If at the due season fish fail to appear, the Nootka wizard constructs of wood[41] a fish swimming, and launches it in the direction whence the schools generally arrive. This simulacrum, plus incantations, compels the laggards in no time.[42] In Cambodia, if a netsman be unsuccessful, he strips naked and withdraws a short distance: then strolling up to the net, as if he saw it not, he lets himself be caught in the meshes, whereupon he calls out, “What is this? I fear I am caught.” Such procedure is believed to attract the fish efficaciously and to ensure a good haul.[43] Scotland not a century ago witnessed pantomimes of similar character, according to the Rev. J. Macdonald, minister of Reay. Fishermen, when dogged by ill luck, threw one of their number overboard and then hauled him out of the water, exactly as if he were a fish. This Jonah-like ruse apparently induced appetite, for “soon after trout, or sillock, would begin to nibble.” The comparative ethnologist detects in all these cases an attempt to establish direct relations between the hunter or the fisher and his quarry. Primitive man in search for food frequently seeks to establish an impalpable but in his eyes very serviceable connection between himself and the object of his quest by working a likeness of his desired prey. Such a likeness, according to the doctrine that a _simulacrum_ is actively _en rapport_ with that which it represents, bestows on its possessor power over the original—“l’auteur ou le possesseur d’une image peut influencer ce qu’elle représente.”[44] The cases are simply the commonplaces of homœpathic or imitative magic.[45] We find that just as the savage attempts to appease the ghosts of men he has slain, so he essays to propitiate the spirits of the animals and fish he has killed: for this purpose elaborate ceremonies of propitiation are widely observed.[46] Of similar character and intent are the taboos observed by fishermen before the season opens, and the purifications performed on returning with their booty. Magic, exercised not so much to propitiate as to avoid offending some power—in the following instance the element of water—originated the rule (existent among the Eskimos fifty years ago) that forbade during the salmon season any water being boiled in a house, because “this is bad for the fishing.” Frazer suggests that the Commandment in Exodus xxxiv. 26, “Not to seethe a kid in its mother’s milk,” embodies a like illustration.[47] From carvings, whether executed for purposes of amusement or of magic, and from specimens found in the _débris_ of the stations, we derive our knowledge of the earliest implements and methods employed in Perigord and elsewhere for taking fish.