12 INTRODUCTION 



These were either fastened to the Rod whip-fashion, or 

 possibly looped to it. The distinction is only important in 

 so far as a horse-hair loop at the end of the Rod may have 

 developed into a top ring of wire, which must not be confused 

 with rings fixed along the Rod, which R. Howlett, in The 

 Angler's Sure Guide, 1706, seems the first to note. 



Why the Greeks or Romans should not have emancipated 

 themselves from the tight line of Egypt and evolved the 

 running line by the mere force of their inventive genius causes 

 much astonishment. This grows acute when we remember 

 that they knew a fish whose properties and predatory endow- 

 ments furnished an ideal example of the advantages of the 

 running line. 



Of the angler fish and its methods of securing food Aristotle, 

 Plutarch, and ^Elian are eloquent. ^ From Plutarch we learn 

 that " the cuttle fish useth Hkewise the same craft as the 

 fishing-frog doth. His manner is to hang down, as if it were 

 an angle line, a certain small string or gut from about his neck, 

 which is of that nature that he can let out in length a great 

 way, when it is loose, and draw it in close together very 

 quickly when he listeth. Now when he perceiveth some small 

 fish near unto him," he forthwith plies his nature-given tackle. 



With the tight Une play can only be given to a iish by 

 craft of hand and rod. Anglers know to their sorrow that 

 although much may be thus accomplished, occasions too 

 frequently arise when the most expert handling can avail 

 naught. 



In Walton's time the custom, as indeed it was the only 

 present help, in the event of a big fish being hooked was to 

 throw the Rod into the water and await its retrieval, if the 

 deities of fishing so willed, till such time as the fish by pulling 

 it all over the water had played himself out. 



sea-beasties. E. Pernice and F. Winter, Der Hildesheimer Silberfund, Berlin, 

 1 901, pis. 32, 33. Cf. S. Reinach, R^ertoire 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, PI. 16, p. 99 f . ; No. 656, 

 pi. 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. 



^ Aristotle, N.H. ix. 37. Plutarch, De Sol. Anim. 27, translated by 

 Holland. iElian, N.H. ix. 24. See Pliny, N.H. ix. 42. 



