CHAP. XXI. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 327 



free from galls, or scabs, or frets : for a well-chosen, 

 even, clear, round hair, of a kind of glass-colour, will 

 prove as strong as three uneven scabby hairs, that are 

 ill-chosen, and full of galls, or unevenness. You 

 shall seldom find a black hair but it is round, but 

 many white are flat and uneven; therefore, if you get 

 a lock of right, round, clear, glass-colour hair, make 

 much of it. 



And for making your line, observe this rule : first, let 

 your hair be clean washed ere you go about to twist it; 

 and then choose not only the clearest hair, for it, but 

 hairs that be of an equal bigness, for such do usually 

 stretch all together, and break all together which 

 hairs of an unequal bigness never do, but break singly, 

 and so deceive the angler that trusts to them. 



When you have twisted your links, lay them in 

 water, for a quarter of an hour, at least ; and then 

 twist them over again before you tie them into a line : 

 For those that do not so, shall usually find their line to 

 have a hair, or two, shrink and be shorter than the 

 rest, at the first fishing with it ; which is so much of the 

 strength of the line lost, for want of first watering it and 

 then re-twisting it ; and this is most visible in a seven- 

 hair line, one of those which hath always a black hair 

 in the middle*. 



may easily condeal, and do not proclaim to all the world where he is going. 

 Those for float-fishing are now become common : but this invention has, 

 lately, been extended to rods for fly-fishing ; and here follows a descrip- 

 tion of such a neat, portable, and useful one, as no angler, that has once 

 tried it, will ever be without. 



Let the joints be four in number ; and made of hiccory, or some such 

 Tery tough wood ; and two feet four inches in length, the largest joint 

 not exceeding half an inch in thickness. The top must be bamboo shaved. 

 And for the stock : let it be of ash, full in the grasp, of an equal length 

 with the other joints ; and with a strong ferrule at the smaller end, 

 made to receive the large joint, which must be well shouldered, and 

 fitted to it with the utmost exactness. 



This rod will go into a bag ; and lie, very well, concealed in a pocket 

 in the lining of your coat, on the left side, made strait on purpose to re- 

 ceive it. 



* Your line, whether it be a running-line, or for float fishing, had best 

 be of hair ; unless you fish for Barbel, and then it must be of strong silk. 

 And the latter [the line for float-fishing] must be proportioned to the ge- 

 neral size of the fish you expect ; always remembering, that the single 

 hair is to be preferred, for Roach or Dace-fishing. But the fly-line is t 



T 2 



