240 TACKLE-CURIOUS METHODS— S/Lf/i? [75— EELS 



bread, to poison the fish.^ From Oppian's description of the 

 workings of the poison, IV. 658 ff., we take the hnes : 



" Soon as the deadly Cyclamen invades 

 The ill-starred fishes in their deep-sunk glades, 

 . . . the slowly working bane 

 Creeps o'er each sense and poisons every vein. 

 Then pours concentred mischief on the brain. 

 Some drugged, like men o'ercome with recent wine. 

 Reel to and fro, and stagger thro' the brine ; 

 Some in quick circlets whirl : some 'gainst the rocks 

 Dash, and are stunned by repercussive shocks ; 

 Some with quenched orbs, or filmy eyeballs thick. 

 Rush on the nets and in the meshes stick, 

 In coma steeped their fins more feebly ply, 

 Some in titanic spasms gasp and die. 

 Soon as the plashings cease and stillness reigns, 

 The jocund crew collect, and count their gains." 



In the simile — inevitable in Oppian — which ends the 

 passage our author may indicate, though he does not name, 

 the Germanic tribes (for over Rome in his day as over Europe 

 in ours hung the barbarian menace) when he condemned the 

 abhorred habit practised by the enemy of poisoning the springs 

 and wells : 



..." the brave defendants sink 

 In thirsty pangs, or perish if they drink." 



In the number of methods, in the variety of devices, the 

 fishermen of Oppian and ^Elian are not behind their modern 

 successors ; it is indeed the reverse of 



" John P. Robinson he 

 Guessed they did not know everything down in Judee." 2 



We moderns are, in fact, merely the heirs to a piscatorial 

 estate, which by scientific improvement or intensive culture 



^ For the poisoning of the Tunny, cf. Aristot., N. H., VIII. Cakes made of 

 cyclamen and clay were let down near the lurking places of the fish, according 

 to Oppian. 



2 With one method of fishing the ancients (in common with nearly all the 

 moderns) were unfamihar. The locus is off Catalina Island, etc. : the modus 

 is by kites with line and bait attached, to which last, moving over and on the 

 surface of the water, the Tuna seems irresistibly attracted. See antea, p. 41, 

 note 3. 



