CHAP. VHI. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



ditch or creek; anil that, there, the spawner casts her 

 eggs, and the melter hovers over her all that time that 

 she is casting her spawn, but touches her not *. 



I might say more of this : but it might be thought 

 curiosity or worse ; -and shall, therefore, forbear it; 

 arid, take up so much of your attention, as to tell you, 

 That the best of Pikes are noted to be in rivers ; next 

 those, in great ponds or meres; and the worst, in 

 small ponds. 



But before I proceed further, I am to tell you, That 

 there is a great antipathy betwixt the Pike and some 

 frogs : and this may appear to the reader of Dubravius, 

 a bishop in Bohemia t , who in Lis book Of Fish and 

 Fish-ponds, relates what, he says, he saw with his own 

 eyes, and could not forbear to tell the reader. Which 

 was : 



u As he and the bishop Thurzo were walking by 

 " a large pond in Bohemia, They saw a frog when 

 <c the Pike lay, very sleepily and quiet, by the shore- 

 " side leap upon his head ; and the frog, having ex- 



* Very late discoveries of naturalists, contradict this hypothesis con" 

 cerning the generation of fishes, and prove, that they are produced by 

 the conjunction of the male and female, as other animals ure. See 

 the Philosophical Transactions ; Vol. XLVI1I. Part II. for the year 1754, 

 page 87<X 



{ Janus Dubraiiins Scala, bishop of Olmutz in Moravia, in the six- 

 teenth century ; was horn at Pilsen in Bohemia. The functions of the 

 Bishoprick did not hinder him from being an Ambassador into Sicily, 

 then into Bohemia ; and President of the chamber established to pro- 

 ceed against the rebels who had borne a part in the troubles of Smal- 

 cald. Besides the above book, (the Latin title whereof is De Piscixis 

 & Piscium^ qui in els aluntur, naturis,J he appears, by the Bodleian 

 catalogue, to have written, in Latin, a History of Bohemia ; and an 

 oration to Sigismund, king of Poland, exhorting him to make war on 

 the Turks. He seems to have practised the ordering of fish-ponds 

 and the breeding of fish, both for delight and profit. Hoffman, who 

 in his Lexicon has given his name a place, says, he died with the 

 reputation of a pious and learned prelate in 1 553 : which last parti- 

 cular may admit of question ; for if it be true, it makes all his writ- 

 ings posthumous publications, the earliest whereof bears date anno 1559. 



His book On Fish and Fish-ponds, in which are many pleasant rela- 

 tions, was, in 1599, translated into English, and published in 4to. by 

 George Churchey, fellow of Lion's Inn, with the title of A new Book 

 of good Husbandry ) very pleasant and of great profit, both for gentlemen and, 

 yeointtt) containing the order and manner of making of Jlsb-ponds^ Is'f, 



