CHINA, CRETE, GREECE—HORSE-HAIR LINE 7 
with the years—not less than two million according to some 
geologists |—which have elapsed since Man first came on the 
scene ? 
Second, all the above nations possessed an advanced 
civilisation. Neither civilisation nor fishing is a Jovelike 
creation, springing into existence armed cap-a-pie. Both, like 
our friend Topsy, “growed,” and both demanded long periods 
for growth and development from their primitive origin. 
In fishing these were retarded by the innate conservatism 
of the followers of the cult. The psychology of the faithful is 
an odd blend of dogged, perhaps unconscious, adherence to 
the olden ways and of an almost Athenian curiosity about 
“any new thing,’ which as often as not sees itself discarded 
in favour of the ancient devices. 
Even in this year of our Lord a cousin of mine, who Ulysses- 
like many rivers has known, much tackle tested, habitually 
(influenced no doubt by the recipe for the line given by Plutarch 
and passed on by Dame Juliana Berners) inserts between his 
line and his gut some eighteen inches of horse hair! But 
even in him the law of development works, for he does not 
Pharisaically adhere to the strict letter of the text, and 
insist that the hair comes only from the tail of a stallion or 
gelding ! 2 
Then, again, not less than two thousand odd years were 
needed for the Rod and the Line of Zlian’s Macedonian angler 
to take unto themselves a cubit or so more of length than their 
Egyptian predecessors. The latter may, however, have been 
rendered shorter than actually used from the regard paid to 
artistic convention by the craftsman of Beni-Hasan. 
But the connection of the line to the rod furnishes the most 
arresting instance of conservatism or slow development. 
°1 Cf. Dr. J. T. Jehu’s Lectures before the Royal Society, 1919. It is note- 
worthy that whatever be the geological date of Man, the oldest true fish, as 
we understand the term, seems the Shark family, which, although extremely 
archaic, has but little altered. Next in seniority comes probably the Ceradotus ; 
if now “merely a living fossil’? and found only in Queensland, its form, 
hardly modified, corresponds with remains found all over the world as early 
as from the Trias. 
2 The urination of a mare was thought to weaken her hairs. Plutarch, 
De Sol., 24. 
5 Cf. however, postea, 315. 
