Venator. Well, now let's go to your sport of Angling.

Piscator. Let's be going, with all my heart. God keep you all,
Gentlemen; and send you meet, this day, with another Bitch-otter, and
kill her merrily, and all her young ones too.

Venator. NOW, Piscator, where will you begin to fish ?

Piscator. We are not yet come to a likely place; I must walk a mile
further yet before I beam.

Venator. Well then, I pray, as we walk, tell me freely, how do you like
your lodging, and mine host and the company ? Is not mine host a witty
man ?

Piscator. Sir, I will tell you, presently, what I think of your host: but,
first, I will tell you, I am glad these Otters were killed; and I am sorry
there are no more Otter-killers; for I know that the want of Otter-killers,
and the not keeping the fence-months for the preservation of fish, will,
in time, prove the destruction of all rivers. And those very few that are
left, that make conscience of the laws of the nation, and of keeping
days of abstinence, will be forced to eat flesh, or suffer more
inconveniences than are yet foreseen.

Venator. Why, Sir, what be those that you call the fence-months?

Piscator. Sir, they be principally three, namely, March, April, and May:
for these be the usual months that Salmon come out of the sea to spawn
in most fresh rivers. And their fry would, about a certain time, return
back to the salt water, if they were not hindered by weirs and unlawful
gins, which the greedy fishermen set, and so destroy them by thousands;
as they would, being so taught by nature, change the fresh for salt
water. He that shall view the wise Statutes made in the 13th of Edward
the First, and the like in Richard the Second, may see several provisions
made against the destruction of fish: and though I profess no knowledge
of the law, yet I am sure the regulation of these defects might be easily
mended. But I remember that a wise friend of mine did usually say, "
that which is everybody's business is nobody's business ": if it were
otherwise, there could not be so many nets and fish, that are under the
statute size, sold daily amongst us; and of which the conservators of the
waters should be ashamed.

But, above all, the taking fish in spawning-time may be said to be
against nature: it is like taking the dam on the nest when she hatches
her young, a sin so against nature, that Almighty God hath in the
Levitical law made a law against it.

But the poor fish have enemies enough besides such unnatural
fishermen; as namely, the Otters that I spake of, the Cormorant, the
Bittern, the Osprey, the Sea-gull, the Hern, the King-fisher, the Gorara,
the Puet, the Swan, Goose, Duck, and the Craber, which some call the
Water-rat: against all which any honest man may make a just quarrel,
but I will not; I will leave them to be quarrelled with and killed by
others, for I am not of a cruel nature, I love to kill nothing but fish.