60 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



time, and though, at the end of the journey all the other fish 

 were dead and stiff, the tench was alive ; I put him into a 

 bucket of water, and he swam about as if he had only just been 

 taken out of the punt's well. My friends thought him uncanny 

 and would not eat him, so I determined the next day to make 

 my supper off him. I took him out of his bucket, gave him a 

 tap on the head, rolled him up in a handkerchief, and put him 

 into my portmanteau amidst coats, trousers, etc. I journeyed 

 home again, and about five hours after I took out my tench to 

 give him to the cook, when lo ! he gasped ; I put him into 

 water, and he actually appeared none the worse for all he had 

 gone through. Thinking then that he had earned his life, I 

 gave him his liberty, and turned him into a small pond, and a 

 twelvemonth after, when we were netting it, we got him out, 

 and he had grown about half a pound. I have seen some tench, 

 however, that have died in a much shorter time, though 

 generally they have tough lives. 



What truth there may be in the old story of the medical 

 powers of the tench, I cannot pretend to say. He is rather 

 slimy as to his skin, and if, like the bream, he can part with his 

 slime freely, it might prove efficacious, like " parmacety for an 

 inward wound " probably ; but I can assume no other way in 

 which he could be at all serviceable as a member of the finny 

 faculty. 



THE EEL (Anguilla vulgaris) 



Angling for eels can hardly be looked upon as a matter of 

 any great consequence, as regards sport ; and yet there are 

 times, such as very hot still days when the trout will not move, 

 when sniggling an old eel out of his hole in some lock or hatch- 

 gate is not altogether unamusing, while three or four of these 

 fish form a by no means unpleasant change in the angler's bill 

 of fare. And as at times the angler may be glad so to amend 

 his supper or dinner, I give a brief account of the best way of 

 taking eels. 



Eels are principally caught in traps constructed for the 

 purpose. These are made mostly at mill weirs and such places, 

 but often independently of them. Stages are erected, and on 

 them are set large baskets called " bucks." They are also 

 taken in smaller baskets, called pots or wheels, which are set 

 under banks, or in the runs between weeds. In the winter time 

 they are speared, a spear being thrust into every likely looking 

 spot in mud banks, where they are thought to be concealed, 



