264 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



you a real truth concerning one lately dissected 

 by Dr. Wharton, a man of great learning and 

 experience, and of equal freedom to communicate 

 it ; one that loves me and my art ; one to whom 

 I have been beholden for many of the choicest 

 observations that I have imparted to you. This 

 good man, that dares do anything rather than tell 

 an untruth, did, I say, tell me he lately dissected 

 one strange fish, and he thus described it to me : 



" The fish was almost a yard broad, and twice 

 that length ; his mouth wide enough to receive or 

 take into it the head of a man ; his stomach seven 

 or eight inches broad. He is of a slow motion, 

 and usually lies or lurks close in the mud, and has 

 a movable string on his head about a span, or near 

 unto a quarter of a yard long ; by the moving of 

 which, which is his natural bait, when he lies close 

 and unseen in the mud, he draws other smaller 

 fish so close to him, that he can suck them into 

 his mouth, and so devours and digests them." 



And, scholar, do not wonder at this ; for, besides 

 the credit of the relator, you are to note many of 

 these, and fishes which are of the like and more 

 unusual shapes, are very often taken on the mouths 

 of our sea -rivers and on the sea-shore. And this 

 will be no wonder to any that have travelled 

 Egypt ; where 't is known the famous river Nilus 

 does not only breed fishes that yet want names, 

 but by the overflowing of that river and the help 

 of the sun's heat on the fat slime which that river 

 leaves on the banks, when it falls back into its 



