172 THE COMFLETE ANGLER. [part i. 



■where the water is deep and runs quietly ; and an easy angler, 

 if he has found where they lie, may catch forty or fifty, or some- 

 times twice so many, at a standing. 



You must fish for him with a small red worm ; and if you bait 

 the ground with earth, it is excellent. 



There is also a Bleak or fresh-water Sprat ; a fish that is 

 ever in motion, and therefore called by some the river-swallow ; 

 for just as you shall observe the swallow to be, most evenings 

 in summer, ever in motion, ■ making short and quick turns when he 

 files to catch files, in the air, by which he lives ; so does the 

 Bleak at the top of the water. Ausonius would have him called 

 Bleak from his whitish colour : his back is of a pleasant sad or 

 sea-water green ; his belly, white and shining as the mountain 

 snow. And doubtless, though he have the fortune, which virtue 

 has in poor people, to be neglected, yet the Bleak ought to be 

 much valued, though we want AUamot salt, and the skill that the 

 Italians have, to turn them into anchovies. This fish may be 

 caught with a Pater-noster line ; * that is, six or eight very small 

 hooks tied along the line, one half a foot above the other : I have 

 seen five caught thus at one time ; and the bait has been gentles, 

 than which none is better. 



Or this fish may be caught with a fine small artificial fly, which 

 is to be of a very sad brown colour, and very small, and the hook 

 answerable. There is no better sport than whipping for Bleaks 

 in a boat, or on a bank, in the swift water, in a summer's evening, 

 with a hazel top about five or six foot long, and a line twice the 

 length of the rod. I have heard Sir Henry Wotton say, that 

 there be many that in Italy will catch swallows so, or especially 

 martins ;t this bird-angler standing on the top of a steeple to do 

 it, and with a line twice so long as I have spoken of. And let me 

 tell you, scholar, that both Martins and Bleaks be most excellent 

 meat. 



And let me tell you, that I have known a Heron, that did con- 

 stantly frequent one place, caught with a hook ■ baited with a big 

 minnow or a small gudgeon.J The line and hook must be strong : 



* A rosary, or string of beads, is used by the Roman Catholic devotees to assist them 

 in numbering their Pater^nosters : a line with many hoolcs at small distances from each 

 other, though it little resembles a string of beads, is thence called a Pater-noster 

 line.— H. 



t This is a common practice in England also. — H. 



X This method of taking wildfowl is frequently practised both on the coasts, of Eng- 

 land and of France. 



