be the best roach-anglers; and I think the best troutanglers be in Derbyshire, for the waters there are clear to an extremity.

site the church-yard; and in that cemetery lies an angler, upon whose grave-stone is an inscription, now nearly effaced, consisting of these homely lines:

In memory of Mr. Thomas Tombs, goldsmith, of London, who departed this life Aug. 12th, 1758, aged 53 years.

Each brother Bob! that, sportive, passes here,
Pause at this stone; and drop the silent tear,
For him who loved your harmless sport;
Who to this Pitch* did oft resort;
Who in free converse oft would please,
With native humour, mirth and ease;
His actions form'd upon so just a plan,—

He lived a worthy, -died an honest, man.

Before I dismiss the subject of Thames fishing, I will let the reader know, that formerly the fishermen inhabiting the villages on the banks of the Thames, were used to enclose certain parts of the river with what they called "stops," but which were in effect wears or kidels, by stakes driven into the bed thereof; and to these they tied weels, creating thereby a current which drove the fish into those traps. This practice, though it may sound oddly to say so, is against Magna Charta, and is expressly prohibited by the 23rd chapter of that statute. In the year 1757, the Lord Mayor, Dickenson, sent the Water-Bailiff up the Thames in a barge wellmanned and furnished with proper implements, who destroyed all those inclosures on this side of Staines, by pulling up the stakes, and setting them adrift.-H. [The nefarious practices of which Sir John Hawkins.complaints have, of late years, been prevented by the establishment of the Thames Angling Society,' which, under the sanction of the Lord Mayor, ex officio Conservator, preserves the river from Isleworth to Staines. From Staines to the Maidenhead Weir it is preserved by the Thames Boat Club. These societies are maintained by the subscription of one guinea annually. -ED.]

There are no roach-anglers equal to the Londoners for taking this fish, who may be seen in punts near Richmond-bridge and other parts of the Thames. The season for roach fishing in that river begins about the middle of August, and continues throughout the winter, but it is best in October, when immense numbers are taken. So eager are some persons for the sport, that no weather, however cold, seems to deter them from following it. I have heard of a gentleman who would get up as soon as it was light, and fish all day till it was dark, when the wet was freezing on his line!-ED.

*A particular spot, called a Pitch, from the act of pitching or fastening a boat there.

Next, let me tell you, you shall fish for this

:

Roach.

in winter with paste or gentles, in April with worms or cadis in the very hot months with little white snails, or with flies under water, for he seldom takes them at the top, though the dace will. In many of the hot months, roaches may also be caught thus: take a May-fly or ant-fly, sink him with a little lead to the bottom near to the piles or posts of a bridge, or near to any posts of a weir,—I mean any deep place where roaches lie quietly,-and then pull your fly up very leisurely, and usually a roach will follow your bait to the very top of the water and gaze on it there, and run at it and take it lest the fly should fly away from him.

I have seen this done at Windsor and Henley-bridge, and great store of roach taken; and sometimes a dace or chub. And in August you may fish for them with a paste made only of the crumbs of bread, which should be of pure fine manchet; and that paste must be so tempered betwixt your hands till it be both soft and tough too: a very little water, and time and labour, and clean hands, will make it a most excellent paste. But when you fish with it, you must

1 The finest white rolls.-Nares.

have a small hook, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, or the bait is lost and the fish too-if one may lose that which he never had. With this paste you may, as I said, take both the roach and the DACE or DARE,'

for they be much of a kind, in matter of feeding, cunning, goodness, and usually in size. And therefore take this general direction for some other baits which may concern you to take notice of. They will bite almost at any fly, but

1 When you angle for dace in the deeps, with a float, it must be a very small one, that will require but one shot to poise it. Your hook and line must be fine. Bait either with house-flies, cadis, small red worms, or grasshoppers with their legs off, and fish not deeper than two or three feet at most conceal yourself as much as possible if you expect any sport, for the dace is most like the trout of any fish in his shyness and fear. Strike nimbly as soon as he bites. On a shallow gravelly scour use the running line, with paste, worms, or gentles. If you angle in a river where two mill streams are going at the same time, let it be in the eddy between them. If the water prove deep, put within a foot of the bottom; but if shallow, which is best (not exceeding three feet), then bait with three large gentles; use a cork float, and place it a foot and a half at most from the hook have a quick eye, and strike at the very first bite. If any large dace are in the mill-pond, you will be sure to meet with them here.

