OBSERVATIONS OF FISH 



those rivers that run into the sea, I might beget wonder in you, 

 or unbelief, or both ; and yet I will venture to tell you a real 

 truth concerning one lately dissected by Dr. Wharton, a man of 

 great learning and experience, and of equal freedom to com- 

 municate it ; one that loves me and my art, one to whom I have 

 been beholden for many of the choicest observations that I 

 have imparted to you. This good man, that dares do any thing 

 rather than tell an untruth, did, I say, tell me, he lately dis- 

 sected one strange fish, and he thus described it to me. 



' The fish was almost a yard broad, and twice that length ; 

 his 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 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 'Sophom,' 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 

 our's, Herrings are so plentiful, as namely, near to Yarmouth 

 in Norfolk, and in the west-country, Pilchers 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 I have observed concerning Fish- 

 ponds. 

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