BIBLIOTHECA PISCATORIA; OR, General Catalogue OF ANGLING AND FISHING LITERATURE. WITH BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES AND DATA. BY T. WESTWOOD. London: THE "FIELD" OFFICE, 346, STRAND, W.C. 1861. 180 € 48 250. c. 65 PREFACE. THE present Catalogue has been compiled to supply a want frequently and increasingly felt of late by Angling-book collectors, of a more complete and universal register of the literature of their sport. It is the fifth of the series, and includes six hundred and fifty distinct works. The statistics of its forerunners are as follows:-In 1811, Sir Henry-then Mr. Ellis, contributed to the "British Bibliographer," the first angling-book list on record. It was limited to eighty works, but was enlarged to one hundred and eighty, in a revised edition appended by Mr. Pickering to Boosey's "Piscatorial Reminiscences," in 1836. Four years later, Mr. Wilson published, with his sporting treatise, "The Rod and the Gun," an abbreviated list of one hundred works on Halieutics; and this was followed in 1847, by the "Waltonian Library" of Dr. Bethune, the able and erudite editor of the American "Complete Angler" of Walton and Cotton, in which publication it figured as an appendix. This latter list is one of the best in principle, and most complete in execution, consisting of three hundred works. Finally, in 1856, appeared the "Bibliographical Catalogue" of Mr. Russell Smith, annexed to Blakey's "Angling Literature of All Nations." It contained 264 works, deduction being made (as in the foregoing catalogue of Dr. Bethune) of treatises purely Ichthyological. On analysing the present list chronologically (and omitting the works of Ausonius, Oppian, Elian and Ovid), we find that the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries produced, each, a A. 2 single work on Fishing; the sixteenth, 15; the seventeenth, 74; the eighteenth, 133; and the nineteenth, 422 works. By a second classification, it appears that America has supplied 14; Denmark, 3; Holland, 6; France, 56; Germany, 75; Italy, 9; Norway, 1; Spain, 2; Sweden, 3; and the United Kingdom, 477 works; two facts being brought thereby into broad relief-first, the far greater popularity attending the sport and its literature in our own country than elsewhere; and secondly, the extraordinary numerical increase of Angling-books during the present century, and especially, I may add, within the last five-andtwenty years. The latter circumstance is attributable, in a great degree, to the higher tone and style adopted by recent writers on the sport as well as to the employment of that wider range of subject of which Walton furnished so excellent a precedent, and which has emancipated such works from the narrow circle of mere professional readers. In publishing my list, I wish emphatically to state that I bave been largely indebted to the former gleaners in the same field, the result of whose labours I have not hesitated to appropriate, whenever, after careful testing, I have found it to be correct in fact, and fair in appreciation. That some unaided search has devolved on me, however, over and above the mere task of collation, will be seen from the important number of surplus works annexed to the register, and which have extended it to more than twice the length of any of its predecessors. It is my pleasure to add, also, that I have derived much valuable assistance from the co-operation of several gentlemen interested in the question, and especially from Mr. William Heseltine, of Laleham; Mr. Joseph Crawhall, of Morpeth; and the distinguished Angler, Mr. Francis Francis. Brussels, July, 1861. T. W. Bibliotheca Piscatoria. Accomplisht Lady's Delight in Preserving, Physick, Beautifying, and Cookery; with New and Excellent Experiments and Secrets in the Art of Angling; being directions for the whole art. 1st edit., 1675; 2nd edit., 1677; 3rd edit., 1684; 6th edit., 1686-1720. See "New and Excellent Experiments," which were published apart. [Pilfered in toto from Barker and Walton.] Adam (Victor), Voyage d'un Chasseur en Afrique; on, Revue Générale des Chasses et des Pêches de ce Pays. 40 gravures. Gr. in-8vo. Paris, 1843. Adam (W.), Dales, Scenery, Fishing Streams, and Mines of Derbyshire and surrounding Counties, Historical and Geological. London: Kent & Co. 12mo. 1861. Adventures of a Salmon in the River Dee. By a Friend of the Family. Together with Notes for the Fly-fisher in North Wales. 12mo. London: Pickering, 1853. [By William Ayrton.] Elianus (Claudius), De Naturâ Animalium. Libri xvii. Gr. et Lat. curante Abr. Gronovio. 4to. Londini, 1744. Best edit. by Schneider. 8vo. Leips. 1784. [The first, and, indeed, the only writer amongst the ancients that makes mention of fishing with the artificial fly. In the 15th book of his history, he says: "The Macedonians, who live on the banks of the river Astreus, which flows midway between Berea and Thessalonica, are in the habit of catching a particular fish in that river by means of a fly called hippurus; a very singular insect it is-bold and troublesome like all its kind, in size a hornet, marked like a wasp, and buzzing like a bee. The predilection of the fish for their prey, though familiarly known to all who inhabit the district, does not induce the angler to attempt their capture by impaling the living insect. Adepts in the sport have contrived a taking device-caphosa quædam machinatio-to circumvent them, for which purpose they invest the body of the hook with purple wool, and having adjusted two wings of a waxy colour, so as to form an exact imitation of the hippurus, they drop these abstruse cheats gently down the stream. The scaly pursuers, who hastily rise and expect nothing less than a dainty bait, snap the decoy, and are immediately fixed to the hook." The honour of first pointing out this passage is attributed to Stephen Oliver (Chatto) in his "Scenes and Recollections of Fly Fishing."] |