If my work, in the main, is necessarily based on the compilations of others, it yet by serendipity (to adopt Horace Walpole’s mintage) has unearthed some rare authors, who, judging from lack of mention, were unknown to previous writers on the subject. It contains also—if I may venture a “bravery”—several points which are apparently original. Instances of these are:— (1) The definite establishment of Aristotle as our first, if through lack of microscope primitive, scale-reader; (2) The acquittal without a stain on his character of Plutarch from the charge, under which he has lain for centuries, of libelling and contemning Fishing; (3) The discussion by whom, Martial or Ælian, was the use of (_a_) the natural, or (_b_) the artificial fly first suggested or implied; (4) The examination whether the _crescens harundo_ of Martial was a jointed Rod, somewhat like our own; (5) The conclusion that the Rod was apparently never employed by the Ancient Assyrians or the Israelites, despite their long connection with Egypt, where as early as _c._ 2000 B.C. it is depicted in actual use; (6) The point which, if not original, is rarely made or insufficiently pressed, that the Line of both the ancients and moderns down till the seventeenth century was a _tight_, as opposed to a _running_ Line. May I, as a last “bravery,” state that apart from articles in Magazines and Encyclopædias, I do not know, with the exception of Bates’s _Ancient Egyptian Fishing_, of any work in English on _Fishing_, not Fish, in ancient Egypt, Assyria, Palestine, or China, nor, with the exception of Mainzer’s magazine article on Jewish Fishing, have I come across one in French or German? If any object that I have cast my net too wide and enclosed a few things that are neither Fish nor Fishing, I must insist that as these waters are not, as yet, adequately charted, it is well-nigh impossible to avoid some infringement of the three miles’ territorial limit. To drop metaphor, in the present state of archæological research, it is notorious that no one subject can be fully investigated without trenching here and there on allied topics. This indeed is not merely necessary, but desirable, unless important side-lights are simply to be ignored. Moreover, every good Waltonian prefers the discursive to the cursive style, and would rather take part in a leisurely exploration of his preserves than skim the surface in a manner hasty and in-_Compleat_. Whatever the demerits of my volume, written at intervals between war-work and illness, I do trust that of the three counts of the indictment brought against Nicander’s _Theriaca_, “longa, incondita, et nullius farrago fidei,” the verdict of my readers will, at any rate as regards the last, be “Not Guilty,” for on this head I have stoutly striven to avoid conviction.