FISHING 37 



pathetic groups which could prove tempting to 

 none but the most flagrant pot-hunter. It is 

 said that when the flood eventually reached the 

 summit of Mount Ararat, that eminence was so 

 thickly infested with big game that it would have 

 been impossible to throw one's hat out of any 

 window of the ark without hitting a wild animal 

 of some kind or another, and a shot fired at 

 random " into the brown" would have brought 

 down at least a dozen specimens of the world's 

 rarest fauna. 



The prospect of anything in the form of a 

 massacre was not likely to appeal to so thorough 

 a sportsman as Noah, and when that worthy man 

 had stowed his menagerie safely on board the 

 ark he turned his whole attention to the capture 

 of those denizens of the briny deep upon which 

 his party was fated to rely for sole subsistence 

 until the waters had sensibly subsided. It is, 

 indeed, largely due to the fish diet upon which 

 Noah and his family lived at this period that 

 their descendants have acquired that colossal 

 brain-power which finds its expression to-day 

 within the covers of such a volume as the reader 

 now holds in his hand. 



The modern angler, who delicately throws a 

 " dry - fly " over some translucent, willow- 

 fringed trout-stream, may sneer at the pon- 

 derous piscatorial methods of his less dexterous 



