with which, if you mean to be a fisher, you must store yourself; and to that purpose I will go with you, either to Mr Margrave, who dwells amongst the booksellers in St Paul's Churchyard, or to Mr John Stubs, near to the Swan in Golding Lane: they be both honest men, and will fit an angler with what tackling he lacks.

VENATOR. Then, good master, let it be at ‚† for he is nearest to my dwelling. And I pray let's meet there the ninth of May next, about two of the clock; and I'll want nothing that a fisher should be furnished with.

PISCATOR.

Well, and I'll not fail you, God willing, at the time and place appointed.

VENATOR. I thank you, good master, and I will not fail you. And, good master, tell me what BAITS more you remember; for it will not now be long ere we shall be at Tottenham High Cross; and when we come thither I will make you some requital of your pains, by repeating as choice a copy of Verses as any we have heard since we met together; and that is a proud word, for we have heard very good ones.

PISCATOR. Well, scholar, and I shall be then right glad to hear them. And I will, as we walk, tell you whatsoever comes in my mind, that I think may be worth your hearing. You may make another choice bait thus: take a handful or two of the best and biggest wheat you can get; boil it in a little milk, like as frumity is boiled; boil it so till it be soft; and then fry it, very leisurely, with honey, and a little beaten saffron dissolved in milk; and you will find this a choice bait, and good, I think, for any fish, especially for Roach, Dace, Chub, or Grayling

I know

*In the first edition Piscator says, "I will go with you either to Charles Brandons' near to the Swan in Golding Lane, or to Mr Fletcher's, in the court which did once belong to Dr Nowel, the Dean of Paul's, that I told you was a good man, and a good Fisher: it is hard by the West end of St Paul's Church: they be both honest men, and will fit an angler with what tackling he wants." Viator replies, "Then, good master, let it be at Charles Brandons', for he is nearest to my dwelling, and I pray let's meet there," &c. In the second edition the same names occur, but after the words St Paul's Church is this passage. "But if you will buy choice hooks, I will one day walk with you to Charles Kerbye's in Harp Alley in Shoe Lane, who is the most exact and best hook-maker that the nation affords. They be all three honest men," &c. The third and fourth editions agree with the second; but the text has been taken from the fifth, published in 1676, at which time Brandons, Fletcher, and Kerbye were probably dead. At the end of Cotton's Second Part is the following address, which affords some information about Mr Margrave:

"COURTEOUS READER,-You may be pleased to take notice that at the sign of the Three Trouts in St Paul's Churchyard, on the north side, you may be fitted with all sorts of the best Fishing-tackle, by

The Charles Kerbye above alluded to, obtained from tempering his hooks, which long continued in the family. whose hooks for their shape and temper exceeded all Crowthers-well Alley near Aldersgate Street.

† See above note.

JOHN MARGRAVE.” Prince Rupert a method of A lineal descendant of his, others, was in 1760 living in

not but that it may be as good for a river Carp, and especially if the ground be a little baited with it.

And you may also note, that the SPAWN* of most fish is a very tempting bait, being a little hardened on a warm tile and cut into fit pieces. Nay, mulberries, and those blackberries which grow upon briers, be good baits for Chubs or Carps: with these many have been taken in ponds, and in some rivers where such trees have grown near the water, and the fruit customarily dropt into it. And there be a hundred other baits, more than can be well named, which, by constant baiting the water, will become a tempting bait for any fish in it.

You are also to know, that there be divers kinds of CADIS, or Case-worms, that are to be found in this nation, in several distinct counties, and in several little brooks that relate to bigger rivers; as, namely, one cadis called a piper† whose husk, or case,

* Barker recommends the spawn of Salmon or Trout to his patron in the following

terms:

"NOBLE LORD,-I have found an experience of late, which you may angle with, and take great store of this kind of fish. First, it is the best bait for a Trout that I have seen in all my time; and will take great store, and not fail, if they be there. Secondly, it is a special bait for Dace or Dare, good for Chub or Bottlin, or Grayling. The bait is, the ROE OF A SALMON OR TROUT. If it be a large Trout that the spawns be anything great, you may angle for the Trout with this bait as you angle with the brandling; taking a pair of scissors, and cut so much as a large hazel-nut, and bait your hook; so fall to your sport, there is no doubt of pleasure. If I had known it but twenty years ago, I would have gained a hundred pounds only with that bait. I am bound in duty to divulge it to your honour, and not to carry it to my grave with me. I do desire that men of quality should have it, that delight in that pleasure. The greedy angler will murmur at me, but for that I care not. For the angling of the Scale-fish: They must angle either with cork or quill, plumming their ground; and with feeding with the same bait, taking them [the spawns] asunder, that they may spread abroad, that the fish may feed, and come to your place; there is no doubt of pleasure, angling with fine tackle; as single-hair lines, at least five or six length long; a small hook, with two or three spawns. The bait will hold one week: if you keep it on any longer, you must hang it up to dry a little; when you go to your pleasure again, put the bait in a little water, it will come in kind again." Others, to preserve Salmon spawn, sprinkle it with salt, and lay it upon wool in a pot, one layer of wool, and another of spawn. It is said to be a killing bait for the winter or spring; especially where Salmon are used to spawn; for thither the fish gather, and there expect it.-Cheetham's Angler's Vade Mecum, 53, ed. 1700.

