after another; they being, as he says, like the wicked of the world, not afraid, though their fellows and companions perish in their sight. And you may observe, that they are not like the solitary Pike, but love to accompany one another, and march together in troops. And the baits for this bold fish are not I many: mean, he will bite as well at some, or at any of these three, as at any or all others whatsoever; a worm, a minnow, or a little frog, (of which you may find many in hay-time.) And of worms; the dunghill worm called a brandling I take to be best, being well scoured in moss or fennel; or he will bite at a worm that lies under cow-dung, with a bluish head. And if you rove for a Pearch with a minnow, then it is best to be alive; you sticking your hook through his back fin; or a minnow with the hook in his upper lip, and letting him swim up and down, about midwater, or a little lower, and you still keeping him to about that depth by a cork, which ought not to be a very little one: and the like way you are to fish for the Pearch with a small frog, your hook being fastened through the skin of his leg, towards the upper part of it: and, lastly, I will give you but this advice, that you give the Pearch time enough when he bites; for there was scarce ever any angler that has given him too much.' And now I think (1) Although Pearch, like Trout, delight in clear swift rivers, with pebbly, gravelly bottoms, they are often found in sandy, clayey soils: they love a moderately deep water, and frequent holes by the sides of or near little streams, and the hollows under banks. The Pearch spawns about the beginning of March; the best time of the year to angle for him is from the beginning of May till the end of June, yet you may continue to fish for him till the end of September: he is best taken in cloudy windy weather, and, as some say, from seven to ten in the forenoon, and from two to seven in the afternoon. Other baits for the Pearch are, loaches, miller's-thumbs, stickle-backs; small lob, and marsh, and red-worms, well scoured; horse-beans, boiled; cad-bait, oak-worms, bobs, and gentles. Many of these fish are taken in the rivers about Oxford; and the author of the Angler's Sure Guide says, he once saw the figure of a Pearch, drawn with a pencil on the door of a house near that city, which was twenty-nine inches long; and was informed it was the true dimensions of a living Pearch. Angl. Sure Guide, p. 155. best to rest myself; for I have almost spent my spirits with talking so long. : Ven. Nay, good master, one fish more, for you see it rains still and you know our angles are like money put to usury; they may thrive, though we sit nothing but talk and enjoy one another. the other fish, good master. still, and do Come, come, Pisc. But, scholar, have you nothing to mix with this discourse, which now grows both tedious and tiresome? Shall I have nothing from you, that seem to have both a good memory and a cheerful spirit? Ven. Yes, master, I will speak you a copy of verses that were made by Doctor Donne, and made to shew the world that he could make soft and smooth verses, when he thought smoothness worth his labour: and I love them the better, because they allude to rivers, and fish and fishing. They be these: Come live with me, and be my love, If thou, to be so seen, beest loath The largest Pearch are taken with a minnow, hooked with a good hold through the back-fin, or rather through the upper-lip; for the Pearch, by reason of the figure of his mouth, cannot take the bait crosswise, as the Pike will. When you fish thus, use a large cork-float, and lead your line about nine inches from the bottom, otherwise the minnow will come to the top of the water; but in the ordinary way of fishing, let your bait hang within about six inches from the ground. 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. CHAP. XIII. Observations on the EEL, and other Fish that want Scales; and how to fish for them. Piscator. 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 palatepleasure. 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. 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 pearls 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 a kind of Eelcake of them, and eat it like as bread. And Gesner (1) That fishes are furnished with parts fit for generation cannot be doubted, since it is a common practice to castrate them. See the method of doing it in Philos. Trans. Vol. XLVIII. Part II. for the year 1754, page 870. quotes venerable Bede,' to say, that in England there is an island called Ely, by reason of the innumerable number of Eels that breed in it. But that Eels may be bred as some worms, and some kind of bees and wasps are, either of dew, or out of the corruption of the earth, seems to be made probable by the barnacles and young goslings bred by the sun's heat and the rotten planks of an old ship, and hatched of trees; both which are related for truths by Du Bartas and Lobel,2 and also by our learned Camden, and laborious Gerhard3 in his Herbal. It is said by Rondeletius, that those Eels that are bred in rivers that relate to or be nearer to the sea, never return to the fresh waters, (as the Salmon does always desire to do,) when they have once tasted the salt water; and I do the more easily believe this, because I am certain that powdered beef is a most excellent bait to catch an Eel. And though Sir Francis Bacon will allow the Eel's life to be but ten years; yet he, in his History of Life and Death, mentions a Lamprey, belonging to the Roman emperor, to be made tame, and so kept for almost (1) The most universal scholar of his time: he was born at Durham about 671, and bred under St. John of Beverley. It is said, that Pope Sergius the First invited him to Rome; though others say, he never stirred out of his cell. He was a man of great virtue, and remarkable for a most sweet and engaging disposition he died in 734, and lies buried at Durham. His works make eight volumes in folio. See his Life in the Biogr. Britann. : (2) Matthias de Lobel, or L'Obel, an eminent physician and botanist of the sixteenth century, was a native of Lisle, in Flanders. He was a disciple of Rondeletius; and being invited to London, by king James the First, published there his Historia Plantarum, and died in the year 1616. Vide Hoffmanni "Lexicon Universale," art. "Matthias Lobelius." This work is entitled Plantarum seu Stirpium Historia, and was first published at Antwerp in 1576, and republished at London in 1605. He was author likewise of two other works; the former of which has for its title Balsami, Opobalsami, Carpobalsami, & Xylobalsami, cum suo cortice, Explanatio. Lond. 1598; and the latter, Stirpium Illustrationes. Lond. 1655. (3) The person here mentioned is John Gerard, one of the first of our English Botanists: he was by profession a Surgeon; and published, in 1597, an Herbal, in a large folio, dedicated to the lord treasurer Burleigh; and, two years after, a Catalogue of Plants, Herbs, &c. to the number of eleven hundred, raised and naturalized by himself in a large garden near his house in Hol born. The latter is dedicated to Sir Walter Raleigh. |