nOW TO PRESERVE A RIVER FOR TROLLING. 259 



on a sunny day and a elf ar water, that is only for bye 

 places and narrow scours. 



One of the greatest enemies is the -water dog, or 

 Otter ; he will walk five or ten miles to a pond in a 

 night, anil some have disputed whether he is a beast or 



. a fish : he can smell a fish above an hundred yards, and 

 then he devours them, and spoils more than he eats, 

 leaving the head and great part of the back untouched. 

 Gesner says that his stones are a good remedy against 

 the falling sickness; and that there is an herb called 

 Benoine, which being hung in a linen cloth near a fish 

 pond, or any haunt which he uses, makes him avoid 

 the place. There are so many of them in a river in 

 Cornwall, that Camden says the name of it is called 

 Ottersey, from the abundance of Otters that breed and 

 are fed in it. Though this amphibious creature is chief 

 regent, and is triumphant in the water, yet the greedy 

 and audacious Pike will sometimes set him at defiance, 

 and give him battle; as some have seen, that a Pike ; 

 hath fought with an Otter for a Carp he had got. 



It would not be amiss for the conservation of the 



* waters to keep the fence months, which are three at the 

 Spring in spawning time ; for if taking the dam on her 

 nest when she hatches her young, is a sni.-so much 

 against nature, that it was forbidden in the old la w y 

 certainly the taking fish in the time of their spawning, 

 is unlawful as well as unnatural. 



Besides such unnatural Fishermen and all the enc. 

 mies mentioned, the fish have many more, as .the Bit. 

 tern, the Cormorant, the Osprey, the Seagull, the 

 Hern, the Kingfisher, and many others ; which though 

 they dare not attack the great Luce or Pike, yet they 

 lessen the small fry which should feed and sustain the 

 greater : sometimes they may devour young Jacks and 

 Pickerel. 



