ferent kinds of grasshoppers are likewise used with great success. The creeper or water cricket, an aquatic larva, found under stones within the watermark, ought also to be attended to by the natural bait-fisher.

The palmer worms or wool beds, as they are sometimes called, are the hairy caterpillars of certain nocturnal moths. Though refused by almost all birds except the cuckoo, they are swallowed by trouts, and may be preserved alive for many weeks in a box with damp earth, strewed over with the leaves of the tree, bush, or other herbage, on which the species was observed to feed.

The young brood of wasps and bees are useful to the angler; and for eight or ten days after their first appearance in summer there is no better or more killing bait than a small reddish beetle called the bracken clock in the north of England, the Melolontha horticola of naturalists. Salmon roe is greatly lauded by Barker, who appears to have been the first to discover its merits. 66 I have found an experience of late which you may angle with, and take great store of this kind of fish. First, it is the best bait for trout that I have seen in all my time, and will take great store, and not fail if they be there. Secondly, it is a special bait for dace and dare, good for chub, or bottlin, or grayling. The bait is a roe of a salmon or trout. If it be a large trout, that the spawns be any thing great, you must angle for the trout with this bait as you angle with the brandling, taking a pair of scissors and cut so much as a large hazel

nut, and bait your hook; so fall to your sport,there is no doubt of pleasure. If I had known it but twenty years ago, I would have gained a hundred pounds only with that bait; I am bound in duty to divulge it to your honour, and not to carry it to my grave with me. I do desire that men of quality should have it, that delight in that pleasure. The greedy angler will murmur at me, but for that I care not."

Many kinds of pastes are prized by the baitfisher. They may be used for chub, carp, and bream in September and during all the winter months, and may be made up about the size of a hazel-nut; if for roach and dace, the bigness of a pea will suffice. All pastes are improved by being mixed up in the making with a little cotton wool, which makes them firmer and more tenacious, and hang better on the hook. They suit well for fishing in quiet places, with a small hook and quill float. We shall here subjoin a few recipes for the making of fishing pastes, which, although we introduce them under the head of the river-trout, may be regarded as equally efficacious in the capture of other kinds of fish.*

* Red paste may be made with a large spoonful of fine wheat-flour, moistened with the white of an egg, and worked with the hands until tough. A small quantity of honey or loaf-sugar finely powdered must be added, together with some cotton-wool spread equally over the paste when pressed flat in the hand; it must be well kneaded, to mix the cotton thoroughly; colour it with a little vermilion. A small piece of fresh butter will prevent it from becoming hard, and it will keep good for a week. White paste may be composed of the same ingredients, omitting the vermilion; and yellow paste in like manner, with the addition of turmeric.

Minnow-fishing for trout is a favourite pastime with many anglers, and the process is one by which very large fish are frequently captured. The tackle used resembles that for salmon, but is lighter and

Salmon paste.-Take one pound of salmon-spawn in September or October; boil it about fifteen minutes, then beat it in a mortar until sufficiently mixed, with an ounce of salt, and a quarter of an ounce of saltpetre; carefully pick out the membrane in which the spawn is contained, as it is disengaged from it; when beat to a proper consistence, put it into gallipots, and cover it over with bladders tied down close, and it will keep good for many months.

Various oils were formerly in much repute among anglers for rubbing over their baits, but as we believe their beneficial effects were in a great measure imaginary, we shall not occupy our pages by their repetition. A single extract from Izaak Walton will suffice. "And now I shall tell you that which may be called a secret :-I have been a-fishing with old Oliver Henley, now with God, a noted fisher both for trout and salmon, and have observed that he would usually take three or four worms out of his bag, and put them into a little box in his pocket, where he would usually let them continue half an hour or more before he would bait his hook with them. I have asked him his reason, and he has replied, he did but pick the best out, to be in readiness against he baited his hook the next time.' But he has been observed, both by others and myself, to catch more fish than I or any other body that has ever gone a-fishing with him could do, and especially salmons; and I have been told lately, by one of his most intimate and secret friends, that the box in which he put those worms was anointed with a drop, or two or three, of the oil of ivy-berries made by expression or infusion ; and told, that by the worms remaining in that box an hour, or a like time, they had incorporated a kind of smell, that was irresistibly attractive, enough to force any fish within the smell of them to bite." We need scarcely remind the reader of the "Complete Angler," that that admirable work is of higher value for the manner in which the subject is discussed, and the beautiful accessories of pure style, poetical sentiment, and picturesque illustration, than for the amount of direct practical information which it conveys. The simplicity and goodness of Izaak Walton's nature seem to have induced a greater degree of credulity than was always consistent with an accurate perception of the truth, and hence every chapter abounds with statements which could not pass current in these more critical days. As a useful work in relation to the mere angler, it cannot in truth

finer, with a single line of gut at the bottom. The hooks vary in size according to the general dimensions of the trout angled for; and the middle-sized and whitest minnows are the most esteemed. The following were Walton's directions for baiting, with a view to this department of the sport. Put your hook in at his mouth and out at his gill; then having drawn your hook two or three inches beyond or through his gill, put it again into his mouth, and the point and beard out at his tail, and then tie the hook and his tail about very neatly with a white thread, which will make it the apter to turn quick in the water: that done, pull back that part of your line which was slack when you did put your hook into the minnow the second time; I say, says Walton, pull that part of your line back so that it shall fasten the head, so that the body of the minnow shall be almost straight on your hook: this done, try how it will turn by drawing it across the water or against a stream ;

be said to hold a high rank, although its sweet thoughts and pleasant images must ever delight the general reader, and all who desire to refresh themselves by " the pure well of English undefiled.”

"While flowing rivers yield a blameless sport,

Shall live the name of Walton; sage benign!
Whose pen, the mysteries of the rod and line
Unfolding, did not fruitlessly exhort
To reverend watchings of each still report
That nature utters from her rural shrine.-
Meek, nobly versed in simple discipline,
He found the longest summer day too short,
To his loved pastime given by sedgy Lee,
Or down the tempting maze of Shawford brook!
Fairer than life itself, in this sweet book,

The cowslip bank and shady willow-tree,

And the fresh meads; where flowed from every nook
Of his full bosom, gladsome piety!"

X

and if it do not turn nimbly, then turn the tail a little to the right or left hand, and try again, till it turn quick. We may add, that the practice of fishing with the artificial minnow is justly discarded by all judicious anglers.

THE GREAT LAKE TROUT.

It appears that this gigantic trout of the British fresh-water lakes, though never clearly characterized as a distinct species, has at various times excited the attention of Ichthyologists. Trout of enormous dimensions are mentioned by Pennant as occurring in the Welsh lakes; and Donovan gives Loch Neagh in Ireland as another locality. Very large trout have been killed in Ullswater in Cumberland, and still larger in Loch Awe in Argyllshire. We stated elsewhere several seasons back, that the late Mr. Morrison of Glasgow claimed the merit of first calling attention to this fish in the last named locality towards fifty years ago. "We doubt very much," says Mr. Stoddart, "the strength of his claims to this discovery; and from enquiries made by us at Dalmally, Cladish, Inveraw, and other parts of the surrounding country, we are led to believe that this species of trout has been well known there from time immemorial; nay, it is impossible but that individuals of the kind must have

* Salmo ferox, Jardine. We were originally indebted for the principal materials of our account of this interesting fish to a manuscript of Sir William Jardine, with which we were kindly favoured by the author. It forms a part of a Series of Memoirs on British Fishesespecially the Salmonida-which that accurate and assiduous naturalist has been for some time past preparing for publication.