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they be both honest men, and will fit an angler with what tackling he lacks.'

Ven. Then, good master, let it be at

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is nearest to my dwelling. And I pray let's meet there the ninth of May next, about two of the clock; and I'll want nothing that a fisher should be furnished with.

Pisc. Well, and I'll not fail you, God willing, at the time and place appointed.

you.

Ven. I thank you, good master, and I will not fail And, good master, tell me what BAITS more you remember; for it will not now be long ere we shall be at Tottenham-High-Cross; and when we come thither I will make you some requital of your pains, by repeating as choice a Copy of Verses as any we have heard since we met together; and that is a proud word, for we have heard very good ones.

For whipping on a hook take the following directions: Place the hook betwixt the fore-finger and thumb of your left hand, and with your right give the waxed silk three or four turns round the shank of the hook; then lay the end of the hair on the inside of the shank, and with your right hand whip down; when you are within about four turns of the bent of the hook, take the shank between the fore-finger and thumb of the left-hand, and place the silk close by it, holding them both tight, and leaving the end to hang down; then draw the other part of the silk into a large loop; and, with your right-hand turning backwards, continue the whipping for four turns, and draw the end of the silk (which has all this while hung down under the root of your left thumb,) close, and twitch it off.

To tie a water-knot: lay the end of one of your hairs, about five inches or less, over that of the other; and through the loop (which you would make to tie them in the common way) pass the long and the short end of the hairs, which will lie to the right of the loop, twice; and, wetting the knot with your tongue, draw it close, and cut off the spare hair.

(1) In some former editions of this book, the author has, in this place, mentioned Charles Kirby as a maker of excellent hooks; of whom take the following account: He was famous for the neatness and form of his hooks; when, being introduced to prince Rupert, whose name frequently occurs in the history of king Charles the First's reign, the prince communicated to him a method of tempering them, which has been continued in the family to this time; there being a lineal descendant of the above-named Charles Kirby now (1760) living in Crowther's-well-alley, near Aldersgate-street; whose hooks, for their shape and temper, exceed all others. This story is the more likely to be true, as it is well known that the German nobility, in the last century, were much addicted to chemistry, and that to this prince Rupert the world is indebted for the invention of scraping in mezzotinto. See a head of his scraping in Evelyn's Sculptura.

Pisc. Well, scholar, and I shall be then right glad to hear them. And I will, as we walk, tell you whatsoever comes in my mind, that I think may be worth your hearing. You may make another choice bait thus: take a handful or two of the best and biggest wheat you can get; boil it in a little milk, like as frumity is boiled; boil it so till it be soft; and then fry it, very leisurely, with honey, and a little beaten saffron dissolved in milk: and you' will find this a choice bait, and good, I think, for any fish, especially for Roach, Dace, Chub, or Grayling: I know not but that it may be as good for a river Carp, and especially if the ground be a little baited with it.

And you may also note, that the SPAWN of most fish is a very tempting bait, being a little hardened on a warm tile, and cut into fit pieces.' Nay, mulberries, and those blackberries which grow upon briars, be good baits for Chubs or Carps: with these many have been taken in ponds, and in some rivers where such trees have grown near the water, and the fruits customarily dropt into it. And there be a hundred other baits, more than can be well named, which, by constant baiting the water, will become a tempting bait for any fish in it.

You are also to know, that there be divers kinds of CADIS, or Case-worms, that are to be found in this nation, in several distinct counties, and in several little brooks that relate to bigger rivers; as namely, one cadis called a piper, whose husk or case is a piece of reed about an inch long, or longer, and as big about as the compass of a two-pence. These worms being kept three or four days in a woollen bag, with sand at the bottom of it, and the bag wet once a day, will in three or four days turn to be yellow; and these be a choice bait for the Chub or Chavender, or indeed for any great fish, for it is a large bait.

(1) See the Note in page 202.

There is also a lesser cadis-worm, called a Cock-spur, being in fashion like the spur of a cock, sharp at one end; and the case, or house, in which this dwells, is made of small husks, and gravel, and slime, most curiously made of these, even so as to be wondered at, but not to be made by man, no more than a king-fisher's nest can, which is made of little fishes' bones, and have such a geometrical interweaving and connection as the like is not to be done by the art of man. This kind of cadis is a choice bait for any float-fish; it is much less than the piper-cadis, and to be so ordered; and these may be so preserved, ten, fifteen, or twenty days, or it may be longer.'

* See infra,

There is also another cadis, called by some a Strawworm, and by some a Ruff-coat,* whose house, or case, is made of little pieces of bents, and p. 209, Note. rushes, and straws, and water-weeds, and I know not what; which are so knit together with condensed slime, that they stick about her husk or case not unlike the bristles of a hedge-hog. These three cadises are commonly taken in the beginning of summer; and are good, indeed, to take any kind of fish, with float or otherwise. I might tell you of many more, which as these do early, so they have their time also of turning to be flies later in summer; but I might lose myself, and tire you, by such a discourse I shall therefore but remember you, that to know these, and their several kinds, and to what flies every particular cadis turns, and then how to use them, first as they be cadis, and after as they be flies, is an art, and an art that every one that professes to be an angler

(1) To preserve cadis, grasshoppers, caterpillars, oak-worms, or natural flies, the following is an excellent method: Cut a round bough of fine green-barked withy, about the thickness of one's arm; and, taking off the bark about a foot in length, turn both ends together, into the form of a hoop, and fasten them with a pack-needle and thread; then stop up the bottom with a bung-cork: and with a red-hot wire bore the bark full of holes; into this put your baits: tie it over with a colewort leaf; and lay it in the grass every night. In this manner cadis may be kept till they turn to flies. To grasshoppers you may put grass.

has not leisure to search after, and, if he had, is not capable of learning.'

