268 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



The sharp-edged fragment of quartz used to chip away 

 the shell, the anvil of soft slate upon which the shell rested 

 during the operation, the quartz chisel for chipping the 

 central hole, the coral terminals, resembling rat-tail files, 

 and the smooth stone upon which the rough edges of the 

 hook were ground down and finished. 



Hooks without barbs and manufactured of such materials 

 as pearl-shell and tortoiseshell may throw light upon the 

 Homeric quotation — " caught fish with the horn of the 

 ox." In those far-off days, bronze wire rope, similar 

 in design to the steel rope which is of common use in the 

 present time, was employed. Ancient Greeks, though they 

 anticipated one of the necessities of trade nowadays, 

 depended upon fish-hooks resembling those just being 

 abandoned by the Australian blacks. Fish are guileless 

 creatures. They are captured to-day with hooks of the 

 style upon which fishermen of the Homeric age depended. 



From the appearance of the camps, and the age of the 

 islander who took part in the various searches, and who 

 was ready to admit that though pearl-shell hooks were 

 used when he was a piccaninny he had never seen one made, 

 I judge the age of these relics of a prehistoric art to be 

 between thirty and forty years. 



This boy has supplied samples of hooks made by him- 

 self with the aid of files, etc., in imitation of the old style, 

 being careful to explain that the old men made them much 

 better than any one could in these degenerate days of 

 steel. Two of these modern hooks bound to bark lines are 

 illustrated. What was the origin of the peculiar pattern of 

 the pearl-shell fish-hooks ? To this question, those who 

 maintain that no handiwork of man exists which does not 

 borrow from nature, or from something precedent to itself, 

 may find a satisfactory answer offhand. As it weathers on 

 the beach, the basal valve of the commonest of the oysters, 

 of these waters occasionally assumes a crude crescent. 

 Indeed, several of these fragments have at odd times 

 attracted attention, for they have so closely resembled 

 pearl-shell hooks in the rough that second glances have 



