THE COMPLETE ANGLER 221 



similitude and shape. It has a head big and flat, much 

 greater than suitable to his body ; a mouth very wide, 

 and usually gaping ; he is without teeth, but his lips are 

 very rough, much like to a file. He hath two fins near to 

 his gills, which be roundish or crested ; two fins also under 

 the belly ; two on the back ; one below the vent ; and 

 the fin of his tail is round. Nature hath painted the body 

 of this fish with whitish, blackish, and brownish spots.* 

 They be usually full of eggs or spawn all the summer, I 

 mean the females ; and those eggs swell their vents almost 

 into the form of a dug. They begin to spawn about 

 April, and, as I told you, spawn several months in the 

 summer. And in the winter, the minnow, and loach, and 

 bull-head dwell in the mud, as the eel doth ; or we know 

 not where, no more than we know where the cuckoo and 

 swallow, and other half-year birds, which first appear to 

 us in April, spend their six cold, winter, melancholy 

 months. This fish does usually dwell, and hide himself, 

 in holes, or amongst stones in clear water ; and in very hot 

 days will lie a long time very still, and sun himself, and 

 will be easy to be seen upon any flat stone, or any gravel ; 

 at which time he will suffer an angler to put a hook, baited 

 with a small worm, very near unto his mouth ; and he 

 never refuses to bite, nor indeed to be caught with the 



* Since Walton wrote, there has been brought into England, 

 from Germany, a species of small fish, resembling carp in shape 

 and colour, called " crusians," with which many ponds are now 

 plentifully stocked. There have also been brought hither from 

 China those beautiful creatures, gold and silver fish : the first are of 

 an orange colour, with very shining scales, and finely variegated 

 with black and dark brown ; the silver fish are of the colour of silver 

 tissue, with scarlet fins, with which colour they are curiously marked 

 in several parts of the body. These fish are usually kept in ponds, 

 basins, and small reservoirs of water, to which they are a delightful 

 ornament. And it is now a very common practice to keep them 

 in a large glass vessel like a punch-bowl, with fine gravel strewed 

 at the bottom ; frequently changing the water, and feeding them 

 with bread and gentles. Those who can take more pleasure in 

 angHng for than in beholding them (which I confess I could never 

 doy-may catch them with gentles ; but though costly, they are but 

 coarse food. H. 



