70 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



Pise. Marry, and I am glad of it : I am like to have 

 a towardly scholar of you. I now see, that with advice 

 and practice, you will make an angler in a short time. 

 Have but a love to it ; and I'll warrant you. 



VEN. But, master, what if I could not have found 

 a grasshopper ? 



Pise. Then I may tell you, that a black snail, with 

 his belly slit to show his white, or a piece of soft cheese,* 

 will usually do as well. Nay, sometimes a worm, or 

 any kind of fly, as the ant-fly, the flesh-fly, or wall-fly ; 

 or the dor or beetle, which you may find under cow- 

 dung, or a bob, which you will find in the same place, 

 and in time will be a beetle ; it is a short white worm, 

 like to and bigger than a gentle, or a cod-worm, or a 

 case-worm, any of these will do very well to fish in such 

 a manner. And after this manner you may catch a 

 trout in a hot evening : when as you walk by a brook, 

 and shall see or hear him leap at flies, then if you get 

 a grasshopper, put it on your hook, with your line about 

 two yards long, standing behind a bush or tree where 

 his hole is, and make your bait stir up and down on the 

 top of the water, you may, if you stand close, be sure of 

 a bite, but not sure to catch him, for he is not a leather- 

 mouthed fish : and after this manner you may fish for 

 him with almost any kind of live fly, but especially with 

 a grasshopper. 



VEN. But before you go further, I pray, good master, 

 what mean you by a leather-mouthed fish ? 



Pise. By a leather-mouthed fish I mean such as 

 have their teeth in their throat, as the chub or cheven, 

 and so the barbel, the gudgeon, and carp, and divers 

 others have ; and the hook being stuck into the leather 

 or skin, or the mouth of such fish, does very seldom 



y^C- ^" "5^*\ 



* In filing with cheese, snails, or worms, you must not angle 

 at the top, dr surface of the water, but at the bottom, with leaded 

 line and middle-sized float. E. 



l_iDi%rtr\ T pji 





