[1] See postea, 48 ff.

[2] The recent discovery of the inscribed bone fragments in Honan apparently adds some six hundred years to the history, as apart from the legends of China, for c. 1500 b.c. instead of c. 900 b.c. seems now our starting point. See infra, p. 450.

[3] Cf. Dr. J. T. Jehu’s Lectures before the Royal Society, 1919. It is noteworthy that whatever be the geological date of Man, the oldest true fish, as we understand the term, seems the Shark family, which, although extremely archaic, has but little altered. Next in seniority comes probably the Ceradotus; if now “merely a living fossil” and found only in Queensland, its form, hardly modified, corresponds with remains found all over the world as early as from the Trias.

[4] The urination of a mare was thought to weaken her hairs. Plutarch, De Sol., 24.

[5] Cf. however, postea, 315.

[6] Oric Bates, Ancient Egyptian Fishing, Harvard African Studies, I., 1917, p. 248. With a “running line,” Leintz in U.S.A. cast April, 1921, 437 ft. 7 in.

[7] Dr. Turrell, the author of that researchful book, Ancient Angling Authors, London, 1910, while of opinion that the “wheele” was in the course of time evolved from the “wind” of the troller, differentiates between their uses in fishing. Barker “put in a wind to turn with a barrell, to gather up his line and loose at his pleasure: this was his manner of trouling.” Walton’s words are, “a line of wire through which the line may run to as great a length as is needful when (the fish is) hook’d and for that end some use a wheele,” etc. The use of the “wind” as described by Barker in his first edition was simply to gather up the slack line in working the bait, “this was the manner of his trouling”; while that of Walton’s “wheele” was to let the line go, in playing the rushes of salmon, of which his experience seems mainly vicarious.

Sea-anglers of the present day prefer in many cases man-handling the line to using the reel: thus the Spanish fisherman on striking a tunny throws the whole Rod back into the boat, the crew of which seize the line (which is of great thickness) and haul the fish in by sheer brute force. (See The Rod on the Rivieras (1911), p. 232.)

[8] With good reason the author styles his work, “Ouvrage très curieux, utile, et récréatif pour toutes personnes qui font leur séjour à la campagne.”

[9] No example of a running line has ever been produced from either ancient literature or ancient art, but on the other hand numerous illustrations of the tight line on vases, frescoes, mosaics, etc., are extant. To the examples collected by G. Lafaye in Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. des antiquités, iv. 489, ff. s.v. ‘piscatio,’ can be added: (a) Ivory relief from Sparta, seventh century b.c., published by R. M. Dawkins in the Annual Report of the Brit. School at Athens, 1906-7, xiii. 100, ff., pl. 4. (b) Black figured lekythos from Hope Collection (Sale Cat. No. 22), published by E. M. W. Tillyard in Essays and Studies presented to W. Ridgeway, Cambridge, 1913, edited by E. C. Quiggin, p. 186, ff. with plate. (c) Græco-Roman gem in A. Furtwängler, Beschreibung der geschnittenen Steine im Antiquarium (zu Berlin), Berlin, 1896, p. 257, No. 6898, pl. 51. Cf. the same author, Die Antiken Gemmen, Leipzig-Berlin, 1900, i. pl. 28, 25, and pl. 36, 5; ii. 140 and 174. A. H. Smith, Cat. of Engraved Gems in the Brit. Museum, London, 1888, p. 191, Nos. 1797-99, and p. 206, No. 2043. (d) Coins of Carteia in Spain, well represented by A. Heiss, Description générale des Monnaies antiques de l’Espagne, Paris, 1870, p. 331 f., pl. 49, 19-21. (e) Mosaic in Melos, see R. C. Bosanquet in the Jour. of Hell. Studies, 1898, xviii. 71 ff., pl. 1. (f) Silver krater from Hildesheim shows Cupids with fishing rods and tridents catching all sorts of sea-beasties. E. Pernice and F. Winter, Der Hildesheimer Silberfund, Berlin, 1901, pls. 32, 33. Cf. S. Reinach, Répertoire de Reliefs grecs et romains, Paris, 1909, i. 165 f. (g) H. B. Walters, Cat. of Greek and Roman Lamps in the Brit. Museum, London, 1914, p. 79 f., No. 527, Pl. 16, p. 99 f.; No. 656, pl. 22, p. 96, No. 635. The accompanying illustration is reproduced by kind permission of Mr. E. M. W. Tillyard and of the University Press, Cambridge.

