390 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART I. 



First, for your live-bait. Of a fish ; a roach, or dace l is, 

 I think, best and most tempting ; and a pearch is the longest 

 lived on a hook, and having cut off his fin on his back, 

 which may be done without hurting him, 2 you must take 

 your knife, which cannot be too sharp, and betw r ixt the head 

 and the fin on the back, cut or make an incision, or such a 

 scar as you may put the arming wire of your hook into it, 

 with as little bruising or hurting the fish, as art and diligence 

 will enable you to do ; and so carrying your arming-wire, 

 along his back, unto or near the tail of your fish, betwixt 

 the skin and the body of it, draw out that wire or arming 

 of your hook at another scar near to his tail : then tie him 

 about it with thread, but no harder than of necessity, to 

 prevent hurting the fish ; and the better to avoid hurting 

 the fish, some have a kind of probe to open the way, for the 

 more easy entrance and passage of your wire or arming : 

 but as for these, time, and a little experience, will teach you 

 better than I can by words. 3 Therefore I will, for the 

 present, say no more of this : but come next to give you 

 some directions how to bait your hook with a frog. 



Ven. But, good master ! did you not say even now, that 

 some frogs were venomous ; and is it not dangerous to touch 

 them ? 



Pise. Tes, but I will give you some rules or cautions con- 

 cerning them. And first you are to note, that there are two 

 kinds of frogs ; that is to say, if I may so express myself, 

 a flesh and a fish-frog. By flesh-frogs, I mean frogs that 

 breed and live on the land ; and of these there be several 

 sorts also, and of several colours, some being speckled, some 

 greenish, some blackish, or brown : the green-frog, which is 



1 Shakspeare was probably an angler ; as we conclude from the pas- 

 sage where Falstaff, contemplating his future design on the purse of 

 good Master Shallow, says, " If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, 

 I see no reason, in the law of nature, but I may snap at him." 2 Hen. IV., 

 act in., sc. 2. ED. 



2 Nobbes, the authority in trolling, recommends (implying, of course, 

 that you should not hurt your fish, ) that as the pearch is dark coloured and 

 the pike loves a glittering bait, you should scrape away some of the 

 scales to make it brighter, in which condition, he says, it is best adapted 

 to snap-fishing. Ei>. 



3 For this and other modes of preparing live-bait for trolling, see plate 

 at end. 



