The Compleat ^Angler 



it on your hook, with your line about two yards long, standing 

 behind a bush or tree where his hole is, and make your bait stir up 

 and down on the top of the water, you may, if you stand close, be 

 sure of a bite, but not sure to catch him, for he is not a leather- 

 mouthed fish : and after this manner you may fish for him with 

 almost any kind of live fly, but especially with a grasshopper. 



VEN. But before you go further, I pray, good master, what mean 

 you by a leather-mouthed fish ? 



Pise. By a leather-mouthed fish I mean such as have their teeth 

 in their throat, as the chub or cheven, and so the barbel, the gud- 

 geon, and carp, and divers others have ; and the hook being stuck 

 into the leather or skin of the mouth of such fish, does very 

 seldom or never lose its hold : but, on the contrary, a pike, a perch, 

 or trout, and so some other fish, which have not their teeth in their 

 throats, but in their mouths, which you shall observe to be very full 

 of bones, and the skin very thin, and little of it ; I say, of these fish 

 the hook never takes so sure hold, but you often lose your fish, 

 unless he have gorged it. 



VEN. I thank you, good master, for this observation ; but now, 

 what shall be done with my chub or cheven that I have caught ? 



Pise. Marry, sir, it shall be given away to some poor body, for 

 I'll warrant you I'll give you a trout for your supper : and it is a 

 good beginning of your art to offer your first-fruits to the poor, who 

 will both thank God and you for it, which I see by your silence you 

 seem to consent to. And for your willingness to part with it so 

 charitably, I will also teach more concerning chub-fishing: you are 

 to note that in March and April he is usually taken with worms ; in 

 May, June, and July, he will bite at any fly, or at cherries, or at 

 beetles with their legs and wings cut off, or at any kind of snail, or 

 at the black bee that breeds in clay walls ; and he never refuses a 

 grasshopper, on the top of a swift stream, nor, at the bottom, the 

 young humble bee that breeds in long grass, and is ordinarily found 

 by the mower of it. In August, and in the cooler months, a yellow 

 paste made of the strongest cheese, and pounded in a mortar, with a 

 little butter and saffron, so much of it, as being beaten small, will 

 turn it to a lemon colour. And some make a paste, for the winter 



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