Chapter XLIII: “plus Un Pays Produit Des Poissons, Plus IL Produit D’hommes”

If the above dictum[1094] and Williams’s statement that “in no country, except Japan, is so much food derived from the water,”[1095] be accurate, modern China should lack not folk nor food. Every method of fishing obtains in one part of the country or other, and scarce a sea or stream exists unvexed by some piscatorial implement.

“Fish are killed by the spear, caught with the hook, scraped up by the dredge, ensnared in traps, and captured by nets: they are decoyed to jump into boats by painted boards, and frightened into nets by noisy ones, taken out of the water by lifting nets, and dived in for by birds, for the cormorant seizes what his owner can not easily reach.”[1096]

This description, minus the cormorant but plus leistering, applies fairly well to Ancient China. Mr. Werner’s great work discloses no distinct mention of fishing previous to 1122 B.C., although the present to a Viceroy of “cuttle fish condiment” apparently implies it. From that date the Spear, the Net, the Line, the Rod, and divers strange devices figure frequently and historically.[1097] In the earlier centuries covered by this period, if the Line claimed adherents,[1098] Nets made of fine bamboo, with bags arranged in front of wooden stockades planted on the banks of rivers,[1099] were the general method.[1100]

Although the Chinese have produced quite a considerable literature on Fishing, the path of a writer unversed in their language is, from the absence of translations, compassed about with many difficulties. The trail winds dim and Serbonian, even if, as was my good fortune, a friendly hand holds out now and then a torch to guide his faltering steps.[1101]

The dividing line between the historical and the non-historical in China does not cut clearly and without breaks. History as distinct from legend was assumed till recently to begin between 900 and 800 B.C., but three archæological discoveries have affected previous chronological conceptions.

1. The inscribed _bone_ fragments (till the advent of paper, _c._ 100 B.C., bones, stones, bronzes and tablets of wood served for _papyri_) found in Honan apparently carry as far back as _c._ 1500 B.C., and shed quite new light on the character of the early Chinese script. Among the divination tablets I had hoped for some fish omens similar to those of Assyria, Greece, and Rome, or some trace of the belief still current in Southern China that certain fish, as the Dolphin in the Mediterranean, were weather-prophets: but, owing probably to the dry character of the country of which they are the voice or rather the testament, none survive.[1102]

2. The wooden tablets at Tunhuang along the Great Wall which illumine social conditions and deal largely with the commissariat of the army.

3. The MSS. at the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, found about 1907. Coming from a Buddhist monastery, they give in the main Buddhist texts, but also (as do the Egyptian _Papyri_) many quite new excerpts from lost writers, in addition to accounts, etc.[1103]

A goodly store of stories and descriptions of prehistoric Fishing and Fishers exists in ancient and modern works.

The statement that “Fishermen used the silk from the cocoon for their lines, a piece of sharpened iron for their hook, thorn-stick for their rod, and split grain for their bait”[1104] carries us back to an age very early and indefinite. On asking a high Sinitic authority what was the date of the Emperor in whose reign this tackle was employed, he rapped out, “Date! What was Adam’s date?”

The use of gut was familiar at any rate about the fourth century B.C., judging from the sentence in Lieh Tzǔ: “By making a line of cocoon silk, a hook of a sharp needle, a rod of a branch of bramble or dwarf bamboo, and using a grain of cooked rice as bait, one can catch a whole cartload of fish.”[1105]

Angling as a pastime must have secured the Imperial favour in early ages, as its metaphorical use by Sung Yü, fourth century B.C., indicates. “In the golden age,” he tells us, “the Emperors were fishers of men, using sages as their rod, the true doctrine as their line, charity of heart and duty to one’s neighbour as their bait, the world being their fishing ground, and the people their fishes.”

Strolling down the lane of Time, we meet (_c._ 1122 B.C.) with Chiang Tzǔ-ya, the first statesman to recognise the importance of fishing, and its allied industry, the manufacture of salt.[1106]

The tale—not of Chiang’s rise from a very lowly station to governance of a great Empire, for history furnishes many parallels—but of his Angling is morally edifying, piscatorially instructive, and is possibly responsible for the rise in Great Britain and America of the barbless school of anglers. As yet its pupils, despite the missionary zeal of Mr. Rhead, are scattered few and far between. The limitation of their numbers can doubtless be ascribed to their introspective and becoming fear lest the “real attraction,” which, according to a Chinese classic, was in our hero’s case _not_ his straight iron but his innate virtue, should with them, either from sparsity or lowness of power, lack the requisite magnetism!

But _retournons à nos poissons_! King Wên, the founder of the Chou Dynasty, and one of the great sages—whence, perhaps, his intelligent annexation of Chiang, for all Anglers _ex necessitate_ are, or should be, also sages—comes across our hero fishing with a piece of straight iron instead of a barbed hook. This tackle, he explains to the unrecognised monarch, is based on principles dear to our Conscientious Objectors, viz. voluntaryism—“for only volunteers would suffer themselves to be caught thuswise”—and of mercy—“since it gave all those who wished a chance of escape.”

Wên, from his many campaigns, observed much and missed little. He noticed the full creel. Thence, as a Sage would, deduced that since a virtuous man’s wants are always satisfied, Chiang must be just such a man. He felt instinctively that here indeed was the statesman whom his grandsire—observe the ancestor-reverence!—would have selected. So without more ado or any references as to character, Wên carried Chiang off, whether with or without the full creel history deigns no word, to his palace, installed him as Viceroy, and ever after termed him “my Grandfather’s Desire,” a sobriquet which, however well meant, our philosophic _piscator_—he was only eighty when caught straight-ironing—must at times have resented.[1107]

Not dissimilar in method if unlike in emolument, stands out the historical (for he shone in the eighth century A.D.) Chang Chih-ho, that “glittering example of humorous romantic detachment and carelessness of public opinion, who spent his time in angling, but used no baits, as his object was not to catch fish.”[1108]

But the greatest Sage of them all, Confucius, whose philosophy has for 2400 years permeated, perhaps even dominated, public polity and private action, was not as one of these. Humane, practical, and a sportsman, “The Master angled, but did not use a net: he shot, but not at birds perching,” which Legge[1109] in a note kindly expands into “Confucius would only destroy what life was necessary to him!” Since netting in his era (_c._ 500 B.C.), as now, held the field, or rather the water, the touch of the philosopher’s sole device being the rod implies a compliment, confirmed by the context, to his humane sportsmanship.

To Mr. Yen’s statement as to the importance of fish, marine or fresh-water, as a staple of subsistence in China can be added the evidence as regards ancient times collated by Werner,[1110] later times by Du Halde,[1111] and modern times by Williams,[1112] Gray,[1113] and Dabry de Thiersant.[1114] While they agree with the rest of the world in the economic necessity of fisheries, the people, and especially the epicures of China, differ profoundly from the European or American in ichthyic appreciation.

As the Greeks and Latins at times saw not eye to eye as to the palatal primacy of certain fishes, the people of the Middle Kingdom eat not, and never ate, tooth to tooth with those of the West. To the Sinitic opsophagist _his_ salmon, indeed most of the deep sea fishes, appeals not at all.

“We delight,” says Mr. Yen, “in eating those of the finny tribe whose meat is soft and fine, and they are caught for the most part in rivers, brooks, lakes, ponds, and the surface of the ocean. On the other hand, there are products of the sea which are regarded by us as delicacies of the table, but which have little or no consumption in the West. Just to mention a few well-known ones, the fins of the shark,[1115] the bêche-de-mer, the cuttlefish, the jellyfish, and the scollop form important articles of domestic commerce, but are not bought or sold to any extent in the West.”[1116]

The cuttlefish as a dining delicacy appealed to very early palates. _The Records of Chou_ recount that on the appointment of Yi Yin to Viceroyalty, T’ang “bestowed—could he do more?—on him cuttlefish condiment.”[1117]

In China, as elsewhere, the priority of fishing implement furnishes a problem not easy of solution. Professor Giles’s statement that “it is clear the net preceded the hook” demands for its gainsaying a knowledge equal, if possible, to his, and, in addition, more than triple brass. Mr. Yen, in his “our ancient classics refer to a time when our primitive ancestors tied ropes together to form fishing nets,” seemingly confirms Giles. Legge is uncommittal: “they fished with the line, but the ordinary method was with the net.”[1118]

Search in the great Chinese Encyclopædia endorses the precedence of the Net over the Rod, but not by overwhelming length of time. Its first reference to the former comes from the _I Ching or Book of Changes_, which may date from the eleventh century B.C.; to the latter from the _Shih Ching_ or _Book of Odes_, which apparently ranges from the eleventh to the seventh century B.C.

