CHAP. XVIII.] 



THE FIFTH DAY. 



293 



caught with the worst of anglers. Matthiolus l commends 

 him much more for his taste and nourishment, than for his 

 shape or beauty. 



There is also a little fish called a STICKLEBAG: a fish 

 without scales, but hath his body fenced with several prickles. 

 I know not where he dwells in winter, nor what he is good 



Catching Sticklebacks. 



for in summer, but only to make sport for boys and women- 

 anglers, and to feed other fish that be fish of prey ; as trouts 

 in particular, who will bite at him as at a penk ; and better, 

 if your hook be rightly baited with him ; for he may be so 

 baited as, his tail turning like the sail of a windmill, will 

 make him turn more quick than any penk or minnow can. 

 For note, that the nimble turning of that, or the minnow, is 

 the perfection of minnow fishing. To which end, if you put 



1 Petrus Andreas Mattluolus was born at Sienna in 1501, and died of 

 the plague, at Trent, in 1577. He was an eminent physician, and par- 

 ticularly famous for his Commentaries on Dioscorides, of which there were 

 numerous editions in Latin, besides several in Italian and French. The 

 best is thought to be that printed at Venice, 1565, in one very large folio, 

 and illustrated with 1500 finely executed wood-cuts of medical plants and 

 animals. 



