THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 157 



Trout, carries his teeth in his mouth, which is very large : and 

 he dare venture to kill and devour several other kinds of fish. 

 He has a hooked, or hog back, which is armed with sharp and 

 stiff bristles, and all his skin armed or covered over with thick 

 dry hard scales, and hath, which few other fish have, two 

 fins on his back. He is so bold that he will invade one of his 

 own kind, which the Pike will not do so willingly ; * and you 

 may therefore easily believe him to be a bold biter. 



" The Perch is of great esteem in Italy," saith Aldrovandus : 

 " and especially the least are there esteemed a dainty dish." 

 And Gesner prefers the Perch and Pike above the Trout, or 

 any fresh water fish : he says the Germans have this proverb, 

 " More wholesome than a Perch of Rhine :" and he says the 

 river Perch is so wholesome that physicians allow him to be 

 eaten by wounded men, or by men in fevers, or by women in 

 childbed. 



He spawns but once a-year ; and is, by physicians, held very 

 nutritive; yet, by many, to be hard of digestion. " They 

 abound .more in the river Po, and in England," says Rondele- 

 tius, " than other parts; and have in their brain a stone, which 

 is, in foreign parts, sold by apothecaries, being there noted to 

 be very medicinable against the stone in the reins, f These 

 be a part of the commendations which some philosophical brains 

 have bestowed upon the fresh water Perch : yet they commend 

 the sea Perch, which is known by having but one fin on his 

 back, (of which they say we English see but a few,) to be a 

 much better fish. 



The Perch grows slowly, yet will grow, as I have been 

 credibly informed, to be almost two feet long ; for an honest 

 informer told me, such a one was not long since taken by Sir 

 Abraham Williams, a gentleman of worth, and a brother of 

 the angle, that yet lives, and I wish he may : this was a deep- 

 bodied fish, and doubtless durst have devoured a Pike of half 

 his own length. For I have told you, he is a bold fish ; such 

 a one as, but for extreme hunger, the Pike will not devour. 

 For to affright the Pike, and save himself, the Perch will set 



red-worm, well scoured, a gentle, a yoang wasp grub boiled, or a green- 

 worm shook from the bougfis of trees. 



Use a strong grass, or ut, and a goose-quill float without a cork, except 

 in rivers, where the cork is always to be preferred. 



Fish very near the ground. And if you bait with gentles, throw in a 

 few at the taking every fish, which will draw them to your hook, and keep 

 them together. 



* This 1 think is extremely doubtful ; for all voracious fishes, like the 

 Pike, seem to make no distinction between their own species and others, 

 devouring all alike. J. R. 



f This fancy must have originated in resemblances, by which the yellow 

 bark of barberry was prescribed for jaundice, and the roots of the little 

 cc-landine for piles J. K. 



