WITH DIRECTIONS HOW TO FISH FOR HIM 



hurting the fish as art and diligence will enable you to do ; 

 and so carrying your arming-wire along his back, unto, or near 

 the tail of your fish, betwixt the skin and the body of it, draw 

 out that wire or arming of your hook at another scar near to 

 his tail : then tie him about it with thread, but no harder than 

 of necessity to prevent hurting the fish ; and the better to avoid 

 hurting the fish, some have a kind of probe to open the way, 

 for the more easy entrance and passage of your wire or arming : 

 but as for these, time, and a little experience, will teach you 

 better than I can by words ; therefore I will for the present say 

 no more of this, but come next to give you some directions how 

 to bait your hook with a Frog. 



VENATOR. But, good Master, did you not say even now, 

 that some Frogs were venomous, and is it not dangerous to 

 touch them ? 



Pise. Yes, but I will give you some rules or cautions 

 concerning them : and first, you are to note, that there are two 

 kinds of Frogs ; that is to say, if I may so express myself, a 

 Flesh, and a Fish-frog : by Flesh-frogs, I mean frogs that breed 

 and live on the land ; and of these there be several sorts also, 

 and of several colours, some being speckled, some greenish, 

 some blackish, or brown : the Green- Frog, which is a small one, 

 is by Topsel taken to be venomous ; and so is the Padock or 

 Frog-padock, which usually keeps or breeds on the land, and is 

 very large, and bony, and big, especially the she-frog of that 

 kind ; yet these will sometimes come into the water, but it is 

 not often ; and the Land-frogs are some of them observed by 

 him, to breed by laying eggs : and 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, In ^ Igth 

 and * Cardanus undertakes to give a reason for the Book < De 

 raining of frogs : but if it were in my power, it subtilt ex *' 

 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 

 P 97 



