FISH-HOOKS. 99 



Fishing -implements. Excepting bronze fish-hooks, hardly any fishing im- 

 plements have conic to light, which can be safely referred to the period charac- 

 terized by the knowledge of bronze. The lake-men of these times doubtless 

 used sink-stones and floats like those previously described, and nets of the same 

 make, though their methods of net-fishing may have undergone changes for the 

 better. Of this, however, we know nothing. It is even possible that the use of 

 bone-headed harpoons was continued, for some time at least, and there is some 

 likelihood that the one or the other of the bone harpoon-heads described in these 

 pages, which were obtained from stone and bronze-yielding settlements, may in 

 reality pertain to the age of bronze. 



T 



FIG. 124. Fishing-implement (?) of bronze. Switzerland. 



The pointed pieces of bone or flint serving as bait-holders, which are by 

 this time familiar to the reader, also seem to have been copied in bronze. Mr. 

 Friedel, at least, figures a double-pointed bronze object thus classed by him,* 

 stating at the same time that such specimens are extremely rare. I reproduce 

 his representation as Fig. 124. The locality where the original, of course a 

 lacustrine relic, was found is not specified. 



Real fish-hooks of bronze, on the other hand, are very frequent in some 

 stations, exhibiting a great variety in form and size, and doubtless shaped in 

 accordance with the character of the kind of fish to be caught with them. The 

 smaller hooks are made of wire, either rounded or more or less square in the 

 section ; the larger ones seem to be cast.f Some of the hooks bear so close a 

 resemblance to those used at the present time that an expert in angling might 

 have occasion to indulge in comments on their special applicability. 



Figs. 125 to 137, on the following page, represent, in half-size, a series of 

 thirteen hooks obtained at the Nidau-Steinberg settlement,! where the late Colonel 

 Schwab collected so many valuable relics, which he bequeathed to the city of 

 Bienne. Figs. 125 to 128 show unbarbed hooks, having the upper part of the 

 shank bent over, so as to form an eye for the attachment of the line. Figs. 129 to 

 134 illustrate barbed specimens, all with shanks bent at the upper extremity into 

 the shapes of hooks or eyes. Fig. 135 shows the shank notched for giving a hold 



* Amtliche Berichte; p. 126, Fig. 64. 



t I must state, however, that I have not seen specimens of the larger kind. 



I Keller: Lake Dwellings; Vol. II, Plate XXXVI, Figs. 25, 32, 31, 26, 29, 30, 23, 21, 22, 24, 20, 28, 27, 

 respectively. 



