150 PLINY—MARTIAL—WAS THE ROD JOINTED? 
epigram, instead of Jevis, as evidently did Hay, the Scotch poet, 
in translating the couplet, 
“ Could I a trout, now, with my angle get, 
Or cover a young partridge with my net.” 
Much can be said for the viewthat line three applies to fishing. 
So much, indeed, that were it not for one, apparently fatal, 
omission, we might confidently proclaim the first definite mention 
of a jointed rod. To this omission, conclusive to my mind of 
the meaning of harundo, I have so far found no allusion. 
Let us suppose that the first line of the couplet does refer 
to fishing. The poet would like to give some birds or fish, 
or both, to his friend Carus, but bewails his inability to send 
anything better than some chickens. He does explain fully 
why he cannot send birds, but he omits entirely any reason, or 
even any hint, as to what prevents him sending fish. We 
are not allowed to imagine that the weather was too bad, for 
the whistling ploughman imitating the magpie in his call, the 
starlings, the linnets, all negative that. 
The whole epigram seems to refer to fowling. The applica- 
tion, even if vadis for levis be adopted, would not necessarily 
be altered. Are there not wild duck and snipe to be caught 
in the shallows (vadis) as well as fish, and probably by other 
means than birdlime, though with the use of a rod ? 
If levis, or even vadis be read, two arguments lean heavily 
against harundo being the fisher’s Rod. The first, in a poem 
dealing entirely with birds this somewhat obscure reference to 
fish would be extremely abrupt ; the second, the line following 
““harundine preda’’ runs, “‘ Pinguis e¢’’ (not “aut ”’ as before) 
“‘implicitas virga teneret aves,” “‘ and (not or) the sticky reed- 
line,”’ etc. 
Save for this omission and the trend of the whole context, 
a strong argument might be easily advanced for fishing in the 
apparent redundancy of harundo and virga. But these two 
words may refer to two different weapons of capture, or, what 
is more probable, to two different ways of catching bivds—the 
first, by a long reed with a noose, and the second by a branch 
with birdlime.! 
1 The best reeds for fowling purposes (harundo aucupatoria) came from 
