300 SALMONIA, 



exactly as we throw a fly, and caught great 

 numbers of these animals : and the nature of 

 their apparatus surprised me more than their 

 method of using it. Instead of a hook and 

 bait they employed a small dry frog, tied to a 

 long piece of twine, the fore-legs of which pro- 

 jected like two hooks, and this they threw at 

 a distance, by means of a long rod. The 

 frogs rose like fish and gorged the small dry 

 frog, by the legs of which they were pulled out 

 of the water. I was informed by one of these 

 fishermen, that he sometimes took 200 frogs 

 in this way in a morning, and that the frogs 

 never swallowed any bait when still or appa- 

 rently dead, but caught at whatever was 

 moving or appeared alive on the surface of 

 the water; so that this amphibia feeds like 

 a nobler animal, the eagle, only on living 

 prey. 



PoiET. — You say trout are rare in Italy, yet 

 on Ash- Wednesday, a great day for the con- 

 sumption offish in Rome, I remember to have 

 seen some large trout, which, I was told, were 

 from the Velino, above the Falls of Terni. 



Hal. — I once went almost to the source 

 of this river, above Rieti, in the hopes of 



