212 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



never rises above the gravel, on which. I told you he usually 

 gets his living. 



The MILLER'S-THUMB, or Bull-head, is a fish of no pleasing 

 shape. 



He is by Gesner compared to the sea-toad-fish, for his 

 similitude and shape. It has a head big and flat, much 

 greater than suitable to his body ; a mouth very wide, and 

 usually gaping ; he is without teeth, but his lips are very 

 rough, much like to a file. He hath two fins near to his 

 gills, which be roundish or crested ; two fins also under the 

 belly ; two on the back ; one below the vent ; and the fin of 

 his tail is round. Nature hath painted the body of this fish 

 with whitish, blackish, and brownish spots.* They be usually 

 full of eggs or spawn all the summer, I mean the females ; 

 and those eggs swell their vents almost into the form of a 

 dug. They begin to spawn about April, and, as I told you, 

 spawn several months in the summer. And in the winter, 

 the minnow, and loach, and bull- head, dwell in the mud, as 

 the eel doth ; or we know not where, no more than we know 

 where the cuckoo and swallow, and other half-year birds, 

 which first appear to us in April, spend their six cold, winter, 

 melancholy months. This fish does usually dwell, and hide 

 himself, in holes, or amongst stones in clear water ; and in 

 very hot days will lie a long time very still, and sun himself, 

 and will be easy to be seen upon any flat stone, or any 

 gravel ; at which time he will suffer an angler to put a hook, 

 baited with a small worm, very near unto his mouth ; and he 

 never refuses to bite, nor indeed to be caught with the worst 

 of anglers. Matthiolust commends him much more for his 

 taste and nourishment, than for his shape or beauty. 



* Since Walton wrote, there has been brought into England, from Germany, 

 a species of small fish, resembling carp in shape and colour, called " crusians," 

 with which many ponds are now plentifully stocked. There have also been 

 brought hither from China those beautiful creatures, gold and silver fish : the 

 first are of an orange colour, with very shining scales, and finely variegated 

 with black and dark brown ; the silver fish are of the colour of silver tissue, 

 with scarlet fins, with which colour they are curiously marked in several parts 

 of the body. These fish are usually kept in ponds, basins, and small reservoirs 

 of water, to which they are a delightful ornament. And it is now a very 

 common practice to keep them in a large glass vessel like a punch-bowl, with 

 fine gravel strewed at the bottom ; frequently changing the water, and feeding 

 them with bread and gentles. Those who can take more pleasure in angling 

 for than in beholding them (which I confess I could never do), may catch 

 them with gentles ; but though costly, they are but coarse food. H. 



t Petrus Andreas Matthiolus, of Sienna, an eminent physician of the 



