their holes.* And the manner of taking them is on the top of the water with a great lob or garden-worm, or rather two, which you are to fish with in a place where the waters run somewhat quietly, for in a stream the bait will not be so well discerned. I say, in a quiet or dead place, near to some swift, there draw your bait over the top of the water, to and fro, and if there be a good Trout in the hole, he will take it, especially if the night be dark, for then he is bold, and lies near the top of the water, watching the motion of any frog, or water-rat, or mouse, that swims betwixt him and the sky: these he hunts after, if he sees the water but wrinkle or move in one of these dead holes, where these great old Trouts usually lie, near to their holds; for you are to note, that the great old Trout is both subtle and fearful, and lies close all day, and does not usually stir out of his hold, but lies in it as close in the day as the timorous hare does in her form; for the chief feeding of either is seldom in the day, but usually in the night, and then the great Trout feeds very boldly.

And you must fish for him with a strong line, and not a little hook; and let him have time to gorge your hook, for he does not usually forsake it, as he oft will in the day-fishing. And if the night be not dark, then fish so with an artificial fly of a light colour, and at the snap: nay, he will sometimes rise at a dead mouse, or a piece of cloth, or any thing that seems to swim across the water, or to be in motion. This is a choice way, but I have not oft used it, because it is void of the pleasures that such days as these, that we two now enjoy, afford an angler.

And you are to know, that in Hampshire, which I think exceeds all England for swift, shallow, clear, pleasant brooks, and store of Trouts, they used to catch Trouts in the night, by the light of a torch or straw, which, when they have discovered, they strike with a Trout-spear, or other ways. This kind of way they catch very many: but I would not believe it till I was an eye-witness of it, nor do I like it now I have seen it.†

Venator. But, master, do not Trouts see us in the night? Piscator. Yes, and hear and smell too, both then and in the day time for Gesner observes, the Otter smells a fish forty furlongs off him in the water: and that it may be true, seems to be affirmed by Sir Francis Bacon, in the Eighth Century of his Natural History, who there proves that waters may be the medium of sounds, by demonstrating it thus," that if you knock

The holes here meant are not pools, as the same word means below, but under the brow of a bank, under the hollow of a stone, or the shelter of a tree root, where I have often, when_a_boy, surprised very large Trouts, and caught them with the hand. J. R.

+This, when practised with regard to Salmon, is called Black Fishing, in Scotland, and has been graphically described by Sir Walter Scott in Guy Mannering. I have myself been more than once engaged in it. — J. R.

two stones together very deep under the water, those that stand on a bank near to that place may hear the noise without any diminution of it by the water." He also offers the like experiment concerning the letting an anchor fall, by a very long cable or rope, on a rock, or the sand, within the sea. And this being To well observed and demonstrated as it is by that learned man, has made me to believe that Eels unbed themselves and stir at the noise of thunder, and not only, as some think, by the motion or stirring of the earth which is occasioned by that thunder.

And this reason of Sir Francis Bacon (Exper. 792) has made me crave pardon of one that I laughed at for affirming that he knew Carps come to a certain place in a pond to be fed at the ringing of a bell or the beating of a drum. And, however, it shall be a rule for me to make as little noise as I can when I am fishing until Sir Francis Bacon be confuted, which I shall give any man leave to do.*

And least you may think him singular in this opinion, I will tell you, this seems to be believed by our learned Dr Hakewill, who, in his Apology of God's Power and Providence, fol. 360, quotes Pliny to report that one of the emperors had particular fish ponds, and in them several fish that appeared and came when they were called by their particular names.† And St James tells us, chap. i. 7. that all things in the sea have been tamed by mankind. And Pliny tells us, lib. ix. 35. that Antonia, the wife of Drusus, had a Lamprey at whose gills she hung jewels, or ear-rings; and that others have been so tenderhearted as to shed tears at the death of fishes which they have kept and loved. And these observations, which will to most hearers seem wonderful, seem to have a farther confirmation from Martial, lib. iv Epigr. 30. who writes thus: +

p. 50.

