AND OF STILL WATERS. 61 



the slightest jar wakes the fish from its pleasant 

 dream, and it will probably flounce out of its 

 captor's hand and escape a wiser, if not a 

 sadder, fish. In the " Fauna of Norfolk," the 

 Rev. M. Lubbock says that in the course of a 

 favourable day, a tench-tickler " would easily 

 secure five or six dozen ;" and Mr. Davies, in 

 his " Norfolk Broads and Rivers," mentions a 

 fisherman at Oulton who has frequently success- 

 fully " tickled " seventeen brace of large tench 

 in the course of a summer's afternoon. It is 

 a pity that this interesting mode of catching 

 tench should be on the wane, as Mr. Davies 

 affirms it to be ; bow-nets are probably one of 

 the causes of its decline, and a continuance of 

 cold wet summers is another, as tench are found 

 basking near the top of the water only in very 

 hot sunny weather, owing to their extreme sen- 

 sitiveness to cold. 



Bream are, like tench, fond of still, quiet 

 waters with soft soil bottoms, in which they find 

 their chief sustenance. Izaak Walton speaks 

 highly of this " large and stately fish," as he calls 

 him, a name his appearance assuredly merits. 