This last passage runs—“What are used in Angling? Silk threads formed into lines. The son of the reverent Marquis and the grand-daughter of tranquil King.” The startling identification of the silk threads with a son of a reverent Marquis and a grand-daughter of a King of Peace (according to another translation) shows that in the matter and measure of his metaphors in the millennium preceding the Christian era the Turanian was far from played out.

Fortunately our _deus ex machina_ Prof. Legge again comes to our aid by his assurance that “the allusion to silk threads twisted into fishing lines would seem simply to be to the marriage of the princess and the young noble—_not_ to the lady’s holding fast of wifely ways to complete the virtues of reverence and harmony.”[1119] Another interpretation—“the metaphor indicates that the union of man and wife, like the silk twisted into fishing lines, is a lasting one”—recks not of post-war divorce courts, or post-war tackle.

The next reference in the _Shih Ching_ strikes a sad note. Unless we knew that it was not the grand-daughter of the peaceful King, we might almost fancy we hear the heroine of the silk-line boast bewailing her virginal home.

“With your long and tapering[1120] bamboo rods you angle in the Ch’i” (a river in Honan). “How should I not think of you? But I am too far away to reach you. When a maiden leaves her home to be married, her parents and brethren are left behind. Calmly flows the current of the Ch’i. There are oars of cypress and boats of pine. Would that I might drive thither and rid me of my sorrow.”

The third reference strikes also a note of sadness, caused now by the absence of a husband. “When he went a-hunting, I put the bow in the case for him. When he went a-fishing, I arranged his line for him. What did he take in Angling? Bream and tench—bream and tench, while the people looked on to see.”[1121]

Angling appears in the _Mu t’ien tzǔ chuan_, a work assigned to the tenth century B.C., but probably of much later date. “The pith of the _ti_, tied half-way up the fishing-line,” about 500 B.C. took the place of our modern float: the moment the Angler “saw it sink, he knew a fish was on.”[1122]

In the first century before and after the Christian era the germ of Imperial ostentation and extravagance in tackle raged virulently. Spreading, if not from China to Peru, at any rate like silk[1123] from China to Rome, it claimed among its victims the Emperor Nero and the Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty. The bacillus found the better host in Nero, who[1124] fished with golden nets drawn by purple ropes, while his brother of Asia confined himself to angling from a boat with a hook of pure gold, a line of white silk, and red carp for a lure.[1125]

But the commonality of one State, at any rate, ran no bad second to the Imperial pair. “The people of Lu,” we read, “were fond of fishing: they used cinnamon bark for bait, forged _gold_ for hooks, which were variegated with silver or green colours, while their fishing line was ornamented with the feathers of the turquoise kingfisher.”[1126] Here perhaps, as the bird lives on fish, we can detect a conscious or unconscious touch of homœopathic magic.

Lures such as the natural or artificial fly obtain no record: even now the Chinese and Japanese try most things before an artificial fly. The baits consisted of worms, grain, fish, meat, and cassia. The latter aromatic herb recalls the anglers of Oppian and Pliny, who believed in the attraction of fish by the sense of smell.[1127]

In their unusual baits our authors suggest their _confrères_ of Greece and Rome. Thus in size of prey, and similarity of bait, the author of the _K’ung ts’ung tzǔ_ and Herodotus coincide. As the former lived not two centuries later than the Father of History, the tip had possibly just reached China from Egypt—“from Africa comes ever something new”—viz. the chine of a porker for a crocodile.

The story runs that Tzǔ-ssǔ, a grandson of Confucius, witnessed the landing from the Yellow River of a fish “as big as a cart.” The fishermen had baited first with bream, but as the monster, like the law, _de minimis non curavit_, they substituted half a sucking pig with instantaneous success.

But the bait handed down to us by Chuang Tzǔ (fourth century B.C.), if it faintly recall, completely eclipses “the lungs of a wild bull,” which Ælian recommended for the capture of the Silurus, in that it was no less an one than “fifty whole oxen!”[1128]

As a producer and as a user of Nets, China ranked and ranks perhaps higher than any country. The number and variety of Nets in Julius Pollux can well be matched, while the Oppianic opulence of

“A thousand names a fisher might rehearse
Of Nets, intractable in smoother verse,”

meets its peer, if not its superior in Scarth, Gray, or Dabry de Thiersant,[1129] who devotes thirty-five pages to what Plutarch terms these “engines of encirclement.”

If the Net proper, the barrage, and the fish fence sprang from the same parent,[1130] then in China the fish fences of bamboo, erected for catching and spawning purposes, should be included in the term Net.[1131]

If this be the case, the Chinese stand out as experts both in the diversity and the ingenuity of their devices. Passages from old Chinese authors justify this appreciation.[1132] They are too numerous for quotation here, but three or four seem worthy of notice.

_The Chronicles of the Elders of Hsiang Yang_ set forth that the villages, when forbidden to catch the fine bream of the Han river, achieved their purpose by erecting a fence, probably of the same nature as that which in Lu Kuei-mêng’s _History_ is called _Wei hsiao_—“which name was taken from the kind of fence used to catch crabs.”

The _Shan t’ang ṡsu K’ao_ describe the _mêng sou_ as a basket net, plaited of small bamboos: “The cover of its mouth was woven of bamboo splints: to it hairy and bristling bamboos were fixed: it gradually decreased in size from the mouth to the junction with the hairy and bristling bamboos (elsewhere, bamboos with whiskers) so preventing the fish from going out after they had got in.”

From the same source we learn that the _mêng chou_ resembled in shape a sieve. When the water became cold, the fish hid in it.[1133] It was used for fishing, but how it, the _ch’u kuo_, or the _chao_ were used or found useful, deponent maketh not clear. But the _hung_, a sort of bamboo dam, holds the record. With but one of these the people of Ch’ien T’ang obtained during the Chin Dynasty a million fish a year, whence the name _Wan chiang hung_, or “the million-worker dam.”[1134] _The Odes_ of Lu Kuei-mêng tell of a bamboo fence 10,000 feet or about 2 miles long.[1135]

We read in the _Kuang chou_ of baiting the nets with the whites of eggs. In the _Ko Kai_ we encounter a method and a net, both of which to me, at any rate, are new and may be unique. The _San ts’ai t’u hui_ states the _ko kai_ was the net commonly called the _kai-ou_—literally “striking net.” It was an implement for taking fish out of a larger net. The _kai-tou_ was brought down with force on to the larger net near the fish, which thus were made to rebound into it.

From _Tŭ Shu Chi Ch’êng_, XVII. Pl. 9.]

But the device, which the _Ching chih ch’i wu lei_ describes and gravely explains, must act as the limit at once of our 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!”[1136]

The infrequent mention of what was probably the oldest fishing implement of Palæolithic 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 Encyclopædia_ (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 represented but once—while the Rod appears four, and the Net seventeen times.

Lu Kuei-mêng, the Izaak Walton of China, in his book of the ninth century A.D., does, it is true, include spearing (_ch’ai yü_) with a four-pronged weapon among other fishing methods, such as shooting with bow and arrow (_shê ch’ien_) and driving into shallow water with the aid of a wooden rattle (_ming lang_) for stockade work. A curious variation of the spear-harpoon (_hsien_) was an iron instrument having at the end of a bamboo a cock’s spur, which was used for iguanas.[1137]

The Chinese were evidently familiar with our _Otter_, _i.e._ a line carrying hooks at short intervals, and fastened at either end. The _Yo Yang fêng 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 _piscator_ 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 Ælian’s pneumatic device of capturing the eel by the aid of a sheep’s bowels, he was no ignoramus of the habits of the _Murænidæ_, for he watched carefully and waited patiently for air-bubbles, like a destroyer hunting German U-boats, to rise to the surface and betray the fishes’ lair in the mud, and then plunged home his depth-charge, or rather his bident.

Fishing by cormorant was unique and peculiar to China alone, according to Mr. Yen, who adds that “in our country it was confined to one family, the Liu.[1138] The fishes thus caught, however, are limited to those of small streams, unpalatable, and eaten only by very poor people.”

Few realise how great is the patience necessary for the training of an expert cormorant, or how good is the reward. These seemingly altruistic _piscatores_ are taught to fish an area in flocks, and at a given signal return to their master with their prey, made unswallowable by means of a neck-ring. One boatman watches twelve to twenty of the birds, each one of whom, although hundreds may similarly be hunting the same water, knows its own master. If one seize a fish too heavy for him, another comes to its aid, and together they fetch it to the boat. More generally the ally (not unlike certain nations in history) hustles the weaker and despoils him of his catch, and of his titbit reward.

