CKAP. XIX. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. SIP 



<f The fish was almost a yard broad, and twice 



<c 1hat length ; his mouth, wide enough to receive, or 



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



" or eight inches broad. He is of a slow motion ; 



e and usually lies, or lurks, close in the mud ; and 



c hns a moveable string on his head, about a span or 



6 near unto a quarter of a/yard long, by the moving 



c of which, which is his natural bait, when he lies 



c close and unseen in the mud, he draws other smaller 



c 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, 

 'tis 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 natural channel such strange fish 

 and beasts are also bred, that no man can give a name 

 to ; as Grotius in his Sop ham, and others, have ob- 

 served. 



But whither am I strayed in this discourse ! I will 

 end it by telling you, That at the mouth of some of 

 these rivers of ours, Herrings are so plentiful, as 

 namely, near to Yarmouth in Norfolk ; and in the 

 west-country. Pilchards so very plentiful ; as you will 

 wonder to read, what our learned Camden relates of 

 them, in his Britannia^ p. 178, 186. 



Well, scholar ! I will stop here, and tell you, what 

 by reading and conference 1 have observed concerning 

 fish-ponds. 



