148 PLINY—MARTIAL—WAS THE ROD JOINTED? 
from Friedlander, who contents himself with a mere reference 
to Martial, Ep., XIV. 218, quoted below. 
Paley is of doubtful or little avail. He holds that harundo 
means the fowler’s reed. The implement was so contrived that 
a smaller reed, tipped with birdlime (viscum),! made from the 
cherries of the mistletoe, was suddenly protruded (perhaps 
blown) through a thicker reed against a bird on its perch, and 
that to this lengthening crescente refers. Cf. Ep., XIV. 218. 
“Non tantum calamis, sed cantu fallitur ales, 
Callida dum tacita crescit harundo manu.” 
The fowler attracted the attention of the bird as he ap- 
proached it, by imitating its note.? 
Propertius refers to fowling (Vertumnus, V. 2, 33), and 
in Petronius (Sat., 109, 7) we find “ volucres, quas texts harun- 
dinibus peritus artifex tetigit.”’3 Textis here, which Mr. 
Heseltine renders ‘jointed,’ would seem to show Paley’s 
suggestion, that the first cane was hollow, while the second 
was “‘ protruded ” through it, to be wrong. 
Rich explains this method of fowling as follows. The 
sportsman first hung the cage with his call bird on the bough 
1 Cf. Virgil, Geor., I. 139. Also Oppian, Cyneg., I. 65 £., where, as tools 
of the fowler, are specified, ‘“‘ long cords, and moist honey-coloured bird-lime, 
and reeds which tread their track through the air.’’ Cf. also Ovid, Met., 
XV. 477, “ nec volucrem viscata fallite virga.”’ 
2 Cantu seems to refer more naturally to the song of the call bird (Oppian, 
hal., IV. 120 ff.), rather than to that of the fowler, but cf. Cato (the poet of 
the third century A.D.), in Disticha, I. 27, ‘‘ Fistula dulce canit volucrem dum 
decipit auceps”’; and Tibullus, II. 5, 31, “‘ Fistula cui semper decrescit 
harundinis ordo.” In addition to catching birds by rods and birdlime, a 
common practice according to Aristophanes was to confine doves, etc., with 
limbs tied up or with eyes covered, in a net, and thus allure other doves, etc., 
to the snare. J/lex was the technical name for the decoy bird. For this 
purpose use was made both of kindred and of hostile species, such as the owl 
and falcon. The latter was also trained to catch the bird, which had been 
decoyed within its reach. Cf. Martial, Ep., XIV. 218. Aristophanes, Aves, 
1082 f. 
Tas mepiorepds 8” duolws EVAAaBoy elptas exer 
namavaynd (er: marcvew dedeuévas év diktdy. 
Ibid., 526 ff., trans. B. H. Kennedy: 
“ And the cunning fowlers for you set 
Snare and springs, twig, trap, gin, cage, and net.” 
Plautus. Asin., I. 3, 67 f.: 
“ Edis nobis area est, auceps sum ego, 
Esca est meretrix, lectus illex est, amatores aves.” 
* Cf. Petronius, Sat., 40, 6, and Bion, IJd., 4, 5. 
