Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

AS PRONG, HOOK, OR BAIT? 83gap, thus making a crescent of horn, to the one end ofwhichthey attached their Une, which is exactly what the blackfellows (in AustraUa) do to-day with a pearl shell." 1But against this conjecture weighs the fact that as the grainof the horn runs from butt to point, if the hook be cut fromcross-section it would probably break, as the cross-section wouldbe across the grain, and so very frayable. If, however, thehook were cut from a panel removed from the side of the hornand just where the curve comes before the point, the substanceof the hook might possibly stand.Anticipating and dissenting from Mr. Minchin's explanationare Monro's note on II. , XXIV. 80 ff., and Professor Tylor'scomment in the note. " The main difficulty in the ancient1'-'Stage 2'-° StageMR.minchin's explanation OF Kipas.explanation of the passage is the prominence given to theKtpaq, which is spoken of as if it were the chief feature of thefisherman's apparatus. The question naturally suggests whetherthe Ktpag might not be the hook itself, made, Hke so manyutensils of primitive times, from the horn of an animal."On this point Mr. E. B. Tylor writes to Monro as follows :" Fish-hooks of horn are in fact known in pre-historic Europe,but are scarce, and very clumsy. After looking into thematter, I am disposed to think that the SchoHast knew whathe was about, and that the old Greeks really used a horn guard,where the modern pike fisher only has his line bound, to preventthe fish biting through. Such a horn guard, if used* In The Confessions of a Beachcomber, pp. 266-8 (London, 191 3), the illustrationsof pearl-shell fish-hooks in varioiis stages of completion tend to confirmthis statement, while the author, Mr. Banfield, inclines to Mr. Minchin'stheory as regards the horn of an ox.