The Cuttle fish is scarcely one’s ideal of beauty, yet it is by its vanity and belief in its personal attractions that it is most readily captured. Porta tells us that pieces of looking glass are let down by the fishermen into the waters, and that the Cuttle seeing his image reflected, clasps the glass around, and while he is still enamoured with the reflection of his charms is drawn to the surface by the wily fishermen. In the “Pathway to Knowledge,” published in the year 1685, we are told that if we take the juice of Nettles and Houseleek, and anoint our hands therewith, the fish will gather round and “you may take them out at your pleasure.” This seems almost as simple a method as the catching of birds by placing a pinch of salt on their tails. If we may credit Maundevile, and the “if” is a most important point, in one favoured land instead of the people going for the fish, the fish come to the people. In a certain isle, or we may perhaps more truthfully say an uncertain isle, called Calonak, many wonderful things were to be seen, but one of these he especially, and very justly, calls “a gret Marvayle,” and when he goes on to add that “it is more to speke of than in ony partie of the World,” one is loath to gainsay his opinion. He tells us that “alle manere of Fissches that ther ben in the See abouten hem, comen ones in the Yeer, eche manere of dyverse Fissches, one maner of kynde aftre another; and thei casten hem selfe to the See Banke of that Yle in so gret plentee and multitude that no man may see but Fissche, and ther thei abyden thre dayes, and euerie man of the Countree takethe of hem als many as him lykethe, and that maner of Fissche aftre the thridde day departeth and gothe in to the See. And aftre hem comen another multitude of Fissches of anothre kynde and don in the same maner as the firste diden othre three dayes. And aftre hem another, tille alle the dyverse maner of Fissches have ben there, and that men have taken of hem that hem lykethe. And no man knowethe the cause wherfore it may ben. But thei of the Contree seyn that it is for to do reverence to here Kyng, that is the most worthi Kyng that is in the World, as thei seyn.” The reason assigned for the king’s special worthiness is a somewhat peculiar one, and though it is duly set forth at full length by the old author, other times have brought other manners and ideas, and one can scarcely insert in a book of the present day many things, and this amongst them, that were set forth in the greatest simplicity and directness of language in books of earlier date.