320 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



VEN. I thank you, good master, and I will not fail you ; 

 and, good master, tell me what baits more you remember, 

 for it will not now be long ere we shall be at Tottenham 

 High Cross, and when we come thither I will make you 

 some requital of your pains, by repeating as choice a copy 

 of verses as any we have heard since we met together ; and 

 that is a proud word, for we have heard very good ones. 



PlSC. Well, scholar, and I shall be then right glad to 

 hear them ; and I will, as we walk, tell you "whatsoever 

 comes in my mind, that I think may be worth your hear- 

 ing. You may make another choice bait thus : Take a 

 handful or two of the best and biggest wheat you can get, 

 boil it in a little milk, like as frumity is boiled ; boil it so 

 till it be soft, and then fry it very leisurely with honey, and 

 a little beaten saffron dissolved in milk ; and you will find 

 this a choice bait, and good, I think, for any fish, especially 

 for roach, dace, chub, or grayling : I know not but that it 

 may be as good for a river-carp, and especially if the 

 ground be a little baited with it. 



And you may also note, that the spawn of most fish is a 

 very tempting bait, being a little hardened on a warm tile, 

 and cut into fit pieces. Nay, mulberries, and those black- 

 berries which grow upon briars, be good baits for chubs or 

 carps ; with these many have been taken in ponds, and in 

 some rivers where such trees have grown near the water, 

 and the fruits customarily dropped in it. And there be a 

 hundred other baits, more than can be well named, which, 

 by constant baiting the water, will become a tempting bait 

 for any fish in it. 



You are also to know, that there be divers kinds of caddis 

 or case-worms, that are to be found in this nation, in several 



