THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 59 



CHAPTER IV. 



Observations of the Nature and Breeding of the Trout, and how to fish 

 for him. And the Milk-maid's Song. 



PiscATOR. — The trout is a fish highly valued both in this and 

 foreign nations : he may be justly said, as the old poet said of 

 wine, and we English say of venison, to be a generous fish : a 

 fish that is so like the buck that he also has his seasons ; for it is 

 observed, that he comes in and goes out of season with the stao- 

 and buck ; Gcsner says his name is of a German offspring,* and 

 says he is a fish that feeds clean and purely, in the swiftest 

 streams, and on the hardest gravel ; and that he may justly con- 

 tend with all fresh-water fish, as the mullet may with all sea-fish, 

 for precedency and daintiness of taste, and that being in rio-ht 

 season, the most dairity palates have allowed precedency to him. 

 And before I go further in my discourse, let me tell you, that 

 you are to observe, that as there be some barren does, that are 

 good in summer, so there be some barren trouts that are good in 

 winter ; but there are not many that are so, for usually they be 

 in their perfection in the month of May, and decline with the 

 buck. Now you are to take notice, that in several countries, as 

 in Germany and in other parts, compared to our's, fish do differ 

 much in their bigness, and shape, and other ways, and so do 

 trouts ;f it is well known that in the Lake Leman, the Lake of 

 Geneva,:}: there are trouts taken of three cubits long, as is af- 



* There can scarcely be any doubt of our word trovt having come origi- 

 nally from the Latin trutta, from the Greek TpjKrr]^, though the fish 

 bearing that name wns not a trout, but a sea fish, and as Gesner shows, 

 Le AquatUilus (IV., p. ]006^ probably the Amia. — am. Ed 



t Gesner's division of trouts into sea, lake, and river, does sufficiently 

 well for popular purposes. — Am. Ed. 



X Four feet and a half is Gesner's measurement ; and he speaks of them 



