FISHING, A. D. 1496. (FROM WALTON'S "COMPLETE Angler.") tavern where your lines may be cast. But should the intention be to fish only occasionally, then equally good sport may be had in the summer and early autumn months at Montauk Point, Point Judith, Newport, Cohasset Narrows, and many places along shore, where other anglers will be found, many of them bearing names familiar in the artistic, literary, and financial worlds, intent on the same pursuit, and eager to measure their trained skill against any amount of avoirdupois which their striped antagonists may bring against them. Forty-seven pounds is the heaviest bass that has fallen to the lot of the writer, and it has been the subject of the most poignant regret, not to say remorse, that he was allowed to weigh so little, when a few old sinkers thrust into his gullet would have

brought his record up to the even half-hundred. A seventy-two-pounder, caught by a gentleman of New York, is probably the heaviest bass that has yet been landed with rod and reel, and when it is considered that the line used would not sustain much more than one-third that amount of dead weight, and that every ounce of that seventy-two pounds was "fighting weight," some conception may be formed of the skill and patience required in its capture.

Verily there is nothing new under the sun. As I pen these lines regarding the capture of large fish with light tackle, there comes to mind the memory of a screed written in the long, long ago, and I step to the bookshelf, take down the volume, and transcribe for your delectation, O reader, the quaint advice given by that sainted patroness of the angle, Dame Juliana Berners, nearly four hundred years ago. There is a flavor of mold about the fine old English, but it contains the sum and essence of all scientific angling. Here it is, crisp and fresh as when it was first written, though the hand that penned it has long since crumbled into dust, and the generation for whose "dysporte" it was "empryntyd" by Wynkyn de Worde have been casting their flies from the further bank of the Styx this many a long year:

"And yf it fortune you to smyt a gret fish with a small harnays, thenne ye must lede hym in the water and labour hym there tyll he be dround and overcome; thenne take hym as well as ye can or maye, and euer be waar that ye holde not ouer the strengthe of your lyne, and as moche as ye may lete hpm not come out of your lyne's ende streyghte from you; but kepe him euer vnder the rodde, and euermore hold hym streyghte, so that your lyne may be susteyne and beere his lepys and his plunges wyth the helpe of your cropp and of your honde."

THOSE were good times, in olden days, Of which the poet has his dreams, When gods beset the woodland ways, And lay in wait by all the streams.

turn and divides into three or four branches, which by subsequent redivision form a number of islands, large and small. These marshy islands, overgrown with forests and thickets, and liable to be covered with water during the westerly winds, were inhabited by a few Finnish fishermen, who were accustomed to abandon their mud huts at the approach of high water, and seek a refuge on the higher ground beyond.

It was on the first of these islands, called by the Finns Yanni-Saari, or Hare Island,

many carpenters and masons were sent from the district of Nóvgorod, who were aided by the soldiers. Wheelbarrows were unknown (they are still little used in Russia), and in default of better implements the men scraped up the earth with their hands, and carried it to the ramparts on pieces of matting or in their shirts. Peter wrote to Ramodanófsky, asking him to send the next summer at least two thousand thieves and criminals destined for Siberia, to do the heavy work under the direction of the Nov

accompanied the Tsar through his campaigns, and was present at the battle of Poltava. Near this stood the larger cabin of Menshikóf, the governor-general, where foreign envoys were received and entertainments given; then the residences of the court; and beyond them, on the banks of the river, the huts of the workmen. Close by the bridge leading to the fortress was a drinking-house, for many years a place of general resort, where wine, beer, tobacco, and cards were sold. Its name, The Osteria, and

subsequently The Triumphal Osteria of the Four Frigates, shows an Italian influence on some who surrounded Peter.

In spite of disease and mortality among the men, in spite of the floods, which even in the first year covered nearly the whole place and drowned some who were too ill to move, the work went on. But in its in fancy St. Petersburg was constantly in dan ger from the Swedes, both by sea and land During 1703, it was threatened from the side of Finland by General Kronhjort, who