The barndoor fowl, whose hospitable warmth and credulity all the world abuses, usually hatches out the young birds, whose piscatorial propensities increase and accentuate on a diet of fish hash and eel’s blood.

A curious and vicarious manner of Indian fishing can be witnessed on the Brahmaputra. Birds of the cormorant family range themselves midstream in line, and advance towards a bank, making a prodigious pother by flapping the water with their wings. The fish, panic-stricken, flee to the shallows and even throw themselves on land. The birds, still in close array, pursue and gorge themselves on their penned-in prey.

“Now enter villagers,” who as soon as feeding ceases, rush to the bank and by drums, gongs, and every conceivable noise frighten the cormorants. Heavy from over-repletion, they have, before they can fly, to lighten themselves of most of their meal, which in due time provides the peasants’ supper! This method, if it does not appeal to the palate, possesses the merit of semi-poetic and retributive justice.[1139]

De Thiersant’s assertion that to the Chinese belongs the honour of being the first to invent _pisciculture_ can only be allowed to pass, if the term be restricted to hatching out by natural means, bringing up, and caring for young fish. From this, pisciculture proper differs as chalk from cheese. Originated by Rémy in the last century, it consists of artificial fecundation by the extrusion and mixture of the milt of the male and of the eggs of the female, the hatching out of the eggs on specially constructed trays of wire, etc., set in running water, and the nurture of the fry on specially adapted food in carefully prepared and graduated ponds.

De Thiersant himself, a few pages later,[1140] makes the point clear. Chinese fish-breeders do not resort to artificial fecundation, with which they were even in 1870 very faintly acquainted, for several reasons, not least of which was their contention that fish thus produced were predisposed to quick deterioration.[1141]

The Chinese (like the Roman) method of fish-breeding in the eighteenth century,[1142] and till 1872, consisted in gathering from collecting fences constructed for the purpose[1143] eggs which had been fertilised _naturally_. These were carried (sometimes hundreds of miles, for the secret of safe transportation had early been mastered) to ponds or streams for natural, not artificial hatching. The young fry were guarded carefully, and fed most watchfully.

Gray[1144] enumerates some of the many and minute precautions as to shelter and food. Rockeries were erected in the ponds to shelter the alevin from the sun. Bananas were planted on the sides and banks, because the rain which falls from their leaves during a shower promoted health. Forbidden, however, were all pigeons, whose dung was held hurtful, and also (contrary to our experience of the haunt of many and good fish) all willows, whose leaves were deemed inimical to the growth, even to the life of the fry.

“The earliest pisciculturist of ancient China,” states Mr. Yen, “was T’ao Chu-kung,[1145] who lived in the fifth century B.C. His method of fish culture combined both knowledge and ignorance. He dug a pond of the size of an acre, leaving nine small islands scattered about it. In one pond he placed twenty female carp, three feet in length, and four males of similar size. This was done in the month of March. Exactly one year later, there were 5000 fishes one foot long, 10,000 two feet long, and 15,000 three feet long. In the third year the number had multiplied ten or twenty times, in the fourth year it was not possible to keep count.”

While congratulating T’ao on the nimbleness of his enumerators and his success, and haggling not at the numbers (for the _Cypridæ_ breed prolifically), both the disparity in growth and the similarity of the exactly graded variations in size of these, all yearling, fish are unto the practical pisciculturist a stumbling-block, which neither cannibalism nor luck of food can displace.

But to return to T’ao, or rather to his islands. “The nine islands were to deceive the fishes, who would believe that they were in the big ocean, travelling round the nine continents.” We may complacently smile at these fancies, but at any rate let us humbly recall the 2300 years we took to solve the problem of the generation of eels, and the fantastic theories propounded by Aristotle, by Izaak Walton, and others, some of which, _e.g._ the Cairncross, read as ludicrous as T’ao’s “Happy Isles.”[1146]

Fan Li apparently was the first to practise fish breeding not only in China, but in the world.[1147] Living in the early fifth century B.C. he antedates the Roman Varro, our earliest authority, by some three hundred years. He not only bred, but wrote about fish. But to brother-breeder and brother-writer of the present century like myself, the process as set forth in his _Yang Yü Ching_ (_Treatise on Fish-breeding_), is not only difficult to follow in detail, but sadly lacking in result.

As an example, take his method with the bastard carp, or _Carassius pekinensis_. “In order to breed from the _chi_ fish, it is ripped up with a bamboo knife, and small quantities of quicksilver, mixed with river sediment, and _yu-ts’ai_ are introduced into the belly. The fish is then stuffed with cabbage leaves, and hung up for forty-nine days” (note here, the time is pre-ordained, and alters not, as with us nowadays, with changes in the temperature of the water flowing over the eggs) “in an empty place, after which river water is used to extract one or two eggs from the belly. These are placed in water, and covered up with something, and after a while each egg turns into a fish.”

Such ingenious industry, coupled with no small expenditure on quicksilver, _yu-ts’ai_, and cabbage, deserved a far better return. Had Fan Li intelligently anticipated a method in vogue among his countrymen some two and a half millennia later, money, labour, time, would all have been saved. But as Rome was not built in a day, so centuries were necessary for the evolution of a method of fish-hatching absolutely (to me) unique.

“Not once or twice in its rough” world’s story must the ample, yet guileless, bosom of the domestic hen have swelled with anticipatory pride, and subsequent resentful curiosity, as the results of her “watchful waiting” emerged in guise of ugly ducklings, swans, or cormorants.

But of all the sittings to borrow her body’s warmth, the strangest and the most incongruous—after all, the ducklings were terrestrial, of a kith akin to her, and not aquatic and unregistered aliens—was that composed of hundreds of _fish_ eggs!

Lest this last sentence seem to label me as a descendant of “the first pre-Pelasgian piscator” from whom, in Sir O. Seaman’s witty verse,

“From whom have sprung (I own a bias
To ways the cult of rod and fly has)
All fishermen—and Ananias!”

or lest it seem to disqualify me for the character bestowed by Alciphron on an angler, of being one “who would never even slip into misrepresentation,” I call no less a witness than Mr. S. Wells Williams, LL.D., late Professor of the Chinese Language and Literature at Yale College, and author of _Tonic and Syllabic Dictionaries of the Chinese Language_.

From page 349 come _ipsissima verba_:[1148] “The _Bulletin Universel_ for 1829 asserts that in some parts of China spawn is carefully placed in an empty egg-shell, and the hole closed: the egg is then replaced in the nest and after the hen has sat a few days upon it reopened, and then placed in vessels of water warmed in the sun, where it soon hatches!”

De Thiersant, in his assertion that “from time immemorial it has been the policy of the Government and officials to protect fishing in every way,” and Mr. Yen in his that “our ancient classics mention the appointment, several centuries before the Christian era, of special officials to rule over and protect our fishermen,” indicate that a Board of Fisheries came into existence at an early date.

The _Chou Li_, or _The Rites of the Chou Dynasty_ (_c._ 1000 B.C.) point distinctly to wardens being appointed for fishing purposes. We read, in fact, of an official staff, called _Fishermen attached to the Imperial Court_: “They were entrusted with the fishing appropriate to each season, and made dams for catching fish.”

Private fisheries, with some few exceptions such as the Imperial preserves, apparently were not allowed, or seem not to have existed. All waters were free and open to all citizens of ancient China. In modern times fishing belongs to the State, and licenses to fish, which are strictly limited in each canton, are obligatory. District magistrates are bound to care for and police the rivers: to put down fry in suitable streams: to enforce the laws, especially those dealing with a close time, and to permit no cutting of weeds in the waters during the spawning season.[1149]

The Emperors, especially the earlier Emperors, were keen all-round sportsmen,[1150] but especially zealous disciples of the craft of Angling. Like all good fishermen, they rejoiced in having themselves or sharing with their friends a good day. Sometimes their keen hospitality made them entirely forget, or turn a blind eye on their own ordinances. Even fear of the wardens attached to the Imperial Court, to whom was entrusted (according to the _Chou Li_) “the fishing appropriate to each season,” served not at times to stay their ardour.

Fortunately they were saved from themselves and from breaches of the law, as Mr. Werner shows in a sentence, which in manner and “superior man” strangely recalls _Sandford and Merton_, and Mr. Barlow. “It appears from edifying anecdotes that the pleasures of the chase, etc., were a snare to the Chinese monarchs, but they were seldom left without some superior man to keep before them the moral ideas of earlier days.”

That such was the case some 3000 years ago the story of one of the Chou Dynasty demonstrates. He was anxious in the extreme to go a-fishing with the Empress. None of his courtiers and none of his laws could deter him, although it was the fourth moon, when fish are spawning.

