30 ANGLING LITERATURE OP 



CHAPTER II. 



On Angling Literature, from the Christian Era to the Revival 

 of Letters in Europe, and the Institution of the Art of 

 Printing. 



PLTNY (A.. D. 23) treats of the nature, habits, and 

 localities of fish, in his Historia Naturalis. The ninth 

 book is devoted to this subject. In the eighteenth chap- 

 ter he says, that in the country of Aquitaine, in Prance, 

 the river salmon surpasses all other sea salmon whatever. 

 The mode of catching eels, in the lake Benacus, he tells 

 us, is by the employment of leapiceeles and weanets, which 

 were so artistically constructed, that by the nouse there 

 was often found a thousand of them wrapped together in 

 one great round ball. 



Pliny represents certain fish as appearing when called 

 upon by particular names. 



The form of a fish (Notius Poseidon) was, from the 

 most remote ages, a type of protective dominion, which 

 the symbolizing spirits of the ancients caused to pass 

 into Christianity; as appears from Eusebius (Life of 

 Constantine), and St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei}. 



On the walls of the oldest catacombs the represen- 