Angler! wouldst thou be guiltless? then forbear:
For these are sacred fishes that swim here,
Who know their sovereign, and will lick his hand;
Than which none's greater in the world's command;
Nay more, they 've names, and, when they called are,
Do to their several owners' call repair.

* That fish hear, is confirmed by the authority of late writers: Swammerdam asserts it, and adds, " They have a wonderful labyrinth of the ear for that purpose. See Swammerdam, Of Insects, edit. London, 1758, A clergyman, a friend of mine, assures me, that at the abbey of St Bernard, near Antwerp, he saw Carp come at the whistling of the feeder. +Monsieur Berneier, in his History of Indostan, reports the like of the Great Mogul.

The verses cited are as follow:

Piscator, fuge; ne nocens, recedas,

Sacria piscibus hæ natantur unde;

Qui norunt dominum, manumque lambunt

Illam qua nihil est, in orbe, majus :

Quid, quod nomen habent; et ad magistri
Vocem quisque sui venit citatus.

All the farther use that I shall make of this shall be, to advise anglers to be patient, and forbear swearing, least they be heard, and catch no fish.

And so I shall proceed next to tell you, it is certain that certain fields near Leominster, a town in Herefordshire, are observed to make the sheep that graze upon them more fat than the next, and also to bear finer wool: that is to say, that that year in which they feed in such a particular pasture, they shall yield finer wool than they did that year before they came to feed in it; and coarser again if they shall return to their former pasture; and again return to a finer wool, being fed in the fine wool ground: which I tell you, that you may the better believe that I am certain, if I catch a Trout in one meadow, he shall be white and faint, and very like to be lousy; and as certainly, if I catch a Trout in the next meadow, he shall be strong and red, and lusty, and much better meat. Trust me, scholar, I have caught many a Trout in a particular meadow, that the very shape and the enamelled colour of him hath been such as hath joyed me to look on him and I have then, with much pleasure, concluded with Solomon, Every thing is beautiful in his season.' ""*

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I should, by promise, speak next of the Salmon; but I will, by your favour, say a little of the Umber, or Grayling, which is so like a Trout for his shape and feeding, that I desire I may exercise your patience with a short discourse of him; and then the next shall be of the Salmon.

The Trout delights in small purling rivers, and brooks with gravelly bottoms and a swift stream. His haunts are an eddy, behind a stone, or log, or a bank that projects forward into the river, and against which the stream drives; a shallow between two streams; or, towards the latter end of the summer, a mill tail. His hold is usually in the deep, under the hollow of a bank, or the root of a tree.

The Trout spawns about the beginning of November, and does not recover till the beginning of March.

When you fish for large Trout or Salmon, a winch will be very useful; upon the rod with which you use the winch, whip a number of small rings, of about an eighth of an inch diameter, and at first about two feet distant from each other, but afterward diminishing gradually in their distances till you come to the end the winch must be screwed on to the butt of your rod; and round the barrel let there be wound eight or ten yards of wove hair or silk line. When you have struck a fish that may endanger your tackle, let the line run, and wind him up as he tires.

When you angle for a Trout, whether with a fly or at the ground, you need but make three or four trials in a place; which, if unsuccessful, you may conclude there are none there.

Walton, in speaking of the several rivers where Trout are found, has made no mention of the Kennet which, undoubtedly, produces as good and as many Trouts as any river in England. In the reign of King Charles the Second, a Trout was taken in that river, near Newbury, with a castingnet, which measured forty-five inches in length.

I may add to this note by Hawkins, that it will be important not to carry a Trout, when struck, up the stream; for, in that case, the force of the stream and the strength of the fish united, will probably snap the line.-J. R.

CHAPTER VI.

OBSERVATIONS OF THE UMBER, OR GRAYLING, AND DIRECTIONS
HOW TO FISH FOR HIM.

