Here then, in XIV. 22, we get, if the conjecture _musco_ should be held to deprive Martial of his priority, the first mention of angling with a _natural_ fly. The difficulty, obvious at once to the practical angler, of how the ancients (or even the moderns with all the elaborate perfections of Redditch) could manufacture a hook little enough to impale a mosquito did not escape Aldrovandi.[438] But the κώνωψ, said to spring from the σκώληκες, _i.e._, _larvæ_ found in the sediment of vinegar, was apparently even smaller than his brother mosquito, the ἐμπίς.[439] As only with great care, and even then only on very fine wire, can the smallest modern hook, No. 000, be coaxed to impale a big gnat, the problem before the Ancients of impaling with a hook one, and this not even the largest, of the mosquito tribe seems insoluble. But perhaps Ælian’s κώνωψ (as probably also his ἵππουρος) was far larger than its descendant of the present day, or perhaps our author has substituted by mistake the mosquito for some larger but similar gnat. FOOTNOTES: [426] After Kipling. [427] Περὶ Ζώων ἰδιότητος. [428] See Smith’s _Dict. Gk. and Rom. Biog. and Myth._, _s.v._ ‘Ælian.’ [429] Perizonius has proved that Ælian transferred large portions of the _Deipnosophistæ_ of Athenæus to his _Varia Historia_, a robbery which must have been committed almost in the lifetime of the pillaged author: that Ælian extended such transference to his _Natural History_ also, his story of the _Pinna_, and others would seemingly demonstrate. Sir J. E. Sandys, _A History of Classical Scholarship_, ed. 2 (Cambridge, 1906), i. 336, goes so far as to say: “He is the author of seventeen books _On Animals_, mainly borrowed from Alexander of Myndos (first century A.D.).” [430] Dr. W. J. Turrell, _op. cit._, XI., states that a Latin poem written by Richard de Fournival, about the thirteenth century, alludes incidentally to fishing, and from this it appears that the _fly_ and the worm were among the lures then used by anglers, but does not state expressly whether Fournival’s fly was natural or artificial. [431] Cf. H. Mayer, _Sport with Rod and Line_, Barnet and Phillips, New York. [432] Jacobs adopts κηρῷ, instead of Gesner’s χρυσῷ, chiefly because it is written thus quite clearly in the Codex Augustanus. It also seems to fit the context better. [433] _Die römischen Privataltertümer_ (Munich, 1911), pp. 529-30. [434] Καὶ πτεροῖς, μάλιστα μὲν λευκοῖς καὶ μέλασιν καὶ ποικίλοις. Χρῶνταί γε μὴν oἱ ἁλιεῖς καὶ φοινικοῖς ἐρίοις καὶ ἁλουργέσι, κ.τ.λ. [435] καὶ πτερὸν λάρου ἑκάστῳ ἀγκίστρῳ προσήρτηται. [436] If Sandys (_antea_, 185, note 4) be right about Ælian’s work being “mainly borrowed from Alexander of Myndos,” first century A.D., the artificial fly was probably well known in Martial’s time. [437] πονηρῷ μὲν ζῴῳ καὶ μεθ’ ἡμέραν καὶ νύκτωρ ἀνθρώποις ἐχθρῷ καὶ δακεῖν καὶ βοῆσαι. [438] For size of hooks, see _antea_, p. 157 and note 1.