[100] Mr. Harold Parlett, our Consul at Dairen and an authority on Japan, writes, “I know of no books in Japanese dealing with the history of fishing, and I think it improbable that any exist, unless in MS. It is a subject, which as far as I know, has not yet been studied. I should advise you to dismiss ancient Japanese methods in as few words as possible.” I follow his advice.
[101] On consulting a great Sinologist, he rapped out, “The only thing I know or want to know of Japan is that every art, every craft, it possesses came from China.”
[102] W. J. Turrell, Ancient Angling Authors (London, 1910), p. xi. Ancient, in this most researchful work, might, I venture to suggest, be qualified by British, for six pages (in the Preface) suffice for all fishing before the tenth century.
[103] Angling Literature (London, 1856), p. 33.
[104] There is in existence a Byzantine MS. entitled Ψαρολόγος (lit. “Fishbook,” i.e. anecdotes of fish), which K. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur, 3rd ed. (München, 1897), p. 884, states should be published.
[105] The result of the work done during the last twenty years by German writers, such as W. Christ, Geschichte des griechischen Litteratur, ed. 3 (München, 1898), p. 664 f.; E. Oder, in Pauly-Winowa Real Enc. (Stuttgart, 1910), VII., 1221-1225; and F. Lübker, Reallexikon des klassischen Altertums (Leipzig, 1914), p. 409, seems to show that our Geoponika is a reduction, c. 950 a.d., by an unknown hand of an older compilation made in the sixth century by Cassianus Bassus. Behind him in turn are older works of the fourth century, viz. the συναγωγὴ γεωργικῶν of Vindanius Anatolius in twelve books, and the γεωργικά of the younger Didymos of Alexandreia in fifteen books. Ultimately we get back to Cassius Dionysius of Utica, who translated the Carthaginian Mazo’s work on agriculture (88 b.c.).
[106] See infra, p. 291.
[107] The date of 1492 is suggested by Mr. Alfred Denison, who translated and issued privately twenty-five copies of Dit Boecxken leert hoe men mach voghelen vanghen metten handen. Ende oeck andersins. From the press of Mathys Van der Goes. The marriage of Madame Van der Goes to Godfridus Bach, whose printer’s mark also appears in the book, seems to point to 1492. See, however, M. F. A. G. Campbell, Annales de la Typographie Neerlandaise au xve siècle (La Haye, 1874), p. 80, and Bibl. Pisc., pp. 35, 36.
[108] The Angler’s Note-Book, 1st series (1880), p. 76.
[109] Cf. Turrell, op. cit., 4. In “and with angle hookys” in Piers, Mr. Marston, op. cit., 2, sees “probably the earliest known reference to angling in English.”