1 6 LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 



Passing on to later times, we have Virgil in his Georgics 



singing, 



" How casting nets were spread in shallow brooks ; 

 Drags in the deep, and baits were hung on hooks." 



And after the Christian era we have Ovid entering the 

 lists of angling literature, and telling us in his A rs A matoria 



how 



" The wary angler in the winding brook, 

 Knows what the fish and where to bait his hook ;" 



and how he plies " his quivering rod." In his Halieuticon 

 (if the fragment be rightly credited to him, which some 

 critics question) he gives us much genuine angling infor- 

 mation, and amusing notices of the expertness of different 

 fish in escaping from the angler's hook. Pliny shows 

 himself a learned ichthyologist, and is the first Latin poet 

 who makes even cursory mention of the king of the Sal- 

 monidse {S. salar) as frequenting rivers in Aquitaine. He 

 also gives many most interesting accounts of the modes of 

 capture of various fish. Here is one of the capture of the 

 Anthea, which is quaint in itself, and quaint in the words 

 of Ph. Holland's translation : — 



" When the time serveth there goeth forth a fisher in a small 

 boat or barge, for certaine daies together, a prettie way into the 

 sea, clad alwaies in apparell of one and the same colour, at one 

 houre and to the same place still, when he casteth forth a bait for 

 the fish. But the fish antheus is so craftie and warie, that what- 

 soever is throwne forth hee suspecteth it evermore that it is a 

 meanes to surprise him. He feareth therefore and distrusteth ; 

 and as he feareth, so is he as warie ; until at length, after much 

 practice and often using this device of ilinging meat into the 

 same place, one above the rest groweth so hardy and bold as to 

 bite at it. The fisher takes good mark of this one fish, making 

 sure reckoning that he will bring more thither, and be the meanes 

 that he shall speed his hand in the end. At length this bardie 



