentlemanly and scholar- 
ly sportsman. [Hem ! we bow.—ED. | 
The amount of angling literature which has been inflicted 
upon the world :since 560, A, D., is very much larger than 
is generally supposed, and among its many hundreds of 
volumes are found some rich storehouses from which most 
of our modern writers upon this subject have helped them- 
selves with no sparing hand, not always, by the way, giv- 
ing due credit for what they appropriated. 
To get free access to anything like a complete oollection 
of angling works is most difficult. A goodly number of 
thé early and rare books have been collected at the Con- 
gressional Library in this city, for we number among our 
craft its Librarian, and his assistant, Professor Gill, yields 
to none in his accurate knowledge of the fish and his love 
for it. This valuable collection, however, is unfortunately, 
to a certain extent, not available to the student, for he is 
denied the rich treat of sitting in an alcove with all these 
treasures within his grasp, from any one or any dozen of 
which he can select as fancy dictates. To be sure he may 
order down quite a number to the reading desk, and he 
may repeat this order any reasonable number of times, but 
after all this he will have about as comprehensive an idea of 
angling literature as a whole, as he could of ‘‘Bierstadt’s 
Rocky Mountains” after having had the entire picture 
brought to him at various times in sections of a few square 
inches. The Library, also of Mr. Grinnell, Chief Clerk. of 
the Patent Office, a gentleman much given to collecting 
rare old books, contains quite a large number of very old 
and very rare books upon our subject, and to him, as wel 
as to the two mentioned above, we must return thanks fol 
facilities given. 
During the early part of last year J. W. Bouton, of 709 
Broadway, New York, a man well known to book lovers, 
offered for sale an unrivalled collection, which formed a 
“complete genuine Waltonian Library.” It had been got- 
ten together at infinite labor and great expense by Thomas 
Westwood, Esq., author of the ‘‘Chronicle of the Compleat 
Angler,” and included fifty-six editions of Walton, among 
whieh was ‘‘Mr. Symond Higg’s quarto copy of Bagster’s 
first edition, amplified with nearly three hundred additional 
prints and drawings, rare portraits, proof impressions, 
monuments, etc., bound by Gosden, the covers of the book 
being made of wood from the door of Cotton’s fishing- 
house, taken off by Mr. Higgs near the lock, where he was sure 
Old Izaak must have touched it,” for this collection was also 
Dame Juliana Berner’s ‘‘Treatyse of Fysshinge with an 
Angle,” in the typography of Wynkyn de Worde, 1486, A.D., 
reprinted by Haselwood. This reprint is itself very rare, as 
but one hundree and fifty copies were struck off at £10 10s. 
each. The entire collection numbers 1416 vols. I have 
not learned whether it was sold entire or whether the sacre- 
ligious hammer of the auctioneer broke up this loving and 
fond company, scattering relentlessly members of the same 
literary household, on which, to use Bouton’s expressive 
words, ‘‘nature and science had been wedded to literature 
and art.” 
The price, if sold en bloc, was but $3,250, a mere 
bagatelle to such libraries as Astor, Howard and Brown, or 
to several of the wealthy angling clubs of New York and 
of Boston. It is fondly hoped that some loving hand 
rescued these angler’s pe s, and that both you and -I, dear 
reader, may yet have the exquisite pleasure of admiring the 
group in its entirety, even though it must be in the library 
of some monied and appreciative shoddy. The writer con- 
fesses to being unable to summon up courage enough to 
write Bouton a letter of enquiry on the matter. 
The most hasty search through .such a collection as that 
just mentioned, shows us that the best things written upon 
our subject were by the very early writers. Even good old 
‘“‘Wather Izaak” was by no means entitled to the credit so 
generally given him of originating what is commonly 
known as Piscatory Waltonianism. His quaint sentimental 
and poetic style, as well as his religious reflections, were 
all from the still earlier writers. This may be cruelly icon- 
oclastic, but it is nevertheless strictly true. 
Our own standard of what becomes a true gentleman 
angler might be supposed to be somewhat in advance of the 
requirements of 1733, A. D., but the entire list of modern 
writers will be searched in vain for anything so good or com- 
plete upon that head as may be found written by Gervase 
Markham, at that date, upon the “‘Inward Qualities of the 
Angler.” About this quaint old plagiarist more anon. 
