36 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



the survivor shall ever couple with another, then not only the 

 living but the dead, be it either the he or the she, is denied 

 the name and honour of a true turtle-dove. 



And to parallel this land-rarity, and teach mankind moral 

 faithfulness, and to condemn those that talk of religion, and 

 yet come short of the moral faith of fish and fowl ; men that 

 violate the law affirmed by St. Paul, Rom. ii. 14, 15, to be 

 writ in their hearts, and which he says shall at the last day 

 condemn and leave them without excuse ; I pray hearken to 

 what Du Bartas sings, for the hearing of such conjugal faith- 

 fulness will be music to all chaste ears, and therefore I pray 

 hearken to what Du Bartas sings of the mullet. 



But for chaste love the Mullet hath no peer j 

 For if the fisher hath surprised her pheer, 

 As mad with woe to shore she followeth, 

 Prest to consort him both in life and death.* 



On the contrary, what shall I say of the house-cock, which 

 treads any hen, and then, contrary to the swan, the partridge, 

 and pigeon, takes no care to hatch, to feed or to cherish his 

 own brood, but is senseless, though they perish. 



And it is considerable that the hen, which, because she also 

 takes any cock, expects it not, who is sure the chickens be 

 her own, hath by a moral impression her care and affection 

 to her own brood more than doubled, even to such a height 

 that our Saviour, in expressing his love to Jerusalem, Matt, 

 xxiii. 37, quotes her for an example of tender affection ; as 

 his Father had done Job for a pattern of patience. 



And to parallel this cock, there be divers fishes that cast 

 their spawn on flags or stones, and then leave it uncovered 

 and exposed to become a prey and be devoured by vermin, or 

 other fishes; but other fishes, as namely the barbel, take such 

 care for the preservation of their seed, that unlike to the cock 

 or the cuckoo, they mutually labour, both the spawner and 

 the melter, to cover the spawn with sand or watch it,t or hide 



* All that Walton writes about the habits of fish, from the paragraph begin- 

 ning, " The cuttle-lish," down to this point, has no foundation in fact. It 

 deserves, however, the compliment paid to it by Venator " Your discourse 

 seems to be music, and charms me to an attention." ED. 



t No river-tish ever watches its spawn or ova after deposition. When the 

 ova are deposited by the female, and impregnated by the male fish, and covered 

 in by a superstructure of any substance, they are abandoned by the parents, 

 and "left to be vivified by the chemical action of water, sun, and atmosphere. 

 ED. 



