282 DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



FIRST AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT OF FLY-FISHING. 



Extract from ^Elian's History of Animals, XI. i, A. D. 230. 



I have heard this account of a mode of fishing in Mace- 

 donia. In a river called Astraeus, which flows between 

 Beraea and Thessalonica, are found fishes marked with va- 

 rious colors (spotted trout). These feed upon flies that 

 play upon the water, which are unlike any other flies, dif- 

 fering from bees, wasps, or hornets, but of a distinct spe- 

 cies. They have the boldness of other flies, are about the 

 size of hornets, of the color of wasps, and make a bum- 

 bling noise like bees. These they call "iKKovpov. These, 

 as they sport on the surface, the fish see ; and, moving 

 slyly through the water till they get under the insect, leap 

 upon it as a wolf upon a sheep in a flock, or an eagle uppn 

 one of a flock of geese, and, seizing their prey, sink again 

 into the deep water. This the fishermen observed, but 

 could not use them for bait, as, when caught in the hand, 

 the flies lost their color and their wings ; for which cause 

 they hated them (the fishes glutting themselves upon the 

 bait which the angler knew not how to use). But, in pro- 

 cess of time, as their angling science advanced, they learned 

 to outwit the fish by their ingenuity. They first wrapped 

 around their hook some Phcenician (purple) wool, and then 

 tied on two feathers, or the wattles of a cock's neck, of a 

 wax color. This they threw with a pole or reed, an opytuct, 

 four cubits long (there must be a mistake here, for, at the 

 utmost, that would not be more than seven or eight feet), 

 and a line of the same length. These cunning artifices 

 they threw on the water, and the fish, attracted by the ap- 

 pearance of the pretty insect they feed upon, seized the 

 bait, and were caught. 



