BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xv 



very banqueting hall, and are caught under the table on 

 which they are about to be served up. A mullet is not 

 delicate enough unless it expires in the hands of those who 

 are to eat it, being exhibited in glass vessels, that they may 

 see its beautiful changes of color as it gradually expires. 

 Some they put in pickle, and dress living. How monstrous 

 it seems that a fish swims in pickle, is not killed /or dinner, 

 but at dinner, made sport, and feasted the sight before the 

 stomach !" Varro, and Columella after him, query whe- 

 ther Sergius was not called Orata (gilt-head), and Lici- 

 nius Murana (lamprey), after the fish of those names. 



In these circumstances we are not surprised that angling 

 was practised as an amusement by the higher classes. The 

 well-known story (alluded to by Walton, p. 38), which 

 Plutarch tells of Cleopatra's fishing-party with Anthony, 

 when 



" They wagered on their angling, and her divers 

 Did hang a salt fish on his hook, which he 

 With fervency drew up," 



shows that it was no uncommon entertainment ; as also 

 does her soothing remark after the general laugh at his 

 strange capture : " Go, Anthony, leave angling to us 

 petty princes of Pharos and Canopus ; your game is 

 cities, kingdoms, and provinces." The walls of Hercula- 

 neum and Pompeii abound with frescoes of individuals and 

 groups engaged in angling ; and one in the more ancient 

 city shows us a number of fishermen at early dawn on the 

 shore, with their rods and other implements lying round 

 them {Antic/i. cli ErcoL, xii., p. 273). The fragment Ha- 

 lieuticon^ ascribed by Pliny (xxxii., 2, 11) to Ovid, and 

 supposed, by most critics, to have been written by him 

 during his banishment on the shores of the Euxine, if not 

 the production of that poet, as Barthius (who, improbably, 

 ascribes it to Nemesian, xlix., 7) contends, must be nearly 

 of his date. That Ovid was no stranger to the diversion, 