[10] Aristotle, N.H. ix. 37. Plutarch, De Sol. Anim. 27, translated by Holland. Ælian, N.H. ix. 24. See Pliny, N.H. ix. 42.

[11] Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Newcastle, 1916), pp. 6-9. Cf. M. Burkitt, Prehistory, Cambridge, 1921, chs. iv-xx.

[12] E. A. Parkyn, Prehistoric Art, London, 1915.

[13] The Neolithic stage, some hold, is characterised by the presence of polished stone implements and in particular the stone axe, which, judging from its perforation, so as to be more effectually fastened to a wooden handle, was probably used rather for wood than conflict. T. Peisker, Cambridge Mediæval History, 1911, vol. i., has much of interest on the domestication of this period.

[14] Les Peintures préhistoriques de la Caverne d’Altamira, Annales du Musée Guimet, Paris, 1904, tome xv. p. 131.

[15] Émile de Cartailhac et H. Breuil, La Caverne d’Altamira, Paris, 1906, p. 145. Professor Boyd-Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, London, 1880, p. 233. But their technique in flaking, etc., suggests a later date.

[16] The route was probably by Russia, Siberia, and across the land now cut by the Behring Straits.

[17] In H. Ling Roth’s The Aborigines of Tasmania, London, 1890 (see Preface by Tylor on page vi.), “It is thus apparent that the Tasmanians were at a somewhat less advanced stage in the art of stone implement making than the Palæolithic men of Europe.”

[18] Cf. W. J. Sollas, Ancient Hunters, London, 1911, p. 70.

[19] Evans, op. cit., p. 9. See also an interesting essay by Professor E. T. Hamy, L’Anthropologie, tome xix. p. 385 ff., on La Figure humaine chez le sauvage et chez l’enfant.

[20] C. Rau, op. cit., Washington, 1884. Salomon Reinach, Antiquités Nationales, vol. i., 1889. W. I. Hoffmann, The Graphic Art of the Eskimo, Report to Smithsonian Museum, 1895, p. 751.

[21] At Cogul the sacral dance is performed by women clad from the waist downwards in well-cut gowns, which at Alpera are supplemented by flying sashes, and at Cueva de la Vieja reach to the bosom. Verily, we are already a long way from Eve! Cf. Evans, op. cit., p. 8.

[22] Cook’s Third Voyage, Bk. I. ch. vi. W. C. Wentworth, A Statistical, etc., Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, London, 1819, p. 115: “They have no knowledge whatever of the art of fishing”; the only fishing was done by women diving for shellfish. G. T. Lloyd, Thirty-three Years in Tasmania and Victoria, London, 1862, pp. 50-52. Ling Roth, op. cit., p. 75.

[23] No Maya hook has as yet been brought to light, although this was employed by practically all the races aboriginal or other from Alaska to Peru.

[24] Cf. T. A. Joyce, Mexican Archæology, London, 1914.

[25] Montezuma’s table was provided with fish from the Gulf of Mexico brought to the capital within twenty-four hours of capture by means of relays of runners. Some five gods of fishing, of whom the chief seems to have been Opochtli, were worshipped: to him was ascribed the invention of the net and the minacachalli or trident. Cf. de Sahagun, Histoire générale des choses de la Nouvelle Espagne, traduite et annotée par D. Jourdanet et Rémi Simeon, p. 36, Paris, 1880. De Sahagun, a Franciscan, came to Mexico in 1529 and died there in 1590. See also, C. Rau, op. cit., p. 214, and T. Joyce, op. cit., pp. 165, 221. A not uncommon practice was co-operative fishing, by which, after a portion had been set aside for the feudal lord, the rest of the catch was divided in fixed shares; see Joyce, p. 300.

[26] These pictographs were made by native artists shortly after the conquest of Mexico, and were sent by the Viceroy Mendoza, with interpretations in Aztec and Spanish, to the Emperor Charles the Fifth. A copy of this Codex in the Bodleian was reproduced by Lord Kingsborough in his first volume of Antiquities of Mexico (1831).

[27] From a letter from the representative in Mexico of the Smithsonian Institute, who adds: “My belief is that the Mayas used the Spear, the Net, and the Bow and Arrow. That is all I can give you at present: should anything else turn up, I will let you know.” In A Study of Maya Art, an elaborate work by Herbert J. Spinder (Peabody Museum Memoirs, Harvard University, 1913), I have failed to find any fishing scenes or any ancient fishing implements depicted.

