THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 49 



Pisc. Sir, your request is granted, and I shall be right glad, 

 both to exchange such a courtesy, and also to enjoy your com- 

 pany. 



Ven. Well, now let's go to your sport of angling. 



Pisc. Let's be going with all my heart. God keep you all, 

 Gentlemen, and send you meet this day with another bitch-otter, 

 and kill her merrily, and all her young ones too. 



Ven. Now, Piscator, where will you begin to fish ? 



Pisc. We are not yet come to a likely place, I must walk a 

 mile further yet, before I begin. 



Ven. Well then, I pray, as we walk tell me freely, how do 

 j^ou like your lodging, and mine host, and the company ? Is not 

 mine host a witty man ? 



Pisc. Sir, I will tell you presently what I think of your host ; 

 but first I will tell you, I am glad these otters were killed, and I 

 am sorry that there are no more otter-killers : for I know that 

 the want of otter-killers, and the not keeping the fence-months for 

 the preservation of fish, will in time prove the destruction of all 

 rivers ; and those very few that are left, that make conscience 

 of the laws of the nation, and of keeping days of abstinence, 

 will be forced to eat flesh, or suffer more inconveniences than 

 are yet foreseen. 



Vex. Why, Sir, what be those that you call the fence-months ? 



Pisc. Sir, they be principally three, namely, March, April, and 

 May, for these be the usual months that salmon come out of the 

 sea to spawn in most fresh rivers, and their fry would about a 

 certain time return back to the salt water, if they were not 

 hindered by wears and unlawful gins, which the greedy fisher- 

 men set, and so destroy them by thousands, as they would, being 

 so taufjht bv nature, chansre the fresh for salt water. He that 

 shall view the wise statutes made in the 13th of Edward I., and 

 the like in Richard III., may see several provisions made against 

 the destruction of fish : and though I profess no knowledge of the 

 law, yet I am sure the regulation of these defects might be easily 

 mended. But I remember that a wise friend of mine did usually 

 say, " That which is everybody's business, is nobody's business." 

 If it were otherwise, there could not be so many nets and fish 



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