At last his great minister, Tchang-sy-pe, flung himself at the Imperial feet, implored him not to violate one of the most essential laws of the realm, and so set an example which, if followed generally, would destroy one of “the commonest and amplest staples of food.” The “superior man” succeeded. The Emperor, struck by Tchang’s reasoning, and perhaps by the enormity of his wrong-doing, immediately called the party off.

Another “superior man” later on saves the situation, and his monarch, also one of the Chou Dynasty.

This time we have no excuse of hospitality, no fair Empress before whose eyes our angler, as Antony with Cleopatra, wanted to display his prowess, or a new cast. No! he was “merely amusing himself”—think of the crime!—“by fishing in one of the Palace lakes.”

But alas! ’twas the fifth moon, when fishes were still busy breeding the nation’s common and ample staple of food. The line raised for a fresh throw was suddenly cut by the Viceroy, Ly-Ke. “What the deuce are you doing?” thundered the Emperor, aghast at the audacity of the act. “My duty,” quietly answered Ly-Ke. “All must obey the laws which you have bidden me enforce.”

The voice is the voice of Ly-Ke, but the sentence and sentiment smack of Mr. Barlow! Such, however, is the power of the “superior man,” that the contrite autocrat not only bestowed a present on the intrepid Atropos who shore his line, but commanded that its severed bits should hang for all to see in the ante-chamber of the Palace, as a warning to future ages.[1151]

Whether in ancient China a fish-god, such as Ebisu in Japan,[1152] or fish-gods existed, I have not ascertained, but in our day the fishermen on the southern coasts celebrate in spring or autumn a festival to propitiate the gods of the waters. An immense display of lanterns lights the path for a huge dragon, made out of slender bamboo frames covered with strips of coloured cotton or silk: the extremities represent his gaping head and frisking tail. The monster, symbolising the ruler of the watery deep, is preceded by huge models of fish gorgeously illuminated.[1153]

But whether the Sinitic Pantheon lacked or held a deity of fishermen, it was reserved for Hsü, the hero of one of the stories in _Liao Chai Chih I_, to summon from the vasty deep and hold in willing peonage a piscatorial power all his own.[1154]

This _djin_ of the water was both recognisant and static—no twelve-day banquets speeded _him_ to Æthiopia—and far more instant in service than Hermes or Aphrodite, as Heliodorus and other epigrammatists plainly prove. Not infrequent must have been the occasions when Greek and Roman fishermen returning, despite their sacrificial offerings, with empty creels, met the taunt,

“They’re gods: perchance they sleep,
Cry out, and know what prayers are worth,
Thou dust and earth.”

Had the fishermen of the Dodekanese and of Italy, following the example of Hsü, poured oblations of the wine of the islands, or deprompted the old Falernian, perhaps the deities of their craft, who oft-times must have jibbed at repeated hecatombs of fish, even if “spiced,” and at the sight of the Olympian box-rooms littered with cobbled cobbles and torn tackle, would have been more regular in attendance and more prompt in aid.

The story runs that “every night, when Hsü fared forth to fish, he would carry some wine with him, and drink and fish by turns, always taking care to pour out a libation on the ground, accompanied by the invocation, ‘Drink, too, ye drowned spirits of the River!’ Such was his regular custom: and it was noticeable that, even on occasions when others caught naught, he always got a full basket.”

The means by which this success was attained and other pleasant details are set forth fully in that delightful book by Professor Giles, _Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio_.[1155] Suffice it, however, here to recount that one drowned Spirit of the River, the genius of Hsü’s beat, touched, perhaps even affected, by the alcoholic libation, at first invisibly, afterwards openly glided down stream, quietly drove the lower reaches, and shepherded the fishes towards our angler’s bait.

Like his Chinese brother, the British angler, when he goes a-fishing, carries a flask: unlike him, he does not, and cannot, unless he have the grand accommodation of a Loch Leven boatman thirty years ago, “drink and fish by equal turns.” Even if the difficulty of equal drinking turn by turn on the part of the sportsman and sprite be overcome, it is doubtful whether a British angler, however adaptive and alert to learn, can in these days ensure a full creel by adopting Hsü’s tip, having regard to the scanty stock and prohibitive price of whisky. Whether in the near or even far future the recipe can be thoroughly tested lies on the niggard lap of the Board of Control.

“_Oh! never fly conceals a hook
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish._”
RUPERT BROOKE.

FOOTNOTES:

[1094] See P. Dabry de Thiersant, _La Pisciculture et la Pêche en Chine_, Paris, 1872.

[1095] _The Middle Kingdom_ (New York, 1900), vol. I., p. 276. Cf. S. Wright, _op. cit._, p. 204, “In China there are more river-fishers than all the sea-fishers of Europe and America put together.”

[1096] S. W. Williams, _op. cit._, I., p. 779 f.

[1097] E. T. C. Werner, _Descriptive Sociology: Chinese_, London, 1911. This work, an abiding monument of twenty years of unabated toil and unceasing research into Chinese literature, ancient and modern, was published by the Herbert Spencer Trustees.

[1098] _I shih ching_, i. 5, v. i., ii. 8, _apud_ Werner.

[1099] _Ibid._ i. 5, iii. 4.

[1100] _Ibid._ i. 8, ii. 5.

[1101] To my friend Dr. Lionel Giles of the British Museum, and to his father, Prof. H. A. Giles of Cambridge, my thanks are due for leading and kindly lights.

[1102] See L. C. Hopkins in _New China Review_, 1917, 1918, 1919.

[1103] If the Chinese were behind the Egyptians in inscriptions on material such as _papyrus_, they anticipated Gutenberg and printing by some 600 years, as is proved by the recent discovery of the first specimen of block printing in the roll containing the _Diamond Sutra_, with woodcut of 868 A.D., which deprives Fêng Tao (of the tenth century) of the fame of being the inventor of printing.

[1104] Cf. _Introduction_, p. 60. _I shih chi shih_, or _The Origin of Things_, although of modern date, gives an account of the introduction of the various _Things_ among the Chinese.

[1105] _Apud_ Werner, _op. cit._, p. 277.

[1106] Mr. Wei-Ching W. Yen, _Address before the fourth International Fishery Congress_, Washington, 1908.

[1107] See H. A. Giles, _Chinese Biographical Dict._, 1898, p. 135, No. 343.

[1108] See _Ibid._, No. 34.

[1109] Legge, _Chinese Classics_, I. p. 67.

[1110] _Op. cit._, p. 250.

[1111] J. B. du Halde, _Description géographique_ (etc.) _de l’Empire de la Chine_ (etc.), Paris, 1735.

[1112] _Op. cit._, vol. II. p. 780, ff.

[1113] J. H. Gray, _China_ (London, 1878), vol. II., 291-301.

[1114] _Op. cit._, _passim_.

[1115] These, with fish-maws, and birds’ nests—of the swallow species, _Collocalia_—are esteemed for their stimulating (or aphrodisiacal) qualities. Williams, _op. cit._, II. 397.

[1116] _Op. cit._

[1117] _Pei t’ang shu ch’ao_, _apud_ Werner, _op. cit._, p. 264.

[1118] _Op. cit._, vol. IV., Pt. I. p. 148.

[1119] _Op. cit._, vol. IV., Pt. I., 36.

[1120] _Ibid._, IV. 5, v. “Tapering” according to Prof. Giles should be “very long.” To judge from representations, the rod was about six feet long, although for fresh-water turtles a stouter one of four feet was more usual.

[1121] _Ibid._, II. 8, ii. (3, 4). Neither the value nor the valour of the fishes seem worthy of onlookers. Perhaps the husband had invented—China seems to have anticipated most of our inventions—and was displaying the Double Spey or Steeple cast. But a rod, like a wedding, invariably attracts a crowd, as a stroll on the Seine any Sunday will verify. Some years ago Mr. Kelson and I were trying a new salmon rod, _faute de mieux_, from the south bank of the Thames. In ten minutes the Surrey side of the Waterloo Bridge was black with folk, hoping, perchance, to witness a capture of the mythical Thames salmon.

[1122] _Apud_ Werner, _op. cit._, 277.

[1123] In 325 B.C. Chinese silks were sold in Greek markets (Werner, _op. cit._, Table III.), while by the first century B.C. there was a brisk trade in them with Rome, through Parthia. Cf. Pliny, _N. H._, XXIV. 8, and XXXIV. 41; Virgil, _Georg._, II. 121; Horace, _Epod._, VIII. 15; Mela, III. 7 “ ... pretiosis vestibus in omnes terræ partes mittere solebant,” and Seneca’s protest _Ep._ 90, “posse nos vestitos esse sine commercio Serico.” Pliny, XII. 41, estimates that for luxuries from China, India, and Arabia, Rome was paying annually over 100,000,000 sesterces.

