TROUT HABITS; LURES AND USE 



But Martial wrote very definitely (A. D. 43- 

 104): 



Who hath not seen the scams rise 

 Decoy'd and caught by fraudful flies. 



And ^Elian, a Latin author of the early part of 

 the third century, in his De Naturd Animalium, 

 a work originally written in Greek, tells how the 

 Macedonians caught fish from the banks of the 

 river Astracus with a familiar fly which the 

 natives called the "Hippourus," and which was 

 of about the size of a hornet but imitated the 

 color of the wasp. The account goes on to say 

 that in the river "there are fish with speckled 

 skins. . . . These fish feed on a fly which is 

 peculiar to the country, and which hovers over 

 the water. . . . When, then, a fish observes 

 a fly hovering above, it swims quickly up, . . . 

 it opens its jaws and gulps down the fly, and 

 withdraws under the rippling water. Now, 

 though the fishermen know of this, they do not 

 use these flies at all for bait for the fish; for if 

 a man's hand touch them, they lose their color, 

 their wings decay, and they become unfit for 

 food for the fish. . . . But they have planned 

 a snare for the fish, and get the better of them 

 by their fishermen's craft. They fasten crimson 

 wool round a hook, and fit to the wool two 

 feathers, which grow under a cock's wattles, 

 and which in color are like wax. Their rod is 

 127 



