THE TALE OF THE FISHES 



history of his craft, a "holy and virtuous recreation" 

 long before the days of Nimrod. He finds in troglo- 

 dyte tracings of fishes evidence that cave men of the 

 paleolithic age were as susceptible as he to its fas- 

 cinations. He fishes in imagination with prehistoric 

 brothers who engraved upon their ornaments rude repre- 

 sentations of angling scenes and exploits. He ex- 

 amines, in the remains of lacustrine settlements, the fish- 

 ing implements of the neolithic age. From Egyptian 

 paintings, he learns that angling was considered an 

 amusement worthy of the leisure of the high-born; 

 Mexican pictographs suggest the systematic instruction 

 in this art offered to the Aztec youth ; and disentombed 

 fish-hooks of bronze and gold give inkling of the lux- 

 urious tackle in use among the subjects of the Incas. 

 Both Greeks and Romans pursued angling for amuse- 

 ment's sake. From the Iliad and Odyssey to Oppian's 

 "Halieuticks," a second century treatise in verse on the 

 natural history of fishes and the ancient methods of cap- 

 turing them, there were piscatory poets who dwelt on 

 the delights of their favorite avocation. 



The angler has a fellowly feeling for them all. 

 He finds the first allusion to fly fishing in the Epigrams 



ii 



