INTEODUCTOEY EEMAEKS. / 



" Of beetling rocks that overhang the flood, 

 Where silent anglers cast insidious food, 

 With fraudful care await the finny prize, 

 And sudden life it quivering to the skies." 



It would thus appear that the tackle used in those days was 

 very strong, or it would not have stood this sudden strain 

 which the lines quoted above would give us to understand 

 occurred. 



(It is of course a familiar sight to see youths just beginning 

 their fishing career, when they have hooked a small fish, 

 heave it out as though their very lives depended on sending 

 it flying into the next meadow.) 



Oppian says also, — 



** A bite ! hurrah ! the length'ning line extends, 

 Above the tugging fish the arch'd reed bends, 

 He struggles hard, and noble sport will yield, 

 ( My liege, ere wearied out he quits the field." 



And the ancients, too, were fly-fishers as well as bottom 

 fishers, as the following interesting passage from ^lian 

 shows : — 



" The Macedonians who live on the banks of the Eiver 

 Astreus are in the habit of catching a particular fish in that 

 river by means of a fly called hippurus. A very singular 

 insect it is ; bold and troublesome like all its kind, in size a 

 hornet, marked like a wasp, and buzzing like a bee. These 

 flies are the prey of certain speckled fish, which no sooner 

 see them settling on the water than they glide gently beneath, 

 and before the hippurus is aware, snap at and carry him as 

 suddenly under the stream as an eagle will seize and bear 

 aloft a goose from a farm-yard, or a wolf take a sheep from 

 its fold. The predilection of these speckled fish for their 

 prey, though familiarly known to all who inhabit the dis- 

 trict, does not induce the angler to attempt their capture by 