[1124] Eutropius, VII. 14.

[1125] _Han Wu Ku Shih_, _apud_ Werner, _op. cit._, p. 278. Imperial hunting and fishing expeditions are described on the stone drums of the Chou Dynasty _c._ 750 B.C. now at Peking. See _Journal N.-C., R.B.A.S., N.S._, VIII. 146-152.

[1126] _Ch’üeh Tzǔ_, _apud_ Werner, p. 276.

[1127] _Antea_, p. 238.

[1128] _Antea_, p. 243.

[1129] _La Pisciculture et la Pêche en Chine_ (Paris, 1872) was written, not by a globe-trotter, but by an expert sent out by the French Government to report fully on Fishing in China.

[1130] See _antea_, p. 43.

[1131] Legge speaks of the Nets being made of very fine bamboo.

[1132] Werner, _op. cit._, 280 ff.

[1133] Compare another trap which is made by “the people piling up wooden logs in the water. The fish, feeling cold, take shelter under these, and are caught by means of a bamboo screen.” _Erh ya_, _apud_ Werner, p. 276.

[1134] _Yu yang tsa tsu_, _apud_ Werner, p. 279. It should really be the ten-thousand, not million, worker.

[1135] _Ibid._, p. 281.

[1136] _Ibid._, p. 251.

[1137] _Ch ’u hsüeh chi. Ibid._, p. 281.

[1138] _Op. cit._, but in Japan, especially at Gifu, the cormorant is in common use, while D. Ross, _The Land of Five Rivers and Sindh_ (London, 1883), states that on the Indus not only the Cormorant (_Graculus carbo_), but also the Pelican and the Otter are similarly employed. Early in the seventeenth century an attempt was made to introduce Cormorant fishing into England as a sport, but failed (cf. Wright, _op. cit._, p. 182). There was at one time a court official, styled _The Master of the Herons_.

[1139] _Blackwood’s Magazine_, March, 1917, p. 32.

[1140] _Op. cit._, V.

[1141] The ichthyologists divided fresh-water fishes into two kinds—_Yeh yü_, wild, and _Chia yū_, tame fish: the former cannot live, much less propagate their species, in waters lacking a stream.

[1142] Du Halde, _op. cit._, vol. I. p. 36 f.

[1143] The _Yü_ of a pond, according to the _Shan t’ang ssŭ k’ao_, was the name of “a fence of bamboo set up in the water, and used for _rearing_ fish.”

[1144] _Op. cit._, ch. XXX.

[1145] _Op. cit._ This is but another name assumed by Fan Li.

[1146] See _antea_, 251 ff.

[1147] _Biog. Dict._, 540. Li’s fish-ponds are mentioned in the _Wu Yüeh Ch’un Ch’iu_, or _Annals of the States of Wu and Yüeh_.

[1148] _Op. cit._, vol. I.

[1149] De Thiersant, _op. cit._

[1150] Though they and their subjects rejoiced greatly in cock and quail fighting, nature denied to them the “fighting fish,” which in Siam are the occasion of weekly contests, heavy wagering, and a fruitful source of revenue to the government from the sale of special licenses (cf. Wright, _op. cit._, 187-8).

[1151] For these two stories, see de Thiersant, _op. cit._, VII. ff.

[1152] The earliest drawings represent Ebisu holding a red _tai_ (_Chrysophis cardinalis_) in one hand, and a fishing-rod in the other. In popular sketches he is usually shown with a laughing countenance, watching the struggles of the _tai_ at the end of his line, or else banqueting with his companion gods on the same fish. In placing a fisherman god among the Seven Deities of Happiness the Japanese display shrewdness of observation and skill in selection.

[1153] Williams, _op. cit._, I. p. 818.

[1154] In _Chuang Tzŭ_ (translated by Professor Legge, and also by Professor Giles) a good deal about fishermen, but very little technical can be read.

[1155] Second edition (London, 1909), p. 390. Then on p. 250 there is a weird story of the goblins who ate the bodies of nineteen men drowned in the river, but spared the father of Wang Shih-hsiu, because he was a skilled drop-kicker in the football matches played on a mat in the middle of Lake Tung-t’ing. The ball was a fish’s bladder!

INDEX

Abbott, F. F., 285
Abram, 398
Abstention from fish by—
Egyptians, 319-23
Greeks, 98, 201
Jews, 414
Syrians, 98, 123
_Achilles, Shield of_, 71
_Acipenser_, 257
_Acta Diurna_, 167
Adapa, 354, 369-71
_Ælfric, Colloquy of_, 55
Ælian, _Nat. Hist._, 185-93
—, 152, 164, 165, 243, 245, 246, 304
Æschylus, 103
Agassiz, A., 245
_Agathemeros Relief_, 236
Agathias, 140
Akki, 387
Albertus Magnus, 94, 245
Alcæus, 117
Alciatus, 277
Alciphron, 119, 125, 130, 138, 236, 258
Alec, 213
Alexander Aphrodisiensis, 280
Alexander the Great, 110
_Algæ_, 154
Allen, T. W., 86
Altamira, 15
_Amia_, 238
Amorini, 130
_Anatomy of Melancholy, The_, 169
Anaxandrides, 211, 248
Anaximander, 98, 217
Angling definitions, 45-7
_Anthias_, 232-4, 239
_Anthologia Palatina_, 117, 121, 123, 202
Antiphanes, 118, 247
Antonia, 228
Antony, M., 173
Aphrodisiacs, 284
Aphrodite, 126-7, 271, 275
Apicius, M. G., 209, 248, 255, 262
Apollonius of Tyana, 98, 129, 297
Apostolides, N. C., 178, 241, 266
Apuleius, 203
Arallu, 385
Archestratus, 161, 178, 249, 257, 259, 261, 263
Archimedes, 225
Archippus, 118
Arethusa, 220
Ariosto, 230
Ariphron, 278
Aristophanes, 101, 148, 151, 198, 219, 229, 247, 249
Aristotle, 106-15
— and Alexander, 110
—, dissection of human body, 114
—, knowledge of fish, 107, 110-12
—, love of rings and plate, 111
—, _Natural History_, 110
—, the first reader of fish’s age by scales, 108-9
—, 81, 104, 153, 155, 164, 178, 193, 239, 244, 250-51, 266, 339
Arrowheads, 36
Artemis, 126, 220, 272
_Asellus_, 259, 261
Asmodeus, 432
Asphodel—food for the dead, 385
Assyria—
association with Egypt, 349-54
dates, 353, 388
fish identified, 375-7
fishing from goat-skins, 356
rod absent, 349
Astarte, 127, 426
Astrology, 282
Astronomy, 388, 398, 441
Asur-banipal, 375, 383
Asur-nasirpal, 374
Atargatis, 124, 127-8, 426
Athenæus, _Deipnosophistæ_, 181-4
—, 64, 80, 128, 164, 181, 198, 203, 209, 228, 242, 245, 279
Ausonius, _Ad Mosellam_, 194-7
—, 52, 207, 211-12
Aztecs, 21

Babylonians, 351
Baessler, A., 24
Badham, C. D., 206, 213, 250, 254, 264, 282, 289, 293
Baiæ, 145, 166
Baits, 238, 315, 456
Barton, G., 400
Balfour, Henry, 34, 42
Banfield, E. J., 25, 83, 156, 417
Banquets, 206-9
Baring-Gould, S., 95. 259, 440, 443
Barker, T., 8, 41
Bass, Sea, 244
Bates, Oric, 8, 301, 305, 308, 309, 314, 315, 326
Baudissin, W. V., 426
Bede, 57
Bekten Stele, The, 354
Bellonius, P., 198
Beni Hasan, 311, 314, 315, 322
Bennett, W. H., 428
Beowulf, 392
Bérard, V., 85
Berners, Dame Juliana, _see Boke of St. Albans_.
_Bibliotheca Piscatoria_, 187, 189, 252
Blackman, A. M., 311, 332
Blakey, R., 53, 255, 280, 445
Blümner, H., 80, 121, 190, 285
Boar fish, 263
Bochart, S., 59, 438
Bosanquet, R. C., 10
Bouché Leclerq, A., 218
Boulenger, G. A., 319, 330, 375-6, 417
Boyd, Zachary, 443
Braested, J. H., 302, 321, 324, 354, 397
Brandt, P., 178
Bream, 292, 455
Breslar, 401, 404
Breuil, H., 18, 31
British Museum, _Catalogue of_—
_Bronzes_: Greek, Roman, etc., 237
_Coins_, 272
_Lamps_, 149
_Sculpture_, 236, 265
_Vases_, 181
Broca, P., 38
Brosses, C. de, 98
Browne, Moses, 119, 120, 172
Browne, Sir T., 3, 175, 415
Browne, Wm., 13, 119
Brugsch, H. K., 304
Buddha, 49, 403
Budge and King, 373
Bunsmann, 121, 130
Bunyan, J., 3
Burton, R., 169-71, 280
Bushmen, African, 19
Australian, 27
Butcher, S. H., 65
Butcher and Lang, 13, 77
Byron, 106

