CHAP. IV.J THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 89 



Concerning which you are to take notice, that it is reported 

 by good authors, that grasshoppers, and some fish, have no 

 mouths, but are nourished and take breath by the porousness of 

 their gills, man knows not how ; and this may be believed, if 

 we consider that, when the Raven hath hatched her eggs, she 

 takes no further care, but leaves her young ones to the care of 

 the God of nature, who is said in the Psalms, (Psal. clxvii. 9,) 

 " to feed the young ravens that call upon him." And they be 

 kept alive, and fed by a dew, or worms that breed in their nests, 

 or some other ways that we mortals know not ; and this may be 

 believed of the Fordidge Trout, which, as it is said of the Stork, 

 Jerem. viii. 7, that "he knows his season," so he knows his 

 times, I think almost his day of coming into that river out of 

 the sea ; where he lives, and, it is like, feeds, nine months of 

 the year, and fasts three in the river of Fordidge. And you are 

 to note that those townsmen are very punctual in observing the 

 time of beginning to fish for them ; and boast much that their 

 river affords a Trout that exceeds all others. And just so does 

 Sussex boast of several fish ; as namely, a -Shelsey Cockle, a Chi- 

 chester Lobster, an Arundel Mullet, and an Amerly Trout. 



And now for some confirmation of the Fordidge Trout : you 

 are to know that this Trout is thought to eat nothing in the fresh 

 water ; and it may be the better believed, because it is well 

 known that swallows and bats and wagtails, which are called 

 half-year birds, and not seen to fly in England for six months 

 in the year, but about Michaelmas leave us for a hotter climate ; 

 yet some of them that have been left behind their fellows have 

 been found, many thousands at a time, in hollow trees, or clay 

 caves, where they have been observed to live and sleep out the 

 whole winter without meat. And so Albertus observes, that 

 there is one kind of frog that hath her mouth naturally shut up 

 about the end of August, and that she lives so all the winter : 

 and though it be strange to some, yet it is known to too many 

 among us to be doubted. 



And so much for these Fordidge Trouts, which never afford 



