All the farther use that I shall make of this shall be, to advise anglers to be patient, and forbear swearing, least they be heard, and catch no fish.

And so I shall proceed next to tell you, it is certain that certain fields near Leominster, a town in Herefordshire, are observed to make the sheep that graze upon them more fat than the next, and also to bear finer wool: that is to say, that that year in which they feed in such a particular pasture, they shall vield finer wool than they did that year before they came to feed in it; and coarser again if they shall return to their former pasture; and again return to a finer wool, being fed in the fine wool ground: which I tell you, that you may the better believe that I am certain, if I catch a Trout in one meadow, he shall be white and faint, and very like to be lousy; and as certainly, if I catch a Trout in the next meadow, he shall be strong and red, and lusty, and much better meat. Trust me,

scholar, I have caught many a Trout in a particular meadow, that the very shape and the enamelled colour of him hath been such as hath joyed me to look on him and I have then, with much pleasure, concluded with Solomon, "Every thing is beautiful in his season.' 99 *

I should, by promise, speak next of the Salmon; but I will, by your favour, say a little of the Umber, or Grayling, which is so like a Trout for his shape and feeding, that I desire I may exercise your patience with a short discourse of him; and then the next shall be of the Salmon.

The Trout delights in small purling rivers, and brooks with gravelly bottoms and a swift stream. His haunts are an eddy, behind a stone, or log, or a bank that projects forward into the river, and against which the stream drives; a shallow between two streams; or, towards the latter end of the summer, a mill tail. His hold is usually in the deep, under the hollow of a bank, or the root of a tree.

The Trout spawns about the beginning of November, and does not recover till the beginning of March.

When you fish for large Trout or Salmon, a winch will be very useful; upon the rod with which you use the winch, whip a number of small rings, of about an eighth of an inch diameter, and at first about two feet distant from each other, but afterward diminishing gradually in their distances till you come to the end: the winch must be screwed on to the butt of your rod; and round the barrel let there be wound eight or ten yards of wove hair or silk line. When you have struck a fish that may endanger your tackle, let the line run, and wind him up as he tires.

When you angle for a Trout, whether with a fly or at the ground, you need but make three or four trials in a place; which, if unsuccessful, you inay conclude there are none there.

Walton, in speaking of the several rivers where Trout are found, has made no mention of the Kennet which, undoubtedly, produces as good and as many Trouts as any river in England. In the reign of King Charles the Second, a Tront was taken in that river, near Newbury, with a casting. net, which measured forty-five inches in length.

I may add to this note by Hawkins, that it will be important not to earry a Trout, when struck, up the stream; for, in that case, the force of the stream and the strength of the fish united, will probably snap the line.-J. R.

CHAPTER VI.

ORSERVATIONS OF THE UMBER, OR GRAYLING

HOW TO FISH FOR HIM.

AND DIRECTIONS

Piscator. THE Umber and Grayling are thought by some to differ, as the Herring and Pilchard do; but though they may do so in other nations, I think those in England differ nothing but in their names. Aldrovandus says, they be of a Trout kind; and Gesner says, that in his country, which is Switzerland, he is accounted the choicest of all fish. And in Italy, he is in the month of May so highly valued, that he is sold then at a much higher rate than any other fish. The French, which

call the Chub un villain, call the Umber of the Lake Leman un umble chevalier; and they value the Umber, or Grayling, so highly that they say he feeds on gold; and say, that many have been caught out of their famous river of Loire, out of whose bellies grains of gold have been often taken. And some think

that he feeds on water thyme,* and smells of it at his first taking out of the water; and they may think so with as good reason as we do that our Smelts smell like violets at their being first caught, which I think is a truth. Aldrovandus says, the Salmon, the Grayling, and Trout, and all fish that live in clear and sharp streams, are made by their mother Nature of such exact shape and pleasant colours purposely to invite us to a joy and contentedness in feasting with her. Whether this is a truth or not it is not my purpose to dispute; but 'tis certain, all

There is no plant of this name known to botanists, and I think it must be wholly, imaginary.-J. R.

that write of the Umber declare him to be very medicinable. And Gesner says, that the fat of an Umber, or Grayling, being set, with a little honey, a day or two in the sun, in a little glass, is very excellent against redness, or swarthiness, or any thing that breeds in the eyes. Salvian* takes him to be called Umber from his swift swimming, or gliding out of sight more like a shadow, or a ghost, than a fish. Much more might be said both of his smell and taste: but I shall only tell you, that St Ambrose, the glorious bishop of Milan, who lived when the church kept fasting days, calls him the Flower-fish, or flower of fishes; and that he was so far in love with him that he would not let him pass without the honour of a long discourse; but must, and pass on to tell you how to take this dainty fish.

First note, that he grows not to the bigness of a Trout; for the biggest of them do not usually exceed eighteen inches. He lives in such rivers as the Trout does, and is usually taken with the same baits as the Trout is, and after the same manner; for he will bite both at the Minnow, or worm, or fly, (though he bites not often at the Minnow,) and is very gamesome at the fly; and much simpler, and therefore bolder than a Trout; for he will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise again. He has been taken with a fly made of the red feathers of a Parakita, a strange outlandish bird; and he will rise at a fly not unlike a gnat, or a small moth, or, indeed, at most flies that are not too big. He is a fish that lurks close all winter, but is very pleasant and jolly after mid April, and in May, and in the hot months. He is of a very fine shape, his flesh is white, his teeth, those little ones that he has, are in his throat, yet he has so tender a mouth, that he is oftener lost after an angler has hooked him than any other fish. Though there be many of these fishes in the delicate river Dove, and in Trent, and some other smaller rivers, as that which runs by Salisbury, yet he is not so general a fish as the Trout, nor to me so good to eat or to angle for. And so I shall take my leave of him; and now come to some observations on the Salmon, and how to catch him.

