BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. vii 



thorn ;" but Pinda, Schmidt, and some others, discover a 

 reference here to the method which fishermen liad (and 

 still have) of stringing their fish, after their backs were 

 split open, along a reed, when offering them for sale, or 

 hanging them up to be dried or smoked. If I might 

 hazard a conjecture among the rest, it would be that 

 the reference is to some mode of spearing fish with a 

 sharp barbed reed. This will be more admissible, if we 

 interpret the 26th verse (in our translation, " Canst thou fill 

 his skin with barbed irons ? or his head with fish spears ?" 

 which is according to Bochart's reading) as Le Clerc and 

 some others : " Canst thou put him bodily into a wicker 

 pannier ? or his head into a fish-basket :" vasculis vimineis 

 piscatoribus portatis (Scottice, Creel) ? Whatever inter- 

 pretation we take (for the " reed " is a sore puzzle to the cri- 

 tics), the passage shows that various methods of fishing, 

 certainly angling, w'ere well known.* Spearing seems to 

 me likelv to be more ancient even than takins: fish with a 

 hook, as men would be tempted to thrust such a weapon 

 at a good sized fish before they would go through the pro- 

 cess of inventing and making a hook on which to fix bait. 

 The Trident of Neptune, w^hich aspiring mythologists 

 have made to be a symbol of his power over three elements, 

 is clearly a fish-spear a little out of proportion. His 

 Oceanic majesty may find a copy of his sceptre on board 

 any ship he visits as it crosses the line, and a salmon leis- 

 ter (waster, as the Scotch call it) is the same implement 

 with two prongs added to the three. 



The other passage quoted by our author from the Old 

 Testament is in Amos iv., 2 (B.C. 787), and not remark- 

 able, except as showing that fish hooks were in common 

 use. To these may be added, Isaiah xix., 8 ; Habakkuk i., 

 15. Indeed, the Jews were much addicted both to the net 



* Goguet (Book ii.) says with truth, that nets are known only to men 

 advanced in the arts of life. So Plutarch De Soler. Anim. 



