The Com fie at ^Angler 



cloth, and wrought upon or over it thus with a needle : the back of 

 it with very sad French green silk, the paler green silk towards the 

 belly, shadowed as perfectly as you can imagine, just as you see a 

 minnow ; the belly was wrought also with a needle, and it was a part 

 of it white silk, and another part of it with silver thread ; the tail 

 and fins were of a quill which was shaven thin ; the eyes were of two 

 little black beads, and the head was so shadowed, and all of it so 

 curiously wrought, and so exactly dissembled that it would beguile 

 any sharp-sighted trout in a swift stream. And this minnow I will 

 now show you ; look, here it is, and, if you like it, lend it you, to 

 have two or three made by it ; for they be easily carried about an 

 angler, and be of excellent use ; for note, that a large trout will come 

 as fiercely at a minnow as the highest mettled hawk doth seize on a 

 partridge, or a greyhound on a hare. I have been told that a 

 hundred and sixty minnows have been found in a trout's belly ; 

 either the trout had devoured so many, or the miller that gave it to 

 a friend of mine had forced them down his throat after he had taken 

 him. 



Now for flies, which is the third bait wherewith trouts are usually 

 taken. You are to know that there are so many sorts of flies as 

 there be of fruits : I will name you but some of them ; as the dun- 

 fly, the stone-fly, the red-fly, the moor-fly, the tawny-fly, the shell - 

 fly, the cloudy or blackish-fly, the flag-fly, the vine-fly ; there be of 

 flies, caterpillars, and canker-flies, and bear-flies ; and indeed too 

 many either for me to name, or for you to remember : and their 

 breeding is so various and wonderful, that I might easily amaze 

 myself, and tire you in a relation of them. 



And, yet, I will exercise your promised patience by saying a little of 

 the caterpillar, or the palmer-fly or worm ; that by them you may guess 

 what a work it were, in a discourse, but to run over those very many 

 flies, worms, and little living creatures with which the sun and summer 

 adorn and beautify the river-banks and meadows, both for the recrea- 

 tion and contemplation of us anglers ; pleasures which, I think, I 

 myself enjoy more than any other man that is not of my profession. 



Pliny holds an opinion that many have their birth or being from 

 a dew that in the spring falls from the leaves of trees ; and that some 



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