chap, xvii.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 223 



find this to be a very choice bait, either for winter 

 or summer, you sometimes casting a little of it 

 into the place where vour float swims. 



And to take the Roach and Dace, a good bait is 

 the voung brood of wasps or bees, if you dip their 

 heads in blood ; especially good for Bream, if they 

 be baked or hardened in their husks in an oven, 

 after the bread is taken out of it ; or hardened on 

 a fire-shovel : and so also is the thick blood of 

 sheep, being half dried on a trencher, that so you 

 may cut it into such pieces as may best fit the size 

 of your hook ; and a little salt keeps it from grow- 

 ing black, and makes it not the worse, but better : 

 this is taken to be a choice bait if rightly ordered. 



There be several oils of a strong smell that I 

 have been told of, and to be excellent to tempt fish 

 to bite, of which I could say much. But I remem- 

 ber I once carried a small bottle from Sir George 

 Hustings to Sir Henry Wotton, they were both che- 

 mical men, as a great present : it was sent, and 

 received, and used, with great confidence ; and yet, 

 upon enquiry, I found it did not answer the expect- 

 ation of Sir Henry ; which, with the help of this 

 and other circumstances, makes me have little be- 

 lief in such things as many men talk of. Not but 

 that I think fishes both smell and hear, as I have 

 expressed in my former discourse : but there is a 

 mysterious knack, which, though it be much easier 

 than the philosopher's stone, yet is not attainable 

 by common capacities, or else lies locked up in the 



