AJfCIENT PISHrNG!--TACKLB. 39 



of a sheep, wMcli, carried down by tie current, is eddied and 

 whirled about, and presently perceived by the eels, one of whom, 

 adventurously gobbling some inches at the nether end, endea- 

 vours to drag the whole away. The angler, perceiving this, ap- 

 phes the other end, which is fixed to a long tubular reed serving 

 in lieu of a fishing-rod, to his mouth, and blows through it into 

 the gut. The gut presently swells, and the fish next receiving 

 the air into his mouth, swells too, and being unable to extricate 

 his teeth, is lugged out, adhering to the inflated intestine. 



This is a much more ingenious device than the com- 

 mon practice of sniggling for eels with a mop of threaded 

 lob-worms. 



A mode of taking the scarus, in plan similar to that 

 by which wood-pigeons are inveigled into nets at La 

 Cavaj* next deserves notice. When a large number of 

 male scari have been attracted by a female hooked for a 

 decoy, whose 



Beauty draws them by a single hair, 



* Between La Cava and Naples, about half a mile from the 

 town, are certain Bluebeard-looking towers, several centuries 

 old, erected for the purpose of snaring wood-pigeons; with which 

 view the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, who are generally ex- 

 pert and practised slingers, assemble and man the towers in May. 

 A long line of nets, some quarter of a mile in circuit, held up in 

 a slanting position by men concealed in stone sentry-boxes placed 

 here and there along the enceinte, is spread in front. As the 

 pigeons are seen advancing (the time of their approach is gene- 

 rally looked for at early dawn, when they are making for the 

 woods), the nearest slingers commence projecting a succession of 

 white stones in the direction of the nets. These birds no sooner 

 behold, than attracted, or alarmed (for the motive does not cer- 

 tainly appear), they swoop down upon them; and when suffi- 

 ciently near to fall within reach of the nets, the persons holding 

 let go, rush from their ambush, and secure the covey. Thousands 

 of wood-pigeons are thus, we have been told by a proprietor, 

 annually taken, and transmitted for presents to distant friends ; 

 as we used to send out game, before the sale of it was legalized. 

 Thus birds as well as fish, and fish as well as man, often get en- 

 tangled and caught in their headlong pursuit of a pleasure that 

 3tiU eludes them. 



