14 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



Learned ") as those of authors who had written on fish and 

 fishing. The great majority of their compositions are un- 

 fortunately lost to us, but their names are a testimony to 

 the abundance of ancient literature of the net and angle. 



But the words "ancient" and "literature" are very com- 

 prehensive, and cover a very wide field ; and it may be a 

 question as to how far authors who only incidentally make 

 mention of, or very briefly describe, fishing of various kinds, 

 should be included among contributors to angling literature. 

 Enthusiasts in this matter claim among them the authors 

 of several books in the Bible, such as the author of the 

 Book of Job, the prophet Amos, Habakkuk, and Isaiah, 

 the prophecy of which latter concerning the destruction of 

 Egypt, Bishop Lowth has thus translated : — 



" And the fishes shall mourn and lament ; 

 All those that cast the hook in the river, 

 And those that spread nets on the surface of the waters, shall 



languish ; 

 And they that work the fine flax shall be confounded, 

 And they that weave net-work ; 

 And her shores shall be broken up ; 

 Even all that make a gain of pools of fish." 



But the Biblical notices of fishing are really only evidences 

 of the antiquity of the practice, and of the " engines " used 

 in its prosecution. Herodotus is claimed as a piscatory 

 author, because he tells us of the fisheries of the Lake Mceris ; 

 and of course Homer is pressed into the service in conse- 

 quence of his several allusions to angling. In the i6th 

 Iliad (408), for instance, reference is made to hook and line 

 fishing, and the passage has been rather freely translated 

 thus : — 



" As from some rock that overhangs the flood 

 The silent fisher casts the insidious food ; 

 With fraudful care he waits the finny prize, 

 And sudden lifts it quivering to the skies." 



