Rich explains this method of fowling as follows. The sportsman first hung the cage with his call bird on the bough of a tree, under which, or at some convenient distance from it, he contrived to conceal himself. When a bird, attracted by the singing of its companion, perched on the branches, he quietly inserted his rod amongst the boughs until it reached his prey, which stuck to the lime and was thus drawn to the ground. When the tree was very high, the rod was made in separate _joints_, like our fishing rod, so that he could lengthen it out until it reached the object of his pursuit, whence it is termed _crescens_ or _texta_. If the example given by Rich (from a terra-cotta lamp) be faithfully rendered, the joints in the rod are easily discernible.[344] [Illustration: THE FOWLER. From _Brit. Mus. Cat. of Lamps_, Pl. 24, Fig. 686.] But all question as to the existence of a jointed fowling rod is now settled past peradventure by Pl. 24, Fig. 686, in the _Brit. Mus. Cat. of Gr. and Rom. Lamps_, 1914. This shows an animal dressed in a hooded cloak, holding in his right hand a length of fowling rod, and in his left two spare lengths, trying to reach a tree on which sits a bird. Mr. Walters, the editor of the catalogue, kindly informs me that Fig. 686 can no longer be regarded as that of _The Fox and the Grapes_. Similar lamps shown in S. Loeschcke’s recent _Lampen aus Vindonissa_, _e.g._ Pl. 12, No. 473, confirm the evidence of the Brit. Mus. lamp in every detail. Not a few editors, on the other hand, retain _vadis_ in Martial’s epigram, instead of _levis_, as evidently did Hay, the Scotch poet, in translating the couplet, “Could I a trout, now, with my angle get, Or cover a young partridge with my net.” Much can be said for the view that line three applies to _fishing_. So much, indeed, that were it not for one, apparently fatal, omission, we might confidently proclaim _the first definite mention of a jointed rod_. To this omission, conclusive to my mind of the meaning of _harundo_, I have so far found no allusion. Let us suppose that the first line of the couplet does refer to _fishing_. The poet would like to give some birds or fish, or both, to his friend Carus, but bewails his inability to send anything better than some chickens. He does explain fully why he cannot send birds, but he omits entirely any reason, or even any hint, as to what prevents him sending fish. We are not allowed to imagine that the weather was too bad, for the whistling ploughman imitating the magpie in his call, the starlings, the linnets, all negative that. The whole epigram seems to refer to fowling. The application, even if _vadis_ for _levis_ be adopted, would not necessarily be altered. Are there not wild duck and snipe to be caught in the shallows (_vadis_) as well as fish, and probably by other means than birdlime, though with the use of a rod?