52 INTRODUCTION 
Japanese, perhaps the most alert and adaptive sea-fishers in 
the world. As their history before 500 A.D. must apparently be 
classed as legendary, this nation eludes my chronological Net. 
Data on ancient fishing, if existing, are either unknown ! or 
as being derived from China find place postea.? 
I set the time limit of my book at roughly 500 A.D., so as 
to include the last classical or quasi-classical piscatory poems 
viz. those of Ausonius—notably ad Mosellam—in the fourth 
and of Sidonius in the fifth century. 
This date seems, indeed, a pre-ordained halting-place for 
three reasons. First, the tackle of our day (though improved 
almost beyond recognition in rod, winch, artificial bait, etc.) 
is merely the lineal descendant of the Macedonian described 
by lian in the third century a.p. Second, between A‘lian 
and Dame Juliana’s Boke no record, with two possible excep- 
tions, of fishing with a fly exists. Third, and more important, 
we possess no real continuous link between the Angling litera- 
ture of Rome down to the fifth century and that which sprang 
up after the invention of printing some thousand years later. 
In the intervening centuries, it is true, books and manu- 
scripts were written (mainly by monks) which treated more or 
less of fishing, but of Angling only incidentally. They 
illustrate the customs of fishermen, the natural history of fish, 
the making and maintaining of vivaria or fish-ponds, rather 
than instruct or inform on practical Fishing. 
The most notable would, could we trace it, be “‘ an old MS. 
treatise on fishing, found among the remains of the valuable 
library belonging to the Abbey of St. Bertin, at St. Omer. 
A paper on this was read, a few years before 1855, at a society 
of antiquaries at Arras. From its style, the MS. was supposed 
1 Mr. Harold Parlett, our Consul at Dairen and an authority on Japan, 
writes, ‘“‘ I know of no books in Japanese dealing with the history of fishing, 
and I think it improbable that any exist, unless in MS. It is a subject, which 
as far as I know, has not yet been studied. I should advise you to dismiss 
ancient Japanese methods in as few words as possible.”” I follow his advice. 
2 On consulting a great Sinologist, he rapped out, ‘‘ The only thing I 
know or want to know of Japan is that every art, every craft, it possesses 
came from China.” 
3 W. J. Turrell, Ancient Angling Authors (London, 1910), p. xi. Ancient, 
in this most researchful work, might, I venture to suggest, be qualified ty 
British, for six pages (in the Preface) suffice for all fishing before the tenth 
century. 
