60 INTRODUCTION 
there shall no salmon be seen there for a twelvemonth 
after.”’ 
Superstitions of every sort and almost incredible dictate 
to the ancient and to the modern fisherman what are the good 
and what the bad days for plying his craft, or setting his sail. 
Their cousin, imitative magic, plays no small part in deciding 
his bait. 
But enough here of fishing superstitions. Are they not 
writ large in Pliny, Oppian, Plutarch, in the Folk Lore Records, 
and larger, geographically, in that masterpiece, The Golden 
Bough ? 
The most incredulous, if there were one chance in a hundred 
of the operation ensuring adeptness in our craft, would willingly 
sacrifice in conformity with Australian superstition the first 
joint of his little finger.1_ Nor, again, if only the most moderate 
success resulted, would any of us utter a belated plaint at his 
mother imitating her Fijian sister and throwing, when first 
a-fishing after childbirth, his navel-string into the sea, and 
thus “‘ ensuring our growing into good fisherfolk.’’ 2 
1 John F. Mann, “ Notes on the Aborigines of Australia,’ Proc. Geograph. 
Soc. of Australia, i. p. 204. 
2 J. G. Frazer, op. cit., iii, 206-7. 