Cæsar, 223
Cahier, C., 275
Cairncross, D., 251
Calderwood, W. L., 42
California, 41
Caligula, 226, 228
Callimachus, 136
Campaux, A., 121
Capart, J., 324
_Caper_, 263
_Carm. Medicorum Reliquiæ_, 282
Carp, 25, 200, 273
Cartailhac, É., 17, 18, 26
Carteia, 220, 272
Carthage, Council of, 434
Cassiodorus, 180, 256, 260
Catacombs, 275
Catapatha Brāhmana, 49, 271
Cato, M. P., 200, 224, 265
Cato, P., poet, 148
Catullus, 268
Celsus, 260, 281
_Cestreus_, _see Mugil capito_.
Chabura, 380
Chantepie de la Saussaye, D. P., 243
Charlemagne, 291
Chaucer, G., 107
Cheyne, T. K., 387, 426
Chiang Tzŭ-ya, 451
China—
dates, 450
fishermen, 6, 64, 449
importance of fish in, 449, 453
Cholmeley, R. J., 133, 135
Christ, W., 53, 175
_Chromis simonis_, 417
Cicero, 180, 227, 257
_Clarias macracanthus_, 325, 417
Claudian (poet), 180
Cleopatra’s fishing, 173
Clerke, A. M., 74
Cobern, C. M., 259
Cockles, 70, 224
Coins of—
Abdera, 273
Ascalon, 128
Carteia, 220, 272
Cyzicus, 272
Hierapolis, 128, 426
Iasos, 96
Olbia, 219, 272
Syracuse, 221
Tarentum, 220
Columella, 205, 212, 222, 225, 229, 249
Comacchio, 229
Como, 143-4
Confucius, 453
_Conjecturæ Halieuticæ_, 58
Contest of Homer and Hesiod, 86-9
Cook, A. B., 95, 157, 195
Cooks, 210-11
Copaïs, 201, 215
Corks, 239
Cormorant, 460
Corneille, T., 178
Cornelius Nepos, 261
_Corp. Inscript. Lat._, 151
_Crescens-arundo_, 147-51
Crete, 6, 43, 314
Crocodile, 331, 403, 418
Curtius, E., 68, 79
Cuvier and Valenciennes, 25, 153, 197, 336
Cyclamen, 240

Dagon, 271, 363-7
Dall, W. H., 30, 38
_Daphnis and Chloe_, 139
Dapping, 156
Daremberg and Saglio, 10, 69, 149, 202
Darwin, C. R., 41, 155, 335
Davies, N. de G., 316-7
Dawkins, W. Boyd, 18
Day, F., 113
_Dead, Book of the_, 344, 385
Dead, offerings to the, 303, 385
_Délégation en Perse_, 367
Delta, The, 302, 321-2
Democritus, 282
Depreciation of money in—
Egypt, 336-8
Rome, 285

Derceto, 124, 127, 271
_Dialogus creaturarum optime moralizatus_, 55
Diaper, J., 119, 431
Diaper and Jones, 177, 235
Dion Cassius, 202, 208
Diocletian’s _Edict_, 203, 285-8
Diodorus Siculus, 312, 334
Diogenes the Cynic, 205
Dioscorides, 181, 280, 282
Diphilus, 164, 181, 258, 264, 279
_Dit Boecxken leert_, etc., 54
Dolphin, 91-6
helps fishermen, 93
loves boys, 94-5
loves music, 91
predicts weather, 92
saves lives, 92
swiftness of, 92
voice of, 164
Dölger, F. J., 274
Domitian, 166, 259, 273
Dorion, 261
Dryden, J., 119
Du Halde, J. B., 160, 291, 453, 461

Ea, 363, 369-71, 386
_Echineis_, _see Remora_.
Edmonds, J. M., 135
Eels, 25, 216, 246-54
as a dainty, 248-50
as a diet, 279
Copaïs, 215
fecundity of, 253
fishing for, 246-7
in Egypt, 247, 331
in Greece, 248-9, 262
in Homer, 85
in Rome, 248, 262
propagation of, 250-2
silver, 251-2
Eglinus, R., 58
Egypt—
angling, 314-5
dates, 300
debt of fishermen to, 304
fish cemeteries in, 326
fish not eaten by kings and priests, 323
importance of fish in, 304
pin-money from fisheries for Queens of, 334
price of fish in XXth Dynasty, 336
_Élite des Monuments Céramographiques_, 236, 349
Ellis, Robinson, 268
_Elops_, 258
Empedocles, 279
_Encyclopædia Biblica_, 406, 419, 426, 437
_Encyclopædia, Jewish_, 401, 416, 427, 444
Ennius, 161, 255, 263
Epicharmus, 161, 258, 284
Erman, A., 322, 408
Eskimos, 19, 20
_Esox lucius_, _see_ Pike.
_Ethiopian History, The_, 122
Eubulus, 249
Euphrates, 377
Euripides, 297
Eustathius, 77, 80
Euthydemus, 219
Eutropius, 176
Evans, Sir A., 6, 15, 64, 66, 72
Exodus, The, 407

Faber, G. L., 102, 268
Fan-li, 462
Festus, 217
Feist, S., 68
Firdausi, 176
Fish, as sin bearers, 383, 427
fresh water, 85, 201-2
in auguries, 218, 389
infatuation for, 201-8
in medicine, 278-84
in myths, 270-72
in nostrums, 280-82
in sacrifice, 215-8, 382-3
in Zodiac, 124, 390
marine, preference for, 85, 202-3
marked, 58-9
on coins, 128, 219, 220-1, 272-3, 426
on land, 380, 417
on tombs, 275
sacred, 129, 136, 201, 215, 247, 327-31
scaleless, 163, 414
symbols, 273-5
tail preferred, 255, 280
unwholesome, 163, 279
wholesome, 279-80
Fisheries, taxes on, 96, 334
Fishermen, hospitality of, 122
humour, 125
old age, 130
piety, 122
poverty, 120
toil, 131
Fishing contract, the first, 360-2
Fishing-frog, 12
“Fishing Prohibited”—first notice, 166
Fishing by music, 242
Fishmongers, 214
Fletcher, P., 119
Floats, 315, 358
Flood, the, 371
Fly, artificial, 56, 157
first mention of, 152-8
Macedonian, 185-93
Folkard, R., 207
Forlong, J. G., 349, 365, 415
Fosbroke, T. D., 262
de Fournival, R., 54, 187
Franck, R., 107, 251
Frank, K., 369
Frazer, J. G., 96, 98, 372, 387, 429, 433
Friedländer. L., 153
Frog, 282
Furtwängler, A., 10
Furtwängler and Reichhold, 295

_Gadidæ_, 108
Gaff, 40
Galandruccio, 252
Galen, 162, 181, 202, 260, 264, 278, 282
Gardiner, Alan H., 335, 352
_Garr_, 42
_Garum_, 212
Gaster, M., 432
Gay, J., 119
Geikie, A., 65, 201
_Geoponika_, 53
Gifford, W., 205, 268
Gilbert, 153
Giles, H. A., 450, 454, 467
Giles, L., 450
Gilgamesh, 316, 367, 386
Gill, T., 245
Giovio, Paolo, 144
_Glanis_, 111, 244
Glaucus, 140, 196
_Glaucus_, 264
Gods of fishing, 125-8
Gorges, 31-3, 80
Gout, 181
Grassi, 252
Gray, J. H., 453
Grayling, 193
Grenfell, B. P., 341-2
Grenfell and Hunt, 334, 362
Grey, Zane, 41
Griffith, F. Ll., 311
Ground Bait, 239, 315, 358
de Gubernatis, A., 207, 250, 271, 275
_Gunnar’s Slaying_, 341
Günther, 107
Gurob, 326, 327
Gut, 40, 451
Guyet, M., 173

