142 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



others to breed of the slime and dust of the earth, and that in 

 winter they turn to slime again, and that the next summer that 

 very slime returns to be a living creature ; this is the opinion of 

 Pliny. And Cardanus* undertakes to give a reason for the rain- 

 ino- of froo-s : but if it were in mv power, it should rain none but 

 water-frogs, for those I think are not venomous, especially the 

 right water- frog, which about February or March breeds in 

 ditches by slime, and blackish eggs in that slime ; about which 

 time of breeding, the he and she frogs are observed to use divers 

 summersaults, and to croak and make a noise, which the land- 

 frog, or padock-frog never does. Now of these water-frogs, if 

 you intend to fish with a frog for a pike, you are to choose the 

 yellowest that you can get, for that the pike ever likes the best. 

 And thus use your frog, that he may continue long alive : 



Put your hook into his mouth, which you may easily do from 

 the middle of April till August, and then the frog's mouth grows 

 up, and he continues so for at least six months without eating, 

 but is sustained, none, but He whose name is Wonderful, knows 

 how ; I say, put your hook, I mean the arming- wire, through his 

 mouth and out at his gills, and then with a fine needle and silk 

 sew the upper part of his leg with only one stitch to the arming- 

 wire of your hook, or tie the frog's leg above the upper joint to 

 the armed wire ; and in so doing, use him as though you loved 



• Jerome Cardan, an Italian physician, naturalist, and mathematician, 

 born at Pavia, Sept. 24, 1501. He was a natural child, and some potion, 

 which his mother took to procure abortion, greatly affected his con- 

 stitution, rendering him irritable, eccentric, and, notwithstanding the 

 great respect shown him for his learning, unhappy. He was addicted to 

 gaming and astrology. His books (ten volumes folio, Lyons, 1663) show 

 great eccentricity of character and wildness of opinions. He cast his own 

 nativity, and having predicted the day of his death, starved himself that 

 his prophecy might be true, at Rome, Sept. 21, 1576. In 1552 he was in 

 Great Britain, when he cast the nativity (Hawkins says, " wrote a charac- 

 ter") of Edward VI., and made some remarkable prognostications. The 

 book referred to in the text is his Be Snbtiiitate, libri xxi., Par.y 1551, 8vo. 

 Walton is quoting through Casaubon, or Topsel. As to the raining of frogs 

 it might occur, as in similar cases, from the young frogs having been taken 

 up by winds or water-spouts. Very much of what Walton says, the reader 

 will at once see to b« erroneous. — Am. Ed., from several authorities. 



