igS THE COMPLETE ANGLER. parti. 



But whither am I strayed in this discourse. I will end it by 

 telling you, that at the mouth of some of these rivers of ours, 

 Herrings are so plentiful, as, namely, near to Yarmouth in Norfolk,* 

 and in the west country Pilchers so very plentiful, as you will 

 wonder to read what our learned Camden relates of them in his 

 " Britannia." f 



Well, scholar, I will stop here, and tell you what by reading 

 and conference I have observed concerning fish-ponds. 



Doctor Lebault, the learned Frenchman, in his large dis- 



Chap. XX. t course of Maison Rustique, gives this direction for 



OfFish-Ponds. making offish-ponds. I shall refer you to him, to 



read it at large : but I think I shall contract it, and yet make it 



as useful. § 



He adviseth, that when you have drained the ground, and 

 made the earth firm where the head of the pond must be, that 

 you must then, in that place, drive in two or three rows of oak 

 or elm piles, which should be scorched in the fire, or half burnt, 

 before they be driven into the earth ; for being thus used, it pre- 

 serves them much longer from rotting. And having done so, lay 

 fagots or bavins of smaller wood betwixt them : and then earth 

 betwixt and above them : and then, having first very well rammed 

 them and the earth, use another pile in like manner as the first 

 were : and note, that the second pile is to be of or about the 

 height that you intend to make your sluice or floodgate, or the 

 vent that you intend shall convey the overflowings of your pond 

 in any flood that shall endanger the breaking of your pond-dam. 



Then he advises, that you plant willows or owlers,i about it, or 

 both : and then cast in bavins, in some places not far from the 



Variation.] ^ osiers. 



Strange beasts from Afric, which yet want a name. 

 And birds which from the Arabian desert came." 

 — Grotius, His Sophompaneas or yoseph, a tragedy, by Francis Goldsmith, Esq., i2mo, 

 Loud. 1652. 



* The town of Yarmouth is bound by charter to send annually to the Sheriffs of Nor- 

 wich a hundred herrings, which are to be baked in twenty-four pies or pasties, and 

 delivered to the lord of the manor of Eastcarkon, who is to convey them to the king.— 

 Beckwith's FragmeiUa Aittiquiiaiis, ed. 1784, p. 135. 



t P. 178, 186. 



X The whole of thi'^ chapter was added to the second edition. 



§ One of the best French editions of the work here alluded to is mentioned by De 

 Bure, " L* Agriculture et Maison Rustique de MM. Charles Entienne, et Iean Liebavlt, 

 Docteurs en M^decine. Edition derniere," 4to, Lyon. 1594. A translation of this work, 

 under the title of " Maison Rustique, or the Country Farme," compiled by Charles 

 Steuens and John Liebault, Doctors of Physicke, and translated into English by Richard 

 Surflet," appeared in quarto, Lottd. 1600 : and a second edition, with large additions, by 

 Gervase Markham, fol. Land. 1616. The latter is, no doubt, the " large discourse " to 

 which Walton alludes. This xxth Chapter of Walton is contracted from the jcith, xiith, 

 xiiith, xivth, and xvth chapters of Liebault's fourth book. — E. 



