AS PRONG, HOOK, OR BAIT? 



83 



gap, thus making a crescent of horn, to the one end of which 

 they attached their Hne, which is exactly what the black 

 fellows (in Austraha) do to-day with a pearl shell." ^ 



But against this conjecture weighs the fact that as the grain 

 of the horn runs from butt to point, if the hook be cut from 

 cross-section it would probably break, as the cross-section would 

 be across the grain, and so very frayable. If, however, the 

 hook were cut from a panel removed from the side of the horn 

 and just where the curve comes before the point, the substance 

 of the hook might possibly stand. 



Anticipating and dissenting from Mr. Minchin's explanation 

 are Monro's note on //., XXIV. 80 ff., and Professor Tylor's 

 comment in the note. " The main difficulty in the ancient 



1'-' STACit 



MR. MINCHIN S EXPLANATION OF Kepas. 



explanation of the passage is the prominence given to the 

 Kipag, which is spoken of as if ii were the chief feature of the 

 fisherman's apparatus. The question naturally suggests whether 

 the Kepac might not be the hook itself, made, like so many 

 utensils of primitive times, from the horn of an animal." 



On this point Mr. E. B. Tylor writes to Monro as follows : 

 " Fish-hooks of horn are in fact known in pre-historic Europe, 

 but are scarce, and very clumsy. After looking into the 

 matter, I am disposed to think that the Schohast knew what 

 he was about, and that the old Greeks really used a horn guard, 

 where the modern pike fisher only has his line bound, to pre- 

 vent the fish biting through. Such a horn guard, if used 



^ In The Confessions of a Beachcomber, pp. 266-8 (London, 1913), the illus- 

 trations of pearl-shell fish-hooks in various stages of completion tend to con- 

 firm this statement, while the author, Mr. Banfiield, inclines to Mr. Minchin's 

 theory as regards the horn of an ox. 



