164 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I. 



Let other* freeae with angling reeds, 

 And cat their leg* with shells and weeds, 

 Or treacherously poor fish beset 

 With strangling snares or window j net; 



Let coarse bold hand*, from slimy nest, 

 The bedded 6sh in banks outwrest; 

 Let carious traitors sleave silk flies, 

 To 'witch poor wand'ring fishes eyes. 



For the*, thoa need'st no such deceit, 

 For thou thyself art thine own bait : 

 That fish that is not catcht thereby, 

 Is wiser far, alas, than 1. 



Ptsc. Well remembered, honest scholar. I thank you 

 for these choice verses ; which I have heard formerly, but 

 had quite forgot, till they were recovered by your happy 

 memory. Well, being I have now rested myself a little, 

 I will make you some requital, by telling you some obser- 

 vations of the Eel ; for it rains still : and because, as you 

 say, our angles are as money put to use, that thrives 

 when we play, therefore we'll sit still, and enjoy ourselves 

 a little longer under this honeysuckle-hedge. 



CHAP. XIII. 



Obstrratkmt on the EEL, and other Fkh that want Scales;and how 

 to fit h for them. 



Piscator. It is agreed by most men, that the Eel is a 

 most dainty fish: the Romans have esteemed her the 

 Helena of their feasts ; and some, the queen of palate- 

 pleasure. But most men differ about their breeding: 

 some say they breed by generation, as other fish do ; and 

 others, that they breed, as some worms do, of mud ; as 

 rats and mice, and many other living creatures, are bred 

 in Egypt, by the sun's heat when it shines upon the over- 

 flowing of the river Nilus ; or out of the putrefaction of 

 the earth, and divers other ways. Those that deny them 



