232 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



parts of the water, and are to be fished for there, 

 with your hook always touching the ground, if you 

 fish for him with a float or with a cork. But many 

 will fish for the gudgeon by hand with a running- 

 line upon the ground, without a cork, as a trout is 

 fished for ; and it is an excellent way if you have a 

 gentle rod and as gentle a hand. 



There is also another fish, called a pope, and by 

 some a ruffe, a fish that is not known to be in 

 some rivers ; he is much like the perch for his 

 shape, and taken to be better than the perch, but 

 will not grow to be bigger than a gudgeon. He is 

 an excellent fish, no fish that swims is of a pleasanter 

 taste, and he is also excellent to enter a young 

 angler, for he is a greedy biter, and they will 

 usually lie, abundance of them together, in one re- 

 served place, where the water is deep and runs 

 quietly ; and an easy angler, if he has found where 

 they lie, may catch forty or fifty, or sometimes 

 twice so many, at a standing. 



You must fish for him with a small red worm, 

 and if you bait the ground with earth, it is 

 excellent. 



There is also a bleak or fresh-water sprat, a fish 

 that is ever in motion, and therefore called by 

 some the river swallow; for just as you shall ob- 

 serve the swallow to be, most evenings in summer, 

 ever in motion, making short and quick turns 

 when he flies to catch flies in the air, by which he 

 lives, so does the bleak at the top of the water. 

 Ausonius would have him called bleak from his 

 whitish color : his back is of a pleasant sad or sea- 



