ii2 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. TART i. 



that wire or arming of your hook at another scar near to his 

 tail: then tie him about it with thread, but no harder than of 

 necessity to prevent hurting the fish ; and the better to avoid 

 hurting the fish, some have a kind of probe to open the way, for 

 the more easy entrance and passage of your wire or arming; 

 but as for these, time and a little experience will teach you 

 better than I can by words ; therefore I will for the present say 

 no more of this, but come next to give you some directions how 

 to bait your hook with a frog. 



VEN. But, good Master, did you not say even now that 

 some frogs are venomous, and is it not dangerous to touch 

 them ? 



PlSC. Yes ; but I will give you some rules or cautions con- 

 cerning them. And first, you are to note that there are two 

 kinds of frogs ; that is to say, if I may so express myself, a 

 flesh and a fish-frog ; by flesh-frogs, I mean frogs that breed 

 and- live on the land ; and of these there be several sorts also, 

 and of several colours, some being speckled, some greenish, 

 some blackish or brown : the green frog, which is a small one, 

 is by Topsell taken to be venomous, and so is the paddock or 

 frog paddock, which usually keeps or breeds on the land, and is 

 very large and bony and big, especially the she-frog of that 

 kind ; yet these will sometimes come into the water, but it is 

 not often ; and the land-frogs are some of them observed by 

 him to breed by laying eggs, and others to breed of the slime 

 and dust of the earth, and that in winter they turn to slime 

 again, and that the next summer that very slime returns to be a 

 living creature ; this is the opinion of Pliny, and Cardanus (in 

 his tenth book De Stibtililate] undertakes to give a reason for the 

 raining of frogs : but if it were in my power, it should rain none but 

 water-frogs, for those I think are not venomous, especially the 

 right water-frog, which about February or March breeds in ditches 

 by slime, and blackish eggs in that slime, about which time of 

 breeding the he and she-frogs are observed to use divers summer- 

 saults, and to croak and make a noise, which the land-frog, or 

 paddock-frog, never does. Now of these water-frogs, if you intend 

 to fish with a frog for a pike, you are to choose the yellowest that 



