CHAP. v. THE FOURTH DAY. 95 



what interest our angles will pay us for lending them so long to 

 b e used by the trouts ; lent them, indeed, like usurers, for oil r 

 profit jind^their destruction. 



VEN. Oh me! look you, master, a fish ! a fish! Oh, alas, 

 master, I have lost her ! 



PlSC. Ay, marry, sir, that was a good fish indeed : if I had 

 had the luck to have taken up that rod, then 'tis twenty to one 

 he should not have broke my line by running to the rod's end, 

 as you suffered him. I would have held him within the bent of 

 my^rod^irnle^s he had heenjellow to the great trout that is near 

 an ell long, which was of such a length and depth that he had his 

 picture drawn, and now is to be seen at mine host Rickabie's, 

 at""The""t7eorge, m Ware), and it may be by giving that very 

 great trout the rod, that is, by casting it to him into the water, 

 I might have caught him at the long run ; for so I use always 

 to do when I meet with an overgrown fish ; and you will learn to 

 do so too hereafter: for I tell you, scholar^ fish ing is an art; or, 



at least, jj" i^ nr\ arf to rafrh fLsli 



VEN. Kut, master, I have heard that the great trout you 

 speak of is a salmon. 



PlSC. Trust me, scholar, I know not what to say to it. ^There 

 aremany country people that jbelieve hares change sexes every 

 year: and there be very many learned merij^inlFso^tob, for in 

 flieir dissecting them they find many reasons to incline them to 

 that belief. And to make the wonder seem yet less, that hares 

 change sexes, note, that Doctor Mer. Casaubon affirms in his 

 book of credible and incredible things, that Caspar Peucerus, a 

 learned physician, tells us of a people that once a year turn 

 wolves, partly in shape and partly in conditions. And so, whether 

 this were a salmon when he came into the fresh water, and his 

 not returning into the sea hath altered him to another colour or 

 kind, I am not able to say : but I am certain he hath all the 

 signs of being a trout both for his shape, colour, and spots; and 

 yet many think he is not. 



VEN. But, master, will this trout which I had hold of die? 

 for it is like he hath the hook in his belly. 



PlSC I will tell you, scholar, that unless the hook be fast in 



