The Fourth Day 127 



PlSCATOR. 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 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 Topsel, taken to 

 be venomous ; and so is the paddock, or frog-pad- 

 dock, 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 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, especi- 

 ally 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 paddock-frog, never does. 



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

 with a frog for a Pike, you are to choose the 

 yellowest that you can get, for that the Pike ever 

 likes best. And thus use your frog, that he may 

 continue long alive : 



Put your hook into his mouth, which you may 

 easily do from the middle of April till August ; and 

 then the frog's mouth grows up, and he continues 



