CHAP. XIL] THE THIRD DA V. 271 



several anglers I met with, but could never find any advantage 

 by them ; and can scarce believe there is anything to be done 

 that way: though I must tell you, I have seen some men who I 

 thought went to work no more artificially than I, and have yet, 

 with the same kind of worms I had, in my own sight taken five, 

 and sometimes ten for one. But we'll let that business alone, if 

 you please ; and because we have time enough, and that I would 

 deliver you from the trouble of any more lectures, I will, if you 

 please, proceed to the last way of Angling for a Trout or Gray- 

 ling, which is in the middle ; after which I shall have no more to 

 trouble you with. 



VIATOR. 'Tis no trouble, Sir, but the greatest satisfaction that 

 can be ; and I attend you. 



PISCATOR. ANGLING in the middle, then, for a Trout or 

 Grayling is of two sorts ; with a Pink or Minnow for 

 1 a Trout ; or with a Worm, Grub, or Cadis, for a 

 Grayling. 



For the first. It is with a minnow, half a foot or a foot within 

 the superficies of the water. And as to the rest that concerns 

 this sort of Angling, I shall wholly refer you to Mr Walton's 

 directions, who is undoubtedly the best Angler with a minnow in 

 England ; only, in plain truth, I do not approve of those baits he 

 keeps in salt,* unless where the living ones are not possibly to be 

 had (though I know he frequently kills with them, and peradventure, 

 more than with any other ; nay, I have seen him refuse a living 

 one for one of them), and much less of his artificial one ; t for 

 though we do it with a counterfeit fly, methinks it should hardly 

 be expected that a man should deceive a fish with a counterfeit 

 fish. Which having said, I shall only add, and that out of my own 

 experience, that I do believe a Bullhead, with his gill-fins cut off 

 (at some times of the year especially), to be a much better bait 

 for a Trout than a minnow, and a Loach much better than that : 

 to prove which I shall only tell you, that I have much oftener 

 taken Trouts with a bullhead or a loach in their throats (for there 

 a Trout has questionless his first digestion) than a minnow ; and 

 that one day especially, having angled a good part of the day with 

 a minnow, and that in as hopeful a day. and as fit a water as 

 could be wished for that purpose, without raising any one fish, 

 I at last fell to it with a worm, and with that took fourteen in a 

 very short space ; amongst all which there was not, to my remem- 

 brance, so much as one that had not a loach or two, and some 



* See p. 94. f See p. 95. 



