CHAPTER II. 



ANCIENT METHODS OF CAPTURING WILD-FOWL. 



" Aucupans omnes rumusculos populari ratione." 



Plaut., Trucul., &c. 



In primitive a^es, sporting; pursuits were followed rather as a 

 necessary occupation than an occasional recreation. The Greeks 

 were especially fond of field sports, as is clear from the accounts 

 transmitted to us by Xenophon. Ulysses instituted such diversions 

 after the conquest of Troy : they received commendation from Plato, 

 as the sources of renewed enjoyment to those who suffered either 

 from domestic calamities or the injuries of war. 



At a later a^e, many of those who were not engaged in agricultural 

 piu'suits, depended upon their skiU as hunters and fowlers, for their 

 daily subsistence. At an early age there were fowlers well skilled in 

 their art, who caught wild birds in nets and traps, and by various 

 other devices ; bestowing greatest pains on taking water-fowl, which 

 were more highly prized for the table than such birds as fi'equented 

 districts far removed from the coast. The nets most generally em- 

 ployed by the Greeks for capturing wild-fowl were similar in many 

 respects to those of the ancient Egyptians, which will be spoken of 

 imder the head " Egyptian Fowling.' ' The day or clap-net was 

 spread flat on the ground after the same manner, in rhomboidal form, 



the interior network of which represented a square, termed the 



l3poxog* or stranghng part. 

 The argumentum was one of the principal nets or machines of the 



* Pollux, V. 4. 



