THE COMPLETE ANGLER 75 



accounted the rarest of fish ; many of them near the 

 bigness of a salmon, but known by their different colour ; 

 and in their best season they cut very white ; and none 

 of these have been known to be caught with an angle, 

 unless it were one that was caught by Sir George Hastings, 

 an excellent angler, and now with God : and he hath 

 told me, he thought that trout bit not for hunger but 

 wantonness ; and it is rather to be believed, because 

 both he, then, and many others before him, have been 

 curious to search into their bellies, what the food was 

 by which they lived ; and have found out nothing by 

 which they might satisfy their curiosity. 



Concerning which you are to take notice, that it is 

 reported by good authors, that grasshoppers, and some 

 fish, have no mouths, but are nourished and take breath 

 by the porousness of their gills, man knows not how : and 

 this may be believed, if we consider that when the raven 

 hath hatched her eggs, she takes no farther care, but 

 leaves her young ones to the care of the God of nature, 

 who is said, in the Psalms, " to feed the young ravens that 

 call upon him." And they be kept alive, and fed by dew, 

 or worms that breed in their nests, or some other ways 

 that we mortals know not ; and this may be believed of 

 the Fordidge trout, which, as it is said of the stork 

 (Jerem. viii. 7), that " he knows his season," so he knows 

 his times, I think almost his day of coming into that river 

 out of the sea, where he lives, and, it is like, feeds nine 

 months of the year, and fasts three in the river of Fordidge. 

 And you are to note that those townsmen are very punctual 

 in observing the time of beginning to fish for them ; and 

 boast much that their river affords a trout, that exceeds 

 all others. And just so does Sussex boast of several fish ; 

 as namely, a Shelsey cockle, a Chichester lobster, an 

 Arundel mullet, and an Amerly trout. 



And now for some confirmation of the Fordidge trout : 

 you are to know that this trout is thought to eat nothing 