Hailes, Lord, 434
Haime, J., 290
Hall, H. M., 117, 121, 130, 138
Halliday, W. R., 218
Hamilton, M., 274
Hammurabi, 379, 388, 389, 398
Harowitz, R. I., 427
Harpoon, _see_ Spear.
Harris, I. Rendel, 274
Hartwig, P., 131
Haskins, C. E., 84
Hayman, H., 82
Hayward, A., 161
Head, B. V., 96, 128, 220
Hearing of fish, Aristotle, 112
Day, 113
experiments, 113-4
Hedyle, 140
Hedylus, 182
Hegesippus, 123
Heiss, A., 220, 273
Helen’s Ring, 295, 297
Heliodorus, 121, 123, 139, 301
Heller, E., 135
Heracles, _Shield of_, 90
Heresbach, C., 241
Hermes, 125
Herod, 411
Herodotus, 96, 99, 127, 209, 242, 297, 328, 334, 338
Herring, 199, 276
Hesiod, 86-9, 91
Heuzey, L., 359, 367
Hicesius, 260
Hieronymus, Bp., 177
Highlanders, 57
Hill, G. F., 128, 219, 221, 367, 426
Hippocrates, 250, 278
Hippopotamus, 312
Hoffmann, W., 20
Hogarth, D. G., 68
Holma, H., 376
Homer, contest with Hesiod, 86-9
Homer, death of, 88
epitaph on, 88
fish as food in, 69-71
fishermen in, 64-8
fishes in, 85
hooks in, 76, 80, 83
hunting in, 72
ἱερός, 78-9
κέρας, 81-4
rod in, 76-80
similes, fishing, in, 74
traders in, 64-7
Honan, 450
Hook, Assyrian, 356-7
barbed or bent, 13-14, 313, 452
Chinese, 454
derivation of word, 237, 357
Egyptian, 312-3
from insect, 34
gold, 35
Greek-Roman, 237-8
Jewish, 402-4, 418
Old Stone, 31-35
thorn, 35
Horace, 127, 159, 257, 258, 260
Horse-hair, lines, 7, 236
Hortensius, 224, 227
Houghton, W., 332
Hovelacque, A., 39
Howlett, R., 12
Hsŭ, 467
Hultsch, F., 67, 285
Hyksos, the, 397

Iasos, boy and dolphin of, 93
Ichthyophagi, 97-8
Ἱερός, _see_ Homer.
_I Ching_, 454
Indian fishing, 49
_I shih ching_, 450
_I shih chi shih_, 451
Ishtar, 381, 386
Isidorus, 262

Jacobi, S. L., 292
Janus, 125
Japanese, 51
Jastrow, M., 359, 383
Jebb, R. C., 69, 195
Jews, connection with Egypt, 397-400
fish classified, 414
rod absent, 402-6
—, reasons for, 406-11
Joel, 66
Johnson, Dr., 119, 172
Johnston, H. W., 108
Johnston, T. B., 248
Jonah, 442-3
Josephus, 416
Joyce, T. A., 24, 35, 399
Judas, 444
_Jus primæ noctis_, 433-6
Juvenal, 144, 204-5, 225, 248, 258, 268, 330

Kamal, A. B., 304, 327
Κάπρος, 263
_Kar_, fish, 49
Keats, J., 119, 212
Keller, F., 30, 197
Keller, Otto, 85, 102, 213, 214, 217, 439
Kennedy, A. R. S., 397, 406
Kennett, R. H., 409
Kent’s Cave, 15
Kepler, 441
King, L. W., 352, 359, 364, 373, 385
Kite fishing, 41
Koran, the, 390, 440, 444
Krause, E., 31, 33, 36, 255
Krauss, S., 401, 420
Kugler, 388, 398
Κώνωψ, 193

Laberius, 261
Lacau, P., 325
Lacépède, G. E., 3, 159
Lactantius, 286
La Madelaine, 25, 31
Lambert, O., 187, 211
Lang, A., 133, 134, 137
Langdon, S., 351, 354, 357, 367, 376, 384, 386
_Lates niloticus_, 325
Law: Assyrian, 379
—, Chinese, 464
—, Jewish, 419-20
—, Roman, 231-4
Layard, H., 354, 356, 364, 376
Leaf, W., 65, 84, 297
Le Clerq bronze, 386
Legge, J., 453, 454, 467
Leistering, 179
Leonidas of Tarentum, 119, 133, 136-7
_Lepidotus_, 329
Lepsius, R. P., 313
_Les Ruses Innocentes_, 10
Leviathan, 403, 418
Line, Assyrian, 356
—, Chinese, 454
—, dead man’s hair, 340-2
—, Egyptian, 311
—, Greek-Roman, 237
—, in Homer, 76
—, Jewish, 418
—, Old Stone, 40
—, running, 8-9
—, tight, 9, 10, 12
Loki, 255
Lones, T. E., 107, 155
Longus, 139
Lucan, 334
Lucian, 91, 127, 138, 145, 211, 250, 426
Lucilius, 260
Lucretius, 134
Lucrinus, oysters of, 146
Lund, P., 292
_Lupus_, 25, 198, 259

Macalister, R. A., 400
Macdonell, A. A., 48
Macedonian fly, 187-92
Mackail, J. W., 71, 74, 116, 144, 194, 201
Mackerel, 213
Macrobius, 204, 257, 260
Magic, 27-30, 305, 344, 431
_Magna Charta_, 290
Mahler, E., 327
Mahomet, 440
Mainzer, V. M., 405, 420-1
Manu, 49, 271
Marco Polo, 97
Marduk, 391-3
Mariette, 323
Martial, 144
books of, 166
love of angling, 144, 146
rod in, 147-151
_Scarus_ in, 152-154
—, 162, 192, 203, 204, 210, 227, 257
Marston, R. B., 40, 55, 172, 292
Mascall, L., 200, 292
Maspero, G. C., 84, 307, 324, 333, 352, 372
Matron, 206, 256, 265
Maundy Thursday, 276
Maxwell, Sir H., 113, 251
Mayas, _see_ Mexico.
Mayer, H., 187
Mead, C. W., 24
Meek, A., 197, 252
Meissner, B., 360
_Melanurus_, 166
Menander, 101, 118, 249, 278
Ménant, J., 365
Mendoza Codex, 22
Menelaus, 77, 138, 297
Merry, W. W., 72, 81
Mexico, 21
Microscope, 108
Migne, J. P., 434
Milton, J., 171, 366, 426
Minchin, C. O., 82
_Mœotes_, 331
Monro, D. M., 71, 83
Monkfish, 277
Montet, P., 319, 322, 375
de Montfaucon, B., 277
de Morgan, J., 335
_Mormyrus_, 330
de Mortillet, G., 19, 31, 39, 42, 197
Moschus, 119
Moses, 387, 414
fish of, 438
Mosquito, 193
Moule, T., 96, 197, 443
_Mugil Capito_, 164, 239, 260, 266-8, 287, 335
Müller, W. Max, 352
Mullet, 203, 256
_Mundus Symbolicus_, 276-7
Munro, R., 30
_Muræna_, 182, 228, 248, 261
_Murex_, age by scales, 108
_Musco_, or _musca_, 153-6
Myths, fish in, 270-2

_Narke_ fish, _see_ Torpedo.
_Narwhal_, 282
Nero, 92, 259, 273
Net, Assyrian, 349, 358-9
—, Chinese, 450, 457-8
—, Egyptian, 316-7
—, Greek-Roman, 76, 235
—, Jewish, 419
—, Old Stone, 30, 42
—, spider’s, 43
Newberry, P. E., 311, 312
Nikolski, 382
Nile, the, 301, 304
Nineveh, 381
Ningirsu, 359
Nonnius, 162, 163, 254, 255, 263
Numa Pompilius, 216

Oannes, 364
Octopus, 44, 178, 273
Odysseus, 77
Olbia, 219, 272
Old Stone Men, Art, 15-6, 26-7
Implements, 34-8
stations, 15
Oliver, S., 187
Oppian, _Cynegetica_, 148, 179
—, _Halieutica_, 174-8
—, —, payment for, 175
—, 153, 154, 155, 164, 165, 239, 240, 249, 250, 267
Opsophagist, 206
Orata, S., 160, 212, 223
Osborne, H. J., 31, 38
Osiris, 329
Ovid, 119, 124, 128, 130, 215, 239, 257, 258, 260
Owen, R., 155
_Oxyrhynchus_, 198, 248, 326, 327
Oysters, 70, 223
—, English, 146
—, Lucrine, 145, 223
—, Mycenæan, 70
—, poems to, 212

