CHAP /.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 131 



light of a torch or straw, which when they have discovered, 

 they strike with a trout-spear or other ways. This kind of 

 way they catch very many ; but I would not believe it till I 

 was an eyewitness of it, nor do I like it now I have seen it. 



VEN. But, Master, do not Trouts see us in the night ? 



Pise. Yes, and hear and smell too, both then and in the 

 day-time ; for Gesner observes, the Otter smells a fish forty fur- 

 longs off him in the water : and that it may be true seems to 

 be affirmed by Sir Francis Bacon, in the Eighth Century of his 

 Natural History, who there proves that waters may be the me- 

 dium of sounds, by demonstrating it thus: "That if you 

 knock two stones together very deep under the water, those 

 that stand on a bank near to that place may hear the noise 

 without any diminution of it by the water." He also offers 

 the like experiment concerning the letting an anchor fall, by a 

 very long cable or rope, on a rock or the sand within the sea. 

 And this being so well observed and demonstrated, as it is by 

 that learned man, has made me to believe that Eels unbed 

 themselves, and stir at the noise of thunder, and not only, as 

 some think, by the motion or stirring of the earth which is oc- 

 casioned by that thunder. 



And this reason of Sir Francis Bacon, Exper. 792, has made 

 me crave pardon of one that I laughed at for affirming, that he 

 knew Carps come to a certain place in a pond, to be fed, at the 

 ringing of a bell or the beating of a drum : and however, it 

 shall be a rule for me to make as little noise as I can when I am 

 fishing, until Sir Francis Bacon be confuted ; which I shall 

 give any man leave to do. 



And, lest you may think him singular in this opinion, I will 

 tell you, this seems to be believed by our learned Doctor Hake- 

 will, who in his Apology of God's Power and Providence, fol. 

 360, quotes Pliny to report, that one of the Emperors had par- 

 ticular fish-ponds, and in them several fish, that appeared and 

 came when they were called by their particular names. And 

 St. James tells us, Chap. iii. 7, that all things in the sea. 



