As the result of this review of the various substances which were made use of for food by the men of the polished-stone epoch, we may infer that they were both hunters and fishermen. Animals of rapid pace were hunted down by means of the dart or arrow, and any more formidable prey was struck down at close quarters by some sharp stone weapon. Fishing was practised, as at the present day, by means of the line and net. We have already seen that men, during the reindeer epoch, probably used hooks fastened at the end of lines. These hooks, as we have before remarked, were made with splinters of bone or reindeer horn. During the polished-stone epoch this fishing instrument was much improved, and they now possessed the real hook with a recurvate and pointed end. This kind of hook was found by Dr. Uhlmann in one of the most ancient lacustrine stations of Switzerland. But a curved hook was both difficult to make and also not very durable; instead of it was used another and more simple sort--the straight skewer fixed to serve as a hook. This is a simple fragment of bone, about an inch long, very slender and pointed at the two ends (fig. 77). Sometimes it is a little flattened in the middle, or bored with a hole, into which the line was fastened. [Illustration: Fig. 77.--Bone Skewers used as Fish-hooks.] This little splinter of bone, when hidden by the bait and fastened to a line, was swallowed by the fish and could not be disgorged, one of the pointed ends being certain to bury itself in the entrails of the creature. Some of our readers will perhaps be surprised to learn that men of the polished-stone epoch were in the habit of fishing with nets; but it is a fact that cannot be called into question, for the very conclusive reason, that the remains of these nets have been found. How could it possibly come to pass that fishing-nets of the polished-stone epoch should have been preserved to so late a period as our times? This is exactly the question we are about to answer.