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CHAPTER II. 



AUTHORS ON SEA AND RIVER FISHING, ETC., BEFORE 

 THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING INTO ENGLAND, 

 A.D. 1474. 



It is difficult to say when fishing came to be practised by 

 the ancients as an amusement. Of course it was first 

 resorted to, both by means of nets and of hooks and lines, 

 for the purpose of procuring food. But, doubtless, in very 

 early times, what seems to be the instinctive desire of man 

 to capture animals ferce nattcrce, led him to pursue fishing 

 as " a sport," and not merely for " the pot " ; and many 

 ancient coins, gems, frescoes, mural inscriptions, and 

 other " antiquities " preserved to the present day, bear 

 testimony to this fact, "the angle" being frequently re- 

 presented. Certain it is, too, that the Greeks, Romans, 

 and Egyptians, during what may be called the historic 

 period, pursued angling as a pastime. We should naturally, 

 therefore, expect that ancient writers would allude to, if 

 not compose treatises on, fishing from both the above 

 points of view, and especially from that of " sport," as 

 being more interesting and giving wider scope for descrip- 

 tions both in prose and verse. 



Athenseus — called by Suidas ypa/xfjiaTifco'i, a term which 

 is best rendered into English as "a literary man" — who 

 wrote in the middle of the third century, and whose pet 

 subjects seem to have been grammar and gastronomy, cites 

 in his writings no less than 1,200 separate works and 

 800 authors, and of the latter the names of a very large 

 number are given in his Deipnosophistce (" Banquet of the 



