228 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



I 



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 moveable 

 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 de- 

 vours and digests them."* 



And, Scholar, do not wonder at this ; for, besides the credit 

 of the relater, 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 it is known 

 the famous river Nilus does not only breed fishes that yet want 

 Dames, 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 Sopham,t and others, have observed. 



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 Nor- 



* This is clearly another edition of the Sea Angler, Lophitis Piscatorius, 

 which has been already described. — ^m. Ed. 



t This tragedy of the celebrated Hugo Grotius (or De Groot) was trans- 

 lated and published : Hvgo Grotius ; His Sophompaneas, or Joseph, a 

 Tragedy, with Annotations, by Francis Goldsmith, Esqr. : London — no 

 date, but about 1634 : Svo. It is founded on the story of Joseph, taken from 

 Genesis xliv., xlv. ; Psalm cxxv. ; Acts of the Apostles, vii. ; Philo's Life 

 of Joseph ; Josephus, Annals, ii, ; Justin, Alexander Polyhistor, and Deme- 

 trius in Eusebius, Free. Evan. Sophompaneas is the Egyptian name, sig- 

 nifying " Saviour of the World," given to Joseph in consequence of the 

 service rendered by him in averting the threatened famine. 



The original tragedy, with tlie Christus Fatiens of the same author, the 

 Sisaras of Petavius, and the Sedecias of Malapertius, have been recently 

 published in a neat duodecimo, Monachii, 1S4.'5, Typis Weiss. 



Many fabulous stories are told of the Nile, the periodical overflowing of 

 which, in consequence of the heavy rains in the table land of Abyssinia, 

 and, by the deposit of rich alluvium, is the cause of Egypt's great fertility. — 

 Jltn. Ed. 



