CHAP. XVIII.

Of the MINNOW, or PENK; of the LOACH; of the BULL-HEAD, or MILLER's-THUMB: and of the STICKLEBAG.

Piscator. THERE be also three or four other little fish that I had almost forgot; that are all without scales; and may, for excellency of meat be compared to any fish of greatest value and largest size. They be usually full of eggs or spawn, all the months of summer; for they breed often, as 'tis observed mice and many of the four-footed creatures of the earth do; and as those, so these come quickly to their full growth and perfection. And it is needful that they breed both often and numerously; for they be, besides other accidents of ruin, both a prey and baits for other fish. And first I shall tell you of the Minnow or Penk.

The MINNOW hath, when he is in perfect season, and not sick, which is only presently after spawning, a kind of dappled or waved colour, like to a panther, on his sides, inclining to a greenish and sky-colour; his belly being milk white; and his back almost black, or blackish. He is a sharp biter at a small worm, and in hot weather makes excellent sport for young anglers, or boys, or women that love that recreation. And in the spring they make of them excellent Minnow-tansies; for being washed well in salt, and their heads and tails cut off, and their guts taken out, and not washed after, they prove excellent for that use; that is, being fried with yolks of eggs, the flowers of cowslips and of primroses, and a little tansy; thus used they make a dainty dish of meat.

The LOACH is, as I told you, a most dainty fish; he breeds and feeds in little and clear swift brooks or rills, and lives there upon the gravel, and in the sharpest

streams: he grows not to be above a finger long, and no thicker than is suitable to that length. This is not unlike the shape of the Eel: he has a beard or wattles like a Barbel. He has two fins at his sides, four at his belly, and one at his tail; he is dappled with many black or brown spots; his mouth is barbel-like under his nose, This fish is usually full of eggs or spawn; and is by Gesner and other learned physicians, commended for great nourishment, and to be very grateful both to the palate and stomach of sick persons. He is to be fished for with a very small worm, at the bottom; for he very seldom, or never, rises above the gravel, on which I told you he usually gets his living.

The MILLER'S-THUMB or BULL-HEAD, is a fish of no pleasing shape. He is by Gesner compared to the Seatoad-fish, for his similitude and shape. It has a head big and flat, much greater than suitable to his body; a mouth very wide, and usually gaping; he is without teeth, but his lips are very rough, much like to a file. He hath two fins near to his gills, which be roundish or crested; two fins also under the belly; two on the back; one below the vent; and the fin of his tail is round. Nature hath painted the body of this fish with whitish, blackish, and brownish spots. They be usually full of eggs or spawn all the summer, I 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

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(1) Since Walton wrote, there has been brought into England, from Germany, a species of small fish, resembling Carp in shape and colour, called Crusians, with which may ponds are now plentifully stocked.

There have also been brought hither from China, those beautiful creatures Gold and Silver Fish; the first are of an orange-colour, with very shining scales, and finely variegated with black and dark brown: the Silver Fish are of the colour of silver tissue, with scarlet fins, with which colour they are curiously marked in several parts of the body.

These fish are usually kept in ponds, basons, and small reservoirs of water; to which they are a delightful ornament. And it is now a very common prac

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 cuckow and swallow, and other halfyear birds, which first appear to us in April, spend their six cold, winter, melancholy months. This fish 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 fenc'd 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 wind-mill, 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

tice to keep them in a large glass-vessel like a punch bowl, with fine gravel strewed at the bottom; frequently changing the water, and feeding them with bread and gentles. Those who can take more pleasure in angling for, than in beholding them, which I confess I could never do, may catch them with gentles; but though costly, they are but coarse food.

(1) Petrus Andreas Matthiolus, of Sienna, an eminent physician of the sixteenth century, famous for his Commentaries on some of the writings of Dioscorides.

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.

(1) The Minnow, if used in this manner, is so tempting a bait, that few fish are able to resist it. The present Earl of ******** told me, that in the month of June last, at Kimpton Hoo, near Wellwyn, in Hertfordshire, he caught (with a Minnow) a Rud, a fish described in page 195, which, insomuch as the Rud is not reckoned, nor does the situation of his teeth, which are in his throat, bespeak him to be a fish of prey, is a fact more extraordinary than that related by Sir George Hastings, in Chap. IV. of a Fordidge Trout (of which kind of fish none had ever been known to be taken with an angle), which he caught, and supposed it bit for wantonness.

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CHAP. XIX.

Of several RIVERS, and some Observations on FISH.

Piscator. WELL, scholar, since the ways and weather do both favour us, and that we 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 325; 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 between

(1) It should be Dr. Heylin's Cosmography, a book well known. Great confusion arises from the want of a clear idea of the many words in our language that have this termination; but it seems they are well understood by some. About forty years ago, Mr. Jefferys, a printseller at the corner of St. Martin's-lane, and a great engraver of maps, got himself to be enrolled in the list of the servants of Frederick, prince of Wales, by the designation of Geogra pher to his Royal Highness. Rocque, who published the great map of London, at that time a young man, and desirous of an honourable adjunct to his name, applied, shortly after, to the servants of the Prince, and, with the tender of a proper gratuity, solicited the same appointment; but was given to understand by them, that he was too late, for that the office of Geographer was disposed of; but they, (probably hearing the chink of his money) comforted him by saying, that they could set him down in terms of their own invention, either Topographer, or Chorographer, to his Royal Highness the Prince. The charms of these sonorous appellations were too strong to be resisted. Mr. Rocque, therefore, after due deliberation upon a matter so important, made choice of the former; and, in addition to his name, caused it to be painted on the front of his shop in the Strand.

(2) Though the current opinion is, that the Thames had its name from the conjunction of Thame and Isis, it plainly appears that the Isis was always called Thames, or Tems, before it came near the Tame. Gibbon's Camden, edit. 1753. p. 99.

And as to the head of the Thame, although it is generally supposed to be in Oxfordshire, Camden (whom we may suppose Walton followed), Brit. 215, says it is in Buckinghamshire.

But what shall we say to the following account which Lambarde has adopted?