HOW TO PHESEUVE A RIVER FOR TROM^.^G. 267 



drag, like an universal distemper, cotts off the major 

 part, still there will be some left to renew their species, 

 which, after a short time, will multiply and replenish 

 the waters. This I suppose, if there were none to 

 come in and succeed them, as there are continually; yet 

 they will find such a scarcity and diminution among the 

 fish, that their pastime will be very cold and uncom. 

 fortable, having nothing to trust to but those scape. 

 drags, which are only like the gleanings, when the har. 

 vest is gone* 



Another enemy to the sport is the bow-net, though 

 more favorable and sparing, and of a far lower class 

 than the drag, yet it is more dangerous, it is private 

 and undiscovered; for the drag is a professed and a 

 public foe, which gives some notice to avoid those 

 places it hath lately cleansed ; but the bow.net is so 

 close and secret a murderer, that it slays and leaves no 

 visible wound. 



Another plea there is that might be alledged for the 

 drag, that it is seldom used above once, sometimes not 

 so often as once a year ; but the bow.net kills and -de* 

 stroys, spoils and plunders all the year: the Spring. 

 * time indeed is the fittest for it, when the fish run and 

 get into the scours, or eke immediately after a flood ; 

 to lay many of these in small rivulets and ditches, they 

 that use them may then make their harvest after a 

 spring, flood. 



The third enemy is the stall or tramel ; a net which 

 is made up of great meshes, as it is so much the more 

 allowable, because it holds only the great fish, and 

 gives the less leave to escape. This net is not so com- 

 mon, nor so much condemned as the bow-net, because 

 it is usually assisting the drag. In washes and back 

 dykes it may do service, because there they may both 

 draw it, and plunge on both sides; in the main river it 

 can do no great execution, but only set as a stall to 

 stop the fish. In one respect it is very murdering, be. 

 cause the meshes are made alike on both sides, that it 

 takes the fish which ever way they come. They that 

 use this sport, hare commonly two to set at a little dss* 



