80 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



just as you see a minnow ; the belly was wrought also with a 

 needle, and it was a part of it white silk, and another part of 

 it with silver thread ; the tail and fins were of a quill which 

 was shaven thin ; the eyes were of two little black beads, and 

 the head was so shadowed, and all of it so curiously wrought, 

 and so exactly dissembled that it would beguile any sharp- 

 sighted trout in a swift stream. And this minnow I will now 

 show you ; look, here it is. and, if you like it, lend it you, to 

 have two or three made by it ; for they be easily carried about 

 an angler, and be of excellent use ; for note, that a large 

 trout will come as fiercely at a minnow as the highest mettled 

 hawk doth seize on a partridge, or a greyhound on a hare. 

 I have been told that a hundred and sixty minnows have 

 been found in a trout's belly ; either the trout had devoured 

 \ so many, or the miller that gave it a friend of mine had 

 \forced them down his throat after he had taken him. 



Now for flies, * which is the third bait wherewith trouts are 

 usually taken. You are to know that there are so many 

 sorts of flies as there be of fruits : I will name you but some 

 of them ; as the dun-fly, the stone-fly, the red-fly, the moor- 

 fly, the tawny-fly, the shell-fly, the cloudy or blackish-fly, the 

 flag-fly, the vine-fly; there be of flies, caterpillars, and canker- 

 flies, and bear-flies ; and indeed too many either for me to 

 name, or for you to remember. And their breeding is so 

 various and wonderful, that I might easily amaze myself, and 

 tire you in a relation of them. 



And, yet, I will exercise your promised patience by saying 

 a little of the caterpillar, or the palmer-fly or worm ; that by 

 them you may guess what a work it were, in a discourse, but 

 to run over those very many flies, worms and little living 

 creatures with which the sun and summer adorn and beautify 

 the river-banks and meadows, both for the recreation and 

 contemplation of us anglers; pleasures which, I think, I 

 myself enjoy more than any other man that is not of my 

 profession. 



Pliny holds an opinion, that many have their birth or being 

 from a dew that in the spring falls from the leaves of trees ; 

 and that some kinds of them are from a dew left upon herbs 



* The student must not pay any attention to what Walton says about artifi- 

 cial flies. He was not a fly-fisher ; but he was a good bottom-fisher, and dibbed 

 or daped well. Cotton was the fly-fisher, and when I come to the second part 

 of this book, written by him, all that is necessary to be known about artificial 

 flies shall be stated. ED. 



