-*

and, in them, several fish that appeared and came when they were called by their particular names. And St James tells us,† that all things in the sea have been tamed by mankind. And Pliny tells us, that Antonia, the wife of Drusus, had a Lamprey at whose gills she hung jewels or ear-rings; and that others have been so tender-hearted as to shed tears at the death of fishes which they have kept and loved. And these observations, which will to most hearers seem wonderful, seem to have a further confirmation from Martial,§ who writes thus :—

Piscator, fuge; ne nocens, &c.

Angler! wouldst thou be guiltless? then forbear;
For these are sacred fishes that swim here,

Who know their sovereign, and will lick his hand,

Than which none's greater in the world's command;

Nay more, they've names, and, when they called are,
Do to their several owner's call repair.

All the further use that I shall make of this shall be, to advise anglers to be patient, and forbear swearing, lest 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 yield 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

*Mons. Bernier, in his History of Indostan, reports the like of the Great Mogul.-H. † Chap. iii. 7. Lib. ix. 35. The verses cited are as follow:

Lib. iv. Epigr. 30.

"Piscator, fuge; ne nocens recedas,
Sacris piscibus hæ natantur undæ ;

Qui norunt dominum, manumque lambunt
Illam, quâ nihil est, in orbe, majus :

Quid, quod nomen habent; et ad magistri
Vocem quisque sui venit citatus."

This saying occurs in Sicelides a Piscatory [by Phineas Fletcher], as it hath been acted in King's College in Cambridge. Lond. 1631, 4to.

"Nay if you sweare, we shall catch no fish."

on him : and I have then, with much pleasure, concluded with Solomon, "Everything is beautiful in his season." " +

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.1

CHAP. VI. The

PISCATOR. THE Umber and Grayling are thought Umber or Gray- by some to differ as the Herring and Pilchard do. ling. 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 there 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.

VARIATIONS.

9 I have with Solomon concluded, &c.-1st edit.

:

1 It is now time to tell you next, according to promise, some observations of the Salmon but first I will tell you there is a fish called by some an Umber, and by some a Grayling, a choice fish, esteemed by many to be equally good with the Trout: it is a fish that is usually about eighteen inches long, he lives in such streams as the Trout does: and is indeed taken with the same bait as a Trout is, for he will bite both at the minnow, the worm, and the fly both natural and artificial: of this fish there be many in Trent, and in the river that runs by Salisbury, and in some lesser brooks: but he is not so general a fish as the Trout is; of which two fishes I will now take my leave, and come to my promised Observations on the Salmon, and a little advice for the catching him.—

1st edit.

The Trout delights in rivers, and brooks, and gravelly bottoms, and swift streams, His haunts are eddies, behind stones, logs, or banks that project forward into the river, and against which the stream drives; shallows between two streams; or, towards the latter end of the summer, mill-tails and old weirs. 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. In addition to what Walton has said on the subject of Trout-fishing, the following directions and observations may be inserted. When you fish for Trout or Salmon, a winch screwed on the butt of the rod will be very useful: upon the rod whip a number of small rings of about an eighth of an inch in diameter, at first about three feet distant from each other, but diminishing gradually in their distances towards the top. When you have struck a fish that may endanger your tackle, let the line run, wind him up as he tires, and take him out with a landing net. In angling for Trout, whether with a fly or at the ground, you need make but three or four trials in a place; and, if unsuccessful, you may conclude there are none there; the same rule applies to Perch in a running stream.