[110] Cf. M. G. Watkins, Introduction to the Treatyse, etc. (London, 1880), p. xi.
[111] It enumerates 3158 distinct editions of 2148 different fishing works published before 1883. The Supplement issued by Mr. R. B. Marston in 1901 gives 1200 more. Mr. Eric Parker’s delightsome and pocket-companionable An Angler’s Garland, London, 1920, gives many happy extracts from the fifteen hundred, and present-day writers.
[112] In Bede, “Et divina se innante gratia.”
[113] 76, 12. τῶν γὰρ ἰχθύων, ἀπείρων και ἁπλέτων ὒντων, οὐ γεύονται.
[114] James Logan, The Scottish Gael (Inverness, 1876), vol. ii. p. 130 f.
[115] Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gælica (Edinburgh, 1900), vol. i. p. 325.
[116] S. Bochart, Hierozoicon (Leipzig, 1796), p. 868, telling of a fish whose right ear bore the words, There is no God, but God, and left, Apostle of God, and neck, Mahomet, concludes with a parody of Virgil, Buc., iii. 104.
“Die quibus in terris inscripti nomina Divum Nascantur pisces, et eris mihi magnus Apollo!”
A magnus Apollo to graduate the claims of the different potentates would indeed be a boon. The capture of a fish some two years ago near Zanzibar with Arabic inscriptions—legible only by the faithful—caused immense excitement, as possibly foretelling the speedy end of the world.
[117] Angler’s Note-Book, ii. p. 116.