240 SALMONIA. 



Geer, are pre-eminent. To attempt to collect 

 and apply the knowledge accumulated by these 

 celebrated men, would carry us far beyond the 

 limits of a day's conversation ; and as a great 

 proportion of the insects that fly, walk, or 

 crawl, are the food of fishes, a dissertation, or 

 discourse on this subject, would be almost a 

 general view of natural history. You know 

 that frogs, crawfish, snails, earthworms, spi- 

 ders, larvae of every kind, millipedes, beetles, 

 squillae, moths, water flies, and land flies, 

 are all eaten by trout ; and I once heard the 

 late Sir Joseph Banks say, that he found a 

 large toad stuck in the throat of a trout ; but 

 as the skin of this animal is furnished with an 

 exceedingly acrid secretion, it probably had 

 been disgorged after being swallowed by a 

 fish exceedingly hungry. But though I have 

 found most of the insect tribes, and many 

 small fishes, even of the most ravenous kind, 

 as pike, in the stomachs of trout, it never 

 happened to me to see a toad there. I 

 might give you an account of the birth and 

 life of frogs, which, with respect to their ge- 

 neration, resemble fish, and which, when first 



