CHAP, v.] THE FOURTH DAY. 95 



Trout in a swift stream. And this minnow I will now show you, 

 look, here it is, and, if you like it, lend it you, to have two or three 

 made by it ; for they be easily carried about an angler, and be of 

 excellent use : for note, that a large Trout will come as fiercely at 

 a minnow as the highest-mettled hawk doth seize on a partridge, 

 or a greyhound on a hare. I have been told that one hundred 

 and sixty minnows have been found in a Trout's belly : either 

 the Trout had devoured so many, or the miller that gave it a 

 friend of mine had forced them down his throat after he had 

 taken him. 



Now for Flies ; which is the third bait wherewith Trouts are 

 usually taken. You are to know that there are so many sorts of 

 flies as there be of fruits : I will name you but some of them ; as 

 the dun-fly, the stone-fly, the red-fly, the moor-fly, the tawny-fly, 

 the shell-fly, the cloudy or blackish fly, the flag-fly, the vine-fly ; 

 there be of flies, caterpillars, and canker-flies, and bear-flies ; and 

 indeed too many either for me to name or for you to remember. 

 And their breeding is so various and wonderful that I might easily 

 amaze myself and tire you in a relation of them. 



And, yet, I will exercise your promised patience by saying a little 

 of the caterpillar, or the palmer fly or worm ; that by them you may 

 guess what a work it were, in a discourse, but to run over those 

 very many flies, worms, and little living creatures, with which the 

 sun and summer adorn and beautify the river-banks and meadows, 

 both for the recreation and contemplation of us anglers ; pleasures 

 which, I think, myself enjoy more than any other man that is not 

 of my profession. 



Pliny holds an opinion, that many have their birth, or being, 

 from a dew that in the spring falls upon the leaves of trees ; and 

 that some kinds of them are from a dew left upon herbs or flowers ; 

 and others from a dew left upon coleworts or cabbages : all which 

 kinds of dews being thickened and condensed, are by the sun's 

 generative heat, most of them, hatched, and in three days made 

 living creatures : * and these of several shapes and colours ; some 

 being hard and tough, some smooth and soft ; some are horned 

 in their head, some in their tail, some have none ; some have hair, 

 some none : some have sixteen feet, some less, and some have 

 none : but, as our Topsel hath with great diligence observed,t 



* The doctrine of spontaneous or equivocal generation is now universally exploded ; 

 and all the phcenomena that seem to support it are accounted for on other principles. 

 See Derham's Phys. Theol. chap. 15, and the authorities there cited ; Mr Ray's Wisdom 

 of Cod manifested in tfie Works of the Creation, 298, and Franc. Redi, De Gen. Insect. 

 H. f In his History of Serpents. 



