FISHING AS A PINE AKT. 99 



among the earliest " engines " employed in fishing. As 

 I have said in the last Note, angling only became a " sport" 

 as civilization advanced ; but it was an " Art " before it 

 was a sport. Possibly also we may regard Tubal-Cain, 

 the " instructor of every artificer in brass and iron/' as 

 the " Father of Angling " as an Art, or at least the chief 

 developer of it, and, perhaps the first maker of artistic 

 fish-hooks in metal. Tubal-Oain was the direct descendant 

 of Cain, the son of Adam, in the sixth generation, and it 

 is to members of this branch of the human family we look 

 as the authors of the earliest useful inventions and 

 " elegancies " of semi-civilized life. A very ancient 

 mythological tradition makes Halieus {" fisherman ") the 

 first builder of a fishing-boat, and Vulcan his son as 

 the perfector of the art of fishing ; and further identifies 

 this Vulcan with Tubal-Cain. Tradition also connects 

 Venus (Aphrodite — " born from the sea ") with Naamah, 

 Tubal- Cain's sister, who is said to have been one of the 

 wives of Ham, Noah's son. Thus a knowledge of Fish 

 and Fishing would have been introduced among the imme- 

 diate descendants of Noah, to whom it would have been 

 most useful, as fish were the only animals which did not 

 suffer from the flood. 



But all this for what it is worth. Certainly the old 

 Phoenicians and Egyptians practised the "Art" of 

 angling. So also the ancient Greeks, as Homer tells us 



" Of beetling rocks that overhang the flood, 

 Where silent anglers oast insidious food, 

 "With fraudful care await the finny prize, 

 And sudden lift it quivering to the skies." 



In the Book of Job we read, " Canst thou draw out levia- 



h 2 



