136 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



and anoint your bait therewith, and it will doubtless draw 

 the fish to it." 



The other is this : " Vulnera hederss grandissimse 

 inflicta sudant balsamum oleo gelato, albicantique persimile, 

 odoris vero longi suavissimi." 



It is supremely sweet to any fish, and yet assafcetida 

 may do the like. 



But in these things I have no great faith, yet grant it 

 probable, and have had from some chemical men, namely, 

 from Sir George Hastings and others, an affirmation of 

 them to be very advantageous : but no more of these, 

 especially not in this place. 



I might here, before I take my leave of the salmon, tell 

 you, that there is more than one sort of them ; as, namely, 

 a tecon, and another called in some places a samlet, or by 

 some a skegger : but these and others, which I forbear 

 to name, may be fish of another kind, and differ as we know 

 a herring and a pilchard do, which, I think, are as different 

 as the rivers in which they breed, and must by me be left 

 to the disquisitions of men of more leisure, and of greater 

 abilities, than I profess myself to have.* 



And lastly, I am to borrow so much of your promised 

 patience as to tell you, that the trout or salmon, being 

 in season, have, at their first taking out of the water, 



* There is a fish, in many rivers, of the salmon kind, which, 

 though very small, is thought by some curious persons to be of the 

 same species ; and this, I take it, is the fish known by the different 

 names of salmon-pink, shedders, skeggers, and last-springs. But 

 there is another small fish very much resembling these in shape and 

 colour, called the gravel-last-spring, found only in the River Wye 

 and Severn ; which is, undoubtedly, a distinct species. These 

 spawn about the beginning of September : and in the Wye I have 

 taken them with an ant-fly as fast as I could throw. Perhaps this 

 is what Walton calls the tecon. H. 



[NOTE. All the fish named, except the gravel-last-spring, are 

 salmon-fry of different ages, from three or four mouths to twelve. 

 The gravel-last-spring is, in all probability, the little trout, called 

 a " parr." It is found in many rivers besides the Wye and Severn. 

 Walton's " tecon " may be the parr. Samlet, skegger, etc., are 

 local names for young salmon, before their first migration to sea. 

 E.J 



