“And the cunning fowlers for you set Snare and springs, twig, trap, gin, cage, and net.”
Plautus. Asin., I. 3, 67 f.:
“Ædis nobis area est, auceps sum ego, Esca est meretrix, lectus illex est, amatores aves.”
[343] Cf. Petronius, Sat., 40, 6, and Bion, Id., 4, 5.
[344] A. Rich, Dict. of Rom. and Gk. Antiquities, London, 1874, s.v. ‘Arundo.’ I have been unable to trace this lamp in either Birch or Passeri. Daremberg and Saglio, op. cit., seem to collect most of the information on the subject, s.v. ‘Venatio,’ V. p. 694. The above and other methods of aucupium, “bird-catching,” prevail to a devastating extent in Italy at the present day.
[345] The best reeds for fowling purposes (harundo aucupatoria) came from Panormus, those for fishing (harundo piscatoria) from Abaris in Lower Egypt. Pliny, XVI. 66. For a legal decision as to the selling, etc., of reeds, see Digesta Justiniani, VII. 1, 9, 5.
[346] Possibly in the time of Aristophanes,
πᾶς τις ἐφ’ ὑμῖν ὀρνιθευτὴς ἵστησι βρόχους, παγίδας, ῥάβδους, κ.τ.λ. Aves, 526 f.
In the seventh century b.c. the Chinese mention the Ch’ih Kan or the “glutinous line for catching birds.” Cf. Apuleius, Met., XI. 8.
[347] The epitaph in Corpus Inscript. Lat., ii. 2335, is of interest: