mean the females; and those eggs swell their vents almost into the form of a dug. They begin to spawn about April, and, as I told you, spawn several months in the summer. And in the winter the Minnow, and Loach, and Bull-Head dwell in the mud, as the Eel doth, or we know not where; no more than we know where the cuckoo and swallow, and other half-year birds, which first appear to us in April, spend their six cold, winter, melancholy months. This Bull-Head does usually dwell and hide himself in holes, or amongst stones, in clear water: and in very hot days will lie a long time very still, and sun himself, and will be easy to be seen upon any flat stone, or any gravel; at which time he will suffer an Angler to put a hook baited with a small worm very near unto his very mouth and he never refuses to bite, nor indeed to be caught with the worst of Anglers. Matthiolus 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 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 your hook into his mouth, and out at his tail; and then, having first tied him with white thread a little above his tail, and placed him after such a manner on your hook as he is like to turn, then sew up his mouth to your line, and he is like to turn quick, and tempt any Trout: but if he does not turn quick, then turn his tail a little more or less towards the inner part, or towards the side of the hook; or put the Minnow or Sticklebag a little more crooked or more straight on your hook, until it will turn both true and fast and then doubt not but to tempt any great Trout that lies in a swift stream. And the Loach that I told you of will do the like: no bait is more tempting, provided the Loach be not too big. And now, Scholar, with the help of this fine morning, and your patient attention, I have said all that my present memory will afford me concerning most of the several fish that are usually fished for in fresh waters. VEN. But, Master, you have, by your former civility, made me hope that you will make good your promise, and say something of the several rivers that be of most note in this nation; and also of fish-ponds, and the ordering of them: and do it, I pray, good Master, for I love any discourse of rivers, and fish and fishing the time spent in such discourse passes away very pleasantly. CHAP. XIX. Of several Rivers, and some Observations of Fish. PISCATOR. ELL, Scholar, since the ways and weather do WELL, both favor us, and that we yet see not Tottenham Cross, you shall see my willingness to satisfy your desire. And, first, for the rivers of this nation : there be, as you may note out of Doctor Heylin's Geography and others, in number three hundred and twenty-five; but those of chiefest note he reckons and describes as followeth. The chief is THAMISIS, compounded of two rivers, Thame and Isis; whereof the former, rising somewhat beyond Thame in Buckinghamshire, and the latter near Cirencester in Gloucestershire, meet together about Dorchester in Oxfordshire; the issue of which happy conjunction is the Thamisis, or Thames. Hence it flieth betwixt Berks, Buckinghamshire, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, and Essex, and so weddeth himself to the Kentish Medway in the very jaws of the ocean. This glorious river feeleth the violence and benefit of the sea more than any river in Europe; ebbing and flowing twice a day more than sixty miles about whose banks are so many fair towns, and princely palaces, that a German poet thus truly spake : — "Tot campos, etc. "We saw so many woods and princely bowers, 2. The second river of note is SABRINA or SEVERN. It hath its beginning in Plinlimmon Hill in Montgomeryshire, and his end seven miles from Bristol; washing, in the mean space, the walls of Shrewsbury, Worcester, and Gloucester, and divers other places and palaces of note. 3. TRENT, so called from thirty kind of fishes that are found in it, or for that it receiveth thirty lesser rivers; who, having his fountain in Staffordshire, and gliding through the counties of Nottingham, Lincoln, Leicester, and York, augmenteth the turbulent current of Humber, the most violent stream of all the isle. This Humber is not, to say truth, a distinct river, having a spring-head of his own, but it is rather the mouth, or æstuarium, of divers rivers here confluent and meeting together: namely, your Derwent, and especially of Ouse and Trent; and (as the Danow, having received into its channel the rivers Dravus, Savus, Tibiscus, and divers others) changeth his name into this of Humberabus, as the old geographers call it. 4. MEDWAY, a Kentish river, famous for harboring the royal navy. 5. TWEED, the northeast bound of England, on whose northern banks is seated the strong and impregnable town of Berwick. 6. TYNE, famous for Newcastle, and her inexhaustible coal-pits. These, and the rest of principal note, are thus comprehended in one of Mr. Drayton's Sonnets. "Our floods' queen, Thames, for ships and swans is crowned; And stately Severn for her shore is praised; The crystal Trent for fords and fish renowned; York many wonders of her Ouse can tell ; Our northern borders boast of Tweed's fair flood; Our western parts extol their Willy's fame, And the old Lea brags of the Danish blood." These observations are out of learned Dr. Heylin, and my old deceased friend, Michael Drayton; and because you say you love such discourses as these of |