BRICOLE OF A LATER 



The Primitive Fish -Hook. 341 



patterns. The Lacustrine gorges have had 

 the name of bricole given them. This is a 

 BRicoLE. from thk lake of faithful copy of a bronze bricole found in 



NEUFCHATEL. 



the Lake of Neuichatel. It is made of 

 bronze wire, and is bent in the simplest way, with an open curve 

 allowing the line to be fastened to it. The ends of the gorge are 

 very slightly bent, but they were probably sharpened when first made. 



This bricole varies from the rather straight 

 one found in the Lake of Neufchatel, and be- 

 longs to a later period. It is possible to imagine 

 that the lake-dweller, according to his pleasure, period. 



made one or the other of these two forms of fishing implements. As 

 the double hook required more bronze, and bronze at first was very 

 precious, he might not have had material enough in the early period 

 to make it. This device is, however, a clever one, for a fisherman 

 of to-day who had lost his hook might imitate it with a bit of wire. 

 Had any member of the hungry Isthmus party before mentioned 

 known of this form of Lacustrine hook, he might 

 tT\ have twisted some part of a suspender buckle, pro- 



i \ J viding there were no thorny plants at hand, and 



\ II Jj have caught fish. 



^^^^^^^ When we compare the four forms, showing 



do ,h B e' E lake )0 of neu" only their outlines, the evolution of the fish-hook 



lection of prof C °a" can be better appreciated. Returning to the 

 stone fish-gorge, the work of the Neolithic period, 

 it is evident that the man of that time followed the 

 shape handed down to him by his ancestors ; and as 

 this fashioned stone from the valley of the Somme is of 

 a most remote period, how much older must have been 

 the Paleolithic fish-gorge of rough stone. It might have 

 been with a splinter of flint attached to some tendril, in 

 lieu of a line, that the first fish was taken. PR k" r s m ° ric 



It is very curious to learn that in France a modi- 

 fication of this gorge-hook is in use to-day for catching eels. A 

 needle is sharpened at its eye-end, a slight groove is made in the 

 middle of it, and around this some shreds of flax are attached. 

 A worm is spitted, a little of the line being covered with the 

 bait. 



22A 



