Most amorously to thee will swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou to be so seen be'st loth,
By sun or moon, thou darkenest both;
And if mine eyes have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling-reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset
With strangling snares, or windowy net:

Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest,
The bedded fish in banks outwrest;
Let curious traitors sleave silk flies,
To 'witch poor wandering fishes' eyes:

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait :
That fish that is not catch'd thereby
Is wiser far, alas! than I.

PISC. Well remembered, honest scholar! I thank you for these choice verses, which I have heard formerly, but had quite forgot, till they were recovered by your happy memory. Well, being I have now rested myself a little, I will make you some requital, by telling you some observations of the eel, for it rains still, and because, as you say, our angles are as money put to use, that thrives when we play, therefore we'll sit still and enjoy ourselves a little longer under this honeysuckle hedge.

APPENDIX XII.

PRACTICAL ESSAY.

THE PERCH.

The perch is a very plucky and game fish. It swims in large shoals, and the small ones may be caught in great numbers by the most youthful hand with a worm-baited hook. It frequents slow rivers, lakes, and ponds. The small "pits" in Cheshire are often full of perch, although they may be no larger than a fair-sized room. I was once coming home from fishing, and had not taken my tackle to pieces, and while I took a rest I threw my line, a remnant of a worm being on the hook, into a tiny pond by the side of the road. The float instantly dipped, and I pulled out a nice perch. In a short time I caught nine perch averaging half a pound each.

The perch spawns in March, April, or May, according to thewarmth or coldness of the season, and is in condition from June. It grows to four or five pounds in weight in England, but a twopound fish may be considered as above the average. It affords good winter fishing, and at that season of the year it may be found in hundreds in some eddy or deep backwater.

Worms and minnows are the most common baits for perch, and may be used with a good-sized hook, and a cork float, the bait swimming midway in the water in the warmer months, and near the bottom in the colder ones. If the bait is a minnow, it should be hooked through the upper lip. It is well to have a second hook a couple of feet above the lower one, and one can be baited with a worm, and one with a minnow. Let the float be taken well

away or under before you strike. The minnow should be as fresh and lively as possible.

Paternostering is a specialty of perch fishing. The paternoster is thus made: the gut bottom should be a yard long, weighted at the end with a bullet; links of gut 6 inches long are fastened to this, one just above the bullet and the others at intervals of IO inches above. Two, three, or four hooks may be thus suspended and baited with minnows and worms. No float is used, but the paternoster is cast into the eddies and other spots where perch are likely to be, and allowed to sink until the lead touches the bottom. It is then moved about, a foot or so at a time, until every part of the hole is well fished. When a bite is felt, the line must be slackened for a second or two, and when you feel a more vigorous tugging, strike firmly but not violently, or you may jerk the other baits off.

You may also troll with a minnow baited on a miniature gorgehook, like that described in the article on pike fishing, or with a drop minnow, as described in that on trout fishing, or you may spin with a natural or artificial minnow, or a small spoon-bait. In Norfolk the pattern of spoon with a red tassel behind is rightly accounted most killing, and Hearder's plano-convex minnow is good at all times. I used to catch numbers of large perch in the Shropshire meres while spinning for pike, with a good-sized roach for bait, and I have caught them with a very large spoon. A friend assures me that the most killing bait of all for perch is that known as the "baby spinner," made for sea-fishing. It is a long-shanked hook, with a small Archimedean spinner on the shank of it. A red worm should be placed on the hook, and the bait, weighted with lead about a foot above the hook, is worked up and down in the perch haunts. My friend says its effect was perfectly marvellous on the occasions on which he tried it.

The ordinary bottom-fishing rod will do very well for perch fishing, but if the angler has a choice, one a little longer will be better for paternostering, as it is of advantage to be able to reach a distance, and yet have a short line.

OBSERVATIONS OF THE EEL, AND OTHER FISH THAT WANT SCALES; AND HOW TO FISH FOR THEM.

PISC. It is agreed by most men, that the Eel is a most dainty fish: the Romans have esteemed her the Helena of their feasts, and some the queen of palate pleasure. But most men differ about their breeding: some say they breed by generation as other fish do, and others, that they breed, as some worms do, of mud; as rats and mice, and many other living creatures are bred in Egypt, by the sun's heat, when it shines upon the overflowing of the river Nilus; or

out of the putrefaction of the earth, and divers other ways. Those that deny them to breed by generation as other fish do, ask if any man ever saw an eel to have a spawn or melt? and they are answered, that they may be as certain of their breeding as if they had seen spawn; for they say, that they are certain that eels have all parts fit for generation, like other fish, but so small as not to be easily discerned, by reason of their fatness; but that discerned they may be; and that the he and the she-eel may be distinguished by their fins. And Rondeletius says he has seen eels cling together like dew-worms.1

And others say that eels, growing old, breed other eels out of the corruption of their own age; which, Sir Francis Bacon says, exceeds not ten years. And others say, that as worms are made of glutinous dew-drops, which are condensed by the sun's heat in those countries, so eels are bred of a particular dew, falling in the months of May or June on the banks of some particular ponds or rivers, apted by nature for that end; which in a few days are, by the sun's heat, turned into eels; and some of the ancients have called the eels that are thus bred the offspring of Jove. I have seen, in the beginning of July, in a river not far from Canterbury, some parts of it covered over with young eels, about the thickness of a straw; and these eels did lie on the top of that water, as thick as motes are said to be in the sun; and I have heard the like of other rivers, as namely, in Severn, where they are called yelvers; and in a pond, or mere, near unto Staffordshire, where, about a set time in summer, such small eels abound so much that many of the poorer sort of people that inhabit near to it, take such eels out of this mere with sieves or sheets; and make