30 INTRODUCTION 



water being boiled in a house, because " this is bad for the 

 fishing." Frazer suggests that the Commandment in Exodus 

 xxxiv. 26, " Not to seethe a kid in its mother's milk," embodies 

 a like illustration. 1 



From carvings, whether executed for purposes of amusement 

 or of magic, and from specimens found in the debris of the 

 stations, we derive our knowledge of the earliest implements 

 and methods employed in Perigord and elsewhere for taking fish. 



A study of these warrants, to my mind, the conclusion that 

 only two weapons can be traceably attributed to Palaeolithic 

 Man. First and pre-eminent the Spear (or Harpoon with its 

 various congeners) with possibly adjustable flint-heads, and 

 second, but to a far less extent, the Gorge, or as it has been 

 better termed, " the bait-holder." 



Of a Troglodyte Net no representation exists, no specimen 

 survives. The absence of an actual specimen can perhaps be 

 explained by the perishable nature of the fibres or wythes used 

 for its construction. 



The undeniable survival of pieces of Nets among the lake 

 dwellers seems somewhat to negative the explanation. 2 But 

 these may have survived because of the presence, while those of 

 the Palaeolithic Age may have perished because of the absence 

 of some preservative power in the substance in which they were 

 embedded. 



The absence from the latter and the presence in the former 

 debris of Net sinkers, etc., strongly, if not conclusively, cor- 

 roborate Broca's conclusion that the Cave men of the Vezere 

 Valley and elsewhere were strangers to the Net. 



We possess, in my opinion, no evidence of Hooks (as 



1 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. 



- See Dr. F. Keller's The Lake Dwellers in Switzerland (translated, London, 

 1S78, by John Edward Lee), vol. ii. pi. I3(), 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. 



