The Compleat ^Angler 



THIRD 



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



Pise. 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 ? 



Pise. 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 you 

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

 host a witty man ? 



Pise. 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 ; but I 

 am sorry 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. 



VEN. Why, sir, what be those that you call the fence-months ? 



Pise. 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 weirs and unlawful gins, which the greedy fishermen set, and so 

 destroy them by thousands ; as they would (being so taught by 



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