238 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I. 



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 big- 

 ness f""^ it being soaked in, or anointed with oil of 

 petre, called by some oil of the rock : and if your gen- 

 tles be put, two or three days before, 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 

 better than any that I have ever practised or heard of. 



And yet 1 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 t, my next dis- 



* And see a bait that serves likewise for the Bream, in the next 

 chapter. Editor. 



f The haunts of the river Carp are, in the winter months, thd 

 broadest and most quiet parts of the river: but in summer, they lie 

 in deep holes, nooks, and reaches, near some scour, and under roots 

 of trees, hollow banks, and, till they are near rotting, amongst or 

 near great beds of weeds, flags, &c. 



Pond Carp cannot, with propriety, be said to have any haunts \ 

 only it is to be noted, that they love a fat rich soil, and never thrive 

 in a cold hungry water. 



They breed three or four times a year t but their first spawning-time 

 is the beginning of May. 



Baits for the Carp are, all sorts of earth and dunghill-worms, 

 flag-worms; grasboppers, though not at top; ox-brains, ^the pith of 



