42 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



And lastly, for I would not tire your patience, one of no 

 less authority than Jbsephus, that learned Jew, tells us 

 of a river in Judea that runs swiftly all the six days of 

 the week, and stands still and rests all their Sabbath. 



But I will lay aside my discourse of rivers, and tell you 

 some things of the monsters, or fish, call them what you 

 will, that they breed and feed in them. Pliny, the 

 philosopher says, in the third chapter of his ninth book, 

 that in the Indian Sea, the fish called Catena or whirlpool, 

 is so long and broad as to take up more in length and 

 breadth than two acres of ground ; and, of other fish of 

 two hundred cubits long ; and that, in the River Ganges, 

 there be eels of thirty feet long. He says there, that these 

 monsters appear in the sea only when tempestuous winds 

 oppose the torrents of waters falling from the rocks into 

 it, and so turning what lay at the bottom to be seen on 

 the water's top. And he says, that the people of Cadara, 

 an island near this place, make the timber for their 

 houses of those fish-bones. He there tells us, that there 

 are sometimes a thousand of these great eels found wrapt 

 or interwoven together. He tells us there, that it appears 

 that dolphins love music, and will come when called for, 

 by some men or boys that know, and use to feed them ; 

 and that they can swim as swift as an arrow can be shot 

 out of a bow ; and much of this is spoken concerning 

 the dolphin, and other fish, as may be found also in the 

 learned Dr. Casaubon's Discourse of Credulity and In- 

 credulity, printed by him about the year 1670. 



I know, we islanders are averse to the belief of these 

 wonders ; but there be so many strange creatures to be 

 now seen, many collected by John Tradescant,* and others 



* There were, it seems, three of the Tradescants grandfather, 

 father, and son ; the son is the person here meant ; the two former 

 were gardeners to Queen Elizabeth, and the latter to King Charles I. 

 They were all great botanists, and collectors of natural and other 

 curiosities, and dwelt at South Lambeth in Surrey ; and, dying 

 there, were buried in Lambeth churchyard. Mr. Ashmole con- 



