76 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



in the fresh water ; * and it may be better believed, 

 because it is well known, that swallows and bats and wag- 

 tails, which are called half-year birds, and not seen to fly 

 in England for six months in the year, but about Michael- 

 mas leave us for a better climate than this ; yet some 

 of them that have been left behind their fellows, have been 

 found many thousands at a time, in hollow trees, or clay 

 caves ; where they have been observed to live and sleep 

 out the whole winter without meat ; and so Albertus 

 observes, that there is one kind of frog that hath her mouth 

 naturally shut up about the end of August, and that she 

 lives so all the winter : and though it be strange to some, 

 yet it is known to too many among us to be doubted. 



And so much for these Fordidge trouts, which never 

 afford an angler sport, but either live their time of being 

 in the fresh water, by their meat formerly got in the sea 

 (not unlike the swallow or frog), or by the virtue of the 

 fresh water only ; or, as the birds of Paradise and the 

 chamelion are said to live, by the sun and the air. 



There is also in Northumberland a trout called a bull- 

 trout, of a much greater length and bigness than any in 

 the southern parts. And there are, in many rivers that 

 relate to the sea, salmon-trouts, as much different from 

 others, both in shape and in their spots, as we see sheep in 

 some countries differ one from another in their shape and 

 bigness, and in the fineness of their wool. And, certainly, 

 as some pastures breed larger sheep, so do some rivers, by 

 reason of the ground over which they run, breed larger 

 trouts. 



* There is no species of trout whatsoever that does not feed in 

 fresh water. The sea trout (salmo Irutta) and the bull trout (salmo 

 ferox), though they migrate to sea, like the salmon, and for a time 

 thrive and fatten therein, return to their native rivers, and feed on 

 small fish and insects ; indeed, they are the greatest destroyers of 

 salmon-fry. There is no fish that has its mouth sewn up as it were ; 

 and what Walton says about grasshoppers and frogs having no 

 mouths is simply laughable. All thai Walton says of the Fordidge, 

 a river near Canterbury, and of ravens, etc., is perfectly fabulous. E. 