The inhabitants of the villages on the banks of the Thames adopt the following method of dressing large Roach and Dace, which, as 'tis said, renders them very pleasant and savoury food; without scaling the fish, lay him on a gridiron, over a slow fire, and strew on him a little flour; when he begins to grow brown, make a slit, not more than skin-deep, in his back, from head to tail, and lay him on again: when he is broiled enough, the skin, scales and all, will peel off, and leave the flesh, which will have become ⚫ very firm, perfectly clean; then open the belly, and take out the inside, and use anchovy and butter for sauce.

Having promised the reader Mr Barker's recipe for anointing boots and shoes (and having no further occasion to make use of his authority), it is here given in his own words :

"Take a pint of linseed oil, with half a pound of mutton suet, six or eight ounces of bees-wax, and half a pennyworth of rosin boil all this in a pipkin together; so let it cool till it be milk-warm; then take a little hair-brush, and lay it on your new boots; but it is best that this stuff be laid on before the bootmaker makes the boots; then brush them once over after they come from him: as for old boots, you must lay it on when your boots be dry."-H.

The Piper-cadis is supposed to be the largest of the tribe: it is found in rivers run

is a piece of reed about an inch long, or longer, and as big about as the compass of a twopence. These worms being kept three or four days in a woollen bag, with sand at the bottom of it, and the bag wet once a day,will in three or four days turn to be yellow; and these be a choice bait for the Chub or Chavender, or indeed for any great fish, for it is a large bait.

There is also a lesser cadis-worm, called a Cock-spur,* being in fashion like the spur of a cock, sharp at one end; and the case, or house, in which this dwells, is made of small husks, and gravel, and slime, most curiously made of these, even so as to be wondered at, but not to be made by man, no more than a kingfisher's nest can 5 which is made of little fishes' bones,† and have such a geometrical interweaving and connection as the like is not to be done by the art of man. This kind of cadis is a choice bait for any float-fish; it is much less than the piper-cadis, and to be so ordered and these may be so preserved, ten, fifteen, or twenty days, or it may be longer.

There is also another cadis, called by some a Straw-worm, and by some a Ruff-coat, whose house, or case, is made of little pieces of bents, and rushes, and straws, and water-weeds, and I know not what; which are so knit together with condensed slime, that they stick about her husk or case, not unlike the bristles of a hedgehog. These three cadises are commonly taken in the beginning of summer; and are good, indeed, to take any kind of fish, with float or otherwise. I might tell you of many more, which as they do early, so those have their time also of turning to be flies in later summer; but I might lose myself, and tire you, by such a discourse I shall therefore but remember you, that to know these, and their several kinds, and to what flies every particular cadis turns, and then how to use them, first, as they be cadis, and after as they be flies, is an art, and an art that every one that professes

:

VARIATION.]

5 no more than the nest of a bird is.-rst and ad edit.

ning upon beds of limestone or large pebbles, and is common in the Northern and Western streams. It advances to an Aurelia towards May, and is then usually termed by Sportsmen the Stone-fly; but in Wales it is called the Water-cricket.-B.

Bowlker expressly says, in his “Art of Angling," p. 70, that the Cock-spur produces the May-fly or Yellow Cadew."-B.

† Dr Shaw tells us that the Kingfishers deposit their eggs in cavities formed in the banks of rivers: the hole or nest, he adds, if it may be properly so named, being often deeply lined at the bottom by a stratum of small fish bones and scales.-Gener. Zool vol. viii. part i. p. 53. Pennant thinks these the fragments only of the food of the owner and its young.-Brit. Zool. vol. i. p. 249.-E.

The Straw-worm or Rough Coat is found in most streams. It produces various flies, as the withy fly, ash-coloured duns, and light and dark browns of different shapes and dimensions.-B.

to be an angler has not leisure to search after, and, if he had, is not capable of learning."

