CHAP. viii. THE FOURTH DAY. 1 1 1 



forsake, but bides with them, and in case of danger will take 

 them into her mouth and swim away from any apprehended 

 danger, and then let them out again when she thinks all danger 

 to be passed ; these be accidents that we anglers sometimes see, 

 and often talk of. 



But whither am I going? I had almost lost myself, by 

 remembering the discourse of Dubravius. I will therefore stop 

 here, and tell you, according to my promise, how to catch the 

 pike. 



His feeding is usually of fish or frogs, and sometimes a weed 

 of his own called pickerel-weed, of which I told you some think 

 pikes are bred ; for they have observed that where none have 

 been put into ponds, yet they have there found many, and that 

 there has been plenty of that weed in those ponds, and that that 

 weed both breeds and feeds them ; but whether those pikes so 

 bred will ever breed by generation as the others do, I shall leave 

 to the disquisitions of men of more curiosity and leisure than I 

 profess myself to have ; and shall proceed to tell you that you 

 may fish for a pike either with a ledger or a walking-bait ; and 

 you are to note that I call that a ledger-bait which is fixed or 

 made to rest in one certain place when you shall be absent from 

 it ; and I call that a walking-bait which you take with you, and 

 have ever in motion. Concerning which two, I shall give you 

 this direction, that your ledger-bait is best to be a living bait 

 (though a dead one may catch), whether it be a fish or a frog ; 

 and that you may make them live the longer, you may, or indeed 

 you must, take this course : 



First, for your live-bait. Of fish, a roach or dace is, I think, 

 best and most tempting (and a perch is the longest lived on a 

 hook) ; and having cut off his fin on his back, which may be 

 done without hurting him, you must take your knife, which 

 cannot be too sharp, and between the head and the fin on the 

 back, cut or make an incision, or such a scar, as you may put 

 the arming-wire of your hook into it, with as little bruising or 

 hurting the fish as art and diligence will enable you to do; and 

 so carrying your arming-wire along his back, unto or near the 

 tail of your fish, between the skin and the body of it, draw out 



