THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 1 79 



by accident, secures the frog from the strength 

 and malice of the snake ; and note that the frog 

 usually swims the fastest of the two. 



And let me tell you that as there be water and 

 land frogs, so there be land and water snakes. 

 Concerning which, take this observation, that 

 the land-snake breeds and hatches her eggs, which 

 become young snakes, in some old dunghill or a 

 like hot place ; but the water-snake, which is not 

 venomous, and, as I have been assured by a great 

 observer of such secrets, does not hatch but breed 

 her young alive, which she does not then for- 

 sake, but bides with them, and in case of danger 

 will take them all into her mouth and swim away 

 from any apprehended danger, and then let them 

 out again when she thinks all danger to be past. 

 These be accidents that we anglers sometimes see 

 and often talk of. 



But whither am I going? I had almost lost 

 myself by remembering the Discourse of Dubra- 

 vius. I will therefore stop here, and tell you ac- 

 cording to my promise how to catch this pike. 



His feeding is usually of fish or frogs, and some- 

 times a weed of his own called pickerel-weed. Of 

 which, I told you,, some think some pikes are bred ; 

 for they have observed that where none have been 

 put into ponds, yet they have there found many ; 

 and that there has been plenty of that weed in 

 those ponds, and that that weed both breeds and 

 feeds them ; but whether those pikes so bred will 

 ever breed by generation as the others do, I shall 



