62 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



Perch are at times so hungry and unsuspicious as to allow 

 themselves to be caught in scores by means of the rudest 

 tackle. I happen to possess within my park a natural lake 

 of about one hundred acres, wherein perch and pike do greatly 

 abound. The fishing is free — that is, leave to fish is never 

 refused to any respectable angler ; the more they catch, the 

 better I am pleased. What does vex me is that some people 

 consider it unnecessary to bring a rod with them, but supply 

 themselves instead with an ash sapling cut for the occasion 

 from the neighbouring woods. Forasmuch as the straightest 

 and cleanest-grown sapling makes the shapeliest rod, the result 

 is that I have to pay for this kind of depredation by the loss 

 annually of some of the most promising young trees. Howbeit, 

 having cut many a rod in the selfsame woods when I was a boy, 

 I have not the heart to adopt rigorous measures against this 

 manner of pilfering. 



What rapture I used to experience in those far-off summer 

 evenings when the water lay dark and tranquil in the reed- 

 fringed bays ! The rod of green ash had been prepared by 

 pruning off" the leaves and branchlets ; a piece of strong twine 

 the same length as the rod served as a line, to which was 

 attached a hook on a single strand of gut. A piece of ordinary 

 bottle-cork, cut halfway through and bound with thread, made 

 a float, and with what Izaak Walton commends as " a lively, 

 quick, stirring worm " as a bait, the equipment was complete. 

 Then off we glided in the slow, tarry tub of a boat, to some 

 bay of high repute, where the trees already cut off the westering 

 sun. What tremulous fingers moored the rickety old craft 

 to the mossy piles ; with what expectation was the bait and 

 cork dropped into the water, clear with the mysterious and 

 uncertain translucency of black glass ! Then what a period 

 of suspense ensued ! If there proved to be one perch in that 

 bay, assuredly there would be a shoal ; but sometimes the 

 precious evening hours ebbed away while we probed one bay 

 after another without finding the denizens desired. Generally 



