may commence with bottom-fishing, dapping with a grasshopper, fly-fishing, or in the same manner as for barbel or perch, with minnows, trolling, baited with gudgeon, smaller hook, and not so heavy leaded, &c. &c. according to the season of the year, and time of day. Most baits, both natural and artificial, large baits, sometimes two or three on a line, may be used with success. In warm weather chub are to be found at the top and mid-water; when cold, at the bottom; ground baiting as for barbel. Fish with graves, bullock's brains, or pith. Chub resort, under the boughs and large roots of trees, also where cattle stand in the water in warm weather, the bottom being clay and sand. They sometimes are caught of five pounds weight. Salvianus, however, speaks of them as increasing to eight or nine pounds. In proof of their prolific properties, one of a pound and a half contained ninety-two thousand seven hundred eggs. Editor.

Large Chub in the Meuse.-We are most particular and exact in making our artificial flies agreeable to nature. The French, on the contrary, form them to their own fancy, and catch fish readily. (See A Collection of French Flies, Sporting Mag. No. 8. vol. xxiii. N.S.) It is not improbable, the fish in the French rivers may be better acquainted with their coarse flies, lines, and rods. Now observe, no reels, or winches, hook No. 4,

a fly, the body of green velvet, in size between a hazel and walnut, with a little bit of small brown feather fastened as chance directs, over or under, it is all one, for a wing, the whole wisped up as neatly as a bundle of straw. With this fly, a Belgian officer caught a large chub of four pounds, and many trout and grayling. They dress chub dry in France, and serve it up with sour sauce. This chub, which was said to have been so dressed, was of a very good taste.-Piscatory Rambles in France, Sport. Mag. July, 1834.

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This is a lively, beautiful, small fish it is generally found in swift rivers, where it delights to rove. Angle for it with a single hair-line, No. 12 hook, baited with a gentle, and about a foot deep, or with a house-fly. Bleak are very fond of small black and red ants, at which they bite freely. They also afford excellent diversion by whipping for them with any natural or artificial small fly. As baits, they are very tempting to the jack.

Editor.

Donovan says, that the bleak is equally abundant in most of the rivers of the North of Europe. Its form is elegant, its colours are brilliant, and its flesh is in some esteem.

Gmelin speaks of this fish being taken formerly from four to ten inches in length, in the Thames, about Battersea.

Mad Bleaks.-Mr. Pennant remarks, that bleaks are troubled with a species of hair-worm, and in certain seasons appear to be in great agonies, tumbling about in the water; yet they sometimes recover. Mr. Daniel took many bleaks, in Perry dock, which were puffed up and swelled out, and appeared big with spawn; but, upon making an incision, a tape-worm was drawn out from several of them, which was sixteen inches long.

Method of making brilliant artificial Pearls from the Scales of Bleak.-Take off, with much care, the scales of bleak, and put them into a basin of clear water; rub them together: repeat this operation in several waters, until there is no coloured substance attached to the scales: the silver matter drops to the bottom of the basin, and the redundant water must be taken off with the greatest care; the residue is a bright silver liquid, which is termed oriental essence. This being

mixed with isinglass, and with the help of a pipe, is introduced into very small hollow glass globes, of various colours; these globes are shaken until the liquid covers the inside, which will then afford an excellent imitation of the finest pearl. Maisonneuve.

This beautiful little fish frequents gravelly

streams, and bites readily at a small red worm or gentle, No. 12 hook. It is of a rich and agreeable flavour, but its chief use is as a bait for large fish. When minnows are thus used, it is necessary to keep them and other small fish in bran, else they grow putrid. At first they are naturally stiff, but after the bran is washed off they become pliable. Daniel.

Curious Assemblage of Minnows.-Messrs. Unwin and Cowper, crossing a brook, saw, from the foot of a bridge, something like a flower at the bottom of the water: it was in fact a circular assemblage of minnows; their heads all met in

the centre, their tails all diverging at equal distances, which gave them the appearance of a flower half-blown. Cowper's Letters, 1793.

Minnow Tansies.-To make these tansies in the spring, wash them well with salt, cut off their heads and tails, take out their inside without washing, fry them with yolks of eggs, flowers of cowslips and primroses, and a little tansie, and they prove excellent eating.

Walton.

The Loach breeds and feeds in small, clear, swift brooks, and lives there on the gravel, and in the sharpest streams. It is in general not more than three inches long, has a beard similar to the barbel, and is successfully angled for with a small red worm, on the bottom, close to the ground. It is considered by Gesner and other physicians as a very nutritive fish. Walton.

The loach is found in greater abundance in France than in this country. This fish was exported from Germany to Sweden by order of the king.--Donovan.