16
TO TAKE AN OTTER.
1st. Otters are great destroyers of fish, and will travel in a night ten or twelve miles; they lie under the roots of trees near the water; some take them with snares, others with spears, and some with hunting dogs.
2d. To kill them, lay near their haunts an eel slit on the back, with some few corns of rats-bane put in the slit, then sew it up again; place the eel from the navel upwards out of the water, and he will eat it so far, but seldom farther, and it certainly kills him.
Birds are no annoyance to the farmer, or gardens, for they destroy more caterpillars, slugs, snails and other vermin, that do ten times more mischief than they do.
TO CATCH FISH.
Take oculus indiæ, and some wheat flour, and with sweet wine, milk or mead, make a stiff paste, then make pellets, and throw them where fish are, and you may take them with your hands.—Or take assafœtida, flour, milk, and honey, make it into a paste, and bait your hook with it.
to catch eels.
Take sea stonewort an ounce, sea onions one ounce, mix together, and throw where eels come.
to take crab-fish.
Slit a small willow stick, then put a frog in it, and they will come to your hand. Or, cut frogs in pieces, then lay them in a basket and they will come into it.
to take pikes.
Take what qnantity of blown bladders yon will, and tie a line to the mouth of them, longer or shorter, as the water is in depth; bait your look artificially, and the pike will take it, and make you sport: the same
