BRESLAR— MAINZER 405 



If Mr. Breslar surmises (though his words convey no such 

 hint) that for his " rudimentary type of Rod in the Scriptures " 

 Israel affixed a hne to his fishing spear, thus squaring with 

 my conjecture in the Introduction as to the evolution of the 

 modern Rod, may I respectfully ask why did a race, so pre- 

 eminently alert and proverbially acquisitive, handicap itself 

 by the selection of such a " rudimentary type " in preference 

 to a weapon long invented, ready to hand, and far superior ? 



A friend, in the hope of helping me to some authoritative 

 information as regards Angling, suggested Jagd, Fischfang, 

 unci Bienenzucht bei den Juden in der tanndischen Zeit, by Herr 

 Moritz Mainzer, as the very last word on Jewish fishing. 

 Unable (owing to the War) to obtain this in book form, I 

 tracked it eventually to some articles under the same title in 

 the magazine, Monatsschrift fi'ir Geschichte und Wissenschaft des 

 Judentums (1909). Except for a pearl or two such as " Fisher- 

 men, then as now in Palestine, worked Hghtly dressed or naked," 

 — ^was this suggested by St. John, or P. Fletcher's, " Now 

 when Simon heard, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, for he was 

 naked " ? — Fischfang (at any rate) far from rewards one's search. 



Mainzer's two sentences (p. 463) assist not at all in deter- 

 mining whether or not the Jews used the Rod. " Die eigent- 

 liche hakkdh war ein eiserner an eine Leine {hebhel) befestigter 

 Haken. Die Leine selbst konnte mit einer Rute oder einem 

 Stabe verbunden sein der zuweilen mehrere Schniire mit 

 Angeln trug " (the hakkdh proper was an iron hook fastened to 

 a fishing hebhel. This hne might be attached to a rod or stick, 

 which sometimes had on it several cords with fishing hooks). 



The supporting references come from no Israelitish source, 

 but from Assyrian representations of hand-lining in Layard's 

 Nineveh, and from Egyptian delineations of Rod fishing in 

 Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians. Not a single word does 

 Mainzer quote from any authority on Jewish AngUng. The 

 words, " to a Rod which sometimes had on it several cords 

 with fishing hooks," simply translate Wilkinson's Plate 371. 



Had I weighed the title and duly appreciated the com- 

 bination of Hunting, Fishing, and Bee-culture ! I would have 

 been perhaps prepared for a disappointment, but the output 



