ioo THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART i. 



the water ; and they may think so with as good reason as we 

 do that our smelts smell like violets at their first being caught, 

 which I think is a truth. Aldrovandus says, the salmon, the 

 grayling, and trout, and all fish that live in clear and sharp 

 streams, are made by their mother nature of such exact shape 

 and pleasant colours purposely to invite us to a joy and con- 

 tentedness in feasting with her. Whether this is a truth or not it 

 is not my purpose to dispute; but 'tis certain, all that write of the 

 umber declare him to be very medicinable. And Gesner says, 

 that the fat of an umber or GRAYLING, being set, with a little 

 honey, a day or two in the sun, in a little glass, is very excellent 

 against redness, or swarthiness, or anything that breeds in the 

 eyes. Salvian takes him to be called umber from his swift 

 swimming, or gliding out of sight more like a shadow or a 

 ghost than a fish. Much more might be said both of his smell 

 and taste: but I shall only tell you, that St. Ambrose, the 

 glorious bishop of Milan, who lived when the church kept 

 fasting days, calls him the flower-fish, or flower of fishes : and 

 that he was so far in love with him that he would not let 

 him pass without the honour of a long discourse ; but I must, 

 and pass on to tell you how to take this dainty fish. 



First, note, that he grows not to the bigness of a trout ; for 

 the biggest of them do not usually exceed eighteen inches. 

 He lives in such rivers as the trout does, and is usually taken 

 with the same baits as the trout is, and after the same manner; 

 for he will bite both at the minnow, or worm, or fly ; though he 

 bites not often at the minnow, and is very gamesome at the fly, 

 and much simpler, and therefore bolder than a trout ; for he 

 will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise 

 again. He has been taken with a fly made of the red feathers 

 of a parakita, a strange outlandish bird ; and he will rise at a 

 fly not unlike a gnat or a small moth, or indeed at most flies 

 that are not too big. He is a fish that lurks close all winter, 

 but is very pleasant and jolly after mid-April, and in May, and 

 in the hot months : he is of a very fine shape, his flesh is white ; 

 his teeth, those little ones that he has, are in his throat, yet he 

 has so tender a mouth, that he is oftener lost after an angler 



