The Compleat ^Angler 



to fly in England for six months in the year, but about Michaelmas 

 leave us for a better climate than this ; yet some of them that have 

 been left behind their fellows, have been found (many thousands at 

 a time) in hollow trees, or clay caves ; where they have been observed 

 to live and sleep out the whole winter without meat ; and so Albertus 

 observes, that there is one kind of frog that hath her mouth naturally 

 shut up about the end of August, and that she lives so all the winter; 

 and though it be strange to some, yet it is known to too many 

 among us to be doubted. 



And so much for these Fordidge trouts, which never afford 

 an angler sport, but either live their time of being in the fresh 

 water, by their meat formerly got in the sea (not unlike the 

 swallow or frog), or by the virtue of the fresh water only ; or, as 

 the birds of Paradise and the chameleon are said to live, by the sun 

 and the air. 



There is also in Northumberland a trout called a bull-trout, of a 

 much greater length and bigness than any in the southern parts. 

 And there are, in many rivers that relate to the sea, salmon-trouts, 

 as much different from others, both in shape and in their spots, 

 as we see sheep in some countries differ one from another in their 

 shape and bigness, and in the fineness of their wool : and, certainly, as 

 some pastures breed larger sheep, so do some rivers, by reason of the 

 ground over which they run, breed larger trouts. 



Now the next thing that I will commend to your consideration is, 

 that the trout is of a more sudden growth than other fish. Con- 

 cerning which, you are also to take notice, that he lives not so long 

 as the perch, and divers other fishes do, as Sir Francis Bacon hath 

 observed in his History of Life and Death. 



And next you are to take notice, that he is not like the crocodile, 

 which if he lives never so long, yet always thrives till his death ; but 

 it is not so with the trout, for after he has come to his full growth, 

 he declines in his body, and keeps his bigness, or thrives only in his 

 head till his death. And you are to know, that he will about, 

 especially before, the time of his spawning, get almost miraculously 

 through weirs and flood-gates against the streams ; even through 

 such high and swift places as is almost incredible. Next, that the 



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