BAITS— GROUND FISHING— POISONS 239 



But successful cunning to avoid capture was no monopoly 

 of the Amia. Ovid, Oppian, Pliny, Plutarch, iElian, recount 

 numerous devices which certain fish employ to nullify net or 

 hook. I subjoin three of the chief tricks used to defeat the 

 hanms. 



The Miigil, whose greed is only saved by its guile, despite 

 his fore-knowledge of danger has madly grabbed the bait, 

 but keeps thrashing it with his tail, till at last he shakes it 

 free of the hook. " At mugil cauda pendentem everberat 

 escam Excussamque legit." 1 



The Anthias on the first prick of the hook turns over on to 

 his back and quickly severs the line with his dorsal fin, or spike, 

 " of the shape and keenness of a knife." 2 



The Scolopendra, according to Aristotle, " after swallowing 

 the hook, turns itself inside out until it ejects it, and then it 

 again turns itself outside in," and (in Pliny's words) vomits up 

 everything inside him till he has ejected the hook, and " deinde 

 resorbet ! " ^ 



Lines with floating corks and lead attached close to the 

 hooks, partly to facilitate the throwing of the line, and partly, 

 combined with a sliding cork, to regulate the position of the 

 bait, were in regular use. Ground fishing, when the lure is 

 leaded and thrown with or without rod, was well known and 

 widely exercised. 



Pastes and scents were also employed, either like myrrh 

 dissolved in wine to intoxicate (see the accompanying drawing, 

 which is, I beheve, unique), * or, like the cyclamen, or sow- 



1 Ovid, Hal., 38 f. ; cf. Oppian, III. 482 ff. 



■ Pliny, N. H., XXXII. 5 ; Ovid. Hal., 44 ff. ; Plutarch, De Sol. Anim., 25. 

 This trick is also characteristic of the Armado of the Parana river, but its 

 enormous strength enables it also either to jerk the paddle of the fisher away, 

 or to capsize the boat. Cf. S. Wright, The Romance of the World's Fisheries 

 (London, 1908), p. 208. 



^ Phny, IX. 67, taken totidem verbis from Aristotle, iV. H., II. 17, and 

 IX. 51. 



* The fisherman on the Mosaic from the Hall of the Mystae in Melos 

 (R. C. Bosanquet, in the Jour, of Hellenic Studies (1898), xviii. 60 ff., PI. i) 

 appears to have been using a glass bottle half-filled with wine as a lure. 

 The inscription MONON MH TAHP is generally taken to be late Greek for 

 " Everything here except water " (whicii will be supphed by the next rainfall). 

 But the words might be legitimately rendered : " Only let no water be used " — • 

 a natural exclamation from the devotees of the wine-god ! Prof. Bosanquet, 

 despite his fine sense of humour, has missed the double entendre. 



