My reasons are three. First, my book contains numberless references to or quotations from it. Second, none of its thirty-seven Books presents any controversial questions of angling interest—such as “Where is to be found the first mention of the Rod, or Fly?”—questions which demand for Martial and Ælian a full discussion. Third, my notice of Aristotle, on the principle that the greater includes the less, renders any lengthy comment on Pliny almost superfluous. The _Natural History_ of the latter, at any rate as far as fish and fishing are concerned, for the most part repeats the _Natural History_ of the former, except in such instances as the caudal losses caused by the enmity between the _Lupus_ and the _Mugil_, and between the _Conger_ and the _Muræna_, where it exactly reverses Aristotle’s statement.[327] These and other instances, in addition to his words (IX. 88), “Nigidius auctor est,” and (X. 19) “Nigidius tradit,” led J. G. Schneider[328] to conclude that it is open to grave doubt, whether Pliny ever read Aristotle at all in the original Greek. The probabilities, indeed, point to his having used for his _Natural History_ the translation into Latin of Aristotle, which Nigidius Figulus, a friend of Cicero’s and (according to Gellius) next to Varro the most learned of the Romans, published with additions apparently of his own.[329] In Pliny the Younger, and Martial (perhaps Ovid in a lesser degree) one finds what among our classical writers seems the nearest approach to our English sportsman, delighting in his own place, however small, in the country, and in country pursuits. These writers, in spite of living half the year or more in Rome, fall within our conception of country sportsmen. Most of the others seem more intent on bringing the scent of the hay before the footlights than on making us realise any real joy of fishing. They resemble more the week-enders of a fishing syndicate than the country gentleman living on his place or river. Pliny the Younger possesses, in addition to his appreciation of the various joys of country life, a passionate yet exquisite feeling for beauty of scenery, especially for that round Lake Como, to which his letters recur again and again. I cannot, however, conceive him much of a hunter, despite the abundant game which the Apennine or Laurentine coverts harboured, or much of a _piscator_, despite his notices of fishing on his favourite lake. A letter (_Epist._, I. 6) to Tacitus, who had apparently been chaffing him as a sportsman, frankly admits that although he has killed three boars his chief pleasure in the chase consists of sitting quietly beside the nets, to which the game was driven, wrapt in contemplation or jotting down on his tablets the ideas which the solitude and silence demanded by the sport were wont to produce.