[28] Baessler translated by A. H. Keane (Asher & Co.), London, 1902-3. Mead’s monograph is in the Putnam Anniversary Volume, New York, 1909. The Necropolis of Ancon, by Reiss and Stübel, translated by A. H. Keane, Berlin, 1880-87.

[29] T. A. Joyce, South American Archæology, London, 1912, p. 126.

[30] See infra, p. 371.

[31] Indian Notes and Monographs, published by the Heye Foundation, New York, 1919, p. 56, show in the tombs of Cayuga fish-hooks, harpoons, and fish-bones, “most of which objects are unique or unusual as grave finds.”

[32] E. J. Banfield, Confessions of a Beachcomber, London, 1913.

[33] For descriptions of Palæolithic life, see Worthington G. Smith, Man the Primal Savage, London, 1894, and J. J. Atkinson, Primal Law, London, 1903. For the community assumed by the former, Atkinson substitutes a family group.

[34] Cuvier and Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. des Poissons, vol. xviii. pp. 279-80, Paris, 1846. Since in this volume the geographical distribution of the pike, as known at the time, is set forth without any mention of Greece, it is rather difficult to understand the surprise of Valenciennes, who wrote the volume in question; Cuvier died in 1832.

[35] É. Cartailhac, La France Préhistorique, Paris, 1889, p. 82, fig. 41.

[36] É. Cartailhac, Matériaux pour l’histoire de l’homme, xiii. p. 395. The Magdalenian workmanship on bone was extraordinarily fine. Their bone needles (according to de Mortillet) are much superior to those of the later, even of historical times, down to the Renaissance. The Romans never possessed needles comparable with them.

[37] G. de Mortillet, Origines de la Chasse et de la Pêche (Paris, 1890), p. 222. Our learned author nods. If the seals had killed the trout, it would not have floated “belly up,” but instantly down their bellies.

[38] S. Reinach, Répertoire de l’Art Quaternaire (Paris, 1913), p. 156, which is a complete summary of the various finds in excavations, etc. See p. 88 for a seal, and p. 114 for a fine representation from Laugerie Basse of two fish meeting.

[39] Fishermen in Malay, while they are at sea, studiously avoid mentioning the names of birds or beasts: all animals are called “cheweh,” a meaningless word, which is believed not to be understood by the creatures (J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, second edition, 1900, vol. i. p. 460). So, too, fishermen from some villages on the N.E. coast of Scotland never pronounce, while at sea, under penalty of poor catches, certain words such as “minister,” “salmon,” “trout,” “swine,” etc. The first, poor fellow! “que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?” is invariably referred to as “the man with the black ‘guyte’” (Ibid., p. 453).

[40] Acad. des Sciences, Paris, séance du 22 juin, 1903.

[41] The pictured hook is of special interest. The head, considered by Krause that of a wizard, was intended to endow the hook with an extra power of magic.

[42] F. Boaz, 6th Report on N.W. Tribes of Canada, p. 45.

[43] E. Aymonier, Cochinchene Françoise, No. 16, p. 157, as quoted by Frazer. Ibid.

[44] S. Reinach, L’Anthropologie (1903), p. 257.

[45] Such is the solution which Bates (Ancient Egyptian Fishing, 1917, p. 205) offers of the presence in the pre-dynastic Egyptian graves of the numerous slate palettes bearing the profile of a fish or beast.

[46] Frazer, Golden Bough. Taboo, Part ii. (London, 1911), p. 191 ff.

[47] W. H. Dall, “Social Life among the Aborigines,” The American Naturalist (1878), vol. xii. J. G. Frazer, Folk Lore in the Old Testament (London, 1918), vol. iii. p. 123.

[48] See Dr. F. Keller’s The Lake Dwellers in Switzerland (translated, London, 1878, by John Edward Lee), vol. ii. pl. 136, fig. 2. This net of cord with meshes not quite three-eighths of an inch in width was almost certainly made, it was certainly well suited, for fishing. Another example with meshes two inches wide, probably formed part of a hunting net. R. Munro, The Lake Dwellings of Europe (London, 1890), p. 504, mentions fishing-nets from Robenhausen and Vinetz—both belonging to the late Neolithic Age. O. Schrader, Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde (Strassburg, 1901), p. 242, records “remains of nets” in the Stone Age settlements of Denmark and Sweden, which he classes as fishing nets.

[49] Les Origines de la Pêche et de la Navigation, Paris.

