FISH-HOOKS. 137 



of turtle-bone), in form and tie similar to those we afterwards saw at the Dis- 

 appointment Islands."* 



In the originals of Figs. 213 and 214 the point approaches the shank so 

 close that the idea of hooking a fish with them must be abandoned ; and yet they 

 are actual fish-hooks, acquired, many years ago, by barter from islanders of the 

 South Sea. 



FIG. 215. Bone fish-book. New Zealand. 



Fig. 215, representing a fish-hook from New Zealand, is copied from an 

 excellent little work, entitled " The New Zealanders," which was published as a 

 volume of "The Library of Entertaining Knowledge" (London, 1830). I have 

 selected the figure from a group of fishing-implements on page 189. The hook, 

 it will be seen, exhibits not only the close proximity of point and shank, but also 

 the outside barb for fastening a bait. Nothing is said concerning its size. 



For the purpose of further elucidation, I extract from Ellis's " Polynesian 

 Researches " a few passages bearing on fishing with hook and line among the 

 Society Islanders : 



" They use the hook and line both in the smooth water within the reef, and 

 in the open sea ; and in different modes display great skill. In this department 

 they seldom have any bait, excepting a small kind of oobu, a black fresh-water 

 fish, which they employ when catching albicores and bonitos. Their hooks usually 

 answer the double purpose of hook and bait.-f Their lines are made with the tough 

 elastic romaha, or flax, twisted by the hand. 



" In no part of the world, perhaps, are the inhabitants better fishermen ; 

 and considering their former entire destitution of iron, their variety of fishing- 

 apparatus is astonishing. Their hooks were of every form and size, and made 

 of wood, shell, or bone frequently human bone. 



* Pickering : The Races of Man ; London, 1872 ; p. 48. 

 f The italicizing in these extracts is my own. 

 Rl8 



