ats pleasantly;
and will therefore give you a few, and but a few directions how to
catch him.

[Illustration of a Tench]

He will bite at a Paste made of brown bread and honey, or at a
Marsh-worm, or a Lob-worm; he will bite also at a smaller worm, with
his head nip'd off, and a Cod-worm put on the hook before the worm; and
I doubt not but that he will also in the three hot months (for in the
nine colder he stirs not much) bite at a Flag-worm, or at a green
Gentle, but can positively say no more of the _Tench_, he being a fish
that I have not often Angled for; but I wish my honest Scholer may, and
be ever fortunate when hee fishes.

_Viat._ I thank you good Master: but I pray Sir, since you see it still
rains _May_ butter, give me some observations and directions concerning
the _Pearch_, for they say he is both a very good and a bold biting
fish, and I would faine learne to fish for him.

_Pisc._ You say true, Scholer, the _Pearch_ is a very good, and a very
bold biting fish, he is one of the fishes of prey, that, like the
_Pike_ and _Trout_, carries his teeth in his mouth, not in his throat,
and dare venture to kill and devour another fish; this fish, and the
_Pike_ are (sayes _Gesner_) the best of fresh water fish; he Spawns but
once a year, and is by Physicians held very nutritive; yet by many to
be hard of digestion: They abound more in the River _Poe_, and in
_England_, (sayes _Randelitius_) then other parts, and have in their
brain a stone, which is in forrain parts sold by Apothecaries, being
there noted to be very medicinable against the stone in the reins:
These be a part of the commendations which some Philosophycal brain
have bestowed upon the fresh-water _Pearch_, yet they commend the Sea
_Pearch_, which is known by having but one fin on his back, (of which
they say, we _English_ see but a few) to be a much better fish.

The _Pearch_ grows slowly, yet will grow, as I have been credibly
informed, to be almost two foot long; for my Informer told me, such a
one was not long since taken by Sir _Abraham Williams_, a Gentleman of
worth, and a lover of Angling, that yet lives, and I wish he may: this
was a deep bodied fish; and doubtless durst have devoured a _Pike_ of
half his own length; for I have told you, he is a bold fish, such a
one, as but for extreme hunger, the _Pike_ will not devour; for to
affright the _Pike_, the _Pearch_ will set up his fins, much like as a
_Turkie-Cock_ wil sometimes set up h