in a pyramidal form, on the cord: the lead must be made hollow three parts of the way up it, and then a hole must be bored through it big enough to put the cord through, and let the lead slide down to the knot. Then fix all to a manageable pole, and use it in muddy water. When the fishes tug, let them have time to fasten, then draw them gently up and hoist them quick to shore. A boat called a punt is very useful in this kind of fishing. Some use an eel-spear to catch eels with, which is an instrument with three or four forks or jagged teeth, which they strike at random into the mud.

The rivers Stour in Dorsetshire, Ankam in Lincolnshire, and Irk in Lancashire, are famed by their respective neighbours for very excellent eels. Mr. Pope has celebrated the river Kennet, in Berkshire, on the same account, in his Windsor Forest.

The Kennet swift, for silver eels renown'd.

In Rumsey-mere, in Huntingdonshire, are a great quantity of eels, and large pikes which they call hagets; but Cambridgeshire boasts of having the most and best eels, if you credit the natives.

Eel-pouts, another fish somewhat resembling the eel, but more esteemed, are also found in some rivers. Their haunts are the same as the eel's, and they are to be taken in peals of thunder and heavy rain, when they leave their holes. The best bait is a small gudgeon. Hooks the double or single ones.

THE ROACH.

The roach is as foolish as the carp is crafty; he is by no means a delicate fish: the river-ones are much better than those bred in ponds. They spawn

in May, and will bite all day long if the weather is not in either of the extremes, on the top of the water. Their haunts are chiefly in sandy or gravelly deep waters, delighting to be in the shade. In April their baits are cads and worms. In summer white snails or flies. In autumn a páste made of fine white bread, moulded in your hands with water, and a little cotton added to it, to keep it from washing off the hook. In winter gentles are the best bait for him. You should fish with a line made of single hairs, a quill-float, and the lead about a foot from the hook; and when you angle for roach, always cast in a ground-bait, made of bran, clay, and bread, incorporated together ;* and when you angle with tender baits, always strike at the least nibble that is apparent. Sprouted malt, the young brood of wasps, bees dipt in blood, and the dried blood of sheep, are nostrums in this king of angling.

The largest roach in this kingdom are taken in the Thames, where many have been caught of two pounds and a half weight; but roach of any size are hard to be taken without a boat.

The people who live in the fishing-towns along the banks of the Thames, have a method of dressing large roach and dace, which, it is said, renders them a very pleasant and savoury food; it is as follows: without scaling the fish, lay him on a gridiron, over a slow fire, and strew a little flour on him when he begins to grow brown, make a slit, not more than skin deep, in his back, from head to tail, and lay him on again. When he is broiled enough, the skin, scales and all, will peel off, and

:

* Coarse bran and flour make an excellent ground-bait, but they must not be too much moulded.

leave the flesh, which will be by that time very firm and perfectly clean. Open the belly, take out the inside, aud use anchovy aud butter for sauce.

Red paste is an excellent bait, coloured with vermilion or red lead as I have before laid down, but it is best to take with you gentles, white paste, and their other baits, as they are very fond of change, and will refuse one minute what they will take the next. Their hooks No. 11 or 12.

THE DACE OR DARE.

This fish, and the roach, are much of the same kind, therefore the directions given for one will serve for the other. They spawn about the middle of March, and will take any fly, especially the Stonecadew-fly, May-fly, the latter end of April and most part of May; and the ant-fly in June, July, and August. When you angle for the dace with the ant-fly under water, let it be about two hands' breadth from the ground. They never refuse a fly in a warm day on the top of the water. The best bait for them in the winter, is the earth-bob, it is the spawn of the beetle, and is to be found by following the plough in sandyish grounds; put them into a vessel with some of the earth from whence they are taken, and use them all the winter as an excellent bait, as I have before-mentioned in the description of baits. As for your line, &c. the directions given for the roach, will serve in all respects for the dace or dare.

Dace may be also taken with flesh-flies, upon the surface of the water; into whose backs, between the wings, you must put your hook, which should be very small: they bite in the morning

and evening; you must then provide a cane-rod, which is the lightest of any, and let it be seventeen feet at least in length, and your line which should, from the middle downwards, consist of single-hairs, be a little longer than your rod; then provide a sufficient quantity of small house-flies, which keep in a phial, stopped with a cork. With these repair, especially about seven or eight o'clock in a summer's evening, to a mill-stream, and having fixed three or four hooks, with single-hair links, not above four inches long to your line, bait them with the flies, and angle upon the surface of the water on the smoothest part, at the end of the stream; the dace will rise freely, especially if the sun does not shine on that part of the water where you cast the flies, and you may take two or three at a time. This sport will continue as long as day-light will permit you to see the flies. In the same manner dace will also rise at the antfly upon the surface of the water, if used in a morning at the foot of a current or mill-stream or on the scour before the sun comes on the water. If the water is high, so as to be almost equal with its banks, take your fly-rod, and fasten to your line an artificial-fly, called the caterpillar-fly, or a small red palmer, then take a large yellow gentle, the yellower the better, run the hook through the skin of .it, and draw it up to the tail of the fly: this being done, whip it on the surface of the water, and if you are diligent and expert, you will have good 'diversion. If you angle where two mill-streams are going at the same time, let it be in the eddy between the two streams: first make use of your 'plummet; if the water is deep, angle within a foot of the bottom, and perhaps you will find but poor sport; but if it proves to be shallow, that is, about

the depth of two feet, or not exceeding three, your sport may be better; bait your hook with three large gentles, use a cork-float, be very attentive, and strike at the very first bite: if there are any large dace in the mill-pool, they will resort to the eddy between the two streams.

N. B. Whenever you fish for roach or dace, at ground, without you use a ground-bait, the attempt is almost useless; but after great heats, when the weather gets cool, you will be sure to have good sport. The hooks, No. 11 or 12.

THE GUDGEON.

The gudgeon is a fish that affords the young angler an amazing deal of diversion; being one that bites very free, and when struck is never lost, because he is a leather-mouthed fish. They spawn three or four times in the summer, and their feeding is like the barbel's, in the streams and on gravel, slighting all manner of flies. Their baits are chiefly wasps, gentles, and cads, but the small red worm is best. When you angle for them, be provided with a gudgeon-rake, with which rake the ground every ten minutes, which gathers them together. A single-haired line is best, with a quill, or cork-float, according to the rapidity of the stream; your hook No. 8 or 9, and your bait on the ground. You may angle for him with a running line by hand without a float.

The author "On Angling in the River Trent," gives us a new method of catching them: he first desires us 66 never to continue in the water long, though he has been in it for six hours together;" he then observes, with his usual circumspection, "that the best way of catching them, is by going