ANCIENT PISHIN&-TACKLE. 25 



opponent^ and reasons with him in a circle. The sagenai 

 come next: these were like, if not identical with, the 

 modem seines, and were of variable dimensions, some- 

 times of very great extent, stretching out many roods to 

 seaward: occasionally, they were thrown entirely athwart 

 a river, so as effectually to intercept and secure all fish 

 coming up or going down the stream* Into these sa- 

 genas were inserted, irregularly, a number of cul de sacs 

 (sphairsenai), which, bellying with the current, pouched 

 every stray fish that might otherwise have contrived to 

 escape. Besides these, there were pezai, a species of 

 small dictymia; hypochmi, small round nets; gangamai, 

 or drag-nets, (whence comes ycvyya/j.ovX.KO';, a dragnet- 

 man, or dredger) ; gryphai and kurtai, traps of bent osier- 

 twigs, placed in the course of streams at night, like our 

 own bucks and weirs, and removed in the morningj and, 

 to mention but one more, panagreas, or, as the name 

 imports, nets kept in readiness to be made applicable 

 for any mode of fishing. To this brief list, it would be 

 easy to add many other names, and lengthen it out to 

 at least double the present extent; but enough has been 

 already said, to show that the ancients were thoroughly 

 acquainted with the art of net-making, in all its branches, 

 besides being well versed in every other mode had re- 

 course to in these days for the piscatory craft. 



The meshworks at present employed along the Cam- 

 panian coast are not very numerous. At Naples, the 

 lazzaroni informed us they only used three kinds — viz., 

 la scheraia, a long, deep, double net, buoyed on large 

 corks or barrels, reaching down some fathoms into the 

 sea, and dragged on shore by approximating the opposite 

 ends; la minuita, a single net of much less depth and 



* From the wholesale indiscruninate destructiveness of these 

 sagenai, which make all prisoners alike, Herodotus has ooiaed the 

 word sageneuein, to express the condition of a city of which all the 

 inhabitants are enslaved. 



