AUTHORS ON SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 547 



capitaine meets with some other companions, and by little and 

 little he cometh every day better accompanied than other, until 

 in the end he bringeth with him infinite troupes and squadrons 

 together, so as now the eldest of them all (as craftie as they bee) 

 being so well used to know the fisher, that they will snatch meat 

 out of his hands; then he, espying his time, putteth forth an hook 

 with a bait, and speedily with a quick and nimble hand whippeth 

 them out of the water, and giveth them one after another to his 

 companion in the ship who ever, as they be snatched up, 

 latcheth them in a coarse twille or covering, and keepes them 

 sure ynough from either strougling or squeaking, that they should 

 not drive the rest away. The speciall thing that helpeth this 

 game and pretie sport is to know the capitaine from the rest, who 

 brought his fellowes to this feast, and to take heed in any hand 

 that he be not twicht up and caught ; and therefore the fisher 

 spareth him, that he may flie and goe to some other flocke for to 

 traine them to the like banket. Thus you see the manner of 

 fishing for these anthiae. " 



Plutarch also tells us a good deal about fish and fishing, 

 and relates the well-known story of the angling match 

 between Antony and Cleopatra, which makes as certain an 

 appearance in every book on angling, as does Macaulay's 

 New Zealander on the ruins of London Bridge in the work 

 of every writer who can possibly squeeze him into his pro- 

 duction. Martial shows us that the Romans of his time 

 knew something of fly-fishing, by asking 



" Who has not seen the scarus rise, 

 Decoy'd and kill'd by fraudful flies ?" 



But we learn from ^Elian, a contemporary of Martial, 

 at the beginning of the 2nd century, that this art was 

 known far away from Rome. In Book XV., Ch. I., of his 

 De Animalium Naturd he says (according to the transla- 

 tion from Schneider's edition given by Mr. Lambert) : 



" I have heard of a Macedonian way of catching fish, and it is 

 this : between Beroca and Thessalonica runs a river called the 



2 N 2 



