BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. ix 



*' As, bearing death in the fallacious bait, 

 From the bent angle sinks the leaden weight." 



Tne other translators do no better. Clarke, in his Latin, 

 puts the lead into the horn. Plutarch (Oji the Comparative 

 Craftiness of Water and Land Animals) says, that " some 

 gather from it a practice of the ancients to use bull's hair 

 in making fishing lines ; ni^ai then signifying hair, whence 

 KcpauQai, to he skaved. But this is not so, for they used horse 

 hair, the best that of stallions, as the hair of mares' tails 

 is rendered brittle by their urine." A writer in a late 

 magazine (see Gentleman's Mag., April and June, 1846) 

 thinks that some kind of a Jloat was made of the horn ; 

 a not very probable conjecture, when there are so many 

 substances better for the purpose. Aristotle (in some 

 work now lost) supposed, that the lower end of the line 

 was armed with a small piece of hollow horn, which the 

 fish had to swallow to get at the bait. vSuidas, on the word 

 x^pas, says that it was a " pipe of horn to guard the line 

 from the teeth of the fish," which is no doubt nearest the 

 truth, as there was no necessity for making the fish swallow 

 it (see the Scholia on the passage, and Dammii Lexicon). 



A passage, having the same difficulty, occurs in the Odys- 

 sey, xii,, 251-254,* which for want of a better translation I 

 give rather closely thus : 



As when the angler, his long rod in hand, 

 On a projecting rock assumes his stand, 

 Casts to the finny fry the baited snare. 

 And sinks the ox-horn deep among them there, 

 Then flings the wriggling captives in the air. 



* There is a good imitation in the European Magazine, April, 1790 . 

 " On a rock's protruded side, 



Scooped and hollowed by the lide, 

 With baited hook and line in hand, 

 The patient Fisher takes his stand ; 

 The tug just felt, the trembling line. 

 Bespeak the prey, quick at the sign 

 His well-experienced art he plies. 

 And flings ashore the flouncing prize." 