[50] An excellent monograph, with hundreds of illustrations, by E. Krause (“Vorgeschichtliche Fischereigeräte und Neuere Vergleichsstüche”) contained in the magazine, Zeitschrift für Fischerei, xi. Band ¾ Heft (Berlin, 1904), p. 208, states that hooks of the Stone Age are numerous, but unfortunately he does not discriminate between the Old and New Stone Ages. Palæolithic finds mention but once in his 176 pages.

[51] Types de la Madelaine, p. 222, fig. 78.

[52] H. J. Osborne, The Men of the Stone Age (1915), p. 465.

[53] Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ (London, 1875), ii. p. 58. Christy’s solitary buttress for his opinion is a reference to “a Nootka Sound fishing implement,” which is identical (according to Rau, fig. 9) with a hook described in Mr. J. G. Swan’s The Indians of Cape Flattery, as used by the Makahs solely (and successfully) for the halibut, because “its mouth is vertical, instead of horizontal, like most fish.” The absence of halibut from débris or representations scarcely strengthens Christy’s opinion.

[54] L’Anthropologie, tome xix. pp. 184-190, especially p. 187, where the author attempts une reconstitution hypothétique de la façon, dont cette interprétation admise, on pourrait conçevoir la fixation de ces “hameçons.” The inverted commas do not suggest confidence.

[55] If both the ends of the gorge were as much bent up as a hook, the tendency would be for the gorge, when its points got fast, to be rotated by the pull on the line and to assume, owing to greater curvature, a bent-back position, which would allow of its easy withdrawal and defeat the object—the capture of the fish. Some Santa Cruz gorges are of an angular type, but with the points turned somewhat down. The double hook of bronze or copper, e.g. of Ancient Peru, seems to support my suggestion of gorge evolution, although, fair to add, it was suspended from the centre.

[56] Sanchouniathon, as translated by Philo of Byblus, ap. Euseb., Praep. Ev. i. 10, 9, in what purports to be a Phœnician account, would bring the invention right down to the Iron Age. “Many generations later Agreus and Halieus sprang from the stock of Hypsouranios. They were the discoverers of hunting and fishing, hunters and fishers being called after them. From these in turn sprang two brothers, inventors of iron and iron-working. One of these brothers, Chrysor, practised spells and charms and oracles. He is Hephaistos, and he it is who invented hook and bait and line and boat, being the first of all men to set sail. Wherefore also they worshipped him as a god after his death, and named him Zeus Meilíchios.”

[57] E. Krause, op. cit., 208, holds that the most primitive hook was made of wood: bind a thorn or sprig crossways and your hook is to hand.

[58] H. T. Sheringham holds that both early and recent specimens of Fijian hooks bear out this view (Ency. Brit., ed. xi., s.v. “Angling”). “The progressive order of hooks used by the Indians or their predecessors in title in North America was, after the simple device of attaching the bait to the end of a fibrous line, (1) a gorge, a spike of wood or bone, sharpened at both ends and fastened at its middle to a line; (2) a spike set obliquely in the end of a pliant shaft; (3) a plain hook; (4) a barbed hook; (5) a barbed hook combined with sinker and lure. This series does not exactly represent stages of invention: the evolution may have been affected by the habits of the different species of fish or their increasing wariness. The above progressive order applies, I believe, on the whole all over the world, if due allowance be made for varying conditions” (Smithsonian Handbook of American Indians (Washington), p. 460).

[59] See Man, Feb., 1915, “Note on the new kind of Fish-hook,” by Henry Balfour. The illustration is reproduced by the kind permission of Mr. H. Balfour and the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Another notable hook is one of wood about four inches long with a claw (said to be that of a bird) attached, which Vancouver collected on his voyage in N.W. American waters (see Ethnographical Coll. at Brit. Mus.). The whalebone in this must not be mistaken for anything else but a snood. For the ingenious derivation of certain hooks in some South Sea Islands from their similarity to the bones of common fish, e.g. Cod and Haddock, see T. McKenny Hughes, in Archæol. Jour., vol. 58, No. 230, pp. 199-213. See also J. G. Wood, Nature’s Teaching (London, 1877), pp. 115-6, on the point.

[60] See infra, p. 357.

[61] My own Mohave Rod is of ’ihora, the red willow of that district, barked and straightened by an ingenious Indian method. The line is of the prepared bast of ’ido, another species of willow, and the hook of barrel cactus thorn. Hooks made out of Echinocactus wislizeni are better adapted for fish which do not nibble at the bait, but bolt it hook and all; for this reason the Indians fasten the bait below the hook (E. Palmer, “Fish-hooks of the Mohave Indians,” American Naturalist, vol. xii. p. 403). On the north-west coast the Indians a generation ago invariably used spruce-wood for their halibut hooks (Rau, p. 139). Some Maori hooks are of human bone and pawa, with kiwi feathers.

