232 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [part i. 



great nourishment, and to be very grateful both to 

 the palate and stomach of sick persons. He is to be 

 lished for with a very small worm at the bottom ; 

 for he very seldom or never rises above the gravel, 

 on which, I told you, he usually gets his living. 



The Miller's-Thumb or Bull-head, is a fish of 

 no pleasing shape. He is by Gesner compared to the 

 Sea-toad-fish, for his 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, 

 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 vou, 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 cuc- 

 koo and swallow, and other half-year-birds, which 

 first appear to us in April, spend their six cold, 

 winter, melancholy, months. This Bull- Head does 

 usually dwell and hide himself in holes, or amongst 

 stones, in clear water : and in very hot clays will 

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

 be easy to be seen upon any flat stone, or any gra- 



