THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 201 



rub it betwixt your hands till you make it clean, and as free 

 from liusks as you can ; then put that water from it, and put 

 a small quantity of fresh water to it, and set it in something 

 that is fit for that purpose, over the fire, where it is not to 

 boil apace, but leisurely and very softly, until it become some- 

 what soft, which you may try by feeling it betwixt your finger 

 and thumb ; and when it is soft, then put your water from it, 

 and then take a sharp knife, and turning the sprout end of 

 the corn upward, with the point of your knife take the back 

 part of the husk off from it, and yet leaving a kind of inward 

 husk on the corn, or else it is marred ; and then cut off that 

 sprouted end, I mean a little of it, that the white may appear, 

 and so pull off the husk on the cloven side, as I directed you, 

 and then ciitting off a very little of the other end, that so 

 your hook may enter ; and if your hook be small and good, 

 you will find this to be a very choice bait either for winter 

 or summer, you sometimes casting a little of it into the place 

 where your float swims. 



And to take the roach and dace, a good bait is the young 

 brood of wasps or bees, if you dip their heads in blood ; 

 especially good for bream, if they be baked or hardened in 

 their husks in an oven, after the bread is taken out of it, or 

 hardened on a fire shovel ; and so also is the thick blood of 

 sheep, being half dried on a trencher, that so you may cut it 

 into such pieces as may best fit the size of your hook, and a 

 little salt keeps it from growing black, and makes it not the 

 worse but better : this is taken to be a choice bait if rightly 

 ordered. 



There be several oils of a strong smell that I have been 

 told of, and to be excellent to tempt fish to bite, of which I 

 could say much \ but I remember I once carried a small 

 bottle from Sir George Hastings to Sir Henry Wotton, they 

 were both chymical men, as a great present ; it was sent and 

 received, and used with great confidence ; and yet upon 

 inquiry, I found it did not answer the expectation of Sir 

 Henry, which, with the help of this and other circumstances, 

 makes me have little belief in such things as many men talk 

 of : not but that I think fishes both smell and hear, as I have 

 expressed in my former discourse ; but there is a mysterious 

 knack, which, though it be much easier than the philosopher's 

 stone, yet it is not attainable by common capacities, or else 

 lies locked up in the brain or breast of some chymical man, 

 that, like the Eosicrucians, will not yet reveal it. But let me 



