148 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



come next to give you some directions how to bait your 

 hook with a frog. 



YEN. But, good master, did you not say even now, that 

 some frogs are venomous, and is it not dangerous to touch 

 them? 



Pise. Yes ; but I will give you some rules or cautions 

 concerning them. And first, you are to note, that there 

 are two kinds of frogs ; that is to say, if I may so express 

 myself, a flesh and a fish-frog : by flesh-frogs, I mean frogs 

 that breed and live on the land ; and of these there be 

 several sorts also, and of several colours, some being 

 speckled, some greenish, some blackish or brown : the 

 green frog, which is a small one, is by Topsell taken to be 

 venomous, and so is the padock or frog padock, which 

 usually keeps or breeds on the land, and is very large, 

 and bony and big, especially the she-frog of that kind ; 

 yet these will sometimes come into the water, but it is 

 not often ; and the land-frogs are some of them observed 

 by him to breed by laying eggs, and others to breed of the 

 slime and dust of the earth, and that in winter they turn 

 to slime again, and that the next summer that very slime 

 returns to be a living creature ; this is the opinion of 

 Pliny, and Cardanus * (in his tenth book De Subtililate) 

 undertakes to give a reason for the raining of frogs : but 

 if it were in my power, it should rain none but water-frogs, 

 for those I think are not venomous, especially the right 

 water-frog, which about February or March breeds in 

 ditches by slime, and blackish eggs in that slime, about 

 which time of breeding the he and she-frogs are observed 

 to use divers summersaults, and to croak and make a 

 noise, which the land-frog, or padock-frog, never does. 

 Now of these water-frogs, if you intend to fish with a frog 



* Hieronymus Cardanus, an Italian physician, naturalist, and 

 astrologer, well-known by the many works he has published : he 

 died at Rome 1576. It is said that he had foretold the day of his 

 death, and that, when it approached, he suffered himself to die of 

 hunger to preserve his reputation. H. 



