THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



a small worm, and in hot weather makes excel- 

 lent sport for young anglers, or boys, or women 

 that love that recreation. And in the spring they 

 make of them excellent minnow-tansies ; for, be- 

 ing washed well in salt, and their heads and tails 

 cut off, and their guts taken out, and not washed 

 after, they prove excellent for that use, that 

 is, being fried with yolks of eggs, the flowers of 

 cowslips, and of primroses, and a little tansy ; 

 thus used, they make a dainty dish of meat. 



The loach is, as I told you, a most dainty fish : 

 he breeds and feeds in little and clear, swift brooks 

 or rills, and lives there upon the gravel and in 

 the sharpest streams ; he grows not to be above a 

 finger long, and no thicker than is suitable to that 

 length. This loach is not unlike the shape of the 

 eel ; he has a beard or wattels like a barbel. He 

 has two fins at his sides, four at his belly, and one 

 at his tail ; he is dappled with many black or 

 brown spots ; his mouth is barbel-like under his 

 nose. This fish is usually full of eggs or spawn, 

 and is by Gesner, and other learned physicians, 

 commended for great nourishment, and to be 

 very grateful both to the palate and stomach of 

 sick persons. He is to be fished 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-toadfish, for his similitude and shape. It 

 17 



