Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/530

 498 ANGLING ANGLING, the art of taking fish by means of the rod, line, and hook. It probably was never a popular recreation with any of the more civilized peoples of antiquity, but in England it early became a favorite sport. One of the earliest books printed in the English language is a small folio republication of " The Boke of St. Albans," issued in 1496 by Wynkin de Worde, and containing a " Treatise of Fishing with an Angle." The fish which have always been the keenest object of the skilful fisher- man's pursuit, both as the best on the board when taken, and as affording the greatest sport to the taker, are those of the salmon family, including the true or sea salmon, the sea trout, the lake trout of several varieties, and the brook trout. For fly-fishing, the rod for sal- mon fishing should be from 16 to 18 feet long, pliable, elastic, and tapering ; with a reel ca- pable of containing 100 yards of strong, evenly plaited hair line, tapering gradually from end to end, and terminating in a leader of the best round silkworm gut, to which is attached the foot length of a large, gaudily colored salmon fly. The trout fly rod is of the same general character, but shorter, lighter, and capable of being easily managed with one hand ; whereas the salmon rod requires the use of both, and takes a strong and practised man to wield it with effect through a whole day's fishing. From 10 to 12 feet will be long enough for an ordinary fly rod, and from 30 to 40 yards of line will be an ample allowance. Trout flies are much smaller, and usually much more gravely colored, than the salmon flies most in use. The object in fly-fishing is to throw the fly well out, and, letting it drop on the water as lightly and naturally as possible, to keep it playing and dancing in the eddies, with mo- tions simulating those of a .drowning insect. The fish of America most valued by the angler are the trout, striped bass, the black bass of the lakes, and the rock bass ; several varieties of pike, from the gigantic muscalonge of the basin of the St. Lawrence down to the little Long Island pickerel, which rarely exceeds 10 inches in length ; the pike perch, known as the glass-eye or Ohio salmon, in the western waters ; the perch ; the carp ; and many other species and varieties, of various degrees of size and excellence, down to the little, many-colored pond fish. The principal differences between bait-fishing and fly-fishing consist in the use of the fish or the worm with trolling, spinning, roving, or stationary tackle. Trolling and spinning are both practised with dead fish, to which the angler, by the play of his wrist and line, conveys a motion in the water similar to that of swimming. The bluefish and Span- ish mackerel are caught b,y trolling, but in- stead of bait the hook is attached to a piece of bright metal or bone, shaped somewhat like a small fish. In spinning swivels are used, and a series of small hooks* tied on fine gut, are applied to the bait externally, which is fastened to the line head upward, with a ANGLO-SAXONS slight curve given to the tail, so that the action of the swivel and the force of the current cause it to play with a rotatory motion in the water. Roving is performed with a small live fish, hooked, so as not to injure him seriously, through the dorsal fin or the lip, and suffered to swim about at hie own pleasure, within such lim- its as are accorded to him by the length of line. Bottom fishing requires a weighted line, a cork float, and worm, paste, or shellfish bait ; it is adopted for trout and perch fishing in rivers, and for taking many sorts of sea fish in bays and tideways. The following are the titles of a few of the most valuable works on angling, pub- lished within a few years : Scrope's "Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing " ; " The Book of the Salmon," by Andrew Young ; Sir Humphry Davy's " Salmonia " ; Pulman's " Vade Mecum of Fly-fishing for Trout"; "Handbook of Angling," by Ephemera ; " The Rod and Line," by Hewett Wheatley; Ronald's "Fly-fisher's Entomology." These are all English works, to which may be added the following American publications: Dr. Bethune's edition of Izaak Walton's " Complete Angler," Frank Forres- ter's "Fish and Fishing," Brown's "Angler's Guide," Lanman's " Adventures," Roosevelt's " Superior Fishing " and " Game Fish of the North," and G. C. Scott's "Fishing in Ameri- can Waters." ANGLO-SAXONS, the Teutonic people who in the 5th and 6th centuries passed over from their territory in and near the Cimbric (Danish) pen- insula to the island of Britain, then just aban- doned by the Romans. They first acted as aux- iliaries to the British against the Picts and Scots, but afterward, subdued and overspread the country, establishing themselves as its per- manent inhabitants, while the aboriginal races gradually disappeared before their rapid growth. They were principally collected from three nations, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, all members of the great Saxon confederation, a rough union of Teutonic tribes effected dur- ing the 4th century, under the Saxon hegemo- ny, for mutual advancement and protection. (See SAXONS.) The Saxons inhabited the country called North Albingia or Eala Saexen, extending from the Elbe to the Eider, on the W. side of the Cimbric peninsula, and divided into Ditmarsia, Stormaria, and Hol- satia districts which still retain these names. The Jutes inhabited South Jutland, now Schleswig. The territory of the Angles was probably the district of Angeln, now also within the limits of Schleswig. These tribes, celebrated for naval prowess, had made sev- eral piratical expeditions to the British coast before the abandonment of the island by the Romans. According to the statement of old histories, the details of which are not now fully credited by critical writers, it was the knowledge of them thus acquired by the Brit- ons that led these latter to call upon them for aid, when, about A. D. 449, Vortigern, the leading British chief of the time, found him-