1 82 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



ing of frogs ; but if it were in my power, it should 

 rain none but water-frogs, for those I think are 

 not venomous, especially the right water-frog, 

 which about February or March breeds in ditches 

 by slime, and blackish eggs in that slime. About 

 which time of breeding the he and she frogs are 

 observed to use divers summersaults, and to croak 

 and make a noise, which the land-frog or padock- 

 frog never does. Now, of these water-frogs, if 

 you intend to fish with a frog for a pike, you are to 

 choose the yellowest that you can get, for that the 

 pike ever likes best ; and thus use your frog that 

 he may continue long alive. 



Put your hook into his mouth, which you may 

 easily do from the middle of April till August, and 

 then the frog's mouth grows up, and he continues 

 so for at least six months without eating, but is 

 sustained none but He whose Name is Wonder- 

 ful knows how : I say, put your hook, I mean the 

 arming-wire, through his mouth and out at his 

 gills, and then with a fine needle and silk sew the 

 upper part of his leg with only one stitch to the 

 arming-wire of your hook, or tie the frog's leg 

 above the upper joint to the armed wire ; and in 

 so doing use him as though you loved him, that 

 is, harm him as little as you may possibly, that he 

 may live the longer. 



And now having given you this direction for the 

 baiting your ledger-hook with a live fish or frog, 

 my next must be to tell you how your hook thus 

 baited must or may be used, and it is thus : Hav- 



