CHAPTER XVII. OF ROACH AND DACE, AND HOW 

 TO FISH FOR THEM; AND OF CADIS 



VENATOR AND PISCATOR 



VENATOR. Good Master, as we go now towards London, 

 be still so courteous as to give me more instructions, 

 for I have several boxes in my memory, in which I will 

 keep them all very safe, there shall not one of them be lost. 



PISCATOR. Well, Scholar, that I will, and I will hide nothing 

 from you that I can remember, and can think may help you 

 forward towards a perfection in this art ; and because we have 

 so much time, and I have said so little of Roach and Dace, I 

 will give you some directions concerning them. 



Some say the Roach is so called, from Rutilus, which, they 

 say, signifies red fins : he is a fish of no great reputation for 

 his dainty taste, and his spawn is accounted much better than 

 any other part of him. And you may take notice, that as the 

 Carp is accounted the Water- Fox, for his cunning ; so the 

 Roach is accounted the Water-Sheep for his simplicity or 

 foolishness. It is noted that the Roach and Dace recover 

 strength, and grow in season in a fortnight after spawning : 

 the Barbel and Chub in a month, the Trout in four months, and 

 the Salmon in the like time, if he gets into the Sea, and after 

 into fresh water. 



Roaches be accounted much better in the river than in a 

 pond, though ponds usually breed the biggest. But there is 

 a kind of bastard small Roach that breeds in ponds, with a very 

 forked tail, and of a very small size, which some say is bred 

 by the Bream and right Roach, and some ponds are stored 

 with these beyond belief; and knowing men that know their 

 difference, call them Ruds ; they differ from the true Roach as 

 much as a Herring from a Pilchard, and these bastard-breed 



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