[62] I do not think that these gold hooks were a unit of currency, as the lari of the Persian Gulf were, according to W. Ridgeway, The Origin of Metallic Currency, etc. (Cambridge), 1892, p. 276.

This gold hook must not be confounded with the silver hook not infrequently employed in the remoter districts of Great Britain by certain anglers, who in their anxiety to avoid being greeted with Martial’s “ecce redit sporta piscator inani,” cross with silver the palm of more fortunate brethren, and

[63] See R. Munro’s Lake Dwellings of Europe, pp. 127, 499, 509. Flinders Petrie, Tools and Weapons (London, 1917), p. 37 f., has a section on fish-hooks with good illustrations, pl. 44, figs. 61-87, pl. 43, figs. 59, 60, 88-102. “Considering how much the Lake-dwellers relied upon fishing, the moderate number of hooks found points to their depending more on nets. The few copied here, 88-94, are merely rounded, without any peculiar form.”

[64] Many of the Solutréan tanged blades and pointes à cran are small enough to suggest their use as arrowheads, and Rutot has described tanged and barbed “arrowheads” from Palæolithic deposits in Belgium.

[65] Op. cit., p. 160. But why? Flint points break quicker than wood.

[66] See Julie Schlemm, Wörterbuch zur Vorgeschichte (Berlin, 1908), pp. 555-7. The immediate successors of the single spear were probably the bident and trident. Owing to the refraction of light and other reasons a spear is difficult of accurate direction, but the broader surface of the trident helps to lessen the factor of error.

[67] H. J. Osborne (op. cit., p. 385 ff.) states that, with the exception of one half-finished hole in a Harpoon from La Madelaine, the side hole for the attachment of the thong to the Harpoon does not appear in the French Magdalenian Harpoon, although in those from Cantabria it is nearly always present. The Azilian weapon usually bears a hole.

[68] The Troglodytes of the Vézère Valley, Smithsonian Report, 1872, p. 95.

[69] In Contributions to North American Ethnology, 1877, i. p. 43, Dall states that the débris of the heaps show tolerably uniform division into three stages, characterised by the food which formed the staple of subsistence and by the weapons for obtaining as well as the utensils for preparing the food. The stages are: 1st, The Littoral period, represented by the Echinus layer; 2nd, The Fishing period, represented by the Fish-bone layer; 3rd, The Hunting period, represented by the Mammalian layer. This antecedence of fishing before hunting, if Dall be correct, was, I imagine, caused probably by local or climatic conditions in the Arctic Circle; it is not the general rule elsewhere.

[70] Les Débuts de l’humanité, etc. (Paris, 1881), p. 69. E. Krause, op. cit., p. 153, agrees.

[71] “Apes know how to get oysters thrown up on the shore, but man has been endowed with the knowledge how to get them in and out of the sea.” The sentiment, if not the style, of this sentence—to prove the superior design and creation of man over the animal creation—seems not quite unworthy of Izaak Walton’s pages.

[72] His pleasant description of “tickling” and his “viro Britanno” must be my excuse for introducing a writer in Latin so late after my limit of 500 a.d. as Parthenius, better known as Giannettasi, the author of Halieutica, published at Naples in 1689:

[73] For a similar use of bow and harpoon arrow by the Bororo tribes in the Amazon valley, see W. A. Cork, Through the Wilderness of Brazil, p. 380. Our gaff, a descendant, possibly, of the unilaterally one-barbed spear, seems possessed of perpetual youth. The first description of its use in Angling in England occurs, according to Mr. Marston (Walton and the Earlier Fishing Writers (1898), p. 97), in T. Barker’s Art of Angling (1651), but according to Dr. Turrell, op. cit., pp. 85 and 91, only in Barker’s 2nd of 1657, “a good large landing hook.” From the definition, however, by Blount, Glossage, in 1657, “Gaffe, an iron wherewith seamen pull great Fishes into their ships,” its previous existence and employment at sea can be deduced.

[74] There is no hook; only a piece of whalebone or a stem of seaweed, with a feather stuck at the end, attached to which is a running knot, which holds the bait. As soon as the fish has swallowed feather and bait, the women, for the men disdain fishing, draw it to the surface and quickly seize it. Cf. Darwin, Jour. of Researches, etc., during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (London, 1860), ch. x, p. 213.

