![[ANGLING] CAIRNCROSS, DAVID. The Origin of the Silver Eel with Remarks on Bait and Fly Fishing.](/sites/default/files/styles/auction_slider/public/images/lots/218/1618218.jpg?itok=Af4P2w6W)
Lot Details
Lot 139
[ANGLING] CAIRNCROSS, DAVID. The Origin of the Silver Eel with Remarks on Bait and Fly Fishing.
London: G. Shield, 1862. First edition. Three-quarters modern calf, cloth sides. 6 3/4 x 4 1/4 inches (17 x 10.5 cm); vii, 96 pp.; frontispiece. Light wear, minor toning.
This is indisputably one of the more eccentric productions in the literature of angling. Cairncross, by diligent observation, became convinced that glass eels were hatched from beetles, and the first section of the book speaks to this remarkable theory. Never mind that eels are fish, and beetles arthropods, and never (so to speak) the twain shall meet. Taxonomically they belong to entirely different phyla, so such a chimeric offspring as an eel born of a beetle (so vividly depicted in the remarkable frontispiece) taxes the imagination even more than believing, for example, that in 1726 Mary Toft gave birth to eighteen rabbits (or parts thereof). She, from whatever motivation, was a hoaxer pure and simple, despite her success in deceiving a number of physicians, but Mr. Cairncross was certainly no fraud. He was blithely confident in his observations, and it is a lasting shame on the Blairgowrie Angling Club, to whom the book was fulsomely dedicated by him, that they did not attempt to disabuse him of his interesting notions. But then again, perhaps it is better they did not, for then we would not have this delectable little treatise to enjoy.
C The Property of a New England Family
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