The Third Day 61 



in their perfection in the month of May, and decline 

 with the buck. Now you are to take notice, that in 

 several countries, as in Germany, and in other parts, 

 compared to ours, fish do differ much in their big- 

 ness, and shape, and other ways ; and so do Trouts. 

 It is well known that in the Lake Leman, the Lake 

 of Geneva, there are Trouts taken of three cubits 

 long ; as is affirmed by Gesner, a writer of good 

 credit: and Mercator says, the Trouts that are 

 taken in the Lake of Geneva are a great part of 

 the merchandize of that famous city. And you are 

 further to know, that there be certain waters that 

 breed Trouts remarkable, both for their number 

 and smallness. I know a little brook in Kent, that 

 breeds them to a number incredible, and you may 

 take them twenty or forty in an hour, but none 

 greater than about the size of a Gudgeon. There 

 are also, in divers rivers, especially that relate to, 

 or be near to the sea, as Winchester, or the Thames 

 about Windsor, a little Trout called a Samlet, or 

 Skegger Trout, in both which places I have caught 

 twenty or forty at a standing, that will bite as fast 

 and as freely as Minnows : these be by some taken 

 to be young Salmons ; but in those waters they 

 never grow to be bigger than a Herring. 



There is also in Kent, near to Canterbury, a 

 Trout called there a Fordidge Trout, a Trout that 

 bears the name of the town where it is usually 

 caught, that is 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 the rather to be believed, 



