18 ANGLING IMPROVED. 



and eagerly rise at the artificial fly, in any slow muddy 

 rivers : by muddy rivers, I mean such rivers, the bottom 

 or ground of which is slime or mud 5 for such as are 

 mudded by rain, as I have already, and shall afterwards 

 further, shew at sometimes and seasons I would choose 

 to angle, yet in standing meers or sloughs, I have 

 known them, in a good wind, to rise very well, but not 

 so in slimy rivers, either the Weever, in Cheshire, or 

 the Sow, in Staffordshire, and others in Warwickshire, 

 &c. and the Black-water in Ulster 3 in the last, after 

 many trials, though in its best streams, I could never 

 find almost any sport, save at its influx in Lough Neagh; 

 but there the working of the Lough makes it sandy ; and 

 they will bite also near Tom Shane's Castle, Mountjoy, 

 Antrim, &c. even to admiration; yet- sometimes they 

 will rise in that river a little, but not comparable to what 

 they will do in every little Lough, in any small gale of 

 wind. And though I have often reasoned in my own 

 thoughts, to search out the true cause of this, yet I could 

 never so fully satisfy my own judgment, so as to conclude 

 any thing positively; yet have taken up these two en- 

 suing particulars as most probable. 



1. I conjectured the depth of the loughs might 

 hinder the force of the sun beams from operating upon, 

 or heating the mud in those rivers, which though deep, 

 yet are not so deep as the loughs; I apprehend that to 

 be the cause, as in great droughts fish bite but little in 

 any river, but not at all in slimy rivers, in regard the 

 mud is not cooled by the constant and swift motion of 

 the river, as in gravelly or sandy rivers, where, in fit 