[75] “The principall sport to take a Pike is to take a Goose or Gander or Duck, take one of the Pike Lines as I have showed you before; tye the line under the left wing and over the right wing, and about the bodie as a man weareth his belt; turne the Goose off into a Pond where Pikes are; there is no doubt of sport with much pleasure betwixt the Goose and the Pike. It is the greatest pleasure that a noble Gentleman in Shropshire doth give his friends for entertainment. There is no question among all this fishing but we shall take a brace of good Pikes.”

[76] For a full description of this method, see Sport on Land and Water, by F. G. Griswold, privately printed (New York, 1916), and The Game Fishes of the World, by C. F. Holder (London, 1913). To the kite, which is of the ordinary 28-inch type, is allowed 700 feet of old fishing line from off a reel; the fisherman’s line is tied to the kite about 20 feet from the bait with a piece of cotton twine. When a Tuna fish takes the bait the cotton line breaks, and the kite is either reeled in or falls into the sea. The Santa Catalina fishing, with its records of enormous Tuna, of Sword fish (the largest 463 lbs.), sometimes fighting for 14 hours, sounding 48 times, and leading the launch for a distance of 29 miles, and of Giant Bass weighing 493 lbs., fills a British angler with envious despair, a despair which is heightened when one reads that the regulation tackle prescribed by the Tuna Club is, or was not long ago, a sixteen ounce Rod and a line not over No. 24! In Mr. Zane Grey’s enthralling volume (Tales of Fishes (London, 1919), p. 39) we read of a swordfish, that “when he sounded, he had pulled thirteen hundred feet off my reel, although we were chasing him (in a motor boat) full speed all the time”!

[77] See the excellent monograph on “Kite-Fishing,” by Henry Balfour, in Essays and Studies, presented to Wm. Ridgeway (Cambridge, 1913), p. 23, where he regards the invention as ancient and probably proto-Malayan. This hook was usually made of wood and the claw of a bird. Cf. Man, 1912, Art. 4, and case 42 in Ethnographical Collection at the British Museum.

[78] De Mortillet, pp. 245, 249: “De tous les engins la ligne est le plus simple, et celui qui a du être le premier employé.” He sums up his surview of the world from China to Peru, by “La pêche à la ligne est la pêche la plus repandue parmi les nations sauvages.”

[79] Op. cit., “The Net is known to almost all men as far as history can tell.” But Darwin, in The Cruise of the Beagle, found the Fuegians without Nets or traps of any kind. Their only methods of fishing were with Spears, and a baited hair line without any hook.

[80] The Life of the Salmon, p. xv, London, 1907: “At once the most primitive and most deadly method of catching fish, which inhabit rivers, is the erection of built barriers and enclosures.” Plutarch (De Sol. Anim. 26) has no doubt of the priority of the Line over the Net: “Fishermen when perceiving that most of the fishes scorned the line and hook as stale devices or such as can be discovered, betook themselves to fine force and shut them up with great casting nets, like as the Persians serve their enemies in their wars”—σαγηνεύειν—(Cf. Herodotus, vi. 31) “to sweep the whole population off the face of a country” (Hollands’ Trs.). W. v. Schulenburg, Märkische Fischerei (Berlin, 1903), s. 62, “Das Fischnetz galt also schon in der Vorgeschichtlichen Zeit, im grauen Altertum für uralt. Mit Recht darf der Fischer sich den ältesten Gewerben der Menschheit zuzählen.”

[81] Cf. A. E. Pratt, Two Years among the New Guinea Cannibals (London, 1906), p. 266, and 3 photographs. The webs spun by the spiders in the forests are six feet in diameter, with meshes varying from one inch at the outside to about one-eighth at the centre. The diligence of the creatures has been pressed into weaving fishing-nets for the use of man by setting up, where the webs are thickest, long bamboos bent over in a loop at the end. On this most convenient frame the spider in a short time produces a web which resists water as readily as does a duck’s back, and holds fish up to a pound satisfactorily. See also Robert W. Williamson (The Maflu Mountain People of British New Guinea (London, 1912), p. 193) who differs materially from Pratt as to the formation of the net. The illustration is reproduced by the kind permission of The Illustrated London News Co.

[82] Jowett’s Translation, vol. iv. p. 343. The whole passage, which is too long for quotation, is fairly typical of Platonic methods.

[83] The italics are mine.

[84] 23 Law Times, 439.