18G THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



The barbel is also curious for his bails, that they be clean and 

 sweet ; tliat is to say, to have your worms well scoured, and not 

 kept in sour and musty moss, for he is a curious feeder ; but at 

 a well scoured lob- worm he will bite as boldly as at any bait, and 

 specially if, the night or two before you fish for him, you shall 

 bait tlic places where you intend to fish for him with big worms 

 cut into pieces ; and note, that none did ever over-bait the place, 

 nor fish too early or too late for a barbel. And the barbel will 

 bite also at gentles, which not being too much scoured, but green, 

 are a choice bait for him ; and so is cheese, which is not to be 

 too hard, but kept a day or two in a wet linen cloth to make it 

 tough ; with this you may also bait the water a day or two before 

 you fish for the barbel, and be much the likelier to catch store ; 

 and if the cheese were laid in clarified honey, a short time be- 

 fore, as namely, an hour or two, you were still the likelier to 

 catch fish : some have directed to cut the cheese into thin pieces, 

 and toast it, and then tie it on the hook with fine silk ; and some 

 advise to fish for the barbel with sheep's tallow and soft cheese 

 beaten or worked into a paste, and that it is choicely good in Au- 

 gust, and I believe it : but doubtless the lob- worm well scoured, 

 and the gentle not too much scoured, and cheese ordered as I 

 have directed, are baits enough ; and I think will serve in any 

 month ; though I shall commend any angler that tries conclu- 



O'er battlements of cork up-darting flies. 

 And finds from air, th' escape tliat sea denies ; 

 But should the first attempt his hopes deceive, 

 And from his fall the net again receive 

 The exhausted fish, no second leap he tries. 

 Self-doomed to death the victim desperate lies." 



(iii., l3s~iS.— Jones.) 



Yarrell and other observers have remai-ked that this cunning in setting 

 themselves free is innate with the grey mullet, and that young ones of a 

 minute size may be seen tumbling themselves tail over head in their exer- 

 tions to pass the head line of the net. " I have known," says Mr. Couch, 

 •' a mullet less than an inch in length, throw itself repeatedly over the 

 side of a cup, in which the water was an inch below the brim." A very 

 interesting account of the same thing is given by Mr. Couch in The Zoolo- 

 gist, which the reader may find in Littell's excellent magazine, The Living 

 .Hue, isn, vol. i., \r^.—Ain. Ed 



