TO
MY FISHING HOSTS AND FISHING FRIENDS
IN AFRICA, AUSTRALASIA, AMERICA,
THE WEST INDIES, AND EUROPE.
UPON THEM, UPON ME MAY THE GODS BESTOW
THE BOON CRAVED BY MR. ANDREW LANG!
“Within the streams, Pausanias saith, That down Cocytus valley flow, Girdling the grey domain of Death, The spectral fishes come and go; The ghosts of trout fly to and fro, Persephone, fulfil my wish, And grant that in the shades below My ghost may land the ghosts of fish!”
PREFACE
Despite Francis Bacon’s dictum that “prefaces are great wastes of time, and, though they seem to proceed of modesty, they are bravery,” I hazard a few words as to this book, which, like Topsy, “growed, I ’spects,” from a chance request for a quotation from Homer on Fishing with a Rod for my sister’s game-book.
It is, as far as I can discover, the first attempt to examine classical and other ancient writers on Fishing from the standpoint of one who has not only been a practical Pisciculturist for many years and an Angler all his life, but has also been taught (though somewhat forgotten) his Greek and Latin.
If my work, in the main, is necessarily based on the compilations of others, it yet by serendipity (to adopt Horace Walpole’s mintage) has unearthed some rare authors, who, judging from lack of mention, were unknown to previous writers on the subject. It contains also—if I may venture a “bravery”—several points which are apparently original.