The carp, of all other fishes, seems to have been assigned 
the largest place both in the lore and literature of the 
ancients. One writer quite happily translates ‘‘Oarpe 
Diem” by ‘‘Catch your Carp to-day.” An unknown writer 
in 1719 says, ‘‘the carp is a stately and very subtle fish 
called the fresh-water fox and queen of rivers.” In herald- 
ry the carp is the emblem of hospitality. In the Koran is 
an oriental legend that Abraham at the sacrifice threw away 
his knife after killing the animal, and that it fell miracu- 
lously into the water striking a carp, and so to this day the 
carp is the only animal a mussulman will eat, unless its 
throat has been first cut. In 1206 the famous Zenghis 
Khan founded the order of the Fish, of which order the carp 
was the badge. After having prefaced this much about the 
carp we ask the accommodating editor to reprint for us on 
another page, ‘‘The Cunning Carp and the Contented 
Knight,” which is taken from the ‘‘Censura Literaria,” a 
collection of queer antiquarian lore in 10 vols. It has al- 
ready been copied by modern writers, but I dare say many 
readers of this paper, who are far from the large libraries, 
have never seen it, and many others will like to see an old 
friend again. It was written by Abbott, (Chas.) of Denton, 
Kent, who was afterwards Lord Tenterden and succeeded 
Lord Ellenborough as Chief Justice in 1818. 'The ‘‘Knight 
of the Lake” was Sir Egerton Brydges, the famous Literary 
Antiquary, who collected and edited the Censwra Literaria, 
of which I have not yet been able to find a copy in 
Washington. ; 
“Moulded and mixed is the magic moss,” alluding, of 
course, to the magic pastes, which, in the days of Alchemy, 
were supposed to have a wonderful efficacy in alluring fish. 
For example, Charras, the Royal Apothecary of 
Louis the Fourteenth, gives the following mixture for 
annointing the line near the hook:—‘‘Take of man’s fat, 
and cat’s fat, of each, half an ounce; mummy finely 
powdered, three drachms, &c., &c.” Another paste is com- 
posed partially of the powder of the skull of a dead man. 
It might be natural to presume that, ceteris paribus, 
the fat and skull of an expert angler would 
be most efficacious, and hence in the greatest de- 
mand, and so in those good old days, such angiers as 
Norris, Hattock and Lazeni, would have had small 
chance of remaining quiet in their graves. A’ G.2W. 
eS ee eee ee 
MOUNTING BIRDS WITH CLOSED . 
WINGS. > 
———_+—__—- 
NUMBER THREE, 
ef eee 
Eprror FoREST AND STREAM :— 
When a bird has been secured it should be mounted as 
follows:—Lay the specimen on its back and fill the throat 
with cotton to keep the saliva from soiling the plumage. 
If the bird is a large one, such as a hawk, owl, raven, gull, 
&c., it should have the nostrils crowded full of cotton to 
prevent sirhilar disastrous effects. It a birdis bloody, wash 
the soiled parts in cold water and dry the feathers as much 
as possible with a dry rag or sponge, and cover them with 
calcined plaster, which can be had in any paint store, rub- 
bing it lightly into the plumage until the feathers are dry 
and assume their natural appearance. ‘To remove the plas- 
ter from the feathers beat the bird vigorously with the 
wing of a bird or fowl. When cleaned, lay the bird on its 
back and make a longitudinal cut from the breast bone to 
the vent. Push the body away from the skin with a seal- 
pel, holding the latter firmly between the fingers and thumb 
of the left hand, and avoid cutting as much as possible. 
