NETS—“ THE MILLION-WORKER ” 459 
wonder and of our space. “‘ Fishermen (we are told) used to 
put the hair of small monkeys on the four corners of their 
nets, by which means they succeeded in taking large numbers. 
It is said that the fish seeing the hair were attracted towards 
it, as a man to embroidery!” ! 
The infrequent mention of what was probably the oldest 
fishing implement of Paleolithic man, the Spear, admits of 
no satisfactory explanation. For some reason the Chinese 
seem to have employed the Spear-harpoon but rarely. 
Pictures of fishing in T‘u shu Encyclopedia (extracted from 
a work of the sixteenth century A.D.) confirm this view. If 
numbers be any test, the Spear found least favour—it is repre- 
sented but once—while the Rod appears four, and the Net 
seventeen times. 
Lu Kuei-méng, the Izaak Walton of China, in his book of 
the ninth century a.D., does, it is true, include spearing (ch’as 
yt) with a four-pronged weapon among other fishing methods, 
such as shooting with bow and arrow (shé ch‘ten) and driving 
into shallow water with the aid of a wooden rattle (ming lang) 
for stockade work. A curious variation of the spear-harpoon 
(Asien) was an iron instrument having at the end of a bamboo 
a cock’s spur, which was used for iguanas.? 
The Chinese were evidently familiar with our Ofter, i.e. a 
line carrying hooks at short intervals, and fastened at either 
end. The Yo Yang féng t’u chi, a work of the Han Dynasty 
(about the time of the Christian era) expressly states that this 
method, with the line made fast across a river between two 
boats at anchor, accounted for many big fish. 
But enough evidence has, I believe, been adduced to 
prove that the Sinitic pzscator had little to learn of his craft. 
He apparently lacked Oppian’s pantomimic but scarcely 
aromatic method of clothing himself in the skin of a she-goat, 
probably because he lacked its victim, the salacious Sargus. 
If he knew not Alian’s pneumatic device of capturing the eel 
by the aid of a sheep’s bowels, he was no ignoramus of the 
habits of the Murenide, for he watched carefully and waited 
1 Ibid., p. 251. 
2 Ch‘u hsiieh chi. Ibid., p. 281. 
2H 
