THE CALIFORNIAN SALMON. 
41 
“ Around the hook a chosen fur to wind, 
And on the back a speckled feather bind.” 
The same writer describes the art of angling as practised 
in the river Astraeus in Macedonia, by which a speckled 
fish is caught by a fly made in imitation of the hippurus 
a certain buzzing wasp -like insect of which these fish were 
fond. Arrian, in his history of India, tells of a nation of 
ichthyophagi residing on the Persian Gulf, who not only 
lived entirely on fish themselves, but even fed their cattle 
upon it. Their dress was made of fish skins, and their 
huts were supported by beams and rafters, made from the 
skeletons of the leviathans of the deep. This wretched 
people occupied a tract of country devoid of vegetation, 
and being entirely dependent upon the fish they could 
manage to catch, were in a constant state of hunger and 
misery. 
Thus fishing has been practised from a remote period 
for the food supply obtained by it, and, as the calling of a 
class of the population, but angling for the love of the 
sport was the result of civilisation, and, as Badham says, 
“ was an afterthought not likely to occur till the world was 
well peopled, and different states sufficiently prosperous 
and advanced in civilisation, to spare supernumerary hands, 
and allow the wealthier sons to follow less necessary arts 
than the primary ones of war and tillage. The Greeks 
and Eomans, civilised beyond the rest of the world, soon 
became enthusiastic sportsmen.” The delight of salmon 
fishing is so great to many for the health and amusement 
which it affords, that although it is obtained by costly and 
laborious exertion, the passion for it leads to an increasing 
demand for the fishings at still higher rentals. So much 
so that the average cost of a salmon, taken by the rod on 
the Tweed, is calculated at £3 to £5 each, although the 
same fish could be bought in the market for one-fifth of 
