196 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



six or eight very small hooks tied along the line, one half 

 a foot above the other : I have seen five caught thus at 

 one time, and the bait has been gentles, than which none 

 is better. 



Or this fish may be caught with a fine small artificial 

 fly, which is to be of a very sad brown colour, and very 

 small, and the hook answerable. There is no better sport 

 than whipping for bleaks in a boat, or on a bank, in the 

 swift water, in a summer's evening, with a hazel top about 

 five or six foot long, and a line twice the length of the rod. 

 I have heard Sir Henry Wotton say, that there be many 

 that in Italy will catch swallows so, or especially martins ; * 

 this bird-angler standing on the top of a steeple to do it, 

 and with a line twice as long as I have spoken of. And let 

 me tell you, scholar, that both martins and bleaks be most 

 excellent meat. 



a line with many hooks at small distances from each other, though it 

 little resembles a string of beads, is thence called a pater-noster 

 line. H. 



[Every tenth bead on a rosary is larger than the others, so that 

 when the devotee comes to it with his fingers, touching this large 

 bead at the end of each tenth pater-noster, or Lord's prayer, he 

 knows without the trouble of counting or looking, that he has 

 repeated the prayers ten times. A rosary consists of several links 

 of ten beads in each, between two larger beads. Rosaries are 

 especially used by Roman Catholics when saying penitential prayers, 

 enjoined by the confessor before he can grant absolution. For 

 instance, so many pater-nosters and Ave Marias, or Hail Maries, 

 for some particular sin confessed, Pater-noster lines are now 

 generally used for perch-fishing. They seldom have more than 

 three hooks, projecting, by means of being whipped on a pig's bristle, 

 from the foot-line at least one foot apart. The hook nearest the 

 bottom should be baited with a worm, the next with a live gudgeon 

 or minnow, and that nearest the surface of the water with a gentle. 

 Pike are frequently fished for with a very strong pater-noster, 

 mounted with large hooks, each of which is to be baited with a live 

 gudgeon, dace, roach, or small trout. This line is sunk by means of 

 a bullet. E.] 



* Sir J. Hawkins says, this practice was common in England in 

 his time. It is not so now. However, it frequently happens that 

 when a fly-fisher is walking along the banks, or through the fields, 

 with his rod held perpendicularly, and his artificial flies streaming 

 behind in the air, that they are taken by swallows, swifts, martins, 

 and several of the fly-catching tribe of birds. If artificial flies 

 deceive fish, why should they not deceive birds ? E. 