THE GRAYLING-Salmo Thymallus. - LINNAEUS.

Piscator. THE Umber and Grayling are thought by some to differ, as the Herring and Pilchard do; but though they may do so in other nations, I think those in England differ nothing but in their names. Aldrovandus says, they be of a Trout kind; and Gesner says, that in his country, which is Switzerland, he is accounted the choicest of all fish. And in Italy, he is in the month of May so highly valued, that he is sold then at a much higher rate than any other fish. The French, which call the Chub un villain, call the Umber of the Lake Leman un umble chevalier; and they value the Umber, or Grayling, so highly that they say he feeds on gold; and say, that many have been caught out of their famous river of Loire, out of whose bellies grains of gold have been often taken. And some think that he feeds on water thyme,* and smells of it at his first taking out of the water; and they may think so with as good reason as we do that our Smelts smell like violets at their being first caught, which I think is a truth. Aldrovandus says, the Salmon, the Grayling, and Trout, and all fish that live in clear and sharp streams, are made by their mother Nature of such exact shape and pleasant colours purposely to invite us to a joy and contentedness in feasting with her. Whether this is a truth or not it is not my purpose to dispute; but 'tis certain, all

There is no plant of this name known to botanists, and I think it must be wholly imaginary.-J. R.

that write of the Umber declare him to be very medicinable. And Gesner says, that the fat of an Umber, or Grayling, being set, with a little honey, a day or two in the sun, in a little glass, is very excellent against redness, or swarthiness, or any thing that breeds in the eyes. Salvian* takes him to be called Umber from his swift swimming, or gliding out of sight more like a shadow, or a ghost, than a fish. Much more might be said both of his smell and taste: but I shall only tell you, that St Ambrose, the glorious bishop of Milan, who lived when the church kept fasting days, calls him the Flower-fish, or flower of fishes; and that he was so far in love with him that he would not let him pass without the honour of a long discourse; but I must, and pass on to tell you how to take this dainty fish.

First note, that he grows not to the bigness of a Trout; for the biggest of them do not usually exceed eighteen inches. He lives in such rivers as the Trout does, and is usually taken with the same baits as the Trout is, and after the same manner; for he will bite both at the Minnow, or worm, or fly, (though he bites not often at the Minnow,) and is very gamesome at the fly; and much simpler, and therefore bolder than a Trout; for he will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise again. He has been taken with a fly made of the red feathers of a Parakita, a strange outlandish bird; and he will rise at a fly not unlike a gnat, or a small moth, or, indeed, at most flies that are not too big. He is a fish that lurks close all winter, but is very pleasant and jolly after mid April, and in May, and in the hot months.† He is of a very fine shape, his flesh is white, his teeth, those little ones that he has, are in his throat, yet he has so tender a mouth, that he is oftener lost after an angler has hooked him than any other fish. Though there be many of these fishes in the delicate river Dove, and in Trent, and some other smaller rivers, as that which runs by Salisbury, yet he is not so general a fish as the Trout, nor to me so good to eat or to angle for.‡ And so I shall take my leave of him; and now come to some observations on the Salmon, and how to catch him.

Hippolito Salviani, an Italian physician of the sixteenth century: he wrote a treatise De Piscibus, cum eorum figuris, and died at Rome, 1572, aged 59.

+"Grayling," says Sir Humphry Davy, "if you take your station by the side of a river, will rise nearer to you than Trout, for they lie deeper, and therefore are not so much scared by an object on the bank; but they are more delicate in the choice of the flies than Trout."-J. R.

The haunts of the Grayling are so nearly the same with those of the Trout, that, in fishing for either, you may, in many rivers, catch both. They spawn about the beginning of April, when they lie mostly in sharp streams.

Baits for the Grayling are chiefly the same as those for the Trout, except the Minnow, which he will not take so freely. He will also take gentles