Hippolito Salviani, an Italian physician of the sixteenth century: he wrote a treatise De Piscibus, cum eorum figuris, and died at Rome, 572, aged 59.

+"Grayling," says Sir Humphry Davy, "if you take your station by tne side of a river, will rise nearer to you than Trout, for they lie deeper, and therefore are not so much scared by an object on the bank; but they are more delicate in the choice of the flies than Trout."-J. R.

The haunts of the Grayling are so nearly the same with those of the Trout, that, in fishing for either, you may, in many rivers, catch both. They spawn about the beginning of April, when they lie mostly in sharp streams.

Baits for the Grayling are chiefly the same as those for the Trout, except Minnow, which he will not take so freely He will also take gentles

CHAPTER VII.

OBSERVATIONS OF THE SALMON; WITH DIRECTIONS HOW TO FISH FOR HIM.

Piscator. THE Salmon is accounted the king of fresh water fish; and is ever bred in rivers relating to the sea, yet so high, or far from it, as admits of no tincture of salt or brackishness. He is said to breed, or cast his spawn, in most rivers, in the month of August some say, that then they dig a hole, or grave, in a safe place in the gravel, and there place their eggs,

very eagerly. When you fish for him with a fly, you can hardly use one too small.

The Grayling is much more apt to rise than descend; therefore, when you angle for him alone, and not for the Trout, rather use a float, with the bait from six to nine inches from the bottom, than the running line.

The Grayling is found in great plenty in many rivers in the north, particularly the Humber. And in the Wye, which runs through Here fordshire and Monmouthshire into the Severn, I have taken, with an artificial fly, very large ones; as also great numbers of a small, but excellent fish, of the Trout kind, called a Lastspring; of which somewhat will be said in a subsequent note. They are not easily to be got at without a boat, or wading; for which reason, those of that country use a thing they call a thorricle, or truckle; in some places it is called a coble, from the Latin corbula, a little basket; it is a basket, shaped like the half of a walnut shell, but shallower in proportion, and covered on the outside with a horse's hide; it has a bench in the middle, and will just hold one person, and is so light, that the countrymen will hang it on their heads like a hood, and so travel with a small paddle, which serves for a stick, till they come to a river, and then they launch it and step in. There is great difficulty in getting into one of these truckles, for the instant you touch it with your foot it flies from you; and, when you are in, the least inclination of the body oversets it. It is very diverting to see how upright a man is forced to sit in these vessels, and to mark with what state and solemnity he draws up the stone which serves for an anchor, when he would remove, and lets it down again: however, it is a sort of navigation that I would wish our piscatory disciple never to attempt.

Their usual time of spawning is about the latter end of August, or the beginning of September: but it is said that the in the Severn spawn 'n May

or spawn, after the melter has done his natural office, and then hide it most cunningly, and cover it over with gravel and stones; and then leave it to their Creator's protection, who, by a gentle heat which he infuses into that cold element, makes it brood and beget life in the spawn, and to become Samlets early in the spring next following.

The Salmons having spent their appointed time, and done this natural duty in the fresh waters, they then haste to the sea before winter, both the melter and spawner; but if they be stopped by flood-gates, or weirs, or lost in the fresh waters, then those so left behind by degrees grow sick, and lean, and unseasonable, and kipper; that is to say, have bony gristles grow out of their lower chaps, not unlike a Hawk's beak, which hinder their feeding; and, in time, such fish so left behind pine away and die. It is observed, that he may live thus one year from the sea; but he then grows insipid and tasteless, and loses both his blood and strength, and pines and dies the second year. And it is noted, that those little Salmons called Skeggers, which abound in many rivers relating to the sea, are bred by such sick Salmons that might not go to the sea, and that though they abound, yet they never thrive to any considerable bigness.†

But if the old Salmon gets to the sea, then that gristle which shews him to be kipper, wears away, or is cast off, as the Eagle is said to cast his bill, and he recovers his strength, and comes next summer to the same river, if it be possible, to enjoy the former pleasures that there possessed him; for, as one has wittily observed, he has, like some persons of honour and riches which have both their winter and summer houses, the fresh rivers for summer, and the salt water for winter, to spend his life in; which is not, as Sir Francis Bacon hath observed in his History of Life and Death, above ten years. And it is to be observed, that though the Salmon does grow big in the sea, yet he grows not fat but in fresh rivers; and it is observed, that the farther they get from the sea, they be both the fatter and better.

Next, I shall tell you, that though they make very hard shift to get out of the fresh rivers into the sea, yet they will make a harder shift to get out of the salt into the fresh rivers, to spawn, or possess the pleasures that they have formerly found in them: to which end, they will force themselves through flood-gates or

* Walton's phrase, "some say," expresses a doubt; but I can affirm, from repeated observation, that his account is correct. J. R.

+A great deal of this is obviously fanciful and erroneous.-J. R.

The migration of the Salmon, and divers other sorts of fishes, is analo gons to that of birds; and Mr Ray confirms Walton's assertion, by saying, that "Salmon will yearly ascend up a river four or five hundred miles, only to cast their spawn, and secure it in banks of sand till the young be hatched and excluded, and then return to sea again.' "Wisdom of God manifestes in the Works of the Creation, p. 130.