description of the night side of the sport, whether prompted or not by his predecessor angler-chef, from whom he quotes freely respecting the making and angling with a flye for a Trout, is one of his most salient passages. It has all the light and shade and spirit of an etching by Wairotter. "You are to know," he says, "there is night as well as day fishing for a Trout; and that in the night the best Trouts come out of their holds. And the manner of taking them is on the top of the water with a great lob or garden worm, or rather two, which you are to fish with in a stream where the waters run somewhat quietly, for in a stream the bait will not be so well discerned. I say in a quiet or dead place, near to some swift, there draw your bait over the top of the water, to and fro, and if there be a good Trout in the hole, he will take it, especially if the night be dark, for then he is bold, and lies near the top of the water, watching the motion of any frog or water-rat, or mouse, that swims betwixt him and the sky; these he hunts after if he sees the water but wrinkle or move in one of these dead holes, where these great old Trouts usually lie, near to their holds; for you are to note, that the great old Trout is

both subtle and fearful, and lies close all day, and does not usually stir out of his hold, but lies in it as close in the day as the timorous hare does in her form; for the chief feeding of either is seldom in the day, but usually in the night, and then the great Trout feeds very boldly."

Barker, it may be stated, before setting out for the river "to provide his lord a good dish of Trouts against the next morning by sixe of the clock," went to the door "to see how the wanes of the aire were like to prove." Arriving at the river where it proved very dark, he "fell to angle," much as Walton describes, except that as "the night began to alter and grow somewhat lighter," he employed, besides the worm, a white palmer, a red palmer, and a black palmer fly, made on a large hook, with excellent results. "These three flyes with the help of the lobworm," he continues, "serve to angle all the year for the night, the white flye for darkness, the red flye in medio, and the black flye for lightness. This is the true experience for Angling in the night, which is the surest angling of all and killeth the greatest Trouts. Your lines may be strong, but must not be longer than your rod." Thomas Barker, accordingly, appears

to have been the first author who makes mention of trout-fishing at night by means of the fly.

And while his directions may not be entirely such as the modern angler would put into practice, they are nevertheless correct on the whole. Night-fishing, as he justly observes, is the most deadly form of angling, on certain streams, during latter June, July, August, and late into the autumn months. Then, on favourable nights, the largest and most wary fish, which the wiles of the angler are powerless to lure by day, often take the fly, much as old Joseph Blagrave speaks of in his Epitome of the Art of Husbandry- "coming boldly to the Bait as if it were a Mastive-dog at a Bear!" To meet with success, there may be no moon, or it had need be obscured by clouds,

a fact well known to the latter writer. Neither in all waters will trout rise to the fly at night, the rise being dependent on the prevalence or absence of nocturnal insects. Even during the greatest darkness, fish seem endowed with remarkable keenness of vision; in using three flies of different colours but of the same size, they will take a red one one night, a yellow one another, and a white one another, almost exclusively; inde

pendently of the position of the flies on the casting-line. In considering this discrimination of colours- for colour discrimination during the darkness certainly does exist on the part of the fish - it should be remembered that they look up towards the sky through a transparent medium; and no doubt red looks black to them, yellow perhaps a shade lighter, while white is probably recognisable for its true colour.

Night-fishing, however, which might have claimed a chapter on Walton's part, is only alluded to by him in the passage cited; the old author stating that though it is a choice way of angling, he had not oft used it, because it is void of the pleasures the summer day affords. Besides, one may readily fancy that after an outing on the Lea and the Dove, he would prefer to the society. of the bats and solitude of the stars, the barley-wine and bodily comforts awaiting him and his companions at the Thatched House or other favourite hostelrie. One may also picture him meditating over some delectable author Marlowe, Du Bartas, Herbert, or Donne ere surrendering himself to the lavender-scented sheets of the inn; or conning perchance some chapter of Pliny or Aristotle to turn over in his dreams.

These ancient writers, together with Josephus, Ælianus, Ausonius, Rondeletius, Dubravius, Gesner, Gesner, Aldrovandus, and others with equally facile imaginations, furnish him with many a quaint and striking paragraph on natural phenomena and ichthyological lore.

It is amusing, for example, to hear him tell, with a perfectly sober face, of a river in Arabia of which all sheep that drink have their wool turned to a vermilion colour; of other waters which being drunk cause madness, some drunkenness, and some laughter to death; of a river in Judea mentioned by Josephus," that learned Jew," which runs swiftly during week-days but stands still on Sunday. Many of his fish-stories, likewise, which he tells without a twinkle in his eye, are delicious; as his account of a species of trout, termed Fordidge trout, that are never caught by angling, and subsist on water alone; of some fish having no mouths, but nourishing themselves and taking breath by the "porousness of their gills, man knows not how; of the mighty Luce or Pike, some of which are bred by generation and some not, the latter, being generated by a weed called pickerel-weed," with the aid of