32 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



But I will lay aside my discourse of rivers, and tell you 

 some things of the monsters, or fish, call them what you will, 

 that they breed and feed in them. Pliny, the philosopher, 

 says, in the third chapter of his ninth book, that in the Indian 

 . Sea, the fish, called balcena or whirlpool, is so long and broad 

 as to take up more in length and breadth than two acres of 

 ground ; and of other fish of two hundred cubits long ; and 

 that, in the river Ganges, there be eels of thirty feet long. 

 He says there, that these monsters appear in the sea only 

 when tempestuous winds oppose the torrents of water falling 

 from, the rocks into it, and so turning what lay at the bottom 

 to be seen on the water's top. And he says, that the people 

 of Cadara, an island near this place, make the timber for their 

 houses of those fish-bones. He there tells us, that there are 

 sometimes a thousand of these great eels found wrapt or 

 interwoven together. He tells us there, that it appears that 

 dolphins love music, and will come when called for, by some 

 men or boys that know, and use to feed them ; and that they 

 can swim as swift as an arrow can be shot out of a bow ; and 

 much of this is spoken concerning the dolphin, and other fish, 

 as may be found also in the learned Dr. Casaubon's " Dis- 

 course of Credulity and Incredulity," printed by him about 

 the year 1670.* 



I know, we islanders are averse to the belief of these 

 wonders ; but there be so many strange creatures to be now 

 seen, many collected by John Tradescant, f and others added 



* Nothing can testify more strongly the credulity of AValton, than the ridi- 

 culous statements made in this paragraph and that which precedes it, touching 

 the character of rivers and the alleged Animalia they produce. The modern 

 reader will not place the slighest " historical faith" in them. ED. 



t There were, it seems, three of the Tradescants grandfather, father, and 

 son; the son is the person here meant; the two former were gardeners to 

 Queen Elizabeth, and the latter to King Charles I. They were all great 

 botanists, and collectors of natural and other curiosities, and dwelt at South 

 "Lambeth in Surrey; and, dying there, were buried in Lambeth churchyard. 

 JMr. Ashmole contracted an acquaintance with the last of them, and together 

 with his wife boarded at his house for a summer, during which Ashmole agreed 

 for the purchase of Tradescant's collection, and the same was conveyed to him 

 by a deed of gift from Tradescant and his wife. Tradescant soon after died, 

 and Ashmole was obliged to file a bill in the Court of Chancery for the delivery 

 of the curiosities, and succeeded in his suit. Mrs. Tradescant, shortly after the 

 pronouncing the decree, was found drowned in her pond. This collection, with 

 what additions he afterwards made to it, Mr. Ashmole gave to the University of 

 Oxford, and so became the founder of the Ashmolean Museum. A monument 

 for all the three Tradescants, very curiously ornamented with sculptures, is to 

 be seen in Lambeth churchyard. The Tradescants were the first collectors of 

 natural curiosities in this kingdom, and Ashmole and Sir Hans Sloane were 

 the second. IT. 



