The North Country Angler. 77 



and why ? unless to produce their respective 

 kinds. 



It is well known to the fishermen in most of 

 our harbours, that sand eels are bred in the sands, 

 from whence tbey hook them out, with crooked 

 knives, and make excellent baits of them for 

 large fish. And there is an eel called a burrabut 

 or green-bone, that is, a viviparous fish. I have 

 often at Shields taken these in a net when their 

 bellres have been big, and have given them a nick 

 with my penknife, and there have sprawled out 

 one hundred or more into a tub of water, that 

 I had to put my fish in : they were about two 

 inches long, and very lively ; and I am per- 

 suaded that the lamprey is bred in the same 

 manner. However, that they are delicious eat- 

 ing, our epicures allow; I shall therefore tell you 

 several ways of catching them. 



As eels do not commonly stir in the day-time, 

 but hide themselves in the holes of walls, dams, 

 floodgates, or in holes in the river's banks ; then 

 is the most proper time, and these most likely 

 places to take them by brogling or snigling, which 

 is thus : When the water is low and the day 

 warm, tie an eel hook, shaped as a pike hook, 

 to a strong line of what materials you please; 

 bait it with a well-scoured dew-worm; you may 

 have a stick of a convenient length, cleft at the 

 small end, and a ring to slip on to it, and another 

 small short stick, flat at the bigger end, to put 

 into the cleft of the bigger stick, and made sharp 

 at the small end, to go into the worm at the 

 shank end of the hook: this small stick you 

 may fix in the cleft of the other, so, that you 

 H 3 



