28 SALMONID.E. 



formerly covered, are of great antiquity : they were known in 

 Caesar's time, and are described by Lucan to be very nearly 

 the same as in our own days. 



" With twisted osiers the first boats were made, 



O'er which the skins of slaughter'd beasts were laid j 

 With these the Britains on the oceans row, 

 And the Venetians on the swelling Po." 



The custom of alternately carrying or being carried, as 

 practised by the fisherman and his boat, is whimsically 

 alluded to in the following lines, extracted from an old 

 MS. history of Shropshire. 



" Some sportsmen in pursuit of prey, 

 Their horses on their shoulders lay ; 

 But seizing of the booty, then 

 They sit their steeds like other men. 

 Returning home when all is o'er, 

 Their steeds they carry as before." 



The coracle is in frequent request with fly-fishers,* 

 the banks of the rivers being in some places very rugged 

 and steep, in others overgrown with wood to the water's 

 edge. 



The fishing for Salmon in coracles is performed by two 

 men, each in his little boat, drawing between them down 

 the stream a single-walled trammel, called there a horn-net, 

 from its sliding by means of rings of horn, instead of corks, 

 along the top. Through these rings runs a line, the end of 

 which is held by one of the fishermen. By pulling upon 

 this running line, which is distinct from the drag-line, the 

 net is quickly closed when a fish strikes it. Various mo- 

 difications of this sort of net occur in different rivers. Cap- 

 tain Medwin, in his Angler in Wales, says, " We stood 

 on the bridge at Machynlleth for some time, to watch the 

 operations of two fishermen in coracles. They were about 

 to drag for Salmon ; and it must have been difficult to 



* Hansard's Trout and Salmon Fishing in Wales, pages 145 and 184. 



