GUDGEON, RUFFE, AND BLEAK. 3Oi 



quick turns when he flies to catch flies in the air, by which 

 he lives, so does the bleak at the top of the water. Ausonius 

 would have him called bleak from his whitish colour : his 

 back is of a pleasant sad or sea-water green, his belly white 

 and shining as the mountain snow ; and doubtless, though 

 he have the fortune, which virtue has in poor people, to be 

 neglected, yet the bleak ought to be much valued, though 



we want Allamot salt and the skill that the Italians have 

 to turn them into anchovies. This fish may be caught with 

 a Paternoster line; that is, six or eight very small hooks 

 tied along the line, one half a foot above the other. I have 

 seen five caught thus at one time, and the bait has been 

 gentles, than which none is better. 



Or this fish may be caught with a fine small artificial fly, 

 which is to be of a very sad brown colour, and very small, 

 and the hook answerable. There is no better sport than 

 whipping for bleaks in a boat, or on a bank, in the swift 

 water in a summer's evening, with a hazel top about five or 

 six foot long, and a line twice the length of the rod. I have 

 heard Sir Henry Wotton say, that there be many that in 

 Italy will catch swallows so, or especially martins ; this 

 bird-angler standing on the top of a steeple to do it, and 

 with a line twice so long as I have spoken of. And let me 