Paley, F. A., 148, 153
Palæolithic, _see_ Old Stone.
Pan, 125
Papyri, 117, 121, 133, 301, 337-338, 354, 362
Parker, C. A., 243
Parker, Eric, 56
Parkyn, E. A., 16, 19, 27, 197
_Passer_, 264
_Pastinaca_, 77, 281
Pauly-Winowa, 53, 285
Pausanius, 87, 123, 242, 266, 297
Pearls, British, 223
Pearson, A. C., 77
“Pelorus Jack,” 182
Perch, 292
Persian fishing, 50-1
Peru, 24, 367
Petrie, F., 5, 35, 237, 308, 309, 314, 317, 335, 351,
352, 353, 400, 408
Petronius, 122, 148, 160, 224
_Phagrus_, 329, 331
Philæterus, 249
Philemon, 203, 263
Philoxenus, 205
Phœnicians, 65-6
Phylakopi, vase of, 63
Pianki, 321
Pichon, Dom., 54, 291
Picinelli, D. P., 276-7
Piers of Fulham, 55
Pike, 25, 196-9
_Pilot_ fish, 182
_Pinna_, 183
Pisciculture in China, 291, 461
—, in Rome, 289, 291
Pitra, J. B., 220, 273, 274, 364, 427
Plato, defines fishing, 45, 106, 180, 331, 334
Plato, comedian, 117
Plautus, 141, 148, 250, 257, 266, 284
Pliny the Elder, _Nat. Hist._, 141, 142, 153, 154, 159, 162, 180, 203,
213, 223, 227, 238, 239, 242, 255,
258, 260, 267, 282, 284, 380, 415
Pliny the Younger, 142-3
Plutarch, cleared from Burton’s charge, 169-72
—, 7, 82, 85, 86, 89, 98, 129, 163, 172, 182, 196,
201, 206, 216, 217, 237, 319, 322, 330, 332
Poaching, first case of, 379
Poisons in fishing, 239
_Poissons d’Avril_, 275
Pollux, J., 43, 118, 317, 335
Polycrates, ring of, 344
Porson, B., 406
Porta, G., 241
Poseidon, 125, 201, 272
Posidonius, 209, 215
Poulsen, F., 69
_Prætextatus_, 262
Pratt, E. A., 43
Prawn, 199
Priapus, 125
Prices, correlation of, in—
Egypt, 335-8
Rome, 285-8
Printing, 6, 451
Propertius, 148
Proteus, 85, 138
Pythagoras, 163, 284

Rabelais, 107, 262, 279
Rameses II., 354, 407
Rau, C., 20, 38
Rawlinson, G., 356
Reel, 8, 238, 311
_Regimen Sanitatis Salerni_, 264
Reinach, S., 10, 20, 27, 31, 79, 345
Reisner, G. A., 308
_Remora_, 180, 256, 281
Rémy and Gehin, 289, 293
Rhazes, 280
Rhode, P., 101, 215, 221
Rhodian Law, 179
_Rhombus_, 258, 439
Rich, A., 149
Ridgeway, W., 35, 67, 336
Rings on Rod, first, 12
Roach, 77
Robinson, Phil., 199, 228, 265, 271, 276, 440
Rod, China, 454
—, Egypt, 315
—, fowling, 149
—, Homeric, 76-8
—, Macedonian, 188
—, Martial’s, 147-51
—, tapered, 236
Rodenwaldt, G., 73
Romanticists, Greek, 121
Ronalds, A., 114
Rondolet, G., 94, 242
Rose, flower of Venus, 207, 277
Roth, H. Ling, 19
Rouse, J., 170

_St. Albans, the Boke of_, 8, 56, 80, 187, 189
St. Bertin, MS. of, 52
St. Brandan, 444
St. Wilfrid, 57
Sakkar, 444
Sakuntala’s Ring, 49
Salmon, 25, 139, 194, 255, 277, 290, 358
_Salmonidæ_, 196
Salpe, 282,
_Salsamentum_, 219
Sanchouniathon, 33, 367
Sannazaro, J., 119, 120
Sappho, 116
_Sargus_, 241, 276
Sauces, 212-4
Sayce, A. H., 301, 381, 383
Scaliger, 175, 245
_Scarus_, 159-66
acclimatisation, 160
as a dainty, 161
as a diet, 162
characteristics of, 164-5
rumination of, 155
Scheftelowitz, I., 273
Schliemann, H., 70
Schmidt, Hans, 442
Schmidt, J., 253
Schneider, J. G., 71, 142, 198
Schneider, K., 68
Schrader, O., 69, 389
_Scolopendra_, 239, 282
Sea-hare, 162, 281
Seals, 27, 85
Seneca, 204, 210, 225, 256
Seymour, T. D., 65, 70, 79, 115
Shakespeare, W., 122, 224
Shark, 7, 244
Sheringham, H. T., 33, 40
Shewan, A., 206
Shorr, B., 361
Sidetes, M., 283
Sidonius, 194
Silius Italicus, 147
_Silurus_, 243, 245, 246
Siret, L., 222
Skeat, W. W., 55, 248
Slate palettes, 305
Smith, A. H., 10, 265
Smith, W. Robertson, 320
Snow, H., 134
Socrates, 181
Sole, 264-6, 287
Sollas, W. J., 19
Solomon, 409, 444
Sophron, 117
Spanish _stations_, 15, 16, 36
Spawning, theories of, 182, 250-2, 338-9
Spears, Chinese, 449, 459
—, Egyptian, 307-11
—, Greek-Roman, 76
—, Jewish, 418
—, Old Stone, 30, 36-9
Spearing fish, 76, 310-11
Spenser, E., 119
Spiegelberg, G., 335
Steindorf, G., 311, 315, 318
Stengel, P., 216
Stephanus, 264
Stesichorus, 297
Strabo, 128, 325, 326, 426
_Strombus_, 281
_Sturio_, 257
Suetonius, 167, 203, 207, 218, 223, 226
Suidas, 161, 262
Sulpicius Severus, 199
Sumeria, 350
Sung Yü, 451
Superstitions of fishing, 28-9, 59-60
Sybaris, 250
Symbols, fish in, 270, 275
_Syngnathus acus_, 417

_Tabu_, 99, 384
Tacitus, 143, 208, 222
Tackle, pedigree of, 38-43
_Talmud_, 366, 377, 415, 420, 439, 444
_Tariche_, 219, 335
Tasmanians, 18, 19, 21
Tasso, 230
Tennyson, A., 134
Terence, 266
Theocritus, _Idyll XXI._, 133-6
—, influence of, 119-20
—, 118, 129, 154, 215, 431
Theodoric, 200, 295
Theophrastus, 334
de Thiersant, B., 43, 449, 453, 461
Thompson, D’Arcy W., 107, 108
Thompson, R. Campbell, 383, 428, 431
Thompson, W., 119
Thomson, J., 135
Thomson, J. S., 108
Thor, 243, 255
_Thrissa_, 242
_Thymalus_, 193
Tiāmat, 391-3
Tiberius, 273
Tibullus, 151, 226
Tickling, 39, 241
Tiglath-Pileser I., 354, 364, 373
Tillyard, E. M. Y., 10
Tisdall, W. Sr. C., 51, 406
Tobias, 431-2
“Tobias Days,” 433-5
_Torpedo_ fish, 180-1, 282
_Trichias_, 242
Trimmering, 41
_Tripatinium_, 262
Tristram, H. B., 416
Tuna, size of, 104, 244
Tunny, 99-105, 221
Turrell, W. J., 8, 9, 187
Tylor, E. B., 18, 42, 83, 412
Tylor, J. J., 318
Tyrrhenus, 122

Ungnad, A., 360

Van Dyke, H., 47, 418
Van Leeuwenhoek, A., 108
Varro, 202, 217, 224, 257, 261, 284
Venables, R., 35
Venice, 345
Venus, _see_ Aphrodite.
_Vettersfelde_, 64
Veuillot, L., 434
Virgil, 120, 129, 148
Vishnu, 271
Vitellius, 207, 255
_Vivaria_, 224-9, 315, 378, 422
_Volcanalia_, 217
Voltaire, 173
Von Helmont, 251

Waldstein and Shoobridge, 237
Walters, H. B., 12, 149, 237
Walton, Izaak, 3, 8, 9, 106, 169, 172, 242, 251, 415, 441
Walton and Franck, 107, 251
Ward, W. H., 363, 375, 386
Watkins, M. G., 412
Werner, E. T. C., 449, 454, 455, 457, 458
Whibley, L., 226
Whitney, J., 172
Wilcken, U., 334
Wilkinson, J. G., 302, 309, 315, 326
Williams, S. W., 449, 464
Wine, fishing with, 239
Wissowa, G., 217
Wollaston, A., 51
Women, prescription for ... telling the truth, 282
Wright, S., 239, 449, 460

Xenocrates, 162, 255, 256, 258, 264, 280
Xenophon, 88, 206

Zimmern, W., 391

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND.

* * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Old or antiquated spellings have been preserved.

Illustrations have been moved so they do not break up paragraphs.

Typographical errors have been silently corrected but other variations in spelling and punctuation remain unaltered.

One unpaired double quotation mark could not be corrected with confidence.