was ended with the sight of my prize; I 

 drew up a golden, look you, a fish all 

 plated thick with gold. Gently I unhook- 

 ed him * * * then I dragged him on 

 shore with the ropes." 



I leave to the reader the pleasant task 

 of comparing the ancient tackle with the 

 modern. It must be said, however, that 

 the description is rather ideal for the 

 Mediterranean fisherman displays no 

 science in landing his game, but simply 

 throws it high and dry or breaks his 

 tackle. This fact is well attested for the 

 ancients, by several vase and wall paint- 

 ings portraying fishermen actually at 

 work. These paintings show us that the 

 ancient outfit included a basket, frequent- 

 ly with a long handle, and a vase painting 

 in Vienna undoubtedly suggests its use. 

 The man has caught a fish which he is 

 lifting straight up out of the water, at the 

 same time he is reaching down with his 

 basket, evidently to scoop up the fish just 

 before it leaves the water, similar to the 

 practice in trout-fishing to-day. 



Before passing over the Ionian Sea to 

 observe what the Romans did in this field 

 of activity, the quasi-scientific study of 

 fishes among the Greeks, particularly that 

 of Aristotle, should claim our attention. 

 Compared with the work of the moderns 

 Aristotle's work was crude indeed. Es- 

 timated as the first attempts at building 

 up a science his work deserves our ad- 

 miration and, in view of the fact that his 

 writings were standard for nearly two 

 thousand years, it demands our respect. 



Aristotle did his work in natural his- 

 tory under the patronage of King Philip 

 of Macedon, who drew upon the re- 

 sources of the empire to provide him with 

 rare or little known specimens from far 

 and wide. How some of his conclusions 

 were based on insufficient data and are 

 consequently very inaccurate, or even 

 grotesque, his discussion of the eel will 

 illustrate. It must not be taken as a fair 

 sample of his work in general. In fact, it 

 is very unusual. "Among all the ani- 

 mals," he says, "which have blood, the eel 

 is the only one which is not born of copu- 

 lation or hatched from eggs. The cor- 

 rectness of this statement is evident from 

 the fact that eels make their appearance 

 in marshy bodies of water, and that, too, 

 after all the water has been drawn off and 



the mud removed, as soon as the rain- 

 water begins to fill these lakes. They are 

 not produced in dry weather, not even in 

 lakes that never become dry, for they live 

 on the rain-water. It is, therefore, plain 

 that their origin is not due to procreation 

 or to eggs. In spite of this some people 

 think that they are viviparous, because 

 worms have been found in the intestines 

 of some eels, which they believe are the 

 young of the eel. This opinion, however, 

 is erroneous, for they are produced from 

 the so-called 'bowels of the earth' (i. e., 

 the earth-worms), the spontaneous prod- 

 uct of mud and moisture." 



Turning now to the Romans, we find a 

 somewhat different state of affairs, but 

 different only on the aesthetic side; from 

 a scientific or industrial point of view the 

 Roman, though heir to all the Greek civ- 

 ilization and learning, in this, as in many 

 other lines, made but slight advances. 



Fish culture never became a serious oc- 

 cupation among the Romans. It was a 

 pastime, one of the many directions which 

 their senseless luxury took rather than a 

 carefully directed effort to stock ponds 

 and rear fish for food, or as a means of 

 nature study. The immense ponds 

 were stocked with rare fish in preference 

 to useful varieties. Next to the rare spe- 

 cies those that could be tamed were in fa- 

 vor. A qualification of the above state- 

 ments should be made probably, in favor 

 of the Romans who lived during the 

 early Republican period of whom Colum- 

 ella, a Roman writer, has the following 

 to say in his book entitled De Re Rustica : 

 "The descendants of Romulus, although 

 they were country folk, took great pains 

 in having upon their farms a sort of 

 abundance of everything which the in- 

 habitants of the city are wont to enjoy. 

 To this end they did not rest contented 

 with stocking with fish the ponds that 

 had been made for this purpose, but in 

 their foresight went to the extent of sup- 

 plying the ponds formed by nature with 

 the spawn of fish. By this means the 

 lakes Velinus and Sabitinus, and likewise 

 Vulsmensis and Ciminus have furnished 

 in great abundance not only catfish and 

 goldfish, but also all the other varieties of 

 fish which flourish in fresh water." Such 

 were the practices of the Roman country 

 folk in early times, but, strange as it may 



