CURIOSITIES OF ANGLING LITERATURE. 253 



" In Surrey is a place called ' the Swallow,' under 

 White Hill, and where the river Mole, called the 

 English Anas, runs under ground for about two miles, 

 so that the inhabitants may boast, as the Spaniards 

 do of their Guadiana, that they have a bridge which 

 feeds several flocks of sheep." 



White Hill, so marked upon old maps, but now 

 known as Box Hill, has nothing whatever to do with 

 hiding the Mole, nor is its course for a single foot 

 hidden from the sight of those who, like ourselves, 

 have followed its every inch from the many streamlets 

 of its source down to the Thames. Camden, however, 

 generally pretty accurate ; Izaak Walton, devoted 

 to truth ; Chamberlayn, in Present State of Great 

 Britain, 1743; Milton, "Sullen Mole that runneth 

 underneath ;" Pope, Drayton, and others, have all 

 " swallowed " this apocryphal text. 



" Bishop Tunstal first discovered that the fathom- 

 less Hell-Kettles, near Darlington, had passages 

 under ground. He marked a goose for a trial, and 

 then put him down, and afterwards found him in the 

 river Tees." 



" The snow lies eight months," Tournford tells us, 

 " on the mountains Ararat and Caucasus, and breeds 

 white worms as big as one's little finger, which being 

 crushed, there issues out a moisture colder than snow 

 itself." 



" The ordinary water at Gourron breeds worms in 



