Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

156 FIRST MENTION OF A FLY" be deceived " by the small amount possible of attachment toa little hook, of seaweed or moss or their larvce ? This isinfinitesimal when compared with the greater masses, givingimmeasurably ampler supply of larvcB, growing in the sea.Were it not for the incitement or excitement caused bythe fly's movements or novelty, hardly a salmon, I venture tothink, would rise to a fly ; but to our scarus, since alg(B andmoss {if the latter exist in the sea of sufficient length) arefamiliar growths and constantly set in motion by the action ofthe water, both these incitements are surely lacking.Even if neither of these arguments carries weight, theobjection brought forward by Gilbert appears to me to put thereading musco out of court : " Suppose Martial knew whatAthenaeus and others state as regards this peculiar habit ofthe scarus, surely this was not the place, where the Scarus isintroduced only as a representative of all fish, to air his knowledge—leastof all in words such as ' quis nescit.' "In conclusion, if musca be the right reading, we can, Ithink, definitely assertA. That this passage contains the very earliest mention ofa fly being used for the taking of fish :B. That from Martial's employment of it as an illustration,and from his not drawing attention to the novelty or oddnessof such use, and especially from the words " quis nescit,"which imply a general knowledge, fly fishing had been longinvented, and was a method common among anglers :C. That this solitary passage is inconclusive as to whetherthe fly was simply a natural one attached to a hook, andused perhaps as now in dapping, ^or an artificial one.fishes, the scarus and his tribe alone are endowed. On p. 162, " The stomachof a skaros is without a Ccecum, and appears to be of far simpler form than thatof most fishes."A trout often appears to ruminate, working its jaws quietly for a considerabletime — perhaps this is merely to settle its last mouthful comfortablyand to its liking. According to Banfield, in Dunk and other islands offNorthern Australia, a fish, very similar to only even more brilliant in huesthan the Pseudoscarus rivulatus, is able by the strength of its teeth (somesixty or seventy, set incisorlike) to pull from the rocks hmpets (its chief food),which when steadfast can resist a pulling force of nearly 2000 times their ownweight ! It swallows molluscs and cockles whole, and by its wonderful gizzardgrinds them fine. See Confessions of a Beachcomber (London, 1913), p. I5f>.* " Dapping," to which I miss allusion even in Dr. Turrell's excellent