I'll tell you, scholar; several countries have several kinds of cadises, that indeed differ as much as dogs do; that is to say, as much as a very cur and a greyhound do. These be usually bred in the very little rills, or ditches, that run into bigger rivers; and I think a more proper bait for those very rivers than any other. I know not how, or of what, this cadis receives life, or what coloured fly it turns to; but doubtless they are the death of many Trouts and this is one killing way :

:

Take one, or more if need be, of these large yellow cadis: pull off his head, and with it pull out his black gut; put the body, as little bruised as is possible, on a very little hook, armed on with a red hair, which will show like the cadis-head; and a very little thin lead, so put upon the shank of the hook that it may sink presently. Throw this bait, thus ordered, which will look very yellow, into any great still hole where a Trout is, and he will presently venture his life for it, it is not to be doubted, if you be not espied; and that the bait first touch the water before the line. And this will do best in the deepest, stillest water.

Next, let me tell you, I have been much pleased to walk quietly by a brook, with a little stick in my hand, with which I might easily take these, and consider the curiosity of their composure: and if you should ever like to do so, then note, that your stick must be a little hazel, or willow, cleft, or have a nick at one end of it, by which means you may, with ease, take many of them in that nick out of the water, before you have any occasion to use them. These, my honest scholar, are some observations, told to you as they now come suddenly into my memory, of which you may make some use: but for the practical part, it is that that makes an angler: it is diligence, and observation, and practice, and an ambition to be the best in the art, that must do it. I will tell you, scholar, I once heard one say, "I envy not him that eats better meat than I do; nor him that is richer, or that wears better clothes than I do I envy nobody but him, and him only, that catches more fish than I do." And such a man is like to prove

VARIATIONS.

7

6 that every one that professes angling is not capable of.-1st and 2d edit. 7 In the first edition this chapter concludes, "It is diligence and observation, and practice that must do it ;" and the next begins, "Well, scholar, I have held you too long about these Cadis, and my spirits are almost spent, and so I doubt is your patience; but being we are now within sight of Tottenham, where I first met you, and where we are to part, I will give you a little direction how to colour the hair of which you make your lines," &c.

an angler; and this noble emulation I wish to you, and all young

anglers.

Of

СНАР. XVIII.

or Penk; Loach; Ball-Head, or Miller's Thumb; and the Sticklebag.

PISCATOR. There be also three or four other little fish that I had almost forgot;* that are all without scales; and may for excellency of meat, be compared to any fish of the Minnow, greatest value and largest size. They be usually full of eggs or spawn, all the months of summer; for they breed often, as 'tis observed mice and many of the smaller four-footed creatures of the earth do; and as those, so these come quickly to their full growth and perfection. And it is needful that they breed both often and numerously; for they be, besides other accidents of ruin, both a prey and baits for other fish. And first I shall tell you of the Minnow or Penk.

The MINNOW hath, when he is in perfect season, and not sick, which is only presently after spawning, a kind of dappled or waved colour, like to a panther, on its sides, inclining to a greenish or sky colour; his belly being milk white; and nis back almost black or blackish. He is a sharp biter at a small worm, and in hot weather makes excellent sport for young anglers, or boys, or women that love that recreation. And in the spring they make of them excellent Minnow-tansies; for being washed well in salt, and their heads and tails cut off, and their guts taken out, and not washed after, they prove excellent for that use; that is, being fried with yolk of eggs, the flowers of cowslips and of primroses, and a little tansy; thus used they make a dainty dish of

meat.

The LOACH is, as I told you, a most dainty fish he breeds and feeds in little and clear swift brooks or rills, and lives there upon the gravel, and in the sharpest streams: he grows not to be above a finger long, and no thicker than is suitable to that length, The Loach is not unlike the shape of the Eel: he has a beard or wattles like a barbel. He has two fins at his sides, four at his belly, and one at his tail; he is dappled with many black or brown spots; his mouth is barbel-like under his nose. This fish is usually full of eggs or spawn; and is by Gesner, and other

Since Walton wrote, there has been brought into England from Germany, a species of small fish, resembling Carp in shape and colour, called Crucians, with which many ponds are now plentifully stocked: and from China, those beautiful creatures Gold and Silver Fish: which are usually kept in ponds, basins, and small reservoirs of water; to which they are a delightful ornament. It is now a common practice to keep them in a large glass vessel like a punch-bowl, with fine gravel strewed at the bottom; frequently changing the water, and feeding them with bread and gentles. Those who can take more pleasure in angling for, than in beholding them, which I confess I could never do, may catch them with gentles: but though costly, they are but coarse food.-H.