io4 ANGLING 



priated a poor widow's clothes prop, and suspended from the 

 middle thereof the luckless barbel, he and Mr. Hopper 

 formed themselves into a triumphal procession, and marched 

 to the hostelry at which they were staying to the revised tune 

 of "Twynkles comes marching home," which the successful 

 captor certainly rendered with his well-known whistling ability. 

 The barren days gone by were forgotten and they had been 

 barren indeed so far as barbel were concerned, for save one 

 4-pounder caught by Mr. Hopper they would not look at the 

 tempting worms dangled to their view. In fact their all but 

 abstinence brought to Mr. Hopper's memory the lines from 

 Hood's poem, which slightly altered to suit Mr. Hopper's 

 poetic fancy, runs thus 



At a brandling once barbel would gape, 



But they seem to have alter'd their forms now. 



Have they taken advice of the Council of Nice, 

 And rejected the Diet of Worms now ? 



Friend Brown turned up in the evening, as usual, and 

 Twynkles' barbel was toasted in right royal fashion. Mr. 

 Hopper must now take leave of Twynkles and his barbel and, 

 as the Cheap Jack at the fair says, " Show you something 

 else." 



The readers of these Notes must not jump to the conclusion 

 that when fishing for barbel with worm the angler does not 

 catch other fish, for although barbel may not be " on " he often 

 catches bream, perch, flounders, an odd chub, or a roach or 

 two, dace, sometimes a pike, and eels. A poet once wrote 



The Trent hath such eels, and the Witham pike, 

 That in England there is not the like. 



The two largest eels known to have been taken from the Trent 

 were caught on a night line with a nest of young blackbirds for 

 bait. Mr. Hopper is not romancing. It is a "solid fact" that he 

 is stating, and the two weighed rather over I5lbs. They were 

 caught but a very few miles higher up the river than the resort 

 where Mr. Hopper makes his annual visit. There are said to 

 be four different sorts of eels in the Trent two that migrate and 

 two that do not ; but Mr. Hopper is not going to weary his 

 readers by describing the different species. Old Trent anglers 

 say that the migratory eels, which are silver bellied, come into 