I'll tell you, scholar; several countries have several kinds of cadises, that indeed differ as much as dogs do; that is to say, as much as a very cur and a greyhound do. These be usually bred in the very little rills, or ditches, that run into bigger rivers; and, I think, a more proper bait for those very rivers than any other. I know not how, or of what, this cadis receives life, or what

(1) "The several sorts of phryganee, or cadews, in their nympha or maggot state, thus house themselves; one sort in straws, called from thence strawworms; others, in two or more sticks laid parallel to one another, creeping at the bottom of brooks; others with a small bundle of pieces of rushes, duckweed, sticks, &c. glued together; wherewith they float on the top, and can row themselves therein about the waters with the help of their feet: both these are called cad-bait. Divers sorts there are, which the Reader may see a summary of from Mr. Willoughby, in Raii Method. Insect. p. 12, together with a good, though very brief, description of the papilionaceous fly that comes from the cadbait cadew. It is a notable architectonic faculty, which all the variety of these animals have, to gather such bodies as are fittest for their purpose, and then to glue them together; some to be heavier than water, that the animal may remain at bottom, where its food is; (for which purpose they use stones, together with sticks, rushes, &c.) and some to be lighter than water, to float on the top, and gather its food from thence. These little houses look coarse, and shew no great artifice outwardly; but are well tunnelled, and made within with a hard tough paste, into which the hind part of the maggot is so fixed, that it can draw its cell after it any where, without danger of leaving it behind; as also thrust out its body to reach what it wanteth, or withdraw it into its cell to guard it against harms." Phys. Theol. 234.

Thus much of cadis in general, as an illustration of what our author has said on that subject. But to be more particular:

That which Walton calls the piper-cadis I have never seen; but a very learned and ingenious friend of mine, who has for fifty years past been an angler, and a curious observer of aquatic productions, has furnished me with an Account of that insect; which I shall give the reader in nearly his own words:

"The piper-cadis I take to be the largest of the tribe, and that it takes its name not from any sound, but figure. I never met with it but in rivers running upon beds of lime-stone or large pebbles; they are common in Northern and Welch streams. The cadew itself is about an inch long, and in some above. The case is straight and rough; the outward surface covered with gravel or sand; the fistula, or pipe, in which it is contained, seems to be a small stick, of which the pith was quite decayed, before the insect, in its state immediately succeeding the egg, lodged itself. Advanced to an aurelia, which is generally in April, or the beginning of May, it leaves its case and last covering, a sort of thin skin resembling a fish's bladder, (and this is likewise the method of the whole genus, as far as I could ever observe,) and immediately paddles upon the top of the water with its many legs. It seldom flies, though it has four wings; and of these wings it is to be observed, that in the infant state of the insect, viz. for a week or longer, they are shorter than the body, but afterwards

coloured fly it turns to; but doubtless they are the death of many Trouts: and this is one killing way:

Take one, or more if need be, of these large yellow cadis: pull off his head, and with it pull out his black gut; put the body, as little bruised as is possible, on a very little hook, armed on with a red hair, which will shew like the cadis-head; and a very little thin lead, so put upon the shank of the hook that it may sink pre

they grow to be full as long or longer. This is usually called, by sportsmen, the stone-fly; in Wales they name it the water-cricket, the size and colour being like that insect."

As to the cock-spur, Bowlker expressly says, in his Art of Angling, p. 70, that it produces the May-fly, or yellow cadew; which I have ever understood to be the green-drake.

That which Walton calls the straw worm, or ruff-coat, though, by the way, he certainly errs in making these terms synonymous, as will here-after be made to appear, and which is described in Ray's Methodus insectorum, p. 12. is, I take it, the most common of any, and is found in the river Colne, near Uxbridge; the New River, near London; the Wandle, which runs through Carshalton in Surrey; and in most other rivers. As to the straw-worn), I am assured, by my friend above-mentioned, that it produces many and various flies; namely, that which is called, about London, the withy.fly, ash-coloured duns of several shapes and dimensions, as also light and dark browns, all of them affording great diversion in Northern streams.

It now remains to speak of the ruff-coat, which seems to answer so nearly to the description which Walton has given of the cock-spur, viz." that the case or house in which it dwells is made of small husks, and gravel and slime, most curiously;" that there is no accounting for his making the term synonymous with that of the straw-worm, which it does not in the least resemble: and yet, that the ruff coat and the cockspur produce different flies, notwithstanding their seeming resemblance, must be taken for granted, unless we will reject Bowlker's authority, when he says the cock-spur produces the May-fly or yellow cadew, which I own I see no reason to do.

But that I may not mislead the reader, I must inform him, that I take the ruff-coat to be a species of cadis inclosed in a husk about an inch long, surrounded by bits of stone, flints, bits of tile, &c. very near equal in their sizes, and most curiously compacted together, like mosaic.

In the month of May, 1759, I took one of the insects last above described, which had been found in the river Wandle, in Surrey, and put it into a small box with sand at the bottom; and wetted it five or six times a day, for five days; at the end whereof, to my great amazement, it produced a lovely large fly, nearly of the shape of, but less than a common white butterfly, with two pair of cloakwings, and of a light cinnamon colour. This fly, upon inquiry, I find is called, in the North, the large light brown; in Ireland, and some other places, it has the name of the flame-coloured brown. And the method of making it is given in the Additional List of Flies, under Sep- * Appendix, tember:* where, from its smell, the reader will find it called the large fœtid light brown.

No. 2.

And there are many other kinds of these wonderful creatures; as may be seen in Mons. de Reaumur's Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Insectes, Tome III. See also the APPENDIX, No. 1.

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