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Side 69 av 113
His feeding is usually of fish or frogs; and sometimes a weed of his
own, called pickerel-weed, of which I told you some think Pikes are
bred; for they have observed, that where none have been put into ponds,
yet they have there found many; and that there has been plenty of that
weed in those ponds, and that that weed both breeds and feeds them:
but whether those Pikes, so bred, will ever breed by generation as the
others do, I shall leave to the disquisitions of men of more curiosity and
leisure than I profess myself to have: and shall proceed to tell you, that
you may fish for a Pike, either with a ledger or a walking-bait; and you
are to note, that I call that a Ledger-bait, which is fixed or made to rest
in one certain place when you shall be absent from it; and I call that a
Walking-bait, which you take with you, and have ever in motion.
Concerning which two, I shall give you this direction; that your ledger-
bait is best to be a living bait (though a dead one may catch), whether it
be a fish or a frog: and that you may make them live the longer, you
may, or indeed you must, take this course:
First, for your LIVE-BAIT. Of fish, a roach or dace is, I think, best and
most tempting; and a perch is the longest lived on a hook, and having
cut off his fin on his back, which may be done without hurting him, you
must take your knife, which cannot be too sharp, and betwixt the head
and the fin on the back, cut or make an incision, or such a scar, as you
may put the arming-wire of your hook into it, with as little bruising or
hurting the fish as art and diligence will enable you to do; and so
carrying your arming-wire along his back, unto or near the tail of your
fish, betwixt the skin and the body of it, draw out that wire or arming of
your hook at another scar near to his : the then tie him about it with
thread, but no harder than of necessity, to prevent hurting the fish; and
the better to avoid hurting the fish, some have a kind of probe to open
the way for the more easy entrance and passage of your wire or arming:
but as for these, time and a little experience will teach you better than I
can by words. Therefore I will for the present say no more of this; but
come next to give you some directions how to bait your hook with a
frog.
Venator. But, good master, did you not say even now, that some frogs
were venomous; and is it not dangerous to touch them ?
Piscator. Yes, but I will give you some rules or cautions concerning
them. And first you are to note, that there are two kinds of frogs, that is
to say, if I may so express myself, a flesh and fish frog. By flesh-frogs, I
mean frogs that breed and live on the land; and of these there be several
sorts also, and of several colours, some being speckled, some greenish,
some blackish, or brown: the green frog, which is a small one, is, by
Topsel, taken to be venomous; and so is the paddock, or frog-paddock,
which usually keeps or breeds on the land, and is very large and bony,
and big, especially the she-frog of that kind: yet these will sometimes
come into the water, but it is not often: and the land-frogs are some of
them observed by him, to breed by laying eggs; and others to breed of
the slime and dust of the earth, and that in winter they turn to slime
again, and that the next summer that very slime returns to be a living
creature, this is the opinion of Pliny. And Cardanus undertakes to give a
reason for the raining of frogs: but if it were in my power, it should rain
none but water-frogs; for those I think are not venomous, especially the
right water-frog, which, about February or March, breeds in ditches, by
slime, and blackish eggs in that slime: about which time of breeding,
the he and she frogs are observed to use divers summersaults, and to
croak and make a noise, which the land-frog, or paddock-frog, never
does.
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