When the skin has been removed far enough to expose the 
shins, unjoint them at the knee, and cut through the fleshy 
part of the knee until the skin is laid bare. Skin down to 
the vent and cut off the extremity of the body which holds 
the tail feathers, and remove the skin to the wings. Un- 
joint the wings and skin to below the eyes. Cut the neck 
off close tothe skull and remove the under part of the ; 
skull, and from the hole thus made take out the brains. , 
Remove the eyes and all superfluous flesh from the skull, 
leg, and wing bones, and sever the main bone of the wing 
from the double bones or fore arm. In skinning large’ 
birds, breaking the wings close to the body before remoy- 
ing it will facilitate the skinning. Roll upa small ball of 
tow and crowd it tightly into the skull. Point a piece. 
of wire at both ends by filing, and twist the tow 
around it the length and size of the natural neck, commenc- 
ing an inch or two inches from one end, according to the 
size of the bird to be mounted. Pass the short end of tlie 
wire up through the tow in the head and occipital bone 
(hind part of skull), and clinch it firmly by repassing the 
end of the wire through the fore part of the skull, and fas- 
ten it through the eye hole with a pair of pliers. Fill the 
eyes out to nearly their natural size with soft putty, 
dust the whole fleshy side of the skin with dry ars 4 
best applied with the hind feet of a rabbit or hare. Be- 
tween the wings, and on the shoulders of the bird, are two 
yellowish lines, where the feathers are inclined to protrude 
through the skin. These lines should be caught up with a 
needle and drawn nearly together and tied in position. In 
a skin of a bird of the size of a red-taile@ hawk, they should 
be (when tied) an inch anda half apart. Other bird skins 
should be drawn up in proportion to their size. Return 
the leg bones in position, and also the skin, by passing the 
head through the neck. Pick out the eye lids in their usual 
form with a needle or pincers, and arrange the plumage 
smoothly. Make a body the size of the original one by roll- 
ing up a bunch of excelsior, or sea grass, and winding it 
into form with twine or thread. Pass the neck wire through 
the body lengthwise, pull the skin carefully over the body, 
and clinch the protruding heck wire firmly. Never use 
soft bodies, as they will not hold wire sufficiently tight to 
keep a bird in position. Wire the legs by putting pointed 
wires through them from the centre of the feet. Fasten 
the leg bones to the wires by wrapping them with tow, y 
making the legs a little smaller than they naturally are, and 
slip the wire further through the legs and let them pass ob- 
liquely through the body from the side to the fore breast. 
Clinch the leg wires firmly into the body, straighten the | 


il i tite ie hee 
a 
legs parallel with the sides of the body, and sew up*the 
hole in the skin. Smooth down the plumage, bend inan 
natural position, and mount on a stand. Fill the throat 
out slightly with cotton or tow, and apply a little mucilage 
to the inside of the eye lids. Press the eyes tightly in po- 
sition, and pick out the eye lids over the eyes as required 
with the point of a needle. Fasten the bill together by 2 
passing a needle and thread through the nostrils and base 
of under mandible and tie in position. To wire the tail 
is one of the most delicate tasks for the tyro, and should 
be done as follows:—Pass a long pointed piece of small 
wire through each tail feather, at the flat part of the quill 
near the body and spread the tail as desired. Another 
large wire should be run through the fleshy part of the 
skin (at the base of the tail) into the body from the under 
side of the tail, thus fastening it in any position wanted, 
Fasten the wings by sticking a sharp piece of wire through 
the shoul’ler of the wing into the body. Stick small pieces 
of wire in different parts of the body, and wind the bird 
tightly with fine thread, thus holding the plumage in posi- 
tion until dry, The plumage may be made to lay smoother 
by touching the rough places with a feather wet in turpen- 
tine. When collecting, one should note the color of the 
eyes, legs, cere, gullar sack, &c., of birds when first killed 
as it may be naturally reproduced by paint when. the birds 
are mounted and dry. J. H. Barry, Taxidermist 
U.S. G. Survey, Dr. I. V. Hayden in charge. 
—> 6 
—‘‘Dried oysters” having been included am 
articles imported, as published by the Bureau of Se 
an inquiry made by a Boston firm as to their origin has 
elicited from the chief the following explanation: — “Dried, ~ 
oysters” are imported into San Francisco chiefly from ¥ 
China, although a few come from Mexico. They aretaken ~ 
from the shell and dried in the sun, without the use of any : 
salt or chemical preparation, and are imported’in wooden 
boxes containing one hundred pounds each, They arecon- 
sumed mostly by the Chinese residents on the Pacific coast, eam 
only a small proportion being used by Mexicans. © =. 



