88 BEST'S ART OF ANGLING. 



a bladder and leather, and it will keep two years. 

 When you want to use it, put some into a small 

 taper pewter box, and anoint your bait with it, 

 and about eight or nine inches of the line, and 

 when k is washed off, repeat the unction. Proba- 

 tum est. 



" All arts and shapes, the wily angler tries, 



" To cloak his fraud, and tempt the finny prize : 



" Their sight, their smell, he carefully explore?, 



" And blends the druggist's and the chemist's stores ; 



" Devising still, with fancy ever new, 



** Pastes, oils, and unguents, of each scent and hue." 



HOW TO MAKE FISH-HOOKS. 



In order to make a good hook, there are requi- 

 site a hammer, a knife, a pair of pincers, an iron 

 semi-cleam, a file, a wrest, a bender, tongs, both 

 long and short, an anvil, and steel needles of dif- 

 ferent sizes. Heat a needle of the size you want* 

 in a charcoal fire, and raise the beard with your 

 knife, then let it cool. Sharpen the point, either 

 with a file or on a grindstone, then put it into the 

 fire again and bend it into what shape you please ; 

 make the upper part of the shank four square, and 

 file the edges smooth, then put it into the fire a 

 third time, and heat it gently 5 take it out sudden- 

 ly, and plunge it into water, and your operation 

 is finished. 



Use not a small hook for great baits, nor a large 

 one for small ones : Barbels and chubs must have 

 large ones, but perches, tenches, breams, and eels, 

 much smaller. Trouts in clear waters, graylings, 

 salmon-smelts, roach and dace, ruffs and gudgeons, 

 must have small hooks: and, though many angle 

 for trouts with large hooks in thick waters, yet 

 small ones are the best. Experience will point 