At top water use a flesh fly (none equal to this), or the small house fly. Have a cane rod, seventeen feet in length, your line somewhat longer, to which fasten three or four hooks, with single hair links, not above four inches long. In a summer evening go to the smoothest part at the end of a mill-stream, where they will rise freely, especially in that part where the sun does not shine. This sport will continue as long as you have light to see your flies; and you may take two or three at a time. The ant-fly is advised here in a morning, or on a scour, before the sun comes on the

water.

When the stream is high, and rises almost to the bank of the river, put on an artificial fly, called a caterpillar-fly, with the yellowest gentle you can get, drawn on your hook up to the tail of your fly; whip with it (as for bleak) on the surface; and if you are expert, you may satisfy yourself you will have good sport.-Browne.

especially at ant-flies; concerning which take this direction, for it is very good.

Take the blackish ant-fly out of the mole-hill or ant-hill, in which place you shall find them in the month of June; or if that be too early in the year, then doubtless you may find them in July, August, and most of September. Gather them alive, with both their wings, and then put them into a glass that will hold a quart or a pottle: but first put into the glass a handful, or more, of the moist earth out of which you gather them, and as much of the roots of the grass of the said hillock; and then put in the flies gently, that they lose not their wings: lay a clod of earth over it, and then so many as are put into the glass without bruising, will live there a month or more, and be always in a readiness for you to fish with: but if you would have them keep longer, then get any great earthen pot, or barrel of three or four gallons, which is better; then wash your barrel with water and honey, and having put into it a quantity of earth and grassroots, then put in your flies, and cover it, and they will live a quarter of a year. These, in any stream and clear water, are a deadly bait for roach or dace, or for a chub; and your rule is, to fish not less than a handful from the bottom.

I shall next tell you a winter-bait for a roach, a dace, or chub; and it is choicely good. About All-hallontide, and so till frost comes, when you see men ploughing up heathground, or sandy ground, or green swards, then follow the plough, and you shall find a white worm as big as two maggots, and it hath a red head; you may observe in what ground most are, for there the crows will be very watchful and follow the plough very close; it is all soft, and full of whitish guts: a worm that is in Norfolk, and some other counties, called a grub, and is bred of the spawn or eggs of a beetle, which she leaves in holes that she digs in the ground under cow or horse-dung, and there rests all winter, and in March or April comes first to be a red, and then a black beetle: gather a thousand or two of these, and put them with a peck or two of their own earth into some tub or firkin, and cover and keep them so warm that the frost, or cold air or winds, kill them not: these you may keep all winter, and kill fish with them at any time; and if you put some of them into a little earth and honey a day before you

use them, you will find them an excellent bait for bream, carp, or indeed for almost any fish.

And after this manner you may also keep gentles all winter, which are a good bait then, and much the better for being lively and tough. Or you may breed and keep gentles thus: take a piece of beast's liver, and with a cross stick hang it in some corner over a pot or barrel, half full of dry clay; and as the gentles grow big, they will fall into the barrel, and scour themselves, and be always ready for use whensoever you incline to fish; and these gentles may be thus created till after Michaelmas. But if you desire to keep gentles to fish with all the year, then get a dead cat or a kite, and let it be fly-blown; and when the gentles begin to be alive and to stir, then bury it and them in soft, moist earth, but as free from frost as you can, and these you may dig up at any time when you intend to use them: these will last till March, and about that time turn to be flies.

But if you be nice to foul your fingers, which good anglers seldom are, then take this bait: get a handful of well-made malt, and put it into a dish of water, and then wash and rub it betwixt your hands till you make it clean, and as free from husks as you can; then put that water from it, and put a small quantity of fresh water to it, and set it in something that is fit for that purpose over the fire, where it is not to boil apace, but leisurely and very softly, until it become somewhat soft, which you may try by feeling it betwixt your finger and thumb; and when it is soft, then put your water from it: then take a sharp knife, and turning the sprout-end of the corn upward, with the point of your knife take the back part of the husk off from it, and yet leaving a kind of inward husk on the corn, or else it is marred; and then cut off that sprouted end, I mean a little of it, that the white may appear, and so pull off the husk on the cloven side, as I directed you; and then cutting off a very little of the other end, that so your hook may enter; and, if your hook be small and good, you will find this to be a very choice bait, either for winter or summer, you sometimes casting a little of it into the place where your float swims.

And to take the roach and dace, a good bait is the young