150 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



a water that pleases him ; yea, in many ponds so fast, as to 

 overstore them, and starve the other fish. 



He is very broad, \vith a forked tail, and his scales set in 

 excellent order ; he hath large eyes, and a narrow sucking 

 mouth; he hath two sets of teeth, and a lozenge-like bone 

 a bone to help his grinding.* The melter is observed to have 

 two large melts, and the female two large bags of eggs, or 

 spawn. 



Gesner reports, that in Poland a certain and a great number 

 of large Breams were put into a pond, which in the next fol- 

 lowing winter were frozen up into one entire ice, and not one 

 drop of water remaining, nor one of these fish to be found, 

 though they were diligently searched for ; and yet the next 

 spring, when the ice was thawed, and the weather warm, and 

 fresh water got into the pond, he affirms they all appeared 

 again. This Gesner affirms ; and I quote my author, because 

 it seems almost as incredible as the resurrection to an atheist : 

 but it may win something in point of believing it, to him that 

 considers the breeding or renovation of the Silk-worm, and of 

 many insects. And that is considerable, which Sir Francis Bacon 

 observes in his History of Life and Death, fol. 20, that there 

 be some herbs that die and spring every year, and some endure 

 longer. 



But though some do not, yet the French esteem this fish 

 highly; and to that end have this proverb, " He that hath 

 Breams in his pond is able to bid his friend welcome." And it 

 is noted, that the best part of a Bream is his belly and head.f 



Some say that Breams and Roaches will mix their eggs and 

 melt together ; and so there is in many places a bastard breed 

 of Breams, that never come to be either large or good, but very 

 numerous. 



The baits good to catch this are many. First, paste made of 

 brown bread and honey ; gentles, or the brood of wasps that be 

 young, and then not unlike gentles, and should be hardened in 

 an oven, or dried on a tile before the fire to make them tough. 

 Or, there is, at the root of docks, or flags, or rushes in watery 

 places, a worm not unlike a maggot, at which Tench [Bream] 

 will bite freely. Or he will bite at a grasshopper with his legs 

 nipped off, in June and July ; or, at several flies, under water, 



* This must be a mistake ; for no fish grinds, or chews, his food, like land 

 animals, but swallows it whole. J. R. 



t The Bream, according to Sir William Dngdale, appears to have been 

 considered a great luxury in England, for in the 7th of Henry V. it was 

 valued at 20d. ; and he also st'ites, that, in 1454, " A pie of four of them, in 

 the expenses of two men employed for three days in taking them, in baking 

 them, in flour, in spices, and conveying it from Sutton in Warwickshire, 

 to the Earl of Warwick, at Mydlara iu the North Country, cost xvjs. ijd." 

 Hist. Wano. p. 668. 



