196 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



clean, and then make it into a ball, or two, or 

 three, as you like best for your use ; but you must 

 work or pound it so long in the mortar as to make 

 it so tough as to hang upon your hook without 

 washing from it, yet not too hard. Or that you 

 may the better keep it on your hook, you may 

 knead with your paste a little, and not much, 

 white or yellowish wool. 



And if you would have this paste keep all the 

 year for any other fish, then mix with it virgin-wax 

 and clarified honey, and work them together with 

 your hands before the fire ; then make these into 

 balls, and they will keep all the year. 



And if you fish for a carp with gentles, then 

 put upon your hook a small piece of scarlet about 

 this bigness , it being soaked in, or anointed 



with oil of peter, called by some oil of the rock ; 

 and if your gentles be put two or three days be- 

 fore into a box or horn anointed with honey, and 

 so put upon your hook as to preserve them to be 

 living, you are as like to kill this crafty fish this 

 way as any other ; but still as you are fishing, chew 

 a little white or brown bread in your mouth, and 

 cast it into the pond about the place where your 

 float swims. Other baits there be ; but these, with 

 diligence and patient watchfulness, will do it better 

 than any that I have ever practised or heard of. 

 And yet I shall tell you that the crumbs of white 

 bread and honey made into a paste is a good bait 

 for a carp, and you know it is more easily made. 

 And having said thus much of the carp, my next 



